voteronpaul08 at Ron Paul Forums asked if I could do a Ron Paul thing with the Live Free or Die Hard poster. Here's what I came up with...
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Now they're re-making THE THING and making a movie out of EMPIRE?!
Some days it just doesn't pay to take a look on the cultural front...
Ronald D. Moore, the guy who re-created Battlestar Galactica for the Sci-Fi Channel (and did an amazing job of it from the looks of things), is now working on a remake of The Thing...
...which might not be an altogether bad thing. John Carpenter's 1982 The Thing was already a remake, and Moore is a pretty capable guy. But it's going to be darn awful hard to top what we saw in the 1982 movie. 25 yeas later (what was it about 1982 that made it a great year for this kind of movie genre?) and it's still holding up very strong.
Then comes word that Warner Bros. is making a movie of Orson Scott Card's Empire. Which will probably be as big a box office smash as Battlefield Earth was. As I said in my review back in December, Empire is a bad, bad book! Usually I devour an Orson Scott Card novel. With Empire I had to struggle to overcome it like a man constipated. And I really do like Card a lot! I think he's one of the few legitimately leading intellectual lights of our age. He just struck out with Empire, the same way that Steven Spielberg struck out with 1941: they can't all be winners, right? Just the same, this is one project that should be quietly shelved.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Shirley Phelps-Roper arrested for letting son stomp on American flag
Remember this lady? It's Shirley Phelps-Roper. It will be a year ago next week that she and her family - the infamous Westboro Baptist Church - visited the TV station that I worked at. This is that "God hates fags church" that does those rabid anti-homosexual protests... most of them quite bizarre and all of them crossing the boundary of good taste. If you missed that report when it was filed last year, mash that link down for some truly disturbing photos along with my account of what happened that night during my close encounter with "the Phelps family".Well, Shirley Phelps-Roper has been arrested in Bellevue, Nebraska: charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor after her 8-year old son stomped on an American flag during a soldier's funeral.
Boy Stomps Flag At Funeral, Mom ArrestedI've said it before and I'll say it again: someday, the Phelps family is going to go way too far in front of the way wrong people... and some of them are going to be hurt or worse because of their antics. They won't have anyone to blame but themselves.Pair Are Part Of Anti-Gay Church That Protests Funerals
POSTED: 1:44 pm EDT June 6, 2007
OMAHA, Neb. -- A woman was arrested in Bellevue, Neb., on Tuesday during the funeral for a fallen soldier.
Shirley Phelps-Roper was arrested on suspicion of contributing to the delinquency of a minor for allegedly allowing her 8-year-old son to stomp on an American flag.
Phelps-Roper is a member of a Topeka, Kan., church that conducts anti-homosexual picketing at funeral services for U.S. soldiers.
Hundreds of people packed Bellevue streets Tuesday morning to pay tribute to a firefighter and soldier. Spc. Bill Bailey was serving in the National Guard in Iraq when he was killed by a roadside bomb.
Police said the group to which Phelps-Roper belongs had a permit to protest 300 feet from Bailey's funeral.
Bellevue Officer Joe Gray, who made the arrest, said that at first the group brought out a couple of members' own American flags.
"The arrestee, Ms. Phelps-Roper, put one around her waist. The second one was given to a 10-year-old, who put it on the ground and started kicking it in the area they were protesting," Gray said.
Nebraska law states that it is a Class 3 misdemeanor when a person "intentionally casts contempt or ridicule upon a flag by mutilating, defacing, defiling, burning or trampling upon such flag." The law was passed in 1977.
"It appears the adults weren't stepping on the flag because they knew it was a violation of the law. But they allowed the children to go ahead and do that," Gray said.
Phelps-Roper said she believes she has the right to use the flag as a symbol, and said Nebraska's law is outdated.
"We're going to challenge that statute," she said. "That statue should have been repealed."
Gray said the arrest wasn't personal and has nothing to do with his beliefs. He said he's simply doing his job.
"It's state law, so we were enforcing the laws of Nebraska," the officer said.
Sarpy County Attorney Lee Polikov said the words from the group are fighting words, which are not protected speech.
He's got as good a chance as anyone else ...
One can only wonder about what kind of America we would have today if he had been elected in 1992.
WARNING: The following blog post may trigger seizures and nausea
They unveiled the logo for the 2012 London Olympics earlier this week and it's so magnificently malformed that some are claiming that it could trigger seizures in people with epilepsy...
It reminded me of something that happened almost ten years ago. On December 17th 1997, Japanese television broadcast an episode of the popular Pokemon show. During the episode there is one scene that has intense rapid red/blue blinking. In the minutes and hours following that scene, hundreds of Japanese children were rushed to hospitals because that sequence caused those kids to suffer seizures, convulsions, fainting, extreme headaches and nausea! The flashing was taken out of subsequent airings of the episode.
So... wanna see it? Here it is, with the original video unedited. If this link goes bad just do a search on YouTube for "pokemon" and "seizures" or "epilepsy". But I'm seriously warning you: I watched this thing, and it did give me a headache. I'm just posting this as an example that the fears about the new Olympics symbol aren't necessarily frivolous.
Here it is: the banned Pokemon "seizures" sequence. Remember, you watch this at your own risk...
They are re-making CONAN THE BARBARIAN
That's it. Hollywood is officially a depleted sow. The field has been plowed and planted so many times that nothing fresh is growing in it. It's dead, Jim.
Find out about it here, in a story primarily about another remake (of Brian De Palma's Dressed to Kill).
Incidentally, I watched last year's remake of The Omen a few days ago on HBO. That was another classic movie that never warranted a remake, at all. The same is true for Conan the Barbarian (can you believe a few weeks ago was the 25th anniversary of it's premiere?).
In my opinion, Conan the Barbarian is about as perfect a movie as you can find. So many great elements all working together in that film... The soundtrack by Basil Poledouris is easily one of the most listened-to things on my MP3 player whenever I'm driving (I love all the tracks but I'm especially fond of "Anvil of Crom" and "Atlantean Sword"). Poledouris is now gone from us. As is Mako: it would not be a Conan movie without Mako, I hate to say. Look, this was the movie that brought Oliver Stone and John Milius to work together: if that doesn't speak volumes about this film's power, I don't know what will.
Conan the Barbarian had something going for it, that can never be replicated. And this remake will suck donkeys balls to no end for trying (yes I actually said that, which is the worst insult I ever give to anything or anyone). Don't do this, Hollywood: you're skating on thin ice as it is...
"And if you do not listen, then to HELL with you!"
VIDEO: Giuliani staff uses police to arrest independent journalist
If only YouTube had existed in 2000...
In October of 2000 I was a reporter with an independent newspaper. And - through legitimate channels mind ya - I had been given an invitation to attend a rally for George W. Bush during the presidential debate at Wake Forest University. I was hoping to get a chance to ask Bush a few questions: nothing rude mind ya, but I was gonna try to make the most of the opportunity.
Bush staff found out that some "non-corporate" journalists were there and sent Winston-Salem police to track us down. One of them demanded to see my driver's license and I asked why. About then a Bush staffer with a bullhorn came over and told me that I should do what she says "because whenever someone in a uniform tells you something you're supposed to obey."
This guy demanded to see my invitation. He snatched it out of my hands and said that I wasn't going to be attending this function. When I demanded to know why he threatened me with physical violence.
The cops escorted another reporter and myself to "the protest area" (this was the first time I'd ever heard of this little Bush concept) and told us if we tried to return to our vehicles through the fair grounds that we would be arrested.
A few years later I heard - and I've not found any reason to doubt this - that we were rounded up and sent packing on Bush's orders, after he heard that there were non-corporate media present and he told his staff to "haul those assholes out of here".
That night I saw the true side of the George W. Bush mindset. I'm not bitter about it now though: I'm just thankful that God showed me what a loser Bush really is, before I ever had a chance to vote for him (never have).
Almost the exact same thing happened last night to journalist Matt Lepacek following the Republican debate in New Hampshire, except Lepacek actually got ask Rudolph Guiliani some questions. Or tried to anyway. Giuliani's staff had police arrest Lepacek. Here's the video:
Y'know, the only thing that kept me from standing up to those goons that night any more than I did was the fact that my best friend was coming in from way out of town to spend a few days at my apartment, and if I was in jail then I couldn't be there when he arrived. If that hadn't already been on my schedule, I think years later that it would be with a lot of pride that I could look back at being arrested on orders from Bush.
I hope that Matt Lepacek will feel proud about what he did tonight too: he stood his ground against an evil man. And he didn't back down.
That's something that nobody will ever be able to take away from him.
