Ok, Geoffrey Rush was amazing as well, but I have come to expect him to be. And Helen Bonham Carter was wonderfully stoic as the King’s supportive and kindly wife, but she needs to re-evaluate her real-life husband choices for me to go much further than that. A supportive wife who has no soul for her own life just doesn’t get many words for me. It’s my review, and I get to focus on Colin, whom I feel I have seen on the screen for the first time.

Acting aside, history teachers in middle schools across the land should insist that their students watch this film, as well as the others I reviewed this week. Let’s all remember that greatness is in each of us and can be brought out with hard work and commitment to our responsibilities, whether we choose it or not. You gotta give that to the Royal Family; they give it up for the greater good of their country’s traditions even though they now have less power than they used to.

I have always believed that if history were taught from a sociological point of view, or through personal stories, rather than war to war, battle to battle, we would have a different future. The curriculum for history was set up many hundreds of years ago, when men went to school and women didn’t. They needed to learn to fight wars, because that was what they were going to be doing. To change all that, we need to teach history differently. I’m not sure this paragraph belongs in this review, but I think it’s a cornerstone of my belief in education, so I’m throwing it in for your consideration.

Who knew that George VI was so amazing? I’ve never particularly considered any of the Windsors extraordinary, but he seems to have been. And the young Elizabeth, now Queen of England, had a childhood that she chose not to pass to her own children (that is, if the movie accurately represents the past). And who knew that Wallis and her husband the Duke of York were such jerks? I knew he gave it all up for love, and when I looked at pictures and film of them I wondered what that was all about. But let’s face it, who cared?

I also knew the King had a speech impediment. I just forgot, or never really understood what it meant. The pressure on the man even without an impediment would have been tremendous. War. Hitler. Sacrifice. Not prepared to be on the throne. A ne’er-do-well brother. To have to add to that pressure a stumbling block in communicating, one that must have appeared to be as big as the Himalayas, must have been monumental. And so lonely. You feel his isolation as he stands before the stadium of embarrassed people in front of a blinking red light representing the millions who were trying to hang on every word. Words that just weren’t coming out.

I love that so many movies now do the history thing for us. Watching history told through the stories of the people who lived it really brings it home. I love movies like Made in Dagenham, Secretariat, and Mao’s Last Dancer, to name a few. Bring these films to the schools and put them on cable for the world to see. They’re so much stronger than the reality TV that has taken over. Why shouldn’t we show these films instead of reality shows and see if they can’t take off. Let’s face it, I’d rather follow King George’s life on TV than that woman who had eight kids, divorced her husband, and ended up on Dancing with the Stars. Her name escapes me, and it is not worth looking up.

There were two sides to the debate last night. One diner was outraged that Haiti would arrest these “well-meaning” individuals and the other person wasn’t so sure it was turning out that they were well-meaning at all. Diner number two mentioned the “church” from which they came from might be suspect. The other countered that they were obviously middle Americans trying to help, you could tell by “just looking at them.”

So, me being totally out of the loop, spent some time reading about it all when I got home, and guess what? I have no idea what their intentions were/are. I have no idea if those kids were orphans. I have no idea if they should be behind bars or get the Nobel Peace Prize. And, at this point, neither does anyone else.

Here is the thing that really kills me. When did we become people who believe that we know something because of a three-minute sound bite we see on TV? CNN telling me what’s real? Fox? Not so much. When did our reality move outside our own personal purview? When did the movies we see on TV news, and in print in the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, turn out to be our personal truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

The debate should be about what it all might be, not what it is. This is becoming more and more true as media presents more and more information long before it’s really information. Get the news out fast and worry about whether it’s fact-based later. We must stop believing we are part of a community outside our own personal community and really recognize what we know to be true, rather than what feels to be true from the outside looking in.

I will follow the Haiti story in the news now and watch it unfold. I hope their motives were as they presented them. But knowing their reality now? I don’t think so.

Quite often of late, my feeling of incredulous disbelief comes to me from things said by the far right. This week my thoughts go to Pat Robertson.

As Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said “well over” 100,000 people may have died in the natural disaster, Robertson took to the airwaves Wednesday on his show and said that the country has been “cursed by one thing after another” since they “swore a pact to the devil.”

“Something happened a long time ago in Haiti and people might not want to talk about it,” Robertson said Tuesday. “They were under the heel of the French, you know Napoleon the third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said ‘We will serve you if you will get us free from the prince.’ True story. And so the devil said, ‘Ok it’s a deal.’ And they kicked the French out. The Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since they have been cursed by one thing after another,” Robertson said.

Here is what comes to mind. How do you dial the devil to swear a pact with the devil? Do you call 1-800 Dial a Devil? I would like to get in touch with the devil. I have a few questions. I digress.

Does Robertson really believe this? Or, is he trying to get publicity, which of course he is doing on the airwaves and through stupid, self-serving blogs like my own?

Does anyone really want to continue to listen to him after hearing him say this? What happens to a brain that takes something like this statement in and doesn’t question the premise, the motive, and the waste of time listening to it? What am I missing? Do I not get it? Could I be this wrong? And, if I’m not wrong, how could they be this wrong?

According to Wikipedia, “Robertson is a Southern Baptist and was active as an ordained minister with that denomination for many years, but holds to a charismatic theology not traditionally common among Southern Baptists. He unsuccessfully campaigned to become the Republican Party’s nominee in the 1988 presidential election As a result of his seeking political office, he no longer serves in an official role for any church. His media and financial resources make him a recognized, influential, and controversial public voice for conservative Christianity in the United States.”

Apparently millions of people follow him. Millions. Who are you people that follow him and others like him? Do you look like me? Are you smarter than me? Dumber? I truly would like to talk to one of you. I seriously think that I might take a little trip down Southern Baptist Lane this summer and actually try to have a conversation with some of them. The goal would be to never comment on what they say, but to ask questions and try to figure out where their thinking comes from. I’m not kidding.

Phrases like moral majority, pro-life, conservative Christian have always baffled me. I’m in marketing and I know that turning a phrase sells a product. I get that, but it doesn’t seem like those on the left (how come we didn’t take the side called right, it has such a stronger positive connotation) turn phrases in the scary way the ‘right’ does. Let’s figure that out now. Call me the ‘caring left’ from now on. Or, the ethics majority.

Ok, I’m done I guess. Actually, I’m so not done. I’m just not sure what to do with what I’m not done with right now.