The Manichean Paranoia Patch

According to the image, this was created by Sarah Schmelling. While I didn’t get permission from her to post this on my blog, I hope she won’t mind if I make a point of saying that I think it’s very clever and that she should be given praise for her creativity.
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I would just like to say that I was actually awake when the text message got sent out at 3 AM announcing Obama’s VP choice. Thus, I was one of the first people in the country to know that Joe Biden will be Obama’s running mate.

The Stud-Ants and the Great Parking Problem

There was once a great Ant Hill of Higher Education. Every day thousands of ants would ride their caterpillars from all over the countryside to learn how to be productive members of the colony. One day the Queen of the Hill heard a loud noise.

Opening her window, she saw a crowd of angry stud-ants below. “Why aren’t all of you in class?” she asked.

The crowd yelled back, “We are tired of being forced to buy parking passes for our caterpillars! We pay enough as it is!”

Worried, the Queen replied, “But if you do not pay to park your caterpillars, how can I afford to maintain the parking lots you use?”

But the ants were unconvinced, and so the Queen let all the ants park their caterpillars for free. Several months went by and the roads around the hill and parking spaces began to deteriorate. Once again an angry crowd formed outside the Queen’s window.

“We demand better roads and parking!” they cried.

“Oh dear,” said the Queen, “I simply cannot afford to pay for all the upkeep now that we don’t have parking passes anymore.”

“We don’t care about the details,” the crowd replied, “just fix the potholes and repaint the lines so that our caterpillars don’t trip or bump into each other.”

So the Queen pondered about the problem and finally decided to increase the tuition for all the ants in order to pay for the parking improvements. “At last,” she thought, “I have finally made all the stud-ants happy.” But to her surprise, only weeks later a new crowd had formed.

“What is it this time?” she said in exasperation.

“My Queen, we are the stud-ants that do not have caterpillars. Every day we walk to the Ant Hill, and we don’t think it’s fair that we should have to pay for the parking and the roads,” the stud-ants explained.

“That sounds fair,” said the Queen, “but how can I pay for the parking upkeep without the tuition increase?”

The stud-ants thought and thought, when finally the smallest ant in the group had an idea.

“Why not create a special parking pass and charge the stud-ants money to purchase it? That way stud-ants with caterpillars will pay for the parking lots that they are wearing down and stud-ants without them aren’t charged money for a service they aren’t using!” he declared.

The Queen thought this was a fine idea and quickly went about implementing it. Finally, she collapsed on her throne, exhausted from all the fuss about parking. It was only then she realized that she had ended up exactly where she had started.

The moral of the story: “Stud-ants will always be upset about parking.”

I went to see the trashy action flick, Wanted and I couldn’t resist posting a quick review of the film here. Wanted succeeded in entertaining me with its flashy action sequences but failed in every other measure of a movie.

The protagonist was probably one of the most unsympathetic, dislikable characters that has ever been set up to be a hero. At the beginning of the film, he’s whiny, indecisive, and spineless. In the beginning of the film he’s angry, self-righteous, and bitter. By the end of the film he’s just self-righteous (X3). At the beginning he tells the audience that he “used to be a loser like you.” Look bud, I came here to watch a movie, not get insulted! The abuse doesn’t stop there. The final line of the movie is delivered by our hero speaking directly to his audience, “This is me taking back control of my life. What the fuck have you done lately?”

Apparently the only two lifestyle choices are working a normal job as a spineless nobody and being an assassin with a bad attitude.

The script was terrible. Just awful. Even fine actors like Morgan Freeman were unable to deliver some of these lines. I was literally squirming in my seat throughout the film after being subjected to some of the must unnatural dialog ever uttered in a theater (yes I am including the audience in that measure.) The language alternated from being extremely lofty, “we are an elite fraternity of assassins operating for 1,000 years to maintain order in a chaotic world” to a lot of childish cursing, often within the same sentence.

The plot is predictable (I totally called the “surprise” twist) and to call it implausible is a massive understatement. I have three words for you “Loom of Fate.” All the likable characters died and the the unlikeable characters weren’t unpleasant enough for the audience to be happy when bad things happened to them, just bad enough to wish they had less screen time.

Oh, and I would like to confirm the underlying misogyny of the film. Every single female character was portrayed very negatively with the exception Angelina Jolie’s character, and she was basically portrayed as a sex symbol.

Which brings me to my final point - this movie was in almost every way a male adolescent fantasy. Youth finds out he has super violence powers. Beats up all the mean people who made his life miserable before. Gets trained by hot sex symbol babe who is older and inexplicably attracted to him. In the end he has “taken control of his life” through a lot of violence and swearing. If I were thirteen, I would probably think this movie was the coolest thing since I discovered HBO shows softcorn pornography at night. However since I am not thirteen, I am forced to call it what it is: an awful film that should not be viewed by anyone outside its target audience.

*Edit.* I wanted to add that this movie is based on a comic book which, from the synopsis I read on Wikipedia, looks like it has a much darker and less juvenile premise than the film that carries its name. Too bad.

There’s been a lot of hype surrounding Heath Ledger’s final performance as the Joker in this summer’s Batman movie. I must admit I was extremely skeptical. Lets face it, when a celebrity as loved as Ledger dies in a freak accident (his drug overdose was of the innocent, Doctor-screw-up kind) the public needs closure. However, the tragedy that is Heath Ledger’s death is only heightened by the “fact” that his final performance really was masterful.

I say “fact” in quotation marks because something as innately opinionated as the quality of an actor’s performance can never really be considered fact. However, after watching The Dark Knight with a fair share of skepticism, I have to admit that his role as the Joker was not only good, it was extraordinary. I much prefer his portrayal of the character to that of Jack Nicholson in the 1989 Batman. The aptly named Dark Knight was dark, cynical even in its portrayal of the heroic characters. It was also extremely entertaining. I know the “audience at the edge of their seats” cliche is over used, but in this case it definitely merits use. The only criticism I have is that the film was a bit long. While I never felt that the movie dragged, there were several scenes where it felt like the movie was going to draw to close, only to have it continue for another 40 minutes. However, considering the quality of that extra 40 minutes, a length of 152 minutes is easily forgiven.

I love it!

Downfall is a 2004 German film depicting the last days of Hitler’s life, and therefore the Third Reich.  It focuses primarily on Hitler and his closest companions and officers as they attempt to hold off the invading Russians from conquering Berlin.  Bruno Ganz portrayal of Hitler is amazing - a fine piece of acting!  The movie is based upon the books: “Inside Hitler’s Bunker, by historian Joachim Fest; portions of Albert Speer’s memoirs; the memoirs of Traudl Junge, one of Hitler’s secretaries; Hitler’s Last Days: An Eye-Witness Account, by Gerhardt Boldt; doctor Ernst-Günther Schenck’s memoirs; and the memoirs of Siegfried Knappe.” - Wikipedia.  I highly recommend renting it; you should be able to find it at a Blockbuster or Hollywood Video.

There is a scene in this film in which Hitler’s Generals finally convey how utterly hopeless the situation is to their Fuhrer.  Orders to attack that Hitler gave earlier in the film had not been carried out because the unit to whom he sent the command is so hopelessly disorganized and beaten that they had no ability to function cohesively.  Hitler orders most of his lower officers to leave the room and then goes a tirade about how he has been betrayed and how he “should have purged his officers ranks like Stalin did.”  This is actually one of the most powerful scenes in the movie and, again, is an amazing portrayal of Hitler, particularly considering the entire film is in German which gives it so much more authenticity than any English production could have, such as “Hitler: The Rise of Evil.”

However, the fact that the scene I described is all in German has given rise to yet another entertaining and frivolous web meme.  The premise is fairly simple: add subtitles to the scene that totally change the meaning of what Hitler and his Generals are saying.  Several popular examples include: Hitler ranting about the loss of HD DVD to Blu-Ray, Hitler ranting about his console getting banned by Microsoft, Hitler ranting about a bad suggestion for the replacement of his stolen car, Hitler ranting about the loss of Hillary Clinton during the primary, and (perhaps most creatively of all) Hitler ranting about becoming an Internet meme.

Now I have always taken the stance that any Hitler or Holocaust joke is “too soon,” and will always and forever be “too soon.”  Nothing funny about that, period.  However, I have to admit that I find these parody clips extremely entertaining.  In fact, it was one of these parody clips that led to me watching the actual film; I was so impressed by the acting in that scene that I wanted to watch the rest of the movie.  Maybe because, to me, they are more poking fun at the film-makers’ intent than they are the actual historical events.

Perhaps the film-makers are aware of this, because many of these clips have now been removed from YouTube.  I had a much harder time finding links than I would have a month ago and I expect the two I embedded will become non-functional at some point in the near future.  It’s a shame.  While I recognize the extreme copyright infringement that was going on, at the same time I know I never would have discovered this excellent film had I not stumbled across the Blue-Ray War version of the scene.  I am sure that I am not the only one.  If you do stumble across any other “Downfall” clips, I highly recommend that you watch them… and then go rent the film.  I definitely recommend both.

Well, I’m in another public office that should probably limit the extent to which I use this to express political views. This is a big reason I have stopped updating this regularly, unfortunately.

Which, of course, leads me to my favorite television show at the moment, Battlestar Galactica. The fourth season isn’t as good as the previous three but it’s still keeping avid fans like me eagerly awaiting the next episode. There is a lot of plot to resolve.

The reason I am posting this is two-fold. First, I think if I talk about BSG, when someone searches “Battlestar Galactica” this site might come up, which should get me more hits. Yes even though I rarely update this thing I am still desperate for attention. More hits would inspire me to update it more regularly. It’s a vicious cycle.

Secondly and more importantly there is an amazing historical parallel to something that happened in the show at the end of the third season. I tried searching to see if anyone else noticed the striking similarities, but nothing came up. Therefore, I can only assume I am the only person to make this observation! (Although I’m sure that as soon as I post that, someone will come out and correct me.)

At the end of the third season, a former Vice President is put on trial to determine whether or not they were guilty of treason. The President at the time of the trial, and President during the term of aforementioned Vice President, is absolutely determined to see the former VP found guilty. However, they are acquitted due to lack of evidence which further drives a wedge between the President and several of her former political colleagues.

Of course in the show I am talking about Vice President Gaius Baltar and President Laura Roslin. However, taking the names out, this positively screams the Aaron Burr trial. The parallels are undeniable. After killing Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr went on to lead an ill-fitted attempt to… do something out west. It’s actually difficult to figure out what his plans were because he had so many different lies. It was definitely one of the following: attack and annex much of Spanish Mexico on behalf of the United States, lead an insurgency against the United States (on behalf of Britain), lead an insurgency against the United States (on behalf of Spain), or manipulate both and lead an insurgency against the United States on behalf of Aaron Burr (the most likely).

Jefferson was pretty angry about all of this, but unfortunately Burr was so popular out west that they chose to have the trial in an eastern state where they thought they could get a more friendly jury. Unfortunately, all the juicy evidence required them to be in a western state where it could be used (I’m not sure exactly of the specifics, it’s been a while since I read about this), and so they simply couldn’t muster enough concrete evidence to nail down his involvements or his intentions, despite the defection of one of his key conspirators, General Wilkinson. Who, it should be said, was extremely incompetent in every sense of the word. Like Gaius Baltar, Aaron Burr got off because the prosecution couldn’t muster a strong enough case against him, even though it was pretty apparent he was guilty.

If you’re interested in this time period (the Aaron Burr trial that is, not Battlestar Galactica) I highly recommend What Kind of Nation: Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, and the Epic Struggle to Create a United States. There are many books about the early American Republic but this is definitely one of the better ones, particularly if you have any interest in the history of the Supreme Court.

A few months ago I came up with an idea for a short film. The plot was very absurd, but I thought the humor in the movie might appeal to people besides myself. Every year my college has a film festival and so I decided to ask around to see if anyone else thought my idea had potential. This is the result.

I wrote the script, my friend Tristan did all of the post-production editing, and my friend Katie carried the story with her acting abilities (neither Tristan and I can act to save our respective lives.) We ended up winning the People’s Choice Award, which was the only at-large award at the festival. I encourage all of ya’ll to check it out. Thanks.

I haven’t updated this thing in a while. This is for a number of reasons: lack of readers, lack of time on my part, having the campus newspaper A Modest Proposal as another outlet to voice my thoughts. However, I’ve noticed that for some reason my views have started steadily increasing over the past few weeks. Even though I haven’t written any new posts in months, I’m getting about 10 views per day. So if people have decided to take an interest in my thoughts I might as well throw up a post to keep it active.

Let me first say that the “phenomena” I’m about to describe will only make sense to people that actively use some sort of instant messaging program on the Internet. I am mentioning it because I discovered an interesting parallel between the digital social situation and a common in-person social situation.

If you are in a conversation with someone and they tell you they have to leave, you usually expect them to sign-off the program. Signing off makes it impossible to send messages back and forth and is a definitive end to the chat. However, sometimes the other person leaves their instant messaging program on after they tell you they are going to leave. When this happens to me, I often find it awkward. Even though I know they’re either not there or are too distracted to respond, in the back of my mind I always wonder whether they were just tired of talking to me and are still actively at their computer communicating with others.

This is analogous to a situation in which you are talking with a friend on the street (or on campus for those high school/college students) and you say goodbye but then coincidentally end up walking in the same direction. It’s uncomfortable because socially you have already declared an end to your interaction but the physical proximity hasn’t caught up to the social realities. This forces you to either restart the conversation (which is pointless because it will imminently be brought to an end) or deal with a prolonged silence as you walk together.

That’s it. I thought it was an interesting comparison, but certainly not worth writing about anywhere else but a blog.