Game Show Newsnet

Going back to the days where men were men...ok ok ok, political correctness....when people thought that being pelted with a basketball and called words that would make your grandmothers faint was acceptable, you had some of that same sort of behavior on reality shows, such as eating rats, throwing chairs across the room when it was revealed that you had genital warts, and being cursed out by Susan Hawk. Nowadays, throwing a ball at someone's head, unless you're playing Extreme Dodgeball, means your dismissal, and undoubtedly the countless lawsuits that will be going your way. I usually just resolved the conflict with a middle finger and walked in the opposite direction.

Now most people, when they saw the footage that caused Rutgers Men's Athletic Basketball Coach Mike Rice to be fired, were shocked and taken aback. 'This person should be fired! How dare he! He's educating the children of America!' My opinion for those people who are believing that - you're a dope. Not just a dope, but a dope who has their head planted into the sand like a flamingo.

Now before I go on, I'm not condoning the behavior of Mike Rice for one second. That's another argument for another time, and that's not what the focus of this article is.

The focus of the article is the videotape that got him canned. If you think that this is the worst thing ever on the face of the earth, you're sadly disillusioned. As a matter of fact, you're probably going to see worse tonight in the comfort of your very own home. Most people like the 'drama' from the reality shows, so if you're a Real Housewife fan, than you've seen much worse than the Rutgers Men's Basketball tape. You could same the same for Gordon Ramsay on Hell's Kitchen, for that matter. Granted, the contestants are competing for a once in a lifetime job, but couldn't you also say that for the men's basketball program? These are 15-20 kids who are competing for millions of dollars and being put through various tortures to get it. Sound familiar?

How much cursing do you hear bleeped out in a Gordon Ramsay show? Compare it to the Rutgers tape. There is more cursing and worse behavior from both Ramsay and the contestants. On April 2nd's episode, You have contestant Nedra Harris have more of a pirate mouth than Bluebeard on his worst day, and the amount of bleeps alone could be worse than that tape. And don't get me started on Gordon himself, whether it's throwing scalding food or hot kitchen accessories. And it's not just Gordon. You watch the Housewives in 7-9 hour marathon sessions of adult behavior, complete with fighting and tossing of objects like they are in an Olympic Volleyball match. You certainly don't watch Here Comes Honey Boo Boo for the educational material. And then there's Jackass, Numbnuts, and Buckwild - that show that just had a member of the cast remove himself from the gene pool - whose behavior, attitude and statements on inequality make the basketball tape look like a Boy Scout Retreat.

But here's the kicker. For the people who say that 'this is an educator who should know better'; maybe he should, but at least he is talking to 18-22 year olds who should, by this time, have the cognition to know what is right and what is wrong. At least these lessons are coming towards people who have had life experiences. Housewives, Kitchen, Buckwild, et al. are coming to you unfiltered and uncensored through YOUR TELEVISION SET AT ANY AND ALL HOURS OF THE DAY. So while you are railing against someone not doing their job, you, the parent are not doing yours because you are exposing your children to things ten times worse than what Mike Rice did. And I know you're not doing your job because these, the highest rated shows on tv for their respective evenings, are molding your kids' minds when they are 8, 6, 4...heck, however old they are when you allow them to watch it unsupervised.

So I'm calling out everyone who are allowing worse in their homes. If you're THAT concerned about how your kids are going to wind up, then you need to start monitoring what they have been watching, as the behaviors and mannerisms with the 'glamification' of what they are viewing could be a factor on how they appear on a different show that will be airing on Saturday night after the NCAA Semi-Finals. It's called COPS.