Movies. . .

. . . is magic. . .

(from wikipedia.com)
". . . A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still images on a strip of plastic which, when run through a projector and shown on a screen, creates the illusion of moving images. A film is created by photographing actual scenes with a motion picture camera; by photographing drawings or miniature models using traditional animation techniques; by means of CGI and computer animation; or by a combination of some or all of these techniques and other visual effects. The process of filmmaking is both an art and an industry.

Films usually include an optical soundtrack, which is a graphic recording of the spoken words, music and other sounds that are to accompany the images. It runs along a portion of the film exclusively reserved for it and is not projected.

Films are cultural artifacts created by specific cultures. They reflect those cultures, and, in turn, affect them. Film is considered to be an important art form, a source of popular entertainment, and a powerful medium for educating—or indoctrinating—citizens. The visual basis of film gives it a universal power of communication. Some films have become popular worldwide attractions by using dubbing or subtitles to translate the dialog into the language of the viewer. . ."

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Clown. . .

Are YOU lovin' it???

McDonald's was fined by a consumer protection agency in Brazil for targeting children in advertisements for  Happy Meals in the amount of 3.2 million reais (US $1.6 million). And though the amount may not make much of a dent in the fast food giant's pocketbook, the agency leveling the fine could issue additional citations should the firm persist in the offensive practices.

"There's no need to appeal as they do to children without the maturity or the rationality to enter the market as consumers," said an agency representative. The penalty is the latest in a series of increasingly aggressive tactics by Brazilian regulators, who recently have cracked down on large firms for perceived consumer abuses. In recent months, phone companies and private health plans have all been penalized for violation of consumers.

Here at home, a judge threw out a lawsuit against Happy Meal marketing. U.S. regulators have urged companies to voluntarily end food advertising to children unless they are promoting healthy fare, but typically, industry groups are putting up a fierce fight - Surprise! In calculated cooperation, McDonald's has added apples and reduced the amount of french fries in its children's Happy Meals, but insist on keeping the free toy. They also began listing calorie information on menus throughout the United States before the national rule requiring same.

(thanks to The American Journal of Transportation)

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Heard . . .

 . . . about this?. . .

. . . I hadn't . . . until now . . .

Assumption Parish, 45 miles south of Baton Rouge is home to fishermen, farmers and the oil and gas industry. In the spring of 2012, residents noticed what appeared to be boiling water in the bayou.  Small earthquakes followed.  State officials determined the bubbles were from a single, natural gas source such as a pipeline.

In early August, near a small residential community in Assumption, the earth beneath the Bayou Corne gave way resulting in a large, deep sinkhole filled with water, underground brines, oil and natural gas.  At its largest, the hole covered about 8 acres.

300 residents were evacuated as the governor declared a statewide emergency. Geologists have never seen anything like it before.

Texas Brine, a drilling and storage firm is believed to be at the root of the sinkhole phenomenon in Assumption.  The firm's salt cavern, used to produce salty brine which is needed to manufacture chloride and chemicals for plastics, collapsed from the side and filled with rock, oil and gas from deposits around the salt formation.  The pressure caused a "frack out", much like "fracking" (hydraulic fracturing) done by the oil industry to obtain natural gas from underground.

Texas Brine claimed the cavern collapsed from natural seismic activity and not the reverse, as determined by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and has not officially taken responsibility. USGS, nor the world, has ever faced such a situation and there is no clear path for cleaning it up.  No one is sure when, or even if, residents will be allowed to return to their homes.

Texas Brine is now under state orders to pay a weekly $875 stipend to each evacuated household.  The firm has also set up flaming torches to vent the natural gas contaminating the aquifer.

(read more at http://truth-out.org/news/item/13136-bayou-frack-out-the-massive-oil-and-gas-disaster-youve-never-heard-of)

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The American Dream . . .

. . . never really WAS within our control

NPR is doing a series on THE AMERICAN DREAM.  Generally speaking, I like NPR.  Although nothing is ever ultimately perfect, and who can say what is objectively perfect since we are all subjective human animals and one man's (or woman's) idea of perfection will always be different from anothers'.

The series began Tuesday morning with some relatively blue-collar guys in the Midwest speaking about how the AMERICAN DREAM is much harder to attain these days.  I don't say 'blue-collar' condescendingly or dismissively either because, quite frankly, I know from blue-collar.  Where I grew up, guys in high school (overwhelmingly, if not exclusively) strove to secure a job at either Bethlehem Steel's Sparrows Point steel mill or at General Motors Assembly plant, where (by the way) my own father was employed  for thirty years before his retirement.

So as long as people bought cars and steel was in demand (by 'whomever buys steel,' as I would have said when I was in high school) things were good.  If I was lucky enough to secure a position with either of these two industrial giants, I was guaranteed a healthy income, superior benefits and what was considered by me and my peers to be 'job security'.

But when your maximum level of education attained is H.S. Diploma, and you're not a particularly aggressive self-learner, you may not fully understand supply, demand, costs, revenue, taxes, economics, competition etc etc, blah blah.  And when there are no longer tens of thousands of jobs in your neighborhood, you feel you've been cheated and your AMERICAN DREAM has turned into a nightmare.

I well understand how that feels BUT, (speaking of perfect) this world, this species, this country, business (etc etc, blah blah) are NOT perfect.  And furthermore, things change.  Things begin, things end, and always, always, always - things change.

Guess all I'm saying is, maybe a little information;  maybe a little more education; maybe a better education (Santorum Shuddered!!) would help these folks have a better understanding of what's going on.

And I am in no way bad-mouthing this country because I most certainly love the life I am able to lead in America and know many non-natives who having experienced it, and would prefer it to living in the places from which they came.

But I am saying that I think people should be more aware of. . . EVERYTHING they can!  So an AMERICAN DREAM without a bevy of facts, awareness, some hard work and a heap of realism, the AMERICAN DREAM is just a dream.  And we all know that every dream ends and then we must wake up.

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Promises, promises. . .

(based upon http://www.nytimes.com)

. . . When your political party's candidates are described as disconnected from reality by old Marxists, possibly you should reconsider?  Fidel Castro said recently,  the “selection of a Republican candidate for the presidency of this globalized and expansive empire is — and I mean this seriously — the greatest competition of idiocy and ignorance that has ever been.”  It also seems that congressmen, senators and presidents look at the world differently than business and industry leaders, and this includes members of all political parties.  So says Thomas L. Friedman (author of THE WORLD IS FLAT) in the New York Times.

President Obama asked Steve Jobs last year why almost all of the 70 million iPhones, 30 million iPads and 59 million other products Apple sold the previous year were made overseas.  Jobs replied simply, "Those jobs aren't coming back."

Politicians view, ". . . the world as blocs of voters living in specific geographies — and they see their job as maximizing the economic benefits for the voters in their geography. . . "  BUT,  today's CEO's, ". . . see the world as a place where their products can be made anywhere through global supply chains (often assembled with nonunion-protected labor) and sold everywhere. These C.E.O.’s rarely talk about “outsourcing” these days. Their world is now so integrated that there is no “out” and no “in” anymore. In their businesses, every product and many services now are imagined, designed, marketed and built through global supply chains that seek to access the best quality talent at the lowest cost, wherever it exists. . . "

So when you cast your next vote, remember, here's just another opportunity for a politician, who is driven by that one overpowering desire - to get elected (or re-elected), to make another promise that he cannot keep.

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