Oprah Just Can’t Understand Why America Does Not Respect Obama’s Authority

February 11, 2011 | Comments (0)

Apparently mistaking the United States of America for a third-world banana republic dictatorship, Oprah Winfrey commented in an MSNBC interview earlier this week, that she is “surprised” that the American people are finding it so easy to criticize her fearless leader, Barack Obama.  Ms. Winfrey is evidently “concerned” about this, because, to paraphrase, the president naturally has “authority” over the American people.  She seems to believe that blessed as we are with such an extraordinary man to rule us, we the people should be grateful and shut our collective mouths.

To her credit she did mention respect for the “office” of the presidency (not necessarily one and the same as the individual holding that office), but perhaps it’s time for Ms. Winfrey to take a course on the United States Constitution and the First Amendment.

In the meantime, Ms. Winfrey, let me inform you that no one has authority over me, my family or anyone blessed with the rights and privileges bestowed upon this country by the men who risked their lives to craft them.  In fact, Ms. Winfrey, were you to investigate those documents, those men, you would discover it is we the people who hold the authority card in this great nation, and the vast majority of us have no intention of handing our liberties over to anyone, including your would-be “authoritarian” friend currently occupying the White House.  Let me remind you that such arrangements came to an end in this country back in the 1860s.

Meanwhile, the man who would be king – the man you, Ms. Winfrey, seem to think a king currently occupying that big house in D.C. – trots the globe bowing and scraping to any and every world leader who will receive him.  While more than comfortable exerting his “authority” over we the people here at home, he willingly subjugates himself to other countries around the world, even those with unsavory designs on our nation and our people.  At the same time, this president has in recent weeks taken to comparing himself to our 40th President, Ronald Reagan, even unabashedly referring to himself as “the gipper,” President Reagan’s nickname taken from one of his famous movie roles.

Were he with us today, I imagine Ronnie would get a good laugh from that ridiculous “gipper” comparison, imitation being the finest form of flattery, but so do I also know that such imitation would not flow both ways.  We would never have seen President Reagan bowing and scraping to other heads of state, knowing as he did that such circumstances are where we the people do wish to see some American presidential authority on display.  Once we have someone who understands this back in the White House again, we trust that individual will enjoy your full and uncritical respect, Ms. Winfrey – even if he or she does not happen to be a liberal, a messiah, or your close personal friend.

Betsy Siino | Comments (0)

When Pampered News Anchors Venture in to the War Zone

February 8, 2011 | Comments (1)

 Within the past couple of weeks, several network news anchors experienced a collective brain cramp and decided it would be wise  – and good for ratings – to catch a flight to Cairo and set up their microphones amid Egypt’s current, and very violent, revolutionary chaos.

Katie Couric, Brian Williams, and far too many other high-profile TV news personalities made the trip, mistaking themselves for the hard-boiled, unshaven, wartime field correspondents who have historically risked their lives to cover the World Wars, as well as the wars in Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, Iraq and Afghanistan. Such a vocation requires a certain type of animal.  A perky, desperate-for-ratings Katie, as well as NBC’s Brian Williams (featured recently in some insipid women’s magazine, engaging oh-so-urgently in the heated controversy of pleats versus plain in men’s slacks), are not those animals.

We all recognize the true die-hard field reporter when we see one – and we have seen plenty of them in recent years, thanks to those reporters who were embedded with our troops in the early days of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars.  Fox’s Rick Leventhal quickly emerged as my personal favorite, transforming almost overnight into one of those hard-boiled field reporters, who might just as well have been posting stories from Normandy Beach in June, 1944.  Rick’s respect and reverence for those with whom he was embedded was undeniable, reflected in the meat and nature of his reporting.  Even now, when I see him reporting stateside from the White House or similar venue, I get the feeling he would trade the jacket and tie for a flak jacket, helmet and sunburn in a heartbeat.

As for Katie and Brian and their more soft-boiled brethren, those who have been rioting, pillaging, overthrowing, and destroying Egypt’s ancient national treasures in Cairo, have not been at all impressed by the network pampered pets who swept into town with their cameras, microphones, makeup teams and personal assistants.  The reports of injured news personalities emerging from the chaos have not only been staggering in number, but devastating in nature, featuring abductions, head injuries and threats of beheading.

The experience has surely served as a profound wake-up call to television “journalists” forced to realize that terrorists and their ilk are not just misunderstood activists, and that they themselves are talented teleprompter readers, not field reporters (the latter of whom know the story isn’t about them, the former holding the opposite opinion).  Most of the pampered pets have since come running home – fortunately before we had to send our troops in to risk their lives to rescue them.

Betsy Siino | Comments (1)

Despite an Irritating Guest, Sarah’s Family Sparkles in the Last Frontier

January 5, 2011 | Comments (0)
Several people (you know who you are) insisted that I check out a recent episode of Sarah Palin’s reality show on the TLC cable network. The episode in question features a guest appearance by the irritating Kate Gosselin, “star” of another TLC “reality” show — “Kate Exploits 8,” or whatever it’s called – which finds her shamelessly using her children for her own self-aggrandizement.

Though I followed this directive, allow me first to say that I have tried to ignore the existence of Sarah’s show, her appearance in such a project a disappointment to me. But I watched anyway, and though Gosselin’s disgraceful “performance” had me praying even more fervently for the end of her 15 minutes of inexplicable fame, I was pleased to see Sarah and her clan emerge so lovable and “genuine,” in keeping with the alleged mission of so-called “reality” shows, most of which are anything but.

Indeed Sarah and her family sparkled, from Sarah’s dad, a retired biology teacher who mesmerized the kids (and the TV audience) with his house, a residential natural history museum; to Sarah’s hubby Todd, who escaped the guest star’s nonsense to go fishing alone, leaving his wife envious of said escape; to Sarah’s kids who were disgusted by the guest star’s failure even to try and enjoy an Alaskan camping trip; to the guest star’s exploited children, who were in seventh heaven spending time with the Palins in the Alaskan wilderness.

Failing to sparkle in any way was guest-star Gosselin, who lasted only a couple of hours on the camping trip, after which she guilted/threatened her kids to leave with her in her wimpy, whiny retreat. How sad for those kids, who, understandably, wanted to stay with the mama grizzly, the grandpa grizzly, and their clan. I don’t even want to think of what awaits those kids when puberty hits – and when their mom’s 15 minutes does finally come to a much deserved end.

Of course, Kate seems to believe that those 15 minutes will last forever.  Before she humiliated herself in the Last Frontier, she whined to Sarah that they are two peas in a pod because they both understand the slings and arrows of media scrutiny. Sorry, Kate, you are nothing like Sarah, whose media scrutiny arises from the profound and genuine threat she poses to the twisted, leftist power base of the United States. Kate also failed to mention that whenever her own media scrutiny begins to wane, she does anything she can to get it back – posing for some cheesy magazine in a bikini, crying on insipid women’s talk shows, trotting out the kids, being surgically enhanced – whatever it takes.

As the show ended, I was left lamenting the missed opportunity I had just witnessed. Before embarking on the camping trip, the Palins thought Gosselin might need some training in grizzly-country safety. Having had extensive training myself in this area, I couldn’t help but imagine a scene where the bear expert advises guest-star Kate that if she should stumble upon a lone grizzly cub out in the wilderness, by all means pick the little guy up, cuddle him and hug him, tickle his tummy, and feed him crackers and M&Ms. Little grizzly cubs just love this – especially when mama is nearby. To those of you who know what I’m saying here, well, those 15 minutes….over. Yep, sadly, a lost opportunity. Sigh. (Just kidding. Sort of.)

Betsy Siino | Comments (0)

Mythical Obama Set to Appear on Mythbusters

October 18, 2010 | Comments (0)

UPDATE (10/20/10):  In his grand mission to appear as unpresidential as is humanly possible, Barack Obama, it was just announced, will be appearing on The Daily Show on Comedy Central, as well.  What’s next?  Guest appearances on Jersey Shore and Dancing with the Stars?  This man has made a laughingstock of our great nation, and rest assured that those who oppose us are watching.  And salivating.

So I see that Barack Obama is taking leave yet again from his duties as leader of the Free World to appear on yet another television show.  This time he will be gracing the set of Mythbusters, a cable program that dispels urban legends, to promote the educational importance of math and science.

Just one question: What the heck does Barack Obama know about math and science? Indeed my son, who is buried daily under mounds of math and science homework, asked that very question when he heard that Obama would be appearing on a show he once respected until today.

 Surrounded as I am in my family by crowds of people who are extremely well educated and degreed in these subjects (not me, mind you), I would venture that these family members, as well as my high-school-aged son and his friends, would be far more qualified to discuss this topic than a man whose legendarily thin, non-mathematical, non-scientific, non-work-experience-of-any-kind resume has been the topic of great debate for months now.

But this President is in panic campaign mode right now, traveling the country making his increasingly shrill and strident speeches, while finding it all far less gratifying than it was back in the glory days of 2008 when he was regarded a god. While he seems to have decided he’ll have better luck on TV, the results of this have been lackluster at best.

In the meantime, I urge the Mythbuster guys to keep their radar sharp, ever focused on their mission to debunk myths and mythical creatures, especially mythical creatures that happen to wander in front of their cameras. I urge them, as well, to remember that their own credibility could be at stake if they play patty-cake too enthusiastically with this White House.

Betsy Siino | Comments (0)

Tonight on Discovery: Man vs. Metrosexual

September 4, 2010 | Comments (0)
The attack this past week on the Discovery Channel headquarters by an environmental activist who was inspired by Al Gore and his “documentary,” An Inconvenient Truth, got me thinking about a trend – a convenient truth — I have been noticing this summer. In a nutshell: Men are alive and well, and we still like having them around.

I recognized this trend, this truth, while, at the behest of my son, I was watching Discovery’s reality shows that showcase the fine art of survival, either on the job (Deadliest Catch) or in the wild (Man vs. Wild, Dual Survival, etc.) . These shows are wildly popular, their key players — from captains of ice-encrusted boats seeking Arctic crab, to military-trained experts demonstrating survival tips in case of wilderness isolation or apocalypse — becoming household names coast to coast. Like I said, alive and well.

Which tells me something, too, about all those soft, non-threatening, oh-so-celebrated metrosexuals that grace most of America’s magazine covers: George Clooney, Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, and, of course, the illustrious Barack Obama. Sing their praises if you must, but obviously there are still plenty of Americans, men and women alike, who revere the masculinity, self-sufficiency, independence, resourcefulness and virility at the core of the Discovery guys’ popularity (and, in a sense, at the core of America itself).

It’s not that difficult to figure out. Our culture may have been subverted in recent decades by radical feminists who would label men “scum” yet insist that women are their equal, and politically correct philosophies and policies that mandate there is no evil, no right, no wrong, but that does not change who we are fundamentally as animals. When faced with danger and those who would hurt our homes and families, most of us, like our non-human brethren, still look up to those who know how to keep us warm, keep us fed, keep us safe, and keep us alive.

If my family were stranded in the tundra, left to our own devices in the aftermath of a natural disaster, or threatened by the consequences of a lawless society, some guy whose skill set consists solely of mugging for a camera lens, reading a teleprompter and matching a silk tie to an Italian suit would be of no value whatsoever. On the other hand, a man who can navigate a ship through a blizzard on an icy sea; who can find water and shade in Death Valley; who would take down a plane hijacked by terrorists before it reaches DC; or who can use a gun and a blade for food, shelter and self-protection.…I’ll stick with him, thank you very much.  It’s a safe bet most of the rest of us would too.

Betsy Siino | Comments (0)

Life in this Bizarro World

March 13, 2010 | Comments (0)

For months now I have felt like I’ve been living in one of my favorite Seinfeld episodes, “The Bizarro Jerry.” Elaine falls in with a ”bizarro” opposite crowd, where the guy pals read books, they lock their apartment doors, they give money to charity, and they treat each other with respect.

In our own current bizarro world, the United States government has waged war against our liberties, shredded our Constitution; gobbled up private industries; promoted policies that have left millions of Americans jobless; treated foreign-born terrorists like American citizens; spent us into oblivion; cut corrupt backroom-esque deals in full view of the public with unions and legislators (and threatened those that don’t comply); and, most notably, launched a full-blown attack on the American health-care system to place it under government control, ration care, and control every aspect of our lives. Meanwhile, a lapdog media rubber stamps each of these efforts, fighting any attempt made to illuminate truth and preserve our liberty.

The public response has surprised those seeking to destroy and transform America. With each attack, we have witnessed the awakening of the legendary sleeping giant, the American people, who have refused to go quietly into that insidious corrupt night. We may awaken each morning to an America we hardly recognize anymore, but most of us see it for what it is: just another challenge to the grand experiment that is this nation — a challenge we will overcome.

In keeping with the bizarro nature of our America right now, I discovered a curious piece of inspiration where I least expected to find it: the Showtime drama Dexter. Think what you will of this story of a serial killer who targets only those who have committed heinous acts and escaped justice (we’re talking bizarro America here, remember?), but the words of Dexter’s adopted father Harry, a police officer, apply just as pertinently to his fictional TV world as they do our unfortunately very real bizarro one: 

“The world can always be set right again.”

I’ll be keeping that one. Though I personally believe our current chaos will get worse before it gets better, “the world can always be set right again.” It can. And ours will. There is no other option.

Betsy Siino | Comments (0)

Stupid Commercial for Financial Irresponsibility

March 2, 2010 | Comments (0)

March 2, 2010 | Comments

The camera opens on an attractive, well-dressed, well-spoken couple with expensive hair. They sit chatting in what appears to be the kitchen in a bright, airy, well-appointed contemporary home (theirs, I presume).

Their topic on this fine, sunny morning? The high service charges levied upon them when they cash their weekly paychecks, government checks, whatever checks they say they are regularly cashing. It seems these attractive people don’t have a bank account – not even a small savings account that would earn them check-cashing privileges. Poor things. So they apparently have to cash their checks with the shark on the corner, and it’s costing them far too much.

But today they share the great news: Walmart’s check-cashing charges are much cheaper than what they have been paying! Oh, happy day! And it gets better. Once they figure these reduced charges will save them as much as $200 a year, they gleefully agree to put that sweet savings to good use and buy a new flat-screen TV! Oh, happy day again!

Now, if this is indeed a valid portrait of Americans faced with economic challenges today, it’s no wonder households across the nation are in such dire straits financially. I also have to wonder just who Walmart is targeting with this message? Perhaps the woman I saw at Best Buy the other day fits the audience profile. Denied her attempt to purchase a laptop computer with food stamps, she stomped out of the store and bee-lined in a huff to her Lexus parked in a handicapped spot outside the door. I guess she has been cashing her checks at Walmart.

As for you, commercial couple, how about taking that $200 and opening a savings account. You’ll likely find that family security trumps new toys any day.

Betsy Siino | Comments

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Update: Food Network and Garden-Gate

January 14, 2010 | Comments (0)

January 14, 2010 | Comments

Since my post yesterday about my personal farewell to Food Network, I just wanted to check in with the latest on the network’s partisan decision to showcase the First Lady and produce from the White House garden on a very special episode of Iron Chef.

Contrary to what was claimed on said special episode, the produce used by the Food Network chefs did not come from the extensively flaunted and photographed White House garden after all. Indeed, according to a statement released by the Food Network, “due to the production delay between the shoot at the White House and the shoot at Food Network, the produce used in Kitchen Stadium during the Super Chef Battle was not actually from the White House garden.”

And so, once again, we see an entity — Food Network this time — like so many entities before it, that align themselves with this adminstration and its agenda, convincing themselves that there is no harm in the deception — and besides, no one will ever find out. Trouble is: We always find out. Always. And almost instantly.

When will they learn?

I have a feeling Food Network has learned. And the pitiful Food Network chefs who participated, once so admired by my family, have learned, too. On its face, it sounds trivial, I know, but the more important message here is that again we see that nothing, and I mean nothing, about this administration is authentic. From admitted “photo-ops” with our troops to idiotic covers on golf and fashion magazines to doctors wearing phony white coats in the White House rose garden to the ongoing American apology tours to speeches set before a phony Parthenon: It’s all a fraud.

Yet this administration continues to entice and woo would-be collaborators in to do its bidding, to assist in the fakery. Those who agree wind up learning firsthand that when you lay down with dogs you’re going to get fleas. Kind of an insult to dogs, I know, but as so many have learned, from, among others, certain car companies, lapdog media outlets, so-called “representatives” in Congress, cable networks that focus on food and cooking — you may emerge from these associations, the agreements, the backroom deals, a bit anemic with an itch that just won’t go away. And, I have to believe, with a terrible case of regret.

So I ask the Food Network, which I know is suffering grief for the decision to join this bandwagon: Was it all worth the aemia, worth the itch? You won’t admit the truth, I know, but somehow I doubt it.

Betsy Siino | Comments

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Good-Bye, Food Network

January 13, 2010 | Comments (0)

January 13, 2010 | Comments

Refer back to my post of January 4th, and you will remember that I have cancelled my subscription to Golf Digest in the wake of its slobbering collusion in the President’s unquenchable addiction to photo shoots and media attention. Well, now Food Network Magazine is on my chopping block (to borrow a phrase from the network’s own Chopped program), and, given what I’m hearing from others out there who previously considered themselves fans of this network, I have a feeling I’m not the only one doing the chopping.

It began a couple of months ago, when, as is so often the case, I was watching the Food Network – which I have, day in and day out, since the network’s inception in the early 90s. Indeed I have been one of their most loyal, most enduring fans, knowing that the Food Network was both a safe territory for kids and a sanctuary of political neutrality. But that all changed on that fateful day a couple months back, when a commercial announced that a guest of “national importance” would be gracing a special episode of Iron Chef from Washington, DC.

Uh oh. Red flag. I knew what was coming.

A couple teaser weeks passed, and there it was: the quick flash on the screen of the First Lady. She would be challenging the chefs with a special secret ingredient: fresh produce, including some taken from her own White House garden, all in keeping with her focus on good health and nutrition, blah, blah, blah, slobber, slobber, slobber.

I didn’t watch, of course, and the phony-baloney artificiality of the idea and its execution made me cringe (to put it nicely). Don’t know how it played, but I will trust that nothing was said during the course of the challenge about the First Lady’s appetite for the finer foods in life: Kobe beef, lobster, caviar – items not readily found in the White House garden.

Anyway, it didn’t end there. I also happen to be a charter subscriber to Food Network Magazine, and I love it — read it from cover to cover every month. But the November issue brought another red flag: a slobbering piece on the First Family’s favorite restaurants. Then came December: a celebration of the First Lady’s Iron Chef challenge. And now, January: the First Family’s favorite recipes, blah, blah, blah, slobber, slobber, slobber. Three months in a row! And that’s it for me. I’m out.

I have cancelled my subscription to the magazine, re-programmed my cable “Favorites,” and notified both network and magazine why they may no longer count me in. I have asked, as well, knowing no answer will be forthcoming, if their embrace of partisanship and some of the most polarizing figures in American history has garnered them more viewers and readers than it has lost. I simply mentioned Food Network Magazine in my “photo-op” post, and I heard from like-minded fans who are equally disgusted by this former sanctuary’s new political focus. I have a feeling the network is learning the hard way just how severely they have misread their audience.

Betsy Siino | Comments

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Balloon Boy Saga

October 20, 2009 | Comments (0)

October 20, 2009 | Comments

I am no fan of reality TV. Wait. Strike that. I do watch the Food Network’s cooking competitions and I admit to following Dancing with the Stars with my daughter. But I steer clear of anything that follows subjects into bathrooms, promotes vicious mind games, or records intimate and embarrassing moments, all designed not only to titillate a voyeuristic public, but also to dangle the possibility that a participant’s bathroom performance will lead to superstardom.

Despite my attempts at isolation, I remember the night I first spotted a commercial for one of those “traditional” bathroom-wallowing-type reality shows, that indicated children were now being trotted out in front of the cameras to cry, eat bugs and entrails, and/or have tantrums for the entertainment of the entire population of the United States.

Thus was born my rant that has since become all too familiar to those who know me: My hope is that someday when these kids come of age, they will sue the daylights out of their parents, the networks and the production companies that exploited them on television without their consent.

Well, last Friday, reality TV collided with publicity stunt collided with child exploitation, when a hysterical media reported that a 6-year-old was thought to be flying thousands of feet above Colorado in an experimental helium balloon. Emergency personnel rose to full alert, the military was called in, Denver Airport suspended full operation, and America watched and waited.

Hours later, the balloon floated back to earth, empty. Hours after that, the boy was found hiding in his home, allegedly terrified of punishment for setting the balloon free. Hours after that, the boy stated on national television that it was all done “for the show.” Minutes later, law enforcement kicked in. Hours after that, we learned that mom and dad, veterans of reality TV, were seeking a new gig. And, well, now with such words as “hoax” and “child protective services” flying about, things aren’t looking all that rosy for mom and dad.

Those who spent that afternoon worrying about this boy have since learned that the child apparently cut his teeth on reality TV. He was paraded repeatedly by media-hungry parents before the cameras of “Wife Swap,” YouTube, and now virtually every media outlet in the country, all “for the show,” all for an alleged parental stab at a reality show. In an odd karmic twist — and much to dad’s shock, I’m sure – the boy has now emerged the poster child for reality-TV child exploitation.

And I say, let the lawsuits begin.

Betsy Siino | Comments

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