The State of the Union

I have to admit I don't watch the Wire on HBO. But I did read a review of the 5th season of this program in Time Magazine a few weeks back and was struck by few words that talks about the entire society, that really struck a chord with me. With the recent events that have taken over my personal life with fighting to save my son's elementary school open, and the upcoming presidetial elections, and how the main streem media is more interested in Britany and her various troubles, it just made me think. We really do get what we pay for. If you are not willing to work hard, and invest in something, it will fall to pieces. Read it and let me know what you think:

At the Sun, as with many other media organizations--and like The Wire's budget-strapped cops--they're paying attention mainly to the bottom line. Out-of-town owners are demanding higher profits, bureaus are closing, layoffs are draining the institutional memory, and the staff barely has the resources to chase fires, much less do investigative work. One top editor repeatedly asks his troops, in impeccable corporatese, to "do more with less."

What this means is doing less with less and cutting corners to make it look like more, sometimes with disastrous results. The lie of "more with less" is, in a way, the heart of the series. "The Wire's basically about the end of an empire," says Simon. "It's about, This is as much of America as we've paid for. No more, no less. We didn't pay for a New Orleans that's protected from floods the way, say, the Netherlands is. The police department gets what it pays for, the city government gets what it pays for, the school system gets what it pays for. And in the last season, the people who are supposed to be holding the entire thing to some form of public standard, they get what they pay for."