philosoraptor42

Naturally it's pretty hard to read those little signs in the picture above. Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield held those cards in front of their faces when the paparazzi were photographing them.

Emma Stone's card reads:

Good morning! We were eating and saw a group of guys with cameras outside. And so we thought, let’s try this again. We don’t need the attention, but these wonderful organizations do.

The card then finishes with an arrow pointing to Andrew Garfield's card. His card reads:

www.youthmentoring.org
www.autismspeaks.org

(and don’t forget:)

www.wwo.org
www.gildasclubnyc.org

Here’s to the stuff that matters. Have a great day!

Isn't that cool? Larger images of the individual cards are under the cut....

( Click here to reveal larger images of their cards... )

(Via Filmdrunk)

So, the Oscars ceremony rolls around again and we see yet more of the typical boring arguments about which films were picked by old white men who form the judges panel. There's criticism of Seth MacFarlane for not being funny enough, as if it was normal to expect comedy gold during the show. However, the Oscars continue to somehow hold respect within the industry, so each award received continues to make a serious statement. Possibly even a political statement sometimes.

However, I'm not convinced that I've ever heard of an Oscars-related issue so politically charged before. Sure, the lack of recognition for black actors has always been an issue, as have other inequalities in the industry related to gender, sexuality, disability and so on. However, in this particular case, unknown to most of the viewing public across the globe, there was a protest taking place outside the Oscars this time in relation to the plight of visual effects workers.



As the time came around to hand out the Oscar for visual effects, there was a brief suggestion on stage that visual effects work needed proper recognition at the ceremony. Samuel L. Jackson seemed oddly cagey at this stage, seemingly insisting that the visual effects award be rushed through. After lamenting some difficulty handling the envelope, Jackson announces that the winners of the award are the team who worked on "Life Of Pi".

They read out a long list of people to thank, but before they even reached the end of their pre-agreed list, the theme from "Jaws" began to play loudly. The speaker spoke louder to be heard over the music. Having finished the list of 'thank yous' he then began to make reference to their company's financial difficulties. It was at this moment that his microphone was turned off. There was to be no mention of these difficulties during the Oscars ceremony (at least not indoors).

The shocking thing is that the team suffering from those 'financial difficulties' is, in fact, filing for bankruptcy. The visual effects team "Rhythm and Hues", which also worked on another nominee "Snow White And The Huntsman" that was similarly profitable, is going bankrupt because the film studios have failed to pay them. Their workers, who are directly responsible for the success of "Life Of Pi" at the Oscars, have not been given their basic wages.

While the Oscars shoo the visual effects team off the stage within the ceremony, one protest board outside reads "WILL MATTE PAINT FOR FOOD".



THE EVENT AT THE OSCARS
There are clips from the Oscars all over youtube, but it is rather harder to find this clip of the visual effects winners being cut off when receiving their award. Hopefully this clip is still working.


(video link)

You can find out more information about this in the following links:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2013/feb/25/oscars-protest-life-of-pi
http://insidemovies.ew.com/2013/02/25/oscars-visual-effects-protest-li fe-of-pi/
http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Life-Pi-Visual-Effects-Artists-Protest- Oscar-Red-Carpet-35967.html
http://www.fastcocreate.com/1682488/when-winning-an-oscar-means-bankru ptcy-vfx-artists-protest-the-academy-awards


EXTRACT FROM THE GUARDIAN

"Several hundred people reportedly congregated outside the Dolby theatre in Los Angeles as the stars walked the red carpet, demanding better treatment for the artists who make the spectacular visuals for blockbuster movies possible. The protest was planned after the well-known Rhythm & Hues effects house filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last week, shortly after winning a Bafta for its work on Life of Pi....

"When the visual effects team behind Life of Pi attempted to draw attention to Rhythm and Hues' plight during their acceptance speech for the best visual effects Oscar, they were cut off by the band as the speech went on beyond the stipulated limit."

(Cross-posted to moviebuffs)

... the answer is "pretty damn horrible", okay?

Y'see Ireland has this law whereby abortion is made illegal. It's not actually supposed to include cases where there's a danger to the mother, but that didn't stop the recent ridiculously unnecessary screw-up. The law actually doesn't really so much stop abortions as make them extra specially difficult because anyone who wants one has to travel specially to the UK to get the procedure done. Of course, that's not really feasible when your fully intentional pregnancy has gone awry and you are in a severe condition in an Irish hospital.


This lovely lady is called Savita Halappanavar. She died tragically a week after being admitted to a hospital in Galway where she was found to be miscarrying. For three days she asked for doctors to terminate her pregnancy but this was refused on the grounds that: "This is a Catholic country." Apparently her response that she was neither Irish nor Catholic made no difference to this (she was Indian and Hindu).

Dr. Jen Gunter explains:

...“Miscarrying” at 17 weeks can only mean one of three things:

A) Ruptured membranes
B) Advanced cervical dilation
C) Labor (this is unlikely, although it is possible that she had preterm labor that arrested and left her with scenario B, advanced cervical dilation).

All three of these scenarios have a dismal prognosis, none of which should involve the death of the mother.

Since Savita was told that the doctors would need to wait until the foetal heartbeat stopped before they could intervene, Dr. Gunter has a number of possible explanations, all of which are horrible:

As there is no medically acceptable scenario at 17 weeks where a woman is miscarrying AND is denied a termination, there can only be three plausible explanations for Ms. Hapappanavar’s “medical care” :

1) Irish law does indeed treat pregnant women as second class citizens and denies them appropriate medical care. The medical team was following the law to avoid criminal prosecution.
2) Irish law does not deny women the care they need; however, a zealous individual doctor or hospital administrator interpreted Catholic doctrine in such a way that a pregnant woman’s medical care was somehow irrelevant and superceded by heart tones of a 17 weeks fetus that could never be viable.
3) Irish law allows abortions for women when medically necessary, but the doctors involved were negligent in that they could not diagnose infection when it was so obviously present, did not know the treatment, or were not competent enough to carry out the treatment.

What we do know is that a young, pregnant, woman who presented to the hospital in a first world country died for want of appropriate medical care. Whether it’s Irish Catholic law or malpractice, only time will tell; however, no answer could possibly ease the pain and suffering of Ms. Halappanavar’s loved ones.

And it only gets worse...

This is Senator Ronan Mullen. He's decided to take this moment to announce that: "he hoped protestors outside the Dáil would not use the tragic death of Savita Halappanavar as an argument for legislating for abortion."

Yes, because clearly a woman dying from being denied an abortion is NOT the time to start asking questions about access to abortion, right? No, instead it's the PERFECT TIME to start denouncing any such idea and SHAMING anyone who even dreamt of bringing up the matter, obviously! *facepalm*

(Reminds me of the pro-gun guy who got upset that people were suggesting that the Colorado shootings might indicate that gun control was lacking. But at least he was just some random guy on the internet and not a public figure in a position of authority.)


Meanwhile the minister for health, James Reilly, reckons that it's too early to say whether ties to a Catholic ethos were at fault:

Speaking in the Dáil this evening, he said we "could not pre-judge" the situation, adding he had no evidence to suggest a Catholic ethos at the hospital prevented the pregnant woman's life from being saved by a medical termination.

Okay, fair enough, I suppose that's true. However, if we consider Dr. Gunter's words, Reilly appears to be ignoring the seemingly inevitable consequences of what he's saying here. If the Catholic ethos was not at responsible for this tragedy, either through Ireland's Catholicism-determined anti-abortion law or in through the practices of the medical staff at the hospital, then there is only one possible alternative. That alternative is that the medical staff involved were abysmally and ludicrously incompetent.

In the meantime there are candlelit vigils across Ireland in response to this tragedy. One might have hoped that the Irish authorities would take it a little more seriously.... D':



(Guardian - Ireland should change abortion law)
(Dr. Gunter considers the case)
(Reilly: No evidence Catholic ethos prevented Savita's life from being saved)
(Pharyngula weighs in)
(Images of vigils and protests)

After this young woman’s father was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, he was told by the doctor to take it easy since he’s a manual laborer. Yet he went back to work full-time, working 12 hours a day, six days a week. She writes, “The cancer still grows. That is the American dream.”

(Via ONTD_P)

This is about the daughter of an immigrant to America. She has decided to post one of those "we are the 53%" notes on a notepad about why it's so great that they, or their family, works ultra-hard for low wages and have a marginally decent to low quality of life. In case anyone doesn't know about this yet, some people have been countering the "Occupy Wall Street" movement against financial corruption in the banks by using the slogan "we are the 53%". It's a reaction to the "we are the 99%" slogan which distinguishes its members from the 1% of the population who are millionaires or billionaires and seem to be beyond reproach even in cases where massive global economic catastophe can be tied to them. "We are the 53%" refers to the half the population or so who pay income tax.

They see themselves as arguing something like this.

The idea seems to be Tea Party-esque, hard libertarian logic that if you haven't got a job you need to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and get one even if there aren't any and stop leeching off of the state by demanding healthcare, a living wage, to be treated like a human being and suchlike. Or something.

I quite liked this comic on the issue:


While on the one hand it shows how conservative attitudes in the US make it hard for them to identify with the movement, I think it also says something about the "crackpot idealist" image the Occupy Wall Street movement has gained. Hippies are all for peace and love, but rarely have a long term practical plan.

Anyway, turns out that the Occupy Wall Street movement actually have genuine demands. Who knew?

A collection of photos of poor spelling at the teabaggers' protest has the following description:
These are signs seen primarily at Tea Party Protests. They all feature "creative" spelling or grammar. This new dialect of the English language shall be known as "Teabonics." 

You can find the whole collection here. But below are what I consider to be the highlights. (I've also followed each image with a comment from the flickr page):


I was going to honk until I saw your grandma's sign. : (

This is a common theme in the protests. Anti-immigrant sentiment based around the ability to speak English - with poor spelling.

( More under the cut... )

ah, sh*t, ah ment tah do this afore ah started drinkin'

What cracks me up about this one is not just the extremely colourful clothing the guy is wearing, but also the high level of concentration on his face as he writes it. It doesn't look from the photograph like he's rushing this sign at all, yet anyone seeing the finished product would surely presume that was the case.

Anyone who is not already familiar with Blaghag's excellent blog should check it out post haste! She's the president of her university's Non-Theist Society and the level of energy she puts into the role should be an inspiration to us all. She was quite heavily involved in the Creationist Museum visit with P.Z. Myers from Pharyngula.

Anyway recently she had her society doing some pastafarian preaching for 'dress like a pirate' day. The intention was to indicate to people how ridiculous a method street preaching is for putting forward your point of view and reminding people that religious views should always be open to criticism. It just so happened that there was some homophobic fire and brimstone preaching on the same day.

Anyway, they made into the local news:

And they also have their own footage of the event:

Sadly there was some misreporting from one of the local papers:

They didn't misquote me...they just completely made it up!

The Society of Non-Theists at Purdue University were at Memorial Mall by coincidence to talk about Pirate Day.
“When we found out he was here we made signs to refute his arguments,” Jennifer McCreight, president of the society and senior in the College of Science. “I don’t think it’s disrespectful that we’re here because it’s rude that he’s here.”

What the hell? I never said anything even resembling that. I got to talk to the reporter for about five seconds, and all she asked me about was how non-theists felt on Purdue's campus. I talked about our flyers being torn down, prayer at graduation, being in the minority...yet somehow they quoted me as saying that?
Maybe one of our members said that, but I most certainly did not...especially because it's false. We did not make signs to refute his arguments. We had the signs left over from last year. We didn't even know he was coming until after we planned our event. And the second line doesn't even make sense! Gah!
Bonus video: Blaghag's friend gives a quick Hebrew lesson in the Creation Museum:
( Bonus vid... )
x posted to atheism