Hoping For a "V"

Sadly, I have not gotten to read Transparent Society - we don't have it at the library, and currently I am mere pages from finishing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, so I don't think I would've gotten through it in time for this post anyway. I did however go to his site, though I could only get through the first page before trying to decide between taking a cyanide pill now, or letting the government take me out when I try to run.

Though we may live in a society where technology puts some power in the hands of the people, what do we use it for? To post stuff like this. While it's useful for embarrassing celebrities or holding politicians responsible for off-color remarks, what good has it really done? You could argue that blogs are the ultimate weapon of the people - a chance for us to share ideas and rally around them, but I know what crap I write about. And even if we were in such a dystopian society, why would we even still have the internet? A lot of countries right now restrict what their citizens can gain access to - imagine if it were worse.

As far as a 1984 Orwellian government - I'd have to agree that we're closer to something like that happening. Wasn't Winston's job in the book to go back through and rewrite newspaper articles and historical documents to fit it to the present - like the war that keeps changing enemies - sound a little familiar? Now, I'm sure there's not an administration that couldn't be accused of a little spin, but the fact that a war with Afghanistan quickly turned into a war with Iraq, which looked like it would turn into a war with Iran or Syria - it's ridiculous! Wire-tapping, raising themselves above the Constitution - it's scary to think about.

Switching gears (well, sort of), has anyone else seen Minority Report? I actually kinda liked it when it came out, but Tom Cruise is all kinds of scary crazy now, and it angers me a little to watch his movies. Short synopsis for anyone who hasn't seen it - it's the future, and TC works for a section of the government called precrime. There were triplets born who could see the future, so the government captured them and used them to predict future crimes. TC's job was to take the flashes of info and decipher them, hopefully in time to stop the crime from ever happening. (Yeah - how much would that suck? Getting jailed for a crime you didn't even have a chance to commit.) One day, while doing his job, TC gets a flash, and he's in it, so he goes on the run - there's more, but that's the basic scenario. But that is my ultimate horrifying glimpse of the future - that and V for Vendetta - oh and Children of Men. (Hopefully if that is indeed the future, we'll have a V as well)

Enternewsment

Man, I used to love those kid shows-- Seasame Street, Square One, 3-2-1 Contact, and Channel One in the afternoons at school. I still watch them, too, although Glenn was right about Elmo's World: stoopid. But if you're home from work in the mid-morning, Seasame Street and Dora the Explorer are still better quality TV than any 6-hour long morning news show with 20 minutes of real information that just gets recycled and drawn out with fancy graphics and 'teasers.'

Last night I camped out in front of the History Channel all night watching shows about the battle of Thermopylae, pirate history and technology, and historial sexual practices from around the world. And then I watched TAPS, the SciFi ghost hunter show I mentioned before (although not educational in the least, I do love that show).

I have to agree that the History Channel is sometimes way too much of the WWII Airplane Channel. But when it's not that, it's usually really interesting. I pretty much only watch the Discovery Channel when they have one of those medical freak shows on, but I can get that same fascination with less of the freak show guilt by watching House. Watching these channels, though, I do run into the Dragon Problem-- I've been told I'll believe anything with a footnote (I think I was searching for irrefutable truth to support my deep suspicion of aspartame at the time), and I have to stop myself from getting too wrapped up in the conspiracy or future predicting shows. Like the one I saw the other night on the History Channel that said several completely unrelated ancient cultures, all renown for their learning and intelligence, have independently predicted that the world as we know it will end on December 21, 2012. Try sleeping after that.

I don't consider news shows educational in the least. Everytime I happen to pause on one, I last about 15 minutes before they're either repeating stories or sensationalizing the ones they have to an unrecognizable degree. Garbage, garbage, garbage. We don't need multiple 24-hour news stations. We don't need fancy graphics and politically polar pundits. We need the news, we need to know what's going on in the world, and we need to be reminded to how we got to this point. Tell us about events present and past, not theories about the future laced with 'angles' and 'spin.' Please, leave the future predicting to the History Channel.