or at least shame on the editors of this year's special end-of-year publication called "2007: The Year In Review." The cover stared out at me from the rack next to the supermarket cash register a couple of days ago. "The events that counted," it said. "The things you'll remember." A third subheading not only stopped me in my tracks, it made my blood boil: "The people that mattered."
The idea that some people matter and others don't is odious. And its logical corollaries, that there are far more people who don't matter (the supposed nobodies buying the magazine, for example) than who do (the supposed somebodies whose pictures are in the magazine), and that it is necessary to have done something considered newsworthy enough to get one's picture in Time to "matter" are not only ridiculous, they are pathetic.
Let me tell you Time editors something. You are wrong. The nurses, doctors, schoolteachers, policemen, members of the armed forces, mommies, daddies, cafeteria workers, janitors, airline pilots, truck drivers, factory workers,--the list is endless--who will never have their faces published in your magazine matter. Every bit as much as you and your show-biz celebrity and politico friends and all the rest of the totally clueless* put together. Come to think of it, maybe more.
And just so you know, I didn't buy your magazine.
[*Note. The term "totally clueless" also applies to newspeople and talk-show hosts on television who are still saying, "Happy Hanukkah!" along with their "Merry Christmas! Happy Kwanzaa!" sign-offs on December 21 even though Hanukkah, which began this year on December 4, ended on December 11. (They do get points, I guess, for vague feelings of good will toward men.)]
No comments:
Post a Comment