From Actor To Lawyer

I've come to realize that jobs are easily stereotyped. I've always heard that when people don't know what they want, they study administration or go to law school. I've also heard that teaching is a job anyone can do. If you're a teacher or a lawyer or studied administration, don't take this personal. I'm just writing what I've seen and heard. The teacher thing really bothers me because both of my parents are teachers and from what I see, it's a tough job. Not many people could do it. Something really funny happened the other day. The members from my dad's side of the family are all lawyers, doctors and diplomats. We were in a family reunion and my aunt was talking about how my cousin was no longer with her boyfriend. We were all surprised because they had seriously been dating as far as I can remember. My mom asked her why they weren't together anymore and my aunt's response was something like this: "My daughter was going no where with that guy. She had just finished law school and he was a music teacher. Teacher?? What kind of job is that?" It was then when she realized my mom is a teacher. Then, everything was really awkward. As you can imagine, she tried fixing it by saying: "Oh, but you're a good teacher. You teach math which is hard, so you're okay." Whatever. There was no way she could fix it. Anyways, in chapter two of The Crying Of Lot 49, Oedipa meets Metzger, the lawyer. She thinks he's really good looking. So good looking, that "he had to be an actor" (PDF). He actually was an actor. "Some twenty-odd years ago, Metzger had been one of those child movie stars, preforming under the name of Baby Igor" (PDF). Everyone knows lawyers have to be very persuasive. They have to act confident and convince the judge they are right. Acting has a lot to do with this. I found a page on google, it looked like a course explaining what lawyers could learn from actors. (http://www.justice.org/resources/convenience_ACT.pdf) It's logo was: "all lawyers are actors or should be." One thing's for sure. Metzger would do really well in that course. After all, he was an actor and a lawyer.

Character Names

I'm intrigued by this book. I'm not sure what the author wants us to think. Should we try and look for symbolic details? Or should we take the novel lightly instead? The book's pretty short but it's obvious it's dense in content. It's like an orange. It may be small, but the juice inside it is a great amount. (Pretty lame comparison, I know.) Anyways, what really caught my attention about this chapter were the names. we have: Oedipa Maas, Pierce Inverarity, Wendel Maas "Mucho"and Dr. Hilarius. These four characters' names are particular because they are associated with words or other characters we already know. From the one we can deduce the most is Oedipa. I'll be trying to analyze the rest of the characters as the story develops.

The Spider And The Human

There once was a human and a spider. "Let's play a game," said the human. "Let's compete to see who the best inventor is." The human was very selfish and thought he was superior to the spider. "I'll play with one condition," replied the spider. "We'll decide who the best inventor is according to our genes." "Deal," said the human. He was sure he would win the game. "I'll start with something easy. I don't want to make the spider feel too bad," he thought. "I think I'm the greatest inventor here because my species figured out how to make fire." "Nice. But I think my genes are greater inventors because I don't need fire. My eyes are designed so I can see in the dark. I see you have glasses. According to that, you can't even see in daylight!" "Fine. Your eyes are better than mine. But what about my ability to hunt? My species has created amazing weapons. I can shoot a bird no matter how far away it is. As long as I see it with my eyes, I'll be able to hit it." "You poor human. We spiders have many effective ways of hunting too. We don't need a gun to hunt accurately. Some of us dig holes and cover them with dirt as traps. Others wait and catch bugs near by. There's also our web strategy which you're well aware of. Do you know how accurate we have to be? Do you know how fast bugs are? I believe in hunting, we aren't as bad as you think." "Yeah? Well try to beat this spider. We humans have created art masterpieces. We have amazing buildings, intelligent minds, and our kids go to school. I don't see you accomplishing any of these things." "First of all, my offspring don't need to go to school. Everything they need to know comes to them with time. Besides you're quite wrong. We spiders, are great in math, specially geometry. We spin delicate thread into webs; our greatest form of art. This is not only artistic and mathematic; we can move swiftly through the web and catch our food. I'm sorry human. I think I win." Idea from chapter thirteen of The Selfish Gene. Pages 238-9

Science And Religion's Role

What is explained has to be described, but what is described doesn’t necessarily have to be explained. Everything we can explain is science. Religion describes the unexplainable.

Chart For Blog Entry Below

Prisoner's Dilemma In The Dark Knight

I'm really mad. The clip that I wanted to post from The Dark Knight doesn't have an embed address, so I can't post it. Anyways, you can go on youtube and search for "The Dark Knight ferry scene". It's one of the best parts of the movie if you ask me, and it's perfect to discuss the prisoner's dilemma present in chapter twelve. I copied Dawkins charts and made my own describing the prisoner's dilemma in The Dark Knight. The table is on the blog entry above. It doesn't look nice either way, does it? It's kind of a lose lose situation. But there are two more things to keep in mind. The first is proof. The Joker wants the prisoners to push the button, or vice versa. He wants to prove how humans will do anything to stay alive. Even if it means blowing other people up. In other words, he wants to prove people are selfish self-centered creatures capable of anything. The Joker is expecting any of the two to follow a nasty strategy to prove his theory. The second thing to keep in mind is guilt. This scene is great because it shows how the people and prisoners react. The people are trying to avoid guilt by thinking the prisoners deserve to die. The man with white hair in the prisoner's boat is trying to avoid guilt by giving the detonator to the prisoner. He's probably thinking, "that tough evil prisoner will do the dirty job for me. I'm not guilty if he does it." That tough evil prisoner is not so evil after all. Both ferries opt to cooperate and show the Joker he was wrong. They both follow the "Tit for Tat" strategy, where "both continue to cooperate until the end of the game" (p.210). This clip shows nice guys do finish first. According to Dawkins, a nice guy is "an individual that assists other members of its species at its own expense, to pass their genes on to the next generation" (p. 202). The whole gene thing isn't present in this situation, but it's more or less the same dilemma.