On Monday my QP is due. Or it may be that they “are due” I’m really not sure how many are supposed to be done. The assignment is one, but I know that some people turn in two, so I prepared two much to the neglect of my classes that have currently started. The QP is the “Qualifying Paper,” a requirement that I need to jump through in order to get a PhD. It’s basically just another paper that I have to write that has no class attached to it.

My previous foray in Grad school took this differently. After our first semester we have a test, of five essay questions that was due after the first month of our second semester. Again, it took away from the classes that I was supposed to be taking at the time. Why neither school has decided that it might be better to have these things due at the end of the summer, or at the end of the first month of the summer is a question that I may want to bring up should the situation arise where my input is solicited. The exam was a chore, but a chore that made some sense as to the requirements. The QP is extremely vague.

The only requirements we have are the amount of writing (4500-6000 words), that we write an abstract (brief summary of the paper), and have a bibliography. There is nothing indicated that gives us a clue as to what makes a good QP. The only guidance we have is the suggestion that we use a paper previously submitted to a class and make corrections based on the Professor’s remarks. That professor is not supposed to give us guidance on the paper if they know we are to use it as a QP. I don’t know the reasoning behind this.

The trouble is that within the last year or so there was some problem regarding the QPs. Students were turning in amended papers from classes they received an A in. The papers were failing the QP, but that seemed impossible–if they were getting A’s then how were they failing the requirement? Apparently the professor in question was an easy grader, but that still begs the question of how can a paper fail? Were they that badly written, was the professor not even looking at them? Even given that there was an easy grader looking at the papers, how easy must he (I assume as there are only two female professors in the grad school) have been?

I have prepared two papers, one of them for my philosophical issues in biomedicine class and the other from the aesthetics class. I chose the biomedicine paper not because it was my best one, or the one that I like the most, but because it is the paper that I had to rewrite four times. This gives me the confidence that it ought to be ok, I did enough of the research and the writing is definitely good. My only question is that it may not be philosophical enough, most of the paper is spent on studying the bullshit vaccine controversy and cloning but those are philosophical issues-it’s just not metaphysical.

The second, the aesthetic paper, is a bit strange because I just wrote it and am kind of sick of working on it. My trouble with that paper is that my references are not high brow and for some reason I think this may hurt it. Most aesthetic papers deal with concertos and english literature whereas mine references Escape From New York and the Warriors. Again I know that I am psyching myself out. It’s just one of those things that vodka takes care of.

Back in 1973, Martin Cooper of Motorola made a phone call to Joel S. Engel of Bell labs. It wasn’t just a normal phone call, if it were, I probably wouldn’t be mentioning it. Motorola and Bell Labs (then owned by AT&T) were in competition to build the modern cell phone. When Martin Cooper made the call in 1973, he was effectively telling Engel, “we won.” They had done it, built a phone that could be carried (sort of) around wherever a person went. This wasn’t the first time, in 1946, a mobile telephone call had been made but the phone wasn’t exactly portable, it weighed over 88lbs (40kg) and it was not a cellular phone but a radio telephone. The differences are minor but the point is that this technology is old.

Only within the last decade or so has the use of cellular phones become ubiquitous to the point that the United Nations has declared them to have spread faster than any other technology. This is evidenced by the fact that it seems more odd if a person doesn’t have one than if they do. This will all be important in a little bit.

We are not doing the typical chapter summary this week. The reason is that I just realized exactly what the plot hinges on, what is now driving it, and it’s utterly ridiculous. In brief here’s what happens in the chapter that isn’t the real important thing: Jacob comes over, yells at Bella for being a vampire lover, Bella explains that she loves Alice and isn’t going to dump her* but can’t they all be friends. Everything kind of works out, there’s a scene where Jacob almost gets kissin’ action until Alice gets a phone call. She looks scared.

Here’s where we get going, keep in mind everything I said about the cell phone before.

In the first novel the vampires had cell phones. The poor Swans and Blacks even have Antonio Meucci’s device in their houses. People have the ability to make phone calls in this book. I know that I keep hammering that position but I really want to be clear about that fact because it is very curious that no one even thinks to pick up the damn phone:

-Last chapter Alice told us that she had a vision of Bella jumping off a cliff. Instead of picking up a phone and calling her immediately she buys a ticket, gets on a plane, and comes down to save her–getting there too late. See what I mean? If Alice had simply had the vision (of which there are numerous problems but–I’m not going to get into that) then dialed up Bella to make sure she was ok everything would have been fine.

This is another problem I have, that I ought to have brought up earlier. Why did Alice have to break up with Bella when Edward did. I know it would be kind of weird, but Alice could have still been friends with Bella. Is Eddie the king of the Cullens? As much as I hate Ed and Bella, it might have been nice for Alice to continue to have her friend. It’s not like Bella left Scientology and now the rest of her clan have to shun her (you can sub in Mormonism/Amish for Scientology there if you prefer).

Back to Alice not calling, maybe she didn’t call because she saw that Bella was ok and just wanted to see her. It’s a stretch because it goes against specifically what is said by her, but we can still pretend right?

Alice’s phone call was preceded by a mysterious phone call that Jacob answers. What happens is this: the phone rings and Jake grabs it. By the way we are at Bella’s house but it’s the man’s role to answer the phone. Jacob answers a few questions, then mutters a derogatory comment about vampires. What Jacob tells the person on the other line is that Charlie is not home, he’s at the funeral.

This is the “plot.” The person on the other line was Edward asking for Charlie. Why was he doing this? Because Alice told her family that she saw Bella die in the future, at which point she flew down. Edward, who apparently still cares for Bella but not enough to call her on the phone, called Charlie to offer his condolences I suppose–instead of doing anything at ANY POINT EARLIER TO STOP WHAT ALICE KNEW WAS HAPPENING. When he finds out the exact thing that he expected he hangs up.

At this point Alice gets a call from Carlisle. Here’s where it gets stupid(er). Because Edward thinks Bella committed suicide, six months after they broke up, he is going to the Volturri (I’m not looking it up) to die. He’s going to ask them to kill him, something he can’t do himself for whatever reason, because he blames himself for Bella’s suicide. This, despite the fact that it’s been several months and she could have done so for any number of reasons (broken family issues, other people, realization that she’s a horrible person) he can’t live without her–even though he dumped her, moved away, and told her he was never going to see her again.

It’s also been two days since Alice got to Bella’s house. Upon arriving, why didn’t she just call to check in, “hey Carlisle, yeah it’s me. You know how sometimes I’m wrong with my predictions and don’t see everything, well it happened again. Yeah Bella’s fine, by the way I can’t see werewolves in my visions and the Forks is overrun with trash now, those two statements aren’t independent. bye bye.”

The entire developing “plot” would be thus eviscerated. The phone call Alice should have made would have prevented Eddie from thinking Bella had died. No need to suddenly head to Italy to save him.

Never mind that the plan is stupid: couldn’t they just throw a call to the Italians and let them know that Ed is operating under incorrect information, “Hey Viktor, yeah Alice Cullen. No, Cullen…C-U-L-L-E-N. Yeah, Carlisle’s kid, sure whatever. Listen remember Edward, Edward. Kind of douchey looking, spikey hair, angsty for no reason…yeah him, the asshole. Listen he thinks his girlfriend whom he dumped committed suicide and thinks he’s responsible…no six months ago…yeah he is self-centered…I know…listen, she’s alive and fine…just let him know…I’ll see you…I promise I’ll visit…ok bye bye”

Boom. Book solved. Instead they have to go to Italy. Does Bella have a passport? She does. Why? Because she needed one to attend a failed attempt by her crazy mom to marry her boyfriend. Odd, that she would need a passport for that.

The thing about cellular phones now is that they have quick access to the internet, if you have the right model. Of course in 2006 they wouldn’t have unless you had a BlackBerry or a Nokia Symbian, which was in the book was written. Why is that important? Because in 2006 you didn’t need a passport to get into Mexico or Canada. All you needed was a valid ID, and a reason for doing so. The US used to have an open border policy which used to be a big deal given that the US/Canadian border was the largest unprotected border in the world. They stupidly changed that policy in 2009 to prevent…uh, something I’m sure. What I’m saying is that while having a passport let’s you cross the border easier, it isn’t essential and if you were only planning on going to Mexico for one thing you probably wouldn’t grab a passport. Research Meyer.

All of chapter 18 could have been taken care of in two phone calls. Now, we have to chase Alice and Bella to Italy. Which, by the way, Bella decides to up and leave her father, who just loss a close friend, in the care of Jacob who doesn’t have the time due to the hunting of Victoria. Nice girl.

_______________________________________
*American President Thomas Jefferson rewrote the bible removing all references to the supernatural, it would be interesting to do that with this series: what we would be left with is the story of a depressed angsty narcissistic girl who falls for a abusive sociopathic boy and his weird cult family. That would be the first book, the second would–as of right now–be about a love square between Bella, Jacob, Alice, and her ex-boyfriend whom we don’t see anymore. Without all the vampires and werewolves it almost sounds quite compelling.

The advantage of studying the Hellenistic philosophies is that they don’t merely relegate themselves to academic pursuits, they are more about ways of living along with academic pursuits. Stoicism and Epicureanism are not just ways of determining Being, or determining whether the cat is on the mat, but then do not matter at all in the individual’s daily life. Stoicism, the third of the major Greek schools: the others being Plato’s Academy, Aristotle’s Lyceum, and Epicurus’ Agora; was literally created by word of mouth. The story is that Zeno taught underneath a porched a column (the stoa), attracted followers and became an established school.

 Stoicism eschews devotion to the gods of the Hellenic/Roman world although it does not go as far as the disciples of Epicurus in advocating atheism. For the Stoics the divine is nature, for nature epitomizes virtue and “living in accordance with virtue is equivalent to living in accordance with experience of what happens by nature…for our own natures are part of the nature of the whole.[1]” Because we are part of nature it is living along with the rules and ways that nature has prescribed that gives us a guide to the virtuous living.

 It is reason, the gift from the divine that is our tool in discovering the virtuous way. For reason is what is best in man, it is our peculiar ability which separates us from the plants and animals of the world, it makes us superior but aside from reason all of our virtues are shared with them.[2] In this we still share in Aristotle’s teleology that humans have a directed goal in life, that they have a purpose which is to pursue reason, to perfect it, and the perfected reason is man’s virtue.[3]

We know this because the animals and the plants in the world, i.e. the non-rational beings do not pay attention or take care of the world. The events of experience merely pass them by, and they give no thought to them. Because humans do take care of the world of experience, and operate beyond their mere instincts. The question then becomes of where this adherence to reason leads us.

Reason leads us to toward the good life, towards wisdom and being happy. The wise do nothing they regret, against their will, everything rightfully, honorably, and consistently. They anticipate nothing as if it were bound to happen referring to their own judgment which they stand by.[4] They forgo material happiness as those can be lost. Nothing the wise man prizes is anything that can be lost to him, he must not just be largely unafraid of the travails of life but completely unafraid.[5] This wisdom leads him toward community, which is, again revealing the influence of the Lyceum, the good that humans are directed toward.

The Stoic creed leads us to accept the whole of nature as being divine, by this we can infer that life itself is divine. By living in this we are merely a smaller part of a larger mechanism, in which all virtue is possessed.

Is this a good thing? Well, I’m torn here. Alice is waiting for Bella in her house. It’s strange though because upon reading it was her I was filled with dread. One thing I have learned about this series, and this writer, is that the more we spend time with a character the more they will become less likeable. Bella, of course is ecstatic that Alice has returned, she no longer has to go slumming with the wolves on the reservation. They almost make out because Alice has forgotten to eat before she came over. And we’re starting to lose Alice now…

Alice, who can see the future forgot to grab a little snack before hanging out with the delicious human. Seems like an odd omission for her. Alice however serves another purpose, and that is to move the plot along lest we become inflicted with twenty pages of Bella’s groveling. She gets to the point, “Speaking of which, would you like to explain to me how you’re still alive?“

For you grammar sticklers out there, yes Meyer is wrong. The question mark is incorrect. Question marks are to be used at the end of sentences that would be considered questions or requests. Not at the end of an imperative sentence in which one person tells another to explain something. Alice was being nice in her wording but that wasn’t a request.

She is of course referring to the cliff diving earlier. The dive that she should have in no way survived. The fall yes, but the water no. A fishing trawler should have picked her up in their nets six months from now. Alice is angry, she yells at Bella for jumping off of the cliff, although she tends to view it as a suicide attempt. She gets some points in my book for yelling at her. It seems someone finally gets to call Bella out for her selfishness. Bella denies this, but can she honestly do so? During her free fall she was happy, during her under the sea moment she told everyone who matters (re: Eddie) goodbye. Alice is right to be angry with her although Alice didn’t see the complete event. Her prescience missed the fact that Jacob pulled her out of the water, probably because Alice’s foresight can only work on things that are possible and not plot contrivances.

“Someone pulled you out?”
“Yes. Jacob saved me?”

Alice sniffs her for some reason. In my version of this story Alice is self aware that she’s in a story (because of the future) and remarks, “the god of this world is so stupid.”

In the actual story though, Alice detects a bad smell. Now Bella is left with a decision, does she spill the beans on Jacob and the pack for being…well, an actual pack or should she clam up? She’s dealing with the prescient Alice, so the odds are that she knows what Jacob and the rest of them are. But she doesn’t know whether Alice knows. So she ought to just follow the moral of the story in the MAD TV short “Ragin’ Rudolph”–to “always keep your fucking mouth shut.”

She doesn’t and her reasoning, “It was too hard to keep secrets, I decided. Jacob knew everything, why not Alice too?”

I’ve had this conversation with various people I know. It’s not hard to keep a secret, you just don’t say anything. That’s it. It’s not like a secret is pressure that needs to be released. There are only two reasons that people reveal secrets: the first is to feel important, to brag that they know something that no one else knew before they said it. This reason is hilarious when everyone already knew. The second is to kiss up to the person you are telling the secret to. As if to say “you are important so I’m going to let you in on something, and remember who told you.” Bella isn’t telling Alice, she’s telling the Cullens and by extension Edward. Clearly she’s doing this for reason number two.

Her other reason that “Jacob knew everything” is total bullshit. It’s not the same situation. Jacob and the wolves knew everything before Bella was in the picture. They had it figured out on their own. Further, Alice should already know, but for some reason she doesn’t and I bet I can guess why, but it won’t make any sense.

It’s the same reason that Laurent was killed by the werewolves. Meyer is going to claim that vampires’ powers don’t work on werewolves. Maybe one on one Laurent had a chance but there were five of them. She’s going to limit the vampiric special powers on the wolves. Edward’s telepathy, and the other one’s emotional manipulation won’t work on them. If that’s the case, then it STILL doesn’t explain Alice’s blindness. Remember what James said at the end of the last book, Alice was psychic before she was turned.

Bella recounts the story up until this point, we are thankfully spared the recreation. Alice leaves to get clothes, although I’m not sure from where. I’m also curious because Alice claimed that she flew to Forks, yet she was driving Carlisle’s car. Have they been hiding in the area the whole time? That would be both convenient and stupid. That’s not the case because Alice was in Denali visiting Tanya’s family, whoever the hell that is.

Charlie comes home. Charlie had something of a crush on Alice we found out earlier, so he’s kind of happy to see her. Bella wakes up the next morning eavesdropping on a conversation between Alice and Charlie. Alice gets Charlie to go over everything that happened after the break up. It’s a nice scene because it really does make us sympathize with Charlie as a father as he details his helplessness with Bella. It’s also nice because for the first time we are dropped hints that he doesn’t want Edward to come back.

A day or two goes by (shouldn’t Spring break be over by now?) and the doorbell rings. Alice looks up then excuses herself assuming a lack of foresight is foresight itself. Bella puts it together, although this time she actually has the information to do so, “you can’t see werewolves?”
-She grimaced. “So it would seem.” She was obviously annoyed by this fact–very annoyed.“

I’m annoyed too. It doesn’t make sense but I’ve already covered why not two paragraphs ago. What doesn’t make even more sense is that if we accept that she couldn’t see Jacob rescuing her from the water, that meant that she saw Bella die and then that’s it? Couldn’t she have checked her future at a later date just to see if she pulled through?

Alice leaves before Jacob enters. Apparently werewolves and vampires can’t be in the same room together. More likely I wouldn’t want to see the two most likable characters become like everyone else in the same scene. That would be too much.

We all know that the Mayan calendar runs out in December. This apparently signifies that the world will end. It won’t but the true believers can go ahead and waste their money or something on this if they like. It’s not like there is one person predicting the end is coming and trying to rake in the money like that idiot last year. It’s becoming kind of obvious that there are people out there who desperately want the world to end and are willing to buy into any charlatan that predicts the world will end and has the scantest shred of evidence to back himself up.

People wonder why I have a problem with religion. I know that I am generalizing but religion does hand con men a ready made vehicle to enable them to swindle. People like Ronald Weinland.

Ronald Weinland is a self-appointed prophet who has decided (or been told) that the world is going to end on May 27 of this year. It’s unclear from his website how he arrived at this specific date since the FAQ specifically says that we can’t know when the final trumpet will sound. Somehow, as I am understanding it from his surprisingly clear website (usually these end time websites are horrible) that there are 1335 days from “Trumpets of 2008 to Pentecost of 2012 (May 27th).” The 1335 days apparently references the book of Daniel which is a prime text among Christian Eschatologists (although more likely than “Daniel” predicting the end of the world it was probably more about the writer wishing an end to the Jewish persecution by the Seleucids, or Antiochus depending on who you ask). The “Trumpets” is Rosh Hashanah according to Wikipedia, I’m willing to give Weinland the benefit of the doubt on the date calculation. Why the 2008 Jewish new year is of particular important for the end of the world is a question answered in his books, which I’m not going to read. Although I will point out that they are free, which is nice that he won’t charge for the real “truth.” Although his FAQ does end with how to appropriately give your tithe to his church as demanded by god.

Since May 27th falls on a Sunday this year, I guess we can have an end of the world party on May 26th, and then do again when the Mayan calendar runs out on December 21. What I like about the May date is that it is almost exactly a year from last year’s rapture. The best part of the Weinland prediction is that he states clearly that people who make fun of his prediction and deny it will “die from cancer.” Seriously.

The Founder’s Party (my political party consisting of just me) proposes a new law. We will call it the Michael Stifel law, named after a German monk and professor of Mathematics at Jena university. As a mathematician he is allegedly the first person to use the term “exponent” and created an early form of logarithmic tables. However he was also a crank predicting that the world would end on October 19th, 1533 at 8am (I love when they include the time). Obviously he was wrong, in being wrong though people of his town publicly flogged him and he never made another prediction. Stifel’s law, would punish any person who uses “end of the world” predictions to collect money to fines and public shaming. The only exceptions to this law would be people who give some sort of good or service in return for the income. If someone writes a book saying the end of the world is going to occur on 2/14/2050, and charging for it would not be in violation of the law, but people like Weinland and the dude from last year would. Public flogging would be nicer but there’s an amendment against that sort of thing.

…as a sidenote, do people even realize how badly they are screwing up their hearing? Since earbuds were made popular doctors have been warning about them. A different day I was sitting at a table and three seats away from me was a woman with them on and I could make out the artist (sort of, it was either Jay Z or Kanye)…

A conversation began between three people. An old timer, the guy who is always there (and i mean always) and a woman whom I didn’t know. They were arguing about healthcare, not the reform act…at least not yet. It started because the woman is a health care worker who works with AIDS patients and those with disabilities. Currently she was engaged in some sort of legal dispute with a Southern State (I want to say Arkansas or Alabama) and the reason I started eavesdropping was that she stated in a loud voice, “if you get AIDS or a disability be thankful you don’t live in [insert state name], because they won’t give any assistance at all.”

This state in question has no funds for any of its citizens. The debate over whether or not this is right is not what I want to get into right now. Although you can probably see where the conversation is headed. Ultimately the conversation degraded into whether or not a poor sick person should be able to get money to live. That’s not me rephrasing it to bias my viewpoint either, that was the question the woman asked of the two men. The two men said no, not if the sick person didn’t earn it. A little cold hearted but fine, whatever, they can have that opinion.

One of the two men, Derek, started on a long rant about welfare queens, people who game the system, for some reason the DMV, and a whole bunch of stuff that included objectively false facts.

This is where I started to shift in my seat. I know the two men, by  first name. The one who is always there, Derek, I see on an almost daily basis. Jumping in on the conversation wouldn’t be the same as if some stranger did it. I began to think to myself if I had a responsibility, given our relationship-to correct the things that were wrong with what he was saying. Eventually he brought up that Canada has higher taxes and pays more for healthcare per person than the US. The first half of that previous sentence is true but the second half is not, unless something has changed. You can argue whether or not it’s right, whether or not the Canadian system sucks, but what he was saying was false.

I wonder if I have a responsibility to intervene here given that I know that what he was saying was false or if I should have done what I did: dial up the volume a little more and try to focus on the work. As a once and future educator isn’t this my job to chime in when someone makes that kind of error?

I can kind of see it both ways. On one hand if you are going to have an opinion, you can just have it. You don’t any special knowledge. But if you are going to disseminate that position to other people you should probably have the facts right, to at least keep you from looking like an idiot. If the woman had just challenged him on the point, or..actually been able to he is an over talker, the entire house of cards collapses. Since for him it was all about money, the financial argument just doesn’t work if there is a cheaper system.

On the other hand if he wants to be wrong who am I to tell him that? Although being wrong isn’t something you are probably aware of unless you are lying. Which brings me to the next point–if he’s lying he ought to be called out on it. It’s a confusing situation.

Our surviving humans are trapped by two angry Velociraptors that have developed a taste for man flesh. The one raptor squats down getting ready to pounce when out of nowhere she (remember they are all female) is snatched by the jaws of the T-Rex. Where previously the T-Rex was announced by the impact tremors of its walk, now it has appeared unnoticed inside the atrium of the Jurassic Park visitor’s center. It’s a plot quibble, but an important one because it violates an important plot point from earlier in the movie. Although perhaps with all of the running and hiding from the raptors they didn’t notice the tremors, it’s a possible explanation.

What can’t be explained is how in the world Bella hasn’t drowned. Last week we left off with her cliff diving then carried off by a riptide. Her last words were “goodbye, I love you.”

We pick up this chapter with her describing being banged off of rocks, which doesn’t make that much sense since she ought to be being dragged out to sea, although she did mention something about the ocean bottom so there’s probably rocks there. Then we get this, “Breathe!’ a voice wild with anxiety ordered…”

So what happened here? Did the riptide pull her out of to sea into the path of a boat. Take a good look at the last part of chapter 15, she was screwed. Done for, kaput. She punched her own ticket there, but now someone has rescued her. Fine, but it better not be someone that we know is somewhere else. “Breathe, Bella! C’mon’ Jacob begged.”

As we say on the internet, GTFO. Nevermind the insane description of “the waterfall pouring from my mouth” to describe the drowning which is actually the opposite of drowning or the odd fact that Jacob’s arm is hot in the water (again in violation of everything we know about thermodynamics). He CANNOT be there. She dove off the cliff, she was alone, the riptide carried her off. This is absolute bullshit. A random person in the water carrying her to shore where Jacob is would be implausible yet still possible. This is impossible. Don’t give me the wolf thing either, because it’s clearly human Jacob that is doing this.

Jacob and Sam are there on the beach. Sam wants to know how long she has been out, “A few minutes? It didn’t take long to tow her to the beach.” From our perspective here is what happened: Bella dives off the cliff surviving, even though she has no experience with doing so but some people just get lucky. The riptide carries her off. At the same time, Jacob could have only known that Bella was “at the beach” saw her in the water, swam out, grabbed her, swam back, then administered CPR. How long could that have taken? She ought to have brain damage.

As Jacob tells it, he was half-jogging toward the beach and found the tire tracks from the truck. Apparently there are no roads on the reservation. He heard her scream and then chased her out to sea. My whole issue with any of this is that it ignores what carried her out in the first place, Jacob apparently didn’t have any trouble fighting the current. Since Bella made the point of describing to us that she was underwater the whole time she ought to have brain damage at the very least. I mean real brain damage from cerebral hypoxia, although the initial symptoms of mild hypoxia are interesting: poor judgment and uncoordinated movement. She’s had that the whole time.

Could this whole book be explained by oxygen deprivation?

After rescuing her, we find out that Harry Clearwater–a character we’ve heard about but never actually met–has had a heart attack. I’m trying to figure out why I am supposed to give a shit, but then I remembered that we are getting toward the end of the book so we need a way to get rid of Charlie. I’m still wondering why he is even in this book.

Then we are “treated” to several pages of Bella opining on Romeo and Juliet and Paris. It’s pretty lame and the obviousness of the metaphor Meyer is trying to force on us is about as subtle as an amputation. She wonders if Juliet (Bella) had just married Paris (Jacob) what would have happened?  May be Romeo would have moved on, or maybe the original gangsta would have up and dropped the young count. Bella/Meyer is right about one thing though: Paris only exists to give Juliet a confrontation, but Meyer ignores context again. Paris is only engaged to Juliet after she has married Romeo and Romeo has murdered Tybalt.

We find out that Harry has died. That’s about it.

Jacob wakes up and worries about Bella, “don’t worry about me.’ I croaked.”

Really!? She died? Awesome, although it’s weird that it was written in the first person. It’s like how Moses allegedly wrote Exodus but somehow was able to mention the place and time where he died. Although she’s not dead, this was just another instance of Meyer over using the Thesaurus. Croaking would mean that she burped while talking? How appropriate.

The death puts things into perspective for her though, and she finally realizes that maybe attempting to commit suicide was a bad idea. She finally realizes that her life might have an affect on other people that care about her. Her solipsism might actually be disappearing at this point, oh character development where have you been.

Jacob drives her home where she laments upon the fact that she just might have to get over her ex-boyfriend. Could she betray her “absent heart to save my pathetic life?” I don’t know what the phrase “absent heart” means, but I guess she’s deciding on settling with Jacob. Yes, it’s settling for her because she finds him attractive, enjoys being around him, and he treats her like a person. In almost every way he’s equal or superior to Edward. I’m not weighing in on Jacob versus Edward as far as the movies are concerned, I’m weighing in on the fact that Jacob doesn’t psychologically abuse her. Jake could be distant and unemotional but that would still make him superior because, again, the lack of abuse.

As Bella is thinking about this, she hears Eddie’s voice in her head. This means her spidey sense is tingling and then Jacob scents a vampire. Jacob goes into war mode but before he can Hulk out he has to make a decision, “phase or get her out of here?”

We get his decision because we know what happened to Sam’s wife, but “phase” is a noun. This is just bad writing, I get that she’s trying to avoid using the same word over and over again but she hasn’t used any synonym of transformation in twenty or so pages. It wouldn’t be repetitive, plus it would avoid her sounding like an idiot for using a noun where a verb ought to be.

Jacob decides to drive away, but Bella sees the car and recognizes it as a Mercedes S55 AMG, Carlisle’s car. Of course, it could be anyone’s Mercedes but somehow she knows that it is Carlisle inside. Jacob doesn’t understand, he’s a straight Blood and Bella wants to go back because the Crips are back in town. Bella pleads with him, because she knows that the Cullens are back and that’s more than she ever hoped for.

She’s straight trippin’, “Jake, it’s not a war!”

Yes, actually it is. They have territories, treaties, everything. Jake gives up on her fleeing into the woods to get his pack, because there are new vampires. Curiously he remarks that he can’t be caught on their territory. This doesn’t make sense because haven’t they been patrolling their territory ever since they discovered Victoria and Laurent a few chapters ago?

We get another non-sequitor wherein Bella remembers seeing an orange color in the water before she lost consciousness. That color must have been Victoria’s hair. She was in the water the whole time too! I don’t want to call bullshit again, but if she was there and the vampires have the advantage in the water (contradicting another myth about vampires and water) why didn’t she just pull her down? End of book, end of misery…for me.

Inside her own house, the light turns on and someone is there waiting for her. I guess we have to wait until next week to find out…screw that: it’s Alice.

August typically brings about the end of the Summer movie season, while not the record breaking year that it previous years have all been, it still raked in a ridiculous amount of money. While people keep complaining that the number of sequels and derived stories go up often pointing to the intellectual vaccum that is the hollywood movie machine, and yet they keep going to see the movies. Are you fucking serious!? Stop going to see the Transformers or Pirates, or whatever you are complaining about if you don’t like it. Soon enough you’ll have a GO-Bots movie starring Jake Gyllenhall, James Franco, and Zooey Deschanel; people will bitch about it but they’ll still go see it.

About this time we had to stop referring to the rich as “the rich.” A nice face palm moment for the end of summer, they are now considered “job creators” and are untaxable despite whether or not they actually create jobs.

It was also a couple of months after NY legalized gay marriage but dogs and cats had yet to get married, and god had yet to smite NY. Weird how all the doomsday scenarios seem to fizzle out when the day of reckoning actually shows up. The “YHGTBSM” moment came when I heard someone complain about how their taxes better not go up because of it, I’m not even seeing that comparison.

The end of summer also meant the beginning of the school year wherein I found out that my department was slowly fazing out graduate level classes. It seems that every fall they are going to let too many professors go on sabattical (although one is severely ill so I’m not going to blame him for anything). This forced me into a three day a week schedule with only one class that i wanted to take…at first. The most unbelievable moment for me was when I had to join the Christian Philosophy Reading Group. I was pretty much forced into it given the shittiness of class selection. Even better was that it quickly became the class I looked forward to the most (still an atheist just in case you were wondering).

John Hunstman, who is apparently running for president, made the outlandish claim that he believed in evolution. The red mark on my forehead was for his chances. If you are running for GOP nomination you apparently can’t show any intelligence. This is the legacy left to us by the John Birch society, the Tea Party, and the “Know-Nothings.” Dumb people might be cool, but should we really entrust the welfare of the country to the dumbest people in the room? Apprently yes, as Herman Cain began his surge in the polls. 

Michelle Bachman won the award for most incredible and unsubstantiated claim of the year…that was intended to be factual for claiming that the HPV vaccine turned a normal healthy teenager into a mentally retarded one. It was no surprise that she couldn’t produce the person, or the mother even under the reward offered by a couple of doctors. I’m still waiting for her to show me the location of those Obama FEMA camps or to show me where the Sharia law is coming.

The Occupy movement came into full swing. Apparently to protest income disparity, they did so by adopting every stereotype that their opponents would use to paint them with thus making it easy for the press to paint them as spoiled hippies. No clear agenda, no leadership, no regard for the laws, made it much easier for them to accomplish nothing. The most ironic part: the abusing of small businesses around Zucotti park, the very people they are trying to “save” were having their businesses ruined all to protest wall street, where none of the decisions are made anyway. It made me respect the organizing hand of the TEA party.

Richard Muller, a scientist, came to the conclusion after doing research funded by the Koch brothers that the previous information regarding climate change was true, and that the accusations that the scientists were fudging the data were false. IT’s too bad that the McRib came back the same time or else it might have gotten some air time. Seriously? The McRib. There’s no rib in the McRib, and it comes back every year, but that was more important than a ground breaking study by a climate denier that climate change was actually occurring.

Horsemeat became legal for human consumption, I couldn’t believe that it was illegal in the first place.

Finally, and one of the best of the year has to be the liberal outrage at politifact.com. Politifact is a neutral website that likes to call out the bullshit politicians claim in their speeches, and what pundits say on a daily basis. Politifact has long been lambasted by the right for using things like facts and evidence against their gut feelings, hyperbole, and scare tactics. The website gave it’s lie of the year award to the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee for claiming that Republicans voted to end Medicare, while in fact they had voted to change some aspects of the program and would effectively privatize it, however it would still exist. Moreover it wouldn’t change at all for people already on it. This was the lie of the year and liberals and democrats instead of clarifying their position or backtracking, or even just pulling the same stunt that Sarah Palin did with her “death panels” comment by doubling down on the position they instead began to claim that politifact was becoming increasingly irrelevant. Yeah, that’s it, they are irrelevant because you lied and they called you on it. And people wonder why the cynical don’t see much difference between the Democrats and Republicans.

It’s been a good year for the cynical among us to reaffirm our cynicism.

You can disagree with me on this, and I’m sure some people probably will, but that would have to be out of spite. Because if you think that the year has been a normal year full of blase events I want to see what your normal life is like.

This was a year that saw the rise of the Occupy movement. A bunch of people who thought that sitting in parks was somehow going to change the economic disparity between the rich and the poor. They had no manifesto, no list of demands, no leadership, and were somehow surprised that they were ineffectual. Maybe it’s because they, unlike the Tea Party, didn’t bother voting. Back in March, we saw the first inklings that people might be unhappy with GOP leadership in Wisconsin, as a governor Ryan basically proposed to do while he complained and then when he inexplicably attempted to do that (I mean that seriously, a politician fulfilling a campaign promise?) people freaked out. You’ve got to be shitting me. Furthermore I loved that Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck criticised the WI protestors for interrupting government, you two have short memories because you were lauding the Tea Party for doing the same calling it an exercise of rights. This would be a running theme from GOP pundits the entire year, last year’s patriots are this year’s miscreants. It’s like you think no one pays attention.

This was the year when it was apparently big liberal news that the Tea Party wasn’t just about spending. Well, duh, you have to be shitting me if you thought anything else. I mean seriously, if they were then why weren’t they all over Bush’s ass before? Or more to the point, why do they care how the budget is balanced only that it is. Case in point, if we took all of the cuts from Defense and Medicare (which is possible according to some proposals) then that should suffice. Instead the Tea Party demanded that Planned Parenthood, EPA, and the NEA (less than 1/10 of 1% of the budgent for example) needed to take the hit. If it’s about money then why is it all about gutting social programs?

Besides, let’s just assume that the whole thing is about finances and creating some sort of economic stability. That being the assumption shouldn’t they be aligning themselves with the Occupy people since that’s one of their goals as well? I should caveat this with the news that in November TEA party members and some Occupiers did meet and did agree on somethings–3rd party in the works?

2011: the year that people actually thought Donald Trump was going to be a good idea for president. Unlike most of the clowns currently running for GOP nomination, this guy was the worst. That’s right, he was worse than Michelle “Crazy” Bachmann, Rick “don’t Google me” Santorum, or any of the other craziest of the crazies. He ran on nothing but a debunked conspiracy theory started by the Clinton campaign back in 2008. Here was a guy who lost money owning a casino, marketed his own line of steaks which then failed miserably, and curious dropped out the race when his “reality show” premiered. He claimed that he had private investigators in Hawaii who found out shocking information but then neglected to ever share that information. The president publicly lambasted him at a dinner, then released his birth certificate (again), doing the best Donald Glover “I’m too old for this shit” impression an executive statesman can.

Speaking of the president, here is the guy who ordered a raid that got Bin Laden, that in itself was a hard to believe moment. What takes it into our theme of the year was Pakistan’s insistence that they didn’t know where he was, and that people sought to condemn the celebration that enemy numero uno was finally killed.

We saw a man predict the rapture and begin to rake in dollars from people all across the country. I guess that isn’t too shocking given the number of people who think that this is the last year of human existence thanks to a prediction by a group of people that belived human sacrifice prevented the sun from going out. That’s not correct, it’s not a prediction, it’s just that their calendar ends.

Norway saw a coordinated terrorist attack by one person claiming to be a Templar Knight of the year 2083, who adhered to a strict fundamentalist view of Christianity, who decried multi-culturalism, believed in an islamo-fascist conspiracy, but wasn’t a right wing Christian because according to Bill O’Reilly no one who would do such a thing can be considered following the rules of Christianity. Of course, that same sort of reasoning doesn’t apply equally to Muslim terrorists in his view, but I guess we are supposed to either accept the double standard or pretend that it doesn’t exist.

August through December next post.

Spring Break is upon us, as Bella laments on Monday morning. This is a rather flippant observation from Bella given that we now know that she is going to bait in the trap that is being set to catch the vampire currently seeking her death. She also points out that this Spring break she is being hunted and last spring break she was being hunted as well, “I hoped that this wasn’t some kind of tradition forming.”

A word of advice to potential writers, don’t point it out when you are reusing your own plot devices. It’s not clever, it only proves that you are aware of it as well.

On Tuesday, less than a page later, we have a brief encounter with Mike and a monologue about how Jacob is in love with Bella. These are two distinct occurrences but cover the same ground. Jacob’s feelings are known to Bella and it’s obvious to everyone. Bella not sharing the feeling continues to string Jacob along, knowing that he will wait for her to come around since he said as much three chapters or so ago. This is where we come back to Aristotle. The problem for me is that this example sets up the counter argument. Yes, in cases of murder, it is worse to not be aware that it is wrong. However in this case, doesn’t it make Bella more moral if she isn’t aware of Jacob’s feelings, or if she doesn’t know that he will continue to bear the torch for her than the situation presented here? Especially when we consider that he is 16 and she’s 18. Two years doesn’t mean much when you are in your twenties or older, but at that age there are leaps and bounds of maturation that need to be accomplished. I have to go against “The Philosopher” on this one, she’s much worse with the knowledge she has.

Back in La Push, the chapter jumps around pretty frequently and we are still on page 2 of it, we find out that Emily can bake a cake, “that would have won over a harder man than Charlie.” Emily being a human female in this story serves only the one purpose in her existence, I’ve seen more female empowerment in porn movies at this point. The other point I want to make is that none of that makes sense. Why is she trying to win him over isn’t she married to Sam? When did Charlie hate her or Sam? It’s another file in the Charlie mystery: despite the glowing discussions of the Cullens in the previous book, Bella told us that he didn’t like Edward. Despite what we know of Charlie and Sam Uley (that he called him to help find his daughter in the beginning of the book) somehow he’s got to be won over by a cake. The cake thing also is insulting to men, just because a woman can bake doesn’t mean we are going to fall for it. We’re all not Homer Simpsons.

Jake and Bella have some lame getting to you know conversation that fills in plot details which would have been more appropriate a chapter or two ago. It concerns his lineage on both sides that was going to make him a werewolf no matter what. We also find out that they are faster than the vampires, and have blood temperatures above 108. I’m able, though not willing to accept that. It’s the same as the sparkling thing for her vampires, it’s an odd detail but it seems completely unimportant. Why tell us this? Jacob explains something, “I never get cold anymore. I could stand like this’–he gestured toward his bare torso–’in a snowstorm and it wouldn’t bother me. The flakes would turn to rain where I stood.“

I suppose that explains the cliff diving in the winter, but another tip for the writers out there–if you are going to add a detail like this, do the damn research. Just because he has a higher body temperature doesn’t mean he can’t lose that temperature. In fact if the snow is melting before it hits him, it means that he is losing heat at a ridiculous rate. That’s not even an average understanding of how things like biology and thermodynamics work. And why is he standing there without his shirt on? They just left the house with a whole bunch of people in it.

Jacob wants to talk about the vampires, which makes sense as he is currently trying to kill one of them. So he asks about whether they had any other special powers than the mind reading. Bella is hesitant, “this felt like a question that he would ask of his spy, not his friend. But what was the point of hiding what I knew? It didn’t matter now, and it would help him control himself.”

Let me reiterate, Jacob is currently hunting a vampire and he wants to know–for his own safety and his brothers, what they are up against. He’s hunting a vampire that he knows is trying to kill Bella, but Bella doesn’t want to tell him because…I’m not sure why. She wants to hold on to the pain, she doesn’t want to betray the guy who dumped her? Someone help me out here. Eventually, I suppose, she realizes her folly and tells him, “Jasper could sort of control the emotions of the people around him…And then Alice could see things that were going to happen. The future, you know, but not absolutely…”

Huh? Of the two abilities that she mentions, she downplays foresight. As in the one ability that might give Victoria foreknowledge of the trap they are setting she decides to mention that second. That would be like the Emperor explaining to Luke in Return of the Jedi that the trap he had set was based on superior tactical knowledge, firepower, logistics, oh and by the way I could kind of tell what was happening before it occurred but that’s really not the issue here. I get that she has a death wish but if, as she claims, she cares for Jacob she might want to rethink her priorities.

The conversation ends with Jacob promising to take Bella cliff diving, yes cliff diving–he’s going to take the person who claimed that she couldn’t walk across a flat surface without falling jumping off a cliff. Those plans aren’t going be fulfilled as the wolves have caught a fresh scent which they believe may be Victoria trapped between some mountain range. They’ve gone out for the kill, Bella shows some concern not realizing that it’s five against one which worked pretty well for them with Laurent. That kind of irrationality is actually nice, because it’s normal. I’m sure parents were worried when their sons flew bombing missions over Afghanistan, but the odds are kind of in their favor on that one.

What does Bella do? Try to kill herself of course, by going cliff diving alone. This brings back the voice, “No, Bella!’ he was angry now, and the anger was so lovely.” Yeah, lovely; but then again, I suppose that is the only real emotion aside from impatience that he did show her. It’s revealing that she calls the voice her “delusion” but that being the case how can it give new information from before?

As she’s being pulled into the riptide, the descriptions get kind of good. The disorientation, the cold. It’s also nice that the oxygen deprivation leaves her content, the euphoria that you only get from CO2 poisoning or alcohol. She says goodbye and lets the current pull her away. Since we’re only on page 362, I’m assuming she survives although we are in a corner on this one. Because unless the riptide pulled her right into a boat she’s done for. The biggest concern is that this is supposed to be a heroic act, it’s framed as such which is complete bullshit. Yet this woman is still a role model.