This World and Me

Back in 2020, I wrote a post on this blog titled " Objectively good ". That post was a bit of a peeved response to something that someone I knew at the time said. This post is a bit of a sequel to that one. In this post, I want to discuss a phrase which has grown to be another pet peeve of mine. You have probably heard it before. Sometimes, when debating a particular topic, one person will say something along the lines of the following: "I'm entitled to my opinion." What exactly does that mean? My first thought is the freedom of speech. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits Congress from passing any law "abridging the freedom of speech", and the Fourteenth Amendment has been held to extend this prohibition to state governments as well—see Gitlow v. New York ,  268 U.S. 652 (1925). The result is that all persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction have the right to express themselves freely without fear of retaliation from the government. Noti...

In the decade between 1999 and 2009, Walt Disney Animation Studios was in a creative rut. The studio's films often found themselves in the shadow of their younger, sleeker sister studio, Pixar, whose touching stories brought to life by innovative computer-generated imagery cemented themselves within popular culture. The films that Pixar released during this era are instantly recognizable: Toy Story 2 (1999), Monsters, Inc. (2001), Finding Nemo (2003), The Incredibles (2004), Cars (2006), Ratatouille (2007), WALL-E (2008), Up (2009). Meanwhile, almost all of the films that Disney's original animation studio produced during this era faded into obscurity, forgotten instantly by a fast-changing world: Fantasia 2000 (1999), Dinosaur (2000), The Emperor's New Groove (2000), Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001), Treasure Planet (2002), Brother Bear (2003), Home on the Range (2004), Chicken Little (2005), Meet the Robinsons (2007). There is, however, one definitive ex...