Responsibility - Blog Posts

Maybe I should say something.

There was, a few weeks ago, a debate on censorship in my class. I did not participate, unfortunately, but I just wanted to get my personal opinion out.

Nothing should be censored. Ever.

Because when we censor, we are making censoring things acceptable. Say we make one thing censurable. People will abuse that, expand and twist the definition until it covers everything they want censored.

We are not trusted with the privilege to censor. No one should be.

Little disclaimer, as well: This does not apply to blocking topics or words you find not to your taste from your own personal, private feed. This post refers to the deliberate removal or blocking of content from the public as a whole because one person finds it distasteful.

The propaganda is out of control. Take your life back! Raise your own kids.

The world is on my shoulders,

It weighs oh so heavily on my back.

When I look above, people who can fall,

When I look down, nothing at all.

Is it too much too ask,

To have someone to lean on,

And to catch me,

If I lean too far.

This... is part of why I get so uncomfortable sometimes. I have always tried, painfully so, to be a positive person. But, I am finding it harder and harder with time to be... positive. Why? The poor behavior that can be found close, out and about, and pretty much EVERYWHERE online, that's why. I mean seriously, the fact that signs like this are even needed is a display of the kind of behavior that makes it hard some days to brush it off and smile. I know it has become the norm to allow your electronics to think for you but dang folks... seriously? From where I'm sitting, we're all doomed but, I still do try... to be a positive person and at least not abundantly feed the ugly, nasty, YUCK that seems to be EVERYWHERE at this point. -sigh-- Okay, I'm done now.

Eh....Anonymous

All right, I’m not clean, proud nor happy about this but facts are true when we like them and when we don’t. These three films are brilliant (in my opinion), and I love them and while I will not purchase anything related to the man behind the shadows of these films, to not have them included in my favorites would be a lie—so I crammed them all together as films I wish were associated with someone else –and that’s all I can say on the matter as my alliance for these films still struggles.

The Curse of the Jade Scorpion 

Way back when, my family (mostly my Dad and I) would watch two films on New Year’s Eve instead of just one, along with getting Chinese food for dinner. The Curse of the Jade Scorpion was one of the first ones, one we watched at least a second New Year’s Eve and is one of my favorite comedies. I have re-watched it many times and I always love it. Like its main character, it’s ridiculous and cartoon-like, perfectly matching the music that goes with it--like a live-action Bugs Bunny cartoon. Watching an investigator thump around and somehow, luckily solve the mystery—is preposterous, even more so than the romantic ending. But if you find to have similar taste as I do, which most don’t, this one will have you laugh out loud so much that your father starts to watch from another room.

Crimes and Misdemeanors

Please, please, hold the accurate screams for the stars of this film that escape from your body as if you are a stereotyped middle school girl from ten years ago that just saw Justin Bieber. Sam Waterson, Jerry Orbach (RIP) and Alan Alda—heaven and probably my main reasons for loving this film (in order) not just because it was them but because I saw a different character of them that I was more used to (thou not Alan Alda in this case, I agree he was schmucky). I would agree with other reviewers that it’s not exactly the suspense of what’s going to happen that fuels the story but what these ‘average’ people will do, how they will react and how the rest of their lives will be impacted. Except for Judah’s connection to hitman, and part of the story having a connection to the acting/film industry—the stories are all pretty common. People who are in unhappy marriages, people who have affairs; these stories are common. A lot of “coming of age” stories are about teenagers and young adults, but after 50 or so years sometimes we come to a new level of understanding of ourselves or a different realization than before and make different choices and we adapt again rising to a new challenge or falling below expectations—but which one was which

“And after the awful deed is done, he finds that he's plagued by deep-rooted guilt. Little sparks of his religious background which he'd rejected are suddenly stirred up. He hears his father's voice. He imagines that God is watching his every move. Suddenly, it's not an empty universe at all, but a just and moral one, and he's violated it.”

Match Point

Match Point really is just an extension of Crimes and Misdemeanors, the only larger change is that the ending result comes from a combination of the actions of the main character along with ‘fate’ as opposed to just dumb luck. Both main characters in Crimes and Misdemeanors and Match Point show that with real consequences, the choices you make are different than what you think they would be; but also how your worst choices show your true character because even thou both Judah and Tom both felt extreme guilt….they got over it pretty quickly

 Shout out: Melinda and Melinda a complete extreme of how perspective can shape so much

Bartemius Crouch Senior

I love Barty Crouch Senior, I just do. Maybe it’s because when we meet him I just see this bright man who got shafted by his family, the public and was alone; I feel for him. Now, he’s not perfect. We know that he could be cruel, as we see with him and Winky and hear from others in regards to the trails of other Death Eaters not connected to his son. But while he was ambitious and made mistakes as department head, they were misguided mistakes and not with the background of the mistakes or self-promotion ones made by Fudge or Scrimgeour. And while we hear about how he was an absentee father working late at the ministry, we know Barty Crouch Jr. had his mother to over-indulge him similar to how I believe James Potter was overindulged, and we know that Barty Crouch Sr. adored his wife so I feel there were limits or levels to his cruelty, especially as at any moment he could have handled his son differently after his wife passed, but he didn’t.  

How Barty Crouch Dr. became who he was, we’ll never know, but once brought to the light I feel that Barty Crouch Sr. wasn’t as shocked as he would otherwise be, he just wasn’t in denial anymore. Maybe Barty Crouch Jr.’s nature turned his father away from him and not the other way around because regardless of the speculation that Barty Crouch Jr. might have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, we know that’s not true. Barty Crouch Jr. was a proud Death Eater. When it comes to Barty Crouch Sr.’s errors, I put them more in line with Dumbledore’s. While not as understanding of his own faults, Barty Crouch Sr. was not malicious, but strict. Why he could not get the sympathy following the death of his wife and child as Dumbledore had with his sister I don’t understand. Barty Crouch Sr.’s main fault seemed to be in his appearance of being cruel (also alluded to in why Ludo Bagman got more praise than him) because the public first hated that he sentenced his son so ‘unfairly’ by treating him like any other Death Eater, then blaming him when he died in Azkaban, then hating him when they found out he had taken him from Azkaban but had him imprisoned in his home….I think they just wanted to hate him.

Bartemius Crouch Senior was not perfect or innocent, but for the most part, he tried to do what he believed was best for the world even if his methods to get there are more than questionable, and, he honoured his wife more than anything, which counts for something. His story reminds us that life isn’t fair but it is complicated.

The moral law is more exigent than the law of an actual liberal republic, because it allows no emigration, but it is unequivocally just in its ideas of responsability.

Bernard Williams Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy

Does anyone else just like not know how to think of/about/for yourself? Like your so used to being told what to do, ridiculed for doing something wrong, given so many responsibilities and things to take care of. That you just don't know how to think of just yourself, take care, of yourself, or even know who you are? You stress about time whether you have enough to get everything done as well as have free time. You aren't independent. You forget things for your self constantly like breakfast, what you want to do, drinking water, ect. And you just become so lazy and put out because of all the stress and work. Even when the work is done, and you have so little work for a long time, the illusion that there is so much is still there weighing you down. Is it just me or? Sorry for the weird depressing rambling.