Daily Prompt – Leftovers Sandwich

Today, publish a post based on unused material from a previous piece –a paragraph you nixed, a link you didn’t include, a photo you decided not to use. Let your leftovers shine!

Who keeps their leftovers from blog posts?? Where do you keep them? I would very much like to know…

28 Nov – TV Character

If you could be a cast member on any television show, which one would it be? Tell us about your character.

Hands down, I’d be Olivia Pope, from the tv drama, Scandal.

15 July – Scandal

Kerry Washington is speaking at the conference next week. What do you think has been the biggest scandal so far in this decade?

 
Well in terms of Australia, there’s been quite a few ‘scandals’.

Apr 21: Social Media Scandal

Have you ever had an Internet scandal or drama play out over social media?

No, I’m not that much of an attention whore. I remember when Hulk and I first began dating and we both changed out ‘status’ to ‘In A Relationship’ which was the mark that things were serious between us, and one day, he had accidentally changed his stats, and it said single, and within minutes of that happening, I had an influx of messages asking if I was okay. I hadn’t actually seen any of this, because I was at a conference, and walked out on a break to all these messages saying ‘I’m so sorry to hear about you guys’, or ‘I just saw your relationship status change to ‘Single’, what happened, do you need to talk?’ etc etc.

I was so confused, and checked Facebook and saw it for myself. I messaged Hulk immediately to ask him what was going on, and he didn’t even realise what had happened.

Other than that, I’ve never had anything scandalous occur on social media. My view is that anything of a personal nature really doesn’t need to be broadcast out to the world for anybody and everybody to see. If it’s something that’s happening between two people, it should remain between those two people. I would like to think that if Hulk and I ever broke up, it wouldn’t be plastered all over Facebook, instead, we’d just keep it between us only.

However, if we did breakup and he started to publicly badmouth me over social media… then it’d be on, and I’d go out of my way to destroy him!!

Apr 10: Scandalous Society

F.H. Bradley said, “There are persons who, when they cease to shock us, cease to interest us.”  Do we live in a society that needs scandal?

Of course society needs scandal. Whether people admit it or not, society generally has a secret love for a scandal, especially if that scandal involve celebrities. We’re fixated on the celebrity life. Some people have a resentment towards them simply because they believe that celebrities walk around in their own little bubble, thinking that they’re better than everybody else, so when they’re involved in something scandalous, these people revel in it, seeing it as just desserts or karma for their own arrogance.

Then there’s the media – where would all the gossip magazines be without constant scandal… Or in some cases, complete fabrication of a scandal, just for the sole purpose of selling more copies. Without scandal, they simply wouldn’t exist because they would have nothing to print.

Then there are the celebrities themselves. How many times have you heard a celebrity tell the paparazzi to leave them alone? Even just the act of doing that can be spun into a story about how that person had a complete outburst at a photographer or reporter and BOOM!! there’s their next story. Somebody call TMZ!! Personally, I believe that if a celebrity didn’t want to be in the public spotlight so much, they’d just have to be really boring in order for the media to stop drawing focus on them. But even in saying that, so many paparazzi would be more than happy to document every step you take whilst you do completely mundane activities, like dropping off your dry cleaning, getting a manicure, going to Starbucks etc. But even then, a simple photograph of a celebrity getting a latte can be spun into anything.

 

Apr 9 – Scandalous Double Standards

Do you think there are a lot of double standards between men and women when it comes to scandals?

I don’t necessarily believe that there is. Yes, I agree that there are countless double standards between men and women generally speaking, however, when it comes to a scandal, I think it’s a relatively fair playing field – man, woman, it doesn’t matter. Once the word ‘scandal’ is involved, then it’s open warfare with the media. They will tear anybody apart across the front pages of the tabloids, regardless of whoever they are, and what gender they are.

If anything, I think that, again, generally speaking, there are more scandals in the media involving men, simply because men are stupid enough to be doing something scandalous in the first place. What was the last big ‘scandal’ in the media involving a woman?

For me, the first thing that comes to mind is the one revolving around Nigella Lawson not being allowed into the US because she admitted to having used drugs in her past. Granted, this was also following on from her two former employees trying to get their own five minutes of fame claiming that she was quite the nasty horrible drug pig, AND this was after she was photographed in public being choked by her husband.

…but apparently it was all about Nigella, rather than Mr Saatchi… y’know, the guy with his hands around her throat… in public…!! But yes, let’s not focus on that… Nigella’s drug use is MUCH more important.

What a bunch of sexist crap.

 

Apr 8 – Keep It Private

Are there some scandals that you wish you didn’t know about?

I think that when it comes to the private lives of other people – regardless of who they are, their status, their fame etc, it should be kept private. I really don’t like the way the media will take something personal and painful between two people, and then parade it around all over the news, on front covers of papers and magazines, and all over the internet as some kind of story.

I think that’s just plain mean.

Have you ever gone through something such a relationship breakup / divorce? Or perhaps something quite painful and personal? Yes? Now imagine if somebody took all those painful moments and details, and broadcast it to every single person that you knew. Your friends, your family, your coworkers etc. How horrible would that make you feel?? One of the things that I absolutely cannot stand is when people start airing other people’s dirty laundry – it’s just so… vindictive. However, god help anybody who dares try and air any of my dirty laundry, I will rip them apart piece by piece.

Apart from that, there are a lot of scandals that I just don’t care about. None of them interest me, nor do they affect me in any way, shape or form, so why should I concern myself with other people’s problems? That sounds somewhat selfish, but it’s true. If it has absolutely nothing to do with me, why would I want to invest my time into reading about it, or watching reports about it on the news.

I just don’t care. Granted, if it was something that was going to affect people’s health (like the Horsemeat scandal) then that’s a different story. I used to shop at Aldi, so in that aspect, I’m involved as a consumer.

Apr 7 – Public Scandal

Is there a particular public scandal that intrigued you? 

Public scandals are why I love the media, and also why I hate the media.

Most of the time the media take a story and slap on the term ‘scandal’ generally as a means to sell more papers, or attract more viewers to a news / current affairs show.

Australia has had more than it’s fair share of ‘scandals’, however none of them have really intrigued me. I was just looking over a list of ‘scandals’ and there are quite a few that grabbed my eye.

Firstly, I think that the most prominent one in Australia most recently was the Essendon Football Club drug scandal. Basically, the club was investigated for usage of prohibited supplements, which then blew up into a massive controversy and ending in the club being fined a record AU$2 million. As much as I can’t stand football (primarily because a) the sport is ridiculous and b) because it’s pretty much a religion in this country), I was quite surprised that this had even come to light. What surprised me the most was that there were all these people saying how shocked they were at just the concept that there could even be drugs in sport.

Are you fucking kidding me?

Drugs and sport go together like cake and buttercream frosting. It’s that simple. These people are either so completely ignorant as to what is going on in their own clubs, or they’re trying to cover it up.

The next major scandal at the moment has been the Craig Thomson Union Fund scandal. Basically the crux of this scandal was that this guy, Craig, used his Union credit card and spent a truck load of union-members’ money on all kinds of stuff that he shouldn’t have, including paying for prostitutes and escorts. I think what I was the most surprised by, was finding out that hookers accept credit-card payments… I just thought they were cash-only.

I guess it puts a whole new spin on the phrase ‘swipe your card’…

There was a massive overseas scandal on the usage of horsemeat in consumer foods. This was something that actually did concern me, because I couldn’t believe that people would even consider eating horsemeat – just the thought of it grosses me out. But humans are cannibals, and will eat all kinds of animals, regardless of how big or small they are. When this scandal broke in the media, we were buying meat from Aldi, which was one of the major stores involved, so we immediately stopped buying from there as a precaution, and sourced our meat directly from a butcher.

Also in overseas news, there was the whole phone-hacking ordeal with Rupert Murdoch sitting right at the very top of it all. I think that it was great for something like this to come to light; exposing the underhanded ways and lengths the media will go to in order to get juicy details for their next big story. It’s just disgusting, and ever since then, I’ve stopped engaging in numerous News Corp holdings… well, except Australian Good Taste and Donna Hay magazine… what can I say, food is my weakness.

I think the last major one that made me groan and rolls my eyes in sheer disbelief at the sheer ignorance of the case was that involving the cases of sexual abuse within the catholic church. For as long as I can remember, there’s always been constant commentary regarding priests and abuse of children, predominantly young boys. Priests had / still have a stigma attached to them as being paedophiles, and the church knows all about it, but covers it up etc etc. So imagine my lack of shock and surprise when this ‘scandal’ was brought up in the media. Parliamentary inquiries, Royal Commissions investigating numerous claims of abuse… it was as though this issue that society, in general, had been talking about for years and years was only NOW starting to actually be taken seriously enough to warrant proper investigations.

Are you kidding me?

And people are behaving as though this information is all so sudden and brand new, and so completely inconceivable. Which, in turn, makes me even sadder about people and society. How could you be so oblivious and ignorant of this?

Look, I can appreciate that many victims have been haunted and tormented by the memories of what happened to them, and I can appreciate that they may not necessarily want to come forward and put the spotlight on themselves for a multitude of reasons, but they also need to understand that unless people like them actually say something, nothing is going to change. Those within the church will still abuse their power and position; children are still going to be abused; nobody will say anything about it, and the cycle will just continue as it has for however many years.

And the worst part of it all, is that if a child dare say anything or speak out about it, then who knows what the consequences could / would be. Maybe the child would be labelled as being a liar, and a Son of Satan – and then barraged with passages from the Bible, and made to repent for sins that are not his.

Unfortunately, the cynic in me can’t help but assume that this kind of abuse will never stop. Priests will always be protected by the Church, and let’s face it, the Church is a law unto themselves. It’s unfortunate, but this is just another reason as to why I cannot stand religion, ESPECIALLY Catholicism / Christianity. I think that the Catholic Church is perhaps one of the most evil and underhanded organisations in the world.