INTERNET SIGHTINGS

Richard Brenneman - In his 1976 film Network, Paddy Chayefsky presciently forecast today's world of "reality" television in which the ancient Roman practice of "bread and circuses" - panem et circenses - for distracting the masses is replaced by today's politics of bread without the circus. In this scene, Ned Beatty, playing conglomerate tycoon mogul Arthur Jensen delivers a soliloquy to the late Peter Finch, who plays newscaster Howard Beale, enlightening him about the realities of the new corporatized world. No better description of our Brave New Corpocracy has ever been written.