neo-eschatologie

all praise alan greenspan. he directed the united states economy (and therefore the world economy) for nearly twenty years. he kept inflation down and the economy up. he kept our recessions down and our booms up. hip hip hooray for him.
yeah, right. sure he did all that good stuff, but what about the state he left us in. sure he embraced technology and helped advance our nation and the world and the bay area, but what about the bust afterwards? i think there are two huge problems with the world greenspan has left us with.

• first, we are in a real estate boom. greenspan has effectively made plenty of middleclass white color homeowners into millionaires, but how long will it last? the prices of houses and land have been skyrocketing all around the country. from the district of columbia to seattle, from metro-detroit to orange county, from the desert surrounding vegas to the salt lake city-orem stretch of i-fifteen. while prices in the city have continued to go up as usual, the cost to buy a house in suburbia has increased significantly. what happens when people start retiring? they will move to florida or arizona or an assisted living center. sometime soon, lots of people will be selling houses in suburbia. because prices are so high right now many young couples are opting for apartments or deciding not to live in suburbia at all. many older couples are staying in their starter homes, unable to afford the down payment on a decent sized house in suburbia. one of these days, everything is going to hit at the same time and the value of land will drop drastically. millions of people are going to lose lots of money on their homes and realize they won’t be able to retire. if you moved into orange county ten years ago you could buy a very nice house for three hundred thousand dollars, now it is worth one point three million dollars. the owners see their houses as an investment and are excited that when they retire they can move somewhere cheap and have a million bucks to live on. now with the prices of medicaid and medicare skyrocketing, very soon people are going to be very much out of luck.
• that is the first problem. the second deals with the international system. the united states is trillions of dollars in debt to countries around the world and that debt is increasing billions of dollars every day. out of all the money the united states borrows, most of it comes from china. sure it is awesome we are helping them develop their economy, but not when their economy is slowly beginning to take over ours. already they have taken most of our manufacturing jobs, leaving few jobs for the american low class to break the poverty line, let alone work their way up and live the american dream. america was built on immigration, but it can no longer support immigrants unless they come here with a university education and a decent knowledge of the english language. but back to the problem at hand, with the united states going further and further in to debt every day, the dollar loses more and more of its value. because american power is based largely on its economy, as the value of the dollar degrades, so does american power and influence. all that power has to go somewhere and right now it is going straight into the hands of the chinese. i can think of plenty of other places i would rather have the power go, a communist country who disagrees with international opinions of civil rights and nuclear proliferation is not one of them. once the chinese figure out how to feed their people and advance their military, the rest of the world is in for a ride. gone is friedman’s mcdonalds theory and nice lexus. gone is westernized, modernized, globalized, democratic power. simply put, the world is sliding; sometimes fast and sometimes slow, but always down. watch ben bernanke closely, but watch trends in america even more closely. be smart.

super extra large bowl

super bowl

• yes, it is in detroit. that is neat.
• football is a professional “sport” where the players get paid handsomely to don a highly specialized cluster of pads, toss a ball, take a five minute break, drink some gatorade, breath some oxygen, and go play for another thirty seconds.
• the word professional aptly describes those who play football in the nfl seeing as in the late nineteenth century it was a euphemism for prostitution, often used to describe the job of a japanese geisha (those who sing and dance to entertain men).
• the word sport means a game involving physical activity. the sport of kings is war. football contains less physical activity, not more. the fans get more of a workout jumping and cheering during a game than most of the players. when the farthest you can run is one twentieth of a mile and there are more pauses in the game than plays, it can hardly be considered physical activity. football is also nothing like war. war is not fun. war kills people. ever since the civil war, people don’t go out and watch wars as spectators. war is an armed conflict to deal with an undesirable situation.
• while football is not a sport, it is made up of plenty of professionals. that says a lot about the rest of the professionals in the world.

extra large

• i find it extremely amusing (nearly amusing enough to be categorized under random or simply random) that this year is the fourtieth super bowl. roman numerals are used to designate super bowls and the roman numeral for fourty is fifty minus ten, or xl.
• what comes in extra large sizes these days? shirts for the football players who eat a lot and their increasing number of compatriats who are not getting paid to get fat. also a lot of advertisements. when men get fat, their bodies do not get proportionately large so to make up for being fat and having low self-esteem they search ‘extra large’ on google.

the world would be a better place if:

• people did not waste their time and money watching, playing, or being at all associated with professional football
• people realized what their bodies are and the potential their bodies have and began treating their bodies with respect (and there wouldn’t be an obesity epidemic)
• people were simply educated. if children were taught by their parents to take care of their bodies and their minds, they would not have self-esteem problems, financial problems, addiction problems, or a whole host of other problems that are raging in this “modern” times
• parents stepped up to the plate and took responsibility for their children, realizing that raising their children is the most important thing they will ever do
• people weren’t so retardedly stupid

Lots of Random Hits

So I’ve happily been using this website for my own personal reference, not really expecting anyone to come look at it. WordPress is awesome and put in a whole bunch of stats on who visits my site. So for the first few days I got 2 or 3 hits a day, mostly people looking for Ray Nagin (the mayor of New Orleans) and someone ran across my entry The Egyptian Police Killing Sudanese Refugees. So then all of the sudden I get 18 hits today. Holy cow! What’s up with that? Apparently 8 people searched “jed moss” on technorati (the blog search engine) and my entry about the April Clayton Flute Concert (accompanied by Jed Moss) is the number 2 (of 2) result. Unfortunately the formatting on that entry didn’t work so well but luckily I did talk up how awesme Jed Moss is. I’m not sure if it’s even the same Jed Moss. The one everyone was looking for is a member of Air Supply (or he went to an Air Supply concert a couple days ago). This is what they’re really looking for. So 11 people visited my April Clayton review and one person visited my Only Angels Have Wings review. I’m guessing the other 6 just visited the main page of my blog. The Blog Stats also tells me who the referrer was, but I’m not sure its working perfectly yet. It says 7 people were referred by my site (so they just typed in the address, which I find highly unlikely) and 1 person came from anoter word press blog. The other 10 people fell through thre cracks (I’m guessing came from technorati). But this blog that referred someone to my site, all things grow, is the blog of some lady who’s travelled through Nashville, is engaged, has a 20 year old former-best friend, works at a restaurant, and wants to study anthropology. I have no clue who she is or how someone got from her blog to mine. Oh the mysteries. Well, to everyone who visited, thanks for visiting my blog. I’m pretty sure you didn’t find what you’re looking for. I’m not a particularly good news analyst or art critic yet and right now this blog is more for personal referrence. Have a great day!

Caspar David Friedrich

Venue: BYU International Cinema

Release Year: 1986

Length: 84 Minutes

Director: Peter Schamoni

Language: German (with English Subtitles)

This is the story of an artist who was not appreciated by the people of his time. The excuses they use is that his pictures are to unorthodox. He paints landscapes. Sometimes with a religious twist, but focuses more on the landscape than the religion so it is unorthodox. People turned to God’s creations, because they surround us, rather than to God, because it was the great apostasy. Now religious paintings focusing on the religion have returned, just as the fulness of the Gospel has. The movie was very slow and boring. I would not recommend it. It did have some interesting lines about how to understand art, but they seemed more like cliched artist junk than anything insightful. I did not really understand this movie very well. Possibly because I am not familiar with the historical setting (Germany under Napoleon), and because the historical setting continually changed from when Friedrich was alive, to immediately after his death, to 50 years after his death and there was not a good way of figuring out which characters belonged to which time period, and if they belonged to multiple time periods, which time period they were in at the moment. Another reason I may not have liked this movie was because I do not really understand art. As much as I want to be an artist, there are lots of famous pictures that I do not have a taste for and many less famous pictures that I think are amazing. I do not know if this shows that I am thinking out of the box because I have not reached the box yet or if it is because I have gone through the box and out the top.

My Mother’s Castle

Venue: BYU International Cinema

Release Year: 1990

Length: 105 Minutes

Director: Yves Robert

Language: French with English Subtitles

Medium: Original Reel
This seemed a lot like a grown up version of My Father’s Glory, which makes sense because it was the sequel. It focused much more on the state of the family than solely on Marcel. It was not as happy, as life usually seems when we get older. I think one thing that was only briefly touched on that should have been explored more deeply was religion. In the first film I felt that religion played a large role and Marcel’s life could have changed after his acceptance of religion or after he discovered for himself (not through his father) that religion is unacceptable. Unfortunately, all we hear about religion in the second film is Marcel walking into a church saying “I knew that God didn’t exist, but I wasn’t completely sure.” I feel that theme could have been greatly expounded on and tied in with the large discussion of ethics. When Marcel’s father decides to give in to his family and use the key to trespass every week, he had a huge internal debate going on. It is interesting to note that the most anti-religious person in their family is also the most morally and ethically conservative. I think it would have been amazing to see Marcel’s discovery of religion affect his opinions of the way the key situation worked out. It seemed as if this film was really two films put together. The first half was the family living in their country home and Marcel discovering the opposite sex and how it is a bad idea if explored too young. That seemed like a huge part of the movie while it was going on, but looking back  it seems like that was a totally different film. The meat of the film comes from the moral dilemma of trespassing, which luckily all works out for the good of the family. Then all of the sudden five years are skipped and we find out that this moral dilemma portion of the film was much more engrossing than the first part of the film or the first film altogether. So five years pass while Marcel is at the better school and his mother dies. Then his brother dies. Then Lili dies. That is all glazed over and Marcel opens a film studio and needs a large house to run it out of. Marcel ends up buying the house that his family trespassed and got caught running through. His mother nearly died each time they ran across and when they were actually caught she fainted. As an apt ending to the film and the title he knocks down the canal door and he owns his mother’s castle. One amusing quote was, “Girls are natures mistakes.”

My Father’s Glory

Venue: BYU International Cinema

Release Year: 1990

Length: 105 Minutes

Director: Yves Robert

Language: French with English Subtitles

Medium: Original Reel

This is one of the best films I have seen in a long long time. It reminds me of the memoir “Driving Over Lemons,” which was a wonderful book. Overall, I think it was the story of a boy growing up. It begins when he is 3 or 4 and, just like life at that age, does not have a distinct plot or conflict. It just plods along and is enjoyable to watch. Marcel is a smart boy who teaches himself to read, but his aunt will not let him read because she does not want his brain to explode. This introduces the first of many conflicts in the movie. That of child v. adult, which can be extrapolated to man v. authority. It is one that, as a child, I had plenty of issues with because I thought I was much smarter and better than the way most adults treated me. His father gets a job in the city and this portion shows the great adaptability most children posses. As he grows older, he learns to lie. Then he realizes that adults can lie to and it is a huge blow to his world. Later on he plans on lying to his little brother and his uncle tells him “you can lie to children if it’s for their own good.” At this point we see that, while during the first half of the movie adults lie to Marcel, now Marcel has grown up enough to lie to his little brother. This once again is the conflict of authority v. man. Knowledge provides authority and the opportunity to lie. It is interesting how knowledge can provide the opportunity for so much good but also for so much bad. There is an opposition in all things, we must decide which side we want to be on. another example of this man v. authority is that of teacher  v. pupil where, often times the pupil is smarter than the teacher or smarter than the teacher thinks. We see this as Marcel goes through school and is forced to conform with those who cannot read, while he can read very well. We also see this as a conflict not just for little kids, as Marcel originally thinks. Throughout his whole life Marcel has looked at his father in wonder and amazement because of his omniscience. When Uncle Jules teaches Marcel’s father how to hunt, Marcel is amazed that there is something his father does not know, and once again his world is changed forever. At the end, Marcel says about his father, “I’d caught my superman in the act of being human. And Loved him even more for it.” It is interesting to see the progression of knowledge. At first we have a small amount of knowledge and we are content in our ignorance. Later on we gain more knowledge and we become lost and confused. Many people live their lives in this stage and consider ignorance as bliss. But the lucky ones can press forward and get enough knowledge that they are no longer confused in a way that they wish they were back at the beginning. They accept their confusion, learn to live with it, thrive with it, and bring on more of it. At this point we are smart enough that we are childlike and happy as we were before, but we are also much more knowledgeable and better off.
A few more interesting quotes:
“However terrific you are, fate can let you down.”
“You’re not a baby. Life isn’t all fun.”

Only Angels Have Wings

Venue: BYU Special Collections Motion Picture Archive Film Series

Release Year: 1939

Length: 121 Minutes

Director: Howard Hawks

Medium: The Original Reel

This film series is really cool because it provides the opportunity to see old classic movies not only on the big screen, but from the original reel, usually donated by the director, producer, or lead actor. At first I did not think this film would be very good. It was cheezy and black and white. I thought about how the ‘classics’ are always black and white and the only reason we think they are so good is because they are different from the movies we have now. Movies have definitely improved over the past 75 years. After seeing the movie, it was actually pretty good. It wasn’t awesomely super amazing that I will go out and buy it right now. It wasn’t even amazing enough that I’m dying to see it again. But, it is amazing enough that I wouldn’t mind seeing it again. Most movies, once is enough and many times too much. I think “Only Angles Have Wings” is probably the best cheezy old movie I’ve ever seen. It was a good experience to watch it and I would highly recommend it to anyone who has the opportunity to see it.

Role of Analysis in US Foriegn Policy – Bradford J. Bruton, CIA Analyst

Global Awareness Lecture, 1.25.06

Venue: BYU Kennedy Center for International Studies

Mr. Bruton has been around the block when it comes to international relations. His lecture ideftified the main goal of US Foriegn Policy: to support the vitality of Democratic Institutions. He listed a number of areas used to record and analyze this including: Free Speech, Free Press, Free and Independent Judiciary System, Free and Open Elections, Transparency, Free Trade, Good Educational System, and Rights for Minorities and Women.

The US embassy in foriegn countries attempts to influence these topics in a pro-Democratic manner. If a speech is going to take place that the host government does not support, embassy officials will notify host government that one if it’s members will be attending. Although the lectures are pointless and boring and threatening to the host government, the presence of an embassy official will ensure that no tear gas or batons will be used to break up the crowd.

Most countries have many newspapers. Many of them are run by the state or by other large organizations, such as trade unions. There is always the Democratic paper that does not have great support, but on the national day of the host country, the Ambassador will allow an interview with only that newspaper and will pay for ads in that paper. This has a very powerful message. To the people and the government of the host nation.

The US will also bring foreign judges here to lecture and to tour our judicial facilities. To facilitate open and free elections the US will send technical assistance to other governments. Transparency is only defined as what it is not. It is not corruption, not a one party state, not dishonesty, not a lot of bad things. America supports transparency. Free trade (more aptly, free investment) and other capitalist economic plans are supported by the USA.

Bruton proceeded to explain the National Intelligence Estimate, published by the National Intelligence Council ever year. Every country has an entry which estimates the progress made in each of the above categories. It also includes economic issues and biographical assessments. Biographies are done on many participants in politics of all levels in other countries to the United States will have information when the small people hit it big and get elected Prime Minister. They do not want to be left out in the cold and know nothing about the new leader of a foriegn power. The NIC also prepares the drug blacklist. It is an assesment of drug trafficking and the governments attempt to stop it. If a government is doing a lot, we will give them assistance. If a government is not, they are blacklisted and recieve much less support (financially and otherwise) from the American government.

Finally, Bruton closed by discussing the differences between Analysts and Policy/Decision Makers. Basically analysts simply analyze. Policy and decision makers were elected or appointed by elected officials and therefore have the power to make policy and decisions. Analysts do have a great deal of influence on the decision and policy makers. Decision and policy makers often ask for the opinions of analysts when they do not know what to do or have not studied the information.

It was a very informative lecture. Bruton added at the end that if you want to join the State Department, good luck. International Relations is a difficult field and he praised those who are undertaking it. While there are plenty of analytical positions in Washington, the State Department is extremely selective and you have to work your way up and into it.

3 Dream Days

Sunday Morning:
i dreamed i was in orchesta again but this time i was in mission. i was talking with 2 other people who had never played at mission before and we all knew it was about time to go but nobody was packing up their instruments. we were talking about whether the debate room was the same room as the band/orchestra room.

Monday Morning:
i dreamed i was at home and dad ate all but one piece of bill knaps cake and in the back of the box there was an egg and another spot for another egg but it was empty. dad walked out into the garage to the car and told me to figure out what the empty spot was for. i realized it was for another egg but it was called a peck so dad owed me a cup of coffee. then i had to call grandma to say thanks for the cake even though dad ate it. i couldn’t get the phone to work and alison was trying to help me but just annoying me and i think some of my friends were over just waiting for me to get done so we could hang out. so finally i gave up with the phone and grandma walked in the door so i said thanks. all this took place in the kitchen in our house in michigan.

Tuesday Morning:
I dreamed I grew up with dad in a one room cabin. When he died our neighbors (miles away) decided to help me make a real cabin with 4 rooms and a loft. so we started to do that. Then nate’s alarm went off and that dream ended but i didn’t wake up. Then my alarm went off and I was dreaming nate needed the alarm to be on so he could do something with his kids and i imagined him holding his little 1 year old son illyich (who was wearing a wife beater) and he had to safety pin the sleeves together. then i all of the sudden realized that it was my alarm so i sat up and nate was sitting up in bed so i ran across the room and turned it off and apologized.

James V. Burke – BYU Forum Address

Venue: BYU Devotionals and Forums, Marriott Center

Date: 24 January 2006

Dr. Burke has worked his whole life for various communications technology and broadcasting companies. He thinks along the lines of Nibley and Einstein. He spoke on innovation and change. Innovation is surprising and unforseeable. Change results from things coming together in ways they have not come together before. Institutions have only purpose, to perpetuate themselves and the things they create. They are slow to accept change and adopt innovation so they they try to make us confident by what they have done in the past, not the future. On modern higher education, Descartes suggested we apply methodical doubt, but we have progressed to learn more and more about less and less. The current academia attitude is to specialize so much that you’re the only one who knows what you specialized in. Explain yourself in gobledigoop so nobody else can make their way up to you. Then you are at the top of the world, in your little area.

Technology is developing faster and faster and institutions are not keeping up so they attempt to censor and limit technology. Modern global communciations have changed that and there is nothing institutions can do anymore to stop the progression.

Einstein once said, “public education destroys our brains.” The fundamental process of the brain is to make new connections. Burke offered the example of jokes. When we make the connection, we laugh and we like it because we are making connections. Information should trigger reactions, unfortunately we aren’t learning much information in school these days.

We are growing out of our democracy and intermediaries. Our Democracy is based on the idea that we need representatives. We don’t anymore. We can communicate for ourselves now. The top down systems are no longer applying. The culture of scarcity is coming to an end. We are not prepared for what lies ahead. Intelligence will not longer be a rarity. There are 4.9 billion people who will soon be added to the global community and some of them will be smarter, faster, and better than us. We’re going to need to learn how to deal with that. Technology and globalization of technology is bringing the previously nobodies the opportunity to equalize themselves with the somebodies of the western world. We should attempt to think out of the box Descartes put us in.