I’m really having a lot of trouble understanding this. The top four stories on CNN.com right now are:

1) Turkey wants aid in writing
2) Teen gets second transplant
3) ‘The Bachelorette’ falls for fireman
4) North Korean fighter jet sparks alert in South

In that order. Apparently, the plot of a prime-time soap opera is more important than a possible war in the Korean peninsula.

I’m honestly baffled by this phenomenon – the idea that a supposedly unstaged television show (yeah, right) in which nobody has any talent, would capture the attention of the average American to such an extent that a (I thought) respectable news source like CNN would run this as their number 3 top story. Why does anyone care, even a little bit, about which one of a group of shallow men will be picked by this shallow woman? Yes, I suppose I can understand the “fairy tale” aspect of this all, but only slightly. Maybe the folks watching this are the same folks that watched those ghastly MTV reality shows back in the late 80s and early 90s.

So, as the US is trying as hard as it can to procure a staging ground for attacking Iraq, a teenager in Mexico struggles to stay alive after receiving the wrong organs in a transplant, and North Korea makes more threats to nuke South Korea, people really, honestly, seem to care which one of these guys will be picked for a marriage that will be broken up before the year is out. I suppose, maybe, it’s just a bit of escapism.

In upcoming news, the next thing we have to look forward to is the HotOrNot craze from 2 years ago coming to television. Makes me very nervous about what they’ll pull next year.