Anyhow. I’ve been really annoyed of late by CNN.com’s use of Oprah articles as “news” on their front page. I usually don’t like the articles either, but I’m more annoyed by the fact that Oprah articles, Entertainment Weekly stuff, and Lindsey Lohan are considered “hard news” which goes right up there with government corruption and people getting killed in the Middle East than I am by the content itself.

That said, I still occasionally read them, because I’m as much a victim of the content-surfing culture as anyone else. And today, I saw something which I actually thought was pretty awesome. Not news, but as essays go, something that was right down my alley.

The title was – and you’re not going to believe this from me – How (not) to get a man. Go ahead and laugh – even before I started dating my husband, I wasn’t exactly focused on “getting a man”, and that’s sort of the point.

The main gist of the article is that all of the game-playing, scheming, and “settling for less” our culture encourages in order to snag a partner is a pretty stupid way to find a date (what the article refers to as the “predator model of dating”). Now, folks who call me “lard ass” might say that I should shut up, because people like me don’t have much of a choice, but I beg to differ. Fervently.

What the article encourages, frankly, is to be yourself, worry about who you want to become, and everything falls into place. Or it doesn’t. But since you’re depending on you to figure out who you are and how your life’s journey is going to go, you’re probably going to be a lot happier being alone with a you that you know and appreciate than together in bed with some guy who was “better than being alone.”

My favorite bit, though, is this:

I suggest that you should be pickier, less accepting and more committed to the “bad attitude” that will make you seek people who are extraordinary in the same way you are.

That may sound like bad advice to you, but let me put it to you this way – I am much happier with my wonderful, eccentric, one-of-a-kind husband who I met when I decided I, quite frankly, didn’t really care much about dating anymore. I was much happier deciding I was much more interested in doing things I enjoyed and things which enriched my life than I ever was – even for a matter of minutes – with any of the so-called “great catches” I dated in the past. My worst morning in my marriage is, quite seriously, better than my best day with anyone I’d ever dated in the past – or even what I imagined dating the perfect guy would be like. Sure, there are times when we’re stressed, worried, annoyed, and not all that pleased with one another. That happens with any relationship. But in the context of a relationship where we respect each other for who we are, where the kind of jokes we make and stories we tell would perhaps not be understood by anyone but a handful of people outside of our relationship, and where we can work together and love each other even when things get hard, the annoyances cease to matter in the long run. They’re part of life. How often do you think you’re going to get that kind of relationship with that guy/chick you picked up at the bar last night only because you didn’t want to be alone? (I know someone will post an exception here, and all I will say is “good for you” I meant what I said for the rest of us mortals…)

I do know something about what I’m talking about here. I did plenty of what “didn’t work” before I realized it was stupid and was making me desperately unhappy (and unhappily desperate!). “Getting a partner” as a goal rarely works out, though some people certainly do get lucky. Sure, maybe my friends thought it was really odd that that guy I was always complaining about in compilers class ended up being the guy I married, and maybe my husband’s parents were really displeased that my husband didn’t find someone more to their social tastes, but the payoff of being with someone you really grok, and who really gets exactly what you’re about – no amount of desperate dating adds up to what that can add to your life.

And I should add: the payoff of being yourself, of knowing how to make yourself happy – even if you never run into the partner of your dreams – will bring you much more satisfaction in life than just settling for whoever comes along.

Or at least in my world, that’s true. Your mileage, of course, may vary.

N.B.: This doesn’t mean I want a subscription to “O”, so don’t get any ideas, Internets

Why are were the top stories on CNN the last two times I checked them today “Glut of homes hits 16-year high” and “Killer Greek wildfires may be terror crime“?

And just in case you think my puzzlement may be because I’m so focused on an American point of view (hah!), please note that the international version of the BBC News website’s top story is (and has been all day):

“Bush ally Gonzales resigns post”

The Gonzales resignation is just a couple of side stories on the side of the CNN site.

I’m sorry, but um… this really does smell like trying to keep attention away from the story on CNN’s part… Sure, the Greek fires are important, especially to folks in Greece, but this IS an American news site, and more to the point, I was reading the U.S. edition. Even the American headline about the home-glut is not breaking news – couldn’t it have hung around on the sidebar instead?

Smells like day-old halibut in mid-summer to me, CNN…

Apparently, the guy who writes xkcd has had similar experiences – here’s his variant: ( ):

Can I just say again how much I love xkcd?

Oh, and I guess this puts me into R-rated blog territory, even if it’s harder to detect. Bad me

Edited: Video placed behind a cut due to loading time… Also changed my wonderful hoard of misspellings of Ms. Brzezinski’s name… sorry

I really hate to be contributing to the commentary on Ms. Paris “Who the Hell cares?” Hilton, but this was too awesome to pass up. I don’t particularly like Joe Scarborough, and all I can say is “Go Mika Brzezinski!”

Snagged from A Hot Mess (keep watching – it’s worth it… she tries to literally burn the story!) – makes you want to bitchslap Joe and, um, that other guy (video below the cut):

Click here to view the embedded video.

Note how the other two keep trying to treat her like “the little lady”, mentioning what her father, Zbigniew Brzezinski, must think of how she’s behaving.

She sticks to her guns though… now, if we can get Keith Olbermann to similarly ignore the Hiltons/Lohans/Spears of the world, I’ll be really pleased with MSNBC.

Oh, these will be interesting times. And not so much in the sense they’ve been in the last 6 years (and maybe not even in the cursed sense of “interesting times”), I hope.

Is nothing sacred?

*shiver*

From the article:

“If we’re not willing to use it here against our fellow citizens, then we should not be willing to use it in a wartime situation,” said Wynne. “(Because) if I hit somebody with a nonlethal weapon and they claim that it injured them in a way that was not intended, I think that I would be vilified in the world press.”

Ummm… are you worried about only being vilified in the world press because our own press is already sewn up?¹

It seems to me that this is a very dangerous slope. How long before anti-administration protests are deemed “crowd-control situations” worthy of testing out the newest Air Force “non-lethal weapons”?

Scares the crap out of me, boys and girls. Something just ain’t right here.

¹ (Sorry, I watched Orwell Rolls in His Grave this evening, and am on a tear about the media. (Well, I watched as much of it as I could stomach – it’s a very well-done, apt documentary and analysis, but if you’re already acutely aware of the media problem in this country and deeply worried that the democractic system might not be fixable, it’s very hard to watch dozens of respectable experts tell you, effectively, that all of your worst fears are founded and that we’re probably screwed.))