...Pop culture concerns...

I am not going to write a dissertation on all the things in Pop Culture that irk me, because that's not a valuable use of anyone's time, especially my own. However, there are 3 or 4 things going on out there that confound me, and I'd like clarity, although the reason they confound me is that there is no clarity that can come from analysis - trust me, I've analyzed, and there's no clarity. But here are the irk-while events going on.

Birthers: (EDIT, 1:23 PM - Upon comments from Micah & Keely, primarily, I immediately regret writing this. Not in a 'woe is me' kind of way, but more of a 'this is what happens when you do anything without thinking first.' kind of way. I am leaving it up as another reminder that I am a flawed, flawed person.  Enjoy!)
I don't have a liberal friend that won't cringe at this section of my post...but I'm really starting to think there is validity to the question here.  I don't know, call me crazy, call me a fascist, call me whatever you want, but for those of you who know me, I think you know that I don't think of this whole "where was he born?" thing as a witch hunt. I don't want blood, I just sorta want to know if the process was subverted, and if chaos will ensue.

Let's pretend for a minute Barack Obama was not born in the US. Honestly, the only proof we are working off of here is his word, and the word of his friends. You can choose to believe that. The last Pop Culture Icon President we had was Clinton.  He lied about his sex life in every creative way possible. He lied under oath. He lied in the Oval office. He lied, lied, lied.  At the time, I remember defending him saying that the question should have never been asked under oath, but I was naive. Of course it should have.  This is different though, it's more serious.

Doing the business in the Oval Office is one thing - that act doesn't mean that your Presidency is illegitimate, it means your behavior is awful, and it means your morals are out of whack, but it doesn't mean you had no right to govern in the first place.

Back to pretend land where Obama in fact was born elsewhere...that, under the Constitution of the US, Obama's presidency is illegitimate. As are his Supreme Court appointees, and all the legislation that was signed into law.

I guess what I'm getting at is, in the 2012 Election, the GOP will not let this, "aw, trust us" gig slide. Like it or not, fair or unfair, he will have to prove his place of birth.  This reminds me SO MUCH of the movie, The Contender, one of my favorite political dramas ever, consisting of a role that I think may have been Jeff Bridges finest (yes, better than The Dude).  In that movie, VP Nominee Laine Hanson had a choice - talk about her romantic past - discuss rumors and innuendo in an open forum, OR not do that. She chose not to, and she won out in the end, because the rumors were unfounded and she didn't want to dignify them with a response.

Will Obama take the same tact?  The difference is, he is an elected official and I don't think the public will stand for it.  Her fate was a positive one, but she was appointed, not elected, that's the rub.

The liberal argument has been, "Birthers are awful people, who are perpetuating McCarthy-ism and Obama has nothing to prove. This wouldn't be asked of him if his name was Barry O'Bonner, an Irish-Christian self made Republican from Templeton, MA". And they are probably right. Unfortunately, that isn't how politics works, and my personal opinion is Obama is in deep trouble unless he produces paperwork.

This is when we'll know it's all over, and it's coming soon, if it hasn't happened already.  When the liberal argument shifts from what I wrote above, to "well, it doesn't matter anyway, he is inspirational, and the rule is DUMB!"

Get ready for it.

Glee v. Skins:
I have a mixed audience here, so I'll keep it PG-13, or at the most, NC-17. Wait, which is worse, NC-17 or R? I think R. I really don't know though.  As you may have seen, MTV's Skins is in a boatload of trouble. Everyone is up in arms and upset about the possibility of flat out child-pornography, which we all know is MTV's hope - to get to a place where they are flat out accused and sued of it. They are the Larry Flynt of TV, and they want to be, and so does America. America wanted them to show child porn. I am not kidding.

Anyway, they are in trouble because the children on that show are depicted in realistic ways performing acts deemed as sexual by the FCC, and anybody with common sense. Okay, got it, I agree, that shouldn't be on TV, there's no place for it for public consumption, and it's not right.

But what confuses me is that everyone is okay with Glee, a show that is a permanent cash cow, a show that is generating numbers through the roof, that depicts people who are acting as children, performing and singing about acts that are gratuitously sexual. Yes, the difference is those actors are above 18, but they are playing children, sophomores in High School in some cases, and they are talking about things that I know Sophomores talk about - but is it Glee's job to depict it?

You can have the argument that we are too rigid as a society, that there shouldn't be these laws in the first place, but there are the laws, and they do exist, and I can't figure out why Skins loses advertisers, while Glee has advertisers and talent begging to be a part of it.

The Recovery of Rep. Giffords:
Nothing that has happened so far in the recovery of Rep. Giffords has alarmed me too much. There is not a person of sound mind that is doing anything but pulling for her physical and mental recovery from what obviously was a tragedy - a horrific act of a lone insane person. Politics aside, this story is covered in sadness, and Loughner did basically everything he could to sound every alarm within earshot of basically everyone he knew that this was going to result in danger, if not death.

The act and the motivations of the act aside, I want this woman to recover in peace. I am not sure why her Husband wanted to be on TV to talk about her story - his interview on Nightline or Dateline or whatever it was was very respectful, well done, and he is obviously a compassionate and warm man. I respect him and their story a lot.

Maybe it's for symbolism - you can't be a Politician or an Astronaut without understanding and overvaluing symbolism - but that image of them with the sun setting or rising or whatever, with him staring into her face while she lays on a hospital bed in Arizona, it just felt wrong, and I can't say why.

I want her to recover in peace - if she wants to rise to a political post again, I wish her all the best, I want her to do anything she wants, I just cringe a bit at the coverage of this recovery - because the bottom line is that the news cycle can't do anything with tact, and certainly doesn't have her best interest in mind, and I hope it all plays out in the most level-headed way possible.