tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-240783352024-03-23T03:15:52.715-07:00I Hope This HelpsThoughts I wish to shareSgt. Brightsidehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10018484209038858883noreply@blogger.comBlogger30125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24078335.post-27316433511155973642023-10-04T03:20:00.003-07:002023-10-04T03:23:08.726-07:00The Specifc Anger of America <p><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I stop paying attention to the news around 10 pm as a rule. </span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-1522f7d8-7fff-728c-bc7b-b7fd1c35ca6c"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I try to do something else. Anything else. Play video games. Write some short fiction. Clean my kitchen. My bathroom. Something else.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I was listening to the third book in the Armored Saint trilogy and painting.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I heard my front door unlock. I have four people that have a key to my whole living space and two of them are among my unofficial godchildren. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“Hey,” I started to say as packed up my brushes and went toward the door. It was just another base coat anyway and one of my godchildren is standing there. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">
</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhHy3Q8xyZoRpukUemAH7QG3q-_acKvkbeaGxXAHX_FzMs2cCSmveY5brzl_b22NvQxy3SqFKFB0tuPjUMF1Qb_kIGZYE0bT4kwVIiTNURH2Pux4mEMe4XM9NPQ6n8FPYVyN2pAMPv-FHr5xVvvuDDebvHMQpYDcfOj09KdXewroAwacHad9awI6Q" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhHy3Q8xyZoRpukUemAH7QG3q-_acKvkbeaGxXAHX_FzMs2cCSmveY5brzl_b22NvQxy3SqFKFB0tuPjUMF1Qb_kIGZYE0bT4kwVIiTNURH2Pux4mEMe4XM9NPQ6n8FPYVyN2pAMPv-FHr5xVvvuDDebvHMQpYDcfOj09KdXewroAwacHad9awI6Q" width="320" /></a></span></div><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br />
<br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">And this look on their face. It’s not accusing. It’s not saying I hurt them.
</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">It’s the face of a scientist who has disproved a theory that another old scientist said was true. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I say this all the time, that Baltimore is per capita no more dangerous than any major American city. And it’s not. Baltimore is barely a major American city in terms of population. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">But it terms of American Blackness, it’s among THE American cities. This is not something I concluded. I was told this. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The problem with that is if I tell you who told me that, you might want to ask him if that’s what he said to me and when and did you give away the game to a guy that looks like Charles Xavier joined a metal band? </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I’m a veteran. I make jokes when I’m upset or scared or angry or bored. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">So I make jokes a lot. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">And I couldn’t make a joke tonight. This morning. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I couldn’t say a goddamned thing that was funny.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I said “I got Streets of Rage 4 on that Playstation if you wanna start a game,” and my godchild just nodded. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I was out of everything. I had Gatorade, water, and leftover coffee from the last amount I put through my French press that I won’t throw away because I don’t want to be wasteful.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I texted their dad and told them they were here and safe. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">My godchild looks shocked and numb as the game screens scroll. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“Hunter’s unlocked, if you wanna play him. I’ll rock Blaze,” </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“I just wanna play Axel,” they said. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I press start and their phone rings. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">They answer and I pause the game. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I know their dad. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">He’s sharp and kind and he used to piss off a lot of people because they would ask for utterly stupid shit and he’d not only tell them no but could - off the top of his head - go line by line as to why it was stupid shit. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I’d follow him into hell. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">We only trained together, and never deployed to the same place at the same time. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I can’t hear exactly what he’s saying over the phone, but the tone is there. It’s heartbroken and overjoyed at the same time. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">If you’ve ever feared the worst and seen totally not the worst happen you’ve had that tone in your voice. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“It doesn’t look like anyone we know was shot,” they said after the call ended.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I press start to keep that feeling of falling backward unexpectedly far far away from my mind. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">We go pretty hard on Streets of Rage 4, burning through levels as a team like we’d been playing this version of the game forever. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">We both died at one point and the </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">CONTINUE?</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> screen came up. I was tired, and they said they were tired so I closed the game out and went to the linen closet to get some beddings for the couch.</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">It was barely ten feet away and they were out like light: sawing wood snoring like their dad did in advanced training. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The whole floor could hear it and I almost lost it laughing as I put a blanket over them. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">They are safe in my house. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">And I feel this cold rage at the idea they even had to come here. I realized I didn’t ask if they Uber’d or walked or took the Morgan State Bus or a Baltimore City line and and which one and hey, that Lidl right there is pretty good.. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I just get angrier. In that stupid young man’s way I still get angry. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The fuck am I asking these questions for? They’re safe. They’re fine. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I can engage in all the power fantasies I want but it doesn’t matter. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">You can’t train for a mass shooting. Mass shootings rely on the mundane chaos of everyday life. Mass shootings rely on panic. Mass shootings rely on fear to make people stupid. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">And my anger makes me stupid. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I’m so angry at the very idea of me being anywhere near a mass shooting that I can barely English good. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">But what hurts the most isn’t the helplessness or chaos. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">It’s that I feel like I lied about the goodness of the entire world to a child. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">And that is a very different kind of anger. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">
</span><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/morgan-state-baltimore-shooting-campus-rcna118737" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="507" data-original-width="760" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh_3YXVdQmGxzynCK_bYZk86ThVMr85Srdua5LtyTAFB9nAkAVCviKvoU4ZKtpR__twH0kuQINhOUazvtcUcPL-D25Sm4jaEpA1YuiGPYVGJ3zCZqZMRdi2tgxgLOKj2KR9XJ9n4PdyJWqyhbZN7k_IEiwiTTGly-IZFisxtELOstYJ8_SzZKVHFQ=w640-h426" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /><br /></span></p>Sgt. Brightsidehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10018484209038858883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24078335.post-66486389046376806892023-10-04T01:11:00.006-07:002023-10-04T01:11:50.188-07:00How I Met Your Munster (It's kinda prequel or something, it was in my head and I had to get it out) <p> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOlOanDjgHaYXVf6J0yTFuAJNSI4K4USjrjLCzTz50zKXQlbcW27Kd7bFRdYXdL9aWPQDBGaJCuwg7S3F6b8n1CLjoucWjb3sYdHrJd9otd1ZGLUWGdAlFfr8QYaz-5GvPZg5bl7rCSYq6uVwNW7bM4-nE82ZYUKNHUjir9_Py0rbfsFoXB0JwDw/s792/Sciencefairsequnce1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="612" data-original-width="792" height="247" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOlOanDjgHaYXVf6J0yTFuAJNSI4K4USjrjLCzTz50zKXQlbcW27Kd7bFRdYXdL9aWPQDBGaJCuwg7S3F6b8n1CLjoucWjb3sYdHrJd9otd1ZGLUWGdAlFfr8QYaz-5GvPZg5bl7rCSYq6uVwNW7bM4-nE82ZYUKNHUjir9_Py0rbfsFoXB0JwDw/s320/Sciencefairsequnce1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">EXT. High School Science Fair in the 1980s </td></tr></tbody></table></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSP29v70DTKqsH5XDnNUojOaBFCT3De8Gd9EVrnZsdvQFeYB4WZK3Dj4KCW4XgNnoWP5mgC3dD3UWUmmOp1Bj_SjBHnwch8xo01iRgAYYkIsdNYBG4UmFJpz6_zL0JrK0pT89lSiMWxVJ9ovfJzhgkSlsLuq8StLe2RdoNslVyCB2B_pw_tvsWcg/s792/Sciencefairsequnce2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="612" data-original-width="792" height="247" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSP29v70DTKqsH5XDnNUojOaBFCT3De8Gd9EVrnZsdvQFeYB4WZK3Dj4KCW4XgNnoWP5mgC3dD3UWUmmOp1Bj_SjBHnwch8xo01iRgAYYkIsdNYBG4UmFJpz6_zL0JrK0pT89lSiMWxVJ9ovfJzhgkSlsLuq8StLe2RdoNslVyCB2B_pw_tvsWcg/s320/Sciencefairsequnce2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">INT. Science Fair, it's a bunch of people doing variations on physics. This one guy, who is extremely tall and has green skin is the only one taking a swing at a botany project<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPlGi39V5EKIuF1GTijl3NSI04BCT1fZG4I6eoKHeIwp6X7C1BUW0K3Oj05JhFIVzgKmZEzk2dPbYEhTbzCbMEhn2gTxfvHNLV96qJz0fz1YTBfN0gch65IP2zmnHLdy4oGShdGsG0Rd-DlV3vjqC7s5PAEAAiMmqbNYx9bWjjW0XMinGEP67gIQ/s792/Sciencefairsequnce3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="612" data-original-width="792" height="247" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPlGi39V5EKIuF1GTijl3NSI04BCT1fZG4I6eoKHeIwp6X7C1BUW0K3Oj05JhFIVzgKmZEzk2dPbYEhTbzCbMEhn2gTxfvHNLV96qJz0fz1YTBfN0gch65IP2zmnHLdy4oGShdGsG0Rd-DlV3vjqC7s5PAEAAiMmqbNYx9bWjjW0XMinGEP67gIQ/s320/Sciencefairsequnce3.jpg" width="320" /></a><br /><br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />INT. Herman is holding a rose bush so rich and lush against the dull space of the school gymnasium it catches the eye<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEK3AJ3hcrJ4PD3X3ui7MBfMW74VEEzqG2A2vO4FEev74R-yKVeOy4agnPcIQdYGH-YVa3nBMItXZZ6q4r7_4sOlio_iRiW_nGopVaQzmism6fdJLAOG8vsEEhHnyPik5op2dOVEsv8SqGQED4K-WpB1R9HoePnNnHsSr3eKAezV8pVO4eFTVLjA/s792/Sciencefairsequnce4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="612" data-original-width="792" height="247" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEK3AJ3hcrJ4PD3X3ui7MBfMW74VEEzqG2A2vO4FEev74R-yKVeOy4agnPcIQdYGH-YVa3nBMItXZZ6q4r7_4sOlio_iRiW_nGopVaQzmism6fdJLAOG8vsEEhHnyPik5op2dOVEsv8SqGQED4K-WpB1R9HoePnNnHsSr3eKAezV8pVO4eFTVLjA/s320/Sciencefairsequnce4.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In the improvised hallway there are guys doing physics and Herman's Roses stand out even more. </td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp1-z1VQLa6T5FtcUSqS0PurDszThNoBb90pPhnUIPCXtPr5U9Aji3PcH5dPqFHHvLem9xLmIKEAZ59t0XeakEtf8UNhWj8NU5EOAHUw2YOK7A6kIWJOFONZUYeRx8X-TjBHFnU_CKjBDXgEPHSBWOfDGdiiIiQ9NxVN3lhKPYGmXvA4giPdIL7g/s792/Sciencefairsequnce5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="612" data-original-width="792" height="247" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp1-z1VQLa6T5FtcUSqS0PurDszThNoBb90pPhnUIPCXtPr5U9Aji3PcH5dPqFHHvLem9xLmIKEAZ59t0XeakEtf8UNhWj8NU5EOAHUw2YOK7A6kIWJOFONZUYeRx8X-TjBHFnU_CKjBDXgEPHSBWOfDGdiiIiQ9NxVN3lhKPYGmXvA4giPdIL7g/s320/Sciencefairsequnce5.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lily is the Student Judge, </td></tr></tbody></table><br />Sgt. Brightsidehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10018484209038858883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24078335.post-58528543153681234612023-07-27T13:08:00.003-07:002023-08-02T07:56:14.209-07:00You Have to Have A Hobby: Paintings I Have Made to Keep From Going Completely Insane While Unemployed<p>On Saturday I will turn 42. <br /><br />The "Life, the universe, and everything," birthday. <br /><br />I have never felt so far away from all three of those things. <br /><br />I have been unemployed since April 2022. <br /><br />I am not comfortable talking about why I quit my job. <br /><br />I try to apply to four "cover letter" jobs a day and at least 10 "one-click" jobs daily. <br /><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiq-A-JBB_PWnEtdkPRTtdZJJOcsQ8Xoh4u3bWu4sz95mL1MV7_Z9ZexgPaL3F7jSQYFnxG1MRq_SXeP2FuTOWNYkHmAGhEM6Uv2wT3wuZ93ccov_wyP2p4RSvlj_4_WvA51rJlt030N4V5t6UmJx_AbDvHjA4bshkkVfKzGHPdpU9EyapvsrkLnA" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Palette knifing. The most peaceful knifeing" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiq-A-JBB_PWnEtdkPRTtdZJJOcsQ8Xoh4u3bWu4sz95mL1MV7_Z9ZexgPaL3F7jSQYFnxG1MRq_SXeP2FuTOWNYkHmAGhEM6Uv2wT3wuZ93ccov_wyP2p4RSvlj_4_WvA51rJlt030N4V5t6UmJx_AbDvHjA4bshkkVfKzGHPdpU9EyapvsrkLnA" title="It’s Not So Bad Once You Get Used To It, Acrylic On Canvas, 20 X 16" width="180" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>It’s Not So Bad Once You Get Used To It</i> Acrylic On Canvas, 20 X 16</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><br />Considering how much of American life is focused solely on work, money, status, and everything that I just don't have right now I feel disconnected from everything. <br /><br />I have roughly one interview a week on average. Some weeks for reasons I'm not clear on, I get a spike in interviews. In the past year, I have had <i>one</i> follow-up interview for a job I didn't get. <br /><br />No one is obligated to tell me why they didn't hire me. <br /><br />One job had a ton of potential but it would have involved a move that I couldn't afford then and definitely cannot afford now. It was disheartening. <br /><br />It was an American Small Town™ where I thought it would have been fun to be the Annoying But Good-Hearted Liberal Who Watches Football® with the type of manager I enjoy working alongside. <br /><br />Alas. <br /><br />Quite a few alases over the past year. <br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgGO72eqlwqb9eKA7EyjxViKSdjNjVLpspL1t3UlxbNp7eVhAErCvDqvwGhZKXdHqEtaPi75lkNYI-42t_GUAln_GGX0JM97sXHq4vLgwBw0vBhS5ZG_HBbOCVkkPbF6atJ0AQwXaFssSn4lQfyy15hrwIvlB8UgCuujWa61iHHjIgxfGkoUV-I_A" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgGO72eqlwqb9eKA7EyjxViKSdjNjVLpspL1t3UlxbNp7eVhAErCvDqvwGhZKXdHqEtaPi75lkNYI-42t_GUAln_GGX0JM97sXHq4vLgwBw0vBhS5ZG_HBbOCVkkPbF6atJ0AQwXaFssSn4lQfyy15hrwIvlB8UgCuujWa61iHHjIgxfGkoUV-I_A" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>At Midnight At 29.4387, -42.5764 The Ocean Has a Clear Message: You Do Not Fucking Belong Here </i>Acrylic on Canvas 20 x 16</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br />I was able to find a few short-term jobs. Many people helped me however they could; sometimes too much I think but I'm not in a position to turn down any kind of assistance and probably won't be for some time. <br /><br />I was pretty disheartened and started to feel like I had accomplished nothing worthwhile in my entire life - I mean, if I had accomplished <i>anything</i>, I'd have a new job, correct? - and there was a looming certainty that I would never accomplish anything again. <br /><br />Doing anything other than job hunting felt horrible. Eating didn't earn money. Drawing didn't earn me money. Writing <a href="https://onthesestreetsintheseskies.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-water-of-earth.html">short stories</a> or posts like this didn't earn me money. <br /><br />I made the mistake of accepting an internship as a video editor with a startup. I was hoping I could parlay some kind of work into a resume builder. <br /><br />I am a 40-plus-year-old army veteran with 15 years of experience editing videos, photos, and text. I can write broadcast copy, speech copy, news copy, narrative copy, and more. I can voice-over and voice-act. <br /><br />And that wasn't enough. I had to do everything I'd be doing for years for free to have someone else say to more people that I was indeed capable of doing things. <br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgNuztWFe-FHWPtoXfm3i2mZDDM6lQEHlUdskGZfR_Fk3APyinoFEjEEahHmPnx8jOZws75iPhwlXqaNdryG7XlAsxHHufEAnVheuS002VW2-9ZZkHf3NOFSvCXGvOp03zivnPr4aQPLL2xLI1vTclD6NKeH-DiVstzp3haoaw27UDmWcXWLInCXw" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgNuztWFe-FHWPtoXfm3i2mZDDM6lQEHlUdskGZfR_Fk3APyinoFEjEEahHmPnx8jOZws75iPhwlXqaNdryG7XlAsxHHufEAnVheuS002VW2-9ZZkHf3NOFSvCXGvOp03zivnPr4aQPLL2xLI1vTclD6NKeH-DiVstzp3haoaw27UDmWcXWLInCXw" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>It's not Survival of the Fittest, It's Survival of the Least Inadequate and This Includes Personal Trauma Unfortunately for All of Us</i> Acrylic on Canvas 20 x 16</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br />I had a nervous breakdown because I was doing something I have a decade of experience doing for a company and still not making money. I couldn't afford the service I was doing free because I was doing it free. <br /><br />I didn't get out of bed for almost two weeks. <br /><br />They emailed me first to ask what was going on, and then they asked me to delete myself from their systems. I'd forgotten how to use their systems and had to have their IT tech take care of it. At one point I tried to sell blood and I can't do that because I have G6 Protein Deficiency. <br /><br />The anxiety of having a deeply uncertain future for long periods can really mess up your well-being.<br /><br />I had canvases and paints that I would stare at wistfully while typing cover letters and clicking "apply" on job sites. <br /><br />There is a truly insane amount of legitimate job-matching sites out there. And three times as many middle-men websites that just show you advertisements for real job matching sites if you enter your email. Adding the worst kind of work, extra steps that don't pay extra. <br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgRq0KHMGImfBI7iElmPFPTq5BLVVfOGj3NKUi8Y7nMmoxCYBfFcHlOxH7Bw0kuPm2oTtsCAwaccVCkobw0FDXHEQ-Da2KnWOLIM4tstFjGPhV3tYxpRL2twLD5zeuInrJfHcqTEF1Y6M9og2MBccnemgbg6-uc-8CoxHn1VletZDhMwxu7KBrE6A" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgRq0KHMGImfBI7iElmPFPTq5BLVVfOGj3NKUi8Y7nMmoxCYBfFcHlOxH7Bw0kuPm2oTtsCAwaccVCkobw0FDXHEQ-Da2KnWOLIM4tstFjGPhV3tYxpRL2twLD5zeuInrJfHcqTEF1Y6M9og2MBccnemgbg6-uc-8CoxHn1VletZDhMwxu7KBrE6A" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Ice Probably Would be Twice As Nice, but I’d Like To Go First</span> <span style="font-size: x-small;">Acrylic on Canvas 16 x 20</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><br />I had to start painting again. <br /><br />And the first thing I did was prime four paintings I hadn't touched in over a year. <br /><br />The next thing I did was paint four brand new paintings over three days. <br /><br />I felt a lot better. <br /><br />And then I remembered I actually know how to paint. Since I only apply to jobs from 5 a.m. to about 1 p.m. I spend the rest of the day painting on weekdays. On weekends I just paint. <br /><br />If my life continues on its current trajectory I don't foresee things going very well for me at all. <br /><br />But the paintings will still have been painted. <br /><br />That will have to be enough for now. <br /><br /><i>If you want to support my writing PayPal is JHiggins35, CashApp is $FairyGhostFather and Venmo is @John-Higgins-179</i><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi9A8CApAqaRwBuS-Vf6NeUn9oOfgx3-bDPnRqYuFZVtJ_F57Unv03te53jTAZyZuyuqOVOcA9cb-IZbl0McAFPby3SmdmvJ4MVTEXkCnacuKVEnbbH0iSn8Xf862g54a72Wsm4MMz-91QKblVpgCOYO_VsIlT2OllH_VQBmT8V7zrxSfQrA_8TPA" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1440" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi9A8CApAqaRwBuS-Vf6NeUn9oOfgx3-bDPnRqYuFZVtJ_F57Unv03te53jTAZyZuyuqOVOcA9cb-IZbl0McAFPby3SmdmvJ4MVTEXkCnacuKVEnbbH0iSn8Xf862g54a72Wsm4MMz-91QKblVpgCOYO_VsIlT2OllH_VQBmT8V7zrxSfQrA_8TPA" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>If You Don’t Make You, They Will Make You</i> Acrylic on Canvas 20 x 16</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />Sgt. Brightsidehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10018484209038858883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24078335.post-26406871657479185172023-07-06T10:21:00.008-07:002023-07-06T17:35:54.829-07:00A Lack of Content as the Exclusive Content <div class="separator"><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEid7Tmd5R4Ht5v6YWW7-dzImD7nI-eAIbZ4b4wSrDjx659Jo4WjiHsN0tdtPyWmxsJFWhbZDf4ndH0IPG2iQFEUzFIqY1tsVyVMTZQ9gTlOnxN8TLVL7tA-an8F1Ni2-DtQVcLXrlxsQKUqcZeWa_wXrdvWe9kwJKfeMEQF8vjJhIqu1Km1sYxlnw" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img height="367" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEid7Tmd5R4Ht5v6YWW7-dzImD7nI-eAIbZ4b4wSrDjx659Jo4WjiHsN0tdtPyWmxsJFWhbZDf4ndH0IPG2iQFEUzFIqY1tsVyVMTZQ9gTlOnxN8TLVL7tA-an8F1Ni2-DtQVcLXrlxsQKUqcZeWa_wXrdvWe9kwJKfeMEQF8vjJhIqu1Km1sYxlnw=w230-h367" width="230" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"Totally meant to do that."</span> </td></tr></tbody></table>"The entire industry has moved from a world of Newtonian economics into a world of quantum economics, where two things that seem to be in opposition can be true at the same time: You can have a massive hit on your platform, but it’s not actually doing anything to increase your platform’s revenue. It’s absolutely conceivable that the streaming subscription model is the crypto of the entertainment business." —Steven Soderbergh to Vulture Magazine, June 6, 2023 <br /><br />That is from a fascinating and disconcerting article that you can read <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2023/06/streaming-industry-netflix-max-disney-hulu-apple-tv-prime-video-peacock-paramount.html">here</a>. There is wisdom in staying in your lane, but there is also wisdom in finding lessons from sources that are - or just appear to be - out of your lane. <br /><br />What social media platforms and studio streaming services have in common is content and how it is everything. <br /><br /><div>Netflix was the vanguard of streaming exclusive original content with House of Cards. Original is the key word here because for some time, Netflix and Hulu would pass content back on forth on streaming or would have the same products available at the same time. Similarly Twitter and Facebook - relatively very briefly - had a lot of parallel content. A lot of it was disinformation, but it was parallel. <br /><br />Original and exclusive content became a key selling point for all streaming services and every streaming service is certainly looking for their own Game of Thrones, their own Ted Lasso, or perhaps their own <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/13/business/media/disney-viacom18-cricket-streaming.html">cricket streaming</a>.<br /><br />Social media will likely never have exclusive content also needs content and but their "brief but intense mania" is happening now. That mania prompted Twitter Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Attack <a href="https://sfba.social/@sysop408/110639435788921057">itself</a>. <br /><br />Every time Twitter stumbles another platform will see a spike in users.<br /><div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgPIosY_lIV1XTN9W8RyqH_z47njiZRuGBKIpvKjVaS1tDXIXYGWKjpbnpEMEAMY6iagmrGRpq93vA0G_UO62Qi_yFarfEBC0cKgThqr9aSHVM9K9av0m03dYSBIUTtqxEm2MRNq0_93QD6dSsSfdv2lix7SKozxnynbV_uI6sktIdi6S75GQK4FQ" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgPIosY_lIV1XTN9W8RyqH_z47njiZRuGBKIpvKjVaS1tDXIXYGWKjpbnpEMEAMY6iagmrGRpq93vA0G_UO62Qi_yFarfEBC0cKgThqr9aSHVM9K9av0m03dYSBIUTtqxEm2MRNq0_93QD6dSsSfdv2lix7SKozxnynbV_uI6sktIdi6S75GQK4FQ=w277-h246" width="277" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">It's called "Balkanization"</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br />No one will generate content for free and it's doubtful anyone is "cool" enough for a social media platform to pay them to write 250-word posts for their full-time job. They are competing for countless individuals to make content and also generate "the churn," and there are two things that will determine the winner, and neither of them is content they are User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX). <br /><br />The easiest aspect of the platform has to be posting and it's good to have at least two ways to do it (browser and app usually). Spoutable moved away from it as soon as they could and it would appear that if you can edit text on a post then ironically, that means the text means far less.<br /><br />Bluesky has grown exponentially it's demonstrated how not only UI and UX are linked but at present users are ensuring their own User Experience is what they want/need it to be.<br /><br />The magic bullet of Bluesky is it when you follow someone you can look at their blocked list and should follow that list, you can make all of those blocks with yours with one click.<br /><br />Since Bluesky is presently invite based, it's a safe bet that the person invited knows the person who invited them and will share similar interests including those who you don't want to hear from.<br /><br />From the start, the User Interphase directly creates not just a UX but a community. You don't just show up in a new city, but directly into a local community, so to speak. If you only want to interact only with that community, you can do that. <br /><br />Bluesky's exclusive content is actually<i> a lack of content </i>but a lack of content the<i> users actually control. </i><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg9w7m9Nq1Qm1OtfQU9cHWwDQXfU8YE9oSBqGOIf0TKGZ_YiBQYFG56jCg2qzBNQPoFs1RMBLod-a2XzF8fHyVEbAynOhMf2X0ipHJsKavOzMI30K9q96skcjyIDZlAPjTJYODbBGlc7zETQACmAM8Ti3EGV43zNTPho_vVd8EfJ0JNSSOhfd-5Sw" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img height="159" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg9w7m9Nq1Qm1OtfQU9cHWwDQXfU8YE9oSBqGOIf0TKGZ_YiBQYFG56jCg2qzBNQPoFs1RMBLod-a2XzF8fHyVEbAynOhMf2X0ipHJsKavOzMI30K9q96skcjyIDZlAPjTJYODbBGlc7zETQACmAM8Ti3EGV43zNTPho_vVd8EfJ0JNSSOhfd-5Sw=w174-h159" width="174" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Aka The Contraption</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><br />
<p></p></div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><i>If you want to support my writing PayPal is JHiggins35, CashApp is $FairyGhostFather and Venmo is @John-Higgins-179</i></div>Sgt. Brightsidehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10018484209038858883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24078335.post-46550504950398559412023-06-24T09:57:00.001-07:002023-06-24T09:57:29.208-07:00This Probably Means War: Analysis of the Speech from the head of Wagner <p><i>Caveat: This translation is from <a href="https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1672314259907158028?s=20">@wartranslated</a> on Twitter so I am relying very heavily on their cultural intelligence and by extension their accuracy.<br /><br />Off we go, then. <br /></i><br />The speech: <br /><br /></p><p>"PMC Wagner Commanders’ Council made a decision: the evil brought by the military leadership of the country must be stopped.</p><p>They neglect the lives of soldiers. They forgot the word 'justice,' and we will bring it back.</p><p>Those, who destroyed our guys today, who destroyed tens, tens of thousands of lives of Russian soldiers will be punished.</p><p>I’m asking: no one resist. Everyone who will try to resist, we will consider them a danger and destroy them immediately, including any checkpoints on our way. And any aviation that we see above our heads.</p><p>I’m asking everyone to remain calm, do not succumb to provocations, and remain in their houses. Ideally, those along our way, do not go outside.</p><p>After we finished what we started, we will return to the frontline to protect our motherland.</p><p>Presidential authority, Government, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Rosgvardia, and other departments will continue operating as before.</p><p>We will deal with those who destroy Russian soldiers. And we will return to the frontline.</p><p>Justice in the Army will be restored. And after this, justice for the whole of Russia."<br /><br />I think this is personally a very good speech that does a lot of work whilst not directly saying "We're gonna kill Putin." <br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">What stood out to me most is just how abstract this speech presents <i>everything</i>. <br /><br />It opens with an abstract everyone has a concept of - justice - and then that it's been forgotten. <br /><br />This is an accusation intended to get people on board with whatever is said next. Who will say "Yes, I had forgotten about justice, thank you for reminding me," ever? <br /><br />No one. <br /><br />Before that it sets something up; "they neglect the lives of our soldiers" which takes a step away from soldiers. This is a fun linguistic choice because it doesn't say "Our soldiers killed," but rather the soldiers had a life and now it's gone. Whether that's cultural or not it makes life a possession rather than a thing soldiers were/are. <br /><br />"Destroyed the lives of..." further adds to this. It's when someone says "My life is over," while they are still very much biologically alive. <br /><br />Next, we get the warning to not resist and stay inside. Simple enough. <br /><br />Hilariously, the "after we're done, we will return to the frontline," which is bold, to say the least, like they are engaging in a field trip over a weekend. <br /><br />This is of course meant to be reassuring but I think it's a misstep especially when the Putin regime's information apparatus turns every news outlet into a smoke machine that augments the fog of war. <br /><br />This speech recognizes this by insisting that the relevant branches of government will continue to operate. <br /><br />Justice is repeated over and over. "Justice for us, justice for them, justice for you," with enough ambiguity that no one can rightfully accuse Wagner of being authoritarian just yet. </span><br /><br /><br /><br /></p>Sgt. Brightsidehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10018484209038858883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24078335.post-24469733344405978652023-06-14T05:54:00.003-07:002023-06-14T08:10:56.249-07:00Week Seven of the WGA Strike: The Real Single Point of Failure<p><br />Here is a comic by Randall Munroe that illustrates one aspect of a single point of failure in terms of software and hardware. <br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/dependency.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="https://xkcd.com/2347/" border="0" data-original-height="489" data-original-width="385" src="https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/dependency.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://xkcd.com/2347/" target="_blank">The Original Comic </a></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>As a former member of the military and Department of Defense employee, a "single point of failure," was always something to be wary of from platoon operations to programming computers. Have a backup and a backup to that backup. </p>It has become increasingly clear to me that there is an obvious single point of failure throughout the private sector, and it is wealthy people who won't negotiate with unions or workers. <br /><br />The WGA strike has reached week seven. To refresh, <a href="https://www.wga.org/uploadedfiles/members/member_info/contract-2023/WGA_proposals.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here are the demands and the "offers" to meet them.</a> <br /><br />The current narrative still being pushed by studios is that the writers are the single point of failure for the entire studio system. <br /><br />If the public accepted that narrative on its face, there is no reason to accept that studios are NOT the cause of it, since at least one studio <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-05/warner-bros-posts-surprise-streaming-profit-as-cable-struggles" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">has posted record profits</a> after pushing a narrative - <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/19/heres-why-hbo-max-is-pulling-dozens-of-films-and-tv-series-from-its-streaming-platform.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">with action to</a> <a href="https://owendennis.substack.com/p/so-uh-whats-going-on-with-infinity" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">back it up</a> - that they had been consistently losing profits. <br /><br />If they were really losing money at the top, that would mean, boards of trustees, boards of directors, or what have you <i>should be</i> willing to negotiate and they still aren't. <p>Regardless of your feelings on capitalism, it has one very clear requirement: <i>money must be moving constantly</i>. If capitalism were a body money would be the blood and any individual organ that hordes the blood is effectively harming the rest of the body. <br /></p>This pattern persists. From Twitter to train inspections, single points of failure, known or unknown, are held up in times of crisis as the sole cause of the problem. Sometimes the single point of failure <i>is someone insisting it is not them </i>which suggests a level of cluelessness that not only makes Mr. Magoo look like Dr. Manhattan it's also a clear sign that person should not be in charge. <br /><i><br />Who could have predicted this disaster? </i>Anyone of the underpaid or laid off people someone in an air-conditioned office thought was unnecessary.<i> </i><br /><br />What's happening now with studios is a pattern so persistent and pervasive that whatever the WGA does, other unions <i>must</i> follow suit, and any union that forms in the future should take detailed notes as much of what is happening has not only happened before but will happen again. <div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhhqT5HJyQBmghlsJEtyOL2Qnnme8FSAj1Ag8vhUOaFVO4FBrnOEfOgW9MFadvxdHKZ79HMUcW8IywVfQFryV6AnU3Wk9TmMMjJDTFYIuu3fXAtHi_y5c3KezgrjLlp8_smCCe5CKWhAq1aeXQBOalZRD3pzw4Yzx_4AqBURGAYrUOfwWzLVls" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="489" data-original-width="385" height="323" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhhqT5HJyQBmghlsJEtyOL2Qnnme8FSAj1Ag8vhUOaFVO4FBrnOEfOgW9MFadvxdHKZ79HMUcW8IywVfQFryV6AnU3Wk9TmMMjJDTFYIuu3fXAtHi_y5c3KezgrjLlp8_smCCe5CKWhAq1aeXQBOalZRD3pzw4Yzx_4AqBURGAYrUOfwWzLVls=w255-h323" width="255" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">What the studios claim is happening</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br />Should you be in a position where you need to make the argument, here are some useful links:<br /><br />Here is Ed Soloman, who wrote copious screenplays for decades: "...<a href="https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1654562531166306305.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">films I wrote have generated over $ 2 billion. Studio accounting has us believe NOT ONE is in profit even though they've spawned multiple sequels. Thus I've gotten exactly $0 of my 5% of net points. The residuals I get are only cuz <b>50 yrs ago writers went on strike.</b></a>"<br /><p></p><p>A thread from Twitter about the on-set functionality of a writer: <a href="https://twitter.com/serathegamble/status/1654968707087736832?s=20" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">WHY HAVE A TV WRITER ON SET? Since they already wrote the script (and rewrote it 8 times, and tweaked it after the table read)? Glad you asked</a>.</p>Here is a 99-page report called <a href="https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w28061/w28061.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Answering the Call of Automation: How the Labor Market Adjusted to the Mechanization of Telephone Operation</a> which suggests quite a lot but due to the nature of telephone networks and should be considered because of how much studios are lording "AI" over writers now. It's been made clear they will surely do the same with as many aspects of film and television production as possible in the coming years. <p></p><p>The most irritating part about "AI"? It's not ACTUALLY AI, it's more like a compiler that is course-corrected by humans every time makes a mistake and those humans <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/innovation/openai-chatgpt-ai-jobs-contractors-talk-shadow-workforce-powers-rcna81892" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">are usually making minimum wage</a>. </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQO_bCiWtm1AGRcl3uNf6m6p8DZNj7fC9M0dzS7HrveYX_qGZ_Le4w89QjHuMMs8tqXie7lmDc-UgZSq6uEcd4_xOtLunbFGRfXshfY-VAsseY8r34X_XMIneg6djvzpo11lcpS2hCjX_Mw9JjNqILXvfji48nKFjnIP1Y8S-UK_DVOhE4tz0/s489/dependency_remotely_reasonable.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="489" data-original-width="385" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQO_bCiWtm1AGRcl3uNf6m6p8DZNj7fC9M0dzS7HrveYX_qGZ_Le4w89QjHuMMs8tqXie7lmDc-UgZSq6uEcd4_xOtLunbFGRfXshfY-VAsseY8r34X_XMIneg6djvzpo11lcpS2hCjX_Mw9JjNqILXvfji48nKFjnIP1Y8S-UK_DVOhE4tz0/s320/dependency_remotely_reasonable.jpg" width="252" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">What is actually happening </td></tr></tbody></table><p>And finally, Klaudia Amenábar pointed out that part of major strategic communications from studios is <a href="https://twitter.com/kaludiasays/status/1654626172792184832?s=20" target="_blank">weaponizing fandoms</a>.</p><p>And if you think fandoms don't matter, remember "proof of concept" using fandoms to change something well outside of that fandom? It was The Last Jedi: "<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328006677_Weaponizing_the_haters_The_Last_Jedi_and_the_strategic_politicization_of_pop_culture_through_social_media_manipulation" target="_blank">The study finds evidence of deliberate, organized political influence measures disguised as fan arguments. The likely objective of these measures is increasing media coverage of the fandom conflict, thereby adding to and further propagating a narrative of widespread discord and dysfunction in American society. Persuading voters of this narrative remains a strategic goal for the U.S. alt-right movement, as well as the Russian Federation.</a>"<br /></p><p><br /><br /><br /><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><br /></i></div><i>If you want to support my writing PayPal is JHiggins35, CashApp is $FairyGhostFather and Venmo is @John-Higgins-179</i></div>Sgt. Brightsidehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10018484209038858883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24078335.post-72967343412098461512022-06-04T22:04:00.010-07:002023-04-13T13:24:44.124-07:00Vader as the Killer War Veteran<p></p><div style="text-align: center;">"For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' Chuck him out, the brute!</div><div style="text-align: center;">But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot"</div><p></p><p style="text-align: right;"><i>—Tommy, Rudyard Kipling</i></p><p>Rouge One was the first movie to really put the "war" in Star Wars. <br /><br />But the latest offering from Disney+ Lucasfilm does something very different and arguably very important. <br /><br />In the trailer the quote "The fight is over. We Lost." sets the tone. </p><p>These are the broken, ugly times. A post-war time where the cruelest people won. The coldest people. Won. </p><p>In episode 3 of Obi-Wan Kenobi, there is a sequence that embodies everything this show is trying to portray. </p><p>After this point, in case it wasn't clear, there will be spoilers, and second, if you don't like the show or wish to complain about the show, as a long-time fan myself I will gladly listen if you kindly leave your bigotry at the door. <br /><br />The first spoiler is this: In the Empire Strikes Back, Darth Vader reveals he is, in fact, Luke's father after he has disarmed him in every sense of the word. <br /><br /><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge_HvlEN_fVPW7D4VRukKSo9R-lNesjrBU3drev76Mvf8ZbkCy-QyYabB3q1Rd0HsldnRAGyvgZwgQyoFhiyPixUtntu7K1Z1N36hFHiGlBpi7_t96eoIOAwWeWzd5ZBBgeta1Nca3fzPOSnAVj0IyHYqkUCtoUcKBEROq2V4ix4_euIe22XA/s500/THATSNOTRUE.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="371" data-original-width="500" height="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge_HvlEN_fVPW7D4VRukKSo9R-lNesjrBU3drev76Mvf8ZbkCy-QyYabB3q1Rd0HsldnRAGyvgZwgQyoFhiyPixUtntu7K1Z1N36hFHiGlBpi7_t96eoIOAwWeWzd5ZBBgeta1Nca3fzPOSnAVj0IyHYqkUCtoUcKBEROq2V4ix4_euIe22XA/s320/THATSNOTRUE.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Vol. 4 Manga April 28, 1999</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>Now, Vader <i>knew</i> he was Luke's father at that point. There is an absolutely brutal battle before Vader bests Luke where he hammers away at him and then uses the force to bash and bruise him with whatever isn't bolted down well enough. </p><p>This is who Vader <i>is</i>.</p><p>As a person, he must take away as much as he can before he can offer the whole galaxy even to his own son. </p><p>In Part III of Obi-Wan Kenobi however, this is a Vader who's still "fresh" in his new identity. </p><p>And this version of Vader? He is a monster. He is a story told to children to make sure they obey the Empire.</p><p>Kenobi finds himself in trouble, trying to get a very young Princess Leia back to her home on Alderaan. </p><p>And night falls on the planet. </p><p>There is Vader. Kenobi watches this person that he was told contains Anakin Skywalker moving with a terrible purpose, and yet Kenobi waits. </p><p>Vader stops. Vader knows Kenobi is there...somewhere. And so he uses a grotesque angry version of the force - perhaps well beyond even the Sith doctrine - to drag whoever is closest out of their home and up into the air. <br /><br />This is a level of power that was promised. "The Chosen One," and all those prophecies fulfilled in the darkest way possible. </p><p>And Vader is using it to torture a complete stranger; he holds this man in the air and looks around. Without words, he says "I KNOW YOU ARE HERE!" </p><p>The man's child steps out the door and says "Dad." Vader lets the father go and pushes the boy against the wall of their house. His mother moves toward him. </p><p>And Vader breaks his neck with the force. Anyone who saw that? They will tell <i>everyone </i>they know. <br /><br />Kenobi is watching with growing horror, but he still has a level of hope that would be funny if it weren't in the face of such tragedy. </p><p>Vader moves on.<br /></p><p>Kenobi is shaken. Maybe he can still reason with... this person. He tells Tala to get Leia back to Alderaan and says he'll lead them away. </p><p>He's lying. He's not only going to lead Vader away. He knows what Vader wants. </p><p>A sacrifice.</p><p>As Kenobi gets ready Vader uses the force to just drag a random person who was there in the dirt. He doesn't speak. Not yet. <br /><br />He needs Kenobi to see just what he's capable of. </p><p>He is torturing Kenobi with his cruelty. He's reminding him of his failure. Every bone he breaks, every life he ends, he's reminding Kenobi of his failure. He is torturing Kenobi first <i>with other people's pain</i>. The person Vader is dragging in the dirt is screaming so whatever part of their body Vader is using to move them it's not their throat. </p><p>This is, again, intentional so they can scream. </p><p>Vader stops dragging one person and throws away some cover to reveal a woman and child. <br /><br />Kenobi can't handle it anymore. He must do something. He dips into the force to get Vader's attention and runs. </p><p>Get this... thing... called Vader away from all these people. </p><p>Kenobi is an empty place now; no life here. Good. At least there is that. </p><p>And then suddenly Vader is there. A nightmare in arterial blood-red light. <br /><br />Kenobi barely remembers how to use his weapon and remembers this wasn't the plan. He runs. </p><p>Vader turns off his saber.</p><p>As Kenobi gets to another area of the quarry, Vader says "You cannot Run Obi-Wan" </p><p>And when Kenobi ignites his lightsaber? It limits his vision. And then Vader is just there, this nightmare phantom. Is Anakin in <i>there</i>?</p><p>"What have you become?" Kenobi asks.</p><p>"I am. What. You made me."</p><p>Kenobi disengages his saber again and runs again. He will draw him off. <br /><br />Vader's personnel are doing everything bad to the local people; and why shouldn't they? He showed them that those people don't matter. You see Vader anyone near him is out for blood, too. </p><p>Kenobi is lost in a dark maze. He has no idea where he is but is doing what he said. Leading the most dangerous element away. Vader is just there again. The nightmare. The monster. Vader strikes.</p><p><br /><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtEeEmU0LA61Kn4NHvCDSC9lwleDIWGYP3M_OoLt-5msvDwrcxjO1MmEq8I94tQk4g0q1c315EiBTXgrdluVeWh2rkMiC9-Qzf0xOPYF7pycDuidVEKW6iM2kdUjSoq_8oSaJFTIfxtsj9029Qs2bCHnmskSc97PGznc9Jd64p9R8sVwo3d6A/s1122/Darth-Vader-12-Page-4.webp" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1122" data-original-width="740" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtEeEmU0LA61Kn4NHvCDSC9lwleDIWGYP3M_OoLt-5msvDwrcxjO1MmEq8I94tQk4g0q1c315EiBTXgrdluVeWh2rkMiC9-Qzf0xOPYF7pycDuidVEKW6iM2kdUjSoq_8oSaJFTIfxtsj9029Qs2bCHnmskSc97PGznc9Jd64p9R8sVwo3d6A/s320/Darth-Vader-12-Page-4.webp" width="211" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">STAR WARS: DARTH VADER #12</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><br />Wielding his weapon he handed Vader hammers on Kenobi. Anakin fought with finesse, a little too flashy in places. Vader just hits hard over and over and over. If there is anything lacking in force ability is made up for in the brute strength of his armor, his cybernetic limbs that feel no fatigue, and an endless supply of rage. <br /><br />"The years have made you weak" Vader says. And Vader despises weakness. <br /><br />Vader is torturing Kenobi again. Making his point. He is disrespecting Kenobi by only using one hand and leaving himself open. </p><p>And Kenobi won't take any opening. Why? </p><p>Kenobi, against all odds, against everything he's learned in the past ten minutes that felt like years... still has hope. <br /><br />This <i>infuriates</i> Vader. He strikes over and over and over. HOW DARE YOU?! Blow after blow. <br />Vader is furious and finally uses the force to throw Kenobi. </p><p>"You should have killed me when you had the chance."</p><p>With Vader, this phrase is more than a little significant. <br /><br />He's lording his current power over Kenobi but the tone, and the history, is very different. <br /><br />This isn't him taunting Kenobi's inability to finish him off, Vader does not actually want to be alive. He is in pain. His existence is a reminder of everything he could have had and was denied; a wife. Children. A future without pain. But he joined the Dark Side. And what he is now is the price he paid. </p><p>The reason Vader says "You should have killed me" is because by not killing him Kenobi failed him in the cruelest way imaginable: making him live with the consequences of <i>his</i> actions. <br /><br />And for that failure, the entire galaxy will be punished. Starting with this Kenobi himself. And for that Vader is going to use fire; because of the one person who <i>needs</i> to know his pain intimately? It is Kenobi. Vader lifts him up and ignites the fuel. </p><p>"Now. You will suffer Obi-Wan." <br /><br />Vader brings Kenobi to the ground and drags him into the fire. This is not the way of a soldier or a knight or a Jedi. For Kenobi, this is the end of Anakin. This is the moment where Kenobi can be certain his friend and apprentice is dead.<br /><br />And Vader isn't done. "Your pain has just begun." </p><p>Vader uses the force to extinguish the fire and orders his stormtroopers to bring Kenobi to him. Tala shoots him. And then she shoots the ignitable material again. </p><p>Kenobi is rescued. <br /></p><p>NOW.</p><p>This is a Vader is far worse than any incarnation we've ever seen. Yes; he killed his subordinates, tortured Han Solo, cut off his son's hand. But this creature is demonic. This is a broken, wounded, and fearsome<i> war veteran</i>. This is a man transformed into something much worse. <br /><br />Darth Vader in this narrative is terrifying. Darth Vader wishes he was war itself. Its cruelties and its collateral damage? He is striving for that. He could not be saved. His wife could not be saved. And as long as Vader lives no one can ever truly be safe. The only thing this man-shaped monster has in common with Skywalker is resolve. </p><p>And with this resolve, he will have his revenge against anyone that DARE lives in anything other than misery and pain. <br /><br />This man will teach the galaxy a lesson: there is no hope. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></p><div><br /></div>Sgt. Brightsidehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10018484209038858883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24078335.post-66514811188738889572014-12-16T10:44:00.001-08:002022-06-20T03:48:08.750-07:00Six MORE Things White People Need To Stop Doing.Well, the good news there is a dialogue that has been opened like the Grand Canyon in regards to race in America. Awesome! However, the internet proves that everything has a dark side.<br />
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So, once again, white folks, here we are, with me as your guide to how not to act like a fucking cracker. <a href="http://sgtbrightside.blogspot.com/2014/11/five-things-white-people-need-to-stop.html" target="_blank">That first post </a>was more the moderates who weren't sure. This one is more for my white friends who – while I love and respect them – are digging in like an Alabama Tick, the most tenacious of Ticks, to ensure that we all know that they think black people are wrong to demand equal treatment by law enforcement.<br />
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As with the previous post, if you are not a white person who enjoys the pleasures and buffers of white privilege, by all means, skip this article.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>6. Stop Acting Like Guns Are Going to Fix Everything. </b></span><br />
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This could be the dumbest thing you can do. You assume that if only these black people could wield a deadly arsenal then they would surely be able to shoot these corrupt police before they made the fatal decision to end their life.<br />
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Who was talking about guns? "This child is dead!" and your knee jerk response is "what about guns, won't those help?" I can tell you, you don't mean guns, you mean <i>your</i> guns. Your first and possibly only concern -<i> in light of the corpse of a child</i> - is only your rights. "Your dead child doesn't trump my rights," has actually been said at one point. Which let's face it, is something people only say on the goddamned internet. If you said to an actual parent of a dead child in a public place, you may get punched until you die. Not saying that should happen, but you will look like a cold-blooded lunatic.<br />
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To say that wielding a firearm will void the bias against black people – not African Americans, black people it’s about hue, trust me – would suggest that all these unarmed black people were merely at disadvantage of hardware.<br />
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That isn’t so, and you know it. You know it because extremely well armed white people have been “taken alive” after killing multiple people, while unarmed black people have been killed for <i>allegedly</i> committing petty crimes.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>5. Stop bringing up black on black crime </b></span><br />
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Now, I know you’re scrambling for some reason why black people are killed more often than whites for the same crime. In light of hashtag #CrimingWhileWhite, you surely must be foaming at the mouth to prove that this is some how ONLY the fault of black people.<br />
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So the first you do is bring up “black on black crime.” To put this in perspective, that’s like saying “Well, the Hatfields and McCoy’s shoot each other all the time, who cares if the cops shoot them, too?” Except the cops probably wouldn't shoot either of those families because they are white.<br />
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But you <i>do</i> see the fallacy here if you think about it for… say.. three minutes?<br />
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Are you going to stand there and tell me that the police are permitted to act like a street gang because… that’s how a street gang acts?<br />
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Further, you surely are the first to howl about how "not all cops" while pushing the hashtag #AllLivesMatter. Well, if all lives matter, full stop, then #BlackLivesMatter is just stating a factual component of that statement, isn't it? But that's not what you mean. What you mean is "I don't want to think that black people are devalued by the law or society, because that would make me feel bad."<br />
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They make you feel so bad that you will say anything, bring up any incident in a desperate scramble to win the argument.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>4. Also? Stop bringing up Waco, TX.</b></span><br />
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This one sort of threw me for a loop because it’s one of those out of context problems. It's also why I referenced only being just so religious in the first point.<br />
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So yes, I will concede the Waco Siege was massive misstep that didn't need to happen the way it did. However, the MOVE movement involved black people and police department of Philadelphia, and no one is bringing that up. No one is saying that dead black children are not a massive misstep on behalf of a government body, but a bunch of white people? Oh, now you care about <i>justice</i>.<br />
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So once again, you bring up the white examples of epic government failure without considering how badly the government has failed black people. That's not justice.<br />
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Like some kind of hipster of government mistrust, you claim to have mistrusted the government first because of Waco, Tx. But MOVE happened in 1985. Women and children were also burned to death in a siege in an urban area in Philadelphia.<br />
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That’s the problem, you are acting like “the government is not to be trusted” is some sort of radical truth you came to before black people did and now that black people seemingly only just now figured it out, you get on a high horse and say "I told you so!" with bullhorn, because you'd rather be right than compassionate.<br />
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But black people have never been able to trust the government and have always had to demand equality. And when they do so you have the brass balls to act like it's somehow unfair that they want that equality.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>3. Don't act like Justice for black Americans is "a double standard." </b></span><br />
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This one would be hilarious if it weren't so goddamned sad.<br />
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The idea that police shouldn't shoot first and ask questions later when it comes black children? That’s not a double standard. The fact that police DO shoot first and ask questions later when it comes to black children? THAT is a double standard. That’s the definition of double standard. And that's not equality. And that's what black people are demanding, equality.<br />
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As I said in point 5, white people with a goddamned arsenal are taken alive, and black children armed with Skittles ™ and iced tea are shot. <i>That </i>is a double standard.<br />
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Now my fellow fish-belly, I know what you’re thinking, “That’s because black on black crime!” You go back to that well again. Except that makes no sense. Because a white man recently waved a gun around children and was taken alive. While a black man selling cigarettes was choked to death. THAT is a double standard.<br />
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And if you found the above paragraphs to be redundant, I must tip my hat to you, because for the first time in your life, you might actually be paying attention.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>2. Stop acting like you can only vote for one side. </b></span><br />
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I was going avoid quoting other people here, but Jon Stewart blew it out the water with "You can truly grieve for every officer who’s been lost in the line of duty in this country, and still be troubled by cases of police overreach. Those two ideas are not mutually exclusive. You can have great regard for law enforcement and still want them to be held to high standards."<br />
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In the divisive political discourse of America, where <i>everything </i>is needlessly politicized, people are getting the impression that they must choose a side in situations that are much more nuanced. <br /><br />I'm not saying you have to believe everything from one side or the other and I'm certainly not saying all police are gun toting lunatics hell bent on murder (though, the ones that are protected to an absurd degree actually appear to be) or that all black people are saints or that all white people are evil. I'm saying a combination of many different factors leads to a disproportionate number of deaths of black Americans and that we <i>can and should</i> do something about it.<br />
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Every factor here can be examined, managed and fixed.<br />
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The biggest factor is still police bias, and you need to accept that before you decide to type "WHERE ARE THE PARENTS?!" on your Twitter or complain that #CrimingWhileWhite doesn't fairly represent all white people on Facebook.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>1. Stop acting like freedom and justice are in finite supply.</b></span><br />
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This is key. Freedom and justice are no secreted away in some hidden reservoir of a gated white community to be gently pumped from the aquifers of liberty only to ensure you get to use the n-word with impunity and can own all the guns you want. They are literally created by the government at the behest of the people, specifically at the behest of the people who demanded it.<br />
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So you see, either you are demanding "justice for all" - a term you may have heard used from time to time in these United States - or you're supporting justice only for some, probably only the people that look like you.<br />
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You've probably noticed this last one is the shortest, because they're not much more to it. You're either supporting your fellow Americans or your sitting on your ass, cleaning your guns and hoping it all blows over before the next Super Bowl. Sgt. Brightsidehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10018484209038858883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24078335.post-39819760505761680202014-11-28T09:10:00.003-08:002022-06-20T03:39:32.037-07:00Five Things White People Need To Stop DoingDear Persons of Color and non-whites in general: You can skip this article. These behaviors, while the result of truly astonishing mental gymnastics, sadly, will be nothing new to you. I reckon you have better things to do with your time that be reminded that white skin apparently gets in the way of basic human empathy. This is my attempt to tell my fellow crackers to stop acting like crackers. <br />
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However, if you are a regular user of the narcotic that is white privilege, I must encourage you to read on, because I have observed you fucking up and I would like you to stop it. The first reason, before I get to the rest of this list is this: The concept of whiteness robs EVERYONE of his or her identity. That means you, too. You are not Scandinavian, English, Irish, German, French, Syrian, Afghani, Kenyan, Egyptian, Libyan, Israeli if you are too light-skinned. You’re white. Does that suck? Hurt a little bit? Yeah, it’s like that for non-whites but 350% worse, dig?<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b> 5. Justifying Police Brutality When It’s Convenient to Your Point</b></span><br />
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This one drives me insane, because every time a police officer unloads an entire magazine into a non-white, someone will first say “It’s not about race” and then turn around and post a story about an alleged black criminal who killed a white person with a shrill “this isn't being reported! This is being CENSORED!" which is so often not true it's absurd.<br />
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Now, I’m not one of those Luddites who thinks the internet is evil, but I do know you can find pornography based on 8-bit characters and actual 8-bit characters IN pornography in very little time. <br /><br />So it won’t surprise me that you can find a news article - some of which are horrendously re-written to emphasize race - about a black citizen killing a white citizen.<br />
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You know the difference don’t you, my lily white friend? Yes, it’s that a black person murdered a white person is not backed by a state entity in the U.S. Further, I do often note that on your bad days you will post a video of some crazy red-neck open-carrying a rifle having his rights verbally questioned by a cop and thus will shrilly declare that “THE POLICE ARE OUT OF CONTROL.”<br />
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At least you are right about that, but it actually is all police all the time, not just the ones trying to take your assault rifle with double ammo drums.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>4. Saying “Not All”</b></span><br />
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And when I say “all police,” you will backtrack and say “well, not ALL of them.”<br />
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Now, I know quite a few police officers and they’re "good people." However, they are the first to admit they are compromised by murderous demon people who wear the same uniform. <br /><br />Law enforcement institutions, for reasons I’m not quite clear on*, cover for these monsters wearing human faces. So when these institutions cover up for their worst members, they do indeed all become complicit.<br />
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Now here's the weird part: at some point before we were all born, police forces became more about sustaining themselves than they were about supporting and protecting the community. Now it's about securing power and money through politics, and that attracts a certain personality type.<br />
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The fact is, the cop hassling Whitey McStickofButter in Alabama is the same class of person as Officer ShootAllTheBlacks, but he won’t just dump a clip into a white citizen because the second amendment has way more lobbyists than the thirteenth. <br /><br />If you've never been shot by the police and you are in the White Crayola Crayon to Taupe range of epidermal hue, I have news: you enjoy white privilege and you are probably ignoring it.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>3. Ignoring One’s Own Privilege</b></span><br />
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Ever shop lift? Ever get angry in a public place? Ever commit a felony or even just be a jerk to a law enforcement officer? Well, if you are white and did any of those things or a countless others, you’re probably still alive today because you are white.<br />
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There is an incident after incident of black or Latino people being either arrested or shot for doing things that would get a finger wag and a citation from police had they had the good fortune to be white. <br /><br />Looking through your pockets in front of your own house can get you shot. Trying to get into your own house can get you arrested. Not shooting someone but firing a warning shot can get your jail time. All if your are black.<br />
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To understand your privilege, consider this: when was the last time you asked to condemn the actions of the Ku Klux Klan or Westboro Baptist Church or Ted Bundy or Charles Manson? After all, they are white and your are white, you must have something to say as a white person, right?<br />
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And the thing about privilege? It doesn't just keep your safe from persecution from law enforcement agencies that are armed well enough to invade Somalia, it affects the very way you perceive the world.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>2. Building a House out of Fundamental Attribution Errors</b></span><br />
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The Fundamental attribution error is a psychological term that states that you believe yourself to be making decisions rationally and correctly, while everyone else, even when doing the exact same thing, is utterly selfish and horrible.<br />
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You see this all the time, and with riots over race and justice, I see countless white people looking down their nose “why are they destroying their community?” However, when white people do it due to the loss or win of a sports team, oh, that’s just us being us. It’s totally okay.<br />
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That’s how white privilege allows you to <i>not </i>see what’s really going on. If your every movement and action must be so calculated as to avoid scaring people because scaring people can be fatal, you are not free. But if you were to fight back against it you’d call yourself a Freedom Fighter as you waved your Don’t Tread on Me flag.<br />
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If a black man does it, he’s a thug. If an Arab does it he’s a terrorist. A Latino? An illegal immigrant. Where are all these gun-toting, not recognizing the authority of government types when riot cops bear down on minority communities? They are at home, watching it on the news and acting like they have nothing in common with oppressed people. <br /><br />After all they have their guns.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>1. Acting like you are not somehow racist.</b></span><br />
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Now, this may be similar to number 3, but I’ll level with you, my melanin impaired brother or sister, I am racist. I KNOW I am racist. Being racist as a white person is like genital warts. You may not be showing it today, but you carry it with you all time.<br />
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However, like any person afflicted with a disease, that part is not your fault. <br /><br />The part that is your fault is not getting “tested,” not “treating the disease” or even not acknowledging this disease exists. What you must do - and don’t gimme any lip about “I’m not obligated,” trust me, ya are - is to manage and cure this awful plague that gets my fellow Americans murdered in the streets.<br />
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The reason why you have a responsibility – at the minimum – to not be racist is because this is America. Yeah, life’s not fair, yeah you need to be your own person, but racism is you actively making life harder for other people for no goddamned reason.<br />
<br />Do not point to more obviously racist persons or entities and say “Well, I’m not as racist as that.” That’s not having a standard, that’s making an excuse. Being not as racist as the Ku Klux Klan isn’t an achievement, it’s merely the average that’s why they are called “extremists.”<br /><br /><br />*It's white supremacy <br />
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Sgt. Brightsidehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10018484209038858883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24078335.post-81692724091939505982014-10-22T07:05:00.003-07:002017-09-27T16:47:08.978-07:00An Article About Millennials. This generation get off my lawn. Get off my lawn get off my lawn, however get of my lawn. Get of my lawn because get off my lawn.<br />
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World War II get off my lawn get off my lawn. Get off my lawn because Vietnam. Get off my lawn because 1970's. Get off my lawn because video games. Get off my lawn because feminism. Get off my lawn because gay marriage.<br />
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Let's be honest get off my lawn get off my lawn get off my lawn get off my lawn get off my lawn get off my lawn get off my lawn. If they want better lives they should get off my lawn get off my lawn get off my lawn get off my lawn get off my lawn get off my lawn get off my lawn.<br />
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Finally, it's time these kids too take responsibility and get off my lawn get off my lawn get off my lawn get off my lawn get off my lawn get off my lawn get off my lawn get off my lawn. If they don't get off my lawn get off my lawn get off my lawn get off my lawn get off my lawn get off my lawn.Sgt. Brightsidehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10018484209038858883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24078335.post-86850029754258853972013-07-02T13:49:00.002-07:002021-02-20T07:30:45.193-08:00An Unfinished LifeI drove out to the county to the house where all my nightmares take place, under gray skies.<br />
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It was like that all five days of the week. Great grey sheets covering everything like the furniture in a dead man's house.<br />
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My sister called me Wednesday before the day I drove to a dead man's house and she was angry. <br /><br />She was angry because I was not coming to the house that she lives and making things happen. Like cleaning, like fixing things. Doing all the things that I do in my own apartment. Doing all things I mostly hadn't been able to do this past semester. <br /><br />But I had to drop everything and do for her what she should be doing for herself.<br />
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She had got a new roommate and they had been cleaning. Like you're supposed to do. The house was a shambles. As though it weren't depressing enough that both our parents died there, it was filthy. Grime on everything. All the random things my father refused to throw away, piled high in the garage.<br /><br />About a quarter inch of duck shit on the front porch that was three feet by ten feet. <br />
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Books that never got read. Broken things that never got fixed. Cinder blocks that never got used to lay a foundation. Jerry rigged everything. Four chainsaws, three of them broken. Axe handles held together with duct tape. Extension chords that had been chopped to pieces after being run over by a lawn mower, rebuilt with solder and more duct tape. Duct tape. Duct tape. Duct tape. <br /><br />Everything used. <br /><br />Everything old.<br />
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Everything in that house is broken. I cannot go there without memories haunting me like song lyrics. Without wondering what could have been.<br />
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That's it. And that's all. An unfinished life. Like mine. And yet I live. And I have so much work to do.<br />
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Miles to go.<br />
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I try to be happy. I try to think about the future.<br />
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Sometimes, it's difficult. For a long time, I've only been sure of death. Not of success. Not of a better tomorrow. Just death. Living in that house taught me entropy. Everything wears away. <br /><br />Breaks. <br /><br />Rots. <br /><br />Dies.<br />
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That's all I've ever been sure of.<br />
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When my father died, the question I got the most was why I was so calm. For the most part very few people saw me respond with anything other than calm acceptance. <div><br /></div><div>People found it frustrating, especially my sister, who decided it was time to push buttons<br /><br />Dad gave up on life a long time ago. I didn't. I haven't. But it's difficult. I'm not suicidal, but there has been a near constant sadness that weighs in on everything. It's been a constant companion and I'm starting to notice that I'm finding happiness to be unnatural.</div>Sgt. Brightsidehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10018484209038858883noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24078335.post-76831838710280693842013-05-16T12:12:00.001-07:002021-11-11T10:32:41.057-08:005 Ways A Deployment Turns You Into An Asshole<b><span style="font-size: large;">5. Looking down on people who use two-ply toilet paper</span></b><br />
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Any toilet paper that isn't that single ply, not perforated stuff that comes in white box with black Arial font seems completely decadent to you. All the other hardships you have experienced in the military you'll just accept and drive on, but GOD FORBID someone you respect use the toilet paper from the commercial with the adorable animated bears. <br />
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They could have really bad hemorrhoids or something, but you don't care because you had to eat shit sandwiches daily in a desert country filled with people who either want to kill you are are completely terrified of you. Meanwhile, everyone else had air conditioning, fast internet with porn and steak houses that will actually serve a steak at a temperature other than well done shoe leather. The only way to deal with this, is a kind of minimizing, which can quickly get out of control. . .<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc0Q01xP_zab9hETdI_aT_Z8OlVSZQk6BiI53fHDtnbeNo0xTyy6SZAWpM7qNT2AbvOAQvbeVZhWFkqCG3EBTEr94Bw2Bs5hgVEXrhTZ1FPUaztm4hc3N39dOZPvbkQG3Ikre4IQ/s1600/Charmin+Bear.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc0Q01xP_zab9hETdI_aT_Z8OlVSZQk6BiI53fHDtnbeNo0xTyy6SZAWpM7qNT2AbvOAQvbeVZhWFkqCG3EBTEr94Bw2Bs5hgVEXrhTZ1FPUaztm4hc3N39dOZPvbkQG3Ikre4IQ/s320/Charmin+Bear.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Seriously, this bear to you becomes like Marilyn Manson was to Tipper Gore in the 90's</td></tr>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">4. Everything is "Just. . ." or "Only. . . "</span></b><br />
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This is a common military way to deal with stress. It doesn't matter what it is, we explain it to ourselves as something that's not a big deal up to and including death. <br />
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"Hey, the worst that could happen is we could die, so let's not do that, at least." I'll actually said that on a chopper when we were caught off guard by sandstorm that we had to ground for.<br />
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This is not to say we don't care about things. We totally do. But mind over matter. If we don't mind, it don't matter. We have prepared our own minds to conquer, or control, or complete things that would be completely insurmountable to most people. When we bring this habit home, it looks we don't take anything seriously. The irony is we'll only say "It's only this. . ." about things that we take very, very seriously so they don't stress us out. And we start to avoid things that stress us out as well until we come a new point...<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOMy3I-TLCzBWwkxI7as17g6iCbLPs120mUs86SFyM7jDciofa4ZkbuSS0eB3UWUzeqGZZZLZ5PbDgusb37NgCmNAStSYOV3lmJc7f4c6xzy_HAynr_5oTTW0HSdMuuLrkGThWUg/s1600/Erruption.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="201" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOMy3I-TLCzBWwkxI7as17g6iCbLPs120mUs86SFyM7jDciofa4ZkbuSS0eB3UWUzeqGZZZLZ5PbDgusb37NgCmNAStSYOV3lmJc7f4c6xzy_HAynr_5oTTW0HSdMuuLrkGThWUg/s320/Erruption.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">So what? The air's gonna be a little thicker? Big Deal. I smoke Marlboro Reds! - PFC Joey Bag-o-donuts</td></tr>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">3. You can't deal with First World Problems</span></b><br />
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Often, the amount of combat exposure a service member has directly lowers their tolerance for First World Problems. <a href="http://www.janetreitman.com/articles/surviving-falluja/">When you've seen a corpses' face half eaten off by stray cats</a>, suddenly, some sixteen-year-old not getting the color iphone they want and freaking out isn't just annoying, it feels like an affront to everything you believe in. <br />
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Chances are you were barely allowed to complain about actually dangerous things most of the time, so hearing people complain about things that are not in any way dangerous as though they were the end of the world probably just makes your ears bleed.<br />
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After deploying to Holyshititsan and nearly dying an average of once every 72 hours <div><br /></div><div>(<i>average because there will be weeks where nothing happens, and then there would be days where Death is just kinda hangin' out, talking shit to you and your buddies from the back of the Humvee and messing with the radio, the fuck that he is. . </i>.)</div><div><br /></div><div>seeing anyone live life with anything less than the most clear and direct of purpose will drive you insane. <br />
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It's not all about death, though: you also can't stand lines because you waited in so many lines in the military that the last thing you want to do when you're just out in the world is wait in another goddamned line.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqnCOgpGYkB5pMzIOXoiZhU5eaHwKeLMG2GybqurRLXy1K9qi6l1MhDEA3Isk6cGrOJUHjAA6UHr9rbGd0eLD1ezFv4AwN1whB1K3AohuAzfXl5_BB9pWtB3bH-fcWEeopExq2wg/s1600/Waiting+in+line.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqnCOgpGYkB5pMzIOXoiZhU5eaHwKeLMG2GybqurRLXy1K9qi6l1MhDEA3Isk6cGrOJUHjAA6UHr9rbGd0eLD1ezFv4AwN1whB1K3AohuAzfXl5_BB9pWtB3bH-fcWEeopExq2wg/s320/Waiting+in+line.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">FUCK YOU APPLE! THE WAR WAS FOR NOTHING! - SFC Joe Smuckatelly (Image courtesy of <a href="http://arstechnica.com/"> Ars Technica</a>)</td></tr>
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<br />
But there's an adjustment period. You get used to it. You start accepting first world problems as the problems you <i>want </i>to have. You actually should become happy that the worst thing you had to worry about was the local Starbucks being too crowded. Hell, yeah! And then you start to annoy people because you've gone from someone who couldn't handle anything to someone that appears to one those annoyingly happy and motivated people. <br /><br />The first reason for this is you have probably done one of two things: adjusted your attitude OR you've started having a plan for everything. . .<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>4. Overplanning/OverPreparing</b></span><br />
<br />
Any service member who watches the news more than 10 minutes a day (two thumbs, this guy) is probably a nervous wreck (also, this guy). Grade school shootings, high school shootings, college shootings and pressure cooker bombings abound everyday. I'm sure this makes the civilian population antsy, but a lot of the time, the military teaches us to assuage fear and anxiety by training for it and being prepared for it. <br />
<br />
After The 2013 Boston Marathon I started having nightmares about being the middle of a terrorist attack. My initial idea was to purchase a full <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Fully-Stocked-Medical-First-Aid/dp/B004Q5UASW">STOMP kit</a> and just haul 8.5kg (18 lbs) around with me where ever I went. I settled on one and a half personal med kits. <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJtuUZ6R2HGWLhCV77Cl3Q-39UB5Onj0M6qozbBiia9EacoUgwAcv8sRrEMNoWktfJATFAiVUjLIfEh7jQAb8VWvl4_gf0AHVbRDvR9oE6TSEFNK-bvZQ322AeQRlKJtcfM8Tkqg/s1600/photo.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJtuUZ6R2HGWLhCV77Cl3Q-39UB5Onj0M6qozbBiia9EacoUgwAcv8sRrEMNoWktfJATFAiVUjLIfEh7jQAb8VWvl4_gf0AHVbRDvR9oE6TSEFNK-bvZQ322AeQRlKJtcfM8Tkqg/s320/photo.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Don't Leave Home Without It</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
And then I marked off every places I can buy tampons in Google maps, because in a really bad shooting incident, tampons can be the difference between wounded and dead. (no, you don't stick them in a GSW, you knucklehead) A large box of those things could keep a lot of people alive while the real medical personnel are en route. I'm still a little uncomfortable not having any chest sealers on me at all times and maybe a pair of the crooked scissors that everyone wanted the medics to get for them, but I deal with it.<br />
<br />
There's no real problem with this except that I carry around an extra 5-10 pounds of medical supplies with me, and feel completely naked without it and get VERY grouchy when I don't have my full kit. If you're anything like me, God forbid someone tell you to cheer up when you don't have an Israeli bandage on you, because. .<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">1. Now you hate being told what to do by someone that doesn't specifically outrank you. </span></b><br />
<br />
The military does two things: attract type A personalities and turn people into Type A personalities. If you don't get on band wagon real fast, it's going to hard career for you.<br />
<br />
When you get done with all that business, you practically have <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppositional_defiant_disorder">oppositional defiance disorder</a> or some shit. Everything everyone tells you had better have some hard facts and reasons behind it, otherwise they're just trying to exert power over you that they just don't have in your eyes. It's as though everything everyone says is converted into the bleating of lambs by some wizard's curse.<br />
<br />
Everyone knows the rules for the military are "different" and at least once in your life, you're going to have a civilian accuse you of having "no code" because your moral compass doesn't exactly align with theirs. This is REALLY going to piss you off, because you actually do have a value system, and it mostly involves taking care of people who actually would take a bullet for you, not some douche-craft-carrier who appears to take everything he knows about being a man from Barney on How I Met Your Mother.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxZWRoEi6M6lD6p2qtGCR861UkEHgfqISdPh4X18RB-PgiDBEaHR3Dpo8_Fa1d7te1KQyMFLIz2iqepCkJZfzKwoZTm86JPwe6h48WlFaDVmej8j3RmNI2Q3N2xkXh1z53CAVJOA/s1600/IEThandbook.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxZWRoEi6M6lD6p2qtGCR861UkEHgfqISdPh4X18RB-PgiDBEaHR3Dpo8_Fa1d7te1KQyMFLIz2iqepCkJZfzKwoZTm86JPwe6h48WlFaDVmej8j3RmNI2Q3N2xkXh1z53CAVJOA/s320/IEThandbook.jpg" width="220" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This? Better than a fake book written by a not real person. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />And this will alienate you. And that's a problem because you will very likely conclude these people want to win a stupid game whose rules they just made up. You actually won't be wrong, but you response to those people will probably be inappropriate. <br /><br />So there you will stand. <br /><br />Alone. <br />
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</div>
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</div>Sgt. Brightsidehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10018484209038858883noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24078335.post-74882825088589478912012-05-04T09:17:00.001-07:002021-11-11T09:54:27.403-08:005 Things They Don't Tell You About Being In the U.S. Military<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>It's important to note, this article has two purposes: to make light of some things and allow me to vent. That's all. I'm sure it's shot through with political feelings that not everyone will agree with. If that's the case, I encourage you to go whatever website it is that only posts things you agree with 100%. Also, this post contains the most offensive phrase I have ever heard. </i><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;">5. Nothing can prepare you .
. . for all the singing</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Basic Training, Boot Camp, or whatever the branch you join
calls it, has more singing in it than a Broadway musical. The first two to three weeks you barely go to the field. Mostly it's classes about the how's and why's
and history of your branch. You get three meals a day and every time you march to the chow hall, you
will be singing your fool head off. It's the same five songs over and over and
over again so it's like radio in the late nineties if they never got past
Rag Time. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You know Do Wa Diddy? Thanks to the movie Stripes that's
still a favorite. Some cadences have been sung since the 1940's. You know that
song Candy Man by Christine Aguilera from 2007? They literally use this track
as the sample: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbhBxonligU">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbhBxonligU</a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You know when you hear a song from your adolescence and all
of the sudden your transported back summer 1998, when cartoons were cool, comic
books featured Maximum things, from Carnage to Clonage and life was pretty
chill? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After basic training, every time you hear a cadence, you
think it's time to march to someplace where there is food. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzVMojIfGom7Tg7zpMWx5qXzb5homuLABgBE5Iv18qycxoD5C6YfdKQ1Bd864iqAMipkP3-KUZKrAD459cMnbUAFbAGd6LTqpAmxVbKXtXkykUPacPznO8r5rqH8E7euSUA5L9qQ/s1600/Cadence.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzVMojIfGom7Tg7zpMWx5qXzb5homuLABgBE5Iv18qycxoD5C6YfdKQ1Bd864iqAMipkP3-KUZKrAD459cMnbUAFbAGd6LTqpAmxVbKXtXkykUPacPznO8r5rqH8E7euSUA5L9qQ/s320/Cadence.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"I wanna lead a life of Danger. I wanna be an English Major"<br />
SHUTUP SERGEANT HIGGINS! </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>4. We're really good in a crisis. . . and that's about it </b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Basic training colors every aspect of military thinking.
This an awesome and terrible thing. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It's awesome because now everyone thinks the same way and
communication is ten times easier. It's terrible because the only way to get
anything done is to portray it as though it's a life and death crisis.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Such attitudes makes it impossible to
prioritize and it makes people look absolutely bat-shit insane. <br /><br />Think about it.
If everyone is behaving as though everything is equally important, then nothing
is important. If making sure your squad has enough ammunition for patrol is
treated with the same degree of rigor as whether or not today's power point has inoffensive clip art and a pleasing layout, and you're going to in the same amount of trouble if either one doesn't
get done, how on earth do you decide what's important? Obviously you'll arm your squad right, but then if that goddamned stick figure guy shows up again, you could be removed as squad leader. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Conversely, if you are in charge and treat the power points you need for a
presentation on Thursday the same way you think you would act during a firefight
with Nazi Al Qaeda Robots, things will be shitty for everyone. Acting like somebody's gonna bleed out unless a trooper TYPES THE SHIT
OUT OF THAT SUPPLY REPORT will lead to someone seeing your behavior for what it is and
throwing a monkey wrench into the works by just not producing that day. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This makes a deployment doubly ridiculous because you have
this unholy combination of actual life threatening situations like indirect
fire, IEDs, convoys and helicopter rides an hour before a sandstorm coupled
with the mundane stresses of paperwork and corporate meeting wank-fests.<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTRWgE0IO67jmha4NJvuV8mCgEp84nukuPO7-63WCdbkrmV8v8dVgh-TaHfrax_xNBvYWcg-qFZaBVco6_nsG_40lIbcsTdmyMVBHxNd02P0rBiypFzVrDwyDx_3oaC1PMEsaQiw/s1600/FuckYouSoufle.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTRWgE0IO67jmha4NJvuV8mCgEp84nukuPO7-63WCdbkrmV8v8dVgh-TaHfrax_xNBvYWcg-qFZaBVco6_nsG_40lIbcsTdmyMVBHxNd02P0rBiypFzVrDwyDx_3oaC1PMEsaQiw/s320/FuckYouSoufle.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">YOU HAD BEST UNFUCK YOURSELF COCK AU VIN!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>3. But you get used to it. . . until the deployment ends</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is not to say everyone's going to come back with PTSD, but after moving at a pace of 6 and 1/2 days a week for 12 hours
a day, having a normal 8 hour work day or even a 10 hour work day can feel like not
enough time to get anything done. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That's just the beginning though. When you're deployed,
water is free, food is free, housing is free. When you get back, especially if
you're a reservist, you have to devote at least part of your time to acquiring
at least two if not all three of those things. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nothing quite says "Welcome to this old life that's now
alien to you" like going grocery shopping. Say what you will about The
Hurt Locker being inaccurate, the scene at the end of the movie in the grocery
store was spot on. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I was actually concerned about that happening to me as I was
browsing in the local <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Ridiculous</st1:placename>
<st1:placetype w:st="on">Monument</st1:placetype></st1:place> to The Ease of
Western Life and for awhile I was doing okay. And then, Duran Duran's Ordinary
World started playing over the store sound system. I mean, c'mon! Of all that songs that might make me feel
like the adventure was over, and I was suddenly this grizzled old combat vet? The screenwriter to my life is totally fired. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Speaking of screen writing, screen plays and such. . . </div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>2. No military fiction will ever be entertaining again</b></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Anyone in who has been in an Explosive Ordnance Disposal
unit will tell you that The Hurt Locker is a bunch of bullshit. Complaints vary
from nobody that crazy would still be on active duty (lol, sure) to no unit would see that
much action during a rotation. Even as the argument was just made by me that the movie
is "emotionally true," it will never be up to snuff. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In movies or TV shows, you will see sixteen things wrong
with every actor portraying a soldier you see. There was an episode of Lie to
Me where they go to Fort George G. Meade, Md., where they supposedly mobilize
troops to get ready for the combat zone. Meade is not a mobilization station.
That's the first a long series of "This is wrongs" that I saw during
that episode, Tim Roth's in and out American accent not withstanding. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is twice as true for Call of Duty. I used to love Call
of Duty and now I can't stand it. I can't stand the stark contrast between some
of the most realistic graphics of any game and the astonishing behavior of the players. The last time I played online a 10-year-old said "Your fucking father
sucks fa**ot ni**er cocks!!!"**</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Think about that phrase. I do not repeat it lightly, it is
literally the most offensive thing I have ever heard in my life. Military
conversation can be a little rough, with "mother fucker" spoken where commas would be printed, but The Phrase I'll Never Type Again was beyond any combination of
words I could conceive of. It was shouted at me because me and bunch of
military buddies won a fictional battle with actual team-work and strategy
rather than everyone running around spraying and praying. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
See, the military teaches you to be precise, because one
failed mission will make the news faster than three hundred successful ones. This
important because, probably due to media portrayals like the Hurt Locker and
Call of Duty, people have this idea in their head that military deployments are
like a million round boxing match with a heavy metal soundtrack. So, naturally they think all of our problem solving skills involving shooting, hitting or blowing things up, so they conclude. . . </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcOz0QsEqSnzA-rVRlQF6Dp2bFJ5RoNrF911r2zAx_fisWGi7LMZtS0v33jTJ-PeOQef3lhCiqmc4yIu9PbkDPZlkBWVrvQpCGWA4lQeT6iEKX3uoyTTyBorWUDkcvmRoID8PBAw/s1600/Tim-Roth-6089438.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcOz0QsEqSnzA-rVRlQF6Dp2bFJ5RoNrF911r2zAx_fisWGi7LMZtS0v33jTJ-PeOQef3lhCiqmc4yIu9PbkDPZlkBWVrvQpCGWA4lQeT6iEKX3uoyTTyBorWUDkcvmRoID8PBAw/s320/Tim-Roth-6089438.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An UNMOUNTED MK14 topped off with the most OUT OF REGULATION HAIRCUT I HAVE EVER SEEN. The fact that Edward Norton turned into a giant green dude I'll buy, but there IS NO WAY you are going to tell me Brodsky wouldn't have been knife handed all the way to the over-priced barber on post buy the nearest sergeant major. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>1. People Think You Want to Fight about EVERYTHING, when you really don't</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
People
have this idea in their heads that if a person is willing to fight for something as
abstract as Freedom <span style="font-size: large;">©</span> or something more concrete like "The Safety of the
People of Iraq" that they will also throw down over the most
petty of bullshit. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It
could something as mundane as whether or not the Yankees suck. Everyone has
their opinion, and let's be honest it's quite common to hate the Yankees.
Equally common is an irrational belief that the Yankees are somehow not Major
League Baseball's answer to the Empire from Star Wars. I was pointing this out
to a friend mine, half jokingly in between us exchanging anecdotes about the
wacky, wacky times we had, I in <st1:country -region="-region" w:st="on">Iraq</st1:country>
and she in <st1:country -region="-region" w:st="on">Afghanistan</st1:country>.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A
Random Yankees fan, likely lured by the heady cocktail of trash talking George Steinbrenner
and people talking about triple digit whether and close calls with explosions,
just had to tell me I'm wrong and further more that the Orioles suck. Which is
usually true, except that at the time the Yankees wee 4-6 and the Baltimore Orioles were 8-2 and making them second
their regional conference and <a href="http://espn.go.com/mlb/standings">head
and shoulders</a> above every other team in the American League. <br />
<br />
I explained all
of this to the Yankee Zombie calmly, even as I'm well aware this is how it is <i>every</i> year, the O's start strong and
can't make the play offs. This is why we love spring in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Baltimore</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">City</st1:placetype></st1:place>
and generally get bummed in July.* I fully expected him to just bring up this
fact and then I say "touché" and we return to our drinks. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He
asked if I wanted to step out side. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
All
the joy drained from me, my dear reader. I've never taken sports that
seriously, and I certainly don't regard sports standings as a reason to fight.
And I told this guy as much. My exact words were "No, I don't. I'm not
going to fight you. I'm a professional. I don't fight people over factual
numbers, and I certainly don't need to fight <i>you </i>to prove the Yankees are the
worst thing to happen to baseball since the handlebar mustache went out of
style." </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Everyone in the immediate vicinity thought the remark was
hysterical, in part because it broke the tension, and the guy was completely
deflated. I believe it was Sun Tzu who said "The supreme art of war is
winning by making your enemy look like tool box full of way too small dildoes" </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZk_OVBjDdi6yfE4s5Kq_sGGrq3Sr1_fK_qKgCQFxntxRaKBalAF0eREVk1g4dACIrVBv8KINBD1QPBpYVSfGFmDmITKESZE6si7JeS0wZcQMFNFNPGMkHKuP3CiQFMDzN_gDE5Q/s1600/Bam.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZk_OVBjDdi6yfE4s5Kq_sGGrq3Sr1_fK_qKgCQFxntxRaKBalAF0eREVk1g4dACIrVBv8KINBD1QPBpYVSfGFmDmITKESZE6si7JeS0wZcQMFNFNPGMkHKuP3CiQFMDzN_gDE5Q/s320/Bam.jpg" width="215" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I will not use my tax payer funded training to fight some jackass who likes SPORTS TEAM! </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<br />
*<i>The O's Are still doing well this season. <br /><br />**What happened after that, for the curious, I asked the young man to apologize and he let loose with a tirade that was even worse. Dear reader, in the next round I insisted on one goal: Fuck that kid's kill ratio. If you have a coordinated team you can kill someone about 300 times in a five minute round. <br /><br /><br /></i></div>
Sgt. Brightsidehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10018484209038858883noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24078335.post-91862518245400500762012-05-02T14:21:00.002-07:002021-02-19T16:25:36.507-08:00State of Perpetual Star Wars<span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="line-height: 18px;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">The Immoral Officer Corps</span></b><br /><br />It's very hard to believe that anyone reaching a high enough point in Star Wars Imperial republic military would have any illusions about what they're doing. </span><br />
<br />
<span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="line-height: 18px;">This begs the question however, WHAT is higher up in a galaxy level military? </span><br />
<br />
<span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="line-height: 18px;">As an example, the U.S. Military has 38 4-star generals. Now, under them there are 818 other flag officers (Colonel [O-6] and above). Not all 919 of those officers would be necessary to fight a war of course, we only need a hand full of generals to run operations (ideally) in the Central Command Area of Operations. But on a galactic level? </span><br />
<span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="line-height: 18px;"><br /></span>
<span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="line-height: 18px;">Just how many commissions are we talking in the Imperial forces?</span><br />
<br />
<span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="line-height: 18px;">We can safely assume that four star officers (Generals, Admirals, etc) are even more abundant even as the Imperial forces were clearly spread thin even before the Battle of Yavin. It's entirely possible that they also have 5-star officers who command planetary sections if </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="line-height: 18px;">warranted</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="line-height: 18px;"> by population. </span><br />
<br />
<span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="line-height: 18px;">(To be clear: population dictates the required power to control, which gives the number of personnel you need and the rank of the commander you require, assuming they are using the modified Sandhurst model of the United States Army.) </span><br />
<br />
<span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="line-height: 18px;">This brings us to the Moffs, which I assume are some sort of hyrbid commander that both </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="line-height: 18px;">planetary</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="line-height: 18px;"> and air/space forces answer to (aside: that qualification school has got to be a bitch for both sides of the house). I would imagine 1 Moff per solar system (as needed, of course if the population of a system is less than, 100 million, say, perhaps a 5 or even 4 star can handle it) I would have to guess that Grand Moffs are </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="line-height: 18px;">assigned</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="line-height: 18px;"> not unlike senators in the U.S., by population and it's entirely possible they also handled all of those functions after Gr. Mf. Tarkin dissolved the galactic senate. </span><br />
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<span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="line-height: 18px;">It's quite safe to assume that any one in a position to see Darth Vader's leadership style probably has very few illusions about what the Empire is doing. </span><br />
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<span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="line-height: 18px;">In fact, a vast majority of the rebel pilots, from Bigs Darklighter to Han Solo trained at the Imperial academy before deciding that a life of rebellion or crime (respectively) was better than working for such an </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="line-height: 18px;">organization</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="line-height: 18px;">. </span><br />
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<span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="line-height: 18px;">How many storm troopers have had to clean up a corpse produced by one of Vader's childish tantrums and have actually thought "This is for the best?" </span><br />
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<span face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="line-height: 18px;">It's generally agreed Vader doesn't actually have a rank, and is some sort of civilian/cleric that is only really answerable to the highest of Moffs or the Emperor himself. </span></span><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2012/02/13/five-leadership-mistakes-of-the-galactic-empire/" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">As has been said before</a><span face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="line-height: 18px;">, at the highest levels the Empire is a mess. It's entirely possible it's not much better at the lower levels, but a worse scenario still is that at the lower levels, they are extremely honorable and when they find out about the higher ups genocidal designs, love Wookies or not, they're resigning their commission. </span></span><br />
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<span face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="line-height: 18px;">Yes, these are just a few people with a few pangs of guilt; and the sheer scale of the Empire all but ensures most imperial military members could get through an entire career without ever thinking anything was wrong, but that scale has it's downside. . . </span></span><br />
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<span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold; line-height: 18px;">We Have Always Been At War With the Rebels</span><br />
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<span face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="line-height: 18px;">There is extensive evidence that the galaxy the Old Republic, the Empire and the New Republic have governed has been in a state of perpetual war since their respective inception. Further, the Jedi have been constantly battling with the Sith for longer than humans have been on Earth by some accounts. </span></span><br />
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<span face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="line-height: 18px;">This is a holy war based on two different interpretations of what is effectively a religion that gives you super powers, meaning that soldiers with a real vested interest in this ongoing conflict are potentially ten times more damaging to civilians and infrastructure than your average infantryman, plasma weapons or not. </span></span><br />
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<span face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="line-height: 18px;">Further, whole planets have been completely depopulated if out not right destroyed during the course of these conflicts, which has probably had dramatic and permanent effects on the galactic economy. I'll be generous and say 80% of the time it's the Sith who have done this damage, but at some point has no one stood up and said "Could assholes stop blowing up whole planets to prove that you're better than the Jedi?" </span><br /><br /><span style="line-height: 18px;">To understand how bad this is, I must touch on the concept of </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_world_product" style="line-height: 18px;">Gross World Product</a><span style="line-height: 18px;">. Earth produced $70.16 Trillion in 2011. Wookiepida states that <a href="http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Galactic_Empire">galactic empire </a>controlled something to the tune of 1 million populated planets at it's height. So let's say half of those have a GWP on par with Earth in 2011. That's Five hundred thousand planets producing 70.16 trillion dollars EVERY YEAR, with some even producing more and some producing less. Governments and militaries being what they are, they would have to come up with a way to spend all that tax revenue.</span></span><br />
<span face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><br />That is a massive scale, and this probably explains the Rebellion.</span></span><br />
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<span face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="line-height: 18px;">The Rebellion that blew up the Death Star during the Battle of Yavin was not an rag-tag bunch of insurgents making do with second hand weapons and improvised explosive devices that decided it was tired of an occupation. There was a Rebel </span></span><i style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">fleet </i><span face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="line-height: 18px;">opposing the Empire, very likely from day one. Also very likely from day one, people were gathering intelligence on the Death Star, and the mere fact that it existed was enough to galvanize the rebellion to such an extent they decided blowing up the Death Star would be enough to cripple the Empire. </span></span><br />
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<span face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="line-height: 18px;">We've touched on the sheer scale of the Empire, and probably why they feel that logistically they can blow up a planet. Imagine if the U.S. government decided it could feasibly destroy New Jersey and did so during the school year. Then all the students attending school in the surrounding states came home to find that their home is gone and hear rumors that United States Government did it. The Rebellion suddenly had an untold number of agents, already spread through out the galaxy; any native who was working or on vacation or traveling outside of Alderraan would surely find themselves morally conscripted into a war against the people who killed <i>every living soul they knew</i>. </span></span><br />
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<span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="line-height: 18px;">Imperial expansion, as we have surely learned on Earth since someone said "Let's have An Empire," if done incorrectly is extremely costly not just during initial invasion, but also the </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="line-height: 18px;">maintenance</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="line-height: 18px;">. If a planet is declared "Imperial </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="line-height: 18px;">territory</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="line-height: 18px;">" and they never see anything outside of a few screwballs in white armor patrolling the most </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="line-height: 18px;">populous</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="line-height: 18px;"> city on the planet, it's a safe bet the first time an Imperial does something stupid that ends up on the news, the Rebellion has begun to build a new ally. In the case of Alderaan, any planet without a significant imperial presence is certainly going to experience issues if not become a Rebel stronghold.<br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">The Galactic Graveyard of Empires</span></b></span><br />
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<span face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="line-height: 18px;">After the Battle of Yavin, the writing was very likely on the wall for a good number of imperial military members, imperial citizens, and those non-humans who have been suffering under the regime. </span></span><br />
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<span face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="line-height: 18px;">The Rebellion either believed or said that there was merely 1 million people on the first Death Star. The Empire, spinning the loss as </span></span><a href="http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/death-star7.htm" style="line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times;">The Yavin Massacre</span></a><span face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times;">,</span> said the number was much higher, to the tune of 800 million. If 1 million, that's going to visibly ripple through the ranks. If nearly one billion? The empire was finished before the Rebels even got to Hoth. Even if the imperial military is at United States military WWII levels, a beefy 9% of the population, and a galaxy being a galaxy, we can figure on at least a Quadrillion, so you have a military of 900 Trillion. Loosing a billion all in one day? That's beyond damaging. That's like The United States Army loosing the Big Red One in an hour. A logistical nightmare to start with, but more than that, a crushing blow to morale. While such a loss could be galvanizing to anyone actually in the military, the civilian population would very likely be split right down the middle between hard-line pro and anti-war stances </span></span><br />
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<span face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="line-height: 18px;">In a last ditch effort to prove that the Empire is not ten times worse than the slow moving bureaucracy it replaced when the Galactic Senate was dissolved, the imperials make an effort to hunt down the surviving rebels from the Battle of Yavin. This is at best, half as productive as fixing the problems that caused the rebellion in the first place, like a government built solely on a the lust for power of one man and human-centric practices that have pissed off everyone else from physically powerful Wookies to the technological Juggernauts, the Mon Calamari.<br /><br />Once again, we come back to the scale, these are not towns or cities but rather:</span></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="line-height: 18px;"> Now it's The Battle of The Entire Planet That We Happened to be Fighting Near. The Battle of Endor very likely left the Moon of Endor a </span><a href="http://www.theforce.net/swtc/holocaust.html#disaster" style="line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times;">barren waste</span></a><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="line-height: 18px;"> after fire and metal rained from the sky. No matter who won that battle, or even that war, there is an entire planet laid to waste just as collateral damage. <br /><br />This is even worse than Alderaan, because this was not a targeted attack. This is just the side effect of two other sides clashing. Does anyone think that the Ewoks are going to be able to sue for restitution, assuming any of them survived? </span><br />
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<span face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="line-height: 18px;">The essence of the issue raised by the Empire is that trying to enforce a standard of law, even if that law is "fuck the non-humans, give us money so we can ignore your human rights" trying to push that agenda beyond a single country is very difficult. Imposing it on a whole planet is probably 100 times more difficult. A Galaxy? An entire galaxy? There must a new word created specifically for that kind hubris. </span></span><br />
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<span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><b>And So It Goes</b></span></span><br />
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<span face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="line-height: 18px;">Further reading the Star War novels doesn't paint a picture suggesting a peaceful galactic future where everyone is just happy the empire is dead. First, the remaining imperial forces had a <a href="http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Imperial_Civil_War">Civil War </a>of sorts that served only to strengthen the New Republic. </span></span><br />
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<span face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="line-height: 18px;">After a straight decade of fighting within and without, all that was left was called the</span><a href="http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Imperial_Remnant" style="line-height: 18px;"> Imperial Remnant</a><span style="line-height: 18px;"> and that group eventually joined the The New Republic officially when a new an interesting enemy began pushing into their space from far beyond the known galaxy. These weird new foes were called the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuuzhan_Vong">Yuuzhan Vong</a> and devastated a galaxy already weak from fighting itself. </span></span><br />
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<span face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="line-height: 18px;">Losses were great, casualties were sustained, and chances are neither side ever thought negotiating. </span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Infinite on loop forever</td></tr>
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<span face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="line-height: 18px;">CORRECTION: from @</span></span><span dir="ltr" face="arial, sans-serif" style="color: #202020; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="http://pozorvlak.livejournal.com/" rel="nofollow" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration: none;">pozorvlak</a></span><span face="arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; white-space: nowrap;"> </span><span face="arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; white-space: nowrap;">said...</span><br />
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<dd style="background-color: white; border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); color: #202020; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">
Arithmetic error: 9% of 1 quadrillion is 90 trillion, of which a billion troops is about 0.001%. I can't imagine what effect it would have on morale to lose such a huge number, but tiny proportion, of troops in one go. But then I can't imagine what kind of command structure would work for a force of trillions of people</div>
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<span face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>Sgt. Brightsidehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10018484209038858883noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24078335.post-27848314833848452452010-09-14T14:52:00.001-07:002011-10-14T10:27:25.129-07:00I know it's hard to believe, but I found a guy who was an ass at the airport. . .<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.epcworld.in/images/GovtAirports.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 383px; height: 273px;" src="http://www.epcworld.in/images/GovtAirports.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />While there’s a certain kind of strangeness in a place that’s constantly filled with people where no one actually lives, I've never had a problem with airports.<br /><br />Until I meet Mr. Shot&Bud.<br /><br />I was flying to Atlanta, and since I got there early, I wasn’t running around like a crazy person. Naturally, I took a seat at a bar after making it through airport security without incident.<br /><br />I ordered a Yuengling and a caprese salad. Mr. Shot&Bud, of course, orders a Bud Light and a shot of Jack Daniels. Okay sure. My salad arrives and as I glance over as this guy looks at the salad, looks at me, and sneers like I’m wearing a painted on Chiquita Banana Lady costume at a Gay Pride Parade.<br /><br />You know this type. This is the guy who needs to judge everyone. He will decide certain things about people based on tiny fragments of information, and use that information to make himself feel better. In this case, I assume the thought process is something along the line of “It’s okay if I’m drinking too much, because this guy is a salad eating faggot.”<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://miamiherald.typepad.com/gaysouthflorida/WindowsLiveWriter/Gay_Pride_Parade_NYCR108.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 512px; height: 330px;" src="http://miamiherald.typepad.com/gaysouthflorida/WindowsLiveWriter/Gay_Pride_Parade_NYCR108.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >Salad Eaters</span><br /></div><br />Am I reading too much into this man’s sneer? Perhaps. But why sneer? I’m merely reading as much into his sneer as he has apparently read into my cuisine.<br /><br />What I really found annoying is that ordering a salad is somehow like going to prison. You have to kill the first guy that fucks with you to prove that you can eat what you please.<br /><br />I suppose I should just make it a habit to unload the magazine of a sub-machine gun into the toughest looking guy at the restaurant whenever I order anything less than half a cow worked over with a blowtorch.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.imfdb.org/w/images/e/e9/HK_SMG_2.gif"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 398px; height: 295px;" src="http://www.imfdb.org/w/images/e/e9/HK_SMG_2.gif" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >AND A GODDAMNED CAESAR SALAD MOTHER FUCKER!!!<br /></span></div><br />I got on the plane without incident, and the flight to Atlanta from Baltimore is quite quick, maybe an hour and a half.<br /><br /><br /><br />I would think that you would know that. The time it takes it get to where you’re going, and what time you have to be at the next location. Low and behold, Mr. Shot&Bud is on my plane, and he was apparently unaware of how long the flight would take.<br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span></span><br />He’s now In A Hurry. So much so that he has pushed his way up past the other rows on the plane, and will by God, get the hell off this plane faster than everyone else.<br /><br />Mr. Shot&Bud does this thing where he holds his back pack out in front of him and uses that as some sort of shield against actually following the etiquette of letting people in the earlier rows get out first. It appears as though he has installed some sort of super-magnet in his back-back and it pulls him past the unwashed masses by some other magnet secreted on his person that airport security somehow missed.<br /><br />Apparently, I’m dealing with a Super Villain.<br /><br />I grabbed my back pack from the overhead and moved out, ignored The Evil Dr. Shot&Bud and his Magical Back Pack of Line Jumping. I’m sure this drove him crazy, but I didn’t notice because I’d stopped paying attention to him. I mean, it’s not like I need to pay attention, since the world revolves around this screwball. I’m sure he gets enough attention.<br /><br />Still, with a casual slip I was ahead of him for a precious moment. Then in the circular connector of the hall way that lead us all into the terminal he got ahead of me again and charged down the terminal.<br /><br />So I mosey. I’m in no particular hurry. Unlike Evil Dr. Shot&Bud I don’t have a meeting with the President or something, so I barely noticed when I miss the turn walking. Naturally, I feel sort of like and idiot as I turn around and head the tram that is the gateway to freedom at the Atlanta Airport.<br /><br />Low and behold, there he is. Evil Dr. Shot&Bud has been thwarted, by the tram schedule. The schedule that I’m damn sure says “Trams to baggage and the main exit arrive every 10 minutes.”<br /><br />I felt a great swell of pity at that moment. Perhaps I was a judgmental asshole. Perhaps the only English this man, an immigrant, had learned so far was “Shot and a Bud, please.”<br /><br />He leaned back to another man and spat, “How in the fuck does this work?” No, that’s quite advanced. He’s been in this country long enough to add the word “fuck” into his sentences with aplomb.<br /><br />I successfully fought the urge to say something quite snarky, and decided to walk halfway to the exit of the terminal, fairly sure I’d beat him his destination in several senses.Sgt. Brightsidehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10018484209038858883noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24078335.post-50791397201741071872010-01-24T04:37:00.000-08:002010-01-24T04:39:22.449-08:00A Fantasy of HealingEarlier this morning, I was contemplating health. I was contemplating healing.<br /><br />When my mother had a brain tumor, someone who spent more time in college than she did suggested she fantasize about some sort of healing scenario. This manifested, so she told me, as teddy bears slowly mining away at the cancerous tissues. It probably didn't do anything medically, but it brought her comfort.<br /><br />I wonder about my mother sometimes.<br /><br />Once she told me a heart monitor she was hooked up to stopped beeping and started saying, to her, "help me, help me, help me, help me, help me." Hearing her tell me about this was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. I was sternly warned about lying and flights of fancy as a child, mostly by my mother, so to hear her recount something like this, it was the burning hot truth of the thing.<br /><br />Mom was quite religious, she was certain of the power of the man called Christ. As sure as putting your foot on the gas would make the car go faster, Jesus was a force to her. If memory serves, she inspired other people to be more religious.<br /><br />Religion caused a rift between us-myself and my mother- early on.<br /><br />Certain things I found preposterous. Other things I found downright unfair. Somethings were plain violations.<br /><br />But it all brought her comfort. Jesus. Scripture. The teddy bears. These distant, strange ideas some how made her happy, and helped her through pain. To be fair, there was a lot of pain. Who knows what you'll start believing if you're in enough pain. Not like, torture pain, but pain like wind blowing, pain like birds singing. Always there, sometimes more and sometimes less, but always there.<br /><br />I've been trying to understand it lately, as I've been waking up injured every morning since two Tuesdays ago. It's odd. I tried to imagine my bones knitting on their own, like the character Wolverine in the X-men movies. Some loud sound effects, some popping, and good as new.<br /><br />I felt no better.<br /><br />I tried to picture to the teddy bears, and felt stupid.<br /><br />Earlier this morning, I found something that brought me a great deal of hope. Not religion or scripture, but something vaguely like the teddy bears.<br /><br />The break is nearly complete in my right carpal. It looks like a piece of bamboo snapped almost completely off. From there, I imagined spiders lived inside the marrow. Tiny, pure white spiders crawl from the places where marrow is made, and start flinging their spinnerets to and fro between the broken bones, inching them together gradually.<br /><br />I have no rational reason for this kind of thinking, except that it brings me comfort.Sgt. Brightsidehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10018484209038858883noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24078335.post-39781014695182317942009-05-25T16:32:00.001-07:002022-10-25T06:35:45.655-07:00Terminator and Fourth Generation Warfare: Skynet is doomed to loseTerminator: Salvation imagines, finally, the war with that machine enemy that John Connor has prepared for just about all his life to fight. <br />
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Connor was put through all manner of training by his mother in preparation for the war after Judgment Day, in addition to at least two attempts on his life by Terminators, putting all that training to the test, which Connor of course passed or he wouldn’t be here. Of course, Connor will probably stop talking about his feelings when the first bomb is dropped on Judgment Day.<br />
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T:S imagines a never-ending conflict through time and space in which a coldly calculating machine attempts to wipe out an insurgency by sending back its toughest operators before the war even starts to kill the potentially toughest people <em>before</em> they are tough. <br /><br />More on the flaws in that plan later.<br />
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But chronologically (in one sense) the first Skynet's worst plan is Marcus Wright, a character who is apparently supposed to be the ultimate sleeper agent, built at some point in the past and unleashed on an unsuspecting world in 2018, eleven years <i>before</i> a Terminator is first sent back to kill Sarah Connor. <br /><br />Apparently, Wright was cyborgified by Skynet sometime in the past and kept on ice somewhere until he was necessary. At the end of the film, Marcus gives up his heart so that John Connor may live, probably because of the messiah-like fervor that now surrounds a man who is now the most senior leader of the human resistance.<br />
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As Reese said in the first film, sending a terminator back in time was an act of “desperation,” if computers can be said to be desperate. <br /><br />Making a half-man half-machine from a pre-existing person seems not only desperate but exceedingly foolish. Even if you do successfully make the Six-Million Dollar Sleeper Agent, it’s an even bigger gamble than time-traveling robot assassins with human skin. After all that, Skynet once again found a way to make Connor even harder to kill as Wright insists on giving up his heart.**<br />
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Skynet, as an opposing force, has some other significant flaws. First of all, when it sends a Terminator back in time, it runs a very, very high risk of giving up a ton of intelligence about it’s capabilities not just to the enemy, but to an enemy that didn't know it was an enemy, losing the element of surprise. <br /><br />Would you declare war nearly thirty years before you even attack? Another problem with this sort of retroactive assault technique is that anyone who survives it is completely prepared for the coming war, so essentially Skynet has potentially set itself up for failure each time one of these Terminators goes back in time.<br />
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This is a supposedly self-aware supercomputer; at what point does it realize that trying to kill John Connor, something it has been doing for about a decade or so since it caused Judgment Day, is a wasted effort, as John Connor has been preparing and training for nearly 30 years to, at the very least, not be killed.<br /><br />Each time Skynet would send a Terminator back, John Connor would defeat it, and perhaps even gather intelligence on it and train just a little bit harder for the next threat.<br />
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Finally, does Skynet know anything about guerrilla warfare? It caused a worldwide nuclear catastrophe, which while trimming the numbers of humanity significantly also has the side effect of only leaving the resilient, the tough, and absurdly lucky behind. <br /><br />Skynet has pretty much ensured, having apparently never read Sun-Tzu (“Throw your troops into situations where there is no escape, where they will die before surrendering,”), not only that the enemy is harder than coffin nails, but will fight to the death.<br />
<br />
While it’s never mentioned precisely how many humans are left after Judgment Day, if Skynet could just be a little bit more patient, it could have used <a href="http://www.blogger.com/%E2%80%9Dhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_bottleneck%E2%80%9D">population bottlenecking</a> if the numbers were low enough. The lack of widespread healthcare support could also spread common diseases like wildfire.<br />
<br />
Humans had enough manpower to provide close air support with A-10 Warthog aircraft, which suggests many of the survivors are not only hearty they are also military and fairly abundant.<br />
<br />
Let’s say the population decimation is even worldwide, for the sake of argument. <br /><br />Skynet is based in the United States; and its forces, while never tiring, are probably spread thin just dealing with the American insurgents. Have you <i>seen</i> the Rocky Mountains? <br /><br />It may have just crossed the ocean at the time of the film, and probably isn’t doing very well at all. America looked utterly destroyed but that one success was probably followed by a long sequence of failures. <br /><br />It doesn’t matter how super a computer you are, in the mountains of Afghanistan you are just another empire making life difficult for some of the toughest farmers the world has ever known.<br />
<br />
Finally, Skynet was commissioned by the U.S. Air Force, which apparently designed its trillion-dollar war-fighting computer to fight the villains of the 1940s, so essentially short-sightedness and poor design and planning will probably be the salvation of humanity. Again.<br /><br /><br />Sgt. Brightsidehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10018484209038858883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24078335.post-9636809247362004542008-11-22T09:24:00.000-08:002021-06-01T10:52:58.917-07:00Dead Space: What Happens When you Don't Listen to Your Enlisted TroopsThis post contains spoilers
<br /><br /> In the game Dead Space you are the ONLY competent member of a repair crew tasked to fix a mining ship called the Ishimura, which bears more than a passing resemblance to a rib cage. <br /><br />Strike one.
<br /><br />Within five minutes of arriving on the ship, a warped mutant thing with scythes for hands that moves like a member of the <i>Cirque de Soleil</i> on a Meth bender drops out of the ceiling and wastes all but two of your repair crew.
This is part where I'd leave, I don't mind saying. <br /><br />Most people who write about video games say "Because in real life, I'm a coward." Well, I'm just not about believing I'm a coward when the undead shit hits the space-ship fan.
<br /><br />However, quite apart from the how brave I am as the sole member of this team who is actually useful, it's actually the hard fact that our computer technician, welder and probably our equipment guy are now dead.<br /><br />If that happened to a real life construction crew that I was working on, I would say "forget this." and make leaving the job site my main priority.
<br /><br />If it happened to a crew that just traveled x-amount of light-years, under the exact circumstance of Dead Space, I am DAMN SURE filing a formal complaint with the union when I get back, and I'll be getting back soon because there is no way I'm staying on that ship.
I'm sure I would say something were I actually within this game; but I wouldn't get listened to by the two people who outrank me, and the game simulates their not listening by having the main character never speak. <br /><br />Wisely, the team does indeed decide to get hell off the Ishimura and of course, the ship we arrived in gets destroyed due to people not leaving when I said we should have. <br /><br />Strike two.
<br /><br /><div>As the plot unfolds you realize that not only are there mutants running around trying to kill you, but normal humans who have gone rotten banana crazy from exposure to whatever it is that's causing all these problems. Several times during the course of the game you watch people commit suicide with disturbing sound effects and dialog.
In addition, there is a creepy religious movement whose doctrine apparently involves getting shot in the forehead as it's one-time sacrament to provide corpses for the mutants to make more mutants with. </div><div><br /></div><div>Chief Head-Banger is Dr. Challus Mercer, who not only kills people in the name of his bullshit-20-minute-old-religion, he also actively tries to get you killed by messing with door locks that shut you in rooms with bloodthirsty mutant babies and <a href="http://www.artquotes.net/masters/bacon/bacon_study1953.jpg"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Francis Bacon</span></a> paintings come alive.
You run around the ship like this for a good four hours until you find "The Marker," which is responsible for all the undead-circus performers and dead pope paintings incarnate and is huge icon the Unitology Murder Pantheon. <br /><br />I take one look at the thing when I find it and it just screams "CLEARLY TAINTED WITH EEEEVVVVIL," I would not bring that goddamned thing on <i>my</i> ship if you paid me; it looked like Clive Barker designed a lamp for Ikea. <br /><br />Strike Three. But I'm down on the goddamned planet's surface at this point so counting strikes is mute. <br /><br /> It occurred to me while I was trying to maneuver this Obelisk of Maroon Doom off the ship that the whole reason the thing was on the ship in the first place was another clear-cut case of not listening to the enlisted. I'm sure the captain of the ship was all about bringing this thing on board, and his Master Chief or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_marine">Space Marine</a> Sgt. Major said "Whoa, sir, that thing is pure evil."
<br /><br />"Nonsense, Sgt. Major, I know pure evil when I see it . . ."
<br /><br />"Clearly not sir, because that thing down there on the planet looks like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatshepsut">Hatshepsut's</a> architect took an art class from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinhead_%28Hellraiser%29">Pinhead</a>."
<br /><br />I get the thing down to the planet's surface and Kendra, this officer in my chain of command whose been the only one talking any goddamned sense to the commander the whole mission. It speaks to her competence that I am, of course, still standing.
<br /><br />Turns out Kendra is a mole from the galaxy spanning government that apparently built the goddamned Clive Barker Lamp of Evil as a weapon. It's pretty effective in that respect, because it causes everything to die; but really what good is that if it's made death itself a sort of super contagion? <br /><br />Sounds to me like they built this weapon without bothering to ask their senior enlisted if it was a good idea. . .<br /><br />Kendra is then then killed by a beast that is some seven stories tall with tentacles thick as tree trunks and a face only a mother made from the cell structures of humanoid corpses could love. <br /><br />I emptied all of my four different kinds of ammunition into the thing and got the hell out of Dodge, worrying in the back of my mind how all of this is going to sound in an After Action Report.
<br /><br />You never see the main characters face through out the whole game until finally, on the shuttle to the end of the game you take off your helmet, breath a sigh of relief and wipe the sweat of your generically handsome brow, since it's been a long day and HOLYSHITTHERE'SSOMETHINGINTHESHUTTLEOMYGOD
ITHINKITSMYEXGIRLFRIENDWHOSDEAD!
<br /><br />It was a real jolt, because, you know I thought I had finished. It was a really great use of style, because I had actually finally relaxed, thinking the game was over, and instead I nearly fell out of chair in terror.</div>Sgt. Brightsidehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10018484209038858883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24078335.post-56774039087136010352008-11-22T09:04:00.001-08:002008-11-23T10:57:39.910-08:00Resistance 2: Let's Resist Again, Like We Did Last SummerThe year is 1951 and Humanity is getting an ass-kicking from beyond the stars by a race of leather pants wearing humanoids called Chimera.<br /><br />Generally, they are very slimy.<br /><br />You take on the role of Nathan Hale, the only survivor of America's push into England against the Chimera. Hale is a generically handsome Bruce Willis look alike with a dash of grizzled and a touch of glam rock. Hale only survived the first attack due a fluke in his genes that allows him to harness a disease that has turned most everyone else into the alien nemesis. Turns out, Hale isn't alone either, as several other stereo-types from throughout the armed forces have the same genetic trait including the Mini-Gun Toting Italian From Philly, The Smooth Voiced Black Sniper From Baltimore and The Stocky Rifleman from South Bend.<br /><br />The game gets off the cracker-jack start with the skies of San Francisco filled with alien fleet bearing down upon earth with near biblical might. After nearly being eaten by a Kraken at the end of the first level, one can imagine this game is gunning for Gears Of War in terms of enemy size.<br /><br />However, there was something about the way the missions are structured that makes me think the chain of command of the opposing force is just making it up as they go along. Because the next few skirmishes take place in downtown Twin Falls, Idaho. After that, you duel the beasts in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Naturally, in an intergalactic war a foot hold on the planet is a step in the right direction, but you would think they would be targeting more metropolitan areas.<br /><br />The entire time an alien virus that appears to be turning you into David Bowie figures into the plot a little bit. It's supposed to this life altering bio-phage aggressive gene therapy thing, and it makes you look like you're wearing lipstick.<br /><br />That happens a lot. It's really like watching a film where the budget ran out nine tenths through filming, and while the game is well paced these budget cuts can be a little distracting.<br /><br />DIRECTOR:"How will we make this monster?"<br /><br />EFFECTS MAN:"Aw, shit we have like six bucks left. Make it out of triangles and silly string!"<br /><br />DIRECTOR:"We need this guy to look like Alien."<br /><br />EFFECTS MAN:"Aliens wear purple lipstick. Thank god the catering girl had some, as we are wayyyyy over budget."<br /><br />Overall Resistance 2 is solid game play and story telling, and the multi-player mode where you co-op to complete objectives and gain experience is a little bit fresh, but this game is more of rental than a buy.Sgt. Brightsidehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10018484209038858883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24078335.post-66031269374069845042008-11-22T08:51:00.000-08:002021-02-20T06:59:58.231-08:00Mirror's Edge: The Best Movie I've Played Lately"Once this city used to pulse with energy; dirty and dangerous but alive and wonderful. Now it is something else. The changes came slowly at first. Most did not realize or did not care, and accepted them. They chose a comfortable life. Some didn't. . . . they became our first clients."
<br /><br />Video games become more cinematic each day.
Mirror's Edge, by Electronic Arts and Dice, is a truly astonishing narrative achievement. <br /><br />The voice work is outstanding, the story is inventive and the plot twists happen in such a way as to be consistently shocking and entertaining. As a matter of fact, the story is so good that you'll barely notice a lot glitches and errors through out the game, because if your standing still in this game you're doing it wrong.
<br /><br />You take on the role of Faith, a young lady of prodigious agility, and little else. In the dystopian world the story is set in, the only secure way to communicate is to have a person physically carry correspondence. These people are called Runners, and they are frowned upon by the totalitarian regime that has pretty much exchanged people's freedom for a very, very clean city that is some sort of architectural mashup between Seattle and German Bauhaus design and a sprinkling of comic-book primary colors. <br /><br />In a rather neat moment of world description, there was a screen in an elevator that said "Running! The latest threat to your children!" followed by some reading material to help pass the time while you were waiting an elevator.
<br /><br /><br />Unlike a lot other action heroes, Faith is not a warrior in any sense of the word. She's a courier, and generally can't stand toe to toe with even a beat cop. So she doesn't. Instead, she uses misdirection, disarms and dodges to get around her opponents. Actually punching and kicking costs precious seconds, but Faith practices some sort of Street-Fu that can flip just about anyone ass-over-tea-kettle with the right timing.
<br /><br />Faith lost her mother during a riot when she was a child, so it's no wonder she has such a penchant for running from and flipping over the cops. Subsequently her family fell apart, putting her in a position to, in a sense, continue the tradition of dissent that initially broke her family by becoming a runner. <br /><br /><br />Her sister, on the other hand, is the one who became obsessed with bringing order to the world, and became a cop.
This figures largely into the plot where a cross between Barak Obama and Joe Biden who was running office is murdered, and Faith's sister is framed for the dirty deed.
In a surprising little moment during the game, the main character hugs her sister and it's quite affecting in the first person perspective.
<br /><br />The plot unfolds predictably, but with such ambiance that you really feel involved in a story.
What's really funny about this is the plot is almost too good for the game. I found myself getting bored and frustrated with stupid puzzles that didn't reveal anything more about the plot or the world.
To put it another way, imagine you have to solve a Rubicks cube every five minutes or so while watching a film, but you have the help of the main character from film. It's kinda a cool, but I could do with less cube and more plot.Sgt. Brightsidehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10018484209038858883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24078335.post-59665395551274837832008-08-19T17:12:00.000-07:002021-02-21T07:23:30.832-08:00Alien Vs. Predator: Requiem<p class="MsoNormal">This past weekend I watched Aliens Vs. Predator: Requiem, which was probably one of the most visually misogynistic movies I’ve ever seen this side of American Psycho. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Now, the Giger’s Alien is a pretty horrid creature in and of itself, with it’s perverse use of the human body as an incubator after a borderline sexual assault from the infamous face hugger, the beast dehumanizes everything around it.</p><p class="MsoNormal">AVP:R was, in fact, even more violent and disturbing than I remember from what I caught in the theater since I saw the directors cut.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>Originally, I saw it with a few friends of mine, one of whom is a staunch opponent of violence against children, pregnant women or animals in most contexts. The first time I tried to see this movie, he cried out with his signature, “Aw, heelll-naw!” as one of the creatures prepared to assault a pregnant woman and we left before the true nastiness could begin. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Through compulsion for closure on par with that of a high schooler, I decided to see the film again. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">There’s a creature in this film that forces a tube down the throat of a pregnant woman, and her throat throbs luridly as it forces its spawn into her lower torso, where she already has a baby, because it only attacks pregnant women. Now, when taken out of context, the scene is extremely offensive. When taken in context, it’s is the icing on a cake of sci-fi depravity the likes of which we haven’t seen since <i>Event Horizon</i>. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">On top of that, characters that should have lived, because they didn’t have sex at any point, die anyway. It’s a rule in horror movies that if you don’t have sex or do drugs you don’t die, making nearly all of them an allegory for wildly excessive retribution visited upon youth by outside forces. But apparently, if the horror is from space everyone is fair game. In the case of this film, especially the young and/or the pregnant.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">In addition to this nastiness, I hate the idea that the Aliens apparently have made it to earth on several occasions, making Helen Ripley’s eventually fatal quest to keep them off-planet sadly moot, perhaps even more than her being cloned in the fourth film. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">In the film, a hybrid of the titular Predator and Alien crash lands on earth in space ship of one of the Predator race, and the standing governing body of the Predator race apparently sends an elite “cleaner” who takes care of these sorts of things. This particular Predator is a gangly sort of cross between a CIA agent, a Green Beret and a park ranger. I found the concept of earth as a sort of intergalactic wild-life preserve to be rather funny, but when the only humor of a movie is more from the things you have to think of after the fact, something is lacking. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">A good amount of action is spent in a massive sewer system that seems completely out of place in the small southwestern-western town of <st1:city st="on">Gunnison</st1:city>, Co., standing in for the typical isolated, suburban Mainstreet, USA, where aliens, zombies, vampires and werewolves invariably schedule their showdowns with humans and each other in between spring parades and local music festivals. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">There is a ton of little continuity issues through out the film, details that would ordinarily grab my attention are wrong, and details that I wouldn’t care about in any case are over-emphasized. One of the details I caught was one character coming from the U.S. ArmyMarines, judging from the half and half uniform she wears upon her arrival home from Inconsequencistan. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">On the other extreme, too much time is devoted to a character’s back story (whose name I don’t even remember, despite other characters screaming it before they die several times) about jail time and vague crimes that may have been committed whilst a member of the police force (though it’s never made clear). His entire “dark past” turns out to be wholly irrelevant in the grand scheme of an alien invasion, as most petty crime wouldn’t make you capable of handling sub-machine guns, let alone an extra-terrestrial shot-gun intended for creatures two feet taller than you.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Topping of all this nastiness is the inevitable, “Man is the real monster,” ending in which a shady government organization nukes the entire town of Gunnison to prevent the spread of the deadly phallus headed Aliens, killing the remainder of the towns initial 5,409, minus the survivors who escape on a hospital helicopter, which of course the surviving veteran ArmyMarine knows how to fly as well, which means she had one of those rare military jobs in which she learned to drive a Stryker and fly a chopper.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The argument could be made here that somewhere in her back story, she learned to fly a chopper as a civilian, but that’s giving the production far more credit than gave me as an audience member.<span> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>The final insult in all of this is after the survivors land, they are confronted by a group of face painted commandos who insist they were “only following orders.” That’s not what got to me, though. What got to me was the surviving woman who was supposed to also be a member of the military, regardless of branch, should have kicked that guy’s ass until candy came out and asked him if it would be acceptable if she nuked his hometown in the process of “following orders.” Instead, she shrugs it off, and looks wistfully at the sky where we see her slight resemblance to Sigourney Weaver. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Aggressively terrible as that ending was, it doesn’t compare to the films actual tacked-on ending, in which a man in a suit, responsible for war-crimes at this point after tactical-nuking more people than were killed in 9/11, delivers the Predators’ shotgun-like weapon to a Ms. Yutani. Dun-Dun-Dun! This last scene was a of course, a desperate grasp for continuity with the series, as Yutani is the other half of the soon to be Weyland-Yutani Corp. We met Weyland’s CEO in the first AVP, and, as in this film, we didn’t much care then either.<span> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">On a final note, a film snob moment: The finest scenes in any film involving the Predator are the scenes where the Predator is alone on screen and doing its thing, telling a story entirely with physical acting. It is pure cinema to have an actor tell a story through motion alone, rubber suit or not. I found it fascinating in the first Predator, and still interesting in the second. AVP sorely lacked that little touch, and AVP:R at least had the good sense to bring it back, however, that’s really all the sense it had. </p>Sgt. Brightsidehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10018484209038858883noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24078335.post-90236386022831703372008-08-03T00:13:00.000-07:002008-11-24T13:18:13.493-08:00Terrorists Destroy Deathstar! Imperial Forces Prepare to Mobilize!<p class="MsoNormal">The story of the war waged by the Empire the final (first released) chapters of the Star Wars trilogy is an insurgency speculated on a galactic scale. The enemies come from within, rather than from without, and in fact are the unknown children of a major player within the regime. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>The first figure we are introduced to in the large terrorist cell in Star Wars is the Princess Leia Organa. Raised by Bale Organa, a major player in the old regime, rendered mute over the years by the new power structure, Organa apparently raised a fierce and single minded young woman whose only goal is restore the old regime at potentially great cost to herself.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>She did so boldly, using nearly anyone loyal to her to strike a blow against the Empire. She employs spies and eventually, with the help of a member of the Imperial Navy, secured the plans to the Empire’s ultimate weapon. The Death Star was a costly endeavor, no doubt, judging from it’s size the amount of personnel required to run it. Damaging or even destroying it would strike a huge blow against her enemies economically as well as politically. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>When she sought to enlist the help of Obi Wan Kenobi, living under an alias in isolation far away from politics and the war that he clearly lost, she reached out to another potential terrorist who, upon realizing what’s at stake, may believe that success against the new regime is possible.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>When Kenobi found out that Leia has been captured, he decided to go to Alderan to inform Bale Organa of the situation, possibly before staging a rescue. Were she any other guerrilla, he could have easily justified no rescue and instead warning the rebels directly, but Leia is not only a major player but also the acceptable political face of a messy war that has certainly had it’s share of collateral damage wrought by both sides. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>Enter Luke Skywalker. Like most front line fighters in a terrorist organization, Skywalker had no prospects: no chance for job advancement, little education and boredom. Skywalker is reluctant at first, until the Empire makes the mistake, as it probably had countless times before, of killing Skywalker’s family, leaving him with nothing to loose and cause for revenge. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>Another addition to the group that will finally deal fatal damage to the Galactic Empires is Han Solo, a disenfranchised former member of the military and his traveling companion, Chewbacca a member of one of the many crushingly oppressed alien minorities. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>Solo is a mercenary initially, and as long as he is left alone and able to settle his underworld debts, it appears as though he doesn’t care who wins. However, as a criminal, it would be in his interest to see the supporting structure of federal galactic law enforcement crumble for no other reason that it would wipe whatever record he might have. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>The destruction of the first Death Star, with a personnel capacity of over a million by some estimates, was devastating on many levels to the Imperial forces. Imagine an aircraft carrier the size of <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Manhattan</st1:place></st1:city> being utterly devastated by a terrorist bombing, and imagine the political, military, economic and social fall-out that would entail. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>Dealing such a damaging blow against any government would have consequences for any opposing force. A terrorist cell would be hunted to the ends of the earth were they wreak such destruction upon an Earth-bound super-power.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>The attack on the rebel base of Hoth was probably one of many acts of retribution the Empire brought to bear against the Rebellion in the coming year after the attack at Yavin. It is entirely possible that if the empire used the same degree of force or greater on other outposts, the rebels were successfully routed all over the galaxy.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>It is important to note that episodes IV-VI focus on merely one terrorist cell and it’s characters. It’s possible that there were other, more successful attacks against rebel bases through out the galaxy, and since tactics vary in style, the may have been far more devastating to the Rebellions numbers. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>However, that each one of those attacks could very well have destroyed families, killing fathers, sons, daughters or wives that would have incited even more of those governed by the Empire to join the rebellion. Essentially, even as the Empire routed Leia’s cell, anyone killed in the attack could very well have been replaced by family or friends who realized the true brutality of the regime. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>Solo’s knowledge of Imperial procedure, having been discharged as lieutenant, allows him facilitate Leia’s escape from what could have been her second capture. As it is clear judging from the fire power and troop strength used by the Empire, that their goal was first devastation of the rebel ranks before considering capturing anyone. When the smoke cleared, if Leia was still alive, perhaps she would have been taken prisoner or perhaps killed. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>At that point the history of the rebellion, either would could have been considered an important victory. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>The Empires treatment of alien minorities also gives the Rebellion a massive edge, in that all a potential recruiter need to is show more care as to how that species is treated and a whole new pool of defectors is created. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">One of those defectors is of course Skywalker, whose war-fighting abilities make him an ideal candidate to go to the Dagobah system, which is analogous to any sort of religious-based military training. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>When he arrives, Yoda pretends as though he is unworthy to motivate him. Such a tactic, especially when used against a young man who has already made drastic changes in himself in order to achieve devastating results against enemy forces, would surely yield an even more aggressive and capable soldier, not only in terms of combat but also in terms of leadership because it first convinces a potential candidate that it’s what they want. In fact, such tactics can be seen in Marine Corps. recruitment advertising (“No contracts. Only commitments.”)</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>Forcing potential leaders to endure different manners of hardship has long been an accepted form of building good officers in most military forces, formal or other wise. It was apparently the case with Skywalker’s father as well; however his inability to cope led him down a path of another rebellion against the previous regime in alliance with the current despot, against whose regime his son fought.<span style=""> </span><br /><o:p> </o:p><br />It’s possible that the entire reason that Skywalker has coping ability is due to his not knowing his father. Instead he was raised in an, as far as we know, stable household far away from chaos. Farming of any kind is certainly a daily routine, and the son of Skywalker is disciplined enough to accept all of the training his father had, and still be able to make moral, rational decisions to an extent. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>As Luke trains on the remote planet, Vader pursues other members of the terrorist cell relentlessly. At his disposal is a vast network of information funded by government, about former the former lieutenant Solo. Surely he would have found the connection to rouge-turned-businessman Lando Calrissian. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>If the imperial forces arrived in cloud city before the rebels or just after is unclear. What is clear is that Vader is, probably through the threat of federal government sanction, able to persuade Calrissian to assist him in his plan to capture Skywalker. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>Calrissian becomes the businessman ruined by government intervention. By the end of the film, he has lost everything, in part due to his own decisions, but it’s inarguable that had the military left him alone his fortunes would be drastically different. Yet another misstep in which the Empire has made it harder to put down the widespread insurrection of the rebellion. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>What ever resources Calrissian still has at his disposal—surely a former smugly wouldn’t tie up of all his money in legitimate institutions that could be seized by the government—they will now go toward the rebellion, as victory for the rebellion could conceivably be the fastest way for him to regain his merchant status. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>With each action the Empire brings its enemies closer and closer together, adding hard legitimacy to Leia’s words to Grand Moff Tarkin: “The tighter you close your fist, the more galaxies will slip through your fingers.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>Vader is clearly working well outside the standard confines of Imperial law, as he gives Han Solo to the bounty hunter Bob Fett, who works for the Jabba the Hutt. The Hutt families are a criminal class, and the Empire has tried several times to break their power, since apparently the galaxy isn’t big enough for two criminally corrupt institutions. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>The first battle between Skywalkers Sr. and Jr. is the perfect metaphor for military might against a well-trained guerrilla force. While Vader “wins” the battle, Luke certainly gives him a run for his money, since they were trained by the same people and the victory comes down to learned practice where Vader has the advantage. However it is clear that Luke’s innate ability, with more training, will certainly be formidable enough that their next confrontation may have a different outcome. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>The other half of that battle is the fact that Luke has learned Vader’s true nature, and is now given the same advantage his father had when tracking him.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>When we see the cell again, Luke, Leia, Lando and Chewbaca must rescue one of the higher-ups in their organization: Han Solo. Solo, now like Leia and Skywalker, is not a disposable foot soldier but a crucial component to not only to rebel strategy but also to rebel moral. After all, if capture by the enemy is merely an inconvenience from which you will be rescued, it wouldn't concern anyone.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>By the time we see the rebel alliance again the ranks have expanded to include other humanoids, no doubt oppressed under Imperial doctrine, and quite tired of it. By this time, word has certainly spread about the destruction of the first Death Star. If such a blow was dealt by a very small force of “stunt-fighters” then certainly a larger force would certainly succeed against another weapon of the same make and model, shield generators be damned. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>The final confrontation takes up much of the narrative of the last film, and is pretty much the illustration of the advantages of not only force diversity and flying columns, but also of expanding your ranks through promises of peace as opposed to your enemies who just show up and take over. That method might have been why the Ewoks were so hip to help the rebels, as the Imperials had shown up and either ignored the Ewoks in the best case, and perhaps killed them in the worst. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>This is to be final battle, everyone’s chips in the game, and certainly they are playing for keeps. As many of the various cells of the rebellion have come together for this battle massing what could be the first fleet large enough to oppose the Empire since Palpatine officially came to power. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>While that battle rages, Vader and Luke are now locked into their own final confrontation. Luke has devoted a great deal of thought to his father’s fate, and even if his skill has not improved much since their last battle, it’s possible his understanding of <i style="">why</i> they are fighting gives him an even greater advantage than knowing <i style="">how</i>. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>Vader and Luke are essentially the same person at this stage, toe to toe battling for a cause that they have faith in. Victory for Luke is almost written in stone, since his faith is based on reform, rebuilding and friendship. Vader had no cause to believe that the universe could be any other way, since he actually believes that he was first betrayed by Kenobi and his wife. His son has proven several things that Vader might have wished to believe but turned his back on. You can trust people, and people can trust you, and you can fight against a massive military force and win. </p>Sgt. Brightsidehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10018484209038858883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24078335.post-72998860198430359732008-02-08T15:53:00.000-08:002008-02-10T09:31:55.724-08:00A RANT: Rebellion, Conflict, Resolution and 1776. . .. . . Not fucking 1774.<br /><br />T-shirt companies tend to market the most obscenely jingoist shirts to the most ignorant members of the military. They used to say something on "U.S. Army Est. 1776" but now say something stupid like "1774."<br /><br />1774, as we know, was the year people just began to think that rebellion against the English might be a good idea, after the Boston Tea Party, but before the English decided to the send in their regulars to violate what would have been known today as "civil rights," but what were known at the time as "ridiculous demands of precocious entitlement."<br /><br />At that time, the Declaration of Independence hadn't even been written. In fact, the first battle of revolution, (Lexington and Concord) didn't happen until 1775. That battle was, as is often the case, merely the beginning of a long, hard war in which starvation gripped the native population to such an extent that the Empire wondered why the hell they were fighting at all. (Sound familiar?)<br /><br />It could also be argued that the building of a country is an ongoing process that in America could have begun with immigrants in the 1600s and continued long after any arbitrary year designated by some arrogant, WASPy, jack-ass t-shirt designer.<br /><br />Furthermore the resting on the laurels of a random establishment date means that people in power slack-off and spend more time <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Foley#Scandal_with_Congressional_pages_and_resignation">thinking about little boys' buttocks</a> while simultaneously plotting to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_the_United_States#Conservative_publications">subjugate emotionally healthy homosexual men and women who have the good sense to stay in their own age group</a>, instead of making the United States a true country for the people and by the people.<br /><br />Indeed, by that sort of staggering revisionist history crap, when ever a people just <span style="font-style: italic;">decide</span> they are country, suddenly they are, and anyone who dares disagree has to face the nasty end of whatever the abundant fire-arm of choice happens to be.<br /><br />If the above were true, there would have been an independent Kurdistan as early as 1992, and a Pakistan in the late 40's with much less riots. But Kurdistan is still part of Iraq and Pakistan had riots.<br /><br />It doesn't work that way. Sovereignty is as hard-won as freedom and twice as hard to enforce since you only need convince people that they <span style="font-style: italic;">superficially</span> have freedom, while you have to convince the <span style="font-style: italic;">world</span> that you have sovereignty. That sort of convincing takes nearly constant up-keep well beyond merely stomping on the opposition, but also asking the people of your country to enforce the concept as part of their day-to-day routine, if not their full time, color-alert-dependent, gun-toting, badge-wielding/flag-waving job.Sgt. Brightsidehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10018484209038858883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24078335.post-37928045288119359152007-06-16T20:50:00.000-07:002007-07-19T02:36:28.628-07:00Perfection For Sale!When did body issues start?<br /><br />Perhaps the dawn of the printing press. I'm sure Johann Gutenberg had a notion of what his invention meant and what it would do.<br /><br />Mass-produced media. Mass-produced ideas. Mass-produced <i>ideals</i>.<br /><br />Mass production of anything has the potential to effect people's perspective.<br /><br />I wonder, as I do, if people who didn't match their mass produced ideals of their day felt self-conscience.<br /><br />Did Greek culture, with it's artistic preference for smaller genitals on men, cause men with bodies outside the ideal to feel inadequate? Surely. Perhaps less due to less saturation, since producing the fine art that constituted the mass media of the day took much more effort.<br /><br />Perhaps it was the Victorian era, however, where mass-produced forms of the both men and women came into their own. Not only were pictures of what men and women should look like printed (should look like according to god knows who, really), but products for reaching those physical ideals were <i>advertised</i> and <i>sold</i>. Girdles and mustache wax being merely two.<br /><br />If you look at some of these illustrations and photographs from those times, it really appears that all men had thick, heavy handle bar mustaches. All women had the hour glass figure and long hair piled high on their heads.<br /><br />Imagine being one of those men who had thin, fine hair that took forever to grow in. Give me a year and half maybe I'll get a mustache out of it if I never, ever shave.<br /><br />Imagine being an athletically built, thin hipped woman.<br /><br />Naturally I wonder about these things as I wander the urban landscapes of America and see the two main ideals of gender plastered wall to wall trying to sell everything from cars to contraceptives.<br /><br />If our advertising is to be believed, women are to be very thin, frail and bored. Men are to be huge, ripped and scowling.<br /><br />This is of course, not all advertising, but enough of it that I can make such a broad generalization that and still hit pretty close to the mark.<br /><br />Sometimes the marketing doesn't make a ton of sense. Like using naked people to sell clothing (I'm looking at <i>you</i>, Abercrombie & Fitch), or using people with pearly white teeth to sell tobacco products (Newport).<br /><br />It goes well beyond that, of course. Being a regular watcher of TV these days, I saw a Mazda commercial where people who weren't driving Mazdas magically looked old when they saw themselves reflected in their non-Mazda cars. That's right.<br /><br />"Drive a Mazda or you will <i>age prematurely</i>."<br /><br />There's a kind of mercenary ruthlessness in that sort of advertising. Reinforcing a cruel lust for youth (a topic I will sink my teeth into soon enough, I assure you), the advertisement is itself a symptom of the ideals that people are told they need to reach, and the suggests that it's product will help you reach them. This is counter intuitive, because let's face it: no one ever got physically fit driving anywhere.<br /><br />Naturally, if the advertising were an honest business, people wouldn't buy anywhere near as much stuff.<br /><br />I don't meet those physical ideals myself. Try though I might, I am thin. I come from a long line of thin men. Thin their whole lives, perhaps a gut toward the end of life. I used to work out all the time and eat tons of food and if I worked really hard I could gain twenty pounds or so. If I stopped my body would burn off everything while I slept.<br /><br />Broad-shouldered, yet lanky and stork-like, the men of my family except one family on my mothers side would have been excellent chimney sweeps one hundred years ago.<br /><br />Naturally, a first response is "You don't know how lucky you are." I used to scowl at that sentiment. These days I'm actually more okay with myself. In my early 20's I realized just how much bullshit was being forced down our collective throats and how I shouldn't try very hard to built like a superhero (Massive torso, small waist, power legs, great calves and so on).<br /><br />Of course I don't own a car, either.<br /><br />I've found true physical fitness has only a little bit to do with appearance and more to do with strength and endurance. I think it's a safe bet that most underwear models, while delicious looking, cannot "run flat out for two miles before [their] hands start shaking."Sgt. Brightsidehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10018484209038858883noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24078335.post-11119561595079186292007-06-16T20:43:00.000-07:002007-06-20T02:50:08.329-07:00The Creepy, Creepy Future of Marketing: "FREE Implant surgery with purchase!"The iphone is being advertised an awful lot.<br /><br />I don't own a cellphone because I don't like them. The iphone freaks me out.<br /><br />My stance on cell phones is this: you pay money so that you have <i>no</i> solitude. You're never alone when you have a cell phone, which I'm sure is a comfort to some but not to me, since I don't substitute comm-tech for actual human interaction.<br /><br />Cybernetics, as you can guess from previous posts, freak me out. The concept freaks me out. I'm not entirely comfortable relying on a car for transport, but I deal with it.<br /><br />The iphone, by design, appears to demand human manipulation to a greater extent than any other device of its kind.<br /><br />Now, I made a post before about the marketing of products and how most advertising's only real point is to make want things you don't need.<br /><br />As electronics become more and more personalized to their user, and these devices become more and more complex (the iphone <i>knows</i> how <i>you</i> are <i>holding</i> it) how long do you think it's really going to be before people are comfortable with implanted devices and when that market is in infancy, how soon do you think people will be willing to produce product for that market?<br /><br />Cell phones embedded in ear drums with key pads woven and tattooed into the back of your hand.<br /><br />Cameras and lasers that display the time, date and temperature in the lower left of your field vision.<br /><br />Extra sensitive nerve endings and tiny pressure valves embedded in genitals for enhanced sexual pleasure and performance.<br /><br />In one way it's very possible that such body modification may obliterate out-moded concepts of gender; but in another more precise way it might make being human obsolete.<br /><br />Naturally, these sound like ravings but let's look again at advertising.<br /><br />"You need our product to he happy in life, you need our product to be masculine/feminine, you need our product to be cool."<br /><br />It's well within the realm of possibility that eventually those products will actually alter the physical properties of the consumer.<br /><br />This isn't as outlandish as it sounds and here's why: cars.<br /><br />In order to drive a car you must learn how. Now, learning in general doesn't make you great driver. A great driver drives a lot. There's a whole skill set there that didn't exist in the general population 100 years ago. Now, consider how much driving alters your way of perceiving the world. Now instead of thinking in footsteps, you think in miles. You consider gas mileage and acceleration at the very least. There's a new wrinkle in your brain for driving things.<br /><br />We already have <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_heart">artificial hearts</a> and <a href="http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4155/is_20060914/ai_n16740403">robotic limbs hooked directly to the human nervous system</a>. These were added on so the recipients could lead a normal life.<br /><br />How long before leading a normal life means getting your body altered by science?Sgt. Brightsidehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10018484209038858883noreply@blogger.com0