I know I am late to the game with show, and I know he is rude, insensitive, foul-mouthed, amoral, and, in general, an ass, but Ari Gold is my new personal hero.
Strange Doings Down Under
An interesting solution to the problem of school truancy:
An Australian high school hopes to stop beach-loving students from bailing out of class by making surfing an approved subject.
Byron Bay High School will offer surfing as part of a recreation course that from next year will count toward a high school certificate in New South Wales state.
“You’ve got students who are at risk of dropping out of school and the school has developed this course as a way to provide a pathway for these students into future employment and keep them connected to education,” state Education Minister Carmel Tebbutt said.
Hehe.
Things Change
I have a sinus headache, so I have been parked on the couch sedated since 4 this afternoon, and basically just channel-surfing (reading makes my head hurt worse, for whatever reason). At any rate, Grease just came on HBO, and I swear I have not seen it since 82-84 (also on HBO then). I remember watching it as a kid, and thinking it was a really dirty movie. We were really acting wild as kids (I was 12ish then) watching it.
At any rate, I am watching it now, and it really is easy to see why folks like Brent Bozell blow a gasket about every perceived display of vulgarity on television. Grease, by today’s standards, is a kids show.
I don’t think that makes Bozell and his guys right when they wage their silly wars, and I don’t know if there is any way to really judge whether we are worse or better off because times have changed. Not to mention, we simply aren’t going to turn back. Likewise, I am sure someone 20 years older than me could point to a show from the 50’s and make the same sort of claim I am making here.
But it is illustrative of how much things have changed, and how little time it has taken for the change to happen. America is changing, and fast. Our culture, our values, our way of life. I don’t think that is necessarily a bad thing, but when you sit back and look at things, it does go a long way to explain the sometimes incoherent rage expressed by certain segments of society about the ‘coarsening of the culture.’
The United States of 2005 isn’t the United States of 1978 as expressed in Grease. And it is a long way from the USA of the 60’s and 50’s, which a lot of people seem to peg as the glory years. While I prefer the technological advancements and the advances in individual rights (particularly for previously marginalized groups), we have lost a lot of what could alternately be characterized as innocence or naivete.
Back to the couch.
(BTW- I do think a particular scene in The Postman Always Rings Twice is the filthiest thing I have ever watched).
I should add that my mother, who has been to hundreds of Broadway shows, hates Grease. “I don’t like it. They took a perfectly nice girl and turned her into someone who looks like a slut.”
Rome
What did you all think of HBO’s new series Rome?
The Tinkerbell Strategy?
Alright- I know what the Chewbacca Defense is, but I have no idea what the ‘Tinkerbell Strategy’ is…
Fill me in, please.
Live and Let Die
Pierce Brosnan is no longer Bond:
A single, surprising phone call and it was over. That’s how Pierce Brosnan says he learned that his services as James Bond would no longer be required.
“One phone call, that’s all it took!” the 52-year-old actor tells Entertainment Weekly magazine in its Aug. 19 issue.
Brosnan starred in four Bond films. He says that before they stopped negotiations, the producers had invited him back for a fifth time.
“You know, the movie career for me really started with Bond,” says Brosnan, acknowledging that by the time GoldenEye premiered in 1995, he was already 42.
He then starred as 007 in Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), The World Is Not Enough (1999) and Die Another Day (2002).
Personally, I thought he was a great Bond. Connery was still the best, though. Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton were abominations.
Diversity Bookbags
And then you read stories like this and understand completely why Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council are so popular:
Massachusetts law provides that parents must be notified when children are going to be taught about sex and specifically homosexuality, so the parents may pull the kid out of that class if they choose. Seems reasonable.
Well, five year olds were given “Diversity Bookbags” which included a book showing some families having two mommies and two daddies. Parents were not informed.
The school takes the curious position that depicting same-sex coupling is not, in fact, any sort of mention of homosexuality that would trip the law. So they refused to notify parents.
One parent showed up to demand to know if he’d be informed of any future such non-mentions mentions of homosexuality for his kindergartener.
He wouldn’t leave until he had that assurance, which they wouldn’t give. They were nice enough, however, to have him arrested for criminal trespass, and thoughtfully arranged for him to spend the night in jail.
More here.
*** Update ***
Well, score one for the wingnuts- they fooled me and Ace. This isn’t as cut and dried as the two news stories make it- this guy is clearly an activist with an agenda.
Personally, any way you slice it or dice it, I don’t think the schools need to be sending home ‘diversity bags’ with reading material that may offend parents. Especially not with kindergartners. But there is more to this than meets the eye. I will try to have a summary of what is going on later.