Tag: documentary

happenings, is it just me?, mixed media, the catch-all-egory

reality tv, fire drills, and little bags of poop

by  •  • 18 Comments

With all of the “good” programing over, and the summer programming kicking off in full swing, I find that there are less and less “real” shows to choose from, and more reality tv options that keep popping up on my television. There’s the good, most notably, Kathy Griffin’s My Life On The D-List, which started season 3 last night. I LOVE Kathy Griffin, and I was elated to know that her show was coming back, because it is a side-splitter, and definitely the best that reality TV has to offer; she is a brilliant comedian, and her show always has me in stitches. But she is an unusually bright light in the otherwise dark realm of reality tv. I don’t see myself watching many of the other shows, because they don’t peak my interest. Kathy is definitely the cream of the crop.

With that being said, I probably will find myself tuning in to shows like So You Think You Can Dance? and America’s Got Talent. I will admit that I got sucked into SYTYCD last year, although, I haven’t gotten pulled in yet this year. I will probably end up watching it because there is nothing else on, which is the main reason I find myself watching reality TV in the first place. That makes me think that they should call it “America’s Got Nothing Better To Do Than Watch, Because There’s Nothing Else On”, rather than America’s Got Talent; that title seems more fitting to me.

With the little good and all the bad things that reality TV represents to me, I do want to mention a great documentary that I saw last night on Logo. It focuses on the life of a handful of gay men in an extremely small, rural town. While they considered the small town home, because they had grown up there, they pointed out how there were few options for meeting someone, as well as the obvious discrimination for being gay. While they pointed out that it was significantly diminished, they didn’t feel comfortable being as “out” as many gay people in larger cities are, and even mentioned the fear of being hurt or killed due to the fact they were gay. While I know that all of us gays are susceptible to such retaliation because of who we are, it really had me question why you would want to live in such a small community (the one in the movie had a population in the low hundreds), if you could live somewhere more open? I guess it is an “to each their own” situation, but it just isn’t one for me. They seemed genuinely happy, and they managed to find partners and friends and stuff, and that made me happy. I just don’t see myself living on a farm in Idaho any time soon. But good for them.

On a different note, there was a fire drill at work today. While me and my friend Deb got out of the building practically first, it literally took everyone forever to get outside, and group with our monitors so that all could be accounted for. I would really hate to see what would happen if it wasn’t a drill; I fear that it wouldn’t be a pretty site. Let’s hope a drill is all we have to worry about. At least it killed a good hour of my day.

Finally, on an even more different, and definitely more disgusting note, when I was driving in to work today, I noticed a man walking his dog, and carrying that signature bag of poop that many dog walkers can be seen with. I have a dog, and I don’t mind being a good dog owner and picking up after him, but I’ll be damned if I am going to walk around with a bag of poop just swinging in my hand. Gross. That is probably one of the grossest things to me, and that is probably the main reason that we just let Sydney do his thing in the back yard wherever he pleases. This boy does not do bags of poop, okay? Yuck. I don’t know why, but I just felt compelled to share that information.

hmm interesting, listen up!, mixed media

buried at sea: forgotten munitions

by  •  • 28 Comments

James and I watched this very fascinating documentary this weekend called Buried At Sea (sorta half ass link), in which they went around looking for the sites where munitions were dumped in the world’s oceans after World War I and World War II. What they found, was little to no accountability in most cases, and surprisingly, many more sites than were expected; many of which are not very far off the shores of the US, the UK, and so on. Basically, what happened, was after the wars, in which everyone had stockpiled chemical weapons, like mustard gas, the massive stockpiles of those weapons were taken out to sea and simply dumped. And, which is even more interesting, is that they didn’t really keep track of where they were dumped, and they don’t even monitor them or anything.

Now, I know what you are thinking, “why should I care?”, but what I find fascinating about this, is that for one thing, the dumping was done with absolutely no regard for the future. Millions and millions of tons of deadly chemical weapons and bombs are, in many cases, just a mile or so off of the coastlines of almost every continent on the planet. When they dumped these weapons, they didn’t consider the fact that the shells containing the chemical weapons wouldn’t last forever. It is therefore, conceivable, that these chemicals are going to leech out into the environment. I checked a CDC fact sheet about mustard gas, just to get a clearer picture about it, and it doesn’t mention anything particular about mustard gas in the ocean. What I find even more interesting about these massive stockpiles of WMDs in the ocean, is that mustard gas was the very WMD that Bush claimed Saddam Hussein had, and was going to use in Iraq. It was the reason used to justify us going to war with Iraq, and low and behold, there are millions of tons of it just off the coast! Yikes!

I just hope that no one goes down there and gets these WMDs that we KNOW exist. I find it interesting that we went to war with someone because we THOUGHT someone had these very same WMDs, and here they are, all over the world under the water. Weird, huh? Also, it is interesting that often times, these weapons wash up on the shore, and still, nothing is being done about it. One of the sites was off the coast of Savannah, so if you are at the beach, be wary of WMDs being possibly too close for comfort.

A final side note: If you don’t agree with me, or want to discuss your opinion with me, then do it here, that’s why comments are enabled. Don’t be a coward and blab about it on your blog behind my back. It’s time to grow a pair; I can take criticism and differing opinions, and even welcome them. You can do or say whatever you want with your own blog, but it just makes you look like a coward if you constantly talk shit about people behind their backs.