Web Commonerpolitics, social commentary, and ramblings on pop culture

In today’s digital age, the Internet’s near open exchange of information never ceases to amaze, and I feel fortunate to be a member of the generation that stood front and center as the web progressed from infancy into adulthood. As a teenager, I remember feeling stunned the first time a friend messaged me in real time using a desktop computer. Now, we carry the computer in our pocket and rely heavily on the Internet to communicate, conduct business, educate, and entertain. In hind sight, it isn’t shocking to know that entire industries would be forced into an evolutionary state of emergency as they struggled to stay afloat in a rapidly changing environment, and the two we hear about most are music and print.

Both were unequipped and ill-prepared for the mass exodus that occurred after digital technology freed their subjects, and forced a need to update their business plans and models. People who felt used by an industry profiting twofold on the sale of compact discs, which cost pennies to produce, suddenly had the upper hand and simply stopped buying music. Still, all it took was an organized, reasonably priced distribution system built off the convenience of the Internet to revitalize the market, and it was an innovative computer company that put the first foot forward. Meanwhile, the music industry was caught, virtually, with its pants down.

Now, it’s the print industry’s turn to share some of the embarrassment. Sure, publishers made moves years back towards digitizing their business by offering content online, but they clung desperately to the newspaper model and refused to strip off the blinders in anticipation of a time when subscribers would ditch the big front page for a smaller, more personalized screen. Almost ten years out of college, I can recall professors in my own communications courses who predicted a future without traditional media, focusing instead on “the box,” a single-unit device that would contain everything a person could possibly need. So, was it straight denial or simple ignorance that prevented media owners and managers to effectively plan for the big changes that awaited their industry.

What seems most ironic about their lack of preparedness is their density when it comes to understanding how Web 2.0 technology might help sustain their survival. Correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t the media mergers and acquisitions that permeated the industry throughout the last two decades provide the necessary momentum for companies to invest heavily in new technologies and research ways to reach evolving demographics, you know, before it’s too late? Three years ago, Amazon introduced the world to Kindle, a portable reading device with the ability to download published content. That’s right, folks, Amazon. A company that has been in existence almost 15 years stepped up to the plate and met a challenge that major newspaper conglomerates, whose roots could technically classify them as antiques, claimed they didn’t even know existed.

Now, these entities are in trouble and many argue that the fabric of free press is unwinding as they reach to the state for assistance. Industry gatekeepers are quick to shine a light on companies like Google as the source of their problems, an organization whose innovative technologies actually help to direct traffic to their websites and organize advertising into a profitable source of income for online businesses. These dispatches of blame are little more than scapegoats for industry captains who knowingly ignored the coming tide of change, choosing instead to focus on diminished quality to increase profits in the short term. Today, the result is a digital transference of industry, with ideas of promising Web 3.0 technology plowing forward towards an updated press that utilizes interactive social networks, blogs, and online forums to produce and deliver the next generation of news, despite a lack of participation from its traditional counterparts.

WARNING: This post contains LOST spoilers. If you have not watched the show through the final seconds of Season 5, it is strongly recommended that you turn back now.

“They’re coming.”

That was the last line of special significance spoken by a character on LOST prior to Juliet’s screeching whimper as she pounded away at a stubborn nuclear reactor that Mr. Fix-It, Sayid, promised would detonate on impact. Apparently, all it took was some good old-fashioned elbow grease to make the thing act right, despite a compelling fall from grace. It’s a good thing she let go of Sawyer’s hand, and I guess those frustrated with the quadrilateral love connection can at least take comfort knowing it was a necessary plot twist that would pave a path towards their expulsion from 1977. I’ll certainly miss our cultish, psychedelic Dharma ladies and gents, but it’s time to move the story forward. Cue the cut to … white?

That’s right, Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof can’t take credit for pioneering the technique, but let’s at least pay homage to their use of a mere transition to advance the series into its final season, at the same time reminding us not to forget other television success stories that made excellent use of the cut or fade to white effect, including the Sopranos and Six Feet Under. So, what does it all mean? We know for a fact that the creators of LOST have been dangling the black and white theme in front of our faces since John Locke first introduced Walt to the game of backgammon.

There was the discovery of Adam and Eve, when Jack found black and white stones among the possessions of two decomposed skeletons in the caves. Claire once had a dream about Aaron on the beach, with Lock staring up at her sporting black and white eyes and breaking bad news that the survivors would pay the price for her shucking responsibility and giving up the baby. Now, enter Mr. Black, literally. In the opening scene of “The Incident,” we meet Jacob face to face for the first time, and he has a friend. By design, both characters contrast perfectly, with Jacob decked out in a white linen shirt, and Mr. Black wearing, well, black.

We have to assume that these two characters are at odds with each other after Mr. Black tells Jacob that he wants to kill him, implying that there is no easy solution to fulfilling this desire. Even more disturbing is the fact that this revelation does not appear to surprise or even remotely phase Jacob. Of course, I’m approaching this conversation from the East when it really should be read from left to right, so let me find Richard’s compass.

Okay, after we see Jacob working diligently on weaving a tapestry to decorate the walls of his humble stone hideaway, he heads outside to catch dinner. Next, we see him fillet a fish, cook it, and plop down on the beach to enjoy the meal. He stares off into the horizon as the infamous Black Rock sails a few miles offshore, and Mr. Black walks up and takes a seat next to him. Then, throw in the main ingredient that we all come to expect after 5 seasons of LOST … complete and utter confusion.

Jacob: I take it you’re here because of the ship.
Mr. Black: I am. (pause) How did they find the island?
Jacob: You’ll have to ask them when they get here.
Mr. Black: I don’t have to ask. You brought them here. Still trying to prove me wrong, aren’t you?
Jacob: You are wrong.
Mr. Black: Am I? They come, they fight, they destroy, they corrupt. It always ends the same.
Jacob: It only ends once. Anything that happens before that … is just progress.
Mr. Black: You have any idea how badly I want to kill you?
Jacob: Yes.
Mr. Black: One of these days, sooner or later … I’m going to find a loophole, my friend.
Jacob: Well, when you do, I’ll be right here.

Wow, this snippet of dialogue seems to suggest that these characters are at either end of a philosophical tug of war. One of them apparently has an advantage, and it’s the guy who presides under a larger than life four-toed statue of Taweret, the Egyptian Goddess of birth and rebirth. Meanwhile, I will take a shot in the dark here and say that Mr. Black is a representative of Anubis and Co., the Egyptian God of afterlife and the underworld. As we witnessed when Ben’s daughter accosted him under the temple, hieroglyphics adorning the wall revealed that the smoke monster and Anubis are, at least, acquaintances and, at most, one and the same. So, friends, we just might have on our hands a classic struggle between black and white, light and dark, life and death or, dare I say, good and evil.

To restate, it only ends once, and anything that happens before that is just progress. Okay, but progress towards what? If you take Mr. Black’s words at face value, the mates aboard the Black Rock are not the first Losties to reach the island, and they will not be the last. Still, let’s start with them. Apparently, they will come, fight, destroy, and corrupt until some sort of end-game scenario. I have a sneaky suspicion that the only person who could likely shed light on this subject, other than our beach bums, is the person whose job seems to be holding his tongue. After seeing Ricardus, or as we know him, Richard, set the sail of the Black-Rock-In-A-Bottle, it seems safe to assume that he was aboard the vessel when it finally landed, literally, on the island.

So, If Richard arrived on the Black Rock, maybe he knows how the statue came to be “destroyed,” and as far fetched as it might seem, maybe a nuclear reactor coupled with a spastic release of electro-magnetic energy just might be what it takes to thrust our Dharma infiltrators through time and space, and back to the day of Richard’s arrival. Maybe, just maybe, the incident thrusts the entire island physically through time, landing just beneath the Black Rock. Inconceivable! But is this progress?

If you believe Faraday’s theory, humanity’s ability to exercise free will is what makes us unique, and this might just be the constant in life’s awesome equation for humankind. In LOST lure, human survival hinges on a bet between ancient adversaries who represent contrasting philosophies, a wager that pits humans against themselves to see if they can overcome self-destruction by making the right decisions. The island is our casino, and Jacob seems to be the pit boss. As long as he is around to monitor progress, there is no limit to the amount of time that the game can carry itself out.

If Jacob and Mr. Black are, in fact, light and dark manifestations of a single entity, call it God, Ra, Apollo, or just humanity itself, then they cannot kill each other. Like the yin and yang, their existence depends solely on the sum of their parts, and each part has a unique task to carry out. Humans, however, have access to free will and, therefore, can choose between tasks. They can choose between practicing good or evil, knowing right from wrong, turning left or right, going up or down. To be or not to be, kill or be killed, live together, or die alone are all choices that we make. These options exist within the proprietary structure of the human brain, and our ability to choose between them makes us unique in the universe or, in its simplest form, on the island.

In Buddhist mythology, the twin concepts of karma and dharma are associated with reincarnation, with karma dictating that a person’s actions, or lack thereof, result in later effect. In other words, life is what you make it, either in this life or the one that follows. While karma leaves little room for blind chance or fate to determine the future, dharma leaves everything up to destiny. Mr. Black believes that doom and self-destruction is the ultimate fate awaiting humanity, while Jacob is confident that karma will prevail. Out of respect for dharma, Mr. Black is no longer interested in entertaining the idea that free will can save humans, and he sets in motion a plan to end the charade between himself and Jacob.

Black concocts an elaborate scheme to take advantage of humankind’s predetermined weakness, infallibility, doubt, and insecurity, planning to use it against Jacob when the time is right. He employs Smokey to seek out the island’s inhabitants and catalog their memories, document their secrets, manipulate their emotions, and manifest their darkest fears right before their eyes. The smoke monster is Mr. Black’s eyes and ears, and John Locke becomes his most vulnerable and receptive target.

Upon the arrival of the flight 815 survivors, Black finds an opportunity to become the unofficial surrogate father of a human child, Claire Littleton’s son, Aaron. Many believe that Claire died in the explosion back in Dharmaville. If so, it’s quite possible that Mr. Black or Smokey use Claire as a means to convince John that he must move the island to ensure its safety. Smokey’s manipulative capabilities are limited in scope only by its mechanical nature. Still, it obviously has the ability to utilize snippets it carries within it’s memory banks, like a camera, and manifest itself in other forms, which could explain Claire’s seemingly uncharacteristic behavior in Horrace’s woodland retreat.

Unfortunately, Mr. Black’s “Plan A” flies out the window the moment Aaron makes it off the island. Then, to make matters worse, Locke allows Ben to knock the frozen donkey wheel off its axis, which eliminates the problem of Widmore’s offshore army but regretfully sends the island flashing back and forth through time. Still, thanks to clever strategy, Black manages to get Locke placed next in line to lead the island’s people, and convinces him that bringing back his friends would stop the time shift. Oh yeah, John, and don’t forget that you will have to die to make all of this happen. Your body is very important to me and, unbeknownst to you and everybody else, it will serve as a mechanism in my plan to make Ben kill Jacob.

Luckily, he who “lies in the shadow of The Statue” also has an ace up his sleeve, and they share common ancestry. Their names are Christian and Jack Shephard. If Mr. Black can infiltrate a human being, there should be no reason that Jacob cannot do the same. Originally, he finds his loophole in Christian, who’s body landed on the island the day Flight 815 crashed. Through Shephard, he knows Jack, and understands their relationship, regrets, and unresolved issues. Despite his selfish misguidance and irresponsibility as a father, Christian understood Jack to be a great man, capable of great things. He also introduces Jacob to Claire, who will now do everything in his power to make sure her child does not fall into the hands of Mr. Black. He cannot be raised by another.

Maybe this is why women are slated to die after bearing children on the island. With the forces currently at play, all of that free love would be too risky as long as Black is scheming to find a loophole. While it would appear that Jacob manages to hold Black at bay, safely exiled within the confines of the cabin, encircled in ash and powerless to leave, Smokey roams throughout the island freely via a network of underground tunnels and caves, like an elaborate system of security cameras that aid in Mr. Black’s search for a “candidate.” Of course, someone eventually breaks the line of ash, and we all saw the new Locke disappear into the jungle while Ben awaited the arrival of Smokey with Sun and Lapidus. That sneaky devil.

Meanwhile, our friends in 1977 are poised to set off a nuclear bomb that could potentially dissolve the island in poisonous radiation, possibly a part of Jacob’s plan to discourage women from reproducing. Sun becomes the exception to the rule, though, which should be a red flag that Jacob’s plan succeeds in the end, only after everything is finally said and, dare I say, done. Our Losties manage to eradicate the Black issue, which we are yet to witness, and in all likelihood, this brings back some of our favorite characters including Michael, Walt, Penny, Desmond, and Charlie. I would love to see Mr. Eko again, but his story has already been told, having stubbornly proven to Mr. Black that human beings are perfectly capable of using free will to shape their own destiny. No thanks, scary smoke monster, I have nothing to confess.

The haunting question that remains is how Jack will lead everybody to defeat the seemingly unflappable and cunning black crusader, and our clue lies in a simple fade to white. After all this time, it’s Mr. White’s turn to take the wheel. Jacob “lied,” or schemed, in the shadow of The Statue for a long time, planning the suppression of Black and his plan. Now, in the show’s final season, we will learn how Hawking and Widmore became cogs in the massive wheel that is Jacob’s plan to get his variables to the island.

Jacob needed Mr. Black to accomplish his task, which explains why Eloise put Locke’s body on the plane. He recruited Illana to warn Richard of Black’s ruse, who will dutifully fulfill his role as adviser once “they” arrive. Jacob’s death becomes the culmination of a faithfully executed plan to set in motion events that, he hoped, would lead Jack and our free-will yielding variables to prevent Mr. Black from carrying out his plan and, potentially, destroying humanity in the process. The outcome of this battle serves as a stepping stone in humankind’s progressive journey towards nirvana. He, who will save us all.

In the end, Jacob clears the board for the next game’s pieces to be set and secures the human soul long enough for the next group of Losties to try their hand at fate within the confines of the great snow globe that is the island. Its original inhabitants, the “Hostiles” or “Others,” are simply those who came before, and the decisions they made permeate the jungle as haunting whispers, like memories of past mistakes that lay deep within the human subconscious. Thus ending a carefully concocted, highly successful, television series nod to mythology and, more specifically, the hero’s tale as described by Joseph Campbell in his book, “The Hero With A Thousand Faces.” Undoubtedly, Cuse and Lindelof will give the book the proverbial product placement that it deserves in the final season, offering up the same debt of gratitude to Campbell that George Lucas gave when he wrote Star Wars.

In January, shortly before Barack Obama took the oath of office, legendary Hip-Hop pioneer KRS-ONE phoned into the Alex Jones Show and offered an interview. Jones hosts a syndicated radio program and he is a conspiracy theorist who propagates warnings to his listeners daily. These warnings predict that the world will fall victim to a global restructuring of power, a New World Order. Currently, there exists a sect of followers in the world who blindly submit to such theories, and the primary prerequisite for this class of individuals, it appears, depends mostly on the group of people they seem to hate (or fear) the most. It could be foreign entities, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, socialists, communists, or capitalists.

Regardless of who they believe is piloting the black helicopters that they claim are flying overhead and transporting weapons in preparation for a government take-over, they are content to recess into the cracks and crevices of civil society and stockpile weapons arsenals and ammunition. They exist in all shapes and sizes, but the one specific message that seems to reign consistent across all of their rhetorical musings is revolution by force. They are your paramilitary militias, neo-Nazi skinheads, Underground Weathermen, Black Panthers, Branch Davidian sympathizers, Oklahoma City bombers, anthrax mailers, Minutemen, and even your modern-day tea baggers.

While Alex Jones may not align himself with any of these specific groups, the whispered undertones of his message remain the same. He sits within a circle of conspiratorial shock jocks who willfully pollute the airwaves with piercing propaganda, and he is among a privileged few radio personalities who rose to great heights by lying for a living, utilizing the power of language to manipulate vulnerable minds. Previously, I wouldn’t dream of associating KRS-ONE with this same category of misfits, but his recent alignment with Jones on the subject of New World Order conspiracy theory made me think twice.

It can be unsettling, at least, to learn that a single interview might crumble the perceived understanding a person has of someone they admired for so long. To some degree, I believe that Jones used KRS-ONE as a prop to embellish his own distaste for so-called “bad” Hip-Hop and its “shoot ‘em up” culture. Despite his praise of the emcee on the air, it seemed apparent the guy was not a familiar fan of KRS-ONE’s work, referring to DJ Scott La Rock as simply, La Rock, and fumbling to get KRS-ONE’s own stage name right, calling him KSR on several occasions.

In the interview, I was surprised to learn that KRS-ONE dismisses Barack Obama as a mere puppet. Last year, I was proud after stepping into the voting booth and casting my ballot, not for an African American, but a person who I felt represented me and my generation better than any politician before him. Barack Obama is young, intelligent, educated, humble, aggressive, cultured, and admittedly imperfect. He had a reputation for standing up against strong and powerful forces, and he knew how to organize people into action. He was my candidate for President and, like many others, I did whatever was in my power to ensure his election.

When Obama’s administration took office, they inherited the largest deficit this country had the misfortune of experiencing, which was the unfortunate bi-product of a pro-capitalist, anti-socialist regime that raped tax-payers, nullified the Constitution, and metaphorically crapped on the world’s carpet as they tromped through its house uninvited. Nobody in their right mind would want to be the person responsible for cleaning this mess. Still, rather than offer the man some benefit of the doubt, the legendary Blastmaster gave Americans, specifically blacks, his harsh assessment of Barack Obama as a cunning agent of the devil. At this point, I’m positive that I could hear my neo-conservative, fanatically religious in-laws cheering loudly within the deep recesses of my brain.

I get it, man. I really do. The rich don’t care about the poor, Barack Obama is just another politician, and young people won’t get anywhere by placing hope in anyone but themselves. It’s a message that all people should heed, but there is something inherently wrong with encouraging young people to stop the violence in one ear and telling them to have their guns ready for the revolution in the other. It’s a counterproductive and damning message, which implies the country cannot overthrow the incredible forces of industry through non-violent means. Nobody argues that democracy is perfect, but when it works the way it should, suddenly a nation of millions have clean water to drink, health labels on their food, traffic lights at dangerous intersections, and maybe even clean air to breath. These things only happen when people have faith in their ability to govern, and that is Obama’s message.

In the Jones interview, KRS-ONE compares the presidency to a management position at Burger King, which is ultimately beholden to the franchise owner. In America, he says, the banks and corporate executives own the franchise. This is where I respectfully beg to differ. In the real world, it is the American people who hold that title and the inherent problem lies in the fact that too many of us don’t care, understand our potential for influence, or take advantage of the powers granted to us by the Constitution. The evidence lies in the number of citizens who actually vote, and how often they contact their so-called representatives.

Barack Obama is “our” president because we put him there. African Americans are one of many groups that elected him and, for the first time in their history, a great majority of blacks now share the awesome burden of holding their President’s feet to the fire. KRS-ONE points out in the Jones interview that Americans should not stand idly by and “mindlessly” follow Barack Obama. An excellent point. Still, he doesn’t seem to offer any useful advice for newcomers to the system that lies outside the realm of conspiracy-driven doomsday scenarios that predict a New World Order.

I once read that KRS-ONE dreamed of taking over a small town and building it into a Hip-Hop City. I’m curious to know who would manage that city, and how they would tend the store. How would they work with their neighbors to accommodate the flow of commerce and exchange of ideas? Would they publicly repudiate technology, apparently a tool of the New World Order? This is really what the new world fear is all about. Globalization is, as KRS-ONE would say, “truth.” Human beings populate the Earth at an exponential rate, and cultures collide as a consequence. Yes, it is frightening, but it’s also reality. Ignoring lavish theories about a looming New World Order, the problem we actually face today has everything to do with how we construct a system that maintains our sovereignty while responsibly addressing the influence we have on those outside our borders.