What the? Really that's news?

I completely agree. I made a comment on the feed for our local news station, basically saying I don’t give a shit about celebrities who have deliberately wrecked their own lives, and people apparently think that makes me a heartless bitch. LOL, ummmmm no.

I had to google him. Hmm. An young athlete taking a truckload of Viagra and sealing himself in a whorehouse. I suppose I can understand an appetite like that. After these years of abstinence, if I were to go into an all-you-can-eat Japanese steakhouse, they’d probably have to pull me out of there comatose, too.

He also has a reputation for problems with other drugs.

This morning listening to my radio station in the car and the news guys were talking about the McDonald’s smoked meat poutine that just came out. They were tasting it and telling opinions on it and shit.
Seriously, it’s 6 am and you’re eating this garbage? Just thinking the same thing as you at the time, isn’t there some murder I should be hearing about?

@Symbeline for us ignorant and uncultured Americans, what the hell is poutine?

French fries in gravy and cheese chunks. Other ingredients can be added in, like meat, peas, whole buncha others.

He is not a washed up celebrity. Lamar Odom was a great basketball player who won several championships. Plus, anyone found unconscious in a brothel would be news, I think.

There are still plenty of war and murdered baby stories for those who like that sort of thing.

News today is a lot different than it used to be. Celebrity news usually brings in huge ratings/web hits/whatever way you get your news. Celebrities are news. That’s just the way it is.

I had no idea who Lamar Odom was until now, but I have to give this one to @tinyfaery.

Two time NBA champ and former reality TV star found unresponsive in a legal brothel.
By what stretch of the imagination is that not news?

Morning shows generally don’t want to get anyone’s day of to a bad start by depressing them, so they are inherently lighthearted except on stations that are utterly serious 24/7/365 anyways. They try to save the bad news for when you’re home with a beer in your hand.

Never heard of him, don’t care. I agree, anyone that really cares about celebrity news, short of the death of some well known and noteworthy actor/actress or muscian shows how painfully shallow their brain pan is.
I suppose it’s better than another article about Bruce Gender…er, excuse me Caitkin. Gahl

Ah, the things I avoid by not watching broadcast television.

What the heck is a Lamar Odom? Some brand of gadget?

@Symbeline – I spent a long weekend in Toronto this past summer, and the one thing I was not allowed to leave without trying was poutine. Had it at some microbrew restaurant in this old distillery-cum-market. Good stuff.

This story has it all:

Basketball

Fallen heroes

Whorehouses

Drugs

Viagra

Kardashian connections

Death

Debauchery

I see how news people think this is big. I couldn’t care less.

I agree with the OP. Celebrity news should sequestered to the shit mags at the grocery store/hair salon.

Donald Trump would have had to have stuck his dick in a dead pigs mouth for them to talk about anything else.

Speculation is far easier than news.

In this nation Lamar Odom IS news, the bar has been set so low a cockroach that seemed to dance to old Beetles tunes would be news.

Celebrity/athlete
+ sex
= news

News shows are not very informative. They spend 15 minutes giving weather and traffic conditions. The hosts reveal how moronic they are every time they make an ad lib remark.

I heard something about it on the radio last night but was not really listening. All I remembered was there was some guy associated with sports who was being hospitalized in a coma after 911 had been called because they couldn’t wake him up after days of doing coke and kind of like an afterthought they mentioned he had also taken about 10 “male enhancement pills”.

Live and learn. Or not.

@rojo, no wonder he is having a hard time.

They were talking about it on the radio today and on The Today Show. Apparently his claim to fame, besides being a star athlete, was that he was married to a Kardashian.

He has 50/50 chance of living, he took 8 to 10 herbal versions of Viagra, which, the guy on the radio was saying if you take one they make you flushed and rushed, so 10? Plus cocaine. Kidneys are shutting down, he had a series of strokes and he’s in a coma.

I am very uninterested in following the majority of celebrities, especially am sick of hearing about Kardashians.

I’m not so sure that this wouldn’t be news if he wasn’t a celebrity.

Addictions, legalized sex trade and unregulated “herbal enhancements” are serious issues. This guy is near death. It’s almost sounding like people have less compassion for the situation because of his name/ex-wife. Show some compassion. This story is important and relevant. People are suffering and turning to more and more ridiculous things for whatever desired effect.

Let’s talk more about why and how to address the issues instead of being derogatory about celebrity.

I’m an incredibly compassionate person, but I have zero sympathy for celebrities who have taken all their opportunity and squandered it. Zero sympathy for people who throw their own lives away. He has a history of drug abuse, and this time it really fucked him over. Too bad. No sympathy from me. It has nothing to do with him marrying into the Kartrashians, but everything to do with him being a giant douchenozzle who is only in a coma because he did it to himself.

I don’t get it @WillWorkForChocolate. Do you think everyone with an addiction is a giant douchenozzle, or only celebrities with addictions? Or only Lamar Odom?

I think addictions are insidious and effect all social classes, but, it is harder to understand some extremely well off celebrities or sports stars that have all the money and resources to seek out the best treatment and they do not when so many others might want to but can’t afford to get the help they need. Of course, everyone has to do their own hard recovery work, regardless of privilege but…when one can afford months of top of the line care in some country club setting and don’t go for it, kinda hard to comprehend.

I think you’re holding extremely well-off people to a higher standard of treatment. They also have practically unlimited access to drugs and sex.

So, if you’re Lamar Odom and the owner of a brothel picks you up, drives you to his brothel, gives you beautiful women, alcohol, cocaine and herbal supplements… you should be able to say, “Gee, since I can afford a great rehab and am tempted by all of this, I should just leave and go to rehab!”??

@Cupcake Addiction is addiction just saying that when one has all the resources they could ever want or need it it hard to reconcile why they don’t use them, but…of course, most addicts are in denial and that is why they usually die accidentally because, in their state of mind, they are in total control and these things just won’t happen to them, they are just having fun.
Major denial is a hallmark of all addiction most of the time.

Here are some facts about Odom:

Odom’s Father Was a Heroin Addict And It Impacted Odom Deeply

His son Jayden died of sudden infant death syndrome in 2006. In 2011, his cousin was murdered in New York. Three days later, Odom was riding in an SUV when the driver lost control and hit a pedestrian, 15-year-old Awsaf Alvi Islam, who later died. Odom said, “Death always seems to be around me.” He said all those deaths were beating him down. source

It was hard enough dealing with a suicidal mother and then have to deal with her ruptured brain aneurysm and death recently. I made some really stupid mistakes and drank more than I should have when dealing with this. I feel for the man and his struggles. That’s a messed up past.

^^^ I do too, some people just get waaay more than their fair share of shit in life.

@Cupcake No, it’s….how do I put this… when someone has lots of opportunities and potential, but they deliberately throw it away on things that they very well know could kill them or someone else, instead of using it for good purposes, that makes them a douchenozzle to me.

Whitney Houston? I felt bad for her family, I was sad that she wasted her potential, but I had no actual sympathy for her. All the other people in the spotlight, who have everything laid at their feet and could use their names and their considerable means to do so many good things, but they throw it all away…...it just pisses me off.

To me, it’s like people who win the lottery, and instead of splurging on a few luxuries (because who wouldn’t), saving for their kids’ futures, investing some, and giving to charities and helping others, they just squander it on bullshit or drugs or gambling, and end up destitute, like the lottery never happened. I feel no sympathy for them.

[...and kind of like an afterthought they mentioned he had also taken about 10 “male enhancement pills”.
Maybe his problem is he has an ingrown hard-on and he is boinking himself to death.

I still feel compassion for Judy Garland, for god’s sake, @WillWorkForChocolate, and she was before my time.

They’re just people, above all, and few celebrities have had it laid at their feet. They’re just your friends, family and neighbors writ large with the same insecurities and additions, but with the wherewithal to indulge them to death. They’re risk takers by nature…that’s what got them to the top. But a senseless death is a senseless death.

@Seek Oh yeah, I love poutine. It’s still garbage though.

@ibstubro Okay, well, that’s you. That’s not me. I also have no compassion for people who’ve gotten killed when they were robbing or carjacking someone, or people who’ve been permanently disfigured because they keep paying for injections in their face. If someone continuously makes the same stupid choices, knowing full well what the consequences are, and ends up in a coma because of it, I’m not going to care. I just can’t.

I feel compassion for abused and neglected children, animals, parents who are trying to put food on the table, celebrities who do good things with their fame, clinically depressed people who feel hopeless, clowns (they really get a lot of shit, ya know? :D) etc…

Thanks, @cupcake. The apathy and obvious disdain in this thread is a symptom of our horrible world and a huge reason for the inhumanity of man. It lies heavy on my heart.

At least @Hypocrisy_Central weighed in with the compassionate Christian point of view. Move empathy and apathy up a notch to making sport of the suffering/dying.

I don’t think ‘turn the other cheek’ necessarily meant Christians are two faced.
But I could be wrong.

^ Is he dying? I don’t know who he is, what he does, or heard about him. I guess he must be some heck of a man if news will break into programming for him. I am surely grieved if he is dying because I am not sure where he is heading. However, I do not know if there is any celebrity so great as to overshadow issues in this world that truly count.

Not having sympathy for a person you didn’t even know existed until his face was splashed everywhere, who has deliberately ruined his own life, doesn’t make you a horrible person. It makes you a realist who wants to know why in the hell it’s all over the news when REAL news isn’t being discussed. On the news. I’ll just leave this here.

Wow.
I had no idea the American media was all propaganda and hype while Russian media is truth and light.

BTW, I listened to NPR most of the day and there was no mention of Lamar Odom.
I think every news cycle mentioned that Russia is bombing the rebel’s opposing Assad, rather that ISIL targets.

What, exactly, are these ‘real news issues’ that aren’t being discussed?

I was on my way out yesterday morning. I put the news on. This was on every news channel. To me this is not NEWSWORTHY! All day long people were talking about this, my mom brought it up, etc. Look the refugees, who is running for President, the Malaysian flight information the found, and other information is newsworthy. Him not so much.

Do I want to hear about something possibly dying? No. Is it sad? Yes. But it’s not really important. We need to move on and just realize what is.

Sad place we live in when celebrities become the NEWS!

@ibstubro Look, I’ve given my opinion, you’ve given yours. I didn’t come back to Fluther to fight with people like I used to. Have a Xanax, I’m going to.

I’m not bent, @WillWorkForChocolate. It’s just discussion, not emotion.

It’s disingenuous to pretend that the 24 hour news cycle is anything but entertainment, IMO, @crazyandbeautiful. What is a talking head going to tell you about the current Presidential candidates in 30 seconds or less that is going to make one whit of difference? Do you for one second believe that Donald Trump is not a celebrity?

People don’t turn to television for news. They turn to it for entertainment. Comedy, drama, news or reality TV, it’s all packaged in the most entertaining and least offensive (mind the sponsors!) way possible. Are you going to see starving refugees with your morning cereal? No. Shrapnel victims from the latest bombings in Turkey with your latte?

If you want news, turn off your TV and check the top news stories on your computer, where you can go a little in-depth if you choose. Better yet, leave early and catch the morning NPR broadcast. Turning on your TV and bitching about it being fluffy makes about as much sense as complaining that the fridge is cold. It’s the nature of the beast.

Disclaimer: I have not had access to a broadcast TV channel in my home since the 1990’s.

@ibstubro I’m not bent either. Yet. I get emotional very easily, though, and playing ping-pong with people on subjects where neither of us will change our minds is one of my stressers. So I’m trying my damndest to avoid that or else I’ll just leave again to protect my own sanity.

In addition to the Lamar Odom, there has been lots of “typical” news on TV lately. Lots about the debates, the political race, crimes (as always), Boehner, ISIS, etc. It’s not like the recent news is only about Odom.

Look I had time to kill before I sent out Wednesday morning. I usually put on one of my shows I record on the DVR. Wednesday just decided to see what was going on. Blah blah blah
Yadda yadda yadda Lamar Odom. Let me get the tissues out before I cry too much.

To me hues not really important . Ok he took drugs, is linked to Khloe Kardashian and has a shot a living. Guess what? Still not caring. I don’t want to see anyone die. But when it’s on all week long. I STILL DONT CARE.GET OVER THIS CRAP. REPORT SOMETHING OTHER THEN A WASHED UP ATHLETE. OVER, DONE.

In the bigger picture, I have to say that I agree with you in principle, @crazyandbeautiful. Had it not been for this question I might have been blissfully unaware of the Odom saga. I don’t use news as a way to pass the time and I when I am exposed to a news story I find especially spurious, I just pass it off.

I’m sorry you felt the need to give this story the widest exposure possible, but since you did?
Is it news?
Yes.