This is a truly sad day for me. I had to move against a good friend, a dynamic and interesting personality who, alas, fell under the spell of his own relations. The strange part of it all is that some people should know better. I am not a lawyer, but I know how the process works in the USA. I also know how the process works in Canada, and thus I know the potential for error when the two systems are not clear in the mind. In the USA, you can’t say one thing just to get people into court and then say another thing to the judge, while in Canada they actually allow prosecution to introduce evidence during cross-examination. I also have the advantage of having kept perfect records, meaning I only have to be right 51% of the time. The old Canuck “you didn’t get it in writing” only worked on me the first time, I once took six years to go after a crooked mechanic in British Columbia. It is plain dumb to think I’ll make any mistakes. Again, I will withdraw any statement that can be proven false. The one thing you do not try in an American court is the old Canadian, “If you don’t think I’m right, you are being unreasonable.” They will skin you alive.
Back to Avatar, one of the few movies I’ve watched twice. It is mostly fiber optics and the flying scenes are a little too Star Wars for me. To me, the political message is not the confrontations, but the supreme danger of tribal behavior. All the sitting around a campfire in the world is not going to get anyone beyond the bow-and-arrow stage. I recall the scene of hundreds of uneducated natives all in a circle, sharing a common trust in one supreme and supposedly incorruptible leader. No, wait, wait. Start over. I was thinking of General Motors.
The problem with tribes is they it stifle individuality. Avatar portrays how on an entire planet, they had not one person like me. Nobody to come along saying, “Listen, you people. If you don’t get with the program and ditch all this mystical mumbo-jumbo, some scientific-based culture is gonna come along and kick your butt.”
Stranger yet is how so many people don’t realize they are nothing but tribal savages themselves. They think they are above it all, but if you look close, their lives are dictated by society instead of by supply and demand. They obey the tribal rules right down to what they wear on their wedding day. Is a rented tux really any different than a bone in the nose? And that is why the Avatars and most of the small-minded people in the universe make such excellent Enron employees.
Theresa asks how men, who are such insensitive beasts, can write such beautiful love songs. I suspect the answer relates back to her statement that the reason older men don’t like older women is because older women “have learned a thing or two”. Could it be that possibly the older men have also learned a thing or two?
