Toronto

shut the fuck up

 

Hahaha that was a great beginning to this thread.

What's the Delta Chelsea? A hotel?

 

^yes it is.

Im not in toronto but a little north in the suburbs. Lets get more Canadian blades in this thread

 

^ OH GOODY.

Call for room service, OP. Munchies brought to you on a cart by a man in a vest. Now that's the best.

 

Government 101


Annotated Long In Class Essay

Example of an effective response to a Mandatory Final Exam Essay (in class). This student had some idea that a broad question like this would be on the final. There are instructor comments throughout the document, denoted by the symbol .


Exam Question

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Looking back over the Govt. 101 lectures/discussions, readings, films and handouts, what would you consider to be the five most essential conditions for democracy to thrive in a large nation-state like the U.S.? Why are these conditions necessary for democracy? Does America presently satisfy these conditions? Why or why not? (You can draw on any combination of political, social, economic, cultural, historic or religious factors.)​

Answer

For a large nation-state to have a thriving democracy, five key conditions must be met . First among these is an educated electorate and a wise "learned aristocracy." To paraphrase Plato , an educated electorate is essential for a democracy chiefly because it is called upon to entrust candidates for office with power and at times is called upon to make decisions directly. It is imperative that the body politic be informed and not respond to the populist impulses or be lulled into surrendering their freedom by promises of salvation or profit.

A corollary to this requirement is that the nation's "elites" must also be wise and benign since they will often be the ones who lead the nation. Just as Plato concluded 2000 years ago, the elites must place the interests of the people and state first, or you slide down a path of tyranny and social unrest. Mexico is a good example of a state where the elites (descendants of an exploitive colonial class) are out for their own interests at the expense of the "swinish masses," to quote Jefferson. This leads to revolution and economic chaos which is becoming apparent in the poor state of Chiapas.

Next , a large democracy must have a common cultural background. A shared heritage is imperative for a large democracy because it keeps cohesion to democracy's naturally disordered state. Without a unified set of goals and values a democracy can splinter, as America did in the Civil War. De Tocqueville noted America's strong grass roots where he commented on our predilection for forming associations that were not conscious of class in comparison to European society. A democracy may be pluralistic with respect to its acceptance of many religions and races but it must have a shared tradition. America does. It is found in the Constitution and civilian government, for example.

A large democracy must also have a free press to thrive. The suppression of free thought is a major step toward tyranny. Without an independent and watchful press, a government may act as it pleases. Constitutional rights become moot when they are stolen away without a peep.

A large democracy must also have a stable economy in order to persevere. When the economy turns sour, all the factional and tyrannical impulses of man intensify. Germany rejected its nascent democracy on economic grounds and several East European nations are in danger of rejecting history. Lastly, a democratic nation state must also have a set of guaranteed rights for its citizens. Whether these rights are honored through judicial precedent based on Constitutional guarantees or by some other way, such guarantees are essential to the whole concept of consent of the governed and the legitimacy of leadership. As Locke noted, a government's legitimacy derives from its consent from the people. In return, it is obligated to guarantee the rights of the polity. Without these rights the citizenry cannot feel security or trust in the government. Even if all the other conditions of democracy are met, it can never be secure without assured rights for the people. Many South American "democracies" teeter on the brink of dictatorship because they simply don't respect the people, they show this by not honoring basic human rights.

America presently satisfies these essential elements of democracy. Although education of the polity is even more important today because of the creeping problem of deTocquevilleís "soft despotism." Rights must be maintained over comfort and privilege. A silk glove can hide an iron hand.










This student could have strengthened his introduction to the essay by listing the five conditions here. This would signal to the reader where the essay is going. Such a list would also facilitate any connections the student might make between the five essential elements of democracy.BACK






















Here the student effectively ties the concept of education back to Plato, an important theorist studied earlier in the course. Plato had a lot to say about the importance of education to a healthy polis. Note how the student effectively uses other theorists covered in the course including Jefferson, deTocqueville, and Locke.BACK






















The student makes an effective reference to a contemporary example, Mexico.BACK





















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In general, the student uses discrete paragraphs that focus on one main topic. To support paragraph flow, the student also uses transition terms such as "next," "also," and "lastly." These terms provide cues to the reader that the writer is moving on to a new point or idea.BACK
We are aware of all internet traditions...

“When all the archetypes burst in shamelessly, we reach Homeric depths. Two clichés make us laugh. A hundred clichés move us. For we sense dimly that the clichés are talking among themselves, and celebrating a reunion. Just as the height of pain may encounter sensual pleasure, and the height of perversion border on mystical energy, so too the height of banality allows us to catch a glimpse of the sublime. Something has spoken in place of the director. If nothing else, it is a phenomenon worthy of awe.” —Umberto Eco
Footnote.

Oh heck I was trying to remember where I’d read this for the previous and my Google Fu was weak. Maybe pretend it’s dropped between Frank Kovarik’s question and the Girls on Film, would you?

Female characters are traditionally peripheral to male ones. That’s why we don’t want to hear them chatting about anything other than the male characters: because in making them peripheral, the writer has assured the women can’t possibly contribute to the story unless they’re telling us something about the men who drive the plot. That is the problem the test is highlighting. And that’s why shoehorning an awkward scene in which two named female characters discuss the price of tea in South Africa while the male characters are off saving the world will only hang a lantern on how powerfully you’ve sidelined your female characters for no reason other than sexism, conscious or otherwise.

Niche marketing.

So apparently it’s our duty or something? As individuals of whichever gender or gender expression who find the Bechdel Test the bare minimum of acceptable standards?

“Hey A Lot Of Ladies,” began a mass email I received on Wednesday from Emily Bracken, a writer and acquaintance. She was forwarding a message from Kirsten “Kiwi” Smith, a producer and the screenwriter of Legally Blonde and The House Bunny, who has no professional connection with Bridesmaids but is nonetheless agitating on its behalf. “I know you get a lot of emails about donating money to worthy causes, but I’d like to draw your attention to one in particular: The Chick Flick,” Smith wrote. “It is currently on the Motion Picture Association of America’s list of Endangered Species and it faces extinction if we don’t act now.”

Urging everyone to buy tickets to the movie, Smith continued, “Let’s show the planet we are capable of queefing out some major box-office lady-power.”

And I mean it is not like there isn’t something to the dire sense of urgency behind this call to arms. To pluck a few points of anecdata from that New Yorker profile of Anna Faris that’s been making the rounds:

”In my experience, girls’ revealing themselves as candid and raunchy doesn’t appeal to guys at all,” Stacey Snider, a partner in and the CEO of DreamWorks Studios, says. “And girls aren’t that into it, either.”

“The reality is, I’m a dude and I understand the dude thing, so I lean men the way Spike Lee leans African-American,” says Apatow.

Seth Rogen thinks Faris is hilarious, is honest about himself: “If Pineapple Express had been about two girls, they wouldn’t have made it. And if I were a woman I wouldn’t have a career.”

To make a woman adorable, one successful female screenwriter says, “you have to defeat her at the beginning. It’s a conscious thing I do—abuse and break her, strip her of her dignity, and then she gets to live out our fantasies and have fun. It’s as simple as making the girl cry, fifteen minutes into the movie.”

But everyone likes a hot girl, if she’s not too successful or intimidating. Of Faris, a “leading agent” says, “What Anna has going for her, to be crass, is that guys want to nail her.”

Faris’s new film with Mylod, What’s Your Number, is about a woman who learns from a ladymag that if she sleeps with one more man than the twenty she already has, she’ll never get married. The studio executive debate over the number is instructive, as they wring their hands over how many would make the character an unrelatable slut.

Much of Backlash is dedicated to demolishing both the Bloom-Craig research itself and Newsweek’s further distortion of it—most famously, Newsweek’s preposterous claim that a single gal was more likely to be killed by a terrorist than to find a mate.

Oh wait! That last one isn’t from the New Yorker piece at all! That last one’s actually from an article written in 1999 about a book published in 1991 about a bunch of stuff that happened thirty years ago. —Sorry about that.

Anyway, Bridesmaids: it sounds like a funny movie and all and it’s getting great reviews, but a social responsibility? I mean really? The fate of big-budget Hollywood films starring women—well, white women—well, white women of a certain narrow set of socio-economic classes—I mean all that really hinges on whether or not we troop out this weekend to put money in Apatow’s pocket? (Well. And Wiig’s. And McCarthy’s. And Feig’s. And Universal’s. And—but I’m trying to make a rhetorical point, here.)

@carlafrantastic My worry about the Bridesmaids “it’s your duty” movement: Apatown planned it as part of their PR.

@kiplet That’s the smart money, yes.

@carlafrantastic Could also be, as u said, smart $. He was attacked for dismissing women, ventured to prove otherwise. Is this about ego, or virtue?

@carlafrantastic or does it not matter?

@kiplet What was that Twain bromide? No good or bad actions, just good or bad results of actions?

@carlafrantastic Somehow, the Bridesmaids “it’s important” movement makes me feel more used than empowered. And, I’m still going to go see it, ASAP.

The thing that didn’t occur to me until later, the reason that Salon piece, this whole campaign, had left me with a nagging deja vu, is that I’ve heard this all before—

Because didn’t we, as geeks, all have a duty to go and see Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, to demonstrate there was indeed a market for smart and funny and inventively geeky movies that spoke to us?

And didn’t we as geeks have a duty to go and see Serenity, to demonstrate there was indeed a market for smart and funny and inventively geeky movies that spoke to us, and also to stick it to Fox for killing Firefly?

And I mean that hunger—that hunger to see something that looks like you up on the billboards in Times Square and in the commercials on heavy rotation on Hulu and the posters and the marquees—that’s a mighty goddamn hunger; it might at first blush seem odd to turn the act of buying a ticket to a movie into a duty, a social responsibility, but it’s at your peril that you mock the power of dreamstuff deferred.

But still. —A duty? —And anyway the geeks ate the world already, right? Lord of the Rings winning Oscars™ and D&D jokes on primetime television and in The New Yorker and all those comicbook movies and Lost, amirite? But it’s not enough; the good stuff withers on the vine; we’re told there isn’t any money in it and SciFi has to go SyFy and show a bunch of ghost-hunting talking-to-the-dead reality-show shit and we have to keep begging and Guillermo del Toro can’t get At the Mountains of Madness made.

And women—54% of the population—are in the same damn boat? —Well yes white women of a certain narrow set of socio-economic classes, but that’s still an awful lot of money on the table, going begging; but even so, it’s not enough: women, we’re told, will get dragged to men-movies by men, but men won’t go to women-movies, it’s all in the numbers, you know?

Oh but really if it were really all about the numbers and the money, then one of this summer’s comicbook movies would look a lot different:

To less than 100,000 readers a month the Green Lantern is a white guy—to millions of television viewers he is a black man.

So there’s that. —But there’s also this?

@carlafrantastic esp. as [Apatow] is also producing @lenadunham’s Girls.

Social responsibility; first world problems; seeing yourself; small steps? I guess?

 

that is a compromising position for that cat