Miracle on Ice

It's been thirty years since the Miracle on Ice and this video still gives me chills to watch:

DVD Review: Emma

My review of Emma has been posted at Blogcritics. Please check it out and let me know what you think. Also, if you've seen the series, I would love to know what you thought of it.

It seems inevitable with any new adaptation of a Jane Austen novel there are comparisons to previous versions. I think this one was as good as the previous version with Gwyneth Paltrow. It doesn't have the same amount of humor but the relationships seem to be better developed due to the fact there was more time taken to tell the story.

DVD Review: Return to Cranford

My review of Return to Cranford is now available at Blogcritics. Be sure to go check it out.

After we finished watching it the first time we then watched the first series and then the second series back to back. The second was very good but still not quite as charming as the first. I think that mostly has to do with the fact that both Michael Gambon and Eileen Atkins had wonderful roles in the first series (but both characters die during the course of the first series) and they really stood out from everyone else.

It really says something to me when my girls (12 and 14) are asking me to watch these series (or whatever other British period drama) we're in the middle of instead of other things.

Jon Miller To Be Honored By Hall Of Fame

Frankly, this honor is long overdue:

Jon Miller grew up doting on some of baseball's legendary broadcasters, and has spent the last 36 years working with -- and on occasion memorably impersonating -- new generations of verbal artists.

Monday, Miller joined the legends of the booth as the 2010 recipient of the Ford C. Frick Award.

Well into his fourth decade behind the mic and currently the vibrant voice of the San Francisco Giants, Miller was announced as the latest honoree of the award presented annually since 1978 in recognition of contributions to baseball broadcasting.

Ford C. Frick Award winners have their own wing in Cooperstown's Hall of Fame, and announcement of Miller's selection by a specially-selected 20-member electorate was made by Jeff Idelson, the president of the Hall of Fame who called the 36-year veteran of local and national broadcasts "one of baseball's most recognizable voices."

Miller is currently play-by-play announcer for the San Francisco Giants as well as the voice of ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball. If Jon Miller is calling the game it doesn't matter as much to me who is playing. I know it will be a great game to listen to knowing he's behind the microphone. Congratulations on this long overdue recognition by the Hall.

Pro-Choice Columnist Calls Out Intolerant Left

Few things have caused as much controversy in recent days as Tim Tebow's upcoming pro-life Super Bowl Ad. Abortion advocates have been critical of Tebow and of CBS' decision to air the spot during the upcoming game.

But the most remarkable thing I've seen yet is this column from Washington Post writer Sally Jenkins. Ms. Jenkins takes the abortion advocates to task for their criticism of the young football star:

I'm pro-choice, and Tebow clearly is not. But based on what I've heard in the past week, I'll take his side against the group-think, elitism and condescension of the "National Organization of Fewer and Fewer Women All The Time." For one thing, Tebow seems smarter than they do.

Tebow's 30-second ad hasn't even run yet, but it already has provoked "The National Organization for Women Who Only Think Like Us" to reveal something
important about themselves: They aren't actually "pro-choice" so much as they are pro-abortion. Pam Tebow has a genuine pro-choice story to tell. She got pregnant in 1987, post-Roe v. Wade, and while on a Christian mission in the Philippines, she contracted a tropical ailment. Doctors advised her the pregnancy could be dangerous, but she exercised her freedom of choice and now, 20-some years later, the outcome of that choice is her beauteous Heisman Trophy winner son, a chaste, proselytizing evangelical.

Pam Tebow and her son feel good enough about that choice to want to tell people about it. Only, NOW says they shouldn't be allowed to. Apparently NOW feels this commercial is an inappropriate message for America to see for 30 seconds, but women in bikinis selling beer is the right one. I would like to meet the genius at NOW who made that decision. On second thought, no, I wouldn't.

There's not enough space in the sports pages for the serious weighing of values that constitutes this debate, but surely everyone in both camps, pro-choice or pro-life, wishes the "need" for abortions wasn't so great. Which is precisely why NOW is so wrong to take aim at Tebow's ad.

Be sure to read the whole thing. Hats off to Ms. Jenkins for calling out the intolerant critics on the Left who wish to demonize the Tebows. Though we may not agree on whether abortion is wrong we can at least agree that we can respectfully disagree with each other.