It’s getting harder to just exist.  I watched Food, Inc. and I highly recommend it, but it so absolutely depressing that I don’t know what to do.  I can not just go to the grocery store and buy food anymore, not without worrying about what is actually in it and what it does not only to myself, but to the planet and society as a whole.  It seems as if we are now driven down one of two roads, one of just going about our day-to-day lives, working, eating, sleeping, watching television, reading a book, or whatever.  The second one is being nauseatingly aware of how the world is, and all of the cruelties, injustices and horrors that occur constantly, the wastefulness and consumerism, the exploitation, and then having to painstakingly research and grope about for ways of at least not being a part of any of that.  And it is just so distasteful, and exhausting.

Still, some effort must be made I suppose.  You can watch the file here for a few more days I believe.  For free, thanks to PBS, I really should donate money to them.  They do good work.  And I want to come back to this link for more information when time allows.

Now I shall worry about how much shit is in my lunch today.  Cor.

I watched Schultze Gets the Blues last night on streaming netflix. I won’t lie to you, this was a tough movie to watch, even though I was enthusiastic about it, and based on the synopsis alone I was wanting to like it. And I did enjoy it, very much, but it is a very slow film. The pacing crept, and the scenes can be very abrupt, I had to pay attention to have any idea what’s going on. Strangely, the audio was terribly uneven, and at points the dialogue wasn’t audible. The only way I knew that someone was speaking was due to the subtitles. I’m still not sure if this was on purpose or not, and I fretted that maybe there was something amiss with the HTPC. I had definitely expected something other than what this film ultimately produced, but I can’t say I was disappointed.
The film does have some amazing moments though, and a lot of the scenes are like portraits on film, like moving art. My favorite scenes include Schultze’s little blue boat (I still have no idea where the boat came from) sputtering across what I guess was a harbor as a giant tanker trundles toward it, and the elderly gentleman standing outside of a Louisiana honkytonk playing his fiddle. Oh, and the dancing inside the club made me smile, but there were a lot of memorable moments. And in general the whole film made me smile, it had some subtly hilarious moments encased in an ordinary man’s quest to seek out that which pleased his soul. Good stuff.
Rotten Tomatoes has a very good synopsis of the film here.

I stumbled against this at Uncle Warren’s site, and it is a film that I very much want to see:

I am against the border wall, though I have at times been for it. It is a difficult thing for me to process, illegal immigration, and let us all be clear that now-a-days when someone says illegal immigration they are talking about brown skinned people from Mexico, and Central America. Difficult because a person entering the US illegally has broken a law, and is therefore a criminal. Criminals should be punished, we don’t want more criminals here. That being said I don’t feel that this is the proper way to proceed, or think about the situation. Men, women and children are taking incredible risks to get to our country, and in many cases they are being maimed or killed in the attempt. They risk dying of exposure and dehydration crossing the desert, that is how bad the situation is in their home countries, that the risk is worth it.
We in the US may face some hardship by the presence of so many illegal immigrants in our country, maybe they use up our resources and take our jobs. But back at home illegal immigration is causing real suffering, families are at the very least broken apart, and sometimes destroyed forever. Communities and families may benefit from the money being sent back, but there are deep and sad wounds at the absence of so many. So we build a wall, a wall to keep them out, to keep us safe. I doubt that it will work, walls are easily breached when those outside the wall have the desperate incentive to get around them.
The US must have some compassion, we must find a way to allow immigrants to come into our country and work. And then leave if they want to, because I’m sure many would want to. We must also find a way to assist countries that are failing economically, because the US can not take in everyone. Building a wall will not fix the problem.