Finally!
The Detroit Lions after a very long time-yes since December 2007-have won a regular season game. Their 19 game losing streak is at an end and as the owner of the Lions put it so well yesterday in a post game interview with Fox 2-Detroit, “the monkey is off our backs, King Kong is off our backs and now we can start winning.”
The Lions have had a huge turn-over in staff, both coaching and players, that this team is an entirely different one from the past several years. Despite that this team still was caring the weight of last years horrible 0-16 record and with two losses to start this season it wasn’t making winning any easier.
Yet the Lions finally put together a strong performance that lasted the entire game. They had good defense that stopped Washington’s running game at the goal line when they needed. They were able to come up with an interception to stop a drive in the 4th quarter and despite giving Washington a last chance at the end they stopped them short of scoring and short of breaking our hearts again.
The Lions win came in front of what must have been one of the smallest crowds at Ford Field since the stadium opened. Just 40k+ came to see them play yesterday and who can blame us for not going? I sat at home and listened to the game and wondered and waiting and hoped that they’d finally win.
Perhaps now that the Lions have won one game this season it will be, as the Owner William Clay Ford predicts, easier to win. Hopefully this team can put behind that losing streak and move on with confidence to play the Bears next weekend in Chicago. A cold and unwelcoming place soldier Field will be to the Detroit Lions. May the win we just had this weekend keep them warm and may the memory of winning keep them confident enough to win again!
Lions 19 Redskins 14-Week #3
http://scores.espn.go.com/nfl/boxscore?gameId=290927008
Calgary Herald-Lions Win
http://www.calgaryherald.com/sports/Lions+King+Kong+their+backs/2041319/story.html
Espn recap Lions Win
http://scores.espn.go.com/nfl/recap?gameId=290927008
Monday, September 28, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
District 9 [2009]
When I first heard of this new film that Peter Jackson was involved in I was interested and excited, then I saw the preview and I was not sure I wanted to view the film. The previews made the film look very depressing. The plot presented was of a group of aliens who became lost and couldn’t get their ship to work and were stranded here on earth.
The trailer made it appear that the aliens lived in squalor and were being held captive by us humans here on earth. So much for ethical behavior among inter-species, but then what should I expect from a species that raises animals simply to kill them and eat them?
Putting the ethics of eating meat aside, the movie itself really was depressing to me. I viewed it last week hoping that I’d be wrong and it presented humans in a very realistic light. We care more about ourselves than anything else. I’m not talking about individual survival or survival of our species. Humans in real life care more about obtaining wealth, material objects and having “the good life” than working towards an ethical dispersal of goods and materials across the planet for the benefit of all of mankind, let alone all of the earth. We worry over global warming and the possibility of losing much of our country’s coastal areas in the next 100 years because of global warming and yet we over produce animals for food in the most disgusting of environments. People across the planet are starving and have no clean water to eat. People in our own country have nowhere to live and not enough food to eat and yet we still worry about getting the new PSP 3 on sale and buying the latest fashions and going to the most elite restaurants.
The film District 9 may be a parody of all of the above. While it may not be the writer and director’s intent to parody modern society they do present humans in a way that appears most revealing and most unflattering. Humans in the not so distant future have to “deal” with the arrival of a group of aliens who have gotten lost. They cannot return home as their ship doesn’t function. As a result of these events the country of South Africa-where the ship has arrived-forcibly removes the aliens from their ship and then makes them live in what amounts to concentration camps. They live in shacks made of cardboard, left over plywood and aluminum. They live in firth and garbage. They are shown scrounging through garbage for food and for whatever they can find to use for survival.
The film shows people being interviewed who have various reactions to the aliens. Some speak as if they are a blight to the world and just want them to leave and “go home” or “go back to where they came from”. Those being interviewed for the film also speak of the aliens as if they are not deserving of any respect and as if they aren’t intelligent and are some form of untouchable, a lower social class and don’t deserve to have a clean place to live or food to eat.
During the film one of the government workers who is been charged with moving the entire group of aliens-some 1+ million-from the current camp to a “newer and better camp” is laughing about the nickname the aliens have and laughing as one of them is scrounging through garbage. They aliens are called “prawns” because they are seen as bottom feeders by humans. We also see the official performing a mass “abortion” on a shack full of young “prawns” incubating. Afterwards he laughs about performing his first abortion.
Later in the movie this same official is exposed to an alien bio-technology which turns out to be fuel for their space ship. The fluid slowly turns the human into an alien and during the course of the human trying to regain his humanity we find that humans have been secretly experimenting on the aliens and trying to use alien technology for profit.
The story line is interesting but it is not a feel good movie with a happy ending, nor is it a scary-horror movie. This film presents humans in a very negative light which appears reminiscent to countless government regimes who exploit those with little power. It’s the story of the human race. I hope that it’s not one that will be repeated forever.
District 9 [2009]
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1136608/
Official Web Site-District 9
http://www.district9movie.com/
Monday, September 28, 2009
The trailer made it appear that the aliens lived in squalor and were being held captive by us humans here on earth. So much for ethical behavior among inter-species, but then what should I expect from a species that raises animals simply to kill them and eat them?
Putting the ethics of eating meat aside, the movie itself really was depressing to me. I viewed it last week hoping that I’d be wrong and it presented humans in a very realistic light. We care more about ourselves than anything else. I’m not talking about individual survival or survival of our species. Humans in real life care more about obtaining wealth, material objects and having “the good life” than working towards an ethical dispersal of goods and materials across the planet for the benefit of all of mankind, let alone all of the earth. We worry over global warming and the possibility of losing much of our country’s coastal areas in the next 100 years because of global warming and yet we over produce animals for food in the most disgusting of environments. People across the planet are starving and have no clean water to eat. People in our own country have nowhere to live and not enough food to eat and yet we still worry about getting the new PSP 3 on sale and buying the latest fashions and going to the most elite restaurants.
The film District 9 may be a parody of all of the above. While it may not be the writer and director’s intent to parody modern society they do present humans in a way that appears most revealing and most unflattering. Humans in the not so distant future have to “deal” with the arrival of a group of aliens who have gotten lost. They cannot return home as their ship doesn’t function. As a result of these events the country of South Africa-where the ship has arrived-forcibly removes the aliens from their ship and then makes them live in what amounts to concentration camps. They live in shacks made of cardboard, left over plywood and aluminum. They live in firth and garbage. They are shown scrounging through garbage for food and for whatever they can find to use for survival.
The film shows people being interviewed who have various reactions to the aliens. Some speak as if they are a blight to the world and just want them to leave and “go home” or “go back to where they came from”. Those being interviewed for the film also speak of the aliens as if they are not deserving of any respect and as if they aren’t intelligent and are some form of untouchable, a lower social class and don’t deserve to have a clean place to live or food to eat.
During the film one of the government workers who is been charged with moving the entire group of aliens-some 1+ million-from the current camp to a “newer and better camp” is laughing about the nickname the aliens have and laughing as one of them is scrounging through garbage. They aliens are called “prawns” because they are seen as bottom feeders by humans. We also see the official performing a mass “abortion” on a shack full of young “prawns” incubating. Afterwards he laughs about performing his first abortion.
Later in the movie this same official is exposed to an alien bio-technology which turns out to be fuel for their space ship. The fluid slowly turns the human into an alien and during the course of the human trying to regain his humanity we find that humans have been secretly experimenting on the aliens and trying to use alien technology for profit.
The story line is interesting but it is not a feel good movie with a happy ending, nor is it a scary-horror movie. This film presents humans in a very negative light which appears reminiscent to countless government regimes who exploit those with little power. It’s the story of the human race. I hope that it’s not one that will be repeated forever.
District 9 [2009]
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1136608/
Official Web Site-District 9
http://www.district9movie.com/
Monday, September 28, 2009
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