SIXinternational.txt

It’s been a fascinating year in politics, particularly for those of us who follow these sorts of things and are familiar with the historical trends. People will be talking about this primary season for generations, on the Democratic side especially but the Republican side as well, as the year that bucked every trend, confounded every conventional wisdom, and has completely flipped the direction each party was headed in before 2006. For the Democrats, this meant overturning the centrist triangulation of the Clinton/Gore2000 era, overcoming the mantra of “electability through blandness”, and nominating old guard party members whether they are the best candidate or not (from Mondale to Kerry). Much of this was thanks not a change in party mindset, though DNC Chairman Howard Dean and his 50-state strategy in 06 helped quite a bit, but to the internet finally coming of age politically - these tubes are finally old enough to have a say.

If not for the Obama campaign’s perfection of Dean’s ‘04 “netroots” activism tactics, Hillary Clinton would without a doubt be the Democratic Presidential nominee. But Obama’s success in this area has not only earned him somewhere in the region of $200 million so far (in the PRIMARIES for christ’s sake!), but more importantly from just shy of one million individual donors so far. These are previously unimaginable numbers, but with a trifecta of Obama’s message connecting with many people on an individual level, the campaign’s unmatched ability to organize on a grassroots level, and the ease of donating money through the internet, they have been able to show what a dinosaur the previously-formidable Clinton machine is and drop the metaphoric meteor on them, watching them slowly choke and die in the changing atmosphere.

Now even dinosaurs don’t die without a fight, as we can see with the Clinton campaign today (allegedly) circulating a photo of Obama in traditional Somali garb - which looks to Americans more like Muslim gear - and Hillary herself mocking Obama supporters as delusional people expecting “celestial choirs will be singing” when Obama is elected. And their inability to go quietly into that good night is what will ensure their irrelevance from here on out. Bill Clinton has done irreparable damage to his legacy with his race-baiting in South Carolina, and Hillary is possibly doing the same type of damage to her still-young Senate career with everything else. They are going all in on a bluff, an expectation that by throwing everything but the kitchen sink at Obama that they’ll find something that sticks. It hasn’t yet, and it won’t now that he’s the frontrunner by a wide margin.

Everyone else was able to bow out gracefully when it was clear there was no reasonable path to the nomination, from Dodd to Kucinich to Richardson to Edwards. Clinton is unable to do the same so far. We’ll see how she reacts after March 4th when she doesn’t win both OH and TX by the wide (20 points or more) margins that she needs to stay in the race delegate-wise. In fact, I’m going to guess she won’t even win TX. And OH is still up in the air.

I’ll save real reflections for when it’s officially decided - hell, anything can happen, if this race has shown us anything so far. But I predict anything but a graceful exit from Mrs Clinton if and when the time comes, especially if that time is anywhere after March 5th. And from that point onward in the world of politics, I think we’ll be referring to the Clintons’ relevance in the past tense.

Another recent movie, slightly lower on my scale than No Country but still fantastic is There Will Be Blood, written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Dano. These three people, and mostly the first two, are who make the movie what it is, everyone else is very minor. Each plays their role brilliantly and masterfully, no doubt there, but I think the fact that the movie can be summarized down to two people is both powerful and ultimately less fulfilling than a true ensemble like No Country. Though distinctly different, the two movies have many ties between them, not the least of which is the landscape as a character. In both of these movies, the harshness of the West plays a clear role in both setting the mood and forming the personalities of the characters. As a northeasterner who has never been to the southwest US, it is an alien and engrossing setting. Johnny Greenwood’s score is also fantastic, working to enhance our experience of the strange, desolate landscape and era, similar to how Ennio Morricone’s scores enhanced Sergio Leone’s classic spaghetti Westerns.

However, unlike the general symbolisms that No Country discusses, Blood is more straightforwardly and plainly about American Capitalism and the greed, negativity, and isolation that comes with being a successful capitalist in America, particularly in the early 1900s. Daniel Plainview, as rich and unique a character as he may be, is clearly a capitalist everyman. Capitalism is a very mixed subject for most people; it has its excesses and inhumanities, but it also (ideally) provides opportunity and equality. I think Plainview embodies both sides of this to the keen viewer’s eye.

Paul Dano’s character, Eli Sunday, is also an interesting symbol for religion in America, though less so than Plainview representing capitalism. Interestingly, Sunday may not be his own symbol but may also be representative of the capitalist influence on religion.

Regardless of what symbolizes what, Blood is another fantastic movie with similar stylings as No Country. This will be another instance where I plan to buy the collector’s edition.

Soon: my take on the 2008 Presidential primaries so far.

Science is the culmination of humanity. It is our collective brain, engaging the logic and rationality of any interested member in the entire species to solve problems and define the rules and laws of our universe. It is our greatest achievement, with the discovery of science allowing us to grow by leaps and bounds. Science allowed us to become meaningfully educated and grow our society’s health and wealth by exponential leaps and bounds.

It is for these reasons that I believe fully that science must be our primary focus in both education and government funding, and that NASA should receive at least triple the relatively small budget it has now ($16bn versus currently $490bn for defense spending). Yes we should go back to the Moon, yes we should explore other planets with robots and probes, yes we should colonize Mars, yes we should invest in high speed space exploration vehicles. We must do this not just to expand our knowledge of the known universe, but to increase the speed at which we get off of this Earth. Sooner than we know, we’ll be facing major shortages in food, water, fuel, and living space. Our footprint on this Earth is massive - though we can fit 8 million people into 300 square miles in New York City, it takes an additional 2000 square miles of upstate watershed land just to keep the city quenched. We can’t sustain this type of living for the three to five billion more people we’re going to add over the next 40 years.

I have heard people say that we should not explore space until we’ve fixed the problems we have on our planet. I find this to be illogical - we will never live in a society without poverty, hunger, disease, or death. It is noble to invest in AIDS and cancer research, it is noble to try to extend and increase happiness found in human lives, it is noble to fight the elements that cause social injustice. It is noble, but it is ultimately futile and short-sighted. There is only so much that can be done; we will never live in Utopia. But our world will become drained of arable land and fresh water reserves, and no one knows exactly when. Or maybe we’ll face multiple nuclear bombs or a wayward asteroid like all of those movies predicted in the late ’90s. The only way to survive this or any other crazy, unthinkable, yet completely plausible event is to focus on finding new colonies to settle our species upon. By staying on Earth and Earth alone, we are keeping all of our eggs in one chaotic basket. I think this is irresponsible for anyone who cares about our future.

The only logical argument I see against this is that trying to build light-speed devices with current technology is Columbus begging the Queen of Spain for funding to research the dual-core processor. I don’t know how far away the goals of extra-solar travel are, but at the very least we must begin to lay the groundwork for these goals with extensive government funding of science and a much greater improved focus on science education. We should be ashamed to live in a country where 51% of us think that God created humans in their present form.

I know science is a difficult subject to become involved in without a preexisting interest in it, but if anyone is interested in expanding their world view, especially in terms of our place in the universe, the starting point is always the same: Carl Sagan. A quick quote on perspective from him based on looking at this last image ever sent from Voyager I in 1990 looking back at Earth:

Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.

Yes, for the moment, Earth is where we make our stand - but hopefully not for much longer. We’ve already begun discovering solar systems similar to our own (one found after six tries with a new method - I’d say that’s a pretty good chance there’s habitable areas out there), all that’s left is the will to take us there.

I recently downloaded No Country For Old Men (:filez:) and absolutely fell in love with it. The adaptation from Cormac McCarthy’s work is impressive, and with an author well known for his symbolism, the Coen Brothers carry over the symbols effectively yet leave plenty up for interpretation. I could go into detail about what I feel the characters represent but I’d prefer to leave that to the viewer. Ultimately the movie is about the conflicts between old and young, fate and chance, good and evil - with good and evil having by far the most grey area between them in which where every character falls. The movie ends with a soliloquy from the Ed Tom Bell character, and while initially disappointing upon first impact with all of the action leading up to it and the expectation for a huge blowout at the end, it really is fitting that the movie end with an introspective, bleak whimper that makes us fear aging for more reasons than coming closer to death. Anyways, I’ve seen it twice and I can’t wait to see it again, and it’s been a long time since I’ve felt that way about a movie.

And although it was much better seeing it in its glory in the theatre, I was surrounded on three sides by old people ‘whispering’ about the movie (including 10 minutes spent trying to think of the name “Tommy Lee Jones”) at a level that is considered talking by 90% of human beings today.

I received some minor satisfaction when they all were disappointed by the ending.

For me, this movie is a “go see it in the theatre and then buy it the collector’s edition on DVD”. I loved it and look forward to further analyzing the meaning behind it for years to come.

I never stick with blogging for long so this should be a quick demise here.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is good - I was only a few years behind the trend here. On this topic, I expect to use this blog to talk about whatever I’m currently into, philosophically, artistically, technologically. Right now I am getting back into movies and have seen some good ones lately - I will update with reviews soon.