Young Americans - Mark Famiglietti Appreciation #2 - Manboobs or not, we love him! - Page 2

lovea · 02-03-2009, 01:02 PM

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Originally Posted by wolkenfuehlen (View Post)

Maybe he could've found out his dad was still cheating on his mum with someone?

The parents couldn't seem to keep their pants on.

avasadie · 02-03-2009, 11:51 PM

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Originally Posted by street serenade (View Post)

I only started liking him after reading the continuations. I think without them I wouldn't have ever come around to his character at all.

Same with me. In the series he always sort of bugged me, and his constant pining for Bella really got on my nerves. But after reading the continuum's, especially NB, I have grown a fondness for Scout and I do really enjoy watching him in the show now.

**broken|smile** · 02-04-2009, 05:47 AM

Yeah, seems like none of the parents can make it work in YA universe

melon_collie · 02-04-2009, 11:11 AM

I don't Scout would necessarily turn his back on his father. I do think that he would realize his father wasn't perfect, but just a human like any other. Which is a healthy attitude to have.

He knows his father has had an affair, but it doesn't make him any less of a good father or a good senator. Scout tends to have this idealized view of the world, and he needs to learn that flaws and mistakes aren't catastrophic. You just need to learn how to work with them.

avasadie · 02-04-2009, 07:53 PM

No, I don't at all see Scout turning his back on his dad. I think he looks up to and admires him too much. I feel like knowing he had an affair might dent that a bit, but it certainly wouldn't take it away all together.

lovea · 02-05-2009, 07:30 AM

So maybe it's just me, but I thought the senator's a bit of a b@stard. If Scout is what he's crapped up to be, I think he'd realize sooner or later what his dad really is. He's probably not going to totally shun the senator but if he's a nice guy through and through, he's going to at least go the opposite direction like Peter Petrelli and his evil dad.

melon_collie · 02-05-2009, 08:38 AM

I really didn't get that vibe from the senator. He seemed like a decent guy to me. His reaction to the news that someone was claiming to be his illegitimate child striked me as pretty reasonable, especially considering it didn't turn out to be true. Senator Calhoun wasn't perfect, but he was obviously a great dad to Scout, an apparently decent enough Senator, and an understandably flawed human being.

lovea · 02-05-2009, 12:05 PM

Right about being the flawed human being.
But he didn't outright deny the possibility of having a kid somewhere else.

My grandmother always said, "If you can cheat with the small stuff, you can cheat with the big stuff."
What do I expect? At this day and age of free everything, you could quite possibly marry a half sibling and not know about it. The world has become a Jerry Springer guest pool.

melon_collie · 02-05-2009, 02:12 PM

Senator Calhoun definitely seemed to think there was a possibility that he had a kid out there, which just means that he made a mistake 15 or so years ago, that he obviously regrets now. I don't think adultery translates to a bad political career, in fact it gets me really nervous when politicians' personal lives are examined so ruthlessly. Just because someone isn't squeaky clean in private, it doesn't mean they aren't fit to givern.

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What do I expect? At this day and age of free everything, you could quite possibly marry a half sibling and not know about it. The world has become a Jerry Springer guest pool.

I don't think things are quite so dire. I understand your concern, trust me. But where do you draw the line? Because the 20th century saw so many great movements that correlated with the sexual liberation of the youth culture, so it's hard for me to be at all critical of it. Like any other socio-cultural evolution, it comes with its own risks that we need to learn to adapt to over time. Obviously we'll never be perfect at it, but we've never been perfect at anything, no reason to start holding it against us now

I think there are many many other things the Senator could have done to incriminate him in my eyes. Killed someone, for instance. As it stands, it seems to me like the worst of his offences was to have an extramarital affair, which doesn't really strike me as evil. From what I can tell from the show, he treats his son right, is respected by his peers and protested 'Nam when he was younger, which is pretty cool.

lovea · 02-06-2009, 04:32 AM

Again we agree to disagree. From my neck of the woods, politicians are

. Of course that is a fallacy of sweeping generalization but I'm a bit suspicious of someone that spends that much money for campaigns just to "help people" when they are in the position to dispose of billions of taxpayers' hard earned dough. I may have seen to much Michael Moore.

street serenade · 02-06-2009, 09:05 PM

I once saw a news segment about a couple who was engaged and then found out that they were half brother and half sister, and the freaky thing is...I think they stayed together.

Talk about ew.

**wolkenfuehlen** · 02-07-2009, 05:32 AM

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Originally Posted by street serenade (View Post)

I once saw a news segment about a couple who was engaged and then found out that they were half brother and half sister, and the freaky thing is...I think they stayed together.

Seriously? Isn't that against the law though?

lovea · 02-07-2009, 06:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by street serenade (View Post)

I once saw a news segment about a couple who was engaged and then found out that they were half brother and half sister, and the freaky thing is...I think they stayed together.
Talk about ew.

EWWW!!!! I seem to remember that too but I've seen too many episodes of different series (e.g. ER, House) that had the same theme so I don't remember which was fictional which was news.

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Seriously? Isn't that against the law though?

I think that depends on how society defines family. I remember when Dan Quayle incurred the ire of the whole world when he said Murphy Brown and her son are not family because there is no dad, or something like that. I believe that your family are the people who raised you and love you but it doesn't make marrying a previously unknown half-sibling any less ewwww.
In high school biology, I remember something about genetic traits being dominant and recessive. Dominant + dominant = recessive; Recessive + recessive = dominant. So when it comes to antibodies, your disease fighting mechanism mixed with your siblings will cancel out on your offspring. So for the improvement of the species, biological siblings shouldn't copulate.
"Are your parents siblings?" is a very popular snide remark on someone being daft or stupid. So I guess there's enough evidence of it in ordinary life for the term to become part of the vernacular.

melon_collie · 02-07-2009, 06:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lovea (View Post)

Again we agree to disagree. From my neck of the woods, politicians are

. Of course that is a fallacy of sweeping generalization but I'm a bit suspicious of someone that spends that much money for campaigns just to "help people" when they are in the position to dispose of billions of taxpayers' hard earned dough. I may have seen to much Michael Moore.

I'm not defending politicians, just that one specific fictional senator

And about the whole brother-sister thing, there is definite medical evidence to suggest that such a pairing would be detrimental to the phsyical and mental health of whatever offspring may be produced.

It's pretty widespread modern taboo. Like cannibalism, incest just squicks people. Then again, it's interesting when you look back and realize that some of the most powerful dynasties the world has ever seen practiced inbreeding frequently and through various generations. I'm not saying it was right (and a lot of them paid for it down the line) but it's one of those little nuggets of history that's interesting when you compare the mores of past civilizations to our modern sensibilities.

I'd like to think we're a lot more enlightened today than previous generations (like, say, realizing why inter-sibling relations are wrong) but there's still a lot of room for improvement.

lovea · 02-07-2009, 07:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by melon_collie (View Post)

And about the whole brother-sister thing, there is definite medical evidence to suggest that such a pairing would be detrimental to the phsyical and mental health of whatever offspring may be produced.

I remember a couple of kids in my elementary school that people whispered about. Looking back, I feel bad for those kids because, first, it wasn't their fault if the rumor was even true, second, it was more a rumor that was never actually confirmed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by melon_collie (View Post)

It's pretty widespread modern taboo. Like cannibalism, incest just squicks people. Then again, it's interesting when you look back and realize that some of the most powerful dynasties the world has ever seen practiced inbreeding frequently and through various generations. I'm not saying it was right (and a lot of them paid for it down the line) but it's one of those little nuggets of history that's interesting when you compare the mores of past civilizations to our modern sensibilities.

I remember countless times on tv when inhabitants of the western part of the Atlantic pond derided their eastern counterparts about inbreeding. As I said, I read Austen's novels and it still raises my eyebrows when they married their cousins. Although Austen is an obvious inspiration of JK Rowling, Rowling drew the line about inbreeding when she wrote about the Gaunts (Voldemort's wizard relations).

This got me to thinking if Henry VIII's failure to produce a healthy male heir stemmed from generations of inbreeding or if it had to do with his promiscuity.