Archive: Opinions

There is an alarming trend in national news these days to report on what people post online about other people.  "Jesse Williams Calls Trump a 'Pig' Who Incites Fear Against Immigrants," blasts the Huffington Post.  CNN Tech reported, "McDonald's: Anti-Trump tweet came from 'compromised' account".   Fox News got into the act with, "Bow Wow tweets he wants to 'pimp' out Melania Trump over Snoop-Trump feud".

I don't even know what that last one means.  But I do know that what little actual news there is these days is being buried in so-called news about celebrities and politicians tweeting or posting and engaging in online feuds of words that result in articles that amount to nothing better than gossip and name-calling.  This is disturbing on many counts, not the least of which is that I think I may be the only person in the world who genuinely doesn't care.

Would there be so many of these breathless headlines if people weren't reading them, and presumably enjoying them?  It is hard to believe that the revenue-driven mainstream media are so out of touch with their public that they would push the huge volume of this tripe onto the public unless they know it is what the public wants.  I can only conclude that I am the one that is out of touch.

I was stunned to learn that everyone on social media was so invested in the strange way Nicole Kidman clapped her hands at the Oscars award show.  I saw headline after headline about it -- as far as I could see it was the second most important story coming out of the Oscars, the first being a snafu that resulted in the wrong movie being announced as the 'Best Picture' winner.

I can kind of see why that latter story would be big news.  Again I must be out of touch, because watching a bunch of people in an industry I am not part of have an awards ceremony is about as interesting to me as watching paint dry.  But if you are into that sort of thing I suppose announcing the wrong picture might rock your world.

The hand clapping thing threw me, though.  I like Nicole Kidman's work well enough, but so many people that I actually know in real life have so many quirks that I wouldn't have thought an odd clap would mean so much to so many people.  I saw countless articles about this quirky hand clap, and evidently Kidman was so self-conscious about fans lashing out that she gave interviews explaining why she clapped that way.  The Hollywood Reporter featured one such article titled, "This Is Why Nicole Kidman Had a Weird Clap at the Oscars."

When I want to find out what is going on in the world I generally look at BBC News, because American news is so entranced with these odd, gossipy stories that simply obscure actual news.  I am not thrilled that I go to news from a foreign country, even if it is a country with a queen and princes and princesses, and a Ferris wheel in downtown London.  But it is harder and harder to cull actual important things that are happening in our world from the chaff.

But on to important matters: Kidman clapped funny because she didn't want to damage a borrowed, very expensive ring.  Thank heavens we all know the answer to that mystery!

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