Airwolf!

Holy crap! I've had a hulu.com account for a while but haven't used it much. Just now I was clicking around seeing what they have on there...and they have freaking Airwolf! If you know the show I'm talking about, you know how awesome that is. If only I had time to watch all those episodes. Man, Goodfellow Hawk ruled. I just watched the starting sequence...that Airwolf theme music makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. And ready to see things get blown up by a sweet helicopter.

Check this out: Miro

Miro is a free, open-source video management program meant to help you get a grasp on all the video available out there, from YouTube (it makes it very easy to save YouTube videos) to video blogs to whatever else.  You can also use it to manage videos already on your computer.  I've just been using it a little but it seems incredibly useful, and I like its philosophy - Miro wants to help you get what you want from where you want rather than insisting you get stuff from the people that they want you to get it from.  It's a pretty small download, and right after you install it they play you a short intro video that gives you a good idea of what you can do before you start playing around.  If stuff like this continues to get better, and some of the networks wise up so I can legitimately watch the shows I want, I may be able to get rid of Comcast.  Fat chance, but who knows.

Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude is a term meaning "pleasure taken from someone else's misfortune."  It's that feeling you get when you see someone on a high moral horse get brough low, or that warm fuzzy feeling when you see a terribly rude driver miss their exit.  It's that satisfaction you get with yourself when you see someone and think "wow, I'm pretty normal."  It's also the feeling that drives the success of American Idol's initial episodes.  Everyone loves the first episodes because there are so many people there who are completely awful singers or completely deluded.  All sorts of people who are clueless in all sorts of ways - whether it's social skills or fashion sense we are brought face to face with a parade of people to laugh at.

 Sometimes these people need to be set straight, and Simon is good at that.  Some are unduly arrogant and really do need to be told they aren't good singers or performers.  You don't do someone any favors if you keep giving them the false notion that they an have success when it comes to a singing career.  Sometimes, however, the people are on there simply so we can marvel and laugh at how ugly/dumb/foolish/terrible/socially awkward they are.  Last season was the first season I kept track of (since we got DVR) and so far there have been a couple episodes this season.

More than ever before I find myself feeling a little guilty for laughing or wanting to laugh at some of these people.  And while I often appreciate the way Simon bluntly informs people they need to pursue other career paths, he often takes the opportunity to completely shame and insult people.  And of course that's on the show not so we can hate Simon but rather so we can laugh.  This last episode in Seattle had Simon telling one guy that he was "very odd looking" and that he looked "like one of those creatures from the jungle."

As someone who claims that every person is valuable and who wants to follow Christ's command to love others and accept those the rest of the world doesn't accept, I find myself a little conflicted when I watch the show.  Some of the people are obviously going for a laugh, but others are just clueless about their situation.  They are purposely let through the process to see Simon, Paula, and Randy so we can laugh at them.  I'm not condemning the show or anything but I'm trying to remember these are actual, real people, not just characters.  And if I make a habit of laughing at people who are different then it's not really going to help me as I go through life and encounter people like that.  What do they need?  Not to be laughed at but rather to be loved, accepted, encouraged, etc.  So thank you American Idol for reminding me what a jerk I can be sometimes.

Finally as an aside...in a culture where "tolerance" and "acceptance" and "not judging" are considered the only truly right/moral things, I find it curious that the most popular episodes of the most popular show are the ones where we laugh at people for being different.

The Jack Bauer Power Hour

24 has returned with tonight being the second of a "two night premiere EVENT!"  If you haven't yet watched the episode(s), read further at your own risk.  Jack's inaugural kill for the season was a memorable one, hearkening back to his early days as an actor.  I'm also enjoying the fact that he's running around with Alexander Siddig, who played Dr. Bashir on DS9.  Siddig looks tougher than usual, what with the scruffy salt-and-pepper beard, the the penchant for jabbing knives into the kneecaps of traitorous henchmen.  

Last season was criticized by some for having too many Iraq parallels in the storyline.  24 deals with terrorism and all that, the kind of thing that plays a center stage in the world and political events these days.  I appreciate the way the show seems to avoid oversimplifying the issue...of course it's easy to avoid oversimplifying when you have Jack Bauer to save the world.  So we can't take 24's "political discourse" too seriously.  It would be nice if watching shows like this increased the public discourse on the events it portrays.  For example, if people got educated on international terrorism and global politics because of 24 that would be great and we could pretend it was making our society better.  Of course what we're all really looking for is for Jack Bauer to crack a few skulls while occasionally looking tortured and conflicted.

Of course there are still things we can take from the show, and when something is this popular in culture it is communicating something that people are hearing.  So as with anything I think it's important to think a little bit about the implications of the things that happen.