Tag: Popular Culture

Blue Laws are (well, actually mostly now) were laws that restricted what products and services could be legally traded on Sundays over much of the United States.  They varied from region to region, with some places pretty much shutting down everything except emergency medical treatment, to other places where there was little difference from other days.

In most of the United States, Blue Laws no longer exist for the most, except for the sale of alcohol, and they are vestigial remnants in that area.  When I was a child (only months after the last mass extinction that killed the dinosaurs, LOL!), Blue Laws were common in west central Arkansas, and applied to lots more than alcohol.

Perhaps the most important and wonderful TeeVee shows in the late 1950s and early 1960s was The Twilight Zone.  Rod Serling was the genius behind it, and drove it to the top ratings for quite a while.

This was a show like no other before, and never used the same cast twice.  Only Rod Serling was the anchor, and almost always did the introduction, often after the opening setup.

No one has ever duplicated what Serling brought to the small screen.  Even after more than 60! years some of the stories are as fresh as if they had been written tomorrow.

I have written about adverts on the TeeVee before, but there are a whole new crop of them now.  I am not against advertising; as a matter of fact I strongly support it in concept.  However, some of them are just offensive, at least to me, and others are very well received, again at least for me.

Tonight I will pick out my most favorite ones, my most disliked ones, and the genres that I personally like and dislike.  Like all forms of art, adverts are extremely subjective and I do not expect that everyone will agree with me.  That actually makes the topic more interesting.

Many of you who read my posts know that I am a very big fan of the British TeeVee series, Dr. Who.  This is not a recent infatuation.  I have followed The Doctor since 1978, when I first discovered the series.  It was 15 years old by then.

I have written a number of posts about this series, and you can find them by examining my profile on the Kos site (I have not written on Docudharma.com or Thestarshollowgazette.com as long).  As you read those, you will find that I have a very special place in my heart for that series.

Tonight we shall examine the season finale for the current iteration.  It was good, if a bit rushed in the last episode.

Atomic Rooster was in interesting band.  They were certainly British, and very eclectic.  There are also connexions with other bands (some of which I have covered here) and with other, less well known ones.

This band came to be in much part between the collaboration betwixt the folks producing The Crazy World of Arthur Brown and several other bands, including The Who.  Their connexions include King Crimson, Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, and a couple of other bands that I would rather folks mention in the comments.  Shall we see more about them?

OK, I admit that I got you to read this because of its title, but it is not too far from the plot of the old, classic horror flick.  In a nutshell, everyone turns against each other, except for the Living Dead that were united because they had no brain tissue of their own.

The classic line of the film was uttered by the Sheriff, who said, after being asked a question about the motives of the Living Dead, deadpan,, “They’re all messed up.  They’re dead.”

Thus is the performance of the entire cast of the unfortunate episode about the Shirley Sherrod episode, with everyone being brain dead except for her (who acted with dignity), the vile Breitbart, and the FOX “News” Channel.  Please read more.  This is more opinion than fact, but the film puts it in a sort of bizarre perspective.

An allegory betwixt the Fox “News” Channel and MSNBC can be seen by examining the tactics and the demeanor of each of their two flagship women.  I must first say that I like women a lot, and find both of them physically attractive, but that is not germane to the discussion.  However, it is important.

Studies show that attractive news readers get better ratings than unattractive ones, regardless of gender.  Whilst I yield that everyone has her or his own picture of perfection, I hope that everyone will postulate that both of them are very attractive women, to level the field.  This post has nothing to do with sexual attraction, but rather intellectual ability and interviewing skills.  I just happen to think that they both are on about equal levels as far as being attractive goes.  At the risk of being called sexist, here we go.