Oscar Meme- A La Me

Middle Aged Woman at Unmitigated has a post that covers the years 1981-2009.  Go check it out.  Our dates overlap because I give the year the award was given not the year of release.  Just because that was the way IMDB had it.

Movies are, I think, the quintessential American art form.  And in honor of the Oscar's that I didn't watch, let's take a look down memory lane. 

I begin with 1940.  I chose this year for two films: The Wizard of Oz and Gone With The Wind.  The films prior to this awards year, while good, are old enough that most people have no idea what they are. Besides, I think you can argue the GWTW and The Wizard of Oz have had a lasting impact on American culture.  Winners are listed first.  Bold face are the ones I've seen.

1940- Gone With The Wind, Dark Victory, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Love Affair, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Ninotchka, Of Mice and Men, Stagecoach, The Wizard of Oz, Wuthering Heights

1941- Rebecca, All This and Heaven Too, The Foreign Correspondent, The Grapes of Wrath, The Great Dictator, Kitty Foyle, The Letter, The Long Voyage Home, Our Town, The Philadelphia Story

1942- How Green Was My Valley, Blossom in the Dust, Citizen Kane, Here Comes Mr. Jordan, Hold Back the Dawn, The Little Foxes, The Maltese Falcon, One Foot in Heaven, Sergeant York, Suspicion

1943- Mrs. Miniver , 49th Parallel,  Kings Row, The Magnificent Ambersons, The Pied Piper, The Pride of the Yankees, Random Harvest, The Talk of the Town, Wake Island, Yankee Doodle Dandy

1944- Casablanca, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Heaven Can Wait, The Human Comedy, In Which We Serve, Madame Curie, The More the Merrier, The Ox-Bow Incident, The Song of Bernadette, Watch on the Rhine

1945- Going My Way, Double Indemnity, Gaslight, Since You Went Away, Wilson

1946- The Lost Weekend, Anchors Aweigh, The Bells of St. Mary's, Mildred Pierce, Spellbound

1947- The Best Years of Our Lives, The Chronicle History of King Henry the Fift with His Battell Fought at Agincourt in France, It's a Wonderful Life, The Razor's Edge, The Yearling

1948- Gentleman's Agreement, The Bishop's Wife, Crossfire, Great Expectations, Miracle on 34th Street

1949- Hamlet, Johnny Belinda, The Red Shoes, The Snake Pit, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

1950- All the King's Men, Battleground, The Heiress, A Letter to Three Wives, Twelve O'Clock High

1951- All About Eve, Born Yesterday, Father of the Bride, King Solomon's Mines
Sunset Blvd

1952- An American in Paris, Decision Before Dawn, A Place in the Sun, Quo Vadis, A Streetcar Named Desire

1953- The Greatest Show on Earth, High Noon, Ivanhoe, Moulin Rouge, The Quiet Man

1954- From Here to Eternity, Julius Caesar, The Robe, Roman Holiday, Shane

1955- On the Waterfront, The Caine Mutiny, The Country Girl, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Three Coins in the Fountain

1956- Marty, Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing, Mister Roberts, Picnic, The Rose Tattoo

1957- Around the World in Eighty Days, Friendly Persuasion, Giant, The King and I, The Ten Commandments

1958- The Bridge on the River Kwai, 12 Angry Men, Peyton Place, Sayonara, Witness for the Prosecution

1959- Gigi, Auntie Mame, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Defiant Ones, Separate Tables

1960- Ben-Hur, Anatomy of a Murder, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Nun's Story, Room at the Top

1961- The Apartment, The Alamo, Elmer Gantry, Sons and Lovers, The Sundowners

1962- West Side Story, Fanny, The Guns of Navarone, The Hustler, Judgment at Nuremberg

1963- Lawrence of Arabia, The Longest Day, The Music Man, Mutiny on the Bounty, To Kill a Mockingbird

1964- Tom Jones, America, America, Cleopatra, How the West Was Won, Lilies of the Field

1965- My Fair Lady, Alexis Zorbas, Becket, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, Mary Poppins

1966- The Sound of Music, Darling, Doctor Zhivago , Ship of Fools, A Thousand Clowns

1967- A Man for All Seasons, Alfie, The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming, The Sand Pebbles, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

1968- In the Heat of the Night, Bonnie and Clyde, Doctor Dolittle, The Graduate, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

1969- Oliver!, Funny Girl, The Lion in Winter,  Rachel, Rachel, Romeo and Juliet

1970- Midnight Cowboy, Anne of the Thousand Days, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Hello, Dolly! , Z

1971- Patton, Airport, Five Easy Pieces, Love Story, MASH

1972- The French Connection, A Clockwork Orange, Fiddler on the Roof, The Last Picture Show, Nicholas and Alexandra

1973- The Godfather, Cabaret, Deliverance, Sounder, Utvandrarna

1974- The Sting, American Graffiti, The Exorcist, A Touch of Class, Viskningar och rop

1975- The Godfather: Part II, Chinatown, The Conversation, Lenny, The Towering Inferno

1976- One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Barry Lyndon, Dog Day Afternoon, Jaws, Nashville

1977- Rocky, All The President's Men, Bound for Glory, Network, Taxi Driver

1978- (Otherwise known as the year that shall live in infamy)
Annie Hall, The Goodbye Girl, Julia, Star Wars, The Turning Point

1979- The Deer Hunter, Coming Home, Heaven Can Wait, Midnight, An Unmarried Woman

1980- Kramer vs. Kramer, All That Jazz, Apocalypse Now, Breaking Away, Norma Rae

New Look Redux

Okay, I've done it again.  I changed my template. Obviously.  And I must say I like this one for so many reasons.  First off, it's functionality is much better.  It was written specifically for the new Blogger and works much better. 

More importantly, the person who wrote it is really great at communicating fixes and how to tweek the code.  One of the things I missed from the last template was 1) I couldn't see the nav bar and 2) I couldn't see the quick edit icons.  With this template, I can fix both so that they're visible.  All because the author gives detailed, clear instructions that don't assume a level of html knowledge that his users don't have.  It's amazing.

Plus, it looks pretty damn cool.

It's February 26th

And I just turned on the AC because it was 81 degrees in my house when I got home from work.

We went to dinner and then the grocery store and expected to come home to nice, cool house.  No dice.  Since this was the first time the AC had been run in, oh at least 2 months, it of course decided not to cool.

Seems like the AC filter was full of Myrddin hair and other unmentionables and froze up.  All is well (and cool) now that we let it rest while putting away the groceries and beat the worst of the dust out of the filter.  Since we just got back from the store and really didn't want to make a return trip for a new one.

Anyway, living in Texas is always an adventure.  We can go from 80 degrees one day to near freezing the next.  So while I haven't seen snow in almost a decade, I do get to run the AC in what's supposed to be winter. 

Speaking of this mild weather, this is the last week of Girl Scout Cookie sales in our area.  This is the first time in 13 years that I've not had cookies taking over my house and my weekends filled with cookie booths.  I've joked for a long time that winter doesn't really start in Austin until January 18th or thereabouts when the sale starts.  This year, it's been really mild weather.  I think that's patently unfair.  I froze my ass off for years and now this global climate change crap is making cookie sales a breeze.  And when we were selling cookies it seemed like I couldn't turn around without tripping over a Girl Scout.  This year, I've seen two booths. Two!  And the only cookies I bought were from Daisies.  That's just wrong.

Ask me if I miss selling cookies.  Really.  Don't be shy.

It's Wednesday

It must be time for weird news from around the globe or at least the continent.

We begin in Florida where the state cosmetology board has moved to ban the practice of letting fish nibble away dead skin.  The practice that hails from Asia wasn't even offered, as far as the board was aware, in any salons in the state but folks were making inquiries so they decided to nip it in the bud, so to speak.  Citing the fact that it was impossible to sanitize a bowl full of fish between clients as their reason, the board banned the treatment. I've heard of this "spa treatment" before and it sounds intriguing and like it probably tickles.

In Johannesburg, South Africa, a 4-year-old hippo has taken up residence in a water treatment plant.  He managed to enter the facility because the fence was stolen.  Who steals a fence? Anyway, they've named the fellow Zorro in honor of the Z-shaped scar on his back.

You've heard that excessive playing of video games is responsible for the general downfall of western civilization.  Makes those who play the games violent and anti-social.  Apparently it also causes a medical condition known as "PlayStation palmar hidradentitis".  The disorder causes painful lumps under the skin from holding the controller too tightly.  Sony points out that only one person was involved in the study and they include health guidelines in their manuals.  How does a study comprising one participant make it into the British Journal of Dermatology?

From PlayStation to Facebook.  A 19-year-old man was arrested in Florida for snatching a laptop to check his Facebook account. He was charged with, and this is the best part, "robbery by sudden snatching" after being refused access to check his account.

And last we have some really dumb teens.  They stole a safe containing antique money from one of their parents and a van, drove to Alabama from Michigan and tried to get change for a $1000 bill.  Seems like they weren't aware that the US Treasury last printed $1000 bills in 1945 thus tipping off the bank teller that something was amiss.  D'oh!

Slim pickings today.  Hopefully the crazies will be out in force next week.

Spin Cycle-Change

In which I attempt to satisfy both Sprite's Keeper's meme and talk about transgender issues.  It's Tuesday, right?

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My transfriend has had a set back.  He had made an appointment with a endocrinologist to begin hormone therapy but the doctor has told him that she doesn't feel comfortable handling his situation.  Because she's not compentent, she says.  Riiight.  She's not competent to give him a prescription or shots or whatever.  I kinda thought that was part of what an endocrinologist did.  Prescribe hormone therapy when needed.

Oh, I see, that's the problem.  She doesn't think it's a real need.  So her bias against transgender people has delayed an integral part of my friend's transition.

Now we come to the change part.

This, my friends, needs to change.  The medical community needs to accept that being trans is not a psychological disorder.  Do you know, he has to be first "diagnosed" with Gender Dysphoria or Gender Identity Disorder before many insurance companies and many, many doctors will help him.  So, he has to in effect be diagnosed as mentally ill.  This is madness.

Just as homosexuality is not a physchological disorder, even though it was once defined as such, neither is being transgender.  Just because the men in the white coats define the thing they are uncomfortable with as a disease or illness does not make it so.  And just because we don't understand how someone can be male when they were born biologically female does not negate the fact that this is so. 

We cannot divorce the mind from the body.  To do so ignores how each affects the other.  When you start talking about something as nebulous and difficult to define as our sense of self, how we see ourselves and how we want to be seen, you enter a world that is many, many, many shades of grey. 

Male and Female.  These are at essence limiting labels. Within ourselves, we recognize behaviours and outlooks that are both feminine and masculine.  Even the most hyper male man has something that he experiences or feels that skews more feminine.  I remember, and this is really telling my age, when Rosey Greer came out of the needlepoint closet.  This was a former professional football player who had a serious hobby that in the eyes of many at the time brought his sexuality into question.  If the big macho football player can do needlepoint, then I think it's safe to say that we limit ourselves by defining gender roles in a strict male/female dichotomy.

And its time to change that.  Real men do eat quiche.  Some of the most insane football fans I know are women.  They are neither any less a woman or a man because of it.

If you can recognize the masculine in yourselves, ladies, then how can you deny that my trans friend has the right to live his life as he was born. 

Change comes when it must.  When the momentum of history forces it to the forefront of our collective consciousness and we can no longer deny its exisistence, change sweeps through our lives.  We are seeing just such a change in terms of the understanding of homosexuality.  Transgender acceptance is next.  The change in how we perceive ourselves will be radical. 

And we will be better for it.