The Ryan Jenkins Irony

Vh1 makes its money by making Jerry Springer primetime. It started with a spinoff of a spinoff to its most popular series, and since then, entertainment developed its own genre: "trainwreck TV."

After The Surreal Life led to Flavor Flav's and Brigitte Nielsen's spinoff, in which Nielsen dumped Flav, the revolution of the trashy version of The Bachelor hit with Flavor of Love. Now, Vh1's programming virtually only consists of dating show spinoffs from former contestants and I Love Money, which consists of former dating contestants competing for money instead of lust -- er, "love."

The editing is heavy, most of the fights seemed staged, and almost everybody's dignity is scrapped. Vh1 creates entertainment by illustrating the negative yet comical aspects of individuals. To do this, the network exploits its contestants' naïveté.

When the media released news of the Ryan Jenkins's gruesome yet alleged murder-suicide, Vh1 canceled both shows in which Jenkins appeared: Megan Wants a Millionaire and I Love Money 3. If Vh1 aired those episodes, ratings would no doubt shoot up higher than anything the network had ever seen. Case study: If Heath Ledger's tragedy had not occurred before the release of The Dark Knight, there's no way it would have drawn the audiences it did to beat out Star Wars: Episode IV -- A New Hope for one of the most popular movies of all time, behind only Titanic.

A classy move from a network that makes its money by exhibiting the lack of class in its contestants.

A move that respects the morals of Vh1 and the dignity of the tragedy's victims and families from a network that's accused of being morally bankrupt.

Ironic, isn't it? Yet it's a welcome irony.

Politicians go all Jerry Springer on your ass!

Maybe it's because August is a notoriously slow news month, but the politicians in this country (the US) are beginning to unravel. Decorum has been chucked out the window of a campaign bus in favor of snapping at citizens who are asking questions.

I don't believe there's a completely direct link between entertainment media and reality. In fact, I scoffed this morning when a DJ on 98 PXY suggested Ryan Jenkins, a man who brutally murdered his ex-wife, was driven to his psychotic state of violence because he may have watched Power Rangers as a child. Howevs, if I did think that, then I would attribute the strange behavior of some politicians to the rise of reality television.

Either that, or it's an early sign of the 2012 apocalypse.

Example A: Hillary Clinton. In a trip to various parts of Africa, she stopped in Congo on August 10th to answer questions from college students. Personally, I'd understand how she's feeling. If your career was built on the coattails of somebody else, your insecurity against these criticisms would lead you to rehearse this speech time and again. The funniest part is, the question that was asked didn't even accuse of her of acting like what my sister calls "Billary." Watch and enjoy.



Example B: Barney Frank. I love watching this video. I'm sure they show this video to up-and-coming politicians in their Publicity 101 class to demonstrate what NOT to do. Still, even if you're a Republican, there must have been times when you've wanted somebody to say something like this to somebody who's being stupid. Anybody who believes the fear-mongering bull Bill O'Reilly writes deserves Frank's answer here. Now, if only somebody would play this audio to the kiddies who claim Obama is a terrorist because his middle name is "Hussein."

Bill Gates: Weather God

Bill Gates is applying for a patent so he can be even more godlike than usual. Remember when I said the MindFLEX could help you be like Jean Grey? Well, Gates wants to one-up Mattel by trying to be like Storm.

Maybe since Gates was voted Person of the Year by TIME a couple years ago, he has adopted a divine quality that only the richest man in the world could have.

Gates submitted patent applications for a technology that would cool the waters that cause hurricanes. Since warm waters cause and increase the intensity of hurricanes, in theory, cooler water would decrease the magnitude of -- or eliminate -- hurricane winds.

CNN describes the potential invention as a series of tubes, which would push warm water down and spurt cool water out.

So, Gates and his team of scientists are going to sit around, wait until a hurricane threat is announced, fly in his private jets to wherever the location is, and then magically suck out warm water and replace it with cooler water, that happens to stay cool?

Have fun with that.

Hey, Gates, if you don't get that patent, go ahead with your plan anyway. If you were anybody but the richest dude in the world, I'd say nay, but since you're you, I'd love to see this hunk of junk in use. Put it on YouTube, please.

American troops destroy ancient Babylonian wonder

This is just sad.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/07/31/iraq.babylon.damage/index.html

Redheads are whinier because . . .

. . . they're more sensitive to pain.

Allegedly.

The Journal of American Dental Association has published studies that suggest that redheads may be more sensitive to pain -- specifically, oral pain -- than their dark-haired counterparts. As CNN reports:

"Researchers believe variants of the melanocortin-1 receptor gene play a role. This MC1R gene produces melanin, which gives skin, hair and eyes their color.

While blond, brown and black-haired people produce melanin, those with red hair have a mutation of this receptor. It produces a different coloring called pheomelanin, which results in freckles, fair skin and ginger hair. About 5 percent of whites are estimated to have these characteristics.

While the relationship between MC1R and pain sensitivity is not entirely understood, researchers have found MC1R receptors in the brain and some of them are known to influence pain sensitivity."

Wait, maaaaaaaybe the link is this MC1R? And only redheads have this sensitivity problem? Well, if the pheomelanin produces the hair and skin characteristics linked to sensitivity, what about people like me? My hair is definitely dark, but I have plenty of freckles in the summer and my skin is so fair that I get burned without at least an SPF 30 coated twice. So, does that make me more susceptible to the pain at the dentist than most? But -- but -- I'm not a redhead!

And "the relationship between MC1R and pain sensitivity is not entirely understood," which means this is just a guess.

My guess is that within the study they performed, there happened to be a high percentage of redheads that complained a lot. After all, there were some dark-haired people in the control group who were just as sensitive to the pain.

So, what's my uneducated, unauthorized opinion? Redheads are NOT more sensitive than I am to dental pain; they just complain a lot, like this article.

End workplace discrimination

The following was taken from the website PassENDANow.org:

At work, you probably expect to be judged on your qualifications and performance, not on your personal life. But in 29 states, you can be fired because you're gay or because your boss thinks you are -- and it's 100% legal. It's 38 states if you're transgender. That's just not right.

This e-card is funny, but the issue couldn't be more serious. I hope you'll take action with Human Rights Campaign to tell Congress to include gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in federal workplace discrimination laws.

It's about time "equal opportunity" included all of us.

Go to http://www.passENDAnow.org