Entries Tagged 'thoughts' ↓

First off, Alex loves muppets, as can be seen from this pic:

Secondly: Okay okay okay okay okay I totally want to make one of these! But, unlike the guy in the video, I will not be doing any experiments at borders near where I live. I can only imagine the body-cavity searches I’d have to endure before finally convincing them that this is not, in fact, any kind of weapon.

In other news, I am (as usual) extremely disapppointed in the willingness of the American public (including myself) to be  manipulated by our leaders. Here are some highlights:

• Obama capitulated on the FISA bill — which he previously promised to fight tooth and nail –  and thereby actively participated in solidifying and legalizing the expansion of presidential powers, reduction of domestic freedoms, and criminal activities of this administration. I know I already blogged this, but I only have 3 readers anyway, and I hope they’ll forgive me for continuing to be pissed about this. I’m wondering if Obama-as-president would be an executive version of the disapointment that is Nancy Pelosi. You know, failing to do much of anything he said he’d do.
• Not to be out-caputulated, the Supreme Court refused to hear environmental lawsuits against the Department of Homeland Security about their little multi-billion-dollar border project down there. But there is still hope: Homeland Security isn’t just giving itself unconstitutional authority to ignore environmental law; it’s insisting it gets to ignore all the laws, precedents and human rights it feels are standing in the way of its effort to get the Border Fence constructed before someone figures out what a bad idea this is.
• Despite Certoff’s claims (don’t get me started on that guy…) to the contrary, global terrorism is much, much worse since we began our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

aaaaaand back to work.

Sigh. And sigh again. I have been moderately excited about Barack Obama as a presidential candidate, especially in contrast to the nominees that the GOP produced. And I probably would have voted for Asmodeus if he was Hillary Clinton’s opponent. I don’t think I’ve blinded myself to the planks of Obama’s platform that are in some conflict with  my morals and ideals, but I considered (and still do, I guess) his potential positive effects to be more than sufficient to outweigh them, when compared to the other presidential alternatives.

Sadly, the other shoe has begun to drop. Perhaps, now that he’s no longer campaigning against a fellow Democrat for Democratic Party votes, he’s shifting strategies, being “pragmatic,” or something. This means, apparently, campaigning like a true politician. The most recent annoyances:

1. HE SIGNED THE FRICKIN’ FISA BILL! To be fair, he expressed deep regrets and a promise to keep fighting, but he still signed it. He signed it despite a promise last Fall to filibuster any bill with retroactive telecom immunity in it. So, the value of Obama’s promises is now lower. Not as low as McCain’s (not for a long while, yet), but still, lower. His high ground is getting muddy.

2. Obama now has one foot on the “Bomb Iran” bandwagon. He is following McCain’s and Bush’s footsteps in exaggerating Iran’s known military nuclear capabilities. This is very disturbing to me. Not good. One hint about why he might be doing this comes from his attempts to beat McCain to the pro-Israel votes. In an AIPAC speech recently, he threw them some bones, such as classifying Iran as “always” having been a greater threat to Israel than Iraq. Of course, he’s nowhere near the bellicosity of McCain’s AIPAC speeches, but we already knew that McCain is both ideologically hawkish, and also probably pretty confused about the Middle East in general.

3.  Obama used that fake presidential seal for a few minutes. Okay, that’s not such a terrible sin, especially since it was clearly fake (and also perhaps a bit tongue-in-cheek, a fact completely lost on Obama-haters). The problem, for me, is that’s the kind of thing Republicans usually do. I guess he’s decided he should emulate their tactics… or something…?

I guess the honeymoon has to end sometime. Obama’s has ended here, for me. He’s still — so far — the candidate I find least distasteful, by a long shot, but he’s a politician. He has demonstrated that, for the votes, he will use at least some of the same stupid tricks the other politicians use.

I was in Gore Park last night, taking this picture. I shot nearly 30 individual frames, and used 2 of them, with tone-mapping, to create this shot. I’m fairly pleased with it. It was intended as a background for a shot I took of the Constant k cast on the set. Sadly, the latter pic didn’t turn out (curses!). But I’m working on alternatives.

Anyway, I think I’m becoming paranoid. A guy came and chatted a little with me about my camera, and I chatted back. Then, as abruptly as he had shown up, he said his brief goodbye and left. This rattled me. I finished up, packed up, and walked back to the car, looking over my shoulder, so to speak (and sometimes literally) every 30 seconds or so. I passed the guy on the other side of the fountain, talking on a payphone. I passed other guys. Some of them were on payphones. I guess I wouldn’t have been so weirded out, except that the car was parked, all by its lonesome, down 3 nearly deserted, dark streets. Great place to get mugged.

Nothing happened, of course. I blame my paranoia on my poor sleeping yesterday.

Totally unrelated to the photo: I was searching for wedding photos today, and I found one of the alternate texts for the wedding announcement Alex and I eventually sent out. Background: I was not very motivated to do any of the planning for the wedding, so my ever-ingenious wife did almost everything (not to slander Amanda, who also did almost everything). I am still not sure why we didn’t use this text for the official announcements. It’s pretty awesome, yo:

Pic: A.J. Haygarth pondering the absurdity of The Constant K

The Constant K is an absurdist play. I gots no issues with that. It understands its own absurdity. Current U.S. politics, however, are a different matter. At times, it seems we’re supposed to pretend we don’t notice the absurdity of certain things happening around us¹. Here are some insane bits:

•  An interesting graph of false statements made by the Bush administration, month by month, 2001 - 20003. Increasingly, as journalists wake from the daze they’ve been in for the last 7 years, they’re discovering that many of these false statements were probably made with a full understanding of their falsehood. And, of course, they were integral in shoring up public support for a war against a nation that had not seriously threatened the U.S.
• Kucinich introduces articles of impeachment, the mainstream media doesn’t seem to think this newsworthy.
• The major media outlets also don’t seem to think it’s very interesting that the Pentagon clearly colluded with the Bush Administration  to manipulate analysis and coverage of the war effort, creating a machine that presented the administration’s talking points as if they were independent opinions by nonbiased individuals.
• My lovely government, pushed by huge wads of cash from failing media dinosaurs, apparently shoved a DMCA-style copyright law down Canada’s throat a few days ago, by threatening to make the border harder to cross if my adoptive nation didn’t appease the big labels.
• Finally–insanely–This document from 2001 suggests that the people who work to keep us safe have been taking Neurolinguistic Programming seriously! GAH! We might as well base our criminal justice policy on phrenology, with judges and juries using tarot cards in tie-breaker situations.

Sheesh. I’m done for today.

1. kind of like in 1984 [↩]

Warning: possible spoilers. Maybe. If you’re concerned, then don’t read this.

I just watched the mid-season finale of Battlestar Galactica. First, I have to say I approve of the particular cliffhanger that was chosen. Second, I totally called it!!! Third, now that some of the Big Questions have been resolved (in ways I wholeheartedly approve of), we are free to consider some of the much more interesting questions raised through the series, such as:

• What, exactly, is meant by “all of this has happened before…?”
• Tigh suggests that the Final Four are fundamentally different from other Cylons. In what way(s)?
• Haven’t we heard that the Final Five have been to Earth? How the heck does that work? When did they have the time?
• What, exactly, does the Cylons’ God want from them?
• OperaHouseRunningStealingHybridBabyWTF?!?
• Someone/something is guiding humans & Cylons toward Earth. Who/what is it, and (especially in light of last week’s episode), with what purpose?
• What the freaking blue heebie-jeebies happened to Kara Thrace, and is she even Kara anymore?
• Okay, I admit I’m also interested in who/what the final Cylon is. Caprica Six said it was “very close,” but D’Anna said it was not part of the fleet. It will be interesting to see what odd category it fits into, now that it seems to have been ruled out of all reasonable categories.

I didn’t think BSG could capture my attention again, after I got Seriously Disillusioned with the show (which seemed to have given up on itself) in the middle of season 2. But I’m captivated, once again. I can’t wait for the final episodes in the Fall.

If you have more questions and/or any answers to these, I’m certainly open to all speculation.

Pic: Steel plant in Hamilton Harbour, with Deadly Aura of Darkness

We did the nose… and the hat. But she’s still a witch! Yeah, I darkened the sky a bit. It was a very nondescript pale blue, before. And this photo is more germane to my topic, which is…

POLITICS!!!!11!1!!

Okay, so if you’ve read any of my politics posts lately, you know that I’m highly disillusioned with the Republicans, but not much more fond of the Democrats. The whole partisan system is deeply flawed. But there is fun, exciting light on the horizon. This interesting and contentious race might (you know, slim possibility) lead to…

Last-minute Republican Candidate Switch!

Good for America? Probably not¹. Entertaining? Hell, yes! Sadly, some pundits’ predictions of a major split in the Democratic party² will probably not play out, now that things have been resolved (relatively) peacefully. But I can still hope. This country needs a viable, enduring third party that can repeatedly threaten the power bases of the existing two. Maybe Ron Paul and his buddies can get something started with their Constitutionalness, but numbers-wise, they’re looking a little like Ross Perot a few elections ago. So, I was excited at the thought of the Democrats splitting down the middle, in a year when they were on top of the presidential race.

alas, it is not to be. Sigh.

1. it really depends on who they pick, but anyone who cozies up to Bush ’s more bellicose and/or anticonstitutional policies is not getting my vote [↩]
2. sorry; couldn’t find a link; last time I saw a reference to this particular prediction was a couple of months ago, when Hillary seemed to have a chance [↩]

Picture: Jeff Santa Barbara, Constant K Director, looks pleased, despite his dark and gloomy surroundings.

The Constant K Determines the Ultimate Fate of the Universe opened last night. It was rough in some places, but overall a success. It will just get better across performances, too :) I discovered that I am no longer the boy who could not get enough stage time, back in my early 20s: I was nothing but relieved when my 5 minutes of fame was over.

In other news, it occurred to me that we need a glossary for the show (no, I’m serious), so here it is.

Altruism

Performing a helpful act without any selfish motivations; helping purely to help the individual in need, or for helping’s sake alone.

Comet

(See Meteor/Meteorite, Tumbleweed)

Dawkins, Richard

Popular ethologist and evolutionary biologist, originally prominent for his book The Selfish Gene, a seminal text for sociobiology, and for developing and popularizing the theory memes. Although he was originally known for his scientific contributions, he is lately more famous for using his considerable intelligence and education to browbeat and humiliate less-educated religious people in public forums.

Continue reading →

Rakhee Totally rocks… not that you can tell from this picture.

Alex’s first play this summer is Lee Blessing’s Two rooms. It’s painfully, heart-wrenchingly horribly sad. It’s the story of a husband and wife. He is blindfolded, handcuffed and regularly beaten by his Lebanese terrorist captors. She, back home, lives in self-imposed isolation and austerity, to share the experience with him, since she can’t get him released.

Rakhee Sapra (above) plays the wife. Alex plays the State Department worker assigned to manage her. There are only four actors, but it’s very powerful. That means people (possibly including me… I admit nothing) cry. Last night, the show got a standing ovation. Yay! I didn’t even start it! Yay!

I must say that all four actors are outstanding, my wife most wholeheartedly included.

Sadly, the show right before it (it’s been double-billed) is, in my opinion, not so good. It’s an interesting effort by a student writer, but it seems to boil down to all the sexual, scatological and drug content of shows like Up in Smoke and Clerks, without any of the original or socially redeeming bits.

On the plus side, the people who aren’t frightened away by that tend to really appreciate something substantial and satisfying right afterward.

Go Alex!

Addendum:  after a sort of creepy anonymous comment on this post (hinting at the possibility of negative social consequences of my negative statements), I have decided to expand my review of the play preceding Two Rooms. I wouldn’t want people to think I just hated it, flat out. In fact, the first play had some strong points. There were several chuckles and a few belly laughs yanked from my abdomen, and some of the physical acting and comedic timing was especially humorous. The actors, most of the time, put forth solid efforts. Unfortunately, the writing seemed to me, as I have mentioned, a collection of clichéd comedic elements from a style of movies that have become ubiquitous and played-out in recent years. I had the distinct impression that the shock-value-humor element was overdone in the context of the other elements, leaving me with a bad taste in my mouth and insufficient justification for having acquired it. Part of this bad taste involved a little gratuitous sexual prejudice and some probably-unintentional-but-still-problematic victim blaming and/or misogyny. However, I am still impressed by the fact that an undergrad wrote this. It flows nicely from moment to moment, it has coherent plotting, it has reasonably well-defined characters, and (as I said before), there are some genuinely funny moments. By the standards of professional scripts, it would not fare well, but by the standards of undergraduate work, I suspect it shines quite respectably.

Grackle trapped in Houston Hobby, far out of my reach

Recent report of a woman who remembers everything¹. Every detail of her life for every day, every hour, every minute. Sound like a useful trick? It’s also extremely unpleasant, apparently:

“But I also recall every bad decision, insult and excruciating embarrassment. Over the years it has eaten me up. It has kind of paralysed me.”

“Most have called it a gift. But I call it a burden. I run my entire life through my head every day and it drives me crazy!”

A few individuals with similar conditions have been studied through the decades (e.g., the Soviet neuroscientist Aleksandr Luria’s patient “S“, detailed in The Mind of a Mnemonist), and they generally find ways to use their memory powers for some kind of benefit. But they also tend to report unpleasant side effects, one of which is an inability to “filter” memories. This is Not a Good Thing.

Our long-term memory systems are massively self-organizing, and reducing the probability of recall for certain items is a key part of the organizational strategy. In other words, forgetting is very important. Also, apparently, it makes you happier.

Perhaps I’ll get started on some forgetting, right now. There are some past incidents I would dearly love to become less aware of.

1. Well, since she was 14, anyway [↩]