This "missing person" theme on cable news is getting weird.

[mwb970]

Here's what I had available on the five cable news channels I watch between 10:30 and 10:35 ET this evening:

CNN Headline News
Christian Julian Irwin, missing music producer.

CNN
Chris Caldwell - went missing during a cruise.

CNBC
Natalee.

MSNBC
Olivia Newton-John's missing boyfriend.

Fox News
Natalee. (Obviously - it's Greta. Why doesn't she just move to Aruba?)

Come on, now. Even in August, there has to be more news than this! Wasn't there a bit of nastiness, and another missed deadline, in Iraq today? I'm not hearing much about that.

[Tom Kitten]

1. maybe they're hoping

sharks are somehow involved? :shrug:

[Solomon]

10. LOL The One Missing Person story they DON'T focus on is Osama

Bin Laden. :yoiks:

[Lifelong Protester]

2. Can someone tell me

why certain missing person stories get so much persistent attention and others get none? Is it truly the 'damsel in distress sells news' idea at work? (Which of course does not explain the guys here I know, but what is it that drew EVERY NETWORK and CABLE channel to that runaway bride?)

[SledDriver]

3. Bright, shiny objects to distract you

from the news they should be reporting.
:popcorn:

[snot]

4. Here's a psych explanation

Not that I'm credentialled . . .

but the most effective kinds of distraction or sublimation are those that echo or harmonize with the concerns they seek to distract us FROM.

We're living in a time in which people have been swept up and detained at Guantanamo for years, or secretly carried off to foreign countries for torture via "rendition"; an age in which Rumsfeld has his own, covert team, accountable to no one, authorized to kidnap and "disappear" people at their own discretion . . . an age in which the government thinks it can "disappear" reality itself; in which the media and our government feel free to ignore the concerns of the people, even as expressed in their attempts to vote--protests happen but are not reported; the will of the people simply disappears into some black electronic hole . . .

[wli]

5. people are getting disappeared in the US, or so I hear

It may be a bit more literal than the renditions or Guantanamo etc.

[alcibiades_mystery]

6. Absolutely agree

The missing person theme is directly connected to the missing persons of the war on terror. The real missing person is Jose Padilla, American citizen locked away for three years with no trial and no charges and no prospect for trial or charges, arbitrarily, on the say-so of the executive branch. All the missing person stories track back to that. What's really missing is not Natalee Holloway, or Olivia Newton John's boyfriend, but the sense of comfort in democracy itself. These are just phantasmatic substitutes for that.

[Minstrel Boy]

8. fascinating analysis, thanks n/t

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

7. WTF could they possibly have to say about Holloway at this point?

What news could possibly coming out of there?

[friesianrider]

11. Show: Natalee is still missing.

Discuss for an hour.

[Dr Fate]

9. It probably scares children too. They should stop this nonsense.

Missing people? - shouldnt those be local stories?

[walldude]

12. Looks to me like they are just

throwing shit at the wall to see if anything sticks...