The Dark Knight Rises

So I finally got down to watching Batman. This time, Batman faces Bane in a high stakes struggle over Gotham (what's new?). The movie is everything one might expect from a Nolan Batman installment, though I guess I still preferred the prequels. The story has hints of the No Man's Land and Knightfall story arcs, with all that entails. I really do appreciate that the director's striking a balance between the creation of an independent narrative and the established comic series. Kudos for that. I also liked the reimagination of Bane as a somewhat intellectual figure with a background in the League of Shadows. Sadly, despite the characters and the story itself, there were a number of inconsistencies in the movie that just took me out of my suspension of disbelief. I did not appreciate that the city did not quite give me the feel of one under siege, nor did Batman/Bruce's difficulties feel convincing enough for me to immerse myself. Overall I did like the movie, but I think this is just not quite up to the standard of the other Nolan Batmans. Perhaps Heath Ledger's death had something to do with this. Regardless, I'd give it a 7.5/10.

Fantasies

Sometimes I think about the popular fantasies of humans, and wonder if there's something to it. In our modern age, anyone who believes in "special powers" like telepathy and other preternatural abilities would be ridiculed on reflex. I am neither believer nor skeptic, but am rather curious about the whole thing. What if those fantasies were real? What if those fantastic abilities remained untapped? Sadly, I have yet to personally encounter compelling evidence of the existence of genuine preternatural abilities. Yet, the limitations of empirical observation are apparent to me at the same time. It is something that people across various cultures have wanted to believe in, and sometimes I wonder whether there's more to it than we've been taught in school. One thing I've been pondering is the matter of human abilities in general requiring training to grow. Given that nobody's really interested in cultivating preternatural abilities these days, it's perhaps unsurprising that any extant abilities would wind up atrophying anyway. It is something I've been considering, but it still swings both ways. It might be too weak to use with any regularity, or it simply does not exist.

A Hurt Toenail

I've been out of krav maga training for a month now. That is rather unfortunate and it annoys me to no end. It is equally unfortunate that the cause of my missed trainings came specifically from an accident there. I was attempting to perform a kick block one night, when I accidentally wound up ramming my toe into someone's shin. That hurt and resulted in a bruised toenail. It seemed mostly fine after that, so I didn't quite heed it. Sadly, it wound up getting infected a fortnight later, and it was sufficiently tender that I just could not wear shoes for a while. Obviously, that precluded training. Now, nearly two months later, the toenail's mostly healed but there's still something up with it that it's slightly tender when I press on the top of the nail. It's improved some, but I guess I am just generally reluctant to aggravate it. Hopefully it'll mend soon.

Molestation

Social taboos are interesting and sometimes frighteningly powerful. Sexuality is the subject of numerous taboos in modern society. Thinking about that makes me consider exactly what the impact of molestation is. It is obvious that it has profound effects on the victim's psyche, causing lasting trauma that is extremely hard to recover from. Objectively speaking, being groped by someone is little different from being brushed up against on the train or in some other public place. However, in reality the sense of violation is so extreme that it can lead some to commit suicide or engage in other self destructive behavior as a result. At first blush, I imagine molestation is a cue for a person to signal his or her sexual availability. Someone who does not respond strongly to a molestation is indirectly deemed to be sexually deviant, in not making a solid effort to protect one's sexual purity. I find it unfortunate that the burden of protecting one's sexual purity falls unevenly on the shoulders of the female of the human species.