While nothing major of note has happened recently, I have watched a few movies... whether it be in class or at home. They include: "Detour, Born to Kill, Melvin Goes to Dinner, and Chris Rock: Never Scared". The first two are crazy film noirs from the 40's that were totally awesome... crazy psycho femme fatales and bonko uber males... in fact, Born to Kill was Quentin Tarrantino's inspiration for "Reservoir Dogs" and the head dude in his movie was cast with the same actor that played the lead in "Born to Kill." "Melvin Goes to Dinner" was the Odenkirk guy from Mr. Show's indie film... it was adapted from a stage play and it REALLY showed. Essentially, it was four people at dinner talking about sex and ghosts. While trying to spice things up with flashbacks, the film was still a little too talky. In my opinion it should've stayed on stage... not to say that it wasn't interesting, because it was... just not really all that visual. The Chris Rock thing was an HBO special from earlier this year and DAMN it was funny. Once he got going (about 10 minutes in) he never let up! Some of the funniest stuff came when he was goofing around between bits. Some of the material will be dated in a few years, but the majority was pure comedy gold! The bonus feature on the DVD was Rock's first HBO special from '94 and it was also great... The only problem with it was that the audio mixing was awful. The audience was miked WAY too loud while Rock was drowned out... Weird Stuff...
From here on down, I talk about the Bush/Kerry debate that went on tonight.
Not being American, it doesn't really matter what I think about the election, but being a citizen of a nation stuck to the U.S. makes the vote affect me in many ways. Bush has made it clear that he holds no love for Canada, especially when it comes to trade issues such as softwood lumber and beef. He has also (along with various Republicans, including the ambassador to Canada (who gets air time here) ) made an effort to undermine our ability to make our own laws with regards to such issues as drug policy. (The ambassador issued a threat to us that if we legalized marijuana we would experience increased border difficulties.) Some have said that these slights come from the fact that we did not go along with the Iraq war, to which I respond that Canada has always been a nation of peacekeeping, not invasion. We function in the larger context of the world community and the UN. To have gone along with a unilateral action such as the Iraq war would have greatly damaged our credibility in the world and undermined everything that we have worked towards for the past 50 years. With that in mind, I am of the opinion that Bush has done more harm than good on the world stage with both his horrendous environmental policies and go-it-alone, with us or against us foreign policy. Alienation of the world makes no sense and only furthers the problems we all face. I don't think that war and nation building (which is exactly what is going on in Iraq) is necessarily the way to go to end the "Terror threat." It is addressing the sources of terror, ie) fear and hatred of America and the root causes of that fear and hatred that will solve the problem. While not the final answer in any stretch of the imagination, one way that terrorism can be fought is with addressing the widespread belief that America hordes its plenty to the detriment of the ones with little. The U.S. government actually pays farmers not to grow food... while people in the world starve daily. The U.S (and Canada) account for more than 50% of total pollution and energy used in the entire world, yet we do little to stop global warming. It's the view that the U.S. doesn't care about the rest of the world that is one of the root causes of hatred which leads to terrorism... Don't get me wrong, there are definitely more, like religion but that's a whole other can o' worms to be talked about later...
Anyway, before going off on the tangent I was talking about the debate. I think that it is safe to say that most of the world wants Bush to lose. Most of the world gets information disseminated through sources that are not corporate owned (as the news is in the U.S.) and is able to see a much more balanced viewpoint. With more education, I feel that most Americans would choose to oust Bush as well. The problem lies with how the media portrays things down there (Fox especially, but others as well... CNN, MSNBC, etc.) When half of the population does not know that there were no WMD's in Iraq and that Saddam was not a member of Al Qaida, you've got some serious problems... ANYway, I think that this election SHOULD have been an easy one for Kerry, I mean the U.S. economy is in the shits, the war in Iraq is a disaster, and the rest of the world (for the most part) hates the U.S. more today that pre-Bush... The problem was that Kerry is too long-winded and nuanced for the fast paced, talking points based media that exists in the U.S. Bush works well because he speaks simply and clearly. He also repeats things so much that they begin to be accepted as truth despite no evidence to back them up. ANYway, with the knowledge that Bush was leading in the polls thus far having me a little scared, I anxiously tuned into the debate to see if Kerry could combat the relentless Bush camps attacks (flip flopper, undeserving vet, etc) and gain some ground. While not crushing Bush, I think that Kerry clearly showed that he has a much more extensive knowledge of the issues (through his use of exact situations and details, stats and figures, etc.) and that he is much more willing to actually think things through, rather than march off towards a foregone conclusion. Where he failed, was in combating Bush's incessant use of simple, repeating, slogans. Bush continuously called him a flip flopper throughout the debate and Kerry only really responded once to it directly. In order to get through to the American voter, you need to be a little more forcefull. Al Gore, who was insanely more qualified and intelligent, "lost" to Bush because he came across as TOO smart and lost the average voters focus. Kerry needed to be a little clearer, although he did infinitely better than he had in recent weeks.
Bush seemed a little lost at times, what with all the pausing and confused looks. He also only really said 3 things the whole time; Kerry is a flip flopper, we are succeeding in Iraq, we have a strong coalition on our side. Kerry meanwhile, was pointing out flaws in homeland security (harbour inspections, plane x-rays), flaws in Iraq (lack of security and overload of U.S. troop work) and how the coalition was in name only (90% of troops and costs accrued by the U.S.). Will logic prevail over simple repeating slogans??? Up here it would (I'd like to think) but down there..... who knows.... All I know is, Kerry impressed me more at this debate than he has in all the times I've seen him leading up to tonight, while Bush showed why he was never really elected in the first place and why he probably isn't the kind of guy you want running something as important as the U.S.
With that in mind, it's up to the U.S. voter to make up their own minds, not me... just PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T VOTE BUSH
