Mexican Cartel Snacks

Mexico is under siege by the mobster cartels. It was stated that the cartels, who have brutally killed many, including disemboweling, hanging and decapitating victims, have now attacked the factories which ship Cheetos, Doritos, and Ruffles to the United States. This brings up a lot of concerns. After the attacks, there must be a lot of contamination in the factories. Human body pieces and body fluids would be hard to totally clean up. Second, the cartels had control of the factory and it is unknown if any contaminants or poisons were spread onto the foods or packages. These questions will never be answered because it would interrupt the huge business flow. I am cautious. These cartels are known to maim and kill. Injuring may in the US would probably be something on their "to do" list.

One Amazing Girl

Congratulations to second grader Lori Anne Madison, age 6, the youngest person ever to compete in  the national spelling bee. In addition, she is adorable. She ended by missing "engluvies." the term for a bird's craw., Earlier, she correctly spelled "dirigible." Previously,in Virginia, she won by spelling the word "vaquero," the Spanish translation of "cowboy" often used in parts of the South.

Lori likes to study while swinging upside down or jumping on her trampoline, according to her bio on the event's website. She's also a competitive swimmer, has won math and science awards, and takes karate, dance and tennis classes.

This is a fabulous unbelievable feat and we will watch her bloom in the future. 

Catholic church  states it wants to NOT cover contraception in its private health care insurance offering and its hospitals. The Catholic church negotiates with health insurance companies and , in fact, the Catholic church is self-insured, so it is negotiating with itself. This insurance policy is offered to all staff, including; janitors, teachers, etc. If someone goes to a Catholic hospital they can not be offered birth control and the doctors do not provide it, according to church spokesman.
President Obama wants all people to have access to birth control and had included it into the Affordable Care Act. When the church hollered that the federal government was trying to dictate religion, the administration made an exception for churches. Unsatisfied, the Catholic church wants to go to court to resolve the issue.
The church feels they do not need to provide birth control due to religious liberty and the federal government must stay completely out.
  See ya in court.

China Pakistan Connection

We have 90,000 American troops in Afghanistan now. This is a problem and we need to get them out !!
Pakistan takes billions of dollars from Americans...oh yes, we have to borrow the money from China to give it to Pakistan. Pakistan used to charge the US $250 per truck for the military to enter Pakistan. Now Pakistan has demanded $5,000 per truck to use the Pakistan road. HMMMMMM!!


The Travis Manion Foundation was founded after a young man serving his country was killed during a second tour of duty. I encourage you to donate. Thanks to our Gold Star families who gave so much.



]

Middle East Status Summary

This weekend 60 adults and 30 kids were killed in Syria by the government led by Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian President. We  have 90,000 American troops in Afghanistan fighting a war.
Also this week, Pakistan thumbed its nose at the US by sentencing the doctor who located Osama Bin Laden to 33 years in prison for treason. Bin laden killed Americans and Pakistani citizens.
Iran says will agree to more talks, but Iran is still getting enriched uranium for nuclear weapons. - despite harm to their economy by reduced oil sales. Is China helping Iran...with our money?.
Egypt completed the first round of open elections and there will be a run off election between Mohammed Morsi and Ahmed Shafiq, a former general who was Mubarak's prime minister. Both bad?
Americans can not keep intervening into the wars of the Middle East. Americans have  become weary of war...plus America has no money. If America would go to war again, we  would have to borrow the money from China and increase our deficit by trillions of dollars more.
Let the Republicans argue for war,,,Americans won’t buy it.

I feel candidate Whelan is not fit for the office of Congress. He refuses to defend and protect the United States of America. He has no wife, kids or other responsibilities. If Whelan wants to go to Congress, he must show he loves the US and is willing to sacrifice, like so many others have. On this Memorial Day, I urge you to not elect Whelan. Let him enter the military, grow, become a man, stop getting his political money for signs from his parents. Whelan...not now...not now.

Republican Congress Candidates Unfit

 MEMORIAL DAY - the meaning of war - preserve American freedom. beliefs and way of life.  Over 58,000 DIED in the Viet Nam War and 6,000 died in the Iraq War. Died for us. Yet, many will not vote. Many will not serve - this has become a "volunteer" war. Because many refuse to serve, the same "volunteers" go back for three, four, and five tours of duty. Death and injury mounts. War.
That is why I feel the Republicans candidates for Congress are not suitable. If they were no going to run for Congress they can turn their backs on patriotism. But as young men, especially Whelan who just graduated from school and still lives off parents, they must know the sacrifice of men. They can too easily send others into war to fight in their place. Whelan, Garcia, and Tacherra refused to serve and shirked their duty.
Today we honor those who have stood up for America..

ELECT GOODWIN

VOTE - GOODWIN for CONGRESS

Because, GOODWIN has been there for women, kids, education, seniors, veterans, disabled, families. - GOODWIN can represent your needs. Air and water quality.  Everybody is looking for a hero. Loraine GOODWIN will be our congressional hero in CD 16 where EVERYBODY COUNTS!!! DIVERSITY is better.

All of our veterans are heroes - sacrifice to save America.  Whelan is out of school and working only 2 years ( not married, no kids) - his parents bought the signs. Whelan, Garcia and Techerra rejected serving America and our families over the past TEN YEARS after President Bush declared war - they do not represent us in Congress.

Democrats, Independents and Republicans - Vote for GOODWIN

www.drgoodwin.info / email: saveourvalley@hotmail.com

Loraine Goodwin for Congress

The BEST CHOICE is LORAINE GOODWIN. Dr Loraine Goodwin has held elected office and has proven she can improve the district, bring in new jobs with federal money, and balance a budget while ensuring minimal job loss or reduction. Whelan is just a couple of years out of law school. His family gave him money for a lot of signs, etc. This is not high school. Whalen has no experience with women's issues, kids, education, the disabled, seniors, or family issues. Whalen is single and no kids. Whalen confused medicaid with Medicare. None of the  Republican candidates has chosen to be a patriot. None of the Republican candidates has signed on to protect and defend the United States and the Constitution over the past ten years since President Bush declared war. They let others fight, suffer, sacrifice and even die - even women. No - not Whalen, Garcia or Tacherra chose to defend the U.S.
Vote for Loraine Goodwin. Loraine Goodwin has been fighting for women's issues, kids, families, the disabled, veterans and seniors for decades. Loraine Goodwin will not throw you under the bus to save cash for the young Turks. Loraine Goodwin is transparent and you know who she is working for - YOU. Education, experience, skills, abilities and knows the real issues. Loraine Goodwin served in elected office and has shown she can create new jobs and bring in federal money, help the kids and community, and balance a public budget and minimize job loss. Diversity and a strong central valley. If you like education, you'll love Loraine Goodwin. Loraine Goodwin is a UC alumnus and will strongly support the UC Merced programs. GOODWIN also sits on our area air and water boards to protect our community. VOTE for GOODWIN

Dog Food and China

Let's face it, China has no health standards and I love my dog. I suggest you not buy any food for your precious dog that comes from China or has any stuff from China in it. Here is a bit of an online report.

Nearly 1,000 dogs reportedly have been sickened by chicken jerky pet treats from China, according to a new tally of complaints from worried owners and veterinarians submitted to federal health officials.

The Food and Drug Administration has logged some 900 reports of illnesses and deaths since November, when it warned owners about continued problems with the products known variously as chicken jerky strips, treats and nuggets, a spokeswoman said.

Back then, the agency already had heard from 70 owners about problems ranging from vomiting and diarrhea to kidney failure and other serious ailments after animals reportedly consumed the treats.

Hair Extensions

Hair Extensions

I felt I needed to say a few words about hair extensions since they are glorified on television and the problems that can be created by extensions are never discussed.
First, if you are choosing hair extensions, the hair must be extremely clean with bugs and bacteria eliminated. Some stores allow customers to try on hair and wigs. This can cause transfer of all types of hair problems.
Some people are allergic to some hair. If you are allergic, you may notice itchy skin or scalp. If you scratch, you will, over time cause skin injury and edema. This is not a good situation and the hair should be removed as soon as possible and your own hair washed and dried.
Some women, especially black women, may pull their hair too tight to get the hair straighter or pulled into a braid. This will cause hair loss at the scalp and follicle damage over time, which can not be reversed. Usually you will see a receding hairline. This is terrible for kids, and I often see kids who are losing their hair due to excessive traction. It is not worth the hair loss and kids should not be subjected to this type of pulled hairstyle. In addition, the tight hair styles can cause headaches, which people will treat with pain-killers. The only way to really stop the pain is to stop the tight hair pulling.
Clip on extensions should only be worn "on occasion." Clip on hair will cause hair breakage which can go down to the scalp. Usually the hair breakage will be greatly noticed by 6 months of clip usage. Once you completely discontinue the clips, the hair will regrow in about a year. You will need hair trims for split ends and hair weakness.
Asian hair is often coarser and can tolerate hair extensions better. People with weak hair will usually have more problems with extensions. Hair that is dry, colored, or relaxed will have more problems. Learn how to create hair styles that have little to no tension and don't need extensions to give your hair a conditioning break.

Brain Tapeworm Cysts

News about tapeworm cysts are all over the net, so I including the story here.

You've heard of disgusting, 20-foot-long tapeworms living inside peoples' intestines, but it turns out their larvae are even more horrific, and they could be eating holes in your brain right now, undetected.

Brain tapeworms, or Neurocysticercosis, are a parasitic disease of the nervous system, and Discover Magazine had an interesting (and vomit-inducing) expose on the problem this week.

Basically, brain tapeworms -- larvae that can attach themselves to the cranium in the form of large white cysts -- are the result of a wrong turn. The larvae are accustomed to traveling through a pig's bloodstream and attaching themselves to its muscles. But when a human eats undercooked pork, there's a chance he or she could be eating undercooked tapeworm larvae as well.

Though the larva is now inside the human body, it still thinks it's inside the pig. Confusion ensues. It flows through the bloodstream and gets stuck inside fluid-filled cavities in the brain, then latches on and masks itself from the immune system. These larvae can form vast networks on the brain and completely mangle its function if not treated.

The magazine reported that Maryland's Dr. Theodore Nash sees patients with horrible side-effects caused by tapeworm brain damage. Some fall into comas, while others lose motor functions, experience violent seizures or go blind.

Worse, the affliction is more common than you might think. It's difficult to track exactly how many people have them because the tapeworms thrive in areas of the world with poor sanitation and less extensive healthcare networks. While Nash estimates that upward of 2,000 people have them in the United States, he says 29 million people -- or more -- could have them in Latin America alone.

And the adult tapeworms living in your intestines? They can lay up to 50,000 eggs apiece.

The disease is treatable, but its only cure, praziquantel, can cause severe swelling of the brain and problems with seizures down the line. Researchers are still working on safer treatments.

But do not fear. As Gizmodo reports, the easiest way to make sure you don't get brain tapeworms (or any other disease caused by raw meat, for that matter) is to cook your meat and wash your hands thoroughly. Or stop eating the meat.

Rate Your Hospital

from LA Times

Using data from government agencies and private watchdogs, several websites provide consumer information on hospitals.

CalHospitalCompare.org (www.calhospitalcompare.org) enables you to compare selected hospitals on dozens of measures, including infection prevention, intensive care mortality rate and overall patient experience. The site, run by the California HealthCare Foundation, offers the option of searching by hospital name, location or medical condition.

Hospital Compare (www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov) from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services looks at facilities nationwide. You can compare up to three hospitals side by side or compare a hospital's track record with state and national averages. You also can narrow your search to facilities offering particular surgical procedures.

The Leapfrog Group (www.leapfroggroup.org/cp), an employer coalition that promotes hospital safety and quality, annually surveys hospitals on safety, quality and cost measures. Participation is voluntary, so not all hospitals are included.

Quality Check (www.qualitycheck.org), a site operated by the accrediting organization known as the Joint Commission, offers ratings of hospitals as well as nursing homes, home care providers and laboratories.

The Medicare site has a feature (www.medicare.gov/Dialysis) that can help compare kidney dialysis centers in your area. For each facility, the site details the services offered and provides data on effectiveness and patient survival.

Cannibalism Rears Ugly Head

Cannibalism has resurfaced in a big way. Here are three examples.

1)  Six roasted fetuses covered with gold for black magic rituals were found in a Bangkok hotel room, and the gruesome discovery led to the arrest of a British citizen Friday, Thai police said.

Chow Hok Kuen, a 28-year-old Briton of Taiwanese origin, faces charges of hiding and covering dead bodies and a jail term of up to a year, police said.

The arrest came after police were tipped off about a website advertising the sale of the fetuses. Police searched Chow's hotel room and found the fetuses packed in a box inside Chow's baggage, they said.

Chow said that he planned to sell fetuses in Taiwan and that one could be worth up to 200,000 Thai baht, or $6,300, police said. He told police that the black magic rituals with fetuses are believed to bring good fortune for business people.

2) Women in America start eating their placentas. They say it makes them feel better and stronger. They placentas can be put into capsules.

3)  In Africa, Africans are stalking albinos and killing them for their skin. The Africans feel eating an albino brings good luck. Certainly it is unbelievably savage for the albinos. Albinos are huddling together trying to survive.

FDA Korean Seafood Not Edible

May 18, 2012

Oysters, clams, mussels, and scallops from Korea should be removed from the market

On May 1, 2012, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) removed all Korean certified shippers of molluscan shellfish (oysters, clams, mussels, and scallops) from the Interstate Certified Shellfish Shippers List (ICSSL), following a comprehensive FDA evaluation that determined that the Korean Shellfish Sanitation Program (KSSP) no longer meets the sanitation controls spelled out under the National Shellfish Sanitation Program.  FDA’s evaluation of the KSSP found significant shellfish growing area deficiencies including:

1. ineffective management of land-based pollution sources that can impact shellfish growing areas;
2. inadequate sanitary controls to prevent the discharge of human fecal waste from fish farms and commercial fishing and aquaculture vessels operating in and adjacent to shellfish growing areas; and
3. detection of norovirus in shellfish growing areas analyzed by FDA during the evaluation

Because of inadequate sanitation controls, the molluscan shellfish harvested from Korean waters may have been exposed to human fecal waste and have the potential to be contaminated with norovirus. 

Noroviruses are a group of viruses that cause gastroenteritis. Symptoms of illness associated with norovirus include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and stomach cramping. Affected individuals often experience low-grade fever, chills, headache, muscle aches and a general sense of tiredness. Most people show symptoms within 48 hours of exposure to the virus. The illness typically lasts one to two days. Norovirus is usually not life-threatening and does not generally cause long-term effects.

Consumers who have recently bought molluscan shellfish and are concerned that it may have come from Korea, should contact the store from which it was purchased and ask where the shellfish were harvested. Product from Korea should not be consumed

CD 16 Congress Candidates Refuse Military Service

Here is an interesting aspect of the current CD 16 congressional race. There are three young Republican males running to represent the central valley in Congress. Yet, none of these men were willing to fight for our country in military active duty, to my knowledge. Whelan, the youngest at age 28, recently graduated from law school and has no history of military service or any community service. The other two Republican candidates, Garcia and Johnny Techarra, have also rejected military service eventhough they were the perfect age for enlistment during the past ten years. Our soldiers sacrifice a lot and many pay the ultimate price of a grueling death in a foreign country. Are these ambitious candidates too good to fight for our American freedom? Are these guys the type of people we want leading our country? President Bush, a Republican started the war in the Middle East. As Republicans who say they support Bush, shouldn't these candidates volunteer to win the war and protect our country by enlisting in the military?

Fresno Bee Racism Sexism CD 16 Election

Fresno Bee article is racist and sexist.
 
In listing Dr Loraine Goodwin as a candidate for CD 16, it mentions she is a physician. But they


fail to mention her years of work in women's health and preventive medicine. 


Dr Goodwin also has a law degree from San Joaquin College of Law and she works as a legal 


arbitrator and mediator. She also sits on the California Air Hearing Board, Central Region and 


the IRWMG where she acts to protect valley air and water. Dr Goodwin also sits on the 


Madera behavioral health board, which provides help to the poor, homeless and addicted. She 


also sat on the Madera American Disabilities Act Advisory Board which initiated ADA 


requirements to remove barriers for disabled. 


Dr Goodwin comes from a Fresno farm family that has farmed for generations. She 


understands farming needs and wants to encourage young farmers. 


If you believe in education, you can believe in Dr Goodwin. As a member of the Madera Unified 


School Board, she started the "Farm-to-school Program which gives fruits and vegetables to 


kids and pays farmers over $500,000 a year - Goodwin has proven she can bring money into 


the central valley, keep staff working and finances sound. 


Dr Goodwin stands up for women, children, disabled, seniors, families and students. We must 


act to reduce racism in the central valley. It is a hard fight...it keeps coming back. Join the 


GOODWIN TEAM. 


Don't trust what you read in the Fresno Bee.

Dental Sealants Help

Between 45 million and 55 million dental sealants are applied each year in the U.S., with pediatric dentists performing more than twice as many procedures as either general dentists or dental hygienists. 

For many middle-class parents whose children do see the dentist, the problem is that the subject of sealants may not even be raised.

Some dentists, mostly those who treat few children, might be leery of sealants because they can be tricky to place, or because they didn’t learn to use them in dental school

But many do children do need sealants. Recent studies have shown that boys in higher-income homes had the greatest prevalence of decay.

For those who do require sealants, they may mean the difference between a lifetime of healthy teeth and the pain and health risks of chronic decay.

90 percent of decay in the adult is on the biting surface on the back tooth.

He’s touting the benefits of sealants in part so that more parents will know to ask about them.

Not only children need sealants. Adults can benefit too. The cost is often covered by dental insurance.

This is "Let's Bike Month." Here is a link to bike laws you need to know to avoid accidents.

http://www.cityofmerced.org/civica/filebank/blobdload.asp?BlobID=7254

Meat Glue

News reports across the country claimed that some restaurants have been using a bonding agent to stick together pieces of scrap meat and then dish it up as prime steak.
“This fat, rare-cooked filet mignon is not what it seems. We used meat glue on cheap beef scraps to fake a steak good enough to please a professional chef,”


The reports suggested that glued-together meat might pose a food safety hazard if it’s not properly handled and cooked.

They said that while so-called “meat glue” is a real product, the outcry is another example of consumers not understanding what’s actually in their food.
“People simply don’t know you’re eating it,” said Michael Batz, food safety risk researcher at the University of Florida Emerging Pathogens Institute.
“It is illegal to misrepresent one cut of meat as another,” said Joan McGlockton, Vice President for Food Policy of the National Restaurant Association.
Meat glue, an enzyme called transglutaminase, is commonly used in restaurant kitchens, acknowledged Janet Riley, a spokeswoman for the American Meat Institute. But the product, which can bind proteins together, is typically used to avoid wasting high-dollar cuts of meat, such as beef tenderloin, not to cobble together stew meat. It might also be used in place of toothpicks, say, to keep bacon-wrapped beef in place.

“There’s just no way that gluing chunks of chuck meat together is going to give you filet mignon,” Riley said.
It likely wouldn’t make economic sense for restaurants to go to the time and trouble to stick together scraps of meat, given the cost of the transglutaminase, which runs about $40 a pound wholesale, much more than any stew meat they might use.


“I don’t know where that would be happening; it would be a very expensive thing to do,” said Randall K. Phebus, an associate professor of animal sciences and industry at Kansas State University who specializes in food safety.
Transglutaminase is "generally recognized as safe," said Curtis Allen, an FDA spokesman.
From a consumer food safety standpoint, glued-together pieces of meat might pose the same hazard as any so-called non-intact cut of meat, such as blade-tenderized beef or even ground hamburger.
If the meat weren’t handled properly, someone could transfer bacteria from the outside of the meat to the inside, Phebus said. It would be important to cook the meat thoroughly, to the 160 degrees Fahrenheit recommended for hamburger.

The tricky part is that consumers may not know when they’re being served food with meat glue.
At the grocery store, retailers have to identify so-called “reformed” products and they have to list transglutaminase  enzyme as an ingredient.
Restaurants, however, don’t have to list “meat glue” on their menu.

One View - Amazon Studio a Bad Idea

The Morning Read: Why Amazon Studios is a very bad idea for writers

PLUS ELI ROTH'S DOING RIGHT BY HORROR AND TALKING 'STAR WARS' WITH KIDS

By Drew McWeeny FRIDAY, NOV 19, 2010 11:20 AM

Barton Fink is a good example of of what happens to screenwriters in Hollywood, and he got off easy.

Credit: 20th Century Fox

Welcome to The Morning Read.

Let's kick off today's column with a bit of a public service announcement.  Have you read about the Amazon Studios announcement?  Basically, Amazon decided to get involved in the production of content, and they've created a brand-new program that is part contest, part development fund, and all garbage.

I've gotten several e-mails from people asking me my take on this, several of which were from very excited writers looking at this as a way to finally get around the "no manager or agent" conundrum.  And I empathize with any writer out there with a script who can't get people to read it.  I get what is attractive about the idea of a brand-new way of getting around the system, but this is not it.  Have you read theDevelopment Agreement or the Contest Terms and Procedures?  They are fascinating and revealing and completely insane.

I'll put it this way:  if you upload your script or your movie to their contest, you are essentially kissing it goodbye forever.  Line after line of the legalese on these pages just confounds me.  "You agree to be automatically entered into any future contests for which your work is eligible.  The specific contest rules for future contests will be posted on this page when they are announced."  And considering one of the rules of this contest grants Amazon Studios a free 18-month option on your work the moment you upload it, the idea that they can enter you in a contest later and tell you the rules after they do so seems positively batty.  The "development agreement" is a contract you're signing, not an entry form for a contest, and in it, you grant them a free option on your work for a year and a half, and if they do end up producing your work, there's a set fee.  Period.  That's all it is.  A set rate.  The same no matter what the project is, and no matter what happens with it.  That is, simply put, immoral.

Beyond that, once your script is uploaded to Amazon, anyone can revise it.  Try to wrap your head around that.  Anyone can revise your screenplay.  They can do anything they want to it.  And if that revision ends up being what gets made, that person becomes part of that set price I mentioned earlier.  It's a mind-boggling proposition, and runs completely counter-intuitive to the idea of giving writers a platform for their work.  The thought of some random person having the legal right to revise my screenplays makes me sick to my stomach, and I seriously believe that the people who created the Amazon Studios idea are either very stupid or very evil.  It is an idea designed to exploit and strip-mine creativity, and it sounds to me like someone's idea of a social media experiment gone wildly wrong.  There's nothing about this that sounds to me like it will result in good filmmaking.  The entire notion of a "test movie" is bizarre, especially when you're talking about having people shoot entire feature films as tests.  That side of the contest is so much weirder than the screenplay side that I can't even really understand it.

Look, collaboration is one of the key components of filmmaking.  I absolutely believe that.  But I also believe that you have to be able to pick your own collaborators based on their history, your history, common artistic goals, respect, and much more.  "Crowdsourcing" is a big buzzword right now, and under the right conditions, I can see how useful that is.  But for filmmaking?  This is poison.  This is very bad thing.  To me, this smacks of the sort of "let's suck someone's blood" mentality that marks the very worst of Los Angeles.

I've spent the last few years entangled in a business arrangement with a producer who I will simply refer to here as "The Gimp."  At the very beginning of our relationship, The Gimp talked a good game.  He promised easy access to production funds.  He spun fanciful stories of lands where tax incentives just fell of the trees, ready to be picked up and spent by any filmmaker who just happened along.  He told tales of the cast that was eager and ready to go, and he even went down the road of hiring a director and making premature announcements.  All of it was what I wanted to hear.  All of it sounded great.

But the truth about The Gimp is that he is all talk.  Those production funds always managed to stay a week or two away from escrow.  The tax incentives only seemed to be opportune in states without soundstages.  Or film crews.  And that cast that was promised seemed to vanish into thin air when push came to shove.  And not just once.  Not just twice.  It was a cycle, a pattern, a twisted game of self-affirmation that The Gimp was playing at my expense.  And because of the option The Gimp had on the material, there was nothing we could do to reclaim it from him.  At that point, it's a waiting game, but at least we'd been paid for the option, which is the way it should work.

In the end, the worst part is the feeling that The Gimp never cared at all about the story we were trying to tell.  Instead, what we offered was a film that could be made at a price just low enough that it would justify a padded budget that could be pocketed, an easy way out of potential bankruptcy, and until he actually made it, there were other ways to make money on our work, ways that had nothing to do with actually telling our story.  I've got stories stretching back twenty years about people indulging their own ego and greed at the expense of writers who genuinely just want to tell a story.

Amazon Studios throws a ton of numbers at you up front, and it claims to be about giving power to the people, but it smells to me like one more case of the writer being the bottom of the pile.  Seriously… I implore you… if you believe your work is of any value whatsoever, don't fall for this.  I'm curious to see if other writers or advocates for writers weigh in on this one.  For now, John August is the only one I've seen jump in, and he makes the point with elegance as usual.

The worst part of saying all that is I know how defensive some people will get, because they will want to believe that this is the short cut they've been looking for.  The truth is that there are no short cuts at all.  You've got to work to get your ideas in front of people, no matter who you are, and the business is getting more competitive as it contracts and changes.  There is nothing more important than a well-executed good idea, and if you're looking for something to give you hope, then why not look at the example of "Clown"?

Remember that?  A few weeks ago, I ran a piece about "Alma," the animated film that Guillermo Del Toro is helping to turn into a feature based on an acclaimed short done as a personal side project by Rodrigo Blaas.  In that piece, I also included a YouTube trailer for a fake movie called "Clown."  One of the things that was really ballsy about the "Clown" trailer was the way they threw on the title "A Film by Eli Roth," even though they had no connection to him.  Well, now it looks like they do.  Roth is producing the film, with Jon Watts and Christopher D. Ford, who made the short, directing and writing the film together.  I have to say, I loved the "Clown" trailer, and I'm excited to see the film, and I love the way the film got in front of Eli, and then made the jump from joke to reality.

There's another film Eli also just helped set up that sounds great, the new one from Nicolas Lopez, a Chilean filmmaker whose earlier films "Promedio Rojo" and "Santos" both showed huge personality and promise.  The notion of Lopez taking his personal observations about the February earthquake in Chile and what happened afterwards and turning that into a horror film is exciting because this isn't something born from somebody watching old movies and just regurgitation someone else's ideas.  This is personal, and those are often the best films.

That's why I find that whole Amazon Studios thing so unsettling, and the way the media is just swallowing it without digesting it or analyzing it or looking at how it treats the people it professes to help is disturbing.  When you're telling a story, it's not just about putting events in a certain order or creating some clever gag or sequence.  It's about voice and perspective and tone, and it seems unlikely you'll get that from something anyone can alter at whim.  Explore alternatives, but be smart about it.  There are always new ways in, new ways to get attention for a good project.  Put your faith in yourself and your idea, not some horseshit Amazon Studios Ponzi scheme that will just use you as oil in their machin
e