inherently different

In order to better serve my viewing public, I’ve started a film review blog called Movie Maniac.

UPDATE: I’ve got a number of new reviews up as well as reviews of some worthwhile DVD releases. Begin by reading my review of Dawn of the Dead.

Just so we’re on the same page here, whenever I hear some misinformed fool talk or write about Israel and the Middle East they make the mistake of using the nouns “Palestine” and Palestinian”, and the phrases “Palestinian territory” and even “Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory”. Unfortunately, these terms are used without regard to historical fact and rather than appear astute or intelligent, they appear either vexed by unparalleled stupidity or in a state of complete denial.

“Palestine has never existed . . . as an autonomous entity.  There is no language known as Palestinian. 

There is no distinct Palestinian culture.

There has never been a land known as Palestine  governed by Palestinians.

Palestinians are Arabs, indistinguishable from Jordanians  (another recent invention), Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqis, etc.

Keep in mind that the Arabs control 99.9 percent of the Middle East lands. Israel represents one-tenth of one percent of the landmass. But that’s too  much for the Arabs. They want it all. And that is ultimately what the  fighting in Israel is about today . . . No matter how many land concessions the Israelis make, it will never be enough.” — from “Myths of the Middle East”, Joseph Farah,  Arab-American editor and journalist.

Here is another one of the many moments in which I find myself saying, “You have got to be kidding me!”

Israel on Monday night faced widespread international condemnation for its assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the Hamas leader, as Palestinian militants vowed revenge and all-out war, reports FT.com Read the rest of this entry »

I’ll admit it up front. I’m a war monger. I don’t see a problem with the US attacking Afghanistan. I don’t see a problem with the occupation of Iraq (while I do mind all the nonsense about ties to Al Qaeda and WMDs). The thing that really bothers me is the U.N. and the many countries that run away when faced by adversity. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been awake since about four A.M. being a geek. For some reason, I couldn’t really sleep. I’m not tired yet but I’m sure that later today I’ll be worthless.

What kept me awake was working on a piece of literary magic which I have been super secretly working on for a bit now. In between fits of creative energy that isn’t being sucked out of me by my freelance gig writing articles on finance, culinary schools and legal administrative jobs, I’ve been reading Stephen King’s On Writing which is by far the best book about writing I’ve ever read (and I’ve read a lot). Reading his treatise on the physical and mental act of writing has been really inspiring.

Simply put, over the last few months, since a little before I was excommunicated from the Church of Divine Profit, I’ve focused on writing as much as I could. Nothing really worth writing home about so to speak, but I’ve been writing for myself, which was 75% of the battle. Two things prompted this new found love with writing. The first was my good friend Gunda started writing professionally. He is a graphic designer by trade, an English teacher by necessity, and a new disciple to the houses of the holy word for profit.

The second was realizing that I’m 38 years old and aside from a startling collection of belly button lint, my life has been devoid of substance. I don’t want to save the whales (they’re noisy, fat and slow), hug a tree (the only thing they’re good for is making huge piles of paper) or roust Bush out of office (I’ll leave that to the hurtling juggernaut, Ralph Nader).

So, I started following through on my promise. I’ve been writing a novel. It has been going ok but last night, I found a groove and couldn’t stop. I found myself awake at well past midnight, putting it all down. Then this morning, in the middle of a dream, I awoke with an idea that couldn’t wait. So I grabbed Jezebel (my new IBook) and hammered out another page or two. I decided to stop mid-sentence so I wouldn’t burn myself out.

Then, still reeling from this new fount of creativity, I decided to install Open Office for OSX on my machine. I can’t believe how powerful this free office productivity suite is! If you hate Microsoft as much as I do, you should look into Open Office.