the hurt locker was intense. no scene went without wondering if something would get blown up or someone would get shot. as people are talking you are almost 100 percent sure that they will say something like "i just don't know what i would ever do without my little" and then bam shot in the head or the neck or an ied would turn their humvee into a pile of scrap metal. and this is the point isn't it. this is the reason kathryn bigelow won for best director and the film took best picture (although oscar has lost its credibility with me over the years, these were two top notch choices). we civilians can't possibly understand the constant stress these soldiers endure. not just when out on patrol, but even in their bunks as they sleep at night in the "safe" green zone there is a threat of mortar attacks. and if it isn't a bullet 
or a bomb with your name on it, your own brain will get the best of you. the stress the stress the constant stress. this films makes you feel it for 2 hours in the safe warm confines of your apartment with a pause button to keep you from going over the edge and a friend beside you to talk you down and a blanket to throw over your head when you just want it to stop.
or a bomb with your name on it, your own brain will get the best of you. the stress the stress the constant stress. this films makes you feel it for 2 hours in the safe warm confines of your apartment with a pause button to keep you from going over the edge and a friend beside you to talk you down and a blanket to throw over your head when you just want it to stop.these troops are not that lucky, and for however many days, months, YEARS they have in some desert landscape they feel this never ending tension. no matter how you feel about war in general or this war in particular, about the men who started it (although if you know me at all you know all about what i feel for them) or the men who will hopefully finish it soon, there is one thing we can all stand behind and unite for, and that is these men and women. they do something i couldn't do, and let's face it, wouldn't do. my survival instinct extends as far as i could potentially kick an attacker in the nuts and then probably pass out from the fear. and so i say thank you and come home soon.
our second film was the cove. and oh my god was it good. the best documentary winner at the oscars, it is about a cove (duh) in taiji, a small fishing/whaling village in japan. this is where dolphins inadvertently come to die. the film tells you that in one year, one year! 23,0
00 dolphins and porpoises will be murdered at the hands of fisherman who feel it is their duty to get rid of these "pests". for the ones who aren't sold to places like sea world to live in captivity and amuse us stupid human folk for the rest of their sad depressing and tank confined lives, life ends when they are slaughtered by the hundreds in this tiny cove that each day for six months SIX MONTHS is filled with migrating dolphins and then emptied. what are they used for you ask? well, food. but here is the hitch. they are used for their meat, which is many times pawned off as more expensive whale meat. like that of a blue or gray or humpback who the fuck knows, but seriously this shit made me want to revert back to being a vegetarian. and the great wonder of
it all is that nobody should be eating this meat anyway! it is laced with a ridiculous amount of mercury, which we have given them through pollutants like coal, etc. and because of where they are on the food chain, dolphins ingest and hold onto a large quantity of poison. i believe the stat used in the film was that the japanese food safety board said a mercury level of .4 ppm (parts per million) in seafood was safe. dolphin tests around 2000 ppm. no joke.so why do it? well the film gave several plausible reasons. the two that i felt were the most likely was the greed of the fisherman who want to sell dolphin meat and pass it off as more expensive types of whale meat. the other was this notion of empire, and regaining a sense of honor in the face of having every power taken away from them. you have taken enough from us western world and we will stop you here. at whaling. and you know what, on some level i get that. just as there was a scene early on in the hurt locker where i understood the motivation of a cab driver who just blew through a secured area where 3 humvees with 20 armed american military surrounded the lead character as he tried to assess a bomb before disarming it, i too understand this sort of "fuck you" motivation of the japanese government. it is the same argument we hear now in this post-9/11 society, something we only heard from the fringe before, from the zinns and chomskys of this society. but we are takers and re-appropriators and arbitrators and dictators and usurpers and back-breakers, we are hypocrites with better guns and more ammo. we need to take a look at what we have built and also what we have torn down. these feelings about us don't derive from a jealousy or a misunderstanding, they go deeper and in order to understand the motivation, we have to understand the foundation. but i am getting preachy.
after watching these two films, and in particular the cove, i felt an intense sadness over my lack of action. when the question of war came up i signed petitions and made my arguments, but it was a done deal before we had even heard of al qaeda and bin laden. you knew that right? and so there is a feeling of dis-empowerment about the whole debacle, but here is the cove, here are these dolphins, who are so like us. really they are. and we can possibly do something. ric o'barry and the ops, who made this film, went in their all stealth to expose the killings and fight the perverted processes of the iwc (what a joke!) and meanwhile what the fuck have i ever done. so i felt moved, to do something, anything to make a positive change. i could donate what little funds i have to making a difference, fighting the fisherman of taiji and saving 23,000 dolphins. then again i could donate to something here, in my own city that needs so much. there are so many people and animals and things and struggles and ideals to fight for. how does one choose?
my ex and i had an ongoing joke that the reason we liked each other is because we hated most people. but this wasn't born out of some inherent snobbery, and neither was it an actual hatred for people (such a strong statement) but rather an anger for the lack of humanity in general or in our everyday dealings in particular. i hate liars and cheaters and dishonesty and being mean just because you can. i hate people who preach about their god as if it is better than the other god their neighbor believes in or doesn't believe in all together (i could write a book about those people!). i hate pedophiles and child abductors. i hate animal owners who tie up their pets, kick their dogs and starve their cats. i hate government sanctioned poverty and mis-education and birth rates and killing to further their own lesser needs. i hate hate. i hate gang bangers and the drug rings that keep them in business. i hate men who abuse women and women who abuse men. rapists murders the remorseless. people who don't even try to live a good life, who complain about the shitty food on their table and the ugly shoes on their feet. i hate the negativity of our consumerist celebrity-fucker culture that alters our sense of self. i hate people who judge others based on their size, color, hair length, fashion sense, degree of education. i hate jerks who think they know me better than myself because they think they can see me. bitch, i have a mirror! i hate magazines that preach male satisfaction, i hate sex education programs that teach only abstinence. i hate genocide, blood diamonds, AIDS. i hate bullies in schools and on the internet. i hate people who can make others feel so bad about themselves they take their own lives and i hate that we, as a society, have failed those people. not taught them to love themselves more than rumors and teenage rage; haven't taught them that the cliche is true and their is beauty within. mostly i hate that i can not love more, that i am included in some of these hates, although the lesser ones. i would like to put more love in the world. i want to build something and feel good about it, give it to someone. contribute.
i am thinking about getting a group together to volunteer for habitat for humanity. it is something that i have thought about, off and on, for years. and perhaps in that way i can take a small bit of hate that i have within my person and change it into love, or at least positivity. i feel like i am constantly relearning the lessons of kindergarten. return what you have borrowed. i am a lucky girl and i should understand and respect that, quit my bitching, pick up a hammer and pay it forward. who wants to join me?
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