After all, they’re the first thing to go on any budget. If a person has to choose to invest in food or the Arts, food will almost always win. Even if it’s the option between an extravagant (unnecessary) dinner and a night at the opera—the arts can just go. It’s not like we need the Arts to live.

Oh sure, when we can afford it, we should do something about the Arts because they make us feel better about ourselves, elevate our self-estimation, reveal our intelligence, sophistication and culture. But really, beyond those incidental perks they are ultimately unimportant. So…

What’s Valuable?
Well value is a funny thing. Value isn’t something necessarily intrinsic in the object that contains it. A Thing  enters into existence without value until it is assigned that value. A penny is  worth 1/100 of a dollar…that’s it. But if we wind up with a copper shortage suddenly the value of a penny would increase. It wasn’t intrinsic in the penny—value was assigned from the outside.

Or how about that tree over there. Right now, it’s just scenery on your morning walk that maybe offers shade in the afternoon. Beyond that, it’s largely ignored. Someone points out that that tree right there offers the best material for making very sturdy furniture—indeed; it’s probably some of the best kind of wood selling at a very high dollar amount. Suddenly the value of that tree leaps in your estimation, and as you pass it you think about the amount of planks such a thing might afford.

We assign value all the time, not just with pennies and wood.

Historically, reading was not important. Neither was writing. Information could be transmitted and housed in the oral culture until the culture realizes that some of these things are disappearing. Suddenly the need to solidify information (be it laws, histories, whatever) becomes valuable and it is propagated in the culture. And of course, if someone is going to record it the need to read it rises in importance.

But no one really ever needed reading or writing to live…that’s a modern problem after we’ve assigned value to reading and writing. Frankly, it’s not a matter of life or death to read the stop sign; you just have to know that if there’s a vehicle coming, you push the pedal that brings the car to a halt. But reading the sign that says DANGER when you walk into the glowing green room is exceedingly important because we’ve raised the process of receiving written information to the level of the everyday.

Examining our core subjects we see that there is nothing there that is really necessary to live though in our modern society their importance increases. People can live without knowing how to read, write, understand science or do math—it’s been going on for centuries—and yet today, most students know that you don’t mix  bleach with chlorine (which are available in our society); it can kill you. As the core subjects increased in importance their implementation in society increased in importance.

Furthermore, people can get jobs that don’t necessarily have to use all those core subjects. Pythagoras might not come up in every job but you might find out that both architects, construction workers and even the guy properly doing your front steps might employ it (to some extent anyway). But even beside that, when was the last time you used the Pythagorean Theorem, or threw a layup? You were trained with these things even if now your career didn’t technically go down those paths—and yet you know the value of sports, you might even have a gym membership, and a(squared) plus b(squared) equals c(squared) is unforgettable.

Value was assigned to those things because someone has (rightly) decided that it was important for us to learn them. The problem comes now, after years of indoctrination into what is important that we have forgotten the process. We think that only those things we learned are valuable. We’ve forgotten that as value was assigned, importance increased and subsequent applications were created. In light of that lack of memory, the arts have fallen into a strange area—the Marginal.

Centering The Margins
The Marginal isn’t central (duh). It’s the sides, the bit that you scrape up, the stuff that only some enjoy but aren’t really necessary for the masses—or even possible to be used by the masses. One of two things occur with the marginal: they are made incidental (sort of like the frills on curtains; curtains do a job but the frills are just incidental additions) and they are made the realm of an elite class (which has no bearing on society in their segregation).

Not only is this an unjustified segregation of what it means to be human (which would be an argument that I would draw connecting full personhood activities to a creative God) but it actually devalues a driving force of human activity. I need to explain that.

What I’m saying is that the arts are part of life, and have been part of life for a long time, but we’ve ignored their importance and have thus devalued them, pushed them to the side and focused on function. The Arts have become the Tree we walk by. Parents speaking about their children who are into music, speak in terms of seeing their child blossom, or watching the joy on their face—but they don’t see the importance which might be intertwined into all aspects of life because such things are currently hard to measure—we don’t have the important meter set on them.  What is it doing for their life? Why isn’t music affecting the athletes? Should it?

We can understand the parents—they’ve been indoctrinated in this segregation. The problem is also found in the teachers and administration which have divorced their studies from each other. You have the Science Teacher, and the History Teacher and the Economics Teacher each of them with their curricula—and the students leave each class never seeing the connections.

Listen, the Arts are already here addressing life: from the way your cell phone functions, through the clothing you wear, past the colors that have been selected for the classroom, down to the presentation of the materials in front of the students, to the organization of the football maneuvers, to the performance of their bodies combining athleticism with performance, right down to the look of the Astroturf. The Arts are there but they’ve been swallowed in perceived divorced functionality. In other words, our eyes have been trained to see only one aspect of our growing world; not the aspect that needs intentional addressing.

Ask yourself some serious questions. The Science that develops the iPod is important; the design that made it function is not? The work that Leonardo DaVinci did with the human body was important; the art he used to do it was not? The study of the bats and their importance in developing hearing aids are important; the idea of patterns in sound is not? These things are tied together but their connection is largely ignored.

Now ask yourself this question: in a global economy, which language is instantaneously appropriated across cultures? Sure there are some elements that might be offensive in one place over another but it is both easier and more effective to implement the Arts in global communication than it is to try to limit our communication to a secondary language.

Towards a Centered,  Connected and Re-Valued Arts Program
Here’s what I’m thinking. Develop an Arts programs (yes that’s everything in the Arts which includes literature, music, visual and performance arts) that integrate with all the other programs thus moving the Arts from the Marginal to the Central. If someone is going to learn geometry, let them learn it while building pyramids so that they’re employing the Arts while implementing the math and science. If they’re going to play football, let them do it while learning trigonometry, physics, and ballet. If they’re going to study geometry, patterns, sequence, and division marry the math with a music program that shows these elements at work. The Arts should be part of the every-hour, not just part of the everyday.

Computer labs with five computers running a music composition program are not enough—this should be something happening across the school at every grade level. Musical instruments, like the horn or the clarinet are fine but the idea of musical instruments should be (somehow) implemented into everything that is done. So the science of acoustics is not a separate intangible thing from the tonality of music. So that the abstract figures of mathematics are not divorced from the structure of a flower, or the perfect proportion of a man.

This all should (1) de-marginalize and recalibrate the value of the Arts (2) integrate the Arts into every facet of life to achieve an “amateuring” of the arts across the spectrum (3) give tangibility and context to the other sciences (language, writing, reading, mathematics, science, history) (4) reverse the marginalization of the Arts in society by increasing importance (5) reflect the fullness of what it means to be a thinking human who uses all facets of his or her abilities (6) increase our global currency and export value  in terms of communication and ideas and (7) generally result in new spheres of business and application in a much needed field.

If properly implemented we shouldn’t expect to see any of the Arts in the category of consideration for budgetary cuts. They wouldn’t be the unnecessary cherry on top; they’d be part of the very table the entire meal sits on: they would be important.

For example, he said that:

I’m proposing that we take $30 billion of the money Wall Street banks have repaid

And

I’m also proposing a new small business tax credit — one that will go to over one million small businesses who hire new workers or raise wages.

And

We need to make sure consumers and middle-class families have the information they need to make financial decisions

And

We will double our exports over the next five years, an increase that will support two million jobs in America.

And

Starting in 2011, we are prepared to freeze government spending for three years.

And

We need to invest in the skills and education of our people.

These are all worthy ideas as they stand apart from any other information. I agree: we need to invest in the skills and education of our people; I think we need to freeze government spending; I think tax credits for small businesses are a good idea.

But there are real concerns on my part. He says that we need to invest in skills and education and then stands in the background promoting the ”Race to the Top” which essentially suffers from the same fundamental problems of No Child Left Behind but with the added problem of no real accountability. Look, I think the heart of NCLB and RttT are good: fix the lower functioning schools, don’t send support that way if the schools don’t perform, reward the schools that have programs are functioning. But what we saw was NCLB was teachers educating at tests, programs being structured around looking productive, and ultimately kids falling through the gaping holes.

Not only that, the awards for RttT go to the states that are ahead of the others with ambitious yet achievable plans—call me a cynic for thinking that anyone but schools with proper support systmes already in place will wind up getting any of this.The President has said in the past that this won’t happen but he can’t make that assurance for something that is essentially No Child Left Behind coupled with a competition.

Also, when the President says

I’m proposing that we take $30 billion of the money Wall Street banks have repaid

He continues to say that

and use it to help community banks give small businesses the credit they need to stay afloat

Say what? Let me get this straight. You give the big banks a bailout, something you agreed with the last administration to do, then you want to take the money they give back and instead of putting it back where it belongs—you’re going to give it to Other Banks in the hopes that they give small businesses money. After all, even the bailout money wasn’t used by the Big Banks the way it was supposed to be used!

The President says that:

We cut taxes for 95 percent of working families.

Yeah, that was awesome. I saw my paycheck increase by cents. Oh, you didn’t notice? Yeah, you’re getting some extra change in your pocket—and it’s true, better in my pocket than the government. But I really don’t understand why everyone is going nuts with this. One was at one chunk, the other is spread out over 52 paychecks.

But it makes me wonder where they’re eventually looking to pay for all the stuff he has on the table.

Well, one area, the President said was with a spending freeze (thank God, and about time):

Starting in 2011, we are prepared to freeze government spending for three years. …But all other discretionary government programs will. Like any cash-strapped family, we will work within a budget to invest in what we need and sacrifice what we don’t. And if I have to enforce this discipline by veto, I will

This one’s funny because it’s the exact thing that he lambasted McCain for proposing saying that McCain wanted to use a hatchet when we needed a surgical knife. Looks different once you get in the oval office, I’m sure—but it makes me wonder why some people who literally laughed at McCain for suggesting the same thing are currently nodding their heads in somber silence.

And then we have the Recovery Act which the President said was the source of our great financial boon this year—when the Congressional Budget Office themselves aren’t quick to say this. They have been honest saying that there has been a range of jobs that may have been due to the Recovery Act but it might not have been as well—that there is no way to know. One source said:

For example, last November, Recovery.gov claimed that in Arizona’s 15th congressional district, 30 jobs had been saved or created with just $761,420 in federal stimulus spending. The one problem that was spotted later: There is no 15th congressional district in Arizona.

A lot of this stuff is under the banner of either There’s-no-way-to-know or sure-we-can-dream but the way it is paid for is swept under the rug. That Government spending freeze will cover, what, less than a percent of the total spending? And sure, small businesses accounted for 80% of the current job market growth, but to turn unemployment around from 10% down to 5%, we apparently have to create 250,000 new jobs a month, every month, for five years. The average monthly job creation over the last two decades was only 90,000. That’s a real eye opener right there. He even dipped into his Bush pocket (something that he is prone to do even while slamming that administration) by saying the war against Al-Qaida has been even more successful than 2008—even though no one can access those secret papers that say what exactly has happened over there. All we know is that more drones have gone out…

And then there were the things that were outright wrong.

…it’s time to require lobbyists to disclose each contact they make on behalf of a client with my administration or with Congress. It’s time to put strict limits on the contributions that lobbyists give to candidates for federal office

Which just about every news source has said a variation of below:

Obama has limited the hiring of lobbyists for administration jobs, but the ban isn’t absolute; seven waivers from the ban have been granted to White House officials alone. Getting lobbyists to report every contact they make with the federal government would be difficult at best; Congress would have to change the law, and that’s unlikely to happen. And lobbyists already are subject to strict limits on political giving. Just like every other American, they’re limited to giving $2,400 per election to federal candidates, with an overall ceiling of $115,500 every two years.

And

In February, the administration signed waivers for Jocelyn Frye, former general counsel at the National Partnership for Women & Families, and Cecilia Muñoz, the former senior vice president for the National Council of La Raza, allowing them to work on issues for which they lobbied.

Like why say there’s going to be a big change when (1) you’re already offering waivers to people in the White House and (2) those bans are already in place.

He charged Congress saying:

I’m calling on Congress to publish all earmark requests on a single Web site before there’s a vote, so that the American people can see how their money is being spent.

But the fact is that this was one of his campaign promises that he said would be kept. No closed-door deals, everything out in the public square, documents published online for several days for general public review—none of this is happening! And yet, he totally side-stepped it and pushed it onto Congress.

Indeed, he boasted about their increased transparency of the visits to the White House log but he failed to mention that:

But the release of these logs came only after a legal challenge by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. The group filed suit seeking the logs related to the visits by certain groups. When the Obama administration settled the suit it went further, agreeing to post the logs of all visitors from September 15 onward. While this seems like a big win for transparency, Melanie Sloan, the executive director of CREW, says because the administration voluntarily agreed to release the logs, the administration could later decide to reverse this decision. Additionally, nothing compels the next administration to take the same course. Nothing besides the promise that a reversal would provoke a resumption of legal action!

It’s this fact-fudging coupled with this pushing off responsibility that really irks me. Just like he did with the Health Reform deal. Instead of offering any clear information on what exactly his bill would contain (I’ve been asking everyone to give me information on this and all they can do is point me to the administrations website with their talking points) he stood right in the middle and let the House or Congress hash it out. I mean, I’m happy that he pointed out that health reform isn’t the salvation of the financial problem (something that health reform advocates have been pushing as if fact) but he did a fine job of just stepping away from it all and nodding.

PBS Said:

The President came to that fork in the road tonight and instead of giving Congress a clear sense of where he was willing to put his remaining political capital he just took the fork in the road.

Even Alito was surprised (yeah, this is Reytoric: I can’t read the man’s mind) by the length Obama, a constitutional law professor, is willing to go when he takes the recent supreme court decision to make it say something it didn’t say when he knows (or at least I hope he knows) that there is already law in place that stops foreign corporations from spending money in connection with U.S. elections  ((see 2 U.S.C. 441e(b)(3)). The slickness is in how he worded his statement:

With all due deference to separation of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our elections.

Slick, man. And that, ultimately, is why I was uneasy with even the parts I do agree with. How are you going to work it, President Obama, how are you going to manage it—and when it gets tough, are you going to blame those around you and couch your rhetoric in safe, passive-aggressive rhetoric.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Tax Time
Forms are pouring in;
Take a look at the ten forty, checkin’ your salary
Accountants are a-smilin’ happily

It’s beginning to look a lot like Tax Time
Turbotax in every shop
But the prettiest sight will be the refund that we’ll see
In the mailbox drop

A pair of sofas (or seats) or a speaker with beats
Is all spent before the money by then
Money that talks and goes on a walkBefore it even comes in!
And mom and dad are planning a deduction for next year!

It’s beginning to look a lot like Tax Time
Everywhere, you see
There’s a form in the mail, in the library as well
The ones that are impossible to read

It’s beginning to look a lot like Tax Time,
Soon the crying starts,
And the tears that you bring is from filing the thing
And finding you owe a lot!

What about when the applause happens with beliefs, choice of presidential candidates, camp of theology, and even matters of Biblical exegesis? You are a Bathinian and you read a book by a pro-Bathinian party who proceeds to bash the Bathinian enemy (The Dhanists). You finish the book and put it down claiming “This is an excellent book!”  Conversely, you read a Dhanist book and it is horrid. The Dhanist just doesn’t get it. Totally misrepresents the Bathinian position. Worst. Reading. Ever.

But on what grounds did you decide that one book was “excellent” and the other was “awful”? It’s almost as if the position has transcended the realm of proper argumentation or systemization by entering into my neck of the woods: branding, advertising and presentation.

A brand designer, when working, will be employing their craft on three different types of products: (1) A product that sucks and the brand designer knows it; (2) a product that might not suck but the brand designer won’t use it; (3) A product that’s actually pretty good and the brand designer would use it. In each case the designer transcends his or her perception of the product and tries to portray the product in a better-than-best light. It’s not so much that the designer is avoiding putting the product’s best foot forward; it’s that they know that there is more into buying stuff than its function—the designer tries to generate The Halo Effect.

The Halo Effect comes from psychology but it finds application in marketing by the brand designer. It’s basically when a person identifies a certain trait in another as an attractive trait which undergirds their decision of liking (or disliking) someone, or something, else. In brand design we try to turn the eyes of the potential buyer to a specific trait in the product which transcends the product and may even speak about the end user. The Halo Effect of any given brand does not live by design principles alone; but also by every word that proceeds from the writer’s pen.  So the team of brand creators want the buyer to not only want to use a product (it’s function) they want the end user to fall in love with the product.

Let’s switch to positions for a second. If you have the right “brand”, what the position actually says, or how it is presented, matters less than what the position actually is: since you agree with the conclusion any counterargument is ridiculous and all pro-arguments are genius. After buying into brand we don’t come at the price points (or the positional points) with much objectivity at all; it becomes a matter of pro-brand versus no-brand..

Depending on which side of the fence you’re on, you might see this on MSNBC, Fox News, Moveon.org or Rush Limbaugh’s emails. You might even notice it on your Facebook status feeds when someone mentions Palin or Obama. In each case, you’ll notice it more when it’s a brand you thing is no-brand: you turn to the station and say “Ugh! They’re so biased!”

Now hop on over to Amazon.com and look (try hard now) for any product that doesn’t have a cult following (like anything not dependant on the brand name) and you might get some honest reviews talking about the pros and cons of the product. Maybe even a couple of personal stories about how the product saved them. But the second you click on an item (say by Apple or Microsoft) you get a lot of Brand-Indcuced-comments that don’t really tell you if the product is actually good. Worse when you look at a book under any theological “brand” and you’ll find that the reviews that really hate the book are ones who (unsurprisingly) don’t agree with the doctrinal position and the ones who love it do agree with it. Some people have even (sneakily) hid behind pointing out brand devotion when another party doesn’t agree with them saying things like “Well, I expect X-person not to believe it since they’re X-Brand and not Y-Brand.” Ignoring for a second the inherent genetic fallacy, they have identified the opponents brand and not their own!

Now, yeah, I know it stinks for a designer (me) to be giving up the tricks of his trade but people should really know better than to buy solely into brand. Everyone does it but they don’t stop and examine if what they bought into is really “excellent” or if they just agree with it because they’re already under the swoon of the Halo Effect. Heck, I’ve noticed visual brand designers fall into the cool light of the Halo Effect when they sit back in their seats and proudly show off their sub-par equipment that was targeted toward a design community demographic!

So back off from brands a bit; treat things more like math where you have to check if the numbers really plug into place and give you the right answer. Try it. Go ahead, peek under the hood of that car. Check if those sneakers really work. Look up the specs of that computer. Examine the politician’s finely crafted words. Read what that piece of legislature actually says. Tear into your broadcaster. Look up those verses that such-and-such is quoting from your side of the theological fence.  Applaud at the end of that movie; but maybe not at the end of that other one just ’cause there’s lightsabers.

Brands are out there and they’re affecting all of us more than we think.

‘Twas the night before printing in the design house
AD’s were all fighting, To get the jobs out

Prepressers exporting pdf’s all with care
In the hopes that no errors would soon be found there.

The designers wrestled with kerning and lead
With hands all a-sweating and slamming their heads.

The Editor nervous, the watch tik-tock-tack
Refuses to settle while his feet go tap-tap.

When out in a cubicle arose such a clatter
Designers from their chairs to see what the matter

Then what to their wond’ring eyes should appear
The designer, a smiling; Bob’s face all a-cheer!

“He must’ve gone crazy” they mumbled about,
“I haven’t gone crazy” said Bob, with a shout.

“I’ve figured it out; I’ve got a great plan!
No worries about missing our printing time span!

Forget all this printing, this paper and stuff;
When we can go global, online, with a puff!”

The Editor smiled as he heard the ‘claimation
This lil’ ol’ plan would soon take the nation!

And now that design house is a drug shop
And our hero Bob is selling icicle pops

The Editor smiles as he publishes blogs
No problems, no worries; no cutting up logs.

‘Twas the year without printing and what have we here?
Bob and designers, dreaming of  last year.

So, before you complain about your poor little job
Stop, count your blessings: at least you’re not Bob.

The Great Cause defines us.
The Great Cause defends us.
The Great Cause propels us.
The Great Cause advances.
—Mantra of the Bound Corp

Her hull hissed, an expiration of depressurized waste comprised of nitrous-oxide, carbon-dioxide and hydrogen vying for their own space in a foreign atmosphere. Saber’s solo-protocols were already streaming packets of information that would have overwhelmed his regular senses if he wasn’t part of the 1ne. Atmospheric pressure, chemical compounds, levels of radioactive seepage from the terra firma, threat levels.

It all reminded him about how he formerly took his own senses for granted.

The sharp tang of foreign spices or the deep odors of long distance traveling; the stale, pungent air sitting sweat; the stinging acidity of exhausts—these all would bore him after time. He’d arrive at whatever destination, step out of the containment, take a deep breath and be happy he wasn’t stuck “back in there”. Release, he might’ve thought; just a chance to get away from those experiences.

Now smells, sounds, vibrations: all numbers on a visual.

Within the chitinous hide of his helm, his eyes peered through Saber’s exterior hull creating the comfortable, yet still strange, disconnected feeling of being in two places at the same time. Inside while standing outside; knowing the content here while knowing all out there; standing still here and flying through the landscape there. His mind once used religious shorthand deigning himself the Deist God, far off yet impossibly near to His creation—always unwilling to intervene while being on the very verge of doing so.

“Which God?” Saber had asked back then and that had ended that. He refused to allow those thoughts to pass into the Bind; he refused to think them. Voices in your head, your thoughts seamless with another, parts of you knowing what you’re planning before it’s even a solidified thought—it was ironic. Now, in an age where the concept of the old Trinitarian God of yesteryears Christians is written off as impossible, the Bind made it completely understandable. Unfortunately, for the 1ne, they were convinced that that old God was someone to be pitied in his eternal Trinitarian Bind.

Still strange, he refused to think, how the wet audible confirmation of Saber1ne’s hull cracking open to allow his egress was heard both from outside and within.

Habit kicked in: Lost1ne engaged the (endeared, beloved, freeing) solo-protocols. Peering through Saber’s (Deist God) sensor blisters was more of a hindrance when traversing landside. In the past he would try examining all distant creatures through the long warped tunnel while engaging it with his own eyes; but man is just way too finite for that sort of thing. Even now, years later, the further apart he was from Saber, the less…comfortable…it was to use Saber’s sensor blisters at the same time with his helm sensors. Yes, he knew that the sensor-blisters were a lifesaver; but the solo-protocols were a mind saver.

Even so, he examined his form: impressively tall, wrapped in the oily black chitinous hide that also made up Saber’s hull; his human features partially exposed so that he didn’t seem completely alien. In any regular atmosphere that might be okay, but here it was likely seem just as alien as an enclosed helm—at the thought his human features were covered. Satisfied, he fully engaged the solo-protocol, switched back to internal visual and exited Saber’s hull silently acknowledging that there were some benefits of being 1ne.

1.  My Garage Doors (both of them together)

2. Flight and hotel for two, for one week, in Hawaii

3. Four Years of daily bagels with butter (with coffee, even better)

4. A living room set (Sofa, Loveseat, end tables, Lamps)

5. Rent for a 1 bedroom apartment in New York City.

6. A 52″ LCD TV—maybe installed

7. Guitars (or Camera Lenses if that’s your fancy)

8. Bicycles. Yeah, seriously.

9. An Apple Macintosh Computer

10. A Mattress

Saving Private Ryan Beach of Normandy: How crazy is it that the scene starts off by focusing on a single drop ship before having them all die once the doors open? It’s a horrifying and violent scene but unforgettable.

Alien Chest Buster Scene : this was a horrifying scene. Like you seriously feel like your in that confined space with the rest of the crew with the whiteness of the dining table looking way to stark when that blood explodes on his shirt. But man, it’s perfect.

Matrix II Freeway Scene : From beginning to end I’m at the edge of my seat with every slash of the knife, every swish of a blade, every kick and back flip. What makes the scene even better is that Neo, who can do anything at this point, isn’t there until the last moment and you find yourself freaking cheering with.

The Matrix Morpheus Rescue: is, in its entirety an awesome segment (starting from “We’re gonna’ need weapons”) but at that moment, when Neo knows (he bloody knows!) that he’s not going to let Trinity die in the helicopter; wraps his arm around the hose fully intent on holding the thing. Wow.

Star Wars Episode 2 Yoda Fight Scene: Yoda was looking more like a puppet (unlike the first movie) and he comes walking in breathing heavy; they start battling with the force—then they stop. It’s not about the Force, it’s about lightsabers. And crazy bloody flips! Awesome, Awesome, Awesome. But since I liked it so much, I found a clip that includes all of the Yoda fight scenes.

Spiderman 2 Train Scene: I like it when heroes in movies go all out with being heroic but do it in a way that is completely not about themselves (think the ending of The Dark Knight “Why is he running, Daddy?” “Because we have to chase him.”) This scene is not so much about Spiderman being a hero, but all out Peter Parker willing to die for a train of strangers. I think I almost cried when he was about to fall and all of these foreign hands held him up, lift him back into the train, and then hand him back his mask.

Star Wars IV You’re Clear Kid! We know it’s not Empire (which is the best movie of all time), we know the acting generally sucked (even though they took themselves less seriously, and thus made a better package, than the later prequel trilogy) but I still sit at the edge of my seat during that whole trench run scene and applaud when Han shows up with the mewling Chewbacca.  I dare you not to smile while watching it.

Serenity  I’m A Leaf on the Wind: This is one of those movies (like The Matrix) where you’d be hard pressed to find The Scene. The Reaver chase? The bar fight? But for me, when the government is waiting to attack Serenity outside the nebula and every single Reaver shows up, that is the joint. This scene is just brought up to the notch with how “I’m a Leaf on the wind” is used on so many levels.
Only a Link available.

Jurassic Park When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth. I can’t find a video but you know the scene. The people have been hunted left and right by the raptors. There’s no way out. They’re being cornered. The raptors snap and crouch and leaps—only to be snagged mid-air by a hungry T-Rex. The raptors, realizing the threat, attack and it throws them down while roaring and the banner falls down from above reading “When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth” Awesome.

Unsurprisingly, the state (like many states) has decided that putting more money into the school is fine when you can cut library funding. Is it just me that thinks that the library is an integral part of education? I spent many an afternoon in the public library of New York, not only picking up something for school but reading for pleasure. I think it is part of the stuff that made me the person I am today (be that good or bad).

But that’s not the only reason it’s messed up. The fact is that the library was an area they could cut because people aren’t using it. Being homeschoolers, my wife makes use of the library every week. But being a constant student anyway, I personally make just as much use of the libraries in my area (the two public and the one university library). In the summer the library is somewhat busy, a buzz with parents getting their kids out of the house, but during the school year�at just about any hour�the attendance dips considerably. I don’t think this justifies the budget, but if they were just looking at ink on a page then you can see how someone would draw the conclusion to start slashing.

I also wonder what they’re going to charge for these inter-library loans. I’m constantly getting some pretty hefty books and if they start charging shipping I might start leaning more towards buying some of these titles; albeit not the super expensive ones.

At least we don’t have any librarian Nazi ripping books out of my hand and charging me unnecessary late fees.� Well…not yet, anyway.