Run Him off the Road and At Least Elvis Had Style

He pulled an "Elvis" while on the can. Whitney offed herself in the second most predictable way possible for crack whores. (#1 is hurling yourself off the balcony of a Hollywood high-rise onto the roof of 1985 sedan, ala Lethal Weapon) I'm not really clear as to why so many of you are so saddened to hear of her passing. I've railed on these pages for years that athletes don't cry when one of their fans die and I bet Whitney would shed a tear over your obituary. Look she was a heck of a singing talent who made poor choices in her personal life and decided to finally end it. This is not a tragedy. Innocent Syrians being murdered by their government is a tragedy, your best friend getting diagnosed with cancer is a tragedy. Are you starting to get the idea? In fact, I'm going to argue that she did this purposely with the goal of going out on top. I wouldn't be surprised if she did it knowing that the Grammy's would have to do a tribute to her. Nothing like a national stage to sell some more records. Do you think she's get anything more then a two second message on next year's show if she offed herself this upcoming Wednesday? Sure it's twisted but now you know you're thinking about it. Lastly on this topic, America's moral compass, Geraldo Rivera, had the nerve to say that New Edition fans were despicable for cheering Bobby Brown at a concert the other night. He says that Bobby killed her. Um, Geraldo, I'm pretty sure that was the drugs which were her choice. She choose to kill her own career, much like you did when you went searching for Capone's vault. Remember?

Speaking of moral compasses, conservative action group American Majority is trying a new advertising venture. It seems that it's no longer enough to run tv spots reminding us who believe that every American should be happy and free to choose whom they want to marry or what they want to do with their bodies are morally corrupt and going to a place lower then Hell (Salt Lake City has some openings from what I understand). Now they are trying to deliver that same message at 200 miles an hour with their turn signal stuck in "left". American Majority is trying out this "high speed" marketing idea. Their target audience, rednecks and goobers who have enough time off from work (habitually unemployed) to travel from their homes in an RV and camp out all week in the small grassy area inside a giant paved oval. I think it would have been easier just slapping a sticker on the side of Milwaukee's Best cans. Besides then people could read your message as they fade in and out of consciousness. The only way anyone would notice your race car is if hits a pebble on the rack and heads into the crowd (birth control) or if by some miracle their second tier driver manages to win (Socialist redistribution of wealth). Either way they and their values lose. I recommend throwing your race support behind a proven winner or at least a team who is powered by gasoline instead of inflated sense of righteousness.

Gustav Blows Hard. Reporters Blow Harder.

The good news is that Gustav seemed to have spared New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast from the same catastrophic damage that Katrina produced thee years earlier as all the localities seemed much better prepared and communications with all levels of government were cohesive and working. However there was some bad news to report too. Bad weather brings bad reporters out too. As Paul Farhi reports in today’s Washington Post, there was a “High Chance of Blowhards” out in the New Orleans region too.

Before I begin to rip network news anchors a new one I do want to mention that Jim Cantore and the rest of The Weather Channel crew are excused from this discussion because reporting in bad weather is there sole job! Also excluded from this “ripping” are the camera and audio operators who also brave this weather but usually get nothing but a quick shot of (as Farhi puts it): “...the disembodied hand of a TV camera person wiping the rain-spattered lens in the middle of the correspondent's report.” Now on to the show.

I only wish that you fine readers out there who haven’t been a network news room when a big story hits could get that chance and hear the powerbrokers for the “big” anchors battle out to see who gets to go to cover the big story live. Now I don’t mean live like actually in the thick of danger...that goes to the lower peons. Unless of course you are Anderson Cooper and no longer the golden boy at CNN or you’re Geraldo Rivera and you are a complete idiot. No these peons are the ones who have to go into danger and cover a story that really can be accomplished with just a camera operator and a producer shooting and airing live footage while an anchor talks over top. These are the peons who are so desperate to move up the corporate ladder that they put their lives in jeopardy by going out in a hurricane and telling everybody why they should stay inside.

Then we have the aforementioned “power brokers” (Katie Couric, Matt Lauer, et al) who cover these same events live but at the prerequisite safe distance so as not to put their “face” in danger of the same peril that befalls the lower rungs out in the field. These folks sit up in directors chairs at least ½ mile, if not more, away from any danger and smile for the audience bringing us stories of the survivors who “rode it out” and of Fluffy the cat who swam all the way home after being carried away by flood waters (or was that Geraldo who was looking for dinner??). Unfortunately my desire to see all the field lights fall onto these phonies has yet to happen but that’s why we keep watching. One day this kind of catastrophe will come true and then I can go back to watching Sports Center. Da-na-na. Da-na-na!