The Murphy family has a new house now. The Keenan's Kids Foundation (keenanskidsfoundation.com) has built one for them in McDonough. Their story is on the website. Amazing people!!

Say it aint so, another handout goes to these clowns...BLESS

Read the article again, the Murphy's aren't the ones getting foreclosed on, try to keep up, it's not that hard,

I yam what I yam....Popeye

they would use it for collateral to borrow lots of money and use some to open a fish market. And end up putting themselves in the same position they were in before receiving the fish.

This family was interviewed on one of the Naitonal news networks. They acted like they expected people to bail them out again! (???)Shameless!!!

Very disgusting. They only thing I would do for them is drop off the help wanted job listings.

They still needed to support themselves day to day with....oh how about FOOD, ELECTRICITY for hot water or cooking, etc and add on retirement!

shhhh, I'll let you in on a little secret; It's called a job.

This family needed help and were picked to get a home. How wonderful that someone would do that for a struggling family!

It seems to me that the family with 17 adopted Downs Syndrome kids was far more of a deserving family with real special needs.

The fact that someone tried to make this racist isn't surprising there is always a few out there wanting to cry wolf when all there is around is some mangy mutts.

As my fellow blogger "hutch" has pointed out, you have injected the race "thingy" not I nor any other poster on this thread.

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Caution - The Surgeon General has determined that constant blogging is an addiction that can cause a sedentary life style.

As I told you before:

It is about selling ads for TV shows!
They don't give a rip about the people involved.

Of course it takes a bunch of ne'r-do-wells watching with excitement to look at the ads also!

Must be a slow day for you, eh?
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Caution - The Surgeon General has determined that constant blogging is an addiction that can cause a sedentary life style.

Slow day?

There have been worse. You know fishin, drinkin, rasslin, bikin, eatin, beatin kids, etc.

After scanning the list of bloggers who replied to this post, please tell me which one tried to make this racist. In fact most of this thread was about TV in general, and nothing about race. Tug, muddle, cyclist and JeffC have to be the least likely race baiters on this site. We all make mistakes and you seem to have made the biggest one here.

I yam what I yam....Popeye

I thought the idea of that type of house was ridiculous and especailly since it seemed to dwarf everything else in the neighborhood. I thought that it would have made more sense to build a nice three or four bedromm house with amenities but not over the top. The story in the paper said the man had a security business, why in the world would anyone give up one business to go into the construction business which is iffy at best. And to take out a $450,000 mortgage on a mortgage free home, with money in the bank to pay taxes!How much more sense it would have made to sell that house for four hundred plus, buy a more suitable, affordable to run house and bank the rest. Think what that house could have meant for that family with the seventeen adopted children.Even if we face the fact that the program wants a family that will bring in viewers and viewers would sympathize with--they would still be the family to help. Go figure.

This may strike some people as petty but I always wonder about those bedrooms they do for the children. Some of them are so extreme and over the top how could anyone live with them day to day? How could you even begin to clean them. Some would give me nightmares, and I am definitely not kid!

Someone has to

While I still read probably 5 or 6 books a month, I have found that I'm watching more TV than I did in the past and enjoying it. I've always had a dish since they first came out(mainly for live sports), but now I'm also hooked on shows like LOST, 24, Heroes, Bones, Prison Break, a few BBC series, etc. TIVO makes it very convenient and it's entertaining. I do enough serious brain work all day long and sometimes it's time for something just enjoyable and not earth-shakingly serious. I'm not too big on reality television, but it certainly doesn't make me think the world is ending because millions watch something I think is a waste of my time like American Idol or Dancing with the Stars.

There's some quality television that isn't that hard to find. Sort of the same with the Internet, radio, music and everything else out there.

Try Mad Men on AMC. Season 2 starts tonight. The first season was nominated for 17 Emmys. If you were around in the early 60's you'll like it. Second season begins 1962.

Mad Men

Oh, and if don't watch it yet, try Army Wives on Lifetime. Excellent. How many shows can you say that about?

You force a confession from me: I have a monkey on my back.

I am addicted to the series Prison Break. My daughter brought over the first season on DVD and, perhaps to humor her, my wife and I reluctantly watched the pilot. I think we ended up watching four episodes that first night and, though we usually turn in around 10 pm we were up until 1 am.

We got to the end of season one with the escapees in an impossible situation. I couldn't stand it. I went onto Amazon and ordered season two, which, presumably, is on its way.

Watching this program has given my cardiovascular a real workout, as my heart plays Wipeout at the suspense.

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Oh By Jingo

We still refuse to get cable or satellite--despite the fact that there are two or three cable channels that I would probably appreciate. So we have the good, old-fashioned rabbit ears on top of a modest set to pick up local stations and their feeds from the networks. It stays off most of the time, but I am sometimes amazed over the utter vulgarity, crudeness and downright inappropriateness of some of the programming. Also, I think I know funny, and so much of the attempted humor just isn't funny.

The cheapest laughs (always appreciated by the lowest common denominator in the viewing audience) may be gotten by going either into the bathroom or the bedroom, and this seems to be standard fare for many less-than-clever writers of today's sitcoms, etc. (Or consider your average standup comedian whose material is replete with talk of genitalia or flatulence and is sure to elicit cackles from the blonde at the table near the stage, who is working on her fifth martini.)

The Superficiality Award goes to the celebrity gossip programs that the three major networks air simultaneously after the evening news. (Thank God for Rick Steves.) Here we learn of this starlet's emergency thongectomy, or that hunk's valiant efforts at maintaining his abs.

This stuff feeds on itself. It wouldn't be aired if it did not appeal to a significant percentage (a terrifying thought), but a part of the explanation of its appeal is the fact that it is aired, and thus carves out its own niche in the culture (or lack thereof). Some authors have observed the difference between cultures that admire their heroes and those that fixate upon "celebrities." The difference is stark: a hero's reputation is earned by his/her character, whereas celebrities are appreciated for their "personality"--which is often an artifact of their handlers and managers.

Shows like "Extreme Makeover" seem to me to violate a rule that I once heard described in an interview with John Wayne. He was discussing his brilliant director, John Ford, and said that Ford knew just where the line was drawn between the sentimental and the maudlin, and never crossed that line. Sentiment, artfully done, captures valid human emotions and invites reflection on what is truly important. The maudlin wallows in sentiment and turns it into an end-in-itself. These programs, with their lingering shots of the emotional reactions of, say, the kid whose new bedroom has a lot of cool stuff, seem to pole vault over that line.

And then there's this:

Interview: Mark Crispin Miller

Mark Crispin Miller has coined the phrase "The Hipness Unto Death" (a twist on Kierkegaard) to describe the detached and cynical lack of commitment that characterizes the postmodern mood permeating the airwaves.

I first learned of Miller's stuff from reading a book by Bill McKibben: The Age of Missing Information. McKibben conducted a kind of "experiment." First, he somehow managed to record 24 hours worth of TV programming from ALL of the cable channels available in his area. (So if there were 57 channels, this would be 1368 hours of programming.) He watched every bit of it and took notes. Then he spent 24 hours in reflection on a solo hike and campout in the hills near his home. The book is a discussion of what he "learned" through these radically different experiences. You can guess which experience he found valuable.

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Oh By Jingo

Crap on TV eh? Isn't that just like the bovine manure that is sometimes spread in great quantities by some on this board?
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Caution - The Surgeon General has determined that constant blogging is an addiction that can cause a sedentary life style.

Yeah sometimes the comments on meat sauce and gravy biscuits and beer and cheap wine do get spread thick all over.
Also vacating in rednek land seems to occupy much spread of bovine stuff.
Then we have the bar bunch who get wound up once in a while when their welfare or government check is late.