The paradox of free expression.

The paradox of free expression.  

I find myself conflicted over what Wikileaks is doing. On one hand I am all for sticking it to big government and informing the citizens of what their tax dollars are paying for but on the other hand I feel Wikileaks are reckless as well. I was profoundly disturbed by the actions of our troops in the video as they are laughing while they slaughtered all these men in the streets. It is reminiscent of the feeling I got as I was watching the film Restrepo, and one of the men takes out a man with a high caliber gun and describes his body blowing into pieces. War is war, however and if I enter a war zone for any reason I have to accept that I may get caught in the cross fire and possibly die. I do not like war, it is disgusting and evil but it is sometimes a necessary evil. Sometimes I feel like we call something a war when in reality it is just a slaughter. It seems like we need to find some reason to use our new war machines and we will come up with all kinds of reasons based in self preservation to use our powers of annihilation. We always talk about how gracious we are and yet we are the only country to have ever dropped an atomic bomb on an entire city of civilians. Oh wait, we did that twice with both Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Our country is stretching itself thin financially on military spending and if we learned nothing else from the grand empires that have preceded us we should have learned that this ideology will not be sustainable indefinitely. We are one of the populations that can be the most negatively affected by what Assange is doing, though and I feel his work stands to tare apart fabrics of our society as well as global relations. I realize that many Middle Eastern governments are corrupt and that we are in bed with several of them but we have also seen the chaos that erupts when these people are removed from power. We have watched it time and time again from the Shaw in Iran to Saddam Husain. Our military does not just protect us, they protect small countries that could be devoured by larger more aggressive ones. They protect crucial water ways and ports that are at risk from pirates. I will stay cautious though and save my judgment overall.

This is a little humor from our boys as they hold this useless piece of land and get shot at every day in the real life movie documentary, Restrepo. 

I believe in the freedom of the press but I also think the press needs to be responsible and realize the lives that may be at stake. The story should not be more important than the lives they may be putting in jeopardy. I think that with the invention of the internet journalism has become the butt of one big joke. Once upon a time, people were glued to the television and trusted the media but now you can know the truth with absolute certainty then report it and there will still be people calling you a hack. Technology has made it too easy to fool people and as many people realize this they just stop believing anything they see or hear. I mean, if so much can be faked how are people to know what is real or not without in depth research that they are not likely to do. 

On net neutrality, I am still a bit confused. On one hand I want all information to be accessible and on the other hand I like EASY. I am truly old in the game of technology. I pay top dollar for my internet provider because they make finding things easy and provide all the things I like. I pay for Apple products because they glob all my music, videos and picture in one easy to use place. I don’t want to alienate the younger generation here, though by making the wrong choice on who to support in this debate but the truth is it confuses the hell out of me. I’m not even sure I understand what net neutrality is, no matter how many people explain it to me.  

I do not believe the government should be fully transparent. There is a reason we elect our leaders and that is to lead. "Of the people, by the people, for the people" does not mean that the people are in charge of all things. The people should elect leaders and then they should let them do their job. They would be far more effective and decisive if it wasn't for all the nonsensical chatter brought on by none other than the media and their freedom to say just about anything in order to sway public opinion.  

My thoughts on copyright rules are that they are just silly. Intellectual property should be nontransferable meaning, when an artist dies or if they choose to release it freely then their ideas should be fair game.

Isosine is my favorite mash-up artist and here are a couple of my favorites. I hope I don't get in trouble for this. 

There is another really good one that keeps getting pulled from You Tube called "We are coming undone" It is a mash-up of Tylor Swifts song Never Getting Back Together and Korns song Coming Undone. If you can find it, it is really good. I just don't want Taylor Swift to have me running scared like I'm a bat at OzzFest.  

Anarcheology and the PMRC

and the PMRC

  I was a teenager in the 80’s and a music lover. I had the privilege of living through the great PMRC (Parents Music Resource Center) incident. I listened to Heavy Metal and Punk Rock music. I remember the music that they considered inappropriate at the time and wanted to place ratings on. Artist like Prince for sexual innuendos, Motley Crue for violence and Def Leppard for drugs and alcohol. This decision was seen as a slap at artists and music companies that up until then monitored themselves and it was thought by artists that it would stifle creativity. Eventually this effort toward censorship lead to testimonies before the United States Senate by artists like Dee Snyder from Twisted Sister, Frank Zappa and John Denver.

  This is one of those instances, however, where the actions of politicians produced the exact opposite effect of what they were intending. For all their banter and the artist fighting against it in congress, in the end the suits got their wish to put labels on records. However this gave record labels and artist more freedom, not less, as the labels began to release music knowing that kids would be searching for the warning label.    

After the PMRC this label actually became a sales gimmick. It made CDs more desirable. 

  Once these labels were applied to music, out came rap artists like Two Live Crew with Nasty as we wanna be and later on, Too Short with some of the most blatant sexual references I had ever heard on a mainstream artists CD. Stuff that is now the norm in hard core rap was never allowed in the early 80’s. Before the PMRC put their labels on music, violent and sexual music was forced into the metaphoric realm of lyric writing that was kept open to interpretation. Afterwards it was the verbal equivalent of hard core porn and snuff films. It was suddenly OK for these artists to be on the shelves because everyone was now warned of the content. As we know, though there is no such thing as bad publicity and music just got meaner and nastier over time. Now there are labels on the records and I won't touch some of my favorite artist if that label is not on the front of their CD.  

     

  Today the label seems like a formality for companies like Wal-Fart that censor the music they sell but with the new world of music down loads and the fact that stores are selling less and less CD's  the label  has become a bit obsolete. 

  My favorite bands tend to fluctuate as I discover artists both, that are new as well as old music I have never heard before. I have never been that guy who’s stuck in my youth when it comes to music. The short list of artists I listen to regularly would be Slipknot, Mudvayne, Static X, Volbeat and Ozzy Osbourne. I do have a broad range that I listen to though like Pink Floyd, Journey, The Sex Pistols and The Clash, and of course, no collection would be complete without the Eagles Greatest Hits. 

I love this song by the Ink Spots.

Transformers 4: Age of Extinction

Introduction

I chose the movie Transformers 4 the Age of Extinction. I realize it is not exactly current in that it was just recently released on DVD but I do not go to the movies often and there has been nothing that has come out recently that I would want to see. The Transformers series has a nostalgic feel for me as I was a child when the original cartoons were aired on Saturday mornings in the 80’s. I waited with baited breath for every new episode. I could not wait to find out what new characters they were going to add. When I saw the first movie I was a bit confused and I thought that the robots had too many moving parts but then I began to realize that if these things were real that logically these autonomous robots that transform into vehicles would have a lot of working mechanical parts.

Description

Transformers 4 is the latest film by executive producer Michael Bay the producer of films such as Armageddon and Pearl Harbor. This instalment takes place years after the events of Transformers ‘The Dark Side of the Moon.’ It stars Mark Walberg who has starred in movies like TED and Shooter, as the primary human protagonist and Kelsey Grammer who is best known as Frasier from the long running sit com Cheers as the primary human antagonist. Of course the robots are what everyone wants to see. It is still hard to believe that Mark Walberg was the Justin Bieber of my day when he was the lead singer of Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. I wouldn’t exactly call him a great actor but he is decent and he really was perfect for this role. A character that is lacking in the intensity of Shia Labeouf from the previous three films.

Check out Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch: Good Vibration https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eSN8Cwit_s

In Transformers 4 the Autobots are now being hunted by the humans who are using technology that they modified from parts of dead transformers. Transformer’s that were killed in the previous movie. Unbeknownst to Optimus Prime and even the president, Kelsey Grammers character who is the head of an organization that is charged with hunting down Transformers is in league with a transforming bounty hunter called Lockdown. Lockdown is what is known in Transformer’s lore as a triple changer which sets him apart from transformers in the previous movies because he has three transforming modes. Lockdown transforms from a robot into either a Lamborghini or an ion cannon. Lockdown is on a mission to capture Optimus Prime, the Autobot leader and take him to what he calls the creators. We do not know who these creators are yet, but I have a pretty good idea since the director Michael Bay has kept fairly true to the original mechanisms and characters from the original series. (The Quintisons  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXzvE3I39t8)  In Transformers 4, Bay introduces one of the more popular sets of characters in the Dinobots. They are giant robots that turn into dinosaurs. they are very strong but dimwitted  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CxTD-H1q-o

Analysis

This movie is similar to the previous movies as it still shows the power struggle between the aliens and man. In dark side the Autobots are working with their human counter parts to eradicate the Decepticons but they find themselves at odds over who is running the show. In Transformers 4 the relationship has completely dissolved and Autobots are being hunted. It differs in that we have a whole new human cast as well as many new robots to contend with. Shia Labeouf is a thing of the past. In the genre of action movies I think giant robots that turn into vehicles speaks for itself as a difference maker. The similarity is action, action, action. Like most action movies any holes in the plot are quickly overshadowed as the battles ensue.

Interpretation

This movie is important because it brings a whole new way of looking at a world that has been around since 1984. It appeals to grown men like myself who grew up watching these cartoons and it possesses the toy factor which makes it popular amongst young boys. Most of the women I have talked to about the movie like it just because of Mark Walberg thus making him the perfect choice to get women in to the theater to see this film. The only stereo type I noticed was an Autobot named Drift who is also a triple changer who turns into a Bugatti or a helicopter. He is a samurai with the classic Ronin helmet and he speaks with an oriental accent. There was controversy over this character.

 http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/film/10240327/Transformers-4-samurai-robot-not-racist 

Evaluation

The strengths of this movie are its detailed special effects that make these robots both believable and personable as well as the action that takes place with cameratic angles that are truly mind blowing. Another aspect that really works is their product placement as we see robots turning into popular hot rod and the new transforming technology transforming into a small speaker system called the Pill. 

It’s weaknesses are inconsistencies in the strength of the Autobot leader as he is bested by Lockdown and a bunch of humans in several scenes and yet has no problem taking down the leader of these mighty titans called Dinobots. There is also problems with the time lines as it seems that they go from one part of the world to another in record time. However that was a common theme in the original cartoons as they would head out from their base in an American dessert (not specified in the show) and arive in the arctic or the Amazon jungle in the very next scene. Another weakness is length. This movie did seem to go on longer than it needed to.

This movie was a blockbuster and I would hardly call it mediocre. It is not the best of the four movies as the last two were the best by far, but the story matches up and when watched as a whole set the four movies complement each other. It is a memorable film for those who love this type of sci-fi action film.  

In a review by Prasad Naik on the web site IMDb he proclaims his utter dislike of the film for the very weaknesses that I provided. He said “Transformers: Age of Extinction is a disaster. I was thrilled to get the chance to see it before most of the world but ended up being thoroughly disappointed. The movie is 165 minutes of incoherent nonsense and if you thought that's what the previous movies were, well, you might start appreciating them after seeing this.” The movie gets terrible reviews across the board as Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic also give it a big thumbs down. Roth Cornet at IGN says “Michael Bay introduces his “redesigned” take on the morphing bots in a film that seeks to exceed its predecessors in scale, global scope, and runtime…certainly runtime. Depending on your perspective, that is either an attractive or entirely repellent proposition.” I definitely think the movie was about forty minutes to long car chase scenes that were less than impressive and totally unnecessary. 

Engaging

I love this series for the subject matter. Scrolling down through Michael Bays works I realize that I am not much of a fan of his prior movies other than the Transformers series and those I am a fan of because I am a fan of the Transformers themselves and he is the only one making movies about them. When the DVD first came out I watched it with a couple family members and after about an hour and a half people were growing restless and there was still more than an hour to go.

Summary

What I found is that even bad movies are good to someone. For what it’s worth I do not totally agree with the critiques of this film. I just love the action and the giant robots. It doesn’t even have to have a decent story line for me to watch it. It is much like the Star Wars series for me. Most of them are terrible films but the characters and the special effects make it all worth wile. I also have to admit that Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings series is the better of the three movie series that fit this genre and target audience. 

The World's Gone "Mad"

Banning is burning

The books on the list that I know of are ones like Twilight, The hunger Games and 50 Shades of Grey.

The books that I have actually read, although it has been a while are The Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men and Harry Potter.

I do not think any of the books I listed are bad enough to be banned. I noticed some of the others did contain drug use and I have a hard time with anything that might glorify drug use to children. If you're going to ban the books though then you also gotta ban the music. Eminem glorifies drug use. 

I am a very open minded person. I am not religious and I have no children. I do what is best for me on a daily basis and I believe that, just like the saying “there is no such thing as bad publicity,” I also think there is no such thing as bad knowledge. Books provide alternate viewpoints and I think that children only gain by being exposed to other cultures, points of view and historical accuracy. I heard once that a group wanted to change the wording in Tom Sawyer so that the African American character is not called “Nigger Jim” anymore because of the use of that particular offensive slang. I think that is silly. People in those times were cruel to African Americans and by doing this it actually takes away from the intensity of the story. For me, it is very difficult to condone censorship of any kind because of the music I listen to and literature that I like. Banning books reeks of darker times in history.

However I also do not have children in school and therefor I feel I must abstain from controversial issues involving school curriculum.

My crazy bookshelf…

One of the first things people might notice is my fascination with all religions. This is a concept that so many of my friends and family cannot grasp. Whether they are religious or atheist they can't seem to understand how someone would not contain any religious bias at all. I have, side by side on my shelves, The Bible, The Qur'an(Koran), The Bhagavad-Gita and several books on Buddhism such as, one of my favorites, Samdhong Rinpoche’s Uncompromising Truth for a Compromised World. Buddhism was born in the shadow of prosperity and will always dwell there but it is hard for many who practice this faith to come to terms with living by its teachings while being yolked to modern society. Even practicing Buddhist must be able to survive and compete in the modern world. Moderation and compassion are the two most key tenets. 

Other random interest I have in book form are The Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit as well as books written by some band members. I have the Heroin Diaries by Nikki Sixx from Motley Crue and Seven Deadly Sins by Corey Taylor of the band Slipknot. Moving down the row you will find books like the Lord of the Flies, the five people you meet in heaven and even a very thick book that is a compilation of comic strips from Mad Magazine because on occasion I just want to dumb myself down and laugh at the crazy world around me.   

“If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you.” 

― Oscar Wilde

I think that my interest might imply that I am fairly insane but the truth is I'm just a bit erratic. There are books I like for a day and then there are others I love for a life time. I am not religious but I have no hang ups when it comes to religion. I like to refer to myself a Buddhist Heavy Matalist. I will get in the pit at a concert with kids half my age and yet I will not even harm a spider. I will entertain 'any and all' points of view of divinity and I am also a big fan of mythology, heroism and journey tales. I’m not really into the egos of rock stars that much so I have to say I am not likely to buy another autobiographical novel written by a pampered rock musician. I got to meat Corey Taylor at his book signing, though and that was extremely cool. He is very down to Earth considering the style of music he makes. When it comes to any famous people, though, I may like their art but I don't really care so much about their personal lives. 

Corey Taylor 

Corey unmasked

I found most of my books in local bookstores and I buy them because I like their tangibility. My main bookshelf is right next to my computer desk and sometimes I just like to turn off the glaring screens and pull a book off the shelf to read. I think I will always buy the books that peak my interest the most. Especially the ones that I might like to take my time with or even ones I may want to re-read.