OK. So, apparently, there’s a big controversy going on about the movie, “The End of the Spear” because the person who plays a leading role in it, Chad Allen, is gay, as well as being an activist for gay rights. Now, I haven’t seen the movie (nor do I have any particular plans to see it) so take this all with a large grain of salt.

Since when do an actor’s personal preferences have an impact on the quality of the product? I’ve played an alcoholic child molester on stage. Does anyone consider it a problem that I’m not actually an alcoholic child molester? It’s called acting for a reason. For that matter, I’ve played a ghost before. Even though I wasn’t dead.

As far as I’ve been able to determine, Mr Allen didn’t play the character gay. Nobody had any issues with his performance until they realized that his lifestyle didn’t conform to their belief system. I suppose the concern is heightened by the fact that this is a “Christian” movie. But it’s the message of the movie as a whole, not what one actor may say off-camera, that matters. Unless those complaining are concerned that “gay” is somehow contagious, and that you can “catch” it just by watching a gay man on the screen play a straight man.

I’m actually thinking the bigger concern for many people is that they can’t tell from the movie that he’s gay. As long as people can safely separate “us” from “them,” they don’t need to think about the fact that the person they share a cube, lunch table, or pew with might well be one of “them.” Mr Allen’s portrayal of a straight man shakes up that comfortable division.

According to this article, a librarian in a public library near Boston refused to allow FBI agents to take the library’s computers without a proper search warrant. (That looks like a temporary URL, since you normally have to subscribe to read this publication’s content. So the link may not work by the time you try to read it.)
People talk about meek librarians, but I wonder how many others would stand up for what they beleive in in the face of government agents. I’d like to believe I would, but I’m not sure. I certainly applaud Ms. Glick-Weil and her actions.

(Segue into a tangentially related rant here …)

The government has the right and responsibility to protect it’s citizens, but not at the expense of our civil liberties. Something I wish our President would keep in mind. I don’t ask that no access be granted to private information. I only ask (and expect) that there will be independent oversight of that access. President Bush doesn’t seem to understand that it doesn’t really matter how “limited in scope” the wiretapping was. The point is that we, the people, have no way of verifying his statements. Why is it too much to ask to have an independent, but still secret, review of each individual instance? I’m still not completely comfortable with even that, but it’s a lot better than the current state of affairs, where we’re expected to trust the current administration and take them at their word.

I don’t.

I’m starting to get a few BlogWatcher subscribers whom I don’t know personally (yeah!) So I’ve made a few “tweaks.”

• The home page gives a bit more description about BlogWatcher, instead of just the history of the changes I’ve made
• When new users register, they’ll automatically be subscribed to this feed. Don’t worry, you can always unsubscribe yourself using the Subscription Manager.

I plan on writing some documentation for it, so any comments on areas that you find confusing would be helpful.

I also have a tip, for those who wish to subscribe to blogs on MySpace: The correct information to put in the “User” column is not obvious for MySpace users. If the blog you want to subscribe to is http://www.myspace.com/my_friend, then you’d expect to put ‘my_friend’ as the user. Unfortunately, MySpace doesn’t work that way. There’s actually an 8-digit number that you need to put for the user. Rather than trying to figure out what that number should be, I recommend you follow the instructions on the ‘QuickSub” page. Let the software figure it out for you.