Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 crashed into the ocean. People's brains also apparently crashed. The search for this plane, amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars, and news coverage which has long passed into the obscene, is the most ludicrous waste of time and money that I have ever seen.

The CNN coverage of this incident is ridiculous. It's so foolish that at first I thought it was a scam, a joke of the highest order.

Between 40,000-45,000 people are killed on U.S. highways every year in motor vehicle accidents. Millions are injured, many permanently. Are their lives not worth mentioning? Why are they totally ignored and the people on this plane mulled over to the point of the grotesque?

Our cultures, at least the media, has a fascination, an obsession that borders on pathological, when it comes to airplanes. This is a vestige of an earlier time when planes were new and awe-inspiring. Unfortunately, this passion has not waned. Actually, it may have, but as media outlets struggle with reduced budgets and decreased revenue streams, covering a story like this is dirt cheap. You only need a few talking heads who want their fifteen minutes, stock footage, and newscasters who double as salesmen, selling us this story as if it's the most important one in the history of the world.

Get over it. There are important events occurring all over the world and they are being brushed aside for this story that practically no one is even following. It's a Potemkin village, a form of unmitigated cynicism.

There really should be legislation passed protecting viewers' rates and they could be applied here. This legislation would force the media to stop dwelling on stories like this to the point of nausea and to treat viewers with at least a modicum of respect.

There is no doubt in my mind that at least half a billion dollars will be squandered in searching for this plane. The only reason it's done is because it's somewhat titillating to some - not me, I can assure you - and because it has become a competition to see who can find it first.

Really, I couldn't care less who finds it, and I know that these hundreds of millions of dollars could have been used by hungry children, people dying from diseases, schools, anti-violence programs. Please, stop wasting time and money. Enough is enough.