Who really cares?

Yesterday November 29th, my wife and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary. It was obviously a monumental day for us and so of coarse we watched a little bit of sports center together. OK, we did other fun and romantic things but for the sake of this post I will talk about our experience with a recent story in the news.
Tiger Woods was in a car accident early morning on either Friday or Saturday. Since that time he has denied police access to his house and has refrained from any real big statement and by law he can do such things. The circumstances surrounding the accident are very curios but who really cares? As my wife and I sat in front of the TV and we heard the speculative stories from TMZ my wife said the perfect thing, What do I care? It is not that she does not care about Tiger Woods. She knows that her husband loves to watch him play and so she does care about his safety because she knows that for her husband to watch golf without Tiger Woods, it would be like eating sugar free candy. Sugar free candy...what is the point?(that is a debate for another time)
What my wifes comment was saying was that we don't need to know what is going on in Tiger's life. I don't remember the constitution saying anything about having the right of access someone else's life. So, why does the media assume that to be their right? The answer is that I just do not know. Infact, I don't care about any of that crap.
To add to my ranting and raving about media's assumed rights... I really don't care about what Obama does during his personal time. Media please stop trying to tell me about what kind of food he eats, what dress his wife wears to a dinner, or where he vaccaciones. Who really cares?!!!
Is it not more important what these type of people do in their profession. Lets stop seeking for dirt when there is none. If Tiger Woods feels like he owes the american public an explanation for what happenend then I welcome his comments and explanation, but until that time my request is that someone please shut TMZ and their gossip up?!!!

ESPN Representing!!!!!

Ok, so I have always liked ESPN. I have always felt like it was one of the only shows that I could watch that would not fill me full of crap like the normal media does. This past week my support for ESPN was strengthened.
This past week it was revealed that there was a sex scandal between a big time baseball analyst and an intern. Recently this seems to be the trend among people in the media and even in politics. Notably David Leterman revealed a similar scandal going on between himself and subordinates. Well, Espn could have just ignored it or tried to play it off through laughs like Letterman did. I am so proud to say that they did not. They took imediate action and removed the analyst from duty. This came at a time when the world series is going on and Espn could definatly use one of their best analyst.
I am just so glad that my trust and hope in Espn has been reasured by their actions in this past week. Thank you Espn.
Sincerely,
One of you biggest fans.

The power of media

I can't believe that sports media has such a tremedous influence on me as to persuade me to sleep in a parking lot all night jsut so that I might get a chance to be on TV. That is right, I slept out in the parking lot Fiday night for college game day. I was amazed by the lengths that people would go to just to get on TV. I am talking about making signs that don't represent the individual and their Christianity, lying to get into the college game day pit, pushing, shoving and fighting. I can proudly say that I didn't engage in any of these activities and that I was succesful in my attempt to get on TV.

It's the most wonderful time of the year!!!

It is a good thing that it happens to come 2 times each year! What I am referring to is the refreshing declaration of Buenas Nuevas known to most as General Conference. At times I think that media can be a great mediator for Satan, but then I remember the joyous sounds of the Mormon Tabernacle choir and the inspirational teachings of the Prophets and Apostles. It is in those moments that I think about all the advancements in media that have allowed the LDS church to truly become a world wide church. It amazes me that Confrence is broadcast to all four corners of the earth and in 92 languages! I have loved the break from the everyday media.

What is up with double standards in the media?

What I am referring to is the latest display of character by David Letterman. The late night host has for years slammed celebrities and politicians alike for immoral scandals. Well, the other night David Letterman came out and addressed his own immoral scandal. I won't say that he confessed because what he did was the farthest thing from an actual confession. I guess that I can't say that I am surprised by the fact he treated the whole ordeal as a stand-up comedy routine. The entire audience laughed as David Letterman proudly proclaimed that he had engaged in sex with subordinates in his office. I am amazed that representatives of media can slam so many people for doing the same actions they hypocritically are doing. Why do we have these people still in the media spotlight? The way I see it is that Letterman has 2 strikes on his record for stupidity in the media spotlight. 3 strikes and... you know the rest.

More than what meets the eye

Since being in a class about the media I find myself seeing only the negative aspects of the media. I decided I would mix it up for this post. I was reminded that there are some uplifting things that media puts out there for us to see. Sometimes it just takes a little effort to find the good.
If you want to see the positive check out these two links.

http://arkansasvarsity.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=992976

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kt7w8hV90SI

I do find it interesting that the majority of positive stories have sports and athletics at the heart of them. The first link is about a high school football player that does something beyond his age. The second is one of my favorite portrayals a fathers willingness to help his child achieve his dream. I think that these clips show that there is more to sports than what we typically think.

The voice of the people

So I have some beef with Facebook and Twitter. Since the invention of theses social networking cites, people all of the sudden believe that everyone else cares so much that they are doing their laundry or are sleeping. Now my beef isn't necesarily with peoples daily habits but rather with peoples daily opinions that they feel they must post. In particular, last Saturday after the loss to FSU several so called BYU "fans" (more like fair-weather-fans) posted their thoughts on the BYU loss. Among the posts I found comments like, "I am glad that BYU was humbled" or "I am finding a new team". Really?!!! Are they serious?!!! I don't know of any other team in the country that has so called fans that would want their team to be humbled. What is that all about?
I love also how celebrities twitter all the time and it becomes headline news! Who cares what T.O. thinks about Mariah Carey! I just think that publically posting your daily routine and random thoughts brings out a lot of the stupid in Americans.
Now you might think this post ironic becuase it is on a social networking cite. I think that Blogs are a little bit better because the people that actually write them spend time doing a little thing called thinking which seems to be absent amongst avid twitter-ers and facebook-ers.

Not so Gleefull!!!

Today was a sad day for me. I came to the realization that a TV program that my wife and I have been waiting to see, is a colossal disappointment. I am talking about the new TV series "Glee". This is a show that was supposed to be about a down and out glee club at a high school that spontaneously got an inspired man to lead a group of high school misfits from the depth of the unpopular to the heights of success. It sounds like it would be a good family comedy show. To my surprise, I have not gotten any of that in the first two episodes of the series. Instead, the messages I have gotten are "I want to sex you up", "Push it , Push it real good" accompanied with demonstrations of several portrayals of sexual positions, and last, but not least, ever inspirational TV series about misfit high school students needs a scene with the high school cheer team in nothing but swimsuits washing cars. I have never been so disappointed in a TV show before. Episode 3 will be my last episode. I am tired of looking at my wife and saying, " did they really just put that in there and get away with it?"

So like most men my Saturday is summed up with me being hypnotized by any and every college football game that it shown on TV and my wife wishing Sunday would come sooner. I love BYU football. I remember my freshman year when BYU was not very good at all. I think we lost to Boise State that year by like 40 points. BYU used to have the longest streak of games played without being shutout but that ended my freshman year and I was at that game. So I have been through a lot with the Cougars. Something I noticed today, now that BYU is doing an Amazing job, is that I love the media. I eat it up. I watch everything and anything that talks about BYU football. When media tells me something that I want to hear I cant get enough of it, but when I don't want to hear about one of my teams losing I dislike the media so much. It is a weird relationship that I have with the media. You can't live with it and you can't live without it.