Today's Top Story

By: Arment Dietrich | January 16, 2008 |

Blog written by Courtney Lawrence

While out of the country last week I refused to check my email or voicemail — however, I did feel a little out of touch by not really knowing much of what was going on back home. I figured it was time to catch up on the daily headlines by Friday.

This was the morning following the Iowa Caucus, and I was really interested to hear who had secured a victory for each party. Pulling up the news on a blackberry, the first two stories caught my eye: “Obama and Huckabee” and “Spears in Standoff with Police.” At that same moment, I heard on a Mexican radio station, understanding very little Spanish, (more or less) “Brittney Spears es loco.”

I couldn’t decide which was worse, the top headlines in our country is who won the Iowa Caucus and a fallen pop-star is crazy, something that is front page daily, or that a radio station in Puerto Vallarta was gossiping about the previous nights “stand-off” as well.

Have people in the United States become so involved with worthless news (don’t get me wrong, I read the blogs, I’m one of them) or are we trying to focus on other people, in order to not think about how bad things really are?

Have most become so disengaged with what’s going on that they would rather hear about Brittney Spears then the economy, housing market, political candidates, and jobs? Or, do we just talk about it because it isn’t our family or our problems? The media is covering these topics daily, and with blogs, hourly, and they are doing so because people would rather read about Ms. Spears then President Bush. ¿Es los Estados Unidos loco tambien?