Glenn Beck Needs a Punch to the Throat

This is what happens when I'm away from my Tivo: I'm forced to actually see what's on television in between the shows I actually want to watch. I'm on a shoot in PA and though my hotel suite is...well, sweet...there's still only so much to do when I have to be up early, so this is what I've seen tonight.

MTV has really documented exactly the kind of kids that are now raised on MTV and how it's destroying out society. They have one show where spoiled, rich girls try to top one another with overly expensive Sweet 16 parties which their parents pay for while all the while the girls are yelling at and ordering their parents around and then crying about how their lives are horrible because the dress they really really really wanted didn't fit so they could only get the one really expensive one that they only really liked. Oh, and then the parents buy them a car that costs more than most people's houses (and which the girl most certainly will wreck before she's 18), and her classmates worship her like being a spoiled, shallow shell of a girl is a good thing.

Luckily I only saw the last 3 minutes of that, which then allowed me to see the first 3 minutes of a show about teenagers who get married. Seriously. 16 years old girls who get knocked up by their 22 year old boyfriends and then decide to get married, or 17 year olds who decide they have to get married right now because they are going to spend the rest of their lives together...but it has to be RIGHT NOW! The part I saw was where the girl was having her bridal shower and playing a game where they asked her questions about her fiance who she's totally in love with, and she got all of them wrong. But really, knowing her soon-to-be husband's life aspirations and or what his first job were are probably just trivial things. I mean, my grandparents were married for 50 years, and then never even got around to finding out each other's last names or birthdates.

But worst of all was Glenn Beck. It's shocking how someone can be so condescending and act so superior and yet be so completely ignorant and, to put it in the common parlance, a d-bag. He defended Roger Ailes' attempts to once again relate Osama bin Laden to Barrack Obama in the public's mind, as though his network hasn't done that 50 times a day already. He simultaneously complained about how the the conservative Democrats have sold out and are voting in lock-step with their party while at the same time saying that all the Democrats are in-fighting and in disagreement. Oh, and the war in Iraq shouldn't be politicized. A war...started by a thoroughly partisan administration...involving billions of dollars of our nation's resources...killing thousands of our soldiers...stretching our army so thin that we are in constant danger...increasing our foreign debts to be passed on to our children...the war that has served as the Republican party's entire political strategy against the Democrats...THAT shouldn't be politicized. If politics is the process by which we have a national discussion of issues, by which we elect our leaders, and by which our government is created, maintained, and made to do the will of the people, then is he saying that this War shouldn't be talked about or acted on by our government? Is this war supposed to fight itself, entirely out of our control?

Much like Glenn Beck, the war in Iraq is misguided, devastating, and brings nothing but suffering. People who say "The war in Iraq shouldn't be political" do that because they are on the losing side of that argument, and it's too late. You started this conversation, and now that people are turning on you, you should be made to answer.

I'm going to go enjoy some free toiletries and amenities, and then maybe jump on the bed for a while. Hilton knows how to make a springy bed...which is then enjoyed by the heirs to the fortune in amateur porn. Our popular culture makes me a little bit ill.