Mississippi Burning

I am not exactly sure why I had never seen Mississippi Burning until last night, but I am glad I finally did. If you haven't seen it, you should. Being from the South, I didn't really need a lesson on how terrible things were - and are. But the movie is good and would be even if it were fiction. It's chock full of actors who you know and will recognize and enjoy seeing at a relatively young age.

On top of that, it reminds you of the deleterious effect that hatred has on people and society.

I can never pretend to know what it is like to be black in the south (or the north) today, much less back then. But I can imagine what it is like to be a white racist and have that kid of hatred in your soul. What a pitiful existence that must be - to devote energy to negative and exclusionary goals and feelings. I don't think you could ever truly love when your heart is broken with that much anger and insecurity.

The most powerful scene for me was when Gene Hackman's character recounts a story from his childhood when the black sharecropper down the road got a mule.

Save the Cheerleader . . .

In case you didn't notice, Rolling Blunder stopped rolling a while back when the heroes of the story landed in Denver, CO. But as they say, the end of one adventure is the start of another and they promptly began doing their part to save the world.

Check out their new blog (at least new to my list), which tracks the green renovation of their home. It's been going on for a while, but scroll to the beginning of the blog to start where they did.

More importantly, scope out their contracting business at http://www.suvillage.com for your renovation needs & ideas.

on the iPod:
hopefully the Grammy performance by Christina Aguilera

wash your mouth out

Insulated travel coffee mugs are great, but the "do not put in dishwasher" thing is a pain. I'm half way through my coffee and I just pulled a big swig of soap because I apparently didn't rinse the lid well enough after hand washing. Dang.

tougher than leather

I was way too young to fully appreciate the significance of RUN-DMC & the fact that, on top of everything else, they also made a commercially successful rap movie.


It's funny how you feel tough when you wear leather. I was on my way out last night, sporting my leather jacket & rocking the iPod on the train. Forget that I am a middle aged white male law student - the point isn't whether I am tough or even look tough. The point is that wearing a leather jacket makes you feel tough. How could it not?

But that feeling quickly fades away when you reach into your pocket and find a tube of Blistex. It's hard to feel tough when you have Blistex in your pocket.

you're not wearing enough clothes

When it's 17 degrees outside and the wind chill is 4, it doesn't matter whether you wear long johns, or layer an extra fleece, or do whatever you plan to do to beat the cold - after walking to the grocery store, your face will still be so numb that you won't realize your nose is dumping gallons of snot onto your upper lip until you taste it running in your mouth.

At least that is what this guy told me.

. . . and for the record:

It's Snot Lunch
Boogers are those hard, crusty globs that get stuck in your nose. They form when dirty snot dries out. What ever you do, don't eat that booger! Not only is it really gross, it's also bad for you cuz boogers are full of germs and other yucky things. However, you can't help eating a lot of snot cuz you're constantly swallowing the stuff. The average person swallows about a quart of snot a day. Yummy.

To learn more, check out http://www.kidzworld.com/article/3267-bone-up-on-boogers

Frogs

At the risk of relying too heavily on the news for my inspiration, I direct you to this headline from the NY Times:

Chirac Unfazed by Nuclear Iran, Then Backtracks
By ELAINE SCIOLINO and KATRIN BENNHOLD
France's president said that if Iran had one or two nuclear
weapons, it would not pose a big danger. A day later, he
retracted many of his remarks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/01/world/europe/01france.html

This is how he back-tracked:

Mr. Chirac said repeatedly during the second interview that he had spoken casually and quickly the day before because he believed he had been talking about Iran off the record.

“I should rather have paid attention to what I was saying and understood that perhaps I was on the record,” he said.

That is not exactly a statement that he was wrong, but that he shouldn't have said what he said. This is why people in America don't like France. Don't get me wrong, our president says and does stupid horrible things. But if there is one thing that the world (at least the west) should be unified about, it is that Iran with nukes is very very bad. This is not complicated.

I can't help but think that part of the reason Chirac can have such a nonchalant attitude is that if Iran ever did do anything, it would be the US that has to respond. When Iran launches a nuke at Israel, do you think it is going to be France that initiates the counter strike? Obviously Israel is pretty capable of retaliating on their own, but these kinds of things inevitably fall at the feet of America. I don't remember North Korea holding out for bi-lateral talks with France.

All of this responsibility is due to the way we have positioned ourselves in the world, and is fine with me. It's just frustrating when the people who are supposed to be our allies are so blind to realities of world hegemony.