Fractured Fairy Tales

Everybody does.

Let’s start here: Julia Roberts reveals original ending for ‘Pretty Woman’ — and you’d be shocked.

In an interview in Variety magazine this week Julia Roberts revealed that the original ending of Pretty Woman as written was anything but the fairy tale ending of “prostitute-falls-in-love-with-a-rich-john-and-they-both-live-happily-ever-after.” She explained that the original script was “really dark and the ending was really heavy.”

In fact the original script ended with Robert’s character, the prostitute Vivian Ward, left sprawled out in a dirty alley where Richard Gere’s character, Edward Lewis, had chucked her out of the car. For good measure, and to get the point across, he also threw a bunch of money at her as he drove away. Clearly not a story ever intended to be a fairy tale.

But Disney, who bought the script before it went into production, does fairy tales so…they made it into a fairy tale. The public loves happy endings so give the public what they want. By 1990 Disney had already strayed so far from the studio’s original core value of creating wholesome entertainment for the whole family that profit was now the guiding factor. How else to explain a movie glorifying a prostitute’s way of life to deliver on the premise of happily ever after? The impact of such a story on vulnerable young girls was predictable.

Years ago, when I saw the movie through my middle class lens, I saw the title character as a beautiful, young woman who wanted out of “the life.” She’d entered a life of prostitution as a last resort… She was still plucky and moral, just down on her luck. Until one day, her luck turned for the better as a dashing millionaire in the wrong neighborhood needed directions.

But when the two young girls saw this movie, they saw it differently. They saw something that I never envisioned. They saw prostitution as a chance to meet their own Prince Charming, and the movie Pretty Woman was the catalyst for them to enter “the life.”

Each of these girls soon discovered that reality is far different from Hollywood. There was no Prince Charming, no fairy tale ending. They suffered abuse of the worse kind; they lost their freedom and their dignity, and they still experience flashbacks, PTSD, damaged emotions, and lifelong scars.

Yet in the Variety interview Julia Roberts tells interviewer Patricia Arquette the Disney ending placed the movie squarely “in her wheelhouse.” Roots of morality an eightieth of an inch deep, sad, really.

Much has been written about the debauchery of Hollywood, some going back as far as 1955.

Spoiler Alert: it hasn’t gotten any better

But nobody has excoriated the entertainment business as relentlessly and vociferously as Michael Savage. Love him or hate him, for 20 years he’s been calling out Hollywood for undermining the morals and values of America. He calls Hollywood a sewer pipe that pumps out fetid trash glorifying sluts and degenerates. I can think of nothing to add to that.

It’s certainly hard to argue he’s wrong when you pick up a copy of April’s Teen Vogue and see an article titled “Why Sex Work is Real Work” by Dr. Tlaleng Mofokeng (I swear, that’s her real name, I did not make it up). Even if you agree with Dr. Mofokeng’s premise that sex work of all sorts should be legalized it’s hard to rationalize why promoting the idea of sex work as a career to 13 year old girls is a good idea. Especially when underaged human trafficking for sex is an ever growing problem in the world.

In a sane age any editor of a publication title “teen” anything would have rejected the article out of hand and fired whoever proposed it. But this is not a sane age, these are Heinlein’s crazy years and we’re just living in them (h/t Glenn Reynolds).

But back to Disney: I’m not saying they’re single-handedly responsible for the wretched state of affairs in the world. I do think however that if they’d stuck with the original ending of Pretty Woman instead of going the Cinderella-on-crack route there wouldn’t be so many young women today who think prostituting their way through college is a perfectly acceptable alternative to student loans.

Oh yeah, it’s a real thing

So what have we learned today? *sigh* Not much we didn’t already know: letting immoral pervs set the cultural moral standards will result in a fundamentally immoral society.

No Bill, it’s your mirror

And from that point forward all fairy tales will be fractured.

It’s Summer. The World Goes On. Carpe Diem.

It’s officially summer as of 11:54 a.m. ET today.

I’ve reached an age where I no longer take this lightly as the road isn’t as long as it once seemed.

So I follow the advice of the world weary – and who among us can’t be counted in that camp these days – get out there and enjoy this glorious season to the hilt. The long days,

hot nights

and farm fresh produce.

It’s strawberry season (finally) here! That means shortcake. And jam.

Wishing everyone an endless summer with a little less rain than normal.

Carpe Diem! Now get out there and leave your paw prints on the beach.

 

Now Get Out There and Scorch Some Earth

Wagons, circle. In the wake of AOC’s latest stupid comment, in which she conflates detention of immigrants seeking to enter our country illegally with the Nazi extermination of Jews, we get Democrats ‘splaining it away:

“Don’t feign outrage at the language that people use to describe this tragedy,” says Senator Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii

“One of the lessons from the Holocaust is ‘Never Again’ – not only to mass murder, but also to the dehumanization of people, violations of basic rights, and assaults on our common morality. We fail to learn that lesson when we don’t callout such inhumanity right in front of us.” Jerry Nadler, D-NY

While House Speaker Pelosi went them both one better, she blamed Republicans for AOC's arrogantly ignorant comment, saying:

“while the Right has no interest in holding the President accountable for his words they will misrepresent anything you say just if you have one word in the sentence that they can exploit...”

It’s the oldest game in town, but imagine the outrage if any Republican uttered a comment even approaching such ignorant insensitivity to the Nazi genocide. The ballistic scale doesn’t register that high.

Imagine if Republicans were handed the “just say anything, we’ve got your back” card for just one day - or for just one press briefing…

And don’t blame me, you have Gerard to thank for this. He’s the one who dug up this delightful oldie but still so very goodie.

So grab another cup of covfefe and get out there and scorch some earth.

Scorched Earth by arcipello

“Neither Heat, Nor Rain, Nor Microbursts…Nor Fake News

Look at what passes for unbiased news in 2019, from the once vaunted Associated Press:

Trump rehashes gripes, rips ‘radical’ Dems in 2020 launch

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Jabbing at the press and poking the eye of the political establishment he ran against in 2016, President Donald Trump officially kicked off his reelection campaign Tuesday with a grievance-filled Florida rally that focused more on settling scores than laying out his agenda for a second term.

According to AP two of the “grievances” referenced are “fake news” and the witch hunt against the President:

Addressing a crowd of thousands at Orlando’s Amway Center, Trump complained he had been “under assault from the very first day” of his presidency by a “fake news media” and “illegal witch hunt” that had tried to keep him and his supporters down.

Interestingly those are two things the press has in their power to fix but instead choose to promulgate.

AP did finally report that the Amway Center in Orlando was “now packed” after initially reporting that it “wasn’t full yet.” It would have been embarrassing to stick with the original report when pictures so readily proved it to be fake news.

Although Fake News did do everything in their power to make their “small turnout” wishes come true:

If you are planning to head to Orlando Tuesday for Donald Trump's re-election campaign rally, be prepared to deal with traffic, crowds, high heat and humidity and possibly thunderstorms. – Florida Today

Honestly, they should know by now that the Deplorables cannot be deterred. They’ve adopted and modified the postal service motto (since they no longer use it): “Neither heat nor rain nor microbursts nor gloom of night nor fake news stays these deplorables from the swift completion of their appointed rounds” – which is to Keep America Great.

But back to the AP report:

And he painted a disturbing picture of what life would look like if he loses in 2020, accusing his critics of “un-American conduct” and telling the crowd that Democrats “want to destroy you and they want to destroy our country as we know it.”

The fundamental transformation of America from a nation of independence and self reliance into, a socialist country is very anti-American. So I think the President’s statement is accurate.

“A vote for any Democrat in 2020 is a vote for the rise of radical socialism and the destruction of the American dream.”

I am confident that the majority of the American voters will choose to Keep America Great. Because that IS who we are, so stop calling us Irredeemable Deplorables. And Racists. Just because we want to maintain our sovereignty, independence and freedom.

“America will never be a socialist country!”

If the media wants to be relevant again they need to stop pushing their corporate political media agenda and just report the news. We’ll handle the rest.

BTW, big thumbs up to Karen Pence: she’s got a whole new attitude going on these days and she wears it well.

Our FLOTUS and SLOTUS  are simply the best.

If It’s Tuesday AOC Will Probably Say Something Stupid

In case anyone has been missing the pearls of wisdom AOC manages to spit out with far more reliability than an oyster, here’s a couple of her recent jewel quality comments:

AOC Sunday:

Ocasio-Cortez told Karl that part of Bezos “being a billionaire is predicated on paying people starvation wages and stripping them of their ability to access health care” as well as “taking billions of dollars of government subsidies” from having many workers on food stamps. – ABC

Amazon, as you might suspect, objected.

.@AOC is just wrong. Amazon is a leader on pay at $15 min wage + full benefits from day one. We also lobby to raise federal min wage. https://t.co/crWp5fPEzS

— Amazon News (@amazonnews) June 17, 2019

I should warn the Congresswoman that it is a bad idea to make Amazon really, really mad at you. The only thing worse is ticking off the Deep State which will bring the full weight and authority of the U.S. government down on you. Very few are capable to withstand that s**t-storm.

AOC Monday:

"The fact that concentrations camps are now an institutionalized practice in the Home of the Free is extraordinarily disturbing and we need to do something about it," the freshman Democrat continued.  – Fox News

Way to go Sandy! Demonstrating your fatuousness and ignorance simultaneously. Very few freshman Congressional Representatives could do that as effortlessly.

"We are losing to an authoritarian and fascist presidency." Ocasio-Cortez continued, "I don't use those words lightly. I don't use those words to just throw bombs. I use that word because that is what an administration that creates concentration camps is. A presidency that creates concentration camps is fascist and it's very difficult to say that." – Fox News

That’s AOC, tripling down on hyperbole for the trifecta of stupidity. I feel compelled to point out that in the Nazi concentration camps - to which AOC so casually refers - Jewish mothers arriving with children were often immediately killed. Otherwise the camps were used as holding tanks for prisoners to perform hard labor until they were no longer useful and therefore exterminated.

The ovens of Buchenwald

See the difference, Ms. AOC or whatever? If not I remind you that the Jews were rounded up, detained and sent to the death camps. The refuges are arriving at our border - expecting to be taken in, taken cared of and left free to roam about the country - of their own free will. Although they are aided and abetted by the OWO communists looking to implement the Cloward-Piven strategy in America.

AOC: Put on this earth to prove Godwin’s Law that all Internet arguments eventually end with allegations of Hitler and the Holocaust.

P.S. Google couldn’t be bothered yesterday to highlight the birthday of the old white woman who invented chocolate chip cookies, but today I see we’re doing a tribute to falafels.

Yeah, that’s right: falafels. I like them too but they aren’t exactly all-American 4th of July picnic fare now, are they?

Google Snickerdoodles

What, no Google Doodle today? If ever a person deserved a Silicon Valley shout-out it’s Ruth Graves Wakefield, who was born on this day in 1903.

Ruth was the inventor of the chocolate chip cookie which she originally made somewhat by accident when she ran out of bakers chocolate for a batch of cookies she was making and decided to put some chopped up semi-sweet chocolate in the batter instead. So you might say she also invented the chocolate chip. The rest, as they say, is history.

It’s surprising that Google would bypass the opportunity to honor such an accomplished woman (graduate of the Framingham State Normal School with a degree in Household Arts (aka Home Economics), dietician, lecturer, business owner and inventor. I mean, have you any idea how many chocolate chip cookies have been consumed, gratis, along with milk  and/or coffee (also gratis) within the creative confines of Google’s flexible workspaces?

Brainstorming at Google with coffee, milk and cookies (artist’s rendering)

I don’t either, but I bet you could find out if you Goggled it.

Or possibly they’ve ignored Ruth’s birthday because they now have an exclusive to promote Oreos.

Although that seems rather non-PC. Maybe it’s because Ruth represents the patriarchy? She did own the Toll House restaurant with her white, cis-gendered male husband. Or maybe I’m making too much of this, maybe it just disappeared from their automatically updated calendar after the last update.

Is it just me or does this look like kindergarten?

What the heck, I think I’ll just have a couple of these chocolate chip snickerdoodles with my second cup of covfefe.

I’ll look for my nap mat later.

Happy Father’s Day

How does our non-biased, non-partisan MSM celebrate Father’s Day? Let’s take a look.

At NBC Catherine Buni and Soraya Chemaly report on the sad sack state of girls today, and blame…that’s right, the patriarchy.

 This Father's Day, dads need listen to why their daughters are so angry — and join the fight

Around the country, fathers are waking up to their daughters’ experiences in an era when anger is arguably the most logical response a girl can have to what is happening around her.

Because while women have historically had plenty of reasons to be frustrated, teenagers today are, Pew Research Center studies show, more amorphously anxious than prior generations. Teens are concerned about everything from health and social relationships to climate change, poverty and politics. But adding to those topics for young women specifically are concerns about #MeToo, the recriminalization of girls and women who seek safe abortion, and the very visible actions of a misogynist in the White House who, on a regular basis, dog whistles to white supremacists and homophobes.

I find it odd that people like Buni and Chemaly who think it’s their job to perpetrate the lies that keep women resentful of the evil societal ‘patriarchy’ do everything in their power to promote the existence and growth of the most powerful patriarchy of all, the government. Odder still that they keep demanding that women are equal to the men they find so toxic.

Meanwhile, over at CNN we find this ode to fatherhood: Plan a road trip adventure for Father's Day, kids optional.

With obligations surrounding kids, partners…

(Please note the use of the PC term “partners.” It is the inclusive way to refer to all those unmarried, non-traditional families who don’t necessarily believe there are only 2 genders and only one of them can be a mother and one of them a father.)

and work, sometimes it's hard to get away -- actually, it's hard pretty much all of the time. But fortunately, the one day a year that it's dad's turn to cut loose has come around again, so you can afford to go a bit crazy… Here are a few exciting, strange and fascinating stops and destinations to suit every dad, from artsy to outdoorsy and everything in between.

Among the “strange” destinations they’ve included are places with subtle cultural messages such as the Centralia mine fire: Centralia, Pennsylvania (Coal BAD!), the Nuclear Waste Adventure Trail: St. Charles County, Missouri (Nuclear BAD!), Carhenge: Alliance, Nebraska (Cars BAD! should be EXTINCT!)

Also on the fantasy road trip list, possibly in the “artsy” category, is New Orleans’ French Quarter – described as “an iconic cultural hotspot.” Clearly this “adventure,” although it includes many enchanting historical sites and attractions, is one that dad might want to leave the kids at home for.

The Quarter is a bustling city within a city, drenched in history (and sometimes booze).

The site is known for its numerous bars and infamous Mardi Gras Parade, which passes through the city in a flurry of color and sequins and takes it's place on many a bucket list. Be warned though -- not all spots are kid friendly, and whatever you do, steer clear of Bourbon Street, especially if you have any young companions with you.

Of course if you want to be a cool dad you could bring the youngsters along, providing them with an early-childhood education in drugs, sex and rock and roll. It will give your sons a glimpse into the evils of misogyny and male toxicity…

…and give your daughters something to warrant all that anger.

But this is the entry on the list that caught my eye, literally. Included in the destination section titled “classics” which include such stalwarts as Time Square and the Liberty Bell was Mount Rushmore…wait a minute, Mt. Rushmore? This isn’t the Mt. Rushmore I visited. Looks like somebody was in a hurry to dash off an article, insert photo and hit the road for one of those fantasy trips. The editors must have already switched over to “weekend mode” as well. I took a screengrab of the site as I assume somebody will eventually notice and fix it.

As God is my witness, I did not Photoshop this screengrab. Somebody else did that for me.

Then again, it is CNN so maybe not.

Happy Father’s Day to all the great dads out there! Now fire up the grill and get to work.

P.S. Lantern weighed in via email last night. He’s been in the hospital for 4 days but is now home and fine. Said we can call the dogs off.