TED

There is a conference every year called TED which stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design; however, the scope of this event has broadened over time. Essentially it brings some of the smartest people in the world together to give brief talks about their specializations, achievements, or things which they feel are exceptionally important.

Not too long ago, they began posting what they consider to be the best talks for anyone to watch for free. There are quite a few of these talks (well over 100), and I realize that recommending that you watch all of them is excessive. Hence, I have watched all of them and will be posting what I consider to be the best, most entertaining, impressive, or thought provoking.

Typically, I will post these talks separately from my regular Monday foray into madness. Thursday seems like a good day.

However, I'll get things rolling today with one of the more inspiring things I have ever seen in my life. The girl you are about to see was only 14 at the time of this taping. It's well worth the 20 minutes out of your day to watch it, and you should definitely check out the improvisation near the end.



JetSetArnett Out.

Movies and Theaters

Movies watched this weekend: Cloverfield and The Host.

Both movies were about monsters, followed small groups of people, involved the government to varying degrees, and had relatively big budgets.

One movie was amazing. One movie was utterly awful.

Colverfield is an American movie produced by J. J. Abrams, the man who brought us Lost. It centers around a group of five friends moving about New York. The big scary monster is seen only briefly and only partially; so, not too much is given away and suspense is heightened. In this regard, it is sometimes compared to Jaws for its mix of suspense and dramatic elements. Excellent. Indeed, I won't even discuss it any further because I wouldn't want to spoil anything else if you haven't seen it yet.

Conversely, The Host is the most successful Korean movie ever made, which says extremely little about Korean film making. In this movie you immediately see the monster (which is a large fish that runs around and eats people) drop from under a bridge into the water in front of a large group of onlookers in full daylight and then come out and start barreling toward them in "dramatic" slow motion. Suspense = zero.

RAWR! I IZ MONSTAR!

The film then proceeds to jump around, leave out important pieces of story, and haphazardly add characters, interactions, et cetera without any explanation or even a hint that there is some underlying logic. It is as though the producers got together enough money to pay a couple grad students to program a 3-D monster, then just started filming without really fleshing out the plot, dialogue, or even genre.

Speaking of genre, this movie had no idea what it was. Some people might say that the movie "blended" genres, but I would say rather that it lacked the cohesion that is normally attributed to one. Essentially, this flick tried to make a hybrid of horror, drama, and comedy, but came out with a sterile amalgamation that did none of those things well.

Comedy example (spoiler): The son miscounts how many bullets are in his gun and swaps with his father because he thinks he has a shot left. The father then starts to confront the monster, and whoa, the gun is empty. Hardy har har. Funny little moment. That is until the father gets his skull smashed into a cement embankment. Wow, that turned out to be not funny at all and makes the son, the main character, lose virtually all sympathy.

And for the serious bits, you can't take them seriously. Check out this important moment of tension:

Arrow vs. Fish Monster

Can you guess how that one works out? I'll give you a hint: it doesn't.

Oh, and who made the monster? Americans. At the start of the movie, an American military coroner forces a Korean assistant to pour many, many, many old bottles of embalming fluid down the drain which contaminates the Han river which mutates a fish into the monster. Indeed, throughout the movie there are several small snippets of anti-Americanism. It is nothing too pronounced, but it is definitely there.

Oh, the American's also (spoiler) dump a batch of a toxic chemical called Agent Yellow at the end for little apparent reason which has a limited effect on the monster and seems to arbitrarily kill some people but not effect the protagonists. I could point out more of the things that were wrong with this final scene, but I have already given this movie too much of my time.

And now for something completely different.

Years ago I walked into a movie theater, and in this theater they had two queues, one snaked back and forth to the right and one to the left. Each led back to the middle, and there were two people on either side in the middle as well. Here's the good bit: everyone in line was standing in the queue to the right, and the one to the left was completely empty.

So what did I do as a competent think-for-my-selfer? I went into the queue to the left and immediately became second in line ahead of the 15-20 other people who I'm sure gave me dirty looks which I ignored. The weak willed individual I was with was against this decision and protested. To this, I replied (loudly enough for those nearby to hear), "there are two lines, I'm just using the one that's free." I found the situation both amusing for myself and aggravating for my opinion of the human race. There was a better option, and I took it; hence, I earned the scorn of my fellow man because they were not quick enough to capitalize. Indeed, one tried to convince me to follow the crowd and slow myself down.

Well it turns out that this behavior isn't that unusual.

JetSetArnett Out.

Over my dead body.

St. Valentine's Day

The Japanese have a somewhat modified conception of Valentine's Day. For one, they like to leave the St. on the beginning. This isn't all that strange, but it is interesting to note as they have a minuscule Christian population. Maybe they just think is sounds cool. After all, crosses are a popular fashion accessory.

What is significantly different, however, is their overall approach to the day. Similar to America, there is a media blitz in stores and advertisements, but instead of pushing cards, jewelry, and flowers, the Japanese push chocolate. Obviously, a lot of chocolate gets sold in America, but in Japan, the confectionery industry has taken top billing.

This is interesting to note as the Japanese are some of the skinniest people I have ever seen. As a population, they are rail thin. But when St. Valentine comes around, they line up around the block for their tasty treats. Then again perhaps their figures are a result of this being the only time of they year they will eat actually eat chocolate.

And who are buying all those treats? Women. Women buy chocolate for men. That's right; men don't do jack on Valentine's day. No flowers, no cards, no jewelry. They just sit around and eat chocolate. Brilliant.

At least until White Day rolls around. Yup, the Japanese candy companies (after importing Valentine's Day) invented an entirely new holiday exactly one month later on March 14th. Here's the clever bit: they convinced all the guys to return any gifts they received on St. Valentine's Day three-fold. Drat, almost got away with it. It was a good try fellas, better luck next time.

Now, about that chocolate; the Japanese don't like ours. They like their chocolate plain and possibly with tea flavoring. One of my fellow teachers gave out American candy to our students. The looks on their faces were priceless; they were not pleased at all with our culinary offerings. Especially disliked were York Peppermint Patties. I don't know about you, but I find them to be scrumptious. The Japanese however were deeply disturbed by their minty goodness. They also were not thrilled that there was something inside the chocolate; the took offense to the very idea of it. Apparently, they were just expecting a disk of unadulterated chocolaty goodness. Instead they got a mouthful of momentous mint, which they found monstrous.

Other candies had a similar impact on their palates as each visage twisted in disgust at the foreign sugary poison. I did notice that a few were determined to eat all that they had been given even if they were on the verge of having a bout of the vapors. Oh well. I suppose they will be sticking to their "cakes" filled with tea flavored awful or red bean paste (they seriously consider that to be a sweet), but that's fine.

More York Peppermint Patties for me.

JetSetArnett Out.

Who can take a sunrise, sprinkle it with dew

A Long Time Ago...

Far, far away doesn't exist in a Globalized world.

It didn't take me years or months to travel more than halfway around the world; indeed, it took only slightly more than a day. That is an interesting paradigm shift; until recently (in terms of the human condition) far, far away has been inaccessible. Distant kingdoms could be romanticized because they would never be visited. Claims could be lodged that could never be verified or disproved, and this allowed for a variety false images to be constructed and propagated. Furthermore, in addition to facilitating the creation of blindly positive views of distant locales, it also enabled individuals in power to create scapegoats for their own regions' problems or to craft the image of barbarian hoards to keep local populations feeling interconnected with their fellow citizens by establishing an outside "other."

One of the first things that became tangible for me when I traveled to Japan was the solidification of the idea that people are people wherever they are. Now, obviously I knew that people were people, but when I traveled to somewhere that was supposed to be so foreign and so uniquely unique, I realized that it was all a great romanticized falsity. The world is filled with people that go about their daily lives just as everyone else does.

I suppose the idea that reality is any different than this can be at least partly attributed to the "grass is greener" effect. Of course, occasionally, that becomes a "my grass is greener" effect and xenophobia can set into the mindset of a population.

However, by removing the perceptions of romanticized Shangri-Las and evil Communists, a new problem arises with a world without "far, far away" which is that we can no longer be so blissfully ignorant about the plight of the rest of mankind. Because these places are no longer shrouded by the cloud of inaccessibility, we can now see that the utopia we imagined doesn't exist and that the evil hoard of soulless heathens is equally fictitious. Hence, we are now struck with the reality of people living their lives through the human condition the same way that John down the street or Frank across town does. We can't pretend Zhi, Rahim, Arjun, and Mengesha don't exist and don't experience life with the same vibrancy and fullness that we do.

What does all that mean exactly? That is what I am trying to discover.

JetSetArnett Out.

A person's a person, no matter how small

I Support Ron Paul

But let's elect Barack Obama.

Wait a minute, JSA. Aren't you a Republican?

Well, I was. I was when Republican meant small government, individual liberty, fiscal responsibility, and non-interventionism. Now Republicanism is all about bloated government, security over freedom, budgeting that would put a counterfeiting ring out of business, and a foreign policy that will both bleed us dry and make us less secure than when we started. The current breed of Republicans are the worst that I have ever seen, and I am confident that they will go down in history as the most despicable and damaging governors that this body politic has ever born witness against.

And now I'm done with them.

Barack Obama represents real change from the current breed of politicians, and I know that that sounds incredibly cliché, but I am beginning to see some of his weaknesses as strengths.

First weakness, he ran virtually unopposed for his senate seat because his rival Jack Ryan was involved in a sex scandal and withdrew from the race. The republican party was unable to recover, and Obama won the election easily. Hence, Obama won by default.

Second, he's a junior senator; he has yet to complete even one term. This coupled with his easy victory displays a distinct lack of experience that I originally felt would be both unelectable and a detriment to the office of the presidency if he won.

Well, I've changed my mind. After pondering more on the outrageous levels of corruption in our current government within both parties, I have realized that that kind of experience is the last thing that we need.

Barack Obama is committed to transparency in government and rooting out lobbyist corruption. The current administration has created a 1984-esk cloak of secrecy and deceit, and it is high time that it was ripped down.

Obviously, Barack Obama has a number of other fantastic qualities as well, but to me, stopping corruption is the number one priority.

Side note: any man that says that "freedom to live" is more important than freedom itself should be taken out and shot. Repeatedly. In the groin.

Give me liberty, or give me death.

JetSetArnett Out.

And I won't forget the men who died who gave that right to me.