Urban Arson

In 1966 Truman Capote wrote his quintessential work, In Cold Blood, a non-fiction narrative about the brutal murder of a  wealthy Kansas family, the Clutters. Capote spent 4 years researching the vicious killings before he even wrote a single word. The story is told from an objective perspective, following the killers Richard “Dick” Hickock and Perry Smith before, during, and after their barbaric mass murder. It’s a beautifully dark tale told with the expertise of a master author. Capote held me in a state of suspense the entire time, giving subtle clues to the savage violence that was certain to take place.

It’s vicious and raw, often showing both the lightest and darkest of human emotions within the span of a few sentences. He eventually reveals the soul of each of the characters. Slowly peeling back their varied and layered personalities to reveal the simplistic clockwork which makes them tick. The strangest thing about the book is the mock Stockholm syndrome I experienced; rooting for the killers, understanding them despite their illogical inhumanity. But once you see them for the downtrodden losers they are there isn’t much to admire, respect, or applaud. I simply felt that death was the only answer for them; whether by their own hands or the hands of another. These men had to die for their actions.

This is an incredibly powerful book, deserving of its reverent praise. Truman Capote is one of the great American authors and I look forward to reading and reviewing his other works.

5/5 Stars

Gerald Warner of the Telegraph Newspaper in London wrote an incredible article about Barack Obama’s celebrity status and its future. It’s a dry, British, no bullshit, perspective on the hype our “Emperor” is receiving. The British have a way of simplifying any subject down to its lowest common denominators. Why are they so damn witty?

Barack Obama inauguration: this Emperor has no clothes, it will all end in tears 

By Gerald Warner

This will end in tears. The Obama hysteria is not merely embarrassing to witness, it is itself contributory to the scale of the disaster that is coming. What we are experiencing, in the deepening days of a global depression, is the desperate suspension of disbelief by people of intelligence - la trahison des clercs - in a pathetic effort to hypnotise themselves into the delusion that it will be all right on the night. It will not be all right.

We have been here before. In the spring of 1997, to be precise, when a charismatic, young prime minister entered Downing Street, cheered by children bussed in for the occasion waving plastic Union Jacks. A very few of us at that time incurred searing reproaches for denouncing the Great Charlatan (as I have always denominated Tony Blair) and dissenting from the public hysteria. Three times a deluded Britain elected that transparent fraud. Yesterday, when national bankruptcy became a formal reality, we reaped the bitter harvest of the Blair/Brown imposture.

The burnt child, contrary to conventional wisdom, does not fear the fire. After the Blair experience there is no excuse for anybody in Britain falling for Obama. Yet today, in this country, even some of those who remained sane during the emotional spasm of the Diana aberration are pumping the air for Princess Barack. At a time of gross economic and geopolitical instability throughout the Western world, this is beyond irresponsibility.

To anyone who kept his head, the string of Christmas cracker mottoes booming through the public address system on Washington’s National Mall can only excite scepticism. It is crucial to recall the reality that lies behind the rhetoric. Denouncing “those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents” comes ill from a man whose flagship legislation, the Freedom of Choice Act, will impose abortion, including partial-birth abortion, on every state in the Union. It seems the era of Hope is to be inaugurated with a slaughter of the innocents.

Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan is like one of those toxic packages traded by bankers: it camouflages many unaffordable gifts to his client state. With a federal deficit already at $1.2 trillion, Obama wants to squander $825 billion (which will undoubtedly mushroom to more than $1 trillion) on creating 600,000 more government jobs and a further 459,000 in “green energy” (useless wind turbines and other Heath-Robinson contraptions favoured by Beltway environmentalists).

It is frightening to think there is a real possibility that the entire world economy could go into complete meltdown and famine kill millions. Yet Western – and British – commentators are cocooned in a warm comfort zone of infatuation with America’s answer to Neil Kinnock. We should be long past applauding politicians of any hue: they got us into this mess. The best deserve a probationary opportunity to prove themselves, the worst should be in jail.

It is questionable whether the present political system can survive the coming crisis. Whatever the solution, teenage swooning sentimentality over a celebrity cult has no part in it. The most powerful nation on earth is confronting its worst economic crisis under the leadership of its most extremely liberal politician, who has virtually no experience of federal politics. That is not an opportunity but a catastrophe.

These are frank, even ungracious, words: they have the one merit that, unlike almost everything else written today about Obama, they will not require to be eaten in the future.

Read all about it.

As a follow up to my Atlas Shrugged Review, I came to a conclusion as I tried to fall asleep at 5 am (I’m an insomniac).

After you are provided with the information which will shape your future self; advice which you feel in your heart of hearts is irrefutable, is there a moral obligation to follow that guidance?

This has happened to me a few times throughout the years and I’ve always gone along with it. After crossing the paths of successful people I tend to follow in their footsteps, making a concerted effort to remain in stride with the actions which brought them success. After a while I either choose to adopt their secrets as part of my own regimen or let them fall by the wayside. These are only actions which can help you achieve your goals and may not work for you because everyone is different. You can easily allow the actions of others to come and go in your life without risk to your moral clarity.

But if you are stricken by an idea so rational, logical, irrefutable, and universally applicable to myriad situations that you stand in awe of its genius, I believe morally it must be adhered to with the strongest of convictions. You must dedicate your life to living within its bounds and continue to elaborate on it when you feel you have a proper grasp of its immense scope. If after reading a book like Atlas Shrugged you feel a twinge of guilt for a wasted moment or a partially fulfilled life then by all means follow through with its teachings or risk the toil of regret and eventual moral bankruptcy.

I have received a gift in the form of Ayn Rand’s words which have set me forth on a quest to achieve my own greatness. To ignore them now would be vile phlegm spat in the face of morality. What is read can never be unread. What is learned can never be unlearned. What is taught can never be untaught.

I will one day be a Dagny Taggert, a Midas Mulligan, a Richard Halley, an Ellis Wyatt, a Kay Ludlow, a Hugh Akston, a Hank Rearden, a Francisco d’Anconia, a Ragnar Danneskjöld, a John Galt. A person pure of thought, worthy of entry into “Galt’s Gulch.” The Mount Olympus of the Mind; the Valhalla of an Intellectual Spirit.

If you ever receive exceptionally profound advice, take heed, immediately apply it to your everyday life, and continue to maintain and update it for your remainder.

Daniel Tammet is an autistic savant with the incredible distinction of being gifted with numbers and language while remaining social at the same time. He set a record by reciting 22,514 digits of Pi, and learned the Icelandic language in just 7 days.

Read all about it. (The New Scientist)

There is also a documentary about him called “The Boy with the Incredible Brain”

Part 1/5

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After the writers strike of 2008 cut so many shows short , one show in particular stood out in my mind as not getting a fair shake (well two, I’m lookin’ at you Jericho). Scrubs was on the brink of cancellation on NBC when ABC, whose parent company Disney produces the show, stepped up to take its head off the proverbial chopping block.

Scrubs is a comedy about life in a hospital and has been going strong for 7 seasons. I’ve seen every episode and loved them all but even an über-fan like me can admit that some of the storylines began to get a bit stale. It might have been the fact that the writers knew that they only had a few episodes to tie off all the loose ends before they were cancelled and forced to leave fans in the dark. But the last 2 or 3 seasons haven’t had the spark that made Scrubs special.

I was skeptical about this 8th season and the show airing on ABC but after the 2 episodes from last night, I’m a believer. It was as funny and clever as ever. Glynn Turman’s guest appearance, as a patient with only hours to live, in the second episode “My Last Words”, was one of the most heart wrenching things I’ve seen on network TV. Watching JD and Turk talk a man through his last night on Earth was Emmy worthy.

Introduction of new cast members with strong personalities and comical yet powerful story lines have gotten this season off to a great start. It was wonderful to see the gang together again. Hopefully they ride out this wonderful start to an incredible finish to one of my favorite shows..

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John Stossel of 20/20 fame is probably the most important investigative reporter of all time. He’s my favorite journalist ever and after watching this series called Greed, you’ll see why. This ties in perfectly with my Atlas Shrugged Review. The rest are after the break.

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Here’s a really interesting story from England. A black man and his white wife produced twins with different skin colors. Its not uncommon for a black couple to have both dark and light skinned kids but this is something I’ve never seen before. As a person of mixed heredity I’ve always found stories like this fascinating. My father is black and my mother is hispanic with a light complexion, so rather than being one or the other I came out as an exact combination, coffee with cream if you will.

As bigotry beings to die off with the eldest generation, people’s genetics will continue to mix. In 500 years everyone will look like me with asian eyes. You can look down in Brazil for an approximation of this.

Read all about it.

Ayn Rand’s magnum opus Atlas Shrugged is the greatest book I could ever hope to read. Published in 1957 Atlas Shrugged highlights the lives of several very successful men and women of industry who attempt to justify logical ideas to the illogical maniacs who have overrun the world. These maniacs are also in high positions of power and enforce socialist laws and regulations which allow mediocrity to hold sway and eventually lead to the destruction of Western Civilization. 

This book is over a thousand pages long with extremely small print. It’s pretty overwhelming when you start but after the first chapter you’ll get sucked in and the pages will quickly melt away until you meet the back cover longing for more. 

I could make the argument that this is the most important book ever written. It preaches the ideal of Objectivism an ideology whose simple creed states:

“I swear, by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”

This is the most beautiful ideal that a person could hope to hold. If you constantly strive to better your own life instead of waiting for a handout from others how can you be stopped? Ideals such as this are what push humanity forward, forcing exploration into uncharted areas of our universe, allowing for new discoveries which will make life better for mankind as a whole. The constant nagging restrictions which governments impose on the people who are under their control stagnate creativity. They have tied the hands of millions of dreamers whose hope was to push the human race forward faster than any man who had come before him. But instead they were exiled, jailed, and murdered for their ideas.

In whose hands would you entrust your life? Men such as Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs whose minds have made them wealthy beyond their wildest dreams and advanced the world 1000 fold with the invention of the personal computer. Or a tenured college professor of Philosophy who preaches to his knowledge hungry students that there are no answers and that nothing matters because his evil, cannibalistic mind lacks the capacity to do anything but tear down all things good in the world. If his ability to find fault in everything and inability to provide an answer for anything is being taught to millions of college students a year; how much longer can we last?

Self-made men have built and shaped this world in their own image, competing with one another to be the wealthiest and most influential. Their “selfish” competition is a boon for humanity because of its tendency to create new technologies which make life better. Had I never read this book I would have never understood what made them tick, and now that I have I can never go back. I must strive to be one of them, giving my all and expecting it in return.

After reading this review, pick up the book and read a little every night, or better yet get the audiobook version (which is 60 hours long). Watching these honorable men struggle to break the evil chains of ignorance, mediocrity, and lethargy will enrage you to the point of change. You will want to be better for your own sake first and for the sake of advancement second.

READ THIS BOOK!

Who is John Galt?

5/5 Stars

***Spoiler Warning***

Last night I saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button an incredibly epic film I’d put one level below Forrest Gump. I loved it, I saw it as a triumph of so many things both tangible and intangible. It was one of the best movies David Fincher has ever made, and featured some of the best visual effects in the history of film. Which I consider to be its greatest triumph because of its significance for pushing the art form forward by adding tools to the palette of all filmmakers. I give the movie 4 out of 5 stars. Here was the only head scratcher I found.

Above is a picture of Benjamin Button when he was first born. He looks like a baby in size and shape but has the features of an old man on the brink of death. Now taking into consideration the complete ridiculousness of this notion wouldn’t his logical end be that of a Giant Baby (or Fetus)? 

Instead he turns into:

A normal little baby with dementia. But I woke up this morning and conceded my point. The drama of seeing Daisy (Cate Blanchett’s incredible character) rocking her infant lover to sleep was as masterful as it get. Well played Mr. Fincher.

“I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races – that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything.”

Abraham Lincoln during his Fourth Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Charleston, Illinois, September 18, 1858 (The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume III, pp. 145-146.)

This ridiculous news tells me one of two things. Either Barack Obama, like so many, is completely uninformed about the racist, Constitution violating, traitorous scum that was our 16th President. Or he is using the image which the vast majority of people associate with justice and purity of political thought as a device to manipulate them into thinking he is one in the same. I hope his rationale for using the Bible is the former, but I’m afraid it’s the latter. Pure manipulation.

Here’s the irony of it.

“The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma.”

- Abraham Lincoln

Now I found this quote without reference, source or citation. But even without it, given his actions how God-fearing could he really have been? Someone who thrusts America into a senseless Civil War which claims 600,000 lives and injures hundreds of thousands more. All the while jailing his dissenters and making racist remarks about the very people he is “known” for having liberated. What a good guy, we should all hope to achieve his “greatness”.

President-elect Obama, like so many other politicians, is simply preying on the sympathies of the American people. Nothing more to see here folks.