OMG, I just discovered this amazing, perfect rant that comedian Margaret Cho wrote, responding to what some Xian fundamentalists were saying about her after she wrote some critical stuff about Sarah Palin. It's the best. I never really paid much attention to her work but now I'm totally a fan.
Anyway, read it here: http://www.margaretcho.com/blog/2008/09/17/im-a-christian-you-fuckers.html

And btw, that's where it originally appeared, on Cho's blog. I'm glad that Sarah Benincasa (of Sarah Palin Vlog fame) referred to it and reposted it, but she didn't link to it, she just said it was on Cho's facebook page. So then I had to go hunting around on Facebook and after about 20 clicks of that, putting more money in the bank for the CIA or whoever really runs Facebook, I finally found it but found that it was a repost from Cho's actual blog. I would much rather link to her blog than lame Facebook so that's what I'm doing. yay. I guess I'm just a stickler for hypertextuality. Anticorporate hypertextuality.

For some months now I've been toying with, debating with myself about, the idea of going back to grad school and studying film. Each time I go back to the idea, I do research and think about it and conclude that, no, I don't need/want to go back to school, for many and various reasons.

I came across one more really great and reassuring reason not to go, in a book I've been reading about Werner Herzog, one of my favorite directors, whom I respect a lot. In this book, "Herzog on Herzog," he says "I personally do not believe in the kind of film schools you find all over the world today... It has always seemed to me that almost everything you learn at school you forget in a couple of years. But the things you set out to learn yourself in order to quench a thirst, these are the things you never forget... academia is the death of cinema. It is the very opposite of passion."

Here's a story from the Sierra Vista, AZ paper reporting that Glenn Spencer, local xenophobe wackadoo, is complaining that the Border Patrol is inflating their figures of how much new fence is finished out of the required amount that Congress mandated be done by the end of this year.

Of course this in common knowledge. But I think it's funny that they're getting attacked from both sides - the racists griping that the fence isn't getting put up fast enough enough, or secure enough, and more sane and humane people who say it shouldn't be put up at all.

The story also mentions and links to the Sierra Club video that I made. An interesting comment thread follows the story, including an admittedly good point made by one of the pro-wall nutjobs: Sierra Club shouldn't be calling it a documentary. If I've ever called it that I apologize now. It's not a documentary, in the sense that a documentary is at least nominally objective - this film is an advocacy piece that takes a clear position, and I was hired to take that position and deliver a very clear and specific political message. It's not impartial reportage, it's a polemic. Guilty as charged.

Anyway, I'm glad it's getting more and more exposure.

I had a bad scare yesterday. Having stupidly said "yes" to an automatic upgrade that Apple told me to install, I suddenly couldn't get final cut pro to start up. I tried something recommended by one Mac hints site, starting in safe mode and fixing permissions and re-installing by hand the Quicktime update that the upgrade included (the other thing that it included was the new version of iTunes, which includes the new, slightly creepy and very annoying "Genius" feature. bleah.).

That got FCP to start, but i was unable to capture or output to or from firewire devices. In fact I couldnt get any application to not crash when i told it to access my firewire DV deck. I was freaking out. What to do? Would I have to reinstall OS X from scratch? wipe my hard drive in order to go back to the old version of Quicktime?

Luckily after one more desperate Google search I found a page that described how to downgrade to an earlier version of any Apple package using a little program called Pacifist (funny coincidence that a program called Pacifist has enabled me to continue work on a film about resisting war!).

I got the shareware and followed the directions to install the earlier package, Quicktime 7.5, and restarted and things now seem hunky dory again. Whew. I think I owe a registration fee to Pacifist's creator.

Anyway, if you are a user of FCP (at least version 5.1.2) and you haven't upgraded to the new QT, you might want to think twice before doing it. Oh, and I recommend skipping the new iTunes as well. By the way, during my research into this problem I read that the "security fixes" that Apple lists as the reason for the upgrade actually have to do with Digital Rights Management (locking up content) rather than any sort of protection from your machine getting hacked or that sort of thing. So the new version is pretty unneeded anyway.

Check out this BraveNewFilms video clearly illustrating the distortions and falsehoods that the McCain campaign is spewing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IH0xzsogzAk

• 10:44 wow. nervous. my film went out on sierra club e-newsletter to LOTS of people. tinyurl.com/63snx5 #
• 11:22 awesome: womenagainstsarahpalin.blogspot.com/ #
• 14:53 i dont think i like iTunes' new 'Genius' feature. a little creepy, it is. #

Reports are out today that Homeland Security is a little overbudget on the new border fence construction and they need Congress to hand out another $400 million so they can finish what they were asked to do by the end of this year.

"If we run out of money, unfortunately the construction will have to stop," Ahern said. He said it is not known exactly how much extra it will cost to build each mile of the fence, because the costs differ due to varying terrain and environmental issues.

In the big scheme of our massive federal budget, this is chump change, and it seems likely that Congress will just reach in their pocket without thinking much about it - but in this election year maybe if enough people make a stink about it, it won't happen. Write your representative and senators today and tell them not to authorize this further insult to injury. Stop the wall!

• 16:21 capturing an interview with the Mexican Consul of Tucson. #
• 18:42 almost time to go to Pan Left meeting. #
• 20:31 feeling tired and bored. sitting in pan left meeting. #

This is hilarious stuff. Sarah Palin is such great comedy fodder...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioGC40_AWhs

I'm proud to finally post online the short version of the film I made for the Sierra Club concerning the border wall and its effects on the environment. This project started in January, finished (late) in August, and will be premiering theatrically later this month at an event here in Tucson with our local congressman Raul Grijalva.

The full version of the film is about 20 minutes long, but you won't see that one online for a little while longer. The Sierra Club local group is trying to use it to raise money for a new border job they're hiring for. They've pressed a few hundred DVDs of both versions and will be sending it around the country to Sierra Club chapters and other interested parties.

Anyway, it's a relief that this is finally done and out there, and I'm hoping it will do some good in helping to get the word out about the gigantic folly that is our increasingly militarised and draconian border infrastructure and the frightening loss of our constitutional rights as a nation.