If you don't have kids, chances are you haven't had to watch Handy Manny. This is a good thing.
I have, unfortunately. Handy Manny is a computer generated cartoon. He has little animated bilingual, intterracial tools, and everybody in his town of Sheetrock Hills speaks English with random Spanish words thrown in at odd points. Everybody is deep into the Hispanic culture. The main woman on the show owns a hardware store. All the white male people are stupid. Everybody is helpless to do anything, until our little Hispanic hero shows up to perform manual labor and make everything ok.
We never hear about his immigration status, do we? Is he illegal? Here on an expired visa? What's the deal?
I want to write and direct an episode for this show. I'd like to show a slightly different perspective on undocumented workers than what this show gives us. One that's based on living in a border state, and performing a job in law enforcement. Because about half of the cases I deal with are perpetrated by illegal aliens. A majority of the insurance defense cases I worked were illegal aliens suing after a car accident. Our health care problem is driven in no small part to illegal aliens jamming our ER's up because they know they have to be treated, whether they pay or not.
I'd like to show Manny consoling a nice family whose son has been hit by an undocumented worker driving DWI with no insurance, who's drunk off his butt on firewater, has no driver's license, and no way to ever compensate them for the loss of their youngest son. One that maybe shows the aftermath of Kelly getting robbed at knifepoint when she leaves the store. Or where all the friendly tools are stolen and sold at a pawn shop. Or one where we see Manny's gang tattoos and hear how wonderful La Eme or MS-13 had been for him. Or where Mr. Lopard's car is stolen and cut up for spare parts. Or we find Abuelito selling dope that his relatives who sneak across the border brought up to him.
Handy Manny shows you lovely little things the Hispanic culture has brought into America. The music is by Los Lobos and Carlos Santana. Wilmer Valderrama from THAT 70'S SHOW voices Handy Manny. Yeah. That guy. The man whose major claim to fame is that he dated Lindsay Lohan and turned her gay. Thanks, buddy.
You want Hispanic culture? Let me do a show about some of the poor girls whose lives have been ruined by their father because he's been sexually abusing them since the age of 5, because that's what happens down in deep Mexico. That's a cultural thing down there. Illegals account for the MAJORITY of the child sexual assault cases that we work.
Let's see a Hispanic riot at the school because they can't afford an English as a Second Language program, and because they won't print the textbooks in Spanish. Let's see a school shut down because the majority of the children in it are illegal, and can't pass Bush's no child left untested program if you gave them the answers. Let's show the hospital closing because they are going broke treating people who can't and won't pay with no insurance. Let's show the taxpayers in Sheetrock Hills having to pay for it.
My episode would end with the Border Patrol showing up to deport Abuelito, or running a security checkpoint on the edge of town. We'd see all the little brown people running for the hedges, as fast as their little stubby legs could carry them.
You'd learn a new Hispanic phrase. "Pinche! La Migra!"
I'm not saying that all Hispanics are bad. Far from it. I'm saying illegal immigration is bad. I'm saying bringing a morally bankrupt, corrupt culture into ours and expect us to like it, that's bad. I welcome anybody who comes here legally. I welcome the influx of anybody's culture who comes here the right way. Keep in mind these poor people who sneak here for a better life bring the crap that is Mexico here with them. They're escaping that cesspool for a reason. Other than the beach resorts, the place sucks. It's a third-world country. Yet they end up here, and want to bring their culture and language with them. They want us to assimilate their culture. If they want that culture, stay there. Don't drag us down to their level.
Every person sneaking across the border is a criminal once they reach the other side. They start off breaking the law. Why do we want more lawbreakers here?
Thursday, January 22, 2009
The Conquerer
I just love watching my son enjoy the world. Everything is so exciting and new to him. I took him to my parents’ house this weekend. Just him and me alone. It was great. We had a wonderful time. He met some cows, and a couple of donkeys, and saw a few nice deer. Yeah, the season’s over, so maybe next year....
I introduced him to the absolutely fascinating sport of throwing rocks into water. He did this nonstop for about an hour, and every rock thrown was pure magic for him. He laughed delightedly at each splash, and really got into finding the perfect throwing rock for each throw out of the millions of rocks that were laying around. There’s an art to it, you know. You can’t just throw any rock.
He played for at least an hour in a dried up stock tank. For you Yankees, a stock tank is a man made pond where the critters drink. We’re in severe drought stage in South Texas, the worst since the 1950's, so the almanacs say.
It was a whole world for him, better than any stupid McDonald’s playscape ever thought about being. It was Mount Everest, K-9, El Capitan, and the Alps all rolled into one. Without any prompting from Dad, he searched around and found a suitable stick, which immediately was used to squash bugs with, and also acted as a combination lightsaber, broadsword, and general poking device. He climbed high atop a pile of dirt that served a retaining wall, and waved his mighty sword, daring any and all challengers to bring it on. He was Alexander, Ghengis Khan, and Ceasar all rolled into one.
It’s amazing to me how boys operate. This is a kid that has seen no violent movies in his two years. He doesn’t get to watch much television. Yet a stick is instantly a weapon to him. Tell me that’s not hard wired into males and I’ll call utter bullcrap.
It was one of the most magical days that I’ll ever experience. I thanked God right then for the chance to share this time with him, and for all the wonderful things he’s brought into my life.
I introduced him to the absolutely fascinating sport of throwing rocks into water. He did this nonstop for about an hour, and every rock thrown was pure magic for him. He laughed delightedly at each splash, and really got into finding the perfect throwing rock for each throw out of the millions of rocks that were laying around. There’s an art to it, you know. You can’t just throw any rock.
He played for at least an hour in a dried up stock tank. For you Yankees, a stock tank is a man made pond where the critters drink. We’re in severe drought stage in South Texas, the worst since the 1950's, so the almanacs say.
It was a whole world for him, better than any stupid McDonald’s playscape ever thought about being. It was Mount Everest, K-9, El Capitan, and the Alps all rolled into one. Without any prompting from Dad, he searched around and found a suitable stick, which immediately was used to squash bugs with, and also acted as a combination lightsaber, broadsword, and general poking device. He climbed high atop a pile of dirt that served a retaining wall, and waved his mighty sword, daring any and all challengers to bring it on. He was Alexander, Ghengis Khan, and Ceasar all rolled into one.
It’s amazing to me how boys operate. This is a kid that has seen no violent movies in his two years. He doesn’t get to watch much television. Yet a stick is instantly a weapon to him. Tell me that’s not hard wired into males and I’ll call utter bullcrap.
It was one of the most magical days that I’ll ever experience. I thanked God right then for the chance to share this time with him, and for all the wonderful things he’s brought into my life.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
"The Unexamined Life Is Not Worth Living..."
There’s a tendency in mankind to imagine that He(we) is the be-all end all. We’re the coolest, the most enlightened, the boldest, the best, the smartest, etc. For example, this new administration is touting itself as the most moral, responsible, so much better than the last, etc.
Fine. Maybe that’s true. Maybe not. Taking that attitude completely blinds folks to the painful truth that no matter how good it actually is, it’s still not perfect. It might look nice and shiny, but there’s a dark interior. And it’s not only on our society, but ourselves as well. Are you following this one?
Let me explain a bit better. How much better do we perceive ourselves than the Roman Empire? We’re so far advanced, right? How much better did the Romans think they were compared to the Greeks, the Middle Eastern cultures running around, the Druids, etc.? They were the top of the heap, so they thought. They figured it just didn’t get any better than what they had.
Pretty shortsighted, isn’t it? Through the passage of time, we see the faults. We see the shortsightedness. We see the debauchery, the insanity, etc. At least, those of us who actually learn something from history do. And we’re all blind to our own faults, for the most part.
Man’s perspective on the whole universe is a bit shortsighted, honestly. We fall into the trap of thinking that we’re the best, the brightest, can’t get any better, etc. (Lots of etcs., in the post, I’m noticing. Oh well. You weren’t expecting Shakespeare, were you?)
We ignore our own faults, and have no idea of how bad we actually are until we see somebody that is better than ourselves in some area. Whether it be our personal relationships, our golf game, the way we treat our dog, etc. We’re not perfect by any stretch of the imagination.
What will a future society see when they look back on us? What flaws will they notice? What Achilles’ Heel will jump out at them as being what did this society in? We probably can’t even imagine it. What flaws does someone outside our own skins see in us that we can’t see ourselves?
No matter how good any of us think we actually are, there’s room for improvement. No matter how advanced we find ourselves in whatever area we choose to examine, there’s a greater perspective that we are unaware of, and a complete inability to appreciate how low we actually are.
Only time will tell, I suppose. But it’s something to think about.
Wow. I’ve got to lay off the C.S. Lewis.....
Fine. Maybe that’s true. Maybe not. Taking that attitude completely blinds folks to the painful truth that no matter how good it actually is, it’s still not perfect. It might look nice and shiny, but there’s a dark interior. And it’s not only on our society, but ourselves as well. Are you following this one?
Let me explain a bit better. How much better do we perceive ourselves than the Roman Empire? We’re so far advanced, right? How much better did the Romans think they were compared to the Greeks, the Middle Eastern cultures running around, the Druids, etc.? They were the top of the heap, so they thought. They figured it just didn’t get any better than what they had.
Pretty shortsighted, isn’t it? Through the passage of time, we see the faults. We see the shortsightedness. We see the debauchery, the insanity, etc. At least, those of us who actually learn something from history do. And we’re all blind to our own faults, for the most part.
Man’s perspective on the whole universe is a bit shortsighted, honestly. We fall into the trap of thinking that we’re the best, the brightest, can’t get any better, etc. (Lots of etcs., in the post, I’m noticing. Oh well. You weren’t expecting Shakespeare, were you?)
We ignore our own faults, and have no idea of how bad we actually are until we see somebody that is better than ourselves in some area. Whether it be our personal relationships, our golf game, the way we treat our dog, etc. We’re not perfect by any stretch of the imagination.
What will a future society see when they look back on us? What flaws will they notice? What Achilles’ Heel will jump out at them as being what did this society in? We probably can’t even imagine it. What flaws does someone outside our own skins see in us that we can’t see ourselves?
No matter how good any of us think we actually are, there’s room for improvement. No matter how advanced we find ourselves in whatever area we choose to examine, there’s a greater perspective that we are unaware of, and a complete inability to appreciate how low we actually are.
Only time will tell, I suppose. But it’s something to think about.
Wow. I’ve got to lay off the C.S. Lewis.....
Monday, January 12, 2009
Mulder? Scully? A Little Help, Here.
I’ve noticed that my socks keep missing. Except that it’s only one sock. I have no rational explanation for this. I know that I put two socks in the laundry pile. I even know that I put two socks into the wash at the same time. Yet somewhere between the washer and dryer, one sock vanishes.
One sock vanishing in and of itself would not be a problem. The problem is that eventually the wayward sock will find its way home. And that messes with my mind. Given its fragile state, my mind is not a good thing to mess with.
There are explanations for all this. It could be that one of the machines eats the sock for a short period of time, then regurgitates it later, optimally timed to jack with my tiny little mind. There could be small elves in the house that take one sock and hide it, for the same reason. The little bastards also mess with my ballpoint pens, and from time to time steal one of the remotes for the tv or dvd player. If I manage to catch one, I will both prove the existence of malevolent supernatural beings, and create a moral dilemma for whatever taxidermist I take it to in order to have it stuffed.
A friend of mine once postulated that dimensional rifts appear around object from time to time, throwing that object into a parallel dimension. At what is probably only an instant in the parallel universe, several days or weeks might pass in ours. Then the dimensional rift will re-open, throwing the object back into our world, often at a slightly different point than where the object originally fell through the portal. This theory makes a lot of sense.
I have ruled out human error by a simple experiment. I have been throwing the orphan socks into a bucket. Every once in awhile, I add socks and check to see whether or not one of the new socks matches up with what I already have in the bucket. One night, I went through the bucket and sorted socks by type and color, getting the ones that were close together, and then matching them from there. On the first night, no matches. I then hid the bucket in the fireplace.
The very next night, without any additions on my part, I removed the bucket from its hiding spot in the fireplace and repeated the process. There were three matches. One match was for a set of socks that has been orphaned for at least a year.
This is not natural.
One sock vanishing in and of itself would not be a problem. The problem is that eventually the wayward sock will find its way home. And that messes with my mind. Given its fragile state, my mind is not a good thing to mess with.
There are explanations for all this. It could be that one of the machines eats the sock for a short period of time, then regurgitates it later, optimally timed to jack with my tiny little mind. There could be small elves in the house that take one sock and hide it, for the same reason. The little bastards also mess with my ballpoint pens, and from time to time steal one of the remotes for the tv or dvd player. If I manage to catch one, I will both prove the existence of malevolent supernatural beings, and create a moral dilemma for whatever taxidermist I take it to in order to have it stuffed.
A friend of mine once postulated that dimensional rifts appear around object from time to time, throwing that object into a parallel dimension. At what is probably only an instant in the parallel universe, several days or weeks might pass in ours. Then the dimensional rift will re-open, throwing the object back into our world, often at a slightly different point than where the object originally fell through the portal. This theory makes a lot of sense.
I have ruled out human error by a simple experiment. I have been throwing the orphan socks into a bucket. Every once in awhile, I add socks and check to see whether or not one of the new socks matches up with what I already have in the bucket. One night, I went through the bucket and sorted socks by type and color, getting the ones that were close together, and then matching them from there. On the first night, no matches. I then hid the bucket in the fireplace.
The very next night, without any additions on my part, I removed the bucket from its hiding spot in the fireplace and repeated the process. There were three matches. One match was for a set of socks that has been orphaned for at least a year.
This is not natural.
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Bye, Bye, 2008, You Bag of Crap, You....
I have to say that 2008 was pretty much the worst year of my life. So far, anyway. General unhappiness reigned.
So yeah, 2008 sucked. CS Lewis’s book THE PROBLEM OF PAIN has helped a bit. He’s pretty phenomenal at putting a decent spin on this sort of thing. It’s been fairly easy for me to wonder why in the world this stuff seems to be happening to me. So why has God just abandoned me? Why wouldn’t he help me through all of this? Why no magic want to fix the problems???
Well, he hasn’t abandoned me. And eventually I came to my senses, or at least had a moment of clarity about it. A lot of this has been the result of my exercising free will. If I hadn’t opted to do certain things, I wouldn’t be suffering. Sure, God could have exerted miracles and pulled me out of it, but I learn best the hard way, unfortunately. It’s the product of a low IQ, I have no doubt. I’ve got to be knocked to my senses sometimes. So he’s let me experience the bad stuff, and used it to his advantage to better me. Sometimes as a parent, you have to allow your kids to do stupid stuff in order to learn better. And sometimes those lessons hurt. It’s kind of like jumping off the house when you were a kid, and discovering the hard way that gravity’s law was not going to be abolished just for you. (What, you never did that? Maybe it WAS just me.)
But I also have a peace about things that I didn’t have before. A lot of it comes with the realization that much of what has happened is now out of my control, if it ever was to begin with. I’m not necessarily asking for what I want to happen to come true. I’m more asking for peace about what is to happen. There’s mention in the bible that man cannot add a single hour to his life by worrying, and that’s true. So the trick is to be at peace with what God has in store. Nothing I can do can affect what anyone thinks or feels about me. Instead, I need to just be at peace with what is to happen, since there’s not a darn thing that I can do about it anyway.
It’s just no fun waiting, sometimes. And it’s relatively easy to want my will to be done, as opposed to his. But my perspective is pretty much narrow compared to his. But the thing that keeps me going is the promise that good things are in store for me down the road.
“I’ve been stumbling through some dark places, but I’m following the plow. I know I’ve tumbled out of your good graces, but it’s all right now....”
So yeah, 2008 sucked. CS Lewis’s book THE PROBLEM OF PAIN has helped a bit. He’s pretty phenomenal at putting a decent spin on this sort of thing. It’s been fairly easy for me to wonder why in the world this stuff seems to be happening to me. So why has God just abandoned me? Why wouldn’t he help me through all of this? Why no magic want to fix the problems???
Well, he hasn’t abandoned me. And eventually I came to my senses, or at least had a moment of clarity about it. A lot of this has been the result of my exercising free will. If I hadn’t opted to do certain things, I wouldn’t be suffering. Sure, God could have exerted miracles and pulled me out of it, but I learn best the hard way, unfortunately. It’s the product of a low IQ, I have no doubt. I’ve got to be knocked to my senses sometimes. So he’s let me experience the bad stuff, and used it to his advantage to better me. Sometimes as a parent, you have to allow your kids to do stupid stuff in order to learn better. And sometimes those lessons hurt. It’s kind of like jumping off the house when you were a kid, and discovering the hard way that gravity’s law was not going to be abolished just for you. (What, you never did that? Maybe it WAS just me.)
But I also have a peace about things that I didn’t have before. A lot of it comes with the realization that much of what has happened is now out of my control, if it ever was to begin with. I’m not necessarily asking for what I want to happen to come true. I’m more asking for peace about what is to happen. There’s mention in the bible that man cannot add a single hour to his life by worrying, and that’s true. So the trick is to be at peace with what God has in store. Nothing I can do can affect what anyone thinks or feels about me. Instead, I need to just be at peace with what is to happen, since there’s not a darn thing that I can do about it anyway.
It’s just no fun waiting, sometimes. And it’s relatively easy to want my will to be done, as opposed to his. But my perspective is pretty much narrow compared to his. But the thing that keeps me going is the promise that good things are in store for me down the road.
“I’ve been stumbling through some dark places, but I’m following the plow. I know I’ve tumbled out of your good graces, but it’s all right now....”
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Cowboy Blob Again
Boy, I love winning his captioning contests. It's such fun making stuff up around the photo. I do wish I could do it professionally, though. Is there a field out there where I can make fun of things for a living?
I mean, other than the one I'm in?
I mean, other than the one I'm in?
THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE..LUCAS IS A TARD
I had the chance to watch THE XFILES–I WANT TO BELIEVE the other night. When the music started up, it got the old familiar feeling. That little anticipation of a cool experience with characters that you know and love. I wanted to know what they’ve been up to the last few years. Where they were now, what they were doing, what their lives had progressed to, etc.
I won’t throw any spoilers out there. It was a good flick, all things considered. But it could have been just as good as a thriller badged under something other than the XFILES.
It was also like seeing Michael Jordan come out of retirement. We hated to see him go, but the return as something a bit less than the miraculous player of old was something that was somewhat less than satisfying. Even though intellectually you knew that it couldn’t be the same as it was, you wanted it to be. You wanted the miracle that beat the odds. You wanted the movie to just rock. It was good, but it didn’t just blow the roof off. So there’s the whole bittersweet thing going on.
What you received was good, but it wasn’t quite as shiny as it used to be. Did they take too many years off between the series and the movie? I’d have to say yes to that. Some of the core audience has gotten older now, and didn’t flock to the theaters to go see it because they couldn’t find a babysitter that weekend. Besides, THE DARK KNIGHT was still running, and if you only have the one shot at the babysitter, what are you going to do?
I’d have to say that it’s worth watching.
Along the same lines, I did watch INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL again.
I’d say that I had very similar feelings. It was great to see my #1 movie idol character back in action. I confess that I completely geeked out the first time the preview ran and I saw him dusting off the fedora. Awesome.
Ford aged well, and he played the character as well as he ever did. I’m still upset that he’s wussed out about not actually shooting a gun in his movies, but at least he carried one. There was good bullwhip fu, which I’m a sucker for.
The movie was well-directed, of course. How could it not be? Absent the stupid monkeys, but we’ll cover that later. Lucas didn’t have the chance to completely ruin it like he did the prequels for his other masterpiece. It moved well. The story was fun.
My spoiler critiques are as follows:
First, nothing Indiana Jones did in this movie made a darn bit of difference. IN allthe other movies, his involvement was critical to what happened. Finding the ark, stealing it away from the nazis, finding the Shankara stones, freeing the kids, finding the Holy Grail and surviving the traps, etc. In this movie, it wouldn’t have made a difference who took the stupid skull back.
Second, we find out he’s whelped a kid. And the kid’s a butthole. Shia Lebouf is pretty much of a punk in this movie. He has some moments, but he’s not fit to fear the fedora. Oh, by the way, the monkey scene was about the stupidest thing I’ve seen in cinema history, absent Wookies doing the Tarzan call. Yeah, I see Lucas’ cornball touch all over that scene. What a tard. Why Spielberg didn’t beat the crap out of him over that one is beyond me.
Third, Marion went and got old lady on us. Indy aged ok, but Marion was annoying. She wasn’t cool like she was when she slugged Harrison in the kisser. Yeah, she matured, but it wasn’t like how Indy matured. But it’s also 27 years later, mind you, so what can they really do in the real world?
Finally, the whole thing about Indy and the OSS was ultra-cool. I’d love to see another spin-off series based on that plot line. You’d need another Indy, but that’s ok. They did it successfully with THE YOUNG INDIANA JONES CHRONICLES. (If anybody wants to buy me all of those on DVD, I won’t stop you, honest.)
Ford could do another one, if he doesn’t break a hip or something in between now and then. If they do, they need to ground it a bit better. The commies made a good villain. He’s got a new sidekick that if allowed to mature, might actually work out well. At least it’s not some midget Chinese spewing pidgin English.
I won’t throw any spoilers out there. It was a good flick, all things considered. But it could have been just as good as a thriller badged under something other than the XFILES.
It was also like seeing Michael Jordan come out of retirement. We hated to see him go, but the return as something a bit less than the miraculous player of old was something that was somewhat less than satisfying. Even though intellectually you knew that it couldn’t be the same as it was, you wanted it to be. You wanted the miracle that beat the odds. You wanted the movie to just rock. It was good, but it didn’t just blow the roof off. So there’s the whole bittersweet thing going on.
What you received was good, but it wasn’t quite as shiny as it used to be. Did they take too many years off between the series and the movie? I’d have to say yes to that. Some of the core audience has gotten older now, and didn’t flock to the theaters to go see it because they couldn’t find a babysitter that weekend. Besides, THE DARK KNIGHT was still running, and if you only have the one shot at the babysitter, what are you going to do?
I’d have to say that it’s worth watching.
Along the same lines, I did watch INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL again.
I’d say that I had very similar feelings. It was great to see my #1 movie idol character back in action. I confess that I completely geeked out the first time the preview ran and I saw him dusting off the fedora. Awesome.
Ford aged well, and he played the character as well as he ever did. I’m still upset that he’s wussed out about not actually shooting a gun in his movies, but at least he carried one. There was good bullwhip fu, which I’m a sucker for.
The movie was well-directed, of course. How could it not be? Absent the stupid monkeys, but we’ll cover that later. Lucas didn’t have the chance to completely ruin it like he did the prequels for his other masterpiece. It moved well. The story was fun.
My spoiler critiques are as follows:
First, nothing Indiana Jones did in this movie made a darn bit of difference. IN allthe other movies, his involvement was critical to what happened. Finding the ark, stealing it away from the nazis, finding the Shankara stones, freeing the kids, finding the Holy Grail and surviving the traps, etc. In this movie, it wouldn’t have made a difference who took the stupid skull back.
Second, we find out he’s whelped a kid. And the kid’s a butthole. Shia Lebouf is pretty much of a punk in this movie. He has some moments, but he’s not fit to fear the fedora. Oh, by the way, the monkey scene was about the stupidest thing I’ve seen in cinema history, absent Wookies doing the Tarzan call. Yeah, I see Lucas’ cornball touch all over that scene. What a tard. Why Spielberg didn’t beat the crap out of him over that one is beyond me.
Third, Marion went and got old lady on us. Indy aged ok, but Marion was annoying. She wasn’t cool like she was when she slugged Harrison in the kisser. Yeah, she matured, but it wasn’t like how Indy matured. But it’s also 27 years later, mind you, so what can they really do in the real world?
Finally, the whole thing about Indy and the OSS was ultra-cool. I’d love to see another spin-off series based on that plot line. You’d need another Indy, but that’s ok. They did it successfully with THE YOUNG INDIANA JONES CHRONICLES. (If anybody wants to buy me all of those on DVD, I won’t stop you, honest.)
Ford could do another one, if he doesn’t break a hip or something in between now and then. If they do, they need to ground it a bit better. The commies made a good villain. He’s got a new sidekick that if allowed to mature, might actually work out well. At least it’s not some midget Chinese spewing pidgin English.
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