| Sort of. I answered a Craigslist ad a few weeks ago and wound up being appointed the San Francisco Computer Virus Examiner for the Examiner.com website. This definitely carries less weight than being an Imperial Auditor on Barrayar. If I get as many page hits in a month as Scalzi gets in a couple of hours, I'll have earned enough to buy a burrito dinner in the Mission District. But why not? My second installment contains geek knowledge for Windows users about limiting browser privileges that hasn't previously had wide scale distribution. | |
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| Thanks to Paul Di Filippo for turning up a *great* 6-part documentary on Philip K. Dick. Produced by the BBC in 1994, Part 1 features a Ubik/PKD commercial from Terry Gilliam's kitchen, a late-night UHF/PKD book commercial by Elvis Costello, footage with Tom Disch and Kleo Mini, spiced with a great selection of 1950s photos. Subsequent segments have Gilliam, Disch, Kim Stanley Robinson, Paul Williams, Brian Aldiss, Tim Powers, and James Blaylock discussing the power of Dick's writing. If you're moved to continue watching after segment 3/6 in Di Filippo's link, you can go here for the last three segments. I really enjoyed seeing Paul Williams at the height of his eloquent power, expounding on Phil in this. Right now, Paul Williams could use a lift. If you've got a buck or two to spare, I hope you'll consider sending it in Paul W's direction. | |
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|  "I always thought Batman was best suited in the role of gritty urban crime detective. But now you guys have him up against Santas and Easter Bunnies? I'm sorry, but that's not my Batman!"
Caution! Playing the video clip behind this picture link in an embedded Quicktime browser window takes a powerful CPU. Right-click the picture and download the clip to your hard disk if you want to play it safely. -- LB
"Psst!" say the animated Batman crew from the stage at the 5th Dimension Animated Cartoon Convention. "Read this!" they say, handing BatMite a slip of paper.
  Batman's rich history allows him to be interpreted in a multitude of ways. To be sure this is a lighter incarnation, but it's certainly no less valid and true to the character's roots as the tortured avenger crying out for Mommy and Daddy. And besides, those Easter Bunnies look really scary, right? The producers of Batman:The Brave and the Bold have let Paul Dini loose to author this Friday's upcoming episode: Legends of the Dark Mite. Cartoon Network, 5/22, 8:30PM. Be there or be square! [[Apparently will show next week: Friday 5/29, 8:30PM]]What's left to throw at him? A squadron of scolding mothers? | |
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| The Listen to it link referenced in yesterday's 'Still Truckin' post now goes to a broadcast of The Dead at Madison Square Garden: 4-25-09. Live365.com, an Internet radio station, is apparently covering the entire tour. This Picky Deadhead's opinion is that 4/25/09 is not completely shabby. But with a challenging setlist that includes St. Stephen->The Eleven, it has a greater history of awesomeness to compete with. I stand by my initial take that the 4/24/09 Nassau Coliseum show rocks out. See for yourself: The fellow on the right with the long hair is Warren Haynes, of Government Mule fame. Oh, and FWIW, here's Nassau Coliseum: September 7 1973, (Contains Here Comes Sunshine as the second set opener.) | |
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| Once in awhile I think about the psychic space my mind occupied in the 1970s and early 80s. No jobs exploring personal computers or teaching their operation to students. Minimal involvement in the community of s-f fandom. Instead, I spent many many hours wrapped up in the music of the thing called The Grateful Dead: collecting and listening to tapes, drawing line sketches to illustrate songs, attending their concerts, hanging out in the festival parking lots and inside the arenas, going to Deadhead parties, playing music every night with Deadhead friends, and being a waystation for travelling pilgrims to Bay Area shows. Those days seemed endless. The noosphere of my world was filled with an inexhaustible supply of "live Dead" music. Today, twenty-five years later, I'm happy (and a little bit awed) to drop in on that psychic musical space again. The remaining guys from that hairy old hippie band have got their shit together. Last night, they gave a performance at Nassau Coliseum that strikes me as equal to any of Old. Listen to it while you can! Update, 4-26-09: Continued on next rock.  Set 1: Jack Straw Brown-Eyed Women It's All Over Now Baby Blue Easy Wind Death Don't Have No Mercy Don't Ease Me In Lost Sailor > Saint of Circumstance Set 2: When I Paint My Masterpiece @ Peggy-O @ Looks Like Rain @ Set 3: Alabama Getaway > Jam > Dark Star (v1) > Drumz > Space > Knockin' On Heaven's Door.... Goin' Down The Road Feeling Bad Encore: Donor Rap Touch of Grey @ - Acoustic | |
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| -- but, Obama's "compromise/reach out across the aisle" economic advisors are just producing economic stupidity (minus some of the Republican plutocratic meanness and outright theft). If Obama doesn't hire some smart people to help him soon, all his charm may not save us from an impending economic meltdown. You know this, right? Myself, I'd rather be writing an essay comparing similar themes in the novels of Steve Brust and Matt Hughes. (Despotic corruption -> abuse of powerful sorcery, which destroys and reshapes the known world.) But my brain says that thinking about this economics stuff has to come first. Loyal friends list (and others who get here from kindly-granted external links): if you haven't already read so much about the Obama Stimulus Package that your eyes glaze over, stay with me for a few more paragraphs. The stimulus package that worked its way through the Senate has been shorn of its real power to address problems in the U.S. Economy. Stimulating the economy is not about more tax cuts. The way to avoid a depression is to fund industries and encourage scientific research that will create jobs and, ultimately, produce more wealth. (Spending *wisely* to keep credit markets open and assisting victims of the mortgage crisis are also useful tools. The solution for avoiding a depression is not giving more money to brokers-cum-bankers without having some control over what they do with it. We shouldn't have to watch some of those guys redistribute the money to themselves as bonuses and get away with that.) If you don't believe me about the probable ineffectiveness of what Obama is currently planning to do, see here and here, for opinions from Atrios (who is also former Economics Professor Duncan Black, Ph.D: at London School of Economics, the Université catholique de Louvain, the University of California, Irvine, and, most recently, Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania. I've held my tongue (or my keyboard, anyway) about all the Obama warning signs since the election. Some of my friends have expressed a joyous sense of celebration that we've elected a smart, wise man as President of the U.S. and ousted the Evil Ones. (I'll admit to feeling a lot of relief, myself, about those evil ones departing from the White House. So, thank you, all the Obama campaign workers and voters who made that possible.) But wise hero? I wish he would show the courage to support the base that elected him instead of fearing that everything will break down without constant compromise. The message about torture and Guantanamo seems to have gotten across to him. He's trying to address that with more than lip service -- even if it's not working yet.On the U.S. Economy he talks the talk without walking the walk. Why isn't he soliciting advice from people like the NYU faculty linked to above ("Smart People"), or from Paul Krugman? Trying to be fair: a certain amount of blame for the flaws in the watered down stimulus package can be assigned to the Senate. But from what I've been able to extract, the package was disproportionately weighted toward tax cuts over "stimulus" investments to begin with. [Boring plea] If you're a USAn, consider writing to your Senators and Representatives or Obama, himself. I'm working 10-hour days, some days. I'm grateful for that and consider myself lucky to have the work. But what I'd really like to do is go back to worrying about Dan DiDio wrecking the DC Universe and publishing lousy comic books. Additional Spacecrab recommendation: read The Sideshow every day. Thank you, Avedon! | |
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| Thanks, old friend. We won't forget you. Footnote (1/15/08): Many years ago, I wrote a lengthy piece called "The Village Storybook" that was published in SHAGGY ( Shangri L'Affaires, the genzine produced by the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society). In there, I referred to a possible explicit connection between #6 and "John Drake" (Dangerman/Secret Agent from McGoohan's first TV spy series). It sounded to me, at the time, like #6 was referred to specifically (once and quickly) as "Drake" in THE PRISONER, in "The Girl Who Was Death" episode. I've also been thinking about the final PRISONER episode. There's a scene where McGoohan, Leo McKern (the converted rebel No. 2), and Alexis Kanner (the rebel hippie, #48) are dancing inside the bars of a prison truck. They're sharing a champagne toast while being driven to London. McKern (No. 2) is dropped off in front of Parliament. Alexis Kanner (#48) is dropped off near a highway and immediately sticks out his thumb to hitchhike. Patrick McGoohan (Drake?) goes home and is ushered into his house by his mysterious butler/manservant. Remembering this, it struck me that all us USAans are now sitting in our getaway prison truck, clutching our bottle of champagne -- while being driven swiftly to Obama's inauguration. The butler stands ready to usher us back into our home. It's a time to celebrate freedom! But in THE PRISONER, I was always slightly suspicious about who the butler was really working for. (( 2-21-09: The video is now gone from YouTube, but you can still download it here)) | |
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| I looked up one evening and found my city was *still there.* 
When I fell into the ticket line, listened to fans gossiping about the new tour bus parked in front of the theater, and eyeballed the arcane ornament patterns over the doorways of adjoining flats, I felt a familiar buzz.  It could just as well have been 1972, standing outside the Keystone Korner, waiting for Jerry's kids to be ushered inside -- or several years later, receiving good wishes and a piece of Col. Sanders chicken delivered personally by Bill Graham, as he walked up and down the long line outside of Winterland. (Oh yes. *That* San Francisco.) Roadies dutifully carried stuff out of the big tour bus and I waited patiently, even though a power failure had pushed admission to the ballroom back 3/4 of an hour. A big cheer went up from the line when the GAMH marquee fired itself back into life. *E-lec-tri-city.* I don't have the setlist, recordings (or even photos) for this to link to. (I realize that most of you who will be reading this, either from my Friends List -- or through the fandom central collection on ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) pnh's list -- may have no inkling of why I'm raving on about this band. But I've decided to pretend that some of you may be interested enough to sample some material linked to in this post.) For passersby who've "herd of 'em": David Gans opened the show and joined the Buffalos on "No Place Like The Right Time."
Crooked Fence, Chicken Yard
Life can be simple but still be hard
Oh my head, it hurts my eyes
The world's getting bigger as it shrinks in size.
Tara Nevins sang her heart out on "Family Picture," they did a bunch of stuff from their new release "Silverlined" and Jeb Puryear delivered a series of 4 to 5 minute guitar solos during the show-closing "Conscious Evolution" that made me feel he was directly channeling the fingers of Duane Allman. Proper invocations were made to wish for peace, love, harmony, and a prayer for a better life under Barack Obama. The band was at least as good as the sample stuff you'll find appended below, and the room was full of dancers -- young pretty ones with tall handsome boyfriends, mid 30s-to-40s ones, grey-haired couples, and lumpy, longhaired types (like me) who could have (and might have) stepped out from an s-f convention or WELL party: Donna The Buffalo - Family Picture (Live image linked to Studio Performance)
Tides of Time
Some day I might figure it
Right now I'm just livin' it
Right now I'm just livin' it
Right now I'm just givin' it
Looking out over the multitude
Looking in to the heart of it
Reaching out into the middle of it
Seeing how we're a part of it
Chorus:
I'm feeling the tides of time
Moving in on my senses now
I'm feeling the tides of time
Pull me in, pull me out.
Here are a couple that coffeeem and willshetterly might like. Locket and Key (New Studio Release) Ring of Fire* Oh, by the way: I don't have a link to the show I saw on Friday night. But here's a link to the whole show from the day before (Portland, Oregon, Thursday, 11-20-08). To listen to this you'll need the music geek skill to advance your audio player pointer to "02:24:00" to skip the opening band. (This is also explained on the website.) In case you're lucky enough to be located on the tour bus path, here's a tour schedule. | |
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| David Tennant has just-- No. This journal is skipping that LJ replication echo for a smaller one. Potlatch 18, the floating West Coast literary s-f convention has just released Progress Report #2 for the iteration coming up on February 27 - March 1, 2009 in Sunnyvale, California. Extra goodies such as banquet tickets, a Freddie Baer-designed T-shirt, Writers Workshop registration, and a special letterpress poetry broadside can also be ordered by mail or through Paypal from the P18 website registration page. If you're just tuning in to our program in progress (or, as you know, Bob/Roberta), Potlatch features books of honor rather than guests of honor--and this year it has two. The poetry broadside will feature poems written by the authors of both BoHs. Tenor of the Auth-Ons? Sorry, that's how the well-established, little-recognized Spacecrab brain cells work. More circuses await exploration.... | |
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| Maybe it's true that Obama's got this. But there's a link on Google News this morning to a Wall Street Journal editorial entitled "Obama and Health-Care Equity -- Barack defends tax subsidies for the rich." The editorial brazenly asserts that: "For someone running as the tribune of "change," Barack Obama showed again in last night's debate that he sure is comfortable with the status quo on health care. He continued his recent assaults on John McCain's health reform even though it is precisely the kind of plan that someone of Mr. Obama's professed convictions ought to support." This WSJ opinion molder echoes McCain's whopper: that the McCain tax credit (which would allow a $5000 deduction for Health Insurance for families and $2500 for singles) would be sufficient economic stimulus to allow most currently-uninsured taxpayers to purchase individual health insurance. *Wrong.* McCain's tax credit would allow a writeoff of $2500 per year for a single taxpayer. Check the website of any major health provider and you'll find that full coverage for a single taxpayer, for one year, costs at least twice this amount. And that's with a reasonable yearly deductible of $1500 to $3500. Try looking for PPO plans that cover all office visits and hospital care without making the patient cough up $1500 to $5000 a year, first, and you'll find the prices go up to $850-$1200 a month (or about $10,000 per year). But, as many of you reading this will know, the kicker is that you can't get the insurance even at two to three times the money McCain would give you, unless you're young and healthy as a horse. I'm painfully familiar with this, because I'm a single taxpayer who lost my employer-sponsored group plan in 2008 and had to go looking for individual coverage on my own. I checked out Anthem/BlueCross, BlueShield, HealthNet, PacificCare, Aetna, Kaiser, and a number of other carriers and did some extensive reading and telephoning of insurance brokers. I was rejected outright by five major health insurance carriers. The stated reason on each rejection form was that I had reported having a renewable prescription for Protonix to address a diagnosis of GERD (kept under control with the prescription). I was just out of luck, along with nearly 40 percent of the U.S. Population. For having *one* renewable prescription. After another few weeks of rigorous googling, I located a "not-so-well-known" carrier that was willing to take me on despite my prescriptions at a 50% markup on their standard rate (which amounts to the higher $10,000/year figure I cited above). I consider myself to be extremely fortunate. I found another job (with a small company that doesn't offer group health insurance); and I can pay my monthly "protection fee." - - The WSJ piece continues advising us to eat cake instead of bread by boasting about what a stimulus for business it would be to tax those nasty old employers who dare to provide unconditional group health plans for employees. OK. I'm back to chilling for awhile. I hope Barack really has got it. | |
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| I watched two men casting shadows on the CRT, tonight, demoing themselves to an audience who (presumably) will vote on which one casts a more appealing shadow. What we (you, me, and our blogs) know about the noumenal men is that one is decent, with a conscience. The other is an egotist, who shows nothing but gall. I watch the phosphor shadows vye in spotlight attempts to demonstrate which one may prove to be more proficient at guiding the White pieces to victory. It's a shadow chess game that makes difficulty as far as caring very much which shadow prevails -- until I jot this scribbling down, to remind myself about some of the Real: 650,000 deaths. Children gassed; blown up by our bombs -- murdered in their homes and in the marketplace. Doubtful, senatorial conscientious objector vs. self-serving callous toady (toady's religion being "The Territorial Imperative.") "No torture of any kind. That means you and me, brother! And no waterboarding." "Um, well, I didn't like being tortured very much in Vietnam. But waterboarding -- sometimes we may have to do that, don't you think?" We may ("sadly," we say) have to transmogrify into red white and blue monsters so we can anticipate more of what Their Monsters might be thinking. You admire the stand he took on torture !? Are you smokin' something bro? Or is this one more case of "If I really say it, the radio won't play it?"Hopeful good samaritan, working in the ghettos -- Chiseling, bald-faced liar-publicity hound. Intelligent, well-meaning advocate of middle class rights -- Two-faced stupid plutocrat, bragging about the 50 cents he'll save you by stealing someone's food stamps. Why can't we see some of those contrasts illuminated (nstead of watching two shadows of the noumenal men, each trying to prove he might push the White pieces around more efficiently -- in an "As You Know Bob" game played on a media-manufactured chessboard)? *Updated on 9/27/08 and 12/2/08 by the Executive Committee for More Coherent Crabbing | |
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| Ben Bernanke is appearing before Congress in his scary ghost costume, this morning.
MSNBC News Services
"In testimony to Congress’ Joint Economic Committee, Bernanke repeated his warning of dire economic consequences if the bailout isn’t enacted and if credit woes persist. Neither businesses nor consumers would be able to borrow money, he said, adding that such a scenario could result in the world’s largest economy grinding to a virtual halt."
Atrios (Duncan Black), a Ph.D and former economics professor, thinks Bernanke is full of crap.
"I get emails like this sometimes, from insiders who know what they're talking about, and over time I've learned that while they may be insiders all that means is they have access to more gossip. That gossip often doesn't turn out to be true.
In any case, a straw man is being erected. There is no crisis which requires $700 billion to Hank Paulson's friends THIS WEEK. That's the argument. There may be serious problems in the financial sector which require government attention. There isn't something which requires an insane act of Congress NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW."
Apparently, the consensus of a wide number of economists is that Atrios is telling the truth. Personally, I wouldn't be in favor of Paulson's bailout solution for his Wall Street friends, even if he's right in his prediction that a melt-down of the World Economy is imminent unless the U.S. makes an immediate "security theater" feint. If the U.S. economy has actually become a devil's bargain -- where the only thing that can save it is a blind man's bluff payoff to the pitchfork cadre -- then it's time for a revolt in Hell. In the meantime, this is another Spacecrabby reminder that we can protest Republican-spawned plutocratic stupidity on Earth: Senate phone numbers and websites. U.S. Representatives Phone Numbers. Letter fodder:
Seven Simple Reasons To Oppose The Bailout. 
Explanation of post title. | |
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| Dear Senator Feinstein: I'm writing to express my opposition to allowing Henry Paulson to steamroller the Senate (and House of Representatives) into immediately passing bail-out legislation that will result in handing 700 billion dollars over to the Bush administration--without placing checks and balances on how the money will be spent. 1) Paulson's current plan will simply drop money back into the hands of the investment bankers who have precipitated this crisis. I'm sure you're familiar with the recent speeches made by Hillary Clinton. 2) Please *do not* cave in to the Bush administrations pressure to act immediately in protection of the same people who precipitated the crisis--and *not* in the interests of homeowners, and middle-class citizens whose 401K pensions are on the line. You are well aware of the Bush administration's record on managing huge amounts of money and of how they spend it. It would be criminal to hand them a blank check to perpetrate mismanagement similar to the disbursement of funds for the Iraq war. If you do not stand firm, this time, and fulfill the functions of Congress--to supervise and audit the Executive branch--you may not have another opportunity. Read what economic experts say: the current crisis has not been caused solely by a lack of liquidity. The current crisis is one of insolvency caused by poor investment choices of greedy businessmen. True to form in any crisis, George Bush and Dick Cheney want to rescue these people--not ordinary stockholders and homeowners (and their children). PS: as a Democrat, you must surely be familiar with the principles applied by FDR in his establishment of the Home Owners' Loan Corp -- a government bail out that *worked* and channeled relief back to homeowners, not foolish investment bankers. Senate phone numbers and websites. U.S. Representatives Phone Numbers. Letter fodder:
Seven Simple Reasons To Oppose The Bailout (via Avedon). | |
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| Progress Report 1 for Potlatch 18 is now available. One of the traditions of Potlatch, started at the SF\Bay Area ones, is to select a Book of Honor each year rather than a Guest of Honor. The Potlatch 18 committee, unable to make itself exclude either of two fine BoH candidates, decided to celebrate two Books of Honor, this year: Mike Ford's GROWING UP WEIGHTLESS and Ursula Le Guin's ALWAYS COMING HOME. The first thought the committee had about this is that those two novels are as radically different from each other as any two books can be. But upon discovering we were deadlocked in trying to choose between them, I came up with the observation that maybe they do have something in common. Both novels show the life situation and problems of a rebel who is uncomfortable with, and alienated from, the mainstream of his/her society. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens in panel discussions as a result of this two-BoH experiment. You can be there, too, if you're also curious to find out. | |
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| Potlatch, the Pacific Northwest literary s-f convention, now has a hotel and definite dates for 2009. Potlatch 18 will take place February 27 - March 1, 2009 at the Domain Hotel in Sunnyvale, California. There are a number of good restaurants and points of interest to visit in the vicinity of the hotel. The general member registration rate is $50 until July 31 and will go up after that. The committee is still caucasing to select a Book of Honor. | |
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| Once again, it's International Talk Like an Old Weird American Day. While the world rejoices in celebration, we of the Invisible Republic pause to wish lydy a happy birthday (as is also traditional at this time). *And* we are pleased to announce the electronic availability of the 7th issue of Whistlestar, which doubles as a paper s-f fanzine (such as the ones wistfully missed by LJ's own Paul di Filippo). Gort is alive, magic is a foot. The above-referenced issue of Whistlestar includes articles by several members of the Old Weird S-F Fandom. In particular, it contains the second part of Fanotchka a fannish play written by Andy Hooper as a pastiche of Ernst Lubitscha's 1939 film, Ninotchka, which starred Greta Garbo and Melvyn Douglas. The complete illustrated edition of Fanotchka is here. "Who is Andy Hooper?" you may ask if you've stumbled onto this page without being on my Friends List. He's a man long overdue for one of those silly rocketship nominations you hear so much about these days. You can click here to listen to his most recent radio play, The Price of Pugwash, which was performed at this year's Corflu fanzine convention. If you do, you'll also hear what might pass for my entry in this year's "Talk Like [Johnny Fontless] Day" celebration -- about three minutes into the performance. "Who should I tell, oh, who should I tell? The forty-nine of you like bats out of hell Oh underneath that old apple suckling tree, Oh yeah!" | |
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| Wanderers in foreign lands, attn: check out the slide show at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/corflu-silver-virtual-con-suite If you tune in between 11AM and 1PM PST tomorrow, you probably won't get the slide show. Instead, you might get to see, hear and comment on the election of the 2007 Past-President of the Fan Writers of America. **Update: Which did take place. I think the slide show will remain in place for a couple of weeks, so I'm going to leave this post up --for anyone who might find it meaningful. | |
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| I'm discovering that Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Macintosh is an impressive piece of software. Once you install it, your computer works like a superhero from Amalgam Comics. Is it DC or Marvel, Windows or OSX? It doesn't actually matter, anymore. You get the best from both universes. You can run programs and open documents from both operating systems in their own windows, launching from either the OSX Dock or the Windows Taskbar. Parallels appears to provide practically seamless cut and paste, network connectivy, etc. To add to the splendid geeky weirdness of it all, there's also this element to consider in the configuration linked to above.  | |
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| Hm. A LiveJournal meme that I actually like. An Encyclopedia Affair
by Don Marquis The gay BOK-CAN was a gentleman
In a coat of gold and green, O!
And he loved SIB-SZO from head to toe,
Though the alphabet stretched between, O!
"SIB-SZO," he would say, "you keep away
From MOT-ORM and his doings,
Distrust the lip of the glib GOU-HIP,
And hearken to my wooings!
"BOKHARA goats, dear ma'am, eat oats,
And BURGUNDY grows good wine, ma'am!
CAMPHOR comes from vegetal gums,
O say that you'll be mine, ma'am!"
But SIB-SZO sighed as she replied,
"The SIMOON sweeps the sea, sir,
SPINOZA fought for the freedom of thought,
I cannot wed with thee, sir!"
"Where will you find," he cried, "a mind
More crowded with information?
Edmund BURKE was an eloquent Turk,
BRAZIL is quite a nation!
"The BURIAT wears his cheek-bones flat,
BROWNING wrote Sordello
The BRACHIOPOD is a creature odd,
Do you love some other fellow?"
She bowed her head and she wept and said,
"SYZRAN is a city,
SOCRATES scorned luxuries,
What I feel for you is pity.
"The SUGAR-BIRD is rather absurd,
And STEAM will raise a blister.
My sweetheart is the bold FAL-FYZ,
But I will be your sister!"
BOK-CAN did choke, and sadness BROKE
The heart in his noble BUST, sir
URA-ZYM found an URN for him
And DUG-EF claimed his DUST, sir! | |
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| Watching GWB speak generally makes my stomach sick. I had no intention of watching the State of the Union address. But there it was on TV in my corner grocery store. "I call on all Americans to agree with me that black is white ...." [applause on the screen] "I call on all Americans to agree with me that war is peace ...." [applause on the screen] and so on. Equal and opposite reaction. This helps me gargle the taste out of my brain. 
Whatever you might say about the art of Frank Miller in the modern day, it makes me happy to see this book hitting the spot for some newer readers.
"Ooo, freedom
Ooo, liberty
Ooo, leave me alone
To find my own way home
To find my own way home." -- Garcia/Hunter -- "Liberty" | |
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| We've known for some time that they're white collar criminals, proceeding methodically with their bustout of the United States of America at the behest of conscienceless corporate backers, throwing the bodies of American teenagers into battle to indulge power fantasies and seize oil wells.
The checks and balances that used to protect our 200+ year-old republic failed visibly on the day the Supreme Court voided the national electoral process. From that point to this, all praise is due the men and women who haven't been asleep, the ones who continue to engage in rational non-violent struggle against the cancer that the Court-appointed thugs have introduced into our political process.
Each succeeding confirmation that the government of the United States is in the hands of criminals is painful. Today's is no exception. But at this point, I'm about out of shock at how far they will go. They're criminals. They'll do whatever they think they can get away with. There are only two limits on them: a) their fear of reprisal if they commit their criminal acts prematurely, and b) sufficient unwillingness on the part of those who serve them to execute their orders.
It's my belief that they will not be prepared to declare a national election null and void in 2008, provided that a sufficient number of their (not intending to be criminal) servants acknowledge they've lost it. Things could change. But, right now, I don't believe they have the stomach for that overarching piece of criminality -- nullifying a national election. Their corporate sponsors don't actually want to initiate a civil war. Their sponsors want to take as much loot as they can grab without violent repercussion, consolidate their positions and prepare for future opportunities to continue looting -- not to initiate a bloodbath.
Being someone who doesn't believe he can cut the vampire's head off, I'm in favor of convincing it to bow to the Sign of the Law in 2008. Let the vampire retreat to its coffins in Texas and Wyoming and allow the living to repair the damage--for a time. In the ensuing years, maybe the American public can be educated sufficiently about vampires that it won't invite the bloodsuckers back into the parlor.
Democrats in Congress might conceivably be able to initiate impeachment proceedings against Bush and Cheney within the next year -- if public outrage is sufficient. But, as we know, the Republican occupants of Congress will not allow that impeachment to succeed.
So what happens after the failed impeachment? I look at the issue in terribly pragmatic terms. Not "the criminals should be impeached because it's the moral thing to do," but "how will that expression of morality affect our chances of purging the criminals from the government in 2008?" How will morally justified (but unsuccessful) impeachment proceedings affect what the criminals do (which we *cannot stop* short of large scale civil disobedience by their servants) in the next two years?
For the Democratic leadership in Congress, it's a chess game. They don't see a winning position on the board if they make the impeachment move now. For the existentialists among us, initiating an impeachment is a gesture of purification. As for me, I don't have a clear sense of whether an impeachment would help or hinder Democrats in the 2008 election. I would like to find out, but I'm also aware of how much I don't know and can't predict about the consequences of an impeachment attempt. It is true that 60% of the respondents in some polls favor impeachment. It's also true (I believe) that the willful criminality of the current government is limited only by its flawed sense of self-preservation. Will impeachment proceedings cow Bush and Cheney into doing less harm in their remaining time in "office" or make them flamboyantly more irrational and aggressive? Are we ready to cope with a civil war if we goad them into actions that are even more outrageous?
Talk to me, smart people. Convince me that impeaching Bush and Cheney (and being voted down) will actually improve the general welfare of the United States--that they won't go apeshit after it and do even more damage than they plan to do now. I'm willing to listen. | |
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|  I don't post very often, over here. I've never had a clear idea of what I want to do with a livejournal (as I've probably whinged about too many times). I don't have the stamina to start a real blog and post to it on a regular basis. But I do have a few things to share that have accumulated over the last several months. Each of these should be its own entry. (My previous post on Potlatch should probably have been #1.) We'll see if I can make myself follow through properly on the rest. After all, there are Doctor Who episodes to watch, books to read, and even work to do.
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I'm really bored by most of the current comic titles in the DC Universe. I used to think of myself as a comic book geek. But I'm incapable of sustaining interest in their current, convoluted multiverse reboot -- because there are hardly any individual stories, anymore. Most of the books now feature incomplete, disjoint episodes that are part of a vast title-spanning infodump. The attempt to link the histories of every character in their stable into a giant, shared soap opera isn't working for me. I get more enjoyment and understanding out of reading Wikipedia articles about the DC Universe than I do reading the primary source material.
That having been said, Paul Dini, Kurt Busiek, Grant Morrison, and Darwyn Cooke can and have produced great comic book work for DC. They still manage to do so every once in awhile, when they manage to escape the horrid schema that seems primarily to be the work of editor Dan DiDio.
See:
Paul Dini: Detective Comics 833, August 2007. (Click on Zatanna, above.) In some sense, this story might be read as a prequel/sequel to Dini's animated JLU s3, ep6: This Little Piggy. The relationship between Batman and Zatanna is set up there (with an amazing bonus: Batman's bluesy Karaoke performance, which reverses Circe's spell and transforms Wonder Woman from a pig back into herself). In the current Detective Comics, Dini produces an inspired retcon of the relationship between Bruce Wayne and Zatanna, showing them as childhood friends. (Dini reveals that their fathers, Thomas Wayne and Zatara, were also friends who worked together.)
Grant Morrison (Frank Quitely, artist): All-Star Superman #1-?: see particularly #4, which depicts the coolest Jimmy Olsen this side of Supreme, and #5, which features an issue-long prison rap session between Lex Luthor and Clark Kent.
Darwyn Cooke: Batman/Spirit #1 Pretty good stuff, if you're a fan of either the Spirit or the animated Batman. The two universes combine into one when Dolan, Commissioner Gordon, and femmes fatale from both worlds are added to the mix.
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| Potlatch 16 Panel Notes are now up at the Potlatch website. Posting yearly sets of notes on Potlatch panels is a project that I've pursued on and off for around ten years, now. I was inspired to start doing Potlatch notes after reading the excellent panel notes and extended discussions that appeared in Khatru, a "sercon" '70s fanzine published by Jeff Smith. The two P16 panels that have the most extensive notes, this time, are the one populated by Ursula Le Guin, Eileen Gunn, Vonda McIntyre, Kate Schaefer, and Molly Gloss on "Effective Subversive Fiction," and one populated by Lenny Bailes, Sharon Sbarsky, David Bratman, and Tom Whitmore on "Themes in Robert Sheckley." There were three or four other interesting panels, which you'll also find notes for. But the notes I managed to persuade people to produce on those panels were kind of sketchy. The Sheckley panel has the most detailed reportage, because I got some of the other participants to respond and was able to throw my own pre-panel stuff into the mix. Since amy_thomson tape recorded the "Effective Subversive Fiction" and "Environmental Disasters" panels, we may eventually have more extensive notes on those. Next year's Potlatch (#17) is in Seattle. The Book of Honor is soon to be announced, and Potlatch 17 will also have a special focus on Clarion, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Clarion West workshops. | |
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| The Thursday weather forecasts for Madison and for Minneapolis (the city where I'm catching a connecting flight to WisCon) both anticipate rain and possible thunder storms in the afternoon. Oh well. Nate, if your music circle for Thursday evening is still on, I might wind up giving you a call. This is last year's WisCon travel experience. My program schedule for WisCon is light, this year. So I'll need to find something else to overcome my tendency to keep to myself (or just talk to people I already know). I'm kind of out-of-it, with respect to the rapid changes in fandom's social networking that have materialized since the advent of LiveJournal. Here's me, from last year, again, revealing what an oldphart I've become. But I love WisCon, and I'm still hanging in. If you're on LJ and feel like saying hi, please feel free. | |
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| Isn't it a little early to be posting these? I guess it depends on whether the purpose of doing it is to build pre-con enthusiasm in people who aren't going yet, or to express one's own excitement/enthusiasm that "in a few days *I'll* be there."
Possibly, I'm just asleep through a paradigm change in the group mind of fandom--from reveling in spontaneity to desiring to model stage directions for the future -- lest one be left out of it. Or (most likely), the panel schedules are just grist for chit chat, like any other current event that fuels LiveJournal conversation.
Anyway, I'll be a sheep and post mine now (although I'm probably cheating myself of "see you there" comment responses with this Spacecrabby meta-speculation):
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Revisiting the Wow: Books That Changed Everything (Reading, Viewing, and Critiquing SF&F)
Saturday, 8:30-9:45 a.m.
Remember that early work you experienced, the one that twisted off the top of your head and let new ideas in? Rereading breakthrough works can be a mixed blessing: insight into their power, disappointment with the writing or the concepts, embarrassment or bewilderment at what was so intriguing the first time around. Revisit one of your sparkplug works and come to share the experience.
James P. Roberts, M: Jesse Kaysen, Chris Hill, Carrie L Ferguson, Lenny Bailes
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I had a lot of fun with this concept when it was presented at L.A.ConIV and moderated by Harry Turtledove. See you at WisCon (or the geeks among you, anyway, who can make themselves get up and eat breakfast before 8:30AM on a Saturday morning). | |
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