Remember the Maine!

To the Editor:

I was amazed and exasperated by the deluge of news media coverage given to the anniversary of John Lennon's death, while one day earlier, the anniversary of Japan's dastardly attack on Pearl Harbor during which over 1,700 American servicemen lost their lives, hardly a mention was made by The Post Standard and television networks.

If only I could subscribe to just the sports section.

Sherwin

Alright. Look, I'm not out to piss anybody off here. World War II was a noble cause. I have nothing but respect for the armed men who fought the war, as well as for American citizens who made sacrifices for the war effort. It was the last war we fought where you could really say that our freedom might be in danger, a concept that is now thrown around far too casually in reference to small, barely-modernized, sandy nations. Certainly, Pearl Harbor was a day of infamy. America was blindsided in a rather cowardly (if ultimately ineffectual) attack designed to keep the United States from entering the war.

Regardless, we need to simply accept the fact that the importance of the date will fade with time. We don't recognize the date of the burning of Washington D.C. in 1812, or the sabotage of the U.S.S. Maine, which set off the Spanish American war. (Granted, it turns out that last one was hawkish propaganda, but I count it anyway since hawkish propaganda with no basis in truth isn't something that appears to deter the American public these days.) Eventually, the same thing will happen to Pearl Harbor. That change doesn't make it less important as a historical event, but it becomes difficult to encourage people to remember Pearl Harbor when very few people are still alive who were born in time to remember Pearl Harbor.

Now, to some extent, I understand the frustration when you compare the Lennon coverage to the Pearl Harbor coverage. Try to think about it with a little detachment, though. It's not a matter of importance, but a matter of relevance. Plenty of Americans remember Lennon's death, so it has resonance with people in a way that a historical date does not. I frankly don't have a lot of perspective for either event, so neither one holds very much nostalgic interest for me. It's all about perspective. It's kind of pointless to display petulant indignation because something that has emotional meaning for you doesn't have emotional meaning for others. If YOU remember Pearl Harbor, you certainly don't need the paper to remind you of it.

Of course, to be honest, the Post-Standard piece about John Lennon wasn't really about John Lennon's death. It was more a Syracuse Pride piece, centered around John Lennon's visit to Syracuse for one of Yoko's art shows a few years before his death. I personally wish the paper wouldn't run these pieces. It's just a reminder of how, well, lame Syracuse is that we put so much stock in one visit from a dead celebrity more than 25 years ago. That's the kind of thing they might remember in West Cornhole, South Dakota, but can't we at least pretend that Syracuse is a little more sophisticated than that?

Anyway, it's Sherman's closing statement that really makes this letter stand out. He takes the time to write the paper about not giving enough space to important issues, and then wonders aloud why he can't just get the sports section. Can you get any more unimportant than the sports section? The sports section is the best example of the principles that pissed him off in the first place. The paper runs what people are interested in, not that which passes some universal litmus test for importance. Let's face it, there is almost nothing that will have less of an impact on your life than men you don't know playing games for a living. The fact that the newspaper devotes an entire section to sports is not a testament to the importance of professional athletes, but a nod to the fact that sports is the fantasy-world-of-choice for a large percentage of the population. You think it's bad that the paper ran a huge article about something you don't think is important? There's an entire section of the paper EVERY DAY devoted to a topic that bores me to tears. Do I write to the paper to bitch about it? No, I bitch about it in my blog instead. But only because you provoked me, Sherman.