I thought I’d try to get in an update post here before I’m gone for a few days. My kids are on spring break this week, and I’m only working through noon today. I’m taking off the rest of the week, starting with taking my daughter to lunch. She’s asked for just the two of us to go out to lunch, so we’re doing that today. The rest of the week is not completely planned, but mostly just some time to spend together as a family, and for me, not working!

We all went to see Horton Hears A Who this weekend. It was pretty good. I didn’t enjoy it as much as I did several Pixar movies, but it was still fun. I usually find Jim Carrey to be annoying to some degree, but he wasn’t too bad here. I’ve had Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee (HBO) on my DVR for months now, and I’m hoping to find time to watch it this week during my time off.

My eMusic downloads refreshed this past weekend. I’ve not decided what else I’ll be getting yet, but I finally pulled the trigger on John Fogerty’s double-live album The Long Road Home - In Concert, which I’ve had on my list for many months now. It’s part solo, part CCR, and it’s all good. It includes one song I was unfamiliar with, apparently from an album of his a few years ago. It’s called “Déjà Vu (All Over Again)”, where Fogerty expresses his opinion of the Iraq war, suggesting it’s another Vietnam. Check it out.

I finished A.J. Jacob’s book The Year of Living Biblically yesterday. I enjoyed it a lot. First, it was hilarious. Jacobs is pretty funny. But, I also found it thought provoking at times. How seriously do I take the Bible? How do I, at times, interpret it to fit what I want it to say instead of taking it for what it says? My one complaint is that it probably could have been a bit shorter. He tended to include plenty of accounts that really didn’t add anything to the story. But still, I’d definitely recommend it.

I’m currently reading Erwin McManus’ The Barbarian Way. I read this about two and a half years ago, but as I think I mentioned before, I’m a part of a book club with a couple of ministers from my church, and that’s our book for March. I’m about halfway through.

In other books, I’ll start reading Lewis’ Mere Christianity over the next few days. Our small group at church is beginning a study of it this week. I’ve had this book for probably 15 years, and have yet to read it. So, finally, I will. Also, I picked up Shane Claiborne’s new book, Jesus For President, a couple of days ago. I plan to start it next week, after I’m finished with McManus.

I was somewhat sad to see the series finale of Jericho last night. I guess we won’t get to see America’s next civil war, although I understand the producers are still hoping to land it somewhere else after CBS showed them the door. A fair amount of it was beyond belief, but I still enjoyed it while it lasted.

If you don’t read Greg Boyd’s blog, go check it out. He’s had some great stuff over the last month. Start with his Feburary 28th post and read up to the present.

I’ll probably have a tournament update next week, but until then, here’s #3:

I just recently watched the documentary Jesus Camp. The best description I found of this camp was the review calling it a “Christian Madrasah.”

Here’s a few things I learned from viewing the film, which might give you an idea of what it’s like if you haven’t seen it:

Fundamentalist children need to change the world, because too many grownups are fat and lazy, and unwilling to fast (so said the heavyset pastor.)

Fundamentalist children can pray in tongues on command. Pastor says, “We’re going to pray in tongues” and begins to spout nonsensical gibberish. Kids follow her lead.

Fundamentalist pastor says that, currently, the climate towards Christianity is the friendliest in her lifetime (I’m guessing she’s in her 40’s or maybe 50’s, but I’m never a good judge of age.) She attributes this to George W. Bush, saying that he has brought credibility to the Christian faith. That was probably one of the most stunning statements I heard in the film.

She also says that we need to “stand up and take back the land.” It wasn’t clear exactly what that means, but evidently it’s very important.

Twelve year old Levi, who has a really bad haircut, “got saved” at five years old. Reason? “Nothing was fun” and he “wanted more out of life.” I’m not questioning him, but that’s just the first time I’ve ever heard of a five year old wanting more out of life.

“Creation Adventure” appears to be a video series designed to teach creationism and mock evolution.

As described during an apparent homeschool “science” class:

• Global Warming is a myth
• Creationism is the only answer to all of our questions.
• Fundamentalist children would not enjoy a school that says “creationism is stupid”, but would love to attend a school that says “evolution is stupid.” (It’s unclear if such schools actually exist.)
• Science doesn’t prove anything.

God doesn’t want us to send our kids to public schools. (Homeschooling appears to be His choice.)

Fundamentalist homeschooled chlidren pledge allegiance to the Christian flag, the Bible, and the USA flag.

The public schools began falling apart when they removed public prayer, and many parents are now asking “Where is my country?”

Praying over a bowling ball before launching it down the alley will only get you a gutter ball.

Nine year olds distributing Jack Chick tracts at a bowling alley is possibly an effective evangelistic tool (results were not immediately apparent.)

Carman music is the music of choice at “Jesus Camp”.

Harry Potter is not a hero. He is, in fact, an enemy of God. Had he lived during the time of the Old Testament, “he would have been put to death.” (I don’t recall any fictional characters being put to death in the OT, but my OT knowledge is probably not as strong as it should be.)

When a child admits to having watched a Harry Potter movie, other kids look at him as if he’d just announced that he was, in fact, Satan himself.

It’s easy to bring a room of children to tears. Just repeatedly tell them what horrible sinners they are.

Fortunately, Nestle bottled water can cleanse your hands of sin and the pastor had some on hand for the kids to wash it away.

If a child mentions that he sometimes doubts God’s existence and the reliability of the Bible, other kids in the room will be stunned and speechless, only looking around to see if anyone else can react to such an unprecedented and incomprehensible revelation.

Ghost stories do not honor God.

If you’re going to use the phrase “punishment for sin and death” in a Powerpoint presentation, then you need to use a font (colored red, of course) that looks like it’s dripping blood.

The most frequent prayer requests among fundamentalists appear to be for: (1) God to stop abortion (2) God to send revival.

God doesn’t like to go to “dead churches”, where people are quiet. He likes to go to churches who invite Him properly - via jumping, shouting and praising Him.

Fundamentalist children need to be “simmered in the Spirit.” (No idea.)

President Bush has surrounded himself with Spirit filled people. (Not sure if this was referring to the real President Bush, or the cardboard standup of the president that they brought on stage at Jesus Camp.)

“Changing America” is of utmost importance. (Stopping abortion and revival are mentioned again in prayer, so it would appear that those things, along with “righteous judges”, are the keys to change.)

Bush’s nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court was extremely important.

Ted Haggard believes homosexuality is sinful. (My assumption is that this applies only to people not named Ted Haggard.)

Haggard gives out preaching advice to twelve year old Levi. (Hopefully, he didn’t give him any advice on other areas, such as his social life, for example.)

According to Haggard, the church tells children God loves them while the public schools tells them they’re animals.

There’s a new church like Haggard’s being born every two days in the U.S., enough to sway any elections. “It’s a fabulous life”, says Haggard.

It’s cool to be a martyr.

Street conversations:

Fundamentalist child: Do you know where you’ll be when you die?
Black men: Heaven.
Fundamentalist child: Are you sure?
Black men: Yes.
Fundamentalist child: Okay.
(children walk away)
Fundamentalist child: I think maybe they were Muslim.

---

(white people refuse tracts when approached by fundamentalist children)
Fundamentalist child: Maybe they’re Christians already.
Fundamentalist child #2: Yeah.

When extreme liberals see fundamentalist children opposing abortion, then must be shaking in their boots.

Most of the people in the U.S. are conservative, and liberalism is dead.

We are a nation of Indians ruled by Swedes (as India is the most religious country on earth, Sweden the most irreligious.)

Democracy is the greatest political system on earth, but will eventually destroy itself because it includes the unfortunate attribute of giving equal freedom to everyone (as opposed to freedom only for Christians, I assume?)

And, the most important thing I learned: I’ll never let my kids near any such camp.

My self-imposed official cutoff for my favorite albums of the year was Thanksgiving, so I’m in the process of determining what my favorites list this year will look like. Anyway, look for that in a couple of weeks, probably mid-December. And I’ll probably post my favorite books list around the same time.

Therefore, this album won’t be on the list, as I downloaded it just last night, so I guess it goes into my 2008 pool.

I was checking out a friend’s blog earlier this year and noticed his “now playing” list (which still hasn’t changed months later). One of the discs he listed was Funnel Cloud by the band Hem. I liked the clips I heard of it and put it in my eMusic “save for later” list. Six or eight months later, it’s finally risen to the top. Very good stuff, unlike much of the stuff I listen to and quite a nice departure. Here is a live clip of the track “Not California”, although it is not high-quality and doesn’t do justice to the album version. Check out Funnel Cloud.

Nutt to Ole Miss

I was fine with Houston Nutt leaving Arkansas. I’ve already said it was time to go, and I think everyone knew it, even Nutt himself. But I was more than a little surprised that they allowed him to go directly to another SEC school, especially the closest to Fayetteville, and one that will allow him to easily recruit the same players he would have at Arkansas. I don’t think it was a bad move for UA to let him go (or, ask him, perhaps), but I do think it was poor judgment to allow him to stay in our backyard at Ole Miss.

Interestingly, there are now four coaches in the SEC who’ve coached at other conference schools: Tommy Tuberville (Ole Miss, Auburn), Steve Spurrier (Florida, USC), Nick Saban (LSU, Alabama) and now Nutt. Not often you see movement like that, although only Tuberville and Nutt have gone directly from one to the other, with Spurrier and Saban taking a less direct path by way of the NFL. Also interesting are continued rumors of Arkansas’ interest in Arkansas-native Tuberville. I like Tommy and would be fine with him in Fayetteville, but it still strikes me as unlikely. I guess we’ll find out soon enough.

We don’t need no stinking Badgers!

Duke looked impressive against Wisconsin last night, which, of course, thrilled me. More balanced scoring, with five players in double-figures again, and a 20+ point win over a top 20 team with a lot of size. This was another test against a team with size, where Duke is deficient, and they again passed with flying colors, especially in rebounding. The Badgers, however, were not as athletic as the Devils, which is where Duke really killed them. I hadn’t seen Wisconsin play and wasn’t sure how deserving they were of a #20 ranking, but Duke really played great and never really let them in the game from the beginning. Now I’ll be interested to see them against a team with both size and comparable athletes. If they can succeed there, it’s going to be a great year.

They still have a couple of early season tests coming up before conference play, both on neutral courts, when they meet Davidson this weekend and Pitt in a couple of weeks. I’m hoping they’ll remain undefeated heading into their first conference game on January 13 vs Virginia. I was overly optimistic last year, and so I’m trying not to get too excited just yet, but this team is clearly well ahead of where last year’s team was at this point, and with more talent. Therefore, I’m finding it almost impossible to avoid getting just a little pumped about the rest of the season. I still say that all of those rejoicing at their alleged demise last March are going to be a little disappointed this year.

The Golden Compass

CT has published a collection of emails received in response to their questioning the different responses by Christians to last year’s The Da Vinci Code film and the upcoming release of The Golden Compass. Here’s one I thought was worth repeating:

Am I worried about this new book infiltrating the brains of my three little ones? Not really. What I am more concerned with is the more subtle, soul crushing attacks of materialism in our culture that leads my kids at the ages of 5 and 3 to already tell me almost daily what possessions they want to acquire. I am more concerned with the ease and comfort that we live in that may anesthetize them to a need for the gospel. I am more concerned with the reality that they are daily exposed to a Dad that loves them desperately yet regularly falls short of perfection. I pray they will learn to look to Jesus when I fail them. Don’t get too worked up about this one, people. We have bigger fish to fry, spiritually speaking.

I understand a lot of the concern from parents. However, as other responders suggested, I don’t want to completely shield my kids from things that might challenge their beliefs or cause them to ask important questions about spiritual matters. I feel that we must question what we believe and not blindly accept it. My beliefs have changed many times over the years due to questioning and studying various aspects of my faith. I hope my kids will do the same.

And, as the comment above suggests, there are many other dangers out there that fall into the “bigger fish” category, many of which have become commonplace in American Christianity. I’m far more inclined to believe that things like safety, comfort, materialism, greed, selfishness, nationalism, apathy and many others all pose a much greater threat to Christians in this country than Philip Pullman ever will.

My kids may never watch this film (although I might.) My son is too young, and my daughter would not be interested in this type of film anyway (she’s yet to watch the Narnia film from last year.) But if they want to someday watch it or a similar film, I doubt I will prohibit it. More likely, I’ll watch it with them so that we can then discuss it together.

Okay, that’s all I’ve got.

Shortly after I posted Thursday I called my wife to check on my daughter. She was home sick that day, after having developed a cough the seemed to be growing worse each day. So, she was heading to the doctor, and I called home to check. No answer, so I called her cell. She was still at the doctor, waiting for a nurse to reappear and give my daughter a shot. The reason? She had pneumonia.

Four days later, after the shot and antibiotics, she seems to be doing fine. The doctor said that they’d seen a lot of it recently. My daughter’s friend was just in the hospital with it a month or so ago. Fortunately, the medicine, fluids and rest seemed to have done the trick. She returned to school today, which the doctor said she’s be able to do, and so hopefully she’ll remain well.

Unfortunately, this has limited some Halloween related activities for us. We were planning to visit “Boo at the Zoo” here at the Little Rock zoo last Wedensday night, but she’d come home from school running fever. “Boo” lasts through Halloween, and we may still try to make it tomorrow night, if possible, since it’s a bit warmer here this week. But last Wednesday was members night (we are members and wanted to go on that night), and it gets more crowded the closer you get to Halloween. It will probably depend on how my daughter does over the next two days.

More movies… I watched a couple of movies this week that I’d never seen. Being the season of Halloween, there have been plenty of “horror” films on cable. I caught the original Saw last week and figured I’d see what it was all about. I’m not much into “horror” movies, mainly because they usually suck - just a bunch of gratuitous violence and little else. I kind of enjoyed Saw because there was a little more to it than that, although it’s still not exactly my kind of entertainment. I later came across Saw II, which, unfortunately, I would have to rate well below the original film. It was more along the lines of a Friday the 13th where a bunch of people are killed over the course of the movie. Just not that interesting, and basically a waste of time. You knew, too, after having seen the first one, that there’d be a twist at the end and it was pretty predictable. So, I think I’ve watched my last Saw film.

Over the weekend I also finished Al Franken’s Lies And The Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair And Balanced Look At The Right. It’s a few years old now, but I “mooched” a copy and thought I’d check it out. I’ve always thought Franken was pretty funny, and this book was no exception. My wife began to find my laughing out loud annoying at times. There was a lot of interesting info in the book, and while I’m not willing to take everything Franken said as gospel, I suspect much of it is on target. Seems unlikely you’d write a book about so-called liars without making sure your facts aren’t pretty solid. Of course, he has a (left-leaning) perspective unlike those he criticizes, so no doubt there are those on the right who would see some of his facts and interpretations in a different light. I even felt some could be viewed as saying more or less than they did as Franken presented them. Still, the book was a lot of fun, and the story of him taking his “son” on a visit to Bob Jones University (as if he was searching for a college) was hilarious. You can read that online here.

I found this morning (via Mark Elrod and Political Cartel) that athiest Hemant Mehta spoke at my alma mater, Harding University, last night. I read Mehta’s book, I Sold My Soul On eBay, just a couple of months ago and enjoyed it. His is an interesting story. I’m glad he was invited and would like to have been there to hear him myself. However, I found it interesting that an athiest was allowed to speak at HU, where folks like Mike Cope would be denied.

We had a free weekend of the STARZ channels on DishTV this past weekend. I actually managed to watch 4 movies - which for me is practically unheard of in a month, much less a weekend. Unfortunately, these channels are apparently prohibited from actually show any good movies.

Invincible (Mark Wahlberg, Greg Kinnear, Elizabeth Banks)
This is a movie you’ve seen many times - the sports movie about a person or team who triumphs despite seemingly insurmountable odds. In fact, this is a professional football version of Rudy, which was in a college football setting. I enjoyed it for what it was, and for reasons I simply cannot explain, I’ve always liked Wahlberg in the movies in which I’ve seen him star. Still, if you’ve seen The Rookie, Remember The Titans, the aforementioned Rudy or countless others, you’ve already seen this movie.

The Visitation (Martin Donovan, Kelly Lynch, Edward Furlong)
I read Frank Peretti’s novel of the same name a few years back. Here’s enough to make you want to stay away from it - Randy Travis plays the part of a preacher who casts out demons. There you go. If you’ve seen any movies that would fall under the “Christian” genre (think Left Behind with Kirk Cameron), then you have an idea of what you’ll find here.

Preface to next two movies:
If there’s one thing all movies starring post-80’s SNL alums share in common, it’s probably this - they all suck. Some of the original cast have put out some good movies, and at least a couple from the 80’s (Murphy and Crystal come to mind) put out some decent stuff occasionally. I also enjoyed Wayne’s World and Austin Powers from Michael Myers (although not the sequels so much.) Other than that, I can’t think of much to get excited about. So, with that in mind…

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Leslie Bibb)
Will Ferrell can be funny, even hilarious at times, but, like most SNL alum’s, usually for only short periods of time. There are a lot of people, it seems, that worship Ferrell. I’ve seen several of his movies now, and they’re just not good. Anchorman I actually laughed at more than any others, but even it wasn’t partiularly good. This one was just horrible. I must admit that I skipped through several chunks of it just to make it end faster, but I find it difficult to believe I missed anything that would have changed my mind.

Click (Adam Sandler, Kate Beckinsale, Christopher Walken)
Again, like Farrell, I think Sandler can be hilarious, but outside of Happy Gilmore, I’ve never watched one of his movies and felt that I had not wasted my time. This movie had some humorous moments, what with the being able to stop time or fast forward past boring events. The presence of Kate Beckinsale certainly helped as well, regardless of content. And, it actually had a pretty good message - don’t waste your life on things that don’t matter while neglecting those that do. Still, there are other movies with the same message that are much better.

I also have Will Smith’s The Pursuit of Happyness recorded, and will probably watch it within the next week or so. I also still have Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee from our free HBO weekend a couple of weeks back, and I look forward to that. I have Dee Brown’s book but have never read it. I figure I’ll go ahead watch the movie first, because I’ll still want to read the book anyway (and who knows when I’ll get to it.)

Let me just add this - I don’t understand the premium movie channels. We’ve had three weekends in a row of free previews (HBO, Cinemax, STARZ) and there’s been almost nothing on that I was interested in. I knew the ones above would probably not be worth the time, but watched them anyway because I had some time. I can’t imagine paying for this stuff, though. I’d love to have HBO for the 3 months that “Curb Your Enthusiasm” is on, but that’s about it.

On Monday I mentioned Michael Moore’s new film Sicko and his recent appearance on Letterman. This morning I read this review of the film by Christianity Today magazine. Here are a few quotes:

Sicko continues Moore’s tradition of assailing power structures, but unlike his last films, there is no singular entity for his incisive scalpel, but rather a triumvirate composed of HMOs, pharmaceutical companies and hospital bureaucracy. Sicko traces the origins of HMOs back to Nixon’s White House with some jaw-dropping revelations, and insists that private health insurance companies are driven by pure greed. It is in the HMO’s best interest to pay out as little as possible. Each approval is money they lose; each refusal is cash in their pocket.

A former insurance worker admits that her career advanced further based on the number of people for whom she refused care. “You didn’t fall through the cracks,” another says. “Somebody made the crack and swept you toward it.”

We live in the richest country on Earth, Moore states, so why don’t we offer free, universal healthcare to those most in need? Other, poorer countries manage universal healthcare and do so spectacularly. An exercise in compare and contrast, Sicko leaves America behind for almost half its running time, traveling to Canada, Great Britain, France and even Cuba to examine how they take care of their sick. At each location, Moore visits with expatriates who offer him uniquely duel-sided views of the debate. One by one, he vanquishes the conservative myths that claim socialized medicine is destroying those countries that have adopted it. And with each visit, his premise that universal healthcare is doable is strengthened.

While Sicko includes facts, statistics and graphs, it’s ultimately much more interested in how this drama plays out on a human level. The question is not why this utopia does not exist, but why we don’t even care to try to make it so. For Moore, it is not about politics; it is about morality. Profit, he argues, should never enter into the equation where a person’s health is concerned.

It has been said that a country can be judged by how well it treats its poorest citizens. If that is true, America is in dire straits. Sicko is a David versus Goliath story, and anyone who doesn’t hear its clarion call to revolution isn’t paying attention.

Whatever else you want to say about him, Michael Moore seems to genuinely care about the people he includes in his films. He is consistently the champion of the underdog, the helpless, the powerless, and the marginalized. It is a calling that we should all recognize. Christ’s command to love and care for “the least of these” will continue to echo in your head long after Sicko has ended.

I’ve never seen any of Michael Moore’s work. I used to assume he was up to no good, largely because of my “everything not republican/conservative is evil” glasses I used to wear. However, I will probably see his newest documentary, Sicko, at some point. I doubt I’ll head to the theater to see it (mainly because I rarely go to the theater for anything), but I suspect I’ll manage a DVD or PPV rental when the time comes.

From what I’ve read, it is a look at healthcare in America, focusing on insurance and pharmaceutical companies and their practices. Since healthcare is one of the hot topics in politics these days and will likely be a focus of the 2008 elections, this is certainly a timely film.

Moore was on Letterman on Friday night talking about the film, including the investigation that the government has supposedly started into Moore possibly violating U.S. laws by illegally traveling and filming in Cuba. Apparently, they could have the right to confiscate the film - or at least the part filmed in Cuba. I believe I read elsewhere that Moore had taken the master copy (or at least a copy) of the film outside of the U.S. to protect it. As usual, Moore has managed to stir up plenty of controversy with this newest film.

And, despite being satirical, there’s often a lot of truth to articles over at The Onion. This one’s no exception, I’m sure:

Half Of Nation Outraged At New, Not-Yet-Released Michael Moore Film

WASHINGTON, DC—Though the film isn’t scheduled for release until June 29, a New York Times/CBS News poll found that nearly half the nation believes Michael Moore’s new health care documentary Sicko is “unpatriotic,” “disgusting,” and “ill-informed.”

“This film is absolutely tasteless and misguided, and I can’t believe theaters are even showing it,” said GOP presidential candidate Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS), who, along with the rest of the nation, has not yet seen the film. “I thought the role of a documentary filmmaker was to be objective, but moviegoers are going to leave the theater thinking that there is something wrong with some part of the United States, and that is just flat-out untrue.”

The other half of the nation has praised Sicko, calling it a “real eye-opener” that would “challenge people’s preconceived notions.”

If you spend very much time around me, you will know that I tend to use a lot of quotes from certain television shows and movies. Primarily, you’ll hear three sources: “Seinfeld”, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and Fletch.

I’m a huge Fletch fan. Despite the classic work Chevy Chase did in Caddyshack and a couple of the Vacation movies, my favorite will always be Fletch. It’s one of my all-time favorite movies, and contains so many great one-liners. In fact, this Onion article could very well have been written about me.

I used to visit Laker Jim’s Fletch site occasionally, but haven’t been there in a long time. Something prompted me to pay it a visit today and I found out something that I was not aware of - a new Fletch DVD has been released. The hope for a “special edition” DVD has been out there for a while and I’d never bought the original DVD version (which I already owned on VHS from years ago.) Therefore, I was thrilled to find out that, just a week ago, Fletch: The Jane Doe Edition was released. I’m disappointed to find the Chevy himself didn’t participate, but nevertheless, I will have to obtain a copy in the near future.

Here’s one of my favorite scenes:

This is probably my favorite scene from my favorite movie of all time. Monty Python & the Holy Grail is also, in my opinion, the funniest movie ever made.

I give you King Arthur and Dennis, the anarcho-syndicalist peasant:

I”ve mentioned before my dislike for so-called reality TV. I’ve never watched a minute of “Survivor”, which, if I recall correctly, was the original network reality show, or at least the one that made reality TV take off. The fornication-fests like “The Bachelor” and others like it were just stupid. And who can forget Man vs. Beast??

Now, it seems there’s a couple of reality show talent contests on every night. “American Idol” is the most popular, but there have been a whole host of others in recent years. And, there is some debate over whether these talent searches are truly reality TV or not (although I consider them such.)

Now, I can’t get the song “You’re The One That I want” out of my head because I’ve been seeing promos for this “Grease” audition show all week. Apparently, people are showcasing their talents (or lack thereof) in an attempt to become the next Danny and Sandy (on stage, not screen, if I’m not mistaken.) I assume there are a handful of annoying “judges” like Simon, Paula and the guy who can’t stop saying “dog” (or is it “dawg”?). I just finished watching the end of the Giant-Eagles game and then found that this show was premiering over on another network.

I don’t even really like musicals in the first place. I’ve seen a few on stage, and they were okay. I’ve seen a few on screen, and only two have I actually liked. I will admit that I love The Sound Of Music with Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer. I used to be forced to watch this as a child. It came on a lot during holidays in the 70’s, and once my family got our first VCR in the late 70’s, this movie was among the first things recorded. My sisters would watch it regularly - too regularly - and eventually I grew to like it as well. I now own it on DVD, and spent a few hours watching it just a few weeks ago when it was on television.

But, the other one was none other than Grease. Perhaps it was because Travolta was in it and I liked “Welcome Back Kotter” as a child (although, seeing reruns now, I can’t for the life of me comprehend why.) Perhaps it was because I thought Olivia Newton-John was a babe. I don’t know, but I liked it when I saw it in theaters as a kid (again, it was forced upon me.) And, I still like it to this day. It’s not nearly as good as it seemed back then, but I’ll still watch it if I see it on (no, I don’t own this one on DVD.)

A talent contest for the next cast, however, is not appealing.

I will say this - the one thing that shows like this actually have on other reality shows is there is, at least, some semblance of reality in them. It’s a contest based on talent. Maybe that’s why there’s a debate. Other shows, like “Survivor”, “The Bachelor”, and other such shows, are about as far from reality as possible. How often are you on a deserted island engaging in contests with strangers? How often do single guys get to live in a mansion with 20-something chicks for a few weeks? This is not reality.

Nevertheless, I haven’t watched much “reality” TV yet, and I don’t anticipate starting now. Surely there’s something better to do with my time.

I will be will be willing to make an exception, however, if William Hung were to show up to audition by singing “Greased Lightnin’”. That might actually be worth watching.