The government of Sudan has been escalating its relentless assault on the people of Darfur. On May 4, Sudanese bombs rained on a Darfuri school, killing at least 13 people, including seven children. The international community didn’t respond for more than 48 hours.
The attack - and the miserable response - is yet another example of the world’s failure to protect the people of Darfur. The U.N. approved a peacekeeping force for Darfur ten months ago. Less than a third of that force has reached Darfur.
We have the opportunity to make sure the world lives up to its promise to Darfur.
The U.S. assumes the presidency of the U.N. Security Council for one month in June. As president, the U.S. will have the opportunity to set the agenda for the Security Council and help protect the people of Darfur.
We must seize this opportunity. The Save Darfur Coalition and our partners are launching a major campaign to hold our leaders to their word and do all they can to help protect the people of Darfur.
Join the movement! Click here to send President Bush a message urging him to use this opportunity to immediately get peacekeepers to Darfur.
For those of you who like discussing boating, general interests, religion, and perhaps some politics that are a little more conservative than mine, you should check out Capnbruce’s Weblog.
I was going to blog about this, but Mr. Rauch beat me to it; and in a much smarter, better researched, and thought-out fashion. He gets paid. I don’t. But seriously, what do conservatives want? If McCain’s not conservative enough, then one of 2 things is apparent: (1) modern day conservatives are fascists (which I don’t truly think they are) or (2) we have to re-define what we mean when we talk about conservatism.
For a more expansive reading of this horrible war that has claimed the lives of millions, and is, in part, enabled by the West’s demands for the Congo’s resources, read here.
Need the latest on Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, and Paris Hilton? No problem. They can’t move without 1000 articles being written about them. But when will we start paying attention to the hundreds of thousands of women and children bring brutalized in the Congo?
Yesterday, the Chinese ascended Mt. Everest with the Olympic Torch. I was hoping that they would drop the torch down the side of the mountain. This subject really chaps me. China invaded Tibet in 1950 and took effective control over the country in 1951.
The Olympic Torch is supposed to symbolize peace and unity throughout the world; a time when we can all put aside our differences and engage in sports that very few of us even know what they hell they are — what’s that thing where gymnasts run around a mat carrying a 20 ft. ribbon behind them? Having China carry the Olympic Torch to the world’s highest summit, which just happens to be in a country they took over by military force, is a kick to the nads of the Olympic tradition.
Ten bucks says that Olympic Torch has about 3 layers of lead paint on it now.
I just recently returned from a business trip to Columbus, OH. In no particular order, I had these thoughts.
1. Isn’t it nuts that you used to be able to smoke on planes? Now that it’s been years since you’ve been able to smoke on planes, isn’t it nuts that they keep spending so much time telling us we can’t smoke on planes? Between the energy-consuming, ever-lighted non-smoking signs and the droning on of the safety announcement, I think we’ve got it now, “No smoking.” Oh, and don’t mess with the lavatory smoke detector. It’s against federal law. Apparently, Congress took a break from investigating the world-impacting practice of baseball players taking drugs to pass a law saying “Don’t break shit in the airplane bathroom.” Was this a problem to begin with?
2. What on God’s green earth does it matter whether my seat back is all the way up for take off and landing? I know every comedian in the world has done some version of this joke, but I’m serious. It makes no sense. And the flight attendants are getting even more fascist about it. On the last leg of my trip yesterday, the flight attendant insisted I put my seat up. I told her I’d be happy to, but since I didn’t put it back (lest I end up in the lap of the guy behind me now that there’s only 18″ between each row) it would be very hard for me to put it up. She kept insisting that it wasn’t it line with the other seats. Finally, the guy next to me said, “Ma’am, he didn’t put his seat back. It must be broken.” She left me alone after that.
3. I saw an old, old man wearing a toupee. No big deal except this toupee — and I kid you not — had a ponytail attached to it. I didn’t realize such a thing existed. I guess this is some form of human Daniel Boone coonskin cap.
UPDATED: I forgot one. Post 9/11, only ticketed passengers are allowed in the terminals of airports. For the ridiculously stupid, this means that unless you have a ticket and you are about to depart for somewhere, you cannot be in the terminal. Ok, fine. So, if the only people in the terminal are people who are about to leave to go to some other airport, why do we still need the big screens announcing the arriving flights? What the hell do I care if the 9:15pm flight from Buffalo is on time or not. It’s arriving at Gate A17? Good for them, but I don’t give a shit. When is my plane going to be here is what I would like to know. I need some heads up time so that I can disjoint my knees for proper placement in the seats.
Ok, I’ve now popped out 2 serious posts and it’s time to go back to being my normal dorky self. Here are my Top Ten Most Quotable Movies:
1. Christmas Vacation — Ironically, with 2 daughters, I now find myself seriously saying, “Let’s go find your sister.”
2. Arthur
3. Fletch
4. Vacation
5. Caddyshack
6. The Jerk
7. Blazin’ Saddles
8. Anchorman
9. Talledega Nights (or whatever that Ricky Bobby movie is named)
10. Three Amigos
Honorable mentions:
1. Stripes
2. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
3. The Royal Tennebaums
4. The History of The World
5. Holy Moses (Dudley Moore)
6. Urban Cowboy (Didn’t see that one coming, did ya?) “Hell Bud, even a cowboy sometimes has to swallow his pride.”
7. War Games — same guy, “I’d piss on a spark plug if I thought it would help.”
Two movies in which the screenwriters should be shot: Legends of the Fall and First Knight (”The sleeve still bears the stain.”
UPDATED: My wife just reminded me of Raising Arizona, which is a Top Ten, but I don’t want to take any out. So, my Top Ten has 11 entries. I can do that with the power that I wield.
The fact that it is 2008, and this movie was released in 2004, tells you all you need to know about my movie-going habits. But about a year ago (I guess), I saw it on Cinemax (right after Hotel Erotica 7). At first, I wasn’t too impressed. Then I watched it again and I was amazed at just how good of an actor Johnny Depp is, and just how good of a movie this is.
The movie is based on an actual historical figure — the Second Earl Of Rochester, who was a 17th Century poet. While he was totally immoral, a scoundrel, a cheat, a drunkard, a wretch, a … we’ve hit the end of my bad person terminology, but you get the picture . . . you can tell that not only is he smart, but that he’s very well-versed in Scripture and the teachings of Jesus Christ. It is almost in spite of his beliefs that he acts so repugnantly. The historical background of the emergence of England from Puritan rule provides the perfect backdrop for such a figure. He’s brought up on the Bible and Jesus, and then Puritan rule ends and the monarchy returns; thus, allowing him the freedom to be a perfect fool.
Johnny Depp does such a good job of getting lost in the character that you forget you’re watching Johnny Depp. From Depp’s protrayal of the Earl of Rochester, you get the feeling that Rochester knows that we are taught by Jesus to love our neighbors. We’re even to love those that revile us; we’re to love those that hate us; we’re to love our enemies. Rochester knows this and does everything he can to make you hate him all the while knowing that those around him know that Jesus taught them not to hate.
As he’s dying from syphilis, he gives a moving speech before the House of Lords that, according to the movie, beats back an attempt to deny Charles II’s brother from succeeding to the throne because he is Catholic. The speech scene is one of the best scenes from any movie that I’ve watched. Rochester is so crippled that he needs two canes to walk and he has to wear a nose guard to hide all the sores on his face. Yet the speech saves the day. Soon thereafter, he dies and the movie ends with Rochester looking into the camera and recounting his life. The scene is here.
Why do I spend all this time writing about a 4-year old movie about a guy who lived 350 years ago? Because I think the story is still relevant for people of faith. Not only is the most debauched person not necessarily lost to God, but of more import, those very people challenge us to practice what we preach. Do we really mean it when we say we love our neighbors? That we’ll follow Christ’s example? Faced with the character presented by Depp, I don’t think we can so flippantly say yes. Maybe what we really mean is we love those who are most like us, kind of like us, maybe even not like us but at least not “bad.” He would be so easy to hate, to write off like human bad debt. But we can’t. At least not if we say we follow what Christ said. And therein lies the beauty of this movie and its haunting challenge — to love someone who has given you no reason to love them. No reason other than our God commands us to.
The movie is worth the rental fee for the ending song along, which was written by composer Michael Nyman. The song is here and the words implore us to “pray for him who prays too late so that he may shine on judgment day.” If you were a Depp fan — one of the few pretty boys who can really act — and haven’t seen this movie, watch it. If you’re not a Depp fan, this movie may just convert you — convert you in more ways than one actually.
Someone said children are angels and they’re so truthful. That person — if (s)he existed at all — was full of crap. Children are not angels and they’re no more truthful than what suits their purposes at a given moment. In other words, they’re human.
But they are pure humans in the sense that they are free from prejudices, they are free from categorical hate, and they have a great capacity to love unconditionally. They are what we “mature” adults could have been if we hadn’t become corrupted along the way to our various levels of erudition and awareness of the world around us.
I spend lots and lots of time playing with my children. Lots of that time is spent merely watching them play and interact. Sure, there are instances of selfishness, poutiness, and arguing, but if you watch long enough and closely enough, you’ll see that, for the most part, children are giving, considerate, and sensitive to their playmates. They don’t tend to think in terms of “us” vs. “them” as we adults do.
This past weekend my oldest daughter was playing with her best friend. Another girl, who is known for being unruly and pushy, was whining that no one would play with her. My daughter stopped playing with her best friend and played instead with the bratty child. She showed sensitivity and selflessness. She had compassion. This isn’t to say that I have an exceptional child; it’s to say that we can learn a lot from our kids. Being child-like doesn’t mean being childish.
Perhaps one way of looking at the story of the Garden of Eden is that it is a story of growing up. We were once innocent, free of hate, free of fear. Just free. And then we became “aware.” The aware Adam and Eve became fearful. They ultimately were expelled from paradise. They lost it all.
I understand that concepts of love, acceptance, and tolerance don’t pay the mortgage. I’m not advocating a big group hug (just small ones). But if we employed these concepts more, the mundaneness of life would be more tolerable and less painful. Interpersonal relationships certainly would be, and perhaps we could then expand it from there. The world is what we make it. It will be what we allow it to become. We can allow it to become more child-like if we “adults” would stop acting so childish.
My daughter doesn’t see people in terms of color, religion, nationality, or sexual orientation. She just sees people as they are. Without even knowing it, she gives people the benefit of the doubt. All come to her on equal footing. And I pray every day that I don’t screw that up for her.
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