Not to make light of the situation but there are two shakeup that have dominated the news all week: The earthquake in Haiti and the late night talk show shift. Both events will cost more money than any of us can imagine and both have displaced average working people. I have mixed feelings about both.
The devastating quake in Haiti is horrible. It is hard to think about, as doing so would bring to mind the many children who have lost parents, parents who have lost children and mass homelessness of those who have lost everything. While at first I wanted to help anyway I could, I now look at the news images of the looting and rioting and wonder “what the hell is wrong with these people”? Waiting to loot relief supplies and hurt those who are there to help is hard to understand. Then again it makes me wonder if we would behave any differently given the circumstance. Imagine the town or city you live in falling to pieces. All buildings collapse or are two damaged to enter into safely, water supply shut off as electricity is no longer available. What would you do in order to save your family from starvation? Would you passively wait for relief or would you take it upon yourself to fight for food and water? I do not have an answer; hopefully we never have to find out which road we would take. Speaking of roads…
The other shakeup is happening over at NBC. As I am sure most of you are aware Conan O’Brian is being replaced by Jay Leno as the host of the Tonight Show. The numbers for Jay’s 10pmvariety show never took off and Conan was not doing well as the newest host of Tonight. I don’t really feel for Conan. He is not the first “working” person to be replaced or moved to a new position. Is it fair? No, but come on, how many times have you known of someone (or maybe you have experienced this) who is told they are being let go. They may not be the worst employee but for some reason their work performance is not quite what the boss expected or the boss’s nephew decides he wants a job. This happens all the time in the real world, but I bet you don’t know anyone who has been given a 30 million dollar severance bonus! Conan may be out of a job, but he is lucky. He gets millions of dollars to walk. I would run if offered just 3 million dollars and a chance to work somewhere else! I feel for his staff who will not get huge payoffs; instead many will get their final check even though they moved across the country to work in his show. Yes I know some may be able to keep their job with Leno, but he too will bring his staff over so most will likely be left without jobs. This happened to a friend of mine who worked on the Anna Nicole Smith show. When it was canceled the staff was not given any kind of severance pay or insurance package. Instead many fled to LA in hopes of landing work on other reality TV shows. (Come to think of it, I did not feel bad for my friend, I dislike reality TV). While everyone seems to feel for Conan, I feel bad for his staff, but then again I always feel bad when someone looses their job.
While the news channels focused on these two events other things did happen this week. Did you know the dreaded Doomsday Clock was set back one minute? It may not seem like much but last time it moved was in the Bush era and was moved two minutes closer to midnight; go figure. For those of you who are not familiar with the clock here is a link to the official web http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100114/ts_afp/usnuclearclimatescience_20100114233754. Here is a small sign that the world is calming down a little. Okay, it is clearly designed to make science geeks feel better, but I will take what I can get. At least it was a positive news story; right now we need a little good news.
That’s it. That is my weekly roundup and rant. I was afraid I was becoming all Andy Rooney on you so this week has been toned down. Sorry Jason if this disappoints you. No this week my question to you dear reader is this: What would you rant about this week? Have something you want to get off your chest? Leave it in the comment section. I promise, no one else will be allowed to comment about your grammar or make “your mama” jokes. Anyone caught doing so will be deleted. Save those kinds of snarky remarks for the Huff Post. (If you did not get that reference you missed last week’s rant, catch up will you) LOL
The View From Sari's World 