Pretty... and CurrentTV

I'm not in Current TV's demographic, but since the station started (unfortunately taking out the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Newsworld International, damn!), I occasionally tune in and see what the kids are up to. Most of the stories are not in-depth, and a little too kiddie for me, but sometimes they have some pretty cool stuff, particularly on the Google portion of the neverending MTV-like montage of stories, videos and cutesy commentators. And they show stuff over and over and over again. And over again.


But today I saw two things I found interesting (I've only watched it about 6 or 7 times since it started on August 1); a Google piece on NASA's Spitzer Telescope (see above photo) and a piece on how global warming is affecting Eskimos lifestyle, along with a fascinating look at what they eat.

Oh, and I shouldn't forget the piece on laser therapy for smoking cessation. I even checked out the place in the piece, the Freedom Quit Smoking Laser Therapy site. There are two of these particular centers in the country right now, Santa Monica and Royal Oak, MI. Since I smoke, I could do it while I'm at home in Michigan, but at $399 for a session, I think I'm gonna have to take a pass. Sounds like a good franchise to open up, eh? (There are others in the country, I should check it out... ) From what I understand, this type of therapy started in Europe and Canada.

I was also impressed with a piece on French youth during the recent riots. I think it's the first time that I've seen French youth actually talking about and exploring their own neighborhoods for an American television audience.

On that note, I was speaking with a much older person from work the other day, who is originally from Europe and has been living in the U.S. for a long time. He's got relatives in France now. We were talking about other matters, and the riots came up in conversation; he said that, in his opinion, the youth had it all... housing, welfare and a job if they wanted... and that Nicolas Sarkozy, the Interior Minister of France, was right. Which I guess means that the African and Arab youth were "scum" or "rabble" or however you want to translate it, indigent petty and thieving criminals with no respect for the police or French society.

Hey, if you really want to, you can always blame rap music, like some members of the French government or David Brooks did. Of course, you can't really blame entrenched French society and its treatment of Africans or Arabs... nope, you really wouldn't want to do that. /snark.

There's more than one quick and simple reason for the whole bloody mess... it's a combination of things, that all work their ugly heads together to form a big complicated mess. Life is not simple, people, because people are not simple entities, though they all want simple things... like Liberté, Egalité, et Fraternité. Go fucking figure, eh?

I didn't say anything to him. I've come to the conclusion that it's useless to argue about race with certain people over 80. This is the second time I've found myself in a conversation with an octogenerian about race (both times not intentionally), and just kept my mouth shut. Hell, they're almost out of here anyway, so what's the point? "Set in their ways" comes to mind. The first time was with this Italian fellow who lives upstairs and kinda mentioned how bad black kids are. I've never told him that I was black. I also didn't tell him that most of the Italian kids in the neighborhood have certain penchants for disruption and hooligoonism. I just politely said, well, I don't know about any of that.

Anyway, CurrentTV was a little thought provoking for me today. It may not be my regular TV (I miss Newsworld International), but hopefully it's thought provoking for its 18-34 demographic... one can only hope to stir them up somehow.

Here's another pretty picture...