The View

I started watching The View this week because Rosie O'Donnell has joined the show as moderator. I'm not sure if I'll keep watching it, because the last thing I need is another 40 minutes of TV to watch a day, even if I vaguely watch it while I multitask.

I asked Steve if he remembered why I liked watching the Rosie O'Donnell Show. He thought maybe because she likes musicals. I can't recall exactly why, maybe because she was quirky, childlike without being childish, and upbeat and dared to be a single mom adopting, and well, fat. (This was before she came out. Either way, she is to be admired.) I even got a Rosie doll, which I was promptly embarrassed about and sold at a rummage sale. Speaking of quirky, anybody remember Jim J and Tammy Faye? I was sad that didn't last very long. My estimation of Tammy Faye went way up with that show. I'm not really into talk shows so I was kind of mystified by my attraction to the Rosie show.

So, I tuned in to The View with the help of TiVo, and looked around to find out a little more about Rosie's comeback. She hasn't been on my radar because she hasn't tried to be...been a stay-at-home mom for 4 years, doing some painting, some charity work, while her wife worked. She has a blog that is kinda neat, short stream-of-consciousness like every thing's a poem.

The show is OK. Like any group finding the groove in which they talk well together, they're all excited and talking all at once and Rosie has gotta have something to say about everything. I'm sure that'll settle down. I notice today they didn't talk about current events, while they did before...just girl stuff. I probably won't watch the show because they do a lot of that, talk girl stuff. I admire what they do, and it's refreshing to see a group of women hold a coffee clutch on national TV, but it's not my bag.

It occurred to me that when I visit New York again (yes I am, soon ;-) that perhaps I could get in the audience. No such luck. The website says tickets are gone a year out. I found this site that explains there are stand-by tickets, but you have to wait around for hours and you still may not get in. I couldn't stand around on cement for that long when I was size 18, much less when size 28. There are some nasty comments about Rosie on that site, homophobic jerks.

First show with Ro, they were talking about traveling. I was disturbed to hear co-host Joy say that she is afraid to fly. She's afraid terrorists will blow the plane up. She sees a mother with a baby bottle and she thinks it could be a bomb. She's been had, she's bought into it. There was never any danger that terrorists were going to blow up a plane with a bomb cocktail with bottles of "water" that they smuggled on board a plane. The British stopped the plotters before they even could make a dry run of a plot that most likely wouldn't have even worked. But the Bush administration pressured the British into making an arrest earlier then they intended (why? we should be asking why) and now the airlines are footing the bill for all that increased checked baggage and security costs much more and it's all pretty useless in increasing our safety. But, as Joy did, people buy into the scare tactics of the warmongers. This stuff is not necessary, see this Salon article if you're not convinced. I am convinced they know it's not necessary, but they know that making all travelers abstain from water and shampoo keeps it ever present in people's minds that terror is just around the corner and we must keep the warmongers in office.

Yesterday the show was interrupted with a special news bulletin with the revelation that the CIA indeed has secret prisons where they indeed were torturing prisoners. It made me sick. The new anchors talked about military tribunals as if equal to civilian trials in court, but did not mention that the Supreme Court deemed them illegal, and now Bush is trying to get Congress to make them legal.

Today, no talk of current events on The View, or that their show was interrupted, at least on the west coast. What, did someone tell them to stay away from the current events? How could they not talk about this? Why aren't we talking about this?

I think rather than watch, I'll just peek in at Rosie's blog once in a while.