Saturday, November 11, 2006

News priorities and other strangeness


Does it ever strike anyone else that we live in really bizarre world?

On an equally bizarre but otherwise unconnected note, I was listening to Reporting Religion on BBC World service this morning. They interviewed an American pastor who has a special ministry that serves fallen evangelical ministers. They had obviously found this guy to discuss the Pastor Ted Haggard affair (which currently appears to stand at: he bought a massage from a gay prostitute, but not sex, as well as buying crystal meth, which he didn't take. Hmmm... can anyone say "Clinton"?), but the Haggard story in itself isn't particularly strange. A homophobic preacher who is actually gay isn't especially hypocritical when we compare him, for example, to disgraced former-Congressman Mark Foley who was sending sexually explicit instant messages to underage teenage boys, whilst heading the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children. What is bizarre is that there is a Pastor who specializes in 'fallen' pastors. Are there that many?!

Here's a picture of the "fallen" Pastor Ted with some other bloke. Despite the cheesy grins, no crystal meth was believed to have been involved:

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4 comments:

  1. Anonymous13 November, 2006

    That looks like the BBC News RSS feed to me (you can tell by the fact the headlines are all between 31 and 33 characters!) so the stories come in order of time published, rather than priority.

    Though Kylie probably did get more hits than the Baghdad story...

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  2. Toby - Northern Light Blog13 November, 2006

    I think you're right, but there must be some form of editorial control as for example sport or economics stories are never at the top of the RSS feed.

    I, BTW, think Kylie is as great as the next straight bloke (or indeed many gay blokes as well it would seem!), it was just the stories side by side that seemed so strange. Nevertheless despite not being anti-Kylie in anyway, I'm afraid that in the ex-Neighbours-stars-turned-singers competition, Natalie Imbruglia still has my heart. :-)

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  3. Anonymous14 November, 2006

    Oh yes, Natalie. You must have seen the Torn video then? Hilarious.

    There's no story-by-story editorial control over the RSS feed, but I think there's a bit of code that ensures only news published in the UK/international sections (and entertainment evidently...) gets to the top of the feed.

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  4. Toby - Northern Light Blog14 November, 2006

    > Oh yes, Natalie. You must have seen the Torn video then? Hilarious.

    Oohhh Yessss, Natalie. I have indeed seen it. If anyone hasn't you can here:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TLAquv935E&mode=related&search

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