9 Chickweed Lane by Brooke McEldowney for May 13, 2012

Transcript:

Thorax: It was in my own planet system that it all began. Man: amazing! ...the news media became a confederacy of terror. Thorax: Imperceptibly, and through none of the usual deployment of messy ordinance theirs had the purity of unalloyed fear. Thorax: It began with journalistic investigations into alleged corruption among elected officials and corporate executives, when those reports brought the powerful to their knees. The news media sensed their own potential, and spread their scrutiny to more officials and more business people, each time leaving them in ruins. It continued to grow, until the power of the media to destroy people's lives through simple innuendo and rumor because absolute, and terror spread across the land. Thorax: Suddenly, buckling to the rule of fear before them, nobody dared run a company or stand for office, and they all departed the planet to herd sheep on a distant moon. Thorax: The news media, with no one to terrorize, began to report on themselves until their stocks plummeted and they were bought for a song by a latin band leader named tito, who reprogrammed the entire planet to broadcast commercial free salsa dance music, 24/7. Man: A stern warning to us all. Thorax: Sh! Tito may be listening. booy chicka boom boom chicka boom chicka boom chicka boom...