Lee Dresselhaus / L’Observateur / March 15, 2000

So….I can’t believe I missed it. The television event of the century, and Imissed it.

Katie Couric, the perky little hostess from NBC’s Today Show, decided to let the whole world see just what the inside of her colon looked like when she had an on-air colonoscopy. For those of you who aren’t familiar withjust what a colonoscopy is, let me explain as briefly as I can while staying within the boundaries of reasonable taste, if that’s possible with this particular subject.

A doctor inserts a tiny camera mounted on a tube into the, er, nether region of the body. By the way, I have some questions about doctors whochoose that particular specialty as a way of making a living, but that’s a different issue. Anyway, the camera is equipped with a tiny light. As thecamera progresses forward (upward?) the interior of the colon walls are illuminated and viewed by the medical staff via a television screen.

This is the view we were treated to by NBC. Yep, it was broadcast as apublic service for the whole world to see.

That’s a sure fire winner over coffee and pastries in the morning isn’t it? I mean, Katie Couric is not hard to look at, but that is just NOT the view of her I prefer. Or of anyone else for that matter.NBC, the Nitwit Broadcasting Company, has achieved what I had thought to be the impossible. They actually made the Fox Network look good. It was astretch, but NBC topped them all with their guided tour of Katie Couric’s descending colon. Ack. I have this vision of the neighborhood Little Old Ladies Social Club gathered around the tube with their coffee and crumpets, staring at the procedure in rapt fascination, and commenting to each other about how that brave little Katie Couric is just so cute. Unfortunately, I have thesame type of vision of Clyde The Maniacal Pervert And Potential Serial Killer sitting there watching with the same rapt fascination, except he’s a little more sweaty than the aforementioned ladies, and his VCR is recording for future playback purposes. Just because I’m me, I like tothink that the joke is on Clyde because we really don’t know whose colon was being shown, do we? I suspect that the inside of one colon looks pretty much like the inside of another.

I suppose it there’s a comparison to seeing a train wreck somewhere in the whole scenario. If you happen to be there when it happens, or you comeup on it by coincidence or fate, then you can’t help watching. Or staring,whichever the case may be. And in this program’s case, if someone justhappened to be flipping through the channels and stumbled across it and ended up watching it because it was just so….weird, then, okay. But ifsomeone actually deliberately made time in their busy schedule to check out the inside of Katie Couric’s colon, well, MAN, they have some serious issues to deal with.

Now, I understand that Katie Couric’s husband died of colon cancer that wasn’t caught in time, but I just don’t get the motivation behind actually displaying something like this.

I mean, wouldn’t a public service announcement have done just as well? So, congratulations to the Nitwit Broadcasting Company. I don’t think weneed any further proof that the end of civilization as we know it is right around the corner. And if it is, I can assure you of one thing. I’ll bet Fox or NBC will show it.

LEE DRESSELHAUS is a regular columnist for L’Observateur.

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