[8/2/2007 9:20:36 AM] pD says: howdy!
[8/2/2007 10:19:37 AM] nsy says: hi there!
[8/2/2007 11:01:36 AM] pD says: i was thinking back to the movie blood diamond
[8/2/2007 11:02:00 AM] pD says: and, a parallel idea came up about a discussion on the use of documentary in recent years
[8/2/2007 11:04:13 AM] pD says: specifically, the speaker was arguing that documentary has become a form of self-congratulatory format for the left
[8/2/2007 11:04:54 AM] pD says: for example, most of the "good" ones on Enron (smartest guys in the room), environment (inconvenient truth), etc. are really geared at a specific type of audience
[8/2/2007 11:06:19 AM] pD says: so, long story short, i hit upon this idea of a new emerging genre that marries block buster action films with a moral spin - like Blood Diamond where the audience is not only entertained by the explosion, he/she also gets a sense of moral superiority by agreeing with the argument of the story (not buy blood diamond in this instance)
[8/2/2007 11:16:28 AM] nsy says: wasn't there a clint eastwood-directed movie like that recently?
[8/2/2007 11:25:55 AM] pD says: do you recall which one?
[8/2/2007 11:26:53 AM] AE says: Flags of our Fathers, and Letter's from Iwojima. iwogima? iojima?
[8/2/2007 11:27:40 AM] pD says: Iwa Jima
[8/2/2007 11:28:13 AM] AE says: Iwo Jima.
[8/2/2007 11:28:43 AM] AE says: oh, and the Yesmen. their movie is exactly what you mean... except without the block buster part...
[8/2/2007 11:29:06 AM] pD says: i see the eastwood film more as revisionist history telling at its best - there is a push to talk about the history from the common men's perspective
[8/2/2007 11:29:26 AM] AE says: http://www.theyesmen.org/
[8/2/2007 11:29:32 AM] pD says: Ken Burn was quite controversial when he did the same on WWII from the soldier's perspective - WAR
[8/2/2007 11:30:57 AM] pD says: my point is that by marrying the two parts - the moral high ground and actions, this brings a wider audience to the theater - parents would feel good about themselves and kids get to see a lot of explosions and stupid men (usually men) killing each other
[8/2/2007 11:36:14 AM] AE says: yeah! Explosions!
[8/2/2007 11:36:26 AM] AE says: sorry... moral what?
[8/2/2007 11:39:20 AM] pD says: my point - same product - serving different audiences with different perspective and needs
[8/2/2007 11:39:49 AM] pD says: this is a shrewd ruse to capture the "art" house audience
[8/2/2007 11:40:18 AM] pD says: 'em MBA's are good!
[8/2/2007 11:40:36 AM] AE says: capture the art house audience, or sneak morals into the main stream audience?
[8/2/2007 11:59:49 AM] nsy says: are we under a fascist regime? http://propagandamatrix.com/articles/july2007/240707fascistcoup.htm
[8/2/2007 12:05:02 PM] nsy says: part of one of those leftist documentaries you are trying to avoid ;) http://prisonplanet.tv/articles/december2004/021204martiallaw.htm "Martial Law"
[8/2/2007 12:05:37 PM] pD says: the failed coup: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot
[8/2/2007 12:06:12 PM] pD says: morality is over-rated
[8/2/2007 12:06:40 PM] pD says: hitler was highly popular until the shooting ware started, and even then, there are many people who sided with hitler
[8/2/2007 12:06:47 PM] pD says: in UK, US, etc.
[8/2/2007 12:07:41 PM] pD says: given the degree of economic woe from the great depression and how hitler was able to seemingly single handedly rescued german economy from the ruins of WWI to its industrial might - i can totally understand its allures
[8/2/2007 12:08:36 PM] pD says: it was not obvious that he would actually do the things that he claimed to want
[8/2/2007 12:09:09 PM] pD says: not an apologist for adolf, but i think historic context is often difficult with hindsight...
[8/2/2007 12:12:38 PM] nsy says: yes, it seems that questioning the current political philosophy is reasonable when everyone is poor and starving to death. "Clayton Cramer, in a 1995 History Today article, reminded readers that the devastation of the Great Depression had caused many Americans to question the foundations of liberal democracy. "Many traditionalists, here and in Europe, toyed with the ideas of Fascism and National Socialism; many liberals dallied with Socialism and Communism." This helps explain why some American business leaders viewed fascism as a viable system to both preserve their interests and end the economic woes of the Depression."
[8/2/2007 12:13:41 PM] nsy says: but genocide... c'mon people.
[8/2/2007 12:17:22 PM] nsy says: so, can you find a way to turn this stuff into a blockbuster with car chases and explosions?
[8/2/2007 12:17:48 PM] AE says: uhg. can't we start to wean ourselves off that?
[8/2/2007 12:18:05 PM] nsy says: maybe we can systematically go through the leftist documentaries and turn them into blockbusters?
[8/2/2007 12:18:22 PM] AE says: i mean... it's big and you can't look away... but think what all those explosions are doing for the environment
[8/2/2007 12:18:55 PM] nsy says: well, for the masses, it seems like a sugar coated pill, or no pill at all.
[8/2/2007 12:19:02 PM] AE says: true
[8/2/2007 12:20:50 PM] pD says: so, let's start a list - blood diamond is one
[8/2/2007 12:21:04 PM] pD says: how about oil reserves in Sudan
[8/2/2007 12:21:08 PM] AE says: what's on the list?
[8/2/2007 12:21:17 PM] AE says: things we want to make into documentaries?
[8/2/2007 12:21:52 PM] pD says: well, left wing ideas that can be made into block busters
[8/2/2007 12:22:37 PM] pD says: lord of war -by nick cage had a similar theme - albeit a bit more cynical - it talks about arms dealers
[8/2/2007 12:22:56 PM] AE says: Global climate change (Day after Tomorrow just didn't do it for me)
[8/2/2007 12:23:24 PM] AE says: The genocide in Darfur.
[8/2/2007 12:23:37 PM] AE says: The aids crisis in Africa
[8/2/2007 12:24:18 PM] AE says: The economic disparity between the first and third world, and how little power there is for the poor people of the world to change it.
[8/2/2007 12:24:52 PM] AE says: more locally, we have imminent domain, the FLOW issue in Felton, and sudden oak death.
[8/2/2007 12:25:10 PM] AE says: and don't even get me started about non-native invasive plants!
[8/2/2007 12:25:49 PM] nsy says: animal species endangered due to human interference
[8/2/2007 12:26:07 PM] AE says: yeah! loss of bio-diversity!
[8/2/2007 12:26:10 PM] AE says: that's a key one.
[8/2/2007 12:26:38 PM] AE says: we're finding more and more things we need, cures for diseases, in our fellow inhabitants.
[8/2/2007 1:29:25 PM] nsy says: i stumbled across this blog, and it held my interest for more than 3 seconds http://haacked.com/. I was particularly amused by http://haacked.com/archive/2007/07/17/the-eponymous-laws-of-software-development.aspx
[8/2/2007 1:38:00 PM] AE says: uh oh... don't you have that XKCD comic on your wall nsy?
[8/2/2007 1:42:39 PM] nsy says: i know - haha
[8/2/2007 1:47:51 PM] pD says: hey, should come up with an NSA Chatters’ Law
[8/2/2007 1:48:11 PM] pD says: or, we could have our individual pD, nsy, and AE laws
[8/2/2007 1:48:17 PM] pD says: why not, no?
[8/2/2007 2:50:59 PM] nsy says: maybe even some commandments?
[8/2/2007 2:51:58 PM] nsy says: thou shalt not eat bad chocolate
[8/2/2007 2:52:14 PM] AE says: naw, too negative... how about:
[8/2/2007 2:52:22 PM] AE says: thou shalt eat only good chocolate
[8/2/2007 2:52:57 PM] nsy says: well, i guess if you're into optimism.
[8/2/2007 2:53:15 PM] pD says: or mine would be "any chocolate that i can afford to eat is not good enough"
[8/2/2007 2:53:45 PM] AE says: that's a rather fatalistic point of view... i mean... is life without chocolate worth living?
[8/2/2007 2:54:11 PM] pD says: or "i would not eat any chocolate that i can afford" - like the Marx brother's club-joining thing
[8/2/2007 2:54:47 PM] pD says: conversely, is life with bad chocolate worth living
[8/2/2007 2:55:00 PM] pD says: (into the realm of existentialism)
[8/2/2007 2:55:31 PM] AE says: Karl Marx was in a chocolate club?
[8/2/2007 2:55:56 PM] AE says: or was he banned from one, and that was one of the forming factors of communism.
[8/2/2007 2:56:03 PM] pD says: he was in France briefly when trying to make his way to britain...
[8/2/2007 3:18:06 PM] pD says: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Groucho_Marx - search for "club" - 2nd or 3rd occurrence
[8/2/2007 3:22:04 PM] nsy says: good stuff!
[8/2/2007 5:28:14 PM] pD says: baby daddy duty
[8/2/2007 5:28:42 PM] nsy says: ok. farewell, baby daddy!
[8/2/2007 5:28:58 PM] nsy says: good luck with the doody
[8/2/2007 7:58:22 PM] AE says: doody duty?
[9:33:12 AM] AE says: mmm... 800 calories for breakfast...
[9:33:22 AM] AE says: 4 yummy chocolate bars
[9:33:53 AM] AE says: er, I mean "All-natural Sports nutrition bars"
[9:34:22 AM] AE says: why are sport foods so sugary?
[9:34:46 AM] AE says: aren't sports folks supposed to be fanatically healthy?
[9:35:02 AM] AE says: or do we exercise so much so we can eat whatever the heck we want?
[9:35:11 AM] AE says: perhaps it's really all based on fear.
[9:35:38 AM] AE says: we're afraid if we don't exercise, we'll bloat up to un-acceptable levels of body mass.
[9:35:53 AM] AE has changed the chat topic to "Counter Calories"
[9:36:08 AM] AE says: i bet i'm the only one on NSA Chatters that worries about this kind of stuff...
[10:14:18 AM] pD says: agree...
[10:14:34 AM] pD says: my concern usually runs in the direction of how good it tastes
[12:04:17 PM] AE says: so couple good taste with low calories and you've got a good snack.
[12:27:55 PM] pD says: calorie does not enter into the equation for me - happiness is more important
[12:28:58 PM] pD says: food should nourish both body and soul
[12:29:18 PM] pD says: so, an occasional indulgence is a good thing
[12:29:49 PM] pD says: another reason why pD would never make it as a conscript
[12:54:50 PM] pD says: Queen guitarist Brian May has handed in his astronomy PhD thesis - 36 years after abandoning it to join the band. : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6929290.stm
[1:09:02 PM] pD says: i am dead meat, need to buy more insurance - Your Printer May Be Hazardous To Your Health: http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/36077
[1:27:13 PM] AE says: http://www.sealandgov.org/
[1:27:26 PM] AE has changed the chat topic to "think SMALL"
[1:27:29 PM] AE says: http://geography.about.com/cs/countries/a/smallcountries.htm
[1:33:35 PM] pD says: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andorra
[1:35:50 PM] pD says: Andorra is great! i will need to visit it
[1:35:57 PM] pD says: but, i do not speak catalan
[1:36:11 PM] AE says: I'm sure they cater to French and Spanish as well.
[1:36:23 PM] AE says: what a cool history!
[1:36:50 PM] pD says: wikitravel! http://wikitravel.org/en/Andorra
[2:30:53 PM] pD says: San marino at 24 square miles would be my cut off - it is still walk-able
==
NSA Chatters crew
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