Food, Inc.

I am so sleep deprived this morning, so bear with me. This could very well sound like a rant but I would be remiss and completely disobedient to not post about this.

I had been wanting to watch the movie, "Food, Inc." for quite awhile. My hesitation to do so was the thought that it would make me sick to my stomach or pressure a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle. It did neither of these, by the way, so if these are reasons you've yet to see it, please - watch it now!

Just over a year ago Russ began seeing a homeopathic doctor to treat his blood pressure without medication. That began a long journey for us in learning about food and how it can be used to heal medical problems. It hasn't been a fun journey. We've relapsed almost weekly. But after watching this documentary last night, I'm more than ever convinced that so much of what we've been learning is essential and needs to be practiced as routinely as possible.

I rarely eat beef. I do love a steak from Capital Grill every once in awhile. I'm not a huge burger girl. I will probably completely discontinue eating burgers for several reasons now: after learning about the problem with feeding corn to cattle and 1) what it does to the cow plus 2) what it does to my own body (I'm talking about e coli issues), I just feel sickened.

If you can stomach it, please go watch THIS VIDEO by the Humane Society documenting calf abuse at a slaughter plant in Vermont.

I am convinced that beef and chicken can be good for the human body. However, I am also convinced that our food industry is suffering from the same issues that are rampant across our country and bringing about the financial enslavement of those in the lower eschalons of our tax brackets. When lower income familes cannot afford fruits and vegetables in local grocery stores, they are forced to put money into the pockets of large conglomerates like most fast food chains that offer the almighty Dollar Menu.



A growing problem in America is the "corporatocracy": private corporations and conglomerates control our government when their executives end up in different branches of our government. Do you know who Monsanto is? I didn't. Monsanto has gained a monopoly that has had devastating effects on the American farmer. (By the way, Monsanto invented Agent Orange.) If you never watch "Food, Inc.", please educate yourself about the corporatocracy happening in our food industry. Your health and the health of your children is at stake.

Stuff I've been doing:

• Buy Organic. Yes, it's more expensive. Shopping with a conscience will put a strain on your wallet but you can buy smarter at most large grocery stores, Walmart included.
• Buy local. See if your town has a Farmer's Market. Dallas has an excellent one. I miss living across the street from it.
• When you crave a burger, choose grass-fed beef. Simply staying away from McDonald's (listen, I love me some McDonald's fries - I'm not hatin'!) or other fast food chains can make a difference in the treatment of cattle.
  
• Buy range-free eggs. Our family eats eggs every.single.day. That small decision can greatly effect Tyson - one of the conglomerates I was warning about above.
• Check labels. For every staple in your diet, there is corn syrup in that food that is fueling the food industry's obsession with chemically manufactured food. DO NOT BUY FOOD WITH HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP. Yes, I know this is most sodas. You'll be surprised by how much better you feel on plain, 'ol H2O.

Stuff I Will Start Doing:

• Look into food co-ops. This one takes place across the street from my office. Hmmm, easy?
• Plant a garden. I've been saying this for so long. After watching the movie, Russ prayed that we'd get our butts in gear in learning how to do this.
• Buy produce in season. This one little choice can greatly effect our supermarkets and the conglomerates who control our food.

Things to know:

• Monsanto now controls 93 % of soybeans and 80% of corn grown in the US.
• Tyson, Cargill, Swift and National Beef Packing Company control 83% of the beef packing industry.
• Smithfield, Tyson, Swift and Cargill control 66% of the pork packing industry.
• AVOID THESE COMPANIES WHEN POSSIBLE.
  

Over & out. I am in dire need of a nap but the future on that looks bleak!

I Knew Her When...

I saw this commercial the other day and did a quick double-take. I recognized the daughter. I knew it. In fact, I had just seen a re-run of Arrested Development (God rest its soul) and had the same double-take.



Oh, hello little girl from "When a Man Loves a Woman"!


Now, see the girl on the right? I just saw her in another sitcom ad!



AHHH! Everywhere there are reminders that I am just.getting.old.

Recasting Twilight

If you are burnt out on the Twilight phenomenon, please know that so am I. This post was written out of sheer annoyance.

Confession: I read all the Twilight books in a matter of a week and a half, voraciously devouring them (which is not hard considering they are akin to a "beach read" as far as depth & plot go) and reading late into the night. But. I thought the first movie was worse than a bad after-school special. Just terrible acting, worse casting, and the hair dye on the majority of the cast? Ohmalord.

Exhibit A:


The Cullen family is a joke to me. Peter Facinelli as Carlisle? Seriously? And the bottle blond hair? It's despicable! I was truly disappointed and thought I'd make some casting changes to improve this bajillion dollar trainwreck.

So let's start with Carlisle. Forgive me for not buying into Mike from "Can't Hardly Wait" as Dr. Cullen!


I'd go for this guy instead:


If you don't find John Slattery attractive enough, check your pulse. After all, Carlisle Cullen needs to have just the right air of youth and sophistocation to be believable.

And what about that chick playing Rosalie?



I don't know who Nikki Reed is, but I do know she's a natural brunette with tan skin. NOT A FIT! Rosalie is supposed to be beautiful, pale, and be able to act her way out of a paper sack. I was so disappointed with Ms. Reed in the first movie. My choice for Rosalie would be:


First of all, if you've ever watched "Big Love", you know that Amanda Seyfried can pull off the perfect amount of cold/yet cautious that the role of Rosalie calls for. Who's with me on this choice?

...Now onto one of the most annoyingly disappointing cast mistakes: Bella's Dad. This was really irritating to me, as if the casting director needed each and every actor to look like some kind of arm candy! I know the vampires are supposed to be very attractive, but Mr. Swan is a mere human. I'd change him from this:


To this:

You've seen J.K. Simmons play a dad in both "Juno" and "I Love You Man". I think he'd do a much better job as Bella's OLDER, introverted father. And I'd like to see his more serious side in a movie.

As far as Kristen Stewart as Bella, I'm fine with that. K-Stew plays the exact.same.person in every movie she has ever been in: pensive, tense, tight-lipped, boring, blah.

(Panic Room)

See? And here, too!

(Adventureland)


And Bella is a serious girl. But now I'd just appreciate it if Ms. Stewart would recede into privacy. Because I'm getting about as burned out on her as I was on Beyonce' for awhile. (AND YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS, KATY!)

I'm a Team Edward kind of gal so I'm all for Rob Pattinson...except his faux American accent drives me batty...as does his "smell the fart" acting as Edward.




Rob, I'd enjoy Edward a lot more if you'd just tone down your English accent. After all, back when Eddie Cullen was born, most American still sounded a bit like the Brits.

That's it, folks. My rant is over.

The Lovely Bones

This book deeply impacted me. It was scary, inspiring, heart wrenching and just very sweet. Here's to hoping that Peter Jackson can do it justice...

Thanks for the reminder, Buns!

And a dash of Jason Schwartzman

Quit Haunting My Life, Tilda Swinton!

I saw two movies over the past two nights that have all but cancelled out the joy that indwelt me after seeing good, ol' Benjy Button (in which Tilda Swinton appears). "Burn After Reading" and "Wanted" were brought home by Russ on New Year's Eve. To be fair, I had asked for the first and felt that he had earned the second by braving Blockbuster on a holiday.

I am such a fan of John Malkovich (Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich!) and was sure that his appearance in a Coen brother's film would prove splendid. Indeed it did not. It had none of the appeal that "The Big Lebowski", "Raising Arizona", or "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou" contained. For such a stunning cast, the characters proved flat and cruel. Except where Tilda Swinton was concerned and that is namely because she plays flat and cruel so perfectly.

"Wanted": I knew it would be terrible when Michael Paul told us it was ridiculous. (He enjoys most B movies.) Dear Angelina Jolie, I believe you channelled Lara Croft, Mrs. Smith, and that chick from "Gone In Sixty Seconds" quite nicely. Surely the producers of your movies have a simple gag reel in which they play all your one-liners over and over again. Well played, madam.

So tonight after enduring Angie's bland performance, not to mention the last line from "Wanted" which made me squeeze my buttcheeks together in disdain, Russ somehow finds "Constantine" on tv (I think he's watched it oh, um 11 times) and there is freakin' Tilda Swinton again!

Oh, Queenie

Well, Christmas has come and gone and so has my laptop's capabilities which are dying by the day. Alas, my posts have become few and far between. But fret not, faithful followers (all three of you) - for the excellent husband got me a new Macbook as a gift and I am eagerly awaiting it's arrival.

I won't recap the holiday, though it was a good one, but will tell you that our little family was subject to sicknesses on all sides. My dad, who never gets sick, was down with a terrible cold while we were in Ft. Worth. On Christmas day I got a call from Katy telling me that half of her family was sick with the stomach virus that has been plaguing most of Texas (right, Rach?) and they had to postpone Christmas. On Friday Sutton was struck with that same virus so we avoided him with fear and trepidation (sorry, Pages!). Then yesterday both Russ and Davy came down with what seems to be the cold my dad had. I'm ready to invest in a facemask.

But that's not what I want to talk about.

Have any of you seen "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" yet? I saw it on Saturday with Katy. Maybe it was the fact that though I used to be one of those people who saw all new movies the very weeks that they came out and maybe it was that Katy was always my partner in movie-going, or maybe it was that the last time I saw a movie in a theatre was "The Dark Knight" back in September...but this movie really moved me. I think I was crying in the first 5 minutes. I should have warned the stranger sitting next to me, "I'm sleep-deprived, hormonal, and nursing so I will cry for the entirety of this film."

I won't spoil the movie for anyone else. Brad Pitt was excellent. And I'm not talking excellent like "Legends of the Fall." He was wonderful because the movie wasn't about his good looks or hilarity - it was about his outcast-ness; his isolation from people due to his condition upon birth. The minute I saw him born as a baby with the outward appearance of an almost 90 year old man, I started sobbing.

Enter Queenie. Queenie is the precious, tender-hearted, stalwart black woman who finds the baby and cares for him. Would that we all have someone like Queenie in our lives who looks past our outward appearance and simply loves us for being one of God's miracles. God bless you, Queenie! You were my favorite person in the movie!

Anyway, I got to hang out with Katesbuns. A much needed hang out time. Katy gave me some red, Laura Mercier lipstick for my birthday and I forced her to try it out with me to prove that red lipstick is my nemesis - I can never find the right shade. What do you think?

No One's Starving Around Here

I put this video here for two reasons: one, because some of my relatives only come here to see updates of Davy, and two, because it is vastly reassuring to me that my child isn't starving.

To explain that last part, I read Cormac McCarthy's The Road this week upon the urging of Rachael. What I didn't realize before I got into it was how gut-wrenchingly sad and depressing it would be and how I would lay awake at night worrying about the End of the World. Thanks, Rach. Seriously though, this book is the story of the apocalyptic journey of a man and his child across a devastated America. It's no Twilight - vampires being oddly soothing versus world destruction.

Really, I've been wanting to put into words for a long time how having a child has changed my worldview. I used to see things like news updates about a school collapse in Haiti and think to myself, "oh, too bad," and just go along with my day. I used to hear about economic crisis or pirates finding radioactive contents being shipped to Israel and respond with little interest or mild curiosity. I used to watch movies about the Holocaust and feel sad but nothing more.

And then everything changes when you have a baby asleep in the other room.

I watched two movies right after Davy was born that had me weeping and fretful: The Pianist and Hotel Rwanda. What struck me most was man's cruelty to man and the fear that I am raising a child in this world where these things really take place. And every forgotten child in those movies could be Davy to me. The first few weeks of motherhood are terribly scary for one major reason: I am responsible for this child. This means I feed, clothe, care for and sustain another human being. That feeling then begins to grow into deeper ones like: How will I raise this person to care about others? In what kind of nation will my child grow up? Will this little one have burdens that I cannot prepare them for?

So, while reading The Road, I began to think about the End of the World and all that is foretold. And I'm just glad that the chubby baby in the other room is okay today. Please don't feel you have to reassure me about the future, etc. Just needed to jot these old thoughts down!

It won't be November without Harry

So, this is old news. But it just won't seem like the Thanksgiving holiday next month without a Harry Potter release. Seriously. My birthday falls on Thanksgiving this year and I believe I'll just pout the whole day since I can't go see "The Half Blood Prince." See Warner Bros' excuse for a 2009 summer release.

I don't think I'm buying that. Yes, summer is an optimal time for a blockbuster release but the HP movies have never needed a summer to blow up ticket sales. Also? Harry Potter movies? It's hard to explain but they don't fit a summertime day. They are always best in winter, when you can really sink in to the darkness and mystery of the movie. Noelle, am I right? This is just such a Big Bummer! Russ and I will simply have to resort to one of our HP marathons when we watch every.single.movie back to back on a Saturday because we're wild like that.

So, until that much anticipated (summer) day comes, I will leave you with this: