PrintDust off that Obama 'pledge' for your kids
Although supposedly not authorized by President Barack Obama (D) to accompany his work hard, study hard and you too can be like me back to school inspirational speech to students in public schools (private school students aren't citizens of this country apparently) next week, this video has already been shown in some schools.
It is not a White House video. First produced by Hollywood power couple Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher in honor of Obama's election, it was originally titled "Presidential Pledge." Opening with a multi colored image of Obama reminiscent of 1930s Soviet proletariat art it is followed by skilled graphics and a voice over by Obama urging responsibility and patriotism.
The slightly over four minute video then segues into young, hip celebrities quickly stating "I pledge to. . ." And just what are the young Hollywood/ entertainment types pledging to the students? Not to do drugs or liquor? Refrain from getting into bar fights? Or stop all the other behavior that keeps the gossip media oh so profitably busy? Not quite. As befits young, hip celebrity millionaires they pledge not to drink water from plastic bottles, smile at their neighbor, work to end hunger, love more and other lofty, gooey goals. And oh yes, help Obama change America.
Nothing wrong with that of course. This is still a free country and celebrities, like the rest of us, are entitled to say what they want. But there is something wrong when a school, with all the moral authority it possesses, imposes the video on a captive audience of students. Coming in tandem with--but separate from--Obama's planned back to school special with suggested activities such as writing how a student can help Obama (since retracted), understandably some parents have objected to the video in schools. They are rightly concerned with schools being turned into vehicles of propaganda. What about reading, writing and arithmetic and just
And as for Ashton Kutcher who pledged to be more neighborly and loverly? According to Andrew Breitbart less than two weeks after the video was completed,
According to TMZ, "Kutcher went absolutely insane when he was woken up by a neighbor who started construction on a house at 7:30 in the morning."Wearing his morning fedora, Kutcher chose to videotape and chronicle the inconvenience online.Among Kutcher's early morning Twitter offerings:"this SOB owl feces cougar placenta jack bone dick!""Jack ass 7am building a goddamn fort next to my house f'in up my view and noise polluting the entire f'in neighborhood with pounding steal""holy moly I'm gonna lose it!""this ass clown has another thing coming!""I'm gonna kill my neighbor"Video seen here.Screenwriter Bruce Goldsmith, the neighbor, told TMZ he found Kutcher "silly" and "out of line."Moore, 46, not to be out-Twittered, tried to calm down her husband:"The neighbor doing consruction (sic) with six guys pounding hammers against steel at 7 a.m. is no way to wake up! ... baby keep it together there should only be another 5 months of this... calm and gentle baby you can pull out the paint gun later!"According to the LA TIMES, Goldsmith "says that the house Kutcher lives in was built over a 10-year period and that all the neighbors had to suck it up and cope with their construction noise."
Kutcher later responded to TMZ's report on his Twitter account: "[C]an't someone have a moment and even a sense of humor about being annoyed without skanky tmz twisting into something it's not?"
