10 November 2007
Colder weather reminds me of the trip to Colorado
It is getting cold lately. A winter is coming close. I do not like winter except that I can go out and ski.
I have good memories of skiing.
During my college days in the U.S., I visited Colorado to ski 3 times. The same ski resort, Steamboat.
It was college's students ski tour. In the first time we travelled by Amtrack. I remeber it was more than a half day trip from Auckland. Crazily long and boring. 2nd time and 3rd time we went there by plane. Less than 4 hours.
On 1st time trip, since I had never skied before so I took 1 day ski lesson and that enabled me to ski very well afterwards. Steamboat was a huge ski resort. Even I stayed there for 5 days, I couldn't ski on all of the courses there.
The photo was taken there.
Other place I skied than Steamboat was Zermatt in Switzerland. I skied there in August seeing the view of Matterhorn.
But not as good as Steamboat, because the ski zones were limited because it was summer.
Well, now I get older, I don't think I want to go out and ski somewhere. There are many good ski resorts in Japan. But not as good as Steamboat or Zermatt. I don't want to get in crowded ski bus or trains to get to a crowded ski resort.
As it gets cold, I would stay longer at home watching DVDs. I rented an old Charlie Angels' drama episode that Angels went to Veil in Colorado to bodyguard a foreign important person. Kate Jackson (or lookalike) skied chasing a criminal very well.
That brought me back Steamboat memories, too.
Skiing is what you have to do NOW. As the whole earth gets warmer, more and more ski slopes are being closed. We wouldn't be enjoying skiing in near future. Maybe we should ski on artificial snow ground.
I was lucky I could enjoy skiing on real snow. It was high quality powder snow. I remember I could not make a snowball out of it.
15:55 Posted in Leisure, Sports, Travel | Permalink | Comments (0) | Tags: ski, college days, global warming, trip
01 November 2007
"CODE PINK" proves America is still free world!
I was very surprised to see an woman with red-painted hands approaching Secretary of State, Ms. Rice and screaming "War Criminal." The woman and her people in the congressional hearing last week belong to the peace group named "CODE PINK women for peace."
As soon as she did that, she and other members were kicked out from the room. But they were never put into the jail. They were criticized by White House. They keep doing what they think should do.
Since 911, I always thought America has become Nazis. But that was not true. America is still open-minded. They prove that. America is a country, where you can speak up whatever you want to say and take actions.
The group worried about the war with Iran. According to the poll, more than half of Americans say OK to fight with Iran.
But, please don't. This is going to make things worse. Just think of alternatives, why don't you listen to the people like "CODE PINK"?
23:30 Posted in Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | Tags: International Relations, 911, Women
27 October 2007
Film Idea: The Machiavellist
I was recently asked to give my novel to Hollywood script writer for free because he just wanted only the idea of the story. The novel was already made although it is short one. So I refused to give him unless he pays for the copyright of my novel. I, kind of regret that because my story may be a big motion picture in the near future.
This time I want to present the below story idea for free of charge to Hollywood producers because it is just an idea of the story. Interestingly enough it is about the story of one big Hollywood producer, who is modeled after Aaron Spelling.
The story begins with one Jewish boy survived in holocaust immigrated to the United States.
He grew up and remebered his painful experience in the past and later analyzed why that happened. He studied how Nazis manipulated people to grow their popularity. He learned the propaganda methodology which Nazis used.
Then he became a famous Hollywood producer in 1970's. He was selling television dramas to network media. He got an idea of female detectives chasing criminals, with guns and martial arts. In those days that idea was too radical because action heroes were always men. Women fighting with bad guys by themselves were unrealistic.
One feminist actress joined his idea. But she did not agree with the detectives flirting with men to get what they want. She contends such flirting scenes insulted women and treated women as sex objects for men. But the producer said to her "You have to do that because the viewers want that and at the same time the drama can promote women's independent roles in the drama and even in the society. People are still conservative. You can't change their value and attitude so easily. Do it cleverly."
As the drama got popularity by the actress's beauty and flirting scenes, more and more actresses got independent and active roles in the drama with no need for male characters' supports. Women's social status generally got better.
After the success of the female detectives drama, the producer challenged another issue, homosexuality. In 1980's he produced a soapopera of a very rich family who ran an oil company in Colorado. The family got a problem, the oldest son was a gay. The family struggled with his homosexuality. At first the father, the head of the oil rich family rejected his son but later accepted him and his lifestyle.
This was very provocative but at the same time drama featured typical soapopera elements such as other characters' heterosexual love romances, conspiracies, lies and betrayals. The viewers enjoyed it and also learned gay issue.
The director of the drama, who was gay was so glad to make this sensational drama but unsatisfied with the producers' orders to cut gay love scenes. Gay characters and their love story appeared but not love scenes. Why? He argued with the producer. The producer said "It is too early to show such sensational scenes on television. That might give backlash to gay movement. You have to see how the world is moving. Don't go too far."
As a result, gay movement made progress by changes of public attitude. More and more gay people are coming out. General public became supportive. Some States legalized gay marriage.
In the beginning of 21st century, the producer, who retired and became very old was seeing the movie "Brokeback Mountain." He confirmed he acomplished the missions. Using the media to educate foolish people but very cleverly.
He was truely a machiavellist.
I hope some good Hollywood producer will make this story into the film.
18:10 Posted in Film | Permalink | Comments (0) | Tags: feminism, homosexuality, gay
15 October 2007
TV Mini-Series "Roots" reminds me of Black Studies course
I rented DVD of the old time TV Mini-Series "Roots." It was aired in 1977. The story is based on Alex Hailey's novel. He wrote the story of generations of his family going back to late 18th century when an African tribe boy, Kunta Kinte was born. Kunta Kinte was captured by slave merchants and transported to America.
He was sold as slave to the plantation owner. He tried to escape but in vain. Then he left an offspring. Generation after generation, a story of Kunta Kinte was succeeded to an author, Alex Hailey. Between Kunta Kinte and Hailey, the family experienced enormous oppression by American society.
More than 10 years ago, when I was a college student, I took the course titled "Black Studies." It was very interesting course, the most interesting of all I took in my college days. A Black woman was an instructor. The below is what I learned.
1. Anything what you learn outside Black Studies is white studies.
2. Whenever you type "black", you have to capitalize the first letter "B." Don't care about "white."
3. U.S. doesn't want to provide Black people good education. Even the schools are integrated, the school districts are divided by racial residential areas. In the slavery time, it was illegal to teach Blacks how to read. It is easier for whites to control Black people when Blacks are uneducated.
4. Founding fathers, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson were hypocrats because they owned slaves.
5. Christianity is not good religion because churches supported the slavery in the South, and didn't even treat Blacks better than other people.
6. IQ tests are culturally biased towards East coast white people. That is why Black students scored less than white students. IQ tests cannot be a good tool to measure one's intelligence. When someone talks about intelligence, ask him or her what the definition of it. In fact, there is no such thing. Very ambiguous.
7. Whites may be fearful of Black people because they do not want to know they are inferior to Blacks in terms of intelligence and human body conditions.
8. According to the Cress Theory, the anscestors of whites were albinos of Africans who later migrated to Europe.
9. In the past, it was believed that first man on earth was born in Europe, not in Africa because they did not admit Africans were the anscestors of whites. Now they say whites are advanced creatures of Africans. They twisted the theory not to give up their supremacy.
Her lectures were very radical so she had been criticized even by African students in class. I did not agree with all of what she taught. But I learned very important things. I learned how to counter ridiculous things in the world, how to overcome oppressions. Everyone is biased and everything in the world is political. Nothing is neutral, even in the academics.
Thanks for Black Studies, I survived in this hell.
23:35 Posted in Film | Permalink | Comments (0) | Tags: TV, Afro-American, College days, history, racism