let the sunshine in

itsgoodomens:

There are three people in this story called Terry, two of them former Monty Python members. If I don’t pay attention I might mix them up.

For several years, Terry Gilliam was working on a big-screen adaptation of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s satanic-messianic twist on Just William, the almost unbearably funny novel

Good Omens. Several times it looked like the project was going to get rolling, several times it got stuck in heavy, development and financing mud and, despite some wonderful wheel spins that sent spray flying all over the media, it never get unstuck. Sometimes Johnny Depp was supposed to star, sometimes Pete Postlethwaite, and always we waited patiently.

Late last year, Rich and I heard a few voices telling us that Good Omens was on the move again, and we tried to find out what was going on. Unfortunately, we were looking in the wrong places. The new Good Omens was not being prepared for cinema, it was going to be a TV project.

Last week, a “semi-official” Terry Jones fansite reported that Jones and his current co-writer of choice, Gavin Scott, were “in talks” to write a new version of Good Omens. Within days, Pratchett himself took to the stage at the SFX Weekender and announced, at least sort of officially, that Good Omens was now headed to TV as a 4-part series.

Scott, if you don’t recognise his name, was a writer on Small Soliders and The Borrowers, as well as Jones’ upcoming feature film, Absolutely Anything.

One might assume it would be headed to Sky in a similar manner to the last few years of Discworld adaptations, but that’s not yet confirmed.

I guess this news explains what Gaiman and Pratchett were toasting last September.

It’s a shame that Bill Milner and Will Poulter are probably a bit too old for this film now – they’d have been perfect just a couple of years back. Maybe the TVmakers will go the full William and just hire Daniel Roche.

source

If you ever forget why life is amazing, just remember that in this TV series the great minds of Monty Python and Good Omens become one. 

stfusexists:

…is this notion that pro-choicers want abortion to continue to be a reality for so many women. That isn’t true. I want to live in a world where no woman faces unplanned pregnancy, because birth control is affordable, sex education is adequate, and reproductive coercion is an issue taken seriously and punished. I want to live in a world where rape is such an abominable crime that we actually take measures to eliminate it once and for all, so no woman is ever impregnated by a monster who has violated her. I want to live in a world where abortion is destigmatized so that women who will die if they carry to term, or have pregnancies that will result in stillbirths can have a necessary medical procedure without being harassed on the street by these so-called “pro-life heroes”. I want to live in a world where 1 in 3 women doesn’t have an abortion in her lifetime because less than 1 in 3 women need abortions in their lifetimes.

But the answer to this problem isn’t to ban abortion…that will solve nothing…in fact it will cost actual lives that everyone can agree are lives. I mean, really? If there are fires everywhere, and there are no fire extinguishers and everything is made out of dried pine needles, is the answer to ban fire? Or is the answer to provide fire extinguishers, fire safety classes, and buildings not made of dried pine needles?

The answer is to create an environment in which we actually give a shit about taking care of women, and making sure that everyone has access to family planning and health care. We have to create an environment that supports women who give birth by not immediately ignoring their children when they’re living and breathing, but by making sure there are good public schools, and living wages for their parents. 

So it really gets under my skin when these self-righteous “Students for Life” start pontificating about how they’re going to “end abortion in our lifetime”. Yeah, well, your way doesn’t work and it kills people. So stop demonizing those of us working towards the actual solutions.