The world is small indeed. Television, radio and other technologies have obviously changed the way of the world. It is no longer amazing that all peoples of the world know what their neighbors are doing.

In many ways this is a wonderful achievement for society. Less is lost in communications and translation, bringing nations closer together, easing relations by opening the so-called phone lines.

But in other ways this is not so wonderful. We have become a generation numbed by television. Nothing surprises us, angers us or disgusts us.

Television docudramas and made-for-TV movies have made us callous to the atrocities of everyday life. We see blood and violence daily in the news, in theaters and through our VCRs. Drive-by shootings are nothing new; in fact, they are passe.

This is troubling because many Americans are reacting to the Persian Gulf crisis in the same way they would react to a boring MTV video, or any other vision that comes through the tube which may be overplayed.

To many Americans, Saddam Hussein is no worse a villain than David Dowaliby or Flattop. He’s just some nut on the news who is trying to invade a country half the world away. Flip the channel, turn the page. Find something more interesting. Who is the most beautiful woman on TV anyway?

What is happening is a slow but sure degeneration of the impact of the news. What once would surely be frightening to viewers, readers and audiences is now something to be skimmed over, something nearly unreal that most likely will not affect anyone’s daily life.

As we have become a generation of couch potatoes, looking for the most exciting news on TV and in the papers, the news itself seems to have lost its bite.

Our interests have clearly shifted to news of entertainment and to news that is entertaining. We no longer want to hear about what some guy in a country far away is doing to people we don’t know about. We seem to be interested only in things we already know about. It is ironic but true.

It is sickly amusing that the Jonathan Brandmeier show can air songs about Hussein’s actions in the Persian Gulf, when one thinks that a sizeable percentage of the audience knows little or nothing about what is actually happening in the crisis. It’s a catchy tune, though.

At the risk of placing all the blame on the media, it does seem that in the race for the best ratings, the compromises have been quality and judgment.

What’s news is what sells, is that not right? Hussein may or may not turn the Persian Gulf crisis into a war, (or conflict—call it what you like; our brothers and sisters are still over there,) but we can bet that whatever happens, there will be a new tune about it, sure to please the most discerning ear. But will anyone read beyond the headlines and the first three paragraphs in the papers?

So as the Persian Gulf situation heats up and the media cover it more and more intensely, many Americans will become less and less interested, turning the pages to the Sports section and to the INC. page. Not that sports and blips about celebrities aren’t newsworthy, but what happens when President Bush comes home from vacation and nobody knows about it because MTV didn’t cover it?