Monday's Touchdowns and Punts

As far as I am concerned, the news today - from actual NEWS-NEWS to political yammerings and celebrity "shocker's" is a true yawn. Am I jaded? Probably. Or simply bored. Or both.

Are you growing tired of the constant focus on Penn State? Not the subject of child sexual abuse, per se', but the "religion of football as religion" shining light on the dark locker rooms of that once hallowed institution? I am. Enough about Penn State. Enough about Joe Paterno's son crying at Saturday's game because his father could not be there? Boring.

What isn't boring about this debacle is how these tawdry scandals bring with it/them is an awareness parents need to revisit when it involves paying attention to the adults who are close to their children. How to find a balance between donning complete unfounded paranoia that all caring-toward-children-adults are pedophiles in sheep's clothing, and learning to keeping an eye and ear open for any behaviour changes their child may exhibit following time spent with the caring, supportive adult, is key to the issue. How to NOT over-react and how to NOT be an completely trusting parent is the challenge.

But by Monday morning - right now - I have turned on the TV and found most of the "soft" and "hard" news programs leading with this story...still focusing only on Penn State when this problem exists all over the world in a variety of institutions.

It also is ridiculous that following the newly-tired subject of Penn State, reputable news outlets are going into "Breaking News" territory with the recent revelation by George Clooney that a spine accident a few years ago caused him to contemplate suicide due to agony he was experiencing until successful surgery saved his day - if not his life.

Now, anyone contemplating suicide is worth a bit of compassion, but a SHOCKING, HEADLINE-GRABBING story about one of Hollywood's more debonair and talented actors behaving like a human being is indicative of how truly vapid and slow the news cycle is today.

It gets worse when another headline in print (and a few via visual mediums) are taking the Kim Kar-Kash-In's latest brew-ha-ha seriously enough to tell us how she is being sued because she really doesn't use the hair removal product she pitches somewhere on TV - a commercial I have (thankfully) never seen. The very idea of thinking about facial and body hair on the wax figure of a narcissistic famous-for-nothing thingy-person is more than a tad nauseating to accompany my morning tea.

In addition to the above show-stoppers, lacking anything of genuine interest to most of the world, we now are hit with gasping information that Brad Pitt claims to exit his place in front of the camera when he is 50 to spend more time producing strange projects he chooses to waste a studio's resources on. Wow! I mean, Wow! An ageing actor is waving a white flag 3 years in advance so that when we no longer see his constantly changing face on a film poster we won't get the serious sads.

Sorry to tell you, Mr. Pitt, but many of us have been getting the sads every time we see a new picture of you these days. We thought your hobo beard stage a year ago was bad enough. Now you don't seem to ever wash your hair and are losing weight at the rate of a junkie after a week's binge. You look weird, dear fellow. Even your recent interviews are bizarre. Did someone slip you a few happy pills? Where did your usual scowl go? Could it be that you are happy? It's always nice to see happy people...it's just that you are acting a bit TOO happy, if you know what I mean.

But, there I go making more out of the vapidity than necessary. However, I had to toss in a few of the latest changes that are circling the Interwebs of late to fill out the story just like so many are filling out their faces.

Ho-hum.

And finally, over the weekend the masses were informed that Herman Cain announced he was "Called by God" to run for president. Is that so, Mr. Cain? Well, you may need to have a little one-on-one with God because according to Michelle Bachmann, she too was "called by God" to run for the same job. Either God is confused or he mis-dialed.