According to the Beliefnet.com 'Belief-o-Matic', my responses to their questions were most in-line with those of the Orthodox Quaker. Guess it's time to start looking at real estate in western PA.
1. Orthodox Quaker (100%)
2. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (85%)
3. Seventh Day Adventist (84%)
4. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (84%)
5. Eastern Orthodox (73%)
6. Roman Catholic (73%)
7. Liberal Quakers (68%)
8. Unitarian Universalism (60%)
9. Orthodox Judaism (54%)
10. Islam (52%)
11. Bahá'í Faith (51%)
12. Reform Judaism (49%)
13. Hinduism (48%)
14. Sikhism (43%)
15. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (42%)
16. Mahayana Buddhism (40%)
17. Theravada Buddhism (39%)
18. Jainism (35%)
19. Neo-Pagan (35%)
20. New Age (33%)
21. Secular Humanism (32%)
22. Jehovah's Witness (32%)
23. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (30%)
24. Taoism (28%)
25. Scientology (26%)
26. New Thought (24%)
27. Nontheist (22%)
See where you stand
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Sound Familiar?
From this week's issue of Newsweek, in an interview with Ahmed Nazif, PM of Egypt:
Newsweek: So, to be clear, are you saying that the Bush Administration, by pushing democracy so hard in the [Palestine], failed to see the risk that radical Islamists might be elected?
Nazif: I think that's true, yeah. When you talk about how to promote democracy, you need to do it within the constraints of the countries you're working with. Palestinians did not elect Hamas because they believe in its principles. They elected Hamas because they were not satisfied with the status quo.
Newsweek: So, to be clear, are you saying that the Bush Administration, by pushing democracy so hard in the [Palestine], failed to see the risk that radical Islamists might be elected?
Nazif: I think that's true, yeah. When you talk about how to promote democracy, you need to do it within the constraints of the countries you're working with. Palestinians did not elect Hamas because they believe in its principles. They elected Hamas because they were not satisfied with the status quo.
Monday, January 29, 2007
2006 Movie Wrap-Up: Movies You May Have Missed
Rather than indulging the need to craft a list of the "Top 10 Movies of 2006" (an act I was unable to avoid in books and music and sports stories), I've decided to instead create an overview of movies from the last year that you may have missed (intentionally or otherwise) in hopes that they find an audience. Of course, the Oscar-nominated films are all the rage over the course of the next couple weeks and you should definitely take the time to seek out most of them (especially Pan's Labyrinth and Letters From Iwo Jima) but there are other films released this year that are either on DVD or may be trickling out of theaters nearby that you should also see once "Oscar season" passes and we get into the cinematic wasteland that is the spring.
I really hope others have seen these films and you, too, share them with your friends/family, or if you hate them, feel free to explain to me why you disagree and believe I am in error. Or just tell me I suck and go look up funny videos on Youtube. Either way.
I already wrote at length about some of these films, but just in case you didn't listen to me then, or are willing to take a chance now, I'll try again to persuade you again.
The Illusionist
Flushed Away
Stranger Than Fiction
The Last Kiss
Hacking Democracy
Now to all-new ideas for your viewing pleasure:
When The Levees Broke - A Requiem in Four Acts
Spike Lee's searing 4-hour Hurricane Katrina documentary, released by HBO Films, is undoubtedly the best in documentary film this year, disqualified for the Oscar because it played on TV instead of in theaters. Taking his cues from America's greatest documentary filmmaker Errol Morris, the film features no direct commentary from the director (Morgan Spurlock & Michael Moore, please take note) instead focusing on file footage and interviews with the displaced folks from New Orleans and surrounding areas, political commentators, politicians, historians, and others.
Essentially, the film argues that there were equal elements of race and class that led to the grossly inadequate response from the government (at every level) and places most of the blame not on Blanco and Nagin, but on the Army Corps of Engineers and Michael Chertoff. The film starts with the lead-up to the storm, then the brief calm between the storm and the breaking of the levees (which actually caused the massive flooding), then it goes back to when a similar event occurred some 60 years back in N.O. when the government allowed flooding in the poor white neighborhoods (in the 9th Ward) to preserve the historical affluent areas. And he finishes with looking at how people are getting along today, waiting for insurance payouts/settlements, getting FEMA trailers, and the prospects for renewal for the citizens and reprisals for those who let this disaster balloon out of control.
It is illuminating, but at 4 hours you do feel it's length, so maybe you should watch it in split shifts.
The Lake House
This is one where I already know there is disagreement among some who read here. I loved this movie because I thought it was a great example of an old-style Hollywood romance film. It had an original premise and narrative structure (Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves live in the same house, 2 years apart, she in 2006, he in 2004, and they fall in love by passing letters back and forth through the mailbox which serves as some sort of time-warp), good lead performances, and an interesting narrative/visual style. The film showcases a supreme appreciation for its Chicago location, making the city come alive, putting forth its uniqueness.
Sandra, Keanu, the "lake house", and that magical mailbox
Most of the detractors claim the logical structure is too convoluted/messy, but that never bothered me, once I accepted the temporal logic of the film is subservient to the emotional logic. The film just works, no matter what they say.
The Proposition
This next sentence will probably make a good number of people stop reading this and skip down to the next one right away (which is fine, the next movie is also excellent, but you'll be missing out). This is a hyper-violent western, set in the Australian outback at the end of the 19th century, made as an art movie.
Still here? If so, great.
The eponymous proposition is this: Guy Pearce plays an outlaw who's older brother is a reprehensible killer. The lawman of their town arrests his younger brother and offers to release him if Guy Pearce brings in the older brother, otherwise the younger brother gets killed. So, Guy Pearce goes off to find his brother to try to save his younger brother, who is innocent. He finds him and begins to feel conflicted, he doesn't want to sacrifice either brother, but he has to choose.
Also, Emily Watson plays the lawman's wife who is trying to retain her genteel English ways in the brutal conditions of the outback. She is ostracized by the community for being out of step with them, as they all want the younger brother to be hanged right away, while she doesn't understand why he imprisoned if they don't know he killed anybody. It is an interesting interplay of the idea of what people do when they think no one is watching (on an international scale in this case), and the dangers of groupthink (also dramatized masterfully in the 1943 western The Ox-Bow Incident)
The landscape of the film is incredibly well-realized. It is a harsh, harsh environment, and director John Hillcoat and his cinematographer do a great job creating the effect of the long, hopeless, aridity of the area, while at the same team creating some of the best visual compositions on screen all year.
Notice how small/insignificant the characters are in relation to everything around them
While in this shot, Danny Huston, playing the evil older brother, is bigger than the trees behind him, looming large and as ominously as the horizon in the distance
The other two big themes at work here are: 1)Are people naturally reprehensible, but we hold it back under the construct of "civilization"? The captain repeats his mantra 'this place will be civilized' but who needs to be civilized?
2) The man who's attempts to save the one(s) he loves ends up killing them, directly or indirectly.
Watch it and be amazed.
The Descent
I had no preconceptions about this one. The advertising made me not want to see it, but the reviews were almost universally positive, so my interest was piqued. For those unfamiliar, the story is about a group of late 20-something female adventure seekers who have decided to go spelunking for the weekend. What they don't know is that the woman who is leading their excursion has taken them to a cave which she recently discovered and has not yet been mapped, so no one knows it exists other than them. Being that this is a horror/thriller film, I'm sure your imagination can fill in the blanks as to the plot, but just in case it can't, here's a preview:
What makes the film so effective is director Neil Marshall's ability to create a sense of claustrophobia and dread with his camera, lighting, and staging, rather than resorting to a staccato, pulsating score to create mood (that said, the score is also perfect). Also, the female characters, for the most part, are uniquely and sharply defined as opposed to being sort of an aggregate bunch of victims-to-be, though they can be difficult to distinguish physically at times.
The strong suit of the film is that once the blood starts to flow, the film does not lose sight of the characters in favor of simple run-and-hide-and be as quiet as possible sequences. Sure, those are in there, but we also continue with the characters' arcs and the plot (they need to get out of the cave). The enemies they are fighting have a fatal flaw that actually makes perfect sense for once and as soon as they figure it out it is so very suspenseful to see if they can take advantage.
It is reminiscent of Jaws in some ways, in being a frightening thriller, while at the same time creating sympathetic characters who react as real people would, given the circumstances, while at the same time being wholly entertaining and engaging. And it wraps up in just under 90 minutes (although I believe the DVD also features the original British cut of the film which was 10 minutes longer). Even so, what more could you ask for?
Tristram Shandy: A Cock & Bull Story
Based on a book long considered to be "un-filmable", the makers of this film create something highly original conceptually. The film is both the movie of the book and the making-of of the movie of the book, allowing the lead actor, Steve Coogan to play the title character, the title character's father, and himself. The manic performance is worth the price of a rental, if not a purchase.
The film has a slightly left-of-center sense of humor (see image to the right), so it's not for everyone, but for certain sections of the population, especially film critics and fans of the book, it is a treat. The story is that of a man, Tristram Shandy, who is attempting to tell his own life story, but he gets so sidetracked by incidents along the way that catalyze the telling of other stories that he never gets around to his own birth in the telling of his life story. Convoluted? Absolutely! Interesting and entertaining? Without a doubt.
CSA: Confederate States of America (this was technically first seen in 2004, but never opened on more than 35 screens, so the August DVD release was really the first time most people could see it)
The film centers around a simple premise: What if the Confederacy had won the Civil War? Director Kevin Willmott employs an interesting device in framing the film as a British documentary about American History playing on American television. He makes creative use of offensive products/advertising slogans/advertising logos from American history as the ads during the telecast to further emphasize his ideas. Mix of file footage and original video shot for the film, the film features interviews with "historians" and "experts" as played by actors offering their commentary on the events unfolding.
Lincoln arrested while hiding out in blackface trying to get to Canada through the Underground Railroad. He dies in exile, considered a war criminal
The film is at its best when it is creating history, but he does a lot of glossing over events or not changing what occurs (though this in itself is an interesting concept in the film...even had the south won, what would have occurred anyway?) and at times this causes the film to lose steam. It is worth a look though. There are definitely worse ways to spend 89 minutes.
last and faaaaar from least, in fact, one of the best overall movies of 2006:
Three Times
This film from Taiwanese master Hou Hsiao-Hsien. It is basically a more mature, more accomplished version of what Darren Aronofsky tried to do in The Fountain (also worth a look). The title, Three Times, refers to three time periods in which the film takes place: 1966, 1911, and 2005, in that order. It is a film about the sometimes messy, confusing, disorienting nature of love and the idealism and innocence (if not naivete) of youth. The film features 3 vignettes (thankfully, they are not interwoven) each of about 40 minutes. The stories also mirror the socio-political mores of the eras in which they take place in China, adding an extra layer of interest to it.
The downside is this is unquestionably the definition of an "art-house" movie and will really only appeal to the art-house crowd; for most it will be too slow, too boring, and the middle segment, which plays out in the style of late silent movies, with dialogue on intertitles and only music on the soundtrack, will lead you to turn it off or fall asleep. But, if you are a lover of cinema and that last sentence didn't make you throw up in your mouth, you will be rewarded with a virtuoso, engrossing film from one of the great modern directors.
Couldn't find great photos from all 3 "times", so I'll leave you with a photo of the 2 stars in hopes that they are enticement enough
Now, go forth and enjoy.
I really hope others have seen these films and you, too, share them with your friends/family, or if you hate them, feel free to explain to me why you disagree and believe I am in error. Or just tell me I suck and go look up funny videos on Youtube. Either way.
I already wrote at length about some of these films, but just in case you didn't listen to me then, or are willing to take a chance now, I'll try again to persuade you again.
The Illusionist
Flushed Away
Stranger Than Fiction
The Last Kiss
Hacking Democracy
Now to all-new ideas for your viewing pleasure:
When The Levees Broke - A Requiem in Four Acts
Spike Lee's searing 4-hour Hurricane Katrina documentary, released by HBO Films, is undoubtedly the best in documentary film this year, disqualified for the Oscar because it played on TV instead of in theaters. Taking his cues from America's greatest documentary filmmaker Errol Morris, the film features no direct commentary from the director (Morgan Spurlock & Michael Moore, please take note) instead focusing on file footage and interviews with the displaced folks from New Orleans and surrounding areas, political commentators, politicians, historians, and others.
Essentially, the film argues that there were equal elements of race and class that led to the grossly inadequate response from the government (at every level) and places most of the blame not on Blanco and Nagin, but on the Army Corps of Engineers and Michael Chertoff. The film starts with the lead-up to the storm, then the brief calm between the storm and the breaking of the levees (which actually caused the massive flooding), then it goes back to when a similar event occurred some 60 years back in N.O. when the government allowed flooding in the poor white neighborhoods (in the 9th Ward) to preserve the historical affluent areas. And he finishes with looking at how people are getting along today, waiting for insurance payouts/settlements, getting FEMA trailers, and the prospects for renewal for the citizens and reprisals for those who let this disaster balloon out of control.
It is illuminating, but at 4 hours you do feel it's length, so maybe you should watch it in split shifts.
The Lake House
This is one where I already know there is disagreement among some who read here. I loved this movie because I thought it was a great example of an old-style Hollywood romance film. It had an original premise and narrative structure (Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves live in the same house, 2 years apart, she in 2006, he in 2004, and they fall in love by passing letters back and forth through the mailbox which serves as some sort of time-warp), good lead performances, and an interesting narrative/visual style. The film showcases a supreme appreciation for its Chicago location, making the city come alive, putting forth its uniqueness.
Sandra, Keanu, the "lake house", and that magical mailboxMost of the detractors claim the logical structure is too convoluted/messy, but that never bothered me, once I accepted the temporal logic of the film is subservient to the emotional logic. The film just works, no matter what they say.
The Proposition
This next sentence will probably make a good number of people stop reading this and skip down to the next one right away (which is fine, the next movie is also excellent, but you'll be missing out). This is a hyper-violent western, set in the Australian outback at the end of the 19th century, made as an art movie.
Still here? If so, great.
The eponymous proposition is this: Guy Pearce plays an outlaw who's older brother is a reprehensible killer. The lawman of their town arrests his younger brother and offers to release him if Guy Pearce brings in the older brother, otherwise the younger brother gets killed. So, Guy Pearce goes off to find his brother to try to save his younger brother, who is innocent. He finds him and begins to feel conflicted, he doesn't want to sacrifice either brother, but he has to choose.
Also, Emily Watson plays the lawman's wife who is trying to retain her genteel English ways in the brutal conditions of the outback. She is ostracized by the community for being out of step with them, as they all want the younger brother to be hanged right away, while she doesn't understand why he imprisoned if they don't know he killed anybody. It is an interesting interplay of the idea of what people do when they think no one is watching (on an international scale in this case), and the dangers of groupthink (also dramatized masterfully in the 1943 western The Ox-Bow Incident)
The landscape of the film is incredibly well-realized. It is a harsh, harsh environment, and director John Hillcoat and his cinematographer do a great job creating the effect of the long, hopeless, aridity of the area, while at the same team creating some of the best visual compositions on screen all year.
Notice how small/insignificant the characters are in relation to everything around them
While in this shot, Danny Huston, playing the evil older brother, is bigger than the trees behind him, looming large and as ominously as the horizon in the distanceThe other two big themes at work here are: 1)Are people naturally reprehensible, but we hold it back under the construct of "civilization"? The captain repeats his mantra 'this place will be civilized' but who needs to be civilized?
2) The man who's attempts to save the one(s) he loves ends up killing them, directly or indirectly.
Watch it and be amazed.
The Descent
I had no preconceptions about this one. The advertising made me not want to see it, but the reviews were almost universally positive, so my interest was piqued. For those unfamiliar, the story is about a group of late 20-something female adventure seekers who have decided to go spelunking for the weekend. What they don't know is that the woman who is leading their excursion has taken them to a cave which she recently discovered and has not yet been mapped, so no one knows it exists other than them. Being that this is a horror/thriller film, I'm sure your imagination can fill in the blanks as to the plot, but just in case it can't, here's a preview:
What makes the film so effective is director Neil Marshall's ability to create a sense of claustrophobia and dread with his camera, lighting, and staging, rather than resorting to a staccato, pulsating score to create mood (that said, the score is also perfect). Also, the female characters, for the most part, are uniquely and sharply defined as opposed to being sort of an aggregate bunch of victims-to-be, though they can be difficult to distinguish physically at times.
The strong suit of the film is that once the blood starts to flow, the film does not lose sight of the characters in favor of simple run-and-hide-and be as quiet as possible sequences. Sure, those are in there, but we also continue with the characters' arcs and the plot (they need to get out of the cave). The enemies they are fighting have a fatal flaw that actually makes perfect sense for once and as soon as they figure it out it is so very suspenseful to see if they can take advantage.
It is reminiscent of Jaws in some ways, in being a frightening thriller, while at the same time creating sympathetic characters who react as real people would, given the circumstances, while at the same time being wholly entertaining and engaging. And it wraps up in just under 90 minutes (although I believe the DVD also features the original British cut of the film which was 10 minutes longer). Even so, what more could you ask for?
Tristram Shandy: A Cock & Bull Story
Based on a book long considered to be "un-filmable", the makers of this film create something highly original conceptually. The film is both the movie of the book and the making-of of the movie of the book, allowing the lead actor, Steve Coogan to play the title character, the title character's father, and himself. The manic performance is worth the price of a rental, if not a purchase.
The film has a slightly left-of-center sense of humor (see image to the right), so it's not for everyone, but for certain sections of the population, especially film critics and fans of the book, it is a treat. The story is that of a man, Tristram Shandy, who is attempting to tell his own life story, but he gets so sidetracked by incidents along the way that catalyze the telling of other stories that he never gets around to his own birth in the telling of his life story. Convoluted? Absolutely! Interesting and entertaining? Without a doubt.CSA: Confederate States of America (this was technically first seen in 2004, but never opened on more than 35 screens, so the August DVD release was really the first time most people could see it)
The film centers around a simple premise: What if the Confederacy had won the Civil War? Director Kevin Willmott employs an interesting device in framing the film as a British documentary about American History playing on American television. He makes creative use of offensive products/advertising slogans/advertising logos from American history as the ads during the telecast to further emphasize his ideas. Mix of file footage and original video shot for the film, the film features interviews with "historians" and "experts" as played by actors offering their commentary on the events unfolding.
Lincoln arrested while hiding out in blackface trying to get to Canada through the Underground Railroad. He dies in exile, considered a war criminalThe film is at its best when it is creating history, but he does a lot of glossing over events or not changing what occurs (though this in itself is an interesting concept in the film...even had the south won, what would have occurred anyway?) and at times this causes the film to lose steam. It is worth a look though. There are definitely worse ways to spend 89 minutes.
last and faaaaar from least, in fact, one of the best overall movies of 2006:
Three Times
This film from Taiwanese master Hou Hsiao-Hsien. It is basically a more mature, more accomplished version of what Darren Aronofsky tried to do in The Fountain (also worth a look). The title, Three Times, refers to three time periods in which the film takes place: 1966, 1911, and 2005, in that order. It is a film about the sometimes messy, confusing, disorienting nature of love and the idealism and innocence (if not naivete) of youth. The film features 3 vignettes (thankfully, they are not interwoven) each of about 40 minutes. The stories also mirror the socio-political mores of the eras in which they take place in China, adding an extra layer of interest to it.
The downside is this is unquestionably the definition of an "art-house" movie and will really only appeal to the art-house crowd; for most it will be too slow, too boring, and the middle segment, which plays out in the style of late silent movies, with dialogue on intertitles and only music on the soundtrack, will lead you to turn it off or fall asleep. But, if you are a lover of cinema and that last sentence didn't make you throw up in your mouth, you will be rewarded with a virtuoso, engrossing film from one of the great modern directors.
Couldn't find great photos from all 3 "times", so I'll leave you with a photo of the 2 stars in hopes that they are enticement enoughNow, go forth and enjoy.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Glad We Did Our Homework
The biggest piece of non-news being reported last weekend was one of the results of an expansive Carnegie-Mellon study on traffic fatalities, a matrix called Traffic STATS. The statistic being reported is "Male drivers have a 77 percent higher risk of dying in a car accident than women, based on miles driven."
Wow! How interesting!....."I guess all those jokes about women being bad drivers are wrong" is what the copy read on news stations from coast to coast.
There is just one problem.
The analysis only says men die more frequently in car accidents, there is no data on who is involved in more accidents per mile driven. If anything it says that male drivers are more fragile. Also, the statistic reported notes men being "77%" more likely to die. Typically, stats of this sort are a red flag for the discerning viewer. If it read 77 times more likely, that would definitely be significant, but the news producers are banking on you thinking the two imply the same thing (or they don't know the difference themselves, which these days is increasingly more likely).
If they were to actually look at the data from the study before going into print/on air with it, they would have found the numbers showing, per 100 million miles driven, 1.35 male drivers die in traffic accidents, while .78 female drivers do.
Those raw numbers are far less compelling than that lofty 77% figure, wouldn't you say? Especially when the average person will drive fewer than 1 million miles in a lifetime.
1.3 males per 100 million miles driven?
TIme to be responsible guys, turn in those driver's licenses right away.
Wow! How interesting!....."I guess all those jokes about women being bad drivers are wrong" is what the copy read on news stations from coast to coast.
There is just one problem.
The analysis only says men die more frequently in car accidents, there is no data on who is involved in more accidents per mile driven. If anything it says that male drivers are more fragile. Also, the statistic reported notes men being "77%" more likely to die. Typically, stats of this sort are a red flag for the discerning viewer. If it read 77 times more likely, that would definitely be significant, but the news producers are banking on you thinking the two imply the same thing (or they don't know the difference themselves, which these days is increasingly more likely).
If they were to actually look at the data from the study before going into print/on air with it, they would have found the numbers showing, per 100 million miles driven, 1.35 male drivers die in traffic accidents, while .78 female drivers do.
Those raw numbers are far less compelling than that lofty 77% figure, wouldn't you say? Especially when the average person will drive fewer than 1 million miles in a lifetime.
1.3 males per 100 million miles driven?
TIme to be responsible guys, turn in those driver's licenses right away.
Friday, January 26, 2007
On the Limitations of Science
Written by me in response to a claim on a message board on which I participate on occasion that "Science is superior to religion because science is based on facts, whereas religion can only exist in the absence of facts"
The fact that we as humans do not know all things that are possible is our own limitation. Scientific law is an incomplete canon of natural law, as science is a constantly evolving explanation of things that have occurred, not of all events possible to occur, whereas the laws of nature are not known in their entirety to us, but contain the entire realm of all things possible, hence the continued evolution of scientific knowledge.
Of course, science is based on "facts". However, facts by their very nature have to have occurred and been observed. There are things that have not been observed or known by science. The implication here is that there is a scientific explanation for everything, scientists just haven't figured it all out yet. You have FAITH in science. Others have FAITH in God.
Look back to Galileo, scientists used "facts" to determine the earth was the center of the universe. New 'facts' became available and science changed. Science is not an infallible enterprise, and conclusions being supported by facts does not make them correct, only defensible in the court of reason. Science is not prescriptive; It cannot tell us all of what is possible/impossible. Science is only true until proven otherwise.
For instance, science would say it is impossible for a man, unaided, to defy gravity (flying or otherwise) because it has not happened and believes gravity is a "law" of nature. However, were a man to one day hover unaided, science would go to work explaining how such a thing is possible and thus science would once again shift, and the scientists of that age would indeed declare that science is based on facts, while the science of this age is shown faulty, yet we are asked to endure it as if it is indeed absolutely true, any consideration to the contrary being dismissed as foolhardiness.
The fact that we as humans do not know all things that are possible is our own limitation. Scientific law is an incomplete canon of natural law, as science is a constantly evolving explanation of things that have occurred, not of all events possible to occur, whereas the laws of nature are not known in their entirety to us, but contain the entire realm of all things possible, hence the continued evolution of scientific knowledge.
Of course, science is based on "facts". However, facts by their very nature have to have occurred and been observed. There are things that have not been observed or known by science. The implication here is that there is a scientific explanation for everything, scientists just haven't figured it all out yet. You have FAITH in science. Others have FAITH in God.
Look back to Galileo, scientists used "facts" to determine the earth was the center of the universe. New 'facts' became available and science changed. Science is not an infallible enterprise, and conclusions being supported by facts does not make them correct, only defensible in the court of reason. Science is not prescriptive; It cannot tell us all of what is possible/impossible. Science is only true until proven otherwise.
For instance, science would say it is impossible for a man, unaided, to defy gravity (flying or otherwise) because it has not happened and believes gravity is a "law" of nature. However, were a man to one day hover unaided, science would go to work explaining how such a thing is possible and thus science would once again shift, and the scientists of that age would indeed declare that science is based on facts, while the science of this age is shown faulty, yet we are asked to endure it as if it is indeed absolutely true, any consideration to the contrary being dismissed as foolhardiness.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Heeeeeere's Beckham!
I'm late in getting to this story, but for those living under a rock the last 2 weeks, English soccer star David Beckham is coming to play for the LA Galaxy of the MLS. He signed a deal allegedly worth 250 million dollars and the media believe he and his wife, a former Spice Girl, will become superstars over here in America. But they continue to forget one very important thing....
Dude is a soccer player.
It doesn't matter how good he is, or how good looking he or his wife is. Dude plays soccer, and in the American sports pantheon, soccer falls behind the likes of trick-shot billiards, sudoku, and inter-species competitions such as seeing if 44 little people can pull an airplane faster than an elephant.
He could be the greatest soccer player in history (which he isn't, he doesn't even start for his current club, Real Madrid) and it would not matter. People will still disrespect soccer and all who play it. Not to mention, he kinda sounds like he should be in a Lucky Charms commercial. For his own sake, I hope this soccer thing will pass quickly and before long he will be lining up as a kicker for an NFL team, because there is about as much chance of him making soccer popular as there is of Andy Roddick ever beating Roger Federer again (6-4, 6-0, 6-2?....ouch... summing up the match, "Kia, the car manufacturer, sponsors a "play of the day" spot. I was talking with Mats Wilander after the match and he suggested Kia simply replay the second set")
However...that the media so desperately wants the idealistic Beckham to be a superstar here is not even the most ridiculous part of this story. Nor is the 250 million dollar deal the most ridiculous part. No, no, no. Those are just the icing on a now fully baked cake of absurdity.
The Galaxy feel they will find their next player by.......holding an open tryout. Yes, that's right, an open tryout. Any member of the general public with $130 entrance fee can get a chance to end up on the squad.
What?
Possibly the highest paid athlete in the world might end up sharing a locker room with some also-ran ex high-school superstar (likely now high school coach) who never forgave himself for giving up after playing college ball?
Did the entire coaching & scouting team get a vacation after landing Beckham, and then someone realized they didn't have enough players, so the owner made some intern figure out how to find a player, only to find out that the intern wanted a shot and came up with this nonsense to get himself a tryout.
That, or someone saw that Mark Wahlberg movie, Invincible, about the guy who made the Philadelphia Eagles through an open tryout in the 70's and figured, what a great story....hey, I have a team, and what the heck, sure the Beckham deal was gratuitous, but ANOTHER publicity stunt can't hurt, right? Let's have an open tryout! Maybe some day someone will make a movie about us and Joseph Gordon Leavitt can play me!
Dude is a soccer player.
It doesn't matter how good he is, or how good looking he or his wife is. Dude plays soccer, and in the American sports pantheon, soccer falls behind the likes of trick-shot billiards, sudoku, and inter-species competitions such as seeing if 44 little people can pull an airplane faster than an elephant.
He could be the greatest soccer player in history (which he isn't, he doesn't even start for his current club, Real Madrid) and it would not matter. People will still disrespect soccer and all who play it. Not to mention, he kinda sounds like he should be in a Lucky Charms commercial. For his own sake, I hope this soccer thing will pass quickly and before long he will be lining up as a kicker for an NFL team, because there is about as much chance of him making soccer popular as there is of Andy Roddick ever beating Roger Federer again (6-4, 6-0, 6-2?....ouch... summing up the match, "Kia, the car manufacturer, sponsors a "play of the day" spot. I was talking with Mats Wilander after the match and he suggested Kia simply replay the second set")
However...that the media so desperately wants the idealistic Beckham to be a superstar here is not even the most ridiculous part of this story. Nor is the 250 million dollar deal the most ridiculous part. No, no, no. Those are just the icing on a now fully baked cake of absurdity.
The Galaxy feel they will find their next player by.......holding an open tryout. Yes, that's right, an open tryout. Any member of the general public with $130 entrance fee can get a chance to end up on the squad.
What?
Possibly the highest paid athlete in the world might end up sharing a locker room with some also-ran ex high-school superstar (likely now high school coach) who never forgave himself for giving up after playing college ball?
Did the entire coaching & scouting team get a vacation after landing Beckham, and then someone realized they didn't have enough players, so the owner made some intern figure out how to find a player, only to find out that the intern wanted a shot and came up with this nonsense to get himself a tryout.
That, or someone saw that Mark Wahlberg movie, Invincible, about the guy who made the Philadelphia Eagles through an open tryout in the 70's and figured, what a great story....hey, I have a team, and what the heck, sure the Beckham deal was gratuitous, but ANOTHER publicity stunt can't hurt, right? Let's have an open tryout! Maybe some day someone will make a movie about us and Joseph Gordon Leavitt can play me!
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
100th Post!
Wooho! I reached the century mark.
And I do it in such a grand fashion...by celebrating. Some people would take this milestone as an opportunity to say something significant. I, on the other hand, imagine no one reads this anyway, so what's the point in doing anything other than congratulating myself on a job well done....well, not necessarily well done per se....perhaps a job of meritorious consistency.
And I do it in such a grand fashion...by celebrating. Some people would take this milestone as an opportunity to say something significant. I, on the other hand, imagine no one reads this anyway, so what's the point in doing anything other than congratulating myself on a job well done....well, not necessarily well done per se....perhaps a job of meritorious consistency.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Thanks a lot, Zeke
I try to stay out of the nonsense that is the celebrity gossip trade, and I'm fairly successful in my efforts, however, one of the more recent stories has come to affect me personally and as a result, I must comment.
I speak of the over-exposed case of Isaiah Washington and his calling a cast mate a -gay slur- episode followed by his boiling over at the Golden Globes that he "never called [the castmate] a -gay slur-. Of course, this has caused much wringing of hands for everyone over at ABC, because they don't want to cut him off of Grey's Anatomy because he is one of the stars, but at the same time they don't want to be seen as soft on bigotry with the ever-increasingly powerful homo-lobby affectionately known by some as the "gay mafia".
The Disney solution is officially 2-pronged: 1) Publicly wagging a finger at the actor 2) (and this is where it affects me) Disney is requiring ALL employees under their vast umbrella to go through a 4-5 lesson online course on tolerance.
The upside is we get to do it on company time so it's not going to cut into my abundant free time away from work, but the nature of my job is such that there is a lot of down time, and the last thing I want is to fill it up reading pages and listening to lessons about why it is inappropriate to use slurs or derogatory language and then take stupid multiple choice tests that ask things like "If you know a co-worker is openly gay you should a) ask him/her incessantly about life as a gay person b) make fun of their homosexuality c) try to fix them up with members of the opposite sex d) treat them like any other person in the workplace. And from this I will learn to be more tolerant of others....while also learning to hate the makers of online training courses even more than ever before.
Thanks, Isaiah, thank a lot....-gay slur-
Jasmyme Cannick has a "provocative commentary" on the situation here
Excerpted:
"At the end of the day, the issue for me and many Black Americans was the fact that in the beginning this was the issue of one man’s word against another and without any further evidence, all of white gay America pounced on Washington defending their beloved Knight.
At the same time, there’s been no protest launched against Charles Knipp, a white gay man who dresses up in blackface as a character he calls Shirley Q. Liquor and describes as an inarticulate Black woman on welfare with 19 kids...even going as far as to use sexually transmitted diseases as names of Black children.
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" Knipp’s characterizations of Black woman played out on stage in city after city are ones that portray Black women as being on welfare, living in the projects, illiterate, sexually promiscuous mothers who don’t know who their children’s fathers are, alcoholics, and drug addicts.
So let me get this straight, no pun intended, it’s not ok for the Black guy to use the f-word, but it is ok for the white gay guy to dress up in blackface and perform parodies that mock Blacks."
I speak of the over-exposed case of Isaiah Washington and his calling a cast mate a -gay slur- episode followed by his boiling over at the Golden Globes that he "never called [the castmate] a -gay slur-. Of course, this has caused much wringing of hands for everyone over at ABC, because they don't want to cut him off of Grey's Anatomy because he is one of the stars, but at the same time they don't want to be seen as soft on bigotry with the ever-increasingly powerful homo-lobby affectionately known by some as the "gay mafia".
The Disney solution is officially 2-pronged: 1) Publicly wagging a finger at the actor 2) (and this is where it affects me) Disney is requiring ALL employees under their vast umbrella to go through a 4-5 lesson online course on tolerance.
The upside is we get to do it on company time so it's not going to cut into my abundant free time away from work, but the nature of my job is such that there is a lot of down time, and the last thing I want is to fill it up reading pages and listening to lessons about why it is inappropriate to use slurs or derogatory language and then take stupid multiple choice tests that ask things like "If you know a co-worker is openly gay you should a) ask him/her incessantly about life as a gay person b) make fun of their homosexuality c) try to fix them up with members of the opposite sex d) treat them like any other person in the workplace. And from this I will learn to be more tolerant of others....while also learning to hate the makers of online training courses even more than ever before.
Thanks, Isaiah, thank a lot....-gay slur-
Jasmyme Cannick has a "provocative commentary" on the situation here
Excerpted:
"At the end of the day, the issue for me and many Black Americans was the fact that in the beginning this was the issue of one man’s word against another and without any further evidence, all of white gay America pounced on Washington defending their beloved Knight.
At the same time, there’s been no protest launched against Charles Knipp, a white gay man who dresses up in blackface as a character he calls Shirley Q. Liquor and describes as an inarticulate Black woman on welfare with 19 kids...even going as far as to use sexually transmitted diseases as names of Black children.
.JPG.jpg)
" Knipp’s characterizations of Black woman played out on stage in city after city are ones that portray Black women as being on welfare, living in the projects, illiterate, sexually promiscuous mothers who don’t know who their children’s fathers are, alcoholics, and drug addicts.
So let me get this straight, no pun intended, it’s not ok for the Black guy to use the f-word, but it is ok for the white gay guy to dress up in blackface and perform parodies that mock Blacks."
There, I Said It or: Rush Limbaugh Is At It Again
This one really doesn't even deserve further comment-
On the NFL:
"There is a cultural problem in the NFL that has resulted in a total lack of class on the part of professional players; I love the game of football, but after every sack players are acting like they've won the Super Bowl; they're prancing around with these idiotic dances.
"Look, let me put it to you this way: the NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons," Limbaugh stated. "There, I said it."
On the NFL:
"There is a cultural problem in the NFL that has resulted in a total lack of class on the part of professional players; I love the game of football, but after every sack players are acting like they've won the Super Bowl; they're prancing around with these idiotic dances.
"Look, let me put it to you this way: the NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons," Limbaugh stated. "There, I said it."
Sunday, January 21, 2007
At the Cinema
Thoughts from my trip to the theater today:
Dear theater owners: a "combo" is generally a deal to the customer. When the cost of the popcorn + the drink in the "combo" is the same as if they were purchased individually, you do not have a combo, you have a suggestion.
Speaking of concessions, when the "small" drink at the theater is the size of a Big Gulp and the "large" is big enough to bathe in, there is something very wrong.
Theater owners/film distributors take note: When deciding which films' trailers to show before the feature presentation, please do not select 2 movies with the exact same star AND director, give me some variety. (i.e. The Good German and Ocean's 13 both directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring George Clooney should not be shown concurrently)
Young people get a lot of flack for being rambunctious in theaters, but old people talk to each other (often incessantly) and walk in and out the theater so frequently that it gets to be distracting if there are enough of them.
Hollywood....seriously, enough with the 2.5 hour movies. Tighten the script, don't get sentimental in the editing, and get more of these pictures under 110 minutes, please. Citizen Kane is a lean 105 minutes. The Set-Up is a classic in 72 minutes.
Taking into account the time driving to and from the theater, possible standing in line, and pre-show trailers/ads you're pushing me, ridiculously, toward a 4 hour commitment. I don't have all day.
Letters from Iwo Jima just might be the best movie released in 2006, and Clint Eastwood will probably (and deservedly in my opinion) "rob" Scorsese of his "deserved" Best Director Oscar yet again.
Dear theater owners: a "combo" is generally a deal to the customer. When the cost of the popcorn + the drink in the "combo" is the same as if they were purchased individually, you do not have a combo, you have a suggestion.
Speaking of concessions, when the "small" drink at the theater is the size of a Big Gulp and the "large" is big enough to bathe in, there is something very wrong.
Theater owners/film distributors take note: When deciding which films' trailers to show before the feature presentation, please do not select 2 movies with the exact same star AND director, give me some variety. (i.e. The Good German and Ocean's 13 both directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring George Clooney should not be shown concurrently)
Young people get a lot of flack for being rambunctious in theaters, but old people talk to each other (often incessantly) and walk in and out the theater so frequently that it gets to be distracting if there are enough of them.
Hollywood....seriously, enough with the 2.5 hour movies. Tighten the script, don't get sentimental in the editing, and get more of these pictures under 110 minutes, please. Citizen Kane is a lean 105 minutes. The Set-Up is a classic in 72 minutes.
Taking into account the time driving to and from the theater, possible standing in line, and pre-show trailers/ads you're pushing me, ridiculously, toward a 4 hour commitment. I don't have all day.
Letters from Iwo Jima just might be the best movie released in 2006, and Clint Eastwood will probably (and deservedly in my opinion) "rob" Scorsese of his "deserved" Best Director Oscar yet again.
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Dear Enviromenazis:
If you want people, especially conservatives, to come over with the "green" revolution, you should stop with the fear-mongering about the potential cataclysmic events to come (ice caps will melt! seas will rise! dogs and cats will co-exist peaceably!) and instead focus on the simple fact that it would improve air quality. Over half the nation currently lives under a public smoking ban, once thought to just be a crazy California piece of frivolous legislation. People are always more open to clean air legislation, because the effects of bad air are more immediate and more widely accepted medically and scientifically. Bad air leads to bad water and thereby bad crops and therefore bad health. But this foolish "if we don't act global warming will kill us all" is not a strategy for success. Once you win them over then you can indoctrinate, but right now, they are more than content to call it natural climate swings and urban heat island phenomena, which may be ludicrous to your ears/eyes, but it's not about what makes sense to you and spurs you to action, it's a question of motivating the inert.
Friday, January 19, 2007
Surge! redux
Never mind what I said before about the surge; it's a worthless effort. Bring the troops home asap, de-fund the war so the president will be forced to bring them home and let the Iraqis, Iranians, Saudis and whomever fend for themselves. No good will come from continuing this exercise in futility for anyone. If tyranny re-emerges/continues to reign in the region, so be it, and we can deal with it should an actual threat emerge. This could be spurred in part by the continued military development in China, but generally speaking, I decided yesterday, though I am not entirely sure wherefore, that enough is enough.
Monday, January 15, 2007
Happy MLK Day
Leonard Pitts of the Miami Herald had a solid op-ed on MLK and "The Dream" today.
Excerpted:
The march he led, the one that troubled the president and riled the conservatives, has become revered as one of the signature moments of the American experience. And as a result, that speech he gave, that tough-minded recitation of American wrongs, that preacherly prophecy of American redemption, has become a Hallmark card, elevator Muzak, bland cliché.
I have a dream, the schoolchildren say. I have a dream, the newscast says. I have a dream, the people say. I have a dream. A dream. A dream.
They wax eloquent about the dreamer and the dream and, listening, you find yourself wondering if they realize that it was much more than a dream. That it was not, in other words, some airy-fairy castle in the sky to be reached by dint of hoping and wishing, but a noble place to which the nation might lift itself if people were willing to sacrifice and work. Nor did King counsel endless patience in expectation of that goal.
''We have also come to this hallowed spot,'' he said, standing at Lincoln's doorstep, ``to remind America of the fierce urgency of now.'' Over and over, he said it: ``Now is the time. Now is the time.''
None of which is to demean ''I Have A Dream.'' To my mind, King's speech trails only Lincoln's address at Gettysburg on the list of the greatest public utterances in American history. But it seems to me that this most revered of speeches is also one of the least understood.
You see, King spoke to an audience that had been working for civil rights -- not just dreaming. They were an audience of marchers and sit-in organizers, of boycotters and committers of civil disobedience. ''I am not unmindful,'' he said, ''that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells.'' Because these were people who had laid their bodies, their freedom, their time, their treasure, their very lives on the line for a cause they believed in.
It is a fine and noble thing to have a dream. But having a dream is no excuse for accepting an onerous status quo and waiting passively on ''someday'' to make things right. A dream is not an excuse. It's a responsibility. And now is still the time.
In other news, it is a less than happy MLK Day for me as I currently sick for the first time in 2 years. As such, I am presently bed-ridden while being amused by Hugh Laurie's acceptance speech on the Golden Globes, "I must thank the crew. Everyone says they have a wonderful crew, but that can't be true can it? Someone somewhere must be working with a crew of drunken thieves."
Excerpted:
The march he led, the one that troubled the president and riled the conservatives, has become revered as one of the signature moments of the American experience. And as a result, that speech he gave, that tough-minded recitation of American wrongs, that preacherly prophecy of American redemption, has become a Hallmark card, elevator Muzak, bland cliché.
I have a dream, the schoolchildren say. I have a dream, the newscast says. I have a dream, the people say. I have a dream. A dream. A dream.
They wax eloquent about the dreamer and the dream and, listening, you find yourself wondering if they realize that it was much more than a dream. That it was not, in other words, some airy-fairy castle in the sky to be reached by dint of hoping and wishing, but a noble place to which the nation might lift itself if people were willing to sacrifice and work. Nor did King counsel endless patience in expectation of that goal.
''We have also come to this hallowed spot,'' he said, standing at Lincoln's doorstep, ``to remind America of the fierce urgency of now.'' Over and over, he said it: ``Now is the time. Now is the time.''
None of which is to demean ''I Have A Dream.'' To my mind, King's speech trails only Lincoln's address at Gettysburg on the list of the greatest public utterances in American history. But it seems to me that this most revered of speeches is also one of the least understood.
You see, King spoke to an audience that had been working for civil rights -- not just dreaming. They were an audience of marchers and sit-in organizers, of boycotters and committers of civil disobedience. ''I am not unmindful,'' he said, ''that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells.'' Because these were people who had laid their bodies, their freedom, their time, their treasure, their very lives on the line for a cause they believed in.
It is a fine and noble thing to have a dream. But having a dream is no excuse for accepting an onerous status quo and waiting passively on ''someday'' to make things right. A dream is not an excuse. It's a responsibility. And now is still the time.
In other news, it is a less than happy MLK Day for me as I currently sick for the first time in 2 years. As such, I am presently bed-ridden while being amused by Hugh Laurie's acceptance speech on the Golden Globes, "I must thank the crew. Everyone says they have a wonderful crew, but that can't be true can it? Someone somewhere must be working with a crew of drunken thieves."
Saturday, January 13, 2007
The Words of MLK
Excerpts from a speech (presented in it's entirety here) Martin Luther King Jr. delivered regarding Vietnam in 1967, sobering in it's relevance to our current situation in Iraq and in it's eloquence in contrast to the speech delivered by President Bush earlier this week:
Martin Luther King Jr. - Beyond Vietnam
"I am as deeply concerned about our own troops there as anything else. For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. Before long they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy, and the secure, while we create a hell for the poor.
"...the only change came from America as we increased our troop commitments in support of governments which were singularly corrupt, inept, and without popular support. All the while the people read our leaflets and received the regular promises of peace and democracy and land reform. Now they languish under our bombs and consider us, not their fellow Vietnamese, the real enemy. They move sadly and apathetically as we herd them off the land of their fathers...they know they must move on or be destroyed by our bombs.
"Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and a brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home, and dealt death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our own nation: The great initiative in this war is ours; the initiative to stop it must be ours.
If we continue, there will be no doubt in my mind and in the mind of the world that we have no honorable intentions in Vietnam. If we do not stop our war against the people of Vietnam immediately, the world will be left with no other alternative than to see this as some horrible, clumsy, and deadly game we have decided to play. The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. It demands we admit we have been wrong from the beginning of our adventure in Vietnam, that we have been detrimental to the life of the Vietnamese people. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways. In order to atone for our sins and errors in Vietnam, we should take the initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war."
Martin Luther King Jr. - Beyond Vietnam
"I am as deeply concerned about our own troops there as anything else. For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. Before long they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy, and the secure, while we create a hell for the poor.
"...the only change came from America as we increased our troop commitments in support of governments which were singularly corrupt, inept, and without popular support. All the while the people read our leaflets and received the regular promises of peace and democracy and land reform. Now they languish under our bombs and consider us, not their fellow Vietnamese, the real enemy. They move sadly and apathetically as we herd them off the land of their fathers...they know they must move on or be destroyed by our bombs.
"Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and a brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home, and dealt death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our own nation: The great initiative in this war is ours; the initiative to stop it must be ours.
If we continue, there will be no doubt in my mind and in the mind of the world that we have no honorable intentions in Vietnam. If we do not stop our war against the people of Vietnam immediately, the world will be left with no other alternative than to see this as some horrible, clumsy, and deadly game we have decided to play. The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. It demands we admit we have been wrong from the beginning of our adventure in Vietnam, that we have been detrimental to the life of the Vietnamese people. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways. In order to atone for our sins and errors in Vietnam, we should take the initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war."
Friday, January 12, 2007
The Onion on Martin Scorsese
The Entitled
"Director Martin Scorsese, long praised as one of the greatest modern American filmmakers for his works Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The Last Temptation Of Christ, and Goodfellas, is following up his recent string of critically acclaimed triumphs with The Entitled, a three-hour, unabashed plea for a Best Director Oscar that opens nationwide Friday.
"'For 40 years, I've been making pictures. And I've always been fascinated with the struggles a man must endure when people don't appreciate him. People say I'm the best. I didn't say it, they did. I just do my work. But for years they've been talking and you know it. You do. I deserve that award, is all I'm saying.'
""You want feel-good and heartwarming, right?" Scorsese said. "I can do that. Or I can do casual violence with no strings attached. You know I can. What else you want? Kung-fu wire-work? Mentally disabled guy? Boring Robert Redford-style fishing movie? Just tell me what to do, I'll do it. Done. End of story. Give me my Oscar and I'm out of here. Poof."
"Newsweek movie critic David Ansen called The Entitled Scorsese's "best shot" at a directing Oscar since his most recent loss to Clint Eastwood for Million Dollar Baby. "As long as Spielberg doesn't come out with anything, I'd say this is Scorsese's year."
The Onion is my hero
"Director Martin Scorsese, long praised as one of the greatest modern American filmmakers for his works Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The Last Temptation Of Christ, and Goodfellas, is following up his recent string of critically acclaimed triumphs with The Entitled, a three-hour, unabashed plea for a Best Director Oscar that opens nationwide Friday.
"'For 40 years, I've been making pictures. And I've always been fascinated with the struggles a man must endure when people don't appreciate him. People say I'm the best. I didn't say it, they did. I just do my work. But for years they've been talking and you know it. You do. I deserve that award, is all I'm saying.'
""You want feel-good and heartwarming, right?" Scorsese said. "I can do that. Or I can do casual violence with no strings attached. You know I can. What else you want? Kung-fu wire-work? Mentally disabled guy? Boring Robert Redford-style fishing movie? Just tell me what to do, I'll do it. Done. End of story. Give me my Oscar and I'm out of here. Poof."
"Newsweek movie critic David Ansen called The Entitled Scorsese's "best shot" at a directing Oscar since his most recent loss to Clint Eastwood for Million Dollar Baby. "As long as Spielberg doesn't come out with anything, I'd say this is Scorsese's year."
The Onion is my hero
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Surge!
Anyone remember the mid-to-late 90's soft drink phenomenon that was Surge!
It was Coke's answer to Pepsi's Mountain Dew. It was simply too similar to Mello Yellow's and Cactus Coolers' of the soda-sphere and as a result, it came and went rather quickly and with little lasting effect. It left us in more or less the same soft drink universe we were in before it came along. Coca-Cola was (and still is) the most popular soft drink, Pepsi was (and still is) looking for a way to crack the hearts of the public to embrace it and Mountain Dew further, and Dr. Pepper was (and still is) over in the root beer corner looking dapper as ever.
Well, now we will see a Surge! in troops to Iraq (not unlike the Cactus Cooler-Mello Yellow increases in troop levels we've seen in the recent past), but I predict it will come and go with not much happening. Coke (aka the republicans) will still be the most popular drink, Pepsi (the dems) and Mountain Dew (which we'll call a surrogate for...ummm...the Iraq Study Group report) will still be looking to connect with middle america and Dr. Pepper (let's say Stephen Colbert and Keith Olbermann) will still be looking cool as can be over in their own corner, ready to be consumed by all those who are tired of the garden-variety colas (read: politicians, pundits, and bloggers).
All that said (and with apologies for a sloppy analogy), I really hope something positive comes out of this "new" plan Bush is putting in motion, because that would be the first step toward bringing home the troops. If it does not work, he is not going to pull out, he is entrenched in this imbroglio, so it will require another several months of planning and a new plan will be put forth, all the while national and (perhaps more importantly) military morale will continue to dwindle. So for the sake of every man or woman in uniform as well as every innocent, non-combative Iraqi civilian, I hope this thing works.
Also, I hope the Democrats fund it properly. To say "we're only going to fund the troops currently on the ground, but not this "surge" is to in effect 1) undermine the office of the president, he is commander-in-chief and like it or not he has the final say in combat related matters, and 2) adopt a stay the course policy against which they have railed.
Look at it this way, 20,000 more troops are going to be on the ground, no matter how many polls show Americans are against it and no matter how many Congressmen/Congresswomen decry it as a policy blunder. They are going. The question now is, when they get on the ground in Baghdad will they have any funds appropriated so they can attempt to complete this mission, or will they be hamstrung by partisan politics back home while the amply-funded likes of Moqtada al-Sadr & Ayman Al-Zawahiri and others gun them down like sitting ducks.
In other news, Mary Sanchez of the Kansas City Star is becoming one of my favorite columnists. I've probably said it before, but I am saying it now just in case I haven't previously.
And finally, Jim Emerson's excellent movie blog, scanners, has been on fire since the start of the new year.
It was Coke's answer to Pepsi's Mountain Dew. It was simply too similar to Mello Yellow's and Cactus Coolers' of the soda-sphere and as a result, it came and went rather quickly and with little lasting effect. It left us in more or less the same soft drink universe we were in before it came along. Coca-Cola was (and still is) the most popular soft drink, Pepsi was (and still is) looking for a way to crack the hearts of the public to embrace it and Mountain Dew further, and Dr. Pepper was (and still is) over in the root beer corner looking dapper as ever.
Well, now we will see a Surge! in troops to Iraq (not unlike the Cactus Cooler-Mello Yellow increases in troop levels we've seen in the recent past), but I predict it will come and go with not much happening. Coke (aka the republicans) will still be the most popular drink, Pepsi (the dems) and Mountain Dew (which we'll call a surrogate for...ummm...the Iraq Study Group report) will still be looking to connect with middle america and Dr. Pepper (let's say Stephen Colbert and Keith Olbermann) will still be looking cool as can be over in their own corner, ready to be consumed by all those who are tired of the garden-variety colas (read: politicians, pundits, and bloggers).
All that said (and with apologies for a sloppy analogy), I really hope something positive comes out of this "new" plan Bush is putting in motion, because that would be the first step toward bringing home the troops. If it does not work, he is not going to pull out, he is entrenched in this imbroglio, so it will require another several months of planning and a new plan will be put forth, all the while national and (perhaps more importantly) military morale will continue to dwindle. So for the sake of every man or woman in uniform as well as every innocent, non-combative Iraqi civilian, I hope this thing works.
Also, I hope the Democrats fund it properly. To say "we're only going to fund the troops currently on the ground, but not this "surge" is to in effect 1) undermine the office of the president, he is commander-in-chief and like it or not he has the final say in combat related matters, and 2) adopt a stay the course policy against which they have railed.
Look at it this way, 20,000 more troops are going to be on the ground, no matter how many polls show Americans are against it and no matter how many Congressmen/Congresswomen decry it as a policy blunder. They are going. The question now is, when they get on the ground in Baghdad will they have any funds appropriated so they can attempt to complete this mission, or will they be hamstrung by partisan politics back home while the amply-funded likes of Moqtada al-Sadr & Ayman Al-Zawahiri and others gun them down like sitting ducks.
In other news, Mary Sanchez of the Kansas City Star is becoming one of my favorite columnists. I've probably said it before, but I am saying it now just in case I haven't previously.
And finally, Jim Emerson's excellent movie blog, scanners, has been on fire since the start of the new year.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Children of Men: Back to the Future....Again
Again we return to the future to make statements and pronouncements about the modern socio-political landscape (after recently doing so in V for Vendetta). Why can't a movie about terrorism, immigration, fascism, etc be set in the current era. To see them set in the future (or in the past, see: The Good Shepherd) is still a way to deal with them, but it still allows a certain detachment compared to the immediacy of a film set in the present.
That said, it is wonderful to see a film set in the future that does not posit a future filled with neon colored ridiculously hyper-stylized clothing, flying cars, barcode technology in people, robots, etc. People still take the bus, boats, trains, and cars on highways and look more or less like we do today. Sci-fi die hards will be bemused.
To finish up this point on the future, it is refreshing to see a big budget action film set in a major city in the future that does not resort to destroying major monuments. We spend a good bit of time in London, but we never so much as see Big Ben, Parliament, Buckingham Palace, or Parliament, let alone seeing them destroyed. It is nice to see that the makers of this film had a bit of creativity in dispensing their acts of violence instead of taking the easy way out as so many films in the genre do.
Ok, moving on....
Christian Nativity symbology abounds (even disregarding the Christmas release date): The story centers on Kee who is miraculously pregnant with a possible 'savior', Kee reveals to Theo (God prefix) that she is pregnant in a stable, Kee's midwife is named Mary-ann, lacking a pair of proper shoes that fit Clive Owen traipses about in a pair of sandals, just about every time someone blurts an exclamation it's "Jesus!", "Christ!" or "Jesus Christ!", the line "your baby is the miracle the whole world has been waiting for", stretching the connections a little bit here but, the leader of the rebel faction "The Fishes" is named Luke. The Fishes (as opposed to the biblical fishers) are all waiting for the baby so they can convert people to their belief system...I'm sure there was more, but that's what I recall off-hand. Not to sound as if I am deriding this symbolism, there is something to be admired in the matter-of-fact manner in which all of this is dispensed. None of it seems too contrived in context and is certainly not dwelt upon on screen, but it is almost ever-present.
While a very well-made film, this endeavor has one big hole right down the center of the story that more or less renders it an exercise in futility. The film itself is about Clive Owen's character, Theo and his personal journey, but the plot hinges on the young pregnant female who is carrying the first baby in 18 years and thus she is the key to the future of humanity (she is aptly named Kee). The problem is, what is going to happen when she gets out of England. The characters hang their hopes on a mysterious group known as "The Human Project" who operate on a ship. Well, unless they have cloning technology or plan to make Kee and her baby girl into their own human farm animals for the sake of procreation, I see naught but futility in their great escape. But, oh, what an escape it is!
The action sequences of this film are so tightly crafted and executed that they make you lean forward in your seat, uneasy about how the characters will get out of this predicament, while trying to make sense of the relative positions of the warring factions. Clive Owen is the hero of an action movie, but he never once totes a gat. Bodies wielding guns fall around him but he never thinks to pick one up. You wonder if his character would even know how to shoot it.
Other scenes hearken back to other films in their cinematography, the one stand out is when Maryann and Theo are talking in the school while Kee says her prayers outside on the swing. Visually, it is almost impossible not to see the early scene of Citizen Kane when Mrs Kane is signing over young Charlie's life in the foreground while he plays outside in the background.
There are certain moments where the film allows for emotional poignancy and connectivity, but just when the viewer starts to feel even a glimmer of relief from the constant dread, here comes a hail of gunfire or a rocket attack or a flaming car down a hill or something of that nature, bringing us back to the grim reality of their situation.
One such moment in the middle of the film features Michael Caine's character, Jasper, tells the story of Theo as one of the ebb, flow, and confluence of chance and faith. He concludes that the events of Theo's life to that point had led him to adopt a philosophy that the events of life are going to take their own course, regardless of his actions, so why bother trying. Theo overhears this, and at this point he realizes his own malaise is self-induced and decides to come out of his funk to help this girl and start to get on with his life. In my interpretation, this conversation informs the ending of the film. Theo and Kee get to sea where they are supposed to meet the Human Project people out at a red buoy, according to the Fishes who had had contact with the group. A boat came just as it looked like there would be no hope. Personally, I think this was just a fishing boat, and there never was any such group as "The Human Project". Julian (Julianne Moore's character) had created the idea of the group to either lead them to their doom or she knew there was a boat called the Tomorrow that docked in that spot and would eventually come by and used it to create a story to get the group behind her. Either way, I seriously question that the ending should be taken literally.
In my reading of the film, these characters had faith that they would be saved so they went to the buoy. By chance, a boat came by at the time Kee needed it most. Life may or may not be random, but if we have faith and cultivate our gardens, life has a way of working things out for the best for us, in this best of all possible worlds.
Summation:
This film is full of ideas and visual flair and is definitely worth seeing, even with a gaping central plot hole.
That said, it is wonderful to see a film set in the future that does not posit a future filled with neon colored ridiculously hyper-stylized clothing, flying cars, barcode technology in people, robots, etc. People still take the bus, boats, trains, and cars on highways and look more or less like we do today. Sci-fi die hards will be bemused.
To finish up this point on the future, it is refreshing to see a big budget action film set in a major city in the future that does not resort to destroying major monuments. We spend a good bit of time in London, but we never so much as see Big Ben, Parliament, Buckingham Palace, or Parliament, let alone seeing them destroyed. It is nice to see that the makers of this film had a bit of creativity in dispensing their acts of violence instead of taking the easy way out as so many films in the genre do.
Ok, moving on....
Christian Nativity symbology abounds (even disregarding the Christmas release date): The story centers on Kee who is miraculously pregnant with a possible 'savior', Kee reveals to Theo (God prefix) that she is pregnant in a stable, Kee's midwife is named Mary-ann, lacking a pair of proper shoes that fit Clive Owen traipses about in a pair of sandals, just about every time someone blurts an exclamation it's "Jesus!", "Christ!" or "Jesus Christ!", the line "your baby is the miracle the whole world has been waiting for", stretching the connections a little bit here but, the leader of the rebel faction "The Fishes" is named Luke. The Fishes (as opposed to the biblical fishers) are all waiting for the baby so they can convert people to their belief system...I'm sure there was more, but that's what I recall off-hand. Not to sound as if I am deriding this symbolism, there is something to be admired in the matter-of-fact manner in which all of this is dispensed. None of it seems too contrived in context and is certainly not dwelt upon on screen, but it is almost ever-present.
While a very well-made film, this endeavor has one big hole right down the center of the story that more or less renders it an exercise in futility. The film itself is about Clive Owen's character, Theo and his personal journey, but the plot hinges on the young pregnant female who is carrying the first baby in 18 years and thus she is the key to the future of humanity (she is aptly named Kee). The problem is, what is going to happen when she gets out of England. The characters hang their hopes on a mysterious group known as "The Human Project" who operate on a ship. Well, unless they have cloning technology or plan to make Kee and her baby girl into their own human farm animals for the sake of procreation, I see naught but futility in their great escape. But, oh, what an escape it is!
The action sequences of this film are so tightly crafted and executed that they make you lean forward in your seat, uneasy about how the characters will get out of this predicament, while trying to make sense of the relative positions of the warring factions. Clive Owen is the hero of an action movie, but he never once totes a gat. Bodies wielding guns fall around him but he never thinks to pick one up. You wonder if his character would even know how to shoot it.
Other scenes hearken back to other films in their cinematography, the one stand out is when Maryann and Theo are talking in the school while Kee says her prayers outside on the swing. Visually, it is almost impossible not to see the early scene of Citizen Kane when Mrs Kane is signing over young Charlie's life in the foreground while he plays outside in the background.
There are certain moments where the film allows for emotional poignancy and connectivity, but just when the viewer starts to feel even a glimmer of relief from the constant dread, here comes a hail of gunfire or a rocket attack or a flaming car down a hill or something of that nature, bringing us back to the grim reality of their situation.
One such moment in the middle of the film features Michael Caine's character, Jasper, tells the story of Theo as one of the ebb, flow, and confluence of chance and faith. He concludes that the events of Theo's life to that point had led him to adopt a philosophy that the events of life are going to take their own course, regardless of his actions, so why bother trying. Theo overhears this, and at this point he realizes his own malaise is self-induced and decides to come out of his funk to help this girl and start to get on with his life. In my interpretation, this conversation informs the ending of the film. Theo and Kee get to sea where they are supposed to meet the Human Project people out at a red buoy, according to the Fishes who had had contact with the group. A boat came just as it looked like there would be no hope. Personally, I think this was just a fishing boat, and there never was any such group as "The Human Project". Julian (Julianne Moore's character) had created the idea of the group to either lead them to their doom or she knew there was a boat called the Tomorrow that docked in that spot and would eventually come by and used it to create a story to get the group behind her. Either way, I seriously question that the ending should be taken literally.
In my reading of the film, these characters had faith that they would be saved so they went to the buoy. By chance, a boat came by at the time Kee needed it most. Life may or may not be random, but if we have faith and cultivate our gardens, life has a way of working things out for the best for us, in this best of all possible worlds.
Summation:
This film is full of ideas and visual flair and is definitely worth seeing, even with a gaping central plot hole.
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
The (mostly) New and Improved Gov. Ahnuld
Arnold delivered his "State of the State" address this evening from Sacramento, and I gotta tell you, he does not sound like a lame duck governor who just got re-elected. He is still embodying the idealism that got him elected in the first place and re-elected in November. He has an ambitious plan to "rebuild" California that includes some form of guaranteed health care for all children, even illegal immigrants, increasing water surface storage, reducing greenhouse emissions, reducing prison overcrowding, building new schools, fixing highways, reducing the state deficit, and redrawing the legislative districts to increase competition (joking, "There was more turnover in the Hapsburg monarchy than there is in the state legislature"...the legislators laughed, but they want no part of this issue that could jeopardize their job security).
He has big dreams of bipartisanship and cooperation, but just like his old self, he feels bonds are the only way to accomplish anything. If we pass more and more bonds, we can pay for all of this reconstruction without having to raise taxes (always a big selling point)....until the next governor comes along and actually has to repay the bonds and can't do it without cutting all of the things Arnold just into place, or by raising taxes; either way the Republicans will once again seize on this in attempt to re-ascend to prominence, and so goes the American political circle. In the words of Donny Hathaway in the classic soul song "Someday We'll All Be Free", "Hang on to the world as it spins around, just don't let the spin get you down, things are moving fast, hold on tight and you will last."
He has big dreams of bipartisanship and cooperation, but just like his old self, he feels bonds are the only way to accomplish anything. If we pass more and more bonds, we can pay for all of this reconstruction without having to raise taxes (always a big selling point)....until the next governor comes along and actually has to repay the bonds and can't do it without cutting all of the things Arnold just into place, or by raising taxes; either way the Republicans will once again seize on this in attempt to re-ascend to prominence, and so goes the American political circle. In the words of Donny Hathaway in the classic soul song "Someday We'll All Be Free", "Hang on to the world as it spins around, just don't let the spin get you down, things are moving fast, hold on tight and you will last."
Friday, January 05, 2007
The Truth About Kids and Christmas Presents
Every Christmas parents spend - dare I say waste - hundreds of dollars on new toys for their kids. The kids pull them out of the boxes, play with them for a day or two, then go back to the old toys they've had forever. The reality is, most kids don't care if they have new toys or old ones, or sometimes if they even have toys at all. They might say they want them, but they're kids, they also say things like they want applesauce, Cap'n Crunch and a Yoohoo for dinner and you don't give them that....hopefully.
Exhibit A:
2 weeks ago, my cousin had plenty of new presents under the tree, adding to an already impressive collection of toys and other such playthings. Yesterday, she was over at our house and what did she find to keep herself amused for 2 hours?
That's right, an empty box. Cost: $0. She was back today and the first thing she did was make a bee-line for that tattered ol box.
Parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, neighbors, countrymen: Give your child an empty box, let them fill it with their imagination.
Exhibit A:
2 weeks ago, my cousin had plenty of new presents under the tree, adding to an already impressive collection of toys and other such playthings. Yesterday, she was over at our house and what did she find to keep herself amused for 2 hours?
That's right, an empty box. Cost: $0. She was back today and the first thing she did was make a bee-line for that tattered ol box.
Parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, neighbors, countrymen: Give your child an empty box, let them fill it with their imagination.
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
New Year, Same ol War
Just in case you missed it, amid the Christmas-New Year's-Gerald Ford-Mt Hood-Denver Blizzards-College Football filled last 4-6 weeks, December was the deadliest month in Iraq for U.S. troops in 2 years, with the death toll climbing over 3,000... and Bush still has yet to announce his "new way forward".
We're still waiting, Mr. President.
Ultimately, regardless of what we do, odds are it won't affect any real change, and this time next year we'll be exploring new options once again.
Saddam was hanged on Sunday and a video of the event was posted on the internet within a day or so. I know a large number of people were drawn by morbid curiosity (literally) to see it, but I can't imagine ever wanting to see a man killed. When we see it in movies or on tv, it's pretend, we can detach to a certain extent, because we know it's not real, but seeing a real person killed on video, witnessing the last few breaths of life as he is executed....seeking that out as entertainment or otherwise, strikes me as an act of depravity.
An op-ed columnist (possible several of them) praised the swiftness of the punishment being carried out. His appeal was denied, and within 2-3 days he was swinging, he beamed, while lamenting our system of keeping convicted persons on death row for years and decades on end, decrying a lack of respect for the lives of the victims and concepts such as prisoner's rights, also writing that swift executions act as a deterrent.
Well, seeing as we don't have too many ex-repressive dictators on death row, I don't think the comparisons can be drawn directly. Also, many legal/psychological experts will tell you that the crimes that typically get people on death row are not reasoned acts, in which the perpetrator is weighing their options, looking at pros and cons before deciding on the best of possible decisions as murder; it is typically a crime of passion/obsession/delusion, and as such, the deterrent effect of swiftly executing the convicted is dampened, if not negated. As for the system of keeping them imprisoned, I do believe enough cases have been overturned on appeal due to new evidence, that to execute immediately upon conviction can be short-sighted. And human life is human life, and the taking thereof, whether as an act of unabated aggression or as retribution/vengeance/"justice", should be deplored in my view. I don't take any particular joy in seeing Saddam Hussein hanging. I agree that he was among the lowest of the low among us, but I do not feel anyone should willingly take the life of another, lest they be imminently pressed for their own.
We're still waiting, Mr. President.
Ultimately, regardless of what we do, odds are it won't affect any real change, and this time next year we'll be exploring new options once again.
Saddam was hanged on Sunday and a video of the event was posted on the internet within a day or so. I know a large number of people were drawn by morbid curiosity (literally) to see it, but I can't imagine ever wanting to see a man killed. When we see it in movies or on tv, it's pretend, we can detach to a certain extent, because we know it's not real, but seeing a real person killed on video, witnessing the last few breaths of life as he is executed....seeking that out as entertainment or otherwise, strikes me as an act of depravity.
An op-ed columnist (possible several of them) praised the swiftness of the punishment being carried out. His appeal was denied, and within 2-3 days he was swinging, he beamed, while lamenting our system of keeping convicted persons on death row for years and decades on end, decrying a lack of respect for the lives of the victims and concepts such as prisoner's rights, also writing that swift executions act as a deterrent.
Well, seeing as we don't have too many ex-repressive dictators on death row, I don't think the comparisons can be drawn directly. Also, many legal/psychological experts will tell you that the crimes that typically get people on death row are not reasoned acts, in which the perpetrator is weighing their options, looking at pros and cons before deciding on the best of possible decisions as murder; it is typically a crime of passion/obsession/delusion, and as such, the deterrent effect of swiftly executing the convicted is dampened, if not negated. As for the system of keeping them imprisoned, I do believe enough cases have been overturned on appeal due to new evidence, that to execute immediately upon conviction can be short-sighted. And human life is human life, and the taking thereof, whether as an act of unabated aggression or as retribution/vengeance/"justice", should be deplored in my view. I don't take any particular joy in seeing Saddam Hussein hanging. I agree that he was among the lowest of the low among us, but I do not feel anyone should willingly take the life of another, lest they be imminently pressed for their own.
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Preseason #1
While it was only the first day of the year, I'm almost positive last night's Boise State-Oklahoma Fiesta Bowl (presented by Tostitos) classic, followed by the post-game interview engagement of Boise State's All-American running back Ian Johnson to his girlfriend, the head cheerleader (how cute!) will go down as the #1 sports moment of the year
......unless of course the Warriors win the NBA Finals
......unless of course the Warriors win the NBA Finals
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