The Worst Generation

I hope all of my days at Emerson are not like today.

Actually, if they were, it would be pretty funny.

There was a required viewing of The Battle of Algiers last night. It was one of those narrative documentaries (like City of God, I guess you could say) done back in the 60s. It was well shot, and Ennio Morricone did some of the music, but it felt very, uh, unfocused.

This morning, there was a required panel discussion featuring two prominent political critics. I was late, but I came in just as one of them - Lewis Gordon - was talking about the episode of The Simpsons where Lisa has the blues until she meets Bleeding Gums Murphy. I never figured out why he brought it up, but I liked that he did. Later on he talked about Hurricane Katrina (because, hey, that's topical) and mentioned how in the media white survivors discovering food where "finders" where as black survivors were "looters". I didn't realize it was such a big deal. I thought it was just some disgruntled typist at Yahoo! News.

The other speaker was Mark Danner. He was on the Daily Show. He had written the cover story for the New York Times Magazine that will be coming out this Sunday.

The whole idea of the discussion was the similarity between the movie and the situation in Iraq. At first I thought the discussion was very interesting, but I slowly came to realize that it went nowhere. What the hell is the point of discussing something when you're just going to make the idea more nebulous than the message portrayed in the subject matter at hand? Then we're right back to where we started. So one nation's terrorists is another's freedom fighters. So shooting a missile at civilians is just as stupid as suicide bombing. So Lisa had the blues. WHAT ARE YOU GUYS GETTING AT? "The important thing is to not be afraid to doubt what you're told." HEY, FELLAS: We're twentieth-century teenagers living on the east coast! You don't have to tell us about questioning authority!

They left us saying that our generation lives in a time like no other, and that it's now more important that ever to take charge, or something to that extent.

Is that so?

I went to a Berkeley Beacon meeting. The Beacon is the school newspaper. I went because I had nothing else to do, and I thought that maybe, just maybe, I would be convinced to involve myself in SOMEthing. (Also, I had to take charge, remember?)

Silly me. I had my doubts to begin with, but the meeting was so poorly run that I had plenty of time to leave before it really started. I would've expected better from the leaders of the 2nd best rated school paper in the country (or something ridiculous like that). The editors were like, "WHOOPS WE DIDN"T EXPECT THIS MANY PEOPLE TO BE INTERESTED LOL. IF EVERYONE COULD JUST SIT ON THE FLOOR IN THE NEXT ROOM PLZ THX."

Forget that. I went back to my dorm and played Earthbound and Kingdom of Loathing in the blistering heat.

There was a boat cruise tonight for us freshman. But I wasn't stupid enough to fall for THAT again. If I've learned anything from previous boat cruises with large groups of people my own age, it's that they're only bearable if you have a friend with you. Seeing as I have none, the choice was clear. Besides that, the thing about boat cruises is you can't leave.

So instead I watched The Man Who Wasn't There. Which was great. I know their good directors, but the Coen Bros. writing is what blows me away the most. How do you come up with stories like that?

Afterwards, I realized I hadn't eaten, but it was late. I walked around town, but every place was closed at 9:30. The ones that were open were either no longer serving or Cold Stone. So I didn't have dinner.

So that's today. Maybe I'll watched TV. Maybe I'll play Lunar. As for tomorrow, I signed up for a community service project - cleaning up one of the local parks.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to regret it.