The Da Vinci Code, Follow Up

It has recently occured to me, that towards the end of my Da Vinci Code post, I stated that I would later discuss the impact of the movie and the discussions it started. Well, I cleary have not followed through in my pledge. So I ask that you give me a couple of days to get my thoughts together, and I solemnly swear that by this time next week, I will have a post up on the subject. I do appreciate the patience, however.

In the meantime, I would like to quickly talk about a recent bill that was passed in the Senate. Essentially, the bill makes it a crime to transport a minor across state lines to get an abortion without her parents consent. (For your reference, it was voted in favor of by 51 Republicans and 14 Democrats).

Personally, I'm a bit torn on this issue. As a person classified as pro-choice (and please, before anyone lights up my message board with anti-abortion comments, pro-choice is not the same as pro-abortion - I'm keeping those thoughts to myself - and if you don't know that by now, well, you've got some reading to do), I don't agree with any bill that prevents a person from their right to have an abortion if they so choose. The fact is, I believe this bill is an attempt at the beginning of the end of abortion (which will, in fact, not end it at all, just end it in a safe and legal manner). However, one thing that strikes me about this bill is that it's claiming to be "in the best interest of the safety of the minor." Personally, I don't really buy it, but it does bring up an interesting point.

I think that it can be dangerous for a young girl to be traveling hundreds of miles to places she doesn't know to get an abortion from a doctor she may not trust. Personally, I think it would be much better if parents would be more open to discussion with their children, as well as if children would be more open to discussion with their parents, and if everyone would put their sense and safety ahead of anything else. However, that's not the case, and therefore the only thing I really have to go on is my dislike and distrust of Congress. I guess, in that sense, I've made my decision.

Maybe one of these days I can get something positive in here.

Frustration, Part 2

From today's New York Times, an article on Bush's veto of the Stem Cell Bill:

Critics of the legislation have said it still involves “taking something that is living and making it dead for the purpose of research,” as the White House spokesman, Tony Snow, put it on Tuesday.


Just wondering how that would be different than possibly "taking something that is living and making it dead for the purposes of oil, fattening pockets, etc."?

Frustration

After reading both an article on the new Stem Cell bill (that will be vetoed by "President" Bush) and an article about the arrest of the head of a Sports Betting company in London, I think I may be hitting a new point of frustration.

Now, I don't know much about stemm cell research. I haven't been keeping up to date in the political bullshit because, frankly, I believe it's bullshit, and so I've separated myself from it. However, so far as I can tell, the idea behind stem cell research is simple: it will help to attempt to find cures for diseases such as Cancer and Parkinson's. So maybe I don't get it. Perhaps I'm simply naive. But as simple as I can really put it, isn't curing diseases a good thing? But I guess it makes sense. As more Americans and Iraquis and countless others get killed for oil, there's no reason no to sacrifice those at home so Congressional pockhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifets can stay fatter, right?

Meanwhile, the government is going all out attempting to indict Barry Bonds for *allegedly* taking steroids (and while I do believe he did, I think the government is wasting it's time, his time, my time, and money), and they're now targeting online gambling. Now, I understand gambling is illegal (unless of course you're in Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Tunica, Reno, on a Native American Reservation, in any one of the legal Casino's that are "on the water, not on land," etc.) But come on. Ralph Reed just lost the Georgia Lieutenant Governor Republican Nomination because he was involved in the Jack Ambramoff scandal where they took money from a Louisiana Native American Casino to illegaly shut down a competiting Casino in Texas. Clearly gambling is not a problem with the government. People making money overseas on Americans, is.

Frankly, I'm sick of Congress. We've got a growing problem of Global Warming, more diseases spawned every day that we can't fight, hunger, poverty and violence the world over, and they're wasting their time attempting to send Bonds to jail and arresting people who take sports bets. We're trillions of dollars in debt, gas prices are rising and the disparity between rich and poor is growing daily.

I consider myself a Democrat, more because to me, it's the lesser of two evils. But frankly, I'm more anti-politician than anything. I don't like, appreciate, or have patience for bullshit (which is a cause for my current dislike for my job), and Congress is full of it.


In lighter news, good look to DJ Bnapperish, for shouting out The Thought Process, in her blog Brittany Goes To Washington (and has since come back).

Conservative Hollywood?

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/16/movies/16ande.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

After reading my blog the other day, my father e-mailed me this article. Kind of funny how things work. And apparently people do read this thing. Who'da thunk it?

(Actually, quite a few people have let me know that they check for updates semi-regularly. And for that I thank you.)

Trying to get back into the swing of things...

Due to my recent work load/exhaustion, I've been lackadaisically posting external links that have interest me, but provide me the minimum amount of work while still attempting to keep up the blog. And because some of that weight has been lifted as of today (read: business trips) then I thought perhaps this would be a good time to get back into the swing of things.

A question was posed to me a few weeks ago (in my Oscar's post) as to whether I agreed with a Tony Kushner statement that "political theatre is usually theatre of the left. That right-learning theatre tends not to be progressive or socially engaged theatre." I attempted to look for the article of which this reader was mentioning, and couldn't find a free version (I really need to set up my Times Select account...), and will therefore have to take this quote as is (not that I assume he was misquoted, I just prefer to get an entire background on something before forming an opinion).

As for the question, I would honestly have to say I don't know. As I'm not a huge theater buff, I couldn't tell you that I know a lot about theater, political or not (though having a sister obsessed with Broadway has kept me in the loop). It would seem to me, however, from life experience, and theaters distant counsin the cinema, that Kushner's comment would be a true one.

Considering my recent viewing of An Inconvenient Truth, (which Puff over at General Musings for Generalists recently blogged about), and the wealth of documentaries out there, I supposed I can come to a reasonable conclusion as to why this is.

What it seems like to me, is that "the political left," to me, is nothing more than advents of positive change (or perhaps not-so-positive change, but generally people don't like for things to change for the worse). The reason I say this is not because I think "the political right" doesn't want positive change as well. The way I see it is that we still, today, have a conservative leaning society (which I beleive will always be the case), and because of that "the political right" are more comfortable with the way things are. If you're comfortable with how things are, you're not going to make a documentary (like Who Killed The Electric Car?), a movie (like Brokeback Mountain), or a play (like Caroline or Change). It would seem to me that the point of writing political theater is to stir up something - be it a movement, an idea, or whatever - to change the way society behaves. Nobody would spend their best efforts writing/producing/filming something that would cause you to leave thinking "boy let's keep things the way they are," because that would be a waste of time, energy and money (and as much as we in this country like to waste all three, we prefer to be less obvious about it).

I think another reason for this would be that, it seems, those in Hollywood and in the Broadway community are more "left leaning," (or so they say), and therefore what they put out would generally have more of a "left leaning" tendancy. I think, the ultimate fact is, that it's "cool" to be a rebel, to disrespect authority, and even in your adult years the "popular" people will express that. In this case, government and society are more "right leaning," and therefore any type of response from what would be considered the popular crowd would be opposite of that.

That's really just my take on it. Feel free to add yours.

Crazyness

http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/07/07/paperclip-house.html


It's stories like this that make me think I need to get out there and make things happen.

Gary Matthews, Jr. robs a HR from Mike Lamb

I guess it turns out I did see Superman this weekend.