Capitalism - Feudalism without the King
Tax the Rich

Editing Note: Something very wacky is happening on this web page today in regards to editing. I can't justify my text (move the banner to the center, remove the end-of-line jagged edges) and the first paragraph after Movie Monday looks all pushed together. All I can do is apologize for the lousy look because none of the fixes I'm trying work.

Movie Monday

Ceberus at Sadly, No!* succinctly uses expletives to sum up the tragedy and travesty surrounding the killing of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman and Zimmerman's recent acquittal in a criminal trial. The jury couldn't even convict on 2nd degree manslaughter! (Zimmerman was charged with 2nd degree murder but during the trial the judge ruled that the jury could consider the lesser charge of manslaughter.) Wow!

No legal expert I,  but I've read enough about the law to know that the premeditated part of a crime, like in premeditated murder, can mean the simplest decision the criminal makes before he commits the crime. Like in this case, Zimmerman's decision to follow Martin after 911 told him not to. But the death of a unarmed 17 year old boy by a vigilante "stalker" armed with a gun can't even muster a manslaughter conviction in this old USA!

I'm not going to rehash this yet-another shame of American justice. It isn't the first time; it won't be the last. Shit happens. But I will quote this line from Ceberus: Fuck our toxic masculinity gun culture and the way its erosion of rights have conspired to invent a means to turn LYNCHING into America's Favorite Legal Pastime, because it sums up the perfect storm of that dreadful night: hyper-testosterone, a lethal weapon, insane Stand Your Ground laws and sub- rosa racism.

Just a short review of Celeste and Jesse Forever. You get a glimpse of a young hipster marriage which has ended after 6 years without rancor. In fact, for most of the movie Celeste and Jesse remain BFFs. Very American, witty, peppered with the young, trendy as in the important plot point (with a stereotypical presentation unfortunately) involving gays, littered with bon mots and verve but ultimately shallow. Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage it ain't. Soon into these pepped-up tribulations of young marrieds and their we-are-so-in-love-but-can't-make-it-work  angst, I, and apparently many other viewers, just quit caring.

*7/14/13 posting