The Art of War and The Last Airbender

I finished watching Avatar: The Last Airbender series right around the time that I was reading The Art of War by Sun Tzu.

If the Fire Nation would've followed Sun Tzu's advice, they'd have been victorious a long, long time ago — before the return of the Avatar. Good thing they didn't.

Sun Tzu advised swift, efficient battles to make an effective war.

"There is no instance of a country having benefited from a prolonged warfare." & "Let your object be victory and not lengthy campaigns."

Also the Fire Nation's sovereign was not the one imbued with the Moral Law, although that country had the greater general, a stronger army, and more discipline. However, the Fire Nation and Team Avatar (as Sokka calls them) did have an equal advantage of having trained men, and greater constancy of reward and punishment. These indicators were how Sun Tzu could said he could predict victory or defeat.

So who is Sun Tzu? No one really knows. He is a legend like unto Robin Hood or King Arthur, his history written centuries after he lived, and he was most likely a member of a clan expert in arms and fighting. He is attributed with being a general and assigned training duties for his sovereign.

"Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting."
"If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the result of a 100 battles."

During much of the first part of the series, Aang is trying to find himself, learning how to be the Avatar. He often comes into contact with the enemy through Prince Zuko or his sister, Azula. He also has traveled to the fire nation.

Sokka exemplifies Sun Tzu's advise on planning and stratagem. He uses his mini-vacation to go to the Library! so he can learn how to defeat the fire nation. He's usually making plans to rescue people, prepare the invasion and learns how to be a master swordsman.
He takes to heart the advice of Sun Tzu: "Ponder and deliberate before you make a move."

To be victorious, Sun Tzu says there are five essentials:
• He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight. — Like Team Avatar did by planning the Invasion when the Fire Nation would be weakened; retreating when they realized victory wasn't at hand.
• He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces. — Like Team Avatar did by dealing with Prince Zuko & Azula as well as Jet and his gang.
• He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout its ranks. — Like Team Avatar regained after Katara, who had expressed disapproval of Toph's scams, seeks to help her on one last one. Or when Katara & Sokka rekindled their siblingness after traveling through the great divide.
• He will win, who prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared. — Like Team Avatar was forced to do after a failure, and regrouped to help Aang overcome a fear of firebending.
• He will win who has military capacity and is not interfered with by the sovereign. — Like Team Avatar overcame by restoring peace to the Earth kingdom capital, and by not having the parents of Team Avatar get in the way of their plans.

Learning all this throughout their experiences of air-, water-, earth- and fire-bending; Team Avatar knows the Art of War. Plus, having a flying bison on your side is always a plus.

" I'm just a guy with a boomerang, I didn't ask for any of this flying and magic!" — Sokka
Sokka could write his own treatise on war and fighting.
"In order to take out the Fire Lord- or in this case, the Melon Lord- our timing has to be perfect. First, Suki and I will draw his fire. Then, Katara and Zuko charge in with some liquidy-hot offense. And while the Melon Lord is distracted, Aang swoops in and... BAM! He delivers the final blow."

The Best Superbowl Commercial

Ok, aside from Sheldon making an appearance, the best 2010 Superbowl Commercial goes to Betty White in her performance in a Snicker's advertisement.



Runners up goes to Budweiser Bridge commercial and Doritos dog commercial

What I've Been Listening To Recently Part 1

Here's some songs I've listened to recently, most have been through NPR's music site, but some were sent to me and others discovered over the Internet.

Small Mountain by Midlake



Got Nuffin by Spoon


Lost and Found by Phoenix


The High Road by Broken Bells


My Girls by Animal Collective


I and Love and You by the Avett Brothers

To be continued ...

28 Years Later

It's my birthday, I'm another year older (and some could argue wiser). Happy Birthday to me!

I turn 28 today and I was born in '82; pretty cool huh?

He Li Pb = my birthdate (well subtract the 19' cause everyone's got that).

Felix Mendelssohn was born on this date:

It's also the Day the Music Died:

Julia Child

I just finished watching Julie & Julia. A fun movie to watch --- too bad I couldn't have tasted some of the recipes as they looked delicious to eat.

But I did find her crepe recipe online a while back and it's great. So here it is for y'all to enjoy.

Julia Child Crepes

1 c flour
2/3 c. milk
2/3 c. cold water
3 large eggs
1/4 tsp salt
3T butter

Combine all ingredients in blender or bowl until smooth. Refrigerate for 30 minutes; brush pan with melted butter. Cook for about a minute until brown.

And enjoy eating them!

Everything That Rises Must Converge

I chose to read the short story collection "Everything That Rises Must Converge" by Flannery O'Connor because of this scene from Lost. This is from last year's season finale, where we see Jacob influencing the lives of some of the characters. This scene is where Locke was pushed out the building by Mr. Cooper.

It's no coincidence that Jacob is reading this book during this scene. Ms. O'Connor's characters often met a violent death or there was familial discontent in her stories. If not death, characters experienced an emotional destruction or sometimes the stories ended in both

Hatred, guilt, prejudice and pride are central themes to her stories. Often there is a character who is seen as a racist by another character, but it often turns out that the other character was no less prejudiced than the one they perceive as racist.

Most of the short story Everything That Rises Must Converge" takes place upon a bus, where a son is accompanying his mother to a weight-loss class. The son wants to show his mother that her notions of race are old-fashioned and sits by a black man. Here's a short conversation between mother and son:

JULIAN: "True culture is in the mind, the mind"
MOTHER: "It's in the heart and in how you do things and how you do things is because of who you are."
JULIAN: "Nobody in the damn bus cares who you are."
MOTHER: "I care who I am"

Later Julian tells his mother that she isn't who she thinks she is.

In another story, a mother with two sons who don't care about the family farm are juxtaposed against a black farm worker's two sons who are trying to make a go of their own farm. The mother wished once that her sons were the farm worker's sons and her sons were his. But the idea of having her sons be black was too horrible a thought for her.

The short story The Enduring Chill doesn't in end death, although the whole time the main character thinks that he is going to die because of his illness. He moves back home from New York to die from his illness and is annoyed by anything his mother does.

Here's a good description of Asbury:

"When people think they are smart — even when they are smart — there is nothing anybody else can say to make them see things straight, and with Asbury, the trouble was that in addition to being smart, he had an artistic temperament. She did not know where he had got it from because his father, who was a lawyer and businessman and farmer and politician all rolled into one, had certainly had his feet on the ground; and she had certainly always had hers on it."

One thing her characters are not are apathetic. Most of them feel something, more often than not hate or a very strong dislike for another character.

She wrote this collection during her illness before she died, and the collection was published posthumously.

O'Connor is quoted as saying that she wrote stories about grace.

"Part of the difficulty of all this is that you write for an audience who doesn't know what grace is and don't recognize it when they see it. All my stories are about the action of grace on a character who is not very willing to support it, but most people think of these stories as hard, hopeless, brutal, etc."

That can be seen at the ending of Everything That Rises Must Converge, when Julian's mother is dying and he, seeing the folly of his ways on the bus, does everything he can to get help to her.

It ends

"The lights drifted farther away from the faster he ran and his feet moved numbly as if they carried him nowhere. The tide of darkness seemed to sweep him back to her, postponing from moment to moment his entry into the world of guilt and sorrow."

Next month is two selections: Stiff by Mary Roach and The Art of War by Sun Tzu

First New Recipe of the Year

Spinach, Bacon and Sweet Potato Salad

This recipe came from a Runner's World magazine I read back last fall. I finally got around to making it this week. It turned out really good.

Recipe:
2 sweet potatoes, peeled cut into pieces
1/4 c olive oil; salf and black pepper
2 slices of bacon
1 red bell pepper, cored and chopped
1 small red onion, halved and thinly sliced
1 T fresh ginger
1 tsp ground cumin
Juice from 1 orange
1 pound fresh spinach.

"Preheat the oven to 400°F. Put potatoes on a baking sheet, drizzle with two tablespoons of the oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper; toss to coat.
Roast, turning occasionally, until crisp and brown outside and tender inside, about 30 minutes. Remove and keep on the pan until ready to use.
While potatoes cook, put bacon in a stainless steel or other nonreactive skillet and turn heat to medium. Cook, turning once or twice, until crisp. Drain on paper towels and pour off fat, leaving darkened bits in the pan. Put back on medium heat; add remaining oil to the pan.
When hot, add bell pepper, onion, and ginger to the pan. Cook, stirring once or twice until just softened, about five minutes; stir in cumin and bacon (broken into pieces). Stir in orange juice and turn off heat. (The recipe can be made up to an hour or so ahead to this point. Gently warm dressing again before proceeding.) Put spinach in a bowl large enough to comfortably toss the salad. Add the potatoes and warm dressing. Toss to combine. Serves four."

For other Runners World recipes go to http://www.runnersworld.com/topic/0,7122,s6-242-303-0-0,00.html