Tuesday, January 05, 2010
Imus Schools Hume
It's not exactly a good moment when a once-good White House reporter-turned-political-pundit has to be schooled on the accuracy of religious analysis. It's even more shocking when the schooloer is Don Imus -- who's put his foot in his mouth on more than one occasion -- and the schoolee is Fox pundit Brit Hume.
Nonetheless, that's what happened yesterday when Imus explained why Hume was off-base in his Sunday urging that Tiger Woods convert from Buddhism to Christianity:
I'm curious what Hume's advice would be to "out" Christian politicians -- like Mark Sanford and John Ensign, for example. They both campaigned as good, God-fearing men. Both cheated on their wives; Sanford's has already left him and filed for divorce. Ensign is still with his, seemingly -- but also got his parents to help pay off his mistress and her cuckolded spouse. The point is that Christians also fail to uphold their vows. Given Hume's background -- and that he's on a panel that analyzes politics more than pop culture or general current events, it would seem more appropriate that, if Hume wanted to make a point on the power of Christianity to redeem sinners, giving advice to those politicians -- instead of a golfer -- might have been more appropriate.
One last thought: For all of Tiger Woods' actual and imagined sins (from adultery to being too profligate a salesman), one thing it's hard to condemn him for is trying to force any personal beliefs -- political or religious -- on the public. He vies away from making partisan statements because, following the Michael Jordan example, "Republicans buy sneakers [or watches or razors or whatever] too." Similarly, Woods wouldn't want to be seen as a proselytizer for being Buddhist -- any more than he would appear in a commercial promoting the Obama agenda.
In short, Woods has deserved a lot of the societal approbation that has come his way over the last six weeks. Having a weekend political pundit urging him to convert to Christianity isn't one of those things deserved.
Labels: Brit Hume, Don Imus, Tiger Woods
Friday, December 11, 2009
A Whiter Shade of Fail
The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson made this point -- the unbearable whiteness of being a Tiger Woods 'ho -- in a serious and earnest manner. He thus failed miserably.
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On the other hand, this satirical outlet delivers with Onionesque accuracy. Best line: "Sharpton, who has long championed taking black women as mistresses, said that today’s black athletes need to stop neglecting black women when it comes to extramarital affairs, and should follow the examples of positive black role models such as Jesse Jackson and Martin Luther King, Jr., both of whom cheated on their wives with black women."
This line also has a painful "truth-in-comedy" aspect to it as well: "Sharpton also stressed that cheating with African-American women would help the black community financially by giving black girls the chance to sell their stories to tabloids and gossip magazines."
On a slightly related (in the Tiger category), I was at a "holiday" (sorry, Mr. O'Reilly) party last night and a soon-to-be-married guy observed, "One lesson to be seen in this is that for a married person, it's very stupid to cheat with people who have far less to lose than yourself." Actually, that holds true for any successful individual in a supposedly "committed" relationship. This could explain why Derek Jeter is pretty smart to date fairly well-known female celebrities -- actresses, models, singers, etc. Even when they break up, it's rare to hear any of them trash him in the gossip pages. Maybe it's because he's a gentleman; maybe it's because there's an unspoken MAD (mutually-assured-destruction) understanding between exes.
So, financially and socially-successful cheaters, caveat emptor: Try to engage in SAF -- Status Appropriate F*****!!! Another way of saying this is, "The easiest way to f***-up your life is to f*** down."
Labels: Al Sharpton, satire, Tiger Woods
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
W.O.W. (Wanda On Woods)
The local cops in Florida could have saved themselves so much time by just checking out Wanda Sykes' version of Tiger Woods' accident:
This skit/stand-up is a great example of what the late improv master Del Close called "truth in comedy." Even though this was a staged bit, it's absolutely hilarious -- precisely because it is such a close approximation of what probably happened.
"Hovering is not a good thing..." Brilliant!
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This skit/stand-up is a great example of what the late improv master Del Close called "truth in comedy." Even though this was a staged bit, it's absolutely hilarious -- precisely because it is such a close approximation of what probably happened.
"Hovering is not a good thing..." Brilliant!
Labels: Tiger Woods, Wanda Sykes
