Devar/5770/Terumah
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Feb 19th (See this week's devar torah)
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Hi again!
Wow! It was really a hot week -- in the 20s (upper 70s, low 80s F) - and I took a lot of heat (so to speak) this week over my (intended to be humorous) comment on global warming. Why are AGW enthusiasts so lacking in humor? I'll address this more seriously below (not the lack of humor, but AGW -- which I had not intended to address at all).
Sarah was accepted to one of the programs she applied for, so that takes a load off her mind. And off ours. I've been frighteningly busy at work, so I get home and have no energy left. Esther has been trying to work but has been having problems connecting. And Daniela has been bravely trying to finish papers she's writing. Chaucer, yeah.
In preparation for our annual "Oscars" night, we watched Avatar. Here are our thoughts (and I do speak for all of us on this one):
The movie is not original nor even derivative: it's a direct rip-off of "Dances With Wolves" and "Pocahontas", but set in space and with blue aliens. That wouldn't have been so terrible if the special effects had been "wow" mind-blowing. But for the half a BILLION dollar budget of this movie, we were extremely disappointed. "The Matrix" was revolutionary. So was "The Terminator" (both one and two, actually). But in Avatar the CGI creatures looked like CGI and the other effects were "ho-hum". I expected much better from Cameron (after all, he did do the Terminator movies...)
The dialog was puke-inducing. Ignore the usual condescending lectures about how the (white) West is horrible and responsible for all the evils of the universe. Every single line and plot point is cliché and ripped-off -- he even has the evil (mostly white, naturally) corporation hire mercenaries headed by a southern cracker "colonel". Seriously.
It's a shame that Cameron didn't turn his vaunted 3D technology on the characters themselves. They were all so lacking in depth that it was impossible to care about them. Sarah and I spent the first five minutes of the movie predicting the entire remainder -- and we were spot-on. Not the worst movie I have ever seen, but it's close. The two contenders for worst movie are "Eraserhead" and "Dune" (curiously, both David Lynch productions. Hmm.) . Anyway, "Avatar" really is that bad. However, some fools were inspired by it this week. Goes to show something I guess.
- climate history
- carboniferous climate history
- climategate
- wow! even more climategate!!
- it just doesn't stop ... no, it really doesn't
- How are the Na'vi and the Palestinians the same? Both are fictional peoples.
Until next week,
Shabbat shalom!
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