I've just cancelled my cable service. $110 a month, for what?
 
I spent much of the weekend trying to find information about the situation in Nepal but every "news" channel was reporting the same stories: Bruce Jenner and some morons burning sh*t up in Baltimore. If they mentioned the earthquake at all it was to talk about those poor millionaire mountain climbers. By Monday it was as if those 5,000 people hadn't died horrible deaths and a million more aren't in danger of starving or dying from cholera. F*** this, it's not worth $110 a month to watch Big Bang Theory reruns, even if they are in HD.

When the earthquake first hit, even when it was clear that thousands were dead, a few newspaper sites I visited had upwards of 10 Bruce Jenner stories at the top of the page, including the banner headline. The Nepal stories were much further down. 
 
My beef isn't with the fact that these celebrities are famous, after all fame has never been a reliable indicator of talent or worth and the brain dead masses have always been terrible at judging value. What p*sses me off is when their inane antics are considered more newsworthy than anything else in the world. 
 

What bit-flipper said.

The BBC news is nothing but Earthquake and elections.  If I didn't come here I'd still be under the impression The Kardashians was an indi-pop band..

Ham N Egz

jbow
She should give all her medals back.... She competed as a man and has recently said that she has always been a woman. You can't have it both ways, or can you?
 

 
I am not agreeing with his/her life change , but let me play devils advocate,,
 
should we make Wendy(now) Carlos erase/destroy Walters(then) recordings of Switched on Bach?

Absolutely!!
 
Of course, I really don't care but that is hard to "get across" on an internet forum. I think we have gone nuts as a society. Some things that seem obvious to me as right or wrong, to some other people are either a grey area or they feel completely different. In those cases I find it better to not talk about it (especially online) because nothing is ever gained. No one is going to change anyone else's mind and I will NOT engage people who take a post apart line by line and try to refute every line, post it and expect a response. I just don't have the time for that nor any desire to do it. I've never seen that sort of thing here but I used to frequent a now defunct forum that started as an offshoot of the original HCGF, it went through several name changes but ended up as the guitardiner. They had a subforum called The Grill Room. It was infested with people who didn't participate in any gear or guitar related forums but just hung out there and attacked anyone with any hint of a conservative view on anything. That is where I learned that it is pointless to have a serious political or religious or a serious discussion of any kind on an internet forum.
When I post on a subject like this, as I did about the medals, I am always trying to be humorous... sometimes I am not successful but bottom line, I know I am not going to change anyone's mind on anything and no one is going to change my mind either and I am REALLY glad that politics and religion are (mostly) not allowed on this forum.
I think this whole Bruce thing is really sad. It is sad for someone to be this confused and unhappy. He is to old to be going through the stress and meanness of middle school. He has set himself up to be used by some and abused by others but that is just the way it is. I feel really bad for him The Kardashians.. I do not feel bad for, I think they are just complete idiots and people I would not have anything to do with. Who wants to be famous for having a freakishly big butt? What kind of person is that?
There is SO much that I don't get these days.
If what someone does has no harmful effect on anyone else then they should be left alone. If they infringe on my rights or your rights then they should be stopped. In other words your rights end where mine begin and mine end where yours begin and the government should just back off on a lot of things like marriage.
A personal trainwreck is not my idea of entertainment.

It seems that the more socially useless a job is in America, the more we are willing to compensate (pay) for that position, and it makes me want to vomit.  We value (pay) a foreign baseball player $25,000,00 a year to hit a ball and run around some bases several times a year, and there is absolutely no socially redeeming value to this event.  And yet we pay our teachers a measly $30,000 a year, hardly enough to survive, and their job is to (try to) make our children into tomorrow's leaders and to be well educated.  I think that's one of the most important things we can do in society.  Same goes for police protection.  How many folks are willing to be thrust into the dangers that they see for $25,000 a year??  Not me!
Jenner and Kardashian may be INTERESTING (to some people) albeit, but VALUEABLE to society?  Hardly!!  Just shows you how warped our American values have become.  *sigh*

 

tbosco
It seems that the more socially useless a job is in America, the more we are willing to compensate (pay) for that position, and it makes me want to vomit.  We value (pay) a foreign baseball player $25,000,00 a year to hit a ball and run around some bases several times a year, and there is absolutely no socially redeeming value to this event.  And yet we pay our teachers a measly $30,000 a year, hardly enough to survive, and their job is to (try to) make our children into tomorrow's leaders and to be well educated.  I think that's one of the most important things we can do in society.  Same goes for police protection.  How many folks are willing to be thrust into the dangers that they see for $25,000 a year??  Not me!
Jenner and Kardashian may be INTERESTING (to some people) albeit, but VALUEABLE to society?  Hardly!!  Just shows you how warped our American values have become.  *sigh*

 
Maybe it's the philosophy major in me, but I agree to disagree on such thoughts.  Not hat i am a fan of the kardashians.  Reality tv is stupid to me but does not upset me. I'm sort of a pragmatist , so as nice as paying teachers more sounds, the truth is teaching pays higher for a bachelor degree than most entry level jobs one can get with just a BA and no specific training. Anyone, without being tought hotw to actually teach, can become a teacher wit ha 4 year degree in any subject. A baseball player does not make millions because he is contributing to society but because people are willing to pay for the things that make his salary possible.  The moment tax payers are willing to pay up to thousands per seat to watch people teach will be the day teachers make similar salaries.  Also the teachers are underpaid mantra assumes that all or most teachers are actually good teachers. Unfortunately many teachers on a pre college level are there as a means to relieve student loans and hate teaching. i didn't learn **** from my actual teachers.  i had one high school teacher who said he go paid whether i showed up to class or not.  I had some outstanding teachers but the average was just that. the average teacher in our school district gets paid 42,000 for 9 months work and our district is average at best. As for police. I'm sure if you feel protected by police you probably do feel they deserve more. For those of us who grew up in areas with corrupt police forces, paying them more is the last thing on our minds. To me that is a wash.  The values thing i find hilarious (no offense meant).  Our values are no more warped then when we thought it was ok to own people, whorehoueses were legal, cocaine was seen as a cure all and in coca cola and other projects, it was ok to employ kids in coal mines, it was legal to rape your wife and so on. Any period in history has it's share of questionable morality. yes, the kardashians and our culture's obsession with celebrities is silly, but on the scale of horrible things in our history, it is hardly a sign our "values" are more warped.

Dub,
Good points. Plus, a married couple where both teach full time can make $100,000+/year  and have good benefits. On a global basis, that's good compensation for teaching school. And there are always the three best reasons for being a teacher: June, July, and August.
 
Teaching is a calling with an opportunity to gain personal /professional/spiritual satisfaction above and beyond any financial compensation you might receive, a benefit that is forever unavailable to purely avaricious non-entities such as the Kardashians.
 
Bert

dubdisciple
 

tbosco
It seems that the more socially useless a job is in America, the more we are willing to compensate (pay) for that position, and it makes me want to vomit.  We value (pay) a foreign baseball player $25,000,00 a year to hit a ball and run around some bases several times a year, and there is absolutely no socially redeeming value to this event.  And yet we pay our teachers a measly $30,000 a year, hardly enough to survive, and their job is to (try to) make our children into tomorrow's leaders and to be well educated.  I think that's one of the most important things we can do in society.  Same goes for police protection.  How many folks are willing to be thrust into the dangers that they see for $25,000 a year??  Not me!
Jenner and Kardashian may be INTERESTING (to some people) albeit, but VALUEABLE to society?  Hardly!!  Just shows you how warped our American values have become.  *sigh*

 
Maybe it's the philosophy major in me, but I agree to disagree on such thoughts.  Not hat i am a fan of the kardashians.  Reality tv is stupid to me but does not upset me. I'm sort of a pragmatist , so as nice as paying teachers more sounds, the truth is teaching pays higher for a bachelor degree than most entry level jobs one can get with just a BA and no specific training. Anyone, without being tought hotw to actually teach, can become a teacher wit ha 4 year degree in any subject. A baseball player does not make millions because he is contributing to society but because people are willing to pay for the things that make his salary possible.  The moment tax payers are willing to pay up to thousands per seat to watch people teach will be the day teachers make similar salaries.  Also the teachers are underpaid mantra assumes that all or most teachers are actually good teachers. Unfortunately many teachers on a pre college level are there as a means to relieve student loans and hate teaching. i didn't learn **** from my actual teachers.  i had one high school teacher who said he go paid whether i showed up to class or not.  I had some outstanding teachers but the average was just that. the average teacher in our school district gets paid 42,000 for 9 months work and our district is average at best. As for police. I'm sure if you feel protected by police you probably do feel they deserve more. For those of us who grew up in areas with corrupt police forces, paying them more is the last thing on our minds. To me that is a wash.  The values thing i find hilarious (no offense meant).  Our values are no more warped then when we thought it was ok to own people, whorehoueses were legal, cocaine was seen as a cure all and in coca cola and other projects, it was ok to employ kids in coal mines, it was legal to rape your wife and so on. Any period in history has it's share of questionable morality. yes, the kardashians and our culture's obsession with celebrities is silly, but on the scale of horrible things in our history, it is hardly a sign our "values" are more warped.

I agree with you on most of your points, but as a "Devil's Advocate" I'd like to consider this:
first, it may be that our society is still immoral enough in the sense that they don't want teachers or police to be paid more.  if our society were to put enough emphasis on a better system (more training, better requirements, better checks and balances) then higher pay for them would naturally follow.
 
also, I understand there are corrupt cops and as in your case you lived in an area where they were prominent.  but suppose we had a better system in place and did pay them more - wouldn't that be a way that the system would balance it self better so that there would be fewer corrupt cops?
 
and finally - not really a "Devil's Advocate" kind of thing, but I do agree with you that it is our socio-economic system which supports paying sports players insane amounts of money.  we've done it ever since the inception of televised sports and the amounts they are paid continue to grow as the years go by.  my problem with that is I disagree with our society, which I understand puts me in the minority regarding how sports players are paid.  I would like to see more of a balanced system there as well, but that will likely never happen unless our economy collapses, which of course, I don't want that either.  guess I can't be pleased! ;-)

Money IS the root of all evil.....lol.