We Live In a World Gone Mad

These are perilous times: Iran is on its way to getting the bomb, Russia is on the march, China’s economy is teetering, the U.S. has a historic election in prospect. So what is the number one news story in the world? Cecil the lion.

The Drudge Report:

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The Daily Mail. I like the supermodel angle:

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The Telegraph:

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Then there is television: Jimmy Kimmel–whom I have never watched, but isn’t he supposed to be funny?–burst into tears on the air, and denounced the dentist:

Kimmel’s passionate monologue was in parts disgusted by Palmer’s act, eviscerating the dentist’s motivation and questioning whether he hunted for sexual thrills, saying “is it that difficult for you to get an erection that you need to kill things?”.

He later said if Palmer took Viagra he could “save himself from being the most hated man in America who never advertised jell-o pudding”, a clear reference to [Bill] Cosby.

Ha ha, I guess.

Cecil is more or less a local story for me: the dentist who shot him (I think with a bow and arrow, but I haven’t followed the story at all) lives a couple of suburbs from me in the Twin Cities. He is now in hiding due to death threats.

Others have pointed out the weird disproportion between the world-wide outpouring of outrage over the death of Cecil the lion, and the relatively muted and mixed reaction to Planned Parenthood’s selling of babies’ body parts. Fair enough. But all such analogies aside, global interest in Cecil strikes me as inexplicable.

But it isn’t only the lion. The front page of my local paper’s web site includes this, the lead item in the paper’s opinion pages:

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Rwanda, environmental trailblazer. I guess the genocide must be over; biggest problem now is plastic bags.

Also this, the walleye “crisis”:

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You might have to be a Minnesotan to appreciate how a shortage of walleyes in Mille Lacs could be grounds for a special legislative session.

I don’t know, maybe it’s the silly season–the dog days of summer, or something. First Caitlyn, now Cecil. One can only hope that the world will get back to serious news before long.

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