Have we really not moved past this shit in 90 years?
I’m going to make a confession. I have an unhealthy obsession with theToday Show on NBC. A good part of this is because I only have broadcast TV, so I only get five channels. However, there’s something else–something ineffable. I just can’t look away. It’s so awful. Rather than it being informative, I actually forget things I used to know while watching it. It basically serves as a validator of mostly-white, upper-middle-class, suburban values and stereotypes. At least they know their audience.
Anyway, this morning, like the rest of the media, they were happy as pigs in shit because there’s a sex scandal to talk about. With salacious transcripts! Now, irrespective of what you think of Spitzer (I think he’s a hypocritical fuck, but I also think that no one deserves to lose his or her job over consensual sexual encounters, whether money is exchanged or not.), the majority of the coverage of this event has been tabloid-level at best.
Leave it toToday to set the bar even lower. A rictus-grinning Meredith Vieira introduced a panel of two women and one man to discuss the following oh-so-enlightened question: “Why do men cheat?”
That’s right. As if women never do. So, basically, you have both the whole women-as-passive-victim and women-as-asexual stereotypes wrapped right up in that stupid, stupid question. You also have the goddam idiot “boys will be boys” idea tied to the query. Shit. To get that kind of sexism, you usually have to go to a fundie church or Free Republic. “Why do men cheat?” Again, it’s not just men–women do as well, asshole. And there are lots of reasons. Like any other social phenomenon, it’s fucking complicated. Looking for simple answers to complex questions is akin to, as my grandmother loved to say, pissing into the wind.
How in the fuck do these people command the huge salaries they receive? Arrrgh.
How in the fuck do these people command the huge salaries they receive?
Hey, it takes a lot of money to manufacture consent.
Love your line about, “I forget what I previously knew” as a great description. The way they rehash basic things over and over and over as if they are something new.
OTOH – I remember a survey where some outrageous number of folks didn’t know you could get AIDS from sex, shared needles, etc. What rock do these people live under? (but it is an explanation for those who think Bush is doing a good job and Iraq is going peachy keen).
Closely related, it seems epidemic that the newscasters for local news will add interjections such as “and get this” to call your attention to the stranger / sexy points. I’m listening to the news, I don’t need the newscaster to try to raise purient interest with catty interjections. And then the 5 PM news will give a teaser and say that the story will be covered at 11 PM. Well if it is news, shouldn’t they go ahead and report it?
Commercial broadcast television, just say no. Read a paper. Why wait till 25 after the hour for the weather, when you can get it online, when you need it.
You’re not missing a damn thing. Lost, Survivor, 24 — that shit will waste your time and rot your mind. And, god help, do not pay for anything more than basic cable, and that only if your reception is crap (I am planning to try an HDTV tuner to see if we can give Comcast the heave-ho).
Wheel Of Fortune, Jeopardy, and PBS. That’s about it.
Commercial broadcast television, just say no. Read a paper. Why wait till 25 after the hour for the weather, when you can get it online, when you need it.
You’re not missing a damn thing. Lost, Survivor, 24 — that shit will waste your time and rot your mind. And, god help, do not pay for anything more than basic cable, and that only if your reception is crap (I am planning to try an HDTV tuner to see if we can give Comcast the heave-ho).
Wheel Of Fortune, Jeopardy, and PBS. That’s about it.
We can at least be sure that Spitzer is a Democrat – Because he had hetrosexual sex!
Did any of them advance the theory that men cheat because women is bitches what are mean to them? I love that one. Also, that men are powerless in the face of the urges of their cocks?
These are fascinating questions for a national news show to address.
A.
and no mention of the MANY protitutes servicing JFK.
get cable Jude. or turn of the boob tube. save your brain cells.
Well, to be fair, it does seem that only men let their dicks lead them down the path to ruin.
If Spitzer actually did it (I’m waiting for the court case; innocent until proven guilty after all), he does deserve to lose his job, since hebroke the law. In this case, it doesn’t matter if the law was illegal, immoral, fattening, or between two consenting adults (the issue of how much “consent” there is in prostitution — even highly-paid prostitution — where there’s a massive power imbalance between solicitor and seller, is another matter), he broke the law, and I don’t think that’s a good example to set. On the other hand, I thinkall the law-breakers should be out on their asses. I’m kind of equal-opportunity that way. If Spitzer needs to be out, fine. Vitter should be out. Craig should be out if he isn’t already. Whoever Jimmy-Jeff Gannon-Guckert was seeing in the WH should be out, pronto. Et cetera.
Pardon me if I sound like a complete hardass here, but I do think legislators of all sorts need to keep their noses clean.
And if Spitzer actuallydid this, I’m a terrible fucking judge of character. How stupid do you have to be toknow you’re a huge, highway-sign neon orange target andnot know better than to do something you know damn well is illegal, even if you don’t agree with it?! Case in point, I don’t agree with cannabis prohibition laws, but if I were in Spitzer’s place, I wouldn’t even want to be seen in the same room as someone smoking a joint, ferchrissakes. With a thousand slobbering goons out for his blood, you’d think he’d be a little more careful.
1) Oy Vay !!! Just looked at TP :
“”Why do men cheat?” Schlessinger argued that Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D) cheated because his wife failed “make him feel like a man”
As a male, I find this explanation quite satisfactory 😉 Wouldn’t this imply that all females are prostitutes dreaming of their man? And that their husband is a selfish pimp?
Closely related, all this boys vs girls in the so-called “news” reminds me of a kiddie show (The Popeye Club – kind of like the Bozo Club but with Officer Don as the host). They would have games; just before the game they would loudly ask whether the boy or girl would win. For some reason, all the boys would scream boy and all the girls would scream girl.
I don’t know or care why he did it, but man, why did he pay so much for it?? Prestige value?
Jude, I have 7 channels. Woot!
Also, I wonder what Jeff Gannon of Talon News has to say on this story?
Did anyone have the guts to say “we cheat because, like most mammals, we like to fuck and unlike some other species, we don’t always mate for life. So you have some people who like to fuck a variety of people, which is sort of difficult for the married folks when polygamy/polyandry is illegal.”
See, if they would say stuff like that, which is still simplifying the complexity of human relationships but at least takes it out of the “men think with their dicks” and “woman don’t put out enough” realm, THEN I would have some respect. And if nothing else, the sounds of heads exploding all over the country would be entertaining.