N Korea's rooster act

I would call it peacock act, but there's nothing pretty about it. Although I'm not in agreement on many levels with China, it could be a powerful nation to put N Korea back into line. I might suggest a short monologue (as it's full of rhetorical questions) like this (as China speaks with N Korea):

So ... I was kind of wondering if you'd like to continue to be called North Korea. You would? I think, if you thought about it at all, China (us) could very well run military through your country and take it like Germany did France. You could be China's little brother to south, still called China. North Korea would then, virtually vanish from the map and well ... victorious get to write the history, so ...

You get my point?

I've stated it before ... (based on S Dakota's potential ban)

The ban on abortion, while touchy and emotional warrants thinking about this:

How many children who aren't aborted are without homes?
How many children who aren't aborted are in foster care?
How many children who aren't aborted by "biological donors"+ are in a household poorly suited to existence?++

If there was a ban, dare I predict a national ban on it, who then raises the children? Should unreported criminals, sadists and molesters and rapists and child exploiters be granted them; especially since they would relish the opportunity to have a bevy of kids at their beck and call and access. Many of the people on the ban-wagon don't raise a single child at all, let alone foster or adopt a child. If you don't do that, you aren't part of the friggin' solution! So, shut up! If the argument is that adoption process is too tedious or full of too much red tape, therein lies the problem. When there is a suitable home for all children, I will agree that there should be a ban on abortion, for there is no call for it.

As far as abortion being in place of contraception, then I don't mind another $500 a year of my taxes being spent on free prophylactics. Heck, that's cheap and considerate. If that would help, go for it! In the end abortion is selfish in that I understand. I do know that many of the people seeking abortion tend not to be cut out to be parents at that time anyway, so the would-be child has that potential danger ahead of her/him. Children are destroyed daily, some or most by people who should never have had access to them in the first place (regardless whether they are genetically related to them or not).

+ you can't call people parents unless they raise their children. Siring offspring isn't parenting.
++ there aren't enough agents and people and not enough money to patrol houses with poor living for persons there. Find out stats on CPS (Child Protective Services) and find out that I'm right.

Day at the zoo

I'm not typing or posting it twice, so this is a brief on the zoo day where I went with the folks.

We elected to go Japanese for dinner and found, sadly, that our preferred restaurant is no more. I don't know if they opened elsewhere or are permanently gone. Yokohama, we missed out. Instead, we went to Asakusa which was just fine, just not quite the same. They serve lots of food and no one went home hungry.

anime environmentalism

Nausicaa, a tale of a girl who has "strange powers", really is good-natured, so say it simply. She cherishes nature, life, insects, and plants. When another group of humans tries to take over her community, the story unfolds as into a story against war, ultimate weapons (thermonuclear), slaughter, and hatred. It is a little brutal and would leave many kids with lots of questions, but they would be answerable. I would suggest 9 years and up watch it, though many 9 year olds' would probably not like it.

It's overall messsages are fairly clear, the visuals are intersting and the music is quieted, but so-so only. The background child singing (Nausicaa's little to-herself song) is pleasant and used for allusory purposes. Patrick Stewert dons the voice of Ebineezer and Uma Thurman plays out a quasi- Kill Bill character seeking bloodshed and curiosity through control, domination and warmongering.

I would rate it about a 4.8 with limited re-watachability, also due to some ambiguity to the story line and characters. The same director did Spirited Away, a much better film, and Kiki's Delivery Service. Not so surprisingly, the protagonists (girls) look remarkably the same in so many ways.

House of Wax

For an interesting twist, I write the few things that were interesting in the movie, then slash it to pieces as per normal. It had a few red herring curves and it had some potential for haunting scenes and the night scenes added a bit to the allure. There was a scene where they showed Paris Hilton dance a little, down to her undies. Finally, someone recognized that Paris Hilton couldn't act to save her life and wisely gave her very few lines in the movie. She more like a late Monet in the background ... captivating, until you look at it closely (finding there is flatline brain activity) then it loses it's wonder.

I wouldn't bother watching this sophomoric attempt at the horror genre, but the director has some potential to do better. I applaud the attempt to use wax museum, as they faded into obscurity in the 70's, much like is stated in the movie, and it is difficult to go back in the past. The "horror" bit of it is B-horror movie antics mixed with Saw and Dawn of the Dead music inclusion to thunder your way into being scared. The brutality goes between old Friday the 13th epic slaughtering, near cartoonish to bloody (aforementioned horror movies).

The dialogue wasn't that interesting and some of the "unusual ways to die" weren't original. The talking with the guy who wants to kill you bit; why are you talking to him. This movie has no re-watchability. With some of the errors in it including, but not limited to:

Gee, he's a creepy guy, but he's offering us a lift. Okay, but only if I sit my girlfriend next to him in the truck cab.
First stab him, then hit him with a rock, then tumble him down the stairs ... no, wait; that's not right. Wait 'til he stands then hit him with a rock.
Let's make the shadow protagonist a complete ***hole who you'd rather see slaughtered in "many nasty ways, "Brave, Brave, Brave Sir Robin"+
Gee, one black guy ... think he'll get it? They avoided the obvious problem of one skin tone only (although there were wax persons of some varying degrees of skin color). It wasn't simply a matter of press and spray.
Hey, teens and young adults! We'll show you that you picking a random spot in the wilderness and dropping trash and bottles friggin everywhere is justified. I think it was a bad message to send.
Oh, yeah ... we were going to a football game without tickets, right?
No ... no ... no similarity at all to Evil Dead, well, a little ... maybe more than a little.
Superglue on mouth, then ripped open -- nope, uh ... nope ... but if you have a mind, you know that's not right.

[SPOILER -- the whole city being desolate was much like Hills Have Eyes and really expected after they walked through the town; hint -- old pumps at gas station and no sermon at church]

I would rate it about a 2.5, but not higher. I was interested in seeing more of Elisha Cuthbert after watching the movie. She looked pretty cute.

+ Monty Python, Holy Grail