you know in japan that the emergency number is 119 right? how interesting that the two countries i have lived in have emergency numbers that are mirrors of each other, so that they create a palindrome when placed alongside each other.

today twiddle thumbs and i finally went to go see fahrenheit 9/11. it felt like we were the only ones in the country who had yet to see the film! much to our relief, the theater was filled with a few dozen other people, and i heard a few gasps so i think that means they were watching the film for the first time.

my political views are so far left i've fallen off the edge of the world (as least it feels that way compared to the hard asses), but i wanted to see what raw footage was in the film to see how much of an ass bush has made himself out to be on his own. i don't know much about michael moore, but i do know that he is just the person who would have dug up some great footage and i was not disappointed. there's about 3 classic moments in the film that everyone just has to see. there's no living them down. it doesn't matter what 3 you pick, they're all rolling on the floor hilarious. only, this isn't a comedy. this is current world events. this is not funny at all. this is some scary shit.

an obvious ploy at the viewer's emotions was the war footage. war footage always makes me cry, i cannot help it. i hate war. i will never understand it. even watching the beginning of "gladiator" made me cry a bit for all the senseless loss of human life that has occurred throughout the ages due to war. even if i cut out all that sort of obvious tearjerker footage, you're still left with a powerful film and message.

i don't know how many stones it will take to get the avalanche going but we most evolve. we already had our revolution when we made this country. some may think civil rights movements are a bit of a revolution, but there are so many things that we have to work on that i often think we need another revolution. the dangerous part is then becoming a revolution cycle where each succeeding generation thinks they know better than the previous. what i really think we need is open minds and the ability to sit down and discuss things like mature, rational beings. this often seems to be the intent of people but it goes out the window when you touch their hotspot. once you touch their hotspot, it is incredibly difficult, if not impossible to bring them back to a state of diplomacy.

i feel like this film may be a stone. i thought the first stone was cast when bush #2 was elected because of all the controversy surrounding the election. i thought the people would wake-up and change the voting rules about popular/electoral. no.. nothing has changed. how many stones will it take?

one little revelation i had was that there must not be any official policy for government workers about conflict of interest with private companies. for instance, i work at a public university and the conflict of interest policy is strictly enforced. if you or a relative have a business, you cannot do business with the university, pretty much, because you would profit so it is a conflict of interest. one time we were having a benefit sort of event and there was going to be alcohol served. one of our faculty wanted to help reduce costs by selling his own company's wine at a reduced rate than what we would have paid for any other brand. this would have saved the university money much more than it would have profited the professor's private company. regardless, due to the conflict of interest policy, this was not allowed at all. he would have to donate the wine if we were to use it. he could not afford to donate so much wine so we had to purchase from another company. even before "fahrenheit 9/11" was released, the ties between bush/cheney and the companies they have dealt with and continue to deal with was well known. there is a HUGE conflict of interest! where is the official policy against this? and if there is one, why is it not enforced? why do public universities, who are funded by the government, adhere to such strict morals when the highest government leaders do not?!?!

after watching the film, i went home and went straight to my room, laid down on my bed and cried. i cried knowing how fucked our country is and how the rest of the world is fucked as well. i'm sick of hearing about corrupt politicians the world over, of rights violated, etc. i can't change anything except perhaps how a few people view americans. and perhaps how a few americans view foreigners. i might be able to travel the world and make match-stick bridges of ambassadorship. someone i once knew who was also of mixed heritage expressed pretty much the same thing. he thought that we should learn about other people to help make cultural bridges.

on a related film suggestion side note, if you ever come across the more independent production "spin" by brian springer, check it out. it's a collection of a satellite feeds of politicians. satellite tv viewers get to watch what goes on while people think they are off-air. people do funny things when they think they're not being recorded, even career damaging things, at least in my opinion.