2 movie recs and 2 cents on real life

i saw "In Good Company" and "Batman Begins" over the last week, and i want to highly recommend both of them to all you fine people. i'll briefly say why. "In Good Company" makes you consider the way you view romance, and the way you view business, and then asks: "have you learned anything in one of these realms that affects your understanding of the other?". it examines the concepts of profit and "bottom lines" within relationships and the concepts of intimacy and sacrifice within business. you wouldn't have to know me too well to guess that i reflected long and hard after watching it, and i definitely felt like i learned a lot. as for "Batman Begins", a "glorious reinvention" is the only phrase that comes to mind. there's more substance in this first Dark Knight episode than in all the other batman films combined. why? because it SPENDS TIME developing batman's "true identity". for a third of the movie, you watch bruce wayne struggle with questions like "what's the difference between justice and revenge?", and ultimately you see him figure out what kind of man he wants to be (not just what kind of superhero). this brilliant character-development is what serves to make the death-defying action sequences and special effects more engaging...because you sense what is really at stake: the identity of the hero himself. anyway...go see it. it's rad!

lastly but not leastly, i'm deeply struck by the world's water crisis as a learn more about it. i can't believe i'm just now comprehending the severity of it.
-50% of the world's hospital beds are occupied because of water-borne illnesses.
-80% of all diseases in developing countries are transmitted through water.
-MILLIONS of people die each year from unsafe water.

those statistics debilitate me. i feel crippled just hearing them. here's a stat that can ignite a little hope in return, though...a 10 dollar donation to an aid organization like Blood:Water Mission can provide a lifetime water supply to an otherwise inevitable victim of the global water crisis. my God, let's not pass up an opportunity to help with something as basic as water. nothing could be more elemental. nothing is more human than needing water to drink. so "do unto others..." everybody, and let people know what's going on out there. share the stats, both good and bad. as we continue to challenge ourselves and others with the good causes in this world, let's be quite sure not to overlook this one.