Thursday, February 28, 2008
A Very Thought-Provoking Movie
Peace and blessings,
Given the recent post on Phillip Johnson's "Darwin on Trial," I am really looking forward to the movie
Monday, October 15, 2007
News Updates: Income Gap Out of Control; Life Imitating Art?
Peace and blessings,
Below are a couple of news updates. Take care, have a blessed day, and speekonit...
1) The income gap is getting more out of control
2) Murder inspired by a movie?
Below are a couple of news updates. Take care, have a blessed day, and speekonit...
1)
2)
Labels: income gap, movie, murder
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Movie Previews: Summer of the Super
Peace and blessings,
For us superhero and cartoon fans, the summer of 2007 is going to be one for the ages. The concluding sequel to the Spider-Man trilogy (May '07), the sequel to the Fantastic Four (June '07), and the Transformers (July '07) are each making their way to the big screen. Check out the out the trailers for each movie, and weigh in on which of these are you most looking forward to seeing this summer. Have a blessed day and speekonit...
For us superhero and cartoon fans, the summer of 2007 is going to be one for the ages. The concluding sequel to the Spider-Man trilogy (May '07), the sequel to the Fantastic Four (June '07), and the Transformers (July '07) are each making their way to the big screen. Check out the out the trailers for each movie, and weigh in on which of these are you most looking forward to seeing this summer. Have a blessed day and speekonit...
Labels: Fantastic Four, movie, Spiderman, summer, Superheroes, Transformers
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Movie Preview
Peace and blessings,
I pray all is well. Below is the trailer for the movie "The Nativity Story," which is basically the prequel to the life of Jesus. It chronicles the lives of Mary and Joseph, and the social, political, and spiritual climate of the times leading up to the birth of Jesus. It looks promising. I think it comes out December 1st. Check it out and let me know what you think. Speekonit...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Wrs3KJMZ34
I pray all is well. Below is the trailer for the movie "The Nativity Story," which is basically the prequel to the life of Jesus. It chronicles the lives of Mary and Joseph, and the social, political, and spiritual climate of the times leading up to the birth of Jesus. It looks promising. I think it comes out December 1st. Check it out and let me know what you think. Speekonit...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Wrs3KJMZ34
Labels: Jesus Christ, Joseph, Mary, movie, Nativity Story, political, social, spiritual
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
A perspective on "The Passion"
Peace and blessings,
I came across this clip the other day and I thought it was an interesting stance to take on the movie "The Passion of the Christ." In this clip, Cornel West talks about the socio-political contexts of the Roman empire during Jesus' time and the "American" empire today, and how his view the former was not adequately addressed in the film. Enjoy and speekonit...
I came across this clip the other day and I thought it was an interesting stance to take on the movie "The Passion of the Christ." In this clip, Cornel West talks about the socio-political contexts of the Roman empire during Jesus' time and the "American" empire today, and how his view the former was not adequately addressed in the film. Enjoy and speekonit...
Labels: Cornel West, movie, Passion of the Christ, Roman empire
Saturday, October 07, 2006
Recommended movie!
Peace and blessings,
I've been meaning to put up a trailer for a movie that I saw a couple of months back, and within a week or so of renting it I purchased it online. It's called "the Second Chance" and it's about the politics and inequality that exists among two sister churches and their respective communities (one church is in the suburbs and the other in the urban city). I thought the movie was very good simply because it was a Christian film (of which we need more mainstream access to), but because it dealt with alot of social issues that I think are not always addressed among and between the body of Christ and people in general. When u get a chance, rent the movie and/or cop it and let me know what you think. Have a blessed weekend, and speekonit...
I've been meaning to put up a trailer for a movie that I saw a couple of months back, and within a week or so of renting it I purchased it online. It's called "the Second Chance" and it's about the politics and inequality that exists among two sister churches and their respective communities (one church is in the suburbs and the other in the urban city). I thought the movie was very good simply because it was a Christian film (of which we need more mainstream access to), but because it dealt with alot of social issues that I think are not always addressed among and between the body of Christ and people in general. When u get a chance, rent the movie and/or cop it and let me know what you think. Have a blessed weekend, and speekonit...
Labels: Christian, church, economic, movie, Second Chance
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Everyone playing their part?
Peace and blessings,
First off, I must apologize for the long hiatus, but this past month has been hectic with graduations and moving and all. But as always, I'm back like I left something. The focus of today's entry is something that has been on my mind for a little over a month during a course I was taking. In one of the required readings, Michael Resnick (1996) argues that people tend to view things from a centralized mindset, namely that massive or large-scale events/phenomena are caused by a "central" source. Common examples of this type of thinking include the belief that the productivity of hundreds of worker ants and bees is the result of their respective queens. He further contends that this way of thinking is misguided, because these and other phenomena are not the result of a central source, but of the combined choices and actions of individual agents. To illustrate this idea, Resnick (1996) and colleagues developed a computer program called StarLogo, which allows people to experience various ways in which individual agents work to create unintended phenomena. For example, high school students were able to alter the rules of different StarLogo environments (e.g. cars in traffic, turtles moving in particular directions, and termites picking up wood chips) and see how a series of individual actions can create massive results. To the students' surprise, they found that without a "central" cause, cars eventually formed a traffic jam, the turtles still organized in clusters, and termites still stacked wood chips in a pile. Although these activities may not seem that important, it is the idea behind these activities that we must consider: Individual choices and actions are important, and collectively they are powerful.
Once this idea was made clear to me, I started to think about a movie I recently saw, V for Vendetta. In a nutshell, the movie was about a man who sought to achieve justice on behalf of all the people who lost their lives in the past and are currently being deceived, due to the lives and cover ups of a corrupt government. Sounds familiar? Examples of such lies and cover-ups addressed in the movie include immoral medical experiments resulting in the deaths of many people, and government-fueled ideologies that elicit fear and compliance. Again, sound familiar? I don't know about you, but the syphilis experiments in Tuskegee and the "war on terror" comes to mind for me. Although the movie included good action scenes and the main character was very fascinating, the most significant scenes in the movie came not from the main character, but from the actions of the "community." by 'community" I am referring to the everyday citizens who realized they were being deceived and collectively did something about it non-violently. After discovering "the truth" about their government, huge multitudes of people marched to a central location (for the specific reason of the march and location, go peep the movie) and the government powers nor law enforcement could stop the because it too many people on one accord for a righteous cause. The most memorable line in the movie for me was the statement: "the people should not be afraid of their government, the government should be afraid of its people." While most of us would agree with the first part, we rarely focus on the second part. Governments should "govern" its citizens in a way that reflects not so much fear in terms of being scared of its citizens, but fear in the sense that the government respects its citizens enough to the point where it is afraid to deceive and disappoint them. There's all this propaganda and focus on how much love citizens don't have, have, or should have for their country (i.e. patriotism), but I pray that the hearts and minds of all governmental officials are oriented towards showing love, devotion, and allegiance to its citizens.
In sum, I wanted to draw-out a connection I made between the StarLogo program and "V for Vendetta." Although the former is a computer program and the latter a major motion picture, the common thread is that they both demonstrate the power of individual choices and actions. Further, they show how agents can create massive change by each playing their role in collective action. It doesn't happen often, but it puts a smile on my face when education and popular culture converge for a cause worth considering.
Source: Resnick, M. (1996). Beyond the centralized mindset. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 5(1), 1-22
First off, I must apologize for the long hiatus, but this past month has been hectic with graduations and moving and all. But as always, I'm back like I left something. The focus of today's entry is something that has been on my mind for a little over a month during a course I was taking. In one of the required readings, Michael Resnick (1996) argues that people tend to view things from a centralized mindset, namely that massive or large-scale events/phenomena are caused by a "central" source. Common examples of this type of thinking include the belief that the productivity of hundreds of worker ants and bees is the result of their respective queens. He further contends that this way of thinking is misguided, because these and other phenomena are not the result of a central source, but of the combined choices and actions of individual agents. To illustrate this idea, Resnick (1996) and colleagues developed a computer program called StarLogo, which allows people to experience various ways in which individual agents work to create unintended phenomena. For example, high school students were able to alter the rules of different StarLogo environments (e.g. cars in traffic, turtles moving in particular directions, and termites picking up wood chips) and see how a series of individual actions can create massive results. To the students' surprise, they found that without a "central" cause, cars eventually formed a traffic jam, the turtles still organized in clusters, and termites still stacked wood chips in a pile. Although these activities may not seem that important, it is the idea behind these activities that we must consider: Individual choices and actions are important, and collectively they are powerful.
Once this idea was made clear to me, I started to think about a movie I recently saw, V for Vendetta. In a nutshell, the movie was about a man who sought to achieve justice on behalf of all the people who lost their lives in the past and are currently being deceived, due to the lives and cover ups of a corrupt government. Sounds familiar? Examples of such lies and cover-ups addressed in the movie include immoral medical experiments resulting in the deaths of many people, and government-fueled ideologies that elicit fear and compliance. Again, sound familiar? I don't know about you, but the syphilis experiments in Tuskegee and the "war on terror" comes to mind for me. Although the movie included good action scenes and the main character was very fascinating, the most significant scenes in the movie came not from the main character, but from the actions of the "community." by 'community" I am referring to the everyday citizens who realized they were being deceived and collectively did something about it non-violently. After discovering "the truth" about their government, huge multitudes of people marched to a central location (for the specific reason of the march and location, go peep the movie) and the government powers nor law enforcement could stop the because it too many people on one accord for a righteous cause. The most memorable line in the movie for me was the statement: "the people should not be afraid of their government, the government should be afraid of its people." While most of us would agree with the first part, we rarely focus on the second part. Governments should "govern" its citizens in a way that reflects not so much fear in terms of being scared of its citizens, but fear in the sense that the government respects its citizens enough to the point where it is afraid to deceive and disappoint them. There's all this propaganda and focus on how much love citizens don't have, have, or should have for their country (i.e. patriotism), but I pray that the hearts and minds of all governmental officials are oriented towards showing love, devotion, and allegiance to its citizens.
In sum, I wanted to draw-out a connection I made between the StarLogo program and "V for Vendetta." Although the former is a computer program and the latter a major motion picture, the common thread is that they both demonstrate the power of individual choices and actions. Further, they show how agents can create massive change by each playing their role in collective action. It doesn't happen often, but it puts a smile on my face when education and popular culture converge for a cause worth considering.
Source: Resnick, M. (1996). Beyond the centralized mindset. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 5(1), 1-22
Labels: action, choices, community, government, movie, people, revolutionary, truth, unity, V for Vendetta
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