In a film I saw recently (the title of which I can’t recall), a character said something along the lines of, “If everybody’s special, doesn’t that just mean nobody is?” Likewise, another film (Monty Python’s The Life of Brian) exposes the paradox of nonconformity in a scene where Brian is trying to convince a crowd […]
Category Archives: Life
More likely to die how?
An oft-cited statistic in answer to people’s “irrational” fears of flying is that you’re more likely to die in a car crash than a plane crash. What a load of bullshit. Now, I’ll still fly. If I want to go back east or to Europe or Asia, I won’t be going by boat, car, or […]
How I Became a Comic Book Geek
When I was a young boy, my brother and I bought comic books, but I didn’t yet qualify as a comic book geek. First of all, all the purchases were leisurely, more likely to happen as a whim upon a trip to the pharmacy than as a directed effort to seek out the flimsy, stapled […]
Fictional De-sensitization Towards Violence
I’ve gone back and forth on the debate about media violence’s relationship to real-world violence. On the one hand, I’m not a big proponent of fictionalized violence. Sometimes, it’s overdone, and if it were my choice to make a fictional narrative, toy, or video game, a violent one would not be my first choice. I’m […]
What I Remember from High School
The school I used to teach in had some wonderful academic programs. It also had a couple of fluffy ones. Every week, there were these “electives” teachers had to teach that had no homework and usually a low energy level (many of these were electives involving ten to fifteen students watching popular movies). One time, […]
Bad Journalism
As I write this article, there are two “news” pieces irking me, but there will always be similar ones for years to come. First of all, there are numerous reports about the seemingly unprecedented success of Shrek 2. Secondly, among liberals and radical leftists, there is a small panic about the supposed denial of voting […]
Some Guidelines for Effective Change
Models focus on ideas, narrative testimonies, proposals, characterizations and recognize that having established or identified said model, scope then becomes the issue. Scope focuses on the prevalence of an idea, population or behavior. Recognizing the complexity and inter-relatedness of issues. As a basic collegiate scholar’s example: the difficulty in separating racism and sexism. Setting as […]
Some Casual Critical Theory on Conventional Wisdom
Some Casual Critical Theory on Conventional Wisdom Few of the simple ideals I held as a child persisted through my college years. Some left for more complex, more practical models. Some left altogether. This is the nature of life. We don’t talk about the simple values of belief and experience enough in academic forums. First […]