Election 2008

Okay, so writing about this is not exactly topical for me, since I sent in my absentee ballot a few weeks ago, but I really am sad that so many of my friends aren't voting because they applied for their absentee ballots too late or thought it was "too big of a pain" to order one. All you have to do is send a letter, as far as I know; it's not that difficult even to send it way ahead of time. I remember that I applied for mine at the beginning of the school year and I got everything on time. Perhaps my City Hall is more efficient and well-organized than those of my friends' respective counties, but I highly doubt it.

The other thing that bothers me is that people pay no attention to local candidates. They will often use as an excuse for not voting that "McCain will win Kentucky anyway." Yeah, he will, but what about the local candidates? You have to live here, and those guys and girls are the ones who will have the most direct impact on your quality of life! The other thing that cheeses me off is that many of the local candidates don't provide any information about themselves online. I'm not in Massachusetts, so I can't go to their campaign meetings or houses to ask them about their platform. (I only made the comment about going to their houses because their addressees were published on the ballot). Really, the best and easiest way for me to see what they are about and to be impressed by them would be for them to provide information about themselves online. This seems like a minimal effort to make for your campaign; most of them seem to be relying upon hearsay to advance themselves. I really don't know what else to make of it.

But in any case, at least one of my friends is going to the polls right now! I'm proud of him. My other friend who is not yet a citizen and thus can not vote is going with him for moral support. I would have gone, but I'm spending my election day in debauchery (drinking coffee in my room and reading comics :D).

SHEER IDIOCY

Okay, I have to talk about another film. I'll actually READ something one of these days, I promise, but I have to explain why this documentary my friend made me watch is so idiotic and misleading. Expelled is a "satirical" documentary claiming that the Intelligent Design theory has been unfairly suppressed in academics and that it should be given its proper place in science. The film tries to present proponents of intelligent design as genuine scientists who are curious enough about the world to question the "dogmatic" theory of evolution. They claim that the argument of intelligent design doesn't have anything to do with religion, thus that teaching it in schools would not violate the secular nature of government (which as we all know is a myth any way). Finally, the claim that Darwinism leads to fascism. Yes, that's right.

Let me take you through the various forms of sophistry this film uses:

1) The presenter (let us call him "the Visine Tears man," for that is who he is) completely misrepresents various theories on the origin of life that are presented by evolutionary biologists. When one scientists tells him the theory that the first biological molecules "formed on crystals," the documentary shows a black-and-white image of a man looking at a crystal ball and Visine tears man incredulously goes "crystals? That doesn't sound very likely to me." Essentially, the film is relying upon the fact that most viewers will know NOTHING about chemistry and will assume that a crystal is something shiny. At another point, he criticizes the concept of "directed panspermia" as ridiculous, dismissing it as the claim that "aliens did it." And yet, at another point he shows Dawkins saying that alien beings might have planned life on earth and proclaims, "AH HAH! Dawkins thinks intelligent design might be plausible!" Well DUH, but didn't you just ridicule the idea that "aliens did it" earlier in the film? And how did these aliens arise themselves, eh?
2) The documentary fails to provide ANY scientific evidence for intelligent design or ANY examples of research that takes intelligent design as an assumption to accomplish its ends. It is a bit unfair to accuse evolutionary biologists of anti-intellectualism if you fail to defend your own intellectual position or even point out the holes in that of the other party. In fact, the film doesn't go beyond claiming that there ARE holes in evolutionary theory.
3) After the confusing jumble of scientists refusing to elaborate on their science that makes up the first part of the film, we are presented of images of Visine tears man walking through a Nazi scientist laboratory and going on about how "Darwinism was an essential condition for Nazi-ism." Yes, because science informed the world view that certain people are inferior. The idea that scientific ideas can be perverted to extend certain points of view is utterly preposterous, isn't it? Oh wait, what's that? You claim that the other side distorts science to perpetuate their own atheistic world view! Aaah, so Darwinism causes fascism...no, wait, racism causes Darwinism which then causes fascism... let's just agree that everything collides in a swirling stream of atheism, racism, fascism, and worst of all, Darwinism.

Maybe I should stop trying to analyze their arguments here. I mean, wouldn't that make me a NAZI?
4) They show the Berlin wall throughout the film. So Evolutionary biologists are COMMIES! And Nazis! Wait...that doesn't even make sense...

Not only is this film quite patently propaganda, it's badly-made propaganda. If the intention of the filmmakers was to confuse people, well done to them. All I can say is that I am sure there are some proponents of intelligent design theory out there who are hanging their heads in shame that this film was ever made.

Powerful Films

Recently in my Gender and Women's Studies class we watched a film entitled Ma Vie En Rose. It centers around the reactions of acquaintances, neighbors, and family members to a little boy who is convinced that he should really be a little girl and loves to dress up in girl's clothes. I actually found this movie quite affecting, because the reactions of those around the little boy were so powerfully fearful. Why be afraid of such a young child wanting to explore his gender identity? The fact is, even if you think homosexuality is wrong (which some of the people in the film brought up), the child is far too young to have sexual thoughts at all; his actions are limited to dressing in a certain way and not liking sports much. And the fact that the family was not at all supportive was discouraging. What is more important: the well-being of your child, or the opinion of your donkeyish neighbors? I really hope the film reached a wide audience (it's quite a few years old now) and made people think a little. I hope it encouraged people not to be silly.

Bioethics Shmetchics

Saturday was the day of presentations by the various people in my BIO 425 class. It seems I was the unlucky one whose presentation couldn't be half taken-up by explanations of technological procedures; rather than presenting on a particular technology, I had to present on "Medical Biotechnology and World Religions." But in any case, many of the presentations were interesting and well-done. You could most certainly tell that the class tended to be divided in terms of those who believed that ethical considerations should almost be eliminated entirely and those who were more cautious about what should and shouldn't be allowed. One of the things that was brought up again and again was the fact that people seeking to curb biotechnology were usually not very well-informed of how the technologies worked.

One of the presentations was on an interesting topic, but I feel the presenter made it boring. He had clearly worked extremely hard on his research- too hard. He spent FAR TOO LONG on discussing each and every single aspect of his technology, then he'd take two extra minutes to sum up the last twenty points he made. We never even got to the discussion part because his presentation was so detailed and wordy. I really think there are some instances in life where you are better off not presenting what you think is your best work. Set out to do your best, then pare out the boring bits so that people don't have to suffer through your best.

Beauty Without Borders

We watched a movie in Gender and Women's Studies today about a group of American beauticians who opened a beauty school in Afghanistan in an attempt to empower women. I think it's great that they are helping women find economic opportunities, but do they really think they are making groundbreaking social change? I mean, call me a bluestocking, but I tend to think it is more important to provide Afghani women with education and quality healthcare than to rescue them from their eighties hairstyles and unpolished nails. Perhaps I'm just an enemy to all that is fabulous.

Interviews are silly, but Japanese movies are not

So I still can't figure out if the point of the interview process is to find out more about the applicant and their interests or to see if they can actually talk to people at some sort of basal level. If it is the former, why are there interviewers who seems stiff and uninterested in what you are saying, who look at their notes while you are talking, and who seem to want to hurry from question to question rather than asking you to elaborate further upon what you are saying? If it is the latter, why are there interviewers who focus in on specific content from your application, who listen well to what you have to say about it, asking questions to lead you in a specific direction?

Really, the second type of interviewer will get a more perceptive view of you than the first, who could perhaps intimidate you into not speaking as much as you should. Right now, I feel I had one very good interview and one rather bad one at the same school. I have no way of gauging what the overall reaction will be, and it's driving me crazy! But there's nothing I can do about it in the meantime, so I'm just going to try to enjoy myself as much as possible.

To that end, yesterday I watched the third movie based upon the manga Death Note, called "L Change the World." It immediately follows the story told in the first few Death Note movies; L has a month to stop the spread of an unbelievably devastating epidemic before he dies. This movie explores a different moral problem from the first two, but there is still the one side that believes in its moral superiority and believes it has the right to arbitrate who lives and who dies. The only difference is that L races about on bikes and hangs off of planes far more than he did in the first story.

Karate

I went to karate club yesterday. The black belt who was teaching us spent some time introducing the purpose of the school and answering any questions we had. The other person who was new to the program asked all of these intelligent questions about forms and styles; I felt bad because I know nothing of the history and practice of martial arts; I just want to gain strength and learn how to fight.

The teacher made no bones about the fact that martial arts is used primarily to hurt people, that even the more artistic aspects of it (the forms, for example) have a practical application that is meant to cause pain. If art is a form of self-expression, I wonder if karate can be reconciled with the term. On the one hand, it is a very practical thing to learn; if you become skilled in karate, you can defend yourself against nearly anybody. On the other hand, you don't really need to go through that level of discipline and focus to defend yourself. You could just carry around a weapon; it would be much easier to learn how to use it. Perhaps the act of exploring what your body can do and training your mind to be alert and focused falls into the realm of art.

But I can't wait until they let us start fighting people.

My Week

1. Hydropathy values! Amino acids! This is what we're all about in biochem at the moment. That is why I am making flashcards.

2. INTERVIEW! OMG!

3. Have you heard of Sora Juana? She was a Mexican nun in the seventeenth century, and she was a YOUNG SOUL REBEL. More on this as I research my paper.

This blog post was rather boring. I apologize. I'm not in a super mood at the moment.

Food for the belly, food for thought.

So I bought some supplies for cooking! And also some Nutella, which is a yummy chocolate spread and is basically a desert, though I thought it would be more like peanut butter. I read an article called "Doing Gender" that struck me as a bit out-of-date in its assumptions about gender politics and balance of power in the workplace. It said that female physicians were excluded from clinical activities and that a lady engineer was encouraged not to fly in the plane she designed and throw a party for her colleagues. But the thing is, no one says girls shouldn't party any more, guys in a profession get in big trouble if they do anything that smacks of male camaraderie (even if it has nothing to do with work hours), and women are even involved in direct combat in war. So a lot has changed since the late eighties. I think our professor should have chosen a more current article for our first class reading. Not to mention that the article narrows its focus to people in affluent American society, whereas I think the real future of the women's rights movement is in different countries.

I also saw "Labyrinth" and "Casablanca". TOO MANY MOVIES.

BurrrrITO

Today, we was gettin' burritos, and this guy in a funny hat in front of us said "burrrrITO" to the foodservice man very loudly before he made his order. I thought that was unnecessary.

A Negativity-Style Post

I started reading Twilight last night. How unrealistic. How utterly unrealistic; the author must truly never talk to people, because she does not know how to write humans.

Aside from that, packing ahoy! My stupid letters of recommendation are still not in. GAH.

One the bright side, I had processed noodles for lunch.

Fly Me To The Moon!

Sometimes, I do stupid things like starting blogs. This is one of those times. What news would you like to hear?

Yesterday I finished an essay. That is some news. And I listened to songs by the Proclaimers that I had not heard before while I was writing. The thick Scottish accents soothed the raging beast within my soul that is hungry for marshmallows.

I promise you, future blog posts will be better written/ more entertaining than this. Today is a weird day. Today, I pack.