Why More Things Need to be Illegal.This essay is in some small ways and some large ways in contention with my previously post “Quadruple Jeopardy and Sedimentary Law” (beware this old post’s writing quality). In the Quadruple Jeopardy article I argued against certain properties of our current legal system.
A Handful of Brief Movie ResponsesSince I have to write these for my class anyway, I figured I’d post them up. Below are reviews of Mr. Death, Welcome to the Doll House, and All the Real Girls. They will contain spoilers.
Movie Thoughts 1-21-10Thoughts on Bully, All that Heaven Allows, and Irma La Douce after the jump! Read the rest of this entry »
Short Rant: Japanese FeminismI doubt many people are aware of this, but I have spent a large amount of this past collegiate semester reading about Japanese Feminists and trying to learn about the movement as a whole. I still have a long way to go, so make no mistake - this is a rant and nothing more. Arguments are preliminary and mainly emotional, even if logical. This should probably be kept in mind with all my posts, but I feel I should make it especially clear since I am talking about such a broad category. I am not sure I will rant like this in the future, as it is kind of weird and awkward for me to write something like this, but whatever - I will keep it short. A longer, more detailed analysis of the issue may come in the future.
Pretty much I will not bother to complain about the failures of feminism in Japan, those are pretty apparent to any one interested in the subject, at all. My problems lies more in the contradiction of Japanese feminist theory. I will explain this in more detail.
There are books on Japanese feminism, if not a lot. Most of these books do not get translated into English, and is perhaps expected, get little respect in Japan. Simply stated - on the wall of Waseda University’s Liberal Studies department’s library, there is a periodical section with lots of different periodicals, each with its own shelf. There are two notable shelves in that there are just one or two page print-outs, folded up, instead of periodicals - these are the feminist works. One or two pages of interest, copied from somewhere else, folded-up and basically hidden. Anyway, not the point - thee main point is that the works show a rather rich and impressive history.
This is where my problem is — there is a rich feminist history, that has fallen to such disgrace that it is near impossible to know existed. In the early 1900s there were groups of men and women that were living to almost the same degree of freedoms as French libertines, free love, existentialism, socialism, anarchism, real feminism was all over. It was not easily accepted, of course, but it was there and it had an impact. This impact and this movement was largely put under wraps, or picked up by the Imperialist government and put to nationalistic works, but it existed, and it lasted. But it has become weak and is no longer influential. Interest has dropped, and the movement is hidden. It still exists, it still speaks with as much conviction and persuasive power as anything in the West, if not more, yet it is ignored.
I want to say, “Come on Japan, get with it,” but this sort of problem goes beyond nationality. So, really, come on world and show some more interest. There are more than enough people, worldwide, with interest in Japan to have interest in this, as well. There are more than enough women that would like to work in Japan, if not for problems with the patriarchal system. In general, just step up already!
Movie Thoughts 1-17-10Focusing on some more recent films for a change. Thoughts on Avatar, The Hangover, A Thousand Clowns, and Downfall after the jump.
Read the rest of this entry »
HappinessThe following is a review of Happiness I wrote for a film class I am currently taking. It is short and contains spoilers. I would have spent a lot more time on this except for the fact that he only wants about 500 words and asked us to not analyze anything in our reviews… so I did not.
Cryptographic primitives need to mature.The history of cryptography is thick and interesting, but I won’t have much time to devote to it in this post. What I can say is that cryptography is the study of mathematically protecting information and also that it grew, unlike for example the study of conic sections, from practical concerns rather than from theory, beauty, or fun. Ancient attempts at cryptographic functions were notoriously bad, but continued to exist even into the early twentieth century. Throughout the early to mid-twentieth century, the primary concern of cryptographers was making previous solutions robust to fast automaton introduced by the birth of the computer industry. The field of cryptography has since branched several times and become both a mature and a mammoth field with applications everywhere. The dark side of the story is that in a few of the most widely used and most important applications of cryptography there has in fact been very little growth and maturity. These stunted few rely on little more than thousands of years of practical experience (why can I say this so lightly will be explained later in the article).
In the Company of Men: A Brilliant Study of a SociopathThe following is my reaction to the film In the Company of Men. It contains spoilers, so if you have not seen it yet I highly recommend watching it before you read this review. Despite having a $25,000 budget, it is an amazing film. Definitely worth a watch.
If you have watched the film, or do not mind aspects of it being spoiled, then read on.
Brief Review of CacheI’ll be putting up a 500 or so word film review every couple of days for the next few weeks. Here is the first one. Enjoy, or not. I don’t care.
Oh and spoiler alert.
Quick Review: “Self-Made Man” by Norah VincentFirst off, Happy New Year - I am honored to have the first post of 2010. I would like to premise this post with the following statement, that should probably not be obvious. I have basically wanted to write some book reviews since I joined the blog team, and am very excited to try my hand at it with this work. If I like how it comes out I will follow it up, and the reader would do well to consider this, itself, a follow-up of my last post. On to the post.
For those unfamiliar, in Norah Vincent dressed as a man and infiltrated various institutions of male, American society and followed up with a semi-intellectual reflection on her experiences. Vincent has an interesting perspective to offer, and consequently I have been trying to get my hands on this book for a while. Therefore it can go without saying how happy I am to finally get a chance to talk about it.
What is most interesting about this work is seeing where Vincent, as a queer woman, was interested in exploring within the world of men’s lives. Through this we get to see what it is she considers men, and what she chooses is kind of stereotypical: white, lower class men. She reaches this by exploring a men’s bowling league, strip clubs, a monastery, becoming a door-to-door salesman, and finally by infiltrating a “Men’s Group” self-help group. All-in-all, this is not too surprising, it is a pretty stereotypical image of men in various aspects, but also are aspects most men are curious about. I must say I would feel uncomfortable in all of these situations, at least a little bit, which really brings my problem with book.
The divide is not just between men and women, Vincent picked out too particular a grouping of men to explore for that to be the case. Although some of the points and discoveries Vincent makes within the book are extremely interesting gender differences, in a lot of cases they are the differences between a middle-class writer and general lower class men. Finding which two are at odds in the book can be difficult, and I personally feel I can only do it because I am a middle-class man. Therefore I know whatt I have in common with Vincent, and I know what I do not.
A lot of these issues could have become more clearly resolved for what they are if Vincent tried to enter similar groups as a woman. Certainly the point is that a few of these establishments would not take her as a woman, but that is still just a hypothesis. We only have her word, which is based on her sheltered life, heresy, or a layer of common sense. This book, although it outright claims to not be scientific, still participates in the tradition of scientific experimentation and therefore should be willing to take that to the most basic level - show us the control set. Without this sort of backdrop, a lot of the revelations are just too weak. There needs to be some sort of foundation in the real world, something experiential, or else the common point for the reader is just too small, if even existent.
That said, if this book was not as a interesting and stimulating a read as it was it would not be worth finding the time to criticize it. The actual experiences, the relationships, founded by Vincent in her disguise are compelling in how personal they are. The insights reached as an outsider to these groupings, regardless of who that outsider is, are always a joy, and certainly Vincent does not delve too far from her original purpose, to explore and expose a world to people that would otherwise not explore it. At times this process is humorous, or bitter and sweet and highly emotional or spiritual. At other times it brings about physical feelings of revulsion (here is looking at you, Sexuality chapter). When all is said and done, reading this book is a rewarding experience and I sincerely thank the author for providing it.