Ann Coulter: Spreading Hate or Freedom of Speech?

The other day I was eating lunch and talking to my dad about politics and world events, when he told me something that I found deeply disturbing. Ann Coulter, a prominent Republican pundit for the extremely right-wing Fox News, had recently come to Canada to speak at universities across the country. In her addresses to the students, she argued against allowing people of middle-eastern descent on to airplanes since they apparently pose a safety risk, and told one middle-eastern student who asked how she should then travel to take a magic carpet or camel instead. She went on to make other claims, such as how great the world would be if everyone was white, conservative and Christian, and defends these abhorrent comments by stating that she was only joking. The subsequent debate centred around her right to say these things under freedom of speech, and got most people thinking and talking, including myself. Does someone have a right to say what they please, free of persecution, if the things being said are hurtful to many in society? To what extent do we apply freedom of speech to others and ourselves?

First off, let me just say that, while I believe in freedom of speech, it should have its limits within the bounds of a caring and tolerant society. People should indeed be free to say things as they please and express themselves to others, but when these things threaten to hurt others, the limit is fast approached. There's a very fine line, after all, between free speech and hate, and to allow someone like Ann Coulter to spread her racist views under the tenets of free speech would be to invite hatred into our nation. No one would dare say that Adolf Hitler had a right to preach the systematic annihilation of 6 million Jewish Europeans during the Second World War. The argument made against this is that Hitler had the military means to back up his hate and actually kill people, while Coulter is merely using her words, but as any survivor of verbal abuse knows, words can often stab and cut more sharply than the sharpest knife or sword.

Maybe I'm being a little harsh. After all, should we not all be allowed to listen to Coulter speak, and then come to our own conclusions regarding what she has to say? This is probably a very reasonable idea, since to most people her ideas are utterly reprehensible, and she has certainly be torn up quite efficiently in interviews with celebrities such as Bill Mayher. The thing is though, is that Coulter is a public face in the media, and such people have enormous sway over the minds of the masses in our society, whether for good or ill. This is an immense power to be wielded by any organization, let alone one person, and in such a situation, one must be careful not to overstep the bounds. If there's one thing that Spider-Man: The Animated Series taught me while growing up its that with great power must come great responsibility. Freedom of speech is such a power, it is only too obvious that Ann Coulter does not have the responsibility to match its use.

Perfect Dark XBLA: A Reflection on the Years of Yore

I know I haven't blogged in some time, a fact which I blame squarely on the insanity of the end of term rush that always happens around this time every year, but today I would like to talk about a subject of a geekier tone. Specifically, why it is that gamers old enough to count themselves as university students, if not professionals in the workforce, clamour for older vintage games, while the younger crowd often scoffs at us for liking what they refer to as a "piece of shit game" and ridicule us for being less gamers because of it?

In case you wanted to know, the reason I feel strongly enough about this issue to make it the subject of my blog, even in the face of more important topics with actual relevance to society is quite simple. Yesterday, on Wednesday, March 17th, Microsoft and Rare Ltd. released a cleaned up, high-def, high framerate version of what many console gamers consider to be one of the classics of the first person shooter genre. Perfect Dark, the spiritual successor to the classic N64 title Goldeneye 007, is widely considered among those old enough to remember to be one of the defining games of that console generation, and certainly led the charge into the console FPS craze later popularized by games like Halo: Combat Evolved and Call of Duty. Given this, I was understandably excited to learn that Microsoft planned to re-release this game on Live Arcade with enhanced visuals and online multiplayer options. Finally, a reason to play on Xbox Live again! I downloaded it and was very pleased by what Rare had done with the game and how well it played even to this day, but it seemed not all were as enthralled as I.

Logging onto the internet this morning, I was disappointed to learn that Gamespot had given the game a mere 7.5, claiming it was a good game but felt dated by modern standards and lacked several elements of a more modern game, which meant it would not appeal to the more hardcore modern FPS enthusiasts who routinely dominate Live. Reading this, I felt like saying "no crap!" After all, it ISN'T a modern FPS, therefore should it not have been judged as a romp through nostalgia instead of as a modern game destined to compete with the Call of Dutys and Halos of the world? Is the fact that I played this game at 14 years of age somehow making me see it through rose-coloured glasses, or are modern gamers really so spoiled by their high-def visuals and mission objective waypoints that they cannot tolerate anything that came out when they were still in diapers?

Thinking about this, I've come to the conclusion that it is a little bit of both. After all, the fact that I, like many gamers, played this and other classic gems as children means that we by nature look at them with fond and nostalgic sentiments. Most of our best memories of our nerdy childhoods come from gathering with friends and playing videogames against each other. This kindof experience is bound to make anyone who lived through it biased towards the "good ol' days", and in ten years, any modern gamer in his or her early teens will probably look back on Call of Duty favourably and nostalgically as well. At the same time, however, the game industry, like the movie industry, has seen a gradual shift towards high-fidelity visual effects and 1080p visual resolutions, and in so doing has lost sight of the value of story and gameplay. The fact remains that most modern gamers would not care at all to download what they probably see as an antequated game from another era, and yet most of us in the older crowd rushed to our local store to get Microsoft Points just to add Perfect Dark to our Live Arcade game libraries. Its sad to say that to most young people, the calibur of a game's graphics equates with its quality on the whole. By this logic, anything from the 16-bit era should suck since its 2D, not to mention the original Metal Gear Solid should be garbage due to its low-res textures, and yet these remain classics to this day. Is it fair to judge a game by modern standards and write it off simply due to the limitations caused by its age? No, and this holds true in any media.

At the end of the day, games like Perfect Dark and Banjo Kazooie on Xbox Live are very much released for us old-school fans more than for any other gamer demographic, but even given that, it should not be written off. Anyone who suggests modernizing the gameplay and graphics to represent the modern trend in first person action games is missing the point--its not about stripping a game of its soul just to conform, but rather enjoying it as a relic from the time it came out. I've ranted before about how high-end visuals detract from storytelling, and I think it holds true here too. Any modern gamer who considers him/herself worth their salt and yet have never played the classics because "the graphics suck" has no right to call himself a gamer, much as any literature enthusiast who refuses to read Shakespeare should never be granted a degree in the subject. Do I look at vintage games through rose-coloured glasses? Maybe, but then again these games, when rereleased should not be judged by modern standards, but rather enjoyed for showing us how far the industry has come.

2012: Apocalypse or New Beginning?

I wrote briefly in my earlier post on the sad state of modern hollywood about how society these days seems to have an almost disturbingly obsessive need to think about the end of the world. The recent surge in popularity surrounding the end-times has had a lot to do with the increasing public awareness of a certain little prophecy written by an ancient Mayan prophet that predicted the end of the world occurring in the year 2012 A.D. Naturally, as we draw closer and closer to this date, people of all stripes begin throwing in their own two cents. Opinions seem split in this regard; some argue that it will be the end of everything as we know it, while others claim December 21st, 2012 represents the date of a new spiritual or cosmic awakening for mankind. About the only thing these people CAN agree on is their belief that something will, in fact, happen on that date.

It seems to me that all of this panic, excitement and confusion is a little premature. Sure, the world MIGHT end in 2012, but how can any of us know what the future really holds? By this logic, how would someone several thousand years ago have known that the world would end in 2012, when he himself didn't even use the same dating system as we do? I know the arguments made about this--that he didn't specifically say 2012, but the number he chose to end his calendar with simply equates with what we would consider to be 2012--but even so, there is no way to know what was going through this ancient Mayan's mind as he wrote out his calendar. He could have indeed been watching the skies and predicting the astronomical phenomenon that would cause the end of the world thousands of years later, but it's equally likely that he just arbitrarily ended the calendar with that date because, much like if one of us thinks of the year 4000 AD, its almost inconceivable a date to consider since one's own lifetime doesn't extend that far.

The New Ageists argue that 2012 represents the dawn of a new era in human spiritual understanding and existence, and in some ways this is a much more reasonable answer than the flat-out "we're all going to die!" argument of some of the naysayers. Even so though, I'm tempted to wonder how much growth we're really going to accomplish in only two years that we haven't so far over the last hundred. It's almost impossible to walk into a Chapters or other bookstore these days and not find the New Age section literally flooded with apocalyptic literature. I fancy myself a bit of a New Ageist too, but personally I'd rather read about something OTHER than the end of the world.

So when it comes to the end of the world, where do I stand? Frankly, I don't think the world is going to end. The United States' economy may finally collapse and China may rise as a power, the West may embrace a new spiritual direction, or any number of other things may happen, but the world will not end. Remember how silly we all felt when the year 2000 rolled around and nothing happened? This is the same thing I predict will happen in 2012, and then all those apocalyptic naysayers are going to seem pretty silly. Then again, who knows? Maybe we'll all get lulled into a false sense of security, thinking nothing will happen until its too late and we're living in our own post-apocalyptic wasteland!...er...probably not.

Hypocrisy, and Why It’s Humanity’s Greatest Flaw

Before getting any further into this rant, let me first state once more that I work in retail. Needless to say, this involves interacting with the faceless masses of humanity every time I walk into work. As I stand there on the job, being berated by the latest in a long, long lineup of customers for a situation completely out of my control, I often find myself thinking of the immense contradictions present at every level of society. This observation was confirmed for me at Thanksgiving dinner this year when I took part in a debate with my relatives on the subject of members of other cultures and how they should behave when here in Canada. They, of course, took the conservative stance of adopting a way of life more in line with the majority, and I was disgusted upon hearing it!

Think about it; on the one hand, we live in a part of the world that claims to value human diversity, and yet people still clamor for others to assimilate and become “good Canadians.” The irony in this statement is obvious, considering that Canada is a nation made up of the descendants of refugees and dissenters who came here to escape oppression in their home countries generations ago. Given this fact, how can we argue for the ideal of adopting a “Canadian” way of life when this so-called “Canadian Way” is representative of a multicultural ideal? One that should shun assimilationist policies? Listening to this argument, I can’t help but think, “okay, so you want me to assimilate into an ideal that shuns assimilation and promotes acceptance of other cultures? Shouldn’t that just mean that I keep doing things the way I did them in the old country and let others do the same?” As you can see, the hypocrisy and contradictions are undeniable.

The thing is, this kind of thing is not merely limited to the higher levels of power in society; chances are, you’ve experienced it yourself in your personal life. What am I talking about, you ask? Well, boiled down to its simplest form, my rant here is all about people saying one thing and doing another, or giving one impression but meaning something else entirely. We’ve all experienced this: the co-worker who takes on a task with the assurance that he’ll finish it, only to leave it incomplete, or the friend who keeps telling you that you’ll hang out someday, while never really intending to follow through with it. I’m not pretending I’ve never been guilty of this, as I’m sure have many of you, but all of this has led me to a conclusion. As far as I can figure, the main problem with the human race rests in these contradictions and hypocrisy. If only people meant what they said when they went on about “loving thy neighbor,” for example, there’d be less hate crimes fueled by intolerance. If only the United States didn’t use their beliefs in freedom and democracy to justify invading another country and oppressing the people there, we’d have less international incidents and more friendly relations with the other people of the world. It’s all about practicing what you preach, because after all, in the unfathomable vastness of the cosmos, there are only about six billion human beings. That’s not even a visible speck when you consider the sheer size of the universe, so wouldn’t we be better off getting along and making something of ourselves as a species rather than destroying ourselves from within? Just a thought.

The Sad State of Modern Hollywood

Tonight, as I sit here on the couch with my family watching the Academy Awards, I find myself thinking about the modern state of the movie industry. There are alot of great movies on the nominee list, and Hollywood is still the site of alot of glamour and romanticism, but I can't help but feel that the movie-making companies have fallen victim to something that has cheapened the qualities of movies and stifled creativity in the industry. I can actually think of a couple of things that I feel contribute to this stagnation. They are:

Advancement in Special Effects

• Hear me out on this one. On the surface, the idea of computer-generated effects is great; moviemakers can finally realize the fantastic, wonderous, foreign and mysterious worlds that they have imagined in their minds during the filmmaking process. In practice, however, this is often far from the truth. For every creative director who uses special effects to genuinely enhance and expand his/her storytelling opportunities (James Cameron's Avatar comes to mind, as does Peter Jackson in The Lord of the Rings), there are an equal amount of Michael Bay's who are content to shovel out a sub-par screenplay and plot hoping to sell the movie on the basis of its visuals alone. Worse still, are those directors who at one time understood the value of plot, but who have since sold out to the beauty of computer-generated effects. George Lucas comes to mind in this instance with the new Star Wars movies which, while good, paled in comparison to the original trilogy in many respects. Think about it; would the original Star Trek series have been as good and stood up as well as it did if it relied on special effects? No...these old writers had to rely on the strengths of their plots, and the fact that TOS is still eminently watchable is a testament to the success of that approach.

Recycled Plots

• Its said that there are only about 6 plots in the world of storytelling, from which all stories are derived. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the world of filmmaking. Granted, a certain amount of repetition is a good thing, since there are certain plots we all love; the hero's epic struggle against an indominable enemy, a tortured soul finding redemption and/or true love, etc. Even given this, however, the amount of repetition in the modern movie industry is ridiculous! I work in a store that, among many other types of products, sells movies, and it is often unreal to open a shipment each month, only to find that month's releases of the "epic war movie", "suspenseful thriller", "spyfi action drama", or "big-budget-plot-lacking-cg-laden-scifi-movie-with-attractive-actors", among others. I get it hollywood, these movies sell, but would it kill you to try something original? On that note...

Remakes, Sequelitis and the End of the World (oh my!)

• Yes, I do feel that these deserve their own category aside from the Recycled Plots heading, because they're THAT destructive. Collectively, these seem to be the biggest cash-cows in the movie industry. Of all of them, sequelitis seems to be the worst, since it represents a rut that filmmakers get into at the behest of the studios. After all, why create something totally original, when the audience is already familiar with a certain world/characters already, making a sequel easier to execute? Granted, there are times when sequels outdo their originals; The Dark Knight comes to mind, as does The Empire Strikes Back, among others, but far too often the subsequent movies pale in comparison to the original. In comparison to this, remakes don't seem as bad, given that they're offering a fresh take on a classic story. Surely, we all loved Chris Nolan's Batman movies, J. J. Abrams' new Star Trek movie, and Ronald D. Moore's reimagining of the classic Battlestar Galactica series for a new generation. The problem isn't with the quality of these movies, but rather with Hollywood's overreliance on it as a way to make movies. In a sense, the industry is admitting its own defeat; by remaking great movies and TV series from the past, they're acknowledging the superiority of the movies of the past and their own inability to create new, compelling intellectual properties. Movie studios don't care though, as long as the cash is flowing.
• This one here is going to be such a large rant that I felt it deserved its own little dot. The End of the World. How many movies have you seen in the last few years that have dealt with the end of everything as we know it? I'm guessing the answer is a decent few. This one also combines other tropes I've mentioned in this blog too; often, the plots are recycled and rehashed, and usually rely on a spectacularly gigantic special effects budget to make it big. End of the world? Check. American government anticipated it and has a plan in place? Check. Likeable main characters, probably in a broken relationship which their struggles in the movie usually heals? Check. Ridiculous amount of special-effect-laden trials that impede the heroes' progress as they fight to survive? Check. Attractive cast that survives and lives to procreate and continue the human race? Checkmate. Granted, there can and most definitely are original takes on this concept, but on the whole, Hollywood relies too much on this, and the most humourous fact is how ridiculous these movies will look if the end does not, in fact, come. Consider 2012, the new blockbuster special-effects-showcase-with-a-subpar-plot-attached. Everyone loves it now, but it's going to look awefully silly if the world doesn't end in two years, won't it? I'll save the whole 2012 craze for a future blog post, but suffice to say the end of the world is WAY overdone.

To conclude, these are a few of my biggest sources of irritation in filmmaking these days. They aren't limited to movies either-alot of games and books also fall victim to these oft-reused cliches. The problem is, Hollywood has become complacent, content to merely rehash old, tired concepts and rely on CG for a quick buck rather than putting in the time and effort to craft something truly original. Hopefully, this changes at some point, but considering how many people are perfectly happy watching the drivel Hollywood pumps out these days, it is unlikely. It's a shame really, considering most of the movies which have become the basis for this state of stagnation were original and risky at the time they came out yet have gone on to be classics. In the 1970s, George Lucas funded the creation of a little movie called Star Wars all on his own, and struggled against industry big-wigs who told him it would never succeed. Here's hoping someone else comes along and learns from his example.

The Great Death Panel Debate: Exposing the Ridiculous Claims of the Right Wing in the American Health Care Debate

First off, let me set the record straight on this. I am Canadian. I live in the northern half of North America. My national animal is the beaver, my flag has a maple leaf on it and, most importantly, my doctors charge my government for my health care costs, not me personally. Given this, I don't think its surprising that the health care debate which has raged for the past year in the United States has perplexed, confused and even enraged me. Specifically, the arguments put forth by the Republican party in their attempt to keep health care privatized read like propaganda and scare tactics and their cold callousness chills me to the core. It's for this reason, as a left-wing liberal, as a Canadian, and most importantly as someone who CARES, I'd like to use this blog to expose for a moment the plot holes in their self-centered arguments.

The most immediate anti-public option argument that comes to mind whenever I think of this debate is the idea that somehow, allowing the government to foot one's health care bill is anti-democratic. This is somewhat understandable, given America's intense belief in democracy and the freedom of choice. My question, however, is how allowing the government to pay for your health care bills is destroying your freedom of choice? Granted, it would mean the end of the variety of HMOs which currently provide health care coverage in the United States, but when you consider how spotty their track record is regarding coverage, and the fact that they routinely deny patients in need coverage in order to cover their own bottom lines, this hardly seems like a great loss. In fact, a government health care plan would give you MORE choice, since it eliminates the financial burden on the individual in terms of their health care and thus frees up more money to be spent elsewhere in the economy on whatever items/services the person chooses. After all, isn't an open market one of the cornerstones of American society?

Another argument against government health care is that the government should never get between you and your doctor. My answer to this is to simply ask whether things are currently any different? After all, technically speaking, the HMO's ALREADY get between patients and their doctors, forcing people through layers of red tape and financial burdens then denying the coverage at the critical moment when life is on the line. At least with the government controlling the health care of the nation, profit margin would not enter into the equation and therefore everyone would have a better chance of securing the care they need. Many Republicans would be quick to accuse such a scheme of setting up government death panels that arbitrarily decide who lives and dies based on the resources available, but being Canadian and living in a country with public health care, I can safely say I've never served on or been before such a committee. Again...these death panels already DO exist in the form of the HMOs, and if Republicans were really serious about combatting such an idea, they would not be so quick to condemn the public option.

The real problem is, of course the fact that the Republican Party is the party of the wealthy and the elites of American society...the ones who make all the money and stand to lose the most in any social equilization scheme. I'm not even going to pretend to be unbiased in this--I have no love for that party, or their Canadian analogue the Conservative Party of Canada, and this is not helped along by the fact that many of the big medical companies are in bed with the Republicans. They are one of the most dangerous things a democracy could ever face: a federal political party bought and paid for by private business interests. THIS is the true threat to democracy, not socialized medicare, because THIS is what is stopping the government from addressing the needs of the common people. Is it really fair that millions of people go without coverage and even more with coverage are denied care based on profit margins alone simply because the Republicans need a new gold-plated toilet seat for their bathrooms? No, it isn't, and this apathy towards their fellow people is why they are so dangerous.

To sum it all up, the Republicans claim that by opposing the public option, they defend the right of all Americans to choose how and where they find their care, but it is easy to say such a thing and willingly ignore the HMO death panels that already exist when your government job gets you one of the best medical plans in the country. Their scare campaign is merely that: propaganda and stubbornness designed to keep the common people on their sides and the HMOs in their beds. It is a culture of greed, pure and simple, and until that changes I'm not sure how much hope America has of reforming its health care system. No money for such a change? PLEASE! Look at how much of America's budget each year is spent on defence and the military, and that argument seems all the more ridiculous. Maybe if the Americans spent less money on fighting wars in foreign countries whose affairs are none of their business and more on their own people, the situation would finally change. Considering the nature of politics in Washington, however, that may indeed be a pipe dream after all.

Customer Service: An Anthropological Study, pt. 1

Greetings all. This being my first ever blog, I thought I would share with you my thoughts on an aspect of my life which has brought me no shortage of ire, aggravation, irritation and general emotional anguish. I speak, of course, about my current employment working in customer service at a local store. I know what you're thinking; many people have ranted about the stupidity of customers on the internet, but my blog will do one thing different from all of these. Mine will be written from an anthropological perspective.

At first glance, this may seem like an odd way to approach such a commonly-accepted nuisance as this, but hear me out. Quite often, Anthropologists study groups of people by immersing themselves in their society and learning about it as active participants. This type of research is known as "participant observation," and its the method best suited to my blog because, since my job involves dealing with the subjects and processing their transactions at cash, I essentially already AM doing this.

Before I continue, I should make it clear that I have no formal background in anthropology. I took one class on the subject in my first year of university and, though I found it really interesting, have not taken any more since. Nevertheless, I HAVE done alot of reading on the subject, and I have friends who are anthropologists-in-training, so I feel that I have a good support system in place to help with this blog. What will follow today are simply a few preliminary observations about customer patterns and behaviour.

Observation 1: The Collective Subconscious of Mankind

• This one is the strangest one to wrap one's head around. Basically, through my observations, I've come to believe that humans have a collective subconscious mind that links all our minds together on a level we aren't aware of. I notice this all the time in my "subjects" at work: one of us will be busy trying to stock the pop fridge, get merchandise prepped to be put out, go on break, etc. and just as we're about to succeed, a lineup forms to impede our progress. I'm not talking about just one customer either--one will come to cash, and then almost as if by magic, others will spontaniously decide that now is the perfect time to cash out and so line up as well. Ergo, collective subconscious. The Borg in Star Trek have it...hell even ants have it...so why not humans too?

Observation 2: Illogic around fees.

• This is a strange one. In observing my subjects, I have often found that they will dispute when fees are applied to a current order. This may seem reasonable, given western civilization's value of money, but it is in its application that this seems strange. Simply put, often customers will not question large late fees on movies which our store rents, but yet will snap angrily at the smallest other fee. For example, Subject A has a $60 charge for a movie, while Subject B only owes a small $2 fine. Subject A, in my observations, will often take responsibility for his/her mistake and gladly pay $60. Subject B, on the other hand, will become defensive, arguing their own superiority over the system in place and deny any fault, all because of a small $2 fee. Based on the amount of money in each case, the opposite should hold true. More analysis is required.

Observation 3: Alpha Male status in male/female mate pairings at check-out

• Part of any retail job is upselling the customer. In this case, my observations are also interesting. Often times, one of the hardest sales to get is the young dating couple, especially where the male is of the jock subspecies. Generally, when asked if they know about the current in-store promotion, the male will often be the first to speak, attempting to silence me before his mate has even had a chance to say a single word. This is classic alpha male behaviour--the male, in an effort to demonstrate his position as dominant in the current situation and to secure exclusive mating rights with his partner, demonstrates an aggressive posture, though is quickly undercut by the female mate, who is intent on letting me speak and explain the deal. In all likelyhood, the male is aware of the equal, if not superior, status of the female in the mating relationship, but in the interest being accepted by the tribe as a whole, must engage in demonstrating his alpha behaviour so that he fills the traditional gender role of the male. Often, though not always, a successful sale ensues.
  

Conclusion:

These are but a few of my observations, though already the research seems promising. I intend to update this blog on a regular basis, sharing my findings with you. Hopefully, we can come to a better understanding of the nature of customers and thus better understand how to deal with them from a cultural standpoint. That...plus its just too much fun to write research like this and it will make my shifts seem less long :)