Monthly Archives: July 2024

Mickey Mouse Ice Cream and Happiness

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Every so often, our local Grocery Outlet has Mickey Mouse Ice Cream sandwiches at amazing prices, especially when compared with the ice cream sandwiches sold in the parks. The Grocery Outlet sandwiches seem smaller than the ones in the park, but that could be an illusion of memory. While the sandwiches were always my favorite, my Grahms loved the Mickey Mouse ice cream bars. She liked how hard frozen they were, and she would get at least one every trip. When the email ad from Grocery Outlet landed in my box touting the sale of Mickey Mouse ice cream bars, I knew I had to get them.

I found the ice cream bars in the frozen section with the other ice cream, which makes sense. However, I hesitated. They were a low price, but could I really afford them? How many could I afford? Wouldn’t I be better off purchasing something of real nutritional value? I looked at the packaging: one set was orange and celebrated the Mickey Mouse Club; the other was blue and celebrated Walt Disney World’s 50th anniversary. I looked closer, and holding the package, it didn’t seem like they were Mickey Mouse shaped. I decided to take a trip around the store. Maybe I didn’t really need them, after all.

I got to the end of the frozen food aisle and knew I would get the ice cream. Maybe they weren’t Mickey Mouse shaped, but I could still enjoy the ice cream and the packaging. Now, I had to decide how many I could afford. I decided to see what else was available in the store. After picking up a box of Pop Tarts, I couldn’t stand the thought of someone else buying the ice cream bars, so I returned to the frozen food aisle.

I bought them all. I no longer cared about the shape or the cost. I was going to enjoy them and the memories they invoked. Twenty-one Mickey Mouse ice cream bars went into my freezer at home.

I waited 16 hours before I opened my first ice cream bar. IT WAS MICKEY MOUSE SHAPED! Grahms would be happy. I know I was, and as of writing this, still am.

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Netflix’ ‘Damsel’: Strange Storytelling Choices

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Netflix’ “Damsel,” starring “Stranger Things’” Millie Bobby Brown as Elodie, is about a stereotypical, at least as far as modern fantasy is concerned, princess who faces off against a dragon. “Damsel” also features Robin Wright of “Princess Bride” fame, subverting her Buttercup role, playing the queen of a nation that the dragon threatens. The story is enjoyable, and the next spoiler-filled paragraphs (if this one has possibly avoided spoilers) are not meant to diminish the mild pleasure the viewer may get from watching Millie Bobby Brown dress up, fight a dragon, and do other things the script required. Instead, they are meant to explore storytelling using two questionable choices the film made. (If you are worried about spoilers, don’t watch the trailer. I’m glad I didn’t see it before I watched the film.)

Accepted Modern Fantasy Story Trope

The princess knows how to use a sword. The whole point of the film lies in its name. “Damsel” is often the word used to denote a young woman, usually helpless. The word is often used with “in distress,” and the woman waits for her prince to rescue her. Over the course of the last 30 or 40 years, Hollywood has subverted this trope. In Disney’s “Hercules,” Meg says, “I’m a Damsel. I’m in distress. I can handle this. Have a nice day,” as she dismisses Hercules. In “Damsel,” Elodie is a damsel in distress, but she’s going to handle it because she has to. The sword use is never set up, but the audience is fine with accepting she knows how to use it.

This contrasts with horse riding. Elodi and her little sister are seen riding horses at the opening of the movie. Later, when the Elodie suggests that she and the prince she is supposed to marry go for a ride, he is taken aback. “Do you know how to ride a horse?” Why was it necessary for the story to point out she can ride a horse? I don’t know. The audience would’ve likely accepted that she could as well as they accept she knows how to use a sword. It’s fantasy. People, especially nobles, know how to ride horses.

Damsel’s Amazing Flaw

The first flaw is really just a dead end. It’s not a tragic flaw. It doesn’t impede the viewer’s joy in the story. It just doesn’t go anywhere in spite of the prominence the movie gives it. Elodie draws labyrinths. In a fantasy setting, books and paper are often difficult to come by. She’s a noble, so her family can sort of afford them. Still, to use a book to draw a labyrinth is a pretty bold statement. It lends importance to her skill, which should lead to some sort of payoff later in the story. If it were only shown once, we could forget about it. However, it comes back when she meets the prince, and he shows her the letter she wrote to him. He asks about the labyrinth she drew on top of an anatomically correct heart. She never uses the skill again. Some may claim that it helps her in the “labyrinth” of the caves, but she never uses her drawing ability there. And the caves aren’t labyrinthine.

Damsel’s Visionary Flaw

The second flaw in the storytelling of “Damsel” is a little more problematic. When Elodie finds a map and the names of princesses who went before her on the cave walls, she has a vision of those princesses doing things. In a fantasy setting, they could be real visions. Maybe she is using some sort of magic to see the past. It’s enough to throw off the audience. She never showed magic powers before; why does she have them now? The other possibility is that we are seeing what she is imagining. However, what she imagines may or may not be the truth. She has more visions later, and they absolutely affect the outcome of the movie. Still, because they are never explained as magic, the audience is left assuming that Elodie’s imagination provides the correct and true version of the past and not the product of some over-active imagination. However, in storytelling, first person perspective can be used to mislead the audience. The viewer can never be sure that the person, whose point of view the story is told from, is telling the truth or even knows what the truth is. Had the movie set up her imagination or her visions in a way that was reflected in the cave, it would have been easier to understand and more productive than the dead end of her labyrinths.

The Generational Wars on the Internet

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Some Gen Z nitwit complained about how Gen X was being left out of the generational wars. Another asked why Gen X gets a pass, and then Pinkie Pie (not their real name; choosing their because it seems like the safest pronoun to go with) stated Gen X is the worst generation. By this time, I got my popcorn out because the Gen X I grew up in wouldn’t let this stand. We were sitting around, minding our own business, and these little dweebs call us out – Nuh-uh (Nah, bro – for those who don’t understand Gen X). However, instead of video after video of devastating personal attacks based on everything from personal appearance to speech patterns to lineage, I got a lot of Gen Xers explaining why it was a bad idea to poke the bear.

Don’t Poke the Bear

The reasons were peripherally related to Gen X skills or abilities. Our parents were never around. We rode our bikes everywhere. Our parents locked us outdoors. We drank from the garden hose. We rode Big Wheels. One or two Gen Xers mentioned that when we wanted to insult someone, we did it to their face and our problems were sorted out on the playground where lawyers and cops were never present, even after the altercation. Of course, this started to change in the mid-80s, but even in 1987, we were told that if two kids were fighting and the kid that the teachers liked the best was winning, they wouldn’t be so quick to respond. Still, the one thing that was missing and was essential to our Gen X childhoods was brought up by an early Millennial.

Getting Moded, or Insulting Friends Is Fun

The person that best summed up why leaving Gen X alone was a good idea was laurahigh5, a comedian. “We do not summon the latchkey kids unless it is our literal only last resort because we know we will have to pay a price and that price is our feelings.” In another video, she says she learned so much about Gen X from her siblings and later as a comedian. She and the Gen Z comedians would be roasting each other when a Gen X comedian would show up and send everyone away crying (happy tears because they didn’t want to show they had their feelings hurt). And this is what I remember from my childhood. In my neck of the woods, someone who was destroyed by an insult was “moded.” (The same as “burned.”)

We insulted each other for fun. The person that could deal the best insults ruled the playground. It didn’t matter how big or small you were. If you could hurt someone else’s feelings without using foul language, you were respected. We sharpened our biting wit against one another, and some few of us took that wit and used it against our elders.

Before the older generation starts crying about being disrespected, it’s important to note that we grew up believing respect was earned, not given out like participation ribbons are now. Age didn’t automatically grant you respect because we knew older people were just people, and many of them weren’t worthy of respect.

Where Are the Insults?

The Gen X videos I’ve seen responding to the call for Gen X to rise up are seriously lacking in the insults that would make the other generations cry. Instead, they are filled with warnings, nostalgia, and Gen Xers generally poking fun at themselves and their age. These are musical celebrations full of hair or mentions of hair in the case of John Kotrides, memories, and a little wisdom, or something that is disguised as wisdom by the old-timey voice of DadBod Veteran. Maybe, that’s the way it should be.

Gen X and Your Feelings

It’s possible that there are places where Gen X has resorted to its feral nature and commented so hard that some other Gen Z or later, or Baby Boomer has cried. However, there are several other reasons that Gen X may not be out there raining down the chaos that would come from a few, simply applied insults:

  • Gen X doesn’t have anything to prove anymore. We’ve already taken on the best. We know where we stand.
  • Gen X is out of practice. Insulting people in the workplace has become less acceptable than ever, and we don’t have anyplace else to practice our craft.
  • Gen X is tired. Several videos mention age and the related fatigue that comes with it. They also talk about supporting the boomers, Millennials and Gen Z financially, which is exhausting considering how many jobs Gen X must work to bring in that much money.

Slim Sherri specifically mentions that she doesn’t talk bad about other generations because that’s not her thing. That gives me hope because maybe… just maybe… we learned something out on the playground, or with Mr. Rogers, or someplace else. Maybe, we learned that hurting people’s feelings isn’t the way toward a better world.

Of course, it may be that when we were young and came face-to-face, we were insulting people we knew and loved. We cared about the people that we spent time with and used our words to bring down. We were making each other stronger to withstand what was coming in our adult lives. We knew that at some point we would have to rely on ourselves because life was so fragmentary.

Friends moved. Friends died. Parents were already telling us they wouldn’t be around forever, and they divorced. Companies fired people six months before they became vested in the retirement program; then did away with retirement altogether. We could get at the very heart of what hurt our best friend and help build that scar tissue, rubbing metaphorical dirt on the emotional wounds. We were kids, so we didn’t always get it right. Some of us were traumatized by the relentless teasing, especially when it could be laser-focused. So, when we come together on the Internet, we don’t tap into our dark side to rip someone because to do so would mean that we actually cared about that person. And the biggest tag we try to live up to is that we don’t care – about you, your feelings, or anything else. We just want to be left alone to live a life that best defines who we are as individuals and families not as a generation.

The Declaration of Independence Text

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The following is the full text of the Declaration of Independence. I have placed the source link at the bottom of the page. The text is about 1300 words. I have changed the formatting of the list of crimes King George committed that led to the colonies declaring their independence. It is now in bullet points to make it more readable.

In Congress, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

  • He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
  • He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
  • He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
  • He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
  • He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
  • He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
  • He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
  • He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
  • He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
  • He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
  • He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
  • He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
  • He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
  • For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
  • For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
  • For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
  • For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
  • For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
  • For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
  • For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
  • For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
  • For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
  • He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
  • He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
  • He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
  • He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
  • He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Source: https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript