As “my morning reading” began just before dawn, it seemed to gallop in the same director. Sarah Palin complained that her cover shot on Newsweek magazine was “sexist,” actress Sharon Stone was topless on the front of a French magazine, and singer Dolly Parton was defending gay marriage by saying, “They ought to suffer like the rest of us.”

My goodness gracious – whatever happened to real news? How did we ever make it this far without author Ernest Hemingway’s granddaughter taking her clothes off in another magazine? Please, I am hardly a prude (I’ll guarantee you I still look!), but does it seem the modern-day media is going overboard in an attempt to lure us with more and more “cheesecake?”

Palin, of course, is hyping her new book, “Going Rogue,” and the spin doctors figured they’d get Newsweek to give it a stir. But this week’s magazine cover, a picture of the ever-aspiring politician wearing a pair of thigh-high running shorts beside a crumpled American flag, was originally taken for Runner’s World magazine and in the L.A. Times this morning the editors accuse Newsweek’s “frat boys” of “chugging some brewskis” when they picked the cover.

The L.A. paper agreed the picture is “sexist” but methinks Sarah’s bigger motive in decrying the cover was not the photo but these words that accompanied it: “How do you solve a problem like Sarah? She’s bad news for the GOP – and everybody else too.”

Jon Meacham, the Chattanooga-raised editor of Newsweek, quickly defended the “sexist” claim, saying, “We chose the most interesting image available to us to illustrate the theme of the cover, which is what we always try to do. We apply the same test to photographs of any public figure, male or female: does the image convey what we are saying? That is a gender-neutral standard."

Well, that’s not a very good wash, particularly when Newsweek’s ad pages are down 29 percent and some are still predicting the magazine may soon go the way of the Titanic. The magazine just suffered its third round of employee layoffs and when Palin said the picture was “out of context,” there were many that agreed with the former governor.

Sharon Stone has been seen naked more times than a common tree squirrel. What has the French magazine’s attention, its editors’ claim, is that “she looks so good” at age 50, but, brother, she’ll look good at 80. What will sell is the fact her chest is totally bare above her black corset, slinky stockings and high heels, and, in Paris today, the newest issue of Match magazine stares back.

Dolly was on CNN the other day promoting a new album when she advocated gay marriage and, we read, took on pastor Joel Osteen for his view that homosexuality “is not God’s best work.” The Tennessee born singer, who will also look good at 80 if she hasn’t already gotten there, quickly retorted, "I don't want to talk about him. I think God made us who we are and how we are, and I don't think if (Rev. Osteen) was a religious person, he would be judging people."

My point is that I could have slept a little later rather than care what Dolly thinks of Joel, another peak at Sharon Stones’ bosoms, or what thigh-high running shorts on Sarah Palin have to do with why the Republican Party is floundering.

I want to read where the UTC basketball team outscored ETSU by a 25-8 margin in the second half to beat the Bucs, 85-76. I like to see where Lane Kiffin says his job is to “protect the team” and I love it when Pat Summit leaves two Lady Vols at home because they didn’t sit in the first three rows during class.

I think the picture of President Obama standing on top of China’s Great Wall is wonderful, but I’m more interested in the fact he met his half-brother in Beijing. I want to know why there is anger and shock over the new mammogram guidelines and does the FDIC really need to become a huge land baron. For the record, I did not read the story that revealed nine out of 16 ancient Egyptian mummies probably had hardening of the arteries.

Yet why is it those stories are shoved aside because some political aspirant is wearing thigh-high shorts or a 51-year-old left her bra in the top drawer? I believe Sharon would have had just as big an impact were her clothes on and Sarah would have been better off by saying nothing about Newsweek’s digs.

But, then again, I ain’t in charge of selling magazines or whatever those women are selling.

royexum@aol.com