Okay, I haven’t seen her yet and I haven’t had the
nerve to find out when she appears on Fox News, and I know I keep
saying I’m not going to write about her any more, but I don’t know how much longer I can go without seeing Sarah Palin and Bill O’Reilly chatting on national television. It’s just too good to be true.
I can’t even fathom what this will do in terms of butchering the English language, but it ought to be mind-boggling. Has anyone out there had a chance to take any of this in and if so, will you please e-mail the Flyer and have someone from the staff forward it to me? I could just look for her, but I’m afraid my morbid curiosity will keep me so glued to the show that I may never recover.
I did read something about one of the recent shows that was such a teaser that I feel my time to watch is nearing. It was a transcript of a conversation Palin and O’Reilly had about their vacation likes and dislikes. If the conversation was anything akin to the transcript, I’m afraid I’m going to have to learn how to TiVo. Apparently, Palin only feels comfortable vacationing in the middle of nowhere, and O’Reilly’s main complaint is that no hotel will take his reservation because everyone hates him. This transcends justice. Can you imagine what restaurant workers might do to their food in the kitchen before serving these people? I shudder to think.
But no more about Palin.
I also saw an interesting interview recently with an “investigative reporter” for thedailybeast.com, a website I have never seen. The reporter’s name is Gerald Posner, and watching the interview was both difficult and riveting. I don’t know much about the guy, but it seems his mission in life is to track down “sources” who can provide him with details about Tiger Woods’ relationship with his wife, their marriage, what transpired between them when the news broke about Woods’ affairs, etc. As I watched Posner answering the questions about his “reporting,” I felt sorry for him at first, thinking, wow, what a dismal, sad, and moronic way to make a living. But then it became pretty clear that he actually likes doing this and is indeed proud of doing everything but getting on his hands and knees and digging through their garbage to find out the seediest details about what two adults (well, more than two, I guess!) do in their private lives. Even though my day job at a nonprofit is never going to make me rich, I feel so lucky to have it and to not have to resort to dissecting the private lives of “celebrities.”
That whole “journalistic” world is like a cult of vultures, and I don’t think those who participate in it are even aware of it. Every time I see one of the young “experts” from People magazine or TMZ or any of the other garbage “news” sources pontificating about the trials and tribulations of this star or that one, it becomes obvious that they really think they are making a contribution of some kind to society.
It points to my long-held theory that free speech isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. There should be limits. It should be illegal for anyone to keep reporting on Tiger Woods’ personal life. And Pat Robertson should not be able to make remarks about the children of Haiti deserving to die because of some imagined pact the Haitians made with Satan 100 years ago. He should not have the right to inflict that kind of stupidity on people. Or — hmmm — maybe he should. Maybe if he says things that are that stupid, no one will ever listen to him again and he will go away — like a disease that’s finally been treated. Same with O’Reilly and Palin. Maybe they can all go on vacation together and get lost.
