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What’s the buzz?

Photo: AFP

Swatting flies Barack Obama

Obama kills a fly and US television goes ker-aa-zy. I kill mosquitoes every night. Do I make the news? Sadly, no.

Maybe I should film myself murdering mosquitoes and upload it on You-Tube. In my more boastful moments I call myself One-shot Annie (after the legendary sure-shot Annie Oakley). I sit on my haunches on the bed under the mosquito net, scanning the area for the stray fella who might have managed to sneak in. My cupped palms follow it stealthily. One smash and it’s a fading smudge. Don’t you think it would make a charming video? Since I’m – er – not exactly dressed for TV when I engage in this operation, it should cause a mighty kerfuffle. I’m guessing millions of hits. This whole business is like a schoolboy joke. “What’s the buzz?” asks a news-hungry public. “A fly,” answers the media. The joke’s been on you, readers, for many years now. What creates a buzz, in many national newspapers and most TV channels, is often nothing more than an irritant, a pesky bit of trivia that is so light it could fly.

The Brits use the expression “the silly season” for a period when there’s no real news to report and the papers indulge in frivolity. Well, it seems to be the silly season all year round. What else can you conclude when you notice that the Presidential Pesterminator made it to TV screens worldwide?

“Swatting flies” is our expression for idleness, for having nothing better to do. But apparently the way the prez firmly ordered the fly out of the studio and, when it disobeyed him, struck it forcefully and tapped it aside with his shoe, is a reflection of his decisiveness on foreign policy. (“Here’s my plan for Afghanistan. Take that! And that!”) At this rate if he crunched a cookie on TV it would surely indicate which way it crumbled, economic-policy-wise.

The media’s obsession with celebrities and sensation is taken for granted today. Dog bites man is news if dog bites VIP. And if VIP buys (if not bites) dog, as in the case of Obama and the mutt, it too becomes news. In the pre-24-hour-TV days, however, film stars and politicians would merit an occasional news splash only if they were involved in money or sex scandals. The poor ex-VIP hovering on the brink of death continues to be confined to a single-column item, a daily bulletin on his vital signs that generally includes embarrassing details of his bowel movements. If our PM had brushed away a persistent fly (no way would he kill it!) during an interview, would the world have known of it? There are many reasons why not. Firstly, he isn’t as powerful as the US president – power being measured in dollars and weapons of course. Second, he wouldn’t be sitting in a TV studio unless he were an ex-PM. Third, the image of a fly buzzing over him would be considered not befitting the dignity of his office, and would therefore be cut out. If the interview was live the camera would switch back to the interviewer until the moment passed, and if it didn’t they’d simply take a break. If it was a taped interview it would be halted and the fly killed by a studio minion.

Now that we know that a prez and a fly can make news, and since we are aware of a former prez who made news with his fly, so to speak, why not highlight another creature that came out of Pandora’s Box? I refer to the mosquito. “Why do you focus on the fly?” it whines. “Am I not handsome enough? My legs may be spindly but there’s power in my sting. John Updike has written a poem in my honour. So has D.H. Lawrence. But they’re mere authors. I’m more interested in journalists. I want publicity. Primetime TV. Better still, You-Tube.” The only time an individual mosquito made the news, as far as I know, is when it helped solve a crime. It laid down its life in the cause of justice but did the press hail it as a hero? No sir. It was travelling in a car driven by a criminal. The criminal escaped but not the insect. Forensic experts captured it and analysed its blood to look for human DNA, which helped them nab the culprit. Now that’s a mosquito that should have got a 21-gun salute at its funeral. Since injustice has been done to the species, I shall try to make amends with a brief encomium. The mosquito is feared for its accuracy and strike force. A multi-faceted creature, it is talented in music although its genre is largely unappreciated. In its spare time it spreads malaria, which is more prevalent than Aids but not as newsworthy. It hasn’t recovered from the bad publicity it got for spreading chikungunya. It has also mutated. This last is a personal discovery of mine, by the way. I’ve seen it thumbing its proboscis at the plug-in repellent, perhaps because it is growing immune to the chemical. Friends report that burning the old coil works better.

“Call this a tribute?” the mosquito sneers at me. “It’s not even front page stuff. Get a web cam ready. Under the net, on the Net, let’s create a buzz tonight.”

(Send your feedback to ckmeena@gmail.com)

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