Posted at 04:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Some people have reported problems viewing "Choice Denied", our documentary on the Howard County Public School System's ban on transfers. We're working on getting the documentary up on a more reliable platform, so it won't get hung up when you view it. We apologize for any inconvenience and will keep you posted here with any updates as to the doc's URL.
Posted at 11:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Free World Media's documentary on the Howard County Public School System's ban on student transfers is now up at Break the Matrix TV!
The above description makes it sound a lot more dry than it is. What it's really about is the struggle of one family to have their five-year-old son transferred from the Title I school he is currently being bussed to, to one of the better elementary schools that is within walking distance of his home and that has plenty of capacity.
Posted at 01:54 PM in FWM projects | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
If Joss Whedon was Our Master before, he is even more so now. This week he joins the likes of RadioHead in giving the finger to traditional distribution channels. In a six-day Entertainment Event that culminates a few minutes from now, and then, at midnight Sunday, disappears into thin air, Joss shows us that it can be done: Good entertainment can be produced on the cheap and shown online, not on TV.
From Joss's "Master Plan": "Once upon a time, all the writers in the forest got very mad with the Forest Kings and declared a work-stoppage. The forest creatures were all sad; the mushrooms did not dance, the elderberries gave no juice for the festival wines, and the Teamsters were kinda pissed. (They were very polite about it, though.) During this work-stoppage, many writers tried to form partnerships for outside funding to create new work that circumvented the Forest King system.
"Frustrated with the lack of movement on that front, I finally decided to do something very ambitious, very exciting, very mid-life-crisisy. Aided only by everyone I had worked with, was related to or had ever met, I single-handedly created this unique little epic. A supervillain musical, of which, as we all know, there are far too few.
"The idea was to make it on the fly, on the cheap – but to make it. To turn out a really thrilling, professionalish piece of entertainment specifically for the internet. To show how much could be done with very little. To show the world there is another way."
Will audiences go for it? Will Joss recoup his meagre costs? Will he get rich? Tune in this weekend, and he just might...
Anyway, we're rooting for him. (Also for Dr. Horrible.)
Posted at 11:50 PM in Television | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Pretty much, this
"Fathers' Day, 2008, Matthis Chiroux stands with his father and fellow Iraq Veterans Against the War in refusal of his orders to reactivate and deploy in support of the Iraq occupation on the day of this speech."
Posted at 04:34 PM in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Our short video decrying the silliness of our statist health care system is now up on the Free World Media Center's YouTube channel! You can watch it here. You can also see the commercial and first and second teasers.
Bretigne
Posted at 12:12 PM in FWM projects | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
(SPOILERS AHEAD)
That is not my point though. My point is that I have long suspected DH of harboring
libertarian-minded writers on its staff – and this season’s finale may just
have proven me right.
Earlier in the series, I noticed something that I thought was unusual in American television: a positive portrayal of private gun ownership. (In the spirit of full disclosure, I should note that I don’t actually own a TV, so my knowledge of what is out there comes from my own selection of Netflix and other rentals. But I don’t think I’m that far off on this.) One of the main characters, Bree, uses her gun first to protect her daughter from an intruder and when an overzealous ex-fiance serenades her with a truck-mounted sound system in front of her house, Bree blows the speakers off the top of the truck with her shotgun.
There are other hints too – such as Bree’s next fiancé declaring himself to be a libertarian ("I believe in minimizing the role of the state and maximizing individual rights!") -- but it is in this season’s finale that it all comes together. First: as she helps an undercover cop wire her tenant’s room in preparation for a drug bust, Gabbie starts to have reservations about turning in her tenant/friend for selling drugs. She stands up for her friend against the boorish cop’s claim that “drug dealer equals scum!”, and in the end, as the police are heading for her door, she does the right thing and tells the woman to run out the back.
Of course, in true DH fashion, the story does not end here. The tenant later calls to ask Gabbie to bring her the teddy bear she left in her room that holds great sentimental value. Gabbie rips open the bear to find $118,000 in cash. Gabbie tells her now-ex-tenant that she couldn’t find the bear, and the woman comes over (with violent intent) to get it. As fate would have it, she ends up getting shot in another neighbor’s hair-raising drama which we’ll get to later, but here’s the amazing thing: GABBIE KEEPS THE MONEY! For now, anyway – which means at least through the summer. Anyone who knows anything about the Rules of Television knows that one of the big ones has just been broken. Characters NEVER get to keep significant sums of money that they either earn, win, steal, or otherwise come into during the course of the show (and I’m sure someone will write in informing me of exceptions to this rule, but that’s my point – they are exceptions. Rare ones.) We’ll see what happens next season, but whatever happens to the money, DH gets points for having characters question the War on Drugs.
There is also a sequence in which Child Protective Services is portrayed in a none-too-sympathetic light, but I think it would be a stretch to try to turn this into a libertarian message. The real coup though comes at the show’s climax. And it doesn’t matter if this was written by a “libertarian” or not. In fact, whether or not there are “rEVOLutionaries” on the staff of DH is really beside the point. The point is that someone has made a really powerful statement about the strength of individuals and community in the face of the state. If you haven’t seen it yet you should stop reading now because my pathetic retelling won’t do justice to the way this plays out on the screen.
So (as you probably know) Katherine has something to hide about her “daughter” Dylan. Early in the episode, the other housewives are talking about her, saying she seems distant, closed off to them. Bree, who is Katherine’s partner in a catering business, defends her, but Lynette speaks for all the others when she says “…she’ll never be one of us.”
Meanwhile, Katherine’s abusive ex-husband Wayne has come back and wants to know what the secret is. Wayne kidnaps Katherine’s new husband Adam (played by Firefly’s Nathan Fillion) and beats him to a bloody pulp. When Katherine realizes what has happened, she reluctantly goes to the police. Oh, and by the way, her abusive ex-husband Wayne is a cop. Hence her reluctance.
We flash back to the last time Katherine was in a police station: 14 years previously, when she had gone in to report having been beaten by her husband. She says that she has reported him before but that when she called she was told that the paperwork had been lost. When she tells the officer the name of her assailant/husband, the officer advises her to get out of town. Her husband has a lot of friends on the force, she tells Katherine, and she can’t guarantee that one of them won’t lose the paperwork again. Katherine takes her advice.
Flash forward to the present, and Katherine is again in a
police station, this time reporting that
OK, there’s also a gay wedding.
Mal
Adam appears upstairs. Bree, Katherine
and Adam go down to find a disabled Wayne lying on the floor. Katherine holds
him at gunpoint while Adam goes to call the police and Bree tends to his
wounds.
Sneering to the last,
Bree and Adam rush into the living room where Katherine
stands over the dead
As the police comb through the scene, Katherine sits
silently on her sofa. An officer asks
her again and again to tell him what happened but she remains silent. Outside though, her friends are talking. Bree gives her account of how Katherine
grabbed the gun from
It is a beautiful scene. And it is a beautiful example of how individuals can defeat a seemingly all-powerful state simply by behaving as a community. It’s a lesson those of us in the freedom movement could all take to heart.
- Bretigne
Posted at 03:17 PM in Television | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Astoundingly (or not...), press credential applications are no longer being accepted for the 2008 Republican National Convention in September. Interestingly though, bloggers have until the day after tomorrow (May 15th) to indicate their interest.
According to the RNC's website, "...a to-be-determined number of independent bloggers, those not associated with traditional media outlets, will be credentialed to blog at our convention." Independent bloggers will have to apply for "Special Press" credentials, for which there is currently no deadline. Elsewhere on the RNC's site, however, it states that "The deadline for blogger applications is May 15, 2008." I can only assume that this refers to the deadline for "indicating interest" -- which prospective bloggers can do here.
Posted at 01:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)