Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Divorce as a Spectator Sport

Mood: Calm
Listening to: Living on a Prayer – Bon Jovi

The mayor of the town that I live in is getting a divorce. Not only that, he is being arraigned on 9, count them 9, different counts of domestic violence against his wife.  I’ve been watching this story since it broke in February on the local news. Now I really like local news. I get some info on the community and what’s going on in local politics. But this nonsense makes me feel like I’m watching People Magazine on t.v. Not only is there way too much serious reporting of every single detail, you can almost see the reporters salivating over getting new details and what’s going to happen next. Is positively an ancient Romans at the coliseum cheering for bloodshed feel. Seriously. Stalking around outside the courthouse because the husband’s attorney is cross examining the wife today is kind of silly. That’s what they do in court hearings. I do think there should be coverage of this type of thing in elected officials. I don’t really support a wife beater in office (if he actually is one, they both accuse each other of abuse).  I just don’t think they should go over the facts weekly and turn them into a grand circus drama. They have 2 kids and their lives are falling apart. Give them some privacy ya vultures! Coming from a divorced, yet decidedly un-famous family, I cannot imagine all of our drama unfolding with a camera showing everyone our worst moments and watching them get a hard on over the prospect of  how much more there would be and how much further we could have sunk. It’s just so seedy. Divorces like this are messy business. Families and lives fall apart. Do we really need to give anyone a platform to act like an absolute asshole to their spouse on tv and give their kids more things to hate them for later on? Do we really need to shake our heads in condescension and congratulate ourselves that we’d never do something like that? I get irritated with the tabloids over this stuff too. But this is a news network. Their lives are dissolving into chaos, get out of their faces and give them some privacy to work through what’s going on.  

Becky

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