Omnibus

My latest check-out from the public library is The Complete Independence Day Omnibus.

It contains the novelizations of the movies Independence Day of 1996 and Independence Day: Resurgence of 2016.

I saw both films and thought Resurgence was pretty bad, but the original 1996 movie is one of my favorites. Here's a bit about it ...

Independence Day ...

is a 1996 American science fiction action film directed by Roland Emmerich and written by Emmerich and Dean Devlin. It stars an ensemble cast that includes Will Smith, Bill Pullman, Jeff Goldblum, Vivica A. Fox, Mary McDonnell, Judd Hirsch, Margaret Colin, Randy Quaid, Robert Loggia, James Rebhorn, Harvey Fierstein, and Harry Connick.

The film focuses on disparate groups of people who converge in the Nevada desert in the aftermath of a worldwide attack by an extraterrestrial race. With the other people of the world, they launch a counterattack on July 4—Independence Day in the United States.

One actor not mentioned in Wikipedia's blurb is Brent Spiner (Data from Star Trek), who played a funny mad scientist working at Area 51.

When it first came out it got rather poor reviews, but over the years it has come to be more appreciate :) Here's a trailer ...

The Vatican 24

Religious women have abortions, too. And many faiths affirm abortion rights

The abortion debate is largely presented as a stark divide between secular people who support access to abortion care and religious people who oppose it. This false binary has obscured the diversity of religious positions on the issue, particularly of those who support abortion access. While Jewish support for abortion has been recognized on some occasions, support for abortion rights in Christianity, Islam and other religious traditions has largely been ignored.

With media attention trained on Friday’s March for Life in Washington and the upcoming anniversary of Roe v. Wade — perhaps the last, as an increasingly conservative Supreme Court might strike it down later this year — it’s important to correct this mistaken characterization of religious Americans’ views on abortion.

The focus on religious opposition to abortion overlooks the perspectives and religious commitments of the millions of people who have abortions in this country. Additionally, an imbalance in media coverage normalizes religious opposition to abortion, thus paving the way for particular theological beliefs to be codified into law. This ultimately denies the right of religious freedom to other faith communities whose beliefs about pregnancy, abortion and childbearing differ ....

An example of this is Catholicism. The male-only leadeship of the Catholic church has decided that women choosing abortion is always morally wrong. But a majority of US Catholics themselves have said they want abortion to stay legal. And it's not just lay Catholics. I recall an ad placed in The New York Times on October 7, 1984, by "the Vatican 24" ... 24 Catholic nuns (and some priests and some prominent lay Catholics).

Document 32: Catholics for a Free Choice, "A Diversity of Opinions Regarding Abortions Exists Among Committed Catholics," advertisement, New York Times, 72 (7 October 1984), E7

The Vatican threatened them all, of course - Vatican Threat On Abortion Ad Went To Signers

There's a Wikipedia page about it: A Catholic Statement on Pluralism and Abortion

[...] Before mid-1984, a Catholic position paper was signed by about 80 reform-minded theologians and members of religious institutes who were sympathetic to choice in abortion. This position paper was used by CFFC as the basis for The New York Times ad. CFFC's statement said that the Catholic Church's doctrine condemning abortion as "morally wrong in all instances" was "not the only legitimate Catholic position." It said that "a large number" of Catholic theologians considered abortion to be a moral choice in some cases and cited a recent survey which found that only 11% of Catholics believed that abortion was wrong under all circumstances. It called for value pluralism and discussion within the Church on the subject. More signatures were added, bringing the total to 97 prominent Catholics including theologians, nuns, priests and lay persons.

The advertisement was intended to help 1984 vice-presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, a pro-choice Catholic, to resist the sharp criticism directed at her by Archbishop of New York John Joseph O'Connor during the 1984 U.S. presidential election. Following the ad's publication, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops denounced it and called it contrary to "the clear and consistent teaching of the church that deliberately chosen abortion is objectively immoral." Subsequently, the Vatican pursued recantings by or reprimands of the signers who were directly subject to Church authority, including 24 nuns who became known as the "Vatican 24". Some signers recanted their affiliation with CFFC; most were said by their superiors to be in line with Catholic teaching. Two nuns resisted, publicly embraced a pro-choice position and eventually left their order ...

The pro-life stance on abortion has not always been, and is not, the only religious stance on abortion.

Cecile Richards

The One Regret From My Time Leading Planned Parenthood

[...] Years from now, historians will look back on the past two decades as a turning point in the fight for access to abortion. If I have one regret from my time leading Planned Parenthood, it is that we believed that providing vital health care, with public opinion on our side, would be enough to overcome the political onslaught. I underestimated the callousness of the Republican Party and its willingness to trade off the rights of women for political expediency ....

An opinion piece in The New York Times by Cecile Richards. It is worth a read.

3 lies

The vote in the Senate to change the filibuster into a talking filibuster, just only temporarily for a vote on a voting rights bill ... it failed.

Lie # 1 .... the idea that Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are "moderate" Democrats. They are conservatives.

Lie # 2 ... the idea that there are a lot of Democrats in the Senate who want to preserve the filibuster. This vote that just took place shows that there are only two Democrats who feel this way.

Lie # 3 ... the idea that Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema really want to vote for the voting rights bill, but they can't because it would require changing the filibuster. Actually, those two Senators have many times dismissed the filibuster in order to accomplish their agendas. The truth is that these two Senators do not want to pass the voting rights bill.

We have to stop lying to ourselves about these two Senators, turning ourselves into pretzels to find a way to let them off the hook. They have to be voted out - that's the only way to get those two votes we need.

Old music

Some old music I'm listening to tonight: Santana, Creedence Clearwater ...

Dune

This week's movie rental was Dune ...

is a 2021 American epic science fiction film directed by Denis Villeneuve .... It is the first of a two-part adaptation of the 1965 novel by Frank Herbert, primarily covering the first half of the book. Set in the far future, it follows Paul Atreides as his family, the noble House Atreides, is thrust into a war for the deadly and inhospitable desert planet Arrakis. The ensemble cast includes Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Zendaya, David Dastmalchian, Chang Chen, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Charlotte Rampling, Jason Momoa, and Javier Bardem.

This is the second movie made of the book, the first being a 1984 version that was really pretty bad - Dune - which starred Kyle MacLachlan and was directed by David Lynch (what could go wrong?).

I read the book by Herbert, which won the Nebula and Hogo awards, when I was a teen, but haven't read the numerous other following Dune books.

Anyway, this film got mostly positive reviews. Here's a one from The Guardian: Dune review – blockbuster cinema at its dizzying, dazzling best.

I thought the movie was very good, if depressing. It's the storyline of the book, so I can't blame the movie. I can't tell you how many science fiction stories have a depressed hero from an advanced culture find love and spiritual rebirth by embracing a more primitive culture instead (think Avatar). I believe that's a dopey storyline, but it appears to be very popular, so ok ;)

The stench

The conservative Supreme Court Justices ban OSHA from requiring vaccination or testing/masks for businesses with over 100 employees, to protect employees' health in this time of COVID.

It's estimated that 6,500 workers will die and 250,000 will be hospitalized in the next six months without the workplace mandate (Supreme Court blocks Biden's Covid requirements for businesses, upholds health care workers mandate).

Just another day's work for the "pro-life" party and its pet judges. The stench only grows.

RIP: the chicken

Sigh :( This morning when I went out to feed the cats, a neighbor was walking by and she noticed that the chicken had perished in the ditch down the street. It appears he was attacked by another animal. We should have tried harder to catch him.

I hope it wasn't one of the cats who killed him. They were around him all yesterday and didn't attack him ... they actually seemed a little afraid of him. Maybe it was the big dog across the street. He has a fence, but I've seen him jump over it numerous times to chase other critters.

I've been thinking about how tenuous life seems. Over the holidays, my step-father had a stroke and had a blood clot removed from his brain. He seemed to be getting better, but then got worse, and now he's in a nursing home. It's hard to get info since we are the step-children of a past marriage, and he has new step-children, and a child, and a wife from his present marriage ... they haven't been keen on sharing details.

It's hard to believe there's any meaning to life when we're all (chickens and perople) so jerked around by events.

The chicken

I woke up this morning to the sound of a chicken. I went outside to look for it, but couldn't find it, and decided it must have been a squirrel instead. But then later, my sister was looking out the window and said, "There's a huge chicken in the backyard".

The cats were all weirded out - a giant bird! - and though they followed him around, no one attacked him. Our neighbors two houses away have chickens, so he must have escaped from there, and we tried to catch him to take him back, but he finally took off by himself over the fence in that direction.

:)

RIP: Sidney Poitier

- from Wikipedia: Poitier (left) at the 1963 March on Washington, alongside actors Harry Belafonte and Charlton Heston

Sad to see that Sidney Poitier has died. He is known for his many great movies, but it is a pair of 90s B movies that I think of when I remember him.

Sneakers ...

a 1992 American crime comedy .... starring Robert Redford, Dan Aykroyd, Ben Kingsley, Mary McDonnell, River Phoenix, Sidney Poitier, and David Strathairn.



The Jackal ...

a 1997 American action thriller film directed by Michael Caton-Jones and starring Bruce Willis, Richard Gere, and Sidney Poitier in his final theatrical film role. The film involves the hunt for a paid assassin.



He will be missed.

Fanny

My earworm for today :)

Supergroup

From the distant past, Val Kilmer reprises his portrayal of Jim Morrison, as the dead leader of a supergroup in heaven (SNL).

I saw The Doors in person here at the Memorial Auditorium, and Jimi Hendrix here at the state university, both in 1968 when I was 16. Don't really remember The Doors' performance, but still remember Jimi Hendrix playing his guitar with his teeth. Here's me back then with my boyfriend, Dan :) ...