Category: Life

One of the most visible problems with current American politics, as I see it, is the association of very complex issues with stances pertaining to political affiliations. The emphasis is being taken away from the issues themselves, and onto political alliances. No more is this evident than countless forum debates, where political affiliations take precedence over the viewpoints in question. This is fueled by certain ultra-partisan individuals on both sides that use words indicating political affiliation such as “liberal” as insults.

Most responsible for this is FOX News, and it’s commentators – the likes of Bill O’Reilly and Ann Coulter. Their overt disdain of the political left is voiced on a daily basis. Behind them are 60 million viewers, including a few nutcases. FOX’ commentators regularly claim that they are politically neutral – revealing the truth – while the rest of the media world has a liberal bias.

That is complete bull, of course. FOX News is ultra-conservative, while the rest of the media is relatively politically ambiguous. They, and their lackeys, don’t get it. Criticism of government in power doesn’t mean anti-Republican. To the same effect, FOX News thinks John Stewart is a liberal puppet due to his criticisms of the Bush government. In truth, John Stewart, while left in his personal views, will make fun of anyone in power – Democrat or Republican. FOX News cannot get over this political ambiguity, instead resorting to making their own comedic answer to John Stewart that exclusively makes fun of the political left.

In this line, FOX News was recently caught editing a Wikipedia entry on Al Franken – an ultra-liberal. What business does anyone from this agency have in editing Wikipedia? Adding to the self-proclaimed media divide, by adding words such as “liberal” on front of the name of a national radio network. They also removed a negative remark about FOX News made by Franken. Yep, FOX News approves of the truth… as long as it’s their version.

I’ve just spent the last 5 hours coding in Notepad (woo) the site for the film! You can access it from:

www.docksmovie.com

It was the first time where I made concerted efforts to use straight CSS to take care of everything, instead of a mash-up of tables and other HTML relics that were standard back when I first learned the language in the mid-nineties. The end result is code that’s much simpler and easier to edit.

I still have a few issues… most notably, the inconsistent heights of the main border-thing on the page. Eh well, I’m no expert yet.

For the last few months, I’ve been hard at work with Docks. I’m trying, trying to get August as being the month where everything gets shot. Most likely, that’ll get extended into September. There’s a few hurdles that are left now, the main one being getting my hands on a decent boom mic. If I can get that settled, then I’m set.

I’ve also just ordered a bunch of shirts to be worn during by the staff of the fictional boat company in the film. With the launch of the film will also come the launch of some Docks paraphernalia, including the “official” company T-Shirts.

  

As some of you may know, I’m an avid fan of South Korean cinema. It churns out some of the best films this planet has to offer. You have action-packed films on par with Hollywood blockbusters (Tae Guk Gi), teen comedies (Attack the Gas Station), and the deeper kind of film that Hollywood could only wish to produce and others the budget to dream up.

However, I’m beginning to notice through these films the shallow perceptions that the Koreans place on the Americans. American films aren’t any better, of course. Even the more cultured American films have shallow divisions of culture – I’m thinking Clint’s latest Letters from Iwo Jima, in which the American soldiers do no wrong in the face of the rabid Japs. And let’s not even touch the whole generic “middle-eastern terrorist character.”

The Koreans aren’t much better. Welcome to Dongmakgol is one of the most popular films in recent Korean times. It’s a good movie, which centers on this small utopian village that is stumbled upon by a few North, South, and UN Korean forces. In it, you have a scene whereby a (weak) Korean tries to tell his (powerful) American commanders not to bomb innocent villages. The Americans are played out as ruthless characters that have no care for civilian life, while the Koreans are played out as the voice of the innocents.

It’s very black and white, with little historical context in between. Then comes the other film I’m watching this morning: The Host. This is again a great movie. But how does it start off? A (powerful) American and his (weak) Korean assistant. He orders the Korean assistant to dump raw toxic chemicals into the Han River. The Korean assistant, the voice of reason, objects. But much like Dongmakgol, the American overrides his objections.

You can tell the sentiment of a nation by it’s movies. It’s not hard to see how the South Koreans perceive the American continued presence over there.