Conspiracy

The other day I was listening to the radio and I was listening to one those conservative guys who was yacking about how in the next short period of time president Obama's budget will raise the deficit by some large number. It's interesting how there have always claims on how the incumbent president of the opposite party will destroy the economy in the next decade or so, yet the nation is still standing. For example after the President Obama's first State of the Union address Governer Bob McDonnel (R-VA) said the deficit was scheduled to double in some interval of time and triple in another period of time. Some fact checkers that his statement was way off. Anyway, someting this gut on the radio said was that he wasn't into conspiracies such as the theory that the president wasn't born in the U.S. He might have said he wasn't into conspiracies because that makes him seem legit. However, later he said that President Obama's book was written by his friend William Ayers because it's Ayer's style instead of Obama's. If you ask me that statement is a conspiracy.

Bold Blue America

Last night during the opening ceremonies of the olympics they were showing a long parade of the athletes of each participating country. When a country came out of the doorway there was this diamond window on the side that would show a map of of the world and then it would zoom in on the featured country and it would be filled in with blue, but what didn't make sense was that when they showed the world map the United States was always filled in with blue. I wonder why America was always filled in blue, if they were to show Canada filled in with blue that would make sense because they're the host nation but instead it was the U.S., it might've had something to do with NBC being an american company, some people might view this as racist. I thought the rest of what I saw of the opening ceremony was pretty boring. When I was young the opening ceremonies for the Sydney olympics they had people that drink some liquid and then they would breathe fire and I thought it was the awesomest thing ever. This year all I saw was some fiddlers and dancers and some kid pretending to run on this holographic field and then was flying around with some harnesses, it was probably pretty cool from the audience's point of view but it wasn't cinematic at all.

Princess and Frog

Summary: This article is talks about the upcoming movie, The Princess and the Frog. It talks at the beginning about how this movie has been under a "microscope" because of accusations that Disney has been racist is movies like Dumbo. In this movie the princess isn't a helpless woman whom always needs to be rescued. According to this article there is a Village Voice article that says part of the reason that the princess  turns into a frog is that if she is a frog the filmmakers don't have to worry to much about race relations, the prince is supposed to be Spanish which apparently some people are mad about because they think he should also be black.

Response: I think that it's a brave move of Disney to have African American princess. But I think that it's a little risky on their part because viewers are inherently going to assume that the filmmakers are white men so if it's bad people are going to get really mad at Disney for not being culturally diverse enough. The article brought up the concern that if the movie doesn't do well in the box office people will assume that the world is not racially accepting enough. Reading this article reminded me of the 6th season where Melinda Doolittle only got 3rd place despite consistently being considered the best, I think that might have been because the majority of Americans are white so Melinda didn't appeal to them as well. I think that this movie's main disadvantage isn't race, but animation style. These days Pixar like animation is becoming more and more popular while traditional animation is becoming less popular. I also find it interesting that this movie takes place in New Orleans instead of some fictional fantasy land. 

One of the reasons that those Mickey Mouse Monopoly people where mad at Disney is that media companies like those are mainly controlled high ranking rich white men. However, the reason we have to read boring books in school is because they are "classics," but the people who decide what a "classic" is are probably smart Ivy League English professors and I imagine the majority of them are white men. Is anyone saying "screw literature stupid white men selected those books," probably not.

Washington Julie. The Princess and the Frog is under a microscope as viewers analyze how Disney portrays its first black heroine. The Princess and the Frog is under a microscope as viewers analyze how Disney portrays its first black heroine Movies - cleveland.com -. Cleaveland.com. 05 Dec, 2009. 06 Dec 2009

Carrie Prejean

Summary: This article is about Perez Hilton criticizing Miss California Miss Prejean for an interview on Larry King where she is promoting her book. In the interview she says that people should never do what they wouldn't want there biggest fans to see. When Larry King asked her if she had any regrets she said that she regrets decisions that she made when she was a teenager and a sex-tape of her was made but she has no regrets relating to the beauty pageant.

Response: I think that people and the media were to mean to Carrie Prejean. To me it seems that she won the California pageant and than they rescinded the award for a political position and than made up an excuse to make it look like they're not politically biased. What interesting about the beauty pageant controversy is that in order to win you don't need to be smart or have good values, and now that there was a contestant with good values and who was willing to stick up for them she loses because of it. But to be fair if Miss Utah was a frontrunner is the Miss USA pageant and she was asked if she supports same-sex marriage and said yes we would probably get really mad and want to rescind her Miss Utah award, although the people at the Miss USA audience would cheer as if they were BYU fans at the end of that 2006 game against The University of Utah. This reminds me of a Simpsons episode where Marge is at some city meeting and she says something like she enjoys being a mother and everyone there boos her.

Fernandez Maria Elena [Updated] Carrie Prejean accuses Larry King of being inapproprate and then fails to walk off his set, Los Angeles Times, 12 Nov. 2009. Web. 15 Nov. 2009

Rush Limbaugh

Summary: Apparently Rush Limbaugh was reading President Obama's thesis frmo Columbia University where President Obama was dissing the constitution and being critical of the founding fathers. What's funny is that what he was reading was not the president's thesis, a satire from a humor blog and he took it seriously. (I am proud to say that I as well have a humor blog) Rush Limbaugh did not apologize.

Response: To me Limbaugh seems to be behaving like a little kid.  It seems all political comedians do is find as many ways to criticize the opposite party and they behave totally rudely there not open minded and they don't apologize. I really wish those political people were more open minded and fair because then they would be more interesting to listen to. That fact that he was reading something from a humor blog makes me wonder two things. First of all, where is he getting his information, this makes me think that he just googles stuff all day to look for stuff that he can use without caring about wether or not it's credible. Second, how smart is he, if someone takes a satire seriously it makes me question how smart their reasoning is, it also makes me wonder how smart that blogger is because if he can make a satire that someone takes seriously than he's probably really smart.

This story doesn't seem to have gotten m too much attention so it makes me wonder if maybe this is a hoax. It would be quite embarrassed if it was.

Saul Michael "Limbaugh falls for Obama thesis hoax - but is in no Rush to apologize" Limbaugh falls for Obama thesis hoax - but is in no Rush to apologize Daily News 25 Oct. 2009 01 Nov. 2009

Fox News

Summary: This article by the LA times talks about how President Obama and his advisors are trying to tell news networks to shun Fox. It also talks about how people think they should be entertained by all sorts of things including the news which is part of the reason that John Stewarts's and Stephen Colbert's shows are so popular.

Response: I don't think it's right for the Obama administration to attack Fox. I think that Fox may be ridiculously biased against against his administration but there is still media that is ridiculously biased for him and it seems to me that he just ignores it and says they're not affiliated with each-other; There is always ridiculously biased media against and for every administration, it's not immoral, it's just how the system works.

This is a little unrelated but I think it's interesting how about a year ago during election night they kept saying that either candidate still might win even when declared Ohio for Obama, almost every president won Ohio, and then when Obama finally got to half of the votes they were calling it "landslide," it was not a landslide, they just said that because it helps the ratings.

Rutten Time. Obama's misguided Fox hunt. Obama's misguided Fox hunt -- latimes.com Los Angeles Times. 23 Oct. 2009. Web. 25 Oct 2009.

Office wedding

Summary: On Thursday NBC aired an episode of the office where Jim and Pam finally got married and apparently a lot of online reviewers said that it was a great episode, one of the best and that it deserves Emmy nominations.

My response: I think this episode was kind of funny but I think I was pretty disappointed. My hope was that the marriage between Jim and Pam would be an awesome two hour series finale, partly because now that they are married the viewers have less to care about, although considering that Pam is pregnant I'd actually be mad if they hadn't gotten married. I think the reason that people praised the episode so much is that Pam and Jim getting married has been so anticipated that they wanted to tell people it was a good episode even though it wasn't that good, maybe Michael getting married will the awesome two hour series finale, but hopefully not to Pam's mom.

LA Times can The Office wedding episode catch Emmy Bouquet? Can The office wedding episode catch Emmy bouquet? Gold Derby Los Angeles Times - Windows Internet Explorer 9 Oct 2009. 11 Oct 2009.