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Missile Defense

Russian military leaders have expressed concern about US plans for a national missile defense system. Will defense technology be limited by possibilities for a strategic imbalance? Is this just SDI all over again?

lunarchick - 04:35pm Sep 22, 2001 EST (#9667 of 9706)
lunarchick@www.com

Showalter you've put characters from literature on the stand and asked how would they think, what would they do?

Thinking back to a post that was recently cut.

I'll ask what business was the real Walt Disney in.

?? How did he think. What did he do. How did he do it. What was his audience. Who and Where were his followers. Why did he do it. And why at a certain age do his once devotees forsake him?

How would the spirit of Walt Disney deal with the current crisis. How would the fairy tale be shaped to end?

rshowalter - 04:38pm Sep 22, 2001 EST (#9668 of 9706)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I can easily think up both a happy and a terrible ending.

lunarchick - 04:40pm Sep 22, 2001 EST (#9669 of 9706)
lunarchick@www.com

Disney 1941

"Once a man has tasted freedom he will never be content to be a slave. That is why I believe that this frightfulness we see everywhere today is only temporary. Tomorrow will be better for as long as America keeps alive the ideals of freedom and a better life. All men will want to be free and share our way of life. There must be so much that I should have said, but haven't. What I will say now is just what most of us are probably thinking every day. I thank God and America for the right to live and raise my family under the flag of tolerance, democracy and freedom."

rshowalter - 04:44pm Sep 22, 2001 EST (#9670 of 9706)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Disney would have storyboarded both - - done one as an "imaginary" sequence - - the other real.

The terrible ending would be the end of the world - - and it could have a secular or a religious interpretation.

In the secular interpretation, a stupid set of mistakes, that could have been adressed, but wasn't, could culminate in some actions based on hatred, and others based on incompetence. Nukes would go off like a string of firecrackers (they really could) and that would end the world.

In the religious interpretation, a God who could not intervene in every fine scale interaction in the world, or chose not to, who had to let people act themselves, would have given mankind a lot of chances. For centuries and thousands of years. And then simply decided that, after enough stupidity and ugliness, it was time for the world to end.

Both those interpretations bother me.

lunarchick - 04:45pm Sep 22, 2001 EST (#9671 of 9706)
lunarchick@www.com

Endings are shaped and crafted. There are rules. Characters have roles. There's polar thinking - re the side of right, the side of wrong. rshowalter 9/22/01 4:38pm Perhaps Walt didn't venture into complexity. Perhaps he stayed always 'the boy', never growing to 'the man'.

This is why 'Touchstone' was later developed. And growing out of Touchstone .. residing in a fantasy disney estate development .. possible to slip back to 'Disney' via the short circuit of a next generation, negating the need to ever grow up. To live with Tom Thumb, Pinoccio, to be a Snow White Princess - for ever.

I don't know if Disney philosophy will make him the man wrt to Infinite Justice!

rshowalter - 04:47pm Sep 22, 2001 EST (#9672 of 9706)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

For the happy ending, if I were to conjure up Disney figures, I'd think of a messianic figure, Mary Poppins, with Bert, and maybe - - (a little mixed casting here) Schwartenegger in his "Kindergarten Cop" role.

For the happy ending, looks to me like, there's have to be an insertion of some wisdom in spots. Maybe not too many.

lunarchick - 04:47pm Sep 22, 2001 EST (#9673 of 9706)
lunarchick@www.com

The ending here may be real - but far too adult rshowalter 9/22/01 4:44pm Walt would want to stick 'happy' before ending .. and then say 'everafter'.

rshowalter - 04:48pm Sep 22, 2001 EST (#9674 of 9706)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

For the happy ending, if I were to conjure up Disney figures, I'd think of a messianic figure, Mary Poppins, with Bert, and maybe - - (a little mixed casting here) Schwartenegger in his "Kindergarten Cop" role.

For the happy ending, looks to me like, there'd have to be an insertion of some wisdom in spots. Maybe not too many spots, but a few.

lunarchick - 04:48pm Sep 22, 2001 EST (#9675 of 9706)
lunarchick@www.com

So the happy ending would sit comfortably in the Maslow heirachy of needs - rshowalter 9/22/01 4:47pm - right!?

lunarchick - 04:52pm Sep 22, 2001 EST (#9676 of 9706)
lunarchick@www.com

Pulling this back to current world system then ... one might figure out where there are deficiencies regarding need - working with .

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