I'm so glad we've gotten past this way of thought... oh wait, no we haven't, not yet anyways, or completely.
Well actually I didn't laugh, I was made sick by it. It made me sick to see something I knew of, it made me sick to see the media support the way of thought without question. It made me sick to see such disgust for a group of people, as well as seeing people being referred to in ways that animals are referred to. So very strange to see something like this, this is only 43 years ago. Think about that for a second, 43 years ago, I can't tell if I should be disgusted by this or if I should be happy about this... I guess a bit of both. This is only two generations ago. Let me repeat this, two generations ago we have repelled against the 1960's progressive movement with absolute hatred and disgust for a movement we should still be thankful of today.
But it also makes me thankful. Within that period of time, people have changed. The 1960's has changed people into eventually becoming more accepting, more loving, and less restricted in conversation. Hell at this same period of time, as referenced in the report, Great Britain was in the process of changing their laws and beliefs. Funny enough, it was an elitist who had learned from the social movement at the time, who had changed the laws (More on that at a later date). The point is that within such a quick period of time, we have changed our beliefs system. =======================================
This brings me to another topic. Recently I had a conversation with someone regarding the human race becoming much worse to others, and I had asked myself a simple but also impossible question to answer. If we are becoming worse, then how is it that all the social progress was made over the past 40 years was actually made. I asked him this question right away, then he stopped and thought about it. Humans are very cruel, very angry, and very estranged creatures, but we are capable of this unity and support and love. This poses another question, are we becoming better? Then another question, how was this progress made if people were elected to support the status quo? My head hurt by then, and so did his. He had been paraphrasing his Environmental Ethics professor, whom I had met before. I wondered what would happen if I had asked these questions to her. I wonder what would happen if I wrote all of this down within a flow chart. No more thinking about it, it's tough to try to challenge hegemony when we realize that there's no real permanent way to fix the system without completely scrapping the whole thing down. =======================================
I should simply take comfort that weeks from now, I will be able to hold my boyfriend within my arms lovingly without the fear of being harassed by a bunch of young people. Blissful ignorance is truly a wonderful thing.
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I've said it before, I hate the language laws here, they are an obvious prejudiced attempt to show how much Quebec hates English Canadians by limiting their ability to converse in the province. While at the same time destroying the French language by making a mockery of it in everyday speech (French readers will know that the phrase "Dans mon livre à moi" is filled with enough errors to make your head explode) and in simply making the people who identify themselves as French Canadian looking like total jerks. Although many are, believe me, in this short time period of four weeks I've had enough French speaking customers be pissed off at me when I say "Hello" before "Bonjour". It's simply silly is all.
So no, in summary. I didn't get the game and I might not considering how bloody idiotic the shipment schedule is here. Apparently in the 3 stores I've been to just the two hours ago do not carry the English versions. Because Quebec has a stranglehold on all English medias that come here, thus making the purchasing power for those who want the real product very much limited. Chances are I won't be able to play the game for a few more days, so I can wait. Generally I wouldn't be pissed off, but the language laws put me out of 79 dollars in my attempts to buy Mass Effect 2. Apparently stores don't take things back 3 hours after you buy it *facepalm*, which is stupid again, and I would have been able to avoid losing that 79 dollars had I been informed that there were a few more changes and alterations to the implementation of the laws.
Grr, Murphy's Law is a jerk. An entire week of pay is gone because of stupid prejudiced laws. How wonderful, I knew this was going to happen, I expected the worse and this is what I get. ========================================== The blog series is on hold until this whole thing gets sorted out and I'm not out of 150 dollars. Essentially, next week it'll start.
Yes, you read that correctly. Minus 1, because I can't necessarily play a game if it's not in the right darn language I want it to be. I purchase my copy, I get home, I pop the disk in my console (Don't think of the word "pop" in the literal sense, think "I placed the disk in my console") and I go to the menu. It's all in French, so I have to return it and get my English copy a bit later. So progress report, I didn't get past the title screen.
THANKS QUEBEC LANGUAGE LAWS!
So... this is already off to a great start. What a weird ass day. My hair looks weird after it had been... "worked on", and I'm not really happy with it, at least not now. I get the wrong copy of a game I wanted to buy. And someone asked me if we could date to which I replied in the worst sense possible. By bringing attention to the upcoming comment unaware of what was going to be said, and then saying no. I feel like a prick, then again, it goes beyond weird for someone to ask that after knowing them for the better part of 2 days. Although I'm quite guilty of that myself.
Part 0 will come up tomorrow. It'll just be a character description thing, and considering that I do not have either of my characters from Mass Effect 1 by my side (Thank you Microsoft hardware), I'll just try and remember what karma orientation one of them was at by the end of the game. Oh, and I'll definitely play a female Sheppard. I'm not in the mood for the declarative readings of the male Sheppard.
Yeah, I'm lazy, I won't post part 3 for a while due to the fact that it is still being edited (Splitting it in two for length, shortening it because it is 2000 words long, still not done). So consider this an assignment of light reading and watching. This is pretty much all the stuff that I've read/viewed this week or have had the attention brought to this week, some of it good, some of it painfully bad, and others funny in content. Why not right? I might as well use this as an indication that I'm still alive for those of you who are worried.
Update: Haven't played any games for the past week, is something wrong with me? Or am I just too busy focusing on school work? I'll let you figure that out, because I'm too busy doing class readings to come to any conclusion on the matter. Still haven't gotten a new console yet, the current one is in the process of dying though, so I'm sure it will be soon.
The last time I had opened her book was actually a few months ago, it was sitting on my bookshelf and I was in the middle of getting out a treasury of Edward Albee plays. Quick note, if you have the time to read any of his work, do so now. I had thought, perhaps I should give it a shot, can't hurt to try and actually read her book unlike in High School. In fact, reading her book would be an expansion of knowledge, even though the knowledge I gain is undeniably false. At least I would finally be reading some unique right-wing perspectives on things. Right?
Umm, no. Not even remotely unique. Essentially this was social values marketed as ethical debate. In the second page, she quotes Tony Blair regarding cultural globalization. Something, which I find absolutely ridiculous from the start. I begin to understand exactly why I put the book down. This was about 3 months ago, I had decided to not read The Goat or Who is Sylvia and go on to read "The Ethical Imagination", a book in which I had dreaded the first time. The second time is the exact same, I put the book down, I place it back in the bookshelf and walk away with the perplexed look on my face. I then proceed to play whatever game I had in mind, of which I don't remember. Third time, which was a few hours ago, is the exact same as well. I got to the end of the first chapter, but this time it is different. I have more understanding by my side. The first time I had approached the book with no understanding of the subject matter, or the person who wrote it. Second time was slightly different, I knew what the book was going on about and I understood a bit more about how knowledge is spread. Although had I read the book 6 months earlier at that point, I would have understood what she was doing when writing the book. Here I am again, attempting and failing at reading this horrible mess of a book, but with complete understanding of what is going on and how Margaret Somerville is actually replacing ethical debate with imposition of her social norms.
Allow me to point out the obvious, I have failed in reading her book a third time. But I get it now, before I had a perplexed look on my face as if I had just witnessed the unknown. But now I am angry, or rather have the angry expression on my face at this moment (Or specifically when I put down the book for the last time, promise), because she is literally just regurgitating her own opinions pretending to be intellectually honest. One of the largest sins in my eyes is someone pretending to be intelligent, but rather utilize the exact opposite with intellectual dishonesty. I consider that unethical, how ironic for her to do so when you consider what her job title is.
To understand where I am going with this, you need not look far. Seriously, don't look, I'll get on with it soon enough.
Gee, I wonder if the chapter title says anything about your positions?
If a chapter title sums everything up in your opinion (Let us now refer to everything she argues, as her own opinion), there is clearly something wrong with you. The chapter in the book that does this is titled "Old Nature, New Science: Respecting Nature, The Natural and Life". Take a guess what she will be talking about in the chapter. If you didn't know, think of the borg. Well, actually don't, but it seems she does (implicitly of course). The entire chapter is the first chapter that goes on about the supposed transhumanization trend that exists... well in her head, it also talks about human nature as if the term itself is an absolute. To which I simply call bullshit.
Before I get into that, the second page of the chapter (Fun fact, you can always tell her work is going to hell with the second page of any chapter) makes an interesting and absolutely pointless comment that seems to exist in spite of me. Allow me to quote her statement:
"The views and arguments I set out in this chapter in defense of the natural and its importance are diametrically opposed to an increasingly prevalent, postmodern, politically correct approach that neutralizes language to abolish difference. For Instance, a general article in the McGill Center for Research and Teaching on Women (MCRTW) Bulletin on "Philosophy, Sex and Gender" claims that natural differences between the sexes and in gender don't exist - They are just constructs. I disagree strongly, but defining the natural is not easy"
Just so you know, she doesn't actually go on about why she disagrees with this statement (Also note: This statement without citation). Perhaps she is just stating her gut reaction to the title without actually knowing what the MCRTW was talking about. I mean, we have all been socialized to believe that there is a difference between the sexes and genders that makes one more capable than the other (Think of how boys are assigned to associate with blue, while girls are associated with pink right after they are born, that action in itself is one of the first acts of socialization we experience). What does she actually know about feminism? My guess is absolutely nothing. But that's another topic, I just pointed this out to mention that she never goes into detail with her examples, and she never actually references them ever again. Imagine if I were in High School, which I was at one point. I was forced to provide citations with my claims, in particular the ones that reeked of "Grade A Bullshit". If I had not provided anything, then I would get an instant failure. But that's another topic, she does provide citations, only she does so very poorly.
Anyways, on the same page, after essentially bashing something she has no concept of. She talks about natural, which is a strange term in and of itself. What it natural? She attempts to define it, while at the very same time using the phrase "Human Nature". Having just exited a class which asked not long ago what human nature is, I can safely say that the phrase is incredibly disputed. In moments of disputed phrases in an essay/book (Especially a book), you must decide whether your offered perception of what human nature is. Whether it be Hobbesian or Aristotelianist, which I'm sure she knows all about (/end sarcasm). She essentially states that natural is both biological and cultural, which leads us to the next part.
Grr, her whole book is now making me legitimately angry, and I've gone through two pages. Allow me to skip ahead to one part in particular in the chapter. Seeing as it dealt with naturalism, or rather her concept of what is natural (Which I'd love to get into, but I can't because she is so damn nuanced and incoherent in forming a simple sentence, her work is literally making it impossible to fully grasp her ideas. If you are reading this Margaret, don't take that as a compliment. Difficulty in reading does not make an intellectual book, it is fully capable of pseudo-intellectualism), it will eventually lead to one thing. Which I will talk about in the next part of this... whatever this is.
I suppose I categorize this as a giant rant to gain closure, but I don't exactly want to categorize this series indefinitely at this moment. Because even I have no clue what's to come from this. I don't have any actual conclusion set up yet. Take note of that Margaret Somerville.
See you next time in part 3. Which will be entitled:
Did she spit in your coffee this morning?! (Part 3)
Ah High School life, why must you always come back to haunt me? I may have been ill-equipped to deal with certain things in my early teen years, but I could never forget, and funny enough it all comes back eventually. No, not my social inadequacies, that will always haunt me and I will always be ill-equipped to deal with it. But rather it is a certain period of time in which I had a World History class with certain special speakers.
Of course, it would be silly to think that the World History class I had would be only about history... wait a second, no it wouldn't! That's actually the first thing I expected from it! That's all I expected from it... okay in reality there was this cute girl I had a massive crush on at the time who was in that class and I had stayed in the class to be next to her. But that's another topic. In reality, me and 20+ other students wanted history... actually that's also not true. I didn't want to get history because I hated history and to a degree hate all history that takes place before the late 19th century. Damn it! Time to focus.
Anyways, there were two speakers that year (Might have been two years actually, I don't remember). The first being David Frum, noted conservative pundit and also former speech writer for George W. Bush. He came up with the phrase, Axis of Evil. Prick. He spoke to the high school, and honestly I had a list of questions to ask him. But at the same time, I was young. I mean damn young, and also a coward. I could have asked him if he thought that the phrase "Axis of Evil" would antagonize entire countries making the entire situation so much worse that in already is. I would have also asked if his mother would have approved of his actions. But then again, that would have been rude. I would only ask that question to Roy Cohn, but he's dead, but then again he was also the worst human being in the mid 20th century. Now after his speech he went out for dinner with some of the people who had helped pay for his speech. Or rather with the teacher of World History (Who was also the Vice Principle), and three students who were kids of the parents who helped pay for the speech. Funny enough, that cute girl was one of those students, she was awesome...
*flashback*
Hmm, where was I? Ah yes, the speech was okay, but the indoctrination didn't work. At least not for me, as you can clearly see. Although perhaps it had an adverse effect on me, I'll have to figure that one out a bit later. A few questions, but none of which produced any provocation, although this should be expected as you are giving a speech in front of a bunch of fucking 16 year olds who are intimidated by people in power or who at one point represented power.
I don't give a shit about David Frum though, not directly though. We never really spoke with him for very long, or spoke about him for much longer. In reality he came at a time in which nobody really noticed. The only reason I mentioned him was to create the possibility of someone from that very school knowing who I am. But of course that will never happen. In reality, I only care about the other speaker, Margaret Somerville.
If you don't know who she is, don't be shocked, nobody really gives a shit about who she is. Pretty much, she's a renowned ethicist from Montreal. A right-wing ethicist who teaches at McGill University, who wrote the book we had to read for the 2nd semester of our World History class. It was a series of ethical positions on transhumanization, abortion, and other topics. Our teacher thought it appropriate to indoctrinate us into the social conservative movement. Although he was unaware, we were slightly more intelligent than that, we went along and pretended to buy into it. We wrote our essays that conflicted with our own opinions, and all passed with 80% in that semester. But it wasn't over, not yet, the teacher/vice principle got Margaret Somerville to speak at our school about the book, at least I think she spoke. She went on about the whole ethical debate behind the transhumanization thing, which is total crap to begin with but that's okay. I got the shitty book signed by her, and she wished me luck in the field of psychology. Unaware that so many years later, I would come back. Not directly, but indirectly with a vengeance. Mainly because of certain accidental events all leading up to this one thing.
I feel like I'm at the end of a Pheonix Wright game (Ahem, specifically Trials and Tribulations), in which the first trial would come back, and everything would be explained. Well then. Time to get cracking on that.
Ignore bad punctuation for the purposes of this post I scored a Twelve, and although I'm not an emo, I love them with a passion so I'll count that. What's your score? ------------------------------------------ New blog post coming soon, I've now got enough money for a new console but I'll wait until the current one breaks because of convenience sake, but also because of school. I'll feel like a prick if I buy a new console without purpose in the middle of the school semester. I've gotten back into the 200+ year old season of the political soap opera, as was demonstrated by a 30 minute debate with a friend about the whole James O'Keefe debacle as well as a 10 minute discussion with a teacher about the State of the Union Address and a 20 minute discussion about Harper suspending Parliament 'cause he's a giant pussy.
Also, let me just say something controversial here. The Zombies represented the 1960's better than the Beach Boys. Although don't get me wrong, I love them both equally. Although the album Odessey and Oracle captured the time beautifully. It will probably be a topic for an essay for one of my classes, just in case one of my teachers is reading this, I'm letting you know the topic in advance (Loved the class Candis).
Until next time, this has been the horrible sinner, Snipzor. See ya!
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A quick posting here. Influential historian, Howard Zinn, had died of a heart attack earlier today. Howard Zinn was responsible for focusing on the personal history of the world, as opposed to the empire based history. He had focussed on ideas and movements, a move which many still question today if it were productive in our understanding of history. Although the people who ask that question do not understand that his approach to historical events did advance our understanding of history, but as well as empires and human nature.
Howard, for making History awesome, I salute you.
A People's History of American Empire ----------------------------------- Currently watching the State of the Union address, can't help but roll my eyes. But then again, I'm a cynic.
Yeah, remember the whole HDD losing my Xbox Live profile entirely and not giving it back? Yeah, I certainly do, because I am still reminded about it on a daily basis. Unlike you, who is reminded on a monthly basis, I know what's going on 30x more than you do. But now isn't the best time for a contest, because this is serious. Well, not really serious. But anyways, let me fill you in on what's going down.
Seeing as new hard drives cost money, money I'm saving, I won't buy a new one. And I won't waste money on those small memory whatchamacallits (apparently a word) because when I tell you the new plan, it will look like a waste of money. Seeing as my current console is in the process of dying, don't be fooled if you don't hear it, I always hear it and it's coming. I'll just use the money I've saved up over the past few weeks to purchase the Elite model, which comes with the massive hard drive. Exactly, who needs the tiny piece of crap that might not even help me? So I'll be offline for a while, most likely returning when my brother is in Europe next month. So that's that. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Next in this update/news thing whatever you call it. As you may recall, Scott Brown now holds Ted Kennedy's seat, and that means only one thing. The democratic party is absolutely incompetent. Or at least the DNC is, considering they are listening to the people who are considering the thought that the democratic party should go to the center with 'the rest of the country' (Shivers), this is no shock. Okay, considering I made a troll subscription to the DNC, I know this. You don't get me to vote by giving me this lame ass message saying "Please vote for *so and so* this upcoming election, he/she could really use your support", you get me to vote by making me feel like shit otherwise. Like so.
"Please vote in the upcoming election for our candidate, otherwise you would be implicitly supporting someone who holds the belief that 'this' is true or that 'this' is true. Make the right decision."
You have to make voters feel like shit if they were to not vote. This is important. The DNC may have raised a shitload of money recently (More than the RNC), but the republicans still won in Massachusetts, which means you lost in the long run. Let me repeat this. Tim Kaine, you lost to Michael Steele, I hope you feel bad about that. If you do, get the fuck out of my way, I'm taking over.
*Gets tossed from federal building*
The point remains, the DNC is absolutely incompetent. I've said this before, if a 19 year old nervous pacifist can use his limited clout better than the entire Democratic National Committee, then you are screwed (Yes, I do have some political clout, I love being me). Essentially we've got a weakass representative of the party, and we've got the party itself that thinks people would much rather have it go further to the right than do what people actually want. Which is simple, if the majority of the American population wanted the public option when it was an option in the bill, they don't want to go to the right! DNC, keep your blue dogs in line, if not then borrow a little something from the Canadian parliamentary system. Cut off ties when they defy you. Be ruthless at least once. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's been a while hasn't it? Anyways, that's all for today. This is Snipzor, saying cheers as I drink at 8 o'clock in the morning.
*Have I ever mentioned how I hate it when everything goes in Bold after you submit something here on Giantbomb? This should be remedied*
How can you not love it? At this point in its existence, Wikipedia is a pretty damn good accessible source of knowledge. How long has it been since it began? It's been a while, so all the criticisms that are attached to Wikipedia at this point aren't necessarily valid. At first, it was completely valid, because the amount of information that came pouring in at its creation was incredibly hard to monitor. But it worked god damn it. Articles under constant checks, citations for seemingly opinionated claims (And the awesome [citations needed] is always a good sign that certain statements are not to be trusted), and mods who actually know their fields. That's awesome.
Where do all the rejects go? Well there are only two places it can possibly go. Conservapedia and Creationwiki , god bless their little hearts. Okay, I guess you can consider Encyclopedia Dramatica a rejects haven, but it is done on purpose so it doesn't count. But these two websites are the best of the worst. Ten seconds of research into these two websites would have you find out that they are both created for the sole purpose of going up against their " Strong Liberal Bias ". Which is funny, because their website is called "Conservapedia"... yet they don't consider that their position is biased... ouch that hurt.
Now I could go on about how they Godwin on all occasions against things they don't like, or how their entire website is used to slander people they don't like (Often times citing sources that are other hit pieces that link to nowhere), or I could just link their page on Jesus Christ (Which I did). But that doesn't explain how monumentally stupid they are ( Although this helps ), how obsessed with such trivial things they happen to be, how amazingly thick they are with every living breath that anthropomorphic website takes. I can explain everything with a picture and a video.
And I thought I was obsessive!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bless their little hearts and their little brains. They are so cute. 5 Comments
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