Hotty Toddy

So yesterday, Shepard Smith gave the commencement address at his beloved University of Mississippi~Ole Miss.



As you can guess, I'm quite proud of him.

But not everyone seems to be.

I read a few negative editorials prior to the commencement, and in some ways, I could understand their point of view.

No, no one was sore that someone from the dreaded FoxNews stable was giving the address.

What they were a little perturbed by was the fact that Shepard Smith, while an alumnus of Ole Miss, was not a graduate.

While Shepard attended the University for 5 years, he never moved his tassel from one side to the other and heard the words "you are graduated". He never received a diploma. And yet, he is probably one of the most successful people to ever attend the university.

A man without a college degree was giving an address to those who graduated...with the degree he so obviously lacks.

I could definitely understand why those editorial authors were a bit distressed by the choice of Shepard Smith as speaker. How can you possibly have someone who dropped out of college and became successful address people who worked very hard to earn their degree at their own graduation.

As Warner Wolff would say, let's go to the video tape.

Shepard is highly regarded as the most successful, most watched anchorman on cable news. Recently, FNC rewarded him for this with a huge payraise~an estimated 7-8 million dollars per year. He is top rated, highly praised and easily recognized. He is authoritative, funny, charming (that damn impish grin that totally sucks me in every time!) and unquestionably the best reporter on his feet when on the scene.

But...did he learn the skills to be the best at Ole Miss? Or is it something that lies more within his nature, some skill that he honed and nurtured on his own?

I have nothing against education, as I myself am a college graduate and would not have the job I hold without my degree.

But, is a degree in Journalism something that Shepard needed to do his job? According to Smith himself, he took all of his journalism classes, and was missing only a Spanish class to graduate.

The whole point of a college education, one where we not only take the classes required for our chosen major, but also other required classes in subjects we aren't majoring in, is to get a well rounded education. To be able to be versed in other subjects, which do indeed all come into play at various times in our lives.

Shepard is missing this.

I'm not saying hes not qualified to do his job. I KNOW he is. But, I do know that it nags at me a tweak at times that I know he doesn't have his degree. And it makes me wish he'd just take the darn class online and get it done. But then something happens~a Hurricane Katrina or a war in Israel or a bridge collapse in Minnesota~and there he is, the best reporter on his feet, giving me the details from the scene. And I know that Shepard Smith is the best that there is. He has honed and fine tuned his skills to be the sharpest out there.

And that's when I think, while I'd like for him to have his degree so that he could say YES I DO HAVE A DEGREE IN JOURNALISM FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSISSIPPI, I know that having a degree in a subject does not MAKE person good at it. I can assure you, there are reporters out there with degrees in Journalism who are NOT good reporters, just as there are accountants out there with degrees who can't set up a spreadsheet if their lives depended on it.

No, Shepard Smith is a damn good reporter, degree or no degree, and those who graduated yesterday at the University of Mississippi were damn lucky to have him expound on life for them.

I hope they listened and learned.

Band Wagon Jumper On~ers

So tonite the NY Giants beat the Greenbay Packers.

Since I have absolutely no football loyalties whatsoever, it really meant absolutely nothing to me. I am not one to jump on any sports bandwagons. I'm either a fan, or, I'm not. Simple as that for me.

For some people, however, band wagon jumping on is an artform. My neighbor is one of those. She jumps on and acts like shes been a fan all of her life when, in reality, shes rooted AGAINST the team she's now such a die hard fan of. It's irritating. When the NY Rangers were winning their Cup in 1994, she called me with 30 seconds left in the 7th game of the finals to talk about the game. I was 30 seconds away from winning the first Stanley Cup in 54 years, and she wanted to chat about how good the goalie was. I just screamed I CAN'T TALK TO YOU!!!!! and hung up. She still complains to this day, that I hung up on her.

I seem to recall that, in a taped interview on foxnews.com, one Shepard Smith declared that while he was a NY Yankee fan, he could not stand ANY other NY area teams...

Hey, Shepard....can you explain this?



This is the photo that you emailed to Greta Van Sustern tonite and that she posted in her blog.

Please don't tell me that you are a Giants fan now because Eli Manning is the QB and since he went to Ole Miss you are now a fan of the team. Does that mean that if Eli goes to, I dunno...who else has a team? Los Angeles? If Eli goes to a Los Angeles team (hmm...I'm not completely sure they have a team...Los Angeles...what? The Raiders are in Oakland with the A's. LA has the Dodgers for baseball, but, uh...I have no idea if they have football. Let's change that. Does Chicago have a football team? Chicago...uh...Dallas. I know Dallas has a team!! So let's go with Dallas, shall we?) Ok, let's back it up now...Shepard, does your newfound loyalties to the NY Giants revolve around the fact that Eli Manning is the QB, and does that mean that if next season Eli finds himself with the Dallas Cowboys (see...I told you I knew Dallas had a team!) because Tony Romo ran off to Mexico with Jessica Simpson and subsequently got run out of town by the fans, would that mean that you would abandon the Giants in favor of Dallas?

Tsk tsk if this is true, Mr. Smith. I was a huge fan of Bucky Dent, but when he left the Yankees, while I continued to follow Buckys career and remain his fan to this day, I was and still am, a Yankee fan.

Loyalties, Shepard.... ;)

Welcome 2008

I'm not a believer in new years resolutions. Too many compromises and disappointments come into play after making them. I do, however, believe in setting goals. My goals for this year are for a certain person to open up his eyes and realize it's ME, and to get my book published. Of course, I had the same goals last year, and attained neither. This is what happens when the end result of achieving your goal rests solely in the hands of another.

For all others, I have hopes. Let's see what sort of hopes I have for those mentioned in my blog in 2007...

For my friends and family, I hope for good health and well-being. I hope for happiness and love. I hope that they hope the same for me.

For Shepard Smith I hope for nothing but the best that life has to offer. I hope for continued ratings wins in your time slot, I hope for the respect of your peers, I hope for more stories that bring out the best in you...maybe Paris Hilton can go to jail again, Shepard. Yes, you would love that, wouldn't you...particularly if the circus were in town.

For FoxNews and Fox Business Network, I hope for enlightenment. I hope that you learn that not everyone wants their news and business analysis given to them by identical clueless wonders in push up bras and short skirts. I hope you realize that your newscasts look like a parody of the late, great Robert Palmer's videos. Might as well face it, NewsCorp, you're addicted to bimbos.

For the bimbos of NewsCorp, I hope for an epiphany: Please realize that your looks won't last forever and beauty fades, but brains are forever. Oh, and some of you do indeed have fat arms...

For Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs, I hope for faith. Mike, you are funny, smart...and then there's that chest. I would not hope this for you if I did not find that there was "something" about you. Instead, I'd refer to you as a slab of beefcake, a mimbo, or just "that hot bloviating buffoon of a man". I'd see you as a beautiful man, but not much more. Instead, I hope for you the realization that just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist or have feelings. After all, you can't see your viewers...you just have faith that they will tune in.

For that one particular man...you don't even realize that I'm talking about you. And you never will. You don't see me in the same light I see you. And I have to live with that every day. Yes, you hurt me more than you can or will ever know. It still hurts, but I'll be fine. Not that you care. Because you don't care about me at all, regardless of how I feel about you. I know it's trite, but its true: It's your loss. But your loss becomes my loss. And you don't even know it.

So, after ringing in the new year sans alcohol (a new experience for me) at a craptacular local Lotto casino where an old broad in her sixties with too much red lipstick on tried to get me to go to the party with her (I must look lonely or something) I've made my New Year Hopes...

...And all I really hope for is that 2008 be better than 2007.

Happy New Year!

The Bimbo~fication of FNC

Used to be that when I wanted to know what was going on in the world, I turned on FoxNews.

Used. To. Be.

Now, I hesitate when I have the remote in my hand. Do I really want to watch FNC?

Do I really want to take the chance that if I turn on what used to be on my TV box (thanks, Shep) nearly 24/7, there will be some short skirted, low neckline wearing 20-something bottle blonde stumbling over the TelePrompTer?

I've watched Fox News faithfully for over two years...ever since watching Shepard Smith's emotional reportage from the I-10 overpass in New Orleans. Back then, you could count on GOOD reporting. People like Shepard, Trace Gallagher, Jon Scott, the amazing Rick Leventhal, Phil Keating and Adam Housely. But the list didn't end with the men. Far from it. They also had the likes of Jane Skinner, Julie Banderas, Martha MacCallum, Catherine Herridge and Jennifer Griffin reporting and anchoring. Women who could hold their own with the men.

But now, professionals like these are few and far between on the network.

Now we are over run with sorority girls. Giggly, bubbly princesses wearing micro minis hiked up to show the maximum amount of thigh, unable to read the TelePrompTer, making uninformed comments and laughing inappropriately.

It's no way to start our day when the worlds first Audioanimatronic anchor is sitting alongside Anchorwoman Barbie in her short leather skirt and lingerie top, giggling before turning on their "serious journalist" voices to report a tragic story.

Gone is the previous professionalism of the network, the 'get the story at all costs' feeling that oozed from my TV during Katrina and the conflict in Israel. Or any real news story.

Good, female journalists are relegated to irregular shifts, overnight headlines and rare occasions of covering breaking news. But long live the bimbo on FNC! She will be on both Studio B AND FoxReport, giggling about the story she's reading but knows nothing about...she's just reading what they told her to read, having to be told what to say by the anchor because she's apparently so enthralled by her own image in the monitor she's forgotten what she's talking about but remembers to smush her headshot together with the anchors to pretend they are kissing.

And the bimbos are getting high praise from upper management!

Now, here's the thing. I have nothing against pretty young women with color treated hair (come on...when your dark roots are showing, you seriously cannot expect anyone to believe that's your 'natural color') making good. Lord knows I was once one myself. I was lucky though. I got by in life on my merits. Maybe I got a little extra because I was pretty, but I am still able to get by, and get by in a good way, because I did not rely on my looks when I was younger. I feel bad for the Courtney Friel's of FNC. The Julie B's and ED Hill's will be around for a good long time. Looks, as they say, fade. Brains...those will serve you much better than those little bra inserts that puff up the cleavage ever could...

$hepard $mith

So the big news in the news game today was Shepard Smith and his new contract with FoxNews.

Historically, Shepard has never discussed the terms of his contracts, which is something that I think is his prerogative, really. It's not my business how much he makes. I'm not signing his checks.

But this contract is different.

In a deal that is said to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 years, 7 to 8 million dollars per year, Shepard Smith has now eclipsed his cable news peers and become the highest paid cable news anchor, putting him in the same neighborhood as network stars like Brian Williams.

Somewhere, Keith Olbermann is crying.

I do have to say, it's about damn time. I know that I have taken Shepard to task previously in this blog, but it's not because I don't think he's good. Quite the opposite. I think he's amazing newsman, and I have stated that in the past. No other anchor man on our television today, network or cable, works as hard as Shepard does, or throws himself as deeply into his stories as Shepard. Sometimes emotional, sometimes funny, always on his game. To me, he is worth every penny.

Of course, that doesn't mean constructive criticism of his shows is off limits here... ;)

Real and true congratulations to you, Shepard Smith, and an old Irish blessing for you:

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

News At The Speed of....Wow...

So today is the 11th anniversary of FoxNews. Congratulations to FoxNews!!

Now, since I don't want to start "cookie~gate, part deux", let me preface this by saying that my preferred news channel is indeed FoxNews and that my preferred anchorman is Shepard Smith. How can he not be? He doesn't take himself too seriously. He does, however, take his job seriously. He's not afraid to bear his soul while reporting...and he's not afraid to make himself the butt of his own joke. If I could apply a word to him, it would be "adorable"...something I'd be hard pressed to apply to any other anchor man (with the exception of Anderson Cooper...but I just find Coop adorable~it has nothing to do with his acumen when reporting the news. Shep Smith, on the other hand, is the whole package)

That said, I have to say this much: I am having a very hard time adjusting to the new set on the FoxReport. Yes, I know that it was time for a change, and I know that it's a beautiful state of the art studio, designed to bring us news at, well, at the speed of live.

I know this.

But I am just finding it busy and hard to concentrate on what's being said. I find myself watching a screen on Shepard's left or the little spinning things in the lower third or I'm looking around the screen when the little digital noise that's made when the lower third changes comes on.

I just can't quite adjust to it.

I know it's only been two weeks, but when I got home Friday night and found that Trace Gallagher was sitting in for Shepard (Yankee road game? LOL) I almost felt relieved and shut my TV off. I also avoided the weekend FoxReport for the same reason.

I hate not liking the new FoxReport. I know how proud of it Shepard is, and how excited he was about his new set (Greta Van Susteren even shot a handicam video of him taking her on a tour of the new studio before the grand unveiling) but I'm just not feeling the love.

It took me a while to adjust to the lack of Skinnerville and the broadcast from the news room for Studio B. Maybe I just need time to adjust to it. I'm an old doggie...it's hard for me to learn new tricks.