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Showing posts from June, 2005

Summer Scares

Shark Scares The media appears to be salivating at the prospect that this could be another "Summer of the Shark." Two severe shark attacks, one fatal, in three days off the west coast of Florida have articles being printed with headline warnings that this may be "Just The Beginning." Spielberg Scares Since the summer of 1975 when a certain now-successful Hollywood director's Jaws terrified the teens off the beaches, shark attack scares have existed in the human psyche, thanks to Steven Spielberg. Now Spielberg visits upon us his latest chronicle of cinema terror in his continuing series of screaming children flicks. I went to War of the Worlds with my older sons last night. It is a movie, both frightening and engaging. As a science-fiction motion picture, it will be critiqued as significant and important. But there's a twilight language text to this film. Spielberg has added a new chapter to his allegedly covert pedophile tendencies, in which his m

Moodiness and Media Self-Defense

Copycat Events Catchup I've been busy with other matters, but the copycat effect hasn't. And the media's reaction to it, as well. There are the usual late spring shooting sprees, but the one that jumps out, of course, is the sad story of the Logan County, Ohio, high school senior who was about to graduate but instead kills six people. This, I find, had many elements of a school shooting and family rampage mixed into it. As widely reported by the media, Scott Moody, 18, just hours away from graduating from high school, fatally shot three family members (his grandparents and mother), two friends and himself on Sunday, May 29th, in rural Bellefontaine, Ohio. The twilight language named "Logan" county has been the scene of many unusual events, down through the years. As usual, accounts of the funeral carried this line: "Neighbors and friends said they could not reconcile the description of Moody as the gunman with the quiet boy they knew," Cleveland Plain