Warning: This Rant Ends With A Dangling Participle

      Not to make too much of this, especially since I don't watch the show (but how can one escape the media onslaught?), but The Apprentice has certainly done an about-face. After a start in which the men were systematically annihilated, the numbers have now drastically changed: there are now 4 men remaining against two women, all of the women having been 'fired' in succession since the de-genderization of the 'companies.' There are, of course, a number of reasons this could be happening: the female victory was exaggerated at the outset; the Burnett team suggested the need for parity in the eliminations; and so on and so forth. All I'm really saying here is this: the early evidence, and the early speculations, proved meaningless. After a slew of defeats among the men (not entirely fair, but setting that aside for the moment), once the gender-barrier was removed, the women have been falling like dominoes. There hasn't been a male eviction in -- how long??? This could be payback, it could be a number of matters; as someone who refuse to watch the show, I dare not speculate too certainly. All I say is this: assume nothing. I'm reminded that not too long ago-- less than five months ago-- no one, and I mean NO ONE, thought the Liberals in Canada could be dethroned. There's now a quiver of doubt in this, and we're now prognosticating that a minority govermnent in Canada (the first since Joe Clark's in the early 1980s) is a very real possibility. Go figure. The whirligig of time. At one point, the ladies on The Apprentice seemed invincible: either four or five of the lads had been bumped off, such that the men started looking like condors; and now the women are outnumbered. Robespierre might have snickered had he seen this: slaughter, oh sweet, sweet slaughter. Or sour, I suppose, depending on one's point of view.

      The same is true, by the way, of Survivor All-Stars, in which, so far, only the most threatening figures have been removed in the preliminaries. Yes, part of this is strategy and vendetta, taking out the previous winners and almost-rans. It's also more than that, because (with one remaining exception, Lex, I think, but I could be wrong on that), the major figures from previous seasons have all been ousted with Bolingbroke-like dispatch. The heavy money, I hear, is now on Rob M. (aka "The Robfather") to win, though I'm guardedly suggesting he's going to have to face a comeuppance soon enough from his own Lady Macbeth, the previously below-the-radar (and undeniably lovely) Amber. The contemporary thinking on all of this is that Rob is in charge, and no doubt he is, SO FAR: but I expect, too, there's a volta in the making, and Amber holds the trump-card there. The capacity for betrayals here resounds too much of Graham Greene, unless certain people play matters with abominable stupidity. I like Amber. I stop short of drooling when she's on-screen. (A young lass from "Beaver, PA"-- what else is a boy to do?) But she's also the anchor for the Rawb's machinations, and unless one or the other is removed, they're going to prove titanic in their immobility. But from a purely political stand-point, one or the other has to go, and Rob's the obvious choice: young, hale, arrogant, he's the figurehead upon whom the sensible should exact their remnants of power; but, same be said, remove his Lady Macbeth, and he's as aware of Birnam Wood's approach as can be. This, by the way, isn't "Survivor." It's "Survival of the Most Machiavellian," and that's the fact to watch: will the others develop the wherewithal to eliminate one of the dynamic duo? I don't think so, not at this point: Amber seems so meek, so darling; Rob seems too pricey a target. How does one shiver the four-person block (Rob, Amber, Rupert, and Jenna) without suffering occular-masonry? And better, neither Jenna nor Rupert seem to possess the savvy here. I say that realizing, though, my cheap prognostication is no different than what most of us thought of the Libs a few months ago. Anything can still happen. Survivor is not in the least about surviving in tough climes. It's about human politics.

      With all that said, I'm sure most of you are (a) shrugging your heads in disbelief that Doc J is even aware of such crap [rightly, by the way]; and (b) thinking I'm forecasting bets, speculations or otherwise. Natch, though indirectly, I suppose I am doing so. My larger point is this, that merit has been so thoroughly redefined that we no longer value those most valuable. To use Survivor as an example, I'd rather have a veteran like Rudy, in his seventies and still tougher-than-most-of-us-will-ever-be, in camp, if only for the knowledge that might help get my group through, as weakened as he was when he was dispatched. It wouldn't be about "winning," but about genuine environmental survival. If the cast didn't know that there would be reward challenges by which to win rice and/or luxuriances, would the true survivors be removed? Methinks not. Would you sacrifice a former Navy SEAL, injured as he may be? No, or only with the greatest reluctance, and one certainly wouldn't do it in favour of others far more trivial in their knowledge and experience. This hardly matters, though, because this is not what the game is about: too much like the real world, knowledge and experience are laid upon an altar for other reasons. And, yes, this is disgustingly petty and (dare I say it?) spiritually misguided. The weakest link of The Weakest Link was that people always, swilling in their own mediocrity, opted for sacrificing their betters than their lessers. Yes, this is profoundly anti-Darwinistic, which I suspect is part of its appeal to the masses. Their mediocrity, too, might be allowed to usurp accomplishment and knowledge.

      Sad, very sad it is indeed. We reward mediocrity and stupidity, even to the point of giving (ahem) some people the White House, although, as I write that, I don't want to seem to champion Gore, who, frankly, was not much better. Two syllables, people: MERIT. In normal seasons of Survivor, Dubya would have been voted off tout-de-suite. In this season, he'd be a bloody contender. (Kerry, by the way, is not that different.) We misstate, we misvalue, constantly, all too often because of our own petty, petty fears. Sickening, aren't we? We'd still sacrifice Jesus rather than Barabbas, and we'd find a way to logicalize it to our stupid, stupid selves. We'd still make Socrates drink that hemlock mix, and we'd still convict Oscar Wilde, and we'd do it for all the wrong, pathetic reasons, wouldn't we? We should collectively hang our heads in shame that we act the way we do. We'll cling to our reasons, like Dostoevsky's Inquisitor, but we'll not address our own degree of putrefying self-legitimization. We earn the scorn we deserve, whether we receive it or not. Dostoevsky's Christ merely kisses the Inquisitor and is taken away. Fools we are, and we enact it time and time again, and, I think, reality TV, such as it is, only substantiates this in crass form. The old ceremony, the one we know too well, the one we all perform in our cheap desperation.

      We ought to be ashamed of ourselves. We won't, but, dammit, we ought to.