Avatar is Amazing.

Avatar is amazing.

I will post more later- but Avatar is amazing.

Just go see it.

Oh, dear, not another deal

Accepting the Nobel Prize in Oslo

Wow- and being a war president, yet:

Why I stay on the left

Here is an interesting post from Andrew Sullivan from the Daily Dish, entitled Leaving the Right in which he discusses the origin of his Conservative thought, where he is coming from as a Briton who had the crushing hand of the State determine everything- from how much education you were entitled to, to housing, to medicine- to why personal liberty is important, and why the current manifestation of the Right is off the rails and no longer worthy of his personal support.

I studied Philosophy and Philosophy of Science, and understand the importance of not only Conservative thought, but also of well placed skepticism when it comes to imposition of the state upon personal liberty. But perhaps for the same reasons that Andrew became a Conservative in Thatcher's Britain, I became a left leaning progressive in the Bush Era.

I have a very Oakshottian skepticism over the role of the State to impose laws that tell people what to do concerning their private sexuality or even over the domain of their own bodies. I have a very real disagreement of using public funds to start wars without proper foundation and to enrich contractors, while not using public funds to proper maintain civil order in natural disasters (Katrina) to properly regulate large scale businesses ( The Real Estate Bubble and Banking Mess) and to strengthen national resources ( our infrastructure.)


Andrew drives on the right, I drive on the left; and yet we are fellow travelers on this journey called the American Experience.

Surprised Kitten

I hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving!

New Look for Blog

To go along with my own weight loss this year, I am also making some tweaks to the blog. You should expect to see some gateway links to other blogs and places of interest. In addition, I will have a direct link to the production blog as well.

What is Film Part II- So, what's in it for me?

In my last post I talked about the conference What is Film and the major themes of creativity, shocks to the system and new ( or is it newly discovered) ways of distribution and content generation for new portals- mainly the internet. And of course, the new maxim is that if you are a writer, you must also be a producer of your own material and work to get that published/produced/distributed- a new way of thinking for those who have been trying to sell their work for option or who have had their work option, only to see it languish in line of other excellent work.

So what is in it for filmmakers, writers, actors and crew ? Quite possibly less opportunity to get into directly into the studios- after all, these are tangled multi- national corporations. It also means that the so-called 'stupid money'- independent financing- is not readily available, and so many project will require a sober prospectus, just like opening a store or a gallery. It may also mean taking out a SBA loan just as for a store!

What's in it for Portland? It means that the creative community here, which does tend to secret ourselves in our homes, wrapped in blankets while writing, must venture out and talk to each other more, and possibly try to collarbrate more with each other. Artists must also start to take their time seriously- which means while we all must work day jobs, to not allow those day jobs to distract their art and not let easy derision distract from their work as well.

What's it in for me (aka Edie S): All of the above, plus the idea of a multi- platform roll out for both my documentary and my play being workshopped right now. Multi platforms for me spell multi- work, but this is he significant way that films and theater work is promoted right now- through all channels that could command attention and notice for my works in progress.