The Brockovich Report

We live in a country that proudly announces we have freedom of speech and free enterprise. Certainly at it's zenith, these freedoms can produce the most sublime art. At the other end of the spectrum we find night-time television flooded with infomercials, and daytime television flooded with commercials that tweak the imagination and regularly imply more utopian product satisfaction than any materialistic thing could realistically deliver. We live in a society where radio ads tease us; newspaper clipper coupons lure us to shop here or there, and full color magazine ads tantalize us into buying expensive brand name products simply for the prestige of wearing the label, even if it is only to the nearest Walmart, Publix, Costco, Kroger or 7/11.

Is it any wonder that the internet abounds with a plethora of advertisement? It's important to remember any time you go on the internet, especially if you're looking for "truth, justice and the American way," you always have to do something that your great great great horse-trading grandfather would have advised you to do.

"Consider the source."

Someone showed me this Washington Times article with the following quote:

"Because for every noble, heartstring-pulling Erin Brockovich fantasy, there are countless real-life personal-injury lawyers who erode public confidence in our civil justice system, undermine America's economic competitiveness and contribute to health care inflation with frequently meritless lawsuits."

First, I'd like to say that there are personal injury lawyers out there in the world because there are people who get injured due to negligence of one kind or another, and they need someone to advocate for them. That said, their worst internet advertising is probably no worse than nighttime infomercials; and one's experience with them is bound to be not far off from one's experience with nighttime infomercials too. Remember that night you stayed up late and after thirty minutes of tele-shopper-hypnotism, ended up purchasing some get rich quick real estate program; or some make a million building websites program; or some extreme diet or exercise plan; or some peculiar kitchen device that looked really amazing in the tele demonstration, but is going to spend the next seventeen years gathering dust in your appliance garage. Hopefully the worst thing that can happen is a brief waste of time, or coming out of the experience like Marion the Librarian, sadder but wiser.

Accessibility of information is one of the great benefits of our age; of course it is a shame thee is so much useless rubbish to sort thru. There are always going to be best case scenarios and worst case scenarios. But somewhere between the sublime and the ridiculous, amid that topography of internet verbiage is the path for a victim to find just recourse. And I wonder--is that such a very bad thing?