The Blog With No Name

Horror-thon: Part II - Transylvanian Terror

2011-10-13T11:09:00.001-04:00

The first two films I watched for my Oktoberfest of Horror were two versions of Dracula, the 1931 classic starring Bela Lugosi and the 1992 movie Bram Stoker's Dracula, starring Gary Oldman.

As someone who has read the book, I must say that the '31 adaptation doesn't stand up to the novel. In fact, that version of Dracula wasn't technically based off of the novel itself, but was instead the adaptation of a play based off of the book. It is one of the downsides of the movie that the plot is much too simplified. Granted, it dates back to the 1930s, when movie norms were quite different from what they are now, but when I compare the movie with the novel, I can't help but notice certain jarring simplifications. Easily the most unsettling is the treatment of the "White Lady." The audience is shown that one of Dracula's victims has become a vampire, and is preying on children. And then?.... Nothing. The main plot line continues on without any resolution whatsoever of what you would think would be an important issue. After all, this only means that there's a second vampire loose in London.

On the plus side, however, there is the superb performance of Bela Lugosi, who effuses a wonderfully sinister charm and charisma. It is commonly said that Lugosi, a Hungarian, had to learn his lines phonetically because he didn't speak English when the movie was made. This is actually incorrect, although there is an element of truth to it, as Lugosi had played Dracula for years in the stage version mentioned above and had to learn his lines phonetically because of his then-poor English.

The 1991 version adheres more closely to the novel. It still has multiple alterations, however, but it is far from the simple story of the original movie. Perhaps the alteration that I most like is the movie's introduction, which provides the origin story of the dark count. In fact, the overall arc of the movies suggests that Dracula is not so much a horror villain as a tragic character, a man who, when confronted with immeasurable and eternal loss, chose to renounce both his soul and humanity, and suffers the consequences over the following centuries.

Definitely an old man...

Another distinction of this version is its quite overt sexuality. I generally think it works on multiple levels. It taps into the longstanding perception that, in the stuffy Victorian age, sexuality was tantamount to depravity. And few things are as depraved as the depiction of the undead slacking their lust for the living (and not just for their blood...). Then there's the juxtaposition of the sexually repressed Jonathan, generally considered the hero of the story, with the aggressively sexual Dracula, which further questions the distinction between the living and the dead.

It goes without saying that Gary Oldman is fantastic as Dracula, and Anthony Hopkins is a riot to watch as a callously straight-forward Van Helsing. Keanu Reeves, on the other hand, is cringe-inducing, mostly because of his horrific attempt to use a British accent. Among other butcheries, he possibly committed the most laughable mispronunciation of Budapest, "Byudapest," during a voice-over narration. I don't know what Francis Ford Coppola was thinking when he cast him.

Horror-thon

2011-10-12T17:15:00.001-04:00

In response to a complaint that I didn't have anything to blog about, a friend suggested that I blog about my recent spate of horror movie watching. The month of October has two inconveniently contradictory realities for students (or at least me): one, the existence of midterm exams and papers, and two, the overwhelming desire to sit around watching horror movies, at the likely expense of performing well on aforementioned midterms. As someone who has loved horror movies since I was a pre-teen, I've been spending a bit too much time on the latter, but I don't care.

Unfortunately, my ability to watch my favorite horror movies has been hampered by my recent severing of ties with Netflix's DVD mailing service, which means I'm limited to whatever's available on instant viewing, Hulu, or movies that I own. Unfortunately, this means I can't watch films like Psycho (1960), The Birds (1963), Halloween (1978), Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), Friday the 13th (1980), Ringu (1998), and Ju-On (2003).

Nevertheless, I have made the best of a disappointing situation. So far this month, I've watched twelve horror movies, for a current average of one a day. (I've also had one in-class midterm, but the horror movies are obviously more important...) They are: Dracula (1931), Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), The Fog (1980), The Thing (1982), The Lost Boys (1987), The Exorcist (1973), The Masque of the Red Death (1964), The Evil Dead (1981), An American Werewolf in London (1981), The Howling (1981), Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), and Scream (1996). I will be writing blog posts about most, if not all, of them and other horror movies in the near future...

Single blog in search of a name

2011-10-12T16:10:00.001-04:00

So, after yet another unintended hiatus, I've decided to tweak my blog, hoping that it might spur a burst of creativity. Part of this blog renovation is a change in name. Unfortunately, it's taking me a while to thing of something I like (the front-runner was part of a quote from Les Misérables, but I just wasn't satisfied with it), so for the time being this will be The Blog With No Name.

If any of you have any suggestions, please, by all means, let me know.

Plans for the summer

2011-05-10T01:49:00.000-04:00

So, my semester is over and I have almost four months before things pick up again in late August. I've been thinking about what I want to do in that period of time. Obviously, I'm going to be doing a lot of reading about Yemen, which is the topic of my thesis. I expect, however, that I'll still have a lot of additional time to spend when I'm not researching. So, here are some of my plans for the summer:

-Read for fun. One of the things that I love about breaks is the free time I have for reading. Within the last 24 hours, for example, I read almost 150 pages of Sarah Vowell's Unfamiliar Fishes, which I consequently finished.
-Write (which includes contributing to this blog). I really want to try to write more for fun. I'm planning some blog posts, including one on Unfamiliar Fishes. I also want to work on some more substantial stuff, such as a paper giving a psycho-dynamic analysis of the reaction to Osama bin Laden's death. And, of course, I'd like to write some creative stuff too.
-Work on foreign language skills. I'm going to try to improve my Arabic and French skills over the summer. Also, I might take a GLN course depending on what they're offering this summer.
-Lose weight. Two summers ago, I lost about thirty pounds without really trying. I'm hoping that if I actually made an effort, I might lose ten or maybe twenty more. Probably not, but I'm going to try.

The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day

2011-01-24T02:39:00.004-05:00

So, Saturday night I finally forced myself to watch The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day on Netflix. It appears that there's a reason why it sat in my queue for months.

Simply put, it was awful. I'll be honest and admit that the first Boondock Saints isn't a particularly good film, but it's a lot of fun to watch. Considering that there was some ten years between the films, the second one should have been much better.

I'll put a spoiler warning in case any of you want to watch this festering turd of a movie.

So, the film starts out with the MacManus boys and their dad in Ireland, and judging by their hirsute visages, 1) they've been there for a while, and 2) there aren't any razors on the Emerald Isle.

The boys find out that they've been framed for the murder of a priest, and come back to America to bring the vengeance of the Lord upon anyone connected with the crime.

The actual killer, a hired gun who is 5' 5", is obsessed with his lack of height. Pretty much half of his screen time is him silently gauging how short he is. It's pointless and annoying.

There are also a myriad of flashbacks and dream sequences. The primary purpose of which apparently is to provide an excuse to have the deceased Rocco make an appearance. Also pointless and annoying.

There are gun fights, and (generally lame) wisecracks, and a disturbing amount visible of an overweight man. Judd Nelson plays the son of Papa Joe Yakavetta, which is kinda weird since he's two years older than Carlos Rota.

An insufferably long story short, it turns out that Noah, the MacManus' father, who was simply known as "Il Duce" in the first movie, is being lured back to America by an old friend of his played by Peter Fonda. This friend helped Noah become the badass assassin he was in the first movie, and then arranged for his incarceration. The background for this showdown was provided throughout the film by additional flashbacks that appeared to be a tacky imitation of The Godfather Part II. In my opinion, the back-story, which casts Noah as a vigilante killer of Mafiosos, doesn't seem to mesh with the first film, which implies that he's a Mafia hit-man with a moral code.

Anyway, a violent shootout precedes the film's ending, which suggests that there may be another sequel in the works. Saints preserve us from that day.

Thoughts on "Breaking the Real Axis of Evil"

2011-01-24T02:28:00.004-05:00

I recently read “Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World’s Last Dictator’s by 2025” by former ambassador Mark Palmer. It’s an interesting book, and I more or less agree with its basic premise that the world would be a better place without dictatorships, and I thought that many ideas for bring about such a world are interesting. I do have some quibbles with the book however.

Misrepresentation (or, more charitably, misinterpretation)

-Palmer inexplicably claims that “more women have led Islamic countries than have led non-Islamic democracies….” Honestly, I have no idea what math Palmer is using. By 2003, the year the book was written, there had been one female head of state and six female heads of government of Islamic states. What Palmer means by female leaders of non-Islamic democracies could be tricky, since he may mean women who were elected rather than appointed. I personally don’t think that there should be a difference given the fact that either way the transfer of power would be based upon a rule of law. However, to rattle off just a few of the female heads of government who were elected before 2003: Indira Gandhi, Golda Meir, Margaret Thatcher, Corazon Aquino, Helen Clark, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Mireya Moscoso, Violeta Chamorro, and Eugenia Charles.

-In his afterword, written in 2005, Palmer writes about Russia backsliding into Not Free status. He claims that Putin’s popularity in Russia is in decline as a result. I think this is blatantly wishful thinking on Palmer’s part. While there has been a steady opposition to Putin in Russia, a vast majority of Russians support him and have supported him throughout his presidency and premiership.

Over-simplifications

-Palmer writes only a couple of paragraphs on Palestine, which (justifiably) criticize Yasser Arafat, as well as call for elections in Palestine. While the government of the Palestinian Authority has some responsibility for the poor lot of Palestinians, I would argue that the Israeli occupation of Palestine is more to blame. Additionally, Palmer failed to even mention Hamas, let alone anticipate its victory in the 2006 parliamentary elections.

-In what was essentially a throwaway sentence, Palmer writes that the issue of Kashmir will only be resolved when Pakistan is democratic. This may, in essence, be true, as a dictatorship would be likely to use the conflict to shore up support among Pakistanis. Considering, however, that there have been periods of democratic rule in Pakistan which did not resolve the conflict, it appears that merely hoping that democracy will end the problem is dangerously simplistic.

-Palmer pays little attention to the problem of democratization in multi-ethnic or multi-sectarian states. As we have seen in Iraq and Lebanon, democratic government can result in inter-group clashes, where differences are used for political advantage, or even result in merciless violence.

-Dictatorship is typically considered to be the absolute rule by one individual. Palmer reinforces this conceptualization by frequently referring to the forty-five individuals who are the world’s “least wanted.” A few of these dictatorships, however, are hardly run by individuals. Some, while they may have individual figures who represent the government, are in fact run by groups of people, such as some single-party governments and military juntas. Palmer seems to recognize this by dividing the dictatorships into typologies, including military dictatorships and one-party dictatorships, but he persists in identifying the regimes with single individuals.

Random acts of bizarreness

-Palmer arbitrarily picks a single warlord as Somalia’s “dictator” to be ousted. Google "Somalia" if you don't understand how ridiculous this is.

-Palmer criticizes Bhutan’s then-king for cracking down on pro-democracy activists. This may be true, and I’m not an expert on Bhutan, but I find this behavior to be rather odd since a few years later the king abdicated in favor of his son, and, at the same time, made Bhutan a constitutional monarchy with an elected parliament. From what I’ve gathered, throughout the ’90s and ’00s, Bhutan actually was preparing for the transition into democracy despite the apathy that the Bhutanese had for self-government.

-Palmer lumps the central Asian –stans in with the Middle East, as well as North African states, and calls them all the Greater Middle East. I’ll admit that the term “Middle East” is pretty arbitrary, as well as the group of countries that are included in it, but creating a “Greater Middle East” makes even less sense. The countries involved are hardly all that similar, especially the central Asian states when compared to the Arab states.

Honest disagreement

-Palmer, in his prescription for ousting Iran’s dictator, argues that the United States has taken the wrong lesson from the American-backed 1953 coup: that Iranians don’t appreciate our involvement in Iranian domestic affairs. Instead, Palmer argues, the lesson should be that the US has influence in Iran; it just needs to use it to support Iranian democrats. I disagree. Pretty much all of the literature I have read on Iran states that, in general Iranians love Americans, as well as many of the ideals of America, but have a deep distrust, even dislike, for the American government. Openly aligning ourselves with Iranian democrats is probably the best way to ensure that they are viewed with skepticism by the Iranian population as a whole.

Thoughts on this week's Eagle

2010-11-16T22:58:00.002-05:00

So, this week's issue of The Eagle came out today. I haven't read all of it, but I have some brief thoughts on somethings I've noticed. There wasn't a correction for the Nobel Peace Prize inaccuracy last week, so odds are no one told them about it. I'll have to email them about it.

There were some really poor word choices in the opinion section. One opinion piece mentioned "discriminate policies," as opposed to "discriminatory policies." Another piece talks about "the untenable position where we get sick and the Health Center is... closed...." That position is hardly "untenable." Unenviable, perhaps, but not untenable. The thing that really aggravates me about that is that this was a staff editorial. The editorial staff should know better.

Favorite Eagle Rant this week: "The worst thing about living on America's #1 Most Politically Active Campus is listening to drunk Republicans rant about economics

Ragging on AU's rag

2010-11-16T02:16:00.003-05:00

Having edited two sections of a student newspaper, I understand that such a publication can be difficult to put together. But AU's student newspaper, The Eagle, is surprisingly disappointing. It does have a nice tabloid format, as well as a decent variety of stories, but overall, I have to say that it's quite mediocre. Pretty much every week there are corrections for the previous issue.

This last week, they failed to notice that a study abroad student in London who contributed an article mistakenly wrote that her economics professor recently received the Nobel Peace Prize. Consider the fact that the Nobel Prize in Economics is not even given by the same organization as the Peace Prize, which went to an imprisoned Chinese dissident, and I think you can grasp how incompetent their editors and copy-editors are.

There has, however, been an entertaining debate between the AU STAND Coalition and AU Students for Life over whether abortion in the U.S. is genocide. It started when AU Students for Life displayed signs listing abortion as a genocide along with Rwanda, Darfur, and the Holocaust. STAND took umbrage to this, and wrote a letter to the editor pointing out that abortion does not meet the actual definition of genocide. AU Students for Life responded the next week with their own letter to the editor, which said that abortion can be considered genocide, if you broadly define genocide "as violence resulting from the dehumanization of a class of people in a society." The letter also argued that unborn children are discriminated against "because of their age and development level."

As someone who has actually studied genocide and international law, I'm going to have to say that AU Students for Life is way (read: waaaaay) off base. They are blurring the meaning of genocide. The essential definition of genocide is very clear. Redefining it broadly, like AU Students for Life is trying to do, undermines the concept of the crime. Simply put, genocide is systematic, and its objective is to destroy, in whole or in part, a distinct national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. Terminating a pregnancy does not meet either of these criteria. It is an individual choice, not a concerted, systematic campaign. And an abortion is performed not because of who the unborn child is, but because a woman has decided that she does not want to give birth for some personal reason.

Anyway, one thing that I do like about The Eagle are the Eagle Rants, which are short statements from readers about a variety of topics. One last week complained about The Eagle mistakenly using a quotation mark for an abbreviated year instead of an apostrophe, as is correct. I am not alone....

Attack of the killer commute (a.k.a. my life so far)

2010-09-19T03:17:00.004-04:00

Well, I'm about to start week five of graduate school. I'm enjoying it so far. Unfortunately, the commute is killing me. Each day I go to school, it takes me about three and a half hours all together. Needless to say, I'm hoping to find an apartment soon. The biggest problem I'm having is that most days I'm either too busy or too tired to apartment hunt.

I'm finding it much easier to meet people than during the beginning of my undergrad. There was a welcome event for my program on Friday. Afterward, a huge group of students and some faculty and staff went to a place called Guapo's. I had never been there before, but apparently that's the place that IPCR people hang out. Anyway, I had a good time talking with classmates.

Afterwards, I had a horrible drive to Arlington to go to a friend's birthday party. It's hardly a new criticism, but Washington is poorly designed. What should have taken me 15 minutes took about an hour because I kept missing turns and taking wrong turns. The signs in DC in particular should be done differently because they are so hard to see at night. They should be bigger, or there should be signs before the intersections, like in Baltimore.

Well, that's more or less my life so far. I'll probably have something more interesting to post later.

Want small government? Go to Somalia...

2010-04-17T22:39:00.005-04:00

Apparently some rational people infiltrated a tea party in Boston. Some of their signs are pretty awesome. Below are two of my favorites.

End(?) of hiatus...

2010-04-06T17:56:00.005-04:00

So, it's been several months since I've last posted. I keep having ideas, but never follow through with them. Among the (generally untimely) posts I might end up writing include:

-Why I hate Watchmen (the movie, of course)
-Why I hate V for Vendetta (the movie, of course)
-Why I hate Avatar (a trend? I think so...)
-An ongoing series showing how I, as a snobby film-goer, might be spared from crappy movies
-The quality problems that are inherent in keeping 24 "exciting" (a completely moot point since it's now cancelled)
-The social messages that Pixar is brainwashing your children with.

As you might notice, I've made a few minor changes to the blog. I've ditched the widget(?) that connected to my Twitter account, as I've lapsed into Twitter neglect. I have, however, included a rather ill-fitting Tumblr widget in its place, as I consider Tumber to have much more potential than Twitter. By which, I mean that I'll probably stop using it in six months or so.

In personal developments, I have been accepted into graduate school, specifically American University's School of International Service. You probably cannot tell, but I'm quite excited.

Anyway... I am currently reading Marcus Aurelius' Meditations. They're quite interesting, in my opinion, though he does occasionally write something that seems bizarrely short and devoid of context. It probably would have been good to find an edition with some form of commentary on them. I suppose that's yet another failing of the Great Books series.

AMC vs. TCM

2009-04-12T19:08:00.009-04:00

Those of you who know me know that I look down on AMC in its current manifestation. The movie choices, the constant repetition of movies, the original television shows (though they are quite good), and the commercials (especially the ones for "male enhancement" products) all demonstrate to me that AMC is no longer the channel of American Movie Classics. To better analyze AMC, I created a scatter plot graph comparing the movie being shown this week on AMC and TCM.

Now, I'm not a mathematician or a statistician, I am fairly certain that when we look at this graph, we're supposed to ask, What does this tell us? So, what does this tell us? Not a whole lot. There are, however, a few things that can be inferred from the graph.

One: TCM is showing a larger selection of movies, 91 (one movie was not placed on the graph because it had no ratings on IMDb), than AMC, 47. The most likely reason for this is the fact that AMC's weekly schedule is cluttered with television shows, repeated movies and television shows, and penile growth commercials. Of course, the repeated movies are the worst as they take up the most scheduling time and keep AMC from supplying additional movies during the week.

Two: TCM's movie selection spans a greater length of time than AMC's, with selections spanning 71 years of cinema, from 1914 to 1982. AMC's, on the other hand, is representative of only 56 years, from 1950 to 2006. Possible reasons for this difference is that TCM can afford a wider diversity of movies. I make this assumption because of the commercial-free nature of TCM's movies, which implies that TCM doesn't need money from advertisers. Additionally, because AMC does run commercials, it will need to run movies that advertisers will want to run commercials during. Generally, these movies will be somewhat newer and/or more action-oriented, at least during the day.

Three: Interestingly, AMC's trendline implies that movie quality goes down the older the movie shown while TCM's trendline implies the opposite. My guess for why this is true is that TCM has a larger share of the rights to older movies, which restricts AMC's abilities to obtain the rights to quality movies from the '80s (I use the word "quality" loosely when describing '80s movies). Of course, as mentioned earlier, AMC's demand for older movies might not be that strong because of advertising. I do think, however, that more than one week's data is needed to see if the trendlines remain consistent.

There are some issues with the scatter plot. Probably the most significant of these is the use of IMDb ratings, which can be unstable and a bit susceptible to manipulation, as last year's ratings battle between fans of The Godfather and The Dark Knight shows. Particularly unstable are movies that don't have a lot of ratings, which is the case with quite a few older movies.

The Flyer editorial: Will the real leader of the GOP please stand up? (backdated)

2009-03-10T21:15:00.000-04:00

I had some fun writing this editorial.

Originally published in The Flyer on March 10th, 2009.

Link to story on The Flyer's web site
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Who's the Boss?

The Flyer editorial: We're not socialists yet (backdated)

2009-02-24T21:32:00.000-05:00

Personally, I originally thought that this editorial could have been better, but I heard a few compliments about it, including from my boss, the Honors Program Director, whose opinion of it I was rather grateful to hear.

Originally published in The Flyer on February 24th, 2009.

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During the recent debate over the Obama administration’s stimulus package, the term "socialism" was bandied about both by some supporters and detractors. On a recent cover, Newsweek declared that "We Are All Socialists Now," while conservative critics attempted to rally opposition to the stimulus by ascribing the dreaded S word to it.... (Link to the article on The Flyer's website.)

The Iconography of Barack Obama

2009-02-23T22:42:00.006-05:00

Now, I'll say that I think President Obama is pretty cool. And I think he's more on top of things than the "Know Nothing" (or No-to-Everything) GOP is right now. But seriously, this is a little ridiculous. Not to mention blatantly obvious.

The Flyer editorial: No one is perfect (backdated)

2009-02-10T21:42:00.001-05:00

When I first finished this, I thought it was so-so, but a friend of mine loved it and mentioned how good it was several times after it was published. I've come around to her line of thinking and approve of the editorial now.

Originally published in The Flyer on February 10th, 2009.

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A picture was published recently of swimmer Michael Phelps smoking out of a bong at a college party last November. Phelps admitted that he was using marijuana in the picture and apologized for his "bad judgment." So far, as a consequence of his actions, Phelps was dropped as a spokesman for Kellogg’s, USA Swimming barred him from competition for three months and he may face criminal charges. In addition, parents bemoan the failings of a role model for children. The controversy does, however, raise some important questions.... (Link to article on The Flyer's website.)

The crux of my decision in Smith v. Alaska

2009-01-29T22:53:00.007-05:00

Last spring, I took a class on constitutional law, the curriculum of which included a moot court. The case, Smith v. Alaska involved the arrest and conviction of Smith, a teenage male, who was older than the age of consent, for statutory rape due to a sexual relationship he had with a teenage male, who was younger than the age of consent. The complicating issue here is that under a hypothetical Alaskan statute, there is a "Romeo and Juliet" exception to the statutory rape law which legalizes relationships if the individuals are within a certain difference in age. Smith and his partner were within this age difference, however, the wording of the statute implies that the exception only applies to heterosexual relations. So, what does the constitution have to say about it? Well, here is the third (and best) section of my decision along with the conclusion.

The Flyer editorial - Black Friday trampling death sign of lost holiday meaning (backdated)

2008-12-09T14:19:00.000-05:00

This is another of my favorite editorials.
Originally printed in The Flyer on Dec. 09, 2008.
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The day after Thanksgiving is the traditional start of the Christmas shopping season. Over the years, this day has become the crowning jewel in the commercialization of the holiday season, with hordes of shoppers massing outside stores hoping to take advantage of annual sales. The day is called Black Friday, traditionally because many retailers are now in the black ink of profits instead of the red ink of losses.... (Link to article.)

The Flyer editorial: Editor’s Corner - Government’s lack of foresight shown in Fannie and Freddie (backdated)

2008-11-16T14:19:00.000-05:00

Originally printed in The Flyer on Sept. 16, 2008.
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On Sept. 8, the federal government announced that it would be placing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two of the country’s largest mortgage lending companies, into a "conservatorship." This was done in an effort to calm the financial world and to ensure the continuing flow of capital into the mortgage market. The saddest part of the whole thing is that this did not need to happen.... (Link to article.)

The Flyer editorial: What makes a “real” American? (backdated)

2008-10-28T14:19:00.001-04:00

In my opinion, this is one of the best editorials I have written.
Originally printed in The Flyer on Oct. 28, 2008.
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Recently, Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin was campaigning in rural North Carolina, where she said that she and her running mate, John McCain believe "that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you -- hardworking, very patriotic, very pro-America areas of this great nation." (Link to article.)

The Flyer editorial: An unruly House... (backdated)

2008-10-21T14:19:00.001-04:00

Originally printed in The Flyer on Oct. 21, 2008.
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Last week, Rep. Tim Mahoney, D-Fla., asked the House Ethics Committee to review his own conduct regarding an extramarital affair. Mahoney has admitted to having multiple affairs, but the allegation that he paid a mistress, who also worked for him as a staffer, $121,000 in hush money to avoid charges of sexual harassment appears to be what he really wants to clear up. This June, Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., provided the precedent by asking for a probe of himself regarding a claim that he used official letterhead to solicit donations. While it might be nice to think that the two representatives are attempting to be transparent about their own conduct, the reality is a bit more disheartening.... (Link to article.)

The Flyer editorial: Can you smell what Barack is cooking? Candidates’ appearance on WWE trivializes election (backdated)

2008-05-06T23:07:00.000-04:00

Originally published in The Flyer on May 6th, 2008.
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On April 21, all three of the contenders for president, Republican Senator John McCain and Democratic Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, made a special appearance on WWE Raw. Apparently, Senator Clinton wants you to call her "Hill-Rod," or at least she did that night. Senator Obama wants to know if the "special interests" and the "forces of division and distraction" can "smell what Barack is cooking." And Sen. McCain announced that "to be the man, you have to beat the man" and "come November, it’ll be ‘game over.’" (Link to the article on The Flyer's website.)

The Flyer editorial: Former President Jimmy Carter under criticism for Hamas meeting (backdated)

2008-04-22T22:53:00.000-04:00

Looking back on this editorial, I'm a little surprised that I didn't receive any negative feedback. I feel like it was a topic that should have instigated some sort of debate, if not the labeling of my person with derogatory words.
Originally published in The Flyer on April 22nd, 2008.
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Last week, former President Jimmy Carter met with the leaders of the Palestinian organization Hamas. This meeting has been met with much criticism because Hamas is considered to be a terrorist organization by many countries, including the United States. This designation is the result of Hamas’ refusal to recognize Israel’s right to exist and its sponsoring of attacks against the country.... (Link to article on The Flyer's website.)

The Flyer editorial: Why conservatives should embrace presidential hopeful John McCain (backdated)

2008-03-04T22:46:00.000-05:00

This editorial convinced my conservative grandfather to support McCain, although he almost certainly would have anyway when Palin was picked for VP.
Originally published in The Flyer on March 4th, 2008.
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As the 2008 election season has progressed, it has become increasingly clear that the Republican nomination will go to Senator John McCain. While the near-certainty of who the nominee will be is typically a good thing, the impending nomination of McCain has proven controversial and has provoked the wrath of many conservative leaders in his party. These leaders, and those who will follow them, run the risk of not only damaging McCain’s campaign, but also the Republican Party itself.... (Link to the article on The Flyer's website.)

The Flyer editorial: Primaries need moderate voters (backdated)

2008-02-19T14:19:00.000-05:00

Originally printed in The Flyer on Feb. 19, 2008.
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During this election season, as both parties have struggled to identify their presidential nominees, there has been increased media attention on state primaries and caucuses. These elections are organized by both parties so that party members in each state have a say in which candidates each party nominates to campaign in the general election. In the case of presidential primaries, the voters in the primaries elect delegates to go to the national party convention, who, in turn, vote for the nominee for president. Although the current primary system was created in order to give the everyday party member the ability to influence the party, the system has been subject to abuse by the parties’ most active members. Only if moderate voters participate in the primaries and caucuses will the parties stop emphasizing partisanship and ideology and instead focus on practicality, electability and the ability to actually get things done in Washington.... (Link to article.)

The Flyer editorial: Smoking ban inhibits Marylanders’ right to make their own decisions (backdated)

2008-02-12T14:19:00.001-05:00

Originally printed in The Flyer on Feb. 12, 2008.
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When the clock struck midnight on the first of February, a radical new law was put into effect throughout Maryland. The law, dubbed the Clean Indoor Air Act of 2007, effectively bans smoking in virtually all indoor public spaces. This law, though it may be argued as being in the best interest of Marylanders, should never have been passed as it violates the property rights of business owners and, more importantly, strips citizens of their ability to make decisions for themselves.... (Link to article - the date and issue number on the web page are incorrect.)

The Flyer editorial: Commercialization ruins true spirit of Christmas (backdated)

2007-12-04T14:19:00.000-05:00

Originally printed in The Flyer on Dec. 04, 2007.
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Christmas, along with the entire holiday season, has been hijacked. No longer just a period of time where feelings of peace, joy, charity and goodwill abound, the holiday season is in danger of becoming a deluxe version of Presidents Day, a holiday that only has significance to those who exploit the omnipresent sales held in its honor.... (Link to article.)

The Flyer editorial: Something rotten in the state of Louisiana (backdated)

2007-11-18T14:19:00.000-05:00

At the time that I wrote this, it was commonly reported that there were three nooses hanging from the tree. Apparently, this was misreported and there were only two.
Originally printed in The Flyer on Sept. 18, 2007.
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Racism is supposed to be dead. When Crash, a film about racial tensions in Los Angeles, won the Oscar for Best Picture in 2006, Annie Proulx, author of “Brokeback Mountain” complained that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had given the award to a film about an outdated issue. She facetiously predicted that the nominees for the award next year would be about “the punishment of adulterers with a branding iron in the shape of the letter A, runaway slaves, and the debate over free silver." (Link to article.)

The Flyer editorial: America's forced democracy: Right or wrong? (backdated)

2007-11-12T14:19:00.001-05:00

This is the first editorial I wrote for The Flyer. I personally think the headline is unfortunate. I would have preferred something like "America's support for dictators: Is it necessary?" But that's what I get for not suggesting a headline....

Originally printed on Sept. 12, 2007
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In a matter of weeks, two former prime ministers of Pakistan will have emerged from planes that will have brought them back to their homeland after years of exile. The impending return of these two expatriate politicians, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, coincides with a resurgence of democratic sympathies within their nation. Pakistanis, frustrated by years of the military wielding excessive influence in their government, are beginning to demand the end of General Pervez Musharraf’s rule. Until recently, Musharraf, a U.S. ally in the “War on Terror,” had received dogged support from America despite his attempts to consolidate power and suppress dissent.

During his second inaugural address, President Bush declared, “[I]t is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements… in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.” His administration would also “encourage reform [in other nations] by making clear that success in our relations will require the decent treatment of their own people.” Today, after two and a half years have passed, the U.S. government has apparently decided to fulfill its promise to democracy.

Last month, it was reported that, because of widespread opposition to his government, Musharraf considered proclaiming a state of emergency, which would have been tantamount to declaring martial law. According to reports from Pakistani officials, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called General Musharraf and convinced him not to take such a drastic step. It appears that the United States has decided that Musharraf needs to refrain from heavy-handed tactics and permit some level of dissent in his country or support for his regime would be jeopardized. This is a direct contrast to U.S. policies towards other states. For example, the United States touts its reasonably good relations with non-democratic Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the People’s Republic of China, and until recently, Russia.

There have been doubts expressed about the ability of democracy to flourish in certain regions of the world, especially in the Middle East. Many critics believe that aspects of the region’s culture, particularly the prevalence of Islam, hinder the growth of the democratic process and view human rights as less important than other issues. Others believe that democracy in the area risks stability and peace more than the autocratic governments already in place. The victories of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iranian elections in 2005 and Hamas in Palestine in 2006 would suggest that the underlying trend is towards fundamental Islamic government. However, there are other factors involved.

In 1979, when the Islamic revolution overcame Iran, the movement had the support of the population because of the simple fact that it had actually succeeded where other movements had failed. For decades, the royal family of Iran had enjoyed strong American support in exchange for access to resources, such as oil, and cooperation during the Cold War. Among the acts of support the U.S. provided was the overthrow of a democratically elected government and any reform movements that threatened the status quo. As a result, when the shah was overthrown, the populace backed the revolutionaries. This revolutionary movement became the backbone of the Iranian political authority, and still has considerable influence in Iranian politics today.

Fears that the Palestinians have become supportive of violent extremists are unfounded and simplistic. The little-known truth behind Hamas’ surprising victory in 2006 was the result of a poorly organized campaign by the ruling party, Fatah. Hamas’ campaign centered on the need for reform in the Palestinian Authority and strategically chose their candidates. Fatah, on the other hand, was unable to decide on sole nominees, which split Fatah votes and allowed Hamas to emerge victorious. It is an accepted truth that poorly organized parties will have a smaller probability of winning than organized parties. It has little to do with fundamentalism.

Perhaps the best argument that there can be Islamic democracies is the fact that there are some in existence today. Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, has a thriving and stable democracy, as does Turkey, a state that values secularism highly. Both of these nations have issues, and are not perfect, but then again, is there such a thing as a perfect government?

Democracy and Islam are not incompatible. Secretary Rice’s phone call to General Musharraf needs to be the first step in a change of U.S. policy. The world does not need strongmen presiding over shallow democracies in order to be safe. Let Pakistanis choose their own government. Let freedom ring.