This one was awesome. I especially like the connection between hooligans, police and trials.
Power can corrupt, but it can also be a force for good. This is something I’ve been wrestling with for years.
Yesterday when I was at the dentist, I was reminded of my unique genetic mutation, and while I don’t have a really cool mutation such as the ability to teleport or control the weather or read people’s minds, I was reminded that my first bicuspid and my canine are completely reversed on the upper left side.
Let that sink in for a minute.
Two teeth totally and perfectly switched. Are you amazed? Stop, I know.
Growing up was hard since no one from Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters ever came knocking on my door, but I’m not bitter. I’ve been blessed with the good fortune to have had several dentists take pictures to show their colleagues, and just yesterday, the woman cleaning my teeth remarked that she’d never seen the like.
So here is the decision that I now face. Do I continue to relegate myself to the sideshow freak parade of dental curiosities or do I find a way to use this for good.
Most people can’t see that I am a mutant. You’d have to know a bit about teeth, but I think that would help me keep my secret identity intact thus allowing me to become an even greater force for good.
Now if I can just settle on colors for a costume.
It’s week three of the Slate/Treehugger Green Challenge. I’m workin’ out, pumpin’ iron at the carbon gym, shedding that carbon flab and getting myself leaner and greener.
This week’s focus area is food. I eat a mostly organic mostly vegetarian diet, and I readily admit that I eat this way because the food tastes better, and I just don’t trust the chemicals that are put into so much food. Call it enlightened self-interest. Anyway, there’s not much else I can do here except change a few shopping habits.
The first topic was beef. I hardly eat any beef as it is, only the occasional hamburger three or four times a year. I have pledged to cut my beef consumption in half, which means I’ll just get a single when I get those burgers.
I could have pledged to buy only local apples, and I try for local when available, but this isn’t really apple country so most of mine come from elsewhere.
Letting hot food cool before putting it in the fridge is smart. I’ve always done that, so I can’t change my ways there.
I’m already in the habit of buying products with less or reusable packaging so I’ll continue with that.
I’ve been meaning to start using reusable bags at the grocery store or at least reuse the ones I have. But I always forget to bring bags. Maybe this week. I mean, with the fate of the world hanging on this, you’d think I could remember. Perhaps it is some consolation, though, that I usually refuse to have my purchases bagged when I’m only buying a small amount of things. Cashiers look at me funny when I ask them not to bag a book or CD, but you have to live with that when you’re a terrorist-loving America-hating liberal moderate anyway.
According to the results page on my pledge/quiz thing:
If I keep my pledges on food, such that they are, I will reduce my carbon footprint by 637 lbs or .07 cars. This brings my total reduction to 4995 lbs, which is a 27% decrease in my original carbon footprint.
I’m practically wasting away.
On another note, I just learned that Montana’s new senator, Jon Tester, is an organic farmer. How cool is that?
I actually read To Kill a Mockingbird earlier this year (post here) so I’m not rereading it, and yes, I know it was the movie not the book that was referenced in last week’s episode “The Cost of Living,” but either way, I thought I’d post my thoughts on how it intersects with Lost.
The mention is brief. Juliet wheels a TV up to the aquarium where Jack is being held prisoner and tells him she’s going to show him a movie: To Kill a Mockingbird. She then goes on to explain to Jack why he needs to save Ben who is a great man and will die if Jack doesn’t operate, but on the TV screen there is no To Kill a Mockingbird. Instead we see Juliet holding signs telling Jack that Ben is a dangerous liar and asking him to botch the surgery and kill Ben.
Part of me suspects that this is yet another one of the cons psychological tests that the others perform on the survivors. Still, why To Kill a Mockingbird? Briefly, it’s about two children who watch their father Atticus Finch stand up to the prejudices in their small southern town by defending a black man who is accused of raping a white woman. The events leading up to and surrounding the trial effectively bring an end to the youthful innocence of the two kids.
In the book, Atticus tells his son Jem that it is a sin to kill mockingbirds because they are themselves harmless and innocent creatures. Throughout the book we see a variety of ‘mockingbirds’ – innocent people destroyed (or almost destroyed) by evil: Tom Robinson, Boo Radley, Jem and Scout Finch.
This keeps bringing me back to the whole question of whether or not the others are good people. Is it possible that Juliet is evil and Ben is as good as he claims to be, just an innocent mockingbird who only beats the crap out of people like Sawyer when he has to? Of course the book also reminds us that everyone carries the capacity for both good and evil.
Which brings us to prejudice, the central problem in To Kill a Mockingbird. Are the writers asking us to reconsider any prejudices that we viewers may harbor against the others? Should we take Atticus’s advice to Scout and not judge a man until we’ve walked around in his skin for a little while? Or at least enjoyed an episode featuring his flashbacks?
As with the blacks and whites of Maycomb County there are tensions between the survivors and the others, tensions that may stem mainly from a lack of understanding. Is the conflict between the survivors and the others based mainly on mutual fear and ignorance?
Jack, like Atticus, is a professional man who must decide to take on an unpopular case. When Atticus chose to defend a black man – and really defend him – he made a very unpopular decision that turned many of his own people (the white folk of Maycomb County) against him, but his belief in the constitution and the equality of all men gave him no choice but to do the right thing, despite this being a dangerous decision for him and his children.
Will Jack follow the path of Atticus Finch and save the life of the man who is holding him prisoner, or will Jack betray his Hippocratic oath and kill Ben for Juliet? Apparently, we’ll find out more in tonight’s episode, “I Do.”
I think Jack will operate and save Ben. He’s too principled not to. I don’t think he’ll kill this mockingbird.
Now the big question is who is the island’s Boo Radley? Who is hidden away from sight, feared and misunderstood by all, but secretly coming out of the basement as it were to help the survivors and save them from evil? Could it be the smoke monster? I wonder if the visions – that always seem to help the survivors find what they need, be it inner peace or clean water – might be the smoke monster.
I wonder if the smoke monster also protects the survivors by showing up out of nowhere, just like Boo Radley, to open up a can of whupass when needed such as that opened up on Mr Eko who turned out to be not quite as good as he appeared.
Smoke monster as Boo Radley? It may be a reach, but why not?
Check out these blogs for some good Lost analysis: Lost…and Gone Forever and The Joshmeister’s Lost Blog and Podcast.
It seems the Democrats could actually take the senate depending on late results and recounts in Montana and Virginia.
The pendulum finally seems to be swinging leftward again and the country is moving towards the middle. A place I like to call sanity. Most Americans seem to be socially libertarian and fiscally conservative. Maybe this newly divided government will adhere to those ideals.
At any rate, Bush and the extreme rightward tilt of the Republican party have been repudiated. At least for now. Hopefully it will be awhile before these new bums need a good throwing out.
At any rate, meet the new bosses.
The Democrats will control the house, at least that’s what CNN says.
Wow. Good political news. I can’t remember what to do with that. Ever since my dog ate an entire batch of oatmeal cookies off the counter on election night of 2000, it’s all been bad, bad, bad.
What do you do with good news like this? Perhaps a little fifteen year old scotch? Probably.
Unbelievable.
I love voting. I love the fact that I have the opportunity to fire the crooks, liars and thieves who run this state and this country. It’s a nice feeling even if my ballot did wind up in the trash since I voted strictly for Democrats and Libertarians this time.
They say a wave may be coming tonight. Or maybe not. Rick Perry will win the race for Texas governor and the GOP will sweep Texas. I think the Democrats will take the US House and close the gap in the Senate. Maybe that’s wishful thinking, but the leaves in the bottom of my green tea are clustered on the left side on the mug. At least they are when I hold it in my right hand so I’ll keep holding it that way.
It will be interesting tonight to see if Americans prefer to maintain a status quo of corruption, incompetence, arrogance and lies. I’m hopeful, but not really optimistic. Since 2002 Americans have been betting on crooks and swine, and it’s hard to leave your abusers. They are after all the only ones who can protect you.
If you’ve not done so already, vote. And please vote for Democrats. Throw these bums out. That is, unless you like corrupt incompetent government, then by all means vote to keep one party Republican rule.
I’m still working on The Brothers Karamazov. I’m reading other books simultaneously so it’s slow going. I’m about halfway through it, but I haven’t run into anything that I would need to add or change from my earlier post on the subject. I did run into this quote in “From the Talks and Homilies of the Elder Zosima”:
For all is like an ocean, all flows and connects; touch it in one place and it ehoes at the other end of the world.
I’d say that nails Lost pretty well.
I wasn’t too surprised by last week’s episode (“The Cost of Living“) which ended with the end of Mr Eko. The suggestion that this would happen was planted pretty well last season by the reference to The Epic of Gilgamesh in which Mr Eko becomes Enkidu to Locke’s Gilgamesh. Now, having lost his spiritual ally, Locke, like Gilgamesh, is about to set off to the other side of the world island searching for answers. I guess I wasn’t too far off on that one.
I wasn’t sure if I was going to continue this Lost Book Club thing into season three, but when the season began with the Others engaged in a book club meeting, I thought, well, maybe that’s a sign. Of course, I could just be “mistaking coincidence for fate” again.
But then, the books that have appeared so far this season comprise an interesting list:
Now, I’m still working on Karamazov and haven’t even touched Our Mutual Friend, but I’ve enjoyed the books I’ve discovered so far and I since I’ve already read Of Mice and Men, To Kill a Mockingbird, and A Tale of Two Cities, and intended to read On Writing anyway, that only leaves Carrie.
What the hell, I’m in, but I’m not rereading anything unless I bloody well feel like it.
Over the next few days I’ll post on the three books that I have read and so continue with this little literary adventure.
And, finally, I found another blogger plumbing the depths of literature to better understand Lost. Check out Reading Sawyer.
On Saturday, I found myself driving south on I-35 in Round Rock. I was planning to stop at the Petco in La Frontera to pick up some dog food before heading south to the vet. I got off at my usual exit, but – Holy Missing Exit Ramps, Batman! – there was nothing but a dirt mound where the exit ramp had once led into La Frontera.
I found myself in a rapid ascent, heading straight into the heart of a largish cumulus cloud. As I throttled back to allow myself time to adjust my oxygen mask, I realized that I must have erred onto the new toll road system. Just before the cloud, the way parted and one road led far off to the east beyond Pflugerville. The other appeared to go west towards Mopac. Neither of these were where I wanted to go, but if I got to Mopac, I would be able to land closer to my destination.
I began a steady westward bank that took me over La Frontera. Eight thousand feet below me, I could see Petco and Krispy Kreme, Lowe’s and Barnes & Noble and dozens of early morning shoppers scurrying like ants to and fro. I adjusted the ailerons, came out of the bank and leveled off at cruising altitude to find that the new tollway would take me either back to the vicinity of my home in north Austin or, as I suspected, to Mopac from where I could take Parmer to I-35 to resume my journey.
The driving was peaceful from the elevated roadway that cuts through farms and fields and provides views and angles of north Austin that I’d never before seen in the eighteen years I’ve lived here. When I began my descent near Howard Lane, there was some confusion as other travelers didn’t seem to understand that the roads were free right now, but nonetheless I returned safely to terra firma.
Later in the day we intentionally traveled the toll roads and found them to be convenient and managed to cut about thirty minutes round trip off of one of our regular errands.
This was taken by our friend VP who came over to carve pumpkins last weekend (the P’s pumpkin was the one that wasn’t Paul Stanley). She is the first to successfully capture all three hounds in one frame.
Aren’t they sweet? Daphne is in charge, and in this picture you can see her leadership in the same way that you can see Washington’s in that famous painting of him crossing the Delaware.
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