Express yourself!

Drop us a line! Head on over to The Rockwood Mailbag at any time to leave us a message! It's easy!

Consider it an experiment in web interactivity. Or, consider it a way to artificially inflate our hit count. Either way, just write in!

 
September 3, 2008,

Your "Gold medal bad" and "Silver medal good" for China summed up the way I felt watching the Olympics too: It reminded me a lot of enjoying any other Chinese product you buy in the store.

On the one hand, the quality was very good for the price you pay for it. (In the case of the Olympics, essentially nothing.) It is amazing how hardworking they are, almost mechanistic precision.

On the other hand, you feel slightly guilty because you know the human cost to the Chinese people in order to bring you that product.

The human rights abuses of the Olympics were not part of the official NBC Olympic coverage, but they were widely reported on in network news both before and during the Olympics. It seems to me that China was trying to buy international respect and goodwill with the games, but instead they served to focus the world's attention on their country and their problems.

They may have made themselves feel better about their nation, they seemed to have a great deal of nationalistic pride, but I am not sure they had that affect on the rest of the world.

--Bobby

 
We have to admit we were hoping for some spontaneous gathering of people in China, Bobby. We weren't expecting it, but we had hopes.

And no, we didn't expect NBC to turn the Olympics into a big China-bashing telecast. To be fair to them, the Olympics (generally) aren't about politics, and people tuning in to watch a little gymnastics don't want to see a half-hour of programming dedicated to political oppression.

However, it was obvious that not only was NBC not mentioning political oppression, they were completely avoiding it. For instance, both the women's and men's marathon ran around Tiananmen Square. No mention was ever made of the massacre.

Do you think that if one of the Olympic events would have been held on the campus of Kent State that NBC would have failed to mention the Kent State shootings? Of course not. We wouldn't expect them to dwell on it, but it would be unusual for them to completely dodge the subject.

Yet night after night we opened with Bob Costas sitting in front of Tiananmen Square and there was not a single mention of what happened there. Not once in 17 days. Not even something as simple and brief as, "Tiananmen Square, the site of the 1989 showdown between student protestors and the government." Once sentence in 17 days. Is that really too much to ask?

 
September 4, 2008,

Hey there!! I am teaching my year 5 class the thriller dance for their end of year school production. I played them your video and they all clapped and cheered! they loved it! I must admit, I find it brilliant too! I was wondering if you have any tips for me to help teach these kids the version of the dance you did?? Thanks,

--Jodi

 
To paraphrase the famous joke, Jodi, there's only one way to learn the Thriller dance: Practice, practice, practice. Have fun with it, and good luck!

 
September 5, 2008,

Beyond having the same director, Big Trouble started its script-life as a draft of a sequel to Buckaroo Banzai.

Another bit of pointless trivia to occupy part of your brain that would otherwise be used for something you actually need to know.

--Andrew

 
Trivia pointless? Hardly, Andrew! In fact, Brian likes to brag about the time he singlehandedly took on a four-person team in Trivial Pursuit and won. What he didn't tell them at the time is that he thinks it's easier to win solo because you don't have three other people second-guessing every answer. Instead, he just left them in awe. Hopefully they won't be reading this now.

 
September 7, 2008,

I'm still enjoying your video, 2 years later.

All your effort... learning, rehearsing during that busy pre-wedding time, what a payoff when millions watched, and we still enjoy it now.

Congratulations and happy anniversary.

--Caroline West

 
Two years and 7.6 million hits later, Caroline, and still it goes on. Of course, at this point it's unstoppable. Even if we pulled it down there are other people who have made copies of it and claimed it as their own (we're not going to link to them... cheaters!... but you can find them without much effort). We're glad that you and millions of others still think it's worth looking at. Thanks!

 
September 8, 2008,

Will Rockwood get the first interview with Sarah Palin?

--Politics as Usual in Wisconsin

 
Unfortunately, Charlie Gibson at ABC beat us to her, PaUiW. He probably made some claim like he had a whole network behind him or something.

That's fine. We might have missed our chance at a first interview, but you never know. She could be the first vice-presidential candidate in space. Hmmm...