Hillary and Me

This is from Media Bistro

As 2009 comes to a close, we’re giving you a look at how the cable news networks grew during the first decade of the 21st Century. In the case of Fox News, stratospheric growth of nearly 570% over 10 years. The charts track each network’s Nielsen ratings average for each of the last 10 years, from Dec. 27, 1999 – Dec. 23, 2009. First, the total day ratings averages for Monday-Sunday. And after the jump, the A25-54 demo.

Wondering why such a dramatic growth?  Hmmm maybe this post from Bill Mann will tell you why.  Never heard of him?  Me neither … I happened across his post while I was slumming over at HuffPo. Apparently I don’t get out much.

If fact, if YOU watch FOX News you don’t get out much either.  Must be the bitterness and gun clinging that is keeping us in.

The Huffington Post piece added that shows like the dimbulb “O’Reilly Factor” have kicked ass this year. But isn’t that what the thuggish Bill-O does..kick ass? Well, beat up on people.
I’ll let you in on a little secret among many of us TV critics. One you may well have already guessed. There are a lot if shut-ins out there. Lots of them.
My daughter, for example, lived until recently in an apartment in the San Francisco Area above a woman she never met. The woman’s TV was on literally 24 hours a day, and tobacco smoke wafted from her dreary cocoon. She left her door ajar, presumably to let some smoke escape, so I could hear what was on TV when I walked past her door. The woman, who wasn’t disabled, rarely went out (and she wasn’t elderly), and she was watching mostly Fox News. Quelle surprise!

And that boys and girls just about says it all.

When we were in college we used to have a word for pompous idiots like Mann, we used to call them flying assholes.  Yup, Mr. Mann is a Flying A!

If you want to see just how big a Flying A Mann is, read the rest of his article … that is if you can put your cigarette down long enough ( with those tobacco stained fingers of yours) and click over there.

Well, I stayed up to hear Letterman’s apology.  I figured it was best to hear it first hand . . . it’s clear he still doesn’t get it.  For starters, the apology was all about him and his having told a bad joke!

I’ve got news for you Dave, this wasn’t about a poorly crafted joke or a flawed joke.  And  it doesn’t matter one wit that you really meant to direct the joke to Palin’s older daughter.

Are we really supposed to believe that because her older daughter is 18 that your  jokes were OK?  Really?

I am so sick and tired having to write about this time and again.  Verbal violence of this sort is unacceptable … period!  I thought we got this straight in the 70′s with the women’s movement . . . violence against one woman is violence against all women!

Know what one of the biggest differences between men and women is?  Every woman, at one time or another has had thoughts about rape.  I don’t know a lot of men having to deal with that possibility.  Women question what they would  do if it ever happened . . . could they survive a violent attack.

I don’t care what color she is, what socio-economic class she comes from, her religion, the country she lives in . . .  every woman has had to contend with thoughts of violence at one time or another in her life.Who doesn’t have story about some jerk copping a feel, or about a close call in college or high school when it could have happened, but luck and quick thinking prevailed.

The problem with Letterman’s jokes, is that they reinforce stereotypes in the minds of the sickos out there.  This kind of joking makes it seem like the sickos have permission to physically and verbally abuse women.  Sorry, that’s true . . . so don’t tell me these were only jokes.

And while I’m at it, did anyone give any thought to what kind of ridicule, Willow or Bristol might possibly face  among their peers?  No, of course not!

So, here’s my sentence for Dave Letterman, a once clever and funny mad man of late night TV . . . Dave , you get to spend weekends for the next six months visiting rape crisis centers.  You listen to the stories of the broken lives and broken hearts . . . and you tell these women how you were only joking!