“Entertainment Weekly,” which (I think) Nikki Finke hilariously and accurately describes as a magazine for waiting rooms, has come up with ten ways to save the movies. Most of the ideas are just warmed over warmed-over ideas we’ve all heard a hundred times before, but #3 caught my eye:

3. Stop killing us with your popcorn.

A 2009 study found that a single medium-size bag of popcorn from the Regal theater chain contained 1,610 calories and 60 grams of saturated fat. Add in a large soda (350 calories) and some Reese’s Pieces (1,200 calories for an eight-ounce box), and you’re taking your life in your hands. John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theatre Owners, insists theaters are just giving moviegoers what they crave. ”When people go to the cinemas, they want to escape — from their diets, too.” Still, popcorn shouldn’t have to come with a warning label. Some theaters, mostly in upscale neighborhoods, have been offering healthier, higher-quality concessions.

Why are Lefties always so eager to strip us of our own personal choices (unless that choice is for taxpayers to fund sucking unborn babies through vacuum tubes)? And this is coming from someone who doesn’t eat junk at the movies. Popcorn and soda at my age goes right to my hips. But is my self-discipline unique? Am I a better person person than the elites looking down on us from Mount EW? Okay, well, most of us are because we believe in liberty, but my point is that if I can control myself, anyone can. And who is EW to control others for their own good. Sorry EW, there’s no such thing as second-hand popcorn calories, so there’s no second way to skin this cat.

How can the same Left in favor of euthanasia have such a thick stick up their backsides over nachos?

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I painted my first American flag in 1997 after viewing Robert Hughes’ PBS series “American Visions” about the history of American art and its coming of age in the fifties. This left me wanting to see Jasper Johns 1954 flag painting so much that I got up the next day, headed to the library, returned home and wound up painting my own flag. I have painted the American flag numerous times since and will continue to do so.

All Quiet on the Western Front, 1997

In 2001 I wanted to create a work of art that would fuse Jasper Johns flag and Andy Warhol’s 32 Campbell Soup Can paintings titled “Choices” with a little Ed Ruscha thrown in for good measure. The soup can paintings were all identical except for the flavors on the cans and that’s what I would do to my Johns inspired flags. All identical, as much as you can make thirty-two separate paintings, except in this case, instead of flavors, each vertical flag painting would have an almost invisible word at the bottom. (more…)