Roger Ebert

I have never heard of Roger Ebert before, but even though he's gone now, his contribution to society will forever live on. His philosophy on life is something I never would have given thought to, mainly because I don't like to over-analyze things. Being happy I something I don't really "experience" because I don't have any reason to be upset in the first place, and I think this is why people really sink or swim in situations where a tragedy is "close to home". But anyway, Roger Ebert is truly a treasure that I certainly know I wouldn't have come across with out this class.

His blog, "All the lonely people", really spoke out to me, even though I'm not alone. His writing style is almost like he's having a conversation with you, right trough the computer screen, and it's captivating, knowing someone could comfort you in whatever situation you're in just in their writing. I especially liked the video he posted at the bottom of his post, titled ,"How to be Alone". That too really spoke out to me in a way I couldn't describe to you. In all, Roger Ebert is a true gem, and his legacy will go on forever.

Racism in America

Over the past several weeks, our class has covered the full spectrum in the topic of racism, and it was truly an eye-opening adventure we took on together. I never knew about cultural appropriation, or militarization of police, or the magnitude of white privilege and just how much it affects my everyday life, for better or for worst. But two topics I really do wanna rant about are militarization of police, and white privilege. First off, militarization of police. This is just fucking insane. Excuse my French. But seriously, what is the need for military grade equipment for domestic defense. The government is just giving out all this special military grade equipment to any police station that puts in a request for it, and for what reason? I couldn't tell you. But this equipment isn't just going to the local police, it's also going to the SWAT teams, and let me tell you, there is quite an abundance of them. For example, the Dallas Independent School District has their own SWAT team. But for what? What terrible things happen in Texas? Given there are many schools in this district, I believe that the local police force would be enough to suffice.

Also, the magnitude of equipment they are given is absolutely mind blowing. After watching one show during class and learning that a small Georgia town had received a TANK, just because they thought they'd need one. I had to laugh at that because there is absolutely no need for it. i understand times aren't like they used to be, and that drug cartels are prevalent or whatever, but seriously, this is just uncalled for. Also, during the one "Nightly Show" episode we watched during class, Bill Burr (I think he was the one to bring this up) said something that still saddens me, and this was that whenever protests seem to breakout, the police are always there to stop it, as if protesting is illegal now or something. Not only do they show up, but they SHOW UP, guns blazing, and even tanks blazing depending on where you're from.

Next, I'd like to get into white privilege. It really makes me mad how whenever a person of color isn't as successful as they'd like to be, they just blame it on white privilege. Now, not all of them do this, but people at Northern have told me, "oh, you're only passing this class with an A because you're white, the teacher likes you because you're white." Let me first define this term in order to make it easier to give my opinion on. According to this website "https://www.mtholyoke.edu/org/wsar/intro.htm", white privilege is a set of advantages and/or immunities that white people benefit from beyond those common to all others, With this being said, I really couldn't tell you if my life differs any different from any colored persons, because whether I am actually receiving these privileges without even noticing it, I haven't had any experiences where I felt like I wasn't being treated as an unequal, so I couldn't tell you.

Wrapping up on the white privilege topic, I'd just like to say that these so called "advantages or immunities" aren't so significant that they can help us to end up as self-made millionaires. No. Anyone could end up a self-made man or woman if they have ambition and a goal to reach. No matter your background, race, color, ethnicity, gender, non-gender, whatever, I truly believe everyone  on this Earth is created equal. The goals you make and the path you choose in life will make or break you in today's society, "advantages and privileges" aside.

Passion Project Update #2

Alrighty. So far, our video is coming along very smoothly. We have the basic idea of what we want to do, and we really want to improv the rest as we go. We've arranged when we will shoot the video, and how long it will, be, but I don't wanna give any hints at our plot yet, surprises are always fun. coming up with a plot was a bit of a challenge, but it was extremely necessary, as this is the crux of our progress this week. We've also arranged the attire of our characters in the "movie", and I use the term loosely as we don't know if it is going to be considered a long video or a short movie. But as of our progress this week, I say we, as a group have accomplished quite a bit.

Can We Save The Earth By Being Nice?

I recently watched Jeremy Rifkens's Empathic Civilization, and in this video, he states that if we don't come together as one whole; one society, "won't make it". Now, as a realist, this is totally and utterly ideal and Utopian, even though its nice to imagine. If we could extend our empathic sociability, I think we could do it by finding a common enemy among all of us, for example global warming, and taking our hatred in this enemy, and make it bring us all closer together. Our most pressing issue right now is Isis, it's not really arguable, literally everyone's talking about it. This issue actually has a common foreground with just about anyone, and you could go up to a complete stranger and have a full-length conversation with them about it and not know a thing about that person. Can we extend empathy to the entire human race? Let me pose a more realistic question, could we extend our empathy to the entire continent? It is totally and utterly impossible to imagine empathizing with the entire human race, and reading to myself sounds almost Utopian. Rifken mentions in his video that that "If we can't imagine doing this, it may already be too late." Well, we have never empathized with one another as a whole, not once, not ever, in the thousands of years we have existed as human beings, so I would assume that this time period would be any different, and wouldn't cause us to annihilate each other. There will always be some form of disagreement, and therefore, global empathy is merely an ideal concept.

Passion Project Update #1

In the past 2 weeks, I haven't accomplished much in the past 2 weeks, but I did learn how to throw cards, which will make the content of our video more interesting. I'm not too sure when I will be able to use this again in the real world, but it's a fun skill to have. I didn't see any pattern in what I did, but I got the hang of it fairly quickly, and now I think I should figure out what I will be doing in the video.

Passion Project Update

So far, my project is coming along very well. I've been tapping into the deep web at home because the Tor browser on the Macs doesn't work for some odd reason, maybe the school's firewall, I really don't know.   I've started a presentation on Google docs, it's not done of course, but I started one. I've gone deep into the deep web, little bit of a paradox, but I've seen some weird things on there, so i'm sure it'll make for an interesting presentation. My only obstacle was not being able to access the deep web at school. I still need to finish my presentation and I need to go even deeper into the deep web. Other than that, I don't anticipate any other obstacles.

Passion Project Analysis

So far, Me and Ashwin have accomplished a big part of what we plan to complete by January. we plan on making a music video, and so far we have made the song and have begun to plan out the video and where we will shoot it and when. The only thing that me and Ashwin have to accomplish is making the video and editing the video clips together, which shouldn't be too hard considering I have edited things before. The only obstacles I can think of are that we would have weather issues with shooting the video and that we would have a little difficulty editing the video and figuring out which video clips go where and how to put them together. Other than that, Ashwin and I are pretty much good to go.