Three days ago NASA posted a photograph of planet earth as seen from a spacecraft orbiting Mars. Isn’t it beautiful? As my dad says, we had better take care of that tiny blue sphere. We’re not quite ready to move camp yet.
MoveOn.org has created a petition: They want the superdelegates in the Democratic primary to allow the voters to decide between Clinton and Obama, rather than the delegates deciding the election themselves. For every person that signs the petition, MoveOn will send an email to the superdelegates.
You’ve probably heard about the “superdelegates” who could end up deciding the Democratic nominee.
The superdelegates are under lots of pressure right now to come out for one candidate or the other. We urgently need to encourage them to let the voters decide between Clinton and Obama—and then to support the will of the people.
If we can reach 200,000 signatures, we’ll publish the petition as an ad in USA Today.
I signed. Will you?
Every once in a while, I stumble upon a piece of information that is so important that I want the entire world to know about it. Here’s one: the Story of Stuff is an interactive video journey describing the production, consumption, and disposal of all of the consumer products that Americans have come to know and love.
The message that this web site promotes makes amazing sense: We’re living on a planet of finite resources, but we’re exploiting them as though we have an infinite supply of resources ahead of us. At some point, we’re going to run out, unless we fundamentally change the way we do things. A change this fundamental is going to require a shift in our world-view: Right now we’re stuck in a rut where we seem to be convinced that economic growth is the primary purpose of our culture. We’re really afraid of economic recession, which basically means that the economic growth we’re really used to is slowing down. Instead of freaking out about economic recession, we should be directing our efforts into transforming our economy into one that remains at the same level, rather than growing uncontrollably.
Our growth-oriented economy is ruining the environment and ruining the lives of working-class people who live in undeveloped nations. We don’t need plasma HD-TVs or Hummers or the newest MacBook or this year’s hottest fashions. Rather, we should learn to be satisfied with the wonderful things we already own.This valentines day, you should take some time out of your busy schedule and watch the Story of Stuff video. It’ll be worth your while, I promise.
I’m looking for a high-quality travel mug that I can bring to school with me as soon as winter break is over. Does anyone have any suggestions? It must be sturdily made, and it shouldn’t leak when it’s closed. Extra points to anyone who can find something that’s extra environmentally friendly and doesn’t contain toxic ingredients.
Yesterday I saw The Golden Compass in theaters. I always try to make sure I’ve read the book before I see the corresponding movie. Usually, I read the book immediately before I go to the movie, but in this case I didn’t get a chance. I had, however, finished the book about three years ago, and I remember having enjoyed it. The movie evoked a lot of the same feelings that the book gave me, and because of this, at least, I enjoyed it a lot. Although the story is certainly fantastic, with witches and magic and grand adventures, it is also quite technological, with an interesting steampunk feel that I thought was quite awesome. The movie definitely relayed the steampunk feeling, but I also felt that the movie tried too hard to be similar to other fantasy films, like the recent Narnia, Beowulf, Arthur, or Lord of the Rings movies. (Trying to be similar to the Lord of the Rings movies is, in my opinion, a huge mistake. There’s not much that can be done to surpass their excellence.)
According to a New Yorker interview, Philip Pullman (the author) intended the story to be a “secular answer” C.S. Lewis’s Narnia fable, which was intended to be a novel of Christian allegory. Although the story frames the Church in the story, the “Magisterium,” as the the evil, controlling power in this story, Pullman seems to do very little to refute or disrupt religious thought. Aside from being described as a “church,” the Magisterium does not at all seem to be a spiritual body, but acts more similarly to a corrupt government.
I have only two complaints about this movie. The first, I have already stated: the movie tried too hard to be similar to other recent fantasy films. My second complaint is that it did not follow the story in the novel closely enough. In fact, in order to make the movie shorter, it seemed like the main character, Lyra, made two or three seemingly random leaps of judgement in order for the story to continue. For example, when she discovers the identity of her mother, she instantly jumps to the conclusion that a completely different, unrelated character is her father. Non-sequiturs like this detracted from the overall quality of the movie.
If you plan on watching this movie, I only recommend, as I always would, that you first read the book.
