Movie Review: The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

Liz heard good things about this film and so we put it on our Netflix queue. Illegal immigrant West Texas ranch worker Melquiades (Julio Cesar Cedillo) is killed by a hotheaded Border Patrol rookie (Barry Pepper), and Melquiades's best friend, a fellow ranch worker named Pete (Tommy Lee Jones, who also directed), takes it on himself to secure justice and fulfill a promise he made to make sure Melquiades is buried in his hometown in northern Mexico.

The movie touches on themes of borders and other barriers, and how people can make connections across them; it also features a lot of eye candy in the form of stark, beautiful landscapes in the Big Bend and the Mexican state of Coahuila, as well as skimpily clad actress January Jones. Unfortunately, the movie is ultimately a poor cousin to Lone Star, both in themes, location, narrative style (lots of flashbacks, which Sayles handled much more deftly), even down to the same touches of directorial mannerism. Three Burials also had extraneous elements--the Border Patrol and the old blind cowboy; the packhorse stumbling off the mesa; the multiple appearances of Mariana--that slowed the pace more than was needed.

Neither Liz nor I were impressed. If you're looking for a film capturing the feel of West Texas, Lone Star is the better choice (or Friday Night Lights if high school football interests you). Pass on Three Burials unless you're a huge Tommy Lee Jones fan.

Eight Futures 1

Anyone writing science fiction set in the next century has to think about three questions in international politics:

• Will China become a superpower or not?
• Will India become a superpower or not?
• Will the United States remain a superpower or not?

Three binary questions yields 2^3 = 8 possible futures, hence the title of this series of posts.

"But what about my particular hobby horse?" you may ask. Fair enough. But whether you think the real question is whether or not we'll prevent global warming, nuclear terrorism, or 5GW, any realistic answer will depend, at least in part, on which of these eight futures will come to pass. For example, if the US, China, and India are all superpowers, the factions willing and able to engage in nuclear terrorism (and the targets they would select) will be vastly different than if China and India are not superpowers and the US has been weakened by economic depression, climate change, and post-Bush-overreach isolationism. The broad outlines of the world of the 21st century and beyond will be laid down by events in these three countries in the coming decades, just as the medieval struggles between Emperor and Pope were laid down six centuries earlier by the Christianization of Rome.

The next three posts in the series will weigh the evidence on both sides of the three questions given above, as well as giving some consideration to what sort of superpower each of these three polities could be. After that, future posts in the series will explore at least some of these eight futures.

Jaw surgery

Recovering from jaw surgery, as you might guess, involves at least four weeks of eating liquids. (I'm at about 3.5 weeks postop). No one prepared me for the longings for solid food that started hitting me a couple of weeks ago. When a piece of bread in the toaster oven smells like the most delicious thing on earth, you know it's bad. When you're slicing up dog treats to stuff in a Kong and you think, "this smells pretty good," you know it's worse.

I've lost about 10-15 pounds. Number of overweight people who've said to me, "maybe I should get my jaw wired shut:" 2 so far.

What have I been eating? In addition to fruit juices, milkshakes, sippable soups, Jamba Juice, and venti mochas, I've been making a lot of smoothies. They're fairly nutritious and tasty, except when you've had three or four in a day. Here's the recipe:

1 banana, sliced OR a handful of strawberries OR a diced apple OR 1 cup other fruit
1 cup plain yogurt OR 1 Tbsp peanut butter
1 scoop GNC Whey Protein Powder or equivalent (various flavors, including strawberry, vanilla, etc.)
1 serving GNC multivitamin powder (e.g., Mega Men Living Well)
2 tsp Benefiber or equivalent
0.5-1 cup milk OR 0.5-1 cup orange juice

Combine all the ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. About 500 calories, 35 g protein, 40 g carbs, 8 g fiber, and 12 g fat. A good breakfast for the physically active. If you take other supplements, you can skip the multivitamin powder (which will drop it to about 400 calories). If you want to cut fat, find low- or non-fat yogurt.

The only caveat for people replacing most or all of their meals is iron. I've been feeling rundown since the surgery, and it finally hit me that I might be slightly anemic. Believe it or not, GNC Mega Men Living Well powder contains no iron! (Presumably well-living mega men eat a lot of red meat, which seems a safe assumption). So I'm now crushing an iron tablet and throwing it in with the other ingredients.

The one-week rule

To ensure I blog on a regular basis, I'm asking Curtis Weeks and Gus Van Horn to assign me a topic if they notice I haven't blogged in a week. Look for some horrible mashup of fifth-generation warfare and Objectivism by Wednesday the 21st!

Update: because she's my first commenter, I've extended the invitation to Samantha Ling. Hopefully this won't turn into "Stephen's pegging blog."

Blog relaunch

Where have I been the past year and a half? Let's see:

• I trained for and ran the 2006 Houston Marathon
• at the end of which I proposed to Liz
• We were married in November and honeymooned in Jamaica over Christmas
• We adopted a Lab mix puppy
• I had jaw surgery a few weeks ago
• and I've been writing, trading, working, etc.

Thanks for checking in.