Let’s Talk About Not Talking About Politics

Every four years, this country is afflicted with temporary madness.
by Elizabeth Lee of elizabethly

Photo from Lindsay G’s flickr

I am tired of hearing about politics, tired of 75% of my Facebook news feed being comprised of those viral photo+text propaganda images that get spread around like wildfire, as though that’s why I get on Facebook every day.  (Hint: it’s not.  I’ll take your baby and dog pictures any day over that nonsense.)  I cannot wait for this election to be over and done.

Tax returns!  Birth certificate!  Health care!  Dog on the roof of his car!  Socialist!  Elitist!  Muslim!

Really?

Much of this stuff comes from otherwise intelligent people, who in every other facet of life seem capable of having opinions that weren’t prefabricated by their favorite sensationalist news source.

Let’s face it, folks – we the people are not in possession of all the facts.  What’s more, for many of the accusations I’ve come across, the only person who knows whether they are true or not is the person who stands accused.  So much of what’s said is conjecture, designed to invoke an emotional reaction, and it comes from every camp.

I don’t enjoy being bombarded with political sentiment everywhere I go – whether I’m being preached at directly, or simply overhearing a little mudslinging in the local bookstore.  It’s all abrasive to me.

What baffles me most is how public people are with their pontificating.  I prefer to keep my beliefs private.

When I was a kid, my parents never even would tell me who they were voting for.  I’m sure they talked about it with each other once I was in bed, or out of the house somewhere, but in front of me, they remained pretty neutral about who they supported and what party they backed.  I always found their reticence thought-provoking.  They got a bit more outspoken as I got older, probably because they figured I had already formed some theories of my own and was less impressionable.

Right from the beginning, Mom and Dad have been very good about encouraging me to come to my own conclusions about life.  I guess they must be advocates of individualism.  Some parents seem to expect their children to become ideological clones, and are then shocked when the kids turn out to have their own opinions.

This was never the case in my house while I was growing up.  We would sometimes butt heads over issues, but never did I feel that to disagree with my parents was wrong, in and of itself.  I know they wished I shared their beliefs, but they seemed to accept that I was going to have my own convictions, and that they could steam about it all they wanted, but it wasn’t going to change me.

Mom and Dad, I appreciate that.  I don’t know if I’ve told you that at all, or if I have, if I’ve said it often enough.  Thanks for letting me become my own person, even if you weren’t sure you were going to like how I ended up.  Thanks for providing me with the opportunity to form a distinct ‘self.’

I’ve gone through just about every shade of the political and philosophical spectrum, which was probably pretty amusing from my parents’ perspective.  Funnily enough, I ended up coming around to their way of thinking about some things, after all.

I will admit that much, but I’m still not going to tell anyone who I’m voting for.  That’s Top Secret husband and wife stuff.

I’m Elizabeth.  I cook, read, and write, adore my husband, spoil my cat, drink tea, take pictures, do crosswords and Sudoku, thirst for knowledge, and get enormous enjoyment out of little things.

Is Asian Horror Better Than its American Remakes?

American remakes of Asian horror films tend to be overly explanatory.
by Deborah Bell of Seshat Travels

Photos are screenshots from Ju-on, Ringu and The Echo

For a good part of the last decade much of Hollywood devoted itself to cranking out remakes or adaptations of successful Asian horror films less well known on our own shores. Prompted by the success of “The Ring” starring Naomi Watts in 2002 – Gore Verbenski’s remake of Japan’s highest grossing horror film to date, the 1998 film “Ringu” — the marketplace was flooded with Americanized versions of East Asian flicks. Unfortunately for Hollywood, their attempts to cash in on this trend proved wildly uneven and produced far lower box office revenue than was anticipated.

Thus the flood of remakes dribbled to a slow leak. One trouble with these movies was that filmmakers on this side of the Pacific seemed to (wrongly) think that American audiences wouldn’t understand the subtleties and symbolism that permeate Asian horror. They replaced creeping tension with jump scares and offered slam-bang CGI instead of psychological shudders, and so ended up stripping their scripts of the very elements that made the originals work so well. But even a truckload of visual effects and a hot Hollywood actress in the lead can’t save scripts that lack true chills at their heart.

American remakes of Asian horror films tend to be overly explanatory, and usually resolve according to traditional Hollywood standards: with most of their plot threads tied up neatly at the end. Such ready explanations do not always exist in the Asian horror originals, where plots are often a lot more complex and sometimes told in a non-linear fashion, thus making those films all the more fascinating to unravel.

With endings that can be interpreted in multiple ways and containing cultural themes or ideas outside of our more familiar Hollywood horror standards, Asian horror challenges its viewers to pay attention and use their brains to try to figure out the plot twists and turns for themselves. This results in a much more involved movie experience than what the majority of the remakes provide.

The wise horror fan knows to avoid those carbon-copy American remakes and head straight for the originals. It really doesn’t take much effort beyond accepting the idea of subtitles in order to “get” Asian horror. “Ju-On” (2002, Japan), “The Echo” (2004, Philippines), “A Tale of Two Sisters” (2003, South Korea) and “Pulse” (2001, Japan), are all are excellent and incredibly scary films that deserve a worldwide audience.

But beyond the obvious first selections, there exists a slew of other fantastic Asian horror flicks out there that luckily Hollywood hasn’t touched yet. “Audition” (1998, Japan), “Infection” (2004, Japan), and “The Maid” (2005, Philippines) quickly come to mind as offering first-rate scares and/or psychological shudders aplenty. The Internet abounds with lists of dozens of really excellent Asian horror flicks that American fans may not have seen, but would greatly enjoy. I invite horror fans who may not be familiar with these films to take a look, it’s definitely worth it!

What is the creepiest horror film for you?

I’m a Tampa Bay Pop Culture Reviewer for Examiner.com, and a contributing writer at SciFi4Me.com, where you will find a vast array of sci-fi news and reviews, interviews and cool links to other science fiction sites.

Horsemeat Maltreat

A new movement wants to breed horses for human’s consumption.

Photo from stock.xchng

The US congress lifted a bad that halts the funding of horsemeat inspections. Detract comments, of course, spurred afterwards. PETA is however not one of them.

PETA thinks that this ban purging would liberate the inhumane treatment for horses. Always controversial with their statements, they have gathered supporters and adversaries at the same time. PETA believes that the ban prompted cruel treatment and transport of horses to other horsemeat eating nations such as China, France and Mexico. So, they want to stop it through promoting the slaughter of them, in a closed warehouse, with the only choice of living to die.

I firmly believe that the re-opening of slaughter houses will not end the cruel treatment of horses when shipping to other nations. Consequently, it would induce more suffering for these robust but helpless animals. The inconvenient idea of slaughter houses is that you take the will of horses to experience living the way they are supposed to live.

Historians would agree that long ago, horsemeat was used as an essential source of human protein diet. But it became a taboo when horses became man’s companion.

Yeah, hunting horses is a natural occurrence of food cycle. At the very least, let the horses grow in the wild. Slaughter houses are against the nature because you breed horses just to die without fulfilling their innate purpose to live. So ultimately, it is against the animal rights.

Prior to the ban in 2007, slaughter houses are operating. But these slaughter houses, which are believed to save horses from cruelty, are sporting cruelty themselves to the horses as documented by the USDA even with federal inspectors surveying the area. Foreigners own most of rhese dirty houses; and they pocket the profit more than the economy. They also pose detrimental pollution to the environment. All of this is at the expense of America.

You just can’t compare the horses to chickens, turkey, pigs and cows, which are what we are consuming now. Horses take 4 years to mature; unlike, lets say chickens, which take weeks. Horses are also too famous as a symbol. They have done too much for humans across history – it moved us, it won us victories. We can’t afford a shift of perception from the immensely friendly horses into merely food.

Economically speaking, horse meats have high opportunity cost. They have a lot of uses to be put into waste– in transportation, in farms and their ecological contribution; and expensive for environment and materials for production.

But it will come down to us. Would you want to consume a horsemeat?

More Moments for you:
Creepy Island of the Dolls
Strange Parenting Practices
Post Graduation School Attraction

Sources:
Horse slaughterhouses may return to U.S.; The Washington Post
Horse slaughter in Texas and everywhere else should be against the law; Star-Telegram