Ashton & Oprah Team Up to Kill Twitter

As if you didn’t have reason enough to hate him, Ashton Kutcher has ruined everyone’s favorite micro-blog site, Twitter. In an effort to make a charitable donation seem more exciting and to generate some self-publicity, actor Ashton Kutcher waged a bet against cable news channel CNN. The first to have 1 million followers by the end of the competition would win. Kutcher agreed to donate funds for 10,000 mosquito nets to charity for World Malaria Day if he won, and 1,000 if he lost.

In true Hollywood douche fashion, Kutcher tried to spin the competition after he had won it. He claimed the victory to be a sign of individual/web user empowerment over corporations. As Ad Age so eloquently points out, Kutcher doesn’t address the fact that CNN aired his web clips as part of their broadcast or that his entire career was created and fostered by the big media conglomerates he claims to have overcome. It’s easy to bite the hand that feeds when someone is already full. read more

The Captain Planet Movie that Never Happened

Children of the 90′s know about ecology. The push for more science-aware programming such as Beakman’s World and Bill Nye the Science Guy brought the sciences alive for the 5-12 crowd. One of the biggest series of the earlier part of the decade was Captain Planet and the Planeteers.

Captain Planet was the brainchild of cable-mogul Ted Turner. The show aired globally on various affiliates and on TBS and Cartoon Network in the US. It combined action and adventure with a strong ecological message. I’m not sure if it was the lame puns or the green mullet, but the show has left its impression on pop culture. Love or hate it, Captain Planet brought concepts such as recycling and ecological ethics to the mainstream.

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