Category Archives: Night Writer

Friday Fundamentals in Film: Beyond the Gates of Splendor

Posted on by
2

I want to go in a little different direction with this week’s movie. Instead of a classic movie or a more contemporary film that illustrates strong values and virtues I want look at the documentary Beyond the Gates of Splendor. This documentary is the factual and very well done basis for the new movie in theaters now, End of the Spear (both were produced by the same people).

This is a very intense film that tells the story of the massacre of five missionaries in the 1950s by a primitive tribe of people in the jungles of Ecuador, and the subsequent and near miraculous actions of the families of the men to continue the work that they began — with the same tribe and individuals that killed their husbands and fathers.

While the story is nearly forgotten today, it was a major sensation at the time it happened. While it took place in the 1950s there are enough people still alive today to offer first hand accounts of the events. There is also a lot of home movie clips shot by the men that have been worked into the film. These accounts and film clips are especially moving and compelling elements of the documentary. The time that has passed also provides an interesting perspective when discussing how similar and different the world is now compared to then.

Beyond the Gates of Splendor begins almost as a National Geographic program as it details the primitive life of the Waodani tribe. It is a violent life where murder is the expected and accepted way of settling disputes. With six out of every 10 adult deaths attributed to homicide, the tribe is spearing itself into extinction. Then the focus shifts for a time to the background of the missionaries and their families. The five men — Nate Saint, Jim Eliot, Ed McCully, Pete Fleming and Roger Youderian — will certainly challenge the image some may have of what a missionary looks like. They were all young, handsome, fit, energetic and resourceful. They were leaders in everything they did and drew people to them; truly the flower of a generation. They literally could have done or been anything they wanted yet their hearts were for people in distant lands.

The second half of the documentary details their efforts in Ecuador and Peru and their initial and ingenious method for making contact with the Waodani and early successes. All is well until a young Waodani, to cover his own misbehavior, lies to the tribe about the men, resulting in the fatal assault party. If the film stopped here it would still be compelling, but the real story is just beginning as the wives, children and friends of the men continue to minister to the tribe over the next generation, leading to a spectacular turnaround — so much so that at one point one of the missionary’s daughters is baptized at the same spot in the river where her father was killed, with two of the men from the group that killed him participating in the ceremony. My kids were completely mesmerized by Beyond the Gates of Splendor and while it can be emotionally challenging at times, it is a stirring depiction of vision, commitment and faith.

Points to Ponder:

  • The Waodani society was based on two key values: egalitarianism and autonomy. No one could consider himself better than anyone else, but also, no one could get away with wronging another. With no institutionalized way of settling disputes, murder was the recourse of choice, often sparking a cycle of retribution. Does this sound familiar to other parts of the world or cities you know?

  • What is your conception of the mission field today? Do you think it is the same or different from 50 years ago?

  • What would you have done?

Questions to Answer:

  1. How did the men go about introducing themselves to the Waodani? Why did they do it this way?

  2. Nate Saint said “They’re not ready for ready for heaven, and we are,” in explaining why the men had decided not to use guns even to defend themselves. What did he mean by that?

  3. What were the circumstances that led up to the attack? Could they have been prevented?

  4. Why did the women return to the Waodani?

  5. What effect did all of this have on the Waodani?

Chris Coleman on right path to reduce St. Paul emissions

Posted on by
1

New St. Paul mayor Chris Coleman kept a campaign pledge by signing the U.S. Mayor’s Climate Protection Agreement committing the city to align itself with the Kyoto accords. According to an article in the Strib:

The agreement will require the city, by 2012, to reduce pollution from cars and power plants to 1990 levels. What the city must do to get there will be hammered out in the next six months.

“We no longer can pretend this is not a serious issue or one that we don’t need to address,” Coleman said.

Although his predecessor, Randy Kelly, criticized the agreement during the 2005 campaign as “useless symbolism,” Coleman defended it as a way to try to “force leadership on a national level.”

Coleman joined mayors in 200 cities around the country who have signed the agreement, including those in Minneapolis, Apple Valley, Eden Prairie and Duluth.

The agreement challenges cities to meet or beat the conditions of the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement to address climate change that took effect in February 2005.

People say Coleman will be spectacularly ineffective but I think he can really pull this off. By the time he institutes smoking bans in private businesses and raises taxes to pay for the environmentally friendly initiatives he’ll have so gutted the city that hitting the emissions targets will be a snap. Think of it, no reason to go downtown, so fewer cars — and just think about how nice it will be without all those people exhaling carbon dioxide everywhere! Furthermore with less business and fewer people there’ll be less need for power and therefore fewer nasty power plant emissions!

Another one of the objectives from the agreement is to “reduce sprawl and increase open space.” Done! There will be lots of wide, open space in St. Paul.

Oh well, I suppose I need to be more realistic. Given the “success” that those progressive and green-thinking Europeans have had in meeting (not) their targets (see here) the objectives won’t be reached. Not that the city won’t die trying, though.

If Coleman is really serious about cutting emissions in our capitol city a good start would be cutting the amount of time the state legislature is in session by half. Signing a decree to that effect will have about as much impact as what he signed yesterday.

No way to treat a Lady: is The View anti-Dame?

Posted on by
Reply

Three network news and talk shows, including the all-woman show, The View, may have declined to interview Dame Judi Dench because she was too old. At least, that is the claim of Harvey Weinstein, co-founder of Miramax Films and head of the company distributing “Mrs. Henderson Presents”, for which Dench received an Oscar nomination earlier this week.

NEW YORK (AP) — Harvey Weinstein says Judi Dench was snubbed by three network talk shows because of her age while promoting “Mrs. Henderson Presents,” according to New York magazine.

Dench, 71, was nominated Tuesday for an Oscar for her performance in the film, which was distributed by Weinstein’s new production company, The Weinstein Co.

Weinstein, who co-founded Miramax Films, says Dench was turned down for interviews by NBC’s “Today” show and ABC’s “Good Morning America” and “The View.”

“They said that she didn’t fit their demographics,” the outspoken movie mogul tells the magazine in this week’s issue.

This could be a calculated claim on Weinstein’s part to create more buzz about the film, and the full text of the above article includes statements from The Today Show, Good Morning America and The View disputing (somewhat nervously) that age is the reason they declined opportunities to interview the actress who previously won an Oscar for Shakespeare in Love.

Would The View turn it’s tailored back on an older woman? You wouldn’t think so, not with Barbara Walters (who’s 40+ years in the business would mathematically make her much closer to Dame Judi than the target demographic) as co-host, co-owner and co-executive producer. If so, however, this is almost cosmically laughable. Surely there must have been some other reason? Perhaps the ladies were trying to hold a space open for James Frey.

Paying more to get ‘less

Posted on by
2

Here at the villa of the Night we like cordless phones with a base unit and extra handsets because when you’ve got two daughters and three floors of living space it’s handy to not be tied to the wall when you talk on the phone. It’s also good exercise for me to run around the house trying to locate what pillow or piece of furniture the handset is under when the phone rings. Cordless phones are convenient, loaded with features and let us roam our home.

Around our house they also have about the same life expectancy as a pan of warm brownies.

Over the years we’ve had many, many cordless phone sets. Some were made by big brand name companies, others made by company names that appear to have been written by a dyslexic Korean. Regardless of name, each one seems to last only about 12 to 18 months. This was a great source of annoyance to me for awhile and then I actually started to pay attention to the kid working the cash register at Best Buy when he tried to sell me the “extended product replacement contract.” The standard deal is for that magic $9.99 number you can get whatever you purchased replaced free if it stops working in the next two years. (Note: very few things are fixable anymore, at least where electronics are concerned. It’s usually more cost effective to throw something away and replace it than to repair it).

Yeah, my grandfather (“use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without”) would have a fit if he knew this is what things have come to, but that’s progress. For some time now when the kid at the counter goes into his warranty spiel when I’m buying a phone I no longer think to myself, “Blah, blah, blah, whatever and no, thank you.” Now I think “Bwa-ha-ha! You’re mine!” At least the last three cordless phone sets we’ve owned have had this extra protection and the result is that for my original $100 investment and a couple of $9.99 “insurance premiums” I’ve had multiple new phones. So last week when the basement handset started dying regularly halfway through “Hello,” it may have made people calling us think I was swearing but I was really pretty mellow. I gathered up the entire set and headed back to the Return counter at Best Buy.

I did not realize at the time that this happened to be a particularly hardy telephone; it had outlived the replacement agreement by 36 days. While such an achievement might otherwise have caused me to organize a celebratory parade and to buy stock in the maker’s company, I instead felt betrayed. Oh well, I can afford another phone and just chalk this up to being one of those times where life gets the last laugh, except that I also had another phone mission in mind with this particular trip to the Big Blue Box.

My wife and I have had cell phones for the last 8 or 9 years with one of the big wireless network providers. The original contract was cheap, cheap, cheap and we’ve done pretty well by renewing it whenever we needed new phones and the provider had an enticing promotion. The result is that we now pay barely $30 a month for our two lines and a “puny” 300 minutes, which suits our needs fine because I think we’ve exceeded our minutes maybe once in all this time. Our current phones are now more than four years old however, and mine no longer connects properly with the battery charger. We have to charge the battery in my wife’s phone, switch it my phone and put my battery back into her phone to recharge. Not overly inconvenient but, you know, why not look at getting a new phone? Especially one of those new camera phones because, as a blogger, I never know when I might run into a situation with great blog fodder such as, say, a car loaded with Wellstone bumper stickers gets booted right before my eyes.

Equipped with the Best Buy gift certificate I received at Christmas, I wandered over to the cell phone counter where several phones supported by my provider were being advertised with little signs saying, “Free” or “Just $25.99” and similar. I knew I’d have to sign a new 2-year contract, go through the rebate hoo-doo and maybe have to pay a little more for the monthly service but I thought it was worth checking it out. The knowledgeable and helpful young man waiting on me helped me find a couple of phones that would fit my admittedly low-demand cell phone lifestyle and then entered my account into his computer.

“Dude,” he said, “how long have you had that phone?”

It turns out that he can’t sell me any of the phones he had unless I upgraded my contract. Ok, again, not unexpected. Smiling dismissively I said, “Yeah, yeah, so what’s the damage? What’s the cheapest monthly family rate to have the network behind me?”

$80.

Have I ever mentioned that I’m Scottish, or even at that, that my wife is the really frugal one in the family?

Of course, for that I’d get an extra 100 minutes a month that I wouldn’t use; at least not as much as I’d use the extra $50 they wanted to charge me. I guess I’m keeping my current cell phone a bit longer as I ponder the lessons of this night’s technological transactions: being cordless doesn’t mean there aren’t strings attached.

Flight and fight

Posted on by
27

I didn’t blog last night because I was watching an incredible movie that left me feeling simultaneously too wired and too wiped out to write when it was over. The movie was Flight 93 (A&E channel), a dramatization about the 9/11 passengers and crew who fought back against the terrorists to prevent the jet from being flown into the White House or Capitol Building. Based on research, interviews and facts from the public record, the movie has a disconcerting realism that wrapped me in feelings that were equal parts outrage and helplessness.

When I first heard that a made-for-tv movie about this was going to be on I didn’t have a very positive reaction. I thought it would either be overly sappy or, worse, try too hard to “understand” the terrorists. I didn’t watch when it debuted Monday night, but heard positive reviews so I decided to check it out when it was rebroadcast Tuesday night (remaining re-broadcast schedule at the end of this post).

Even knowing the ultimate outcome (or maybe because I knew) I found my heart pounding from the opening, quiet moments of the movie. There’s no back-story on any of the people involved although a few things are hinted at in snippets of conversation or in glimpses at carry-on items; you don’t “meet” anyone anymore than you do when boarding an airplane. The story essentially takes place within the timeframe from the beginning to the end of the flight. As a viewer you get a vivid sense of how surreal the situation was as passengers, families at home, the citizenry, the media and the authorities all tried to wrap their minds around what was happening. Sometimes I almost wanted to shout at the television because it was so frustrating to see elements of the big picture already in my head revealed bit by bit and wanting the people in the film to understand. That same sense, however, also helped me to marvel at how quickly the people on board ultimately were able to not only understand but process, accept, adapt and act on that understanding. Can you imagine what it would take for you, going about your daily business, to completely re-order your reality to the point where you are making life and death decisions within a span of a couple of hours?

Adding to the compelling eeriness of the film is that it is so brightly and cleanly lit. No “Bourne Supremacy” type of dark edges and stylized blurred action; we see the bright light and clean lines we’re accustomed to in modern jets and the sunny, “just another day” weather around the homes of families talking to their doomed loved ones on the telephone. It all certainly heightens the “how can this really be happening” sense of everyone involved. It’s heart-breaking to see the families trying to cope while hoping for the best, and to think what it must be like for these same families to see themselves and their loved ones portrayed in this film.

While certain parts of what actually happened have to be conjecture, there is a remarkable amount of information available because of the communications that were sent and received, and it’s hard not to be caught up in the story or to imagine how you yourself would be reacting in the same circumstances. 9/11 wasn’t the day the world changed; that happened long before. It was, however, the day we realized the world had changed. Flight 93 is a timely and gripping story without patriotic rants and Boris Badinov cartoon villains and it resonates in these days when so many seem determined to forget the hard lessons learned that day.

Rebroadcasts this week (all times EST) on A&E:

Wednesday, Feb. 1 — 9:00 pm
Thursday, Feb. 2 — 1:00 am
Saturday, Feb. 4 — 12:00 pm
Sunday, Feb. 5 — 12:00pm

Update:

Welcome to visitors following Amy Ridenour’s National Center link to this post. I’m honored by Amy’s link and appreciate your interest.

Encouraged by this development, I’ve submitted this post to this weekend’s Open Trackback Alliance collection via the OTA portal at The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns.

It’s winter time: Do you know what your daughters are doing?

Posted on by
2

The Mall Diva and I did a little sports-watching bonding Saturday night. Nope, it wasn’t football, basketball, figure-skating or her new-found favorite, hockey. It wasn’t even lacrosse (sports with sticks that you can hit people with usually get her attention). We were watching the Women’s Snowboard SuperPipe competition at the Winter X-games.

Truth be told, she was already watching the event when I arrived in the basement hoping to check out what was on the movie channels. We have just one television in the house and really only one rule on what to watch – he (or she) who gets there first, rules. Since she was unmoved by my puppy eyes and salesmanship, the SuperPipe it was.

Actually, it was pretty interesting. I’ve not followed the so-called “X” sports that much since I’m of the generation that prefers coffee to cola as a morning eye-opener and gravity and I have long-since settled on the terms of my surrender. SuperPipe is a long, wide tube with the top cut off and the sides and bowl packed with snow. Contestants snowboard back and forth across the “pipe”, riding up and over the sides high into the air while doing twists, flips and other stunts, mixed in with the occasional face-plant. Hey – women in danger; now that’s good TV!

Besides appreciating the skills and “did you see that!” moments of this particular event I was amazed at how much my daughter knew about the sport and the contestants. While I can go three-deep on the NFL’s team by team skill position rosters, the snowboarding stars, jargon and arcania section of my memory capacity is as fresh and unmarked as a slope of new powder. According to my daughter, someone called – what was it, the Raging Tomato, Flaming Tomato, Flying Tomato? – had already won the men’s competition and the leader in the women’s event was Kelly Clark, the American girl favored to win gold at next month’s Olympics and someone who has the name “Jesus” painted in large pink script on the bottom of her board. A shredder for Our Savior? I can dig it.

This is definitely a different kind of event, and one that hasn’t caught the eye of network advertisers yet since we saw the same two commercials over and over (“what do you think your beard is doing all day, taking a nap?”) but it has more than just attitude to set it apart from more traditional women’s winter sports. The competitors wear baggy, kind of punk, “uniforms’ instead of the skintight suits of skiers or the foofaraw of figure-skating outfits, and when the ladies are interviewed at the end of their runs they inevitably have hat hair, creases on their face from goggles and flaming red noses. No, this definitely isn’t figure skating. The girls have, however, mastered the big-time trick of keeping their sponsors’ names (including Jesus) prominently displayed for the cameras.

I think I can get to like this.

Grand Old Fatah

Posted on by
1

Oh, here’s an interesting political story in the news:

It seems you have an established political party holding onto power for years, telling its supporters that someday soon it was going to deliver on all its promises to bring down the long-hated enemy. Meanwhile its leaders boasted of their power as players while collecting large sums of money and trading favors – all without the party making any progress in its stated goal and, in fact, losing battle after battle against its out-numbered opposition. Then, much to everyone’s surprise, the party gets run out of town overnight by a bunch of wild-eyed bomb-throwers.

So, are we talking about Fatah, or the GOP?

Challenging Word of the Week: foofaraw

Posted on by
18

Foofaraw
(FOOH fuh raw) n.

This bit of informal American, as well as its variant fofarraw (FOH fuh raw), has two distinct meanings; a big fuss about very little, i.e., much ado about nothing; or flashy finery, too many frills. Literary policeman’s question: “What’s going on here? What’s all the foofaraw about?” Or, in the second sense, from a lady wearing a lorgnette (if you can find one): “She could certainly dispense with all the foofaraw!” A lovely-sounding word and, say the authorities, origin unknown; but in the first sense, could it be a corruption of free-for-all (in baby-talk)? The British appear not to use this word, but, in the to-do sense, have a nice equivalent: gefuffle, also spelt kerfuffle and cufuffle, all loosely used as synonyms for their word shemozzle, which is also spelt shemozzl, chimozzle, and at least half-a-dozen other ways — you takes your choice.

This selection is taken from the book, “1000 Most Challenging Words” by Norman W. Schur, ©1987 by the Ballantine Reference Library, Random House.

My example: The calls by Senators Kennedy and Kerry for a filibuster on Justice Alito’s confirmation seem certain to lead to a self-inflicted and embarrassing foofaraw.

I post a weekly “Challenging Words” definition to call more attention to this delightful book and to promote interesting word usage in the blogosphere. I challenge other bloggers to work the current word into a post sometime in the coming week. If you manage to do so, please leave a comment or a link to where I can find it.

Update:

Jeff at Peace Like a River is a quick study, describing the foofaraw over the Colleen Rowley gaff. (And somewhere, Blois Olson is smiling).

If I Ain’t Hip, Ain’t Nobody Hip

Posted on by
7

I know everyone’s been wondering if they are as hip as I am; well now you can find out! Here’s the Strib “hip” meme, by way of Margaret.

Where do you live?
The hippest burg in the Twin Cities: South St. Paul! The long-time (and I mean long time) residents of our neighborhood know our house as the “dreamhouse”, because it was built to promote a movie starring Cary Grant and Myrna Loy called “Mr. Blandings Builds His Dreamhouse”.

With whom?
The Reverend Mother, my daddy, the small red one, Felix, Piggy-wiggy and Birdy-wirdy.

What’s your coffeehouse/coffeeshop?
Any uber-funky establishment in the St. Paul/Minneapolis area.

What’s your Sunday breakfast spot?
On the “big, comfy chair” in my parents’ room.

What sites do you surf for news?
…”I get the news I need on the weather report”…

Actually, usually from these blogs, which may give you a clue as to how warped I might be.

What’s the first thing you read in the Strib?
The comics.

What’s on your morning drive dial?
Drive105, the Cities, or K102. Yes! I do listen to country, okay!

When not in town, where are you?
Far, far away.

Who’s your local band/musician?
Me!

Where do you have season tickets?
Oh, I don’t have any, I just mooch off get invited along by people who do.

What’s your apparel store(s)?
Forever 21, American Eagle, pretty much the whole mall.

Where’s your favorite “go to” place that always seems to have just the right thing?
That would be Forever 21.

Where do you get take-out?
Peking Cafe.

What’s your bakery?
My kitchen.

Where do you mall?
America’s mall.

What do you drive?
If this doesn’t make me hip, I don’t know what does:

I drive a 93 Mercury Grand Marquis, also known as my:
old-folks car,
boat,
land-yacht,
tank.

Where are you on a Friday night?
That depends…

Where’s your gallery(s)?
My room.

Who cuts your hair? Where?
A friend I went to school with, at EQ Life.

What are you really uptight about?
Me? Uptight? Never.

What’s your substance of choice?
Chocolate.

What subjects are you a total geek over?
Who are you calling a geek?

Where do you refuel? (recharge? feed your soul?)
While playing my piano.

What’s your date night?
What date night?

What’s the most you’ve paid for a concert ticket?
Me, pay? What is this “pay” you speak of?

When you’re at your naughtiest, you…
Uhhh… I don’t know, ask my mom (and don’t tell my dad).

What’s your beauty/grooming thing?
Everything!

What’s your workout? Where?
Dance-Dance Revolution, in my basement.

Who (or what’s) the service provider you can’t live without?
Hmmm…I guess right now that would be Virgin Mobile.

What’s your favorite night?
Thursday or Friday night.

What’s the next performance you’ll attend?
I’m thinkin’ it’s going to be a dance by Uncle Ben.
The Half-time show won’t even come close to that.

What’s an arts organization you support?
My own art, I don’t have an organization yet.

What’s your nightcap?
Anything I can get my hands on.

Where’s the afterparty?
In my mind.

What’s your favorite restaurant for:
• food?
How can…

• quality?
…I pick?

• late night?
Taco Bell.

• scene?
Cafe Latte.

• impress your date?
My mom says, White Castle.

• impress your client?
I don’t know, I’ll have to ask her.

Who’s your favorite Twin Citian?
Nick Coleman, because he brings so much joy (and material) to the rest of the MOB.

Hear me now – X will be Y in 6 months. . .
Boho will be ‘so last season’ in 6 months, thank God!

He’s no Steven Seagal, but…

Posted on by
1

Here’s some Friday fun for anyone who enjoyed Jeff’s Steven Seagal game at Peace Like a River. (What? You didn’t play? Well get on over there!) Now Portia Rediscovered is offering a funny list of the Top Ten Chuck Norris Facts.

As a sample, here are the first three things you might not have known about the martial arts star and tough guy actor whose range of expression makes Keanu Reaves seem like Lon Chaney:

1. Chuck Norris’ tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried. Ever.

2. Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.

3. Chuck Norris is currently suing NBC, claiming Law and Order are trademarked names for his left and right legs.

Go, or risk defenestration!