We truly are a shallow country.

It’s true that our media absolutely loves to fixate on the trivial and the sensational, and ignore the stuff that really should be news. But that is also true of most of the population of this country. We require that our news doesn’t demand too much of us. It can’t really take more than a minute or two to completely digest. Deep contemplation is not something we know how to do. And what we are being told must not really upset our finely tuned but completely artificial sense of balance.

Here’s some of the things that Larisa Alexandrovna at Huffington Post thinks that should be just screaming off the headlines and be the leadoff stories on the evening newscasts.

1. Russia's attack on Georgia (which suggests that the US is no longer the lone super-power)

2. Revelations that the White House had ordered evidence to be fabricated in order to start an illegal war (which we are in now)

3. Evidence that the Anthrax terrorist attacks came from a US government lab (despite what we all believe about Dr. Ivin's alleged relationship to the attacks)

4. The fact that the Bush administration was more interested in blaming the Anthrax attacks on Al Qaeda and Iraq than in securing this nation (a pattern of criminal neglect that frankly warrants criminal charges)

5. The fact that Karl Rove was briefed that an Anthrax vaccine was making our soldiers sick and that he sought to control the damages of the "political problem" this information could pose, not remotely interested in addressing the health of our troops - the troops he claims to support.

6. The evidence that the Vice President wanted to kill Americans in order to frame Iran and start a war

7. The fact that American naval ships are starting to build up again in the Gulf region as a threat to Iran

However, what was the big story of this last week? John Edwards having an affair. The same John Edwards who isn’t even running for office anymore. Is there any mention of John McCain’s infidelity? No.

The worst biological attack in this country’s history is being ignored. The weaponized anthrax came from a military lab within the U.S., and there are all sorts of open questions about the government’s “case” against the one and only suspect, who just happens to be dead. There is no real motive given, other than he’s being made out to be a kook. There is no proof he was actually able to drive to where the anthrax letters were mailed, other than he “could have done it”. The main witness against the suspect has some real problems of her own. Several people were killed by these attacks, and it certainly looks to have some sort of political motive behind it, as the targets were prominent Democrats and media personalities.

I don’t think that the government really is interested in getting the truth of the matter out there, and I don’t really think the public, as a whole, cares much either. Like I said, pretty shallow. Given that many of the targets were media types, I might have thought that they would be a bit more interested in pursuing the matter, but given that the media is now in control of the mega-corporations and beholden to big money, that is a pipe dream as well.