THE BACHELOR

He proposed to Molly but ditched her for Melissa.
No wait, he proposed to Melissa but ditched her for Molly.
Ooops, no one can tell the difference.


Leave it to Lilly (10) to sum up just how badly that guy on The Bachelor behaved. "Hey, they teach you that in kindergarten: once you pick a cookie you don't put it back and pick a different one!"

Indeed.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, please tell me where you live because I would like to live somewhere where I can avoid hearing gossip about a reality show I don't even watch being pawned off on the news shows as "news".

Don't pretend you don't know ANYTHING about what I'm talking about. Okay, fine, I'll explain. There's this reality show called The Bachelor. On it, beautiful 20-something girls with seriously low self-esteem and major daddy issues subject themselves to the humiliation of allowing a man to choose among them. When he has chosen, the "winner" gets to marry him.

Really? Is this what Susan B. Anthony, Betty Friedan, and Gloria Steinam fought for?

So anyhoo, apparently on this show, this paragon of manhood chose one bubble-headed overly-made up girl to marry. Then on the next show, he changed his mind and chose another girl. All on national TV.

Now the fans of this show are --wait for it-- actually outraged on behalf of the spurned girl. The airwaves are a Twitter with it all. The humiliation! OMG! That is SO not cool! How COULD he do such a thing and of course the inevitable, how could SHE (the second girl) accept? There is speculation that maybe the producers set them all up (do you think?). Imagine that: a man who would choose his mate (and the mother of his young son) on a reality show might behave in a less than gentlemanly manner.

It's this debate that is baffling to me. I mean really, when you come to a Jerry Springer show you don't complain when the transvestite hits the Nazi with a chair. It's a little nit-picky don't you think? Debating whether or not this man's behavior is socially acceptable on a show that is so socially unacceptable is a little like debating the moral implications of taming wild animals while watching a Christian being thrown to a lion. It might be missing the point just a little.

I'd like to wrap this rant up with a pithy lesson to be learned but I don't know what it is except maybe, we should all stop watching reality TV.

Okay, gotta run, "Dancing with the Stars" is on.