What a way to spend the afternoon

Dear Fred Litwin,

Thank you, thank you, thank you! What a wonderful afternoon I had at the Free Thinking Film Festival. Thank you for creating an opportunity for us to see films that will never get play in mainstream distribution or even be seen at the local Art houses because they are geared towards the ideological left.

And thank you for staging a real debate---what a concept!--between Ezra Levant, one of my faves and author of the new book Ethical Oil---and Green Party leader Elizabeth May, who was absolutely terrific and thought-provoking as well. I give her points for showing up and gave her many rounds of applause for her entertaining, engaging and thoughtful arguments. Ezra, well, my friend Mary said, "He could be a stand up comedian." In a good way. We laughed, our interest was peaked, the auditorium was packed with people on both sides of the issue and civility prevailed even though the discussion was passionate.

First I saw the film Mine Your Own Business by Irish filmmaker Phelim McTeer, who also happened to be in the audience. My goodness, he makes Ezra Levant look passionless in comparison. The documentary took a look at the efforts of big environmental movements to stop big mining companies from going into countries like Romania, Chile and Madagascar. Really good story and character-development and all around great production values in this documentary---important for making it engrossing as well as informative.

The festival continues tomorrow afternoon. It's going to be another great day. Please check it out and support it so Fred will be encouraged to organize another one next year.