Friday, January 04, 2008

The Long Goodbye - Movie Review

Robert Altmans tung in cheek Film Noir detective movie ambles along at a wonderful pace, and takes a few twist and turns. Great characters, setting and scenes punctuate this droll take on a 50's gum shoe in 1970's California. Elliot Gould (that's okay by me) or Rip Van Marlow as the character implies - seems to sleep walk through a crazy world - from his perspective. Unable to get a bead on things Elliot never lets em see him sweat and pursues head long into and on his instincts. You can tell this is a 70's movie as Henry Gibbson plays an evil psychiatrist emasculating his patient (or is that client). Anyway great one liners and the rebirth of one of my favorite old time sayings "BALLS" just swept me along. Hint's of sexual over tones - nude yoga and the juxtaposition that Altman usually thrives on presents itself with ease. We wonder along with Gould -"what the hell is wrong with these people" turns out that despite the trappings of time and fashion it's the same old damn thing that's always been wrong with us - just in wider lapels. I loved all the characters as caricatures and Elliot's water off a ducks back approach.

I highly recommend this lark for film buffs and casual fans. By far my favorite Elliot Gould performance.

Paul
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Sunday, December 30, 2007

Happy New Year

As I sit here and contemplate the "New Year" and just exactly how deceitful the world is and can be I'm still hopeful. As Dick Cheney's files burn in the Eisenhower building where his records are stored and his secret meetings with the Energy Cartel were held (on his first day in office) I'm still hopeful. Where the music industry has devolved and just markets the most awful instrument free and hideous noise appealing to our lowest common denominator I am still hopeful. Where the Environmental Protection Agency is actively preventing, thwarting, and stopping the curbing of pollution and State's Rights I am still hopeful. There are a lot of things wrong in this world from waging wars for resources (see Cheney's first day in office) and the pillaging of God's wondrous planet for profits, poppies, and oil, but somehow I am still stubbornly, persistently hopeful.

Why? Because I choose to be and will not let their sacrilege and their petulant behavior do anything but make me stronger. Too often we are obscured by the anguish and confusion in trying to understand why the toxic people among us are the way they are, elected and armed, greedy and heartless, lazy and stupid, cunning and wanting. But because of these men who kill, lie and spend their lives on destruction and hate there are forever more opportunities crying out in our lives to make this a better world. The need is great, it is beyond huge, and the whistle is screaming, the time is now. The time has always been now. So what can we do so fragmented and divided? We are not powerless and so simply in your corner of the world the time too is now, and the opportunity is present to find something you love to do and share it with others. Do something, anything but do not buy into the story that one person can not make a difference. Every moment, every second with every action the choice is there to either create or destroy in all of our lives constantly, persistently and decisively we make either one way or another headway.

In this moment of reflection as the New Year approaches and the calendar starts a new, as we reach out to old friends and remember those who have gone before us, as the Winter Solstice has passed and the days are getting longer so to must we inevitably, persistently, lovingly change. Change is the only constant I can see and so too must change come to those who spend a lifetime destroying our lands, our rights, our health, our economy, our education, our liberties, our loves by their stealing, lying and killing for themselves and their selves only and alone.

In 1963 they blew John Kennedy's head to bits and claimed it was one deranged man who traveled the world freely, got the secret service to stand down, lived in the USA, and the Soviet Union, and all this with only one bullet, so are we surprised that the stupidity, and ignorance of arrogance continues today. Has it gotten better? Always there will be the unenlightened to operate on a level below comprehension to all but the selfish. Somehow we must take the sword of ignorance and destruction from their hands and raise our voices, our vibration brighter, stronger, louder and higher than theirs.

In this day and age it is long past due where apathy and a shrug of the shoulders can be our passive answer. I know beyond certainty that if each and everyone of us took up the vote, took up the cause, took up the pen, took up the protest, took up the song, and took up the action that we would prevail simply and easily.

So as it drizzles rain (much needed rain) on this gloomy morning I can still see the bright, beautiful, future as it has weaved it's way through time filled with infinite possibilities. I can hear on the wind the hopeful song of life everywhere and the efforts (far greater than mine) of people all over this beautiful, sacred planet, and their persistent vision as they tend their gardens and loosen the shackles of the Status Quo. It is a beautiful world, magnificent in it's intricacies fragile in its relationships and holy in it's being. We can build and live and create better societies more worthy of existence and live in harmony with creation.

And so change ever present reveals the deceivers and their small-minded tricks their propaganda and their contempt of the righteous. We clearly see the deceit and how beholden they are to it to achieve self worth. We see the smug sneer of those who think they are fooling us, but merely themselves and we know the bile that fills their bellies because they know they are wrong as they age horribly before our very eyes.

It is with change that I am hopeful guaranteed of it's coming and the natural beauty that unfolds every morning. Be at peace with yourself and so it shall be for the rest of all that is, Happy New Year indeed.

Paul

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

EPA KILLS CALIFORNIA TAILPIPE CONTROLS

This is a repost from the good people at 40MPG.org

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WEEKLY UPDATE

CONGRESS ENABLES EPA TO KILL CALIFORNIA TAILPIPE CONTROLS

December 21, 2007: You have to give Detroit credit where credit is due. They may not know how to build high-MPG cars the way every other automaker in the world has figured out how to do ... but they sure know how to run rings around a Democratic Congress. First, Congress passes a pathetically weak and elongated MPG improvement target and then the Bush Environmental Protection Agency responds by using the new law as the primary justification for striking down California's attempt to tighten up on tailpipe emissions. Talk about adding insult to injury! Of course, it's nice to know that Congress is up in arms and that Washington state and The Terminator want to sue The Decider to overturn the EPA decision. But this was a totally predictable and entirely self-inflicted wound for Democrats who controlled the energy legislation. By caving into Detroit by pushing the 35 MPG standard out much farther into the future than is technologically necessary, Congress made it possible for the Bush Administration to kill a much more serious-minded state-level initiative to control wasteful energy consumption by autos. The EPA may have pulled the trigger, but Congress handed them the bullet ...

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