Please, for god’s sake, stop covering the royal wedding.  It is not news.  At this very moment, the CNN World edition (as if the world just loved hearing the wedding affairs of the descendant of, on average, their historic oppressors)  has 3 of the 9 “highlights” being wedding related, and the primary headline (vastly more prominent than “Syrian Government Shoots Uninterestingly Non-Royal Protesters“) is “WHO’S GOING TO THE ROYAL WEDDING.”  I would like to say that this insanity was limited to CNN, but the other networks basically have the same thing.

So here’s the rule from now on: no news organization who has dedicated this much time to the wedding of the descendant of (historically documented) serial killers is ever again allowed to run an article or editorial about the sad state of our political discourse.  If you really felt that way, every dollar you spent covering the powerless, useless, politically embarrassing (you still have royalty in this day and age, Britain?  Really?  Bet the other more mature countries don’t invite you to their parties!) spawn of a long line of up-until-recently murderous butchers could have been used to help fix that — ’cause it’s not like there aren’t actually important things happening right now in the world.

You’re even aware of them, Mr. Strangely Anthropomorphised (see I can be British too) Embodiment of CNN, because I see that you are covering them in tiny boxes next to the article about “How To Dress Like a Princess.”  It’s really sad when the ad copy for Barbie Princess Dress-Up Dolls and your headlines converge.  I’d try to compare by listing how many times G.I. Joe action figures have the same marketing line as Fox headlines, but that might be a bit scary.

It’s bad enough how much the news focuses on the personal lives of actual leaders (to the detriment of coverage of their policies) — but when they”re covering the wedding of British welfare queens (a more accurate usage of the term has never been committed to paper) who don’t even wield a shred of political power (thank god), we’ve gone too far.  Is there anything that puts the miracle that we actually have a representative government in starker relief than the amount of time, money and energy that people spend on this ridiculous, sycophantic theatre — including, most amazingly, the citizens of a country that actually owes its existence to the fact that it shot quite a few servants of said royals?

The British royalty — and even more explicitly, this wedding — is not a news item.  They are more like a sadly prominent pimple on the fact of an otherwise respectable person, that — if we must — should be discussed only in the context of how most effectively we can cure her of this condition, so we can put the entire embarrassing situation behind us and move onto issues that matter.

CNN runs this headline:

Lessons from the whole Quran episode

The first “story highlight” is:

One viewpoint: Media coverage of crackpot publicity seeker was vastly out of proportion

Gee, you think?  I’m glad that CNN, media and publicity behemoth that it is, has just now realized it.  This is like the article they ran in the 2008 election about how black women were confused about whether or not to vote for Obama or Clinton, and the first highlight was “stop characterizing black women as forced to vote their racial/gender identity!”  The double hilarious part is that a lot more than one of the “viewpoints” outlined in this CNN article vote for the “stop giving this idiot so much air time, fools!” position.

Bob Steele:

Regrettably, the saga of the Rev. Terry Jones and his Quran-burning threat proves that many journalists and news organizations too easily abandon news judgment, professionalism and ethical standards in a zealous quest for a controversial story. [...] However, the coverage of this small band of publicity seekers was vastly out of proportion to the value of the news story.

Arsalan Iftikhar:

Usually in America, when a lone crackpot of any political or religious persuasion threatens to commit a publicity stunt that will needlessly enrage millions of other innocent people, our basic common sense tells us that our national media should not even give that person the time of day.

Sadly, not only did Terry Jones successfully receive media attention, but because of the overexposure of this one man, we are beginning to see other “copycat” Quran burnings around the country.

Ed Rollins:

Before the last few weeks, nobody would even know the pastor existed. Then why did his reckless and self-serving threats to burn hundreds of copies of the Quran become a national and international story that, according to Google news, was in more than 12,000 articles? The secretary of state, defense secretary and many other serious people put aside their real work to placate this man’s ego.

Farah Akbar:

How could this situation, with the potential to have had very damaging effects here and elsewhere been avoided? Simple — don’t let obscure people, whose actions have the potential to incite violence, dominate the news cycle.

Ruben Navarrette:

It’s obvious that he was playing us — the media, politicians, activists, all of us. Whatever it took to get him the most attention at any given time — make a threat, try to make a deal, cancel a threat, catch a flight to New York, etc. — he did it.

They’re literally running an article overflowing with criticism for their choice of covering a specific event so much —  in an article that is continuing to cover that event, even after it is over — even to the extent of conscripting tons of their own contributors into saying “don’t cover this so much!”  Why the hell didn’t they just listen to these people at the time, instead of now?  If you’re CNN, you’re not allowed to stand back and comment on how tragic it is that these big media people gave this obscure idiot so much attention.  You are those people.  Be part of the solution.

Wait, no, that’s in April.  So I guess I don’t have any explanation for this:

(CNN) — The same blue food dye found in M&Ms and Gatorade could be used to reduce damage caused by spine injuries, offering a better chance of recovery, according to new research.

Man.  Now that’s a marketing slogan.  ”M&M’s: they melt in your mouth and heal your spinal injuries, not in your hand.  But only the blue ones.  Seriously.”