Any Navy SEAL is equipped with the latest in "freedom-fighting" gadgetry. Straps, pockets and belts hold guns, grenades and various homing devices. The primary visual gag in The Pacifier involves one SEAL on a top-secret baby-sitting mission who retrofits his weapon-holders to keep baby formula and diapers at the ready. In this movie, bottle fatigue is akin to battle fatigue.
Disney's new family flick is chipper and occasionally clever as it sends up the high-tech know-how required by 21st-century parents. In this case, a professor who has invented a mysterious microchip dies at the hands of terrorists. With the victim's wife away on a mission of her own, the government sends in a one-man security force: the fearless Shane Wolfe is deemed adaptable enough to serve this fatherless family.
Playing the special-ops warrior with a heart-thawing assignment, Vin Diesel turns his thuggish frown upside down and lends his nasal hoarseness to a cloying lullaby. In that sense and many others, the action-picture hero's image-modifying role looks much like the former gangsta rapper Ice Cube's recent road-trip-with-kids movie Are We There Yet? or the craggy Tommy Lee Jones' latest mission as a protector of cheerleaders in Man of the House.
PHOTO: AP
Diesel could not have succeeded as a genre-switcher without the proven television talents of the film's able ensemble. Brittany Snow, the teenage star of American Dreams, plays the eldest daughter, who at first is Shane's in-house enemy Number 1. ("Whoa. Personal bubble invasion!" she yells when he comes in close to chastise her bratty behavior.) Faith Ford of Hope & Faith and Lauren Graham of The Gilmore Girls give an Ivory-girl glow to the cast's maternal figures.
Carol Kane of Taxi, as a messy nanny, and Brad Garrett of Everybody Loves Raymond, as a Barney Fife-ish vice principal, clown it up as feckless scoundrels and come to rather sadistic ends.
The film, directed by Adam Shankman (Bringing Down the House), suggests that children should talk about their grief and show respect for overtaxed parents. But its prevailing lesson, one that will instruct children in the audience and delight their ticket-buying parents, is the value of discipline.
"We're gonna do it my way -- no highway option," the commando commands when child-stoked chaos threatens his domain. Soon the children fall in line. With practice they start enjoying the results of exercise routines, commitments to personal goals and shows of force against bullies.
For those without children to pacify, however, two afternoon hours in the theater for this parable might feel misspent. As Diesel instructs his lollygagging charges: "You're burning daylight. Now move!"
If one asks Taiwanese why house prices are so high or why the nation is so built up or why certain policies cannot be carried out, one common answer is that “Taiwan is too small.” This is actually true, though not in the way people think. The National Property Administration (NPA), responsible for tracking and managing the government’s real estate assets, maintains statistics on how much land the government owns. As of the end of last year, land for official use constituted 293,655 hectares, for public use 1,732,513 hectares, for non-public use 216,972 hectares and for state enterprises 34 hectares, yielding
The small platform at Duoliang Train Station in Taitung County’s Taimali Township (太麻里) served villagers from 1992 to 2006, but was eventually shut down due to lack of use. Just 10 years later, the abandoned train station had become widely known as the most beautiful station in Taiwan, and visitors were so frequent that the village had to start restricting traffic. Nowadays, Duoliang Village (多良) is known as a bit of a tourist trap, with a mandatory, albeit modest, admission fee of NT$10 giving access to a crowded lane of vendors with a mediocre view of the ocean and the trains
For many people, Bilingual Nation 2030 begins and ends in the classroom. Since the policy was launched in 2018, the debate has centered on students, teachers and the pressure placed on schools. Yet the policy was never solely about English education. The government’s official plan also calls for bilingualization in Taiwan’s government services, laws and regulations, and living environment. The goal is to make Taiwan more inclusive and accessible to international enterprises and talent and better prepared for global economic and trade conditions. After eight years, that grand vision is due for a pulse check. RULES THAT CAN BE READ For Harper Chen (陳虹宇), an adviser
Traditionally, indigenous people in Taiwan’s mountains practice swidden cultivation, or “slash and burn” agriculture, a practice common in human history. According to a 2016 research article in the International Journal of Environmental Sustainability, among the Atayal people, this began with a search for suitable forested slopeland. The trees are burnt for fertilizer and the land cleared of stones. The stones and wood are then piled up to make fences, while both dead and standing trees are retained on the plot. The fences are used to grow climbing crops like squash and beans. The plot itself supports farming for three years.
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