First, I would like to thank the reader(s) I have. I really appreciate the comments. One of my best friends told me how he was highly amused about the fact that the plot of Julie and Julia was missing from my entire review, which I didn't notice until after I had written the thing. I have high standards for friends, they keep me in check. This friend would be the one from a ridiculously musically talented family who can also solve a 3 sided rubix cube in 17.34 seconds. Yes people, props to him.

Moving on. I wanted to mention that rarely will my posts be movie reviews or things of that nature. It really isn't the purpose of my blog to be a pop culture critic, but rather just to voice my thoughts on things. If that's what I'm thinking about, that's what I'll post, but it'll be rare.
__________


Mr. Woods

In Media and Society we usually watch a few minutes of CNN while we wait for class to start and when the screen came up today it happened to be during Tiger Wood's apology speech.



I tried to get the full video off of CNN's channel on Youtube, but alas, they seem to think embedding just sin't cool enough. The video above is a small snippet from CBS (who believe embedded is supercool).

Now, I'm in no way a fan of Tiger Woods. I think golf is dull. His actions are, of course, inexcusable. Every time an athlete does something stupid everyone stands back and acts like, "Whoa, how did this happen?" or "Why would he do that?" or even better, "I never would've thought they were capable of such a thing." I can only frown when people say things like that and shake my head.

Am I the only one that does not have very high expectations for athletes? They earn a ridiculous amount of money moving a ball around. Every time one of them comes out admitting they did steroids or whatever else, I just nod and think, "Yep, thought so," because I never really bought into their image in the first place. Wake up people.

Watching the apology speech though, I have to applaud Tiger Woods for something. For having some balls. He didn't just come out with the traditional, "I'm sorry" but he also took all the blame for what's happened. He cleared up all the rumors that had been flying about he and his wife and told the media to back off his family. That takes some guts, even if it was totally scripted. I in know way endorse his actions, but I simply don't care. With the amount of people that cheat on their spouses, it's nothing special really.
__________


What kind of fish is that anyway?

As I was stumbling around the internet this fine day I came across a little comic that I thought was kinda funny and went along with the above news.



Isn't that nice? I thought this summed up my generation pretty well. When I flip through the channels on the television and see shows like Jersey Shore and Teen Mom, this is what I think about. I also tend to wish that people would stop watching them so they would go out of business, but we both know that's never going to happen.

With the values my generation has, God knows what the next generation's going to be like. "Mommy, what's that leaf tattooed on your leg?" "Daddy, why is there a naked girl across your chest?"

Have a great evening.

Julie and Julia Review

Last night/this morning between the hours of 10pm and 2am (due to a roommate induced subway run) I watched Julie and Julia. I must say, the film was outstanding and I can see why Meryl Streep has raked in the rewards for it. I must admit I'm biased as Meryl Streep is one of my favorite actresses, up there with Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Glenn Close, and Angela Lansbury. I'll have none of these young actresses who only get by because of their looks; real women who are actors because they can act. Period.

I really respect Meryl Streep not only because she can act, but because of her demeanor. She is very refined and very professional which is hard to find in the acting world. She'll have none of these sparking, gaudy outfits that people wear to awards; no, she shows up in formal black attire and does not giggle like a schoolgirl at every little thing.

In addition, she is extremely humble. I remember watching the Golden Globes which was where she raked in the awards (as usual) and I really enjoyed her acceptance speech which included the comment, "In my long career, I have played so many extraordinary women that I, basically, am getting mistaken for one." Streep makes quite the impression. It is very interesting that even as one of the highest grossing actresses in Hollywood, she can still remain humble and not be sucked into it all.

So now that I've had my Streep fangirl moment, I want to encourage people to go out and rent this movie, maybe even buy because it is that good. Even if you're not into cooking, or anything of that nature, it is still definitely worth watching (take it from someone who never cooks).

I just realized I haven't said a thing about the plot.



So I'm going to slack. There's the plot in case you somehow were asleep the month before the movie came out. Enjoy.

(The trailer and move Julie and Julia in no way belong to me and all rights go to their respective owners.)

Precious in His Sight

I find that Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, seem to be the most difficult days to wake up to, yet the most enjoyable when compared to their counterparts (Tuesday and Thursday). I suppose that might be due to having to wake up much earlier on those three days.

Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, are, by far, the best days, because I have my most enjoyable classes are on those days. Now, I can't complain, American National Government isn't too unbearable, but it has nothing on Media Writing.

Today, Media Writing consisted of no writing at all. As a Public Relations major, I have to take Media Writing so that I'm prepared for the stressful task of writing press releases for whomever I work for. However, I firmly believe that Media Writing is just one class in the Public Relations program's arsenal here that is geared toward making you want to change your major to Journalism (which I am currently considering). Both this class and Media & Society both make me lean towards Journalism which isn't necessarily a bad thing considering Western Kentucky University supposedly has an excellent News/Ed Journalism program, or so says the wall covered in Pulitzer Prizes.

In any case, today's class consisted of the students watching a documentary called "Precious in His Sight," or so I recall. I have scoured the internet for a link to a clip or two, but have come across nothing so if I have the name wrong, my apologies.

This video, "Precious in His Sight" is a bit old and was done by a reporter who did a story on the Tucker family who adopted somewhere around 60 children with special needs and an orphanage that they were affiliated with in Haiti. The video was quite old, long before the Haiti earthquake; I'd place it around fifteen or more years ago.

The story was extremely moving in the beginning with interviews of the Tuckers and footage of their home. They talked about all the donations they receive from churches and how the Campbells Soup company donated cases upon cases of soup to this home. Then the story turned to this orphanage in Haiti with footage of the suffering that was occurring there.

Now, lately we've all seen a lot of Haiti as the country has been in the news heavily since the earthquake. However, I really do think that much of the time we are desensitized to what we see. We see it, but we don't really think about it and take in that it's actually THAT bad. I'm guilty of it too.

So while I was watching this video, it just hit me. Isn't it kind of sad, pathetic almost, that we in the United States live with so much which people literally under 2,000 miles from our shores are living in utter poverty? One of the statements made in this documentary was that the average person in Haiti with a job, which is rare to begin with, makes around 300 dollars a year. I can't even begin to imagine...

And yet, I feel put out when I don't have something I want; not need, but want. At that moment, I gotta say, I was pretty disgusted with myself. I've lived an extremely privileged life. I've never really gone without.

Then I got angry. I started thinking about the amount of money our government spends on absolutely pointless things. And then I got a little angrier when I thought about how I heard of people using the Haiti Earthquake to get people to give money to false organizations so they could take it for themselves. How sick is that? How morally corrupt do you have to be that you will steal from starving injured children?

So now that I've had my rant, I'm going to stop and say this. I'm certainly going to watch myself and think twice before I get put out over not getting something I want in the future; and I encourage you to do so as well.