Couch Critics

You know, all these reality tv shows are turning the audience into a bunch of couch critics. We all think we're experts at judging the caliber of singing (American Idol), dancing (Dancing with the Stars), surviving (Survivor), cohabitating (Big Brother), designing (TLC), dressing (What Not To Wear), landscaping (HGTV), racing around the world (The Amazing Race), losing weight (The Biggest Loser), selection of a bachelor or bachelorette (obvious), raising kids (The Nanny, etc.), giving (The Big Give), working (The Apprentice); you catch my drift. I think everyone is so busy watching everyone else's reality, they can't possibly have time to live their own.

So what does this mean to the world at large? How will anyone ever be able to make their own decisions? How will they handle situations at work? How will they handle personal relationships? How will they decide what outfits match? How will they pick a partner? How will they decide what looks good, on themselves or their houses? How will they make child rearing decisions? Especially if the power goes off...

On another note, I ran into a British citizen in the exceedingly slow drink line at the soccer game the other night and it became obvious to me that the rest of the world is thoroughly enjoying our financial misfortunes. Right now, America is everyone else's playground while we are sinking lower and lower into our dollarless dollar. He was having a heyday running around the west coast while getting twice the value per pound (sterling). Although he was concerned about being able to find anywhere to cash his traveler's checks the next day. I guess all the pounds in the world don't do you any good if you can't get your hands on them.

Hm, I don't like that visual now that I read it back.

Jon Stewart Not HBO

Well, this was a good one tonight with Colin Firth as the main guest and the entire show was spent talking about his penis. It was enough to make me Google search on Colin Firth's penis to see if some Japanese tourist really did get a photograph of it at the urinal in a New York restroom. Actually though, I'd rather just imagine it. The actual sight would undoubtedly be disturbingly inadequate and I just can't bring myself to ruin the image of Mr. Darcy, no matter how tempted I am.



In other news, is John McCain ill? I mean really, he is so pale he looks like an albino and his smiles look more like grimaces. Each morning I keep expecting to hear that he has dropped dead because there is no way he has a clean bill of health from his doctor. What would we be thinking electing someone that old to run this country? How could he possibly take the long hours, the frequent travel, the never-ending schedule day after day? Today I was listening to him tell George Stephanopolous how he was going to miraculously come up with $100 billion his first month in office. What does he know that no one else has known or tried in 200 years? He kind of freaks me out like a marionette or something. Creepy.

Whatever happened to Crocodile Dundee aka Paul Hogan? Is he just sitting in the bush of Australia fat, dumb and happy on his stupid movie residuals. The first movie was bad enough but making two more of the same was the result of someone having way too much money to waste. Actually, the good part about the first one was the scenery. It was the first time I can remember that you saw some great shots of the Australian outback. I have to laugh at some of the shots, especially the romantic scenes on their "road" trip where they must have been stinking to high hell. I do think the scene when they're in New York and the punks try to rob them and he responds with his Bowie knife is good, that's one serious blade. Of course, they couldn't have made the movie these days because he never could have gotten through customs or security.

Well, I need to get ready for work so I'm off. G'day!

Our Country's Youth

You know, I've been watching snippets of the "John Adams" HBO special. Besides the fact that it was exquisitely written and acted, it reinforced the tenuousness of life in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Here today, gone tomorrow, literally. And if something was wrong with you, you simply worked through it until it or something else finally took you. There were no feats of modern medicine to save you, no x-rays, MRI's or CAT scans to let you know what was going on inside. There were no drugs, or very few, to cure you or even to relieve symptoms. Our ancestors were hearty souls to survive long enough even to procreate, let alone to live to any significant age.

If their rotten teeth didn't get them, their appendix did. If the hazards of their livelihoods didn't get them, the critters in their environments did. If they didn't die in childbirth, they died as infants. If they did go so far as to have surgery performed, they frequently died of infection. I fear we frequently forget how far we have come and how fortunate we are to be able to rise above all this.

I also think it was a very special coincidence that John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died on the same day, July 4th, 1826, on the 50th anniversary of the birth of our nation. There has to have been some karma going on there. The last thing John Adams said on his deathbed was, "Jefferson survives". Of course, he actually outlived Jefferson by a short amount of time only. They were soul mates, even though they had their differences at one point, they were closer to each other than any of our key historic figures of that time.

I love history. I can't wait until September when I'm going back to Washington, D. C. to a conference after which Mike will join me and we'll tour the sights for 3 days. He's never been there and I've wanted nothing more than to go back since I was there 16 years ago.

You won't find anywhere that makes you prouder to be an American. The museums there are the one thing you definitely don't mind paying taxes to support. Definitely something to look forward to.

I Was Right!

I saw on the news today that Bill Mahar had to make a public apology for one of the comments he made that last night I watched when he called the Pope a Nazi. I loved the headline, "Are Political Jokes Hurting Democracy"...is that all it takes to hurt democracy. Oh, wait a minute, it's that free speech thing they keep forgetting about. Jeez! Of course, that was just one of many over the top comments he made. You can feel the bitterness and anger just oozing out of him. Not that I have any issue with what he calls the Pope, it's more the way he does it. Although if he feels that way about the Pope, I probably couldn't even bring myself to write in black and white what he thinks of women. He may even scare off HBO if he keeps it up and that takes some serious off-color, profane, racial and/or ethnical slurring. They put up with more than any other network I know. That is except maybe for the network I was watching with Kara's host family in Denmark the first I night I went to visit. We sat and watched a woman playing her naked breasts (substantial in size) to classical music (at least I think it was classical, that didn't stick in my mind as much as the visual effects). The funniest part about it was she had this bright, cheery smile plastered on her face for the entire "performance". Kara's host dad was laughing so hard I thought he was going to fall off the couch, probably more from the look on my face than anything. I wouldn't say I'm a prude but it was more than I was anticipating for my first meeting of the fam.

You have to admit, we can't really top that here without paying a bunch of money to watch "pay for porn". Actually since I've never done that, I can't say for sure but doubt that would be as funny either.

Then there's the other end of the spectrum. My grandson has fallen in love with the Boobah's. You can pull them from On Demand any time you want but I can't do it very often or my daughter tells me I'm providing him with too much tv. So, he only gets to see the Boobah's once in awhile but he loves them so much, they make him giggle out loud, especially when they dance. What is a Boobah you ask? This is one of those cases where you may have to take a quick look to really get the full impact but the closest description I can give is they are pastel colored creatures from outerspace that start out as combination stars/rainbows and end up as these furry, round, shiny, pod people who spring out of flower/cloud thingys and have big, round, springy bodies with limited appendages and four flashing lights across their foreheads. And they only make odd, humming, babyish noises, no talking that you could understand. But the show provides ongoing visual stimulation, it's soothing and happy and encourages activity in an odd way. All I care about is that he loves it and there's nothing harmful about it unless played to excess. And, he asks for "Boobah's" all the time. It's hard for me to say "no" to anything he actually asks for. What can I say, I'm a doting grammie (or mammie as he called me once). Time with him is treasured.

Attitude

Does Bill Mahar have a serious two-ton sized chip on his shoulder or is it just me? I'm trying to figure out who he doesn't hate. He's probably mentioned them but I blinked and missed it. I really like to watch his show but he is just so anti everything, it can get you down. Mostly I like to watch his panels, he does a good job of balancing them so you generally have good back and forth.

He had an interesting guy on tonight. He was a Brit speaking from London with the London Eye posed in the background. His name was Richard Dawkins and his book is entitled, "The God Delusion". Bill was enthralled with it. I think I'd like to read it but doubt that I'll be a raving fan like he is.

I also discovered Bill wrote a book himself in 2005 entitled, "New Rules: Polite Musings from a Timid Observer". Obviously he was writing about someone else. My guess is that it would have the same edge he does. This one will go on my back burner unless someone reliable insists I need to read it now.

Before I graduate to these lofty epics, I need to finish my current Nora Roberts, "Blood Brothers". In fact, I think I'll go read another ten pages now. At this rate, I should finish by May or so. Evelyn Woods has got nothing on me.

Ta, ta!

And Then There Were None

I heard this morning that Charlton Heston died yesterday. Yes, he was an NRA loving, right-wing redneck but he was still part of the glorious and glamorous Hollywood of yesteryear. I've been trying to think if there are any others still left. These are the divine generation survivors I think we still have with us:

- Kirk Douglas (91)
- Doris Day (84)
- James Garner (80)
- Lauren Bacall (84)
- Mitzi Gaynor (77)
- Tony Curtis (83)
- Sidney Poitier (81)
- Harry Belafonte (81)
- Jerry Lewis (82)
- Carl Reiner (86)
- Sid Caesar (85)
- Dick VanDyke (82)
- Walter Matthau (79)
- Charles Durning (85)


- Jean Simmons (79)
- Anthony Hopkins (71)
- Vanessa Redgrave (71)
- Maggie Smith (73)
- Omar Sharif (75)
- Geraldine Chaplin (64)
- Julie Christie (66)



and, last but certainly not least, the lovely lady I saw in person just a year ago, talking about her life in Hollywood and specifically about the making of "Meet Me In St. Louis" with Judy Garland, etc. Would you just look at that face? And her personality had you hooked from the first minute.
- Margaret O'Brien (71)

OK, that's a decent list but look at their ages. The average age is about 79 but that's only because I threw in a couple in their 60's, mere babies. Did you notice how few of the older actors are women? Hm, I thought women were supposed to outlive men? Maybe an actor's life is the exception. Anyway, I feel like every day I need to hold my breath that we don't lose another one.

There just aren't any debonair, dignified, classy actors or actresses to replace these folks or any of those we have already lost. And, I don't suppose there is any way to get that glamor back. I'm afraid we've graduated to tacky/glitzy verging on gaudy these days unless someone has the guts to copy one of those gorgeous gowns and hairstyles of yesteryear. Yes, we have some good actors but they've lost that sheen of class, that patina of dignity, that something special that commands respect. And it's not just me who feels this way, I hear similar lamenting frequently.

Oh well, we're all heading in the same direction, right?

Snow/Sun/Snow/Sun/Snow/Sun/Snow/Sun/Snow

It's not even about the weather being different from day to day, it's literally different weather from hour to hour. Four days ago, we had this for hours, to the point of a white out.

But by 3:00 or 4:00 that afternoon, we were enjoying sunshine like this although it certainly wasn't warm. Of course, that evening, we were back to snow again. If there were a giant, global computer running the weather, I guess you'd say it had a virus because nothing is working as it should or makes any sense.


I guess that means a combination of the two, results in this. Of course, you'd have to go to the mountains to find this exact picture but it's certainly going to be beautiful for the next few days. From freezing (or below) in the morning to the 60's in the afternoon.



It's interesting how many young men who are sports champions get into trouble. The most recent example was a local university's player who severely beat up one of the opposing team's players in a Tijuana tournament. Why does there seem to be so much of this type of violence? Is it just me who believes this is at epidemic proportions? I don't think so.

Is it lousy parenting? No loving or caring? Not being held accountable? Insufficient education? Lack of community support? Prevalence of homelessness? Alcoholism? Drug abuse? Violence-themed entertainment? Lack of jail space? An overcrowded court system? Untreated mental illness? Lack of anger management?

There are so many issues, who is going to address them? Better yet, who is going to fix them? Personally, I don't think it's Hillary who is suggesting the Democratic presidential candidate be selected with a bowl-off...April Fools!