Tuesday
Nov072006
The Most Important Event in 12 years
Tuesday, November 7, 2006 at 11:05PM
Well, it's official. We are on the precipice looking over into a world full of promise, everything is different. We have the lame duck and on this, the most important night politically speaking since 1994, the big story is...Britney Spears filed for divorce. Yep, you heard me, Britney and K-Fed just couldn't make it work. After two years, and two kids (and several dozen nannies I imagine) the irreconcilable differences have just become too much for Britney.
In other news, and believe me this is way less important, it looks as if the Democratic party has taken control of the House of Representatives for the first time since the Republican Revolution of 1994. Now I now what you're thinking, who cares right? Britney is divorcing K-Fed, how could any of us be thinking about politics? Well, I suppose for those of us in a little place I like to call the real world, and I believe I speak for most of us, who gives even the tiniest rats ass about some celebrity divorcing her husband? Well, apparently CNN, NBC, ABC, Fox News, MSNBC and just about every other national news source feels that it is important enough to be in constant (and I do mean constant) rotation on the news ticker. Right beside oil prices falling a full $1 to $58.93 a barrel (which is really good for all of our wallets), which received only one space to Britney's 3.
It's been a long time since I watched election returns closely, to be honest, it's been a long time since I felt like there was even the slightest possibility of change in our government, and I wanted to be able to witness it first hand (or at least third hand on TV). So to be honest I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention to the ticker for the first two hours, but then, during a lull between talking heads projecting victories for democrats in races that had 15% of precincts reporting, I glanced down, and there it was and yet we wonder why our society is so obsessed with Hollywood. Could it possibly be because our the media is obsessed with Hollywood? Could it be that Americans feel so disenfranchised that on a night where the political landscape in America shifted noticeably to the left that Americans really care more about the private lives of a pop star who hasn't released an album in nearly five years (that is a complete and utter guess in that I truly have absolutely no idea when Britney Spears' last album came out). Maybe it's just me, but perhaps the reason that American's can't grow out of their prepubescent interest in Tiger Beat stardom is because the media won't let them.
Now, I suppose that it may be just a bit presumptuous of me to tell anyone what is and is not news, it may even be a little bit arrogant and even pretentious, but it's late and I don't care about anything Britney Spears does and more importantly, neither should anyone else. Maybe there is some truth to the statement that there are no dumb people just dumb media. Yet, these news outlets wouldn't be carrying the story if they thought no one cared, would they? They have to know that there are celebrity obsessed automatons somewhere just thirsting for more information on the lives of people who they will never see in person, let alone meet. I missed the Daily Show tonight, but I really hope that John Stewart just skewered the hell out of this.
In other really important news (and I'm being serious now), it looks like South Dakota's ballot referendum (Referred Law 6) on abortion is going down to defeat. This may be the best news of the night. This referendum, if upheld, would have created the most stringent abortion laws in the country and was a direct assault on Roe v. Wade. I am glad to see that even in a blood red state like South Dakota (home to my buddy Dan and the Creepy Sleepy Show) common sense prevailed over the "hot as the fires of hell" rhetoric coming from the religious right within the state. Good job SoDak, I'm proud of you.
Now as for my home state, well, that remains to be seen, but at least Jim "I want to give all of your money away to any corporation I can find" Nussle got smoked in his bid for governor and it gets even better. The seat which Nussle (a Republican) vacated in order to get his ass handed to him on a silver platter is going to be filled by a Democrat named Bruce Braley, who (according to the Republican National Campaign Committee) is supported by groups who wanted to negotiate with the Taliban and just may be a Communist. You gotta love irony, especially when it happens to someone who truly and utterly deserves to catch some bad karma.
