Two Unrelated Topics

I really like what I've read of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, the stream of consciousness style is really interesting and it keeps me paying attention to what Oskar is talking about. I don't know if Safran-Foer is accurately representing the mind of an autistic kid seeing as neither he nor I have been diagnosed with the disorder, but it certainly seems pretty realistic and gives me a really new viewpoint on the topic. Sometimes I get the feeling that Safran-Foer is being a little pretentious in his attempt to be profound and that he's exploring his own thoughts and not necessarily the character's thoughts, but that's not often and his ideas in the book are pretty cool anyway.

Recently there has been a lot relating to Egypt in the news. This is because they are beginning the process of drafting a Constitution, the first in the coutry's history. This is very exciting because it means that ideas which began back in 2011 during the Arab Spring are being acted on. There is less sensationalism surrounding these recent events, but I think they will turn out to be more important because this is really what will finalize democracy in Egypt.

Sexism in the Movies

Recently I read an article in the New York Times Magazine (being the elitist that I am) about the extreme age differences in onscreen couples. This was especially prevalent in the forties and fifties, most notably Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in the movie To Have and Have Not, Bogart was forty-four and Bacall was nineteen, and a year after filming the movie, the two married. Of course, To Have and Have Not is a wonderful movie and I recommend it to anyone who is okay with watching movies in black and white, but it is a love story, and the age difference only serves to reinforce sexism in the movies regardless of whether the two were in love in real life. In The Graduate, a movie that might seem free of this kind of thing, Anne Bancroft (Mrs. Robinson) and Dustin Hoffman (Benjamin Braddock) were only six years apart. This is a good example of how a woman's age can heavily and unjustly affect people's perception of beauty while for men, age is a very minor factor, and even if they do really look old in the eyes of others words like "distinguished" are used to cover up the fact that they are at an age when a woman's beauty would most likely be dismissed regardless of whether it is present. This is monstrously unfair, but I also see no clear end to this objectifying practice as it is an major facet of the ingrained sexism that still survives in America today.

All respect to Meryl Streep for managing to repeatedly defeat this stereotype well into her sixties. 

Capture the Fall

                          

This is my capture the fall project. I shot it with a point and shoot camera. Special thanks to my sister Rosie and my cat Milo.

I would have liked to shoot this with a better camera because the quality is on the low side and some of the trees could have looked really cool with a better camera. Also, it's very shaky so that is something I'll need to work on for the next individual assignment.

Good TV

Some TV shows are really bad, probably most that exist today. But, there are some that are very good. The series Homeland took away a lot of awards for it's first season that aired last year. I've been watching the beginning of it on disc, and from what I've seen, it's a good show. It's very tense, and the plot is a little unorthodox focusing on two characters who rarely encounter eachother, but the dialogue and the cinematography are very cool. It's about a CIA operative and a recently released prisoner of war from Iraq, and it focuses on the former's constant paranoia and the latter's struggle to live a normal life. The other show that I've been watching old episodes from is called Justified. It's much less popular and as far as I know, hasn't won any awards, but I think it's the best TV show out there. The main reason for this is that it's based on a book by Elmore Leonard, one of the greatest crime writers still alive. It's about a federal marshal who's sent back to his hometown in Kentucky for shooting a drug dealer in Miami. It's basically a cop show, but the criminals are all simpathetic in a twisted way, and the dialogue and acting are excellent and sometimes wryly hilarious. I would recommend both of these shows to just about anyone.

The Elusive Undecided Voters

Today I went to Fredericksburg, Virginia to knock on doors for the Obama camapign. This relates a little to  NSL because at this point the campaign has ruled out everyone in the area who strongly supports either side, so most of it was just making sure people who lean towards Obama knew where to vote and had a specific plan as to when. Basically, the campaign has abandoned persuasion and is only looking to reinforce its position with certain voters and to increase turnout. Nevertheless, I did encounter a couple undecided voters who were very interesting. First of all, the undecideds are always the ones who want to talk. Most people will just answer the questions as fast as possible, but the people who plan on voting but don't know who to support were very friendly and talkative. I met an auto mechanic who was out of work. His opinions were generally liberal, but he doesn't support the President because he hasn't seen any economic improvement and doesn't expect any in a second term. Meanwhile, he doesn't support Romney either because he beleives that Romney won't look out for working people. Although I support Obama and believe that he has taken important steps toward economic recovery, I sympathize with this person's viewpoint. He represents a whole lot of folks who find themselves utterly buried by the recession and who don't think that either candidate is really looking out for them, and that may be true. Obama and Romney both talk a whole lot about the middle class, but there are still lots of states where things are getting worse rather than better for those people. It's just been a really frustrating election year.

Have a good two days off, everyone!

To Kill A Mockingbird and The Help

Last year in English we all read The Help, and some of us, not me, read To Kill a Mockingbird. I got around to reading Harper Lee's classic for the first time this summer, and I also recently watched the 1962 movie starring Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch. When I read the book I was surprised to find that it shares a few shocking similarities with The Help. They both depict small southern towns and focus on the white gentry while also making a point about the situation of black people in the South. Besides that, there is a short scebe in To Kill a Mockingbird in which Scout is coerced into joining her aunt Alexandra's social gathering. Lee depicts this as a really disgusting experience for Scout, who doesn't idnetify with any of the ladies at all, and is also surprised by their harshly racist conversation. It seems to me that Kathryn Stockett, the author of The Help, decided to explore this aspect of To Kill A Mockingbird in great detail in her book. But in this respect, The Help is flawed because instead of showing the repulsiveness of a gathering of rich prejudiced white women to play bridge, Stockett focuses on characters, some of who fit the situation, while others are made to be the heroes of the book just because they know they are living in an inherently unjust society. In this way, I think To Kill a Mocking bird far surpasses The Help as both a narrative and a commentary on the nature of societal problems in the South during Jim Crow.

The Debates

In the aftermath of the Obama-Romney debate it seems that the polls have shifted to favor Romney. This is probably because the media has reached a general consensus that Romney won. In my opinion, nobody won the debate in question, the two candidates took turns steamrolling the moderator and answering his questions in any way they saw fit. Furthermore, while it has been pointed out that Obama was much too passive that night, Romney's hyperactivity has not come under question. While I was watching their debate it seemed to me that while Obama was calm and collected, if sedentary, while Romney resembled a man who had been experimenting with cocaine.

Nevertheless, for all intents and purposes Romney won. This put all the more weight on the vice presidential debate aired last night. I watched the first hour and then turned the TV off because I found the debate unbearable. Both candidates made good points at times, but in between his speeches, Biden would smile ridiculously at the camera for minutes. This added to the fact that he appeared very confused and kept misstating numbers and facts gave the impression that he would lose. Meanwhile, Ryan kept himself from acting like a fool and so I found no real flaws with his performance except that I strongly disagree with every point he made. Because of this, I was surprised to find today that Thursday's debate was labeled as a draw if not a Biden victory. I have come to the conclusion that these debates are staged acts from start to finish, and the results are manipulated by the media to make for a more interesting race.