There were a lot of losers who made the headlines in 2011, too many to fully write about here as a matter of fact. As the year comes to a close, I look back at who I felt were ten of the year’s biggest losers who in one way or another put me in a bad mood.
1) The Occupy Movement: A lot of things can be said about The Occupy Movement and none of them good. Their protests, which had no clear message as to what they wanted to accomplish made my blood pressure and blood sugars fly off the charts. This was a movement started by a bunch of pissed off whining freeloaders who among a lot of things blamed others who are more successful and making more money than they are, blamed others for the fact they cannot find a job, and demanded that someone else pay for their college loans. Like their problems are all our fault when in fact, a lot of us ARE working and ARE struggling to meet bills like myself living from paycheck to paycheck but you don’t see me out there blaming capitalism, the government and Wall Street for my personal financial problems and educational shortcomings.
“Don’t blame Wall Street, don’t blame the big banks, if you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself! It is not a person’s fault if they succeeded, it is a person’s fault if they failed,” said former Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain back in October before suspending his bid for the White House Dec. 3 as a result of the sexual harassment allegations and claims he had a 13-year-affair with an Atlanta woman.
"All the Occupy movement starts with the premise that we owe them everything," said Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich at a speech at Harvard according to an 11/21/11 online article on businessinsider.com. "They take over a public park they didn't pay for, to go nearby to use bathrooms they didn't pay for, to beg for food from places they don't want to pay for, to obstruct those who are going to work to pay the taxes to sustain the bathrooms and to sustain the park, so they can self-righteously explain they are the paragons of virtue to which we owe everything."
I find the one quote, however, that best summarizes The Occupy Movement is one I heard Sean Hannity say on his conservative radio talk show a few weeks ago quoting from President John F. Kennedy’s Jan. 20, 1961 inaugural address. “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.” The Occupy Movement might want to think about that.
2) Black Friday Shoppers: I am not referring to the millions who stood in lines outside Thanksgiving night waiting for stores to open at midnight Friday morning in hopes of being first in line for discounted deals. I am referring to those Black Friday Shoppers who ignored 61-year-old pharmacist Walter Vance as he suffered a heart attack and collapsed while shopping at a Target in West Virginia. Vance later died at the hospital. No one bothered to help the guy other than the six nurses shopping in the store who aided Vance performing CPR until paramedics arrived, according to his wife, Lynne, in the Sunday Gazette Mail.
This wasn’t the only incident where shoppers only gave a damn about themselves. Other incidents across the country included people being pepper sprayed while trying to get their hands on Xboxes, shoppers being robbed and shot as they walked out of stores with their purchases and people rioting to get their hands on a discounted waffle maker. You know who you are and it’s because of your callous selfishness that is the reason why you people bring out the Scrooge and the Grinch in me, or in my case, “The Joe That Stole Christmas” that begins the day after Thanksgiving until Jan. 2 when the entire holiday season to my immense pleasure is officially over. To quote Walter Vance’s co-worker, Sue Compton, who upon hearing what happened told WSAZ-TV almost exactly what I have been asking myself the past several years every time this holiday comes along. “Where is the good Samaritan side of people?” The words from that song, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year” might just be nothing more than a fairy tale.
3) Former Head Football Coach Joe Paterno, former Penn State University President Graham Spanier, Penn State wide receiver’s coach and recruiting coordinator Mike McQueary, Penn State’s senior vice president for finance and business, Gary Schultz, Penn State athletic director Tim Curley and anyone else who knew anything about former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky’s “extracurricular activities” involving eight kids and did little or nothing to stop it much less immediately report it to authorities.
There is a line from "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" (1982) that best describes the despicable behavior exhibited by these key players in the Penn State scandal that immediately ended Joe Paterno’s long running coaching career. “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”
To Paterno, Spanier, McQueary, Curley and Schultz “the many” was worrying about either their jobs and the reputation of their prestigious college and athletic football program because to them it was all about money and that’s what makes the college go round. Ok, McQueary did report what he saw going on in the showers between Sandusky and a young kid back in 2002. Instead of getting the kid out of there and calling the cops, however, McQueary called his daddy and then reported the incident to Paterno, who in turn reported it to his supervisors. Is it just me but when someone witnesses someone else possibly being raped, in particular a young kid, do you not immediately call the cops, if not get that kid away from the guy?
These individuals should have paid intense heed to “the few”, the eight kids, if not more who tried telling adults about Jerry Sandusky’s strange behavior and shrugged it off.
“This is a tragedy,” Paterno said. “It is one of the great sorrows of my life. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more.”
So do we “JoePa”, so do we.
1) The Occupy Movement: A lot of things can be said about The Occupy Movement and none of them good. Their protests, which had no clear message as to what they wanted to accomplish made my blood pressure and blood sugars fly off the charts. This was a movement started by a bunch of pissed off whining freeloaders who among a lot of things blamed others who are more successful and making more money than they are, blamed others for the fact they cannot find a job, and demanded that someone else pay for their college loans. Like their problems are all our fault when in fact, a lot of us ARE working and ARE struggling to meet bills like myself living from paycheck to paycheck but you don’t see me out there blaming capitalism, the government and Wall Street for my personal financial problems and educational shortcomings.
“Don’t blame Wall Street, don’t blame the big banks, if you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself! It is not a person’s fault if they succeeded, it is a person’s fault if they failed,” said former Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain back in October before suspending his bid for the White House Dec. 3 as a result of the sexual harassment allegations and claims he had a 13-year-affair with an Atlanta woman.
"All the Occupy movement starts with the premise that we owe them everything," said Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich at a speech at Harvard according to an 11/21/11 online article on businessinsider.com. "They take over a public park they didn't pay for, to go nearby to use bathrooms they didn't pay for, to beg for food from places they don't want to pay for, to obstruct those who are going to work to pay the taxes to sustain the bathrooms and to sustain the park, so they can self-righteously explain they are the paragons of virtue to which we owe everything."
I find the one quote, however, that best summarizes The Occupy Movement is one I heard Sean Hannity say on his conservative radio talk show a few weeks ago quoting from President John F. Kennedy’s Jan. 20, 1961 inaugural address. “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.” The Occupy Movement might want to think about that.
2) Black Friday Shoppers: I am not referring to the millions who stood in lines outside Thanksgiving night waiting for stores to open at midnight Friday morning in hopes of being first in line for discounted deals. I am referring to those Black Friday Shoppers who ignored 61-year-old pharmacist Walter Vance as he suffered a heart attack and collapsed while shopping at a Target in West Virginia. Vance later died at the hospital. No one bothered to help the guy other than the six nurses shopping in the store who aided Vance performing CPR until paramedics arrived, according to his wife, Lynne, in the Sunday Gazette Mail.
This wasn’t the only incident where shoppers only gave a damn about themselves. Other incidents across the country included people being pepper sprayed while trying to get their hands on Xboxes, shoppers being robbed and shot as they walked out of stores with their purchases and people rioting to get their hands on a discounted waffle maker. You know who you are and it’s because of your callous selfishness that is the reason why you people bring out the Scrooge and the Grinch in me, or in my case, “The Joe That Stole Christmas” that begins the day after Thanksgiving until Jan. 2 when the entire holiday season to my immense pleasure is officially over. To quote Walter Vance’s co-worker, Sue Compton, who upon hearing what happened told WSAZ-TV almost exactly what I have been asking myself the past several years every time this holiday comes along. “Where is the good Samaritan side of people?” The words from that song, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year” might just be nothing more than a fairy tale.
3) Former Head Football Coach Joe Paterno, former Penn State University President Graham Spanier, Penn State wide receiver’s coach and recruiting coordinator Mike McQueary, Penn State’s senior vice president for finance and business, Gary Schultz, Penn State athletic director Tim Curley and anyone else who knew anything about former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky’s “extracurricular activities” involving eight kids and did little or nothing to stop it much less immediately report it to authorities.
There is a line from "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" (1982) that best describes the despicable behavior exhibited by these key players in the Penn State scandal that immediately ended Joe Paterno’s long running coaching career. “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”
To Paterno, Spanier, McQueary, Curley and Schultz “the many” was worrying about either their jobs and the reputation of their prestigious college and athletic football program because to them it was all about money and that’s what makes the college go round. Ok, McQueary did report what he saw going on in the showers between Sandusky and a young kid back in 2002. Instead of getting the kid out of there and calling the cops, however, McQueary called his daddy and then reported the incident to Paterno, who in turn reported it to his supervisors. Is it just me but when someone witnesses someone else possibly being raped, in particular a young kid, do you not immediately call the cops, if not get that kid away from the guy?
These individuals should have paid intense heed to “the few”, the eight kids, if not more who tried telling adults about Jerry Sandusky’s strange behavior and shrugged it off.
“This is a tragedy,” Paterno said. “It is one of the great sorrows of my life. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more.”
So do we “JoePa”, so do we.
4) Rebekah Brooks, former chief executive of News International: “Editing the Sun and News of the World…Gotta get a scoop, gotta fill the front page...Got a kiss n’tell, make people’s lives hell…Saying everything is in the public interest…A little phone hacking isn’t wrong…It’s just a rogue reporter…Send him off to jail while I see my friends.”
Such are the lyrics chronicling chief executive Rebekah Brooks’ downfall who resigned from News International in July as a result of the phone hacking done by staff reporters at The News of the World while she was editor back in 2002. At the heart of the scandal was the 2002 incident in which reporters retrieved voicemails of murdered 13-year-old Milly Dowler while she was still listed as missing.
The YouTube song called Rebekah Brooks “Friday” currently has over 142,000 views and is a parody of American recording artist Rebecca Black’s song of the same name.
Like the song goes, “It’s Friday, Friday, gotta resign on Friday. Everybody’s looking forward to the weekend. Friday, Friday, getting fired on Friday. Everyone’s looking forward to the weekend. Phone hacking, phone hacking, yeah! Phone hacking, phone hacking, yeah! Sun, Sun, Sun, Sun, looking forward to the weekend.”
5) Movie Remakes: "Arthur", "Conan the Barbarian", "Footloose", "Fright Night", "The Thing". All right, "Conan the Barbarian" was not a “remake” of the 1982 version with Arnold Schwarzenegger, but a reboot and The Thing was a prequel to the John Carpenter/Kurt Russell sci-fi/horror collaboration. Nevertheless, of the five films I mentioned, four flopped at the box office. Only "Footloose" managed to make a profit grossing $50 million on a $24 million budget. How I wish given the lousy track record these needless remakes and reboots at the box office where only one film was a hit with audiences that this would send “Hollyweird” studios a message to stop messing around with the classics and give me something with a small, miniscule shred of originality to justify wasting my money.
Considering the number of films already being planned for unnecessary remakes that include "The Bodyguard" (1992) "Dirty Dancing" (1987), "Point Break" (1991), "Scarface" (1983), "Starship Troopers" (1997) and "The Wild Bunch" (1969), I just don’t see it happening. As P.T. Barnum once said, “There’s a sucker born every minute” and so long as there are young audiences stupid enough to waste their hard-earned money or what little money, they have to see a redo, there will always be remakes.
6) Oscar Hosts - James Franco and Anne Hathaway: “No chemistry.” Those words are usually written to refer to how bad a film was as a result of two stars’ failure to connect with each other and with audiences. On Feb. 27, 2011, however, those words applied to hosts James Franco and Anne Hathaway of the 2011 Oscars. Although I admit Hathaway did her damnedest to liven things up, the two of them together only clarified what I said about the Oscars in a 2/23/11 column I wrote earlier this year on my blog at www.darthstumpo.com. “If there is one thing I will find of interest with this year’s Oscar telecast, it will be to see how James Franco and Anne Hathaway fare as hosts. Rest assured if the two fail miserably and ratings are down as they have been in recent years, one thing viewers will be asking themselves the next morning is what were the producers thinking when they decided to ask them to host?”
7) Kim Kardashian: Poor Kim. No one seems to care for her or the Kardashian clan. Or is it just her? Even President Obama doesn’t want his kids, Sasha and Malia, watching them.
“Barack really thinks some of the Kardashians – when they watch that stuff –he doesn’t like that much,” First Lady Michelle Obama told iVillage.
As a result of Kim’s much publicized wedding and 72-day-marriage and divorce from NBA star Kris Humphries, 41-year-old Colorado native Cyndy Snider started an online petition called “No More Kardashians” asking that the E! network take Keeping Up With the Kardashians off the air. As of right now, the total number of online signatures at www.gopetition.com stands at over 170,000.
“We feel that these shows are mostly staged and place an emphasis on vanity, greed, promiscuity, vulgarity and over-the-top conspicuous consumption," Snider said in an AOLTV.com article. "While some may have begun watching the spectacle as mindless entertainment or as a sort of 'reality satire,' it is a sad truth that many young people are looking up to this family and are modeling their appearance and behavior after them."
I, for one, have no idea what she or her family contributes in terms of celebrity status and am damn proud I haven’t sat through just a few seconds of any episode. I don’t even know when the show is on, which up until now as I write this column had no idea what the show was called.
The best moment of entertainment coverage I saw about Kim Kardashian’s over publicized (and to think I actually got sick of hearing about the upcoming nuptials of Prince William and Kate Middleton in April) wedding was a YouTube clip called “Kid hijacks Kardashian news report” showing a young bystander making faces in the background on camera without CNN reporter Kareen Wynter knowing it until probably later. That one-minute clip proved just how much of a joke the Kardashian wedding really was and prompted one viewer to leave a comment on YouTube saying, “Wow this was the most intelligent segment I’ve seen on CNN in years.”
8) Lindsay Lohan: See Lindsay get sent back to jail for 30 days for violating her probation Nov. 2. See Lindsay check in at the Los Angeles County jail Nov. 6 only to be released four hours later due to jail overcrowding. See Lindsay arrive 20 minutes late for court ordered community service at the county morgue. This month, see Lindsay pose nude Marilyn Monroe style in Playboy magazine for which she was reportedly paid $1 million.
The things people will do for money when they can’t find good work. Or should I say the things founder Hugh Hefner will do to help boost sales of his troubled publication, which has been in decline financially since the advent of free Internet porn. I have no interest in picking up the January/February issue to find out if the $1 million Lohan got was worth it. I lost interest in Playboy magazine years ago. The bottom line is I now consider Hefner’s once classy adult publication trash and I predict that’s exactly what the Lindsay Lohan issue will be.
9) Devoted Viewers of "All My Children" and "One Life to Live": So much in hoping that the continuing adventures of...all right…I have no idea who any of the characters are on "All My Children" (1970-2011) and "One Life to Live" (1968-2011) as I never watched them. The only character I know by name is “Erica Kane” thanks to star Susan Lucci who received 21 Daytime Emmy Award nominations in all and finally winning in 1999 on her 19th time. Devoted fans hopes’ that the soap operas following their cancellations by ABC (the finale episode of "One Life to Live" will air in Jan. 2012) would continue online came to an end with the announcement by Internet distributor Prospect Park that the shows are officially dead.
"We believed the timing was right to launch an Online TV Network anchored by these two iconic soap operas," the company said in a statement in an 11/23/11 article at www.huffingtonpost.com, "but we always knew it would be an uphill battle to create something historical, and unfortunately we couldn't ultimately secure the backing and clear all the hurdles in time. We believe we exhausted all reasonable options apparent to us, but despite enormous personal, as well as financial cost to ourselves, we failed to find a solution."
So much for finding out who got shot in that final episode of "All My Children" that aired in September. Hey, I didn’t watch the show! I found out about what happened in the last episode reading articles on the Internet.
10) NBC: I can come up with plenty of reasons why NBC rounded out the top ten biggest losers of 2011 (stop trying to prove to me that Thursday’s comedy shows like "The Office" (2005) and "Parks and Recreation" (2009) are as good as "Cheers" (1982-1993), "Night Court" (1994-1992), "The Cosby Show" (1984-1992), "Seinfeld" (1990-1998) and "Friends" (1994-2004). There’s a reason when those shows were on why Thursday night was called “Must See TV.” Stop trying to argue that Jay Leno is as good as Johnny Carson.
What infuriated me most was NBC’s decision to pass on the Wonder Woman series. I had no problems with the Amazonian super heroine’s get-up as worn by actress Adrianne Palicki which underwent many costume changes that included blue spandex pants and boots and got devoted fans so worked up that I found their belly aching on the Internet to be the equivalent of a woman getting their boyfriend all sexually aroused and then denying them their much needed orgasm.
Nor did I have any problem with writer David E. Kelley taking on the project who if the series had been picked up, would have marked his first venture in doing a show based on a comic book versus such notable long running dramas he’s given TV audiences over the years like "Ally McBeal" (1997-2002), "Boston Legal" (2004-2008), "Chicago Hope" (1994-2000) and "The Practice" (1997-2004).
“I hate to disappoint anybody. I know there are legions of fans of the original show,” NBC Entertainment Chairman Robert Greenblatt told Entertainment Weekly back in May. “I don’t know if it’s cursed or what. I just have this one experience. They made a really fine pilot and Adrianne Palicki did a fantastic job. You look at what you have, what you need, and it just didn’t seem to fit in with what we were doing."
“We did what was best for the schedule,” Greenblatt said. “It does give one pause. You’re almost damned if you and damned if you don’t. It’s tricky.”
Well, thanks to his network’s decision, we’ll never know if the Amazonian princess with her gold Lasso of Truth would have really taken off in that invisible plane of hers or if it would have immediately gone down in flames nose first.
I know one thing is certain. I predict the show would have lasted longer than "The Playboy Club", which was gone after just three episodes.
©12/6/11
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