Media - Good or Evil?

Recently, Laura Bush was asked about her husband's approval rating. Expectedly, she responded that she didn't believe the ratings and that the media was unfair about how it treated her husband.

First of all, when the media asks someone about approval ratings of his or her spouse, what other response is there? I mean, what would you expect someone to say?

"Ma'me. The majority of the country hates your husband and thinks he's an idiot. What do you think about that?"

Would you expect her to say, "yes, I agree"? Of course she would say no. But then the media has to write an entire article about that. Is someone bored out there, or something? There are plenty of stories to write about without making a big deal about the painfully obvious.

Why not make a huge fuss about the topic: starving yourself will lead to hunger pains and weight loss. Better yet, how about doing a medical study costing thousands of dollars on that. Or how about: jumping out of an airplane at 10,000 feet altitude may cause physical harm and even death.

And best of all, how about: media coverage has nothing better to write about, decides to write about Laura Bush.

The Indy 5 or 500?

Global warming, energy crisis, war in the Middle East, rising energy costs, soaring gas prices, global warming, ozone depletion. I have an idea! Let's get 50 cars to drive around a track 500 times as fast as they can at the peak of all of this.

True, we all need our entertainment and channels of stress relief and outlet. I suppose the energy crisis isn't helped by using power to keep the ice rink cold, or keep the lights on in a hockey stadium built for about 20,000 people. I admit, that is an indirect use of oil products, but other sources can give power for the hockey rink including hydroelectric, solar, or wind energy. But there's only one thing that powers a high-performance race car: gas. Whether it's premium or low grade, it's still gas and oil.

Let's do what I like doing best: consider an anaolgy. Ethiopia has been plagued by famine for years, but you don't see them hosting the annual hot dog eating contest. In times of drought, you don't see many water parks being constructed (except in California, maybe).

But we shouldn't completelty forsake our pasttimes or hobbies. During times of drought, should we be so drastic as to save on water and not use the water for an ice surface for a skating rink? Absolutely not. So maybe it's okay to have Indy car racing. But how about reducing the number of laps.

Instead of 500 laps, why not something more reasonable like 50, or even 5?

Crouching Tiger as the Savior

For those of you who have seen Crouching Tiger but are unfamiliar with Chinese folk lore and wuxia stories, you might wonder how people in ancient China flew through the skies, ran on walls, or flew from rooftop to rooftop. For those of us who grew up watching, reading, and hearing wuxia stories, we didn't blink an eye. This is expected in a wuxia movie.

And believe it or not, but there have been plenty of wuxia movies produced in the past with people flying through the air, lasers shooting out from finger-tips, hitting pressure points to temporarily paralyze people, and kung fu that made you practically immortal. We've all seen it growing up; it was unavoidable.

But the movies that we did see were usually low budget, crappy quality, bad acting, poor quality films. They were movies you'd expect to see from a third world nation, or not even up to standards to be even classified as a "B" movie. They were horrible and sometimes almost embarassing to watch, but we watched them, anyway. The only high quality chinese movies were usually artistic dramas with Gong Li in them directed by Zhang Yimou. But that was it.

Then came along Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon directed by Ang Lee. Although the story for a wuxia film was poor, the directing was fantastic. It was the first time a wuxia film had such a high profile director, actor, and actress. The film wasn't cheesy, it was taken seriously by the actors and directors alike, and it had a decent budget for a high quality film. Ultimately, it became a huge success as a martial arts film in the U.S. Although it failed miserably in China as a martial arts film, Chinese movie directors took notice of the film's popularity in other countries and followed suit with the use of high quality actors/actresses, high budget, CGI, and good story-telling.

Since Crouching Tiger, I have yet to see a really lousy cheesy kung fu wuxia movie made. Some of the stories of those that followed may be a little weak, but that was it. Following in the footsteps of Crouching Tiger were: Hero with Jet Li, Seven Swords with Donny Yen, Warriors of Heaven with a bunch of people, and Fearless.

I know that doesn't sound like a lot, 4 movies in the past 6 years since Crouching Tiger was released in 2000. But that's exactly the point. Now directors aren't cranking out garbage wuxia movies every 6 months the way they used to; they're actually taking their time, slowing down and putting more effort and quality in to their work.

And that's good to see.

Who's the Real Bad Guy?

Ever stop and wonder which "side" you were on? Or if what you were doing was really the right thing? And if so, what's "right"? Oh sure, you may think what you're doing is perfectly fine, but in the eyes of someone else you're completely and totally wrong. Or that the ideas that you've held so firmly to with a death-grip your entire life turn out to be false ideas, based on lies and clouded by deceit? The question comes down to this: who really is the bad guy? Well, obviously it can't be you, right? It has to be the other guy. HE/SHE must be wrong. No doubt that this thinking is healthy for the ego, but that's about all it's good for.

To put a political spin on things (yes, again), let's consider this: I was listening to NPR today on the way to work and there was a family tellng its sob story about how they lost their beloved son to the war in Iraq. He died for what he believed in, he died for his country, and freedom, and the American way of life. Those bastard terrorists killed a good, decent, God-fearing, all-American boy and they should burn in hell for that. Boo-hoo.

Now stop and think about this for a minute. Who insists on sending troops over to Iraq? I can assure you, it's not the Iraqis. It's Bush. Why? To protect the American way of life. Was the American way of life being threatened? Well, according to intelligence reports, Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Were any weapons of mass destruction EVER found? No. The responsibility would then be on Bush. But wait! Who put Bush in power? Who voted for Bush, not once but twice? The American people. Oh yeah, that's right.

Now, who's really ultimately responsible for that soldier's death, this War-to-make-Bush-and-his-cronies-rich, and this corrupt nut-house administration? The people are. Because we put them there.

Maybe, we are the bad guys after all.