While the networks cancel all their reality shows and return to 1950's type programing, the ultimate reality shows are the 24 hour a day so-called news stations such as FOX, CNN and MSNBC. These are even more insidious than the so-called scripted reality shows like Duck Dynasty and the Cardasians, because they turn real news, good or tragic, into entertainment for ratings gains and money making.
Cancel all the 24 hour news networks and only give news a half hour slot in the evening.
So, that is what I think of Duck Dynasty. Cancel it and all reality shows, news or otherwise and good riddance!
48 comments:
Here! Here!
Oh, yes. The "glory days" of television were the 1950's.
Things were easy then, no one was offended, and NBC cancelled the Nat King Cole Show - the first hosted by an African-American - because 1) sponsors were afraid of backlash against them if they sponsored a Black man, and 2) they feared a boycott against NBC from the South.
Yes, give us all white TV casts, women in pearls and dresses dusting and cooking and smiling.
It will all be so EASY then if we can just pretend it is the 1950's....
PI, let me get this right. You love today's television because it is so much more moral today since racism is out the picture? You like reality shows that boarder on pornography but without the visuals, although coming pretty close and it isn't just acting, but real people being depicted? Have you been to confession lately?
Good Father - No, you don't get it right,again. If you don't like what's on TV, don't watch. But don't whine about the low morals depicted on TV and then tell us how you LOVE The Big Bang Theory... (I like it too, but I don't moan about TV programming.
I don't watch much TV at all. I also don't share you delusion that TV in the 50's offended no one, intentionally or not.
I can't for the life of me fathom why you chose this topic for your blog, Father! Duck Dynasty is one of the few faith-and-family shows out there! We are not big TV viewers, have never watched "reality" network shows, and are definitely not hunters, but our seriously Catholic adult daughter told us last year we might enjoy DD. We did, and will miss it if it goes off. I'm thinking maybe you ought to stick to liturgy/spirituality commentary? Just a thought...
Pater Ignotus,
Your point is well taken, but perhaps we can assume Fr. McDonald is not promoting racist nostalgia.
Father McDonald and Pater Ignotus:
Do you really disagree with one another fundamentally, or are you each advocating that we see, respectively, today’s TV fare and the 1950s TV fare in the light of true “reality”? I assume that, evaluated in that light, you both reject and endorse somewhat similar things in each.
Can one not, then, seek to unmask the pretence in both today’s TV culture and that of the 1950s?
I have a disclaimer, I hate reality TV and so I don't watch it and have never seen Duck Dynasty although I heard it was very family friendly. The only shows I like on all of TV and it is a kind of reality show is House Hunters and then I do like the Big Bang Theory, but since there are no black characters on it I suppose PI abhors it and doesn't watch it.
I watched absolutely no TV or news on TV while I was in Rome for three months and that was the best purification ehver!
I just knew Ignotus was going to say that! I just knew it!
I will unashamedly state that all of us were better off in the 50's and with 50's TV morals and values. I have had Blacks and racism out the yin yang and am sick and tired of hearing about them. Totally self-indulgent, grasping, violent, more racist than any redneck out of Bugeye, Alabama, and they hate whites. They have been shoved down our throats by the media and the Left for decades, not because the Left really give a damn about them but because they can use Blacks as a foil for their socialist agenda. We have been lied to about them and their accomplishments, we have created a history for them that does not exist, whites have been manipulated by the media and self-interested politicians into feeling guilty about things that happened centuries ago, and we have herded them into jobs and positions for which they are not qualified. We have dumbed down textbooks, schools, and professional training for them, and given them every benefit of the doubt. Blacks are 13% of the population and are responsible for 70% of the crime. Get over it! There is nothing wrong with being white. Western culture is responsible for any good thing Blacks and anyone else here has. If they hate America and whites so much, let them go to some other country and see how they get treated there when they behave like they do here…China would be good. Blacks my shiny white….People like Ignotus run my you know what out on a stem...
Plus, I don't watch TV. It is garbage from start to finish. Nothing but liberal propaganda from the git go. Degraded, trite, vulgar, invasive, manipulative, and filled with homosexuals, sluts, Leftist plantation Blacks, and other human detritus. Even FOX News looks like a whorehouse on TV.
I have also never seen Duck Dynasty, and indeed had never heard of it until about three weeks ago, but I wouldn’t mind betting that it is not all it is quacked up to be.
Re. Gene 4:43 PM post:
Two words....no, three:
MORTAL SIN. CONFESSION
Anonymous, Where is the mortal sin in what I said?
Can't you handle the truth? Or haven't you been paying attention?
Re; Anonymous December 20, 2013 at 6:20 PM.
So, having an opinion is a mortal sin now? Being "Trad" is equal to being "neo-protestant"? This blog, once a stronghold for the truth, is sadly turning more and more into a parody. Perhaps, FrAJM, its time to call it a day and end SOUTHERN ORDERS.
I have always believed (call me "deluded" if you want, Pater Ignotus) that the old shows didn't offend so much because there was much more societal conformity as to behavior, dress, etc. and people were not as conditioned to have "heightened sensitivies" about so many things. They knew what was expected and just took things in stride.
This conformity was not peculiar to the 1950's or early 1960's period. Take men's dress, for example, look at the mens' suits shown in a 1910's or 1920's Sears catalogue and, other than minor details like lapel widths, there really isn't that much difference than what you would see in the same part of a 1950's or early 1960's catalogue of the same type (clean cut men neatly dressed in conservative suits with hats).
Nowadays (and starting in the latter 1960's, really) you see men with different hair lengths, some with facial hair and some without, many younger ones with tattoos and the only ones who seem to stay with the older clean cut suited look are undertakers, attorneys and bankers (although many bankers now work in polo shirts).
Yes, I know styles change but it seems like there was a more measured pace of change (like going from boaters and bowlers to straw and felt fedoras with snapped brims or suit lapel width changes) with a long term norm of overall conformity both in male and female dress prior to the mid-1960's. We went from a long period of time (probably more than a century) where men of all economic classes owned at least one suit (or at least a dress coat and tie) to the time we are in now where many may never own, much less wear, one.
I think of this conformity, I particularly think of my grandparents' and great-grandparents' generations (my great-grandparents having lived from the 1870's until the late 1940's to the mid 1950's and my grandparents having been born between 1900-1910 and living until the 1990's until 2000).
I started first grade in a Catholic school in 1966. My first grade reader had three children named David, Ann and Timmy and their parents. These books were printed between 1960-65 but they still showed Mom wearing a "house dress" and apron but a hat and gloves for going to town or Church and Daddy with his suit and fedora. I learned read from these books while all the crazy societal upheavals were going on around me (Vietnam War and protests on the news, etc.). These books and the older TV shows showed me life "as it should be" the the news showed a world whose previous long-term conformity and norms were falling apart---not progressing (except on civil rights).
There was a time when a man could dress like "Daddy" in my first grade reader and his clothes (and haircut) would not suggest or betray his politics. Today, people don't have to guess that I hold conservative attitudes when I show up in my three button sack suit with white pocket square, regimental striped tie and felt fedora (this is my professional dress).
I've gotten to the point that I
watch no TV programming other than EWTN. I have in the past
watched some things on Animal Planet and the History Channel. Also 48 hours. I watched one episode of Duck Dynasty and found nothing offensive on the show. If you look, you can find something worth watching but such fare is like an island in a sea of mediocrity,vulgarity, miasma and vacuity.
As far as the 1950's go, Fulton Sheen had a program on a major network in prime time. That says it all for me.
From the book "Padre Pio The True story"( C. Bernard Ruffin):
"He increasingly warned that television was destroying family life...Pio strongly advised his
spiritual children not to buy TV sets or watch television."
Anonymous at 6:20 is, like so many libs, hysterical…I don't mean funny, I mean in the psychoanalytic sense of being an Oedipal Wreck...
Lighten up dudes. It's Christmas. Time to be jolly...love one another. I'm joking. I have no idea if or when you or anybody commits a mortal sin. Personally, I don't think I ever have.
AND, the opinions I see here are the basis for the way I live my life. You are my spiritual mentors. Thank you.
I usually watch Turner Classic Movies, Public Television (particularly Masterpiece Theatre and Mystery!), EWTN, some news (Fox and CNN) and some car shows like the Barrett-Jackson auctions and "Fast-N-Loud" (for the cars--I don't particularly like the "Richard" character's obvious self love!).
"Post an intelligent and civil comment. Comments contrary to these two norms, regardless of point of view, will not be post. I review each comment prior to posting and may take time to do so."
But this does not apply to Gene who gets to post the most outrageous things with out censor...
or is this censored and it is really much worse than the post of 4:43
Hey, Just Asking, we into "censorship" now? Just what in my comment needs censoring? There was no profanity, no vulgarity, and no name calling. It was the expression of a very angry and disgusted opinion.
You need to get over it...
Of course, Just Asking and so-called "progressives" want to censor thoughts, not words. Christians/Catholics and Jews, along with other "normal" people should have risen up in an angry, relentless, and overwhelming wave years ago and swept this progressive/Leftist nonsense into some tiny corner of existence where it might remain as a museum example of what should not happen…that we have not done so is an indication of just how successful Leftist/media propaganda, obfuscation, deceit, and manipulation has been. Wake up call, anyone?
Pin/Gene - Yes, I am consistent. I think there's a bit of virtue in that, don't you?
"All of us" were all better off in the 50's if your "all of us" does not include black WW2 veterans who were trying to buy a home in a "white" neighborhood; unless you were a black high school valedictorian trying to gain admittance to the University of Alabama; unless you were a black businessman trying to get a loan from a bank run by white men, etc etc etc.
No, "all of us" were not better off in the 1950's.
Good Father - I watch BIG BANG because it is funny, not because it does or does not have black characters.
John Nolan - The "delusion" is that everything from TV to fashion to business to church matters was better in the 50's. Such a judgment hangs on one's perspective.
If you were white and middle class I suppose the 50's were, indeed, salad days. But most of the world wasn't white and middle class and their perspective is, rightly, considerably different.
just asking - The "warning" about posts is meaningless - a farce.
I hope that everyone noticed Friday night television on both NBC and CBS who taking my wisdom to heart returned their program to the 1950's! Yes, the 1950's and for NBC, the 1940's! Yes, the 1940's.
CBS showed two colorized episodes of "I Love Lucy!" in primetime at 8:00 AM and NBC showed "It's a Wonderful Life" at the same time. I can't wait to see the ratings!
I don't know that there are that many that look back at the 1950's as being some kind of idyllic Eden.
Certain aspects of that time compared to today were better. There were some parts of how things were back then that needed to be changed.
As far as Church attendence, religious vocations, how people behaved,and such things as what was considered acceptable entertainment, yes it was better than today.
With the '60's came the quest on the part of some to build toward an earthly Eden. And to reach that goal there were too many that were of the mindset that the structures in place had to be dismantled to achieve that goal.
It could be said as the saying goes that we "threw the baby out with the bath water". Society with it changing norms and standards of social and moral behavior began to ignore, discount, and even throw out God and His teachings.
Much change (some good-a lot of it bad) occurred throughout the 70's, 80's and 90's and so here we are today.
No earthly Eden can be achieved through man's efforts alone.
Reflecting on this, the Psalm comes to my mind:
"Unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it."
So I feel and pray a for those within the Church (from the Holy Father on down) because they have to deal with trying to get things back on the right track.
Gene, your sticking up for western culture against the multi-cultural relativists has not gone unnoticed. Don't worry, you have plenty of allies, we have right on our side and WE SHALL PREVAIL.
You know, John, if the bed-wetting Left doesn't like it, they can stick it up their catacombs…I love to throw it in their faces because they just get so beside themselves in self-righteous, hysterical arrogance.
According to the 2010 census:
•For the first time in more than a century, the number of deaths now exceeds births among white Americans. This "natural decrease" occurred several years before the government's original projection, a sign of the white population decline soon to arrive. For now, the white population is still increasing slightly, due to immigration from Europe.
•As a whole, the nonwhite population increased by 1.9 percent to 116 million, or 37 percent of the U.S. The fastest percentage growth is among multiracial Americans, followed by Asians and Hispanics. Non-Hispanic whites make up 63 percent of the U.S.; Hispanics, 17 percent; blacks, 12.3 percent; Asians, 5 percent; and multiracial Americans, 2.4 percent.
•About 353 of the nation's 3,143 counties, or 11 percent, are now "majority-minority." Six of those counties tipped to that status last year: Mecklenburg, N.C.; Cherokee, Okla.; Texas, Okla.; Bell, Texas; Hockley, Texas; and Terrell, Texas.
Can't you handle the truth? Or haven't you been paying attention?
Gene...I have NEVER....EVER encountered ANYBODY as self-righteous or as hysterically arrogant as....take a guess.....YOU. The good news, however, is that I heard on another blog that you have stopped wetting the bed. Sleep tight. Merry Christmas. Happy Kwanza. And happy birthday White Jesus.
Funny Anonymous, no one else has ever called me those things…
Oh, and Jesus was a Jew. Jews are white. Too bad, huh, sister boy…LOL!
PI, I am very much aware of what you posted. The difference between you and me is that you think this is a good thing and I think it is a very bad thing. But, talk to me if and when you ever have a little face to face encounter with some of your beloved minorities, say in one of the projects or another of Macon's delightful minority hang outs. Maybe that is too much to hope for, but I'm still hoping...
Be reminded though, Anonymous, that superior education and intelligence is often impugned as arrogance by those with lesser accomplishments…LOL!
Gene, I know you prpbably will not care but i feel compelled to write in response to your comments concerning the black community. I am one of those minorities living in one of Macon's delightful minority hang outs called Pleasant Hill. I attended St. Peter Claver school where my grandmother and grandfather converted. As a black man I know the images others have in their minds about me, but to see it in print from a fellow Catholic on my Pastor's blog made me question if it is possible to have an integrated church. And, yes I have been a parishioner at St Joseph for most of my adult life and have been so spiritually fed by the orthodox and traditional Masses there.The Catholic church here in Macon is the most integrated of any, if you have not noticed.
You wrote about blacks that we are : "Totally self-indulgent, grasping, violent, more racist than any redneck out of Bugeye, Alabama, and they hate whites." I assure you that i do not hate whites. Infact I have thanked God for the many white missionaries and religious and priests who have evangelized and brought into the church so many of diffrent races.
I worked hard for my education often in the face of prejudice and bitterness. I earned my degrees and deserve the job I have because I am qualified and capable.
You may say I am unusal or somehow even an Uncle Tom,
I identify myself as a typical cradle Catholic, stuggling sometimes to share my faith in a hostile protestant environment. I raise my children the same way i was raised. We pray the rosary throughout the year together. I teach them to love The Lord, the Eucharist and the Church.
Maybe if the Catholic Church reached out more and deliberatly into the black community you would see more like me sitting in our churches and fewer of the misguided, and disadvantaged you so clearer detest.
I pray the Christ child's birth can soften your heart and that this new year you will see the worth and value of all human beings.
Fr McDonald, Happy Birthday. It was a wonderful party today after Mass. May you have many more years of life with us at St Joseph.
I think that the plural form of the verb would be better in this sentence...since you and I is so educated and intelligent. LOL
I work in retail, so I see people at their absolute WORST. No putting on a facade, the real person at the soul level.
I have to say, African-Americans as a whole, are very polite and respectful. Caucasians, likewise are quite polite and respectful, but there are a few more "bad apples" than I typically see in the African race. Asians born in the US are identical to Caucasians, but foreign born Asians, despite the stereotype of them being the most intelligent race, come off as a little clueless, perhaps due to them having no social skills.
The worst ethnic group in terms of rudeness, selfishness, disrespectful to others, and just plain horrible people are, without question, Chaldeans (with the other Arab races close behind). Latinos (calling Jorge Bergogolio) are also quite miserable to deal with.
Hello out there...pastor Gene...are you still with us?
The rude middle easterners that I have seen have all been REALLY rich. I would attribute their lack of manners more to wealth than to geography.
retail ravager, I'll bet that the Pope is less miserable to deal with than you are.
Drexel's Son - Not only is an integrated Church possible, it is God's will. "In Christ there is no Jew nor Greek."
There will always be a few who are intent on seeing things the way their fathers and grandfathers saw them. They are, for want of a better word, unredeemed.
Gene's rants do not reflect the faith or the teaching of the Church or the vast majority of her members. I hope that that has been your experience. These outbursts are, rather, examples of the kind of emotional shrapnel that can fly around when a person, for whatever reasons, is threatened by those who do not agree with his peculiar perspectives on race, religion, money, or anything else for that matter.
Blessed Christmas to Pleasant Hill from South Macon!
Son of St. Katherine, I did not say there were not exceptions...
Anonymous, actually the phrase "superior education and intelligence" can be understood as a singular. However, perhaps the plural form is less awkward for those with limited abstracting ability.
Son of Katherine Drexel:
I too wonder about some of the posts I've seen on here.
Here is my take on this:
I've been on a number of secular blogs where some of the worst things are said about Christians in general and Catholics in particular. I will say that I
have seen a change in tone since Pope Francis was elected.
Of course I don't agree with these anti-christian diatribes that I've seen posted on these sites but the thought never crossed my mind that these should be censored. I like to see what others are posting and read their views on religion, as vile or misinformed that they may be.
At least I know who to pray for. Also, there is the possibility that I can respond in such a way that it will get them to perhaps change their opinion.
I've also met through various circumstances those who just don't like liberals. So you might hear them say something about Al Sharpton and think racism and yet these people will come down equally as hard on Al Gore, Hilary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and Joe Biden.
I remember when I was young and my father would drive us up north to visit relatives.
You should have seen the look on some people faces when the saw the Georgia license plate. I was thinking to myself that they probably thought we were rednecks and racists or maybe just ignorant hillbillies. If that was the case then I knew their opinion had been formed by the actions of some that they had read about or seen from watching TV. It's human nature that some will judge that way. There are those in EVERY community like this-yes black and white-and you just have to try to change the ones that you personally run into.
Gene...When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. I think Will Rogers said that.
Gene and Son of St. Katherine:
I am hesitant to address this issue of race perceptions and race relations in Macon because, as someone who immigrated to the United States (and the South), in a sense this is not really my issue. And yet, as someone who has made his home in Macon for the last 33 years, and as a fellow Catholic and indeed parishioner of St. Josephs for all that time, perhaps it is after all. And it is certainly my wife’s issue as someone born and raised in Mobile, Alabama.
Anyway, we both participated in Mayor Reichert’s six week program of “race talking circles” in 2008, although we were each in a different group, both to learn more and to support the mayor’s efforts to promote improved race relations in Macon. We did this, not for any political or ideological reasons (Gene, take note), but because of our Christian faith. Here is a link about that program, which unfortunately did not realize its full potential regarding major follow-up community initiatives because the economic crisis hit shortly afterwards:
http://www.everyday-democracy.org/en/Article.683.aspx
Those intimate, candid, and trusting mixed race conversations were transformative for many, and indeed probably all, of us who participated in them. Perhaps it would be a good idea to hold another round of such talking circles; and if the mayor is not in a position to sponsor the initiative, perhaps some of our churches could do so, although such encounters do require specially trained facilitators. Perhaps you have both started us moving in that direction by your comments here on the Blog. Just a thought.
Pi, comments have absolutely nothing to do with the teachings of the Church. Where does the Church say we should lie to ourselves and to minorities about themselves? Where does it say we are to keep an entire class in chains to entitlement programs, liberal stereotypes, and political manipulation? Where does it say that we should condone and accept violence and wide spread crime from one race/class because we hate ourselves so that we cannot let go of our guilty conscience? Liberals like you have an automatic set of assumptions that kicks in anytime someone criticizes any minority group. It is like a trip wire.
Not only do you lie to yourself, Ignotus, you have been lying to us on this blog and to your poor parishioners for years. You really aren't fooling anyone.
Anonymous at December 22, 2013 at 6:56 PM, of course the Chaldeans are rich. They don't have to pay taxes on the busineses the US government set them up with, they get food stamps even though thier wallets are loaded with $100 bills while legit unemployed Americans can't qualify for food stamps. To pay for Obamacare, Obama should wise up amd start making these Chaldeans pay taxes and take away thier unearned food stamps.
And I may be more miserable than Pope Fran, but I bet you are the type to treat retail employees like your personal slaves.
Census figures indicate that in the US at the present time more "minority" babies are being born than "white" babies. By 2042 or 43 projected figures say that "whites" will be the minority group.
And no, retail raveger, I don't treat anybody as my personal slave. That deal was settled in 1865 when we in the south got our b***s kicked by the USA.
I have to agree with retail ravenger. Chaldeans are the true "feral minority", to use Gene's phrase. The absolutely refuse to assimilate. They move into a neighborhood by the dozens and literally turn it into little Bagdads within weeks, to the point there are move signs in arabic than English. And boy are they hypocrites when it comes to religion. They have all these statues of the Blessed Mother and Jesus all over thier yards and in their houses, but they never go to church... they lie, steal, and treat everyone who is not Chaldean with disgust and disrespect. If chaldeans have not yet infested your neighborhood, be sure to thank God ASAP.
Pin/Gene - No, I don't have a knee-jerk reaction to criticism of any minority.
I do have a knee-jerk reaction to the racism that you, without shame or apology, continue to post here.
And this has nothing to do with your political views on race or your take on African-Americans, who you refer to as a "feral minority" regularly.
I don't share these views because I don't consider any race of people to be a "feral minority."
Some of the comments prompted me to find out a bit more about Chaldeans. Here is a helpful article for other readers who may also want to know more about various aspects, including successive waves of Chaldean immigration over the decades, Chaldean family and social structures, Chaldean religious history and Roman Catholic rite, etc.:
http://www.everyculture.com/multi/Bu-Dr/Chaldean-Americans.html
Post a Comment