Forms of Parody

A parody is an imitation of a work of art, literature, or music for an intention of making playful joke out of the original work. A parody may be ironic or takes a cynical approach to the work that it uses as reference. Or it might be just some comedic relief.

Most of the time, a parody is a serious work that has been to make it looks absurd by mocking or pointing out the flaws of the original work. A parody is similar to, and may also be referred to as burlesque, lampoon, or a spoof.

The word parody was taken from the Greek “paroidia”. It means a song sung alongside another. However, in modern culture such as ours, a parody can involve printed, audio, and visual media. Though, copyright laws are complicated when dealing with a parody. Since the original work is copyrighted to the original creator, is the work of parody is credited to the original creator too?

But in many cases, the creator of parody must get permissions from the original creator.

Film is a popular industry where a parody may be created. A popular movie that has become an icon such as Twillight series, have a parody of its own, Vampire Sucks. Numerous other titles existed which many of them were starred by popular Hollywood comedians.

Parody : On the left is Vampire Suck, and on the right is the original work, Twillight.

Music is as popular as other parody mediums. It involves changing or copying the existing music ideas or lyrics. It might be humorous, even mocking the existing musical material. Sometimes, for satirical effects.

Other forms of parody or spoof exist within television, and sometimes radio. Other shows have been developed as a parody of reality. Though parody in print is rarer and lesser known, books, magazine, and newspapers have also contained parodies of original works or situations, like comics.

Syllogism

I’ve learned about Syllogism in my Critical Literacy Class, and I found out that it is really interesting.

It is like poetry, and it is kind of a logical argument with two premises, major and minor with a conclusion.

"A syllogism is valid (or logical) when its conclusion follows from its premises. A syllogism is true when it makes accurate claims--that is, when the information it contains is consistent with the facts. To be sound, a syllogism must be both valid and true. However, a syllogism may be valid without being true or true without being valid."
(Laurie J. Kirszner and Stephen R. Mandell, The Concise Wadsworth Handbook, 2nd ed. Wadsworth, 2008)

Syllogisms are particularly interesting in persuasion as they include assumptions that many people accept which allow false statements or conclusions to appear to be true. There is a difference between truth and validity in syllogisms. A syllogism can be true, but not valid. It can also be valid but not true.

Example of  syllogism is :-

                Premise 1 : Animal Farm is full of pigs

                Premise 2 : Pigs are forbidden for Muslims

                Conclusion : Animal Farm is forbidden for Muslims

This seems legit, but it is not valid since I just twisted the words around. We don’t even touch the pigs directly. So this syllogism is not valid. 

How to Attain Power - The 48 Laws of Power

The 48 Laws of Power is a book written by Robert Greene, the same person who wrote the article Men and Women are Merely Players. It took inspiration from Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince as well as Sun Tzu’s Art of War, which are classics that are required reading materials for military commanders as well as business people.

Feeling powerless when you are around people and events in your life is not the way to live. Since we existed, power is regarded as one and only motivator for men and women.  Everything thtat we have seen in this world is the result from the yearning of power. The feelings of having power are so addictive, and everybody wants it. Nevertheless, nowadays you can’t seem too hungry for power, because people will think ill about you. It is important to keep a decent image to be able to use power effectively.

Napoleon Bonaparte once said “Place your iron hand inside a velvet glove”. By learning the inside out of a power game needs you to change your view of the world. Even so, it takes effort and years of practice. It is because power does not come naturally. You have to work on it. As Napoleon said before, one of the most important skills you need is the ability to master your emotions.

Next, another important skill is the ability to think objectively about the past and the future. You should plan your moves well in advance, and look to the future to consider all possibilities because nothing should catch you by surprise. After that, look to the past to remember the lessons learned, as well as to learn from those who came before you.

Keep in mind that even you will not willing to participate in game of power, other people around you will. Be prepared to face any possibilities of people around you facing away from you or simply using you for power.

Facebook’s Flaws You Might Not Notice

Facebook is used by many people worldwide, however, has you notice what happened after you use Facebook? It is common for Facebook users to be closer with each other after they have interacted. Even though Facebook is supposed to make people become closer, but it indeed, give the opposite effects sometimes because many misunderstanding could be triggered within Facebook. Facebook can be the trigger of something that can makes you regret. Even the teenagers reject the idea of taking part in mass migration from other social networks such as Twitter or MySpace, to Facebook, including people who had a try on it because some of them feel isolated when interacting via Facebook.

Facebook claimed that they are still able to maintain their security and privacy by having security check every time a suspicious action is detected. Nevertheless, Facebook is facing a downfall since no more hacking is needed to steal people’s information, but it can be stolen by the penetrating of hackers into the user’s computer through another means, virus link. The site can’t be trusted since there was an incident in 2007 where there is some configuration problem that made some private data to be made public.

In addition, as we sign up in Facebook, the information kept in Facebook’s database is very secure, or SHOULD be secure. However, the information in Facebook could be leaked easily as the application in the Facebook can access our data by only one click to allow them to copy our data.  Sometimes, the information taken by the application that we trusted is more than what we know. The application hides under the name of “trusted application”, however, it is very unknown how many information have been whipped.

Men and Women

It was said that being pretentious is necessary to gain control over other less intelligent people thus, acquire higher position within their community. But, a person can be pretentious among other people but they can’t hide their intention perfectly because their non-verbal actions will show their true intention. By only being conceited, we can’t perfectly gain power since we also need a decent education to make the society trust us.

According to Robert Green, to acquire power, a person needs to avoid associating with other people that have no benefits to them. But he never explore the importance of knowing many people. In order to live and win the lower class people’s votes, we have to at least, know them and acts nice to them at least once to make sure we carved a good first impression in their mind.

Well, it is true that we can associate with other people that don’t give benefit to us, but you have to manipulate them with the aim of using them.

Most of the people believed that they don’t pretend in their life and that they are innocent. Even so, since we were a child, we are already being a player of this stage and portray our behavior of deceit, cunning, and slyness. Sometimes when we are involved in a problem, we often have the tendency to use other people as a scapegoat as to make ourselves appear innocent. But the one that appears innocent is the most pretentious of all.

We should know that not all that we learn from philosophy article or books can be used. Not everything they said are true and not everything they said are wrong. We on our own, have to think and consider the other side are true. Even so, we cannot deny the exposition in the article “Men and Women are Merely Players”, as most of us must have at least think that the writer is right.

Facebook Addiction - WHAT MAKE YOU ADDICTED?

Facebook is the life of the people nowadays, and the temptation of having a Facebook is too hard to be resisted. It has the power to pull people, in the sense of using it, and normally, no one could resist such temptation of being acknowledged by so many people, even though it is actually a virtual acknowledgement.

There are a few ways of the Facebook admins to converting people into liking Facebook. Notice how there is no DISLIKE button in Facebook? There is only LIKE button, but this is the trick. They push you involuntarily into the state of bliss in having people liking your status and pictures, but the reality is, less people actually liked the status and pictures.

Another reason that turns people into a Facebook addict is that it supports mobile applications for mobile phone. Now, Facebook can be accessed everywhere, as long as you have a phone that can browse internet, and phone service. This is even scarier than an alien invasion.  Someday, the world is going to create a pad only for Facebook. This shows how special Facebook is.

In addition, instant messaging feature in Facebook can connect you with your facebook friends instantly. The other party has to be online, but as soon as you are about to log off, there will be someone who always will send instant message to you, and you instinctively will reply. Sometimes, out of courtesy, you will reply to them even though you are bored. But sometimes, it is a war. Therefore, all of these pulling factors succeed in pulling your legs into this madness.

Moreover, having friends worldwide is one of the main reasons why you cannot stop facebooking. You will never stop meeting new people, even though you do not know them. But as long as they accept your friend request, or they send you a friend request, an exciting meeting will occurs.

By being clear on the trap’s modus operandi, you will be able to identify key points that can help you into a stop in facebooking.

Who Steve Job really is

Steve Job is a person who is really good in pretending. That is what Jeff Goodell, a journalist and a former employee’s of Apple said.

Steve Job's holding an apple as a symbol of 'conquering' Apple company.

Is it true, or is Goodell trying to deceive people into hating Steve Job’s company?

If he is wrong, what grudge do he has against Job?

There are many hoaxes about Job’s ruthless behaviour, violent personality, and his madness had drove people away from him. However, based on my observation, Steve Jobs is just trying to teach his employees to not giving up easily and to complete their works perfectly. Under the lead of Steve Jobs, Apple now is a big company with more than 4000 workers. Moreover, he also started successful companies with many loyal employees because of the less stressing environments in the workplace, and the good treatment they received by the employers.

Jeff Goodell as a credible person in criticizing Job said, everyone cannot stand with Job’s and after that Apple fired him a year after he messed  up. Is it the real thing that happened? Based on what I have heard in Steve Job’s public speech, he said that when Apple hired someone to run the company together with him, both of them have different views on the future of Apple, resulting in the elimination of Jobs from the company since the board director sided with his partner. In my opinion, Steve Jobs screwed up, but there is no relevance in firing Jobs because he is a hardworking staff of Apple, and he did sincerely apologize from David Packard and Bob Noyce for failing.

Another accusation of Goodell towards Jobs is that Jobs think that he is the only one that is right and can be trusted, not the consumers. In spite of this, he did things his own way because he needs originality and precision in his products to make sure those products are not only good, but also perfect for the consumers. Steve Jobs has guts and to believe in his own ideas because he thinks that his customers believe no less than the best product.

Somehow, there are reasons behind Job’s doings. But how do we interpret his doings is what the matters. If we look at the bright side, it is how every awesome Apple’s products are made. By Steve Jobs’ ruthless behaviour, violent personality, and his madness.

Apple's famous products. Iphone, Ipod, Macintosh, etc.

Smut vs Hentai

Smut is defined as series that are regarded as profane or offensive, especially the ones that related to sexual content.

As well as smut exists in films, novels, music videos, it is also present in comics. Comics are visual reading materials that are commonly associated with the country of the rising sun, Japan.

( In Japan, smut comics (or also commonly called as smut mangas) are categorized by a few categories according to its orientation. A gay smut is called yaoi, and lesbian smut is called yuri. But the straight smut is not called hentai, since the meaning is not synonymous at all. )

The meaning of hentai is adult sexual content in an illustrated form where the FOCUS of the comic is placed on sexually graphic acts.

That was what makes smut is different with hentai. Smut usually consists of a sweet love story, with some blasphemous sexual content, while hentai is just a sexually graphic act with less or no storyline at all. This is why some people prefer smut, rather than mindless hentai consuming.

However, smut is pretty subjective. It is a scene where sexual situation is involved, and sometimes it is explicit. But for some people, a sexy scene which is censored can be considered smutty too. How smutty the materials are, it depends on the person that is consuming it. How dirty the smut is, it depends on the viewer’s moral value and own judgement. 

Empathic Ability of Sherlock Holmes. Can we have it?

Recently, I’ve bought Sherlock Holmes novels compilation, which I regard as one of most valuable collection of mine. In the novels, I found out that Sherlock Holmes is a very empathic person. What is empathic? How can we become an empathic person? I will explore on this topic, as it is one of literature materials that makes me think critically to get the gist of it.

Empathy is a concept that was introduced by Theodore Lipps. It is where we can share experiences and mental condition of other people. Being empathic means that we are able to understand, or at least know other people’s feelings, conditions, thoughts, and motivation. Empathic is one of the ability that Sherlock Holmes reveals to us. Better than any of us that read this blog, he is surprisingly able to take on other’s point of views, thus, he can discover a criminal’s motives by being empathic. Sometimes Holmes empathic level extends as far as to side with the criminal over the law when he discovered enough the circumstances of the crime.

Where do you think empathy come from? When we are observing a little girl acting in a certain way or showing a certain emotion, we automatically mirror it in our own mind. In conclusion, when we see someone is smiling, we re-enact the scene in our heads, and sometimes, what we think usually shows on our face.

When we see someone is eating an apple, we automatically replay that action ourselves in our mind, And as we do so, we begin to comprehend not just how the action happened, but also why the action is being executed. Why she is eating an apple? It is because she is hungry. This is the direction of thinking that leads to empathy.

Somehow, this tendency to think can be developed more into a better empathetic ability to the point of where we let a murderer go, because we understand where he’s coming from. Compared to the Sherlock fictions, in real life problem would be deeper and harder to comprehend. But the principle is valid, and can be used in real life too.

FROM HELL. True or Fiction?

The content of the letter is:_

From hell

Mr Lusk
Sor
I send you half the Kidne I took from one women prasarved it for you tother piece I fried and ate it was very nise. I may send you the bloody knif that took it out if you only wate a whil longer

signed
Catch me when you Can Mishter Lusk.

In the Jack the Ripper case that I have previously briefed, there are some hints that were being sent by the killer (or impostors?). Though, the experts denied the exactness of the letters. Is it really being written by the Ripper? The first letter received from Jack the Ripper was on 25^th September. It was sent to the Central News agency. Later on 1 October, a postcard was received by the police. The police believed that it was from the same person with the first letter. It was because the postcard referred on the first letter, and yet, there is no one knows about the first letter since it was not published.

Even so, there was no evidence that supports the fact that the real Ripper is the one that wrote all of the letters and the following letters after the first two. I think that the letters are merely journalist or other people that try to make this case become more interesting.

Among all of the letters received, there is one interesting letter that has been sent in a small parcel. It was sent to George Lusk, a former vigilance committee in Whitechapel. The content of the parcel was half a human kidney, and the letter from the killer. It was stated that the kidney was from the victim, Catharine Eddowes. I am sure that the kidney was from the victim, because Eddowes suffered from Bright’s disease, and the kidney does look like it was from someone who suffered Bright’s disease.

This letter was the one that have been sent with a kidney that was believed to be Catherine Eddowes’, one of the victims. It was one of hundreds letters that were noticed by the investigators at that time. Another fact that distinguishes this letter from others is this letter was signed with “From Hell”, and not “Jack the Ripper” like other letters. This letter is also suspected being written by a lower class people with low education because of the low literacy level compared to another letters.

Is this letter real or not…? We can’t tell since the evidences were lost in time. But many experts said that it was just some gruesome joke by medical students who can lay their hands on things like a kidney.