Nobody remembers Michael Sheuer

If you're a news or politics junkie, you might have heard rumbles about this CIA guy Michael Sheuer who was on Glenn Beck last night and said, "The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States -- because it's gonna take a grassroots, bottom-up pressure -- because these politicians prize their offices, prize the praise of the media, and the Europeans. It's an absurd situation again, only Osama can execute an attack which will force Americans to demand that their government protect them effectively, consistently and with as much violence as necessary."

I haven't watched the episode or dug into it much. Maybe in the full context of what he said before or after that, it doesn't sound like "only destroying the village can save it."

My point is not to add further apparently deserved raving on this point, only to point out that liberal sources like Jon Stewart and some others with short memories characterize Scheuer as a standard Fox-brand apologist for Conservatism. Nobody remembers that Scheuer made the rounds of some liberal shows when his book "Imperial Hubris" came out, published anonymously in 2004 but later revealed to be by Sheuer. He bashed Bush all up and down for foolish statements and policies, coming from an authoritative position.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
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I guess it's like Pat Buchanan where you could take some of his "isolationist" statements and say "even a Conservative like Buchanan disagreed with the invasion of Iraq." But then you dig into everything else Buchanan says and see that he's completely out of touch with reality and humanity and you feel like you need a shower.

To Build The Bridges

"To build the bridges between the area businesses, local government, the schools, and churches, to create a very inviting place to live, educate, and have fun."
-- Mission Statement of Potterville, Michigan's 10th Annual Gizzardfest

How we will know the war has been won

". . . War Against Terrorism - a war without borders or horizon, without territory to conquer and occupy and administrate although we will find territory and occupy and administrate something because that is how we will know the war has been won . . . ."

-- Christopher Trumbo in an essay about his father, Dalton Trumbo, blacklisted writer of "Johnny Got His Gun." If you haven't read the book, maybe you've seen the 1971 movie or heard the 1940 radio play of it starring James Cagney.

You know: for kids!

Customized leather holsters designed to hold a can or bottle of beer, crafted by members of acclaimed female tribute band AC/DShe. http://brewholstercult.com/

Metrics going forward.

Developing the strategies to execute the changes to cascade the priorities, enabling the implementation of growing the citizenship of the stakeholders. The robust core functional communication demonstrates team growth through performance of strengths, constructively and with development tab refresh maturity. Ultimately, there should be collaborative points between competency and management linking proficiencies. The weight of your on-going feedback may specify.

Benchmark. Deliverable accountabilities.

Only managers can cascade.

Best Practices,
Rob

(Yeah, I just got back from a 1.75 hour meeting on setting performance objectives.)

Outcomes.

Nazi Zombies and Weird War Movies

I caught a couple of passable horror movies lately that involved Nazi zombies and WWI Jerry spooks. Outpost (2008) shows some modern mercenaries trying to find a piece of spectacular lost technology in a Nazi bunker. Horror and hijinx ensue. Deathwatch (2002) shows some Brits in WWI who take over a haunted stretch of German trench.

Now I'm interested in finding supernatural horror movies set in WWII, WWI, involving zombies, undead or ghosts, or later settings that show aftermath of those (soldiers or experiments or ghosts still alive from the wars). This feels like a low-level OCD compulsion to catalog lots of movies along a similar theme. Few of these movies would be worth watching on their own, but as part of a Nazi Zombie Fest or Weird War marathon, it suddenly becomes worth watching. Like the Horror Franchise Blast-off marathon with Jason X (in space), Leprechaun 4: In Space, and Hellraiser: Bloodline (in space).

So here are a few I found:

Revolt of the Zombies (1936). Set in World War I. Directed by Victor Halperin, who also directed and/or wrote White Zombie and Torture Ship.
Revenge of the Zombies (1943).
Return of the Vampire (1943). Bela Lugosi as a vampire whose slumber is disturbed by bombs during WWII.
Creature with the Atom Brain (1955).
She Demons (1958). Nazi experiments, not really supernatural.
Shock Waves (1977). Peter Cushing!
SS Hell Camp (1977). Neanderthal experiment, but probably more focused on sexploitation.
Deathship (1980) has Nazis, may or may not have supernatural elements.
Zombie Lake (1981). Le lac des morts vivants.
Night of the Zombies (1981), aka The Chilling.
Bloodsucking Nazi Zombies (1981) aka Le trésor des morts vivants, L'abîme des morts vivants, Oasis of the Zombies, Oasis of the Living Dead. Is this the same as El desierto de los zombies, Grave of the Living Dead, La tumba de los muertos vivientes? No! The Spanish version has some alternate scenes, but it's a version of the same story.
The Keep (1983). Directed by Michael Mann! Yes, that Michael Mann!
Puppet master (1989) and sequels. Origin linked to Nazis.
The Bunker (2001). Like Outpost from the German perspective.
Deathwatch (2002). Haunted trench in WWI.
Dog Soldiers (2002). Werewolves vs modern Brit special forces. (Not sure if there's any WWII or Nazis involved.)
Below (2002). Haunted sub, WWII.
Hellboy (2004). Oh yeah!
Horrors of War (2006). Low budget, bad review.
War of the Dead (2006)
Outpost (2008).
Warbirds (2008). Sci Fi channel production. WWII fighters vs dinos. Perhaps no Nazis involved, but come on!
Dead Snow (2009).

Please leave a comment if you can think of others I'm inevitably missing. Raiders of the Lost Ark doesn't count, does it, just because Nazis get melted by ghosts in it?

I AM IN UR HEALTHCAREZ, JUSTIFYIN UR STATUS QUO WITH TRADITIONCE.

Here's an excerpt from Obama's town-hallic photo op in Rio Rancho, ostensibly on the topic of credit card reform. I like how the questioner drags the topic back to the place she wants it.

Q: . . . So many people go bankrupt using their credit cards to pay for health care. Why have they [politicians] taken single-payer off the plate? . . .

President Obama: . . . If I were starting a system from scratch, then I think that the idea of moving towards a single-payer system could very well make sense. That's the kind of system that you have in most industrialized countries around the world.

The only problem is that we're not starting from scratch. We have historically a tradition of employer-based health care. And although there are a lot of people who are not satisfied with their health care, the truth is, is that the vast majority of people currently get health care from their employers and you've got this system that's already in place. We don't want a huge disruption as we go into health care reform where suddenly we're trying to completely reinvent one-sixth of the economy.

So what I've said is, let's set up a system where if you already have health care through your employer and you're happy with it, you don't have to change doctors, you don't have to change plans -- nothing changes. If you don't have health care or you're highly unsatisfied with your health care, then let's give you choices, let's give you options, including a public plan that you could enroll in and sign up for.

Now picture President Obama in 1861, trying to sell a proposal about railroad reform or something to constituents in Rio Rancho, New Mexico territory.

Q: Setting aside railroad reform for a moment. So many humans are held as chattel by others. Why have they [politicians, you] taken abolition of slavery off the table?

President Obama: If I were starting a system from scratch, then I think that the idea of moving towards abolition of slavery could very well make sense. That's the kind of system that you have in most industrialized countries around the world.

The only problem is that we're not starting from scratch. We have historically a tradition of industry based on slave labor. And although there are a lot of people who are not satisfied with being owned, the truth is, is that the vast majority of owned people currently get bread and water and a shack from their owners, and you've got this system that's already in place. We don't want a huge disruption as we go into human-resources reform where suddenly we're trying to completely reinvent one-Nth of the economy.

Perhaps he's supposed to be the first Black President of the CSA for the purposes of this analogy? I realize this will seem offensive because slavery analogies should be "off the table" when we're talking about a Black president. I could make an analogy of Nazis using tradition to justify some aspect of their status quo if that works better for you. What kind of harmful, failed, inhumane, suck-ass tradition would you prefer as an analogy, to put you in mind of someone using tradition as an excuse to maintain their status quo?

Generation of Novel Viruses

"While transmission of new or novel viruses from animals to humans, such as avian or swine influenza, seems a rather infrequent event today (Gray et al., 2007; Myers, Olsen et al., 2007), the continual cycling of viruses and other animal pathogens in large herds or flocks increases opportunities for the generation of novel viruses through mutation or recombinant events that could result in more efficient human-to-human transmission. In addition, as noted earlier, agricultural workers serve as a bridging population between their communities and the animals in large confinement facilities (Myers et al., 2006; Saenz et al., 2006). Such novel viruses not only put the workers and animals at risk of infection but also may increase the risk of disease transmission to the communities where the workers live."
-- from page 13 of Putting Meat on the Table: Industrial Farm Animal Production in America, a report released by the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production on 29 April 2008.

In other words, these people warned over a year ago that raising animals on feedlots like they're industrial products increases the likelihood of diseases like swine flu developing and spreading.

Pointed out by Michael Pollan on Democracy Now, 14 May 2009. Pollan also said that food (unhealthy diets) is implicated in heart disease, type 2 diabetes, cancers, stroke, cardio-vascular problems. "In a sense, the health care crisis is a euphemism for the food crisis."

Do Protocol Droids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Deckard administers a Voight-Kampff test on a suspected replicant going by the name C3PO. Watch for Uncle Owen buying Roy Batty and other replicants from the Jawas. And please don't ask R2 how he feels about his mother.

All audio and video taken from Blade Runner (director's cut), the 1998 edition of Star Wars: A New Hope (Episode IV), and a few seconds from Metropolis (1927) except for the text crawl at the start and the cola ad, plus a few effects.

Alternate titles:
Droid Runner
C3PO's Voight-Kampff Test

Overthinking mashups

You might be surprised or disgusted by how much time I spend on each video mashup I make. Not just editing them together, but "researching" the original movies and making tons of notes about scenes that might be funny or effective. The problem is One of the problems is that I brainstorm lots of ideas but I don't weed out enough of them. It's like Letterman's Top 10 lists. That's a simple and effective comedy writing technique because you can get a few people to sit around thinking up ideas around one topic, and then you pick out the ten best. In some of my mashups, like the 8 minute long cartoon version of Zeppelin vs. Pterodactyls, I thought of several scenes that might work, then I tossed them all in and neglected to narrow it down. It really doesn't merit watching for 8 minutes.

Now I think it will be funny to have Deckard from Blade Runner administering the Voight-Kampff test to determine whether C3PO is really human, but does it add anything positive when I include Luke and his Uncle Beru buying replicants Roy and Pris from the Jawas, or should I keep it short and sweet? It's only five minutes long now, but I'd rather have an effective two minutes that leaves you wanting more, instead of five or even three minutes that doesn't sustain interest.

After I've stared at these images for hours, slicing out just a few frames from one spot, cropping another spot, putting new sounds over each other, I can't keep sight of what's working and what isn't.

Maybe I should finish it as best I can, then shelve it for a few days and see if it drags or works the next time I see it. A lot of times, I post a video and then notice things I wish I had clipped.

Separated at Birth

Compare Drew Barrymore in this promo picture...


...with this still from Brazil.

Disney's First Black Princess

This Disney project "The Princess and The Frog" has been bubbling and in development for months if not years, and the controversy is already months old, if not years. The first complaints I heard were that the princess's name "Maddy" was wrong, sounded too close to "mammy", so they changed it to "Tiana." Reminds me of that skit on SNL where Nicolas Cage played "Asswipe Johnson", pronounced "Os-wee-pay".

Yesterday I saw a short article about bloggers complaining that Tiana's male love interest is light-skinned, supposedly South American but could pass for White. Does this mean Disney is afraid to portray a Black prince, or a strong black male character? Or that they fear the white audience in the US will be turned off by seeing a black male character with more screen time than the crows from Dumbo? Or just a black male as part of a couple?

I understand the complaint that Disney underrepresents sympathetic black males, but to complain about it in this instance veers pretty close to complaining about inter-racial relationships. The complaint should be that Disney still needs more blacks and more non-whites in general, not that they should have had a black male love interest in this case.

The counter-argument is that Disney thinks:

We can't pair up 2 dark-skinned people in the same movie, because it might automatically alienate a certain group of the film's potential audience - read, white people. So, just as we do with live action pictures, in order to guarantee rich box office returns, we'll cast a black woman/man, with a white man/woman, in a love story.

How often do we get to see love stories on screen featuring 2 obviously black people in the starring roles?

[AtlasBlack quoted on This Black Sista's Page. I'm not sure if the emphasis is original or added by This Black Sista.]

On the one hand, do white Americans of average racist level really have better reactions to mixed couples than to black couples? Maybe there have been polls or studies on this, but I would think racists would prefer to see blacks paired with blacks, in cases where they tolerate seeing blacks at all. I'm not taking it as given.

On the other hand, even if it were true that racists felt more at ease seeing mixed couples than black couples, you're leaving yourself open to the same kind of second guessing from critics who favor inter-racial couples. They're only showing a black couple because they're opposed to mixed couples, just like when Mowgli from The Jungle Book complained that different species should stay separate from each other. We can't show a mixed couple in a movie, because it might alienate a certain group of the film's potential audience - read, anti-mixing black bloggers and critics.

I've learned from too many flamewars and disintegrating debates online that guessing people's motivations is foolish. If a behavior or a claim or a policy is wrong, then the best thing to do is talk about why it is wrong. Talking about what motivates the behavior or claim or policy is just speculation. It can't be proven but it can't be disproven, which means that you can sit around all day speculating about the dark intent of your opponent. They can do the same about you, and you can't disprove them either. You could guess that my motivation is racism for criticizing black critics, and that it's obvious because I'm white. If my arguments are wrong, why not pick apart the arguments directly, instead of speculating about my motivation?

Anyway, after reading articles and blogs about it, I concluded that this is a battle Disney can't win no matter what they do. There's always going to be some angle that critics will pick at.

But now I'm thinking of the main audience, tiny kids who will watch this three times every day for months until they scratch the dvd too badly and have to buy another copy.

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that most people, black and white, will enjoy this movie as much as any recent Disney feature they've seen, and they'll praise it in the same way that they praised Obama -- in spite of complaints by black critics that his background doesn't reflect most African-Americans, or that his policies aren't good for African-Americans. (Personally I think his escalation in Afghanistan is a bad policy for Americans and African-Americans and Afghans and humans, but I don't regret voting for him as the most viable, least worst candidate.)

My new conclusion is Disney can't win with the critics, but they'll probably win with kids and their main audience. Ten or fifty years from now, the children and grandchildren of the critics will probably embrace it as a positive if flawed milestone.

[Feel free to re-read and re-apply this blog post as necessary to each new controversy that springs up about this movie.]

Dark and Painful

"...During this time, I was again kept for several days in a standing position with my arms above my head and fixed with handcuffs and a chain to a metal ring in the ceiling. My lower leg [where it contacts prosthetic leg] was examined on a daily basis by a doctor using a tape measure for signs of swelling. I do not remember for how many days I was kept standing, but I think it was about ten days. The doctor finally ordered that I be allowed to sit on the floor, I was still kept with my arms extended above my head."
-- Walid Bin Attash, quoted in the International Committee of the Red Cross Report on the Treatment of Fourteen 'High Value Detainees' in CIA Custody, Feb 2007.

Also from the ICRC report: "Mr. Bin Attash commented that during the two weeks he was shackled in the prolonged stress position with his hands chained above his head, his artificial leg was sometimes removed by the interrogators to increase the stress and fatigue of the position."

Obama on torture, from politico.com Apr 16, 2009: "This is a time for reflection not retribution," Obama said. "We have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history. But at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past."

She's Just Not That Into You, Maverick.

Caption for this photo:
One down, one to go.


My dad was stationed at Miramar Naval Air Base in San Diego (where Top Gun was set) in the 70s, so this is one of the few movies that he saw in the theater when it came out, and saw it multiple times in the theater, and bought it on videotape as soon as that came out. Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure he even bought the single of Danger Zone by Kenny Loggins (with Berlin "Take My Breath Away" on the B side?). Probably the first new music he had bought since growing bored with or deprioritizing eight-track tapes in the late 70s, earliest 80s. Or maybe my mom got the single as a gift for my Dad, I can't remember. Their record collection consisted of one album of Beach Boys songs performed by somebody other than the Beach Boys. I think it was still in the plastic, a door prize they had won at a party and probably never played, at least for a few decades.

This trip down memory lane has been brought to you by the news that Kelly McGillis came out of the closet.

How Doc Manhattan Won Vietnam

It never occurred to me when I read the comic, but when I watched the movie with supersized Dr. Manhattan striding through fields in Vietnam, I wondered exactly what he's supposed to have done differently in order to "win" the war in Vietnam. We only have a few images from the movie or comics showing him and the Comedian in Vietnam, so I assume he's supposed to have zapped enough people, or wished them away into cornfields or whatever, to the point that the enemies of the US surrendered or reached a settlement, leaving a government in South Vietnam that the US approved of.

That kind of assumes the traditional conservative view of the Vietnam War, that US aims could have been achieved by more firepower or more bombing or a few more years of the same. They might have finally convinced the North Vietnamese to stop participating, but that would have left a lot of insurgents native to South Vietnam, who would have kept fighting against unpopular dictators there, and fighting against what they perceived as American invaders. (Getting back to the arguments over how much of the war was fought against North Vietnamese invasion forces and how much against local South Vietnamese people in a civil war against unpopular governments within South Vietnam.)

I guess at some point the resistance might have slowed to a trickle, but it probably would have required wiping out way more Vietnamese people. Dr Manhattan causing people evaporate with a glance would have been pretty Shock & Awful, so it might have terrorized some people to stop fighting. But we're talking about forces that fought against massively superior firepower of the US for 2 decades, the French for a decade before that, resisted Japanese occupation during WWII. I don't know how "hot" the war was against French occupation before that, but I remember reading that Ho Chi Minh wrote a letter to Woodrow Wilson around 1920 asking him to support Vietnamese independence from the French.

I don't want to stereotype the Vietnamese as superhuman/non-humans who would never surrender, like the stereotype of Japanese during WWII, but you have to admit, they persisted against some pretty heavy stuff in reality. All I'm saying is Doc Manhattan would need to be even heavier in order to force a surrender on Nixon's terms.

Maybe he'd announce in his monotone, "I'm sorry, but you villagers have remained in an area that has been designated a free-fire zone. This is your last chance to move your family into the nearest Strategic Hamlet." (He says it in Vietnamese, of course.) And then he annihilates the village and countryside, with a nice overhead view so we can see the massive scale that he's able to wipe out plants and birds and trees and huts and people. This is the kind of thing that was done with troops and bombs in reality, so Manhattan would just be accomplishing the same thing faster and on a larger scale.

I know, I'm taking it too seriously. "Winning" the Vietnam War is probably more plausible than Nixon being re-elected.

Screw it.

The new advertising motto from Harley-Davidson Motorcycles:
"Screw It. Let's Ride."

Memos revealing crime are worse than the crime?

Gates Voices Concerns About Release of Interrogation Memos
CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates expressed concerns on Thursday that the release of Justice Department memorandums on harsh interrogation techniques might be used by Al Qaeda and other adversaries and put American troops at risk.

. . . 'He spoke on a visit to Marines training here for a deployment to Afghanistan, and he expressed apprehensions that the release of the information "might have a negative impact on our troops" and that the "disclosures could be used by Al Qaeda and our adversaries."

I wish there was a full quote from Gates, but here are my suggested revisions. These are not ways that the NYT needs to revise their description. They are ways that Gates should revise his thinking on the matter. Should read:
...'Gates expressed concerns on Thursday that the release of Justice Department memorandums on knowledge of the fact that CIA used harsh interrogation techniques might be used by Al Qaeda and other adversaries and put American troops at risk.'

Or better yet, Gates expressed concerns that harsh interrogation techniques torture could inspire Al Qaeda and our adversaries to also torture.

How about 'Gates expressed apprehensions that the release of the information the fact that CIA tortured people "might have a negative impact on our troops" and that the "disclosures fact could be used by Al Qaeda and our adversaries."'

Let's say Ferris Bueller is accused of murder. He claims to have killed in self-defense. For the purpose of this hypothetical situation, you're not going to receive a God's-eye view of the situation from your humble narrator objectively stating that self-defense applies or that Bueller should get off the hook.

Now it could be dangerous to Bueller's family or community if a journalist reveals details of the disputed crime, because angry people might retaliate against the family or community. It might even endanger Bueller directly, in as far as it might get him convicted.

Who is more to blame for these potential dangers: the person who revealed details about the alleged murder, or the person who allegedly committed murder? Which should be more worrying: potential retaliations that haven't happened yet, or the alleged crime that already happened?

Should Bueller's family and community be angry at the journalist who revealed the details, or at Bueller who took those actions and brought shame on his family and community?

Bueller = CIA torturers. If you're a US citizen, then you = a member of the community that includes CIA torturers, represented by CIA torturers. If you're reading this at work, some of your time is now generating money to pay for the salaries of the CIA. And I'm probably being too generous by emphasizing the possibility of "self-defense" or some legal argument that would get them off the hook for breaking these laws. American police and Japanese military have been convicted of crimes in US courts for using the same "harsh interrogation techniques". It is only unfair to call the CIA's actions "torture" if it was unfair for those policemen and Japanese officers to be convicted, if they were only carrying out "harsh interrogation techniques." Then again, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was arguably consistent with The Bush Doctrine of preventive war, so this shouldn't come as a surprise. That Obama would stand by it is somewhat surprising.

Gates talks about reluctantly approving the release of memos, concern that the memos will provoke a reaction, and the importance of protecting accused torturers (preventing justice). The memos should provoke reactions -- not a violent reaction, but if you felt a violent reaction was appropriate, you'd be consistent with US policy in these kinds of sitations.

If Gates trusted the justice system and didn't think that their actions could be interpreted as criminal, then he wouldn't need to beg for their protection or immunity. It would just be a matter of convincing prosecutors or judges or juries that no crime was committed. Either he doesn't trust the justice system to work like it's supposed to, or he's afraid that it will work like it's supposed to.

Susan Boyle

Susan Boyle Susan Boyle Susan Boyle. Mz Boyle. Boyle, Susan. Sue! Sue Boyle. Susan Boyle? Susan Boyle Susan Boyle Susan Boyle.

I mean, at least that's my take on the whole thing.

Susan Boyle. SuBo. Subrangelina. Sue.

Facing the Paradox

Just before I watched Facing the Giants, I happened to skim through a book of Zen koans* I picked up at Goodwill. The movie has the same paradox that a lot of Zen koans do (or maybe that Buddhism in general has?).

A formula for the most boring koans goes like this: Monk asks master how to achieve Buddha thought, or enlightenment. Master's response is to fart or bark or throw teapot to the floor, or talk about the weather.

In some cases, we're told the monk became enlightened. Sometimes it's presented as a true story of a real monk's process of enlightenment. Other times, the monk might not get it but we're supposed to, we the readers.

The moral of some of the koans is that if you stop wanting enlightenment so desperately, then you'll suddenly get what you wanted. Perhaps I assume too much when I assume that's the moral. The master says or does something irrelevant, distracting, to demonstrate that students (and readers) must distract themselves from their goal in order to achieve the goal. Like Douglas Adams's knack to human flight: all you have to do is throw yourself at the ground and miss, which only happens when you distract yourself.

In order to achieve the state of mind that these monks seek, they need to stop wanting it, stop wanting anything, and then they'll have it. If "Buddha thought" or enlightenment is a state of no longer wanting, then is anyone pleased or fulfilled when they attain it? Meanwhile, the masters and monks apparently still have things they want. Why do they remain monks or continue following rules unless these are things they want? If you continue to sow fields and prepare meals and treat wounds, aren't you demonstrating your desire for self-preservation?

It's not exactly the same, but you see this in some modern Christian parables too, like Facing the Giants. A decent movie, as formulaic as any secular football movie you're likely to see. Act One sets up a depressing situation for the main character, the football coach for a small Christian high school in the South (Georgia?). His car breaks down repeatedly, appliances that he can't afford to fix go on the fritz. He can't have children because of a medical problem. The last straw comes when his career is threatened because he hasn't won a state title in six years.

He prays on it, studies the Bible, listens to advice, and concludes that he needs to make Jesus first in his life, in everything. He convinces his team that they must praise God whether they win or lose. When the coach does this, everything turns around for him. When he helps the team do it, they beat the state champion Giants.

It's not that they're supposed to stop wanting things in Christian parables, but their desire to be proper Christians is supposed to be a higher priority than everything else. Like monks in koans, they're often shown getting what they want as soon as they distract themselves from wanting it.

Maybe the message is a little muddled in this parable. Are we supposed to come away thinking that all things other than Jesus are comparatively unimportant, or that making Jesus first in your life will bring you the things you want (a better career, prestige, spontaneously fixed medical problem, the state championship, even a new car)? As if those things should still be important to you, just slightly less important than getting yourself right with Jesus.

There's probably some technical term for Christians who believe that good things happen here on Earth to people who believe in Jesus (to people who believe the "right" way). I realize that's not all Christians. But for the rest of us, including Christians who believe that bad things sometimes happen to good people on Earth, that rewards might come later but not necessarily on Earth, we have to figure out how to survive depression and low moments. The alternative is suicide or apathy or continued sadness.

We have to be able to push past bad times, even when we might know that more bad times are still to come. A parable showing someone achieve that state of mind would be a person keeping a positive attitude in the midst of bad times.

A better example, if they're trying to communicate this moral, would be the story/joke/parable/koan about a monk chased off a cliff by a tiger. He manages not to fall to his death by grasping on a strawberry vine halfway down the cliff. Did I mention the other tigers circling at the base of the cliff below him? As the vine begins to come loose by the roots, he notices a beautiful strawberry, plucks it and enjoys it. The end.

In as far as we're left thinking/knowing that this protagonist is going to die soon, it's not a conventionally "happy ending." But in the versions I've heard, it ends on a happy moment, the monk able to enjoy the strawberry and ignore anxiety about his impending doom.

What we see too often in Christian inspirational stories and in this movie is that people keep or attain a positive attitude, and then good things happen to them. It's a story of people with good lives overall, surviving through temporary low moments.

Will they really be able to keep positive the next time they go through bad moments? Or do we pretend they’re never going to suffer bad events again?

I suppose in their larger scheme of things, this is supposed to represent Christians living through low moments on Earth, receiving the payoff later in Heaven. But it requires going out of your way to interpret that message from it. Taken literally, it just looks like people having better experiences while they're still on Earth because they acted like proper Christians. Maybe I don't know any "proper" Christians, but it doesn't seem to be borne out in what we see around us here on Earth.

* Is there something especially zen about making a tiny paperback book with fewer pages than your average magazine?

Big Trouble in Little China 1936

Old public domain serials vs. Big Trouble in Little China. Starring John Wayne as Jack Burton, Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi as Lo Pan, with cameos appearances by Herman Brix and Noah Beery, Jr.

Clips are taken from:
Big Trouble in Little China (1986)
Shadow of The Eagle (1932)
The Hurrican Express (1932)
Shadow of Chinatown (1936)
Ace Drummond (1936)
Mysterious Mr. Wong (1934)
Mr. Wong, Detective (1938)
Three Musketeers (1933)
Revolt of the Zombies (1936)
Undersea Kingdom (1936)
The Spring River Flows East, Part 1 (1947)
Singing Wheels (????)
A Study of Educational Inequality in South Carolina (1936)

Many of those may be available for streaming or download on archive.org. The creeky, attempted Chinese-sounding music from the start and end are taken from "Shadow of Chinatown". Most of the rest of the music and audio are taken from the actual Big Trouble in Little China (1986). I'd have prefered to use Thirties incidental music throughout the thing, but some of the best lines from the original BTILC had Eighties soundtrack music running through it, so I had to roll with it.

Don't miss these slightly less popular entries in the "Big Trouble" series from the Thirties and Forties:
Big Trouble in Little Italy
Big Trouble in the Casbah
A Little Trouble in the Big Top
Big Trouble in Chattanooga
Big Trouble in Little Atlantis