Nina Rhodes-Hughes, a 78-year old who was present at the assassination of Robert Kennedy, has come forth with some interesting information about that fateful day. She says there was a second gunman, and more bullets fired than the official count. She alleges that the FBI altered her original statements in a cover-up. Despite being an eye-witness, she was not called to testify at Sirhan Sirhan's trial.
There's of course some interesting circles to go around in here. Did she sit quiet until age 78 out of fear of persecution by the government that covered up her testimony? Or is the fallibility of the human mind responsible for her current statements and recollections? Either way, she's very brave for speaking up, and likely to take a lot of flack for it from people on every side of the angle.
She talks about the rhythm of the gunshots being memorable. Memory can be dangerously mutable, especially across decades. Hopefully she has old diary entries or similar corroboration that this isn't merely a recent perception of distant events. Well I know that it is terribly easy to be certain of a thing, have that thing influence your life forever after, yet leave precious little evidence that you ever were aware of the thing. If we neglect to write down or record those things we could never forget, it becomes difficult later to defend our perceptions about them later when some outsider challenges their validity. I hope she kept good notes.
There's certainly plenty of weird, often conflicting, evidence in the case. RFK's wounds suggest that he was shot from an entirely different angle than from where Sirhan Sirhan was standing. Sirhan's bizarre journals suggest either insanity or programming. The woman in the polka-dot dress shouting "we shot him!" as reported by multiple witnesses in the neighborhood. The police destroying evidence (2,000+ photographs, bullets and the ceiling tiles they were lodged in, etc) in their highest-profile murder investigation ever (destroyed because storage space was limited, they say), and then keeping their internal reports under lock and key for 20 years. This case abounds with surreal twists and dubious shenanigans.
Sirhan and his lawyers continue to argue that he was hypnotized into believing he'd killed Kennedy (prior to the crime). At the time, the American public knew nothing of the CIA's various mind-control experiments. Those programs have been leaked and acknowledged in the years since, and they cast a sinister shadow over a high-profile crime where the facts don't quite add up.
Police can be very selective when listening to witness accounts, and deciding what to follow up on. It's part of their job, but it also gives them a lot of power to stack the deck.
Late last year, I saw a man steal a bicycle. The police arrested a suspect a few days later, in a bust of some sort of bicycle theft ring if I understand correctly. I received a call from a detective, asking whether or not I'd be willing to look at a photo line-up, and whether or not I'd be able to identify the thief if I saw him again. Apparently I didn't seem confident enough in my ability to pick him out, because they never followed up. If I did identify him, my early lack of confidence would have made my testimony easy to undermine in cross-examination. If I failed to pick him out, or said that the suspect was not definitely not him, it would have made conviction very difficult. From the police's point of view, there was nothing to be gained by involving me further in the process.
Most would call that sort of thing just an officer being practical, but one could argue that it's the police selectively editing what evidence the jury hears to manipulate the results of the trial. I was witness to a low-value crime where the police feel no unusual pressure to get a conviction. I imagine the incentive to disregard conflicting testimony and witnesses who don't strengthen the case must be a lot stronger when you're dealing with something as major as the murder of a presidential candidate. Does that mean the RFK investigation crossed into something we'd more likely to view as a conspiracy by the LAPD and FBI were all the details known? Nina Rhodes-Hughes is in a far better position to answer that than I am.
Showing posts with label Alternative Views of History. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alternative Views of History. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Friday, May 13, 2011
Darth Vader's Birth Certificate
I just discovered a really funny, and kinda disturbing, website, done up to look like a news site. It's a little like The Onion, except narrower, geekier, and perhaps a little creepier. Good art. Very professional, and well worth reading for myriad laughs.
As you can see, it puts an interesting reflection on the recent death of Bin Laden. It's a little eerie just how easy it is to picture the Empire spinning Kenobi's death till it looks just like the recent news in our own world. And the site goes on from there making further parallels, going so far as to host several pages of fake/in-character comments from the public about Imperial politics, Vader's birth certificate, the lack of body, the various Star Wars tragedies being an inside job, etc. Really funny.
Obi-Wan Kenobi Is Dead, Vader Says
CORUSCANT — Obi-Wan Kenobi, the mastermind of some of the most devastating attacks on the Galactic Empire and the most hunted man in the galaxy, was killed in a firefight with Imperial forces near Alderaan, Darth Vader announced on Sunday.
In a late-night appearance in the East Room of the Imperial Palace, Lord Vader declared that “justice has been done” as he disclosed that agents of the Imperial Army and stormtroopers of the 501st Legion had finally cornered Kenobi, one of the leaders of the Jedi rebellion, who had eluded the Empire for nearly two decades. Imperial officials said Kenobi resisted and was cut down by Lord Vader's own lightsaber. He was later dumped out of an airlock.
...
Lord Vader has denied requests to present photographs of the body, describing them as "too gruesome" for the general public.
As you can see, it puts an interesting reflection on the recent death of Bin Laden. It's a little eerie just how easy it is to picture the Empire spinning Kenobi's death till it looks just like the recent news in our own world. And the site goes on from there making further parallels, going so far as to host several pages of fake/in-character comments from the public about Imperial politics, Vader's birth certificate, the lack of body, the various Star Wars tragedies being an inside job, etc. Really funny.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Stupid For Senate
This debate video is bizarre. There's this total fucking idiot who's running for Senate in Delaware on the Republican / Tea Party ticket, and she's completely hung up on her imaginary world where there is no Separation of Church & State. The Democrat she's debating against correctly points out that the First Amendment says the government "shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" and she spends the next several minutes repeatedly asking him "does it say that in the First Amendment?" as though she doesn't believe him. I'm just plain shocked that someone that unfamiliar with the First Amendment could possibly be considered politically competent enough for a major party to endorse her. There are two different parts in the video (2m55s and 7m30s) where the audience laughs at her ridiculous claims.
If you want to get shivers running down your spine at just how fucked our future is if the Tea Baggers win big this election, watch this video. Christine O'Donnell is terrifyingly ignorant.
If you want to get shivers running down your spine at just how fucked our future is if the Tea Baggers win big this election, watch this video. Christine O'Donnell is terrifyingly ignorant.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Military Intelligence
The White House recently sacked General McChrystal, largely because of some comments he made to Rolling Stone magazine. I'm all for freedom of speech, but I can see how there's something of a need for the top Generals in the field to not be scathingly critical of their Commander in Chief. Letting them trash-talk the civilian government could theoretically open the doors to a coup. In general, we should try to not make the same mistakes the Romans did.
But this vacancy means General Petraeus will be filling the gap, and increasing his duties. Petraeus, about whom there's a fair amount of internet speculation that he might be the Republican Nominee for President in 2012. Which means you have a sitting general at the pinnacle of his career with really no where to rise, possibly contemplating running for the highest office. That's a pretty serious conflict of interests. He can either do his current job real well, or he can let things get out of hands and claim it's the President's fault then use it against him while campaigning. I know there's that bit about keeping your enemies closer, but I'm kinda wondering if this isn't a tactical blunder for the O-man.
Of course, for all I know Petraeus is a stand-up guy with a strong moral compass who would never dream of doing that. Obama may have assessed that. And for all I know, he might not be interested in the Oval Office, and rampant internet speculation may be way off the mark. I'll admit my paranoia on this one is mainly based on him having a Roman-sounding name.
It's just too close to Praetorian.
Bonus Historical Fact: When the Romans would give a parade for a triumphant General, there was always an extra man in the main chariot, whispering in the General's ear. This man's loyalty was to the Senate. His duty during this triumphal parades was to whisper "remember, you are mortal" in the Commanding Officer's ear, to counter-act the ego-rush of having a million Romans cheer your name and throw flowers at your feet. I've often wondered if this tidbit recorded by historians is incomplete. I mean, if you're standing that close to him and whispering in his ear, you could easily also be holding a knife to his back and the crowds might never notice. That would certainly remind him just how mortal he is.
But this vacancy means General Petraeus will be filling the gap, and increasing his duties. Petraeus, about whom there's a fair amount of internet speculation that he might be the Republican Nominee for President in 2012. Which means you have a sitting general at the pinnacle of his career with really no where to rise, possibly contemplating running for the highest office. That's a pretty serious conflict of interests. He can either do his current job real well, or he can let things get out of hands and claim it's the President's fault then use it against him while campaigning. I know there's that bit about keeping your enemies closer, but I'm kinda wondering if this isn't a tactical blunder for the O-man.
Of course, for all I know Petraeus is a stand-up guy with a strong moral compass who would never dream of doing that. Obama may have assessed that. And for all I know, he might not be interested in the Oval Office, and rampant internet speculation may be way off the mark. I'll admit my paranoia on this one is mainly based on him having a Roman-sounding name.
It's just too close to Praetorian.Bonus Historical Fact: When the Romans would give a parade for a triumphant General, there was always an extra man in the main chariot, whispering in the General's ear. This man's loyalty was to the Senate. His duty during this triumphal parades was to whisper "remember, you are mortal" in the Commanding Officer's ear, to counter-act the ego-rush of having a million Romans cheer your name and throw flowers at your feet. I've often wondered if this tidbit recorded by historians is incomplete. I mean, if you're standing that close to him and whispering in his ear, you could easily also be holding a knife to his back and the crowds might never notice. That would certainly remind him just how mortal he is.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Ctrl+Alt+Del Democracy
Awesome Lawrence Lessig speech from the Rebooting Democracy conference in Bend, Oregon:
Starts off a little slow, admittedly, because he covers a lot of ground he's done before. But the last half is pretty astounding. Radical, even, and not in the skaterpunk / valley girl way. If you lack patience and are familiar with Prof. Lessig, you can probably skip first 25 minutes or so.
Starts off a little slow, admittedly, because he covers a lot of ground he's done before. But the last half is pretty astounding. Radical, even, and not in the skaterpunk / valley girl way. If you lack patience and are familiar with Prof. Lessig, you can probably skip first 25 minutes or so.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Science-Gate
Hilarious video on the ridiculousness of Climategate. That one won't let me embed it on blogger, but it's worth following the link to watch.
Here's another one by the same cartoonist:
Here's another one by the same cartoonist:
Monday, November 2, 2009
Something Is Rotten In The State Of Afghanistan
I read these news articles, and I can't help but be suspicious. I don't know if the CIA is involved, or if the Afghani's are just fucking up their own politics, but I guarantee you there's more going on than meets the eye. My instincts are that something sinister either just went down, or is about to go down. Mind you, this is all based on a handful of news and wikipedia articles, and the conclusions it draws are just idle speculation, but here's the situation as it appears to me...
Hamid Karzai was chosen by "prominent Afghan political figures" to lead the provisional government there in 2001, a 6-month term. This was followed by a 2-year appointment to the Presidency by the Loya Jirga, the council of tribal chiefs. In 2004 he was elected President in an actual election. Then, in 2008 he got elected again... but this time the U.N. inspectors discovered that nearly a third of his votes were fraudulent, and he didn't actually have a majority.
At this point, John Kerry flies to Afghanistan, and convinces Hamid Karzai to allow a new run-off election. It would be just Karzai and the next highest vote-getter, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah. Now, that seems a reasonable thing to do if your problem is that no single candidate got the majority of votes. But that's not the problem. The problem is that Karzai, as sitting President with power over the election process, engaged in voter fraud.
A second election would have one of two results, obviously, depending on whether or not Karzai had control of the election process again.
So, instead, 6 days before the run-off election, his opposition suddenly drops out of the race. Instead of transferring his slot to the next candidate down on the list, Karzai's election board decides the only way to proceed is to not proceed at all. The run-off is canceled, and Karzai is declared the winner.
Conveniently, this saves face for his international allies, who now have plausible deniability about Karzai's direct involvement in election-rigging. "Oh, that was just zealous supporters rigging things. He'd told them not to do it, that there'd be stiff punishments for subverting the will of the people. That second election was going to be legit. It's not his fault that the only opposition conceded. I mean if Gore can concede to Bush, then why can't Abdullah concede to Karzai?" Etc. And thus is a major scandal poo-poo-ed and hand-waved away.
The question that bothers me regards the secret backstory of all this. Did Abdullah concede because:
In case that's all too dense, I'll pluck out the relevant threads:
But, you know, perhaps it's no worse than what happened here in 2004.
Vote Jake.
Hamid Karzai was chosen by "prominent Afghan political figures" to lead the provisional government there in 2001, a 6-month term. This was followed by a 2-year appointment to the Presidency by the Loya Jirga, the council of tribal chiefs. In 2004 he was elected President in an actual election. Then, in 2008 he got elected again... but this time the U.N. inspectors discovered that nearly a third of his votes were fraudulent, and he didn't actually have a majority.
At this point, John Kerry flies to Afghanistan, and convinces Hamid Karzai to allow a new run-off election. It would be just Karzai and the next highest vote-getter, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah. Now, that seems a reasonable thing to do if your problem is that no single candidate got the majority of votes. But that's not the problem. The problem is that Karzai, as sitting President with power over the election process, engaged in voter fraud.
A second election would have one of two results, obviously, depending on whether or not Karzai had control of the election process again.
- If he did, then he'd likely fudge the numbers again and declare himself the winner.
- If he didn't have control, or chose not to cheat, then he would lose. Because the majority of people didn't vote for him in the first place, and those people now yet have another reason to vote for his opposition - because Karzai is now, according to the U.N. inspectors, a known liar and cheater.
So, instead, 6 days before the run-off election, his opposition suddenly drops out of the race. Instead of transferring his slot to the next candidate down on the list, Karzai's election board decides the only way to proceed is to not proceed at all. The run-off is canceled, and Karzai is declared the winner.
Conveniently, this saves face for his international allies, who now have plausible deniability about Karzai's direct involvement in election-rigging. "Oh, that was just zealous supporters rigging things. He'd told them not to do it, that there'd be stiff punishments for subverting the will of the people. That second election was going to be legit. It's not his fault that the only opposition conceded. I mean if Gore can concede to Bush, then why can't Abdullah concede to Karzai?" Etc. And thus is a major scandal poo-poo-ed and hand-waved away.
The question that bothers me regards the secret backstory of all this. Did Abdullah concede because:
- of a bribe? This would be the happiest scenario. It's also unlikely, since Abdullah still made parting shot comments at Karzai, calling attention to his corruption and election-rigging.
- of threats or danger? Fearing for his life if he continued to resist the President who was desperate to retain power? Again, that he called out Karzai's corruption in his concession speech makes this unlikely, but doesn't completely rule it out.
- of plans to rebel? I don't know much about Abdullah. He's a medical doctor, but he was also a military adviser to one of the leaders of the revolution against the soviets, and then fought against the Taliban. He's comfortable in a western suit, and has visited the Pentagon. That paints a complicated portrait, but at least suggests he's unlikely to go help the Taliban.
In case that's all too dense, I'll pluck out the relevant threads:
- This election-rigging is not the first time Karzai has violated the Constitution of Afghanistan, and at least one such violation has lead to human rights abuses.
- Karzai has political ties with a extremist who's suspected of killing Abdullah's good friend.
- Had that friend not been assassinated two days before 9/11, the post-Taliban government in Afghanistan would have been very different.
But, you know, perhaps it's no worse than what happened here in 2004.
Vote Jake.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Updates on The Holy War in America
Those right-wing nutjobs are scaring the crap out of me again, making overt attempts to steer the development of culture and society away from science.
Lots of things to do this morning, so no time to elaborate my views on what I just read, but here's two quotes with links, so you too can feel the sinking sensation in the pit of your stomach...
via RAW:
via the Guardian
Lots of things to do this morning, so no time to elaborate my views on what I just read, but here's two quotes with links, so you too can feel the sinking sensation in the pit of your stomach...
via RAW:
US House Representative Wally Herger, of California’s 2nd congressional district, expressed “enthusiastic approval” of a town-hall attendee who described himself as a “proud right-wing terrorist,” newspapers in northern California report.Doesn't that make you sick to your stomach?...
“Amen, God bless you,” Herger reportedly replied to the comment. “There is a great American.”
via the Guardian
The Dembski fellow he mentions, by the way, is the same "Professor" at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary who requires online trolling to pass his courses, as I'd blogged about previously....the training at the seminary is aimed at producing infantry for a religious war against science and reason; proof of this, and in Dembski's own words, lies in another of his exam questions for the same course:
You are the Templeton Foundation's new program director and are charged with overseeing its programs and directing its funds. Sketch out a 20-year plan for defeating scientific materialism and the evolutionary worldview it has fostered if you had $50,000,000 per year in current value to do so. What sorts of programs would you institute? How would you spend the money?
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Leveling Up
WHO upgrades the Swine Flu to a Level 6 Pandemic amid reports that the UK is inaccurately reporting the number of British cases. Panicked crowds in Argentina stone a bus that was rumored to have an infected person aboard. A doctor in Texas says swine flu cases number at least ten times the official numbers. Right Wing blogs say that the Level 6 status will trigger the Force Majeure clauses of business contracts and put the final nail in the ecoffinomy.
I was going to rant on conspiratorially, but plenty of other folks have already done it for me. Take a moment to read this exchange at yahoo answers, where it's all a plot to sell shares in Tamiflu or prevent us from going to the movies. They even mention zombies. Or this website alleging the Flu is being spread intentionally to justify the NWO's take-over. Other folks have already made the bizarre connections I was going to. Mexico is kinda close to Dulce Base, so I'm sure someone's suggested the Intergalactic Warfare angle already.
Reading over those links and pages, I'm left with just one angle that hasn't been proposed: "Swine Flu Eats Shoe Walrus Polka Orthagonal!" I'm relatively confident no one's said that yet. But I wouldn't bet money on it though, since I included a verb.
Man, I liked the good old days, when the alarming world-shattering thing that made the cover of every newspaper, magazine, and website was just the freakin' Octomom.
WHO chief Dr. Margaret Chan made the announcement Thursday after the U.N. agency held an emergency meeting with flu experts. Chan said she was moving to phase 6 — the agency's highest alert level — which means a pandemic, or global epidemic, is under way.
"The world is moving into the early days of its first influenza pandemic in the 21st century," Chan told reporters. "The virus is now unstoppable."
Emphasis mine. Man, what an unfortunate sentence. Somebody's losing a job over that one. Or, we're all gonna die. I'm not sure which.
I was going to rant on conspiratorially, but plenty of other folks have already done it for me. Take a moment to read this exchange at yahoo answers, where it's all a plot to sell shares in Tamiflu or prevent us from going to the movies. They even mention zombies. Or this website alleging the Flu is being spread intentionally to justify the NWO's take-over. Other folks have already made the bizarre connections I was going to. Mexico is kinda close to Dulce Base, so I'm sure someone's suggested the Intergalactic Warfare angle already.
Reading over those links and pages, I'm left with just one angle that hasn't been proposed: "Swine Flu Eats Shoe Walrus Polka Orthagonal!" I'm relatively confident no one's said that yet. But I wouldn't bet money on it though, since I included a verb.
Man, I liked the good old days, when the alarming world-shattering thing that made the cover of every newspaper, magazine, and website was just the freakin' Octomom.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Follow the Yellow Brick Road
Apparently the theory has been around since the 60s, but I'd never heard of it before today. The Wizard of Oz may be a parable about the economic depression of the late 1800s, and the gold and silver standards.
I thought the Emerald City was Seattle. Damned if I'm moving to The Other Washington! I hear their munchkins have cooties.Littlefield's theory has been hotly debated. He believed the characters could represent the personalities and themes of the late 1800s,with Dorothy embodying the everyman American spirit.
...
"The Tin Woodman represents the industrial worker, the Scarecrow is the farmer and the Cowardly Lion is William Jennings Bryan."
Bryan was a Democratic presidential candidate who supported the silver cause. But he failed to win votes from eastern workers and lost the 1896 election. In the same way, the Lion's claws are nearly blunted by the Woodman's metallic shell.
The Wicked Witch of the West is associated with a variety of controversial personalities, chief among them the industrialist Mark Hanna, campaign manager to President William McKinley.
In this scenario, the yellow brick road symbolises the gold standard, the Emerald City becomes Washington DC and the Great Wizard characterises the president - and he is exposed as being less than truthful.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
CD-ROMs in the Ancient World
If I'm understanding his website correctly, this researcher in Australia claims to have proof that time-travelers from roughly the modern era went back to the ancient Mediterranean and (probably inadvertently) inspired the major modern religions.
I make no claims to the accuracy of his research or the conclusions he drew from it, but I thought surely I'm not the only one who would find it worth a couple minutes of poking around. Personally, I think he's stretching, but it makes for a heck of a read and an interesting line of thought. This is my favorite page of his site (so far).
This is the 1995 Ancient Civilizations of the Mediterranean multimedia CD-Rom produced and packaged by the French company Acta/Scala/E.M.M.E.He makes a very interesting (not necessarily the same thing as convincing) argument that the listed CD-ROM, taken back in time, was actually not only the sun-disk of Ra, but also Moses's divine tablets. He further claims that the intro screens of that CD-ROM are accurately described in the first chapter of genesis, and shows pictures of CD-drives in ancient hieroglyphics. He even puts them in Joseph Smith's hands in the 1800s. Those pesky time-travelers!
I make no claims to the accuracy of his research or the conclusions he drew from it, but I thought surely I'm not the only one who would find it worth a couple minutes of poking around. Personally, I think he's stretching, but it makes for a heck of a read and an interesting line of thought. This is my favorite page of his site (so far).
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
PBS probes NSA's role in 9/11
Interesting topic coming up on NOVA in February. A PBS investigation into what the NSA knew about 9/11 before it happened...
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
The Greatest Earthquake Ever Known
With all due respect to Brad, he's wrong: Land of the Lost does not suck. Just gotta get that out there.
For that statement, as well as what follows, I'm only talking about the 70's classic Land of the Lost, not the 90s (?) remake version (of which I've only seen one episode). The classic is just that: a classic. The newer versions, I haven't seen enough of to judge.
Dissing Land of the Lost is like dissing Metropolis or Citizen Kane or Wizard Of Oz or Gone With The Wind or Casablanca or BladeRunner.
They all have faults, and seem almost cliche because of how often they've been aped. There's even one on that list that I don't personally care for. But if you're focusing on those faults, you're missing the point (as I no doubt did the one time I saw Gone With The Wind).
It's like dissing Warhol because the internet and the latest Photoshop filter lets us crank out similar work in under 5 minutes. (No, I've never met the people in the photo to the left, they came up in a google search. Presumably, it's not really a long-lost Warhol original like they sarcastically claim. No offense intended.)
Dissing Land of the Lost is like dissing Rocky Horror because Tim Curry and Susan Sarandon are capable of much more believable and emotionally gripping performances.
I will admit, the child actors in Land of the Lost do suck from time to time. But considering that they were frequently acting in front of a bluescreen, reacting to monsters that didn't exist (in an era where that was no yet the norm for TV or movies), they actually didn't do as badly as they could have. It was the 70s, after all, complete with bad hairdos, cheesy slang, and social dynamics that no longer resonate - the performances could have been much worse, all things considered. When's the last time a 12-year old convinced you they had a broken leg while limping around for two whole episodes? Despite 30+ years of progress, child actors still suck in most movies and TV shows.
Compared to modern technical expectations, the effects leave something to be desired. But the effects were revolutionary in their day, and pretty damn good for a weekly half-hour kids show in the 70s. Remember, this was before the era of CGI, motion capture, and digital color timing. It was all puppets, clay, and bluescreen superimposing.
On a related note - they only had three Sleestack suits. There's some incredible editing where they give you the feeling that the Marshalls are fighting off dozens of Sleestacks. I had to read it online to catch it - if it weren't for wikipedia, I'd still be assuming they must have made at least a dozen Sleestack suits. But if you watch carefully, it's all done with never more than 3 on screen. It's genius that they managed to present a community of hundreds just 3 at a time.
The concepts / ideas in Land of the Lost have never sucked. (Well, the "goodbye Rick, hello Uncle Jack" transition could have been handled better - but that was a problem of lawyers and agents, not screenwriters and directors.) The vast majority of the plots and concepts were and remain awesome. They were written by scifi luminaries such as Larry Niven, David Gerrold, DC Fontana, Norman Spinrad, Ben Bova, and Theodore Sturgeon.
Land of the Lost is also one of the seminal works of genre-crossing fiction, drawing on numerous disparate sources for reference and blending them into a single coherent universe. It was a product of the same thought-space that where Lucas dreamt up Star Wars and Scott discovered Aliens. Without Land of the Lost (and the "influence stew" style it embodied) we might not have Firefly or Lost. Sure, it was a lot less subtle (and less polished) than most of what followed it, but that's to be expected as time and technology progress and the state of the art improves with it.
In closing: To each their own - Brad will likely disagree with most of what I've said. :) To that, I offer one final defense: Whatever else you can say about Land of the Lost, at least the Sleestack's spines don't glow inexplicably when they get some. To me, that's important.
For that statement, as well as what follows, I'm only talking about the 70's classic Land of the Lost, not the 90s (?) remake version (of which I've only seen one episode). The classic is just that: a classic. The newer versions, I haven't seen enough of to judge.Dissing Land of the Lost is like dissing Metropolis or Citizen Kane or Wizard Of Oz or Gone With The Wind or Casablanca or BladeRunner.
They all have faults, and seem almost cliche because of how often they've been aped. There's even one on that list that I don't personally care for. But if you're focusing on those faults, you're missing the point (as I no doubt did the one time I saw Gone With The Wind).
It's like dissing Warhol because the internet and the latest Photoshop filter lets us crank out similar work in under 5 minutes. (No, I've never met the people in the photo to the left, they came up in a google search. Presumably, it's not really a long-lost Warhol original like they sarcastically claim. No offense intended.)Dissing Land of the Lost is like dissing Rocky Horror because Tim Curry and Susan Sarandon are capable of much more believable and emotionally gripping performances.
I will admit, the child actors in Land of the Lost do suck from time to time. But considering that they were frequently acting in front of a bluescreen, reacting to monsters that didn't exist (in an era where that was no yet the norm for TV or movies), they actually didn't do as badly as they could have. It was the 70s, after all, complete with bad hairdos, cheesy slang, and social dynamics that no longer resonate - the performances could have been much worse, all things considered. When's the last time a 12-year old convinced you they had a broken leg while limping around for two whole episodes? Despite 30+ years of progress, child actors still suck in most movies and TV shows.Compared to modern technical expectations, the effects leave something to be desired. But the effects were revolutionary in their day, and pretty damn good for a weekly half-hour kids show in the 70s. Remember, this was before the era of CGI, motion capture, and digital color timing. It was all puppets, clay, and bluescreen superimposing.
On a related note - they only had three Sleestack suits. There's some incredible editing where they give you the feeling that the Marshalls are fighting off dozens of Sleestacks. I had to read it online to catch it - if it weren't for wikipedia, I'd still be assuming they must have made at least a dozen Sleestack suits. But if you watch carefully, it's all done with never more than 3 on screen. It's genius that they managed to present a community of hundreds just 3 at a time.
The concepts / ideas in Land of the Lost have never sucked. (Well, the "goodbye Rick, hello Uncle Jack" transition could have been handled better - but that was a problem of lawyers and agents, not screenwriters and directors.) The vast majority of the plots and concepts were and remain awesome. They were written by scifi luminaries such as Larry Niven, David Gerrold, DC Fontana, Norman Spinrad, Ben Bova, and Theodore Sturgeon.
Bonus: Here's a very thorough review of the DVD release by someone else who finds much to love about it.
Land of the Lost is also one of the seminal works of genre-crossing fiction, drawing on numerous disparate sources for reference and blending them into a single coherent universe. It was a product of the same thought-space that where Lucas dreamt up Star Wars and Scott discovered Aliens. Without Land of the Lost (and the "influence stew" style it embodied) we might not have Firefly or Lost. Sure, it was a lot less subtle (and less polished) than most of what followed it, but that's to be expected as time and technology progress and the state of the art improves with it.In closing: To each their own - Brad will likely disagree with most of what I've said. :) To that, I offer one final defense: Whatever else you can say about Land of the Lost, at least the Sleestack's spines don't glow inexplicably when they get some. To me, that's important.
Friday, November 7, 2008
OS V
X is right. My version numbers were pretty error-ridden. The following history is at least a little more accurate, and not so blindly patriotic:
America Beta was the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Unity.It was open-source, and quickly ended up with regional version conflicts. Not surprisingly, it turned out to not be very perpetual afterall.
After that there was a 1.0 release, with an immediate 1.1 patch. This put the nation on a single standard, though many said the patch didn’t go far enough. Many users were locked out of the more important functions of the software, and your permissions were set at the factory. You either had the “Home” or “Professional” edition of the software, and most consumers were never allowed to upgrade. This version of the operating environment was also outwardly hostile to any indigenous program that was using resources the OS might want to draw upon. It had a nasty habit of repartitioning the hard-drive, often moving other programs onto bad sectors. This particular bug continued until version 3.6 or so.
In the 1860s we saw multiple competing releases. Each had it’s flaws, but eventually the more robust system prevailed. In the end people were happy to get back to a single standard again, which they heralded as the new and improved “3rd Edition” of America.
After a lot of hooplah, the public eventually figured out the system didn’t quite deliver on everything it promised, and some patches were going to be needed. There were version updates thereafter when the Jim Crow laws were repealed and again when various minority groups given suffrage. In addition to those needed upgrades, sometimes service packs were released when hackers compromised the security of the system and deleted or corrupted core resources. We hit 3.9 after Nixon resigned,but the promised major revision never occurred. 3.9.2 had no spam filter, and our inboxes were subjected to endless advertisements about cigars and blue dresses.
There was no 4.0. Instead, in 2000 after a major hardware crash, a rival operating system was installed: “American Vista” was an ironic title that implied you were now looking upon America from a distant vantage point. It had clearly been reverse-engineered, sort of a mix of our original software and a competing system designed in Germany in the 1930s. It had numerous unique bugs, many of which were passed off as “features”. It’s greatest commonality with the previous edition was the lack of spamfilter – but by this time the most common bulk scheme was from the actual manufacturer of the operating system, an outfit called WMD Inc. Most Americans reluctantly tolerated this version until the new user agreement included a clause pertaining to a monthly charge to use the system. That extra cost seemed to be the deciding factor.
That brings us to November 2008. We’ve just run a virus check, and are in the process of backing up the data in preparation of upgrading the software when the new version releases in January. Personally, I’m hoping this time we’ll get features that are genuinely features, including fewer security issues, a radical new graphical interface, and the option of setting certain parental controls to the “off” position. I also heard a rumor the software somehow reduces your carbon footprint, but I’m a little fuzzy on how that will work. I am very excited at the prospect that this version will be much more popular on the world market. For the past 8 years, the rest of the world had been more critical of our system software than we were, and there were numerous incompatibility issues. That may soon be a thing of the past.
Will the “America - OS V” be something completely new? Does the V stand for “5.0”, or “Victory?”
I’ll be happy with any meaning other than “Vista2”.
America Beta was the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Unity.It was open-source, and quickly ended up with regional version conflicts. Not surprisingly, it turned out to not be very perpetual afterall.
After that there was a 1.0 release, with an immediate 1.1 patch. This put the nation on a single standard, though many said the patch didn’t go far enough. Many users were locked out of the more important functions of the software, and your permissions were set at the factory. You either had the “Home” or “Professional” edition of the software, and most consumers were never allowed to upgrade. This version of the operating environment was also outwardly hostile to any indigenous program that was using resources the OS might want to draw upon. It had a nasty habit of repartitioning the hard-drive, often moving other programs onto bad sectors. This particular bug continued until version 3.6 or so.
In the 1860s we saw multiple competing releases. Each had it’s flaws, but eventually the more robust system prevailed. In the end people were happy to get back to a single standard again, which they heralded as the new and improved “3rd Edition” of America.
After a lot of hooplah, the public eventually figured out the system didn’t quite deliver on everything it promised, and some patches were going to be needed. There were version updates thereafter when the Jim Crow laws were repealed and again when various minority groups given suffrage. In addition to those needed upgrades, sometimes service packs were released when hackers compromised the security of the system and deleted or corrupted core resources. We hit 3.9 after Nixon resigned,but the promised major revision never occurred. 3.9.2 had no spam filter, and our inboxes were subjected to endless advertisements about cigars and blue dresses.
There was no 4.0. Instead, in 2000 after a major hardware crash, a rival operating system was installed: “American Vista” was an ironic title that implied you were now looking upon America from a distant vantage point. It had clearly been reverse-engineered, sort of a mix of our original software and a competing system designed in Germany in the 1930s. It had numerous unique bugs, many of which were passed off as “features”. It’s greatest commonality with the previous edition was the lack of spamfilter – but by this time the most common bulk scheme was from the actual manufacturer of the operating system, an outfit called WMD Inc. Most Americans reluctantly tolerated this version until the new user agreement included a clause pertaining to a monthly charge to use the system. That extra cost seemed to be the deciding factor.
That brings us to November 2008. We’ve just run a virus check, and are in the process of backing up the data in preparation of upgrading the software when the new version releases in January. Personally, I’m hoping this time we’ll get features that are genuinely features, including fewer security issues, a radical new graphical interface, and the option of setting certain parental controls to the “off” position. I also heard a rumor the software somehow reduces your carbon footprint, but I’m a little fuzzy on how that will work. I am very excited at the prospect that this version will be much more popular on the world market. For the past 8 years, the rest of the world had been more critical of our system software than we were, and there were numerous incompatibility issues. That may soon be a thing of the past.
Will the “America - OS V” be something completely new? Does the V stand for “5.0”, or “Victory?”
I’ll be happy with any meaning other than “Vista2”.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Oh, that's who I'm fucking! (NSFW)
Jake's right.There's something decidely unsettling about the idea of having sex withtwins, siblings, or relatives of any sort. Frankly, that whole conceptis revolting - and needs to be. If we didn't have the biological andsocial imperative to find it disturbing, we'd end up with a lot moresexual abuse and inbreeding. If you grew up as close kin to someone,you shouldn't find them sexy at all.
But that begs the sci-fi question. If you could do it with clones, would you? This of course gets mucky quickly. I certainly don't know the answer to the nature-vs-nurture debate, and since we're talkin' sci-fi, I can't rule out that the clones wouldn't share the memories of the original. Even if I could be certain they don't, and they weren't raised together or think of each other as sisters, it'd still be far from ideal. You'd still have to worry that you'll get them confused and accidentally focus all your efforts on clone A, leaving poor clone B jealous or nonorgasmic. So sex with clones still has it's flaws.
Sex with your lover's time-traveling future selves, however, could sidestep that. It wouldn't matter if you gave a little to much attention to one version of your partner, as he or she would still have the pleasant memory of getting your full attention during the same "closed-circuit orgy". It's not like you get jealous of yourself whenever you have a mediocre orgasm.
I suspect, actually, that's why you've nevermet a time traveller. I'd guess that in the future someone invents atime-machine. Domesticating dinosaurs, killing hitler, retroactivelyimproving their own childhood, and striking it rich on the stock marketonly occupies his first couple weekends. Then, he realizes he couldgo back in time and seduce that failed first romance. Of course, thismakes him feel awful - he doesn't want to cheat on his wife. That'swhen he realizes the time machine can allow him to fulfill at least onesexual fantasy he'd previously written off - the threesome.
So,he approaches his wife and says "Honey, I've built a time machine and now we're rich. But I've never been to an orgy, because I only have eyes for you. But how about I have sex with you and your 30 minutes older self, ...and maybe your one hour older self? Hop in the timemachine, loop around a couple times, and we'll have fun, okay? I can fuck all of you, and you can make out with yourself, and you'll be so fucking hot! Please?"
His wife stands aghast for a second. There's something distinctly masturbatory about the notion of making out with her future self forher husband's edification, not that she's against masturbation, but she's not sure she wants to...
Then the eyeslight up. "I'm not the only one who can get in that time machine, dear. I want your cocks in every opening!" Next thing you know, there's as many of each of them as they can fit in the bedroom, fucking each other every which way, and possibly trying hard not to admit there's something just a touch gay about the whole scenario.
Eventually, they probably realize that used to be younger, hotter, and in better shape, so why not go back and get some of your own barely legal ass? And that's where the time machine fails them.
If your older, wrinklier, desperate horndog self showed up to make you their personalsex-slave, you'd be all "Fuck this! I ain't ever inventing that timemachine in the first place!" At which point your future horndog selfevaporates in a violent paradoxical time wave.
I suspect thisvery scenario is happening around us all the time. Hundreds, maybethousands of would-be scientists are carrying the deep dark secret that they were nearly gang-raped by their future selves who thendisintigrated before their eyes. That'd turn anyone into a neo-luddite.Hell, for all you know, I might have been up in arms about the LHC because my erection-laden future self used it to attack me.
I think I'm going to start asking every non-scientist I know: "So, have you too given up your plans to build a time machine after your twisted pervert future self tried to rape you?"
No use asking those who actually are (still) scientists, after all, as those guys never get laid.
But that begs the sci-fi question. If you could do it with clones, would you? This of course gets mucky quickly. I certainly don't know the answer to the nature-vs-nurture debate, and since we're talkin' sci-fi, I can't rule out that the clones wouldn't share the memories of the original. Even if I could be certain they don't, and they weren't raised together or think of each other as sisters, it'd still be far from ideal. You'd still have to worry that you'll get them confused and accidentally focus all your efforts on clone A, leaving poor clone B jealous or nonorgasmic. So sex with clones still has it's flaws.
Sex with your lover's time-traveling future selves, however, could sidestep that. It wouldn't matter if you gave a little to much attention to one version of your partner, as he or she would still have the pleasant memory of getting your full attention during the same "closed-circuit orgy". It's not like you get jealous of yourself whenever you have a mediocre orgasm.
I suspect, actually, that's why you've nevermet a time traveller. I'd guess that in the future someone invents atime-machine. Domesticating dinosaurs, killing hitler, retroactivelyimproving their own childhood, and striking it rich on the stock marketonly occupies his first couple weekends. Then, he realizes he couldgo back in time and seduce that failed first romance. Of course, thismakes him feel awful - he doesn't want to cheat on his wife. That'swhen he realizes the time machine can allow him to fulfill at least onesexual fantasy he'd previously written off - the threesome.
So,he approaches his wife and says "Honey, I've built a time machine and now we're rich. But I've never been to an orgy, because I only have eyes for you. But how about I have sex with you and your 30 minutes older self, ...and maybe your one hour older self? Hop in the timemachine, loop around a couple times, and we'll have fun, okay? I can fuck all of you, and you can make out with yourself, and you'll be so fucking hot! Please?"
His wife stands aghast for a second. There's something distinctly masturbatory about the notion of making out with her future self forher husband's edification, not that she's against masturbation, but she's not sure she wants to...
Then the eyeslight up. "I'm not the only one who can get in that time machine, dear. I want your cocks in every opening!" Next thing you know, there's as many of each of them as they can fit in the bedroom, fucking each other every which way, and possibly trying hard not to admit there's something just a touch gay about the whole scenario.
Eventually, they probably realize that used to be younger, hotter, and in better shape, so why not go back and get some of your own barely legal ass? And that's where the time machine fails them.
If your older, wrinklier, desperate horndog self showed up to make you their personalsex-slave, you'd be all "Fuck this! I ain't ever inventing that timemachine in the first place!" At which point your future horndog selfevaporates in a violent paradoxical time wave.
I suspect thisvery scenario is happening around us all the time. Hundreds, maybethousands of would-be scientists are carrying the deep dark secret that they were nearly gang-raped by their future selves who thendisintigrated before their eyes. That'd turn anyone into a neo-luddite.Hell, for all you know, I might have been up in arms about the LHC because my erection-laden future self used it to attack me.
I think I'm going to start asking every non-scientist I know: "So, have you too given up your plans to build a time machine after your twisted pervert future self tried to rape you?"
No use asking those who actually are (still) scientists, after all, as those guys never get laid.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Jay Winik's hard-on for Slavelords
I just read the first 100 pages of "April 1865: The Month That Saved America". I'm thinking a better title would have been "April 1865: Jay Winik performs sexual favors for Confederate Icons".
I picked up the book because I'm curious as to why some wars (the American Revolution, the Civil War, and WW2) end cleanly and everyone makes nice afterwords, whereas other wars (various conflicts throughout the middle east, south america, various parts of asia, africa, the balkan states, revolution in mexico, etc) just drag on forever. My pet theory is the CIA. I think our government actively destabilizes other governments. But there's a good chance there's more innocent explanations, and I wanted to read up on how successful peace is formed. The back of this book suggested it would:
At page 50, it seemed Winik's April 1865 was just barely getting past the preamble. He'd spent numerous pages on a sloppy but colorful hand-job of Thomas Jefferson. (Jefferson, in case anyone doesn't know, was an intellectual pioneer and a total fucking hypocrit. As a statesman and author he spoke and worked for liberty, while at the same time owning a large stable of enslaved human beings.) Understanding the constitutional dillema of slavery is pivotal to understanding the basis of the civil war, and while he mostly stroked Jefferson, Winik also pointed out the man's foibles and contradictions, so it was more than tolerable.
Winik's writing style was mostly enjoyable, and a google search for reviews spits back many instances of the words "shining" and "masterful". The chapter entitled "March 1865" had just started around the 40th page, so I knew I hadn't even hit the heart of the matter by the time I did my usual analysis at page 50 and decided to keep reading.
What an awful mistake on my part. Thereafter began an at least 50-page (I'm on 107 and it hasn't ended yet) literary blowjob and prostate-massage for Robert E. Lee. Admittedly, General Lee is an interesting figure. He was a pre-war abolitionist, and publicly stood against succession prior to the war, but, when offered command of the Union Army to invade the state his family lived in, he resigned his commission. If Lee had then abstained from war, he would be unimpeachably noble and heroic, but unlike Gandhi, Smedley Butler, or the Dalai Lama, he chose to take up arms. (Some causes are certainly worth fighting for, and even Gandhi said if you're afraid to protest peacefully you should take up arms. Just the same, for a supposedly pro-abolition, anti-succession individual to lead the Confederate army is downright kinky.)
I can certainly see why any history of the civil war needs to devote significant page count to Lee, his conundrum, and his skill. Winik's book, however, just heaps never-ending adoration upon the Confederate commander. Winik absolves Lee of all guilt*. He paints a picture of messiah figure, a Lee who can do no wrong. Even his "sensuous" correspondence with women other than his wife is praised - and he assures us that none of those romances were ever consummated (which could be true for all I know). The many hardships he faced and injuries he endured are enumerated, and in this stoic portrait "he never allowed any of it to slow him down". His part in the death of thousands is colored as a thing he did with great reluctance because Grant forced him in to it*. We are reminded again and again of his heroic and noble character.
Which, I suppose, wouldn't be so bad if he were just doing this for the one guy. Hero-worship is a fairly human trait. I've got several Heroes of my own up on pedestals. Winik, it would seem, has a few hundred thousand personal heroes, and most of them wore confederate grey. As we round page 100 we are told several times that Union losses were at record highs, while again and again rebel losses were half that or less. But then, astoundingly, on page 101 he characterizes Union troops as "murderous" - wouldn't murderous be more aptly applied to both sides, or perhaps the side that was killing twice as many? Instead, two paragraphs later, he reminds us that the rebel lines are made of "old men and shoeless boys" whom we should have sympathy for. It goes on like this, constantly painting the rebels as heroes and the federalists as sociopaths. He lines up the entire Confederate army to metaphorically fellate them in succession.
On page 105 he compares the city of Richmond to Christ. Jefferson Davis's flight from the city, we are told without any sense of irony, is similar in import to Christ's crucifixion.
On 107 he laments the poor aristocrat who's forced to release "$50,000 worth of property in the street and let them go". The slave owner, by the way, gets away on the retreat train. He can't take his slaves with because the whites on the train don't want to make room for blacks. Winik very carefully avoids any moral judgment against the slave-owner, or any one on the train. He almost seems to be implying that the soldier who insists there's no room for slaves on the train is some sort of hero. Like there's some nobility in freeing slaves who are going to be freed by the enemy in less than an hour anyway.
At that point I threw the book down in disgust. Luckily, it was $1.99 at the thrift store, so I'm not wasting much if I decide to dump it. I would like to know how this country managed to piece itself together in 1865. I'd love to understand why some wars drag on in violence and others are followed by extended peace. Must I read such blatant propaganda to learn the secret? I dread what his depiction of John Wilkes Booth must be like - 'dashing actor turned vigilante', 'doomed hero of a doomed cause', or some such pandering drivel.
Faced with the tyranny of the Bush-Cheney administration, I must admit a certain admiration for a generation of people willing to battle against oppressors (real or imagined), but I haven't forgotten that the "noble rebels" were predominantly racists, hypocrits, and oppressors themselves. Jay Winik seems bizarrely willing to overlook that.
*: Specifically, Winik tells us repeatedly how Grant alone was responsible for all those Union deaths. This was popular opinion in newspapers of the era, but that doesn't make it true. Grant was a bastard and a butcher, to be sure, but one man does not wage a war. Those deaths are equally to blame on Lincoln, Davis, Lee, the cabinets and congresses of both factions, the proxy system that let senators and financial barons buy their sons out of the draft, and everyone involved in the slave trade. To single out a few would be overly simplistic. To hold only one side culpable is to miss the lessons of history in their entirety.
Winik tells a story of how, at the battle of Cold Harbor, neither side was willing to call a cease-fire to clear the wounded off the battlefield. He blames Grant's (and certainly not Lee's) stubbornness for this, and neatly sidesteps the fact that since Grant had been charging a fortified position, the bodies in no-man's land were almost entirely Union bodies. Both men were complicit in this game of egos, and Lee stood to gain advantage by dragging the process out till the wounded had died. The Northern press hated Grant for his part in this, that is true. But to absolve Lee of all guilt in this action is deeply dishonest, and/or naive. The Cold Harbor negotiation failure was actually a great (and bloody) success by Lee on the psychological/propaganda front. That much should be obvious to a man with Winik's credentials, writing a book that claims "fresh iconoclastic scholarship" on the cover.
I picked up the book because I'm curious as to why some wars (the American Revolution, the Civil War, and WW2) end cleanly and everyone makes nice afterwords, whereas other wars (various conflicts throughout the middle east, south america, various parts of asia, africa, the balkan states, revolution in mexico, etc) just drag on forever. My pet theory is the CIA. I think our government actively destabilizes other governments. But there's a good chance there's more innocent explanations, and I wanted to read up on how successful peace is formed. The back of this book suggested it would:
I have a general policy with books. At around the 50th page, I stop and evaluate whether or not I want to continue reading. There's just too many good books out there to make it worth reading the bad ones. In one lifetime you'll never read all the truly wonderful books you should, so why waste time and brain cells reading even one that sucks? Typically, by around the 50th page, you can tell whether this one's going to be worth continued investment."One month in 1865 witnessed the frenzied fall of Richmond, a daring last-ditch Southern plan for guerrila warfare, Lee's harrowing retreat, and then, Appomattox. It saw Lincoln's assassination just five days later and a near-successful plot to decapitate the Union government, followed by chaos and coup fears in the North, collapsed negotiations and continued bloodshed in the South, and finally, the start of national reconcilliation.
In the end, April 1865 emerged as not just the tale of the war's denouement, but the story of the making of our nation."
bla bla bla
At page 50, it seemed Winik's April 1865 was just barely getting past the preamble. He'd spent numerous pages on a sloppy but colorful hand-job of Thomas Jefferson. (Jefferson, in case anyone doesn't know, was an intellectual pioneer and a total fucking hypocrit. As a statesman and author he spoke and worked for liberty, while at the same time owning a large stable of enslaved human beings.) Understanding the constitutional dillema of slavery is pivotal to understanding the basis of the civil war, and while he mostly stroked Jefferson, Winik also pointed out the man's foibles and contradictions, so it was more than tolerable.
Winik's writing style was mostly enjoyable, and a google search for reviews spits back many instances of the words "shining" and "masterful". The chapter entitled "March 1865" had just started around the 40th page, so I knew I hadn't even hit the heart of the matter by the time I did my usual analysis at page 50 and decided to keep reading.
What an awful mistake on my part. Thereafter began an at least 50-page (I'm on 107 and it hasn't ended yet) literary blowjob and prostate-massage for Robert E. Lee. Admittedly, General Lee is an interesting figure. He was a pre-war abolitionist, and publicly stood against succession prior to the war, but, when offered command of the Union Army to invade the state his family lived in, he resigned his commission. If Lee had then abstained from war, he would be unimpeachably noble and heroic, but unlike Gandhi, Smedley Butler, or the Dalai Lama, he chose to take up arms. (Some causes are certainly worth fighting for, and even Gandhi said if you're afraid to protest peacefully you should take up arms. Just the same, for a supposedly pro-abolition, anti-succession individual to lead the Confederate army is downright kinky.)
I can certainly see why any history of the civil war needs to devote significant page count to Lee, his conundrum, and his skill. Winik's book, however, just heaps never-ending adoration upon the Confederate commander. Winik absolves Lee of all guilt*. He paints a picture of messiah figure, a Lee who can do no wrong. Even his "sensuous" correspondence with women other than his wife is praised - and he assures us that none of those romances were ever consummated (which could be true for all I know). The many hardships he faced and injuries he endured are enumerated, and in this stoic portrait "he never allowed any of it to slow him down". His part in the death of thousands is colored as a thing he did with great reluctance because Grant forced him in to it*. We are reminded again and again of his heroic and noble character.
Which, I suppose, wouldn't be so bad if he were just doing this for the one guy. Hero-worship is a fairly human trait. I've got several Heroes of my own up on pedestals. Winik, it would seem, has a few hundred thousand personal heroes, and most of them wore confederate grey. As we round page 100 we are told several times that Union losses were at record highs, while again and again rebel losses were half that or less. But then, astoundingly, on page 101 he characterizes Union troops as "murderous" - wouldn't murderous be more aptly applied to both sides, or perhaps the side that was killing twice as many? Instead, two paragraphs later, he reminds us that the rebel lines are made of "old men and shoeless boys" whom we should have sympathy for. It goes on like this, constantly painting the rebels as heroes and the federalists as sociopaths. He lines up the entire Confederate army to metaphorically fellate them in succession.
On page 105 he compares the city of Richmond to Christ. Jefferson Davis's flight from the city, we are told without any sense of irony, is similar in import to Christ's crucifixion.
On 107 he laments the poor aristocrat who's forced to release "$50,000 worth of property in the street and let them go". The slave owner, by the way, gets away on the retreat train. He can't take his slaves with because the whites on the train don't want to make room for blacks. Winik very carefully avoids any moral judgment against the slave-owner, or any one on the train. He almost seems to be implying that the soldier who insists there's no room for slaves on the train is some sort of hero. Like there's some nobility in freeing slaves who are going to be freed by the enemy in less than an hour anyway.
At that point I threw the book down in disgust. Luckily, it was $1.99 at the thrift store, so I'm not wasting much if I decide to dump it. I would like to know how this country managed to piece itself together in 1865. I'd love to understand why some wars drag on in violence and others are followed by extended peace. Must I read such blatant propaganda to learn the secret? I dread what his depiction of John Wilkes Booth must be like - 'dashing actor turned vigilante', 'doomed hero of a doomed cause', or some such pandering drivel.
Faced with the tyranny of the Bush-Cheney administration, I must admit a certain admiration for a generation of people willing to battle against oppressors (real or imagined), but I haven't forgotten that the "noble rebels" were predominantly racists, hypocrits, and oppressors themselves. Jay Winik seems bizarrely willing to overlook that.
*: Specifically, Winik tells us repeatedly how Grant alone was responsible for all those Union deaths. This was popular opinion in newspapers of the era, but that doesn't make it true. Grant was a bastard and a butcher, to be sure, but one man does not wage a war. Those deaths are equally to blame on Lincoln, Davis, Lee, the cabinets and congresses of both factions, the proxy system that let senators and financial barons buy their sons out of the draft, and everyone involved in the slave trade. To single out a few would be overly simplistic. To hold only one side culpable is to miss the lessons of history in their entirety.
Winik tells a story of how, at the battle of Cold Harbor, neither side was willing to call a cease-fire to clear the wounded off the battlefield. He blames Grant's (and certainly not Lee's) stubbornness for this, and neatly sidesteps the fact that since Grant had been charging a fortified position, the bodies in no-man's land were almost entirely Union bodies. Both men were complicit in this game of egos, and Lee stood to gain advantage by dragging the process out till the wounded had died. The Northern press hated Grant for his part in this, that is true. But to absolve Lee of all guilt in this action is deeply dishonest, and/or naive. The Cold Harbor negotiation failure was actually a great (and bloody) success by Lee on the psychological/propaganda front. That much should be obvious to a man with Winik's credentials, writing a book that claims "fresh iconoclastic scholarship" on the cover.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Just to make sure you understand me...
When I'm really pissed off about something, say 9/11 being an inside job, or the FISA bill giving immunity to the telecoms, I...
When, instead, I'm just "taking a piss" (like Freebird), or playing "what if" / "devil's advocate" (like the LHC), I'll typically stop at one or two blog posts and some number of rebuttal comments.
In the background I'm doing nothing on the issue. At best, I'm contemplating something that I think is interesting to think about, and for that reason trying to solicit other peoples opinions on the topic. At worst, I'm amusing myself with my own asshole-ishness. The issue at hand is not some glaring crack in the foundations of our society which I must personally fix, so instead of being legitmately rankled about it, I'm "ranting into the ether between games of Dungeons & Dragons" (to borrow a line from an idiot). Other posts from other folks on this blog would tend to imply that's to be expected here, yes?
Good, time for a new subject...
- Blog about it here.
- Do so again.
- And again.
- Sometimes I'll mention it on and off for months. (P.S.: 9/11 was an inside job. Bush & Cheney should be tried for treason. McCain sold out everything he once believed in, and is clearly in bed with the devil. Big companies suck, and lobbyists suck twice as bad. Our voting system has been compromised and I totally expect the Repubs to steal a third consecutive election. Conspiracies are real, and our press and government are complicity in a great many of them. Our nation stands upon the cusp of Fascism. On a completely unrelated note: Christianity has lots of flaws, but calling Christians "stupid" or "delusional" and God their "imaginary friend" will never win them over to your cause. It will instead close their minds to your more convincing arguments. Did I miss anything?)
- And include links to further information,
- suggest actions you could take to help fix the problem,
- and sometimes include links to where you can sign a petition or take action.
- signing petitions,
- writing letters to my congressmen,
- donating to the ACLU, or Environment Washington, or Change Congress, or other progressive causes,
- putting comments about it in my various forum sigs, so that random people who don't read my blog will still have the general concept on their radar
- writing even more letters to my congressmen, and sometimes the governor,
- arguing on the phone with volunteers from the Republican party,
- voting third party,
- and sometimes even calling the congressional switchboard multiple times in a week.
When, instead, I'm just "taking a piss" (like Freebird), or playing "what if" / "devil's advocate" (like the LHC), I'll typically stop at one or two blog posts and some number of rebuttal comments.
In the background I'm doing nothing on the issue. At best, I'm contemplating something that I think is interesting to think about, and for that reason trying to solicit other peoples opinions on the topic. At worst, I'm amusing myself with my own asshole-ishness. The issue at hand is not some glaring crack in the foundations of our society which I must personally fix, so instead of being legitmately rankled about it, I'm "ranting into the ether between games of Dungeons & Dragons" (to borrow a line from an idiot). Other posts from other folks on this blog would tend to imply that's to be expected here, yes?
Good, time for a new subject...
Thursday, July 17, 2008
The word "Integrity" does not mean what I thought it did.
All my life, I've been thinking "Integrity" was this important thing, something to be lauded and praised. Turns out, I've been misunderstanding what the word meant.
I know that sounds like the set-up to some sort of sarcastic joke, but I'm serious.
If you'd asked me to define Integrity, I'd have said it meant "doing the right thing, even if it's unpopular" or "doing the right thing, even if there's advantage to be gained by disregarding your moral compass." I saw it as 100% commendable in all situations.
Earlier today, (in an argument about a game mechanic in the Scion RPG called "Integrity") it was pointed out to me that I have been at least partially misunderstanding the word. (A misunderstanding which lead to my house-ruling some things that, in retrospect, didn't need it.)
SPACKlik wrote:
If all Integrity means is "standing your ground" and being resistant to change, it's not such a great thing to aspire to, in and of itself. You could be morally bankrupt, yet still have Integrity. 'Integrity' is much closer to 'Stubbornness' and 'Traditional' than I'd been imagining it to be.
I can think of a specific conversation I once had with Lance (14 to 18 months ago), where I now realize he didn't understand what I was saying because that critical word meant something different to him. "At least you still have your Integrity" isn't necessarily something to be proud of, it's almost condescending and mocking in some circumstances. Have I been coming off as a jerk when I meant to be applauding someone?
I know that sounds like the set-up to some sort of sarcastic joke, but I'm serious.
If you'd asked me to define Integrity, I'd have said it meant "doing the right thing, even if it's unpopular" or "doing the right thing, even if there's advantage to be gained by disregarding your moral compass." I saw it as 100% commendable in all situations.
Earlier today, (in an argument about a game mechanic in the Scion RPG called "Integrity") it was pointed out to me that I have been at least partially misunderstanding the word. (A misunderstanding which lead to my house-ruling some things that, in retrospect, didn't need it.)
SPACKlik wrote:
"That isn't what it means at all in english. It means strength or toughness either of an object or mind. How well something sticks to constructs, regardless of goodness or badness"and Fougerec chimed in:
" Main Entry: in·teg·ri·tyIn effect, I've been applying extra baggage to the word (at least in terms of scope and emphasis). Baggage and meaning that isn't always guaranteed to be intended. All those times I've heard some politician or artist talk about their Integrity, they may have meant something entirely different than I took them to mean. There's a subtle nuance that I was missing (or rather, that I was projecting/imagining).
Pronunciation: \in-ˈte-grə-tē\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English integrite, from Middle French & Latin; Middle French integrité, from Latin integritat-, integritas, from integr-, integer entire
Date: 14th century
1 : firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values : incorruptibility
2 : an unimpaired condition : soundness
3 : the quality or state of being complete or undivided : completeness
So it could be used in multiple ways. I think r_b was using meaning #1 but using conventional morality as the code to keep by, thus less savory characters need not apply. I read the skill to use meaning #1, but in reference to the character's own sense of self which is why it defends against meanipulative attemtps [in the game]."
If all Integrity means is "standing your ground" and being resistant to change, it's not such a great thing to aspire to, in and of itself. You could be morally bankrupt, yet still have Integrity. 'Integrity' is much closer to 'Stubbornness' and 'Traditional' than I'd been imagining it to be.
I can think of a specific conversation I once had with Lance (14 to 18 months ago), where I now realize he didn't understand what I was saying because that critical word meant something different to him. "At least you still have your Integrity" isn't necessarily something to be proud of, it's almost condescending and mocking in some circumstances. Have I been coming off as a jerk when I meant to be applauding someone?
Saturday, July 12, 2008
The courage of the little guy
At one of his recent "town hall" symposiums (where people are allowed to ask McCain questions, provided they aren't carrying a sign that says "McCain = Bush"), McCain got asked a very difficult question.
At that event, a person, who's name is unknown to me, waited in line at the microphone, and asked McCain about his connections to Project for a New American Century.
PNAC is the think-tank that published a document in September 2000 that concluded:
I don't know who the concerned citizen was that asked that question at that "town hall", but I'd like to salute his bravery. He didn't just ask about PNAC, he made the 9/11 connection, and quoted a statistic:
At that event, a person, who's name is unknown to me, waited in line at the microphone, and asked McCain about his connections to Project for a New American Century.
PNAC is the think-tank that published a document in September 2000 that concluded:
"The process of transformation, even if it bring revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event like a new Pearl Harbor."PNAC's membership includes Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Jeb Bush. McCain is a founding member of New Citizenship Project, the parent corporation of PNAC. As we all know, nearly exactly a year after publishing that document, PNAC got it's new Pearl Harbor that it was wishing for, and our country changed for the worse.
I don't know who the concerned citizen was that asked that question at that "town hall", but I'd like to salute his bravery. He didn't just ask about PNAC, he made the 9/11 connection, and quoted a statistic:
"according to a recent New York Times and CBS News poll, 84% of Americans believe that there were some criminal elements of our government involved in 9/11"It takes a lot of courage to stand up at a microphone at a Republican Party event and ask the Republican nominee whether or not he took part in the murder of 3,000 Americans for political gain. Good for you, nameless hero at the microphone, America needs more citizens like you.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Welcome to 1711 AD - a conspiracy that doesn't piss me off
I went in search of a conspiracy theory I could think about that wouldn't raise my blood pressure. The first one I found was the Phantom Time Hypothesis.
According to Wikipedia:
According to the Daily Yoghurt (don't ask me why it's called that, dude, I just googled it.)
It would also imply that our current rate of technological growth is somewhat less unprecedented and anomalous than it seemed previously, and while that would undermine some Asimov, it might actually give us reason to breathe a little easier about our collective fate.
And for those of us hoping to one day see proof of alien intelligence, the notion that progress from flint and tinder to electromagentic theory is a few hundred years shorter than we'd imagined is a good thing, even if it only increases our odds of contacting aliens by a few millionths of a percent.
Even if it's true, and the Phantom Time was manufactured for nefarious purposes, the people who knowingly perpetrated such lies are dead, and have been for generations. Neither they nor their lackeys remain in power. The deception has negligible impact on our daily life - I mean, sure, we'd have a different number atop our calendars, but unless you're really into numerology, that's no biggie.
In fact, I can only think of one really wretched downside that would apply if this conspiracy theory were true: Since much of the gap between Ancient Rome and the Rennaissance would be compacted, it has an impact on Arthurian studies. That notion that King Arthur were actually a Roman could prove to be true. And that movie sucked.
According to Wikipedia:
It proposes that there has been a systematic effort to make it appear that periods of history, specifically that of Europe during Early Middle Ages (AD 614–911) exist, when they do not. Illig believed that this was achieved through the alteration, misrepresentation and forgery of documentary and physical evidence.
...
The theory also stems from the fact that the by the time the Gregorian calendar was introduced in AD 1582, the old Julian calendar, introduced by Julius Caesar, should have produced a discrepancy of thirteen days between it and the real (or sidereal) calendar. In fact, the astronomers and mathematicians working for Pope Gregory found that the civil calendar needed to be adjusted by only ten days, and it thus appears that the calendar counted roughly three centuries which never existed.[2] The normal explanation for this discrepancy is that the Julian calendar must have been "updated" and two days removed at the Council of Nicea in AD 325, when the date for Easter was set. Yet there is no evidence in documents dealing with the Council that this occurred.
On a related note: Uwe Topper hypothesized that most of the world's history was written after the 16th century, and that much of that which occurred prior to AD 1400 should not be considered factual. |  Illig and Topper's theories suggests that people like these might not really exist. Ooh, the horror! |
According to the Daily Yoghurt (don't ask me why it's called that, dude, I just googled it.)
The basis of Illig's claims is the paucity of archaeological evidence that can be reliably dated to this period; perceived inadequacies of radiometric and dendrochronological methods of dating this period, and the over-reliance of medieval historians on written sources. For Western Europe, Illig claims the presence of Romanesque architecture in the tenth century as evidence that less than half a millennium could have passed since the fall of the Roman Empire, and concludes that the entire Carolingian period, including the person of Charles the Great, is a forgery of medieval chroniclers, more precisely a conspiracy instigated by Otto III and Gerbert d'Aurillac.From Damn Interesting:
If the Phantom Time Hypothesis is true, then it's not 2008, it's actually 1711. This would bode well for mankind, I think, as it would mean much of those dreary Dark Ages are only fictional.It seems that historians are plagued by a plethora of falsified documents from the Middle Ages, and such was the subject of an archaeological conference in München, Germany in 1986. In his lecture there, Horst Fuhrmann, president of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica, described how some documents forged by the Roman Catholic Church during the Middle Ages were created hundreds of years before their "great moments" arrived, after which they were embraced by medieval society. This implied that whomever produced the forgeries must have very skillfully anticipated the future… or there was some discrepancy in calculating dates.
This was reportedly the first bit of evidence that roused Illig's curiosity… he wondered why the church would have forged documents hundreds of years before they would become useful. So he and his group examined other fakes from preceding centuries, and they "divined chronological distortions." This led them to investigate the origin of the Gregorian calendar, which raised even more inconsistency.
In 1582, the Gregorian calendar we still use today was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII to replace the outdated Julian calendar which had been implemented in 45 BC. The Gregorian calendar was designed to correct for a ten-day discrepancy caused by the fact that the Julian year was 10.8 minutes too long. But by Heribert Illig's math, the 1,627 years which had passed since the Julian calendar started should have accrued a thirteen-day discrepancy… a ten-day error would have only taken 1,257 years.
It would also imply that our current rate of technological growth is somewhat less unprecedented and anomalous than it seemed previously, and while that would undermine some Asimov, it might actually give us reason to breathe a little easier about our collective fate.
And for those of us hoping to one day see proof of alien intelligence, the notion that progress from flint and tinder to electromagentic theory is a few hundred years shorter than we'd imagined is a good thing, even if it only increases our odds of contacting aliens by a few millionths of a percent.
Even if it's true, and the Phantom Time was manufactured for nefarious purposes, the people who knowingly perpetrated such lies are dead, and have been for generations. Neither they nor their lackeys remain in power. The deception has negligible impact on our daily life - I mean, sure, we'd have a different number atop our calendars, but unless you're really into numerology, that's no biggie.
In fact, I can only think of one really wretched downside that would apply if this conspiracy theory were true: Since much of the gap between Ancient Rome and the Rennaissance would be compacted, it has an impact on Arthurian studies. That notion that King Arthur were actually a Roman could prove to be true. And that movie sucked.
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