Christopher Wang, but without the vowels, redirects here. Did you mean another Christopher Wang, as both first and last name are common in English and Mandarin respectively?
Many people wish to enjoy the cultural cache that comes with conspicuously owning an Apple product. Indulge your base consumerist desires without breaking the bank by purchasing a pre-owned model.
This vintage Apple design is made from a single piece of aluminum and features throwback capabilities such as being able to play a DVD or make a mix CD for your crush.
You can also plug an Ethernet cable into it.
This well-loved model of MacBook Pro was manufactured in China early in this decade and has been upgraded numerous times. You'll find a clean install of the latest OS, a new battery with less than 10 cycles on it and timeless form factor of brushed metal that you can't cut yourself on so don't worry.
I cleaned the keyboard and trackpad too.
Wear and tear on this device is limited to those little rubber feet on the bottom. You don't need them anyway.
This future-proof* notebook computer can be yours for less than a third of the price of a new model. For a very reasonable price, you'll get a solid machine. But act now, and I'll throw in a Western Digital terabyte external hard drive for free. That's right: at no additional cost you'll get a HDD that you can use for backups or whatever I don't really care.
This thing has treated me well. It ran Photoshop CS6 well enough, could hold a multiplicity of tabs open at once and never broke my trust by sending those nasty emails I kept in the drafts folder that I wrote to doesn't matter who when I drank too much. This computer is a sturdy, faithful companion that deserves a good home.
Cash money, PayPal, money order or ACH transfers only, please. Absolutely no checks or cryptocurrency. Barter for camera equipment will be considered.
Shipping available: cost dependent on preferred speed.
You're a crafty consumer: you've scrolled down to the bottom to see the tech specs. Here they are:
MacBook Pro, mid 2010
13 in. LCD display
2.2 Gz Intel Core 2 Duo processor
8 GB RAM (maximum supported)
250 GB Hard Disk
8x SuperDrive (CD, DVD Read/Write)
MagSafe power adapter
RJ-15 Ethernet port
FireWire 800 port
2 USB 2.0 ports
MiniDisplay port
SD card slot
Headphone port with mic support
External battery indicator
Lithium ion battery
Backlit English QWERTY keyboard
Multitouch trackpad
AirPort Wi-Fi
Bluetooth enabled
FaceTime camera with mic
Speakers
Mac OSX Yosemite
Weighs about nine pounds
$300, computer and external drive are sold as they are with no warranty.
*Future-proof in that aluminum is a versatile metal that will retain its value no matter what happens to be inside, be it computer parts, soda pop or people. Please recycle responsibly.
A Farewell to (Hairy) Arms: Monsters, Inc. as Anti-War Allegory
Have we considered that US meddles in the Mideast not for oil but bc it actually runs on the energy of screams like the Monsters Inc world
— brendan james (@deep_beige)
July 24, 2014
Of the 1000 plus casualties of Operation Protective Edge, 206 have been children in Gaza, according to a July 26 United Nations report. The death of innocents is beyond comprehension, and the tactical and strategic objectives of such an operation, however noble and important they may be, cannot justify the amount of civilian blood shed. The amount of pain these families feel must be immense, too intense to bear. The Twitter user above poses an interesting point: with $121 billion in aid to Israel since the end of the Second World War, do we reap anything other than anguished screams from our investment?
If one holds that the slaughter of children, deliberate or not, is an atrocity, then it follows that the invasion of a child's bedroom in the dead of night in order to extract energy from their palpable and understandable fear is also unacceptable. I contend that the 2001 Academy Award-winning film, Monsters, Inc. is a potent anti-war allegory that casts an often invisible party in the spotlight: the child at war.
INTRODUCTION (continued)
A very common cause for war is that someone has land, or water, or resources and you want that land, or water, or resource. Your reasons are rational. You need these things to live comfortably. The Nazis had Lebensraum, or "living space" which they believed they could take from the Soviets in order to support an empire to last one thousand years. Americans had Manifest Destiny: that it was the right and pre-ordained fate of the nascent republic to stretch from sea to shining sea, no matter how many sovereign nations (Mexico, the British, various Native American tribes) stood in the way.
To adults, the machinations and politics of war are self-evident, even self-justifying. The natives don't know what to do with that land. It is our right to drive the Russians past the Urals. They are savages, they are other, they have no respect for us and we pay it back in kind. The enemy surrounds us, we fight or we will be destroyed. This is human history in a nutshell: the exchanging of blows for access to resources. Sure, there are ideologies and dogmas, politics and religions. But the basic objective of conquest is, to put it simply, you have it but you don't deserve to have it because I am stronger than you and I will show you.
I simplify the language because to children, violence is just that: violence. Kids know little about the ends justifying the means, how values are compromised for the sake of a greater ideal, how heroes are sacrificed at the altar of war for material gain. Children only understand the fear that comes with rockets, the screams that come from soldiers, the destruction caused by falling bombs. You cannot say to a child, "geo-political contingencies necessitate the extrajudicial action of the United States president in leveling your home and injuring your family, or invading your country, or spiriting away your relative." All they would understand is that they were not hurt, but then they were, he was there but now he's gone and never coming back.
War is a monster incomprehensible to a child, a traumatic event to otherwise sane human beings. Even our soldiers return home suffering from post-traumatic stress, the body's reaction to living a nightmare day in and day out. With an abundance of evidence, it is safe to say war is hell.
To the mind of a child, or even to the mind of early man, unexplained horrors and violent mysteries are thought to be the doing of mystical forces or monsters. One of mankind's earliest recorded tales, Beowulf, is the story of a great hero-warrior who slays a monster that comes in the night to eat humans as they sleep. He also kills that monster's mom, to boot. Of course, rationally and in the modern day we know that there are no bog-monsters that come and attack us in our beds at night, and that these storytellers were probably just telling a good tale about the dangers of the night in a society that was a long way away from the electrified street lamp. But the power of story lies in its ability to lure you into its reality where monsters are real and then return to the real world, still afraid of the dark.
Flowing from that, if we believe the literary monster to be a stand-in for any unimaginable act of real-life violence or atrocity, just as Grendel represents all the horrors of the night, or Godzilla is a metaphor for the dangers of the atom bomb, then we can conceive of the monsters of Monsters, Inc. invading our dimension for screams which they use as energy as a metaphor for the modern resource war.
FEAR AS A WEAPON
Henry J. Waternoose: There's nothing more toxic or deadly than a human child. A single touch could kill you. Leave a door open, and one can walk right into this factory; right into the monster world.
The world of Monsters, Inc. is experiencing an energy crisis as the film opens. Monsters at the titular company invade homes at night through the use of inter-dimensional doors that cross over into our universe. Our universes, it seems, are temporally synced: time seems to pass at the same rate in our world as it does in theirs but this is a minor point and a digression.
Professional scarers frighten these children so that their screams may be captured and used as a source of energy to fuel their burgeoning, modern and cosmopolitain society (a pivotal scene occurs at a high-end sushi restaurant in the middle of a metropolis). However, demand outpaces supply and Henry J. Waternoose, mentor of protagonist Sulley and head of Monsters, Inc. is struggling with not only the crisis, but underperforming scarers and children who aren't as afraid as they used to be.
Despite the fact monsters are entirely reliant on human children to provide their energy, every monster is terrified of human kids. Under no circumstances are the monsters to actually touch the kids they scare, nor are they to take any clothing or objects back into the monster world. To do so, unintentionally or not, results in severe consequences.
A state-run agency is responsible for the detection and capture of children and their artifacts. An embargo is placed on any meaningful contact between humans and monsters. The culture of fear cuts both ways: monsters are trained to be as terrified of humans as possible, making them more effective scarers, and children who describe the horrors of these monsters to their parents have their concerns dismissed as superstition, thereby avoiding detection. Thus the ruse can continue until a child is no longer afraid of monsters, thereby generating no screams, at which point the closet door in the monster world is destroyed as a dud.
In war, the doctrine of shock and awe, made famous by the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States, holds that civilian populations should be treated to displays of overwhelming force so that they will be dismayed and demoralized and not put up any meaningful resistance, thereby easing conditions for the occupation of newly-held territory. Fear is used as a psychological weapon. For the monsters, fear is their only weapon, and the instrument that drives their economy.
Monsters are told that humans are toxic and horrific, but that the screams of their children are worth the risk as they are too valuable and potent a resource to give up. Wartime propaganda, likewise, serves to gin up support for the invasion of foreign lands. The enemy is described in savage, animalistic fashion, but the gains made by defeating them are worth the cost of facing them down and fighting them.
The harsh treatment of those who make contact with children is supposed to reinforce the fear and loathing that monsters have for their targets. However, as Waternoose says, "Kids these days. They just don't get scared like they used to." A new solution is required.
A DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGY
TV Anchorman: If witnesses are to be believed, there has been a child security breach for the first time in monster history.
CDA Agent: We can neither confirm nor deny the presence of a human child here tonight.
Witness #1: Well the kid flew right over me and blasted a car with its laser vision.
Witness #2: I tried to get away from it, but he picked me up with his mind powers and shook me like a doll.
Witness #3: [has many eyes] It's true! I saw the whole thing!
Professor on TV: It is my professional opinion that now it's the time to panic!
Randall, rival to our heroes Mike and Sulley, has devised a solution to the energy crisis: the scream extractor. However, when Sulley discovers a closet door left on the scream factory floor after hours, he unwittingly brings Randall's test subject into the monster world. The plot of the movie kicks off at this point: as heroic Sulley eventually convinces a reluctant Mike to return the child, nicknamed Boo, to her room and her world.
Randall wishes to demonstrate the scream extractor, a devious new weapon in the war for energy, to Waternoose and convince him that kidnapping children to forcibly extract screams from them is a more efficient solution to the energy crisis. Randall and Waternoose know that the myths about children are superstition and propaganda, that they are simply in place to keep monsters afraid of children and reduce the risk of unexplained disappearances caused by slacking operators of inter-dimensional doors.
Randall and Waternoose, however cross another ethical bright-line which is untenable to Mike and Sulley: invading people's homes and frightening the inhabitants is one thing, but making them disappear so they can be exploited is quite another. However, though Randall and Waternoose do not believe the myths about children, they are still perfectly comfortable with kidnapping and imprisonment because they simply view children as a means to an end. Kids are only useful to them because they are a source of energy, nothing more. In the pursuit of serving their own kind, they are willing to pay any cost.
Henry J. Waternoose: I have no choice. Times have changed. Scaring isn't enough anymore.
Sulley: But kidnapping children?
Henry J. Waternoose: I'll kidnap a thousand children before I let this company die, and I'll silence anyone who gets in my way!
In the above excerpt from the climax of the film, the intentions of the conservative, traditional CEO are made explicit. Through his sanction, Randall's new scream extracting technology would be set loose upon the world. The monsters would be saved from their energy crisis, but at immeasurable cost for humanity, and at great personal gain for himself.
Randall's solution represents the ethical dilemma at the heart of any warfare, especially when a new technology is involved. What costs are acceptable to achieve the objective? Usually this calculus is self-involved. The atom bomb can be deployed upon Japan with little cost to the Allies. Civilian casualties are unavoidable as the Japanese manufacturing is dispersed in workshops attached to homes throughout Hiroshima, and not in centralized industrial areas. The cost in lives would be less with an amphibious invasion. The decision is made.
When the "other" is sufficiently dehumanized, and thought of only as a tool to be used and then disposed of, any manner of atrocity is justifiable. It becomes all too easy to rationalize drastic action against the "other" for she is enemy. Even when the enemy poses no threat or can offer little resistance, they still must be dealt with decisively. This is the danger of believing your own propaganda.
THE THIRD WAY
[final lines]
Sulley: Boo?
Boo: Kitty!
Throughout the course of the film, Sulley and Boo bond, and eventually even the recalcitrant Mike bonds with Boo as well. In a serendipitous discovery, they find that Boo's laughter causes power surges around monster technology. Applying that knowledge, Sulley is able to relaunch Monsters, Inc. as a producer of laughter-based energy.
(I do not intend to preach or evangelize, this is the only clip I could find.)
This discovery only comes about due to Sulley's choice to empathize with the lost child. He recognizes that he is responsible for unintentionally bringing the kid into a foreign world and chooses to be a caretaker and wants to see her safe return.
Whereas Mike's ideal solution would see Boo turned over to the Child Detection Agency, post-haste, Sulley's fear of what would happen to not only himself, but the little girl as well compels him to take an alternative approach that would ensure that she would return home. This is an extraordinary display of humanity from a hairy blue monster.
Eventually this choice has long-lasting ramifications. By identifying with the plight of a lost child, Sulley is able to humanize humans. In the end, monsters are still invading homes, yes, but instead of terrifying the inhabitants, they now spread laughter and joy, in exchange for highly potent energy. This mutually beneficial exchange is not only less traumatic, in that it speaks the language of the soul instead of preying on the fear of humans, but is also more efficient than Randall's scream extractor.
This is not to say that the solution to all world conflict is to simply laugh with those who oppose us. The story of these monsters is allegorical for peacemakers in that it encourages alternative solutions, empathy for the "other," and understanding that people are never disposable and ought not be used as a mere means to an end.
Sulley rejects the logic and thinking of his predecessor, Waternoose, and finds that humans and monsters need not be in conflict to arrive at an arrangement that is best for both parties. Waternoose and Randall represent an establishment that is set in its ways, unable to see new opportunities or uses for their network of trans-dimensional doors. If gathering resources for monster-kind is a war, then the antagonists are like two soldiers only able to see the world down the barrel of a gun.
In the end, it's Sulley's radical choice to humanize the people whose land he invades on a nightly basis, as part of his job, that saves his own people from an energy crisis, and unlocks a new, better source of power. Too often the choice is represented as fight or die, to the detriment of alternative modes of thinking.
You can explain what a war is to a child. You can convince her that it is necessary, and it is right. You can tell her that her enemies are numerous and belligerent. You can say to her that they disregard life, have no concept of honor, and kill indiscriminately. But to decide that all means are acceptable in defeating that great evil, then to paraphrase Christopher Dawson, you become indistinguishable from that evil you set out to destroy.
(All images and excerpts copyright 2001, Disney/Pixar)
[Note: an earlier version of this post provided an un-cited figure for United States foreign aid to Israel; the figure has since been updated and cited.]
I made this glitchy video for this song after seeing Annie Clark appear on The Colbert Report and talk about her latest album. I found her comments about how we can create an ideal self in the digital realm quite interesting, and wanted to show the corruption of our true selves through digitization with this video. Analog images created with a malfunctioning printer are distorted by found footage of a contemporary dance performance filmed many years ago. I hope to comment on the attempts we make to mask analog flaws with our digital projections and thus provide a visual companion to the song.
Students explore, highlight unique individuals on campus with popular Facebook page ‘Humans of UTD’ A student-run Facebook page called “Humans of UTD” has been growing in popularity for bringing th...
I took the photo, follow landcamel (also on Twitter!) for Sarah Larson, the author.
An Oregon couple rushed their ceremony because you spend a lot on a wedding and aren't going to waste your money because of a little fire raging through your picturesque scenery, so I provide some context for these dramatic photos. I wish I could find attribution but the source failed to provide it.
The April 2 Supreme Court decision in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission removing the last remaining limits on political contributions is troubling for the future of American democracy. By c...
SCOTUS has been in the news lately for making poor decisions and here I write about another bad one from April.
"JFK," The Mercury, 18 November 2013. Design by Lina Moon, Lauren Featherstone and me. Honorable Mention for Page One Design at the 2014 Texas Intercollegiate Press Association convention.
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