SORRY STATE OF AFFAIRS

 

Joe Rogan, the new Edward R. Murrow.

There's been a spate of celebrities "apologizing" for remarks they meant at the time, but walked back when informed that they were very, very stupid. Robert Kennedy, Jr. comparing himself to Anne Frank in regard to vaccines; Whoopi Goldberg insisting the Holocaust was just a case of white-on-white crime gone over the top; and podcaster Joe Rogan interviewing COVID conspiracy folks. 

Rogan offered another apology after somebody dug up audio of him comparing a black neighborhood to the Planet of the Apes. "I certainly would never want to offend someone with entertainment with something as stupid as racism." 

I've re-read Rogan's statement a good half-dozen times, and I still don't exactly understand what he's saying. But maybe I haven't got the intellectual heft of a stand-up comic-turned-Ultimate Fighting Championship commentator (i.e., the guy who bellows "Whoa!" into a microphone when some neanderthal gets kicked in the throat). Rogan's great when it comes to interviewing comedians and paranormal "experts", but that's as seriously as anyone should take him.

I see BS, too.

Now it's time to open curtain number four, where semi-washed-up actor Susan Sarandon awaits her turn in the negative spotlight. 

But let's give a little history first. Here in New York, several cops have recently been shot, two fatally. One of them, Jason Rivera, was accorded a large funeral, with thousands of colleagues paying their respects. 

Instead of expressing her condolences -- or, better, just reading scripts where she plays "Sexy Grandma" -- Sarandon took the time to re-tweet a photo of the funeral, with along the original comment comparing it to fascism. She also took the time to throw in her own two cents:

Note the #abolishthepolice hashtag. If somebody stole Sarandon's purse on the A train -- that is, if she's stepped on the subway in the last 40 years -- who would she ask for assistance, the guy in the newspaper kiosk?

The image of the fire that she added represents her career temporarily
going up in flames. Condemnations from fans, foes, and Fox alike quickly came flying Sarandon's way. The reaction undoubtedly surprised her -- Doesn't everybody think like I do? -- and (at the behest of her agent?) removed the tweet within a day or two, replacing it with an apology: "I reacted quickly to the picture without connecting it to a police funeral and I realize now how insensitive and deeply disrespectful it was to make that point at that time."

Hey Susan, even the liberal New York Times!

Oh, come on. The shooting of Rivera was the number one story in New York for days. Photos of the funeral were on the front page of all the newspapers. There is literally no way Sarandon could have walked past a newsstand or turned on the TV without seeing them. And she's lived here long enough to have seen similar photos and video. 

Apologies from celebrities -- what for? Most of them never got past 12th grade. We're supposed to take high school grads seriously? If they believe stupid stuff, they might as well embrace it. At least when dogs eat their own vomit, they more or less leave a cleaner spot than before. The internet is forever. As, unfortunately, are their careers.

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