When we don't get what we expect

No! We don't want to ever suffer! - Calm down, crybabies. Here's the solution: NIRVANA.

(Buddhism Podcast) Live with what we can't change? No, there's much to do beyond that

Accept what we cannot change? No

Why do we fall into the trap of our expectations? The Truth is much better.

Cry, Homer. But it's okay. It'll all be alright.

(Buddhism Podcast) When life, which is full of disappointment (dukkha), is not what we expected.

There are Four Ennobling Truths, four realizations that lead to enlightenment here and now and awakening in this very life, with spiritual liberation and freedom for all time. What are they?

1. This is disappointing, incapable of ever fulfilling us.
2. This is how pain/disappointment/suffering originates.
3. This is the cessation of all suffering (nirvana).
4. This is the Path to the cessation of all suffering.

• Craving, grasping, lust, longing, "thirst": taṇhā
• The Three Marks (Characteristics) of Existence
• Things keep changing, hurtling towards destruction
• The Eight Worldly Conditions: praise and blame...

Wait, remind me. What is "suffering"?

Many people misunderstand Buddhism because the word "suffering" comes up so much that it seems that's all there is -- depressing talk about pain. This is very misleading. Buddhism is ALL about bringing about the END of all suffering.

I'm not like this. I'm just having a bad day, k?

That is nirvana, attainable here and now, no having to wait till death, which is actually a lot late to be starting to do anything about all the suffering that awaits us for remaining ignorant and asleep. So since we don't suffer, we dismiss anything they Buddha said, thinking it doesn't apply to us. But do we suffer? Well, that depends on, What is "suffering"? The Buddha defines what he is calling suffering (dukkha):

Various sutras sum up what unpleasant things and experiences in countless rebirths we undergo. It is not just the pain that touches us in this life; the process rolls on and on in the "continued wandering on" of saṃsāra.

Oh, the Buddha found the end to all pain?

This process itself (the Five Aggregates clung to as self) is suffering, is unsatisfactory, is disappointing, is liable to great pain, is utterly incapable of ever fulfilling us. Rebirth is suffering (unsatisfactory, disappointing, painful, unfulfilling) as are growth (maturation), aging (slowly breaking down), illness, death, loss, sorrow, crying (lamentation), physical pains, grief, and despair.

Contact with unpleasant (hateful, unloved, unwanted, repulsive) things suffering, as are being separated from the pleasant (wished for, loved, wanted, attractive). Not getting what we want, getting what we don't want, never being satisfied with anything we get, always longing and craving for more...all of it is unsatisfactory, disappointing, painful, suffering.

Things we can control

US killer survives torture with slave philosophy

Stoic philosopher/pilot James Bond Stockdale

And it all comes back to a more fundamental disappointment beneath it all -- the Five Aggregates clung to as self: body (form); feelings (sensations), perceptions, formations, and consciousness clung to as "self."

Emphasis in Buddhism is NOT on belief. That's nearly useless and only preliminary. The emphasis is gnostic like the ancient Gnostics, for whom direct personal experience of the Truth is everything. Part of that is cultivating insight (vipassana, lit. "clear seeing") into the nature of this "suffering" along with the other two marks of existence.

List: Seven Stages of Insight

The process of craving, grasping, and clinging starts with sense-contact, part of the Five Aggregates clung to as self, and how this corruption, this misapprehension, this forming of wrong view, this distorted seeing can be overcome by progressive training of the heart/mind, culminating in progressive insight, which can be remembered as the Seven Stages of Insight.

This begins by moral restraint (virtuous conduct, sila), which makes meditation (the absorptions, jhanas) possible, which makes mindfulness into the four foundations (body, feelings, mind, and mind-objects) possible.

This brings us back to the basics, the foundational summary, of what we need to penetrate -- not memorize, recite, "believe," argue about), the Teaching of the Four Ennobling Truths. What's "noble" about them or about suffering? They are not noble in the English sense of the word. The Buddhist sense of noble is arya or Aryan, which means "enlightened" or "enlightening."

The list is not a formula but a very general outline of the reflections that bring about what the historical Buddha called "enlightenment" (bodhi, "awakening"). We would rather stay asleep and perchance dream a pleasant fantasy full of pleasure and sensual experiences, delights, happiness in all its forms, of which there are many.

But this dreaming is very prone to nightmares, for in pursuit of pleasure, we ill-conduct ourselves and those karmic deeds come to fruition and ripen in great suffering, unimaginable suffering. We already taste that now, when we would dream and be full of pleasure and happiness all the time or, at least, at will. But that doesn't happen. We can't make that happen. We think we can so, like a donkey after that carrot, which is just right there in front of us, we keep going, pulling a heavy load of a cart laden with more and more karma (all our actions).

Buddhist sutras, or discourses, show the broad meaning of "suffering," from the slightest agitation to the greatest agony, coming in three categories:

• dukkha-dukkha, aversion to physical pain – which includes physical and mental suffering, such as rebirth, aging, illness, dying, distress due to the undesirable.
• viparinama-dukkha, the frustration of disappearing happiness – which is the suffering of pleasurable, pleasant, and happy experiences changing to painful, unpleasant, and miserable ones when the causes and conditions that produced the pleasurable are exhausted or lost.
• sankhara-dukkha, the disappointment and unsatisfactoriness of transient, changing, impermanent "things" – the inability of [conditioned] things to give us constant, lasting pleasure and happiness.

So there is an END to all this suffering, now?

This includes a fundamental, inescapable unsatisfactoriness that pervades all things in and states of existence, all situations and future lives in any world (of which there are countless), any plane (of which there are 31), and any sphere (of which there are three), because all things all the time are incapable of fulfilling us and are always changing, hurtling towards destruction, and are ultimately impersonal, not ours, not under our absolute control.

At this level, the term dukkha, "suffering," indicates a lack of any lasting satisfaction, any ultimate fulfillment, any that things can ever measure up to our expectations. More

What is the point of all this talking about or even mentioning "suffering"? Yeah, yeah, we get it; we know we suffer, duh! Can't we just talk about nice things -- bliss, lights, expanded meditative states, magical powers, insights into all physical and mental phenomena, joy unending, nirvana-fication, quenching thirst, dousing the flames of greed, hatred, and smoldering delusion, stuff like that? Suffering is the problem that pleads for a final solution, a state and trait, a condition in need of a cure, an unbearable thing that we at some point have to deal with and bring to a final end.

Four truths to freedom

There's much to do to be free.

The first ennobling truth is the recognition that there is suffering, not because there is but because we don't even recognize it. We think we do. As soon as it pops up, we turn away, move on to something else, jump for distractions. We have next to no idea what it really is or what is causing it.

That is the second ennobling truth: What is causing it? The ROOT cause, the fundamental cause, the ultimate cause is? It is not craving (desire, wanting). It is ignorance (avijja), manifesting as wrong views (miccha-ditthi) and delusion (moha), confusion about reality.

The solution is? Awakening to the Truth, the ultimate truth (paramattha), enlightenment right now -- through realizing the causal links of Dependent Origination, the process by which this suffering is arising. Among those 12 links, of which ignorance is the ultimate cause, is one the Buddha singled as the one we can actually do something about right here and right now directly, and that is craving (tanha). Why do we crave? Ignorance, which is the same reason we have aversion and why we are deluded. The Buddha singles out craving to work on undoing the causes and conditions bringing about suffering. Why?

That is the third ennobling truth: What is not-suffering? Nirvana. Nirvana is the end of all suffering. How do we realize nirvana, directly perceive and experience it here and now?

That is the fourth ennobling truth: There is a Path to the end of suffering. What is it? It is outlined in general in the Ennobling Eightfold Path. However, to be more specific and less general, the Buddha spoke of 37 "things pertaining to enlightenment," the bodhipakkhiya-dhamma, for immediate development to know-and-see nirvana.

• Buddhism Podcast (videos); Dhr. Seven (text), Ashley Wells (ed.), Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Wisdom Quarterly Wiki edit

Sad about Charlie Kirk's murder? (stand up)

(Cracked Comedy Club) Standup comedian Shaun Anthony

(Double Down News) Hunger strikers to die, UK censors laugh

(Frieda Vizel) Hasidic Jews in NY welcome Muslim Mayor Mamdani

New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has made a lot of Zionist and secular Jews very uncomfortable. He’s a Leftist and has been on the pro-Palestine side of the divide for a long time, and many worry about what this will mean for NYC and its many Jewish people [hundreds of thousands in Brooklyn]. Yet Satmar Hasidim have taken a very different approach, embracing him with open arms. I explain why I believe this is.

(MS NOW) Beloved NYC Mayor Elect Zohran Mamdani

(MS NOW) Dems hopeful Epstein Files will be released 12-19-25

Trump's War on Poor, Nigeria, VN, WH, US

Trump and his Department of War have launched wars on the poor using ICE as his stormfront and Nigeria (a country in Africa with a lot of oil and the largest population on the continent), Venezuela and its fishing and contraband boats, the White House and its former East Wing, and the US of A.

The Great Gatsby

(Democracy Now!) Trump throws "Great Gatsby" party at his Mar-a-Lago Florida mansion as he cuts SNAP food aid to millions of Americans, threatens war on Nigeria, Africa (if Muslims keep mistreating Christians), and Venezuela (if they don't make way for the CIA to run and deal drugs instead of the cartels and start giving U.S. their oil), and Afghanistan (if they don't give back things the U.S. military left them). And Iran (if they don't stop getting in the way of Dictator Netanyahu's Zionist plans for a "Greater Israel" in the region, includes large parts of Iran and all the Middle East states it finds convenient). And and and, is any part of the world safe from American imperialism unless they are aligned with the other two super-powers, Russia and China, which will soon split the world into three super-states just like George Orwell describes in Nineteen Eighty-Four?

There's oil in Africa's most populous country, so let's bomb it for Christians

Billie Eilish addresses American billionaires

Trump's ghoulish Halloween ball 2025

The Great Gatsby is a 1925 tragedy novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in the Jazz Age on Long Island, near New York City, the novel depicts first-person narrator Nick Carraway's interactions with Jay Gatsby, a mysterious millionaire obsessed with reuniting with his former lover, Daisy Buchanan, just like Leo DiCaprio portrayed it in that cheap, over-the-top sequel.

(Breaking Points) Right wing Brett Cooper falls for AI slop along with slew of rightist influencers

South Park drops on Halloween (S28, E2)

(Armchair Analysis) Corrupt Attorney General and Brownnoser Pam Bondi, Zionist Racist Jewish Ghoul Stephen Miller, Palantir CIA Billionaire, Israeli Genocide Enabler and Orwellian Menace Peter Theil, politics, South Park sucks now that politics got into the mix, and current affairs galore

• List of South Park episodes: The Woman in the Hat

Mindfulness of Eating (meditation)

This is regular eating, mindless and full of craving (for dopamine). How is it done mindfully?

I don't want to look fat (muffin topping) in a bikini at the pool party (collegepill.com)

Budai, the Fat Happy Bodhisattva

What is the FAT founder of world's third largest religion (when the 1 billion uncounted Buddhists in communist, and therefore officially atheist, Buddhists are counted) in the world going to teach us about being fit? The fact is the popular depiction of "Fat Happy Buddha" is not the historical Buddha Shakyamuni (born Prince Siddhartha Gautama) but rather a monk (now elevated to bodhisattva) named Budai (also Putai, Hotei), a Chinese monk with a big sack of candy for children, a luck-bringing jolly fellow very reminiscent of the West's Santa Claus.

Fat on a slippery wet diving board

ABOUT: Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD, is professor of medicine emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and the founder and director of its renowned Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Clinic. His clinic was featured in 1993 in the public television series Healing and the Mind with Bill Moyers. Jon Kabat-Zinn is the author of 15 books, in print in over 45 languages. These include Full Catastrophe Living; Wherever You Go, There You Are; Coming to Our Senses; and Mindfulness for Beginners.

• Eating Meditation – Sounds True

Social media stars willing to DIE for views

Crime Dynasty, Feb. 23, 2024; Pfc. Sandoval, Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

YouTubers who died while filming videos

(Crime Dynasty) This video does not glorify violence. Violent words are bleeped or excluded. No harmful actions are explained nor covered in detail. All sensitive events are explained in an informational context for the documentary without being exploitative or dismissive. The history of drug trafficking is explained in an educational context. Such documentaries are made strictly for educational and informational purposes and do not in any way endorse this channels' views. Each video is thoroughly researched with new editing and narration.

#history #truestory #educationalpurposesonly #youtuber

ABOUT: Welcome to Crime Dynasty, which informs and educates about the most infamous cartel lords, most notorious prisoners, most infamous serial k*llers, and everything in between. Fans of TV shows like Narcos and true story documentaries, be sure to subscribe to the channel.

On a date with Jennifer Lawrence (video)

Ever dream of dating The Hunger Games' JenLaw (Jennifer Lawrence)? Most people have. She's one of Time's 100 Most Influential People of 2016. C'mon, she was attractive and the cool super heroine, a flash in the pan when that movie came out.

But in real life, by 2023, she was Hollywood's bad girl, flipping the bird and not playing ball with the paparazzi. It's no way to fame. The way to fame is to be like Meryl Streep, Jen. Get with the program. Or not. The world would love another Aubrey Plaza. At least we would.

Then came her film role in No Hard Feelings. That was better, but this atrocious jealous behavior of a teen girl out to snatch a paid date, really?

It was last year's sleeper hit that almost revived her career, but it's going to take more than one nude beach scene to bring her back.

Tara Brach: shame eating “Hunger Habit”

Tara Brach (tarabrach.com), Dr. Jud Brewer (drjud.com); Ashley Wells, Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation) (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Hunger Habit (Dr. Jud Brewer)

Countless people live with shame and distress about their eating.

Dr. Judson Brewer -- scientist, professor and author of The Hunger Habit and many other groundbreaking books -- is a thought leader in the field of habit change.

He’s also a decades long practitioner of mindfulness, and a dear colleague and friend of Tara Brach.

In this conversation they explore how combining mindfulness practice with a basic understanding of habit change science can free us from unhealthy eating habits.

They also look at the larger societal forces that drive overconsumption, as well as the shame that eating behaviors can evoke. Pick up a copy of The Hunger Habit. More

• Check out Tara Brach's "8 Essential Tips to Nourish a Meditation Practice" at tarabrach.com

The Daily Show w/ Al Franken: Trump arrest

Trump investigations keep sprouting up and MN Senator doesn't believe in hunger

(The Daily Show) March 22, 2023. Al Franken tackles the latest news including a Minnesota senator arguing against free school lunches, Idaho voting to bring back execution by firing squad, updates from the possible [though not likely] Trump arrest, and Jordan Klepper taking to the streets of New York to witness the chaos. #DailyShow #Comedy

Sen. Lindsey Graham on Trump, U.S. War in Ukraine, immigration reform

• VIDEO: Dr. Anthony Fauci sexually harassed grad student then helped her become the director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology? So say Prince Li

What if you eat only red meat? (video)

What If Show; Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

• Weirdest Food Addictions | Why would someone put this in her body? 😭 #Earthly | What If | Facebook
• Top 5 Worst Foods for Your Gut | Why stay away from these five foods? | What If | Facebook

Craving: Food

Devra First (food cravings, Boston Globe); Ashley Wells, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Shsssh, I'm trans but nobody can tell.

...Once we begin obsessing, a food craving is hard to shake. What's important to understand, Gilhooly says, is that these cravings are [common].

She co-authored a study on the connections between craving and obesity, published in 2007 in the International Journal of Obesity, in which calories were restricted for a group of overweight women.

• (The trial was called CALERIE: Comprehensive Assessment of the Long-term Effects of Restricting Intake of Energy, clinicaltrials.gov).

At the beginning of the trial, 91 percent of the subjects reported experiencing food cravings. After six months of dieting, 94 percent said they'd had cravings.

But, Gilhooly says, "people who gave in less were more successful with weight loss." Instead of feeling guilty about cravings, she says it may be more useful to acknowledge them and teach ourselves to manage them by resisting more frequently and controlling portion size.

Sometimes I get carried away: sticky.

And as sticky as cravings are, we may be able to rewire ourselves to crave healthier foods. In a study Pelchat worked on in which subjects consumed a diet of [some] nutrition drink for a week, several reported craving it later. "We were all surprised by that," she says. "They could have formed a lot of different associations drinking it. There was a little bit of habit strength there."

In a study on comfort food, Wansink found one out of eight Chinese graduate students considered cookies a comfort food, even though they didn't grow up eating them in their home country. Why?

Comfort obesity: It's a cookie and a doughnut!

In the United States, Wansink suggests, a student might be exposed to cookies at birthday parties, receptions, and study breaks -- happy, fun events. A positive association develops. If we eat strawberries instead of fudge to reward, comfort, or console ourselves, we can learn to crave good foods.

"If you get in the habit of eating something good for you, you can strengthen the probability you're going to want to eat that food," Pelchat says.

"It does happen that when people go on diets and get used to eating [something], if they haven't had it for a while, they crave it. I don't think old cravings ever totally go away, unfortunately, but if you change your habits, the probability you'll be exposed to cues that trigger them does go down."

On Desire: Why We Want What We Want

Scientists aren't the only ones exploring these issues. Philosophers and religious thinkers have been pondering them for centuries, according to William B. Irvine, author of On Desire: Why We Want What We Want and A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy about the Stoics.

"Buddhists said your life on earth is going to be hellish unless you master [cravings]," he says. "Philosopher Musonius Rufus said it's really important we get control over our food cravings because it's a craving we have to deal with three times a day.

"Most people think of eating as a source of pleasure. As with most pleasures it has a dark side, it can capture us -- that's what the Stoics and the Cynics would say."

Surprisingly, it may be the Epicureans who offer the best dieting advice: "Everyone thinks [the Epicureans] partied hard, but they didn't," Irvine says.

In fact, Epicurus wrote, "It is not continuous drinkings and revellings, nor the satisfaction of lusts, nor the enjoyment of [flesh] and other luxuries of the wealthy table which produce a pleasant life, but sober reasoning, searching out the motives for all choice and avoidance."

That sounds a lot like the findings of the CALERIE study.

ATS off the cushion, into the world (volunteer)

Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Society; Seth Auberon, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly

There are better things to eat.

For the fifth year in a row, Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Society will send a group of volunteers to work at the LA Food Bank. Join in this easy way to give back to the community and take your meditation practice off the cushion (and into the world).

 

Volunteers at the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank will assemble food packages for over 23,000 low income seniors, women with infants, and children in LA County.

The food packages consist of food items like canned fruit, canned vegetables, rice, cereal, and other non-perishable food items. By giving just a little of our time, we can make a big difference in our community.

• Los Angeles Regional Food Bank
• 1734 E. 41st St., LA, 90058
• Saturday, Aug. 26, 8:30 am-noon

Interested in participating?

Eat, pray, love, and volunteer!

Click HERE and enter the password stream26 (case sensitive) to register. Sign up for Saturday, August 26, 8:30 AM-12:00 PM. Thank you for helping alleviate hunger in our community!

• Once registered volunteers will receive email confirmation with all of the logistical details and forms.
• Minimum age requirement is 14 (sorry, no exceptions)
• All volunteers must wear closed toe shoes.
• Parking is available on site but is limited. Parking is assigned on a first come, first served basis.
• Free street parking available. Groups, please carpool.

The Hunger Games: a box office hit!

Five FAQs (screenrant.com); the future will be hot (vanityfair.com).

"The Hunger Games" trilogy has been wildly successful among teens. The movie version [of the book series] debuted this weekend. Apparently all the hype paid off at the box office. Fans turned out in droves to see the post-apocalyptic drama where teens fight for their lives. The movie made $155 million domestic... Laura Miller (Salon.com) take a look at "The Hunger Games" phenomenon. Meanwhile, the closer to real-life monsters on Mars movie "John Carter" officially bombs at the box office.

• LISTEN: Madeleine Brand interviews Laura Miller
• VIDEO: "John Carter" 10-minute movie clip (IGN)

• Real-life alien: Namibia's dog headed pig monster
• Obama in Roswell: "We are going to keep our secrets here"
• Underground Facilities: Intelligence and Targeting Issues
• First American UFO sightings: 1639-1644
• Court rules against FDA in landmark health freedom case
• Scientists: Trees give off electricity, especially eucalyptus

• Monitoring radiation online (cemp.dri.edu/cemp)
• Area 51: Myth or Reality? (Nat'l A.E. Museum)

"Hunger Games" (and other attractions)

I. Rony, Wisdom Quarterly (COMING ATTRACTIONS)

The great thing about the "Hunger Games" is the message that in the future, everyone is hot! This record breaker is a new Hollywood remake of old Hollywood's "Logan's Run." But now it's about starving teenagers under an elite 1% rather than a forever-young society where anyone who turns 30 gets killed by prior agreement -- unless one decides to run. That's where sandman Logan comes in. The tables are turned on the establishment. This cheesy futuristic film of the seventies looks a lot better here with its deleted scenes restored and alternative footage (thanks to Greathall75, who explains that the primary audience for this extended trailer was theater owners deciding whether or not to carry the film). "Logan's Run" became a classic, and the "Hunger Games" franchise is sure to be a massive blockbuster and golden goose. Read the books. More

• "Hunger Games" REVIEW

"4:44 Last Day on Earth"


(TrailerObsessed) The Dalai Lama appears along with many Buddhist images and references. A couple in love live in an apartment high above the city. He's an actor. She's a painter. This afternoon is like any other, except with one difference: The world will end tomorrow at 4:44 am. The final meltdown comes with a warning but with no means of escape. There will be no survivors. (Watch it at mubi.com).

Asura mythology: "Wrath of the Titans"

(MovieclipsCOMINGSOON) Perseus embarks on a treacherous quest into the underworld to rescue Zeus, who has been targeted for capture by his traitorous son, Ares, and his brother, Hades. Five years after his first adventure, Perseus rules Argos with Andromeda at his side and a newborn baby as their heir. But in the shadows lurks Calibos, the cursed "demon" thought dead now out for revenge. Not only the Greeks but ancient Indians and Buddhists believed in the lore of the titans (asuras) and demigods (devas), who mated humans. A collective or archetypal memory of advanced alien visitors, Annunaki or Nephilim, who descended from space to establish empires in ancient pre-biblical lands of Sumer, Egypt, Greece, Mesopotamia, Babylon, and the mysterious East. Teaser. The same theme was explored in the films "Immortals" (with beautiful oracles) and "Thor" (about Nordic space aliens). PROMETHEUS: A team of explorers (with Charlize Theron) discover a clue to the origins of humankind on Earth, leading them on a journey to the darkest corners of the universe. There they must fight a terrifying battle to save the future of the human race. A movie by Ridley Scott.

Blaze of Glory: The Toulouse Gunman Story


(ITN) In a world where European jihadists go apesh*t on Jewish school children and innocent cops, where it takes a paramilitary force of 300 to try to bring in one man alive, Mo Merah ain't going out like that. Not with Al Qaeda's blessings and Sarkozy's political future on the line. Watch the gripping true life tale of an angry pretext for a French clampdown on civil liberties and Internet freedoms. It's all in the name of greater "security," so fear not Francophiles. The safety you demanded is now mandatory. Read more in the US and directly from the BBC.

"The Expendables II"


(AllBallsEntertainment) Can't get enough killing with your extra large popcorn? Ultra-violence is the playground of a sexually repressed society. So if you haven't gotten enough of war-glorifying movies (that quietly normalize empire), how about films with real soldiers as actors and the US military winning Hollywood's help to find recruits for the US/MIC's wars abroad and spying on the homeland? Here is the ultimate testosterone-poisoned movie event of the year: Sylvester Stallone (Rambo), McGarnical (The Simpsons), Chuck Norris (Texas Ranger), Arnold Schwarzenegger (aka "McBain," failed California governor), Ashton Kutcher's dad (that bald guy, Demi's ex), and every action star with, inexplicably, the exception of Buddhist Steven Seagal.

From "Top Gun" to disgusting acts of murder, preemptive invasion, war crimes, and imperialism collectively renamed an "Act of Valor," this *ick flick is sure to keep the men in the family cooing and calling their friends:

"Act of Valor" - How Hollywood Helps the M.I.C.


(MovieclipsTRAILERS) When the rescue of a kidnapped CIA operative leads to the discovery of a deadly "terrorist" plot against the US, a team of SEALs is dispatched on a worldwide manhunt. As the [mercenaries] of Bandito Platoon race to stop a coordinated attack that could kill and wound thousands of American civilians, they must balance their commitment to country, team, [apple pie], and their families back home. "Act of Valor" uses active-duty US Navy Seals as ham "actors." The characters they play are fictional and their thespian skills laughable, but the deadly weapons and tactics used are REAL. And now that the NDAA (the indefinite detention bill signed into law by Commander in Chief Obama) makes every American civilian a legitimate target simply under a secret allegation of anyone being a "belligerent," a "domestic 'terrorist,'" or an Occupy protester, the guns may be aimed at us.

"Hell and Back Again" (real life war)


(MovieclipsTRAILERS) Embedded with US Marines' Echo Company in Afghanistan, photojournalist and filmmaker Danfung Dennis reveals the devastating impact a Taliban machine gun bullet (shot by a jihadist trying to defend from infidel thieves after an oil pipeline, rare earth minerals, and world domination through strategic influence of the region) has on the life of an invading 25-year-old Sergeant Nathan Harris, an imperial soldier for the US military-industrial complex. The film seamlessly transitions from stunning war reportage to an intimate, visceral portrait of one man's personal struggle at home in North Carolina, where Harris confronts the physical and emotional difficulties of re-adjusting to civilian life with the love and support of his wife, Ashley. Masterfully contrasting the intensity of the frontline with the unsettling normality of home, "Hell and Back Again" lays bare the true cost of war.

"Last Days Here" - destruction turned inward


(MovieclipsTRAILERS) This documentary from Don Argott and Demian Fenton is a raw, real-life, yet unexpectedly touching portrait of cult metal legend Bobby Liebling, chronicling his bid to resurrect his life and career after decades of wasting away in his parents' basement. Liebling made his mark in the '70s as the outrageous frontman of Pentagram, a "street" Black Sabbath whose heavy metal riffs once blew audiences' minds. But various acts of self-destruction, multiple band break-ups, and botched record deals eventually condemned his music to obscurity. Now in his 50s, wasted by hardcore drug (heroin, meth, and crack) use and living on the charity of his ever-patient mother and father (a former Nixon advisor), Bobby's music is finally discovered by the heavy metal underground. For over three years filmmakers (and metal musicians) Argott and Fenton are witnesses to his unbelievable journey, following the triumphs and downfalls of this underground icon at the crossroads of life and death. More

Bjork's Army of Me ("Sucker Punch" remix)


(RobbieAlterno) Imagine if someone thought to mix senseless violence and demeaning sex? "Sucker Punch" explored the concept in a futuristic fantasy film about Nazis, strippers, and very strong girls who can at least dream of fighting and killing the way men are taught to heartlessly fight and kill. "Go along to get along," or what was the message being sent by Hollywood accompanied by a great Bjork song?