Freedom's Fidelity

Tuesday, December 30, 2003

Finally!

DSL and phone connection restored. It only took you 12 effen days SBC!!

I'm way behind, hopefully I'll have a chance to play some catch-up this weekend. There's so much I want to comment on.

I did get a chance to see Lord of the Rings: Return of the King this past weekend. It's definitely the best of the three, the effects were absolutely phenomenal, the best I've seen in any movie. I read somewhere that they took a good chunk of the money made on the first two and re-did some scenes. It certainly shows. One of the most likeable characters of course is the dwarf, Gimli. Andrew Sullivan points to this interview with the actor, John Rys-Davies, who I like even better, excerpt:

I'm burying my career so substantially in these interviews that it's painful. But I think that there are some questions that demand honest answers.

I think that Tolkien says that some generations will be challenged. And if they do not rise to meet that challenge, they will lose their civilization. That does have a real resonance with me....

What is unconscionable is that too many of your fellow journalists do not understand how precarious Western civilization is and what a jewel it is.

How did we get the sort of real democracy, how did we get the level of tolerance that allows me to propound something that may be completely alien to you around this table, and yet you will take it and you will think about it and you'll say no you're wrong because of this and this and this. And I'll listen and I'll say, "Well, actually, maybe I am wrong because of this and this."

[He points at a female reporter and adopts an authoritarian voice, to play a militant-Islam character:] 'You should not be in this room. Because your husband or your father is not hear to guide you. You could only be here in this room with these strange men for immoral purposes.'

I mean... the abolition of slavery comes from Western democracy. True Democracy comes form our Greco-Judeo-Christian-Western experience. If we lose these things, then this is a catastrophe for the world.

Hear. Hear. The whole interview is well worth reading, especially the conversation he recalls having with his father in 1955, go read it all.

posted by Paul  permalink | |