To Snub or Not to Snub

A couple celebrities come to mind on this one in the past few weeks, one being the funeral of Estelle Getty. Most people would disagree with me it seems, but in some ways I can see why her co stars did not attend. Betty White said They were there when it mattered, and on some levels I agree with her about the funeral in a celebrities life being a media event rather than chance for people to mourn their lose. Personally I would have gone out of respect, but I am not a celebrity. I don’t know if I could handle watching my grief displayed over and over for the whole of the nation to judge if it was sincere or not. That is the point really, most of us aren’t celebrities. We aren’t judged by a twitch of an eye by journalist just out to get (or fabricate) a story to display to a mass of TV viewers. Personally, I can understand the reason of not going. A worse tragedy would have been poor Estelle held up in her room by her illness with no one to comfort her in the years of her being ill. Had they ignored her then would have been unforgivable, but that is not the story of the week is it? By the way, I still watch Golden Girls in rerun and was on vacation when I heard the sad news.
The next snub that really got my goat came from Mrs. Jennifer Lopez, or whatever she is calling herself these days. She went on a morning talk show to talk about her training for some triathlon or some silliness as if ANYONE cared. Who did she snub? Michael Phelps. “She was overheard saying after her Good Morning America segment that she “couldn’t understand why everyone is talking about that swimmer,” according to a GMA source. “She couldn’t come up with (eight-time gold-medal winner Michael) Phelps’ name, and then she yammered on about how she was the one training for a triathlon just six months after giving birth, and how that was the big story right now, not ‘the swimmer.’ ” (From a column by Courtney Hazlett, The Scoop MSNBC here.) SIX months, oh my, we should all just fall to her feet. Mrs. Lopez has always felt that way though, the mass of the nation should be kissing her feet while she scarfs her green M&Ms (A diva demand for her trailer, a large bowl of M&Ms and they all must be green). After September 11th when everyone decided to show appreciation for the military she was a “celebrity” that decided to “appreciate”. What happened? When a military member asked her for her autograph, she would deny it UNLESS there were media present. Who was she trying to get appreciation for really? Herself in my opinion. She grew up upper middle class, and tries to pass herself off as a home girl from the hood. I like some of her movies, a tiny bit of the music but the person I can do without thank you.

Congratulations Michael!

I watched every race. Okay, admittedly I turned the channel yesterday in time to watch the breakdown of the finish. I thought I had turned the TV from my husband’s video game in time to watch him lose. I was upset for a couple of minutes until I finally heard them say he had won. Perhaps Mr. Cavic should have held his tongue until after the race about who his win would have been good for, although he was quoted after a protest that ended in the same results as saying “I’m very, very happy," Cavic said. "I don't want to fight this. It is a gold medal at stake. It's a difficult thing to lose. But you have to understand I came to this competition with the goal to win a bronze medal. I went my best time, and I did better than bronze, I got silver. And I almost got gold." (From column by Vicki Michaelis, USA TODAY here.) It was amazing to watch history being made, I still remember Carl Lewis in Atlanta. This will be very hard to beat I would think. I don’t know how many events one can even be in before you have to cross over to other sports. Male gymnasts have a chance at 8 but they have to win them all which include the team, the all around, and all individuals. There are probably some track and fields that people can try and get all of, but I can’t see a sprinter against some of those shot-putters. I guess we will just have to wait and see in the coming Olympics. Congrats to Mrs. Torres on her 3 silvers, Miss Coughlin’s six medals and to the whole US swimming team who also did an outstanding job.