A nice picnic

Hello Everyone,

The weather is finally nice enough to try out my new picnic backpack. I met Jerry at Prince's Island after work and have a lovely picnic. It was my first one of the year and I enjoyed myself. I picked up some pink lemonade by a company called Efferve and it's imported from France. Not something I would normally splurge on but it had a very nice glass bottle with wire and a stopper for the lid. It was also very delicious - not too tart. I think it will end up being a regular in my fridge.

We then watched "The Golden Compass". I've read the book and after watching the movie, I think people put it way out of context. For those of you not familiar with the contraversy, tje author is athiest and many fundamental Christians believe his children's novels are a direct attack on Christianity and organized religion. The novels are geared toward tweens and young teens. In my opinion, this age group would not get this message from the novels and you would have to stretch to even get this message as an adult.

Basically, in this fantasy world, a person's soul is not inside the body but takes the form of an animal (called a demon). This animal is a part of the person (ie physically hurt the animal and the person feels it) and is constantly near the person. There is a religious order, which seems to be connected with the government who wants to control (brainwash) all people. In this book, a little girl is able to use a magic compass to discern truth and receive answers to any question she has. The magistrates (religious order), want to destroy the compass so people can only rely on "their" truth. They also want to separate the souls/animals from children because once children get older, they start getting "bad thoughts". The girl's father is trying to travel between alternative worlds through the means of "dust". This dust connects worlds from all dimensions and seems to be a life source/universal substence. At the point where the movie/book left off, the girl is on a quest to save her father from evil plots. The magistrates want the father's knowledge so they can control the dust, and therefore control the other alternative worlds.

After watching this movie, I saw the message cautioning against absolute power to any one body - whether religious or government. I didn't see it as a novel deliberately underminding any religious faith. In all honesty, I don't think this age group would see this either and only someone looking from an attacking angle would see this message. I don't think a young person would be affect so much by a fictional novel that he/she would lose trust in organized religion.

Anyways, that's my rant for the day.