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Patrick Kennedy and Our Soap Opera Culture
CronWatch ^ | 3 July 2006 | Burt Prelutsky

Posted on 07/02/2006 9:20:23 PM PDT by Aussie Dasher

How, I wonder, did it come to pass that we’ve become a tabloid society? I’m not just referring to those junky scandal sheets they peddle at supermarket checkout stands. They’re just a small part of it, the tip of a sleazy iceberg. In the wake of Rep. Patrick Kennedy’s traffic accident, I was reminded once again what a glutton for soap opera melodramas we’ve become.

Kennedy, who has a long record of problems with alcohol and cocaine, fesses up to the fact that he was stoned out of his skull when he got behind the wheel of his car, and we’re all supposed to award him Brownie points for his honesty. The fact that he’s going back to the Mayo Clinic for a second round of rehab is supposed to provide an inspiration for all the other addicts.

What I’d like to see from Kennedy is his long-overdue resignation from the House of Representatives. The man is unable to control his addictions; he suffers, he claims, from depression; and he doesn’t surrender his car and his driver’s license even though he admits that he can’t even recall the accident. Clearly, it was only a miracle that he didn’t kill anyone. How does such a person consider himself qualified to vote on taxes, defense budgets, and, oh yes, the war on drugs? And how hard up must the voters of Rhode Island be that they keep electing this idiot? I know it’s a small state, but it can’t be that small!

I realize that I’m not speaking for the rest of you, but I am sick and tired of the rich and famous going on television to broadcast their sins and shortcomings while the studio audience gives them standing ovations for having the courage to go public. I save my applause for people who quietly go about trying to fix what they, themselves, broke in the first place, and people who refrain from turning bellyaching into an art form.

In the recent past, ex-basketball player Charles Barkley and professional golfer John Daly have been playing a bizarre version of Can You Top This?, boasting about the huge sums of money they’ve gambled away. Why that should be of interest to anybody who doesn’t own a casino is beyond me. But even I, who don’t watch very much television and who never turns on the tube during daylight hours unless the Yankees are playing, have not been able to avoid seeing these two shmoes vie for the Schmuck of the Year award.

Perhaps it’s just that I’m stone-hearted, but I don’t like to see people indulging in gross displays of self-pity. If you insist on bragging, please make me envious, not nauseous.

And what is it about television that makes viewers at home think they’re the near-and-dear of those who appear on it? For instance, I was always a fan of Michael J. Fox. I thought he was a swell actor, and I was sorry to hear he was ill. But why should Americans in general, none of whom have ever met the man, be more concerned with stamping out Parkinson’s than Alzheimer’s or Sickle Cell or leukemia just because the fellow who played Alex Keaton suffers from the one and not from the others?

Speaking of television personalities, I must confess that I’ve never seen Katie Couric. I have heard her described as perky and bubbly, even effervescent, as if she were actually carbonated. As you may have guessed, anybody who can be that way early in the morning is nobody I want to be around. However, I don’t care how much they pay her to be a news anchor; it’s not my money. Furthermore, I don’t know why anybody watches the news on the three major networks. In the course of a 30-minute broadcast, after all, half the time is spent selling detergent, cars, and denture crème, and the other half is spent pitching the liberal agenda.

My problem is that when my new book comes out in September, I’ll want to go on Oprah’s show to plug it. But, for the life of me, I don’t know what we’d talk about. I’m not on drugs, I’m not gay, I’m not a member of a cult, I’m not a plagiarizer, I’m not going with Angelina Jolie, and, rumors to the contrary, I’m not having Tom Cruise’s baby!


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: bloodykennedys; culture; drunkagain; soapopera; sonoflardass
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Patrick Kennedy should clear off...and take his pathetic old man with him!
1 posted on 07/02/2006 9:20:27 PM PDT by Aussie Dasher
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To: Aussie Dasher
Kennedy, who has a long record of problems with alcohol and cocaine

Smack too, I believe.

2 posted on 07/02/2006 9:26:42 PM PDT by ncountylee (Dead terrorists smell like victory)
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To: ncountylee

There are few Kennedy's that haven't had a problem with alcohol and drugs

That family is a mess


3 posted on 07/02/2006 9:28:11 PM PDT by Mo1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePb6H-j51xE&search=Democrats)
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To: Mo1
The Kennedy family, on balance - has been an insufferable albatross around the neck of this country....

A family with far more money and influence than their abilities or character warranted...

The silly bastards prove that, on an almost monthly basis..

Semper Fi

4 posted on 07/02/2006 9:36:51 PM PDT by river rat (You may turn the other cheek, but I prefer to look into my enemy's vacant dead eyes.)
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To: Aussie Dasher

What I’d like to see from Kennedy is his long-overdue resignation from the House of Representatives

You and millions of us.


5 posted on 07/02/2006 9:37:35 PM PDT by garylmoore (Faith is the assurance of things unseen.)
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To: Aussie Dasher

What I’d like to see from Kennedy is his long-overdue resignation from the House of Representatives

You and millions of us.


6 posted on 07/02/2006 9:37:35 PM PDT by garylmoore (Faith is the assurance of things unseen.)
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To: Aussie Dasher
"How, I wonder, did it come to pass that we’ve become a tabloid society?"

In a word, 'feminism'. We are a feminist culture and that's why we're also a tabloid society. The biggest 'news' in our tragically shallow country seems to be Britney Spears' latest sexcapades and Brad Pitt's latest flusey. It's a moral and intellectual shallowness that is the by-product of silly women and the culture of feminism.

7 posted on 07/02/2006 9:37:43 PM PDT by TheCrusader
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To: Aussie Dasher

Patches didn't stay very long at his 'Recovery Center'.
What a joke and cover up of facts. Modern day 'Rat tactics.


8 posted on 07/02/2006 9:39:03 PM PDT by tflabo (Take authority that's ours)
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To: Aussie Dasher
>"Patrick Kennedy should clear off...and take his pathetic old man with him!"

That would wipe out the mASSachusets navy of one and his lil bubby gilliganagain, and leave them open to an invasion of moral conservative representation!


9 posted on 07/02/2006 9:40:32 PM PDT by rawcatslyentist (I'd rather be carrying a shotgun with Dick, than riding shotgun with a Kennedyl!)
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To: garylmoore

Any chance of a House/Senate double?


10 posted on 07/02/2006 9:48:10 PM PDT by Aussie Dasher (The Great Ronald Reagan & John Paul II - Heaven's Dream Team!)
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To: Aussie Dasher


Apparently, both father and son will have to go willingly or die in office, because voters in their respective states continue to reelect them.


11 posted on 07/02/2006 9:53:20 PM PDT by onyx (Deport the trolls --- send them back to DU)
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To: onyx

THAT is one of the great mysteries of the modern world...


12 posted on 07/02/2006 9:55:22 PM PDT by Aussie Dasher (The Great Ronald Reagan & John Paul II - Heaven's Dream Team!)
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To: river rat

The Kennedy family, on balance - has been an insufferable albatross around the neck of this country....

Makes one glad the Clintoons only had one kid. Another 'dy-nasty' like the Kennedys is more than I could stomach.


13 posted on 07/02/2006 10:43:31 PM PDT by hardworking
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To: Aussie Dasher

What goes around comes around...right TED???


14 posted on 07/03/2006 1:27:07 AM PDT by AngelesCrestHighway
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To: TheCrusader
I disagree - Britain is a tabloid society but I would not say overtly feminist.

I would say it is the acceptance of immoral behaviour and TV glorifying in it.

All story-lines in major shows have at one time or at the same time shown sex outside marriage, divorce, homosexuality etc etc.

It desensitizes us in general to immoral behaviour and because we see it regularly on the box we have grown to accept it as inevitable that this is how society is.
15 posted on 07/03/2006 2:20:33 AM PDT by snugs ((An English Cheney Chick - BIG TIME))
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To: Aussie Dasher
Excellent article. We watch little TV.

Yep, we are in a 'Soap Opera' culture. I have said for years, at least 30, that 'Soap Opera's and Talk Shows' rot your brain. They make dunces out of the constant viewers.

16 posted on 07/03/2006 2:40:45 AM PDT by Dustbunny (Amazing Grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me)
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To: river rat

And still multitudes of stupids continue to vote for these insufferables.


17 posted on 07/03/2006 2:52:06 AM PDT by Joe Boucher (an enemy of islam)
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To: ncountylee
Smack too, I believe.

Cousins.
18 posted on 07/03/2006 2:55:47 AM PDT by Beckwith (The dhimmicrats and liberal media have chosen sides and they've sided with the Jihadists.)
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To: Aussie Dasher
The fact that he’s going back to the Mayo Clinic for a second round of rehab is supposed to provide an inspiration for all the other addicts.

The above applies of course only to liberal celebs hooked on illegal drugs they started taking for fun. However, conservatives addicted to legal pain killers taken for 24/7 pain should be imprisoned.

19 posted on 07/03/2006 4:00:23 AM PDT by Jacquerie
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To: river rat

Ted Kennedy has harmed the country more than any man in history that was not President. IMO


20 posted on 07/03/2006 7:11:15 AM PDT by ncountylee (Dead terrorists smell like victory)
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