Eastern Promises

1. Grateful to God and all who help me get through a day
2. Grateful that I have not seen anything like Eastern Promises in real life
3. Grateful to the Comedy Channel and The Daily Show and The Colbert Report
4. Grateful that I found a list of the 7 deadly sins to remind myself - envy, gluttony, greed, lust, pride, sloth, wrath.

We tried to catch up on the Comedy Channel shows we recorded and watched some Colberts. His guests included Kevin Costner and someone who wrote a book about branding. Kevin Costner has a new movie out - Swing Vote. He talked a little about how every vote counts. The person who wrote the book about branding had examples like Kool Aid promoting shoes. What does Kool Aid have to do with shoes? Nothing. The endorsement should mean nothing to the purchaser as well. But it does and this he argues is wrong.

Colbert (along with a lot of other people) is talking about the ad McCain is running that compares Obama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton in that they are all celebrities. Colbert agrees that they are all very similar. For example, they were all teachers of constitutional law at the Unversity of Chicago. On Meet the Press, Leiberman was McCain's representative and was asked if the ad is effective. Leiberman said yes. It points out that Obama is not ready to lead. Kerry was the Obama spokesperson. He said the ad points out that McCain's only strategy to win is to attack Obama's character. I ask myself why Obama is so popular. It is because of his ideas and ability to lead. I wish people who recognize this.

8.08.08 is the date the Olympics started. The story about Eric Shanteau swimming even tho' he has cancer is inspiring. He made sure that the cancer was not spreading and waiting on his treatment would not hurt his chances of overcoming the disease.

About Eastern Promises, it is hard to know where to start describing this movie. I enjoyed the combination of English, Russian, Turkish, and Ukrainian. The violence in the movie was disturbing but it told the story properly. The violence was not there simply to entertain.

The cruelty of the people in the movie makes me wonder if it could be so.

Wikipedia notes that many critics put the movie in as one of the top 10 of the year. Rotten Tomatoes confirms this. While the movie was hard to watch, I'm happy that I saw it.