The List of Shame, Part II

One-hundred movies I haven't seen:

1. Citizen Kane (1941, Orson Welles)
2. Casablanca (1942, Michael Curtiz)
3. The Battleship Potemkin (1925, Sergei M. Eisenstein)
4. Dirty Harry (1971, Don Siegel)
5. Rocky (1976, John G. Avildsen)
6. Schindler's List (1993, Steven Spielberg)
7. First Blood (1982, Ted Kotcheff)
8. Pulp Fiction (1994, Quentin Tarantino)
9. A Clockwork Orange (1971, Stanley Kubrick)
10. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, Stanley Kubrick)
11. Gone With the Wind (1939, Victor Fleming)
12. The Maltese Falcon (1941, John Huston)
13. Chinatown (1974, Roman Polanski)
14. Blade Runner (1982, Ridley Scott)
15. Alien (1979, Ridley Scott)
16. Wayne's World (1992, Penelope Spheeris)
17. Clerks (1994, Kevin Smith)
18. When Harry Met Sally (1989, Rob Reiner)
19. Goodfellas (1990, Martin Scorsese)
20. Airplane (1980, Jim Abrahams, David & Jerry Zucker)
21. Rain Man (1988, Barry Levinson)
22. American Psycho (2000, Mary Harron)
23. The Birds (1963, Alfred Hitchcock)
24. The Last of the Mohicans (1992, Michael Mann)
25. The Big Lebowski (1998, Joel Cohen)
26. The Godfather (1972, Francis Ford Coppola)
27. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975, Milos Forman)
28. Fight Club (1999, David Fincher)
29. It's a Wonderful Life (1946, Frank Capra)
30. Dr. Strangelove (1964, Stanley Kubrick)
31. North by Northwest (1959, Alfred Hitchcock)
32. Apocalypse Now (1979, Francis Ford Coppola)
33. Forrest Gump (1994, Robert Zemeckis)
34. Lawrence of Arabia (1962, David Lean)
35. The Shining (1980, Stanley Kubrick)
36. Das Boot (1981, Wolfgang Peterson)
37. Back to the Future (1985, Robert Zemeckis)
38. Full Metal Jacket (1987, Stanley Kubrick)
39. Total Recall (1990, Paul Verhoeven)
40. Sin City (2005, Frank Miller, Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino)
41. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939, Frank Capra)
42. The Deer Hunter (1978, Michael Cimino)
43. Platoon (1986, Oliver Stone)
44. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969, George Roy Hill)
45. V for Vendetta (2005, James McTeigue)
46. The Princess Bride (1987, Rob Reiner)
47. The Exorcist (1973, William Friedkin)
48. The African Queen (1951, John Huston)
49. Bonnie and Clyde (1967, Arthur Penn)
50. Ghost Busters (1984, Ivan Reitman)
51. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984, Wes Craven)
52. The Godfather, Part II (1974, Francis Ford Coppola)
53. The Godfather, Part III (1990, Francis Ford Coppola)
54. Back to the Future, Part II (1989, Robert Zemeckis)
55. Back to the Future, Part III (1990, Robert Zemeckis)
56. Ghostbusters II (1989, Ivan Reitman)
57. Children of the Corn (1984, Fritz Kiersch)
58. Frankenstein (1931, James Whale)
59. Bride of Frankenstein (1935, James Whale)
60. The Thing (1982, John Carpenter)
61. The Blob (1958, Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr.
62. Gojira (1954, Ishiro Honda)
63. Army of Darkness (1992, Sam Raimi)
64. Friday the 13th (1980, Sean S. Cunningham)
65. Bird on a Wire (1990, John Badham)
66. Waterworld (1995, Kevin Reynolds)
67. The Matrix: Revolutions (2003, Andy & Lana Wachowski)
68. Dracula (1931, Tod Browning)
69. Dracula (1992, Francis Ford Coppola)
70. Starship Troopers (1997, Paul Verhoeven)
71. Cujo (1983, Lewis Teague)
72. Pet Semetary (1989, Mary Lambert)
73. Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984, Michael Radford)
74. White Christmas (1954, Michael Curtiz)
75. Miracle on 34th Street (1947, George Seaton)
76. Miracle on 34th Street (1994, Les Mayfield)
77. The Wolf Man (1941, George Waggner)
78. Labyrinth (1986, Jim Henson)
79. An American Werewolf in London (1981, John Landis)
80. Cat's Eye (1985, Lewis Teague)
81. Cat People (1942, Jacques Tourneur)
82. Cat People (1982, Paul Schrader)
83. Ginger Snaps (2000, John Fawcett)
84. This is Spinal Tap (1984, Rob Reiner)
85. First Knight (1995, Jerry Zucker)
86. The 13th Warrior (1999, John McTiernan)
87. Kung fu (2004, Stephen Chow)
88. Ong-bak (2003, Prachya Pinkaew)
89. RoboCop (1987, Paul Verhoeven)
90. 28 Days Later (2002, Danny Boyle)
91. Down of the Dead (1978, George A. Romero)
92. The Dark Crystal (1982, Jim Henson, Frank Oz)
93. Clerks II (2002, Kevin Smith)
94. The Wicker Man (1973, Robin Hardy)
95. The Pink Panther (1963, Blake Edwards)
96. Scrooge (1951, Brian Desmond Hurst)
97. Predator (1987, John McTiernan)
98. Predator 2 (1990, Stephen Hopkins)
99. Blue Hawaii (1961, Norman Taurog)
100. Rebel Without a Cause (1955, Nicholas Ray)

The List of Shame

One-hundred books I haven't read:

1. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
2. Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen
3. Dracula, Bram Stoker
4. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
5. The Adventures of Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
6. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
7. A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
8. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
9. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
10. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Jules Verne
11. A Journey to the Centre of the Earth, Jules Verne
12. The War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells
13. The Time Machine, H.G. Wells
14. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle
15. The Hound of the Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle
16. The Lost World, Arthur Conan Doyle
17. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo
18. Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky
19. The Idiot, Fyodor Dostoevsky
20. The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky
21. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
22. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
23. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
24. For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway
25. The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway
26. A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
27. The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
28. Cannery Row, John Steinbeck
29. The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
31. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
32. Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
33. The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane
34. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
35. Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe
36. The Swiss Family Robinson, Johann David Wyss
37. Tarzan of the Apes, Edgar Rice Burroughs
38. The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas
39. The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
40. Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes
41. Ivanhoe, Walter Scott
42. Gone With the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
43. Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
44. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
45. Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche
46. Beyond Good and Evil, Friedrich Nietzsche
47. The Gay Science, Friedrich Nietzsche
48. Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes
49. Rights of Man, Thomas Paine
50. On Liberty, John Stuart Mill
51. The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith
52. Capital, Karl Marx
53. Iliad, Homer
54. Odyssey, Homer
55. Aeneid, Virgil
56. The Epic of Gilgamesh, Unknown
57. The Upanishads, Various/Unknown
58. One Thousand and One Nights, Various/Unknown
59. The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran
60. Ulysses, James Joyce
61. Finnegans Wake, James Joyce
62. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce
63. The Tale of Genji, Murasaki Shikibu
64. The Art of War, Sun Tzu
65. The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie
66. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
67. Cat's Eye, Margaret Atwood
68. Amerika, Franz Kafka
69. Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka
70. All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
71. A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
72. Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
73. Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
74. Generation X, Douglas Coupland
75. Pet Sematary, Stephen King
76. The Shining, Stephen King
77. 'Salem's Lot, Stephen King
78. Cujo, Stephen King
79. It, Stephen King
80. The Stand, Stephen King
81. I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
82. The Andromeda Strain, Michael Crichton
83. Foundation, Isaac Asimov
84. I, Robot, Isaac Asimov
85. 2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke
86. Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
87. Children of Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
88. Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
89. Xenocide, Orson Scott Card
90. Speaker for the Dead, Orson Scott Card
91. American Gods, Neil Gaiman
92. Ringworld, Larry Niven
93. Neuromancer, William Gibson
94. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
95. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
96. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Robert A. Heinlein
97. Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
98. On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin
99. The Descent of Man, Charles Darwin
100. The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett

[I know I owe you a review of Wicked still. Don't worry, it's coming as soon as I find my copy of the book for reference. Please vote on the poll to the left, I'd like to know what my readers enjoy so I can be a better blogger.]

Is It Okay?

Is it okay to lose a little of my faith in Humanity whenever I read news articles like these?

Living Paycheck to Paycheck Gets Even Harder

This woman's baby will be taken from her as soon as it is born.

The Latvian Connection

Idiot Judge Number 1.

Idiot Judge Number 2.

Collected from Lupa's Blog.

Cultural Appropriation and Irony

Some of you that read my blog, in fact most of you, will probably know that I attended a Christian youth group for a while. Personally, I considered this mostly an excuse to hang out with my friends that were Christian.

This group held their meetings on Friday evenings, and it would involve a sermon of some sort. Usually, I would critically examine these sermons, as a sort of mental exercise. I think that it also made the time pass a bit faster. The sermons that the first pastor would give were pretty good, and I felt that even non-Christians, people of a secular nature, could gain something from listening to them.

After the first pastor left and was replaced, the sermons became noticeably different. They were delivered with more of an authoritative voice, a voice with more fervor. It also seemed that the message in these sermons was uniquely Christian, and that someone of a secular nature would have little if anything to gain from listening to them. One of my friends described him as more of a "fire and brimstone" preacher than the first pastor had been.

One Friday night, this pastor used a Native American folk story to illustrate a point. At the time, I was a bit annoyed that he had gotten some of the wording wrong. (If this seems a bit anal to you, you should know that I suffer from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.) Afterwords, I told him that he had gotten some of the wording wrong. He chuckled and waved it off with "It's just a legend. The wording doesn't matter." I walked off, a bit more annoyed than I had been because of his comment. The irony of the entire situation didn't occur to me until a week or so ago.

First, the Native American oral tradition is a very important one. For centuries, the oral tradition was the only way that the Native Americans had to pass their creation myths, legends, and fables on to the next generation. I have no doubt that they took it very seriously, including the exact wording of these stories. I am not saying that these stories did not change; they undoubtedly did over the centuries, even if only a little bit.

Second, is it really appropriate for a member of the Christian faith to use a Native American story to illustrate a point? I'm talking about a religion that actively tried to convert the indigenous peoples of North America, tried to destroy their culture, and herded them on to reservations so more land would be available for European settlement. Not to mention residential schooling, an issue that is still being dealt with by the government today. I do not think that it is appropriate for an evangelical Christian to use a Native American parable to perpetuate their faith's goals.

Third, the irony! It's only a story and the wording doesn't matter? I wish you would apply that reasoning to your own faith! There are hundreds of contradictions in the Bible and the Bible has been translated countless times, after being passed down orally for generations! I would say something to the effect of "It's the message, not the details that matter" but the Bible has so many contradictions and some of Christianity's central beliefs are so cruel that they are tantamount to abuse!

Now you might expect me to warn people about thinking about what they say before they say it, lest it reflect badly upon them. I'm not going to say that. It serves as a warning to the rest of us.

"Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived."

-Isaac Asimov

Air Force Charges Victim in Her Own Rape

Sorry to do this to you guys again, but I had to share this.

This news item made my stomach turn: Cassandra Hernandez, a female Air Force airman was raped, reported her attack and then subsequently became a court-martial defendant, herself.
The story goes down like this: Hernandez was at a party, where she was drinking. She says that three male airman raped her. She went to the hospital and filed a report accusing her attackers. Due to stress and harsh interrogation tactics by the Air Force, she eventually refused to testify against the airmen.

The Air Force then charged her with underage drinking (of which she admits to being guilty, but that's hardly the point, now is it?) and, along with her three attackers,"indecent acts." I had a hell of a lot of trouble finding an official definition for "indecent acts," and the best one I came up with is a "form of immorality relating to sexual impurity which is not only grossly vulgar, obscene, and repugnant to common propriety, but tends to excite lust and deprave the morals with respect to sexual relations." Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but the basic translation seems to be "a sexual act, particularly one that is not generally accepted in society, such as sex with multiple partners."

So. The woman was raped. By three men. She reported her rape. She was harassed by her superiors, to the point where she became too afraid to testify. The Air Force took this as meaning that the sex was therefore consensual (which isn't what it means at all), and charged her in the case of her own rape. If she loses her case, she could be publicly registered as a sex offender.

Sounds like it couldn't get any worse, right? But it does. How? The three alleged attackers were offered sexual assault immunity to testify against Hernandez on the indecent acts charge. Having at least half a brain cell among them, they accepted.

Hernandez is writing to her congresspeople and her Governor, Rick Perry, in a desperate plea to end this madness. Once you finish throwing up, crying, breaking things, etc., I strongly suggest that you write, too.

IMPORTANT CORRECTION: Apparently, the correct action to take is to write directly to YOUR congresspersons. You can find the information to write to your Representative here, and the information to write to your Senators here. It is a good idea to include one of the links to articles about thecase, so that they know specifically what you are referring to.

Shamelessly taken from here. I know that as Canadians it's pointless to write to U.S. politicians, but I think this is ridiculous. Muse out.