Voyeuring September 12th

9/11 was such a weird day. Understatement of the century, I know, but it was the last day of our innocence. I was 20 years old and I never watched the news in the morning. As far as maturity goes, I wasn’t quite there yet. I was a junior at the University of Texas and I went to class that day like every other day. I first heard the news in my 10am Hindi class when a classmate told me that some terrorists has bombed the World Trade Center.

“Again?” I thought. Our professor corrected us and told us that two planes were flown into the towers. Our professor, a fervent Hindu nationalist, also had to add “I’m sure it was the Muslims.” We disregarded this last comment because we were still in shock from the previous one.

We still went about class as though it were a normal Tuesday. The classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays are longer, so we didn’t get out until almost noon. That’s when we found a mass exodus from campus. No one wanted to be away from home when we weren’t really sure what was going on. I got back without event and went into the apartment I shared with two of my girlfriends from high school. I said hi to them and went to my room. It was common for me to come home and immediately change into crummy loungewear. I closed my bedroom door, sat on the bed, took a deep breath and turned on the TV. It was 1 or 2 o’clock before I got a chance to see the news coverage for the first time. I saw the footage of the first and second planes deliberately smash into the towers. I just burst into tears, sobbing quietly in my room alone. My roommate Sunanda knocked on my door. I knew it was her because of the three of us, she was always the first one to reach out. I tried to wipe my face dry before opening the door, but it was no use.

“How long are you going to do this alone before we can do this together?” she asked. In the worst moment in our country’s history, she knew exactly what to do – stick together. That afternoon, that evening and the next few days, we were glued to the 24-hour news coverage of what was happening around the world. We watched Peter Jennings try to eat a quick snack in between reports. We watched people on the other side of the world celebrating in the streets with AK-47s. We saw Jon Stewart break down in tears. Our Mexican-American neighbors asked us if we were American and if we were Muslims. On my mom’s insistence, I taped an American flag in the back window of my car so people would know that although I am brown, I’m also American.

9/11 changed everything. You could not drive your car near the capitol building for the State of Texas anymore. You could not fly without being molested and dehumanized at the airport. You could not just be American, you had to constantly prove that you were the right kind of American. The University was always on Orange Alert for terror. People started assigning themselves more importance than what they needed, assuming that they would be Osama Bin Ladin’s next target. “Well the president’s daughter goes to UT and she’s in a sorority in West Campus and I live in West Campus so, you just can’t be too sure…”

24-hour news became the norm along with the constantly running ticker on the bottom of the screen. Last month’s DC quake-i-cane coverage made me miss the days when not everything was big news. 9/11 was and still is, big news. Baby earthquakes and the like used to just interrupt the regularly scheduled programming for 5 minutes and then let us get back to it. So when will we ever really get back to it?

4 months ago, we learned that Osama Bin Ladin was shot and killed by Navy Seals. The most surprising part was that he was found in Pakistan living a life of leisure for the last 10 years. Meanwhile, we’ve been living life measured in 3.5-ounce bottles, sealed in a plastic zip-top bag with no shoes on and our laptops in a separate bin. His death felt me puzzled about how to appropriately react. Obviously, the 20-year-old drunken kids partying outside the White House had the wrong idea. There are 5 stages of grief. I don’t think I felt any of them for Osama. Here’s a short run down of what I felt:

Shock – we were still looking for him?

Surprise – we actually killed him? His dialysis didn’t fail him years ago?

Anger – wait, he was living a life of leisure for the last 10 years? Asshole. (anger actually is one of the 5 stages of grief, my bad)

Happiness – not for his death, but for the .00001% chance that we can return to the years of pre 9/11 flying where it’s okay to be brown-skinned and to have shampoo or your own water from home that didn’t cost $7.50.

Relief – Whew. This is finally over. Wait, hasn’t it been over for years?

Confusion – So what does this really mean for us now?

Anxiety – what now? Is anyone actually upset over his death? Does it change anything for terrorists?

My husband and I were in a bar in Rhode Island after going to a concert when we found out the news. I checked facebook and saw 20+ people had the same status in a row and then I had to check the real news. We asked the bartender and she changed the channel from baseball to the news. The only other people in the bar were two 21-year-old guys. They were very excited to hear this news. They said they had been taken out of class for an assembly when they were in 6^th grade to hear about what had happened that horrible Tuesday morning. 6^th grade? That will make you feel old. The big assembly I remember from middle school was the one where OJ’s verdict was read aloud by a stammering juror that I mentioned last post.

I still can’t watch the footage of the planes crashing into the towers without crying. It’s rare to even see it on TV anymore. It awakens something so visceral and so human inside of you. And the footage of the towers crumbling and collapsing. I feel like the towers collapse on my chest and push all of the air out of my lungs every time I see it. I think about those rescue workers running in when everyone else was running out. I think of the rescue crews that came to rescue the trapped first responders. I think about how they have been treated since. I think of the war that so many young men and women die for while we forget and move on to reality TV and boutique cupcakes. All of that makes me want to cry again. Who are we and where have we come? Did we use the events of 9/11 to repurpose our lived successfully? Maybe you have, but I haven’t. I can be honest about that. Maybe I tried, maybe I would have, I don’t know, and I really can’t remember. All I can remember is that my towers collapsed again in 2003 when Sunanda died.

9/12, the day after the day that changed us forever. What now? This is our chance to begin anew. This time I’m going to do it right. How about you?

Voyeuring Justice

I love justice. I mean, I looooooooooove justice. I honestly believe in justice. I believe in the system and I believe in karma when the system does not work and other times when it does work. I recently heard a list of the most hated people in America. Number one is Casey Anthony. The top ten is rounded out with reality TV stars, fame seekers and some of my favorites, OJ Simpson, Octomom and Paris Hilton. The problem with these folks is that they each embody injustice of some kind.

Last month, Casey Anthony was found not guilty on three of the seven most important counts that she faced. People have asked my opinion about that case quite a bit since it happened. It is an unpopular view and I will admit I didn’t follow the trial very closely, but I think it was the right verdict. There did not seem to be a way to know how Caylee Anthony died and that is the major proof problem. There was no way for the jury to be sure beyond a reasonable doubt of what happened, and that is not enough evidence to send a young woman to jail for life – or death. It could have been an “abuse of a corpse case,” but that is probably a misdemeanor anyway. If the “accidental drowning” story was true, even though all of the stories associated with this case are far-fetched, there is no way the medical examiner could conclude the actual cause of death.

The court of public opinion had clearly decided. My Facebook newsfeed was decidedly enraged by the Casey Anthony verdict. And why not, this woman was out partying like crazy in the month that her toddler was missing. Even so, we are fickle. Casey Anthony was released from jail recently and it was a quiet affair. Now if this had been an episode of Law and Order and if you further believe that Casey Anthony killed her daughter, she would have cracked under the detective’s high stakes, highly emotional interrogation.

“Ok, fine, I did it! Are you happy now? I was sick of Caylee and so I…” insert confession here. And if reality was Law and Order and if Casey Anthony was found not guilty with this kind of evidence, then a Nancy Grace character would have shot and killed her on the courthouse steps. Tot Mom bleeding out, clutching her stomach. Any last words?

“I’m going to meet Caylee now,” she whispers.

“No you’re not, bitch. I’m sendin’ your ass straight to hell.” Fake Nancy Grace fires the kill shot. Television justice is so much faster than regular justice. Instead, we have to wait (without fast forwarding the commercials). Time will tell how horribly the American public treats Casey Anthony and prevents her from reentering society. She may be out of jail, but her life is still going to suck. She will be hard pressed to find a job, a date or a fresh start.

I remember being 14 years old and in ninth grade at the junior high school. They had an assembly where we all got to go to the library, if your teacher allowed it, to see the live reading of OJ verdict on TV. For a later blog post, I’ll discuss how old it made me feel the night Osama Bin Ladin died. I was in a hotel bar and two young guys were overly excited about Bin Ladin’s death. They then explained to the bartender that in sixth grade, the school had an assembly on the morning on September 11 to explain what had just happened to our country and that they had been waiting since they were 12 for Bin Ladin to be caught. Sixth grade? I was in college! Anyhow, back to my flashback of when I was young, not from when I felt old.

When the verdict was announced by, the library erupted. It erupted with cheers because at that age, it was cool for an aging football star to get away with murder. It was cool for the “Juice” to be “loose.” It was cool to laugh at crazy old Ron Goldman and Marcia Clark’s ugly hair. I remember feeling disappointed for a couple of different reasons. First, if my peers thought injustice was cool, then I would never be cool. Second, why are celebrities exempt from the rules but we still have to follow them? Years after OJ began his search of every major golf course for the “real killers,” justice caught up with him. Justice took OJ down hard on that stupid robbery of sports memorabilia thing in Las Vegas. Finally, after 15 years of freedom, OJ is in jail.

Octomom is widely hated by Americans too. What a great story – a struggling mother of 6 decides to have 8 more babies. Why? Not really sure. Is this the beginning of a campy movie? I wish. Maybe she had no idea that you could work at an elementary school or day care or a children’s museum if you love spending time with kids. Then of course, Octomom got all of that weird plastic surgery to look like Angelina Jolie. How horrible for the U.N. Goodwill Ambassador to have a doppelganger like Octomom rolling around out there. Justice is slow, but she always catches up one way or another. The last laugh for Octomom seems to be that she is now culturally irrelevant. Also, she’s an un-dateable single mother of 14.

Frankly, I was surprised that Paris Hilton made this list. She is really just a rich girl who made a sex tape and is now somehow famous because of this, right? Okay, well that’s enough for us. Paris seems to flaunt her privilege everywhere she goes, and we hate that about her. I’m not exactly sure what makes her worse than the Kardashians, though. Are they just more business savvy? Are they prettier? Are they doing amazing humanitarian work in between each of their reality TV shows? I have to admit, I will take a brunette with curves over a stick-thin blonde any day of the week. In an interesting twist, the late Mr. Kardashian was actually one of OJ’s attorneys and his longtime friend. Here’s his wikipedia entry, which I find fascinating. These Kardashians girls are skating by – maybe they should pump the brakes on the reality shows before they fall out of favor with us.

Paris seems to be the only one in this motley crew of hated Americans that was actually found guilty of a crime the first time around and served jail time on that offense. Justice dinged her with 23 days in jail for a suspended driving license, an offense where most defendants are released on time served. Paris went and pissed the wrong people off. Congrats to that judge for being a hard ass with her and showing her that she does not get a free pass because she is rich and famous.

OJ became America’s sad joke. Will Casey Anthony follow suit? This is the only year when your Casey Anthony Halloween costume will be relevant, so it is now or never. We love the drama of the public demise, especially when it is someone who embodies injustice. But while we love to hate, are we being careful? Did we actually make Octomom famous by being mildly interested in her life and circumstance? And why is Paris still famous? That grainy green sex tape is not that good, trust me – I’m voyeuring for you, for God’s sake!

Let me be your Indian friend

Now I’m not the most Indian person in the world. There are real Indians – in India – who are much more Indian than me. My parents are both Indians from India (yes dots, not feathers), and they tried as best as they could to raise me to be Indian and proud of it. The first 18 years or so were difficult, but it’s really grown on me. While I am not an end-all-be-all source of what is true about all Indians, my first generation Indian-American upbringing in an Hindi-speaking Hindu household makes me a pretty decent source.

Now I know that I’m not the most Indian person in the world, but if you haven't any Indian friends, let me be that friend for you. Let me be that person who you can ask all of those uncomfortable or perhaps socially awkward questions about India and it’s culture. If I can’t answer your questions, I will check with my Indian mother. If she cannot answer your questions, I will turn to my old friend, google.com. Between the 3 of us, we pretty much know everything anyway. To embrace my role as your Indian ambassador, let me start with a preliminary lesson: Hindi v. Hindu. This is why you never ask if someone is Hindi or if they speak Hindu.

Hindi is the primary language of India, but just one of hundreds of dialects spoken in India. Hindi is written in Devanagari script, read from left to right like English, but the letters hang from a line on the top. If you were writing on notebook paper, you would start on the top of the lines instead of on the bottom and you’d also draw a line to connect the letters of each individual word. Like this, but upside down. Hindi comes from Sanskrit, an ancient language that isn’t really spoken anymore, but still found in its written form. Hindi classes are commonly offered at universities in the U.S. and Hindi instruction is also available on Rosetta Stone. There are literally thousands of Hindi movies that you can watch with subtitles to learn the more colloquial variety, and they include fun musical numbers and hilarious attempts to blend with Western culture. I highly recommend any films that are directed by anyone with the last name Johar. So that’s Hindi in a nutshell.

On to Hindu, but let me give the disclaimer that I am no Hindu scholar. Hindus are the people who practice Hinduism. Hindus number more than a billion and Hinduism is recognized as the third largest religion in the world after Christianity and Islam. Just as there are many dialects of Hindi, there are many different kinds of Hindus. The best definition I’ve come across was on the back of a t-shirt printed at the temple I attended growing up. I wish I could remember it verbatim, but it was basically that Hinduism is a diverse body of religion, philosophy, and cultural practice native to and predominant in India, characterized by a supreme being of many forms and natures, a belief in reincarnation, and by the view that opposing theories are aspects of one eternal truth. Let’s pick this apart a bit, but let me give the disclaimer that this is only meant to be informative, not to enrage you or convert you.

A supreme being of many forms and natures – This is probably the most misunderstood concept of Hinduism. “Don’t y’all believe in a bunch of different gods?” Well, no. The D/FW Hindu Temple Society’s website explains that:

Hindus believe that even though God is One, He manifests differently at different times to different people according to their need and faith. Further, they believe that He bestows His Grace on humans in whatever form they worship Him.

Long story short, each of the different Gods you may have heard about are incarnations of the same supreme being. These are the same God, presented in different forms. Knowing that, consider the Hindu view that opposing theories are aspects of one eternal truth. For example, if you are a good Christian or a good Muslim, God will bestow his grace upon you according to Hinduism. No need to actually be Hindu. In Hinduism, the Hindu God isn’t different from any other God, so if you live right according to your religion, you are all set. This reminds me of the first time someone told me to “Go to Hell.” I remember thinking (but not saying, as I didn’t have the balls (literally)), “Why don’t YOU go to hell? That’s part of your religion anyway.” Hinduism, like most religions, is an inclusive religion, as long as you don’t ask the fundamentalists, I guess.

Belief in Reincarnation – An explanation of the Law of Karma is pretty essential to understand what Hindus mean by reincarnation. The D/FW Hindu Temple Society’s website explains that:

The Law of Karma can be simply explained by referring to the fact that whatever one sows, that one reaps. Karma is misunderstood as encouraging fatalism. On the contrary, it puts the full burden of one’s salvation on one’s own shoulders. Good living bestows good karma and bad living brings bad karma. One takes birth according to one’s karma to reap its fruits and work it out. Thus the human birth presents a rare chance to nullify one's past karma while making it possible to move closer to God. Human birth is not easily obtained and it is unwise to waste it in ignorance of God.

The concept of rebirth is related to the Law of Karma. All Hindus believe that the soul is indestructible, eternal and deathless. It is only the body that decays and drops off. The soul simply takes on a new body according to its karma. The ultimate goal of all created beings is to reach God and escape this endless cycle of birth and death. This reaching of God is called Moksha (Freedom).

Sounds a bit existential? Probably. Did you defraud hundreds of people for your own personal gain and spend a few years in the federal pen? Saying sorry or even being truly sorry will not be enough in this life for Hindus. Yes, it is kind of a bummer, but let this be an incentive to act right… right now.

And now for the best question of them all: “Do y’all worship cows?” That issue is best addressed by PBS in a special called NATURE: Holy Cow. Click here for the synopsis. I’ll sum it up in what I remember being told as a child. Lord Krishna, an important figure in Hinduism, was a shepherd (see, every religion has a shepherd!) and known as the protector and lover of cows. Not inappropriately, so please, don’t even go there.

So there you have it. Let that be your cultural lesson of the day. There are not people who are Hindi, but there are people who speak Hindi. Those same people can also be Hindu, but they don’t have to be, because Hinduism is a religious, philosophical, and cultural practice. It’s like a Venn diagram, Hindi speaking is one circle, and Hindus are another. There is a wide intersect, but one does not always mean you have the other. So now you know better than to ask if someone is Hindi or if they speak Hindu. And shame on you if you are a Hindi speaker or a Hindu and you don’t correct this mistake!

Voyeuring Myself

I don’t want this to be to an online diary where I dump my secrets and feelings in hopes that somebody will read them and care, but before I start to derive unseemly enjoyment from observing others, I have to talk about an activity we did in my stand up comedy class last week. This class is everything from figuring out what you think is funny to writing jokes to getting comfortable speaking in front of people all the way to performing a 3-5 minute set. While it is incredibly scary – like improv – it is also exhilarating and loads of fun. The class gets homework every week to do things like write simple jokes or watch comedians we have never heard of perform. This week, we had an assignment to reflect on ourselves. The idea was that when you walk on stage, people make assumptions about you immediately, without even really thinking about it. People will make assumptions about you based upon what they see just the way you make assumptions about them. It could be negative, it could be positive, or it could just be that you look like someone famous. Our assignment was to try and guess what other people will assume about us. The point of the exercise is to see how self aware you really are and to see if what you think people think about you is actually what they think about you. And how do we test this? First, you make a list of the things you think people will say. Next, each of us takes a turn standing in front of the class while the other 12 people hurl their assumptions at you – good or bad. Talk about being scared and vulnerable in front of strangers. I was terrified that I was going to hear something that would hit one of my insecurities dead on that might actually bring tears to my eyes in front of my class. These are the thinks I feared I would hear:

• You are not from here
• You are younger than you look
• You are shallow
• You are paranoid
• You have a lot of nervous ticks
• You are really concerned about what other people think of you
• You could stand to lose 10 pounds
• You think you are a lot smarter than you actually are
• You are really concerned with image
• You act entitled
• You are self-absorbed
• You would rather drive your car than walk or ride a bike
• You would rather get a mani/pedi than volunteer your time
• You have never worked hard a day in your life
• You are materialistic
• You fear success because you know you will never be successful

These are all of the ways that I fear I’m perceived. I am sure there are more, but the more I think about it, the more it depresses me, so I had to stop this exercise a little early with only 16 items that could suck about me. Also, these are the worst things I can imagine hearing people say about me. Being as brave as I could be, I volunteered to go third and this is what I actually heard:

• You are a student
• You are really organized
• You are so organized that your closet scares the shit out of me
• You have a cat
• You have a lot of positive affirmation in your life
• You like Radiohead
• You are the kind of person who forgets your keys in the door
• You are condescending
• You enjoy a quiet night in curled up on the couch with a bad movie
• You have a niece or nephew who adores you
• You have a lot of friends
• You are the kind of person who a lot of people share their secrets with because they trust you, but you don't necessarily share your secrets with a lot of people
• You spend a long time blow-drying your hair
• You don’t drink very much, but when you do, you get out of control
• You drink Appletinis
• I see beer drinker for some reason
• You shop at the farmer's market
• You are a pretty good cook
• It's important to you to make your parents proud
• You are quick to make friends but once someone falls outside of your favor, they can never get back in because you can hold a grudge like no one's business
• You wear the pants in the relationship. And the shirt.
• You played soccer

Not as bad as I thought, and I always fear the worst. I didn’t die, so the worst possible outcome did not occur. I want to deconstruct some of these because I found them to be 70% true.

Not True:

• You are a student – I was for 25 years, but not right now. I was wearing a sweatshirt and jeans though. And I’m hoping that means I look young.
• You are really organized – eh, kind of. My closet is sick and in ROYGBIV order, but everything else could use help.
• You have a cat – My husband will asphyxiate if we have one in the house, so I can’t. I wouldn’t mind one, but I prefer dogs.
• You are the kind of person who forgets your keys in the door – it’s only happened to me once in my life, and it was a story I told on the first day of class, hence this comment.
• You are the kind of person who a lot of people share their secrets with… – I’ve never seen myself as the friend that gets confided in. Not the last to know, but also usually not the first. I’ll pay attention more next time and see if there’s any truth to this.
• You drink Appletinis – sacrilege. The guy who said beer drinker was correct.
• You shop at the farmer's market – No, but only because I don’t know where it is. Finding beautiful fresh produce makes me really happy for some weird reason.
• You played soccer – never did, and I regret it. I could have had amazing legs.

And the ones that were true:

• You are so organized that your closet scares the shit out of me – like I said, ROYGBIV order, separated from casual to formal and then my length of sleeve, starting with spaghetti straps.
• You have a lot of positive affirmation in your life – I have amazing family and friends who make me feel so loved every day, so I can’t complain.
• You like Radiohead – Yes. I wonder what gave it away. Is that the band that people who still want to be cool even if they are not still say that they worship?
• You are the kind of person who forgets your keys in the door – Actually, I realize now that I’ve left my keys in the ignition of my car twice. One time, I left the keys in the ignition with the car off but the door open. The other time, I locked my keys in the car AND left it running. But that’s different… I think.
• You are condescending – Yes, but I was hoping that it didn’t come across so readily. After someone yelled this one out, the instructor followed up with “but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.” Well, I guess as long as it doesn’t come across as an “I-think-I’m-better-than-you” thing. I wish I wasn’t so judgmental and furthermore, I wish it wasn’t visible on my face. When I’m thinking, “why didn’t you finish school?” or “what the hell made you think you’d be a good parent?” I just wish that I could control my face from contorting in that way. This one was the most fascinating and most troublesome to me.
• You enjoy a quiet night in curled up on the couch with a bad movie – Bad comedy, yes. Bad Rom Com, hell no. I don’t know why it is that I can’t stand romantic comedies, but I love fairy tales. Maybe I prefer the dreams coming true aspect of it and not just the “I-found-someone-so-my-life-is-complete” thing.
• You have a niece or nephew who adores you – I like to think so.
• You have a lot of friends – I like to think this too.
• You spend a long time blow-drying your hair – Yes, I have a ton of hair and the biggest round brush on the market. And it takes me for-EV-er to dry and smooth it all.
• You don’t drink very much, but when you do, you get out of control – Unfortunately this is true for 2 reasons. “I don’t drink very much” in that I don’t drink very often anymore and “I don’t drink very much” in that it only takes 2 drinks me to be at my limit.
• I see beer drinker for some reason – This person followed Appletini guy. And he was correct. I’m a simple, domestic light beer kind of girl. A very cheap date.
• You are a pretty good cook – I’m trying. I like to think some component of it is genetic because my parents are fabulous cooks.
• It's important to you to make your parents proud – Absolutely. They never pushed me into any certain kind of occupation when I grow up or discouraged me from anything. Unfortunately, I made all of these decisions myself and let my fears guide me away from other things. I’m getting better at becoming more fearless and still making them proud.
• You are quick to make friends but once someone falls outside of your favor, they can never get back in because you can hold a grudge like no one's business – I wish this wasn’t true, but it is. I am seriously lacking in the forgiveness department.
• You wear the pants in the relationship. And the shirt – Yes, I am outwardly bossy in my relationship, but he's the boss when he needs to be.

Suffice it to say that these are my areas I can improve on. But in the meantime, prior to self-improvement, these are the areas I can exploit when making my first impression and telling my first joke.

Defining Voyeur

Hi. I’m a lawyer. I’m in a transition period of sorts (currently not working), so I finally thought it was time to start blogging again. I graduated from xanga circa 2005 and I find myself here. When I first came up for the idea for Voyeur Lawyer, I was a law student. The lofty concept back then was a subscription service. You pay $5 a month and you can watch me do whatever it is that law students do all day long. I didn’t want to get naked necessarily, but if it would raise the revenue and help pay off the ol’ student loans, I would have considered it. Maybe. I didn’t get the concept off of the ground back then because I didn’t have a webcam and I like to think there was some dignity involved too. Anyhow, I met this guy I really liked and I had to change the concept a bit.

Since I already had the name, I wanted to find a good definition for voyeur. I knew it was bad to admit publicly that you are a voyeur, like admitting that you are a peeping tom, but I didn’t think the word voyeur was all bad. I came across a secondary definition some time back that said a voyeur is a person who derives unseemly enjoyment from being an observer. I loved this definition because it doesn’t just describe me; it describes most of our country. Our unseemly enjoyment for observing is the reason why we have People magazine, why the Real Housewives of anywhere and the Bachelor get renewed season after season, and why anyone who isn’t related to Prince William and his fiancée cares about what will be served for dinner at the royal wedding. We love to watch others, to a creepy kind of degree.

Back to the definitions – I wanted to retrace my steps and find that definition so I could cite the source. It took some digging. There are tons of definitions for voyeur, and most of them are bad.

• Dictionary.com: “A person who engages in voyeurism” – not really helpful.
  
• The World English Dictionary: “a person who obtains sexual pleasure or excitement from the observation of someone undressing, having intercourse, etc.” – not really the angle I’m going for. There is an interesting footnote that explains origins: “French, literally: one who sees, from voir to see, from Latin vidēre” – insightful, but I need better than that.
• Online Etymology Dictionary: [after the etymology part] literally “one who views or inspects” – pretty general.
• Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary: “one who habitually seeks sexual stimulation by visual means”
• Merriam-Webster's regular Dictionary: sexual definition again and then “a prying observer who is usually seeking the sordid or the scandalous” – this is getting better
• Google English Dictionary: “A person who enjoys seeing the pain or distress of others” – interesting, I wasn’t sure where to place this one exactly.

The secondary definitions are really where it’s at though:

• Macmillian Dictionary secondary definition: “someone who enjoys learning about the private details of other people’s lives, especially unpleasant or shocking details”
• Cambridge Dictionary Online (more generally): “a person who watches other people's private lives”
• MSN Encarta secondary definition: “[a] persistent observer of misery or scandal; a fascinated observer of distressing, sordid, or scandalous events”

And then finally

• Definitions.net secondary definition: “a person who derives exaggerated or unseemly enjoyment from being an observer”

There it is. Perfect. This is us. This is our country. Our exaggerated enjoyment has created an entire industry. We made Antoine Dodson famous. We have incredible power and I don’t want us to stop. When we stop noticing and appreciating the absurdity around us, we will become the absurd ones. So be a voyeur with me and I promise to add some unseemly enjoyment to your week.

It sure beats being a peeping tom. :-D