Top Everything of 2014

 As we kick off 2015, many news outlets, columnists, and bloggers are creating lists looking back upon everything from 2014.  From popular culture to politics to the arts, people are making tons of lists about a year that was, for better or worse, quite eventful.

Instead of making a list about my 10 favorite movies or the 10 most important photos from the year, I've decided to whip up a list that has a little bit of everything on it.  A lot happens in a year, and I wanted to capture as much as I could in summing up the last twelve months.  I chose topics ranging from MMA to politics to science, trying to choose who or what I considered to be most noteworthy in each category.  As for criteria, I used a combination of merit, personal preference (anyone who tries to pretend their "top" lists are objective is lying), achievements in their field, and cultural significance/impact.


Movie: Birdman

After having planned to see this multiple times throughout the last quarter of 2014, I finally got around to seeing it shortly before the new year.  During the time between hoping to see it and actually seeing it, my expectations had built up so much that part of me was afraid I would be let down.  Everyone was raving about the movie, from critics to friends whose opinions on film I hold in high regard.  Could it really live up to what everyone was saying?

Holy shit, yes.  This movie has everything you could wanted: wit, dark humor, well rounded characters, great cinematography, and a lot of very human moments that you don't often see in a dark comedy.  The cast does a great job in their roles, to the point where it's almost hard for me to choose a standout performance.  Michael Keaton as the lead role does a great job as a middle aged actor trying to regain his thunder, which is important considering how closely this movie focuses on him.  Among the rest of the excellent cast, Edward Norton and Emma Stone do especially well in their roles.  Norton plays a man who takes acting very seriously, to the point where he is hardly his own person off the stage; Stone play's Keaton's daughter, a recovering addict who helps him with the production of his play.  Both make their characters interesting and human, and throughout the film you'll feel like you are watching a film about actual people.

This also marks a dramatic change in style for Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu, whom I have talked about before.  Though existential undertones still permeate the movie, the comedic tone replaces the somber one we usually see in his films.  Birdman represents not only another great work under Gonzalez Iñárritu's belt, but an expansion of his horizons as a film maker.  I have a feeling that in a couple decades and with a handful more movies to his name, Gonzalez Iñárritu will be a director we consider an all-time great.

Now if he can just make a sequel where Keaton's Birdman, Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law, and the rapper Birdman from Cash Money Records team up to save the world.


Animated Movie: Book of Life

Even without a Pixar movie gracing our screens, 2014 was a great year for animated films.  The LEGO Movie, How to Train Your Dragon 2, and Big Hero 6 were all outstanding.  At the end of the day, though, I had to go with The Book of Life.

Jorge Gutierrez's Dia de los Muertos themed movie is a beautifully animated film that, like many of his other films, is never lacking in the imagination department.  Gorgeous visuals, an imaginative world, and well-voiced performances are all part of the package.  That being said, the other animated movies I mentioned have those qualities, too.  What made me go with The Book of Life is the fact that, more than any other family movie I've ever seen (except perhaps Up), it's a family movie unafraid to tackle the subject of death.

In most family-oriented movies, a character might die and everyone will be sad, but then they move on.  The deceased character will continue to stay in the characters' thoughts throughout the movie, but the idea of death itself doesn't.  For instance, in the Lion King, after Scar kills Mufasa, Simba grieves and then presses on.  Obviously, his life is hugely affected by the absence of his father, and later on he encounters the spirit of his father, but death itself as a subject matter is still left untouched.

This film, however, confronts death head on.  It does so by imagining an afterlife that is kind and inviting, as long as the deceased are still remembered by those left behind.  This metaphor about the meaning of life being to create meaningful memories and bonds with others is cheesy, but is nonetheless a good one, especially for a children's movie.  I appreciate that this movie is willing to tackle such a serious subject, and do so in a way that is fun and imaginative.


Actor: Chris Pratt

Not only was Christopher Pratt the second highest grossing actor of 2014, but he did so starring in two of the year's most entertaining movies, The LEGO Movie and Guardians of the Galaxy.  Though two very different movies, they share one thing in common: no one expected them to be good.  Everyone, myself included, thought The LEGO Movie was a shameless cash-grab in the same mold as Battleship, and we all collectively raised our eyebrows when Marvel Studios announced Guardians of the Galaxy would be their next film property.  Luckily, our predictions were wrong, and both movies ended up being a lot of fun while creating a new Hollywood star: Chris Pratt.

What's impressive about Chris Pratt is he has built his image on being an affable, lovable dork that people can relate to.  Almost like Seth Rogan, except with abs and a more well-rounded filmography.  Leading up to the release of Guardians of the Galaxy, my Facebook news feed was covered with links talking about how awesome of a guy he is.  While there are plenty of cases of celebrities being decent people, Pratt is one of the few people whose actual image is built on that.  Not only is it great to see a guy like him become so famous, but it's nice to see him get popular [partially] because of it.


Actress: Emma Stone

Emma Stone showed a lot of greatness this year.  She did a fantastic job in Birdman and said a lot of on-point things, from not being afraid to call out sexism to having great things to say about topics like body positive, when not on the silver screen.  Not to mention her appreciation of puns.

Like with Christ Pratt, I appreciate her image.  She manages to combine being down to earth, funny, and willing to talk about important issues women face.  Not only that, but with roles in both the critically acclaimed Birdman and the box office hit The Amazing Spiderman 2, she's shown a wide range of acting ability.  These are all admirable traits, and her ability to balance everything while being likable is phenomenal.

Now, I know what some of you are thinking: "sure, Chris Pratt and Emma Stone have their images built on being nice, but what about who they really are?"  Well, here's the thing: most of the young folks across the world looking to famous people as role models aren't going to meticulously research how these famous people act in their most private, genuine moments.  They are, however, going to see the image created by the celebrity and their PR team.  Yes, we can cry "but celebrities shouldn't be considered role models!" all we want.  I agree.  But it won't change the fact that they are looked to as role models, whether we like it or not, especially for young folks who don't have good role models in their own lives.  With this reality in mind, having positive images out there for younger people to see is most certainly a good thing.


TV Show: Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey

There is no shortage of people on the internet complaining about how intellectuals aren't valued as much as they used to be.  About how the United States is in a fervent place of anti-intellectualism compared to, say, half a century ago.  And, unlike most forms of nostalgia, there is actually some truth to this sentiment.  During the time our parents were coming of age, being book smart was valued a lot more then than today.  In fact, this is true not just socially, but systematically.  A lot of institutions of higher learning used to be free, such as the UC and CSU systems of California, for instance, and a lot of important legislation related to education was passed.

Of course, what is often left out of this idealization of the past is that the flourish in, and encouragement of, public education was fueled by the Cold War.  This was less a time of enlightenment and more a time of an educational arms race between the United States and Soviet Union.  People were terrified at the thought of all-out nuclear war, and wanted to make sure they had the upper hand.  Especially in science and technology.  Education was encouraged, and specifically made more fiscally accessible to people, because of the space and nuclear arms races that were going on at the time.

Costs of education have risen steeply over the last few decades.  Higher education is much harder to obtain today, and being book smart doesn't have the same cultural pride it used to.  Or it least it didn't, until about two years ago.  Enter: astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Neil deGrasse Tyson has done what Carl Sagan did a generation before him: he's made learning, particularly science, cool.  He's charismatic, funny, and laid back.  He was a wrestler in high school and college, and a damn good one at that; in high school he became the captain of the wrestling team and in college he became a letterman.  Yet ever since he was little, he wanted more than anything to become a scientist.  And, after pushing forward despite every obstacle he found, he succeeded.

Fast forward to today, and he's become a huge cultural icon.  And an important one.  In addition to being someone to make science cool, he's also worked to make it accessible.  In a country where about 40% of the population believe in creationism and don't understand the word "theory", someone like him is important. And, unlike people like Richard Dawkins, who ooze elitism and condescension, Neil deGrasse Tyson's approach is much more welcoming and interesting.  Nothing put that on display more in 2014 than Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, the reboot of the previous Carl Sagan show.

Throughout the course of the show, Neil deGrasse Tyson waxes poetic about the earth and stars while teaching science to a new generation.  The excellent series touched on all sorts of topics, from non-controversial topics like the speed of light and supernovae, to topics that shouldn't be controversial but are, such as evolution and climate change.  He does so with an excellent production team, including Carl Sagan's widow Ann Druyan (who is a badass herself, but doesn't get enough credit), and the audiovisual components of the show are extremely well done.  The whole package comes together to make science- and critical scientific thinking in general- fun, engaging, and cool.


Scientific Discovery of the Year: Scribbles on Shells!

This has been quiet a year in science.  From unearthing a shitload of new dinosaurs to evidence suggesting plate tectonics on Europa, one of Jupiter's largest moons, there was no shortage of fascinating new discoveries in multiple fields.  This category, in fact, may have actually been the most difficult one for me to narrow down to a single choice.

In the end, I had to go with a choice in the field of paleoanthropology: that of possibly the oldest art ever made.  What's remarkable about this discovery is that it's not older than previously known artwork by only a few thousand years- which, in the eyes of most fields of science, isn't much- or even tens of thousands of years, but hundreds of thousands of years.  Modern humans, or homo sapiens, have only existed for about 200,000 years; these shells are about 500,000 years old.  In Indonesia, where the shells were discovered, this was during the reign of the homo erectus, one of our hominid ancestors (though many paleoanthropologists argue homo erectus was actually the same as its contemporary, homo ergaster, but just given a different name because of its location being different than that of homo ergaster).

Either way, homo erectus used tools and fire, but were never thought to have made any art.  That all changed with this discovery of sea shells with these basic but distinct engravings.

This may sound small, but in the context of human history, this is the beginning of every creative endeavor we've ever embarked on.  Paintings, sculptuing, film, poetry, literature, music- all products of our creative imagination as human beings.  As with everything else in human history, it's been a gradual process.  This discovery shows that this process has been going on longer than we imagined, longer than we have even existed as humans beings.  What does that mean for who we are?  What does that mean about our relation to our ancestors?  What does that mean about the creative capacity of other non-homo sapien creatures?  I don't know, but with this discovery, you can bet paleoanthropology will have plenty of fascinating things to say about the subject in 2015.


Scientific Achievement of the Year: Philae Lander

Sure, science has figured out some pretty cool stuff this year, but what has it actually done?  Turns out, like most years, it's done quite a lot.  From impressive milestone achievements to innovations in how we tackle global issues like disease and hunger, science has a damn good list of reasons to pat itself on the back.

To me, though, nothing beats the idea that we, as humanity, actually landed on a comet last year.  Let me repeat that: we landed a motherfuckin' spacecraft on a motherfuckin' comet.  That is seriously some scifi shit deserving of its own movie adaptation.  The European Space Agency has accomplished one of the most impressive feats in the history of science.

This event was a long time coming.  The Rosetta spacecraft was launched back in early 2004.  Now it is in orbit around comet 67P-CG, which is the comet it sent the Philae lander on, and will be for quite some time so that it can study it.

With some of the early data, there have already been some interesting discoveries.  For instance, earth's water.  Where did it come from?  Scientists often say a combination of asteroids and comets.  With the findings from this mission, we have learned that- based on measuring the proportions of a hydrogen isotope called deuterium to normal hydrogen- the hydrogen ratio is not only different from earth's, but different from the ratios found in many other comets near Jupiter, as well.  This means that the comets around Jupiter may have come from more diverse sources than we originally thought, and it also gives weight to the idea that more of earth's water comes from asteroids than comets.

As the comet gets closer to the sun, the solar-powered Philae lander will reboot and get down to business.  Let's see what amazing things we discover thanks to ESA's monumental cosmic achievement.  Let's also take a moment to appreciate what fantastic things we can achieve when we aren't busy oppressing and murdering each other.  This is the sort of magnificent accomplishment we are capable of as a species, if we can just pull it together.


MMA Fighter of the Year: Robbie Lawler

To put it lightly, Robbie Lawler had one hell of a year.  After beating Josh Koscheck, Bobby Voelker, and Rory MacDonald in 2013, Robbie Lawler fought Hendricks for the vacant welterweight title in easily one of the best MMA matches of 2014.  He ended up losing by way of a controversial decision after five rounds of technical but brutal war.

Losing a title shot can make or break a fighter.  Usually, it's the latter.  Robbie Lawler bounced back after his "loss", however, knocking out Jake Ellenberger and soundly beating Matt Brown, the latter fight I wrote a breakdown about and consider one of my favorite fights of the year.

These impressive victories earned him a rematch with Hendricks for the welterweight title.  While the match wasn't as electric as the first, it was still a good one.  What it did have in common with the first match, though, was a close decision- this time, in Lawler's favor.

From my point of view, I would say that Lawler inched out Hendricks in the first fight, and lost the more recent fight on a similarly slim margin.  However, in terms of the unfortunately over-wrestling friendly scoring often used in the UFC, Hendricks probably should've won their rematch.  On the other hand, he coasted the last two rounds by trying to hold Lawler to the ground with his wrestling ability and did nothing but try to keep his position.  So, in the end, I imagine the judges voted against him to discourage that sort of dry hump-tastic stalling, a decision I am more than okay with.

Either way, this was a year of phenomenal performances by Lawler, no matter what criteria you use.  He beat big names, used great technique, and was entertaining as hell while doing it.  He is, in my opinion, the clear winner for fighter of the year.


MMA Fight of the Year: Cerrone vs Alvarez

This entry is probably next to scientific discovery of the year in terms of the difficulty I had choosing.  There were some amazing fights throughout the year, including the aforementioned Hendricks vs Lawler I and Lawler vs Brown.  However, in the same way the Oscars often give a different prize to picture of the year and director of the year as a sort of compromise, I decided against selecting any fights with Lawler in them to make way for other equally deserving bouts.

Even with that decision, though, there was difficulty involved.  There were some truly great fights this year, such as Junior Dos Santos vs Stipe Miocic, Lyoto Machida vs Chris Weidman, TJ Dillashaw vs Renan Barão, and Jose Aldo vs Chad Mendes II, just to name some that come to mind.  This was a damn tough one to narrow down.

In the end, I had to go with Donald Cerrone vs Eddie Alvarez.  I chose this bout for two reasons: (1)to talk about how much I love knee strikes and (2)give some recognition to Cerrone.

Eddie Alvarez has always been one of the best MMA fighters of any weight division outside of the UFC.  We as fans were very lucky to finally see him switch over, and he showed in the beginning of the match against an elite level opponent in Donald Cerrone that he belonged there.  His boxing is fantastic by MMA standards, especially his footwork and head movement.  In the beginning of the fight he was giving Cerrone serious trouble, especially during a clinch exchange where he fired a strong burst of uppercuts and rocked Cerrone.

Cerrone came back, though, and he did it with my personal favorite strike in martial arts: the knee.  Cerrone is a tall, lanky fighter for his division, yet in the past he always got sucked into brawls where his reach would actually work against him.  Here, though, he started timing and firing superb knee strikes to the midsection of Alvarez every time Alvarez tried to crowd him.  The damage from these knee strikes started adding up and, as the fight went on, Cerrone's lead became more and more pronounced despite valiant efforts from Alvarez.

Donald Cerrone ended his year with 4 victories, with three of these bouts winning some sort of award.  He's doing extremely well against elite competition, and should he beat Myles Jury (who he faces later today as of this writing), he will prove he is ready for another cracked at Anthony Pettis.


Bullshit News Story of the Year: Microwaved Phones

There has been no shortage of bullshit news stories this year.  Luckily, none of the bullshit stories got as big as the knockout game did the year before, but not for a lack of trying on the part of traffic hungry news and clickbait sites.

I don't know if this existed before the internet, but one thing I see constantly on social media is the need people have to think everyone is stupider than them.  While I'm certainly no psychologist, I can't imagine thinking of everyone who isn't you as unrelentingly stupid is a healthy foundation for your intellectual self-esteem.  Otherwise, when you start to figure out that everyone makes mistakes, and a lot of the world's problems are caused by well-intentioned goof ups, misfortune, laziness, apathy, greed, and other factors not at all associated with intelligence, and that most people are in fact capable of forming basic sentences and putting on their pants in the morning without setting themselves on fire, how can you tell yourself you're better than everyone else?

This is where the viral news story about stupid people comes in.  Haha, look at these idiots!  In this case, it was apparently a wacky amount of people putting their smartphones into the microwave.  Haha, dumb people sure are stupid, am I right?  People are so dumb, it sure is nice to be smarter than everyone else!

Except, y'know, the part where the story turned out to be fake.


Actual New Story of the Year: US-Cuba Relations

This completes the trifecta of "holy shit, how do I choose?!" entries on this list.  So, so many things happened in 2014.  At first I really, really wanted to go with all the protests that have been happening the world over, but I decided that it would be too easy a choice.  And, if I were to make this list a consistent thing (and I'd like to), choosing protestors every single year would get a little stale.  Plus, there were protests about such a diverse range of issues, and in so many places around the world, I couldn't possibly do all of those stories justice in a single entry.  So I decided to opt out of going that route- though, that said, I will still be talking about social movements and current events related to them in a few of the items later down on this list.

Even after making that decision, though, I still had trouble narrowing it down.  But I ended up going with the bid to restore US-Cuban relations because this is actually a topic I am well-educated on.  If I were to talk about, say, the Crimea, I'd be doing little else than rehashing the generic summaries everyone else has given.

The trade embargo with Cuba was strictly a geopolitical event of the Cold War and had nothing to do with human rights.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Fidel Castro is a great guy, but his predecessor- the US supported Fulgencio Batista who Castro overthrew in 1959- was a monster.  While both Castro and Fulgencio were both repressive dicks, at least Castro launched education and healthcare campaigns (including in the oft-neglected countryside), labor reforms, humanitarian aid, and a slew of other changes that benefited a lot of people, especially those lower on the socio-economic chain.

Ever since the end of of the Cold War, the embargo with Cuba has remained in place, and we have stubbornly claimed it is maintained for human rights purposes.  The real, reason, of course, is the powerful Cuban American lobby in this country.  The first wave of immigrants from Cuba were many members of the wealthy elite, who felt afraid of Castro's particular brand of communism.  Since then, they have used their power to make sure that ties with Cuba have remained severed.  On the other end of the spectrum, there really wasn't a lobby to counter them.  Plenty of people have been of the personal opinion that the embargo should stop, but no one actually had enough of a vested interest to organize and lobby around the position.

What has happened, though, is that a lower percentage of Cuban Americans than ever oppose the ban.  This isn't just because the children and grandchildren of Cuban immigrants are now outliving their parents and grandparents, but also because a lot of the Cuban immigrants who came here after the initial fifteen or so years following the Cuban Revolution didn't immigrate because of anti-communist sentiments the way their predecessor did.  They migrated during rough economic times in Cuba, and considered Castro neither a paragon of virtue nor an evil communist dictator.  They were hungry and going to where they thought they had the most opportunity.

Now, with diplomatic relations being restored and prisoners being exchanged, there is more promise than ever for this senseless embargo to end.  What I do find unfortunate about the whole situation, though, is that the talks have centered around talk of US business interests setting up shop there.  I hope that, if this revamp in US-Cuba relations do end up going through, there will still be mechanisms in place to prevent too much US corporate meddling.  I also hope Cuba keeps up their insistence on not handing over Assata Shakur.

Despite being a bit jaded about the hows and whys of this deal, I do think it is ultimately a good thing.  Hopefully this results in family reunification and healing between two countries.


Badass of the Year: Malala Yousafzai

In 2014, Malala Yousafzai became the youngest Nobel Prize laureate of all time.  Like many of the people I've mentioned on this list, and with other people further down on this list, her 2014 continued the momentum she built during previous years.  Hey, would you look at that?  It's almost as if achieving greatness (and shout outs on blogs, perhaps the most important prize of all) comes with putting in years of excellence beforehand.

Anywho, Yousafzai, ever since she was young, has been an advocate for education for all people, especially girls.  This lead to her getting shot on October 9th, 2012 by the Taliban.  Even though one of the bullets hit her in the head she pulled through, and since then her advocacy has only increased.

While she has been paraded around in the West as a paragon of virtue, it's important to also know that she has still been unafraid to be critical of the West, too.  Back in late 2013, she met with Barack Obama and urged him to stop using drones to kill innocent people, arguing that the death of innocent lives creates more terrorists (also, y'know, that killing innocent people is a horrible crime in and of itself).  The Obama administration brushed the comments off and praised her, and unfortunately a lot of the West continues to amplify her criticisms of the Taliban (who, of course, deserve every word of that criticism), but downplay her criticism of their own human rights violations.  The fact that Malala is willing to speak to both, however, is a remarkable sign of courage for anyone, especially a teenager who has survived an assassination attempt.

In 2014, she continued her advocacy worldwide for educational access for girls around the world.  She has also stated that she wants to return to Pakistan and become prime minister someday, in the same mold as Benazir Bhutto, the first female prime minister of Pakistan, whom she lists as one of her heroes.  Considering Bhutto was assassinated back in 2007, that takes guts to say.  And Yousafzai has shown no shortage of guts.  With her courage and advocacy for such important causes, from education to anti-violence, I certainly hope she accomplishes her goal.


Politician of the Year: Elizabeth Warren

In terms of policy stances, Elizabeth Warren isn't my favorite politician.  I'm much more a fan of someone like Kshama Sawant, and on the national stage I prefer Bernie Sanders.  Warren has, in my opinion, been silent or noncommittal on a lot of important issues.

That said, Warren has absolutely electrified the progressive wing of the Democratic party.  Continuing the momentum she built over the last few years, she has been unrelenting in her mission to call out big banks, corporate control of politics, the student loan industry, and Wallstreet regulations (or lack thereof).  Basically, calling out the fiscal mechanisms behind the worst income inequality in the United States since the Great Depression.

What is important about Elizabeth Warren is how (along with grassroots movements around the country) she has helped bring these conversations about this alarming wealth inequality and corporate control of politics into the mainstream.  Plenty of Democrats have touched on this topic- President Obama's campaign promise of hope for change was the central premise of his campaign, after all- but they've always been vague in terms of actually pointing to the mechanisms for said inequality (probably because there are a lot of corporate Democrats out there who are only slightly less fiscally conservative than Republicans, and the Democratic Party as an institution also has plenty of special interests it is tied to).  Elizabeth Warren is actually willing to call out the who, what, when, and where of everything, and has specific, tangible goals for fixing everything.

Whether or not she ends up running for election in 2016, and whether or not she has the chance to beat others like Hilary Clinton, what Elizabeth Warren has done is bring important dialogue to the center of attention in mainstream politics.  Of course, this doesn't necessarily mean there will be a lot of tangible policy differences by Democrats who decide to play progressive to get votes- the Obama administration has been pretty friendly to corporate special interests when selecting people for government positions.  But, by bringing these economic issues to the forefront, which a lot of grassroots movements the country over are currently working around, the possibility for people to become informed, think critically about them, and possibly take action is ripe.  And meaningful change always comes from people who struggle for it, not the people in office.

Hopefully, we are on the precipice of some systematic reforms to address our alarming income inequality and the corporate control of politics.  If so, there is no doubt Elizabeth Warren will continue to play a big part, whether it be continuing her tenure as a senator or as the president of the United States.


Word of the Year: YASSS!!!

Perhaps the most important part of any cynical-asshole-disguised-as-an-intellectual starter pack is the hatred of slang.  In recent years, words like swag and twerk have sparked countless fits of rage from people who think speaking "properly" during situations that don't require it is of the utmost importance if you are to retain your 'smart' person cred, and that using slang somehow makes someone less intelligent.  This year, one of the words getting these folks riled up the most is "yasss!", a term for when you're so enthusiastic about something "yes!" just doesn't cut it.

Beyond poking fun at pseudo-intellectual elitists, part of the charm of this word is how positive it actually is.  The term is, very often, used as one of endearment and encouragement.  When talking about the word in an interview, Nicki Minaj had a perfectly concise way of putting it: "I'm confirming that you're the shit!  [...]  It means eat this up!  Eat it up, girl, it's your world.  Take it all in!"  Basically, its whole purpose is to support someone else in a spirited way.  And when one of the year's most popular slang words is as positive as this one, count me in as a fan.  Swag.


Photo of the Year: Michael Brown?

If you lived on the planet earth during the year 2014, I don't need to tell you about the Michael Brown incident.  In a country where unarmed black men are more likely to be shot than unarmed white men, black people are overwhelming arrested for drug use despite similar rates of use between black and white folks, policies like Stop and Frisk overwhelming target black and Latino people, and, ultimately, black and Latino folks are more like to be shot at by police than white (and Asian) folks, the shooting of unarmed black teenagers like Michael Brown is nothing new.

In the aftermath, many Americans scrambled to find a reason to justify Michael Brown's shooting.  Soon, the above photo was circulating on social media and new sites nonstop.  Look at him, pointing a gun at the camera like that!  And people say Michael Brown was a giant teddy bear?  Ridiculous, Lucky Captain Rabbit King.  Not if this photo is anything to go by!

Well, as it turns out, it isn't, because that isn't Michael Brown in the picture.  It's a guy from Oregon, completely unrelated to Michael Brown.  But that didn't stop the image from spreading like wildfire anyway.  It demonstrates, perhaps more than anything else in this case, the extent to which so many people will fervently go out of their way to defend the murder of unarmed black people.  And to be fair, perhaps in this particular case, maybe Michael Brown really was the assaulter, though considering the fact that cops are almost never indicted and there has been a lot of debate by legal experts about the whole trial, it's hard to take this verdict in good faith.

Since then, there have been more deaths.  This includes a Samurai Champloo Mugen cosplayer shot six times in the back, an unarmed woman with biploar disorder and schizophrenia,  and a 12 year old armed with... a bb gun.  Shortly after the Michael Brown decision, another case failed to get indicted: that of Eric Garner.  The video showed absolutely, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that the middle aged asthmatic man was unarmed, unaggressive, and wasn't fighting back, and yet there was still no indictment.

The only silver living from all these tragedies is they have prompted a large social movement under the banner "Black Lives Matter" to raise hell about these horrifying injustices.  Hopefully this movement stays strong, because this state sanctioned murder of black people needs to stop.

Black lives matter.


Video of the Year: Let It Slam

 Space Jam and Frozen?!  Sign me up!

Hayao Miyazaki and Conflict in Movies

My sister is a huge fan of the film maker Hayao Miyazaki.  Because of this, almost half of the gifts I got her for her birthday this year were Miyazaki related, and we marathoned four of his movies throughout the day as part of her birthday celebration.  Three of them- My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service, and The Secret World of Arrietty- were movies of his I had never seen before.  Like the other Miyazaki movies I've seen (Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, and The Wind Rises), I loved them.  The fourth movie we watched was Howl's Moving Castle, as it was the first Miyazaki movie I had ever seen and my memory of it had become foggy.

 

Upon rewatch, I was reminded Howl's Moving Castle is just your run of the mill "female protagonist lives life for others, protagonist meets boy, boy turns out to be wizard, jealous witch turns protagonist into an old woman, protagonist meets turnip scarecrow and sassy flame demon, protagonist and wizard team up to avert war and rescue people and other living creatures along the way" story.  Pretty standard stuff, really.

There's a lot to love about his movies.  The beautiful, imaginative worlds he creates; the relaxed but confident pacing that is never afraid to take a moment to breath, rather than constantly charge forward; the recurring motifs of respecting nature, female agency, and avoiding violence. What I want to focus on here, though, is how he creates conflict in his movies.

Conflict is the force that drives the plot in most storytelling works.  The idea is that the protagonist has to overcome something- be it external, internal, or both- in order to achieve what they want.  Whether they desire inner peace or to rescue a loved one or to obtain a laser that fires Steve Buscemis, they face conflict in order to reach said objective(s).

With great Buscemi comes great responsibility.

In many family friendly films, the conflict is driven by an antagonist who is clearly, unambiguously bad.  From the Wicked Queen in Snow White to Scar in Lion King, kid's movies often feature villains who are so pointlessly evil that they probably do the five finger shuffle to the thought of drowning innocent puppies and kittens.  At first thought, it makes sense: making easy to understand distinctions between good and bad help give children a clear picture of positive versus negative morality as they build their own moral foundation during their formative years.

Obviously, though, the problem lies in the fact that real life is rarely that simple.  Apathy, fear, greed, anger, and weakness are responsible for a lot more problems in the world than "evil" is, if such a thing even exists.  But when kids are still forming their own base concept of right vs wrong, are they able to handle a more nuanced approach in the way antagonists and conflict are portrayed?  Hayao Miyazaki's answer would be an unequivocal "fuck yes", and his films are all the better for it.

Many of Hayao Miyazaki's antagonists, rather than being evil for the sake of being evil, are people, spirits, and creatures that have clear, understandable reasons behind what they do.  Sometimes they do things that are bad for sympathetic or otherwise non-malicious reasons; sometimes their actions cause harm unintentionally.  Some of his movies don't even have actual "antagonist" characters, and conflict is derived from internal struggle or external environmental factors.

Here I will go through some of the movies of his I've seen to illustrate different ways he creates conflict in his films.  There are, obviously, spoilers ahead.

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
 
Often considered Hayao Miyazaki's first Studio Ghibli film and my personal favorite of his, Nausicaa tells the story of the titular character and her struggle to prevent war and save her homeland in the Valley of the Wind.  She does so in a world ravaged by an apocalyptic war that happened a thousand years prior to the start of the movie.  The majority of the earth is now covered in a toxic jungle, which is guarded by giant insect creatures called ohmu.

Everything kicks off when an airship from the Kingdom of Tolmekia crashes in the Valley of the Wind.  The airship carried both the captured princess of the Tolmekian's rival kingdom, the Pejites, and the embryo of a Giant Warrior, which were genetically engineered biological weapons that helped cause the apocalyptic war.  The Tolmekians invade the next morning and occupy the Valley of the Wind while they try to raise the Giant Warrior, hoping they will be able to defeat the Pejites and destroy the Toxic Jungle.  When the Pejites find out that the Tolmekians are in the Valley, they lure a stampede of ohmu there to wipe them out in an act of revenge.

What's important to note about the conflict in this movie is that the motivations the movie gives each group makes sense.  The Pejites and Tolmekians fight each other not because one side is clearly good while the other is evil, but rather because of a tragic escalation of violence, fear, and hatred that has arisen between the two.  Likewise, the desire of the Tolmekians to use the Giant Warrior against the Toxic Forrest isn't some evil plot for world domination, but rather a desperate quest for survival.  Before Nausicaa discovers the earth is healing beneath the Toxic Forrest, everyone- even the residents of the Valley of the Wind- fear desperately for their own survival in such a hostile environment.  The move is a rash one by people desperate to cling to life, not by an unambiguously "evil" group of people.

In the end, Nausicaa is able to solve the conflict by resisting violence and embracing a calm, healing approach.  When she stops the stampede of ohmu by bringing back the kidnapped ohm baby the Pejites used to lure them there, she is almost trampled to death, but the ohms heal her to reciprocate her own healing means she has stuck by throughout the film.  After violence is averted and she tells the people about the healing forest, the fighting stops because all the desperation and fear driving everyone's actions up to that point are eased.  Not only do the ohmu and Tolmekians leave after the conflict, but the Pejites actually stay in the Valley of the Wind to help them rebuild.

The main ideas behind the entire movie are actually summed up by one seemingly small scene in the beginning, when Nausicaa first meets the fox squirrel.  What happens between the two of them is basically a microcosm of the entire movie:

My Neighbor Totoro

The next movie by Miyazaki after Nausicaa, My Neighbor Totoro is a very different film.  Set in relatively modern times, the story is about two sisters who move to a new home in the countryside with their father.  Their mother, meanwhile, is in a hospital, being treated for a nondescript illness.  The large, ambitious themes of Nausicaa are largely absent, though it is worth noting that living with nature, rather than fearing it, is still a prominent theme.

The conflict in this movie is not very overt.  There certainly aren't any wars or super weapons to be found here.  In his Great Movies writeup of the film, Roger Ebert even said that Totoro is "based on experience, situation and exploration--not on conflict and threat."  Later on in the same article, as he describes the infamous bus stop scene, he writes: "notice how calmly and positively the scene has been handled, with the night and the forest treated as a situation, not a threat. The movie requires no villains."

There is, however, a source of conflict in the film: the girls trying to cope with the absence of their mother.  Throughout the film, and especially towards the end, the girls become increasingly saddened by their mother's absence as she recovers in the hospital.  The desire of these two protagonists is to spend more time with their mother, and the obstacle is her hospital stay.  No conniving plots to hurt anyone else, no malicious bullying children, no adults who inexplicably hate kids unrelentingly.  Just two little girls who want to see their mom again.

The rest of the film, then, could be analyzed in a number of ways.  Perhaps the creatures and spirits they encounter are a product of their imagination, a coping mechanism of sorts; perhaps the creatures and spirits are real and can sense their sadness.  Perhaps these creatures and spirits are real, and are willing to show up to every child who is receptive to them.  Perhaps they are figments of the girls' imagination, not as a coping mechanism to make up for how much they miss their mom, but because of their love of adventure and/or nature.

Whatever the reality of this film, its reliance on adventure and imagination, rather than evil antagonists, are a unique and pleasant approach to story telling.  While it doesn't give us many lessons for the ugly realities of the world we live in the way, say, Nausicaa or Princess Mononoke do, its model of story telling does still encourage a certain gentleness, curiosity, and harmony with nature, all of which are wonderful traits to encourage in children (or anyone, really).

Kiki's Delivery Service

Of the four movies we watched on my sister's birthday, I think Kiki's Delivery Service may have been my favorite.  The story revolves around Kiki, a young witch from the countryside, trying to find a big city to move to so that she can train to become a witch.

Near the beginning of the movie, when Kiki is flying around with the goal of finding a city to begin her training, she runs across another young witch in training.  The witch is very rude to her, but Kiki is unrelentingly kind nonetheless.  Because of this, the witch- while not changing her abrasive demeanor- actually gives some helpful advice about using one's inner skills when working as a witch in training.  A lesser movie would've kept her hostility and established her as an antagonist for Kiki to overcome.  Here, though, Kiki shows that being nice to people often pays off.

The main conflict of this movie comes from Kiki's own insecurities about herself.  When she first chooses a town to train in, she is disappointed to find out how apathetic everyone is about her arrival.  The conflict comes not from people making a big deal to hurt or belittle her, but rather how little of a deal they make of it at all.  How will she make it in this big, seemingly uncaring place that she is unfamiliar with?  Anyone moving to a new city for the first time can certainly relate to this.

Luckily, a kindly baker named Osono takes her in.  Soon after, Kiki realizes her ability to fly sets her up perfectly for a delivery service.  There are complications when she starts, as is to be expected when someone starts doing something for the first time, but as the movie goes on Kiki becomes more and more insecure about herself.  She is nervous around extroverted people and hates the dark dress she has, wishing she instead had the more colorful dresses worn by the city girls.  Because of this, she loses her ability to fly and talk to her cat Jiji.

Her inevitable return to form comes not from a need to defeat an evil villain, but from an artist named Ursula who teaches her that it's okay to be different and important to believe in yourself.  When a severe windstorm puts her friend Tombo, who is on an airship at the time, in danger, she summons her courage and believes in herself enough to reach out and save him.

Princess Mononoke

My second favorite Miyazaki film, I almost didn't write an entry for this one considering how similar it is to Nausicaa, both thematically and structurally.  Both are about a pacifist protagonist who tries to stop a war and prevent the corruption of nature for humanity's personal gain, but presented in a way that looks at the humans involved with sympathy rather than painting them as unambiguously malicious.

I decided to include this entry, however, because while Princess Mononoke says a lot of the same things as Nausicaa, it does so in a much darker and more complex way.  Whereas Nausicaa is successful 100% of the time at preventing severe violence and only uses violence once herself, in a very understandable fit of rage after losing her father, Ashitaka isn't always successful in deescalating conflict and uses violence to defend himself multiple times.  More than once, he actually directly kills his enemies.

On top of that, there are more factions here than there were in Nausicaa.  We still have the rival human factions that are warring, but now nature itself is split; the apes, wolves, and boars all have different approaches to how they want to defend themselves.  The wolves engage in what is essentially guerrilla warfare with the humans, while still being kind enough to take in one and raise her as their own; the boars desperately launch all-out attacks, as they are losing their elders and spiritual leaders at such a pace that they are losing themselves; the apes try to plant trees and want to eat the humans, as they don't seem to have the combat prowess to battle them the way the boars and wolves do.

Like with Nausicaa, the humans are also fighting for survival.  Lady Eboshi is perhaps one of the most complex antagonists ever put to film, animated or not.  She treats people whose humanity is routinely neglected, such as brothel workers and lepers, like people deserving of love and respect just like anyone else.  Her ambition is to be able to expand Iron Town not so she can rule the world, but so she can keep her and her people safe.  Her goals are a little foolhardy and reckless, of course, but they're done out of good intentions.

Jigo, the fake monk working for the emperor, is probably the closest to "evil" in the movie.  But it's important to note that greed is the root cause of his actions, not malice.  He's like a (much less terrible) version of The Comedian from Watchmen.  He understands the way the world works and how terrible it can be, and he cynically goes with the flow in order to benefit from it.  Unlike The Comedian, however, Jigo seems a decent enough guy when not directly working toward his own self-interest.  When he first meets Ashitaka, the protagonist, he sticks up for him when Ashitaka tries to buy some rice.  He's out for himself, but if it doesn't cost him anything, he'll look out for someone else, too.  Of course, his selfish approach isn't a good one, but he's far from a one-dimensionally evil bad guy.

Unlike Nausicaa, there is a lot of violence and bloodshed in Mononoke.  Humans and boars go to war, and the Forest Spirit gets its head severed despite Ashitaka and San's best efforts.  Many people are killed.  However, like with Nausicaa, the root cause of this violence is caused by the mind-killing fear of feeling threatened.  Even the emperor whom Jigo is working for is afraid; he wants to be immortal because he fears his own death.

Having established this, the lessons and model of conflict are largely the same as in Nausicaa.  The factions clash, the protagonist works to stop them from continuing to clash, humanity's attempts to exert control over nature and each other backfire, and everyone goes their separate ways when they realize the error of their ways, rather than continuing to fight and perpetuate the cycle of violence.

The Wind Rises
 
Hayao Miyazaki's final film, The Wind Rises, is much different than the rest of his filmography.  The film follows Jiro Horikoshi, a peaceful daydreamer who loves the idea of flying and grows up to become an airplane engineer.  Unlike Miyazaki's other films, whose plots cover events that don't have a particularly long timeline, The Wind Rises follows Jiro's life from his years as a child all the way to adulthood.  Through it he experiences love, loss, tough moral dilemmas, and, of course, airplanes.

There are three central sources of conflict in this film: his challenge in learning to build planes in the first place, the moral dilemma that his planes are used for war, and his wife's case of tuberculosis.  As you have probably noticed as a recurring theme by now, none of these conflicts come from a bad guy who wants to destroy the world.

The first part of the film is about Jiro's challenges in trying to make it in the field of engineering.  As a child he wanted to be a pilot, but when he shares a dream with an Italian plane designer named Caproni, he is told that someone with glasses doesn't have the eyesight to become a pilot.  In response, Jiro decides he will make planes instead, which Caproni encourages.  As Jiro works towards becoming a good aeronautical engineer he faces a fair number of setbacks, which is to be expected with the development of any skill, especially one as technical and complex as this one.

Eventually he starts to get the hang of it.  He also ends up marrying Nahoko, a girl whom he had met when he helped her after an earthquake earlier in the film.  Things aren't all good, however.  She has tuberculosis, which is killing her.  And, speaking of killing, Jiro becomes increasingly unhappy with the fact that his planes are being turned into instruments of war.  The rest of the movie's conflict comes from the couple trying to cope with Nahoko's declining health and Jiro grappling with the fact that his planes, those vehicles of freedom and adventure, are being used in war.

What the conflict in this film ultimately boils down to in this film, then, are trying to appreciate the painfully finite time we have with our loved ones and trying to conciliate our values with how we support ourselves.  These are defining characteristics of what it means to be human.


Hayao Miyazaki's movies create conflict in a way where blame and moral deficiency don't lie squarely on the shoulders of one character or group.  Sometimes it's because the characters and factions involved have good reason for what they do, whereas other times it's because there aren't actually any characters or factions causing conflict at all.  Hayao Miyazaki is one of the best film makers of all time, and I count myself lucky to have been around during the career of such an all time great.  Hopefully, in the wake of his retirement, more animated film makers step up to continue his practice of making truly fantastic animated films in the same mold as him and other animation greats, such as Pixar's John Lasseter and Pete Docter.

The Human Condition Trilogy

To say something everyone everywhere already understands: the world can be a fucked up place sometimes.  As human beings, we are capable of creating as much horror as we are beauty, as a look at any history book or news program will tell us.  One of the most profound and important issues we have to grapple with in this life is how we can stick to our own principles in a world that can be so unthinkably brutal, so that we may stay true enough to ourselves to live a life we consider worth living in the short amount of time we have.

There are plenty of movies that are about finding meaning in life, as well as movies about people trying to stick to their convictions despite everything that is thrown at them.  Some even combine them, such as Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece Red Beard.  Movies that explore these types of themes are usually among my favorite (provided everything is well executed, of course).

For me, the Human Condition trilogy covers all of these questions about human identity better than any other film or film series I have ever seen.  The name of the trilogy is an ambitious one, but luckily the films themselves are up to par with the title.  These movies are the fulfillment of everything cinema has the potential to be.



The protagonist of the trilogy is a man named Kaji.  He is a twenty eight year old pacifist who believes that all human beings deserve to be treated with respect to their human rights.  He's not afraid to stand up for these beliefs, either.  Throughout the trilogy, much of the conflict involves him trying to stay true to his convictions despite all of the human ugliness around him, as well as trying his best to make it home to his wife Michiko.

The protagonist is played by Tatsuya Nakadai, who absolutely nails the role.  He plays Kaji with a dignified gravity, crafting him as a stern, prideful, flawed, but ultimately good human being who always tries to stand with his beliefs.  He also does so with a certain sense of style that makes Kaji come off as cool- though this fades a bit later on in the trilogy, as conditions become increasingly desperate for him.  Few characters in cinema are as noble and aspiration-worthy as Kaji.

To be clear, though, Kaji certainly isn't perfect.  He is often times far too prideful and hard-headed.  He also tends to keep things from his wife, even when she repeatedly tells him explicitly that she wants to know about everything going so that she can be another ally for him in his fight to stand up for his principles.  In fact, his communication issues extent not only to his wife, but to a lot of other people as well.

In reviews that I've read about the film, some people have said these flaws make him come off as self-righteous and hypocritical.  I find that view highly disappointing.  If someone has to be perfect in order to stand up for their values, then no one in the entirety of human existence, real or imagined, has ever earned the right to do so, and if we retroactively erased every gain for human rights people fought for throughout history the world would be far, far worse off than it is now.  Rather, I find his flaws make him a more human, well-rounded character, as well as more relatable.  It's much easier to see yourself in an imperfect character than a perfect one.



Each of the three films takes place somewhere different, in situations that are increasingly bad for Kaji.  I'll keep the descriptions for each entry short and mostly spoiler free (the main gist of the first and second movie's plots will be mentioned since they contextualize the second and third entries, respectively, but nothing mentioned here is more spoiler-y than anything you'd read on the back of the DVD box or any sort of video description).

The first entry, No Greater Love, takes place in Japanese occupied Manchuria, an area in Northeastern China (and a bit of eastern Mongolia) that was colonized by the Japanese and given a puppet, pro-Japanese government in 1932.  At the beginning of the movie, set during WW2, Kaji is given the option of either enlisting in the Japanese army or becoming a labor supervisor in a Chinese labor camp.  Adamantly opposed to the war, he chooses the latter option with the goal of making conditions less miserable for the Chinese laborers that work there.

When he gets to the labor camp, his beliefs rooted in pacifism, human rights, and socialism are put to the test.  This is during the time of a right wing, imperialist Japan, and the system he finds himself in does everything it can to resist his attempts to give Chinese laborers more humane conditions.  To say the film is a series of ups and downs is an understatement.  Sometimes he succeeds, sometimes he fails, and all of these successes and failures have real, tangible effects on the Chinese laborers, himself, his partner Okishima (the only other administrator of the camp who sees the Chinese laborers as human beings, though not to the same extent Kaji does), and his wife Michiko.

At the end of the movie, Kaji receives a summons to fight for the Japanese army due to a series of events best seen in the film.  Thus begins the second entry, Road to Eternity, which follows Kaji as he becomes part of the Japanese military machine he so staunchly opposes.  When shipped off to basic training, he excels at every aspect of his training, but his leftist leanings and tendency to stick up for fellow recruits being bullied by the veterans in the barracks single him out for harsh treatment and high scrutiny by the brass.



Interesting side note: the beginning half of the movie is incredibly similar to the movie Full Metal Jacket, to the point where it's clear Kubrick saw this movie and decided to use elements of Kaji's experience in boot camp for his own film.

Between his unbreakable will and the support he receives from friends he makes along the way, such as another left leaning soldier among the veterans named Shinjo, a hospital nurse, and a fellow patient in the hospital, Kaji makes it through basic training and eventually ends up leading a team of new recruits.  He does his best to stick up for these recruits, preventing them from facing corporal punishment and other abuses from both officers and veteran trainees alike.

Eventually, they all end up on the battlefield.  To spare the details of the battle, things get rough.  Kaji eventually loses most of his squad but vows to stay alive, which leads to the final point of the trilogy: A Soldier's Prayer.

The third and final film in the trilogy is also the fastest moving of the three.  The Japanese military defeated, Kaji leads a group of survivors to try to reach the Manchurian border so that they can return to society as they know it.  A lot happens to the group, which keeps losing and gaining new members, as they have run ins with groups ranging from Japanese holdouts to Chinese peasants.  The entire time, Kaji finds himself increasingly desperate, and he struggles to keep true to his own personal morals.  These struggles continue even when they are eventually captured by Soviet soldiers and put into a POW camp.

What's powerful to me about this trilogy is its connection to the title.  Throughout the saga you see humanity at its worse, but through that suffering you also see true human empathy, dignity, and a willingness to stand up even when everything is against you.  No punches are pulled, and that makes these films quite bleak at times, but it also makes the parts of real human goodness all the more touching and powerful.



Another great part about the film is that you really get to see Kaji grow as a person, as well as grow to meet more like minded people along the way- in  fact, the two are connected.  In the first film, for instance, he is terrible at reaching out to others and suffers for it.  As time goes on, however, he learns to form strong bonds with other genuinely good people.  The moments in the trilogy with these friendships help counteract the bleak human ugliness you see throughout the films.

Despite how great these films are, though, they are not without their flaws.  There are many moments that go from human tragedy to melodramatic, sometimes for seemingly no reason at all.  At times the pacing of the films can feel rushed, while other times they can feel slow.   The antagonists throughout the trilogy also sometimes seem one-dimensional, ready to enforce a strict status quo without thought or feeling, though there are exceptions.

These flaws are heavily outweighed by how moving and powerful everything is as a whole, however.

In terms of the bigger picture, The Human Condition is about the rise and fall of imperial Japan on the surface.  But underneath it is so, so much more.  Through the personal journey of a man who goes from a position of power to being oppressed, we see how militarism, imperialism, and oppression changes forms and hands throughout the ages, but should always be opposed regardless of the specifics involved.

After being forced out of isolation in 1854 by Commodore Perry, Japan later began its rise as an imperial power in the early 20th Century after beating Russia in a war in 1905.  China, Korea, and other places in Eastern Asia were colonized by the Japanese, and there were many human rights abuses.  Yet China itself has had its own issues in enforcing oppressive hegemony, starting from when the Hans coerced various other ethnic groups to create modern China, all the way up to today with places like Taiwan and Tibet.  We all know about Russia during its Soviet Union days, and Europe during the days of colonization.  The Americas, including the United States, were literally founded on the eradication of Indigenous people and the enslavement of Africans.  And, since becoming an empire, the United States has been responsible for its own share of horrors all over the world, from the 1901 Platt Amendment that made Cuba subservient to the US, all the way to the nonsensical War on Terror today that benefits no one except private military industries.

From how I saw it, the point of this trilogy isn't to demonize Japan or Russia, but to oppose militarism, imperialism, and oppression whenever they show up.  These are things human beings have been doing to each other throughout history, and this sort of human oriented horror shows no signs of slowing down any time soon.  But Kaji and other people from this incredible trilogy show us there always potential to be better.  We always, always have the ability to be better.

The Humanist Headkick Collection

Hey there, internet world!  I've talked a lot about being a writer on here, and after a bunch of delays, I finally have my own short story collection published!  Needless to say, I am very excited.  If you like reading short stories, give 'em a go!  This collection is for a hard copy, but I'll have a Kindle version up soon.

The stories in that collection are all over the place.  Some take place in the present, some in a fiction sword and armor battlefield type of past, and one even takes place in a fictional afterlife.  A lot of my interests are, of course, in the collection, such as a story about a kickboxing match.

This has been a long time coming.  Thanks to any of you reading who have helped me along the way, and thanks to any of you reading who decide to order a copy!

Fighting GIF Breakdown

For me, one of the coolest parts about watching professional fighting matches is breaking down the hows and whys for everything we see on screen.  Physical attributes like strength and speed are very important factors in a fight, and obviously play a huge part in who makes it to the big leagues.  But here's the thing: many top combat athletes have comparable speed and strength, and often wins we attribute to physical factors are actually tactical victories.

In this post, I'll use some GIFs from different boxing, kickboxing, and MMA matches to show what I mean.  All of these GIFs are from the awesome blog MMA-GIFs, many of them created by the person (persons?) who runs the page.







What's great about this uppercut is how red gloves uses some basic striking principles to land it.  Notice how an instant before he throws it, he steps sliiiiiightly to his right (check his right foot), and also leans his upper body to the right.  This moves him off of the center line of attack that his opponent is currently swinging wildly through.  Black gloves has his gloves in front of his face to shield him, but this also blinds him to red gloves' subtle change in position.

Simultaneously, red gloves also throws his right uppercut from his right side, which is now off the center line.  Black gloves doesn’t even see the punch coming, and walks right into it.  Getting an opponent to walk into a punch always makes that punch land much harder, the same way a traffic accident will be more devastating with a head on collision than getting rear-ended.  It’s basic physics.



Red gloves sees the body jab coming from blue gloves and decides to crash in on it.  Sometimes when an opponent throws a straight punch (that is, the punch is reaching out straight in front of you, instead of something like a hook or an uppercut) to the body, if you can see it coming, you can crash in and jam up your opponent’s punch.  You’re moving in before their arm can extend all the way, so while they’re jammed you can throw a more appropriate punch for the short range you’re in (a hook or an uppercut).

In this case, homie thought he could do that, but blue gloves was really just throwing a quick little body jab to set up for his right cross that red gloves walked right into.  Like I said in the above breakdown, collisions: way more force.



A lot of times when an opponent lands a head kick, people remark "wow, it was so quick his opponent didn't see it coming!"  Now, of course, there are some fighters who are so quick and efficient with head kicks, that can sometimes be the case.  More often than not, however, head kicks come about as a result of careful setup.  By studying this picture, it becomes clear that this was a case of the latter.

Notice how when red gloves throws the kick, blue gloves lifts his leg.  This isn’t a case of “oh shit, I didn’t see a kick coming!”  Blue gloves saw the kick and believed it was coming for his leg, rather than his head, hence why he brought up his leg to check it.  This means his opponent had been kicking him repeatedly in the leg, conditioning him to think that was where his next kick would always be headed.  After doing this enough times, blue gloves raised his leg automatically anytime he saw a kick coming.  This time, however, the kick went for his head.

This is one of the most popular head kick set ups you will learn in any Muay Thai class.  Hammer away at the legs and/or body as much as you can.  Eventually, they will start trying to shield those areas reflexively when they sense a kick, and that's when you go to the head.  The exact same principle is in boxing, too: go for the body when they cover the head, and go for the head when they cover the body.



This picture is another example of why shielding your face with your gloves isn't the best defense.  Red gloves throws a nasty jab-cross combo that blue gloves covers up to avoid.  While putting your gloves in front of you like that you are blind, and there is always a split second where you have to move your gloves so you can see again.  Red gloves threw a kick during that split second moment, when blue gloves was lowering his gloves so he could see again.

A noteworthy detail here is that when red gloves threw his jab, he took a diagonal left-forward step.  This put him in a better position to launch attacks from both his rear hand and leg, because now they are that much closer to his opponent's center line.  This closing in distance means a slight downgrade in power, but a strike with slightly less power that lands is infinitely better than a stronger strike that doesn't.  Especially when the strike that lands is a head kick that the opponent doesn't see coming.



This one is from an MMA match between Georges St Pierre (red gloves) and Carlos Condit (blue gloves), who happens to be my favorite welterweight fighter.  In the match, Condit landed this beautiful head kick and was the first person in years to seriously threaten GSP's record-breaking run as the welterweight champion.  Unlike the previous GIFs, this is less about masterful striking fundamentals and more about the value of an unorthodox approach.

In most striking gyms, fighters are taught to try and throw strikes both during and after you duck or bob your head to avoid a punch.  That way, you're putting out offense as well as defense.  Most of the time, the moves are punches.  Throwing a kick as you're coming up from being hunched over is very difficult and requires a lot of flexibility.

In this match, Condit decided to throw a head kick instead.  Nobody saw it coming, least of all GSP.  One of the biggest risks about a headkick in MMA is how open it leaves you to being taken down; indeed, we had already seen it in this fight.  Here, however, he threw up during a time where few people do and was rewarded with a knockdown.

This shows the importance of trying new, unorthodox ways of applying something.  Sometimes it won't work out, but other times it will succeed wonderfully.

Debate Tips From a Former College Debater

Hey everyone, sorry for another long gap between posts.  While I have indeed been busy, the real reason for my absence is that I hadn't been able to think of much I've wanted to say on here recently.  Over the last few days, however, I've had a few good discussion about socio-political issues, and it got me thinking about my time in debate.  Specifically, what skills I gained from the activity.

I joined the debate team during my final year at Palomar College, during the 2010-2011 school year.  I went in to improve my speaking and persuasive abilities, as well as learn more about all the lofty ideas and multifaceted issues I was sure to encounter.  I ended up doing well enough in the activity- I wasn't great at it, but I wasn't bad, either- and tried to stick with it after I transferred.  Unfortunately, UC Irvine didn't have much of a team, and I wasn't able to keep competing due to lack of a partner; I did, however, continue with the activity as an occasional coach, judge, and guest lecturer for Palomar.

There is a lot of bullshit in debate.  Some people care less about the personal growth/education aspect and more about winning.  I don't blame them, either; there are scholarships available if you are good enough, and higher education ain't cheap.  Regardless, there's a lot of tricks that people used that will never actually help you outside of a debate round: speaking fast so the opposing team has trouble keeping up ("spreading"), using overly verbose and/or convoluted terms so that the opposing team has no idea what is happening, throwing out a shit ton of half-assed arguments- so many that the opposing team can't possibly address all of them- and then hammering away at the ones the opponents didn't address, etc.

I bring that up not to talk shit, but to make sure I don't idealize college debate as this flawless, purely intellectual activity.  Those of us in the debate community are subject to bullshit just like anyone.  Other than our rock hard abs, we're just like everybody else.

Debaters in between rounds.

Still, there was a lot I gained from the activity.  Here are four things that have helped me as someone who likes to discuss and debate socio-political issues.

4. Clash
If I were asked to point to just one thing that makes online debates terrible- aside from "everything" and "racism"- it would be the lack of clash in these debates.  In the debate circuit, "clash" means that you have to address everything your opponent says, line by line, point by point, and your opponent must do the same.  In novice rounds, matches are often decided in large part simply by who actually addresses their opponent's arguments.

This is the fundamental problem with a lot of online debates.  Participants will often exchange talking points and call each other fools, addressing only a [distorted version of] their opponent's main thesis, and never actually respond to the points they gave in support of that argument (or only cherry picking a point or two to respond to).

Let's say Person A thinks the death penalty should be legal, and Person B doesn't.  Person A says that it should be legal because victim's families should be able to find closure and the punishment should fit the crime; Person B says the state can't say murder is wrong while murdering, and also brings up the alarming racial disparity in who gets the death penalty.  Person A responds by reiterating their points and elaborating more on what they said, and Person B responds by addressing common arguments made by pro-death penalty people instead of the arguments specifically brought out by Person A.

Then Raekwon comes in and advocates for a Guillotine and Swordz policy.

In this all too familiar scenario, neither person is "clashing" with their opponent's arguments.  Throwing talking points back and forth, and addressing points that have either been distorted or not brought up at all, destroy good dialogues far too often.

Next time you find yourself in a discussion, try to see how much clash is or isn't happening.  If it's not happening, call attention to it (and try to evaluate if it is happening on your end, too).  If the conversation continues with no clash then it isn't going anywhere, and probably not worth continuing.

3. Paying Attention to Criteria
In competitive debate, the affirmative team gets to set the parameters for the round at the beginning.  They are able to define the words in the resolution, decide what type of round it is, and, perhaps most importantly, define the criteria for victory (if this sounds unfair, know that if the negative team doesn't like the parameters the affirmative set for the round, they can argue against them).  Usually the criteria set for the round is "net benefits", which means whichever team makes the world an overall better place.  Other criteria can be chosen if the affirmative team so desires, however, and the criteria can be anything ranging from net benefits for a specific group (net benefits for oppressed people, the environment, the economy, etc) to concepts (such as fairness).

Criteria: whichever plan better preserves the Lifestream.

This is another aspect that is often a "gotcha!" moment for new debaters.  The affirmative team might set the criteria as net benefits for religious minorities, and the negative team might ignore that completely while debating as if the criteria were the usual "net benefits [for everyone/everything]" standard.  If the affirmative team calls out the fact that every argument the negative team has made that doesn't apply to religious minorities doesn't count at the end of the round, it's a devastating blow that usually wins them the match.

The usefulness for this one goes beyond just debates.  If you understand the criteria for success in any given situation, then you can focus on what you need to do to succeed, and you can even get away with a few things if you can argue they aren't important to the criteria at hand.  I've worked for years in customer service positions, and I am often able to talk myself out of trouble whenever I disobey store policy in the interest of good customer service (for instance, returning something for an especially kind or loyal customer even if things are past the return date).

In debates, ask yourself what the criteria might be for you to successfully persuade someone.  In a generic internet debate, this might prove tricky.  In discussion in specific contexts, however, this line of thinking can be quite helpful.

Imagine you were a candidate running for office; you will, of course, need to debate your political opponent(s) at some point.  Imagine your main issue is to make education free.  Now imagine you were having three debates with your opponent on the issue, but in three areas: a university, a business owners convention, and a military base.  In each area, it would be important to think of what criteria you should be focusing on in this debate.  In the first, you'd have an easy time; in the second, you could talk about the positive economic impacts of an educated populace; in the third, you could talk about how much people who serve in the military are often cheated out of the GI Bill.

Almost as if, for some wacky reason, the government doesn't want veterans to be educated.

This the importance of thinking of criteria.  Whenever you find yourself trying to persuade, ask yourself: what criteria should I operate under?

2. Impacts
Another part of debate rounds is discussing why your plan or counter-plan matters, and why your opponent's plan or counter-plan sucks.  Usually, the way this happens is through what are called advantages (different reasons as to why your shit is awesome) or disadvantages (different reasons as to why your opponent's shit isn't).  The basic structure is the harm (what is going on that sucks right now), the link (how your plan addresses that problem or your opponent's plan makes it worse), and the impacts (why this matters/what results from it; literally, the impact that it has).  Often there are more parts added to these, but for the sake of simplicity, we'll stick to the harm-link-impact model.

In the higher levels of debate, when debaters have learned the tricks and how to avoid falling for them, impacts often become a deciding factor in who wins a round.  So you're passing a plan for free education free of any strings attached that barely raises taxes?  Fantastic.  But it doesn't mean anything unless you can explain why this is a good thing.

Let's try to impact this out.  First, to create advantages.  Let's say you have three: poverty, knowledge of self, and the economy.  In the first advantage, you'd list the harm (poverty being a thing), the link (making education more accessible), and finally, the impacts (increasing upward mobility, meaning more people can work their way out of poverty, meaning more people will be able to secure livings with fiscal security, meaning more people will be able to have food and shelter, etc).  For the other two, you'd explain why having increased knowledge of self and why the improvements to the economy brought about by more affordable education are awesome in the same harm-link-impact format.

The overall organization of an advantage or disadvantage is important, but what really stands out is the impact.  That's what has the power to make people think and feel.  When you're advocating something, or taking issue with it, and are actually trying to persuade people (whether your opponent or audience), adding impacts to what you say is crucial.  Otherwise, you're just talking about ideas, rather than the affect these ideas have on the world.

1. Don't Be Afraid of Bullshit
Earlier, I mentioned that there is plenty of bullshit in the debate community.  Bullshit is everywhere in this world, and can't be escaped.  While the examples of bullshit I mentioned before don't usually come up outside of debate, I don't need to tell you that debates and discussions the world over are full of la caca del toro.

Instead of trying not to encounter bullshit, try to become comfortable around it.  Like anything else, the more you get to understand something inside and out, the more you'll be able to deal with it.  No one can avoid a punch to the face like a boxer.

"But my super secret, too deadly to spar style uses the sacred-" lolno.

When I joined debate, I was very optimistic about how purely educational the activity would be, how every debater would carry themselves with the utmost intellectual and moral integrity.  And there are plenty of coaches and competitors like that.  But, as I said before, there were also those who put winning above everything else, and weren't afraid to bullshit.

At first I was disillusioned with these competitors and hated facing them.  As time went on, however, I grew to value these types of matches.  Most people you debate with in life are going to try to pull some sort of bullshit- and, if we're being honest with ourselves, so are we.  It's inevitable, even with good intentions.

Eventually, calling out the bullshit of these debaters helped me learn to better call out bullshit in general.  This is a skill that can't be underestimated, especially when you need it to stop yourself from being screwed over.  It might be a boss who is full of shit, or a family member, or a salesperson for something you need, or anyone else whom you can't simply avoid.  In those times, being able to (calmly, and with an attention to criteria) call someone out is so, so important.

So don't think you're above bullshit.  You've done it before, I've done it before, everyone does it.  It's as much an inevitable part of life as death and tragic handjobs.  Instead, learn to understand and confront it.  You'll be way better off.