As I predicted in my previous post about the Kanye West & Taylor Swift incident, Kanye West, according to People.com, has apologized. To recap, Kanye was, I guess, dissapointed that Taylor’s video won best female video at the VMAs instead of Beyonce’s. He stole the microphone from Swift to make his opinion public. As I later learned, he was most likely drunk when he did this and further I don’t even understand what his point was about Beyonce’s video being one of the best ever.
Well, People.com is reporting that Kanye wasted no time in apologizing.
I still do not think this is enough, and really there is nothing that can excuse what he did. Further, if he were truly sincere, he could have not used all caps, which just makes me cringe. I will be interested to see what Taylor does and I would be so pleased if she wrote a song about this. When she got dumped by the Jonas brother she wrote a song and got in on her album, now hopefully we can see the same thing here. Maybe that will help put a stop to the trend of celebrities acting and thinking they can just apologize it away.
I tried to go to Kanye’s site to get the first hand source, but it is currently down. I don’t know if it has been slammed or maybe he has rescinded his apology.
As I finished my first blog post about the incident on the Video Music Awards tonight, I found out that tonight there were a few shining stars in the show.
First, to MTV, thank you for kicking Kanye West out of the show.
Now, I would like to say the MTV that, while your VMA show is supposed to be a raucous party, maybe alcohol needs to be banned in the future. Apparently when Kanye went on his tirade at the 2006 MTV Europe awards he had been drinking:
I may add these incidents to my pre-prom don’t drink speech next year.
Second, to Beyonce Knowles. She looked out raged when Kanye made his outburst during the show which I think was a general emotion and showed that she was in not one bitter than Taylor Swift won. This is probably in part because, as she says, she knows what it is like to be a young kid being nominated for an award because she was only 17 when she was nominated with Destiny’s Child.
Most importantly, after winning video of the year, she called Taylor Swift up on stage to finish her speech.
In the interest of fairness I went and watched the videos that were in question on the VMA awards tonight. I wanted to do this to see if Kanye West had a point, even though he was out of line as I mentioned earlier. I watched Beyonce Knowle’s video, and I fail to see how it is “one of the best videos of all time.” At a minimum, Waterfall (Destiny’s Child) was better than this and I could probably name four videos from country that are better, let’s see:
See It in Color
Concrete Angel
Waitin’ on a Woman
You’re Gonna Miss This
It is a catchy song, but “You Belong with Me” is, in my opinion, better video, it actually tells a story and is clever and creative. Beyonce’s video is different and kind of cool, but to me it is just dancing to music and doesn’t add anything to the song like Taylor Swift’s does. And, even if you did think it was better, it is not “one of the best videos of all time.”
On a side not, I think “Put a Ring on It” is a great song for weddings when the bride throws the bouquet and I often wonder if writes think about that when they write songs. I bet they do.
In case anyone hasn’t seen the videos in questions from the VMA awards tonight, here are links to both.
Tonight I was watching the Bears game and went to make a tweet about the game and I occasionally like to scan through the trending topics. Well on Twitter (and on Facebook) there were a lot of posts about Kanye West. So, I followed the link on Twitter to search for the story and it said that Kanye dissed Taylor Swift. I was outraged because, as anyone who knows me knows, I adore Taylor Swift. (Yes I’m a 29 year old man and I’m okay with that.)
So, I read a story about it on Rolling Stone and I couldn’t believe it.
Before I passed judgment, I wanted to see it for myself. So, after several Google and YouTube searches involving people’s personal responses, I finally found the clip, posted below.
So, I watched the clip and it was surreal that anyone, I don’t care how famous you are, would go on stage and do that. It was almost as bad and as when Faith Hill had a tantrum when she lost to Carrie Underwood at the CMAs in 2006.
That maybe wasn’t quite as bad because she was at least off stage, but she had to know the camera was on.
In any event, I am starting to see a disturbing trend of public figures acting out in ways that are clearly inappropriate. Kanye couldn’t have thought that what he did was appropriate. Especially, and maybe this shouldn’t matter, considering that this is a 19 year old girl who has done nothing but be a shining role model in the media. Kanye apparently proceeded to flip the bird to the crowd while Taylor was crying backstage.
Then we have Chris Brown who decided that he could beat his girlfriend Rihana to within an inch of her life.
What these people all have in common is that the apologized about what they did after the fact and that was supposed to make it all better. And it seems like we in a America are all to willing to forgive. Now, this may seem contradictory on my part because I have posted that I think Michael Vick should be allowed to play football again, but that is different. The biggest difference is that Vick not only apologized, but he also spent 18 months in custody. Additionally, I don’t have to forgive Vick for him to keep playing football, no one does.
Here is a picture of Kanye leaving the show. Look at his right hand, maybe we will see what the really cause of the outburst was:
I would almost guarantee that tomorrow Kanye West will apologize to Taylor Swift. I would encourage her not to accept it. It can not be sincere. How can a person walk all the way on to the stage, take the microphone from someone, make that statement, and then walk away and flip off the crowd and actually be sorry. President Obama accepted Congressman Wilson’s, I know that, but that is the problem. We live in a society now where public people can do or say what they want and then apologize and it’s okay.
I am not saying we should never forgive people and I am not saying that we shouldn’t move on when conflict occurs, but we also need to hold people accountable when they act irresponsibly when they should know better. The governor of a state should be allowed to just disappear for a week and then just be embraced back into the fold by his state or by his wife.
So, I say, do not just forgive Mr. West. I say boycott his music and his antics until he can behave like an adult. I was thinking about Jay Leno’s return to TV tomorrow, but I will not watch if Kanye is still going to perform. I have occasionally thought of listening to his music because my good friend Jenny likes his music, but that will never happen now. This act stupid and apologize culture needs to end!
Posted 5 months, 4 weeks ago at 9:55 pm. Add a comment
Well, thanks to the trending topics feature of Twitter I found out pretty quickly (actually I was pretty late in Twitter terms) that Ellen DeGeneres will be the new host of American Idol. (You see my wife said to my about hour before I found out that, “Ellen is going to be on Idol,” and I thought she meant my aunt Ellen, so later when I saw the trending topic, she laughed at me.) Here were the trending topics tonight:
So, my initial reaction was a little concerned because I didn’t want this to turn into a scenario similar to when Dennis Miller went to the Monday Night Football booth throwing out witty comments like this:
Now, I’m not saying Dennis Miller wasn’t funny, it just wasn’t the right place for him. I am worried that the same fate might be fall Ellen here. I really think Ellen is quite talented. I didn’t think I would like her show, but I actually find that she is very quirky and funny and runs a good show. I of course only watched it because Taylor Swift was on, but the show was good none the less. So, I still wasn’t sure what Ellen was going to bring to the table because I don’t want to hear Simon Cowell keep saying, “This is a singing competition not a…” insert random weird British saying.
Well, after much reading and think, I may have found the answers in an article on CNN.com:
This made me realize that Ellen’s role will be to help the contestants out with their stage presence and how to conduct themselves as a star. This was the one area Paula Abdul had over the other judges because she had been a performer before. Ellen hopefully will be able help them with their ability to be a star. That is a quality the judges talk about throughout the season about “Being it.” Ellen is “It” and hopefully she can teach what that means to the contestants.
I support this decision by Idol. The chemistry will be odd, because Ellen is different than the rest of the panel. I think Paula will try to pick on Kara Dioguardi, and Randy Jackson and Ellen will kind of hang out together in the cool area. I am still not convinced by Kara, but maybe she will feel more confident since she is not the outsider coming in. I will admit I am little surprised they went back to the 4 judge system when they had an easy out. The must really like the idea, and Idol is rarely wrong.
Tonight was the season premiere of Glee I have been looking forward to ever since the show premiered last May after Idol. I thought the show was at 7, so I was going to skip President Obama’s speech to watch Glee. Well, since Glee actually started at 8, I decided to watch Obama’s speech to Congress. In the end I am very pleased that I did. Obama seems to be a very good speaker. He uses timing and rhythm very effectively to make his points. He is also able to make jokes and laugh about the current and past situations. He is able to admit that he is infallible and he can give credit when credit is due such as when he would point out which Republicans had helped shape the bill.
I also like how Obama directly attacks his detractors and clears up issues. Perhaps there is just as much dishonesty in government with him in charge, I don’t know. I tend not to think so, but in any event, I love how open he is about what he is feeling and what he wants to happen. I also enjoyed how he threatened anyone else who messes with his bill, “We will call you out!” Very forceful and you can tell he isn’t going to take any more crap.
So independent of Mr. Obama’s very good speaking skills, I am not sure what exactly the answer for health care is. I do know this, I have always had health insurance. I went straight from the insurance of my parents as a child to a job where I had good insurance. I have always been able to go to the doctor when I needed to without the worry of spending too much money, I have had a child and not lost my house, I have been taking prescription ADD drugs for 5 years and have not lost my pants paying for them.
I have often sat around and wondered how people in this world can get by without health insurance and am just grateful that I don’t have to find out. So, I have to say that I feel that is a moral duty of this country to make sure that all of its citizens have health insurance. How we go about that, I am not a smart enough man to know. This exchange/public option idea seems to be a good one. It has worked other places so it could work here. I get that by increasing competition, prices could go down.
I definately don’t like the idea of the healthcare being left in our hands. I don’t always think about the fact that healthcare makes up 1/6th of our economy and we can’t just ignore it. It pervades every other thing we do and has a massive effect on government spending. When Obama talks about all of the money (ie government spending) we can save with a new plan, that makes me encouraged that maybe some of the money could get spent on schools and education.
Anyway, I was very happy that I delayed my Glee watching 30 minutes to watch the Obama speech to Congress. It is hard to believe there have only been 15 times when the President has addressed Congress like this. I guess 2 or 3 of them have been in the past decade, so it seems more common. I think he has a good vision of where health care needs to go and I feel like he will actually get it done without too much compromise. I get a sense when he speaks I didn’t get from Bill Clinton (granted I’m older) that the country is at a tipping point and on the verge of serious change. People are ready for the status quo to change (to a new, better status quo.)
That brings us to Glee. This show is right up my alley. As I was just texting with a former student, when I was in high school there was very little drama in my life and I must have felt left out, because I have entrenched myself in high school drama as an adult. I think to some extent I like to live my life as I am watching a TV show where the students are making the same mistakes you see in TV and movies all the time. The only difference is that occasionally they let me in to their world and they let me help them out and it is nice.
I think you have to be a certain kind of person to like Glee. The show takes all of the high school stereotypes and really blows them up. Then you have a lot of ensemble characters who fit these stereotypes and then these 12 main cast members who are complex and deviate for the standard cliques. Like the Quarteback who also likes to sing and the dedicated Glee leader who seems to have the perfect life but has a crazy wife I want to kick in the face. The dichotomy of worlds, in the same world, is what I love about the show and about a lot of the teen movies I love that are just like this.
Having said Glee. The 3 month anticipation for the new episode of Glee was well worth it and I hope this show has a long and happy future on my TV. We got to find out tonight that Lea Michele who plays Rachel Berry (The girl who wants the quarterback but can’t have him) is a tremendous singer!
So, there you have it, three unrelated topics all tied together.
Living in a major city/market is something that a lot of people, I for one at least, take for granted. The first time I noticed this is when I worked at Camp Ma-Ka-Ja-Wan Boy Scout Camp in Pearson, WI. If you brought a TV with you and an antenna you could usually get about 4 channels on the TV from where I worked. One summer I made it a goal to watch the 10 PM news every night. Well, I watched it most nights and I found that the news anchors on the Rhinelander news were no where near as polished as the news anchors as I saw in Chicago. This isn’t an attempt to mock the Rhinelander news anchors, but they were in the minor leagues of news compared to Chicago and they were learning how to pull it off. But, what it made me realize for the first time, was how fortunate I have been to grown up in a major market where you get to see the best news anchors.
I also noticed this when we were on our honeymoon in Orlando. This was a second tier market (if that) and we we were caught in the middle of a hurricane while we were staying at Disney World. While watching the news and tracking the storm, I developed a deep appreciation for people like Tom Skilling who are the best in the business who gravitate towards a major market because that is where the money is.
So, we come to the point of this entry. We in Chicago are fortunate to have some of the best baseball announcers in the country. First, for my beloved Cubs, we have Pat Hughes and Ron Santo. Pat Hughes is clearly a class act and one of the best announcers in the game. He has won the Illinois Sportscaster Award four times and the Wisconsin sportscaster award three times while he was working with Bob Uecker. He spends time before every game reading and researching everything there is to know about baseball. He is smooth, calm, collected, and funny. He has a classic style where he describes the uniforms of the players each game and gives detailed explanations of each hit. One time I heard someone talk about how he was better then the rest because he never just says, “There is a base hit to left,” he always describes the hit, such as, “There’s a hard line drive to left.” If you can’t be at the game, his descriptions are the best.
A reviewer at reviewstream.com points out that Pat’s 12 years of being a color analyst for Bob Uecker taught him what it meant to be a good color analyst and that helps him to work so seamlessly with his partner, Ron Santo. Ron Santo is the ultimate Cub’s fan. A lot of people do not like what he brings to the booth. They are put off by his cheers and grunts and his pure passion for the game. For me, that is what I love about Ron. We were at a Cub’s-Brewer’s game in Milwaukee in 2009 and half the lights in the stadium turned off and my wife said, “I don’t feel complete without knowing what Ron thinks about this.” (Or something like that.) Ron has a wealth of baseball knowledge in his head, and Pat allows him to bring it out. Other announcers would talk over Ron and treat him like an old blathering idiot. But Pat does an amazing job playing the straight man to Ron.
Some of the best parts of the broadcasts are when the Cubs are either winning really big or losing really big and they start running off on tangents. For example, they might get into a conversation about the Munsters or about Ron’s hair piece. My favorite joke was one night if was cold out and Ronnie said he was cold and Par asked him if he wanted a blanker for his legs. (This isn’t really funny unless you remember that Ron has two prostetic legs because he is a diabetic. Pat wasn’t being mean, it is just part of the routine, and I almost dies laughing.) I’m not saying that a more traditional show with Pat and a normal color analyst wouldn’t be good as well, but what Pat and Ron bring is special and when it is over, I will miss it. Even this season, Ron has been missing a lot of road trips and while Dave Otto and Keith Moreland bring a lot of knowledge to the booth, I miss Ron.
If you go to other cities, you just don’t get that kind of quality. Even turning to the White Sox broadcasts you get much more boring and monotonous talk.
However, on the TV side, the White Sox you have one of the best baseball analysts around, Steve Stone. Steve was a Cub’s announcer for twenty years alongside Hary Caray and then Chip Caray before he resigned from the Cub’s after the 2004 season. There are a lot of people who thought Stone was forced out after criticizing the team, but the Cub’s strongly deny that. After a hiatus from Chicago, Stone came back and was an analyst for 670 The Score sports radio and now is working for the White Sox. Steve Stone was also a TV analyst for ESPN and was nominated for the 2008 Ford C Frick Award. Steve Stone is a wealth of baseball knowledge and many times will predict what strategy is going to be put in place before it happens. He explains the game better than anyone I have heard, and in a way that a normal person can understand. Again, if you travel to other smaller markets, the quality drops off significantly. Even in the prior years with Singleton for the Sox you saw a less quality product.
So, there you have it. I am grateful that I live in a major market where I get the best of the best when it comes to sports broadcasting, news anchors, newspapers, etc… We don’t always realize how good we have it but there are times when I notice it, and realize how good we have it here in Chicago.
I feel like everytime I watch The Daily Show I come to the realization that everyone should watch this show in order to see the ridiculousness that exists in the world. He does such a nice job of pointing out the obvious contradictions of the worlds figures. (Of course, it helps to have a staff of people who must just watch C-Span, CNN, Fox News, etc… all day and tag and categorize everything that is said or done.) I feel bad basically just blogging about what Jon Stewart says, but they say that imitation is the must sincere form of flattery, so I guess that is what this is. I want to spread the word of the more hilarious stories he does.
So, on the June 18th episode of The Daily Show, Stewart reports to us how the house republicans are trying to compare what is happening in Iran to their own “oppression” in the house and they are both using Twitter to speak out. Here is one example of the ridiculousness:
I guess I see the point he is trying to make, but sometimes we need to put issues in perspective. The people in Iran are using Twitter because they have no other outlet to the world since the Iranian government has shut down their access. The members of Congress can get on the news whenever they want. I don’t think that Mr. Hoekstra was trying to trivialize the situation in Iran, but it seems like he could choose his tweets more carefully.
But, it’s not just politicians! After a great post on The Nation regarding the use of social networking to report in Iran, this was the response of one reader: Continue Reading…
Posted 8 months, 3 weeks ago at 11:22 pm. Add a comment
American Idol has been over for a few weeks now and I invested a lot of time in that show this season but I was a disappointed with the finale. I have no problem with Kris winning, he is a talented artist and will do a great job. The actual finale, for me, was a low point in the American Idol franchise. There were some good performances, but Idol was trying very hard to recapture the magic they had a few year’s ago when Clay Aiken came out on stage to surprise the geeky wanne be kid. That was the best finale ever.
In this season’s finale, they brought back bikini girl to sing since she was a funny auditioner, which was fine I guess. (Kind of tasteless but she is the one that came to auditions in a bikini.) Then things went downhill from there. (Although it did bring a rather funny point when she walks out with a clearly new boob job and Ryan said, “Well I’d ask you what’s new…”)
First of all Kara felt the need to try and upstage bikini girl in a singing contest like she did during the auditions. This was a huge mistake. Kara Dioguardi is a judge on the show. She does not need to lower herself and prove herself as a better singer than bikini girl. This very act dropped my respect for her a lot. It just shows how petty, ego-centric, and immature Kara is that she felt the need to show up this obviously less competent performer.
So, on top of that, Kara flashes the crowd in a bikini under the guise of “charity.” I don’t even know how to fully express my disgust with this action, but what was the point? Is Kara so insecure with herself that she needs to show off her body to make a point? I am really surprised that Idol sunk to this level and if I had been watching the show with Isaac I would have been pissed! This is supposed to be a family and now there are TWO people in bikinis on stage. Kara needed to be the bigger person.
I of course will still watch Idol next season, and I will give Kara another chance because I am a forgiving person. But if Idol doesn’t pull itself our of the gutter I may need to change my Tuesday night viewing.
Posted 9 months, 1 week ago at 5:00 pm. Add a comment
A while ago I posted about the somewhat unnecessary criticism of everything the President does while in office in regards to the president’s swingset. Now, people are criticizing the Obamas for planting an organic garden at the White House. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart brought this “controvery” to my attention. (Apparently Stephen Colbert did a story on it too.) The Mid America CropLife Association apparently thinks that Michelle Obama planting a garden that won’t use chemicals is going to make people stop buying food that is grown with chemicals. Here is a copy of a letter they sent to “Mrs. Barak Obama” that was leaked out the a blog called La Vida Locavore.
So, this seems reasonable. They are just pointing out that in America we have a good food system. But what is wrong with people growing their own food?
Apparently, not everyone can grow their own food, so no one should. {Shakes head.} In an e-mail the MACA sent out to its constituents sent out to their supporters their true feeling are revealed.
I am not an advocate of organic gardening. I don’t care either way. I believe that food can be grown well with or without chemicals. What just really gets my goat is that the Obamas are not going around saying you have to live organically. They just wanted to plant a garden to promote healthy eating and this group, the MACA, that seems to be supported by plant chemical producing companies goes and makes a big issue out of it and misses the point of the garden, healthy eating.
In case you were wondering who is a member of the MACA, here is a list from their website.
As pointed out on the Food and Water Watch blog, it is especially interesting that they call it “conventional gardening” when people were gardening chemical free for centuries! Now, the organic side is just as biased towards being chemical free as the MACA is towards using chemicals, but the fact that this is an even an issue just makes me feel sorry for the Obamas who are trying to just live a normal life and promote healthy eating.
And, the notion that the White House garden is what is going to lead to people rejecting chemically grown food is ridiculous. I like that the White House grow organically, but the cost of organic food is going to keep me out of that market.
Also, the notion that the White House garden is what will out organic food on the map is also mis-guided. More and more stores, such as Jewel, are constantly increasing their organic sections and this is what putting organic on the map more than the White House is.
Both sides just need to celebrate the idea of growing food and eating healthy rather than focusing on the methodology all of the time.
The two best news shows in the country have covered this issue. Here are the clips.
He starts discussing the garden about half way through.
