Friday, January 14, 2011

I'm tired of hearing about Sarah Palin... in other news, I'm a Leo now!

I have officially turned to Twitter as my primary source of news.
But Sara, you’re a print news junkie! The Washington Post website is your homepage.

True. But until all this Sarah Palin crap blows over, I’m avoiding all mainstream media. Seriously. I’m done. I’m all for demonizing her and am considering changing my name just because she ruined a perfectly good first name by being an idiot, but what happened in Tuscon isn’t her fault.

Of course, it’s COMPLETELY her fault that she jumped into the middle of all of this the day that the President was speaking in Tuscon and used a hugely controversial phrase (which I’m convinced she didn’t understand. I mean, come on, if she doesn’t know “refudiate” isn’t a word, she doesn’t know the anti-Semitic history of “blood libel”), but she only was able to push her way into the limelight because the media let every nut who wanted to blame her for the shooting have a soapbox to stand on.

As a journalism teacher, what I see is particularly disheartening. I strive to teach my journalism students that they need to be fair and balanced in their reporting and get a variety of differing opinions for their stories. But how on earth are they supposed to learn to do that when they’re bombarded by news sources that consider a report to be balanced if their version of diversity is interviewing a right-wing extremist and a left-wing extremist?

In other words, you can balance out Sarah Palin’s craziness by also interviewing Bob Brady, who is proposing legislation making it illegal to use violent rhetoric. They’re both idiots and neither is actually representative of America. At least I really, REALLY hope they’re not.

And it’s a REALLY bad sign when Twitter has become a more reliable than any news network. I mean, it’s like trusting Wikipedia: anyone can say anything they want there. (Although whoever hacked the Wikipedia entry for “blood libel” and put Sarah Palin’s pic up, call me. I want to be your friend.)

So because Twitter is now my primary source of news, I was able to deduce that the biggest story of the day yesterday was the change in astrological signs. Apparently, by spending my whole life up until yesterday as a Virgo, I was living a lie.

I have to admit, I always suspected as much. I never really felt like a Virgo.

(Shut up, it has NOTHING to do with Virgo being the virgin. Jerks.)

But now I feel like I’m having an identity crisis. The first thing I do every morning when I wake up is make my bed. But that’s a Virgo, control-freak thing to do. So when I got home from school yesterday, I went immediately into my room and unmade my bed, because no self-respecting Leo would make her own bed—we’d believe that someone else should show up to do it for us because we’re the center of the universe.

Which kind of sucked last night when I had to sleep in an unmade bed. But I think that only bothered me because I had so many years of thinking like a Virgo and needing everything to be neat and organized.

Although now that I’m no longer a self-conscious and overly-worried Virgo, I seem to have overcome my lifelong battle with insomnia. Damnit astrologers, couldn’t you have told me I was a Leo years ago? I’m pretty mad when I think of all the sleep I could have been getting if I’d just known that I wasn’t ACTUALLY a worrier!

I also no longer have to stress about being late for everything. As a Virgo, I always felt great anxiety when I was running late, which, let’s face it, is ALL the time.


But now I understand my chronic lateness! It’s because I was misdiagnosed as a Virgo. Leos believe they are the center of the universe and therefore aren’t worried about how valuable anyone else’s time is. So instead of rushing like crazy to get to work on time, I’m just going to take my time and get there when I get there. Besides, Leos like to make an entrance. (I’m kind of curious to see how that works with my boss. Like if I walk in ten minutes after first period starts and just announce, “School can start now because the most important person in the universe has arrived!” I probably won’t have a job much longer. But that’s okay. Because I’m a Leo now and that means people should just pay me for being awesome.)

I was going to write more, but now that I'm a Leo, I think it’s time to go admire myself instead. So to sum up:

Sarah Palin = bad

Blaming Sarah Palin for stuff she had nothing to do with = usually good, but in this case bad

Extremists on either side = worse

Twitter = reliable source of information

Leo = a good night’s sleep in an unmade bed

Being me now that I’m a Leo = awesome

Astrology = total load of crap

1 comment:

  1. Perhaps the 140-character limit of Twitter limited your FULL exposure to the blasphemy that is this astrological sign BS. There are now MORE arguments as to who the change affects, depending on age, geographical location, hair color, favorite color...

    But in closing, I am NOT a Gemini. I'm a cancer! Crabby character (and jokes)& sideway 69 symbol included! DON'T MAKE ME PINCH YOU!!

    Didn't really follow the Palin thing, so I can't comment on that. I tune out whenever I hear her name. Otherwise I have to admit that I can't really tell the difference between her & Tina Fey in character :-(

    ReplyDelete