Earlier this week, I was in the car shuttling my kids about when I decided to flick on the radio and listen to a bit of music. Like most of us who spend a great deal of time in the car, music tends to make the task of traveling in circles a bit more pleasant. Thus, I tend to have a few of my favorite stations queued to play at the touch of a button.
As I commenced with a bit of country, I was stopped short by a brief newscast tossed in between the usual ballads. What struck me funny, though, was the "news" this momentary interruption consisted of. The fact that what I had heard constituted news at all had me questioning my own sanity as well as the sanity of the station validating it as so.
You see, it seems Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie were mistakenly booked on the same plane together and might have had to spend an actual flight eyeing each other's actions of sitting and drinking their OJ, reading magazines, or possibly sleeping for all of six hours or so. Mercy me! How could such a cataclysmic error have occurred? Thankfully, it was caught and we can all rest easy that Ms. Aniston and Ms. Jolie needn't be so terribly inconvenienced. Obviously, President Obama will have been told of the switch and the "State of the Union" that the president had planned on the matter needn't be carried out at all.
You know, it amazes me how vested we all seem to be in the relationship between Jennifer Aniston, Angelina Jolie, and Brad Pitt. The fact that such a blip can be called news and deserve valuable air time is rather remarkable and equally appalling -- especially when considering all of the critical issues and amazing stories available instead. There's a world of interesting and worthwhile topics to cover that will actually better us as human beings to know about. And yet as Perez Hilton has proven..."The more it smells, the more it sells!"
Frankly, I think both women are probably mature enough to handle such a glitch in their schedules. Given a bit of time together, I would hasten to think that they might have much more in common than just Brad. They both are heavily involved in charity work. They both love children. They both have had their "ups and downs" in relationships. And they both are women. There are four topics right there worth discussing, available to transform an awkward moment into an opportunity to show character, move forward, and teach the public a thing or two while doing so.
In all actuality, Angelina Jolie did Jennifer Aniston a favor in showing up in Brad Pitt's life when she did. Obviously, Brad Pitt was unhappy with Jennifer Aniston for some time, and so, Angelina's arrival onto the scene (so to speak) eliminated Brad from wasting Jennifer's time any further. Certainly, Jennifer needn't be thanking Angelina, but she needn't despise her either. Her feelings towards Brad are another story.
To that same end, our need to pit one woman against the other through the tasteless demise of the relationship between Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston and the spark which ended up flourishing between him and Angelina Jolie truly has to be re-evaluated to the extent that it has become the central story in information categorized as being a news broadcast. The fact is that we don't know these people and I would prefer that there presence in my life remain where it should be - on the screen and not in my news.
Have we really become so cavalier with our own self-worth and time that we so thoughtlessly squander it away on played up drama between lives we truly know nothing about and will count little more to us than names on a few good old movies years from now?
This may just be the case, although, it saddens me to embrace this possibility as reality. To that same end, it certainly offers an issue more interesting to ponder than where Angelina and Jennifer sink their butts...don't you think?