On Whaling

Please go over and read the commentary on Japan’s decision to resume whaling over here at Wired, especially pay attention to the enlightened comments at the end the ones by “Rawhead” and “DarkMirage” are exceptional.  Then reflect back on that logic class you had take your second year in undergrad and try to point out as many fallacies as you can!  Just off the top of my head I noticed straw man, ad hominem, appeal to ridicule, and personal attack.

To the article, killing animals is barbaric, whether it’s a whale, cow, pig or chicken.  The Japanese should at least be honest enough to admit to what they’re actually doing with the whales. If you disagree with their policies you absolutely should boycott Japanese products and let companies know why.  If enough people did, the Japanese government would feel the pressure real quick,  the country depends on its exports. There is no cultural excuse for anything and anytime you hear someone appeal to their culture to defend some ethically dubious practice they are exercising another logical fallacy: appeal to common practice. Just because humans everywhere butchers all sorts of domesticated animals, doesn’t justify Japan slaughtering whales, but no one wants to be ethical first. Mostly because no one in politics, the general populous understands game theory. Oh, well I guess I could mention that there’s no good reason to kill those free roaming whales when we have those billions of plants and animals in food factories, but I wonder if they’d follow the logic!

Books I’ve considered writing

Wanting to write the “Great American Novel” might be a one of the most cliche goals you’ll ever come across. But doesn’t it say something about the United States that one of the greatest desires for its citizens is a literary one? Unpack that goal and you’ll discover all sorts of interesting things about the American psyche, such as, writing and creativity are not the province of elites or artists, much to the chagrin of elitists and snobs everywhere.  Everyone and Anyone can write the next great American novel and many of them do.  great authors like Hemingway and John Steinbeck were originally panned for their prose and portrayal of Man. Every student in the United States now reads at least one of their books in school now, and you’ll be hard pressed to find complaints against them.

I too have contemplated sitting down and writing “the book that defined a generation”, but that isn’t the only think I’ve contemplated writing. So, begging your indulgence I’ll share with you the books that someday you’ll sit down and read.

I want to write a couple epic of poems, in the vein of the Iliad and the Aeneid, one about the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE. Like the poems by Homer and Virgil, the first  will center around a few members of the vast crowds, it’ll portray both the Romans and the Jews in the struggle over the city and its fall. There are several problems with this project right now, I don’t how to write verse poetry very well and it can’t very well be in the vein of the epic poets if it isn’t. The solution to this might be to write it in blank verse, like Milton wrote Paradise Lost. Even if I decide on blank verse I don’t know if I should start with this subject, blank verse isn’t easy and I want to do it right. I also need to brush up on my history of the event, at least the basics, much of it will be fiction, as epic poetry is mythology at it’s heart, but I should get names and places right at the very least. This is of course a long term project, one that hasn’t even been outlined yet but it could be really great. A final note, I have to tread very careful with this, if it is ever completed I don’t know if it could be published it might be seen as anti-Semitic, or anti-Christian, or anti-Latin ( I probably don’t have to worry much about the last one). The second one might very well be the first as I need lots of practice with verse, I though I’d take a battle from World War 2 and versify it. The Normandy invasion or perhaps the final assault on Berlin, this one too will be mythologized keeping the places and names accurate while heroifying everyone… Maybe not everyone.

I’ve actually written parts of this next one, but it has been revised and cut up so many times I don’t know if any of what is on paper now will be there when it is done. Imagine an alienated middle aged man. Distant from his friends and family. Trapped in the existential crisis of what his life is about, if anything. Anchorless he wanders through out his life. One morning he is awoken by a phone call from the family physician, his mother is dying, she lies in a hospital bed hanging on to life. He gets up and rushes to go see her, not because he loves her but because she is his mother. On the way there as he pushes through the faceless crowds of the city, he notices a woman, a beautiful woman.  In a world where he sees only shades of gray, this woman is a brilliant white light. she disappears into the crowds and his heart breaks, his continues on to see his mom. Time passes. He meets this woman again. Their conversations are pleasantries he can never remember. All he knows is that he loves her, that she makes life worth living. They see each other, she moves in with him. His life continues to be an endless round of meaningless meetings and wanderings, except for the girl waiting for him at home. He does not know what she does, he has never had the courage to ask, he suspects wild things about her, impossible things. She disappears and he is broken, she returns and he is elated, she leaves again, the cycle repeats. More time passes, his mother is getting worse. He visits her everyday now. One day he wakes up next to this woman, the woman he loves and she stirs next to him, murmuring, the murmers terrify him. She wakes and looks into his eyes and his cannot hold his, he looks away afraid. The phone rings, it is the doctor his mom is not going to make it through the day. He rushes out of the bed, and to his mother’s side. As she lies there fading away, he realizes that the time he has spent with her these past years as she die were the happiest of his life, that he regrets all the time he wasted not being with his mother. He begins to cry. his mother stirs and murmers, the same noises and half words his girlfriend whispered that morning and again he is afraid. The door opens and she is there, the woman he loves beautiful, bright and terrible. He looks into her eyes and knows that she is death, come to take his mother away, he knows he can do nothing to stop her, that his love for this woman doesn’t change the reality of what she is. He begs anyway. Death places her hand upon his mothers chest and looks into his eyes again, this time he does not look away. It is beautiful and meaningless, it is his life. His mom shudders and dies. His girlfriend, Death, walks out of the room. He is alone.  This book is very much in the vein of Louis Celine and Albert Camus, where pictures are painted with words but meaning is never given. I also think that this would make an excellent graphic novel, if I ever write it out or could find an artist to work with.

A piece of high fantasy dealing with the lost continent of Atlantis, also maybe aliens from another planet. Think Stitchin’s work fictionalized (like it isn’t already) and given characters and plots.

A re-telling of the Arthurian legends in a contemporary setting. Keep the grail and Merlin and the Lady in the Lake. Keep the fantasy but put it in 21st century Europe or the United States, even better in South America or Africa. The heroes are insane or genius. I’m thinking like Neil Gaiman’s work with this one.

A fantasy series not using Medieval Europe as a template but rather Native American. Not the bullshit nature love Native American either, that image was created by a PR firm not any other. I’m thinking the mound builders of the Mississippi valley, of course I’d be incorporating the fantasy and myth of this culture as well into the story. I’ve also thought of doing this and putting it in a bronze age Mediterranean setting (Minoan)

There are some more, but they are hardly more than a few ideas on scraps of paper right now. So I guess when they are more firmly shaped I’ll add them here.

Franchises that really must end, now, for real, seriously.

I play video games as most of you know, I even get to review them sometimes. As the video game industry has expanded and become more mainstream. It has also become more cautious and established games have become more and more prevalent as publishers look for a sure thing to return on their investment. There are some franchises though that no longer deliver on the promise of great game play, or have become so bastardized and watered down that they bear no resemblance to their progenitors. So here is my list of game franchises that the most be put to rest, some quickly and quietly other violently and extreme prejudice! Now in no particular order:

10. Sonic the Hedgehog – What started as Sega’s edgy assualt on Mario Brothers has become a tired mess. Sonic stopped being good around the 2nd game. The move to 3-d for Mario created new exciting gameplay and opened up the Mushroom kingdom, it put Sonic on rails and saddled him with a terrible camera. I stopped paying attention to the horrors of the franchise when their new game was about a black, gun-totting hedgehog… Please Sega put the poor guy out of our misery!

9. Final Fantasy – I’m a hard core Final Fantasy fan. I own every single one, including FFXI which I played for 25 minutes before deleting from my hard-drive (the irony being that it took me over an hour to install the game and jump through all the hoops SquareEnix wants you too (damn those codes!)). I’m done though now and I’m ready for the next thing. I’m tired of buying these games and playing through them for nostalgia’s sake. The developers must have other ideas and games concepts they rather explore, so why cram that in to a FF and load it with all the baggage that comes with FF, the good and the bad. It’s had a great run but the last few instances have been hurt more by their association with Final Fantasy then helped. XII is a great example of this, a great game with innovative gameplay that takes flack for not being close enough to it’s predecessors. Also I’m sick of whiny spiky haired blond kids being the protagonists and girly goth looking bad guys.

8. Half-Life – the FPS game on the PC, Half-life revitalized single and on-line gameplay when it was originally released, and Valve continues to make great games using the engine, which is what they should be doing more of market the engine and create new content using it. I no longer care about Gordon Freeman and the world he lives in. I’m also sick of waiting forever for episodic content, if you’re going down that route you have to deliver more often than every 2 years. The long wait is half the reason I’m no longer interested in the Half-Life world.

7. Guitar Hero – I don’t want to ever see Guitar Hero IV. There isn’t any need for it, all that needs to be done now is sell music to those who already own the game. There really shouldn’t have been a 2 either. All you need to sell is the engine and the guitar at brick box stores and then sell content on-line through Playstation Home or Xbox Live. There isn’t anything else you can do to change the guitar to make it easier and there isn’t anything new to add gameplay wise (Guitar hero is just a rhythm beat game with a different peripheral).

6 . Pokemon- I’ve caught them all, next please.

5. Warcraft- World or otherwise. I think Blizzard has made enough money cribbing ideas from Games Workshop, let’s see something new now Blizzard (this doesn’t mean Diablo or Starcraft either, new means new).

4.  Halo – Maybe I’m at heart a PC gamer but I’ve never. ever been impressed with Halo and I doubt I ever will. The story-line is cribbed from a half dozen sci-fi standards and is overall weak, as is the gameplay. I’m so glad Bungie left Mircosoft and I hope they never ever make another shooter. Halo is about the most over-hyped franchise ever. Doesn’t help that 80% of the people you’ll end up playing with on-line are immature fucktards.

3. Metal Gear Solid – I love MGS, I forced myself through MGS2 and 3. I’m not buying a Playstation 3 to play the fourth.  I don’t care about Kojima’s take on cold war politics or his convoluted (read: unreadable) storylines. I ignore the storylines completely in Metal Gear, as they make no sense whatsoever, I’m there for the gameplay and that has gotten worse through the iterations. I don’t understand how they teach history and politics in Japan but one has to wonder if illegal substances are involved. Anyway, the gameplay has stalemated and I don’t care about Solid anymore so let’s all move one

2. Mega Man – This is a given. Has any franchise been exploited as much as poor Mega Man? I’ve lost count of the games that have the little blue bomber in them. None of which have been as good as Mega Man 2, which was released in 1989. There you go, 18 years of Mega Man games that can’t live up to an original NES game. The latest games to have his name branded on them are wholly unremarkable. Capcom needs to end it or put the guy out to pasture for a while. We’ve all had enough.

1. Metroid Prime – The first Gamecube game got rave reviews from the industry for bringing Samus into the 3rd dimension successfully. I don’t know what game they were playing. I hated the controls for the game, the cycling through visors, the clunkiness of Samus, and the shrinking of the game world. I think the DS, PSP, and Indie game market on PC have proven that 2d games are still viable.  If you want to continue the Prime series of games Nintendo needs to farm out the coding to someone who knows how to do FPS, maybe make some contacts with PC game developers. Cause they are doing it wrong. End it or fix it.

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