Let Them Hunt Meat

By: Innocent Smith

Nearly everyone in the television industry is liberal.  Even at a place like The Travel Channel.  Political correctness is a mental disorder that has ravaged our culture, and I saw another (admittedly small) example of it this weekend.  While watching my new favorite show, The Wild Within, I heard on multiple occasions the host (author and outdoorsman Steven Rinella) essentially try to rationalize away the hunting (and more specifically, the killing) he was being filmed doing.  Now, he may well be a stark conservative, NRA member, or something else of the sort, but it was the fact that the host of a show about hunting had to try and explain to we the placated masses why it is okay to kill an animal and eat it.

Here’s Rinella hunting boar in the Hawaiian outback:

The show is great, the host seems to be a cool guy…it is we, the viewers, who are the problem.  Partially because so many of them are liberal, and mostly because so many of us have been educated and indoctrinated by politically correct liberals, the people at the Travel Channel know they have to put up disclaimers and have their host qualify everything he does on a show about hunting.  This likely means that lawsuits and boycotts have been levied at other channels that show such things in the past.

This definitely means we’re a decaying society.

If you choose to not eat meat, then godspeed.  If you are the 90% or more of Americans that do, and you still have a problem with a show about a hunter hunting, you are part of the problem.

Let them hunt meat!

A Polar Bear Tale

By: Knife Revolverbomb

I love reading the paper in the morning.  This morning, as per my daily routine, I slid down the banister, landed comfortably in my slippers, and walked out to grab my copy of The Daily Herald.  As I walked to the breakfast table, I began leafing through to the “Neighbor” section.  The cover story on this chilly morning held me frozen in awe!  In my hands I held the answer to the question pressing heaviest upon the nation: what’s the latest buzz in an affluent Cook County neighborhood?!

That’s right, columnist (luminary) Robert Sanchez has generously removed his finger from mother nature’s pulse long enough to pen an astounding tale of human-animal synergy.  The headline read: Winfield woman studies polar bears in Arctic.

Mr. Sanchez had opened my eyes and jerked tears from them before I even had time to run the eye-crust from them.

A polar bear strolls along the ice-free shores of Hudson Bay near the Canadian town of Churchill waiting for the freeze-up that’s critical to its survival.

It’s early October and the animal hasn’t eaten in months.

Perfect use of “strolls”, Roberto.  The proud creature is clearly trying to keep a stiff upper lip, but on the inside he’s melting faster than an icecap 😦

Agnes Kovacs watches the scene with the knowledge that the polar bear’s wait is far from over. Kovacs, a Chicago Zoological Society employee, knows the sea ice that polar bears use as a platform to hunt seals won’t return for weeks. She also realizes climate change is causing the delayed freeze of the sea ice.

“It was very different seeing them on land knowing they had not eaten since July… They literally were waiting for the ice to freeze so they could go eat.”

Bravo!  No doubt this noble member of the esteemed CZS has been monitoring the bears’ diet for months since she knows it hasn’t eaten for weeks.  What dedication!  In fact, she probably could have pet the progressive bear while it patiently refused to eat anything outside of its normal diet and feeding schedule.  And a blue-ribbon bonus to Kovacs for clarifying that the bear waited “literally”.  Polar bears are notorious for using figurative and symbolic actions to mislead top-notch Zoological Society employees.

“Gee,” I wondered, “how could this local story get any more relevant?”

Then it happened.  No kidding: Kovacs and a polar bear literally looked at each other.  Literally!

“I just happened to be in the right place at the right time,” Kovacs said. “The female came up, put her paw on the side of the Tundra Buggy and looked up. I was looking down at her, and she looked into my eyes. I was like, ‘Wow.’ You can’t do that anywhere else.”

To which I was all like, “Let’s make it a true daily double, Alex. What is… a zoo?”

When it comes to bringing the news home, you still got it Sanchez, kid…you still got it.

A Radical Idea

By: Robert Damon

You may have seen this video clip the great Dr. Thomas Sowell before: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GklCBvS-eI – I can tell you that I never tire of it.

Sowell is one of my favorite thinkers and authors, and this fantastic clip demonstrates why.  In it, Dr. Sowell debates then Pennsylvania Secretary of Welfare, Helen O’Bannion, on – not surprisingly – the subject of welfare.

Upon watching this rather elegant deconstruction of the very notion of a welfare program, my evil, greedy, conservative, free market mind was struck with what feels like a great idea.

This idea stems from the point in the discourse where Ms. O’Bannion admits that the problem with the welfare system is not that people will not get jobs after being taken off of welfare (she even states there is data to support this!).  The problem, according to her, is that when a formerly unemployed welfare recipient finally lands a job, he or she will be unable to afford the cost of childcare in addition to their bills.

Huh.  So she thinks welfare recipients aren’t capable, upon receiving a steady paycheck, of dealing with the same financial strains that 95% of American families deal with?  We’ll leave that condescension alone for now.

As I might have mentioned before, I am a conservative and so you can rightly deduce that in-between devising new ways to destroy the environment and increase my carbon footprint, I enjoy holding poor people back from escaping generational poverty.  In lieu of this, and embracing the caricature of conservatives set forth by the likes of Arianna Huffington and George Soros, it is only natural that I would want to take advantage of those who are not as well off as me.  The idea I spoke of before is a golden opportunity to do just that.

This may sound crazy, but roll with me: I am going to open up a privately-owned, affordable day care in low-income areas.

Shocking, right?

You see, I will get to use my deplorable conservative entrepreneurial brain to make money, local people in the area will be hired by me and not need government assistance, and those parents who were afraid of the costs will be able to have someone look after their kids while they go to their own jobs.

Who knows, if the people I hire to work my day care do a good job, I may even offer them jobs at my oil company and bump their pay up to qualify as “rich” in the eyes of Nancy Pelosi.

Okay, let’s get real here.  I am not an insensitive moron.  I realize that people can fall on hard times and need help, and I think that their fellow man has a Christian duty to help as best he or she can.  I also think that the private sector is best and better suited to help those in need.  Churches and private charities know the people they are serving on a personal level so it is only natural that their emotional investment is as big as their financial one.  These people in churches and private charities serve their fellow man because they want to, not because their money is forcibly taken from them.

Mark Steyn on Torture

This audio clip from a guest hosting gig on The Rush Limbaugh Show is too good not to post.  Enjoy it!

The Fighter: Almost A Classic

By: Adam D. Dolce

On a rating scale from Hayden Christensen to Meryl Streep, David O. Russell’s The Fighter ranks around a David Koechner.  It’s good – at times seemingly great – but ultimately suffers from three distinct things: Soft Mark triumphs over Hard Mark; the trailer trash undermines the boxing; and Micky Ward’s most famous fight[s] (with Arturo Gotti) are mentioned as a closing footnote.

Christian “The Crack Knight” Bale almost saves the day with prolific acting chops alone, but it’s simply not enough to overcome the perils of having dueling narratives in a movie like this.

 

Mark Wahlberg plays Ward – the Irish boxer from Lowell, MA – who finds himself [mis]managed by his mom, seven sisters, and his trainer/step-brother, Dicky Eklund (played by Bale).  Ultimately, after a series of disappointments and failures, Ward meets his “Game Changer” by way of Amy Adams (“Charlene”) who, albeit a drink slinger in a seedy Lowell bar, has the sense to see Mickey can fight with the best of them if loosened of his familial baggage.

On this, I noted the film suffers from Soft Mark triumphing over Hard Mark.  Wahlberg has two speeds and you can usually tell them apart by the tone of his voice.  In The Fighter, he needed both in equal measures.  If he’s soft-spoken, his inflection comparable to a kid trying to convince his mom he really needs a new bike, the movie cannot be about something tough and gritty.  Rock Star didn’t work, in part, because it was Soft Mark trying to play an 80’s hair-band star (which would otherwise require Hard Mark but Wahlberg made some poor acting choices in this one).  Contrast with The Departed, an example of Hard Mark, and you’ll find a character cold, calculated, and menacing.  Wahlberg’s best movies are gauged by his voice and in The Fighter we hear one louder (well, softer) than the other.

Ultimately Bale is the reason to watch the movie.  He plays Dicky as a pathetic, crack-addicted, Uncle Rico-esque, “I once fought Sugar Ray” anti-hero who loves his toddler son, and really wants to do right by his mom and brother but simply can’t shake his demons.  It’s a performance that will garner an Oscar nomination.

The fight scenes are real and brutal, but Ward’s white-trashy roots distracted from the overall boxing narrative.  And no allusions to Gotti – the man Ward fought three times of which two were Ring Magazine’s Fight(s) of the Year – is purely criminal.

Tron Job

So I guess I fibbed when I said that I would go see The Tourist and give a full review of it.  That movie looked wretched and I was informed by reliable sources that my instincts were spot-on.

But I did see Tron:Legacy with some friends the day before Christmas Eve and have some thoughts on that instead.

In a word: ehhh…

Wasn’t the best.  Wasn’t the worst.

Jeff Bridges reprises his role as software engineer Kevin Flynn.  Bridges starred in the original Tron film back in 1982 and now, after 20 some years stuck in his a digital world of his own making, Flynn’s son Sam (played by Garret Hedlund) has accidentally been transported there as well.

Bridges’ character had hoped to create a Utopian world in which he could discover the secrets to mankind’s deepest questions and then bring those answers and solutions to the good people of planet earth.  But like all good Utopian dreams, the reality of an imperfect world (even in cyber-land) prevents this from happening.  The programs and people Kevin Flynn create in his Tron-world end up turning on him because he programmed them for perfection and very quickly they discover that he himself isn’t perfect.  Kevin confuses the desire to make a better world for the silly notion that he can actually create a perfect one.  (Note: I just summed up modern progressive liberalism’s fundamental flaw.  You’re welcome.)

The plot of Tron:Legacy was a little hard to follow.  Not in the overall story-arch because you knew where they were going and how things would end before the end of the first reel, but in the specifics.  Many of the references and call-backs to the original Tron, a movie I haven’t seen since the first term of the Clinton administration, were hard to follow and definitely felt forced.  Characters in this film would say and do things that had no correlation to the current scene (nor any that had come before it).  They would make allusions to upcoming events in, and destinations on, “The Grid” (the name of the digital world Kevin Flynn concocted) and not tell us why we ought to care about these times and places.

That is probably my biggest beef with so many modern movies being made: they don’t reel you in.  They don’t connect the characters to the plot and directors don’t connect you, the viewer, to either.  You’re not emotionally invested in what is going on on-screen.

You’ve never been convinced why you should care that there is a trade embargo in Star Wars: Phantom Menace.  You don’t really feel the emotional tug on your heart strings when the British defeat the French in the latest Russel Crowe-led Robin Hood installment.  Even the 2nd and 3rd Narnia movies have managed to disengage the audience from two of the most beloved and engaging novels in the last century.

Now certainly many movies flop because they are terrible ideas or because terrible actors have been hired, but plot and story still rule the day when it comes to the films that separate themselves from the pack.  Tron:Legacy flirts with disaster as it attempts to draw the audience in, but frequently leaves us in a dust-cloud of lame references, cheesy one-liners, self-referential plot-points, and absolutely no parameters for what is possible in the world of the The Grid.  One minute they are eating green beans for dinner and the next all the fruit is rock-hard and inanimate.  One minute they are talking about the physical laws and limitations of their computerized universe and the next they are reading Dostoevsky novels and slamming cocktails at the local dance club.

Enough bashing.  The truth is, I did enjoy the movie.  It was entertaining and visually stunning.  I loved the original Tron as a kid and I’m sure many kids today will look back on this one with fond memories.  It’s worth seeing in the theater, but if you only have time for one movie this Holiday Season, go see True Grit.

Review of The Tourist

By: Innocent Smith

I haven’t seen the new Angelina Jolie-Johnny Depp flick The Tourist yet, but let me review it anyway.

Good looking spy (Jolie) manipulates and uses good looking man (Depp) who is on vacation in Europe.  Good looking man turns out to be even more mysterious (and good looking) than previously let on.  Insert forced sexual tension between two big Hollywood stars whose egos probably never allowed them to look the other in the eye off-camera.  Stir in a few evil connections to corrupt CEO’s (who look an awful lot like Dick Cheney).  Sprinkle some slow-motion gun-drawing scenes on top of this concoction and you have box-office (fools) gold.

I’m gonna go see the movie for real after my finals this week, and I’ll have a legitimate review then.

 

Health Care Strategy

By: The Third Beltway Boy

With all the talk recently regarding how best to provide medical care in the United States I believe there is an argument that has gone unnoticed. Talks of a one-payer system and allowing for competition across state lines are all well and good. But we’ve been arguing about these things for years and all we’ve gotten out of it is a bizarre one thousand page bill that the president himself did not read before he signed.

So I would like to offer the following advice to any potential 2012 presidential candidate running on behalf of the G.O.P. The argument is based on three things:

1) Denzel Washington’s charisma

2) The American peoples love of cinema

3) No good movies set to come out until The Hobbit in 2013.

During a debate any potential candidate would be able to convince President Obama that my previous three premises are true. If he denies Denzel’s charisma he’ll lose the woman vote.  If he denies Americans love movies he’ll lost the American Film Institute vote.  And finally  if he says that there is a good movie coming out before The Hobbit he’ll lose the home school vote for his support of Harry Potter.

Once Obama has agreed to all three premises the candidate (hopefully Newt) can spring his trap. I suggest he/she then word their question something like this “So, Mr. President, in this time of financial turmoil, with wars overseas and are borders in crisis, with your support of a universal health care system are you willing to deny the American people of a sequel to John Q.?”

Checkmate.

You gonna use the rest of that dental floss?

By: Knife Revolverbomb

While carelessly flipping through a recent Reader’s Digest, I landed on a particularly digestible morsel titled “Next Big Things”.  Needless to say, I was instantly riveted by the prospect of such scintillating glimpses into the future!

A four-day workweek, a soccer ball that can charge a light for (almost) three whole hours after extensive use, hope for heart patients (note: hope is something other people owe you, remember?), better (we just say “subsidized”) cars (we just say “rickshaws”), and the good folks at Reader’s Digest were just getting started!

The clairvoyant responsible for the prognostications continued: Greener packaging, spray-on solar panels, and sex pills for women – our problems are as good as solved!

And then, just when I thought I could bear no more brilliance, I struck the crown jewel, a gem so flawless that it could only have been mined from the Plymouth Rock of pot smokers: Boulder, Colorado.

Nestled in this nexus of clear-headed innovators is transportation-solutions company IntraGo, for whom Dan Sturges acts as both chairman and oracle to the great gods of progress.

So sayeth Dan:

“Soon you’ll drive yourself to the train station, and someone else will pick up the car and drive it to the store and the doctor. Then you’ll find a car at the station that night. It might be a different car, though – unless you spend a little extra for the original so you can leave you tennis racket in the trunk. Large numbers of people will have to participate for this to work, like the fax machine, which didn’t make sense until everyone had one.”

Amen, Dan, refreshing stuff. To be frank, the only reason I bought a car is because my selfish neighbor refused to share his with me. I even offered to pay him a little more to let me keep tennis racket in his trunk and still he refused!

And that parallel with the fax machine – wow! Even though Dan neglected to touch on the fact that people don’t share fax machines with total strangers, at least it sounds like he’s really put his heart into trying to make sense!

To be fair, pilgrims for progress are best understood by their actions, not words – no doubt a visionary like Mr. Sturges also cleans his used floss and leaves it on the counter in public bathrooms.

At this point, I was forced to end my foray into “Next Big Things” upon accidentally depositing it into a nearby raging bonfire.  Good thing I did or I might have succumbed to an overwhelming urge to begin a contact lens share-a-thon in my neighborhood.  Anyways, if I ever need another copy of the article, I’m sure I can borrow Mr. Sturges’s.

Leo, and Tigers, and Russian Bears (Oh my!)

By: Innocent Smith

The plight of the worldwide tiger community has brought two great men together: Leonardo DiCaprio and Vladimir Putin.

MOSCOW (AFP) – Russia’s tough-guy prime minister Vladimir Putin called Hollywood heart-throb Leonardo DiCaprio a real man after the actor’s plane had to make make an emergency landing on the way to a summit on tigers in Putin’s native Saint Petersburg.

Putin was reading from prepared remarks on tigers when he suddenly spotted the “Titanic” star in the crowd.

The Russian leader then revealed an uncanny knowledge of DiCaprio’s difficulties in getting to the conference and described him as a hero who made the tiger cause proud.

“I would like to thank you for coming despite all the obstacles,” Putin told DiCaprio, who also pledged one million dollars to the campaign to save tigers from extinction.

“A person with less stable nerves could have decided against coming, could have read it as a sign — that it was not worth going,” Putin said…

“In our country, they have a saying — a real man,” he concluded.

If there is anything the Russian leader knows about, it is being a “real man.”

I bet Putin is out looking for tigers he might save on horseback in this picture.

Now I’m all for looking after the creatures God has given mankind dominion over, but listen to the rationale employed by the silver screen stud DiCaprio in describing why he cares so much for tigers (aka “animals that eat their own young and would tear your face off in a heartbeat, no matter how many Golden Globes you have on the old mantle back home”).

“If we don’t take action now, one of the most iconic animals on our planet could be gone in just a few decades. By saving tigers, we can also protect some of our last remaining ancient forests and improve the lives of indigenous communities.”

In Leo’s star-studded world, a tiger is first and foremost worth saving not because we should be good stewards of God’s creation, or because it is a creature that keeps the population of other animals under control, but because, like Leo himself, it is an “icon.”  Animals like the tiger become “icons” because people in Hollywood create bouncing, talking versions of the ferocious, deadly creature and little kids grow up to think that every tiger death is a Winnie the Pooh character homicide.

People in third world nations have to clear land to do things like cultivate land to grow food so poor people can eat and not die, necessitating more actors to do more commercials about people dying from hunger around the globe.

Not convinced to join the effort with Leo?  What if Putin promises to never take his shirt off again?