Slumdog Millionaire is a moving film about trials, trivia and love. The story is set in Mumbai, India, and follows two boys and a girl from their upbringing as fecal-covered children to conflicted young adults. Director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting) does an excellent job of introducing us to a culture that is so different from our own (here in the West), that you can’t pull your eyes away from the screen. As beautiful as it is horrific, Slumdog manages to shock…
Darwin didn’t say ‘survival of the fittest.’ He said ‘survival of the most adaptable.’ Because we have big brains, humans are highly adaptable. But still, we’re fallible. From disease to famine to harsh changes in our environment, humans with DNA that has adapted and refined itself over time are the likeliest to successfully continue the human species. Survival of the most adaptable. Keep in mind, this well-adapted DNA has nothing to do with ethnicity (at least not for the purposes…
Tomorrow we will vote for a lot of things. Chief among them, the direction of this country for (at least) the near future. While many of us are busy with matters of consequence that consume our thoughts – like paying bills, buying groceries, keeping a job, raising children, managing health care and planning for retirement (or perhaps just planning on how to pay next month’s mortgage) – please take a moment to think about what you’re about to do. Say…
People use guns to kill animals and other people. That’s it. When our forefathers granted us the right to bear arms, do you think they meant that we should be able to go into a pawn shop in any city in America and buy a semi-automatic weapon? Think about the idea of “bearing arms” for a second–don’t you think that this really means we have the right to defend ourselves? Of course it does–that’s absolutely American. We don’t take shit from anyone. No, we don’t turn…
Is Death miles away from this house, reaching for a window in Cinncinati or breathing down the neck of a lost hiker in British Columbia? Is he too busy making arrangements, tampering with air brakes, scattering cancer cells like seeds, loosening the wooden beams of roller coasters to bother with my hidden cottage that visitors find so hard to find? Or is he stepping from a black car parked at the dark end of the lane, shaking open the familiar…
After about the fifth time Governor Palin used the term ‘maverick’ to describe her running mate during the VP debate last night, I wanted to shoot the television. The McCain-Palin folks have obviously decided to brand their campaign with one word. Now, I know McCain has done some really good things in his career both during his service in the armed forces, as well as in the Senate. But a word like maverick is usually reserved for younger men –…
