Today, while driving around, I saw a sign outside of a church that said, “What would you do if Jesus came to your house today?”
I thought to myself: “Well, I’ve still got some beer in the fridge.”
Is that the right answer? If the Buddha came to my house, obviously I’d have to kill him. But I’m not sure if I’m supposed to do that with Jesus.
There’s a piece at Lawyers, Guns & Money about the nature of demonstration and protest, focusing on the relationship between the famous Tank Man protester at Tiannamen Square, and the Tank Commander he faced down.
I’ve been wanting to say something like this about the Iranian protests for a while. Someone on another site was asking whether or not it was pointless for the Iranians to protest against their brutal, authoritarian government, since they’d all just get shot in the end.
And yes, that might be true, but the important thing to remember is that Iran’s army and interior ministries are made up of human beings. All, or most, or at least SOME of them care about more than just the Iranian regime. The point of these protests is to remind those people within the regime of what they really care about, in the hopes of breaking its solid front.
Anyway, interesting.
Let’s talk about Poochie-writing.
The short version of Poochie-writing: to create or amp up a character to the point of unrealistic awesomeness, without establishing their credentials first. It’s a bad writing habit that I want to illuminate for any aspiring writers out there.
Which means, of course, “The Simpsons” explained it far better than I could ever hope to. But still, let’s give it a shot.
I have been wanting to talk about this, especially in relation to my previous argument about the nature of Superman and his assorted disguises–this is a discussion of Superman as a moral figure, and his relationship to Nietzsche’s “Ubermensch.” (I know it’s supposed to have an umlaut, but that’s kind of a pain in the ass to type. Maybe I’ll add it in later.)
…so, uh, here, look at this review of the new role-playing game Wild Talents on Robot Viking.
Man, if you didn’t hear about this when it happened, you need ot hear about it now:
Jamie Leigh Jones, an employee of KBR and a contractor in Iraq, was gang-raped by her coworkers, then imprisoned in a cargo container so that she couldn’t tell anyone. She was freed after a sympathetic guard lent her his cellphone. In response to this event, KBR banned the use of personal cellphones.
She is now suing for the right to sue, because her contract had an arbitration clause that prevents crimes committed against employees while in Iraq from being taken to American courts, and the Justice Department won’t investigate.
From Jezebel.
In Milwaukee, Robert C. Braun of the Christian Civil Liberties Union has filed a complaint against the local public library for the right to “publicly burn or destroy by another means the library’s copy of Baby Be-Bop.“
Say what you want about the ACLU–they have never, EVER, demanded that a plaintiff have the right to BURN AN OFFENSIVE BOOK.
I don’t really get what it means that there are “Christian Civil Liberties.” Apparently, Christians can only have their civil liberties if someone else loses theirs?
(thanks, truculent&unreliable)
This is a serious question, that I find myself pondering while I (try to) work on my new book, and I guess it’s particularly pertinent to books that are a part of a series.
There are many elements in the new book that are the same as the elements in the old book: things like the Architecture War, and the Arcadium, for example, or the city’s predilection for anonymous bronze statues. This book, after all, is about the same people and takes place in the same location.
So, how much do I need to, or should I, revisit those things?
Pity the summer action blockbuster, for it does not get the appreciation it sometimes deserves. I blame a lot of that on Michael Bay, who has almost single-handedly destroyed any respectability by making damn sure his big, explosion-heavy actioners feel as technically expensive and yet emotionally cheap as possible. Any product placement, he will accept. Any tone-deaf, poorly-placed attempt at humor, he will shoehorn in. Any loud noise, he will amplify. When one says “summer blockbuster,” they think of Michael Bay, and that’s why people tend to dump on action movies.
But there’s always potential for something better – particularly when you take Terminator Salvation (not a typo – the opening credits blast the name across the screen twice, and neither time is there a much-needed colon between the two words) into account.
Hello, everyone! While you guys were sitting around BEING BORING this Saturday, do you know what I was doing? I was at a Decemberists concert. Concerts, as you all know, are what INTERESTING and COOL people do with their time, and it’s what I was doing with my time, and not what you were doing with your time, so I guess that just goes to show who among us is more awesome, doesn’t it?
Answer:
