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-Oscar Wilde		 Brilliant at Breakfast title banner "The liberal soul shall be made fat, and he that watereth, shall be watered also himself."
-- Proverbs 11:25
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"I came here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubblegum." -- "Rowdy" Roddy Piper (1954-2015), They Live
Thursday, November 24, 2011

Something else for which to be thankful
Posted by Jill | 4:22 PM
For the inspiring example of this great lady:

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Thursday, May 08, 2008

Maybe this is why McCain's spiritual adviser, John Hagee, hates the Catholic church
Posted by Jill | 9:52 PM
Because Nuns. Kick. Ass.

Surely, our majority-Catholic Supreme Court should have known better than to get on the wrong side of the Sisters. As we wrote earlier, the first victims of the new ruling on Voter ID were elderly nuns in Indiana. This just in, in my emailbox: The nuns of Missouri rap the Supreme Court's knuckles with a great big ruler:



Nun of the Franciscan Sisters of Mary comments on Voter ID disenfranchisement

WHO: Missourians for Fair Elections


WHAT: Press Conference on the impact of legislation to

require government-issued photo ID to vote


WHEN: 1:00 PM, Thursday, May 8, 2008


WHERE: League of Women Voters, 8706 Manchester, Jefferson City, MO 63144


JEFFERSON CITY, MO – On Thursday, May 8, three Missouri voters who lack government-issued photo IDs as well as Secretary of State Robin Carnahan and community leaders will discuss the potential impacts of legislation currently being pushed through the Missouri General Assembly. The proposed legislation would make Missouri one of the toughest states in the country for eligible citizens who want to vote by requiring voters to present a government-issued photo ID at the polls. If passed, these changes could be in place by the November general election and could put the voting rights at risk for up to 240,000 registered Missouri voters.


"This may sound like a good idea at first," stated Sister Sandy Schwartz of the Franciscan Sisters of Mary regarding voter ID requirements, "but once you stop to think about who would really be affected, this is going to keep a lot of our loved ones from being able to vote." Yesterday in Indiana twelve nuns in their 80s and 90s
were turned away from the polls because they lacked the needed IDs to vote. Sister Schwartz and others are concerned about the difficulties the policy change would create for elderly Missouri nuns, as well as other senior citizens, the poor, and minorities.


Awesome.

(h/t)

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Friday, April 27, 2007

The grit of Roger Ebert
Posted by Jill | 7:15 AM
While going through old VHS tapes the other day I found a tape I'd made of a special memorial program broadcast after Gene Siskel died in 1999. In some circles, it was Siskel who was regarded as the "real film critic" of the Siskel and Ebert duo, while Ebert was just a hack.

Of course, these are the people who gave me fits during my seven years of reviewing movies; the kind of cinéastes who don't like any movie that isn't made in the Czech Republic or by Lars Von Trier and isn't 4 hours long. People used to tell me I was a good reviewer, but mostly all I did was write about movies and tell people what I thought. I never professed to have any kind of great knowledge of the Art of Cinema. I wrote because I wanted to write, and that was all.

To those in the know, "film critics" are people like Jonathan Rosenbaum, David Denby, Armond White, and of course the Doyenne of All Film Criticism, Pauline Kael. But just as Beverly Sills made opera accessible to those who don't like opera, Roger Eberg has made film reviews accessible to people who just like movies and don't know a gaffer from a key grip.

When you strip movies of all the mystique, what you end up with are "honest stories of working people as told by rich Hollywood stars." This is something that Roger Ebert has always understood. The reason that Ebert's reviews have always been mandatory reading is that Ebert always evaluates a movie within the context of its genre and what it's trying to do, rather than judging an action shoot-em-up by how it stands up against Dancer in the Dark.

Yet Ebert has never been the kind of quote whore whose blurbs are usually the earmark of a movie you should be sure to skip. For while he has never been guilty of taking movies too seriously, perhaps no one else has been a bigger booster of creative filmmaking. And no one's image has been as iconic in its association with film criticism. And so it's hard to underestimate the courage it took for Ebert to appear Wednesday night at the Overlooked Film Festival, which he created.

The recent cancer announcements of Elizabeth Edwards and Tony Snow caused a nationwide epidemic of discomfort, as Americans faced the prospect of having to look cancer right in the face. Well, Elizabeth Edwards was right there at the Democratic candidates debate last night, and Tony Snow plans to return to work on Monday despite a dire prognosis. Roger Ebert has been rendered unrecognizable by surgery to remove part of his jaw as part of treatment for salivary gland cancer last June. He wrote about it earlier this week:


I have received a lot of advice that I should not attend the Festival. I’m told that paparazzi will take unflattering pictures, people will be unkind, etc. Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. As a journalist I can take it as well as dish it out.

So let’s talk turkey. What will I look like? To paraphrase a line from “Raging Bull,” I ain’t a pretty boy no more. (Not that I ever was. The original appeal of Siskel & Ebert was that we didn’t look like we belonged on TV.)

What happened was, cancer of the salivary gland spread to my right lower jaw. A segment of the mandible was removed. Two operations to replace the missing segment were unsuccessful, both leading to unanticipated bleeding.

A tracheostomy was necessary so, for the time being, I cannot speak. I make do with written notes and a lot of hand waving and eye-rolling. The doctors now plan an approach that does not involve the risk of unplanned bleeding. If all goes well, my speech will be restored.

So when I turn up in Urbana, I will be wearing a gauze bandage around my neck, and my mouth will be seen to droop. So it goes.

I was told photos of me in this condition would attract the gossip papers. So what? I have been very sick, am getting better and this is how it looks. I still have my brain and my typing fingers.

Although months in bed after the bleeding episodes caused a lack of strength and co-ordination, the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago restored my ability to walk on my own, climb stairs, etc. I no longer use a walker much and the wheelchair is more for occasional speed and comfort than need. Just today we went for a long stroll in Lincoln Park.

We spend too much time hiding illness. There is an assumption that I must always look the same. I hope to look better than I look now. But I’m not going to
miss my Festival.

Why do I want to go? Above all, to see the movies. Then to meet old friends and great directors and personally thank all the loyal audience members who continue to support the Festival. At least, not being able to speak, I am spared the need to explain why every film is “overlooked,” or why I wrote “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.”

Being sick is no fun. But you can have fun while you’re sick. I wouldn’t miss the Festival for anything!


If we had not recently seen Katie Couric attack Elizabeth Edwards on 60 Minutes for not having the decency to go home, die quietly, and not subject us to having to watch her condition slowly deteriorate, we might think that Eberts' friends concerns about bad press coverage to be misguided. But with cancer still the disease we dread most, it's inspiring to see high-profile people battling the disease refusing to just go away and hide. Roger Ebert loves movies, and for him to not attend this festival even if he had to be carried in on a sedan chair is unthinkable. And while there may yet be unfavorable coverage, so far what most papers are recounting is the standing ovation he received and the love the attendees have for this man who has arguably done more for the movies than anyone else in his field.

For those of us who have been admirers of Roger Ebert's work, the idea of a man who has made his living and his reputation through language being unable to speak is unspeakably cruel. And yet Ebert is right -- as long as he can think and type, he can still do his work. And so Roger Ebert joins Elizabeth Edwards and Tony Snow to form an unlikely trifecta of courage in the face of disease -- and show us how important it is to refuse to go quietly.

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