The Creative Economy Summit, sponsored by the city of Portland (and with the Phoenix as a supporting sponsor), drew more than 100 people to City Hall today, but the real impact will begin tomorrow.

Who will change their behavior as a result of an idea they heard or devised at the summit, which included local artists, politicians, representatives of various businesses and educational institutions, as well as other interested people?

Will any of them wake up in the morning and decide to do something new, something they've never done before? Will you?

The ideas that "won" the "voting" that wound up 90 minutes of group discussion were these:
-Build Portland's identity as an international creativity center.
-Get artists connected with their audiences.
-Create a publicly supported, affordable space for artists.

As was observed by many in attendance, all the ideas revolved around four themes: space, audience, connection to city government, and free money. (The fifth theme was unspoken - the hope that a "task force" of "stakeholders" can find a recommendation that's smart enough to work and politically savvy to pass the city council.)

Now there were enough people in that room, representing enough businesses, arts patrons, and other organizations, to pay for much of the work privately, without muddying the art waters with politics. Perhaps some of them will step up to the plate and be patrons of the arts, or increase their participation in some way, though to do that they will have to learn more about how their contributions will help their own bottom lines.

There was also an undercurrent of interest, in the mentions of rebates to developers of artists' spaces, TIF districts, "public-private partnerships," and using municipal property to kick-start some of the ideas, of public funding for the arts. That brings in a messy set of questions.

Here is one question on each of the main themes, to get people talking. We'll have to answer them if the public purse is involved, and private groups will need to answer them before deciding how to support the arts themselves.

1. Why should the public at large (that is, taxpayers) subsidize artists? Sure, we subsidize other groups, such as the poor, and even businesses, but what answer can people give when taxpayers come calling in the halls of government asking whether their money is being well-spent?

2. Artists by definition need an audience. (Well, maybe not, if they operate completely solo and do work for their own reasons and no others. But most artists want to express themselves, or change the world, or shed light on something. Those require audiences.) So if someone should help artists get attention for themselves because art contributes to local culture, should that same someone also subsidize advertising for grocery stores, because buying food contributes to local survival?

3. City government should be responsible to all residents. And all residents should be involved in local affairs of interest to them. The arts community seems to want to be asked for its input in some sort of formal way, with ideas ranging from a committee to a publicly paid official whose job is to get input from artists. Why should someone pay for a person to go out and ask for the opinions of people and organizations who are completely entitled and allowed to speak up at any public meeting they choose, and who can make appointments to meet with any city official they want? (The same question applies to local business-government councils. We shouldn't have to create them - they should be part of the fabric of our public life.)

4. And now, my favorite: Free money. Let's ignore the question of why the public should give money to any one group of people who are not disadvantaged by some physical or mental ailment, and move past the idea that generations of artists have lamented the fact that they had to work day jobs to afford to do their art - and did so anyway, to great success. And let's go straight to the real question that matters: How do we determine who should get the free (or subsidized) money? Who meets our definition of an artist? Am I an artist because I doodled in class? I bet there's a definition of "artist" that someone could devise that would sound reasonable, but that Picasso would not fit. If we're talking about public money, we're talking about political money. Politics may be an art, but political funding for art is a messy idea, at best.

How will we, here in Portland, define who an artist is such that we can offer subsidies to developers selling to those artists? How will we, here in Portland, define who an artist is such that we can allocate limited resources (artists' lofts, grant funds, marketing energy) to them, without making a laughingstock of ourselves? If we become known as the city that offers grants for which anyone is eligible, I just might win something, even though I can tell you now that I shouldn't. If, however, we become known as a city that is discerning in its support for serious artists, our reputation will soar. The problem there is my fifth and final question: How do we create a structure to define and determine who an artist is, in a way that works to our collective benefit?

5/31/2006 5:04:25 PM by Jeff Inglis | Comments [2] |  

Elizabeth Trice, a local activist and grad student at the Muskie School, has posted a survey online asking for Portlanders' opinions on housing trade-offs. It's a clever idea, mainly because it accepts the traditional (and somewhat anti-postmodernist) notion that to get one thing you want you have to give up something else you want. And it asks you to rate your preference on a number of different attributes of housing (including the idea of sharing a car as part of a living arrangement, something many couples do but relatively few singles do).

Trice is looking for everyone's input, but mostly from people who do not already own their homes, and from single adults and single parents. The obvious problem is that the survey is not a random sampling of people, but instead a self-selecting group of respondents contacted in non-random ways (based on, for example, habits of reading a particular blog). So its generalizability will be limited, though some interesting perspectives may emerge. We look forward to seeing the results!

(Plus, if you take the survey, you can win a $50 gift certificate to a local bike shop!)

5/31/2006 2:47:57 PM by Jeff Inglis | Comments [0] |  

A new organization which hopes to reform the 2008 presidential election was launched today, and former Maine Governor Angus King is one of the founders. Unity08 plans to create an alternative ticket for voters, by voters (you can choose the nominees online), which will combine women and men from various parties together on one ticket. How about Condi for Prez, Gore for VP? Or Mrs. Clinton for Prez and Nader for VP? Hell, if Kermit the Frog wins the Unity08 online poll than he could appear on the ballot, assuming he qualifies to run for the highest office in the US. I think he was born in the US, but he's also a frog, which might make him a tricky sell to the critical swing voters.

Unity08 wants to bring our polarized nation together by getting the unity ticket on the presidential ballot in every state in the country. To this end, Unity08 plans to hold an online convention in 2008 with registered members to choose its candidates - the two candidates must come from different parties or be political independents - after which it will "take off-line action" to get the ticket on the ballot.

Former Governor King is a member of the "Founders Council," a group of more than 30 people who helped found Unity08. Here's what King said about Unity08 in today's press release: 

“Unity08 will be the long-needed correction. Backed by people of all ages, backgrounds, races, beliefs and political affiliations, this movement will demonstrate once again that collaboration and cooperation between the parties is not only possible, but critical to future progress."

 

5/30/2006 2:22:50 PM by Sara Donnelly | Comments [0] |  

The Bangor Daily News is reporting today that while Georgia-Pacific is closing a mill in Maine, it's going to build two new machines at existing mills elsewhere in the US.

The new machines will produce toilet paper and paper towels, and need to be closer to the markets that are growing, in the south and southeast. We're not sure if this means Mainers use less TP and more cloth towels, or whether we just have a lower demand for paperwork.

But either way, it appears the problem was not that powering the mill was too expensive, as implied by a deal brokered by Governor John Baldacci that had the state give $26 million to G-P for its disgusting landfill near the mill, then lease the landfill to Casella Waste Systems for $26 million. With its new money, G-P bought a new boiler to generate electricity, but it has never been approved for actual use.

Instead, powering the mill was at best a dirty option that still would have had little effect on the economics of the paper industry, and in particular the cost of transporting "an incredibly bulky, fluffy thing that takes up a lot of space ... but not much weight," as one consultant told the BDN. So perhaps the second shutdown was unavoidable, and Baldacci's spending of the taxpayers' money was a delaying action in a losing battle.

Now the state - not G-P, mind you - is spearheading the charge for someone to buy the mill. Let's hope the buyer we find is not us.

5/25/2006 4:40:14 PM by Jeff Inglis | Comments [1] |  

Stitchez, the men's clothing store on Congress Street where average nerds could find threads to transform them into super-hip nerds, will shut its doors on June 30. On May 19, owner Jon Gilbert sent out an email to his loyal customers in which he wrote "It is with great sadness that I must announce the closing of Stitchez Clothing - Owning this store, meeting with all my customers and trying to provide some diversity & fun to men’s clothing here in Portland has really been a joy - Unfortunately finances are forcing me to close."

Stitchez is a locally-owned shop which specialized in retro-style bowling shirts and ties with irreverant designs on them. Jon is now holding a going-out-of-business sale, everything is marked down 25 percent.

Swing by Stitchez soon and maybe you too can walk out looking like this guy:

 

5/24/2006 4:35:34 PM by Sara Donnelly | Comments [0] |  

The Taxpayers Network, a Wisconsin-based nonprofit group that claims to be funded by its “80,000+ members” (and whose tax filings tend to support that - with the bulk of their revenue apparently from dues, a revenue line about in sync with their advertised annual dues), has released its annual "50 State Comparisons" booklet, in which all 50 states (and Washington DC) are listed with data on their demographics, taxes, education, public safety, and other statistics.

The group's brochure makes no statements except providing the data, but we can draw some interesting comparisons.

Perhaps the most telling, in light of Governor John Baldacci's effort to provide health insurance to Maine's uninsured, is that the state's 10.2 percent of the population which went without health insurance for all of 2003-2004 is still the third-lowest rate in the nation. (Pity the folks in Texas, where nearly one-quarter of the people have no health insurance.)

The tax burden for a family of four with $50,000 annual income in Portland is 9.9 percent, or 17th in the group's list of tax burden in the largest city of each state. However, statewide tax burden (including state and local taxes) is at 13 percent, the highest of any state.

Maine has the fourth-highest expenditures to administer its lottery program, spending 15.7 percent of ticket-sales revenues to run the system in 2004.

Maine had the second-highest percentage of voters casting ballots in the 2004 presidential election, with 71.6 percent doing so. (Only Minnesota was higher, with 73.3 percent.)

Maine's outstanding state debt is $3542 per capita, the twelfth-highest in the nation.

Maine's per-capita total spending has climbed 33.3 percent in the past 10 years, the fifth-fastest growing state expenditure in the country.

Maine ranks 49th on the "Small Business Survival Index" for 2005, which rates the factors influencing small businesses' ability to start and grow; and 48th on the 2003 "Economic Freedom Index," rating tax burdens, regulations, labor market factors, and property rights. Maine is also 43rd in the number of patents issued in 2004, with 138. (The top patent-getting state, California, had 21,602, far outstripping second-place New York at 6618.) Natural gas for commercial and industrial use is more expensive in Maine than in 45 other states

Maine spends the eighth-highest amount in the country on education costs, as measured per-pupil, and has the fourth-highest teacher-student ratio, but only rates 14th in the list of high school graduation rate. The state pays the 38th-highest average salary to school teachers.

Maine pays $1739 per capita in welfare expenditures, the fourth-highest amount in the country, and has the ninth-highest percentage of welfare recipients, at 2.01 percent.

Maine is also an old state, with the second-highest percentage of the population receiving Social Security benefits, at just over one in five Mainers.

What do you make of these numbers?

 

5/23/2006 10:45:50 AM by Jeff Inglis | Comments [0] |  

A group of local officials from around Maine have gathered together in yet another effort to support renewable energy in Maine.

Called the Coalition to Reduce Dependence on Foreign Oil, the Web site-less group is led by Cumberland town councilor Jeff Porter, and includes Carrabassett Valley town manager Dave Cota, Carrabassett selectmen Lloyd Cutler and Bob Luce, former Carrabassett selectman Jay Reynolds, and a former game warden, Duane Lewis Sr. Other members are from Farmington, Wyman, Phillips, and Corinth.

They'll be working to draw more attention to renewable energy, by lobbying officials and working to "increase public awareness," as if the war in Iraq, $3 gasoline, and heating-oil prices were not enough.

Renewably generated electricity, they don't mention, can be purchased in Maine through the Maine Interfaith Power and Light collective (for Central Maine Power and Bangor Hydro customers only).

And there's no word on whether they all drive to the group's meetings, or whether they carpool or meet online or over the phone.

5/17/2006 4:12:44 PM by Jeff Inglis | Comments [0] |  

Note: The original post incorrectly stated that councilor Will Gorham opposed the seat tax increase. He in fact supported it.

Last night, in a marathon Portland city council meeting about next year's city budget, the council passed a significant operational tax increase on some Old Port bar owners. As part of the $256.6 million budget, the controversial Bar Occupancy Fee, otherwise known as the "seat tax" was more than tripled from $4.50 per occupant with a $1500 cap to $15 per occupant without a cap. Only bars in the Old Port overlay zone, an area encompassing the most densely commercial blocks in the Old Port, have to pay the seat tax. So, for example, while Gritty McDuff's on Fore Street must pay the seat tax, Ri Ra on Commercial Street, outside of the overlay zone, does not.

Affected bar owners, predictably, are upset about the increase, which will drain them of thousands more in taxes. The fee increase would raise $60,000 (above the $20,000 annually raised by the current rate) and proponents said the increase is necessary to pay for police coverage of the area. The seat tax is one of dozens of fee increases passed as part of last night's budget in an attempt to pay for city services without relying more on revenue from property taxes.

City mayor Jim Cohen proposed a slimmer increase on the per-seat tax of only $9, with a cap of no more than $3000 total seat tax from any one establishment, but his idea eventually failed in a vote of 7 - 2. Cohen and Cheryl Leeman were opposed.

 

5/16/2006 1:30:42 PM by Sara Donnelly | Comments [0] |  

A Bangor Daily News story today quotes Maine secretary of state Matt Dunlap saying the state may not be able to comply with a federal law slated to take effect two years from now. Called the "Real ID" act, the law imposes stricter rules for who can get government-issued identity cards (like driver's licenses) and what information must be stored on them in a format readable by digital scanners.

For example, the law bars illegal immigrants from getting driver's licenses by requiring state and local officials to search federal immigration databases (remember how accurate those are?) before issuing a person a license. Dunlap tells the BDN that he will have to shell out millions to train officials here in Maine to look for forged documents, as just one possible problem in implementing the ID system.

The article doesn't talk about the real problems many people have with the "Real ID" - that it will, for the first time, require each person's public identity card (driver's license) with their Social Security number. And that digital information encoded on the card may include photographs, fingerprints, and other personal information previously stored in separate government databases, or not stored at all (as in the case of those of us who still have the non-digital Maine driver's licenses).

And what's the problem with that? Just imagine - one of the largest bureaucracies on the face of the planet having all of your vital information at its fingertips. For real, this time - not just "somewhere in this immense data farm" - but actually in a single, searchable, national database. What would they do with it? (And just imagine what would happen the first time someone broke into that computer system.)

5/15/2006 3:36:22 PM by Jeff Inglis | Comments [0] |  

A slightly nutty contest is approaching, and is seeking Maine-based filmmakers to participate. It's called the 48-Hour Film Project, and describes itself, in an apparent attempt to actually attract movie mavens, as a way to spend "a wild, sleepless weekend."

On Friday, June 2, those who signed up will get the raw materials of a movie - a character, a prop, a line of dialogue, and a genre. The film's due date? Sunday, June 4.

The local application is online, and there's also a local discussion group so you can make sure you're sleep-deprived enough already to sign up for such a thing.

For those of you more inclined to watch the films than to run around making them, hit the Windham Five Star Cinema on June 6 and 7.

Oh yes - it's not just a maddening dash against the clock, equipment failure, weather, and illness: It's also a contest in which the local winner goes up to a national competition.

5/12/2006 7:43:45 PM by Jeff Inglis | Comments [0] |  

The Bangor Daily News reports today that a tidal energy company in Washington DC may want to install underwater generators in the Penobscot River near Verona Island. Maine Tidal Energy Co. filed a request for a prelimary permit from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. This permit is the first step to evaluate whether a large underwater turbine project is feasible in the Penobscot River. If granted, the permit would allow the company to study the site for three years. METidal is considering installing up to a 100 generators but this first permit would not allow any construction.

Before getting down and dirty to build the generators, Maine Tidal Energy Co. has to apply for another FERC permit to move forward with a more detailed analysis and then other state and federal permits.

The type of turbines METidal is considering, as BDN describes them, include

"...rotating propeller blades approximately 20-to-50 feet in diameter, an integrated generator producing 500 kilowatts to 2 megawatts of electricity, an anchoring system, a mooring line and a transmission line to shore."

The tidal generators could look like this:

At full capacity and with 100 generators, BDN reports the project would ideally pull renewable energy from rising and falling tides and could support 750 homes. This first research phase will cost METidal between $1 million and $4 million, according to the newspaper.

If this jazzes you or pisses you off, file a comment, protest, or motion to intervene in the permitting process with FERC by clicking here.

 

5/11/2006 4:24:03 PM by Sara Donnelly | Comments [0] |  

The 7th annual Portland Phoenix Best Music Poll award show is tonight, at the Pavilion, 188 Middle St, Portland. It's the biggest local music event of the year, honoring readers' and fans' choices of which acts and artists are at the top of their game.

It starts at 6 pm tonight (doors open 5:30 pm). Free admission, free food (get there early for the best pickin's), and Budweiser beer specials. This is a 21+ show.

The show is hosted by Amy Martin, the Phoenix's listings guru, with live performances from Loverless, Moss Mountain Project, Dead End Armory, Sontiago & friends, Nigel Hall, and "popgirl" 23.

5/10/2006 12:20:49 PM by Jeff Inglis | Comments [0] |  

Today, the Natural Resources Council of Maine and Environment Maine released a 60 plus page report on how governors in New England can rein in gas costs and fight global warming.

Jennifer Andersen, outreach coordinator of the Natural Resources Council of Maine, and Matt Davis, advocate for Environment Maine, released the study, which is endorsed by Peter Cavanaugh, director of operations at Metro, and Carey Kish, manager of the statewide carpooling network Go Maine. During a press conference near Monument Square this morning which was occasionally drowned out by the rumbling of buses and the scream of fire engines, Davis said the state should invest in alternative modes of transit instead of spending the bulk of its transit dollars on highway and road maintenance.

"With the costs of having a vehicle and insurance and gasoline," agreed Andersen, "and the [effect] that we're seeing to our towns in terms of [traffic] congestion and global warming and air pollution, we really need to take a look at where" we're spending our federal and state money.

The report contains 20 suggestions for reducing our dependence on gasoline and lessening vehicle emissions which cause global warming. The list includes creating more transportation alternatives, like an expanded rail service up the coast, and encouraging development in city centers rather than in outlying rural areas to cut down on commuting.

 

5/9/2006 10:01:48 AM by Sara Donnelly | Comments [0] |  

A "news broadside" labeled SUP hit the streets again recently, touting that it is the fifth issue of the publication, but the "first international edition." It's not the main story that's the interesting part, though.

There's no e-mail address or Web site listed on the double-sided 8.5x11" page, and only one name that appears to give attribution to the author. The name is Lee Bellavance, and the academic credentials listed on the page appear to match those on the staff page of the Cafe Review, a poetry journal of sorts published here in Portland. But the phone number listed for Ms. Bellavance is out of service with the helpful "no further information" available message from the phone company, and none of the links we found included an e-mail address for her either. So we cannot say for sure whether she is, in fact, involved at all. But it does print her name in a way that appears to indicate she is responsible for a partly-coherent rant, so if she's not involved with the publication, she ought to find out who is, and we'll be happy to help.

The main story (which references the Portland Phoenix in a complimentary way before barreling along into its real substance) appears to be a tale of woe the author's efforts starting a newspaper here in Portland, and facing alleged mistreatment and alleged discrimination at the hands of the Portland police and the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, as well as resistance from the public-access television channel here in town, and even the Resource Hub, a business-support organization run with public and private money.

It is mostly a rant, an appeal to "the court of public opinion," but with little evidence to support its claims. (No doubt this commentary will itself be taken as yet another slight against the author.) But the claims themselves are not so outrageous as to be the obvious work of a deranged lunatic. Rather, they seem to be the perceived minor slights against a person who is rather sensitive to these sorts of things, and who adds up a series of unrelated events to become a pattern of mistreatment.

It all appears to stem from the author's complaint that he or she was somehow "chemically trespassed upon and exposed to illegally handled pesticide products" at the Home Depot store on Riverside Street in Portland. It's unclear what exactly that means, but it seems that anyone who has walked through a perfume section of a department store may be allowed to claim they were "chemically trespassed upon."

The author's efforts to bring this alleged problem to the public's attention make up the rest of the story, and those whom he or sheencounters along the way - including a long-ago clerk at the state BMV and a real-estate agent somewhere in the past - bear the brunt of the attack.

But then, after a massive rampage against all of those forces, there is a pair of shorter paragraphs that spark real interest. In one, the author asks, "What do you think should be the punishment for someone who accidentally hits a man with his snowmobile, races away from the scene, leaves the victim to die alone in agony - and lies to investigators about it?" That refers to the 2003 death of Robert Levesque, an incident that spurred a new state law making it illegal not to report a snowmobile crash.

And the second one, "Imagine being a single woman in a 2000 plus square foot condo in Portland - and being sued by your condo association because you had a roommate?" This also purports to be a complaint about a real case.

Some injustices may be more real than others.

5/8/2006 7:05:20 PM by Jeff Inglis | Comments [0] |  

Current Publishing, a local newspaper company based in Scarborough, has announced two major developments in the past three weeks. Just today, on the company's Web site (aggregating content from all of its newspapers), is an announcement that the company has bought the Monument newspaper in Gray. And on April 18, the company announced the launch of the Weekly Observer, a weekly tabloid which will cover Sanford, Springvale, Acton, and Lebanon.

In the text of the story online, and in a story published in the Monument this week and provided by Elizabeth Prata, founder, publisher, and editor of the Monument, the combination is described as a merger, though the headline on the Current Publishing site says "Current Publishing Purchases The Monument Newspaper," and Prata confirmed that her paper had been bought.

Current Publishing (full disclosure: my employer before I came to the Phoenix) started in the fall of 2001 with the Current, a paid-circulation weekly broadsheet covering Scarborough and Cape Elizabeth. In mid-2002, the company bought the American Journal, a longstanding and well-known weekly based in Westbrook, and took that (already paid-circ) paper into a broadsheet format. In late 2003, the company nearly simultaneously launched the Lakes Region Weekly and bought the Suburban News, combining them into one paid-circ broadsheet called the Lakes Region Suburban Weekly.

In 2004, the company bought the Waterboro Reporter, a free total-market-coverage tabloid. And in early 2005, they launched the Saco-Old Orchard Beach Sun Chronicle, a paid-circ broadsheet, and the Sacopee Valley Citizen, a free TMC tabloid along the lines of the Reporter.

Now, with the new launch and the acquisition of the six-year-old freebie Gray newspaper, the company owns eight newspapers, covering 36 towns from in Cumberland, York, and Oxford counties, according to the list provided in its press release, though the text of the release says the papers "reach more than 45 communities."

There has been no discussion of the buyout on Prata's weblog, which is billed as "my behind the scenes thoughts about the running of a small newspaper in a small town of people with big hearts."

5/5/2006 10:50:02 AM by Jeff Inglis | Comments [0] |  

The Maine Supreme Court overturned a lower court's ruling barring the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) from appearing on this November's ballot. The Supreme Court ruled that the signatures to get TABOR on the ballot which were submitted late should in fact be accepted and TABOR will now go to Maine voters.

TABOR limits the state's budget to a formula based on population plus inflation. Critics of TABOR say, if passed, schools and state healthcare will suffer and the state will be less able to weather an economic slump.

The Court ruled that more than 4000 signatures submitted a few days after the deadline were admissible because the deadline was non-binding and compromised citizens' constitutional right to petition. Almost immediately after the Supreme Court released its decision, Governor John Baldacci and Democratic Speaker of the House John Richardson released statements predicting voters will eventually reject TABOR in November.

"TABOR is bad for Maine," said the Governor in his press release. "I trust that the people of Maine will make the right decision if this proposal goes on the November ballot."

The conservative website As Maine Goes also weighed in quickly, check out its latest here.

Here's a link FOR TABOR.

Here's a link AGAINST TABOR.

5/4/2006 5:54:52 PM by Sara Donnelly | Comments [0] |  

The lawyer who outed Deep Throat will give a lecture at USM this month aptly titled "Bring Down a President and You'll Need a Good Lawyer." John O'Connor represents the FBI's former deputy director W. Mark Felt (aka Deep Throat), who secretly leaked information leading to the Watergate scandal to Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein during the early 1970s. Then-president Richard Nixon eventually resigned from office under pressure of impeachment for his involvement with Watergate.

The identity of "Deep Throat" was kept hidden for decades until O'Connor published an article in Vanity Fair magazine in 2005 identifying Felt as the secret source. Felt, now 92, asked O'Connor to tell the story.

O'Connor and Felt co-authored the new book "A G-Main's Life." He plans to speak about why Felt became Deep Throat and why he revealed his identity more than thirty years later. 

The lecture is Wednesday, May 17, in the USM Hannaford Lecture Hall on Bedford Street in Portland at 6 pm. There will be a 5:30 pm reception before the lecture. Tickets are $10, $5 for seniors and students.

Below, Mark Felt, looking suspicious during the 1970s.

5/3/2006 3:44:58 PM by Sara Donnelly | Comments [0] |  

WGME 13 reports that the Christian Civic League of Maine, whose infamous leader Michael Heath has for years led the charge against all things straying from his interpretation of the Bible, is calling for a boycott of the upcoming movie "The Da Vinci Code," which will hit theaters around the country and here in Portland on May 19th. According to WGME, Heath is concerned about the "deplorable state of movies in general."

The Code stars Tom Hanks, known as the nicest guy in Hollywood (or so we hear from Star Magazine), and some other people who seem nice enough too. What some believe is not so nice is the plot of the story, which includes the JC marrying Mary Magdalene and producing some junior JCs. Some Christians are also annoyed that the church group Opus Dei, an allegedly secretive and conservative sect, are painted as the bad guys in the movie.

The movie is based on the book of the same name by Dan Brown.

The Christian Civic League of Maine joins church officials all the way up to the Vatican who are calling for a boycott of the film.

5/2/2006 4:47:50 PM by Sara Donnelly | Comments [4] |