Fox News Compilation

The following is a compilation of Fox News headlines collected by Daniel Burgner and myself. A lot of them make no sense. Some are ludicrous. All of them are barely news. Please enjoy.

"528-Pound Woman Gives Birth to First Child"

"The War on Christmas: Can Jews Celebrate Too?"

"Will Nuclear Robot Ship Sail Saturn's Moon?"

"Muslim Spies on Capitol Hill?"

"NASA to Moon: Get Ready Because Here We Come." (Every other headline was about Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize.)

"Houston Woman Fries and Eats Pet Goldfish After Fight With Husband"

"ACORN Officials Told 'Pimp,' 'Prostitute' How to Lie to IRS"

"ACORN Brothel Advice Full of Holes, Analysts Say"

"Man's Finger Bitten Off at Health Care Rally"

"Flying Deer Kills 6-Year-Old Boy in Bizarre Car Crash"

"Microsoft Edits Black Man Out of Photo, Apologizes"

"Controller Talked About Dead Cat Before Midair Crash"

"Vietnam Veteran Keeps Vow, Eats 40-Year-Old Cake"

"Indian Business Students Look to Hitler for Inspiration"

"Marines Prepare for War in Afghan Village in N. Carolina"

"Ga. Prof Suspected of Killing 3 'A Little Off'"

"Trolls Frustrate Obama"

"NASA's Secret Rebels Want Obama on Their Side"

"Japanese Man Certified as Double A-Bomb Victim"

"Coast Guard Finds Boat, One Survivor, Uncertain If It's Boat"

"Middle School Teaches AP Spanish to Kids Who Speak Spanish" (The nerve!)

"911 Call Released in Horrific Chimpanzee Attack"

"Millions Will Suffer" - I still don't know what this story was about, but I don't think it was relevant to me.

"Study: Romantic Comedies can ruin your life."

". . . helps put the 'F' in First Lady" - I did not delete anything. This headline starts with an ellipses.

"Possum May Be Extinct Due to Global Warming"

"'Oh Great': Astronaut Loses Tool Bag During Spacewalk"

"U.S. Pilot Ordered to Shoot Down UFO Over England"

"Vermont Farmer's 'Hail Cannon' Waking Up Neighbors"

"Strange 'Ant From Mars' Discovered in Amazon Rainforest"

"Michael Lohan wants to fight Kevin Federline for charity."

"Yoda the Cat Astounds with Four Ears"

"Bigfoot Body Revealed to be Halloween Costume"


Here is are some collections of headlines, highlighting what Fox News counts as news compared to what other organizations think:

CNN: Patraeus: "Afghan violence will rise as troops arrive"
NYTimes: "News Analysis: Public Option Keeps Toehold in Senate Deal on Health Bill"
Time: "CLASS Act and Long-Term Care Considered in Health Reform"
Reuters: "Obama Praises Senate Healthcare Deal"
and
FOXNews: "Family Dog Survives 98 Days on Deserted N.J. Island"


CNN: "Obama: It's time to remake America"
NY Times: "Obama Is Sworn In as the 44th President"
TIME: "Live-Blogging the Inauguration: Watching History Happen"
REUTERS: "Obama becomes first black U.S. president"
and concentrating on the positive -
FOX News: "Inauguration Crowd May Crash Cell-Phone Networks"


CNN: "Clinton will win W.Va. primary, CNN projects."
The New York Times: "Clinton Wins West Virginia, Networks say."
Time: "Clinton rolls to West Virginia win"
Reuters: "Clinton scores big West Virginia win"
and upholding its policy about never reporting any story that mentions a Clinton without the words "affair" and "perjury" -
FOXNews: "Britain Opens Up Secret UFO Files"


CNN: "Obama - New Campaign Starts after Tuesday"
The New York Times: "The Long Run - Senate's Power and Allure Drew McCain from Military"
Time Magazine: "The Dem's Endgame - Michigan and Florida"
Reuters: "GM says 19,000 U.S. factory workers take buyouts"
and possibly the best Fox News headline of all time -
FOXNews: "Huge Flying Reptiles May Have Eaten Baby Dinosaurs"

Life is Beautiful

If you have never watched the movie Life is Beautiful, please stop reading this note. Go find a copy (If you want to borrow it from me, I recently acquired it as a gift from my beautiful girlfriend, Emily), watch it, and come back to read this blog. (I'm sorry that this suddenly became a huge time commitment.)

The movie is a brilliant story of a man who meets a schoolteacher who is unwillingly engaged to an uptight banker. He is full of surprises and his zest for life sweeps the woman off her feet. He rides in to her engagement party on a green horse and invites her to go along with him. She does. The first half of the movie is so much fun to watch because this man has a way of turning every situation into a playful and carefree time. He is always looking on the bright side of life - even when his bookstore is vandalized with the words "Jewish Store."

You see, the movie takes place in the years leading up to and during World War II in Italy. The main character, Guido, is an Italian Jew. He and his non-Jewish wife, Dora, have a son. When the child is about 5 years old, the Germans come and arrest both the father and child. They force them to get on a train bound for a concentration camp. In an act of desperate love and loyalty, Dora insists on boarding the train with them.

Facing the grim circumstances of a concentration camp, it would have been easy for Guido to let his playful and carefree spirit be trampled. Instead, he devotes all his energy to protecting his son from the horrors occurring all around him. He tells his son that he has signed them both up for a game - and the winner gets a prize. The first child to reach 1000 points wins a real army tank! Guido acts excited and makes up lots of rules for his 5-year-old son to follow so the Nazis will not discover him and kill him. Every day, Guido tells his son that they are in the lead and they are so lucky to have been chosen to play the game.

It makes me think of a certain verse in the Bible: "Do everything without arguing or complaining, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe" - Philippians 2:14-15 Normally, I think about this verse in the context of sayings like: "No one likes to be around someone who complains all the time." Or after someone says "I hate doing laundry" and someone else points out that we're lucky to even have water to wash our clothes. But this movie changed that for me. The verse doesn't say, "Do everything without arguing or complaining, so that you may become super popular and everyone, including God, will appreciate your good and grateful attitude." In fact, if it points to any reaction by other people, it would be along the lines of the "crooked and depraved."

Guido personifies this verse. When people vandalized his bookstore, he merely smiled and said "It is about time." When the Nazis captured his entire family, he put on a smile so that his son wouldn't be afraid. He played a game and did not complain or try to escape. He didn't confront the guards or question why they were committing these crimes against humanity. He was in the worst possible situation. And he put all those things behind him and thought of others before he thought of himself. Everything he did was to protect the ones he loved.

When it became clear to the Nazis that the Allied Forces would take control of the camp, things got a little hectic. Guido realizes he has a chance to escape if he can find his wife, so he hides his son in a small box-like thing with a slit so he can see out. He tells him to never come out until it is all quiet and no one is around. Then he steals away to find Dora. While he is trying to find her, he is caught. It is clear that the Nazis are going to kill him. As the Nazi marches him to his death, he passes by the box where he know his son can see him. He looks over his shoulder at the box and starts to march in a funny way that always made his son laugh. Inside the box, we hear a little giggle and the boy is smiling. He never sees his father again, but he never knows the terror he should have experienced at that young age. All because his father decided to not let the situation take away his playfulness and positivity.

Refraining from complaining or arguing might be doing more good than you realize. All it takes is making the decision that life is beautiful.

Avatar vs. The Hurt Locker and what it means to me. . . you know, spiritually.

First off, things got busy, OK? I haven't posted anything in a few weeks because I haven't really thought of anything worth posting. But I finally decided to sit down and try to work something out. . . and my Entertainment Weekly was staring at me. So I started thinking about the two Best Picture frontrunners for the Oscars: Avatar and The Hurt Locker.

It is easy to see the spiritual implications of a film like Hurt Locker. SFC William James is part of a bomb squad in Iraq. He slowly becomes addicted to the adrenaline rush he gets when he is close to a death. Each time he is faced with an imminent explosion, he makes irrational decisions that jeopardize not only himself, but his teammates as well (not to mention the life of his wife back home in the US). I've lived the life of William James. I've been addicted to things that caused me to make irrational decisions and have broad implications to my friends and family. [Spoiler Alert] And yet at the end of the movie, the audience grieves the decision of James to return to Iraq for another tour of duty when he has the option of staying home.

But what about Avatar? I am not sure I know, exactly. Well, there is the whole acquisition of new bodies through a connection to a life-giving deity thing, if you want to drag it out of me. If you wanted to turn the movie into a debate about science vs. religion, I'm sure you could. . . but I have no interest in such things. And if you wanted to watch it in a political science class and talk about realism vs. idealism, you definitely could. Or you could just watch the movie and believe what it has to say about the US government, greed, and oil.

What interests me most, however, is the conflict building between the two films as they approach Oscar weekend. Avatar is the highest grossing film in history; whereas, The Hurt Locker would literally be the lowest grossing Best Picture winner in history. Prognosticators are already bubbling over with Biblical allusions to David vs. Goliath, but I want to say these movies represent more than just a dollar amount. (The next part of the post was inspired by an article I read but can not longer find on EW.com.) What will Hollywood deem the best movie of the year? The billion-dollar spending spree of fantasy sprawled across a distant galaxy or the gritty conflict that is tucked away in a desert inside the head of a soldier? Taking a step in either direction has implications that will spread beyond which producer has a gold statue on his or her mantle.

For me, I prefer The Hurt Locker. It is a concise declaration of the horrors of the war in Iraq coupled with a message that has power beyond the battlefields. It isn't a billion dollar orgy of special effects. It is a solid story with solid characters. Avatar is too detached and otherworldly to open the eyes of the audience to which it so earnestly declares "I see you." I like a movie that causes some introspection.

And now I feel like I have been rambling for a while. . . and I don't think I organized this writing very well or supported my thesis. . . did I even have a thesis? Hmm. I want to be an English professor? Going to bed now.