Friday Thoughts
Mel "Are you a Jew" Gibson's "Apocalypto" goes up against Leonardo DiCaprio's "Blood Diamond" this weekend. The box office estimates are already in for the Friday matinee, and "Apocalypto" was number one, vs. number three for "Blood Diamond." Both movies got pretty lousy reviews. Is there anyone alive who knows nothing about the diamond trade and how the war in Namibia was financed?
Using the same concept as "Black Hawk Down," in taking a news event and making it into a movie, "Blood Diamond" doesn't even have the immediacy of any specific tragic event--it shines a spotlight on decades worth of civil war, and business as usual. If I lived in a cave with no access to the media for the past 30 years, I might be elucidated by the film, but it seems like a yawner to me. Similarly, I have no interest in watching a gory movie filmed in a language that in audio clips sounds like a bunch of high pitched squealing to me. Pass. Not pass the popcorn. Just . . . pass.
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The fact that Mary Cheney's having a baby is considered newsworthy to me could get a pass because she's the veep's daughter, but why on earth do so many talking heads have to weigh in it in opinion pieces? Even Ruth Marcus, who wrote perhaps one of the kindest opinion pieces on the subject that I've seen, used it to blast the Bush administration for not being more accepting, tolerant, and legalizing gay marriage. The other opinion pieces I've seen tended to blast Mary for daring to have/raise a child, and bringing it up without a legally married father in the house. They way they go on, you'd think an unrelated male in the house is better than another female who considers herself in a stable relationship with the biological mother. I'm not so sure.
I've yet to see any of these loudmouth wannabe pundits finger any other legally unmarried woman by name, and hold her up as an example of what not to do. Shall, I run down the list? Madonna (with Lourdes) before she married Guy Ritchie, Angelina Jolie (all of her kids), Mel Brown, aka Scary Spice, Geri Halliwell, aka Ginger Spice, Melissa Etheridge, Rosie O'Donnell, Jodie Foster . . . the list goes on and on. Why aren't the pundit windbags ranting about anyone other than Mary Cheney? And why are they not tackling the bigger issue of divorce being the reason that so many kids no longer have a daddy, because the parents split? Why are they not railing against teen pregnancy rates in the ghettos? I guess none of those living in poverty are sufficiently famous to mention, but that doesn't mean the issue at large isn't.
(steps down off soapbox)
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Baker et al released their 79 suggestions for how to tuck your tail between your legs and get the hell outta Dodge, without making it look like a "cut and run" job. Not even the troops there think the suggestions are viable. Splashed all over the NY Post today was an article that interviewed the brother of a GI killed recently in Iraq. His brother's fiancee's engagement ring arrived the day after the GI died. Tragic for the Staten Island family involved, and the fiancee, but the gist of the brother's story was "don't give up now and let him die in vain. I wanted to go into the military, and still do, but can't put my parents through that, so I won't, but for heaven's sake, figure out a new strategy, and don't cut and run."
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Lastly, a funny topic. I had known about the monkey problem in New Delhi, which briefly made the news a few months ago, but this takes the cake. A judge reprimanded authorities for failing to eradicate the macaque problem, after being given a mandate to do so. Apparently, they're the New Delhi equivalent of NYC pigeons, except that they occasionally bite people.
Using the same concept as "Black Hawk Down," in taking a news event and making it into a movie, "Blood Diamond" doesn't even have the immediacy of any specific tragic event--it shines a spotlight on decades worth of civil war, and business as usual. If I lived in a cave with no access to the media for the past 30 years, I might be elucidated by the film, but it seems like a yawner to me. Similarly, I have no interest in watching a gory movie filmed in a language that in audio clips sounds like a bunch of high pitched squealing to me. Pass. Not pass the popcorn. Just . . . pass.
________________________________________
The fact that Mary Cheney's having a baby is considered newsworthy to me could get a pass because she's the veep's daughter, but why on earth do so many talking heads have to weigh in it in opinion pieces? Even Ruth Marcus, who wrote perhaps one of the kindest opinion pieces on the subject that I've seen, used it to blast the Bush administration for not being more accepting, tolerant, and legalizing gay marriage. The other opinion pieces I've seen tended to blast Mary for daring to have/raise a child, and bringing it up without a legally married father in the house. They way they go on, you'd think an unrelated male in the house is better than another female who considers herself in a stable relationship with the biological mother. I'm not so sure.
I've yet to see any of these loudmouth wannabe pundits finger any other legally unmarried woman by name, and hold her up as an example of what not to do. Shall, I run down the list? Madonna (with Lourdes) before she married Guy Ritchie, Angelina Jolie (all of her kids), Mel Brown, aka Scary Spice, Geri Halliwell, aka Ginger Spice, Melissa Etheridge, Rosie O'Donnell, Jodie Foster . . . the list goes on and on. Why aren't the pundit windbags ranting about anyone other than Mary Cheney? And why are they not tackling the bigger issue of divorce being the reason that so many kids no longer have a daddy, because the parents split? Why are they not railing against teen pregnancy rates in the ghettos? I guess none of those living in poverty are sufficiently famous to mention, but that doesn't mean the issue at large isn't.
(steps down off soapbox)
________________________________________
Baker et al released their 79 suggestions for how to tuck your tail between your legs and get the hell outta Dodge, without making it look like a "cut and run" job. Not even the troops there think the suggestions are viable. Splashed all over the NY Post today was an article that interviewed the brother of a GI killed recently in Iraq. His brother's fiancee's engagement ring arrived the day after the GI died. Tragic for the Staten Island family involved, and the fiancee, but the gist of the brother's story was "don't give up now and let him die in vain. I wanted to go into the military, and still do, but can't put my parents through that, so I won't, but for heaven's sake, figure out a new strategy, and don't cut and run."
________________________________________
Lastly, a funny topic. I had known about the monkey problem in New Delhi, which briefly made the news a few months ago, but this takes the cake. A judge reprimanded authorities for failing to eradicate the macaque problem, after being given a mandate to do so. Apparently, they're the New Delhi equivalent of NYC pigeons, except that they occasionally bite people.
posted by Admin at 4:38 PM
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