here was no fanaticism or intolerance in [Pastor] Lund. Like
a long line of Lutheran ministers I had known before him, he was well-meaning
if somewhat narrow in his views and comfortable in his faith without being
smug. At the same time, it had always impressed me that in the hands of men
like Lund, the strange, bloody, and wonderous Christian story inevitably turned
rather drab.”
Now That's a Watching Party. The husband of a contestant on RTL's Press Your Luck 2019 (airing on ABC, produced by the German television network Radio Television Luxembourg) made some crazy tee-shirts for the viewing party when the episode she taped in May debuted. Contestants of the ten-episode summer third revival of the 1977 Second Chance (ABC daytime) and 1983-86 Press Your Luck (CBS daytime) William A. Carruthers Company and 2002 Whammy!The All New Press Your Luck (GSN) production were told of their air dates afterwards, and a watch party was organised by the contestant's husband.
Ironically, the contestant's opponents ended up with red fur as both of her opponents were disqualified from the game for reaching the Chinese adage why elevators do not carry the number of a certain NASCAR Monster Energy Series champion that won his first race Sunday. (It's used in Asian-themed cooking shows also why they assign certain number of servings they avoid that number of servings too!)
Is This the Future? The controversy over the Women's World Cup National Football Team that won it all continues. But meanwhile, as we see masculine failure around us, the question will arise as more "equal pay" and "equal use of venues" becomes the issue thanks to Title IX, and even research by groups. In college, a student who was my classmate did his Senior Thesis paper on how Title IX abuse ran him out of his previous college, as he was a wrestler on scholarship and lost his scholarship and his admission to the school as a result of abusing the Patsy Mink Education Act of 1972. I made a reference in 2012 to the consequences, but after women scored $3,000,000 in the last World Cup and men were BUST (as they say in RTL's Card Sharks bonus round, another classic game show revived for 2019, but I am not a fan of how slow the game is because Joel McHale doesn't do it the way Bob Eubanks and the late Bill Rafferty or Jim Perry did the game), the debate opens.
The controversy over the national football team will be a warning for parents of boys. The feminine superiority and masculine failure wil lead to the advancement of ideals in high schools, as we see participation of sports by boys drop and girls rise in many states. Friday Night Lights will soon be girls' high school futbol, with dance teams dancing at halftime. Boys will soon be losing their entire extracurricular activities as Title IX activists will ensure only girls are allowed to have events, and boys will not. Dance teams are replacing cheerleading at many schools because it is girls only while cheerleading is becoming coed in order to give boys who are proficient at gymnastics (which for men is a strength sport, as seen in high bars and rings) and want to be in CrossFit (gymnastics activities are required in those events) a chance to participate in strength activities. In New York, we learned when new schools opened, only girls could have sport activities in the schools to meet Mink Act rules. Will boys be subject to these heinous rules in new schools first as schools try to appease the wishes of these authorities working to eliminate masculinity?
You wonder what's next.
What Are You Teaching? Visiting a church in the area after a long day out of town, there is a discipleship training class (which is an evening Bible study before church services). As we went through Elijah's story of discouragement, somehow Mendelssohn's Elijah came back to my head after reading about "O Rest In the Lord" and "If With All Your Hearts". Those songs were written from the oratorio based on the Bible. Compare that to today's modern worship songs based on feelings of the writer, and not a single part from the Bible. Go figure. Why are we teaching feelings instead of objective Word? That's part of the problem in our culture today.
Regietheater Run Rampant. So MGM/UA and EON have decided James Bond is retiring and will be in Jamaica for the next film, while regietheater freaks have replaced him with . . . someone in the PC world. This person fits all the checkmarks of the modern progressive movement. What?
A Tribute. The Take-No-Prisoners editor of The Washington Times, Wesley Pruden, died Wednesday at 83, hours after just another hard day of work for the legendary editor. The man who was that newspaper from its 1982 founding all the way to the end of his life just hours after finishing up another day at the office leaves a legacy of a newspaper he edited and knew how to do things. Sadly, Amazon, which indirectly owns the rival The Washington [BLEEP], left insults at Mr. Pruden's stepchildren that Media Research Network noted.
An appreciation of Wesley Pruden can be found here.
The current Hollywood crusade (well, one of them anyway) is inclusion and color-blind casting.
The live-action adaptation of Disney’s The Little Mermaid will feature an African American as Ariel; the new 007 will be a black female. Other characters originally established as one race and one gender have been played by those outside those groups in projects related to Harry Potter, Frozen, Marvel’s Thor, and nearly every other fictional construct introduced in times now rebuked as less enlightened.
As a result, though they would never dare say it aloud or post it on social media, actors cursed with the affliction of being Caucasian may wonder if there will now be fewer roles open to them.
But fear not – this shift in perspective has resulted in a new and flourishing growth segment in the lucrative field of television commercials: the clueless white guy.
If you choose to watch a few commercials instead of fast-forwarding past them, it won’t be long before you’ll spot one of the copious examples of this popular trope. Usually, the ad opens with our dim-witted protagonist saying or doing something no rational human being would ever dream of doing, until he is shown the error of his ways by a smarter, better-looking, and just plain cooler person of color.
I was going to list several examples, but watch TV for five minutes and you’re sure to spot one. Or check out this compilation that someone put together on YouTube.
To be clear, there have been clueless white guys in commercials dating back to the 1950s. Demonstrating the benefits of one product was frequently achieved by introducing some hapless soul still using ‘brand X,’ who has yet to realize what he’s been missing if he’d only switch.
But as everyone else in those commercials was also white, there was no association between his race and his obliviousness. Today these same scenarios play out with the same frequency, but when it comes to filling the role of the dumb sap, casting directors find themselves limited in their options. To have a white person explain to a person of color that the product they are using is wrong would clearly send an inappropriate message. Reversing the roles is the easiest way to avoid condemnation.
Is there anything wrong with this? I don’t know. If every role should be open to every actor, that should mean heroes and villains, geniuses and dullards, cool kids and nerds, can all be played as easily by a man from Hong Kong, Mexico City, or Somalia as they can by someone from Nebraska.
If this is penance for the stereotypes of decades past, then it’s apparently appropriate to right a wrong against one group by perpetrating it on another. Once everyone gets to be in the alpha class for a while, perhaps we’ll reconvene and figure out something else.
Either way, the Republic will survive. And as an observer of television I just find it interesting. If this writing gig doesn’t pan out, it’s good to know that I may have a future in commercials, as the guy who can’t figure out how kitchen appliances work.
