Real Thought

please explain the attraction of “reality” television?  I understand that realty shows cost very little to produce and I understand that they make obscene amounts of money for the networs and producers but I just don’t get them.  I can see how “Survivor” or even “American Idol” can be entertaining and I can see how “So You Think You Can Dance” can showcase some creative choreography and some great dancing talent, but I really don’t get most of the others.  “Big Brother”?  Do I really need to relive my college dorm days?  And what of the others?  There seem to be a whole raft of “scripted” reality shows populated by young actors or actresses who become “celebrities” even though they are D list talent at best.  How can something that is scripted be a reality show?  Who watches these shows?  How do these people become “celebrities”?  Something tells me that these shows are watched by the paparazzi who then try to build the unknowns which act in them into “famous” people just to sell their “celebrity gossip” sheets.  I don’t know anyone who even knows what shows in which these people supposedly star.  All of the sudden, there are these people who show up at various award ceremonies or film festivals and I have never seen them before.  I just don’t get it.  Of course, we just elected an obscure junior Senator from Illinois president of the United States, so I guess it is possible that these people really are famous.

YAWN!!!!!!! The only films in which I was even remotely interested were The Counterfeiters, Katyn, La Vie en Rose and Mongol, none of which are even in English. That’s all folks!

Once again we have come to that holiday in which we celebrate our uniquely American legacy in electing only the best and brightest to the highest of the land.  Today, I choose to honor:

Rutherford B. Hayes, nineteenth President of the United States.  President Hayes was a brevet Major General during the Civil War and was wounded in action.  Among his accomplishments as President were signing a bill that allowed women to plead before the Supreme Court, having the first telephone installed in the White House and being the first President to visit the West Coast.  He is probably most famously remembered for the action of his wife, “Lemonade Lucy” Hayes who refused to serve alcoholic beverages in the White House.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has issued a statement critical of the United States. He says that it is wrong for a country to try to end horrible dictatorships and allow the people of a county the right of self determination. Rather he prefers that the United States colonize much like the British did in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.

I believe that the Most Reverend and Right Honourable Lord Archbishop of Canterbury has it completely wrong. We, here in the United States have a deeply held belief that it is the right of all people in the world to be free. We are imperfect in the application of this belief to be sure but I believe that it is a central core of our Weltanshauung. We try not to colonize, at least since the end of WWII, and I believe that the invasion of a sovereign country for the purpose of colonization would find no support among the American populace.

Perhaps His Grace Rowan Williams should look to his own house. With the American Episcopal Bishops in near open rebellion and acting more like Unitarians than Anglicans, I am sure he has more important problems to consider other than whether or not we Yanks have gotten the process of colonization right.  After all, the well being of the souls of the Anglican congregation world wide ought to be His Grace’s primary concern.

The billionaire software mogul and alleged yachtsman has filed a lawsuit challenging the staging of the next America’s Cup. According to news reports, Ellison is not happy with the fact that Spain’s Nautico Espanol de Vela yacht club has been chosen as the “challenger of record” and gets to set the rules for the next America’s Cup regatta, originally slated for 2009 but now postponed to 2010 or 2011. OK, Larry, why don’t you try to win back the Cup instead of challenging the winner’s choice of a “challenger of record”? Perhaps if you put a team and a boat together that were worth a damn you would have not lost to Team New Zealand and Alinghi. Just maybe the Golden Gate Yacht Club would hold the Cup and you would be choosing a “challenger of record” and not the Swiss and the America’s Cup would be held in San Francisco Bay instead of Valencia, Spain. Larry, just get your proverbial feces together and win the Cup. Just a thought.

This is a “teen costume”, There was actually a 13 year old wearing a similar costume at the middle school where I teach today.

And people wonder why I don’t like Halloween.

I am supposed to be teaching a “violence reduction” curriculum one day a week to my first period history class. The main thrust of this curriculum is the reason why violence is on the rise in schools is the “prevalence of guns” in American society. Yep, that is the main thrust. Guns are bad. How about parents who just got out of jail and don’t make it home to see their children because they had to stop at the bar? How about a subculture that glorifies the”thug life”? How about music in which young women are called “bitches and ho’s”? What about a society which sexualizes 11, 12 and 13 year old girls but calls anything a 11, 12,or 13 year old boy might do “violent”, “aggressive” or “sexually inappropriate”? How about a society which teaches parents that they should be permissive and that no one, police officers and teachers included, has any right to discipline their “babies”? How about a school district administration who refuses to expel dangerous and unruly students because that “is just their culture”? What about parents who don’t worry while their children fail every single class but threaten to sue if you send the child home for dressing inappropriately at school? I suppose that none of those things contribute to the rise in violence and increased chaos in our public schools. Yep, guns are bad. Right.

Christian Slater as Moses. Yep, you got it, Christian Slater taking up the mantle of Chuck Heston himself with Elliot Gould as the voice of the Almighty. Somehow, I never really pictured the Creator of the Universe as Trapper John.

While American children are watching the Boobahs, the Care Bears and Barney, Palestinian children are watching Mickey Mouse advocating the annihilation of the Jews and world domination in a children’s program produced by Hamas and broadcast by the Palestinian Authority. How many examples do we need to show that these people are simply not civilized?

That the United States contributes somewhere between 25 to 28 percent to the entire world’s economic output. After all, we only have about 5 percent of the world’s population so maybe we don’t have time for vacations like our European cousins do because we are too busy providing goods and services to the rest of the world.