When Death is Just Another Re-run

It would seem that beheading videos have become passe. Though I've seen a few obligatory links to the recent videos; they've caused none of the euphoric excitement of four months ago. These days, a video of some poor man getting his head chopped off is received with a yawn. And why shouldn't it be? We all know their script by now:There will be about four guys in cheap black ninja costumes standing in front of a flag. One of them will spend about 6 min angrily yelling about something in another language. Often, his speech will be long winded enough to require him to read it from typed pages. Then, he'll yell something loudly in another language, and cut off kidnapped victim's head.

Beheadings no longer have a spark in the blogosphere. Now, some readers might accuse me of being tasteless for saying such things. I ask those readers to consider the fact that the truth has neither tastes, nor 'values:' it simply is, regardless of how we feel about it. That consideration brings me to my main point: To the average American, Iraq is now just another re-run.Our minds cannot help the fact that they filter out familiar information. News of bombs, deaths, and chaos in Iraq is now filtered out like street sounds to someone sleeping in New York. This might explain why Kerry's attack against Bush's war is causing so little of an effect on the polls. Frankly, Bush's "its gonna turn out alright" is more soothing than Kerry's "We're screwed". And lets me straight: people like to ignore unpleasant facts. So why are we expecting voters to flock to someone who will constantly remind them that the sky is falling? It doesn't really make sense when you talk it through.My guess is that Kerry's only choice is to scare the hell out of voters. He needs to talk about the future, the voters aren't going to pay attention WMD reruns. His message might be more effective if its along the lines of, "I hope to be a peace president; I will take no pride in being a war president." But, then again, I may be the only one who feels a breeze of fresh air upon hearing the term, "peace president".