This blog is designed to be a place where ordinary people who also happen to be bloggers can post about issues that are important to them, and be heard by wider audiences. If you write for your own blog or for a group blog, you are more than welcome to crosspost those essays here, but we ask that you use that opportunity to tell your readers “this entry is crossposted at the Independent Bloggers’ Alliance. You are also encouraged to post links to stories written by other contributors here. The fact is, the more we get in the practice of linking to each other, the better it is for all of us.
As far as ideology, I expect that we will be something of a mix of moderate to liberal viewpoints, not necessarily loyal to a particular party. Nobody is their best self all the time, but I expect us to make a genuine effort to treat each other with respect, even when we disagree.
If you'd like to become a contributor, drop me a note at ohiorenee(at)gmail.com.
Next is a bad sci-fi movie. Adapted from the classic short story by Philip K. Dick, it's a dumb, incoherent mess that wastes the time of the actors trapped in it. I'm sure Nicholas Cage doesn't care because he's been in a greedy, take-the-money-and-run frenzy for a long time now, but what it does to Julianne Moore should be illegal.
Besides, Julianne doesn't have the time to waste.
Julianne is a very talented actress and a very beautiful woman. So, unfortunately, what usually happens is that most of the guys in Hollywood making movies won't take her seriously. After all, what beautiful women usually do in movies is take off their clothes, go out with ugly guys old enough to be their fathers, or become lunch meat for serial killers.
Julianne has either been miscast (The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Hannibal), or stuck playing another variation of her sad, fragile, and sexually-frustrated housewife/single mom character (The Hours, The End of The Affair, Far From Heaven, Boogie Nights, Magnolia). And no, it's not entirely her fault.
Nicholson, DeNiro, and Pacino haven't played characters other than themselves for years, but whenever they feel like being actors again, the roles will be waiting for them. It's called having a choice. Meanwhile, because of the table scraps Hollywood feeds them, too many actresses are starving to death.
Still, let's not forget that when she's not doing junk, Julianne Moore is a formidable actress. In Children of Men, Julianne had a role that was commensurate with her talent. Directed by Alfonso Cauron (Y Tu Mama¡ Tambien, The Little Princess and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban), it's a brilliant, thought-provoking and terrifying film that should have won the Oscar.
Adapted from the novel by P.D. James, the film takes us to London in the year 2027. Things ain't looking too good. Bombs explode in coffee shops. There are more guns than food. Rotting garbage fills the streets. No jobs. Illegal immigrants are herded into internment camps. And when you think things can't get any worse, no child has been born in the world for eighteen years. It's as though all those inconvenient truths we've ignored finally got tired of knocking and kicked the door in. Theo (Clive Owen) is an ex-activist who's now a bitter, gin-soaked bureaucrat and all he wants to do with the rest of his life is, as the Pink Floyd song put it, get "comfortably numb". But his ex-wife Julian, a guerrilla soldier hunted by the government, unexpectedly reappears and wants Theo to join her on a deadly and mysterious mission.
Julian, as played by Julianne Moore, is a very important plot construct because she has to convince us that this cynical drunkard would be willing to risk his life. Theo's decision has to be logical. In a bad movie, a bad script would compel him do it just to move the narrative along. If it doesn't make sense, it feels emotionally off-key to the audience and the film won't work. Does Theo tell Julian to "Bugger Off"? No. Amazingly, besides getting Theo to agree, I was ready to pack my own suitcase and join them because Julianne made me believe in Julian. Yeah, she's that good.
A less-talented actress could have easily turned Julian into a dull, placidly-smiling and romanticized saint who walked on water or a shrill, bromide-spouting G.I. Jane, but no, Julianne doesn't do that. Instead, Julianne invests her character with compassion, wit, strength, mischief, poignancy and wisdom. This is a mature and heartbreaking performance that only a woman could deliver, not a little girl.
In less than fifteen minutes of time on screen, Julianne gives us a lifetime. It's breathtaking.
I can't wait to see what Julianne does next, after Next.
One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice-- though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. "Mend my life!" each voice cried. But you didn't stop. You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible. It was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road full of fallen branches and stones. But little by little, as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do-- determined to save the only life you could save.
"If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing." --Anatole France, understanding the difference between lies, damned lies, and statistics
Seeing these pasty-faced lumps of Whitebread Privilage on stage stuffed in expensive, ill-fitting suits made me wonder (and not for the first time) how mankind ever graduated from the primordial jambalaya.
Back in January 27, 2005, Bush, in an interview with the Times, assured the world that “torture is never acceptable, nor do we hand over people to countries that do torture.”
Well it looks like the Bush administration has allowed many of our soldiers to become (and/or continue) to be, uncivilized, brutal, cruel, and barbaric towards the people of Iraq.
WaPo reports many soldiers support torture, U.S. Troops Lacking in Ethics with many soldiers supporting torture and other forms of abuse against Iraqi civilians. An Army report also indicates our troops face higher rates of mental illness due to longer deployments.
I guess the United States under the Bush administration has no problem having our soldiers torture and kill non-combatants as a strategy in war. One has to wonder if the "mass killing" and "civilian victimizations" attributed to insurgents is American driven?
A hate crimes bill passed by the House yesterday, extending coverage to people victimized because of sexual orientation, gender identity or disability, is attracting opposition from an unusual coalition of Christian leaders.
Proponents say the bill - similar to one the Senate is expected to pass in the next few weeks - is a moral imperative. But some Christians are depicting it as a "thought crimes" bill attacking 1st Amendment freedoms of speech and religion. A coalition of evangelical, fundamentalist and black religious leaders is mounting a furious assault on the bill, airing television ads and mobilizing members to stop its progress. President Bush has said he might veto the measure.
If the bill, approved 237-180, were to become law, they say, a pastor could be held liable for giving a sermon against homosexuality if a listener later attacked a gay individual .
Maybe preachers should stop with the Gay bashing? Hate crime is not a Constitutional right.
The bill's supporters say that such an assertion is nonsense, and that a sermon could never be considered an inducement to violence unless it explicitly advocated it.
In addition to broadening the federal definition of a hate crime victim, the law provides funds so that local authorities can request federal assistance for prosecutions in the aftermath of a hate crime.
I think White Fundamentalist Christians are just mad because they can't lynch Blacks anymore.
Oh, and the clincher:
"This legislation strikes at the heart of free speech and freedom of religious expression," said Andrea Lafferty, executive director of the Traditional Values Coalition.
When did murdering gays become religious expression?
