THANK YOU FOX (for once)!!!

Dollhouse got renewed!!!

An amazing speaker

Last night, I went to hear a speaker at my Temple. His name is Leon Leyson and he was the youngest person on Schindler's List.

Now I have not seen the movie, but I have heard other Holocaust survivors speak. It is truly an incredible experience. Mr. Leyson's talk was beyond incredible. He was amazing. He was inspiring and he was recorded!

When my temple releases it on DVD, I'll see if I can upload it so everyone can see it.

What was absolutely incredible about the whole situation is after the talk he opened the floor for questions. One man stood up and asked "what do you think we should do about those who deny the Holocaust ever happened?" As Mr. Leyson opened his mouth to speak, the entire room shook. It was an earthquake, but it was certainly well timed. It was almost as if G-d wanted to hear the answer as well. People started to freak out a bit but started to calm down after a few minutes. Our Rabbi got up and said probably the most perfect phrase she could have come up with:

"Our people have survived worse."

It was truly an amazing evening. If he is speaking in your area, please try to see him. You will not regret it.

Mister Rogers Part II

And to follow that up,

Mister Rogers

One of the obituaries for Walt Disney said something to the effect of now that Walt is gone, the world is less happy. Sweetie has always felt this to be true, pointing out how after Walt passed away, the world got deeper into the cold war and there were more divisions than we had ever seen before.

I found what is below posted here and thought I would share it. When this man left, the world was less kind, less accepting and less honest.

15 Reasons Mister Roger was the Best Neighbor Ever

1. Even Koko the Gorilla loved him
Most people have heard of Koko, the Stanford-educated gorilla who could speak about 1000 words in American Sign Language, and understand about 2000 in English. What most people don’t know, however, is that Koko was an avid Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood fan. As Esquire reported, when Fred Rogers took a trip out to meet Koko for his show, not only did she immediately wrap her arms around him and embrace him, she did what she’d always seen him do onscreen: she proceeded to take his shoes off!

2. He Made Thieves Think Twice
According to a TV Guide piece on him, Fred Rogers drove a plain old Impala for years. One day, however, the car was stolen from the street near the TV station. When Rogers filed a police report, the story was picked up by every newspaper, radio and media outlet around town. Amazingly, within 48 hours the car was left in the exact spot where it was taken from, with an apology on the dashboard. It read, “If we’d known it was yours, we never would have taken it.”

3. He Watched His Figure to the Pound!
In covering Rogers’ daily routine (waking up at 5; praying for a few hours for all of his friends and family; studying; writing, making calls and reaching out to every fan who took the time to write him; going for a morning swim; getting on a scale; then really starting his day), writer Tom Junod explained that Mr. Rogers weighed in at exactly 143 pounds every day for the last 30 years of his life. He didn’t smoke, didn’t drink, didn’t eat the flesh of any animals, and was extremely disciplined in his daily routine. And while I’m not sure if any of that was because he’d mostly grown up a chubby, single child, Junod points out that Rogers found beauty in the number 143. According to the piece, Rogers came “to see that number as a gift… because, as he says, “the number 143 means ‘I love you.’ It takes one letter to say ‘I’ and four letters to say ‘love’ and three letters to say ‘you.’ One hundred and forty-three.”

4. He Saved Both Public Television and the VCR
Strange but true. When the government wanted to cut Public Television funds in 1969, the relatively unknown Mister Rogers went to Washington. Almost straight out of a Capra film, his 5-6 minute testimony on how TV had the potential to give kids hope and create more productive citizens was so simple but passionate that even the most gruff politicians were charmed. While the budget should have been cut, the funding instead jumped from $9 to $22 million. Rogers also spoke to Congress, and swayed senators into voting to allow VCR’s to record television shows from the home. It was a cantankerous debate at the time, but his argument was that recording a program like his allowed working parents to sit down with their children and watch shows as a family.

5. He Might Have Been the Most Tolerant American Ever
Mister Rogers seems to have been almost exactly the same off-screen as he was onscreen. As an ordained Presbyterian minister, and a man of tremendous faith, Mister Rogers preached tolerance first. Whenever he was asked to castigate non-Christians or gays for their differing beliefs, he would instead face them and say, with sincerity, “God loves you just the way you are.” Often this provoked ire from fundamentalists.

6. He Was Genuinely Curious about Others
Mister Rogers was known as one of the toughest interviews because he’d often befriend reporters, asking them tons of questions, taking pictures of them, compiling an album for them at the end of their time together, and calling them after to check in on them and hear about their families. He wasn’t concerned with himself, and genuinely loved hearing the life stories of others. Amazingly, it wasn’t just with reporters. Once, on a fancy trip up to a PBS exec’s house, he heard the limo driver was going to wait outside for 2 hours, so he insisted the driver come in and join them (which flustered the host). On the way back, Rogers sat up front, and when he learned that they were passing the driver’s home on the way, he asked if they could stop in to meet his family. According to the driver, it was one of the best nights of his life—the house supposedly lit up when Rogers arrived, and he played jazz piano and bantered with them late into the night. Further, like with the reporters, Rogers sent him notes and kept in touch with the driver for the rest of his life.

7. He was Color-blind
Literally. He couldn’t see the color blue. Of course, he was also figuratively color-blind, as you probably guessed. As were his parents who took in a black foster child when Rogers was growing up.

8. He Could Make a Subway Car full of Strangers Sing
Once while rushing to a New York meeting, there were no cabs available, so Rogers and one of his colleagues hopped on the subway. Esquire reported that the car was filled with people, and they assumed they wouldn’t be noticed. But when the crowd spotted Rogers, they all simultaneously burst into song, chanting “It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood.” The result made Rogers smile wide.

A few other things:
9. He got into TV because he hated TV. The first time he turned one on, he saw people angrily throwing pies in each other’s faces. He immediately vowed to use the medium for better than that. Over the years he covered topics as varied as why kids shouldn’t be scared of a haircut, or the bathroom drain (because you won’t fit!), to divorce and war.

10. He was an Ivy League Dropout. Rogers moved from Dartmouth to Rollins College to pursue his studies in music.

11. He composed all the songs on the show, and over 200 tunes.

12. He was a perfectionist, and disliked ad libbing. He felt he owed it to children to make sure every word on his show was thought out.

13. Michael Keaton got his start on the show as an assistant– helping puppeteer and operate the trolley.

14. Several characters on the show are named for his family. Queen Sara is named after Rogers’ wife, and the postman Mr. McFeely is named for his maternal grandfather who always talked to him like an adult, and reminded young Fred that he made every day special just by being himself. Sound familiar? It was the same way Mister Rogers closed every show.

15. The sweaters. Every one of the cardigans he wore on the show had been hand-knit by his mother.

I hope we all have learned enough from Mister Rogers to teach our children the wonderful virtues that he passed along.

What is sexy?

I watch way too much TV. It's true and I'm willing to admit it. But one of the reasons I do it (well, the reasons Sweetie and I do it) is because it gives us a look into what society says about things. Society tells us that anyone can be a cop (see Law and Order [any of them], CSI [any of them], SouthLAnd, etc.), that dating sucks (see anything in the world) and that anyone can be a hero (mainly Heroes, but a lot of other things as well).

But what does society tell us is sexy? Surely that's an easy one, you might think. But I'm not so sure.

Looking at what is on TV (and granted, I can only comment on what I watch), sexy is skinny, smart, driven women. You have the incredible female leads on Law and Orders, the strong characters on Lie to Me and House M.D., the creative ones on Dollhouse (haven't seen the finale yet, so don't ruin it), the heroic ones on Heroes, etc. etc. And I love that society is allowing for these women to exist on television. Such a wonderful change from Leave it to Beaver's mom and Father Knows Best's mom.

However

Sexy is always understood to be skinny. Any character that is remotely overweight (that is FEMALE) is rarely if ever seen. She's the best friend (see Samantha Who) or the comic relief (see Gilmore Girls) [oddly enough, I just gave you the same actress]. She's the one who is the butt of all the jokes (see Family Guy) or she's the third or fourth story line that leads back to the first story line and that's the only reason they exist (see Dollhouse).

Why is that? We have seen a plethora of men who are overweight on TV. Drew Carey, George Wendt, Jason Alexander, Anthony Anderson, Dann Florek, etc. And while they might not all play the best of characters (a drunk might not be the most glamorous person to play on TV), there are many who play incredible roles.

Why can't America understand that curves are sexy? That women who eat are healthy and women who starve themselves are not? This article (thank you Feministing), while happily bringing issues to light about eating disorders, only brings them about because the sex life is having problems. Not because the issue is unhealthy nor because it is trying to combat "the 'thin is in' campaign we’ve been subjected to for decades."

Please tell me I'm not the only one who sees a problem with this!

We need to teach our children (you know, my nonexistant pretend ones that I keep under my desk at work) better. We need to imbue them with much better self-esteem. We need to be sure to keep it all in our minds eye so that they don't go through what most of us went through. And I know we all say it, but I'm hoping we'll all do it.

OMG

I'm a salt lover, but this is ridiculous.

Rites vs. Rights

Such an interesting topic.

I know how I feel about it, but sometimes its interesting to see what the other side has to say. I still think they're crazy and wrong, but maybe I can understand why they think they way they do.