African safari
Faithful readers surely have noticed my extended absence. I haven’t posted in nearly 2 months. Well I’m finally back from my African safari and let me tell you, it was fantastic! There were lions and uh… giraffes. Lots of water buffalo… let’s see.. zebra, saw one of those. What else?
Oh okay, you got me. I’ve been here in Rochester the whole time. I’ve been pretty busy but that’s not much of an excuse. I just haven’t felt like writing. But I know my huge fanbase (ahem) must be absolutely going nuts without their magicpork fix so I’d better post something.
Then again, I stop blogging and what happens? The Democrats take Congress, Rumsfeld gets the boot, and Britney files for divorce. Maybe I shouldn’t start up again. (If you’re ever in Rochester, Britney, look me up. I even have the same name as your soon-to-be ex-husband, so you could scream his name out in bed and I’d never know.)
I saw two great documentaries recently, both of them absolutely infuriating. Both of them I went into the movie thinking I probably wasn’t going to hear anything I hadn’t heard before, but I was wrong.
Deliver Us From Evil is about Father Oliver O’Grady, who molested children for years, and when his church superiors found out, they’d simply move him to different parishes and allow him to continue. There’s no question that this happened. He openly admits to what he did and talks at length to the camera. He says he’s sorry for what he did, but he doesn’t seem to show any real remorse or understanding of just how much he devastated these families. His level of remorse is about the same as if he had swore at someone and then felt bad about it. But even more maddening is seeing the lengths to which the Catholic church went to protect him and keep it covered up. I think the movie was just a tad too long and overreached a little towards the end, but that’s a pretty minor quibble.
The other movie was American Blackout. It was about U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney and the disenfranchisement of thousands of black voters in the 2000 and 2004 elections. I didn’t know much about McKinney going into this movie except that there was some news story about her assaulting a guard a while back. (The movie didn’t address that but in the Q&A afterwards, the producer explained that the incident got blown way out of proportion.) I had heard about the problems with black voters getting turned away or having to wait in disproportionately long lines, but I have to admit, I didn’t think there was such strong evidence for it. It was pretty eye-opening and I would encourage everyone to see it.
OK, that’s it for now. Hopefully I won’t wait so long to post again.