A Quote By

Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State, marking LGBT Pride month:

"The struggle for equality is never, ever finished. And it is rarely easy, despite how self-evident it should be. But the hardest-fought battles often have the biggest impact. So I hope that each and every one of us will recommit ourselves to building a future in which every person – every, single person can live in dignity, free from violence, free to be themselves, free to live up to their God-given potential wherever they live and whoever they are."

Sickening data

I always felt that the estimates of how much oil was flowing into the Gulf of Mexico were grossly underestimated (and I still feel like they might be).
Now the picture is coming into more focus:

A government panel on Tuesday again raised its estimate of the oil escaping from BP’s out-of-control well, to as much as 60,000 barrels a day. The new estimates, made since a damaged riser was cut on June 3, mean that roughly 2.5 million gallons of oil are spilling into the Gulf of Mexico every day, and that an amount equal to the Exxon Valdez spill could be gushing from the well about every four days.

Sickening.

How is your Gaydar?

It looks like there might be a scientific explanation behind gay people’s innate ability to spot like-minded folks out there in the cold, hard world:

"Gaydar," that innate ability gay people supposedly have to zero in on other gays even in a crowd, may really exist.

When Dutch scientists examined how heterosexual and homosexual people focus their attention, they discovered gays are much more detail-oriented.

When the men and women were presented with similar questions about the pictures they had been shown, the straight volunteers answered faster but were less accurate. The gay men and women, on the other hand, were slower to answer but were right more of the time, especially when they were asked about the smaller shapes.

This suggests they are able to hone in on even very small details as well as the bigger picture, according to the research, which appeared in the journal Frontiers in Cognition. In gays' daily routine, researchers believe, this close attention to detail could help them to detect others' sexual preferences.

"This is the first time that scientific proof has been found for the existence of a gaydar mechanism amongst homosexuals," researcher Dr. Lorenza Colzato of Leiden University in the Netherlands told the Daily Mail. "This perceptual skill allows homosexuals to recognize other gay people faster and we think it's because they are much more analytic than heterosexuals."

People who are naturally more perceptive and detail-oriented may have a greater chance of picking up on subtle clues in other people that they may be homosexual, which makes it easier for them to search out gay friends and sexual partners, the study found.

Sounds about right.

Cat’s Eye

I watched this movie because it was written by Stephen King, whose books I like very much, and was hoping it wouldn’t be as terrible as some of the movie adaptations of his works have been.  Fortunately, it wasn’t too bad, although it showcased the production values of a made-for-TV movie.

Cat’s Eye is split into three separate stories whose connecting thread is a cat that appears in all three.  Other than that, the three stories have nothing in common.

Some big names star in each tale, like Drew Barrymore, James Woods and Robert Hays, but no one really stands out.

The three tales are fairly interesting but only minimally scary.  The first one is somewhat undermined by Woods’ theatricality, which I’m not a fan of, but you can clearly see King’s mark on it.  The second one is interesting for gauging how far King would actually bring it (the answer is pretty far).  The last one is the only one dealing with a “creature,” but thankfully it’s made fairly well, so it doesn’t suck, although it’s the weakest of the three.

It’s fine for some light viewing on a “night in” but can be easily overlooked.

Grade: 6

Inglourious Basterds

Full disclosure: I’m not a fan of Quentin Tarantino.  He is revered as some kind of cinematic genius, so maybe I just don’t get him, but his work is, in my opinion, hit or miss and had steadily worsened.

While I liked both Reservoir Dogs (his first movie) and Pulp Fiction (the one that propelled him to the A-list) I hated Kill Bill: Vol. 1 so much that I didn’t bother watching Vol. 2 (a rarity for me) and I skipped the poorly reviewed Grindhouse.  I never saw Jackie Brown, which earned good reviews and I’ll watch it at some point, but I couldn’t pass on Inglourious Basterds, given the stellar reviews, good word of mouth and Best Picture Oscar nomination.

Fortunately, Basterds is a pretty good movie, even though there were a couple things that rubbed me the wrong way.  Take Til Schweiger’s character’s introduction, when big, yellow letters are superimposed over his image, on film, like you’d see in a comic book.  I’m sorry, I don’t care if someone thinks that’s part of his “genius,” it just looks odd and silly to me.  It stands out like and eyesore.

At any rate, the script is good and original, especially for taking the liberty to rewrite history on how World War II ended.  That, I grant you, is quite genial, particularly because it’s so unexpected.

Brad Pitt and Diane Kruger do a pretty good job, but it’s Christoph Waltz and Mélanie Laurent that steal the show every time they are on screen.  Waltz very deservedly won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, even though I’m pretty sure he gets more screen time than Pitt himself, who got top billing.

Technically, the movie is impeccable.  Costumes, art direction, set decoration, cinematography and editing are all great and the score is good too.

Overall, a good movie and another winner for Tarantino (who unfortunately just announced he’s making Kill Bill: Vol. 3 … )

Grade: 8

Splice

Splice tells the story of what can happen when humans decide to “play God” by toying with life forms and creating new living beings.

Given that genetic engineering has already been successfully used with different breeds of animals (the first one was Dolly the sheep) what happens in this movie isn’t that hypothetical.  As a matter of fact, while there are strict bans on some kinds of genetic engineering (specifically, anything dealing with human DNA) in the US and Europe, I can totally picture a multinational running these experiments somewhere in the world where they can escape prying eyes as well as ethical and legal checks.

The gist: two very young and brilliant scientists splice together the genetic material collected from different species’ DNA to create a creature that has the best characteristics of each species.  The goal is a creature that could in turn help discover new types of medicines and compounds that could generate billions for the company paying for the research.

When the couple are told that their work needs to become profitable or their research will be shut down, they decide to buck the ethical dilemmas and secretly splice together human and animal DNA.  The experiment gives birth to Dren, a female creature that displays traits from all the creatures whose DNA was spliced together.

The movie is just average but is ultimately sufficiently enjoyable.  The problem I had was that it required the audience to suspend its disbelief a bit too much.  For instance, while one of the two scientists isn’t fully on board with crossing the ethical divide, he never does anything of substance to slow the process down or put a stop to it, in spite of the dangers that anyone could easily imagine.

Other things were too far fetched or too convenient as well, which in the end brought the overall grade down.  Technically, the movie is very well made.  Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley are both good, but it’s Delphine Chanéac who shines in the part of Dren, helped in no small part by the excellent makeup and visual effects.

I read that because of the recent writers’ strike in Hollywood, a lot of scripts were cursorily greenlit simply to ensure that the market wouldn’t dry up and that a steady stream of films would hit theaters.  Given the fact that the script seems a little rushed, I’d venture to say that this is one of those half baked movies approved as fillers.

Anyway, Splice is a generic enough movie that it can be easily watched on DVD or skipped altogether.

Grade: 6

The Pacific

This HBO miniseries was another terrific production by the Tom Hanks-Steven Spielberg team, following their excellent Band of Brothers.

While Brothers told the story of a platoon fighting the Germans in Europe, Pacific tells the story of the Marines’ First Division, who valiantly fought the Japanese in many key battles on several islands of the Pacific Ocean.

While both wars were horrible, the guys fighting in the Pacific got very little respite.  While the troops fighting in Europe had Paris to look forward to, the islands in the Pacific offered no such “appealing target,” adding to the dampening mood.

The Japanese were also a nastier enemy than the Germans, refusing to surrender even when they clearly had no chance of winning.  Their suicidal attacks kept the American soldiers always on edge.  As despicable as the dropping of 2 nuclear bombs over heavily populated cities was, it seems like such drastic action was the only thing that would have broken the will of the Japanese to never surrender.

The format of each episode follows that of Brothers, opening with real surviving veterans talking about what it was really like without revealing their names, thereby making us wonder who will make it out alive in the end.

I loved both miniseries, but I found Pacific to be much more emotionally engaging, perhaps because of the ongoing debate on repealing “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” the discriminatory law that forces honorable gays and lesbians out of the military if their sexual orientation becomes known.  With what these people voluntarily put themselves through in order to serve their country, how could any sane military leader think it wise and smart to get rid of them is beyond my comprehension.

The show is top notch on every aspect: writing, acting, costumes, makeup, visual effects, score, and direction.

Overall, a must see, especially in times like these, when the US is fighting two wars and at least one of them is totally illegitimate.

Grade: 10

The cost of war

War’s worst effect is clearly the loss of life, but the monetary cost can have its consequences as well, even on a country as rich as the United States.

The wars in the Middle East have now cost the US Treasury over $1 trillion:

The cost of the United States' wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have cost taxpayers more than one trillion dollars, a Massachusetts nonprofit said Sunday, marking a grim milestone on the eve of the Memorial Day holiday.

The group, National Priorities Project, conveyed the size of US war spending by highlighting other things that could have been bought with the money. For example, for the price of America's two wars, the US could give $5,500 in Pell grants to all of America's 19 million college students for the next nine years. One trillion would also pay the entire healthcare bill for 294 million people, or 440 million children, the group says.

What Can You Get For $1 Trillion?

* Federal Funding For Higher Education -- $1 trillion would give the maximum Pell Grant award ($5,500) to all 19 million U.S. college and university students for the next 9 years.

* 294,734,961 people with health care for one year, or

* 21,598,789 public safety officers for one year, or

* 17,149,392 music and arts teachers for one year, or

* 7,779,092 affordable housing units, or

* 440,762,472 children with health care for one year, or

* 137,233,969 head start places for children for one year, or

* 16,427,497 elementary school teachers for one year, or

* 1,035,282,468 homes with renewable electricity for one year

The article didn’t have a count for the loss of life, but I do believe that between 4,000 and 5,000 members of the military have been lost between the two wars.

The amount money spent wasted is enraging and outrageous.  The loss of life, however, is the saddest thing of all.

BP’s devastation on wildlife

The oil has now reached the Florida Panhandle and the source of the spill is still pouring around 10,000 barrels of oil in the ocean each day.

The latest attempt to ‘contain’ the spill partially worked, so now BP is actually collecting around 10,000 barrels of oil a day rather than losing them to the ocean forever, because we all know that in the end they don’t want to close the well for good, they just want to get the oil out to sell it.

And the first images of the catastrophe (and the first hints of BP’s attempts to hide their mess) are bubbling to the surface like that foul oil:

"When we found this dolphin it was filled with oil. Oil was just pouring out of it. It was the saddest darn thing to look at," said a BP contract worker who took the Daily News on a surreptitious tour of the wildlife disaster unfolding in Louisiana.

His motive: simple outrage.

"There is a lot of coverup for BP. They specifically informed us that they don't want these pictures of the dead animals. They know the ocean will wipe away most of the evidence. It's important to me that people know the truth about what's going on here," the contractor said.

The grasses by the shore were littered with tarred marine life, some dead and others struggling under a thick coating of crude.

"When you see some of the things I've seen, it would make you sick," the contractor said. "No living creature should endure that kind of suffering."

The uninhabited barrier islands are surrounded by yellow floating booms, also stained black, that are supposed to keep the oil out. It's not working.

"That grass was green a few weeks ago," the contractor said. "Now look. ... This whole island is destroyed. How do you write a check for something like this?"

He said he recently found five turtles drowning in oil.

BP's central role in the disaster cleanup has apparently given the company a lot of latitude in keeping the press away from beaches where the oil is thickest.

And this is what BP’s gift to humanity looks like:

 

Finally, a sobering video:

Heart wrenching.

Jupiter the cleaner

The biggest planet in the Solar system functions as our biggest protector, sweeping up all sorts of debris and deflecting potential threats in the form of asteroids and meteors thanks to its massive size and gravity.

Last week, it performed its duties once more:

On the third week of July 1994, comet Shoemaker-Levy crashed into Jupiter's fiery atmosphere. NASA says that another "mystery space object" hit during the same week but 15 years later, leaving a bruise as big as the Pacific Ocean.

Judging by the series of images taken by Hubble's newly-installed Wide Field Camera 3, the current theory is that the object was a 1,600-foot wide asteroid. Analysis of the angle and size of the bruise reveals that the mystery object possibly came from the Hilda belt, a group of 1,100 asteroids orbiting near Jupiter.

Now take a look at the image above and at the detail of the black ‘scar’ caused by the impact.  That little dot you see is the size of the Pacific Ocean.

Now picture Earth right next to Jupiter.

You can close your mouth now.