CNN tells all (ニコニコ！)
Atsushi told me about this last week, but I forgot until I just saw the ads for it: CNN has sent Bill Hemmer here to Tokyo, from which he’ll be broadcasting for the first half of the week, giving a rare inside view of this most enigmatic of East Asian cultures! Are you excited? I’m excited. We’ll learn about the latest controversies within the royal family, we’ll talk with US Ambassador Howard Baker, and we’ll see all those futuristic gizmos with which Japan has touched off a worldwide youth craze! This is great. I’ve always wanted to know more about Japan.
Pfft! Look, I know that not everyone lives here and that, given limited time, even a resource-rich network such as CNN is going to have to focus on familiar themes of interest to a broad audience. But do we really have to come here and say the exact same damned things for the home-folks every dad-blamed time? I suppose the Baker interview might be somewhat illuminating, but I’ll probably need to take my Dramamine before I can confront the rest. Expect more bile than usual; Atsushi is already chuckling in anticipation.
Of course, CNN doesn’t have to dispatch one of its Ken dolls here to be annoying; the Atlanta-based Barbie contingent isn’t exactly acquitting itself admirably, either. I don’t want to pick on Colleen McEdwards personally, since her sins are the same as those of just about every other news network anchor, but can we please remember that it’s okay not to show off our telegenic smile occasionally? She interviewed some toxicologist about an hour ago about the poisoning of Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Yuschenko, and I swear, it went something like this, “So, [twinkle, twinkle] how could such a large amount of dioxin get into Yuschenko’s body? Would it really [beam] be possible to put that much in a serving of soup?…Now, he has these acute symptoms [moue, twinkle]–how long will it take, you know, until it’s out of his system?” When I was little, newscasters were notorious for pasting on a look of inauthentic gravity all the time, but at least that showed some awareness of the nature of the topic at hand. I guess it’s possible that Colleen et al‘s frown muscles aren’t working anymore, but they seem too young for Botox.
And while I’m wound up, can all those with-it hair stylists please find some fad to replace the fake-split ends thing? I know they needed something to do after the Friends shag got old, and the sleek crown + egg-beatered ends routine was it. But that was years ago. Time for something new. If we’re supposed to be looking at these people for minutes at a time while they tell us what’s going on [twinkle, twinkle] in the world of politics and artificial Christmas trees, they could summon enough effort to be distinguishable by something more than the colors of their Escada suits. Christiane Amanpour’s hair may look like a fright wig, but at least it’s her idiosyncratic fright wig.
Added on 16 December: Too funny! Rachel Lucas, in her new guise, has noticed this abominable hair abuse, too. Only she actually had it perpetrated on her, the poor thing.