I’ve often complained that my home town’s once-great newspaper has completely lost its way.
Here’s more proof. There’s a real war going on. Real people are dying for no good reason and the U.S. is funding this war. This tragic story of what is going on and why should be front page material until the killing stops.
Today, though, it is more important for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports nothing about this war on the front page. Nothing in the entire paper, except for a small page A11 article on the fate of two missing soldiers.
What’s more important than Iraq? Well, a movie about Iraq, especially when that movie draws attention to our home town. This front page story is that a local St. Louis barber has been hired to cut the hair of movie extras who will play the parts of military recruits.
In this presumably-important front page article, we learn all about the release date of the movie (“The Return”), as well as names of the celebrities that will be coming to town for the filming.
This front page article is just another example of make-believe trumping reality.
What if we enacted a bill requiring our 1000 most famous Hollywood actors to serve in the military in Iraq (or, for that matter, 1000 of our top corporate executives or 1000 of our top politicians)? The U.S. would end its involvement in the war in two weeks.
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