Two Sides to Every Story, Take Two April 13, 2009

Exterior

Interior

I feel like a previous post has been misunderstood so I am going to attempt to clarify (or muddy up the waters so much no one can see where they are going).

This is what I was trying to say:

War is a very powerful tool. Let me compare it to an axe. An axe is a very powerful tool. It can bring down a mighty oak, perhaps one that has stood for a hundred years. Cutting down such a tree should not be a decision made lightly. Perhaps the tree is in the way of your new condominium you want to build. Should you apply the axe to the tree? I don’t think so. Perhaps the soil has washed out from under the tree and it is leaning precariously over the home of a family. Should you apply the axe to the tree? If other methods of securing the tree and keeping the family safe have proved fruitless, than yes, you should chop down the tree with the axe.

But an axe is not a maintenance free tool. Chopping down a tree wears down the axe. Every time you resharpen the axe, a little of the metal is worn down. Chopping down the tree is necessary. The tree itself might not have done anything wrong. It’s just doing its job, which is to grow. It must obey gravity; it has no other choice. The soil is the part which has failed, causing the tree to endanger the safety of the family. But the tree still must be removed.

But do not think for a minute that there isn’t a price to pay. The axe head will be worn down. It will have to be sharpened and eventually replaced. The bigger the tree, the more of your axe you are going to wear away. If you haven’t counted the cost and do not have sufficient axe heads, you will be left with a tree which is even more unstable than before and an axe head which is all used up. You will have consumed the axe and not gained any safety for the family.

But if you do count the cost and do have enough axe heads to finish the job, you have made the family safer. You have also removed a living tree from the ecosystem and however many axe heads from your tool belt. What’s left of the axe heads can be remelted and turned into new axe heads but there is a net loss of metal. So in the end, if you were successful, you are still one tree shorter and X amount of metal shorter. There is an intangible gain (the safety of the family) and a tangible loss (the tree and the axe heads).

If the tree is the “enemy” and the axe heads are the “good guys,” in the end, there has been a net loss of life. If you believe that human life is precious and the ending of it bad, than you have to believe that war, which results in a net loss of life, is bad. It might be less bad than doing nothing, which would result in the net loss of the tree and the innocent family. But it is bad. Is the axe head bad? No. It’s simply doing its job, wielded by someone else. Is the lumberjack bad? No, he’s doing his job, too. Is the soil bad, for washing away and leaving such a precarious situation? No, it was following the rules of phyics. So who’s to blame for the net loss of life, tree and axe head?

Well, it’s complicated. Who planted the tree on a hill above a house? No one? Who didn’t maintain situational awareness to be aware there was a tree growing on the hill over the house? Who should have noticed the tree when it was small and removed it then, perhaps relocating it somewhere safer? Who made the decision to let nature take its course and not shore up the hillside to prevent errosion? Maybe there was strip mining going on which caused the hill to erode so quickly. Maybe pollution killed the ground cover, exposing the soil to the effects of erosion. There is a HUGE chain of events leading up to the current crisis of tree threatening house. Is there any one person or group to blame? Who made the family build under the tree? Why didn’t they move? Why didn’t they cut down the tree when it was smaller, using their own axe heads at their own expense?

And so on, and so forth. I believe that war is evil but as as John Stewart Mill said, “It’s not the ugliest of things.” War is bad. It might be a necessary bad. It might be better than allowing nature to continue her course. But it is bad. However, the people fighting the war aren’t bad. They are just doing their jobs, many heroically. Many are heroic in a bad situation. But they are not in a heroic situation. They are in a bad situation and they, because of their character, become heroes. But they are the hereos, the heroic ones, not the situation they are in.

The Talented Mr. Diesel? April 11, 2009

Vin Diesel

The first movie I saw Vin Diesel in was “Pitch Black” and I hated it. My definition of a “good” movie was very, very narrow. “Pitch Black” was done on the cheap with unknown actors and actresses. It was set on a desert planet and so much of the filming was overexposed to give it that sun scorched feel. It was also a horror film and since they were on such a budget, the director felt that the unseen was scarier than the seen through bad special effects. So the glimpses of the monsters are quick and undefined. And I didn’t like horror movies at the time so I hated it.

Fast forward a number of years. I see “The Fast and the Furious.” I thought it was okay but didn’t really notice Vin Diesel too much. I mean, he was buff and that was noticable but other than that, I really didn’t think much of him. My husband HATED it which cast a negative view over the whole thing and it was not one I cared to see again.

Then Israel went to tech school and came back having seen “The Chronicles of Riddick.” He wanted to see it with me but only after we watched “Pitch Black” together. This time around I LOVED it. Maybe it was falling in love with a guy who shaved his head, maybe it was growing as a person and realizing that there are other cinematic methods than those used in movies such as “You’ve Got Mail.” Whatever the reason, I loved it this time around. Diesel did such an incredible job as the consummate bad ass Riddick, in both “Pitch Black” and in “The Chronicles of Riddick.” But I thought that’s all he was. He was eye candy whose acting abilities consisted of having a great voice and being bad ass.

Then, a couple of months ago, after watching “Pitch Black” again, I googled Vin Diesel to see what else he’s been in. I borrowed some from the library, rented some from i-Tunes and began to realize I’d horribly misjudged Mr. Diesel. Yes, he is eye candy. Yes, he has a deep, signature voice. Yes, he plays bad-ass really well. He can also play broken hearted husband (“A Man Apart”). He can also play loyal friend (“Knockaround Guys”). He can also play (though I’ve not seen this yet) a mobster representing himself in the longest trial in American history in the movie “Find Me Guilty.” Than I got a hold of “Strays.” That would be the feature film he wrote, funded, directed, and starred in. And did a great job, I might add. That was when I began to realize, there might be more to this man than a shiny skull and a set of pipes.

So I spent today watching his TV appearances. Leno, Conan O’Brien (whom I love), BBC’s Ross show and others. And he’s great. He regularly turns the attention to the directors he’s worked with, the host of the show, the audience, other actors, the band, whomever. He credits others for the part they’ve played in his success. He steers the conversation away from his personal life and attempts to respect the privacy of his loved ones. He’s funny, he’s personable, and if he’s not actually a nice guy, he’s a much better actor than we’ve all realized.

All of this to say that as much as you can respect someone you’ve never met and have only seen on camera, I respect Vin Diesel. There aren’t many famous people I respect. There’s not that many I’ve taken the time to research to be honest. I respect Dolly Parton. I respect the late Johnny Cash. The list is short but it just got one person longer.

For what it’s worth, Mr. Diesel, you have the respect of Becky Walker.

Two sides to every story April 11, 2009

Omaha Beach Cemetery

I watched Saving Private Ryan yesterday. I watched it years ago when it first came out and haven’t watched it since because, quite frankly, it was incredibly disturbing. I don’t like seeing the insides of people on their outsides. I don’t like watching people die horribly. I don’t like to see men wasted and war wastes men.

We have a friend in Iraq right now. He volunteered for his current job. It’s the most dangerous job in the Air Force right now. He opted out of a mission a couple of weeks ago and the two guys who went instead were both killed. He had to identify their remains and guard them until they were evacuated. I don’t like that.

My husband is in the Air Force. He will probably deploy this year. I don’t like that. Many of my friends are spouses of military members. Their husbands also deploy as do the fathers of my daughter’s friends. I don’t like that. I don’t like my loved ones being placed in harm’s way, for any reason, no matter how noble.

But John Stuart Mill said something many years ago that I agree with, even though it means that my husband, my daughter’s father, my friends, my friends’ husbands and their kids’ father must all place themselves in mortal danger. He said:

“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of men better than himself.”

I agree. There are things worth going to war about. There are things worth fighting for and against. There are things that are more important than my own personal safety and the personal safety of my loved ones. I agree with that. But I also agree with Jimmy Carter when he said:

War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other’s children.”

And that’s a fact.

So I am divided. On one hand, I absolutely believe that war is sometimes a necessary evil. On the other hand I believe absolutely that war is evil.

Damned if you do; damned if you don’t.

Art, art, art April 4, 2009

This blog was not started as an art blog but due to my current interest, that’s what it seems to be becoming. Of course, since art is the main thing I’m doing right now, it remains an update of my life blog.

I’ve done a lot of little things since I last blogged (sorry, Lisa). I’ve done too many to show them all, though I am working on getting all the photos over to Flickr so that I can showcase the best here and link to the rest over there. But it’s not happened yet. But here’s some of the better things I’ve done of late.

Contrast Study of Vin Diesel as Xander Cage, sans tatoos

I wanted to work on drawing tone. I have a hard time seeing the value of colors and hues. So I decided to start black and white with a high contrast photo. Oh, and I wanted to try out my new ebony black pencil. It’s neat but I’m not sure it’s that much better than plane graphite and charcoal. Oh well.

I’m also working on a couple of journals. One is just little stories about me, like the time my bra broke during gym class, during the jump rope portion of the physical fitness test. The other is for a swap. It’s a Journal with a Twist. Each entry has to have an “extra” with it. An ATC, a recipe, a photo, a painting, a candybar like the one you ate that day. Whatever. Here’s my favorite page so far. And the extra for this one is a print out of the original The New York Times article on Alia Muhammad Baker.

The Librarian of Basra, a true story from Iraq

Here are two ATC’s I did for a swap titled “Good vs. Evil.” We had to make two ATC’s, one showing Good and one showing Evil.

Evil ATC from Good vs Evil

Good ATC from Good vs Evil

Next is an ATC from the Butterfly ATC swap. I glued wrappers from Dove Dark Chocolate Eggs onto a piece of cardstock and then cut out the openings in the butterflies wings. I glued it down and then used water color crayons for the background. Then I drew around it with a Sharpie. Oh, and I used color pencils for the body of the butterfly. Pretty cool, eh?

Dove Dark Butterfly for Butterfly ATC swap

Playlist just screwed me over April 3, 2009

I logged into Playlist today and had a red message up that read, “Due to licensing restrictions, some tracks are currently unavailable for playing in your country.” I clicked on my favorite playlist, one I have spent hours getting just right. Just the right mix of angry, complicated rock and fun, peppy pop. Deep male voices and angelic female vocals. Dark, rageful and lighthearted fun. And of the 31 tracks, a whopping 8 are available to me.

WHAT THE HELL?

Is there a way to copy songs from playlist that I don’t know about? Exactly how does me listening to songs in Germany vs listening in the U.S. violate licensing? I am so incredibly pissed off. And you know what? This doesn’t make me want to go out and buy any of the music which is now unavailable to me. It makes me want to learn how to pirate music and then mail the artists some money directly since they are the talent I wish to support, not the fat, bloated, record company executive ass-clowns who make the really big money. I would like to send Dolly Parton a couple of bucks and a nice letter that say, “Hey, I illegally copied some of your songs. I want you to continue to make music and I want to support you in that so here’s some money. I’m sending it to you instead of buying your CD’s because I think the record companies are a bunch of life sucking, greedy bastards.

But alas, that’s not what I’m going to do. Instead, I’m going to rant and rave about it. I’m going to support open source projects like Ubuntu and Wikipedia and do my little part to screw people who do not believe in freedom of information. And I’m not going to buy any CD’s. Screw ‘em. Screw ‘em all.