bloxy-moron

Another Film another hero: Alone in the Wilderness

Alone in the Wilderness is an hour long film that is played frequently on PBS.  After watching five minutes of it, I went ahead and bought it (not from PBS shame on me).  This film was created by taking pieces of home movies taken by Richard Proenneke (my hero) while living alone in Alaska.

Richard decided at age 51 that he wanted to live in isolation in the beauty of nature.  So one summer he fell several trees with a hand saw near a lake in Alaska.  The next spring he went up and built a log cabin.  He filmed himself as he first built his hand tools and then built the cabin by himself.  He shows how he made boards by hand and a wooden lock by hand. He showed how he made the notches in the logs by hand and he had completed the cabin structure in 11 days!  I couldn't build a cabin with help and unlimited credit at Home Depot in that time.

Richard ended staying there for 30 years and would record these films and send them to his brother so he could see what he was up to.  The scenery in the movie is breath taking. 

For me, watching this movie would be like an artist getting to watch a self documentary of Leonardo da Vinci painting the Mona Lisa.

New Hero: Napoleon D

This is a review of what I would call a generational love/hate film.  I haven't talked to anyone who just thought it was OK you either hate it or love it.  Most that I have talked to younger then 35 love it and those older hate it. 

It is a low budget comedy about high school.  Unlike others of the genre (Fast Times at Ridgemont High, American Pie), there is no sex, alcohol, or swearing.  For me, this is a non-issue but it is shocking that the movie can so accurately bring back feelings of high school without these elements. 

The movie is about the day in the life of Napoleon.  Even though the movie is all about him, the other char actors make the movie great. Napoleon is the key to liking the movie.  I find him heroic.  People that don't like the movie find him, annoying and or feel sorry for him. 

I wish I had the guts to pull of the stunts he did.  He obviously didn't care what other people thought about him.  Wish I could have drawn a cartoon caricature of someone I wanted to bring to a dance as an invitation.  Wish I could have walked into a thrift store and fell in love with an ugly brown suit.  Wish I could have danced in front of the whole student body.  He was the cool that most of us only dream about being. 

Bottom line this movie made me laugh out loud many times.  Truly a keeper and favorite film this year so far.

Libertarians Lost

My first blog of the New Year will be about the event that started my blogging career: Bush's surprising win in 2004.  I was shocked and angered by the election because I believe Bush's first 4 years have gone against my libertarian principles.  I took the World's Smallest Political Quiz on my understandings of Bush's policies so far.  Low and behold he is a STATISTS which is opposite of a libertarian!

In the future, I may blog on each of the political questions but for now I will only talk briefly why he is wrong on both economic and social issues.  I will conclude with another political axis that he is also on the wrong side of.

The social argument is easy.  He is against too many individual freedoms:

• patriot act - "giving up freedom for safety will leave you with neither" Ben Franklin

• gay marriage - government taking away one of our most basic rights

• abortion - again he is on the wrong side

• drugs - he also fully supported the "war on drugs"

The last three appeal to his religious right.  Appealing to religious influences is a bad thing for politicians! Just look at the Middle East. Bush fails big time on social issues.

Economic issues are also easy if you look at his actions and not at his rhetoric.  Bush is a RECORD spender (link takes you to an article by the CATO institute.)  Bush also governed over a terrible economy.  Bush supporters blame Clinton while opponents blamed Bush.  I am not an economist and do not understand how a president can directly effect the economy, but I do know that all of his economic promises leading up to the election were blatantly wrong.  Numerous times he told us how many jobs he was creating and he was terribly wrong every time.

Now it is Bush's intangibles that make me the most sick after the election.  "At least you know where I stand" is not something I need from a leader.  I would prefer having a leader who admitted to mistakes, changed her/his mind when necessary, and considered all sides of an issues before making a decision.  None of these describe Bush.  I also disdain the international animosity that he has brought the US.  This rant could go on a long time so I will just say "Arrogant ignorant cowboys can stay in Texas!"

Libertarians definitely lost this election. I can only hope that the next four years wake up the electorate on the evils of the neo-cons instead of strengthening their power.