For a bright-eyed teenager in 1976 that had high hopes of
becoming a journalist one day, the satirical film Network was a revelation suggesting maybe choosing another
profession would be a wise move. (Ed: Look at where that got you.)
After years of intense investigative coverage
of Watergate and the resulting rise in credibility of the journalistic
profession, it seemed the right - maybe even honorable - field of study
during the college
years... until that fateful New Year’s Day in 1976.
In 1976, the country was celebrating its bicentennial, trying
to put Watergate and the Vietnam War out of our minds, and looking
forward to an election that would chart a new direction in American politics. (These subjects sound familiar 32 years
later.) Top films of that year
really did represent what we were going through, and to some degree what we
would become in the near future.
Rocky found us in
love with the underdog who never gave up. All
the President’s Men gave us a short synopsis of the Watergate scandal from
the perspective of the journalistic team (Bernstein/Woodward) that broke the
story and proved that journalists were sexy, provided you resembled a young Robert
Redford. The Bad News Bears allowed
us to take a humorous look at sports obsessed parents realizing that winning at
any cost had taken the joy out of playing the game for many kids (kids who
would become today’s Soccer Moms and Dads).
I enjoyed many other movies that year with my friends, which more or
less fit in with our very sarcastic yet humorous personalities.
Some were dark like Taxi Driver, Marathon Man,
The Omen, Obsession, and Carrie,
while others were on the lighter side such as Silent Movie, The Pink
Panther Strikes Again, Silver Streak,
and Mother, Jugs & Speed. Of course, we also had the breakout science
fiction films, Logan’s Run and Futureworld. (Told you we were
sarcastic.) All told, it was a decent year for
film, and some thirty years later we still have Rocky, Pink Panther, and King Kong remakes.
However, there was one film that year that left a lasting impression
on us; that film was the aforementioned and critically acclaimed Network. All the President’s Men
did to glorify the journalistic profession; Network
succeeded in displaying the dark and seedy side of media. In
retrospect, it also provided a fairly accurate glimpse of where
TV/Print
media was headed along with society. Sensationalism - some would say
yellow
journalism - sells and is what a large cross-section of society enjoys,
whether they openly admit it or not.
In Network, Peter Finch played the aging news anchor, Howard Beale, who
at one point in the film makes an impassioned speech that resulted in an
extremely popular catch phrase of the time. He persuaded his watching audience to step outside and shout, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take
this anymore!” This phrase struck a chord with mainstream
America during that year and with us now.
It has been a couple of rough weeks for the
motherboard team. Our best laid plans
have been thwarted for a variety of reasons, most of which have us shouting the above phrase, and we are sure some of
you feel the same way. Since the news and review sections are fairly quiet over the weekend,
we thought it would be a good time to discuss those items that put a
burr under our saddle - to address issues that our readership is having
with the technology and companies that we cover on a periodic basis. Believe it or not, we rarely get
to rant (and for very good reasons), but sometimes it's necessary to say what one
thinks. So here is Rant Session #1 for your weekend enjoyment.
AMD 780G Goes Boom
