Today/night:

Like most of the country, I have sat by horrified and deeply saddened by the incident that took place at Ft. Hood last week.  I have been further saddened by how Major Hasan has been portrayed as some fundamentalist Muslim on a religious mission of some sorts and the ensuing death threats against Muslims in the Ft. Hood area.  Whatever the reasons motivating Maj. Hasan, of which I am sure there were many, none of them justify further killing or threats of any kind.  Hate begets hate.  If we all, or even a few of us, respond to this incident by targeting Muslims because one of them made a horrendous decision not in line with their faith, the chasm will grow and more horrible incidents will ensue.  As Ghandi said, an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

So, I am writing to propose a way to refocus those energies and to respond to the situation with love.  Show our troops some love and get yourself educated on S.1963 - the Caregivers and Veterans Omnibus Health Services Act of 2009.  The goal of the bill is to increase mental health services to veterans.  Our veterans are suffering tremendously and the VA, and the rest of the country for that matter, are woefully ill-equipped to manage the severity of the problem.  We are sending these people out on multiple deployments in a war zone unlike any other before.  Whatever your political take on the wars, I think we can all agree that we need to take care of our veterans.  I support this bill, but encourage everyone to do their own homework on it.

If you discover you support it, please call Senator Coburn's office and ask him to remove the hold from the bill.  He alone is preventing the bill from leaving committee and reaching the Senate floor for a vote.  The Committee on Veterans' Affairs has a statement about it here.  Senator Coburn has his rebuttal  here.  If you believe the bill should be supported, please call your senators and ask them to support it.  If you don't know how to contact your senators, go here.

I have hesitated for some time to post this because too often well-intentioned posts about how to offer support to our troops get thread-jacked by those wanting to debate the validity of the wars.  I am the daughter of a veteran who served in two wars and I am proud of my dad's service.  I am also a flaming liberal who vehemently opposes the wars.  If I can separate the soldier from the action, then you can, too, and I respectfully ask you to do so here.  If you want to say anything hateful, discriminatory, or negative, please make your own post.  I don't post publicly very often because it's easier to deal with my small community.  But, our troops are part of the larger community and we ALL need to come together to support them.  It isn't enough to put a ribbon on the back of your car and wear an American flag pin.  The heart of our country is action and I am asking you to take some positive action today to help support our troops and turn the events at Ft. Hood into a forceful, positive response from the country in support of our combat veterans.  Many thanks.

Not that my proclivity towards nigh-arrogant ranting and circuitous introspection demands any apologies*, but I realized this weekend there are some significant though well-concealed advantages to being a self-absorbed navel-gazer.

You’re going to need me to back that one up, aren’t you?

OK, let’s start with this brilliantly clever circle graph that received its fifteen minutes of fame when it landed on the front page of HuffPo last Friday.

To some, this may seem like an outright insult to Christians on a national level. To others, it comes off… well, it comes off exactly the same way; it’s just that this group of people delights in the insult instead of taking offense to it. It’s why we have wars, you know.

But what if the philosophical implications of this graphic are deeper than either of those cramped assumptions? Isn’t it possible the obvious joke is only there as an appetizer for your brain? Could there be something beyond the glib comparison of three movie monsters to the Messiah?

And if I can get you to see what I’m pointing at, can I then use the same similes and metaphors to confuse things and diminish the entire thing back down to a trite GraphJam entry?

Only one way to find out, I guess.

So anyway, being an artist by profession, I have an appreciation for color that perhaps my non-creative friends lack. Nevertheless, most people who see the above image would take note, albeit to varying degrees, of what could potentially be the most significant aspect of the illustration: that the hues change tint as they overlap. Oh sure, it’s done primarily to distinguish the individual circles while avoiding the clutter of each circle having a black stroke around it. But if we’re willing to assume a respectable level of intelligence for the graphic artist, we can very easily contrive some other, more important symbolism in this design.

For example, considering the person’s artistic nature, we can decide that the three circles are a subliminal color-mixing palette. Voila! Instant Philosophical Proposition! We are now conveniently positioned to make the symbol represent whatever we want simply by piously stating, “The final question is this: do you see God as additive or subtractive?”

The beautiful cleverness of this is that we’ve now opened up the argument for what defines something as additive and what makes something subtractive. Further applying these parameters to an omnipotent being keeps the idea immortal by giving rise to mutually exclusive factions, each with its own specialized and unequivocal interpretation of the image.

The Three-Circle Purists say the underlying message merely reinforces the graphic’s original idea that God is the culmination of all monstrosities to the point of becoming the blackest monster of them all. They refer to the very manner in which the tints darken as they progress towards Jesus Christ as their evidence. Declaring him to be a subtractive deity, they give God the name “Simmik” (spelled cmyk) and dub him the Bringer of Blackness.

The Paradoxicals, however, insist that the diagram represents Jesus’ tendency to spend the majority of his ministry in the presence of the most misguided, baleful sinners and that the choice of colors is intended as a subtle testament to that necessary irony. They claim repeatedly – almost to the point of recitation – that it is light from which God and all good things are born and thus, just like light, God must be additive, To them, the completeness of God results in a clean, perfect whiteness. He is given the title “Regrebloo the Pure”. Countless hymns are composed rejoicing in the promise of that glorious day when all colors will come together to form the most perfect White.

Of course, the cynical 3-CPs are all over that with shouts of racism and accusations of a religiously driven eugenic agenda. Science fiction novels begin to be regularly presented as oracular tomes. PK Dick and Isaac Asimov become revered as great prophets.

The Doxies then issue a collective sardonic snort by taking out full-page ads and erecting billboards likening fundamentalist 3-C doctrine to that of the Church of Scientology, citing as fact the very arguable notion that L. Ron Hubbard was also a science fiction author. This campaign fails miserably, however, as does their droll attempt to humiliate their adversaries by referring to them as “C-3POs”.

The battle rages for decades. Nonsensical self-help books emerge with titles like I, Robot. U Can’t Subtract! and Paradoxicals Do It With Guile. Passion becomes petulance and devotion turns into duress. A purist menacingly holds a 2x4 like a baseball bat and a doxie pulls his handgun…

Then, only after countless lives have been lost to the argument, does the illustration’s creator (by now aged 106) finally issue a public statement declaring that he is, in point of fact, completely colorblind.

And just like that, the sum of time and energy dedicated to either side of the debate is fully devalued. All the stock placed in both ideals is instantly obliterated. Every measure of strength and motivation imbued by the conflict is just as effectively depleted.

There was really never anything more to the illustration than an insensitive jape…

…right?

*In fact, some people actually like that sort of thing. I simply provide a service – an abrasive but oddly arousing service. So do hookers, but unlike a prostitute, I service you free of charge.

We visited the Berkshires this weekend, it was lovely. We grabbed some lattes, looked for hiking clothes and ate at a small-town pub after.  The region is more mountainous and forested than our region, the Valley.

We drove past an incredible home. It was white with silver shutters, and it was traditional yet semi-modern. I wish I knew the name of house styles so I could have identified it.  

We have a creative artist neighbor who does sidewalk chalk art every day. One guy calls it "The Gallery" because we all see her fabulous drawings when we walk to the breakfast place on weekends. I'm looking forward to having more artistic space on our new property.

People in the Berkshires live a much more cozy lifestyle, the forests are right outside their windows, along with the rushing river and mountains. Fireplaces and faux-fur hiking boots in mudrooms are the norm.

I found a cool example of a modern home, south-facing windows, in Natural-Home Magazine. It's a Zen Ranch Colorado Straw Bale Home. I'd love a place like this!

We shopped for hiking boots this weekend, I overheard the funniest conversation. A woman and her mom were trying on some clothes, lamented that the sizes were all wrong.

"These clothes aren't made for American women. (Looks at label) See? 'Made in India'. Women over there are made differently. That's why all our jobs are gone, because the were all sent over there".

I had to laugh. Haven't we gotten a grip on a global economy yet? When will we get with the program? Other countries have a prospering population, universal health care. Other nations are united to solve climate change issues. Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands allow gay marriage.

There's an exceptional article in the Boston Globe this week called Why Fundamentalism will fail.

In Christianity, the fastest-growing wing of the church is the Pentecostal/Charismatic wave...accounting for one in every four Christians. One writer has called them “main street mystics.” Among Muslims, it is the gentle but ecstatic Sufi version that is growing fastest, not the suicide bomber cults. All these movements...represent a fatal threat to fundamentalism.

 

Surveys have shown that the rapid growth of evangelical Protestantism in Latin America has not produced a replication of the American religious right, but rather a moderate leftward tilt. A majority of Brazilian evangelicals, for example, voted for President Lula, who ran as a Workers Party candidate.

ANOTHER REASON WHY fundamentalists are faltering today has to do with the world outside. The fundamentalist world view is unbending and monochrome, but today’s world is variable and multi-hued, and the plurality is more and more visible. children live every day with a heightened, web-enhanced awareness of a diverse world.

I'm encouraged to hear this. Because while the far right-wing may be making a lot of noise, they are clearly in the minority. They've even caused some Republicans to switch parties - and I'm a huge supporter of the Working Party. 

I don't think it's about being the loudest, I do think it's about forming communities.  

 

As we all know, real change takes time. News reports are saying today that the single-payer health care plan is off the table. The real news is, it's a very hot topic. It has energy. Thousands of grassroots organizations and nurses are supporting the idea.

Bernie Sanders is introductiong S703 to Healh Care Reform.

Please write to the White House and support Universal Health Care for the 37 to 47 million Americans without insurance. It will save us money! And tell them we want the bill delayed if it doesn't have one.

Star Trek: The Motion Pictures

Watching the original series Star Trek films on DVD was like rediscovering them for the first time.  Not only did they look great, but on DVD we get director's cuts.

While alternate cuts are not always the way to go, when it comes to Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the first and worst of the Trek films, it made a WORLD of difference.

My mother-in-law (and I'm sure many other Trekkies) refers to TMP as "Where Nomad Has Gone Before".  The premise was hardly original, it was a bad mishmash of the Original Series episode, The Changeling and Star Trek: Phase II, the next planned Star Trek television series that never came to fruition.  On top of that it was like Gene Roddenberry told director Bob Wise to go overboard on all of the effects shots they could never do on TOS.  We were "treated" to these really loooong and boring shots of NOTHING happening for a good four and a half hours with two minutes of bald chicks and "story" placed sporadically throughout the flick.  Ugh.  What an atrocious film.

BUT WAIT - there's now this incredible Director's Cut wherein the great makers have discovered the "lost" art of EDITING.  Holy cow, what a difference good editing makes.  The Director's Cut of this film not only makes the film tolerable, but enjoyable as well.  I had *never* wanted to watch this film again unless I was having trouble sleeping.  But that's all changed now.  If you'd seen this film on VHS or, dog forbid, caught the television edit and thought, "meh", get thee to a dvd rentery and give this flick another shot.  It's excellent.

What can I say about Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan that hasn't already been said?  Nick Meyer came in and breathed some much needed life into the franchise and directed a classic.

I've always been on the fence about Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.  I used to be distracted by Saavik's perm...it didn't seem logical for a Vulcan to have such a high maintenance hairstyle.  Not only that but the film flits about until the very cruddy ending where they magically put Spock's katra back where it belonged (brain and brain, what is brain!)...I dunno, I just didn't buy it, I always felt it was a little weak.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home was my absolute favorite out of the TOS films this time around when I watched it.  It's a fun movie and it has whales.  Yep, whales.  How can you go wrong?  And what the hell is up with the mom and dad from 7th Heaven in two Trek movies now?  It's some sort of Christian Family Drama Conspiracy (tm).  I can't really complain, Catherine Hicks is wonderful as the passionate Dr. Gillian Taylor.  ST: IV is funny, charming and exactly the kind of adventure that is a joy to take with the crew of the Enterprise.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.

They producers of Star Trek must've gone down on their knees to beg Nick Meyer to come back and once again save their dying franchise - and he did, with Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.  It really is best in its original Klingon.  Seriously though, when Captain Von Trapp started singing the reprise of So Long, Farewell in full Klingon garb, I knew this was a hit film.

Here's a little side note.  When I watched The Sound of Music as a kid I used to wonder what happened to those Von Trapp kids.  The last I knew they went off to live in the mountains.  Many were teens, didn't they ever get horny?  Was there inbreeding?  What does that sort of isolation do to one's emotional state?  Did they live there forever?  Thankfully at some point in my childhood I saw the remaining VonTrapp kids (who were really damn old) on Oprah and realized they came down from the mountains after a while (or at least before coming to Chicago to film Oprah).

Anyway, the original series Star Trek films, all five of them, were pretty ok if not excellent.  I ranked all of the franchise films a short while ago, but I'll yoink out the pesky TNG ones and share my order of favorites for just The Original Series cast.

4  The Voyage Home
6  The Undiscovered Country
2  The Wrath of Khan
1  The Motion Picture
3  The Search for Spock
5  The Final Frontier

Ok, today, I have:

English title: Grand Illusion

part two of a doubleheader. part one was yesterday, and today is Jean Renoir's La Grande Illusion: a war movie with no battle scenes, where friendships go across enemy sides, where the futility of war (any war) is noted, and the coming social changes in all of Europe are presaged.

is going to sound awfully familiar if you've been following this series-of-movies-I-like, but whatevs. 'tis all true

“

For many years, the original nitrate film negative was thought to have been lost in an Allied air raid in 1942 that destroyed a leading laboratory outside Paris.  Prints of the film were rediscovered in 1958 and restored and re-released during the early 1960s. Then, it was revealed that the original negative had been shipped back to Berlin by Dr. Frank Hensel to be stored in the Reichsfilmarchiv vaults. In the Allied occupation of Berlin in 1945, the Reichsfilmarchiv by chance was in the Russian zone and consequently shipped along with many other films back to be the basis of the Soviet Gosfilmofond film archive in Moscow. The negative was returned to France in the 1960s, but sat unidentified in storage in Toulouse Cinémathèque for over 30 years, as no one suspected it had survived. It was rediscovered in the early 1990s as the Cinémathèque's nitrate collection was slowly being transferred to the French Film Archives at Bois d'Arcy. It was restored and released as the inaugural DVD of the Criterion Collection. 

“

from the always helpful wiki , full of details, linkage, synopsa, and I hope you already knew, *spoilers*. so be careful

I can talk about the movie, but rather do so after y'all watch it. I am unable to discuss a plot without giving the movie away; the secret of being a good writer-about-films.  but I will mention some movies you may have watched that are very influenced by  La Grande Illusion:

- The Great Escape
- Casablanca
- Stalag Seven

clipparinos:

this first one is Renoir himself introducing the Criterion Collection DVD.

Renoir is adorable, self-effacing, and I want to hug him.  he also reminds me of someone...

in this scene, POWs of several nationalities come together during a talent show in a German camp