Quote of the Day- Gandhi

Today, we conclude our quotes from figures who have been made into plush toys by the Unemployed Philosophers Guild with a quote from Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) who is a bit of an oxy moron in that he was one of the very, very few non-violent revolutionaries.

Gandhi actually has two things in common with Che Guevara, the subject of our last quote: One is that both men were revolutionaries, though Che went about it much differently as he killed lots and lots of people, but both were also assasinated.

In Gandhi's case, his death was a political assassination as opposed to a summary execution, but yes, the results are still pretty much the same, though Gandhi did live to be 78, whereas Che died at 39.

Gandhi fought British colonialism in India starting his famous Salt March in 1930.

On film, Ben Kingsley won an Oscar for playing Gandhi in the film by the same name, beating out the late Paul Newman, Peter O'Toole and Dustin Hoffman in the process.

Here is Gandhi's quote:

"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."

Status Update_ Today Has Been a Fairly Rotten Day

There are always days which fall through the cracks for whatever reason, and for me today was one of those days.

But, while discovering this image of rotten bananas, we were able to research the banana fruit and learn some relatively interesting and potentially useful information.

Bananas are native to South and Southeast Asia. The fruit is grown in 107 countries. Bananas became cultivated in Latin America by the Portuguese.

The top five banana-producing countries are India, the Philippines, China, Ecuador, and Brazil. Costa Rica which produces many of the bananas found on American grocery store shelves ranks eighth in world production.

The Next Ten Films in My Netflix Que

Just in case you were wondering, Humpty Dumpty is for Eliot Spitzer; the Norwegian fiag pin is for the Norwegian horror film "Hidden." We wanted something more flamboyant for the Norwegian film, but oh well!

Here is the list; I have yet to see any of these films yet:

1. "No One Killed Jessica." (2011. Dir-Raj Kumar Gupta. India)

2. "Angel's Fall." (2005. Dir- Semih Kaplangul. Turkey).

3. "Hidden." (2009. Dir- Pal Oie. Norway)

4. "Irreversible" (2002. Dir- Gaspar Noe. France)

5. "A Tale of Springtime." (1990. Dir- Eric Rohmer. France)

6. "Les Bonnes Femmes" (1960. Dir- Claude Chabrol. France).

7. "The Baader Meinhof Complex." (2008. Dir- Uli Edel. Germany.)

8. "Marwencol" (2010. doc. Dir- Jeff Malmberg).

9. "Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer." (2010. doc. Dir- Alex Gibney).

10. "Dogtooth." (2009. Dir- Giorgis Lanthios. Greece).

Special Quote of the Week- Gunter Grass

We love Gunter Grass, and this like the fourth time we've dedicated a blog entry to the German novelist/playwirght (b. 1927) who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1999; his best-known work in America is the novel "The Tin Drum" (1959). It was made into an award-winning 1979 German film of the same name which was for some reason banned in Oklahoma (I guess you could check out the book at the public library in Tulsa; we assume the ban has been lifted. Yes, it is like something out of North Korea, isn't it?!).

Grass is also politically active, and he has made many enemies among German conservatives. In the 1980s, Grass also visited India for his months.

Here is his quote:

"The job of a citizen is to keep his mouth open."

SIDEBAR: Germany was one of the four choices in a fun Internet quiz which asked which European country would you go to; the choices were A) Sweden, B) Germany, C) Spain and D) Greece. I am indeed the one in 100 person who chose Sweden! According to visitsweden.com, there is now an art exhibit in Stockholm of the illustrations by the English children's author Beatrix Potter (1866-1943). She is best known for "Peter Rabbit," which many of us read often when we were children.

Special Quote of the Day- Colin Farrell

Today's quote of the day is our final entry for the March quotes dedicated to famous people from Ireland. It was recently revealed that surprisingly Colin Farrell, 34, was close friends with Elizabeth Taylor who died last week.

The relatively young Irish actor is known for his performances in films like "Miami Vice," "Minority Report," "Phone Booth" and "In Bruges."

Here is his quote which hopefully those of you on your lunch break in Burbank, Calif., will have time to read:

"Being Irish is very much a part of who I am. I take it everywhere with me."

SIDEBAR: Well, the whole world literally came to a stand-still in places like Karachi, Pakistan, and New Delhi, India, as the two countries were watching the semi-final game at the World Cricket Championships between the two rival countries.

The game was played in Mumbai, India, and the home team won. India's Sachin Tendulkar made the game-winning score as Pakistan's wicketkeeper (we really know nothing about cricket!) Kamran Akmal looked on in disgust.

India will now play Sri Lanka, the tournament's co-host, in Mumbai on Saturday.

Apparently, no work was done in either India or Pakistan today so everyone could watch the mid-week game.

And, we thought Goodyear executives were presumably horrified that the opening round NCAA men's basketball game between the Akron Zips and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish would result in lost productivity a few weeks back.

Goodyear Tires are based in Akron, Ohio; Notre Dame won that game.

Happy Oscar Hangover Day

In case you were wondering, especially those of you who might still be behind a desk in Portland, Oregon, at this hour, we are featuring the Hindu love goddess Parvati because a short film called "God of Love" won the Oscar last night. Parvati happens to be the wife of Shiva, but this is not World Religions 101 (though I did get a 'B' in that class at Radford University in Virginia).

This deity should not be confused with Parvati Melton, the extremely gorgeous 22-year-old Bollywood star (who grew up in California!) who may very well have her very own Uma Thurman stalker from Mumbai (well, for her sake, we certainly hope that's not the case!).

Another very attractive young woman Natalie Portman, who is alas engaged to be married to a man who impregnated her (insert whinning here), won a well-deserved Best Actress last night for her amazing performance in "The Black Swan." The dark movie about a struggling ballet dancer was the subject of a recent nasty piece in "The New Republic" which almost made me cancel my subcription. But, we love their columnist Jonathan Chait, who always puts right-wingers in their place (give that man a raise!).

As for some other winners, we mentioned the short live action film "Gods of Love" which won last night. The film by Luke Matheny is about a love-struck lounge-sining teenage boy. It was one of the ten picks we missed last night though we did choose 13 right, including our pick for Portman.

"Strangers No More," a film about a school in Tel Aviv, Israel, with children from 48 countries, won a Best Documentary Short Oscar.

And, finally, "The Lost Thing" a short animated film about a boy who finds a strange creature on the beach and adopts it for himself was the winner in its category.

The very last thing I want to mention is that I thought one dress worn by Anne Hathaway (it should be pointed I know nothing about fashion and if I were to even have a Starbucks frappucino with Hathaway, I would get down on my knees and thank
Shiva) actually looked like something that the '80s punk band Devo would wear. Ok, well, I wasn't going to have a frap with Anne Hathaway anyway!