Good Catholic Writers Need

Here's an interview about Rich Culture Nourishes Catholic Writers. I think Gregory Roper, author of The Writer's Workshop: Imitating Your Way to Better Writing(ISI Books), makes some great suggestions on what is needed to help our kids to learn to write well.

Music and Morals

I am a musician and this book Music and Morals by Basil Cole, OP really changed my perspective on the effect that music has on our lives. It answers or at least may prompt you ask the following questions: Does music have a subtle but definite influence over our attitudes and behavior? Is there a way of judging between “good” and “bad” music? It was a major factor in changing my life. With the state of entertainment today this book is highly recommended reading.

Heath Ledger and Acting Parts

I heard on the news this morning that he had trouble sleeping after playing the Joker character in the latest Batman movie. I also heard that Jack Nicholson told him to be careful in playing the part.

That makes me ask the question of how actors are able to get into their characters and the effect it has on them personally. It seems they may need to learn to separate fantasy from their own life. There are so many couples in hollywood that think they fall in love playing love interests in the movies. They get married in real life and get divorced so quickly because they are living in the fantasy of the parts they are playing and not real life.

Fox News article Jack Nicholson Says He 'Warned' Heath Ledger
NY Daily News article Jack Nicholson warned Heath Ledger on 'Joker' role
KUTV story Heath Ledger Was Reportedly 'Warned' By Jack Nicholson

Boston Legal 12/11/07

The Boston Legal Dec 11th Show had a similar agendas the Dec 4th show and also over the top:


Some of the idiotic liberal charges are below with my comments in italics.

• Claiming it's unpatriotic to criticize this country while we blow up someone else's country
• Iraq - saying the National guard are all in Iraq and can't help here at home
• Katrina
• Schools are bad - No child left behind / they are the ones to blame
• standardized tests are bad - they got that right
• school system is raising idiots - true
• Kids forsake knowledge to get to college - TRUE
• Education
• SSI
• inflation
• unemployment
• healthcare
• homeland security
• the war
• osama and Brittany turning out videos
• global warming
• NOTHING IS GOING RIGHT
• war cost too much
• listed ways the government could spend money on us instead of war - that's known as communism
• Pentagon only counts our losses not Iraqis - we're not killing the Iraqis they are killing their own
• British kids know more about our country than we do - they probably do because of the democrats and how they destroyed our school system
• less than 40% seniors can read proficiently
• standardized tests messed with to prove schools doing well
• teach the test or shred it - shred it
• ill equipped for national emergencies - too busy imposing democracies elsewhere
• Katrina alot of experts saw it coming did nothing - democrats fault of course
• Democrats complain and offer no solutions - Once in a while the show will get somethings right
• complain about age limit for national guard
• Standard test to get federal funding why stick to your values when there's cash at stake.
• test cost too much - No child left behind Nazis, Fed give states money to fix schools
• National Guard is backdoor draft and won't have anyone too fight our war anyone should be able to join age, sex orient, non job performance
• Joining the Boy Scouts but you have to be young and straight
• Get rid of NO child left behind - it is leaving kids behind
• Conservatives act like idiots and want to shoot anyone
• Volunteerism is up even though alot is wrong - at least they admit it
• Incompetent government - and they want more of the same with health care and all the government programs the want it to run.
• Bush incompetent was plan all along to get people to help
• Bush can't speak English language

• Conservatives are idiots and want to nuke Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Korea, Afghanistan, basically nuke happy that's what Bush wants to do.

These notions are so totally not true, but they know if you tell the same lie over and over it will be believed by alot of people not willing to research the facts.

Daytime Soaps keep going through strike

This is what I like to see. People that don't let Union mobsters control them. After 20 years I have got myself back into General Hospital and am glad to see there is no stopping production. This is an interesting article in the NY Times.

Boston Legal 12/04/2007

We watch Boston Legal and the Dec 4th show was a little bit too much over the top. I like some of the characters and how they interact with each other, but they always throw some idiotic liberal cause in the show that make it kind of stupid and ruins it. This week I think they went too far, there were so many slams at conservatives, it was really too much.

Some of the tired old material that they just keep spewing includes stuff about

• Larry Craig
• about talk Radio being too Conservative and too powerful.
• Ann Coulter - No one takes her seriously - she's a joke
• Mitt Romney - Gay union flip flop
• Howard Stern
• Don Imus
• Talk show hosts as so called journalists hate mongering bigotry - wrapping themselves in the American flag and calling it free speech and claiming that Americans are calling for stations to fire these people
• Katrina (When are they going to stop lying about this. They can't see that they were the problem and transfer the blame to others)
• 911 victims
• claiming that the presidential candidates refuse to engage in debate
• claiming reporters lost their jobs for criticizing the war and that 35% of journalists say newsworthy stories are shunned because they'll hurt new organization monetarily
• The usual jabs at Family values senators
• Saying that Congressmen are criminals but have to go after Larry Craig
• Wondering why police are wasting time with sex crimes when we should concentrate on Terror (I afree with that) ..... but Larry Craig deserved what he got
• Republicans don't care if you're gay as long as you persecute homosexuals

The show would be a lot better if they stopped all the easy jabs and actually write a good story. I know it's hard work, but why work hard when you can easily write idiocy, which is far easier. So I am glad the writers are on strike when they write trash like this. Normally unions cause a turn to the lowest common denominator like the teachers and automotive unions where in the teachers union you basically can't get fired no matter what you do including abusing children. So with the automotive union where you get paid a lot of money for not doing a lot of work and that is why our cars are inferior and so expensive.

Broken Trail

I know this TV movie has been out for a while but I didn't see it until this past holiday season and I am glad I finally did. It is a really good story and seems to be more realistic than most of the Westerns that have been made. The acting was superb and the scenery excellent. A reality I noticed was that the head of the brothel was a woman and was the one exploiting the Chinese women and the men were the ones who cared about them. I think that happens more often than others hurting particular people. Just like it was blacks in Africa who sold other blacks into the slave trade. Women made money exploiting other women by prostitution. I'm sure it happens with all other groups. You know your own, so so you know the weaknesses to exploit.

Golden Globes Cancelled!

Great news! I really hate these award shows, they are the biggest waste of time and even more waste of money. Thank you writers for sticking to your demands. Hope the same happens to the Academy Awards another waste. There should be more of what has happened with some shows, making private deals with the different companies. The Union shouldn't be doing any of this each writer should make a deal for them self and not rely of some union thug. Then they will be more free and have more choice.

Sound of Music

Believe it or not I finally saw the movie Sound of Music this past weekend. I have HD TV on my computer now and decided to watch things I normally don't watch just because it looks so good. I started to watch the Sound of Music and right at the beginning I could tell iti actually had a very good story to it. Over the years I have caught about ten or fifteen minutes in the middle and about the same amount three quarters into the movie. Now I have seen the whoole thing and was very pleasantly surprised at what a great movie it is. I 've always liked Andy Williams version of the song "My Favorite Things" and never knew it came from that movie.

It really makes me wonder how in such a short amount of time television and movies has gotten so bad. Although I do see some signs of improvement, it is going to take a while to get back to Hollywood doing mainly good movies, if they ever do.

Writers are a dime a dozen

I rarely watch the Tonight Show but since he is going back on the air when the writers are still on strike, I thought I'd support him. The show was actually pretty good! The only difference I noticed was that the show was actually better the the last times I have watched it. I always used to watch it when Johnny was on, but ever since Jay took over, it just wasn't as good. But this wasn't that bad.

Shows should just hire the best writers they can find and write a contract that satisfies that writer and forget about the union. Unions have destroyed America. I think that's part of the reason we have this lowest common denominator thing happening in movies and television.