Mma News: Jul 2, 2009

When Reality TV Stars Go Bad, Who?"s to Blame?
Thursday, July 2, 2009

Apparently, reality TV couple Spencer and Heidi Pratt - who got their start on MTV?"s The Hills and are now a part of this summer?"s I?"m a Celebrity - Get Me Out of Here - have run afoul of one of NBC?"s reality programming head honchos with their latest attention-getting antics.

They are everything that?"s wrong with America,? executive vice president of alternative programming for NBC and Universal Media Studios, Paul Telegdy, said in a statement to Access Hollywood. ?SThey are insincere, lazy, entitled and they claim the devil has possessed them.

Apparently the couple not only demanded the royal treatment, but threatened to quit more than once and basically acted like a couple of spoiled brats.

I?"d like to ask Mr. Telegdy: what did he expect? Reality shows take everyday people and turn them into minor celebrities overnight. It?"s not like they had to work for years honing their craft while they waited tables and went on endless auditions, hoping and praying for their big break. (Of course, if one or both of your parents is Hollywood royalty, you skip that part and move right on to the big time.) The only ?Swork? involved in reality stardom is standing in line to audition, hoping to get picked; although sometimes people with unusual life circumstances are approached by producers who hope to exploit their lives for ratings that translate into dollar signs (think Nadya Suleman, lovingly referred to by society as the ?SOctomom?).

So think about it: one day you?"re just an average person, perhaps an office drone or a stay-at-home mom whom no one would look twice at while at the grocery store or standing in line at the movies. Next thing you know, every detail of your life is laid bare for public consumption, you?"re chased down daily by the paparazzi, and your every move, including your hairstyle and weight, is dissected on shows like Entertainment Tonight. The entertainment media that feeds off of celebrity like a pig at the trough is really quite nauseating at times.

Granted, it can be said that people who seek such fame are asking for it. All you have to do is see what happens to others, like Jon and Kate Gosselin, whose marriage seems to be unraveling and who have dominated the news headlines for weeks. Or Susan Boyle, whose sudden rush to fame via Britain?"s Got Talent with a boost from YouTube was so stressful that, after being labeled the favorite to win but coming in second in the show?"s finale, she checked into a clinic citing ?Semotional exhaustion.?

But really, who is truly prepared for the pitfalls of fame? We?"ve seen professional singers and actors, who are supposed to know the ropes, crash and burn. (Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan come immediately to mind.) Suddenly wealthy and surrounded by yes-men and other sycophants hoping to somehow cash in on the cash cow, it?"s hard to keep real life in perspective.

Heck, even being an amoeba in the large ocean of internet publishing can be unsettling at times. I?"ll never forget my first ?Syou?"re a ****? e-mail from someone who didn?"t agree with something I wrote. It?"s truly unpleasant, but unfortunately it also comes with the territory. I?"m working on getting a thicker skin.

So the Pratts are acting like prats. Naturally, much of the blame lies with their crass attitude and what Paul Telegdy of NBC noted as their sense of entitlement. But what of the responsibility of reality TV programmers? They put on these shows because they?"re popular and are relatively inexpensive to produce and essentially create the monsters that populate them. Who can forget the hapless Stephen Fowler of Wife Swap, whose contemptible treatment of his guest wife Gayla Long earlier this year earned him the hatre d of millions across the nation? It cost him both personal and professional embarrassment, and likely had a negative impact on his own marriage. He claimed that he was egged-on by the show?"s producers to ham it up. From what I?"ve seen, I doubt that he needed much egging.

But no one will ever really know, and surely the show?"s director and producers bear some responsibility for the final product. Reality TV isn?"t spontaneous; it?"s scripted, manipulated, and edited for entertainment and shock value. Big gasps equal big ratings. Someone at the gym I go to even speculated that the Gosselins?" marriage issues are a put-up job intended to boost ratings.

Then there?"s us - the public. We put these individuals up on a pedestal and wait like vultures for them to slip up so we can trash them at the first opportunity. Nothing says schadenfreude like gloating over Contestant A being voted off the island because he lost the bug eating challenge for his tribe.

And what happens to these reality stars when the cameras stop rolling? Some manage to use their experience as a stepping-stone to bigger and better things as Elisabeth Hasselbeck did. Others manage to return to everyday life. Still, others likely have difficulty adjusting to their loss of celebrity and must deal with depression, etc. But there?"s always a fresh batch of suckers around the corner, waiting for our thumbs-up or thumbs-down.

When you look at it, there?"s really no one person to blame when reality TV stars go bad. We?"re all culpable in one way or another. And what does that say about us as a society?

When Reality TV Stars Go Bad, Who?"s to Blame?

[Source: Good Times Society]

When Reality TV Stars Go Bad, Who?"s to Blame?

[Source: 11 Alive News]

When Reality TV Stars Go Bad, Who?"s to Blame?

posted by 71353 @ 10:19 AM, ,

Wendy Long May Have More in Common with Sotomayor Than She Thought

PDF

If you’ve been following the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, the term “reverse-racist” has undoubtedly appeared in a story you’ve read. Rush Limbaugh branded Sotomayor a ‘reverse-racist’ on his radio show, while Newt Gingrich labeled her a racist when he posted a statement on his Twitter account.

Some right wing groups claim that Sotomayor is a judicial activist who will bend the law based on her own personal views.

Wendy Long of The Judicial Confirmation Network, a conservative-leaning organization involved with judicial nominations, sent a letter to Senators yesterday outlining these concerns:

“Judge Sotomayor challenges the belief that the law needs to be knowable and predictable . . .”

Long accused Sotomayor of embracing judicial activism, and claims that “when judges drive such change, based not on the written Constitution and laws enacted by the people, judges use their own sense of personal "justice," based on their own experiences, personal views, feelings, and backgrounds.”

Sadly, the facts get in the way of Long’s argument. Take, for instance, Sotomayor’s ruling in the case of Pappas v. Giuliani. In short, the case involved Thomas Pappas, an employee of the New York City Police Department, who was fired for mailing racially offensive, anonymous letters to organizations that had solicited him for donations.

A reverse-racist, judicial activist, such as Sotomayor, must have ruled in favor of the city, claiming that Thomas violated the rights of others through his offensive remarks, right?

Wrong. It turns out that Judge Sotomayor did exactly what Wendy Long would have wanted?"she made her ruling based “on the written Constitution and laws enacted by the people.” Citing the NYCLU’s briefing on the case, Sotomayor and her Second Circuit panel concluded that:

“The reduced free-speech protections accorded to public-employee speech related to the workplace also extended to private and anonymous speech by employees that took place away from the workplace and that was unrelated to the workplace”

Rather than let her personal beliefs get in the way of her ruling, Sotomayor upheld one of America's oldest laws by defending a bigot’s right to be a bigot.

Wendy Long May Have More in Common with Sotomayor Than She Thought

[Source: Good Times Society - by The American Illuminati]

Wendy Long May Have More in Common with Sotomayor Than She Thought

[Source: October News]

Wendy Long May Have More in Common with Sotomayor Than She Thought

[Source: News Argus]

Wendy Long May Have More in Common with Sotomayor Than She Thought

[Source: Wb News]

Wendy Long May Have More in Common with Sotomayor Than She Thought

[Source: News 4]

Wendy Long May Have More in Common with Sotomayor Than She Thought

[Source: Sun News]

Wendy Long May Have More in Common with Sotomayor Than She Thought

posted by 71353 @ 8:50 AM, ,

"Push Harder"

PDF

Jon Cohn sees an increased Obama emphasis on cost-controls in healthcare reform. Ezra seconds:

The MedPAC changes under discussion are, in other words, nothing less
than a new process for health care cost reforms. They empower experts
who won't be intimidated by the intricacy of the issues and sidestep
the filibuster's ability to halt change in its tracks. MedPAC, of course, is restricted to Medicare. But there's little doubt
that where Medicare leads, the health care industry follows.

"Push Harder"

[Source: Good Times Society - by The American Illuminati]

"Push Harder"

[Source: News Station]

"Push Harder"

[Source: China News]

"Push Harder"

[Source: Wb News]

"Push Harder"

posted by 71353 @ 8:35 AM, ,

What Kind of Book Will Bob Woodward Write About Obama?

PDF

What Kind of Book Will Bob Woodward Write About Obama?

[Source: Good Times Society - by The American Illuminati]

What Kind of Book Will Bob Woodward Write About Obama?

[Source: News Weekly]

What Kind of Book Will Bob Woodward Write About Obama?

[Source: Cbs News]

What Kind of Book Will Bob Woodward Write About Obama?

[Source: The Daily News]

What Kind of Book Will Bob Woodward Write About Obama?

posted by 71353 @ 7:54 AM, ,

Shuffleboard in Puducherry

PDF

Steve Herzfeld managed an admirably inventive end-run around high healthcare costs for his Parkinson's- and Alzheimer's-afflicted parents. After in-home care was no longer possible, he priced American nursing homes, but found that the cheapest acceptable option was still $6,000. So he sent them to India. Quality elderly care in Puducherry cost less than his father's fixed income. According to the Guardian:

[In India, Herzfeld] could give his parents a much higher standard of care than would have been possible in the US for his father's income of $2,000 (£1,200) a month. In India that paid for their rent, a team of carers—a cook, a valet for his father, nurses to be with his mother 12 hours a day, six days a week, a physiotherapist and a masseuse—and drugs (costing a fifth of US prices), and also allowed them to put some money away...."In India, they really like older people," says Herzfeld, describing how the staff seemed to regard his parents as their own family.

Of course, the care was inexpensive because a couple thousand bucks goes further in Puducherry than it might in, say, Fort Lauderdale. Herzfeld, though, apparently believes that it was cheap because elderly care in America is greedily overpriced by providers. He vents about about healthcare and the profit motive:

[Herzfeld] believes that India could teach the US and UK a lot about care of the elderly. "In America, healthcare is done for profit, so that skews the whole thing and makes it very inhuman in its values," he says.

I try not to begrudge a man his fantasies, but the idea that the nurses, valets, and masseuses of Puducherry were doing it all out of the goodness of their hearts—rather than the goodness of their paychecks—is condescending. It was simple outsourcing, not subcontinental altruism, that saved Steve Herzfeld so much money.

In Reason's May 2009 print edition, Ronald Bailey wrote about the outsourcing of hip replacement.