Flow

There's a lot of news today, but I'll dispense with it and offer some different food for thought.

It's the creative faculties that are first to go as we get older. Perhaps not necessarily altogether - humans are equipped with the ability to create, and maybe even improve on their creations, with time. Yet consider the unbridled lexiconal (word?) freedom of being three and not entirely grasping the full meaning of words.

Paul Zach has an article dedicated to just such a loss. Call me a sentamentalist, but I really enjoyed it.

And further on one will find the most intimate thoughts of the most omnipotent of beings.

All these courtesy of www.generationterrorists.com

And lastly, check out the band Annuals (as far as I can tell, no "the" preceding it). Search them on MySpace or go to AnnualsMusic.com

Cheers.

Say what you will about the Western world, it's values and primary religions, but it's stuff like this that makes me so loathe to talk to people who would bash it.

The Artful Dodger of the Aughts

Michael Moore can run (for lack of a better term) but he apparently cannot hide from those who would seek to turn the tables on him.

In a bitter pill of twisted justice, Michael Moore is now at the opposite end of the camera in a new documentary being put forth by two Canadian filmmakers. The doc, called Manufacturing Dissent, was a project that actually started out of admiration for Moore. Yet Debbie Melnyk and Rick Caine, the professed left-wing authors of the film, gradually changed their point of view as "certain facts about his documentaries" came to light.

The details are in the article, courtesy of The Australian. Click here to get the whole story.

Easy To Be Hard

Morning All,

I had the good fortune to see Zodiac on Saturday, after a mad dash to the theatre and struggling my way through reams of children. It was all worth it, though, for a striking and though-provoking film from a director that seems to create nothing BUT striking and thought-provoking films (for those of you who have not see Fincher's Se7en, I heartily recommend it. I won't recommend Fight Club. Though an excellent movie, you've probably already seen it).

Zodiac won't disappoint, and it's a shame it's doing so poorly at the box office. Click here for an interview with David Fincher from Kurt Loader and MTV.com

Cheers everybody.

Icky Thump

A special Sunday update! It seems that, in their customary tendency to record an album in less time than it takes most bands to order dinner at fancy restaurants (average 4 weeks), The White Stripes are set to release a new album of material. Many have surmised that this may be their last due to Jack's burgeoning success with The Raconteurs.

You can find the whole scoop, courtesy of Pitchforkmedia.com, here.

Mars Attacks

I realize that this is an unsettling synthesis of a post I made a little while ago. But I just love this global warming conversation so damn much.

Be prepared for Al Gore's and David Suzuki to start screaming about how the Western world is threatening the existence of little green men, because according to an article at nationalgeographic.com, Mars is apparently heating up as well.

SOME, like the article's author, may wish to point out that, seeing as how Mars and Earth are neighbours in our vast solar system, the problem of global warming may be a universal concern in every sense (not simply the sense that Suzuki's affection for ruining the economy is "universal".)

This is why more investigation needs to be undertaken before a country decides to align itself with a sketchy proposal like Kyoto. The science is simply not strong enough at this point to merit massive economic changes in the interest of slowing the world's cooling rate, changes that could ultimately stick the Western world with a bill that it didn't really run up.

Granted, the article itself demonstrates that this scientist's theories are not all entirely accepted. He denies the existence of greenhouse gas build-up, for instance. I'm certianly not about to deny that humans dump massive amounts of chemicals into the atmosphere, but whether or not they are responsible for the warming, or that we mere humans could REVERSE the trend of a planet as old and complex as Earth, seems to require a bit more investigation. One must take into account other factors, like volcano carbon emissions (which could double the amount of human emission) or sun flares/spots.

But anyway, that's my two cents for today.

Give them over-sized lollypops!

Yes, the rumours you've undoubtedly heard are true. The aye-aye, a small marsupial native to the island of Madagascar, is on the very verge of extinction.

You know the aye-aye, don't you? It's that cute, cuddly little animal that eats tree bark and lives a peaceful life amoung God's greenest foliage. Idyllic, like an animal from that movie Fern Gully. I love that movie.

Still not ringing any bells? Well, I have a picture here for you...just follow the link.......OH MY GOD WHAT THE HELL IS THAT? DEAR SWEET BABY JESUS KILL IT!

The article, and slideshow, from Slate.com discussed the human tendency to be more generous towards those animals (and probably people, I'm sure) that can appeal more effectively to their aesthetic sense.

You've seen it yourself: the homeless guy clutching his sad-eyed yellow labrador retriever like they've "only got each other in this cruel world, man" probably has at least 30% more change in his Tim Horton's cup that the guy down the street wearing a garbage can lid for a hat.

Watch the slideshow at the link and see what you think.