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Intellectual Conservative PoliticsIowa.com Weekly Weblog No Runny Eggs
This is the personal weblog of Aakash Raut, established Sept. 2002. It will cover current affairs, worldwide & national topics, local & university events, and provide insight and commentary on contemporary issues and the news from his perspective. Enjoy! --------------- ARCHIVES Sept 2002 - Now -------------
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E-mail - uisconservative-at-yahoo About Aakash 
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Monday, January 16, 2006
I wanted to say that, despite the two entries that I posted last evening, I am not ready to return to blogging yet... Yesterday, I published those entries because the season premier was that day (two more hours are going to be shown this evening as well). After church in the morning, we went to lunch at the house of a couple of people from the Young Adult group, where we watched the Colts-Steelers game. I am not a football fan, but the way that last quarter turned out (and with the guys and girls who were in that room! ;-), it would be hard not to get excited at what went on. This evening, some of us who are I hope to be able to return before too long. For now, I hope you've had a great weekend, and a good Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. For today, check out the thoughts from Alex and others at 'Save the GOP,' and from Josh and others at 'In the Agora.' Sunday, January 15, 2006
When our old friend Brian Balta posted an entry at Hoosier Review awhile back on the FOX television program 24, I had at that time not watched a single episode. Months later, when a new episode was on (I think my brother may have watched it that evening), I was IMing with Balta about it; he said that where he was, it hadn't been shown yet, so he didn't want me to tell him what happened. I actually hadn't even watched it that day, or any other day; I had never watched a single episode of 24, until A & E did their 24 'marathon,' which I believe was on Christmas Day. I had gotten up around 5 AM that day (I don't know how I managed that, especially since not having gone to sleep till past midnight... I musta missed Santa!), and I don't know at what point I started watching - They were showing Season 3, and I recall that I began at the point (3 x 15 ??) at which the deadly virus had been placed in the hotel's ventilation system, and was attempting to be located and disarmed. Within hours, I had begun to realize why Balta and others find this show so captivating. I also found it hard to believe how people could watch 24 the regular way (when the new episodes first come out, on Fox, rather than a marathon of syndicated past seasons). When I was having that IM conversation with Balta, I asked about the possibility of me starting to watch it mid-season; he said that that would be hard, to start like that within the storyline, but I should rent a previous season... And make that my weekend. On New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, I knew that A & E was once again doing a 24 marathon; this time, I soon found out, it was for Season 1. Despite the other things going on on New Year's Eve - there actually weren't that many things going on for me (unlike last year, but kind of I like the year before)... I missed Erin Turner's party, but did stop by campus, and saw Mike and Jeff - and Dale and (briefly) Micah - I found time to watch some of the episodes, [definitely] including the latter-part of the 'day' (i.e. - season). For those of you who aren't aware, 24 is a very unique program; it runs in real-time, with each episode lasting one hour long, and covering exactly one hour of time, within the storyline. There have been a total of four seasons so far, each of which has contained 24 episodes (i.e. - each season is a serial, covering one day's time period). I am rushing to type this entry because in only two hours, 'Season 5' is kicking off, in a much-anticipated FOX television event this evening (at 8 PM eastern, 7 central) and tomorrow evening. I think that two hours are going to be shown today, and two more tomorrow (MLK day). As indicated above, I watched [most of] Season 1 and Season 3 on television, and the beginning episodes of Season 2 are currently being shown, on both A & E and WGN. However, I went ahead and rented the rest of Season 2 on DVD. I just returned those DVDs last night, and picked up the first DVD for Season 4. Unfortunately, only had time to watch a little bit of it, so I don't know about that one... But I am going to post below, a brief summary of each of Seasons 1 through 3. This is partly for people who want to get up-to-date, but also for myself... It will help get these characters and storylines straight, something that can get tricky.  On his website, Update: I was having doubts about this entry, and the one below - especially since they were done so hastily... but Balta told me that this one looked fine, and I am glad to see that a lot of other bloggers are also writing about this topic. I feel better now. Spoiler alert: I don't yet know how I'm going to write these summaries... The entry above was saved as draft two and half hours ago, and published right before the first commercial break in this first Season 5 episode, currently showing on FOX. This entry was saved as a draft before the one above, and I am filling it in, with the summaries of Seasons 1, 2, and 3 (and perhaps 4). I am totally improvsing right now, but I think that I'll try to word these so as not too give away too many secrets... However, if you want to rent those past seasons [or better yet - for me that is - purchase them via Amazon.com], then you may not want to read below.  [By the way: Yes, I am of course aware that synopses (probably better than that which I'm about to write) are available a ton of other places on the web. As I indicated in the entry above however, this is not just for readers... It's for me as well.] Season One (2001-2002) U.S. Senator David Palmer (D-MA), is running for President, and this is the day of the California primary. Unlike subsequent seasons, this first one corresponds to one calendar day, starting on midnight, and running for 24 hours. The main protagonist of the plot however, is Jack Bauer, who works for the Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU), a government agency that operates under the CIA, and apparently has its main headquarters in Los Angeles. Ira Gaines is a terrorist leader who has kidnapped Jack's wife and daughter (Teri and Kim Bauer), to blackmail him into assassinating Senator Palmer. [This may have been inspired by the good (though rather unrealistic), movie Nick of Time, a 1995 Johnny Depp film also done in real time, and also requiring a certain audience participation feature.] Within about half the day, Jack has defeated Gaines' terror cell, but in doing so, he obtains information about a second cell, which had hired Gaines. This second cell - the mastermind of all of today's atrocities - is led by Andre and Alexis Drazen, the sons of Victor Drazen. Two years earlier, then-U.S. Army Delta Force Captain Jack Bauer had led a covert operation to kill Victor Drazen during the Kosovo conflict. This operation was ordered by a secret government panel, headed by Senator Palmer. [Another participant who helped Cpt. Bauer carry out this mission was a British agent named Stephen Saunders, who was believed to have perished in the operation; I am inserting a mention of him, because he comes back in Season 3.] Due to the extreme secrey involved in this secret op ("Operation Nightfall"), the government officials ordering it were never in contact with those special force agents executing it... So Senator Palmer and Jack Bauer didn't know, until later, about each other's key involvement in this mission. However, the Drazens did find out about this, and that is the motive behind the two terrorist cells - Senator Palmer would be killed, Jack Bauer would be the killer, and the latter's wife and daughter would end up being killed as well. [Current events connection: Related article, which became all-too-prescient.] But the retaliations against Palmer and Bauer were not the primary purposes of the Drazens' mission. In the above-mentioned covert operation in Kosovo, Jack Bauer believed he had killed Victor Drazen, but in reality, Drazen was being held these past years in a secret government prison. The primary goal of the Drazen family was to free Victor, which they succeed in doing, after breaking into this underground prison. Some time after the 'Super Tuesday' polls have closed (at 7:00 PM), the death of Senator Palmer is faked, to prevent him from being an immediate target of the Drazens. Kim Bauer is once again kidnapped by the Drazens, who offer to trade her for her father (Jack). However, right as Jack is traveling to meet the Drazens for this exchange, at the Port of Los Angeles, Kim manages to get away from them, and swim to safety. Jack is nearing the the meeting site, so Victor Drazen has to quickly change the plan, now no longer in possesion of Jack's daughter. It was known, throughout the day, that a mole was operating within CTU, assisting the Drazen terrorist group. When Victor Drazen is in this situation, he has to call his mole, whose identity the show now reveals. It is someone who you would least expect. Drazen tells the mole to call Jack Bauer on his cell phone, and to tell him that his daughter's dead body has been found by the Coast Guard. This was intended to draw Jack to go through with meeting Drazen, in order to attempt to kill him. It was Drazen's belief that in going after him, Jack Bauer could be killed. Jack, believing that his daughter has been killed, does in fact go after Victor Drazen, but instead of getting himself killed, ends up killing Drazen, along with his entire crew. Out of danger for now, but devastated by the "death" of his daughter Kim, Jack asks the Coast Guard about the body that they found. After learning that no body was found, Jack realizes that ------- had lied to him, and must be the mole. That mole realizes this as well, and tries to flee. Jack returns to CTU headquarters and stops ---, but not before --- kills several people, including Jack Bauer's wife (who was still there, being debriefed about that day's horrific events). Season 2 (2002-2003) As is typical with this series, there are several storylines going on simultaneously. I am going to omit the one, in this episode, regarding the adventures of Kim Bauer, who rescues a child from her abusive father, gets in trouble with the law, gets involved with a spooky guy in the woods, keeps bugging her father (on the phone) when he is trying to do his job, and gets everything straightened out in the end. A nuclear bomb has been smuggled into the United States, and is somewhere in the Los Angeles area. Lynne Kresge, a trustworthy and loyal senior adviser to now-President David Palmer works with the not-so-loyal Chief of Staff, Mike Novick, to unravel the plot behind this imminent nuclear attack. In the process, they find out that NSA Chief Roger Stanton is involved with this plot, and President Palmer has him tortured, to reveal information about it. To further complicate things, Sherry Palmer, the now-former wife of the now-former Senator, turned President, comes back, warning her ex-husband of an inside plot to undermine his administration. ... (Tonight's two episodes just ended (it's about 12 after 9 PM, central time), so I guess I am no longer racing the clock (to post this entry, I mean). I have some other things to take care of now, regarding our CPAC situation. [continued] ...But this Hillary-type figure is someone who cannot be trusted; while impressing her ex-husband with her research skills and effeciency, she is soon shown to be collaborating with the treasonous NSA Chief. They had worked with a renegade U.S. military division - the Coral Snake group - who are actually, I think working to prevent the CTU from stopping the Islamic terrorists from detonating the nuclear bomb, or something like that. It's so darn confusing... Anyway, once the nuclear bomb is found, it is unable to be disarmed, without detonating it. So with less than an hour before it is scheduled to go off (at the LA airport!), someone has to transport the nuke to a location where it would cause the least amount of damage. [For some reason,] no military plane was available, so another small plane had to be used, to lift the nuke to the location the President and his Cabinet chose, which ended up being a spot between mountains in the Mojave Desert. However, due to the precision needed for the drop, a human pilot is necessary for this - whoever drops the nuke would have to give his life. When speaking to President Palmer, Jack Bauer tells him that he already has several volunteers. In reality however, there were no volunteers; Jack Bauer was planning on dropping the nuke himself! George Mason, who was, until earlier that day, the head of CTU, tries to convince Jack to allow him to do this mission instead. Mason had been at the CTU headquarters when it was bombed earlier that morning (I left that out, above), and was expected to be dead the following day, due to the radiation exposure, symptoms of which he had been exhibiting all day. (He first tried to hide them, and stayed on as long as he could as CTU head, before he finally gave up (shorlty before all this was going on at the airport), and turned over control to Tony Almeida.) Because of the symptoms that he was experiencing, and the detailed precision required for dropping this bomb, Jack told Mason that he would be unfit for the mission (despite the fact that he [Mason] was going to be dead by the following day anyway). So when Jack was on the plane, transporting the nuke to the secluded desert location, it appears that he is going to be dead within half an hour or so. His daughter, who has no cell phone of her own [boy, that would have helped her out that day a lot, wouldn't it have?... Perhaps she had lost it in the commotion] borrowed one, and called CTU headquarters, who put her through to her father. Jack informed her that he was giving his life for this mission. Kim is devastated. So are the viewers of this show, thinking that the hero Jack Bauer (played by Kiefer Sutherland) will be dead soon. But for those of us who've seen the 3rd season already, we may have been confused... If he is around for the next season, then how could he get out of dying in this scenario? [Especially since he is on a plane with a nuclear bomb, that's set to go off in like 20 minutes...] I know I've already included a number of spoilers above, but I'm going to stop this here. I will say that after the nuclear weapon is successfully set off in the remote location, a recording turns up, which contains a conversation between Syed Ali, the terrorist leader responsible for the bomb plan, at a meeting in Cyprus, with key ministers from "three Middle Eastern countries." It sounds kind of odd when this issue is mentioned throughout the remainder episodes... They keep saying "three Middle Eastern countries," but never say the names. I guess that's what you have to do, with this type of program. There is speculation that the plot of this season may be symbolically linked to the post-9/11 policies of our government, and that the mention of "three Middle Eastern countries" could be a reference to the nonsensical "Axis of Evil" (though one of those countries wasn't Middle Eastern). Especially inspiring is the end of this season, in which Jack Bauer and Sherry Palmer, after almost capturing the evidence proving that the Cyprus recording is fake, but losing it to tragedy, are able to quickly gather new evidence, just in the nick of time to stop what would have been a horrible war. Friday, January 06, 2006
Update (1/10/06): At the bottom of this entry, I mentioned a fundraising request for myself and fellow students at my university (re: trying to get to CPAC - our need for donations). Here is the fundraising letter that I sent out last week, and my previous blog entry here has the relevant information as well. I just saw that CPAC now has its agenda posted at the website. I really, really, really hope that we're able to attend. Please try to help us out; every little bit helps, and I can guarantee you that your contributions will be put to good use. Thanks! [Aakash, popping back in again...] So I've been told that tonight is actually still Christmas (for the next few minutes... or for the next couple of hours, where my guest blogger is). In any case, I think that I should say something about this, due to how swamped I've been these past couple of weeks. To all my readers, and everyone else in the Blogosphere: Merry Christmas to you and yours!! I have saved an entry below, as a draft, to insert some pertinent items for this occasion, but I will right now link to my writings from Christmases past. From last year (Christmastime 2004): - Do they know it's Christmastime at all? - Merry Christmas - The Grinch that Moved Into the White House From Christmastime 2003: - Holiday Angst - Christmas Continued... - Christmas Wishes (article at Watchblog) - Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!! From Christmastime 2002: - Merry Christmas!! - Merry Christmas... Eve!! (Good material here...) With regards to the spirit of giving, I was wanting to post something here yesterday about how I had gotten most (though not quite all) of my incomplete coursework finished, but had to quickly pen a fundraising letter, to coincide with the closure of Independence Airlines. For the important info about this, see my last entry below, and please help us out, if you can. (I think that if this works out, I deserve to be picked as one of those "CPAC Bloggers" - If not, then we'll do it unofficially. :-)  |
