Being not a mother of three children all under the age of four, I don't watch Health on the Line, the CTV daytime program hosted by Avery Haines. While skipping class and flipping through channels wasted, however, I have stumbled across it a few times, and all that really sticks out in my mind is that her hair is almost black, and she's got this wide platinum blonde streak right at the front. That really pisses me off. The woman is in her mid-forties. Not to say that once a woman hits 40 she can no longer do anything to her hair except cut it off, perm it, and throw on her sweater with a country landscape embroidered into the side, I just mean certain things that work on 17-year-olds can't work on 37-year-olds (and beyond).



Apparently in January 2000, Haines stumbled over her script while she was reading it live to tape. Immediately after, she commented:

"I kind of like the little stuttering thing. It's like equal opportunity, right? We've got a stuttering newscaster. We've got the black, we've got the Asian, we've got the woman. I could be a lesbian folk-dancing black woman stutterer...in a wheelchair with gimping, rubber legs. Yeah, really. I'd have a successful career, let me tell you."

Later, instead of editing it out, the tape editor mistakenly put the segment into the broadcast that did go to air later, and all of her viewers heard it loud and clear.

Way to go, loser.

Now, being the intelligent, objective leaders of tomorrow that we are - political correctness aside - is she right? Obviously we acknowledge that this sort of thing is by no means appropriate to have said when and where she said it, but is she right? If we collected every single visible minority trait and stuck them on a TV personality, would she be popular solely based on those traits? Would we say, "wow, good for her for getting past all those obstacles and being on TV, I really like her." Even if the woman was just about the worst host ever to grace the face of television - host-wise?

Yeah, I acknowledge that certain factors would need to be taken into account - but what are those factors? How the hell do we judge other people? What goes through the director's cut of our minds when we see somebody who isn't like us? Yes, I admit, I've seen certain people I don't even know and thought, that's the ugliest girl I've ever seen, why the hell is her nose shaped like a cabbage, or that guy looks like someone just farted next to his face - I dodge around people in wheelchairs when I'm at the mall even when I'm not in a rush, I pretend like I don't see the homeless guy I walk past every day at the same time, I've never had a desire to bathe the elderly...

How do you judge?

ANALYZE THIS, directed by A. Student, starring [insert your name here], and [insert name of next commenter]