From an article in Swarthmore College's campus paper:
Natural law’s antagonist is secular humanism, whose founder and namesake David Hume famously wrote: “Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.”
Considering how big a hero David Hume is in liberal American philosophy departments, you'd think they'd be giving students more accurate information about him. You'd also think they'd do a better job teaching secular humanism, since it is the philosophical strain nearest and dearest to their hearts.
Humanism is a lot of things, but its name is not derived from "Hume".
Friday, January 30, 2009
Thursday, January 29, 2009
American Comics Need a "Stimulus Package"
After 8 years of mocking Bush, why are they suddenly all tongue-tied about the new guy?
Some guy from the New York Times postulates that, well, since most of the late night talk show hosts are white, it's kinda awkward to make fun of a black guy. It's kinda stupid, since there are more things to make fun off about The One other than what pigment his skin happens to be. But, the second major reason for the lack of Obama jokes is just absolutely pathetic.
What? Little humor? That can't possibly be right. Obama may not have Bush's "creativity" with the English language, but he's a gaffe machine in his own right.
Have they forgotten Obama and the receding oceans? Obama seeing dead people? Obama and the 57 states of the US?
Oh, wait....
Jimmy Kimmel, the host of the ABC late-night talk show “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” said of Mr. Obama, “There’s a weird reverse racism going on. You can’t joke about him because he’s half-white. It’s silly. I think it’s more a problem because he’s so polished, he doesn’t seem to have any flaws.”
There it is. These creatively impoverished, overpaid celebrities think The One is the absolute pinnacle of perfection.
Witness "The View" co-host and professional harpy Joy Behar on CNN recently:
BEHAR: Yes. And all I can say is thank you for Joe Biden, because he is going to always give us some laughs. He'll say something crazy and out there, and it will be fun. And Sarah Palin, you know, we can always rely on her to come back and give us some material. But it is really not easy to make fun of the Obamas, because they're really -- they're kind of really perfect, aren't they?
When celebrities do celebrity-worship, it's just plain ugly. Perfect? Obama is an intellectual lightweight; every bit the lightweight the media portrayed Bush to be. Why is he getting preferential treatment? Are these celebrity morons afraid of making their Dear Leader cry?
Perfect?
This sort of personality worship bodes ill for everybody in Obama's path. The scary part is that these people are freely submitting themselves to this dimestore messiah. Totalitarian countries often have to work very hard to obtain this kind of slavish groveling.
Perfect? Really?
I guess 8 years of visceral, irrational hatred can leave an entire class of people deprived of creative currency.
Looks like a creativity crash. Time for another bailout.
Some guy from the New York Times postulates that, well, since most of the late night talk show hosts are white, it's kinda awkward to make fun of a black guy. It's kinda stupid, since there are more things to make fun off about The One other than what pigment his skin happens to be. But, the second major reason for the lack of Obama jokes is just absolutely pathetic.
But there has been little humor about Mr. Obama: about his age, his speaking ability, his intelligence, his family, his physique. And within a late-night landscape dominated by white hosts, white writers, and overwhelmingly white audiences, there has been almost none about his race.
“We’re doing jokes about people in his orbit, not really about him,” said Mike Sweeney, the head writer for Mr. O’Brien on “Late Night.” The jokes will come, representatives of the late-night shows said, when Mr. Obama does or says something that defines him — in comedy terms.What? Little humor? That can't possibly be right. Obama may not have Bush's "creativity" with the English language, but he's a gaffe machine in his own right.
Have they forgotten Obama and the receding oceans? Obama seeing dead people? Obama and the 57 states of the US?
Oh, wait....
Jimmy Kimmel, the host of the ABC late-night talk show “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” said of Mr. Obama, “There’s a weird reverse racism going on. You can’t joke about him because he’s half-white. It’s silly. I think it’s more a problem because he’s so polished, he doesn’t seem to have any flaws.”
There it is. These creatively impoverished, overpaid celebrities think The One is the absolute pinnacle of perfection.
Witness "The View" co-host and professional harpy Joy Behar on CNN recently:
BEHAR: Yes. And all I can say is thank you for Joe Biden, because he is going to always give us some laughs. He'll say something crazy and out there, and it will be fun. And Sarah Palin, you know, we can always rely on her to come back and give us some material. But it is really not easy to make fun of the Obamas, because they're really -- they're kind of really perfect, aren't they?
When celebrities do celebrity-worship, it's just plain ugly. Perfect? Obama is an intellectual lightweight; every bit the lightweight the media portrayed Bush to be. Why is he getting preferential treatment? Are these celebrity morons afraid of making their Dear Leader cry?
Perfect?
This sort of personality worship bodes ill for everybody in Obama's path. The scary part is that these people are freely submitting themselves to this dimestore messiah. Totalitarian countries often have to work very hard to obtain this kind of slavish groveling.
Perfect? Really?
I guess 8 years of visceral, irrational hatred can leave an entire class of people deprived of creative currency.
Looks like a creativity crash. Time for another bailout.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
The Anatomy of a Successful "Christian" Movie
Ahh, Christian movies....
Like Christian Rock, Christian Pop, Christian Rap (!) and Christian Reggae (!!), Christian movies are often (rightly) perceived to be the trying-hard uncool cousins of their secular counterparts. Here in good old Manila, Christian pop alternatives are so out of the loop that we don't have a local Christian pop alternative industry. After all, our inbred literati that compose the top of our film and music industry food chains often lack the religious imagination, not to mention the balls, to go through this route, and their equally inbred "indie" contenders are still at that adolescent phase wherein they still get their jollies off of looking down on religious rubes. Looking at the American version of Christian pop alternatives, I don't blame them. So many in the US do it so badly, very few can look at that horrific landscape of heavy-handed kitsch and say "I can make this work".
But someone did. His name was Mel Gibson.
The Passion of the Christ changed the Christian movie landscape. That movie, unlike any other Christian movie before it, made a fortune at the box office and saw success even beyond the targeted groups. In an increasingly post-Christian West (the earlier gospel flicks that gained some success played to a radically different audience and culture), the "Passion" phenomenon was nothing short of a miracle.
Since then, several mainstream American studios have tried, and failed, to replicate what Mel Gibson did. The most visible failure was the much-hyped "Nativity Story", about the birth of Christ. Because of this manifest failure in recreating the "Passion" phenomenon, many of the new religious movie divisions are floundering.
Then, from out of nowhere, a Southern Baptist congregation in Georgia puts up Sherwood Pictures, and produces two successful Christian flicks in succession, "Flywheel" and "Facing the Giants". "Facing the Giants" in particular was a moving success. With a budget of $100K, just enough to pay for small professional crew (all the actors and the director were church volunteers), the movie pulled in a remarkable $10 million in its theatrical run, with an additonal $20 million more in DVD sales. That may be chump change to a mainstream studio, but that number represented a return of 10,000%. Most studio execs would strangle their own mothers for that rate of return.
Sherwood Pictures is far from done. This year, they released another Christian flick in "Fireproof", a movie about a fireman trying to save his rocky marriage through faith. The movie looks every bit its small $500K budget (once more, just to pay for the crew, as all the actors and the director were volunteers, including Kirk Cameron), but it still made $30 million in the box office for a return of 6,000%. So, your average Hollywood suit once again lifts his head off of the line of cocaine he's been snorting long enough to ask..."Wha...? How...?" Execs who would rather treat the Christian market like a cranky girlfriend who refuses token flower offerings suddenly discover that this particular girlfriend can be very generous when properly treated. But how?
In this case, there are two halves that make or break a Christian movie. The first consists of production value and professional quality. That vast wasteland of Christian cinema that sprawled before onlookers prior to Mel Gibson's daring leap of faith suffered from a distinct lack of this half. Most were clunkers produced by good-hearted people who simply did not have the money and talent to make films. The few good ones suffered from being in a barrel full of bad apples.
But after Mel Gibson, Christian flicks with more professional polish and significantly higher production values came out. But none could replicate the Passion's rousing success. The "Nativity Story" looked polished and professional, but it bombed royally and nobody knew why. At least, until outfits like Sherwood came along.
This brings us to the second half of the successful Christian movie. Unlike the first, this second half consists of something intangible. In a word, it is sincerity. But one can dig up a whole host of words to clarify it. "Heart", "Faith", "Theological Seriousness", and so on, would probably describe aspects of this second half.
This is where the slick new Hollywood Christian flicks fail miserably. Modern Hollywood can never do sincere, especially where matters of faith are concerned. The best Hollywood can do is use its vast array of IMC (Integrated Marketing Communications *ahem*) trickery to get people to watch their well-polished but half-hearted products. The problem is, no amount of focus-grouped market research can remove the stench of phony. And the Christian market, like that hard-to-woo girlfriend who refuses the token flowers, can smell a phony a mile away. They smelled it in "Nativity Story" just as they smelled it in "The Last Temptation of Christ".
How did they smell half-heartedness? Contrast the dramatization of 'Fireproof" and "Nativity Story". "Nativity Story" is safe and hits all the right focus group points and avoids all the potentially politically-incorrect red flags. (Multi-ethnic cast? Check. Arab Muslim playing the angel Gabriel? Check. Likeable female lead? Check. No "triumphalism"? Check. And here comes the cash flow...wait...) "Fireproof" had just enough polish to make it acceptable to mainstream cinemas, but not by much. Its dramatization is brutally close to its Christian origins, and is at times schmaltzy and over-the-top. But this refreshing honesty and fearless adherence to its Christian message, political correctness be damned, resonated with the Christian market despite its abysmal showing among the critics. (Rotten Tomato has it at 39% among pro critics, 88% among casual viewers.) Contrast the leads of "Fireproof" and "Nativity Story". Kirk Cameron is an evangelical Christian who did "Fireproof" in exchange for a small contribution to a camp for sick kids he and his wife runs. All the company paid for other than the contribution were his airfare and lodging. Kiesha Castle-Hughes was pregnant out of wedlock during the publicity tour of "Nativity Story", and constantly opined against "judgmentalism". Little details like that matter to a Christian audience, because it is the difference between something done with sincerity and something done just to get access to their hard-earned money. The auteur has to believe, or the audience will not believe him. Or her, as is the case for "Nativity Story". One can say that the Passion had abortion activist and former softcore goddess Monica Bellucci as Mary Magdalene, but the heart and soul of the Passion were Mel Gibson and Jim Caviezel, both of whom are ardent believers. Mel Gibson even took a lot of flack for his faith in the media, including dubious charges of anti-Semitism laid against the Passion by professional sensitivity-mongers. This probably only further solidiefied the Christian market's resolve to watch his work.
The ultimate Christian movie, as shown by the Passion, combines both professional polish and heartfelt sincerity. While Hollywood has all the polish in the world, it will never replicate the Passion unless it learns how to make films with true sincerity and respect for the Christian market. Good luck with that, Hollywood.
Personally, I can see the potential of the Christian movie in the Philippines. We may lack professional polish, but this is nothing that cannot be learned. The more immeasurable, intangible aspect of sincerity is here, and here in abundance. (Check out "Tanging Yaman", for example.) All it takes is for someone to do what Mel Gibson did, and say "I can make this work".
Like Christian Rock, Christian Pop, Christian Rap (!) and Christian Reggae (!!), Christian movies are often (rightly) perceived to be the trying-hard uncool cousins of their secular counterparts. Here in good old Manila, Christian pop alternatives are so out of the loop that we don't have a local Christian pop alternative industry. After all, our inbred literati that compose the top of our film and music industry food chains often lack the religious imagination, not to mention the balls, to go through this route, and their equally inbred "indie" contenders are still at that adolescent phase wherein they still get their jollies off of looking down on religious rubes. Looking at the American version of Christian pop alternatives, I don't blame them. So many in the US do it so badly, very few can look at that horrific landscape of heavy-handed kitsch and say "I can make this work".
But someone did. His name was Mel Gibson.
The Passion of the Christ changed the Christian movie landscape. That movie, unlike any other Christian movie before it, made a fortune at the box office and saw success even beyond the targeted groups. In an increasingly post-Christian West (the earlier gospel flicks that gained some success played to a radically different audience and culture), the "Passion" phenomenon was nothing short of a miracle.
Since then, several mainstream American studios have tried, and failed, to replicate what Mel Gibson did. The most visible failure was the much-hyped "Nativity Story", about the birth of Christ. Because of this manifest failure in recreating the "Passion" phenomenon, many of the new religious movie divisions are floundering.
Then, from out of nowhere, a Southern Baptist congregation in Georgia puts up Sherwood Pictures, and produces two successful Christian flicks in succession, "Flywheel" and "Facing the Giants". "Facing the Giants" in particular was a moving success. With a budget of $100K, just enough to pay for small professional crew (all the actors and the director were church volunteers), the movie pulled in a remarkable $10 million in its theatrical run, with an additonal $20 million more in DVD sales. That may be chump change to a mainstream studio, but that number represented a return of 10,000%. Most studio execs would strangle their own mothers for that rate of return.
Sherwood Pictures is far from done. This year, they released another Christian flick in "Fireproof", a movie about a fireman trying to save his rocky marriage through faith. The movie looks every bit its small $500K budget (once more, just to pay for the crew, as all the actors and the director were volunteers, including Kirk Cameron), but it still made $30 million in the box office for a return of 6,000%. So, your average Hollywood suit once again lifts his head off of the line of cocaine he's been snorting long enough to ask..."Wha...? How...?" Execs who would rather treat the Christian market like a cranky girlfriend who refuses token flower offerings suddenly discover that this particular girlfriend can be very generous when properly treated. But how?
In this case, there are two halves that make or break a Christian movie. The first consists of production value and professional quality. That vast wasteland of Christian cinema that sprawled before onlookers prior to Mel Gibson's daring leap of faith suffered from a distinct lack of this half. Most were clunkers produced by good-hearted people who simply did not have the money and talent to make films. The few good ones suffered from being in a barrel full of bad apples.
But after Mel Gibson, Christian flicks with more professional polish and significantly higher production values came out. But none could replicate the Passion's rousing success. The "Nativity Story" looked polished and professional, but it bombed royally and nobody knew why. At least, until outfits like Sherwood came along.
This brings us to the second half of the successful Christian movie. Unlike the first, this second half consists of something intangible. In a word, it is sincerity. But one can dig up a whole host of words to clarify it. "Heart", "Faith", "Theological Seriousness", and so on, would probably describe aspects of this second half.
This is where the slick new Hollywood Christian flicks fail miserably. Modern Hollywood can never do sincere, especially where matters of faith are concerned. The best Hollywood can do is use its vast array of IMC (Integrated Marketing Communications *ahem*) trickery to get people to watch their well-polished but half-hearted products. The problem is, no amount of focus-grouped market research can remove the stench of phony. And the Christian market, like that hard-to-woo girlfriend who refuses the token flowers, can smell a phony a mile away. They smelled it in "Nativity Story" just as they smelled it in "The Last Temptation of Christ".
How did they smell half-heartedness? Contrast the dramatization of 'Fireproof" and "Nativity Story". "Nativity Story" is safe and hits all the right focus group points and avoids all the potentially politically-incorrect red flags. (Multi-ethnic cast? Check. Arab Muslim playing the angel Gabriel? Check. Likeable female lead? Check. No "triumphalism"? Check. And here comes the cash flow...wait...) "Fireproof" had just enough polish to make it acceptable to mainstream cinemas, but not by much. Its dramatization is brutally close to its Christian origins, and is at times schmaltzy and over-the-top. But this refreshing honesty and fearless adherence to its Christian message, political correctness be damned, resonated with the Christian market despite its abysmal showing among the critics. (Rotten Tomato has it at 39% among pro critics, 88% among casual viewers.) Contrast the leads of "Fireproof" and "Nativity Story". Kirk Cameron is an evangelical Christian who did "Fireproof" in exchange for a small contribution to a camp for sick kids he and his wife runs. All the company paid for other than the contribution were his airfare and lodging. Kiesha Castle-Hughes was pregnant out of wedlock during the publicity tour of "Nativity Story", and constantly opined against "judgmentalism". Little details like that matter to a Christian audience, because it is the difference between something done with sincerity and something done just to get access to their hard-earned money. The auteur has to believe, or the audience will not believe him. Or her, as is the case for "Nativity Story". One can say that the Passion had abortion activist and former softcore goddess Monica Bellucci as Mary Magdalene, but the heart and soul of the Passion were Mel Gibson and Jim Caviezel, both of whom are ardent believers. Mel Gibson even took a lot of flack for his faith in the media, including dubious charges of anti-Semitism laid against the Passion by professional sensitivity-mongers. This probably only further solidiefied the Christian market's resolve to watch his work.
The ultimate Christian movie, as shown by the Passion, combines both professional polish and heartfelt sincerity. While Hollywood has all the polish in the world, it will never replicate the Passion unless it learns how to make films with true sincerity and respect for the Christian market. Good luck with that, Hollywood.
Personally, I can see the potential of the Christian movie in the Philippines. We may lack professional polish, but this is nothing that cannot be learned. The more immeasurable, intangible aspect of sincerity is here, and here in abundance. (Check out "Tanging Yaman", for example.) All it takes is for someone to do what Mel Gibson did, and say "I can make this work".
Monday, January 26, 2009
The Culture War's American Branch of the Rebel Alliance
Last Friday, Mr. Obama fulfilled his sacred oath to the bloodthirsty gods of modern culture by revoking the Mexico City Policy, essentially allowing US government funds to go to abortion efforts around the world. (Rep. Lagman just had a mini orgasm. More money for his initiatives.)
However, there are signs that Mr. Obama's dance with intrinsic evil will not go unopposed. Say what you will about arrogant Americans, but at least they are still a people who can recognize a grave evil and give voice against it. High and mighty Europe won't even discuss abortion, assuming it some god-given right. (What a hellish deity that must be....)
On the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the US Supreme Court decision that, like Dred Scott more than a hundred years before it, took away the humanity of an entire group of human beings, several hundred thousand people converged on Washington DC for an event called March for Life. It was just a few days after that orgiastic inauguration, but the sight of several hundred thousand (usually under-counted) people marching against a cornerstone of Obama's laundry list of promises ought to tell him that the abortion wars are not going away in the age of Hopenchange.
As usual, much of mainstream media ignored the huge rally. After all, the magnates of mainstream media have been licking Obama's almighty boots since he first announced his candidacy. (Days like this I thank God for Fox News and alternative media.)
But, even if they must fight under shadow, it is glad to see that the Rebel Alliance is alive and well in the US. Hopefully, the looming silhouette of cultural collapse can convince the Europeans to form some of their own.
Obama: "We will outlast you... We will not let you threaten our way of life!" (Inauguration Speech, Jan. 19, 2009)
However, there are signs that Mr. Obama's dance with intrinsic evil will not go unopposed. Say what you will about arrogant Americans, but at least they are still a people who can recognize a grave evil and give voice against it. High and mighty Europe won't even discuss abortion, assuming it some god-given right. (What a hellish deity that must be....)
On the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the US Supreme Court decision that, like Dred Scott more than a hundred years before it, took away the humanity of an entire group of human beings, several hundred thousand people converged on Washington DC for an event called March for Life. It was just a few days after that orgiastic inauguration, but the sight of several hundred thousand (usually under-counted) people marching against a cornerstone of Obama's laundry list of promises ought to tell him that the abortion wars are not going away in the age of Hopenchange.
As usual, much of mainstream media ignored the huge rally. After all, the magnates of mainstream media have been licking Obama's almighty boots since he first announced his candidacy. (Days like this I thank God for Fox News and alternative media.)
But, even if they must fight under shadow, it is glad to see that the Rebel Alliance is alive and well in the US. Hopefully, the looming silhouette of cultural collapse can convince the Europeans to form some of their own.
Friday, January 23, 2009
A Good, Bad and Ugly Week
Here's my world in a nutshell this past week...
1. NFL "Championship Monday" (Sunday, EST)
The Good: Excellent football games all around. Both my picks won. Steelers vs Cardinals for the Superbowl, baby!
The Bad: Who the hell do I root for come the Superbowl?
The Ugly: I've been a Steelers fan for several years now, but I cannot help but root for Kurt Warner. Here's a 37 year old quarterback who has a life story that can make "The Rookie" and "Seabiscuit" look like "Air Bud". If he and the Cardinals lose after coming this far, there's no justice in this world, and I'm probably going to cry like a little girl. But...the Steelers, man....
2. I Got Sick
The Good: I got a full day's rest, and got to miss what was, by many accounts, a horrid class session.
The Bad: The headache was one nasty bitch.
The Ugly: One of the supposed causes of my headache was my high blood pressure. So, that means all that makes eating good must end (or just severely curtailed for now). Imagine, me, on a fucking diet!
3. I Got To Watch a Filipino Adaptation of One of My All-Time Favorite Satires: Animal Farm
The Good: Umm...it was for free?
The Bad: It has got to be the most god-awful translation of Animal Farm in existence. "Hacienda Animal" is a title more fitting for a Mexican soap (and translates to "Animal Estate", which the farm manifestly wasn't).
The Ugly: The ending is the epitome of stupidity among all the other stupidities inflicted by that moron of a translator (if it was the director's addition, then that moron of a director). Read the Wikipedia page, and you will see that "Napoleon" is an allusion to either Napoleon Bonaparte or, more credibly, to Joseph Stalin. The ending of the adaptation (which still retains the original names for characters, places and things) has a female "Napoleon" prancing around as "madame President" (was Stalin ever "president"?) before being overrun by "migrating" animals. So, the poignant satire which was "Animal Farm", in the hands of a most incompetent translator, becomes a blunt, poorly-written exercise in mocking President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. All nuance and irony are crushed under the heel of political point-scoring. It's V for Vendetta the movie all over again. I know GMA is not the best president, but to compare her to Stalin is to minimize what a monster Stalin truly was. I pray this translation is burned in a bonfire of vanities somewhere and never comes to international attention. If it does, then I hope the estate of Orwell sues the pants off this UP prick Jorge Himenez for crimes against literature. I am willing to add an amicus brief for the prosecution.
4. The Inauguration of "The One".
The Good: A black guy is now US President. All those Eddie Murphy and Chris Rock comedies have not gone to waste!
The Bad: Different pigment, same politician.
The Ugly: There is this whorish cult of personality surrounding "The One". If I wanted to see a people openly prostituting themselves with such ecstasy and in such magnitude, I would simply watch Leni Riefenstahl's masterful Hitler documentary "Triumph of the Will". At least, that was better shot than HBO's love fest for The One. You should also see this compilation of Hollywood celebrities conveniently finding their civic spirit and openly declaring their love and servitude, not to the country they spent the last 8 years hating, but to The Dear Leader himself (praise be upon him). Watch it til the end to get to the "Children of the Corn"-like part.
Yo, buck-tooth Michael Strahan, wouldn't it have killed you to consider yourself an unhyphenated American when Bush was in office? Or even Clinton? And Red Hot Chili Peppers guy, "I pledge allegiance to Barack Obama"? WTF?
This, my friends, is an example of a bunch of free serfs begging for tyranny. Looks like they've found the right tyrant. We'll see.
5. The IMC "Rally" for those who passed phase I of the application process....
The Good: Everybody seemed giddy with joy.
The Bad: It was sort of like that classroom chanting scene in Animal Farm ("Four legs good! Two legs bad!") combined with a reality show opening.
The Ugly: We don't get to see them fight each other through a bunch of menial corporate tasks with special twists. Yes, folks, I've seen one episode of Stylista....
1. NFL "Championship Monday" (Sunday, EST)
The Good: Excellent football games all around. Both my picks won. Steelers vs Cardinals for the Superbowl, baby!
The Bad: Who the hell do I root for come the Superbowl?
The Ugly: I've been a Steelers fan for several years now, but I cannot help but root for Kurt Warner. Here's a 37 year old quarterback who has a life story that can make "The Rookie" and "Seabiscuit" look like "Air Bud". If he and the Cardinals lose after coming this far, there's no justice in this world, and I'm probably going to cry like a little girl. But...the Steelers, man....
Suggested Movie Title: "If 'Rudy' Was More Successful and Not a Dick: The Kurt Warner Story"
_______________________2. I Got Sick
The Good: I got a full day's rest, and got to miss what was, by many accounts, a horrid class session.
The Bad: The headache was one nasty bitch.
The Ugly: One of the supposed causes of my headache was my high blood pressure. So, that means all that makes eating good must end (or just severely curtailed for now). Imagine, me, on a fucking diet!
Not even a pair of exposed PETA boobies can make this appetizing...
_________________3. I Got To Watch a Filipino Adaptation of One of My All-Time Favorite Satires: Animal Farm
The Good: Umm...it was for free?
The Bad: It has got to be the most god-awful translation of Animal Farm in existence. "Hacienda Animal" is a title more fitting for a Mexican soap (and translates to "Animal Estate", which the farm manifestly wasn't).
The Ugly: The ending is the epitome of stupidity among all the other stupidities inflicted by that moron of a translator (if it was the director's addition, then that moron of a director). Read the Wikipedia page, and you will see that "Napoleon" is an allusion to either Napoleon Bonaparte or, more credibly, to Joseph Stalin. The ending of the adaptation (which still retains the original names for characters, places and things) has a female "Napoleon" prancing around as "madame President" (was Stalin ever "president"?) before being overrun by "migrating" animals. So, the poignant satire which was "Animal Farm", in the hands of a most incompetent translator, becomes a blunt, poorly-written exercise in mocking President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. All nuance and irony are crushed under the heel of political point-scoring. It's V for Vendetta the movie all over again. I know GMA is not the best president, but to compare her to Stalin is to minimize what a monster Stalin truly was. I pray this translation is burned in a bonfire of vanities somewhere and never comes to international attention. If it does, then I hope the estate of Orwell sues the pants off this UP prick Jorge Himenez for crimes against literature. I am willing to add an amicus brief for the prosecution.
Didn't Stalin have a killer 'stache?
Isn't GMA supposed to be smaller, and without that genocidal twinkle in her eye?
____________________________4. The Inauguration of "The One".
The Good: A black guy is now US President. All those Eddie Murphy and Chris Rock comedies have not gone to waste!
The Bad: Different pigment, same politician.
The Ugly: There is this whorish cult of personality surrounding "The One". If I wanted to see a people openly prostituting themselves with such ecstasy and in such magnitude, I would simply watch Leni Riefenstahl's masterful Hitler documentary "Triumph of the Will". At least, that was better shot than HBO's love fest for The One. You should also see this compilation of Hollywood celebrities conveniently finding their civic spirit and openly declaring their love and servitude, not to the country they spent the last 8 years hating, but to The Dear Leader himself (praise be upon him). Watch it til the end to get to the "Children of the Corn"-like part.
Yo, buck-tooth Michael Strahan, wouldn't it have killed you to consider yourself an unhyphenated American when Bush was in office? Or even Clinton? And Red Hot Chili Peppers guy, "I pledge allegiance to Barack Obama"? WTF?
This, my friends, is an example of a bunch of free serfs begging for tyranny. Looks like they've found the right tyrant. We'll see.
Nope, no creepy cult of personality here. Move along. Remember, he sees ALL!
__________________________5. The IMC "Rally" for those who passed phase I of the application process....
The Good: Everybody seemed giddy with joy.
The Bad: It was sort of like that classroom chanting scene in Animal Farm ("Four legs good! Two legs bad!") combined with a reality show opening.
The Ugly: We don't get to see them fight each other through a bunch of menial corporate tasks with special twists. Yes, folks, I've seen one episode of Stylista....
Dean: 59 contestants, 20 slots...who will be the next batch of IMC students? Who's gonna cry? Who's gonna be an ass? Stay tuned!
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Addendum
Since its supposed to be historical and all, I suppose I should have marked it down.
January 19, 2009: Black guy now US President
For whatever that's worth.
Not that I think it worth much. Same politician, different pigment.
Update:
This is blasphemy.
Fuck Obama. If this was the mood during his inauguration, I'm glad I missed it.
Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us morons.
January 19, 2009: Black guy now US President
For whatever that's worth.
Not that I think it worth much. Same politician, different pigment.
Update:
This is blasphemy.
Fuck Obama. If this was the mood during his inauguration, I'm glad I missed it.
Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us morons.
Monday, January 19, 2009
The Politics of Alan Moore
Alan Moore is, according to this blog essay, an unapologetic Communist. Not an anarchist, not a socialist, but a full blown Marxist-Leninist.
All in all, the point is quite interesting, and the case is made persuasively.
And if what this guy says about Moore's "The Killing Joke" is true, then I think I'll pass on it. Blech.
All in all, the point is quite interesting, and the case is made persuasively.
And if what this guy says about Moore's "The Killing Joke" is true, then I think I'll pass on it. Blech.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
The Future of Education
Here is an interesting point of view about the future of the education, at least in the West. It's by a British-based historian who's been around.
Universal state provision for education is not a natural feature of society. The West managed long and contentedly with a provision that left a large minority of the public more or less illiterate. (A side note. Beware of statistics from the period. They consistently underrate the peasant class' acquaintance with documents and writing. Peasants had many reasons to disguise any learning they might have; in France, for instance, educated peasants might be subjected to onerous public duties. But at decisive moments such as the revolt of Wat Tyler in 1381, significant episodes show that peasants could tell the difference between genuine, ancient charters in Anglo-Saxon script and falsified modern ones imposing duties unknown to the earlier items; a quite sophisticated kind of knowledge one would have thought restricted to lawyers and scribes. Nonetheless, there can be no doubt that most of the labouring classes in pre-revolution Europe did not read and write, nor feel much need for it.)
Universal state provision for education is not a natural feature of society. The West managed long and contentedly with a provision that left a large minority of the public more or less illiterate. (A side note. Beware of statistics from the period. They consistently underrate the peasant class' acquaintance with documents and writing. Peasants had many reasons to disguise any learning they might have; in France, for instance, educated peasants might be subjected to onerous public duties. But at decisive moments such as the revolt of Wat Tyler in 1381, significant episodes show that peasants could tell the difference between genuine, ancient charters in Anglo-Saxon script and falsified modern ones imposing duties unknown to the earlier items; a quite sophisticated kind of knowledge one would have thought restricted to lawyers and scribes. Nonetheless, there can be no doubt that most of the labouring classes in pre-revolution Europe did not read and write, nor feel much need for it.)
What changed everything was the French Revolution. Building on ideas that had already become prevalent, and that had been partly realized in America, the French Revolution established a new model of government built upon the proposition that all adult male citizens (later, all adult citizens, period) were to be responsible parties in the governance of the country. In fact, the Revolution - which was nothing more or less than the collapse of royal governance, which left the nation to fend for itself - completely boxed the compass in terms of both forms of government and of principles; from the same set of events one can draw a model for an aristocratic republic led by an elite, for a one-party tyranny ruled by terror, and for a nationalistic and militaristic dictatorship based on mass support - what later would be called Fascism. In effect, the whole political future of Europe, in every direction, was set out in the generation between the collapse and the return of the Bourbon kings. But the one that made the most impression, that went the deepest, and that did the most to shape the future of Europe, was the republican and egalitarian model - the notion of free and responsible citizens equally involved in the governance of their native country.
This notion, to begin with, was found to develop enormous power. The world was stunned by the apparently irresistible advance of France's novel conscript armies, driving away from their own border coaltions formed by every major military power in Europe, then surging to the Rhine, and finally - under a lean Corsican adventurer with blazing eyes - ripping through Europe in every direction and humiliating every traditional army in their path. The conscript army was a new thing. Until 1789, European states hired and paid professional "standing armies" whose members were soldiers by trade and all their lives, and migbht well be found still lugging a musket at fifty or sixty if they could physically manage it; and which had no necessary connection with the country at all - France and Britain both hired foreign troops by the thousands, and half of the renowned Prussian army was not Prussian-born at all, often not even German. Apart from these professionals, some countries also had a militia, a local levy with only very basic training and that was rarely called out to fight except in the direst of emergencies. But the French revolutionary army was the strength of the whole male population of the country, yet armed and drilled by officers trained to the highest standards of the old military academies, and filled with a spirit of individual daring and collective responsibility that arose from the certainty that upon them, the citizen soldiers, rested the destiny of the country. They were as responsible for its future as their generals, and indeed there was no reason why at some point one of them should not become a general himself.
The ideal of the sovereign citizen, equal before the law and equally responsible for the country, was of course an ideal, which meant that in practice it would be possible to point to a million large and small breaches of it. But the immense military success of France after the revolution shows how practical a thing it was; it was the new spirit, the new belief in civic duty and virtue, in personal responsibility, in a direct connection between citizen and fatherland, that drove hundreds of thousands of men to enlist and train, to slog and freeze, to fight and die. A change in the idea of citizenship had meant a change in politics and an even bigger change on the battlefield.
The evident counterpart of universal citizenship is universal education. If the citizen is to be responsible for his country, he must be prepared for that responsibility, both by an understanding of his rights and duties, and by training in the suitable virtues that underlie those rights and duties. Universal elementary education was the almost immediate result of the Revolution, and remained a part of the French state ever after. It was, evidently and to everyone, the other half of the fundamental French institution of conscription, and it was correspondingly unpopular according to whether the ideas of the French Revolution were accepted or rejected. Universal elementary education was only accepted in Britain in the eighteen-sixties, in Austria and Russia even later; and Britain, Austria and Prussia all rejected the idea of the conscript army as long as they dared - in Britain it only existed from 1939 to 1958.
The purpose of elementary state-provided education, then, is to be the first half of the process which culminates in one, two or three years of military service, and which forms a citizen. Its presuppositions were that in a society which tended to be highly stratified, and in which economic and cultural forces tended to separate the members of society into highly distinct classes, a forceful and continuous intervention from the State was required to counter the effects of social status and to form, from the disparate elements of society, a number of potentially equal citizens. It must be understood that equality in this sense did not mean absence of social stratification, but rather that every citizen, rich or poor, is prepared and allowed to take a responsible role in society; that no citizen should be such as to allow a nobleman to say, as someone in Shakespeare does, "Out, dunghill!" if he dared to take an interest in public matters. But in order to do this, the natural clay of man - the clay that, left alone and to the heedless working of social forces, creates those "dunghills" that the old aristocracies were taught to despise - must be forged in a specific shape; a shape of responsibility and of at least basic education, able to read and write so as to be able to understand his duties and assert his rights.
The origin of universal education is nationalist and militaristic in nature. A peasant must be turned into a citizen, for only a citizen can and would be a conscript soldier.
But what of today, where the conscript is obsolete?
It was a heroic generation, or series of generations, worthy of an epic that perhaps has not been written yet. They created our world; without mass, standardized education, the modern world simply would never have happened, at least not as it has. But in doing so, they eventually made their own model outdated. Their time is gone. It simply is no longer true that to educate a child is to go against the grain of the society he or she lives in. The mass media, television, and the internet, have taken care of that; illiteracy, in modern societies, is for all practical purposes restricted to the criminal classes and to some groups of immigrants (by no means all). The ploughboy, even where he still exists, spends his free time on the internet, and the shepherd's boy whiles away the long hours with comics and videogames. Where once the forces of the lower half of society pulled away from all kinds of literacy, now they pull towards them. Farmers have to know how to fill forms, how to drive and repair machines, how to read textbooks in their own subjects, professional magazines, market news.
It follows that there is a crisis of legitimation for the schoolteachers. The students who want to study know that they can find out about things just as easily outside the schoolroom as inside; and those who do not are no longer subject to the discipline that once insured that they would scrape by whether they wanted to or not. And discipline, in turn, is no longer rigid, because the republican model of citizen in whose name the older generations of teachers worked and starved is no longer so certain and so admired an ideal. It has not gone away, of course, and nine parents out of ten would tell you that they want their children to grow up in something like its image. But its full force existed when it was bound up with a number of notions and experiences - the nation, the flag, the constitution, and the experience of conscription that made one a soldier in their service. These things began to be seriously criticized from the end of the first world war, and today it is difficult to even imagine, and impossible to recreate, the uniting emotional value they once had. An evident symptom of this is that the conscript armies that were once the other end of educational provision in every European country have been reformed out of existence. Most continental European countries now have professional standing armies, and I belong to the last generation that knew what it is like to spend a year or two in barracks, training for a war of great armies.
The modern teacher, now just one learning force among many in an age where her product, the citizen-soldier, is becoming more and more obsolete, must contend with the very tide of a stupefying history.
Read the rest of the blog post. I'll probably amend this post with further thoughts later.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
A Civilization's Will to Live
Samuel Huntington once posited that the world was headed for an inevitable "clash of civilizations", wherein cultural and religious identities will fuel the next batch of conflicts following the Cold War.
But, according to the anonymous "Spengler" of Asia Times, the divide of civilizations lie elsewhere.
The decisive divide in today's world lies between nations that have a future, and nations that don't. Contrary to the prevailing pragmatism, which demands that we take every society on its own terms, an objective criterion has emerged that does not easily fade in the wash, namely the desire to live.
The desire to live is most expressed in a civilization's willingness to propagate and provide a "next generation". Spengler goes on to state that the purpose of civilization is "existential".
I submit that the basis for our great civilizations (Judeo-Christian, Chinese, Hindu, Orthodox Christian, Islamic) is existential. Civilizations exist because men wish to overcome death, and have learned that ties of blood and language are not sufficient to win immortality. They require a form of social organization that rises above mere ethnicity, that promises a higher form of continuity between the dead and the yet unborn.
This desire for immortality is in concordance with a belief in immortality itself. One cannot believe in something one cannot perceive.
Unlike animals, human beings require more than progeny: they require progeny who remember them. To overcome mortality we create culture, a dialogue among generations that links the dead with the yet unborn. Even the Neanderthals buried their dead with grave-gifts, a token of belief of life beyond the grave. Whether or not we pray to a personal god or confess a particular religion, the existential question remains the same. Without the hope of immortality we cannot bear mortality. Cultures that have lost the hope of immortality also lose the will to live.
Without this link, without this dialogue between the dead and the unborn, then a civilization has no reason to be. The result?
Ethno-suicide follows on the death of faith in the future. My research supports the conclusions of Philip Longman, George Weigel and others who link the respective declines of belief and birthrates. But what belief is in question? The families of humankind have learned to believe in only two things: a supernatural god, or themselves.
...
A great gulf is fixed between the successful supra-ethnic states, and the ethnicities marking time until they die out of ennui and self-loathing. Ethnicity is fading as a credible basis for personal identity or national life, for the nations have learned that they are mortal, and their sentience of mortality is a sorrow too great to bear.
...
The type of man we encounter in the dying nations, not only in the remote rivulets of the human current but on the Baltic, the Black Sea and the Sea of Japan, is a stranger to modern social science. He is not Sigmund Freud's man, driven by libido, nor economic man, pursuing utility. He is averse not to life's hardships and dangers, but to life itself, for he rejects life precisely at a moment when hardship and danger have begun to fade. He suffers from the restless heart that St Augustine ascribes to those who are far from God.
No man can live without purpose. Multiply that truth by millions, and you'll see that no nation can survive without purpose. Those who cannot see a future will not make one.
Here is a prime Western example of a person with no hope, and thus a person with no future.
No hope, no future.
No God, No Man.
We cannot give in.
But, according to the anonymous "Spengler" of Asia Times, the divide of civilizations lie elsewhere.
The decisive divide in today's world lies between nations that have a future, and nations that don't. Contrary to the prevailing pragmatism, which demands that we take every society on its own terms, an objective criterion has emerged that does not easily fade in the wash, namely the desire to live.
The desire to live is most expressed in a civilization's willingness to propagate and provide a "next generation". Spengler goes on to state that the purpose of civilization is "existential".
I submit that the basis for our great civilizations (Judeo-Christian, Chinese, Hindu, Orthodox Christian, Islamic) is existential. Civilizations exist because men wish to overcome death, and have learned that ties of blood and language are not sufficient to win immortality. They require a form of social organization that rises above mere ethnicity, that promises a higher form of continuity between the dead and the yet unborn.
This desire for immortality is in concordance with a belief in immortality itself. One cannot believe in something one cannot perceive.
Unlike animals, human beings require more than progeny: they require progeny who remember them. To overcome mortality we create culture, a dialogue among generations that links the dead with the yet unborn. Even the Neanderthals buried their dead with grave-gifts, a token of belief of life beyond the grave. Whether or not we pray to a personal god or confess a particular religion, the existential question remains the same. Without the hope of immortality we cannot bear mortality. Cultures that have lost the hope of immortality also lose the will to live.
Without this link, without this dialogue between the dead and the unborn, then a civilization has no reason to be. The result?
Ethno-suicide follows on the death of faith in the future. My research supports the conclusions of Philip Longman, George Weigel and others who link the respective declines of belief and birthrates. But what belief is in question? The families of humankind have learned to believe in only two things: a supernatural god, or themselves.
...
A great gulf is fixed between the successful supra-ethnic states, and the ethnicities marking time until they die out of ennui and self-loathing. Ethnicity is fading as a credible basis for personal identity or national life, for the nations have learned that they are mortal, and their sentience of mortality is a sorrow too great to bear.
...
The type of man we encounter in the dying nations, not only in the remote rivulets of the human current but on the Baltic, the Black Sea and the Sea of Japan, is a stranger to modern social science. He is not Sigmund Freud's man, driven by libido, nor economic man, pursuing utility. He is averse not to life's hardships and dangers, but to life itself, for he rejects life precisely at a moment when hardship and danger have begun to fade. He suffers from the restless heart that St Augustine ascribes to those who are far from God.
No man can live without purpose. Multiply that truth by millions, and you'll see that no nation can survive without purpose. Those who cannot see a future will not make one.
Here is a prime Western example of a person with no hope, and thus a person with no future.
Along with the emancipation of women, sexual liberation has become very much a part of politics around the world. To the conservatives, both these issues challenge ‘family values’.
But what if there were no families? What if we say no to reproduction?
My understanding of reproduction is that it is the basis of the institutions of marriage and family, and those two provide the moorings to the structure of gender and sexual oppression. Family is the social institution that ensures unpaid reproductive and domestic labour, and is concerned with initiating a new generation into the gendered (as I analyzed here) and classed social set-up. Not only that, families prevent money the flow of money from the rich to the poor: wealth accumulates in a few hands to be squandered on and bequeathed to the next generation, and that makes families as economic units selfishly pursue their own interests and become especially prone to consumerism.
So it makes sense to say that if the world has to change, reproduction has to go. Of course there is an ecological responsibility to reduce the human population, or even end it , and a lot was said about that on the blogosphere recently (here, and here), but an ecological consciousness is not how I came to my decision to remain child-free.
Because reproduction is seen as a psychological need, even a biological impulse, that would supposedly override any rational concerns arising out of a sense of responsibility, ecological or otherwise, I would like to propose emotional conditioning to counter such a need or impulse to reproduce. Using my own life as a case study, I conclude that I came to a resolve not to reproduce through largely unconscious emotional reactions . I like children, but every time I fantasized of having one, I felt pangs of guilt over how for this 'impulse' of mine, someone else would have to put their body on the line.
This woman is part of a culture, a civilization, of death. And as poetic justice demands, she and her kind will die out due to sheer stupidity borne out of sheer hopelessness. In the midst of her complex and highly fantastic rationalizations lies a heart without that will to immortality and continuance only hope can give.No hope, no future.
No God, No Man.
We cannot give in.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Alternative Source Citation Formats
This is for all of you out there in Research Land.
Got a source that you don't think you can cite in MLA or APA format? Don't worry, there's a format for everything!
My favorite:
Got a source that you don't think you can cite in MLA or APA format? Don't worry, there's a format for everything!
My favorite:
Alien Mind Transmissions
When citing telepathic transmissions from alien planets/spacecraft:
- Name the aliens who sent the message (if known).
- Identify the location of planet or craft.
- Identify the location where transmission was received.
- List the date the transmission was received.
Example: "Internal combustion vehicles are wasteful and evil. You must stand in the street and curse their drivers and occupants immediately." [The Elders of Antares 7; A Ship Orbiting Saturn; Corner of Lawrence Avenue and Broadway, Chicago, IL: July 5,1989.]
Monday, January 12, 2009
The Rage of Children
Social conservatives are probably the last people on Earth to praise a guy like Eminem.
But, lo and behold, here's one. And it's a really interesting article.
The article was written in 2004, so the references may be kind of dated. But, since I'm not a rock historian, I will only say that I do find the correlation between the anger in rock, punk and rap and the increase in marital and familial breakdown in the US to be quite sensible. After all, in the movie "8 Mile", Rabbit's biggest diss in his boss fight battle rap was to suggest that the other fellow had no right to be an angry rapper because he went to college and his parents were still together.
The rage of Eminem, Papa Roach, et al is the rage of the abandoned child. It is a visceral reaction, like dogs barking at abusive masters. And the adults were too busy blaming the bands to see that this is so.
As the old generation passes and we take its place, I pray we don't make the same mistake. And I pray we take steps to rectify the old wounds the previous generation has inflicted on us.
Ban divorce. And where it already is, let it stay banned.
But, lo and behold, here's one. And it's a really interesting article.
The article was written in 2004, so the references may be kind of dated. But, since I'm not a rock historian, I will only say that I do find the correlation between the anger in rock, punk and rap and the increase in marital and familial breakdown in the US to be quite sensible. After all, in the movie "8 Mile", Rabbit's biggest diss in his boss fight battle rap was to suggest that the other fellow had no right to be an angry rapper because he went to college and his parents were still together.
The rage of Eminem, Papa Roach, et al is the rage of the abandoned child. It is a visceral reaction, like dogs barking at abusive masters. And the adults were too busy blaming the bands to see that this is so.
As the old generation passes and we take its place, I pray we don't make the same mistake. And I pray we take steps to rectify the old wounds the previous generation has inflicted on us.
Ban divorce. And where it already is, let it stay banned.
Man Boobs Explained
What do you think caused the sharp increase in Man Boob proliferation we've had to suffer through lately?
Okay, other than rising obesity. Besides, even not-so-fat people are getting them.
Apparently, according to this report, it's the contraceptive pill.
According to the International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations, an alarming rise in male infertility in developed nations is possibly caused by the quantities of synthetic female hormones, particularly estrogen, in the food chain and water. These quantities are directly attributable to increased use of the contraceptive pill and hormone replacement therapy.
The hormones contained in these pills make their way into water systems. Factories that make the pill dump excess materiel in the water. Those that use the pill unwittingly pass these hormones onto their environment. So, countries that have high contraceptive usage have been throwing this stuff around for decades.
The result?
The evidence that synthetic hormones can have grotesque environmental effects has actually been around for a long time and it is mounting. As long ago as the 1980s, studies were done in the US which showed the effects of estrogen pollution on wildlife, famously alligators in Florida with deformed genitals. But more recently, in February 2008, the University of Cardiff published a study that claimed a link between sexual deformities in birds around sewerage outlets of large British cities and the increased amount of estrogen finding its way into rivers and estuaries.
Note the words "genital deformity", my brothers. It does not simply mean that your junk gets transformed. You may find yourself with attributes more properly placed with your moms. Like, you know, man boobs.
The environmental effects of the pill on men may in fact gradually reveal the extent of the damage to our whole society, something that Francis Fukuyama points out in his essay, The Great Disruption: that we can't just introduce something such as this for 30 years and not expect unforeseen consequences, moral, social and, of course, physical. But tragically it will be young men and boys who suffer before women will also free themselves of this burden.
So, we'd better think twice about going all gung-ho on contraception. I do not want to wake up to a Philippines 30 years later populated by horrific hordes of man mammary mayhem. It's bad enough when our drag queens do it. Don't make us relive the nightmare everyday. I don't want to live in a variety show.
One more reason to tell Lagman to fuck off.
Okay, other than rising obesity. Besides, even not-so-fat people are getting them.
Simon Cowell has them...so it's not just the fatties.
Apparently, according to this report, it's the contraceptive pill.
According to the International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations, an alarming rise in male infertility in developed nations is possibly caused by the quantities of synthetic female hormones, particularly estrogen, in the food chain and water. These quantities are directly attributable to increased use of the contraceptive pill and hormone replacement therapy.
The hormones contained in these pills make their way into water systems. Factories that make the pill dump excess materiel in the water. Those that use the pill unwittingly pass these hormones onto their environment. So, countries that have high contraceptive usage have been throwing this stuff around for decades.
The result?
The evidence that synthetic hormones can have grotesque environmental effects has actually been around for a long time and it is mounting. As long ago as the 1980s, studies were done in the US which showed the effects of estrogen pollution on wildlife, famously alligators in Florida with deformed genitals. But more recently, in February 2008, the University of Cardiff published a study that claimed a link between sexual deformities in birds around sewerage outlets of large British cities and the increased amount of estrogen finding its way into rivers and estuaries.
Note the words "genital deformity", my brothers. It does not simply mean that your junk gets transformed. You may find yourself with attributes more properly placed with your moms. Like, you know, man boobs.
I feel pretty, oh, so pretty...
The environmental effects of the pill on men may in fact gradually reveal the extent of the damage to our whole society, something that Francis Fukuyama points out in his essay, The Great Disruption: that we can't just introduce something such as this for 30 years and not expect unforeseen consequences, moral, social and, of course, physical. But tragically it will be young men and boys who suffer before women will also free themselves of this burden.
So, we'd better think twice about going all gung-ho on contraception. I do not want to wake up to a Philippines 30 years later populated by horrific hordes of man mammary mayhem. It's bad enough when our drag queens do it. Don't make us relive the nightmare everyday. I don't want to live in a variety show.
One more reason to tell Lagman to fuck off.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
In Gaza, You'd Be Dead
Some delicious irony on display here.
On one hand, you have homosexual activists taking part in a pro-Hamas rally protesting the Israeli response to Hamas' rocket rain.
And on the other hand, you have Muslims "reciprocating" the gay love...
I am of the opinion that Hamas and the homo activists deserve each other. Have a grand old time sorting your issues out!
On one hand, you have homosexual activists taking part in a pro-Hamas rally protesting the Israeli response to Hamas' rocket rain.
Nothing Islamic militants love more than getting on with some gay rainbow pride....
And on the other hand, you have Muslims "reciprocating" the gay love...
Oh...wait...my bad.
I am of the opinion that Hamas and the homo activists deserve each other. Have a grand old time sorting your issues out!
Friday, January 9, 2009
FIRST THINGS: A Journal of Religion, Culture, and Public Life
http://www.firstthings.com/
One of the best journal magazines out there on culture.
One of the best journal magazines out there on culture.
Modern Art and Its Fear of Beauty
Dr. Theodore Dalrymple looks at modern art and discovers that the emperor has no clothes.
And, I agree wholeheartedly. The good doctor magnificently diagnoses the disease at the heart of modern art in the West.
He starts thus:
A controversy recently erupted in Sweden over an article published by the philosopher, Roger Scruton, in a magazine called Axess. He argued in it that Western art no longer had any spiritual, let alone religious, content; indeed, it had become afraid of the beautiful, from which it shied away as a horse from a hurdle too high for it. The result was a terrible impoverishment of our art.
What is it precisely that we have done wrong?
In a manner of speaking, we have committed the sin Solzhenitsyn accused us of committing. We've forgotten God.
Let me elaborate. When I say we've forgotten God, I'm not saying that we've failed to depict religious things in our paintings, our novels, our movies or our music. The religious stuff is still there, if only because religious icons tend to make for striking visuals and religious backdrops make for intriguing settings.
Despite this, we've lost the transcendent. We've lost truth. G.K. Chesterton once said that if man loses the big laws, he does not get anarchy. He gets the little laws, which are far more restrictive and far more suffocating than the big laws. When we lost the big Truth, we did not get the Big Lie. We got worse. We got the little "truths", that little fragment of truth we declare we possess that we use to justify a plethora of little lies.
When we lost the Truth, we got the Ego in return. We cannot talk about God, the world, love, honor, justice, or any of these eternal themes with any proper depth or meaning because we are far too busy subordinating these First Things to the self-important task of glorifying our egos. We've lost God because we were too busy worshiping the Imperial Autonomous Self.
No amount of religious iconography in our art will ever cover up our egregious failure to talk about anything other than ourselves. We've even subordinated them. For example, in a scene that made me gag, the lesbian protagonist of "Rome and Juliet" finds justification in her quest to break a straight woman's impending wedding from a cloistered nun, who gave the usual little "personal truth" about Love as the fulfillment of all our emotional desires. A nun! How in God's name is a cloistered nun (who tend to be more conservative than those nuns who threw out the habit) supporting what the Faith calls a moral disorder? She should've known better. We can't even depict religion properly anymore. In our art, it is just a prop, rather than a stepping stone into discussing the Eternal and the Sublime.
The successful modern artist’s subject is himself, not in any genuinely self-examining way that would tell us something about the human condition, but as an ego to distinguish himself from other egos, as distinctly and noisily as he can. Like Oscar Wilde at the New York customs, he has nothing to declare but his genius: which, if he is lucky, will lead to fame and fortune. Of all the artistic disciplines nowadays, self-advertisement is by far the most important.
This is the sin of many of our auteurs and artistes. Just look at our indie filmmakers for example. The intellectual masturbation and self-congratulatory posturing that characterize most of that inbred little group has led to such puerile work as the disgusting "Serbis" and the maddening tedium of any Lav Diaz monstrosity. (Not that our mainstream filmmakers are any better.)
The task is not so much to criticise as to understand: that is to say, to understand how and why this terrible shallowness has triumphed so completely almost everywhere in the west.
How can we discuss "sub specie aeternitatis", when it would only detract from our self-preening? Look at my five minute boob shot! I'll bet nobody's done that before! (Eh...)
What does all this have to do with a fear of beauty?
Beauty, in its highest form, is a transcendent value. Achieving beauty takes a painstaking look at eternity. Beauty invokes something that resonates in the human soul, and not just the human appetite. If we have nothing "sub specie aeternitatis" to say, we cannot create anything beautiful. Even the music of child prodigies like young Mozart are merely clever; Mozart did not achieve anything truly beautiful until he acquired the insight to do so.
Anybody can, say, paint in a new way. Even a gorilla. It takes man, in the fullness of his humanity, contemplating God and his own little place in the universe, to create beauty.
And nothing so scares the modern artist than the requirement that he ought to have something transcendent to say.
Beauty is a fragile and vulnerable quality, and moreover one that is difficult to achieve; ugliness, by contrast, is unbreakable and invulnerable, and very easy to achieve. (How easy it is to look bad, how difficult to look good!) By espousing the ugly, we make ourselves invulnerable too; for when we espouse the ugly, we are telling others that ‘You can’t shock, depress, intimidate, blackmail, or browbeat me.’
All the modern artist can do, like Sauron, is mock what is beautiful by glorifying the ugly. Trapped in his ego, he cannot create beauty on his own. So, he compensates with sheer vulgarity.
Modern art is a sham.
And, I agree wholeheartedly. The good doctor magnificently diagnoses the disease at the heart of modern art in the West.
He starts thus:
A controversy recently erupted in Sweden over an article published by the philosopher, Roger Scruton, in a magazine called Axess. He argued in it that Western art no longer had any spiritual, let alone religious, content; indeed, it had become afraid of the beautiful, from which it shied away as a horse from a hurdle too high for it. The result was a terrible impoverishment of our art.
The same magazine had published, shortly before, an article about Islamic art in which the author said that such art was inseparable from the religious ideas and beliefs that it embodied. This passed without remark: no one wrote in angrily to say, ‘So much the worse for Islamic art.’
Professor Scruton’s suggestion that western art had become impoverished as a result of its radical repudiation of anything transcendent in human existence in favour of the fleeting present moment, however, exasperated and infuriated the professional art critics of Sweden – as, indeed, it would have done the art critics of any western country. They reacted with the fury of the justly accused: for it is the professional caste of cognoscenti who have consistently applauded the trivialization of art and its relegation to the status of financial speculation at best, and a game for children showing off to the adults at worst.
What he says about the West applies to us as well, for we too are children of the West.What is it precisely that we have done wrong?
In a manner of speaking, we have committed the sin Solzhenitsyn accused us of committing. We've forgotten God.
Let me elaborate. When I say we've forgotten God, I'm not saying that we've failed to depict religious things in our paintings, our novels, our movies or our music. The religious stuff is still there, if only because religious icons tend to make for striking visuals and religious backdrops make for intriguing settings.
Despite this, we've lost the transcendent. We've lost truth. G.K. Chesterton once said that if man loses the big laws, he does not get anarchy. He gets the little laws, which are far more restrictive and far more suffocating than the big laws. When we lost the big Truth, we did not get the Big Lie. We got worse. We got the little "truths", that little fragment of truth we declare we possess that we use to justify a plethora of little lies.
When we lost the Truth, we got the Ego in return. We cannot talk about God, the world, love, honor, justice, or any of these eternal themes with any proper depth or meaning because we are far too busy subordinating these First Things to the self-important task of glorifying our egos. We've lost God because we were too busy worshiping the Imperial Autonomous Self.
No amount of religious iconography in our art will ever cover up our egregious failure to talk about anything other than ourselves. We've even subordinated them. For example, in a scene that made me gag, the lesbian protagonist of "Rome and Juliet" finds justification in her quest to break a straight woman's impending wedding from a cloistered nun, who gave the usual little "personal truth" about Love as the fulfillment of all our emotional desires. A nun! How in God's name is a cloistered nun (who tend to be more conservative than those nuns who threw out the habit) supporting what the Faith calls a moral disorder? She should've known better. We can't even depict religion properly anymore. In our art, it is just a prop, rather than a stepping stone into discussing the Eternal and the Sublime.
The successful modern artist’s subject is himself, not in any genuinely self-examining way that would tell us something about the human condition, but as an ego to distinguish himself from other egos, as distinctly and noisily as he can. Like Oscar Wilde at the New York customs, he has nothing to declare but his genius: which, if he is lucky, will lead to fame and fortune. Of all the artistic disciplines nowadays, self-advertisement is by far the most important.
This is the sin of many of our auteurs and artistes. Just look at our indie filmmakers for example. The intellectual masturbation and self-congratulatory posturing that characterize most of that inbred little group has led to such puerile work as the disgusting "Serbis" and the maddening tedium of any Lav Diaz monstrosity. (Not that our mainstream filmmakers are any better.)
The task is not so much to criticise as to understand: that is to say, to understand how and why this terrible shallowness has triumphed so completely almost everywhere in the west.
No such question can be answered definitively; but I would like to draw attention to two errors that have contributed to the triumph of shallowness. The first is the overestimation of originality as an artistic virtue in itself; and the second is the false analogy that is often drawn between art and science in point of progress.
Dr. Dalrymple goes on to explain the second point first: that the analogy of art as science leads us to believe that just because it came later, it is somehow an improvement over anything that came before. So, our artists, in their quest to hoist their egos up there with the immortals, break with the past in order to get their newer, presumably "better" works recognized by the pantheon.
This fallacy, I believe, is what is behind many local artists decrying regulatory bodies like the MTRCB. Citizen Kane, Gone With the Wind and Casablanca were made when the far stricter Hollywood Production Code was in force. Our local windbags believe that they can do so much better, if only we remove anything even resembling a Production Code (because it's *gasp* old), even the MTRCB. Any wonder why their work compares with the greats like a bag of dog poo compares with the Pieta?
In a sense, everything that human beings do is original, for even if they want to they cannot exactly copy one another. Like M. Jourdain speaking prose, most of us utter completely original sentences by the dozen every day, effortlessly and not knowing that we are doing it.
This is not the kind of originality that is valued in the new art ideology. What the new art ideology means by originality is that which has the power to shock, especially the bourgeoisie (if it still existed). Only the rebellious is original and creative: Norman Mailer, for example, in his essay The White Negro, equates rebelliousness and creativity, by contrast with ‘slow death by conformity.’
Unfortunately, deliberately setting out not to conform results in a conformity of its own, one indeed that has become a mass-phenomenon.
Sound familiar? Originality seems to be the only standing criteria by which to judge modern art as "good". Just ask our local artistic literati. *cough* Alexis Tioseco *cough*
How can we discuss "sub specie aeternitatis", when it would only detract from our self-preening? Look at my five minute boob shot! I'll bet nobody's done that before! (Eh...)
What does all this have to do with a fear of beauty?
Beauty, in its highest form, is a transcendent value. Achieving beauty takes a painstaking look at eternity. Beauty invokes something that resonates in the human soul, and not just the human appetite. If we have nothing "sub specie aeternitatis" to say, we cannot create anything beautiful. Even the music of child prodigies like young Mozart are merely clever; Mozart did not achieve anything truly beautiful until he acquired the insight to do so.
Anybody can, say, paint in a new way. Even a gorilla. It takes man, in the fullness of his humanity, contemplating God and his own little place in the universe, to create beauty.
And nothing so scares the modern artist than the requirement that he ought to have something transcendent to say.
Beauty is a fragile and vulnerable quality, and moreover one that is difficult to achieve; ugliness, by contrast, is unbreakable and invulnerable, and very easy to achieve. (How easy it is to look bad, how difficult to look good!) By espousing the ugly, we make ourselves invulnerable too; for when we espouse the ugly, we are telling others that ‘You can’t shock, depress, intimidate, blackmail, or browbeat me.’
All the modern artist can do, like Sauron, is mock what is beautiful by glorifying the ugly. Trapped in his ego, he cannot create beauty on his own. So, he compensates with sheer vulgarity.
Modern art is a sham.
Pathetic
I hate it when we create a culture wherein guys manage to gain all the benefits of sex and none of the responsibility. And yes, the main advocates and beneficiaries of such a culture are men. We're pigs.
But here is the particularly female version. You have a bunch of women lavishing thousands of dollars on fake babies, in an effort to find all the joys of motherhood without any of the responsibilities.
Here's a money quote:
"What's so wonderful about Reborns is that, um, they're forever babies," said Moore, who has grown children and grandchildren. "There's no college tuition, no dirty diapers... just the good part of motherhood," she added.
Absolutely pathetic. No better than those sadistic dog owners who emasculate their chihuahuas with pink sweaters and jewelry.
Sterilized parenthood. What a concept.
One day, this generation will take revenge on the last one for all the shit they've foisted on us.
But here is the particularly female version. You have a bunch of women lavishing thousands of dollars on fake babies, in an effort to find all the joys of motherhood without any of the responsibilities.
Here's a money quote:
"What's so wonderful about Reborns is that, um, they're forever babies," said Moore, who has grown children and grandchildren. "There's no college tuition, no dirty diapers... just the good part of motherhood," she added.
Absolutely pathetic. No better than those sadistic dog owners who emasculate their chihuahuas with pink sweaters and jewelry.
Sterilized parenthood. What a concept.
No tuition fees and diapers for this guy. The perfect child...
One day, this generation will take revenge on the last one for all the shit they've foisted on us.
You Know Your Economy is Bad When...
...even the porn industry is asking for a bailout package.
That, or Joe Francis and Larry Flynt have incredible chutzpah.
In this case, I advocate laissez-faire capitalism. Let those scumbags sink or swim. Besides, I wouldn't mind bad porn going out of business.
That, or Joe Francis and Larry Flynt have incredible chutzpah.
In this case, I advocate laissez-faire capitalism. Let those scumbags sink or swim. Besides, I wouldn't mind bad porn going out of business.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
R.I.P. Fr. Richard John Neuhaus
The magazine "First Things" was instrumental in my late intellectual development. Along with New Oxford Review and National Review, it was one of those periodicals that helped shape my current thought and religious / political philosophy.
And now, the founder of "First Things", Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, has just died. The man was one of my intellectual heroes, right up there with Thomas Sowell, Mortimer Adler and Robert George, among others. Add to that the fact that he leaves at the worst time, when the world enters the age of Obama, and our side of the culture wars needs all the leaders it can get, anywhere in the world.
But, he has more than earned his rest. The sorrow is mainly, as the editor of "First Things" puts it, for those who remain. It's called the Valley of Tears for a reason. May God welcome this good priest into Paradise.
Requiscat in Pace
And now, the founder of "First Things", Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, has just died. The man was one of my intellectual heroes, right up there with Thomas Sowell, Mortimer Adler and Robert George, among others. Add to that the fact that he leaves at the worst time, when the world enters the age of Obama, and our side of the culture wars needs all the leaders it can get, anywhere in the world.
But, he has more than earned his rest. The sorrow is mainly, as the editor of "First Things" puts it, for those who remain. It's called the Valley of Tears for a reason. May God welcome this good priest into Paradise.
Requiscat in Pace
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
One Sign an Entire People is Tempting Extinction...
...is when that society cares more about freaking seal pups than they do about their own children.
Maybe we really should send all of our nurses, domestic helpers and other OFW's to Canada. That way, once the native population collapses under the weight of its own collective myopia, we can annex our first ever trans-oceanic colony!
Maybe we can make these seals Canadian citizens...except that would mean aborting them would be legal.
Maybe we really should send all of our nurses, domestic helpers and other OFW's to Canada. That way, once the native population collapses under the weight of its own collective myopia, we can annex our first ever trans-oceanic colony!
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Why Media and Studies Don't Mix
On their own, research studies are a valuable tool in advancing the sciences.
In the hands of media, studies are a very awkward club to wield in advancing a particular ideological agenda. (Sometimes, the researcher being an apparatchik himself doesn't make things much different.)
As a case in point, there's this news story going around that a study had just proved that abstinence pledges don't work. The gist is that the study supposedly says that teens who take abstinence pledges are just as likely to engage in premarital sex as their peers, but less likely to use condoms or others forms of "protection" in the process.
Of course, the running story in the background is the accusation that abstinence education doesn't work.
First, let's look at the particulars, then the running story.
The study itself has myriad flaws with regards to the conclusions it is supposed to support, according to media.
First off, the researcher herself, despite using the cliched "I have evangelical books (also friends)" defense, is not exactly a model of partiality.
Second, the researcher said that she compared "apples to apples". In essence, the study compared people from the same peer group. The researcher justifies herself:
"This study came about because somebody who decides to take a virginity pledge tends to be different from the average American teenager. The pledgers tend to be more religious. They tend to be more conservative. They tend to be less positive about sex. There are some striking differences," Rosenbaum said. "So comparing pledgers to all non-pledgers doesn't make a lot of sense."
Okay then. I'm not sure about her rationale, but the fact that she took this route nullifies all of the media hyperbole about the conclusions of her study. (Which, unfortunately for her, the researcher seems to buy into...) First of all, if you situate the pledgers within the same strata of people who think like them, then you cannot make a generalization beyond that peer group analyzed. At best, the conclusion would be, "abstinence pledges do not affect rates of premarital intercourse among (insert peer group here)". I'm assuming that the peer group she studied is the one that tends to be more promiscuous, hence, highlighting the supposedly more "conservative" or "religious" people within the peer group who differentiate themselves by pledging. So, in effect, not only is she not comparing pledgers with all non-pledgers, she's not even comparing ALL kinds of pledgers with non-pledgers. It is a very specific study with a very specific conclusion. And that conclusion is "peer pressure" works. It doesn't really say anything about abstinence pledges as a whole. The only way to reach the conclusion the media wants this study to reach is if it compares rates between peer groups more likely to have pledgers in them with the rest of the other teens, which this study manifestly did not do.
Now, the US mainstream media is very liberal. (What, you didn't see the pom-poms for Obama?) So, the story running in the background, the supposed failure of abstinence education, is near and dear to their hearts. As a result, they grab on to conclusions that the study doesn't even support.
They heartily ignore the fact that the study doesn't even seem to control for the variable of "type of sex-education recieved", immediately assuming that all pledge-takers were part of abstinence programs (you'd never be able to tell from the study) and that pledge-taking is a component of abstinence programs. Both assumprtions are false. In fact, few abstinence programs make pledges a part of their curriculum. And, as it stands, not too many students are exposed to such programs. Not even Sarah Palin's children. (So, yeah, Bristol Palin recieved the regular awkward banana condom sex-ed.)
These media guys don't even seem to realize that a drunkard who takes a sobriety pledge will still drink if surrounded by prodding alcoholics will in fact, still drink. Same thing applies to smokers, or any sufferer of habitual addiction. Abstinence pledgers are no different. Especially if such pledgers are only doing it as part of a curriculum, and not out of personal conviction. (There's a reason why these pledges don't exist in many abstinence sex-ed courses.) Abstinence pledgers who do not recieve follow-up and continue abiding by the practices of their peer group do not an indictment of abstinence sex-ed make.
The study clearly takes a limited scope and has limited conclusions, and does not lend it itself to stretching over conclusions way beyond its scope like spandex on a fat chick. But, despite this, the purveyors of "nuance" still come up with crappy headlines like "Premarital Abstinence Pledges Ineffective, Study Says". One would think that the editor is a liberal version of J. Jonah Jamison. Or is at least similarly educated.
So, if the Philippine Daily Inquirer ever pulls a stunt like this out of its ass, especially when it comes to hot issues like the RH bill, you ought to know better than to stick with what some hack writer and his editor decides is important to you.
In the hands of media, studies are a very awkward club to wield in advancing a particular ideological agenda. (Sometimes, the researcher being an apparatchik himself doesn't make things much different.)
As a case in point, there's this news story going around that a study had just proved that abstinence pledges don't work. The gist is that the study supposedly says that teens who take abstinence pledges are just as likely to engage in premarital sex as their peers, but less likely to use condoms or others forms of "protection" in the process.
Of course, the running story in the background is the accusation that abstinence education doesn't work.
First, let's look at the particulars, then the running story.
The study itself has myriad flaws with regards to the conclusions it is supposed to support, according to media.
First off, the researcher herself, despite using the cliched "I have evangelical books (also friends)" defense, is not exactly a model of partiality.
Second, the researcher said that she compared "apples to apples". In essence, the study compared people from the same peer group. The researcher justifies herself:
"This study came about because somebody who decides to take a virginity pledge tends to be different from the average American teenager. The pledgers tend to be more religious. They tend to be more conservative. They tend to be less positive about sex. There are some striking differences," Rosenbaum said. "So comparing pledgers to all non-pledgers doesn't make a lot of sense."
Okay then. I'm not sure about her rationale, but the fact that she took this route nullifies all of the media hyperbole about the conclusions of her study. (Which, unfortunately for her, the researcher seems to buy into...) First of all, if you situate the pledgers within the same strata of people who think like them, then you cannot make a generalization beyond that peer group analyzed. At best, the conclusion would be, "abstinence pledges do not affect rates of premarital intercourse among (insert peer group here)". I'm assuming that the peer group she studied is the one that tends to be more promiscuous, hence, highlighting the supposedly more "conservative" or "religious" people within the peer group who differentiate themselves by pledging. So, in effect, not only is she not comparing pledgers with all non-pledgers, she's not even comparing ALL kinds of pledgers with non-pledgers. It is a very specific study with a very specific conclusion. And that conclusion is "peer pressure" works. It doesn't really say anything about abstinence pledges as a whole. The only way to reach the conclusion the media wants this study to reach is if it compares rates between peer groups more likely to have pledgers in them with the rest of the other teens, which this study manifestly did not do.
Now, the US mainstream media is very liberal. (What, you didn't see the pom-poms for Obama?) So, the story running in the background, the supposed failure of abstinence education, is near and dear to their hearts. As a result, they grab on to conclusions that the study doesn't even support.
They heartily ignore the fact that the study doesn't even seem to control for the variable of "type of sex-education recieved", immediately assuming that all pledge-takers were part of abstinence programs (you'd never be able to tell from the study) and that pledge-taking is a component of abstinence programs. Both assumprtions are false. In fact, few abstinence programs make pledges a part of their curriculum. And, as it stands, not too many students are exposed to such programs. Not even Sarah Palin's children. (So, yeah, Bristol Palin recieved the regular awkward banana condom sex-ed.)
These media guys don't even seem to realize that a drunkard who takes a sobriety pledge will still drink if surrounded by prodding alcoholics will in fact, still drink. Same thing applies to smokers, or any sufferer of habitual addiction. Abstinence pledgers are no different. Especially if such pledgers are only doing it as part of a curriculum, and not out of personal conviction. (There's a reason why these pledges don't exist in many abstinence sex-ed courses.) Abstinence pledgers who do not recieve follow-up and continue abiding by the practices of their peer group do not an indictment of abstinence sex-ed make.
The study clearly takes a limited scope and has limited conclusions, and does not lend it itself to stretching over conclusions way beyond its scope like spandex on a fat chick. But, despite this, the purveyors of "nuance" still come up with crappy headlines like "Premarital Abstinence Pledges Ineffective, Study Says". One would think that the editor is a liberal version of J. Jonah Jamison. Or is at least similarly educated.
So, if the Philippine Daily Inquirer ever pulls a stunt like this out of its ass, especially when it comes to hot issues like the RH bill, you ought to know better than to stick with what some hack writer and his editor decides is important to you.
Resolutions
Okay, since it's a new year and people tend to have resolutions during the new year, I've tried coming up with a few of my own. Since it's hard to keep a long list of idealistic resolutions, its best to keep it short and...well...manageable.
My Resolutions
1. Lose some weight. (For practical reasons, not cosmetic ones, mind you.)
2. Try to get back into teaching.
3. Increase my creative output.
4. Learn something new.
5. Be less obnoxious.
6. Be more chilled out in my blog posting.
Predicted Results for Each Resolution
1. Retain the same weight I started with.
2. No comment.
3. There will be an increase in quantity, but not necessarily quality.
4. I'll learn something related to something I'm already good at and call it "new".
5. Results will depend on the sapient-to-dumbass ratio of people encountered.
6. Will be met once Obama rises from the dead and makes it rain Valium. (If you listen to his nut-huggers, I hear its quite possible.)
Pragmatism over idealism, folks.
My Resolutions
1. Lose some weight. (For practical reasons, not cosmetic ones, mind you.)
2. Try to get back into teaching.
3. Increase my creative output.
4. Learn something new.
5. Be less obnoxious.
6. Be more chilled out in my blog posting.
Predicted Results for Each Resolution
1. Retain the same weight I started with.
2. No comment.
3. There will be an increase in quantity, but not necessarily quality.
4. I'll learn something related to something I'm already good at and call it "new".
5. Results will depend on the sapient-to-dumbass ratio of people encountered.
6. Will be met once Obama rises from the dead and makes it rain Valium. (If you listen to his nut-huggers, I hear its quite possible.)
Pragmatism over idealism, folks.
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