A few weeks ago I wrote about how the internet has made it possible for a person to watch more television than ever before without spending a dime; through shows made available online by the major networks. This week, I’ll enlighten you to something that is available on the internet (through iTunes), that you watch, but ultimately helps you watch less television. It sounds paradoxical, except for the part where it’s really not so much and so maybe I guess I’ll downgrade it to a mild catch-22.

This magical new thing in television is called The Soup. It’s the next generation of show in the lineage of E!’s Talk Soup. Talk Soup was a show that boiled down the funny moments of talk shows, made them into nice little out of context clips, and then made fun of them.The Soup isn’t much different except for a shift in focus. The net the show covers has been expanded to include reality television, celebrity gossip, Spanish telenovelas, and even shop-from-home network segments.

This blend of elements doesn’t exactly sound like the most tasty or even tasteful brand of television viewing. Honestly, not even I’m interested in any of the elements I listed above on their own, but everyone knows that certain elements of bad things can run off the edge of the scale and loop back around to the other side. We’ve all watched hours upon hours of blaxploitation movies for the unintended comedic value. It’s unavoidable.

This is where The Soup shines, and how it ultimately allows you to watch less television. The soup distills the funniest unintended moments from each of those areas into a nice decoupage of Dr. Phil telling someone, “that is one skanky-lookin’ coke whore,” Tyra Banks yelling that it’s a “Panty Party” on the set of her show in order to help women with their self esteem, and self-centered narcissists explaining point-blank to the camera that they’re just misunderstood on their reality show. All of this is served up to you with funny puns and occasionally obvious, but unavoidable, jokes from the show’s very handsome host, Joel McHale.

I think the most refreshing aspect of The Soup, for me, is the perspective the show brings. There’s a lot of crazy television on the air. Not all of it has to be taken, or even deserves to be taken, seriously. If there’s a show that is showcasing something completely ridiculous, in a completely serious way, they will be nailed by The Soup. The show doesn’t care about politics, ratings, or the feelings of the people who make fools of themselves in the public space. If Pat O’Brien is going to play tennis with Anna Nicole Smith in the Bahamas while wearing a full suit and jacket, then there’s going to be someone to answer to come Friday at 10PM.

The future is here. You don’t have to watch hours upon hours of bad television to find the unintentionally funny moments. The Soup does it for you in a nice 22 minute package every week. I didn’t even know I needed a service like that until it was available!

This week I have decided to devote my column to someone that makes a big impact on my life everyday. She helps feed me. It may not sound like a lot, but it definitely falls under the headings of important and critical. This woman is none other than The Retreat’s Hostess, Jackie Carroll.

She’s the type of person who always remembers your name, and inquires as to what your friends are up to that night if they happen to not accompany you. She is a sort of grandmotherly figure that is important to have available, particularly to those of us who are away from home. She makes The Retreat feel like a homely, comfortable place to be. I have always appreciated that, and it has always gone without saying.

That is, until this year’s Homecoming. She was voted Faculty Homecoming Queen this year thanks to a large group of students who appreciate the work she does every night for them. It was satisfying to see that happen for her, because so often the people who are so nice to you day in and day out, when they don’t necessarily have to be, go underappreciated. It felt good to be able to show her how much we appreciate her.

I could write about how much that experience meant to her here, but it would be empty. I am not her, and so it wouldn’t mean as much even if the words I wrote were the exact ones she would say. Thankfully, Jackie was willing to speak for herself. So today I will end my column with her open letter:

“When I learned that I had been nominated for the Homecoming Royalty Court I felt both excited and honored. It was an amazing week for me. Some students came into the Retreat on Thursday before the week of Homecoming and told me I had to be at Irving Gym on the following Monday night at 7:00pm, and to make sure I got that night off work. I talked to Polly, my manager, she took care of it, and I was able to go.

At Homecoming, I got to meet some of the faculty and see students with their smiling faces. I was really surprised when my name was called for Queen. It was such an honor to be nominated, but then to be crowned was the most exciting thing that has happened to me in a long time. I got to wear a tiara and sit on the back of a convertible for the first time in my life. However, the best part of the parade was hearing the students cheer for me as I waved to them along the way.

I also got to go to dinners served by the people of Ball State University Dining(which were outstanding), and meet the entire Homecoming Royal Court. But, the most exciting time by far, was at the football game at half-time when Todd Porter and I were introduced at half-time. The cheers of the students were wonderful and made me tear up.

I just want the students, faculty, and staff to know how exciting that week was for me, and how much I appreciate all of your votes. Thank you all for a most wonderful experience, and an exciting time.” --Jackie Carroll

Something happened on Friday that made my day. It was walking past a television in the Arts & Journalism building and seeing Christian Evangelical Pastor Ted Haggard’s face on CNN with the words “Accused of Having Sex with Gay Prostitute,” at the bottom of the screen.

Most people wouldn’t have recognized the man, but I did because over the summer I was able to see Richard Dawkin’s short BBC series called The Root of All Evil which hypothesized that religious evangelism was the source of most, if not all, the evil in the world. This man, Ted Haggard, had a debate with Dawkins at his home parrish in Colorado Springs. The debate centered around whether or not evolution was well enough supported by science to be sure that it was happening or had happened. Dawkins represented the science side of the debate while Haggard represented the Christian Evangelical point of view.  It culminated in Ted Haggard screaming at Richard Dawkins and angrily forcing him off his property.

This is why I was happy to see the news on CNN on Friday. It’s not that I like to see people in pain, or be brought down. It’s that it felt like a substantial blow to a very vocal, and very unreasonable, minority that want to force their will on the majority.

Haggard has spoken openly, and at length, on many occasions about his beliefs that evolution is false and that to be gay is to be an evil sinner. Suffice to say, he’s anti-gay marriage, and I feel that this is an unreasonable stance.

Let’s do some math. I assure you it will be simple. There exist two variables; A and B. A is equal to B in every way. So then if you were to perform any mathematical operation on them the result would be equal every time between them because they are equal. A + B is equal to B + B is equal to A + A is equal to B + A. This makes perfect sense.

In this country, men and women are supposed to be equal. What is available for one, at the public level, must be made available to the other. Isn’t it sexism then to require for a marriage license that people in a pair not be the same sex as each other? Men and women are supposed to be treated equally. To say that gay people cannot marry is to say that one or both members of the pair deserve to be treated differently at a public level, and not equally. This is unacceptable and unreasonable.

Christian Evangelical Ted Haggard represented 30 million such people, and stopped representing them when they, and the world, found out he was a fraud. I feel the proof is in his reaction. People like Haggard love to argue about their beliefs. They don’t hold back their very unreasonable and unpopular opinions. So the fact that he has nothing to say and has no defense for this new information is an admission of guilt, because it is so much against-type for his character. He has an answer for every question about evolution. Yet, he vacates his pulpit the very second his true nature his brought to light.
I sleep better knowing that the people know the truth about Ted Haggard, and that a figurehead for the unreasonable has been brought down. I sleep better knowing that the world is finally waking up to the idea that there’s a good reason these people speak far too loudly about issues that shouldn’t be any big deal.

Gay marriage shouldn’t be a big deal. Men and women are supposed to be treated equally, and not allowing people of the same gender to marry is a violation of this. End of story.

The future is finally here. Not today’s future, but the one from about 8 years ago. It was at that point everyone started announcing that the internet was the wave of the future and we would be able to do everything we would ever want in this brand new and exciting way. They said it would force television into obsolescence, and put newspapers out to pasture.

Fortunately, none of those things have happened. We still have television to feed our need for weekly serial dramas about people stuck on islands that bear a remarkable resemblance to Hawaii, and we still have newspapers to provide us with our daily dose of ink of dead trees. The internet hasn’t made anything go away. It has just given us new, and sometimes better, ways to do the things we’ve always been doing.

Thankfully, one of the more recent things the internet has made possible is a better way to watch television. ABC rolled out its flash-based television show streaming solution near the end of the last television season. This television season, CBS and Fox have joined the mix with their own versions of the technology. These services enable people to watch episodes of shows they might have missed, for free, with extremely limited commercial interruption. Seeing what you’ve missed is something that’s becoming more and more important as our television presentations begin to resemble those of movies, and less commercials is something we can all agree is a good thing.

I’m a horrible snob, but I love television. I like Lost, Grey’s Anatomy, Gilmore Girls, Veronica Mars, The Colbert Report, Penn & Teller’s Bullsh*t, and on occasion even Survivor. I love television, but I hate being chained to it every night of the week.

Now, I don’t have to be. Before, the only people who had this type of freedom with their television viewing were the people lucky enough to have a TiVo-like device. But for college students who don’t have money or control over their television system, TiVo’s aren’t available.

This is why I say the future is finally here. Thanks to the magic of the internet, anyone with a fairly decent speed internet connection can watch all sorts of television they may not have had time for before. I’ve not watched Survivor since the second season, but now I get to watch it and enjoy it at my leisure with 30 second commercial breaks. I couldn’t tell you what time it airs or on what channel, but I can tell you I’m enjoying the experience. That is what television is about for most people.

If you like the idea of free television on demand. Think about surfing to Fox.com, ABC.com, or CBS.com and giving it a try. Television on demand is something that people have been claiming to want for a long time, and I would hate to see it disappear from a lack of consumer demand. I can tell you from personal experience that it works wonderfully on the dorm internet connections, and you have nothing to lose because it will cost you nothing.

Every season I find myself watching more and more television than I have before. This television season is no exception, but I’ve also been busier than I ever have been before. Thanks to the internet, these two things don’t have to conflict.

Entries

A very well-written response to feminists who think the government should be giving women a leg up was submitted, titled Memo to Old-Line Feminists

In Closing

1. Submitting more than one post is fine, but please note I will only post the one I think is best supported and best represents the aim of this carnival.
2. If posts have assumptions made without research to back them up they will not be included.