Culture

  • “George Bailey, I’ll Love You ‘Till The Day I Die”

    I was sad to read that Bob Anderson, the actor who played the young George Bailey in “It’s a Wonderful Life” died today, at the age of 75.  I thought he did such a wonderful job of playing a young Jimmy Stewart, and made you care about the character from the get-go. Here’s an interesting tidbit about the filming of the scene where he gets his ear boxed by a very drunk and saddened Mr. Gower, the druggist, played by H.B. Warner: Warner took the role seriously and on the day of shooting had been drinking and was “pretty ripe,” Victoria Anderson said. The scene called for Warner’s character to…

  • Go Big Brown!

    [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoFquax2F-k[/youtube] This video is of Secretariat, who won the Belmont Stakes, and the Triple Crown, in 1973. Even if you’re not into horse racing, this is an amazing horse race to watch. Watch him make all of the other horses look like they’re standing still, as he goes on to win one of the most difficult flat races for 3 year olds in record time (still unbeaten), and make it look EASY. The Triple Crown is within reach of Big Brown, but just because he’s won the first two races does not mean he’ll win today’s Belmont. 11 horses have won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness, and then failed to…

  • Dear Idiots

    Dear Idiots, Did you ever hear the expression, “If it seems to good to be true, it probably is?” Well, all you have to do is look at Wesley Snipes to know that’s true. He decided to throw his lot in with the folks that say that the IRS has no right to tax us, and that Income Taxes are illegal and unenforceable, and where did that get him? In big trouble. I’ll admit, I’ve been intrigued to know if anyone was ever dumb enough to go for these schemes…I mean, don’t you think that if there were an easy, LEGAL way to get out of paying taxes, we would…

  • The “F” Word

    This is a rerun of a post that I originally posted on May 10, 2006.  It seemed a good post to rerun during this month of letters. 😉 Warning…this post contains SWEARING I lived in Fairbanks, Alaska, from the age of 4 until I was 9. It was the early 70’s, and it was much more a frontier society than we have down in the lower 48. I haven’t been back since, so I can’t speak to the modern sensibilities, but I digress. In Fairbanks, at that time, everyone swore. I mean, EVERYONE. At one point, we lived next door to a church, and it wasn’t unusual to hear people…

  • Dear God

    [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mRJOXAZApo[/youtube] Dear god, Hope you got the letter, And I pray you can make it better down here. I don’t mean a big reduction in the price of beer, But all the people that you made in your image, See them starving on their feet, cause they don’t get enough to eat From god, I can’t believe in you. Dear god, Sorry to disturb you, But I feel that I should be heard loud and clear. We all need a big reduction in amount of tears, And all the people that you made in your image, See them fighting in the street, ‘Cause they cant make opinions meet, About god,…

  • Virtue

    I was thinking about virtue today, thinking about what I would consider real virtues, and those that are pushed upon us by society, and that what is virtuous depends greatly upon your culture. For example, in many cultures, it is considered virtuous to remain a virgin until you are married. I suspect this goes back to a man needing to know that the child he is rearing is his own, that he is carrying his own genes on into the next generation. This behavior can even be seen among animals. It is common for a male duck to kill all of a female’s ducklings before impregnating her with his own…

  • TANSTAAFL

    (picture found here) That stands for “There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch”, and when I was growing up as a Libertarian in Fairbanks, Alaska, it was a term that I heard from time to time. If you’re not familiar with the phrase, ‘no such thing as a free lunch’, the concept is that you don’t get something for nothing. For everything you get in life, you give something up, and it’s important to make decisions wisely, and make sure that what you are receiving is worth what you are foregoing. I was reminded of TANSTAAFL the other day in the car, when I was listening to Forum…

  • Kindness

    (picture found here. Kind of a groovy article accompanying the picture as well.) I’ve written about Kindness before. It is the virtue that resonates most deeply with me, because I feel like if more people were more kind more of the time, many of the world’s problems would disappear. If we were more kind to strangers, we would have many fewer problems like road rage and fights in bars. If we were more kind to children, we would raise more kind, thoughtful adults. If we were more kind to our families, we would have more harmony and laughter at home. If we were more kind to ourselves, we would have…

  • Clean Plate Club

    Are you a member of the ‘Clean Plate’ club? Were you raised to finish everything on your plate, lest starving children elsewhere go hungry? I understand parents wanting their children to fill up on healthy, nutritious food, rather than picking at their dinner and then chowing down on dessert. I also understand that food is expensive, takes work to prepare, and shouldn’t go to waste. But forcing your children to finish their food when they’re full isn’t the answer. I was reminded of this on my recent trip to Alaska. My mom was sitting in the hospital, faced with yucky meatloaf. I had gone down to the salad bar to…

  • Can He Make You Thin?

    I’ll confess that I’m hooked thus far on the short term TLC show, I Can Make You Thin. We watched the first episode last week, and it all seemed like good, rational, common sense advice to me. The guy’s name is Paul McKenna, and he’s a Brit who claims he can help you to lose weight without dieting. I’m suspicious of people who say no diets, and then proceed to put you on a diet, ever since Dr. Phil said he was anti-diet, and then put out a whole money making line of products to make money off of people dieting. I don’t like that AT ALL. And this guy…

  • I Voted

    We just got back from voting…It felt ridiculously good to see the names of a woman and a minority on that ballot. No matter which way it goes, today was a good day. I can honestly say that I have never, NEVER felt this way about voting before. We took Maya into the ballot with us, so she could watch history being made. A good day. Updated to add, I have not forgotten that Carol Moseley Braun and Al Sharpton ran last time. He’s a bit of a freak, and neither of them had much of a chance. This is the first time things have gotten so far as to…

  • The Rocky LaPorte Show

    [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yx2FKXg060U[/youtube](Update…look, through the miracle of YouTube, you can enjoy the first segment of this sitcom…you could then go back and watch more, if you want…I don’t know WHY you would want that, but hey, whatever floats your boat!) I answered the phone the other day, and the kind person on the other side of the line asked me if I would be interested in watching a 1/2 hour sitcom if they sent me a DVD, and then they would call me back and ask me questions about it. Cool, huh? And, to thank me for my time, I would be entered into a drawing to win $100 worth of valuable…

  • Blog for Choice Day

    Today is the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, and the 3rd annual ‘Blog for Choice Day’. I participated last year, when the writing prompt was, “Why you’re pro choice“, as well as in 2006, when I declared that I think that the rights of the pregnant woman supersede those of the unborn child, and that the answer to the abortion question shouldn’t be to outlaw it, but rather, to improve medical care, education, and family planning access so that fewer and fewer women find themselves having to make this difficult decision. The writing prompt this year is ‘why it’s important to vote pro-choice’. In an election year, especially an…

  • How To Look Good Naked

    I caught an episode of Lifetime’s new makeover show, How To Look Good Naked, last week. The premise is that style guru Carson Kressley (of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy fame) takes a woman who is unhappy with her body, and helps her to come to terms with it…nay, to LOVE it, to flaunt it, to feel sexy in it. You can see an entire episode, if you wish, here. The episode started with the body-hating woman having a picture of her body, sans head, clothes only in her underwear, shown on the side of a building in Los Angeles, where Carson asked passers by what they thought of…