The Tao of Nan (Poem)

The Tao of Nan


Imagine where you want to be
and you’ll be there.
See yourself with the one you desire
and it will happen.
Bet on nothing
and something will come.

Retreat when you feel your heart cringing --
You will set yourself free.

Listen to people as if you
are listening to yourself
and you will hear them.

Set goals that you think are
beyond your reach
and when you achieve them
you will be grateful.

Expect nothing
and everything is a gift.

Expect everything
and anything will lead
to everything.

Feng shui your innards –
Your world will change.
Your furniture will
rearrange itself.
Steve McQueen’s motorcycle
will slow when it roars
near your door.

The Tao of Nan
is the Tao of letting go,
letting go of it all,
so it can return
of its own
volition.

Religulous

I just saw Bill Maher's Religulous -- what a thought-provoking, hilarious film. He's such a smart man. I think it's far more courageous to admit doubt than to rotely quote tenets of any faith that discourage thinking. He asked this question of a woman at the Holy Lands "park" in Florida - "If you had been told Jack & the Beanstalk, for example, was part of the Bible and Jonah and the Whale a fairy tale, would you believe the Jack story to be true?" in order to get her to think, not to be condescending.

The problem with the people who refuse to think for themselves is that they take so many crazy ideas literally, as the word of their god, and refuse to admit doubt, to examine, to question. I could identify with Bill when he said that, after his Catholic upbringing, the teachings of his childhood and youth linger, despite his present lack of religious practice (when he was 40, he tried to make a deal with God - he'd quit smoking if God would get him through a difficult situation in his life). I too, in times of desperation, returning to the powerful God I knew in my youth, have tried deal-making with Her/Him despite my present doubts as to whether Anyone's out there.

I think it's true that if 16% of Americans are agnostic/atheist, they need to feel free to discuss it openly without harrassment - the problem is, based just on the reaction I know I'd get from my family, I would be pitied and prayed for and cried over, and I don't want that. I also don't think I would be able to say anything to enable them to accept that I have my beliefs just as I accept that they have theirs. I've, for a long time, been quite open about my feelings that the violence that's been done in the name of religion turns me off to organized religion in general, that the mixing of church & state is definitely not what our forefathers wanted (Bill discusses that as well), and that the treatment of women in both the Old and New Testaments is not what my God would desire or condone.

I'll write more about this later. In the meantime, please go see this movie.

McCain on Letterman

Although John McCain came across as more real on Letterman last night, he still insisted on exaggerating Obama's ties to Ayers, and that Palin would be more than able to handle our country in a crisis. I thought Dave was rather timid and soft on McCain, but it's understandable that he wants to keep the show professional and not turn it into a mean-spirited attack. Dave stuck to his guns on the Ayers issue, though, closing that one by saying "even though Obama was 8 years old at the time. . ." He made the excellent point that we can't always choose our associates in life.

My Movie Categories & Top Tens

My Movie Categories and Lists
(Top Tens are in no particular order - maybe someday I'll do that)

Categories:

Western Period/Historical
War Comedy
Sci Fi/Fantasy Drama
Horror Musical
Suspense Romance

OTHER POSSIBLE CATEGORIES:
“Road”
Gangster
Sports
Detective
Teen
Animated
Ensemble

WESTERN:

McCabe and Mrs. Miller
The Wild Bunch
Once Upon a Time in the West
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid
The Misfits
Cat Ballou
Pale Rider

WAR:
Apocalypse Now
The Deerhunter
Schindler’s List
The Bridge on the River Kwai
Born on the Fourth of July
Platoon
Full Metal Jacket
MASH
Saving Private Ryan
Dawn Patrol


SCI FI/FANTASY
Lord of the Rings Trilogy

Star Wars IV
Terminator and
T2
Alien
Close Encounters of the Third Kind

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951 version)

The Matrix

The Incredibles


HORROR:

The Exorcist
Silence of the Lambs
Invasion of the Body Snatchers(1978 version)
The Omen (1976)
Angel Heart
The Fly (Cronenberg version)
The Others
The Blair Witch Project
Frankenstein (with Boris Karloff)


SUSPENSE:

North by Northwest
Psycho
Vertigo
Fargo
Rebecca
Witness
The Usual Suspects
The Maltese Falcon
A Simple Plan
Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte


PERIOD/HISTORICAL:


Reds
Gone With the Wind
Days of Heaven
Lawrence of Arabia
JFK
Out of Africa
Howard's End
Titanic
All the President's Men
The Right Stuff


COMEDY:
Some Like It Hot
It Happened One Night
Annie Hall
This is Spinal Tap
Tootsie
A Night at the Opera
Ratatouille
Waiting for Guffman
Foul Play
MUSICAL:

Top Hat
Funny Girl
The Wizard of Oz
The Music Man
My Fair Lady
The Sound of Music
On the Town
Mary Poppins
West Side Story
A Hard Day's Night

DRAMA:
The Godfather
Godfather 2
To Kill a Mockingbird
Goodfellas
It's A Wonderful Life
Bonnie and Clyde
Midnight Cowboy
Pulp Fiction
Thelma & Louise
Badlands

ROMANCE:

Hannah and Her Sisters
The Graduate
Moonstruck
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
A Room With a View
Dangerous Liaisons
Brokeback Mountain
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Harold and Maude
The Piano


NOTE: AFI’s Categories were:

Animation – neither The Incredibles nor Ratatouille were included!
Western
Sports
Gangster
Epic – they included Saving Private Ryan and All’s Quiet on the Western Front in here, and rated Schindler’s List and Ben-Hur over GWTW!!!
Mystery
Sci-Fi
Fantasy
Courtroom Drama
Romantic Comedy – City Lights was #1!