Bopping with Niall JP O'Leary

Niall O'Leary insists on sharing his hare-brained notions and hysterical emotions. Personal obsessions with cinema, literature, food and alcohol feature regularly.

Saturday, August 18, 2007

"Can't We All Just Get Along?"

Half Moon party on Koh Phangan
Half Moon party on Koh Phangan

Just looking at some of the "pay-for-article" sites online; it might be nice to get some recompense for what I do anyway. Anyone out there had any experience? From what I can gather, the three big players each have their issues: Associated Content seem to be only for Americans, Triond just your standard ad-click payers, and Helium very dodgy (as in they don't always pay you). But any feedback would be appreciated.

Leaving work early yesterday (a growing habit), I went to 'The Bourne Ultimatum', but more on that later. I was not in the mood for alcohol after the night before and ended up going home and reading 'Timescape' for the evening. Very readable stuff, it has to be said.

Today has been the usual summer day of rain, so I stayed in to watch 'Gandhi', again. It's hardly saying anything new to point out how remarkable he was. If his vision of a peaceful, independent India wasn't realised, he didn't want it, and rejected the half solution, at personal pain, for his higher ideal. What does come across though, is the inevitability of sectarian violence given a nationalist struggle. It is the vent for all the uncertainty, guilt and suspicion that independence breeds in a people. Even there his stubbornness almost reined in such a natural force. Almost. Still he, at least, showed in his own life what humanity was capable of, even if everyone else was/is too weak to follow.

And didn't Kingsley give the performance of a lifetime?

I thought I was seeing things earlier on, but did you know that the Catholic Church has withdrawn its support for Amnesty International? I'd almost laugh if it wasn't so sickening. Oh, I understand it's reason (abortion), I just don't understand it's reason. Is there any Reason in the Catholic Church?

I'm being willfully provocative here. Of course, the Catholic Church are going to object to Amnesty. The Church has never been in any way less than clear on where it stood with regard to abortion. It's against it, full stop, no exceptions. Correct me if I'm wrong on that. Amnesty International, in actively endorsing abortion, albeit in very particular cases ('if their [women's] lives are in danger or if they have been raped'), have put themselves in opposition. Given that each should be working for the same causes (whether you support the Church or not), this is unfortunate, and doubly so that some compromise can't be reached. By asking Catholics to withdraw support, the Catholic Church is actively working against Amnesty and so indirectly supporting the enemies of Amnesty. A foolish state of affairs.

2 Comments:

At 9:27 pm, Blogger ian said...

"Gandhi" is a great film, but I often think I could do with having some other source of information about Gandhi than just it. I bet he was kind of rubbish in real life - self-important non-compromiser who would have caused real problems for the embedding of democracy in an independent India, though of course we will never know. I did stumble across something once about how those we call the Untouchables found him a bit of a pain; on the one hand, he did campaign for their rights and stuff, but he did so by undermining any attempt by them to campaign for their rights.

 
At 10:35 pm, Blogger Niall said...

You could be right and the fact that I can't contradict you bolsters your initial point about the lack of any other info. Having said that there was a movie out a week or so ago called 'Gandhi, My Father' (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0459293/), that apparently does show a darker side to Gandhi. That movie, I'm ashamed to say, I missed. I'm also sure there is a great deal of literature out there that I/we could read as well. I suppose it is easier to take a great movie and believe it because we want to. As they say in 'The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance':
"When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." Still there is a lot in the facts to give us inspiration to push for something better.

 

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