Here is an interesting article from http://www.debbieschlussel.com/ reviewing some of the movies that came out over the past weekend. This follows this post about some of the movies from last week and THIS POST about some movies that have been released over the past few years that you might have missed! This all follows this post about guidelines to choosing good movies to watch yourself!

Weekend Box Office: Sully, Our Little Sister

By Debbie Schlussel
Even though it’s now September, I feel like I’m still stuck in the August pet cemetery of movies, where Hollywood sends crappy movies to die a quick and painless death. Sad to say, that applies to both of the new movies in theaters today (go see the excellent “Hell or High Water” instead–I’ll try to post a review later today). Neither “The Disappointments Room” nor “When the Bough Breaks” were screened for critics (a sure sign that they’re stinkers).

* Sully – Rated PG-13: This movie’s been getting a lot of buzz, promotion, and Oscar talk. Don’t believe the hype. It’s a nothing and a big fat lie. The “Miracle on the Hudson” has been transformed in a reverse-Rumpelstiltskin to Bullcrap on the Silver Screen, complete with totally made-up villains who never existed and make-believe drama that never happened. The Brothers Grimm ain’t got nothin’ on this fairy tale.
I wondered how they were going to make a movie about something that’s a short, cut-and-dried event in real life: a pilot, Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger (here played by a mustachioed Tom Hanks) masterfully lands a plane in the Hudson River, after both engines of the plane are blown out by birds. Miraculously, everyone on board survives. End of story. At least . . . that was the end of the real, true-life story, which is at best a 20-minute movie. Director Clint Eastwood needed drama and something with which to fill this slow, mundane storyline so it lasts another hour and some change. So what did he do? He and scriptwriter Todd Komarnicki bring us a completely fabricated, phony story in which the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is a villainous group of the usual stock Hollywood baddies: fat, old, bald White men (and one White chick) who constantly second-guess and chastise Sully for not returning the plane to the airport or landing at another one nearby. That’s more than half of the movie. (By the way, since Blacks are clamoring for more roles in movies, why didn’t they cast any Black people as the frowning, indignant, moralizing NTSB villains? Don’t Black actor’s lives matter? Just askin’.)
But, in fact, NONE of that ever happened, as well-documented in a Bloomberg News story. Yes, there was the usual, typical NTSB investigation–as there has been, is, and would be in the case of any such emergency landing in a river. But, in real life, it was a formality, and the NTSB never attacked or criticized Sullenberger’s water landing as is depicted throughout this hour-and-thirty-five-minute-long movie. In fact, the NTSB officials praised Sully for his landing, and he praised them in “his” book, “Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters,” on which this movie is supposed to be based (but barely is). [Full disclosure: the late Detroit-based journalist and best-selling author, Jeff Zaslow (a Wall Street Journal reporter)–the actual author of the Sully book (he gets co-author credit but actually wrote the whole thing)–was a friend of mine, a reader of this site, and a mensch who comforted me when my late dad was dying of cancer. We spoke about Sully and the book several times in writing and over the phone (including about the Sully sex stuff, below, which he found out about from my site). Sully spoke at his funeral. Zaslow wrote an article about me in the Wall Street Journal that I hated, but my dad loved it.]
The fact that the movie is a complete lie and defames the NTSB officials doesn’t seem to phase Sully. Apparently, Sully likes to sully others. He not only appears in the movie during the ending credits, but he is pimping the movie all over the place because he profits from it–he sold the rights to his book for this endeavor. Cha-ching! And that makes him a lot less of a “hero” than America originally gave him credit for. He was already something of a jerk in my eyes because, as I pointed out on this site, he and his wife appeared on NBC’s “Today” show to tell the world about their “rock star” sex-life after the landing on the Hudson. Um, TOO. MUCH. INFORMATION!
Yeah, this whole thing went to greedy fame-whore Sully’s head. And that’s why he probably can live with this over-hyped, hyperbolic “version” of what happened, when it is just total fiction, and he’s admitted as much on at least one TV interview I saw when asked about the NTSB dust-up and whether it really happened. But, then, he and Clint Eastwood also pimp the phony version told in this movie in a promotional video trailer they recently made. By the way, after the Hudson landing, Sully quickly quit piloting the friendly skies to become yet another motivational speaker (because America has a shortage of those and needs more!).
I hate this kind of movie because we know that morons across America will believe that the BS they see on screen is reality a la Oliver Stone’s “JFK.”
On top of this, to create more drama and–frankly–filler, the movie shows several “nightmares” Sully has of crashing his plane into buildings a la the 9/11 attacks, which is tone-deaf, given that the movie opens just two days before the 15th anniversary of those attacks. There’s also a nightmare in which he dreams that Katie Couric attacks him for landing in the Hudson. This is absurd, and I highly doubt any of that ever happened either. There are at least three of these dumb “imaginations.”
On top of that, the movie is filled with the mundanity of the heroic pilot’s post-Hudson-landing life. Do you find it exciting to see an old guy in a mustache, jogging? Then, this is your movie, as there are several scenes of that. Or how about an airline official bringing Sully a change of clothes, including socks, undies, and a sweatshirt? Wow, exciting. Only a vacuous movie needs these empty calories to fill time and space. And, then, there are the several tear-filled, overwrought phone conversations with Sully’s wife (in real life, she’s the “I’m having rock-star sex with Sully, America!” chick). He tells her he can’t fly again or come home until the NTSB investigation by the evil guys is over. Again, THAT. NEVER. HAPPENED.
Then, there are the weird scenes in which a TV makeup artist kisses Sully and a hotel manager hugs him. Did these things happen? I don’t know or care. Cuz’ I found this boring as heck, even with the casting of Aaron Eckhart (whom I normally like) as Sully’s also-mustachioed co-pilot. His presence in the movie seems like a forced bro-mance . . . and for him to utter F-bombs (and maybe to have a fellow member in the Mustache Hair Club for Men–is he not only a member, but also the president?).
The only exciting part of the movie is the depiction of what actually happened when the plane flew, collided with birds, had its emergency landing on the Hudson, and then the passengers got rescued. That showed the best in Sully and the best in America–including 1,200 (according to the movie) first-responders and others who rescued everyone. But it is so sullied (“Sully-ed”?) with flashbacks and flash-forwards that it’s a choppy, herky-jerky mess.
We already know the real story. Why pay and waste time to watch the underwhelming lie-filled version?
Time for Clint Eastwood to retire . . . along with his prevaricating scriptwriter.
I’m glad the 155 passengers and crew landed safely and lived. Sadly, I’m not happy that this fraud-on-film will also have a safe landing. With all the undeserved hype it’s getting on TV and in pop culture, it’s sure to top the box office this weekend.
But it deserves to crash and burn.
TWO MARXES PLUS THREE PANTS ON FIRE



* Our Little Sister [Umimachi Diary]– Rated PG: I’ve seen some really great, moving Japanese movies (such as “Departures”–read my review). This was not one of them. I found this movie to be slow, boring, and utterly pointless. Like what befell Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this too is an atomic bomb. (What–too soon?) I guess if you have more than two hours of your life to waste and absolutely nothing to do whatsoever (plus you’ve already seen every other movie and other source of entertainment ever made), this would be okay. I struggled to stay awake, waiting for a little something to happen that never did. And, again, it’s more than two hours long. Yaaaawn.
The story: three 20-something Japanese sisters go to their estranged father’s funeral in the country. He left them decades ago after cheating on their mother, and they have little connection to him. Their mother, who is still alive, also left them, after their father’s cheating and leaving, and they live together in their mother’s former house in the city.
When they go to the funeral, the the girls meet their younger, teen-aged half-sister, who is the product of the union of their father’s affair and then marriage to the woman that broke up the three sister’s parents marriage. The woman has since died, and their father is now married to wife number three
(who has a baby with him and a boy from a previous marriage). Yeah, I know, it sounds like a soap opera, a dysfunctional family, or merely a start in your typical, normal NBA player’s set of extended family and baby-mamas.
The three older sisters invite their younger half-sister to come live with them, as–with the death of their father–she now has no one.
The rest of the movie shows us the three sisters’ humdrum lives, and it’s hard to keep track of them because at least two of them look very alike. Yeah, I know, that sounds “RAAAAAYCIST!” But, sorry, they look as alike as actresses Sally Struthers and Jacki Weaver do (and they’re White). Not that I cared about these sisters. You learn nothing about them, and they’re boring. One works at a bank, another works at a hospital (apparently as a nurse), and another works at a sporting goods store. One sister is having an affair with a married man who won’t leave his wife for her but wants her to move to Boston with him, and another sister quickly goes through boyfriends. The young half-sister plays soccer at her new school and has a boyfriend. Then, the movie–running out of boring things to tell us about these sisters, starts introducing us to other boring and melancholy characters, including a woman who owns a diner, but is dying of cancer.
And the purpose of this movie is . . . I’m not sure. But it’s useless to me, and will be to you. Nothing offensive about it. But nothing worthwhile about it either.
A total waste of time.
ONE MARX

Here is an interesting article from http://www.debbieschlussel.com/ reviewing some of the movies that came out over the past weekend. This follows this post about some of the movies from last week and THIS POST about some movies that have been released over the past few years that you might have missed! This all follows this post about guidelines to choosing good movies to watch yourself!

Weekend Box Office: Captain America: Civil War – A PC Mess, But Still Better Than The Rest

By Debbie Schlussel







The only new movie opening this weekend is “Captain America: Civil War.” Despite being a 2.5-hour-long mess which glorifies the United Nations, studios know this will dominate the box office take this weekend, and they didn’t want to compete.
I have a theory about bad directors: they’re almost always the ones who make movies that clock in at more than two hours. Movies that are WAY. TOO. LONG. And this is one of those movies, so count Anthony and Joe Russo on my list of bad filmmakers. Any director who thinks his lack of editing skills (despite a gaggle of editors on a multi-milion-dollar pic) and conceit qualifies as art is a guy who doesn’t deserve or get my respect. In this case, there are two of ’em.
And despite the many, many, many special effects, lots of action, and a smorgasboard of fights and feuds, the movie was kind of a bore. It’s overstuffed with far too many cast members, too, as pretty much every Marvel Comics superhero is in this. There’s a lot to keep track of. And I felt it was kind of a repeat of the DC Comics failed idea to have superheroes fight each other. We already saw it very recently in the long bore, “Batman v. Superman” (read my review). This time it’s Iron Man versus Captain America, and each of their Taylor-Swift-style “girl squads” of superheroes also taking up the fight.
The fight between superheroes is probably the only cool scene in the movie. It’s fun to watch the various superheroes try to take each other out with their various powers. Kind of like an endless “Rock Paper Scissors” game. And endless it is . . . because it goes on a little long. The most interesting players in the fight are Spiderman and Antman, who seem to be able to outwit the others.
So, why are they fighting? Well, there are actually two fight scenes. The first is over a United Nations treaty to force the superheroes to go under U.N. hegemony. I really hated this aspect of the movie. The United Nations is presented as some respect-worthy, morally-superior organization when in reality it is neither. We are told that something like 117 nations have voted for the treaty, so therefore, it must be good. What they don’t tell you is that most of these countries at the U.N are banana republics, Islamic extremists, and other assorted lowlife, backward, totalitarian dictatorships who hate America and the West and consistently support the most outrageous things at worst and the most idiotic policies at best.
Instead, in this movie, not only does the U.N have the moral high ground of sorts, but it is headed by a very decent, high-minded, moral leader who looks and sounds exactly like lowlife corruptocrat crook Kofi Annan and his equally crooked son, Kojo Annan. They took bribes and engaged in extortion, as well as helping direct funds to Saddam Hussein and Iran in violation of U.N. and other international embargoes in place at the time. (By the way, Nick Annan, who claims to be Kofi Annan’s nephew, was recently appointed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Special Agent in Charge of Georgie and the Carolinas, despite being responsible for an illegal undercover operation in which the main information was murdered by Mexican drug cartel operatives.)
Tony Stark/Iron Man supports the U.N. Treaty to take control of the superheroes. Captain America doesn’t. And so, the two of them and their superhero minions fight the big fight mentioned herein. But then, there is yet another fight between Iron Man and “Cap” (he is called “Cap” throughout the movie because you aren’t allowed to call anything good by the name “America” anymore–at least in the world according to Hollywood, and, apparently, Disney). And that other fight is so much inside baseball that you need a refresher or tutorial from the previous Captain America movies to figure out what is going on and what it’s about. You can still see this movie on its own, but there are a lot of references that will be confusing to you if you haven’t seen or can’t remember the previous “Cap” installments.
In any event, there is so much going on here, and barely anything villainous. The few villains are brief co-stars: a German criminal posing as a government psychiatrist and the “winter soldier,” Cap’s friend, Bucky. Their missions and roles in this movie are confusing. And this movie is so overstuffed and has so much going on, that I just didn’t care.
A few other things of note:
* This movie has a new Spiderman, played by Tom Holland. And his Aunt May is now played by Marisa Tomei, who keeps looking younger and younger, thanks to artificial means I’m sure. She is the best-looking Aunt May yet, as she looks 41, not her actual 51. Aunt May is supposed to be an old, naive, dowdy lady, or so I thought.
* My jaw dropped when a character says Captain America is “off the reservation.” It’s funny how both Hillary Clinton and Hollywood liberals can get away with using this politically-incorrect phrase that makes American Indians cringe, but if Donald Trump had said it, all hell would break loose.
* I could’ve done without Anthony Mackie as “The Falcon,” accusing someone of trying to frame him and describing the person as “getting all Mark Fuhrman on my ass.” Um, Mark Fuhrman, a detective and witness at the O.J. Simpson trial, never planted evidence or framed anyone. He didn’t plant Simpson’s blood on the gloves that were found at the scene, nor did he plant the gloves themselves, despite what race-card player Johnny Cochran implied at the trial. But, sadly, the moronic masses who see this movie will believe that with this latest reference claiming there was some sort of frame-up of O.J. Simpson. Did we really need this “Black Lives Matter” BS in the movie? Nope.
* At one point, Cap says that the superheroes who were not born in America are not U.S. citizens so they will be deported. Newsflash: we aren’t deporting anyone. And here’s another tip: the illegal aliens in this country are for the most part, neither super nor heroes. They are criminals and lawbreakers, job-stealers, and welfare-and-entitlements parasites. Some are terrorists. Others are drunk drivers, rapists, and murderers. I have yet to see an illegal alien with a single superpower. Sorry.
* As a Russian speaker, I can tell you the Russian in this movie is a joke. Ditto for the in-and-out Eastern European accent of Elizabeth Olsen as “The Scarlet Witch.”
Like I said, this movie is kind of a mess, too long, and with too many characters and silly reasons for their contrived fights. That said, it’s better than the previous “Captain America” movie, “The Winter Soldier” (read my review). And the major superhero-versus-superhero civil war fight scene is entertaining if a little drawn out and contrived.
This isn’t a great movie. Not even close. It barely has a plot. And it’s not something I’d pay ten-bucks-plus to see. But at least “Cap” (again, very annoying that he’s not referred to as Captain AMERICA!) has the good sense to see what a joke the United Nations and its treaties are.
HALF A REAGAN

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Today's Toys Child's Play or Something Else?

An interesting article from http://www.ucg.org/ about modern toys. This follows this post about job hunting. For a free magazine subscription or to get the books recommended for free click HERE! or call 1-888-886- 8632.

Today's Toys

Child's Play or Something Else?

 by Victor Kubik 

It may be time to take another look at your children's toys.

“Yank out alien organs dripping in glowing alien blood.” This cheery invitation greets children 7 and under from the box of a toy called Dissect-an-Alien. It's part of the popular Mad Scientist line of playthings made by one of the nation's largest toy manufacturers.

Toys aren't what they used to be

Have you noticed what kinds of toys your children have been playing with lately? How are some of the new types of games and toys affecting them?
Toy manufacturing and marketing has boomed into a multibillion-dollar business. Toy makers not only follow the trends; they start them. Electronics and vivid graphics have added a new dimension to our children's toys.
But, with all that is available, are our children better off?

Benefits of playtime

When most of us reminisce about our childhood, we cannot help but think about our play with siblings, friends, pets and toys. I smile when I think about hiking to a waterfall in the woods with my dog or playing catch with my brother. On wintry Sunday afternoons, I remember playing chess for hours with my father.
Whether we had many toys or only a few, we all remember our favorite teddy bears, dolls, model cars or construction sets. Through toys children experiment, explore, express and discover themselves. They give their toys life, character, abilities and talents. With their imagination they project themselves into their play. Through make-believe they build a bridge with adulthood and look forward to growing up.
Play is important for a child's development. It is one way children learn about the world around them. How they relate to and play with toys helps them learn skills such as dexterity and hand-eye coordination.
Playing with other children helps a child with social development. He (or she) learns how to get along with, tolerate and share with other kids. By interacting with others, children learn how to solve problems.

Survival of the funnest

The first toys could well have been natural objects such as sticks, fir cones, seed pods, bones and smooth, round stones. Since then, dolls, balls, spinning tops and pull toys have become the basic playthings of many cultures.
When visiting a toy store in Russia, I was fascinated to see how universally boys and girls are attracted to animal shapes, puppets, dolls, and miniature cars, trucks and tractors.
At ancient burial sites, animal figures have been found that appear to have been made for no purpose other than to play with. For example, Persian wheeled pull or push toys carved from white limestone into the shapes of animals date from the 12th century B.C. Clues to the nature of many old toys have been found on ancient vases and reliefs, which often picture hobbyhorses, carts, hoops, balls, tops and musical instruments.
Toys were almost completely handcrafted until late in the 18th century, after which mass-produced objects for children to play with began to appear for the first time.
The last decade saw some entirely new species of toys. The computer-game craze reflects advances in science and technology. Yet, although the complexity of toys is on the increase, the longevity of games and toys is decreasing with the constantly changing popularity of styles and heroes.
Although exceptional toys exist that bring out the best in our children, there are an increasing number that represent alarming trends that we as parents need to be beware of. Many toys do not help a child develop imagination, or they develop an entirely wrong kind of creativity.

Violence, the occult, repulsion

Toy makers have found models such as GI Joe (a perennial best-seller) or Rambo-or characters from the current space, war and adventure movies-to be hot-selling items. Toy firearms that discharge lasers and fake bullets sell exceptionally well.
Toys that are disturbing to many parents, like The Blaster, casually offer a child a way to blow up the world. With push buttons and a handgrip with vast firepower, this toy is advertised to help its operator relieve tension: “Leave in your wake a flood of totally imaginary destruction and feel good about yourself once again.” The Blaster simulates machine-gun fire, laser beams and nuclear explosions.
Is this a good way to release tension? What are the lessons a child learns from this kind of toy? Are we doing anything other than teaching barbarism with toys like this?
The impact of playing with war toys increases inappropriate behavior such as hitting, kicking, hair-pulling and teasing. War toys can desensitize children toward violence, produce exaggerated fear of others and increase angry and violent behavior. Children may become more hyperactive, fight and quarrel more, and generally demonstrate more belligerence when they play with miniature weapons of destruction.

Sending a deadly message

By buying children war toys, the message parents send them is that it is appropriate to fight and solve problems violently. If we give impressionable children toys that imply that war or hostility is acceptable, then we send them the message that it is all right to act out feelings using weapons.
On the other hand, the prophet Isaiah speaks about a time during which man will no longer learn war and violence. In those days, erstwhile combatants “shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore” (Isaiah 2:4).
The huge increase in the popularity of electronic games assaults our children with violence. The National Coalition on Television Violence studied 95 Nintendo video games and found that 83 percent feature violent themes, with 58 percent spotlighting war games. The study discovered that children ages 8 through 10 are 80 percent more likely to fight among themselves after playing with interactive laser weapons.
In addition, video games can produce stress, are inherently frustrating and promote obsessive, even addictive, behavior. They also tend to isolate children from other people. Children scream at a video game because it won't do what they want it to. They may throw down the controls in rage or yell at people who come near them and break their concentration. If playmates are involved, they may yell at each other or end up fighting because of the game.
A mother commented that the family's video-game unit turned her two children, ages 10 and 8, into “animals.” She said her 10-year-old “can't stop playing once he starts.” The 8-year-old becomes frustrated, hostile, angry and violent when he plays. The two fight and argue with their friends over Nintendo.

Toying with the occult

Along with violent toys, children and adolescents experiment with the occult-and plenty of toys and games based on the supernatural are available. I strolled down the aisle of the largest toy chain store near my home. Piled high in one section were Ouija boards and other games that encourage dabbling in the occult.
One particularly hideous game is Nightmare on Elm Street: The Freddie Game, based on a movie about a man who murders teenagers. In this nightmare of a toy, Freddie is depicted wearing a glove equipped with razor-sharp blades for slashing his victims.
Do we really want our children to amuse themselves with such a “game”? What could possibly be redeeming about it? Such games only encourage children to come close to the mysterious world of fear, ugliness and death.
Another toy, Boglins, encourages children to identify with lovable but ugly little creatures that come alive in their hands. Still another, the Brain Blaster, has a head that falls apart, with brain matter falling out in chunks. Drool is a hand puppet that lives up to its name. Airsickness depicts an airline passenger strapped into a seat with a look of nauseated anticipation on his face.
Other toys in the Mad Scientist series include one called Monster Lab, which invites children to “make disgusting, gross monsters . . . then sizzle the flesh off their bones.” On the box, a group of young boys is depicted dipping a creature in a frothing vat of make-believe acid.
Then there is the Glowing Glop kit, with advertising that advises youngsters to “squeeze 'em! Alien blood oozes from their eyes.” The popularity of such dreadful toys has prompted a popular brand of candy that looks like spiders and rats, which children are encouraged to devour.
Some adults are rightly concerned with trends toward repulsiveness in lines of toys such as Garbage Pail Kids, because the ugliness desensitizes children to the point that they are no longer offended by violence, sadism and the grotesque.
In the context of children, Jesus Christ warned those who would take advantage of the impressionable and defenseless: “But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matthew 18:6).

You buy the toys

The president of Child World, which owns Children's Palace, the second-largest toy-store chain in the United States, stated that playthings featuring the grotesque “are selling quite well. They seem to be part of what we see as a larger trend aimed at little boys for gross kinds of stuff.”
The Toy Manufacturers Association sees no harm in such toys. “When it comes to grossness, we firmly believe that the decision to buy the toys should be made by the parents.”
Even though it comes from a perspective I strongly disagree with, that's good advice, parents. The TMA couldn't have said it any better. The decision to purchase such toys is up to you. As parents, we should closely monitor and evaluate the kinds of toys our children play with. We should make it clear to our offspring that we, as adults, will help choose their toys.
How is it that children are so knowledgeable about and lust for certain kinds of consumer goods? It is no coincidence that children's television programming is often little more than one long advertisement for toys. Your children are a lucrative market, to say the least.
In one year the average 4- to 8-year-old will see 1,000 or more 30-second and 180 or so 30-minute cartoon commercials selling war toys—the equivalent of 18 days of classroom instruction in exciting, stimulating pro-war entertainment. Advertising like this is effective; war-toy sales increased 700 percent in five years from 1982 to 1987.
Don't let yourself feel guilty if you don't get your children the particular toys they want. Don't allow children to go crazy for every toy with a certain make-believe character's picture on it. Monitor what your children watch, and take control of the toy purchases in your family. Your children should not be preyed upon by toy manufacturers competing for your money with bizarre and grotesque products.

What's good

In the midst of commercialism and chaos, you can make many sensible choices if first you consider the impact of a toy before you buy it.
Toys need not be expensive. For example, a device as simple as a yo-yo will teach a child a memorable lesson about objects in motion he will recall in high school and college when he studies physics.
Question the value of any toy your child asks for. How will he (or she) benefit from a particular toy? Will his imagination be directed toward wholesomeness? What will she learn? Will it help her solve problems? Will it help him use his mind?
Will the toy help him interact with others? Will it help her refine her skills or explore and discover things about herself and the world around her? There are many creative, peaceful toys that will stretch your child's imagination while giving hours of fun.
Classic construction sets such as those made by Tinker Toys, Lego, Lincoln Logs and Erector are excellent choices. They help a child imagine a structure, then build it. A simple microscope-or chemistry or electronic kit-with which you can guide a child in learning about the physical creation is also a good choice.
When shopping for toys, you may find it best to avoid the products of high-visibility companies that promote toys that go well with heavily sugared cereals and Saturday-morning television. You can do a lot better by going to the toy department of a science museum or out-of-the-way shops near college campuses.
Hobby stores are a good source for toys. In them you will find products that force parents to spend time with their children as together they learn how they work.

Keep it simple

The toy industry has made many of their wares too complicated. Simplicity should top the list of things to look for in a toy. Something as basic and durable as a ball could be a child's first toy. Skills learned from throwing, catching and bouncing a ball endure for a lifetime.
Often the simplest toys last while the complicated ones drop dead when their batteries run down. Keeping toys supplied with alkaline sources of power can get expensive.
When planning a purchase, consider how an item could be used by the whole family to help bring parents and children together to play and talk. One problem with many electronic games is that children retire to their own little world and tune out everything and everyone around them.
Parents are often irritated and repulsed by a game's sounds, or they may not have the faintest idea how to play it. If children spend too much time playing with electronic games, they tend to get bored easily and aren't interested in developing relationships with others.
Sports toys are wholesome. Many parlor games promote discussion. Pictionary, for example, teaches children to follow rules, take turns, learn new words and communicate with symbols.

The play's the thing

Children want to play. Toys are perfect for play. In our busy world, we often abdicate our responsibilities as parents by using toys as a crutch to entertain our children while we do something else. Children respond favorably to parents and friends who interact with and pay attention to them. Playtimes can be fun and educational and can nurture familial ties.
Make your precious children's early years an experience they will treasure. In the world of the future, there will be the right kind of play with the right kind of toys, for “the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in its streets” (Zechariah 8:5). GN

violence toys Parenting Marriage and Family

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• 

  Victor Kubik

  United Church of God President

  Active in the ministry of Jesus Christ for more than four decades, Victor Kubik is a long-time pastor and Christian writer who, together with his wife Beverly, has served in pastoral and administrative roles in churches and regions in the American Midwest, Europe, Asia and Africa. In addition to his broad speaking role, he regularly contributes to church publications and writes a blog for the Beyond Today and UCG web sites. He was named president of the United Church of God in 2013 by the Church's 12-man Council of Elders.
  

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Good News Magazine: November - December 1997

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A timely post from http://townhall.com about current "Superheros." This follows this post about the movie, "Back to the Future".
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Superman Takes on the Cops, Batman Takes on Gentrification, and Captain America Takes on Border Control

Ben Shapiro |

One of the most depressing features of modern American life lies in the left's total war on every facet of our shared culture. It isn't enough to produce movies with Steve Carell and Julianne Moore and Ellen Page about lesbian partners seeking legal protection for conveyance of property. Now, even comic books must be hijacked in order to promote leftist messaging.

The latest run of Captain America features the newest Cap, Sam Wilson, taking on the Sons of the Serpent -- an evil group of tea party types intent on stopping illegal immigration. The writer, Nick Spencer, is an ardent opponent of Donald Trump, and slathered the comic with his dislike for conservatives: the Sons of the Serpent amass at the border to stop the poor, bewildered illegal immigrants, whereupon the Sons of the Serpent leader announces, "Attention all trespassers! I am the Supreme Serpent! By invading this sovereign land, you defy the laws of God, Nature and the United States Constitution. Therefore, I hereby apprehend you by the power vested in me by the aforementioned God, Nature, et cetera, et cetera." One of the illegal immigrants cries, "Please, whoever you are -- we don't want any trouble --"
But the Supreme Serpent will have none of it: he continues, "Until the mighty wall is built, you come here for employment that is rightfully ours! And if denied it, you seek welfare paid for by our tax dollars!"
Thankfully, Captain America stops by to shut down the Minutemen wannabes, shouting, "If you're done threatening a bunch of unarmed folks, mostly women and children ... I'd pack up the pickup and head home if I were you, gentlemen."
It's not just Captain America now mouthing leftist talking points. Superman, once a friend to the cops, has now become their enemy. In the latest run of Superman Action Comics No. 42, the temporarily powerless Man of Steel ends up on the wrong side of the police -- a group of faceless fascists looking to shut down any discussion. That's when Superman arrives to take on the riot squad. That follows on the incredibly overrated Grant Morrison making Superman a black president of the United States back in Action Comics No. 9 in 2012.

And then there's Batman No. 44, in which the Caped Crusader stumbles on the body of a slain black teenager. The teenager was shot by a cop while wearing a hoodie. Writer Scott Snyder said, "Of course you want Batman to beat this officer up, and be like, 'How could you?'"
How did this black teenager end up in a confrontation with the police in the first place? He went to the Penguin for a loan since the evil, evil banks wouldn't give him a loan based on his lack of credit history; he needed a loan to keep his father's corner business going. For some reason, all of this is supposedly Bruce Wayne's fault for gentrifying the area -- even though gentrification would make his corner business valuable, and therefore saleable. Writer Brian Azzarello explains, "This thing is such a ripple, the way lives are affected by gentrification. ... And if you have no money, you have no voice."
Culture is one of the few areas of American life that allows us to continue to speak with one another. Left and right may have little in common, but we all like our movies and our television shows and our comic books. But when the left decides to turn comics into yet another outlet for their political propaganda, those cultural ties break, leaving yet another, small gap in our common life -- and indoctrinating another generation into leftist nonsense.