Word: maying
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...Believe it or not, there are some potential benefits to the United States should Iran build a bomb ... The initial shock of a nuclear Iran would soon be followed by a new regional dynamic strikingly like that of cold-war Europe ... Iran may think its enrichment plans will put fear into the hearts of Americans. In fact, it should give us hopes of a renaissance of American influence in the Middle East...
...that an unknown 23-year-old from Long Island would come equipped with a tabloid-ready exclamatory nickname, like J. Lo or P. Diddy, might, in a more self-effacing era, have seemed presumptuous. Now it's just commonsense branding. If you might be on a reality show, you may as well have a name that pops and precedes you like a well-positioned set of silicone implants. (Oh, also: you should get the implants too.) (See the top 10 reality TV shows...
Which is? Reality TV is now a valid career choice. The New York Times estimated that at any given time, there are 1,000 people on air as reality TV stars. (That may not seem like a huge number, but compared with, let's say, full-time TV critics, it's quite a healthy field.) For a few talented individuals - say, Idol's Kelly Clarkson or the cooks of Top Chef - this has made possible actual real-life opportunity. Jennifer Hudson lost on Idol but won an Oscar as an actress. Elisabeth Hasselbeck went from eating bugs on Survivor...
...especially lousy shows. And for all of everyone's worries 10 years ago, reality TV hasn't crowded "quality shows" off the air. The past 10 years of scripted shows - The Wire, Battlestar Galactica, The Office, Mad Men - are the strongest TV has ever had. (One genre that reality may be crowding out is soap operas. As the World Turns is ending, as did Guiding Light, their appeal supplanted by the immersive serial dramas of Jon & Kate, among others...
...instance, an anti-immigration militant spent a month living the life of an illegal alien.) Wife Swap is an intriguing show about American subcultures (homeschoolers, political activists, etc.) and the natural tendency of parents to secretly judge one another. TLC's 19 Kids and Counting, about the fecund Duggars, may be an extreme-parenting freak show, but it's also a series about the life of a deeply religious family, a rare subject for TV dramas today. (See the best and worst Super Bowl commercials...