Its Smurfalicious!

So I was digging through the bags at the Library the other day, looking for a DVD from the main for a patron, and I found, lo and behold, that we own the Smurfs on DVD. Now of course I HAD to take that out...just for the cheese factor alone...

And I'm watching it, and its cheesy, yes, but some of the messages there are odd, when you think about it. Smurfette was created by Gargamel, with black hair. When she was transformed into a real smurf, she became a blonde. hmmmm. Subliminal messages much?

And don't you wonder how Papa Smurf got to be a Papa without a Mama Smurf around? Maybe they grow like mushrooms....

There were some valuable lessons in the Smurfs, though. Language (usage of real words, like integrity), friendship, doing for others...

But its amazing sometimes how we've gotten shaped by TV and the TV shows of our childhood. TV has taken the place of the traditional oral tradition, or telling stories around the campfire, or the stories in religion, the oral transmission of where we come from, and what shapes us. Kids today, as evidenced by my CCD class, come from a larger world, and yet have, in some ways, less sense of where they came from. They have more pieces to put together, because they have more stories to learn from.

What did you learn from your childhood TV shows? What stories do you have to share?

What happens at the Library stays at the Library?

Not always. This is what happens when a nine year-old gets bored while waiting for his sister...

Stories of the Ancient World

So I'm half watching a story on books that were excluded from the Bible. And one story amused me. Apparently written around the first Century BC, it involves Joseph and his wife, the daughter of an Egyptian priest. Its a love story, involving a miracle that enabled them to marry.

What they did not mention in the program is that there was a growing tradition of love stories around that time... (I took a class on the Ancient Greek Novel in college). Love stories involving the fantastic and amazing, where love generally triumphed. (And in the Ancient Greek Novel, the Adventures of Baron Munchausen would have paled in comparison). I do wonder how that would have tied in...

It just demonstrates some of the problems with overspecialisation. Something can come from a Biblical tradition and a popular tradition as well, and there was much more interaction around the ancient world than most people realise, yet it all get pigeonholed. Which does annoy me.

Green ponderings...

So much of our lives these days are being greenwashed. I found myself, this morning, watching a commercial for Clorox's green cleaners, and thinking:

Is it better for me to buy green cleaners from Clorox, when so much else they do causes harm to the planet, or wouldn't it be better to buy from truly environmental companies? On the one hand, if you buy the green cleaners from Clorox, you encourage them to see that is what people want, but are you also encouraging greenwashing?

Greenwashing is the process whereas companies pay lip service to the organic/natural movement, but really continue in making toxic products/services that only seem green.

I saw another ad, another megacorporation, which is apparently using methane/landfill gas to power a factory. Yes, that is wonderful, but look at the products that are made in that factory. Toxic cleaners and air fresheners. Lovely. Yes, its a step forward, but are the products made in that specific factory labeled as such? So that consumers can buy those products that are made at less harm to the environment? Or is this company greenwashing? Is it just one factory? Or are you doing this in all your factories?

And why not team up with Clorox, make the Green cleaners in the Green factories? Then I'd buy them.

Toxicity...

The more I read, the more horrified I am at what a toxic world we live in. We have chemicals bombarding us everywhere. We have an onslaught of GM foods. There are drugs in our water, antidepressants, ED, chemicals, poisons. Even the most pristine lakes are having weed issues and pollution.

I'd like to move to Mars please.

There is plastic everywhere. Even if you try to recycle... there is plastic on the inside of the food cans! Everything is toxic.

Our systems are bombarded, and we have a toxic load from before birth. And yet my great-grandparents lived in the days of the covered wagons, and they were healthy.

All the modern diseases are being linked to what we have done to ourselves. Kids are being born with more and more severe allergies...

We have to stop. We have to change. We have to fix this before its too late. We are drowning in our own filth. Just go back to a traditional farming pattern, stop the agribusiness. Stop the chemicals on lawns, bleaching our lives 'clean', stop the neverending plastic. Plastic within plastic. Plastic being fed to our kids...

Marvelous language...

Language and idioms are wonderful, wonderful things. I read a variety of things, including some older books, and I was enchanted with two phrases that recently hit me over the head. I'd love to hear others, if anyone knows some.

In the Alice B Toklas cookbook, a potential servant is horrified and leaves because no-one told her that Alice and Getrude Stein (aside, oddly, Alice refers to G.S by her full name all the time in the book)

"lived French" and that that was not what she had been led to suspect and she was leaving, which she did. P. 180

In Anne's House of Dreams, a childhood classic for women of a certain age (and any potential kids of mine), Miss Cornelia announces:

His second wife could manage him. She made him walk Spanish, believe me! P.95

I always wonder how these expressions came about, and marvel at how apt they are. And we don't use these anymore... I love colloquialisms, idioms, language. Fit as a fiddle, poor as paint...

Favorite Movie scene of all time

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-bsf2x-aeE

Never fails to make me laugh. I love it.