Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

1.Could not manage to drag myself to my church today. It was cold and drizzling outside. The trees outside my window still have their leaves though. Did watch the sermon on my television set via You Tube. Once I figured out that I can still watch you tube videos on the big television set - I got hooked. They are free. There's ads. But still free. My tolerance for ads however is not high. But at least the ads don't interrupt church services - because that would be tacky?

The sermon was long and weirdly about combating racism, homophobia and xenophobia in Iowa. ( Read more... )

2. Watching Down Cemetery Road - the other series by Mick Herron, it's not as good as Slow Horses, although in a similar vein? It's British satire/mystery/thriller about the inept British Secret Service. (See people are the same everywhere - they are just as inept in Britain as they are in the US, and well everywhere else, national pride be damned. And British writers make fun of them.)

Emma Thompson is playing a private detective - who is sort of in the Gary Oldman role? With Ruth Wilson in the Jake Lowdon role, an art conservationist in over her head.

The set-up? Sarah (Ruth Wilson), after a building blows up near her house from an alleged gas explosion - she hunts for the little girl who survived the blast. When she gets a private investigator involved - things go a bit south, and she stumbles into more than she anticipated.

3. Inside with Michael Rosenbloom Podcasts (one of the better actor podcasters) interviewed Alison Mack, his former cast mate from Smallville, and former NXIUM cultist. She'd become the second in command. I watched it on Youtube on my television - and damn, it was moving. I cried during it.
( Read more... )

Alison Mack Interview with Michael Rosenbloom

Mack and Rosenbloom reiterate something I've long espoused - which is that people are more than one thing, and people for the most part aren't bad or good, they just do bad or good things? Our society has a tendency to demonize people not their actions. And Mack is right - our society is punitive and based on fear, and manipulates people with fear. I remember a prisoner at Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary telling me once that prison was about punishment not rehabilitation. And freeing folks from it - doesn't help, because we don't prep them for the outside world, and we don't provide them with employment.

That's not to say that there aren't people out there that are evil, and have a brain make up that is different than ours - sociopaths and psychopaths...are hard to understand. But even those are capable of good and bad things...it's never simple.

At any rate - it's an interesting podcast, and worth the watch.

[I've not watched the NXUIM documentary (but I know what it entailed), although I think I may have seen the Spieldberg one "Why We Hate".]

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It's been a quiet day. Did some watercoloring - didn't like the first painting, discarded it, working on another one. I don't know if I'll ever do anything with my paintings at the moment? Right now, just doing them for me.

Dinner was salmon, aspergus, celery and carrots - baked. Yesterday I made chili. This morning, a spinach, onion and feta cheese omelete with grits.
The grits took up the blood sugar.

End of November Mememage

30. Do you have any special plans for December?

Not really? I plan on taking some time off. And getting a PT evaluation next week. Also, maybe getting tickets to Brooklyn Botanical Gardens Light Show.

I don't do much for Xmas - so it's not that stressful for me. I have minimal decorations, and only a few gifts to buy.