Millions of Mindless Morons

Ok, first, I've changed my blog name. After deciding that I had to blog tonight and why, I felt it was appropriate. I realize my old blog name has nothing to do with the other (I eat one while I watch the other.) I'll probably get a completely new blog, but I don't want to have to go through the gruntwork right now of transferring everything, so I'll keep it this way for now.


And now for my rant. I'm frightened frankly, at the heavy-handed attention given to Oprah (and others, but Oprah comes first, because she's so special!)for being "lied-to," let down, disappointed, however you want to put it, about James Frey's book, "A Million Little Pieces." I will state right here that I have not read the book. However, I don't have to have read the book to know that this man does not owe me or anyone else, a damn thing. He wrote a bestseller to make money, for himself. He was his own subject matter, he wasn't covering someone else's story. Maybe he lied. But he owes NO ONE anything, except maybe his landlord and his own conscience if hasn't told the truth.

This is an age-old peeve of mine that grows stronger with each case, each year. There have been so many times where a person blames the media for impacting their life in some way (a negative way), and then trouble really starts brewing. A kid kills himself supposedly for listening to a Judas Priest song, so it's the band's fault. A woman spills hot coffee on herself, she sues. When Kurt Cobain killed himself, MTV thought others might do the same, so they created a support hotline. When Britney Spears tarts herself up in a video, parents bitch that she owes her audience. When kids watch certain video games, they're liable to re-enact those behaviors in their own lives, so the games must be pulled.

How fucking weak are you? You owe it to yourself to breathe, to have a brain and a heart.

You know who owes who something?
Spouses owe each other love and to play on the same team.
A parent owes a child to be there for him or her, always, to give them unconditional love, to have a clue of what's going on in their kid's lives.
Friends, like spouses owe their friends to be there for each other.
An employer owes an employee their paycheck.
We all owe each other common courtesy, the right to speak our mind.

I'm trying to think of situations other than those with monetary exchanges where someone can owe another something, and I'm falling short.