This Woman Must Be Stopped!

No, not Hillary Clinton. She's already been stopped, she just doesn't know it. (Sorry, Clintons, I used to love you both so dearly, but you're just acting like tantrum-throwing babies lately.)

I sometimes watch things on TV I'm not proud of. In fact, I'm quite ashamed of them. Train Wreck TV, I call it. I consider the horrible but addictive "Wife Swap" as part of this embarrassing fare.

Lately I've been watching something that I absolutely hate, something that makes my blood boil, and I always seem to find my way to it whether I want to or not. I'm not proud of it, no, and I don't know why I keep tuning in. I guess just so I can sit there and focus all the hate in my life upon one person. That person is Nancy Grace.

My buddy LilyG did a blog concerning Nancy a while back. She's the only other person I know of who's caught her abomination of a show, which plays nightly on CNN Headline News. Yes, CNN Headline News isn't about headlines anymore, it's about one-hour programming, all shitty, but this is shitty in such a different way.

Nancy Grace is supposedly a former prosecutor, or that's how she advertises herself - "feisty former prosecutor." And she may be a former prosecutor, but I disagree with the feisty. She's just a self-important, flat-out bitch. It's a word I hate using, but sometimes those words I hate just fit.

And LilyG was correct in what she said about Nancy Grace and her little show. She picks a topic, runs a fake trial on it, decides the outcome, and it doesn't matter if there are any facts supporting that outcome or not. And of course, with her being a former prosecutor and all, that outcome is always "guilty." Yes, she picks her headline, which is almost always a murder, decides who did it, and talks for an hour on how and why that person did it. She brings on a rotating bullpen of talking heads, all cronies of hers, to agree with her, and every once in a while she'll bring in someone new who has a differing viewpoint. She tells that new person off and goes to commercial before that person can reply. The person is then mysteriously missing after the commercial break, and I'd like to see her take on one of the those mysteries - "Where Did My Guest Go?"

Nancy also takes phone calls from viewers, 99% of which are cloying and agreeing with whatever her viewpoint is. These calls invariably begin with, "I love you so much, I watch you every single night," or, "Nancy, I love you and you're the most beautiful woman on TV." However, as with the talking heads, there will be the odd phone call from someone who doesn't love Nancy or think she's the most beautiful woman on TV, and that person will offer a differing viewpoint, after which Nancy will tell that person off and hang up the phone, then go to commercial.

Now this is just part of the standard Nancy Grace show fare, but there's so much more about this show to hate. And what's going on on her show right now is what she's so good at - taking a case and picking it to fucking pieces.

OK, first of all, let's go back a bit. The last time I caught this show, not this current run, but about 6 weeks ago, she was on some case where a woman was missing. Missing, and Nancy had decided that the woman had been murdered and the husband did it. No body had been found, the man hadn't been taken into custody, he was cooperating with police, but the woman was dead and he did it. There was a blinding moment of sense in my life (for once) where I decided I hated Nancy Grace and her show so much I couldn't watch it anymore, ever. And I was really good about that.

But as happens sometimes, I'm lying in bed, it's very late, I can't sleep, and I switch on the TV. That happened some weeks ago, and why oh why, why, Lord, did you let me hit CNN Headline News, I happened upon Nancy Grace. It was about 3am. She was "working on a case," the same case she's working on to this very day. The case of the missing toddler in Florida, Caylee. If you're not familiar, well, you've been living under a rock, but just in case you have been, Caylee went missing for about a month, the mom never reported it, said she put the child in a nanny's charge and wasn't particularly worried, but the grandmother couldn't get the mother to produce the child and so the police were called. It's been a swampy mudland of contradicting stories, allegations, and dead ends ever since, and Nancy is just wetting her pants over this case.

Of course, Nancy says the child is dead and the mother killed her. And you know what? Could be! Could not be! No one knows! There are a lot of us living in this world, and 99.999 repeating percent of us do not know what's going on in this case. And the .00000 repeating percent who do aren't talking. But Nancy's talking, and she won't shut up. And she's not going to shut up until 1) this mystery is solved, after which she'll find a way to take credit for it, or 2) another case comes along she finds more interesting.

And I really hope this kid is alive and OK somewhere, with someone, but I feel guilty that about half the reason I hope that is so that Nancy will be proved wrong and will possibly have to eat her words on national TV, which of course she won't, she'll just go to commercial, then find some new person's misery to cash in on.

There are a couple of things about this show that just blow my mind, small things to most, but stuff that drives me batshit crazy.

One is that Nancy, and all her talking head cronies on the show (I'm convinced they've been instructed), when doing a show on a child who's been a victim of some crime or other, refer to that child as nothing but - "a little girl," "a beautiful little girl," or "a beautiful little 5-year old girl." Of course she's little, she's five fucking years old, you dolt.

The other is that every single show Nancy does, no matter what the subject (I've seen two missing kids, a missing wife, and random feet washing upon the shore, that story didn't last too long, I guess she couldn't come up with a person to prosecute for amputating random feet), every single show, there is a video overlay imposed at the bottom of the TV screen that says, and I quote, "Breaking News!" Then underneath it gives some tidbit of the case. "Breaking News! Husband of missing woman goes out to the mailbox to check his mail. Looks guilty."

Now, this Caylee case has been the sole focus of Nancy's show for some two months. And every night (well, that I've seen it, and that's more nights than I should), down at the bottom of the screen, it's, "Breaking News! Little Caylee's mom goes to party!" "Breaking News! Caylee's mom borrowed shovel from neighbor!" "Breaking News! Brother calls little Caylee's mom at jail!" I swear to you, the other night it was, "Breaking News!" Tot's mom let out of house arrest for two hours to go to church." If this keeps on, I envision, "Breaking News! Little Caylee's mom sneezes twice, coughs once, calls pharmacy."

I have a vacation coming up, and more than anything in the world, I want to just disappear for a week. To get away from it all, sure, but for another reason as well. I'd tell the family not to worry about me, but that I was heading out. Then I'd get someone, possibly LilyG since she hates Nancy Grace as much as I do, to call the Nancy People to tell her that a woman has gone missing in Virginia. Then I'd hole up in a hotel for the next week, watching Nancy talk about how I was murdered, who did it (she'd hone right in on Mr M, she'd have him convicted and heading to The Chair), and how it was done. I'd watch all the video captions ("Breaking News! Suspect in woman's murder blithely plays clarinet!"), then at the end of the week I'd show up with a cheery wave and a, "Boy, was that a relaxing vacation!"

And then Nancy would say, "I thought it was something like that, but that Mr M's guilty of something, I'm telling you right now! I'll bet he cheats on his taxes, or runs red lights!" Then she'd go to commercial.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Remember, all - you have one more night to acro. I won't be judging till tomorrow night. Look below for the acrotopic.