Extreme Contrasts

It caught my eye, an article on the Inquisiter website about Jessica Duggar, one of the children on the reality TV show 19 Kids and Counting.

Here's a little bit from the article: The four eldest girls of the Duggar clan, Jana, 24, Jill, 22, Jessa, 21, and Jinger, 20, say that “it’s easy to put yourself into physical and moral danger and give into those emotions or sensual thoughts that promise pleasant, but only temporary, fulfillment.”

I should admit that I don't watch the show very often. Unlike many other people, however, I don't hate the Duggars because of their religion or the size of their family. I HAVE seen a few episodes, though and am glad I wasn't raised that way or in such a large family. A little more religion certainly wouldn't have hurt me while I was growing up, but our small house was crowded enough with just the five of us.

One of the last episodes I watched was about Josh, the oldest son, and his marriage to a lovely and sweet young woman, Anna. I was a little surprised when I learned that they hadn't kissed before the wedding, but I believe it was on the same show where I was taken aback at Jim Bob, the patriarch of the family, talking about how his wife Michelle HAD kissed someone before she had married him, not disguising his bitterness while talking to the camera. (I find THAT to be more than a little weird, but...it's not MY wife, after all.  Finding a woman as chaste as he wanted - other than the Duggar girls - is very rare these days.  I think I'd be happy just to find out my new bride hadn't spent a year hooking on the Las Vegas strip)

I had to laugh when the cameras followed the new couple on their honeymoon; I forget exactly where they went, but they took a trip to some sort of marine park and were going to spend their wedding night camping out under a clear arch under a huge tank full of fish. They stayed there for a while, then decided it wasn't very comfortable and went back to their hotel room.

I was wondering why the hell they were spending their first night of marriage sleeping on the floor looking at fish...and I think they got to wondering the same thing after a while.  I don't think it would've been nearly as interesting as getting to know each other...in the Biblical sense. Ahem. I'm sure neither of them knew what they were doing later that night, but I bet they had fun figuring it out.

I read the rest of the article, then a slide-out ad appeared at the bottom - talk about a contrast! (I bookmarked it to read later for some pointers, even though I doubt it'd work on the Duggar girls)

Then this was on a panel of links at the very bottom of the page:

Even MORE contrast...and I'd much rather read about the Duggars than Tongue-Girl.

It Feels Good to Wash Your Face

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Resurrecting Old Wounds

The 404 post (just below this one) I made was about trying to watch the premiere episode of Resurrection. From Wiki:

The series follows the residents of Arcadia, Missouri, whose lives are upended when their loved ones return from the dead, unaged since their deaths. Among the returned is Jacob Langston, an eight-year-old boy who drowned 32 years earlier. Having somehow been found alive in China, he is brought back to America by an immigration agent. His surprise return inspires the local sheriff, whose wife presumably drowned trying to rescue Jacob, to learn more about this mystery.

The premise sounded interesting and I thought it might be something that, if done well, would be worth putting the show on my fairly small list of TV shows to watch.  As I said in the 404 post, I was having problems finding it;  it's an ABC show and hadn't yet been posted on the network's website  (as of last night, but it's there now) but I did manage to find it on Hulu and will watch it later.

My "problems" finding the show isn't the reason for this post, however;  I was scrolling through my Facebook pages feed earlier today and one of them had a post about the show. (I'd link to it, but it must have been taken down because I cannot find it now) The post about the show just mentioned it and asked if anyone had seen it, but it unleashed a firestorm of comments.  Some were saying they were tired of supernatural shows about witches/demons/vampires, etc., the ubiquitous objections on religious grounds, but quite a few comments were about the insensitivity of the network for airing such a show because of people who had lost children.

(Personally, I'm offended by TV news with the slant given to it by the talking heads reading it, people who may have graduated college but are really just educated idiots blinded by ideology. That's why I don't watch TV news and don't see any reason to bitch about it on message boards or on Facebook)

God bless those who have lost a child;  my own mother always said she couldn't imagine it and one of her biggest fears was outliving one of her children.  I understand how someone could be saddened by such a show, but OTOH, I don't see why someone would subject themselves to such added misery by watching it.  It's hard for me to accurately express how I feel about this without coming across as an insensitive bastard, but I don't understand how ranting about it on Facebook is going to do any good for anyone. I'd think doing that would do nothing but to bring on more grief.

Anyway, here's the trailer in case you're interested. (and don't want to watch the entire episode at the links I posted above)  Watch it, and let me know what you think, if you think it's too insensitive of the network to air such a show.

NOT Good to See You Again

I was trying to watch an episode of a show I had missed on TV the other night, so I went to a site that has them and got this: