SCOTT MCLARTY - If you're looking for a DVD to rent this weekend, try
'Idiocracy.' It was released to theaters for a couple of days last year
and got generally favorable reviews, but was then pulled because the
producers didn't know how to market it.
It's about the future of planet earth: five hundred years from now,
everyone is really stupid (smart people stopped reproducing) and
corporate culture has taken over. Everything is privatized and grossly
commercial -- icky Gatorade-like stuff comes out of the faucet, because
a private company bought the FDA and convinced the public that water is
what belongs in toilets. One character is a lawyer who got his law
degree from Costco. Drug companies long ago ceased making anything
outside of pills for baldness and impotence. Obviously, the world is an
environmental nightmare, too.
The movie was written and directed by Mike Judge, the guy behind Beevis
& Butthead, Office Space and King of the Hill. Great cast, but some of
the plot is a little lame and Maya Rudolph's role is underwritten. The
best reason to see it is because it's really funny, especially in the
details and throwaway lines, and because of the subversive satire.
'Idiocracy' would make a perfect double bill with the documentary 'The
Corporation.'
There's a wonderful spoof of a Fox News broadcast, but it occurred to me
that it could be what Fox News is like ten or twenty years from now
rather than in a more remote dystopia. Fox produced 'Idiocracy', which
makes you wonder whether they pulled the movie from theaters because it
hit a little too close to home.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy
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STUPID CORPORATE LAWYER TRICKS
INFORMATION WEEK - The pork producers association issued a demand to a
breastfeeding Web site to cease selling T-shirts that say "The Other
White Milk," a riff on trademarked pork industry slogan "The Other White
Meat." As might be expected from someone who runs a site called The
Lactivist, blogger and work-at-home mother Jennifer Laycock took the
fight public. She posted the National Pork Board's cease and desist
letter on her site in an entry titled "Overzealous Big Pork Stomps on
Breastfeeding Blogger." Online outrage followed.
http://www.informationweek.com/management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=197003044
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SLOW NEWS DAY IN FORT WORTH
DOMINGO RAMIREZ JR, STAR-TELEGRAM - A thief took two cotton towels, two
hand towels and an ashtray from a Motel 6 in the 100 block of Airport
Freeway on Monday. A police report did not have the dollar loss in the
theft. . . A police report states that a 28-year-old Watauga man who had
been registered to the room from which the items were stolen was
questioned by police officers in the motel's parking lot. Patrol
officers interviewed the man after noticing that he had been sitting in
his vehicle in the parking lot for a long time. In his vehicle were the
missing towels and ashtray, reports state.
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/local/16566304.htm
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BRITISH GENERATION Y SHOWS HIGH SELF-ABORPTION
TIMES, UK - Research by the Henley Centre, a research consultancy, shows
that for the first time in 10 years a majority now believes the quality
of life in Britain is best improved by putting the individual first. The
latest generation of graduates - Generation Y - shows the most extreme
traits of self-absorption. However, the trend is also being credited
with the emergence of a sturdy self-reliance.
Michelle Harrison, director of Headlight Vision, part of the Henley
Centre, said: "In 1997, when Tony Blair moved into No 10, almost 70% of
our respondents opted for the 'community-first' approach." . . . Today,
52% feel "looking after ourselves" will best improve the quality of
life, according to the poll of more than 2,000 people.
Among poorer people in the social brackets C2, D and E, that rises to
60%. ". . . Richer people, by contrast, are still more likely to hold on
to a belief in community, although Harrison argues that it is a
middle-class notion of community, held on their terms. "It is one of
cafes and bookshops, busy, interesting people rushing around spending
time with people just like them.". . .
There are signs that generation Y's selfishness may be so extreme that
it is hitting them in their pocket. The Association of Graduate
Recruiters complained that many candidates are proving too self-centred
to hire, and said that more than half its members would this year fail
to fill vacancies.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2583063,00.html
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
'Idiocracy.' It was released to theaters for a couple of days last year
and got generally favorable reviews, but was then pulled because the
producers didn't know how to market it.
It's about the future of planet earth: five hundred years from now,
everyone is really stupid (smart people stopped reproducing) and
corporate culture has taken over. Everything is privatized and grossly
commercial -- icky Gatorade-like stuff comes out of the faucet, because
a private company bought the FDA and convinced the public that water is
what belongs in toilets. One character is a lawyer who got his law
degree from Costco. Drug companies long ago ceased making anything
outside of pills for baldness and impotence. Obviously, the world is an
environmental nightmare, too.
The movie was written and directed by Mike Judge, the guy behind Beevis
& Butthead, Office Space and King of the Hill. Great cast, but some of
the plot is a little lame and Maya Rudolph's role is underwritten. The
best reason to see it is because it's really funny, especially in the
details and throwaway lines, and because of the subversive satire.
'Idiocracy' would make a perfect double bill with the documentary 'The
Corporation.'
There's a wonderful spoof of a Fox News broadcast, but it occurred to me
that it could be what Fox News is like ten or twenty years from now
rather than in a more remote dystopia. Fox produced 'Idiocracy', which
makes you wonder whether they pulled the movie from theaters because it
hit a little too close to home.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
STUPID CORPORATE LAWYER TRICKS
INFORMATION WEEK - The pork producers association issued a demand to a
breastfeeding Web site to cease selling T-shirts that say "The Other
White Milk," a riff on trademarked pork industry slogan "The Other White
Meat." As might be expected from someone who runs a site called The
Lactivist, blogger and work-at-home mother Jennifer Laycock took the
fight public. She posted the National Pork Board's cease and desist
letter on her site in an entry titled "Overzealous Big Pork Stomps on
Breastfeeding Blogger." Online outrage followed.
http://www.informationweek.com/management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=197003044
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
SLOW NEWS DAY IN FORT WORTH
DOMINGO RAMIREZ JR, STAR-TELEGRAM - A thief took two cotton towels, two
hand towels and an ashtray from a Motel 6 in the 100 block of Airport
Freeway on Monday. A police report did not have the dollar loss in the
theft. . . A police report states that a 28-year-old Watauga man who had
been registered to the room from which the items were stolen was
questioned by police officers in the motel's parking lot. Patrol
officers interviewed the man after noticing that he had been sitting in
his vehicle in the parking lot for a long time. In his vehicle were the
missing towels and ashtray, reports state.
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/local/16566304.htm
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
BRITISH GENERATION Y SHOWS HIGH SELF-ABORPTION
TIMES, UK - Research by the Henley Centre, a research consultancy, shows
that for the first time in 10 years a majority now believes the quality
of life in Britain is best improved by putting the individual first. The
latest generation of graduates - Generation Y - shows the most extreme
traits of self-absorption. However, the trend is also being credited
with the emergence of a sturdy self-reliance.
Michelle Harrison, director of Headlight Vision, part of the Henley
Centre, said: "In 1997, when Tony Blair moved into No 10, almost 70% of
our respondents opted for the 'community-first' approach." . . . Today,
52% feel "looking after ourselves" will best improve the quality of
life, according to the poll of more than 2,000 people.
Among poorer people in the social brackets C2, D and E, that rises to
60%. ". . . Richer people, by contrast, are still more likely to hold on
to a belief in community, although Harrison argues that it is a
middle-class notion of community, held on their terms. "It is one of
cafes and bookshops, busy, interesting people rushing around spending
time with people just like them.". . .
There are signs that generation Y's selfishness may be so extreme that
it is hitting them in their pocket. The Association of Graduate
Recruiters complained that many candidates are proving too self-centred
to hire, and said that more than half its members would this year fail
to fill vacancies.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2583063,00.html
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