I guess I don’t watch enough TV or read enough tabloids (even in the grocery line). I know that Madonna has been promoting herself for better than a quarter century and I have noticed that Angelina seems to be the top face on the grocery news racks, but what has Reba been up to? I did not even realize that she still existed (aside from some odd TV show I keep stumbling across my daughter watching).
99% of what politicians do. There is only one political issue that I give a rat’s behind about (Basque-Navarrese politics) and I try to avoid thinking about it because it gives me gas and a serious urge to treat Zapatero like Iñigo Montoya would have liked to treat the six-fingered man…
Weather reports giving % probabilities. I’m old fashioned, can we just go back to “sunny in the morning, it may rain in the afternoon”? Thank you!
People who are famous because they are famous.
Well, hell, Lynn took mine. Let’s see…how about trends and/or fashions? I don’t care about those.
Yeah, but at the time the country needed American cheese on white with mayo. It had just vomited a submarine sandwich with pickles, bologna, and whipped cream.
I nominate Kwanzaa. It exists to give local news something politically correct to air in the slow week between Christmas and New Years. What did they spend coming up with the themes- 15 minutes tops? “uhhh- UNITY. That’s a good one…How about …uhhhh…COOPERATIVE ECONOMICS” “Huh?” “Hey, come on, it’s getting late and we need seven candles.”
With Reba it is mostly Lifetime Overexposure Points, though I still see her occasionally on magazine and tabloid covers.
Speaking of tabloids, I probably should have mentioned Bigfoot, who remains Rat’s Ass champion among imaginary monsters. Mrs. J. put a copy of Weekly World News in my Xmas stocking - the issue featuring the “Bigfoot Diet”. Dunno yet what Bigfoot did to lose all that weight (Special K? Cutting back on hunters?) but apparently he can now find his size at Bob’s Big Tall and Hairy.
Anna Nicole Smith. Her evident claim to fame (and I admit to following her story only when I cannot avoid it) is that she is blonde, has big boobs, and an apparent inability to distinguish between real life and a plot summary of events on The Guiding Light.
College coaches who may or may not be replaced, but whose fate appears to matter more than the war in Iraq, the AIDS pandemic in Africa, and major disasters – and who will, whether fired or not, get an annual salary higher than the budget for the entire Division of Natural Sciences.
“Investigative reporters” who believe that everything is a coverup of nefarious activities. The severely ill Deputy Secretary and the 19-year-old temp. covering his office who together managed to fuck up and send out an unsigned contract were not committing fraud – people do make honest mistakes. There’s an old proverb: “Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.”
While we’re on the subject of news stories, how about the sort of commentator who ties everything to the next election – even the (non-political) lead story the day after the last one. They are nearly as bad as the spin doctors. Nearly.
We actually do get decent weather coverage here, with breakins for damaging-winds type stories (thanks, I prefer a little forewarning if a possible tornado might develop and head this way!) and solid coverage of potential hurricanes and the relative likelihood they’ll hit us, but not the Chicken Little sort of coverage Max reports from Lubbock.
Is that girl in Aruba still missing? Can somebody tune in MSNBC for me and find out?
A potential award-winner in the area of Health News is First Lady Laura Bush’s skin cancer. Now, a kazillion pissant lesions like these get lopped off every year, but because the White House didn’t issue a press release and parade Laura out for before and after photos, we’ve got the post-Watergatian dementos muttering about coverups (abcnews.com also gets a prize for referring to the lesion as a “cancerous mole”, which it wasn’t - those are melanomas, not squamous cell carcinoma which is what Laura Bush had).
I for one do not need to hear breathless coverage about every skin ditzel that is removed from the Prez or one of his family members.
“Sources today revealed that Presidential Daughter Jenna Bush is being treated for a large gloppy wart on her big toe. Applications of Compound W have so far controlled the lesion, caused by a Contagious Virus. Rumors of a CDC containment team being called in are being denied. Meanwhile health advocates are criticizing the Bush family for not sending Jenna on tour to lecture young people about the dangers of warts. Exclusive photos of the wart here (caution - image may be disturbing).”
I don’t give a royal rat’s ass about the local news. I don’t understand why they feel the need to have a half hour of local news at five, then a full hour at six. The stories are the same; they just speak more slowly and we are treated to TWO segments of sports and weather, both of which have the same information. They insist on doing that phony “ask the reporter a scripted question about the story in an attempt to show that we are really reporters instead of newsreaders” bullshit. It makes me crazy. “So John, can you tell us if the police wear badges with their uniforms?” “Why yes, Melvin, they feel it makes them look more like cops; back to you and Janie.” And it’s done after every single fucking story.
Back in late winter/early spring 2006, reports that the U.S. was due - nay, overdue - for a hurricane season of record proportions filled the news channels. Every NY station warned that this was the year NYC got its Katrina. Papers showed us maps of the flood plains and dire predictions of all of Queens, Brooklyn and lower Manhattan being returned to swampland. We should have boarded up our home in March, and stocked the attic with enough supplies to last through 6 months of life on a flood plain.
Local news was envious that someone else got a tragedy and took coverage away from NYC. Very, very sad.
Nobody has brought up Paris Hilton yet?!?!
Okay, you caught me. I did look, once or twice.
I thought that was implied in my vaginas statement. 
Sssh! Where dare not speak its name!
I gotta chime in on the sports and celebrities crew.
But I also don’t give a rat’s ass about what the poverty pimps like Jesse Jackson and Quannel X say or do. STFU. If the TV folks would quit herniating themselves to get a camera in front of them, they would just dry up and blow away.
Count me in among the millions of Americans who wouldn’t give a rat’s ass if **Miss USA ** performed analingus on a donkey. I know prettier girls with more talent, and more self-respect, in my own neighborhood. Miss USA is a dinosaur; let it go the way of the dodo.
I’m going to go local now.
My 2006 Rat’s Ass Award goes to posters who whine about the Mods being unfair/biased/mean/snarky. My tolerance for transgressions committed by folks who volunteer hundreds of hours of their free time each year, is pretty damn high. So unless a Mod is currently torturing puppies, do us all a favor and sulk in silence.
The space rock is coming 2036.
And in other rat’s-ass news, British authorities have spent considerable time, effort, and money confirming that Princess Diana is, indeed, still dead. From a car accident. As exactly originally reported.
O fucking J fucking goddam motherfucking Simpson.
The fact that some politician has decided to run for President before 2008! Look, asshole, election years suck ass, there’s no point in spreading the pain out any more. It doesn’t dillute the pain, but prolongs it. I don’t care how good you are, if you announce before the middle of next June, I’m not going to vote for you.