Wednesday, September 30, 2009

I'm Glad It Is Fall

Taken at 2009 Orange and White Game

My favorite season is Fall. It is the time when the weather cools down (although this summer had been reasonably good compared to previous summers) and the air is crisp. You can breathe again finally.

In addition to football, it is the time when the leaves turn colors and there is plenty of opportunities for photographing nature. I also enjoy carving pumpkins and going to Halloween parties. Thanksgiving is also fun since it gives me an excuse to pig out. What is your favorite season?

Happy Birthday, Deborah Kerr!


(Note: I posted this a year ago)

The first actress that comes to mind when I think of whom I would like to have as a wife is Grace Kelly. The second one is Deborah Kerr. Deborah who died last October at age 86 of course stood apart because of her red hair and fair skin. But she always had this understated sensuality about her. There are those who have seen two Deborah Kerr scenes: "Shall We Dance?" from the King and I and the kissing-on-the-beach bit in From Here to Eternity.

Deborah Kerr exuded class, that is indisputable, but she also happened to be one of the most emotionally and sexually complex screen performers, whether female or male. That is what made her so compelling at least in my mind.

First of all, Kerr’s refined women had a yen for sensual, macho men. In addition to the aforementioned The Proud and Profane, she fell for Stewart Granger in King Solomon’s Mines (1950) and six years later she was filled with repressed attraction for Yul Brynner’s bald, bare-chested King of Siam — a non-white object of desire. And there were many others, in all different sorts of social, cultural, and psychological settings.

In Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s Black Narcissus (1946), Kerr is an Irish nun who, while at a monastery in the Himalayas, discovers that she has strong feelings — i.e., sexual urges — for a handsome, virile doctor played by David Farrar. Now, compare Kerr’s dark, torn performance in Black Narcissus — or in Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957), in which she plays a nun who lusts/has feelings for earthy Robert Mitchum — to Audrey Hepburn’s nun, pining for Peter Finch in The Nun’s Story (1959). Hepburn is excellent as the conflicted nun, but unlike Kerr she never comes across as a woman on the verge of an erotic breakdown.

Kerr is equally powerful in From Here to Eternity (1953), stealing the movie from her male co-stars, as an unhappily married woman who has a torrid affair with an officer shortly before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Fred Zinnemann’s Academy Award-winning melodrama marked one of the rare times when Kerr’s physique played a part in her erotic persona, as she parades around Hawaii in Lana Turner-type shorts and frolics on the wet sand with brawny Burt Lancaster.

Less obvious is her headmaster’s wife in Tea and Sympathy (1956), who, despite her discreet clothing and demeanor, ends up seducing one of her husband’s teenage students. It’s all for a good cause, of course — the "sensitive" boy thinks he may be gay — though it’s hardly the type of behavior society would look kindly upon. Additionally, Kerr makes it clear that she isn’t going to lie down with young and handsome John Kerr (no relation) merely out of charity.

All that in addition to extra-marital liaisons with Van Johnson in The End of the Affair (1956) and Burt Lancaster in The Gypsy Moths (1969), in which Kerr appears nude.

She was indeed innocent, but equally complex. Rest In Peace and may your memory last forever, Deborah.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

So There Will Be A Revolution! Let It Be!

I've been involved in the liberty movement for almost ten years now. If you asked me in 1999 where I saw myself in ten years, I would have replied "Perhaps working on movies or music videos". I thought a college degree was good for something. But my experiences and the experiences of millions of others causes me to doubt its true value at least in this day and age. It is nice, but can't solve all of life's problems. Now I am majoring in Physical Education and would love to get into coaching in some capacity. But I also know that very soon, my current plans will be delayed as I go about facing bigger issues in the world. Once upon a time, my plans not working out the way I wanted them to was upsetting. I am at peace with that now as I have learned to accept the fact that there are bigger forces at work in the world.

On one hand, I'm thankful that I woke up and have since then, life has taken me in a direction I did not expect nor intend to happen. I knew something was up with George W. Bush before it was cool thus I voted for Harry Browne instead of him. I already knew Al Gore was a fraud, so he wasn't going to get my vote anyways. I worked on Michael Badnarik's presidential campaign in 2004 and Ron Paul's campaign during the 2008 GOP presidential primary.

Some people don't like the fact I don't buy into the "official" version of what happened on 9/11 anymore than I buy into the magic bullet theory. I ask people "Cui bono?" Who benefited from the buildings going down? Dick Cheney? The Rothshchilds? The Rockefellers? What a tangled web we weave! I do not believe that Bush was the mastermind although he knows more than he lets on. He was for the most part a puppet in a cruel game that has been played since ancient times.

The simple fact of life is that in any society, there are leaders and followers.
A few people will lead for better or worse and everyone else follows. It is human nature. Think about that the next time you buy a product or get together for a party with friends. Someone had to have suggested the idea.

Years ago, I also came to the realization that economic collapse, martial law and open warfare would be inevitable. I was being called spooky, crazy and some other things too, but guess what? I was right. Lately, my attention has been turned to concentration camps and so-called vaccines. I ask again "Who Benefits?" I don't have a crystal ball. But I do study history and my studies have lead me to this conclusion: life is cyclical, not linear. People come and go as do buildings, nations and technologies. Events while the details may differ follow similar patterns. There are famines, war, rumors of war, civil strife, corruption and a host of other issues. It is human nature. Perfection is impossible.

Since war is inevitable and the actual plans for martial law have been in the works for decades such as Rex 84 and Operation Garden Plot, we must brace and prepare ourselves for what is to come. Are we going to continue to deny and delay? Shall we continue to believe we are living in liberty while bounded and shackled? Is being comfortable more important than life itself?

I made my decision almost ten years to resist the Devil. I will continue to do so even if others choose not to. Now is the time to make a decision. Death in the Lord's name is preferable to slavery.