If you've ever ordered anything through the mail, you know the anticipation and thrill of getting packages delivered to your door. Ever since I was a kid, I've loved ordering things through the mail from far-off places. Things I couldn't find in the retail shops in my small town.
Now, thanks to the power of the Internet, this becomes even easier: no more browsing paper catalogs, no more order forms. I add stuff to a virtual cart and check out. Toys not available in local toy shops, Hawaiian shirts--from the great state of Hawaii, books and CDs not prominent nor profitable enough to pay for the retail shelf space, small-run items direct from their creators... All these things have enriched my lifestyle tremendously.
And whenever I can, I specify delivery through the U.S. Postal Service.
Of course, I love writing letters. And after I moved out of the house, I started sending out greeting cards during the holiday season. Now I mail out over 100 holiday cards to friends and family every year, hand-made with a home-built linoleum block printing press constructed from some old boards and a door hinge--Martha Stewart fans, take note! I also mail out gifts: for the holidays, for birthdays, sometimes just because friend or family has a need. I love tracking the package through the Postal Service's website. I love picking out beautiful stamps that reflect my interests and personality.
And I do all this through my neighborhood post office, conveniently located on my way to work.
This entire essay might seem silly and inane, praising the Post Office like I were praising warm woolen mittens and whiskers on kittens (I've already covered brown paper packages wrapped up in string), were it not for the following: the U.S. Post Office was created under Benjamin Franklin on Wednesday, July 26, 1775. You might expect conservatives would support this agency of the United States of America which predates our Declaration of Independence, but in fact our venerable U.S. Postal Service has been under attack for years. The Privatization Mania so inescapable under George W Bush, which rallies under the banner of "The Government Can't Do Anything Right," took a big swipe at the Postal Service in 2006 with the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, which forces the Postal Service to pay ahead 75 years' worth of medical expenses (a requirement no other agency is required to satisfy), thereby creating an artificial annual budget shortfall, and forcing the Postal Service to take drastic measures to cut costs, including cutting staff, closing facilities, and limiting service.
With the economic decline during the George W Bush presidency comes a decline in postal traffic: fewer people can afford to purchase merchandise, meaning fewer parcel shipments; fewer job openings mean fewer resumes going out; with lower incomes, letter postage becomes an extravagance. Reduced education budgets translate to reduced ability or desire to write letters. Technology drives more customers to cheap email and "texting." Accordingly, the Post Office has simply had less business, which further contributes to the Postal Service's budget shortfall. I want to reiterate that an economic downturn is precisely the wrong time to cut budgets on basic government services, particularly those which employ lots of people. And consider the fact that the Postal Service built many local post offices in really convenient locations for dirt-cheap prices; now that businesses have built up around the local post office, that local post office is on prime real estate; if the Postal Service closes and sells that facility, it may be impossible to buy the building back or build a decent replacement at an affordable price.
The 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act has pushed the Postal Service into an untenable position leading to decline, as I suspect was the original intention, but this decline is not inevitable. Senator Al Franken of Minnesota has made efforts to prevent many of these proposed post office closings in the State of Minnesota. If you enjoy the benefits of the United States Postal Service and you don't want it to go away, you can tell your Senators and Representatives...
...using the U.S. Postal Service.
Monday, July 9, 2012
Kristofer Straub's "Starslip:" a space (and time) odyssey
Kristofer Straub is a web cartoonist raised by 2 engineers. Engineers are the members of society who envision and design our future, so it is hardly surprising that Straub should be steeped in science fiction. Sometime around 2005, Kristofer Straub started a webcomic that would eventually become "Starslip." It started simply enough: a fussy nebbish of a museum curator running an interstellar art museum--like a library "bookmobile" showing Earth's greatest artworks to other cultures of the galaxy, if that bookmobile were something like the "Enterprise" from Star Trek--in a gag-a-day format. The story features short story arcs: a week-long story here, 2 weeks-long there, but things change when the museum curator falls in love with a beautiful princess from the moons of Jupiter.
The story arcs get longer. Characters who were once introduced as throw-away one-joke characters get long, interconnecting plots.
The starship travels in 2 different modes: a slow mode with (nuclear fusion rocket?) propulsion through regular space; and a fast mode which allows the vessel to transpose itself interdimensionally with another vessel in a similar timeline. Basically, the ships' computers find a parallel universe where almost everything is identical to the current universe, except that parallel vessel is parked where you want to be, and you're parked where that parallel vessel wants to be. Then, your 2 vessels "trade places" interdimensionally, using no rocket fuel. This form of transportation is known as "Starshift" or "Starslip" drive. Unfortunately, a big problem lurks in the "ALMOST everything is identical" specification: in one universe, the curator is courting the beautiful princess of Jupiter; but then the curator "Starslips" to a universe wherein that princess has died tragically.
Now our unimpressive curator has a mission in his life, and we witness him becoming a tragic hero. He must find some way to get back to his princess: the one love of his life, but the computer predicts it will be years--perhaps lifetimes--before they ever find the right parallel universe. Our hero starts breaking rules and stepping on toes in order to get back to his true love. He earns some powerful and villainous enemies, and overcomes great obstacles. Many strips no longer feature a joke in the final panel, instead punctuating with melodrama or pathos.
During the last year of Starslip, the loose threads and disposable characters we once thought disconnected finally tie into the main story. The end becomes a tremendous dramatic climax to what was once a gag-a-day satire comic strip.
I say "last year" and "end" because Starslip officially ended on June 15th, 2012. Sometimes comic strips (especially webcomics) simply end because the cartoonist gets busy with other activities or the cartoonist runs out of ideas, but Starslip ends with an actual conclusion. In 2006, Straub and Starslip won awards, but in my opinion, the final year was really the best year of Starslip.
You can read Starslip for free on the web, http://www.starslip.com/, or you can pay the cartoonist to send you bound volumes of the entire run of the strip on paper. Buy them. Give them as gifts to the sci-fi fan in your life.
Now, if only the cartoonist would please draw characters with noses...
The story arcs get longer. Characters who were once introduced as throw-away one-joke characters get long, interconnecting plots.
The starship travels in 2 different modes: a slow mode with (nuclear fusion rocket?) propulsion through regular space; and a fast mode which allows the vessel to transpose itself interdimensionally with another vessel in a similar timeline. Basically, the ships' computers find a parallel universe where almost everything is identical to the current universe, except that parallel vessel is parked where you want to be, and you're parked where that parallel vessel wants to be. Then, your 2 vessels "trade places" interdimensionally, using no rocket fuel. This form of transportation is known as "Starshift" or "Starslip" drive. Unfortunately, a big problem lurks in the "ALMOST everything is identical" specification: in one universe, the curator is courting the beautiful princess of Jupiter; but then the curator "Starslips" to a universe wherein that princess has died tragically.
Now our unimpressive curator has a mission in his life, and we witness him becoming a tragic hero. He must find some way to get back to his princess: the one love of his life, but the computer predicts it will be years--perhaps lifetimes--before they ever find the right parallel universe. Our hero starts breaking rules and stepping on toes in order to get back to his true love. He earns some powerful and villainous enemies, and overcomes great obstacles. Many strips no longer feature a joke in the final panel, instead punctuating with melodrama or pathos.
During the last year of Starslip, the loose threads and disposable characters we once thought disconnected finally tie into the main story. The end becomes a tremendous dramatic climax to what was once a gag-a-day satire comic strip.
I say "last year" and "end" because Starslip officially ended on June 15th, 2012. Sometimes comic strips (especially webcomics) simply end because the cartoonist gets busy with other activities or the cartoonist runs out of ideas, but Starslip ends with an actual conclusion. In 2006, Straub and Starslip won awards, but in my opinion, the final year was really the best year of Starslip.
You can read Starslip for free on the web, http://www.starslip.com/, or you can pay the cartoonist to send you bound volumes of the entire run of the strip on paper. Buy them. Give them as gifts to the sci-fi fan in your life.
Now, if only the cartoonist would please draw characters with noses...
Expect More Positivity
I just noticed how negative many of my previous blog entries are. I was reminded of the Kevin Spacey character in the 1995 movie "Seven;" Morgan Freeman's character reads the Spacey's character's journals, and he finds an endless river of negativity and disgust. No wonder Spacey's character became a sociopathic serial killer! He hates everything!
Wait a minute... What does that say about me?
"Yeah, that Anton was a quiet guy... Kept to himself a lot. Never figured he'd be the type to destroy an entire planet with a Doomsday Laser. Then I read his blog."
I'm not really so negative, I'm just venting; unfortunately, I don't have a klatch of ladyfriends (nor a support group) who I feel comfortable enough to vent this stuff with. So I post it here as therapy.
So I will try to post only positive things here for a while. Eventually, I hope to have a 50/50 mix of positive and negative material.
Wait a minute... What does that say about me?
"Yeah, that Anton was a quiet guy... Kept to himself a lot. Never figured he'd be the type to destroy an entire planet with a Doomsday Laser. Then I read his blog."
I'm not really so negative, I'm just venting; unfortunately, I don't have a klatch of ladyfriends (nor a support group) who I feel comfortable enough to vent this stuff with. So I post it here as therapy.
So I will try to post only positive things here for a while. Eventually, I hope to have a 50/50 mix of positive and negative material.
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Fifty Shades of Black
I just finished reading Liane Merciel's "Nightglass." This is a "Pathfinder Tales" fantasy novel, meaning it takes place in Paizo's "Pathfinder" fantasy role-playing game (FRPG) world known as "Golarion." Of course, you will probably expect this to suck; after all, it's just there to sell a product, right? Just like the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" cartoon show was a show-length commercial for plastic toys, right? But many of these "Pathfinder Tales" novels feature excellent writing, characterization, and stories.
I confess that I am not an impartial judge, because I already like the "Pathfinder" FRPG. If you can't stand the trappings of "Dungeons & Dragons," you probably won't like this novel; the novel features swords, fantastic humanoid races, wizards, and monsters. If you can get past that hurdle, there is another hurdle: the first 100-odd pages describe oppressive life in an evil kingdom beholden to a dark, alien deity from another dimension. If that isn't unappealing enough, this kingdom's ritual torture and disfigurement is graphically described through several chapters; this was the big hurdle for me, and the inspiration for my review's title (a reference to the popular sadomasochistic romance novel "Fifty Shades of Grey," except "Nightglass" removes most of the masochism from the equation).
Ugh! How horrible! Yet, it was still better than reading Ray Bradbury's "R is for Rocket." But I digress.
Like bicycling up a hillside, after lots of agony, the book eventually starts to let up and things get less unpleasant and more interesting. The challenge is to get to that plateau.
The novel is ultimately a story of character development and a quest for redemption in a world full of painful choices. Our protagonist is a boy with magical talent; he is tested for this, he tries to deliberately fail, but his deception is revealed and he is whisked away to a sadistic boarding school for spell-casters, where he makes friends with other kids who get magical training beaten, lacerated, and punctured into them.
You may recall I mentioned 'a dark, alien deity from another dimension' above. This other dimension is known as the Plane of Shadow, and it's something of a twisted version of the 'real world' of Golarion, populated by ghostly beings who have no real lives of their own and hunger for human emotions and/or physical sensations; and if joy isn't available, they are delighted to induce pain and misery as substitutes.
Similarly, this magical boarding school part of the novel is a twisted version of Harry Potter's time in Hogwarts school: our protagonist is whisked from a comfortable home life to an institution of gruesome horror; one where Ron Weasley casts spells at the cost of his own flesh (every time he casts a spell, a little piece of his body dies and starts to rot away); one where Hermione Granger has a brother who can't keep up with the lessons and the brother is irrevocably possessed by (consumed by? zombified by? sacrificed to?) a ghostly Shadow being, causing her in turn to be consumed with vengeance against the teachers who run the school; and like Harry Potter, our protagonist is tremendously gifted.
Later on, the story mirrors relations between the Native Americans and European conquerors; stone-age natives are living on barren land with a valuable mineral deposit, and a much more technologically sophisticated empire wants that silver. It's a story that has played out over and over again, but is retold here with swords and magic.
In the final analysis, the story becomes a fascinating exploration of how to preserve one's soul despite a lifetime of painful choices. It's also an examination of morality in a world without moral absolutes; in short, what choice can one make when every option causes misery to someone? Our protagonist is no hero; he clings to a sham of morality because he is disgusted by what he does, and the only thing saving him is the fact that he is surrounded by people who are even more horrible.
I have said a small number of kind words about this novel, but there are lots of good reasons to not read this novel. I don't like sadomasochistic material: I think that day-to-day life contains plenty of pain and misery to go around. I would recommend this novel to almost nobody I know. If you find the torture and mutilation in this novel to be entertaining, please seek help from mental health professionals. Please take this review as a warning I never got, and one the cover blurb should have provided.
I confess that I am not an impartial judge, because I already like the "Pathfinder" FRPG. If you can't stand the trappings of "Dungeons & Dragons," you probably won't like this novel; the novel features swords, fantastic humanoid races, wizards, and monsters. If you can get past that hurdle, there is another hurdle: the first 100-odd pages describe oppressive life in an evil kingdom beholden to a dark, alien deity from another dimension. If that isn't unappealing enough, this kingdom's ritual torture and disfigurement is graphically described through several chapters; this was the big hurdle for me, and the inspiration for my review's title (a reference to the popular sadomasochistic romance novel "Fifty Shades of Grey," except "Nightglass" removes most of the masochism from the equation).
Ugh! How horrible! Yet, it was still better than reading Ray Bradbury's "R is for Rocket." But I digress.
Like bicycling up a hillside, after lots of agony, the book eventually starts to let up and things get less unpleasant and more interesting. The challenge is to get to that plateau.
The novel is ultimately a story of character development and a quest for redemption in a world full of painful choices. Our protagonist is a boy with magical talent; he is tested for this, he tries to deliberately fail, but his deception is revealed and he is whisked away to a sadistic boarding school for spell-casters, where he makes friends with other kids who get magical training beaten, lacerated, and punctured into them.
You may recall I mentioned 'a dark, alien deity from another dimension' above. This other dimension is known as the Plane of Shadow, and it's something of a twisted version of the 'real world' of Golarion, populated by ghostly beings who have no real lives of their own and hunger for human emotions and/or physical sensations; and if joy isn't available, they are delighted to induce pain and misery as substitutes.
Similarly, this magical boarding school part of the novel is a twisted version of Harry Potter's time in Hogwarts school: our protagonist is whisked from a comfortable home life to an institution of gruesome horror; one where Ron Weasley casts spells at the cost of his own flesh (every time he casts a spell, a little piece of his body dies and starts to rot away); one where Hermione Granger has a brother who can't keep up with the lessons and the brother is irrevocably possessed by (consumed by? zombified by? sacrificed to?) a ghostly Shadow being, causing her in turn to be consumed with vengeance against the teachers who run the school; and like Harry Potter, our protagonist is tremendously gifted.
Later on, the story mirrors relations between the Native Americans and European conquerors; stone-age natives are living on barren land with a valuable mineral deposit, and a much more technologically sophisticated empire wants that silver. It's a story that has played out over and over again, but is retold here with swords and magic.
In the final analysis, the story becomes a fascinating exploration of how to preserve one's soul despite a lifetime of painful choices. It's also an examination of morality in a world without moral absolutes; in short, what choice can one make when every option causes misery to someone? Our protagonist is no hero; he clings to a sham of morality because he is disgusted by what he does, and the only thing saving him is the fact that he is surrounded by people who are even more horrible.
I have said a small number of kind words about this novel, but there are lots of good reasons to not read this novel. I don't like sadomasochistic material: I think that day-to-day life contains plenty of pain and misery to go around. I would recommend this novel to almost nobody I know. If you find the torture and mutilation in this novel to be entertaining, please seek help from mental health professionals. Please take this review as a warning I never got, and one the cover blurb should have provided.
Sunday, July 1, 2012
Criticism of the Death of Bin Laden
When President Obama reported that elite US soldiers killed the notorious terrorist leader Osama Bin Laden, most Americans breathed a sigh of relief: America's biggest bogey man was now laid to rest. Finally, we can get on with our lives.
Numerous right-wing pundits leaped on this news with 2 different schools of opinion:
One school argued that the death of Osama Bin Laden was a good thing, but it was really a victory for the previous president, George W. Bush; after all, Bush established an anti-Osama Bin Laden group, and numerous "enhanced interrogation" protocols which (perhaps literally) squeezed the necessary intelligence from enemy combatants. This school is wrong on multiple counts: Bush disbanded the anti-Bin Laden group, and the anti-Bin Laden intelligence did not come from "enhanced interrogation."
The other school argued that the death of Osama Bin Laden was a bad thing. They argued that Bin Laden should have been brought in for questioning, charged with his crimes as appropriate, then prosecuted in a court of law. Surely those soldiers who raided Osama Bin Laden's secret compound should be tried for gross incompetence in this killing, and Barack Obama should be held accountable.
I want to examine this second school for a moment.
In a more perfect world, this might have been the right way to deal with Bin Laden. In fact, I argued that in 2001 our first step should have been to approach the Afghan government with charges against Osama Bin Laden, and demand extradition to the US. Afghanistan was under control of the Taliban, and there are lots of reasons to despise the Taliban, but the US government had a functioning relationship with them, and the US was giving them loads of our tax dollars in foreign aid to assist in their efforts to eradicate Afghanistan's opium production and exportation; it turns out that the repressive religious zealots running the Taliban don't like it when people get high, just like the repressive religious zealots here don't like it when people get high. Afghanistan might have responded positively to the opportunity to maintain the relationship, and the implicit threat that if they do not yeild Osama Bin Laden, that things would get very bad for them.
However, George W. Bush only barely attempted this approach, and never presented the Taliban with evidence against Bin Laden, who was a local hero for helping expel the Soviets. Instead, Dubya sent in the military, which invaded and conquered Afghan's organized military in short order. Afghanistan was effectively destroyed, leaving the US with a monumental restoration project, and a lot of Afghanistanis are still angry about America's presence there. A lot of people continue to die on both sides as a result. We supposedly invaded in order to capture Bin Laden, but we never did find him there.
Of course, they say you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs. But what if you drop the eggs on the floor, and you need to mop them up, and nobody gets any omelette? Everybody loses! Doesn't that mean the whole operation was a colossal screw-up?
Periodically, the Bush administration would proudly report that they had killed Osama Bin Laden's second-in-command. This was universally greeted with warm fanfare; proof that we were making progress. Certainly nobody complained that the second-in-command didn't get a fair trial, even if he never got the chance to surrender before he got blown up by US ordnance. In fact, entire wedding parties were massacred, but the right-wing press never peeped that the military should have done anything differently.
But now many right wingers complain that Osama Bin Laden should have been brought in alive. Why?
Many Barack Obama supporters argue that this is proof of either partisanship ('right wingers complain about President Obama because Obama is a Democrat'), or racism ('right wingers complain about President Obama because Obama is partly of African descent'). But these Barack Obama supporters are forgetting something:
Osama Bin Laden was wealthy. Bin Laden was heir to the Bin Laden oil fortune. And right wingers believe that wealthy people deserve preferential treatment; even if Bin Laden would be found guilty of mass murder, he should serve his sentence in some kind of 'Country Club' prison for wealthy embezzlers, or his sentence should be reduced to 'Community Service' or something, where he lectures teens not to turn to terrorism. Certainly a man as wealthy as Bin Laden shouldn't be shot dead like a rabid dog or a peasant.
Sure, you can kill lots of Number Twos without anyone raising an eyebrow; because they're just the help. You can wipe out entire cities, because they're all worthless poor people. But a black man killing a rich man? It simply isn't done! Imagine Thurston Howell in his palatial mansion, upon reading the news in the Wall Street Journal: "That ruffian Obama executed Bin Laden for killing three thousand people, but my chemical holdings poison millions every year! Good heavens, what's Obama planning to do to ME?"
Numerous right-wing pundits leaped on this news with 2 different schools of opinion:
One school argued that the death of Osama Bin Laden was a good thing, but it was really a victory for the previous president, George W. Bush; after all, Bush established an anti-Osama Bin Laden group, and numerous "enhanced interrogation" protocols which (perhaps literally) squeezed the necessary intelligence from enemy combatants. This school is wrong on multiple counts: Bush disbanded the anti-Bin Laden group, and the anti-Bin Laden intelligence did not come from "enhanced interrogation."
The other school argued that the death of Osama Bin Laden was a bad thing. They argued that Bin Laden should have been brought in for questioning, charged with his crimes as appropriate, then prosecuted in a court of law. Surely those soldiers who raided Osama Bin Laden's secret compound should be tried for gross incompetence in this killing, and Barack Obama should be held accountable.
I want to examine this second school for a moment.
In a more perfect world, this might have been the right way to deal with Bin Laden. In fact, I argued that in 2001 our first step should have been to approach the Afghan government with charges against Osama Bin Laden, and demand extradition to the US. Afghanistan was under control of the Taliban, and there are lots of reasons to despise the Taliban, but the US government had a functioning relationship with them, and the US was giving them loads of our tax dollars in foreign aid to assist in their efforts to eradicate Afghanistan's opium production and exportation; it turns out that the repressive religious zealots running the Taliban don't like it when people get high, just like the repressive religious zealots here don't like it when people get high. Afghanistan might have responded positively to the opportunity to maintain the relationship, and the implicit threat that if they do not yeild Osama Bin Laden, that things would get very bad for them.
However, George W. Bush only barely attempted this approach, and never presented the Taliban with evidence against Bin Laden, who was a local hero for helping expel the Soviets. Instead, Dubya sent in the military, which invaded and conquered Afghan's organized military in short order. Afghanistan was effectively destroyed, leaving the US with a monumental restoration project, and a lot of Afghanistanis are still angry about America's presence there. A lot of people continue to die on both sides as a result. We supposedly invaded in order to capture Bin Laden, but we never did find him there.
Of course, they say you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs. But what if you drop the eggs on the floor, and you need to mop them up, and nobody gets any omelette? Everybody loses! Doesn't that mean the whole operation was a colossal screw-up?
Periodically, the Bush administration would proudly report that they had killed Osama Bin Laden's second-in-command. This was universally greeted with warm fanfare; proof that we were making progress. Certainly nobody complained that the second-in-command didn't get a fair trial, even if he never got the chance to surrender before he got blown up by US ordnance. In fact, entire wedding parties were massacred, but the right-wing press never peeped that the military should have done anything differently.
But now many right wingers complain that Osama Bin Laden should have been brought in alive. Why?
Many Barack Obama supporters argue that this is proof of either partisanship ('right wingers complain about President Obama because Obama is a Democrat'), or racism ('right wingers complain about President Obama because Obama is partly of African descent'). But these Barack Obama supporters are forgetting something:
Osama Bin Laden was wealthy. Bin Laden was heir to the Bin Laden oil fortune. And right wingers believe that wealthy people deserve preferential treatment; even if Bin Laden would be found guilty of mass murder, he should serve his sentence in some kind of 'Country Club' prison for wealthy embezzlers, or his sentence should be reduced to 'Community Service' or something, where he lectures teens not to turn to terrorism. Certainly a man as wealthy as Bin Laden shouldn't be shot dead like a rabid dog or a peasant.
Sure, you can kill lots of Number Twos without anyone raising an eyebrow; because they're just the help. You can wipe out entire cities, because they're all worthless poor people. But a black man killing a rich man? It simply isn't done! Imagine Thurston Howell in his palatial mansion, upon reading the news in the Wall Street Journal: "That ruffian Obama executed Bin Laden for killing three thousand people, but my chemical holdings poison millions every year! Good heavens, what's Obama planning to do to ME?"
Dubya: The Comedy
The classic formula for comedy is a story that goes from dark to light. So a story where a hero is living in miserable poverty, but then he rescues and marries a princess and becomes rich; would be considered a classic comedy (of course, there would be jokes and absurdity along the way). That's why Dante's epic tour from Hell (dark) to Heaven (light) is referred to as the "Divine Comedy," even though it is not very funny.
One modern formula for comedy is: Tragedy plus Time equals Comedy. The challenge is to find that sweet spot when people can finally laugh about the tragedy. For example, the tragic 1937 Hindenburg disaster is now a safe target for comedy; in contrast, the May 8th death of Maurice Sendak (an author whose work is beloved by millions who are young and young at heart) is significantly less safe. If you try to crack a Maurice Sendak joke, an experienced comic might hiss: "too soon!"
Accordingly, it may be time to look at the reign of former President George W. Bush in a comedic light. I'm not talking about a little comedy sketch about what a horrible job he did as president, I'm talking about a full comedic treatment of his life. Let me explain my idea:
We have to look at George W. Bush as a hero in the 'Three Stooges' or Adam Sandler mold. In the Three Stooges worldview, the Stooges are the heroes, and there are numerous obstacles (villains) to their success, whose lives, homes, businesses, etc. would be ruined by the bungling efforts of the Stooges. We are expected to have sympathy for the Stooges (as 'lovable lunkheads') and antagonism towards the villains (because they can't take a joke, or because they are 'hoity-toity', or because they are just plain rich).
How would this work in George W. Bush's world? Let's look at Dubya's life: all his life, he's been surrounded by achievers: nerds, jocks, people who work hard, people who take life seriously, people who are responsible. All Dubya's life, he's been held to their standard, and he's never been able to measure up. His father was a responsible WW2 veteran; no doubt Dubya was surrounded by rich people of taste and breeding, and hard-driven captains of industry. There is never any positive feedback for any of Dubya's efforts to do the right thing, because he fails at everything; accordingly, he drops out of trying to achieve, and he treats life like some kind of amusement park where he never has to stand in line; his family is wealthy and connected enough that he can just wander from one amusement to the next, suffering no consequences nor remorse for any havok he might cause. The one source of positive reinforcement is his molly-coddling mother, who is otherwise a merciless battleaxe; she teaches him his values of supporting those who are loyal to you, and have no sympathy for anyone else, because they are beneath you.
The villains in this worldview are people who work hard, people who take life seriously, people who want to save the world, people who are responsible, people who are patriotic.
Dubya can compete in the following dimensions: he can out-drink and out-snort his competitors; and he can often swindle them--if you expected any sense of human decency from Dubya, SUC-ker! Gotcha! Haw haw!
Now we have a decent basis for a screenplay. We start with Dubya's cold upbringing as I outlined above, where he shocks and offends anyone with any class, he gets rebuked by his old man for being a loser, and he turns to momma Barbara, who ingrains in him her values system.
From this point on, we transition to various stages of "adulthood," if not emotional maturity. His whole life becomes a constant drift from one amusement to the next. Anyone who tries to harsh his buzz, sober him up, or otherwise bring him down with depressing or intellectually challenging matters is an obstacle, a villain.
We move on to his college days, where he pulls off cruel 'Animal House'-style frat-boy shenanigan after shenanigan on the jocks, the nerds, the creative types, political types, ROTC people, professors, girls looking for marriageable men, librarians, etc. Imagine a lot of montages here set to "yackety sax."
We segue to his career as a business man, screwing over everyone he does business with because it's all a big joke, and getting bailed out by his old man and his connections.
At some point, he gets hitched to some ball-and-chain librarian. BOR-ing! He skips out every chance he gets. And cheating on her is FUN!
Dubya hooks up with Rove, who is basically a beleaguered "rock star's manager"-type, and who does all the strategizing of running for Governor of Texas.
From there, Dubya decides to run for President. He meets up with Cheney, portrayed as some kind of avuncular character who is able to "manage" Dubya by distracting him with various amusements, and who takes care of the hard work of running for (and, later, being) President.
When running for president, Gore is just another one of those nerds Dubya has learned to despise his whole life. Using his usually dirty tricks, Dubya swindles him out of the presidency, taunting with: "SUC-ker!" as Gore is left sputtering.
Dubya has a love interest in this movie: Condi Rice. She's another one of those serious hard worker types he's also learned to despise, but Dubya can't have her, and he starts to actually try to do things to impress her. The actions themselves never succeed, but the fact that he tries slowly softens her heart.
I haven't worked out how that pivotal September 11 moment of paralysis should be dramatized. Should Dubya be desperately trying to hold in laughter, imagining the pathetic screaming victims of the collapsing twin towers? Should he lapse into a daydream of Godzilla plowing through the buildings? Or should he have an 'Oh Shit' moment wherein he remember his friends the Bin Ladens, and worry that they might get in trouble with the FBI?
Hey, Senate Democrats who believed Dubya's phony Iraq WMD intelligence: gotcha! SUC-kers!
All those troops in Iraq? Gotcha! You weren't clever, rich, and connected enough to avoid a war like Dubya was! Haw haw!
All those covert CIA operatives? Gotcha! Take that, you smarty-pants spy guys!
Hey, you drowning New Orleans losers: ya shoulda moved to Texas! No floods there! Haw haw!
Vietnam veteran John Kerry? Gotcha! You got stuck in that war, and you weren't sneaky enough to steal the election like Dubya was! Haw haw!
The brief glimpse of Dubya fondling Angela Merkel on camera is just the tip of the iceberg: a hint of the harrassment that happened behind closed doors.
The George W. Bush presidency is a source of too much material to possibly detail here, but you get the point.
In many ways, I expect this to be like a more light-hearted "Caligula" with a happy ending wherein Dubya simply retires to Crawford or wherever.
The Fox News crowd will love seeing their hero tricking those pouty-pants liberals and any other smarty-pants types who got in his way. People who love to laugh at Dubya will be delighted. Boom! Box office gold, baby.
One modern formula for comedy is: Tragedy plus Time equals Comedy. The challenge is to find that sweet spot when people can finally laugh about the tragedy. For example, the tragic 1937 Hindenburg disaster is now a safe target for comedy; in contrast, the May 8th death of Maurice Sendak (an author whose work is beloved by millions who are young and young at heart) is significantly less safe. If you try to crack a Maurice Sendak joke, an experienced comic might hiss: "too soon!"
Accordingly, it may be time to look at the reign of former President George W. Bush in a comedic light. I'm not talking about a little comedy sketch about what a horrible job he did as president, I'm talking about a full comedic treatment of his life. Let me explain my idea:
We have to look at George W. Bush as a hero in the 'Three Stooges' or Adam Sandler mold. In the Three Stooges worldview, the Stooges are the heroes, and there are numerous obstacles (villains) to their success, whose lives, homes, businesses, etc. would be ruined by the bungling efforts of the Stooges. We are expected to have sympathy for the Stooges (as 'lovable lunkheads') and antagonism towards the villains (because they can't take a joke, or because they are 'hoity-toity', or because they are just plain rich).
How would this work in George W. Bush's world? Let's look at Dubya's life: all his life, he's been surrounded by achievers: nerds, jocks, people who work hard, people who take life seriously, people who are responsible. All Dubya's life, he's been held to their standard, and he's never been able to measure up. His father was a responsible WW2 veteran; no doubt Dubya was surrounded by rich people of taste and breeding, and hard-driven captains of industry. There is never any positive feedback for any of Dubya's efforts to do the right thing, because he fails at everything; accordingly, he drops out of trying to achieve, and he treats life like some kind of amusement park where he never has to stand in line; his family is wealthy and connected enough that he can just wander from one amusement to the next, suffering no consequences nor remorse for any havok he might cause. The one source of positive reinforcement is his molly-coddling mother, who is otherwise a merciless battleaxe; she teaches him his values of supporting those who are loyal to you, and have no sympathy for anyone else, because they are beneath you.
The villains in this worldview are people who work hard, people who take life seriously, people who want to save the world, people who are responsible, people who are patriotic.
Dubya can compete in the following dimensions: he can out-drink and out-snort his competitors; and he can often swindle them--if you expected any sense of human decency from Dubya, SUC-ker! Gotcha! Haw haw!
Now we have a decent basis for a screenplay. We start with Dubya's cold upbringing as I outlined above, where he shocks and offends anyone with any class, he gets rebuked by his old man for being a loser, and he turns to momma Barbara, who ingrains in him her values system.
From this point on, we transition to various stages of "adulthood," if not emotional maturity. His whole life becomes a constant drift from one amusement to the next. Anyone who tries to harsh his buzz, sober him up, or otherwise bring him down with depressing or intellectually challenging matters is an obstacle, a villain.
We move on to his college days, where he pulls off cruel 'Animal House'-style frat-boy shenanigan after shenanigan on the jocks, the nerds, the creative types, political types, ROTC people, professors, girls looking for marriageable men, librarians, etc. Imagine a lot of montages here set to "yackety sax."
We segue to his career as a business man, screwing over everyone he does business with because it's all a big joke, and getting bailed out by his old man and his connections.
At some point, he gets hitched to some ball-and-chain librarian. BOR-ing! He skips out every chance he gets. And cheating on her is FUN!
Dubya hooks up with Rove, who is basically a beleaguered "rock star's manager"-type, and who does all the strategizing of running for Governor of Texas.
From there, Dubya decides to run for President. He meets up with Cheney, portrayed as some kind of avuncular character who is able to "manage" Dubya by distracting him with various amusements, and who takes care of the hard work of running for (and, later, being) President.
When running for president, Gore is just another one of those nerds Dubya has learned to despise his whole life. Using his usually dirty tricks, Dubya swindles him out of the presidency, taunting with: "SUC-ker!" as Gore is left sputtering.
Dubya has a love interest in this movie: Condi Rice. She's another one of those serious hard worker types he's also learned to despise, but Dubya can't have her, and he starts to actually try to do things to impress her. The actions themselves never succeed, but the fact that he tries slowly softens her heart.
I haven't worked out how that pivotal September 11 moment of paralysis should be dramatized. Should Dubya be desperately trying to hold in laughter, imagining the pathetic screaming victims of the collapsing twin towers? Should he lapse into a daydream of Godzilla plowing through the buildings? Or should he have an 'Oh Shit' moment wherein he remember his friends the Bin Ladens, and worry that they might get in trouble with the FBI?
Hey, Senate Democrats who believed Dubya's phony Iraq WMD intelligence: gotcha! SUC-kers!
All those troops in Iraq? Gotcha! You weren't clever, rich, and connected enough to avoid a war like Dubya was! Haw haw!
All those covert CIA operatives? Gotcha! Take that, you smarty-pants spy guys!
Hey, you drowning New Orleans losers: ya shoulda moved to Texas! No floods there! Haw haw!
Vietnam veteran John Kerry? Gotcha! You got stuck in that war, and you weren't sneaky enough to steal the election like Dubya was! Haw haw!
The brief glimpse of Dubya fondling Angela Merkel on camera is just the tip of the iceberg: a hint of the harrassment that happened behind closed doors.
The George W. Bush presidency is a source of too much material to possibly detail here, but you get the point.
In many ways, I expect this to be like a more light-hearted "Caligula" with a happy ending wherein Dubya simply retires to Crawford or wherever.
The Fox News crowd will love seeing their hero tricking those pouty-pants liberals and any other smarty-pants types who got in his way. People who love to laugh at Dubya will be delighted. Boom! Box office gold, baby.
I write this not to praise Ray Bradbury, but to bury him
On Tuesday, June 5th, Ray Bradbury died.
On Wednesday, June 13th, I rolled out of bed and faced my bookshelf in the light of dawn, and I noticed an old sci-fi paperback tucked behind a row of other paperbacks: "R is for Rocket" by Ray Bradbury.
I mentioned before how I have a bunch of old sci-fi paperbacks from an old friend who was moving; "R is for Rocket" is one of these. I started reading this collection of short stories long ago, and I re-shelved it in disgust. According to my bookmark, I was reading the story "Rocket Man." Bradbury published this volume in 1962, but it is actually a collection of short science fiction stories published years earlier, some as early as 1943. On re-reading it, what I mostly notice is the tremendous thrill Bradbury tries to inspire about how awesome it will be once we finally put a man on the moon.
Today, our country has virtually retreated from manned space exploration. It's true! Back in the 1950s and 1960s, futurists assumed that astronauts would have planted the US Flag on every planet in the solar system by now. We would build a moon base to mine resources for more rockets, and launch future space flights from that low-G platform. It was all right around the corner! Your kid could grow up to be an astronaut!
Even after we solved the technological hurdles, manned space flight was still hideously expensive, and there wasn't anything exciting in the rest of the Solar system that we really needed to see up close; you know, with actual weighted boots on the ground. The inner planets are too hot, poisonous, and/or corrosive; the outer planets have an average temperature way colder than even a Minnesota January wind chill; and nuclear fusion reactors are currently a pipe dream. Put it all together and space colonization is virtually impossible, even if those planets had anything we wanted. Although humanity seems hell-bent on making Earth uninhabitable, it's still worse in space.
So after the American economy peaked in the 1970s, suddenly Uncle Sugar had a lot less dough to blow on moon bases that weren't going anywhere. Big Brother can't even afford to treat your broken bones on Earth. Hell, now some "conservative" politicians are tired of ponying up the tax dollars to keep the venerable US Postal Service (that's Benjamin Franklin's Postal Service, people!) in operation. So now we use the term "Amazing Technological Breakthrough" to refer to a portable telephone with which you can update your Facebook status.
In 1962, "R is for Rocket" was still relevant. After we really did put a man on the moon in 1969, the book became a lot less relevant. You could see history (and the events Bradbury could only speculate on) unfold on the TV news. Unfortunately, Bradbury's stories seemed to concentrate on the influence such technological changes had on daily life, and the fiction didn't seem to mesh with the reality.
I mentioned that Bradbury published "R is for Rocket" in 1962. In contrast, he published his classic "Fahrenheit 451" almost 9 years earlier, in 1953. Perhaps Bradbury's name became more of a draw after "Fahrenheit 451" and someone saw money in publishing Bradbury's older stuff.
Anyway, after spotting "R is for Rocket" on my shelf, I reflected on Michael Moore's 2004 award-winning documentary, "Fahrenheit 9/11". Moore's title refers to Bradbury's literary masterwork, "Fahrenheit 451," which was about a dystopian future wherein the government deploys 'firemen' to incinerate all books in an attempt to control society through its knowledge of history (an elaboration of Orwell: if you control the present, you can control the past; if you control the past, you can control the future); presumably, Moore created his documentary to remind America of what was severely under-reported and thereby dropped from public political discourse during George W. Bush's election and first term. Bradbury, instead of being flattered (or even inspired) by Moore's reference, was offended, and Bradbury pleaded with Moore to rename his documentary.
Moore was apparently moved by Bradbury's attention. Moore promised Bradbury that he'd ask the studios to make this effort, but Moore conceded that doing this was at best impractical at the late stage of the project; as it was, fear of the documentary's controversial nature caused lots of corporate bigwigs at movie studios to fight the movie at every turn.
At its core, "Fahrenheit 9/11" was a desperate and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to prevent President George W. Bush from being elected to a second term. "Fahrenheit 9/11" became yesterday's news after November 2nd, 2004. By 2009, "Dubya" was out of the White House, and Americans of almost every political persuasion were enjoying the process of forgetting George W. Bush: the Left Wing wanted to move on from our nation's dark age of fascism; and the Right Wing considered the negative consequences of his reign an embarrassment to future plans to revive those same policies. As I write this in 2012, "Fahrenheit 9/11" is less than a footnote.
I have to wonder what Bradbury was really concerned about. "Fahrenheit 9/11's" focus gave it a shelf-life precluding it from having lasting social impact; at best, Moore's work could only eclipse the popularity of Bradbury's for a few years, and could hardly blunt the impact of Bradbury's work. Was Bradbury simply offended by the derivative nature of the title? If so, I could point out that Bradbury's book gives no props to Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit, the 18th-century inventor of mercury and alcohol thermometers. I suspect Bradbury either didn't want anyone touching the shiny polish on his literary baby, as if it were a freshly-waxed sports car or an expensive pair of shoes; or that he didn't want a single penny of his royalties to accidentally help pay for Michael Moore's daughters' college education.
Bradbury is celebrated for supporting libraries, but he has resisted urges to publish his work in e-book format. He was recently quoted with the following statement: "We have too many cellphones. We've got too many internets. We have got to get rid of those machines. We have too many machines now." Is this really a science fiction writer? "Fahrenheit 451" concludes with praise for the oral tradition of literature; if Bradbury supports the dissemination of literature in forms other than print-on-paper, how can Bradbury consider e-books a step too far? Does he really expect those astronauts he wrote about to lug around hundreds of pounds of printed paper, or should they be required to memorize any book they want to read? Is it really so terrible that we have constructed an electronic network wherein news, literature, music, conversation, and emergency assistance can be accessible by anyone anywhere? The problem of "too many machines" might be relevant if the machines start thinking for us. Perhaps Apple's 'Siri' comes close to this by preventing us from having our fingers do the walking through the actual paper yellow pages of the phone book. Maybe Bradbury wants us to just smell the flowers and talk to people face-to-face. But I suspect that Bradbury had simply become a grouchy old man: 'you darned kids these days have too many gadgets to play with.'
In "Fahrenheit 451," a 33-year-old Ray Bradbury tried to warn us about a future wherein our access to literature--our history: cultural and otherwise--was prevented by an oppressive government. It was timely: a fictional witch-hunt against books written during 1953's real witch-hunt against domestic political subversives, one year before Senator Joe McCarthy's very sense of decency was publicly questioned. We can tell that it was still relevant in 2004 because so many wanted to censor or 'disappear' Michael Moore's movie.
Unfortunately, the Ray Bradbury who brought us "Fahrenheit 451" died a long time ago. I suspect that Bradbury simply got too old to help us into the future, because he remembers only the good things from his past, and he got to the stage wherein everything new was crap. If you want to look to a future, Bradbury might encourage us to look to the old future he wrote about (you know, with rockets and astronauts and stuff), not the future we're actually building.
On Wednesday, June 13th, I rolled out of bed and faced my bookshelf in the light of dawn, and I noticed an old sci-fi paperback tucked behind a row of other paperbacks: "R is for Rocket" by Ray Bradbury.
I mentioned before how I have a bunch of old sci-fi paperbacks from an old friend who was moving; "R is for Rocket" is one of these. I started reading this collection of short stories long ago, and I re-shelved it in disgust. According to my bookmark, I was reading the story "Rocket Man." Bradbury published this volume in 1962, but it is actually a collection of short science fiction stories published years earlier, some as early as 1943. On re-reading it, what I mostly notice is the tremendous thrill Bradbury tries to inspire about how awesome it will be once we finally put a man on the moon.
Today, our country has virtually retreated from manned space exploration. It's true! Back in the 1950s and 1960s, futurists assumed that astronauts would have planted the US Flag on every planet in the solar system by now. We would build a moon base to mine resources for more rockets, and launch future space flights from that low-G platform. It was all right around the corner! Your kid could grow up to be an astronaut!
Even after we solved the technological hurdles, manned space flight was still hideously expensive, and there wasn't anything exciting in the rest of the Solar system that we really needed to see up close; you know, with actual weighted boots on the ground. The inner planets are too hot, poisonous, and/or corrosive; the outer planets have an average temperature way colder than even a Minnesota January wind chill; and nuclear fusion reactors are currently a pipe dream. Put it all together and space colonization is virtually impossible, even if those planets had anything we wanted. Although humanity seems hell-bent on making Earth uninhabitable, it's still worse in space.
So after the American economy peaked in the 1970s, suddenly Uncle Sugar had a lot less dough to blow on moon bases that weren't going anywhere. Big Brother can't even afford to treat your broken bones on Earth. Hell, now some "conservative" politicians are tired of ponying up the tax dollars to keep the venerable US Postal Service (that's Benjamin Franklin's Postal Service, people!) in operation. So now we use the term "Amazing Technological Breakthrough" to refer to a portable telephone with which you can update your Facebook status.
In 1962, "R is for Rocket" was still relevant. After we really did put a man on the moon in 1969, the book became a lot less relevant. You could see history (and the events Bradbury could only speculate on) unfold on the TV news. Unfortunately, Bradbury's stories seemed to concentrate on the influence such technological changes had on daily life, and the fiction didn't seem to mesh with the reality.
I mentioned that Bradbury published "R is for Rocket" in 1962. In contrast, he published his classic "Fahrenheit 451" almost 9 years earlier, in 1953. Perhaps Bradbury's name became more of a draw after "Fahrenheit 451" and someone saw money in publishing Bradbury's older stuff.
Anyway, after spotting "R is for Rocket" on my shelf, I reflected on Michael Moore's 2004 award-winning documentary, "Fahrenheit 9/11". Moore's title refers to Bradbury's literary masterwork, "Fahrenheit 451," which was about a dystopian future wherein the government deploys 'firemen' to incinerate all books in an attempt to control society through its knowledge of history (an elaboration of Orwell: if you control the present, you can control the past; if you control the past, you can control the future); presumably, Moore created his documentary to remind America of what was severely under-reported and thereby dropped from public political discourse during George W. Bush's election and first term. Bradbury, instead of being flattered (or even inspired) by Moore's reference, was offended, and Bradbury pleaded with Moore to rename his documentary.
Moore was apparently moved by Bradbury's attention. Moore promised Bradbury that he'd ask the studios to make this effort, but Moore conceded that doing this was at best impractical at the late stage of the project; as it was, fear of the documentary's controversial nature caused lots of corporate bigwigs at movie studios to fight the movie at every turn.
At its core, "Fahrenheit 9/11" was a desperate and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to prevent President George W. Bush from being elected to a second term. "Fahrenheit 9/11" became yesterday's news after November 2nd, 2004. By 2009, "Dubya" was out of the White House, and Americans of almost every political persuasion were enjoying the process of forgetting George W. Bush: the Left Wing wanted to move on from our nation's dark age of fascism; and the Right Wing considered the negative consequences of his reign an embarrassment to future plans to revive those same policies. As I write this in 2012, "Fahrenheit 9/11" is less than a footnote.
I have to wonder what Bradbury was really concerned about. "Fahrenheit 9/11's" focus gave it a shelf-life precluding it from having lasting social impact; at best, Moore's work could only eclipse the popularity of Bradbury's for a few years, and could hardly blunt the impact of Bradbury's work. Was Bradbury simply offended by the derivative nature of the title? If so, I could point out that Bradbury's book gives no props to Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit, the 18th-century inventor of mercury and alcohol thermometers. I suspect Bradbury either didn't want anyone touching the shiny polish on his literary baby, as if it were a freshly-waxed sports car or an expensive pair of shoes; or that he didn't want a single penny of his royalties to accidentally help pay for Michael Moore's daughters' college education.
Bradbury is celebrated for supporting libraries, but he has resisted urges to publish his work in e-book format. He was recently quoted with the following statement: "We have too many cellphones. We've got too many internets. We have got to get rid of those machines. We have too many machines now." Is this really a science fiction writer? "Fahrenheit 451" concludes with praise for the oral tradition of literature; if Bradbury supports the dissemination of literature in forms other than print-on-paper, how can Bradbury consider e-books a step too far? Does he really expect those astronauts he wrote about to lug around hundreds of pounds of printed paper, or should they be required to memorize any book they want to read? Is it really so terrible that we have constructed an electronic network wherein news, literature, music, conversation, and emergency assistance can be accessible by anyone anywhere? The problem of "too many machines" might be relevant if the machines start thinking for us. Perhaps Apple's 'Siri' comes close to this by preventing us from having our fingers do the walking through the actual paper yellow pages of the phone book. Maybe Bradbury wants us to just smell the flowers and talk to people face-to-face. But I suspect that Bradbury had simply become a grouchy old man: 'you darned kids these days have too many gadgets to play with.'
In "Fahrenheit 451," a 33-year-old Ray Bradbury tried to warn us about a future wherein our access to literature--our history: cultural and otherwise--was prevented by an oppressive government. It was timely: a fictional witch-hunt against books written during 1953's real witch-hunt against domestic political subversives, one year before Senator Joe McCarthy's very sense of decency was publicly questioned. We can tell that it was still relevant in 2004 because so many wanted to censor or 'disappear' Michael Moore's movie.
Unfortunately, the Ray Bradbury who brought us "Fahrenheit 451" died a long time ago. I suspect that Bradbury simply got too old to help us into the future, because he remembers only the good things from his past, and he got to the stage wherein everything new was crap. If you want to look to a future, Bradbury might encourage us to look to the old future he wrote about (you know, with rockets and astronauts and stuff), not the future we're actually building.
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