'Tis Pointless

The Oscars are over (and no, I don't think Crash - as much as I liked it - should have won best picture ... Capote was "better" ... but neither of them compare with English Patient, Schindler's List, On the Waterfront, etc.) and I spent around 2 hours watching some of the celebrities get called up on stage and NOT smile while receiving the award ... and I just couldn't help making this analogy again.

Anyway ... around a week ago I watched Jon Stewart (I missed his introduction to the Oscars, so I don't know how he performed) being interviewed by Larry King, and the following conversation came up:

KING: Then what is left for you, Jon?

STEWART: What is left for me?

KING: If you're tired of both groups?

STEWART: Hosting a basic cable show. That is what is left for me, sitting every day and getting to rub my eyes and make stupid faces on videotape. That is all that is left for me. That is the catharsis that I live for.

KING: So, in a sense you're happy over this.

STEWART: No.

KING: This gives you fodder.

STEWART: Yes, I prefer not the fodder. I'm not -- we're not the guys at the craps table betting against the line. I would -- we'd make fun of something else. If public life, if government suddenly became inspiring and moved towards people's better nature and began to solve problems in a rational way rather than just a way that involved political dividends, we would be the happiest people in the world to turn our attention to idiots like, you know, media people, no offense.

I was nodding when he had said that because the groups in Lebanon have tired me beyond words. And at this point in time, while warlords (most of them anyway) meet and discuss the nation's future - our future - as if all of a sudden they really care, there is nothing I can really do, except to "rub my eyes and make stupid faces".

posted by Lazarus, 9:20 AM