Badger's Den

The Golden Compass
1:23 p.m. - 2007-12-17

The Golden Compass (no real spoilers)

I went to see The Golden Compass over the weekend fairly naive about the religious controversy. One of my viewing companions was told by a friend that she should boycott the film for it's anti-Christian themes. I watched the film and looked for subversive elements and saw few. I thought that perhaps pronouncing "daemon" the same as "demon" vilified souls.

Afterward I looked it up on and found out that if you're an institution that is against free will and free thought, you could (and apparently do) identify with the bad folks in the movie.

It is a fantasy movie and as most fantasy stories are, does not promote our known organized religions. Not that they avoid religious themes. On the contrary, fantasy is a great genre to delve into spiritual issues without naming names. But I guess if you feel guilty about something, any reference might be a sore point.

50 years ago the bad guys would have clearly been Communists.

Now that I think about it as symbolism for religion, it does beg questions like...

Does religion interfere with our direct relationship with God?
What is the nature of our relationship to our spiritual selves?
If we abuse our monkey, isn't that self-abuse?

As for the quality of the movie, it was wonderful visually, had a simplistic storyline, fairly unlikeable characters and a complex plot that was not really clear. Plus we didn't get to see enough of Daniel Craig (in general not like him in a swimsuit though that was absent too).

Las Vegas
12:31 p.m. - 2007-11-29

Here's some pix of my Las Vegas Thanksgiving Weekend with Eugene. This was my 2nd trip there this year. In the Spring Andy and I went ther as the anchor of our tour of Utah and Arizona.

Eugene and I met in Milwaukee Tuesday night where I had one of the best burgers I'v ehad in a long time at a bar near out hotel. We had to get up at 4am to catch out flight to Las Vegas. Here's Eugene in front of the Welcome sign. Fortunately not in picture is an Elvis.

We arrived Wednesday morning and checked into the Luxor. Here we are Wednesday as we first emerged from the Luxor onto the strip.

We spent Wednesday exploring the south end of the strip and going to the seedy looking downtown for the Fremont Experience.

Thanksgiving Day started with the Packer game. After the big win, we drove to Hoover Dam where we snagged a young woman to take our picture.

Later we saw the woman with a man and she told us she found herself a souvenir! Here we are at Ceasars Palace.

On Friday we drove to Red Rocks and Valley of Fire. My recommendation is to skip Red Rocks which can be overcrowded and head to Velley of Fire. It's an hour drive but much more awesome. I'll post some pix later. Here is Eugene clowning - one of the reasons I love him.

We flew home Saturday, exhausted. After years of flying solo, it was great being able to snuggle up together at the gate and on the plane. Here are some parting night shots that turned out good.

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