So – if you’re looking for a site for race activism in Chicago, check out the Chicago Reporter. Crazy that I had to hear about them in Utne…
So – I went to see Fun with Dick and Jane and LOVED it! It was very, very funny! However, the next day I woke up and thought, “What an awful movie. It says, 'If you've been jilted and screwed over, just steal stuff. As long as you're funny, it's okay!'"
But Jim Carrey was really funny. In one scene, Dick adjusts his voice with an electronic modulator of some sort. I’m sure that the director just handed it Jim and said, “Here’s this thing – do whatever…” and he did. And it was just brilliant.
At the beginning of this month, my friend Mike took over as Executive Director of Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation. It is a great organization and he sends out weekly updates of information. You can visit the site to subscribe to these updates and information. It will give you lots of great ways to stay connected to the larger Anglican communion and other things going on in the world.
I will now admit publicly (only because I didn’t have time to blog before the vote…not because I was hiding anything): I was in favor of the smoking ban. The cities that have gone smoke free have not seen a decrease in business. And it definitely makes me more comfortable to not have scratchy, watery eyes when I go out to have fun.
When we went to my sister’s bachelorette party in San Francisco, I was shocked to find no smoke in the karaoke bar. (I had totally forgotten about that law.) Wow. What a nice night. I didn’t have to shower when I got home because I wouldn’t have been able to sleep with the smell in my hair… it was so nice.
I am still trying to figure out how to live in peace with my smoking brothers and sisters. I know that the new rules put them out of some places. But I also have some friends who smoke that find some establishments too smoky. That’s just not good.
But I will support bars and restaurants that are smoke free when deciding where to go. ALA, Chicago is tracking the establishments who just changed (not waiting for the Chicago ban) and also have a complete list of smoke free places.
Well, the test results on my head are back. I received the news that it was “unusual but all removed” which isn’t incredibly clear to me. But, it does seem that something was wrong and I’ll get more information on Thursday when I see the doctor to get the stitches out. So, I’ll reiterate: check for weird, strange moles.
People don’t seem to be reading my blog as much lately (numbers of hits are down), so I thought that I’d post something controversial and see how that works for me…
I was quoted in an article in The Daily Northwestern. This was in a special insert in Friday's edition about Roe vs. Wade.
While nothing in the article in which I am quoted is incorrect, the article doesn’t have the nuances of my true theology and feelings. I am totally against the illegalization of abortion – I don’t think that that will be helpful to us at all. However, I wouldn’t encourage women to do it. I think that education is key. Northwestern reporters found that there hadn’t been a lot of abortions on campus lately (1 out of over 300 women surveyed), but I wonder if that has to do with the ease with which people can get contraception. That of course cuts down on abortions.
But doesn’t cut down on sex, which seems to be very abundant on college campuses now. Several campus ministers have been talking about this lately. My generation was coming of age with the beginning of understanding AIDS. The story was: if you have sex, you will die. That’s it – it’s that basic. That’s not the story any more. So, there is lots of sex. But luckily, not many abortions.
So – anyway – that’s the big article for the day. Hopefully serving as a resource for students at NU…Not sure how to not get labeled in the two campus that seem to be the only options in the world that requires one to choose a pole…
I’m all about alternative power – something that gets us more in touch with the natural rhythms of the earth. They are now looking at harnessing the ocean’s energy. One company is working on producing Pelamis. Though, I also wonder about the impact that this will have on the earth’s systems…
How do you define a planet? I don’t know but here is EL61 who seems to be doing some pretty strange and remarkable things.
Stock Market or Housing Market going to crash? Didier Sornette makes predictions…
And if you like looking at the night sky – check out Sky and Telescope’s observing page.
Stanley Milgram has some things to say about why people behave nicely – and why social scientists should be looking more for the good in people and not always how they ‘mess up’ during experiments.
Still confused about string theory? So is everyone else...but this might help.
So – I know that it’s been a little sporadic here. Life has been crazy… I keep thinking that I need to blog – and I even have some posts ready…but other things keep interfering. Like surgery.
This is my public service announcement: WATCH THOSE MOLES!
I have a history of skin cancer. While in Arizona, my hairdresser found a spot on my head that she thought looked weird. I showed it to my local dermatologist (who has already removed two spots from me) and he’s like, “OOO..um, go see [this other guy who will do a better job cutting off a spot that big]…”
So, yesterday, I went to another dermatologist who does a good job with plastic surgery (nice cuts, little scarring) and was really hoping that he’d say, “No big deal…we don’t need to remove that.” But he didn’t. So, I now have a patch of hair missing and 6 visible stitches that need to come out next week. But no more spot. I’ll blog about it again if something is wrong with it…otherwise, just figure that it’s fine like my last several have been. I just wanted to help others remain aware of watching their skin.
So – we got a sneak peak at Imagine Me and You. Not a stellar movie by any means. And what’s even more interesting is that the plot outline listed on IMDB is not correct.
Overall a “cute” chick flick, but there are some concerns about fidelity…and falling in love and how quickly that can happen. Is there such a thing as love at first sight? And what does it mean to have the media continue to normalize infidelity?
I had heard that Butterfly Effect was fabulous and it was amazing. I finally saw it – and it was both fabulous and amazing. (I also then learned that I saw the Director’s Cut. I’m not sure how I feel about the ending that I didn’t see. Will have to watch and compare – but I was happy with the Director’s Cut ending.) I enjoyed the movie and was enthralled through the entire thing. I appreciated the plot and the unfolding of information. It was a well-crafted script and the movie just flowed really well. Ashton Kutcher shows that he can act and Amy Smart is amazing. I did not predict the ending, but wasn’t entirely surprised – there was some foreshadowing. It really addresses issues of consequences of actions and also the consequences of “fixing” something in the past. I think that it also brings up questions about what to do with the past and how to work with it and move on. Mistakes and bad decisions are made and we need to work with those along with the good things that we have chosen and the great things to “happen” to us.
I finally watched the taped Book of Daniel. Since everyone was talking about it, I thought that I’d throw out some more thoughts… (that’s what a blog is for, right?). I found the show entertaining. We found some great things to talk about with it – like, how realistic is the family? Why do TV producers insist that everything be over the top? But, it also does help people see that priests are real people, too. Several clergy were talking about it, and there were a few comments that were helpful: seeing the prayer life with Jesus right there, that PKs will always cause problems for their parents, and that sometimes, bad things happen in churches (like money going missing).
A friend of mine who is a PK insists that it was her job to make sure that people would feel comfortable talking to her mother – she needed to be really bad so that the parishioner’s children’s problems couldn’t even compare to what the priest was going through…
Anyway – it will be interesting to see where it goes and what people have to say about it. I wonder how many bishops will get asked why they don’t hang out in every parish every week and give feedback to the priest about the sermon.
In trying to expose me to classic movies, Aunt Rosemary also had us watch The Inn of the Sixth Happiness. It was a good movie. Interesting to see something a little older and broaden my cinema experience. However, I felt a little overwhelmed by war by the end of the day.
We went to Allegan to see Narnia. It was great! I had just read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe again while in Arizona to prep me for the movie. Glad that I did. And they did stay really true to the book, though I do question some of the changes that they made, since I thought that doing it the way that was in the book would have been just fine… But a great production and very glad that I went to see it on the big screen.
On Christmas Day, my mom, her Aunt Rosemary, and I watched The Great Raid. It’s base don true stories from WWII and the POW rescue in the Philippines. My mom’s dad and her “uncle” Ed were there. Aunt Rosemary’s husband (Uncle Wally) was part of the war. The movie producers had called up Uncle Ed to consult on the movie because of his book As I Remember.
While I found Jarhead slightly disturbing, this is even more disturbing, based on the fact that my family was involved. And it encourages me even more that war is a bad idea.