Against Boredom

Against Boredom: Amen, amen, I say to you. For what would Christ do? Would He save you from becoming one of the dead? Perhaps that is all in your head! Maybe it is better to focus on this life. Of course, you could always end it with a knife. As Nietzsche once wrote, "Against boredom, even gods struggle in vain." It's that feeling when everything becomes one and the same. Is not Christian love the product of fear? That question will certainly provoke a sneer. The image of Christ on the Cross surely proves that question wrong. And it even makes the laundry list of complaints by atheists not-so-long. Yet whenever I look at my watch, I see my life slipping away. I hope I do not expire today. But there is one thing I would like to do before I go. And that is simply to take it slow. With one life to live, unless you are a Hindu. It can very easily turn into absolute poo. Yet I cannot afford to let that take place. For if I do, I will be on my way to Hell with great haste.

The Daft Punk Story

The Daft Punk Story: As an electronic music duo from Paris, France, Daft Punk has certainly pushed the limits of the electronica genre to new heights. Thomas Bangalter and Guy Christo have taken elements of older electronic groups such as Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream, and given them a wholly postmodern feel. Like Kraftwerk, Daft Punk sees an explicit connection between electronic music and robots. As a result, Bangalter and Christo frequently dress as robots in their music videos and during live performances. The atmosphere that stems from such antics is very conducive to the deliberate nature of their music. In fact, most of Daft Punk's songs follow a pattern of progression and regression that seeks to invigorate the technologically-oriented minds of their fan base. For instance, the song "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger," which is on display in the above video, has a musical score littered with crescendos, decrescendos, and repetition symbols. In short, it is this kind of musical notation that defines the electronic genre today.

Christianity and Communism

Christianity and Communism: One of Christianity's major tenets emphasizes the inherent sacredness and equality of a community. Whenever people gather in the name of Christ, He is present. This divine sacrality merits attention insofar as Christians comprehend the full implications of what they worship. Take the archetypal image of the Last Supper, for example. It highlights equality in a communal setting, as God Himself is effectively on the same level as His disciples. And in doing so, it lends itself to an ideology like communism, which understands the civic virtue of a community in a more secular, albeit atheistic, fashion. An image of the Soviet Politburo could just as easily be superimposed over the Last Supper. Given that Christianity is fundamentally antagonistic toward socio-economic hierarchies, it is essentially analogous to the classless society that communism endorses. In fact, Christianity, as an agent of inversion, seeks to level all hierarchical orders that inevitably rise from social constructions of knowledge like gender, race, and class. The True Levellers, who assumed their name from a passage in Acts of the Apostles, were a prominent social group during the English Civil War that called for a leveling of the property distinctions in England, which they perceived as the root of all class consciousness. This kind of thinking found its way into separatist Christian sects such as the Pilgrims. When they conceived of their Plymouth Colony in America through the Mayflower Compact, the Pilgrims understood the necessity for equalizing social conditions among members in their community. The dire circumstances that befell them in early America forced the Pilgrims to put aside their petty differences and bind together in a collective effort to survive. The problem is, of course, communism ceases to function as a workable ideology in a society driven largely by notions of private property and individualism.

The Video Game Evolution

The Video Game Evolution: First-person shooter (FPS) games have been in existence since the days of Doom back in 1993. But it was not until the 1997 release of GoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo 64 console that the Video Game Evolution truly soared. Its connection with the 1995 GoldenEye movie only heightened the game's popularity. Prior to James Bond mania in the late 1990s, most, if not all, FPS games were made for the personal computer (PC). And given that PC technology was slow to personalize the video game industry, home consoles such as Nintendo 64 became extremely popular. To streamline sales and make matters more cost-effective, video game companies like Nintendo decided to adopt the old "loss leader" marketing technique whereby the consoles themselves sold at prices below their production costs and the video games sold at prices higher than their production costs. This business model is similar to the razor and blades paradigm invented by King C. Gillette at the turn of the twentieth century. In short, the Video Game Evolution began to assume all kinds of themes after GoldenEye 007 popularized the genre of first-person shooters. Video games like Half-Life moved the genre in the direction of science fiction while simultaneously spawning the field of tactical first-person shooting with Counter-Strike.

Why Chicago??

Why Chicago??: According to American environmental historian William Cronon, Chicago developed as "nature's metropolis." The land upon which Chicago sits today was conducive to the growth of a major urban area. A low-lying ridge (Valparaiso Moraine) exists about ten miles west (and south) of the city. This ridge ultimately determines how water flows to the Atlantic Ocean. East of the ridge, water streams into Lake Michigan and eventually out the St. Lawrence River. West of the ridge, water trickles down the Mississippi River into the Gulf of Mexico. With respect to shipping, this distinction in water flow patterns is key. Early Chicago entrepreneurs quickly realized that they could ship goods to Europe by way of New York (Erie Canal) and South America by way of New Orleans (Mississippi River). The geographic location of Chicago necessarily enhanced its prospects for trade. Railroad barons saw huge potential for expansion, especially regarding the agricultural development of the Midwestern plains. Texas cattle ranchers would drive their herds as far north as Kansas in order to meet the railroad lines that would take their cattle to Chicago slaughterhouses. And given the heavy demand for railroads to transport everything from farming produce to raw materials, Chicago became the railroad capital of the United States by the late nineteenth century.