How do the X-Men break down in the Circle?

Getting Everything Set

I am still getting the hang of autoposting useing posterous. So I apologize if these posts seem repetitive. This is me on training wheels. Feel free to point and laugh.

Synching up my life

There is an awful lot that I need to organize in my life. There always seems to be more. And I have had enough. I am downsizing my stuff. Chunking what can be chunked together. And organizing what cannot be removed.

This includes my online interactions. So I am now posting through an autopost system. And although I am sure that this will take some editting to perfect, I think this is a step in the right direction.

This is only a Test

On Connections

 I've been noticing lately, that I have to preface a lot of what I say. I need to point out that simply because I disagree with this left wing political view, I am not a conservative by process of elimination. I need to explain that my rejection of these right wing views does mean that I am a member of the left wing progressive movement.

This happens to me all the time. Because I do not factionalize or pigeon-hole myself into one of the available categories on most issues, I am forced into a weird dream world in debates where my opponent is debating against his or her hallucination of me- one that often has nothing to do with what I have said, but everything to do with what my opponent believes their enemies will say.

I get frustrated when people argue with me against views I have not expressed.

Most people are not caricatures by nature, but I worry that our desire to pick a side is encouraging us to become caricatures willingly as the price of admission into the in-group.

On Running

Running is one for the great equalizers amongst the sports. You don't need money to run, you don't even need shoes. Marathons have been won by people in bare feet with not special gear or expensive training instruction. Running is like soccer, there is no cost barrier to running.

And this is a very good thing, because running is one of the oldest tools known to mankind. A runner trained for distance can cover distances that startle modern people raised with cars and used to thinking of feet as slow. Running was used a hunting tool before spears and bows, with distance runners literally running animals into heatstroke induced death. Running is the oldest form of self defense on the planet. Running is a powerful tool that the vast majority of people can advantage of without anything more than our own two feet.
And yet so few of us can run well anymore.

Scientists are beginning to look into the theory that running may be what made us human, by allowing us access to meat that could feed our hungry brain. Early human species could run properly- they weren't built for it. Just maybe, running is what made us human. And now most of us don't run.

Does that mean most of us have forgotten what it means to be human?

The Lorax

I have a place in my heart for Dr. Seuss' "The Lorax". I have be to careful when I read it, because I am known to get very sad reading it. I was very skeptical of the movie adaptation and horrified at the car commercials that declared themselves "Truffula tree approved". Nonetheless, I allowed myself to be convinced to attend the movie with my wife and her best friend.

I was shocked, and I was amazed, and deeply moved by the sincerity and integrity this bright and immensely funny cartoon managed to maintain in its 88 minutes.

The show managed several very important things. First, it made you empathize for the tragic central figure "The Once-ler". It made the character sympathetic, while still making him responsible for the stories central tragedy. Second, it did not turn the Lorax into an active figure. Although the movie did add a certain amount of comic shenanigans for Danny Devito, but this was used to heighten the punch of tragic sequences by providing a certain amount of mood whiplash and giving the tearjerker moments some camouflage to hide behind. And third, it didn't tone down the message for public consumption- although it did provide a modest happy ending.

What surprised me was how angry the film felt. I could feel the film maker's outrage flaring behind the day glow landscape and outrageous characters and costumes. There was fire in this creation and I can honestly say that I didn't expect it.

This film has generated much outrage from the conservative quarter. And that to is a good sign. I like movie that cause conservatives to recoil in horror and scream propaganda and sacrilege. And when a children's movie that is so touching and powerful to get that reaction, I get a shiver- and a desire to buy tickets to this movie for all the small children that I know.