The Moral Equivalent of War

In 1977, Jimmy Carter gave a national address on the energy crisis known as the "Moral Equivalent of War" speech.  Time was that our nation had a president who actually knew who William James was and could reference his ideas appropriately.  It's no wonder why the bigoted spooks at the CIA hated him and tried to undermine his efforts to restore our nation's honor and integrity.

Carter introduced a ten-point plan, the basis of which was conservation.  "The cornerstone of our policy, is to reduce the demand through conservation.  Our emphasis on conservation is a clear difference between this plan and others which merely encouraged crash production efforts.  Conservation is the quickest, cheapest, most practical source of energy."  Other key points were protection of the environment through conservation and the need for sacrifice from every part of society.  Carter also stated that "those who insist on driving large, unnecessarily powerful cars must expect to pay more for that luxury."

It's so horrific that bigoted fascists like my brother-in-law made a mockery of Carter's vision by horrifically destroying the environment.  The result has been millions of deaths and injuries, endless unjust wars, and destruction of the planet. 

Ads

"CBS Sunday Morning" has some interesting commercials.  Every week, they have an ad from the Soda Council with an employee in red for Coke, one in blue for Pepsi, and another in white for Dr. Pepper/Keurig.  Some of the ads tout their low- or no-sugar options, but others claim that they use amazing new plastics for their bottles.  "CBS Sunday Morning" once immediately followed that ad with a segment about how such claims are deliberately misleading efforts by the oil and plastics industries that are really designed to get people to not worry about waste issues with plastics.

Now they also repeatedly run an ad from the Check Council explaining the proper ways to use checks, the most important of which is to never, ever use checks if at all possible. 

Not Even with Cleavage!

A new Roku channel shows "Square Pegs" on weekend mornings.  I hadn't seen an episode since I watched them over 40 years ago on Monday nights on CBS, but the first one I saw was probably the one I best remembered - Johnny Slash is bizarrely good at hitting home runs for the school's baseball team.  Unfortunately, he can only play home games because the fields at other schools look different.  Steve Sax makes a cameo, and they mentioned that he had just been named Rookie of the Year about 6 times.

I also always like Tracy Nelson as Jennifer.  She has the Valley Girl thing going on, even though the show is basically set in the New York area, but also has a proto-Madonna vibe.  She's also true Hollywood royalty, being the daughter of Ricky Nelson, sister of Nelson Nelson, granddaughter of Ozzie and Harriet, niece of Mark Harmon and Pam Dawber .... 

The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh

The Pisces were coached by Sacramento's top investigative TV reporter, Jeffrey Trout.

Update:  Nicholas Pryor apparently and coincidentally died this week.  I'll also remember him as a passenger in "Airplane!" and from a couple of "Murder She Wrote" episodes.

Theories that Probably Aren't True But Should Be

1.  "The Wizard of Oz" is an allegory for bimetallism and the gold standard.

2.  The movie version of "The Shining" is an allegory for the genocide of indigenous peoples of the Americas.

At least the theories seemed compelling when I first read them as a kid.

Kennedy Center Honors

The latest group of Kennedy Center honorees has been announced, and the organizers somehow resisted the temptation to recognize yet another British rock star.  They finally got around to selecting Francis Ford Coppola, which seems overdue given that his more prolific peers Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg and even his less prolific protege George Lucas were honored a long time ago.  I read a very tedious online article about how it's somehow bad that dead rock stars like Jerry Garcia aren't honored as part of groups like the Grateful Dead, this despite the fact that the honors are never given posthumously.  The same article didn't have a problem with a building, in the case the Apollo Theater, being honored.  

It's a good thing that true architect of rock and roll Little Richard didn't live to see a building selected instead of him.   

"Eight Is Enough" S4:E18 The Commitment

High school senior Tommy is obviously profoundly insane and believes that Mary's gorgeous med school classmate (played by Markie Post with late 70s Farrah-esque hair) has the hots for him.