Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Best Essay Ever.

For real.

January 28,2008


The Honorable Christopher Shays 1126 Longworth Building United States House of Representatives


Dear Representative Shays,

I'm a 13-year-old kid so you probably won't care about or even read what I am about to write but my social studies grade counts on it so I'll write on. I am writing to tell you about a bill that I wrote. You see, Chrissie, I am a genius so my bill is no less that brilliant. Immigration is an important issue because people older than me say that it is. This needs to be solved because Connecticut alone spends an amount of money on illegal immigrants every year. That's more money than we spend on other things!

Some the points on my bill include setting found illegal immigrants on a track to citizenship. This will help to reduce the number of illegal immigrants in America. To keep immigration from Mexico to a minimum there will be a quota of 100,000 legal Mexican immigrants per year. Now most immigrants from Mexico are not here legally so I thought that the fence on the border of Mexico should be twenty feet tall, flat, cast in steel, and lubricated. All of these ideas are outstanding and ingenious and should be put in place as soon as possible.

There are a lot of illegal Mexican immigrants in America. Because these people came into this country illegally they are breaking the law, they are criminals. These felons need to be stopped. The amount of illegal immigrants in this country is a number that is more that one hundred. The amount of money that the government spends on education for babies popped out by Illegal immigrants once they are over the border is, in my opinion, costing us a lot more than the money that they bring in.

One example of my ideas working out in an historical scale is the Great Wall of China. You can't tell me that if you were a resident of Mongolia whom was longing for an egg roll that you would not want to try to hop over that monster. It also worked way back when the Chinese were at war with the Mongols. An example from American history is when we used to have an immigration quota things worked out great plenty of good stuff happened. Also, I bet that you cannot give me one example from history when it was easy to climb a lubricated fence.

This bill is constitutional, fair and necessary because when our forefathers established this country and immigrated here they wanted to be original and did not want any copycats to storm into this country and claim it as their own when there are clearly people already living there. Come on, that was our idea. You should really think about what I have said Topher I mean it for real Holmes.


-cjfer-


Saturday, January 26, 2008

Cloverfield made me sick!

read here!

-cjfer-

The Big Three - and Second World Countries

Really fascinating article in the NY times magazine. I believe it's excerpted from a book. It's long, about 8 pages. If you're not up for the length, I'd suggest reading the first page, and then the last two pages. He (or she) talks about the lack of American Hagemony in the world, in deference to a big three of superpowers, America, the EU, and China. America is facing a new position in the 21st century. What's dope about this article is that the author actually suggests how we might go forward in the world. How we might actually deal with the changes of globalization. How terrific. Someone not just telling us how it's going to change, but to give us solutions too. America may be facing a new position on the world, but it may not be such a bad thing. Interesting.

Read HERE.

-cjfer-

Friday, January 25, 2008

Counter Point: I agree

Can we really call it a counterpoint? (PS this post is too long to proofread. So sorry for any mistakes.)

I haven't seen No Country For Old Men or There WILL BE Blood but I can tell you that they're probably better than Juno. Juno is a good movie, don't think that's it's not. But that's it. It's not a truly transcendental movie. It's about a 16 year old girl who gets pregnant, but it really doesn't seem to be about any more than that. Juno is a girl who is overly intelligent, sardonic and sarcastic and really only services as a conduit for Diablo Cody to show us how hip, cool, tough, sweet, and uncanny she is. It's a well made movie that definitely functions as a third generation Post-Wes Anderson Film. (Think "In Good Company" "Arrested Development" "Lost in Translation" "Marie Antoinette" as examples). What it does is it calls my attention to a more interesting film called "Saved!" Starring Jena Malone. The 16 year old girl getting pregnant accidentally isn't a new story. And to be sure, when we see in mainstream film, it's always an affluent white girl. Why? So that we know that there aren't any real world or serious consequences. In fact, in Juno there are no consequences of any kind - nothing changes. When we look at stories like this including "gilmore girls" we really have stories of affluent white girls, who are very very smart, getting pregnant and keeping the child. (and in fact, they're all comedies). These stories don't really represent, I think, the majority of young girls who find themselves in this situation. That's why I like Saved! No, the exclamation point is part of the title. Saved! also seems to be about the rigors and dangers of religious zealotry. The Jenna Malone character gets pregnant in the first place because it's her belief that she can change her boyfriend from gay to not gay. It's amusing, but that's an actual belief of many in the far-right Christian camp. The movie seems to be about more than a showcase for wit and cool. It's about the dangers of adherent belief and reconciling inconsistent beliefs, and in dealing with ideology vs. the real world.

I don't know why Juno is so popular, but I don't begrudge it it's popularity. It's a good movie that is funny, sweet, cute, and has some wonderful performances. Is it best picture worthy? I don't think so. But I think what we have is a time where there really weren't a whole lot of amazing choices for best picture. We're in a time period when films of any quality seem to be made outside of the studio system. We used to live in a time where the best picture nominees were big studio productions with wonderful production values. Juno, this years "Little Miss Sunshine" is not that. But it's good. Studios need to make better movies. That being said - ever since my confidence in the Oscars was destroyed in 1998 when Saving Private Ryan didn't win Best Picture - how do you feel now guys? - I haven't necessarily looked to the Oscars or any awards show to dictate my feelings on the best pictures. And in retrospect, I think Brokeback Mountain should have won best picture the year Crash won. Then again, I never liked the Crash movie. It's overly didactic and to be honest, a little racist.

Any awards ceremony that doesn't give Martin Scorcesse an Oscar until the departed, arguably his least challenging directing job in the last 10 years, is suspect. Gangs of New York rocks, time will bear me out that.

-cjfer-

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Really? Best picture?

Ok, maybe it is a good movie. I haven't seen it yet. I don't plan on seeing it in the near future. But there are unwritten rules about this sort of thing. You don't give a movie like Juno a best picture nod. You nominate it for best screenplay and that's it. What gets me is that a movie like "The Royal Tenenbaums" was only even nominated for best screenplay, and it lost (Plus, how does "Juno" get a blowjob and "The Darjeeling Limited" is ignored. They hate Wes, but they love post Wes style). Sight unseen i can promise you that was a better movie than "Juno". Well, I can tell you that "No Country for Old Men" and "There Will be Blood" are way better movies. What worries me about this nomination is that the Oscars hate downer movies. They love Hollywood endings, and man, neither of the big two ended on a good note. Bad things happen to good people. So if neither of them wins, it'll either be "Atonement" or "Michael Clayton". So chances are, it will be "Atonement" with its love story and all that jazz. But viewership is going to be down, if at all existent. This may be the year where they go with the popular choice. In this article it is argued that we need to go back to picking movies that may not be the best picture, but the most popular. I know it was just a pick to give props to a movie that hit it big, but I would be so pissed if "Juno" won. It would be the end of credibility. Hell, if this happens I'm boycotting the Oscars next year. I'll watch Nick's "Teen Choice Awards" instead.

-ccmas

Friday, January 18, 2008

Dan Marino and Hillary Clinton

I saw a commercial about weight loss where Dan Marino says, "If I can lose weight, so can you!"
I mean, he was a professional athlete. Come on.

My second come on moment of the year. Does being first lady count as political experience? This election is being billed by some as "Change Vs. Experience." Now, Hilary Clinton doesn't have that much more time logged in the US senate as Barack Obama. Are we counting the 8 years as first lady? Would that mean that Laura Bush is more qualified to be President than Obama or Edwards? Heck, Martin Sheen played the President for seven years - does that qualify him?

-cjfer-

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Politics - 'Cause it wouldn't be a Blog without it

So, I watched the Democratic debate tonight on MSNBC. The winners and losers of which may ultimately be inconsequential as many people don't get MSNBC, nor do "most" people watch whole debates. I did. Maybe I'm not a political pundit, whatever that means, but I couldn't tell the difference, really, between the candidates tonight (Obama, Clinton, Edwards). Chris Mathews, whom I like usually, has come out and said that Hilary Clinton decisively won the debate. Really? What makes you say so? Maybe it's me, but the discussion seemed polite and the candidates seemed to agree on virtually every issue. Maybe it's that Mathews has an agenda that favors Hilary Clinton. That's right! I said it!

Mitt Romney won the Michigan Republican primary. This means that in the 3 meaningful nomination contests in the republican party, there have been 3 different winners. While it remains to be seen what will happen in the Democratic party - it appears that tonight they appeared to all be aligning themselves with one another. Due to the fact that we had 3 different Republican winners, means that the party, at this point anyway, is fractured. This could be difficult in terms of the nominating process because the nomination might not be decided until the convention, at which point you'll have vying for delegates. Who knows, maybe they'll all get it together over their natural hate of democrats, and it'll be like the good old days.

What I don't buy is when Mitt Romney says "take that Washington!" Nor the other candidates for that matter. There's no homeless people running for president this year. Or, there won't be after Dennis Kucinich drops out. All the candidates are wealthy, and have deep standing political interests. The idea that one person's gonna come in and change everything is nice, but the US government is built upon a general model of being slow to change. Some say the benefits of this type of system is that it makes it difficult for politicians to really muck up the country. We essentially have a 2 party system in America - so anyone saying that one party is to blame is insane. I think we'll all be better off when George Bush is out of office. I think his type of neoconservatism was particularly vicious, divisive, derisive, and generally bad for middle class Americans. Hopefully, whoever we get will be able to "change" things - but I'm not convinced of it, but I'm not sure it's a bad thing.

What we as Americans need to do is to take responsibilities for our own lives, and for the people around us. We can get as rowdy as we want about our candidate, and how they're gonna make serious change, but we can't escape that we're really the ones who are responsible for our lives. The US government "could" do a lot of good - but the mean time we need to do more at the state and local levels - even in our own communities. It's not until the rich desperate housewives of the OC feel responsible for the poor in East LA, or the deep south, that is change really gonna happen.

-cjfer-

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Britney Spears will EAT A SHARK.

And Die of SHARK RABIES. For a dollar.

-cjfer-

Britney Spears is going to be Eaten by a SHARK

You heard it here first. If this happens, you all owe me a dollar.

-ccmas

Britney Spears is going to die

Yep, you heard it here first.

-cjfer-

Tuesday, January 1, 2008