I've done two book reviews so I think
it's about time I review a movie. Although actually it is a movie based on a book, "The Hundred Foot Journey" by Richard C. Morais. But since I have not read the book yet, I'll have to do the movie. Given the serious bent of my last
two posts, as well as current events, I thought I'd do
something a little more positive, and yes, feel good!
They say life is a journey. None of us
are the same people we were ten years, or even five years, ago. We
are all changed by the people we meet and the events we experience.
What we take from those guides is our choice.
I know, I know, my two loyal readers
will think...Oh God!...she's doing a chick flick! Lol! Okay, maybe
on the surface, but really it touches on very basic human needs and
failings. It revolves around a family's journey from India to, first
England, and then France. Forced to flee their native country due to
violence they search for a place to call home. Their family was in
the restaurant business in India and that is what they turn to to
make a living in their new country, ultimately inciting the wrath of
the owner of the restaurant across the street. What happens next is
a journey from closed mindedness to an openhearted reaching out to
others who are really just like us, people with hopes and dreams and
a simple desire to belong. It's also an interesting look at the
competitive world of Haute cuisine.
If you have a free afternoon, rent it or
stream it for a day brightener, as well as a break from all the death
and destruction out there. If nothing else, enjoy the song by A.R. Rahman. :)
54 comments:
Great, a chick flick and fru-fru food. What else could a fella ask for?
lol!
Apparently that fru-fru food is a very dog eat dog business.
You know you can veg out tomorrow... watch the super bowl, and drink beer. :)
Strange, but apparently true, American Sniper is popular in Iraq.
I have gotten far enough into the book to know that the opening scene where he shoots the child never happened. I am starting to think the embellishments in the movie were created by the screenwriter rather than Kyle. He was actually totally pissed off at the woman, whom he did shoot, for putting the children in the area in danger.
He also is perhaps more circumspect about talking about some of the operations he participated in. But I haven't finished the book yet, too busy with other things. *sigh*
"American Sniper is popular in Iraq."
Seems kinda strange to me too. When I considered that, I recalled the differences in how the Europeans and the Muslims were viewing the protests in Europe over the Charlie Hebdo and Jewish deli massacres (to be fair, the Charlie Hebdo massacre is the only one that counts for the Europeans, or the Muslims, who don't seem to consider blasting civilians in a Jewish deli to be a bad thing) I figure there's a real good chance they view it rather differently than we do. They may not be seeing the same movie you saw--same thing the screen, but not lookin’ at all the same by the time it gets across the short space to the different audience.
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Seattle Seahawks by six.
…same thing on the screen…
I suppose, like here, the opinion of the viewer in Iraq may be connected to his/her politics.
I think those who look at the movie and only see some kind of anti-Arab or Muslim bias are seeing what they want to see. What it depicts is one man's feeling of duty to his country and his struggle to regain his feeling of usefulness and place with his family after the war. That is something anyone in a war zone can relate to.
I haven't been following either team so I won't make a bet on who will win. I haven't even followed the Vikings like I used to. Too much disappointment. :)
"the Charlie Hebdo massacre is the only one that counts for the Europeans"
Bullshit.
Patriots by 4
"Too much disappointment. :)"
On the bright side, that saves you from predicting the Seahawks by six only to have to watch them blow a ten point lead in the fourth quarter.
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"Bullshit."
I get your point. A fair number of Europeans will think blasin’ a Jewish deli is a good thing; some others, less convinced of that…
Well, let's say then that it's only Charlie Hebdo that gets that many folks marching in the streets of Paris and European leaders faking pictures of being involved in same, blasting through a Jewish deli sure ain't gonna do it.
On the bright side, that saves you from predicting the Seahawks by six only to have to watch them blow a ten point lead in the fourth quarter.
lol!
That's right, expect nothing and you won't be disappointed. :)
Mass Death Sentence for 183 in Egypt
Seriously?
You know, of course, that now, suddenly every politically pompous yahoo in Europe or Asia and most of those in South America is suddenly going to discover that Egypt is ‘America's Ally’.
They'll have to get in line behind our media.
Fuck. Just about everyone and his goat are against ya'll poor yanks these days. I bet if they send people to Mars they'll find little aliens there busy burning the starspangled banner.
‘These days?’ Somethin’ new comin’ ‘bout ‘these days’?
Arthur Berman: The Real Reason Oil Prices Dropped
"The current situation with oil price is really very simple. Demand is
down because of a high price for too long. Supply is up because of
U.S. shale oil and the return of Libya’s production. Decreased
demand and increased supply equals low price.
"As far as Saudi Arabia and its motives, that is very simple also. The
Saudis are good at money and arithmetic. Faced with the painful
choice of losing money maintaining current production at $60/barrel or
taking 2 million barrels per day off the market and losing much more
money—it’s an easy choice: take the path that is less painful. If there
are secondary reasons like hurting U.S. tight oil producers or hurting
Iran and Russia, that’s great, but it’s really just about the money.
"Saudi Arabia met with Russia before the November OPEC meeting
and proposed that if Russia cut production, Saudi Arabia would also
cut and get Kuwait and the Emirates at least to cut with it. Russia
said, ‘No,’ so Saudi Arabia said, ‘Fine, maybe you will change your
mind in six months.’ I think that Russia and maybe Iran, Venezuela,
Nigeria and Angola will change their minds by the next OPEC meeting
in June."
The spectre of Pope Francis, God plays a joke on the GOP.
Word is ISIS has released a video of them burning the Jordanian pilot alive.
"The point isn’t to use the right level of violence to achieve limited
goals. The violence is the point, and the worse the better. The Islamic
State doesn’t leave thousands of corpses in its wake as a means to
an end. Slaughter is its goal…
***
"One thing we’ve learned from the history of such regimes is that they
can be stronger and more enduring than rational analysis would
predict. The other thing is that they rarely end in self-destruction.
They usually have to be destroyed by others."
George Packer The NewYorker
I just stopped in to link to that, Lee. That's bad, very bad.
I was dumb enough to follow a link to the full movie. Just awful. Damn savages.
I've not looked at the clip myself (don't reckon I need to see that go down to know that I'm agin those people).
But it's worth keeping in mind that, for ISIS and their followers, this actually excites and attracts people to their cause. These folks think rather differently than is the norm here in the West. Their minds run in different patterns.
And so it starts.
Once you start down that slippery slope of violence in the Middle East it's hard to stop.
No, I didn't watch the video either. The severed heads you run into are bad enough.
Just about everyone and his goat are against ya'll poor yanks these days.
*sigh*
They may want to rethink that. There is evil afoot.
These folks think rather differently than is the norm here in the West.
Except there have been recruits from the West. They don't seem to have been turned off by ISIL's violent nature.
"Except there have been recruits from the West. They don't seem
to have been turned off by ISIL's violent nature."
The folks they're recruiting don't generally qualify as folks who have been able to successfully adapt themselves to Western social norms.
And, yes, I am quite aware that Zeyad has gone over to their side.
ISIS is coming soon to a theater near you. In this case, Libya, right across the street, so to speak, from Italy. And, with the EU's ‘open borders’ policy across Europe….
That's one reason I have been so adamantly opposed to Europe in general and Sweden in particular hosting so many of the refugees from Americas wars. We stand to get the blowback from ya'lls damned yahoo-recklessness.
In the particular case of Libya, it was European ‘yahoo-recklessness’ that dragged the U.S.A. rather unwillingly into the breach. Specifically it was Italy at first, and then France and England joining in, and then most of Western Europe bringing up the rear who were calling for American participation in military action, American participation in particular because we had the needed military assets, specifically including ammunition, which, as it turned out, was in rather short supply among the Western European military organizations, not because they wanted our opinion or our vote on the matter. Europe was going in anyway. (I recall making the comment at the time that if we wanted Europe to back our plays when we made a play, sometimes we had to back their plays, just because they asked.)
In the particular case of Syria, from whence ISIS is spreading back to Lybia, we're looking at a native, organic uprising we neither incited nor initially encouraged. We have consistently taken criticism for urging a negotiated settlement in the case of Libya. We have taken further heat for Obama's infamous walk-back from his unfortunate ‘red line’ comments regarding the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government. And, in spite of your constant fantasizing about American ‘support’ of ISIS in Syria, we've been hesitant to even support their competition because we consistently found the competition couldn't be trusted either.
One could hardly find an instance of a Middle-Eastern uprising that's less of our making than this, even the uprising in Bahrain, was not less our doing. But, in your imaginary world it turns into an American adventure anyway, just because…, well because that's just how your imaginary world works.
And, I might have pointed out in closing, that Libya and Syria seem together seem to be proof that letting Europe lead, or letting the locals work it out themselves, without American coercion, does not necessarily lead to more favorable results.
One might also point out that the recent militant Muslim attacks in France were the work of native, French-born-and-bred French citizens, evidence that blaming Europe's Islamic troubles on immigrants fleeing from ‘America's wars’ is disingenuous at best.
Jordan has carried through on their threat. They executed two (2) jihadi inclined prisoners at dawn Jordan time.
One might also point out that the recent militant Muslim attacks in France were the work of native, French-born-and-bred French citizens, evidence that blaming Europe's Islamic troubles on immigrants fleeing from ‘America's wars’ is disingenuous at best.
I believe the Tsarnaev brothers, who were the last to launch an attack in America, were a product of Russia.
Jordan has carried through on their threat.
Yes, they made quick work of that. Probably to avoid people trying to talk them out of it.
@ Lynnette,
Your website has developed a nasty tendency towards double posting my comments. If there's a fix for that, now might be the time to employ it.
(And I suspect the Jordanians didn't waste any time because the King didn't want to hear more from his own people re: why ain't those guys dead yet?)
I've noticed for some time that there is an issue with the double posting of your comments. But it just appears to be you. I haven't noticed it with myself or Marcus. In the past the extra comments used to be put in some kind of spam holding area on the blog. But starting in 2015 that hasn't been the case. Maybe that was some kind of change blogger made.
I checked with my technical adviser and he suggested that refreshing can sometimes lead to previous posts being posted again. Also if it is something you really want to look into a web debugger like Firebug in Firefox may shed some light on the problem.
"But it just appears to be you. I haven't noticed it with myself or
Marcus."
Classic malfactor's response, blame the victim.
Well, okay, now that you mention it, it does seem to just be me. I'll look at my security settings. It does appear to have amped up since the first of the year, and I had also noticed an increase in loading errors, sometimes the page just didn't load, or your inserts didn't load with the main page, hung at the ‘redirect’ notices. I thought my settings were consistent, but hadn't considered that Blogger had possibly changed theirs.
Jordan with US support has started striking ISIS targets.
Classic malfactor's response, blame the victim.
lol!
Well if it makes you feel better, but it won't help the situation.
I've run across a non-traditional analysis of Turkey's President Recep Erdoğan. Might be worth a read if one has some time to kill. Most analyses don't consider whether or nor Erdoğan is enhancing Turkey's position internationally; this one attempts to tie that in.
I printed it out to read tonight.
Most writing on the subject spend their time on what Erdoğan wants to accomplish. Fewer work on what results he's actually getting.
And this guy didn't even mention that Erdoğan's inflamed his Kurdish problem all over again, after he'd achieved a sort of hudna on the issue, on favorable terms.
The ISIS video of the burning of the Jordanian pilot, Lieutenant Muath al- Kaseasbeh, has turned out to be a huge draw for the FoxNews' website.
I can't quite put my finger on it, but for some reason Erdogan reminds me of Putin.
Oh yeah, so Fox News didn't try to profit off the ISIS video by adding advertising to it! Now that's big of them.
Nope, that's one video I won't be watching. I don't see how watching the last minutes of suffering of that poor man shows any respect for him.
It would probably be best if ISIS gives up now.
"It would probably be best if ISIS gives up now."
I said some time back that I thought ISIS had reached its natural territorial limit. It had pretty much run out of places where the natives could be expected to show sympathy (i.e. they'd taken the aggrieved Sunni areas, and going further was going into hostile territory--taking Baghdad was a pipe-dream). However, reaching the natural limit of their territory isn't quite the same thing as entirely running out of steam. They may yet do a reasonable job on defense when they start trying to defend Sunni dominant areas. It would seem premature for them to throw in the towel now.
I'm not even sure we've decided how to handle Mosul. What's the chances the Shia dominant Baghdad government is even gonna try to take that back? What's the chances their available military assets get serious about it even if the Shia government gives the operation the go ahead? What have the Kurds decided there?
Lotta things may still be up in the air over there. May not be time to try to retake Mosul yet.
We don't want to get out ahead the curve on this one. First we want to figure out who wants it enough to go in and take it. Then we want to figure out if we're happy enough with that decision put our resources into supporting that outcome.
Post Script:
And, as a strictly political matter… It may well be a good idea to let the Sunni Arab majority that currently exists in downtown Mosul (courtesy of Saddam's past Arabization campaigns) enjoy the many pleasures and benefits of governance by ISIS for awhile yet to come, make sure they've enjoyed as much of that as they can reasonably be expected to stand, before anybody attempts to ‘liberate’ Mosul from ISIS' grasp.
Hmmm...it does seem that they have already decided to try to take back Mosul. So I suppose the question is will it be easy or hard. Kobane was hard, and it shows. There is basically no city left, just a pile of rubble.
I suspect the citizens of Mosul have learned what ISIS is well enough. Perhaps it was really the world that needed to understand. Because their draw is not just from the disenchanted in the Middle East but also in other countries of the world. And that poses a threat to all.
Airstrikes in Mosul
"Hmmm...it does seem that they have already decided to try to
take back Mosul."
Who is ‘they’? Who's going in on the ground? Last I heard the Kurds were iffy on that at best, and Baghdad didn't seem to be in any position to carry the ball on their own, even with American (and intermittently, Iranian) air cover.
On vacation right now. Scuba diving off the coast of Thailand. Typing on My iPad so short massages. Cant seem to find anything worth bickering bout.
Shame jeffrey's absent these days - we could've debated Asia.
Who is ‘they’?
'They' would be the coalition of countries that have been fighting ISIL.
Who's going in on the ground?
I have a feeling that is what they are discussing now.
Marcus,
At least you found some warm weather! :) While it actually felt a little like spring here the other day, I have a feeling it will be short lived.
Cant seem to find anything worth bickering bout.
Lee, Bridget and I have been discussing via email the meaning behind President Obama's comparison of ISIL's extremist behavior to the Inquisition, slavery and the Jim Crow laws.
Shame jeffrey's absent these days - we could've debated Asia.
Yes, that was always rather interesting. I don't have any contact info for Jeffrey. We just ran into each other on the blogs, which are pretty much defunct except Zeyad's, and I'm not sure if Jeffrey reads him any more. And even if he did I'm not sure he'd read the comments section to pick up a message.
"Lee, Bridget and I have been discussing via email the meaning
behind President Obama's comparison of ISIL's extremist behavior to
the Inquisition, slavery and the Jim Crow laws."
And, Gitmo.
(Obama didn't mention that our own illustrious ancestors were murdering women they deemed to be ‘witches’ back in the late 1600's, although that might be worth a mention too.)
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