As IF Times

link Janeane Garofalo: Racist Republicans Support Herman Cain | RealClearPolitics.

The perpetuation of drivel from entertainment personalities continues.  At this time of year, while most people are critically assessing the new crop of TV shows for the fall season, the best reality show going on is the battle for the public’s mind concerning the upcoming 2012 presidential elections.

For the average person, it’s a big snooze-fest, as exciting as watching infomercials on late night TV.  For those with an interest in human nature and a stake in the future of the country, it’s enormously entertaining.  Just as TV has descended from  programming offering compelling dramas and witty comedy to now showcasing contrived cartoons and base humor, political discourse has also pushed to new levels of coarseness.  Despite characterizations to the contrary by most media outlets, it is the ongoing opinions of the left that are the most amusing and wildly entertaining if not for the seriousness of the topics.

For most people, determining who is sane and who isn’t sane is relatively easy.  You observe what they say and compare it to reality.  If there’s a significant and consistent divergence, then questioning sanity is valid.  Good examples of the latter would be Keith Olbermann, Michael Moore and as evidenced by the linked article, Janeane Garofalo.  An interesting give-away of insanity is the apportment of the hipster horn-rimmed glasses in which they are often photographed.  Rather than create an image of intelligence however, it instead conveys a look of crazed fanaticism with the only missing element being foam at the mouth.  Some may notice that from time to time, in an effort to look intelligent, Rachel Maddow and Matt Damon also wear these types of frames. 

The opinions of acting and entertainment personalities are frequently employed in the media to push a particular point of view, typically the so-called liberal or progressive perspective.  We assume this is done, not to just display the obvious nuttiness of the messenger, but to curry influence with the target audience of the TV network or newspaper.  After all, these people are paid entertainers who ACT for a living; in essence, they are  like hand puppets , tools used to convey a message.  For that vast number of people who don’t have their own formed opinions, this tactic will work.  For most people over the age of 12 with a modest exposure to real life, it won’t or shouldn’t. 

In the recent bleat by Garofalo, obviously important enough to be publicized by media outlets, she joins another actor, Morgan Freeman of assigning racism as the root of the troubles that befall Americans today.  Freeman recently opined that the troubles of Obama center on his race and not the record of ineptitude that has marked his time in office.  For Garofalo’ s part, she thinks that a Republican presidential contender, Herman Cain, is merely a ruse and a cover for the racist base of the Tea Party movement.   Cain is about as wholesome and apple pie as you can get, but this is moot.  In other words, it doesn’t matter how valid a person is, if they are playing for the other team, they are dismissed as being irrelevant.  No racism there. 

It’s impossible to satisfy their ideological biases.   They are unwilling to accept that in a free society, people can have opinions that differ from theirs.  Global warming is a fact, if you don’t believe it, you are a denier of truth.  When someone has a cup of coffee from Starbucks, they are contributing to the massive “military, industrial complex enslaving indigenous people and depleting resources”.  Or, they may just be having a cup of coffee.  If current political policies are not working well, it may not be because of racism.  It may be just that they’re stupid.

It’s great to watch the ongoing melodrama of political sparring,  it makes for great TV.   I only wish the dialogue from the left gets better…or they get credible actors.

link Scarlett Johansson Threatens to Sue Over Nude Photos – UsMagazine.com.

Of course, the FBI is all over this one.  Apparently dozens of agents have volunteered their own personal time to work on this case.  The amount of time spent poring over evidence will be astronomical.   Staff will be pulled off cases looking for terrorist bombers in order to solve this pressing case.  Removing nude pics from the Internet.  Good luck with that. 

Poor Scarlett is obviously aghast that someone would hack into her telephone and steal private photos of her.  Living as she does in fairyland, she was unaware that just recently, Congressman Anthony Weiner had also suffered the fate of having his tighty-whities displayed on the world’s biggest billboard.  Of course in Weiner’s case, he was targeting a specific audience. but unlike Scarlett, the only ones who may have been interested were probably gay men.

The philosophical issue is that pictures stolen from Scarlett’s phone are equivalent to having them stolen from a locked drawer in her house.  I suppose that makes sense in theory and we won’t argue with the principle.  But here is the essential seam which separates principled types from common sense types: theory is not reality.  I can bake a pie and place it on my window to cool, but if it’s on a busy street, certain unprincipled types are going to take my pie.  If I want to park my convertible on Chicago’s south side, it may not be a good idea to leave the Nikon in full display on the car seat.  

Celebrities who need exposure to further their careers are often the ones to bleat about privacy issues when they know that their lives are lived under a microscope.  At least Oprah and Joy Behar are smart enough not to take nude pics of themselves on their phones.  Imagine the audience for that.  Anyone who thinks cell phones are private are plain delusional.  If Wikileaks can hack into top military secrets, what makes anyone think their Verizon account is safe?   In real life, people regularly have things stolen from their cars, their homes, they may even have nude pics of themselves circulating without their consent, but those are the hazards of real life.  Years and years of indifferent applications of punishments for law breaking has resulted in expectations of a certain amount of criminal behavior in our society.  How many people these days don’t lock their car or house when they leave?  What does it say when years ago, in many cities, it was common to see “no radio” stickers on car windows?   Most petty crimes aren’t even prosecuted any more for the time and effort involved. 

Celebrities should not live under the delusion that they are immune from the vicissitudes of life that normal people deal with.  Celebrity status does not entirely insulate them from the society they choose to live in.  They only benefit is that they get to publicize their moral outrage.