independentminded's blog

Movies:

Today, I’ve decided to take a break from the rough-and-tumble world of domestic and international politics and write different kind of essay; on movies.

Here's another question:

Though it's been awhile since I've written an essay, I've decided that i'm going to write about something a bit different; the meanings of music. This is something that's been on my mind for some time, after listening to a number of older songs that I don't have available to play on my CD stereo, but have been listening to on youtube Although it's taken me quite a while to recognize the meaning of certain songs, especially favorites of mine, I can appreciate them even more.

Untitled: (
I decided to name this thread "Untitled", because it was the only name I could think of at this moment.
I have written here on SwordsCrossed on numerous occasions about my favorite movies, including my alltime favorite movie, West Side Story.

Hey there, folks!! Can you stand yet another diary about my alltime favorite film, West Side Story? Anyway, here goes:

I am me...my own person, and I live for the life that I was cut for and educated to lead; my silversmithing, piano tuning, and many other things I do in life. Admittedly, I'm not someone who takes setbacks and adversity with a lot of aplomb and grace, and never have been.

A spoiled brat, imo, is a person, who, regardless of his/her walk of life, gender, socioeconomic status, ethnic or cultural background, has a tendency to demand what they cannot or should not have or do, be given to tantrums when their desires are thwarted, or even to manipulate, trick or even be nasty to people who refuse to accede to what they wish. I've always been taught that the spoiled brat who got everything s/he wanted only came from a background with money or whatever, and not from a lower-class background.

Hey, folks:

It's the holiday time again, and I figured I'd share my favorite recipe with you all for anyone who'e into baking. If others are willing to put in their favorite recipes for the holidays, no matter what it may be, you're more than welcome. Here goes:

Chocolate Pound Cake with Rich Chocolate Glaze:

Cake:

2 cups all-purpose white flour
2 cups of sugar
2 sticks of unsalted butter (I always melt the butter first)
3 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. salt
3/4 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder

Loosely based on the Shakespeare play, "Romeo & Juliet", West Side Story is a beautiful movie musical classic set on the pulsating, finger-snapping West Side of 1960's Manhattan. It entails the development of love and romance amid conflict between two warrning street gangs: the Euro-American Jets and the newly-arrived Puerto Rican Sharks.

The Jets claim their turf with a tough, macho bravado, determined to drive off the Sharks, who're also vying for a small piece of the turf that both gangs must share. A melee breaks out on the playground, which is broken up by Schrank and Krupke.

Important topic. - Promoted by Specter

Although I don't normally watch the TV program, "Dr. Phil", today's program about the school shootings, especially the more recent ones in Cleveland and in Crandon, WI, sounded interesting, so I decided to tune in today's "Dr. Phil" program for the heck of it.

Among the guests on today's program were a criminal profiler/author and the authors of a couple of books about the supposed psychology of the shooters and so on. Now for the points of my essay:

Much has been noted, and said about the force(s) of nature kicking back when people have shown little to no respect for it.

Nature, I believe, is a very strange, if not intense and exciting phenomenom that frequently works in various, if quirky ways. Nature can be beautiful, yet ugly. It can be gentle and yet harsh. Nature can also be calm, and yet it can also be tempestous, wreaking much havoc and destruction towards anything and/or everything in its path.

This diary is a great non-political diary (though it has the potential of fostering political discussions) that showcases my favored style of transportation. - Promoted by Specter

As I've mentioned on several other occasions, I own two bicycles: A ten year old 21-speed mountain bike for biking around town to do errands, go on appointments, etc around the city, and a 5 year old 27-speed Fuji Touring bicycle, which is used exclusively for long-distance rides out in the country. My long-distance country bike rides are mainly done on the weekends, in the good weather, but, on occasion, I do them on weekday mornings, too. In t h e winger, and when the weather's rainy, or too hot or too cold, however, I have my stationary bike, which I try to use for at least a half hour during seasons/days when I don't ride on the road.

Open Letter to a great, golden-oldie-but-goody keeper of a classic movie/musical, West Side Story;
Hey, West Side Story;;

You are one fantastic film--it's a small wonder that so many people loves you. The people who created both the stage musical and the film of you, West Side Story were/are fabulous people who've fought the good fight to preserve your integrity and not turn you into a cheap, updated, mediocre-at-best production. For that, the people who created you deserve much respect and credit.

West Side Story, between your fabulous Bernstein musical score, your richly-colored costumes and photograpny, your beautifully-choreographed dancing by Jerome Robbins, your direction by the late Robert Wise, the well-chosen cast that was mostly taken from the original Broadway stage productions and put into the film version of you, the wonderful scenery, the cinema technology, not to mention the very story behind you, have all been combined together to make you, West Side Story, into a dynamic, beautiful package.

An Open Letter to the Israelis and Palestinians alike:
Hey--I realize that you've been at loggerheads for almost 60 years, and it's more than just a conflict over land. It's clear that religious and cultural differences, too, have been at the forefront of your decades-old conflict.

Israel: I know it's been a tough road for you to hoe-you've had a hard time just surviving and had to absolutely fight and prevail for your very survival due to the fact that, for the longest time, the countries surrounding you would not accept you, a jewish-majority, western-style nation-state, in their midst. Had you not fought back, you wouldn't have survived. That's very true, and, for a great long time, you commanded the respect of the international community because of that.

I, too, am a human being, who has not only met, made friends with,  and talked with a number of people who've been caught up in given situations in some way oir other (notably Boston's busing crisis during the mid to late 1970's, as well as the years leading up to it), but I have also  done a good bit of research and reading on this subject as well, hence enabling me to form opinions on it, even though I grew up in a suburb roughly 20 miles northwest of Boston, moving into the city later, which I'm glad I did.

The same thing holds true, to a certain extent,  with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, even though I've never met or talked to anyone who's been caught up in this conflict in any way.  Yet, doing my own research/reading on the subject has enabled me to come up with and form my own opinions on this matter also.  I believe that the time for Israel to withdraw its troops  from West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, evacuate the Israeli jewish settlers from those territories, and to either dismantle the settler's housing or hand it over to the Palestinians, is long overdue and must be started in earnest....now.

Lately, there has been much debate about the merits of banning bloggers who constantly engage in inflammatory rhetoric here on MLW, causing much trouble and provoking many flamewars, and the general consensus seems to be that banning isn't necessarily and always the answer. While I understand and respect that position, more and more, I'm of the belief that there are times when banning , at least as a last resort, or severely disciplining a poster(s) who constantly causes trouble of some sort or other, is necessary.

What about a poster(s) who constantly hijacks threads that've started out as normal, rational discussions, who constantly goes off topic (which is no big deal in and of itself, necessarily), and/or constantly turns the hijacked threads into all-out flamewars?

Flaming seems to beget still more flaming, because a person who's constantly being flamed or baited will only take so much before s/he flames back. I have seen instances on other forums where the above phenomenom has occurred, where, even if a thread does remain on topic, posters on both sides of a given issue on a thread end up by slinging the vilest insults back and forth at each other, hence cutting off all chances of rational discussion(s).

What about a poster(s) who constantly engages in inappropriate behaviour on a blog/forum/message board, such as constantly being nasty, insulting and offensive to other bloggers, bantering inappropriately with underage bloggers, and who absolutely and effectively commandeers a blog/message board/forum for their own agenda, thus driving away bloggers who're knowledgeable about and experienced with a given subject? What about a blogger who constantly singles out another blogger(s) to harass, bullyrag and insult them, effectively running him/her off of the blog?

Weird or eccentric behaviour, and "Blue" language on a blog/forum/message board are, in and of themselves, no big deal, and, often enough can and do add flavor to the blog, making it a more interesting place for people to post and have lively discussions, many of which have taken place. Since I'm not exactly a Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farms, and am definitely not a stranger to "blue language" and/or eccentric behaviour myself, it can and does present an interesting flavor for me, in limited amounts. Many blogs/message boards/forums, however, do have hard and fast rules against flaming, hijacking threads and even "blue" language, though.

However, I'm also of the belief that when it crosses over into being totally destructive and drives away bloggers that have enjoyed posting on that particular blog/forum (and sharing either their knowledge of the subject at hand, or even just their opinions about it), then it gets out of bounds.....and unacceptable. The reason that I've brought up this question today is that I have seen all of the above-mentioned destructive behaviours and more take place in the not-so-distant past on forums, and I'd hate to see this happen on other forums.

One night, I did some research on Tonya Harding just for the heck of it.  I managed to see some videos of her skating and winning the gold medal(s) as a young 20-year-old, at the Olympics, back in the early 1990's.  To be honest, I was quite impressed at what a talented figure skater she was--moving sleekly across the ice and performing her various axels, lutzes and whatever with an incredible amount of speed and grace. 

She was in such incredible focus and her movements clean and accurate.  She'd begun figure-skating at the age of 3, loved it from the start, and clearly had a natural talent for figure skating, which she took to the next level.  As I watched those "youtube" videos of Tonya Harding's figure-skating bouts when she was still a kid, I kept wondering to myself why this young woman with such incredible talent and a promising career, who'd  caused so many people to crane their necks in awe of her, who'd evoked roaring crowds, and who was literally on the cusp of world championship and greatness, had to simply throw all that out the window by co-conspiring with her ex-husband and his cohort-friends, mastermind, and carry out the grisly incident that resulted in physical injury to a rival competitor.

This is not to excuse and/or defend the fact that Tonya Harding did what she did, but in order to understand how this came about, one has to realize that the kind of a background that she came from may well have provided the backdrop for that incident, which came about 3 years later.  Her mother, a waitress, was an abusive alcoholic who'd been married six times, and she and Tonya constantly moved around East Portland, where Tonya Harding originally hailed from.  Her father and mother, who helped pay for Tonya's skating lessons at the rink nearby where she lived, helped pay for her lessons, only to divorce later.  Her father, who is disabled and unable to work, lives in another part of the country. 

There were numerous incidents, where during her ice-skating practice, that Tonya's mother would constantly scream invective at her while she was on the ice and call her stupid, even for resting, or when she made mistakes.  There was another incident where Tonya had called her mother up on the phone and told her that she'd finished 6th place in one of her first competitions, only to have her mother say to her  "Well, you really did screw up, didn't you?". 

  In addition to coming from an abusive, dysfunctional family, Tonya also had severe asthma, which also made it harder for her.  However, she worked at the rink after school, dropping out of high school during her sophomore year, and prevailed, to become one of the top figure skaters and to really make a name for herself at a very early age. 

At the age of 19, in order to escape an abusive household, she married Jeff Gilhooly, who, unfortunately also turned out to be abusive.  By  this time, Tonya had already made a name for herself in the figure skating world, and Nancy Kerrigan, who was newer to the figure-skating world, was already edging in.  Tonya had divorced Gilooly, but, in 1993, they reconciled and got back together.  Since Tonya had come from a rough-and tumble,  , hardscrabble background and a family with not a lot of financial or emotional stability, she believed that figure skating would give her something that she didn't have while growing up:  the opportunity to escape a very impoverished, uncultured life, and have money, where she didn't have it before. 

I admit that there's a reason that this comedy-tragedy of a saga interests me as much as it does.  Now.....having said all of the above, and having overcome a relatively difficult past myself, I admit that I would've liked to have rooted for Tonya Harding over Nancy Kerrigan, who, btw, was also from a more workingclass background.  Unfortunately, however, when it became more and more obvious to me that Tonya Harding had, indeed co-conspired with her ex and his cohort-friends, masterminded and carried out the incident that got Nancy Kerrigan whacked on the knee and injured and had more than likely paid them to do it, I decided that I could not/would not root for somebody who'd consciously and knowingly went out of her way to arrange to have a rival competitor injured.  No matter what kind of past Ms. Harding had had, or how tough she'd had it, it was unconscionable, and inexcusable. 

Here's why I think this horrendous incident happened:  First of all, as I mentioned earlier in this diary, Tonya Harding had made a name for herself in the figure skating world, at a very young age, to boot, and she felt very threatened by Nancy Kerrigan, who, at that point, was edging in on Tonya.  Feeling that she'd no longer be in the national spotlight and that Nancy Kerrigan would take her place, Tonya had decided to have Nancy Kerrigan forcibly removed from the competition, which she did.  Tonya's utterance backstage before the 1994 Olympic Norway competition  "I'm gonna kick Nancy Kerrigan's butt in the competition", in my opinion, was very clear of Tonya's intent, as well as a matter-of-fact statement at one point by her father that Tonya Harding  really wanted to beat Nancy Kerrigan and win the gold medal.

Granted, there's much corruption in the sportsworld, generally, but I also believe that if one does launch a career as a  pro athlete in any sport, s/he can expect to be scrutinized by the public more than most average laypeople.  I believe that, like many young athletes, Tonya Harding became somewhat arrogant and allowed her success/fame/glory to go to her head.  The destruction of her promising career, as  unfortunate as it was, was inevitable in the wake of the planned assault on Kerrigan,  since it was clear that Harding not only knew about it, but was clearly behind it, imo.  She was only allowed to participate in the 1994 Skating Olympics after she'd threatened the  USFSA (the United States Figure Skating assn) with a lawsuit if she was kept out of the competition. 

While I admittedly know nothing about figure skating, it was clear that Tonya didn't do at all well that night.  She finished 8th in the competition, and Nancy Kerrigan went on to win the silver medal.  Nancy Kerrigan wasnt exactly a sweetheart, either, but she doesn't have a history of this kind of criminal exploit.  Again, the unfortunate aspect of this whole incident is not only was a crime committed by Ms. Harding, but also the fact that Ms. Harding was an extremely talented figure-skater, who was literally on the cusp of World Championship when she became involved in this whole incident.  She had a list of troubles with the law in her younger days:  bar fights, DUI, threatening a driver with a baseball bat who was driving too slowly for her liking, stealing someone's new bicycle, the assault on one boyfriend with a hubcap, and fabricating stories to get attention.

Here's something that I didn't tell anybody, even though it occurred almost two months ago.:

My dermatologist, noticing several black-blue spots on my left hand, became alarmed, and thinking they might be melanoma, recommended that I get a biopsy done.  Having much resrvation about getting the hand biopsy done, and not wanting to jump into that sort of thing right away, I insisted on a second opinion, which I got from a second dermatologist.  As it turned out, the second dermatologist also agreed that I should have the hand biopsy done, if only to  get some closure on it, even though they said it was probably nothing significant. 

  Reluctantly, I agreed, and the dermatologist from whom I'd obtained the second opinion, recommended a hand surgeon to do the procedure, in order to minimize the risk of damage to the nerves and blood vessels in that particular area. 

After agreeing to the procedure, I opted to get the hand biopsy done at a place that was readily accessible to public transportation from where I live.  Not long afterwards, I had a consultation appointment with the hand surgeon, and, then, after awhile, I was set up with an appointment to have the biopsy done. 

On the appointed day, I drove to the hospital because it was an extremely cold January day.  Although they were running more than a half hour late, I got the procedure done, and was sent home with after-care instructions and instructions to follow up with a phone call to the ambulatory treatment services clinic at the hospital where I'd had the procedure done, which I didm, also receiving self-absorbing stitches afterwards.

Not long ago, when I was in MLW Chat, another MLW Chatter/poster stated that he thought that I should write more diaries.  Haven't written a diary in awhile, so here goes. 

This is about how I believe extremism has been allowed to gain a stronghold, and to get and keep the upper hand,  in many communities throughout the United States and worldwide.  Having said this, I believe that the extremists in any given area, community, or nation are small in number, but, due to the fact that the extremists are the ones that're constantly up and out front and  therefore the most vocal, that they receive all the publicity.  Therefore,  two very commonly-heard expressions  "The squeaky wheel gets the grease" and "The minority rules" are very fitting expressions. 

Here's why:I  believe that, although the extremists in a given community, neighborhood, or nation are are small number and therefore in the minority, as opposed to being in the majority, it's also true that they do not have to be in the majority to present a problem(s).  I also believe that, in many, if not most cases, politicians and other top officials, be they in city, state or nationwide government, in school departments and/or on school committees, have often created the kind of atmosphere and fostered the kind of climate that has provided a haven for extremists, thus enabling them to do their dirty work, call all the shots and effectively hold sway by successfully intimidating the non-extremist majority into silence, or even into agreeing with them outright, when many of them would ordinarily take a more  moderate, accepting attitude and outlook towards something.

It's true that George W. Bush got in, not because the majority of Americans (necessarily) backed him and his policies, but because a  relatively small minority of extremist evangelist Christians, courtesy of G. W. Bush and his cronies in this present administration, manipulated the election process, through intimidation and other tactics, effectively handing George Bush an unearned Presidency--twice, although the first time, back in 2000, it was a matter of maliciously stopping the recounts in Florida, also giving Bush the Presidency.  It's also true that most Americans, whoever they may be, are not radical or crazy in their thinking, but, again, the radical rightwing minority, again, affectively took center stage.