Barbara announces historic moment?

The Academy Awards are over and most have forgotten much of the hoopla.
However, each year I find it curious, or surprising, when a presenter or recipient claims that their award represents “an historic accomplishment” against some type of discrimination. This is followed by praise for those “who have come before”, or “on whose shoulders I stand” or some other such drivel. The latest slop was delivered and appropriately announced by Barbara “my career is over” Streisand, claiming that the glass ceiling was broken when Kathryn Bigelow received the award for Best Director. Cue music for an inspirational song about women.

The first woman to receive Best Director may be historic in Hollywood, but women all over the country have accomplished much and already broken the ceiling. What is amazing, however, is the realization that Hollywood, and the Academy in particular, must openly discriminate against women, gays, blacks, Native Americans and nearly every disadvantaged group you perceive.
If this were not the case, how is it possible to witness the “historic achievements?” The Academy selects the nominees and the winners in all categories. Because so few of these groups are ever selected, they must be purposely blocking recognition based on some type of discrimination. Perhaps if the public voted, we could gauge whether our country has failed to move past the old practice of exclusion based on a characteristic of a specific group.

When Oscar recipients claim their award is recognition and validation of positive attributes of the discriminated group, they are slamming their own colleagues. Or perhaps, they want “to stick it to the Man”. You know who He is- “The Man” who put up the money, took the risk so they could be hired and have the opportunity to “act” in a movie. Perhaps all this is just for show to generate more interest and money for the movie. Any publicity is good publicity. Yet, there is no denying that the Oscars are the most narcissistic of annual events.

To Ms. Bigelow’s credit, she completely dodged the “breaking the ceiling” issue, and instead focused on the troops in the war zone. While the movie was gritty, intense and intriguing, I wondered why the soldiers were not more aggressive in handling the on-lookers or those videoing their actions. In the case of the man with a bomb vest who changed his mind, I could not figure out why they didn’t leave him to explode. It seemed obvious he was trying to take as many soldiers as possible with him on his way to meet the virgins. (Good luck with that journey oh, but wait a second; I’ll map-quest it for you.) While I have heard from some who served in Iraq that the actual situations would never happen as shown, I believe the characters' jobs (disarming bombs) and attitudes were realistic. Forget what is happening around you or how you got there, here is an explosive device ready to detonate; how and what are going to do to resolve the situation? That action takes more mental strength and courage than breaking glass.

Messages on the bumper

Bumper stickers have been around a long time. I believe they came into being to show support of a candidate in elections. Being difficult to remove, your vehicle would be labeled with the winner or loser long after the excitement.
In the sixties the bumper sticker evolved to deliver a message or a political statement. "Imagine World Peace", "Coexist", "A Great day will be when our schools have all the money they need and the Pentagon has to have a bake sale to buy a bomber", or one of my favorites, "If You're Not OUTRAGED, You're NOT paying Attention". While these messages are just cute little comments that Macbeth would deem "...told by an idiot, signifying nothing", they do break up the monotony of my daily commute. A deeper examination of the message reveals quite shallow thinking and I always look to find out who this person is that believes it so important that it must be displayed for a good 4-5 years.

We appear to have reached a point where all political thought is a bumper sticker. A cute, one liner that sticks it to the opposition yet reveals a nasty self righteousness. Do we actually need more outrage? At the time that message blossomed, we saw huge marches in the streets for desegregation, civil rights and protests against the Vietnam War. Three major political leaders were assassinated, students were shot by their National Guard and universities, fearful of riots, were closing. The Democratic Convention in Chicago was a televised indictment of the "system" as political protest was met with unrestrained force. To think that our current situation can be compared to those times is ludicrous. But "Bush Lied and People Died", or perhaps "9/11 was an Inside Job" is closer to your reality. If so, you should broaden your news sources and do more reading.

Unfortunately, our media has failed miserably in debunking the crackpots; they actually elevate them and provide air time. Sometime after a significant event, the process of analysis and critique are combined with revisionism and accepted as "Truth". Challenging a crackpot generally results in being labeled a "tool" of special interests, or in the old language, "they sold out".

We have accepted the idea that simply because you have an opinion, it supposedly makes sense and must be heard. The media has lost its ability to discriminate between sensible understanding and extreme points of view. They foment the outrage to gain higher value for their specific bandwidth; their news/commentary has become a rapid-fire ideological rant like more cute bumper stickers strewn together to appear to form some cogent analysis. We need a filter for each news source: couldn’t any of them just give us the What, Who, When, Where and How? And then each of us figures it out.

For the average person trying to find some truth, this is a challenge requiring much reading, thought and analysis. It should be obvious why we can’t “Coexist” especially when there are others who want to destroy us, and fortunately, we do not have to have a bake sale to build a bomber. I wonder how many cookies or cupcakes we’d be eating to fund one.
The bumper sticker I like best, although old, puts the entire subject in perspective-

“Imagine Whirled Peas”.

Everyone has seen Avatar?

Watch the movie in 3D-it is much better and while odd at first, your senses adjust and the depth appears very natural. Special effects are excellent and do not seem like "special effects" or detract from the movie. The dayglo jungle is a wonderous place and the natives (the Na'vi) live in harmony with it. They compliment and apologize to animals they must kill for food.

Avatar means to "cross over" and avatars are beings that Hindu gods would employ to assist or help the people. Each Hindu deity had many different avatars and they were magical, powerful beings with the combined attributes of different animals (lion/elephant). The plot is a sci-fi entertainment bonanza! Unfortunately, the bad guys are the tired old human race trying to get something that will cause the Na'vi great hardship and possibly destruction.

The material the humans want is named UN-OB-TANE-E-UM, obviously a slam on humans who apparently always want what they cannot have. In contrast, the Na'vi have evolved (or figured out) that every being is connected to every other being-a kind of cosmic consciousness deal; Sort of a "Does your skin connect you to everything or separate you from it?" The humans have no such understanding, knowledge of the "higher plane" or sensitivity to the concept. They are greedy, selfish and bad. The Na'vi have what they want and they are going to get it either the nice way or, if necessary, the hard way. It wouldn't be much of a movie if the humans obtained the Unbotanium the nice way. It all ends happily though; yes, good and bad people die, the good guys win and we wonder what will happen in the sequel. And the music is very good too. Hollywood wins again!

After watching this technological achievment, 3D has matured and arrived-all that needs to happen is to find a way to show 3D without the glasses.