Culture – Page 48 – Doug's Views

August 19, 2006April 18, 2020

Who cares about the murder of JonBenet?

It must be August – the dog days of summer – when our supposed mainstream media have nothing to report so we get stories right out of the old “True Crime” magazine. Just like the obsession on the Scott Peterson case, or the missing co-end in Aruba, the media seem to obsess about scandalous stuff.

For example on the same day the suspect in JonBenet’s murder was arrested, a federal judge in Detroit ruled President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping was unconstitutional. I have news alerts setup with my local media and news sources like Google and Yahoo. I got 2 alerts for the wiretapping announcement. I got 4 alerts for the murder case.

Which one do you think I think is more important?

If you said the wiretapping case you win.

Don’t get me wrong. I do think it is good that it seems they solved the murder case, but when an entertainment news show like Access Hollywood does a feature on the arrest – you know there are problems with decisions on what is news.

A murder occurs somewhere in the world every day. For example in the year of JonBenet’s death in 1996, Washington, DC reported 400 murders. Covering just one murder with so many resources, the media is pandering to the salacious side of people. It also seems a bit bigoted. The cases that seem to be focused on involve the death or kidnapping of white females.

It all just makes me turn the channel.

August 10, 2006April 18, 2020

Where have you gone Dexter Fletcher?

Dexter Fletcher

I was watching the TV last night as the History Channel was playing – yet again – the series “Band of Brothers”. It is the 10 episode series about the men of Easy Company of the 101st Airborne during World War II, that was first shown on HBO in 2001. It is produced my Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks.

Don’t get me wrong. I love the series and I watch every time the History Channel shows it, but they do tend to over do it sometimes with repeats (but not near as bad as AMC or VH1). I like how they added to the realism of the battle scenes like Spielberg did in “Saving Private Ryan” as well as having episodes viewed from the POV of different characters.

So while watching it I was surfing the IMDB and Wikipedia looking at info on the series. Looking at the bios of the cast I came onto the guy who played SSgt. John Martin in the series. The name of the guy was Dexter Fletcher. The name sounded familiar so I looked at his filmography and my jaw dropped.

Fletcher played none other than Charles Highway in the film “The Rachel Papers” in 1989. It is one of my favorite movies of that time period. I had read the book and also enjoyed the film. The real reason I saw it the first time back then was it also starred Ione Syke of “Say Anything” fame and regular bad ass James Spader.

July 31, 2006April 18, 2020

History of MTV

At 12:01 am on August 1st 1981 Music Television – MTV for short – signed on the air. The cable channel changed the cultural landscape in many ways – not all of them positive. MTV made style more important than talent. It opened up the Reality TV genera. It lowered the collective attention span of a generation. Back in 1981 it was new and fresh and something we had to have. It also started the trend of music video channels not showing videos.

Ironically the 25th anniversary of MTV is being celebrated on the sister channel VH1 Classic, which includes the demographic that was around when MTV started. Officials at MTV didn’t think kids today would care about the start of the channel since it pre-dated their own birth.

VH1 Classic will broadcast the entire first day of MTV starting at 12:01 am August 1st until August 2nd.

Recently VH1 Classic has been showing the videos from the 1st hour of the 1st day of MTV as a taste of the special broadcast. The only one well known today as a trivia answer is “Video Killed the Radio Star” from the band The Buggles. It was the very first video played. There is also 2 videos from groups who I never heard of before seeing their clips. Here is a list of the videos played in the first hour:

1. Video Killed the Radio Star – The Buggles
2. You Better Run – Pat Benatar
3. She Won’t Dance With Me – Rod Stewart
4. You better you bet – The Who
5. Little Suzi’s on the Up – Ph.D
6. We don’t talk anymore – Cliff Richard
7. Brass in Pocket – The Pretenders
8. Time Heals – Todd Rundgren
9. Take it on the run – REO Speedwagon
10. Rockin’ the Paradise – Styx
11. When Things Go Wrong – Robin Lane and the Chartbusters
12. History Never Repeats – Split Enz
13. Hold on Loosley – .38 Special

Another trivia note – MTV evolved from the program “Sight and Sound” on the experimental interactive cable channel Qube that was based here in Columbus, Ohio back in the late 70’s.

July 7, 2006April 18, 2020

Religious Right lies about Mt. Soledad Cross

I don’t normally cross-post on my blogs but the following post on my Secular Left blog is an important issue to me — dlb

The US Supreme Court, more specifically Justice Anthony Kennedy, issued a stay of a lower federal court ruling that said the Mt. Soledad Easter Cross is unconstitutional and it needed to be removed from the city of San Diego’s property by August 2nd or the city would be fined $5,000 a day. The religious right and the pandering city officials who keep this case alive follow the same pattern the so-called Christians seem to follow – lying, name calling, character assassination, fraud, delays, and contempt of court.

Read he full article here:

Religious Right lies about Mt. Soledad Cross

May 29, 2006April 18, 2020

Some sad news – “Breakfast Club” principal dies

Paul Gleason has died of lung cancer. He was 67. The actor, who played Principal Richard Vernon in The Breakfast Club in 1985, passed away in a Burbank, California, hospital on Saturday of mesothelioma, a rare form of lung cancer linked to asbestos.

http://www.imdb.com/news/wenn/2006-05-29/#3

I never knew he was the Principal – I thought he was a teacher stuck babysitting the Saturday detention group. The guy was a big dick (in the movie) – that’s why I always thought he was just a teacher pulling detention duty – like he pissed off the admin and they put him on it. That would be very ironic given the plot of the film.