Bullitt list -- 05.29.08

Today's category:
Names I'm considering for my new punk band...

• Zip Line Smugglers
• Earth Friendly Bombs
• The Robomonkees
• Toad Venom Aphrodisiac
• Toilet Possum

tagged: Bullitt, punk, zip line smugglers, toilet possum, bombs, Toad Venom Aphrodisiac, monkey, robot

Movie Mini Review: The Curse of the Golden Flower

Title: The Curse of the Golden Flower (Man cheng jin dai huang jin jia)

Cast: Chow Yun-Fat, Gong Li, Jay Chou, Liu Ye, Chen Jin

Plot summary:
Set in feudal China’s Tang Dynasty, Emperor Ping (Chow Yun-Fat) returns home to the Imperial Palace to celebrate the Chrysanthemum Festival with his family. The Emperor has summoned his second son, Prince Jai, home from the frontier, and he has ulterior motives. But while the emperor has been away on military campaigns, his wife, Empress Pheonix (Gong Li) has been making clandestine plans of her own. Behind the silk veneer of the Forbidden Palace, all is not as it seems and tragedy awaits.

My thoughts:
I was home sick a couple of weeks ago and, while in a drug-induced stupor, the only activity I could effectively manage was channel surfing.

Luckily, I hit one of the action movie channels at the upper end of the dial while The Curse of the Yellow Flower was just beginning.

I watched the subtitled version, which I always recommend because overdubbing ends up looking awkward and cheesy. And even though I don’t understand the spoken language of the film, I think overdubbing tends to strip out the emotional inflection of the actors and waters down the director’s original vision.

And the director had a stunning vision for this film. Director Zhang Yimou (House of Flying Daggers) brings us his stylized view of 10th-century China with sweeping vistas and vibrant colors. The camera work and musical score are really amazing, creating an epic film in the best sense of the word.

In the early scenes, I was expecting a martial arts tour de force, but Yimou soon exceeded my expectations. This isn’t just another wire-fighting kun-fu movie, although there is plenty of that (not to mention cleavage) and fans of that style won’t be disappointed.

But it is also a provocative story about the excesses and pitfalls of absolute power, the complexity and fragility of family relationships and the destructive force of greed.

The Curse of the Golden Flower has been criticized as a soap opera set in feudal China, a kind of dynastic Dynasty. And the film can be a bit over the top, especially in the final act. But in my opinion it’s a good kind of over the top, like a tragic Italian opera, and completely in context.



My final rating: Set Your DVR.

Favorite quote:
"What I do not give, you must never take by force."

tagged: movie, China, The Curse of the Golden Flower, Tang Dynasty, film, review, Zhang Yimou, Gong Li, Chow Yun-Fat

YouTube Tuesday: Raptor

This is my response to Meesha's first strike. As Richard Vernon would say, when you mess with the bull, you get the horns.



tagged: movie, YouTube, video, military, fighter, jet, Raptor, Richard Vernon

White noise

So I head to my favorite, well, head at the office to, as the Facebookers these days would say, download a brownload.

Anyway, I open the door to the john and immediately hear the familiar sound of a urinal flushing. But entering the room, I find it empty. Nobody zipping their fly, washing their hands. Nothing.

It seems the urinal I heard is stuck on permaflush, a condition caused when the automatic flushing mechanism malfunctions making the water flow continuously like a waterfall.

I was annoyed at first to see such a waste. Why can't the building maintenance people fix the damn thing so I don't have to put up with all the noise while I'm dropping the kids off at the pool.

The noise was annoying for the first minute while I chose my stall and settled in. Then, I began to appreciate the relaxing effect of the falling water. Take away the florescent lighting and the synthetic smell of sanitizing air freshener, and I could almost imagine myself on the beach listening to the waves crash upon the shore.

Plus the sound was loud enough that it mitigated the need for the otherwise obligatory camo cough.

So while I still object to the waste of water, I gotta say I've changed my tune on the "audio" issue. I'm thinking about bringing in one of those sound-machine alarm clocks to provide background music the next time I take the Browns to the Super Bowl.

tagged: bathroom, flush, toilet, urinal, environmentalist

Sectual abuse

News outlets are reporting that a Texas appellate court judge has ruled state officials had insufficient cause to take custody of 460 children from members of the Yearning For Zion Ranch.

According to the report...

The Third Court of Appeals ... ruled that the grounds for removing the children were "legally and factually insufficient" under Texas law. ...

The ruling comes the same day as authorities learned that half the mothers in the sect that Texas child welfare authorities put in foster care as children have now been declared adults.

Attorneys for Child Protective Services say 15 of the 31 mothers are adults. One is actually 27. Another girl listed as an underage mother is 14, but the state has conceded she is not pregnant and does not have a child.

This is a dicey issue, despite the knee-jerk reactions of those who would like the government to come in and solve all their problems for them.

On one hand, we as a society must defend those least able to defend themselves.

My Supermodel Wife and I took a training seminar a few weeks ago that certifies us to work at our church with children, youth and dependent adults. During the seminar, we learned that in 2001, Kansas had a higher rate of child abuse and neglect (12.4 per 1000 children) than the national average (11.8 per 1000 children) (source pdf).

So there's a lot of work for us all to do to make sure we are doing all we can to raising a generation of healthy individuals.

On the other hand, we have increasingly been ceding our responsibilities and freedoms to The Government. We want The Government to feed the poor so we don't have to. We want The Government to make us stop smoking. We want The Government to monitor internet communications to protect us from people who write mean things.

The problem is that The Government is really good at taking power and abusing it. We end up on a slippery slope where we have given The Government power to do things we never intended it to do. The plight of Christopher Ratte is a great example.

Almost everyone Chris Ratte met the night they took Leo away conceded the state was probably overreacting.

The sympathetic cop who interviewed Ratte and his son at the hospital said she was convinced what happened had been an accident, but that her supervisor was insisting the matter be referred to Child Protective Services.

And Ratte thought the two child protection workers who came to take Leo away seemed more annoyed with the police than with him. "This is so unnecessary," one told Ratte before driving away with his son.

But there was really nothing any of them could do, they all said. They were just adhering to protocol, following orders.

So we find ourselves caught with opposing imperatives. We need to do as much as we can to make sure that women and children aren't being oppressed and worse, but we can't trust an overbearing bureaucracy to keep the personal rights of individual citizens in mind.

I don't know what the answer is. But I do know that we as individuals should focus more on our responsibilities. We should ask what we can do for each other, rather than what the government can do for us.

I'm reminded of this quote from Thomas Jefferson...

Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have ... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases.

tagged: children, abuse, Yearning For Zion, Chris Ratte, Texas, Thomas Jefferson, custody

3AM Poll: Sanguivorous

My previous post along with some of the comments prompted me to ask myself whether I would rather be bitten by 45 ticks or 45 leeches.

Tough question, and there's no right answer. But I wonder what the least favorite blood-sucking parasite is? Please vote and leave a comment.

tagged: poll, blood, sucking, parasite, tick, leech, science, sanguivorous

Tick talk

I visited my ancestral home last weekend to attend the graduation of my niece.

We stayed with my parents in the home where I grew up, in the heart of Kansas' Flint Hills. It's always nice going back there visit. My childhood home is in a wooded area next to a stream. The house was originally built in 1875 on a plot of ancient river bottom that also was home to apple and pear orchards and vineyards. Even today, two 100-year old pear trees still bear fruit every fall.

It was a great environment to grow up in. The hills and woods provided an ample supply of communists for a 12-year-old and his friends to hunt and kill in our quest to repel a Red Dawn-type of Russian invasion (nowdays, kids probably fight off imaginary Islamoradicals. Well, actually, they're probably too busy playing Grand Theft Auto IV to spend anytime using their imaginations and being out-of-doors, but that's a different post).

I like taking my daughter there, fishing in the stream and hiking in the woods. Spotting giant herons, crawdads, bullfrogs and snakes.

We did all that this passed weekend. But my nostalgia had filtered out a certain little menace.

The ticks.

They seem to be particularly thick and bad this year. Saturday, getting ready for bed, I picked a middle sized one off my Supermodel Wife's lower back. The next day I found one crawling across my jeans.

The kiddo didn't escape the pestilence either. During bath time Sunday morning, I saw what looked like a mole on her chest. But I didn't remember seeing a mole there before.

"Come closer and let me check out that spot, I think it might be a tick, " I told her.

Not what she wanted to here.

"I don't what you to look at it because I'm afraid if you look at it it will be a tick," she said, worried almost to tears.

I called in reinforcements in the form of my Supermodel Wife, who checked out the spot while I held the kid still. Sure enough, a tiny tick had started it's bloodsucking activities on the flesh of my daughter.

We picked the little bugger off and with the minor emergency over went about attending the day's graduation activities.

But for the entire rest of the day I couldn't shake the feeling of tiny insect legs crawling all over me.

tagged: wildlife, tick, Flint Hills, parenting

Package deal

I don't know about you, but I have a huge economic stimulus package.

I was admiring it the other day after taking it out of its wrapping. If you’re single, and you don’t have kids, chances are your economic stimulus package is no where near as big as mine.

Don’t feel bad though. Not everyone is endowed with such a large economic stimulus package. If you happen to have a small economic stimulus package, I hear there a many programs out there that can help you make the most of it.

For example, I saw an ad on The Home Depot website a couple of days ago saying they could help you stretch your economic stimulus package. It probably means buying one of their cheap hoes, so I won’t be taking advantage of that (let’s face it, I’m too old and dignified for that sort of thing). But it might be an option for some of you.

You can also get your stimulus package to last longer by going to Branson, Mo. According to their website, they are offering a number of services to extend your economic stimulus package.

Personally, I'll be giving my full economic stimulus package to my Supermodel Wife. She is particularly talented at getting the most out of my economic stimulus package. I actually enjoy the experience of having her take hold of the economic stimulus package and putting it to good use.

Regardless of the size of your economic stimulus package, it's important to remember that it's there to be enjoyed. And don't forget, the entire country is counting on all of us making use our economic stimulus packages.

So even if you have a tiny economic stimulus package, don't just leave it tucked away in a dark place somewhere gathering dust. Take it out and enjoy it.

tagged: economy, economic, stimulus, package, tax, Home Depot, Branson

YouTube Tuesday: Subprime

Just when I was about ready to give up on This American Life for being too preachy, sanctimonious and full of themselves, I heard their excellent report on the subprime/credit crisis that threatens to plunge the world economy into a recession.

They do an excellent job explaining how we got to where we are, but John Bird and John Fortune are much funnier.



tagged: movie, YouTube, video, subprime, crisis, This American Life, economy, mortgage

Monday's child

I want to post a special and heartfelt congratulations to my little bro, Boomer, on the announcement of his soon-to-be adopted baby son.

Boomer and his supermodel wife have been trying to adopt a child for a long time (years). I'm sure it's been a long and at times frustrating wait for them, but I can't think of two people more deserving of a son, and I know they'll make great parents.

I can't wait to meet the little guy, born last Monday (fair of face).

This is dedicated to the little fella, who has already brought a lot of happiness into the world.

If
Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

tagged: family, adoption, son, Rudyard Kipling, if