More Random Thoughts

I was watching a Robert Ryan (one of the great unsung actors of his day) cop movie on TCM, and at the beginning ran the logo for the studio - RKO Pictures. The logo calls it "An RKO Radio Picture". What the Hell is a "radio picture"?

Not being a Myspace aficionado, I have no real clue what kind of anti-pedophile protection teenager have on it, but I really have to question this lawsuit by some woman whose 14 year old daughter was sexually assaulted by someone she met through it. She wanted protection for teenagers against adults, but would she have felt better if her daughter was attacked by a 17 year old instead of a 19 year old? If you're going to tell your kids not to talk to strangers, shouldn't you also tell them not to go find a complete stranger that you meet on the internet?

I'm not a Catholic so I don't really care who they ordain. However, I had problem after reading this article on some chick being "ordained" as a Catholic priest. It's how it was written. Isn't it being dishonest for whoever wrote the article to say the woman was ordained as Roman Catholic priest when the Roman Catholic Church law is that women can't be ordained, and the presiding "bishop" had already been excommunicated from the Church? This is the equivalent to me being fired from my job, and then declaring myself Vice President of the company.

I think Phil ripped off my old "Bad Movie Review" from my fantasy football website.

I can understand keeping your job if you win a couple of million in the lottery. I can even understand keeping your job at McDonalds if you're nuts. I just can't understand why anybody would eat the crap they serve at McDonalds.

From reading several news sources, I can find quite a difference of opinion on who is at fault in the latest Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I'll just make a couple of points. My brother serves in our armed forces. If he were grabbed by a bunch of radicals, I would not object to our military laying waste to half the Middle East to get him back. In fact, I would expect it. Some may not remember that Hezbollah from long ago, but they were the ones who blew up the Marine Barracks in Beirut in 1983 which killed 241 American serviceman on a peacekeeping mission (for those who think it was because they were Americans, the French lost 58 paratroopers in similar suicide bombing the same day). Let's look at which side really wants peace. In recent years, Israel has evacuated their southern Lebanon and Gaza buffer zones in an effort to push along the "peace process". How did the Palestinians respond? Hamas declared that they ran Israel out of Gaza and won control of the Palestinian government. Gaza is now a staging ground for rocket attacks on Israel. Come to think of it, Hezbollah uses southern Lebanon for the same thing. Israel gives up land as concession for peace. Two terrorist groups who are still dedicated to the destruction of Israel use that land to launch attacks. Yeah, I don't have to put a lot of thought into whom really wants peace.

And please don't think a captured Israeli soldier is equivalent to a captured Palestinian terrorist. The Palestinian is put in jail where they do things like run for the Palestinian Parliament. Captured Israelis have a tendency to disappear for good.

Finally, since Phil has ripped Wal-Mart for their policies, I will defend them for no other reason than I can. Well, not all their policies. They've never had good service (but most general merchandise chain stores don't). I could really care less whether or not they chant in the morning, but maybe it works better than half the employees showing up hungover like at a place I used to work. Still, Wal-Marts are cleaner than KMart, but so is a stall at Keeneland so that's not really a selling point. The main thing I want to point out is that not all poor people work at Wal-Mart. Other retail stores don't pay that too either (don't bother looking for the BMWs in Meijer's employee parking). Not to mention the spare change waitresses at the Waffle House make (I don't bring up their janitors because I don't think Waffle House has them). The unfortunate fact is that we will always have a class of people who work low wage jobs. I think the high school dropout rate is 20 something percent, and I believe all of us who worked at Toys R Us can name people who jumped from job to job because The Man expected them to do things like show up on time. Or at all. Personally, I can afford to shop at Meijer or Target or whatever. For those who are stuck in low income jobs, Wal-Mart is one of the best things that happened to them. Low prices mean they are spending a smaller percentage of their income on necessities.

Hey, it's now the 20th. NFL training camps start opening today. Football is almost here. College practice starts the first week of August and since I'm not a UK fan, I can watch college football past September too.