Jenny Craig commercial

Just saw a Jenny Craig commercial... I was switching channels so I don't know what channel it was on...

Some young female singer... her face was familiar but I couldn't tell you her name if my life depended on it ...not Brittany Spears but someone of that ilk...

She wore a black strip of cloth around her breasts -easy to do because she had no breasts, and a black Tarzan-like loincloth around her hips. She had a good body, I'll give her that, flat stomach, small breasts.

Now, this is a weight-loss program. And apparently according to Jenny Craig, the only reason to lose weight is so you'll be attractive to men.

So this teenager is standing there with one hip cocked...and occasionally her upper torso cocked to show off those breasts, and she's singing and running her fingers through her hair and looking, to me, like she's one step away from getting onto a pole and doing some gyrations.

As usual, women and sex are interlinked. There's no other reason for women except to have sex with guys, or provide eye candy to guys. Is it any wonder than that we have this epidemic of young girls having kids out of wedlock - when they're taught since day one that the only reason they're on this planet is to, again, be the eye candy for guys? When they are taught from the time they enter school that they must be attractive to boys, they must have a boyfriend at an early age and of course having a boyfriend means you give him sex. And then of course, the boy leaves to go on to less-pregnant pastures, leaving the girl behind with a child and a welfare check.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Regular blog postings begin on DECEMBER 26, Monday.

GoDaddy Commercial

I'm watching the Sunday Night Football game on NBC. Just saw a GoDaddy Commercial.

GoDaddy has done a number of sexually suggestive commercials. There were a couple of commercials with race car driver Danica Patrick, in which she's speeding along some road, is pulled over by a cop, unzips to show a bit of decolletage while she waits for what she assumes to be a male policeman...only it's a female policeman with jackboots and bosoms and apparently a taste for women.

Commercial ends and you're instructed to go to the website to see the rest of the content.

Now we've got one in which some nerdy white guy wearing a bow tie is the "ringmaster" for about 12 women, dressed in form fitting black tights and spaghetti-strapped, tight fitting shirts, each one with "Largest" or "Mainframe" or some other computer reference printed across her bosom.

As the male individual walks among them, they turn from their sideon pose to face front, smiling at this nerdy white guy as if his any wish is their command. At the very end, we see each one reaching up to peel off their shirts, camera focuses on a flat belly.... and then... the URL saying, go here to see what happens next.

Talk about demeaning to women. And what the hell does it have to do with domain names??

Sure would be interesting to see how many hits that URL gets after each commercial...sad but true to say I bet its in the millions.

Buy XXX>com (Commercial)

I've seen a few of these commercials. Some white, middle aged nerdy guy going around interviewing people. In one of them, he is interviewing a Scottish sheep herder.

From what we are to infer...the Scotsman regularly has sex with this sheep, as he had regularly had sex with the sheep's mother.

In other words, bestiality.

It's one thing to have sex with a consenting adult and do what you want between the two of you... but to rape an animal - and any sex with an animal is rape because they aren't capable of consenting, and because they are like...you know... different species entirely - that is just sick.

And to make a joke of it, even to sell an xxx domain name. Disgusting.

Smurfs - movie and commercial

The full-screen ad above showed up whenever I pulled up my Yahoo mail a couple of days ago.

Take a look at it. 3 male smurfs, standing proud and... just there. And the female smurf? One hand primping her hair, her body canted to show off a hip...this is a kid's movie and she's standing in a seductive pose.

Of course the smurfs have always been suspect in that regard. I can remember this show as a teenager, I think. I never watched it, but that was part of the humor, when people would make fun of the show, all these male smurfs, and only one female smurf ever to be seen - what was up with that?

(Well, of course, it's because males, of any species, always have fun, whereas females of any species, are only interested in makeup and looking pretty and attracting someone to have sex with - they never want to run and jump and play!)

State Farm Insurance commercial

There are a series of State Farm commercials featuring a man who keeps having accidents with his car, but who switched from State Farm to one of those "All it takes is 15 minutes to sign up" guys. Yet it takes them more than 15 minutes to get back to him.

SO he calls up Jessica and asks stupid questions in a whiny voice.

Well, at least the accident prone driver isn't a woman. That would be a cliche. But instead we've got an effete, balding, whiny white guy.

The commercials are meant to be humorous - he drives his car up a light pole, through the side of a brick building, and so on.

But you have to wonder...why didn't he switch back to State Farm after his first accident? Because there are at least 3 different commercials featuring this guy.

And if this guy keeps having accidents, the premiums for everyone goes up... or his premium skyrockets....oh, there's all kinds of problems with these commercials.

But then, like most commercials, I guess we aren't supposed to analyze them, just laugh at the dweeby balding guy for being such a loser. (All bald is cool...balding is dweeby.)

Yahoo News: Football gossip covrage

I was watching the Denver Broncos/San Diego Chargers football game yesterday.

Near the end of regulation, the Chargers kicker, who presumably knew he was shortly going to have to kick a field goal - and one way out of his range - had to go to the bathroom.

I guess he didn't want to spend time running into the locker room, so he had a towel man hold up a towel while he relieved himself into a bottle (or something - never actually saw what it was.)

Unfortunately for the kicker, the two announcers were talking about him, and so a cameraman focused on his at that exact point in time, and for five minutes or so did not bother to pan away. So everyone in the country watching that game saw this guy - or at least his back - and knew what he was doing.


Why? Did the cameraman not have the sense to tell the announcers (with whom he is in constant contact) "Hey, something personal and private is going on here. Hold off a few minutes to talk about this guy? Or just pan away from him regardless?

But it gets worse. Of course, Yahoo "News" had to get into the act. So a couple of hours after the game, if you go to the Yahoo home page, you see the story highlighted there as if its newsworthy. "Embarrassing moment for Chargers kicker." And if you click on it you get to see the video of his back

And this article was right next to one that said, "Actresses caught in ugly dresses." (Well, I paraphrase that headline. It was something like that.) And I'm like...jesus christ - keep your fashion statements to yourself.

Also in the last few days, Ive been seeing commercials for the Victoria Secret Fashion show.

Victoria Secret - the lingerie people - need a fashion show? An excuse for skinny women to strut on stage wearing teeny tiny bras and panties? While guys - and gals, I suppose - ogle them?

Does this really need to be on TV?

Samsung Focus Flash Phone - Commercial

Saw this a couple of days ago...forget which channel but probably TNT.

The scene is two young men - guys in their 20s who of course think they're god's gift to women.

The one guy takes a photo of the other guy in an embarrassing position, then posts it to some social media site...

Then there are clips of other people doing the same thing.

So that's how Samsung is marketing its new phone with camera - use it to embarrass and humiliate your friends. (And of course kids being what they are today, they can extrapolate. "Sexting" among teenagers is rampant.

And this kind of commercial just gives immature kids ideas.

How sad...Breaking Dawn is a hit!

Just checked the IMDB. Apparently Breaking Dawn (the vampire love story) made $140 million dollars over the weekend, $120 million better than its closest competitor.

And I can just imagine who the audience members were...young girls who see in this vampire story their perfect lifestyle - always thin, always young, and of course, preggers.

Breaking Dawn - new Twilight movie

Just saw the commercial for this abomination...

Never saw the original Twilight movie but apparently it's the story of a male vampire, and the young female "human" who is in love with him, and wants him to turn her into a vampire too, so they can be together always.

In this new movie, don't know if he's done that but he has made her pregnant. I had the sound off but we get all these seconds of the woman putting her hand on her stomach, and of her laying down and the vampire putting his hand on her stomach...

Normalizing evil.

Newsflash, folks - vampires are evil! They suck the blood of the living!

Of course I loved Dark Shadows as a kid... but that was a vampire, Barnabas Collins, trying to become human again, and afflicted with a curse so that he could never love anyone, because anyone who loved him would die.

Now we've got this pap, of people wanting to become vampires, so they will never age and never grow fat. (Anyone seen a fat vampire?)

Just...evil...

Geico Commercial - the three white nerds

I can't remember if I've commented on this commercial before or not. I certainly meant to.

Geico has several different spokespersons and things - the most famous of which is the Gecko. There's another spokesman, the guy with the greased hair who comes up and says "Is switching to Geico as cool as_________," and then some example.

In this commercial, we've got three nerdy white guys in an office, who take out their cellphones and try to make music with them. One of the nerds gets his foot stuck in a chair, and tries to kick it away, and all three of them look like total idiots. A black woman - making copies - turns to look at them like they're total idiots.

It's just an embarassing commercial - which I assume is popular because it's been running for several months.

How to decide if a commercial is racist? In this case, racist against whites?

Turn the commercial around - make it three black nerds, and a white woman walking past and looking at them with such disbelief at their nerdity. You can bet there'd be outrage from the black community about that.

Now, I don't really think the commercial is racist - just offensive and stupid. Again, males are being made to look and act like fools, while the wise woman looks on more in sorrow than in anger.

Pizza Hut Commercial

There's a new Pizza Hut commercial. I've seen it a few times. I've never heard it - it always seems to come on when I've got the sound down on the TV, but just watching it is offensive enough.

Typical white family - middle aged mom and dad, and a young son.

Some kind of spiel about the pizza. Then the dad tries to talk like a hip-hop African American DJ, and spins imaginary platters. And his young son looks at him like he's a total idiot.

End of commercial.

Why, why, why is it necessary for white dads (or, as the case may be, black dads) to be made fools of in such a way? If it is necessary to the commercial for the white dad to emulate a black dj and hip hop culture. presumably because the son is into that kind of music, could not the boy say, "Oh, cool, dad" or something of that nature? Why make it seem like the boy has total disrespect, even contempt, for his father?

It's not a funny commercial - it's a dangerous one.

Subway Commercial

I've been watching Sunday night football on NBC, and seen a couple of commercials for Subway Steak Melt.

A grown woman comes up to a man seated at his desk in his office.

"Do you want to be my boyfriend?" she asks - in a dubbed little girl voice.

The nerdy looking guy, with dubbed little boy voice, says, "Sure."

So she reaches out and takes his Subway melt. To his look of surprise she says, "You're my boyfriend now."

Implication being, once a girl and boy are girlfriend and boyfriend, the boy has to give the girl anything she wants.

Is this actually how it is with little boys and girls, as this commercial seems to imply? Are little girls that shallow, that they will say, "Be my boyfriend" just so they can steal a boy's sandwich? And the boy will just give it up?

The sequel to that commercial is where the nerdy guy is appproached by another woman (both beautiful of course) who also can't apparently afford her own sandwich so wants to take the nerd's. But he's already given it to the first girl. "How could you," she says and storms off.

This awful thing brought back memories of a Jello commercial from a few days ago. A new boy moves to town, so we get scenes of little girls cooking food for him, and bringing it to his house with smiles on their faces, then a little girl shows up with jello and she's the one he lets into the house. Annoyed the hell out of it then and annoys the hell out of me now!

Mean Girls (The dangers of reality TV to today's youth, especially girls)

This is really sad...and is the reason why no one should watch the type of crap TV shows mentioned in the article below. (The article is talking about Indian women and Indian tv shows (as opposed to Native American tv shows in the US) but the same thing applies to any girl in any country watching this crap.

From Hindustan Times: Mean Girls
I was glued to this week’s episodes of Bigg Boss,” says Delhi-based Supra Agarwal. “The fights were at an all-time high,” adds the 29-year-old who runs a restaurant chain and is hooked to her Blackberry messenger updates on the drama peaking on her favourite reality show. And this is not the first season of addiction for Agarwal.

“For me, the word bitchy came from Dolly Bindra’s antics in the last season of Bigg Boss. Veena Malik’s act where she seemed to orgasm got her tremendous popularity. Even Shweta Tiwari’s bikini scene from Iss Jungle Se Mujhe Bachao (IJSMB) (2009) went viral on Youtube,” says Agarwal, a fan of reality television shows. But this love for drama doesn’t end when the TV is switched off. It carries over in her real life. “If am unwell, I pretend it is worse than it is, in front of my in-laws to get my way with them. If my looks can help me get what I want, I use them. If I don’t do a bit of nautanki no one will bother. People want attention,” she says.

For another reality TV fan, Chandni Awasthi, 30, who never misses an episode of Masterchef Australia and Bigg Boss it’s about the ‘character-connect’. “We all have shades of grey. I relate to them because they remind me of people I know. A friend told me she found it thrilling to watch Pooja Mishra being verbally abused because she found Mishra’s character similar to her mother-in-law’s!” says the homemaker and mother of two.

Agarwal and Awasthi are not the only ones addicted to this TV bashing.

A recent nationwide survey done in the United States by the Girls Scouts organisation found that girls who watch reality TV expect more drama in their lives. Such girls tend to rate physical appearances higher than real effort. Nearly 70% of those surveyed thought that girls are catty and competitive by nature as compared with 50% of non-reality TV viewers.

“Shows like Bigg Boss and Emotional Atyachaar show wildly explicit contents with conversations laden with expletives. These affect women as they tend to copy the women characters of the show,” says Dr Bhavna Burmi, psychologist at Delhi’s Escorts Heart and Research Institute. Contestants in the Bigg Boss ‘family’ pick fights without a valid reason, she says. “Women watching these shows do the same over trivial issues without understanding that their family is different from the Bigg Boss ‘family’.”

Aping the worst
While the survey was carried out among teens aged 11-17 in the US, experts say it could affect women from any age group. “It’s usually housewives who watch these scripted reality shows, and tend to plan similar strategies at home even for minor issues. These could be throwing tantrums, forming groups for their selfish purposes,” says Burmi. Some carry the ‘act’ to the workplace. “I know girls who dress up for office to get noticed. How they project themselves is more important than the work they put in,” says Agarwal.

Pooja Chauhan, 24, who has worked as a producer on several reality shows says certain characters are role models for young girls. Chauhan says, “When Bani became popular after Roadies-4 and is now a VJ on MTV, girls who came for auditions said they wanted to be like her even though they hated her.” And while “not taking any shit” is what Chauhan feels her school going younger sister and cousins emulate the most from Bani, it is also her “black nail paint and Goth-style kajal” that became the new fashion trends for these young ones. “They see Bani wearing all that and love it. Today it matters how much you manage to impress people with your looks and character even if it’s a bad character,” says Chauhan.

In relationship-based shows like Emotional Atyachaar (testing a partner’s loyalty) or Splitsvilla (competing for a boy/girl friend), a new gamut of emotions and a jungle view of politics is on offer for children and adults in the prime time TV segment. The grammar of these shows breaks into three aspects says social scientist Shiv Visvanathan. “First, being calculative scores over being ethical and right. Then, aggression is important than gentle manners and lastly, presence of violence, both via emotions and physically,” he says. The gamely behaviour or even a feeling of sportsmanship is negated feels Visvanathan. “It is now all about competition,” he adds. “The women are shown to be mean as hell and aggressive, like ‘masculine vamps’. Viewers then imagine these exaggerated ideas as a way to succeed in life.”

The information and broadcasting ministry did object to the prime-time telecast timings of Bigg Boss (season 4) bringing the show under the scanner for objectionable content. The anger between contestants and the rise in spiteful conversations has not decreased. According to Dale Bhagwagar, celebrity publicist who has coached several contestants on Bigg Boss says season 1-5 show a rising trend of aggression on the show. “It was Dolly Bindra screaming in the last season and Pooja Mishra and Shradha Sharma using words objectionable words in the current season. A fortnight ago, Shakti Kapoor spanked Vida Samadzai’s butt and Siddharth Bhardwaj used the F-word at Pooja Mishra, which was discussed for nearly an hour on the show. Kids are watching all this.”

The hype market
Bad publicity works best, and ugly is even better. “Manipulation is to give contestants tricks to twist situations,” he says. “Like Shakti Kapoor tried for an image makeover in Bigg Boss after the India TV episode. Every participant goes in with a motive and strategy,” adds Bhagawar. Pleasing the voyeuristic viewer is taken very serious in the reality television business say insiders. Characters are made out of participants. “Bigg Boss 4 was centred on Shweta Tiwari whose ‘nice girl’ image went for a toss after the bikini scene in IJSMB,” says a show producer who doesn’t wish to be named. Not just women, people in general are getting more violent feels singer Neha Bhasin who took part in the first reality show in India and now hosts a relationship programme on radio. “It’s not just women clawing each other, men also abuse you equally to get attention,” she says.

But not everyone is turning into a drama queen. “People are smarter than we think,” says Bhasin. Socialite Tanisha Mohan says,“We don’t associate our lives with these shows; our lives are not scripted like theirs.” Visvanathan believes for every young person becoming mean watching mean TV, there are others who know where to draw the line. He says, “The young people who came in support of Anna Hazare were focussed on anti-corruption, than on Hazare himself. There are people on whom reality shows, thankfully, don’t work.”

Horror Porn

Went to the IMDB yesterday, and at the very top were links to 3 movies which will apparently make their debut in November - or maybe in December, just in time for the December season of peace on earth, good will toward man.

All three of them are horror movies. We Need to Talk About Kevin - mother attempts to find out why her young son turned into a serial killer. Paranorman, apparently about a guy with paranormal powers. Norman - is it a take off on Norman of Psycho fame? And finally, The Innkeepers.

How incredibly charming.

And we wonder why people today seem fraught with rage, anger, and insensitivity to others.

York Peppermint Patty commercial

Typically whenever you see a food commercial - sometimes a restaurant commercial but usually for food you buy at a grocery store, you always see the eaters (usually the female eaters) having a kind of orgasmic reaction.

York Peppermint Patties has taken that to a whole new level - they actually show a woman having an orgasm after taking a bite of a Peppermint Patty.

It used to be when York Peppermint Patties did these commercials it'd be something wholesome - "Bite into a Peppermint Patty and I have the sensation of skiing down a mountain in the arctic," or something of that nature.

Now, we get this beautiful woman. Extreme closeup of her lips as she bites into the patty. Then extreme closeup of her eye as it flutters like she's having an orgasm. Then it pulls back a bit and the woman is relaxing after her sexual experience.

Yech.

Harold and Kumar's 3D Christmas

One of the commercials for this piece of crap says something along the lines of, "If we removed all the gratuitous sex, and swearing, and violence, from Harold and Kumar's Christmas, you'd see..." and then they show a clip of Harold and Kumar calling each other's names, and then The End.

And this is supposed to entice people to see it?

Harold and Kumar are characters that have been in a couple of movies...they are apparently the minority version of Dumb and Dumber.

Sadly, it will probably be a hit.

Cop Shows That Show Armed Mano a Mano Stand offs

Just turned on an episode of CSI Miami from a couple of years ago, in which Horatio and a few uniformed police officers come to the boat of a police officer suspected of being "dirty."

Horatio stands out front, talking to the guy, the cops behind him.

The man pulls a gun and points it at Horatio.

"Gun!" the cops cry, and all point their weapons at the man... but don't fire.

And I'm like... in what universe is this happening? A man pulls a gun, the cops start shooting immediately - there is no dialog. The man is dead with 40 bullets shot at him (1 or 2 of which having found their mark).

Movies do it to, two cops or bad guys holding guns in each others faces, shouting at each other - never happen. First person who pulls a gun is going to shoot it..especially if the second person pulls a gun right after!

Allen Gregory - some kind of cartoon

Fox is bringing a cartoon called Allan Gregory to TV screens - I'm seeing commercials for this piece of garbage almost every time the NFL on Fox cuts to a commercial.

Apparently it's a young kid - male of course - with an adult vocabularly and a big head.

Of course it's a male - put a female character into a show like this and no one would put up with her talking sarcastically to adults. She'd be termed a bitch, etc. But for a male to do it - well, that's just self-confidence and its so cute.

Utter, utter garbage.

60 Minutes of Play - commercial

This isn't really "devolution media" per se. The NFL has partnered with Michele Obama's program to help reduce obesity, and we're getting commercials where NFL players are jogging along with little kids, exercising, etc.

Here's my problem.

Obesity may ba *a* problem in the USA today, but it is nowhere near are biggeset problem.

Where are the commercials encouraging kids to READ an hour a day? To study their homework an hour a day? To work hard in school, to stay in school, etc.

50% of US citizens do not pay Federal taxes - because they don't have jobs. Leave out the newly unemployed, there are hundreds of thousands of young teenagers - mostly minorities - who can't get jobs because they don't have the education, they haven't been taught any kind of a work effort - to go to work at a fast food restaurant and put up with that.... they aren't going to get jobs unless they get an education - and it is up to THEM to get that education.

But we see no commercials encouraging kids to do that - or to not get pregnant at age 15 or 16.... oh, all kinds of things that deeserve more commercial time than "play 60 minutes a day."

Define the words "Courageous and Epic"

For uneducated idiots, it means that some fictional character in their videogame has raced through millions of zombies and come out the other side unscathed.

In the real world, it means some soldier over in Iraq racing out into enemy fire to rescue members of his squad...with the bullets real and the prospect of death real.

99% of these guys playing these violent video games don't have the nerve to go into the military where they can prove their bravery for real...but they'll boast to their friends how skilled they are in their little games.

Then we've got this loser who ran onto a golf green and threw a hot dog and Tiger because he wanted to do something "courageus and epic." What...a...loser.

http://www.cbssports.com/golf/story/15726611/hot-dog-thrower-wanted-to-be-courageous-and-epic
PETALUMA, Calif. -- A California man arrested for throwing a hot dog at Tiger Woods during a tournament said he wanted to do something "courageous and epic."

Brandon Kelly of Petaluma told the Santa Rosa Press Democrat on Tuesday that he's a fan of Woods and got the idea after watching Drive -- a recently released movie starring Ryan Gosling as a stunt driver who moonlights as a getaway driver.

"I threw the hot dog toward Tiger Woods because I was inspired by the movie Drive," Kelly said. "As soon as the movie ended, I thought to myself, 'I have to do something courageous and epic. I have to throw a hot dog on the green in front of Tiger."'

The Santa Clara Sheriff's Office confirmed to the Associated Press on Wednesday that the 31-year-old Kelly threw the wiener at Woods.

Kelly was arrested for disturbing the peace Sunday after yelling Woods' name and tossing a hot dog in his direction during the Frys.com Open in San Martin.

"When I looked up, the hot dog was already in the air," Woods said. "The bun was kind of disintegrating."

Woods backed off his birdie putt during the disturbance and ended up missing the 18-foot putt.

"Some guy just came running on the green, and he had a hot dog, and evidently ... I don't know how he tried to throw it, but I was kind of focusing on my putt when he started yelling," Woods said after the tournament. "Next thing I know, he laid on the ground, and looked like he wanted to be arrested because he ... put his hands behind his back and turned his head."

Kelly posted on his Facebook page Sunday morning a photo of a hot dog in his hand in front of his vehicle's steering wheel and speedometer, the newspaper reported.

Sgt. Jose Cardoza, a spokesman for the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office, said that Kelly's misdemeanor offense would likely result in a fine and community service.

On travel til Wednesday

I'm visiting elderly relatives in Box Elder, SD who do not have internet.

Will try to sneak out now and again to an internet cafe to post, but more than likely will not be posting until Wedneday.

Ohio Player Pricks Foes in Handshake Lie, Forces Tetanus Shots

Do 16-year olds even know how to think? What did he think would happen as a result of this little prank?

I'm surprised he didn't get beaten up by the 27 guys he pricked with the tack.

Sadly, if you read the article at Rivals.Yahoo.com, you've got dozens of guys who just have to make puns or jokes about the entire situation (he was a little prick, what he did was tacky, etc). They apparently think this is the height of cleverness, and just have to share it with the world.

From Yahoo.com: Ohio Player Pricks Foesin Handshake Lie, Forces Tetanus Shots
According to the Wilmington (Ohio) News Journal and NBC affiliate WCMH, a Washington (Ohio) Court House High 16-year-old who was ineligible for the game sat on his team's sideline, then walked through the handshake line after his team's 26-0 victory against McLain (Ohio) High with a studded receiver's glove. The punctures made by the player's sharp glove eventually forced all 27 of the undisclosed perpetrator's alleged victims to receive tetanus shots from the Highland County health department at a meeting between the players and the Highland County Health Commissioner days after the event.

McLain players shared the most troubling details of the incident with WCMH.

"We walked across the 50-yard line and supposedly one of the guys had tacks in his glove. Nobody knew about it. I was far back enough in the line that everyone started to turn around and I got out of the way," said Michael Aeh, a McClain football player. ...

"They felt the pain of it when it occurred and they thought maybe they had hit a nerve or something. Then some of them immediately … looked at their hands and saw blood," said Dr. Dan Strain, McClain High School principal.

While the McLain players who suffered hand injuries because of the stunt were understandably most upset about the incident, local police also opened an investigation and contacted the mother of the suspect, who reportedly told Greenfield Police Chief Tim Hester that she planned to hire an attorney to defend her son.

From Rivals.Yahoo.com: Ohio Player Pricks Foesin Handshake Lie, Forces Tetanus Shots

"It was a small, sharp object," Hester told the News Journal. "We think it was probably a tack, but we haven't recovered it so we can't say for sure."

Regardless of what instrument was used to cause the damage, the entire incident is one of the most deranged in recent prep sports memory. That any player would inflict damages requiring vaccinations against unsuspecting victims is gross and disturbing. That the player didn't even play any part in the contest itself may make the hurtful handshakes even more upsetting.

That sentiment was certainly shared by one unnamed McLain student who was interviewed by WCMH.

"I think it's stupid, and very silly, and I don't understand why anyone would have any incentive to do that. We lost anyway."

In one of the most disturbing acts by an individual high school athlete in recent times, an Ohio football player placed a sharp object -- believed to be a tack -- in his glove before walking through a postgame handshake line, pricking the hands of 27 opponents as he walked through and "congratulated" them on a game well played.

According to the Wilmington (Ohio) News Journal and NBC affiliate WCMH, a Washington (Ohio) Court House High 16-year-old who was ineligible for the game sat on his team's sideline, then walked through the handshake line after his team's 26-0 victory against McLain (Ohio) High with a studded receiver's glove. The punctures made by the player's sharp glove eventually forced all 27 of the undisclosed perpetrator's alleged victims to receive tetanus shots from the Highland County health department at a meeting between the players and the Highland County Health Commissioner days after the event.

McLain players shared the most troubling details of the incident with WCMH.

"We walked across the 50-yard line and supposedly one of the guys had tacks in his glove. Nobody knew about it. I was far back enough in the line that everyone started to turn around and I got out of the way," said Michael Aeh, a McClain football player. ...

"They felt the pain of it when it occurred and they thought maybe they had hit a nerve or something. Then some of them immediately … looked at their hands and saw blood," said Dr. Dan Strain, McClain High School principal.

While the McLain players who suffered hand injuries because of the stunt were understandably most upset about the incident, local police also opened an investigation and contacted the mother of the suspect, who reportedly told Greenfield Police Chief Tim Hester that she planned to hire an attorney to defend her son.

"It was a small, sharp object," Hester told the News Journal. "We think it was probably a tack, but we haven't recovered it so we can't say for sure."

Regardless of what instrument was used to cause the damage, the entire incident is one of the most deranged in recent prep sports memory. That any player would inflict damages requiring vaccinations against unsuspecting victims is gross and disturbing. That the player didn't even play any part in the contest itself may make the hurtful handshakes even more upsetting.

That sentiment was certainly shared by one unnamed McLain student who was interviewed by WCMH.

"I think it's stupid, and very silly, and I don't understand why anyone would have any incentive to do that. We lost anyway."

Booklist: The Grammar of Our Civility

What is the opposite of Devolution Media? Evolution Media- that media: books, TV, movies, that are created to uplift and enoble, instead of denigrate.

Evolution media is also education. Most American students get out of high school and never open a book again. If they do go on to college, they get out of college and then never open a book again.

They're closing themselves off to worlds upon worlds of enjoyment.

The book below encourages the reinstallation of teaching the Classics in American education - learning Latin and Greek, and reading the great writers in those languages.

The Grammar of Our Civility: Classical Education in America
by Lee T. Pearcy
Baylor University Press, 2005

Description
Highly accessible, The Grammar of Our Civility avoids the exaggerated, gratuitous polemic, and lack of historical grounding that have vitiated previous popularizing efforts to make the case for the value of classical studies in contemporary US society. Wearing his immense learning lightly, Lee T. Pearcy cogently and eloquently sytnesizes a vast amount of previous scholarship to envision a new form of American classical education: one that reflects-much as European classical studies reflected European social realities and aspirations - the diverse, vibrant, intellectual environment and ethical ideals of our nation.

Table of Contents
Foreword
1. The Grammar of Our Civility
2. The American Dialect
3. Finis: Four Arguments Against the Classics
4. Prolegomena to a Pragmatic Claccicism
Notes
Works Cited
Idex

So okay, "Prolegomena to a Pragmatic Classicism" sounds rather more pretentious than accessible. I know what "vitiate" means but "Prolegomena" I had to look up. (It means "a preliminary discussion; introductory essay, as prefatory matter in a book; a prologue"). Well, so the author used one word, prolegomena, instead of two or three...

Well, the book is intended for the academic. And it's definitely written for a college-level education (which can be acquired throuh one attending college, or by one implementing an educational curriculum of one's own from home). And it's interesting.

A little bit more description from Amazon.com:

The pragmatic demands of American life have made higher education's sustained study of ancient Greece and Rome an irrelevant luxury--and this despite the fact that American democracy depends so heavily on classical language, literature, and political theory. In The Grammar of Our Civility, Lee T. Pearcy chronicles how this came to be. Pearcy argues that classics never developed a distinctly American way of responding to distinctly American social conditions. Instead, American classical education simply imitated European models that were designed to underwrite European culture. The Grammar of Our Civility also offers a concrete proposal for the role of classical education, one that takes into account practical expectations for higher education in twenty-first century America.

(We need this education, it's true, but we also need - somewhat more urgently, I would say - an education in the sciences. In math. Learning the classics though is a matter of memorization...learning math and science is much harder...

How To Be A Gentleman

There are so many new TV shows coming on board that are utter garbage that I don't know where to start first.

One is an Odd Couple clone - "prude meets dude" or whatever their motto is, the title, How to be a Gentleman.

So we've got someone who looks like a Niles clone - he of course is the Felix Unger role, than we've got Kevin Dillon who plays the utter slob Oscar Madison role.

And of course the neatnik "prude" will be mocked, while the utterly gross slob will be the "normal" guy.

Which is too bad.

It's easy to be a slob - you don't have to do anything.

It's hard to be a gentleman - or lady, you have to work at it.

Too many people don't work at it.

Lots of people are slobs. And if you try to tell them to get their act together - get their hair cut, wear decent-fitting clothes, etc., you're the one who is labeled a prude or a snob.

I remember an episode of Barney Miller from 20 - 30 years ago. The fastidious Harris has to stay in the slob Dietrich's apartment. Does Harris' fastidiousness rub off on the slob Dietrich? No, not at all. By the end of the episode Harris has turned into just as much of a slob as Dietrich (albeit only for that one episode.) He's given up, he's been defeated.

That's what we're faced with today. Too many people have given up and let themselves and standards slide. Any attempt to live up to standards is mocked and laughed at.

Don't get me wrong - I remember enjoying the original Odd Couple...heck, I even enjoyed the remake in which Ron Glass played Felix Unger and the guy from Sanford and Son played Oscar Madison, twenty years ago, and unfortunately only lasted a handful of episodes.

But these days...these days I just don't see it as doing anything to improve the fabric of society.

Miller LIte - commercial

I have seen a couple of these commercials in the last week or so.

A group of men, one of them does something the other three dont' like, and they sayd, "That's the second unmanly thing you've done today."

What was the first, asks the guy.

Then there's a flashback to the guy panicking as he pulls a fish out of the water, "screaming like a girl" and so on.

What are these commercials teaching teenage boys, and men for that matter? That it's okay to tease someone for being "unmanly" (i.e., gay? Or just not macho - the two are not inclusive.)

They are just unpleasant commercials.

Southwest Airlines commercial

I saw this today...think I saw it last night as well...

Some Asian guy goes to Southwest and learns he won't have to pay baggage fees, so he starts dancing like some pro football player who's arrived in the end zone, making a total fool of himself.

Meantime two guys dressed in referee facsimiles go up to some faux airline and make football referee type comments as if they're being penalized while being charged for bags.

Truth to tell - I really dislike seeing these football players who celebrate their TD runs - and sometimes not even that - by dancing and drawing attention to themselves in the end zone. Doesn't matter if their team is losing by 40 points, if they score, they're going to celebrate. And after they finish dancing, they turn and greet their teammates who've been waiting to congratulate them. (How I wish these teammates would just walk away from the glory hog and leave him all alne and never congratulate him, even on the sidelines.)

Then of course there's the defensive guys who will make a stop, then strut away a few yards and do their little schtick. I appreciate that they're just haivng fun but jeez, they're grown men, not children.

And what this teaches youngers watching aobut what constitutes "good" vs "bad" sportsmanship....put it this way, it doesn't teach them good sportsmanship.

Phew!

Time goes by when you're having fun.

So sorry for not posting here for so long. There's been plenty of things I could post about, but I've had so much stuff going on lately that I just haven't had time to do it.

Well, it's Sunday, and its football. And now I've got a little time!

WWE Monday Night Raw

Currently on , at 8.33 pm Central Time, there is some kind of "entertainment" going on on TNT, I believe.

Just saw one guy have another guy on the ground, stomp one of his ankles, and then the other.

This is the type of fight entertainment that is really ruining the fabric of today's people.

In boxing, you've got a referee. If a boxer goes down on one knee, the referee steps in and the boxer goes to a neutral corner. Indeed, it used to be the referee would never have to step in - the boxer knew. Man down, go to a neutral corner. No hitting below the belt, no hitting a man when he was down, etc. Of course, now the referee has to step in and sometimes phyically hold back the boxer from continuing to wale on a downed oppoent.

But that's nothing compared with this WWE wrestling, where the wrestlers are such poseurs, not to mention bad actors. You've got the drama, with one wrestler vowing vengeance against another and attacking him in the stands, or climbing into the rign and attacking him during a different bout entirely.

You've got folks who hit people in the back with chairs, beat on them when their down, etc - something that at one point was never done. An opponent falls...you wait til he gets up before attacking again.

Nowadays, you attack him when he's at his weakest and you're cheered on for doing so.

These wrestling matches usually fill up the arenas in which they're held, they're very popular, and its just one more reason why, these days, a person's first response to something that might (or might not, admittedly) be innocuous, is to respond with violence.

Hanes Underwear Commercials

Have I ever blogged about these things? I'm sure I have, but I'm going to do it again.

They must be popular, these commercials, because they've been airing for several years.

Michael Jordan is seated in a plane minding his own business, and some white guy comes up to him and gushes about Haines underwear. We get closeups of Jordan's amused - bemused - contemptuous face - as the guy shows off his waistband and then does some deep squats to show Jordan - who presumably should know himself - just how comfy they are.

One hopes that no one in real life would actually approach a celebrity and do this (although unfortunately there are probably a few deluded indidivuals who would do this - which is one of the reasons why this commercial is so creepy).

Little bit of homoeroticiscm goin' on there? (Not that there's anything wrong with that - in the proper venue. But commercials on TV - no.)

Beyond Scared Straight - TV reality series

"Scared Straight" is a program where "at risk" teenagers are brought in to prisons where they are harassed by long-term inmates. The hope is that by seeing how truly awful it is in prison, the kids will turn their lives around and embrace a lifestyle where they won't go to jail.

Which is all very well and good... but what is the point in making a TV series out of it?

The series shows these teens being brought to the prisons and bullied.

1. What sane person would want to watch that? Answer - no sane person would, only those who are sadistic and like to watch people being humiliated and frightened.

2. Having cameras follow these kids and cons around surely ads an extra layer of ... unreality... to it, for the kids. (Are these real kids going bad, or are they wanna-be actors who think they can get a foot on a rung of the ladder by playing one of these delinquents?)

In any event, as with so much reality TV, it's utter garbage... and very popular.

Will Everyone Refuse to Evacuate Next Time?

There were fears that Hurricane Irene was going to do a lot of damage to New Jersey and Long Island, New York, would be as bad as Katrina, perhaps.

So thousands of people were ordered to leave their homes. (And public transportation was shut down, which seemed odd to me. How are people supposed to leave their homes if they can't get a bus or train out of town?)

In any event, the hurricane kept lessening, so that it turned into a tropical storm rather than a hurricane, and supposedly there was no need for most people to have left their homes.

And the weathermen and guvmint is being laughed at for this "non-event."

And I'm thinking. Shouldn't you be thanking either God or your lucky stars (being an atheist, I'd just thank karma) that you've got a home to go back to? Consider it good practice for the next time you have to evacuate - which might be a real emergency, so then you'll be better prepared!

Weathermen

It has been the trend for many years - who knows, maybe foreever - that whenever high winds or torrential rain is happening, the weatherman/woman and his crew go out into this deluge and the weatherman is filmed shouting at the camera while meantime trying to hold his balance against the winds.

How stupid is this? First - the guy/gal is saying "everyone stay indoors" while htey are out in the elements.

If people are too stupid to believe someone in a nice cozy weatherroom saying - "The winds are trememndously strong and its very dangerous, stay inside," they will be equally as stupid and unconvinced to see a weather man actually out in the weather saying it.

Then there was the case yesterday - yet another Youtube video - of a weathercaster who was standing by a beach - I think this was in New York rather than Virginia Beach, the waves are pounding him and all of a sudden he's covered in "toxic foam" - as raw sewage starts to wash over him.

If he gets sick, one wonders if he'll sue his TV station for making him do it, and if the practice will now cease.

Teenage men in Virginia Beach

There's a video up on Youtube (still up now but may go soon for copyright infringement) of a weatherman in Virgnia Beach, VA talking about how dangerous it is out on the streets and how everyone should stay home for the next day or so.

And while he talks, cars are driving by, and teenage boys - I'd say 18 to 20, actually, so perhaps "young men" is a better term - running past him in their swimsuts. One of whom, dressed in red trunks, pulls them down and then pirouhettes so that we not only see his buttocks but also his penis hanging out.

At least those guys had the courtesy to go behind the weatherman. Within the next few minutes, one guy came by in front of the weatherman, doing some silly little dance that he obviously thought was cool, and then a couple of others just walked past with grins on their faces.

Irene has apparently weakened considerably so that there's every chance that these people did not return to flooded out homes or get knocked over and killed by tree limbs or falling light poles on their way home - which is a pity.

Meantime...some people have died, albeit a mere handful, but property damage is extensive.

K-Mart Back to School ad

I'm watching TNT, and just saw the ad, although I've seen it several times over the past couple of weeks at least.

Its an advertisement for backpacks and clothes with which to go back to school.

Education isn't highlighted at all, it's all about the social aspect of school, including one shot where a teenager is walking down a hallway with his arms around the waists of two teenage girls, one on each side of him.

What's up with that?

My Idiot Brother (movie)

Well, I find the trailer pretty offensive. Actor Paul Rudd plays the Idiot Brother, apparently, a bearded guy in this thirties who has apparently never grown up. (One of the scenes shown is him holding a fruit juice box between his legs and pressing it so he looks like he's urinating - and he's doing this in front of a couple of grown ups and a kid.

Rudd plays Ned, a stoner who has frizzled his neurons to the point that he has lost any ability to detect or dish out B.S. The poster child for what it means to be ingenuous, Ned is a trusting, playful, adorable stray puppy who isn't quite housebroken. So you-know-what hits the fan when his three sisters serially take him in after his release from jail. He's nothing but tsuris. It's no wonder that his most enduring relationship is with his dog, Willie Nelson.

Thanks to Rudd's everyman persona and the genial obliviousness he brings to Ned, you can't help but feel empathy. As with a suspense film where the audience knows what's going to happen but the characters are still in the dark, you want to yell out to warn Ned before he screws up again. His perfect comic timing and the made-to-order script make sure you get the most laughs from his predicament. Luckily, there's more to him than just bad luck. He's also an endearing white angel on the shoulders of his sisters, helping them fight their devils as he becomes an unwitting catalyst for change.

The old cliche...this seems to be an update of "Being There" with Peter Sellers, where the innocent teaches the knowledgeable all about life and love.

Only in this case, the "Idiot Brother" is an idiot not because he was born that way and can't help it, but because he's a "stoner" - someone who has done drugs for so long that their brain is frazzled.

In real life such a man (or woman) would be dead in a ditch somewhere - in Hollywoodlalaland, he goes about changing everyone else's lives for the better.

As usual, a very bad role model for anyone.

I can not help but be reminded of an actor named Jan-Michael Vincent. Forty years or so ago, I saw him as a very young, handsome, very buff man in a Disney movie, Nanu, King of the Jungle or some similar title.

Thirty years later, I saw him on some "What Happened to Them" show. His face was haggard and drawn...he could barely speak, he could barely walk. Apparently all throughout his series Airwolf (which I never watched) he was an alcoholic. He drank so much that he fried his brain.

And the contrast.... from what he had been to what he now was (now being the 80s), it was enough, I would have thought, to make anyone who saw what happened to him, give up drinking, or drugging.

But of course, drug and drink abuse is worse now than its ever been.

Two Broke Girls - sitcom

Situation comedies have "tropes".

A trope, for example, is the dumb/innocent/kooky blond. In the Mary Tyler Moore show from years ago, it was Georgia Engels character. In Designing Women, it was Jean Smart's character. In The Golden Girls, it was Betty White's character.

Now we've got

Two Broke Girls.
Set in New York City, the series chronicles the lives of two waitresses in their twenties—Max (Kat Dennings), who comes from a poor working-class family, and Caroline (Beth Behrs), who was born rich but is now down on her luck—working together at a Brooklyn restaurant. The two become fast friends and build their dream of one day opening a cupcake shop (for which they need to raise $250,000), although they can barely afford anything with the pay they receive at work, and must continually find ways to make ends meet. Among those working with them at the restaurant are their boss, Han Lee; Oleg, a cook; and Earl, the cashier.

The rich girl is of course blonde and stupid, the working-class girl is smart and of course a wise-acre.

And what's the upshot of it? Another TV sit-com in which women are portrayed as either waitresses, or moms, or basically - women in dead-end jobs.

Of course women in drama series are cast in "roles of power" - Rizolli and Isles, The Closer, Law and Order SVU - but what TV shows get watched more often, sit coms with horny male adolescents and stupid women, or dramas?

In addition to the sitcoms, of course there are the commercials - and they have their stereotypes as well. In the commercials, the dads are invariably stupid, the moms smart, and the kids of course sarcastic and know-it-all and so much smarter than their parents.

Photoshopping out the truth

The real Mark Sanchez

Many magazines have photoshopped or airbrushed the people who appear on their covers - usually gossip magazines who show women.

So it was interesting to see a guy get the same treatment. Mark Sanchez, quarterback for the New York Jets, has six moles on his cheek. In the GQ cover, there are no moles.

Why?

Geico Commercial - "that's a complete dramatisation"

There's a Geico commercial that I've seen several times. It features the gekko talking about what types of coverage Geico offers, and then he says, "and you can get an English muffin with jam. Ohhh, tasty." The Gekko continues to walk for a few seconds, then says, "Of course, that's a complete dramatisation."

No, it isn't. What he meant to say was fabrication, but either the gekko isn't too smart, or the person writing the commercial isn't.

A dramatisation is what crime shows do - actors re-enact a particular crime with perpetrator or victim. Or a true story is told in fictional formatas for example the Titanic movies are a dramatisation of the actual Titanic tragedy. But that isnt' the same as the gekko telling everyone a complete lie, that if you go to a Geico office you're going to get an English muffin with jam.

Of course, it's meant to be funny - but the thing is ...why hasn't anyone noticed he's using the wrong word? Or do they not care because they think no one else will notice?

Two and A Half Men - the "Meat Explosion"

I despise Two and a Half Men, and it looks like there's much to despise in the season open. Charlie Sheen's character has been killed off - apparently shoved in front of a train by his new wife because she caught him cheating.

So.... murder is going to be made out to be funny. Will the new wife go to jail or will she get a medal - that will doubtless not be made clear.

And what's really, really sad... Charlie Sheen, who should be undergoing counseling for wasting his life, gets to star in another TV series, Anger Management, which obviously is capitlizing on his off-screen troubles, of which he should be ashamed, and should not be rewarded.

But, no, the guy has made a mess of his life, and he still has fans who will no doubt wnat to emulate him. Very, very sad..

Charlie Sheen's TV death brings laughter and tears

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - At Charlie Sheen's faux funeral on "Two and a Half Men," there will definitely be tears -- of laughter.

While CBS and Warner Bros. Television have remained stubbornly tight-lipped about the upcoming season premiere of "Two and a Half Men" -- which taped last Friday, and airs on September 19 -- Sheen's former co-star Jon Cryer appeared on Los Angeles television station KTLA to discuss the series reboot.

The new season reportedly will open with a funeral for Sheen's character, playboy jingle-writer Charlie Harper, and according to Cryer, Harper's demise will be a laugh-riot.

"I'm not allowed to say much about it," Cryer said, before divulging, "I can tell you this, it's funny."

Reports last week indicated that Sheen's character would meet his demise by being nudged in front of a train in Paris by his new bride Rose, after getting caught cheating -- resulting in a "meat explosion."

Without revealing specifics, Cryer noted that the farewell won't be as gruesome as all that. He also said that at Friday's taping, his new co-star Ashton Kutcher "tore the roof off the joint."

Sheen is surprisingly enthusiastic about getting killed off from the hit series. The 45 year-old actor -- who's gearing up to star in a sitcom based on the Jack Nicholson movie "Anger Management" -- told TMZ on Wednesday that he's "honored" to be going out in such a locomotive fashion.

"I am honored that it took something as large and violent as an oncoming train to terminate my character," Sheen said. "Anything less would have been an insult!"

Toddlers and Tiaras (reality show)

Oh my god...

I just turned on the TLC channel and I see an obscenity called Todders and Tiaras.

Mothers dress up their toddlers - their toddlers, in other words 2 years old! - in grown-up dresses and show them off like one would do a dressed-up pet dog.

Just saw a clip of a toddler "five years later." Her face was covered with pancake makeup, eyeshadow, lipstick the whole 90 yards, and although we just saw her upper torso, not moving, I'd be willing to bet cash money that when she walked she slinked, grinding her hips from left to right in order to catch the eye of any 6 or 7 year old boy who might be watching and validate her existence by giving her a wolf-whistle or rushing up for a quick feel or kiss.

How incredibly obscene. And shame on the parents for treating their children like showdogs.

Baseball traditions

I'm watching the Boston Red Sox vs the New York Yankees. Prior to the start of the game, they showed the "benches clearing brawl" that took place yesterday between the Giants and the Phillies.

What happened was, the pitcher hit the batter. The batter threw down his bat, waited a few seconds, then headed for the pitcher. The catcher grabbed hold of him, and the umpire got in front of him.

And that would have been it. Situation defused.

But someone from each team just had to head toward their man, in order to "protect" him from being hit by the other perosn, and no one in that situation can remain on the bench without being hazed by his team mates for refusing to get involved in some stupid scuffle.

So everyone came out. And now that the benches are cleared, the batter apparently decided that with his team behind him, he'd better show that he actually had wanted to attack the pitcher.

MLB needs to make a new rule - just as NBA has done - that anyone who leaves the bench - or the field - during a fight, is banned five or six games. Let the umpires separate the players if they are getting involved in a fight. Everyone else should just stay out of it.

Haines commericials with Michael Jordon

I think this is a pretty old commercial, but I've seen it a couple of times today on ESPN.

Michael Jordan sitting in his place seat minding his own business, and some middle aged white guy comes up to him and shows him that he's wearing Hanes. And then he does some squats to show how well fitting they are.

And I'm like, Jee-suz. First of course is the fact that we've got a white guy making a fool of himself. And yes it would be just as offensive if a black guy were doing it, but you could never cast a black guy in such a commercial because there'd be such a fuss about racism. But having a white guy as a kowtowing idiot...perfectly all right.

Bottom line - there should be no commercials in which one of the two people involved is a kowtowing idiot.

In addition, you do have to wonder about real life. If someone did that in real life, to come up to a total stranger and show off their underwear - they'd get beaten to a pulp.

Just a stupid, stupid commercial all around.

Repo Games - reality series

There's so much devolution media surrounding us these days that the trick is to find something that doesn't de-evolve people.

Watching CSI: NY, an episode called Blink, another episode where the victims are women who are killed in extremely sadistic ways. (I wonder if that's part of the attraction of these types of shows - CSI: NY, Criminal Minds, Numbers, etc., the sadistic ways in which the victims, usually women, are killed), at 11.30 am, and there's a commercial for Repo Games.

And of course the "game" is populated by thugs, apparently people - one big black and one big white guy, going around repossessing people's cars as if it were a game. And in this particular commercial, their adversary is a big black woman who has a pretty high leg kick, and she of course is swearing at them and threatening them not to take her car.

And people watch this?

What do they learn? That if you don't pay your car bills, and someone comes to take back your car, you have the right to try to beat up on them.

All TV shows aimed at children?

I've been watching a show called Criminal Minds recently. It's a successful series that has been on for 7 or so years now, I think. I never watched it until about a year or so ago, and have only recently taken up re-watching it. Not that I like it, particularly...it's just something to watch amongst the pap of reality shows that are on every other channel at the same time.

The show is disturbing in one way, as it deals with serial killers, all of them mentally abnormal (well, you'd have to be abnormal to be a serial killer, but the ones on this show are made as abnormal as possible.)

And most of the reasons why these people kill are because, according to this show, something happened in their childhood to warp them and make them kill - typically either abusive parents or abusive school mates.

And in real life, while abusive parents/peerse might not turn kids into psychotic killers when they grow up, it obviously is not going to do the kid any good.

And then I look at the cartoons and tv shows aimed at kids, that a great many kids watch as their "baby-sitter" - they are inculcated with this dangerous garbage six or more hours a day. And even if their parents don't allow them to watch such shows, there are always commercials that sneak in that can be damaging as well.

Now, what do I consider damaging?

Well, about 50 years ago, comic books came under attack for warping kids. In the 1970s, violence on TV had to be toned down. (I well remember this, there was a show starring William Shatner and Doug McClure called Barbary Coast, and because of the new rules all their fights had to be turned to comical effect, and of course no blood must be shown... pretty much ruined the show.

But what is worse for kid's TV - violence or sexual innuendo? I'd have to say sexual innuendo.

More on this in my next post.

The Change-up - Trailer and Movie

Lots of people wish they were someone else - they see someone who looks wealthy and sophisticated and think, I wish I was that person. Or it could be their own sibling, or what have you.

And there's been quite a few movies which deal with this premise. (Indeed, I think Thorne Smith's book, Turnabout, probably started the trend.

Turnabout (1931) Thorne Smith pits two thoroughly modern married people in a classic battle of the sexes. After listening to the nearly endless bickering and childish jealousy of a young man and wife (Tim and Sally Willows), an ancient Egyptian idol decides to play a trick on the two by causing them to switch bodies. After the wife impregnates her husband, things take a decided turn for the worse as they separately try to deal with the object of the former wife's affections — a deplorably predictable square jawed philanderer by the name of Carl Bently. The scene in which Tim, trapped in his wife's body, exacts an icy revenge on the unfortunate interloper is one of the unforgettable moments of Thorne Smith's peculiar humor.

Anyway, Freaky Friday was made by Disney in 1977, and remade in the 90s, about a mother and daughter who switch places. Then there was a movie with Kirk Cameron, I believe, that had a son and father change places.

Well, now there's a movie in which two grown men change places - one is single and apparently can get any woman he wants, the other is married and can get constant sex with his wife.

So the trailer shows the set-up - two grown men urinating into a fountain. Thankfully their backs are to us.

It's interesting that men don't think much of public urination. "When you gotta go you gotta go." It's also somewhat animalistic - they are "marking their territory." And of course if they live in areas that get snow, apparently trying to write their name in urine in snow is a popular past-time.

And what does the poster tell young men? Get married - you have to deal with diapers and squealing children and there are just nooooo rewards in that , and if you're single not only can you get two women, but you can get them at the same time.

That's not what our youth need to see, at a time when most children are born out of wedlock, fathers are absent, mothers live on welfare, and statistics show that such children have more psychological problems than do those born into a stable family environment. (Yes, there are always exceptions, but overall....)

AT&T Phone Service Commercial.

I'll have to update this post when I find out the correct name of the advertiser. All I really know is that it is some cellphone service...I think it is AT&T.

It's a commercial that perpetuates the stereotype of the dumb husband and the shewish/intelligent wife.

A nerdy-looking husband opens the door to the greenhouse where his wife is busy cutting flowers, and says excitedly, "Oh, I've got 500 minutes for our phones" or something of that nature.

The wife, in a rude, shrewish voice, says something like, "That's great. You dont think you should have consulted your wife about this? Where's the money for all those minutes supposed to come from? Mother was right, I should have married.... (so and so).

And the husband looks at his wife, stunned, and says, "The minutes are free."

Then cue the "funny" reaction shot from the wife, who looks up as she realizes she's just made a fool of herself.

And this ending is supposed to be funny, but I'm thinking, if I were that husband, I would be extremely hurt and filing for a divorce the next day, and refusing to give the wife alimony because she's clearly not in love with him and thinks he's stupid.

Just an unpleasant commercial all around.

Burger King's "Buddies" Commercial

I've seen this commercial a couple of times today - I'm watching CSI Miami on the A&E channel.

There's apparently some new product they are advertising, Burger King buddies. You get two tiny hamburgers for the price of one big one.

How are they advertising this? By having characters humorously steal one of the two hamburgers.

So an older kid points and says, "Look there" and makes off with a hamburger when the younger kid looks.

Two women are sitting on a cement park bench, one pushes off the other's backpack and as the other woman bends down to pick it up, the first woman steals her hamburger.

And so on.

And I'm like...I suppose it looks funny. But apart from the smaller kid who is probably used to being bullied by his sibling, just how would these adults react to someone else, even a friend, stealing their hamburger?

Adults might realize that this commercial is all in fun and no one in real life would do this, but kids? They probably think it's the height of cleverness.

Trollz - cartoon

According to the NY Times article I share below, this TV series is aimed at girls from 4 to 8! 4 to 8! And what did the episode I saw teach these kids from 4 to 8? That in order to attract boys, a girl must be able to stick her hip out and flash her buttocks at him as she walks by, or lean against a wall casually and (presumably) thrust out her non-existant breasts.

And we wonder why more and more girls as young as 13 are having sex these days. They're taught by the media from the age of 4 onward that that's all that they're for.


I've turned on Trollz, a cartoon on the Cookie Jar TV network. It came on at 9.30 am. There are adult cartoons - which air in the evening, like the Simpsons, Family Guy, South Park, etc. And then there are cartoons for kids, which air in the mornings and have audiences of well, kids.

And Trollz is not suitable for kids. It's not suitable for anyone really!

There are 5 main characters - all girls. The only difference between these Trollz and human characters is that all these characters have very big, multi colored hair. And they have magic gems with which they can cast spells.

So today, apparently some imp is trapped in some other dimension, and in order to get free he has to cause dissension between these five girl trollz. So they have a party, and the imps servant transforms himself into a handsome male troll, and he goes around the party trying to cause trouble. Once the five troll girls are angry with each other and decide to break up their "best friends for life" friendship, he'll be free.

So we've got this one girl troll, interested the fake male troll, and so first she tries "disinterest" - just leaning against a wall trying to look sexy. That doesn't work, so she tries, "Mystery." Turning her back and tweaking her butt up a little to show "mysteriousness" (but really just showing her butt in what is apparently a sexually attractive pose to men) and of course he walks by again.

Then we get the insults. "Your hair makes you look like you're wearing a toielt brush on your head."

Finally the trollz get so angry that they decide to dissolve their BFFL, and take out the magic gem to accomplish it. But fortunately they hear the laugher of the fake troll, realize they've been tricked, and become friends again. Yes, such a good message to teach little kids watching this show.

Just think what they've learned. How to attract men. (Or in their case, I suppose, boys).

Trollz has been in existence since 2005 - I just saw a commercial for it a couple of days ago.

Here's the news - they actually profiled this piece of garbage in the New Yor Times.

BURBANK, Calif. - In a nondescript office building near the Ventura Freeway here, and in far-flung studios in Luxembourg and China, as many as a thousand animators, editors, sound engineers and the like are hard at work on what they intend to be the next obsession of 4-to-8-year-old girls.

Their handiwork involves an unlikely makeover: They are reinventing Trolls, the big-haired dolls once compared by the comedian Jimmy Fallon to Don King on Viagra, as Trollz, saucy little creatures who borrow a dollop of Phoebe from "Friends" and a dash of Summer from "The O.C.," as well as pinches of Eeyore from "Winnie the Pooh" and Carrie Bradshaw from "Sex and the City."

Trollz come prepackaged with an ethic, summed up as "B.F.F.L.": Best Friends for Life. And they certainly have a look. "Instead of doing the post-Janet Jackson, Britney Spears thing, we went for Avril Lavigne, Hillary Duff, Jessica Simpson," said Estevan Ramos, a stylist who worked with Ms. Spears and Christina Aguilera before he was hired to help create Trollz for DIC Entertainment.

In the coming months, said Andy Heyward, DIC's president and chief executive officer, the company plans to unleash its progeny in a "carpet bombing" of media that begins with their debut on the Web, at Trollz.com in March. At the site, children will be able to explore Trollzopolis, play games, chat with and cast spells on their friends. Books and toys follow in July, with cartoon collections on video and DVD coming in September from Warner Home Video. In October, a cartoon series will begin broadcasting, and by next Christmas, if Mr. Heyward is lucky, a pop phenomenon will have taken the world's children by storm.


A troll of yesteryear

In a more innocent era, the rages for Cabbage Patch Kids and even the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles still had something accidental about them. But today's fad-makers leave little to chance when stitching style, attitude and narrative into glittering commercial packages that can hardly fail to capture the eye, if not necessarily the imagination, of the young, at least for a little while.

At times, the competition for the attention of preadolescent girls looks like something of a downward spiral on the moral values - not to mention taste - front. After MGA Entertainment swept the field with its naughty-almost-nasty Bratz in 2001, Mattel responded last year with a trampy line of its own famous dolls, called My Scene Barbie. Now, Mr. Heyward and company are entering the fray with a multimedia product that is not exactly wholesome but that steps back from the sexual precipice.

"We will have Trollz explore the kinds of things that intrigue young girls," Mr. Heyward said during an interview in a conference room at DIC Entertainment headquarters, where he was surrounded by computer-generated storyboards for the Trollz Web site and cartoons.

Unlike Bratz, the provocatively dressed, multiethnic dolls that were one of this season's best-selling Christmas toys, Trollz would never be caught, said Mike Verrecchia, DIC's senior vice president for marketing, seven or eight at a time, in a Jacuzzi together. (This happened in a Bratz television commercial.) "We don't want children asking their parents, 'What are they doing in the Jacuzzi?' " Mr. Verrecchia said.

But there is a bit of the vamp in the round anime eyes of Trollz and in their anorexic waistlines. And there is something unnerving about the miniature gemstone that begins to glow in the belly of each girl Trollz when, in the videos and cartoons, she comes of age and acquires "special powers," which boy Trollz never will have.

Parents may find it difficult to connect the frizzy little monsters of their childhoods with the Topaz, the ditsy blond Trollz, or Onyx, the world-weary Goth "antifashionista," with purple lipstick and multiple piercings. But the creatures share a kinship.

Trolls originated with the Thomas Dam - an impoverished fisherman, bricklayer, baker and woodcarver - on the desolate island of Gjol in Denmark, where he carved his first elfin troll, inspired by local lore about creatures that dwelled in the Nordic forest, as a birthday present for his daughter. "He modeled its ugly face after a local butcher," said his son, Neils Dam. "My father owed this man money, and this was his revenge."

One winter, to supplement his meager income from shoveling snow, the only available work, Dam peddled his carvings door to door. When they sold out, he made figurines for displays in department store windows and more troll dolls, which he named Good Luck Trolls. In 1959, he began mass producing the dolls, making them out of rubber instead of wood and gluing on carded wool hair that had been dyed white, black or carrot orange. He began exporting them in 1960. Tens of millions sold. They were selected by the Toy Industry Association of America as the Toy of the Year in 1961.

Unschooled in business, Dam had not adequately protected his copyright in the United States, and he was unable to stop dozens of companies when they flooded the marketplace with counterfeits. In 1965, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that Trolls were in the public domain. Mr. Dam continued to make and sell Good Luck Trolls, but the Dam Company earned only a small percentage of the estimated $4.5 billion made from Trolls throughout the world.

Dam died in 1989, the year the United States joined the Berne Convention, which paved the way for individuals and companies to gain copyright and patents abroad that they held in their home countries. That, and the Uruguay Round World Trade Organization agreement in 1994, allowed the Dam Company to take knockoff manufacturers to court. As a result of a series of successful lawsuits, the Dam Company once again owned the worldwide rights to Trolls.

But by then Trollmania had subsided, though many children still played with the dolls, particularly in families in which parents handed down their tangled-haired menageries. In addition, collectors were buying and selling Trolls on eBay, where a white-haired sailor Troll with the face of an ape, from the mid-1960's, recently went for nearly $400.

The Dam Company was approached by Disney, Pixar and other entertainment groups that wanted to license the characters for the sort of expansive, all-media treatment that has become routine for fantasy figures in recent years. Mr. Heyward got in touch Dam in 2003.

A 55-year-old businessman with silver hair brushed straight back and rose-tinted tortoise shell glasses, Mr. Heyward began his career as a writer and story editor at Hanna-Barbera Productions, before moving to France, where he worked for DIC Audiovisual, a production company that specialized in children's animated programming. In 1982, Mr. Heyward returned to Los Angeles, where he led a management buyout of DIC, which was acquired by ABC/CapCities in 1993, which in turn became a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Company in 1995. In 2000, Mr. Heyward bought back DIC, which has one of the world's largest animation libraries, from Disney.

While watching his daughter play with an eraserhead Troll doll, Mr. Heyward became fascinated. "She couldn't stop touching the hair," he said. He contacted the Dam Company and arranged to meet Neils Dam, and the company's president, Calle Ostergaard, in London. "Every major entertainment company came to us, but DIC had the most comprehensive plan," Mr. Ostergaard said.

Once he secured the license, Mr. Heyward began to orchestrate a Troll revival. To serve the nostalgia and collectibles markets, he made a deal with the Play Along toy company to sell original Trolls, though he put most of his efforts and DIC's resources into Trollz. After creating the characters and an initial story, he approached toy, book, apparel and entertainment companies, and, he said, he was inundated with offers.

Hasbro won an auction for the rights to produce the dolls. Neither Mr. Heyward nor Lorrie Browning, Hasbro's general manager of girls' toys, would reveal the winning bid, but Mr. Heyward said that Hasbro offered not only the most money, but also a full commitment to showcasing the dolls in its showrooms and catalogs. "We loved the updated and funky look," Ms. Browning said.

That look includes midriff-revealing shorts and tops. And the Trollz have an attitude to match, uttering platitudes like this one from the series pilot, which was overseen by the company's head writer, Eric Lewald: "Friends are even more important than hair gel."

It remains to be seen if young girls will be won over, or if the makeover will backfire by erasing the essential quality of the original Trolls. "Like Cabbage Patch dolls, Trolls were so ugly they were cute," said Denise Van Patten, author of the "Official Price Guide to Dolls," to be published in April. "You wanted to take care of them." Might Trollz prove to be too stylish for their own good?

Trollz, though dressed up, retain the originals' signature hair, though their coiffures can have, for example, puffball pigtails, a permanent wave or puce-colored sea-urchin spikes. And it is the hair that may be the key to preserving the appeal of their forebears. "Hair play is essential in these characters," Mr. Heyward said. "You watch girls with these things and they can't stop touching the hair. It's a visceral, maybe even primordial reaction. We're banking on the hair."

From Wikipedia, here are the descriptions of the five trolls. Again, remember that this show is targeted towards girls from 4 to 8:
The protagonists in the series are collectively known as the "Best Friends For Life".

Amethyst Van Der Troll: She is a pretty young troll who loves her friends and would do anything with them. Amethyst is also considerate and gives good advice to her friends. Her gem is a pink heart. She wears a purple top with a matching skirt,a hot pink sash and a bracelet spell beads. She also wears hot pink pump shoes with straps. Her hair is pink with a wave at the top and she has a purple heart-shaped activation gem. Her boyfriend is Coal. She is voiced by Britt McKillip.

Ruby Trollman:. Ruby is the leader of the BFFL. She is really bossy and cares about her looks little too much. If she really wants something she will do anything to get it. Her hair is red and star-shaped and her gem is a red star. She wears an off shoulder white top with a green star on it, jeans, and green sneakers. She has red spell beads. Her boyfriend is Rock. She is voiced by Chiara Zanni.

Sapphire Trollzawa: Sapphire is a smart sweet troll. She is the smartest in the group. When the friends have sleepovers Sapphire just wants to study. Her gem is a blue flower. She wears a long sleeved blue shirt with white cuffs coming out, a pink skirt, ankle socks, and pink flats with a blue flower on top of it. Her hair is blue and tied in a ponytail by a pink bow. And she has glasses on top of her head. Her spell beads are blue. Her boyfriend is Alabaster. She is voiced by Alexandra Carter.

Topaz Trollhopper: Topaz is also sweet and cares about her friends. She loves shopping and a fashion expert. Her gem is a yellow diamond. She wears a white shirt with a pink top over it, a green miniskirt, leg warmers, and multi-colored sneakers. Her hair is yellow and curly. She wears a green scrunchy. She has yellow spell beads. Her boyfriend is Jasper. She is voiced by Leah Juel.

Onyx Von Trollenberg: Onyx is the punk troll of the group. She has a liking for poetry. Her gem is a dark purple cresent moon. Onyx wears a black long sleeved shirt with a white tank top with pink polka dots, a black skirt, pink tights, and black boots. Her hair is dark purple and in two ponytails which are held by pink buckle scrunchies. Her spell beads are dark purple. Her boyfriend is Flint. She is voiced by Anna Van Hooft.

Sarcasm and Condescension Are Counter-Productive

I read the blog and message board of a man whom I dont' really care for. But he's a soundtrack CD producer, this is a topic that interests me, so I read it, even though I cringe with embarrassment at the "voice" he uses when he writes his blog, and on occasion I have told him so - pointing out what I'm going to point out below - but to no avail. He is always right, everyone else is always wrong, on any subject you care to name.

So apparently a company named SAE has brought out a Blu Ray (or Blue and Ray as this guy insists on callin it) of a movie called The Egyptian and people on BlueRay.com were trying to figure out how many copies were left by some sort of complicated alchemy.

So my guy posts that what they're trying to do won't work. Now, if he'd said this in a matter-of-fact way, pointing out his name (he's writing there under a pseudonym, and it is not his usual pseudonym) and that there aren't as many copies of it as they think, etc. the people whom he was correcting would very likely say, "Oh, I see. Thanks for the information."

But he never, ever makes a straight-forward correction in this manner. Every single sentence in his posts (and he made several) reeks of sarcasm and condescension, so much so that if he said this type of stuff directly to someone's face, they'd either slap him or punch him depending on if they were a man or woman - he is that offensive.

SO, he makes his first sarcastic and condescening post, saying he knows it all because he's friends with the producers concerned, and no one believes him because a) we all have read message boards where someone pretends to be a big shot or to know a big shot and b) he's just so sarcastic that people automatically assume he's flaming them instead of actually trying to be helpful.

So after several posts, he finally proves his point, apparently, but gets no apology. And as he posts on his own message boards, in a condescending manner, "No one ever apologizes." As if he really expects people he's subjected to his condescension to want to do anything but puthim on the [IGNORE] list. It's he who should be apologizing to them for being so condescending, and wasting everyone's time with 6 posts when 1, matter of fact post would have accomplished his purpose.

But try as you might (and I'm sure a few folk on his message boards have emailed him privately and pointed it out to him) he just can't or won't realize that it's his own fault that people will never apologize to him (even on those occasions when his facts might have been right). And this puzzles him.

Yet if someone ever posts something sarcastic or condescending in response to one of his announcements (of one of his soundtracks, for example) he goes ballistic. Or really, hysterical and shrill would be a more descriptive phrase.

But of course this guy is not alone in his self-deception, which is why I'm posting this to begin with. Read a sports message board, the sarcasm and rudeness is rife.

The differnece is that the guy *I'm* talking about is 60 years old and you would think he wouldn't be quite so childish at age 60, and the fact that he's a very successful record producer and you'd thus think would be above such childishness...but I guess the truth is that people don't grow out of this childishness, if they indulge in it when they're 20 they'll do it when they're 40 and when they're 60.

Unless they learn, early enough, that their sarcasm just...doesn't....work.

Cartoon Network's Shows for Kids

I'm watching Scooby Doo movies on the Cartoon Network, at 4.47 mountain time.

Just saw an ad for a cartoon that airs tomorrow - the Regular Show. First, it's got something called the Wedgie Ninja. A ninja creeps up on people and gives them wedgies. This evokes a lot of mirth from a green faced character. Then there's some other character who knocks people over, and lays on them until they fart. Another blast of laughter from a green faced character who thinks these jokes are just hilarious.

Not sure what time this show is on...but my god.

And I've just seen a commercial for the Cartoon network. The green faced character acts like he's throwing up, does throw up, but what he vomits up turns into antother cartoon character that turns into another - none I recognize but all who must have shows on the Cartoon Network.

And their catch phrase is enough to make your teeth grit.... "Yeaaaaaaa-ugh." Pronounced Yay - uh.

No wonder American kids today have absolutely no ambition and no manners. God it's sad.

England's Media

Although I have ragging on America media for most of this blog, the truth remains that the media of other countries are far worse.

Go to Germany, for example, and girls age 13 can be buying magazines focused on advice for girls, and they get a male center fold in the middle. (I saw this ten years ago when I was in Germany.)

Japan's television is awful - you can see naked men and women having wheelbarrow races, etc.

And then we've got England, whose papperazi make our papperazi look like choir boys. Most recently of course is the News of the World scandal, where apparently for several years, reporters would hack into the phones of dead people - most recently, a murdered teenage girl. A reporter hacked into her phone and deleted messages - apparently the inbox was full - in hopes that more people would call the phone and leave messages that they could then publish.

But of course what this guy did was make it seem like the girl was still alive (who else could delete messages from phone?) and give her parents false hope when she'd actually been dead for sometime.

Billy the Extermnator - ad

I'm watching some channel... Criminal Minds is on. KCNC, whatever that is, perhaps something out of Colorado.

Anyway they showed an ad for Billy the Exterminator - a guy's "dead body" - cockroaches crawling all over him, one even comes out of his mouth, then the guy smiles. He's not dead, he must be Billy.

How sick is that? How sick do you have to be to like to watch someone exterminating bugs? Not quite as sick as someone who will let the bugs crawl in and out of your mouth, but close. What an awful reality series.

Can that corrupt people who watch it, or do you have to be corrupt before you'd even want to watch it?

Advertisers for Mark Levin

I live in Cheyenne, WY and have just tuned in to a streaming web site for 77 WABC Radi. I thought it came out of Wyoming, but an advert I just heard said New York.

Anyway, prior to that ad came one for the Mark Levin program.

The ad had excerpts from Levin's show which were presumably used to encourage new people to tune in to show.

So - what were these excerpts? "Who is the worst commentator on MSNBC.com?" He then disses Chris Mathews, and various other people whose names I don't recall (I don't watch MSNBC), making snide comments about each one.

Is that why Mark Levin is so popular? Because people tune in to hear him insult others? Is that why Rush Limbaugh is so popular? He doesn't really insult people, just makes fun of them...

But it's interesting - and sad - that radio advertiser makers know that if they want to attract people, they need to have advertisements that consist of people insulting each other or making fun of them.