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Al-x wrote:

As for Will Smith: In his biography, he said he witnessed at 9 years old his father punch his mother in the head so hard that she fell and coughed up blood. That apparently affected him. He said that he felt powerless at 9, but now that he is older, he steps in to protect the women in his life. As for chuckling at first, he then turned to Jada, and after seeing the discomfort in her face, he went on stage. Now I am no psychologist, but it stands to reason that something went off in his head when he saw Jada’s expression, then he jumped in to defend her honor.

That story is tragic, but it doesn’t come close to justifying his actions here. Chris Rock didn’t punch Jada told a bad joke which offended her and Will Smith ought to have responded with words when he was accepting his award. Called Chris out and made him see the pain he had caused with his joke. That would be defending his wife’s honour. Instead he escalated the situation with violence and in that moment Will stopped being the powerless child and became his father. I’m sure something went off in his father’s head too and the result was his mother coughing up blood. I don’t think we should be defending Will for following that path.

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Martin Smith, Sean Robinson, Todd, Dave

With everything going on in the world right now, it’s great to hear a story about life triumphing in a place that’s mostly known for destruction. Really inspiring stuff.

From land mines to lifelines, Lebanon’s Shouf is a rare restoration success story

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Todd, njerry

Some more good news in these dark times
https://www.portugal.com/news/portuguese-government-announced-the-majority-of-ministers-are-women-for-the-first-time-ever/

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njerry, Christian, DavidM, Todd

This whole idea and article just made me smile, so I thought I’d share.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/03/16/baltimore-museum-art-guard-exhibit/

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njerry, Todd

garjones wrote:

It’d be good if he just said ‘see you later lads, I’m just off to the shops’ and he never returns. He’d be like Elvis then with random sightings in Gran Canaria and Salford.

The father of Christianity goes out of a pack of cigarettes and just keeps on driving.

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lorcan_nagle, Todd

https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/solar-power-renewable-energy-europe-b2036988.html

We still have a very long way to go, but it’s great to see that we’ve come so far.

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DavidM, Todd

Al-x wrote:

Here is a song that stands the test of time.

Cats in the cradle

I always associate that with this one:

“Father And Son”

[Father:]
It’s not time to make a change
Just relax, take it easy
You’re still young, that’s your fault
There’s so much you have to know
Find a girl, settle down
If you want you can marry
Look at me, I am old, but I’m happy

I was once like you are now, and I know that it’s not easy
To be calm when you’ve found something going on
But take your time, think a lot
Why, think of everything you’ve got
For you will still be here tomorrow, but your dreams may not

[Son:]
How can I try to explain, cause when I do he turns away again
It’s always been the same, same old story
From the moment I could talk I was ordered to listen
Now there’s a way and I know that I have to go away
I know I have to go

[Father:]
It’s not time to make a change (Away, away, away)
Just sit down, take it slowly
You’re still young, that’s your fault (I know)
There’s so much you have to go through (I have to make this decision)
Find a girl, settle down (Alone)
If you want you can marry
Look at me, (No) I am old, but I’m happy

[Son:]
All the times that I cried (Decision, decision, decision)
Keeping all the things I knew inside
It’s hard (Why must)
But it’s harder to ignore it (You go and make this decision)
If they were right, I’d agree (Alone?)
But it’s them they know not me
Now there’s a way and I know
That I have to go away
I know I have to go

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Rocket, njerry, Al-x

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

Isn’t the Biblical story that he was resurrected? That would mean Jesus lives.

Rather than Jesus died, we could say that Jesus left. From the Biblical account, he did die, was resurrected, spoke to his followers, and then ascended to heaven and has been gone since then. Whether Jesus is dead or just gone is a bit of a semantic argument as the important thing is that he is not here to tell us anything.

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Arjan Dirkse

[Tom Cat]

• This reply was modified 2 years, 10 months ago by Tom Cat.

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Rocket

Todd wrote:

What is your favorite way to consume cheese?

Any way it’s offered. Though there is something very special about a bacon and cheese toastie.

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Sean Robinson, njerry, Todd

lorcan_nagle wrote:

I’m Ingrate McTerrorism

I guess I’m Potato MacDrunkard then

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Todd, DavidM, lorcan_nagle

Al-x wrote:

Etiquette means manners, not making a scene, trolling, or having a public meltdown (#4)

Al-x wrote:

the customary code of polite behavior in society or among members of a particular profession or group.

You get that these aren’t the same thing, right?

Etiquette is following a formal set of rules, usually ones associated with class discrimination, but it can be the formal rules of a profession (such as how a lawyer must behave in court). Manners are technically just describing how you behave, but I assume you mean good manners which just means following cultural signals to ensure you are not inappropriately offending anyone. These are related, but distinct from each other. The main difference is that good manners are always in flux as society evolves. They change to reflect what people expect. Etiquette on the other hand is static and unchanging which is why you get odd things like lawyers wearing wigs in court.

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DavidM

Anonymous wrote:

First, as we’ve seen in the past, sanctions do not embolden populations but saps the public will. It will actually make the position of Putin and the Kremlin stronger in Russia. Second, who benefits really from the sanctions?

The sanctions are just a show of opposition to Russian actions. The risk to the world is too great for the west to get directly involved, but the people in western nations are demanding some action for our governments so something needs to be done. Sanctions tick that box for them.

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[Tom Cat]

Al-x wrote:

Etiquette means manners, not making a scene, trolling, or having a public meltdown (#4)

That’s an interesting definition of etiquette you have. Where did you find it because it doesn’t match the definition in any dictionary I’m aware of?

Al-x wrote:

First of all, proper forum etiquette in it’s most basic sense is not to derail a thread. Two to three people are not to go back and forth several pages in a thread. It is common practice to always take the back and forth elsewhere and let the thread continue. It was done in MW and it is done everywhere.

Do you have a link to the formal rules for posting here? I’m new around here and wasn’t aware that there is a limit to the length of a conversation on this forum. Is there something more specific that “several pages” because I find that to be a bit vague for a rule?

• This reply was modified 2 years, 10 months ago by Tom Cat.

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DavidM wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

when I tried to define classical music

Can you file the CD alphabetically by band name?

YES – it’s not classical music.

NO – it probably is.

What about classical boybands like The Three Tenors?

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DavidM

[Tom Cat]

garjones wrote:

lorcan_nagle wrote:

I’d call in Bruges an Irish movie. Written and directed by an Irishman, the two main actors are Irish…

Me too. You can’t be too purist about these things because most things that make a wide cinema release in the 21st century are international collaborations.

Hollywood is an increasingly abstract concept as almost no films are made there. Is a Spider-Man film American when the lead is British and the funding is from Japan? Yes I would say so because the thrust of the creative energy in the project is from the USA. I’d claim Pride and Submarine as Welsh films despite the fact that there are many nations involved in making them.

I don’t think it’s being purist exactly. It was a game where we each make a list and as it’s a game we set specific parameters to ensure we are on the same page for what the list is. That kind of rule is important for a game.

It’s also very difficult to define what counts as an Irish film. For example, you could legitimately argue that Space Truckers and Excalibur are Irish because they were filmed in Ireland and produced by an Ardmore Studios. They are included on Wikipedia’s list of Irish films, but if someone wanted an introduction to Irish cinema, they wouldn’t make my list of recommendations at all. On the other hand, if someone wanted an introduction to Welsh cinema, Submarine would be at the top of my list regardless of who was involved in the production because it’s a very Welsh film.

In Bruges is a lot more ambiguous. Depending how you choose to look at it there are compelling arguments that it is an Irish film and equally compelling arguments that it is not. On one hand, it is a character driven story with a very small cast where the two main actors/characters are Irish which makes a lot of the character interactions feel very Irish and so it feels like an Irish film. On the other hand, it is a film written and directed by a Londoner (albeit of Irish descent) loosely about two London hitmen hiding out in Belgium. None of the other characters are Irish and it’s not really about Ireland at all.

My reasoning for saying it didn’t count for the purposes of the list was that allowing it would open things up to having any film with Irish main characters potentially be considered Irish. It was simpler to have the list only allow films that are about Ireland in some way.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 10 months ago by Tom Cat.

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Dave

It’s not a hill that I’d die on really, but in order to have any hope of narrowing the list down to 5, we chose to define an Irish movie as being a bit more about Ireland. In Bruges is about two Irish hitmen from a London gang hiding out in Bruges.

Even then, I found it incredibly difficult to narrow it down. The only think that I knew for sure is that The Guard was going to be top of the list because I just love that movie.

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Dave

Interestingly, the term gaslighting comes from the 1944 movie Gaslight

Sorry, I didn’t mean to suggest that there isn’t any anti-Semitism. It very much exists. It’s just that actual anti-Semitism doesn’t get anywhere near as much attention. I searched for “anti-Semitism Amsterdam” and found only one article in the first few pages of Google that was addressing actual anti-Semitism. It was about some graffiti on a Jewish business.

As is traditional in Europe, we don’t really care about the genuine discrimination against Jewish people.

Yes it very much does. It’s probably Putin purposely throwing these tactics back at America.

I’ve also heard people saying that Donetsk and Luhansk want to be independent of Ukraine, which is being used to claim that Russia wants to “liberate” these areas rather than invade. Again a standard US propaganda tactic, this one used to make it seem like they are not the aggressors.

[Tom Cat]

Russia doesn’t need to have their population support their actions, the just need to have enough of the population support it that it appears that way. That doesn’t take very much at all, just interview a few hundred people and have them declare their support and it feels like that is the dominant opinion because it is too many for us to process.

Sometimes it doesn’t even take that. Like in the lead up to the Gulf War the US used the Nayirah testimony to justify action. This was a heart wrenching testimony of a 15 year old girl which was corroborated by Amnesty International and was cited frequently as rational for supporting the military actions. Later it was revealed that Nayirah was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the US and the testimony had been faked. One testimony from one teenager was enough to manufacture consent for a war. It was even worse after 9/11, but the US was in shock at the time which made it easy to just have a vague accusation of WMDs in Iraq and use that as an excuse to invade.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 10 months ago by Tom Cat.
• This reply was modified 2 years, 10 months ago by Tom Cat.

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I find there is very little genuine criticism of Israel that is anti-Semitic. People certainly use that criticism to add credence to their own anti-Semitic views, but that does not make the criticism less valid.

I’m not sure how it is elsewhere, but in Europe accusations of anti-Semitism have become an ad hominem fallacy rather than a genuine argument. We never get any discussion of what makes something anti-Semitic. It’s just blindly thrown at anyone who is critical of Israel or of western support for Israel. To my mind, that itself is anti-Semitic as it conflates the nation, and more specifically the government, of Israel with the Jewish race in general. It strips non-Israeli Jews of their identity and would label Jews who are critical of Israel as being anti-Semitic themselves.

Anonymous wrote:

Yuri Bezmenov was right, but the left wing “useful idiots” now include right wingers who think the Russians are the good guys.

 

The problem, as always, is that people only apply this kind of thinking to those they disagree with and never examine their own beliefs. So those “useful idiots” you are talking about have rejected the western narrative on the situation because they have rejected western mass media. That pushes them into the Russian counter-narrative which they accept as true because it opposes what they themselves blindly oppose.

When you do apply this thinking equally, the most reasonable conclusion is to accept that everything we know about the situation is at least partly propaganda. The thing about propaganda though is that it’s only effective if people accept it at face value. If we take a few moments to check if what is being said is true, it all falls apart. And that checking is easier now than it has ever been.

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garjones

Martin Smith wrote:

Janine is defanged and palmed off on Louis – her interest in Egon conveniently forgotten – that feels like the biggest disservice. She’s really a shell of her former self here.

There is an interesting aspect of this included in the movie. When Louis gets dressed up in the Ghostbusters gear and Janine zips him up, obviously very turned on by it, the name tag on the suit says Spengler. He is clearly a stand in for Egon in her eyes.

There are also some other indications that this is a relationship of convenience for Janine, such as when they are watching a movie and Louis won’t stop talking so she tries force feeding him popcorn in a vain attempt to get him to stop.

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Todd, Martin Smith

Hi everyone, I’m new here, though I’ve known Anders for a while… which is how I found this wonderful place.

Name: Tom
Age Range: Just turned 40 last week
Comics you’re currently buying: Mostly just read what people recommend these days, but when I was younger I collected Doctor Strange, Hellblazer, The Authority, Transmetropolitan, 100 Bullets and a few others.
Favorite Millar book? The Authority or Red Son
Favorite comic characters: Doctor Strange, John Constantine, and that lovable scamp Spider Jerusalem
Top TV shows right now: They keep cancelling my favourite shows like Firefly, and Altered Carbon. But I’ve still got The Expanse which makes me happy. Also Inside Job was better than I thought it would be… I’m looking forward to seeing where they go with it.
Best movie you saw in the last year: Ronin… it’s always Ronin.
Where do you live? Cork
Bank Account, Social Security Number, Mothers Maiden name? Yes, no, and Yes
What do you like about Millarworld The Carrier? It seems like a great community
If you could change one thing about the world, what would it be? Capitalism
If you could have one last meal before your glorious death in the Thunderball arena, what would you eat?  My opponent.
Top 5 fictional characters you’d go to Vegas with? Malcolm Reynolds, Sherlock Holmes, Kermit D. Frog, Jean-Luc Picard, and Bugs Bunny.
If you could visit one place, where would you go? Home
If you had to room with another Millarworlder, who would you pick? Anders

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Rocket, garjones, DavidM, Todd, JRCarter, Bruce