Richard Gere Receives Joel Siegel Award

The first three minutes are about Wall-e but afterward Richard Gere makes a great speech. http://www.vh1.com/video/play.jhtml?vid=330094 "We instinctively, innately, felt we could change the world. And we did."

A Different New Year's Eve

Basically, I am writing this for Blair because I know she will be the only one to read it. This is a short story from New Year's Eve I was going to tell you anyway: My friend and I went downtown earlier in the evening and were on our way to get something to eat when this young guy stopped us. He was probably in his early 20s and he did not really look homeless but he looked like he did not have a home, if you know what I mean. It was more like he was choosing to live that way. He seemed happy. Anyway, he told us that he was not asking for anything, that he just wanted to tell us a story. We tried to politely decline, saying that we were just going to get dinner. He reluctantly said goodbye and told us to have a good night but not before he gave Jess and piece of paper with a quotation on it. After we left the restaurant we had to walk past him again and he was leaving with someone else. Then I noticed that his shirt said "World Peace Through Marijuana" and so did his suitcase. It looked like he had stitched it on. At first it cracked me up! Jess and I both laughed but then I was curious. How does a 20ish year old guy end up on the sidewalk in downtown Ventura on New Year's Eve trying to tell everyone that marijuana is the answer to world peace? It seemed like that was his mission, in a similar way to how churches have missionaries. He reminded me of Chris McCandless, someone of noble intentions with ideas way off the beaten path. "World Peace through Marijuana" is hilarious but I would have liked to know how he came to that conclusion.