Ahh
the fall classic. The leaves must be falling, cool breezes are blowing,
and my chocolate suede car coat readies for another season. No, I am
not the copy editor of the J.Peterman catalog, just a baseball fan.
And it
must be the Yankees vs. Red Sox once again. I know this because the
Pedro Martinez takedown of Don Zimmer has just eclipsed the falling of
the second tower as the most aired video clip across all the combined
Fox Networks. At this point like most of you and your kin, I've been
scarred for life by both.
For
the easily offended, well your easily offended and it's too late for me
to make it up to you. But I have no intention of taking these matters
lightly. Just as the Bush administration and its public relations
people, (for convenience sake, let's just call them Fox News) have
hijacked the 9-11 footage to use in its campaign for 4 more years of
wiping their ass with the Constitution. Wow, I think that last sentence
was offensive in too many ways to name. Perhaps I should say wiping
their asses with the Constitution. At last that will get the Grammar
Police off my ass. Are they still independent or are they now part of
Homeland Security, too? If anyone would like to reply with just how
many ways that last sentence was offensive, that's cool. Someone told
me the other day that this was still a free country, although they
spoke in hushed tones and in tongues at the time.
Where
was I? Oh yeah, Bush used 9-11 in his campaign advertisements to show
how strong and resolved he is. And then he told us about how resolved
he is. And then he told us again.
Now I
have a bit of a problem with this because to put it briefly, 9-11
happened on his watch, and there's enough stories about all the
warnings and briefings that were ignored, that there's no need to link
to them. Everyone knows, or knew and forgot and went shopping. Me too I
got a sweet pair of shades at PacSun today. Then I remembered again.
So anyway this behavior is despicable. Using peoples deaths in the worst tragedy to befall the U.S. to get more votes.
I
don't look at planes the same way when I look up in the sky, especially
when they're flying at just the wrong angle. You know the angle I'm
talking about, you saw it, too.
Today
in Atlantic City I saw a young Dominican and a crotchety senior (I
never actually looked up the definition of “crotchety”, but I'm sure it
means something like “full of piss and vinegar”) in a heated debate and
I started having flashbacks. As the elder moved in closer, I nearly
fainted expecting to see his younger adversary palming his skull and
sending him to the asphalt. Post-traumatic Zimmer syndrome does not
appear in WebMD, and I'm pretty sure any drugs I take to combat it
won't be deductible on my Schedule A.
Ok…I'm
overdoing it but now we're getting to the point of this rant, and
actually where it all began before my Tarantino-esque typing sent me
back up top of this diatribe. So what follows is the beginning, and I'm
not re-typing it again so let's hope this prologue meshes well, and
hasn't sent you back to your usual pron-crawling.
Does
it surprise anyone that Fox is broadcasting both playoff games at the
same time? It doesn't make sense ratings-wise to pit both of your
networks against one another and sabotage ad revenues, since true
baseball fans are spending about 4 hours flipping between games, as
opposed to spending 8 hours watching them at different times. 3 of the
4 teams are from great baseball markets which should ensure high
ratings no matter when the games are broadcast. So to the
less-than-average joe, it seems like a dumb business move and someone
should lose their job.
But it's Fox.
Fox knows exactly what they're doing.
The
final Presidential debate is on right now. As I'm typing. It'll be done
by the time you are done reading this. And I can't tell you about it
either. Because I'm watching the Red Sox and Yanks (1-0 Yanks in the
bottom of the 2nd right now, by the way).
Fox
knows that the greatest baseball rivalry of all time is a much greater
rivalry than Bush versus Kerry and is exploiting that truth, so less
Americans will see Bush embarass himself on live television
against John Kerry. And even if Bush doesn't put his foot in his mouth
at any time, Fox isn't taking any chances.
The
presidential debate could only worsen things in “the polls” for King
George II. Now I know my accusations of Fox bias is nothing new.
Michael Moore told you (and showed you), the Outfoxed guy did the same
thing, as well as any Democrat you've talked to for more than 5 minutes
about the state of the U.S. media.
If ABC
can re-broadcast the Desperate Housewives and Lost season premieres, a
la HBO's treatment of the Sopranos and Sex in the City, would it be too
much for FOX to re-broadcast the presidential debates?
This just in…
…straight from the Fox News ticker…
…they are…
…Superbowl Sunday.
Thanks, Uncle Rupert.
That's
it from me, the idiot who decided to miss both baseball games and the
Presidential debate, because he got a bug up his ass to launch version
2.0 of his blog.