Sometimes Television is Just TOO Stoopid!

or Why do I even bother?

Sitting in a hotel room on a trip for work and channel surfing I come upon "The Unit" Now if you've never seen this show, it's about the adventures of a bunch of Army specwar guys as the travel they world destroying bad guys. Having an affinity for those type of units ;) I actually watched a few espisodes last season. The thing is... the show shows the "home front" and portrayed the skipper (or whatever you call an Army Commanding Officer) who is deploying some trooper constantly so he (the CO) can bang his (the trooper's) wife. Well, that kind of amoral crap always pissed me off when I was active duty, and it pissed me off on a TV show ....

So I stopped watching.

Anyway, I'm channel surfing tonight and come across the show. Looks like they're in Afghanistan and the specwar guys are dug in with some regular Army guys... looks like they're about to come under attack so the a female 1Lt commands the men to take up their fighting positions ("stand to?")... then, here's the money shot, she turns to the specwar SGM and says, with all seriousness,

"ya know, you join ROTC to pay for college, but you never think that..."

I about came out of my f...ing chair.

Without getting into what a standard left-wing meme bullsh*t line that is, when was the last time, right as the shit was about to hit the fan, that you heard anyone, anyone, start a conversation about how/why they joined? Give me a f'n break.

Click...bye-bye. Maybe I'll surf in on the show again someday. If it's still on.

BTFW - if regular army guys are in Afghanistan - aren't they more than likely 10th Mountain?
Last I heard, those bubbas are some pretty talented Taliban killin' warrior mofo's. Not the woman-led nincompoops I saw portrayed in the 45 seconds of the show I watched.

If you saw the rest of the show and actually saw some positive portrayal of our warfighters, please comment.

I Don't Need TV News Anymore...

Instapundit linked to this interesting story by Matea Gold in the LA Times about how morning TV shows are losing numbers in their key market: moms.

I thought the article applies to me too. A confirmed news junkie. Here it is a Saturday morning, and what did I turn on while the coffee was brewing?

My laptop. The TV is still sitting cold in the living room.

I wonder what the implications of this will be? As people with internet access move away from TV, the percentage TV audience without internet will increase.

Just like income, where we have a bunch of people at one end of the scale, a bunch at the other, and not a lot in between... maybe we'll wind up with a bimodal distribution of information. Those informed by television and those informed by their networks on th web. Hmm... maybe we're already there.

To Keep and Bear Arms: The Civil Right that Guarantees the Others

Ken Blackwell has a good post on the role of gun ownership in the civil rights movement. I've always thought (as did our founders) that the hallmark of free men is the ability to bear arms. Slaves and serfs depend on their "betters" to defend them.

Free men defend themselves.

This thought ties directly to our struggle against the Islamofascist Qutbists and is at the core of my post on Birmingham, Bali, or Baghdad.

Some Lessons for the Movie Makers

Instapundit linked to a Zogby poll on entertainment habits. It shows that the main reason movie revenues are down is that people don't like the choice of movies. I thought about this a few times in the last year. As the kids grow and are more and more off doing their own thing, there are more and more opportunities for me and my beautiful wife to go out on our own.

Several times in the last year we decided to head out to a movie together.

There were a few times when after we had decided to go, I pull out the day's paper, open it on the kitchen table and stand there looking. Looking and looking. Jeez. There's nothing here that I want to go see.

So we didn't go.

Lesson 1: Make movies I want to see.

A couple more times, there's something new out...we heard all the hype... something I try to resist... and I would head over to rotten tomatoes to check out the reviews. The fact is, I'm not willing to pay good money for something that sucks. Maybe if the cost were a little less, I'd experiment more. But for risky ventures I'll spend $4 to rent the DVD or order on demand, rather than drop $16 bucks at the theater. So I look at the reviews and the trailers. We don't go to every "certified fresh" movie, but that's a good indicator that it won't suck. The price is why the $2 movie theaters can stay open around here. You go to the $2 theater you know the movie will be mediocre or already out on video (DVD). But hey, it's only two bucks.

Lesson 2: Cheaper ticket prices. I'm willing to risk less money on a potential medicre movie. (What ever happened to military discounts at the movies?)

I can only remember going to three movies in the last year... even though I'm sure we went to more - the Departed, Borat, and Volver. Wanted to see Apocalypto, but it didn't stay in the theater very long... bet that was more a political decision. But that's another story.

Had one awful, awful movie on DVD the other day - American Dreamz. Wife is a big Hugh Grant fan. But I think we got through maybe 15 or 20 minutes before we turned it off and sent it back to netflix. It's a movie by and for Amerika haters and a great big "Fuck You" from Hollywood to those of us in flyover land or Jesusland. Back at ya buddy.

Lesson 3: Satire is fine, but don't expect us to pay for disdain.