A dog named Bob and the cost of a referendum

Local news

On My 9 news tonight the local news were presented in the following order of importance:
- 10 min on a dog, a specific one named Bob
- 5 min on a local school that organized a cooking competition (the price was a trip to Italy)
- 5 min on the next Hannah Montana movie
- 5 min on how ‘going green’ means to make school children feel guilty about the paper they use
- 15 min on the weather, including an in depth analysis on the fact that a season called spring is coming.

I believe that the order of importance was quite good. I have recently been told that I am talking too much about politics and I should focus more on the weather, which is considered to be a far more normal and important topic of conversation. As a consequence I believe that to talk about it for 15 min is quite fair...I am joking, of course.

In Italy the same thing is going on. In July there will be a referendum on a very crucial issue, to make of Italy a two-party country like the USA and concentrating all the resources in the hand of the few rich people, and what politicians and TVs talk about is the cost of it and not its content.

This is called ‘game frame’: everything is a game, all what is said on TV is stupid and futile in order to avoid discussing real issues that could make people think, becoming aware of what is really going on and thus cause problems to the ruling class.

I have heard there is a movie called ‘State of play’ which has been released recently. I don’t know why but I suspect it is about the present situation. Another poor director who is trying to make people wake up from the Matrix.