I saw "Die Another Day" yesterday. I haven't seen a James Bond movie in the theatre in a long time. I forgot how fun movies like this are. I loved the opening surfing scene! The beach scene looked a little familiar to me, and then I found out during the credits that part of the movie was filmed in Maui. I wonder if that opening scene was filmed in Maui. The last scene with the house may have been filmed in Maui as well.

I loved Halle Berry, and I loved the part where she was fighting with the english chick, and Halle Berry called her "bitch" before she killed her. Everyone in the theatre was clapping and laughing.

James Bond movies are so much fun. You know you're going to great special effects, pretty girls, fun spy gadgets, great cars and car chase scenes, and it always end happily with Bond saving the world. There's something very comforting about the whole Bond movie genre. In our ever increasingly complicated world, it's nice to spend a couple of hours in a world where issues are black and white, where there are bad guy and good guys, and where moral ambiguity is nonexistent. It's escapist entertainment at its best.

I wish I could write a movie script with special effects like a James Bond movie. I love special effects in a movie. I love the violence, the fast car chase scenes, and the daredevil stunts. Special effects makes spending the money to watch a movie totally worth it, because special effects on a big screen look so darn good. Unless you have a killer sound system and huge screen TV at home, you just can't have the same movie watching experience at home that you do at the theatre. You also don't get the audience reaction at home, which most of the time really adds to my movie viewing pleasure. It's fun to laugh out loud at a movie's jokes with people you know and don't know.

Die Another Day was definitely worth my money.

Below is a statement from the Jewish Community Relations Council on Rainbow Grocery's boycott of products made in Israel.

December 4, 2002

RAINBOW GROCERY ISRAEL BOYCOTT

The following statement was issued today by David Steirman, President of the Jewish Community Relations Council, which represents more than 80 synagogues and Jewish organizations in the Bay Area on public affairs issues of concern to the organized Jewish community.

The Jewish Community Relations Council is deeply disappointed and angered that Rainbow Grocery, which has been patronized by a significant number of our community members and has a strong reputation as a progressive institution, has chosen to boycott Israeli-made products.

The explanation on the store's website that only "two departments decided to remove the Israeli products that they carried from the shelf" and that they "allow our departments wide latitude in their purchasing decisions" is disingenuous at best. The store's leadership is permitting a boycott to take place on its premises and bears responsibility for that decision.

This boycott is not only deeply offensive; it is also misguided. Economic warfare against Israel in the form of boycotts is a failed tactic that has been employed by Israel's detractors and enemies since the establishment of the State of Israel. According to Rainbow Grocery's public relations department, the store is not boycotting products from any other country, even though there are dozens of countries whose human rights records are, by any objective standard, abysmal.

The singling out of the democratic state of Israel is nothing short of an antagonistic and discriminatory act. The damage cannot be mitigated simply by stating, as the store has, that it will continue to carry kosher and other Jewish products from other countries or that other departments within the store do not support the boycott.

We call upon Rainbow Grocery to rescind its boycott immediately. We have offered to meet with the management of the store to convey our concerns. Until such time that the store eliminates its double-standard against Israel, we urge members of the community - Jewish and non-Jewish - to contact the store by telephone, email and fax to send a strong message of protest.

Jewish Community Relations Council of San Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin, Sonoma and Alameda Counties
121 Steuart Street, Suite 301 San Francisco, CA 94105
(415) 957-1551 www.jcrc.org

Below is an email I received from Rainbow Grocery about the boycott of Israeli products. Rainbow Grocery says there is no boycott, but what they don't say is that individual departments are independently run and can choose to not sell Israeli products, which they have done by not selling gelt, the gold coins for Hannukah. Why don't they just say this? Why lie or skirt around the truth? They really need to get a better PR person.

Dear Customers and Concerned Neighbors,

We apologize for those of you who may be receiving a second mass mailing. Unfortunately, we are simply unable to respond individually to all who have emailed, called or faxed letters to us. We would like to set the record straight for those of you who have heard conflicting stories about this issue.

There is no boycott at Rainbow Grocery Cooperative against Israeli products. At no time did a boycott of Israeli products come up for a vote by the Membership. Our policy requires 51% of the membership to approve a boycott.

We want to emphasize the following point: in no way do we tolerate any workers at Rainbow Grocery who support hatred, racism or any form of religious oppression in or outside of our workplace.

We feel compassion for all parties in the Middle East, intense pain for the losses suffered and dreams unfulfilled. Our ultimate and paramount hope is and has always been peace in the Middle East.

It is dialogue that ultimately will provide the avenue for resolution of the difficult and complex issues in the Middle East. Your feedback and commentary are important to us. We hope that the outpouring of intense communication in the past week can be a step in the process of peace, not a step towards the escalation of conflict.

Sincerely,
Board of Directors
Rainbow Grocery Cooperative

Berkeley Politics at its best. The mayor of Berkeley has admitted to stealing and throwing away copies of the UC-Berkeley student newspaper that endorsed his opponent, Berkeley Mayor Admits Stealing Newspapers.

Now if the guy was republican there'd be major honking protests on Shattuck Avenue calling for the guy's resignation. But in the messed up way politics works in the SF Bay Area, the Berkeley City Council are trying to play down what the mayor did. It's so ironic to me because Berkeley is the birthplace of the free speech movement, but obviously that's not the case anymore and I don't think has been for a very long time. One Berkeley Council member said he was stressed out, and wasn't responsible for his actions. The guy destroyed property! Come on! He should resign.

Normally I wouldn't care, it's Berkeley after all and they're a political joke around the country as well as in the SF Bay Area, but I can't help but think that if the Mayor of Berkeley was a republican, the Berkeley Council member would impeach him in a serious nanosecond. Now that a republican would ever stand a chance of getting in Berkeley, but it's the hypocrisy of the Berkeley Council that really gets to me. It's really sad too because Berkeley used to be such a relevant politcal force, and now the city has become such joke and they don't even know it. They've protested themselves into irrelevancy, like the rest of the extreme radical left.

Here's the story from the Daily Cal, the Berkeley paper that broke the story, Police Say Mayor Stole Newspapers, Bates Apologizes to Daily Cal for Role in Pre-Election Day Theft.