Archive for November, 2008
November 10th, 2008
Starting tomorrow, you’ll be able to see, not just hear, Rockford’s hometown pop/rock heroes Cheap Trick performance 30 years ago at Budokan in Japan.
According to this story in Rock and Roll Ghost blogspot, the band along with Epic/Legacy will release a four-disc (DVD + 3 CD) package, Budokan!: 30th Anniversary Edition, out Nov. 11.
“This deluxe package is highlighted by the premiere commercial DVD release of a video recording of the second concert, a one hour 15-song program that was broadcast only once on Japanese television 30 years ago.”
November 6th, 2008
The Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network is mad about “The Simpsons” annual “Treehouse of Horror” special, tvsquad.com says. It had a line from Nelson Muntz that they consider a gay slur. Muntz said “that’s so gay” towards Milhouse in a scene in the episode this past weekend.
I cringe when I hear people, mostly teens and 20-somethings, say “That’s so gay.” I also cringe when they say, “That’s retarded.” The phrase “trying to jew someone down” on a price is another one of those hurtful sayings, though that’s not a phrase I hear youngsters using, thankfully.
What should you do when you hear such phrases?
November 5th, 2008
Job No. 1 for Obama: Apply the same organization and discipline you employed to get elected in a landslide to turning the economy around in your first term.
You can do it. Yes, you can. And yes, we can help. Lead us like you led your campaign.
November 4th, 2008
Here’s an inside scoop for fans awaiting the final episode of FX’s gritty, rogue-cop series, “The Shield.”
It’s one that’ll pique the interest of Rockfordians in general as well.
And it’s 100 percent credible because it came right from the writer’s mouth.
Drum roll, please …
One of Rockford’s gems will be mentioned in the Nov. 25 finale, Shawn Ryan told me in a telephone interview last month from his Los Angeles home. The internationally recognized gem: Burpee Museum of Natural History, home to Jane and Homer and other up-and-coming dinosaur bone collections.
Ryan is a Rockford native who created and produces the award-winning, seven-season series about inner-city Los Angeles cops who aren’t above breaking the law. He wrote more than 55 episodes, including the final one. Rockford won’t be mentioned in the last show, Ryan said. All the detail he would provide about this exclusive scoop was to say: “It’s in the dialogue.”
Because Ryan wouldn’t be specific about the context in which the Burpee’s name will be heard on the already completed final show of “The Shield,” I’m entertaining your ideas.
Just for the fun of it, create your own scenario/dialogue in which you think the Burpee’s name could be (or should have been) mentioned in “The Shield” finale, or choose from a couple we at the newspaper have made up.
How could (or how should have) Burpee's name have been mentioned in the Nov. 25 episode of 'The Shield'?
November 3rd, 2008
Newsweek has put a finger on what’s ailing me these days: affluent deprivation.
The term signifies a “state of mind. People feel poorer, because their sluggish income gains get siphoned off into higher taxes, energy costs and health spending.”
“To some observers, we are so materialistic that we can easily make sacrifices. Do we really need fancier grills or more flat-screen TVs? Of course, there’s waste and personal extravagance. But what this argument ignores is psychology. “Luxuries” quickly become “necessities”—cell phones being a recent example. “Getting ahead” feeds people’s optimism, and an upbeat society shows more “tolerance of diversity, social mobility [and a greater] commitment to fairness,” as Harvard economist Benjamin Friedman argued in a recent book. Economic growth has anchored our national self-esteem; slower growth suggests a grumpier and more contentious America.
“Could the economy now be at one of these historic inflection points, when its past behavior is no longer a reliable guide to its future? That is the central question confronting the next president.”
No matter who wins tomorrow’s election, we’ll all have to understand what fuels the grumpiness. Then, we’ll have to get over it, somehow, maybe partly by redefining our expectations.
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