Sokorra Lewis

It’s Gonna Be – er, It’s MAY!

Posted on May 1, 2017April 30, 2017 by sokorra

Some of you may have noticed that in April, there were very few posts. Mostly this was because of time management and Camp Nano. However, during that time I figured out some new posts that will be coming in May, so there should be a bit more regularity to my posts this coming month.

But for now, I’m going to talk about Camp Nano. Camp Nano is an offshoot of the NanoWrimo event in November. They have two sessions, one in April and one in July. During Camp Nano, unlike its more well known November cousin, you can choose a word count of your own choice. I choose 30,000 as there was alot I needed to do this month and Writing was going by the wayside for a little bit. I think I almost got there, but not quite.

I plan on doing the second session in July, and hopefully to greater success. If you enjoy writing, I reccommend it. Its really fun, and it allows you to create cabins where you can interact with other writers. You can let them choose for you, or you and a few of your friends can build your own.

To read more about Camp Nano, you can visit their website here. I linked directly to their FAQ page for convenience. It’s a really fun experience. Like Nano, I recommend this to any writer, both the professional and the casual.

My project was finishing up a fanfiction I’ve been writing for several years yet never finished based on Marvel movies Thor and Avengers. Its completely AU now, but I still am determined to finish it. I made good progress but still not to my goal of actually finishing it by the end of the month. But the end is in sight, and hopefully I can say it was completed before May is out as well. Then perhaps I can work on some of my original writing projects.

Which brings me to some of my other May Projects I’m also looking into some recycling/Upcycling projects to help decrease the clutter around my house and being environmentally friendly. Its spring cleaning time, and if anyone has some recommendations, I’d love to try them out. I might even write about a few of them that I do try.

I’ve got a essay series coming up this month for those of you wondering where my history rambles went to. Its nearly complete, and its on the Articles of Confederation. Hopefully you’ll enjoy that.

And I’ve got at least two book reviews to add to the Book it list. I’m far far behind, so hopefully more books will be read. I have such a large pile, both physically and electronically.

I hope everyone has a great month of May, and may Spring (or Fall if you are in the Southern Hemisphere) be good to all of you.

American History, history, movie reviews, space history

Apollo 13 – Film and History

Posted on April 18, 2017April 18, 2017 by sokorra

I wrote this yesterday with the intent of posting it, but various life things happened that means it gets pushed off till today. So here’s the belated Article:

As I have stated in several posts, my favorite movie is Apollo 13. It is the dramatization of the real life story of the Apollo 13 Lunar mission that went horribly wrong in April of 1970. Today while reading my email, I got a list of today’s historical events, and it reminded me that today in 1970, they finally made it back to earth. So I decided to write about the Apollo 13 mission and the movie in general.

The movie is mostly accurate, with a few details changed for dramatic (well, movie dramatic) effect. However, the writers and producers of the film were interested in making it as close as possible. After all, sitting in a space ship hoping you’d get home after the oxygen tank explodes is a pretty interesting story.

Apollo 13 was the 8th manned mission in the Apollo series. Apollo 1 had ended tragically in 1967. It took a two year review, and several changes to the Apollo spacecraft before they were manned again. Apollo missions 2-6 were unmanned tests of the spacecraft, after it had been decided that the Apollo 1 identity would not be moved to the new mission. Therefore, the first Apollo mission that was manned and made it to space was Apollo 7, which orbited the earth. Apollo 8 went a step further and orbited the moon itself. This mission also had James Lovell involved, who was also involved in 13. Apollo 9 and 10 practiced lunar landing procedures. And Apollo 11, which is perhaps the most famous of American space flights, took us to the Moon.

Apollo 13 took off on April 11, 1970, a little over 3 years after Apollo 1, and only 9 months after Apollo 11. It was manned by James Lovell (Commander), Jack Swigert (Command Module Pilot) and Fred Haise (Lunar Module Pilot). The Apollo capsule was only large enough to fit three men, unlike the later Space Shuttle craft. Through a small connecting tunnel, they connected to the Lunar Module (also known as the LEM – Lunar Excursion Module) which would become the life raft that kept these three men alive during the four days it took to get home.

On April 13, 1970 shortly after recording a television transmission the three astronauts felt a jolt and soon realised that their spacecraft was venting out into space. I’ve included a link below to the wikipedia page, where there is a audio recording of the famous “houston we have a problem” report. What had occured is when Jack Swigert went to do a routine stirring of the tanks to keep the liquid fuel/oxygen from freezing, the temperture gauge in the oxygen tank was broken. It overheated the tank, and the tank exploded. This was due to a issue that developed during pre-launch checks which was not realised until after a review board looked at all the evidence.

They spent the next four days in the LEM, using the oxygen tanks and fuel tanks that would have sent them to the moon to keep themselves alive and target their way back home. This had been a contingenoucy plan developed previously but this was the first time it was ever attempted, and various problems surfaced during the four days that the astronauts and the men in Mission control had to solve.

The film dramatizes some of it, changing up some of the words said by the astronauts and introducing a few scenes that were never documented by anyone to fill out some of the characters reactions. But overall the film is fairly accurate for a biopic. They even used archive footage of a launch to use with CGI to create the launch scene in the movie, and used actually low gravity in some of the scenes where you see them float for more of a real effect. So while its definately a movie, not a documentary, it is pretty well done.

The film was nominated for Best Picture in 1994, but lost to Braveheart. It did win Best Editing, and Best Sound. It is one of my favorite movies still, over 20 years after it was released. You can stream it on Amazon, it is available for both purchase and rental. It used to be on Hulu but right now I can’t find it to confirm.

The film was based on James Lovell’s novel called Lost Moon which was renamed Apollo 13 when the film came out. It’s a great read as well, especially if you are interested about the space program. It not only covers the Apollo 13 mission, but Lovell’s earlier missions and interactions with other astronauts.

I also recommend the Tom Hanks mini-series From the Earth to the Moon. It is a great dramatization of the real events of the Space Program and also has some great actors in it.

Apollo 13 Wikipedia

Apollo 13 – NASA Website

Apollo 13 Film Wikipedia

To The Earth From The Moon

book reviews, bookit

Bookit Review: Dark Force Rising

Posted on March 29, 2017March 28, 2017 by sokorra

Title: Dark Force Rising (Book 2 of 3 in the Thrawn Trilogy)

Author: Timothy Zahn

Publication Date: June 1992 (and this paperback is old enough that it doesn’t have Legends slapped on it).

My Rating: A-

Although it took me awhile to get through this book thanks to life getting in the way, I enjoyed it. It really fleshed out the universe of Star Wars. Mara’s background is included, as well as information about the Clone Wars, the Jedi and many other things. Granted, alot has been retconned by the prequel movies, but it is still interesting.

In this book, the three main characters take different paths and all three are interesting. Luke takes after a lead on an Old Jedi Master, and Mara finds herself in need of his help which doesn’t actually appeal to her but she does it anyway. So Luke, Mara and Karrde’s storyline goes together in this novel. Han and Lando meanwhile have a different path to take, which leads them to an Senator from Corellia and a bit of backstory for Han.

I think Leia’s storyline is the most interesting. In this triology, the empire makes use of a species known as the Noghri, who are loyal to Vader and through him Thrawn due to being saved. Leia tries to figure out if she can find a way to win them to the New Republic’s side, and learns alot about herself, Vader and Clone wars. One of the reasons I find this storyline interesting is because it develops a world and species in a very interesting way. They are serving the empire because they see the Empire as their hero. And it ties in with some of the universe’s history.

I really enjoyed this one, and I’m looking forward to the final book in the series. I wish there was more I could say without causing spoilers. If you are a Star Wars fan, I definately recommend reading this series.

film, movie reviews

Movie Review: Pacific Rim

Posted on March 27, 2017 by sokorra

Title: Pacific Rim

Release Date: 2013

Directed by: Guillermo del Toro

Written by: Guillermo del Toro, Travis Beacham

Starring: Charlie Hunnam, Diego Klattenhoff, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day, Burn Gorman and Max Martini (among many others)

My Grade: A-

This movie was recommended to me by several people as a good movie. I’m actually writing this part before I watch it, hence the weird tenses compared to what I will write after I watch it. Supposedly this movie has good gender dynamics, as well as a diverse cast and a good story. I’m hoping to find all of that. Although I must admit by looking at the casting list on IMDB, its looking fairly non-diverse, particularly on Gender. SO far I’m only seeing 8 female actors mostly in minor character parts, unless someone has a gender neutral name and no picture. Only two actually seem to have named parts. But we shall see. IMDB can be a bit deceiving at times.

On the bright side, it also has IDris Elba and Ron Perlman who are always worth seeing. Now onto watching the movie (A DVD. Alas, no blu-ray yet.)

(…intermission music…)

So in the end, I really enjoyed it. The lighting was dark in some areas, which might have been my TV set, but it made it hard to really see what the Kaiju looked like. However the concept was pretty good. The basic backstory of the movie is that along the Pacific Rim (also known as the Ring of Fire due to the tectonic plate activity) there opens up a breach between two dimensions. Ours, and that of the Kaiju. They start attacking us and in an attempt to fight them off we decide to build giant robots. Only it doesn’t always work, because if it did we wouldn’t have a movie.

Charlie Hunnam plays the main character, Raleigh Becket, who is a Jaeger (the robot) pilot. The robots need 2 pilots and he used to pilot with his brother but his brother died and he ended up in Alaska building a wall. Idris Alba plays the head dude of the Jager program Pentecost and basically drags Raleigh back to the robots in a last ditch effort to save the program.

Rinko Kikuchi plays the female lead (and sadly only one of two named female characters, all other female characters are background and barely have lines if any at all) Mako Mori. She is Pentecost’s adoptive daughter and the person Raleigh decides should be his new partner.

Charlie Day – who I spent half the movie calling Sam Rockwell Jr – plays Newton Geiszler, a biologist who works on understanding the Kaiju. He is accompanied by Burn Gorman, who plays Hermann Gottlieb who is basically a Nerdy Owen Harper who managed to retain the anger.

Ron Perlman plays a Blackmarket dealer who basically profits off the corpses of Kaiju.

The cast was fantastic, and I really liked the fact that they made a point to incorporate different nationalities into the story. Not all of the characters are American – actually most of them aren’t. It didn’t shy away from having characters speak in accents or their native languages. They choose actual asian/asian decent actors to play asian characters for the most part which is sadly not always the case in Hollywood.

The story was pretty good as well, though I wish there had been more time with the various Jaeger pilots other than Raleigh, Mako and Chuck. There is so much to this world unexplored, which should be interesting to see when the sequel comes out. Perhaps we can get more exploration of the Alternate universe Pacific Rim created.

So essentially my only issue with this movie that I can think of while writing this review is the lack of female characters outside the leads.

American History, essay, Politics

The Constitution: Article 7 & Conclusion

Posted on February 24, 2017February 24, 2017 by sokorra

Article 7 is a bit of a misnomer, its more of a conclusion (hence the title of this post. It merely states that a majority of 9 states out of the 13 then involved would be required to ratify it before it was made officially law. 9 is 2/3rds of the original 13 states, a standard that continues today with amendments needing to pass 2/3rds of the States. That is currently 33 states, since we now have a total of 50.

Of course, given that it is the constitution, it was prefered that all states would ratify it (which they eventually did) Otherwise some states may still have been under the governing of the Articles of Confederation, which would be very awkward when trying to make laws, or making governing decisions between states. It also was a political move to make the states ratify it early to be able to be on the decision-making team when it came to alterations (Amendments) and putting together the details that the constitution left vague. Continue reading “The Constitution: Article 7 & Conclusion” →

American History, history, Politics

The Constitution: Article Six

Posted on February 22, 2017 by sokorra

Article Six addresses various other items that were of a concern with creating a new constitution and a new Federal government.

Clause 1: The US will still honor its debts.

There was some concern that with a new constitution/government that the US wouldn’t honor debts or contracts entered into under the Articles of the Confederation (The First constitution that the United States had ratified). The first clause addresses this concern by saying that the Constitution will uphold anything debts that occurred or engagements (such as treaties and contracts) shall be continued under the new constitution.

Basically it means that the US is under new management, but the old deals still apply.

Clause 2: The US Constitution shall be the ultimate law of the land.

This directs that any law, judgement or other actions by the government must adhere to this document. It also states that all states are subject to the Constitution and Federal law, effectively bringing them under the same umbrella. One of the ongoing issues with the Articles of Confederation was the lack of power the federal government had to do anything. The confusion as states formed their own money etc couldn’t be corrected by the federal with much power behind it. This government however was stronger, and made sure to specify that this document was the supreme law. This also effectively transitions the country from working under the Articles of Confederation to having a new constitution.

Clause 3: All officers of the government shall uphold the oath. None of them will be forced to prove their religious faith.

There are two elements to the third clause. One is that every officer of the government is to swear an oath of allegiance to uphold the constitution when taking office. The other element is that no officer has to prove his religious choices to get into office.

This particular element has come under recent speculation, This clause basically assures that there is no government backed religion, that no person who works in the government will have to prove their religion in order to take office.

With fundamentalism of many religions being more visible, many people are being asked unofficially to prove that they belong to one religion or another. Personally I believe that this clause in the Constitution makes it unconstitutional to make someone prove that they are part of a religion (regardless of said religion) in order to do their job (i.e. take office), or seek services from the federal government. Many have alternate points of view on the subject.

The Supreme Court expanded this clause to the states in 1961’s Torcaso v. Watkins. Now no governmental employee, federal, state or otherwise, is required to prove one’s religious conviction or religious orientation to take office.

I found Heritage Guide to the Constitution had an interesting background for this particular clause (I’ve included the link below in the further reading) which also goes into people’s concern about secular language (a argument still had today).

The Constitution: Article Five

Posted on February 20, 2017February 20, 2017 by sokorra

Article Five is unique because it only has one section. It also has only one job: To explain how we can alter the constitution.

To change the constitution to suit the evolving needs of its citizenship, Congress can pass Amendments. Amendments must be passed by two-thirds majority of both houses, and then present it to the legislatures of the states. It must be ratified by 3/4ths of the states before it can be accepted into law.

There are currently 27 Amendments that have been ratified as part of the constitution. Several amendments have been proposed but not voted on, others have been voted on and not quite made the cut vote wise. There are even a few amendments that missed ratification due to a time limit and lack of state ratifications.

Some examples of failed or still pending Amendments include:

The Equal Rights Amendment
First introduced in 1923 by Alice Paul, this amendment keeps poping up as society seems reluctant to catch up with equal rights in reality rather then theory. It got as far as being ratfied by 35 states, falling short by 3 by the deadline of the 1972 edition. It has still come up for a vote in Congress in recent years
The “First” Amendment.
When the Bill of rights was proposed, there were actually 12 amendments, not 10. 11 of those Amendments have been ratitifed as Amendments 1-10, and 27 (which took the longest of any amendment to be ratified). It dealt with the size of congress, and basically deals in thousands when we have millions of citizens now so it doesn’t really fit the current needs of the population.
The Nobility Amendment
This is still on the books to be ratified, but doesn’t really come up often. It was a restriction on American’s ability to hold international nobility titles. Basically it came down to Americans could not receive any gifts, income, title from a foreign government without the permission of Congress. Otherwise they must surrender their citizenship to the US
The Corwin Amendment
While James Buchanan was president, an amendment came up that actually protects slavery, and would have made it unconstitutional to do away with slavery. Its still technically out there to be ratified despite the 13th Amendment which makes it moot and unconstitutional. Its one of two Amendments that the President actually signed (again, Presidents really have no input in Amendments offically). The other is the 13th, which was signed by Buchanan’s successor Abraham Lincoln.
Child Labor Amendment
This Amendment would have regulated child labor and made it a federal issue, removing the power from the States. It has been ratified by 28 states.
District of Columbia Amendment
This amendment would have granted DC representation in Congress. It wasn’t ratified before the 7 year limit posed on it was reached.
1876 – Anti-Congress Amendment
As you can well imagine, this one never passed Congress. The Amendment would have abolished the Senate.

Most Amendment proposals don’t make it out of their respective house. The last amendment to be ratified was the 27th, which was one of the original 12 amendments made in 1789. It was ratified in 1992, 203 years later.

The Constitution: Article Four

Posted on February 13, 2017February 13, 2017 by sokorra

Now that we have developed the Federal government’s three branches (Legislative, Executive and Judicial) its now time to figure out the states relation to each other. Section Four deals with States rights and how they fit in the hierarchy of government.

Section One:

Continue reading “The Constitution: Article Four” →

American History, Politics

The Constitution: Article Three

Posted on February 10, 2017February 10, 2017 by sokorra

So in review, Article 1 deals with congress, Article 2 with the President/Executive Branch and now we deal with the third branch of the American Government: The Judicial Branch. This is probably one of the shortest of the articles, but there are several amendments that deal with the Judicial branch.

Continue reading “The Constitution: Article Three” →

American History, essay, history, Politics

The Constitution: Article Two (Part Two)

Posted on February 8, 2017 by sokorra

Article 2: Part 1

Section Two

Section 2 relates to the President’s duties as far as administrative function. He is given the right to fill vacancies in the executive department (providing that they are confirmed by Congress), and to take into consideration the opinions of those people. He is also allowed to fill vacancies in Ambassadorial positions. This part of the job is well shown on Media these days as Congress goes through the process of confirming nominations for the cabinet positions. It is rare that nominations are not confirmed. In some cases Nominations are pulled before they take a vote if it proves problematic. However, there have been a few over the years (Senate.gov).

For most confirmations a simple majority vote is taken, from precedent from the first cabinet confirmations. In current history, Betsy DeVos was confirmed by the Senate President – Vice President Pence – breaking a tie. This was not a usual occurrence, and all sources I find at the moment point to it not having happened before.

He is also the head of the military services, and can call state militias into the national service. When the US was first created, the national military was very small, and depended on state militias to fill out the ranks. Over the centuries as the National military grew, and due to experiences in the Civil War and Spanish-American war, this was altered. Each state now has a National Guard, whose primary use is for State needs, but can be called up for Federal service.

For example, President Eisenhower federalized the Arkansas National Guard to “prevent anarchy” and to enforce the law passed by Congress requiring schools to integrate races. The story of Little Rock 9 is often told as a major point in race relations in the US, as is Eisenhower’s decision to use the National Guard to overrule the school/Governor defiance of the law.

Some states still have their own Defense Force outside the National Guard. Several states had them at one point but are currently inactive either due to States dismissing them due to liability issues or other reasons. Pennsylvania had a reserve militia, for example, but only during WWII and Korea. Then again Pennsylvania’s history with state militias is an interesting story for another time.

Section 3

This section essentially lays out the State of the Union address. The constitution requires that the President occasionally present before Congress his plans for the nation and the status of the nation. When originally used, it was not required that it happened every year but it has become customary now that it happens every year.

And because I love using segments of West Wing:

This section also makes him the chief diplomat, in that he is expected to meet with Ambassadors and other dignitaries of the world. He is also to make sure that laws are faithfully adhered to. Which really goes back to the oath of office.