I have said in the past that I don’t care for reality television but there are certainly some areas of reality television that are far more creepy than others. Specifically, I am referring to shows like Toddlers and Tiaras — a show that blatantly degrades extremely young girls and sexualizes them in every way possible.
Food Network pusher Paula Deen got her due this week as she finally publicly confessed — after hiding the fact for three years — that she has become a Type II Diabetic. The convenient news of her illness comes as no surprise to anyone who is remotely aware of her lust for cooking with tubs of butter and her fantastical — if completely irresponsible — pushing of a Krispy Kreme bacon burger into the mindless memeing of an ever-fatting middling mainstream American public.
It has been nearly five years since the world exploded with the news that there was a sex tape that starred then mostly unknown Kim Kardashian, daughter of the late high profile attorney Robert Kardashian (read — someone who worked hard to get to be as successful as he was) and musician Ray J. This sex tape was of course filmed in complete discretion and was never meant to be seen by anyone but a private small group of people — perhaps only the two people that were in the tape.
Warren Buffet is a wealthy man. He didn’t get all that money by being dumb, and he’s done an ingenious, if completely disingenuous and shameful, thing — by purchasing his powerful hometown newspaper media empire, The Omaha World Herald.
The word legitimize has some pretty powerful connotations. While researching this article I searched for the word and came across many occurrences of things in the world that were at one point not taken seriously suddenly being treated with respect. For example, one movie review claims that the film “Shame” is going to be the thing to legitimize the NC-17 rating and make it something from which movie producers will not flee in the future. The governor of Washington state recently asked the United States Government to declassify marijuana and legitimize it for medicinal usage. With the release of the most recent update to iOS, the question becomes whether their tight integration of Twitter really legitimizes Twitter as a social networking service.
When the Kardashians are just too much to take one second longer, and when TMZ.com and People magazine are overwhelming in their overweening, I have found a calm oasis for escape where morality reigns and outstanding movie making takes center stage. I’m talking about TCM.com — Turner Classic Movies — and their new iPad App is a wonderful guide for disappearing into the past.
I have written at length about the obnoxiousness of mobile phones and the damage they have done to interpersonal communication in our modern age. It is an age in which people create social bombs to force in person conversation and talk shows tell the audience that mobile phones are prohibited just to get a pleasant show experience. On occasion there is a story that really reaches out and touches you ever so and reminds you that between all of the bad there is the occasional good thing that comes from mobile phones.
