Tomorrow I go to two Thanksgiving dinners. I’m already 40 pounds over my ideal weight, though if I lost just 20 I’d be a lot better off. I’m right around 200 lbs. I was actually down to 160 in early 2004 and my weight has slowly crept up as I stopped exercising on a regular basis. Other than that I’m in good health though if I don’t start taking off the pounds again I will have problems in the future.
Anyway, here is my favorite movie clip about Thanksgiving:
But if you really want to know what I’m thankful for this year check out these pics.
I saw this powerful adaptation of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Ozymandias on DailyKos yesterday. Today someone else was so moved by it, they turned it into a slideshow and posted it on YouTube.
People have notoriously short political memories and if it does not affect them they forget about it.
Showing an image becomes a political act when someone else doesn’t want you to see that image. Should we show pictures of the flag draped coffins of our fallen soldiers returning home? Both sides know that images such as those have power. One could show them, say yes war is brutal, and we must not forget those who make the ultimate sacrifice for us. One could show them, and say say our soldiers are dying for oil. It matters not to the dead how they got that way or why the pictures are shown. Does context matter?
No. Free speech is guaranteed by the US Constitution. It makes no judgment on why an image is shown, only that we can. If the military disallows the taking of such images for security reasons, that is understandable. Not having the enemy know how many of our soldiers killed is a valid reason. If the politicians don’t allow it for political reasons then support for a war isn’t that strong and may not be justifiable.
It is not a black & white issue. Pictures are powerful. Words are powerful. We live in a relatively free country. The only way to keep it that way is for us to know the real reasons what our soldiers are dying for and not to flinch from showing the fallen. Because if the cause is just we will mourn them and honor their memories. If it is not, our anger should not be contained.
I just watched this narrated slideshow about forced marriages in Afghanistan. The photojournalist discussed how these women were immolating themselves to get out of bad marriages. Some of them survive. WARNING! Some of these pictures are graphic (NSFW).
So how does this help the institution of marriage? The traditional marriage between a man and a child bride. You might say, well, they are backwards and violent. The Mormon mindset which is not so far removed from these Afghans are the ones who funded Proposition 8. How many times have we seen in the news about a Mormon being arrested for having multiple wives? Some of these brides aren’t even old enough to drive.
There is a reason why we have separation of church and state. Marriage is a religious concept that has devolved into a secular one. The state has no business defining marriage. It can and does recognize them, but it should recognize them for what they are, a committed economic partnership between two individuals, not as between a man and a women to be treated as chattel and whose sole purpose in life is to be a baby factory.
Check them out. The ones I found most interesting were:
He collects Spider-Man and Conan the Barbarian comics
He has read every Harry Potter book
His favourite films are Casablanca and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
He hates the youth trend for trousers which sag beneath the backside
He repaid his student loan only four years ago after signing his book deal
He has said many of his friends in Indonesia were “street urchins”
Oh, and check out Rahm Emanuel facts. Unlike Chuck Norris facts. Rahm’s are 100% true. Including:
After the 2006 midterm elections, Rahm Emanuel jumped on a table and said the Republican Party “can go fuck themselves”
I’m not quite ready to say that, but if they don’t give Obama a chance and work with the Democrats in the first 90 days of his presidency, I’ll be ready to say utter those words.