title explained

Onward and upward! something that you say in order to encourage someone to forget an unpleasant experience or failure and to think about the future instead and move forward.

My e-mail: jjmiller6213@comcast.net

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Truth or Not and Is It Important?

Today's high temperature was:  82 degrees
Today's humidity was:  43%
Sunny, breezy, a bit humid
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I missed Tuesday--well, I didn't really MISS Tuesday, I just didn't blog about a do nothing day.

I got up at 7:21 today--for the third day in a row.  I don't know what is wrong with me!!!  

I asked Pearl and this morning, she and I went to see the movie "The Butler".  I have heard a lot of good comments and bad comments about it, so I figured I wanted to see it to make up my own mind--because, I am that kind of person.  Pearl gave it a 7 out of 10, I gave it a 6.

The butler at the White House, Mr. Eugene Allen had a really nice life--an exciting life, which would have made a really good movie.  He served 8 presidents--in the movie they only show him interacting with about 5.  The first one Eisenhower--which is inaccurate because he came to the White House during Truman's term in office.  But that isn't where the untruths and the inaccuracies end.  In the first scene they show his mother being raped by a white man and his father being shot by the same man, in a cotton field in Georgia.  Untrue!!!  

Mr. Allen grew up in Virginia.  He had only one son, not two.  His son was never involved in the Freedom Riders or the Black Panthers.  He did fight in Viet Nam, but he was not killed there and is still alive.  His wife was not an alcoholic, nor did she have an affair.  They were married 65 years.  and Mr. Allen was never involved in the Civil Rights movement, because as Butler in the WH, he had to remain non-political.

 I won't tell you any more in case you want to see the movie for yourself.

In the Lincoln movie, there are so many untruths that it is almost laughable.  The Civil War was NOT fought over slavery!!  Lincoln was NOT a friend of the black people.  He didn't like slavery, but he wasn't for equality or anything even remotely like that for the blacks--free or slave.  He wanted to bundle them all up and send them to Liberia to live among themselves.  He said in a speech in 1854:

"If all earthly power were given me, I should not know what to do, as to the existing institution [of slavery]. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia, to their own native land." After acknowledging that this plan's "sudden execution is impossible," he asked whether freed blacks should be made "politically and socially our equals?" "My own feelings will not admit of this," he said, "and [even] if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not ... We can not, then, make them equal"

The other inaccuracy in that movie was they portrayed the representatives from Connecticut as being AGAINST the Emancipation Proclamation, when in fact, all of them were for it!!

Now--why would a screen writer AND a director include untruths in a film that is suppose to be based on historical facts?  I will give you the answer--and not just my answer.

The writer of the book on Mr. Allen, is an ultra Liberal--as is the director.  Oprah paid for and was involved in the movie and we all know her political leanings.  All of Hollywood is Liberal, so to get anything from a historical movie from them, is impossible.  They HAVE to put their own agenda in the film.  The fact that Hanoi Jane played the part of Mrs. Reagan in the film, did not bother me a bit.  What she did 100 years ago really doesn't annoy me now AND the Reagan's and the Fonda's were very good friends in Hollywood.  Mrs. Reagan is said to be very pleased that Jane played her.  Jane had about 6 speaking lines and was "face" for about 30 seconds.  Oprah played her part very well too.  I did not realize that she was/is a smoker in real life.  That is why she talks so much about doing everything she can to be healthy--can anyone say hypocrite?  That doesn't matter either--she played her scenes well and Forrest Whittaker was great in his role!!

What makes me angry about these kinds of films is:  young people or people not knowledgeable about history will go see a movie like this or the one about Lincoln and take what they see as fact, when it is not.  Then they get a misconception of what was real historically and go with that for the rest of their days and will argue with anyone that knows the difference because "I saw the movie, so I know the real story!"

Reminds me when the "The Da Vinci Code" came out.  I was around quite a lot of young people in those days and they all were "in shock that Jesus had an affair with Mary Magdalene and they had a daughter!"  I tried my best to stay calm and tell them that Jesus may have been "human" in His appearance, but He was the human form of God and was without sin.  Certainly He did not have sex with Ms. Magdalene, nor were they married--although I am sure He loved her.  

My funniest experience with that film was an small argument discussion with a young lady in her twenties.

She said, "The one thing I didn't like about the movie.  They had a Jewish woman play the part of Mary!"

The guy I was dating at the time was sitting across the table.  I looked at him and he said, "You take this one."

I said, "Why is that strange to you?"

"Well (humph) everyone knows that Mary was Catholic!!!"

{Sip of water--try not to laugh}

"Ah--no--actually Mary WAS Jewish.  So was Joseph.  There were no Catholics when Jesus was alive.  There weren't even Christians.  There were Jews and Gentiles and Muslims.  Even Jesus was Jewish."

Ah--the look on her face.  I will remember that conversation forever.
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So--I went to a movie--which I thought was boring, but....the popcorn was great, however.

My dishwasher will not pump out the water, so Mr. Repair guy is coming tomorrow.  As I was telling people on face book, they came back with comments that my brand of dish washer--Frigidaire--is probably the worse brand for appliances.  Who knew?  When I was a young married, Frigidaire was the top of the line.  They were made by General Motors--we certainly could not afford them.  I had Hot Point and later Kenmore from Sears.  Now--the top appliances for long wear are GE.  All of my appliances, except the dish washer, are 15 year old GE's, so---I guess I should have known, when I replaced the DW ONLY 5 years ago!!!!!

I went down to see if I could help Pearl get connected to her new internet service.  She was furious, frustrated and fuming.  She actually thinks  her computer does things on purpose to irritate her.

So I checked and found the problem immediately, when she held up a cord that wasn't connected to anything.

"I was trying to untangle that rat's nest of cords behind the computer and I have this wire left with no where to plug is in."

I looked at the end of the cord, it was a power cord.  I looked at the other end and picked up her router and plugged it in.  Viola!!!  She thinks I am some kind of computer genius!!

Then, she showed me a large yellow cord that was connected to her modem, but disconnected on the other end.  "What do I do with this one?" she asked..

"Well I do believe," I said in my best southern accent, "we plug that thang right in heah, in this little ole' plug place in yorah computetah, Auntie Pearl.  It connects your little ole' modem to yorah computetah.  Now, lookie heah--all dem lights are blinking and---great lord in heaven!!!  Ya'll internet thingie is workin'!"

She replied in a quiet whisper, "Smart ass!"

Can you see that dark profile in that window?
Well--that is Auntie Pearl doing mischief on her computer!!!




  


7 comments:

  1. LOl about your computer skills and your Southern accent.

    When I saw Oprah and Lee Daniels interviewed, Oprah said she had to practice smoking because she didn't smoke and looked like a novice when she tried to do it. They also said that "the butler" was really a composite of a number of servants at the WH. I haven't seen it yet, but I'm sure dramatic license was taken. They seemed to acknowledge that in the interview.

    I don't know if The Butler is a drama or docudrama, but I have some issues with docudramas... Oliver Stone's JFK for example. It seems to me that there should be some allegiance to the truth there, and it does muddle the history for people who don't know any better, but I have no problem with dramas going as far off the trail as they wish because there should be no expectation of accuracy or truth or reality. That's what movies are all about. When we view fables, horror, supernatural and futuristic movies and everything in between, we accept that it's pure escapism, but I don't care for docudramas in general. After all, I'm sometimes the one who can't spot the inaccuracies.

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  2. The film is fiction and never claims to be a biography of Eugene White. The fact that the butler's name in the film was Cecil Gaines should be a giant clue to that fact---movies don't rename figures in history if they're doing a biography. Like Bella Rum said, it was a composite of a number of servants at the White House, with Eugene being the main one because in 2008 The Washington post feature writer, Wil Haygood, wrote a story about Eugene White which inspired the movie script to be written.(That article was the jumping off point. The fictional approach allowed them to give the butler two sons instead of one, etc., which doesn't bother me in the least and shouldn't bother anyone else that understands the term "loosely based on"...) Oprah, by the way, did not have creative control over the content of the movie. She is just one of 42 people who believed in the film enough to help finance its production which is quite unusual in the film industry to have so many producers.

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  3. I probably won't see that movie after reading your thoughts about it, Judy. I trust your opinion, and I can make popcorn at home. :)

    Oh, that Pearl! She sounds too much like me.

    xoxo

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  4. What a hoot you are with Pearl. I bet you giggle all the way home.

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  5. Well--you see--once again I went into the movie with pre-conceived ideas of what it was going to be. Pearl is the one who saw the Oprah interview and said that Oprah said she was a smoker. I should have read more reviews and researched the movie more before I went to see it. I thought it was a TRUE biography of this man's life. I too had seen the Oliver Stone movie about Kennedy and had that in the back of my mind that this one was just like that one--when I left the theatre. I felt like it was another attempt at making white people feel guilty about the black situation and that riled me. I was involved in the Civil Rights movement back then--3 of my cousins were in Birmingham, on a Freedom Riders bus, and got really hurt physically, being beaten, water hosed and shot at by the racists down there. One cousin, who today is 65, still has the scars from the links of a chain that was wrapped around his head.

    Thank you for enlightening me. The movie was really good--I feel kind of sorry for Mr. and Mrs. Allen's son, that his mother was portrayed as an alcoholic. There was one point, at the end of the movie,that was my favorite. When Mrs. Allen dropped over dead the very day before she was going to go vote for the first black President--that made me sad that she couldn't at least see a dream come true--and that part of the movie was true!!! Mr. Allen didn't wear Kennedy's tie to the inauguration, but at least he got to attend. Thanks again for setting me straight!!! I do appreciate it.

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  6. I'm still not going to see it. Shame on me but I'm not interested in anything "O" is in, does or whatever.

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  7. Something else I forgot to add is that it's not really true that all of Hollywood is liberal. Here's a list of 199 Conservative actors, directors, broadcasts, producers, etc. http://www.ranker.com/list/republicans-and-hollywood-republican-celebrities-list/famous-conservatives

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