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Jewish World Review Jan. 28, 2011 / 23 Shevat, 5771 Just My Opinion By Greg Crosby
Don't blame me, don't blame regular folks, and don't blame society for what one homicidal sicko does. Don't blame gun makers, don't blame conservative talk radio, and don't blame "hate-filled rhetoric." Just blame Jared Loughner, the insane guy that did it. He did it, not Sarah Palin, not Bill O'Reilly, not the Democratic Party, not the Republican Party. You can't look to logic to explain the actions of a psychopath. Some people don't want to face the reality that there have always been nut jobs like Loughner in the past and there will be more of them in the future, I'm sorry to say. It's one of those unfortunate, terrible facts of life. Nothing society can do will completely stop idiots like Charles Manson, Mark David Chapman, or Jared Loughner from killing people when their internal demons lead them in that direction.
Truthful executives are about as common in the entertainment industry as are conservative Republicans, but there is one top TV executive who should get an award for at least being honest. And the award goes to … CBS Entertainment President Nina Tassler, who was asked for her reaction following "Two and A Half Men" star Charlie Sheen's latest crazy rampage which included a wild, drunken, cocaine-sniffing night that left a New York hotel room trashed and sent Sheen to the hospital. This on top of a guilty plea last summer to assaulting his wife in Aspen, Colorado. Tassler said Sheen is a professional who shows up for work, does his job, and the sitcom is a hit. She then added, "That's all I have to say." What she was saying, in other words, was that she and CBS don't really care what Sheen does as long as the show's ratings remain high. While Nina Tassler won't win many accolades for high moral standards, at least she is honest in her self-serving, mercenary way. Go ahead, Charlie, knock yourself out… but keep those ratings up, up, up!
And is it narcissism or simply good old fashioned chutzpah that drives Oprah to start a television cable channel and call it OWN? It stands for Oprah Winfrey Network, of course, and yes it is her initials, but still… It would be like calling your business ALL MINE or GRAB. It would actually be funny if it didn't come off so greedy sounding. The name OWN sounds like a Mel Brooks movie joke. As a matter of fact in "Silent Movie" he had the movie studio's parent company called ENGULF AND DEVOUR.
Life has millions of little irritants and one of them for me is the proliferation of television sets in almost every public gathering place. Televisions have been a staple in neighborhood bars for decades beginning in the early 1950's when TV was still a novelty. The so-called sports bars have televisions of every size and in every corner, but that's what the places are designed for and I have no problem with that. But is it really necessary for every single bar, even the old classic bars in famous hotels, to have several large flat screens all over the place? And it's not only bars. It's getting to the point where many restaurants have TVs in all four corners of the dining room too. My barber has no less than four of them in the small shop. My doctor's office waiting room has a large flat screen that I'm forced to listen to whether I want to or not. And let me tell you, when I'm sick and waiting to see the doctor having to listen to Regis and Kelly doesn't help my condition. Not at all. I've seen televisions in supermarkets, gas stations, public buildings, and in taxi cabs. Who gets into a cab and wants to watch TV? And are we really so addicted to television that we need to watch The View while standing in line at the checkout stand? What no one seems to be aware of is that very few people are actually watching these televisions. I've looked around the joints and I'm telling you no one cares about them. The set will be on, sometimes without sound, and most of the time not a single person is watching it. So why is it on? For the employees? No, they aren't watching either. It's just another one of those things I'll never understand, like people using their little phone/cameras to take photographs of everything in the world every minute of the day, including close-ups of their own faces. How dumb! Just my opinion.
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© 2008, Greg Crosby |
Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||||||
