OJ Again, The Power Of Prayer And 360 Takes Your Calls, Bad Plastic Surgeon, Lou Dobbs, And Raw Politics (Tuesday's Show)
Hi everybody. We're beginning tonight with OJ, which . . . why, Anderson Cooper, why?! Sob. I don't get it. Is he really still bringing in the ratings? In any regard, we get a Ted Rowlands piece on some of OJ's posse testifying against him. Or something. Apparently OJ told these dudes to come and pack some heat and they were all just, like, "okay." And when one dude worried about the cops coming, OJ went N.W.A. circa 1988 and was all, "f*** tha police." Classy. After his piece, we get Ted live for a bit and then he goes off to contemplate and drown his OJ sorrows. Or who knows. Maybe Ted's all, "I'm covering OJ! Woo hoo!"
Next up, we're joined by two people who do in fact seem to suspiciously enjoy covering OJ: Linda Deutsch of the AP and 360's own lovable OJ expert, Jeffrey Toobin. Toobin is finding this testimony all kinds of amusing. He especially liked when one dude was asked if he was a pimp and the dude replied that that wasn't relevant. Okay, yes, that is rather comical. Later, Anderson throws down the line, "it's hard out here for a pimp," which is ever-the-more amusing coming from our very waspy anchor. Also? It totally reminds me of the snippet of CNN I caught on Easter where a peep (the candy) fell on the floor or something and the anchor was all, "it's hard out here for a peep." Cracked me up so much I still remember it. Yeah, that's neither here nor there, but really, is any of this at this point? Let's see, what else? Oh, Anderson notes that if he told his friends to come and pack heat they'd think he was crazy. Eh, lightweight. Eliza's posse would be totally down with that. It's how I roll.
Transitioning now to the Atlanta Governor praying for rain. Literally. Okay, if I lived in Atlanta that would not be making me feel all that secure right about now. Prayer is fine and dandy, yes, but you kind of want your elected officials, you know, fixing the problem. Plus, if they're going to get all metaphysical or whatever, wouldn't a rain dance perhaps be more efficient? Just a thought. Anyway, we then get a piece from Anderson about the power of prayer and learn that it can lower stress and increase immunity. Of course the dude from "Skeptic" magazine (I totally need a subscription) isn't so sure that prayer is all that. Now there's a shocker. After Anderson's piece, we're joined by Dr. Deepak Chopra and Dr. Mehmet Oz of Oprah-fame. They discuss a bit and then go to commercial, where I take the opportunity to pray that the rest of the show will look at serious issues related to our democracy and how our country is being governed. Spoiler alert! My prayers were not answered.
So okay, I'm not really sure what the whole purpose is here. It's not an uninteresting topic, but there hasn't been any real new ground covered lately (these discussions randomly pop up in different places every so often) and the whole thing feels way more Oprah than CNN. If you want to pray, pray. We're never going to be able to scientifically quantify whether or not it "works" or not. But anyway, 360 is really into this--so into this that they're taking your calls. The first call is actually kind of cool. It's from a man named Barry Ballister who had a bunch of heart attacks and was initially denied a heart transplant because he was too old. Upon receiving this news, he randomly flipped to a bible verse about the heart and decided to put it on his wall for everyone to read and pray. Three days later, a doctor came and promised him a new heart.
Though touching, this call was also amusing because you could kind of see an internal struggle going on in Anderson, who was obviously feeling the need to cut Barry off, but was too polite to do it. Barry was very articulate and spoke quickly, but well, his story was still long. And 30 seconds in the real world is like five hours in cable world. You could tell Anderson was getting that internal flashing "too long, TOO LONG!" sign and he tried to sneak in there with some "wows". But how are you going to cut off a story like that? The perils of anchoring. Another caller worth noting actually wasn't a caller at all, but emailer Barbara, who goes all practical on everyone's butt and ponders why we're not working on that pesky global warming problem. You know, one of the causes of droughts. Thank you, Barbara! One might also wonder why a news show is investigating prayer rather than, oh, I don't know, why Atlanta wasn't better prepared for this. Just a thought.
Moving on now to a David Mattingly piece on the death of Kanye West's mom. Apparently it's been confirmed she underwent plastic surgery with this very popular, but possibly shady, plastic surgeon. He's got two DUI's and sounds like maybe someone you wouldn't want cutting into you. And I'd like to note that I caught the tease for that entertainment show that Headline News does and they were going to pretty much do the same story that David here just did. Where's that line between entertainment and news again?
Up next, we've got BREAKING NEWS that New York Governor Eliot Spitzer is dropping his plan to give driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. And I kind of get the feeling the only reason they're mentioning this is so they can play a Lou Dobbs clip. Anderson obviously sat down with him at some point and Lou got all crazy-excited about people identifying themselves as Independents. He doesn't believe any candidate currently running is going to win the presidency. Oh, Lou. I don't get it. What does it matter how I identify myself? I'm still going to end up voting for a democrat because they're the best option I've got. Poor Lou is holding onto the dream that there's someone coming to save us. I let go of that hope long long ago. Anyway, Lou then yells a lot and watching Anderson keep his smile in check is kind of funny.
Finally tonight, we have our "Raw Politics" with Tom Foreman. First up, we learn that Bush is vetoing a health and education bill because he is just that evil. Okay to be fair (and I always try to be fair) he claims it's full of pork. And you know, maybe he'd actually have some credibility on this if he ever vetoed a pork-filled bill from the republican-lead congress or if maybe his wars weren't going to cost us over a trillion (with a "T") dollars. Next, we get a clip of Edwards stating that as president he will take away congress's health care if they don't give it to all citizens. Hm, cool, but probably not the way to make friends. Tom brings us a few other things too, but I'm going to wrap it up with Tom Tancredo, who I think we can now all finally officially put into the bat-shit insane camp. Are you scared yet? Pay no mind to some of those attacks being homegrown. Facts have no place in fear mongering.
Okay, so, 360, I'm getting a little concerned here. Do we need to have "the talk" again? The inconsistency in content quality waxes and wanes. Fine. It's something I and others have grown to accept. But PiP is over now and I kind of thought we'd maybe be in an upswing at this point. Not so. As my friend Arachnae commented tonight, "Well that was the most content-free 360 in living memory - OJ, prayer and plastic surgery. Is Anderson trying out for The View?" Skimming my archives of this time last year, it seems 360 was covering harder, more relevant stories. Since there was an election last November, I skimmed December too and the case was pretty much the same. Maybe it's just me, but it seems like the content of the show is slowly changing towards more fluff. There's less and less stuff out of Iraq and we haven't had an update from New Orleans in forever (unless they just did one when I was gone). Opinions, readers? D+
Next up, we're joined by two people who do in fact seem to suspiciously enjoy covering OJ: Linda Deutsch of the AP and 360's own lovable OJ expert, Jeffrey Toobin. Toobin is finding this testimony all kinds of amusing. He especially liked when one dude was asked if he was a pimp and the dude replied that that wasn't relevant. Okay, yes, that is rather comical. Later, Anderson throws down the line, "it's hard out here for a pimp," which is ever-the-more amusing coming from our very waspy anchor. Also? It totally reminds me of the snippet of CNN I caught on Easter where a peep (the candy) fell on the floor or something and the anchor was all, "it's hard out here for a peep." Cracked me up so much I still remember it. Yeah, that's neither here nor there, but really, is any of this at this point? Let's see, what else? Oh, Anderson notes that if he told his friends to come and pack heat they'd think he was crazy. Eh, lightweight. Eliza's posse would be totally down with that. It's how I roll.
Transitioning now to the Atlanta Governor praying for rain. Literally. Okay, if I lived in Atlanta that would not be making me feel all that secure right about now. Prayer is fine and dandy, yes, but you kind of want your elected officials, you know, fixing the problem. Plus, if they're going to get all metaphysical or whatever, wouldn't a rain dance perhaps be more efficient? Just a thought. Anyway, we then get a piece from Anderson about the power of prayer and learn that it can lower stress and increase immunity. Of course the dude from "Skeptic" magazine (I totally need a subscription) isn't so sure that prayer is all that. Now there's a shocker. After Anderson's piece, we're joined by Dr. Deepak Chopra and Dr. Mehmet Oz of Oprah-fame. They discuss a bit and then go to commercial, where I take the opportunity to pray that the rest of the show will look at serious issues related to our democracy and how our country is being governed. Spoiler alert! My prayers were not answered.
So okay, I'm not really sure what the whole purpose is here. It's not an uninteresting topic, but there hasn't been any real new ground covered lately (these discussions randomly pop up in different places every so often) and the whole thing feels way more Oprah than CNN. If you want to pray, pray. We're never going to be able to scientifically quantify whether or not it "works" or not. But anyway, 360 is really into this--so into this that they're taking your calls. The first call is actually kind of cool. It's from a man named Barry Ballister who had a bunch of heart attacks and was initially denied a heart transplant because he was too old. Upon receiving this news, he randomly flipped to a bible verse about the heart and decided to put it on his wall for everyone to read and pray. Three days later, a doctor came and promised him a new heart.
Though touching, this call was also amusing because you could kind of see an internal struggle going on in Anderson, who was obviously feeling the need to cut Barry off, but was too polite to do it. Barry was very articulate and spoke quickly, but well, his story was still long. And 30 seconds in the real world is like five hours in cable world. You could tell Anderson was getting that internal flashing "too long, TOO LONG!" sign and he tried to sneak in there with some "wows". But how are you going to cut off a story like that? The perils of anchoring. Another caller worth noting actually wasn't a caller at all, but emailer Barbara, who goes all practical on everyone's butt and ponders why we're not working on that pesky global warming problem. You know, one of the causes of droughts. Thank you, Barbara! One might also wonder why a news show is investigating prayer rather than, oh, I don't know, why Atlanta wasn't better prepared for this. Just a thought.
Moving on now to a David Mattingly piece on the death of Kanye West's mom. Apparently it's been confirmed she underwent plastic surgery with this very popular, but possibly shady, plastic surgeon. He's got two DUI's and sounds like maybe someone you wouldn't want cutting into you. And I'd like to note that I caught the tease for that entertainment show that Headline News does and they were going to pretty much do the same story that David here just did. Where's that line between entertainment and news again?
Up next, we've got BREAKING NEWS that New York Governor Eliot Spitzer is dropping his plan to give driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. And I kind of get the feeling the only reason they're mentioning this is so they can play a Lou Dobbs clip. Anderson obviously sat down with him at some point and Lou got all crazy-excited about people identifying themselves as Independents. He doesn't believe any candidate currently running is going to win the presidency. Oh, Lou. I don't get it. What does it matter how I identify myself? I'm still going to end up voting for a democrat because they're the best option I've got. Poor Lou is holding onto the dream that there's someone coming to save us. I let go of that hope long long ago. Anyway, Lou then yells a lot and watching Anderson keep his smile in check is kind of funny.
Finally tonight, we have our "Raw Politics" with Tom Foreman. First up, we learn that Bush is vetoing a health and education bill because he is just that evil. Okay to be fair (and I always try to be fair) he claims it's full of pork. And you know, maybe he'd actually have some credibility on this if he ever vetoed a pork-filled bill from the republican-lead congress or if maybe his wars weren't going to cost us over a trillion (with a "T") dollars. Next, we get a clip of Edwards stating that as president he will take away congress's health care if they don't give it to all citizens. Hm, cool, but probably not the way to make friends. Tom brings us a few other things too, but I'm going to wrap it up with Tom Tancredo, who I think we can now all finally officially put into the bat-shit insane camp. Are you scared yet? Pay no mind to some of those attacks being homegrown. Facts have no place in fear mongering.
Okay, so, 360, I'm getting a little concerned here. Do we need to have "the talk" again? The inconsistency in content quality waxes and wanes. Fine. It's something I and others have grown to accept. But PiP is over now and I kind of thought we'd maybe be in an upswing at this point. Not so. As my friend Arachnae commented tonight, "Well that was the most content-free 360 in living memory - OJ, prayer and plastic surgery. Is Anderson trying out for The View?" Skimming my archives of this time last year, it seems 360 was covering harder, more relevant stories. Since there was an election last November, I skimmed December too and the case was pretty much the same. Maybe it's just me, but it seems like the content of the show is slowly changing towards more fluff. There's less and less stuff out of Iraq and we haven't had an update from New Orleans in forever (unless they just did one when I was gone). Opinions, readers? D+
posted by eliza at 1:11 AM
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