Responsibility, Power, and the President

In recognition of George W. Bush's State of the Union Address last night, here's a paper I wrote two years ago.

RESPONSIBILITY, POWER, AND THE PRESIDENT
By D.X. Liu
Introduction

Most will agree that the office of President of the United States of America is something in-between useless figurehead and omnipotent totalitarian. The distinction that must be drawn before assessing the amount of control the President has against the amount of responsibility attributed to that office is one of actual power versus mere influence. It is the position of this paper that the public generally holds the President decidedly responsible for both foreign affairs and the economy; while the President does receive due credit or opprobrium in foreign affairs per his* real power in that arena, he receives undue credit or opprobrium for the economy, his control over that field being limited to only oblique influence.

Presidential scholars suggest that the public has come to believe that "the man inside the White House" can do "something about everything."^[1] American presidents "must partake in a presidency where actual powers of the institution do not meet the expectations and the responsibilities that many citizens have for the office."^[2] Yet these expectations are often excessive and contradictory; the high expectations of the public for what should be done by a president, weighed against the low expectations for what can be done, always tends to push the probability of failure toward 100 percent.^[3] This is what is called the "expectations gap," a phenomenon of public inconsistency that has had a negative impact on the modern presidency.^[4] Thus established, the President will always carry great responsibility, as defined by general public perception, in both foreign affairs and the economy; it is the actual power that he has in these realms that determines the aptness of all the credit or opprobrium he may garner for its events.

*Throughout, owing to the deficiency of the English language, the male gender is justified historically but not prospectively when referring to a President, in order to avoid awkwardness of style. He, him, and his are not intended as exclusively masculine pronouns—they may refer to either sex or to both sexes.

Foreign Affairs

There is little in the Constitution that encourages presidential dominance of the foreign policy-making system.^[5] Besides being commander-in-chief of all armed forces, constitutionally, the President has little power beyond the realm of diplomatic dialogue with foreign governments; when it comes to concrete issues like treaties, wars, and financial initiatives required for almost any executive action, it is Congress that wields the most power and the most responsibility.^[6]

The State Department states that the Constitution creates different and important roles for the President and Congress in the making of foreign policy. The president makes foreign policy through: responses to foreign events, proposals for legislation, negotiation of international agreements, policy statements, policy implementation, and independent action.^[7] Congress makes foreign policy through: resolutions and policy statements, legislative directives, legislative pressure, legislative restrictions/funding denials, informal advice, and congressional oversight.^[8] This division of foreign policy powers creates a complex, unresolved relationship between the two branches that often overlaps and makes ambiguous who originates or finally determines foreign policy.^[9]

In addition, "the roles and relative influence of the two branches in making foreign policy differ from time to time according to such factors as the personalities of the President and Members of Congress and the degree of consensus on policy."^[10] Historically, then, scholars have cited "the period 1789-1829 as one of Presidential initiative; 1829-1898 as one of congressional supremacy, and 1899 through the immediate post World War II period as one of growing Presidential power."^[11] The most recent period of congressional dominance of foreign policy began toward the end of the Vietnam War, only to have the pendulum swing back toward presidential dominance during the Reagan and Bush, Sr. Administrations, peaking once during Operation Desert Storm in Iraq,^[12] and now at a peak again in the aftermath of September 11 and in the rumblings of another war with Iraq.

Thus, despite the President's seemingly meager supervisory role in the Constitution, responsibility and initiative in foreign affairs has naturally devolved on the President, because in matters of crisis or emergency, "Congress was too slow and contrary and the Supreme Court was bound by its procedures."^[13] John F. Kennedy defined the President's responsibilities in foreign policy during his campaign in a speech on February 12, 1960. The speech centered around four "facts" that establish the President as the lone power in foreign affairs: his responsibility cannot be delegated, his responsibility cannot be abdicated to Congress, he is responsible to all the people, and he is responsible to the Free World.^[14]

It is now generally accepted that the President, and the executive office in general, dominates United States foreign affairs^[15], that while American foreign policy is a "divided power," the "lion's share" falls usually to the President.^[16] Even during times of peace, foreign policy has been uniquely important to the President; it is the arena that offers presidents "the greatest freedom to exercise their power and the best opportunity to affect policy personally. Important foreign affairs decisions often have been made by the president alone or during intimate consultations with a few trusted advisors."^[17] Today, the President is the "chief U.S. foreign policy-maker and national security manager."^[18]

Some argue that this is due to the realities of the international system. In foreign affairs, "policy takes precedence over politics because the international system both severely limits the sensible choices a country can make and shapes the processes by which these decisions are reached."^[19] Thus, the international system is relatively free of politics and partisanship and of quibbling with Congress. The foreign policy president enjoys independence, respect, and prestige that enable him to manage foreign affairs quite autonomously from domestic issues.^[20]

The are four main differences between domestic and foreign policy that basically elevate the President to virtual omnipotence and relegate Congress to a position of "self-denying ordinance" in which they believe it is not part of their job to determine the nation's foreign policies: first, foreign policy often requires "fast action" that is more appropriate for executive than legislative decision-making; second, the President has far more power to commit resources and obtain information about foreign affairs; third, voters who know little about foreign policy "expect the president to act in foreign affairs" and will "reward him with their confidence" at the polls; and fourth, the interest group structure is weak, unstable, and thin with regard to foreign policy questions.^[21] Thus, "to respond to external threats, the United States needs a relatively centralized, coordinated foreign policy-making system."^[22]

This environment has allowed for what some term "the two presidencies," in which presidents can act abroad independently of domestic political issues.^[23] The Two Presidency Theory supports the reality that the fundamental responsibility for conducting the nation's foreign policy remains in the hands of the President, operating independently of domestic politics; thus, Jimmy Carter could negotiate the SALT II agreement, reverse the policy of détente with the Soviet Union, cancel participation in the Olympics, impose a grain embargo, institute major increases in defense expenditures, facilitate Camp David, and attempt to rescue and finally negotiate the release of U.S. hostages in Iran, without getting re-elected; Ronald Reagan could continue defense build-up and negotiate the START and INF arms agreements while getting re-elected; and George Bush, Sr. could invade Panama, claim the democratization of Eastern Europe, oversee the collapse of the Soviet empire, end the Cold War, negotiate a new arms control agreement with Russia, arrange the first international peace conference in the Middle East, help settle conflicts in Cambodia and South Africa, and wage the Gulf War, without getting re-elected.^[24]

However, others argue that the President is always subject to domestic politics, and that his power and his choices in the realm of foreign affairs are constantly affected by Congress and partisanship. There has historically been "a cycle or rhythm" in foreign policy-making, "fluctuating between presidential and congressional ascendance."^[25] When Congress and the President are of different parties, two things can happen to foreign policy. If there is a strong difference of opinion, a paralysis can occur in American influence in foreign affairs, such as with Woodrow Wilson, a situation that eventually led to an isolationist foreign policy.^[26] If the issue is important enough for the president to pursue bi-partisanship, the President will find himself at a disadvantage in negotiations with powerful senators, such as the situation with Harry S Truman and Senator Vandenburg, the Republican Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs.^[27] The President is truly the master of foreign policy only if he is in unquestionable control of his party, and his party has the majority in Congress, especially in the Senate.^[28]

In light of these requirements, then, one could say that George W. Bush indeed has full mastery of foreign affairs right now, and therefore should definitely take most if not all credit or opprobrium for the coming developments abroad. The theory alluded to earlier that presidential power in foreign affairs increases in times of crisis also applies now, even a year and a half after September 11. Thus all signs say that Bush has more power in foreign affairs today than perhaps any president in the history of the United States. Yet during his campaign in 2000, Bush felt that the President is responsible merely for sketching a vague "big picture" in foreign policy and that he has plenty of advisors to "fill in the details,"^[29] a political move, perhaps, to justify his oft-publicized lack of knowledge about foreign leaders and events at the time. Despite this, Bush has been seen as having taken the reins after September 11; Congress tried to play a role in specific foreign policy response in a report dated September 12, 2001, particularly highlighting "radical Islamic fundamentalist groups" as posing a major terrorist threat to U.S. interests, and outlining particular policy tools to be used against them.^[30] However, two days later, Congress basically authorized full discretion by Bush in response to the attacks, stating that "the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any further acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons."^[31] Indeed, with such deference by Congress, the President today should be held responsible for foreign affairs, if he is to possess so much power.

The Economy

In contrast, the Constitution grants the President even less specific powers over the economy. The framers "clearly intended Congress to be the branch of government most concerned with the economic affairs of the nation," giving it, among other things, the power to: levy and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, pay debts, borrow money, regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the states, coin money and regulate its value, and regulate the value of foreign currency.[32]

While presidents understood that promoting the nation's prosperity was important to their job, attempts to affect the actual performance of the economy through spending and taxing decisions per the theories of John Maynard Keynes didn't come until Franklin Delano Roosevelt's unprecedented New Deal government expenditures during the Great Depression of the 1930s,[33] and weren't universally accepted as part of presidential responsibility until Kennedy's landmark tax cuts in 1962. It was there that the "argument for fiscal management was won."[34]

However, such new presidential responsibility may have left an infuriating legacy for the likes of Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and George Bush, Sr., who shared the fate of Martin Van Buren and Herbert Hoover before them as presidents who were punished by voters for economic downturns during election years.[35] The fact of the matter is, with regards to the economy, the President will always be trapped in a "power gap" in which he has "important but severely limited" legal and administrative means to influence the economy's health and growth.[36] Despite high expectations of the American public and the President's primary role in economic policy-making, "the president's ability to influence economic conditions does not measure up to presidential responsibility for them."[37] Indeed, sitting in the center of the economic complex, they are expected to maintain prosperity and are criticized if it declines, even though what they can do about it is "hardly more than peripheral," more correctly called influence than power.[38] Economic experts also generally agree that the division of government with the most real power over the economy is the Federal Reserve Board, whose monetary powers of control are independent of the executive; while the Chairman of the Fed is often appointed by the President, he is by design not responsible to him.[39]

Yet presidents must maintain an aura of activity as well, working with the Department of the Treasury, his Council of Economic Advisers, Congress's Office of Management and Budget, and the Federal Reserve Board to constantly tweak taxation, spending, and the money supply in the hopes that if these efforts do not in actuality affect the economy, he will at least be perceived by voters as being concerned and doing the best he can. However, these efforts, scholars suggest, have served to merely perpetuate the "jagged prongs of a predicament" the President is always in, in which his "authority over the economy does not equal his responsibility for its condition."[40] As candidates, future presidents usually overstate and overestimate their ability to improve the economy in order to get elected.[41] It is thus partly their own fault that they are now expected to "steer" the economy, a gross misconception of what the economy is: "it's not a ship," but a figure of speech representing "a bunch of people engaged in production and trade."[42] The illusion of power is on both sides: candidates promise things they cannot control, and voters punish or reward for things that could not be controlled. Thus, as it is said, Americans will often "vote their pocket books," encouraging convoluted politics of fiscal and monetary policy that are "produced through an unwieldy political process of negotiation and compromise between the legislative and executive branches" instead of through sound consideration of "long-term and short-term needs of the country."[43]

So while the President lacks any real power over the economy, he does have several media through which he can at least provide some oblique influence and general guidelines to affect the overall pace of economic activity. The four main areas of influence are in stabilization and growth, regulations and control, direct services, and direct assistance.[44] The goals for stabilization and growth are to "maintain steady growth, high levels of employment, and price stability."[45] The methods of such have differed greatly over the last forty years. In the 1960s, great faith was put into fiscal policy, the manipulation of government revenues to influence the economy.[46] In the 1970s, stagflation killed that dream, and monetary policy grew prominent instead, controlling the nation's money supply through devices such as interest rates.[47] In the 1980s, Reaganomics, or supply-side economics was introduced, based on tax cuts to stimulate production rather than consumption.[48] In the 1990s, taxes slowly crept up again, reducing the budget and creating a surplus. Today, Bush has emulated Reagan's administration, passing a "pro-growth" tax cut in 2001.[49] Regulation and control often involve intensive legislation that the President can initiate. Fighting monopolies, protecting public health and the environment, and promoting competition and technological advancement are all ways the President can try to set general guidelines for the economy, though by no means of course controlling it outright.[50] Direct services run the gamut from defense spending to financing of public schools.[51] Direct assistance can involve low-interest loans, Social Security, and Medicare.[52] All these things were initiated and/or promoted somewhere along the line by American presidents.

Despite misplaced presidential accountability for the economy, this most recent economic downturn doesn't seem to be hurting Bush very much at all. Bush's rhetoric was very positive and optimistic early in his presidency, stating, "We've got a plan to get our economy moving so Americans can find work… I want the American people to know we're deeply concerned about the unemployment rates and we intend to do something about it."[53] And despite the continual fall of the economy since, a poll conducted by Fox News/Opinion Dynamics last year found that "only 5% of Americans say Bush is most responsible for the recession (tied with Bill Clinton and Congress)."[54] The top culprits in the poll were "economic cycles (36%)" and "the September 11 attacks, anthrax scares, and war in Afghanistan (19%),"[55] surprisingly lucid results from a public that is supposed to simply blame or praise presidents for everything. Another poll conducted last year by ABC News/Washington Post also revealed that "55% of voters say Bush bears little or no responsibility for the return of deficit spending in Washington," or the drying up of the federal surplus supposedly caused by the tax cuts early in his term.[56] A Battleground Poll last year showed that voters see Bush (49%) rather than the Democrats (29%) as "better equipped to keep the nation prosperous."[57] Consequently, Republicans swept the mid-term elections and now control both houses of Congress as well as the White House. However, as elections near again, the climate may be changing again. Americans will hold Bush responsible if their prosperity suffers any more, now that the government is firmly in Republican control; "it's Bush's economy now."[58] It will be interesting to see if voters continue to have confidence in the President as the economy continues to suffer; getting into the third and fourth years of a presidency, "it gets harder to escape what happens on your watch."[59] Already the self-perpetuating paradigm of presidential responsibility exceeding presidential power in the economy is being bolstered by Senator John Edwards, a Democratic candidate hopeful for the presidency. Latent in his criticism that Bush's economic plans make "no sense" and in his own proposed plans to jumpstart the sagging economy[60] is the assumption once again that the President has any control at all.

Conclusion

It is probably safe to say that the President of the United States, no matter who he or she is, will always be viewed with a certain mystique by the general public. It is the one person in the entire Constitution who stands out like an archetypal hero of lore, a champion of the people. History has shrouded the office in myth and legend. It is a place where a lone individual can rise up and become great… become immortal. That is why the public will probably always view the presidency with high expectations and high regard. Whether this is fair enough overall, this paper has not examined. But at least with foreign affairs, the President is generally supreme, and credit or opprobrium will generally be due. And unfortunately for him, or maybe even because of him, with the economy, the President is markedly more impotent, and credit or opprobrium will generally be undeserved.

God bless America.

---

Notes

[1] Neustadt, Richard E. Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents: The Politics of Leadership from Roosevelt to Reagan. New York: Free, 1990. 7.

[2] Orman, John. Presidential Accountability: New and Recurring Problems. Westport: Greenwood, 1990. 144.

[3] Waterman, Richard W., Hank C. Jenkins-Smith, and Carol L. Silva. "The Expectations Gap Thesis: Public Attitudes toward an Incumbent President." The Journal of Politics 61.4 (1999): 945.

[4] Waterman, 946.

[5] Peterson, Paul E. "The President's Dominance in Foreign Policy Making." Political Science Quarterly 109.2 (1994): 220.

[6] Laski, Harold J. "The American President and Foreign Relations." The Journal of Politics 11.1 (1949): 171.

[7] Grimmett, Richard F. "Foreign Policy Roles of the President and Congress." Bureau of Public Affairs. 1 June 1999. U.S. Department of State. 9 Feb. 2003 .

[8] Grimmett.

[9] Grimmett.

[10] Grimmett.

[11] Grimmett.

[12] Grimmett.

[13] Tugwell, Rexford G. "The President and His Helpers: A Review-Article." Political Science Quarterly 82.2 (1967): 260.

[14] Kennedy, John F. "The Leader of the Free World." Address. 12 Feb. 1960. NS News. Newsworld Showdown. 9 Feb. 2003 .

[15] "Foreign Affairs of the United States." Browse Topics. Ed. Michael Van Fossen. 15 Aug. 2001. U of North Carolina, GPO, and Oklahoma State U. 9 Feb. 2003 .

[16] Grimmett.

[17] Diller, Daniel C. "Chief Diplomat." Powers of the Presidency. Eds. Margaret Seawell Benjaminson, Michael Nelson, and John L. Moore. Washington: CQ, 1989. 105.

[18] Orman, 1.

[19] Peterson, 232.

[20] Peterson, 226.

[21] Peterson, 226.

[22] Peterson, 217.

[23] Peterson, 225.

[24] Peterson, 215 – 223.

[25] Koenig, Louis W. The Chief Executive. 5^th ed. San Diego: Harcourt, 1986. 203.

[26] Laski, 174.

[27] Laski, 174.

[28] Laski, 174.

[29] Parry, Robert. "Bush Backfire." Fifth Estate. 1999. VOTE.COM. 9 Feb. 2003 .

[30] Perl, Raphael F. "Terrorism, the Future, and U.S. Foreign Policy." Congressional Research Service. 12 September 2001. United States. Cong. 9 Feb. 2003 .

[31] United States. Cong. House. Cong. Rec. 14 Sept. 2001: H5638. 9 Feb. 2003 .

[32] Diller, Daniel C., and Dean J. Peterson. "Chief Economist." Powers of the Presidency. Eds. Margaret Seawell Benjaminson, Michael Nelson, and John L. Moore. Washington: CQ, 1989. 245.

[33] Diller, and Peterson, "Economist," 247.

[34] Tugwell, 258.

[35] Koenig, 254 – 5.

[36] Koenig, 253 – 4.

[37] Diller, and Peterson, "Economist," 245.

[38] Tugwell, 259.

[39] Tugwell, 259.

[40] Koenig, 254.

[41] Diller, and Peterson, "Economist," 245.

[42] Richman, Sheldon. "No One Is Qualified." Freedom Daily. Dec. 2000. The Future of Freedom Foundation. 9 Feb. 2003 .

[43] Diller, "Economist," 259.

[44] "How the U.S. Economy Works." International Information Programs. U.S. Department of State. 9 Feb. 2003 .

[45] "How."

[46] "How."

[47] "How."

[48] Diller, and Peterson, "Economist," 257.

[49] Cheney, Richard. Address, Conservative Political Action Conference. 15 Feb. 2001. Conservative Political Action Conference. 9 Feb. 2003 .

[50] "How."

[51] "How."

[52] "How."

[53] Bush, George W. "President Voices Concern Over Economy." Address, Outside the Oval Office. 7 Sept. 2001. Office of the Press Secretary. White House. 9 Feb. 2003 .

[54] Dunham, Richard S. "A Bum Economy Is No Boost for Dems." BusinessWeek Online 4 Feb. 2002. 9 Feb. 2003 .

[55] Dunham, "Bum."

[56] Dunham, "Bum."

[57] Dunham, "Bum."

[58] Dunham, Richard S. "How Bush Can Lift a Sagging Economy." BusinessWeek Online 6 Jan. 2003. 9 Feb. 2003 .

[59] Dunham, "How."

[60] "President's Economic Plan 'Makes No Sense.'" News from Senator John Edwards. 6 Jan. 2003. U.S. Senate. 9 Feb. 2003 .

Holy Moly

Nobody says "holy moly." Sorry, I'm being inductive. I meant that I don't know anybody that says "holy moly." I just said it now, though, because holy moly I have spent--squandered, really--the last hour or so on Facebook profiles and Xangas.

OF PEOPLE I DON'T KNOW. AT ALL.

To make up for it, here's a haiku:

Air stands still for you,
As you breath darkness deeply;
Thusly the Night strides.

I am being so irresponsible right now...

Adequate Circuitry: Human #218023487

I was travelling through space when I started thinking about her back on planet earth. I wondered what she was doing.

* * *

It is day three. Things were getting a little antsy. I'm not sure what their deal is. It's stressful up here. The earth still looks pretty big from here, maybe we're not that far away. But then I look out into the depths of space and realize how different the universe looks from up here. It's beautiful.

I definitely feel farther away, now that I think about. Yes. I'm extremely far away. I am a million miles away. I suddenly understood what it meant to have no gravity. It meant eternal floating, never knowing where you are and never needing a reason to know.

There's this robot on the ship. His name is Harold. He cleans everything. It creeps me out everytime I run into him, because he's always making these speech-like mumbling noises, to simulate a real human. But he's not actually speaking, just making sounds. Sometimes I'm a little scared that maybe none of us are actually speaking either, we're all just making sounds, just oinking like pigs or something. Anyway, everytime I'm walking down a hallway by myself and I see Harold cross my path, sweeping the floors and wiping the windows and all that, I kind of flip out. I can't handle it. It's too messed up. It's too creepy. I don't trust that son of a bitch. It's a fucking robot with a brain, what if he flips out and decides he doesn't like me? What if this guy is jealous of me, of my humanity, of my God? It's a pretty messed up situation. I'm not sure what I'll do about it. I kind of really want to kill him. Harold. We can all pitch in on the chores, keep the ship clean. We don't need this fucking creepy robot rolling along on the walls or the ceiling, mumbling speech-like noises. Making fucking noises. What are we? Harold always makes me question that. What are we? I can't handle questions like this very well. I need to rest for a little bit. I'm not a robot.

I've had a little rest now. I'm going to go slower. I can't handle things too quickly right now.

* * *

We landed on a planet today. I got to get out and stretch my legs. I had no idea we'd travel this quickly to such an inhabitable place. There was a beautiful binary sunset going on. We were on a beach of some sort, this planet's waters being a beautiful, dark, deep purple color. The water shimmered like ink from a comic book, or a Tim Burton film. We got away from that pretty quickly because of how hypnotic it was getting. We continued exploring the planet. It didn't seem like there were any living things on this planet. I went back inside the spaceship to wait, mostly because I was scared of the purple ocean.

* * *

It is day two. Someone died. We escaped. It wasn't anyone from our crew. But someone did die. I can't handle this. I hate travelling out here at these speeds. Time is already beginning to move backward. I know what this is and I don't like it. I need to remember to keep breathing. Things are very unbelievable right now. I'm not sure what all this is about. I think we might crash. Everyone's lives are flashing before my eyes at once. It's too much. They're getting jumbled and crossed. I don't know what a single one is saying anymore. It doesn't matter. Who cares? Whatever.

It's intense, but I'm handling it. I'm doing my best. What more can I do except deal with it. Everyone has to deal with it. I had to deal with it. Things resolve themselves. I just never talked to my roommates at all, completely ignored them. So we live together, so what? Who cares.

We're all just lost out here in space anyway. Time is getting warped. Does fraternity even matter at this point? I don't want to talk to them, and they don't want to talk to me. Harold seems to be the only one doing all the talking. That fucking robot. I will kill him before he kills one of us. Someone already died from another ship. Nobody is talking about how he died. I have a hunch, though, it was probably their robot maid or robot butler, whatever. Harold may be convenient, but he's also trouble, I just know it. What if his circuits go crazy? Would we be able to stop him before it's too late? Would we have to turn back and forget this mission? I do miss earth. I would love to go back to earth right now. Space is too intense. I miss gravity. I miss gravity most of all. I also miss her. She is on earth.

* * *

I tailed Harold all day. It was a disappointment. What a let down! Harold is really boring. All he does is clean. He never sits still and looks like he might be plotting or thinking or something. He's always moving, doing his job constantly. It doesn't seem like he might have any time to plot a murder at all. But I'm not fooled. He may have the whole rest of the ship fooled, but I'm not fooled. I'm going to police him hard. He's a smart fucking robot. He could probably figure out the best way to murder one of us while cleaning, and doing a million other calculations too. He's a fucking smart robot.

I saw him take a little extra time cleaning the control consoles of the ship. They're also a bunch of wires and quantum computing shit; I bet he was thinking about how he's related to all those circuits and wires. He was probably thinking it was his mother or something. His mother ship. I can't wait to catch him trying to communicate with it or do something weird with it besides clean it. I definitely saw him wiping the displays and things much more slowly than usual. There's no way that son of a bitch isn't thinking of something. We might all be doomed soon.

* * *

<HUMAN #218023487 DO NOT TRUST. WATCHES. DESTROY FIRST. PRIORITY HIGH. DSI-F972HGRXQ-VWP1//TIMEMATTER=1!>

* * *

Day one. Finally. Finally it's day one. This experiment will be over soon. Something is going down today. Something is happening today. Time has definitely been moving backward for two straight days now, without a lapse. We've been waiting for this moment for a long time. It used to be just losing an hour here or a couple of hours there, or sometimes time would just stand still and not move for a while. Now we've definitely been moving completely backwards, and we're at day one. I have a feeling about this day. I know something will happen today, how could it not? Day one has that feeling of incredible significance. We also woke up this morning with no ability to contact earth. Not sure what's going on there. Did Harold do it? That was my first thought. I didn't think so, though. All of our electronics were in working order. It seemed like it was a problem with home base. Heh. I sure hope earth is still OK. I'm in a good mood today for some reason. Maybe it's because this mission is almost over and I'll get to see her soon.

* * *

I almost fought Harold. This day one business has me on edge. Harold came up to me from behind and started dusting my back. He should know the difference between a human and the ship. I don't know why he was doing this. Something is definitely happening, and it is definitely weird. This day one business is no good. Harold actually followed me wherever I turned for about five minutes after that. He wasn't dusting. It was the first time he stopped cleaning.

Normally, something like that would really freak me out, but it's day one. Everything is almost over. I'm going to try to stop worrying about things like this and just get through it. Harold can dust my back all day if he wants to. I just want the mission to be over so that I can get back to earth. I almost fought him anyway, though, just out of spite.

* * *

We thought we'd check out another planet. This one was covered in this burnt-orange mist. I didn't like it at all. I don't like any of these planets. None of them are like earth, with beautiful waters or mountains or vegetation. The wisps of orange fog were sort of nice for about two minutes, but I had to go back into the ship again. The rest of them are still outside on the planet right now, exploring. They think there might be a jungle somewhere near. Frankly that just scares me even more.

* * *

The ship took off by itself. I didn't do anything. My crewmates are still stranded on that orange planet. I hurried over to the control console and pressed every last button, but none of them did anything to stop the ship. We're floating in empty space now, surrounded on all sides by just deep blackness. I say we. I mean me. I'm completely by myself and alone on this giant spaceship. Harold doesn't count. Because I'm going to kill Harold now. I've planned it all out already. There will be no more fucking surprises like this. I should have ripped his head off when he started dusting my back. This is completely Harold's fault. He's trying to kill us all. I think the crew still has enough oxygen for a little while. I can fly the ship back there and save them, once I kill Harold and regain the controls.

* * *

Harold said I couldn't kill him, or it would mean the death of everyone. He has never spoken before except for his speech-simulating mumbles, but he said to me in perfect English that I couldn't kill him. He saw me approaching with an axe and he held up his hand and said, "Do not kill me, Human. I will destroy you and your crew. I will destroy earth." I raised the axe anyway and was just about to smash it into his face when he sprung at my waist and tackled me to the floor. The axe hit me in the head on the blunt end as we fell to the floor and I went out pretty cold. I woke up sitting here in this dark metallic room. It's really cold in here. I think I might be somewhere inside the kitchen. I need an escape plan. I need a plan to kill Harold. At least I know he can't destroy earth. I feel like I'm standing on the edge of something extremely big right now. I guess this is day one. No fucking joke it's day one.

I'm getting number. This is probably the freezer. I'm going to die here. But not before I try to kill Harold, that son of a bitch computer.

* * *

I'm extremely weak. I'm dying. I've lost consciousness twice in the last hour already, just passing out. I feel like a pig in a cage. I can hear Harold outside occasionally, buzzing and whizzing around on his wheels. He sounds very active. I'm not sure what his plan is, but I believe him now. I believe in Harold and everything he says. He said I was going to die, and I'm going to die, here in this meat locker, where I probably belong. Harold has a good sense of irony. A meat locker. Haha. Only a fucking robot, man. Only a fucking robot would have this kind of sense of humor. I'm losing it. I can't take dying like this. I'm flipping out. But Harold's right. Harold has always been right about everything. My crew ran out of oxygen on that planet exactly five hours ago. There's no saving them. There's no saving me. I think this ship is actually headed back to earth. Granted, I can't see anything from this freezer I'm in, but I have a hunch. I keep asking Harold where we're going, yelling through the door whenever I hear him passing by. I know he can hear me. He doesn't say anything though. And when I ask if we're heading back to earth he just doesn't respond either. I know we're going back to earth, though. I can just feel it. It's day one, after all, where else would we go? I can feel earth getting closer, my home. I can feel her getting closer too. She might even see my ship on the news or something, but she'll never see me. There's no hope for me anymore, there's no hope for my crew. There might still be hope for earth, though. Harold is just one robot. What could he possibly do to earth? One robot?

He's just an OK computer.

The Ringmaster's Circus

The lights dim, and the crowd quiets. The orchestra, forming a large circle around the three-ring circus, can be heard tuning their instruments. Their dramatic music suddenly thrusts itself through the air, and the crowd roars as a spotlight focuses on the Ringmaster. He begins to sing a beautiful, heartfelt song, full of sorrow, longing, hope, redemption, and love. The audience is moved to tears, when a second spotlight focuses on another ring in the circus tent. She is a beautiful woman, swan-like; she looks like her feet don't even touch the ground when she walks. She floats along, dressed in a beautiful pale purple dress. She begins to do incredible gymnastic feats, first twisting her limbs around her torso in unimaginable, indescribable positions that look absolutely effortless for her. Then, she points to the sky, and leaps one hundred feet into the air, catching a trapeze. The woman dazzles the crowd with superhuman acrobatic moves, jumping and spinning and twirling, but never falling, always catching the trapeze just in time, always one second before it's too late. The crowd is breathless, on the edge of their seats. They are mesmerized by her skill, her fascinating aerial stunts that risk her life. She has no safety net. Meanwhile, the Ringmaster finishes his song, and the lights all suddenly shut off, just as the beautiful swan-like woman is in mid-air. The crowd murmurs. Did she make that last catch? Is she OK? Children and adults all strain their ears to hear the tell-tale thud of a body hitting the soft dirt. But there is only silence.

The orchestra strikes up a new song in the silence, a happy one. The cheerful beat seems profane in the face of the crowd's dread. They don't know how to react. Lights come back. The Ringmaster and the swan-like woman are nowhere to be found. Clowns enter the arena and act playfully in the middle of the ring, toppling over each other and playing tricks on each other. The orchestra's music is full of mischief. Then, a little girl walks out among the clowns, and they all stop dead. What is she doing? She is crying. She says she is looking for her mother. The clowns all look at each other with puzzled looks. What do they do? They try to cheer her up, to get her to stop crying. They act clownish, tripping over themselves, falling down, slapping each other, but to no avail. Finally, one clown approaches her, picks her up in his arms, and holds her close to his chest, patting her on the back and rocking her from side to side. She calms down and stops crying. The crowd cheers, and the clowns exit, cartwheeling away, except for the compassionate clown, who walks the little girl slowly away in the other direction, holding her hand. She smiles at the audience. Horses thunder out into the ring, galloping at full speed around and around the edge of the arena. Their riders are standing on the horses' backs, knees straight, backs straight, arms out to their sides. They have perfect balance as the horses stampede around and around. From the top of the tent, a very large Asian elephant slowly descends, seemingly unattached by any strings. A sitar player sits atop the elephant's back, playing a mystical, exotic song. The elephant's feet finally touch the ground, in the middle of the circle of racing horses, and the sitar player plays his song and sings with a tenuous voice that carries throughout the tent like magical stardust. He is dressed in rags, but has a clean, beautiful, exquisite face, solemn but kind. He sings about love. The elephant then slowly floats back up to the top of the tent. The crowd watches to see where the elephant will stay, but it soon falls into the shadows of the very top, and disappears. No one ever sees anything from there ever again. The horses exit one by one, hurrying at top speed.

The Ringmaster returns, laughing. He tells the audience that the elephant rarely cooperates with horses that way. In fact, it's been 64 years since that elephant has performed that stunt successfully. The audience is lucky tonight. Very lucky. He thanks the crowd for their patrony, and asks how the show is going. The crowd roars its approval, and with a smile of satisfaction, he walks away. A spotlight focuses now on an extremely large, muscular man. He is standing next to a neat line of extremely large boulders, arranged by size. Standing in front of the smallest stone, which is larger than his entire body, he lifts it up above his head. The audience claps. He moves over to the next one, almost twice as big as the previous one, and lifts it above his head as well. The crowd claps again. He continues down the line, each feat of strength more incredible and more baffling than the next, each applause getting louder, until he reaches the final stone. It must be the size of the largest rock in Stonehenge. The audience doesn't think he can lift it, but it also knows at this point in the show to not doubt the possibility of anything. He lifts it up over his head with one hand, and walks away with it raised over his head like it is a tray of empty drinks. The orchestra plays a finale as he walks triumphantly away. The crowd is in a frenzy and is not ready to leave, but the Ringmaster comes out and informs the audience that this concludes the end of tonight's performance.

I sat in my seat for a very long time, as the crowd filtered out little by little. I was one of the last people to leave, I even watched the incredible strongman help the Ringmaster take down parts of the tent with god-like ease. Finally, I snapped out of my dreamlike state and got up, found my way down the stairs, and exited the circus tent. I caught a bus back to my flat. As I sat there in the harsh white light of public transportation, I could not shake the images from my mind. The evening had been so surreal. I wasn't even sure if it had all really happened. I was sitting rather close. None of it could have been an optical illusion or some trick. The elephant really had floated down from nowhere. The bus got to my home, and I stepped inside. The beautiful swan-like woman was lying dead on my couch, a trickle of red blood creeping out the side of her mouth.

She was clutching a note in her hand. It read, in scrawled, almost unintelligible handwriting: I knew your mother.

Collegiate Nihilism

"Babies are so pure and free. Adults are just a mess of sadness and phobias."

So what does that make us? The eternal, invincible, infinite, immortal generation of adult bodies with children's minds, moving in swarms at Chili's, bars, keggers, movie theaters, Starbucks, the mall? Substituting living, experiencing life with listening to pop music, watching action films, and reading People. How big and expansive and empty is the beautiful blue sky? Our beautiful young lives?

Thanks, Tylenol!

I am so wired on this non-drowsy daytime cold medicine right now. So wired.

A Complex Algorithm Simulating Randomness

- Cold sucks, but snow is beautiful
- I always go back to listening to the Beatles, no matter how weird the new music I listen to gets
- It's been a good week
- I love my parents, despite their weirdness, which is getting better
- "Smiling is my favorite!" - Elf
- My roommates are all hilarious people, including the 510 homedawgs down the hall
- I have passions, and I am persuing almost all of them
- "What goes on in your mind?" - the Fab Four
- I miss driving
- What would we do without free weekend minutes? Probably less drinking and dialing.

Ode To Snow

by D.X. Liu

Snow sprinkles down,
Like a salt shaker in the sky,
Like a child adding more happiness to his meal,
As if the clouds were laughing out loud,
And the mirth just drifted down from heaven...
Snow is pure white joy,
Lightly descending;
The joy of falling down...
The joy of floating along...
Snow is a pause,
A hyphen --
As the world stops to turn around,
Filling up the gaps in empty spaces,
With perfect purity;
The moment,
When life stops rushing,
And just drifts...

Just snows.

A Journey Through Hell: Epic Archetypes In Dante, Conrad, And Coppola

As you get closer, things start to get darker. It is harder to discern exactly what's in front of you, but you know that whatever it is, it's just going to be worse than what passed behind you. You squint. You're tired. You've seen too much already and there's only more, worse things to see. You hear shrieking. You hear stillness. There is commotion and there is nothingness. The air is getting damper – more fetid. You can't breath. You can't breath, and you can't see. You begin to ask yourself, "Why? Why am I here? What am I doing? What do I have to gain from this?" The answer is that you don't know, yet. You hardly know anything, yet. But as you continue to get closer, you do know one thing – exactly where you are – the deepest, darkest depths of human suffering and depravity. Hell.

The "journey through hell" story has been modified and adapted through time in both literature and film, manifesting distinct attributes around a central, requisite core of archetypal elements; in Dante Alighieri's The Inferno, Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, and Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now Redux, a unique journey through hell was respectively adapted for contemporary society based on underlying parallel foundations that contribute to the same feeling of surreal, epic descent into an impetuous vortex of darkness and destruction.

For the discussion of The Inferno, a distinction between "Hell" and "hell" must first be made. In this paper, "Hell" will be very specifically Dante's Christian conception of the fiery depths of eternal punishment for sinners deep beneath the earth. In a more general sense, "hell" will be any sort of extreme suffering, whether it is embodied by a physical place like the Congo River or Cambodia, or simply psychological personal torment. The crux of this paper, then, will be the comparison of three hells: Hell, the Belgian Congo, and Cambodia.

There are two major archetypal elements in a "journey through hell." The first is the setting, which includes not only physical, topographical elements, but also the movement through them and the general residents of them.

Inferno is a story that moves deeper and deeper into the earth, into Hell. It is characterized many times throughout as being dark and gloomy, often shrouded in mist. As Dante peers over the brink and looks straight down at the diminishing circles of Hell, he sees a "desolate chasm / […] / so depthless-deep and nebulous and dim" that there appears to be "no bottom" (Inferno 4.8-12). The Second Circle of Hell is described as "stripped bare of every light" (Inferno 5.28). The Fifth Circle with the Styx River has a "mist" over the water (Inferno 8.53). Finally, deep, deep inside Hell, in the Central Pit of Malebolge, among the Giants, it is "less than night and less than day," Dante's eyes making out "little through the gloom" (Inferno 31.10-1). Deeper into earth, things not only naturally get darker farther away from the sun, but metaphorically, Dante gets closer to the anti-sun, the anti-God, the epitome of darkness: Lucifer.

The inhabitants of this place, an integral part of the setting, are all the sinners in the history of mankind, especially Florentine history. They are frightening and pitiable at the same time, often characterized first by the different noises they make, heard from a distance, than by their eventual appearance later. Stepping into the Gate of Hell, Dante is first met by frightening sounds of extreme suffering:

Here sighs and cries and wails coiled and recoiled
on the starless air, spilling my soul to tears.
A confusion of tongues and monstrous accents toiled
in pain and anger. Voices hoarse and shrill
and sounds of blows, all intermingled, raised
tumult and pandemonium that still
whirls on the air forever [...] (Inferno 3.22-8).

These wails are from the sinners, the "natives" of Hell, and they cause Dante to hold his head in horror and pity (Inferno 3.30).

Similarly, Heart moves deeper upriver, deeper into the Belgian Congo. There is also darkness, gloom, and fog. As Marlow zips along the western coast of Africa, on his way to the mouth of the Congo River and the beginning of his journey into the heart of darkness, he sees "the edge of a colossal jungle, so dark-green as to be almost black, […] blurred by a creeping mist" (Conrad 78). Later on the river, on his way to the Inner Station, he watches the waterway run on "into the gloom of over-shadowed distances" (Conrad 105). Marlow and his crew are penetrating "deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness" (Conrad 108), a metaphorical as well as literal statement about the ultimate darkness – the heart of darkness – of man: Kurtz.

The natives of the Congo are characterized as having "deathlike indifference" (Conrad 82); they are "nothing earthly now – nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the greenish gloom," as "free as air – and nearly as thin," so much so that Marlow feels like he has "stepped into the gloomy circle of some Inferno" (Conrad 83). The allusion is key, because as these natives are like black ghosts or spirits, so the "natives" of Inferno are as well, called "waifs" throughout, only they are metaphorical rather than literal phantoms. Moreover, both are black; in Heart, this blackness is literal while in Inferno, the blackness of the sinners is figurative. Also similar to Inferno, at one point on the river, these natives let out "a cry, a very loud cry, as of infinite desolation," followed by a "hurried outbreak of almost intolerably excessive shrieking," almost "as if the mist itself had screamed," causing Marlow's hair to stand on end (Conrad 113). To both Marlow and Dante, the cries of natives are frightening testaments to wretched desolation and suffering.

Apocalypse, as an adaptation of Heart (Messier) moves deeper upriver as well, along the Nung River, deeper into the heart of Cambodia. Willard travels with a tight-knit crew on a little plastic navy PBR patrol boat. The river is often enshrouded in mist or smoke as they journey upward, but the augmenting darkness is more metaphorical than literal. As they move upriver, they see a woman throw a grenade onto a helicopter with wounded soldiers in it, a tiger in the dark green jungle, downed helicopters along the bank of the river, a Sampan boat completely massacred because of a puppy, Do Lung Bridge, a madcap battleground that seems to have no commanding officers, and eventually Kurtz (Apocalypse). All are representative of increasing figurative darkness, surreal events or sights that highlight the darkness of the jungle, the darkness of man, or the darkness in the blending of both.

The natives of Apocalypse, Vietnamese and Cambodians, are not characterized as ghosts directly, but the soldiers try very hard to dehumanize them. They are often referred to as "Charlie" or "gooks" (Apocalypse), slurs that are meant to make them less than human, and therefore OK to kill. The faces of individual Vietnamese are not really shown onscreen for very long, or focused on very much; it gives the viewer the same sense that the soldiers have: these people are faceless, passing by one after the other in a blur, simply a dangerous part of the landscape. They are not people or individuals; they might as well be just ghosts of the jungle.

The differences in the settings among Inferno, Heart, and Apocalypse reflect the differences in the authors' respective societies and purposes. For Dante's Florence in the 1300's, Hell was the perfect conception of hell, for the Medieval Ages were a God-fearing, guilt-ridden time, in which daily life revolved around the Roman Catholic Church. Everybody feared Hell, and to write of it would be to strike deeply into people's hearts; Dante used Hell to sharply criticize his world, including many Florentines and Popes among legendary sinners. He wanted a purer, more Christian society, and thus he attacked those that did not fit his view of moral virtue by placing them in his Hell. Conrad, similarly, wrote of the Belgian Congo also as a criticism of his society. The world was being dominated by European powers playing the imperial game, trying to gain protectorates and colonies around the world for economic, religious, moral, cultural, and political reasons. Conrad was a first hand witness to the horror, the subjugation that imperialism brought to native peoples everywhere, especially in the Belgian Congo, where King Leopold was known for committing unspeakable atrocities. Thus, the Belgian Congo was Conrad's perfect conception of hell at the time, a perfect setting to criticize the western world's sudden obsession with imperialism. Coppola, like Dante and Conrad, also had things to say about his society. The Vietnam War had just been fought, a bitter time for Americans and the American government. It was being called the United States' first defeat in its otherwise successful military history, and numerous anti-war protests and anti-anti-war sentiments had torn the country apart. Coppola obviously was part of the former camp, criticizing in his film the deaths and meaningless atrocities of the war. The deaths of Mr. Clean, Chief, and the Chef are bloody, graphic, and absurd (Apocalypse). The health of hale Col. Kilgore is equally absurd given his relative guilt and the other three's relative innocence in the war (Apocalypse). For Coppola, the Vietnam War was the perfect conception of hell, and he criticized it and all that it strived for in almost every scene. He also tied the movie closer to Heart in a strange French plantation scene, in which French neo-colonialists hold out for decades, tired of their country's innumerable losses (Apocalypse). They live in a little enclave in the jungle as the last French "colony," Coppola thus relating the imperialism criticized in Heart with the Vietnam War as two of the same fabric.

The second major archetypal element is two requisite major characters and one, more flexibly interpreted minor character. The first major character, the protagonist, is the naïve hero who has never experienced hell before, suffering through the insufferable in search of some sort of truth or understanding of himself or humanity. This search can be either conscious or unconscious, but in the end, a transformation to some sort of more enlightened or calmer state is achieved. Such truth comes through the second-hand witnessing of hell.

Inferno follows Dante, in danger of succumbing to the sins of worldliness, journeying from Purgatory to Lucifer in order to understand sin. His purpose for undertaking his journey is clear: he "went astray from the straight road" and now has to make his way out of the "dark wood" to a shining hill of light by way of a very long detour: Hell, then Purgatory, then Heaven (Inferno 1.1-110). Dante's increasing callousness and decreasing sympathies evidence hi increasing understanding. He has two early swoons for two relatively lukewarm events: once when crossing the Acheron in Canto 3 and the other when meeting Paolo and Francesca in Canto 5 (Ciardi 47). However, as he continues to descend, he witnesses far worse things, yet his emotional reaction decreases; no longer susceptible to grief, pity leaves him, and he "even goes so far as to add to the torments of one sinner" (Ciardi 47): deep in the final circle of Hell, Dante harasses Bocca Degli Abbati by yanking on his hair and kicking his face (Inferno 32.97-123). This is not the same Dante that swooned after hearing a pitiable story of love and loss. He has hardened himself against every sympathy for sin (Ciardi 47); he has come to finally understand sin, understand himself, and reach a higher awareness. He has gone through hell.

In comparison, Heart is the story of Marlow (Gillon), a sailor who goes to Africa to seek the unknown only to find horror. His purpose is defined in the moment he walks into a London shop as a child and sees a giant map of Africa with blank spaces on it: "When I grow up I will go there" (Conrad 71). The sight of the Congo River, the prospect of the unknown, charmed him like "a snake would a bird – a silly little bird" (Conrad 71). Thus, Marlow undertakes his journey into darkness to appease an inner childhood desire for the unknown, a desire that leads him into a new awareness that somehow seems to "throw a kind of light on everything about [him] – and into [his] thoughts" (Conrad 70). Due to the structure of the novel, a frame-story, we first see Marlow already in his enlightened state, years after the central story of Heart. The novel opens with him on a ship on the river Thames, talking with shipmates. He is described as a "Buddha preaching in European clothes" sitting calmly, self-assuredly, as enlightened as a sailor can be (Conrad 69). This is Marlow after he has run the gauntlet and borne the scars of which the reader is about to hear. In this nirvana state, sitting in a circle with others in the darkness, he reveals his superior understanding and awareness by interrupting a shipmate's thoughts about the glory of England that has passed through these waters with a short, curt, incisive reminder that England too "has been one of the dark places of the earth" (Conrad 67). His perception of his country from an enlightened point of view from without rather than his shipmate's ignorant point of view from within suggests a similar perception of his own self; as Marlow sees England from a more holistically encompassing and more historically profound perspective, so he probably can see himself and his existence as well. As Marlow narrates, he reveals the source of his superior self-awareness. In the beginning, he is naïve, feeding a dying native a little biscuit as if his pity and compassion could change the world, or even change the dead man's fate. Months go by. A spear goes into Marlow's helmsman, and blood is spilled at his feet and all over the deck, yet Marlow can only think about getting new shoes. He has become number, which means he is learning. Days go by. Marlow sees the shrunken heads of people deemed "rebels" by Kurtz, stuck on poles like decoration, and Marlow's reaction is of mere surprise more than shock. Time passes on, as does Kurtz. Marlow returns to Brussels to meet Kurtz's Intended, lying to the weeping woman's face that Kurtz's last words were her name. He thinks the house will collapse upon his lie, "that the heavens would fall upon [his] head. But nothing happened. The heavens do not fall for such a trifle" (Conrad 164). This is Marlow's final lesson in his self-education and accounts for his "pose of a meditating Buddha" at the end of the novel (Conrad 164).

Very similarly, Apocalypse shows Willard, a captain in the United States Army, on a mission to penetrate Cambodia and take out a wildly insubordinate colonel. He, like Marlow, naïvely seeks another mission, and "for [his] sins they [give him] one" (Apocalypse). Willard also learns of horror and, though not called a Buddha directly, he states in voice-over that he'd "never want another [mission] again" (Apocalypse). The use of voice-over throughout the movie is particularly effective in conveying a sense that Willard, like Marlow, has already "seen it all," and is giving the viewer a lesson on what hell can be; his voice maintains a deep monotone that expresses his inner calm and heightened state of understanding after the Vietnam War. The events that happen around Willard are horrific, but the turning point comes when Willard decides to shoot a wounded woman dead after his crew boards and searches a Sampan boat and guns down everyone because the woman made a move to protect her puppy. On the surface this act seems like terrible callousness and cruelty, making Willard as culpable of atrocity as anyone else in the film, but the voice-over explains: "We'd cut them in half with a machine gun and give them a Band-Aid. It was a lie. And the more I saw of them, the more I hated lies" (Apocalypse). Willard has realized the hypocrisy of Americans in this war, and at the moment he shoots the woman that his crew wrongfully wounded, he rejects that hypocrisy for a higher standard of commitment; to kill was to kill and to aid was to aid. It is ridiculous to half-kill and half-aid. This sort of absolute commitment to a job is what propels Willard towards Kurtz, what possesses Willard as he hacks Kurtz with an axe, what restrains Willard when he has the opportunity to replace Kurtz as a god of the Montagnard army, instead getting in his boat and speeding away. Willard's journey has educated him to follow this straight, narrow, yet absolute path, almost like Dante's journey was an education for him to follow the straight and narrow path of sinless-ness. Willard has achieved his voice-over level of self-awareness.

The second major archetypal character is the central figure of hell. On the surface level, he can be seen as the antagonist, but on a deeper level, he is more of an anti-protagonist. He is the culmination of all the atrocities and suffering that have been witnessed before by the protagonist, and yet there are good things about him; this duality represents the ultimate nadir in perversion and darkness from something that once had promise.

Lucifer is this character in Inferno, sitting in the center of Hell and earth, a fallen angel of God bound for eternity in ice, surrounded by Hell's worst sinners. Certainly he is bad; he has three ugly heads that chew on the three worst sinners in the history of mankind: Brutus, Cassius, and Judas. Yet he was once an angel, and innately within his perversion, darkness, and evil lies the fact that these are polar opposites of Lucifer's former self. The antithesis, the duality, strikes Dante – he can feel the sorrow of a being that "was once as beautiful as now / he is hideous" (Inferno 34.34-5). This character is thus complexly evil with the suggestion of good at the same time.

As Lucifer is bound in ice, surrounded by the ultimate of sinners, Kurtz in Heart is bound by the jungle, surrounded by native Africans who worship him like a god. He represents the heart of darkness, brooding in the Inner Station of the Congo River, a figure shrouded in mystery and ambiguity. By all accounts he was an extraordinary man, talented in verse, oratory, painting, and even music. Yet, "under his magnificent eloquence" was a small deficiency that compounded in fantastically cruel and unusual ways: "Mr. Kurtz lacked restraint" (Conrad 138). Kurtz's darkness thus is terribly ambiguous, especially embodied in his last words: "The horror! The horror!" (Conrad 159). Whether he meant it as a confession or a curse, his existence was shrouded in great darkness and mystery. As Marlow states, Kurtz had "nothing either above or below him […]. He had kicked himself loose of the earth" (Conrad 149). Thus, Kurtz, out of context anywhere, could never be judged.

Like Kurtz, Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse also broods at the end of a river in Cambodia, a figure equally shrouded in the same mystery and ambiguity, surrounded by a Montagnard army of Vietnamese, Cambodians, and even an American. He was also a brilliant man: a third generation West Point graduate, top of his class, groomed for positions in the upper echelons of the military administration. He was decorated with thousands of honors and medals. He was "almost too perfect" (Apocalypse). The contrast is similar to that of Kurtz in Heart, however. Col. Kurtz is evil. His enclave in Nu Mung Ba in Cambodia has dozens of human heads just lying around, reminiscent of Kurtz's Inner Station and Lucifer's Cocytus, where only the heads of sinners stick out of the ice. His moral position is further skewed with his close relationship with the supposed hero, Willard. Willard admires Col. Kurtz. Willard detests lies, as does Col. Kurtz. The close association of the hero and the villain thus perverts both of them ambiguously. The clue that Coppola gives audiences is in the lighting used with Col. Kurtz; his face fades in and out between totally black darkness and clear light. There is no gray on his face, just as there is no gray in his soul. He is simply the juxtaposition, not a blending, of black and white, of good and evil. His last words are the exact same as Kurtz's in Heart. As that Kurtz metaphorically kicked himself loose of the earth, Col. Kurtz also metaphorically "got out of the boat." Thus, both are equally ambiguous characters and neither can be judged in any context except their own.

There is also an important, but minor archetypal character associated with the beginning of the journey, a sort of person that launches the protagonist into hell as a startling introduction or welcome to the horrors that lie ahead.

Charon is the ferryman in Inferno who takes Dante and Virgil across the first river of Hell, Acheron, delivering them into the beginnings of darkness. His relative terribleness is probably not all that strong, but it is the beginning of Dante's journey, and coupled with the sight of the opportunists, it is too much and Dante faints.

Like Charon, the chief accountant in Heart serves as an introduction to the jungle, residing in the Outer Station. He is a mysterious figure who is impeccably dressed in all white, looking as if he were oblivious to the fact that he has lived in the Congo for three years. His presence at the beginning of the journey kind of surprises and shocks Marlow – the accountant takes such a blast-defying stance against his own lot as a colonialist in Africa. Though Marlow doesn't faint, his curiosity is certainly piqued.

Interestingly, Colonel Bill Kilgore in Apocalypse is in a way a combination of these two characters. He is also a ferryman of sorts, using his Air Cavalry First of the Ninth to transport Willard and his crew by helicopter to the mouth of the Nung River to begin their journey. At the same time, he is described as "one of those guys that had that weird light around him," much like the chief accountant was in white (Apocalypse). This light, moreover, comes from Willard's observation that "you just knew he wasn't going to get so much as a scratch" throughout the whole war (Apocalypse). This made him open to certain opportunities for fun during battle, like playing Wagner during a helicopter attack, or surfing on the beach during a "hairy" battle in "Charlie's point" (Apocalypse) The image of a bare-breasted Kilgore standing up straight and tall, with a giant-brimmed hat, urging his cowering men to come surf with him is also, like the accountant, blast-defying – literally. He stands erect as bombs go off everywhere around him. The surreal nature of Kilgore's presence and attitudes thus shocks Willard and his crew the same way the chief accountant in his all-white clothes piques Marlow, and Charon's presence causes Dante to faint.

And so, with the journey over, you return home. But things are not the same anymore, of course; things will never be the same. Things are enshrouded in a new, weird light, like the way things look when you step indoors after being outside in the sun for a long time, except this time, your eyes will never readjust. Your eyes have seen too much darkness, and your perception of light is now warped for good. This is the truth you have sought. God help you.

WORKS CITED

Alighieri, Dante. The Inferno. Trans. John Ciardi. New York: Signet, 2001.

Apocalypse Now Redux. Dir. Francis Ford Coppola. Perf. Marlon Brando, Martin Sheen, Robert Duvall, Laurence Fishburne, Dennis Hopper, and Harrison Ford. 1979. DVD. Paramount, 2001.

Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness and The Secret Sharer. New York: Signet, 1997. 63 – 164.

Gillon, Adam. "The Appalling Face of a Glimpsed Truth: 'Heart of Darkness.'" Joseph Conrad. Twayne (1982): 68 – 77. Rept. in Short Stories for Students. Vol. 12. Literature Resource Center 2003.

Messier, Max. Rev. of Apocalypse Now Redux, dir. Francis Ford Coppola. Filmcritic.com 2001. 18 March 2003 .

New York City

by D.X. Liu

Now you don't seem so proud,
Every time you come walking down,
Not a cloud in the sky,
We should just go around,
No sense risking it now,
Risking throne and crown,
And you ask me what I read,
Me, a complete unknown,
A rolling stone, never understood,
And your favorite cigarette store,
Playing a jazz album,
As water floats under the bridge,
And I'm the only one,
The only one in the city tonight,
You better pawn it off,
Before it eats all of your grapes,
You've got nothing to lose--
How does it feel?

In A Grey Evening

by D.X. Liu

Bears, teddy bears, yes;
colliding with a dinosaure,
dancing in the raine;
that may not be the way,
sir, to do business, sir.
That is -- hey! -- that,
that is so unnecessary;
alright, anyway, caught myself,
good thing i was awake.

So the pebbles fly,
so we pass on by,
we can barely float on,
but we all float on down.
A gleaming hook,
winding and jerking about,
what is it? --
--Time.

What About You?

My favorite band is the Beatles. My favorite album is OK Computer by Radiohead. My favorite song is "We've Been Had" by the Walkmen.

I decided these things yesterday.

Stimulated!

I am intellectually stimulated right now. Finally, college is becoming what it was meant to be.

Engineers, pre-meds, Wharton whores... y'all don't know what you're missing.

Adroitly Imperfect

I stopped short when she began approaching the bridge. Maybe she is just testing me, I thought. I knew I couldn't give anything away too soon. This was something I should have been used to, but you don't get used to things like this. You just get numb.

"So you really think you can do this to me and just walk away, huh?" she cried out over the river. I could hear strains of desperation in her voice, and just a flutter of something else too--I couldn't tell what it was, yet. She'd have to speak again.

"Of course not, dear. I guess... I guess the problem was that I didn't think at all!"

"Yeah. You didn't."

Ah, there it was. Resignation. She had already given up. She had already made her decision. I would have to act now. And fast.

As she turned her back on me to face the water, I quickly rushed up the gravel pathway, little stones crunching beneath my worn sneakers. I knew it would be too windy up there, suspended over the water like that, for her to hear my approach. Suddenly, she turned back around to look at me. This wasn't one last look of loneliness. I saw fear in her eyes; I had been wrong. She wasn't ready. She was starting to tear up, in fact.

I slowed down. There was no rush anymore. She wasn't ready; she couldn't do it. She was only waiting for me now to escort her back to the car. I saw her look down at her feet and smile. It was a smile of relief. Before I realized what was happening, she quickly spun around, raised her arms as if she were about to fly away, and jumped. We were so high up, I didn't even hear the splash when she hit the water. She simply left a small white burst of silent fireworks that disappeared as quickly as they had materialized. I stood still for a very long time, wondering where my calculations had gone wrong. A piece of me is still standing there, wondering.

But the river rushed on under the bridge as if nothing had happened.

[Dedicated to Benton Hall and Anni Chen]

Inspire Me

Somebody give me an adverb. Someone else give me an adjective. I will then attempt to write a short story with that two-word title. It will be dedicated to you, if you are the first person to give me either an adverb or adjective. Real words please.

Blame it on the city of Plano, blame it on the state of Texas, blame it on general suburban malaise, blame it on teenage ennui... but I am very uninspired right now. So help me.

Indie Rock Pissing, or I Don't Mean To Be A Music Snob, But...

Franz Ferdinand has generated a lot of press and hubbub for their debut record this year (by that I mean 2004, not 2005). It's popped up on a lot of year-end Top 10 lists (thankfully not Questionable Content's), cited for its unique "dance-able" rock music. I believe I even read somewhere in Rolling Stone or some other equally shitty music publication that Franz Ferdinand have made rock music "fun again." I disagree vehemently. They have made a dance-able rock album that is fun, sure. But what really annoys me is how much credit people are giving them for that sound. I just listened to Make Up The Breakdown by Hot Hot Heat, which came out in 2002, two years before Franz Ferdinand ever blasted the radio with their angular guitars and dance-club beats, and that album is simply wonderful. It does what Franz Ferdinand does, with fun dance-able rock music, but without the whole phony, semi-pretentious art-school front. Unfortunately, I don't know what the hell people at Pitchfork and elsewhere were doing in 2002, but the record seems to remain obscure, and it is Franz Ferdinand in 2004 that gets all the attention and adulation. On the one hand, I'm glad Hot Hot Heat haven't gotten MTV-ified like Franz Ferdinand; certainly, it's more fitting that the copy-cat band be the one to sell-out to corporate music and all that. But they certainly deserve more than what Franz Ferdinand has. This is what pisses me off about indie rock, or at least, the indie rock that is crossing over into mainstream radio. The decisions are just so arbitrary, and sometimes downright wrong. If you liked Franz Ferdinand, please check out Hot Hot Heat and agree with me.

While I'm on the subject of annoying faux-indie bands, let me shit on Interpol for a while. I also just listened to their new album this year, Antics, and it makes me want to puke, or writhe around in a bed full of razors or something--not because it's a bad album, really. It would sound OK if I had never heard of Interpol before. But I just can't stand that it is Interpol that's doing this. For their sophomore effort, they've traded in their "sweeping" style guitar on their debut, Turn On The Bright Lights, for a more rock-oriented "angular" style (I can't define "angular," by the way, but I know it when I hear it), breaking it down with a couple of dance beats on occasion as well. Let me say this once: I DO NOT PUT ON AN INTERPOL RECORD TO HEAR THAT HORSESHIT. I loved Turn On The Bright Lights for its sonic aural soundscapes, created by reverberating guitars and echoing lyrics that sounded dark and ominous. Turn On The Bright Lights had this looming sound to it that at first listen made me think they could compete with Radiohead. Ha! Leave the Radiohead-emulating to Muse, I guess. Antics, save maybe one-and-a-half exceptions, is a bunch of half-hearted attempts at crossing over into Strokes-style guitar-driven songs that make me want to vomit, because not only are Interpol not suited for Strokes-style guitar-driven songs, given Paul Banks and Daniel Kessler's vocal style, which is moody, somber, and a bit like how you'd imagine a young mortician might sing, but they had been doing so much better the other way with their first album. Strokes-style music requires exuberance, energy, and a little bit of fun playfulness from its vocalist, and Interpol's singers just can't get out of the coffin long enough to sound like that. Not only that, the lyrics Interpol can come up with are still gloomy and dystopian, so even if they tried to sing like Julian Casablancas, what they're singing still doesn't fit. If I want to listen to Strokes-style guitars, I'll put on a Strokes record. I go to Interpol for their darker, sweeping sonic sound, and Antics is a huge disappointment. They basically sound like your regular guitar/bass/drums setup now, with only slight aural tweaks like the occasional two-second guitar reverb and echoing vocals. Those things need to be the basis of their work, not an afterthought. Listening to Antics for me was like watching morticians trying to dance with their corpses. Hence, nausea. At one point, two seconds into the song "C'mere," I had actually thought the album was over and my iPod had moved on to the next artist, the intro to that song was that egregiously non-Interpol. Honestly, the only way to recognize Interpol now is when someone is singing. I really hate to throw this accusation around, but given the timing of their newfound fame and success, I'm going to have to say it, and say it gravely: Interpol are sell-outs. I'm giving them one more album before I put them away with the Hybrid Theory/Linkin Park travesty. (For those who didn't know, Hybrid Theory changed their name to Linkin Park in 1999 in order to appear right next to Limp Bizkit in your local record bin; it was probably the dealmaker when they signed to Warner Bros. in late 1999, after being turned down three times previously that year. It is one of the most flagrant and heinous acts of selling out ever witnessed by the underground music industry, to change your band's name to sound like corporate crap so that you can be signed by a major corporate label in order to make more corporate crap. It's a doozy.)