"Who ARE Those Guys?"

Wasn't it the movie "Mr. Roberts", where the World War II U.S. Navy guys were at anchor somewhere, bored and frustrated, when they realized that a newly-constructed building on shore had just started housing nurses? And they could see the new arrivals taking showers through uncovered windows. A woman Naval Officer came aboard and spotted the exposed women and took off for shore to have curtains installed. Jack Lemmon, the ship's officer who had brought the woman aboard, said to the disheartened men, "Well you can still look until she gets back there." The men said it just wasn't the same, knowing their enjoyment was going to come to an end. Yesterday I heard someone on the radio say that the population of the U.S. would triple by the end of this century. Yeah, but . . . Next story was about food riots beginning to break out in different places. Next story was about all the inventive new ways desperate people are coming up with to steal gas. Next story was about our crappy air. Next was a computer-generated picture of all the space junk floating above us. Next story told of a second U.S. aircraft carrier moving into the Persian Gulf. Next story reported that somebody at the U.N. called bio-fuel a crime against humanity. Next story told of the resurgence of terrorist groups along the Pakistani border. Next story told us that CEO salaries in 1980 were about 40 times the average worker's pay, and now they are many hundreds of times more. Next story let us know about the increase in home-invasion robberies. Next story told of a new ban on salmon fishing to try to save the vanishing fish population. Next story was that many Americans are outraged by the picture of Hannah Montana's uncovered back. Well it's good to know people can still get outraged about something.

Three times more people than there are now. Good luck with that.

I've been watching "The History of Rock 'n' Roll" on DVD from the library. I remember first hand. And I remember how blown away I was the first time I heard two songs actually say something unrelated to boy/girl love. "Positively 4th Street" and "Eve of Destruction". I hadn't realized it was even possible for songs to make you think above the waist. (Well, I was young.) And when it happened with the Beatles, I hadn't realized that it was Bob Dylan flat-out telling John Lennon that Beatles music was lame (or however he put it), and that had been when the Fab Four passed on the bubble-gum tunes for more pertinent lyrics. Social and political comment was the thing in music for a while there, and a few TV shows went for it (one of them actually ordered off the air by then President Nixon), and even a couple politicians and public figures tried, (but they got shot).

Heh, I spoke too soon. I shut off the monitor to watch Criminal Minds just as I finished the last paragraph, and lo and behold, the show was about a gay guy so filled with self-hate and guilt by his real religious prison-guard father that he went off the deep end. A hint of rational thought in prime time; who'd'a thunk? And an added kicker at the end, the arresting officer was, and the guy getting handcuffed is, from the cast of the Young and the Restless. (Not that I watch it.) (Well okay, I watch it, but I could quit any time.) (I do miss Bobby and Britney, the only outlaws I've seen on the show.) (Oh sure, they've had plenty of criminals, but darn few outlaws.) (Maybe Carmen if she'd lived longer.) So anyway, kudos to Criminal Minds for risking the wrath of the pious.

Two upcoming topics on one of those entertainment shows. "Celebrity Virgins" and "Greensburg Rising". That's that small town where the tornado hit, leveling all nine churches, and leaving the town's only bar untouched. For once we were spared giving God credit for something on the news.

She was such a rebel, she didn't even have a tattoo.

The DC Madame hung herself today they're saying. You have to admit that the world is a better place since her arrest, knowing that her sin-obsessed clients can't have sex anymore just anytime they want. But I wonder what they'll do now.

I started this on Wednesday and now it's Saturday. I've been having major computer problems, the First of the Month hit and I had a bunch of business to take care of, and it's been warm temperatures here in Southern California which makes it great for walking around checking out the eye candy. Yowzers. I'll be heading up to the library to post this in a while.

Two worthy movies if you haven't seen . . . "Lackawanna Blues" and "Dangerous Beauty".

Peace.