I never liked Jared from Subway, and I'm not saying that just because we now know he's a pedophile. No, my dislike of him stems from the fact that I always thought he was a liar. You lost all that weight eating Subway sandwiches everyday? Yeah, right. Bread, and especially the white bread the commercials always showed him tearing into, is full o' carbs and not super helpful for weight loss. So unless Jared from Subway's workout routine consisted of marathoning like a Kenyan runner, he did not lose all that weight on the Subway diet. And now he's headed to prison, where, "Give me a 6-inch" means something very different than what he's used to.
In the other corner of the news today, there's, once again, a Duggar scandal. A popular website designed solely for the purpose of facilitating extramarital affairs had it's data hacked over a month ago, and promptly paid big bucks to keep the information off the internet. But nothing gold can stay and the hackers released everything a few days ago, including names, email addresses, credit card info and the types of accounts people had set up. And whataya know, the pedophile Duggar just happens to be one of those whose info was released. In fact, he had not one, but two accounts set up and he paid close to $1,000 to set up and maintain them, the second account including a $250 guarantee from the site that he would definitely have an affair within three months or he'd get a full refund. Given that he continued on the site long after those three months, it's safe to say he probably had at least one affair during his time on the site. What's even more disgusting is that it would appear the only reason he took a time out from the site was because of the molestation scandal earlier this year. He stopped being active on the site around the same time the first scandal broke. Why would a cheater need two accounts? Because he moved from his hometown to D.C. to take a job with an organization that advocates against gay marriage, amonsgt other things. And god knows we can't let a little thing like moving with our wife and (at the time) two kids to spew hate speech to the masses stop us from having affairs, right?
2015 has been a helluva year when it's come to scandal, so far. I've written about how I don't understand why someone with so much to lose, like a Tom Brady for example, would risk it all for such stupid reasons. The man had a mess of championships already and was Hall of Fame bound and yet he thought it necessary to cheat for just one more ring. Similarly, I fail to comprehend why people in such public positions as Jared and Josh Duggar would risk their livelihood and their families futures for sex. The only thing I can compare it to is a junkie risking their life for one more high. Jared made the media rounds for years preaching about his Subway diet, the most recent (and, as it turns out, last) campaign including his family and talking about how much healthier and happier everyone is now that he's slim and passing on his good eating habits to his kids. And all the while he was trolling the internet with the head of his charity foundation to find teenage girls to have sex with. The Duggar case is a bit murkier since he and his family already fell from grace months ago, but the same basic concepts of risking it all for stupid and selfish reasons apply. While I obviously think the molestation is a terrible offense, and I did not believe he was as" rehabilitated" as his freakishly religious parents claimed, it makes sense that he was on a website like this, and it's almost right up there with what he did in his youth. He substituted hooking up with willing, unavailable women for fondling girls. In general, I don't believe affairs are on par with sexual assault at all, but in his case I say it's right up there because of his circumstances. He was in a relationship with a girl in his teens and when her family found out about his past sins, they promptly ended the "courtship". But his current wife's family were not so smart and charged ahead with a courtship, engagement and marriage, knowing full well what he'd done in the past and, perhaps, believing he had actually changed. Now, years later, his wife is left with nothing but the embarrassment of his molestation and now his (perhaps multiple) affairs. They have four young children now and because of how she was raised, she has very few options about what comes next. If she leaves him, she's single with four kids and likely zero child support since her husband is unemployable because of his earlier scandal. She also has no work experience since the cult she was raised in says women are supposed to be submissive housewives. I don't think she'd leave him under any circumstance anyway, but she couldn't even if she wanted to. Her and her family took a gamble in believing he'd been rehabilitated and they lost in grand, grand fashion. I feel sorry for the kids, not just for the way they have to be living right now, but down the road when they inevitably read all about dad's exploits (and btw, who goes on a cheating website and lists, "Conventional sex" and "Gentleness" as what they're looking for? Evangelicals can't even cheat right).
Few things grind my gears like hypocrisy. If you're gonna get on your soapbox, especially in a very public position, and tell everyone else how they should live their lives, you damn well better not have a hair outta place in your own. Because if you do, especially in this social media age, it will come back to bite you. Jared's telling people how to get in shape and live their lives and be healthy and what's he doing with all his newfound health? Violating young girls. The Duggars became a damn phenomenon talking about their thrifty, never-in-debt family and preaching about how homosexuals are pedophiles, all the while hiding that their oldest son is engaging in a lot of the very behavior they preach against. Hell, that oldest son and his wife were constantly preaching about how great marriage was and how their marriage was so much better because they'd only ever been with each other. Gays were the devil and straight marriage was awesome and necessary. The only thing that could've added more gas to an already raging inferno would've been if he'd been trolling for gay affairs. And even without that, this is still a pretty big deal. It took just one of those highly touted 19 kids the Duggars were so proud of to bring down their entire carefully constructed empire. As the saying goes, for every finger you point, there are four more pointing back at you.
