Quit Bitching About Lost vs. State of the Union

There is perhaps no “greater sign of our civilization’s decline” than the uproar about President Obama’s State of the Union address possibly preempting the season premiere of Lost or an episode of American Idol, Michael Roston writes. “Before we are couch potatoes, we are citizens,” he rants. "The annual address helps remind us of our elected leaders’ solemn obligation to communicate their intentions to a public they so often fail while in office."

“We’ve let ourselves get so atomized by Internet and TV,” Roston writes for True/Slant, “that we ignore what brings us all together—our nation—and allow ourselves to be diverted entirely into what we do for a diversion.” People need to wake up and acknowledge that “public events like the State of the Union are more important than our individual amusements.”
(More Lost stories.)