Give Me Good World News or Give Me Death!

So, today I walked into my psychology class and one girl shouted, "OMG, Can you believe the snow storm yesterday??? Yeah, there were people out with snowblowers... geez can you believe we got hail in June. I almost didn't believe the front page of all the newspapers this morning..."

Normally, I would be just as astonished as the next person by hail in June, but that's not what bothered me about what she said. The idea that the FRONT PAGE of major newspapers had pictures of a pathetic snowstorm in June (that honestly only had about a 10 mile radius) instead of the headlines and pictures talking about the millions of Iranians protesting the election that took place last week, the possibility of fraudulent ballot counting, and that police (up until Monday) were beating protesters and journalists alike (one CNN camera man had to hide to keep from getting beaten with a nightstick by the police). The young generation of Iranians are furious that the current regime remained in office and even the Muslim clergy are calling for a recount (the results of which they will formally comment on in 10 days). Political strategists and experts from around the world are claiming that the numbers don't add up and that the results were announced long before they could have been known.

I don't claim to be the most informed person on World News, but if I hadn't watched the news last night, I would have read the paper this morning and thought that the most significant thing happening was a hail storm in Washington Township. And that's just so wrong.

I'm posting a portion of a book written by David Halberstam who is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. This excerpt refers to the failure of the media to do their job and why we've allowed it to happen.

"... sometimes it creates a hopelessly shortsighted view of the future that is damaging both to the company and the society.

Take our media world, and particularly our television networks for examples. Of the many results of the end of the Cold War the amazing surge in the American economy, six thousand points in six years in the Dow during the Clinton years, the rise of nationalism and tribalism in certain parts of the world- the most surprising, and by far the least predictable, was the almost immediate and quite dramatic trivialization of the American political and media agenda, most especially the decline of the important in serious new, above all foreign news from our nightly television screens. It was as if the old geopolitical impulse that had preceded World War II and the Cold War, America apart from the rest of the world, had been restored, especially in an era where, because of the quantum breakthroughs in communications, the pull of home screen entertainment became so seductive. Of our many traditional freedoms was added a new one - the right not to be bored in your own home. We became something unique: a de-facto monopoly superpower, the richest, most powerful nation in the world, binging on self-involvement.

The people who ran the newsrooms in our television networks learned, all too easily, in the eighties that the country was less and less interested in foreign news. It was now considered boring. The world was no longer threatening. Foreign reporters were expensive, and worse, brought low ratings. But celebrity journalism, especially in the period of the end of the Cold War, when the country was binging on self-absorption, brought high ratings. People now cared desperately about the lives of celebrities. Would Tim stay married to Nicole? Would O.J. be convicted? Would Monica ever find true love and marry? If it was journalism at its worst then it was economically viable: celebrity journalism was good for the ratings, which was good for the stock, but of course bad for the country. The senior people who ran the network news empires neglected the cardinal rule of a great editor - the need to balance what people want to know with what they need to know." - War in a Time of Peace by David Halberstam

I'm all for the celebrity journalism (I follow Twilight news like the complete freak that I am) but not on the front page of newspapers and not during prime time news hours.

Things of the Day: Everything is Amazing right now, and nobody is happy...

Soothing Music: One and Two.

Sexy Vampires are Destroying Our Nation's Children

I can't make this stuff up... crazy Floridians.

Interestingly, the rumor about open casting call for the roles of Seth and Leah Clearwater was actually legitimate. Today, they posted instructions for submitting audition tapes online along with the audition scenes. We'll have to wait and see what happens.


In the year 3000, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook will merge to form one giant time-wasting website called YouTwitFace.

Miscellaneous

I'm just going to provide a collection of random things for today's blog.

My friend J.R. sent me a really funny, geeky joke. If you don't get it, no worries - it has to do with harmonic motion (physics). But I think it has introduced me to a site that I'm going to quickly become addicted to.

Cute - Turns out that the Twilight Stars really do stick together (that they really know the Twilight Saga) as evidenced by the fact that Kristen and Taylor really lobbied for the three-way date scene with Mike Newton to get put in the movie. Every twilighter knows that it's one of the few humorous scenes in New Moon so it's nice that that the stars understood that it needed to be in the movie.

Mandy Moore's new album, Amanda Leigh, came out last week (I think) and it's very folksy (which I love) and very Joni Mitchell influenced (which I also love). Two favorites are I Could Break Your Heart Any Day of the Week and Song About Home which is so Joni Mitchell it's amazing (just ignore the first 6 seconds which are weird).

AskMen.com has put together a Top 10: Reasons Women Love Vampires. It's pretty good.

Thing of the Day... picture time! I have way too much time on my hands...

Top 10 Favorite Things About the 2009 MTV Movie Awards

Here's what I loved best about this year's MTV Movie Awards

10.) Jim Carey, Rob, and Prop 8

9.) Every time Twilight won an award, the winner thanking the fans AND Stephenie Meyer

8.) Twilight winning best picture

7.) Andy Samberg (the intro with the Twilight spoof, the reference to Edward Cullen in the rap, the Twilight bet, the Trailer spoof, the list goes on...)

6.) Eminem getting Bruno's crotch in his face (even if the whole thing was staged, it was hilarious)

5.) When accepting the award for best fight, Rob admitting that in real life, Cam would have just kicked his ass

4.) Rob winning break through performance by a male and talking about how he sh*t his pants

3.) Kristen Stewart dropping her MTV Movie Award for best female performance

2.) Watching Rob laugh at Kristen for dropping her award.

1.) The New Moon Trailer

Things of the Day: My two favorite New Moon Trailer reactions.
1.) Watch the volume at the end, otherwise the screams will blow out your eardrums.
2.) Not sane, but not crazy either.

Cinematic Adventures!

So, I've seen a couple of movies in the last few weeks and wanted to take the opportunity to talk about them.

First, requires no introduction. STAR TREK. It was fantastic and even my Trekkie mother thought it was awesome. Zachary Quinto was an awesome Spock (although there is a consensus that he never would have said thank you to Ahura) and Chris Pine was a pretty good Kirk (I liked him better than Shatner). Plus, McCoy was dead on and amazing... ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR VULCAN MIND?!?!?!? haha, awesomeness. They've officially given the sequal the green-light and I'm excited about it.

Second, Angels & Demon - meh. It was entertaining, but not very much like the book and there is one Ewan MacGregor scene that is meant to be serious and just comes across as ridiculously funny. I did like Tom Hanks much more without the mullet and Angels & Demons is much more artistically appealling because of all the churches and the papal dressings than The DaVinci Code.

Finally, if you have not seen this movie, you are completely missing out. It's called Taken and it's a Liam Neeson movie that is just so bad ass. Don't read anything about it (not even the summary on the back of the DVD). Just go into it knowing it's a good movie and just let the movie do all the work. I'M NOT KIDDING - GO SEE IT RIGHT NOW!

More posts to come...