Last night Lisa and I celebrated her birthday with dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings and a movie. We saw Amazing Grace (2007,PG) (ScreenIt! Review). We probably would have seen something else, but there seemed to be nothing else interesting showing. The Adam Sandler movie, maybe, but it seemed to be getting tepid reviews. So, we went to see Amazing Grace. It was good...an inspiring story of a long fight for the greater good that finally won out. I also couldn't help seeing parallels with today...talk of lives wasted in a war gone bad and a tendency to allow our principles of decency to be violated in war time (tolerating slavery then...tolerating torture now).

From the Wikipedia entry:

Amazing Grace is a 2007 film directed by Michael Apted about the campaign against the slave trade in 19th century Britain, led by famous abolitionist William Wilberforce, who was responsible for steering anti-slave trade legislation through the British parliament. The title is a reference to the hymn "Amazing Grace" and the film also recounts John Newton's writing of the hymn.

I give it 4 out of 5.

Elliot had a birthday party with his friends a week ago. Here are some photos:

You folks who are giving Al Gore and other environmentalists a hard time for talking the talk but not walking the walk (as you see it) should be careful about what you ask for...you might get it. From an article of the same title by Penelope Green in the NY Times:

...Colin Beavan, 43, a writer of historical nonfiction, and Michelle Conlin, 39, a senior writer at Business Week, are four months into a yearlong lifestyle experiment they call No Impact. Its rules are evolving, as Mr. Beavan will tell you, but to date include eating only food (organically) grown within a 250-mile radius of Manhattan; (mostly) no shopping for anything except said food; producing no trash (except compost, see above); using no paper; and, most intriguingly, using no carbon-fueled transportation.

Ms. Conlin, acknowledging that she sees her husband as No Impact Man and herself as simply inside his experiment...Ms. Conlin is clearly more than just a good sport — giving up toilet paper seems a fairly profound gesture of commitment...

Don't push them, please! You don't want your neighbors giving up toilet paper, do you?!?