X-Files Turns 20: “The Jersey Devil”

The Jersey Devil

Season 1, Episode 1×04

Written By: Chris Carter | Directed By: Joe Napolitano

Original Air Date: 10/08/1993 | Re-Watch Review Date: 12/26/2013

PersephoneKs ReWatch Grade: B- to B


JerseyDevil_MandSI’ve been off my game, but have a goal to get back on track with Project Watch X-Files Episodes in Sequence. Last night I watched season one’s “Jersey Devil.” Here are my general, unrefined thoughts:

This episode had previously been one of my favorites from season one. Upon re-watch last night… I’m sad to report its lost its luster a bit. It doesn’t hold up well after 20 years. It feels a little cheesy, despite wanting to be scary. And the Jersey Devil itself doesn’t live up to the hype the episode sets the audience up for. In short, the payoff is underwhelming. But there were some great character and Scully/Mulder relationship building moments despite the overall plot’s weakness. This is a rare episode where we get a glimpse of Scully in her non-working hours. In a sad way, it foretells of the way her life will be from that point forward. We learn she’s great with kids, but she’s caught between wanting a normal life with a good guy, and the career she’s building with Mulder (who’s not a jerk, just obsessed with his work). She tries to convince Mulder to relax, but it’s somewhat half-hearted. By the end, after her date with the dull Scott’s dad, Scully is following Mulder out to chase who knows what again. This will be the pattern for the rest of the show. Neither of them will get, nor do they really want, a simple life, despite occasionally thinking they do.

Not Scary.

Scary!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Odds and Ends:

  • Scully actually tells Mulder about this case.
  • Whenever I see the scene with Mulder asking to “requisition a car”, I get nostalgic for my time at HQ.
  • Ah… the classic FBI vs local cops theme!
  • CHArc:
    • Losers: Scully’s brown vest.
    • Winners: Scully looks pretty on her date, despite the top being dated. It’s nice to see her glamming it up a bit. But I’m glad her style improves in future seasons. Ai yai yai!
  • Favorite Quotes:
    • Scully to Mulder after bailing him out of the drunk tank: “Am I buying (breakfast) or did you manage to panhandle some change?”
    • At the end, Mulder asks Scully if she has interest in Scott’s Dad after he called her at work to ask her out. Scully responds “Not at this time” as she follows him on the next X-Files goose chase. It’s a cute interchange.
    • Scully calls Mulder back, he answers “Scully” and she answers “Mulder.” It’s funny.
  • Mulder uses a pay phone! Pre-cell phone season!
  • The scene where they chase the “devil” through the warehouses… way too long.
  • Dr. Scully!
  • I like the way the scene with Mulder in the ambulance comes together. It has an E.R. or West Wing style use of steadycam and overlapping dialogue before those were shows.
  • Why would Mulder rec a car to drive to the Smithsonian across the Mall from the Hoover building?
  • Overall, solid B- to B (and only such a good grade because you can’t blame them for the technology they had at the time).

Cheers,

PersephoneK

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What is this post about anyway? XFTurns20: Project Watch Episodes in Sequence

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How I learned I’m a Religious Marxist and Other Silly Things

dreamstime_s_7671893_GOLDCoinsToday, I was told two things about myself I didn’t know (add groan). The first being I’m a Marxist. The second being that since I’m an atheist, I subscribe to a religion. While it’s entirely possible I misunderstood the person’s intent (this was after all a Facebook discussion, which aren’t known for their details and included people I’ve never met in real life), I don’t think I did. And it made me want to explore these hilarious ideas more in depth.

As an atheist, I’ve been told many times by religious people that atheism is a religion, and the variation of that is it takes a lot of faith to be an atheist. Let me start by using the dictionary definition used by the person who told me atheism is a religion:

Religion (noun): a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.

There is a lot there, but from what I can tell, atheism does not meet any of the criteria listed. Atheism is not a set of beliefs about anything. There is no universal doctrine about creation, the purpose or nature of the universe. There are no devotional observances or rituals that all atheists must subscribe to. There is no one all-inclusive moral code. Atheism is merely a rejection of any supernatural supreme being aka god(s). That is the only thing that binds atheists together. Now, from that lack of belief, there naturally come many similarities in world views, but not always.

Religious people often mistake passion for religion. One can be passionate or outspoken about the topic of atheism or theism. But that passion does not automatically make one religious. This distinction confounds me, and most atheists I know. It’s usually thrown out as a red herring in order to make the atheist look like a hypocrite for daring to care about whether or not people believe in god. I care about world peace, ending hunger, women’s rights, music, and movies. Does that mean I am part of corresponding religions for each of those? Any reasonable person would have to say no. Religion, as its definition states, includes a supernatural agency (or agencies), and devotion or rituals related to that agency. Atheism does not meet this requirement.

Regarding me being a Marxist… this is even funnier. There was a time, in my younger and Christian days, when I very well was headed down a somewhat Marxist path. I’ve always been a capitalist, but I can remember a window of time during high school when I began to see the world from a Haves and Have Nots lens. When I saw the pursuit of material wealth as crass and corrupting. I saw Jesus Christ as the ultimate example of an egalitarian leader, showing us how to live together in peace and harmony. I did not want to be thought of as one of the greedy money changers in the Temple that angered Jesus so much in the gospels. And those money hungry Ferengi on Star Trek just seemed gross.

Then I learned about Adam Smith and John Locke. I read Frederic Bastiat and Milton Friedman. I learned, despite not being exposed in public school or through the mainstream media, that Capitalism overwhelmingly has increased human well-being over pretty much every other social strategy every conceived by man. This isn’t theoretical. Its reality. That data was supported by my anecdotal observances, especially when I worked for the Federal Government. I learned about incentives, and how they really matter. I learned that what many people think is Capitalism, isn’t. Capitalism is not the dominance of big business, riding on the wings of big government to squash the little guy. That is crony capitalism, where the government colludes with business to control the markets and pick winners and losers. True Capitalism is the most democratic process there is. It’s the way I as an individual can most make an impact every single day in the course of society. The United States currently leans more towards Crony Capitalism than most libertarians would prefer. This results in “too big to fail” banks, local restaurants crowding out the food truck competition, and ridiculous licensing rules making entry into a business all but impossible for many would-be entrepreneurs. All of which leads to more power for the established businesses and entrenched politicians, and less power and higher prices for the consumers. In true capitalism, businesses must serve their customers well, or they will exist no more. Serving consumers (read you and I) well means a better economy. A better economy leads to more prosperity for all. This is not Marxism. This is not shared work and shared fruits. Crony Capitalism may be closer to what Marx was fighting against. He saw the businesses and the governments with all the power, and the little guy getting beat up time and time again (figuratively and literally), powerless to control the winds of fate. In true Capitalism, the little guy holds all of the power. The little guy gets what he wants for better prices, leaving him with more money to get other things (or services) he wants.

The person who called me a Marxist did so because he Marx was an avowed critic of religion. He called it “the opiate of the masses.” This might be one area where Marx and I see eye-to-eye (hey, I’ll give credit where it’s due), but his prescriptions (ore his followers interpretations of them) for overcoming religion were about as far in the other direction as I could be. Communist governments are usually a-religious. Christians I have met often assume that where atheism resides, so must communism, socialism, or Marxism. I won’t even get into the ridiculous barb often thrown at atheists that most of the atrocities committed in the 20th Century were committed by atheists, but I will merely say that it is a logical fallacy to suggest that because one is an atheist, one must be a Marxist. As I mentioned earlier, atheists have no universal moral code or philosophy. It is merely the lack of belief in a supernatural deity or deities. Marxism is a philosophy for how society should behave. As an atheist libertarian, I believe in the proven power of capitalism to solve many of the world’s problems. If I could ever be accused of being religious, it would be regarding my love of capitalism. It has done far more in the name of ending human suffering than anything else the world has known.

But to do so, would defy the definition of religion. So I won’t.

Cheers,
PersephoneK

P.S.  I wrote this extremely quickly and didn’t edit it at all (except to spell Ferengi correctly and add some hyperlinks).  Apologies if that’s evident.  Sometimes you just have to get ‘er done!

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Paying Tribute to Serious Themes in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

CatchingFirePoster_MockingJay[quotepress id=”1428″]

Let me get this out of the way. I’m terrible at writing movie and book reviews. A good review isn’t a play by play of what happened, but rather a critique of the story, discussion of its themes, style, and execution. As much as I love films and books, you’d think I’d write a ton of reviews. Part of me wishes I would – or could. But the plain truth is I’m awful at them. I don’t want to mentally or physically take notes when I watch a movie or read a book. I want to enjoy the story. I think about its themes, usually heavily, but they swish around in my mind like clouds high up in the atmosphere, constantly changing and reforming, blending together to form new ideas over time. I see something different every time I look. Usually my thoughts about the stories are less than coherent or eloquent enough for someone to want to read. There’s no way I could write a timely review immediately after I finish a story or watch a film. Doing so would ruin the experience itself. Besides, I’d be sure to miss something important, and then the review is set in stone as if those were my only takeaways or thoughts for eternity. That would be annoying.

With that in mind, I wanted to share a few thoughts on The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, which I watched for the second time in a week last weekend (and will probably watch again), and The Hunger Games series in general. I loved the books, loved the first film, and think the latest film takes them all up another level. In short, I loved so much about Catching Fire. If you want to know my thoughts on some of the film’s details (like how amazing Jennifer Lawrence is as Katniss, or the improved quality of the direction and action over the first film, or how well the film adapts the book, or its attention to detail, or the delightful absurdity of Stanley Tucci as Caesar Flickerman, or, or, or…), ask me in the comments section, and I can go on and on. But for my time with you right now, I’d rather stick to some of the bigger themes of the entire series, focusing on the Catching Fire pieces most, and how my view of them might be different than what is generally discussed with these stories. For my more fangirl review of the first film, go here. But basically this “review” will be about what inspires me about The Hunger Games’ world and characters, and what draws me to re-watch, reread, and obsess over them.

Suzanne Collins (the writer of the novels) has said her inspiration for the story came from late night channel surfing, flicking between television reruns of reality show

s and war coverage. It’s so simple in conception that this would be writer is insanely jealous. From that simple merger of ideas, she created a deeply rich and layered world. This is the essence of creating believability, especially in what is truly a science fiction story, set in a future dystopia, a culture created from the wreckage of the vaguely explained collapse of society which included at some point in its history a nuclear holocaust and world-wide flooding (I suspect they came in reverse order), changing the landscape, shrinking the United States in area and in population size, and leading to the complete reformation of how society works, but with subtle reminders that this was once our current country. The world was remade over time spans unidentified (but would seem to be far in the future if the technology like hover crafts and giant game arenas with diabolical computer generated manipulations are any indication) eventually resulting in the current structure of the country called Panem contained within the former United States. Panem is divided into 12 (er… 13) districts, each ostensibly serving a specific resource niche for the shared resources of the entire country, but in reality mostly serving its Capitol and the totalitarian dictatorship, currently led by “President” Snow, that controls everything. The Capitol (probably located somewhere near present day Denver), along with one or two nearest districts, are rich and spoiled. Its people seem to want for nothing. They are consumed with outlandishly self-absorbed lifestyles, living in a bubble that is an enhanced distortion of present day Hollywood. They love their entertainment, fashion, and over the top parties. But most of all, they seem to love The Hunger Games, the annual Survivor-esque battle to the death between 24 children from each of the districts (one male and one female) aged between 12 and 18. The districts themselves, at least 3 through

12 keep the Capitol rich in resources and labor, but suffer the most in the Games. They are too poor to train “career” tributes who volunteer for the games in place of those who  are randomly “reaped” in a lottery, and who win almost every year. For the people of the districts, especially the outlying ones like District 11 and 12, the annual event is a reminder that they are powerless over the Capitol, and that two of their children are likely about to die in a brutal nationwide broadcast that is mandatory viewing. During the Games, as the people in the Districts starve, work intolerable hours, have little time for education, and suffer the carnage on live TV, those in the Capitol (seemingly not required to offer up their own children) wager on the outcomes, and cheer for their favorites. The sole survivors each year are lifted up as the ultimate celebrities for the rest of their lives, which are spent being paraded around year after year, reliving their victory, which came at the expense of 23 other young lives. They are forced to face the families of those they’ve slain in a Victory Tour, pretending to extol the Capitol, which makes them appear somewhat sociopathic to each District’s citizens, and likely eats away at the Victors themselves. We learn in Catching Fire that many of those Victors, don’t handle their success very well. In The Hunger Games novel, Katniss constantly talks about how she finds Haymitch, her mentor and previous District 12 Victor, as disgusting drunk. By Catching Fire, she’s joining him in a drink (which I was thrilled to see was included in the film as its one of my favorite scenes). Celebrity isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

It’s easy to see how most discussions about the meaning of the Hunger Games series is an indictment on our shallow celebrity culture, crass materialist excess, and how the impoverished and lowly masses are squashed while the Capitalist ruling class is propped up on their backs. Collins makes a point to use references to ancient Rome throughout her narrative. Many of the names of characters and places are taken directly from Rome.

Panem is the Latin word for bread, as in “panem et circenses” meaning “bread and circuses”, a critique of how the Roman political classes distracted the common people from engaging in serious politics by giving them bread and games, like gladiator fights to the death. For some, the Hunger Games represents the classic Marxist struggle of the bourgeoisie over the proletariat. The all-powerful Empire against the lowly citizen.

I don’t see the story this way at all, at least not in that exact framing. The truth, whether or not Collins realized this herself, is “bread and circuses” is a reference to the Fall of the Roman Republic into an autocracy. The elected politicians bought votes by diverting attention away from the concerns of politics and civic duty. The people were happy to have free grain and games and in return gave up their own power over the government by electing those who would take if from them. This eventually led to one man seizing power rather easily, and the Republic became an Empire. It would seem to me, that Panem has already had its transformation from Republic to Empire, but we’re beginning to see Rome’s Fall. The Visigoth’s are standing on top of the hill with their eye on Rome. They just need something – a spark of motivation, inspiration — to push them towards the gates.

For Panem, that spark is Katniss Everdeen, the heroine from District 12 and co-winner of the 74th Hunger Games, known to the people as the Mockingjay, a hybrid bird that was never supposed to exist, abandoned by the Capitol’s scientists to die when it didn’t serve their purposes, but which flourished on its own in freedom.

One reason I’m drawn to stories set in dystopian futures is that they are usually (intentionally or unintentionally) discussions of how collective societies destroy individual liberty, leading to the destruction of the society itself. Whether or not that was her intention, for me, that is exactly the world Collins created, and that is exactly the dominant theme in her stories as I see them. When we first meet her, Katniss is a coal miner’s daughter who loves to hunt. She regularly defies the rules to escape to the forest, ducking under the poorly monitored fences of her district so she can keep her family alive. She wants nothing more than to live a quiet, unassuming peaceful life volunteers for The Hunger Games when her 12 year old sister is reaped despite her name only being in the lottery one time (candidates can add their name to the bucket in exchange for food for their families). In that single act of uncalculated bravery she inspires a nation to stand up for themselves and be brave, too. This single individual act of selflessness, followed by a string of defiant acts within the arena itself, result in her being lifted up as a symbol of rebellion.

She is Panem’s Rosa Parks.

Like Parks who only wanted to rest her aching feet, not inspire a civil rights movement, Katniss had no intention of inspiring anyone to revolution. She only wanted to return home alive. Unlike her friend Gale, she would have been content to live out her life quietly, without causing too much attention, tolerating the tyranny of her government. That is just the way it is, in her point of view. When she breaks the law by hunting, or participating in the black markets, it’s purely for survival, not as a political act. When she “volunteers” (someone must go to the Games, they’re not voluntary), all she cares about is surviving so she can save her family both in the immediacy of saving her sister from the Games, and also to survive them herself to take care of them later. That’s all that matters to her. She is not a leader. She is not an idealist. She is rough and practical. She is a survivor.

In the first film, the night before they go into the Games, the other District 12 Tribute, Peeta says, “I just don’t want them change me… Turn me into something I’m not. I just don’t want to be another piece in their game… I just keep wishing I could think of a way to show them, that they don’t own me. If I’m gonna die, I wanna still be me.” Pragmatic Katniss replies that she can’t think like that. She needs to win because as sole breadwinner, she needs to take care of her family. Despite that, she does exactly what Peeta hopes to do. She risks her own oblivion in the rigged Games time after time by defying the Capitol (consciously or unconsciously), and like Rosa Parks, she becomes the symbol of a struggle she doesn’t organize or lead. In the first film/book, she does this by first showing kindness and respect to her fallen friend Rue, and later by convincing the Head Gamemaker Seneca Crane that she would rather die and deny them a Victor than kill Peeta to win. She rebelled against the Capitol when all she wanted to do was rest her aching feet.

In the second film, the Capitol intends to make her pay for inspiring the people to do the same.

Panem is both a fascist totalitarian dictatorship and a collective society. There appears to be commerce, but if it is not outright owned by the state, it is certainly controlled and manipulated by the state. The Districts serve the ruling class of the Capitol. There does not appear to be any democratic system of government, at least not with any real power. The “President” can determine who lives and dies on a whim. He can even change the rules of the annual Hunger Games, as we learn in Catching Fire when he forces an all-star celebrity death match in lieu of the traditional 12 to 18 year olds being drafted, thus breaking the agreement that Victors would live life in peace and comfort. The President’s power is absolute. Even the citizens of the Capitol are pawns to him. They may lead mostly frivolous lives, but even Hollywood starlets often have their lives controlled by the forces of their celebrity, something Haymitch explains to Katniss and Peeta when he tells them they will never get off the Victory Tour train. Their lives, as rich as they are now, will never be their own. I suspect many more in the Capitol feel that way than we are initially led to believe. Even Effie Trinket, a symbol of all that is shallow and air-headed in the Capitol’s masses, proves to be less clueless in Catching Fire as we and Katniss initially assumed. She’s merely made the best of the situation she’s been given in life. Year after year she watches her Tributes from District 12 get slaughtered. Any non-psychopath with a job like that needs to find meaning in it, or go insane. She puts on a happy face, but we see in Catching Fire that she is heartbroken by the situation Katniss and Peeta have been put into yet again. Perhaps the rest of the Capitol’s citizens aren’t what they seem to be either. None of them are truly free to be individuals, and speak out against the President or his government. They are not as free and distracted by bread and circuses as we thought. When the Victor’s all hold hands at the end of Flickerman’s interview show before the Games they shout out and boo, demanding that the games get cancelled. Even the normally unflappable Flickerman is visible shaken. And we see what happens to those who make statements against the President when Katniss’ friend and popular designer Cinna is beaten in front of her just before she’s thrown back into the arena.

I’m often surprised that people see Fascism and Communism as two opposite ends of the political spectrum, when to me they’re more like the ends of a circle meeting up like an Ouroboros, the head of the snake eating its tail. Each philosophy uses different tactics leading to the same conclusions. Ultimately in each, the state controls the individual. Yet even within Panem which is under the complete control of the Capitol, the people’s desire to be free is evident, and the failure of the government to provide what the people need – despite the entire country devoted to sharing its resources — is striking. Even the state controlled security forces known as Peace Keepers often look the other way and allow the people to do what they need to do to survive. It is through her own efforts hunting, and selling the game on the black markets that allow Katniss to feed her family. She even sells to the Peace Keepers on occasion. The state cannot even control those it employs directly. Katniss hides her bow and arrows in the woods because they are illegal for citizens to own. The citizens in each district have little control over their future professions, as each district serves one or two primary functions dependent on the resources of their region. There is little mobility between the districts, and any that exists is state sanctioned. This is a world with few choices, yet individuals find a way to do the best they can despite the odds.

Propaganda is the glue that holds the country together. We first see it in the film the Districts are forced to watch prior to the reaping, that Effie has memorized. And after their victory in the 74th Hunger Games, Katniss and Peeta become national celebrities. They are forced to shill for the Capitol by extolling its virtues, and thanking it for the glory the Hunger Games allows for them. Yet, along the way she unintentionally continues to inspire individuals to risk their own lives as she and Peeta make their way throughout the districts on their Victory Tour. By showing compassion and kindness to Rue’s family, and by standing up for Gale during the live broadcast of his flogging, she inspires them more still. The citizens of Panem know what happens to anyone who defies the Capitol, but they rise up anyway. Even in the face of escalating brutality by the Capitol, and isolation from each other, they form a rebellion. The Hunger Games does indeed knit them together, but not in the way the President and his propaganda machine intend. On the surface, the reasons for revolt may simply be that the poor districts are tired of seeing their sweat and blood go to feeding the Capitol while they starve, and live in squalor. But starvation is merely a symptom of the greater loss of freedom. The citizens in the districts are not empowered to pursue their own dreams, and make their own lives better. They are not even empowered to turn off the television, let alone prevent their children from fighting to the death each year. They are powerless in every sense of the word, yet the black markets, hunting in the forest, and one girl’s choice to volunteer to die shows them that the individual always wants what the state cannot, or will not, provide. That despite the President’s rhetoric, his sole purpose is to maintain his own power, not care for and feed his people. As individuals begin to realize this, and want more than they are allowed to have, they begin to band together and fight for individual manifest destiny, and for each other. All it took was one defiant girl sparking a fire. One person really can change the world, even if they don’t want to.

Ask Rosa Parks.

Yet the road to liberty is paved with pot holes and protruding stones. Humans are complex creatures, capable of great virtue, and great sin. Sometimes we destroy those that matter most to us. I’m looking forward to the next film Mockingjay where these themes take interesting, and all too frequently true, turns by showing that even among the previously repressed masses, the seeds of corrupting power are difficult to control. That without concern for individual rights, and individual dreams, the tendency is for ambitious individuals to throw bread and circuses at the politically indifferent or misguided in order to distract them from their own rise to absolute power. In Mockingjay [vague spoiler alert], we will learn about the corrupting nature of the pursuit of power, the seeds of which are sown in the events of Catching Fire. We’ll learn more about how those caught in the crossfire, too often the average citizen and the young, are manipulated, damaged and killed in the struggle for power. In Catching Fire, Katniss struggles with PTSD caused by her experience in the first Games. She transforms from a symbol for rebellion into the tool for a new would-be dictator. She goes from being a piece in the Capitol’s Games, to a piece in the new power struggle. She wanted neither. She wanted to be left alone. She wanted to live her life in peace. Perhaps in the end, at the end of the trilogy (or in the case of the films, the quad-ology), I hope Katniss will find herself in a world not controlled by tyrants who try to use her as a piece in their games of power, but controlled by individuals doing as they wish while living in peace. It only takes an accidental spark to light the entire corrupt, fragile system on fire. Eventually, even the absolute control of a despot cannot contain the dreams, or snuff out the natural rights, of individuals. When the powerless are inspired to take back what is rightfully theirs and recognize that their lives are their own to live, that’s when the human spirit rises up to its full potential. It is through individuality and self-determination that we become a better society as a whole. Forced shared values, forced shared resources isn’t virtuous. As Katniss repeatedly shows us in these stories, even when the game is rigged so that there can only be one survivor, human kindness finds a way to exist and thrive. That’s a lesson worth remembering.

Cheers,
PersephoneK

 

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Thanksgiving Anti-Consumerism Hypocrisy Runs As Wild As Turkeys

Do you find the consumerism inherent in Black Friday appalling? Do you decry any retail shop like Target, Best Buy and their kind opening even earlier this year on Thanksgiving Day itself vile? Do you shout at the top of your lungs, “Thanksgiving is for family time, not for paying tribute to the greedy American gods of materialism!”?

Well, you may want to stop reading now, because I’m about to mock you.

That’s not entirely true. I try not to mock people (and sometimes fail), especially when I once shared the same view, but I am going to disagree with you, and with pretty much the dominant conventional wisdom in America. If you read this blog regularly, would you expect anything else from me?

I’m all for taking the time to think about the good things in our lives on Thanksgiving. It is a time for reflecting on what matters most to us, things like family and friends. If on this Thanksgiving, you have the opportunity to sit down, share a meal with the important people in your life, all the better. But I have two main objections to the loud voices, like George Takei (who I usually find hilarious), who shame big businesses for opening ever earlier and thus encroaching on our holiday free time.  Takei lambasted consumerism by selling a t-shirt (his link from 11/26 appears to have been removed from his page as of this posting).

Objection #1: Why does retail business deserve special demon status above other businesses and organizations that require employees to work on holidays, including Thanksgiving?

On my way to my parents’ house on Thursday morning, I stopped at a convenience store to buy gas, a banana, and some soda, and to put air in my consistently slowly leaking tire. I was pretty happy to see it was open, and staffed by a pleasant cashier whom when I wished a Happy Thanksgiving smiled and gave a genuine “you too” in return. I would have been shocked if the store hadn’t been open since Thanksgiving is a major travel day. Seems like a good time to do some good business if you’re a gas station. Likewise, airports are open, meaning pilots, flight attendants, baggage handlers, security and other staff are on the job. All over the country hospitals still have staff caring for the sick, police officers and other staff report for duty, military men and women go about their daily work lives. We watched from my parents’ windows as emergency responders appeared in the driveway of the neighbor’s house. We aren’t sure what happened, but it’s safe to assume someone was happy those EMT’s and police weren’t taking the day off. There are countless other jobs that require employees to work on holidays, not just on Thanksgiving. If you are to be consistent in your demonization of working on a holiday, you must spread it around fairly. But for some reason, the media always focuses year after year on what retail stores will ask their employees to work and when as if that is the same as conscripting workers into forced labor camps. If social media is any indication of popular opinion, we eat that idea up and buy it fully.

Gentle reminder… in America, all humans enter into work agreements voluntarily. When one starts a job, it is that person’s responsibility to understand the business and its needs. All businesses have busy periods. If you’re an accountant, chances are you’ll be swamped around April 15th each year. If you take a job in retail, you should probably assume your holidays will be spent differentky than some of your friends. When I worked for the federal government, there were expectations that I be available if necessary 24/7, 365. But with that, came certain perks like having random holidays such as Columbus Day and Veteran’s Day off. You take the good with the bad, or you find another line of work. Related to that, if you view your employer as the enemy to be treated like some totalitarian state’s dictator instead of someone you have a mutually beneficial relationship with, it is definitely time to seek new horizons. A good employee/employer relationship means that in return for a paycheck, the employee does good work, and doing good work means aligning with the business’s needs and goals. In retail… that means making money by selling stuff to people who want it, especially around the holidays. Get over it.

Objection #2: Capitalism (i.e. consumerism) is something to be thankful for too. It is responsible for lifting more humans out of poverty, increasing well-being by most measurable methods, giving voice to the weak and powerless, and equalizing opportunity more than any other forces that have ever existed in history.

If I haven’t convinced you yet to read Steven Pinker’s Better Angels of Our Nature, consider this one more try. In his book (and others such as Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel) the evidence is nicely laid out for a laymen’s eyes showing that capitalism (and I’d clarify that with free-market, non-crony capitalism) is one of the key requirements leading to stable democracies, increased lifespans, decreased* child mortality, decreased poverty, increased literacy, more freedom of mobility, increased individual freedom, and many other indicators for improved human well-being. It’s also what most economists agree on. I once was headed down the path to believing that materialism equals badness. It’s intuitive for us to see individual pursuit of stuff as antithetical to healthy society, which we often envision as full of sharing and caring living in peace and harmony together in tight knit communities. The plain truth is that’s a nice Utopian vision, and often is somewhat realizable in small bands and chieftain-sized societies, but in large societies individual pursuit of one’s dreams by specialization makes us all stronger, and is the only realistic way for a democratic society to function if it also cares about preserving rights. We all have different wants and needs. Specialized economies are what allow me to focus on the things I care about instead of growing my own food, making my own clothes, and cutting my own wood to stay warm. But the way humans have developed over the millennia, with most of our time spent in small groups, has biased us into thinking that individual pursuits are evil, and communal living is best. That greed is bad, and everyone should care about the same things like spending Thanksgiving Day with family (the most obvious communal relationship there is), and most certainly not working, not making filthy money, and certainly not buying stuff!

The Pilgrims themselves believed this in part… at first. Prior to the “first Thanksgiving” the Pilgrims who landed on Plymouth Rock set up their community essentially as a communal society. Everyone shared the resources and land, and each was expected to work equally for an equal portion of the harvest. They all nearly starved to death as many workers chose to leach off their neighbors’ efforts. Why work hard when you can get the same portion with less effort? So, they decided that they’d divide up the land and resources and each man would keep whatever they were able to produce. This created the incentive to work hard, and the community began to thrive partly as a result of this. To economists, this phenomenon is known as The Tragedy of the Commons.

So, this Thanksgiving, I was thankful not only for my family, my friends, and my cat, but also for the US Constitution which preserved individual pursuit of happiness as the hallmark of our society. From the Pilgrims to the present, that includes making money by adding value to society. You make/produce/sell something I want. I trade you money which means less to me than the thing you’re selling me. You keep the money to make/produce/sell more of the things to more people because you want those things less than I do and less than money. And the cycle repeats. Using money to trade is no different than trading items. It just makes it simpler to work with complete strangers all over the world (and have smaller purses, especially men). I was also thankful that I live in a state that does not limit businesses and individual workers in their right to pursue their own dreams by providing things people want in exchange for their money (I’m talking about you Massachusetts and your blue laws requiring permits on some holidays*), even it if means some employees had to work on a holiday (and probably get paid time and a half). I’m thankful I live in a country that allows people to change their jobs, improve their skills, and advance to the highest levels so long as they’re willing to work hard, educate themselves, and not take any job for granted. Even though you’d rarely find me shopping on Black Friday (I hate waking up early, find shopping stressful, and hate crowds), I completely love what it stands for. It stands for the greatest standards of living humanity has ever known. Despite the occasional story of idiots rioting at the front doors, or shoving their fellow shoppers to the ground, the people braving the lines and insanity out there are doing so of their own free will, and stores are giving those people what they clearly want. I see that as a win-win, and I personally am thankful for it all.

Cheers,
PersephoneK

*Edited to fix typo/add clarity

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Online Poker Good for Card Rooms and Casual Players

p53-poker-chipsI recently rekindled one of my favorite pastimes.  Playing poker.  Not that I ever stopped playing; I just haven’t had the time or opportunity to play much in the last few years.  Last week, I found myself at my favorite local card room, Running Aces (which I highly recommend checking out), where I managed to win a modest tournament with a field of about 45 players.  It was a lot of fun!  I remembered how much I love this game.

Adding fuel to those flames, tonight the World Series of Poker (WSOP) will crown its 2013 World Champion, granting him (all of the final 9 players from a field of more than 6,000 are men) the coveted champion bracelet and more than $8 million.  One of the things I love about this game, is unlike other elite sports events like the World Series, or the Super Bowl, literally anyone can try to win this game.  All one needs is the cash for the $10,000 buy-in and some time to spend in Las Vegas in the summer.  Sometimes you don’t even need any cash at all.  As everyone who loves the game knows, in 2003, eventual WSOP Main Event champ, Chris Moneymaker won an online poker tournament “freeroll” that cost him nothing to enter to get into the tournament.  Talk about the American Dream!  An average guy, an amateur player, rose above the best in the game to win more than $2.5 million, sparking the poker boom.

But that’s not what I love most about this game.  Professional Poker player and writer Victoria Coren once wrote:
[quotepress id=”1350″] I’ve always loved that description.  It touches on all the aspects of the game that intrigue me.  Its a game that takes luck, sure, but it also invites you into a secret world with its own language.  It takes cunning to win.  You have to be an investigator.  You have to use your reason.  You have to think through strategy.  In short, you need be good to win consistently.  So, while amateurs can dream, and try to win it all (and many have), being a good poker player takes practice, commitment, and talent.  It takes skill over luck over time.  And it takes time to develop that skill.

I wish I could play more often because I really want to be good.  I take it seriously.  I track every win and loss.  How much I bought in for, how much I ended up with, how much time I spent, what type of game it was, among other things.  I manage my bankroll carefully, and only risk what I am able to afford to risk.  I have a day job that pays my bills.  I’m a good citizen.  But one reason I can’t play as often as I want to, is because the US federal government has taken it upon itself to decide I can’t spend my money how I want to spend it, even if its in pursuit of something that arguably takes as much skill or even more skill than playing the stock market.  Aside from the insane laws in Minnesota where I live making it impossible for me to play the form of the game I prefer (No Limit cash game), on April 15, 2011, the Federal Government decided to make playing poker online extremely difficult if not impossible when they indicted and shut down three of the biggest online poker rooms in the world.  The day is known as Black Friday in the poker world.

On Black Friday, the government interpreted an ambiguous law as outlawing online poker, although it never specifies that.  The point of this blog isn’t to go into all of those details, as they’re widely available, and better summarized elsewhere.  And last year, I wrote about a settlement between the Feds and PokerStars, one of the online rooms indicted.  Since that day, whether or not one agrees that the Feds had jurisdiction to do what they did, we all can agree that playing poker online since then has been nearly impossible, or extremely risky for Americans.  Modern poker was invented and popularized in America, and yet Americans are effectively banned from playing the game in one of the ways we prefer.

For me, that is a travesty for these reasons:

  1. Online poker is not a crime.  There are no victims.  Players decide to spend their money playing the game, and that is their right.  Do some take it too far and develop problems?  Yes.  That is true of ANYTHING.  Some people make terrible decisions in their lives.  We need to stop protecting people from themselves, especially when it interferes in the liberty of people who are able to function normally and without addiction.  And while it really shouldn’t matter, for the record, people do not develop poker addictions at any higher rate than with any other addictive disorder.  And most people who gamble, do not become addicted.
  2. Online poker rooms are less safe for consumers is a myth.  Before Black Friday, consumers had many options. All of them had reputations among players for various customer experiences.  Like with any business, if the business doesn’t give the consumer what they want, when there are other options, the consumer goes to the competitor.  Reputation means everything.  At PokerStars, I always knew exactly how much money I had in my account, and never had an issue getting a pay out that I requested.  Also, many professional poker players staked their own reputations on the experience of the card room they were sponsored by.  In fact, one of the reasons the Department of Justice was able to shutdown the online sites was because the Federal government had already made the consumer experience a difficult one when in 2006 the Bush administration passed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Act (UIGA) by throwing it into a larger bill Security and Accountability for Every Port Act (SAFE) designed to clamp down on terrorist money moving shenanigans.  Essentially, they made it difficult for banks and credit card companies to do business with online poker rooms, thus making those rooms more likely to use cagey techniques for getting money to and from their customers.  The feds created the circumstances that lead to a terrible customer experience, and one that looked less legitimate.  I find that to be truly appalling.  Additionally, after Black Friday, when the three sites were shut down, thousands of Americans who played online poker had their own money frozen.  Some, like me were able to get their money in a matter of a few days. Others, are still waiting.  I only had about $80 in my account, but some professional players had tens and hundreds of thousands, and even millions locked in their accounts.  Some law abiding Americans made their living playing online poker.  A very good living, and suddenly, the Federal government basically fired them, and kept the money.  The delays in getting it back are still ongoing for some people.  This is unforgivable to me.  In a “crime” that had no victims, only willing, law abiding, tax paying individuals, the government has both taken away their livelihoods, and stolen their money all in the name of consumer protection.  Not that it really changes anything, but in case you’re wondering… pretty much every other country allows online poker, including, and especially, the United Kingdom, a country that has had its own horrific terrorism experiences.  Tell me, who really needs the protection and from whom?
  3. Online poker is a way for less experienced people to learn the game while risking less.  I used to love playing poker multiple times per week at PokerStars.  Because it was such a large site, with pools of people available at anytime all over the world, virtually any game at any level was available.  If I go to a brick and mortar card room, I will probably need to bring a minimum of $40 with me just to buy into a game.  And that would be one of the least profitable games, where I’d need to spend hours and hours just to get ahead, and beat the rake (the percentage the casino takes from each pot).  Usually, when I play at a “live” game, I bring around $200 with me.  I want the experience to be worth my time, so I’m likely to bring enough to be able to play for a while if things go bad, and I need to bring an amount that lets me into a game I want to play.  That’s a lot of money.  Online, I could literally choose a game that required only a $5 commitment.  Sure, my profits would be smaller, and take longer to make, but what online poker did was allow me to play many hands of real poker with relatively little risk.  To get better at poker, you have to play a lot of hands.
  4. Playing online poker could be better for the local card rooms and casinos.  As my ability to play online shot immediately down to zero, so has my time at the brick and mortar card room.  I have a poker budget.  I add to my budget when I win, and take from it when I lose.  Its not limitless.  When I played online more frequently, I was able to build a bankroll that allowed me to play more games.  It in turn, made me more passionate about playing the game, and improving.  While playing online is more convenient, there’s nothing like playing a live game.  I was able to justify doing so as a result of my online play.  Because I’m no longer able to play as many hands, I’m not able to further develop my skill.  In fact, those skills are likely atrophying.  You can’t play a few hours a month (if that) and expect to regularly be a winner at a game that demands skill above luck.  In poker, unlike other games, the casino doesn’t win when I lose.  The casino wins when I spend time playing, especially when I spend time playing in high value games.  I’m not a professional player.  I’m like most lovers of the game out there.  I can’t spend 40+ hours a week at the tables.  But before online poker busted, I was spending far more hours at the casino than I am now, and I was playing in those higher value games.  Now, I rarely do either.  I’m not getting better, and the casino doesn’t get my business as often.

The Winning Choices

In my view, one way to help the economy would be if two things happened.

  1. Washington needs to pass a bill that strips any illegality away from playing poker online for Americans.  I’m not a fan of regulation, but if they need to add language that makes collecting taxes easier and keeping minors out of the games, that’s fine.  Ultimately, whether or not poker is illegal should be left up to the states.  The default for the country should be online poker being legal.  States should have to deem it illegal for compelling reasons.
  2. If local casinos were smart, they’d be pushing more for online legality, and be working with big online card rooms to build relationships.  They could lend their name and reputation to the online facility, and therefore drive business into their brick and mortar rooms.  Online poker is partially a numbers game.  A worldwide pool is best.  What would be terrible for the game is for each state to build its own online poker room (as is happening in Nevada and New Jersey, the only two states that have made online poker legal), and limit players to just the state.  I doubt I’d be able to find my $5 buy-in tables, and therefore I wouldn’t be playing much, or building my bankroll up to play in the bigger games.  The world-wide pool of players is vast, and that pool being available to all makes the consumer experience best, and safest.  The game needs to be brought unequivocally into the light, where players are free to play a game they love with their own money, and where governments can collect the taxes they so crave.  Aside from that, these businesses employ people.  More online poker is better all.

So, tonight as I watch to see whether or not an ameteur player can outlast the professionals and win $8 million dollars, I’ll be thinking, it would be fun to be playing online at the same time.  Maybe my payout would only be around $20, but I’d be doing something I love in the comfort of my own home.  Instead, I’ll have to wait until the next home game with my friends, or the next chance I have to get to the local card room.  It might be a while, and chances are, I’ll be worse than I would have been.  That’s good for the pros, but bad for most of us.  Keeping online poker illegal helps no one, is bad for the economy, and its bad for liberty.

What are your thoughts?

Cheers,

PersephoneK

 

If you want legal online poker in America check out the Poker Players Alliance, and help them work towards that goal, or keep abreast of what’s going on with current legalization efforts.

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X-Files Turns 20: “Conduit”

Conduit

i-want-to-believeSeason 1, Episode 1X03

Written By: Alex Gansa & Howard Gordon | Directed By: Daniel Sackheim

Original Air Date: 10/1/1993 | Re-Watch Review Date: 10/30/2013

PersephoneKs ReWatch Grade: B- to B


I couldn’t remember a thing about this episode before I hit play. Although the direction the show eventually went in made this episode somewhat disjointed, there were actually a lot of lovely things in this one. This episode allows Scully to really understand how Samantha’s abduction impacted Mulder. And its where we learn one of the true meanings for the shows motto, “”I WANT TO BELIEVE””. That stuff was well done.
Random Notes:
-Lake Okobogee (Iowa) has mountains! And aliens! And lots of loons!
-Mulder is assigned to FBIHQ, and reports to an ASAC and a Section Chief.
-NSA breaks into an FBI agents room while they’re there like it aint no thang, lol.
-Danny!
– CHArc Watch 1993: Scully wears white tights and carries a purse.
-Some really nice work in some scenes by David and Gillian.
-Rewatch Grade: B- to B.”

Cheers,

PersephoneK


What is this post about anyway? XFTurns20: Project Watch Episodes in Sequence

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