On the topic of news...

These are actually two posts from another blog:

24 October 2007 @ 02:25 pm
Oh My God! Buy More Potter Crap if you're Gay!

Yesterday, I was disgusted.

Oui, oui, je sais. How surprising. Quelle suprise. I am so easily disgusted. So often disgusted. Perhaps I just have a low tolerance to disgust. Perhaps I am not suited for this.

I was disgusted because yesterday, I picked up the Toronto Star (yes, the Toronto Star) which as we all know is at least a semi-serious newspaper with in-slight-depth news articles. I opened the paper, the front page, to get to the index. There, on page A3, which is a very prominant page, because of where it is placed, you cannot skip A3 if you intend to read your paper, was a PAGE-SIZED ARTICLE on how apparently Dumbledore might be gay. (Ok, so it's really more a half-page coupled with other "Gay Rumours in Literature" and a 1/3 of the page going to an ad for some stupid rich person's watch).

No, nevermind anything else in the world. Anything else in the fucking city. STOP THE FUCKING PRESSES! BECAUSE A FUCKING HARRY POTTER CHARACTER MIGHT BE GAY. This was an entire fucking page worth of speculation based off of an off-the-cuff comment that J.K. Rowling made at a book signing about a fucking FICTIONAL CHARACTER. I know that many, many, many people hold the Harry Potter series in high regard (oftentimes higher regard than I believe it desserves) but why must we pretend that Harry Potter, nay, a Harry Potter sub-character is more important than: Dundas Square new home of Citytv or Family awaiting answers in dogs' shooting deaths or Educated people get dementia later but decline quicker: Research or Pedophiles tend to be short men, study finds, which were all on the next page?

Ok, so none of this is really what I feel is "serious news". Well, I feel sorry for the family that lost its dog, sure, but I don't give a shit about Citytv moving, I don't care if I get dementia faster later on in my life because I'm nowhere near that yet, and it's really too simplistic to pin pedophilia on short men alone. So maybe it's just that newspapers need some fucking help. Because, really, this isn't making me go "NEWS". The next page is about new Taxlaws in Toronto. That would be more important news. Then there's a bunch of trivial and serious Toronto crap and then a bit about Canada's Peacekeeping Stance questioned real brief-like in the back... That and also Canadian soldiers being douchy in Afghanistan, but really, that's not trendy in the news stories anymore.

Ok, so, still. With all this stuff going on, WHY DO WE GIVE A SHIT ABOUT A HARRY POTTER CHARACTER BEING (MAYBE) GAY? I mean, the books are out, you've read them, you can make your own assumptions, and DOES THIS CHANGE ANYONE'S LIFE? Like, does this actually make a difference in the world? I open the paper and I'm actually more interested in things like global conflicts that we don't hear about (like Israel marching into Syria sort of deal, wait, was that actually in the news?). In the Toronto Star, the "A" section doesn't cover that, only the "AA" or "World" section. But I'm pretty sure there's a hell of a lot more going on in TORONTO itself than J.K. Rowling saying "I always thought of Dumbledore as gay" in (wait for it, wait for it) NEW YORK. Or somewhere. Where ever she was, she wasn't here, so there were no dramatic Harry Potter fans running round the streets going "OH MY GOD!" causing accidents and bodily harm and such.

All I'm saying is: PLEASE WORLD. GET THE FUCK OVER HARRY POTTER ALREADY. If you're going to be coo-coo over some piece of fiction, please, choose a piece of fiction that has at the very least spent enough time in an editor's office.

All I'm REALLY trying to say is: PLEASE WORLD. GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THE REAL WORLD AND NOT A PIECE OF FICTION, BE IT FILMED OR WRITTEN. Like, who cares if Dumbledore might be gay. That doesn't change things in the world. Gays, etc. are still getting one of the many short ended sticks. Oh, wait, this just in, no, their stick is a long one because Dumbledore is now on their side.


27 October 2007
Re: Oh My God! Buy More Potter Crap if you're Gay!
So, apparently page A3 in the Toronto Star is NOT a news page.

On Thursday there was a huge article on how to barter for things. You know, shop cheaper? Now, I don't have anything against bartering (although I do think there is a time and a place for it) but one of the last things that people here need is: How to buy more stuff!

Oh my God! Buy more crap if you're breathing!

My last entry was not to just hate on Harry Potter, although I find a large enough group of its fan-base so irritating that it's incredibly tempting... but the way that our news system works is so problematic. Now, I know that there's a lot of crap going on in the world, and you can't represent all of it at any given time... but newspapers could do a lot more than what they are doing now. But news is becoming a form of entertainment too, and you can tell by the pictures they choose...