102 Movies To See Before You....

Stop seeing movies....

This is according to Ebert. For the most part, it is probably a good list. I've not seen most of them. However, there are a few missing that I take offense to.

Life is Beautiful?
Shawshank Redemption?
The Way We Were?

Come on.....

Warning: Violent Content

It is easy to deny people rights when they are consistently painted as your "other." It is very easy to think of people as less than human (deserving of no rights) when you play a video game which gives you points to KILL them.

The game is called "Border Patrol," and it challenges players to kill as many illegal immigrants as they can. The computer game puts the player in charge of guarding the border with a loaded gun. The goal to kill as many people as possible, including pregnant women and children.

You get extra points for killing women as they are "breeders."

The good news: *some* people are up in arms over this--they understand the extreme danger of a "game" with these lessons.

The bad news: those same people probably allow their children to play Grand Theft Auto which instructs players to attack prostitutes who are standing on street corners.

Geez...I wonder what video game the Duke Lacrosse players played?

READ ABOUT IT

Its kind of like make believe...only different

Once upon a time, in a land not so far away, there was a "scientific" agency whose officials argued that the morning after pill would lead to promiscuous sex cults....

In the memo released by the FDA during the discovery process, Dr. Curtis Rosebraugh, an agency medical officer, wrote: "As an example, she stated that we could not anticipate, or prevent extreme promiscuous behaviors such as the medication taking on an 'urban legend' status that would lead adolescents to form sex-based cults centered around the use of Plan B."Rosebraugh indicated he found no reason to bar nonprescription sales of Plan B."This was the level of scientific discourse, so to speak," Heller said in a phone interview, referring to concerns attributed to Woodcock. "I find it very odd that these people who are supposed to be responsible scientists and doctors are making up wacky reasons."

Yeah. I know....
but on the bright side, I get to use the phrase "sex-based cults" in an academic paper.

Read more

The not so random "next blog" feature

Remember a long time ago when I told ya'll about how I reward myself with blog reading?

..."Kristen, if you write 5 pages you can read some blogs"...

I may not have told you that*....well, I REWARD MYSELF WITH BLOG READING.

Part of the reading experience is to click on "next blog" at the top of blogspot blogs. I'm not unique, I know.

BUUUUT

Lately, the random "next blog" feature hasn't been so random. I'm been linking to blogs that are of specific interest to me. One blog was even written by a communication studies professor. WEIRD.

A few weeks ago, I stumbled onto THIS blog.

She is currently blogging about her marriage experience. PHENOMENAL writing. She is telling a really honest, really raw and potentially scary story. I would encourage you to check it out. But don't start at her most recent entry. Scroll down and read it in order.

I love to hear people's marriage stories--good and bad.
I also appreciate open bloggers.

Go. Read. It.


* I just looked for the entry and I can't find it

The Squid and The Whale

We have been wanting to see this movie for a LONG time. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Laura Linney and the plot really had me intrigued.

Now, it wasn't the most hopeful movie to watch two months before your wedding, but it was extremely enjoyable just the same. . . .

The movie tells the story of two brothers experiencing their parents divorce. The script smartly weaves the complex relationship of separated parents and conflicted children. The dialogue is frank and stinging. The actors do a fabulous job telling this immensely personal story.

I was really touched by the movie and while I would only recommend it for mature audiences, I would highly recommend it. I look for the oldest son (Jesse Eisenberg) to be in lots of other projects. He was a stand out.

A few interesting tidbits...Bill Murray was originally slated to play the father but pulled out of the project after filming Broken Flowers. While I could watch Bill Murray in pretty much anything and enjoy myself, I can honestly say that he would have been perfect for this role. However, Daniels was great as well. ALSO, it was produced by Wes Anderson (which will be a selling point for many that read this blog).

Yeah, you should watch it....

Nap Time In DC

Cheney is sleeeeepy.

OR the Chinese President's message is very boooooring.

Can the Bush Administration BE ANY WORSE? ANY LESS CREDIBLE?

Everyday more ridiculousness appears. Someday I will cease to be amazed.

But not today....

You've come a long way, baby

My recent scholarship involves Barbie...and it isn't what you think. I'm not writing about how much I hate Barbie and how disgusting she is (although, she is). I'm not ranting about how any daughter of mine will not be permitted to play with Barbie (although, she won't)....instead, I am examining the power of Barbie to re-define and re-image certain groups of women. I won't go into boring scholarship details but I thought maybe you would like to see my latest FIND.

That's right....LESBIAN ACTION FIGURES.

I *heart* it!

The Mouthpiece

Okay, so we all know that McClellan bit the dust today. The second press secretary in three years to exit. Let me be the first (okay, the second...Bush beat me to it) to say that I think McClellan STUNK. STUNK. He was really only good at repeating (verbatim) the party line. But whatever....the deeper issue here is that NO PRESS SECRETARY is going to succeed in this administration. The idea behind a press secretary is that they (wait for it....)

brief.
the.
press.

Wellll, when Dubya wants no information to be released to the press, it is difficult to
brief.
the.
press.

Right?!?! Wouldn't you say?

...I would.

I LOVED Dubya's genius line from the press conference today
"His is a challenging assignment dealing with you all on a regular basis..."

And by dealing with all of you....he really meant, dealing with ME. AND MY DUMBASS ADMINISTRATION that shoots people and angers military generals.

So--you know what, Scott McClellan? Go out, get a beer, and sleep well tonight. Your life just got A LOT easier.

Not an isolated incident

One of the Duke Lacrosse players arrested and charged with rape has a violent past.

The New York Times gives us the skinny....

Collin Finnerty and two of his teammates from high school lacrosse were arrested on Nov. 5 in Washington for beating a man. The victim reported that Finnerty and friends "punched him in the face and body, because he told them to stop calling him gay and other derogatory names"

But Finnerty's record was cleared after he completed 25 hours of community service.

I guess this shouldn't really be surprising...many privileged white men often feel permitted to disrespect women, people of color, and gay/lesbian/trans people. Violence is violence. Sexual violence is sexual violence. Power is power. But the question remains--why was this gentlemen allowed to continue playing lacrosse? Why was he not disciplined by the coach/university?

AND why is he not referred to as an "abuser," "homophobe," "pervert" to the same extent that the rape victim is referred to as a "sex worker," "exotic dancer," and "entertainment worker?" If anyone deserves to be dehumanized in this case, it certaintly isn't the victim.


He may have to do 30 hours of community service this time around....

Mind Numbing

It isn't really "writer's block" per say as I'm not *writing* anything--just rearranging content and adding sentences throughout sections.

But I...
just.
can't.
do.
it.

Instead, I re-organized my books (this time putting them in piles for each class and arranging them by size) and compose delicate time tables for my upcoming weeks. Time tables that won't be obeyed as I did not pencil in "Rearrange Books" time. . . .

What goes around...

"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires."
Susan B. Anthony

So last week, I posted about the Christians suing for the right to speak out against homosexuality. If you remember, they claimed that "their faith compels them to speak out against homosexuality."

Well, freedom of expression goes both ways! The Supreme Court has rejected the appeal from Jerry Fallwell to shut down fallwell.com which attacks his (offensive) views on homosexuality. What a clever idea!

I guess this man's experience with bigotry and hate compels him to speak out against people who use their religious faith to discriminate.

The Grocery Store Revisited

So we decided to give the very UN self-service grocery store another go today....

...the same thing happened. Different worker but same (unwanted) help with unloading the cart. Even Drew tried to protest the help today but to no avail.... As the woman was scanning our (out of order) groceries she looked at our purchases, said them aloud, looked at me and asked "what I was cooking for Easter dinner..." I was too stunned to answer so Drew jumped in and said we were going to our friends' house (which we are). But I wanted to say "look, lady, if I want to make ground turkey for Easter dinner, I WILL..."* (I was still unnerved by a stranger touching my groceries and was a tad reactionary).

K: "The people in this grocery store are very nosey"
D: "They're just being nice."
K: "Nice people are weird."



* but I didn't say this because the woman was actually sweet and (I think) meant well

Weekend Update...Without Tina Fey

Last night, we caught the movie Thank You For Smoking. It was really GREAT. I was slightly nervous as I had really enjoyed the book and wasn't sure the movie would capture the clever, witty writing of Christopher Buckley (son of William but don't hold that against him). However, the fantastic cast of William H. Macy, Maria Bello, and Aaron Eckhart got it right. The movie/book is a clever look at the difficulty of a nation that values personal choice. It also is a great tongue in cheek view of both political correctness and corporate responsibility. I would highly recommend it. I laughed out loud quite a few times--but my sense of humor is sometimes a little....

off.

Drew said it reminded him of the Newsweek cartoons...you appreciate the clever writing but only really give a small laugh.

We also went to see our friend Chris' band play. He was playing in a bar that we had never even heard of. As we approached the entrance, we were met with a gaggle of motorcycles and large men. Not our typical scene! BUT we had THE. BEST. TIME. Great music! Great people! We made friends and even danced with some locals.

All in all a great night with great company. Fun time is over now....the end of the semester is upon us.

*this post will forever be known as the post of many links....

Who?

The first democratic candidate for 08 is going to be announced on Monday.... Mike Gravel (Alaska)

I hope he has some good ideas to get the race off to a good start.

Just sitting here wondering...

If I can have the body of my 21 year old self but the mind of my 26 year old self...

...how I walked to school every day at Central Michigan without an ipod.

AND

how I forgot about the great song Mrs. Potter's Lullaby by the Counting Crows...rediscovered it on my walk to school

Also, if I was big on writing letters...I would write a letter to the Ipod powers that be and thank them for inventing the little earphone splitter thing that allows Drew and me to listen to one Ipod at the same time.

THANKS IPOD...for making us a disgustingly cute couple that listens to music at the same time on airplanes.

I dream I never know anyone at the party and I'm always the host If dreams are like movies then memories are films about ghostsYou can never escape, you can only move south down the coast Well I am an idiot walking a tightrope of fortune and fame

Duke Lacrosse

The most disgusting thing about this situation (besides the rape and the racial slurs, of course) is how the mainstream media continues to reduce the victim to a "stripper" or "exotic dancer."

Last time I checked she was a mother, a student, a WOMAN.

As if her attackers didn't dehumanize her enough....

Top Five Movie Crushes

Hugh Grant in Love Actually
Ewan McGregor in Moulin Rouge
Charlize Theron in Cider House Rules
Robert Redford in The Way We Were
Matthew McConaughy in A Time To Kill


Your Turn...

God would be very proud

I don't really need to say MUCH about this.

I think this quote pretty much says it all....

"Malhotra says her Christian faith compels her to speak out against homosexuality. But the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she's a senior, bans speech that puts down others because of their sexual orientation. Malhotra sees that as an unacceptable infringement on her right to religious expression. So she's demanding that Georgia Tech revoke its tolerance policy."

I love it when "religious expression"demands bigotry.*

*you know that post from earlier today? the one where i said 'Blue State' was the story of my life? Yeah, well...I was snapped back into a red state reality a couple moments ago.

OCD Shopping

So, one nice thing about living in the south is the fantastic customer service. People go out of their way to be polite. Most of the time I appreciate it...MOST OF THE TIME.

The one exception is the grocery store....I don't like people helping us out to the car with our groceries. I don't like having to make awkward conversation with the person pushing the cart all while feeling guilty that they are doing this stupid task. I don't like them loading our stuff into our car...BLAH.

BUT...I really don't like what happened this weekend at the grocery store. Allow me to retell the story

Clerk: Oh, you gotta let me earn my living here. *grabs groceries and starts putting them on the belt*

Me: *startled (Since he came bounding around the corner very quickly)* Oh! *polite laughter* No, No, No...you don't have to do that. We've got it

*sidebar* and by "we've" I meant "me." I like to unload my own groceries. I like to put them in a certain order on the cart. I calculate the order the items will go down the belt and how they will get put in the bag. I design it so all similar items go into the bags together and it is easier to put them away. I also like all of my cheese, meat, coldish stuff to be together. I hate when the bags have an awkward shape and fall all over in the car.

Me: *aggressively rearranging the items* No, really...you don't have to do that.
Clerk: No, no...my son said I had to get out of the house and find something to do with my time.
Me: Hmmmm

Then, it became a race for me to rearrange all the items before they reached the scanner. It was a crazy amount of stress. I felt my heart beating in my ears. As we walked out of the store, I mentioned to Drew that I felt bad that that man unloaded our groceries. He said, "you don't feel bad. You're just upset that he touched our stuff and screwed up your order."

Yeah....

In other grocery store news (thats something you don't read on a blog everyday)...We've really had a hard time finding one we feel "at home" in. We really only have two choices--Kroger and Publix. And while we have 5 Kroger stores to choose from, we've yet to find one that is OUR place. And our trusty dusty Blue Pages book says this about them:

Kroger:
Total contributions- $21,000 (10% to Democrats and 90% to Republicans)
Has a written nondiscrimination policy covering sexual orientation but not gender identity. Refuses insurance coverage to domestic partners.

Publix:
Total contributions- $21,000 (11% to Democrats and 89% to Republicans)
Has a written nondiscrimination policy covering sexual orientation but not gender identity. Refuses insurance coverage to domestic partners.

So much for choice...

The Story of My Life?

PrivatJokr sent me this link.....I cannot WAIT for the movie to come out! Sometime in 2007!

BLUE STATE

The movie will tell of a young, idealistic Democrat who follows through on a promise to move to Canada if George W. Bush is re-elected....

Rhetorical Significance

On This Week with my Georgey, he showed a blip of an interview with Delay. I hadn't seen him say this before. But Delay said:

I'm going to continue to work for the conservative movement.

Hmmmm.

The Red and Black revisited

I received a text on Friday morning from my friend Bethany who said there was lots of fun to be had with the Red and Black that day. I had a copy in my bag which is rare since I had given up reading it after THIS post. But I like to have some material to talk to students about before class each Friday so I try to browse the paper. I anxiously read looking for the "fun" that Bethany referenced. I thoroughly enjoyed the "news" article about getting some "TLC at the SLC" (which took more room than the story about Pappa Bush AND Edwards speaking on campus that day) and smirked knowingly at the article about the Georgia women posing in playboy (I'm not even going to link to that story because I don't want to further objectify the women). But, hey, I get it--it is a student newspaper that reports the happenings at UGA. Whatever. I was doing okay until I saw THIS opinion blurb....

"University officials decided this week to let the Student Government Association take hold of The Key, keeping it in its original form on the SGA Web site this semester and enhancing it later. Besides syllabi, we’d like to see body shots of all professors and their attendance policies to decide if at least eye-candy will keep us awake in class."

Ummm, WHAT?! I was dismayed. I AM dismayed. I said it to a group of students and I will say it again....We (as a university) are better than this. The students deserve better content. Academic work deserves more respect. I find it hard to believe that the collective student body of UGA demand "eye candy" to stay awake in class. If the Red and Black are going to count themselves as spokespeople for the 30+ thousand students that attend UGA, they should actually share intelligent opinions.

Oh, and at a basic level, the sentence doesn't even make sense. A poorly written and ridiculous sentence. AWESOME.

Not So Funny...

So you know how I just talked about the *hunting terrorists* bumper sticker? And how that guy was driving all around with it? Well, he was driving on 316 (state route from Athens to Atlanta).


And so was THIS LADY...

But I guess her *Tired of all the BUSHIT* bumper sticker was "lewd and offensive."

That makes sense....

....IN COMMUNIST CHINA.

Wait...

There is a MORE conservative Democrat than Hillary Clinton??

And he wants her senate seat?

Woe is me....

"Mark Greenstein, a 42-year-old businessman is aiming to "take a stand against 'sellout' liberals" by facing off against the freshman Senator and former first lady."

You're Either With Us....

A truck in front of us today had a Sierra Club sticker and a hunting license on the back window.
AWESOME.



*We tried to take a picture with our cell phones but couldn't get close enough. I found this replica online.