If memory serves, Congress passed legislation qualifying two tablespoons of tomato sauce as being equal to a serving of vegetables. Basically, it was for the purpose of being able to keep pizza in cafeteria school lunches under the new healthier foods minimum content guidelines Obama administration has been moving forward. It's a little bit different from the pizza itself being declared a veggie, but that's what the headlines from all the major papers and news sites are saying!

Regarding IP/SOPA, here's a video (http://fightforthefuture.org/pipa/) that has been making the rounds that really breaks down how it could affect the US and internet consumers. The page also makes it easy to contact your congress person about it if that's what you want to do.

Here's a more wordy article about the issue from CNET - who have a great reputation. http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57328045-281/sopas-latest-threat-ip-blocking-privacy-busting-packet-inspection/

I tried to find some reporting that advocated IP/SOPA, for the sake of a balanced perspective. I couldn't find a thing.

However you stand on the issue, it's a good thing to be informed about.

Yeah, I know one music example that really hits close to home. My cousin owned and ran a jazz station here in Columbus, until these corporate guys swooped in and completely ruined it. Ironically the same cousin now works for the state. 

I'm personally hoping for the ability to vote on this. I haven't seen anything that indicates that we're actually gonna vote on it, though (as in, it's all Congress), so that worries me.

I agree, Ghidra. It's getting to the point where everything is homogenized now. Most movies seem to have to same underlying premises (there's been so many romantic comedies lately I could scream!) most music now is one phrase repeated 16 million times through autotune. I noticed this especially with hip hop. I used to love hip hop when it was Tupac and Nas and NWA doing it, now it's basically all autotune and rapping about bling and nonsensical phrases repeated over and over. On the video game front, basically nothing but Fallout clones and FPS games. Is it any wonder my favorite games are from before 2004? Reality TV, dear lord, I don't even wanna get into that lol.

Sadly, kids are being raised with all this homogenized entertainment so if something outside of the mainstream comes around, it's shunned. Basically, in their eyes, if it doesn't make gobs of money like Twilight, it stinks.

I never thought about it from the corporate angle, but it makes a lot of sense now. Big corporations thrive on making everything the same and making money off of it. This explains why after small companies get devoured, things go south. I noticed this generation of games, for example, had a lot of takeovers by companies like Electronic Arts. When that happened, everybody just started doing the same thing and copying off each other's games. Now most American game companies especially just make first person shooters because that's a tried and true way to make money in a dismal economy. Not that this didn't happen back then either (how many clones of Street Fighter 2 did we have to sit through?) but it's worse now.

The irony is, these corporations that are doing this are already swimming in money, so what need do they have to ape off everyone else?

This bill worries me (any degree of big-name corporate control tends to result in boredom at worst, and horrible mis-use at best), but sadly as a Canadian I can't really do much about it. We'll see if Canada becomes the new beacon of the Free Interweb .

I'm not sure if Comic Book Message Boards are particularly-high on the "hit list" of the big studios (another Comics Board I visit is also freaking out over this), but with Time Warner & Disney owning the two respective North American titans of comics, who knows?

Because corporations only exist to create profit.  I'm not against all corporations obviously, but the larger a corporation becomes, the less human it becomes.  At that point, things like "creativity" and risk taking that should be inherent in entertainment and fiction disappear.

It becomes about bean counting and watering stuff down for supposed "mass appeal."  (snip)  Achieving mass appeal means never offending anyone, even if it means a watered down spineless product. 

I can see that- the recent "Three Musketeers" movie is a good example of something that is attempting to be every kind of audience's thing, while also being completely generic in every way possible. Any other examples that spring to your mind?  I think things tend to work best when they have one or two "key audiences", and then a Periphery Demographic or two (it's what makes "Sesame Street" better than "Barney", and what makes things like "Avatar: The Last Airbender" a bigger success as a TV show- it appeals to boys & dorks first, but THEN has an extra-large fandom of girls as well).

Personally, I see way more centralizing to focus only on 18-35 males- it's part of why Hollywood made a concentrated effort to avoid having women headline action-type movies (I hear the Wonder Woman movie got axed for just that reason)- it's believed they're "not marketable".

And I still see some risky ventures out there- movies are actually more prone to outsiders & freak hits coming out than TV shows these days. Of course, a lot of it is Corporate-based mock-rebellion & weirdness, like Lady Gaga, who takes an already-popular genre, and then keeps doing "shocking" things.

Regarding studios & the entertainment industry, there's a very cool book on the subject- "Desperate Networks" by Bill Carter. It left me with a shock that ANY good shows get created AT ALL. Everything has to go through committee after committee, and group after group, to make sure it passes everyone's standards. Every group is full of yes-men, "I only like what I've seen before" types, etc. It's not just corporate greed- it's general incompetence and a case of too many chefs. Apparently the head of CBS (Les Moonves at the time, I think) nearly listened to his followers after they trashed a concept he liked, before Phil Rosenthal (co-creator of "Everybody Loves Raymond") interrupted them and was like "What? You said you liked this idea before? Why are you listening to everyone telling you they hate it?" "Lost" only got the greenlight because the head of ABC created it- ANYONE else and it would've been canned. General pandering (especially to the "money bracket" of 18-35 men) from Fox led them to become a near-top network, CBS just cranked outs CSI spin-offs the second they got a hit on their hit-starved hands, while NBC ran themselves into the ground.

Similarly, doing something that doesn't match an already successful pattern is too big of a risk.  Thus we end up with a thousand remakes, endless knock offs, and things like Asian actors not being cast in Asian roles, because the machine only thinks that white actors are bankable.

A lack of originality is another key thing- though this has always plagued the arts, as far back as recorded history goes- someone does something popular, and then everyone goes to mimic it (even the ultra-elitist world of Broadway is literally NOTHING but adaptations & remakes). I also blame movie audiences- if people keep going to see tripe, then tripe is all we'll get after a point (looking at you, people who buy tickets to Michael Bay movies- if the guy stopped making hits, he'd stop making films). A similar problem takes place in casting offices- ever wonder why nearly EVERY actress cast these days is a skinny blow-pop girl with a big head and HUGE eyes? Because someone decided that's what everyone wanted to see, and directors love women who don't distract you with non-eye-based things. Despite the fact that almost every man I know prefers a more Scarlett Johannsen/Christine Hendricks-type figure. A lot of people just decide what the new standard is going to be, with zero evidence to really back it up.

Reminds me of what the late, great Bill Hicks once said in a comedy routine: "If you work in Marketing-- Kill Yourself."

I still laugh when thinking about how people reacted to the Dark Knight & Avengers "candid shots" of Catwoman & Black Widow in costume during outdoor shooting. Someone was all "wow, anyone notice how Scarlett Johannsen is like way hotter than Anne Hathaway before editing & lighting are taken into account?" Everyone else was like, "Well yeah, duh." I mean, how could that even be a surprise? One's attractive-ish, and the other is basically Aphrodite given human form.

And what's REALLY scary is that Scarlett is a raved-about actress with insane talent- she had to WORK to prove she had what it took, because otherwise someone with her body could barely find work outside of slasher flicks. Kate Winslet was the same way- she had to prove real acting chops, AND a willingness to take her clothes off whenever possible (NOT complaining, of course ), just to get as famous and notable as she is- she would NEVER have gotten as fair a shake as Keira "built like a 12-year old boy" Knightley.