Patrick Swayze, President Obama, & the media

So where is all the love for Patrick Swayze? Michael Jackson dies and I hear about it 24/7 for months. Patrick Swayze dies and it’s just another piece of news. I know that they aren’t on the same level, but still... It’s not like Swayze was some C-list actor. Sure, most of his great stuff was early in his career, but the same could be said about MJ. Some will say all of this fuss/non-fuss is because Swayze had cancer so his death wasn’t a shock. Well, Michael Jackson didn’t have cancer but he was still sick. Here’s the thing, I liked MJ. Beat It is one of the first songs I can remember loving. But somewhere along the way we grew apart (probably around the time I started liking girls and he started liking little boys). Even his music got to a point where it wasn’t good. That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy his early stuff. I just don’t think he should be treated like a saint... unless we are going to treat everyone in Hollywood who dies like a saint. If that’s the case, where is the love for Patrick Swayze? I want to see all day movie marathons of his stuff. Some of my personal favorites are (these are in no real order):

North & South – A ‘made for tv’ mini-series about the Civil War that among other things is freakin’ awesome.
Road House – This movie made me want to be a bouncer when I grew up.
Red Dawn – A classic ‘80s movie
Dirty Dancing – “Nobody puts Baby in a corner”... worst movie line ever... but it always makes me laugh.
Ghost – Not bad for a chick-flick
Point Break – Get to see him as a bad guy.
SNL – Swayze also had some classic moments on SNL

It seems President Obama called Kanye West a "jackass"? I have two thoughts about this. #1- seems this remark was made off the record, so I think it's pretty weak that it was made public. #2- the President should have started with "No offense, but..." as long as you start a statement like that it shouldn't matter what you say after it. #3 - This could be the first thing that he's said that I agree with. Maybe he should have said it on the record.

I don’t expect much from the media. I like to keep the bar low for them... protect your sources and don’t report stuff said off the record. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.

I also saw last night that America is racist. There was a report on how low of a percentage of white people in the South voted for President Obama. The obvious reason for this (as was reported) is racism. I’ll only mention a few of my problems with this. First, these numbers were from exit polls which right away means they aren’t worth crap. Second, this reasoning requires the assumption that the only reason people didn’t vote for President Obama is that they are racist. While I don’t doubt that there are people out there who are like that, I don’t think the media should assume everyone is like that. For example, I would have been happy to vote for Mr. Obama if I had agreed with him on more issues than I did with Mr. McCain. And for the record, white people do not have a monopoly on racism. It exists in every race/culture... I could go on and on about this but I’ll save it for another day.