Questions you didn't know anybody wanted the answer to

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfdRtf9GYwk

pgs 63-66: In which Gogo and Didi, bored as ever, pretend to be Pozzo and Lucky; and when that doesn't work and Gogo tries running away, try hiding; and when that doesn't work, try shouting insults at each other until they decide to make up to each other.

Questions:
Why, when Didi was pretending to be Lucky and Gogo, Pozzo, was Didi unable to think unlike Lucky in act I?
Why did Estragon say he's cursed/in hell when attempting to leave the stage? Why exactly can't he leave the stage at all?
Who's "they're" in "They're coming!" that's supposedly after Gogo and Didi when the two don't know who "they" are?
What was auditorium supposed to represent when the two point at that direction and conclude that there's "not a soul in sight"?
What's the meaning behind the very narrow tree that doesn't allow Gogo to be completely hidden from whatever's supposedly surrounding him and Didi?
Why does Estragon suggest to Didi that they go "back to back like in the good old days"? And what does he mean by that term?
Besides Godot, what could the two possibly be looking out for during their watch?
What's the meaning behind the impromptu insult-shouting match at each other? And why does Gogo say "that's the idea"?
Why does Didi seem to take the most offense at the word "critic"? Could it possibly be some sort of "take that" to critics of Samuel Beckett's other plays?
Why do the two make up after shouting insults at each other?
Notice how in some stage productions, the two dance when they make up, when the script simply says that "they embrace", then "they separate. Silence." Why add the dance? What does it represent?
Last but not least, were the two subjecting themselves to such tomfoolery as described in this scene just because they were extremely bored and have nothing better to do? How else would this tomfoolery be interpreted?

Waiting for Godot 1st HW assignment (incomplete)

1) Write 10 or so sentences putting Godot in the context of the "Power of 10" video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0
One interpretation of Godot is that he might not be any sort of physical being at all. He might be some sort of god-like being  (which may arise from the 'God' part in the name Godot)  that exists beyond the observable realm of time and is older than mankind, just like how we cannot see anything beyond the realms of the observable universe, as whatever is on the outside must be older than the age of the universe from our viewpoint. This is pointed out in "Powers of Ten", in which we go no more than 10^24 meters away from our starting point, for we would end up seeing vast emptiness. Also relating "Waiting for Godot" to "Powers of Ten" is the fact that like how "Powers of Ten" takes us no further than those 10^24 meters away, spending another minute waiting for Godot is like being another minute closer to death, and one only has a limited lifetime in which he or she could wait for someone or something. For Vladimir and Estragon, after days of Godot failing to show up, the two ended up at a point where they're at the farthest they could go in waiting. So they contemplated suicide if they had to go one more day of waiting for Godot's arrival. (More to come.)

2) What do  you think of Pozzo and Lucky? Why are they in the play? Choose some moments when you write about them.
Pozzo seems to be a man who has the uttermost power and control over his slave, Lucky, but tends to be helpless and dependent sometimes. Quoth him, "I cannot go long without the society of my likes." His helplessness became more apparent when he suddenly goes blind between acts, and could not get up when he falls over almost immediately after making his entrance in Act II. He has also forgotten everything about what has happened the previous day. As Pozzo's slave, Lucky has been overworked and abused to the point where he is unable to do anything at all unless commanded upon by Pozzo. For example, when asked to "think", he ends up spurting out an absurdly long string of unrelated ideas, which ends up annoying and paining Pozzo, Didi and Gogo to the point where they attempt to make him shut up. The name "Lucky" may have some meaning behind it: one interpretation on why he could be considered lucky is that he does not have to worry about being controlled by his consciousness and certainty on what to do, whether to do it, how he feels, or what is going on; he has Pozzo tell him what to do and when.

3) How is Didi different than Gogo?
Didi and Gogo are the nicknames of Vladimir and Estragon, respectively.  Didi/Vladimir tends to be more mature and intelligent of the two, while Gogo/Estragon plays the role of a simpleton who frequently tends to fall asleep during the duration of the play and seems weak and helpless without Vladimir around (though he has some intellectual comments of his own from time to time). Vladimir is the only character in the play who has sense of the passage of time, and he keeps reminding Gogo that they couldn't go anywhere because they were supposed to be "waiting for Godot". While Vladimir is the "optomist" in the play, Estragon is the "pessimist", and tends to regard Godot suspiciously. Vladimir cares a great deal for the plight of his fellow man, while Estragon cares very little about other people, only being very attached to Didi.

4) What are these two talking about, for what, for why?
There is perhaps no single thing being discussed with any sort of importance by Didi and Gogo throughout the course of the play, except perhaps for whether they are at the right place or at the right day and time for their supposed meeting with Godot. The two may end up straying into some sort of random topic and consider going somewhere before Vladimir ends up reminding Estragon that they cannot leave where they are now because they're "waiting for Godot."

5) How is your life like Didi and Gogo's?
Like Gogo, I tend to have some sort of pessimistic outlook on life, constantly worrying about the bad things that may happen to me in classes or when it comes to friendship with other people. Like Didi, I tend to have some sort of intellectual side, making my own viewpoints about some aspects of life. Like both, I seem to have some sort of unreliable memory, tending to forget about or not being too sure about highly important things, such as the method for solving a certain physics problem, or an important formula required to answer one of the problems in a math exam.

6) If this play is not about God, claim 3 other things, ideas that the play is actually about? Point to parts of the play to support your claim.
Besides perhaps being about God, one idea pertaining to this play is about what the value of life supposedly is, what it means to exist, and what sort of awareness we have on our world. Pozzo claims that there's no meaning behind life, and himself ends up going blind (either physically or figuratively)  at the true meaning of it. Vladimir responds by saying that we have been diminishing the meaning of life with habit.
Another idea is about time testing our abilities to endure, especially in regard to the play's central action: waiting. Didi and Gogo spend the course of the play anticipating the arrival of Godot, who ultimately never shows up. They end up spending the second day repeating the actions of the first day, with very little memory of what happened that previous day. Time ends up losing its meaning when whatever happens one day has no bearing on whatever happens the next day.
A third idea is about suffering being a fundamental part of human existence. Every character in the play ends up suffering in different ways: mentally and/or physically, minor and/or major. Notable scenes pointing upon this idea include Estragon being kicked by Lucky while trying to wipe away Lucky's tears; Pozzo falling over, being unable to get up; and Vladimir and Estragon contemplating committing suicide if Godot fails to arrive, after they come to the realization about the repeating cycle of events that they keep finding themselves into.

7) Is this play cynical? What makes us insecure? How much do people act out of their insecurity? What's the flip side of insecurity?
Gogo has some sort of cynicism by showing very little trust at other people except for Didi. Conversely, Pozzo and Lucky tend to be quite dependent: Pozzo on Lucky to do his bidding, and vice versa with Lucky depending on Pozzo to tell him to do anything at all. Other examples of cynicism in this play include Didi and Gogo disputing about whether one of the two thieves crucified alongside Jesus was repented of his sins and saved from internal damnation; and the fact that no female characters appeared in the play, potentially cancelling out any hope of redemption through the reproductive cycle of life. A lack of self-confidence and frequent dependence on others tends to make one insecure. Insecure people try to act out of their insecurity in several ways: by defaming other people, calling them bad names or treating them like they're ugly, bragging a lot about some questionable accomplishments that seem too good to be true, and tending to be bad sports when things don't go their way (or even rubbing their own victories in losers' faces) Thus, the flip side of insecurity is arrogance, trying to make themselves feel better about their insecurity by acting like they're more superior than others. When Pozzo loses his watch, he suddenly loses his confidence in, and ability to understand, the notion of time, being forced to rely on the beating of his heart as a new form of time measurement. Not willing to do so, he chooses to go blind before Act II, violently responding that "the blind have no notion of time". For all we know, he might be pretending to go blind and providing that response to act out his insecurity about losing his confidence when it comes to telling time.

Naomi Klein Interview Notes for Knowledge Carnival

At one point in Naomi Klein's interview, she describes a news story in which an airplane ended up stuck on the tarmac in Washington D.C. during record breaking heat. She points out that no reports mentioned anything about global warming or how emissions from airplanes could've possibly led to the tarmac melting. For the Knowledge Carnival on Monday, I plan to include a point in my group's presentation in which this is one example of how journalists could deliberately omit vital information from news reports in an attempt to entice more viewers to discuss these situations and watch future telecasts of news programs in order to receive more information about those reports.

More to come... =3

Media Censorship

The advantage of having the First Amendment here in the United States is that we have the ability to know what is actually happening within our nation and across the globe, and the freedom to provide our say on these issues without restriction. Other nations, such as Iran, Eritrea, Cuba, and China, do not have such liberties, however. In Ukraine, for example, censorship of mass media and denial of human rights were a problem throughout the presidency of Viktor Yanukovych, when beforehand, as a former Soviet nation, it was very little of a problem.* The nation even went so far as to arrest and physically abuse journalists for criticizing the government. Those acts of censorship violate the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Rights.
Even with the First Amendment in use, there have also been some questionable cases of media censorship in the United States. As stated by James Turnage of Guardian Liberty Voice**, there are two reasons why news agencies fail to report the truth in their news reports throughout the country. One is that major news agencies depend upon government sources for exclusivity in reporting. There is an agreement between the two sides that information not approved by the government will be publicized, so nothing happens until an actual scandal breaks. The other and most obvious reason is money. Sensational stories sell more advertising than mundane everyday occurrences; stories about young higher-class Caucasians going missing or dying in tragedies gather more attention than similar stories involving poorer children of color; and deaths, arrests, and terminally ill diagnoses of celebrities or other famous people attain widespread news coverage, when such horrible events happen to all other people to little regard. Turnage goes on to say that the news should go back to providing the facts on issues instead of relying on false information and letting the public speak up about what they believe.

* http://www.huffingtonpost.com/valerie-hsieh/theres-something-wrong-in_b_5493917.html
** http://guardianlv.com/2013/09/censorship-in-the-major-media/

3 interesting topics in Parts I and II

1. How the fast food industry has led to the destruction of South and Central American rainforests (pgs 46-47). "According to a 1996 report by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, funded by the World Bank and the United Nations, 72 acres of rainforest are destroyed every minute, mostly by impoverished people working for multinational corporations, who are cutting and burning the forest to create agricultural or pasturelands to grow beef for export to the United States."
2. Global warming caused by the increasing emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and how "the sky is actually falling" (pgs 66-70). "...as Bill McKibben points out so articulately in The End of Nature, the distance between the ground (at sea level) and the upper edge of the troposphere, the part of our atmosphere that supports almost all life on Earth, is only about six miles. That's all that we have above and around us, just those narrow six iles of air, and crowded in and below that is every form of terrestrial life."
3. Contrasting tribes and city-states (pgs 194-200). "About seven thousand years ago, the first politically organized city-states came into being. Since that time, they have systematically exterminated almost all remnants of the tribal cultures they come in contact with. This process of extermination is now nearly complete; this century has seen the extermination of more tribal people than any in history. . . now, however, we're beginning to see the flaws in a city-state organization."

Topics to research

1. The impact of deforesting around the world
2. Control of the water industry
3. Early human civilization (e.g. Mesopotamia)

Michael Mann's TEDx Talk on Climate Change

 
In this TEDx Talk, Michael E. Mann talked about the ongoing and future scenarios regarding climate change, our lack of actions to deal with the problem, and how politics might have manipulated our views on the subject.
He first discusses about the slow but steady change in climate trends over the past millennium, and how natural and human factors would affect our predicted climate trends. Mann states that if we followed the opinions of critics who believe that climate changes were partly or entirely due to natural factors, then the globe should have cooled in recent decades, contrary to the average annual global temperatures that were actually observed; and only by including those human factors would we have our prediction of the earth warming up, on par with the observed temperatures.
He then gives more than one reason why little to no action has been made to deal with climate change: because major players who profit greatly to our current addiction to fossil fuels and they don't want to see things change in that regard, and also, some might consider man-made global warming to be nothing more than an elaborate hoax (as stated by Senator James Inhofe, (R) Oklahoma).
Mann also provides some information about the "hockey stick graph", the reconstruction in which he introduced into the field of climatology, and which also got some flack by politicians who deny the reality of human-caused climate change. It shows the variation in average annual temperature over the past millennium or so; the graph remains steady up to the 1800s, and then jets up past that point, thus giving the graph its "hockey stick" moniker.
Mann also states that we've been subject to a politization of science. He prefers to call it the "scientization of politics", which he defines as the use of attacks against science and scientists in an effort to advance a political agenda. As an example, he provides detail about the "climategate" scandal in 2009, in which criminals broke into a UK university server and stole thousands of emails between scientists, and publicized selected emails to make it sound like scientists were manipulating climate data and showing that global warming was just a scientific conspiracy.
Mann ultimately concludes his presentation by saying that climate change is a problem with ethics, not with politics or economics; the choices we make today determine our children and grandchildren's futures, and there's still time to make the right choices.