Think Of The Homeless

There are over 30 million Americans who live on the streets of our nation. Can you consider giving something to a shelter near you? Your fellow human beings need socks because they walk everywhere. Food and shelter are great too, if they will take them. So please give.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Reviews by Hubie Goode: Candida and Alkaline Blood


Candida and Alkaline Blood


Today I’ll continue with the posts on Alkaline blood and its importance. Something called Candida is a by product of having too much acid waste in the blood. In Latin the word is Candida, but you and I would know this organism as yeast, but in reality it is really a fungus. Most problems in the body are caused by fungus, and few people are aware of this. Yeast and Fungus are single celled forms of plant life that live in the air, the ground and the water. What we are discussing here is the presence of Candida in the gastro intestinal tract. We actually need it for sustaining life. It goes bad when it becomes drastically overgrown and can be annoying and or fatal. Yes, fatal. Women know all about this stuff when they get yeast infections, and their kids can get something called “Thrush” which is just the yeast growing in the throat.

Mainstream medicine knows about all of this stuff, and they also know about the problems stemming from too much yeast and fungus, but they do little about it. Giving your kids antibiotics when they are young sets up the whole chain reaction for later adult life. The truth is that with our typical American diets most people develop these out of control growths within their bodies. Excess Candida is really just ONE of the villains. We are deluged by an attack of microforms, including yeast, fungus and mold, viruses and bacteria. All these little creatures deposit poison in our system. This is called a mycotoxin or exotoxin, basically meaning “fungus or bacterial poison”. These are the acid wastes that swim in your blood and are deposited there when they eat up all your glucose, proteins and fats, the stuff your body needs for energy. Therefore, the Candida and such eat what you need to survive and then take a dump in your blood stream.

These poisons take advantage of the weaker parts of your body, polluting them and making them over tired. In acidic blood they have free reign to cause all sorts of havoc by breaking down bodily tissues and processes. Their poison doesn’t just get into our blood but also into the cells of bodily tissues. What this means is that as they poison you, they break down something like your liver, and make it work less efficiently. If your liver is the bodies filter, and it can’t eliminate your own waste, then you are now doubly poisoned.

Over the entire history of our planet fungus, yeast and mold have developed into over five hundred thousand different forms. They go from periods of explosive growth to thousands of years of dormancy. Egyptian tombs have held onto living spores since they were first sealed and until they were opened in our time. These little guys produce as many toxins as they have family members, too. They just love to provide a deadly cocktail for their hosts.

It’s this cocktail that does all the damage, not the little critters themselves. Understand though, they only appear because of a bad environment, like acidic blood for instance. The wastes cause a huge list of symptoms, from diseases to chronic and degenerative problems. If you have athlete’s foot, you have a mild fungus, if you have AIDS, you have a monster problem. Underlying symptoms can be things like diabetes, cancer, atherosclerosis, osteoporoses, fatigue and also infections that can be transmitted from person to person.

Signs of an overgrowth can be, pain, infection, depression, hyperactivity, antisocial behavior, asthma, hemorrhoids, colds, endometriosis, dry skin and itching, toenail fungus, joint pain, dizziness, heartburn, gas, chronic overweight problems and on and on. In fact if you just feel bad overall, you might consider trying to change the PH of your blood from acidic and see how that makes a difference!

Microforms love to swim in their own crap. They also love the low oxygen levels that come with doing so. One of the problems for people with high blood pressure is a low amount of oxygenation in the blood cells. Natural breathing methods have proven to alleviate the problem to some degree, and although not an end all cure, they do point to a connection between the inner state of blood cells and the overgrowth of microforms. It’s those poisons they create and dump in your blood that also add to the acidic environment, so if you can just get a picture of the swamp that is your blood stream because of all these out of control critters in your belly, perhaps it will motivate someone to take a look at this problem instead of just getting a pill from the doctor.

So how is it done? How do we battle these little monsters? Surprisingly it can all be done with what you and I place in our bodies to turn the blood alkaline. They don’t like alkaline blood and will actually turn off as the blood moves away from the acidic environment.

We all need to be concerned for ourselves and our loved ones in discussing the interior of our guts and the condition of our blood. What happens is a two fold process inside out systems. The first step for microforms is the small colonies they collect in inside of our bodies. In this phase we don’t realize any symptoms from the poison they deposit within us. However, in the next phase we are presented with sudden chronic problems that become obvious. Your body is now screaming for help and the problem may have taken a few decades to develop right under your nose, ever since you first got that shot at the doctors office when you were a kid. But that’s just one of the ways it can happen. Bad diet can trigger a problem, too.

When your body goes from acid back to base, or alkaline, yeast, fungus and mold stop growing and revert back to being friendly, at this point the body can now eliminate all the poisons they have dumped inside you and things can return to normal. No more Pepcid AC.

Let’s say you had a tropical fish tank. If you polluted the water and filled it with lots of decaying food, and then deoxygenized the water, you’d have a tank full of dead fish in no time. When you are young, you don’t realize what you are doing to your body many times, with all the abuse it can take. But when you are about 40 years of age all that comes home to roost, and it’s not just that you are getting older. Literally, you are now dying of poison and will probably not live to see the last half of your sixties because of what you fail to do today. And that should never be the case. I can’t imagine thinking I had only 18 years left to live, when I am only 40 something and NOT doing something about my internal condition. Do you have someone whom you love who has chronic problems? Get them to change that fish tank water for good! Don’t let them die too soon, when they could have gone deep into their nineties.

My Grandparents lived to be in their nineties, they grew up in the late 1800’s to early 1900’s and they didn’t have to contend with all the medicine and fake food and closed in environments we all take as normal. My parents DID have a different way of living, including too much cigarette smoke, too much sugary foods and the introduction of antibiotics in the 1950’s. They only lived into their early 60’s and 70’s. Let’s get together folks and stop this madness.

Monday, January 4, 2010

Reviews by Hubie Goode: Summer 2010 and the Mahdi


Summer 2010 and the Mahdi

Well, Happy New Year everyone! What a year that was. 2009 was kind of different for me in that I had lots of time to do this blog, and much as I enjoyed it, I have faith that time will be a luxury this year. I want to thank everyone who made December a banner month for the blog, there was definately an uptick in the amount of interest from the first 9 months of the year and I hope the trend continues.

With that idea in mind, I am going to begin the year writing a series that will be close to the material so many of you seemed to like in December. This one will be called the Summer of 2010 and the Mahadi. Last year I made comments (Laughing at Prophecy) about a certain liberal TV show that just loves to pick on Christianity, and yet has no spine for saterizing any other group. In fact I made quite the inference that the writers of this show were a bit spineless in their lazzie fare attitude toward mocking Christianity and Jesus, due to the fact that they feel safe that there will be no retribution for their actions. How misguided!

I, on the other hand, WIll tackle the dangerous side of this subject, and handle some information about the Muslim Religion. I won’t be making light of it, as the TV show might have, for I try to be cogent and intellectual for my reading audience, that is, unless I am in the mood to be snide for a moment or so. But, not this time. This time I want to cover some serious material that I feel should be out there, free for anyone with interest to read and be educated with. So with all due respect to the human beings involved, I will cover a middle eastern subject that could very well bring the Jihad right to my door. But, so be it, many of my friends and the remnant of my family will be effected by the Summer of 2010 and what the Obama administration is planning for this coming summer, plus the effects it will have on the middle east, and then once again on America.

1 John 2:18 has this to say: “Children these are the last days, you were told that the Antichrist must come, and now several Antichrists have already appeared, we know from this that these are the last days.”

The definite article in greek refers not to “an” Antichrist, but THE Antichrist, and if you know about the conquests of Alexander the Great, you know that his kingdom brought the Greek language to most of the world at that time; a language that has seven specific words for seven specific kinds of “Love”.

1 John 2:22,23 says: “The man who denies that Jesus is the Christ - he is THE liar, he is Antichrist; and he is denying the Father as well as the Son.”

1 John 4:2,3 says: “You can tell the spirits that come from God by this: every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus the Christ has come in the flesh is from God; but every spirit that will not say this of Jesus is not from God, but is the spirit of Antichrist, whose coming you were warned about. Well, now he is here, in the world.”

At first it might sound as if the writer is saying that the Antichrist is alive and well in his own time, and there are groups of people who believe that scripture has already been fulfilled, that there is no rapture, and all things were fulfilled by 70 A.D. (Which you will remember was when the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed.) Those same folks will tell you that it was probably the emperor Nero of his day.

But let’s consider a few things, even in John’s day the “spirit” of Antichrist was working in certain sects and groups that existed during his day, and those people were saying then as many say today, that Jesus wasn’t who he said he was, that there is coming someone else.

But John uses that “THE” word when he refers to the Antichrist and he is quite definite about there being a person who will come, not just a social movement or ideaology. One of the traits of this “person” will be the way he refers to Jesus. He will deny that Jesus was the Chist (or messiah) and also his relationship to the father, namely as being his son.

Now, in our day and age, if you were looking for a “major player” organization in the world who put forth these ideas, you would look staight at Islam. It is the top religion in the world with over 1.4 billion people who are members.

If you were to talk to some moderates of the Islamic faith you would find that they admit that Islamics and Christians have much of the same points of belief. We believe in the God of Abraham, the Torah, the Psalms and the four gospels. A big difference is that they contend that the translation of the Bible has been changed by the Jews. They will tell you that it is the Qu'ran that has the original translation. Fasting, praying, tithing, angels, judgment, hell, paradise and charity are also a part of the Muslim faith as it is a part of Christianity. But the interesting thing about this is how they think about Jesus.

I would tell them that Jesus was concieved by the Holy Spirit inside of the virgin Mary, and they would tell me that the Qu'ran includes that. I would tell them that it was a supernatural birth and they would agree. But when I tell them that he was and is the Son of God, all common things take a severe turn at this point. They don’t believe that Alla has a son, they’ll tell you he was not begotten and does not beget. Jesus, they say, is equal to one of the 27 prophets of the Old Testament; Abraham, David, Isaiah and so forth. But, they stop short at agreeing that Jesus was the Son of God.

This is where all arguments come down to one point, even in the United States today, as scripture pointed out, Jesus is the great divider. If you do away with Jesus as the Son of God, you eliminate his priesthood, and if you do that, you have no other way to arrive in heaven after death. So therfore, you have to come up with another way to get there. Every “religion” on the Earth is like this. Man must “reach up” in some way to get to God. But with Christianity, God reached down to us to offer a way of grace.

You see, most Muslims don’t really know if they are going to heaven when they die. They will inform you that they have to wait unitl they are there in front of God himself, and they step on a big scale. If they have done enough good works, then the good works will outweigh the evil they have done and they will be allowed into paradise. I find that to be a rather difficult way to live, not knowing where you’ll end up while you are still living here on Earth. What an incredible pressure on your life to pray constantly and do good works constantly, never knowing how the measurements will one day work out.

This pressure is part of the reason for the “fanatic” side of Islam, which believes it has solved this issue. Namely, “Jihad” or Holy War, the killing of innocent people. Do you realize why they get so worked up over a suicide bomber? Among the Shia and Sunni raidcals, Hezbollah and such, if you die in the Holy War, it firmly cements your entry into paradise. No need to guess, or make five times a day prayers or give alms to the poor. The young boys in these groups are told that if they die in the Jihad, then they will be given entrance to paradise and receive 72 full bodied virgins all dressed in linen for them to copulate with. (And guess what? They are PERPETUAL virgins!)

Now, you take some poor kid in a refugee camp who has nothing, (and a big part of it is that THEY are keeping them poor, that’s the PLO who has billions of dollars in bank accounts that don’t go to their own people), and you blame Israel whom you have centuries of conflict with, how can a young person NOT be a suicide bomber?

Now not only does the boy get 72 virgins but there is automatic entry to paradise for 25 other members of the family. So the young men and women who blow themselves up and take others with them, die as heroes in the same way veterans of foreign wars are celebrated every year in this country. There are no scales and judgement. They are martyrs for their own family.

In Christianity we stipulate that God sent his own Son to die on the cross to make a way for all mankind to get to paradise, and yet Islamic extremists believe they have to kill their own sons and daughters to get to paradise. Sounds a little like what was going on in Babylon with Marduk, thousands of years ago, when they would throw their young into a furnace to appease him.

There is much more to this, and I hope you take it in the educational manner in which it is meant. There will be quite a few follow-ups this month, I am keeping things short with each post, just so you don’t get eye strain looking into the monitor for too long. See you next time for part two.

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Reviews by Hubie Goode: Brothers


BROTHERS


Tommy : Jake Gyllenhaal
Grace : Natalie Portman
Sam : Tobey Maguire
Hank : Sam Shepard
Elsie : Mare Winningham

Lionsgate presents a film directed by Jim Sheridan. Screenplay by David Benioff, based on the m tion picture “Brothers,” written by Susanne Bier and Anders Thomas Jensen. Running time: 110 minutes. Rated R (for language and some disturbing violent content).

The little movie that could. This film was released on December 4th and I just got around to it this week. Amazingly, the theater was very full, even after all this time. That’s an unusual thing from what I have seen, and probably due to not only the wide selection that has been available as we traveled through the holiday season, but also the lagging economy and high unemployment that most people are trying to get away from for two or more hours.

You might think at first that this would be a “chick” flick or even something “soapy” in a movie format, but you would be mistaken. Badly mistaken. Here a family is transformed from its usual makeup by the father leaving for military service in Afghanistan, just at the same time his brother is released from prison.

Tobey Maguire is Captain Sam Cahill, the father afore mentioned who is married to lovely Grace, played by Natalie Portman, and they are parents of two sweetheart little girls named Isabelle and Maggie. The brother, Tommy, is Jake Gyllenhaal and he has just served time for armed robbery. They are, of course, the good son and the bad son. Their father (Sam Sheppard) makes no private matter of his love for one and disdain for the other.

It’s not a problem to reveal that the good son is reported killed in a chopper crash while serving. This is where you might think this was a soap opera played out on the screen, for the “bad” son does his best to help out his brother’s family while finding himself in the unenviable position of perhaps picking up with his brother’s wife where the “good” son left off. I am happy to report, melodrama does NOT ensue.

Natalie Portman’s Grace handles the crisis with heartfelt maturity and no flailing of arms and breaking of dishes, instead she quietly morns in her own way while focusing on the hurts and pains of her adorable daughters. When the moment does come for Grace and Tommy to perhaps explore budding feelings that have developed as they have been in close proximity while pulling the weight of family loss, her logic and self control nevertheless win out.

That’s not what this movie is about though. It’s about the return of Sam after a period of time spent in captivity by the Taliban, his mental and emotional scarring received from being put in a position of almost unimaginable torture and grief. During his captivity, he and another soldier, a private under his command are starved and tortured in the hopes of doing propaganda for the Taliban to send back to the states. Sam orders his private to tell them NOTHING. And indeed, even though he is burned and beaten, he follows orders. This leads the Taliban to decide that the private is of no use to them, only a drag on their resources. They then force Sam to come up with a solution to their problem, at gun point.

Sam returns home, wild eyed and haunted by things only he can see inside his own head. Despite his family’s joyus reaction to having him home and alive, he is not present, he cannot respond to them as he would seem more concerned with staring into space or out of windows at first. Eventually he begins to relax and then also begins to suspect that Tommy and Grace have been intimate. He doesn’t put it in those terms, but I have to say if you are going to use the F-bomb to great effect, this would be the time. (Are you listening Seth Rogen?) Unfortunately, in his state of scarred suspicion and guilt he can’t believe anyone’s denials and this escalates within him as he deeply resents the card that life has played him. It’s unfortunate because, with not real target to take it all out on, he “swings for the cheap seats” at his own loved ones.

Toby Maguire digs deep in his big emotional break down scene as the underpinnings of his character’s sanity finally begin to collapse. A brand new kitchenette freely built by Tommy for Grace is summarily destroyed in a fit of uncontrolled pique that leads to gun play, police, a stand off and a tense scene that follows that had the whole theater expecting the worst at any moment. Riveting stuff.

I don’t think I could be an actor, I couldn’t do what Maguire does to himself, to myself.

Mostly this movie is about unforgivable guilt, and the inability to “unsee” what you have seen. As Sam drowns in his own mental darkness, his brother seeks to find his Dad’s love and the acceptance of his family who has no doubt branded him as the bad one. Portman is not just another pretty face either, she shows heart and spine while caught in an untenable position.

An undeniably adult movie, that is it will be beyond the scope and breadth of a younger set, which doesn’t try for the cheap TV direction and mass appeal for ticket sales as do most. It’s somber, thoughtful and not a little too overstimulating at times, but that’s the hallmark of a well done piece. As the consistent box office over the last month is proving, people WILL pay to see excellence on a small scale.

4 out of 5 Stars

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Reviews by Hubie Goode: Sherlock Holmes


SHERLOCK HOLMES


Holmes : Robert Downey Jr.
Watson : Jude Law
Lord Blackwood : Mark Strong
Irene Adler : Rachel McAdams
Mary : Kelly Reilly

Warner Bros. presents a film directed by Guy Ritchie. Written by Michael Robert Johnson, Anthony Peckham and Simon Kinberg. Based on the stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. Running time: 128 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for intense sequences of violence and action, some startling images and a scene of suggestive material).

Considering Sherlock Holmes, it might be best not to expect to see the classical version. In this incarnation, he and Watson are more Batman and Robin than the old school vision of intellectual genius and his nervous yet doting side kick. This is a much more physical oriented contrivance here filled with a few cartoon type characters and wild, comic book type moments of tense action peril. Today’s audience will love it. Those with a purist stance will not.

The usual “true to form” Holmes is a stickler for his “religious” routine. Bad guys and the convoluted case load comes and goes up the walk of 221 B Baker St., but within his tower of solitude, Holmes always remains the same. In this exterior of jolly old London, the city is grey and greenish like the advertising colors would suggest. London is dirty and bereft of aesthetic beauty, but this allows for all the more color to be displayed by Robert Downey Jr., as Holmes himself.

In this version Watson is no longer the nervous nelly who is fascinated with Holmes’ every move. He now is an “odd couple” roommate who has decided to marry a woman named Mary, much to Holmes’ shock and awe. After all, surely he himself, is more than enough to keep Watson from needing any other life except to stand by and watch his borderline “Rain man” operations. Well, that’s not entirely fair, Watson does more than simply stand by and watch, he too is more than capable of handling the fisticuffs and near death experiences that inevitably follow Holmes. In fact, he may be a little addicted to those experiences himself. The problem for Watson is that he doesn’t posses the wide open mental presence of Holmes, who seems aware of everything around him, even the odds of multiple futures for current events. A heady drug to witness and forget for sure.

Downey does a great job of presenting us with a Holmes who is borderline insane, but never goes over the edge; no doubt due to the immense power he has of handling his own hyper mind. A feat in itself. What, no Jackson Pollack paintings? He is also a great fighter, who can plan his next seven punches and kicks in his mind with lightning fast administration quickly followed with pinpoint accuracy a moment later in the real world. His ability to predict the eventual outcome of a recently imagined fight just before it happens, and then to pull it off without a hitch, is just plain otherworldly.

Satanist, Lord Blackwood, played by Mark Strong, is the bad guy here, and he is foiled by Holmes in a devil sacrifice in the opening of the film, with grand fashion. His character is sent to the gallows and hung, only to return in a sensationalized resurrection of sorts. The begins a series of events not unlike the old Batman series where Holmes must outwit Blackwood’s “peril setups” on the way to the final big scene. One of these scenes is so “Batman”, the old 60’s Batman that is, that it had me smiling and waiting for the echoed laughter of a far off Joker.

The heroine, Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams), is captured by Blackwood and hung by her wrists to a conveyor belt in a slaughter house. She can’t be removed for some reason, and before her are the subsequent skinned carcasses of pigs that are about to be sectioned in two by a long buzz saw at the end of the line. We watch in tense amazement-excitement as Holmes and Watson spring into action to stop the conveyor belt before it reaches our fetching heroine, who by the way is very very fetching. Naturally, of course, the tension is heightened as one by one the pig carcasses are sliced into two parts, first one then the next one and as they slice apart our hanging heroine is closer and closer to sure Hollywood horror film death. Will Holmes and Watson find a way to save her??? Will they do it just at the last second??? You tell me.

Many of the scenes are old school like this and they seem retreaded for the modern audience, sugar coated by Downey’s performance, who seems to know what kind of hero audiences are drawn to these days. There is even a final battle scene above the city on London bridge, which isn’t quite falling down yet but is in the middle of being built. Sword fights and Karate ensue, along with more and more peril. But Holmes is never quite moved by all of this, except perhaps by Adler herself, but then who could blame him?

I did find some of his mental configuring to be a bit of a stretch and the movie makers put him in an uncomfortable position at one point due to this stretching, which was a nice touch. I refer to the dinner scene with Watson’s betrothed. But when he sees Moriarity for the first time, he notices chalk on Moriarity’s lapel and deduces that he is indeed a professor. I couldn’t help thinking to myself, “Good thing he doesn’t play pool at the local billiards room.” I know when I play, I get chalk all over my hands, and this doesn’t make me a professor.

The Conan Doyle stories created a magical mental giant and Downey now gives us the same man with pecs and Jacki Chan fighting skills. In a time when everything is being re-created for a new audience, this is no big surprise, the pursuit of capital inevitably leads down this road, especially with proven concepts. Nothing is sacred anymore, as long as we can re-do it and make the subsequent financial gain. It’s in one sense a sad thing to see, but in another sense, when your core audience for almost all entertainment these days doesn’t go far beyond 22 years, it is logically a sign of the times.

4 out of 5 stars

Monday, December 28, 2009

Reviews by Hubie Goode: Avatar


Avatar



(or Captain Kirk falls in love with Mirimani)

Jake Sully : Sam Worthington
Neytiri : Zoe Saldana
Grace : Sigourney Weaver
Col. Miles Quaritch : Stephen Lang
Trudy Chacon : Michelle Rodriguez
Parker Selfridge : Giovanni Ribisi
Norm Spellman : Joel David Moore
Moat : CCH Pounder
Eytukan : Wes Studi
Tsu’tey : Laz Alonso
Dr. Max Patel : Dileep Rao
Corporal Lyle Wainfleet : Matt Gerald

20th Century Fox presents film written and directed by James Cameron. Running time: 163 minutes. MPAA rating: PG-13 (for intense epic battle sequences and warfare, sensuality, language and some smoking).

What are the inner workings of man such that we long for peace with our own natural surroundings? Watching this movie I was, myself, reminded of that natural pull back to a place where we as a people are more in tune with nature instead of having to sacrifice it in order to maintain progress. While the native planet of Pandora is no Garden of Eden, you can almost feel angelic breezes as they drift through the trees. What a peaceful place this would be to live. No credit card bills. No unemployment. Just like the Native American Indian, you live in sync with the “buffalo” who willingly give their lives for your sustenance, knowing full well they will return again to fulfill their destiny.

Anyone who wants to get a real feeling for the position of the native American Indian need only rent the cable series by Steven Spielberg called “In to the West”. The local natives on the far off planet of Pandora are huge blue skinned ectomorphs who live in much the same fashion in their native land. The land “knows” them and they know the land as well. They can leap from giant leaf to giant leaf without a thought of a lack of health insurance. They can “connect” by means of cords in their hair to giant flying lizards who soar in the skies like old west wild mustangs on the open plains.

It’s a very attractive idea, this being able to move about at will within your environment. Of course, it can also be rather perilous with all the quasi rhinos and panthers who are bigger than two story houses. They all seem very familiar in their attitudes also. Despite the Eden like surroundings, Pandora is no place to take the food chain lightly. One can end up as lunch quite easily, so I suppose the Lion and the Lamb aren’t quite ready to lie down together here either. The effects that bring all this to life are the best so far BAR NONE. I had become tired of the bad CGI that tried to create ordinary animals, such as wolves which looked exactly like computer generated wolves. To experience Avatar’s techno is well worth the price of a ticket. It’s plot, however, is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

It’s the year 2154, and a mission by U. S. Armed Forces to the earth-sized moon, called Pandora, in orbit around a massive star, must find a way to extract a valuable resource metal from beneath a huge tree which houses a large number of the planets inhabitants. Watching Avatar, I had to wonder if William Shatner recognized parts of the plot line when he viewed the movie, if he did. I am sure he did.

Officer Jake Sully is a U.S. Marine who must take his brother’s place in a diplomatic experiment to infiltrate the locals, called Na’vi, whose “tree of life” sits over rich deposits of much needed metal that the military is there to take back with them one way or another. In one sequence, Jake avatar tells the Na’vi people that the “aliens”, that’s you and me, killed their mother, there is no more green where they come from. Okay, that’s a bit hard to believe for anyone who knows how the ecosystem works. For one thing, the Earth itself would never allow it, and as we sit in theaters watching this obvious political statement, the Earth is already fighting back. But I don’t want to anthropomorphize the planet. Just think about how much oxygen the green on earth produces to support the planet. Do you think any man made thing in existence could create this much oxygen on a regular basis? No oxygen, no military flying to far off planets.

But I digress.

Among the absolutely breathtaking scenery of the contrived planet Pandora takes place a love story. You and I have seen this love story. I specifically remember it from an old episode of Star Trek involving the American Indian types of a far off planet. I mention William Shatner for this reason, since he and Scully are practically in the same boat with only a few plot deviations. Once beyond those deviations the movie becomes “A Man Called Horse”.

But, you know what, a story is a story, and this one was not too bad. I especially liked the signalling between the leads which was magnified by the CGI effects. Zoe Saldana plays Neytiri, the yellow eyed heroine, daughter of the tribe chief, who is everything you want in a modern woman who can bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan. She is the only one with the huge yellow eyes in the angular head, on purpose of course, since she will be signalling psychological attractiveness to all the males in the audience. Every other Na’vi seems to be reasonably proportioned with eyes. And just so you don’t lose your place, they all have thick lips like natives of another country except for the Avatar that is created from a tube for the hero Jake Sully. His thin lips are a dead giveaway.

They all fly around the planet like you wish you could have when you were a kid, providing everything you need to graze like cattle while battling giant beasts, never having to come in and have dinner because it’s getting too dark outside and you haven’t done your homework yet. Unfortunately, all this living by the seat of your pants with no progression is exactly the kind of thing that made the native Americans Indians sitting ducks for the higher advanced Europeans who took their land away. Without a concentration on furthering one’s education, you just float. Whether you are an individual or an entire nation of Polynesians living in the south sea pacific islands.

Advancement in education and a minimizing of concentration on the visceral qualities of our lives is what moves societies forward, unfortunately those societies become too big and move in to other areas, taking the land of those who do not progress. It’s just the way it happens. And conversely also, as advanced societies crumble, a major faction of the society heads toward a concentration of the visceral, even wanting government help to maintain something that could well be a cancer to their own existence. For without the practical, and the industrial, the arts and the visceral cannot survive. A colony of artists would starve to death without the surrounding industrial complex. Of course, competition plays a major role in this too.

But understand, if indeed the Earth people are as advanced as the military in Avatar and the Earth is indeed in DEEP dire straights, they will be back. This time though, there will be NO dialog. There will be no diplomatic attempts to work out a deal. They will simply hang in the air with their weapons of destruction helicopters from a mile away and bomb the natives out of existence. Try and shoot an arrow from a mile away this time, blue boy!

I also have to say that giving the military a short shrift in the movies is becoming a cliche’. Really, if the military doesn’t do it’s job, you and I are goose-stepping in kimonos today. Just watching the expressions of the actors who are the soldiers, I had to wonder if anyone walked off of the set refusing to smile and nod as they were instructed to destroy thousands of years of racial memory in the inhabitants. You think the military is really like this? Those are people too, and it would be more of an inner organizational struggle than one lone rouge chopper pilot who defects. (Believe me, in real life, the next move is invasion not just mineral extraction.)

Anyhow, I think Avatar is indeed a must see for the big screen, small DVD TV screens just won’t take you to Pandora the way an IMAX will, and since you WILL enjoy the time well spent during all of the events, even those that seem to be repeated a second time only on a grander scale, it’s by no means a loss to you as many movies are these days. I say that because there is more than enough story to go all the way to the end, instead of just quitting on the narration 3/4 ths of the way through and giving you action scenes for 45 minuets, like say, Transformers did.

Go See it! 4.5 out of 5

Escape The Hezbollah