Are we truly beyond the notion of any other television network illuminating the pale beige walls of the Student Health Center? I’m old enough to understand a couple of things. I know what happens when you feed a squirrel a piece of bread – unless you have a whole loaf, you will inevitably piss off a massive group of squirrels ready to throw their vegetarian values out the window for the sake of whole wheat. I know Febreze was sent to us by the grace of whichever God you believe in. I even know how to recognize and interpret lies when they’re fed to me. But I still don’t get why the Student Health Center lobby is somewhat infatuated with showing Fox News to patients waiting to see a doctor. What are they trying to do to us? What is the ultimate goal? An increase in anxiety? I reached the age of intelligent and engaging discourse at the age of 14 and have been able to pick up on both distortions of the truth and outright lies. And Fox News never fails to deliver. Whenever I visit the Health Center, it’s there, waiting for me like a continuous loop on hell’s television, asking me to believe that a story about a missing girl in Nevada with questionable MySpace.com pictures is more important to the American conversation than the economy or immigration. I’m asked to listen to anyone from Steve Doocy to resident sex pot Megyn Kelly – go to YouTube.com to find out why. And Cavuto, Cavuto, Cavuto. Neil Cavuto once described “Happy Feet” as an animated “An Inconvenient Truth” because of its “insidious ‘far-left’ political propaganda.” Michelle Malkin, a Fox News contributor only by virtue of having a Web site called Michellemalkin.com, wrote for Townhall.com this past Wednesday about “Snob-ama,” starting her column with a simple phrase, “The odor of elitism is like onion breath: It’s quick to acquire, hard to mask.” What’s lost in this comment about Sen. Barack Obama’s recent “charges of elitism” is simple: It’s now an insult to be considered elite, when as recently as 10 minutes ago, being “elite” in a particular field was a good thing. An incredible thing. An “elite” thing, if you will. But Fox News isn’t the only entity “charging” Obama with “elitism.” Just look at self-proclaimed populist Lou Dobbs from CNN, who recently said,”We don’t need another Ivy League-educated knuckle-head.” As a graduate of Harvard in 1967, Dobbs is one to talk. Getting back to my point, I still don’t understand why the students of this University are subjected to a daily song-and-dance from the lowest of today’s “info-tainment” culture. This sort of game has no place in the waiting room of the University’s Health Center. But this raises a question as to why the channel is on in the first place. I could understand if many of the alpha dogs on this campus needed a pick-me-up while waiting to see if they have ADD. If they can focus their attention on the long legs and savage beauty that is Megyn Kelly and feel better, it’s clear they don’t have ADD or a girlfriend. But what is the motivation behind having the television tuned in to Fox News in the Health Center? Is it torture? Is it a secret neurological study on how the brain works? Or is it, more understandably, the way Dick Cheney would want it? If you’ve ever been vice president and shot a man in the face while hunting wing-less quail, this story might relate to you. In a memo sent out on official vice-presidential letterhead, Dick Cheney made a list of suite demands for whenever he stays in a hotel on official business. Among some of the stipulations, Cheney insists that all of the televisions be preset to Fox News. Not C-SPAN, where he could at least pretend to be interested in the grumblings within the Senate – of which he is president. Also included in his suite demands are four cans of caffeine-free Diet Sprite. If traveling with his wife, Lynne, a portion of Perrier should be provided – all-too curious considering that according to Fox News, we’re all supposed to be boycotting France right now. I suggest that, instead of Fox News, a program should be shown in the waiting room of the Health Center that puts the patient more at ease. I could understand the justification of Fox News if someone told me that Fox News makes the patient want to feel better doing daily activities rather than suffering in the lobby. Maybe then I could understand. Until that happens, a change is long overdue. Those in charge of the situation need to get their hands on the remote and end the suffering being addressed in their lobby. I’m just saying we would feel better sooner with less Bill O’Reilly and more Blue’s Clues.
—-Contact Eric Freeman Jr. at [email protected]