New rules for 2011:Less censorship of the real gossip rags

When I started this blog a year ago, I was only going to report on stories in the supermarket rags that could be verified, like predictions of births, deaths, weddings, divorces break-ups, and of course, the end of the world. That changed over the months, but I made an editorial decision that I wasn't going to report on people who weren't really celebrities, which meant I was going to leave reality TV shows alone. I made mistakes, not knowing that The Hills was considered reality and not scripted and not realizing that interest in the Kardashians and Kendra was completely dependent on their basic cable TV shows. If I knew someone was on a cover solely because of reality TV, like the Real Housewives and Teen Mom and most especially Jersey Shore, I did not report on it here.

The blog has grown and so has my tolerance. As of this week, I will report on every story that mentions a person on the cover of every magazine, except one.


The Sun and its little black and white symbiont the Weekly World News don't often report on celebrities. The Sun predicts the end of the world and other prophecies. My original rules will still apply. If they put a specific prophecy with an actual date, I will print what is on the cover. For example, if this were a recent cover instead of three years old, I would report on the two miracles predicted for Easter Sunday, but I would not open the rag up to find out what the other five predictions are. And of course, the day after Easter I would have a post saying whether they came true or not. Also, a prophecy with a year instead of an exact date counts as verifiable.

They often have ads for their sweepstakes on the cover of the Sun, as does the low rent Examiner and sometimes the Globe. I will not report these.

The rules for the Weekly World News are different. They have to make me chuckle a little.

So in brief, now that the readership of the blog has grown so dramatically, and thanks to all my readers for that, I'm going to stop acting like I know what's good for you and let you have all the mental junk food you want in terms of reality TV gossip. Of course, I don't want to hear you complain, "I like Real Housewives of Moose Jaw but I hate that Middle School Day Care show." You will get it all, like it or not.