Admit It Matt!

Phil Mickelson wins his second Masters. Here is something interesting: on the site meter for Ideas Hatched, I (and I think you) can view the traffic on the site, and where it came from. Google searches often come up as a source of traffic to the site, and one that repeatadly leads to readers of Ideas Hatched is the string "Phil Mickelson illigitimate child." Now, I've never written that Phil has an illigitimate child - my only complaint about Phil is that a professional male athlete shouldn't look like they could suckle an illigitimate child on his breast. But I have written Phil Mickelson and illigitimate child in separate posts, so that google search always scores my site. If you google it and follow the links, it seems there is nothing to it - most hits are like mine. Some people want to believe the worst about certain successful people. God knows I do (though not about Phil Mickelson). Today's entry is in that spirit.

I have a very slight fear of flying. So every time I board a plane, I envision it going down and I mentally prepare myself for how I'll behave while the plane hurdles me to my death. As Harry O used to say - it's all just a movie - an outlook that I've criticized before, but which I do embrace at certain times. You want to picture the camera fixed on you and how you deal with your last moments on earth. Do you want to go out screaming like a baby, or cool and composed? Do you want to try to provide comfort or seek it from others? Do you try to pen a note to your wife and kids - do you know what you want to see in that event? I think it is probably crucial to decide these things in advance, because you cannot afford to be reactive, or you may end up just soiling your pants.

Anyway, under certain circumstances, I alter the plan fundamentally. On one such occassion, all thoughts of a noble ending went out the door, and I formulated a plan to go out the way of the cynic. I was boarding the shuttle from LaGuardia to Reagan National one evening, and right there in front of me on the shuttle sat Matt Lauer, of Today show fame. He's shorter than me, which surprised me, and also implies that the rest of the Today show cast are a bunch of shrimps.

Anyway, his presence provided me the potential opportunity to cynically perform a public service for all on board in the event of a major engine failure. I would jump up, start in on a speech about how we are probably all on the brink of our own death, and that one particular passenger on board can bring comfort to us all by granting a simple admission of fact. It would cost that passenger nothing to admit to the fact, and may even unburden him to some extent, so it would be a win-win for all of us. And the sooner he does it, the sooner we can join in a chorus of Amazing Grace. That passenger - Matt Lauer. That admission - that he, who worked side by side with Katie Couric for over a decade, privately believes, like everyone else on board, that she is a phoney little bitch! (So as not to have this plan interrupt the possibility of saying goodbye to my loved ones, I wrote that goodbye prior to take-off, thus freeing me to provide a public service to everyone on the flight.)

Now, you may say that it is sad that I can harbor a hatred for a TV personality, and that I really have no basis for it, both of which I am willing to grant you. But it is also rather sad that people love her with the same lack of any basis. And clearly this irrational connection people feel with her helps her financially, and she has in the past cited this as a justification for her stratospheric salary. It is how an inordinately rich liberal justifies criticizing Republicans for trying to help the rich, while paying an army of accountounts to work every income tax loophole possible. It is other rich people who should pay more taxes - not ones like me with vaunted sensibilities and a real connection to the common folk. I bring a little sunshine into their lives with my perkiness; let the rich people who only give them jobs pay the taxes.

Of course, now she is making history as the first solo woman anchor for the nightly news. But such a position is really a figurehead for the journalism profession. They lap the praise on her as a journalist's journalist, because they like to praise their own, but in truth night in and night out she'll just spend 30 minutes reading from a teleprompter. No doubt there is some skill involved in that, but it hardly makes you Edward R. Murrow.