Television

So, living in southern california, I get to check out a lot of new cultures. I see new things all the time. Nothing I think is more entertaining than spanish television, and late night LATV. There are about six or seven spanish tv channels, and at any given time, one of them has el luchadore wrestling. You guys know me, I still dig WWE wrestling. This stuff is nuts though, even more funny because I have no idea what is going on. Then there are the spanish soap operas which are always wonderful. Same cheesy camera angles, terrible acting and dramatic music, but now I don't know what they are saying. I think it makes them better. There's "Laura" which is the mexican equivilant of Jerry Springer. Only, when there's a fight, the bouncers don't hold back the fighters, they hold one of them down while the others beat the holy hell out of them. Last night on LATV, I saw an infomercial for "Chick Fights." They set up a boxing ring in someone's back yard, and they get two girls into a bare knuckle boxing match. They've got the dude talking over the commercial like, "This is the most badass fighting you'll ever see... chicks with an axe to grind... watch them tear each other apart." Then they showed the fight. Ok, this isn't a sexist thing, because I've seen women fighters who completely and consistantly kick ass. These girls were all in glorified slap fights. You know, the one where the punch or slap starts from the elbow or the wrist while the face is in full retracted position, and the slaps just keep coming, occasionally hitting something. Then of course there's the mandatory shirt pulling exposing one or more breasts. In the montauge scenes of the informercial they show a few good shots, a couple good kicks and what not, but then they showed an entire fight and it was pathetic.

Fox News is still patting its own back for being the highest rated channel covering the RNC. Take into account it's the most conservatively skewed channel there is, and it was the REPUBLICAN convention.... It's not rocket science. I'm watching it and amidst a insane hurricane in Florida, a terrible school hostage crisis in Russia, the RNC itself, Former President Clinton's hospitalization, the shutting down of LAX, the election, the dude gets up and says, "I think there is something REALLY important we need to talk about and that is the ratings for Fox News during the RNC three nights ago..." Assclown.

Really this Russian school incident makes Columbine look like nothing. How many people died in Columbine, 11? 340 people died in Russia, 700 some injured. I'm not saying Columbine wasn't horrible, but that the US as a whole really has no clue or seems overly apathetic as to what happens in the rest of the world. (My uncle would point this out as hypocritical as he believes we went to Iraq to liberate Iraqi's, and the fact that I think the war was a bad idea, must mean I don't care about what happens in the rest of the world. I don't really need to explain this, do I?) Bush has spoken out about how terrorism is still really bad citing this as an example, and people are simply associating this with al Qaeda. Speculation is this was a Chechen attack. The south of Russia is a crazy war zone with people who want to break away from Russia. But hey, maybe he can exploit another tragedy to try to keep himself in office.

Whatever. I'm going to go eat a pop tart.