“Your tax refund is on the way. But don’t take it to the bank – take it to the Home Depot.”
Actual script from a Home Depot TV ad, including a graphic of an empty safe. This is my day to be amazed.
Month: August 2001 (Page 7 of 8)
I heard on the radio that GWB is headed to his ranch for a month’s vacation. When I heard this, I thought, “Did they say a month? They must have said a week. I misheard. That’s it – it was a week. That’s sort of long, but OK.”
No. It’s a month.
This from a man who’s already spend a total of 60 days (!) at his ranch, in Kennebunkport, etc. Two months out of six. So not only is he not running the country, but they feel secure enough about it to rub it in our faces. My jaw is on the floor, and that’s increasingly hard to do.
Lesson of the weekend: life is short, and our hold on this earth is a tenuous one at best. That’s important to remember when the petty little concerns of our lives threaten to overwhelm us. Give someone a hug.
Best movie of 2000, end of story: Chuck and Buck.
Thought some more about the whole Bush/education thing from the previous post. I guess I’m not so much mad at him as disappointed that the education community can’t strike back with any sort of coherent public relations. Why aren’t they making it easier for teachers, the people on the front lines of public education, to speak to the public directly about what it means to be a teacher, what their problems and frustrations and successes are like, in their own voices? This is basic Cluetrain stuff – there is no market for messages. What affects perceptions more: a TV commercial starring actors playing teachers, or a conversation in the produce section between a teacher and a parent? If things don’t change pretty soon, the conservative “public schools are failing and should be shut down” mantra will be gospel, and the era of public education will end.
It’s no surprise that when people are asked to rate the quality of public education, they generally rate their local district good or very good, their state fair and the country poor. But the pollsters never consider – how can every local district be doing such a capable job, when the country as a whole is rated so poorly? It’s because people know locally that their district is doing well, but they’re so awash in propaganda that they think the U.S. is going to hell in a handbasket.
Instead of encouraging people to get involved in their local schools, conservatives like GW want people to pull back, disengage, and wait for that tax refund check to come in the mail. So far, they’ve been doing a bang-up job. Educators and those who care about them better start working to reverse this trend, or pretty soon they’ll be about as relevant as a telegraph operator.
Saw GWB (“our President”) on CSPAN yesterday speaking (or rather, reading) to I think it was an Urban League conference, talking about education. Seeing him always disturbs me, but when he talks about education, my blood begins to boil. Here’s a man who can’t put a coherent sentence together if he’s not reading it off a teleprompter, addressing the nation on how public education should be conducted in this country.
“You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.” -George W. Bush, Feb. 2, 2001
I guess I don’t have that much new to say on this topic, other than to repeat my old chestnut: It’s disturbing that our President is an idiot. But what’s even more disturbing is that it doesn’t seem to matter.
I made the decision today to go with a friend and her three-year-old to “The Princess Diaries.” Maybe not a decision on the order of Nixon deciding to break into the Watergate, but unfortunate nonetheless. So here’s my review:
Longest. Movie. Ever.
Epochs came and went while this cinematic blancmange unspooled itself. Empires rose and fell. Rip Van Winkle could not have slept through this entire movie. I emerged blinking from the darkness of the theater, wondering, “What year is it?” Its blandness is first slightly charming, then annoying, then you suffocate as if Snuggle himself is holding your airway closed with his evil furry paws. Not recommended.
Extremely disturbing celebrity quote of the day:
“Russell Crowe could get up, pull his pants down, and take a shit, and you’d be completely blown away.”
-Colin Farrell of Tigerland, in Vanity Fair
If you haven’t been reading The Lavender Kitchen regularly, you’re missing out. Melissa’s post on “how I became an Atheist” is worth the price of admission alone. But don’t stop there. Good stuff, Maynard.
An anchor on MSNBC was interviewing a People Magazine reporter the other day about Mariah Carey’s breakdown or whatever it was she had recently. This in itself is a sort of vortex of pop culture. But what was interesting about it was after listening to the People reporter talk about Mariah’s tough touring schedule, how her latest album didn’t do as well as expected, and her problems with Latin heartthrob boyfriend Luis Miguel, the anchor said something to the effect of:
There are a lot of people out there listening to us who work very hard every day for minimum wage, and I think they’re going to find it pretty amazing that we’re sitting here talking about how Mariah Carey has problems because she’s too famous, too beautiful and too rich.
Hear hear. It was refreshing to hear someone say the obvious in connection to celebrity “reporting.” Now, if they start saying these sorts of things on Entertainment Tonight, maybe there’s hope for the civilization yet.