Mo’Nique, Paula Patton, Mariah Carey & Lenny Kravitz star in this deep film set in New York.

In cinemas from January 29th.

Our Merry Pagan Tree Day gift came early!

What we have here is essentially a play that is horribly directed.  Two actresses dominate the screen in knockout performances that must thwart the amateurish directorial choices in a film of such low aesthetic quality.  Big name musical talent is cast that suspends all cinematic illusion when they first appear on screen and one says, “Look, its Mariah Carey without make-up.”  A bleak look into the struggles of one girl’s silent pain and her mad creature of a mother that clenches her daughter’s hand down a path of self-annihilation is a masterful tale that would have deservingly won numerous Best Picture awards had it not been for director Lee Daniels.

The Oprah machine must be churning out her political power to get her film kudos in every category.  Ensemble cast nominations are laughable.  Directing awards and all the accompanying accolades for Lee Daniels is ludicrous.  Mo’Nique and Gabourey Sidibe deserve the highest honors. Geoffrey Fletcher is deserving of an Oscar for the adaptation of the horrid book Push by Sapphire written in an offshoot of the English language

Mariah Carey plays a social worker.  It is a role that doesn’t require much skill that questions the much uncalled for hoopla over Carey.  Is she without make-up or is she made to look like that?  That is what came to mind.  So, it’s not Glitter with Carey all made up in Victoria’s Secret shaking it in the bag that she could not act her way out of.  On the flipside, Lenny Kravitz is a male nurse of the nurturing sort and in true Kravitz fashion is always cool and has an appealing onscreen persona.

Mo’Nique is Precious’ mother.  The beast’s consternating rhetoric continually forges and fortifies a timidity in a woman who is functioning at sub-standard levels and dishes out blame to her helpless child that lives dormant in a paralyzing state of fear, anguish, and self-loathing whose daydream fantasies offer her temporary flight from the heinous rigor of life’s cruelties.

Precious needs to accept who she really is and flourish into her own woman.  This means getting an education and fleeing from her abusive mother.  Her father is the father to her two children. Her mother is of the lowest common denominator, a welfare apartment dweller who debases her daughter and is repellent to everyone including her retarded granddaughter with the exception of the phony front she puts on for the social workers that send this woman monthly checks so that she may remain a beastly shut-in smoking cigarettes, eating pigs feet, and watching television incessantly.

Precious is a large student who is sixteen years old and still in junior high with one child that lives with the grandmother and with another on the way.  Educators that care see that the reclusive youth excels at math and is in desperate need of an alternative education.  At home, Precious is berated by her mother when the principal buzzes the bell, is restricted entry, and attempts to prod Precious into accepting an education at an alternative school.  The despondent girl irks her mother by this as the only important factor is for Precious to make sure that the white woman from the school does not interfere with her Welfare and that her daughter gets herself down to the Welfare office and stop thinking that she is better than her own mom.

The pregnant girl reluctantly goes to the new class and from here her life starts anew with more crushing bad news, the birth of her second child and the final escape from the entrapments of her family as she flourishes with her new “surrogate” family.  Along the way we are treated to the atrocities in which she has endured and the new tragic tribulations that embroil her path to a life of possibility, hope, and self worth.

Mo’Nique’s performance.  The actress is bare and all of this emotion is flooding the screen.  There is heartfelt sorrow and disgust.  The character is as vile in her silence as her boyfriend’s perverted soul.  At this moment in the social worker’s cubicle nothing else exists in the world.  It’s the tears, it’s the gasping, and it is the audacity of this woman to blame her daughter for her boyfriend’s sickness.  This is a cinematic moment that showcases the actor and heightens the film.  And it’s ruined.  The purity is adulterated with ridiculous zooming camera movements and cuts to Mariah Carey’s character.  Why?  This is direction?

The unobtrusive camera has a place.  The unnoticed edit is valuable.  Walter Murch would most likely have slapped the editor and director for such amateurish choices.  For example, Precious is taking a test and as she circles her choice for an answer, the shot is sped up and then slowed down.  For what reason?

Take a film with really low production value with talent that has made a future in Hollywood. Gabourey Sidibe is so talented and should mature into this actor’s caliber.  The perfect example is Madigan’s Million with Dustin Hoffman, an unknown actor at the time.  There is simple use of camera set-ups.  Be it that everything is terrible in the Hoffman film, but the simple camera techniques should have been employed to cement the cinematic illusion.

The Deauville Film Festival had a choice to make.  Present the Jury Special Prize to Cary Fukunaga, the director of Sin Nombre or to Lee Daniels.  Fukunaga is a director and writer that is of Scorsese caliber.  I would like to know what occurred in France that night when Daniel was presented with the honor.  What a mistake.

Since Precious is a film with black roles and black individuals at the helm, it may be looked at through rose-colored glasses by some.  In this country, there still is a limited number of “black films.”  Make more of these films.  However, enough with the stupid films starring Cedric the Entertainer!  But, to highly regard Precious as the best?  No.

As previously stated, dazzle Mo’Nique and Gabourey ‘Gabby’ Sidibe with praises for exceptionality.  Best director?  No way.

There is a black director that is consistent with innovative approaches to filmmaking along with his honest views and stories that hit the social arena hard who has never been properly applauded.  That man is Spike Lee.  Why is he shunned?  In the early 90’s a college graduate from USC was written about as if he was the next Orson Welles.  Director John Singleton’s major film debut was Boyz n the Hood.  Spike Lee was never regarded in such a manner at that time when Jungle Fever was released a month before Singleton’s film and he had already directed: Mo’ Better Blues (1990), Do the Right Thing (1989), School Daze (1988), and She’s Gotta Have It (1986).  Spike was nominated for a Screenwriting Oscar for Do the Right Thing.  He has also been nominated and has won several times awards for his work at the Acapulco Black Film Festival, American Black Film Festival, BET Comedy Awards, Black Movie Awards, and the Image Awards among others.  Good for Spike but I have no clue as to what most of these are.  Does Oprah not like Spike and will not weave him from her publicity machine?

With the award season a few months from full swing, hopefully Mo’Nique and Sidibe get their due as well as Geoffrey Fletcher and the others categories respectfully shun the rest of Precious, a good film that should be left at that.

Eritrea is accused of confiscating grain as part of its food self-sufficiency drive, a charge the government denies…. From BBC News. Full story

This site may contain information about: food. For a different topic see corn recipes. The blog is also related to: food.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon appealed for world powers to make a new effort to secure a legally binding climate deal next year amid new diplomatic wrangling over the failure of the Copenhagen summit.

China hit back at Britain over claims that Beijing had “hijacked” the Copenhagen negotiations while Brazil and Cuba lashed out at the US President Barack Obama.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has appealed for world powers to make a new effort to secure a legally binding climate deal next year amid new diplomatic wrangling over the failure of the Copenhagen summit.

With scientists warning of the growing threat of drought, floods, storms and rising sea levels, Ban acknowledged international disappointment over the summit accord on restraining rising temperatures.

“I am aware that the outcome of the Copenhagen conference, including the Copenhagen Accord, did not go as far as many would have hoped,” Ban told reporters in New York.

“Nonetheless they represent a beginning, an essential beginning,” the secretary general added.

Ban said “the leaders were united in purpose, but they were not united in action,” and pressed them “to directly engage in achieving a global legally binding climate change treaty in 2010.”

The UN boss said he would set up a high-level panel on development and climate change in 2010 ahead of attempts for a new deal at a summit in Mexico City in December next year.

The leaders of the United States, China, India, Brazil, South Africa and major European nations assembled the last-minute Copenhagen accord, as it became clear the 194-nation summit was heading for failure.

They promised 100 billion dollars for poor nations that risk bearing the brunt of the global warming fallout and set a commitment to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).

The outcome has been widely criticised, with recriminations among many of the participants.

China on Tuesday accused Britain of “fomenting discord” among developing countries after Britain’s climate change minister Ed Miliband said China had blocked a deal in Copenhagen.

Miliband wrote in a newspaper article that China vetoed attempts to give legal force to the accord reached at the summit and that it had blocked an agreement on reductions in global emissions.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said “such an attack was made in order to shirk the obligations of developed countries to their developing counterparts and foment discord among developing countries.”

She told the state Xinhua news agency “the attempt was doomed to fail.”

Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva blamed the United States for the talks’ failure, saying Obama was not prepared to make sufficient emissions cuts.

“The United States is proposing a reduction of four percent from the date fixed by the Kyoto Protocol (1990). That is too little,” Lula said on his weekly radio programme.

This led other countries to avoid their “commitments to the objectives (of reducing carbon dioxide emissions) and financial commitments,” Lula added.

Brazil pledged voluntary carbon emission cuts of 36-39 percent based on projected 2020 output and urged rich countries to help poorer countries.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez accused Obama of being “arrogant” at the summit, while Britain had been the “executioner” for the United States.

“During the summit, there was just an imperial, arrogant Obama who doesn’t listen, who imposes and threatens developing countries,” the minister told a press conference.

Rodriguez added that “the British delegation played the role of the executioner” using attempts at “shameful blackmail” against developing countries.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Monday accused a handful of unnamed countries of taking the summit hostage.

India weighed into the dispute with its government hailing the lack of targets and legally binding measures and vaunting the united front presented with China, Brazil and South Africa.

Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh told parliament India had “come out quite well in Copenhagen”.

He listed a series of accomplishments, including the thwarting of moves to impose binding targets for global reductions in carbon emissions — something India has always rejected.

“We can be satisfied that we were able to get our way on this issue,” Ramesh told lawmakers.

Bangladesh, one of the nations most vulnerable to global warming, said meanwhile that it will seek 15 percent of the first 30 billion dollars committed at the Copenhagen summit.

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audioPUSH – UPnDOWN (produced by Kadis&Sean) cousins killed this beat

download: http://www.zshare.net/download/68565186d91f4c47/

I pushed you through the open door

it shut, the road stretched

a yellow haze, fast between us

in a sudden gust of freezing cold,

I went to fill my cupboards

with everything I’d love to feed you.

Having left my balance on a cafe table

beneath the golden stories you spun,

the unstable walk home through old backstreets

looked brand new, and I

pushed myself through the open door

it shut and I undressed,

shifted the bedhead back in place,

let the pillows break my fall.

Push/callbacks are better than polling.

This should be an easy argument. It’s not just more efficient, it’s more real-time. I once heard something like 40% of delicious.com requests returned 304 Not Modified. I imagine similar numbers for other popular sites. The more real-time you try to be with polling, the worse it gets. Don’t call us, we’ll call you. It’s more efficient.

RPC solutions provide more value than messaging solutions.

Although you can argue that RPC can be powered by messaging, and messaging can be used for RPC, the point is that they are different mindsets. RPC is about triggering code that does something. Messaging is about putting a piece of data in another bucket. When you try to call somebody, you usually don’t want to get their voicemail, right? This analogy goes even further in that, like voicemail, it must be checked on the other end. Messaging just pushes polling somewhere else.

More importantly, the focus on triggering code is central to this value proposition. Generative systems are more valuable than sterile systems. When did the web get interesting? When it became about more than just static content, and code was put in the loop to generate dynamic content. The point is that if you prioritize code to receive a message before humans, you open up many more possibilities.

RPC is about making things happen. Messaging stops short short of that by just moving data around.

HTTP is the defacto RPC protocol.

HTTP is everywhere. There are powerful free servers, clients in every major programming environment, and people know it well. It’s proven and it just works. HTTTP’s simple design also allows it to be extremely versatile. It’s basically the TCP of the application layer.

However, the best thing is that HTTP is RPC. This subtle fact has been true ever since CGI was introduced. We’ve gone through building RPC on top of it with XML-RPC and SOAP, but wisely settled on a form of RPC that’s just HTTP and is even aligned with HTTP semantics: REST.

If HTTP is RPC and HTTP is everywhere, it is our defacto RPC protocol. Especially for web applications that breath HTTP, it almost doesn’t make sense to think of any kind of inter-application communication that isn’t HTTP. Turtles all the way down!

HTTP RPC + Indirection = Webhooks

David Wheeler said, “All problems in computer science can be solved by another level of indirection.” Webhooks, and all callbacks, are about taking a procedure call and performing it on a variable function. This is indirection and this is very powerful. This is why Unix pipes work. STDIN and STDOUT are not hardcoded values, they’re variables that you can control.

Now imagine if all the web applications you used had extension points that you could effectively hook together with any other application. Well, that’s what webhooks are about.

All of you will see this commercial on television or YouTube before the holiday season has ended. However, many of you, not all of you (rap nerds be quiet), will never have recognized the rapper’s voice nor research its origin. Well, it’s Lupe Fiasco, the guy who got famous rapping about the onomatopoeia associated with skateboarding . And yes, he is getting caked out for this I’m sure. Anytime your name is in the same sentence with Christmas, Nike, Kobe Bryant and Lebron James, you’re definitely getting your stocking stuffed.

Gabby Sidibe Stars as in "Precious"

No offence to Oprah, but sometimes her backing of a film tends to make me nervous. I can only think of her eyelashes peeling off as she breaks into the ugly cry and screams “This is AMAZING! This movie is AAAAMAZING!”. Arms flying about… the audience screaming in assent… gross.

This time might be the exception. Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire,  is a real oddity in many ways. It stars Gabourey Sidibe as Precious, an illiterate teenager pregnant with her second child. She lives with her drug addicted, abusive mother (played by Mo’Nique) and is constantly raped by her father. Time’s get even tougher when she is kicked out of school after getting pregnant (again) and barely sliding by grades-wise. She is referred to a specialty school, Each One Teach One, where she is put in the care of Ms. Rain (Paula Patton). As you can see, it is clearly a comedy…

The following trials that Precious will go through are heart-wrenching, but her spirit is inspiring. Patton is inspired as Ms. Rain, and Gabourey Sidibe is  truly incredible. I would be shocked not to see her name on the Oscar Ballot, and there may be a few other names as well.

Mo'Nique transforms herself in "Precious"

This film does one thing expertly, and that is disguise major stars as talented unknowns. Mariah Carey plays welfare worker Mrs. Weiss and is barely recognizable (no makeup- gasp!). Lenny Kravitz is an adorable male nurse, and glammed up rapper/actress Mo’Nique is completely transformed into the grotesque bully that is Prescious’ mother.

There is no excuse to miss this film. Everyone loves the underdog, and Precious suffers from just about every misfortune in the book. Perhaps not a happy ending, but she keeps on going, and that’s the most inspiring thing of all.

Push email is one of the reasons we get BlackBerry phones in first place but the thing is that without data plans you can say goodbye to it. There are a couple of free alternatives out there but both of them have a catch.

1) Funambol

Is a push service that you can try for 90 days. No idea what happens next. It’s nice but not that functional. You can’t attach anything and the interface is crappy! It works very well on wifi, and I guess on prepaid internet too.
my.funambol.com for more info.

2) ShangMail
Another free service for emails but this works only on prepaid internet plans. It wasn’t working on wifi for me, and I couldn’t try other methods because my carrier doesn’t allow me BB internet options except for BIS/BES.

by Nicholas Robinson

Claireece Precious Jones (Gabourey ‘Gabby’ Sidibe) endures unimaginable hardships in her young life. Abused by her mother (Mo’Nique), raped by her father (Rodney ‘Bear’ Jackson), she grows up poor, angry, illiterate, fat, unloved and generally unnoticed. So what better way to learn about her than through her own, halting dialect. – IMDB.com

Before I start talking about this movie I would like to say that it was, personally, not my cup of tea. When I saw the trailer, I said that I was going to not watch it because I saw Tyler Perry’s name attached (btw, I hate Tyler Perry movies for anyone who didn’t know), but this nomination made me give it a second look because it might have actually been good. So, I watched it with an open mind and I have to say it was a really good movie.  The story was very well written and the acting was just outstanding.

I did not read the novel that this movie was based on, “Push”, but if this movie is anywhere near as good as the novel then the novel must be fantastic.  What I think I liked most about this story is not the dialogue, not the plot but the realism of it.  When I was watching this movie, all I could think was “Wow. This could actually have happened to someone.” and that made me like the story even more.  I loved the dialogue between precious and Ms. Rain (Paula Patton) throughout the movie and the conversation between Precious, her mother and the social worker, Mrs. Weiss (Mariah Carey) and the constant (not sure what to call it so don’t kill me for this) banter between the members of Ms. Rain’s class.  It just made me feel all fuzzy inside, almost cry (don’t worry, any more and I probably would have) and laugh respectively.  It was all placed well throughout the movie.

I was very surprised with the acting in this movie.  In most of the stuff that I have seen Mo’Nique in, she was very bad and the movie was too.  However, she gave a stellar performance in this movie and showed you the two sides of her character quite well.  The lazy, abusive mother was shown very obviously.  However, near the end of the movie, when she gives her reasons for doing what she did, she shows you the caring mother that she was meant to be but never became due to circumstances that were yet were not beyond her control and she did it brilliantly.

Gabourey also did very well in portraying Precious.  She showed us her tough side, caring side, hurt side and loving side with what seemed to be ease.  The way she slipped in and out of those personalities throughout the movie reminded me of the way Echo slips between her personalities in Dollhouse, effortlessly.  I really liked Precious’ dream sequences throughout the movie.  They showed us that Precious was not happy with where she was in life and showed that she had ambition to better herself which made her even more real.

However, I had a couple problems with the movie.  One of them, and this one is quite big, is that it moved quite slowly and that basically ruins a movie for me.  I found myself checking how much time was left many times throughout the movie and just wanting it to finish.  Another problem is that I do not need to see Precious’ father raping her.  If I just see him going in there taking his pants off and the door close while the mother watches from a distance, that is enough.  I just found that scene very unnecessary.

Overall, Precious is a good film, but is not a repeat-watch.

IMDB says 7.6/10

Rotten Tomatoes says 91%

I say 8.0/10

Just gonna keep rolling things in after that 3 week absence

hopefully…

Copy Haho – Pulling Push Ups

SO I GET TO SCHOOL AND WORK ON MY PROJECT AND I LOOK TO THE LEFT AND I SEE THE BOOK PUSH. WHAT A COINCIDENCE I JUST SEEN THE MOVIE A FEW NIGHTS AGO. JUST READ A FEW PAGES HAD OTHER THINGS TO DO.

Whether you’re a student in a school or colledge, a teacher, a professor, working at some type of business such as a store or a restaurant, or you are a person who is helping a blind friend there is one technique you need to know. This technique is useful for both sighted and blind people. Even though you may know it you may not know how to do it correctly. Not knowing how to do it correctly can cause you (the sighted person) or the blind person to trip and fall, or worse.
The technique I am talking about is sighted guide. It is useful in many types of situations as in the ones I listed above. It’s important as blind to teach you if you don’t know the technique. It’s also just as important that you (the sighted person) listen to us. We as blind people have had training by people such as mobility teachers (cane instructors, or cane teachers) etc so most of us are pretty sure about what we’re doing. Down below I’m going to list the things that sighted people do wrong, then I will list the right ways. In these lists the words “wrong and right” will be before the word “list”
Wrong List
1. To lead a blind person around you should take their hand.
2. When entering or exiting through a door you should let the blind person go through first.
3. If you’re the one leading the blind person you should hold the door until they come through or exit.
4. When walking in small isles you should always be behind the blind person.
5. The blind person should always be a few steps ahead of you.
6. When leading a blind person You should take their arm.
Right List. (this goes in order of the wrong list)
1. You should not take their hand, unless they’re a little kid, or your husband, wife, girlfriend, or boyfriend. If you do you might make them feel like a little kid even when they’re not. You may also make them feel embarrased as I often do when people do that to me. What you should do (especially if they aren’t paying attention) is gently nudge them in the side with the side of your arm what this tells a blind person is “Take a hold.” Before you do that you should try Moving your arm slightly bent at the elbo towards the blind person and let it touch their arm, side or hand. This should let the person know that you’re ready to lead them. You can even say when you’re doing either one of these two things “Take a hold.” The blind person will then take a hold of your bent elbo. They will place all fingers except their thum on the inside of your elbo. The thum should be placed on the outside of your elbo. Their grip should Not be so tight that it pinches your arm, but they should have a good grip (not tight) in case they start to fall.
2. You (the sighted person) should go through a door first. Blind people rely on you to tell if the door is a pull door, push door or an electric dor. If you move forwards and then back we know it’s a pull door and if you move forwards we know it’s a push door. If you keep walking without stopping then we know it’s an electric door.
3. When you go through a door whether you are entering or exiting you should Not hold the door until the blind person has entered or exited. You should enter and let go of the door. We can often tell where the door is located by knowing which way you pulled or pushed on the door. We then put our cane in between the thumb that’s on your arm and your arm. Then with the oposite hand we’ll reach for the door palm up if it’s a pull dor or until we find the knob. Once you and the blind person is inside we will switch our cane back to the other hand. (I do not know about guide dogs.)
4. You should never be behind the blind person if it’s a small isle. In fact the blind person should be behind you. To let them know that it is a small isle put the arm behind your back still bent and palm up. You do not have to grab or touch your shirt. The blind person will then slide their hand down your arm until they reach your wrist. They will step behind you and walk behind you. They will keep this position and walk this way until you bring your arm back to your side where they will asume the previous position.
5. A blind person should never be ahead of you. In fact you should always be 3 or 4 steps of them. Just in case there is something in the way like a box or a cart.
6. You should Never, Never take a blind person’s arm when you’re leading them.
If you do these steps right, the blind person will know when and where to turn if you turn first.
Doing it wrong can result on trips and falls by either you or the blind person. If you have a hold of their arm and they fall and you can’t catch them, then what?
I thought that this would be a good post sense most of you are probably going to be traveling somewhere for the Hollidays and sense you either know a blind person or are a blind person, or were probably verry curious about how to do this technique.
Merry Christmas and happy Hollidays!

Out of these bands, which one do you want to see as our spotlight artist?
All Time Low
Push Play
Phil Bensen
Anarbor

Comment below and we’ll see who gets the most votes!

COPENHAGEN (AFP) – US President Barack Obama joined world leaders Friday in a final push for a climate pact but poor nations feared the agreement would fail to stave off the worst ravages of global warming.

Obama flew in to a snowy Copenhagen to join about 120 heads of state and government at the climax of 12-day talks which have been marked by inter-continental wrangling and large-scale protests.

US President Barack Obama arrives at the airport in Copenhagen (AFP photo)

Fear of failure has dogged the talks as disputes on emissions targets between top polluters China and the United States and complaints that poor nations were being sidelined clouded hopes of a deal.

However leaders and top diplomats from around 30 countries crafted an outline agreement in talks that ended in the early hours. After fine-tuning by negotiators, the leaders resumed their talks in the morning before presenting the text to all heads of delegation.

“We tried to find an umbrella political accord, if you like,” Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, who holds the European Union’s rotating presidency, told reporters.

Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen, chairman of the tortuous negotiations, warned against premature celebrations. “We’ve had a very constructive dialogue (but) … we’re not there yet,” he said.

A European delegate said the draft contained a call to prevent a rise in global temperatures of more than 2.0 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) compared to pre-industrial times.

But he said there were few specifics on mitigation efforts nor on funding.

“Basically its become clear its going to be just a political declaration, its short on detail at the moment,” he told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The two degrees declaration would stop way short of demands from poorer countries. Small island nations, their very existence threatened by rising seas, have called for a cap of 1.5 C (2.7 F).

Bruno Sekoli of Lesotho, chair of the Group of Least Developed Countries, said any rise above the 1.5 C mark would cause “unmanageable consequences.”

“It will leave millions of people suffering from hunger, diseases, floods and water shortages,” he said.

The South African Nobel prize winning Archbishop Desmond Tutu said a two degree rise would “condemn Africa to incineration and no modern development.”

“This is a moral issue, it is a mater of justice for especially the weak and most vulnerable,” Tutu added.

An internal UN memo seen by AFP earlier had shown national pledges for reducing greenhouse gas output would doom the world to warming of up to three degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit).

Scientists say such a rise would be disastrous, condemning hundreds of millions of people to worsening drought, floods and storms.

Diplomats said the draft accord outlines a package for poor countries most vulnerable to the ravages of an overheating world, kicking off with 10 billion dollars (seven billion euros) a year from 2010 to 2012, and climbing to 100 billion annually by 2020.

After days of deadlock, the mood brightened Thursday when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the United States would contribute to the fund, a move welcomed by the G77 bloc of developing countries as “a good signal” but not enough.Related article: US pledges $100 billion

French President Nicolas Sarkozy had warned that the planet’s biggest ever meeting on climate faced a looming disaster because of the disputes on emissions cuts, saying failure “would be catastrophic for all of us”.

Clinton accused developing nations — without naming them — of backsliding on pledges to open their promised controls on carbon emissions to wide scrutiny, saying the issue is “a deal-breaker for us”.

China and India say they are willing to take voluntary measures to slow their surges in heat-trapping greenhouse-gas emissions.

But they are reluctant to accept tough international inspection and insist rich nations shoulder the main burden by accepting huge reduction targets.

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I probably could have milked a whole post out of this, but I needed a factoid today.

I did something this month that I hadn’t done in over 6 years: after seeing a movie based on a book, I went to the roots and read the book.  I read “Push” by Sapphire after seeing “Precious,” and I must say, I actually liked the book better.  I don’t agree with the statement, “The book is always better than the movie.”  Usually whatever you experience first, you like better, although it was not the case here.

Here’s a small bit of commentary: Sapphire’s novel gives us so much more insight into the fascinating character Precious.  Lee Daniels turns her into such a passive figure that we think little is going on inside her head, but in the book, she is quite the opposite.  We are able to feel how she feels during some incredibly despicable acts committed against her, and the movie did not quite get those sentiments across.

After a rollicking night of chasing cabs and paying tabs, Roommate and I slunk our hollow, hungover bodies to the local cinema (after being pumped, of course, with bellies full of breakfast sandwiches).  Our pick?  The critic-riddled Precious, the precocious front-runner of Oscar buzz and Oprah love.  And thus, in fine fashion, we visited the snack shack in order to pilfer a number of crunchy napkins, and then proceeded to wad them into our mutual cup-holder for the impending sob-fest.  And while both of us were certainly satisfied that our forethought proved wise, Precious was far from a tragic film.

Precious winningly engages the audience by ripping its collective heart out, demonishly stomping on it, and spending the next two hours carefully sewing it all back together.  Its titular character, played stunningly by accolade-onslaughted Gabourey Sidibe, both evokes and provokes quivering lips while tunneling through the massive challenges of living as an illiterate inner-city imp.  Factor in the fact that she’s a single mother (her own father fathered) with a sickeningly sadistic mother of her own, and that collective heart is tugging at strings.  Mo’nique slaughters her role as the aforementioned archetype, and a mustached Mariah Carey offers a cool and biting performance as a stony social worker fighting on behalf of our Precious.  So when the credits began to roll, I sank deep into myself and could find only a few words to mutter to my silenced Roommate.  I paused, wiped a wad of snot from my jowl, and posed the important question.  “…Do I have raccoon eyes?”

Google is helping to push the use of QR Codes in the U.S. by offering window decals to local businesses. These decals in turn help the businesses by giving their potential customers the ability to learn more about them—via the customer’s camera equipped mobile devices—from their Place Page on Google, as well as showcasing them on Google Maps Favorite Places.

Google posted a video at YouTube showing exactly how it works with an iPhone.

I copied this from my other blog – just to get this one started.

“Precious” by Lee Daniels, based on the novel “Push” by Sapphire

So, I do what I love doing on my birthday: go out to watch a movie. This time I chose a depressing film about a girl with a hard lot in life and only one choice… doing everything the hard way. But it does get better, somehow.

Precious (Gabourey Sidibe) is a fat kid (about 16) who is pregnant with her second child, the father is her own father who abused and raped her since she was three years old. Her mother knows, of course, but instead of helping her daughter she uses her own dominance over the beaten girl and abuses her in her own ways – for taking her man away from her.

The principal of her school finally enrolls Precious in a program of young women who are all somewhat behind in learning but who still want to graduate. In this wild assortment of broken girls she finds friends. But it is mainly her teacher – Ms Rain – who makes a difference in her life. But it is not all glossy and nice from that moment on. Precious has yet a long way to go… but I won’t tell you what else awaits her because I want you to watch it for yourself.

Why did I watch such a depressing film on my birthday? Well, I wanted to  see it and I would have had to wait another two hours for the Sandra Bullock-film to start (I just remembered the dialogue from “Scream 2″ at the beginnning when she wants to see the Sandra Bullock-flick and her boyfriend wants to see the horror movie that gets both of them killed… strange). Well, I have also heard the movie was supposed to be good and so I went and watched it. I liked it, too, but it is heavy food (I translated this from German “harte Kost,” but it’s probably not quite fitting in English, sorry).

Precious teacher, by the way, is a lesbian and since the movie plays in 1987 this has a slightly different connotation than if the movie would be set 20 years later. She is played by Paula Patton and played very well, so look out for her in the future. She gives her character just the right amount of edges so as not to appear unbelievable.

There are some people you might recognize (or not recognize); the mother is played by comedian and actress Mo’Nique, Lenny Kravitz (whom I did not recognize as Nurse Joe), and Mariah Carey as Precious’s social worker, Mrs Weiss (and not half bad, but not really Oscar-worthy either).

So, try to catch this while you can. It will be worth your while.

Precious Jones is sixteen years old, in the ninth grade and pregnant with her second child.  She has suffered unimaginable abuse and is basically illiterate.  Because of the pregnancy, she is suspended and sent to an alternative school.  She’s offended at first, but alternative school turns out to be the best thing that ever happened to Precious.  That’s not to say that her life is ever easy.

Push by Sapphire is the story of Precious Jones.  It’s written in vernacular, so some of the writing is crude, but you can follow Precious’s progress throughout the book.  Push is gritty, raw, emotional and heartbreaking.  I could hardly stand it when Precious described herself this way:

I big, I talk, I eats, I cooks, I laugh, watch TV, do what my muver say.  But I can see when the picture come back I don’t exist.  Don’t nobody want me.  Don’t nobody need me.  I know who I am.  I know who they say I am – vampire sucking the system’s blood.  Ugly black grease to be wipe away, punish, kilt, changed, finded a job for.

I’m not sure that enjoyed is the right word to describe my feelings for this book – I think maybe affected is more appropriate.  Push is well written and disturbing on so many levels.  It is hard to imagine how someone can treat another human being in such a horrible fashion.  The tears just flowed when I read this passage:

I always thought I was someone different on the inside.  That I was just fat and black and ugly to people on the OUTSIDE. And if they could see inside me they would see something lovely and not keep laughing at me, throwing spitballs (shit one time nigger at school just spit on me when I was pregnant) and polly seed shells at me, that Mama and Daddy would recognize me as. . . as, I don’t know, Precious!

I think it would be impossible to read this book and not be moved.  Push is a novel, but I suspect it’s based on a real person or several real people.  I couldn’t help but think of a young girl who was in Vance’s fifth grade class as I read this book.  She was living in a condemned building with her mother’s boyfriend because her mother was in jail.  The other students used to complain because she smelled bad.  I talked to Vance about the importance of being kind to her since she had no one at home who cared about her and I did what I could to help her.  She always gave me a big hug when she saw me, but she was so quiet that it was hard to know if I made any difference.  I’m sad to say that I lost contact with her because we moved.  I just wonder how many children in this country are suffering  that way.

I think Push is an important piece of literature, but be forewarned that it includes language, crude sexual references, sexual abuse and child abuse.  It covers many topics that are difficult and uncomfortable to read about.

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Paul and I just got back from a trip to Seattle to visit fellow Gaycondo author Nickey. We had a good time (which has never happened the other 5 or so times we’ve been there), and I am happy to say that after six years of disdain for Portland’s neighbor to the North, I have now officially upgraded Seattle from hate to indifference.

While we were visiting, we went to the grocery store to buy some beer. After checking out, we got sucked into the book section near the exit. There was the usual grocery store fodder (Twilight novels, Anne Coulter garbage, etc…), but what I found most eye-catchingly inane was this:

That’s right. It’s a novelization-movie-tie-in book of the movie Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire.

Sigh.

I could understand why the movie itself had such a wordy and seemingly unneccessary title (there was already a dumb super hero movie called Push earlier this year), but to actually rename the book after the movie, though delightfully postmodern, is actually pretty insulting both to Sapphire herself as well as the book reading community in general.

When Paul and I first started dating (8 years ago bitches!), one of our first homo bonding moments was reading and discussing Push together. It is a seriously upsetting and enthralling read. When I heard about the movie, I pretty mush immediately decided not to see it because one of the following two scenarios would be true:

a.) It would be watered down and not do justice to the book.

b.) It wouldn’t be watered down, and would therefore be extremely upsetting and probably a little exploitative/offensive. It’s pretty hard to make an unflinching movie about a brutalized black woman without getting it all tangled up in sexist/racist/sexualized exploitation. Not to mention, the imagery in the book is so disturbing, it’s not really something I am interested in seeing acted out. Like the difference between reading about a car crash and actually seeing one, I don’t need to go there visually.

Anyway…

I just hope that Sapphire is getting a butt load of money to fill the void left by the huge turd that she was forced to excrete.

Word of advice: Skip the movie, and instead buy a used copy of the original book.

Last night, I decided to watch Precious, the motion picture based on the movie Push, written by Sapphire. This film premiered at the 2009 Toronto Film Festival and since then has found a home among the other contenders for the 2010 Academy Awards. Mo’Nique, a comedienne and talk show host on BET gives a raw, unforgiving performance as Mary, mother to Precious, played by Gadourey Sidibe. Gone is the glamour and spark that Mo’Nique is known for, same can be said of Mariah Carey, who also plays a social worker in the film. Sheri Sheppard and Lenny Kravitz are among the other celebrities who round out this cast. The movie deserves every bit of attention it is getting from critics who believe it will clean up at the awards ceremonies to be held between now and the Oscars. Even though the movie was based on the book, something was lost in its translation to the screen. The movie, excellent in its portrayal of the characters had the potential to go even farther to share this story.

The movie starts out introducing you to Precious, an uninspired student who you learn is pregnant with her second child by her father and is about to be kicked out of school. You meet her mother, get an appetite for the live she lives, her level of intelligence, and her self-hatred. I find the movie spends considerable time with Precious at the alternative school, bonding with the girls and how she deals withthe birth of her second child. Interwoven between these scenes, you get a sense of Precious’ whimsical side and her image of beauty – the dream of being skinny, white, with long hair beautiful with a light skinned boyfriend. By the end of the movie, Precious comes to terms with her situation and life continues.

In contrast, the book contained more explicit details about the birth of her first child and her experiences with her father which would have added more intensity to the movie.  I imagine that Sapphire is knee deep in flack from the community about the way she has portrayed black life in Harlem. The movie glosses over the actual sexual experience of the incest for Precious that may have added another element to the film. Sapphire takes you into Precious’ head and body in the book, asking you to understand that even though this experience is untolerable, the young girl still derives sexual satisfaction during the act which shapes why she is conflicted about her father. The film also does not go into too much detail of the birth of the first child; it is a flashback in the book and the first meeting for her and John (played by Lenny Kravitz) in the film. John and Precious have a closeness in the film that would have been defined as plutonic had they spent more on the birth of the first child, “Mongo”. When the teacher asks Precious to ‘push’ herself, it’s the only other time that she had heard that phrase aside from having her first baby, hence it would have been key to add more information around the first birth.

All in all, it was still an excellent movie. I am coming at it with the book fresh in mind having only completed it 2 weeks ago. I expect ‘Precious’ to push its way to the podium in 2010. Go see this movie.