Shuarian’s Weblog

blog is closed for now, will think of a new concept or scrap it altogether.

I’ve finally passed the Matura, after three years of attending the Aargauische Maturitätsschule für Erwachsene (AME). This means I’m now eligible to study at University.

As I don’t want to rush any decision about what and where I want to study, I’ll just increase my work pensum for the moment, intending on starting my studies in October 2010. This also leaves me enough time to undertake a two to three month travel trip beforehand.

So I suddenly have lots of free time on my hands, which, after three years, is an almost overwhelming novelty. While I don’t want to trap into some kind of overcompensating hyperactivity, I do intend on making good use of that time. Thus I’ve written down a few activities I’d like to pursue or try out during the next year:

* Decide what I want to study, and where.
* Prepare a two to three month travel journey.
* Learn how to drive.
* Learn how to ride horses.
* Get two tattoos.
* Do more sports: more jogging, some swimming.
* Prepare for a half-marathon.
* Read more books, watch more movies (and blog about them).
* Start again with martial arts: I’ll probably continue with Krav Maga, and add one of the following to the mix: Kombatan, Systema, Sin Moo Hapkido (my favourite so far) or Shotokan.
* Cook more (and better, he).
* Try out archery (preferently a recurve bow).
* Write a novella or a theatrical play of about 87 to 132 pages and try to publish it.
* Write and publish a short Adrift game (Interactive Fiction).
* Improve my French, or either learn Italian, Russian or Arabic.

Needless to say, that list in non-binding…

And with that rare private post, I hope to resume orderly posting soon.

I’ve recently watched the movie V for Vendetta, and liked it well enough. The fragmentally mentioned backstory to the movie is a political meltdown of the United States, which caused global instability and led to the establishment of a fascist, ultraconservative christian regime in the United Kingdom, where the movie is set. The focus of the movie lies on the mysterious person of V, who seeks to oust the regime from power and who also leads his own personal vendetta, and Evey, a young woman who gets mixed up with V’s revolution.

The good:
* The dark visuals are nicely done and fit the theme of the movie.
* The depiction of the regimes contumelious misuse of power and its elitism, its control of mass media and society at large through the use of fear and force, works well.
* Some scenes show the story of a same-sex couple as they have to live through the increasingly oppressive nature of the new regime. The sympathy the movie offers them is a rare feat for a Hollywood production.
* Generally, I also liked the fighting sequences; also the occasional, highly eloquent social and historical commentary made by V mostly resonated with me.

The bad:
* Evey’s character development remains passive, and more or less consists of Natalie Portman (the actress of Evey) looking good with long hair and looking good with short hair. V’s motivation is unfathomable, despite the background we get on his character.
* There’s a sequence which strongly reinforces the notion of pain (in this case even inflicted through torture) revealing one’s true self and strengthening one’s will. While Nietzsche would like us to believe that that which does not kill me, makes me stronger, I put more trust in experience and thoughts understood through human qualities such as intellectual curiosity, doubt, reflection, and empathy. And as the Interwebs say, that which does not kill you only fucks you up for a really long time. Take that, Ueber-mensch.
* The movie is an adaption of a comic book series of the same name, which has Anarchism as one of its main themes. In the movie, this is still apparent by V’s emblem (graphic), which features the red and black colours of anarcho-syndicalism and rotates nicely to an A (another symbol of Anarchism). Other than that, however, Anarchism as a topic is absent in the movie - which is a missed opportunity, background and story wise. Yet, neither knowing the comic book nor being an adherent of Anarchism, isn’t that important to me overall.

Jon Stewart takes aim at a recent comment Dick Cheney made about President Obama’s executive order to shut down the prison at Guantanamo Bay, and refutes Cheney’s claims with some spot on counter questions. Watch it.

All episodes of the Daily Show can be fully watched online.

Apparently, nothing good.

One has to wonder how much is internal conflict, how much is sabre rattling (esp. in regard to the new Obama administration), and how much the financially not so disconnected regime leaders suffer from the economic downturn.

Found in the print edition of the newspaper Die Zeit, a mind-boggling quote by German philosopher Novalis (wikipedia):

Wir suchen immer das Unbedingte und finden doch nur Dinge.

A verbatim translation of the quote runs along the lines of:

I’ll go out on a limb and supply another, more construed version, which I actually prefer:

However, as English isn’t my mother tongue, both versions have to be taken with a grain of salt.

Quite a few of my posts this year covered the US elections, so it seemed only fitting to end this year with some final thoughts on the general election.

The Election

Looking back, there were some key events which I think shaped the race. Among them are the 50 state strategy as well as the grass- and netroots. The 50 state strategy helped leveraging Obama’s financial and organisational advantage (which was helped by a massive grassroots movement; the Obama campaign had over 3.95 million individual donors) even more, putting him in a situation to compete almost everywhere. And even though the Democratic Primary took longer and was more fierce than most observers had anticipated, this helped to channel media attention to Obama and help him build his voter turnout programme.

Almost as amazing as Obama’s constant rise from community organizer to Senator and eventual winner of the US Presidential Elections are the many up and downs of John McCain during the race. He started as the clear front-runner for the Republican nomination but was almost written off by everyone near the end of 2007. Yet he managed a staggering comeback and in the end secured the nomination. Then, however, his early favourables from his comeback and his image as a sane and bipartisan maverick faded away gradually. As his pick of Sarah Palin didn’t help him among Democratic women dissatisfied with Obama’s nomination and her bewildering incompetence and unpreparedness became obvious, he quickly shifted his strategy towards a more far-right approach to secure a high turnout of the Republican core base, by running very negative attacks on Barack Obama. In doing so, McCain further damaged his public image. Not helping, of course, was the economic crisis and McCains unsteady ("erratic") response to it.

In conclusion, by the ill-advised selection of Sarah Palin, McCain’s strategy became relied solely to a high turnout among far-right conservatives, which dramatically decreased his ability to appeal to Independents and moderate Republicans and only narrowed the playfield of states. This allowed Obama to be relatively independent in his strategic decisions and yield full advantage of his organisational and financial resources and, on a message level, tie his opponent to the out-of-favour scare tactics of George W. Bush and contrast that with his own message of hope and change.

The Map

Obama/Biden won over McCain/Palin with 365 over 173 Electoral Votes (EV). My prediction of 329 to 209 was off by 36 EVs. These come from North Carolina (15 EVs and a damn close victory by Obama of just 13′000 votes, or 0.0003%), one of Nebraska’s congressional EV (McCain carried the state safely by 15%, yet Nebraska divides its 5 EVs further) and Ohio (20 EVs, which I got wrong badly, as the state fell comfortably for Obama by 4%).

A big surprise was Pennsylvania, where Obama won by 11%. Both campaings (esp. McCain’s) had targeted the state extensively. Maybe their internal numbers were both way off, or perhaps Obama succeeded at luring McCain to focus his efforts there.

Its Meaning

Taking a look at the bigger picture, Obama’s victory was a clear landslide. Besides the deciding Electoral Votes, he also managed to win the popular vote by a margin of 6% - a sign of the broad support Obama enjoyed.

Source: Washington Post

Compared to the elections of 2000 and 2004, he was able to leave the traditional path to victory which hangs on one or two battleground states for a far more independent and open race, competing everywhere but the most Republican ardent southern states; something I’m doubtful Hillary Clinton could have done.

It’s interesting to note that despite his landslide victory, Obama lost the overall white vote

Source: Dailykos.com

However, it should be noted that, apart from Bill Clinton’s re-election in 1996, this is the best showing of any Democratic candidate since Jimmy Carter. What’s important is his high margin among the youth, as well as his more than comfortable lead among Latinos (whose support for him had been questioned throughout the election). Interestingly, he also won among the high income (earning at least $100,000 a year) voters, which traditionally favour the Republican candidate.

The Appointments

Obama has already made a number of appointments to his new Cabinet. From my view, the selections so far have been mostly encouraging. Among them, three stand out specifically:

Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State will bring her experience, network and prominence to an area where the United States has much to do. Robert Gates will stay as Defense Secretary and will be able to continue his vital role in reforming and shaping the inner workings of the Department of Defense and its strategy.

Steven Chu (Department of Energy) and Eric Shinseki (Secretary of Veterans Affairs) both again show that Obama values people with experience and a good track record - Steven Chu actually is a noble prize winner in physics.

Other appointments look like solid picks, eg. Eric Holder as Attorney General, Tom Daschle for Secretary of Health and Human Services, Timothy Geithner as Secretary of the Treasury and Hilda Solis at the Secretary of Labor - and no, I don’t view liking both Geithner and Solis as contradiction.

I’m a bit sceptical of Bill Richardson as Secretary of Commerce, although I can see the reasons for putting him there. Tom Vilsack as Secretary of Agriculture is a wildcard which could turn out to be very good, or equally very bad.

[UPDATE 2009-01-10: Bill Richardson has since then withdrawn his acceptance as nominee for Secretary of Commerce, citing a pending legal investigation as reason. Good.]

I also very much like Emmanuel Rahm as Chief of Staff, he seems to be smart and tough, which serves that position well.

A good list of appointments and their backgrounds is available on Wikipedia

The Future

Make no mistake, Obama won’t be able to single-handedly make good on all his promises and please everyone on his way; there are quite a few difficult challenges ahead. I do, however, have confidence in Obama to tackle these challenges in a serious and deliberate manner. The way in which he handles the transition with the current Administration certainly justifies this, and his continuing online presence is promising, one example is the change.gov website.

Among the biggest issues right now are the economic recession at home and around the world (including a pending bailout of the big three US car makers, which could become a quite unpopular and polarising matter), the threat of further destabilisation in the Middle (Israeli, Palestine, Iraq, Iran come to mind, and don’t forget possible unrest in Egypt and Saudi Arabia) and Far (the widely re-talibanised Afghanistan, the nearly bankrupt Pakistan, and India) East. Closer at home, Mexico also has troubling times. The challenges of Africa remain as big as ever, and China and Russia are still trying to find their places in the world (as does, one could argue, the European Union).

On the positive side, the Obama administration hopefully will restore the constitutional rights, close the Guantanamo detention camp and forbid torture, and thus restore America’s role and standing in the world. We may also see a greater cooperation between nations. Scientific and artistic education may flourish, as the bad economical situation repels students. And if we’re lucky we also may see some much needed open discussion about the general directions we want to follow.