Busy Busy Busy

Sorry for the sparse posting, but as the title suggests I have been busy. 

Most of that has been painting.  In the past six weeks, I have painted seven Panzer IV H tanks, 2 Panthers, 1 Tiger, 2 Sturmtigers, 6 StuGs, 2 mobile AA guns, 3 AA emplacements, a battery of 15cm howitzers, 10 other German vehicles, 3 platoons of Germans with anti-tank weaponry, 3 houses, a battery of American 155mm howitzers, and an American spotter airplane.

I also found time to attend my brother's wedding, a momentous and wonderful occasion that was fun but certainly not restful.

This upcoming weekend I attend Otakon in Baltimore, MD, as I do every year.  As in past years, I will post highlights and my observations as to the continuing state of anime fandom.  Please stand by.

Posted by: Civilis at 08: 33 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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School System Failure

One of my co-workers is smart, but not particularly educated.  Her son is a freshman in high school.  When I asked recently about her day, she told an story about problems with her son's recent world history project.  They were assigned to do a diorama of a scene that they studied in class this year.  Her son had chosen to do a diorama of trench warfare, with an open box lid filled with dirt, with trenches at each end.  They had purchased cheap plastic army men to put in the trenches.  The family cat had attempted to use the diorama as a litter box, and she had spent the evening watching her son repair the project.

My internal warning lights went on as this story progressed.  I still cannot believe a high school level history class has a diorama as a final project.  More importantly, when I, history buff and military modeler, made an offhand comment about plastic army men being generally World War II and not a generally accurate choice, it developed that neither parent nor child knew which war they were modeling, and who the sides were.  (Yes, I know that fieldworks and entrenchments have been prominent in a number of wars, but I suspect that if the topic in a high school level history class is "Trench Warfare", that the subject is going to be World War I).

The more I think about it, the less this specific case bothers me.  The son is already working part time as a field hand, is by all accounts a hard worker there (as opposed to school), and already knows more about agriculture than I ever will.  But the general case, that history, already painfully scrimped when I was in school, has dropped to the level where the final project is this simple and demonstrates no knowledge of the subject at hand, is distressing.

My eventual reaction was to suggest that the son could improve his project by putting small holes in the dirt surface as shell craters, and wrapping wire around a broom handle to make model barbed wire.  Simple, but effective.  I am a gaming geek above all, after all.

Posted by: Civilis at 09: 03 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Geek Pride and Same Sex Marriage

Caution:  What lies ahead is a rant on a touchy subject that may be controversial and not completely thought out, and what makes it worse is that it's a rant that doesn't end up saying much of anything.  Enter at your own risk!



I'll start with one simple thing:  My name is Chris, and I am a Geek.  [Chorus of voices from the Internet, AA meeting style: "Hi, Chris!"]  Moreover, I'm proud of being a geek.  I spend a good portion of my free time watching Japanese Cartoons.  For a while, I even blogged extensively about them (something I'd like to get back to).


I also spend a good portion of my time building and painting miniature tanks and pushing them across a table at other miniature tanks, all while trying to resist the urge to make "rumblerumblerumble.... Bang!.... Boom!" sounds.


These are strange and abnormal hobbies, and I enjoy them a lot.  I have fun.  I don't have fun doing a lot of things normal people do to have fun.  I can't sit down and watch normal TV shows.  I can't sit down and watch sports.  They bore me.  I could be doing something else, something involving either scantily clad Japanese-speaking catgirls or a Kompanie of Sd Kfz 142/1 Sturmgeschutz III G assault guns.

The problem is, is that while I'm proud of this while pseudonymous on the internet, or around friends, I can't act proud of this around normal people.  I automatically act to conceal it, even when such concealment is futile.  It's protective camouflage.  I think it originates in elementary school, when the abnormal children tend to get teased, because children are children, and they're like that.  I was relentlessly bullied as I was an easy target, until fortunately I made some friends who were very hard targets and could be counted on to stand up for the weaker geeks like me.

On Monday, on Page 3 of  the Washington Post Metro section, Cheryl Kravitz came out as a nerd to the world, or at least the part of the world that reads the Washington Post.  In an essay titled, I Might Be a Dork, but I'll Always Sing and Dance, she explains that she realizes she's still a Nerd after all these years.  Good for you, Cheryl!   (The essay is online behind a registration sign-in here.)

I have a hard time discussing my hobbies and interests with co-workers, even when asked directly.  I usually hem and haw, and eventually find an answer that will be technically honest and still evasive enough that my answers will pass.  With movies, I can usually find a blockbuster action movie that everyone saw or at least recognizes is normal for a 30-something male to have watched.  The last TV show I watched was Chuck, my interest in which was killed by the writers strike;  I've seen partial episodes of the Big Bang Theory, enough to know the writers aren't real geeks.  With music, I can name some edgy but relatively normal American bands.  I have added a MegaTokyo poster (signed) and a couple of small anime figurines to my corner of the office, and rest of the IT department knows I have odd tastes.  I can occasionally state that I'm a geek, but the listeners always blow it off with a "You're not a geek", which is my intent.  I don't think being a geek is a bad thing, but I know its not easy to be different.

Some of the more astute readers will remember that I promised a political rant, and this certainly has not been the case so far.  Turn back now, you have been warned.

What does this have to do with same-sex marriage?  (You do remember the properly-spelled post title, right?)

On the one hand, I'm a naturally stubborn person, and don't change easily.  I was raised Catholic, so to me a marriage, or at least a proper marriage will always be one man marrying one woman not closely related to him.  But I recognize that others will disagree.  I've also watched enough anime that different, that is to say not normal relationships don't bother me.  It even predates my interests in anime;  I read a lot of sci-fi while growing up.  While Heinlein wrote some very good books, a lot of what he wrote is interesting, especially as it relates to sex, and if you follow Lazarus Long along as a easily influenced teenage sci-fi buff, eventually nothing fazes you.  Personally, I don't care what consenting adults do in privacy.  I'm defnitely in favor of extending many of the legal benefits of marriage to same sex partners, and I voted against Virginia's defense of marriage amendment on those grounds.  I've personally come to favor the Italian solution... marriage is purely a religious sacrement, open to any faith's definitions, while government oversees civil partner benefits to any couple.   However, if the American public votes for changing the definition of marriage, it doesn't bother me.

But for many of the participants on both sides, the debate has taken on another level, one that definitely bears on my observations on my own Geek pride.  I choose to define myself as a Geek.  I am a lot of other things besides, some of them potentially contradictory; I am an American, a Catholic, a Conservative, Libertarian and Classical Liberal, a Virginian, an Engineer, a Computer Expert, and many things besides.  What I choose to identify myself as is my choice, and my choices come with consequences.

To some, the debate over same sex marriage is a debate (or the major battleground in the debate) over the social status of homosexuals (gays, lesbians, etc.).  On one side, we have the arch-traditionalists that see any attempt at acknowledging homosexuals as the next step towards cultural depravity and anarchy, and on the other side, we have a portion of the homosexual community demanding both that they be afforded special protections and that they be respected as perfectly equal to anyone else, and that this is a right.

My rational side automatically despises the Fred Phelps of the world.  As I've said, what consenting adults do in private is not my concern, and anyone that has made hating an entire class of people their way of life is abhorrent to me.  I don't have a problem with despising the Westboro Baptist Church.  It's easy to despise the Westboro Baptist Church.  It's my other, more emotional reaction that is harder for me to rationalize, and trying to spell it out is why I'm writing this post.

My emotial reaction to the arguments for the homosexual community is both rejection and offense.  For better or for worse, their self identity is tied to a behavior, specifically a sexual behavior, that is not instinctively normal for the vast majority of the population, and they are offended that people think differently of them because of this.  I don't think anyone should be fired from their job merely for being homosexual (although I do believe institutions like the military that enforce a code of behavior that limits sexual activity beyond what is enforcable by law should be able to include homosexual sex in that code).  But I don't think anyone should be fired from their job for being a geek, and it is legal to fire someone for being a geek.  Being a geek isn't protected by law.  I can't find a rational line between what is protected behavior and what isn't, and I'm offended that my self-identity group is on the wrong side of that line.  I don't get any respect; why should I give in to your demands to respect you?

I don't care if you're a homosexual.  Do you care if I'm a geek?  Would you have a negative reaction to me if my interests came up in conversation?  Am I discriminated against in society?  If you said no, take this hypothetical situation:  a manager is trying to determine which of two equally qualified candidates to promote, one of whom shares his non-work interests (perhaps he's a fellow fan of the local football team);  is the fan more likely to get promoted, perhaps because he interacts with the manager more socially?  As a geek, am I more or less likely to have an interest in common with the manager?  I can't socialize with peers at work, because I have no common interests.  I don't watch the latest Reality TV shows and don't follow pro or college sports.  How do I network with people?

As I've said, it's an emotional reaction to an emotional issue with no right answer, and ultimately, it's a useless rant.  I want to see the political issue resolved, and hopefully in a matter that leaves everyone somewhat satisfied in the short run, while the real issue, that of mutual respect for everyone, is solved in the background in the long run.  But respect cannot be demanded, only earned...

Posted by: Civilis at 07: 58 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Hazards of the Capital Wateland

Last Sunday, I traveled into the heart of the Capital Wasteland that is Washington D.C.  The city isn't quite Fallout 3 hazardous, in part because it hasn't suffered a nuclear attack.  Still, there are things that the casual tourist should be aware of when making their way through the District.

It all started about two weeks ago, when a friend suggested going in to visit some of the museums that we hadn't been to in a while.  Since I had been anting to do this at some point, I said "Sure!".  Big mistake.

My friend has been a DC resident for almost a decade.  I've lived here for nearly 30 years.  Neither of us bothered to connect our little trip and the DC Cherry Blossom Festival which happened to coincide with that weekend.  What does the Cherry Blossom festival mean?  Well, it's an excuse to hold a number of Japanese or Asian themed events to commemorate the gift of a bunch of trees to the city of DC.  It's an excuse for tourists to come see the events and trees.  Tourists.  Lots and lots of tourists.  Mobs of zombie-wannabe tourists, everywhere.  I joked that METRO was getting in the spirit of the festival by simulating the Tokyo subway conditions.  Somehow, we made it in, and even saw some of the Museum of American History, the Museum of Natural History, and the National Gallery of Art.

While I was looking at the pretty museum exhibits, I should have been paying more attention to the other threat lurking in the city that day.  I should have been wishing I had a set of NBC gear from Fallout 3.  Why is the Cherry Blossom Festival held at this time of year?  Because that's when the cherry blossom trees bloom.  Bloom pollen.  All over the place.  All throughout my sinuses and lungs.

I am a complete and total wreck this week.  My head throbs, my sinuses congest, and my lungs cough vile substances.  Be warned, tourists, that though DC may still be a thriving city, even the supposedly prepared fall victim to its many threats...

Posted by: Civilis at 05: 27 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Let's Try This Again

There are some key concepts to keep in mind when playing a game, or looking at the world as a game:

1.  Theory always takes a backseat to reality.  In theory, one can sit down with the rules of the game and devise an ideal strategy.  In reality, this doesn't work, at least for most games.  Any game involving luck, interaction with other players, or information only available to one of the players, can't be won by sticking to the theory of how the game should be played.  Luck doesn't follow rules, and player interactions are player-specific knowledge are matters of psychology.

2.  Not every battle can be won, and not every battle is worth winning.  A major lesson of wargaming, is that you have to pick and choose your fights.  Sometimes, you will run into a battle where one of your forces meets an overwhelming enemy force that you cannot stop.  If you can recognize this, you can save some of your forces, or otherwise use the defeat to your advantage.  A more important distinction is recognizing a battle that you can win, but only at a cost that you can't effectively afford in the long run;  a Pyrric victory.  (Although I'm using wargaming analogies here, you can substitute money or influence or any limited and essential quantity for forces and the analogy still works).

3.  Don't let your emotions cloud your judgement.  The trap in number two is that if you are emotionally invested in winning, then you have more difficulty recognizing losing battles or too-expensive victories.  It's easy to fall for the flaw of emotionally investing in a bad strategy.  If one of your opponents scores an impressive victory over you, it's easy to get emotionally committed into getting back at them, even if it's a losing proposition, or a distraction from your ultimate objective, winning the game.  If you can recognize when other players in the game have switched over to emotional behaviors, you can use it to your advantage, such as tempting them into going for too-expensive victories.

4.    Always know your victory conditions, and know the different ways to achieve them.  Remember what your final goal is, and don't get fixated on one particular plan.  It's easy to get so focused on a particular plan for achieving victory that you don't notice that you don't have the resources to pull it off.  It's easy to fall into the trap of assuming that a particular battle is the only route to victory.

5.  The game isn't always fair.  Know that the game and the other players punish and reward certain behaviors, and plan accordingly.  Take advantage of it when you can, and don't waste your energy struggling against it when you can't change it.

Why did I call this "Let's Try This Again"?  Because, ultimately, I'm working on a more thoughtful look at the current conservative blogosphere slug match I alluded to down below, which is a microcosm of the conservative web presence as a whole.

We've got two prominent conservative bloggers and their readers after each other.  One's trying to be diplomatic with the left, and one's taking an aggressive tone.  The aggressive blogger has rightly pointed out that playing diplomatically cedes much of the terms of discourse to the progressive side, and hasn't helped in the past;  the progressives have won by being nasty and playing dirty with conservatives.  The diplomatic blogger has pointed out that aggressive rhetoric turns off many people we might be able to persuade, and serves only to rally those already on our side.  Which one's right?  Both are, or neither are.

Yes, the progressive media has unfairly demonized the right for years.  Yes, they've used every nasty trick in the book.  Yes, this isn't fair (Rule 5).  Responding in kind isn't going to work at this time.  The constant demonization of conservatives has already worked.  "Conservative" is now tied to "Evil" in many people's minds.  In theory, we're right (Rule 1), but this means nothing in reality, where things are shaped by people's perceptions, which have been carefully steered by the media.  We can't just say "Progressives are evil", because if we do, the people we're trying to reach are going to ignore us.  Yes, this isn't fair (5 Again).  We need to persuade people that we're in the right, and starting with emotional arguments that immediately turn them off to our message (like "[insert Progressive politician's name here] is Evil") won't work;  they voted for the guy, of course they're not going to accept our claim that his policies are harmful just on our say so!  Fighting the battle of language is a difficult proposition, and one that will take a lot of work.  Unless we give it our full effort, it's probably a losing battle.(Rule 2).

With regard to the Conservative bloggers, the policy disagreements have escalated into emotional disagreements (Rule 3), and the bloggers are spending time and effort to fight each other because they have an emotional stake in beating the other guy.  It's led both to make stupid mistakes which infuriate the other side even more, escalating the tensions further.  More importatntly, defeating the other conservative blogger doesn't help enact conservative policies and conservative politicians (Rule 4).

Posted by: Civilis at 09: 51 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The Rules of Discourse

I have the annoying tendency to try to break down things into hard-and-fast rules.  Once I know the rules, I can theoretically find the loopholes, gaps, and tricks that allow me to gain an advantage.  Alas, this doesn't always work in the real world.

Two exceptional blogs, which shall remain nameless, have reduced themselves into a mindless feud over a series of ultimately minor debates which all come down to the question of which rules actually apply.

On the one hand, allowing observers to define what you say to suit themselves is a recipe to have the perpetually offended shut down conversation.  If you can define what I said, then there's no way I can debate you, because you can always define away my statements into meaninglessness or into something that can be used against me.

On the other hand, allowing people to exclusively define what they say means that there is no way to hold people to a position.  If I can redefine my position after I've stated it by claiming that your interpretation of my words is wrong and I really said something completely different.  As long as I can juggle words, I can be all things to all people.

Strictly applying either rule breaks the ability to have debate.  The world is full of undefinable gray areas.

More importantly, the more effort we devote to battling our allies, the harder it gets to fight our enemies.

[Rant Mode Off]

Posted by: Civilis at 08: 35 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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The Geek Canon: The Classics

A number of other geek blogs (including Chizumatic, Wonderduck, and Avatar) have weighed in on what, exactly, the geek canon consists of.  What books, movies, games, etc., should I assume that most geeks have heard of?  Different posters have, of course, tackled the problem from different directions.

Movies are great for quotes, as the way the quotes are said and the surrounding context are as much a part of the humor as the quotes themselves.  Book quotes don't have that added punch, so if you're trying to look for quotes as shared context, the amount that comes from books is necessarily going to be insignificant compared to the amount that comes from movies.

My take on the problem is confusing.  I'm not necesssarily interested in which quotes are important for geeks (aside from stating that everyone has forgotten Ghostbusters, which seems to be one of the top sources of random dialog quotation interruptions whenever I'm interacting socially friends).  What I am interested is which ideas and concepts are important for geeks to know.

I have, again, been talked into running a RPG for a circle of friends.  The setting requires some background knowledge of mythology.  How much mythology do I assume my players know?  I can assume that most players will know the major gods of the Greek pantheon, and their associated spheres.  That doesn't take much academic knowledge;  a couple of episodes of Xena should provide that much.  But how much Norse or Egyptian mythology should I assume?  The source doesn't really matter.  When watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail, everyone laughs at the Wooden Rabbit scene.  What's important is they don't need to remember the Illiad to get the fundamental joke.

I assume that most geeks will get the following 'classical' references:
1. The Greek pantheon and their associated spheres of influence, as well as prominent mythological characters.
2. Major members of the Norse and Egyptian pantheons, and a couple of major characters from the Babylonian, Hindu, and Japanese pantheons.
3. Basic Old Testament Biblical mythology: Adam and Eve, Noah, and Moses.
4. Basic New Testament mythology: Jesus, Christmas, the Apostles, Judas, basic Revelations.
5. Basic post-Biblical Christian mythology: Dante's Satan and Hell, Faust
6. The major players of Camelot: Arthur, Merlin, Excalibur (most likely in Monty Python form)
7. The basic Robin Hood legend, even if in Kevin Costner form
8. Recognize major characters and lines from Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and MacBeth (Shakespeare being a playwright, he writes better snappy memorable spoken dialog than most authors).
9. The basics of Stoker's Dracula, Shelley's Frankenstein, and Doyle's Sherlock Holmes.

That's what came off the top of my head.  It's amazing what and where these things get referenced.

Anime fans should also know the basics of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms and the Journey to the West.  It's odd, but I suspect that Biblical imagery shows up more often in anime than in modern Western geek culture.  From Evangelion to Xenosaga, it's hidden in a lot of places.

Posted by: Civilis at 08: 25 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Bomb Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran....

No, not seriously.  Well, perhaps a little.

Right now, Iran is seriously close to building a nuclear arsenal.  This is a Bad Thing.  Iran may or may not use a nuclear weapon against Israel.  On the one hand, the President of Iran has repeatedly said that he's going to do so.  On the other hand, given that the Mullahs really run the country, he might not have the power to do so.  This is a moot point.  (It's not a moot point to the Israelis, of course.  Iran using nuclear weapons against Israel would be a Really Bad Thing regardless of what happens afterwards.)

I'm not actually referring to that, at least in the specifics.  In the general case, it's more complicated than that.  We troglodyte neo-conservatives have been assured by the people that know better that deterrence will prevent Iran from using their nuclear weapons, and that deterrence is a good thing.  But is it?  We are stating that if Iran uses nuclear weapons, we are willing to annihilate the country of Iran.  Wipe it off the map.  Fuse it into glass, then polish it off with Windex.  We are willing to kill 65 - 70 million people, many of them women and children, many who might not approve of their government's actions, because that's what nuclear deterrence is.  And that's not talking about the fallout, or the environmental destruction.

Personally, if I was president, I don't know if I could give that order.  I'd, with one action, be responsible for the deaths approximating the total casualty figures for the second world war.  And what's worse is that, intellectually, I know that not being willing to push that button means that, likely, more people will die in the end.  And that wavering on my ability to push the button means it's more likely that I'd have to make that terrible decision.

Recently, at mass, during the intercessions, the priest prayed for nuclear disarmament.  I couldn't join in.  Imagine if that prayer for nuclear disarmament was magically granted, and, poof, all nuclear weapons vanished.  The first country to rebuild their arsenal wins, because they get to use them.  Alright, the magic wish removes all nuclear weapons and the capacity to rebuild them, ever.  Well, then, what other deterrant weapons are available?  Chemical weapons are the old standby, and quite nasty, but you can't go wrong with biological weapons.  The purpose is the same: guarantee that in the event of a war, your opponent can't win.  A terrorist group with access to smallpox could conceivably easily beat my hypothetical 65-70 million death toll.  Well, then, the magic wish removes all weapons of mass destruction, both current and all hypothetical future ones.  What does war look like?  What did war look like before nuclear weapons?  Hark back to 1944, and tell me you'd rather be a soldier or civilian in a war zone then.  War was won by the states able to mobilize the biggest population, the biggest industry, and the most morale.  Nuclear weapons mean that any state, no matter how big, can still lose.  It also means that loser states like Iran can opt to take their enemy with them.  During that mass, I prayed instead for a world that would be safe enough for nuclear disarmament.

Iran, specifically, is a bad egg.  They've turned to proxy warfare to be able to hurt a country that could wipe the floor with them in a conventional conflict.  Iran with a nuclear arsenal would be able to expand their support for proxy warfare by massively increasing the threshold at which we would be willing to respond with conventional force.  In the aftermath of 9/11, Afghanistan refused to hand over bin Laden, and the US invaded.  Would we have invaded if Afghanistan had a small nuclear arsenal?  Even if they couldn't hit the US directly, they would be able to threaten US forces in the theater, US allies and other regional targets.  An Afghani government that faced defeat by the US would have no reason not to use a nuclear arsenal that it was going to lose anyways.  Any president that had that happen on their watch is not going to get re-elected.  And so it goes with Iran: a nuclear armed Iran would be untouchable for anything less than the use of nuclear weapons, and even a domestic democratic revolution would be a major threat to regional peace.

Posted by: Civilis at 09: 01 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Katsucon 15

While I work on fleshing out a long post on the stimulus and economics, I return to a more important subject: anime!

Last weekend, I attended Katsucon 15 in Arlington, VA.  Katsucon was always the odd one out of the local anime conventions.  Anime USA has always been the small local con, and Otakon has always been the big show.  Katsucon was more about the social aspects of American Otakudom.  It's got a higher percentage of cosplayers, for one.

It also made the Washington Post this year, on the front of the style section.  Saturday morning, I was asked if I was attending the convention listed in the paper, and made the mistake of answering "yes" before reading the article.  Big mistake... the big selling point of the article was about the maid cafe being run at the con, which was not one of the attractions I visited.

I had a chance to meet two of my favorite web comic artists, Brad Guigar of Evil, Inc. and the always irrepressable Phil Foglio of Girl Genius.  I purchased autographed books from both to add to my collection.

As for the current state of anime:  Naruto fans were rarer than previous cons  Bleach is still overwhelmingly the most represented, although the Soul Eater crowd was out in force as well.  The cosplayers for Bleach, Soul Eater, and a couple of the second-tier series such as Revolutionary Girl Utena, Gurren Lagann, and Ah! My Goddess seemed to pick a more diverse cast of characters and outifts than previous cons.

Katsucon seemed to have less Western-inspired cosplayers, with the mos prominent being a handful from Team Fortress, a couple of Jokers, and a couple of V's.  That is, except for a large number of  Avatar fans, which really exist on the continuum between anime and Western characters.  There were a few notable oddities: Carmen Sandiego was spotted in the company of Waldo, the Vault Dweller came out, and there were a few characters from the upcoming Watchmen movie.  Oddly, there was a girl that didn't look to be out of high school dressed as Hunter S. Thompson from Fear and Loathing in Los Vegas. 

Posted by: Civilis at 07: 33 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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To Fail or Not to Fail?

...That is the question we are posed with.  Is it patriotic to wish the president to fail?

Ultimately, most people on both sides want the United States to succeed.  Wanting the United States to fail is, by definition unpatriotic.  But if you believe that having the president succeed at his political agenda ultimately means the country as a whole will fail, then hoping the president fails at his agenda is ultimately patriotic.  It all reduces down to a policy debate on the relative  merits of the president's political agenda.

 Note that I leave the position in the above formulation, rather than a name.  The formulation should apply no matter which president is in office.  Those who complain about failures now are those that were complaining about endless negativity then.  Stick to debating policy, and let rhetoric be rhetoric.  If it was fair last time, it's still fair this time.

Now, as many would suppose, I have my own views on the soundness of the policies being debated, and the fairness of the debates, but that's a matter for another time.

Posted by: Civilis at 08: 56 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Superbowl Weekend Thoughts

I think too many conservative pundits are attributing the decline in the fortunes of much of modern mass media to viewer frustration with media bias, or even just the poor quality of reporting overall.  I think this misses a major cause of media decline, one that affects the small online media as well as the larger print and broadcast media. Appropriately enough for this weekend, the relevant factor is the increasing ineffectiveness of advertising.

I've seen stories about advertisers scaling down for the Super Bowl this year, and it's too easy to blame that on the economic conditions (although that is certainly a factor).  I think advertising is becoming less effective because it has become over saturated, as I've said before.  With advertisers scaling back their advertising, media budgets for all media are dropping.

The big hit movie the past couple weekends has been Paul Blart: Mall Cop, which certainly wasn't expected to be a hit and certainly lacked advertising support.

Part of the factor with regards to Superbowl advertising, specifically, is that those people looking to watch for the good ads now have a better option, YouTube, and can focus on the best advertisers.  Excellent advertisements are now an art form in their own right, but do they sell anything?  And advertisements that aren't excellent are lost in the massive amount of advertising we've learned to turn out.

Update 2/5:  From what I'm told, the most successful ad of the Superbowl was a Doritos contest winner inviting fans to submit their own ads.  Total budget for production?  $2000.

Posted by: Civilis at 07: 24 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Please Stand By...

Posting to resume shortly...

Posted by: Civilis at 09: 06 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Please Stand By...

Stupid election.  Stupid politics.  I hate it, but I can't turn away!  The final 'best of the best anime' to follow eventually.

Posted by: Civilis at 08: 42 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Great Anime: Magic Girls and Rich Boys

Continuing with my list of five recent anime series I consider to be great, I present my reasoning behind the next two series, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha (including it's first sequel, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's) and Ouran High School Host Club.

Along with Mecha and Giant Robot series, the Magical Girl subgenre is a long-time staple of anime.  The long-established generic plot formula is as follows: seemingly ordinary schoolgirl has encounter with cute and fuzzy magical being that grants or unlocks magical power via a magic item that is used to save the world from the forces of darkness by fighting monsters and recovering lost magical artifacts, often with the help of similar-powered friends;   ultimately the powers of love, peace, and friendship are what see the heroine(s) through to the end.  Often, following the basic tenets of a genre leads to a derivative series indistinguishable from others like it; the greatness in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha is that the series manages to redefine the genre while remaining true to the basic genre plot elements.  There have been three iterations of the series so far.  Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, taken on it's own, is good but not great, due to a slow start.  When added to it's first sequel, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's, the series becomes great.  (The third series, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Strikers, is somewhere between mediocre and good; it's a distinct enough series in setting and type that I'm not including it here.)

The Plot is where the series really ends up standing out.  The first couple of episodes of the first series are setup, and fairly standard explanation for the genre.  Nanoha runs into Yunno, the cute fuzzy mage, who tells her she's got magical power, asks for her help in recovering the lost magic jewel seeds  which can magically mutate things into monsters which might people and gives her her magic weapon, and Nanoha, the good little heroine accepts. 

Nanoha proceeds to defeat some monsters and recover some lost seeds, and everything is standard for the genre.  And then, with Nanoha "battling" a giant cat, out of nowhere comes the voice of another magic weapon...  "Photon Lancer - Full Autofire"...  and we meet Fate, and nothing in the series is ever the same. 


Rival opposed magical girls are not a new idea, but the execution in this series goes well and beyond what is expected; while Nanoha is clearly the heroine, it is obvious right from the start that Fate is definitely not evil.  The fights are often described as being choreographed as if for a mecha anime, with rapid midair combat.  Behind it, of course, is still the genre exemplars of "love, peace, and friendship" but the series unofficial motto is definitely "shoot first, make friends later".  Add in the Time-Space Administration Bureau (basically the magic cops), and their Magic Boy, and the fact that Nanoha's mundane friends and family notice somethings amiss and are worried, and you have a surprisingly complicated plot, with a satisfyingly emotional ending.

With the second series, Nanoha and Fate are the heroines, presented almost right from the start with a no-holds-barred fight with two superior, hostile and aggressive opponents with a nasty and painful conclusion.  Again, more of the spectacular and dramatic fights.  Again, the plot is complicated by our knowledge of the opponents motivations, which are not necessarily evil.  Big spoiler:

The Characters feel right for the series.  Nanoha begins the series in many respects as the archetypal magical girl, but there is enough depth in her relationships with her mundane friends, her family, and her enemies that she goes beyond the stereotype.  Fate always seems a little too emotionless, but she fits the role in the story.  The other supporting characters are fleshed out and likable.  One character deserves special mention, though it is a major spoiler:


The Setting is well done; Nanoha's home, school and town are fleshed out.  The Time Space Administration Bureau facilities have a very 'sufficiently advanced technology' feel, which goes with the designs for the magic weapons.  There is a major magical disruption in the course of the first series which gets rapidly forgotten despite causing significant damage, and there is a very noticeable section with a different animation style in the first two episodes, but by the latter half of the first series and throughout the second, things tend to work better.

Ouran High School Host Club is also in many ways an advanced member of an established anime genre, the Shoujo Reverse Harem genre.  (For those of you who don't speak Otaku, that means it's a show meant for girls / women, which features a girl and her collection of potential boyfriends).  I was introduced to it by a fellow early-thirtysomething male Otaku, and I quickly figured out why; it's an excellent satire of its own genre.  The screaming anime fangirls that idolize this sort of series are also one of the objects of its humor.

The Plot is a twisted take on Shaw's Pygmalion.  As Eliza Doolittle, we have Haruhi Fujioka, token commoner at the richer-than-rich Ouan Academy, who accidentally breaks a valuable vase belonging to the aforementioned Host Club, which consists of six of the richest, handsomest, and most... unique... male students at the school and whose sole purpose is entertaining the school's female population.  Haruhi is eventually drafted as a stand-in host to pay off the debt to the club, unfortunately before all of the club members are aware that Haruhi is a girl, not a boy.  The club, then, must pass off a poor girl as a rich boy so that she can pay her debt (and because at least one may be developing a crush on Haruhi, the one female immune to the club's charms).  Cue the legion of screaming fangirls.  There is no coherent series plot until near the end, but the character development in between sets up a dramatic conclusion, while the character development is well handled and evenly spaced throughout the series.


The Characters are what make the series great, in part because of their depth and because of their interactions and development.  All but one of the main characters are very much showing one face to the world of screaming fangirls and another face towards each other and us.  Haruhi is trying to play the part cast for her by the club, and at the same time, struggling to manage with the wealth and cluelessness of most of the other club members.  Tamaki Suoh, the club president, is very much the only person in the series true to himself, as the charming, outgoing, impulsive, optimistic and ultimately likable driving force behind the club and most of the subplots that make up the story.  More importantly, the story itself makes light of its own duplicity with characters as well as that of the genre as a whole.  There's a fun episode where the club's hopelessly obsessed and somewhat nutty self-proclaimed manager attempts to fit the club as the cast in her own vision of what the club members should be like, only to run straight into the vast concealed depths beneath a few of the characters.

The Setting is well executed.  Of the three recent anime series featuring high schools for the rich and famous, Ouran Academy brings out the most vivid version, with the elaborate gardens, fancy architecture, and myriad details into how the very wealthy could live.  At the same time, the series often wanders far afield, into such exotic but detailed locations as the supermarket or the local shopping mall.  Of the five series listed, Ouran does spend the most time on comedy touches like exaggerated facial features, comedic lighting and backgrounds, dream sequences and looks into the character's imaginations and the omnipresent charm effects like sparkles, but the effect to me does enhance the satirical feel of the series.

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Great Anime: Overview and a Melancholy Tale

In my last post, I regarded five recent anime series as great, and I've decided to break up my explanation of which series and why into three separate posts.  Posts two and three will probably not be completed earlier than next week;  I have a brief vacation to Washington state this weekend.

I find that on one level, greatness is impossible to explain.  A great anime just is; the pieces just fit together right.  On the other hand, there are common threads linking the five anime I think turned out the best of the recent series, and that's enough to start from.

As an arbitrary categorization, I've decided to look at three "factors": Setting, Characters and Plot.  All five series stand out in at least one of these areas, but none in all three.  I don't expect a series to be perfect, but it has to stand out in some way from the rest.  More importantly, a series can't fail in any of the three categories if it expects to be great.

Setting is the depth of the world of the series.  At a basic level, it is the detail in the world behind the characters and plot.  It is in part the artistry of the series, the use of color, scene arrangement and style to emphasize the other factors.  It's also a consistent and logical background for the world beyond what is strictly necessary for the backstory.  It can also be a sense that the story extends beyond what is seen on screen.  A good setting is one that makes the watcher believe that the story doesn't take place on a (metaphorical) sound stage, but in a living world.  For me, a great setting is one that, for all I know intellectually that the whole thing is a work of fiction, makes me emotionally want to go there and experience that.

Character is the depth of (obviously) the characters in the series.  A good character should be obvious.  The cardinal rule of characters should be that the author's intent for the character much match the audience's reactions to the character.  (Paging Jeff Goldstein: intentionalism at work!)  Some series fail because the author's visions of the characters and the ways they interact differs strongly from the ways the audience views the characters and the ways they should act.  A classic anime example of this is Love Hina: the protagonist, Keitaro, is stuck with an obviously abusive relationship with Naru because of the author's focus on his predestined relationship, while the audience mostly seems to think he should stick with Mutsumi (though he loses his frequent flier miles).  A great character should be larger than life; in most cases, this means one of two things: either the character fully personifies a standard anime archetype, or transcends the archetypes entirely.  A great character exists to some degree independent from the series from which they come.

Plot is the story elements, both the pacing and execution of individual elements in an episode and the overall story as a whole.  A good plot should be logical given the characters, at least in retrospect.  On an episodic level, the action or drama should flow smoothly.  On a series level, events should build off of each other to a dramatic climax.  A great plot goes beyond what is expected, using foreshadowing and plot themes to accentuate the story, and making action pieces that are exciting and dramatic pieces that elicit an emotional reaction.

These are all gray areas of arbitrary categorization; it's impossible to separate the character development of a good character from the plot that drives the drama, and a plot scene must reflect the setting it takes place in.

When I mentioned that I regarded The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya as a great anime, I included a caveat.  In hindsight, Otaku seem to be divided regarding the series; while it was impressive when it was first released, a number have now changed their opinions after sobering up.  While I still think it to be a great series, I think it lies perilously close to the border between Great and Mediocre (as opposed to the longer border between Great and Good).

The Setting is good enough, while not great.  It's mostly a standard Japanese high school.  The school, however, is colorful and dynamic.  The club room where much of the story takes place evolves over time to reflect the events of the story.  Unnamed students are visible and normal.  There are a variety of non-school locations used, which are not skimped on.  The second episode makes interesting use of a washed-out image to highlight Haruhi's introduction.  All in all, nothing spectacular, but all beyond the minimum.

The Plot is half of what puts the series on the border between great and mediocre.  The only reason the series-level plot doesn't completely bomb is that the episodes are not in chronological order, as the dramatic climax in the series is actually relatively early chronologically.  As it is, deficiencies in the series-level plot are made up for by the occasional excellence in the episode-level plot for a couple of the episodes.  The "Day of Sagittarius" episode is completely unconnected to the larger series plot, yet serves as a very well-written plot for pushing character development.  The school festival episode is full of little bits and pieces of plot excellence that only really show up when re-watching the episode.  Finally, the series has one of the best five-or-so minute bits of plot-animation in any recent anime.  Caution: Big Spoiler:

Several of the Characters in the series are what really make the series great.  Ironically, Haruhi Suzumiya herself is not great, and nearly relegates the series to mediocre all by herself.  She's not all that likable a character through much of the series, despite being the title character.  In a similar dynamic to Love Hina, her predestined relationship with Kyon is, at least through the series, something not desired by the audience.  The difference between Kyon and Keitaro is that at some level, Kyon seems to be fighting his destiny through his relationship with two great characters, Yuki and Mikaru.

I spoke earlier that some great characters seem to personify the standard anime archetypes.  Mikaru is, at some level, Moe incarnate.  She takes half a dozen of the stereotypical male attractors and combines them with a likable personality.


Yuki, likewise, has taken over a standard anime archetype, the quiet, seemingly emotionless one.  To some degree she's larger then life because of her absence of outward signs of personality for most of the series, which makes those occasions where some emotion is briefly visible deep down inside all the more poignant.


Neon Genesis Evangelion was a series that could have been great.  I believe it failed in its attempt toward the end of the plot.  But no one can deny that some of the characters it spawned were great archetypes and grew beyond the end of the series (in part because of aggressive  marketing on Gainax's part).  For a long time, Rei Ayanami was the archetype for the quiet, seemingly emotionless one, while Asuka Soyru-Langley was the archetype for the overly active, intimidating, pushy and loud Lucy van Pelt type.  In my opinion, Yuki has unseated Rei, while Haruhi failed to unseat Asuka from the archetype exemplar, but not for lack of trying.

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The Top Five: Preview

Pete Zaitcev has an iconic representation of his favorite anime up, which challenges me to post something I've been working on for a while.  I'm not finished yet with the post, but it's a discussion of five recent anime I've enjoyed that I think will remain great in the long run.

The five are:
5. Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (before I get flamed on this one, let me say in advance that this series gets a big asterisk after it in the record books).
4. Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha and Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's.
3. Ouran High School Host Club
2. Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann
1. Aria (all three seasons)

It's hard to compare older series, as nostalgia values for series I enjoyed back in the day inflate some series compared to current offerings.  Irresponsible Captain Tylor is one of my favorite anime of all times, but comparing it to modern series is unfair.  Even Azumanga Daioh, which is relatively recent, feels odd when compared to recent releases.

My rankings are, also, my own.  As I tell everyone that asks me what is good to watch, everyone's tastes are different.  No two Otaku will ever agree on what series are good and which stink.

I've found that in large part, I'm drawn to series that look good.  While good characters and a good story are important, I tend to emphasize visually distinctive and attractive series.  I am remarkably inept at expressing myself visually, so I tend to be in awe of studios that can use their talents to produce a visual feast.

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Indigestion 2008 I: the Signs of Politics

Now that Virginia is regarded as in play for this election, it's interesting to watch the progress towards the election as it shows up in the landscape of Northern Virginia (and it's roadways).

I saw my first Obama/Biden election sign off one of the exits on 66 last Tuesday.  Aside from the four small signs in the area of the overpass, I haven't seen any other Obama/Biden signage or decor.  This makes sense, to some degree, because Biden may as well be Generic Democrat as far as the election is concerned.  Obama himself is all that is needed to sell the ticket.  When I was in Baltimore for Otakon, the shopping area in the inner harbor had a Urban Outfitters store with a prominent wall devoted to Obama merchandise.  He has become something of a iconic figure in his own right.  Biden isn't needed to sell the ticket.

I saw my first McCain/Palin bumper-sticker last Friday morning, and have been seeing McCain / Palin signs and bumper stickers popping up all over the place since.  Actually, I saw a "Women for Palin" sticker on the back of a minivan last Wednesday; it seems so odd to have a VP candidate capable of standing separately from the Presidential candidate to sell the party ticket.

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Seven Years Ago

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Anime: Top Five's

Since everyone is doing it, my top five picks:

Top Five First Episodes:
Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha A's
Ouran High School Host Club
Noir
Soul Eater
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex

Top Five Final Episodes:
Irresponsible Captain Tylor
El-Hazard: The Magnificent World
Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha A's
Aria: the Origination
Dual!

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Election 2008 I

When playing a game, you start by devising a strategy.  To devise a good strategy, you take a look at the rules, the initial conditions, your own and your opponents strengths and weaknesses.  From that, you can identify what you should start out doing to carry out that strategy.

The problem is that your opponent has a strategy, and makes plans based around what he thinks your strategy will be.  If he's good, he will have anticipated your plans and come up with a way to use them against you.  Luck also plays a factor; sometimes things won't go your way.  In some cases, carrying on with your strategy is still the best bet.  In most cases it is necessary to make minor adjustments while keeping the general framework of your initial plan.  Sometimes it becomes necessary to scrap the whole thing and try something else, often something that is quite risky, something that would be quite a poor bet if it had been your initial strategy.

In a game, when your opponent, or one of your opponents, chooses to change to a risky plan in mid game, it can affect everyone else's plans by opening up new options and fundamentally changing the nature of the game.  I've played a number of games where players have the safest path by choosing a logical strategy, with a little luck and skill determining which of the safe players comes out ahead.  If one player chooses a risky strategy, skill becomes irrelevant for any of the other players and may even be counterproductive, making it a viable strategy for a player with little luck.

What we have in the 2008 Presidential elections is a case where both major parties have dropped the usual logical, safe strategies for risky ones.  It's come down to which sound bites are more effective and which candidates will catch on with the population at large, factors largely beyond the control of the party strategists.  A crafty PR person might be able to slightly shift the flow of public opinion at this point, but I feel that it's all in the hands of the public from this point forward.  I'm going to sit back and watch the fun.

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