I'm making a hut in the woods....
I can't take it aymore, so I've decided that I'm going to go march off into the woods somewhere, build myself a hut, tame a racoon as a pet and live off the land. And don't act like you don't know why either, you know damn well why. Britney Spears and Kevin Federline are no more. What hope is there for the rest of us in this world if these two can't make it?
OK, obviously I'm not really concerned about the break-up of those two and I'm not really planning on going out and living in the the woods (at least not yet anyway). Nor am I planning on taming a racoon as a pet, rather a moose because I could at least ride a moose right? I mean it's bigger and stronger than a horse and it's totally individual right? OK, now I'm getting off topic. The reason I'm ranting is I just found out this divorce business while persuing CNN.com. It was the top link under their "top stories" heading. Now, on a normal day, this wouldn't irritate me all that much, but in case you haven't noticed, today is election day.
Yup, it's that second Tuesday in November again when the people of America are called to vote for filling various forms of their government. Here in New Hampshire I got to vote for a Governor, US Representative and two state reps, all in the same day. This is possibly one of the biggest mid-term elections in recent memory. There is question as to whether or not the majority in the US House or Senate could sway back to the Democrats, which would lead to all kinds of questions. What will happen with Iraq? What about the Bush adminstration tax cuts? There are a whole myriad of issues (as their are during any election) that are up for grabs here. Also, if there is a power shift in both houses, what does it mean for the current adminstration? Does is mean they'll be in a lame duck position for the next three years since they don't have the votes to push through issues on their agenda? Like this administration or not, is it good for their to be a lame duck presidency for a prolonged period of time?
So with the country at the polls, what does CNN.com have as their top story under latest news? The impending divorce between Britney Spears and Kevin Federline. Granted this under a special coverage section with a few links to articles relating to the elections today. But all it takes is a slight scroll of the mouse and there the top story is Brintey and Kevin. That is the type of story that should be burried deeper today than wherever the hell Jimmy Hoffa is. Why does this type of story even sinff the light of day on a day like today?
I know why it does of course and so do you. There is a large contingent of peolpe that like this stuff, in fact they live for it. How else can you explain magazines like People, USWeekly, InTouch, InStyle and every other celeb magazine that is essentially the same thing, just with a different lay-out. There are entertainment "new magazines" on televison (Entertainment Tonight, Accesss Holywood) that are just broadcast version of the junk that shares newsstands with magazines like, Newsweek, Time and Rolling Stone.
The job of any news organization it seems these days, whether they are print, broadcast or digital is to draw in as many readers/listeners/viewers as possible. Is it possible that a story on the divorce of the aforementioned two would draw more readers than stories about the election? Probably is what I thought, so against my better judgement I clicked on the "Most Popular" tab for stories and my fears were realized. The divorce was story number 1, followed by a lawsuit involving Britney and a sex tape at number two. Number three was a story about Faith Hil and something she did at the country music awards, followed by something about "Real Borat seeks apology" There, at number 5 on the most popular list was a story titled "Parties duking it out over Congress".
There it was, at number five on the most popular links. I'm not going to say that I was surprised and honestly, I don't know who to blame on this one. Part of me wants to be irritated at a site that runs stories like this during an election day. But there's the other part of me that wants to be irritated that the most popular stories to that point of the day had nothing to do with the election and that the top two had to do with Britney Spears.
There had to be more compelling stories out there, right? Maybe it's just the time I checked it at, somewhere a little after 5pm. Maybe as the night goes on, the Britney crap will get burried. I'm almost scared to watch the news at all tonight for the fear that I'll lose it if they mention that story during a time they should be covering what's going on in the elections.
Please don't read too much between the lines here. I'm not overtly political, nor do I claim to be or ever aspire to be. It's just there are certain times when believe it or not politics can be important and today is one of those days. Over everything else they should get top billing, especially whether or not two schmucks, one a famous singer/dancer/whatever and one a famous sponge due to his marriage to the singer/dancer/whatever, are getting a divorce. They'll still be filing for divorce tomorrow and the public can learn about it then.
Of course there will still be things to learn about the election tomorrow too, but by then results will be tallied and winners declared and it will be OK to share that spotlight a little, but not too much. In a perfect world, we would find out about their divorce a week from now, but alas the world is not perect, so we'll have to live with the consequneces.
I'll admit too that I'm not always putting news up on a pedestal or election news for that matter. I'm a sports junky and more often than not, I'm scanning ESPN.com rather than CNN.com or the BBC on-line. That being said, today is a day where I made sure to read some election speak, because like politics or not, it's important to have a clue about what is going on. In fact I haven't even made it to ESPN.com today. I stopped by CNN.com first, to see what they had to say and well, they didn't have much to say, which in turn caused me to have a lot to say. In fact it was my original intent to talk about some sports related stuff today, due to their tie-in with politics. 15 years ago today, Magic Johnson announced that he was HIV positive and 21 years ago Rubin "Hurricane" Carter was realeased from prison after serving 19 years on a murder charge that was later dropped.
I hoped to talk about those two men and how they became the heads of causes. How they took a bad hand they were dealt and some how played their way into winning the whole pot. How they made not only their lives, but lives of countless others better. Basically, I was going to talk about how political changes can be made even if you don't identify yourself as political. But instead I got sidetracked and wound up talking about Britney Spears and Kevin Federline....slight drop off in suject matter you might say.
Is there a moral to all of this rambling? Maybe there is and maybe there isn't and since I know what my intentions on the rambling was, I'll let you figure out what it means to you on your own. Until later....
OK, obviously I'm not really concerned about the break-up of those two and I'm not really planning on going out and living in the the woods (at least not yet anyway). Nor am I planning on taming a racoon as a pet, rather a moose because I could at least ride a moose right? I mean it's bigger and stronger than a horse and it's totally individual right? OK, now I'm getting off topic. The reason I'm ranting is I just found out this divorce business while persuing CNN.com. It was the top link under their "top stories" heading. Now, on a normal day, this wouldn't irritate me all that much, but in case you haven't noticed, today is election day.
Yup, it's that second Tuesday in November again when the people of America are called to vote for filling various forms of their government. Here in New Hampshire I got to vote for a Governor, US Representative and two state reps, all in the same day. This is possibly one of the biggest mid-term elections in recent memory. There is question as to whether or not the majority in the US House or Senate could sway back to the Democrats, which would lead to all kinds of questions. What will happen with Iraq? What about the Bush adminstration tax cuts? There are a whole myriad of issues (as their are during any election) that are up for grabs here. Also, if there is a power shift in both houses, what does it mean for the current adminstration? Does is mean they'll be in a lame duck position for the next three years since they don't have the votes to push through issues on their agenda? Like this administration or not, is it good for their to be a lame duck presidency for a prolonged period of time?
So with the country at the polls, what does CNN.com have as their top story under latest news? The impending divorce between Britney Spears and Kevin Federline. Granted this under a special coverage section with a few links to articles relating to the elections today. But all it takes is a slight scroll of the mouse and there the top story is Brintey and Kevin. That is the type of story that should be burried deeper today than wherever the hell Jimmy Hoffa is. Why does this type of story even sinff the light of day on a day like today?
I know why it does of course and so do you. There is a large contingent of peolpe that like this stuff, in fact they live for it. How else can you explain magazines like People, USWeekly, InTouch, InStyle and every other celeb magazine that is essentially the same thing, just with a different lay-out. There are entertainment "new magazines" on televison (Entertainment Tonight, Accesss Holywood) that are just broadcast version of the junk that shares newsstands with magazines like, Newsweek, Time and Rolling Stone.
The job of any news organization it seems these days, whether they are print, broadcast or digital is to draw in as many readers/listeners/viewers as possible. Is it possible that a story on the divorce of the aforementioned two would draw more readers than stories about the election? Probably is what I thought, so against my better judgement I clicked on the "Most Popular" tab for stories and my fears were realized. The divorce was story number 1, followed by a lawsuit involving Britney and a sex tape at number two. Number three was a story about Faith Hil and something she did at the country music awards, followed by something about "Real Borat seeks apology" There, at number 5 on the most popular list was a story titled "Parties duking it out over Congress".
There it was, at number five on the most popular links. I'm not going to say that I was surprised and honestly, I don't know who to blame on this one. Part of me wants to be irritated at a site that runs stories like this during an election day. But there's the other part of me that wants to be irritated that the most popular stories to that point of the day had nothing to do with the election and that the top two had to do with Britney Spears.
There had to be more compelling stories out there, right? Maybe it's just the time I checked it at, somewhere a little after 5pm. Maybe as the night goes on, the Britney crap will get burried. I'm almost scared to watch the news at all tonight for the fear that I'll lose it if they mention that story during a time they should be covering what's going on in the elections.
Please don't read too much between the lines here. I'm not overtly political, nor do I claim to be or ever aspire to be. It's just there are certain times when believe it or not politics can be important and today is one of those days. Over everything else they should get top billing, especially whether or not two schmucks, one a famous singer/dancer/whatever and one a famous sponge due to his marriage to the singer/dancer/whatever, are getting a divorce. They'll still be filing for divorce tomorrow and the public can learn about it then.
Of course there will still be things to learn about the election tomorrow too, but by then results will be tallied and winners declared and it will be OK to share that spotlight a little, but not too much. In a perfect world, we would find out about their divorce a week from now, but alas the world is not perect, so we'll have to live with the consequneces.
I'll admit too that I'm not always putting news up on a pedestal or election news for that matter. I'm a sports junky and more often than not, I'm scanning ESPN.com rather than CNN.com or the BBC on-line. That being said, today is a day where I made sure to read some election speak, because like politics or not, it's important to have a clue about what is going on. In fact I haven't even made it to ESPN.com today. I stopped by CNN.com first, to see what they had to say and well, they didn't have much to say, which in turn caused me to have a lot to say. In fact it was my original intent to talk about some sports related stuff today, due to their tie-in with politics. 15 years ago today, Magic Johnson announced that he was HIV positive and 21 years ago Rubin "Hurricane" Carter was realeased from prison after serving 19 years on a murder charge that was later dropped.
I hoped to talk about those two men and how they became the heads of causes. How they took a bad hand they were dealt and some how played their way into winning the whole pot. How they made not only their lives, but lives of countless others better. Basically, I was going to talk about how political changes can be made even if you don't identify yourself as political. But instead I got sidetracked and wound up talking about Britney Spears and Kevin Federline....slight drop off in suject matter you might say.
Is there a moral to all of this rambling? Maybe there is and maybe there isn't and since I know what my intentions on the rambling was, I'll let you figure out what it means to you on your own. Until later....
posted by MC at 2:17 PM
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