Tuesday, January 28, 2003

Is Joe Millionaire making a million dollar ass out of us? Did you see the show last night? What a slimeball!! When Zora expresses her concern to Evan that he may not be all that he seems to be; he says “Trust me”. What?? Who should trust him, the girls he is actively lying to, or us, the audience that he is stringing along with the pretension that he’s a ‘nice’ guy? When Mojo gives him a jigsaw puzzle photo and a poem she has written, he says to the camera “I guess it was pretty sweet.” Huh?? He repeatedly tells us that he is looking for a woman that will love him for who he is, not for his pretend money, but then he eliminates Mojo, the one who told him that she liked him enough after getting to know him, to ‘choose him’! Evan’s actions are not consistent with the story that he is telling us. He chooses Zora who he said acted like she was more into the horseback riding and nature than him. Also instead of Mojo, who had a chance of really liking him, he keeps Melissa who can barely hide her disdain for cooking, or her lust toward the ruby necklace! And that is when it hit me. We’re being duped also. We’re being strung along, being told by Evan that he is a nice guy just looking for love. We are to believe that just like us he is looking for someone who will “love him for who he is”. But meanwhile he is acting like a lying horn-dog, and we’re glossing over his bad behavior, just like the woman on the show! What acting! He has three different characters going on at once....rich guy, poor nice guy and slimeball, and just like the women, we are only seeing one of them. Is Fox prompting him to pick the women that are least likely to be pleased with his little deception just to make a more entertaining show? Netscape ran a news ‘rumor’ yesterday that Evan may actually be rich. Their evidence: 1. Evan modeled sexy underwear. (Hugh posted this last week with pictures) 2. He attended an expensive military school (19,950 a yr) until his junior year 3. He claims that he only makes 19,000 a year; however, construction workers typically make more than that. 4. His name is really Evan Wallace Marriott (spelled like the hotel), which Netscape claims is a rich-boy name. (I wouldn’t call this ‘evidence’) Netscape hasn’t convinced me that Evan is actually rich, but I do believe that he is not who he is portraying. In the first episode, one of the women examined the palms of his hands and seemed satisfied. Anyone who has performed manual labor has calluses that would have been readily apparent. Also, Evan has ridden horses more than just once or twice. He posts--rises up and down in the saddle in time with the gait of the horse. This doesn’t come natural, it is a skill that takes lessons and practice, and he claims he has never ridden before. The official word from Fox is that we will be ‘extremely satisfied’ by the ending of the show. I think we are being duped, and that Evan’s final speech to his chosen one will be as much of a shock to us as to her. Maybe he does have money, but that wouldn’t be a shock to her. Maybe he’s married....or gay.......or an alien clone....or an actor! Now that would be a surprise to everyone. Additional blog posts on Joe Millionaire: Hugh's Epistles -- hilarious! Atomic Tom's One Ordinary Joe Salon's Scenes from the class stuggle on Fox   7:05:11 PM    comment []

White House Comment Line The Bush White House has an ‘opinion’ line for you to call to say whether you oppose or approve of the proposed war in Iraq. The line accepts calls from 9:00-5:00 EST, Monday through Friday at 202-456-1111. A recorded message will detain you for a moment and then a live operator will thank you and ask for your opinion. The president has said that he wants to know what the American people are thinking. Let him know! Rice for peace At work, a colleague handed me this memo; I’m not sure how far it has spread, so I wanted to share it. Place ½ cup uncooked rice in a small plastic bag (a snack-size bag or sandwich bag works fine). Squeeze out the excess air and seal the bag. Wrap it in a piece of paper on which you have written, “If your enemies are hungry, feed them (Romans 12:20). Please send this rice to the people of Iraq; do not attack them.” Place in an envelope with $1.06 postage, and mail to: President George Bush White House 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW Washington, DC 20500 Drop this in the mail today. It is important to act now so that President Bush gets the letters ASAP, preferably before the report from the inspectors comes out on the 30th. In order for this protest to be effective, there must be hundreds of thousands of such rice deliveries to the White House. We can do this if you each pass this message to your friends and family. There is a positive history of this protest. In the 1950s, the Fellowship of Reconciliation began a similar protest, which is credited with influencing President Eisenhower against attacking China. From: People Power: Applying Nonviolence Theory, by David H. Albert: “In the mid-1950s, the pacifist Fellowship of Reconciliation, learning of famine in the Chinese mainland, launched a ‘Feed Thine Enemy’ campaign. Members and friends mailed thousands of little bags of rice to the White House with a tag “If thine enemy hunger, feed him.” As far as anyone knew for more than ten years, the campaign was an abject failure. The President did not acknowledge receipt of the bags publicly; certainly, no rice was ever sent to China. What nonviolent activists only learned a decade later was that the campaign played a significant, perhaps even determining role in preventing nuclear war. Twice while the campaign was on, President Eisenhower met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff to consider U.S. options in the conflict with China over two islands, Quemoy and Matsu. The generals twice recommended the use of nuclear weapons. President Eisenhower each time turned to his aide and asked how many little bags of rice had come in. When told they numbered in the tens of thousands, Eisenhower told the generals that as long as so many Americans were expressing active interest in having the U.S. feed the Chinese, he certainly wasn’t going to consider using nuclear weapons against them.” 6:37:23 PM    comment []