Margaret Cho is hot

and she's got a new show on VH-1.


The Cho Show (:30 Image) from Vinny Lopez on Vimeo.


I don't know why I didn't know she has a blog, but she does, and you can see the first episode on her blog here.

I don't get it, the first episode airs tomorrow, Thursday the 21st, but you get a sneak preview online. Has the web surpassed TV as the spot to be entertained? I'm recording it just in case this is the abridged version.

Unnatural Causes: Not Just a Paycheck

Here in Oregon, this and the final episode are showing this Sunday, 11 am. (We've complained in the discussions about what a poor time choice this was by OPB. Shameful.)

What happens when a company pulls out of a town and whole swaths of people become unemployed? More people than would be usual will die. And what can we trace it back to? Everybody now.....toxic stress, and that means....everybody now....too much cortisol. Hmmm...following that link I find that constant noise will cause toxic stress too. That would explain why when I experience PMS that loud noises now get to me. They haven't in the past, but lately sometimes my brain just seems to fizz out, and I need to find the space to breathe. That would also be an additional factor in how place matters...all the noisier things are in the poor sections of a town...airports, train yards, manufacturing plants, etc.

When people lose their jobs, many never recover financially. They don't just lose a paycheck. Their health also spirals downward. People will self-medicate by eating more or turning to alcohol. In Greenville, Michigan, the town featured in this show, the caseload in the local hospital nearly tripled after the big employer, Electrolux, pulled out and moved to Mexico. Electrolux is based in Sweden, a place where it likely could not pull out without compensating the displaced workers, and where workers have scads better social safety nets than we do for unemployment.

Here, there is a still-growing chasm between the "haves" and the "have-nots". Workers have not shared in the wealth from greater productivity. While these are things I agree with, there was quite of bit of this stuff said without supporting statistics. I'm sure they're there, but perhaps they didn't use them because it's not as dramatically straight-forward as all the health stuff has been.

One person said (perhaps the mayor?) that "we live in an individualistic society. We believe that people are responsible for their own fate." We do live in an individualistic society, something that I believe has come up in the community conversations as working against us, but it is a myth that we can be completely responsible for our own fate. It's a myth also that this society is set up to support the individual in creating their own fate. Much of it works against the majority, and supports the few.

In Sweden, the unemployed worker featured gets 80% of his former wage as long as he's going to school or looking for work. He did not have any anxiety or stress over his unemployment. In Sweden, new parents get 16 months paid leave. There, "health is not dependent on personal income, wealth, or job security."

Highlights from the discussion

• woman has never had a living wage job since she moved to Oregon (she is now unemployed and has been a valuable voice in the discussion...like when someone suggested barter alternatives, she talked about the tax and unemployment rules and how if she works for her mother for room and board she has to claim the cash equivalent on taxes, and I presume loses some of her unemployment compensation)
• somebody said that we in the US cannot move to Mexico and get one of those jobs that were outsourced, according to NAFTA. I don't know if that's true. Apparently it is possible to get a job in Mexico, according to this.
• Unions could exert pressure in Sweden, not here.
• someone followed that: even strong unions cannot work alone; we need a good government that supports unions; government doesn't support the people, work for the people any more
• same company wasn't able to be as ruthless in Sweden as it could in the US

Looking for solutions

• how about we make companies pay for it when they harm workers?
• if we can't get it on the state level, a Multnomah county tax for job loss support
• support for the stress of job loss: education, support, medication (one of the first medications people stopped buying was anti-depressants)
• get grants from corporations to support people with job loss, for health, education; make it as cache to help with health needs as it is to help the library
• sponsor debates, raise awareness
• tie relief to farmer's markets; support barter, sharing

Unnatural Causes: Bad Sugar

The funny thing about watching these documentaries...you may think beforehand you know what it's going to be about, but you don't. Bad Sugar isn't simply about diabetes, and it isn't simply about how the loss of a native's diet brought about higher incidence of diabetes. How is it that the world over, natives that have had their lands taken, who have lost their histories, whether in the Americas, in Australia, or elsewhere, these natives have experienced a higher than usual rate of diabetes?

The Tohono O'odham nation in Arizona "has the highest rate of type 2 diabetes in the world." Terrell Dew Johnson, activist and artist, says his elders never said they have diabetes, "they've always said 'I just have bad sugar.'"

The ancestors of the Pima in Arizona were master water engineers. The Coolidge Dam on the Gila River took away their water. At first, the people died from starvation. Within two generations, they began dying from type 2 diabetes.

Not only were the foods supplied by the US government to Native Americans to replace their lost livelihoods loaded with fat, sugar, and carbs (remember this is how we got fry bread), stress and poverty also contributes to the higher rates of bad sugar. Remember, chronic stress = too much cortisol = impaired glucose production. Fresh food was not provided until 1996.

When Coolidge had that dam built, the Pima were promised there would be water for all. Heh, yeah right. The Pima went nearly 100 years without water. The prosperity of Phoenix and the rest of Arizona is built on the backs of the natives. Prosperous Scottsdale has a 5% rate of diabetes; working-class Bullhead City has a 11% rate; the reservation has a 50% rate.

The documentary refrained from mentioning green lawns and golf courses while the Gila River ran dry. There was mention that among whites, there has been a culture of believing "that the tribes did not deserve the water."

This is the sort of thing that Rev. Wright referred to when he said he hates America, and I cannot blame him. While Barack Obama had to say his former minister was "stuck in the past," to appease the bristling Nationalists, I think he was wrong. This is not the past! Until white America reaches a tipping point in acknowledging this, racism will not be something of the past. I hate this about white America too. Now, after the Water Rights Act of 2004 (2004!!) the Pima have water flowing in the Gila River again.

From the community discussion:

• news that day: local tribes accepted not-quite-billion dollar settlement. The tribes agreed to drop lawsuits regarding ecological management of the Columbia River. (The money is expected to come from electricity rate. Again it is a win for the corporations.)
• there was no mention of corn sugar: corn syrup is "bad sugar" and is in everything
• Q: what is it that created problems for these communities. A: They were forced into decisions that go against their values. A: They were forced to eat cheese and carbs, not their native diet. [it seemed to me people shied away from saying they were robbed of their land, their culture, and their history]
• There are 9 reservations in Oregon: we need to broaden this conversation to the state level
• School lunches, emergency programs: success is based on measurement of calories, should be on nutrients
• Q: what are the next steps, some solutions? A: my community and family affected by diabetes: need education on how to cook
• Community solutions: African American Coalition taught barbers and beauticians about diabetes. This teaches a culture of taking care of each other. Need to find "unexpected alliances." How about health brochures in freebies in libraries, on Trimet, in various languages...not just at the doctor.
• Share in the bounty: community gardens. I need to remember to share about Growing Gardens--that is what I'd like to see in our community gardens.
• Let's have health fairs all the time: community activity board, billboards, signs.

Unnatural Causes: When the Bough Breaks

Becoming American and When the Bough Breaks will be airing on OPB on this Sunday at 11 am (tomorrow at 7 pm if you have HDTV). I'm sad that it's at such a bad time. Who watches tv at that time? If you're outside Oregon, check your local listings.


An acquaintance friend of mine from way back who works for the County was the facilitator for this showing and discussion. I just love her voice. It's kind of like Fran Drescher's really is, without the exaggerated whine that she does for The Nanny. There's this harmonious alto warble that is so enticingly interesting. I digress... Ms. D is a fabulous facilitator, which made up for Dr. A not being there. Dr. A is so cool too.


Many of us were returning viewers, but for those new to this, D reminded us that these documentaries show us that "health isn't' just about health coverage or even personal choices, but there are social causes to ill health too." Again, I would warn my readers that this review contains spoilers.


Unlike new immigrants, African Americans experience socially caused ill health at the other end of the scale. Their babies are born premature or too small at twice the rate of other groups. Twice the rate! This gap is not corrected by education or socio-economic status. In fact, the gap actually widens the more educated or higher status a black person has.


A couple of doctors saw this gap, and developed the hypothesis that it is due to their unequal treatment in American society. Ya think? But being good scientists, unlike me, your average geeky lay person, they tested. They asked "could the problem be genetic?" They compared the low-weight birth rates between African Americans, African immigrants, and American white women. The immigrants and the white women had similar outcomes. But if you're paying attention and remember the lesson of Becoming American...you're right, immigrants lose this relative equality of health within a generation.


The chronic stress of living with discrimination, and the cumulative experience over a lifetime not only affects the health of a woman, it affects her birth outcomes. The thing is, the sociologist asks, "How do we measure the subtle racism that follows African American women throughout their lives?" Women internalize this. They think about how race affects their lives constantly. How do you measure it? A sociologist, anthropologist, and an epidemiologist got together to do this. They started with a focus group that went on for 15 years.


I thought to myself, I wish they'd do this for fat people. We too are subject to thinking about this constantly. Unlike people of color, we are almost always told to blame ourselves for the fatness of our bodies. We think about this every time we eat, every time we attempt to move about or sit in a space designed for smaller people. This too puts chronic stress on our lives. This too must have an effect on all those health factors that this show is talking about. Yet when studies are done, chances are much more likely they're looking for a way to blame the weight, not the stress.

Some highlights from the discussion

• premature/small babies: same biological response as during war
• we can't change the way our species reacts to strangers (tribal response) (I disagree)
• story about experience as only non-white woman in a group: joined an artist group, at a party nobody sat with her at her table; "I've learned to cope by ignoring it."
• OHSU graduate student, white: we've learned people with dark skin need more Vitamin D; their bodies cannot manufacture it at all in our Pacific Northwest winters; this also causes low birth weight (I didn't get the sense she was trying to discount the racial gap, but looking for ways to mitigate it...at first...then it seemed she would rather believe a more graspable reason for the gap than racism) She would like to see a test for Vit. D deficiencies as part of a woman's annual exam. Good idea.
• pregnancy program worker: studies show this gap still exists in the southern states, where they do get more sun
• policy can't change people's perceptions
• (me) but it can! this is changing the public dialog. on a national level, the sound bites are separative; appropriate policy can change the sound bites to be connective
• money follows the policy
• (me) a question: is it possible that awareness of this, the influence of chronic stress, can change how it influences our health? (I knew my own answer to that question, I know from years of meditation and awareness practice that it does.)

My question prompted a flurry of dialog, prompted by the second facilitator, who asked: Those of you who've seen these shows, have you done anything differently?

• she herself has told herself "life is too short. let go let god."
• it's about self-love
• gonna buy vitamin D!
• if someone has a problem with who I am, it's their problem
• find ways to support those in less advantaged places
• it there's a policy, it's like having a road we can follow
• important to have good relationships, love
• good relationships between community members and policy makers
• this is from Malcolm X: when the people with the problems come up with the solutions, you have better solutions (so true)

Just a side note: I've eaten more Baja Fresh in the last 4 weeks than I had in the whole past year. That is the free food they've had for us. I like it, I just don't get around to going there that often.

Unnatural Causes: Becoming American

I was so happy about this: there were 30 people there for this showing. I was able to share that people could still see the first episode at some location in North Portland, and there were still some more showings of the second episode, and that they could go to the library website and find it under "News". Bruce, from the Health Dept. said I get an A plus plus for coming to all these.

While the first episode was an hour long, all the rest of them are a half hour long, so we have lots more time for the focus group conversation. I learned later that several of the attendees were immigrants, which was exciting considering the topic. I wondered if they came in particular because the topic drew them over the other episodes, or if they'd been especially marketed to through some group or agency. Regardless, it was great to hear their points of view.

Review:
This was a surprise to me: recent immigrants have better health than the wealthiest in the U.S. It's a myth that they bring infectious diseases...I would say a racist myth. They're healthier than the rest of us; within a generation, they lose that advantage, and are affected by the same unnatural causes.

The role of the strong family ties "forms a shield around them, protects them from the deleterious effects of American culture." We work more than ever. We are more socially isolated. That's a big thing. Social isolation can kill, it is linked to a greater risk for almost every cause of death. But, family isn't enough, that shield weakens.

It helps when communities are organized to keep that protective shield working. Kennett Square, a strong Quaker town, was featured as an example. One from there said, "Everyone benefits if no one is left behind." A worker at a large mushroom farm was featured.

• Among immigrants, as teens acquire American culture, they lose that hopefulness that their parents came here with.
• The American Dream is a myth: most people do not move up the social ladder.
• When immigrant parents work a lot, kids lose that valuable contact with the positive aspects of their culture.
• This country increases your risk of psychiatric illness
• Workers don't like to take time off work for health care, so illnesses are pretty far along when they do go (the big employer established a health clinic on site for the many immigrant workers)
• Acculturation--the process of selecting and choosing pieces of the culture to take on
• It would be good if we can take what we see in protected/shielded communities and incorporate that into health-protective benefits

The discussion

At first talk bounced around among people, but then with 45 minutes left, our facilitator, Dr. Anna, did a round robin to hear from all the people there.

Some excerpts:

• struck by irony: the people who bring us our food have less health care
• kids run the house, they're the language and cultural interpreters
• we've discouraged shared housing from the 50s on: how to encourage multi-generational families
• elder generation subject to social isolation
• car culture: socially isolated in cars (that was me)
• there was a sentence, "American culture makes you sick" we need to ask what is it about this culture that makes us sick? is it that individuality?
• immigrants are pressured to acculturate. this comes from everywhere: school, work. (from an immigrant)
• people in this country don't recognize themselves in other people (from an immigrant)
• (from an immigrant) they teach our children to be independent. our children come home, we teach them to think of the community. we watch them become someone else. focus on cultures, how to work with the family: give us more control to be able to resolve problems within our community

The round robin question: How can you make anything within your community better? Help keep people from getting sick?

• work within communities; don't come from without and impose structure
• need to celebrate various cultures
• used to get lots of fruits and vegetables in Guatemala; here in high schools they serve pizza
• create moments of community building; traditional dishes, potlucks
• activity centers for kids, community centers
• encourage health clinics in the workplace, as in the documentary (that was me)
• we need more compassion
• valuing caregivers
• a website listing ethnic grocery stores, farmer's markets [I so wish I had the health equity coordinator's email...wait, maybe I do. A wiki would be great for a listing of ethnic grocery stores. There is a website here. Farmer's markets...that guide exists right here.]

Unnatural Causes: Place Matters

Unnatural Causes is now showing on PBS! Thursday evenings, starting tonight. TV is learning from the web: people want interactive information, people want to have a say, and PBS is providing it. Besides these events like I'm attending that are happening around the country, PBS is asking for your stories related to these ideas in the series. Share your stories here.

Oh, good thing I looked. Here in Oregon on OPB, it's showing on Sunday at 11 am. Here are the tv listings for everybody, may not be accurate. Here are OPB's listings. If you have HDTV, (like anybody who reads me does...do you?) it's showing several more times.

The showings by Multnomah County aren't in the same order as they will be on the web. I saw episode 5, Place Matters, a week and a half ago. (I'm so behind with the blogging thing.) Again, this will contain spoilers, if you care about that before you watch a documentary.

Where you live has an effect on your health. Some of this was review, similar information as found in In Sickness and in Wealth. Obviously, place determines what you're exposed to. Who doesn't know about industries polluting the poor neighborhoods? Chemical agents, pollutants, violence, lack of access to fresh food, abundance of fast food joints...all of these contribute to poor health in poor neighborhoods.

In this episode, Richmond, California was featured. Like Louisville in the first episode, they showed that diseases cluster in certain parts of the city. Some differences were highlighted. Did you know it costs an average $500 more for a car in a poor neighborhood? I knew groceries cost more and are less abundant. Well-off communities have advantages and environmental support. Banks and other businesses move out of poor neighborhoods.

Cortisol from stress is covered again in this episode. Someone in a poor neighborhood has an "accumulation of multiple negative stress sources." A man named Gwai was featured. He'd had a recent heart attack. His daughter had been recently murdered by a SE Asian drug gang, mistaken identity or something. His son was involved with the wrong crowd.

Adult problems can be traced to childhood environment. Many kids in Richmond don't think they'll live to the age of 20. One program on hope tries to teach them how their actions can change their environment.

Asthma is certainly affected by place. Leaking windows encourage mold, moisture encourages dust mites and roaches.

High Point neighborhood in Seattle was also featured. It got a makeover, all new housing, with original tenants meant to move back. Community gardens were designed to be places that promote social gathering. Breathe-easy houses (wouldn't I love to have that) cost $6000 extra, or about 2 years of medical care. Would that all houses in the Pacific Northwest could have these breathe-easy features. Great idea, but the monetary support that created High Point was phased out. Some of the residents couldn't come back.

Sadly, not as many people came to this showing. Most of the people there were staff presenting it. Still, we had a good dialog. They liked my thought that Multnomah County can work under the radar. Average voters think of the mayor as the face of government, and think of the city when they don't like how things are run, but the county, with just as big responsibilities, usually seems to escape notice. (Our last County chair didn't get this: she ran things like a politician and got more noticed than she probably wanted.) The County thrived under Bev Stein before her, who ran things like a manager. Our current chair also seems to run things like a manager, and I think that bodes well.

When we do get noticed, it's for things people like, like the library. The health department wishes it got noticed more, I think. Several of the presenters are doctors in free clinics.

One of the things that gets my attention is how difficult it will be to sell this. The answers to "Unnatural Causes" are complicated. I said, "Politicians take this interconnected multi-layered thing and make it one thing, and talk that one thing to death. ...until well...it's dead." Of course it would go a long way to help the health of all if we had a single-payer health care system, but these shows reveal there are causes that go way beyond that. We could never have a dialog like this on the national level...not the way political conversation happens now. But this is wild, this is amazing, on the county level.

We had a neat conversation about how we could get more fresh food and consciousness of fresh food in the kind of neighborhoods that are swamped with the fast food joints. We already have community gardens, but individuals sign up for plots in those, and waiting lists are long. Also, I'm not sure that there are as many community gardens in the poorer sections of the city. I thought it would be nice to have some community gardens that are actually communal, encouraging the social gathering place as mentioned of High Point. They could be places of education as well as sustenance.

Oh, hey! I discovered I'm getting paid to go to these. So ixnay on the oliticspay alktay. Not here, there. I'm not getting paid to write this.

Unnatural Causes: In Sickness and In Wealth

Beginning March 27, PBS will be airing a mini documentary series called Unnatural Causes. While you may be right in thinking none of the Presidential candidates have a useful solution to the health care crisis in the US, this series would tell you even if we had universal, single payer care, that would not be enough. A person's health is completely tied with social status, as this series will show. I haven't seen Sicko, but I'm sure you'll see that, and more, and more proof, in these.

How do I know? I already saw the first one, and you too can get a preview in cities across the US. Check that website for related materials as well. At least you can supplement your viewing when it does come to PBS. Here in Portland, the Multnomah County (yay my employer) is partnering with the library and with other community centers to show each of seven parts, several times. See the schedule here.

Not only is the Health Department showing this, and giving out FREE FOOD, the County is treating this as the beginning of a three year project to work on health equity. Go Multco! After the show, community discussion. The audience is in effect a focus group. The audience at the showing I went to last Monday was woefully small. We need more people there, and we need more people who don't come with their own AGENDA about what they think the solution is. One guy rattled on and on about people needing to get more involved in community, completely missing the point that the disenfranchised people who are too tired from too much poverty to even come, or even know about it because they don't/can't look at websites, can't go to such meetings and spend their time listening to windbags like him.

Sorry to be so disrespectful about a young white guy so gung-ho about people needing to get involved, but really, he needs to learn to shut up, and actually hear what the issues are. And get a clue as to why the few people there had the luxury to be able to attend this meeting. Most were in the health field. Some in the community activist field.

So right now, Portlandians, you can see this amazing series. It will open your eyes as to the complexity of the American crisis, and that we do not have guaranteed national health care only makes our ability to deal with the complexity that much worse.

Review of Part 1: In Sickness and in Wealth
Note that while I saw the last showing at a Multnomah County Library, there is still one showing in Portland. (Saturday, March 29 :: New Columbia Education Center, 12 p.m. - 2 p.m) If you care about SPOILERS, even in documentaries, proceed with caution.

One of the experts introduces the subject by saying "we carry our history in our bodies. How could we not?" Karma folks. Any Buddhist who's done a few go-rounds in meditation retreats could tell you that. Such psychic wounds that cause physical ailments, they are there. When I stopped dieting, and thus stopped feeling bad about every bit of food I ate, my blood pressure went down. Hmmm.

One person was a medical sociologist. I wrote it down so I could look it up. It "examines topics such as the social aspects of physical and mental illness, physician-patient relationships, the organization and structure of health organizations and the socio-economic basis of the health care system. Sociology majors who focus on medical sociology develop research and analytical skills to address issues facing health care providers and those needing health care."

Also, epidemiologist. Something to do with epidemics, but more than that? Ding ding!

From Answers.com, Sci-Tech encyclopedia:

Epidemiology examines epidemic (excess) and endemic (always present) diseases; it is based on the observation that most diseases do not occur randomly, but are related to environmental and personal characteristics that vary by place, time, and subgroup of the population. The epidemiologist attempts to determine who is prone to a particular disease; where risk of the disease is highest; when the disease is most likely to occur and its trends over time; what exposure its victims have in common; how much the risk is increased through exposure; and how many cases of the disease could be avoided by eliminating the exposure.

For this first show, they look at the lives of several individuals who live in Louisville, Kentucky. Each lives in a different section of town, and each has a different income level. At the beginning, either the sociologist or an epidemiologist shows us a map of Louisville, and how the frequency of all the diseases we tend to think come from our individual preventative health choices can be mapped according to district. The poorest have more cases of cancer, of high blood pressure, of diabetes. By following these individuals, we begin to get a peek as to why income level allows for more choice to actually follow good health practices.

But good health practices do not decide all, and this is one of the points mr windbag missed: even with other preventative factors accounted for, people at different status levels have corresponding degrees of these diseases. The first to find it was one of those experts in Britain...where they have the universal health care. The occurrences of these conditions have everything to do with whether you have "the ability to influence the events that impinge on your life."

I always find the science of body chemicals interesting. That karma thing, after all. I learned that when we have a stress response, the body releases cortisol. When life is good, and you have stress sometimes, that's ok. A little adrenalin gets released, you deal with the stressful thing, and the levels go back down. When your life is chronically stressed, as when you're poor, or when you have a high demand, low control (and low paid) job, your cortisol levels stay up, and that is not good. When children grow up with that, that is very not good. It affects the development of the brain. This is toxic stress. It causes lifelong problems.

It affects whether you get colds. There was one (ew-producing) study shown in which people were fed a cold virus up their nose. The people in lower-income levels, lower-status levels were more likely to get the colds.

Having learned this, you should not be surprised to learn that "African-Americans die earlier ...across the social gradient."

Why do we have such a health crisis? For all our "freedoms" we have a very inequitable society. One of those epidemiologists said, "Those countries where wealth is more equitably distributed are healthier."

Go see the rest. Be a part of the conversation. The next one I go to see tomorrow, Place Matters.

Health is more than health care. Where we live, work and play impacts health. The food we eat and the stress we endure contribute to our health. How can investments in education and neighborhoods improve the health of our whole community? Find out how…

• Monday, March 17 :: Midland Library, 5:30 p.m. 7:30 p.m.
• Saturday, March 22 :: Portland Community College-Cascade, 1 p.m. - 3 p.m.
• Wednesday, April 2 :: Northwest Library, 6:30 p.m. - 7:45 p.m.
• Saturday, April 19 :: New Columbia Education Center, 12 p.m. - 2 p.m.
  

Movies Seen

Borat
Fascinating and funny. I didn't want to watch it alone, so I waited until Steve could watch it with me. It is much better shared. It would be even better if I knew Hebrew, according to IMDB. Who doesn't know what this is about? If you've been on a deserted island, Borat is a fictional character who goes on a real road trip in the United States, presenting himself to people along the way as a TV reporter of a popular show in Kazakhstan.

Seven Days Seven Nights (Spanish with English subtitles)
Gritty look at the lives of three women living in Cuba. Death, dreams, dogfights...something different.

Weeds Season 2
Slightly darker than the first season...scary drug dealer violence. Nice touch: different bands covering the opening song Little Boxes. Another nice touch: the DVD extras include instruction on how to grow hydroponic "tomatoes."

C.S.A
I might have passed this by, but I noticed it is a Spike Lee production. Hmmm, an alternate history movie...you don't often see those. I started watching it without knowing beforehand the whole thing is a fake documentary of this alternate history of the Confederate States of America, including the commercials from this alternate world. Much as many in the USA are now thinking in this universe, Canada is the place to be. Particularly supportive of the satiric element: commercials for COPS, in this world all about RUNAWAY. This would be one of those rare movies in which I actually want to watch the commentary.

Reefer Madness: the Movie Musical
Hey, I almost have a pot theme going. In my last post, I forgot to mention that the madness-inducing marihuana helps alleviate asthma, according to the book. Yes it does...wonder if my HMO approves it. (Doubt it.) If you haven't seen the original Reefer Madness, watch that first, found in the extras. Also, the more people the better. Even if you can't stand musicals, you may like this. If you do like musicals, the campy nods to gay dancers and other musical essentials make this even better as a parody. This would be one of those rare movies that I actually want to watch again, with or without commentary.

Finally a Reality Show I Love

How to Look Good Naked

Carson Kressley manages in 5 days to get fabulously fat women to love their bodies, something it takes many women a lifetime, if ever, to do on their own.

Something good came out of my watching too many Christmas movies, many of which were on Lifetime...I saw the preview for this show while watching them.

He manages to expose so many of the fallacies that we carry around about ourselves:

• that we don't look good naked
• that we can't wear cute clothes
• that we are enormous (He has the young woman place herself among other fat woman according to size. She will invariably put herself in too big a slot.)
• that people will not see our naked bodies as beautiful
• that we must lose weight to be sexy

Carson is so adorable, so kind. I may have to check out Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.

Movies Seen

Mansfield Park (BBC) (1983 miniseries)
This is BBC. So the sound quality isn't that great. So there aren't dramatic Hollywood plot points. The actors can really act, and the writing of Jane Austen is allowed to shine since the story doesn't have to fit in an hour and a half. Normally I would be frustrated with the very prescribed motions of the society this poor girl, Fanny Price, must navigate. But Fanny made it work for her, and the story was really about the expression of love within this structure. Fanny inspires love because she makes herself so indispensable to the ones she loves. I felt so light-hearted and happy after watching this, Steve said I should watch more things like this.

The L Word Season 4
This series is addictive, what can I say? Lesbian drama. The twink-girl slut of the first season is now the responsible older sister doing mom-like things. Not quite as many sexy scenes, but they're still there. A cute chica named Papi with old-fashioned Latino charm has taken her place as the largest hub on the chart.

Underworld
Tivo suggested the second (see below) so I got the first from the library. Very dark and blue and gothic. Vampires and lycans came from two ancestors originally infected a long time before. They've been at war for centuries, and plots and betrayals could mean the end of the vampires. This would be another one of those gaming-influenced movies, a lot of rapid-fire gunning, endless enemies and copious mowing down of bodies.

Underworld: Evolution
A continuation of the story, in which the human Michael, now lycan, and the vampire lycan-hunter Selene seek to find their origins and prevent the uber-vampire from awakening his more deadly brother who is the original Lycan. Michael is very special, descended from both branches of the werewolves and vampires.

Interesting crossover: the actress who plays a vampire that helps Selene in Underworld is the actress who plays the human love interest and crime-solving reporter in a new vampire show, Moonlight. I've been watching that too, not bad, pretty people, but as far as pretty people solving mysteries, nothing so exciting as Veronica Mars. (Just watched the final season on DVD.) There too is another degree of crossover. The simmering bad boy vampire friend of the good guy vampire in Moonlight is portrayed by Jason Dohring, the simmeringly compelling bad-boy boyfriend of Veronica Mars. I keep waiting for Moonlight to give his role a bigger, more edgy piece of the plot.

Dark Angel "They designed her to be a perfect soldier. A human weapon. Then she escaped. ...she must fight to discover her destiny."
Tivo recommended this from SiTv. It was playing every day, but only lasted two seasons, so I'm already done. Too bad, it was a neat sci-fi plot just beginning to hit its stride. Genetically engineered kids broke out of a secret military project and years later are finding their way in an economically crumpled Seattle. In the second season, a cabal of other naturally-born uber-humans begin to emerge as the bad guys.

Aquamarine
Splash updated for Generation Y. Or would that be Z? Anyway, mermaid story for teen girls. Steve actually watched this with me rather than move to another room. I guess he wanted to encourage me to watch light-hearted fluff rather than those bloody murder movies. It was nice (hearing Meg Ryan in my head saying that).

Librarian: Return to King Solomon's Mines
I was excited about this, another made-for-TV movie about The Librarian. The first one was campy B-movie fun, with a geeky Indiana Jones type saving the world through archival librarianship. This one was calling it in, filling in the blank with the required plot points and action gags. There could have been some simmer with the geeky archaeologist who could be a cheeky love interest (cute how they sparred over how many PhDs they had) but it was just a piece of the plot, thrown in for a little spark.

Sweet Charity
The best part was Sammy Davis Jr. Ah, to have seen him in concert. Steve was that lucky.


I liked this as a musical well enough. There was something familiar about Sammy's piece, Rhythm of Life. A few days later it came to me, the repeating tune comes up in one of my favorites, The Nightmare Before Christmas, in Kidnap the Sandy Claws, I believe.

You know, this gets me, the whole suing over stolen musical riffs. There's been a long tradition of piggy-backing and invocation of influences in music. It's wildly rampant in musicals, even a bit required. So why do artists get sued over the use of another artist's tune? Art influences and builds upon itself, no individual creates in a vacuum.

Chris Matthews on the Daily Show

The writers' strike has given us all a vacation from new Daily Shows and Colbert Reports. (you don't pronounce the S at the end of that, do you?) That is how I usually get my news. While I'm sure something terrible is happening that I'm missing because of this, it does leave me with an hour less of TV per day. Unless I missed it the first time around.

I missed this one that aired October 2nd, an interview with Hardball's Chris Matthews. It's worth a second view. Jon Stewart tells Chris that his philosophy of life is sad. What is incredibly surreal? Chris is shocked that Jon would actually say that. In Matthews' new book he tells us we would do well to live life like politicians. It will help us get ahead in life. And yes, he means by using duplicity and the narcissistic charms of disingenuousness. And he's shocked that Jon finds that incredibly sad. I love Jon Stewart.

I wasn't the only one who found this noteworthy. So did the Huffington Post. The Post is slightly kinder to Matthews than Stewart. Not so at Raw Story.

Movies Seen

Auntie Mame with Rosalind Russell
A friend mentioned this movie is one of her favorites, as well as the book, so I thought I'd check it out. I'd only seen the musical Mame years ago. Mame lives and loves fully, though she can be calculating about it. I don't know, the movie classics don't grab me in the way they did in my twenties. Now that I've seen more theater, I can see more of the theatrical acting in these older movies. It strives for a different kind of authenticity than contemporary movies.

No Direction Home: Bob Dylan A Martin Scorcese Picture
I enjoy music when it's there, but I don't seek it out much. I got out of the habit of music during my early years of zen practice. I was doing that zen thing of just eating when eating, just doing dishes when doing dishes, etc. I still do that quite a bit, but not all the time, like I needed then. You could count the number of live shows I've been to on my two hands, but that doesn't mean much because those particular shows were a bit random, like my first show, during college. My housemate asked me if I wanted to see Ferron with her. I got tipsy on Tequila Sunrises (this was Santa Fe) and we held hands. We were both mostly hetero females at the time, but this was Ferron, and the energy was filling the intimate barroom stage. Almost the only non-random show I sought out was the double-billing of Bob Dylan and Van Morrison. Sadly, the sound was horrible. It was just a bunch of noise, with sort of recognizable cadences that were possibly songs I knew. It wasn't Dylan's fault, it was the venue.

This documentary more than makes up for it. I thought I might watch and listen while I did other things, but this turned out to be a vital piece of American history, and some music I'd never heard before. From the first, I was hooked in by Dylan's account of his musical influences, and his discovery of Woody Guthrie. Dylan "didn't want to give himself away" when he recorded his first album, so he didn't record his own stuff really. He stole his buddy Dave van Ronk's version of "House of the Rising Sun," who couldn't sing it anymore because people would say he stole it from Dylan. Van Ronk got a good laugh when the Animals did the same to Dylan. (They didn't say stole...but told the account of Dylan asking permission after the recording was done.) There's great footage from Dylan's and fans' archives in the 208 minute 2-part documentary, never before released.

Palindromes
This director has a bit of the darker side of the Brothers Grimm in him. It will push buttons for those wary of not-so-secret pedophilic messages. He talks about his use of eight different actors for the part of the 13 year old Aviva who wants to get pregnant in this online interview. I think this movie would have deeper meaning for me if I'd spent more time in my life pondering the structures and implications of palindromes as a symbol. Maybe I need to watch it with someone who likes to delve into symbols and patterns.

Happy Accidents
I have a soft spot for time travel movies. I like to ponder those implications, the life-not-lived, or the life-that-must-be-lived and how that all works when someone goes back to make something happen a different way. Of course it helps to add love to the mix, and "strong emotions" were the key to allowing a change in the time continuum. I've never been pulled one way or another by Vincent D'Onofrio, but there were a couple of scenes in which I so wished I could have been Marisa Tomei. One where he explains time travel with his hand and her leg, and another where his whole body reached for her kiss as though he would melt or disappear or crackle into pieces if he wasn't completed by that kiss. I believed his love.

White Light, Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
(on HBO now)
See it. You will cry. Find someone who has HBO if you don't. I have never been to a talk by a survivor. This one has the stories from many. First-hand witnesses of a nuclear bomb must be heard, must be seen.

Reds
I don't remember hearing of this movie when it was released. I would have been entering high school. I do remember a lot of talk of Chariots of Fire winning Best Picture that year, but not this one for Best Directing. I didn't even know Warren Beatty had directed anything. It's long, but a must-see. He brings a hidden history to life through a love story in the midst of American Communists connected to the Russian Revolution. At least I knew of Emma Goldman...not that I knew much. The witnesses were a brilliant touch: Beatty interviewed people (very old already then) who were witnesses to the lives of John Reed and Louise Bryant. I wished they'd had the names, but I understood the explanation in the dvd extras (done in the same style as the witness interviews) that they didn't want to bring some kind of hierarchy to the recognition of names, and for that, it worked well.

Into the West
Two Dublin kids keep a horse their Grandpa gave them. The cops take it away, and sell it illegally. It is a magical horse, according to Grandpa. It certainly can jump, and a rich man buys it for jumping. When the kids see the competition on television, they steal the horse back. Magical horse? What do you think...this is Ireland we're talking about.

Oregon's Covered Bridges
This would be a snooze if I weren't doing something else while I watched. This would be a great travel video for someone who loves covered bridges. I did learn something about the unique structures of covered bridges, and I learned that waysides still exist. I've bemoaned the loss of them in Wisconsin, long-time readers might remember. Many of these covered bridges in Oregon have wayside rest areas next to them. I checked this out, thinking it might be nice to see some bridges. The narrator said they're not all alike, but his somnambulistic voice made them so, reminding me of those educational films from grade school.

Movies Seen

Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill
Can you feel the love? It's clear that Mark Bittner loves his friends the wild parrots. Perhaps it is his unabashed caring that pulls in his love, the filmmaker. He makes their lives so vivid, narrating for us the characters of the individual birds. He feeds them, talks to them as to old friends. He feels the grief of leaving them, reveals their grief for lost birds. The death of an old grandma bird is as poignant to him, and thus to the viewer, as a human friend sinking from illness to death. The glorious green spots of the flock winging across the sky, what a sight that must be to see in San Francisco.

North Country
The personal is political. In some places, it's still man's world. Women trying to be coal miners in the North Country are repeatedly harassed, threatened, and greated in their locker room by shit smeared cunt grafitti on the walls, semen deposited on their change of clothes. I grew up with a confidence that it was a world of equal opportunity, but this happened in 1984. The case was finally settled in 1998. This wasn't just a Lifetime movie made for the big screen. This was a hefty film in the ranks of Silkwood and Norma Rae. It took one woman. One woman willing to endure the smear campaign, a stalker (not covered in the movie but mentioned in the dvd extras), the possibility that she would be branded in her company town for good as a hater of men, an outcast. She brought us the first class action for sexual harassment, established a precedent that really ought to have happened long before.

A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints
Based on true events from the youth of writer/director Dito Montielo. Coming of age in Queens. This fit right in after watching 3 episodes of Rescue Me. I'm fascinated by these unabashed portrayals of NY men and the gritty violent edge they must live with, or so the movie and shows suggest.

Trigun
Vash the Stampede is sort of a Zorro in a world of Batman bad guys in an outerspace spaghetti western anime. Vash the Stampede keeps getting blamed for the violence of others. He acts the idiot, but dodges bullets and saves the true innocents. Two female insurance agents follow him in an attempt to stop the chaos and costly insurance payouts. They take several episodes to believe the blond goofball is the legendary outlaw. A black cat crosses the screen in every episode.

20/20 Transgender Children
Wonderfully sensitive account from mainstream TV about children who know from before they can talk that they were "born in the wrong body." These kids were featured because they have accepting and loving parents....think of how many must be living whose parents see such children as wrong, defiled.

Bill Moyers Journal Buying the War
If you did not see this, follow that link and watch it online. The Iraq war was sold to America through propaganda. Those of us in the peace movement could see this, but our voices were stifled or spun. Nice thing about this, they can't spin Bill Moyers.

Trigun
I saw this come through the library and I thought, hmm, an adult swim anime. i found Cowboy Bebop via adult swim. this looks like similar scifi, i'll give it a try. Before Bebop (and Spirited Away) I didn't like anime. Cowboys in space, great jazzy bluesy music, creative worlds and space ships..anime allowed for flexibility in aliens and their ships. While not quite as good as Bebop, Trigun is also satisfying as a cowboys in space anime. (Another Western in space that I love...not anime...Firefly.) The main character has a bit of Zorro in him, starts out acting fey and goofy, the insurance girls following him don't believe at first that he could possibly be Vash the Stampede. Not the guy that leaves a wake of destruction. Somehow he's developed this reputation while he refuses to kill others, even bad guys. Somehow he persistently emerges unscathed. Who is this superhuman? Check it out and see.

Thank You For Smoking
A tobacco lobbyists meets regularly with an alcohol lobbyist and a firearms lobbyist. They call themselves Merchants of Death. The MoD squad. The twisted logic of spin rules their world, and the tobacco lobbyist dad finds acceptance from his kid by teaching him the ways of spin. Somebody needs to do a kick in the pants satire like this about the Bush cabal. I suppose unfortunately nobody can touch that.

Movies Seen

Til Death Do Us Part on Court TV, by John Waters
I can't decide yet if this is too creepy to keep watching. John Waters directs these vignettes of true crime, marriages ending in murder. He begins the show with himself in the first scene. Whether a bystander or a guest at the wedding, he has some snarky Serling-esque comment for the camera. He's the best part of the show.

Road to Guantanamo
More true crime, this perpetrated by our government. This documentary follows the story that led three British Pakistanis to a horrific stay at Guantanamo, courtesy of the US government. Dramatization alternates with interviews. One of the four friends is getting married in Pakistan. They hear an imam preach and decide to visit Afghanistan to help people. One of the four is lost and likely dead. The remaining three are on their way back to Pakistan, not having found a way to 'help', when they are swept up by the Northern Alliance. They are separated. One survives a trip in a metal shipping container. Some died from lack of air, and some died from the bullets used to create airholes. It is absolutely disgusting that my country had something to do with this. It is absolutely disgusting that gitmo is still open for business.

I can see how this happens. Many humans are a hairs-breadth away from becoming torturers. Witness the Milgram experiment. Witness the Stanford Prison Experiment. Philip Zimbardo has just come out with a new book, The Lucifer Effect. He says of the book, "I offer a psychological account of how ordinary people sometimes turn evil and commit unspeakable acts. As part of this account, The Lucifer Effect tells, for the first time, the full story behind the Stanford Prison Experiment, a now-classic study I conducted in 1971." He hawked it on The Daily Show just the other day.

For me, the most visceral moment in this movie happened when a prisoner was placed in solitary confinement, made to squat, feet and hands shackled together. Loud heavy metal music blasted the cell. I felt a mild flashback in my body as it brought me back to a time when my stepfather had me crabwalk around the dining room table for what seemed an eternity. I was around ten years old. I crabwalked until my arms and legs gave out and my butt collapsed to the floor. Raging, he kicked me in the back, and I crabwalked some more. I don't remember what it was I'd done to merit this punishment. Most of the time I'd forgotten some chore, or I hadn't done a chore good enough. Pondering this karmic ghost triggered by torture at Guantanamo, I remembered that I'd just come home happy and carefree from a day with my dad. That was probably what I'd done wrong.

We Americans torture our children, not always behind closed doors. It is no small wonder then that our government has sanctioned torture and thinks valid information will come from it. We are a nation full of insecure, self-hating people that lash out at those weaker than us. The Dalai Lama himself has commented on our tendency to insecurity. Underneath our hatred and entitlement is a fear that we deserve to be hated, and are not entitled. Mix in a few elements of Milgram and Stanford Prison, and we have war crimes.

I'm not trying to create an argument or a polemic here, to any who would argue with me for the need to torture to glean information. That flashback did serve a purpose, it gave me an intuitive insight into the pervasive dependency this society has on violence. If people are raised with torture disguised as discipline, it is all too easy to find it acceptable to use similar techniques to get faulty information. I know from first-hand experience you will say whatever needs to be said for the pain to stop. You will say what needs to be said so the pain won't happen again. You learn to hide the truth. My stepfather has issues. In the case of the military, violence is taught, conditioned, encouraged. Empathy and compassion are discouraged. People like my stepfather and worse are created. When will it stop? Could we please stop?

Movies Seen

Life Support from HBO
OK this was an HBO version of a Lifetime movie. Whereas a Lifetime movie would probably be about a white chick with AIDS who was betrayed by her dirtbag husband/lover/boyfriend, this HBO version was about a black chick who was doing drugs with her husband. A woman who now educates others about the perils of unprotected sex and struggles with her connection to her daughter. Don't get me wrong, I like Lifetime movies sometimes...but that's what this was...HBO-ified...so a tad better, but still pretty true-story formulaic. I think Queen Latifah is hot, but of course this was not a sexy role.

Veronica Mars (Season 1)
The smart people were talking about it (my college alumni email list) and I was trying to avoid it. I get hooked too easily on tv shows for smart people. But, here I went, watched the first season on DVD. I couldn't stop. I had things to do, but I'd keep going with the next episode. I keep waiting for some miraculous feed to show up and inject me with the next season. I couldn't help it, I had to peek at an episode guide to find out if a character lived. This show satisfies that teen girl flick itch (yes, I get those) that mystery itch (I don't usually get those) and that outcast but cool itch....oh wait, that's the same as the teen flick itch. Now I must wait while the 40 some people with holds ahead of me get the second season from the library before I do.

An Unfinished Life
I was impressed with Jennifer Lopez as a woman who escapes a battering boyfriend. Her eyes....are incredible...jewels of the soul. She runs to her father-in-law who blames her for his son's death years before. Her daughter gets to know the grumpy codger played by Robert Redford, and his disabled buddy played by Morgan Freeman, and all begin to heal. The bear is a powerful metaphor, and the grizzly just about steals the show. (Umm, why isn't he listed as one of the cast?)

Batman Begins
Liked it. I'm not a comic book reader but like comic book movies. I liked getting the backstory to batman. How bats became the thing, how he got the batcave and the batmobile. How Gotham became infested with crazies that would keep batman busy for a long long time.

12 and Holding
This is my first movie inspired by my viewing of the IFC movie awards. I listened to just enough of the commentary to find out the director was involved with Six Feet Under and seemed a little miffed that reviewers saw a bit of that in this. I didn't see that, other than the movie wasn't afraid to make people die. It was dark and existential. Shades of Stand By Me but more complex. Hollywood movies throw you some cotton candy so the audience goes away happy. Bad guys are bad. Happy endings. This one doesn't let you have the sweet tang of a fulfilling ending, characters that resolve themselves. I really liked this movie, but I was left the that addictive little itch, that question, "where's my Hollywood plot fix?" Of course that says more about me than the movie. Children die in this movie. Children make some complex and twisted emotional choices, and the interesting thing is, the flaws of the adults in their lives gave them a nudge in those twisted directions. There is dharma in this movie, the kind of dharma it's hard to look at straight on, but the director doesn't let us look away.

Over the Hedge
OK here's my Hollywood cotton candy. As soon as I saw the trailers featured a turtle, I knew this was one kids movie I had to see. I ended up liking the raccoon a lot more, most intriguing character. There's a couple of shorts on the DVD that are really more funny than the movie itself, but you have to watch the movie first so you know the quirks of the characters. I loved Wanda Sykes as Stella the skunk. She is so cool in Curb Your Enthusiasm, possibly my favorite character on that show.

The Village
I watched this a while back but I forgot to write about it and sure enough, I almost couldn't remember the title. William Hurt was in it, but for some reason the other scraggly actors were in my head: Kris Kristofferson and Nick Nolte. While I was doing some creative sleuthing to find the title, I discovered IMDB.com now has keywords, like tags, but not enough yet that I could find it. Creature in the woods keeps the town isolated, blind girl makes the perilous journey to get medicine, the only one 'innocent' enough that the creature won't harm her. It has a twist, the director M. Night Shyamalan likes his twists. I liked it, but I clued in pretty quickly to the twist, unlike my experience with The Sixth Sense.

Movies Seen

A Thief Of Time
Based on a novel by Tony Hillerman. Two different cases thread together in this made for TV Joe Leaphorn mystery. A segment of Native Americans don't like Tony H for capitalizing on them and their culture. I will say once I discovered novels by Native Americans, Hillerman's books just weren't as appealing to me. Still, when I went looking, albeit not very deeply, I found positive reviews in Native American newspapers. Hillerman is good for light entertainment, mystery with hints of supernatural. Native American novels and movies capture the complexity of Native American intersections with the white world in a much better way, I think.

Minority Report
It's a Tom Cruise vehicle, so not bad, but not brilliant. Good entertainment. Since I prefer Sci Fi, I'll take this over the Mission Impossible series. I'd seen so many bits and pieces since this came out, the movie already seemed rather familiar. It's based on a short story by Philip K. Dick. I haven't read any of his stuff.

The Guru
A South Asian dance instructor comes to New York hoping to make it big. He can't even get in a porno movie, but is mistaken for a guru (dancing guru that teaches about sex) and finds a small bit of fame. Some Bollywood-style song and dance numbers, fun, not too much. Marisa Tomei is cute as a poor little rich girl.

Bride and Prejudice
Another Bollywood fusion movie, I really liked how well the Pride and Prejudice story was followed. From the director of Bend it LIke Beckham (also very worth seeing, teen girl soccer coming of age movie), the Elizabeth Bennet character is a feisty Indian girl who must wait for her sisters to get married, and the Mr. Darcy character is a rich American. Also has some Bollywood song-and-dance numbers, again just the right amount. The dvd also has some fun footage of the crew goofing around along with the director, doing the same dance numbers. Special appearance by Ashanti. I learned from the DVD that Bollywood movies usually have such special numbers, a single big production featuring a star that doesn't quite fit with the rest of the movie's flow.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Robert Downey Jr plays a thief that gets caught, his partner in crime gets shot, and while trying to get away he stumbles upon an audition for a character, and reads for the scene where the character is interrogated and told he's responsible for his partner's death. He gets sent to LA, and caught up in murder intrigue. Much violence of course, I didn't watch too closely.

Yo Soy Boricua: pa'que tu lo sepas!
I found this on the Independent Film Channel. Produced and starring Rosie Perez, it's a documentary on Puerto Ricans. I learned some of my favorite actors as far as looks go, Puerto Rican. mmm hmm. (Raoul Julia, Jimmy Smits, Benicio del Torro, even as a child...Freddie Prinze) I learned the Young Lords in New York staged dramatic and effective civil disobedience to get get real garbage service, and to draw attention to the need for child care for poor mothers. I learned Rosie herself was arrested in a protest of US Navy bomb tests on the island of Vieques off the coast of Puerto Rico. Fiesty folks, Puerto Ricans.

Ghosts of Abu Ghraib
The abuses at Abu Ghraib were not the random acts of a few renegade poorly equipped prison guards. I knew that, you knew that, but that is what the official investigations would have us believe. They may have done wrong, but some of those few men and women have made some of it right by interviewing in this HBO documentary. The whistle blower, the one who turned in the photos, assured of anonymity, was outed on international television by Donald Rumsfeld. Oops? The man luckily was with friends in the mess hall, he was flown out of there back to the US. The culture there was, and is, one of approval of torture. The documentary began with footage from the Milgram experiment. I found myself wondering, how can we have this knowledge, and the knowledge of the Stanford Prison Experiment, and have this still happen? Why aren't precautions taken to prevent abuses? The answer immediately arose, because in the bureaucratic military machine, they wanted it to happen. Plausible deniability. Approve a little torture, and deny complicity and ubiquitous atrocities. It's showing on HBO for a while yet, hard to watch, but something all Americans should see. Find a way to see it.

Heroes (TV)
People born with genetic anomalies that give them supernormal powers are finding each other. Some are good and trying to save the world, and some are bad, really really bad. Of course a mysterious agency (government?) keeps them under wraps. I missed some episodes but think I managed to fill in the gaps. There's no real star, there's so many characters that have intriguing powers and tasks, hard to say which is my favorite. Maybe the Japanese guy, Hiro, who found a comic book of the future, and he's making sure he fulfills the story to save the world. Hiro can stop and move through time. The artist of the comic books can depict the future in his paintings. Peter's afraid he's going to destroy the world in a nuclear explosion...he takes on the superhero ability of any one of them he gets near, similar to the evil one, Siler, who kills the others to take their abilities. I love this show. Sadly, I have to wait in real-tv-season time for the next episode.

Medium (TV)
For some reason I thought this was discontinued, there was such a long time between seasons, so I missed some episodes. Now I'm back to watching Patricia Arquette, as Allison Dubois, solve mysteries with her dreams. This show is just one of my guilty pleasures. I'm not buying the 'based on real life stories' part though.

Movies Seen*

*When I list movies or books, it's mostly for me so I can remember what I've seen or read. Sometimes I feel like I have cottage cheese for brains. You may look at this as reviews, but as reviews go, my thoughts would be pretty lame. (and this is about 2 months worth of viewing...I haven't been that much of a couch potato.)

Lost Horizon
This took me back to my AMC watching days, not necessarily in a good way. I was bothered a bit by the depiction of Tibet, and how a utopian society in the middle of the high mountains was led by a white man who'd supposedly lived over 200 years and was called the "High Lama." The people there had created an elite little European enclave with European furnishings but stole the ideas of the Tibetan Buddhists to make it a utopia.

Howl's Moving Castle
Who doesn't like anime by Hayao Miyazaki, director of Spirited Away? This story also happens to come from one of my favorite SciFi/Fantasy authors, Diana Wynne Jones. A girl is cursed into an old lady, and she's caught up in the middle of battling witches. Lauren Bacall wonderful as the voice of the Witch of the Waste.

My Neighbor Totoro

Anime also by Hayao Miyazaki. A co-worker told me I would love it, and she was right. The soot sprites of Spirited Away make a comeback, and Totoro is a giant oak tree spirit that makes friends of two girls who move to the country and whose mother is sick. It was so sweet, I could watch it again. I especially loved the scene when the girls wait in the rain for the bus with their father on it. Totoro joins them, and the girls offer the creature their umbrella. Extra large drops plunk the umbrella, causing Totoro to frizz with startled alarm. I also loved the giant cat bus that Totoro summons to help the older girl look for the younger. Shades of the Cheshire cat. Dakota Fanning (love her!) and her little sister Elle were the voices of the girls for the English version.

Kicking Bird
A truly indie movie shot in Portland. A decent story about a boy who runs to escape bullies who are on the cross-country team. The coach wants him on the team, but also wants the boy to be his ticket out. No Hollywood slickness here. I was tickled to find a small but good part played by one of my Dharma School moms. She also was the casting director. Produced by Angry Filmmaker.

The Ref
Denis Leary makes a great burglar. The bickering couple comes home, and he ends up refereeing. Therapy didn't help, but they find each other again at the end of a gun. Hmmm. I did like it though.

Country Boys
This was a fascinating documentary series from Frontline in which two Appalachian boys were followed by a camera crew, and interviewed, for several years. Poverty is indeed crushing. One boy was born again about a year before the filming, and was and is in a heavy metal Christian band. His girlfriend, now wife, is pretty sharp. They feel God brought them together. With such a love larger than themselves, I kind of think they'll be one of those rare sweet lifelong couples.

Just Like Heaven
A spirit haunts the condo of a man who falls in love with her, and helps her figure out her story. Romantic comedy with a paranormal twist, I like that. And I like Reese Witherspoon.

Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken
A teenage girl is told she's not wanted there anymore, so she leaves home and joins the circus. True depression-era story about a girl who dives into a pool of water on a horse. The scarier part of that for me was her jumping on the horse just before it jumped off the high-dive. Great story. Wild job. She has an accident that makes her blind, and that doesn't stop her.

Taken (miniseries)
A Steven Spielberg creation, it's 10 movies made for TV that pulls in all the lore of UFOlogy. The story follows several generations of three families: one family that descends from an alien and human; one that is consistently taken and probed by the aliens; and one that one that obsessively ties it's supersecret area 51 career to hunting those aliens and the other families. I'm sure Art Bell listeners would catch a whole lot more references than I could. Narrator and final hero of the story played by my favorite child star, Dakota Fanning.

Stage Beauty
Better than "Shakespeare in Love" (who could ever think that was remotely about Shakespeare?) this story is about the time of transition when women went from being outlawed in the theater, to being allowed. But eh, suddenly the women bring a less stylized acting to the stage, and there had to be a romance where she bests him. I guess they had to appeal to the modern audience.

Aeon Flux
I used to watch this as a cartoon on MTV's Liquid Television. I was curious as to how they would translate this into a movie. I never quite knew what was going on with the Liquid Television vignettes, but I guess I wasn't supposed to. Aean Flux was spindly and taut muscles and bones, and could crawl up buildings and jump from skycrapers, and died and rose like a phoenix each episode. The movie captured this well. The plot provided backstory for the cartoon (finally).

Neverwhere (miniseries)
Neil Gaiman is considered one of the best graphic novel artists and authors. I'm not into graphic novels, but was curious about his artistry. It's got a British production feel, not something I find appealing, but the fantasy genre willed out. A parallel society lives Under London, and a man with a boring life finds himself more a part of that world where rats talk, than his old life. Above-ground people don't notice the people from under.

Mysterious Skin
A little league coach messes up two boys for life. One grows up to become a prostitute, the other obsesses about his lost time and thinks he was abducted by aliens. They need each other to recover. Good movie.

Reading Rumi in an Uncertain World
Poetry reading by Robert Bly and Naomi Shihab Nye. Bly has a neat way of repeating lines, allows them to sink in. Rumi's great.

Movies Seen

The L-Word

OK, not a movie, but as good as. I watched the first 2 seasons on DVD. Lesbians. Love. Los Angeles. A Lot of sex, and not just lesbian sex. Shane is the player, everybody sleeps with Shane, Shane doesn't do relationships, and everybody, but everybody, wants to get in her pants. One character finally explains it as that wanting of the unattainable. Somehow, she is the sexiest, most desirable of the characters, my favorite. Perhaps it is also her androgyny. Jennifer Beals is sexier now than her Flashdance days, and she alludes to the bad fashion from that time in the DVD bonus features.


The Mudge Boy

A woman with two full flats of eggs in her basket pedals a bike uphill on a gravel road. She gets off the bike to walk, and flops over dead. Later we find out she is the mother of an odd boy who is just beginning to be sexually aware. Country boys in big trucks rattle through while I as viewer cringe at his vulnerability. The boy finds a way into their circle (money for beer) but the tension of barely contained uncaring violence skirts around the edges. This is a movie about straddling that thin edge where things could go horribly wrong, or things could be all right.

Howard Zinn: You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train

Howard Zinn became an historian with the understanding that the people's experience of history in the making would not necessarily be the history in the books. He found this out as a young adult during his experience as a labor organizer in the Brooklyn shipyards. After WWII he got his degrees and went to work at a black college....just when the Civil Rights movement was gaining momentum. He was right there with his students.

I was impressed with their civil disobedience in a court in which the judge attempted to retain 'separate but equal'. Howard sat on the black side, his students on the white side. The judge ordered them to move. They did not. Howard stood up and said, "The Supreme Court has ruled that it's illegal to segregate in any courtroom in the United States. Would you mind following the law of the supreme court?" And the judge did.

His wife Roslyn Zinn was there throughout, a wonderful presence. She was always the first to read his books, editing with the eye of a lay person and a reader.

When Howard received an award in France, in his speech he said, "I don't want to invent victories for people's movements but to think that history writing must simply recapitulate the failures that dominate the past is to make historians collaborators in an endless cycle of defeat. Now if history is to be creative, if it is to anticipate a possible future without denying the past, it should, I think, emphasize real possibilities by disclosing those hidden episodes in the past when even if in brief flashes people showed the ability to resist, occasionally to win. I'm supposing, perhaps only hoping, that our future may be found in the past's fugitive moments of compassion rather than the solid centuries of warfare."

Just like that moment in the courtroom, I would say.

I've been inspired by this documentary to actually read my People's History, a little bit at a time.

(Just a side note: I don't know why I didn't make this connection before...Jon Kabot-Zinn is the son-in-law of Howard. JKZ was instrumental in bringing Buddhist mindfulness meditation to American medicine.)


Van Helsing

Vampire hunter meets Indiana Jones with a little bit of 007 mixed in.

Off the Map

A girl grows up in the sticks of New Mexico. Her parents live simply, while she wants what she hasn't got. I kept seeing my cousin Jo in Mrs. Grodin, the same weathered stretched-back smile, the same hint of expansive internal landscape. Jo lived much of her adult life in that enchanting land of northern New Mexico.

Scene from movie, the jewel through which the whole can be seen:

"It was like the cornerstone of my childhood...the event upon which I built everything else...now was pulled and everything is toppled. The only thing I can hold on to, right now, Mrs. Grodin...the only thing I know to be true...is my love for you."
"Mr. Gibbs."
"Yes."
"New Mexico is a very powerful place. Often when people first get here it's a little overwhelming."
"Oh. Ah. Well. I do feel a little...displaced."
"You're welcome to stay here, with us. As long as you like, until you get your bearings."

The View

I started watching The View this week because Rosie O'Donnell has joined the show as moderator. I'm not sure if I'll keep watching it, because the last thing I need is another 40 minutes of TV to watch a day, even if I vaguely watch it while I multitask.

I asked Steve if he remembered why I liked watching the Rosie O'Donnell Show. He thought maybe because she likes musicals. I can't recall exactly why, maybe because she was quirky, childlike without being childish, and upbeat and dared to be a single mom adopting, and well, fat. (This was before she came out. Either way, she is to be admired.) I even got a Rosie doll, which I was promptly embarrassed about and sold at a rummage sale. Speaking of quirky, anybody remember Jim J and Tammy Faye? I was sad that didn't last very long. My estimation of Tammy Faye went way up with that show. I'm not really into talk shows so I was kind of mystified by my attraction to the Rosie show.

So, I tuned in to The View with the help of TiVo, and looked around to find out a little more about Rosie's comeback. She hasn't been on my radar because she hasn't tried to be...been a stay-at-home mom for 4 years, doing some painting, some charity work, while her wife worked. She has a blog that is kinda neat, short stream-of-consciousness like every thing's a poem.

The show is OK. Like any group finding the groove in which they talk well together, they're all excited and talking all at once and Rosie has gotta have something to say about everything. I'm sure that'll settle down. I notice today they didn't talk about current events, while they did before...just girl stuff. I probably won't watch the show because they do a lot of that, talk girl stuff. I admire what they do, and it's refreshing to see a group of women hold a coffee clutch on national TV, but it's not my bag.

It occurred to me that when I visit New York again (yes I am, soon ;-) that perhaps I could get in the audience. No such luck. The website says tickets are gone a year out. I found this site that explains there are stand-by tickets, but you have to wait around for hours and you still may not get in. I couldn't stand around on cement for that long when I was size 18, much less when size 28. There are some nasty comments about Rosie on that site, homophobic jerks.

First show with Ro, they were talking about traveling. I was disturbed to hear co-host Joy say that she is afraid to fly. She's afraid terrorists will blow the plane up. She sees a mother with a baby bottle and she thinks it could be a bomb. She's been had, she's bought into it. There was never any danger that terrorists were going to blow up a plane with a bomb cocktail with bottles of "water" that they smuggled on board a plane. The British stopped the plotters before they even could make a dry run of a plot that most likely wouldn't have even worked. But the Bush administration pressured the British into making an arrest earlier then they intended (why? we should be asking why) and now the airlines are footing the bill for all that increased checked baggage and security costs much more and it's all pretty useless in increasing our safety. But, as Joy did, people buy into the scare tactics of the warmongers. This stuff is not necessary, see this Salon article if you're not convinced. I am convinced they know it's not necessary, but they know that making all travelers abstain from water and shampoo keeps it ever present in people's minds that terror is just around the corner and we must keep the warmongers in office.

Yesterday the show was interrupted with a special news bulletin with the revelation that the CIA indeed has secret prisons where they indeed were torturing prisoners. It made me sick. The new anchors talked about military tribunals as if equal to civilian trials in court, but did not mention that the Supreme Court deemed them illegal, and now Bush is trying to get Congress to make them legal.

Today, no talk of current events on The View, or that their show was interrupted, at least on the west coast. What, did someone tell them to stay away from the current events? How could they not talk about this? Why aren't we talking about this?

I think rather than watch, I'll just peek in at Rosie's blog once in a while.

For Shame

I keep hearing from people a certain note of despair, unsolicited. I hear this refrain, "I keep thinking it can't get any worse than this, and it gets worse!" This country I live in has invaded countries, has decimated its own constitution, and has failed its own cities, yet there are still too many people who will not call the kettle black.

I just watched Spike Lee's When the Levees Broke. All Americans who have HBO should see this, and they should make sure their friends who don't have HBO get a chance to see it. I knew FEMA, Homeland Security, and Bush mishandled the devastation from Katrina, but I didn't know the degree. It's four hours long because Lee pulls out most of the threads that add up to this tragedy. There's the historical poverty and lack of support for New Orleans. The levees that weren't really levees were allowed to suffice when it was known they could not withstand a category 3 hurricane, something that was not common knowledge for the residents. There's the racism, the classism, the bodies left for weeks, homes marked as searched but not, the incredible delay of temporary trailers from FEMA. The only government agency that shined was the Coast Guard, who went above and beyond.

And four hours was still too short. There was not a mention of the prisoners simply left behind in locked cells. ACLU has photos of a few here. There was just a little mention that some in New Orleans hoped that certain element would not come back to New Orleans, that is, the poor black element. Just a little mention that developers are drooling over the properties of the 9th Ward, and hmmm, that sure is taking a long time to clean up. Not really a mention that hordes of volunteers have been doing the cleanup work that should have been done weeks and months before by FEMA.

Over and over the righteously angry citizens of New Orleans asked how this could happen in a country as wealthy as the USA. One man said he could not understand how there were people who still could not see George Bush for what he is. What Kanye West said was true, "George Bush doesn't care about black people," but it is also pretty clear he doesn't care about the people, period. He's one of those sociopaths that flutter around religion like a moth to a light. That sort of person knows the power they can wield with religion, and people ignore reality because he's "right with God".

I dread what the next two years bring. Democrats are working hard to take back Congress. I have little hope that they will make a difference if they do, but at least more of them will speak up against the atrocities. Even though we are already devastated economically with two major military actions still going on, and with the after-effects of Katrina still affecting whole regions due to gas prices, I fear some Wag the Dog occurrence will cause that war on Iran. And it will still get worse.

More people are asking, "What can I do?" and that is good. I hope they follow up and do what they can, but they shouldn't expect too much. After all, millions of people marching in the streets were dismissed as a "focus group" and we went to war based on lies anyway. If we can find our own small way to put a wrench in the works, perhaps the force of the people can take this country back. Whether it's volunteering for the GI Rights Hotline, or joining the ACLU, or living true to yourself in spite of the loss of our civil liberties, or speaking up when someone regurgitates untrue propaganda, there are many little ways in which we can change the course. Or at least live with ourselves.

I have been quite happy lately. I feel lucky that I have the life I have, the friends I have, the lovers I have. I enjoy the sweetness that I have, but I know it will not last. I don't cling to it, but I savor it, and if I have such good fortune and love, how can I not share it? I know if fate had placed me in New Orleans, I would not be so fortunate or happy right now. If I have something to give, how can I not give it? People thank me for the good work I do for peace, but I feel like I'm still just a dabbler. And really, I feel better and happier for doing it.