Mr. Springer Goes To Oxford
While flipping through cable channels last night, I happened to come upon VH1's When Jerry Springer Ruled The World. What caught my eye was some very familiar footage. In fact, one of the shots was nearly identical to the photo I took above.
In the spring of 1999, I was a student at Oxford, where I was involved with the Oxford Union, a debating society with a storied past and an impressive roster of guests. The most controversial of which was Jerry Springer, whose show was under attack for at the time for inciting violence and being an overall disgraceful display of humanity.
I was never a Jerry Springer fan, and I hadn't even watched more than a few minutes of his show. However, I came away from his talk at Oxford with an appreciation for his particular type of genius (which no doubt helped him during his tenure as mayor of Cincinnati).
Harper's Index has pointed out that the ratio of attendees at Jerry Springer's talk to those at Mother Teresa's was 1:1. This is a rather sobering statistic, until one realizes that it's almost meaningless since both events drew a standing room only crowd of about 1,500 to the Oxford Union's auditorium.
In the six years since this event, if nothing else, I have managed to abide Jerry's Final Thought of the evening: "My wish for all of you is that you never appear on my show."
[Apologies for the poor quality of the photo, but this was taken with my mid-90s 0.3 megapixel Sony DSC-F1]
In the spring of 1999, I was a student at Oxford, where I was involved with the Oxford Union, a debating society with a storied past and an impressive roster of guests. The most controversial of which was Jerry Springer, whose show was under attack for at the time for inciting violence and being an overall disgraceful display of humanity.
I was never a Jerry Springer fan, and I hadn't even watched more than a few minutes of his show. However, I came away from his talk at Oxford with an appreciation for his particular type of genius (which no doubt helped him during his tenure as mayor of Cincinnati).
Harper's Index has pointed out that the ratio of attendees at Jerry Springer's talk to those at Mother Teresa's was 1:1. This is a rather sobering statistic, until one realizes that it's almost meaningless since both events drew a standing room only crowd of about 1,500 to the Oxford Union's auditorium.
In the six years since this event, if nothing else, I have managed to abide Jerry's Final Thought of the evening: "My wish for all of you is that you never appear on my show."
[Apologies for the poor quality of the photo, but this was taken with my mid-90s 0.3 megapixel Sony DSC-F1]