Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: How the penguin's life story inspired the US religious right (The Observer)

Che i teocon americani si reincarnino in pinguini. Giano?
Am.
How the penguin's life story inspired the US religious right
Antarctic family values: Is the emperor penguin an enemy of Darwin? 
America's surprise film hit was meant to be a nature documentary. Now 
it's a pawn in the war on evolutionary theory
David Smith
Sunday September 18, 2005
The Observer
It is an odyssey to rival Scott's in the Antarctic, albeit with a 
happier ending. Fierce snowstorms rage, icy blasts flick across the 
screen. March of the Penguins, an epic nature documentary with a cast 
of thousands, was the surprise usurper of summer blockbusters at the 
American box office and is tipped to be the hit family film in Britain 
this Christmas.
To many, it will be no more nor less than a life-affirming portrayal of 
Mother Nature, reminiscent of Sunday-evening television with Sir David 
Attenborough whispering from the undergrowth. To some, however, the 
mesmerising images of birds waddling, mating and nurturing their young 
have become cinema's most politically charged parable since Michael 
Moore's Fahrenheit 9/1.
Conservatives in America claim to have seen God in the emperor penguin. 
They have rejoiced in the way the film shows penguins as monogamous 
upholders of traditional family values. They presumably welcomed the 
screenwriters' decision not to pursue arguments about climate change. 
They have even pointed to the heroically resourceful penguins - blinded 
by blizzards, buffeted by gales, yet winning against the odds - as 
proof of 'intelligent design', the religious belief system that aims to 
challenge Darwin's theory of evolution.
Audiences and critics of the £4.4 million French-made film have found 
themselves uplifted by the sight of emperor penguins trudging 70 miles, 
in single file, to their breeding ground during the harsh Antarctic 
winter in temperatures of -40C. The creatures' comical gait and 
tuxedo-like plumage have amused children, while their fortitude and 
tenderness in raising their offspring have had parents sighing in 
recognition. One reviewer gushed: 'It's impossible to watch the 
thousands of penguins huddled together against the icy Antarctic blasts 
... without feeling a tug of anthropomorphic kinship.'
Now America's religious right has weighed in. Film critic Michael 
Medved was quoted by the New York Times calling it 'the motion picture 
this summer that most passionately affirms traditional norms like 
monogamy, sacrifice and child-rearing'. Speaking of audiences in 
America's heartland who often feel snubbed by liberal Hollywood, he 
added: 'This is the first movie they've enjoyed since The Passion of 
the Christ. This is The Passion of the Penguins.'
As happened with Mel Gibson's Christian blockbuster, churches have 
block-booked cinemas and organised visits for their members. The 153 
House Churches Network in Sidney, Ohio, runs a March of the Penguins 
Leadership Workshop after screenings of the film. Its website, 
www.lionsofgod.com
, provides a form that can be downloaded and taken to 
the cinema. It advises: 'Please use the notebook, flashlight and pen 
provided to write down what God speaks to you.'
Ben Hunt, a minister at the network, said of the penguins' struggle for 
survival: 'Some of the circumstances they experienced seemed to 
parallel those of Christians. The penguin is falling behind, like some 
Christians are falling behind. The path changes every year, yet they 
find their way, like the Holy Spirit.'
A contributor to the Christian Science Monitor wrote: 'The penguins' 
way of life has illustrated to me some aspects of how God is parenting 
us.' On WorldNetDaily.com, a conservative website, an opponent of 
abortion wrote that the film 'verified the beauty of life and the 
rightness of protecting it'. Rich Lowry, editor of National Review, 
told a conference of young Republicans: 'Penguins are the really ideal 
example of monogamy. The dedication of these birds is amazing.'
The 80-minute film - which grossed £37m in the US, the second-highest 
total by a documentary - movingly shows female penguins laying a single 
egg, then trekking back to the ocean to feed, while the males keep the 
eggs cradled on their feet, huddling together for warmth during a 
two-month vigil without food. The female must return in time to feed 
her hatchling for it to survive, at which point it is the starving 
male's turn to make the 70-mile trek to the sea.
Andrew Coffin, writing in the Christian publication World Magazine, 
said such miracles of nature were evidence that life is too complex to 
have arisen through Darwinian random selection: 'That any one of these 
eggs survives is a remarkable feat - and, some might suppose, a strong 
case for intelligent design. It's sad that acknowledgment of a creator 
is absent in the examination of such strange and wonderful animals. But 
it's also a gap easily filled by family discussion after the film.'
The only contradiction of the Bible in March of the Penguins is near 
the beginning, when the narrator says: 'For millions of years, they 
have made their home on the darkest, driest, windiest and coldest 
continent on earth. And they've done so pretty much alone.'
But the film's makers say they are strong believers in evolution, and 
its American distributors, Warner Independent Pictures and National 
Geographic Feature Films, insist that it is simply a tale about 
penguins. Laura Kim, a vice-president of Warner Independent, said: 'You 
know what? They're just birds.'
Adam Leipzig, president of National Geographic Feature Films, said: 
'These penguins are model parents. What they go through to look after 
their children is phenomenal, and no parent who sees it will ever 
complain again about the school run. There are parallels with human 
nature and it is moving to see.'
Leipzig pointed out that this species of penguin, the emperor, is 
usually monogamous for a year, but not for life: the following year, it 
takes a different partner. He added: 'People read it into what they 
want. There are universal truths about parenting and bonding with 
offspring, but it's not a film with a political and social agenda. When 
we put the English-language version together, we never once had a 
discussion about social, religious or cultural points of view. We 
wanted to get the audience involved to follow the penguins' lives.'
The film's director, Luc Jaquet, a French biologist who shot 140 hours 
of footage on land and 30 hours underwater, added: 'It's obvious that 
global warming has an impact on the reproduction of the penguins. But 
much of public opinion appears insensitive to the dangers of global 
warming. We have to find other ways to communicate to people about it.'
Scientists in Britain, where the film will premiere at next month's 
London Film Festival, with general release in December, dismissed the 
intelligent design lobby's expropriation of the film. Steve Jones, 
professor of genetics at University College London and an atheist, 
said: 'I find it sad that people with intrinsically foolish viewpoints 
don't recognise this as a naturally beautiful film, but have to attach 
their absurd social agendas to it.
'The problem with intelligent design is that there is no conceivable 
observation in nature that can disprove the idea. It's not part of 
science, which is why scientists are not interested in it. A group of 
penguins standing upright looks like co-operation, but in fact the ones 
on the outside are struggling to get in and those on the inside are 
trying to stand their ground: it's a classic Darwinian struggle. The 
idea that the life of a penguin is any more beautiful than that of a 
malaria virus is absurd.
'Supporters of intelligent design think that if they see something they 
don't understand, it must be God; they fail to recognise that they 
themselves are part of evolution. It appeals to ignorance, which is why 
there is a lot of it in American politics at the moment.'
Penguins: the facts (and a joke)
There are 17 penguin species, of which the emperor is largest. Penguins 
have adapted to more habitats than any other animal, including the 
frozen wastes of Antarctica and the sandy beaches of Africa.
Penguins cannot fly but, shaped like a torpedo, they can swim about 15 
miles per hour. They spend as much as 75 per cent of their time 
underwater, searching for food.
Navy pilots in the Falklands conflict reported that penguins craned 
their necks so far back to watch passing aircraft that they toppled 
over. The claim was later disproved by scientists.
Children's love of penguins owes much to the antics of the TV character Pingu.
There are several websites devoted to penguin jokes. Among them is 
http://monyscurry.tripod.com/pengfun.htm
 which provides the following:
A man driving a van spots a crashed truck, with penguins hopping on it, 
looking lost. He takes pity and loads them into his van.
The police see the van and pull it over. 'What's with the penguins?'
The man replies: 'I saw them on the road and I picked them up.' The 
policeman said: 'Take them to the zoo.' Later the policeman sees him 
driving past again with all the penguins in bathing suits.
'I thought I told you to take them to the zoo,' he says.
'I did,' said the driver. 'We had so much fun, that I'm taking them to 
the beach.'

"amalric" <ama...@TOGLIMIalice.it> wrote in message
news:2005091806522016807%amalric@TOGLIMIaliceit...


 Am.
(OOOps! e` partita la prima!)
#_Volevo di'...Per carita` non ne parlamo piu`de pinguini, eh! So' il
ritratto de Pangloss col parrucchino biondo e 'l frak.
Qui a Invercargill sperano molto nel global warming, perche`tutte le mattine
d'Inverno te li trovi in fila dietro la porta de casa...pensa tu, se fossero
tutti neocons!?
CMQ pare che gli yankee so' gia`sbarcati nella Stewart Island; hanno
acquistato una base di appoggio a quella antartica, con grande protesta
degli ambientalisti perche` minaccia ulteriormente la sopravvivenza del
Kakapo (pappagallo nativo che come il cavalie'Palmiro, non chiava piu`tanto
volentieri) in via di estinzione.
Giano

 Giano
Qui in IPI di Kakapo c'e' n'e' piu d'uno, mi sa.
E anche di pinguini (e' per il telefonino, ma lo puoi aprire con Quicktime):
http://www.ovao.com/repository/videos/video_73_raw.3gp
Regards,
Am.