Am I missing a sensitivity chip? Yesterday all the news media seemed to want to cover was Paris Hilton breaking out of jail-- and maybe being sent back today. Why is this a national story? Did the media create it by their coverage (while they ignored issues which seemed to me far more important)?
Even talk on the street, at work, everywhere it was all outrage over Hilton getting out of jail without doing much time. Who cares? Maybe somebody can explain it to me. It's not like we truly thought justice was blind. Has anybody believed that for years-- if ever?
Get a good lawyer and you will be like that skinny little toad, Phil Spector, sitting in a courtroom with a chance to get off after shooting a woman in the mouth. Yeah right a woman who had just met him would walk into his house, take a gun from his drawer and shoot herself in her beautiful face. If any ordinary working stiff had done this would it have even gone to trial? We know why it did-- because he has money. I won't even get started with OJ but it's one story after another like that. We have the best court system money can buy.
Back to Hilton and my own outrage that it became such a huge story. At the same time, we have Putin and Bush posturing like Cold War is back, at a time when Russia has money again (thanks to oil and not being in Afghanistan) and we don't (thanks to oil and being in Iraq), why the hell is a missile shield for Europe even being talked about? Is it over Iran who doesn't have such missiles and has yet to attack anybody except through their current leader's big mouth? Or is it the industrial military complex that must be fed more and more meat? Bush may have let a lot of his former backers down but he's never disappointed his corporate bosses.
Then we have the immigration bill that was shelved. Questions about whether the FBI hyped another terrorist plot that may have been basically created by their own stooges-- a plot that they claimed could destroy more than 9/11 but experts say wouldn't have worked even if it had been tried.
We have every candidate, (in both political parties) who is running for president, acting like he or she is running for the Pope's position. Then there is that girl grabbed in Kansas and murdered, another one to the point that our society has these predators running around everywhere, in every small town, and nothing happens to them for years if they even get caught! Ack I could go on but with all that, the biggest story was Paris Hilton??? I think I might have a stroke.
To me the real story about her is the gladiator sport to which this country has become so attracted. Build up these people like Don Imus, Martha Stewart, Britney Spears, et al. and then watch them crumble. That was the entertainment of the Roman society too before it collapsed.
Why did it matter about Paris even before this? What had she done to become so famous? A sex tape? A silly reality show? Looking beautiful? What was it? I have no clue as all I see is that she gets paid to go to parties and look 'hot' if you define hot as a dull looking pose that she repeats in every photo including her mug shot. Amazing and now she is the meat for the lions. She is pathetic, not to be hated but pitied.
Is it our media that did this to us or are we doing it to ourselves? Why do we care about that silly woman? And yet yesterday on the news channels, that I watched, it was the story all day, with even 'expert' panels to discuss it. I suppose it will be today too especially if she gets sent back.
I guess it's just as well as I should be doing coyote watch... I did get a shot at it yesterday but missed. It was a long way off, then ran across the field which put the neighbor's home behind it. Probably not a risk but I wouldn't shoot in that situation. It headed straight for the cow herd (which again meant too risky to shoot). That cow herd shall henceforth be known as the non-guard-cow herd. They didn't pay it any mind. Maybe they were chewing their cuds over the Hilton story too... grrrrrrrrrrr
18 comments:
I don't get it either. I think there are too many folks that really need to get a life and quit trying to live theirs through all these young women. None of them have anything going except their money and the fact that they are always in the news, usually doing something stupid. I also think it is appalling that the media makes them into such a big thing. You'd think they'd have 'real' news to report. But...reporting real news doesn't get the ratings and the money to them. Plus, they don't even 'report' the news anymore. Everyone has to give their opinion of things. What happened to reporting the news, straightforward and honest. Seems like all they want to do these days is slant it and opinionize so they can attract viewers and advertisers. Yuck. I hardly watch it anymore.
OK First things first. Rain Take a deep breath and please don’t have a stroke. Now that we got that out of the way. I feel almost the same way that you do about all these issues. People are acting like it is a surprise that there are two justice systems in this country. If you are a celebrity such as a Hollywood star or Pro athlete or a Cop or judge or politician then you get a different system than the rest of us peasants.
Putin surprised everyone yesterday with the suggestion that the US and Russia work together on the missile defense system and put it in Azerbaijan. So maybe the Cold War type rhetoric was just a show and now Bush and Putin are back to kissing each other’s asses. But you are right. Why are we even discussing a missile shield for Europe. Shouldn’t the EU be the ones in charge of that? We should be worrying about a missile shield for the US. Maybe I am missing something here.
I too am shocked about all the talk about God and spiritualism by today’s Presidential candidates. Talk about different reactions from different camps on that one. It is like when Clinton said he was getting counseling from religious leaders after his indiscretions with Monica it was seen as an act of contrition. If Ronald Reagan would have told the country that he was getting counseling from key religious leaders about anything the media would have had a field day that he was a religious nut job and he was about to start a nuclear holy war.
On the media, I think it is a little of both. We did this to ourselves and they did it to themselves. As a society we love gossip and dirt. The National Enquirer does not sale 3million copies a week because people want to see a photo of the world’s largest ball of twine. But also the Enquirer got legitimized during the Clinton Administration because the Networks were not reporting on some negative stories about him and the Enquirer was breaking the stories. So because the Mainstream media would not do their job someone else stepped in. That action gave a lot of publicity to other news outlets such as the Drudge report etc. So now to reclaim market share the Networks are having to report on Tabloid journalism events. It seems much of the national news on any daytime radio network is Entertainment news instead of hard news. The entire News business is rapidly evolving with the advent of the internet.
On the non-guard cows. Around here a lot of ranchers have started putting Texas Longhorns in with their herds because they are better at fending off predators such as Mountain Lions. The lions are becoming more prevalent since the State banned hunting them a few years ago.
To me, tabloids are where these kinds of stories belong. If the regular news becomes the tabloid news, we are in trouble because who believes tabloids? Yes they might once in awhile hit on something that really happened like Newt having a mistress while trying to convict Clinton for lying about having a mistress, but generally tabloids are not taken seriously by anybody. If the news wants to compete for that honor, where does that leave citizens for finding out anything? Or is that the general idea?
I think you are on to something here. Who does trust the network news anymore. I think most do not like they used to. Look at Dan Rather using documents typed on MS Word as official from when W was in the National Guard. Besides that the national media mis-report things all the time. I think people need to get their news from several sources (foreign and domestic). So this would mean looking on the internet, where we know everything is true. :-)~
You feel better now?
Paris who?
Yeah, I do know, but as far as I am concerned, she is a non-entity, a nobody, a non sequiter, if you will... Little trampy whores (male or female) like her do not matter...
Actually not, Winston, because first I couldn't watch any TV news today as I knew it'd be immersed in this story, and I'd heard enough of it already. Then I agreed with Ann Coulter ewwwwwww. That is never a good day, but she said the judge was all about getting a name for himself and had sentenced her too harshly to begin which from what I read from LA attorneys was the case. Agree with Ann Coulter? The sky is falling. But from what the lawyers said for a standard parole violation, if it hadn't been the 'evil' Paris Hilton, the usual sentence would be 10 days and they do 10% on average. So all of this hullabaloo over her getting off easy is baloney as in reality because of her past, she got way over what the average person would have. Did you read that that judge got cheered by his church when he went in after the original sentence? It tells you pretty much everything about why it went down as it did. The sheriff knew all of that which probably played a part in the release after 3 full days and 5 official ones. But none of that matters because it gave Sharpton a new chance to get in front of a camera and the public demand for fresh meat must be satisfied. I wonder when TV news will again be safe to view. Maybe someone can let me know.
It is appalling the time and money and airtime, etc. spoent on the Paris Hilton story...You are so right Rain...the Media bukid someone up and then tear them down like they have no feelings or anything. This is all completely horrific...All the News programs are now Tabloids! And bad ones, at that.
The world and this country is going to hell in a handbasket and all they can talk about is Paris Hilton. The "art of distraction"...!
There were Helicopters flying over the hill near my house, ALL day into the late afternoon...! Watching Paris Hilton's House!
We are in deep deep trouble.
I couldn't agree with you more Rain. It's shameful...and shame on the media for giving her the celebrity she has...for doing NOTHING. How in the world did she...and others like her....become a priority in a country that has so many vital and critical concerns. When does someone stand up and say 'enough'? How can we expect to garner respect in the eyes of other nations when we don't even have it in our own?
I think in regards to television news we are victims of our own technology. Photographs coupled with verbal reporting is very powerful by nature. Even if we answer opinion polls initially no immediate response is heard. As we watch and hear the news, passiveness becomes the easy reaction. TV watchers are worse off than the citizens of Rome watching the gladiaters being eaten by lions. Roman spectators were watching among a crowd of other spectators and what they saw was really happening at that moment. We watch film clips of actions over and over again until the even is surreal and twisted to some agenda.
But we are, on the brighter side, fortunate that technology also has developed personal computers and blogs. News programs in the future maybe limited to being a catalog from which we can go to the internet and find what we want to know and immediately make a response.
In regards to tabloids:
When I was going through my grandfather's personal documents, I found in his passport an old dog eared, stained, beaten up article from the "National Enquire." Why would he, a scientist, keep an article from a publisher which deserves little scholarly respect? The article was written around 1948 and amazingly contained information currently acceptable by today's research. Keeping this article with his passport was his way of saying that what we eat is important like a passport to living. The article said keep your weight down to be healthy by trimming fat off meat and remove the skin from chicken before cooking. Broil, bake or roast meat rather than deep fry. Don't eat fatty sauces and gravy. Eat fresh fruit and vegetables and just a little meat. Don't eat a lot of sugar.
Was this eating wisdom known in the 50's concealed by the news we trusted? Or was the truth obvious to a man of scientific training with a father who died young from a heart attack?
I'm going to come stand 'coyote watch' with you - because I just can't take all this media garbage about Paris, either.
Your "who cares?" is right on. NO ONE should. I think it says something pretty sad about us - that this is 'news'.
I caught a bit of the hoopla on Paris on "news"(?) radio driving to work. I knew immediately to not turn on the TV at home as all the local L.A. stations would be covering it. I figured it would be like they've done for car chases with law enforcement in hot pursuit -- for hours! So, I missed it all. Isn't that a shame!
Rain you made a good comment about all of the "worthy" news items that should be discussed over Paris Hilton. While I agree with everything you said, I couldn't help but notice you refered only to news in America suc as the war, Putin, the election. There are so many more events and tradegies in the world that need to be reported inside and outside the U.S.A.
I live in Canada and we get news from La la land as well, and yes it's superficial and mind-numbing. But, all I want to add to that is that we are also bombarded by alot of news about the U.S.A and their problems.
Without atttacking you personally Rain, I want to ask this question? When does America media ever report on issues that don't relate to them? Perhaps, I am being overly judgemental. But I believe America and its media is so self-absorbed that it's no wonder celebrities get as much air time as they do.
It's obviously not the fault of anyone on this blog post because you all seem like worldy, informed and well-rounded poeple. I just had this as an explanation for why she gets so much air time.
hi doodles, good points. We are a worldwide community. Our news does cover other countries (when it's not absorbed with celebrity news which btw even Hilton said was too much about her), like Darfur's tragedy, Colombia's president being ignored when he visited this country, and really Putin with the oil power and possibly a more belligerent attitude is a world issue, not particular to the United States.
We get a lot of little things about other countries, like mistreatment of women in Pakistan in particular the woman who was gang raped and is still having a hard time to not being killed as she tries to do good work for other women. Our news about Canada mostly happens when Canada gets mad at us for something or disagreements on water rights like the Great Lakes. We did have coverage on the recent French election with the battle between the socialist and winning conservative (not to mention the gossipy aspect of their two marriages). We know about Blair out and Brown in... but our main concerns are usually about what our own government is doing because if another country elects someone we don't like, what can we really do about it?
The US is not totally egocentric, but the problem is if we say some other country should do this or that and they'd be better off, how popular would that be?
I used to have a bumper sticker-- Think globally, act locally. I think that's how it must be.
Anytime you want to comment regarding the Canadian slant on anything, please do so. This blog is read around the world which I believe helps us all to better understand each other. Naturally I write it from the perspective of someone living in the United States because it's where I live. I am interested in what others think and that's where comments can add so much value to a blog
Thanks for the response. Actually, I was a little afraid that I was coming off a bit harsh. I'm glad you understood what I intended.
I've always enjoyed reading your "thoughts" (usually those political ones) and I just want to thank you for being so consistent and true to your feelings.
Cheers.
Well my DSL modem got fried by lightning so I have not been able to keep up on the Paris watch in here.
So here are some late comments. II have tried not to read anything about it and I thought the penalty was pretty harsh for the crime since I sometimes deal with people that commit driving infractions, but while watching a baseball game my sister in law told me that the judge had given her an extra harsh penalty because her mother was in court with her and had been a jerk to the judge so he decided to make an example out of her little spoiled ass.
Second thing on the media and Doodles' comment. I think part of the problem with the major network media is that our media stars have been granted movie star status. I mean Larry King gets more than $7million a year to ask softball questions to pre-screened guests. Come on.
The public has a short attention span and a correspondingly shallow intellect. :)
I guess it's safe to say you don't care much for Paris Hilton? (grin)
I have NO clue what any of the hoopla is about with these pathetic celebs! So add me to the list of "I don't get it."
I think it's a combination of both the media and society right now...the media feeds it out and people are disenchanted with their own lives or goals or accomplishments....so they gobble it up.
As for me....None of that total crap appeals to me and I'm with you on being angry that WE have to be exposed to it at all.
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