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The Importance of Storytelling

Over the last year or so, I decided to focus a bit more on academic opportunities.

I have attempted to become a better professor at the University of Maryland University College (UMUC), helped start a non-profit focused on increasing academic involvement with government (ATARC), and this semester signed up for two graduate courses at the University of Maryland College Park in, of any things, Government and Political Science.

One of the two graduate classes I am taking focuses on Political Institutions in the US, the other focuses on Political Theory relating to human rights. It is the latter I wanted to talk about in this post.

The Importance of Storytelling

Gone Girl

Last night, as part of the Ellen birthday set of events, culminating in her long-desired trip to New Orleans in December, we went to see Gone Girl (chosen as an alternative to Nightcrawler, and partially… Gone Girl

In A World …

Finished watching Lake Bell‘s In A World. This continues the sequence of woman written, often directed, and starred in films that I have watched over the last month. The story is about a woman, well-duh,… In A World …

Ruby Sparks plus a Discovery

I finished watching Ruby Sparks this morning. Ruby Sparks is a ‘cute’ rom-com (romantic comedy) about a lonely author with writer’s block who writes about his perfect, albeit imaginary girl friend, Ruby Sparks. After doing so,… Ruby Sparks plus a Discovery

The Buck Stops Here

There are, at least, two things that my daughters mention that I never did for them. I never took them fishing (of course I have almost never fished) and I never took them horseback riding (I guess I did that a little bit myself but it violated my ‘feet-are-on-the-ground happy place’ approach.

The movie I just finished, Buck, deals with horses.

Buck Brannaman, is the prototypical what-we-think-a-cowboy-should-be cowboy (I guess I am overusing hyphens this morning). He travels around the country teaching people how to ride horses better. In fact he is really teaching them about how to treat horses better. As he says in the movie (paraphrased), “People do not have a horse problem, horses have a people problem.” And what he really is teaching is much about the riders themselves about themselves.

The Buck Stops Here

Chak De! India

As I have mentioned before most (it should really be all) mornings I walk on an elliptical walker down in the basement and watch movies.

It usually takes 3-5 days to watch each movie, or if it is a TV show series (for example, I just finished season 1 of Once Upon A Time), I watch one show each morning.

While I have not as many foreign films in recent days, they are among my favorite ones to watch.

Chak De! India