Pope-pourri; for a cleaner smelling media

Nice piece in Counterpunch about how the media has used the deaths of the Pope and Terri Schiavo to distract attention away from any serious news. You know, the sort of news that might tarnish the popular image of Bush as a great president who's incapable of making a bad decision. So much of the media seems to have bought into this fallacy that you have to wonder just where Ann Coulter managed to find the liberal media conspiracy she's constantly banging on about. I mean, thanks to satellite television I can (and I do) watch CNN and Fox and NBC from my little English front room and I don't see any bad news about Iraqi fatalities, or the continued human rights abuses at Guantanamo Bay. I don't recall any stories about the ongoing US funding for Israel despite their admitted WMD programme, their illegal occupation of Palestinian territory and the frankly shocking number of UN Security Council Resolutions which Israel continues to violate. You'd almost think there was a deliberate policy to disregard the tough stuff. Everyone's happy, ignore the bad shit, if you don't pay it any attention it will all just go away. Good luck with that policy though. Really.

Any sympathy and good will which the Catholic church built up last week must surely be dashed by the news that Cardinal Law will play a leading role in the memorial services. The Cardinal you will remember was the chap who allowed child abusing priests to remain in their jobs. He ignored the problem and it's ended up costing the church $85,000,000 so far - it's had to pay out to over 550 victims of abuse. The Pope himself must have had some complicity with the cover up. But that would be bad news. I'll not mention it again.