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Show Friday, February 15, 2008 HE SIGNPOST EDITORIAL Signpost Viewpoint Welcome to the hive mind five in a Google search, its probably The Internet, whether we want to too late. accept it or not, is a force on planet Some long-time readers of The earth that is shaping the way human Signpost may have noted that instead history is unraveling. Everything of bylines at the end of stories, we - from the smallest change in some have added a little blurb that says: has-been celebrity's diet, to the most "Comment on this story online at profound developments in cancer wsusignpost. research - are com." And sucked up by Business owners online Signpostthis information supermonster, should use this simple, readership activity has and digested skyrocketed. into a thousand one-step program to Pages and pages different, of debates have hierarchical see if they are going been fueled from stomachs (news story comments. releases, blogs, to survive in today's online comments, The public's techno-age: If you forums, etc.) expectations before settling for online don't come up in the slowly into the interactivity have consciousness started rising and, top-five in a Google of the monster's in most cases infinite power they are far from search, its probably source, purpose, unreasonable, master and slave: given the scope too late. people. of technology available to Essentially, humans are becoming a cybemetically businesses today. Skiers begin to wonder why they can't log onto their dependent race. But while the effects resort's Web site and see personalized of such a dependency are not so statistics on their days on the physically apparent as, for example, mountain, their number of runs, their the Borg, we rely as much on the best times down, the number of sunny Internet to go about our daily lives as days, etc. If a dentist's appointment they rely on their weird, electro-plate is nearing, there is no reason why we booth-personal-charger thingies. shouldn't get an e-mail reminder and But some things in our society a text message an hour before. PA are resistant to the changeover systems are a thing of the past. PNS's to electronic dependency. Some (Personalized Notification Systems) companies, for example, still keep should replace any and all service all their records solely on paper flies announcements, for everything in actual filing cabinets. While this is from train and bus arrivals, to traffic simply an example of a stubborn cling to tradition (and perhaps prudently - conditions and tee times. Y2K2 anyone?}, some other businesses Unfortunately, brand-new clutching onto non-electronic businesses like cellphone companies conventions may not survive the slow are less clingy to traditions than we mutation our society is experiencing. would like, and have a sort of techAs our civilization falls further into savvy advantage that (for the time the shadow of the Internet, people being) they are using unfairly to their expect to have online interactivity in advantage. For example, if you call nearly every facet of their lives - and someone from your cellphone and talk when they don't find it in one business, for 15 seconds, you are charged for they'll surely find it in another. Hungry one minute on your plan. C'mon, guys at work and don't know exactly what'll - do you really expect us to believe hit the spot? Log onto Carlsjr.com and that your computers can't compute browse their entire menu in HD. Jake's decimal places? Pu-leez. Once the Over The Top sounded appealing but populace catches on to little scams they didn't have a Web site. like this, they're not going to last. Business owners should use this Society isn't getting lazy, just more simple, one-step program to see if they efficient. are going to survive in today's technoSurvival lies in the ability to adapt. age: If you don't come up in the topResistance is futile. Democrat's superdelgates: Equal, only more so McClatchy Tribune 1 If you vote for a candidate for president, and your candidate receives the ,most votes, then your candidate wins, right? Not necessarily in the Democratic primary. (Nor in the infamous general election of 2000, as you might recall.) Before this year, few people knew - or cared - that a group of Democratic Party insiders known as "superdelegates" had the potential to cancel out the votes of ordinary citizens. But more Democrats are paying attention now that the closeness of the race between Sens. Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois has increased the likelihood of superdelegates deciding who will be the party nominee. As of Monday, Obama and Clinton were virtually deadlocked. To win the nomination, a candidate needs 2,025 of the 4,090 delegates at stake at the Democratic National Convention; among them are 796 superdelegates. A superdelegate isn't bound to vote for a given candidate, regardless of the popular vote in his or her state's primary or caucus. (The Republican Party doesn't have superdelegates, although it does have 463 "unpledged" delegates, about 19 percent of the total.) Most superdelegates are elected Democratic Party officials, including all of the Democratic members of Congress. These men and women are the priz- WUST B BE THIS TALL TO RIDE. BATTLE OF THE SEXISTS O N HERCULES AND XENA - AYIAYIAYIAYIAY1AYIAYIAYIAYIAYIAY1 They say there are two kinds of men in prison - the kind who watch Baywatch, and the kind who watch Xena. I'm the kind who watches Xena - although according to random Internet compatibility tests, David Hasselhoff is my celebrity match. Blech. But I digress. The biggest difference between TV's Hercules and Xena (besides the obvious gender thing) is that Xena used to be evil, but Hercules has always been a moral supergiant (in mythology there's a Hera-induced-murderinghis-whole-family thing to consider). This makes Xena infinitely more interesting, and Hercules what we call a static (boring) character. They both travel around the countryside saving people, but Xena's story is much more interesting because hers is one of redemption, while Hercules is just doing what he does, backed up with half-god powers and daddy Zeus, the god of all gods. Xena, armed only with the strength of a mere mortal, superior jumping skills, a cool leather outfit and her shiny chakrarn, is the only human to ever survive walking the gauntlet (courtesy of her own warriors), which she is forced to endure when she shows compassion on the battlefield. To redeem herself in the eyes of her men, she tries to bring them Hercules' head. Hercules wins by a fluke and converts her to niceism in the process. Xena spends the rest of her life trying to make up for all the harm she has caused. She kicks serious ass (with witty banter and sound effects mixed in for good measure), and does that cool flip-kick off the ground thing that I tried (unsucessfully) to do once at a party and occasionally runs horizontally on bad guys' faces. According to Joseph Campbell, in The Hero With a Thousand Faces, a hero gets a call to adventure, which they must either accept or decline. Xena's call comes after she convinces her fellow villagers to defend themselves from attackers and several of them are killed. Her little brother is counted among the dead, which affects her profoundly. Xena is booted out of the village, and becomes a powerful evil in the world. Her path takes a different turn after she meets Hercules, at which point she takes on man, woman and god to heal the damage she's inflicted. And she's been a vf ry bad girl. Towards the end of the series, she's crucified, comes back, and sacrifices herself. When offered the chance to come back to earth (again), Xena refuses so the thousands of souls she killed could find peace. In the end, Campbells says the hero must present a boon to the world that will make it better. Xena was instrumental in bringing about the downfall of the petty, lustful Olympian gods, paving the way for the new and improved Christian god - elixir for the world. This, and all the steps in between classify her as a true hero. Xena has battled against, slept with or consorted with Zeus, Odin, Krishna, Beowulf, the Archangel Michael, Ulysses, Julius Caeser, Caligula Caeser, Mark Antony, Mephistopheles and Lucifer. She can fight with her hands, feet, chakram, staff, sword, rags, pans or whatever happens to be lying around. I'm not saying Hercules isn't a hero, I'm just saying Xena is a much better one. And that's why we should elect Hillary Clinton as president. es in a parallel, less visible contest between Clinton and Obama. More than half of the Democratic superdelegates haven't declared which candidate they will support. Democratic Party officials should get rid of this establishment-friendly rule before the next presidential contest. This system, in place for decades, has the potential to undermine the collective will of voters. Who knows what deals will be made to gain a superdelegate's allegiance? ' Democratic officials defend superdelegates, saying it makes sense to include people who have worked hard for the party and are passionate about its success. They say superdelegates don't ignore voters' wishes. Even regular delegates aren't bound by law to vote for a particular candidate, although they almost always vote for the person to whom they are pledged. Still, the very existence of superdelegates is the party's way of saying it doesn't trust the will of the voters. This feature was created to ensure that the Democratic Party establishment could nullify a candidate deemed too risky. But it has the potential this year to deny voters the final say in a contest between two strong candidates. Political parties, of course, have the right to create rules as they see fit. But allowing so many freelancing delegates increases the likelihood of a contest being settled in a backroom - not at the ballot box. Comment on this story online at wsusignpost.com Wl-BF.R STATK U N I V F . R S I T Y The Signpost Is published every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday during Fall and Spring semester and" Tuesdays during the Summer Semester. To subscribe contact Georgia Edwards at 626-7974 or gedwards@weber.edu.The first copy of The Signpost is free, each additional copy is $.50. Hercules is the working class hero icon - he's got brawn, um, a God-father whose wifehatesHercbecause she's not his mother and a ... okay, so he's not really a working class hero, more of a Homeric class hero. But that's still really something, ain't it? Well, if having a terrifically epic (truly epic) background wasn't enough, add a dash of Kevin Sorbo, some cut-rate CGI and witty banter and you've reinvented a classic. I'm talking about "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys." Sorbo has the muscles of Steve Reeves and the wit and sarcasm of .Richard Dean Anderson's Col. Jack O'Neill from Stargate SG-1. Sorbo can whip a bunch of mythical monsters, shake the dust off his hands, and deliver that one-liner that would make the British jealous. Seeing Hercules take on the Amazon women, besting Hippolyta possessed by Hera (his evil non-mom), I don't think it would be unfair to compare his strength to that of Xena, the warrior princess (note: read "the warrior princess" out loud with much disdain and mockery). Perhaps it wouldn't be that good of an idea, though, at there are so many flaws tc the whole Xena character If we just compare shows: which I've only recently been reading up on, we may find the two shows almost on even ground, with "Hercules' edging out "Xena." "Xena" has Lucy Lawless, s sort of mannish ChuckNorris. with a little less grace. Sorbo, incidentally, is somewhat of a womanish Chuck Norris. That's gonns be a tie there. .,, \ .V-T-*^. Xejia's moves aren't all thai great; Sorbo's are passable Haifa point to "Hercules." "Xena's" special effects appear to be the product ol remedial watercolor classes. The effects are about on pai with "Hercules." That's another draw. Sorbo can deliver a deceni one-liner, replete with sarcasm. Xena can stammei her point out, but that's aboui it. Then she wanders across her New Zealand sets with her decent curves and goes back to doing whatever. I'm gonna give "Hercules" half z point more for being bettei written and not just selling out for someone with looks. Sorbo seems to get in these workouts from time tc time that look like Snickers commercials. He'll be working over some beast oi villain, subdue the adversary and turn to assess the state ol things and he almost appears to be looking for something to satisfy his hunger. If "Xena" were s commercial, it'd be for s push-up bra or those things that women wear on theii legs to hide the fact thai they didn't shave - whai are those things called* pantyhose? Another point foi the "Hercules" team. "Hercules" is the definite winner. His show is a bettei achievement and not jusi some bimbo in a metal corset-thing. That's the real difference" - "Hercules' doesn't bank on the costume department's ability to hide or expose some flesh, but just to place the characters in attire appropriate to the setting. Oh, that's anothei point. Yeah, "Hercules" wins. Good job, Sorbo. Now get yourself a Snickers. Comment on this story online at wsusignpost.com The Signpost welcomes letters to the editor. Letters must include name, address, telephone number and the writer's signature. Anonymous letters will not be printed The Signpost reserves the right to edit letters for reasons of space and libel and also reserves the right to refuse to print any letter. Letters should not exceed 350 words. Bring letters to the editorial office in The Stewart Library room 65, mail to: The Signpost, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, 84408-2110. Attn: Editor in Chief email:thesignpost@weber.edu |
