Here we are, 4 years after the Katrina Disaster, and the first hurricanes to pose any serious threat to gulf coast communities have finally arrived. This was, of course, inevitable, and the networks seem to have been prepared for the day when such media frenzy could be justified again. As Hanna, Fay, and Gustav blew into town relatively uneventfully, I began to think the press might get over themselves. That their dripping wet lust for disaster would subside after the first few near misses. But now, with Ike ready to make landfall upon the gulf shores of Texas, I can see that I was wrong.

I’m out and about in Brooklyn today, and every commercial establishment I’ve entered has had a different network tuned to their flatscreen, and every one has featured wall-to-wall coverage of the hurricane. Could it be that the mass media truly cares about the fate of these communities? That would be easier to believe if they’d spent the last 4 years devoting a small measure of coverage to the changes (or lack thereof) in FEMA’s operating procedures, or the emergency preparations of at-risk communities. So, one is obliged to deduce that this year’s hurricane season is just another of what is (so vulgarly and appropriately) referred to in New York as an ad fuck.

But, is it the networks’ fault that disaster is so lucrative? We consumers don’t have to pay attention to this. But, we do, and so I think about the way in which we collectively affect the quality of content in the mass media… and the way it affects us. This insidious, clockwork orange in which we all thrive like parasites, souring the fruit that has so much potential. This society.

There are those, of course, who would blame the universally evil “corporation” for this. But those people are part of the problem. They shut their eyes to the fact that all corporations are run by living, breathing people. The establishments which are the instruments of their mass-marketed theater are just that– instruments. It always goes back to people. To human beings and what we’re capable of. To offer up any kind of scapegoat to replace recognition of that fundamental truth is, to my mind, just as insidious. In fact, maybe more.

My own personal experience trying to get bank drafts honored at North Fork Bank, Chase Bank, and others has led to the unfortunate conclusion that several consumer banks in the United States are falsely advertising that they offer checking accounts. As defined by Article 3 of the Uniform Commercial Code, a check is:

(i) a draft, other than a documentary draft, payable on demand and drawn on a bank or (ii) a cashier’s check or teller’s check. An instrument may be a check even though it is described on its face by another term, such as “money order.”

Pay particular attention to the words “payable on demand". North Fork, Chase, and others, however, will not honor any check presented to them unless the person making the presentment also holds an account at their bank. Note that the definition of a “check” does not allow for any such limitation. The instruments these and other such banks offer their account holders, therefore, may be negotiable instruments, but they are not checks. By publicly soliciting consumers for checking account products, they are guilty of false advertising.

All American consumers would do well to review the terms of the negotiable instruments their banks are referring to as “checks". If they will not honor the check when presentment is made by a “person entitled to enforce” without further limitations, then the bank is not providing a true checking account.

Why is this important? Apart from false advertising, which is bad enough, it encourages banks not to hold sufficient actual currency to back all of their accounts. If they only have to give real cash to existing customers, and no one else, then what’s to stop them from keeping little cash on hand at all? You must remember that wire transfers from one bank to another only represent money. American currency is not, itself, electronic. It is dollars and cents. And American banks should not be allowed to substitute the representation of money for the real thing without fully disclosing that to consumers. A “check” is an order to pay real money. To offer anything else and call it a check is a dangerous act of fraud.