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Qassem Soleimani: A Man of Revolution, Victory and Martyrdom
Mohamad Zreik
"In the eyes of the enemy, the martyr Qassem Soleimani is more dangerous than General Qassem Soleimani." On the second anniversary of Qassem Soleimani's assassination, the Supreme Leader of the Iranian Revolution, Ali Khamenei, used these words to characterize the commander of the Quds Brigade of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
Since his early youth, Soleimani has been pursuing a life of combat and resistance. The Iranian leader has been present in the majority of conflicts in the Middle East. As a member of the Iranian revolution, Soleimani fought against Israel and Islamic factions in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, and Yemen.
At the beginning of 2020, the Trump administration made the decision to eliminate Soleimani. In the Middle East, this choice is seen as a violation of red lines and the rules of the game. A few feet from Baghdad International Airport, US jets launched a missile strike on Iranian Revolutionary Guard leader Qassem Soleimani.
Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis, the deputy leader of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Authority, and Soleimani were all killed in the attack. The martyred Qassem Soleimani made his mark on many thorny issues in the region and lent his considerable talents to the projects' success.
Qassem Soleimani founded the "41 Vengeance of God" Brigade in 1980 during the Iran-Iraq war when he was in his early twenties. Prior to becoming the commander of the Quds Force in 1998, he served as the Revolutionary Guards commander in Kerman, Iran's border province with Afghanistan, in the 1990s.
Despite his lack of military training, the commander has spent the last 40 years in the field, moving from one front to the other. Soleimani has been accompanied by Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and the martyr Imad Mughniyeh in the southern suburbs of Beirut during the 2006 war.
The United States imposed sanctions on him because of his growing military power and popularity with Iranians and peoples who are resistant to American influence, especially after his main role in eliminating ISIS in Iraq and Syria and abandoning American plans for the two countries. Along with martyr Bahaa Abu al-Atta and Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Israel considered him to be one of the most dangerous figures in the world.
Soleimani was saved from assassination in October 2019 by an Arab-Israeli plot. The target of Qassem Soleimani's assassination was to bring him down. Assassinating Qassem Soleimani (and his companion, Hajj Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis), the stated goal was to thwart Hajj Qassem's plan to target American troops in Iraq and to protect American national security.
The real purpose of this assassination was to stop the escalation of the axis of resistance's strength and capabilities by removing the commander of the Quds Force, the actual mastermind and coordinator of this axis's operations against the Americans, the Israelis, and the terrorism emanating from both sides of the conflict (ISIS and its affiliates).
However, the days and facts on the ground show that there are increasing opportunities and possibilities to target American troops in the region and serious pressure to remove them, especially the Iranian targeting of Ain al-Assad base in Iraq and the targeting of American headquarters and bases with Iraqi missiles several times.
An incident revealed by former Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi confirms Iran's desire to improve ties with Riyadh. Abdul-Mahdi reported that the martyr Soleimani called him while he was in China with a government delegation and asked him to act as a mediator to begin a new chapter in relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran. After meeting with the Saudi king and crown prince, Abdul-Mahdi said that Riyadh had accepted the offer, so he asked them to write a letter to Iran, which in turn would respond to the letter. From the words of Abdul-Mahdi, it seems that the signs of a resolution of the crisis between Riyadh and Tehran were initiated by Soleimani, in his desire for unity and rapprochement, but what hindered this was his assassination.
Iran continues to confirm that the bombing of the Ain al-Assad base is nothing but a slap to the US and that deterrence continues and Iran will not give up its response to the martyrdom of Qassem Soleimani. Commander of the Quds Force, Brigadier General Ismail Qaani, has revealed the nature of Iranian power, when he mentioned that Iran's response may be in their own backyard.
The Iranians urged the expulsion of US forces from the region. Baghdad is in a state of emergency as attacks on U.S. interests in Iraq intensify, and it appears that a confrontation is not too far off. When it comes to Trump's claim that "the world is better now that Qassem Soleimani is gone," and the subsequent evaluation of this statement, is it really better now?"
Related Topics:DefenseIranUSA
There is Merit in Creating A New Country of the Maghreb Nations
Qatar, like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, but unlike Kuwait, cleanses its textbooks
Mohamad Zreik is an independent researcher, doctor of international relations. His areas of research interests are related to the Foreign Policy of China, Belt and Road Initiative, Middle Eastern Studies, China-Arab relations, East Asian Affairs, Geopolitics of Eurasia, and Political Economy. Mohamad has many studies and articles published in high ranked journals and well-known international newspapers. His writings have been translated into many languages, including French, Arabic, Spanish, German, Albanian, Russian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, etc.
Iran: A major Replacement of Human Resources
Amer Ababakr
Since 1979, when the mullahs seized power, Iran has topped the list of countries affected by the "brain drain". What appeared to be local bleeding at the time may now become total bleeding affecting other sectors of the population.
The headline of one of the stories in the official news agency, IRNA, was: "It is not only the elite that migrate." The daily newspaper, Javan, affiliated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, warned that Iran was losing some of its best-educated people, and stated that mass immigration of "elite elements" "costs the nation millions of dollars." But immigration now attracts Iranians with less skills or devoid of skills.
According to the best semi-official estimates, since 1979 some eight million people, roughly 10 percent of the population, have left Iran, including an estimated 4.2 million highly educated and highly skilled people.
In the past four years, the brain drain has accelerated, with an average of 4,000 doctors leaving each year.
According to IRNA, at present, 30,000 general practitioners and senior nurses are awaiting the "good professional standing" certificates that developed countries require from those wishing to immigrate from so-called "developing countries", such as Iran.
A study conducted by two researchers from the University of Tehran, Adel Abdullah and Maryam Rezaei, showed that almost all Iranians who immigrate seek to enter the European Union or the so-called "Anglosphere" countries such as Britain, Canada, the United States, New Zealand and Australia.
Only 10 percent of potential immigrants are willing to go "anywhere else" to get out of Iran.
The immigration requests did not include a single request who wanted to go to a Muslim country, and the only exception is Iraq, which attracts thousands of Iranian mullahs and students of theology who go to Najaf and Karbala to escape the government's domination of religion in Tehran.
Potential immigrants also avoid China, India and Russia, while the only two Asian countries still attracting Iranians are Malaysia and Japan.
For many potential immigrants, the first destination they want to go to is Dubai, then Istanbul, then Cyprus and until recently Yerevan (the capital of Armenia), where visas are being applied for to desired destinations. Some immigrants may have to wait two or three years to obtain visas from the European Union, Canada and the United States.
Who migrates and why?
Some of the answers came from a three-year study conducted by Sharif University (Ariamher) in Tehran. According to the study, a survey of 17,078 people across all 31 provinces of Iran showed that 70 percent of senior managers and highly skilled employees in the public sector wish to immigrate.
In the projects and businessmen sector, 66 percent expressed their desire to emigrate. This figure drops to 60 percent among doctors, nurses and other medical personnel.
The study shows that the majority of potential immigrants are highly educated, unmarried youth from urban areas, i.e. the higher the education of the individual, the greater the desire to leave.
Among those who express "dissatisfaction with the current situation," 43 percent of them want to leave the country. This figure drops to 40 percent among those who feel "great satisfaction", which reveals that the desire to leave is deeper than occasional social and political concerns, which is confirmed by other figures in the same study.
Of those who felt "despairing about the future in Iran," 42 percent want to leave, a figure that drops to 38 percent among those who still have some hope for the country's future.
The study shows that the desire to flee Iran is not caused by economic hardship as a result of unemployment or inflation. It is not only the poor or the unemployed who wish to flee, but also those with good jobs, or candidates for well-paid jobs and a seat on the mullahs' train and their security and military partners.
The largest number of immigrants comes from the provinces of Tehran, Isfahan and Qom, where per capita income is 30 percent higher than the average income in the country. Poorer provinces such as Sistan Baluchistan, Boyer Ahmad, Koh Kiluyeh, and South Khorasan are at the bottom of the list in terms of immigrant numbers.
The study does not provide figures, but there is anecdotal evidence that tens of thousands of immigrants, especially to Canada and the United States, are descended from ruling Islamic families.
None of the studies we looked at suggested other reasons as potential attractions for immigrants, such as the great success stories of Iranian immigrants around the world. A study conducted by Nooshin Karami revealed that more than 200 politicians of Iranian origin now occupy senior positions in the political structures of 30 countries, including those of the European Union and the Anglosphere. 1000 Iranians hold senior positions in international companies, while thousands more are active in the media, scientific research and academic circles in the leading industrialized countries. Dozens of Iranian writers, poets, playwrights, and filmmakers have built successful careers for themselves outside of Iran.
At the other end of the spectrum, Iran also attracts immigrants from neighboring Iraq, from the Kurdish and Shiite Arab regions, the Nakhichevan enclave, Afghanistan and Pakistan, while hosting thousands of religious students from Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and Nigeria. Qom." According to state media, many students remain in Iran after completing their studies and marrying Iranian women.
All in all, Iran hosts more than six million "foreign guests," including Afghan, Pakistani, and Iraqi refugees. Interestingly, the desire to leave seems to have reached the "guests" as well. Between March 2021 and March 2022, more than half a million Afghan refugees returned to their homes.
To deal with the consequences of this "brain drain," the Islamic Republic unveiled a program to attract highly educated and skilled people from "anywhere in the world" with the promise of one-year contracts, good salaries, and enjoyment of "all citizenship rights except the right to vote."
An estimated 300,000 fighters who served under the Iranian command in Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen were promised permanent residence in Iran and access to agricultural land to start a new life.
Critics claim that the Khomeinist regime is pleased that so many potential opponents among the urban middle class are leaving Iran, as Iran can compensate for the loss of population with newcomers from poor Muslim countries who aspire to a better standard of living under what they see as a "true Islamic" regime.
It is worth noting that other authoritarian regimes, notably the former Soviet Union, communist China, North Korea, Vietnam, and Cuba, benefited from the exodus of what they saw as potential enemies from the middle class, allowing them to implement a scheme of "great replacement."
On this, Iranian Revolutionary Guard General Mohammad Reza Najdi said: "Let those who do not love us leave the country, to make room for those who love us."
'Saudi First' aid policy marries geopolitics with economics
Dr. James M. Dorsey
When Mohammed al-Jadaan told a gathering of the global political and business elite that Saudi Arabia would, in the future, attach conditions to its foreign aid, the finance minister was announcing the expansion of existing conditionality rather than a wholly new approach.
Coined 'Saudi First,' the new conditionality ties aid to responsible economic policies and reforms, not just support for the kingdom's geopolitics.
For the longest time, Saudi Arabia granted aid with no overt strings. The aid was policed by privately demanding support for the kingdom's policies, often using as a carrot and stick quotas for the haj, the yearly Muslim pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca allotted to countries across the globe.
As a result, over the years, Saudi Arabia poured tens of billions of dollars into black holes, countries that used the aid as a band-aid to address an immediate crisis with no structural effort to resolve underlying causes.
For countries like Lebanon, Egypt, and Pakistan, this meant stumbling from one crisis to the next.
"We are changing the way we provide assistance and development assistance. We used to give direct grants and deposits without strings attached, and we are changing that. We are working with multilateral institutions to actually say, we need to see reform," Mr. Al-Jadaan told this month's World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos.
Saudi First serves multiple Saudi purposes.
It ties geopolitical drivers of Saudi aid to economic criteria that are likely to enhance the kingdom's influence, create opportunities for Saudi investment and business, and enhance the kingdom's ties to recipient countries.
In doing so, the additional conditionality positions the kingdom as a constructive, forward-looking member of the international community. It aligns Saudi Arabia more closely with multilateral institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), regional development banks, and major donors such as the United States and the European Union.
It also enables Saudi rulers to circumvent the implications of the principle of 'no taxation without representation' that traces its roots to the American revolution.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's social and economic revamping of the kingdom while tightening the political screws as part of his plan to diversify the kingdom's economy has involved introducing taxes with no political participation.
"Saudi people see their resources going abroad while they're being asked to pay taxes, have their benefits cut, and so on. So, I think this Saudi first stance really serves as a way to both court and contain populism," said Gulf scholar Kristin Smith Diwan.
Saudi circumvention of the American revolutionary principle, irrespective of whether it helps pacify Saudis, has already had unintended consequences.
Earlier this week, the Jordanian parliament fired a deputy, Mohammad Al-Fayez, for asking Mr. Bin Salman to stop aiding Jordan.
"All your aid lands in the pockets of the corrupt. Your donations pay bills that have nothing to do with the Jordanian people. We hear about aid coming in for the state. However, this aid only goes to a corrupt class that is getting richer at the expense of the proud Jordanian people," Mr. Al-Fayez said in a letter to the crown prince.
The Jordanian parliament's measure coincided with the Saudi finance minister's announcement. Mr. Al-Fayez wrote his letter in December at the height of clashes in the southern city of Maan between security forces and protesters angry about rising fuel prices and poor governance.
Countries like Lebanon, Pakistan, and Egypt that are potentially most impacted by the new conditions for Saudi aid illustrate the geopolitical complexities of the change.
For Saudi Arabia, Lebanon is about countering Iran and its Lebanese Shiite proxy, Hezbollah, a powerful militia and political movement with significant influence in government and the country's power structure.
Saudi Arabia hopes that the new conditionality will force a change in Lebanon's power dynamics.
"The whole world knows what the kingdom offered Lebanon…until it…was back on its feet. But what can we do if current Lebanese policy chooses to surrender the reins of an ancient Arab nation to Iran's proxy in that country?" asked Saudi columnist Hammoud Abu Taleb.
To be sure, the Lebanese establishment is responsible for the country teetering on the brink of collapse.
The World Bank has described the crisis fuelled by corruption, waste, and unsustainable financial policies as one of the worst globally since the mid-19th century.
This week's judicial battle over holding powerful figures accountable for the 2020 Beirut port explosion that has spilled onto the streets of the Lebanese capital reflects the establishment's determination to shield itself no matter the cost to Lebanon as a whole.
The explosion in a warehouse in the port housing hundreds of tons of ammonium nitrate, a material used in fertilizers, killed 218 people, injured more than 6,000, and damaged large parts of Beirut.
A Saudi contribution to forcing political change, a sine qua non for putting Lebanon on a path toward recovery, would be welcome.
It would also go some way towards the kingdom taking responsibility for its role in fighting a decades-long proxy war with Iran that helped bring the Mediterranean nation to its knees.
That is, if the conditions imposed by Saudi Arabia are tailored in ways that contribute to change while seeking to alleviate the pain the Lebanese endured, with the Lebanese pound losing 95% of its value, prices skyrocketing, and purchasing power demolished.
One way would be making accountability for the Beirut blast a condition for future aid.
Recent Saudi standoffishness towards the regime of Egyptian general-turned-president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, was evident in the kingdom's conspicuous absence at a gathering of regional leaders in Abu Dhabi earlier this month. Mr. Al-Sisi was one of the attendees.
The standoffishness reflects the fact that Egypt is a black hole. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and other Gulf states have injected tens of billions of dollars with few tangible results except for keeping in power a regime that emerged from a 2013 military coup supported by the kingdom and the Emirates.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE backed the coup as part of a campaign to roll back the achievements of the 2011 popular Arab revolts that toppled four leaders, including Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
The coup also ended the flawed presidency of Mohammed Morsi, Egypt's first and only democratically elected leader. Because he was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mr. Morsi was like a red cloth to a bull in the two Gulf states.
The UAE recognised early on that it needed to ensure its billions were judiciously deployed. So it based a Cabinet-level official in Cairo to advocate reforms and assist in crafting policies that would help put the economy back on track.
The Emirati effort came to naught, with Egypt continuously needing additional funds from the Gulf and the IMF, and the UAE, allowing Mr. Al-Sisi to turn the military into the country's foremost economic player.
The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war on commodity and energy prices only aggravated Egypt's economic crisis that is largely the result of Mr. Al-Sisi's economic mismanagement
Mr. Al-Sisi unsuccessfully tried to manipulate Egypt's currency, set misguided spending priorities, launched wasteful megaprojects, and expanded disruptive state and military control of the economy.
Time will tell what lessons the Saudis may learn from the Emirati experience. Unlike Lebanon, the question is whether Saudi Arabia will strictly impose its news aid policy conditionality or continue to view Egypt as too big to fail.
The problem for Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states is that popular discontent is simmering just below the surface in Egypt and could explode at any time. What makes things potentially more volatile is the possibility of the plight of the Palestinians, aggravated by the policies of Israel's new hardline, Jewish nationalist government, becoming the catalyst for anti-government protests.
"Such demonstrations have a life of their own, and in a moment, they can turn into a protest against the government, against poverty and waste, and we have a direct confrontation whose results can be lethal," said an Egyptian journalist.
One factor in Saudi thinking about Egypt may be the perception that the North African country, which refused to get sucked into the kingdom's war in Yemen, may no longer be the security buffer in Africa it once was together with Sudan, a country in transition following a 2019 popular revolt.
That seemed to be one reason for this month's signing of a memorandum on defence cooperation between Saudi Arabia and Chad, a nation in a region wracked by ethnic and jihadist insurgencies.
The memorandum signals a potential Saudi interest in playing some security role in West Africa at a time that France is on the retreat while Turkey, Iran, and the Wagner Group, Russian mercenaries with close ties to President Vladimir Putin, are on the march.
Last year, Qatar mediated a peace agreement between the Chadian government and more than 30 rebel and opposition factions. However, nine groups, including the Front for Change and Concord in Chad (FACT), the most powerful insurgent faction, refused to sign the deal.
The likelihood of Saudi Arabia taking on an expanded security role far from its shores may be slim in the immediate future.
Even so, creating building blocks that include tighter relations with recipients of Saudi foreign aid through sensible strings attached is one step towards cementing the kingdom's geopolitical influence.
Syed Inam Ali Naqvi
In this photo released by Saudi Press Agency (SPA), Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, right, greets President Joe Biden, with a fist bump after his arrival in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Friday, July 15, 2022. (Saudi Press Agency via AP)
Amid the Ukraine crisis, Riyadh's policy towards Washington took a bitter shift. The years-long loyalty of Riyadh towards Washington began to tremble. The Riyadh did not condemn Moscow's attack on Kyiv, nor it fulfilled the Washington's expectations by refusing to OPEC Plus' decision of not increasing the oil production. Whether Moscow's valiant attempt of opening war against Kyiv, against the will of Washington and NATO, inspired the KSA to take an unpredictable position or Riyadh's policy shift is owing to its economic and strategic interests, it is quite debatable. This shift not only triggered the minds of researchers worldwide but also caused Biden's eyebrows to rise. In addition, Riyadh also showed its willingness to join BRICS. In case, Riyadh joins BRICS to ensure its economic and strategic interests; it will challenge the supremacy of petro-dollar, as Saudi Arabia is one of the largest oil exporters. As a whole, it will affect US economy drastically, hence posing serious threats to the Washington-led Global Order.
The wake of the Ukraine war wreaked havoc throughout the globe by destabilizing the global economy. Moreover, this eruption of the conflict increased food and energy insecurity vertically and horizontally. Being a global leader, Washington stepped forward to discourage Moscow and compelled it to withdraw its troops from Kyiv. As a result, Moscow decided to cut off the energy supply to the west. This was just an initiation of the devastation. The clash of interests between Moscow and Washington led to the American use of so-called institutional power, freezing Moscow's assets. Contrarily, Moscow's denial to supply energy gave rise to energy insecurity caused by the rising oil and gas prices. Following the primacy doctrine, the global hegemon America took the responsibility to curb this energy insecurity leading to global economic instability. Continuing the long tradition, Washington intended to exercise the influence on the Middle Eastern partners KSA and UAE to supply the energy resources abundantly to fill the energy supply and demand gap.
This time the results were unpredictable, as both of these states defied to enhance their energy production. The unprecedented stance of the Saudi Monarch was to comply with OPEC Plus' decision to decrease production and increase the prices of energy products. This denial of Riyadh was taken as a serious gesture by Washington. It was perceived that Riyadh's refusal was a gesture for having goodwill for Russia, consequently creating the situation of "Either you are with us or against us." In other terms, we may conclude that it was a shift in loyalties.
The whole debate revolves around the question, "Whether Riyadh's policy has strength to shake the foundations of prevailing Washington led global order or not?" Is the global order a volatile structure to be transformed so easily just by shifting a policy of one state, or does this policy shift have some potential challenges? Before directly coming to the horror impacts of this policy, we should better discuss the worth of energy security and its irrefutable importance for the stable global economic system. If the fuel prices aren't lowered, it will halt or lower the industrial processes of major industrialized states, including the U.S., consequently drastically affecting the states' GDP and Per capita income. The vulnerabilities in economic position will surely lead to chaos and internal instability.
The other facet of this debate, "Whether Riyadh is shifting towards Russia or not? Is Russia capable enough to serve the strategic interests of Riyadh? If not, then what does this policy shift mean?" The ultimate strategic interests of Riyadh always centered on attaining regional hegemony by countering Tehran. At the same time, Moscow is already enjoying better diplomatic ties with Tehran. Moscow will adopt a balanced approach between Riyadh and Tehran. Contrarily, there may be some possibilities of extension of this Riyadh-Moscow cooperation from energy to Economic and military cooperation because Russia is capable of providing the defense technology to Riyadh but unable to provide security in the region. Most importantly, Washington's institutional hold can be used against Riyadh. These threats still can restrict Riyadh from standing up with Moscow.
The other important frontier of this debate is KSA's willingness to join BRICS. As the world's largest oil exporter, Saudi Arabia has played a central role in the Petrodollar system. The country has used its vast oil reserves to maintain a strong influence on the global economy and has largely adhered to the practice of only selling oil in exchange for U.S. dollars. This has helped to ensure the continued global demand for U.S. dollars and has contributed to the dollar's status as the dominant global currency. One potential outcome is that Saudi Arabia and other BRICS countries could agree to use a different currency for oil trade, such as the Chinese yuan or a new currency specifically for use by BRICS countries. This could lead to a decrease in global demand for U.S. dollars and potentially negatively affect the U.S. economy.
Saudi Arabia's recent policy shift towards BRICS and Russia has raised questions about the stability of the current global order, particularly about the stability of Petro-dollars and global energy security. While it is debatable whether the shift is motivated by economic or strategic interests, it is clear that this move is a serious concern for the United States and has the potential to impact the contemporary Washington-led global order significantly. It remains to be seen whether Saudi Arabia will follow through with its potential decision to join the BRICS group and how this will affect its relationships with other countries, particularly Russia and the United States. In a nutshell, major global order changes are expected to occur if Saudi Arabia joins BRICS because it will affect the supremacy of Petro-dollars and consequently lead to the decline in U.S. economic power.


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Posts tagged "Teenagers"
I Know What You Did Last Summer / Star Trek Novels
On the magic Summer's night of high school's end, Julie, Helen, Ray and Barry get into Barry's new Beamer and drive out to celebrate, their lives and hopes before them. But on the road they have a terrible accident; hit and kill a man. In the shock and panic that follows, they dump the body in the sea rather than reporting the accident. As the body sinks, the hand of the dead man breaks the surface in a last grasp at life, then disappears into the murky depths. The four friends realise they are now guilty of murder and swear to take their secret to their graves. But now someone is stalking them, someone who knows who they are, knows what they did last Summer, and seeks revenge…
1997 – Certificate: 15 – American Film
Recently I've been reading a lot of books. Not just any old book though, but Star Trek books. (This is cue for you to both yawn and go find something else to do, or think this is the best thing, ever. I don't mind which you choose; after all, not everyone mentally and emotionally matures at the same speed.) So anyway, for those of you who have matured sufficiently… I'll admit that in the past I've flirted a little with Star Trek novels and Star Trek audiobooks. (I must confess that I especially love the minimal effort the latter take to enjoy and that I can do other things at the same time, like drive or go to sleep. What's not so good is the limited range of titles available, their cost and the fact that most have been greatly abridged.) Star Trek was always as much about the relationships between the characters, as the 'blowing things up' stuff. If it sometimes tries too hard to project a perfect version of America as itself, then I can forgive it that. Most of these stories were based somewhere in the known Star Trek timeline, generally between this episode or that episode, or occasionally kind of outside it. Following the release of "Star Trek: Nemesis" a void opened up, one as large as the universe itself. The Star Trek reboot, whilst brilliant in its own way, can never hope to fill this space; it's simply the wrong shape, size and timeline. This void is empty except for one thing, a single Question; what happened to everyone? The novels from this period are generally really entertaining and exciting, well written and treat 'known' Star Trek history with the appropriate level of respect and consistency. However, they don't answer that Question. Then in May 2001, "Avatar" was published, a story written and set after the end of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine". Over next few years more books came out that did a similar thing and were set after the various TV series and then finally Nemesis itself. Suddenly we could have answers to the Question. Of course not everyone likes how future history is working out and what's happened or happening to all those characters we travelled with for so long, but I'm finding the experience to be wonderfully entertaining. No longer hemmed in by 'official' history or the limitations of TV or film productions, the books set in the period after Nemesis are able to chart their own way forward, taking the Star Trek story further into the future. They also do a pretty good job of maintaining their internal consistency from one to the next and between different authors. This makes it feel like they're all part of one, giant story arc, rather than just random tales. I've just finished reading the "Destiny" trilogy. This does fundamental things with the Star Trek universe that would have taken a whole series on TV to do justice to them, as well as a sizable special effects budget. For anyone who hasn't taken the plunge and started to read these books, I'd fully recommend you find the time to do so. I wish I could write stories… This film was the first part of a trilogy. I think that's about as far as I can push the comparison.
This movie initially worried me. If someone really did know what I did last summer, then it was likely to be a totally over the top erotic thriller, with elements of horror, science-fiction and comedy mixed in with it. (Although I must admit I was curious to see who was playing me in it.) In the end it turned out to be a teen horror with Buffy in it and some killer running around wearing a yellow pacamac and carrying a hook so bent I can't imagine it was easy to get it to go into anything, never mind a squealing teen. It also features the absolutely worst pretend ice cubes I've ever seen a movie; seriously, they don't even sound like ice. And it heavily features "Hush" by Kula Shaka on the soundtrack too, one of the most insipid, horrible tunes ever to be conjured into existence. It's awful. I can remember walking past the video hire shop (remember them) in Colliers Wood on a number of occasions when it first came out on VHS and seeing a big, cardboard cut-out for it in the window. (Come to think of it, it could have been for one of its two sequels, but let's ignore that possibility for now. N.B. Actually I've thought about it some more, I think it might have been an advert for the whole trilogy.) I can't recall exactly what went through my mind at the time, but I think there was a level of disappointment that suggests to me now I wasn't expecting to see it. It's weird how you can sometimes recall these random thoughts years later. I guess my disappointment must have been pretty profound. Despite all this (and more), it's actually a really good film, but I can't for the life of me work out why. Pretty enigmatic, isn't it? I think they're making a new version of it too…
The evil of Kula Shaker aside, the soundtrack is actually okay and includes songs by the Mighty Mighty Bosstones and The Offspring.
The trailer. It's better with the sound off.
Recommend for students and fisherman.
No cats, chainsaws or decapitations.
Top badass moment? Despite being an entirely obnoxious rich-boy who seemed to exist entirely for the purpose of pissing off his friends and showing his stomach muscles off to the viewer, Ray finally does the right thing and saves The Girl from The Baddie. As well as being a cliché of the first degree, this is (if it was real of course) a really badass thing to do. (However, he'd probably have been killed by Ben if it was real life, so it's just as well it's only a movie.)
I Know What You Did Last Summer at IMDB (5.6/10)
I Know What You Did Last Summer at Wikipedia
I Know What You Did Last Summer at Roger Ebert (1.0/4)
I Know What You Did Last Summer trailer at YouTube
September 28, 2014 | Categories: The Thoughts of Cactus | Tags: 1997, American Film, Anna, Audiobooks, Bridgette Wilson-Sampras, California, Car Crash, Crime, Destiny Trilogy, Fisherman, Freddie Prinze Jr. Ray Bronson, Heche, Horror, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jim Gillespie, Kevin Williamson, Lois Duncan, Murder, North Carolina, Run Over, Ryan Phillippe, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Slasher, Star Trek, Star Trek Novels, Students, Teenagers, Thriller, Trailer, Trilogy, USA | Leave a comment
The Bling Ring / My Epic Fail: Emulating William the Conqueror
In the fame-obsessed world of Los Angeles, a group of teenagers take us on a thrilling and disturbing crime-spree in the Hollywood hills. Based on true events, the group, who were fixated on a life of glamour, tracked their celebrity targets online and stole more than $3 million in luxury goods from their homes. The victims included Paris Hilton, Orlando Bloom, Rachel Bilson and Lindsay Lohan. The gang became known in the media as "The Bling Ring". Written and directed by Academy Award Winning Sofia Coppola ("Lost in Translation", "The Virgin Suicides", "Marie Antoinette"),"The Bling Ring" stars Emma Watson ("Harry Potte", "The Perks of Being a Wallflower"), Leslie Mann ("This is 40", "Knocked Up"), Taissa Farmiga, Claire Julien, Israel Broussard and Katie Chang.
Rating Details: Strong language and drug use
In an effort to bolster our fading place in the world, us Brits often like to remind others that the last person to successfully invade mainland Britain was William the Conqueror, who in 1066 shot King Harold in the eye at the Battle of Hastings. (And that's about all we actually bother to learn about the story, even though that last bit probably isn't even true either. The fact that it happened before America and much of the rest of the world had been invented, is good enough for us. ) Last week I had a chance to do something similar. (No, not shoot someone in the eye! God, do I really need to even write that?) Instead, I had a chance at fame and fortune on the south coast myself, when due to a severe lack of (and I'm putting it diplomatically) coordination at work, I found myself giving a presentation to a lot of 'important people'. (Well important in Hastings anyway.) I spent the guts of two days (including a Sunday) putting the sort of PowerPoint presentation together that really ought to be released as a stand-alone DVD for others to enjoy. Indeed, a limited cinema run wouldn't be out-of-place. It was all very stressful though; at one point I even had to order myself an Indian takeaway from the Alamin Tandoori to recover from the whole, 'creative experience'. (These things don't just come together; each slide was torn from my very soul.) So the day of the presentation arrived. In my mind I had a vision, a vision of a room full of people, many of them standing, clapping and cheering me as an environmental saviour. (A bit like Noah, but without the boat.) Sadly, the train I was travelling on broke down and I ended up arriving 20 minutes late; obviously the 40 minute, 'crappy public transport safety margin' I'd opted for wasn't up to the job. Apparently there was a "communication problem" with the train; the driver couldn't speak to the guard or something; (or Train Manager as they seem to get called these days.) Bollocks to that. How did them not being able to have a chat about last night's TV stop the wheels turning? Sitting in the train, watching three guys in orange jackets wondering about outside, the only other thing I could see was a bit of hawthorn growing nearby, as we'd got stuck in a cutting. John Lydon told us all that "Anger is an energy". I could probably have solved the world's energy crisis single-handedly such was my mood, which would have been quite ironic under the circumstances. Well, it turned out to be the fastest PowerPoint presentation I've ever given to anyone, that's for sure. Thanks to Southern Trains, my chance to become an international eco-celebrity was ruined. All I want to do is save the planet, I'm not asking for much really. Next time I'll rob a few rich people instead. It worked for Robin Hood and I'm sure I can find a few affluent bankers that no one really cares about. By a strange coincidence, this film covers a not dissimilar topic. (That's robbing the rich and famous, not inefficient pubic transport.)
Closely mirroring the real events it's based on, this movie follows the exploits of a group of celebrity obsessed teenagers, who start robbing the homes of the rich and famous. Paris Hilton, whose home they broke in to a number of times, allowed these scenes to be filmed in her house. OMG! OMG! (OMG I'm starting to talk like them now…) A whole room full of shoes? A nightclub room, complete with pole? I own six pairs of shoes, including two pairs of steel-capped boots for work. The only poles I come into contact with are the ones living near me. Not a lot seems to happen in this film. Vacuous teens are not the most exciting of people, unless you like watching them hanging out in nightclubs taking selfies and immediately posting them on Facebook. Even the break-ins are somewhat low-key and most of the time they just messed about when they got into these people's homes. Google Maps is every villain's friend. Somewhat trippy one moment and almost documentary-like at others, it's actually quite entertaining. Given that it's based on a real group of people and real crimes, the extras are especially interesting and add quite a lot to the whole story. The car crash scene works well too; it made me jump anyway. The sound is pretty good, as is the overall look of the movie and the acting. Well worth a watch. At the end I was left with two questions. Firstly, why? Secondly, it features a group of very good-looking young people, plus drink and drugs; yet there wasn't any sexual chemistry or apparent attraction between any of them, not even a little bit of tension. That's just a bit weird. I guess celebrities really do screw up your life.
Schoolboy Q, 2 Chainz, Young Jeezy, Bassnectar, Really Doe, Kid Cudi. Yep, you're right, that means it's time for a hip-hop based soundtrack. Given the nature of the movie, the music works really well.
The trailer's pretty good.
Recommended for vapid, non-celebrities and anyone who posts loads of pictures directly to their Facebook page without bothering to delete the technically crap ones (they make my eyes hurt) and doesn't see the irony in doing it in the first place. Also anyone who thinks they matter to anyone outside of their immediate family and friends. Trust me, you really don't.
Top badass moment? The scenes where they break into Paris Hilton's home were really filmed in Paris Hilton's home. She has cushions with her face on them! Really big pictures of her face. In her own home. Whatever the story behind them, that's just not normal. Seriously, it's not. It's only one step away from going to bed with a picture of yourself. Still, at least I know what to get in future as presents for 'those awkward people who have everything'. Thanks Paris! Sorting out this year's Christmas pressies for me is badass.
The Bling Ring at IMDB (5.7 / 10)
The Bling Ring at Wikipedia
The Bling Ring at Roger Ebert (2.5 / 4)
The Bling Ring trailer at YouTube
April 22, 2014 | Categories: The Thoughts of Cactus | Tags: 1066, 2013, American Film, Arrow in the Eye, Battle of Hastings, Breaking and Entering, Broken Down Train, Burglary, California, Celebrity, Celebrity Culture, Claire Julien, Crime, Drink, Drugs, Emma Watson, Facebook, Hastings, Hollywood, Invaded, Invasion, Israel Broussard, Katie Chang, King Harold, Leslie Mann, Los Angeles, Nancy Jo Sales, Nighclubs, Paris Hilton, PowerPoint, Presentation, Rich, Saving the Planet, Selfies, Sofia Coppola, Southern Trains, Stealing, Taissa Farmiga, Teenagers, The Bling Ring, Trailer, USA, William the Conqueror | 2 Comments
True Adolescents / A Simple Recipe for a 'Good Day'
At 34, struggling Seattle musician Sam (Mark Duplass, "Humpday", "The League") finds himself broke, jobless and losing touch with the person he wants to become. When his girlfriend kicks him out, he's forced to crash with his Aunt Sharon (Academy Award winner Melissa Leo, "The Fighter") and is reluctantly enlisted to take her teen son, Oliver, and his friend Jake camping. Edgy, funny and honest, Craig Johnson's film follows the trio into the rugged Pacific Northwest as unforeseen revelations and transformations force them to face adulthood. Set to a mesmerizing soundtrack featuring both emerging and established artists including Band of Horses, The Black Keys and Devendra Banhart, "True Adolescents" remind us that sometimes people need to get lost to truly find themselves.
2009 – Certificate: Not Rated – American Film
I didn't want to get up yesterday morning. It was raining outside (again), grey and unpleasant. On my journey to work, I was busy mentally congratulating myself on my meteorological forecasting skills and subsequent ability to make the journey during a break in the rain, just as it started to pour down for the last few minutes. I got soaked. It's Fair Trade Fortnight and where I work was attempting to serve free tea, coffee and breakfasts to people outside; the rain pouring off the canopy in front of the building and onto the pavement was 'intense'. Strangely, I left work at about six feeling quite upbeat. On my walk home I was wondering why, after such an unpromising start to the day, it had turned into quite a good one. I didn't really come up with anything, other than there were a number of nice, small things and a lack of bad things, which probably did the trick. A CD/DVD I'd ordered on Sunday was delivered. This was unexpectedly early. I was due to have to go and do something all day, (basically sit and observe someone delivering a training course), but the date for this has now been changed, so I had an extra day in the office and got a lot of things done that I wasn't expecting to get done. I had a nice lunch with a colleague in the cafe, something I don't often do. Someone in the office got a grant of £2,500 to do some work; we were only expecting to get a few hundred, so this was a welcome surprise. For the first time that I can remember, all eight volunteers and staff were in at the same time today; the place felt quite alive and buzzy. Someone bought a big, homemade cake in. I completed a grant claim that's been hanging about for ages and I've had loads of hassle over. I got a few other bits of outstanding work done that had been playing on my thoughts for a while. I didn't go into Tesco on the way home and buy crap for my dinner; I came home and cooked proper food instead. So there you go, my recipe for an okay day.
A thirty-something guy takes his nephew and his nephew's friend camping for a weekend. They all grow up a bit. The end. This is a decent enough film that's worth watching mainly for Mark Duplass' man-boy character, who's funny but in a believable way. The main thing that bugged me was the fact that many of the various things that happen to them, especially the two most significant ones, don't seem to get dealt will in any depth; they felt more like plot contrivances to take us towards the end, rather than big events that ought to have been considered in more detail. Shame that. It's a decent enough watch though.
This film makes much of its musical content and the main character is also a guitarist/singer in a not very good indie rock band. Unfortunately most of the music is pretty mundane. That's a shame too.
Like a lot of things, the trailer is there or thereabouts. It does a good job of not spoiling the film, but at the same time doesn't tell you a great deal about it either.
Recommended for not-famous guitarists, rubbish indie rock bands, teenage boys and kindly aunts.
Top badass moment? The two lads ask Sam if he's going to wear his hiking boots. Sam glances down at what looks like a rather battered pair of Converse baseball shoes on his feet and says, "These are my hiking boots", (with the emphasis on "are"). Yeh, that's rock 'n' roll for you! I then spent the rest of the film all tensed up, waiting for him to turn his ankle over. Weirdly, this fate befalls one of the other characters. As someone who sprained his ankle hiking a couple of years ago, I could relate to this, which makes it badass. Converse boots really aren't good for hiking.
True Adolescents at IMDB (6/0 / 10)
True Adolescents at Wikipedia
True Adolescents at YouTube
February 26, 2014 | Categories: The Thoughts of Cactus | Tags: 2009, America, American Film, Aunt, Bret Loehr, Cake, Camping, Carr Thompson, Comedy, Converse, Craig Johnson, Drama, Dumped, Fair Trade Fortnight, Forest, Gay, Grant, Grant Claim, Guitarist, Man-boy, Mark Duplass, Melissa Leo, Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, Musician, North Bend, Olympic National Park, Puyallup, Rain, Seattle, Sprained Ankle, Teenage Boys, Teenagers, Tesco, Trailer, True Adolescents, Walking Boots, Washington, Woodinville | Leave a comment
Kidulthood / Phall Curry
For 15-year-old Trife, life is a day-to-day struggle. Trapped between the worlds of his school friends, the girl he loves and the draw of his powerful and dangerous uncle, Trife must choose between the path he knows is right and a life of guns, drugs and violence that he has come to know only too well. When a classmate's suicide leaves Trife and his crew, Moony and Jay, with the day off school, the tragedy seems overshadowed by the opportunity to shop, get high, get laid and party; but in a world where sex is currency, drugs are easy and violence is a way of life, trouble can never be too far around the corner. On these streets kids grow up fast and 48 hours can be a lifetime.
2005 – Certificate: 15 – British Film
Rating Details: Strong violence, language, sex references and drug use
I haven't really enjoyed this week. It's hard to identify one particular thing that's made it a bit rubbish, it just was. It's been the sort of week where you'd spot a pound coin on the pavement, then when you've bend over to pick it up a car's driven through a nearby puddle and soaked you. To celebrate the better parts of the week and the fact that I'd got to the end of it, I decided to treat myself to an Indian takeaway. However, to also enable the latter to best reflect how things have been recently, I decided to get a vegetable phall. I really like curry, but this version is basically a few bits of vegetable with a goo made out of chillies all over it. It's virtually impossible to eat and tastes of nothing, except chillies and the inside of the Sun. It's the sort of thing guys eat when they want to try and impress other guys. (I know, how on earth did humans manage to get to the top of the food chain?) As I've got no friends and I ate it on my own, I'm not quite sure who I was trying to impress. I think it was simply a cry for help, a punishment for not being good enough at work all week. I imagine if I'd not eaten it I'd now feel obliged to roll around naked in a patch of stinging nettles instead. And I didn't win the National Lottery either. Still, things could be worse; I could live in the 'wrong' part of W11, where this film is set.
I went to school in central London. In my day we didn't have mobile phones or gangsta rap; drugs were something you took for a toothache (and in any case were always called tablets) and oral sex meant talking about it, not that we knew what 'it' really was. So films like this are really helpful in enabling me to keep myself 'street', 'happening' and 'down with the kids'; although as anyone who's a teenager now would have been about 7-years-old when it was made, I suspect things have moved on a bit since then. Eschewing the fascination that movie-makers have with the East End, south London, Camden and Hackney, this movie mostly takes place in that forgotten realm west of the West End, where only the Hammersmith & City Line dares to go. A land of council estates and old terrace housing hidden away behind the 'glamour' of Notting Hill, it's about as uncool and unfashionable as you can get. If it wasn't for Portobello Market and the nearby Carnival, it would probably hold the world record for being the most unhip and dowdy place in any capital city anywhere. In fact if you Google it, nothing comes up. Despite my trashing of the location, this is actually an excellent film; (awful title though). I'm also lucky to be gangsta enough to be able to understand what they're all saying most of the time, which is just as well because my copy didn't come with any subtitles. I haven't heard so much slang since I watched "Attack the Block".
With a soundtrack that's almost pure London hip-hop, grime and rap, it's as good (or as bad) as you think that is. Rodney Smith, Maxwell Ansah, Dylan Mills and Michael Skinner all provide parts of the soundtrack. (And if you don't know who they are then that makes you a total square.)
Recommended for ganstas, bros, crews and feds, init?
One cat, no chainsaws or decapitations. A cute grey cat makes a brief but scene-stealing appearance, jumping off a sofa and then wondering about a bit.
Top badass moment? There are plenty of small 'growing-up' badass moments scattered throughout this film, but I'm going to choose Alisa giving some home truths to the bullies on the tube. They were really horrible! Still, at least I know they're probably all junkies, prostitutes or unmarried mothers by now. I blame the parents. (When I write things like that they so make me sound so like a Tory. I'm really not, honest!)
Kidulthood at IMDB (6.5 / 10)
Kidulthood at Wikipedia
August 18, 2013 | Categories: The Thoughts of Cactus | Tags: 2005, Adam Deacon, Aml Ameen, Attack the Block, Baseball Bat, British Film, Bullying, Cat, Curry, Drama, Drugs, Drunk, England, Femi Oyeniran, Gangsta, Gun, Hammersmith & City Line, Inner City, Jaime Winstone, Kidulthood. Trailer, Ladbrooke Grove, London, Madeleine Fairley, Menhaj Huda, Noel Clarke, Oral Sex, Party, Phall, Red Madrell, Suicide, Teenagers, UK, Underage Sex, W11 | Leave a comment
Involuntary / Teleconferencing
It's summer in Sweden… A primary school teacher decides to teach her colleagues a lesson they'll never forget. Teenage girls are indulging in a webcam tease and seducing strangers. University students are taking male bonding to a new level. And as day turns to night, a coach driver decides enough is enough and won't drive his passengers any further. Showered with International awards and praised by critics the world over, "Involuntary" is a dazzling and highly original comedy from the new enfant terrible of Scandinavian cinema, Ruben Östlund.
2008 – Certificate 18 – Sweden
Rating Details: Very strong language and strong sex references
Ever at the very cutting edge of technology, today at work we had our first regional management team meeting by phone; (or as important people like me prefer to call it, a Teleconference). Instead of a very expensive, rush-hour-period trip on a crowded train into central London to sit in a cold, wooden shed in the woods with my colleagues, I had to endure a leisurely trip into my office, where I could lounge around, unshaven, in just my underwear, drinking coffee, adding elastic bands to our elastic band ball and sorting out the ever-growing collection of hole punches in the stationary cupboard; whilst making the occasional, worthwhile and insightful comment about something or other to impress the others, as we discussed how to reduce the amount of travelling we do by having more Teleconferences. There are however, some downsides to all this. As well as shocking the postman with my underpants, I've realised that listening hands-free on a cheap phone for hours that wasn't designed with high fidelity sound in mind, has probably destroyed some part of the music-sensitive area of my brain. The experience was not unlike being trapped for hours on a bus to Hell, with only a group of teenagers on the back seats listening to Top 40 R&B on a tinny smartphone for company. This film also features two really annoying teenage girls, and several annoying adults too.
Years ago I watched a film with someone who, after a little while, got up, went over to the DVD player, took out the disc and threw it out of the window; (I was living on the third floor in a block of flats at the time.) This was apparently a physical reaction caused by the highly annoying characters in the movie. Had "Involuntary" been the film in question, I suspect the whole DVD player would have gone out of the window too. A movie made up of five individual stories, all of which play out in small sections throughout its run-time, it features some of the most annoying and banal losers ever to have been conjured into existence. For a while I sat watching and thinking, "what's the point of all this?" Then it dawned on me that the point was simply to watch ordinary people being ordinary. I suppose for every remarkable person there has to be thousands of unremarkable ones; this is a film about the latter. It's a black comedy that manages to be amusing without being funny. A coach driver, a father, two teenage girls, a teacher and a group of guys, all get themselves into slightly unfortunate situations, which could so easily be real. Felling that I'd have fitted in well, it was an embarrassing experience at times. I'd sum it up as a movie that celebrates the stupid and annoying uselessness of everyone. I enjoyed it; it's funny in the same way as seeing someone accidentally hit themselves on the finger with a hammer, or walk into a lamppost. The cast do a great job.
There's not a lot of music in this film, just some over the credits and at times in the background. This lack probably explains a lot about the characters.
No cats, decapitation or chainsaws.
Recommended for the very, very, very patient.
Top badass moment? Never mind the Higgs Boson, this film has introduced me to the much more remarkable concept of anti-badassness. Its characters are so mind-numbingly ordinary and flawed… Seriously, Batman would feel compelled to shoot them all and do the rest of us a favour. Arrrraaggghh!
Involuntary at IMDB (7.0/10)
March 21, 2013 | Categories: The Thoughts of Cactus | Tags: 2008, Batman, Bimbo, Black Comedy, Cecilia Milocco, Coach Driver, Comedy, Drama, Drunk, Elastic Band, Erik Hemmendorff, Gay, Henrik Vikman, Higgs Boson, Involuntary, Leif Edlund Johansson, Linnéa Cart-Lamy, Lola Ewerlund, Malin Rosenqvist, Meeting, Olle Liljas, Ruben Östlund, Sara Eriksson, Sweden, Teacher, Teenagers, Teleconference, Trailer, Ulf Lundstedt, Underpants, Villmar Björkman | Leave a comment
The Secret: 3.5 Stars
What if you got one more chance to say goodbye to your loved ones after you died? But what if the only way to do that was to inhabit your daughter's body? David Duchovny ("The X-Files" and "Californication") and Lili Taylor ("The Haunting" and "Ransom") are Benjamin and Hannah, happily married soul mates whose relationship is brutally severed when Hannah is killed in a car accident. As she dies, a bizarre twist of fate propels Hannah inside the body of her beautiful teenage daughter, Sam (Olivia Thirlby, "Juno" and "United 93"). Immersing herself in Sam's world, Hannah discovers some shocking truths about her daughter's secret life, while at home, she and her husband draw closer and closer to rekindling their romance….
2007 – Certificate: R – France
Rating Details: Language Including Some Sexual References and Drug and Alcohol Use Involving Teenagers
I spoke to two people yesterday, on the phone, for quite a long time. This made me realise that I can't actually speak properly anymore or string a sentence together at 'speaking speed'. I've not really had a proper conversation with anyone for weeks; well since before Christmas anyway. I've had plenty of 'shop chats' (where you just say "thanks" or "cheers"), a few other short ones on the phone, plus some on the Tube and in venues where it's really noisy so you have to shout, but no 'normal' ones. I forgot how to have a normal conversation years ago, but now I can't even make up sentences up that work grammatically or make sense. I imagine this might make me even more of a social outcast than I already am, another embarrassing faux pas I can add to a growing list. Then again, it doesn't seem to have stopped Professor Stephen Hawking being a genius, although I probably don't have his insight into 'how things work'. I can't see myself being asked to advertise an insurance comparison website anytime soon; or writing a book on how the universe came into being either. This film features someone who suddenly finds himself unable to communicate with his wife in the way he's been used to doing.
This is a decent fantasy thriller. It's based on a Japanese one called "Himitsu" that I watched years ago. (I don't suppose the fact I watched the latter influenced the decision to make this film.) It would be quite interesting to Go Compare them side by side, (which for those that haven't made the connection, relates to the "insurance comparison website" I mentioned earlier). There're a number of 'body swap' movies out there, but most of them are comedies; this one isn't. This could have been a great film, but somehow it just doesn't quite make it. The script pulls its punches a bit when it could have really landed a few know-out blows. The characters don't quite feel coherent enough to be totally believable; there were too many gaps in time between some scenes, which changed their relationship without us really seeing or knowing why. This is a shame, as this really is the core of the whole film and at times is really played out well. It could have explored the difficulties of the situation a lot more too, which would be helpful to anyone who ever found themselves in the same one for real; (okay, so not very likely I admit). Some of the minor characters seem a bit caricaturish too; I was half expecting them all to go off to a remote location somewhere and get killed by a nutter with a big knife. Olivia Thirlby's acting as the daughter/mother is great though. In a few scenes she switches between them and it's really spookily convincing. The car crash one works well too, as does the one in the hospital, very realistic and effective. So, it underachieves a bit, but at its best it's more than worth a watch. As for the rating details, they sound like they could be applied to life in general.
Recommended for people who want to debate the "would if have been incest or not" issue; which doesn't include me as apparently I can't speak anymore.
No cats, no chainsaws or decapitations.
Top badass moment? It's not every day you have to deal with your dead wife being sort of reincarnated inside your daughter's body. That has to make things really complicated, not that it's something I've ever had to deal with personally you understand. Under the circumstances, I thought Benjamin took it all pretty well and dealt with it in a relatively thoughtful way. Dealing with adversity well is badass.
The Secret at IMDB (6.2/10)
January 5, 2013 | Categories: The Thoughts of Cactus | Tags: 2007, Ann Cherkis, Body Swap, Canada, Can't Talk, Car Accident, Daughter, David Duchovny, Fantasy, French Film, Himitsu, Keigo Higashino, Lili Taylor, Loving Relationship, Montréal, Normal Conversation, Olivia Thirlby, Québec, Reincarnation, Say Goodbye, Soul Mates, Speak, Stephen Hawking, Teenagers, The Secret, Thriller, Trailer, Vincent Perez, Wife | Leave a comment
Some Kind of Wonderful: 4.0 Stars
This is a film about relationships, a subject I intrinsically know nothing about; (I blame it on my genes, it's probably genetic or something). As a result of this defect in my character, my entire understanding of this subject is based on films like this. Like most other films of its type its plot is almost entirely unrealistic, which I guess must explain a great deal about my life. The good guy always gets the nice girl in the end? Don't make me laugh. When I can afford it I'll be suing the makers of this film for messing up my life. In my world, the 80s were full of crappy new romantic music and synth pop, (anarcho-punk and indie-pop were pushed to the sidelines) and everyone had bad hair and bad clothes. Even I had bad hair; I can remember bleaching it and not getting it cut for over three years too; what a terrifying thought. Scarily, this film makes the 80s seem quite cool, the fashion bearable and the music quite listenable. See, I said it wasn't very realistic.
1987 – Certificate: 12 – USA
Rating Details: Language: Once strong, some moderate. Sex/Nudity: Some mild references. Violence: Infrequent, mild.
This is a proper 80s teen classic. It's a classic film of its type and its era. I hate myself for it but I really do like it. A great bit of escapism. From the great 'drum intro' at the start to the tear-inducing finale, its stupid plot and often annoying characters manage to be entertaining and often pretty funny. I was never all that taken with Amanda Jones; she sometimes looked like a man in drag to me. I couldn't (and still can't) really see what all the fuss was about. Watts was about 100 times more interesting and better looking too. And what a shame we didn't get to know Duncan the skinhead more. He was clearly the hero of the movie and someone we should have leant a lot more about. And did anyone out there really not want Watts to 'get her man' in the end? God, you're a heartless bastard aren't you!
Recommended for fans of classic genera movies and all things 80s; (just don't admit the latter in public and keep taking the tablets, okay)?
One cat and no decapitations. A quick run off scene (with dialogue) is all we get, cat-wise. Shame.
Top badass moment? Duncan and his gang gate-crashing Hardy's party. (What any annoying little prick he was.) A rare, positive example of skinhead activism within in multi-cultural environment in a Hollywood movie. That's badass.
Some Kind of Wonderful at IMDB
January 21, 2012 | Categories: The Thoughts of Cactus | Tags: 1987, American, Boyfriend, California, Car Mechanic, Classic, Comedy, Coming of Age, Craig Sheffer, Drama, Eric Stoltz, Girlfriend, Howard Deutch, John Hughes, Lea Thompson, Los Angeles, Mary Stuart Masterson, Party, Romance, Skinhead, Some Kind of Wonderful, Teenagers, Trailer, US, USA | Leave a comment

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The IOLR sea state forecasting system is based on the WAM model, which has been in development since 1984. World leading specialists in the field of sea waves (WAMDI group, 1988; Komen et al., 1994) participated in various stages of development.
WAM is a phase averaging model, in other words WAM does not predict amplitudes and phases of individual waves but rather calculates the statistical description of the wave field in terms of the directional wave spectrum. WAM is considered as a third generation model, i. e. a model in which the investigators attempted to minimize ad hoc assumptions regarding the processes of energy transfer from wind to waves, as well as processes of wave energy dissipation. Only sea surface wind and topography are used as input for WAM. The model is intended to calculate the sea state both in deep water and in the shoaling zone outside the wave breaking area. The last WAM version (Cycle 4. Günter et al., 1991) is implemented in marine operational forecasting centers such as ECMWF and the University of Athens both on global and regional scales.
At IOLR the model is used for hindcasting (Gertman et al., 2000) as well as for operational forecasting of wind waves in deep water regions of the Mediterranean. The model runs on a coarse space grid with a resolution of 0.5° for the entire Mediterranean Sea as well as on a fine grid with a resolution of 0.125° for the Eastern Mediterranean (east of 22°E). On both grids directional wave spectra are calculated using 25 frequencies between 0.042Hz and 0.42Hz; and 24 directions (every 15°). The system uses wind fields at 10 m above sea surface, provided by The University of Athens's Atmospheric Modeling and Weather Forecasting Group led by Prof. G. Kallos (SKIRON Regional meteorological model). WAM, governed by SKIRON's winds, runs daily on a LINUX workstation, and requires about 12 minutes to produce 120 hours wave forecast.
The development of the system has been partially funded by the Israel Ministry of Defense.
We gratefully acknowledge Prof. Kallos for his collaboration and the provision of wind fields in operational mode.
Special thanks for Prof. Günter for providing FORTRAN 90 WAM code and his explanations of the distinction between the wave fields calculated with different WAM codes.
Günter, H., S. Hasselmann and P.A.E.M. Janssen. (1991). "Wamodel cycle 4", DKRZ report no. 4, Hamburg.
Komen, G.J., L. Cavaleri, M. Donelan, K. Hasselmann, S. Hasselmann and P.A.E.M. Janssen. (1994). "Dynamics and Modeling of Ocean Waves", Cambridge Univ. Press., pp.532.


text:
\section{introdution}
\setcounter{equation}{0}
\renewcommand{\theequation}{\arabic{section}.\arabic{equation}}

Since Dirac performed the first theoretical prediction of the positron,
antiparticle of the electron in 1928~\cite{dirac28}, there
have been lots of progresses in this antiparticle and even antimatter area,
theoretically and experimentally.
The prediction of the positron was experimentally confirmed by Anderson in 1933~\cite{anderson33}.
Recently, the STAR collaboration reported
the observation of antihypertritons consisting of an antiproton, an antineutron and
an antilambda hyperon, which were produced by colliding gold nuclei at high energy~\cite{star10}.
The STAR collaboration also observed the antimatter helium-4 nucleus
in high-energy nuclear collisions~\cite{star11}. The ALPHA collaboration reported
that they observed confined antihydrogen for $10^{3}$ seconds at CERN~\cite{alpha11}.
Their calculations indicated that most of the trapped anti-atoms approach the ground state.
Moreover, an experimental evidence of the reflection of low energy antiprotons by an
aluminum wall was reported~\cite{bianconi08}.

On the other hand, it is well known that the unification of the quantum
mechanics~\cite{schrodinger26,schiff55} and general
relativity~\cite{einstein05} is difficult. Specifically, even bosonic particle quantum
mechanics and special relativity have not been unified until
now~\cite{gordon26,klein27,bjorken64}. For instance, the
Klein-Gordon relativistic quantum
mechanics~\cite{gordon26,klein27,bjorken64} for a bosonic particle
is known to have a pathological aspect that the particle
probability is {\it not} positive definite. However, the
relativistic quantum mechanics possessing the positive definite
particle probability has been successfully constructed for a
fermionic particle by Dirac~\cite{dirac28}.

To fix this no-positive definite particle probability problem in a
bosonic particle, one introduces the quantum field
theoretical approaches~\cite{bjorken65}. The quantum field
theory~\cite{bjorken65} however remains unsolved in the sense that
in this formalism we need many topological types of Feynman
diagrams and lots of loop corrections associated with these
diagrams~\cite{feynman49}, for instance. It is one of the reasons
that (super)string theory~\cite{green87,polchinski98} has been
formulated and still the research in this direction is in
progress.

In this paper, in order to solve the unsettled problem on the boson particle probability,
we will construct a proper quantization formalism
for a relativistic bosonic particle possessing {\it positive definite particle probability},
similarly to the relativistic quantum mechanics for a fermionic particle.
The advantage of this relativistic quantum mechanics for a boson is a unification of
the newly discovered bosonic sea and the fermionic Dirac sea, in which we can investigate the
bosonic and fermionic antiparticles associated with the unified sea on an equal footing.

This paper is organized as follows. In Section II, we will introduce
the relativistic quantum mechanics for a bosonic particle which
describes equations of motion for the relativistic boson. We will then
construct explicitly the continuity equation
and the solution to relativistic bosonic equations, to discuss
the positive definiteness in particle probability. In Section III,
we will study the Lorentz transformations including the rotations
and boosts to see the bosonic properties of the wave
functions of the particle. In Section IV, we will investigate the charge conjugation,
antiparticles and their decay modes in our theory.

\section{relativistic quantum mechanics for a bosonic particle}
\setcounter{equation}{0}
\renewcommand{\theequation}{\arabic{section}.\arabic{equation}}

We start with equation for relativistic quantum mechanics for a
bosonic particle, $H\phi=E\phi$ with \beq
H=\vec{\alpha}\cdot\vec{p}+\beta m,\eeq where $\alpha_{i}$
$(i=1,2,3)$ and $\beta$ are $2\times 2$ matrices. Using the
following simple algebra
\beq
E^{2}=m^{2}+\vec{p}^{2},\label{emp}
\eeq
we obtain relations
between $\alpha_{i}$ and $\beta$, \beq
\{\alpha_{i},\alpha_{j}\}=2\delta_{ij},~~~\beta^{2}=I,~~~\{\alpha_{i},\beta\}=0,~~~
\alpha_{i}^{\dagger}=\alpha_{i},~~~\beta^{\dagger}=\beta,\eeq
where $I$ is a $2\times 2$ unit matrix. Here we note that
eigenvalues of $\alpha_{i}$ or $\beta$ are $\pm 1$ and ${\rm
tr}~\alpha_{i}={\rm tr}~\beta=0$. Moreover, for bosonic
representation, the minimal dimension is two. We note that this
situation is different from Dirac case of the fermionic relativistic
quantum mechanics.

As in the Dirac relativistic formalism with the positive definiteness in fermion probability,
exploiting the above relations we construct a relativistic quantum mechanics in which an
equation for a bosonic particle is given
as follows
\beq
(\vec{\alpha}\cdot\vec{p}+\beta m)\phi=E\phi,\label{brqm} \eeq
where $\phi=(\phi_{1},\phi_{2})^{T}$ and
\beq
\vec{\alpha}=\hat{p}\sigma_{1},~~~\beta=\sigma_{3}
\eeq
with $\sigma_{1}$ and $\sigma_{3}$ being the first and third Pauli matrices,
respectively. In this relativistic quantization
scheme of bosonic particle, we emphasize the characteristics that
the matrices $\vec{\alpha}$ are associated with the unit vector of
the particle linear momentum $\vec{p}$.

We now arrive at the relativistic quantum mechanical equation for
a relativistic bosonic particle, by modifying (\ref{brqm}) as
follows\footnote{Even though in this paper we have used
$\alpha_{i}$, $\beta$ and $\gamma^{\mu}$ notations similar to the
Dirac theory for relativistic fermionic particle, the differences
between our theory and Dirac one are understood in the context.}
\beq (i\gamma^{\mu}\pa_{\mu}-m)\phi=0,\label{brqm2}\eeq where \beq
\gamma_{0}=\beta=\sigma_{3},~~~\vec{\gamma}=\beta\vec{\alpha}=\hat{p}i\sigma_{2}.
\eeq Here we note that we have found the equation
(\ref{brqm2}) of first order in the time derivative, which allows
a straight forward probability interpretation as in the
Schr\"odinger equation~\cite{schrodinger26,schiff55}, as shown below.

Taking Hermitian conjugate of (\ref{brqm2}), which is given by
$\bar{\phi}(i\gamma^{\mu}\overleftarrow{\pa}_{\mu}+m)=0$ and
$\bar{\phi}=\phi^{\dagger}\gamma^{0}$, we find the continuity equation as follows \beq \frac{\pa
\rho}{\pa t}+\na\cdot\vec{J}=0,\label{conti} \eeq where \bea
\rho&=&\bar{\phi}\gamma^{0}\phi=\phi_{1}^{*}\phi_{1}+\phi_{2}^{*}\phi_{2},\nn\\
\vec{J}&=&\bar{\phi}\vec{\gamma}\phi=\hat{p}(\phi_{1}^{*}\phi_{2}+\phi_{2}^{*}\phi_{1}). \label{vectorj}\eea

One notes that the particle probability density $\rho$ is real and {\it positive
definite}. The real vector $\vec{J}$ is a current of the particle and
it is parallel to $\vec{p}$ of the particle, as shown in (\ref{vectorj}).
We reemphasize that the quantities in the continuity
equation (\ref{conti}) are physically well defined to yield a good quantization,
differently from the Klein-Gordon continuity equation where the
corresponding particle density $\rho_{KG}$ for a relativistic bosonic particle is {\it not}
positive definite~\cite{bjorken64}. This deficiency in the
Klein-Gordon theory remains unsolved for 85 years and now it is finally settled down.

We now consider the relativistic bosonic equations (\ref{brqm}) or
(\ref{brqm2}), which describes a relativistic motion of a particle
and does not concern a many particle system. First, for the case
of the rest particle with $\vec{p}=0$, we have a solution of the
form \beq \phi_{+}^{0}=\left(\begin{array}{c}
1\\
0
\end{array}\right)e^{-imt},~~~
\phi_{-}^{0}=\left(\begin{array}{c}
0\\
1
\end{array}\right)e^{+imt},\label{imt}
\eeq where the first and second wave functions describe a
positive-energy solution and a negative-energy one, respectively.
Second, for a solution for a relativistic bosonic particle with
non-vanishing linear momentum $\vec{p}$, there are two types of solutions in this relativistic
system as in the case of the above rest particle.

Since for the relativistic bosonic particle satisfying the relation (\ref{emp})
we have two kinds of solutions with $E=\pm (m^{2}+\vec{p}^{2})^{1/2}$ when $\vec{p}\ne
0 $, we introduce an ansatz for a positive solution with an upper
sign and a negative one with a lower sign, \beq
\phi(x)=\phi(p)e^{\mp ip\cdot x}, \label{phix}\eeq with $p\cdot
x=p^{\mu}x_{\mu}=p_{0}t-\vec{p}\cdot\vec{x}$. Inserting
(\ref{phix}) into the relativistic boson equation (\ref{brqm2}),
we obtain equations of motion of the form in the momentum space
\beq (\not\! p \mp m)\phi(p)=0,\label{pmp} \eeq where we have used $\not\!
p=\gamma^{\mu}p_{\mu}$.

Exploiting the ansatz (\ref{phix}) and the corresponding equations
(\ref{pmp}), we find the positive energy solution with $E>0$ given
by \beq \phi_{+}(x)=u(p)e^{-ip\cdot x},\label{phiplus}\eeq where
\beq u(p)=\left(\frac{E+m}{2m}\right)^{1/2}\left(\begin{array}{c}
1\\
\frac{|\vec{p}|}{E+m}
\end{array}\right)e^{-ip\cdot x}.\eeq We then have $\bar{u}u=1$ and
$u^{\dagger}u=\frac{E}{m}$.

Next we also find the negative energy solution with $E<0$ \beq
\phi_{-}(x)=v(p)e^{+ip\cdot x},\label{phiminus}\eeq where \beq
v(p)=\left(\frac{|E|+m}{2m}\right)^{1/2}\left(\begin{array}{c}
\frac{|\vec{p}|}{|E|+m}\\
1
\end{array}\right)e^{+ip\cdot x}.\eeq We then have
the normalization relations $\bar{v}v=-1$ and $v^{\dagger}v=\frac{|E|}{m}$.
Additionally, we obtain
the other normalization conditions $\bar{u}v=0$ and $\bar{v}u=0$.
Here one notes that in the vanishing $\vec{p}$ limit, the
positive and negative energy solutions $\phi_{\pm}(x)$ in
(\ref{phiplus}) and (\ref{phiminus}) are reduced to the
corresponding solutions $\phi_{\pm}^{0}(x)$ in (\ref{imt}).

We note here that the above $u(p)$ and $v(p)$ satisfy
\beq
(\not\! p - m)u(p)=0,~~~(\not\! p + m)v(p)=0
\label{pmu} \eeq
and their Hermitian conjugate equations are given by $\bar{u}(\not\! p - m)=0$ and
$\bar{v}(\not\! p + m)=0$ where we have used the identity
$\gamma^{\mu\dagger}=\gamma^{0}\gamma^{\mu}\gamma^{0}$.
Here, as in the Dirac theory, we interpret the negative energy solution to describe an antiparticle associated with
the particle given by the positive energy solution. More details will be given later.

\section{Lorentz transformations}
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In order to consider the Lorentz transformation, we should be
careful in treating the relativistic quantum mechanics for the
bosonic particle. Namely, the matrices $\vec{\alpha}$ are
associated with the unit vector of the particle linear momentum
$\vec{p}$. To proceed, we identify $\hat{p}$=$\hat{z}$ and we
consider the transformations in coordinates \beq
x^{\prime\mu}=a^{\mu}_{~\nu}x^{\nu} \eeq and those in derivatives
\beq \pa_{\mu}^{\prime}=a_{\mu}^{~\nu}\pa_{\nu}.\label{oamu} \eeq
Similar to the Dirac relativistic quantum mechanics, we consider
wavefunction transformation as follows \beq
\phi^{\prime}(x^{\prime})=S\phi(x),\label{phiprime} \eeq where $S$
is a $2\times 2$ matrix to be fixed.

In this theory we consider covariance of the equation
(\ref{brqm2}), by investigating the following equation \beq
(i\gamma^{\mu}\pa^{\prime}_{\mu}-m)\phi^{\prime}(x^{\prime})=0,\label{brqm3},\eeq
which, exploiting (\ref{oamu}) and (\ref{phiprime}), produces a
covariance condition \beq
S^{-1}\gamma_{\mu}a^{\mu}_{~\nu}S=\gamma_{\nu}.\label{cov} \eeq
Here one notes that $\gamma^{\mu}$ has dependence of $\vec{p}$ in
this relativistic bosonic quantum mechanics.

Now, we consider a $x$-$y$ rotation around $z$ axis parallel to the particle direction $\vec{p}$,
in which we have the relevant $2\times 2$ matrix\footnote{In this dimensionality, we keep the relevant indices
after ignoring $t$ and $z$ components. This rule
in the notations will be
used in the forthcoming computations associated with the indices.}  $a^{\mu\nu}$ with
$\mu, \nu= 1, 2$.  In a small $\theta$ limit, $a^{\mu\nu}$ becomes
\beq
a^{\mu\nu}=g^{\mu\nu}+\epsilon^{\mu\nu},
\label{amunu}
\eeq
where $g^{\mu\nu}={\rm diag}~(-1, -1)$ and
\beq
\epsilon^{\mu\nu}=\left(\begin{array}{cc}
0 &-\theta \\
\theta &0
\end{array}\right).
\eeq

We next introduce $S$ of the form \beq
S=I-\frac{i}{4}\sigma_{\mu\nu}\epsilon^{\mu\nu}.\label{lambda}
\eeq After some algebra with considering the covariance in
(\ref{cov}), for the rotation around $z$ direction we find \beq
S_{rot}^{z}=I.\label{lambdarot} \eeq The other rotations $S_{rot}^{x}$ and $S_{rot}^{y}$
around $x$ and $y$ directions, respectively, produce the same result (\ref{lambdarot}). Here
one notes that the eigenvalues of $S_{rot}^{x}$, $S_{rot}^{y}$ and $S_{rot}^{z}$ are all positive
definite, with $+1$, so that we can not have a fermionic
characteristic which is related to the negative eigenvalue $-1$
and is associated with the $4 \pi$ rotation. Moreover, with this
rotation at hand, the wavefunction of the bosonic particle does
not change the phase factor at all.

Similarly, for a $t$-$z$ boost along $z$ axis parallel to the
particle direction $\vec{p}$, as before we have the relevant
$2\times 2$ matrices $a^{\mu\nu}$ in terms of $u$. In a small
$u$ limit, $a^{\mu\nu}$ becomes the form (\ref{amunu}) where
$g^{\mu\nu}={\rm diag}~(+1,-1)$ and
\beq
\epsilon^{\mu\nu}=\left(\begin{array}{cc}
0 &u \\
-u &0
\end{array}\right).
\eeq After some algebra similar to the above rotation cases, for
the finite $t$-$x$, $t$-$y$ and $t$-$z$,boosts we obtain \beq
S_{boost}^{x}=S_{boost}^{y}=I,~~~S_{boost}^{z}=e^{-u\sigma_{1}/2}.
\eeq
Here one notes that these
rotation and boost operators satisfy the following identities \beq
S_{rot}^{\dagger}=\gamma^{0}S^{-1}_{rot}\gamma^{0},~~~
S_{boost}^{\dagger}=\gamma^{0}S^{-1}_{boost}\gamma^{0}. \eeq

\section{antiparticles and decay modes}
\label{antiparticle}
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Now we consider antiparticles and their decay modes in the relativistic quantum mechanics for a bosonic particle.
As in the fermion Dirac sea~\cite{dirac30}, we will introduce a bosonic hole in
bosonic sea to investigate the meaning of the negative solution in our relativistic quantum mechanics for
a bosonic particle. We take a more general ansatz that a vacuum state can be regarded as one with both
all fermion and boson negative energy levels filled and all fermion and boson positive energy levels empty.

To proceed, we include a minimal electromagnetic interaction in
(\ref{brqm2}) to yield \beq
(i\gamma^{\mu}\pa_{\mu}-e\gamma^{\mu}A_{\mu}-m)\phi=0,\label{brqm33}\eeq
where $e$ is charge of the particle. For instance, a hole in the
bosonic $\pi^{-}$ sea corresponding to the absence of an energy
$-E$ ($E<0$) and absence of a charge $e$ ($e<0$) is equal to the
presence of a $\pi^{+}$ of positive energy $+E$ and charge $-e$.

One can now have a one-to-one correspondence between the negative
energy solution of (\ref{brqm33}) for $\pi^{-}$ and the $\pi^{+}$
eigenfunction $\phi_{c}$ which will be a positive energy solution
of the following equation, \beq
(i\gamma^{\mu}\pa_{\mu}+e\gamma^{\mu}A_{\mu}-m)\phi_{c}=0.\label{brqm4}\eeq
Here one notes that the $\pi^{-}$ then comes out from the bosonic
hole interpretation as the absence of the negative energy solution
of (\ref{brqm4}). After some manipulation, we have the relation
between the $\pi^{-}$ wavefunction $\phi$ in (\ref{brqm33}) and
the $\pi^{+}$ wavefunction $\phi_{c}$ in (\ref{brqm4}) as follows
\beq \phi_{c}=C\gamma_{0}\phi^{*}, \label{phic} \eeq where
$C\gamma_{0}$ is a charge conjugation operator. Here one notes
that $C$ is constrained by the following identity \beq
C^{-1}\gamma^{\mu}C=-\gamma^{\mu T}, \eeq and in our theory it is
given by \beq C=-\sigma_{1}. \label{c} \eeq Combining (\ref{phic})
and (\ref{c}) and for instance applying the result to the rest
boson case, we can readily find that the negative solution
$\phi_{c-}^{0}$ is equal to $\phi_{+}^{0}$ in (\ref{imt}). Namely,
the absence of a negative energy $\pi^{-}$ is equal to the
presence of a positive energy $\pi^{+}$ at rest. This statement
can be applied to more general cases without loss of generality.
The positive energy solution thus delineates the particle
$\pi^{-}$ of mass $m$ and charge $e$ ($e<0$), while the negative
energy solution describes the antiparticle $\pi^{+}$ of mass $m$
and charge $-e$.

Next, we consider the case of electron and positron experimental decay mode via electromagnetic interaction,
\beq
e^{-}+e^{+}\rightarrow \gamma+\gamma,
\label{ee}
\eeq
where we exploit the negative energy solution in the Dirac fermion sea
to specify the positron theoretically. For the case of charged pions $\pi^{-}$ and $\pi^{+}$, we
cannot have a bosonic decay mode experimentally
\beq\pi^{-}+\pi^{+}\nrightarrow \gamma+\gamma.\label{pp}\eeq
Phenomenologically, the bosonic decay mode (\ref{pp}) is forbidden due to the absence of electromagnetic
interaction directly coupled to the charged pions~\cite{bjorken64}, contrast to the fermionic decay mode (\ref{ee}).
Instead of the decay mode (\ref{pp}), we have dominantly favorable decay modes for charged pions via weak
interaction~\cite{gellmann57,pdg10}
\beq
\pi^{-}\rightarrow \mu^{-}+\bar{\nu}_{\mu},~~~
\pi^{+}\rightarrow \mu^{+}+\nu_{\mu}.
\eeq

Moreover, we observe that the neutral pion $\pi^{0}$ is equal to its antiparticle, namely the neutral
pion itself which is consistent with the conventional quark model,
where the quark combination of the neutral pion is the same as that of the bosonic antiparticle of the neutral pion.
It is interesting to see that it is dominantly favorable to have a main decay mode~\cite{gellmann57,pdg10},
\beq\pi^{0}\rightarrow \gamma+\gamma.\label{pipi}\eeq
This decay mode can be understood in terms of $\pi^{0}$ particle and/or $\pi^{0}$ antiparticle annihilating into
two photons in an electromagnetic interaction process associated with the photons, since $\pi^{0}$ is both a particle and an antiparticle
itself as shown before. Next we consider second common Delitz decay mode of $\pi^{0}$ into a photon and electron positron pair~\cite{dalitz51,pdg10},
\beq\pi^{0}\rightarrow \gamma+e^{-}+e^{+}.\label{piee}\eeq In this decay mode we have bosonic (anti)particles $\pi^{0}$ and $\gamma$ and
fermionic particles $e^{-}$ and $e^{+}$ involved. In our unified sea, the bosonic (anti)particle $\pi^{0}$ and the
fermionic antiparticle $e^{+}$ participate in this process together.

Recent experimental results on antimatter at CERN show that confined antihydrogen lives for $10^{3}$ seconds~\cite{alpha11}.
The RHIC experiment observed the antimatter helium-4 nucleus in high-energy nuclear collisions~\cite{star11}.
Since the decay mode (\ref{pipi}) is known to exist experimentally, it will be a good challenge to retest the decay mode
(\ref{pp}) in a modern accelerator such as the RHIC and the LHC with very high energy facility.

The relativistic quantum mechanical
equations (\ref{brqm}) and/or (\ref{brqm2}) can be rewritten as \beq
(\Box+m^{2})\phi_{a}=0,~~~(a=1,2).\label{kg2}\eeq We note that the
above equations are not the Klein-Gordon equation since we have
the {\it two} components $\phi_{1}$ and $\phi_{2}$ in (\ref{kg2}).
Moreover, the particle number density in our quantization was
shown to be positive definite, different from the Klein-Gordon
equation possessing ill defined particle probability density
explained before.

In particular, in the massless limit, the relativistic quantum equation (\ref{kg2}) for a bosonic
particle is reduced to the photon case
as follows
\beq \Box\phi_{a}=0,~~~(a=1,2),\eeq
which describes the propagation of the photon with $\phi_{1}=\phi_{2}$.
One notes that there is no difference between particle and antiparticle in this
photon case.

In summary, we have studied the properties of the {\it quantum mechanics}
for {\it a relativistic boson}. In this scheme, we have described the
equations of motion for the relativistic boson, and we have also defined
particle probability density successfully, contrast to the Klein-Gordon
relativistic quantum mechanics. In order to discuss the positive definiteness
in particle probability, we have constructed explicitly the
continuity equation and the solutions to the relativistic bosonic equations.
As in the Dirac theory, we have also interpreted the negative energy solution
to describe an antiparticle associated with the particle given by the positive
energy solution. Under the Lorentz transformation with the rotation, we cannot have a fermionic
characteristic associated with the so called $4 \pi$ rotation in the Dirac theory, as expected. Moreover,
the wavefunction of the bosonic particle under this rotation does not change phase factor.
In the case of the boost we have aspects similar to a relativistic fermionic particle.
We have then investigate antiparticles and their decay modes in the framework of the
relativistic quantum mechanics for a bosonic particle.
We have taken a more general ansatz that a vacuum state can be unified to be one with
all fermion and boson negative energy levels filled and all fermion and boson positive energy levels empty.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


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One of the main enemies of the family unit is the mobile phone. Discover how to prevent this technological device from ruining your family relationships and communicating with those you most love.
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