This World and Me

I grew up in a city called Dublin, a suburb of Columbus, Ohio. If there is one remarkable thing about the topography of Ohio, it is precisely how unremarkable it is. I now live in the Pacific Northwest, and whenever I look out the window as I fly out from Seattle–Tacoma International Airport, I always stare for several minutes at the gorgeous diversity of geographic features, from the expansive Lake Washington to the countless inlets of the Puget Sound, from the Olympic Mountains to of course the towering peak of Mount Rainier. After dozing off for four hours, I arrive back in my home state of Ohio, look out the window and see... flatness. It is like the surface of a marble. No mountains, no lakes, no big forests. Just a seemingly endless array of alternating farmland and tiny woods, with the occasional town or village. If I am lucky enough to catch a glimpse of Columbus from 20,000 feet, I could probably count the number of tall skyscrapers on my hands. One unfortunate consequence of...

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...

A notable cultural difference between the United States and Germany—which I had heard about and later confirmed when I visited Germany in the summer of 2016—is in our attitude towards flags. In the United States, flags are everywhere: in our schools, in our government buildings, in our post offices, sometimes displayed across people's houses. The Washington Monument ( pictured ) in Washington, D.C., has no less than 50 U.S. flags surrounding it, one for each U.S. state. In Germany, on the other hand, you will rarely ever see the black, red, and gold of the German flag in your everyday life. The Germans are much warier than Americans of excessive expressions of national pride—particularly because of their dark history with nationalism. Aside from major sporting events (where the Germans will go all out in support of their national team, flags included), I did not encounter in Germany nearly the same level of ubiquity that the American flag seems to enjoy here in the United States. ...

On Thursday, June 8, 2023, a lawyer by the name of Steven A. Schwartz stood with his head hung low— humiliated —before a federal judge in Manhattan. He was there to represent a man named Roberto Mata in his lawsuit against the airline Avianca. Schwartz had asked ChatGPT for past legal cases that could support his client's case against Avianca. ChatGPT cheerfully replied with case names like " Martinez v. Delta Air Lines , Zicherman v. Korean Air Lines and Varghese v. China Southern Airlines ," and—perhaps feeling a similar sense of cheerfulness at the sheer convenience of this newfangled online tool—Schwartz went ahead and cited these cases in the final document he submitted to the court. However, any such cheerfulness quickly dissipated, for if Schwartz had done any cursory examination of the cases provided by ChatGPT, he would have soon discovered that none were real. ChatGPT had made them all up. ChatGPT is a form of artificial intelligence. The term "artificial...

Song of the Week #12 is "RPG" by Sekai no Owari . Sekai no Owari is a Japanese pop band whose name translates to "End of the World". The band is so named because Fukase, the lead vocalist, was in a period of depression at the time he founded the band. He saw making music as the one thing left for him during a time that felt like the end of the world. I stumbled across Sekai no Owari because they once did a couple collaborations with the American musician Owl City. Anyone who has been a friend of mine for a while, or who has been a reader of this blog for a while, will know that I used to be quite into Owl City. (Owl City has not released new music since 2018, so my interests have since shifted, but it looks like he may be on track to release some more music in 2022.) In 2014, Sekai no Owari featured on an Owl City song called "Tokyo" , and in 2015, Owl City (under his real name Adam Young) was the producer of the Sekai no Owari song "Mr. Heartache...

Song of the Week #11 is "It's Not Living (If It's Not With You)" by The 1975. For a long time, I thought this was a love song. In my defense, there were several factors that misled me towards this incorrect conclusion. For starters, the song is on an album entitled A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships (2018). Additionally, the title of the song—"It's Not Living (If It's Not With You)"—gives the impression that it is about a person. To top it all off, the song sounds happy . If you fail to pay close attention to the lyrics (as I did), you might think it is one of the most upbeat songs on the entire album, if not the most upbeat-sounding song in The 1975's entire discography. It is all a clever deception. The song is about drugs. Specifically, "It's Not Living (If It's Not With You)" is about the former heroin addiction of The 1975's lead vocalist, Matty Healy, who co-wrote the song with fellow band members George Dan...

Song of the Week #10 is "Deine Nähe tut mir weh" by Revolverheld . When I first did this song of the week thing back in 2017, I wanted to avoid repeating artists. However, that immediately proved a futile endeavor. I have written about the German band Revolverheld no less than three times on this blog before now: check out my posts on "Das kann uns keiner nehmen" , "Ich lass für dich das Licht an" , and "Bands deiner Jugend" . All three are from the 2013 album Immer in Bewegung , and the song I discuss today—"Deine Nähe tut mir weh"—comes from the same album. In my view, Immer in Bewegung is quite the masterpiece within German pop music, and there is not a single song on the album I dislike. I got into Revolverheld after one of my German instructors in my freshman year of college introduced me to them. "Deine Nähe tut mir weh" is in German. The title of the song means "your closeness hurts me". The song starts with ...

Back in 2017, I published a series of blog posts that discussed one song every week. I had eight of these "Song of the Week" posts until I lost interest. I would like to resume the series. Song of the Week #9 is "Borealis" by Madeon . Released in 2019, "Borealis" is the last song on the Good Faith album. In my view, it is the spiritual successor to the landmark song "Shelter" by Madeon and Porter Robinson. I wrote about "Shelter" on this blog in May 2017. [Verse 1] A light from dark, In a land by the sea, Came from the sky. You'll be named after me. I discovered "Shelter" at a particularly timely moment in my life: when I was just about to leave my parents' house for the first time to attend college thousands of miles away. Whereas "Shelter" was a song about expressing appreciation for one's parents, "Borealis" is something of a reply from the parent to the child, who is named af...