November 7, 2013

Swedish cinemas launch feminist movie rating

STOCKHOLM (AP) -- You expect movie ratings to tell you whether a film contains nudity, sex, profanity or violence. Now movie theaters in equality-minded Sweden are introducing a new rating to highlight gender bias, or rather the absence of it.

To get an "A" rating, a movie must pass the so-called Bechdel test, which means it must have at least two named female characters who talk to each other about something other than a man.

"The entire `Lord of the Rings' trilogy, all `Star Wars' movies, `The Social Network,' `Pulp Fiction' and all but one of the `Harry Potter' movies fail this test," said Ellen Tejle, the director of Bio Rio, an art-house movie theater in Stockholm's trendy Sodermalm district.

Bio Rio is one of four Swedish movie theaters that launched the new rating last month to draw attention to how few movies pass. Most visitors have reacted positively to the initiative "and for some people it has been an eye-opener," said Tejle, reclining in one of Bio Rio's cushy red seats.

Beliefs about women's roles in society are influenced by the fact that movie watchers rarely see "a female superhero or a female professor or person who makes it through exciting challenges and masters them," Tejle said, noting that the rating doesn't say anything about the quality of the film. "The goal is to see more female stories and perspectives on cinema screens."

more... http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_SWEDEN_FEMINIST_MOVIE_RATING?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-11-06-05-42-17

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The Bechdel Test comes from Alison Bechdel's comic strip The Rule:

https://secure.flickr.com/photos/zizyphus/34585797/lightbox/


To read more about the Bechdel Test:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bechdel_test

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US movie theaters would be pretty empty if they used this test for all movies they show.

November 2, 2013

Before we jump for joy that moderate Republicans are switching to the Dem Party...

take into consideration that it is only going to water down the Dem Party and move it even more to the right.

The reason they're giving for switching is that they think the Tea Party is too crazy and has taken control of the party. It's not that they've had some epiphany and realize that what they believe is wrong and now they see that all the Dem Party stances are the right way to go. So I'm certainly not elated by it.

So we'll be adding a bunch of Dinos who may or may not actually vote with the party, and who will make the party more right wing. Not necessarily a good thing.

The one good thing I see is that it may get the moderates to really work to get their party back away from the extremists. But they've got a big fight since there are several conservative groups working to defeat moderate R's in the primaries and replace them with the crazies. Hopefully if the crazies win the primary, they don't go on to win the general election.

October 30, 2013

The Rand Paul Plagiarizing Guessing Game - Guess the Next One, or Which Movie!!!

As many of you know, Rachel Maddow has done a couple stories on Rand Paul plagiarizing Wikipedia entries for movies. First reported was Gattaca, then today she reported that Buzzfeed had found he also plagiarized the Widipedia entry for the movie Stand and Deliver.

Gattaca story:

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/watch/more-wikipedia-copying-in-rand-paul-speeches-58387523656

#t=69

Stand and Deliver:

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/watch/more-wikipedia-copying-in-rand-paul-speeches-58387523656


Well I thought it would be fun to come up with more speeches that he might have plagiarized from Wikipedia, so here's a speech he could give about the difficulty of fitting in and doing well in college:

As a Republican, I have fought long and hard to make it easier for kids to achieve their education goals. The Repbulican Party stands for your right to higher education so that everyone can have a better chance at a good job and a secure future. But there were times in our history when college was a lot harder than today.

In 1962, college freshmen Lawrence "Larry" Kroger and Kent Dorfman seek to join a fraternity at Faber College. They visit the prestigious Omega Theta Pi House's invitational party, but are not welcomed there. They then try next door at Delta Tau Chi House, where Kent's brother was once a member, making Kent a "legacy." There they find John "Bluto" Blutarsky urinating outside the fraternity house. The Deltas "need the dues" so they permit Larry and Kent to pledge, giving them the fraternity names "Pinto" and "Flounder".

Dean Vernon Wormer wants to remove the Deltas from campus due to repeated conduct violations and low academic standing. Since they are already on probation, he puts the Deltas on something he calls "double secret probation" and orders the clean-cut, smug Omega president Greg Marmalard to find a way to get rid of the Deltas permanently.

Flounder is bullied by Omega member and ROTC cadet commander Doug Neidermeyer, so Bluto and Daniel Simpson "D-Day" Day persuade Flounder to sneak Neidermeyer's horse into Dean Wormer's office late at night. They give him a gun and tell him to shoot it. Unbeknownst to Flounder, the gun is loaded with blanks. Unable to bring himself to kill the horse, he fires into the ceiling. The noise frightens the horse so much that it dies of a heart attack.

In the cafeteria the next day, smooth-talking Eric "Otter" Stratton tries to convince the stuck-up Mandy Pepperidge to abandon her boyfriend, Marmalard, and date him instead. Bluto proceeds to provoke Marmalard with his impression of a popping zit by stuffing his mouth with a scoop of mashed potatoes and propelling it at Marmalard and table mates, Chip Diller and Barbara "Babs" Jansen. Bluto then starts a food fight that engulfs the cafeteria.

Bluto and D-Day steal the answers to an upcoming psychology test, but it turns out the Omegas planted the exam mimeograph and the Deltas get every answer wrong. Their grade-point averages drop so low that Wormer needs only one more incident to revoke the charter that allows them to remain on campus.

Spoiler below:










https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_house

October 16, 2013

Why We Did Not Win and the Dangers of Saying We Did

First of all, we didn't win. All we get is for government to continue as it is supposed to, some normalcy in governance. But what is in the bill being passed is a budget with sequestration. A bill with less spending than Ryan's budget. And the sequestration was meant to be something horrid that no one would want to resort to, something to force a reasonable negotiation, but it didn't work so it was implemented. However, once the DC elite realized it was going to affect their flights they voted to fund air traffic controllers. So really, the consequences were never completely felt and the sequestration remains as if it is how things should be.

The Dems wanted to be able to negotiate away the pain of the sequestration this time around but they never got the chance. The Republicans wouldn't really negotiate, then they backed out of an agreement and went with the Tea Party faction with their demands to stop the ACA. So because of this drama we ended up right where we started as far as the budget is concerned.

However, many, many people have been hurt by this. They have not gotten paychecks, crab is sitting at a closed port, our country's rating with Fitch is being reevaluated which will most likely result in higher interest rates for us... a lot of people will suffer because of this. Federal workers/jobs will most likely be diminished by this. They keep taking the hit with no pay raises, furloughs etc... people are going to stop wanting those jobs. Then as the work force dwindles, the programs suffer and the Republicans can say the government isn't working and fight to privatize, which is what they really want.

And we only get a temporary extension, so we might just have to do this all over again. This is no way to govern. It is not a win.

Secondly, by calling it a win we are continuing this absurd politics as team sport idea. This is terrible for the nation. We should not back anyone just because of what team they are on, we should back them because of their ideas and policies.

And when we prticipate in the team sport mentality we are buying into the media's portrayal of events, a protrayal that is designed to raise profits for them by enabling them to make more money in advertising dollars. It's in their interest to have two teams, two sides, so that they can "report" the play by play action and have increased viewership from people tuning in to see what the "score" is and if they missed any good action. That is why the media puts forth this false equivalency. For money.

What I fear will happen if we keep saying we won and if we gloat about it and rub the Republicans faces in this is that they will become that much more determined to "win" the next time around and we are just going to go through this again after the new year. Because when you set something up as a win or lose situation, the loser always wants to come back stronger and win the next game.

And this is not a game.

And we did not win.