Back in 2003: Warriors among them

[VIDEO] This video produced by Evan Coyne Maloney features a group known as the Protest Warriors (PW). The PWs schtick if you will is to infiltrate protests with signs using the left's slogans against them at gatherings such as the San Francisco anti-war rally you're watching above.

This occurred close to 10 years ago and Maloney took a trip to the west coast to ask more questions of the anti-war crowd. While Maloney is still active as a filmmaker, PW doesn't appear to have survived. Founded by Kfir Alfia & Alan Davidson (or Lipton) they were once known for having a very active forum where people of different political ideologies debated. Unfortunately the forums were shot down on two occasions and it appears unlikely that they will return. An online store that sold merchandise has been shut down. Also while Kfir has moved on to other interests it was reported that Alan has since passed away!

I stated three years that PW would've been perfect for the events of the tea party and of the Occupy Movement. If only there had been some infiltration of Occupy rallies that occured last year and the year before that. Also the idea of infiltrating the events of the opposition may seem to be very passe now, there surely are just as many ingenious individuals such as Alan & Kfir who are able to protest those with whom they agree in such hilarious ways.

BTW, forgot to note the signs PWs used well it's safe to say the people to whom they were directed didn't take to them very well. It probably shows in the video above.

NRO: The Death of the Family

Finding this article via Newsalert the title from there was "Single Mothers Mean Welfare State". Then I see that this piece written by Mark Steyn in fact starts off talking about gay marriage. What is Steyn saying?

Which of these alternative scenarios — the demolition of marriage or the taming of the gay — will come to pass? Most likely, both. In the upper echelons of society, our elites practice what they don’t preach. Scrupulously nonjudgmental about everything except traditional Christian morality, they nevertheless lead lives in which, as Charles Murray documents in his book Coming Apart, marriage is still expected to be a lifelong commitment. It is easy to see moneyed gay newlyweds moving into such enclaves, and making a go of it. As the Most Reverend Justin Welby, the new Archbishop of Canterbury and head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, said just before his enthronement the other day, “You see gay relationships that are just stunning in the quality of the relationship.” “Stunning”: What a fabulous endorsement! But, amongst the type of gay couple that gets to dine with the Archbishop of Canterbury, he’s probably right.

Lower down the socioeconomic scale, the quality gets more variable. One reason why conservative appeals to protect the sacred procreative essence of marriage have gone nowhere is because Americans are rapidly joining the Scandinavians in doing most of their procreating without benefit of clergy. Seventy percent of black babies are born out of wedlock, so are 53 percent of Hispanics (the “natural conservative constituency” du jour, according to every lavishly remunerated Republican consultant), and 70 percent of the offspring of poor white women. Over half the babies born to mothers under 30 are now “illegitimate” (to use a quaintly judgmental formulation). For the first three-and-a-half centuries of American settlement the bastardy rate (to be even quainter) was a flat line in the basement of the graph, stuck at 2 or 3 percent all the way to the eve of the Sixties. Today over 40 percent of American births are “non-marital,” which is significantly higher than Canada or Germany. “Stunning” upscale gays will join what’s left of the American family holed up in a chichi Green Zone, while beyond the perimeter the vast mounds of human rubble pile up remorselessly. The conservative defense of marriage rings hollow because for millions of families across this land the American marriage is hollow.

Also:

Underneath all this apparent “fairness” is a lot of unfairness. Entire new categories of crime have arisen in the wake of familial collapse, like the legions of adolescent daughters abused by Mom’s latest live-in boyfriend. Millions of children are now raised in transient households that make not just economic opportunity but even elementary character-formation all but impossible. In the absence of an agreed moral language to address this brave new world, Americans retreat to comforting euphemisms like “blended families,” notwithstanding that the familial Cuisinart seems to atomize at least as often as it blends.

Meanwhile, social mobility declines: Doctors who once married their nurses now marry their fellow doctors; lawyers who once married their secretaries now contract with fellow super-lawyers, like dynastic unions in medieval Europe. Underneath the self-insulating elite, millions of Americans are downwardly mobile: The family farmers and mill workers, the pioneers who hacked their way into the wilderness and built a township, could afford marriage and children; indeed, it was an economic benefit. For their descendants doing minimum-wage service jobs about to be rendered obsolete by technology, functioning families are a tougher act, and children an economic burden. The gays looked at contemporary marriage and called the traditionalists’ bluff.

Then finally Newalert lifts this conclusion from the final paragraph:

The most reliable constituency for Big Government is single women, for whom the state is a girl’s best friend, the sugar daddy whose checks never bounce. A society in which a majority of births are out of wedlock cannot be other than a Big Government welfare society. Ruining a nation’s finances is one thing; debauching its human capital is far harder to fix.

The article starts off with a conversation Steyn has who notes that gay marriage is an attack on marriage. Instead of this article being an attack of gay marriage it notes the many sociological issues that are occuring in this nation.

It seems to me the Christian right makes a big issue about marriage. From them we might hear that getting married has economic benefits and social stability. Although increasing Americans aren't going out of their way to get marriage they just simply shack up.

In this case, it's safe to say that this article is attempting to look at the big picture. The next question is, I can only wonder how the Supreme Court is going to rule on gay marriage.

The American Spectator: Shush!

Reading this write-up it reminds me of the one place that I haven't visited in a while, Harold Washington Library Center. During my visit they usually include spending some time on the computers however you do run into plenty of vagrants using computers or just sitting around. Thankfully, there haven't been any incidents although my goal isn't to become a victim of such individuals.

It's time for me to visit my local library and this time just avoid the computers since thankfully one is available at home. Just go over and check out some books as libraries were intended and it's been since since I did that.

Reason: Hawaii's "Lone Ranger"

[VIDEO] Sam Slom is a State Senator in Hawaii. He's the only member of the Republican caucus in the upper house of that legislature. Slom talks with Reason.tv about his role being the only member of the opposition caucus in Hawaii's Senate.

It's a little hilarious but a serious interview. He even discussed the fact that there may have been other instances of one member of a minority party in a state legislature and even Hawaii's early political history and how in the early days it had been dominated by Republicans and somehow became a blue state where President Obama took 42% of the vote. It does make you wonder what happened.

BTW, let's add that Obama is a native son of Hawaii as he had spent his childhood there. The President is often considered a Chicagoan however he basically started his adult life and career in the "Windy City".

Via Instapundit!

Amusing Ourselves to Death: Huxley vs Orwell

You know I wanted to close Sunday out with that video posted earlier. Instead there's this comic that needs to be shared with you. At least for those of you who like to think philosophically.

What you will see is entitled: "Amusing Ourselves to Death: Huxley vs Orwell"

And the case is made amusing ourselves to death is what Aldous Huxley argues. Instead of fearing "big brother" he will entertain us and distract us from the issues we should really be concerned about.

It appears what George Orwell believes control over a populous will be more straightforward. That is some force will control our actions and our thoughts.

BTW, if you don't know who those two men are they are authors who primarily write science fiction stories. Huxley is know for Brave New World and I read somewhere that the film Demolition Man was allusion to that book.

On the other hand Orwell is mostly know for the book Nineteen Eighty-Four which was adapted into a film that was released in 1984! In fact the book was alluded to in a 1980s Apple Computers ad although it was unrelated to the movie.

It seems depressing, but this was a bit too powerful to not share. Something to consider.

Also I must admit, I'm not a voracious reader. It's time for me to read those books so that perhaps those references could be understood. And if you want to consider the arugments contained in comic, you're more than welcome to offer your two cents.

Via Instapundit!

VIDEO: The Dickson Experimental Sound Film

[VIDEO] It was very interesting to find this old film made near the end of the 19th century. Thomas Edison experiemented with sound film and it was an innovation that didn't take hold until at least the 1920s. It's almost like gradually introducing 3D to the movie going audience.

All the same that horn you see was the microphone and the sound was recorded on a wax cylinder. The recording was thought lost but it was found in 1964 and in 1998 and resynchronized with the film you see above. Let's remember that this was an experiment and therefore don't be surprised if the picture and sound aren't perfectly synchronized.

Anyway, something to entertain you during the course of the day.

ALSO, I linked to the wiki article above and because people have a tendency to analyze everything pay little attention to the two men dancing in this clip. Things were different at the end of the 19th century than they are at the start of the 21st!

Capitalism, Part 4

I wanted to do another capitalism post and then I thought about this movie I casually watched years ago entitled The Company Men. Lately I can relate to some of these movies that take place in the workplace or at least the job hunting arena whether serious or otherwise.

In any event The Company Men starred Ben Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones, Chris Cooper, and Kevin Kostner. Affleck's character is forced to take a job with his brother in law Kostner's character in order to make end meet after a downsizing. Jones is a long time employee of a company and after questioning the need for downsizing while the company is engaging in more spending on other projects he himself gets laid off. Cooper's character went from factory floor to a managing role at this company until he was laid off and is the most frustrated out of this whole group and he meets an unfortunate end in this movie.

In thinking about this film, I thought about how many people are faring in this era of slow economic growth. The recession of the last five or six years has been very difficult without a doubt and I'm sure it depends on where you may reside. It's also more difficult with the uncertainty coming from our elected officials who have to come to grips with various financial problems from taxes, new mandates, or even pensions.

With this uncertainty come the response for those of us who have jobs. Some may work at jobs that elect to cut their hours. Some may be concerned about being downsized. Right now it's not a very safe environment depending upon where you work today.

Also another thing to consider what you see in the movie is the battle with upper management as portrayed in this film by Craig T. Nelson. He's doing just fine, because he's stepping on his employees to keep himself in good shape and everyone else well their expendable as long as he's doing his job. One way to look at it is that he not only doing what's best for his company and the shareholders he's certainly doing what's best for himself.

That in and of itself is no big deal. What's problematic I suppose is how he's going about it. We could ask if it's OK for a CEO to take a paycut in a time of slow economic growth. Nothing says the man in charge has to make an inordinate amount of money and only to afford luxuries he doesn't necessarily need. Alas that mentality is out there and as long as anyone above him sees no problem, there isn't one.

BTW, I had to think. I don't follow business news as often as I should but it's still not often that we hear about layoffs. It used to be big news you could turn on the TV anytime and see some corporation downsizing people. In fact my mother herself was downsized from a downtown bank years ago and that round of downsizing was probably news in Chicago. Although let me take that back. It's news recently that the Sun-Times is downsizing their suburban operations to consolidate their downtown offices.

In any event even in this economy as we see in Company Men, Jones' character used many of the downsized people from his former company to staff his own venture. He was a high level executive so he's shouldn't have been struggling that much.

Knowing that a lot of ground was covered between a movie and some real life examples it still doesn't shake my belief in capitalism. Realizing the environment is tough right now that doesn't mean there aren't opportunities. Still here's to me wishing that in the future the environment will get much better for us all!

AMC Empire 25: I think I really want to visit this place one day...

Photo by bretchburg

A friend of mine had talked about the highest grossing theaters in this nation. And such a theater is located in NYC and I asked a friend of mine about the busiest theater in NYC and he didn't mention this place. Also he kinda of just dismissed the idea of a 24 hour cinema as being as seedy as the pr0n theater we saw in Taxi Driver.

In any case this just has to be a monster to administer day in and day out. A slow day would would still be busy compared to many theaters in this country outside of this part of NYC. MAN! This article was from 2011, BTW.

It's just past 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, April 13, and at least a dozen people waiting to be let in are peering anxiously through the glass doors of the AMC Empire 25 on 42nd Street in Times Square. One man is pacing the lobby, having slipped through unnoticed when an electrician entered.

The doors open, and the customers quickly buy their tickets, disappearing up the network of narrow escalators leading upstairs to five levels of auditoriums. Two buy tickets for the indie comedy Win Win, and three tourists from California are going to see the animated Hop. An elderly man says he's hard of hearing and wants the loudest auditorium sound possible. He's in luck; there is both an Imax and an ETX theater, AMC's version of Imax that vibrates with bass. Today, Hanna, an arty action pic, is the ETX offering.

Most multiplexes in the U.S. don't open until noon and, if they did open earlier, would be hard-pressed to get any traffic. But early openings are all in a day's work for the Empire, which accommodates more than 2 million moviegoers annually. It's been the top-grossing theater in North America for years -- a surprising fact, even within the film business, given that it doesn't have bells and whistles like reserved seating or high-end dining. Not to mention that 42nd Street is best associated with the surrounding Broadway legit theaters (and, of course, the often seedy history of Times Square).

The story of how the Empire -- which has gone from Broadway theater to burlesque house to shuttered operation -- came to be the U.S.' busiest theater is emblematic of the resurgence of Times Square and New York City's tenacious ability to reinvent itself. Beyond its singular success, the Empire offers a profile of how the modern multiplex -- albeit one on steroids -- operates. Individual movies are assigned screens based on their drawing power, and the number of screens can change quickly from one day to the next. To maintain cost-effectiveness, staffing is constantly adjusted based on projections about how upcoming movies are expected to perform. And even orchestrating the concession lines is a near-science.

When I finally do embark on my NYC adventure this is going to be one of the many places I should visit at that point. My goal was to do a TV taping and then see some of the architecture and possibly even go to Harlem. Perhaps I should do this before my next visit to LA. :)

BTW, visit the AMC page for this venue here!

This is really old news but we have a new Pope!

[VIDEO]I'm two days late but hey better late than never. This blog was around when the now retired Pope Benedict was elected Bishop of Rome in 2005. He retired earlier this year and now the Roman Catholic Church and Vatican City now has a new leader and his name is Francis I.

BTW, in the speculation as to who will be the next Pope could be an America. Well this Pope is American, except he's from Argentina. Meaning he's from Latin America.

I do wonder from the time of the white smoke to the unveiling how long did it take for Francis to change from his regular Cardinal uniform to his Pope outfit?

What $20 gets you from 1998 to 2012...

I found this graphic at the FB page Culture of Black Chicago. It basically illustrates what a $20 bill could get you as far as groceries. As it turns out from 1998 to 2012 increasingly you get less groceries for $20. Perhaps you might get 5 items for that amount by 2012.

This comment probably explains what is going on in the ensuing 12 years:

it's only gonna get worse if folks don't wise up and get involved in a business that's gonna greatly increase their income. Nobody is holding the FED accountable for this mess. Anytime you continue to print money and flood our economy with paper that's not backed by anything real, you cause inflation. gas & food prices rise.

Now this causes me to do research on economic issues. In the circles I converse with online they complain a lot about inflation and fiat currencies. They wish for a return to the gold standard.

I wish there were some stats that accompanied this illustration.

IL Channel: Do the Movies Advance or Distort History

[VIDEO] Last month at the Oscars Lincoln took away some awards mainly for best actor for Daniel Day-Lewis and also best production design. All the same it was a great movie to watch and we're still talking about that film.

The Illinois Channel - a C-Span style network that provides gavel-to-gavel coverage of Illinois state government and policy events - even jumps into the discussion of Lincoln. As we should all know the 16th President of the United States is considered a state hero. While there are many who may not be big fans of his time as President there are many who continue to look up to him. That is whether or not you may agree with his role in abolishing slavery or what not.

In any event, there was a panel at the Union League Club of Chicago where amongst others screenwriter Tony Kushner discusses how the film was written and produced. As a matter of fact Kushner was nominated for an Oscar for best adapted screenplay of Lincoln. This shall be an interesting discussion.

I'm looking forward to watching this whole video which lasts a little over an hour!

ALSO for your reading pleasure my posting after watching Lincoln on New Year's Eve!

VIDEO: The K-12 Implosion

[VIDEO] I'm tempted to post this to my other often neglected Shedd School blog. Just concerned that the content of this video would turn off people who hopefully have the same questions about the education system as I do. Although in my case, no kids so there are no real worries for the system on my end. It's just that the goal for our young people is for them to get the best education no matter who provides it.

I've often expressed my frustration with my experience with the public schools especially high school  - GO FALCONS! Still my view of the system isn't entirely marred as my time in elementary school is still remember fondly. It lead me to an important philosophy in life, there are going to be ups & downs.

All the same, this video bounces off of a book The K-12 Implosion by Instapundit blogger Glenn Reynolds. A case is made that our education system still has aspects of the Industrial Revolution style-education embedded. One-size-fits-all can't work anymore as there are many different vocational/career paths out there in the 21st century.

Of course this doesn't mean the schools aren't trending in that direction. It's possible that they're just not doing that good of a job. Whatever the case may be what should a 21st Century education system look like? How can we truly revamp a 19th century system?

Like I stated already I have no children, however, the young people toiling in school today needs access to opportunities that will last them a lifetime. What this means is that we want them to pursue the many opportunities that will be available to them in the 21st century. Let us hope today's education policy experts are able to steer the system in that diraction.

LA Times: Bill Moody, 'Paul Bearer' dies

Well this caught me by surprise!

Bill Moody, 58, who entertained WWE fans for years as the spooky manager "Paul Bearer," died Tuesday evening.

Moody debuted in the WWE as Bearer in 1991, managing the supernatural Undertaker. Bearer was a former funeral director who guided Undertaker to the WWE title, until turning on him to start managing Undertaker's brother, Kane.

Moody left WWE as a full-time perfomer in 2002, but had returned sporadically since then. The cause of his death was not immediately known.

"WWE is saddened to learn of the passing of William Moody, a.k.a. Paul Bearer," the company said in a statement.

No pun intended, but may he rest in peace. I say no pun intended because in the beginning this was the Undertaker's catchphrase. Below in the [VIDEO] is some of Paul Bearer's finest moments in the WWF (get the E out!).

VIDEO: "Giant in the Sun" Northern Nigeria 1959

[VIDEO] This documentary is close to 20 minutes. I have yet to watch it, but I will share this description:

A production of the Northern Nigeria Information service in 1959 presents "Giant in the Sun" a short documentary showing the foundation laid down for the development of the Northern region just before Nigeria's independence in 1960.This is believed to be one of the earliest coloured film documentary shot in Nigeria and one of the best to come out from Africa.Nigeria will surely survive and recover her past lost glory by effectively and efficiently utilizing her abundant human and natural resources.

I post this realizing that as a man of African descent, this blog generally doesn't talk about Africa a lot. Perhaps when things in Africa are bad do I start talking about it. It's probably about time to look at the good things of Africa, even if those good things were in the past.

In 1959, Nigeria wasn't yet independent from the British Empire. I would be very curious what this film documents of the time before independence.

Hat-tip Instapundit!