A tribute

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A golden opportunity to express thanks

What better way to honor our seniors in their golden years than to provide them with  a better quality of life. This Friday evening, July 27, 2012, residents of Greater Lansing have a golden opportunity to give back for all they have done for us by contributing and participating in the 7th Annual Ingham County TRIAD Senior Prom.

A $25 donation allows you to partake in some of the finest dining in Mid-Michigan at the East Lansing Marriott, as well as hors d’oeuvres from Lou & Harry’s and yummy dessert items from Grand Traverse Pie Company.

The mission of the Ingham County TRIAD is:

 “A partnership among Law Enforcement Agencies, Fire Personnel, Senior Citizens (60+) and Community Members which promotes elder quality of life through advocacy, assistance, education and training.”

Furthermore, Ingham County TRIAD:

“Recognizes the dignity and worth of all senior citizens while addressing the unique needs and concerns of our aging population in a creative, sensitive and effective manner. Ingham County TRIAD pledges to maintain the trust and confidence of our elders by:

• Promoting senior safety through education and training
• Enhancing the delivery of law enforcement services to senior citizens
• Continuing collaborative efforts to meet the needs of our senior community
• Reducing criminal victimization to elder individuals
• Improving the overall quality of life for seniors.”

Sounds like a great, fun, and tasty way to assist senior citizens in the Greater Lansing community. Please consider attending the Senior Prom on July 27th or making a donation to the organization. Either way, it’s a golden opportunity to say thank you.

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Spider-man is truly amazing

Source: gamezone.com

I saw The Amazing Spider-man last night and thought it was a very enjoyable and entertaining movie. In fact, I liked it better than the initial version with Tobey Maguire.

Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone were perfectly cast as Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy and literally heat up the screen whenever they were together. I particularly liked how he would appear at her window 20 stories up and especially liked how he revealed his superhero persona to her. The music was nearly spot-on by James Horner. Best of all were the supporting roles played by Denis Leary, Sally Field, and Martin Sheen. All three were excellent additions to  the movie, who added more depth to the story.

Source: guardian.co.uk

Personally, I really liked the movie and highly recommend it, even though I went in with some trepidation. I found Andrew Garfield to be far more convincing as Spider-man than Tobey Maguire, as he seemed to reflect a more realistic attitude of a teenager suddenly endowed with super powers. Congrats to all involved in making the motion picture.

Fyi: stay through the first part of the credits, there is a little surprise preview.

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The heart of “Brave”

Saw the newest Pixar movie, Brave yesterday afternoon in a theater stuffed to the rafters. While not my favorite Pixar movie of all time, it ranks up there with the best. An excellent film full of howling laughs, edge of your seat action, drama, lovely animated scenery that made me feel I was back in Scotland, and an important moral to the story -

“you must be brave enough to follow your fate.”

The best and most important aspect of the film was the two strong central characters were both women. Both Merida and her mother, the Queen are excellent characters who carry the storyline on their own. They are the heart and soul of the picture.

Most of the men in the movie are rather comical, except Merida’s father. One the three suitors for Merida even vaguely resembled a Middle Ages’ Napoleon Dynamite.

All in all, an enjoyable film that was worth every penny. One caution, small children may get frightened by some of the battle scenes, so use good judgment. Lastly, it is very nice to see Pixar back at the top of its game. Kudos on a terrific film.

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Will wonders ever cease?

Kudos to Chief Justice John Roberts and the other four members of the Supreme Court who voted today to preserve nearly all aspects of the Affordable Healthcare Act. This is a tremendous victory for all Americans, whether they know it (or like it) or not.

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In a nation that espouses “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” nothing does more to preserve life than everyone having access to affordable health care. Now is the time for opponents to start putting patients ahead of politics!

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Scenes from Michigan’s vagina support rally

Here are some of my photos taken last night at the Michigan rally in support of vaginas held at the steps of the State Capitol in downtown Lansing. At least 5,000 people attended in support of Women’s Rights.

Sheroes of the day – Rep. Barbara Byrum and Rep. Lisa Brown

“Vagina Monologues” being presented

Under a beautiful June evening sky.

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TV by the numbers in the U.S. and Canada

Just for fun, here is my list of television shows that include some sort of numerical value in their name, with a little help from Sporcle.

• Once Upon a Time
• One Day at a Time
• One Tree Hill
• One Versus 100  (two numbers)
• 1-800-Missing (two numbers, Canada)
• Stargate SG-1
• Jacob Two-Two (Canada)
• Twin Peaks
• Two Broke Girls
• Two and a Half Men
• Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place
• G2G (Canada)
• Third Rock from the Sun
• Three’s Company
• My Three Sons
• Numb3rs
• The Fifth Estate (Canada)
• Babylon 5
• Party of Five
• 7th Heaven
• Eight is Enough
• Eight Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter
• 9B (Canada)
• Deep Space 9
• Adam 12
• 6Teen (Canada)
• 16:9 (Canada)
• 18 to Life (Canada)
• 20/20
• 21 Jump Street
• This Hour Has 22 Minutes (Canada)
• 24
• 30 Rock
• 48 Hours
• Train 48 (Canada)
• Hawaii Five-0
• Car 54 Where Are You?
• 60 Minutes
• North of 60 (Canada)
• Studio 60 on Sunset Strip
• That 70s Show
• 72 Hours (Canada)
• 77 Sunset Strip
• 90 Minutes Live (Canada)
• 100 Huntley Street (Canada)
• Detroit 1-8-7
• Room 222
• Reno 911
• Mystery Science Theater 3000
• The 4400
• $25,000 Pyramid
• $64,000 Question
• Beverly Hills 90210
• $100,000 Pyramid
• Who Wants to be a Millionaire

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GOP legislative “house’shit and ‘man’ure (NSFW)

I was totally disgusted yesterday by the puritanical and prudish actions of the male-dominated Michigan House leadership for silencing two female legislators. As the War on Women has been raging for nearly two years, Representative Lisa Brown (no relation) expressed satirical appreciation to all those legislators who were “concerned about her vagina.” She was silenced for that statement.

Representative Brown

Meanwhile, Representative Barb Byrum was silenced for protesting that she was not being allowed to speak on another bill. Once again those stalwarts of liberty and freedom proceeded to silence her as well. My, how Kabul on the Grand River is so delightfully charming and civil in June.

Representative Byrum

I don’t know about you folks, but the actions of these right-wing GOP (a.k.a. Grand Old Pricks) zealots in the Michigan House is getting out of hand.

I am also curious why these women were silenced when earlier this year Representative Rick Jones was not  for using the word “hooker” to describe a female public relations executive. Oops, I forgot. He’s a man, so stupid, idiotic, prudish, puritanical, asinine, and archaic rules written by other egotistical, etc. men do not apply to him.

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The world’s most boring sport

Consider this an early warning to all current and future parents. Unless want to be driven to complete and utter boredom, make sure you do not sign your kids up for….Tee Ball (or T-Ball). Oh my goodness, if there was ever a remedy for sleeplessness, this sport is it. This game is probably the worst introductory activity or goodwill ambassador for a sport ever invented. If baseball ever wanted to self-destruct and disappear from the planet, it made great progress with the invention of T-Ball. If coaches are wondering why so many kids play lacrosse or soccer instead of baseball/softball anymore, they might want to look the dull foundation the sport is built upon.

All three of my sons played T-Ball when they were young, but at times I thought they could have learned more watching a test pattern on TV or the grass grow in winter. I will grant that the sport may help those children who are shy develop better social skills and the basics of teamwork, but that could be accomplished with some other group activity that has more “fun” associated with it.

Since when is it teaching a child a new sport when you give them as many as 20 missed swings at the ball sitting on a post without the umpire ever declaring that they have struck out? And on top of that, they are still allowed to run the bases as if they had achieved a base hit. While the lack of “action” can be tedious for the parents, it has to be worse for the kids as they stand in the field under a hot summer sun waiting for someone to actually hit the ball.

From my unscientific observations, not only does this sport quickly turn the parents in to blank, mind-numbing, zombies, but it appears to teach the our kids precious little…except perhaps how to survive through incredible boredom. Frankly, our children grow up so incredibly fast, I feel there are many more rewarding family activities that could be found than playing T-Ball.

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A dose of sad sixties sitcom sexism

One of my all-time favorite television shows is the Dick Van Dyke Show. It aired in the early to mid-1960s and won many Emmy Awards. One of the reasons I like the show, aside from it being very funny, is the show was trendsetting for its day. It was one of the first television shows to include a professional working woman as a principal character - Sally Rogers who was played by Rose Marie. I also felt the lead characters had great working, family, and personal relationships.

However, last night I was watching a rerun of the Dick Van Dyke Show on Me-TV and was quite disappointed by the tenor of the episode. In the show, the young son of Rob Petrie (Dick Van Dyke) and Laura Petrie (Mary Tyler Moore) was to sing in a school play. Unfortunately for Rob, the day before the play, his boss Alan Brady (Carl Reiner) asked him to travel to Washington to hear a singer they were considering for appearing on the fictional Alan Brady Show.

The episode centered around Rob Petrie’s guilt over disappointing his boss and seeing the play or disappointing his wife and son by going to Washington. What troubled me was the fact that he accused his wife of treating him like a puppet by expecting him to always be there, meanwhile there was no similar reference to his employer treating him like a puppet by expecting him to change his plans at the drop of a hat. There was a particularly uncomfortable scene where Rob’s supervisor Mel, played by Richard Deacon, described how he had told his wife they were not going dancing one evening because he had work to do. To the show’s credit, several of the characters expressed their contempt for his actions and attitude. In a later troubling scene, Rob Petrie even had the gall to reference the old “love, honor, and obey” portion of then-common marriage vows to his wife Laura,

As the episode was concluding I was desperately hoping Rob would apologize to Laura for his actions and statements. Instead, we got a tirade of how he was in the right on an airplane full of men returning to New York City and a capitulation from his wife Laura for getting mad at him in the first place. All this despite the fact that the trip was a complete and utter waste of time because the singer had laryngitis and could not perform.

From time to time in my own career I have had to make tough decisions between family and work responsibilities. Several decades ago. it was necessary for me to tell an employer I would not agree to travel to meetings four nights a week, because I wanted to see my three sons group up and not just hear about their activities and accomplishments. By doing that, I essentially ended my career with that particular employer. In my mind, being there is part of parenthood and despite some corporate attitudes to the contrary, is light years more important than any business activity.

To a certain extent, the current vogue of setting televisions series like Mad Men and Pan Am in the 1950s and 60s, almost seems to be a tacit desire on the part of some to reestablish the sexist morals of the past.  If that is the case, I find that reason to be a disgusting premise. Who needs a whole new generation thinking and acting in such an arcane manner?

So, the Dick Van Dyke Show is no longer brightly shining atop my pedestal of television icons. That does not mean I will never watch the show again. It just means the show has fallen a couple of notches. Great entertainment and funny yes – perfect, no.

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