Monthly Archives: July 2012

The ‘You Didn’t Build That’ moment

Here is a clip of the President’s speech in which he made the unforced error of saying ‘You didn’t build that,’ and grammarically the sentence reads to say you did not build your own business. However I accept that if you look at the speech before and after then sentence it seems the president had a brain cloud moment using the antecedent ‘that’ when he meant the antecedent ‘those.’
The text before the sentence in question is about infrastructure and support systems, the conclusion statement that follow immediately are about infrastucture and support, so I think it is perfectly reasonable and not spin to accept that he was referring to the roads and bridges.

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The Chick-fil-a Kerfuffle

So let me issue forth a few words on the Chick-fil-a situation that has exploded over the last few weeks.

Chick-fil-a is a privately held company that runs a chain of fast food chicken themed restaurants across the country.  The Cathy family that owns the business is well know for their social conservative stands, so it was really of little surprise when the President of Chick-Fil-a Dan Cathy announced his opposition to marriage equality. The Henson Company, founded by Jim Henson, who supplied Muppet toys for the Chick-fil-a equivalent of Happy Meals, announced that while not trying to break their contract with Chick-fil-a they stood with marriage equality and were donating the proceeds from their business arrangement to organizations that promoted sexuality equality.

So far all we have here are private companies and individuals exercising their first amendment rights.  (For the record I stand with the Henson Company, but for regular readers I suspect that this is hardly surprising.)

Supports on both side of the argument have announced plans to mobilize with their money by either refusing to do business with Chick-fil-a franchises or promising to do increased business at the stores. That is all well and good too. That is a perfectly valid form of expression that carries a powerful impact.

I have very serious problem with the two liberal mayors who have waded into the scrum, not as private citizen, but as representatives of government. The mayors ofBostonandChicagohave announced that they are seeking to prevent the expansion of the Chick-fil-a brand into their cities. They have announced that they will use the machinery of government to try to achieve the ends, and this is flatly wrong.

I have already stated that I stand with the proponents of marriage equality, but I must denounce the actions of these two mayors,

Think about what they have actually proposed. That the government should punish private individuals, in a direct and harmful manner, for expressing opinions that the is unpopular with these particular politicians. This is an abuse of their position as public servants.

I think that the position held by the Cathy family is wrong, hurtful, and are in general demeaning, but they have a right to those opinions. I believe in equality for all, that why I stand with marriage equality, but that also means I stand for all people to have their voices free from government intimidation. All supports of freedom should denounce these mayors, while supporting equality in all its forms.

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Political Thoughts from The Dark Knight Rises

So on Sunday morning a friend and I went to see the final film in director Christopher Nolan’s Batman saga. I came away impressed and ready to add the film to my collection. (Seriously had then been a blu-ray for sale in the lobby it would have come home with me.)

There has been a lot of talk recently about the politics of this movie. A great deal of it surrounding the homonym Bane and Bain, but really that is just the nattering of negligible minds. There are interesting political dimensions to the plot and story of The Dark Knight Rises, far beyond simple coincidence over names.

There are some light spoilers ahead, so if that bothers you, go see the movie then come back. Continue reading →

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A Successful Third Act, my review of: The Dark Knight Rises

This weekend has been a weekend of Batman for me. Saturday morning I sat down and watched my Blu-ray of Batman Begins, Christopher Nolan’s epic and fantastic reboot of the Batman franchise. Sunday night I watched The Dark Knight, completing a trilogy watch, albeit out of order.

My plan had been to watch both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight on Saturday and on Sunday morning go watch The Dark Knight Rises, but the length of the films involved and other activities meant I only watched Batman Begins.

The Dark Knight Rises is not just the third film on the serious, until other third films, Goldfinger for James Bond, The Search For Spock for the Star Trek Franchise, and Son of Frankenstein, this film really is the final act of the Batman story. Too many times I have watched a film go off the rail and crash in the third act, not so with The Dark Knight Rises.

I will discuss spoiler material from the first two films, it’s been four years since The Dark Knight, and I shall try not to be spoilerific for this newest and final installment. Continue reading →

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A quite busy life

I’ve been away from the ‘net, but it is because real life has been ratehr hectic and busy. Not all of this busy has been a bad thing. I am continuing work on my new Seth jackson novel, today I passed 25,000 words and I still have not grown to hate it, I’m awaiting results for Q2 Writers Of The Future, I saw a dear friend during Comic-Con (which I did not attend but she did) and I have started work on a space RPG system building off the D20 open game content.

I have also been a little stressed at the day job has been very busy and my arthritis has been acting up, however I will not cry into my soup.  I am on the whole happy and productive.

 

 

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