Sat night we saw "V for Vendetta" and although I enjoyed it overall it was maybe a bit too much to take in, and as my friend pointed out it got a little preachy and to me it got a little comic-booky but considering it was based on a comic book, I can't really hold that against it. I found myself agreeing with some of the views it put forth, but found it difficult to take too serious. It seemed to critisize everything from War, terrorism, security, human rights, gay issues, drugs, religion, and a militant response to these issues.
I just now finished watching a DVD called "Berkeley in the Sixties". I thought maybe it was more about the town of Berkeley, but it really had very little to do with the town itself but rather about all of the groups and issues that arose during that time period. It really covered a wide gamut, from the original Free Speech issues at the university in Berkeley, to the whole hippy movement, to the black panthers, to the anti-war movement. I did watch the whole thing, and thought it all interesting, and perhaps what bothered me the most was the 'corruption" of the movement, that started with a real passion for the first amendment and civil rights, but then over time was distorted into a freak show that involved the counter-culture. Don't get me wrong, I like a lot of the counter culture's thoughts, but at the same time I think the message was lost. There were a few clips of Dr. Martin Luther King, and I realized I've never heard Dr. King speak. I've only heard clips, and quotes. I'm going to try to dig around on the internet and see if I can't somehow watch some of his speeches, and if nothing else, maybe get a book about Dr. King.
In watching these two movies, I'm feeling lost again and wanting to do something constructive to help the situation, but not sure in which direction to turn. I'm going to have to think about this and see if I can't find my own direction.
Finally, a non-political thing too :)
I went to a new supermarket today... Wegmans. I thought last night that it's yet another sign of me getting older, that I was excited and looking forward to a new supermarket opening. ugh. The supermarket must have spent a fortune on pre-hype advertising. I had heard some buzz about the store chain and it was good, so I signed up for one of those membership cards. (goes against my "off-the-grid" mentality, but there are certain things I cave in on ;)
The money spent on advertising (such as mailers over the past few weeks to everyone in the county) probably paid off in just today's crowd. It was a MADHOUSE! This was worse than any Christmas time crowd. It was as if all these people had never been to a grocery store before. They had 25 cash-registers, and ALL of them were active and had 3-5 people deep in each one. Not to mention the huge crowd still in the store. I can only HOPE that this crowd was only because it was opening day, because if it's this crowded on a normal basis, I will not be shopping there. It was insane. That being said, it was a cool store. They had a LARGE variety of food items, and all the fresh food (vegetables, meats, fish, etc) looked to be of very good quality. I picked up quite a few unusual items that I'm looking forward to... such as a falafel (sp?) mix, an olive bar (which I've eaten half of those already!) some baby bok choy, I picked up some Korean chilli sauce too, and some Thai peanut sauce. One thing that I like about this store, is that they have recipes online, and then you can create a shopping list, for the ingredients, and when I went there today, they had a cooking station there where they were handing out free samples, and had all the ingredients there. That's a good idea. I had this idea before acutally... I used to subscribe to Bon Apetit magazine, but eventually canceled my subscription due to the difficulty in finding the ingredients in my local supermarket. I wondered why the supermarket didn't set up a small corner in the store for all the ingredients featured in that month's magazine. Well, someone at Wegmans must have had the same idea. :)
Well, I'll sign off with a quote from the movie that I liked (and they are featuring on their website)...
"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people." - V for Vendetta
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