cmaxwell

In the movie Kinsey, the famous sex researcher falters in his effort to raise questions that stem from the data he has amassed. His research has shown that a huge number of people are having both premarital and extramarital sexual encounters both heterosexual and homosexual in nature. Shown giving a lecture to a dwindling audience of appalled listeners, he posits a "problem of marriage"--that the...
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Enough!
Have we had enough of the violence and the bullshit yet?
Are we fed up enough to stop tolerating it?
Or do we just want to whine some more?

2004 wants some sympathy and understanding as it departs.

Can we muster up any?

On the last day of the year, well more than 100,000 people are dead from earthquakes and tsunamis in the Indian Ocean. The scale of the disaster is incomprehensible. Other poor victims are being blown up by car bombs, strafed by bombers, and sent off on suicide martyr missions, all in...
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Sex on screen 2004.

Have you seen....?

1) The American boy's penis brilliantly caught in hidden lust in Bertolucci's fantastic "The Dreamers"?
2) Clive Owen ordering Natalie Portman to spread her legs in "Closer"?
3) Ethan Hawke fucking Angelina Jolie -- hard -- in "Taking Lives"?
4) Tim Robbins tying Samantha Morton to a bed with belts and fucking her -- hard -- in "Code...
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Somehow, in this age of instant communication and sophisticated threat alerts, a tsunami rolled for hours across the Indian Ocean without warnings being sounded for people to evacuate the coastlines.

Tens of thousands of people died, swept away by the ways.

In this same Christmas week, there was snow in south Texas and New Orleans and two feet of snow in southern Indiana.

And here,...
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Ok, now what?
The frenzy is over, the presents are unwrapped, some of us have new toys, and it's our choice...back to the grind...or venturing in some new direction?
I, for one, am tired of the same old half-awake bumping through life. I am tired of habits and judgments. I am ready for something fresh.
Unshackle the brain from its moorings. Set it free. Use...
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Nothing is more peaceful than the woods in fresh snow, gliding through, the sun setting and the moon rising, unbroken white, naked trees, body warmth against bracing cold.
Then back to the fire to cuddle.
Find peace where you can, everyone!

Solstice thoughts:

Banish the gloom. Do not despair. The darkness is starting to recede, as of today. The light is coming back.

Ignore the tinsel, the Santa, the mall, the hypocritical combination of mawkish sentimentalism and merciless materialism.

This is the holiday of light--an ancient pagan festival far antedating Christendom and its rulers' savvy ploy in moving Jesus's birth from spring (shepherds do not watch...
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Don't Even Ask Because I Won't Tell You

I achieved something yesterday I never thought I could.

And it was without any conscious effort on my part.

This is not a salutory thing that will benefit humanity, but a perfectly selfish and inconsequential thing that is in fact too personal to share.

But it made me feel: (a) you can teach an old dog new...
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New rant...

I got a call last night from Peace Action, a group that grew out of the Nuclear Freeze campaign of the early 1980s, in which I was heavily involved. The caller, a woman, told me how they've succeeded in getting Bush's nuclear funding request slashed from $90-something million to $8 million. And how they're working against the nomination of Alberto Gonzales for attorney...
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"Closer" is the bravest and best movie of the year. And it makes me wonder:

What exactly would you consider "cheating"..if you were in a committed relationship?

(a) any sexual contact at all, even if it involved no touching, but just words (online, on phone, in person) and images?

(b) sexual conduct short of intercourse?

(c) only fucking?

(d) or only carrying on sexually with...
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Smokin'.

Can someone please tell me why smoking a cigarette is considered erotic? Why someone would ruin a perfectly good photo set by including a ciggie?
What is so fucking "alt" about that?