Author Archives: ten33

Do the Change

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The plight of underpaid workers is something that people love to talk about, but is typically left up to the people stuck in the bad situation to actually do anything about. This movie is a classic example of such a situation. In this case, the workers are janitors and cleaning people for various big buildings in LA. They are also primarily illegal immigrants. Their illegal status complicates the situation because their employers are able to bully them into accepting lower wags under the threat of firing them, or worse, calling ICE and threatening deportation.

The largest enemy of the employer’s will is the Janitor’s union, which in this movie is led by a character named Sam Shapiro. He is fighting to increase the wages of the workers and also to get more people into the union. The people who were in the union were payed about eight and a half dollars per hour, whereas the people who weren’t were only paid about five and a half. The more people that are in the union, the more leverage they would be able to exert on the employers.

Throughout the movie there is a tentative love story between the female protagonist, Maya, and Sam. Their relationship, however, is complicated with the sort of professional relationship that develops between tow colleagues. The director is very careful to make sure that the love story does not eclipse the point of the movie which is to bring to light the plight of janitorial workers. However, the love story does pull a little on the heartstrings and leave the viewer in want of more. It serves to show the presence of love even in difficult situations.

A rift gradually appears between Maya and the rest of her family because she gets caught up in the broad goal of social change whereas her family is more interested in living incognito and simply surviving. They say that life is not good, but at least it is not bad. They don’t want her to get them tangled up in a big mess that could jeopardize all that they had worked for in coming to the united states. As Maya moves more down the activist track, she slowly begins to drift away from her family highlighting the everlasting dichotomy in life between the comfortable and the progressive. Which is better? It is really in the eyes of the beholder.

Similarly, the story ends on an inconclusive but hopeful note. This is the way with progressive change — it is often unknown where the outcome will lie and if it will be an improvement. However, if change is not pursued, then it will never happen. The real life strike that occurred in LA inspired this movie, and thus brought awareness to yet another group of underprivileged city workers that beforehand few had given thought to.

The Beauty of Ludicrous

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Some dismiss the Marx brother’s form of comedy as ‘low brow’ (just some gags with little substance beneath the buffoonery). I prefer to think of them, however, as masters of the lampoon. Their movies, while not direct social commentaries, speak to the arbitrariness and stupidity of real life, to which we can all relate. I love the Marx brothers’ comedy style. In fact, I probably laugh the hardest I ever laugh when watching their movies. Although my favorite of their movies is “A night at the opera,” Duck Soup is certainly not a disappointment.

Duck Soup has a similar feel to movies like airplane which operate in the ludicrous. Events so random and ridiculous all strung together poke fun at how hectic our lives sometimes feel, because after all, we all have those days where it just feels like nothing is going right. In an ultimate exemplification of Robert Burn’s poem “To a mouse,” the brothers find themselves stuck with an overly simple plan to carry out in an incredibly convoluted situation, culminating in an unexpected and arbitrary end with no particular significance. This plot idea is oddly beautiful, speaking to the fact that life goes not to where we expect, but to a culmination guided by the hand of chance and kismet.

On top of their comedic skills, it often goes unnoticed that Zeppo and Harpo are actually very talented musicians. The usually get a little feature in each of the movies where the happen to stumble upon a harp or piano and begin playing. In each movie Harpo usually played some variation of a beautiful handle piece or older. He has the style and finesse of someone who had been well classically trained on the instrument. Zeppo, by contrast has significant virtuosity on the piano, and has a more “street performer” style when it comes to his instrument. Often times, in the movies, his music scene would come in some bar where his raucous playing style was brought out. He was best known for his musical jokes that he would input in his playing. Whether it was playing with atypical fingers, or quoting parodies of other songs, he demonstrated both technical mastery and comedic excellence in his playing.

My biggest fear

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My biggest fear is schizophrenia, partly because we know so little about it. But more importantly, because the scariest thing in the entire world is not losing what you have, and not losing other people, but having what you think you have not be real. It doesn’t seem to be correlated to inheritance or any particular environmental factors. It just happens.

Honestly, thinking about diseases like schizophrenia make me think more closely about what our reality actually is. Is such a disease perhaps simply the projection of a very independent mind? Do we all have a little bit of extra-real tendencies? After all, the common phrase “your perception is your reality” speaks to the idea that each person perceives the world slightly differently. In this way, society overall has some sort of average perception of reality, which we all take to be truth. We all deviate from this mean, which causes each person to have a different personality. Some people may fall further than the mean from others, and they get labeled as ‘weird’ or in extreme cases ‘delusional.’

Ultimately, John Nash was crippled by the magnitude of his separation with the average perception of reality that the rest of society had. He was lucky to have such a wife to help him through the worst of his delusions. I hope that I have such a person in my life in the future. 

A Non-pragmatic approach

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Thinking about torture is a very present issue for me since I am planning on commissioning into the military. Personally, I am resolutely of the opinion that torture is not an effective method of obtaining critical information from prisoners. Many times over it has been shown that people will just say what they have to so that they stop getting tortured. There have also been numerous instances in the past ages of torture being used as a method just to get somebody to confess to a crime that they may have not actually committed.

You have to ask yourself, what would it be like to be strapped down to a table with a rag over your face and water poured over your mouth? It is completely impossible for anybody that has not had it done to them to actually imagine the experience. But I’ve had an MRI and even that was pretty bad — being restrained and put into a closed tube — and that was to help me! People who have been waterboarded say that it is the worst thing that they have ever had to do in their lives.

It is too easy to look at someone as simply an enemy. I know many friends that when asked about using torture would respond with something like “well they would do it to us, so the sob deserves it I guess.” But this kind of Tit for Tat thinking is precisely what allows torture to continue to be used in militaries. Often times it is not even for information, but for pure retribution.

Aside from all of this, I think that the most striking point made in the talk was that when torture is discussed in the political realm it is often projected purely hypothetically and cerebrally. “Does it work?” I think that a very valid point that he brought up, however, is that torture should not be an issue that is allowed to be thought of simply as a tool which happens to be not such a pleasant one to use. The other implications and ramifications of using torture should be thought about certainly before, and probably in place of, the logical and practical application side of torture methods.

The biggest threat

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Dr. Strangelove depicts the ominous and everpresent worry about an unstable person with power who has the ability to cause damage to a lot of people. The world of nuclear strategy is endlessly complicated with many levels of secrecy. I often fear for the safety of the country because of irrational foreign leaders, and the world-wide system of nuclear deterrent by armament.

Ultimately, I imagine that under sane control, the world is likely to not come to an end with a nuclear holocaust because few would really want that to happen. However, if there were a person in control who was delusional or homicidal, the delicate balance of nuclear prevention could fall. This is why it is imperative that the people in charge of the nuclear codes for any country be completely and utterly reliable. They must be regularly screened for mental illness and there must be many failsafes in the event that someone tries to take matters into their own hands.

I think one of the biggest threats to the world is nuclear sabotage. If some terrorist organization were able to hack into nuclear codes of any country and launch them at another country, the attacked country would respond with and equal and opposite force of nuclear weapons resulting in massive destruction. I think it is important that nations across the globe reduce their numbers of nuclear weapons so that if there was an accident or sabotage, there would still be a small faction of a change that the world was not entirely destroyed.

Transcending expectations

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Gattica represents the vision of a world where discrimination is put in the form of science. Science is based on rationality. Therefore, the world that has been created in this movie is one where discrimination has been adequately rationalized by society. The genetically superior humans are allowed to have pretty much anything that they want. In fact, one of the most influential factors in viability for a potential partner is a digital readout of their genetic makeup. All other factors seem largely negligible.

The inspirational part is how someone can still transcend such a system which is so meticulously created in order to prohibit upward social mobility for those who are a member of the lower class. There are people like that in today’s society, and we revere them. The people who come from a background of every disadvantage, but still manage to persevere and find success in any manner of ways.

A thorough tour

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The three person panel on immigration came at a valuable time for many others and me to comprehend the nuances behind president trump’s executive order. The most illuminating member of the board was longtime professor of law, Steve Millerman. He began by explaining what had actually happened, saying on jan 25 3 there were multiple executive orders. The travel ban exec order, which prohibited people from 7 countries for 90 days from entering the country. A ban on travel from Syria, and a 120 day refugee ban – which is currently on hold. He then asked the question: what does this hold mean? Apparently, he said, it will take a couple of weeks for the federal district court to make a decision. Trump is not so resolute about what he will do with the executive order, whether he will revise the order, or maybe scrap it altogether. Historically, Donald Trump has been known to make a fast decision, and if it doesn’t work out, instead of finessing in order to fix the problem, he is more likely to scrap the idea and start something new. This method has been a large factor in his success as a businessman and entrepreneur.

The ban is a symptom so so-called islamaphobia, which has been developing over the past decade in the United States. Such factors as the ‘united states of jihad’ (which describes American citizens who convert to terrorism) scare Americans into xenophobic practices. But, most often, these fears are quite unfounded. Opponents of refugee bans site may statistics, but one which is especially potent is the fact that no refugees from primarily islamic countries have ever committed acts of terrorism on the U.S. mainland. Trump claims to want to defeat ISIS, however, if trump truly wants to defeat ISIS, then he has to partner with some of the islamic states. The United States cannot defeat an enemy when, in the region in which it is fighting, Americans are viewed as the enemy as well.

On a positive note, however, the robust reaction from the united states civil society and academia is very promising, showing that not all Americans believe in the changes that are happening with these controversial policies.

Extreme Demands and Retaliation

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I had never heard about the Attica Prison uprising — a fact which happened to be significant to Dr. Heather Ann Thompson’s Tuesday Talk. The levels of deception and misdirection employed by the state of New York in order to cover up the fiasco seem limitless. By controlling the media that was present during the uprising, they effectively snubbed the free press, and instead created their own press which would broadcast the message that they wanted  the public to know. The already high resentment towards prisoners was used to the advantage of the state, because they knew that they could attract an angry mob of followers who would not only passively go along with the story, but who would also actively participate in the crimes against the prisoners.

The prisoners were surprisingly coordinated in their attempt to bargain with the system. Not many would have guessed that a group of prisoners would be able to work together and achieve a social goal. However, their intentions were muddied by ridiculous request on behalf of some of the prisoners. There were many things wrong with the system that could have been fixed such as better living conditions, food, and resources.  These commodities were well within the reasonable range of things to ask for. Unfortunately, some of the incarcerated were requesting things like complete amnesty or passage to another country. These requests undermined the intent of the group of men who were advocating for a better prison system. It would be ridiculous for the state to give a group of prisoners amnesty simply because they managed to overthrow the guards and take them hostage. And even though they couldn’t be sure that the state would actually see all of their demands through, asking for reasonable demands would have been a more effective bargaining method.

Because of the extreme demands of some of the prisoners, the state was able to make a case for ignoring all of their demands. And, given the high racial and social tensions of the time, was able to galvanize a group of angry young men to retake the prison under the banner of justice.

The incident raises good questions about the nature of our justice system. Our current train of thought seems to err on the side of simply locking someone up and not allowing them to come back to society for a long time. While they’re gone, we forget about them, and when they come back, we treat them as if they are tainted with something foul. Dr. Thompson adeptly pointed out that if someone feels like the system is terminally against them, they will be terminally against the system and never will be able to function as a productive member of society.

Tom Brady is Awesome

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Leading up to the Super Bowl, I had been seriously worried about the prospect of a Patriots win. While they had a terrific run with some blowout season victories, the likelihood of the Patriots offense to capitalize against the stolid Atlanta defense seemed impossible. This theory seemed to be corroborated at halftime and sealed even more with the Falcons first touchdown in the second half. As a Pats fan, this was deeply troubling.  However, Chris Hogan, Danny Amendola, and Julian Edelman’s powerful receiving skills, accenting Tom Brady’s fantastic arm won the day. 

This win solidifies Tom Brady as the best QB ever! He also shares my name (this is primarily why I like him). He is he best QB there is when he has time, and once the offensive line started defending him properly he crushed the defense!