Anthology of Ideas

The role that art plays in human lives is not the only theme of the movie, it also speaks of how life conspires without ones knowledge and leads people to where they end up. Life is like a giant puzzle for each person, events have conspired since the beginning of the universe to lead to their lives. This is not to say that human lives are predefined or that destiny controls the way people end up but more like that the people and events that came before each person effect our lives, just as the people and events around oneself does. For example if someones great great etc etc grandparent died and didn’t have a child they would never have been born nor would one of their parents etc obviously. But even in the most simplistic parts of daily lives everything from the school people go to, to the last horrible blind date are affected by outside events that most people never find out about.

“Modern Times” was a wonderful blend of comedy and social drama. The movie provided a look into the world of the great depression by people who lived it. Different elements of the movie portrayed the different difficulties of life in that era. Between bursts of comedy a grand picture of a society in turmoil is produced. Through work shortages, factory closings, labor strikes and political unrest Chaplin’s world shows us another side that people like to forget about the past.

One of the many ideas that are prevalent in this movie is the idea that each person is just a part of a larger whole, that although you could try to be individual, it was not in your best interests to do so. This idea is shown both in the beginning of the movie and when Chaplin was “forced” through social pressure to strike.

The clip that is referenced is near the end of the movie after the two female characters fight at the school, and runs for about 2 -3 minutes.

It doesn’t take any physics experience to realize that “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon” is a bad physics movie, however with physics we can show just how bad it really is. The clip I selected runs only a few seconds long but portrays many of the formula’s that one would use in a simple mechanics physics course. Through careful calculations and a little estimation (all double checked) I was able to determine a range of details including the acceleration of gravity on the “planet” this movie takes place in, the diameter of the planet, and the density of the planet. I was also able to determine a few specific examples aside from the acceleration of gravity that show that this movie is a BPM.

Little green Tadpole
Alone in a water bucket
Silence Splash Trickle

Chipmunk digs the ground
Buries a little green acorn
Soon to be a tree

Large lone maple tree
Emperor of the meadow
Who does it rule over

Wind whistles through trees
Boughs and branches sway from it
A black hawk flies straight

Far above the clouds
Where heaven ends earth begins
Beauty no one sees

The line between safe and free speech is quite thin, or so Susan Estrich claims. In reality the line is actually non-existent because in stopping free speech you also stop the basic foundation of the constitution. However occasionally, under the correct circumstances it is more important to stop the speech, for whatever reason, than ensure the right to the same speech. Because even if it does deny the freedom of speech, it can also prevent the spreading of speech that would likely cause death or injury.

History has shown us that it takes as much government influence to protect free speech as it does to deny it. The government sometimes seems like a spinning top; one moment it is denying a form of free speech and another it is protecting a different form of free speech. For a large part of the last century the government, more specifically the FCC, had a policy called the Fairness Doctrine, this policy forced the media to be unbiased and give fair and balanced reports on political issues. The Fairness Doctrine ended under the Reagan administration in 1987, but supporters are looking to revive the decades old policy. This creates an interesting question, does the government forcing balanced political speech infringe on the media’s right to free speech or is it just another way to keep the media from controlling the information available to the population of America at large?