Disappointement 'Happening'

"For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse."
~ Romans 1:20

My wife and I live close to her parents. This has many benefits for our little family and one of these benefits is a semi-regular date night without kids for my wife and I. Those are valuable.

However, gas prices are going up along with the cost of living in nearly every other way. Two movie tickets come to about $17 without any refreshments. I'm not complaining, I'm just saying that a movie has to be entertaining or we would prefer to spend our valued date nights doing something else.

Now, I don't care to give much of an endorsement to anything in our media-saturated culture, but over the years my wife an I have come to enjoy movies for their directors. M. Night Shyamalan's movies have been among our favorites since the very beginning of his career. We don't just watch them, we OWN several. So, after all the less than favorable reviews his latest film received the two of us chose to go see "The Happening" without reservation. We rarely agree with movie critics. I honestly don't know what most of them are looking for in a film anyway.

After about 20 minutes of commercials (something I hate having to sit through at home - much less a movie I paid $17 to see) the movie begins. It started with some wooden acting and sterile dialog. When the "event" begins my curiosity was piqued but I had already been "scolded" by Wahlberg's character about how insensitive I am with regard to the plight of the global environment. At some point I actually hoped Mr. Shyamalan's film would be about anything OTHER than what it seemed to be trying to say.

Allow me to make this point another way. I am absolutely sick to death of all the "green", touchy-feely, enviro-religion that is currently being pumped out of every media outlet in America. There isn't one shred of credibility to a single proposition being made on the environmental front. Sure, I will will concede that most people are unaware of the true costs their decisions have on our natural resources - but I refuse to accept the notion that I should feel guilty for my existence.

The not-so-subliminal message of Shyamalan's latest film is this: take nature for granted and abuse the environment long enough and Nature with make you pay for your sins - you wicked, thoughtless, vermin. Oh, and there's a weird sort of love story thrown in that completely fails to connect as authentic with anyone over the age of 12.

I get it. Those of you who think we should be coerced into taking better care of the environment may have a few good points with regard to our waste management and gluttonous energy usage. But I can give you ten practical reasons for every one of your over-hyped talking points that "going green" will do NOTHING to improve the planet.

Somebody emailed me a cool link to a speech given by a Texan congressman concerning one of the "solutions" being forced down our throats by myopic legislators taking their turn on the Enviro-wagon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-LOtKIIKcg

Funny thing, the "environmentalists" would have us believe that toxic mercury levels in our freshwater lakes is the result of dark-hearted "Big Business" pumping chemicals into rivers and streams. Couldn't it also be true that the MILLIONS of energy-saving light bulbs we have been using for the last 70+ years have not been properly disposed of?

Check this factoid out:
"Sales of "fluorescent lumiline lamps" commenced in 1938 when four different sizes of tubes were put on the market. During the following year GE and Westinghouse publicized the new lights through exhibitions at the New York World’s Fair and the Golden Gate Exposition in San Francisco. Fluorescent lighting systems spread rapidly during World War II as wartime manufacturing intensified lighting demand. By 1951 more light was produced in the United States by fluorescent lamps than by incandescent lamps."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorescent_lamp

It makes perfect sense to me - we ought to be using as many of these toxic light bulbs as we can!

What started as a relaxing evening with my wife (and what should have been a good film) turned into a two-hour guilt trip about what a horrible species we are.
No proof is provided anywhere...and apparently none is needed these days.
Al Gore makes a movie with well known factual errors about such things and manages to get the Nobel Peace Prize.

No agenda there.

It isn't enough to simply present the evidence and let the informed public make the decision to modify their own behavior. Nope, we simply can not be trusted to make good decisions. We can not be trusted to come to the same conclusions the enviro-wackos have come to. We must be "educated". We must be "turned".

Based on what? We only have about 150 years worth of climate data.
If the world is really the billions of years old that evolution requires...150 years worth of data is HARDLY a reliable sample set.

Furthermore, haven't they found fossilized ferns in Antarctica? How did that happen? Was the planet hotter at some point in it's past? If so, what is this "global warming" they keep complaining about?
(Hey, I hear there is even evidence of catastrophic flooding in the Antarctic. That's interesting.)
http://www.livescience.com/environment/060830_ap_Antarctic_flood.html

No, the truth here is that secular scientists have mountains of data but no comprehensive model.

Creationists have a much better model but only modest amounts of original research.

...and never the twain shall meet.



"The Happening" could have been cool ...but it was NOT! It even lacked the enlightening "twist" we have come to expect from the director.

The undertones of environmental retribution touched a raw nerve with me - and I consider the film irredeemable. I may not go see another one of his films.

Environmentalism is simply the latest cultural idolatry in a long, sad, history of wasted energy and fervor. I will not swallow that kool-ade.