On THE LEGEND OF KORRA: The Avatar State

So the Legend of Korra's got me super confused. Again.

There I was, four episodes into season 4, and Korra seems to be traipsing all over The Last Airbender's memory once again. This time my beef was with her ability to assume the Avatar State.

The Legend of Korra has been nothing if not confusing, and at many points contradictory. The Avatar State is a perfect example. In TLA (The Last Airbender), we learned that the Avatar State was the current avatar's ability to channel his (or her) past lives in a way that gave he (or she) access to all the wisdom and power of his (or her) predecessors. Confusing? A little. Vague? Yeah, but whatever. Cool? Duh.

In TLA, the audience was made to think of the Avatar as an element-bending Dalai Lama. Both bald, both spiritual leaders, both with a fondness for red and yellow robes. And both were perpetually reincarnating spirits tasked with guiding the free world. Right, got that. To get metaphysical for a minute, the concept of the Avatar in TLA was that the avatar spirit never died, and was reincarnated in each new avatar. Each avatar was basically the same person, but in a different body, and with their own experiences. Aang was Roku. Roku was Kyoshi. So on and so forth. Again, confusing, but people rarely need (or want) their spiritual beliefs over-analyzed. Reincarnation is a common and accepted thing in several eastern philosophies. We went with it. Cool. Past lives. One in the same. Still got it. 

But if you do over-analyze it, the nature of the Avatar raises some seemingly contradictory existential dilemmas: How can avatars be themselves AND someone else? If they're the same person, how can they still speak to one another individually, like different people? Korra should be able to remember BEING Aang, and Aang should be able to remember BEING Roku. Speaking to one's past life like a grandchild to a wise, loving grandparent seems redundant; why not get those memories and experiences in First Person POV? Korra IS Aang, just like you ARE you and I AM me. Sure, you COULD speak to yourself, but not to tell yourself what you already know. It's more of a comfort thing, at least for me, but who's counting?

The Legend of Korra attempted to solve all those fishy existential mysteries with Raava, the giant silver and white immortal Light Spirit that lives inside each Avatar like a bad case of ring worm. For the first time, the Avatar State was concretely defined; it was given a mechanism. The Avatar State was not, in fact, the channeling of past lives, but the channeling of Raava, who herself is connected to all the Avatars, past and present. She was the hidden telephone by which Aang spoke with Roku, and by which Korra spoke with Aang. The Avatars AREN'T all the same person, with the Avatar spirit. Raava IS the Avatar spirit, and each new Avatar is a vessel she chooses, an individual with his (or her) own soul. You could say Raava is the real Avatar, the ONLY Avatar. The human Avatars are just the sharks that little Raava suckerfish uses to hitchhike around the ocean. The Avatar Spirit is the Avatar, but the Avatar isn't the Avatar Spirit. God, that's confusing.

So what does that mean for the Avatar State? As I've just said, it's the channeling of Raava, who, through her connections with past Avatar souls, can make the current Avatar much more bad ass. It's like Korra's body is a Gundam suit (a giant, brainless, fighting robot, for the layman), and, normally, Korra's soul is the pilot, but during bursts of Avatar state, Raava (a.k.a. the Avatar Spirit) takes control of the Gundam and goes ham sammich on whoever is in the way. 

I didn't understand this right away (can you blame me?), and so Season 3 of the Legend of Korra, especially the finale, was frustrating. "How can she achieve the Avatar State?" my little nerd heart cried out. "Zahir's poison shouldn't work, because Korra's connection to her past lives was severed last season!"

Excellent point, My Little Nerd Heart. I now think I have the answer, thanks to some Avatar Wiki.

The Avatar Spirit IS Raava. Raava is immortal, but can be "killed." This happened in the Season 2 finale. Unalaq (Korra's uncle and Season 2's Big Baddy) and the Darkness Spirit, Vaato, dragged Raava out of Korra and destroyed her. But there can be no darkness without light. Yin and Yang. Good and Bad. Raava was reborn inside Vaato, Korra ripped her out, they recombined, happy ending. But this Raava was not the same old Raava.

Think of it like hitting the Reset button on... something that has a Reset button. The old Raava had all these experiences and connections with past Avatars because she was there, swimming around inside them like a parasite of Goodness, but when she was destroyed and reborn inside Vaato, all that stuff was lost. This version of Raava has had all the factory defaults restored. No more past lives; this new Raava didn't know any of the old Avatars, just Korra. Korra is essentially the second "First" Avatar.

The writers of the Legend of Korra aren't contradicting themselves by letting Korra still go Avatar State, but when Korra goes Avatar State from now, it really shouldn't make a difference. The old Raava had connections with all the old Avatars--that's what made her Avatar State powerful. This new version of Raava only has a connection with Korra. So the Avatar state is basically just Korra using Raava to connect with... herself. The Avatar State is no longer an advantage, and it never will be for Korra. Not until the next Avatar will it be useful, because then the new Avatar will be able to channel Korra's wisdom and power (what little of it there is) through new Raava.

I think. 

Okay, rant over. Thomas out.

Quote for the Week of 7/28/2014

"I think you can't possibly know the truth about someone unless you love them."
-Orson Scott Card, Speaker for the Dead

SPEAKER FOR THE DEAD, by Orson Scott Card (5/5)

So I'm going to do some book reviews now. Not so much because I feel any particular need to make known my opinions, but because my memory, as far as memories go, isn't super, and in 8-12 months I know I'm going to need some sort of written aid to help me remember not only what happened, but also who did what, and what I liked about them. So yeah.

Speaker for the Dead:

I liked this book more than I thought I would. Loved it actually, and that was really surprising, because when I read Ender's Game about four years ago, my principle reaction was, Eh, kinda slow. The twist at the end blew me away, but struggling through 200 pages of cryptic dream sequence and battle school strategerie wasn't exactly my definition of "worth it."

Speaker for the Dead wasn't that. The stakes were monstrous right from the word "go," the characters were varied and relatable, and the world building felt so natural in its uniqueness that I never once felt the need to question it, even though, half the time, they spoke about it in Portuguese. 

This book came out almost 30 years ago, so I'm a little late to the party, but I now get why Card is perhaps the biggest name in Science Fiction, ever. Ender's Game was Card's first exploration into Ender's world, and in several respects this was apparent. In Speaker, Card has perfected and mastered his world, and it makes this novel an exciting and thought-provoking read from beginning to end. 

My beef with many works of SciFi is that the stories trend toward the unrelatable. The authors get so excited about their SciFi universe that the character development takes a back seat to the world development, and that rarely flies with me (pun intended), even in short stories, but especially in novels. 

Not so in Speaker. The world feels so natural, so quickly, that both author and reader are free to focus on the tortured Novinha, the stoic Miro, and the singular Ender from the very beginning. It's the perfect storm of characters who fit naturally into their environment, even as the seek to change it.

My one criticism is small, but notable. For a work filled with deeply flawed, imperfect characters, Ender is surprisingly flawless. He's a genius, he's compassionate, he's perhaps the most perceptive and empathetic human being ever, and he's relentlessly driven to correct a wrong for which he, arguably, isn't to blame. He's pseudonymously published his own space-age humanist Gospel, inadvertently founded his own religion, he hates no one, understands everyone, and still has the time to become functionally proficient in Portuguese in under three weeks. All his B.M.'s are single wipers, he's pitch-perfect as both a Tener 1 and a Bass 2, and he's the most generous lover from here to Trondheim. Some guys just got it all.

And yet, despite his seeming perfection, Ender still manages to convince me of the difficulty of all his decisions, as though his 3000 year unbeaten streak were on the line with every one, and that's what makes him a true champion: he's got the goods, and he knows how to use them, just like this book.

5/5

Thomas out.

On Pointing Fingers (Middle East Edition)

When it's time to play the blame game, you rarely find someone willing to point the finger at himself. (Time to use this here blog as my own personal pulpit for a minute, if you'll excuse me.)

Had a semi-heated conversation with someone today. It started over a video of a politician rebutting a young American Muslim woman over the idea that peaceful Muslims are being blamed for the actions of a few radicals. The politician made several good points, by way of analogy. Most Germans of the 1940's were good, peaceful people, but the Nazis still managed to kill millions of people. Most cold war era Russians were good, peaceful people, but the Soviet Union still killed millions of people. Most Japanese people were good, peaceful people, but the Japanese army still tore through east Asia during World War II. The woman's point was that defending the innocent majority is a politically correct, superficial gesture because the innocent majority was irrelevant; despite their own sentiments, they did not stop an evil entity (no matter how anomalous) from rising up and being allowed to control their culture.

Back to my conversation. Person 1 wants the good, peaceful Muslims to acknowledge that there is some issue intrinsic to Islam that predisposes its adherents toward radicalization. He wasn't saying that all Muslims were bad, or likely to become radical; he simply wanted Muslims stop pointing the finger at the US and take a gander at their own fuzzy navels. What exactly about Islam, Muslims should ask, is leading to this predisposition toward radicalization?

Person 1 used the example of the Catholic priest pedophilia scandal as an analogy. As a Catholic, you couldn't reasonably stand up and claim that the Catholic Church wasn't at least a little bit to blame for allowing those heinous acts to happen under its watch, right? Of course, that's reasonable. The Church really screwed the pooch on that one. Our bad, guys, we'll keep a closer eye on those pedos next time.

But just as it's not fair that the Catholic Church should shirk responsibility,  it is also not fair that regular Catholics be made to answer for the crimes of the deviant. Is there something about Catholic teaching that led to a score of robed men molesting young boys? No, there is not. Is there something intrinsic to German-ness that predisposed its people toward Nazism? Also no. Is there something about proper Islamic teaching that's spawning terrorists in TNT-laden sport coats? Nope. That too is a false assumption.

There is such a thing as evil in this world. There is NOT such a thing as evil that arises in a vacuum.

Was Germany to blame for the rise of the Nazis? Yes. Was the Catholic Church responsible for the pedophilia scandal? Also yes. But you can't ignore the circumstances.

The original Nazi message wasn't "hey, lets go kill as many minorities as we can, that aught to make us feel better;" their message was "hey, the rest of Europe really screwed us with those war reparations, and it's looking pretty rough right now, but Germany was once great, and it can be great again, if you trust us."

Guess what those priestly pedophiles were, before they were priests. Any guesses? That's right. They were pedophiles. And last time I checked (which I admit, I haven't checked in a while, but I'll make an educated guess) on the application for Catholic seminary there isn't a Check Yes or No box for "Are you a pedophile?" Although there might be now. Who knows? Couldn't hurt.

The point is this--throughout the entire course of human history, when bad people are given an opportunity to gain power over others, they become very predictable. They deceive, they hurt, and they look out for #1. And the more it works out for them, the more they continue to do it. There isn't something wrong with Islam because a group of a-holes with an ax to grind have gone to one of the poorest regions in the world and spread misinformation and propaganda against the USA, then drawn the US into a decade-long struggle which, among other things, has reinforced their deceptions and hatred.

Was the US justified in wanting to root out Al Qaeda and eradicate them? I think so. Has it worked out so well for the Afghanis? Not so much. When the jerk who lives down the street and the jerk from out of town are shooting missiles back and forth across your front yard, the jerk from out of town might be justified in trying to blow your neighbor up, but who are you most likely going to blame when a rocket blows up your cat? Not the guy you're going to have to live with, when the fight is over. Better the devil you know, than the devil you don't.

To bring it back home, when we go out and about looking for someone to blame, don't expect anyone to stand up and volunteer their head for the chopping block. Unless he's the Brazilian National Team coach. That guy's a class act. And that mustache? Top notch.

During the pedophilia scandal, every Catholic with any kind of sense was quick to stand up and say, that's not us. That's not Catholicism. We reject those men as deviants who have abused their power and betrayed their faith.
After WWII, every German with any kind of sense stood up and said, hey, don't blame me! How was I to know? Those men lied to us all. I'm sheltering five Jews, three Gypsies, and a lonely Pollock in my sub-basement right now, go check.

Good people should always step up to fight against evil, especially when that evil has arisen within their own culture, but just because these people have a responsibility to fight against it doesn't mean they have a responsibility to answer for it. The nation of Islam, as a people, is partially to blame for allowing the recent rise and propagation of anti-Western radicalism. I think that's fair. But they should not be made to admit that something fundamental to the Islamic faith is the root of the problem. People looking for that admission just want something to blame, something to condemn. They fear the radical minority, but can do nothing about it, and so they need someone who is willing to step up and take their blame bullet. Somebody who won't shoot back.

But in the immortal, aphoristic words of Yoda, "Fear leads to Anger. Anger leads to Hate. Hate leads to the Dark Side." Start playing the blame game, and before you know it, somebody's making a trio of underwhelming prequels about your tragically misguided youth. And nobody wants that.

Thomas OUT.

Quote of the Week for 7/7/14

"Man is least himself when he talks in his own personae. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth."
-Oscar Wilde

On Podcasts

I've found my new thing that I'll be really into for a while.

I've got to thank my brother for this one. I'm a visual learner (my excuse for mediocre grades on all my Spanish listening exams), and usually have a tough time concentrating on and engaging with aural media, but early this spring he suggested I try a podcast out for one of my frequent 7 hour drives between Nashville and Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and I've been hooked ever since.

I'd always struggled to stave off the boredom during the marathon trips, but podcasts proved to be the perfect solution. No hunting for a good local radio station, no droning monotone of a book on tape, just interesting people talking about interesting things for a couple hours at a time. You can find a podcast for just about anything you're interested in, but I find the podcasts of comedians the most entertaining. Turns out funny people can be funny all the time, talking about anything, not just when their reciting a script or performing a stand up.
I started out with the Joe Rogan Experience, 1) because his podcasts are 3 hours apiece, 2) he consistently brings on very interesting and insightful guests, and 3) because it's the only one I knew about. It was a good choice. Joe Rogan is the perfect mix of entertainer and pseudo-intellectual to keep an audience engaged, laughing and thinking, for the full 3 hours. Turns out he's the 2nd most popular podcast in the world for a reason. And maybe the best part was that many of his guests had podcast of their own, and my tastes quickly expanded out from the JRE.

My podcast consumption is now what one might call "next level." Enabled by the aforementioned frequent road trips, I diversified my listening experience to include such auditory gems as Bill Burr's Monday Morning Podcast, Fighter and the Kid with Brendan Schaub and Bryan Callen, and several Grantland podcasts including the Andy Greenwald podcast and my personal favorite, Men in Blazers. The podcast, more than anywhere else, is a medium perfectly suited for showcasing great personalities, and all long as people continue to support these personalities, the entertainment potential is potentially limitless.

There are podcast streaming and downloading apps available for both the iPhone and Android. I use the aptly named Podcast Addict. Try it out. You'll either like it or you won't, but it's free and it's different, and did I mention it's free?

Thomas out.

Quote of the Week for 6/23/14

"I don't care what anyone says about me, as long as it isn't true."
- Truman Capote

On the USA vs. Portugal Game

http://i48.tinypic.com/jrqhiw.jpg

Mixed emotions here, folks.

On the one hand, our boys clearly outplayed the supposed 4th ranked team in the world.

On the other hand, that don't mean squat when we can't come away with the three points. And I can't help but think the Portuguese were handicapped to begin with. All that hair gel and spray tanning has to clog the pores and make sweating a laborious affair.

Still, never have I seen "the best player in futbol" look so totally pedestrian for 94 minutes. A complete non-factor. Our boys put the leather to him and it worked in a big way.

Some other positives to take from this game:

1. The USMNT is no longer happy just to be competing against the best teams in the world. It's win, or go home, and that's the attitude we need to advance.

2. At long last, the US has found itself a long shot artist. I mean, talk about range. Jermaine Jones was actually moving AWAY from goal when he let that thing rip. I'm getting hot under the collar just thinking about it...

3. Clint Dempsey can score with any and every part of his body. Literally. Next game he will score via no-look booty bump. You heard it here first, folks.

4. We still have the best goalie in the tournament. Don't let those two cheap shots fool ya. Big Time Timmy Jim is the real deal. As stout as it gets. If he can just get our back line to focus up for a full 95 minutes, we'll be a tough out for anyone.

That final goal last night was a definite WTF moment, but we still have a 75% chance of advancing, and I like those odds. This USMNT has shown time and again they aren't your poppa's soccer team. Before last night, Portugal had never lost or even tied after scoring first in the World Cup, and the US had never come back from an early deficit. But this new US team seems particularly unconcerned with history or expectations. Not only did we come back, but we dominated that game.

And now the rest of the world knows that we're not afraid of them.

Thomas out.

Quote of the Week for 6/16/2014

"But you ought to know that What is Grand is necessarily obscure to Weak men."
-William Blake

Shamelessly Pretentious Quote of the Week for 6/9/2014

"I've never even heard of that position. Did the missionaries not swing by here?"
-Sterling Archer

http://www.gq.com/images/entertainment/2012/01/archer-excerpt/archer-628.jpg

On Harper Lee's TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD and "the Classics"

Mark Twain on John Milton's Paradise Lost:
"It's a classic... something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read."

I feel like Twain is even more right today then he was when he said this. And I'm not trying to sound snobbish or elitist. I graduated with an Major in English and a minor in Creative Writing, (which means reading is pretty much my thing that I do a lot) and I don't want to read most of high-waisted drivel the English literary establishment has deemed "classic" either. Most classic literature before 1850 was either bumbling in structure, boring, or both. If it was deemed a classic post-1850, it was probably overly self important and needlessly difficult. Especially anything written between 1910 and 1970. I mean my God, why did nobody tell Joyce to rein it in a little bit? Seriously.

All this to say that I went into Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird--basically the classic of all classics--expecting it to be just as disappointing. But it wasn't. It was delightful. Scout Finch is maybe my favorite narrator of all time, primarily because of all the things that make her different from every other classic narrator of the period. She's simple. She's funny. She's unique. She doesn't hide behind overly complicated allegory or metaphysical, philosophical impositions.

I get a lot of shit for it, but my reading interests have always trended towards genre fiction because, despite the fact that these stories are about aliens or monsters or ghosts or dudes with swords and codpieces, genre fiction writers never forgot the most important of fiction: from Mary Shelley to George R.R. Martin, it's all about telling a great story. It's both the most simple and the most elegant thing any good novel can really hope to accomplish, but for some reason, literary fiction writers often sacrifice that commitment to storytelling in service of some loftier ideal or goal, be it experimentation with form, or psychological exploration, or an allegorical examination of some aspect of modern society. Literary novels started out telling great stories; shouldn't "classic" novels seek to carry on in that tradition, no matter the ulterior motives?

I'm not saying those goals aren't worthy. If that's what the author set out to do, who am I to say what's wrong with it? I've just got a problem with people calling them classics. Classic shouldn't mean too challenging in form or conceit for 99% of the literate world to comprehend. That's not what classic means in any other application of the term... when something is classic, that means no matter who's looking at it, that something can be instantly recognized as a timelessly apt representative of its contextual influences, a champion that can stand up for it's brethren and say, this is what we're all about, and that's never going to change.

A classic shouldn't be something we have to take a class on in order to understand. I'm reading William Faulkner's Sound and the Fury right now. Why should I need to study the sparknotes (which I did) just to figure out what this book is saying, and why it is supposedly a classic of southern literature? I'm southern--shouldn't I be able to figure that out on my own? Shouldn't the book speak to me, and not at me?

To Kill a Mockingbird is a classic because I don't need a Ph.D. to understand what makes this book great southern literature. No theoretical explanations necessary; it's just something you can feel from page one right through to the end. Harper Lee got it.

Makes you kinda sad she only wrote one, don't it? I mean, talk about raising the bar.

Thomas out.

On Blogging

Well, let's see...Pretentious title referencing a (necessarily) obscure quote by a literary figure? Check.

Rant on politics? Check.

Rant on why my favorite thing is better than your favorite thing? Check.

Rambling pieces on just about anything that even remotely interests me? Check check.

Mediocre original poetry? Cheque.

Hyperlinks leading to silly pictures and random cultural references? Yup, got those too.

Looks like I've got the all the makings of a blog. Ugh.

Usually my attitude toward people with blogs is the same as my attitude toward people with ukuleles or foot fetishes: do whatever you want, just don't bother me about it. But since I have many important things to say, and lack any kind of official, professional outlet, my thoughts on the world will, for the time being, appear here.

Along with the aforementioned ramblings on anything and everything that pops into my attention-starved head, I will be posting the Shamelessly Pretentious Quote of the Week every Monday. I've always despised and coveted those individuals who can recall and regurgitate famous quotes, perfectly and from memory, to suit any occasion, and so about two years ago I started keeping a notebook in which I recorded, in fine black ink, any quote I came across which I considered worth remembering. This hasn't helped my memorization skillz in the slightest, but it has helped me preserve a few thoughts which I consider particularly perceptive (or hilarious). Since I'll never be able to say it better myself, I've decided to just go ahead and share the love. Once a week. Let's not get crazy; I don't have an unlimited number of these things.

For anybody who cares (by no means should you feel obligated), my long-term life goal is to become a professional writer/author, but I won't be posting any pieces of the original, fictional variety on here. As somebody (probably) great once said, if you're really good at something, never do it for free. Who knows if I'm any good, but I'm going to go ahead and pretend, at least until this blog blows up, and I can start charging a monthly subscription, or some shit. You can do that with blogs, right? No? Well, ok then.

Thomas out.

On the FIFA World Cup

It's almost upon us, folks. Can't you just smell it all around us, a spicy, international aroma which assaults the senses like a opaque cloud of Drakkar Noir wofting off two dozen quaffed, manscaped Portuguese men?

That's right. It's the FIFA World Cup. Time to break out your red, white and blue face paint and your weird, knit USA scarves. Where do you get those things, anyway?

Four years ago, I regarded soccer much the same way I regarded dubstep--I was content to leave it to the hipsters and the immigrants. But I'm nothing if I'm not a nationalist, and like it or not I rose in the small hours of the morning with my futbolphile of a younger brother to cheer on my country. If I could do it for archery or curling, why not soccer? Little did I know that by the time the national treasure formerly known as Landon Donovan was busy burying the go-ahead goal in the back of Algeria's net in stoppage time, I'd already be hooked. Real talk, though-- that replay still gives me the heeby-jeebies.

Turns out, I went through something of a personal transformation during the 2010 World Cup. I like to think I became a little more open-minded, a little more accepting. I've devoted countless, irretrievable hours to the FIFA's 12, 13, and 14 for the Xbox. I've opened up my heart and let soccer in.

Four years is a slow, slow burn, but this time I'm ready. I'm pumped. The US is almost certainly doomed, but our chances weren't super to begin with. LD isn't even going to be there, after all. But who cares? There are still a host of compelling story lines outside the 50 states.

Will Neymar finally tell us his last name?

Will Cristiano Ronaldo play naked to distract his opponents? And will this backfire by distracting all of his flamboyant teammates?

Who will Luis Suarez bite first?

Will Hulk smash?

Get psyched, boys and girls. FIFA says turn down for what, and though I haven't yet figured out what that means, I still intend to waste most of my June in Brazil. Figuratively.

Thomas out.

Quote of the Week for 6/2/2014

"A furious Party Spirit, when it rages in its full Violence, exerts itself in Civil War and Blood-shed; and when it is under its greatest Restraints naturally breaks out in Falshood, Detraction, Calumny, and a partial Administration of Justice. In a word, It fills a Nation with Spleen and Rancour, and extinguishes all the Seeds of Good-nature, Compassion, and Humanity."
-Joseph Addison, Spectator No. 125

On Picking Sides

"A furious Party Spirit, when it rages in its full Violence, exerts itself in Civil War and Blood-shed; and when it is under its greatest Restraints naturally breaks out in Falshood, Detraction, Calumny, and a partial Administration of Justice. In a word, It fills a Nation with Spleen and Rancour, and extinguishes all the Seeds of Good-nature, Compassion, and Humanity."
-Joseph Addison, Spectator No. 125

My grandmother, a woman wise beyond her (considerable) years, once told me the story of the first time she registered to vote in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Mamie seemed to me a pretty staunch Republican, and loves that Sean Hannity almost as much as her favorite, most intelligent grandchild (cough cough), and so I was roundly surprised when she told me she registered as an independent. The more surprising part, however, was that, according to county clerk's office, she was the first and only person who'd attempted to do so, and they couldn't quite understand why she couldn't pick a side. 

I pride myself (rather haughtily) on my general indifference to the tomfoolery of politics, but sometimes you read or hear something and it just smacks of the plain old truth (with the kind of weight only a meaty, ink-stained, 18th Century palm can deliver), even after 300 years. Now, I've definitely been listening to too much Joe Rogan Experience--that guy's got me hating the Man (and believing in Bigfoot) everywhere I turn. As if that weren't bad enough, my brother's turned me on to Bill Burr and his weekly podcast,  and that guy never runs out of topics on which to call bullshit. It's exhausting just listening to him rant about one thing or another, but at this point I'd rather listen to comedians rant and rave about solar roads or Egyptology or Testosterone Replacement Therapy than watch the news. One gets me laughing, and also thinking critically about the craziness that is our culture; the other just gets me depressed about it.

What's my point? Well I haven't really made one, but lets try it. When your a kid, you feel enormous social pressures to pick sides, whether it be for in-class debates or kickball teams, and politics is no different. Whether they're aware of it or not (and, most likely, they are), parents influence their kids heavily when it comes to choosing a political side, and too often kids and young adults approach that choice thinking it's irreversible, a family inheritance they can either accept or reject, but no take-backsies. Like they're choosing between the Light and Dark sides of the Force, and anyone who chooses other team is more despicable than a sleep-deprived, grey-fleshed Darth Sidious. You're a Republican or a Democrat. You watch Fox News or MSNBC (and either way you disparage CNN). But that all seems rather restricting, and inhumane. Doesn't it? Shouldn't we always reserve the right to make our own choices, and to change our minds when we realize no choice is perfect?

The Two-Party system is now synonymous with Democracy in America, but maybe we've taken it too far. As a country we're letting it get to us; we're all too ready to badmouth the other side, too willing to gloss over the splinters in our own eye. And it's not necessarily an issue with the system itself: people naturally align with others of a like mind, no matter the topic. I think it's a mentality problem. In my shamelessly pretentious quote of the week, Addison says it best. When we draw these uncross-able lines in the sand, we cannot help but begin to view those on the other side as something essentially opposed to our well-being, as something to be overcome, surmounted, defeated. It bereaves them of their humanity, and ourselves of our empathy. That's not progress, and it's not democracy; it's Civil War, and I find it strange that so many are will to treat it as such: a fight to the death, Thunder Dome-style.

Aight, rant over. I'll part with this thought: if there's one thing I've learned from Game of Thrones, which I've come to regard as the great, cultural allegory of our time--the Gospel by George--it's that the world is never so black and white as Right or Left. You may hate the Lannisters, but not all of them are Cersei's; there are Tryion's on both sides, if you're willing to look. 

Thomas out.