Random; i hate mondays edition

[urbpan]

no good deed goes unpunished. it doesn't matter what i'm talking about, it's always true.

but let it be said that workplace communication theoretically works both ways. i would be a much better employee if i were a mind reader, but i'm merely an above-average listener with--apparently useless--good intentions.

i appear to have no working shift key, due to a second coffee spill. I STILL HAVE A CAPS LOCK, but that's not the same thing. can anything be done/

i should probably say something about charleton heston, since my review column is called 'soylent screen' and he suffered from the same disease my mother does, but i don't have much to say. it's interesting that he was in a few environmental message scifi films such as planet of the apes and soylent green, but his main legacy is being a demented mouthpiece for the nra. alzheimers' disease needs a spokesvictim from the other side of the political spectrum, though it is a dark pleasure seeing the likes of nancy reagan standing up for stem cell research, when the cold hand of reality rests on one's shoulder. republicans sure have strong principles until the controversy applies to them. anyway, thanks to you chuck, for planet of the apes, omega man, soylent green, touch of evil, in the mouth of madness, and bowling for columbine. i can't vouch for ben hur and the ten commandments, but they come highly recommended.

i'm in a bad mood that started when i started reading the chapter called 'good-bye' in 'a short history of nearly everything' this morning. this chapter is about the human-caused extinction event that started a few tens of thousands of years ago and continues at a brisk pace today, extinguishing species at a rate somewhere between 1000 and 120,000 times as dire as the average rate of extinctions. i need more time and silence to write intelligently on this, but i can feel where i'm going with this, from the point of view of someone who studies urban nature. urban species are those species that are 'compatible' [i can't escape that word] with humankind. all other species, more or less, are doomed. working at a zoo, with endangered species, it becomes clear to me that zoos are museums for the doomed species. please convince me otherwise, tell me that the conservation efforts supported by zoos and other organizations will have some effect against the juggernaut of 6 billion and counting building burning consuming and polluting.

or let's talk about movies. alexis and i watched the first half of 'no country for old men' last week, shutting it off when we needed sleep, planning to finish it later. at that moment, it was clearly a five star movie, reminiscent of coen brothers masterpieces like blood simple, raising arizona, and fargo. we'd heard from others that had already seen it that the ending was disappointing. we wondered how such a great movie could possibly be sullied by an ending. i should have remembered casino royale. right about the moment that woody harrelson appears in 'no country' you can feel it collapse. the anticlimax is when our antihero, a character who's actions we've watched in excruciating detail--we watch in what is close to real time as he dismantles a hotel room to stash an atache in an airvent--we come to realize he has died. the filmmakers decided that his death need not be seen, even though it's the most anticipated moment of the whole movie. this i suppose is meaningful in some way. i found it frustrating and infuriating. my wife and my father disagree, for reasons that as yet evade me, but make me wonder if the problem is not the film but my viewing of it. at least woody gets his pretty much when you expect/want him to get it.

are any of my bay area readers planning to watch or protest the olympic torch bus tour[questionmark]

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_bazilisk_/]

eh, protestors will be protestors. I'd rather have too many protestors than not enough. This Tibet thing is huge. And olympixcs are only about sports? Woah, China sure isn't treating it that way...if you have been keeping track of the environmental and political ties to the Olympics that government is making, you'd understand: things are more connected than they seem. This one is going to be like the 1936 ones in Berlin, just as politically divisive and crazy, but without all the Nazis this time: the issues have changed, the importance hasn't.