Month: October 2024

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I know I am little late in commenting on this but I feel this is a great example of how wrong headed the media has become.

First, I want to apologize to Aaron Rodgers before going any further. I have to mention something that he was reported to have done which is in essence passing on the information that I feel is unworthy of news coverage. I have made my peace with it in that so many major news outlets have reported it and my very low subscriber list is certainly no match for these networks, I am fairly certain that this is not news to anyone who would read an article about Aaron Rodgers. It also shows the bigger problem, I stopped to read this article over say what is going on in the Ukraine or the Middle East.

Any way, here is the gist of the report — Aaron Rodgers eats boogers. That’s right, a man who has a camera focused on him for much of his life, was, maybe, caught doing something human. That it is so important to point this out to the world beggars belief. So what? Nobody needs to know this. NOBODY.

Rodgers denies it and I can’t blame him it because it is embarrassing, but I think a better response would be to mind your own fucking business. What person on this earth, if they were under the same scrutiny, wouldn’t sometime lapse into some gross behavior which is entirely human? Blowing my nose without a handkerchief? Spitting? Picking their nose? Smelling their arm pits to check on their oder?

What value did this story bring to the reading public? All it really does is embarrass Rodgers which, I admit, is pretty fun because Rodgers is a bit of an asshole and deserves a little embarrassment. This, however, was the wrong tool to bring him down. Some in the media will say that they were forced to report on it when social media began to go wild with reports of Rodgers booger eating. It, then, became necessary for people to know about it and for Rodgers to address it.

How disingenuous. This means some crazy person can gaze hour after hour at a famous person sitting on a bench and report about any of the things he does there just because he is famous. Once the asshole finds the booger eating and then spreads his discovery onto social meeting, the media has to investigate because the public is talking about it. Let them talk about it. The media is under no such compunction. It isn’t news. Celebrities are human beings whose bodies function much like other mere mortals. If it annoyed Rodgers enough to rebut, he can talk about it but I see no reason for any responsible media operation to say anything about the topic.

More importantly, it is a distraction from a million more important things that could be reported on. Why waste the short attention of the public with something so insignificant, and, hey, I am admitting I one of the public here because I zipped right on to the booger eating controversy. The sports media might focus on something like the Jet’s abysmal record this season and how Rodgers might change this continuing disaster? Now that is something worth talking about. .

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Bill Maher walked out of a hotel with Noor Alfallah and the media goes wild reporting it.

This headline appeared in the Daily Beast, a serious news site, I read every day, when I stumbled upon a headline talking about Maher’s exit from the Chateau Marmont. Who, other than Bill Maher, Noor Alfallah (the woman Maher walked out with), and Al Pacino (Alfallah’s boyfriend), cares. Why did the Daily Beast give it an all important Top Cheats headline that directs people to read it? Wait, why did they put it into their site at all?

Here is the bit that caught my attention, “Paparazzi mobbed the duo early as they left together in the same car, Page Six reported. It is unclear what the duo were doing at the establishment together, and representatives for both have not commented on the appearance. Just hours earlier, Alfallah was snapped alongside Pacino at another Los Angeles restaurant, Chez Mia, in West Hollywood.”

OK it is gossip. People love to read gossip. But way too much time and energy was spent on this particular bit of gossip. The Paparazzi mobbed the duo. Mobbed. Dear God, how many photographers spent hours of their day waiting for Maher and Alfallah to leave the hotel? One would be one too many. This also means that some news outlet is willing to pay for photographs of the couple leaving a hotel. Keep in mind that is all they were caught doing is leaving the hotel. No one knows what went on in the hotel nor are the two explaining.

To be fair to the couple, there isn’t anything about their actions that suggests that their meeting was even good gossip. A man goes into a hotel and later leaves with a woman. Yes, it could mean that they were sleeping together but it also could mean that nothing went on at all other than he picked her up at a hotel. I have picked up many a woman from their hotel rooms without sleeping with them. So if someone were to ask me later what I was doing with that woman in her hotel room, I would gleefully reply none of your fucking business.

Think about it.There is a presidential election campaign going on, a war in the Middle East, a war in the Ukraine, a hurricane disaster with over 200 people dead and still counting, and another hurricane on its way to Florida. For a supposedly serious news site to spend any time on speculating who Bill Maher is shagging is a total waste of space. I repeat and in caps to emphasize my outrage — BILL fucking MAHER.

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Maybe it is because almost everything that comes out of Donald Trump’s mouth is bat shit crazy and to actually single one statement out becomes difficult given the sheer volume of his output that so few Republicans have commented on it. But recommending vigilante justice has disturbed me more than any of the other recent comments. An hour of violence or a day of violence to stop drug store thievery seems like a fairly big breech of democratic norms. It takes the government out of the whole process and puts it squarely into the hands of his own supporters.

I was certain that some Republicans would, at the very least, caution him to use less violent language. Yet there is nothing and I mean nothing so far that resembles even a mild rebuke. Given that Republicans like to point out the Constitution and the original intent of our founders, it seems like a good time to remind Trump that the Constitution enshrines the right to a trial as opposed to grabbing suspected thieves off the street and teaching them a lesson (in other words – beat them up).

Trump has always had a penchant for vigilante justice but this is the first time he has so nakedly expressed his desire to see it enacted. It also makes his denial of violent intent on January 6 less believable. If Trump thinks violence is a suitable response for shoplifting, why wouldn’t he also think it was appropriate for something more important like losing a stolen election? What are the limits of Trump’s extralegal violence? He needs to explain how this tool might be used if he were to win.

It is incredibly disappointing that Republicans have chosen to remain silent about this blatant call for violence. Trump talking shit like this is hardly surprising. It is the game he has been playing since he entered the political scene. What is surprising is the silence of other Republicans. The American legal system is flawed but, then, all systems are flawed. We should work to create a better system instead of ignoring the system we have. If we decide to go outside this system, particularly with violence, who knows where that violence will take us. I suspect to a much worse place than where we are now.

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The media was aghast at British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s gaffe in a speech. His big mistake was saying sausages instead of hostages. So what? Any person who gives speeches in front of the public is going to occasionally make a mistake. Starmer caught it immediately and corrected it.

As far as being newsworthy, not so much going on there. It could have been mentioned in a report about the speech but the headlines are screaming gaffe which made his mistake sound like much more than a mistaken word choice. So, readers thinking that Starmer must have really screwed the pooch here, read the damn thing thinking this must be good.

It wasn’t. It was a mostly an article about a mundane political speech at a Labour Party conference. The only thing newsworthy I got out of it was Starmer’s gaffe which should hardly even counts as a gaffe. What troubling circumstances occurred because of this error? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Starmer was momentarily embarrassed over a small mistake. Yet headlines everywhere were talking about it like something earth shattering occurred.