half of me is evil

half of me is evil and half of me is not
half of me is part of me and half of me i lost
half of me is evil and half of me is not

half of me is evil and half of me is not
i am witty repartee and labile honest thought
half of me is evil and half of me is not

you'll knock on my door but i can't you in
there's garbage in the yard and the stable's caving in
you'll knock on my door but i'll never let you in
brighter grass and whiter fences are just around the bend

half of me is evil and half of me is not

my dream

the opening sequence:

anywhere from 15 to 20 males are playing around and enjoying themselves. They are in a hotel room that seems like it is of the very highest caliber. They are all of college age.

There is an over the board tendency to the level of play. There is some question as to whether or not they are actually being safe. The hotel room is at least on the 40th floor of a Las Vegas strip property. There are two balconies, and on both the dudes are playing catch with baseballs and jumping around as if falling off the edge would be no problem whatsoever. It's unclear if they are drunk, reckless, or just ignorant to their own mortality.

It's clear that the hotel room isn't theirs. The sequence leaves the viewer very nervous that someone is going to die despite the light-hearted nature of the scene. The scene focuses in on the one balcony, and two males are talking. There is some sort of argument, but it's not serious. One seems to be convinced that the owner is coming home soon. The other isn't worried about it.

A quick cut to the original person walking out of the balcony and into the bathroom shows a trashed bathroom. water is pouring out onto the floor, the shower is running, shampoo bottles litter the floor. He also realizes that most of the guys have left or are leaving. However he takes some responsibility and realizes that the water isn't draining because the drain isn't open, and opens the drain.

The front door to the apartment slams. It's obvious the owner just got home. You hear step, step, step, and then the bathroom opens.

The original young man who was fixing the bathroom stammers out a tirade of apologies, and the older man smiles. He then says "this is nothing that I didn't forsee happening when I lent you guys the place". He then smiles again after saying this.

The scene cuts to the two men both standing in a more enclosed lounging room. There are two blankets crumpled up on two couches, and it's questionable as to whether there are people underneath them. The young man and the older man continue talking, and the young man is obviously trying to network with the older man with some sort of assumption that he works in the finance industry.

"Can I have your card?"

"Sure! What kind of phone do you have?"

"Phone? Why's that? Do you work for Verizon or something?"

"I probably built the technology that's inside of it. I'm a nano-engineer and I build very small parts for specialized electronics like phones"

"Oh..." *obviously a little dejected*

*The older man snatches the younger man's phone from his hand* "A blackberry eh?, Is this an 8330?"

"Yeah."

"Interesting..." *The older man scrolls through the phone*

*obviously uncomfortable* "Well... Thanks!" *reaches for his phone back*

"Wait, but what about the other phones, did you look at other models of phones before you bought this one?"

*increasingly weirded out and wanting to leave* "Yeah... I mean this seemed like the best one or whatever. I like it. Anyways..."

*interrupting* "Have you found it to be everything you require?" *stares directly at younger man from 4-5 feet away*

"I mean, sure, I guess. It's worked great"

*One of the blankets move and a head peeks out*

"Vern, when did you get back?"

The younger man is less concerned with a perceived sexual tension between him and the older man, but now concerned with the age discrepancy between this older man and the newly perceived lover that he had never seen before seemingly on this couch the entire party that they had.

"Oh just now, I was at the convention until late. What have you and Jess been doing?"

*the other blanket ruffles and moves*

"Dad? We've been... sleeping...." *tired*

The younger man is still trying to wrap his head on the relationships between all the people in the room. He is torn between wanting to catch up with his friends and the simple curiosity of a new situation and new people that he's never seen before. He is baffled because the two girls were seemingly sleeping under blankets for the entire loud party, and only wake up when their father, the owner or renter of this condo or hotel comes back.

The young man looks over at the first girl that spoke, and commented

"One of your eyes, it looks like the make-up got rubbed off or something."

*The first girl immediately becomes mortified*

The scene then cuts to a golden hued scene where the first girl is a small child. The camera is immediately behind her, and she in running as any four year old would. She is running in some sort of grand hall or long way. The camera dramatically turns to her left as she turns to the left to face the wall in the middle of the hall, and she is turning towards a mirror.

She looks at herself, and she has a horrible birthmark that has removed all of the pigment from her skin directly around her eye. However because she is four, she only looks at herself in curiosity, not out of a level where she perceived herself to be less attractive than others.

Then a time sequence occurs at the mirror. The girl ages, and you see her become more dissatisfied with her birthmark as she reaches puberty, and then you see a sly smile creep up on her lips as her discovery of make-up allows her to cover up her birthmark. She is unable to fully cover up her birthmark due to the violent difference between the pigment of her face and the birthmark area, but she can obviously be fairly attractive using appropriate cover-up makeup.

*end scene*

sometimes

i just wanna settle

Government Type Video

I recently watched a video on wimp.com that was most excellent. It discussed the different types of government that exist, how they come to be, and their sustainability.

The five forms of government they reduced the world to are: Monarchy, Oligarchy, Democracy, Republic, or Anarchy

I actually think this approach to government makes the most sense, as long as people don't mind including things like Nazism and Fascism within the idea of Monarchy.

Let's begin with Monarchy, the rule of one. The video immediately points out that no country, especially in the Modern Age, is ruled by a single person. Kings have their court, dictators have their councils and political party members, even Alexander the Great and Napoleon III had to deal with the subordinates views and were held subject to the whims of those closest to themselves.

It moves Monarchy into Oligarchy, the rule of the elite. We will come back to Oligarchy at the end.

Democracy is the rule of the majority. The video argues that while the majorities interests will always be served, that immediately the most important issue to consider is when the interests of the majority are not utilitarian, or the "tryanny of the majority" occurs. While it seems that surely the majority opinion cannot be unreasonable by nature of what the majority opinion signifies ("majority rule" is built into us since our very first days of which video game to play or what thing to do at recess), many modern-day Americans are convinced that somehow the interests of the people are not being served.

While I would never argue that the interests of all American people are being served at any given time, I do not find the majority rule to be tyrannical for an extended period of time. People became so upset with George Walker Bush's recent presidency that they rallied for Barack Obama and got him elected. It's likely that if Bush's presidency was mediocre, or even moderately good, there would have been a much more boring election this year than there was.

However inherent in democracy is one group ruling over another group. It's always the majority versus the minority, and while it seems to be fairest, it's possible that there is a fairer way.

Republic is next, but we'll skip that for later too.

Anarchy is of course, no government. The best governmental spectrum explores the amount of government, not how left or right they are. There is either full government, some government, or no government. Libertarians are closest to anarchists, and many modern-day social liberals are closest to fascists and authoritarian forms of government. It's pretty obvious why anarchy doesn't work, but if someone is unconvinced, I'd be more than happy to share.

So one of the main arguments of the video was that Democracy either moves to an oligarchy or a republic. The idea is that a republic is rule by law, while oligarchy is rule by the elite. Oligarchy makes law submit to the whims of whatever elite that exists, whether it be a religious sect, the majority, the political party in power, or what have you. A republic says that the laws make the people submit to itself, and that the government effectively is there to support and uphold the law, but not to change it.

I consider myself to be a classical liberal. This upholds the original liberal position, which adheres to Laissez-faire economic principles and minimal government. I consider oligarchy to be an abomination in most forms, and marginally unacceptable as a democracy. While law needs to be updated constantly, and one must take special care to ensure that laws that uphold the the absolute values of the founders of the country, I do believe that we should be subject to laws, not above the laws, like demigods.

We have taken, in the United States, the position that if we are able to convince the majority of something, it becomes correct. However there are "market failures" with this viewpoint all of the time. Think slavery, racism, sexism, unjust wars, etc. However I think the founding fathers of our country were way ahead of our time in their ideas of free speech, a fair trial, the republic, etc. Now the media has become the center stage. Instead of enticing votes by force, we entice using clever words and images, through planned speeches and television and internet events. We use subversive advertising and giant parades, public spectacle and the works. Yet we use all of this to dictate the base laws and foundation of our country.

It's scary at best. While I don't necessarily agree that democracy always will slide into either a republic or an oligarchy, I still consider it under the realm of an oligarchy with the majority being the elite. I say that because oligarchy usually indicates social caste, religious practice, wealth, or some other distinguishable trait. However in a democracy, it could definitely occur where the rule of the majority is the rule of the lowest class, the proletariat.