Author: John Weathers

Autobots! Transform and ROLL OUT!

/ John Weathers / 1 Comment

Transformer fans rejoice!

Lovers of awesome action packed spectacle rejoice!

Michael Bay has delivered us one hell of a cinematic roller coaster ride. This Transfan just had the pleasure of seeing a sneak preview of the new film that starts everywhere on July 3 (although there are some early showings on July 2 at 8PM and midnight) and I walked out of the movie theater with a great big smile on my face. Even the fact that it was pouring down rain and my car was a football field away from the entrance to the movie theater couldn’t dampen my parade after this movie.

This film delivers the goods on all accounts and delivers them in a big way! The action is fantastic, the special effects are perfect, and surprisingly enough (in such an action special effects driven feature) the actors all turn in great performances that add that extra special touch to the film. Also, the humor works very well and is satisfying and natural instead of silly and forced.

Transformer fans will be pleased and yet people who don’t have a clue who Optimus Prime or Megatron are will enjoy this ride, too judging by the enthusiastic reaction of my friend who knew nothing going into the film other than that it was a movie that featured giant transforming robots.

About the only small complaint that I can offer is that they did such a great job with setting up the story and bringing the Transformers into the picture that they wind up having too little time in the epic finale to develop any of the Decepticon characters to the degree that lovers of the comic and show will remember. However, I’m sure that this will be rectified in the sequel that is hinted at by the movie’s final minutes.

Go see this movie as soon as you can! You’ll have a blast. So far this has been the best time at the movies all year for yours truly. What a great movie! Thank you, Michael Bay.

Pro-Life vs. Pro-Choice Part II

/ John Weathers / 1 Comment

I guess I should have gone into more detail on my last erant, but at the time I was just trying to quickly fire off a little rant over a pet peeve of mine.

My good friend Josh decided to poke at me a bit in the comment section:

You too are using “dirty semantics propaganda” by suggesting that “pro-choice” is dishonest and that it should instead be called “pro-abortion”.

If you have a frank discussion with many people who are pro-choice, you would likely hear sentiments similar to what Rudy Giuliani recently expressed: that they are in fact, personally, against abortion – not pro-abortion, as you would like to call them. However, all things considered they do not believe in legislation that outlaws abortion. There are a myriad of reasons. Obviously, considering your rigid viewpoint, you’re not likely to agree with many of them, so I’ll spare you a list.

Let’s consider these facts:

Representative Kucinich is a strong supporter of the “pro-choice” position and is at the same time a man whom I admire and consider an intelligent and moral human being. So I think it’s hardly fair to call my anti-abortion views rigid if one means to suggest that they are not nuanced and informed from a consideration of both sides of the argument. Continue reading →

Pro-Life vs Pro-Choice

/ John Weathers / 2 Comments

I often read the website ZNet. It is a great daily source of articles coming from a perspective that is critical of the media and the establishment. A lot of the content of the site reflects an anarchist viewpoint and promotes the idea of participatory economics. It’s a good site and I recommend it as a daily news stop along with Antiwar.com (which comes from a Libertarian party perspective but is nevertheless a great source of information).

Today, I was browsing ZNet when an article on abortion from the neo-liberal magazine The New Republic caught my eye. The article by Princeton feminist scholar Christine Stansell was entitled “A Lost History of Abortion”, and despite my better instincts, I clicked on the article and started to read it. That is until Ms. Stansell decided to play her hand and use language manipulation from almost the get-go. In the second paragraph, she refers to those who oppose abortions as “the anti-choice movement”.

And that just irritates me to the extreme. Continue reading →