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Day July 15, 2005

Entries 7 Total

Family Guy Petarded Chart Generator

Jul 15, ’05 1:51 PM

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In the “Petarded” episode of Family Guy, Peter does well at Trivial Pursuit and claims he’s a genius. Brian challenges him to take an IQ test. The result indicates Peter is mentally challenged. The test administrator shows the chart on the right to explain where Peter’s test result places him.
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Why Jon Stewart is All the Rage

Jul 15, ’05 1:22 PM

From City Journal:

You simply can’t understand American politics in the new millennium without The Daily Show.” “Mr. Stewart has turned his parodistic TV news show into a cultural force significantly larger than any mere satire of media idiocies,” chimed in the New York Times’s Frank Rich in a column entitled jon stewart’s perfect pitch, one of—count ‘em— 16 he’s written lauding the comedian. Along with such over-the-top encomia, The Daily Show has won multiple Emmys and even several prestigious journalism prizes, including a Peabody Award and the Television Critics Association Award for Outstanding Achievement in News and Information (beating out real news shows).
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Is Harry Potter Evil?

Jul 15, ’05 1:02 PM

The latest Harry Potter book is being released tonight so let’s see what people are saying.

The new Pope opposes the Harry Potter novels. Yawn.

In a letter dated March 7, 2003 Cardinal Ratzinger thanked Kuby for her “instructive” book Harry Potter – gut oder böse (Harry Potter- good or evil?), in which Kuby says the Potter books corrupt the hearts of the young, preventing them from developing a properly ordered sense of good and evil, thus harming their relationship with God while that relationship is still in its infancy.

Judy Blume wrote an Op-Ed for the NY Times back in 1999 about the movement to ban Harry Potter books.

I’m not exactly unfamiliar with this line of thinking, having had various books of mine banned from schools over the last 20 years. In my books, it’s reality that’s seen as corrupting. With Harry Potter, the perceived danger is fantasy. After all, Harry and his classmates attend the celebrated Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. According to certain adults, these stories teach witchcraft, sorcery and satanism. But hey, if it’s not one “ism,” it’s another. I mean Madeleine L’Engle’s “A Wrinkle in Time” has been targeted by censors for promoting New Ageism, and Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” for promoting racism. Gee, where does that leave the kids?

The real danger is not in the books, but in laughing off those who would ban them. The protests against Harry Potter follow a tradition that has been growing since the early 1980′s and often leaves school principals trembling with fear that is then passed down to teachers and librarians.

What began with the religious right has spread to the politically correct. (Remember the uproar in Brooklyn last year when a teacher was criticized for reading a book entitled “Nappy Hair” to her class?) And now the gate is open so wide that some parents believe they have the right to demand immediate removal of any book for any reason from school or classroom libraries. The list of gifted teachers and librarians who find their jobs in jeopardy for defending their students’ right to read, to imagine, to question, grows every year.

And finally, Harry Potter as a historical allegory:

Let’s start with Voldemort, who makes for a fair Hitler: He is an aspiring dictator who wants to cleanse the world of “mud-bloods”–wizards who have normal, or “muggle,” parentage. Dumbledore is clearly Ms. Rowling’s Churchill. Like the British lion, Dumbledore is a part of the establishment, but when he tries to awaken people to the threat that Voldemort poses, he becomes unpopular. Ms. Rowling’s wizards, like the British of the 1930s, are exhausted from their last war and unwilling to believe that it’s time to take up arms again.
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Then and Now

Jul 15, ’05 11:49 AM

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Forgotten pictures of popular people
(via Linkfilter)

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Weblog Name Generator

Jul 15, ’05 11:25 AM
Not sure how to name your weblog? Or perhaps, you’re considering different titles just for fun? Try out this fun random name generator! Choose from Funky or Formal names.

(via Eyebeam reBlog)

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Optimus Keyboard

Jul 15, ’05 11:17 AM

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Wow.

Every key of the Optimus keyboard is a stand-alone display showing exactly what it is controlling at this very moment.
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Marg’s Good Morning America Experience

Jul 15, ’05 10:44 AM

Yesterday I posted about how Marg who is a regular reader and commenter on Cynical-C, was on Good Morning America and World News Tonight after sending in a picture to the Werenotafraid.com website. I asked if she would be kind enough to write up about her experience and she has obliged. I’ll let her take it from here.

We found out at about 9:30pm Thursday night that a camera crew for Good Morning America would be here at 5am for a live broadcast. EEGADS! A flurry of cleaning ensued, outfits picked out for the kiddies, trying to remember how to set the damn vcr up to tape, calls and emails to family and friends, and the ever present worry that there was a very good chance that i would say something completely asinine!

A night of very little sleep followed. The camera crew showed up from Rhode Island, a 3hr drive for them, at about 5:20. They loved the flag and the log home and decided, upon pulling into the driveway, that they would shoot outside. (relief! so much for the picked up house!) The kids were very excited and were happy to go out to be ‘wired for sound’ at about 6:50 am. There were soundchecks from the guys and later from NY, the cameraman positioned us here and there, the puppy was in the house barking to let us hear his unhappiness about being excluded, the mister was off to the side wishing one of the kids would hold up a sign to advertise the company we work for, www.mortgageguy.biz. As he was not in the submitted photo, GMA had him wired and off to the side in case Charlie Gibson decided to throw him in at the last minute. Through our ear thingies we could hear the show & now and then Andrea, the segment producer from GMA, would break in and say hello. Then we were up and running! We were supposed to be ENTHUSIASTIC! It was completely nerve racking to be live and have to answer questions when i had no idea what would be asked and also to hope beyond hope that the kids would behave and not be too silly.

Anyways, Chris and I had joked that I had to plug Cynical-C and I couldn’t believe my luck when charlie asked the question ‘how did you find the website?’. Cue the evil music, mwahahahahaha!

After that there were a couple of interviews with the local papers, the phone rang off the hook from family and friends who had seen the show, Alfie Dennen, creator of the www.werenotafraid.com site called from London to say thanks, World News Tonight called to set up an additional interview and we were able to get some work done on new and ongoing files.

The camera crew for World News Tonight came at about 3:30 just as a huge thunder and lightning storm rolled in. They set up in our home office for a taped interview which was much easier. The satellite truck guy from the GMA shoot had just gotten home when he was called to come back up for transmission of the latest tape to NY. They only used a very small bit for that show.

The kids said it was the best day of their life. I say it was the craziest 24hr period in mine! Finally, all my time “wasted” on blogs paid off!!!!

Anyways, it’s back to reality today.
Marg

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