Well, I'm finally gonna get this show rolling. In my weekly news wrap-up, I'm going to try to cover all of the ridiculous things you've seen and read over the past week. And there's no better place to start than with balloon-boy! Actually, there's also absolutely nothing useful to say about it. All this self-involved 'father' wanted was attention, so I'm gonna leave this alone.
Now onto some real news that actually might matter...
* According to White House sources, apparently Fox News isn't actually news at all. I haven't seen this story run anywhere else, but according to foxnews.com, the White House is actively calling on the other major news outlets to join with them against Fox.
Huh? Okay, I get that Fox News has without question a right-leaning bias, but does the White House seriously think this makes any sense? This is the exact type of partisan nonsense that I thought Obama was going to avoid. In 4 or 8 years when a Republican gets into the White House, are we going to reverse this process and call out left-leaning MSNBC, ostracize them from the news world, then re-invite Fox? Of course not!
We all know the media that we get is biased. It's a simple fact that someone else is filtering exactly what and how the news is broadcast to you. To claim that Fox isn't news because of this is stupid partisan hackery. Yeah. It turns out that both Republicans and Democrats are partisan hacks; who'd a guessed!?
The important thing for all of you out there is to make sure you understand the bias of your source. Understand that when you read Fox, you are likely getting it through a Republican's eyes. Understand that even in a news agency that you think is neutral, the people reporting have opinions of their own and there is no way to avoid having those opinions effect your reporting. The internet is great. There is a lot of news reporting from each side of a story, which allows us readers to collate data and form better opinions of our own.
The White House should feel lucky that so far it seems no other news agency wants to be part of their ridiculous tomfoolery. But no news organization wants to open those floodgates at all.
* Something a bit lighter... Some parents upset at Where the Wild Things Are movie! A recent cnn.com article highlights parent's frustration at the movie based on Maurice Sendak's classic children's book.
Apparently, some parents are upset because it wasn't actually a movie intended for their children after all. These parents cite things such as their 5-year old daughter copying Max's tantrums and even biting her mother in the same fashion as Max does in the movie.
To be perfectly honest here... How is it that parents suck so much these days? Did these parents just assume that the PG rating couldn't possibly mean their child shouldn't come to the movie? Seriously, when your kid is 5 years old, it's hard to justify taking him or her to see any movie that isn't rated G without screening it first. Didn't these parents read a single review of the movie? (Here's one from cnn.com)
I saw Where the Wild Things Are on Friday evening, and there is no way in hell I would have taken a 5 year old to see it. The movie was clearly geared towards older children and adults who had a nostalgia for the book; it was clearly not geared towards the child you still read it to every night. The movie was powerful, deep, and did a fabulous job at expressing a child's inner frustrations. Max absolutely matures through his experience with the Wild Things in ways that your young child will not understand. Parents be warned; read reviews and check out movies for yourself before you take your children to them.
Since I brought it up - sorta - here's a quick shout out to my parents who decidedly do not suck. You couldn't ask for better, unless you're a 10-year-old smart-aleck kid. At the very least, they never threatened to tie me to a helium blimp and let me float up to 7,000 feet; that's gotta count for something.
* Iran Nuke talks have finally started... I think.
Has there ever been so much nothing to happen given how much of an issue this is supposed to have been? The war of words and political posturing in relation to the Iranian nuclear issue has far outweighed any substantiative change in anything. It is now October 19th as I write this. Obama has been in office for around 9 months. It seems that everyone important also agrees that it is probably too late to stop Iran from getting the bomb anyway. Iran continues to state that under no circumstances will it stop enriching uranium, and yet somehow the only headline I can find on the issue says that today the talks were 'off to a good start' (cnn.com article).
I guess that I probably won't get killed because Iran gets a Nuke, but I'm still not a big fan of that prospect. Diplomatic talks on this issue should have started a months ago if they were going to do anything productive. I'm perfectly happy with diplomacy, but does anyone actually believe Iran is being genuine? Anyone!? I'm sure that a lot of crap happens behind the scenes to which the public isn't exposed, but seriously... Iran is just stringing everyone along.
* Lastly, I'm going to finish with a bit more humor. Well, it's humor to some and a serious offense to others. Immigrant rights activists are once again up in arms. This time, it's over an out-of-this-world costume.
Take a look:
Acquired through nbcloasangles website. Originally from Target.
The chief complaint... This quote is attributed to Angelic Salas on many news sites. Salas is a member of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles
[It's] distasteful, mean-spirited and ignorant of social stigmas and current debate on immigration reform.
Here's a question... err... comment... What? When you say something like that, you really need to explain why it's distasteful, where the malice is, or what about the costume is 'ignorant of current debate.' In fact, I'm not even sure what a satirical costume being ignorant of current debate means.
Check out this quote taken from cnn.com:
Jorge-Mario Cabrera, the director of communications for CHIRLA, said he initially thought the costume was a stab at harmless satire. But when he saw the Green Card, he realized it was a swipe at illegal immigrants.
There's no way the Green Card makes or breaks this costume. Actually, the only thing it does it make the costume confusing, since having an up to date Green Card is the definition of being here legally. Considering that, it could be fair to argue that the costume was unfairly taking a swipe at legal immigrants who are being unfairly discriminated against due to the existence of their illegal counterparts, but that's probably a bit of stretch.
In actuality, the swipe is that the depiction of an extra-terrestrial as the illegal 'alien' dehumanizes these illegal immigrants. That's the claim at least. That's what Salas probably means by 'distasteful.' However, I'm pretty sure that the costume is making fun of the terminology, not the people.
I hope yall enjoyed my take on things. If you have question, comments, concerns, feedback, bored ramblings, etc, let me hear it. If you have something you want to hear about, leave a comment and I'll look into it.
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