Civil War

 

 A movie review. Civil War is a 2024 American film by Alex Garland. I have wanted to watch it for quite some time, and we finally did last weekend. The story goes like this: the main character is a middle aged woman called Lee who is a photographer for the New York Times (I think). She and her two male colleagues Joel and Sammy who are both journalists decide to travel from New York to Washington D.C. through war-torn country to interview the president. A young girl called Jessie worms her way into the group because Joel likely fancies her. Jessie is very ambitious and sees Lee as her role model while Lee initially is pretty much irritated by the fact that she joins them.

The movie is called Civil War but there is little explanation about what's happening. The characters don't talk much between themselves and the half of their dialogues consists of f-words, literally. Still, we learn that the president decided to stay for the third term which evidently caused a rebellion, that he used airstrikes against American citizens and that his dwindling army is currently engaged in a 2 front fighting against the joint Texas-California forces and Florida alliance. 

Though the president is presumably a bastard, the rebels aren't shown in a very positive light, either. In fact, Sammy who is older and wiser, predicts that once they take D.C. they'll turn upon each other. He and his colleagues have to travel a long distance to the front lines and the biggest part of their journey presumably goes through the territories controlled by the rebels and yet everywhere they go they encounter totally anarchy, chaos, wanton destruction and bloodshed, with a couple of exceptions.

After we finished watching it, we wondered what was the meaning of this movie and even went to read the Wiki article. I guess, it's the type of movie where different people will have different ideas what it was all about. The way I see it, the main theme is that the types who work for the press are all cynical and jaded, largely devoid of morals and resemble vultures in the way they operate as they are only interested in sensationalism and will literally step on corpses to achieve their goals.

The film shows the transformation of Jessie into exactly such a person. In the beginning she is just stupid and manipulative, but by the last frames the transformation is complete. Of course, that's just my opinion and some (wanna-be) career gal may very well feel inspired by her character which I frankly found quite irritating, especially when you consider that she was directly and indirectly responsible for several deaths. 

The movie is an action thriller, quite fast-paced and short enough so that you won't get bored. It has graphic violence and profanity, but no s8xual content of any kind. Strangely enough, there are virtually no female warriors until the very last minutes when the group of rebel soldiers who storm the White House features a black female sergeant (so I guess a double quota was filled). For a modern film, it is quite decent. 

I would recommend it if you are into dystopian genre and don't mind gratuitous violence. My husband thought that the film had strong Mad Max vibes. 

Is it America's near future? I'd like to think, no, it isn't, but we do live in uncertain times. It may be the future of us all, who knows?

 

Happy Valentine's Day Everyone

Disturbing

 Well, what do you think?

OFFTOPIC: I'd like to remind everyone that any comment on an older post automatically goes into moderation. I just looked into it and published a couple of comments on December posts today. Also, Google sometimes spams comments. It did spam mine 2 times recently:)

Greensleeves

 

So You Want To Be A Housewife

 What now? 

Here is some free advice which too many young girls don't get from their parents any more.

Don't marry a loser. Who is a loser? Simple, a guy who can't or won't hold down a job. The most important quality of your future husband is his ability to provide an income. Now it doesn't mean you should be a gold-digger. Be realistic in your demands. Upper class men can chase girls below them in status to have a bit of fun but few will marry them. As we say in our country like attracts like.

So you future husband doesn't have to be wealthy but he should have a steady income enough to support a family. That means no starving artists/rock-stars, no eternal students, no chronically unemployed guys and no mama's boys who get a burnout from working full time. Full time is 39/40 hours by the way, not 32 and not 36. 

In general, look closely at his mother and their family dynamics in general. A man should respect his parents but be independent and self-sufficient. If he is lazy and work shy and constantly has pain in his back don't think you'll be able to change him. He'll continue to suffer from back pain sitting at home playing video games/watching Netflix while you will be out there in the cold trying to earn a living.

Let it be his parents' problem, after all, they raised him this way.

If you want to have a middle class marriage, look for a breadwinner;)

 

The Problem With Modern Women

 

Not a fan of Varg but this is good 

Found on Twitter. Yes, I eventually went back since that's an important news portal but trying to restrict my time there;)

The Doctrine Which Caused The Most Damage

 Yes, I'm going there:)

In my opinion, it's undoubtedly OSAS as in "once saved always saved" with caveat. Obviously Reformed churches have traditionally taught "perseverance of the saints" which basically means that if you show the fruits of salvation in your life and persevere in following the Bible's teachings you'll go to Heaven, while many Baptists teach Lordship Salvation and claim that God will rather cause your death (hence "mortal" sin) than allow you to do something really bad and lose your salvation.

So it's not a new doctrine. What is new is undoubtedly the "carnal Christian" stuff or like someone described it, the idea that while Jesus Christ is your Saviour, Satan can still be your lord and master and you don't need to change your life at all (because it would be doing "works"). I even read some people claiming that you can drop your faith altogether and basically become an atheist and reject God totally or start practicing Wicca or whatever and still keep your salvation.

We can thank this teaching for so many people today claiming the name of Christ and never repenting/continuing to live sinful lifestyles. Another variant of this very pernicious doctrine which was popular in my country around mid 20th century is the belief that once your child is baptised he's automatically "elected" and will go to Heaven no matter what and that Hell basically doesn't exist.

One thing to consider is that Martin Luther had never taught such nonsense:

The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod believes and teaches that it is possible for a true believer to fall from faith, as Scripture itself soberly and repeatedly warns us (1 Cor. 10:12; 1 Peter 5:8; 2 Peter 3:17; Heb. 2:1-3, 3:12-19, 6:4-8, etc.).

Such warnings are intended for Christians who appear to be lacking a right understanding of the seriousness of their sin and of God's judgment against sin, and who, therefore, are in danger of developing a false and proud "security" based not on God's grace, but on their own works, self-righteousness, or freedom to "do as they please."...

 A person may be restored to faith in the same way he or she came to faith in the first place — by repenting of his or her sin and unbelief and trusting completely in the life, death and resurrection of Christ alone for forgiveness and salvation.

 

Is Donald Trump Pro-Life?

 I know people were complaining about him in this regard, and yet one of the first things he did was this:

President Trump delivered a massive win on Thursday when he announced pardons for 23 pro-life activists who were prosecuted by the Biden Administration. Trump’s executive action was a major win for the pro-life movement and relief for those incarcerated.

That's some good news for sure!

A Serious Question To My Readers

 Does ADHD exist? Especially adult ADHD? That is, the behaviours those diagnosed exhibit, surely exist, but is the real reason behind it a disease called ADHD or something else? Like anxiety, PTSD, lack of sleep, poor parenting, childhood trauma and other things? 

Do you think it should be treated with drugs or differently? Also, how to know if an irritating person you have to deal with has ADHD or is just an a88hole? And how do you deal with them in both cases?

Feel free to write your honest opinion on the matter:)