'Just One Day'

Yeah. I want to see this.

Love Mendes, ever since American Beauty. And after the lack of much original thinking in his non-ground-breaking Revolutionary Road -- saved only by brilliant performances by Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, and the one who stole the show in a character who almost revealed Mendes's hand too much, Michael Shannon -- I am really looking forward to him showing us what made us love him in the first place: in Away We Go.


Yet, the cliched design of the movie's website and credits, etc., can't help but remind me too much of Juno and other such non-indy indy films. Mendes doesn't need that help to drum up an audience.

Not the ukelele I'm used to hearing

Very cool.


and part two:

A necessary apology

Humbling to admit your past wrongs, and that the opinions or sentiments you once held are not right. While I am pro-life still, I do not believe the issue is handled through legislation -- I believe it's counterproductive, just creates backlash. But I believe Frank Schaeffer is right in that the rhetoric, however unintended, has fueled the wrong passions in the issue.

Compassion and love -- and grace -- should always be the answer. From Frank Schaeffer's column:

Like many writers of moral/political/religious theories, my father and I would have been shocked that someone took us at our word, walked into a Lutheran Church and pulled the trigger on an abortionist. But even if the murderer never read Dad's or my words, we helped create the climate that made this murder likely to happen. In fact, it has happened before. In 1994, Dr. John Bayard Britton and one of his volunteer escorts were shot and killed outside an abortion clinic in Pensacola, Fla., by Paul Hill, a former minister and an avid follower of my father's.

Angry speech has become the norm in American religion from both the right and the left. Words are spoken which, when taken seriously, lead directly to violence by the unhinged and/or the truly committed.