71) Legacy Of The Hopeless

Join us for a long awaited YOMcast as I rant on about America's war in the Middle East, explain a view on Don't Ask Don't Tell, reflect on the past decade of events (video), look at Korea's tension war, North Korea's willingness to open up, and prepare a message for the future...

70) And Off We Go

A musician always remembers their very first show in front of an audience. The anticipation, the sweat on your head, and the steady beat of the music is part of the mystical experience where the magic happens. The fear dissolves as you get into the flow. Even if you make a mistake, the crowd won't mind as long as you keep going.

I had this first experience just tonight, at my high school's annual winter concert.

As we group of thirty streamed out the chords for The Beatles's Let It Be, there was a lack of rhythm, lack of dynamics, and a lack of volume. It wasn't bad, considering that some of us had just started playing the guitar for the very first time three months ago. We had only recently mastered reading what was on the actual sheet music. Compared to the rest of the concert acts, we were terrible. A bad memory of an otherwise perfect evening.

While the other pieces lasted a good five minutes, we could barely hold cohesion for the shortened version of House of the Rising Sun for less than forty-five seconds. Disaster after disaster.

Guess what? It didn't matter.

Life is always unfair, and it certainly won't be the last time I might think to embarrass myself in front of an audience. What you take from it are two simple things:

1) You're not doing this alone.
2) "Good" is relative.

Which all but tells me what a show life really is. You never stop performing for life, or some other silent third person protagonist that may be God.

It's always your stage. But there is no sad music that comes on if you cry, and a rainbow will not appear on the set if you're having a good day. Sometimes, you're the only one watching your own show, and you realize what your own life really means.

And when the final curtain comes down, you may be left unsatisfied, or be glad that the show is finally over.

And, just sometimes, if you're really lucky, you'll understand that it's not always about pleasing the audience.

69) Necessary Evil

With the two Koreas tense after an exchange of artillery gunfire, alot of my friends (myself included) are inclined to be subconsciously afraid of world war three. North Korean military is no joking matter, especially when nuclear weapons are thrown into the equation.

Now that the U.S. carrier George Washington is in the Yellow Sea to help South Korea perform military maneuvers, both sides have their guns locked and loaded. It's no longer a matter of who fires first, for we already know that. It's a matter of who has more restraint.

Let's not forget that the North Korean throne has just passed to Kim Jong Il's younger son, Kim Jong Un. Will this younger leader show military restraint, or we he finally take the first step to reunify Korea in a bloody conflict? For the sake of the world, let's hope he makes the right choice.

And hence we arrive to my conclusions on war:

It is a necessary evil. Hundreds and thousands of years of war has not quelled the human instinct for violence. It sure as hell isn't going to stop soon. World peace is an idealist illusion formed out of hope, hope which is dimming by the second.

I hold this hope too. That one day world peace can occur. But for the moment, we're not ready. We're not ready until the entire world perishes in a nuclear fire, not until we understand that our capacity for hostility is the greatest setback to the utopias we try to build for ourselves.

Let's face it: without war, we have no way to gauge our appreciation for peace. We would not know the cost, the value, the beauty of pacifism. We cannot deprive the world of it's outlet for innovation and bravery.

Of course, it's more than valid to argue that the cost in lives is not worth it.

Which is why I always remember a little thing I wrote:

If humanity is not immortal,
And death is never rare,
Why fear the end,
Or how we get there?

But that's just me and my pessimism. For those who still believe in the notion of world peace, I encourage you to never stop trying.

But if tomorrow we die in a nuclear firestorm, I won't fear it. Not because I saw it coming, but because I understood why it happened.

That's worth a helluva lot when you're talking about human nature.

68) How America Lost The War

Ever since full body scanners and pat downs at airports have infringed on our right to privacy, the TSA has become public enemy number one. Time to join the chorus.

Of course, it's important to keep both sides of the argument in perspective. The TSA is just trying to do their jobs. If there is a reasonable chance of catching terrorists before they board a plane, we should by all means allow it. After all, we can't let another 9/11 happen. We can't let another war on another front occur.

On the other hand, we have a serious violation of human rights. There is now a constant flow of stories depicting harsh and outrageous treatment stemmed from the lack of common sense on the part of TSA men and women.

Perhaps a good indicator is the story of Thomas Sawyer. A bladder cancer survivor, he has to use a urostomy bag, which collects urine from an opening in his stomach. After being pulled aside, he warned the TSA agent of the bag:

One agent watched as the other used his flat hand to go slowly down my chest. I tried to warn him that he would hit the bag and break the seal on my bag, but he ignored me. Sure enough, the seal was broken and urine started dribbling down my shirt and my leg and into my pants.

He told me I could go. They never apologized. They never offered to help. They acted like they hadn't seen what happened. But I know they saw it because I had a wet mark.

It's stories like these that help you understand the outrage in all of this. How could the American government ever be capable of such a thing? But perhaps to learn a lesson, in Thomas's words:

I am a good American and I want safety for all passengers as much as the next person. But if this country is going to sacrifice treating people like human beings in the name of safety, then we have already lost the war.

Or perhaps a simpler story of a seven year-old being strip searched at Salt Lake International:

How did it all come to this? How did we end up paying the price for a war we no longer want? Oh that's right, some of us did want it. We were so convinced as a whole that America can take on anything, even the terrorists over seas. Any problem is America's problem.

How can we fight a war on terrorism, a war on the darkest aspects of humanity, when we can't even protect our own rights?

It is the story of how America lost the war.

Or I guess to close with a little Ben Franklin:

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

67) For The Fallen

A few years ago, when I was in a Current Life class, our teacher grazed over the topic of suicide and depression. She asked those who thought suicide was wrong to stand on one side of the room, and everyone else to stand on the other side. After a quiet moment of shuffling, it was clear that I was the only person on the shunned shore. Of course, they asked me why. I asked them: “If suicide is so wrong, why does it happen so often every day?”

It was the revelation of how humanity is a paradoxically fickle thing. We see small aspects of the things that make us proud of who we are: love, compassion, kindness, etc. On the other end of the spectrum, we are capable of horrific things: war, savagery, fury. It is the darker side that makes us cringe in shame, reflect on how we are, of the things we’ve done, the things we regret.

And for those of us who simply don’t want to be part of this world, we are ridiculed for our obsession with death. We are told that it is a moral sin, that suicide is an unworthy liberation of our lives. That we are cowards to our futures, our souls and our faiths.

We don’t open up. We are convinced that no one can understand the pain, the anger, the crushing weight of loneliness. But in a way, we know that others have felt like this. Some have moved on, while others have perished. It doesn’t matter what their circumstances were, even though we seem convinced that there is no way out. We know that others couldn’t last a day in our shoes.

No, no one told us it would be easy. But no one sure as hell told us it would be this hard.

No, it isn’t fair. We are envious of other people for a multitude of reasons. We wish we had their happiness, their love, their outlook on life. We know that some will smile every single day they live, while others won’t ever go to sleep without shedding a tear.

It is humanity. It is cruel, it is unfair, and sometimes, if you wait for it, could possibly deliver you the best day of your life. So I don’t see why we shun suicide as such a bad thing. If someone were in such brutal pain, do they not deserve a right to end it all? Many of us go through our entire lives searching for a kind of peace. It is a peace that some of us will ever seldom find. Do the suffering not also deserve to find this peace?

Yes, perhaps I am delusional. Perhaps my words are the false echoes of lies we have come to know for ourselves. You are perfectly capable of deciding what is right. Truth is relative.

But you, my friend, you and I both share a common end. Death. We will both perish one day, sucked into the abyss that has claimed so many others. We will wither into dust, remembered as faint memories held dear by those who still care to know our lives and our legacies.

But we cannot live if we do not know how to die. We must be ready to accept that fate, destiny, our time can end it all in less than a heartbeat. It doesn’t matter if you hold responsibilities, or any other position of interest that demands your Earthly presence. Death won’t care. Your name will fade away eventually, even if it is remembered for several centuries. We are not meant to clash with the invincibility of infinity.

So why must we continue to deny those who wish to see the end their right to die?

Because it is human nature. For those who cannot see the light, we know there is one simple fact.

As long as there is light, there will be shadow.


…Soon are eyes tired with sunshine; soon the ears
Weary of utterance, seeing all is said;
Soon, racked by hopes and fears,
The all-pondering, all-contriving head,
Weary with all things, wearies of the years;
And our sad spirits turn toward the dead;
And the tired child, the body, longs for bed.

- “Death, To The Dead For Evermore”, Robert Louis Stevenson

66) Just A Shot Away

As the conflict in the Middle East wages on, gamers are anticipating a new war from the past. With the video game industry drying out ideas from America's past, present, and future wars, there is still one pinnacle of horror mainstream developers have not yet canonized.

Vietnam.

Treyarch's Call of Duty: Black Ops, dumps the player in America's misunderstood war, taking place in the dense jungles of Vietnam. There are shots of other levels on snowy mountains, presumed to be in Russia. We are in the Cold War era, after all.

Treyarch might not be doing it intentionally, but them seem to be triggering the video gamer generation's fascination with two unpopular and confounding wars. In the sixties, the youth were in full revolt with the old class, trying to end the seemingly pointless war in Vietnam. Today, youth protests no longer hold the weight they once did, if they exist at all. It's a important thing to understand.

The parallels are staggering. Not since The Forever War have the similarities been presented in such a popular and addicting manner. Both eras in American history were marked by internal strife of rights, dead-end wars, unpopular governments, and ailing economies. It was civil rights then, gay marriage now. Vietnam and Iraq. Nixon and Bush. Recession of 69' and Great Recession now.

Point is, both wars past and present serve to link together an experience current fathers and grandfathers can describe as a chilling echo of their youth. More importantly, this all helps shed more light on the veterans of an almost forgotten war. In Vietnam, soldiers went, fought, and came back. But there were no parades for them waiting at home. There were no instantaneous monuments. Heroes were forgotten.

If anything, Black Ops serves as a history lesson for those not old enough to understand the past, even if it's only a guidebook on weapons and machines of war. We get to see the differences and similarities that transcend leaders and borders. We get to see human nature in its glorious and destructive form:

The Rolling Stones' Gimme Shelter serves as a nice touch.

Perhaps the most special thing about Black Ops is its easter egg. You see, Treyarch's last game was Call of Duty: World at War, which depicted the Russian and Pacific Fronts of World War Two. The easter egg in that game was Nacht der Untoten, a game mode where you and three other friends play as Marines stuck inside a house being assaulted by Nazi zombies.

By popular demand, Treyarch reintroduced this in Black Ops, except this time you're fighting in the Pentagon. It's still just you and three friends, but you're not playing Marines anymore.

From left to right: Robert McNamara, John F. Kennedy, Fidel Castro, Richard Nixon

I really couldn't think of a better way to insert a president into a video game. It's not crazy, it's just politics:

Alternate links here and here. Nice to see Nixon's as grouchy as ever.

Maybe that's the best solution for world wars. Stick the leaders in a room with zombies and have them fight as allies. You could make them friends pretty damn quickly. Plus, it's always nice to hear Kennedy shout: "Can you dig it?"

So get the game when it comes out November 9. I promise you won't be disappointed. And above all else, walk away from it knowing this simple rule:

War is always just a shot away.

65) Crossing Horizon One

As Halloween rolls around, my childhood fears of monsters have turned into a legitimate fear of adulthood and life in general. It doesn't take a well educated person in the United States to figure out that the prospect for a happy future is a bit pessimistic right now.

Swamped by college applications and questions about my future, it's hard to think about what I should do. It's often a shock to your system when you discover that your parents have finally let go and given you command of your own destiny.

At the nexus of crossroads, you gain the ability to understand that you have to choose who you are and what you're going to do, then standing by that choice as long as you deem necessary. Some people can't conform to this ideology, finding it easier to live their lives in relative entropy.

For a person who hates mirrors, this is the hardest thing I could ever do. Core beliefs are hard to solidify on the spot. I believe it's a process that never ends. This is why we place such focus on education and growth. As we learn more about the world and its mysteries, we also learn about how it changes and impacts us individually. It shows us what we should do.

But where does this learning stop? As a rule, it probably never ends. As an old man we can look back on our lives and learn more revelations about humanity in general.

But perhaps a few of the things we should all learn before leaving school is that life is about respecting the will of others and believing in your own. That a person is as much valid in their beliefs as in their actions. That the different values and ideas defining us make us friends rather than enemies. That we are all created equal in our ability to live and to die.

Perhaps I'll never know what I want to be, but with morals and values, it's hard to imagine how I can realistically get anywhere. The entire world does not play by the same rules that designate our destinies.

So I guess part of growing up is understanding that none of it really matters in the long run. You live, you die, you laugh, you cry. The things you do define one small measure of a much bigger picture that cannot be easily changed. You will succeed, you will fail, and most of the time it's not fair.

I once came up with an internal quote:

"When most people are near old age, they wonder whether they've done enough to change the fabric of the world. They wonder if they've made a dent in anything. When I die, I never want to have that problem."

I just hope that my life actions will be for the better. However, I know that I plan to tread the world with conviction and fearlessness, dabbled with a healthy sense of hope and sacrifice. And if all goes well, I can accomplish a transcendence that can withstand the invincible destroyer that is time.

And perhaps, the one virtue I am proudest of:

"You, too...immortal?"
"No. I just don't fear death."

-Vamp and Raiden in MGS4

64) Talks With The Archon

Taken from Archive 18, memory cluster 89.37.82.

"...Because we conform to lives we know hold no meaning, to obtain a measure of peace we all seek, but few rarely find.

So you can't tell me what I should do? What you want me to do?

Just because I'm your father doesn't mean I guide your life. I tell you how to get to the junction, but I can't tell you which path to take. Join the military, go to college, get married, pump out kids? I can't force you to do that.

You're a damn good father, you know that?

Only because you understand that I don't love you because I have to. I love you because I can. I've come to respect you as an individual. Son or not, I learned early on to see past these petty differences.

Aimless and wondering in the ocean. Would you love a child who turned into a monster?

Would you?

What kind of question is that?

You asked. Look, it's not about making me proud, or proving anything to anybody. You will make mistakes. You will live. You will die. How happy you are in life depends on whether or not you can accept the truths you set out for yourself.

Cryptic, as always.

If you were coming to me because of my age, I'm afraid I can't impart on you the boundaries of my infinite wisdom.

For I am much too young to know...

You're never to young too live..."

63) Dying's Easy, Living's Hard

After four measly hours of sleep and a retake attempt on the SAT today, I started thinking about how hard life really was for students before me. And while I wouldn't like to imagine nuns with rulers, I really don't know what it used to be like.

Both my parents never went to college, so I never hear old-timey school stories. In their native Hong Kong, college was a luxury afforded to those who had the time and money, for public education isn't free over there. It's easy for my parents to take education for granted, seeing as they were hired for work when they were of 'legal' age. They started earning paychecks at sixteen.

From what I could remember as a toddler before I immigrated to the U.S., school in China is a studious mind rape of hell, where you have to learn rudimentary algebra before you learn how to tie your shoes. Ask any student immigrant from Hong Kong and they'll tell you how much more relaxed it is over here in America.

It's not just the subjects and the assigned work. It's the school ethic the kids learn. They realize early on that failure is not an option, lest your teacher display your academic shortcomings in front of the class. They are trained from day one to do what they are supposed to when they are supposed to. Work comes before fun, if they understand the concept of fun at all. Whatever free time remains is devoted to personal research in another academic discipline.

It's this kind of atmosphere that brings up children into productive members of society. And now I wonder what my life would've been like had I stayed in Hong Kong. Would I be more successful? Would I have started working at the ripe age of sixteen? Or would I be valedictorian?

Schooling reflections aside, it's just another aspect of my life that makes things hard. We all deal with it in our own ways. The pressure, the pain, and all the mental and physical harm has made so very tired. Life doesn't get any easier.

Pessimism aside, the point of this reflection was to share my common mantras for living life, no matter how hard it may be. Since I remember them so often everyday:

- Don't speak unless it improves the silence.
- An open mind means being kind.
- It's only illegal if you get caught.
- Sometimes you don't have the luxury of ethics.
- Bend them or modify them, but never go over your limits.
- Everything and nothing are infinite.
- When in doubt, frag out.
- Never fear death; have it fear you.
- No use crying over spilt milk; it could've been beer.
- It's better to have people you know inside pissing out than outside pissing in.
- Nothing is impossible, only improbable.
- Humility saves lives.
- A cornered fox will fight with the ferocity of a tiger.
- Vanity knows karma better than you do.
- Truth is relative.
- One man's war is another person's peace.
- There are times and places for everything...which means you never have that luxury.
- You're not ready to live if you're not ready to die.
- There are more meaningful things in life than complaining about what you can't have.
- Nobody will remember you in a thousand years. Deal with it.
- The meaning of life often involves trying not to think about the meaning of life.

So take out a list and write down your mantras today! You never know; it might make your life easier.

62) Wolverines!

Damn it THQ. You and your creative minds stealing my video game ideas. Or maybe we're just both that good at predicting the future.

Their newest project in development is a game based on current political headlines. It's about the North Korean Army invading U.S. soil after things go bad. The title of this new game, Homefront, pretty much says it all. Check out the trailer:

As this article so clearly states (Alt video link in there too), the game is turning heads because it's based on today's political troubles. People often forget that North Korea likes to play with nukes. Or as my friends love to deflect: "If it ever happened, we'd nuke their asses."

And so hypotheticals are becoming eerily true. With the ailing Kin Jong-il standing down, it seems that his successor, Kim Jong-un, couldn't possibly make things worse. Or at the very least, he couldn't make things any better.

But as our fictional trailer illustrates, America is more than likely to tread a hard path in the future. Not to say that the U.S. is actually going to get invaded, but then again, North Korea has the capacity to copy American foreign policy: "Bullets solve problems."

If it happens, let's hope they don't crack open the nukes.

At the very least, this game is some delightful political commentary, if not just an excuse to switch public enemy number one from Nazis to Communists. Gamers are so tired of shooting Nazis in their favorite World War 2 video game that they've even explored the next best option: Nazi Zombies.

Thing is, I could actually see the United States starting this entire thing. I stick to my motto: "When the shit hits the fan, and the U.S. is involved, it suddenly becomes life, liberty, and the pursuit of crappiness."

Which brings me to my next question: How many wars will be fought in my lifetime? Scratch that. It's how many wars I will help fight in my lifetime.

And so if it starts with the sinking of the ROKS Cheonan and ends in North Korean control of the world, is that really such a bad thing?

Think about it: an entire world united in peace and prosperity, with the only real war coming from civil unrest, which could only help fuel improvement. Everyone's happy, and we advance as a society that got past that ugly thing called war. Problem is, you can't make a utopia without killing alot of people.

Sure they say that democracy is the best, but more than two hundred years of American policy has produced ALOT of wars, at a frequency, ferocity, and aimlessness the human race hasn't see since the Crusades.

And while the U.S. wastes away in the Middle East causing more and more deaths, we're still arguing over whether we should allow gays to serve openly. If I showed you a picture of three caskets and told you one of them was gay, could you tell me which one it is?

But back to our Korean point. With North Korea supposedly having free: housing, food rations, healthcare, and an educational system sporting a 99% literacy rate, some might argue that personal liberties are worth giving up for this society. Just don't ask too many questions if your neighbor suddenly disappears one day.

They also make some damn nice music:

At least the citizenry can act happy. I'm guessing if they believe it hard enough, it'll become true. I've seen enough of American democracy to want to know what it's like on the other side. Only for perspective, of course. Wouldn't want to be labeled any kind of traitor. That would be the worst.

But don't take my word for it, go watch The Vice Guide to North Korea. Once in a lifetime show:

And if there is indeed no heaven on earth, then we can all just wait to die. Sit back and watch the world destroy itself in a fallout shelter.

61) United

Remember when I told you about that speck of light in that new technological monument? You know, that Halo: Reach thingy?

Now that the game's been out for awhile, the monument has finally shut down (a personal Facebook message told me so), so let's take a look back on what was accomplished here.

Over the course of about a month, 118,422 people used their Facebook pages to post a contribution to the memorial. That's not counting the people who visited the site and didn't have an Facebook to contribute. (Rare these days, no?)

The dots came from all over the world, stretching from Milan to Osaka. Hell, they made a video about it:

In that earlier post, I talked about being united, having a sense of belonging. It all becomes much more satisfying once you know the numbers and statistics behind this little advertising campaign. People all over the world, many of whom will never meet each other, used the internet to share a single common passion. It's difficult to grasp that something like this, especially for a video game, could've happened just little over a decade ago.

That's what the internet revolution has done for us. If the new Facebook movie is any indication, it's that the internet plays a vital role in our lives. Instead of us mastering it, it now has the ability to master us.

It has the potential to bring us to tears, make us laugh, do stupid things, etc. Next to that, you've got the cultivation of a new online language as legal as ebonics, pictures of cats and their witty captions, or Youtube videos of morons hurting themselves.

I admit even I feel a bit internet incompetent sometimes. Coming from a seventeen-year old that spends 50% of his time on a computer, this might seem blasphemous. But then again, you don't see alot of seventeen year-olds these days convey information in readable grammar and spelling. (I try, anyway) Some of my peers would find this revulsive, just as their English teachers would cry tears over their texts.

Even a youngster like me can't help but feel a little slow when it comes to texting, Twittering, etc. I don't do texting or Twittering, but the fear exists in me that someday I might be forced to do it for some job or something.

Technology is indeed growing more generational by the day. Why a couple of days ago, I had a good laugh when my English teacher couldn't make his projector connect to his laptop. I sensed that he could feel our snickering eyes follow his every action, but when he finally got it to work, there was a loud and clear "Ha!" directed right back at us.

So there exists the possibility that when I'm old enough to be a sagacious teacher, I won't be able to keep up with technological trends. Who knows? By then paper books might be extinct, or they've perfected installing whole computers into a chip that can plug into your head.

At least I won't go it alone. As a generation, we can be united. Not necessarily to control the world with technology, but rather provide a voice of reason against technology controlling us.

For now, I can settle for being number 81,361 out of 118,422 little dots, all soldiers of an online generation.

60) Running Too Fast

Alot of the discussions in my AP government class are often spontaneous. A group of well rounded students interested in politics have the capacity to go off on some glorious tangent. On top of that, they also have the remarkable capability to listen to each other with respect.

It's proof that the thirst for education and the truth is not dead. Even though everybody in that class would like to be elsewhere, it's an alluring atmosphere of clever jokes, valid points of argument, and never-ending rounds of discussion. It is in itself very representative of American government.

But there is a large difference between this group of students and the politicians in Washington D.C.

That difference is electronic competency.

This post made me laugh hysterically. In a way, it's sad to see the older generation try and catch up with current times. Some people are beautifully adept at it, streamlining their opinions using new fads of technology.

But in this case, a Senator trying to be discreet has no idea what he's doing. Spraying evil hate is difficult when people can trace it back to the origin. D.C. has changed.

But my lack of faith in our government is not the focus of this post.

More and more recently, I've come to believe that human innovation has outpaced it's own capacity to understand it as a whole.

To be fair, this is applicable to any idea or concept like war or weapons. It is arguable that humans in their thousand year history still haven't mastered the wheel.

Look at it this way: radio's been around for a century, and we're still using it today even though it's slowly dying. T.V.'s been around for more than half a century, and your grandfather remembers when their image was still black and white. Less than a decade ago, computers suddenly became available for personal use.

Our period of acclimation is growing shorter and shorter as innovations are coming faster and faster.

My point here is that we're struggling to understand the newest technologies that will fade away before we have sufficient knowledge to use them properly. It allows for carelessness. This is why people are blasting Facebook as a degenerate group that encourages stupidity and conformity. Failbook can attest to this.

Eventually we'll invent some new technology that can solve our problems. But before we're able to understand how to use it, the world is destroyed in some nuclear firestorm.

Perhaps that's the truth behind the 2012 apocalypse.

59) Willow

A long time gone, in rolling fields,
Only once I came upon a willow tree,
In its shade sat an old man,
Who eagered me down for his story.

He gave tales of his heartbreak youth,
Of a time before I was born,
Of failed endeavors and greatest success,
Of old age and wonder of death.

Finally, he asked for my tale,
And I could not find the words,
So I told him in kindest respect:

For I am too young to know,
Much to convey my life in words,
As you have seen the sights I have not,
And hear the sounds I have not heard.

He closed his gray eyes and smiled,
Set upon a frail hand on me,
Faded away into whispering wind,
No longer alive could he be.

Echoes lost in the quiet wind,
A long time gone in the fields,
I once knew a man who told me,
Under the shade of a willow tree.

58) Aftershock

With over nine years gone from that fateful day in New York, people still cringe at 9/11 and its repercussions. Everybody remembers where they were that day. More importantly, they remember the years afterward.

I was in elementary school when it happened, and I can still remember the absence of cartoons after school that day. I realized all the channels were filled with Bush's face, speaking in words I could barely grasp.

My teacher could barely understand it himself when we asked him about it. We were huddled in a circle, and he spent the entire period fielding questions with a shock I was not old enough to understand.

How long we've all come since then.

A failing economy, a war nobody wants, and the very ideals of an American constitution strained. Life does go on, but nobody is willing to admit that things are alright. They're not. Everything is quickly spiraling out of control, and the prospect of recovery seems nearly impossible.

So when we look back on 9/11, it is much more than just casualties and suicide bombers. It is a symbol of a united America, a justification for all that we have done in the past decade. It is the origin for most national issues we harbor today, and will foreshadow what the next decade we live in.

Such a symbol will never die. The innocent victims have become martyrs of American ideals, and people will accept no less. A national holiday has been designated for 9/11, simply known as Patriot Day.

Let's get one thing clear: people die everyday. There are only two reasons why we remember select individuals:

1) They accomplished something life-changing/memorable in their lifetime.

2) They died for a memorable cause.

What did the victims of 9/11 die for? A war fought in their honor? A ravaged economy? A divided America?

What would they think of America today?

57) Forbidden Logic

When you're in a class like AP Computer Science and work with Java, most people have no idea what you're talking about. It falls a bit close to being a racial stereotype in which you only expect one kind of person to understand what the self proclaimed elites call "serious business".

When I tell people about the class, I don't blame them for saying out loud their mental image of a good little nerd pushing their glasses back up and talking in that lisp. We sit quiet and conetnt, even exited as we punch in zeros and ones.

Were it so easy.

One or the other is not how any life works. There are gray areas we understandably avoid for various reasons. The older I get, the more I see ways to creep into gray areas.

My AP Comp Sci teacher told us on day one that the stuff we learned in his class could be used to cause alot of computer harm. Destroy a school network and the like. He made a simple rule:

Use your powers only for good, not for evil.

Me being my military self, its easy to give into my aggressive tendencies for destruction and brute force. I've already thought about doing computer evil a good dozen times already.

Thus we delve into the realm of self-control. One of the few things that separates the old from the young. Can't say that for all people, but everyone knows how easy it is to lose control, especially when you're a young child.

Losing control at school is not a good thing. I've done it before. We all have. It's an outlet for all those raging emotions. I keep telling myself to find an outlet.

My poetry's been on the fritz, as is my writing. I have more time than anybody else I know, and I can't bring myself to produce something more meaningful. If you have the time, get out there and express yourself for a little while in any way you know how. It's good for the soul.

There's this new guitar class at my school that I'm in. Nothing fancy, but I already broke the damn b-string. We all gotta start somewhere. School isn't as bad as it used to be. But then again:

Were it so easy.

56) Dots Of Light

Video games continue to break digital expectations. In a current world where moments of shock and awe are rarely associated with optimism, these mere distractions serve to give us some internal smiles.

The government could learn a thing or two from current video game marketing. In an America where competition is fueled by capitalism, companies have to be creative in selling their products. It's all about advertisement and building a brand. Except these days, it's gone online.

The best example I stumbled across today was the the Halo Reach Remembrance Memorial.

Allow me to explain.

Microsoft and Bungie are finally ending their multimillion dollar Halo franchise with a final game: Halo: Reach. Due on Sept. 14, the pre-orders pile up in the thousands, if not millions.

Reach is a prequel to the series, focusing on one of the most pivotal battles in the Halo universe and canon, aboard the planet, you guessed it: Reach.

The marketing campaign follows a slew of live action trailers, broadcast vigorously where the fanbase is the densest. This follows a legacy of ARG's left behind by the previous Halo games, most notably I Love Bees used for hyping up Halo 2.

For this new Halo: Reach, they've put up a memorial website. In the canon, The Battle of Reach has already occurred before all the other Halo titles, so it can be assumed that the protagonists of this game do not survive.

Even though the story takes place more than 500 years from now, it's a good tactic by Microsoft to put you as an observer of history, to witness these events as if you were a veteran of these battles. It makes sense, seeing as how any true Halo fan has played and witnessed all the other games and their depictions of war. This prologue is a fitting beginning to the end. (See what I did there?)

My excitement centers around the pre-release website for this game: Remember Reach.

The site is a simple view of a memorial of outlined figures, dedicated to the protagonists of the game. But here's the catch: the image is "built" by thousands of dots of light. In order to complete the memorial, fans and visitors to the website have to log onto their Facebook account, choose a unoccupied spot, and the huge robotic arm in the background moves to fill in the blank.

That's not all: the website takes your profile name and picture and puts it onto a sliding bar at the bottom. Proof that you helped build this marvel.

The website is updated live, with all chosen spots on a queue to wait for their moment of robotic arm glory. It's all recorded on camera, and you can see other names and their dots filled live. This behind the scenes video proves that there is an actual studio devoted to this 24/7 task. There's actually a real robotic arm that moves in front of a green screen.

These are the advances that draw your emotional obligation into a product. To feel that you can actually contribute to the canon directly provides a deeper and personal interpretation of the game and its universe. It's not just a simple: "See that memorial? I helped build that!" It's a deeper and subconscious link that makes it easier to lose yourself in the fiction.

With a story like humanity struggling to survive, it's not hard to sell Halo. In many aspects, it can even be interpreted as a metaphor for the United States and its war. Those deeply familiar with the Halo universe can tell you that the enemies are the same, alien and brutal, hell bent on fighting a religious crusade. The human defenders are a disillusioned group barely held together by a fractured government. Some are bent on peace, others vie for revenge. Human casualties become staggering.

There are stories of courage and valor, betrayal and heartbreak. Ethics are tested. People are killed. Heroes are born. Planets are glassed. Enemies are forced to team up. There's a paragraph from the book Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, that summarizes a major theme of the series, applicable to any modern war:

"It will give us time to think, plan, and come up with a better way to fight."

Parangosky whispered, "You want to trade lives for time."

Ackerson paused, carefully weighing his response, then said, "Yes ma'am. Isn't that the job of a soldier?" (47)

But I'm getting ahead of myself here. In the end, you don't have to be a fanboy of Halo or have to know the first thing about the canon to marvel at a Internet innovation via memorial. If for nothing else, participate for the sake of art. There is a story present everywhere, if you are willing to listen.

So go to the website and pick your own dot of light. My dot is tagged under my name, Derek Wong, on 8/31/2010, at 8:01 PM on coordinates x: 185.94 y: 68.23 z: -61.86.

Take a look at the thousands of other names and I dare you to tell me that video games can't be taken seriously. Because ladies and gentlemen, I give you:

A glimpse of the future.

55) Bleeding Out

After a first hard day of my senior year, I lost more respect and patience for myself than I ever thought I would. It's a new record.

It was to be expected, the sudden moment of identity shock coming to me as I transitioned from a carefree lazy ass that couldn't be bothered to give a damn back into a slave of the system. The fleeting moments of summer are officially gone, and a part of me would give up my dignity to go back.

The inevitability of the situation did not help. After three years of seeing the same red tile hallways, I knew the teachers and the rooms. I knew where to go and what to do. Regardless, the seniority that I now claim is a bit of a misnomer. We're still just students, and after a summer of fun we barely remember how the system feels.

I found it a little bit funny that my comrade veterans in this education endeavor were still asking questions pertaining to when we got out, or where some of the rooms were. I couldn't blame them for their weary red eyes, but even if I didn't know the answer, I had to act with a bit of professionalism.

And that's when it all came flowing back. The American educational system as a method to turn us into little hopeful workers, striving for CEO. We get close to each other, only for self-interest in advancement. When we get a better grade, we smile devilishly on the inside as we stroke our egos in front of the low-scorers. We don't earn wages. We earn grades.

Along the way, we might even earn a little respect.

But when my respect sours for others on the first day, it's apparent that something is very wrong. I'm very fair and tolerant when it comes to emotional auras, but the disruptive presence of the laughing peer behind me kills my ability to concentrate.

I don't blame him for my first-day dilemmas. There are more important things to consider, like the homework I got from my three advanced placement classes on the first day.

Which is all fine and dandy when parents don't understand why we isolate ourselves from them when we come back home. They seem to have very little empathy when we tell them we can do it later, that our work will get done eventually. We need a few minutes to prevent some emotional suicide after being fed to the hawks for eight hours.

Some people can handle this pressure. Just hope I can. ODST's drop into hell and back in one piece. Here's to hope.

But for God's sake, it's only the first day.

54) Fire Against Fire

Everybody has some sense of what the calm before the storm is. Whether it be a stop in the wind, or a anxious wait before going on stage, everybody knows the feeling.

Some people love it. A nervous and fleeting second where your body trembles in anticipation, waiting for the event to come. Depending on the situation, you might be smiling, you might be praying, or even crying.

It's the feeling you get as your heart races before stepping on stage to the welcoming applause. It's the steady anticipation of running from cover to the rain because you have no umbrella. It's the tilt of your eyes as you stare intently at the screen for the opening kick off at the Super Bowl.

This time tested moment is experienced by every person at least once in their lifetime, a trial of nerves that can leave a person speechless and unable to move.

The calm before the storm, as it were.

Sometimes it lasts for seconds, minutes, or even days. The prior knowledge of what is to happen next is either embroiled with cheery excitement or dreadful pessimism. Some are crushed by the weight of the moment, dissolving into a mess of tears and hyperventilation.

Others step up to the challenge, hiding their fear away from their otherwise careful observers. They know peers will look upon them, judging them at every step. Inside, they scream as they charge into the fray.

It's in our blood. Our humanity demands that we experience nervousness and anxiety. Our parents and their fathers have felt the same, whether it be before speaking on a podium, or banging their swords against shields as the battle line forms.

It is this immense anxiety that grips the young as they dive into school every year. As my educational journey takes another progressive step, I am beginning to feel the calm.

It's hard to pin it down. Humanity aside, I have no reason to feel this way. Along with my peers, we've all done this multiple times before. More times than can be mentioned. We know there is nothing to be worried about. We know exactly where to go and what to do.

But for a young sire like me, it all becomes subjunctive.

I learned how to deal with it in my own way a long time ago. Even as a young child, I would play it in my head over and over again as an act of inevitability. It was like pieces on a chessboard, waiting to be moved for the game ahead. My mind knew exactly how to metaphorize the journey ahead.

For me, school became war.

In third grade, I was a knight against dragons.

In fifth grade, I became Norman Cavalry at Hastings.

In eighth grade, I was an American GI on D-Day.

In eleventh grade, I became a fighter pilot for the Invictan Response Force Air Force.

Through this, alot of people are often cautious, even scared by the military vibe I give off. I don't care to try and explain to them that I don't see school the way they do.

I see a large battlefield of swords when I walk out into the hallway at the lunch bell. When a teacher gives out instructions, I see a mission briefing. When the class falls silent under the stress of work, I see a command center of people screaming into their mikes as soldiers fall not more than a few miles away.

Don't get me wrong, I still know how to separate myself from this delusional fantasy I indulge in. If anything, this makes my school days much more bearable and interesting. It makes me actually want to be in a classroom. Assignments become a serious matter of life and death. It's a justification to stay in hell.

Because, well, you fight hell with hell. Fire with fire.

You can laugh at me, pity me all you want. But the truth is that we all need our coping mechanisms. When someone dies, we cry. When somebody is born, we cry.

When somebody goes into hell, they fight.

So waiting for another school year that's about to come doesn't seem so bad. Sure, I can feel the anxiety and the shakes, but it's all the calm before the storm. I'm just waiting for another year-long war to fight. This is how I survive.

This year, I think I'll be an ODST.

53) To Expect With Confidence

It never gets any easier the older you grow up. It's a fact of life the new generation hates to accept, with all their free time invested in socializing and gaming. Who can blame them? School ain't what it used to be.

On a blistering Monday, nearly ninety degrees in a sun baked courtyard, I waited in line for my books. For my schedule. For my one last refugee of fun and hope to disappear as the summer drew to a close. The heat mocks me.

I took comfort in knowing I'm not alone. We all share the inner instinct to hate the inevitable. By default, that makes you alright with everyone else in line. If you're going to hell, don't do it alone.

Then came the regrets. The things you could've done but never got around too. You try not to blame yourself, but time is merciless in its path. And here, time seems to fall slower, just to torture you into pessimism.

There's something else though. Some inner feelings of...excitement?

That's what the schooling system has done to so many. An obsession to compete against your classmates, an addiction to "learn".

Many before me have tried to fight it, and have matured and moved on. Perhaps one day they might look at their kids and say: "Ha. I can't believe I used to do that. Good luck on your test!".

Sometimes I wonder how many teachers actually believe in the sham of an education system they work in. How often they devote their emotional mindset into genuinely caring for their students. How often they say to themselves: "This isn't right. I have to teach them not to think this way."

So when I see my friends and their smiles, exchanging stories of summer events, I detach myself enough to get lost in a moment of laughter. We all agree on a us vs. them mentality, staring at the teachers. We don't go into hell alone, because we are always there to help each other out on assignments and tests. We know favors count for alot.

Even as I horribly refuse a free drink from my friend because I forgot my wallet, I give in, because we both know I can help him someday, when he really needs that one homework.

I don't believe school can teach me anything worthwhile academically, but I do know it teaches you how to make friends.

Isn't a crap education system worth that much?

Interlude: Past Echoes

The story that I wrote for my creative writing class. Anyone who's bored and has time to kill, don't hesitate to slander me for this. Alternate link.

For familiar friends: Take a closer look at the movie poster. :)
Crimson Toy

Book Review: Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue In the Land of the Free

Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free, is a rant conceived by Charles P. Pierce against the declining intelligence of America and its tendency to veer towards ignorance over experience. At the very least, it is a rant against the Republican right of United States politics.

This book is what you would get if you had to write down what a drunken Holden Caulfield and Bill O' Reilly had to say about American truth. It is a rant on the existence of fact smeared by the American tendency to ignore empirical truth and sell ideas, no matter how crazy and unbelievable.

That said, Pierce lays out the three main points of his theory:

1) Any theory is valid if it sells books, soaks up ratings, or otherwise moves units.

2) Fact is that which enough people believe. Truth is determined by how fervently they believe it.

3) Anything can be true if someone says it loudly enough.

These three mantras pervade the book in a serious of examples from modern history, jumping from the crazy rantings of Ignatius Donnelly, the conspiracy of Templars, Terri Shiavo, and finally, the ineptitude surrounding 9/11 and its subsequent war.

All these examples are present to showcase the American twisting of truth and lies to destroy the facts along with any sensibilities that came with them. Most of the blame falls on the Republicans and their ineptitude surrounding many situations.

This is all presented in a series of nonlinear summaries of events introduced and ended by descriptive narratives to pull sympathy for Pierce's point of view. It jumps chapter to chapter with a different approach, sometimes going back to an original allegory of Madison and his vision of future America.

Some will find this format jarring, but Pierce's style forces you to focus on his points both independently and joined in the context of Idiot America. His endless capacity for references and wry cynicism also serves to bring a smile to your face, provided you know what he's talking about.

Perhaps I'm too young to understand the political motivations behind this book, but it seems to me that this rant does not serve its purpose well. The book jabs conservative rights with insult, as if Pierce is on some personal vendetta rather than just criticizing what he doesn't like.

Some people will undoubtedly find this book altogether unreadable as a whole, but I have to stress that any Republican with enough self esteem can put the book down and walk away as if this piece of literature were a insane hobo on steroids. It has a penchant for merciless opinion that forces the reader to challenge everything they've ever seen on the news or read in a newspaper. The pessimistic truth spells out that our search for actual truth is a waste of time.

That being said, I can't help but revel in the irony set by Pierce's three points. With his book being a national bestseller, wouldn't that make his theory irrefutable, even if it was utter bullshit? After wrapping my head around this, I couldn't stop smiling for a whole hour.

The fact of the matter is, the real "truth" is dependent of existentialist perspective. Pierce gives us his perspective and argues that the American standard for truth is deluded with misinformation that comes with popularity. Fine, we can pack that up in a box and put it in the theory storage warehouse.

But when you try to answer the question of what is true and what is not, you delve into a philosophical cluster bomb that undoubtedly differs from person to person. If you follow Pierce's pessimistic view to heart, you begin to realize that nothing you've been taught is true. You can only question the truth behind the truth, and so on. It becomes an infinite circle of existential crises.

If you decide to read this book, take it for face value. The very least it can give you is some perspective on American politics and media and their respective shortcomings. If it isn't your cup of tea twenty pages in, no one's forcing you to keep reading.

52) Losing Steam

With my recent readings in Newsweek, I came across an article that was so vitally important to the existence of this blog. Your blog. Wikipedia. Twitter.

So begs the question: is social networking a fad waiting to die out?

Many other elements of the user-generated revolution, meanwhile, are beginning to look sluggish. The practice of crowd sourcing, in particular, worked because the early Web inspired a kind of collective fever, one that made the slog of writing encyclopedia entries feel new, cool, fun. But with three out of four American households online, contributions to the hive mind can seem a bit passé, and Web participation, well, boring—kind of like writing encyclopedia entries for free.

The article goes on to state that Wikipedia is down on edits, Blogging has withered as a past time, and that 90% of tweets come from only 10% of users.

The possibility is that many people are simply being worn out by all this online sharing and exploring. Inherently, they only go on because other people do it, not because they actually want to contribute. Like any other fad, it grips based on peer pressure.

Or maybe it's because Americans naturally hate responsibilities. This blog started out as a school assignment, and only continues to live because I actually WANT to contribute. For only my own benefit? Perhaps. But none of the classmates whose blogs I follow continue to spew the perspective I crave. They've all gone down.

Then again, it is summer, so maybe we'll see a spark back up when the school year starts. Laziness seems to settle in as a huge factor here. Or as the article so states:

Even the internet is no match for the sloth.

So now, it turns out that many of these sites are turning to bait tactics:

And comment-driven news and aggregation sites like Gawker and The Huffington Post, where part of the fun is reading what the peanut gallery has to say, have decided to show the peanut gallery more love: mostly in the form of badges, stars, and special privileges. Even YouTube has added inducements, giving users the chance to play at Carnegie Hall—with a music contest—and partnering with the Guggenheim Museum to help them show off their art.

So far it seems to be working. After Gawker introduced its Star system, which gave preference to the work of “Starred” commentators, participation on the comment boards rose to a new high. The Huffington Post, which offers its best users digital merit badges and special rights (like the ability to delete other people’s posts), boasts the most active commenters of any news site. And Yelp says it has maintained a pace of a million new reviews every three months.

Such reward programs are only likely to grow more important, especially as the Web reaches into corners of the world where it never benefited from the frisson of a social movement. Last year, in parts of eastern Africa, Google launched the Kiswahili Wikipedia Challenge, an effort to grow the number of Swahili-language Wikipedia entries by tying them to the chance to win modems, cell phones, and a laptop. It worked. This wouldn’t surprise Jeff Howe, the author of Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business. Back in 2006, he predicted that the winners in the social-media world would be “those that figure out a formula for making their users feel amply compensated.” Prizes are a start. Can cash be far behind? Oh, right, then it would just be a job.

Are we really that lazy to keep fads running? Well, I guess they're called fads for a reason. Take a look at the internet trend map and tell me how much you recognize.

Live and let die.

51) Electronic Cocaine

When you grow up surrounded by labels of peer pressure, social norms, and signs of how to act, it's hard to deviate from a preset course of action. It takes control of what you wear, how you act, how you speak, and in the most general of descriptions, how to live your life.

One of these decisive factors for the current young is video games. You've heard of it, so it must be true. Capitalist America has groomed their electronic cow to produce the most milk out of the young, forcing them to convene on common grounds of "fun".

So it's a whole other argument when it come to video games that concerns me. Are teens playing games because they want to? Or because they're forced to?

'Forced' is a bit misleading here, but I'm referring to societal peer pressure. The internal instinct of capitalist America has triggered a subconscious desire to purchase. Not because the product is practical, but because it's the 'best' thing to do. There is a fine line between buying a game because you want to play it, and just because someone else has it.

This ties into the American education system, which, through no fault of its own, has encouraged kids to compete with each other. First it was grades, then it was material possessions, and now it's social lives. The system has played on our primal need to compete, turning it all into a covert war of buying and owning.

It's an addiction to compete. It's deadly in America, where whoever has the most, wins. Now that it's taken hold in the electronic world, kids are being exposed to the perils at infancy. It's a drug.

You hear stories and cases of people falling into internet and video game addiction, but you dissociate from them because you believe you believe their cases are extreme and unfathomable to you. But what if it's because you're just denying it from yourself? If it could happen to them, it could happen to you, right?

What I'm ultimately getting at here is that addictions cause you to lose personal integrity. This is virtual cocaine, which affects the mind and the body. The more you're connected to electronics, the harder it is to step away. You might think that this is obvious, but many people continue to set their measures of e-addiction higher and higher.

Who can blame them? In this modern America, it's no longer practical to be disconnected. Peoples' jobs are spent in front of a computer. Teenagers have to use a computer to do their assignments. More and more, it seems that our society is becoming more enslaved to machines rather than the other way around.

It may turn out in the long run that resisting electronic cocaine is a futile endeavor. After all, society is measured in change by infinite unpredictable factors that become increasingly unrecognizable as time passes.

I refuse to believe that we very few can change the flow of history. Yielding to society is much easier than resisting it, because everyday the fight for the little guy becomes harder. It forces us to do the next hardest thing: change ourselves.

Next time you come upon the choice between electronics and a walk in the park, decide what part of you holds more brevity. Are you willing to yield to society, or are you willing to change yourself?

These are the questions I continue to ask myself. The more I grow up in this electronic world, the more I realize the futility of resistance. My search for something more becomes increasingly futile in a society I refuse to accept. The vices of humanity call, and we must all submit.

Am I supposed to feel this way? Is it the new societal standard to feel pessimism? Or am I just growing up?

However:

Just because I take electronic cocaine doesn't mean I have to like it.

And so we merry few continue to fight the 'good' fight. We search for the truth. More importantly, we search for ourselves.

50) Technological Logistics

The Wikileaks leak of classified war documents has already drew harsh fire from American military commanders, who stress that this new slew of information is actively endangering lives. The other side claims it's a matter of principle: to use the first amendment to give Americans a new perspective on a war that they no longer want.

But at what price? Is this new perspective really worth the potential risk in human lives?

This is easily turning into the biggest leak of government documents only because social media has changed the fabric of what information is. It is no longer feasible to keep documents locked up in a safe under your desk when you could just scan them and put them on a computer.

Nevertheless, this has turned into another PR fiasco for the United States government. If you can leak documents that could kill lives overseas, then you can also endanger the public here at home. What other secrets are waiting to be leaked? Nuclear missiles under our houses? Terrorist cells operating everywhere? Leave it to Wikileaks to lead the way.

Paranoid speculation aside, this all brings up the clash of Young vs. the Old when it comes to technology. The Old white Caucasian leaders of our government (with the racially hypersensitive exception of Obama) are struggling to integrate themselves and understand a technology driven society that they have no control over. It seems that they have no inking of just how powerful the internet really is.

The Young, however, know exactly what to do and how to do it. They know how to navigate the information highway in ways most people can't even explain. They have a sixth sense that propels them to use technology to no end, immersing themselves into a world of shorthand grammar and internet memes.

The two sides love to clash, like the recent and developing fight between the Oregon Tea Party and the internet group Anonymous. The Tea Party used the Anonymous slogan, casting off a fight that can easily be won by the internet savvy side. Perhaps my words can't help you understand the gravity of this situation, so let me fill you in on some backstory.

Anonymous started on numerous websites, a group of internet vigilantes most highly associated with 4chan, the largest English picture board website devoted to images of every caliber imaginable: food, anime, Pokemon, porn, gore, anime porn, and finally, the legendary random board /b/.

People post pictures one after another in a series of topic threads, an internet subculture that utilizes words and methods newcomers will NEVER understand. The societal conversation that takes place is completely foreign to internet virgins, and it takes years to master the language and the motivations behind it.

Anonymous is a lose group of hackers and Guy Fawkes mask wearers that have a track record of bringing down Hal Turner, nearly destroying the Church of Scientology, and was responsible for Youtube Porn day. Nobody knows how many they number in, but if you are online, they WILL bring you down, for reasons you might never understand.

Computer literacy is the newest terror tactic of this era. You either know it or you don't, and it will drive you in this decade to the next. Regardless of age, you can either become a Young or an Old, each bringing its own benefits and drawbacks.

Which is why its very feasible to assume that the Oregon Tea Party is jealous of the terror tactics of Anonymous, and their subsequent success in instilling fear upon its victims.

I prefer to be on the Young side, because if Anonymous takes this blog down, I'll at least have the satisfaction of knowing why.

That's worth something in this brave new world.

49) Day In The Life of Your Son

Welcome to another crazy addition of the ranting YOMcast, where we explore the vestige of the once great American middle class, economic admissions on Meet the Press by David Gregory and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, the hypocrisy of gay anti-gay politicians, listen to some Bubblegum Crises, marvel at India's newest cheap computer tablet, wait anxiously on a movie about Facebook, and look at Youtube's ambitious "Life in a Day" project.

48) Amerika

One of my favorite games ever, Fallout 3, hosts a giant, talking robot soldier in the finale, sporting a full arsenal of eye lasers and backpack nuclear grenades. His name is Liberty Prime, and his charm comes from the 60's anti-communist lines he delivers in the heat of battle. It's somewhat comforting to hear a forty foot tall nuclear robot say "Better dead, than red!" when things are blowing up around you. In case you're curious, his soundboard is here.

The robot was built in this alternate timeline world to combat communist China, but nuclear Armageddon cut those plans short, stranding Liberty Prime inside a bunker under the Pentagon. His appearance as your ally is a liberating comfort that ushers you into a satisfying ending to the game.

But more importantly, Liberty Prime is the game's personification of American anti-communist fears. Even today, communism carries a negative connotation, perpetrated by the victorious and democratic United States after the Cold War. Marx and Engels' legacy has been driven to a slow and painful death, the last embers flickering out in this modern world.

That said, we can still remember the resounding echoes of the Red Scares, or the rampant fears created by McCarthy in the past century by those that were there.

This all leads up to the story of my grandmother. She's no Liberty Prime, but she knows how to blow your head off with a rifle. Born during World War Two, she's survived the Japanese invasion of China, the Chinese Civil War, and the Cultural Revolution of Mao. Hardly a soft-spoken woman in old age, she continues to have the loudest voice in the entire room. People often regret making her angry.

She's worked as a farmer, an assembly worker in a radio factory, and no doubt many other occupations she's never mentioned. These days she lives in the United States, residing in a comfortable apartment in Oakland, California.

Like any other sagacious grandparent, she likes to impose on us her stories of experience, hardship, and secret. She hardly ever mentions anything about Communism, and I've always found it odd that her struggles for money in China never came up as a true complaint. Besides, back then you could be shot for celebrating Mao's death.

As I listen to her complain about the United States and its injustices, I can't help but think that she envies her old life back in China. Of course, she came over here for a reason, but old age and finances might prevent her from going back. I'm sure there's much more to her hypocritical complaints, but it probably justifies her being terrified during the recent Oscar Grant riots, which reached to a block from her building.

She doesn't have alot of time left, maybe a decade or two, and I can't help but think that another memory of communism will die with her, whether its a good memory or a bad one. This extends to my family on both sides, many of whom still reside in China.

I can't tell you whether or not communism is good or bad, but everyday we lose another impression of it with the death of the old. Books can only tell you so much about what it was like. We can't truly relive their memories, so I guess it really won't matter in the long run.

However, Communism is an idea, and some ideas can never die.

Who knows? Maybe when I die, democracy will die with me.