The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps.
Given the untimely death of Michael Turner, I thought it would be nice if everyone took a minute to pause and say a prayer for (or merely wish well) those who have suffered from cancer. It’s a terrible disease and often times leads to a lifelong battle to keep it at bay.
To those of you dealing with this disease, I am rooting for you!
Thinking as I do sometimes, I had an epiphany about global warming: It’s going to happen whatever we do.
We humans have a nasty tendency to want to live where we aren’t supposed to. People were once migratory, but now we want to just stay in one place all year round. This has been going on for centuries now.
So what happens in the winter? We turn on the heat to make the climate the way we like. What happens in summer? We turn on the air to make the climate the way we like. Without thinking of fuel costs, we are already making a cold place warm and a warm place cool…molding the planet to our will and likely mucking it up in the process.
As I thought this through, I was fascinated by the realization that the Snow Birds are the only ones doing it right. They live up north in the summer and down south in the winter.. Maladets, guys!
This line of thought falls apart in the developing world, though. Air conditioners are a luxury item here (but the heat hasn’t really been that bad so far) and heating is used, but not to the same extent as in the USA or other developed countries.
At any rate, think of that as you modify the planet to suit your whims and the long term repercussions of it.
Nikki Finke has the first part of her series on the Screen Actors Guild’s showdown with the movie studios. It’s well written and informative (even if it comes from the person who said no movie should be made unless it will gross $15m in its first weekend).
In it, she correctly nails other entities in Hollywood for suggesting a strike will happen as soon as the contract expires. This allows the movie studios to have an even larger outside force pressure the SAG into taking whatever deal they feel like offering.
I remember my brief time as a union shop steward. I don’t envy the people bargaining or the people that try to explain exactly what the union does for them.
Tartan International is kaput.
The outfit behind Tartan Asian Extreme, making many a geek gleeful, has run out of money and closed its doors. Palisades Media has purchased the US distribution slate, so hopefully the genre gems Tartan was famous for will keep flowing for a little while.
We should take a moment and thank Hamish McAlpine for the work his company did, though. With Anchor Bay getting absorbed and going limp, Tartan came into the spotlight.
Now there is one less source of distribution for foreign and indie films.
Next Saturday is the 225th anniversary of Sevastopol. Mom and dad will be here, so I think I will take them down so they can hear Phil Arnold’s Elvis cover!
It’s time to head to school to wait for the visitor from the US Embassy. Let’s hope s/he is a pleasant sort!