tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11856692.post6076600104802011181..comments2024-03-28T16:35:05.327-05:00Comments on Joan Reeves: Stop Dissing the EightiesJoan Reeveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17622809465767116747noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11856692.post-57117869201069872782014-12-21T13:25:55.359-06:002014-12-21T13:25:55.359-06:00I realize that it's déclassé to pepper jokes w...I realize that it's déclassé to pepper jokes with emoticons, Joan, but I suspect a lot of your readers are too young to remember the 1980s.<br /><br />They won't realize that Hall & Oates released their greatest album, Abandoned Luncheonette, in 1973, that the first Star Wars movie came out in 1977, and the USSR collapsed in 1991. They won't remember that Ronald Reagan raised taxes seven times and tripled the deficit, that unemployment hit double-digit levels, that we invaded a Caribbean island whose biggest industries were a med school and winter vacations for frozen Americans, and that we financed Central American revolution by selling dope to our own citizens.<br /><br />They won't realize that your naming Don Henley a great musician of the '80s is pretty damning. That's be like pointing to the Chrysler K-cars as the greatest innovations of the 1980s.<br /><br />The Weather Channel and CNN weren't very big in the 1980s. In 1985, only 16 million of the 86 million households in the US could get cable.<br /><br />I won't diss your kids. The one child of my five that survived childbirth was born in 1980, and I assume you got as much joy from your little ones as I got from mine, but is that because of the decade? No. <br /><br />And I won't argue that this century has been wonderful. Looking at the numbers, we've had marked improvement over the past five years, but when you're digging yourself out of a pit, it's hard to feel celebratory. But even when one remembers the Kennedy assassination, the war in Vietnam, and the Long Hot Summer of 1968, the 1960s were wonderful compared to a decade that gave us the Challenger disaster (and the closing of the frontier by a president for the first time in US history), and AIDS bringing an end to the sexual revolution, Tiananemen Square, Lockerbie, the World Series earthquake, Chernobyl, Exxon Valdez, the assassination of John Lennon. <br /><br />Great post, Joan! Have yourself a merry little Christmas! Dr. Harl Deloshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17424071404764987713noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11856692.post-49327722671460313472014-12-20T19:02:59.769-06:002014-12-20T19:02:59.769-06:00Hey, Emma. Glad to oblige. Have a Very Merry!Hey, Emma. Glad to oblige. Have a Very Merry!Joan Reeveshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17622809465767116747noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11856692.post-22127480695646051672014-12-20T17:41:24.068-06:002014-12-20T17:41:24.068-06:00I have great memories of the movies and music of t...I have great memories of the movies and music of the 80s. Thanks for bringing them back.Susan R. Hugheshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00225775529986818448noreply@blogger.com