Breeding One's Enemy

Dear readers,

I've done even more thinking and came upon a realization, for what ever reason all enemies seem to be from the same source. What can that possibly mean? By that I mean we always seem to make our own enemies on a personal and global scale and it does not matter whether we realize what our actions caused or were.

Now remember my last post? The idea in that has evolved into this: To tell the stories of the defeated from the perspective of the defeated detailing what caused the conflict from both perspectives to show how an individual's actions, how ever meaningless, effects the environment around them on a large scale.

There is also evidence of this right now and for that look no further than New York City. Would there be protests if the protesters did not feel let down, betrayed and/or kicked by those they are protesting? Not at all because then they would be happy how ever a few things got to the protesters. First off quite a few of them are in a terrible economic position so it makes sense to protest at Wall Street, the economic capitol of the greatest city in the world. Second off is that the rich have a lot that the protesters do not have. The rich have helicopters, security guards, bomb shelters, the ability to subvert nations by making them over blow construction projects and throwing them in to debt. I have the ability to do none of those things. Really though that last one is enough to justify a revolution.

Regardless of whether or not you support the protests it is quite possible to see that big business has gotten enough of the "99%" angry enough by not sharing to protest. Could anyone predict that not sharing would cause months of protests? Perhaps, but regardless as to whether or not they predicted it the enemy to themselves were bred and now they have a formidable movement to deal with and to be honest I don't think any one can come out with a clear outcome for the movement yet.

Hoping it was a good example,

Mike Hand

Why the Stories of the Defeated Should be Told from their Perspective at least Once

Dear readers,

There is a lot of talk of mortality going around and before I get to the topic of this post I would like to say that all death is is a thing. All we are is a thing and perhaps I will go more in depth into this in another post. I'm not sure yet but it will probably come after I've compiled my feelings on Occupy Wall Street.

So what is this topic? This topic is the telling of stories and how some stories are never told. I have always found it surprising that while we go to a school that prides itself in being of a high tier that very few people I talk to can tell Torrijos and Colonel Custer apart despite the obvious differences in a Panamanian communist leader who was at odds with the US and a colonel for the US Army that was defeated in an uprising by Native Americans.

Today as I went to pick my brother up from college the large amounts of traffic gave me a lot of time to think why I want to see a history of America done from the perspective of those who "lost" America: The Native Americans. I have to say that there are compelling stories out there and it is interesting how every tribe has it's own culture yet people can't tell Navajo from Iroquois so how is it that we remember all the different political natures in Chinese Civil Wars when we don't remember things that happened on our own continent?

I feel simply that one of the loser stories must be told from how the losers saw it. South America fought Spain for independence and was slapped with the Monroe Doctrine. Africa had bustling trade empires of great wealth that people can't be caught dead remembering. America had the Native Americans who were willing to share land but were ravaged by disease, war and trickery. All of these have the potential for amazing storytelling, all that has to be done is to tell the story and while telling the story find the lessons that can be picked out and taught today so that we may prevent injustice to man.

Hoping you may see where this is coming from,

Mike Hand

Video Games

Dear readers,

Today I shall do some talking. By talking I mean typing. And in this installment I shall discuss video games. Why video games? A friend of mine and myself were discussing them as an art form and it made me think, how much more art is in say Angry Birds to say Lunar: The Silver Star Story.

By "how much more art" I wish to mean should one type of game be considered more an art than another or should they simply be to each other what rock music is to country music and country music to classical music.

For the first option I can actually see that as realistic. Some video games require extensive amounts of script writing, voice acting and animation. Others like Tetris are essentially just the animation. Is Tetris as much fun or more fun than the other games? Yes, yes it is so instead of thinking of Tetris for the next sentence or so think of any other simple game that is addictive and played on a regular basis that also has no story line. A lot of people I know would argue that that game is far less fun then anything that has a story line. Which presents the problem, is one more art than another?

How ever before that question shall be addressed the question of whether or not is whether Tetris is on the same playing field as other puzzle games such as Portal. My answer to this would be simple, they are not. An action-adventure game designed for children (specifically as in not one for all ages) can't hold a candle to anything in the Lunar series let alone any mainstream Pokemon game. The way I see it the genres are going to become more and more split until they are more clearly defined at which point we will have to ask whether or not games like Angry Birds are video games. Regardless of the answer we will be answering the first question asked.

Hoping you enjoyed this outlook,

Mike Hand

Character Development to Celebrate New Quarter

Dear readers,

As this new quarter has started I have figured that I may as well make a post because of the new quarter. To be perfectly serious the original intention of this post was turtles. Of course turtles don't make the best content so I took a walk and found ducks. Ducks however seem to make even less content for me then turtles so instead I will speak of what I'd do if I was an evil power hungry behind the scenes business executive because why not?

First off I would need cookies. They are a tasty treat and not so hard to make so in case I'm overthrown by some number two commander I will still have a souvenir from my time in power as long as the coup doesn't eat them.

Second off I would declare myself the Lord Supreme of all the Earth. Promptly after doing so I would tell the laws of nature to go away and find every place I can consider hell such as Centralia in Pennsylvania, Siberia and New Jersey. For those unaware Centralia is a place in Pennsylvania where a mine fire in the 60's was started causing dangerous toxins to be thrown into the air. And the fire rages to this day and is currently expanding. I would then use these places as threats to keep my subjects safe.

Third on the agenda is to destroy communism. Evil business man (and business man in general) hate communism and all it stands for so all that I said above? It's all part of a crusade against communism. The character is no longer evil but a relic of the cold war.

Can you see what I just did? Created a character that is in a position of power to celebrate the entering of the second quarter.

Hoping you enjoyed,

Mike Hand

Possible Life Ambition?

Dear readers,

I am going to make a new post today. I'm not entirely sure what it will be on so let's see what I can come up with on the spot. Music? That is a start. So what is it about music I shall discuss? Whatever pops in my head first.

Actually I'm going to take the time right now to ask a question. Does any one know where I can find sheet music for a diatonic jazz harmonica in the key of C? Because I have no idea.

Speaking of harmonicas I think I will reveal my new life ambition. No this ambition is not to conquer the dragons through the power of harmonica music. This ambition is far far worse. I shall start a folk rock band and to this end I will learn to play bass. And just to be a hipster it shall be an acoustic bass. Why folk rock? I've been listening to a lot recently and I like it. Why bass? I know to many guitarists and not enough bassists.

Wow this was a short post. To think of it I don't think there is much content here but if anyone can help me with the sheet music I'd really appreciate that.

Good night,

Mike Hand

What is Art?

Dear Readers,

Today I will attempt to define one of the most blatantly undefined terms of the world through logic. For the many of you who can read and for the few who read the title you would know that this concept is art. For those who didn't read the title the concept is art.

The reason why this is so hard to explain is simple. We go back hundreds of years and what we have is beautiful paintings which are greatly detailed. We go to today and we have poles painted red and placed in the middle of a museum. We go back to the time of Greece and we have epic poems. We go to today and we have Twilight, Star Wars, and Harry Potter. Not that I have any issue with the latter two works as I think they are great coming of age/ destruction of an evil empire stories it's simply that looking backwards and comparing something like Twilight to Othello our artistic standards have dropped.

However if we place all that aside we note something interesting. Art is in the eye of the beholder. I know people who love the red pole and Twilight while I hate it. There are people who tell me Green Day are punks when I settle for nothing less then the Dead Kennedies, the Sex Pistols and The Misfits as standards for punks.

I am friends with many people through Model Congress and many of them are fellow writers, musicians, actors and even some dancers. It was only inevitable from day one that I would see people whose skills only continue to amaze me. And recently it struck me while I was talking with some of them that some of the things that impressed me they shrugged off while some of the things that impressed them I shrugged off.

If they shrugged it off why do I call it art? Why do I see them as artists? The question is the same for me, how am I an artist? At this point I'd have to define art simply. Art is a form of trade which is ever evolving to adapt to the changing times, people and society. Art is commonly shared among this society in order to strengthen social bonds however in recent times art has become something that has turned to us questioning our standards for art and society itself. Art in its current form is often left to the viewer as many pieces of art are obscure and has room to maneuver.

Will have a much better definition the next time I touch on this subject,

Mike Hand