Swagger

In the non-fiction department, author Lisa Bloom brings us Swagger, a book about raising young boys in modern society here in the U.S. (and places that think we’re cool and want to imitate us).

The result is nothing short of a horror story. The book is an endless parade of anecdotes and statistics that illustrate the positively horrifying trends in our society today in the areas of education and what is viewed as cool, and provides some pretty solid advice on how to help your young boys navigate the extensive maze of pitfalls and grow into productive and decent young men. If you have a young boy, read this. Please. Sure, there may be some stuff that doesn’t apply or things that you’re already doing. I was very pleased that we are doing many of the things suggested here and have independently verified the positive results in our own son’s life, but I guess I’ve been a bit sheltered in that I had no idea just how challenging of a world that our kids are growing up in.

The bits on education alone are startling. Internationally, the U.S. really only leads in one specific area, and it is completely and totally the wrong one. Our kids are thoroughly convinced of their own awesomeness and the awesomeness of the U.S. They truly and honestly believe, in large numbers, that they are brilliant at math and reading/writing even though we are routinely trounced by MANY other countries and sit down near the bottom score-wise among developed countries. Celebrity is now THE objective. Reading is uncool. And intense misogyny and violence are now cool. Illiteracy out of high school is unbelievably high. Think about that for a moment. A large number of people GRADUATE HIGH SCHOOL illiterate. How can that possibly happen in this day and age, and in this self-professed best-country-ever-double-stamps-no-take-backs-ever-infinity?! The reasoning at its core is a set of grossly misaligned priorities. As a country (and for those following in our footsteps), we’ll pay a dear price for this. Anyway, get it and read it. I’m going to try something new here and say that this isn’t an optional recommendation. I command you, read it. (well, the percentage of you that can actually read anyway)

Music and Movies

What to say about Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers…

They’re still really really good. We picked up Mojo prior to a bit of a road trip and it was perfect listening for a long drive. They have a sound that, over the years, seems to be distinctly theirs and the miles ticked away quickly set to the rhythms of Petty and crew jammin’ away. On a related note, I picked up a fresh digital copy of my long-lost cassette of Full Moon Fever and quickly remembered how excellent that one was as well. If you likes you some Petty, I’d recommend picking this up. It’s pretty groovy stuff.

I’ll start this out with a disclaimer. I’m not the world’s biggest Katherine Heigl fan. I’m not quite sure what it is, but there’s an air about her that I just don’t care for.

That aside, I sat through a viewing of One For The Money (based on a book by the same name), which was not only acted in, but also executive produced (whatever that means) by Heigl.

I am not the demographic for this film. They did make an honest effort with a PG-13 rendition of Heigl handcuffed naked in a bathtub, but as mentioned above, there’s just something about her that kills that sort of thing for me too.

My peculiar hang-ups aside (easy to go off on a tangent there apparently), let’s say you’re the world’s biggest Heigl fan, what can you expect here?! This is a formula whodunit at its most formulaic. We have Stephanie Plum (Heigl) who, we’re to believe, is from the Bronx. She’s down on her luck, just got fired, and lacking options starts doing contract work for her cousin Vinny (Patrick Fischler) who is a bail bondsman. Yes, you’re following correctly, she is to be a bounty hunter. Her prime suspect is an ex-cop named a stereotypically Bronxian Joe Morelli (Jason O’Mara) who may or may not have been framed and who apparently had a sexual relationship with Stephanie in the past that turned south, so there’s the crime bit and also the jilted lover seeks revenge bit. He, being an ex-cop, doesn’t want to come in quietly, and she, being largely inept, doesn’t have much means to make him. Can they work through their past history and ultimately prove his innocence? Or did he perhaps actually do it?! I’ve got chills.

Overall, I just didn’t find anything here that was that great. Heigl does voice over throughout, the accent seemed like someone trying to do an accent, all of the typical checkboxes get ticked along the way, and eventually the credits roll. If you’re a Heigl fan, watch it I guess. If not, I wouldn’t bother.