I am absolutely sick and utterly disgusted with people like Hillary Clinton and Bill O'Reilly blaming violence on video games. I am absolutely thrilled and utterly astonished to find a terrific video on YouTube which makes some excellent points from the other side of the table. You may have seen this already, but it deserves to be seen again and it needs to be passed along.
So please, if you haven't seen it give it a watch and tell your friends. Sadly we have respected liberals like Clinton who are looking for any excuse to absolve parents of their responsibilities for the way they bring their children up and we have conservatives like O'Reilly who are just itching for ways to bring religion back to the power and sway it held back in the days of Galileo.
The truth of the matter is that poor and negligent parenting and peer influence contribute to youth violence, and religion has historically fomented more violence than any other single cause. This isn't to say religion is wholly bad, but the recent religious/political movement is extremely reactionary and attempts to replace fact with fiction as with so-called "Intelligent Design". And the way things are going if we don't actively defend science, reason and even First Amendment rights against these attacks we risk losing them and falling down into a modern version of the dark ages.
[coolplayer]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8×14cLGh5o&eurl=[/coolplayer]
Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera were the dynamic duo behind virtually every major Saturday-Morning cartoon I remember growing up, with the noteable exception of the Smurfs. But with a resume spanning decades and including titles such as Yogi Bear, The Flintstones & Scooby Doo even the Smurfs seem a small accomplishment.
Joe Barbera died today. He was 95. His partner of so many years passed away in 2001. The era of the cartoons created by those two men ended many years ago, but today I just wanted to be nostalgic for a bit. From the humorous to the clever, Hanna-Barbera cartoons were always entertaining and through the years and the many series the only thing that could be said to remain the same from cartoon to cartoon was the simple and effective stylings of the drawings themselves.
And so farewell Mr. Barbera. Only a few men can be said to influence entire generations of children and you were one such man. Godspeed.
- one
Although on the surface the two shows have little in common, their similarities run deep. Both SciFi Channel's Battlestar Galactica and
NBC's Heroes (which can also be seen on the SciFi channel) are gripping dramas with incredibly well-written characters who are true to themselves being put into extraordinary situations which tie the overall arc of the story together and keep pushing it further with each episode.
On its surface the show borrows quite a lot from the X-Men comic series, but frankly and as much as I love Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart, Heroes paints a much more intensely believable world. Clearly there's a big difference between telling a complex story in 120 minutes and telling it in 20+ 46 minute episodes, but just as clearly the latter has a lot more potential and the producers of Heroes haven't wasted an ounce of it.
I'm aware that many fans in TV-land favor The Shield, but I've got to say I stopped watching because there was too-much side-story and not enough main-event. Not as bad as X-Files, and the side-stories were well-written, like this week's Galactica, but if BSG made those episodes the norm instead of the exception I'd stop watching them also. It's all about the quality and I don't play favorites.
24, another fan-fave, I find (and always have) to be a bit artificial in plot construction. I still watch it because the characters are terrific and they overall plot keeps moving nicely, but it is still too flawed to be a contender for "Best Show on Television". TIME magazine bestowed that honor on Battlestar last year but this year it may be Heroes that gets the nod for top-spot.
Certainly it is the best NEW show on television, without a doubt. For anyone that likes their TV shows complex and extremely well-written, if you haven't seen Heroes I highly recommend you do. It comes back on the air New Years Day with a marathon that will bring you up-to-speed, but if you can't wait NBC has jumped on-board with a new fad I actually quite like: Offering episodes of their show, streaming in their entirety from their website. They're going to start broadcasting new episodes (second half of season 1) on January 22. Check it out, I promise you will not be disapointed.
- one
