Entries in the Category "issues"
Liberal crisis!
I want to buy a new TV—a small one, for my bedroom, so that I can move the one that’s currently in my bedroom into my kitchen. I’ve decided this is a necessity based on the fact that ever since I discovered The X-Files was on Netflix Watch Instantly, and that my laptop fits very nicely on a corner of my kitchen counter, my dirty dishes have been cleaned much more regularly. (While I’m still locked into finals, my deal is that I’m only allowed to watch The X-Files if I’m also cleaning the kitchen. See how my mind works? I have to trick myself into doing things like I’m a kindergartner.)
Anyway, I was looking at various online deals, when I suddenly had a guilty little urge to check Wal-Mart.
I don’t shop at Wal-Mart. I have been indoctrinated to think Wal-Mart is terrible. I know that everything in there is way cheaper than you will get it anywhere else, but I also know WHY that is—price gouging and cheating their employees out of health insurance are their main strategies, but, of course, there’s a lot more unnecessarily evil things they are doing.
I ran the search on TVs, and now I have to sit here and know that they have this well-reviewed 19 inch Sharp for about 75% of what other stores are charging for similar products. I want to show integrity and not buy my cheap TV off the backs of the working poor.
But I’M poor! I’m a soon-to-be-unemployed grad student! I hem and haw about whether I really need to buy the name-brand cheese or not!
But…Wal-Mart Watch! Nickel and Dimed!
Now I feel bad for wanting the extra TV at all.
30 Before 30 (Six Month Progress Update), Part 1
Just over one month late! Tee hee. Back in May, I established a 30 Before 30 list, tasks I aspired to accomplish within two years. I'm sure everyone's been wondering how I have doing on this, and so, over a fourth of a way through my allotted time, here is (the first half of) my update!
Click ahead for completed and half-completed items! Check back soon for not-completed and modified items.
Continue reading "30 Before 30 (Six Month Progress Update), Part 1"
MASH, Cuckoo’s Nest, and Internalized Sexism in American Culture
MASH
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
I promised earlier that I would elaborate on why both of these classic films made my AFI hate list and why I pegged them as being sexist. Here I am. Let me first note, for the record, that I have not read Ken Kesey’s book, on which one film is based, nor have I seen any episodes of the TV show spawned by the other film. All my criticisms are restricted entirely to the two movies.
It’s like this; both of these movies were all about that seventies-era rebellion (Easy Riders and Raging Bulls) in which any kind of institution is bad, and rocking the boat is good, even if it makes you an ass. The characters played by Elliott Gould and Donald Sutherland in MASH were, frankly, jerks. Not just to the nurses, not just to their nemesis “Hot-Lips” O’Houlihan (I report that nickname with the same distaste I would have holding a dirty diaper between two fingers). They are jerks to each other, to their superiors, to everybody. Being a jerk was apparently very edgy and cool in the 70s, or so this movie would have you believe. Jack Nicholson in Cuckoo’s Nest was also a jerk. It seemed that he was put into the mental institution because he had played crazy to get out of work duty while in jail, and that he thought this was a pretty awesome plot. Forgive me if I don’t think the same.
Click ahead for more.
Continue reading "MASH, Cuckoo’s Nest, and Internalized Sexism in American Culture"
Staying in school is apparently controversial
So the New York Daily News would have us believe.
Really, the reason President Obama's speech to school children was considered 'controversial' is because he chose to make one at all. Some school districts banned their students from watching the speech; some just allowed their parents to 'opt out' their kids. Why? So they could avoid socialist indoctrination! The right wing is apparently feeling so powerless against Obama's monster charisma that they are seeking to shield their children from seeing him or hearing him at all. (Don't get sucked into his liberal vortex! He'll hypnotize you with his eyes!)
I hope if any of those parents have any education themselves, they're feeling really stupid today, now that the full text of the speech as well as video is online. They can read or see for themselves now and discover that actually, Obama is hammering home the message of personal responsibility, pretty much the most un-socialist tenet there is. You have to stay in school, you have to want to learn, you have to work hard. That's what he said. Don't expect handouts. Don't expect to make a living as a rapper, a professional basketball player, or (this was my favorite) a reality TV star. You know that there are teenagers of all colors out there right now thinking that their golden ticket is not law school, but in fact VH1 and its multiple opportunities to date aging rock stars.
I continue to be surprised by how Obama repeatedly encourages Americans, especially minority Americans, not to allow racism, lowered expectations, or social circumstances to stand in the way of success. Here he tells the members of the NAACP that they need to stand up and raise their kids right. He's drawn some real controversy (legitimate controversy, not stupid controversy) for making statements like this. Some people believe that even a well-intentioned kid can't survive in a broken institution, and that first we have to fix the institution. But Obama's about tough love--don't wait for someone else to lay out the red carpet, I got up at 4:30 in the morning to study, and so must you.
There are a lot of valid viewpoints on both sides of this stance that he's taking. But I think one thing we can agree on is that our president has a lot of nerve, and that's very cool.
to the NAACP: "I want [your children's] horizons to be limitless. I don't -- don't tell them they can't do something. Don't feed our children with a sense of -- that somehow because of their race that they cannot achieve."
to schools, yesterday: "But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying."
My daily outrage
Some group called the National Organization for Marriage produced this ad--I didn't read much about it, but just flew to my blog full of indignation, like The Simpsons' Comic Book Guy after a particularly bad episode of Xena--but from what I understand, it's meant to convince New Hampshire to vote against a gay marriage bill.
UGH.