On board with rags

A typical morning rush hour commuter, if he or she is not resting with eyes closed, reads either the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal. These are the reading materials of choice, with an occasional Newark Star-Ledger thrown in for good measure. This morning, however, I sat between two people reading exciting alternatives: the man on my left was reading the classic Batman graphic novel, The Long Halloween, and the woman on my right was reading US Weekly or Star Crap or some horrible gossip magazine. Naturally, as I have read The Long Halloween, I was drawn to the gossip rag.

Now, I feel the need to dwell on one of the stories in the magazine because it smacks of hypocrisy, and the one thing that turns me off more than anything is hypocrisy. (In related news, I hate cheaters. Go Yankees!)  The story was on how Demi Moore stays young. It included a sidebar with seven tips from the star herself on how she stays young: Hydrate, moisturize, exfoliate, marry someone half your age, etc.  However, the story also included before and after photos showing the incredible plastic surgery she had last year.  

Now, I try to stay off of soap boxes because I find them slippery and they leave my shoes bubbly, but this smacks me as patently disingenuous and dishonest.  This would be like you saying the key to your good writing has been studying English in college and forcing yourself to write a little bit each day ... while leaving out the fact that you take large, unattributed portions of your essays from F. Scott Fitzgerald.  For some reason this made me really angry this morning. 

Maybe I'm just irritable because yet another baseball hero has taken my faith in humanity, chewed it up, and after 40 minutes in the bathroom, turned it into a steaming pile of broken promises and yesterday's corn chowder.*

*Full disclosure: This analogy is taken from F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night.