One week ago today, the world was moved to tears of helpless rage as a young woman suddenly crumbled on a Tehran street, choking on blood that, while obviously similar to yours and mine in appearance, seemed somehow to be a more disturbingly brilliant hue of red.  Neda Agha-Soltan’s name would soon sweep the globe as a unifying, Twitter-borne j’accuse! of the Iranian regime for its reprisals against its own people -- reprisals which bore more resemblance to a pack of jackals let loose on corralled sheep than any respectable effort at mob suppression.  Within 24 hours, this young, beautiful, music-loving university student would become the first martyr in Iran’s popular revolt against the diabolical spiritual leaders of their nation and the puppet government they have set up as a democratic veneer in the interest of self-perpetuation.

Meanwhile, here in the United States, the president reluctantly began issuing firm condemnations of the government’s actions against its people.  After a week of overly-measured words and halting expressions of “deep concern,” domestic political and public pressure, along with growing international outrage over the barbarity being inflicted upon the Iranian people, President Obama, on Saturday, denounced the regime’s actions as “outrageous” and stated that the world is “bearing witness to [the] violence, we see it and we condemn it."  This was obviously welcomed by Iran’s dissidents as they again took to the streets today in the thousands to dispute the fraudulent election results that set off the initial wave of chaos, and did so in spite of ominous government threats.

Unfortunately, relatively few people were aware of what happened in Iran today – or over the past five days, for that matter.  It seems that, while the story of Neda was compelling enough to rally the attention of the press for a few days, she just couldn’t overcome the globally calamitous passing in quick succession of Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon, and Michael Jackson in terms of news value.  And, while it’s nice that there’s a popular rumble creating waves across all demographic lines in one of the most despotic nations in the world, we are talking about the King of Pop, here.  The good people of Iran will just have to forgive our free press for now.

Fortunately, America has been on an apology binge of late.  So, I see no reason why we can’t just pick up where we left off in Cairo, Egypt and carry it on into Tehran.

First, let me apologize on behalf of my president for his tardiness in recognizing the gravity of the situation in your country, and his reluctance in choosing sides.  You see, that’s what we elected him to do.  And, honestly, that’s what we thought the world expected of us now that we’ve elected him; to stop seeing the world as some sort of comic book universe where such quaint notions as good and evil actually exist.  If you think about it, his entire rationale for being the leader of the free world is that, unlike his predecessor, he believes that there is no entity among the family of nations that can’t be negotiated with in good faith, if only someone is willing to sit across the table from them – even the regime that currently rests its boots on your throats.

But, rest assured, people of Iran, that he’s making an effort to better understand your circumstances, and he is now quite chagrined at the outrageous behavior of your tyrannical rulers – particularly after the superhuman effort he’s put into establishing an all-important dialogue with them.  Not only are they slaughtering your people in the streets, they’re making him look like a chump.  Don’t think he doesn’t realize that.

Secondly, I’d like to apologize on behalf of our proud, free American press.  Yes, they’ve spent recent years depicting your government as a “relatively” benign presence in your part of the world.  But, it’s important that you understand that our press has felt a bit under siege these past several years over the fact that people in our government have sought to prevent them from publishing information that could threaten our own nation’s security.  In that light, I hope you’ll be able to find it within yourselves to understand their inability to see the “relatively” minor restrictions on the free press in your nation, even in times like these.

As such, surely you can sympathize with their decision to devote near-constant coverage to the recent soul-crushing losses we’ve suffered in our entertainment industry, rather than the choking off of the flow of information emanating from your country.  And, while Neda Agha-Soltan is clearly an important figure in your nation’s history going forward, bear in mind that we have lost an elderly man who was a fixture on one of our late night television talk shows for many years, where he served as a sidekick for the host, who regularly made teasing jokes about his drinking habits.

As if that weren’t enough, we also suffered the loss of a beautiful woman whose image graced the wall of nearly every teenaged heterosexual male in the late 1970’s.  And, while she had already received considerable coverage due to her extended battle with cancer, she was, after all, one of the most recognizable celebrities among a key demographic group for television news broadcasts.  So, you see, they had to choose between losing viewership among white men in their 40’s and others who were touched by her very public struggle with the disease that would eventually take her life, or keeping your struggle before the eyes of the world as you seek to gain your freedom from those who would pave the streets with your flesh and blood at the first opportunity.  Clearly, it’s not always easy to know when it’s time to inform and when it’s time to pretend to be deeply saddened.

And all of this doesn’t even begin to touch on the loss of Michael Jackson, who is universally deemed by our proud free press as an “icon”.  Since much western-style music is frowned upon in the Middle East, you may not fully appreciate just how important a person Michael was to America.  Not only was he a great dancer, he also sold more records than anyone else in his lifetime.  He created a dance step called the Moonwalk, which is more recognizable than the original moon walk taken by our astronauts some 40 years ago this summer.

Michael was so wealthy and successful that he owned his own amusement park and was said to have purchased the bones of the Elephant Man, as well as the entire music catalog of The Beatles.  It was long rumored that he exploited and sexually abused children, though he was eventually acquitted of charges to that effect in court.  Whatever the case, he was extremely famous, and he died.  I hope you can understand how that might shake up our news media’s priorities a bit.

And, finally, I’d just like to apologize on behalf of the American people.  You see, we’re faced with a whole lot more choices than you are every day.  And, while that may seem like some kind of dream world to you, it really wreaks havoc on our attention span.  In fact, our collective attention span has been rendered so minute that up to 10% of our children are undergoing treatment for ADHD, and the rest of us are struggling to keep up with the dosages. 

In closing, I hope you’ll consider the devastating losses we’ve suffered as a culture along with our inability to pay much attention to anything for any significant period of time so that you’ll be able to better understand how you might have fallen through the cracks of our collective consciousness over the past few days.  We’re terribly sorry about Neda, and the fact that you’re being treated by your government like the pigs of Egypt in the swine flu outbreak panic.  But, we’re trying to be better, and I hope this apology will go some distance toward healing any hard feelings.

In the meantime, you might consider doing something extremely newsworthy pretty soon.  It may be a while before they ever put Michael in the ground, so he could potentially be a competing story for some time to come.