Independent Blog Post

The Fiscal Cliff

     As the media so loves to tell us, the United States is heading for the 'fiscal cliff'. This means that if an agreement on spending cuts, and/or tax increases is not made by January 1st 2013, there will be automatic budget cuts, called sequestration.

     Absolutely no one wants that to happen. The issue lies in getting the two sides of the issue to sit down and actually talk to each other, without trying to bite each others heads off. Most Republicans, those who have signed Grover Norquist's pledge, do not want to raise taxes on anyone for any reason. However, if they do not come to an agreement with the Democrats, who see tax increases on the wealthy as necessary to close the deficit, then the Bush tax cuts will automatically expire, meaning that everyone in the country will have to pay more in taxes.

     Considering the delicate economic climate, neither side can afford to be blamed for stalling negotiations. Many Republicans, in fact, have reneged on their signing of the no tax increases pledge, saying that it can no longer be upheld and is no longer feasible.

     At this point I no longer really care about what the agreement, which I hope the politicians reach, contains. So long as we do not plunge into the abyss, I think that any solution will be welcome. The alternative is far too menacing.

Independent Blog Post #???

I am ashamed to admit that I have no idea what number blog post this is. The last week was quite hectic as we had mock Congress which took up a good amount of time. Anyways, on to the blog post.


Recently there has been quite a lot of noise about a possible Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip. In fact, Israel called up an additional 75,000 reservists on Friday, a move that indicated that they could be preparing for a ground war.

For years relations between the Gaza Strip and Israel have been tense. The situation has been exacerbated by both sides repeated escalations. If Israel bombs a rocket site in Gaza, then they are met with rockets landing in their major population centers, and so on and so forth. Both sides need to take a deep breath, and step back from the brink of war. Another war in the Middle East would benefit no one, especially as most of the region is currently on not so good terms with Israel, and with a current Civil War ongoing in nearby Syria.

Either Israel or Gaza needs to be the bigger person and stop retaliating and show the world that their side is the one being attacked, and so win international support. Recently on the site Reddit.com a video was posted of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking candidly, without realizing that the cameras were rolling. Now this footage must be taken with a grain of salt, seeing as it was posted to a part of reddit which is notoriously toxic, r/politics, a den of extreme liberalism which is often controversial, and partisan.

Independent Blog Post #5

So here's an independent blog post!

This weekend the government of China changed its leaders for the first time in a decade. The government of China is composed solely of members of the CCP or Chinese Communist Party. I expect that the next ten years will see no significant changes with regards to their foreign policy. There are no apparent reformers in what experts suggest will be the newest crop of Chinese officials.

The Chinese government shifts its most important members every decade, and historically different factions have cut deals and waged intricate inside warfare to finangle their way to the top, the office of the Premier.

It will be interesting to see what comes of this newer generation of leaders and how they will react to the current world. Most likely they will just toe the party line and continue on the same path the current leaders are on.

Capture The Fall

I made this video today for a class assignment. I used WeVideo to edit it and it was a fairly horrendous experience. The exporting process was incredibly vague and had no sort of progress bar and was really tedious. Additionally I couldn't add music to the video with WeVideo, but I was going to use http://freemusicarchive.org/music/nisei23/Soft_Shapes/03_-_nisei23_-_Fall_-_Soft_Shapes.

Filmed with the phone.

Independent Blog Post #4

This post is going to be about my Crystal Ball, which I had to do last week. So for NSL we had to predict the results of the elections in our assigned state. Some students had partners if they had larger states, but I was alone. I was alone because I had one of the smallest states in the country. I had North Dakota.

Now North Dakota is actually an interesting state. It's composed of 700,000 conservative Americans. Apparently, however, North Dakota is something of a swing state. Calling this election was kind of fun, and there was significant research required.

Because North Dakota is not exactly the most interesting state to most, there weren't a lot of resources available. The fact that the local political parties didn't have great websites didn't help. In fact, the local democratic party had to merge with the socialist party a ways back because the socialist party kept...winning.

Now North Dakota has one House, one Senate and the Governorship up for election this year. The House and Gubernatorial races were easy to call, as the Republican candidates had major leads already. The state was also guaranteed to go for Romney. The Senate seat was however hotly contested. In fact, I called the race for the Democrat.

The experience itself was interesting, and maybe I will do it again next year, on my own. It was fun finding out what the people in an area cared about, who would turn out to vote, and for whom they would vote.




PS. I am a bad person for not doing the last four independent blog posts :(

Archival Footage

I think that our group can use some of the parts where the principal creepy guy is talking about how there are no exceptions to rules. That section is reminiscent to the CONFORMITY EVERYTHING IS THE SAME aspect of Dystopian societies. We could use the footage to reinforce the point that dystopian societies are dull and monotonous places. If I found footage of kids taking tests or using Scantrons that would also be really useful, but unfortunately I couldn't find any of that...

Dystopian Trailer Critique

V for Vendetta. James McTeigue. R. 2006. When a girl named Evey (Natalie Portman), is saved from rapists by a masked vigilante (Hugo Weaving), a revolutionary movement is born. The two set out to educate the people of their nation of the wrongs that the government has committed, and what they can do to stop it.

This trailer is exemplary in the sense that it is not a complete piece of corny trash. The majority of the trailers that are easily accessible through YouTube are very bad quality and cheesy productions. This trailer, however, was actually good. It exhibited many of the characteristics of a proper dystopian trailer, in that it showcased the protagonists, the antagonists, why they were rebelling, and how they were acting out.

The trailer portrays V, one of the protagonists, rescuing Evey, the other protagonist. Then through a series of short clips it shows the sort of oppression under which they live. They live in a state where their every word is monitored by the government. It also creates tension, by showing dramatic scenes such as when Evey's parents are abducted by the government in rather violent fashion. All of this serves to excite the viewer, and to make it obvious as to why, and what Evey and V are fighting against. Scenes where men with raised guns ready to fire are known to make emotions run high. Our trailer also plans on showing the role of the protagonist, and the evils of the society in which they live, very clearly. The addition of many short shots also is something that we could certainly use, as the suspense that was created through this technique had a very unique effect. There are certainly many techniques and methods that are worth copying from this trailer.