Thursday, April 29, 2010

The implosion of a Star

Unfortunately I’m not talking about they type of star that spins around in the depths of space.  Rather I’m referring to that very rare human being that achieves widespread fame and success thanks to some innate ability, whether it be acting, painting, singing, or some other talent.

Whitney HoustonIn Whitney Houston’s case, it was a voice so powerful, angelic, and pure, she could have sung the phone book and you would have listened.  It was captivating.

Alas, after years of heavy smoking and drug abuse, the magnificent instrument that millions of people around the world were amazed by has been ruined to the point of no return.

In her heyday, she was revered as one of the most talented singers to ever grace the stage.  Her voice was spellbinding, especially when she hit the high notes only she seemed to be able to hit.

Now, her voice is rough and jagged and she can’t hit a high note to save her life.  She sounds like a washed up hip-hop singer from a late night bar on a road to Las Vegas.  It’s saddening, pitiful, maddening, and frustrating to hear her sing.

The biggest problem is that she’s right in the middle of her worldwide comeback concert tour, and things are going very badly, with critics hammering her and fans walking out of her concerts.  She’s currently in England:

Whitney Houston's world tour lurches on, with the 46-year-old singer apologising to a London crowd for the poor quality of her voice. "She doesn't want to come, my soprano friend," Houston explained to the audience at O2 Arena. She wasn't referring to Renée Fleming.

This is ostensibly the singer's comeback tour, but she has been booed in Australia, laughed at in Birmingham, and several fans allegedly walked out of her London show. "Sometimes the old girl sings, but not tonight," Houston told the crowd. "I want to do it, but she doesn't want to ... She's getting a little temperamental."

Houston struggled through I Will Always Love You, her best-known song, and didn't bother finishing Greatest Love of All. She had a similarly rough time in Nottingham last Wednesday, "wheezing and grating" through ballads. In London, she blamed the air-conditioning. "Turn the air-con off," she asked organisers, from the stage. "I can feel it. It takes away my soprano."

It sure can’t be easy watching your own fame dim and your comeback inexorably derail, but one can’t forget that she brought this upon herself by not taking care of the gift she had.

Check out this recent video of her rendition of “I Will Always Love You.”  It’s painful to watch.  Sure, the recording is poor at best, but her voice is unmistakably broken.

This is just sad all around.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Would you like some plastic with your fries?

I blogged in the past about the Pacific Gyre, an immense island of plastic garbage that gets caught by the currents of the Pacific Ocean, swirling forever while endangering the sea life that comes into contact with it.
Now the stomach of a dead whale that washed ashore has revealed how deadly our carelessness can be for unassuming animals.
From Treehugger:
According to Cascadia Research Collective, 50 gallons of stomach contents were sorted through. Most of it was real food - algae and other bits common to a gray whale diet - but also included were more than 20 plastic bags, small towels, surgical gloves, sweat pants, plastic pieces, duct tape, and a golf ball.
And all sorts of animals are affected by this problem, like this bird, whose remains were photographed as evidence of what we’re doing to the environment:
plastic in bird photo
See a slideshow of more birds here.

Friday, April 23, 2010

The Matrix Trilogy

Matrix One of the biggest cinematic blunders of all time firmly rests on the Wachowski brothers’ shoulders.  After creating one of the best and most innovative sci-fi pictures of all time, 1999’s mind bending The Matrix, they followed up with two overblown disappointments, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, both released in 2003.

For all practical purposes, those two sequels soiled forever a beloved brand and missed the opportunity to build or improve upon the original.  And all likely because of hubris.

The Matrix’s performance was a big surprise.  Release the same year that another sci-fi movie was supposed to dominate, Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace, the first of the three prequels to another beloved sci-fi saga damaged by inferior sequels, all everyone talked about was how cool The Matrix was.

Largely because of that success, both in terms of how much money it made (and its sequels could potentially make) and of the fan base it had assembled, the Wachowskis got a pile of cash and the go ahead from the studio to complete the trilogy they had envisioned when they set out to make The Matrix.

Unfortunately, the two sequels turned out to be inferior chapters of the whole story that were longer and felt like overblown rehashes of all that we had been given the first time around.

Recently I decided to give the trilogy another try, since I positively worship the original.  I can now safely say that, apart from any issues there might be with holes in the screenplays, if the Wachowskis had been more editorial, the sequels wouldn’t have failed so miserably.

The worst parts of both are the endless fighting sequences.  Take the so called “burly brawl” of Reloaded.  Is it really necessary to have it go on and on and on like that?  What starts out as a “Shit Neo! Get out of there!!” moment, soon turns into “Enough already!!”  At the end, Neo simply flies away.  Why couldn’t he do that 3 minutes earlier?

Next to the endless fights, there are the useless ones, like when Neo needs to see the Oracle and meets Seraph, who, in order to ensure that he is indeed Neo, attacks him.  After that endless (but blissfully shorter) fight, Seraph tells Neo that “the only way to really know someone is to fight them.”  I can’t imagine a single person in the audience actually thinking that’s a good line in the script and it certainly doesn’t justify the fight.  Cut it off!!

Let’s then take a look at the useless sequence in chief: the Zion dance.  What exactly does that add to the story other than campiness?  It’s a totally laughable sequence of a bunch of half naked people dancing that was likely meant to sassy it up and ends up feeling completely out of place, ridiculous, and trivial.

Couple all the useless stuff with the lack of editing and you have a big problem.  For instance, in Revolutions, when the machines reach the outskirts of Zion, an interminable sequence begins without any intercuts of what is happening to Neo and Trinity.  Only when the battle is pretty much over and the machines are about to storm the city are we transported miles away to what our hero is up to.  Now his voyage to machine city begins and with it another battle, while the audience is left wondering about Zion’s fate.

I’m not a filmmaker or an editor, but I’ve seen countless action scenes and this is not how you build them.  If they had simply intercut the two sequences, the big battle in Zion and the struggle of Neo and Trinity to reach the source, the end result would have worked a lot better.  Just think of how masterful was the intercutting of three story lines in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers: Frodo and Sam meeting Gollum; Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli following the Uruk-hais; and Merry and Pippin meeting Treebeard.  Countless more characters and scenes are all advanced together to give the audience a well rounded sense of time and action.

And it’s not like the Wachowskis don’t know how to set up a chase scene.  Their highway chase in Reloaded is as thrilling as they come even though it’s long and overblown.  But they constructed it well, has a plausible purpose, and as a result it works.

It’s sad that directors often feel like they can’t go wrong and fail to recognize when and where things are taking a bad turn.  I’m assuming that someone did point out how over the top the movies were becoming, but the Wachowskis (or the studio) must have thought the more the better, and just kept going.

Too bad.  Sure, the sequels made more money than the original, but don’t even come close in terms of cinematic longevity.

The Matrix: 9

The Matrix Reloaded: 5

The Matrix Revolutions: 4

Our fragile world

Apparently, we don’t just have to worry about a sizeable chunk of rock and ice hurtling toward us in space.  We could be severely affected (or killed off outright) even just by its debris field:

An hour-long hailstorm from space bombarded the Earth 13,000 years ago - plunging the planet into a mini-ice age, scientists claimed today.

The catastrophe was caused by a disintegrating comet and saw the planet sprayed by thousands of frozen boulders made of ice and dust.

The collisions wiped out huge numbers of animal species all over the world, disrupted the lives of our stone age ancestors and triggered a freeze that lasted more than 1,000 years.

[…]

The change in climate caused retreating glaciers to advance once again, and coincided with the extinction of 35 families of North American mammals.

[…]

Professor Napier's theory suggests the devastation took place when the Earth strayed into a dense trail of fragments shed by a large comet.

Thousands of chunks of material from the comet would have rained down on Earth, each one releasing the energy of a one megaton nuclear bomb.

The impacts would have filled the atmosphere with smoke and soot and blotting out the Sun.

Prof Napier says a comet swooped into the inner solar system between 20,000 and 30,000 years ago and has been breaking apart ever since.

'A large comet has been disintegrating in the near-Earth environment for the past 20,000 to 30,000 years and running into thousands of fragments from this comet is a much more likely event than a single collision,' said Professor Napier.

Amazing and chilling.

More from Mail Online.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Big Love

Big Love Big Love, HBO’s series about polygamy, recently wrapped its fourth season, and it was its worst to date.

While at first I didn’t think I’d enjoy this show, I’ve come to love its intrigue, its fully-rounded characters, its rich story lines, and its high technical qualities.

The fourth season didn’t lack any of that, except for its basic seasonal arch, which this time around was fundamentally flawed.

In a nutshell, Bill Henrickson, the family patriarch, received something like an epiphany -- a sort of message from God -- that told him he had to run for political office and afterwards come out as a polygamist in order to show the world the “good side” of polygamy.

I didn’t buy it when they introduced it.  I didn’t buy it throughout the season.  And I didn’t buy it when the season ended with the family stepping into the light as a whole.

Why? Because the Henricksons had spent the previous three seasons trying their darnest to keep their secret from becoming widely known, all the while dealing with running a store chain, opening a casino, keeping their neighbors and in-laws at bay, and struggling to fend off the continuous influence, interference, and attacks of their religion’s Prophet and his compound’s followers.

And now, point blank, because of a vision (ok, Bill is very religious, but still he must realize what coming out could mean for him, his three wives, and his eight children), he bets all his chips on his state Senate run, throws his best friend under the bus, disregards his family’s fears and doubts, and keeps barreling down a path of destruction that can’t possibly bring him much good.

Nope.  Don’t buy it.

Anyway, I’m now curious to see what they’ll do next season, because, logically, Bill should get attacked by everyone, impeached, perhaps even removed from office.  His family business and ownings should be imperiled and suffer greatly.  His entire family should be ostracized.  And Margie should at least be investigated for trying to keep a foreign man in the country by marrying him when she was supposedly already married -- and therefore lied to the authorities.  If they don’t show us all that then they’ll totally ruin the brand.

My hope is that they will make the Henricksons fall hard till they hit bottom and then start picking up the pieces of their lives again, but I have my doubts.  I fear they’re going to try and make Bill’s stature as a politician not only work, but grow, which counters what would likely happen in reality.  After all, he broke the law, since polygamy is illegal, and flaunting it should have its consequences.

I guess we’ll have to wait and see, but the show is still great to watch and the acting is superb.  I’ll definitely be back for more.

Season 4 – Grade: 6

The Crazies

How could I possibly pass on the chance to gaze upon Timothy Olyphant on the big screen?

Timothy Olyphant 

Crazies_1-sheetmech_121509.inddThe Crazies is his latest project, a thriller in which he plays a sheriff whose town falls victim to a mysterious craziness that turns its heretofore law abiding citizens into rabid murderous maniacs.

The finished product is not a spectacular masterpiece, but it’s pretty good for the genre, which is a great accomplishment, considering that horror/thrillers often turn into comical or pitiful globs.

Acting, writing, direction, visual effects, and makeup are all quite good so I would recommend The Crazies to anyone who’s into this type of movie.

You certainly won’t be bored, and it might make you jump in your seat a couple times.

Grade: 7

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Shutter Island

Shutter Island Shutter Island represents Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio’s fourth collaboration.  DiCaprio has clearly become Scorsese’s new muse, a role previously held by Robert De Niro, with whom Scorsese made eight movies, from 1973’s Mean Streets to 1995’s Casino.

I enjoy Scorsese’s work because even if sometimes it’s a little heavy, drawn out, or convoluted, you can always see the touch of the masterful filmmaker behind it.  Shutter Island is no different.

DiCaprio plays a federal agent in charge of an investigation into the disappearance of a patient from a mental institution for criminals.  The prison/hospital is headed by an intense Ben Kingsley, who seems to obstruct DiCaprio and his partner (Mark Ruffalo) at every turn.  He’s aided in this by a very sinister Max von Sydow.

The cast includes more great performers, like Michelle Williams, Patricia Clarkson, Jackie Earle Haley, and John Carroll Lynch, so right away you know you’re in for a great ride.

The screenplay is well developed and serves up a few good twists that keep you on edge from the first tense scenes to the final catharsis.

Technically, the art direction and costumes are impeccable and the cinematography top notch.

I’d strongly recommend this very good thriller to any cinephile.

Grade: 8

Finger painting

Look at these two covers of The New Yorker magazine:

the new yorker 

Aren’t they beautiful?  Now watch how the one on the left was made:

Can you guess what tool was used to make the drawing?

An iPhone.  Isn’t that amazing?

Here’s a link where you can see more covers and view more videos.

They’re really quite incredible.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Free Willy

Picked by Daniel for our last Family Night, Free Willy was the first movie I ever saw ‘streamed’ over the internet by Netflix, which finally partnered with the Nintendo Wii to allow just that.

The experience was good.  The movie doesn’t stream fully but in chunks, meaning that every half hour or so it pauses for a few seconds to download the next segment, which can be annoying, but it’s so quick and the service is so convenient, I can’t complain.  The selection of titles is also quite large, and all well organized in a very user friendly interface.  My only gripe is that the family oriented movies are positioned right next to the horror ones, a choice I, as a parent, wouldn’t have made.

Back to Free Willy, this classic is enjoyable but not memorable.  The script is bare bones, the acting a little stale, and the direction feels amateurish at best.

The story: an orphan kid strikes a friendship with the unlikeliest of beings, a killer whale named Willy, who’s trapped in an aquarium and refuses to perform for its new owners.  It will however respond to the kid, who will try to save it when its life is in danger.

A very light fairytale with just enough heart and adventure to thrill the little ones and not completely bore their parents, but that has the ability to pull at your heart strings nonetheless.

Grade: 6

Caprica

Another new show, this one from Syfy, Caprica is the spin off of Battlestar Galactica, one of the best TV series I ever saw and one of the best sci-fi shows ever produced.  After such a premise, I had to at least check it out, but I’m still not completely sold.

caprica Caprica looks at the 12 colonies that were devastated by the Cylons in Battlestar Galactica some 50 years earlier, when Admiral Adama is still a young kid and the Cylons are nothing more then a prototype.

The producers stressed from the very beginning that this was not going to resemble its predecessor, and it doesn’t.  It’s a completely different kind of show.  There are several elements of sci-fi, but there are no sequences in space or epic battles, at least not so far.  On the other hand, while the show is based on the planet Caprica, other worlds are explored, although they have been virtual up to this point.

The acting is quite solid, especially from Eric Stoltz, Esai Morales, Paula Malcomson, and Polly Walker.  The scripts are good, the music by Bear McCreary is nice, and the art direction is absolutely great.  And yet, something doesn’t always click.

The thing I liked the least was the obviously conscious decision to switch between the Cylon and Zoe whenever other characters interact with it/her.  I can sort of understand the reasoning behind it, but I still feel jolted out of the story stream every time it happens.

The season 1 finale wasn’t as explosive and gripping as I had expected it either, so I think I will come back for season 2, but I don’t know for how long I’ll stick around.

Bonus points: one of the main characters, the uncle of future Admiral Adama, is gay, has a husband, and they are presented and treated just like any other character on the show.  A refreshing take for sure.

Season 1 – Grade: 7

Monday, April 19, 2010

Spartacus: Blood and Sand

A new Starz series, Spartacus: Blood and Sand had all the right elements needed to ensure I’d check it out. As you can see for yourselves:

spartacus3

spartacus1 Spartacus:  Blood and Sand; Episode 112; Revelation

So what about the actual show, you might ask? Well, it’s not bad. There is a lot of intrigue, edgy fighting sequences, sexiness and sexuality galore, great costumes, good art direction, and fair visual effects.

The acting is a bright spot, as virtually all characters do a good or very good job, and the writing is quite good, although at times uneven. And uneven was the whole series actually, so much so that I was doubting whether I’d return for season 2 to the very end.

Then, the season 1 finale threw a double punch when the show went where no other show had gone before (SPOILER ALERT!! SKIP TO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH) when they killed off half of the cast in an act of insurrection, getting rid of some of the best characters they had spent the season developing.

spartacus4It’s certainly not HBO’s Rome in terms of the overall quality, but it’s worth checking out if you like swords-and-sandals epic shows.

A final nod to the show’s star, Andy Whitfield, who’s recently been diagnosed with cancer. Hopefully he’ll be able to recover fully from his illness.

Season 1 – Grade: 7

Food, Inc.

food_inc A very interesting documentary about our food supply manipulation, Food, Inc. was nominated for a Best Documentary Academy Award this year.  It didn’t win, but its message surely won my attention.

As you would expect, it is incredibly interesting and an eye opener.  One of the biggest surprises for me was finding out that the farmers that don’t play ball with the multinationals that own pretty much the entire market actually struggle to survive.

It’s a must see for everyone.

Grade: 9

I’m also posting this picture of the 10 things you can do to help taking our food supply back from the brink of disaster.  Click to enlarge it.

food_inc2

Eyjafjallajokull

The volcano in Iceland responsible for grinding to a halt the air traffic over Europe, causing countless delays to travelers and losses to businesses (chiefly airlines -- to the tune of $200 million a day) is also providing some spectacular views:

APTOPIX Iceland Volcano 

More here.

“The Earth has opened up!”

That’s what the very stupid sensationalist Rush Limbaugh said regarding Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano’s eruption currently blocking the airspace over Europe.

But that’s not the best of it.  Listen to his clip:

Isn’t that the most asinine thing you ever heard?  I mean, that volcano isn’t even in the US.  How would God be punishing the US for passing health care legislation by blasting Europe, which is on the other side of the world, with ash from a volcano in Iceland?

Shouldn’t God’s punishment fall on the perpetrators?  And wouldn’t God actually be pleased that the poor are taken care of, millions more people will have health care, and thousands others won’t face financial ruin to pay hospital bills anymore?

Hmm…

Il Vecchio che Leggeva Romanzi d'Amore, by Luis SepĂºlveda

Il Vecchio che Leggeva Romanzi d'AmoreFinally an audio book in Italian whose quality - both technical and artistic - was up to par with the average English titles I’ve read.

SepĂºlveda’s novel (The Old Man Who Read Love Stories) is both funny and tense.  The old man of the title lives in a mostly still pristine part of the world, the ever shrinking edge of the fascinating Amazon forest, where he leads a quiet life in the company of the books he’s able to find via a trusted friend.

While dealing with a current problem in the village, we’re recounted parts of his very adventurous life that led him to be the man he is today.

I enjoyed this short novel very much.  This old man cherishing his books made me want to read even more.

Grade: 8

The Hurt Locker

the-hurt-locker The Hurt Locker was the big winner at this year’s Academy Awards, taking home trophies for Best Picture, Director, Editing, Sound, Sound Editing, and Writing.  In the process, it beat out a swelled roster of 9 films nominated for Best Picture that included the behemoth that was Avatar.  It also won almost every major award leading up to the Oscars.

The Hurt Locker opens a narrow window on the ongoing war in Iraq, specifically on the group of soldiers tasked with defusing explosive devices aimed at crippling the US troops efforts to win the war.

This is one of those movies that keep you on edge from the opening sequence all the way to the closing one, so I’m very glad it won for editing.  Same goes for directing, which had the added benefit of finally awarding a woman director (Kathryn Bigelow) for the first time in the 80+ years of the Oscars.

The screenplay is good and slim, and it creates a tense environment in which the actors are able to display their talents.  Jeremy Renner in particular is very intense as the seemingly fearless guy that faces any new bomb threat head on.  Only when we see him with his son do we get a glimpse of what drives him and likely many others who volunteer to serve in the Army.

Am I glad that The Hurt Locker won top honors?  Overall, yes.  Because it is a movie that leaves its mark, has a story to tell and tells it well, and is very well made.  True, it didn’t have the larger-than-life quality displayed by Avatar, but that shouldn’t be the criteria that determines the winner, otherwise blockbusters would routinely beat out smaller, more artistically oriented films.

Grade: 8

Friday, April 16, 2010

Blessing

A beautiful song sung by RJ Helton, a former contestant on American Idol:

Defeating AIDS

Sounds nice but seems impossible right?  Especially after years and years of research for a vaccine that have still not borne any fruit.

Well, a scientist thinks that vaccine or not, we could eradicate the disease in a relatively short amount of time, if only we decided to act – and spend the money to do it.

From The Independent:

Testing everyone at risk of HIV and treating them with anti-retroviral drugs could eradicate the global epidemic within 40 years, according to the scientist at the centre of a radical new approach to fighting Aids.

An aggressive programme of prescribing anti-retroviral treatment (ART) to every person infected with HIV could stop all new infections in five years and eventually wipe out the epidemic, said Brian Williams of the South African Centre for Epidemiological Modelling and Analysis.

Dr Williams is part of a growing body of experts who believe that anti-HIV drugs are probably the best hope of preventing and even eliminating the spread of Aids, rather than waiting for the development of an effective vaccine or relying solely on people changing their sexual lifestyle.

[…]

"Our immediate best hope is to use ART not only to save lives but also to reduce transmission of HIV. I believe if we used ART drugs we could effectively stop transmission of HIV within five years," Dr Williams said. "It may be possible to stop HIV transmission and halve Aids-related TB within 10 years and eliminate both infections within 40 years," he told the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Diego, California.

Anti-retroviral drugs dramatically lower the concentration of HIV within a person's bloodstream, and, in addition to protecting patients against Aids, they significantly lower an individual's infectiousness – their ability to transmit the virus to another person.

Dr Williams and his supporters believe that if enough infected people are treated, it would lower the rate of infection to such an extent that the epidemic would die out within the lifetime of those undergoing the treatment. Aids could effectively be wiped out by the middle of this century, he said.

[…]

A study published in 2008 showed that it is theoretically possible to cut new HIV cases by 95 per cent, from a prevalence of 20 per 1,000 to 1 per 1,000, within 10 years of implementing a programme of universal testing and prescription of ART drugs.

"Each person with HIV infects, on average, one person every one or two years. Since people with HIV, and without treatment, live for an average of 10 years after infection, each person with HIV infects about five to 10 people," Dr Williams said. "Treating people with ART within about one year of becoming infected would reduce transmission by about 10 times. Each person with HIV would infect, on average, less than one other person and the epidemic would die out."

ART drugs have to be taken on a daily basis for life, and the cost for South Africa alone would be about $4bn (£2.6bn) per year. However, Dr Williams said that the cost of having to treat a growing number of Aids patients, as well as the economic cost of young adults dying off, would be higher than giving out free ART drugs to everyone who needs them.

"The key issue of cost is that if you don't do anything it costs you a lot of money. In South Africa we spend a lot of money on people who are hospitalised with infections related to HIV," Dr Williams said. "More importantly, we are killing young adults in the prime of their life just when they should be contributing to society. The cost to society of that is enormous.

"If you factor all of the costs into the equation then, in my opinion, doing this is a cost saving from day one because the cost of the drugs will be more than outweighed by the costs of treating all of these people with other diseases," he said. "A friend of mine said that the only thing that is more expensive than doing this is not doing this."

A full-scale clinical trial is to begin in Africa.  Let’s hope it’s successful and the calls to expand it grow exponentially.

The Lord of the Rings

Following my good friend Vittorio's lead, I too post this super trailer that encompasses the entire trilogy of J.R.R. Tolkien’s world famous work, which has become my most beloved cinematic achievement.

A beautiful video that only makes me long to watch Peter Jackson’s masterpiece for the umpteenth time.

A change of attitudes

You want to know why virtually every religious institution is hell bent on demonizing gays and lesbians?  Because the more people get to know us, the more they realize there’s nothing wrong with us.

Read this, from Unreasonable Faith:

The Pact

By Daniel Florien on April 5, 2010 in Articles, Christianity, Fundamentalism, Sexuality.

“If you become a homosexual, I’ll kill you. If I become a homosexual, you’ll kill me.”

I had forgotten about those terrible words until a friend reminded me of it. We made that pact together in high school, when we were young evangelicals with a “zeal for Christ.” We were bible-toting, Jesus-shirt wearing, tract-giving, church-obsessed dumbasses. Like all dumbasses, we believed what we were told without skepticism. And, as extremists, we would go great lengths to win the approval of God and men.

Our friendly Baptist mega-church taught that homosexuality was an abominable sin. People were not born gay — it was a lifestyle choice that was a result of their rebellion and hatred of God. It was “disgusting” and “unnatural.”

We were told that “the homos” were trying to turn Christian children gay by brainwashing them at public school functions. They were child molesters and should never be left alone with children —and to let them adopt would be the worst thing imaginable.

“God doesn’t hate the sinner,” we would say, “He only hates the sin.” But the distinction didn’t really matter, and God would send them to hell unless they repented of their evil homosexual ways.

We swallowed this whole. We never even thought to question it. The Bible said it, our leaders taught it, our parents believed it, and the congregation followed it.

My hatred of homosexuality finally subsided when I began questioning the Bible — the ultimate source of my hatred. Without the Bible, there was no reason to hate homosexuality. It was a natural desire, and though I didn’t have that desire myself, I wouldn’t want to be persecuted if I did. It didn’t hurt anyone and in fact made people happy. It was not rational to oppose it.

Now both my friend and I are both vocal supporters of gay rights — and that means other people just as crazy as us can turn around too.

Not so long ago, fundamentalists opposed equal rights for blacks and fought hard for segregation. Jerry Falwell once said, “The true Negro does not want integration. He realizes his potential is far better among his own race.”

But in the end, they came around. The moral progress of secular values prevailed and they were forced to change. Unfortunately their bigotry remained and they targeted gays instead — but that will change too. Our moral progress continues and soon it will be as natural for some people to be gay as it is to be black or white.

And maybe this time the fundamentalists will turn their attention to persecuting real evils, instead of their fellow human beings.

Congratulations to Daniel.  Let’s hope that many more people start looking at us using their own minds instead of blindly following others.

I guess we should just hope that many more people begin questioning the Bible and the motives behind the hatred of their religious leaders.

Obama comes through on an important matter

The President has ordered that no hospital will be allowed to deny visitation rights to gays and lesbians in their moment of need.  This move is hugely important and very welcomed.

From The Washington Post:

President Obama mandated Thursday that nearly all hospitals extend visitation rights to the partners of gay men and lesbians and respect patients' choices about who may make critical health-care decisions for them, perhaps the most significant step so far in his efforts to expand the rights of gay Americans.

[..]

Administration officials and gay activists, who have been quietly working together on the issue, said the new rule will affect any hospital that receives Medicare or Medicaid funding, a move that covers the vast majority of the nation's health-care institutions. Obama's order will start a rule-making process at HHS that could take several months, officials said.

Hospitals often bar visitors who are not related to an incapacitated patient by blood or marriage, and gay rights activists say many do not respect same-sex couples' efforts to designate a partner to make medical decisions for them if they are seriously ill or injured.

[…]

Obama's memo to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius orders the development of new rules to ensure that hospitals "respect the rights of patients to designate visitors" and to choose the people who will make medical decisions on their behalf.

[…]

In the memo, Obama said hospitals should not be able to deny visitation privileges on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

"Every day, all across America, patients are denied the kindnesses and caring of a loved one at their sides whether in a sudden medical emergency or a prolonged hospital stay," he wrote.

Affected, he said, are "gay and lesbian Americans who are often barred from the bedsides of the partners with whom they may have spent decades of their lives -- unable to be there for the person they love, and unable to act as a legal surrogate if their partner is incapacitated."

Today is a good day for us.

Thank you Mr. President.

The Pope is a criminal

With the number of child sex abuse cases exploding all over the world it angers (but doesn’t surprise) me that the Church tries to blame it all on the gays.  After all, they need a scapegoat right?

Let’s leave alone for a minute the fact that homosexuality and pedophilia are not linked at all as the Church would want us to believe.

The bottom line is that this institution’s “employees” (the priests) committed crimes against powerless children that scarred them for life and all their superiors did was hide the crimes, silence the victims with fear and shame, and move the perpetrators around to avoid them being caught.

Any CEO of any company that found itself in the same position would have already resigned in shame.  Furthermore, any CEO who did as a manager anything similar to what the Pope did when he was a Cardinal, would face criminal charges and would have been immediately ousted by the directors’ board (the College of Cardinals).

Am I the only one who thinks the Pope should admit that the Church covered up its priests’ misdeeds to save face, offer up compensation for the victims, request that all those responsible be defrocked, arrested and punished, and finally resign his post?

From Huffington Post:

The future Pope Benedict XVI resisted pleas to defrock a California priest with a record of sexually molesting children, citing concerns including "the good of the universal church," according to a 1985 letter bearing his signature.

The correspondence, obtained by The Associated Press, is the strongest challenge yet to the Vatican's insistence that Benedict played no role in blocking the removal of pedophile priests during his years as head of the Catholic Church's doctrinal watchdog office.

The letter, signed by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was typed in Latin and is part of years of correspondence between the diocese of Oakland and the Vatican about the proposed defrocking of the Rev. Stephen Kiesle, who pleaded no contest to misdemeanors involving child molestation in 1978.

[…]

The diocese recommended removing Kiesle (KEEZ'-lee) from the priesthood in 1981, the year Ratzinger was appointed to head the Vatican office that shared responsibility for disciplining abusive priests.

The case then languished for four years at the Vatican before Ratzinger finally wrote to Oakland Bishop John Cummins. It was two more years before Kiesle was removed; during that time he continued to do volunteer work with children through the church.

In the November 1985 letter, Ratzinger says the arguments for removing Kiesle were of "grave significance" but added that such actions required very careful review and more time. He also urged the bishop to provide Kiesle with "as much paternal care as possible" while awaiting the decision, according to a translation for AP by Professor Thomas Habinek, chairman of the University of Southern California Classics Department.

[…]

The future pope also noted that any decision to defrock Kiesle must take into account the "good of the universal church" and the "detriment that granting the dispensation can provoke within the community of Christ's faithful, particularly considering the young age." Kiesle was 38 at the time.

Kiesle had been sentenced in 1978 to three years' probation after pleading no contest to misdemeanor charges of lewd conduct for tying up and molesting two young boys in a San Francisco Bay area church rectory.

[…]

As his probation ended in 1981, Kiesle asked to leave the priesthood and the diocese submitted papers to Rome to defrock him.

In his earliest letter to Ratzinger, Cummins warned that returning Kiesle to ministry would cause more of a scandal than stripping him of his priestly powers.

"It is my conviction that there would be no scandal if this petition were granted and that as a matter of fact, given the nature of the case, there might be greater scandal to the community if Father Kiesle were allowed to return to the active ministry," Cummins wrote in 1982.

[…]

More than a half-dozen victims reached a settlement in 2005 with the Oakland diocese alleging Kiesle had molested them as young children.

"He admitted molesting many children and bragged that he was the Pied Piper and said he tried to molest every child that sat on his lap," said Lewis VanBlois, an attorney for six Kiesle victims who interviewed the former priest in prison. "When asked how many children he had molested over the years, he said 'tons.'"

[…]

"When he (Ratzinger) took over I think he was following what was the practice of the time, that Pope John Paul was slowing these things down. You didn't just walk out of the priesthood then," Cummins said.

"These things were slow and their idea of thoroughness was a little more than ours. We were in a situation that was hands-on, with personal reaction."

Documents obtained by the AP last week revealed similar instances of Vatican stalling in cases involving two Arizona clergy.

Yes, you read that right.  The same guy they’re now trying to make a saint, Pope John Paul, was just as involved in the conspiracy as everyone else.  He was no saint after all.

Sickening.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Logorama

When I saw the clip from this short at the recent Academy Awards I didn’t think much of it, but then I saw the whole thing and I was blown away.

It’s pretty awesome, especially considering that they used only corporate logos to make it.

Monday, April 12, 2010

A Serious Man

a-serious-manThe latest offering from the Coen brothers, A Serious Man takes us to the Midwest where a Jewish professor is about to experience several life altering occurrences.

While this movie has a completely different tone from their recent masterpiece, No Country for Old Men, I found it quite enjoyable. Writing and direction are good and the acting is excellent on the part of the whole cast.

The Coen brothers’ movies are always quite quirky, and this time the quirkiness starts right away with the opening clip that doesn’t relate to the movie itself but rather is tasked with setting the tone for what is to follow. In the brothers’ own words, it’s an homage to a time when movies always featured an introductory short, kind of like what Pixar does with all it’s movies.

I’d definitely recommend it for those who like the Coen brothers’ work, but it’s a movie anyone can enjoy while observing how this one man reacts to what’s happening to him and the people around him.

A Serious Man was also nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award, although it certainly snuck in thanks to the suddenly widened field of nominations to ten from the previous five.

Grade: 8

Friday, April 02, 2010

Veloce Come la Notte, by Jonathan Ames

veloce come la notte This book (original title “I Pass Like Night”) is considered a contemporary classic and I honestly cannot understand why.

It is part autobiography, part fiction and it’s a collection of short snippets into the life of this New Yorker who seems to be trying to find himself while going through life in the city that never sleeps.

The stories are occasionally funny and exciting, but as a whole I wasn’t too impressed with the book.  I guess reading it in little chunks spread out overtime didn’t help either.

Maybe the reason I’m not crazy about the book has something to do with the fact that I didn’t particularly care for the protagonist himself.  Whether he got what he wanted or not, I wasn’t rooting for a particular outcome and I felt like he wasn’t fighting one way or the other either.

You can skip this one.

Grade: 5