This is the time of the year when the TV stations pull their
Easter
movies out of their film vaults, those films they never show any other
time of the year because they are either so bad or so specific to
Easter that the stations don't think many people will watch them. I am
not a frequent viewer of either TV or movies at the cinema, but I do
remember many of the older Easter films I saw as a kid in those days
that I did watch a lot of TV. So I thought I would mention a few and
write about why it might be worth seeking out on line, downloading and
viewing them.
The biggest class of Easter films are those related to the story of the
crucifixion of Christ. This makes sense because that is what the
Christian celebration of Easter is about. The best of those, I think,
might be the 1965 classic 'The Greatest Story Ever Told'. Max Von
Sydow, whose career was a sort of one trick pony, that pony being this
film. In the movie he plays the part of Jesus Christ (I wasn't
available for the part so they picked the next Christ like fellow for
the part) in this chronicle of Jesus' life story. It's quite an epic
that can make even non believers wonder, a fascinating retelling of
those Biblical stories we sometimes hear or wonder about, but it has a
running time of over 3 hours. I wonder if that is longer than it took
to create the earth?
If that doesn't sound like an Easter religious film that appeals to you
(are you a heathen?), how about my other choice for an Easter religious
film. It's the campy 'The Robe" staring Richard Burton as a cynical non
believing guy who wins Christ's crucifixion robe while gambling, but
then loses it to his slave, Victor Mature. The film is about Burton
tracking down slave Mature to get the robe back because Burton begins
to have hallucinations and violent outbursts which he is convinced are
a curse received from the robe. The acting is worth a look, at times
good (Burton) and at other times awful (Mature). The story has nothing
to do with the Bible, instead being adapted from a fictitious novel
that had long been ignored before the movie was made. This one is so
ridiculous it's good.
Besides the Easter religious films there are other Easter movies that
have little to do with Easter tradition. From the musical genre my
favorite is the Irving Berlin (he is regarded as the greatest American
songwriter) 1948 'Easter Parade'. Judy Garland and Fred Astaire sing
and dance their way through garishly choreographed and visually
extravagant numbers as they prepare for an upcoming Easter parade. I
don't even think we have Easter parades anymore, but that film shows
what they were like when we did...the Easter bonnets and beautiful
gowns women wore at the parade, the formal society showing it's best
on a traditional holiday etc. When I see this I wonder why movies like
it aren't made anymore. And why we can't again have Easter parades. If
they made films like this today I might actually pay attention to
contemporary movies.
There are Easter comedy or satire films too. My top one is 'The Life of
Brian', a 1979 Monty Python's Flying Circus satire that follows Brian,
mistakenly believed to be the Messiah after he is born in the stable
next door. He stumbles through young adulthood while the movie pokes
fun at everything from the Romans to the crucifixion, pairing Brian's
time on the cross with the absurd song 'Always Look On the Bright Side
of Life' as he is crucified. If you hate religion, Christianity, like
to laugh at the absurd or just like seeing the the Bible made fun of,
see 'The Life of Brian'.
And finally, since Easter (and everything else) is about kids, there
are a few Easter films made for kids. The best in my view is the
Peanuts classic from the 60's called, 'It's the Easter Beagle, Charley
Brown'. The plot of that one is...well...there isn't really one. It's
just "cute' like all the Peanut movies, with this one built around
Easter traditions, like Peppermint Patty trying to learn to die Easter
Eggs. If a cynic like me still likes that film, you will too.
So take part of Sunday to watch one of those Easter films. It will
neither make you a believer nor turn you into a non believer if you
already believe in the story of Christ. Instead, it will show you why
some of us think they just don't make movies as well as they used to.
Friday, April 18, 2014
Protecting From Self
It amazes me as to what some people post on their
social media sites,
everything from profane laced hate speech to nude photos of themselves
to pictures or comments about how much they love to abuse drugs or
alcohol. I suppose they live in such a fantasy world of electronic
communications that they don't think the real world can see what they
post. How can stupid people be protected from their stupidity so they
don't post something that an employer, for example, could see and use
to not hire or fire the idiot who is vomiting in his Face book "I got
drunk last night" picture?
In my former state of Louisiana there is a state legislator who thinks he has a way to do it. State Representative Ted James, the champ of idiots or something like that, wants to protect students and workers from schools and bosses that are checking those social media web sites to see what their students or employees do in their free time. His proposed bill would prohibit an employer or a school from asking for a person's log-in and password information for their personal email or social media page. He also says that it would prevent an employer from firing someone if they don't give up that information. This would not apply to computers issued by the school or electronic devices owned by the employer and used by the employee.
Whether the law forbids a company or school from demanding a student or employee reveal his or her social media postings is up for debate. Though it is a private expression, it is posted on a public medium (the internet), and employers do have various rights that already involve their employees personal behaviors. I sort of suspect most of those who behave irresponsibly in their private lives probably will do the same at school or work and will be found out anyway. So maybe the bill is un necessary.
James says he doesn't think it's your boss's business to know what's going on with your personal life and information or pictures you choose to share with your friends and family online. "I want employees and students to feel free to have whatever discussions they want to have on their personal devices and in their personal accounts." Hmmmm I would love to see what James posts on his own private social media sites.
Some people who have committed serious crimes like murder have posted (bragged) about it on Face book. This would either indicate they are unaware of the difference between the real world and the make believe or that they are just plain stupid. Anyway, if his bill passes James might get a lot of the stupid vote when he runs for re election. I wonder if he will post that he is the champion of the dumb
In my former state of Louisiana there is a state legislator who thinks he has a way to do it. State Representative Ted James, the champ of idiots or something like that, wants to protect students and workers from schools and bosses that are checking those social media web sites to see what their students or employees do in their free time. His proposed bill would prohibit an employer or a school from asking for a person's log-in and password information for their personal email or social media page. He also says that it would prevent an employer from firing someone if they don't give up that information. This would not apply to computers issued by the school or electronic devices owned by the employer and used by the employee.
Whether the law forbids a company or school from demanding a student or employee reveal his or her social media postings is up for debate. Though it is a private expression, it is posted on a public medium (the internet), and employers do have various rights that already involve their employees personal behaviors. I sort of suspect most of those who behave irresponsibly in their private lives probably will do the same at school or work and will be found out anyway. So maybe the bill is un necessary.
James says he doesn't think it's your boss's business to know what's going on with your personal life and information or pictures you choose to share with your friends and family online. "I want employees and students to feel free to have whatever discussions they want to have on their personal devices and in their personal accounts." Hmmmm I would love to see what James posts on his own private social media sites.
Some people who have committed serious crimes like murder have posted (bragged) about it on Face book. This would either indicate they are unaware of the difference between the real world and the make believe or that they are just plain stupid. Anyway, if his bill passes James might get a lot of the stupid vote when he runs for re election. I wonder if he will post that he is the champion of the dumb
Thou Shalt Not Kiss On Camera
There is quite a furor in my former sate of Louisiana. It
seems that a U.S. Congressman, Vance McAllister, got caught with his
pants down the other day. Well, not literally so. But it might just as
well be, the way some people are reacting to a kiss. The Congressman
is the latest victim in our electronically addicted society as he was
caught on an office camera passionately kissing a married staffer.
But members of the opposition party and quite a few moralists are calling for his head. "I think he needs to resign, and I don't think he can be effective", announced a state politician named Robert Johnson, the fellow McAllister defeated last election for that Congressional seat. I guess Johnson shocks easily and equates cheating on one's spouse with total paralysis and incapacity to act in one's job (as a Congressman). When a press member asked Johnson is he wanted to take over McAllister's seat he blushed and denied it all, saying that he is only "very interested" in replacing him. Hmmmmm I wonder if lying, as Johnson is doing, is as bad as kissing a woman who is not the kisser's wife?
The bad news for kisser McAllister is that he campaigned for his Congressional seat on a "moral values" agenda, one which probably doesn't included sex with the staff while the wife is away. One question which doesn't seem to have been asked by the media is, "How did someone manage to video McAllister in his lip lock, and who did it?" It was filmed in his office, so one of his own staffers must have betrayed him and released it to the press. Oh the power of electronic addiction to ruin everyone's life.
Interestingly, no one has called for the female staffer who kissed McAllister to resign from her job. But then, she isn't an elected official with opponents who would call for her resignation. One question which doesn't seem to have been asked (at least not addressed in the media) is, How did someone manage to video McAllister, and who did it? His behavior may be not so nice, but there are other reprehensible characters in the story, as well. Should people be forced to resign from a job (any job, not just one in politics) because they had or are having an affair?
If so, those high unemployment numbers the Obama administration has been trying to hide would be way worse. I am not sure one's sex life has anything to do with making decisions about public policy as an elected official. Do you? After all, there is no crime in kissing anyone (well, ok..excluding some of those nutty Muslim countries). Let the voters decide when McAllister runs for re election if kissing is a political disqualifier.
Maybe McAllister and Johnson should just kiss each other and forget the whole thing.
But members of the opposition party and quite a few moralists are calling for his head. "I think he needs to resign, and I don't think he can be effective", announced a state politician named Robert Johnson, the fellow McAllister defeated last election for that Congressional seat. I guess Johnson shocks easily and equates cheating on one's spouse with total paralysis and incapacity to act in one's job (as a Congressman). When a press member asked Johnson is he wanted to take over McAllister's seat he blushed and denied it all, saying that he is only "very interested" in replacing him. Hmmmmm I wonder if lying, as Johnson is doing, is as bad as kissing a woman who is not the kisser's wife?
The bad news for kisser McAllister is that he campaigned for his Congressional seat on a "moral values" agenda, one which probably doesn't included sex with the staff while the wife is away. One question which doesn't seem to have been asked by the media is, "How did someone manage to video McAllister in his lip lock, and who did it?" It was filmed in his office, so one of his own staffers must have betrayed him and released it to the press. Oh the power of electronic addiction to ruin everyone's life.
Interestingly, no one has called for the female staffer who kissed McAllister to resign from her job. But then, she isn't an elected official with opponents who would call for her resignation. One question which doesn't seem to have been asked (at least not addressed in the media) is, How did someone manage to video McAllister, and who did it? His behavior may be not so nice, but there are other reprehensible characters in the story, as well. Should people be forced to resign from a job (any job, not just one in politics) because they had or are having an affair?
If so, those high unemployment numbers the Obama administration has been trying to hide would be way worse. I am not sure one's sex life has anything to do with making decisions about public policy as an elected official. Do you? After all, there is no crime in kissing anyone (well, ok..excluding some of those nutty Muslim countries). Let the voters decide when McAllister runs for re election if kissing is a political disqualifier.
Maybe McAllister and Johnson should just kiss each other and forget the whole thing.
Forced To Pay For Birth Control
There is a big birth control controversy going on here
in the U.S.
relative to the widely unpopular "Obama Care" law that passed last
year. Under that new health care law, all
health plans must offer a range of preventive services at no extra
charge to the plan holder, including all forms of birth control for
women that have been approved by the government's Food and Drug
Administration. But some religious groups object to this on the basis
that birth control is against their religious principles. So making the
churches and small family businesses pay for the birth control pills
and other means has upset quite a few churches and family owned smaller
businesses. They have sued more than once in federal court to have that
portion of the law invalidated.
The case is now before the highest court (The Supreme Court) and is expected to impact the whole Obama Care Act that many see as an unfair and unconstitutional intrusion on their first amendment rights by the government. This, they say, is due to it requiring every person to buy health care insurance (whether they want it or not). Some of the nearly 50 businesses that have sued over covering contraceptives object to paying for all forms of birth control. But the companies involved in this specific case are willing to cover most methods of contraception, as long as they can exclude drugs or devices that the government says may work after an egg has been fertilized. In other words, no abortion pills after contraception are acceptable to them. So the key issue in this case involves family owned companies and religious organizations that provide health insurance to their employees, but who object to covering certain methods of birth control that they say can work after conception, in violation of their religious beliefs.
The Obama administration says that a Supreme Court ruling in favor of the opponents to mandatory employer paid, employee free birth control, also could undermine other laws the government passed "making" an individual do what the government says is necessary for the society as a whole. Hmmm If the court sides with the government, it would, theoretically, mean that the Obama administration could make churches do just about anything it wanted, pay for abortions for instance, in the name of the public good.
The court will have to decide whether the birth control requirement really interferes with an individual's religious freedom, and if so, whether the government policy is more important than that religious freedom. Really, birth control pills are quite cheap and are often given free to women who can't afford the small cost of them. But the Obama administration is playing politics by insisting that birth control be included in all health care plans, given that many of it's supporters are women who advocate that position.
Well, there is one thing I know.... I'm sure glad I can't get pregnant!
The case is now before the highest court (The Supreme Court) and is expected to impact the whole Obama Care Act that many see as an unfair and unconstitutional intrusion on their first amendment rights by the government. This, they say, is due to it requiring every person to buy health care insurance (whether they want it or not). Some of the nearly 50 businesses that have sued over covering contraceptives object to paying for all forms of birth control. But the companies involved in this specific case are willing to cover most methods of contraception, as long as they can exclude drugs or devices that the government says may work after an egg has been fertilized. In other words, no abortion pills after contraception are acceptable to them. So the key issue in this case involves family owned companies and religious organizations that provide health insurance to their employees, but who object to covering certain methods of birth control that they say can work after conception, in violation of their religious beliefs.
The Obama administration says that a Supreme Court ruling in favor of the opponents to mandatory employer paid, employee free birth control, also could undermine other laws the government passed "making" an individual do what the government says is necessary for the society as a whole. Hmmm If the court sides with the government, it would, theoretically, mean that the Obama administration could make churches do just about anything it wanted, pay for abortions for instance, in the name of the public good.
The court will have to decide whether the birth control requirement really interferes with an individual's religious freedom, and if so, whether the government policy is more important than that religious freedom. Really, birth control pills are quite cheap and are often given free to women who can't afford the small cost of them. But the Obama administration is playing politics by insisting that birth control be included in all health care plans, given that many of it's supporters are women who advocate that position.
Well, there is one thing I know.... I'm sure glad I can't get pregnant!
April Fool Jokes
One thing about the internet that is interesting is
that anything shows
up there. Uh, take April Fool jokes, as an example. Since we have just
gotten past April Fools' Day without me being exposed as a bigger fool
that I already am, I think I can write about some of the April Fool
jokes making the rounds on April Fools Day. No, I did fall prey to any
of them. They are making an attempt to top what I consider to be the
best mass victim April Fool joke ever.
That was long ago in the beginning era of TV and showed how TV does make idiots of those who watch and take it too seriously. In that April Fool joke, the British Broadcasting Corp. in 1957 showed farmers on TV allegedly reaping a bumper crop of pasta from fictitious "spaghetti trees," prompting countless homeowners from across the United Kingdom to swamp the network's telephone switchboard in an effort to find out where they could buy the seedlings. Wow! I didn't know spaghetti grew on trees....
Anyway, the best April fool internet joke making the rounds on your dear computer has been the "turn off the internet" jokes. In one, the Department of Homeland Security allegedly instructs the recipient to disconnect all home computers from the Internet from midnight, March 31 to 6 a.m. on April 2 so the government can use "cyber spiders" to clean out old e-mail and spam in order to make the World Wide Web run faster.
Those who live in America's coldest areas say they have received another variation of that one. They got E mails and even pre-recorded telephone messages urging them to disconnect their home phones for the next few days so their local phone company can use special heaters to "thoroughly thaw out frozen phone lines." It won't work for me since I blow so much hot air here my phone lines never freeze.
The mother of those two instructed homeowners to disconnect their phones because their service provider was going to blow air through local lines in order to purge dust that had accumulated over the years. Customers also were urged to wrap their phones in plastic bags to prevent the dust from gushing through their handsets and blanketing their floors and furniture. Supposedly, about 1 million Americans fell for that one and wrapped their phones. This may reflect the decline in results among schools in the United States. On that note, if you were one who wrapped your phone in plastic keep the news to yourself....please.
I hope you are now prepared for the next year's round of April Fools pranks...... and I'm not joking.
That was long ago in the beginning era of TV and showed how TV does make idiots of those who watch and take it too seriously. In that April Fool joke, the British Broadcasting Corp. in 1957 showed farmers on TV allegedly reaping a bumper crop of pasta from fictitious "spaghetti trees," prompting countless homeowners from across the United Kingdom to swamp the network's telephone switchboard in an effort to find out where they could buy the seedlings. Wow! I didn't know spaghetti grew on trees....
Anyway, the best April fool internet joke making the rounds on your dear computer has been the "turn off the internet" jokes. In one, the Department of Homeland Security allegedly instructs the recipient to disconnect all home computers from the Internet from midnight, March 31 to 6 a.m. on April 2 so the government can use "cyber spiders" to clean out old e-mail and spam in order to make the World Wide Web run faster.
Those who live in America's coldest areas say they have received another variation of that one. They got E mails and even pre-recorded telephone messages urging them to disconnect their home phones for the next few days so their local phone company can use special heaters to "thoroughly thaw out frozen phone lines." It won't work for me since I blow so much hot air here my phone lines never freeze.
The mother of those two instructed homeowners to disconnect their phones because their service provider was going to blow air through local lines in order to purge dust that had accumulated over the years. Customers also were urged to wrap their phones in plastic bags to prevent the dust from gushing through their handsets and blanketing their floors and furniture. Supposedly, about 1 million Americans fell for that one and wrapped their phones. This may reflect the decline in results among schools in the United States. On that note, if you were one who wrapped your phone in plastic keep the news to yourself....please.
I hope you are now prepared for the next year's round of April Fools pranks...... and I'm not joking.
Twitter After Eight Years
Twitter is now more than eight years old. I'm
not excited, given
I don't use cell phones and never have nor will I ever "tweet". I think
language is best used when used with precision, and twitter is , if
anything, not precise. I read every day about miscommunications, often
by celebrities, who claim their tweets were taken "out of context". Ha!
How can that be when twitter, by its very nature is so brief and lax
that no context is possible? If those celebrities want to be taken in
context they might lean how to use the language well enough to speak
and write it more precisely than tweets allow.
I am certainly no expert on tweeting..is that what they call it? But it does seem to me that Tweeter is better suited for children than adults. It's just not a serious forum. Yet, in our age of electronic media fascination and addiction it is used as a formal language communication. How odd. I think if I ever used Twitter I would do so with a statement before hand, something like this. "Anything written here is to be taken non literally. Serious communication will be found elsewhere. I am not responsible for anything tweeted here, as tweeting is but a mindless diversion and time killer."
It's interesting what people think they can discuss or reveal in 140 characters, often spelled as if by outer spaces aliens and grammatically a mystery. Linguist Noam Chomsky finds the whole thing appalling, calling it "very shallow communication". Further, he believes what I do, saying that "It requires a very brief, concise form of thought and so on that tends toward superficiality and draws people away from real serious communication … It is not a medium of a serious interchange."
There is a place for not serious communication, and that is a healthy enterprise. The problem is that Twitter, Face book and the endless other trivial communication platforms are being used as if serious ones. Hmmmm I suppose more than a few Twitter addicts have posted things like, "My husband died 10 minutes ago" or some such news that clearly is better announced elsewhere and with more sensitivity. But then, so many people today are engaged in the triviality communications that they might find that kind of tweet to be "normal". After all, we live in the time in which humans have a difficult time distinguishing the real world from the pretend one.
I am not sure if the silly slang and abbreviations are eroding the English language, or just making it less attractive to communicate in a more precise way. It might not matter much because it's an accepted language tool today that we language purists can not stop. I wonder and ask you.....is Twitter a reflection of evolving language or one that language is deteriorating?
I am certainly no expert on tweeting..is that what they call it? But it does seem to me that Tweeter is better suited for children than adults. It's just not a serious forum. Yet, in our age of electronic media fascination and addiction it is used as a formal language communication. How odd. I think if I ever used Twitter I would do so with a statement before hand, something like this. "Anything written here is to be taken non literally. Serious communication will be found elsewhere. I am not responsible for anything tweeted here, as tweeting is but a mindless diversion and time killer."
It's interesting what people think they can discuss or reveal in 140 characters, often spelled as if by outer spaces aliens and grammatically a mystery. Linguist Noam Chomsky finds the whole thing appalling, calling it "very shallow communication". Further, he believes what I do, saying that "It requires a very brief, concise form of thought and so on that tends toward superficiality and draws people away from real serious communication … It is not a medium of a serious interchange."
There is a place for not serious communication, and that is a healthy enterprise. The problem is that Twitter, Face book and the endless other trivial communication platforms are being used as if serious ones. Hmmmm I suppose more than a few Twitter addicts have posted things like, "My husband died 10 minutes ago" or some such news that clearly is better announced elsewhere and with more sensitivity. But then, so many people today are engaged in the triviality communications that they might find that kind of tweet to be "normal". After all, we live in the time in which humans have a difficult time distinguishing the real world from the pretend one.
I am not sure if the silly slang and abbreviations are eroding the English language, or just making it less attractive to communicate in a more precise way. It might not matter much because it's an accepted language tool today that we language purists can not stop. I wonder and ask you.....is Twitter a reflection of evolving language or one that language is deteriorating?
No News As News
Are you weary of the news media sources fixating on
non news,
broadcasting them as news, and then not letting go of the "story"
until they achieve as much of a ratings increase as possible? Uh, as in
the disappeared Malaysian flight 3702 story. Better defined, the
questions is why the world isn't instead obsessed with more important
stories than that of a missing plane? CNN, for example, covered the
story for a week non stop, at one point devoting 24 consecutive hours
to it and reporting little else, even though information about the
flight consisted of nothing more than that it was missing. For CNN
speculations and guesses about the plane became "news" about it. Surely, humans have a fascination about death in sudden, large numbers.
That grabs our attention. The missing airliner quenches that.
But the thirst of that kind of news seems now to be insatiable. What should have been a prominent story for a day became a daily obsession in which media outlets speculated endlessly about it in order to create news when there was none. After we were told that the airline was missing, we and our media should have moved on to more important issues, waiting for any real news about the plane as that information became known. Instead, the media created a kind of reality TV show about "the missing plane" in which every guess, speculation and wild theory took air time away from news that really affects our daily lives.
Curiously, the routine daily suicides and shootings and other violent deaths in the world don't seem to command our attention or even our compassion in quite the same way the plane did. Does a couple of hundred people dying in a single incident make their deaths more relevant than the thousands who die individually each day in many other ways across the world? Apparently, in the eyes of the media "yes"....if their broadcasts can garner the ratings that satisfy the media advertisers.
Around 4,000 people worldwide died from AIDS on the same day the plane disappeared. On the day since the plane was missing, many more thousands of people world-wide died from drug overdoses. So why don't we and the media care about those deaths as much as we do about the plane? Perhaps it is the entertainment value of the mystery of a airplane filled with passengers that vanished. I think that it reflects that what is reported as news to day is more likely to be what entertains us rather than informs us. We tune out the important stories that "bore us" in favor of the lesser important ones that entertain us.
As sorry as I am about the deaths of those on the plane, their passing has no effect on my day to day life. So a news story about something less glamorous that does impact me personally, say a proposal to raise my taxes, is more important to me. Hmmmm I seem to be in the minority about that felling. Finding a news story with real relevance is a whole lot more difficult than a missing plane report. The problem with our always-on culture today is that actually, we're not always focused on stuff that matters, just stuff that triggers our emotions or entertains us. It is a pity and a reflection of the dumbing down of society.
Too, the prevalence of our electronic gadgets and the rise of social media seems to be making the problem even worse, since it is fragmenting our attention down to the individual level and is causing us to be less a society and more an individual voyeur. Sigh....the good news is that stories like the missing plane eventually die from overexposure. And the bad news? It's that another one will surely take it's place and distract us from knowing what we should rather than what titillates us. Maybe the world is now more like reality TV than reality itself.
But the thirst of that kind of news seems now to be insatiable. What should have been a prominent story for a day became a daily obsession in which media outlets speculated endlessly about it in order to create news when there was none. After we were told that the airline was missing, we and our media should have moved on to more important issues, waiting for any real news about the plane as that information became known. Instead, the media created a kind of reality TV show about "the missing plane" in which every guess, speculation and wild theory took air time away from news that really affects our daily lives.
Curiously, the routine daily suicides and shootings and other violent deaths in the world don't seem to command our attention or even our compassion in quite the same way the plane did. Does a couple of hundred people dying in a single incident make their deaths more relevant than the thousands who die individually each day in many other ways across the world? Apparently, in the eyes of the media "yes"....if their broadcasts can garner the ratings that satisfy the media advertisers.
Around 4,000 people worldwide died from AIDS on the same day the plane disappeared. On the day since the plane was missing, many more thousands of people world-wide died from drug overdoses. So why don't we and the media care about those deaths as much as we do about the plane? Perhaps it is the entertainment value of the mystery of a airplane filled with passengers that vanished. I think that it reflects that what is reported as news to day is more likely to be what entertains us rather than informs us. We tune out the important stories that "bore us" in favor of the lesser important ones that entertain us.
As sorry as I am about the deaths of those on the plane, their passing has no effect on my day to day life. So a news story about something less glamorous that does impact me personally, say a proposal to raise my taxes, is more important to me. Hmmmm I seem to be in the minority about that felling. Finding a news story with real relevance is a whole lot more difficult than a missing plane report. The problem with our always-on culture today is that actually, we're not always focused on stuff that matters, just stuff that triggers our emotions or entertains us. It is a pity and a reflection of the dumbing down of society.
Too, the prevalence of our electronic gadgets and the rise of social media seems to be making the problem even worse, since it is fragmenting our attention down to the individual level and is causing us to be less a society and more an individual voyeur. Sigh....the good news is that stories like the missing plane eventually die from overexposure. And the bad news? It's that another one will surely take it's place and distract us from knowing what we should rather than what titillates us. Maybe the world is now more like reality TV than reality itself.
A Mardi Gras Parade
I saw the biggest parade of Mardi Gras three days
before Mardi Gras Day. Carnival (Mardi Gras) begins the 12th night
after Christmas day, with the parades beginning and happening every
day/night thereafter until Mardi Gras Day concludes it all. There were
a total of 64 of them in the New Orleans area this year. The biggest
and most elaborate one, the one that draws such huge crowds that it is
often hard to even get to the parade route, is the Krew of Endymion. It
is about Endymion that I write today in hopes of passing to you a
little understanding of what a New Orleans Mardi Gras parade is like.
Those parades are all paid for by private carnival groups which are open to anyone who wishes to pay the dues and join. So there is no government involvement in a Mardi Gras parade apart from regulating the route and time the carnival krewe is permitted to use, providing police to oversee the parade route and cleaning the streets after each parade. It, like most of Mardi Gras, is free to all and has thus earned the name 'The Greatest Free Show on Earth'.
Each parade has parade has bands, various riding groups, musicians and of course the parade floats. Some floats are elaborate and beautiful, while others are funny and satirical. Many krewes have a theme to their parade each year, and so floats are created to reflect those themes. Millions of dollars are poured into making these floats, and they're not made overnight. Krewes work on these creations year-round, often at secret "dens" around the city. On parade day, hundreds krewe members will ride on the floats, tossing beads and other "throws" of all types (everything, for example, from shoes to food to toilet rolls with the krewe emblem on each) to cheering crowds. The average parade rolls over 10 miles or so and takes about 6 hours to complete its route.
I think you get the general idea, and you can Google 'New Orleans Mardi Gras parade video' or even 'Endymion parade 2014 video' to see one. What I have for you are some pictures and a very short video clip of the Endymion parade. The first four photos below show the street along which I viewed Endymion. Notice the houses are sometimes decorated to welcome the parade as it passes. The next photo shows how people set up barbecue pits, tents , chairs etc., on the median area of the street in order to eat, drink, listen music and socialize before the parade arrives. The next four show some of the floats in the parade and the crowd waving to catch throws from the float riders. (The last float is shown in the dark because that parade began late in the day. By mid point of the passing parade, darkness had set in necessitating the float lighting you see).
As you can tell, a Mardi Gras parade is not viewed passively. It is a participation event. Finally, to see how much fun these participation parades are I have a very short video clip of the last float that I am sending in a second E mail (it's too large to include in this one). A late 'Happy Mardi Gras' to you!
Those parades are all paid for by private carnival groups which are open to anyone who wishes to pay the dues and join. So there is no government involvement in a Mardi Gras parade apart from regulating the route and time the carnival krewe is permitted to use, providing police to oversee the parade route and cleaning the streets after each parade. It, like most of Mardi Gras, is free to all and has thus earned the name 'The Greatest Free Show on Earth'.
Each parade has parade has bands, various riding groups, musicians and of course the parade floats. Some floats are elaborate and beautiful, while others are funny and satirical. Many krewes have a theme to their parade each year, and so floats are created to reflect those themes. Millions of dollars are poured into making these floats, and they're not made overnight. Krewes work on these creations year-round, often at secret "dens" around the city. On parade day, hundreds krewe members will ride on the floats, tossing beads and other "throws" of all types (everything, for example, from shoes to food to toilet rolls with the krewe emblem on each) to cheering crowds. The average parade rolls over 10 miles or so and takes about 6 hours to complete its route.
I think you get the general idea, and you can Google 'New Orleans Mardi Gras parade video' or even 'Endymion parade 2014 video' to see one. What I have for you are some pictures and a very short video clip of the Endymion parade. The first four photos below show the street along which I viewed Endymion. Notice the houses are sometimes decorated to welcome the parade as it passes. The next photo shows how people set up barbecue pits, tents , chairs etc., on the median area of the street in order to eat, drink, listen music and socialize before the parade arrives. The next four show some of the floats in the parade and the crowd waving to catch throws from the float riders. (The last float is shown in the dark because that parade began late in the day. By mid point of the passing parade, darkness had set in necessitating the float lighting you see).
As you can tell, a Mardi Gras parade is not viewed passively. It is a participation event. Finally, to see how much fun these participation parades are I have a very short video clip of the last float that I am sending in a second E mail (it's too large to include in this one). A late 'Happy Mardi Gras' to you!
Phony Climate Change Rhetoric
Every time President Obama screws up (and he does so on a
regular basis), we get his distraction act. That is, he runs from his
failures and heads right toward the trendy issues that most brainless of
the voting pool worship. And they most often respond to that by
supporting the President. A few months ago the Obama administration
initiated the phony "War on Women" which Obama and his party claim
everyone who is not a member of their Democratic party is engaging in. I
haven't noticed any war on women here, but that campaign plus the
"Let's take the money from the 1 %" (and give it to those who don't work
or pay taxes) has thus far worked well gaining support for the Obama
agenda during the Obama administration.
But forget that! The Obama crowd is sagging so badly in the polls that they are reviving another one of their tried and true, trendy. vote getters...global warming. Or is it "climate change". Sometimes the trendy update their language to make their suspect theories seem more real, but regardless, global warming is their religion because they give so much of their faith to it. The first indication that the "distract them from real issues with trendy ones" global warming campaign, came in the figure of Obama's Secretary of State, John Kerry. In a speech in Jakarta, Indonesia, Kerry declared climate change was “another weapon of mass destruction.” Forget the hydrogen bomb, he declared. Instead climate change is “perhaps the world’s most fearsome weapon of mass destruction.” Really?
Whether it’s hot or cold, dry or wet, rainy or snowy the trendy global warming crowd that loves Obama, says it’s climate change that explains every variation in climate.
The Obama administrations trick is to apply a rhetoric of certainty and immediacy to inherently uncertain, far-off projections. Contrary to Kerry's ridiculous statement that we can forget nuclear holocaust because we are all more threatened by temperatures changes allegedly "caused by humans", the latest IPCC report concludes that “there is not enough evidence at present to suggest more than low confidence in a global scale observed trend in drought or dryness (lack of rainfall) since the middle of the 20th century.”
After Kerry set the plate for increasing the climate change hysteria, President Obama piled on more or it. In a major speech on climate change Obama presented the same thesis to put more life his climate change policies in order to stir his supporters to follow him. Obama's assertion is that the science has decided global warming is a "fact". It a is ludicrous thesis, given that even a science idiot like myself knows that science is never final nor settled, and that no respectful scientist would assert that it is so.
So Obama spoke and wailed about how humans are killing "the planet" and accused all skeptics of being "climate deniers" (I find it disgraceful for him to borrow the term from "holocaust denier", a real one, and rework it for his climate change agenda). But then claiming that science is settled is a good way to silence those who challenge the climate change theory.
Even if you believe that humans can control climate and that Obama and his followers were right in everything they say about climate change, they are powerless to do anything about it. Our carbon emissions are essentially flat, while those of China and India are growing at a rapid pace. Those countries aren't going to hinder their economic development (to heed Obama's global warming fit) which has done so much to alleviate human misery in underdeveloped nations in response to a far-off threat of dangerous weather. So perhaps the scare tactics about am imagined climate change is just a way to heat up support for the President. Using the often uttered, idiotic trendy lines that 'the climate debate is settled" and that "the climate debate is settled" to push his over all agenda seems to me to be just a lot of hot air.
But forget that! The Obama crowd is sagging so badly in the polls that they are reviving another one of their tried and true, trendy. vote getters...global warming. Or is it "climate change". Sometimes the trendy update their language to make their suspect theories seem more real, but regardless, global warming is their religion because they give so much of their faith to it. The first indication that the "distract them from real issues with trendy ones" global warming campaign, came in the figure of Obama's Secretary of State, John Kerry. In a speech in Jakarta, Indonesia, Kerry declared climate change was “another weapon of mass destruction.” Forget the hydrogen bomb, he declared. Instead climate change is “perhaps the world’s most fearsome weapon of mass destruction.” Really?
Whether it’s hot or cold, dry or wet, rainy or snowy the trendy global warming crowd that loves Obama, says it’s climate change that explains every variation in climate.
The Obama administrations trick is to apply a rhetoric of certainty and immediacy to inherently uncertain, far-off projections. Contrary to Kerry's ridiculous statement that we can forget nuclear holocaust because we are all more threatened by temperatures changes allegedly "caused by humans", the latest IPCC report concludes that “there is not enough evidence at present to suggest more than low confidence in a global scale observed trend in drought or dryness (lack of rainfall) since the middle of the 20th century.”
After Kerry set the plate for increasing the climate change hysteria, President Obama piled on more or it. In a major speech on climate change Obama presented the same thesis to put more life his climate change policies in order to stir his supporters to follow him. Obama's assertion is that the science has decided global warming is a "fact". It a is ludicrous thesis, given that even a science idiot like myself knows that science is never final nor settled, and that no respectful scientist would assert that it is so.
So Obama spoke and wailed about how humans are killing "the planet" and accused all skeptics of being "climate deniers" (I find it disgraceful for him to borrow the term from "holocaust denier", a real one, and rework it for his climate change agenda). But then claiming that science is settled is a good way to silence those who challenge the climate change theory.
Even if you believe that humans can control climate and that Obama and his followers were right in everything they say about climate change, they are powerless to do anything about it. Our carbon emissions are essentially flat, while those of China and India are growing at a rapid pace. Those countries aren't going to hinder their economic development (to heed Obama's global warming fit) which has done so much to alleviate human misery in underdeveloped nations in response to a far-off threat of dangerous weather. So perhaps the scare tactics about am imagined climate change is just a way to heat up support for the President. Using the often uttered, idiotic trendy lines that 'the climate debate is settled" and that "the climate debate is settled" to push his over all agenda seems to me to be just a lot of hot air.
Cinnamon Rolls
I'm not just a nut, I'm a nut about cinnamon rolls. I like them so
much I get confused and lightheaded when I am in a bakery and have to
choose between a cinnamon roll or my beloved donuts. They look good,
they smell good and they taste sweetly heavenly. I think that anyone who
doesn't like a good cinnamon roll of donut should be watched careful.
They may be from another planet and threaten civilization.
I know they are a calorie laden bomb of empty calories, but look at the cinnamon component and all that can be ignored. Cinnamon is a food police dream come true. Eating just a little cinnamon lowers cholesterol, helps regulate blood sugar, can treat yeast infections, helps ward off leukemia cells, boosts memory, helps preserve the food to which it is added, helps relieve arthritis pain and is is a great source of manganese, fiber, iron, and calcium. So go ahead and devour that evil cinnamon roll you see in the bakery shop window.
I almost always get my cinnamon rolls already made, because making them is a longgggggggg process. It is worth it though and if you want a good recipe for making a very good cinnamon roll I have one for you one below. Or you could just find the nearest Cinnabon outlet and get one of those. Any company that makes only Cinnamon rolls as well as they do gets my support. They are outstanding. Curiously, as much as I dislike IKEA, they do sell very tasty cinnamon rolls.
I have to thank Sweden for the cinnamon roll. That's where they started and where they are liked so much that every year there is a national Cinnamon Roll Day. In my own life I have experienced the power of the Swedish cinnamon roll, for my high school cafeteria supervisor used to make those and another decadent cinnamon treat that I can still remember that a sole motivation for me to not skip school (well, at least until after lunch had been served). Hmmmm I guess another benefit of the cinnamon roll is that it reduces the high school drop out rate.
I hope I have given you an incentive to either bake and eat a cinnamon roll or to just pig out on one where ever you find a good one.
Spicy Sticky Cinnamon Rolls with Cream Cheese Icing
Makes 24 rolls
Ingredients
For the dough:
2 1/4 teaspoons (1 envelope) active dry yeast
1 1/4 cup milk, lightly warmed
1/2 cup sugar
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, very soft
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon salt
4 1/2 - 5 cups flour
For the filling:
4 small cinnamon sticks
1 star anise pod
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
1/2 teaspoon cardamom seeds or powder
1 cup dark brown sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, very soft
For the icing:
4 ounces cream cheese, very soft
1/2 cup milk or cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup powdered sugar, plus more as desired
Directions
To make the dough
- Sprinkle the yeast over the warmed milk in a large bowl and set aside for 5 minutes until slightly bubbly.
-With a whisk or the paddle attachment of a stand mixer, beat in the sugar, softened butter, eggs, vanilla, and salt. Stir in the flour 1 cup at a time, until the dough is very thick.
-Knead on lightly floured surface until smooth and warm, or switch to the dough hook and knead in the stand mixer. Knead for about 5 minutes in the mixer, or 7 minutes by hand, until the dough is taut and smooth.
-Wipe out the bowl and spray lightly with vegetable oil. Shape the dough into a ball and place in greased bowl, turning it to make sure it's coated in oil. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled -- about 2 hours.
For the filling
-Grind the spices in a spice grinder until fine and mix with the brown sugar. (If you want to skip the extra spices or use powdered cinnamon instead of whole, substitute 3 to 4 tablespoons cinnamon for all the spices.)
-Cream the butter with the spices and sugar in a mixer or with hand beaters.
-Lightly grease two 9-inch cake pans (a 9x13-inch pan works fine as well). On a floured surface roll the dough into a large rectangle, about 14 inches by 24 inches. When the dough is rolled out, slather it thickly with the creamed butter and sugar, making sure to spread it nearly to the edges.
-Roll up along the long side, stretching and pulling the dough into a taut and tight roll. Use a bench scraper or knife to cut into 24 individual rolls.
-Divide the rolls among the prepared pans and let rise in a warm place until the rolls double in size -- about 45 minutes.
-Preheat the oven to 350 F. Bake the rolls for about 20 minutes or until just beginning to brown.
Make-Ahead Instructions: To make the rolls ahead of time, follow the recipe up until baking. Par-bake the rolls for just 10 minutes. Remove the rolls and let them cool, then freeze them in their pans or in freezer bags. To finish baking, remove them from the freezer and let them thaw in the fridge overnight. Then bake in the morning at 350 F for 10 to 15 minutes. Frost and serve warm.
For the icing
-Beat the cream cheese, milk, vanilla, and sugar together, adding more powdered sugar as necessary to get the consistency you prefer. Drizzle over hot rolls with a fork. Serve warm.
I know they are a calorie laden bomb of empty calories, but look at the cinnamon component and all that can be ignored. Cinnamon is a food police dream come true. Eating just a little cinnamon lowers cholesterol, helps regulate blood sugar, can treat yeast infections, helps ward off leukemia cells, boosts memory, helps preserve the food to which it is added, helps relieve arthritis pain and is is a great source of manganese, fiber, iron, and calcium. So go ahead and devour that evil cinnamon roll you see in the bakery shop window.
I almost always get my cinnamon rolls already made, because making them is a longgggggggg process. It is worth it though and if you want a good recipe for making a very good cinnamon roll I have one for you one below. Or you could just find the nearest Cinnabon outlet and get one of those. Any company that makes only Cinnamon rolls as well as they do gets my support. They are outstanding. Curiously, as much as I dislike IKEA, they do sell very tasty cinnamon rolls.
I have to thank Sweden for the cinnamon roll. That's where they started and where they are liked so much that every year there is a national Cinnamon Roll Day. In my own life I have experienced the power of the Swedish cinnamon roll, for my high school cafeteria supervisor used to make those and another decadent cinnamon treat that I can still remember that a sole motivation for me to not skip school (well, at least until after lunch had been served). Hmmmm I guess another benefit of the cinnamon roll is that it reduces the high school drop out rate.
I hope I have given you an incentive to either bake and eat a cinnamon roll or to just pig out on one where ever you find a good one.
Spicy Sticky Cinnamon Rolls with Cream Cheese Icing
Makes 24 rolls
Ingredients
For the dough:
2 1/4 teaspoons (1 envelope) active dry yeast
1 1/4 cup milk, lightly warmed
1/2 cup sugar
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, very soft
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon salt
4 1/2 - 5 cups flour
For the filling:
4 small cinnamon sticks
1 star anise pod
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
1/2 teaspoon cardamom seeds or powder
1 cup dark brown sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, very soft
For the icing:
4 ounces cream cheese, very soft
1/2 cup milk or cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup powdered sugar, plus more as desired
Directions
To make the dough
- Sprinkle the yeast over the warmed milk in a large bowl and set aside for 5 minutes until slightly bubbly.
-With a whisk or the paddle attachment of a stand mixer, beat in the sugar, softened butter, eggs, vanilla, and salt. Stir in the flour 1 cup at a time, until the dough is very thick.
-Knead on lightly floured surface until smooth and warm, or switch to the dough hook and knead in the stand mixer. Knead for about 5 minutes in the mixer, or 7 minutes by hand, until the dough is taut and smooth.
-Wipe out the bowl and spray lightly with vegetable oil. Shape the dough into a ball and place in greased bowl, turning it to make sure it's coated in oil. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled -- about 2 hours.
For the filling
-Grind the spices in a spice grinder until fine and mix with the brown sugar. (If you want to skip the extra spices or use powdered cinnamon instead of whole, substitute 3 to 4 tablespoons cinnamon for all the spices.)
-Cream the butter with the spices and sugar in a mixer or with hand beaters.
-Lightly grease two 9-inch cake pans (a 9x13-inch pan works fine as well). On a floured surface roll the dough into a large rectangle, about 14 inches by 24 inches. When the dough is rolled out, slather it thickly with the creamed butter and sugar, making sure to spread it nearly to the edges.
-Roll up along the long side, stretching and pulling the dough into a taut and tight roll. Use a bench scraper or knife to cut into 24 individual rolls.
-Divide the rolls among the prepared pans and let rise in a warm place until the rolls double in size -- about 45 minutes.
-Preheat the oven to 350 F. Bake the rolls for about 20 minutes or until just beginning to brown.
Make-Ahead Instructions: To make the rolls ahead of time, follow the recipe up until baking. Par-bake the rolls for just 10 minutes. Remove the rolls and let them cool, then freeze them in their pans or in freezer bags. To finish baking, remove them from the freezer and let them thaw in the fridge overnight. Then bake in the morning at 350 F for 10 to 15 minutes. Frost and serve warm.
For the icing
-Beat the cream cheese, milk, vanilla, and sugar together, adding more powdered sugar as necessary to get the consistency you prefer. Drizzle over hot rolls with a fork. Serve warm.
2014 Winter Olympic Games
I've been watching a lot of the
Sooty Olympic Games and have enjoyed
just about all of it. So far the terrorism the media always talks
about, even seems to wish happens, has been absent. The contests
themselves have been exciting and many unexpected results (particularly
with events skied in the warm snow melting mountains). So today I have
a few observations about what I have seen at the Winter Olympics.
I remain happy about the Games because I have not and will not watch either of the two silly, orchestrated, implausibly judged events. That would be figure skating and ice dancing. Though I know little about winter sport events, and I have only seen snow a few times in my life, and have never participated in any of them. But it is obvious to anyone who watches those two that they are more show events than athletic competition. If an Olympic event was ever a candidate for one of those crazy reality TV shows, ice dancing or figure skating would be the choice. They are the phony side show of the games.
As to the game events as a whole, I prefer them to the summer Olympic Games because there is far less nationalism from the media and fans. Even the Russian fans are somewhat restrained in their jingoism and actually applaud athletes who perform exceptionally well in defeating their own Russian country men and women. The summer Olympic Games always seem to be a "How many medals did WE win" exercise. It's probably because the winter Games are far less of an attraction and a more educated audience watches than one finds at the summer Olympics.
I find that Alpine Skiing might be the one requiring the most skill. The athletes literally risk their lives, and in the case of the downhill skiers, are on the edge of crashing the entire time they move down the mountain. But then there is the "sport" of curling. That reminds me of a low key shuffleboard game at a drinking party. I wonder why that is even considered an athletic event, much less meriting a spot in an Olympic games.
One thing I learn watching the action is the disparate skill set needed. Every event seems to require the participant have a different skill and each one has a different level of appeal for fans and sponsors. The lug, for instance, is an event few know about, one in which many of the athletes pay their own way, having little or no sponsorship. On the other hand, hockey is populated with NHL millionaires who need not work a second job to raise the money needed to practice and compete. I also notice that some nations specialize in and do extremely well in selected events. Their athletes win most of the medals in those particular sports. The Dutch are dominate in speed skating, the Norwegians in ski jumping, the Americans in those weird acrobatic ski board events, the Germans in the lug and bobsled etc. This can be attributed to cultural reasons. Those nations all love those events and traditionally have a large number of competitors in each. So they excel in them.
I think the winter games are more enjoyable to watch. They are "competition light" in that the rusts are not a life and death ending for the viewers. They also are a novelty in some ways since much of the world never sees the winter conditions that the sports require. We watch because we are surprised or intrigued at what we see and not because it is, in the summer games, a microcosm of war, an us against them scenario. In a word, watching the Winter Olympics is just plain FUN.
I remain happy about the Games because I have not and will not watch either of the two silly, orchestrated, implausibly judged events. That would be figure skating and ice dancing. Though I know little about winter sport events, and I have only seen snow a few times in my life, and have never participated in any of them. But it is obvious to anyone who watches those two that they are more show events than athletic competition. If an Olympic event was ever a candidate for one of those crazy reality TV shows, ice dancing or figure skating would be the choice. They are the phony side show of the games.
As to the game events as a whole, I prefer them to the summer Olympic Games because there is far less nationalism from the media and fans. Even the Russian fans are somewhat restrained in their jingoism and actually applaud athletes who perform exceptionally well in defeating their own Russian country men and women. The summer Olympic Games always seem to be a "How many medals did WE win" exercise. It's probably because the winter Games are far less of an attraction and a more educated audience watches than one finds at the summer Olympics.
I find that Alpine Skiing might be the one requiring the most skill. The athletes literally risk their lives, and in the case of the downhill skiers, are on the edge of crashing the entire time they move down the mountain. But then there is the "sport" of curling. That reminds me of a low key shuffleboard game at a drinking party. I wonder why that is even considered an athletic event, much less meriting a spot in an Olympic games.
One thing I learn watching the action is the disparate skill set needed. Every event seems to require the participant have a different skill and each one has a different level of appeal for fans and sponsors. The lug, for instance, is an event few know about, one in which many of the athletes pay their own way, having little or no sponsorship. On the other hand, hockey is populated with NHL millionaires who need not work a second job to raise the money needed to practice and compete. I also notice that some nations specialize in and do extremely well in selected events. Their athletes win most of the medals in those particular sports. The Dutch are dominate in speed skating, the Norwegians in ski jumping, the Americans in those weird acrobatic ski board events, the Germans in the lug and bobsled etc. This can be attributed to cultural reasons. Those nations all love those events and traditionally have a large number of competitors in each. So they excel in them.
I think the winter games are more enjoyable to watch. They are "competition light" in that the rusts are not a life and death ending for the viewers. They also are a novelty in some ways since much of the world never sees the winter conditions that the sports require. We watch because we are surprised or intrigued at what we see and not because it is, in the summer games, a microcosm of war, an us against them scenario. In a word, watching the Winter Olympics is just plain FUN.
Beatlemania
Ask me the greatest pop music group ever assembled and
it's no
brainer...the Beatles. This is the 50th year anniversary of when the
Beatles became international stars by appearing on the popular Ed
Sullivan TV show in the U.S., and making one of those old style, now
lost, music concert tours at open aired football stadiums across the
U.S. The Beatles became instant stars and proved again and again
through
the years that their sounds were great, their enduring music proof of
that greatness. But they were not alone in exciting listeners during
that golden age of pop, the 60's. A whole culture of dear music
followed.
It may seem strange but many of today's kids also love the Beatles. In fact, the Beatles make kids today give thought to their own generation of musicians, the emptiness of it. And when they do think about hoe irrelevant much of their music is, many feel that the Justin Beiber, Bruno Mars and the rest of the current pop generation are not quite up to causing the sensation of the Beatles and their competitors in the 60's. Today's music starts are packaged, over promoted, lack substance and depth, are musically challenged, formulated, and are created by their behavior rather than by their music. They are just just plain vanilla. Has any modern musician really changed the culture in any way? The Beatles changed world culture in the 60's in their style of music, dress, language, tolerance, politics and well....just about every way possible. What do Miley Cyrus or one of those potty mouthed rap "artists' do? They just mostly offend by shocking. They are a book without words, consisting of only pictures.
I find that quite a few kids today are listening to oldie music in a desperate attempt to find more substance. Surely, there are always a number of skilled musicians in every era, but sometimes one must look hard today to find any of them. Today's pop music makers are more about the visual and about promoting themselves than they are about the sounds of their music. Style (and sometimes a vulgar or coarse style) has replaced substance in today's pop music world.
It's probably because today's young pop musicians have nothing to protest or break away from. The older generation is too much like them and some time ago took over the "youth culture", even redefining it a bit in their own image. If mom wears the same clothes are her daughter does today and dad uses the same slang as junior, how can a pop musician disassociate him or her self from the culture to protest? Maybe the young need a new and distinct subculture in order bring about a new music that is more relevant to their real lives. With definition there might be greater quality in what sounds are produced.
Hmmmm Maybe I should be happy I am old and irrelevant. At least I grew up in an era when music matter for more than shock values it promoted, The Beatles and their contemporaries really changed our lives, and mostly for the better. Today's kids instead get mush that masquerades as music. No wonder so many are turning the clock back and listening to the oldies.
Yep! The oldies have kidnapped the present youth culture and embraced too much of it for themselves. And this has wounded the chance for meaningful pop music. How ironic.
It may seem strange but many of today's kids also love the Beatles. In fact, the Beatles make kids today give thought to their own generation of musicians, the emptiness of it. And when they do think about hoe irrelevant much of their music is, many feel that the Justin Beiber, Bruno Mars and the rest of the current pop generation are not quite up to causing the sensation of the Beatles and their competitors in the 60's. Today's music starts are packaged, over promoted, lack substance and depth, are musically challenged, formulated, and are created by their behavior rather than by their music. They are just just plain vanilla. Has any modern musician really changed the culture in any way? The Beatles changed world culture in the 60's in their style of music, dress, language, tolerance, politics and well....just about every way possible. What do Miley Cyrus or one of those potty mouthed rap "artists' do? They just mostly offend by shocking. They are a book without words, consisting of only pictures.
I find that quite a few kids today are listening to oldie music in a desperate attempt to find more substance. Surely, there are always a number of skilled musicians in every era, but sometimes one must look hard today to find any of them. Today's pop music makers are more about the visual and about promoting themselves than they are about the sounds of their music. Style (and sometimes a vulgar or coarse style) has replaced substance in today's pop music world.
It's probably because today's young pop musicians have nothing to protest or break away from. The older generation is too much like them and some time ago took over the "youth culture", even redefining it a bit in their own image. If mom wears the same clothes are her daughter does today and dad uses the same slang as junior, how can a pop musician disassociate him or her self from the culture to protest? Maybe the young need a new and distinct subculture in order bring about a new music that is more relevant to their real lives. With definition there might be greater quality in what sounds are produced.
Hmmmm Maybe I should be happy I am old and irrelevant. At least I grew up in an era when music matter for more than shock values it promoted, The Beatles and their contemporaries really changed our lives, and mostly for the better. Today's kids instead get mush that masquerades as music. No wonder so many are turning the clock back and listening to the oldies.
Yep! The oldies have kidnapped the present youth culture and embraced too much of it for themselves. And this has wounded the chance for meaningful pop music. How ironic.
No Valentine's Day Allowed In That School
Valentine's Day can be an innocent and fun day for kids. Like every
holiday in the U.S. it can bring forth excitement, fun, food treats
but...in one elementary school the politically correct police appear
to stop it all. The little students at a Massachusetts elementary
school have been banned from bringing Valentine’s Day candy or cards,
over cultural equality/immigration issues and federal guidelines that
regulate candy in schools. Huh? How stupid is that? In this country
it's always been a tradition in every school for the small humans to
hand out to their friends cute Valentine's Day cards, and to attach to
them chocolates, or candy like, those little boxes of Sweetheart candy
that say "Hug Me" or "Be Mine" etc.
But political correctness says that candy is evil and expressions of affection towards friends at school is also evil since "not all the children may get them". Talk about over-protecting kids! The message the school sent home to the parents is hard to justify. "We have many different nationalities, cultures and languages spoken,” Principal Carol Keenan told the parents “Because of that we don’t honor specific holidays.” So Keenan thinks if everyone is not included, an activity is bad. Does she live in the real world? “This is done with all good intentions, to have all students be accepted, to have all students feel like they belong,” she said. Someone should explain to the principal that immigrants have to assimilate to the native culture, that the native culture doesn't give up its own identity to accommodate newcomers.
Ugh! Educators like Keenan are not only make education dismal for young learners, they destroy the imagination the kids already possess in the name of political correctness. Keenan said the school was not canceling Valentine's Day. Instead, the school kids are going to celebrate a "modified version". “Every student is making a friendship card for another student,” she said. “I wanted to make sure that every single student is given the opportunity to get a card and to also give a card. I didn't want some students feeling left out.” Doesn't that idiot know that a child experiencing the left-out feeling is not an aberration of childhood. It is as necessary as the experience of being included. Education is not about shielding kids from reality so they will be unequipped to deal with reality when they are adults.]
Keenan and her superintendent already ban candy in school. Massachusetts guidelines governing what kind of food is allowed inside a public school building say no sweets are allowed. (My own motto is to never trust anyone who says sweets are "Bad")
Hmmmm If I were a parent of one of those kids I would send a heart shaped chunk of tofu to Principal Keenan for her Valentine gift! Most of the parents and residents of the city where the schools is located say they are furious at the decision. They wonder how celebrating a holiday in the USA supposedly interferes with cultural and language equality. I think it sad that political correctness is not allowing children to be children. When an activity is positive, children need times when their parents and teachers let them do what they want to do. Adults need to stay out of positive child play.
The cultural element to banning Valentines and Valentine's candy is offensive as well. Stopping a traditional American culture practice because some immigrant kids are present is absurd. In too many places in the United States today, to be an American child is to be bound and gagged by the culture of the immigrant. American traditions, one of the things that drew immigrants to this country are cast aside in order not to offend. And that sort of offends me, Principal Keenan.
But political correctness says that candy is evil and expressions of affection towards friends at school is also evil since "not all the children may get them". Talk about over-protecting kids! The message the school sent home to the parents is hard to justify. "We have many different nationalities, cultures and languages spoken,” Principal Carol Keenan told the parents “Because of that we don’t honor specific holidays.” So Keenan thinks if everyone is not included, an activity is bad. Does she live in the real world? “This is done with all good intentions, to have all students be accepted, to have all students feel like they belong,” she said. Someone should explain to the principal that immigrants have to assimilate to the native culture, that the native culture doesn't give up its own identity to accommodate newcomers.
Ugh! Educators like Keenan are not only make education dismal for young learners, they destroy the imagination the kids already possess in the name of political correctness. Keenan said the school was not canceling Valentine's Day. Instead, the school kids are going to celebrate a "modified version". “Every student is making a friendship card for another student,” she said. “I wanted to make sure that every single student is given the opportunity to get a card and to also give a card. I didn't want some students feeling left out.” Doesn't that idiot know that a child experiencing the left-out feeling is not an aberration of childhood. It is as necessary as the experience of being included. Education is not about shielding kids from reality so they will be unequipped to deal with reality when they are adults.]
Keenan and her superintendent already ban candy in school. Massachusetts guidelines governing what kind of food is allowed inside a public school building say no sweets are allowed. (My own motto is to never trust anyone who says sweets are "Bad")
Hmmmm If I were a parent of one of those kids I would send a heart shaped chunk of tofu to Principal Keenan for her Valentine gift! Most of the parents and residents of the city where the schools is located say they are furious at the decision. They wonder how celebrating a holiday in the USA supposedly interferes with cultural and language equality. I think it sad that political correctness is not allowing children to be children. When an activity is positive, children need times when their parents and teachers let them do what they want to do. Adults need to stay out of positive child play.
The cultural element to banning Valentines and Valentine's candy is offensive as well. Stopping a traditional American culture practice because some immigrant kids are present is absurd. In too many places in the United States today, to be an American child is to be bound and gagged by the culture of the immigrant. American traditions, one of the things that drew immigrants to this country are cast aside in order not to offend. And that sort of offends me, Principal Keenan.
To Hug Or Not To Hug
Did you miss National Hugging Day. Too
bad. Maybe you should hug a tree or something, because the huggers say
everyone needs hugs. You could show the people in your life, or even
a total stranger walking down the street or perhaps in the locker room
at the gym –, that you care by giving them a big, fat hug. Come on,
what are you waiting for? Probably the police. because you'll likely to
be arrested.
Hugging is a good thing when the person you hug is an intimate friend, a relative, somebody other than that fat sweaty guy on the subway who seems to need a hug. But according to The National Hugging Day web sit we need to expand our hug universe outside that circle. Hmmmm.......seems to me those sex harassment nuts might not like that idea. I don't know about you, but I don't want to be sued for sexual harassment or arrested as a sexual predator because I hugged that hot young babe in Wal Mart.
No matter about that say the hug advocates.. Here are some suggestions on how to celebrate this touchy-feely day, from the National Hugging Day Web site:
* Join or create a Hug Club
* Create the longest Hug Chain
* Break the Guinness record for Hugging
* Substitute hugs for handshakes
* Hand out Hug Coupons
* Hold your own Hug-a-thon
* Make or rent a bear costume and visit people as "Bear Hugger"
Those ideas might get you in a little trouble. Maybe instead you should look for that tree to hug. It will give real meaning to the phrase "tree hugging environmentalist". But if you persist in hugging strangers huggingday.com has some suggestions for the type of hug you should give. These do not include squeezing or fondling any body part. Darn it! How am I supposed to hug that lady across the street with the big...uh....never mind.
Hugging day.com says we should stick to one of the following kinds of hugs to avoid any threat of overhuggging.
1) The "Back to Front Hug"- I am not sure how that works but it might be the best strategy to use if you are hugging an unattractive or smelly person.....or for that matter, if you hug Rosie O'Donnell or your local politician.
2) The Bear Hug- This is also a wrestling move. I suggest you not try this one by hugging an actual bear.
3) The Cheek Hug- That one always seemed insincere to me. It's a "I feel obliged to hug your sorry self, so I am going to fake it with a quick in and out cheek rub". Always check your wallet or purse after receiving a cheek hug.
4) The Side to Side Hug- This is the casual hug, the I am really too busy to waste time to hug you but I'll pretend to do it by brushing your side".
5) The Heart Centered Hug- This is the full hug, the sometimes sexual innuendo hug. The site says it's the "perfect way to show close family, friend's and partners how much you care." I think the judge in a sexual harassment suit often hears that phrase.
After do consideration of this National Hug Day thing, I think next year I'll just shake hands.
Hugging is a good thing when the person you hug is an intimate friend, a relative, somebody other than that fat sweaty guy on the subway who seems to need a hug. But according to The National Hugging Day web sit we need to expand our hug universe outside that circle. Hmmmm.......seems to me those sex harassment nuts might not like that idea. I don't know about you, but I don't want to be sued for sexual harassment or arrested as a sexual predator because I hugged that hot young babe in Wal Mart.
No matter about that say the hug advocates.. Here are some suggestions on how to celebrate this touchy-feely day, from the National Hugging Day Web site:
* Join or create a Hug Club
* Create the longest Hug Chain
* Break the Guinness record for Hugging
* Substitute hugs for handshakes
* Hand out Hug Coupons
* Hold your own Hug-a-thon
* Make or rent a bear costume and visit people as "Bear Hugger"
Those ideas might get you in a little trouble. Maybe instead you should look for that tree to hug. It will give real meaning to the phrase "tree hugging environmentalist". But if you persist in hugging strangers huggingday.com has some suggestions for the type of hug you should give. These do not include squeezing or fondling any body part. Darn it! How am I supposed to hug that lady across the street with the big...uh....never mind.
Hugging day.com says we should stick to one of the following kinds of hugs to avoid any threat of overhuggging.
1) The "Back to Front Hug"- I am not sure how that works but it might be the best strategy to use if you are hugging an unattractive or smelly person.....or for that matter, if you hug Rosie O'Donnell or your local politician.
2) The Bear Hug- This is also a wrestling move. I suggest you not try this one by hugging an actual bear.
3) The Cheek Hug- That one always seemed insincere to me. It's a "I feel obliged to hug your sorry self, so I am going to fake it with a quick in and out cheek rub". Always check your wallet or purse after receiving a cheek hug.
4) The Side to Side Hug- This is the casual hug, the I am really too busy to waste time to hug you but I'll pretend to do it by brushing your side".
5) The Heart Centered Hug- This is the full hug, the sometimes sexual innuendo hug. The site says it's the "perfect way to show close family, friend's and partners how much you care." I think the judge in a sexual harassment suit often hears that phrase.
After do consideration of this National Hug Day thing, I think next year I'll just shake hands.
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