Cedar and Pine

The First Decade of the 21st Century

As we close out the year 2011, I can’t help but think of how changes eras and decades are hardly demarcated by easily defined base-ten markings. For example, the Clinton era and grunge music seems to demarcate the 90s, despite two years of the 90s already existing. Even in viewing larger historical consequences, Americans are taught that with the end of World War II, the 1950s began. Of course there are always transitions but it seems that certain events are viewed with such clarity as to easily pin point the instance of changes; others only in retrospect.

It seems that it would be easy to simply say the first decade of the 21st century is simply the “Bush era” or the era of the War on Terror; that from September 11th to the assassination of Osama Bin Laden easily demarcates the cultural shift in America. However, we can go beyond the decade of trauma and look at the shift in personal culture. As we often look at the decade as the era of drone warfare, extraordinary rendition, and other synonyms for the current predicament of semi-private global war (one could easily view the current war as fight between corporate markets and ideas of individualism/sovereignty) we may need to look into the changing sphere of private life.

The first iPod was released almost exactly a month after September 11th. Admittedly, Steve Jobs had already come back to Apple with the colorful iMac but it was the iPod that started the new cycle of clean and sparse design that became the hallmark of not only Apple but all other ideas of design. How much more slate and brushed aluminum has entered our lives since the addition of the monotonous color scheme of the iPod. As much as we now look to the clean look of the Mac OS, nothing has quite caught up with that first design.

I do not think that Apple as surpassed the implications of the War on Terror but it has certainly snuck into our lives that is only now quite understandable. Before the iPod, mp3s were not quite as easily accessible (Napster was shut down earlier in 2001), my first mp3 player required that I buy the codec for mp3 encryption, something I was loathe to do. But since 2001 music has become relatively free and similarly as Wikileaks goes on trial (Assange as well as Manning), we can see how information too is being liberated from institutions and easily dispensed through rapid communication services.

In a way, OWS, the Tea Party, the disillusionment with Barack Obama, and the treatment of bank institutions marks the turning point in American culture. For the last four decades the cynicism created by the events of the late 60s/early 70s have come to ahead, ideological cynicism has reached its peak. Instead of accepting the acts of big business or the federal government, people are taking movements to better understand and control their lives. The world of Apple and patriarchs of the current war may continue but the common person has left that dialogue for something more local.

Now the question remains if people will pay more attention to the actions in their immediate world as well as global implications of seemingly small events, or will we continue to focus on what Siri says in response to questions about HAL.

Worst Shows On Television: Terra Nova

The first thing one notices when watching Terra Nova is that it immediately doesn’t live up to the awesome concept it’s based on:

The earth is so thoroughly ecologically destroyed the only hope for humanity is to travel back in time and start over again before humanity even exists.

The show suffers from a similar problem that V faced; the events are so extraordinary but the response from characters is so underwhelming that the audience can’t possibly bother to care. When one travels back in time and is confronted with dinosaurs you’d expect some amazement as well as some trepidation when exploring a world inhabited by people-eating dinosaurs. But immediately everything is familiar and not the least bit scary.

Underneath this lackluster wonder at their new world, there is the opportunity for a real interesting plot. The show has touched very briefly on the fact that some people who have made this pilgrimage, Sixers (from the sixth pilgrimage), have some hidden agenda. Instead of taking a worthwhile page out of Red Mars or any other sci-fi drama about colonization, the Sixers are playing it close to the chest. Perhaps it will fall victim to the same problems as The Event, not allowing the audience to expect more from the show, in fact Flash Forward suffered from the same problem; the biggest event of the show occurs at the very end of the failed season.

The show suffers from maddening issues of consistency and idiocy. Por ejemplo:

1. Teenagers who grow moonshine outside the safety of their compound
2. A Birds influenced episodes with pterodactyls that are whisked away from the colony off screen.
3. In the future there are population quotas and yet the main character, a cop, has a third child and gets put in jail and escapes off screen.
4. Despite having scientists that are best in their fields, when there is an EMP, only the bartender can fix the computer chips.

There is certainly more holes in the plot than can be listed but the four above have stuck out. The plots frequently feel like failed Star Trek episodes, probably because of Brannon Braga helmed the end of the Star Trek TV franchise. I still watch it because I am curious about the overall plot but I certainly don’t have hope that this is a good story.

Is Capitalism Corrupt?

The very idea doesn’t seem to be one often contemplated and as OWS enters into a rather unseasonable November, I think it is worth noting how capitalism creates and accepts corruption. As Merriam-Webster defines corruption as the inducement to wrong by improper or unlawful means, the definition shows, there is a stimulation toward the action of corruption. In a society that abides by the belief that financial gain is a goal in itself. The black market is like any other market except for the question of its legality. Often when we think of corruption, we think of the black market, but perhaps it is worth noting that with the growth of the Occupy Movement, we are no longer looking at the black market as a corrupt system but at the legal economic system as corrupt.

Beyond the call for a fair economic system, we are looking at the space that divides the idea of profit that leads to company growth and innovation and looking at the idea of profit that is coveted above other financial/corporate practices. Does this show that capitalism is a corrupt system? Or perhaps the better question is, is capitalism corrupting? Why do we live in a system in which the infamous Ponzi Scheme can not only occur in 1910 but again a century later? So while some see corruption as alien from capitalism, it seems more that capitalism and corruption are simply delineated by the idea of what is legal. Some may look at the world and say, “We have capitalism, which works. We have democracy which works. All we have left is to end poverty, disease, and international conflict.” But wouldn’t (and shouldn’t) the response in turn be, “But we’ve always had these systems in place, what if poverty works because their is capitalism. After all, yes we can all hypothetically make wealth but by definition we cannot all become wealthy.”

November at OWS

As Occupy Wall Street continues into the month of November, a lot has changed since I first visited OWS about a month ago. The site of the protests is clearly more “hunkered” down than my initial visits. Yes the site is now about 50% tents while the food area, the media center, and the library have a much more defined area and structure. The debates, conversations, and open workshops are also better laid out. The limits placed on the drumming is certainly a godsend for the community and to be honest, I couldn’t see much of a tie between the goals of OWS and the drumming. It seemed like a simple coalescence of a certain scene. With all that said, I think the number one concern that I have had as well as others related to the number of homeless people who have come to call OWS their residence. 

There have been some conspiratorial talk that the New York Police Department have told the poverty stricken to head to OWS. Admittedly, there are two ways to view this. Either the NYPD is purposely trying to dismantle the cause through subverting it with New York City vagrants or the possibly more likely scenario that the police do not know what to do with these people that the state is not prepared to care for. So doing the best that many of the police can do, they’re directing them to the most affordable and perhaps most benevolent support in the city: OWS. I am not trying to paints the police as being a naive force for good but I do think that many of the police at Zuccotti Park cannot recognize the movement of OWS as anything more than certain class of people protesting. That is to say, certainly the people at Zuccotti Park  are the same as the homeless people who wander the city. Isn’t there a relief effort occurring right in Lower Manhattan? Of course this is not true but to the police the scene is exactly that.

Getting Axed: Deodorant, the Male Gaze, and Objectification

Another video that shows the humor of heterosexuality. The uncontrollable nature of how men respond to women, especially in the face of desire. Axe has a long history of displaying some form of objectification. Either insatiable women or in this case, men who are unable to control their own bodies. Here replacing the common conception of the uncontrollable penis for the uncontrollable arm pit.

Occupy Wall Street Observed

Although it has been far too long since I’ve updated this website thoroughly —mainly due to moving, grad school applications, internship applications, and all sorts of related things—I did want to relay my personal feelings having attended Occupy Wall Street half-a-dozen times.

To be honest, to call the people of Occupy Wall Street “an angry mob” or any other synonymous term would be silly. The over all since is one of solidarity with a common frustration. There is plenty of sloganeering and chanting but that has been simply around the concept of a shared experience. Frustrating and dissatisfaction runs through the crowd but only as a rallying cry to other.

The response from the right has been the most odious and perhaps even the most significant. Their response has been modulating between the idea of the angry mob to that of “dirty hippies”. And to be honest, there are those who fit the dirty hippy coinage but mostly you see adults between the age of 21-45. Most have been willing to discuss their politics which ranges from simple dissatisfaction to those who open wish to see a radical change in America.  It has been unfortunate that many on the left wish to ease those wary of OWS that they are in fact NOT socialists, communists, radicals, and anarchists. However, the motives and wishes of those involved, either voiced or not has been close in line to calling for drastic radical change.  

The most nerve raking events that I have noticed have all centered on singular officers in blue who stand apart from the other officers. That is to say, the police that I have felt fearful of have been those without anyone to communicate with. As many have reached out to the police to join on the side of the occupation, it seems harder to reach out to these lone officers who stand unhappily to the side with their hand on an unclipped holster. It worries me the most that these officers encircle the park fully armed, some with truncheons. Many have circulated on Facebook and other social media websites, the comparison of the Tea Party being armed populist and OWS being unarmed radicals. The response, especially from Fox News, has been the Tea Party was a real movement with real goals and OWS is an especially dangerous group. I must admit that if given the chance, the Tea Party wouldn’t know what to do if the government did butt out of their lives. Can one imagine the state without government protection, does one want the 1920s to return or the world of South American privatization under Pinochet and others?

Those on the right fear that OWS will (and wants) to turn the United States into the USSR, but that doesn’t seem to really be the case. In reality, the most likely scenario is that of a “social democrat’s” reform, government benefits for citizens, higher taxes, and a much more stable job market. Admittedly, I know close to nothing about economics but I do know that privatization does not lead to general prosperity to all. I do hope that OWS continues to offer the dialogue against privatization and the free market model; for that reason I will continue to support and get off the 4 train at Wall Street.

Disney Masculinity

God Has a Challenger

Masturbation and “Social Hygiene” in 1922