Monday, November 16, 2009

In The News

Just a couple of WTF? news stories that I feel compelled to comment on. You have been warned.

I know this isn't particularly NEW news, but with the movie coming out this past weekend, I feel it is timely. The movie 2012 is about the destruction of the world. Beyond that, I don't know much more about it. Landmarks of all kinds are 'shown' to be toppling over, falling apart, etc, etc. This includes religious landmarks such as a Buddhist temple and St Peter's Basilica. What you WON'T find being destroyed in this movie is any Muslim landmark. NONE. And why is that? Because the director was afraid for his life.

Roland Emmerich said:

"Well, I wanted to do that, I have to admit," he says. "But my co-writer Harald said I will not have a fatwa on my head because of a movie. And he was right... we have to all... in the Western world ... think about this. You can actually... let... Christian symbols fall apart, but if you would do this with [an] Arab symbol, you would have... a fatwa, and that sounds a little bit like what the state of this world is. So it's just something which I kind of didn't [think] was [an] important element anyway in the film, so I kind of left it out."

(I'm thinking the word 'not' in the quote where he says "my co-writer...said I will not have a fatwa..." was a slip. Otherwise, the rest of the quote makes next to no sense.)

And conservatives are considered nut cases when we opine that many branches of Islam want to destroy anyone with a different view than they have. But a Hollywood director says he won't 'offend' Muslims for fear he might get killed and the liberals didn't jump all over him. WTF???

Here's the whole story.

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And Barack is off and running in another part of the world once again. It will be interesting to see how long he stays in Washington when he gets back this time. I don't EVER remember a POTUS being out of Washington as much as he is. I guess he wants to get as many of those frequent flyer miles as possible. WTF???

8 comments:

  1. Anonymous10:26 PM

    Yeah, I was surprised to read in the paper this morning that Obama was in China, I thought, WTF? Is he treating his presidency as a free, first-class trip around the world? When did it become acceptable for a President to trapise around glad-handing people, while the country is still in a recession? don't we have ambassadors and Hillary to do this stuff? Sheesh.

    And, I hadn't heard that about 2012, but if I were a writer on a movie, I'd say that no movie is worth having a fatwa on my head. It's a shame, really, that the Arab world doesn't get equal treatment in disaster movies.

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  2. Yeah, I agree: I thought the support staff was supposed to be globe-hopping. The one that REALLY got my goat, though, was the trip to Denmark to try to get the Olympics to come to Chicago. I mean, come on. Diplomacy might be one thing, but to try to get some money for your old hometown...

    And the only way I actually heard about the director of 2012 was from Fox News. I was channel surfing one day and happened to hear this--I couldn't believe that it wasn't more widely reported. Seems to be the kind of thing that the libs and the MSM would want to jump on. Really, I can't fault the guy either--who wants a fatwa on their head, as you said--but let's get back to the semblance of equal treatment people. But, unfortunately and TRULY, it seems as if the real whack jobs who might kill over something like this ARE Muslims. Time to really face facts.

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  3. Anonymous10:09 AM

    Oh, don't get me started on the Olympics thing! I hope he never does something so groveling like that again.

    I dunno-part of me wants people to stand up for our rights and freedom of speech and expression, but when you're dealing with fanatics, that gives you pause. I wonder if there are people (Westerners) out there willing to risk their lives for what they believe in? The fanatics can't kill us all. And, if we tippy-toe around, afraid to make the fanatics mad, that's letting them win. I think sometime soon we'll all have to make a decision-will we stand up for ourselves, or will we shut up and fold our hands in our laps?

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  4. "I think sometime soon we'll all have to make a decision-will we stand up for ourselves, or will we shut up and fold our hands in our laps?"

    You have hit the nail on the head with that one. And it probably will have to be individuals who stand up for what we believe, because the majority seems to be behind the 'give peace a chance' thing. I agree that it is better to solve things through diplomacy, if you can, but it just does not seem possible to do so with the fanatics.

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  5. Anonymous10:15 PM

    I think that the majority is afraid to do anything for fear they'll have something unpleasant happen to them. They're waiting for individuals to do something for them, so they can applaud and say "how brave of them", and erect memorials to the ones who die for their beliefs, and they'll feel that they did their part.

    I wonder if this is a solvable problem? Can the fanatics back off and let people live their lives the way they want to, or will they keep trying to force religion down peoples' throats? And for that matter, can the West back off too and stop trying to force their brand of democracy down peoples' throats?

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  6. I see both sides that you are talking about, but I seem to feel as if the fanatics might be a bit scarier than the West in how they try to influence the 'non-believers.' I really am quite afraid this may be an unsolvable problem. But then, WE grew up during the Cold War and never thought THAT situation would change, so who knows?

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  7. Anonymous10:07 PM

    But the Russians didn't send suicide bombers. All we had to worry about was an atomic bomb dropped on us, not getting blown up when we go to the mall.

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  8. That IS one thing we had going for us then: the 'other side' thought very much like 'we' did. It is so hard to understand terrorists/suicide bombers, etc.

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