Saturday, June 27, 2009

A Tragic Week


I was chatting on the phone with a friend this past Thursday, catching up on our summer plans as well as the celebrity news of the week when she warned, "There is going to be one more death before the week is over, my mother always said these things happen in threes..." After we hung up, I sat down in front of my computer and was bombarded with the news of Michael Jackson's cardiac arrest.

My friend was right; first Ed McMahon, then Farrah Fawcett and now Michael Jackson. And so, I will always hold my friend responsible for Michael Jackson's untimely demise. Always. She's lucky she wasn't alive in Salem during the 1600's; I would have had her burned at the stake.

A tragic week, to say the least. They will all be missed. My 9 year old son and I spent Friday afternoon watching Michael Jackson music videos on YouTube. He was a big fan of the King of Pop, but he didn't know Farrah Fawcett, so we googled some photos of the beauty in her heyday. He wasn't all that impressed and after looking at a few Google images, he requested some more Michael Jackson music videos. (Forgive me, Ed, we never got around to googling you.)

But the week in news would not be complete if I didn't touch on Mark Sanford. South Carolina is a 20 minute drive from my front door, so I thought it was just the local media going crazy with coverage of his disappearence and reappearance. But apparently the rest of the world was just as curious: Mr. Sanford's lover's name drew more Google searches than Michael Jackson or Farrah Fawcett. It's a bizarre story, perhaps more wacko than Jacko. Either the man is a complete and utter assclown, or he completely lost it. I think it's a combination of the two.

His wife, Jenny Sanford, is also getting a lot of press. Some feel that if she had been concentrating on what was going on at home, instead of what was going on at the office, none of this would have happened. I'm not even going to comment on that load of crap. As if her husband's infidelity, poor judgement, and outlandish behavior is the result of something she did or didn't do. Please. Others are applauding the fact that she did not stand by her man - not when he went missing and not during the press conference. A Charlotte Observer blogger wrote, "Jenny Sanford is going through a defining moment in her life and she has chosen to put herself and her kids first..."

Kind of.

Sure, it's nice to see a woman stand up for herself....but I'm not buying the bit about putting her family first. To me, the definition of putting your family first is staying out of the press altogether. Why is she even granting interviews? It's none of our business what is going on in the private life of the Sanfords. (That coming from an avid reader of People Magazine who loves reading gossip and trash.) Why is she telling the media how she found out about the affair? I cringed when I read her words, "He was told in no uncertain terms not to see her." Did he really need to be told not to see his mistress? And did she really need to share that with the world?

Ms. Sanford went on to say, "You would think that a father who didn't have contact with his children, if he wanted those children, he would toe the line a little bit." I agree 100%, but I would have thought that a mother who claims that she is putting her children first would toe the line a bit when it came to spilling her guts to the media. Spill your guts to your family and friends, but spilling it to the media cheapens everything. She's a smart woman and I believe her intent was to use the press to her advantage: she sounded loving and forgiving and reverent. Mark Sanford comes off looking like a horse's ass, but in so doing, I think Jenny Sanford does herself an injustice.

I get that she is mad as hell at her husband. She has every right to be. And I get that she wants to hurt him. I would want to rip his head off. But what I don't get is when the Observer reports, "For Jenny Sanford, the focus is the couple's four sons." I would think if the four sons were the focus, she'd spare them the heartache of reading about their parents' marital woes in the newspaper .

Jenny Standford doesn't owe anybody an explanation. I wish the media would leave her alone. She didn't ask for, nor does she deserve the public humiliation. She is quoted as saying that parenting is the most important job; if that's the case, I wish she'd spare the kids by staying out of the spotlight (even if the coverage makes her look like a media genius).

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