religulous

the word religulous is a play on the words religious and ridiculous. a satire comedy by bill maher. agnosticism for the common man. spoken in common words that can be understood and appreciated by everyone esp christian america as compared to but not much unlike the works of richard dawkins, hitchens, and others which are a bit more eloquent.

i managed to get a copy of the film here (RELIGULOUS). you have to download it asap for it might be asked to be removed. copyright issues tu sais. ^_^

the film talks of religion more than the existence of gods/dessess namely yahweh since bill was half catholic and half jewish. nevetheless, i enjoyed it thoroughly.

even though bill was posting the questions and i think the movie does not fall short of giving out the answers. at least to the thinking audience anyway (the questions are leading) and it almost always puts the theist to a defensive. it's what i believe in - end of discussion!

bill asks valid questions - on the subject of the virgin birth, is the earth 5000 years old, is islam a religion of peace, revelation and the self fulfilling prophecies, odd things but all makes sense from the average theist mind. other questions of interest. why politicians today (unlike the american forefathers who were secularists) pandering to churches. how some? church leaders profit from church coffers. homosexuality. the status of women in moslem society. how moslems think islamist terrorism has nothing to do with religion but everything to do with politics. hmm .. actually this maybe true to a degree ..

the funniest bit was when he played a joke on the guy who was clearly high on something and who believes in a religion that includes the use of hallucegenics. héhéhé.

Rate 4 out of 5 ****
bill. you are the man!

Sicko

Sicko is Michael Moore's latest documentary following his previous successes, Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11. In this one, he focuses on the problems of America's health care industry and what must be done to fix it.

In a nutshell, here are the main points made in the film:
- American's health care system is broken.
- Health care should be universal and free.
- Steps should be made to fix the system.

I tend to agree with all these points and glad that Moore produced his usual entertaining and educational fare to address these. It always seemed to me to be common sense that medical care that can fix illnesses and save lives should not have a price tag associated with it. And the fact that uninsured elderly, or even young people would go broke or lose their life savings after getting seriously sick means that something is wrong with the system. This became a personal issue for me recently after seeing my parents, as well as parents of friends get sick and not having any insurance or enough savings to cover for it. Michael Moore just points out what should be common sense, that there should be no price tag with saving lives and getting well.

I thought the best idea from the movie came from one thing the British doctor said in passing - that he gets incentives and bonuses if he is able to convince his patients to lower their blood pressure, or quit smoking, or do other preventive measures to improve their health. It was such a fine thought that probably won't get as much attention as the other more controversial parts in this film, but it is worth repeating: that there should be incentives on promoting good health and preventing future illnesses, rather than on fixing bad stuff after it occurs. If you ask me, the medical industry is too focused on "fix-its": fixing problems after they already occur. Perhaps because there is more money on curing ill patients, rather than making sure they improve their health so they don't get sick in the first place. I've got a lot more to rant about regarding this subject matter which I'll cover in a future post on the coffeefriday blog.

While I thought this documentary was a step in the right direction, and hopefully an instrument for reform, there were just too much social propaganda here masquerading as facts. I understand that Moore may want to exaggerate certain material to make a point, but I think he goes a bit too far in this one. For instance, he puts the health care systems of Canada, UK, and France on top of a pedestal and uses them as Utopian examples the way things should be. But he gives very little lip service to the negatives of their system. You get the impression that these countries have high quality health care that is totally free. It sounds too good to be true. The reality is that nothing is free and that everything has a cost. The cost is in higher taxes, longer waiting times, lower quality. To be fair, Moore does mention and refute these points in the movie, but gives so devotes so little time to the arguments against them, that it just felt like he was dictating to me what to think rather than letting me make my own judgment.

The part where he led the batch of 9/11 rescue workers on a boat trip to Guantanamo Bay, and later to Cuba turned me off. This was where I felt the movie stopped being a documentary and started becoming a work of fiction, or more of an opinion piece. While I acknowledge that this scene might have been staged to make a point about the broken nature of U.S. Health Care, it just got a bit too sensationalist for my tastes. The Cuba scenes portrayed the rescue workers as victims who were unable to help themselves, which does a big disservice to them as it reinforces their belief that they are victims who can only be helped by the government.

By the second half of the film, the rest of the moviegoers at the cinema I was in seemed to be totally brainwashed by everything they saw, judging from their reactions and sounds of agreement. There was loud applause at the end. While I felt initially that this was a good sign, that this would at least motivate people to make efforts to change the system, I was also a bit scared at how easily one could be misled by some of the one-sided arguments in Sicko.

So to summarize, I liked this movie, I'm glad it was made, and I think it will have a positive effect in making people think. Unfortunately I predict that it will influence people for the wrong reasons, leading us to think that free health care comes without any cost. I just wish it could have portrayed both sides of the argument (and if it comes a little biased towards Moore's side, that's ok), then let people make the decisions for themselves rather than dictating what they should think. On the positive side, there were a couple of gems in Sicko that were buried under the more sensationalist scenes, it's just too bad these ideas were not emphasized more:

- Life-saving medical care should be universal and free (even at the cost of higher taxes)
- More emphasis should be made on preventive medicine and health improvement, so people will need less medical care in the future.
- The medical industry needs to be less incentivized towards money.

Rating: 2/5 * *
Good intentions, but too one-sided in its message.

The Message

The Message
http://helpinghumanity.multiply.com/video

it is a film about the claimed history of islam. a story about mohamet. a story of what is now to be considered the stronghold regions of islam. it is mecca when europe was plunged to the dark ages. it is mecca in 610 AD. and i find that it had parallel beginnings like chrisitianity. for example, it was a popular past time for people to be polytheists. just like people in rome worshipped roman and greek deities, so did people in mecca, byzantine, alexandrie, and persia, worshipped their own list of deities before becoming monotheists.

there is also parallel as to how people reacted to the revelation or to these dangerous ideas. with resistance. but mohamet was just as adamant, just like jesus, moses, and the other biblically recorded prophets. they appeared to have conviction. but the problem is just like the rest of theists descendants today, they expected people to accept their message on the sole basis of conviction. with maybe fear mongering on the side.

"accept islam for your salvaton" -- and i thought or else what?

one of the messages (part 3 of the movie) talked about the previous custom of killing girls. because they were considered to be bad luck. or unfortunate. which i find to be parallel with chinese customs of even today. boys were regarded with more esteem. on other words, women were oppressed. the irony of this today is. islamic nations are known to oppressed their women. regarding them with a lower status in contrast to what supposedly mohamet said that all men are equal. but maybe this is to be interpreted as applicable only to men (not humankind)

rating 1 vs 5
ive seen it before in christianity ..

Parfois En Avril

parfois en avril is a historical non-fiction (im unsure really) about rwanda. a country in africa. this movie ranks high, along with other great tragedy films such as schindlers list. its a must watch. its happened, its happening, and its bound to happen in the future. in all cultures. rich or poor. white or black. unless we are all aware of its consequences. esp since its beyond imagination. genocide.

facts. rwanda has three kinds of peoples. the tutsis. the hutus. and the twas. the hutus make the majority. they lived side by side in relative peace until the westerners arrived. the germans/belgians created a strict social structure, the tutsis having a higher station than the others, which created deep resentment between the peoples.

this was critical. it divided the country which made it easier to conquer and exploit. this might easily have been north america and the indians or the native tribes of pre-colonial philippines.

much later when the belgians left. they left control to the hutus. the hutus perpetuated the resentment. the hatred. the divisiveness. which culminated into the genocide of all tutsis and moderate hutus. the rest of the world, mostly unaware and busy with their own problems, including the UN stood back and watched. particularly the US, which i would have thought should be the first to be there. but since there is no oil. no clear benefit to its economy or politics. everyone stood back and watched.

the mob is mindless. tell it to jump and they will jump. the question now is. if i had been there would i prostest? would i pretend to be on the side of those in power? would i willingly participate? will i join the mob? its easy to say yes or no. but in retrospect im not really so sure what i would do.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars ****
Humanity at its worst.

What the Bleep Do We Know

What the Bleep Do We Know is the title of this bizarre documentary/feature movie. It plays out like a documentary, yet to treat it as one would be an insult to other documentaries.

Marlee Matlin plays the main character: an anxiety-filled photographer. We follow her as she goes through the motions of her life and job. Each scene illustrates a radical new idea on how the world works, and how we interact with it.

For instance, one scene shows Matlin seeing her two other selves simultaneously, only in other situations. In another scene a kid in the playground shows her that "things" are solid, yet are mostly made out of nothingness. Then we digress to some animation illustrating some principles of "quantum physics" that supposedly supports the ideas of this movie. For example, we see a bouncing basketball, then go to a closeup to see that it is actually not touching the ground. Instead it is the magnetic forces between the ball and the ground that keeps it from coming in full contact.

Another scene shows several Native American Indians looking out to the ocean, but not seeing Columbus' ships sailing in. The reason is they have never seen a ship before and have no concept of what it is, hence they do not see it. Then the film relates it to how our brain processes so many kinds of input, but only 'sees' what we recognize. Sounds good? Well for me, this is where this movie loses all credibility. It seems so silly, even I couldn't recognize what a ship looks like, I still should be able to see the object on the horizon as it is sailing in.

We are also treated to several interviews by "experts" in the field. A few were knowledgable and I appreciated what they were saying. But, and I hate to say this, some of those interviewed I felt didn't know what they were talking about. In particular there was this woman who kept harping about how we can create stuff in our minds and eventually be 'Gods'. No offense, but she sounded crazy. What scared me was the thought that some people would actually take to heart and follow what they said, with disastrous results.

I hate the fact that this movie professes to be based on science yet there are hardly any hard facts presented. It is mostly pseudoscience and the opinions of a few confused individuals. It is supposed to be about science and not religion, yet in the second half of the movie it tries to be a new religion in itself. What makes me shudder is the thought that a lot of the viewers will be convinced by it's flimsy concepts and become instant followers.

But what really pisses me off is that this film takes some pretty good fundamental ideas, and twists it into something stupid. I've always been an avid fan of Napoleon Hill, James Allen, and Benjamin Franklin's writings. Now those are truly great ideas. The fact that you can use your thoughts to control your destiny. That you can harness the positive power of your mind to achieve truly great things for the common good. This movie bastardizes all of them into some second-rate pseudoscience new age psychobabble about nonsense and stupidity. It makes me angry thinking about it. Do yourself a favor and instead read a real science book such as The Elegant Universe, and avoid this trash.

Rating: 1 out of 5 stars *
Pseudoscience and new age crap.