On the air. Unaware. Welcome 2013.

In the news and on your mind: What is the truth and how much is simply a marketing message?

I'm not talking about the fake fiscal cliff and all the Hawaiian-vacation drama that was entirely self-imposed and pathetically pretend. No, no. It's much more embarrassing than that. It's all about a baby.

After a certain somebody - who shall remain nameless - recently confirmed an announcement by another nameless face that she and they are, in fact, expecting a BABY, after all, I wonder... 

Is 2013 the year of the baby? 

It saddens me that it's not just another baby, either. It's a mother of all babies. Born to parents who have questionable motives in a society that sometimes appears to lack all empathy, ethics and understanding of the most human of conditions. For the most part. Not entirely, of course. That would be depressing. And now is a time we need to have hope. 

And that worries me. About this baby, that is. That we are going to place too much on the tiny head and shoulders of the smallest & most fragile beings to uphold a standard that is feasibly impossible to carry out until the tiniest and most vulnerable do what they do best. Crumble. Like grandma's apple pie crust. Only sadder. Because out of all the ridiculous behavior that we like to witness and experience AND all the marketing we support with our attention, dollars and resources, there is something so refreshing about those who are resilient to mass media. Those that are known as babies. 

The innocence of babies and the very idea of innocence is something that can have no monetary value attached to it. It's ethereal and international and it should be protected and not exploited. Of course, it's all relative, too. But you get my point.

I'm talking about The Truman Show. The movie released in 1998 about the boy in the bubble. You know the one. It's the one with Jim Carrey. And Laura Linney and Ed Harris. It's the movie about the poor schmuck who is raised under the microscope of the media and manipulated by marketing messages from the time the baby was conceived until he finally discovers the ugly truth some 40 years later. It's a funny movie. And poignant, too. And really, how far from reality is it?