Put these on booty shorts and we'll talk

So I noticed this last week, but thought it was some kind of a joke. Or that someone hacked into cnn.com. Or that the finals week-related stress and lack of sleep had finally caused hallucinations. Especially since NO ONE ELSE seems to be talking about this. But then I checked today, and there it is. Let me tell you about it.

So log onto cnn.com. Note the tiny little t-shirt icons next to selected stories. Click on these icons. You'll notice that CNN, in their infinite wisdom, has decided to OFFER T-SHIRTS FOR PURCHASE FEATURING PARTICULARLY WEIRD/UNUSUAL HEADLINES. Yes. Today, for a limited time only, you can buy a shirt in your choice of black, white, or gray with the headlines "Obama's blue jeans but press in tizzy" or "Stiletto-clad beauty queen seeks office" or, my personal favorite, "Ginormous sink hole gobbles up yard" (SIDE-NOTE: I thought that maybe I was just not up on the hip lingo and spending too much time in the elitist world of academia, but blogger agrees; "ginormous" is not an actual word).

I'm not going to get into media ethics (mainly because I have put that part of my brain on vacation for a week and a half until I have to start it back up again for thesis design. Yes, thesis design. I have to do a thesis and design it and defend it and the thought of doing these things makes my body automatically try to assume a fetal position, and it's hard to type like that), but I feel like there is something fundamentally wrong with a news organization like CNN seeking to capitalize on our dumbest exploits as a species. Thoughts?