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Queen Cassie

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  1. Queen Cassie
    So, normally, I’d take the time to write up an extensive review, give you a great deal of thoughts about the plot and its various intricacies, as well as all of that good stuff.
     
    But for once, I can’t, because there’s nothing to analyze. The sad truth with Double Rainboom is that it has no plot to speak of. The characters are mere shadows of their true selves, barely present at all. When they speak, they sound like one dimensional stereotypes. There’s a completely unnecessary and absurd crossover that serves no purpose whatsoever. The voice work ranges from middling to fairly close. The references everywhere were not only stupid, but they were insulting.
     
    The only saving grace is the animation, but even there while it’s really gorgeous and does a lot of fascinating things… all it seems to be is there. What little story might exist is sacrificed so the animation can take its time and show off everything about itself.
     
    I get that this was Zachery Rich’s college project, that it was made for an art school and as such was made for the animation. I get that. The problem is that the animation is pointless without anything for it to drive. Without a plot for it to enhance, it’s meaningless.
     
    There are so many scenes you could point to in the actual show where the animation is used to good effect. Things like a particularly dynamic action scene, or facial expressions contorting to show anger and characterization beyond just the dialogue. There the animation is useful for something.
     
    But Double Rainboom has none of that. It’s pretty to look at for thirty minutes; that’s all it is. If you choose to watch it, go into it expecting nothing but a pretty art show, and you’ll be fine. If you go looking for anything else, you’re going to feel disappointed and outraged.
  2. Queen Cassie
    So, in my original thoughts on the finale, I talked about why I felt it was a strong episode. Having since rewatched the episode, however, I have been having some serious second thoughts. There were a number of issues that nagged at me when I watched through it the first time, issues that become much more glaring on rewatches to the point that I can't quite set them aside. It's frustrating because there are a number of things I really like about this episode; the quality of all of the songs is extraordinary and I love every single one. I've had “True True Friend” stuck in my head for days. But I can't ignore these issues.
     
    Before I begin, I want to emphasize that the following post is about the episode as an episode. It is not about whether Alicorn Twilight is a good thing or not, which I continue to believe it is. This also does not take into account production considerations. I am aware that season three had a reduced budget and that this episode was originally written as a series finale, and as a result they chose to make some serious compromises. This is simply about the quality of the episode as it has been presented to us.
     
    The episode has a number of serious flaws when it comes to plotting. A lot of people point to the pacing as a flaw, which it certainly has issues with, but the pacing is only a small part of the story. The actual plot is rather flimsy and contradicts a number of things we've learned in the past, about cutie marks, and about destiny in general.
     
    First, there's the way the episode cold opens into a song. Although it's true this song is followed up on at the end of the episode in a reprise, much like how The Crystal Empire Parts I and II reprised its first song at the end, the song itself is rather meaningless and takes up far too much time for the episode. In order to tell any kind of story, particularly the two stories that this episode is trying to tell within the span of twenty two minutes, a writer must budget time appropriately. A song about how everything is fine doesn't do this. While it sounds nice and definitely has a worthwhile melody to it, it's a huge time waster and should have been cut entirely. (Even the animators had a hard time doing much with this song; that's probably why Twilight jumps up onto a table and dances because there was nothing else for her to do with it.)
     
    From there, we segue into trying to handle the crisis with cutie marks, far too fast. The cutie marks themselves have never been about a set destiny. This has been stated by every single episode to ever deal with cutie marks. And yet here it's contradicted. Now, in my previous review I expressed a belief that the spell affected the memories of the Mane Six, which it did appear to do, so it made them think they're supposed to follow a new destiny even though that doesn't make much sense. And it's fraught with its own problems, since it doesn't explain why everyone else in Ponyville is okay with the change.
     
    In fact the whole plot constantly contradicts itself throughout because it can't work the way it does. No one in Ponyville tries to say that the Mane Six are doing things wrong. There's a whole weather team that should have been objecting to Rarity's spellwork, for instance. Angel wasn't protesting the sudden lack of Fluttershy. The Cakes were nowhere to be found, and Applejack's family didn't even appear when Pinkie was mismanaging the farm. And so on and so forth. So, this should mean the spell affected everyone elses' minds to make them think everything was actually fine, yes?
     
    Well, no, it couldn't have because we later see Applejack's family helping her regain her actual cutie mark.
     
    As we progress through the episode, from “What My Cutie Mark Is Telling Me,” the plot accelerates trying to deal with everything at a super blinding speed; this is where people point to the episode having issues with pacing. We also only learn about what caused the cutie mark switch-up at this point, after which we spend more time wasted in the episode with the song “I've Got To Find A Way,” which not only presents us with Twilight becoming depressed without giving us any chance to actually accept it before the plot zooms to the next event, but it also presents some incredibly difficult to believe montage animation throughout. I'm sorry, but I cannot accept that the Mane Six are the only things keeping Ponyville working. I can't accept that the rest of the weather team wouldn't boot Rarity off or that some higher authority than the weather team of Ponyville—say, the weather teams of Cloudsdale or another major city—wouldn't come in and stop what she's doing. I can't accept that Pinkie is so bad at managing a farm that she utterly destroys it within a day, nor can I accept that the rest of Applejack's family would just let her or be that incapable of managing the farm. I can't accept that Rainbow Dash is so unable to care for animals that she can't even conceive of feeding them. I can't accept that Pinkie's entertainment is the only thing keeping everyone in Ponyville from turning against each other.
     
    I just can't accept any of that. It's too absurd.
     
    After Twilight's depression is over in a split second, she figures out how to fix the problem, gathers everyone up, and another song montage proceeds with the Mane Six being restored. Problem created, conceived, and solved in about ten minutes, some of which wasn't even spent establishing the problem to begin with.
     
    Again I'd like to stop here and point out that I love these songs. They're absolutely great music. But they just present so many problems with this episode in terms of telling the story. Specifically, the songs are misused. If I might borrow from something a friend of mine once told me, the songs in this show are typically used for two things:
     
    1. Establishing characterization
    2. Covering story that would otherwise be tedious to cover in normal dialogue sequences
     
    Examples of the first include “Smile Smile Smile” while examples of the second would include “Art of the Dress”(which is actually both the first and second) as well as “At The Gala.”
     
    What makes the songs in “Magical Mystery Cure” misused is that they're not just covering plot elements, but zipping past and outright skipping super important parts of the plot. They also fill time that could have been better used for other things.
     
    For example, instead of revealing that Twilight received Starswirl's book only after we see the cutie marks have switched, why not open with her discovering the book and casting a spell, only for it to do seemingly nothing? It'd be a more effective use of time than a song that, while great to listen to, was ultimately meaningless.
     
    After solving the problem with the cutie marks, we cut to Twilight finishing out the spell in Starswirl's book, which for whatever reason causes the Elements of Harmony to blast her. I still can't quite understand why this happens. We're told that it's because Twilight has a destiny to become an Alicorn, but why would that cause the Elements to blast her to a celestial realm? It feels as though this only happens because the plot requires it. I can try to explain this by suggesting that the Elements of Harmony are part of some natural magic of Equestria, that they detect that Twilight has created her own magic and so that means she needs to become an Alicorn.
     
    Alternatively, the fact that she's blasted into seeming dust and then ends up in a celestial realm could possibly be a kid friendly way of saying the Elements killed her and that she had to be resurrected as an Alicorn.
     
    Whatever the case we barely get a chance to understand what's happening before Celestia tells us all about this in a song that tells us it's all about Twilight's destiny. Again I take issue with the destiny aspect because it suggests that her becoming an Alicorn was something pre-determined, that she only went through motions Fate dictated to her and that it's not her effort that resulted in her earning the position and the title of Princess.
     
    It also significantly muddles where Alicorns come from because we don't know if Cadance went through something like this, or if Celestia and Luna did, and if they did why are they so much larger than Twilight. It presents further confusing issues.
     
    Then we have the sequence where Celestia explains to the others what's happened. This would have been a great time, if the episode were a two parter, for the Mane Six to have experienced some significant angst. It's nighttime when Twilight Ascends, so they've spent several hours sitting there. For all they know, they'd killed one of their best friends; all that was left behind was smoking ash in the shape of Twilight's cutie mark. But alas, missed opportunities.
     
    I take strong issue with how Celestia phrases things. She says, “I'll still be here to help and guide you, but we're all your students now, too.” Student of what? Of knowledge? Of friendship? We don't get an answer, and the way it's phrased makes things almost as confusing as possible.
     
    After that, the rest of the episode concerns itself with feel good imagery and songs that can be summed as “Twilight is a Princess; yay!” It's full of some fantastic animation, and I do love the outfits the Mane Six end up wearing. There's also a few good lines, like Shining Armor's “liquid pride” but also some problematic ones, such as the way Twilight's speech to the crowd opens with “A little while ago.” I realize they were trying to avoid setting a specific timeline, but that phrasing makes it seem like she could have ended up in Ponyville just a couple of months before she Ascended, or even just a few weeks.
     
    On the whole, the episode has severe problems with its plot. The pacing is just the most obvious symptom of that; the plot as a whole is contrived and doesn't offer up as much as it could have. The whole episode could have benefited from some significant rewriting. A friend of mine, Norse Pony, offers up here one possible way the episode could have gone differently: http://www.fimfiction.net/blog/129557/spoilers-an-alternate-finale-or-rewriting-friendship
     
    My feelings about the episode are mixed, to sum up. There really is a lot about it that I still like. I love the songs; even the ones that I said should be cut for time are really good. “True True Friend” which has a few issues with the plot glaring in its montage of animation is probably my favorite out of the lot and, as I said at the beginning, has been stuck in my head ever since I first saw the episode. Twilight's Ascension as an Alicorn is something that I believed and continue to believe is something this show needed not only for the future, but also just because I think she deserves it. Twilight Sparkle has been growing as a character throughout the show and it's all been building towards one ultimate goal.
     
    I just take so much issue with how they ended up doing it. They wanted to do a musical episode, because when this episode was written, in November of 2011, they thought this was the end of the show. This episode was more fitting of a series finale than a season finale, and I rather wish that once season four had been ordered they'd been able to go back and axe an episode of season three so they could turn this into a two parter. It would have been nice, but it's not what they were able to do unfortunately.
     
    So my revised score for this episode, taking into account both the fact that I really like parts of it but that the plot is contrived... is 3/10. Compared to most episodes it falls far short of what it's trying to do. My original score of 7/10 was a result of praising the concept it was shooting for rather than what it actually ended up doing.
     
    Still, I do feel like the issues present in this episode aren't likely to be repeated. As has been pointed out by many, season three was underfunded, and it showed in a lot of the writing. They thought this was the end of the series so they were trying to do too many large ideas with what they had, and they stumbled. It's understandable. Season four is likely to open up with a good, strong two parter that will resolve a lot of the unanswered questions from this, and will sell us on Alicorn Twilight far better than Magical Mystery Cure does. I'm still looking forward, with interest and excitement.
  3. Queen Cassie
    So, my thoughts on this episode. Let's go through all of the things it did and why I feel as a whole this episode was above average, though not stellar.
     
     
     
    First, this episode had two principle ideas that arguably could have benefited from being fleshed out into a two parter. The first idea is that of cutie marks being rewritten. The second was Twilight Sparkle's coronation.
     
    Because both of these ideas could have fit whole episodes easily, the pacing was a sprint. The episode needed to cover everything as quickly as it could, and it didn't really have a chance to. Thus, musical.
     
     
     
    From the beginning with this episode we see it's going to be a musical. Twilight sings about how everything's going to be a perfect day(which is just begging for disaster) and then it turns out it's not. How she failed to notice Rarity's patchwork clouds before she ran into Rarity on the bridge, I'm not sure, but eh, failing to notice things not in camera view is hardly unique to Friendship is Magic. Once she did notice the problem though she was lightning quick trying to find out what caused it.
     
    It turned out to be a half finished spell, which I think was a phenomenal idea because it gives us new insight into Starswirl the Bearded. How? Well let's consider what the spell did. The spell was intended to rewrite the cutie marks of who knows how many ponies. I suspect it wouldn't have worked without access to the Elements of Harmony, and that it only affected the Elements of Harmony(and thus, the Mane Six) because it was Twilight casting it.
     
    But notice what this means. It rewrites destiny. That means it changes things... just like things could be changed through time travel. Starswirl is the only one we've seen experimenting with time travel, and his lone time travel spell only succeeded in creating a stable time loop. Thus it seems like Starswirl was constantly trying to change things. Why? There could be any number of reasons, and my personal speculation is that it involved a tragic backstory where Starswirl, ever the loner, wanted to make friends, but couldn't. He'd lost the chance, or he had friends and lost them, and was doing everything he could to get them back; that's why the time travel. (Alternatively, it could be the time travel was created after this spell when the spell malfunctioned and did horrible things to a number of ponies.)
     
    What's interesting too is the way the spell affected the minds of the Mane Six selectively. Their memories seemed to change only in certain ways to make them believe that they're supposed to be doing different things, but at the same time we heard from Fluttershy that she was going to move back to Cloudsdale. If it had been a complete memory swap she would have talked about moving "back to the rock farm" instead. Because of the nature of the spell I am hesitant to argue that this episode indicates how cutie marks and destinies are supposed to actually work. Things became screwed up too much; it was likely the spell that made them think they had to follow their new "talent" as far as they could.
     
    So the whole of that plot was wrapped up in musical format within the first ten or so minutes of the episode. Once Twilight rewrote the spell, she was immediately torn away to a cosmic realm of something or other.
     
    This is the one place where I'm going to fault the episode a little harshly because this cosmic realm presents a few too many questions. What exactly is it supposed to be? Is it supposed to be some dimension that Celestia, Luna, Cadance, and now Twilight can enter and stay separate from the rest of reality? Is it what gives them their princess powers? Is it something that grants them immortality? Is it the godly realm from which they rule over? I have no clue.
     
    I did enjoy Celestia singing though.
     
    Once Twilight became an alicorn, the episode couldn't slow down. She needed a coronation event, which again could have covered a whole episode. But it didn't; we were left with her giving a speech on how friendship and her friends were the most important to her, and were left with one final song.
     
    All in all the episode was definitely rushed. So what makes it above average rather than below average like other episodes?
     
    Firstly, this episode was written under some serious constraints. Season three, as far as the production staff knew, could have been the last season when they were writing it and putting it together. Additionally, there were other executive requirements: Twilight had to become a Princess. So they needed to create what was probably going to be the end of the series, without the ability to give things two parters like they needed. They were consistently forced to write forty-four or longer minute episode ideas into twenty-two minute episodes.
     
    That alone isn't enough though. What really makes this episode stronger is that they did it in a musical format. A musical is something this show has needed from the beginning, ever since it started having songs, because it's practically built for it. It was about the only way they could fit both ideas into twenty-two minutes without the episode completely crashing down on itself. I am willing to give the episode serious bonus points for that alone.
     
    Additionally, while the first part of the episode could have easily fit a full episode or even an episode and a half by itself, the latter half of the episode probably couldn't have. Sure, it could have been expanded, with some questions answered, but I'm finding it hard to believe you could fit Twilight's coronation into an entire episode without the pacing slowing down significantly. Plus, it would have been same sort of episode formula we've been seeing throughout the whole show. The musical format changes things up and makes it fresher.
     
     
    This episode had a lot of little fun moments too. I listened to "True True Friend" when it was leaked/uploaded a few days before the episode, without the animation, and it didn't seem all that great until we saw it in the episode, where the lyrics made far more sense in context. The way the crowd was so happy to see Pinkie Pie was, as a result, rather spectacular. Then there was Pinkie's taking a drink of water in order to spit it out; having done similar things many times myself(only with a dramatic pen drop instead of water because it doesn't make a mess) I really laughed hard and appreciated that.
     
    So on the whole, yes, the episode was rushed. Yes, it could have benefited from spreading out. But I feel like it was a strong episode even with that issue. The time constraints and the fact that it was so fast paced is why I don't feel it was a stellar episode, and the unanswered questions continue to gnaw at me. We don't know exactly what Twilight is a Princess of, though it could be Magic or Friendship. We also don't know where she's going to be living after this. Will she move to Canterlot? Will her friends move with her?
     
    But we do know that she values her friends highly. She said it as much herself. She wouldn't be a Princess without her friends. So I'm not worried about her losing her friends in season four. Quite the opposite: they'll stick around. The question is just in what form.
     
    If Season Three as a whole has taught us anything, it's that the show was becoming far too stale. Within the formula they had for the first two seasons, there was only so many new ideas they could do. And the new ideas they did have, the ideas they wanted to use to innovate with, were always too big. Too huge. Practically every episode of season three, with only one or two exceptions, such as Sleepless in Ponyville and Games Ponies Play, could have benefited from being two parters or longer. Every episode idea was so grand and so high, yet because they were stuck with the twenty-two minute formula and only thirteen episodes, they couldn't do much. If the show had just kept being about the Mane Six learning about friendship, we'd have been stuck with things becoming boring. How often can we watch the Elements whip out a rainbow to smack enemies in the face? How often could we watch the Mane Six beat down yet another threat to Equestria? How often could we watch them learn some of the same friendship lessons over and over again?
     
    We needed a change up, and that's exactly what Princess Twilight offers. This episode could have been the last one of the series, which would have ended things on a high note. Because it's not, and because we know season four will have twenty-six episodes, we're left with a brand new start for things to go in who knows what sort of direction. This is hardly the first show to do this sort of thing; lots of shows have innovated in this way.
     
    For example, one of my favorites, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, did so through the introduction of the U.S.S. Defiant at the start of its third season. Prior to that point, the show was limited to the space station(the titular Deep Space Nine) and as a result there was only so much the writers could do with it. The Defiant allowed them to leave the station and travel the rest of the Alpha Quadrant, dramatically changing the formula.
     
    Princess Twilight does the same thing. Her new situation means the show can handle new ideas. Picture, for example, Twilight having to deal with ambassadors from the Gryphon Kingdom, or maybe even her and her friends traveling the world as ambassadors, giving us chances for high action and world-building drama. That's just the tip of the potential iceburg we have here.
     
    The finale wasn't the best episode, but neither was it terrible. Because of its musical format, and because of how it changes the series, I am willing to give it a 7/10. (A reminder that my one to ten scale has five as average.) It is above average, but neither is it stellar. It doesn't need to be though.
     
    I, for one, welcome our new Princess Twilight. She deserves to be an Alicorn. She deserves to be a Princess.
     
    Let's see what happens in season four.
  4. Queen Cassie
    So, I have finally fulfilled all of those countdowns, and have moved. Where to?
     
    Portland, Oregon. This nice not so sunny city has been doing nothing but miserable cold rain ever since I got here. The plane flights all day weren't so fun either--one jet nearly crashed into the terminal twice, the other was super cramped and loud as hell--and delayed at that.
     
    Still, it's been pretty exciting. The worst thing about it all? My new roommate.
     
    First off, this guy is bald. Like, really really bald. Baldy McBaldBald might be a good nickname for him. Plus he's rude and more than a little angry seeming. I mean, just look at this guy!
     

     
    He's also weird. I mean, c'mon:
     

     
    Fuzzy pink bearclaw slippers? How tacky. At least he's a pony fan.
     
    The weirdest thing is, I'd swear this guy is really freaking familiar for some reason. Like i know him somehow, from somewhere. He seem familiar to anyone else?
  5. Queen Cassie
    This is a poem I wrote in class less than an hour ago...we were supposed to use a poem by Thomas Lux as a guideline to help make someone fall in love with a word. My poem ended up...diverging from that intent a little bit. I was trying to make it about the word pansexuality, but instead it ended up turning into a mixture of pansexuality and genderqueer nature. I really liked the way it ended up, though, and while I couldn't read it in class due to feeling it was...too personal to share there, I can definitely share it here.
     
    Pansexuality.
     
    To society, I must limit, choose,
    pick a side between two stark binaries.
    There the dull, dim witted men bulging with muscles,
    or dainty little blushing maidens yearning for a hero.
    I am expected to be one and to seek the other.
    Limit my choice of mate.
    Limit who I am.
    Even in our most liberal of times in all of history,
    society says,
    "Pick a side."
    I could be gay, or straight,
    but never a mix.
    Yet I reject this.
    To me, everyone is beautiful,
    desirable.
    A blushing maiden or strongman might intrigue,
    but so too can the lithe little poet
    with his gothic clothes and long, ebony hair.
    Or the girl who plays football with the best of them,
    tackling burly men as readily as gender roles.
    Or even those between the binaries,
    lurking in a spectrum of gender neither man nor woman,
    much like myself.
    A twenty year old wearing their skirt,
    as they try to wriggle their genitals into a pair of panties,
    a pair meant for a crotch without the bulk.
    Or the man, born a girl, who wears a strap-on,
    simulating that which nature denied them.
    I see them all, and think,
    this is pansexuality.
    This is what it's like.
    No limits.
    No simple, binary choices.
    Just a sea of humanity,
    waiting for me with the fishing lure.
  6. Queen Cassie
    So, a while back, I wrote a submission to Thirty Minute Pony Stories called Missing You. That story was then edited, with the help of a friend, for publishing on FIMFiction.
     
    http://www.fimfiction.net/story/40631/1/Missing-You/Missing-You
     
    Said fic was somehow picked up by someone to be read on Youtube.
     

     
    I'm really amazed by the fact that someone was willing to read a story I wrote, and so I wanted to link it here so that more people got to see it. This guy is pretty damned good at reading stories too, and he's worth a subscribe on Youtube. I encourage it.
  7. Queen Cassie
    For my final semester of college, I'm taking a creative writing class just for the sake of taking it, as well as to stretch out my Pell Grant. I wanted to take it in order to see if I couldn't improve my writing at all, or at least learn a bit more about what good writing is like.
     
    This is one of the exercises I was supposed to do for homework. The exercise was called Common Objects, and I was essentially supposed to make a list of a few objects around me, then write a story around them treating them as people, stories about their inner life, or one being in love with the other, things like that. I ended up writing a brief story about the two cat trees we have in our house.
     
     
     
    Two cat trees stand in the room, apart, separated by an aquarium and the dining room table. One is worn, aged, of deep green shaggy fabric torn apart by years of use. The other, young, white of fabric and new in all respects, has displaced the old. The cats now lounge in its top.
     
    The old one is resentful, angry at the humans that replaced it and full of burning hatred for the younger. It was good enough, wasn't it? The Himalayan always rested in its top, cradled away, hiding from the humans that scared her. The tabby always too to resting in the tree's lower cave, while the grey one ate from a bowl on one of its platforms. It cared for them, loved them, appreciated each touch. With the cats, the old one fulfilled its purpose.
     
    So who was this young upstart, coming in and taking away the cats? How dare it?! All the one wished is to be with its cats again. It cries out in loneliness and fury. If it could, it would rend the young one limb from limb. But all it can do is rest in its corner and glare.
     
    The young one knows none of this. In fact, it barely knows itself. It sees the cats resting on its top or eating from bowl at the bottom, and it pauses in confusion...or even, sometimes, disgust. At times it doesn't like the cats. Their warmth is uncomfortable, the eating nauseating, or would be if it had a stomach. It sees the old one's glares, but it doesn't understand the anger. It sees the old one's interest as something of desire, or want. When the young one looks at the old one, it sees a respected figure of experience and grace, someone it can even...love.
     
    Unlike the old one, the young one cares not for its purpose. The young one, instead, yearns to be with the old one, to touch it, hold it, lean against it and rub its shaggy green fibers. it adores everything about the old one, every last little particle of its being. Forget the cats, or the humans with their petty intentions. The young one is in love.
     
    If the old one knew of the young one's amorous desires, it would be appalled. A cat tree, loving another cat tree, instead of the cats it was built to serve? How absurd! It goes against the grain of decency, of common sense! It is unnatural, abhorrent! To learn of such desires on the part of the young one would only infuriate the old one even more. It wouldn't just want to tear apart the young one, oh no. If it could, it would unleash great gouts of flame, burn the young one alive, hear its cries as it is consumed by the fire until it bursts into ashes. Such a fate would only be right for a violator of the natural order.
     
    But the young one doesn't understand why this would have to be. To the young one there is no such thing as a natural order. A cat tree loving another cat tree is just as fine as a cat tree that loves its cats, or even no one at all. The young one flounders in its confusion, not even really understanding its own desires, but knowing they exist all the same.
     
    So the two cat trees stand at an impasse, neither understanding the others wishes or interests. Both upset with the state of how things are, both wishing for change, both wishing for their loneliness to subside. Both trapped in their own minds, not seeing the other that is, but only the other that they imagine them to be. If they could talk, communicate, understand each other, they might be able to work out their differences, realize their failings, their mistakes, and come to terms with each other.
     
    But they cannot, for they are merely cat trees, doomed to stand in but one place, forever silent, forever the servant of cats who pay them no mind at all.
  8. Queen Cassie
    So, here's the thing. I am not good at running a personal blog...I'm rather terrible about it, actually. My Tumblr has mostly been full of randomly reblogged stuff instead of anything actually interesting, so I won't be using the RSS feed from it as I originally intended to do.
     
    What will actually happen with this blog is me posting a few neat tidbits from time to time, probably some random news about myself or something else that might potentially be interesting. I'm not used to keeping journals and I generally tend to think no one wants to hear about what happens on in my life anyway, so...yeah, I dunno, I might not do much of anything with this blog.
     
    But it's here. Follow as you will, or don't. Either way is fine.
  9. Queen Cassie
    This is a crosspost of something that actually won't appear on my Tumblr until tomorrow, but because of the nature of the blog system here I can post it immediately without it being lost. (Unlike how Tumblr tends to function, with its dashboard feature.)
     

    I was listening on the way home to a debate on the Intelligence Squared segment of NPR last night, where you have Oxford-style debates on political issues. This was the first time I had ever listened to such a debate and I found it absolutely fascinating...as well as enraging.
     
    The debate itself was over the question of "Should the government be allowed to intervene in the obesity crisis." The subject, however, is mostly irrelevant to my post apart from how I will take examples from it to show what raised my ire.
     
    The side that argued against government intervention had an argument that boiled down to two main points of view:
     
    1. The current government policy isn't working, therefore no policy should be enacted and the entire thing scrapped.
     
    2. Government is an evil that should be fought against and reduced as much as possible because it is too easy for government to harm civil liberties. (Essentially Republican/Libertarian party line that is usually ignored by Republican politicians when they are elected to office.)
    Both of these bother me for different reasons, as both are arguments that can be made against any sort of government intervention or expenditure or spending, and often are. Current education policy isn't working, therefore scrap the Department of Education. Welfare systems are abused therefore they should be eliminated. Etc etc.
     
    I take issue with this because it does not make any sense to me. It'd be as if a family were to say "we have an issue with how this grocery store stocks products, therefore we will never shop for food again." If a policy isn't working, what makes sense isn't to junk the entire program running it. What makes sense is to alter that policy to work more efficiently.
    For example, in the debate, the side against government intervention made the extremely good point about how current government policy on obesity stigmatizes obesity and, as a result, obese people. As recent studies have shown, this significantly harms any effort to reduce obesity. What actually helps is what is commonly termed "fat acceptance," where people accept themselves and learn to hold a positive body image, and as a result, they actually tend to lose weight far more often than those with a negative body image do.
    But instead of using this to argue for a change in the policy, they used it to argue for completely junking the program entirely, which just doesn't make any sense to me at all.
    The second issue, that of "government is evil, therefore reduce it entirely" also bothers me for entirely different reasons of ideology as well as pragmatism and practicality. We have so many issues with our government in this country because far too often, regardless of party affiliation, the Representatives, Senators, and other political officials both elected and appointed are too concerned with serving corporate interests and the interests of themselves instead of the common good.
     
    For example, at the same time the government is attempting to combat obesity, those in Congress undermine such attempts by serving the interests of food corporations, through such actions as continued increased subsidies for corn farming and promotion in usage in food, as well as through actions such as declaring the tomato sauce in pizza to be a vegetable, on behalf of the food corporations.
     
    In addition, at no point did either side actually attempt to look at some of the other underlying causes of obesity that the government could confront, such as urban planning. Right now, most cities in the United States are designed and continue to be designed around vehicles rather than walking. People have to drive everywhere in order to get to anything, and even some of the most walkable cities in the United States are a pale shadow of cities elsewhere in the world. Those most affected by the obesity crisis, such as those at or below the poverty line, have little to no access to fruits, vegetables, and the better food choices available at supermarkets because all of the supermarkets are located in areas where they can't locally access them, and they can't afford the gasoline needed to constantly drive to those places. We also have far too much corporate promotion of "buy more food" because food is consistently sold as a product to make a profit on, instead of being treated as a necessity.
     
    Ultimately, my issue with the debate was that it focused far more on party ideology and not on practical, common sense and critical thinking analysis of the issues, and that a large part of what is encouraging the obesity crisis is something that can't be solved, either by the government or by private interests, because far too many interests are focused on things that would promote it instead of combating it. And again, the issue of "government policy in this manner is failing, therefore get rid of the program entirely" is something that must stop if things are to improve in any sense of the word.
     
    Sadly, I don't believe any people in power would be willing to listen to my point of view, because it contrasts so heavily with what they desire to do. Regardless of the letter next to their name, D or R, those in power in the federal government currently are far more focused on themselves and what helps them instead of what helps the majority of the American people. But I don't see this as a case of "government itself is evil." I see this as "the people in power need to be replaced with people who actually care." The government as an institution isn't the problem. It's the people in charge.
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