Books From Vacation
Having some time to relax also meant lots of time to catch up on reading I've been meaning to do for a while now (though there's plenty more). Here's a quick run-through with my comments: The Secret Life of Bees…
Tag review
No End In Sight to the Assault on Reason
The tail end of the trip I just returned from took place in Nashville, TN and was charged with readings and viewings about the occupation of Iraq and the current political trends in Washington: I finished reading Nashville resident Al…
The Pursuit of Happyness, a movie review
In a near coma from a holiday meal today, we ventured out to see The Pursuit of Happyness starring Will Smith. My resulting notes below contain some mentions of specific plot details, so if you haven't seen it yet and…
The Persuaders: a nice look at advertising
This is an ad for a really great Frontline episode called "The Persauders" - a thoughtful and thorough journalistic look at the world of advertising and how it affects us at all levels. It covered a wide variety of perspectives,…
Why I won't be seeing the new Borat movie
Just one reason of many, I'm sure: Borat film tricked poor village actors. Excerpt: "Mr Tudorache, a deeply religious grandfather who lost his arm in an accident, was one of those who feels most humiliated. For one scene, a rubber…
A review of Blue Vinyl
It would be nice if some day we could say, "great, now we know about ALL of the human-made products and processes that can give us cancer and harm the planet, now let's start doing something about them." But alas,…
The Ambassador
Wednesday night I attended a screening of The Ambassador, a documentary about John Dimitri Negroponte, currently the U.S. Director of National Intelligence and formerly U.S. ambassador to Honduras, the United Nations and Iraq. Negroponte has been a controversial figure due…
David Gray's Life in Slow Motion
When I first discovered David Gray, it was by encountering his song Please Forgive Me, which was quite impressive, stunning maybe, to me as a song in its own right. But when I got the full album it was on,…
The Constant Gardener
The Constant Gardener is surely one of the best films I've seen in a while. It's easy to forget that such a thoroughly high standard of moviemaking is being observed out there somewhere, so it's always refreshing when beautiful and…
Plan of Attack by Bob Woodward
I generally avoid national bestselling political books that are just consolidated accounts of the political soap operas that go on in our nation's capital, designed to make more buzz and more money for the journalists or whistle-blowers or former aides…