Let’s talk nickles and dimes — ditching the landline

When I was a kid, I saved my money for trips to the candy store. Well it was technically a “stationery store” but I rarely made it past the front counters which featured many nickle and dime options for satisfying my desire for sweets.

Years later, some in my college cohort had other cravings that could be satisfied by nickles and dimes, though under these circumstances it meant getting set back by $5 or $10.

Now it seems our collective hunger for data and communication services are getting us nickled and dimed to the tune of $50 to $100 month.

Why that fake MLK quote matters

By now I assume everyone who re-posted the following quote (in reference to celebrations of the death of Osama bin Laden):

I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

has learned that it wasn’t exactly a quote by Martin Luther King, Jr. who apparently is right up there with Nelson Mandela, Mohandas Gandhi, Kurt Vonnegut and Bill Gates in terms of false attributions. To be fair, the original facebook post had it right: the author’s own words, followed by the quote. Which then got combined and re-posted.

There was a kerfluffle on my own facebook when I pointed this out after a friend quoted it as a comment on a related post of mine.

Now, I agree with the sentiment, the whole thing. And while I didn’t join in the repost of this particular misquote, I’ve participated in such post-fests before. And when I get called out I feel foolish, defensive or embarrassed (or some mixture of the three). Some of the reactions I’ve seen this time around are “well it’s not like this is an academic paper” or “well it’s a good message anyway.”

But I think dismissing the misquote problem by saying “hey, it’s just facebook” misses a big point: that quote wouldn’t have been so widely passed around had it not had “MLK” attached to it. To me, that’s a form of cultural misappropriation just as egregious as the rewritten African American spirituals included in the UU hymnal Singing the Living Tradition.

As a white person I’ve been conditioned to think my good intentions will insulate me from criticism when I try to earn points by appropriating the words of people of color. Turning this kind of criticism around and making the issue about my own hurt white feelings is not the kind of behavior that’s going to make anyone want me as their ally.

Snarky’s Machine pointed out to me that Damon Brown tells how to recognize fake quotes like this in The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Memes. Until I read this, I vow to be a little more discerning about reposting and retweeting things attributed to others, and sticking to using my own words.

Even if they aren’t going to make me Internet-famous.

When Fatties Attract

There’s been a lot of talk on the internet about Maura Kelly’s blog post over at Marie Claire wherein the blogger proclaimed her disgust at the thought of watching fatties get it on on TV.

Now of course it’s your right to be disgusted by whatever disgusts you. And to talk about it. And to receive the natural consequences of picking a portion of the population to “other.”

What’s I find missing in the discussions is any reference to the idea that there may just be people out there who enjoy seeing larger folks on TV.

And I’m not just talking Christina Hendricks full-figured, but still: the fact that her Mad Men character Joan Holloway is so wildly popular suggests to me that there are folks out there who’d go even a little larger.

I remember when I was a kid, and used to watch the Spanish language UHF stations 41 and 47 in New York. I’d watch for the wrestling, sure, but also to see Iris Chacon wiggle her — well, large — butt.

Now, I’m a hetero male, so I’m really not that interested in seeing big guys on TV. But I have it on good authority that fat actors like John Goodman, James Gandolfini, Paul Sorvino and Raymond Burr have all been considered extremely sexy by a large portion of the guy-appreciating population.

So my reply to Maura Kelly is to look elsewhere when fatties attack her TV. It will never be “fatty free” as long as there are people who don’t mind — and even enjoy — looking at people who are the opposite of skinny.

Geeky by Design

In the early, wild-west web days, there were no University degrees in multimedia design, no mail-order certificates in HTML. Most of us who worked in the area — and by “worked” I mean either did stuff for free or levied a hidden HTML tax on their other projects — knew what Yahoo* stood for, visited Matt’s Script Archive regularly, and created pages that looked just like everyone else’s: bold H1 text at the top, a bunch of smaller text on a grey background and maybe a few images or diagrams.

When the newfangled Netscape browser introduced tables, and you could actually control where things went on a page, the actual discipline of web design was born. But most pages still looked pretty crappy. Probably because most pages were still being created by computer geeks like me. There was no Dreamweaver or even HoTMetaL yet. And there were no degrees in web design: if you wanted to learn, you went to VSU — View Source University — and copied the same ugly layouts and arrow buttons everyone else was using.

Degree material?

Yesterday was oldest son’s high school graduation. I was plenty early enough, I thought, to get good seats. I parked and followed the throngs of grads in robes and family members in whatever passed for their Sunday best into the the arena where it was being held. I opted for a tie and pants but it was so warm I left the jacket behind.

It was pretty crowded already, so I took a seat further away from the action. I got myself settled in and started to look over the program, automatically scanning the list of graduates’ names for my son’s.

Funny. I couldn’t find it.

I looked a few more times, turned the program over. And then saw the name of the school on the cover. Which wasn’t my son’s high school. The school in a town I used to live in was holding its graduation in the arena right next door to the civic auditorium where I was supposed to be.

Yeah I can be pretty clueless like that, but fortunately I got to the right place by the right time. Still, a little Dr. John wouldn’t hurt.

The Brave Little Toast

Toast has probably been around for as long as there were people well-fed enough to let bread get stale, and other people hungry enough to want to find a palatable way to eat it. Toasted bread also holds together better than the fresher, fluffier stuff, making it good for transporting soups and dips from bowl to mouth. So it’s not surprising that over time it’s appeared in many popular forms:

Everything Old Is New Again: Toy Story 3 Recycles Pop Culture

To celebrate Fathers Day this past Sunday, I took my three kids out to see Toy Story 3 on its opening weekend. Oddly enough, the film was creepily devoid of fathers or adult men of any sort. Which isn’t a major issue, since the stars were, of course, the toys.

I’ve been a Pixar fan since the first Toy Story movie, which I bought at full price when it came out on VHS. Unlike most Disney movies (Pixar wasn’t acquired by Disney until 2006) I’ve always found Pixar films to be entertaining for adults as well as children, with original stories that didn’t tarnish my memories of the source material (I’m not a big fan of what Disney did with Pooh, for example).

Probably the most entertaining part of the Toy Story franchise, from this adult’s perspective, has been seeing old friends from my youth reappear as (and played by) character actors. The little green soldiers (with their comical hop/walk because of the plastic base their feet are stuck to), the Slinky dog, the Mr. Microphone, the ubiquitous Barrel O’ Monkeys. And of course Mr. Potato Head, whose scene stealing is due as much to the comic possibilities of a character with interchangeable face parts and and a rear trap door as to Don Rickles’ deadpan delivery.

I have to say that Toy Story 3 was a bit less thrilling for me on this count. Maybe Disney didn’t want to pay a lot more in royalties, or maybe they’d already mined the most popular toys of the 60s and 70s, or maybe those of us who remember toys of that era are just too darned old to be taking their kids to the movies anymore. So while Ned Beatty’s ersatz Care Bear made for a great villain-disguised-as-a-kindly-old-man (a role very similar to that of the Prospector in TS2), I got more of a thrill from bit parts like the Fisher Price Chatter Telephone, and of course the cymbal-clapping monkey.

I did enjoy the way Pixar handled Ken. I felt Barbie, who didn’t appear until TS2 (I imagine Mattel execs were kicking themselves after seeing other toy sales jump following the original movie), was presented fairly respectfully… chirpy but not dumb, outgoing and helpful if a bit materialistic. Similarly, Ken (perfect painted hair and all) is a dandy who loves his clothes and his dream house but nevertheless has the hots for his soul mate Barbie, whose love turns him from the dark side. I guess I liked that they didn’t go for the cheap “Ken is so gay” laughs but instead imbued his character with some swishy nuance.

And while it was a very slender non-speaking role indeed, I was thrilled to see a stuffed Totoro, clearly an homage to the great Japanese animation director Hayao Miyazaki, some of whose films have been distributed in the states by Disney (my favorite being Kiki’s Delivery Service).

While there may not have been a lot of new old toys on display, there was still plenty for the boomer and space age generations to enjoy. I’m pretty sure I was the only person in the packed theater to laugh at the homages to old prison-break movies like Cool Hand Luke, with Buzz playing Boss Carr, and “the box” being the sand box (“I’m pretty sure those weren’t Lincoln Logs…”). I had to explain to my kids later on what that was about; they finally understood when I told them that Cool Hand Luke was the movie with the oft-parodied line “what we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.”

And I suspect anyone past the age of eight who’s ever had to part with a beloved toy that would never be played with again would be moved by the way the story ends.

About the only thing that didn’t work for me was the 3D. Oh, it didn’t hurt my eyes or give me a headache (I made sure to follow some advice I’d read to avoid trying to look at the out-of-focus parts of the image). But it also didn’t add anything to the story; midway through I’d actually forgotten I was watching a 3D movie. I doubt I’ll spring for the extra bucks again.

cross-posted at I Fry Mine In Butter