Writers: Keep On Strikin'

It may be heretical for me to say so, but to be perfectly honest I'm actually a little relieved that the Writer's Guild of America is on strike. And the reason is quite simple: I'm turning into a political junkie. Now I may enjoy watching reruns of How I Met Your Mother as much as the next guy, but I can't imagine anything providing me with as much sheer entertainment value as this 2008 presidential campaign. This is human drama at its finest. I may not be a sports fan, but I imagine this is how they feel tracking their favorite teams, watching the development of underdogs and budding star talent, witnessing old heroes crumble, predicting potential playoff scenarios, tallying mounds and mounds of useless statistics, and debating the relative merits of questionable wins and losses. When Obama gave his victory speech in Iowa last week I nearly cried, I was so moved. Hearing Tom Brokaw make fun of John McCain's uninspired victory speech in New Hampshire left me in stitches.

So no, I don't need Hollywood's writers to resume work and continue to distract my time with programming that more often than not is tasteless, boorish, and completely unmemorable (even though it's so often hard to resist). I've got enough media to consume these days. My 40-minue commute to and from work is mostly spent tuned in to 90.7 KWMU (St. Louis NPR and Public Radio International); I don't even remember the last time I brought a CD into my car. Throughout the day I'm reading stories from The Morning News, Google News, Daily Kos, and The New York Times. I'll listen to NPR's It's All Politics podcast with Ken Rudin and Ron Elving, even though I wish it was updated more than once a week. I've even been trying to keep up with local news, although St. Louis media doesn't make that an easy task -- the website for the Post-Dispatch is all but useless, and the alternative paper the Riverfront Times doesn't place much of an emphasis on politics at all. Thankfully there are some local blogs that pick up the slack, particularly Pub Def, although Urban Review STL and a few others are doing a good job too. And then to top it all off, MSNBC's caucus and primary coverage has been a real pleasure to watch, even if Chris Matthew's is increasingly becoming a caricature of himself; at least Matthews and Keith Olbermann have more interesting opinions than CNN's Wolf Blitzer, who, let's be honest, doesn't have the chutzpah to be the channel's main selling point.

Now, it may be wrong to consider politics a form of entertainment, but that's honestly what it's come to these days, and it's a far more respectable form of entertainment than the return of American Gladiators. So guilded writer's of America, keep on striking; I've got Ken Rudin and Keith Olbermann to keep me occupied for now.