So, I told myself that I was going to start keeping a journal of things I was watching, but since lately its been mostly t.v. shows and old Jimmy Stewart movies, I haven't really felt like following through.
Tonight I watched a movie called "To End All Wars," which is based on the book "Miracle on the River Kwai" by Ernest Gordon. David Cunningham directed this. He is the son of Loren Cunningham...wait...is he the son or grandson? I can't remember. In any case, Loren Cunningham is the founder of Youth With A Mission, and ultimately, that is where I learned about this film. When I was in Montana three years ago, there was talk about it being made. So I remember it recently and hunted it down.
It was great.
The movie is set in WWII and it's about a group of POW's who worked on the Berma-Siam railroad, crossing the river Kwai, which was called the railway of death.
It was a little slow...the ending kind of dragged, but not in a way that really detracted, I just kept expecting it to end. If its a little hard to get into in the beginning (there is a lot of narration), it makes up for it later on. It's not super high action or anything, but there is a lot of interesting content. Really about sacrifice and dignity, and cultural differences, etc. Gospel strong. There are really a couple of deeply moving points in the last quarter of this movie. Not bad for David's debut film.
In any case, I wasn't planning on writing reviews in here, but I figured since Joe shares all of his, it can't hurt to throw one in once in awhile!!! Plus, since I just watched it, it was fresh there in my brain. =)
I really need to go to my bed now, where I will be forced to look at French vocabulary, and read Philosophy for an hour before I can give in to sleep.
It might be a long hour....
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Thursday, September 15, 2005
Blah blah, bladdy blah blah blah
Joe told me that I should use word verification, so I am. I mean, good advice you might as well take, know what I mean?
I am so tired. I am completely drooping with exhaustion. I've been up really late every night for the past week. Mostly moving, organizing, cleaning.
The worst part of the move is always the end. You know, when you're already tired, and you have all that miscellaneous crap that you have no idea what to do with. Random little boxes and whatnot. Mostly I just want to create a bonfire in front of my mom's house and roast some marshmallows. =) hahaha!!!! GOODBYE MISCELLANEOUS JUNK!!!!!!!!! =P
Last night I didn't get home until 9:30 p.m. I just couldn't take it anymore. I pretended not to see the boxes as I walked through the living room. I sneaked to my comfy bed and had a Smallville marathon with my little sister.
Still stayed up too late.
Grrr.
I am so tired. I am completely drooping with exhaustion. I've been up really late every night for the past week. Mostly moving, organizing, cleaning.
The worst part of the move is always the end. You know, when you're already tired, and you have all that miscellaneous crap that you have no idea what to do with. Random little boxes and whatnot. Mostly I just want to create a bonfire in front of my mom's house and roast some marshmallows. =) hahaha!!!! GOODBYE MISCELLANEOUS JUNK!!!!!!!!! =P
Last night I didn't get home until 9:30 p.m. I just couldn't take it anymore. I pretended not to see the boxes as I walked through the living room. I sneaked to my comfy bed and had a Smallville marathon with my little sister.
Still stayed up too late.
Grrr.
Thursday, September 08, 2005
The Current State of Things and a Lack of Faith in Mankind
Yesterday, to add to an already long and difficult day, I got in a car accident.
I swear my car is a magnet for destruction.
I was waiting to turn left onto a busy road, and there was noone at the stop sign opposite me. Traffic was taking forever, and by the time I finally went to turn a girl had pulled up at that other stop sign. The sun was in her face, granted, but I was there when she pulled up, and I don't know how she could have not seen me at some time during her approach. As I pulled out to turn I saw her take off, fast. In a split minute decision, and not wanting to hit her head on, I gunned it and tried to go straight, and get around her before she hit me, but she was going too fast. She slammed into me about where me left rear tire is on my drivers side.
Now, usually in an accident I don't freak out. As long as everyone is okay, the car can be dealt with. This time, already stressed about money and things, I about came unglued. I slammed my fists on my steering wheel and said a few choice words to my nephew and little sister who were also in the car.
By the time I exited the vehicle however, I had restored some dignity, and approached the girl with civility. She apologised, saying that the sun was in her eyes and that she never even saw me. We exchanged personal info. She did not have insurance, of course.
Now, the damage on my car looked real bad. I thought that the rear axle must be messed up; from the way my tire was tilting. Luckily, after my mechanic friend examined it, he told me that these little cars like mine don't always have rear axles that go all the way across. So he thinks he can fix it pretty inexpensively. My car has already become so scratched up as it is, and even if my insurance would cover it, I can't afford the 500$ ded. since I just paid for school. I decided to let Kenny fix it, and not report it.
Here I am, in my naivety, thinking that this girl would be glad. She won't a)get a ticket for having no insurance, b) get a ticket for failing to yield, and c) have to pay as much money out of pocket.
Man do I ever live in a faery tale world.
When I called her she informed me that she had never even seen my turn signal on at all (I thought she didn't see me in the first place?), and that she could hardly afford to put gas in her car, and no way was she going to contribute to my car getting fixed!
You know what? It really isn't costing that much to make my car *go* again, and the money does not upset me. The dishonesty upsets me.
In fact, I can't even tell you how horrible I feel after talking to that conniving little you-know-what! It just makes me sick inside.
Earlier this year, one of my oh-so-lovely neighbors, with his big ass truck, scraped the side of my car with his bumper. I should say *gouged*. Suspiciously my roommate recieved a mark in the exact same place on her car, a day or two earlier!!!!
Unfortunately, noone saw anything, and I can't prove it. I sneaked out in the night and examined his bumber, which just happened to be a little bit scratched with white paint. (My car, coincidently, is white.) Our road is narrow already, and so I guess that trying to get your huge truck off the curb in a drunken stupor, can cause these sorts of oversights.
What was I supposed to do? I hated to go up to their front door and start accusing, telling them how I examined their bumper while they weren't looking!! I decided to let it go. The damage was already done.
It wasn't the damage that bothered me, it was the complete disreguard for someone elses property, combined with the inability to accept responsibility. I understand that accidents happen to everybody. We all have bad days. I am willing to work with someone who can't afford to put gas in their car. In fact, in the case of this latest accident, I would have been willing to eat the cost myself. Now I am pissed. It's one thing for me to do so out of kindness, it's another thing for me to do it because the other person is an asshole!
I do believe that what goes around comes around. So I wonder what I've done to deserve all this?? Being a nice person apparently isn't enough.
Too bad for her though. I am sure she will get it back in the end.
This just reminds me about the state of things in general, and the moral decline that so many people deny is happening in our country. It's sad. We are so spoiled and selfish. I admit, I am not free from guilt. I ought to pray for our nation a lot more than I do. It grieves me so much that I would just rather hide my head under my pillow than deal....but we have to deal. We will deal, one way or another.
I swear my car is a magnet for destruction.
I was waiting to turn left onto a busy road, and there was noone at the stop sign opposite me. Traffic was taking forever, and by the time I finally went to turn a girl had pulled up at that other stop sign. The sun was in her face, granted, but I was there when she pulled up, and I don't know how she could have not seen me at some time during her approach. As I pulled out to turn I saw her take off, fast. In a split minute decision, and not wanting to hit her head on, I gunned it and tried to go straight, and get around her before she hit me, but she was going too fast. She slammed into me about where me left rear tire is on my drivers side.
Now, usually in an accident I don't freak out. As long as everyone is okay, the car can be dealt with. This time, already stressed about money and things, I about came unglued. I slammed my fists on my steering wheel and said a few choice words to my nephew and little sister who were also in the car.
By the time I exited the vehicle however, I had restored some dignity, and approached the girl with civility. She apologised, saying that the sun was in her eyes and that she never even saw me. We exchanged personal info. She did not have insurance, of course.
Now, the damage on my car looked real bad. I thought that the rear axle must be messed up; from the way my tire was tilting. Luckily, after my mechanic friend examined it, he told me that these little cars like mine don't always have rear axles that go all the way across. So he thinks he can fix it pretty inexpensively. My car has already become so scratched up as it is, and even if my insurance would cover it, I can't afford the 500$ ded. since I just paid for school. I decided to let Kenny fix it, and not report it.
Here I am, in my naivety, thinking that this girl would be glad. She won't a)get a ticket for having no insurance, b) get a ticket for failing to yield, and c) have to pay as much money out of pocket.
Man do I ever live in a faery tale world.
When I called her she informed me that she had never even seen my turn signal on at all (I thought she didn't see me in the first place?), and that she could hardly afford to put gas in her car, and no way was she going to contribute to my car getting fixed!
You know what? It really isn't costing that much to make my car *go* again, and the money does not upset me. The dishonesty upsets me.
In fact, I can't even tell you how horrible I feel after talking to that conniving little you-know-what! It just makes me sick inside.
Earlier this year, one of my oh-so-lovely neighbors, with his big ass truck, scraped the side of my car with his bumper. I should say *gouged*. Suspiciously my roommate recieved a mark in the exact same place on her car, a day or two earlier!!!!
Unfortunately, noone saw anything, and I can't prove it. I sneaked out in the night and examined his bumber, which just happened to be a little bit scratched with white paint. (My car, coincidently, is white.) Our road is narrow already, and so I guess that trying to get your huge truck off the curb in a drunken stupor, can cause these sorts of oversights.
What was I supposed to do? I hated to go up to their front door and start accusing, telling them how I examined their bumper while they weren't looking!! I decided to let it go. The damage was already done.
It wasn't the damage that bothered me, it was the complete disreguard for someone elses property, combined with the inability to accept responsibility. I understand that accidents happen to everybody. We all have bad days. I am willing to work with someone who can't afford to put gas in their car. In fact, in the case of this latest accident, I would have been willing to eat the cost myself. Now I am pissed. It's one thing for me to do so out of kindness, it's another thing for me to do it because the other person is an asshole!
I do believe that what goes around comes around. So I wonder what I've done to deserve all this?? Being a nice person apparently isn't enough.
Too bad for her though. I am sure she will get it back in the end.
This just reminds me about the state of things in general, and the moral decline that so many people deny is happening in our country. It's sad. We are so spoiled and selfish. I admit, I am not free from guilt. I ought to pray for our nation a lot more than I do. It grieves me so much that I would just rather hide my head under my pillow than deal....but we have to deal. We will deal, one way or another.
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
Right to Bear Arms.
*Disclaimer:
I know that this is all rambly, and some of it seems to contradict, although I assure it does not. It's my blog though, and I don't usually edit my posts, I just write what I am thinking at the time, so deal.
My little sister is completely freaked out by guns.
Last night my brother brought home a gun..well, he had gotten a new barrel or something, for a gun that my dad had owned for years already. ( I guess we had at least two guns on our property for *years* and I never knew! insane!)
Anyway, she freaked out. At least, she freaked out over the fact that the gun would remain on the property.
Who can blame her really?
She's 16 after all, and what do high school kids know about violence these days but guns? I mean, half of the high schools in America now require you to walk through metal detectors on your way to homeroom. It's not pretty.
My nephew lives with them as well. He is six. My sister (his mother) passed away a little over four years ago now. He spends a lot of time with his dad, who likes to hunt and stuff. Tristan is obsessed with guns.
Now, I am not trying to say that everything about guns is evil. We know, or ought to know, that guns don't kill people, people do. However, I just can't pretend to hide my head in the sand about all the violence and stuff on television these days...and video games? Yeah.
I don't lecture my 30 something friends about playing Halo, because I know that they have already well established belief systems, and I really doubt that they are going to go out and shoot somebody, or play around with guns because "they're cool". However, I don't have the same faith in my six year old nephew.
This day and age he is being raised in is so different even from mine , which wasn't really so very long ago ( I was born in 1976). Every where you look there is sex and violence. Case and point, yesterday I was at my mom's talking to my little sister, and CSI was playing in the background. We are all big Law and Order fans at home, CSI, all that stuff. My mom watches those forensic/court shows. Tristan is in the other room, watching cartoons, but he decides to come for a visit right about the time they are doing one of those close-up-gunshot-to-the-head kinds of scenes.
I just flipped out for a second. This was in the evening, but not late. Maybe around 7? I don't live with small children, so I don't always scrutinze what I watch as carefully as I should, but when I realised that he was watching that, I about came out of my skin. No small child should be seeing that at all. Period.
Kids are so impressionable. Heck, so are we! I mean, just look at how desensitized we've become! Still, it's worse for kids. I don't think that it's bad for Tristan's dad to take him hunting, or for him to teach him how to use a gun. The problem is, I don't think that is measured by safety and value of life. Not because the people around him don't have it, but becuase they don't show it. Everything he sees tells him how cool guns are, how the person with the most victims gets the bonus prize, how the bad guys win. It's a different time than when my grandparents had guns. It worries me for him. Whitney might be freaked out by that gun. She might steer clear of it completely, but what worries me, and assuredly what *really* worries her, is the fact that he does not have the same inclinations. Now, luckily, the gun is not loaded. In fact, there is no ammunition in the house, or anywhere that he could find it. So for now he's safe. but what if once, just once...
Well, I think you get my point.
So, my little sister is freaked out. And for a good reason.
Now for the flip side.
I want to buy a gun.
And I want to know how to use it.
Here's the thing. I don't think that complete ignorance of guns is exactly good either. A healthy fear is okay, but not an uncontrollable one.
I never want to have to shoot anyone. In fact, I am not even sure that I could. At the same time, I would like to be able to show somebody that I mean business if it comes to that. I don't even mean in any kind of situation. I will not carry a gun in my purse. But just look what's happening in New Orleans. What if I found myself in a similar situation?? I am not going to sit there and let some men have a go at a woman, because there is nobody there who can do anything about it. In my emergency preparedness kit, a gun will be included. It may be cliche, but I do agree with the saying; "if guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns." I am not saying that gun companies should be allowed to sell crazy semi-automatic weapons to the public at large, but if I want to have a shotgun in my garage, then that is my prerogative.
It's naive to think that you can outlaw murder by banning guns. You can't. Bad people do bad things. Good people who have lost all reason do bad things. There is a reason why we have the 2nd amendment.
We need to get back to some good old-fashioned values. Things need to change on a very basic level. Our nation has always had guns. We just weren't always as blood starved. If you raise your children in an environment that is satured with a disregard for life, they will absorb a disregard for life. So sure, have a gun, and teach your kids how to use it, teach them safety, but above all, temper that with regard for life & humanity. Moniter how much crap they get to watch, and yeah, that even includes the news. I am not talking about sheltering them so much that they can't live in the world, simply raise them in an environment not bent on desensitizing their mind into a general love of Nazi experiments!
If you think we're far from that you're wrong as well.
Stem cell research anyone?
I know that this is all rambly, and some of it seems to contradict, although I assure it does not. It's my blog though, and I don't usually edit my posts, I just write what I am thinking at the time, so deal.
My little sister is completely freaked out by guns.
Last night my brother brought home a gun..well, he had gotten a new barrel or something, for a gun that my dad had owned for years already. ( I guess we had at least two guns on our property for *years* and I never knew! insane!)
Anyway, she freaked out. At least, she freaked out over the fact that the gun would remain on the property.
Who can blame her really?
She's 16 after all, and what do high school kids know about violence these days but guns? I mean, half of the high schools in America now require you to walk through metal detectors on your way to homeroom. It's not pretty.
My nephew lives with them as well. He is six. My sister (his mother) passed away a little over four years ago now. He spends a lot of time with his dad, who likes to hunt and stuff. Tristan is obsessed with guns.
Now, I am not trying to say that everything about guns is evil. We know, or ought to know, that guns don't kill people, people do. However, I just can't pretend to hide my head in the sand about all the violence and stuff on television these days...and video games? Yeah.
I don't lecture my 30 something friends about playing Halo, because I know that they have already well established belief systems, and I really doubt that they are going to go out and shoot somebody, or play around with guns because "they're cool". However, I don't have the same faith in my six year old nephew.
This day and age he is being raised in is so different even from mine , which wasn't really so very long ago ( I was born in 1976). Every where you look there is sex and violence. Case and point, yesterday I was at my mom's talking to my little sister, and CSI was playing in the background. We are all big Law and Order fans at home, CSI, all that stuff. My mom watches those forensic/court shows. Tristan is in the other room, watching cartoons, but he decides to come for a visit right about the time they are doing one of those close-up-gunshot-to-the-head kinds of scenes.
I just flipped out for a second. This was in the evening, but not late. Maybe around 7? I don't live with small children, so I don't always scrutinze what I watch as carefully as I should, but when I realised that he was watching that, I about came out of my skin. No small child should be seeing that at all. Period.
Kids are so impressionable. Heck, so are we! I mean, just look at how desensitized we've become! Still, it's worse for kids. I don't think that it's bad for Tristan's dad to take him hunting, or for him to teach him how to use a gun. The problem is, I don't think that is measured by safety and value of life. Not because the people around him don't have it, but becuase they don't show it. Everything he sees tells him how cool guns are, how the person with the most victims gets the bonus prize, how the bad guys win. It's a different time than when my grandparents had guns. It worries me for him. Whitney might be freaked out by that gun. She might steer clear of it completely, but what worries me, and assuredly what *really* worries her, is the fact that he does not have the same inclinations. Now, luckily, the gun is not loaded. In fact, there is no ammunition in the house, or anywhere that he could find it. So for now he's safe. but what if once, just once...
Well, I think you get my point.
So, my little sister is freaked out. And for a good reason.
Now for the flip side.
I want to buy a gun.
And I want to know how to use it.
Here's the thing. I don't think that complete ignorance of guns is exactly good either. A healthy fear is okay, but not an uncontrollable one.
I never want to have to shoot anyone. In fact, I am not even sure that I could. At the same time, I would like to be able to show somebody that I mean business if it comes to that. I don't even mean in any kind of situation. I will not carry a gun in my purse. But just look what's happening in New Orleans. What if I found myself in a similar situation?? I am not going to sit there and let some men have a go at a woman, because there is nobody there who can do anything about it. In my emergency preparedness kit, a gun will be included. It may be cliche, but I do agree with the saying; "if guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns." I am not saying that gun companies should be allowed to sell crazy semi-automatic weapons to the public at large, but if I want to have a shotgun in my garage, then that is my prerogative.
It's naive to think that you can outlaw murder by banning guns. You can't. Bad people do bad things. Good people who have lost all reason do bad things. There is a reason why we have the 2nd amendment.
We need to get back to some good old-fashioned values. Things need to change on a very basic level. Our nation has always had guns. We just weren't always as blood starved. If you raise your children in an environment that is satured with a disregard for life, they will absorb a disregard for life. So sure, have a gun, and teach your kids how to use it, teach them safety, but above all, temper that with regard for life & humanity. Moniter how much crap they get to watch, and yeah, that even includes the news. I am not talking about sheltering them so much that they can't live in the world, simply raise them in an environment not bent on desensitizing their mind into a general love of Nazi experiments!
If you think we're far from that you're wrong as well.
Stem cell research anyone?
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