Holy cow! My local library has all kinds of great comics stuff available through inter-library loan! The fact that this is news to me is kind of embarrassing, but I’m glad I know it. I just requested ‘Blankets’ by Paul Thompson and am already looking to get stuff by Joe Sacco and Los Bros Hernandez, some Krazy Kat stuff, Persepolis, and all kinds of other things. Perhaps some of the superheroey stuff that I enjoy reading, but don’t usually buy.

Of course, I’d rather buy all this stuff, both because I want to support the creators and because I like having graphic novels on my shelves, but there’s nothing stopping me from also buying them when I have the fundage, since I do enjoy reading stuff over and over.

I guess the reason this never really occurred to me was my experience with comics at the library in the past. Apart from a few ragged Superman graphic novels, there was never much available. (Though I did first get to read Little Nemo courtesy of the Illinois State University library.) But libraries and comics have both growed up a bit, I guess, and I imagine it doesn’t hurt being in a more metropolitan area now. So yay! Free comics! Huzzah for being able to read stuff I can’t afford yet or am not sure I want to purchase!

Modern Myths, my shop, has nothing to worry about. I imagine I’ll still spend just as much money, only better focused. Now that I don’t have to spend money to try out an unknown graphic novel, I can aim that money at more volumes of stuff I already know I like, like some more manga or Usagi Yojimbo TPBs or whatever. And also I can buy my own copies of things I got from the library and want to own.

So huzzah!

Former Iraq administrator sees decades-long U.S. military presence

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, the former interim administrator of post-conflict reconstruction efforts in Iraq, said Thursday that a U.S. military presence in Iraq should last “the next few decades,” but questioned the mix of forces already there and current plans to reconfigure the armed forces as a whole.

Echoing concerns raised by lawmakers at this week’s defense budget hearings, Garner said in an interview with National Journal Group reporters and editors that the size of the Army and Marine Corps should be increased by enlarging the infantry or ground forces. And he warned that the current strain on National Guard and Reserve forces deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan could cripple efforts to retain experienced soldiers.

I completely fail to understand the point of the primary in our electoral process. I know that it was supposed to take the nominations out of the hands of smoke-filled rooms and give some power to the people, which is always a nice thing, but I’m perplexed by a system that requires candidates to dismember their colleagues while the incumbent sits back and enjoys the show. I see no reason why the candidates should have to drain their coffers to fight each other while Bush sits happily on a massive war chest. I keep hearing things about candidates “proving their mettle” and insuring that only the really strong contenders survive, but this doesn’t seem like Darwin to me so much as Thunderdome.

It also seems to me to be the politic of the lowest common denominator. Instead of rallying around issues and causes, the race becomes — once again — a simple, country-wide gag test. Which of these candidates annoys people the least?

And with that, Howard Dean is out. Which is a shame, because I liked Dean. I could actually see myself voting for Dean. I liked that he was all fired up. I don’t know why he went from 60 to zero in about four seconds — I know there’s all sorts of conspiracy theories floating around as to who killed Dean off, but I haven’t seen anything concrete from any of them. If he’s truly out of the race, though, I’m glad he lasted long enough to set the tone for the Democrats. Bush seems to think that if he knocks you on the head with a pipe and steals your wallet, it’s wrong for you to complain about it. “Why are all those Democrats so angry?” the Republicans scratch their heads and wonder. Well, guys, it’s because we haven’t been duped into thinking that when good things happen to rich people, everyone benefits.

Enter John Kerry. I don’t like him. He truly, truly bugs me. Oh, I’ll vote for the guy — if the Democrats nominate a small piece of string I’ll vote for it, because it can’t be any worse than Bush — but I don’t like him, and if he gets elected I’ll keep a close eye on him. Call me a skeptic, but Democrats who voted for NAFTA, the Patriot Act, handouts for the wealthy, and the Iraq War make my skin crawl. If Kerry gets elected, expect another Clinton act, where the Republicans register unwavering disgust for a guy who pretty much gives them everything they want.

And then Nader wanders in as though he was paged. Fortunately few people are falling for this again. You’re a lovely guy, Ralph, and you’ve done a lot of good for us, but sit down. There’s too much at stake here right now for you to start meddling in it. Believe me, if I want to vote for an independent candidate I will try to get Kucinich to run as one before I’m going to go to you. Priority one is getting these liars, thieves, and cheats out of the White House and then we can work on more.

It’s going to be a hard slog. Bush has already started with the attack ads filled with lies. Check out this Daily Howler piece — scroll down to “Easily Spun”. This is going to get even uglier, and I’m not sure Kerry has the steel for it. His voting record and current claims depict someone who simply hops on whatever the current trend is, and that’s not what’s going to win. But that’s what we’re probably going to get. So much for the strong candidates surviving.

I’ve always liked the movie Blade Runner, possibly more than I should, even though I never thought it was the utter classic that many geeks feel. There are some problems with it, but for the most part I like its messy charm. The Director’s Cut released later cleaned some of it up in some ways. Removing the awful voice-overs was a mixed blessing. On the one hand the VOs were silly and stated the obvious, but on the other hand they gave the film a nice patina of pulp that I liked. I personally would have preferred if they had been changed to different voice-overs instead of abandoned altogether.

The other major change in this cut was the infamous unicorn dream sequence. In it, Deckard dozes off and dreams of a unicorn running through the woods. At the end of the movie, of course, Gaff makes an origami unicorn. What does it mean?

To legions of fans, the implication was obvious: Deckard himself was a replicant. Gaff made the unicorn because he knew Deckard had dreamt of one. And the only way he could know this was if Deckard was a replicant.

For years I argued against this idea to no avail. And then in 2000, a full 18 years since the movie came out, Ridley Scott committed his crime: In an interview he “confirmed” that Deckard was, in fact, a replicant.

So. There you have it. The matter is settled, right?

Wrong. Wrong for a multitude of reasons.

I reiterate my fruitless argument against the idea of Deckard being a replicant, which is summed up thusly: it makes no goddamn sense. If Deckard is a replicant, presumably built to hunt other replicants, why does he suck at it? Leon only fails to kill him because Rachel shoots Leon from behind. Roy only fails to kill him because of reasons that are Roy’s alone. He’s terrible at this job.

Also, Scott’s explanation that the “missing replicant” is Deckard and not an editing glitch, also makes no sense. Six replicants escape, one of which is Deckard, but the other replicants don’t recognize him, he has no memory of the escape, and is hire to capture the others? Zuh?

Thirdly, if you leave out the unicorn dream scene, there’s absolutely zero ways to explain any of this from within the context of the movie. You can postulate and pontificate and speculate all you want about how exactly Deckard’s replicantness works, but you won’t get any shred of help from the actual movie. As far as the movie’s concerned, he’s a human guy who used to be good at this and is now off his game. That’s it.

Okay, so that’s the actual mechanical problems with Deckard being a replicant. There’s also the thematic ones. Some people like to claim that having Deckard be a replicant is the whole underlying question of the movie: what does it mean to be human? I agree about this underlying question. However, I would argue that it only matters if Deckard is human. With Deckard human, we contrast his own machine-like, emotionless life with that of the actual machines. We then are confronted with the idea that the replicants risk and lose it all just to get a taste of the bleak existence that Deckard takes for granted. We see the difference between machines that don’t know what it’s like to be human and a human who doesn’t remember. And at the end, when Deckard leaves with Rachel, who he now knows is a machine, the line between the two blurs even more. If this is all just the adventures of a bunch of machines, who cares? What difference does it make?

The only reason for Deckard to be a replicant is because you’re sitting in your garage saying “wouldn’t it be cool if Deckard was a replicant too?” which, yes, seems cool until you think about it for ten more seconds and then you realize it makes no sense.

Unless you’re Ridley Scott.

Eighteen years later he decides to “reveal the truth”. Never mind that it makes no thematic or plot sense. Never mind that there’s very little in the movie to support it. Scott pops up in an interview and “settles” the whole issue.

Sorry, Ridley, that’s not how it works. You had a chance to tell the story of replicant Deckard back in 1982 and you blew it. You had another chance when you released the Director’s Cut and you blew it again. Let me tell you how a movie is made, Mr. Scott. You get a script, and then you film people acting it out. There’s more to it than just giving an interview and telling people what it’s about. If you have to do that, you’ve failed at your movie.

It doesn’t matter at all what Ridley says in an interview. It doesn’t matter what issues are raised in the original book. What matters is what’s actually in the movie, and what’s actually in the movie doesn’t support what Scott claims is there.

So that’s it for my two biggest movie-related gripes, both involving directorial hubris. If I were to write a third in this series it would probably involve why Tim Burton’s Batman is a lousy movie, and I may yet do that, but for now I’ll put this to rest.

From today’s column:

What signal would it send to our highly motivated enemies should America change leaders in mid-war? One of the reasons the United States prevailed in World War II was the four terms to which Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected. Continuity at home helped prosecute and win the war against Germany and Japan. The stakes today are higher. We cannot afford trivial pursuits in presidential politics during wartime.

This isn’t a game. It is about the survival of the United States of America and the values associated with Western traditions. Rejecting an administration that has built a (so far) successful defense against terrorism following 9/11 in favor of one with no such experience could give America’s enemies a unique window of opportunity to hit us again, and harder.

In other words, since we’re in a War on Terror, one with no end in sight, let’s just go ahead and declare Generalissimo Bush “President For Life”.

No thanks. Why do all these Republicans hate America?

This is the first of two entries about two things in two movies that bug the hell out of me. I’m not a movie critic, I don’t want to be a movie critic, and I’m not a huge fan of movies in general. However, these two things, I think, are examples of horrible, horrible decisions on the parts of two moviemakers.

In a recent entry on the Star Wars DVDs I mention the travesty that is the “Greedo Shoots First” change made to Star Wars (a/k/a, Episode 4: A New Hope) in the so-called Special Edition. When the special edition first came out I was talking with someone who asked, essentially, “Aren’t you nitpicking? Does that really make that big of a difference?” (Nitpicking? ME?) The short answer is: “Yes, it does.” The longer answer is this entry.

Now, let’s be frank. It doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to point out that George Lucas perhaps has some shortcomings as a director. People have been pointing this out for some time, with the person providing the most evidence being Mr. Lucas himself. And I won’t even mention the prequels. But within the original trilogy there are two huge gaffes, both of which bug me, but one more than the other.

One of the mis-steps Lucas took in the original trilogy was making Darth Vader be Luke’s father. (Oh. “Spoilers!”) Shocking as the revelation was, it served to torpedo a lot of already established things (and I’m not even talking about Obi-Wan’s clunky “from a certain point of view” speech.) But I’m not here to talk about that. I’m here to talk about Greedo.

In the Special Editions, Lucas decided to change the scene where Greedo confronts Han in the cantina so that Greedo fires the first shot at Han and misses. This is a seemingly innocuous change, and yet represents ineptness as a moviemaker and disdain for the viewers. Why?

First off, let’s look at Lucas’ reasons for the change. It’s been said that he didn’t want to make Han into a cold-blooded killer. He wanted him to be “more heroic”. In addition, Lucas has said that the Special Editions represent his original artistic vision for the movie, a vision that the technology and money at the time was unable to provide.

The first rationale is what shows his failure as a storyteller and moviemaker. It reveals him as someone who doesn’t even understand his own creation, and underscores the fact that the success of the original Star Wars was a fluke. There isn’t a single person in the world who would call Han a cold-blooded killer in the original scene. He’s trapped in a booth, Greedo has his gun pointed at him, and Greedo has stated, point blank, that he intends to kill Han. There’s no denying this. Han does not up the stakes (in fact, he tries to talk his way out of this), Greedo does, and Han acts in self-defense. There’s no other way to read the scene. He shoots Greedo first because he has to or else Greedo will shoot him at point-blank range.

Lucas changes the scene so that Greedo fires first and Han’s shot is in response. This is ludicrous. A bounty hunter that can’t hit a sitting target he’s been aiming at for several minutes from only four feet away? This doesn’t make Han into a hero, it makes him into a moron, and a lucky one at that.

As for the “hero” angle, Lucas also displays his inability to distinguish heroics (something the Darth Vader-as-Luke’s-Father plot twist also shows.) Han is a hero because of the point in which his character arc begins. He starts as a self-interested loudmouth who becomes, through experience and a change of heart, a true hero. Even if you honestly felt that Han shot Greedo in cold blood, it would still serve to distinguish where he begins from where he ends.

Lucas’ second rationale shows his disdain for the viewer. Out of all of the changes in the Special Edition, the Greedo scene is the least justified due to primitive 70s technology. To argue that he always intended for Greedo to shoot first is to assume he’s talking to an idiot. There is absolutely no evidence of this. None of the scripts mention it. The novel and comics don’t mention it. Presumably the same 1970s technology that allowed a laser bolt to go from one side of the screen to the other could be used to reverse the direction of movement. Gary Kurtz, executive producer of the movie, has said this is a line of bull.

So what we have is inept meddling passed off as artistic triumph. Does it matter? Maybe not to most people. I grant that it doesn’t show anything we didn’t already know, but it shows it so succinctly, so clearly, so perfectly, that it’s a natural centerpiece for everything that’s wrong with Lucas and what he’s done with the one movie he accidentally did well. It matters, to someone who actually cares, because it encompasses, in one brief, seemingly tangential scene, the truth about George Lucas.

Now as I said, Lucas is an easy, obvious target. In the second part I’m going to rip into Ridley Scott, on why he and a bunch of drooling pseudo-intellectual fanboys are morons.

The following is a post from a blog called South Knox Bubba. It’s a quite damning list of Bush’s actual accomplishments in office, the ones he believes he should be re-elected as a reward for achieving. Some sources and links are in the original version. In my opinion, this is a message that should go around. It’s not subtle, but subtlety is a luxury we can no longer afford.

President’s Day

Today is the day we honor great American presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. George W. Bush is working furiously to secure his place in history alongside the greats. Here’s his updated list of accomplishments so far:

• Rigged an election in conspiracy with brother Jeb in Florida to take office.
• Appoints administration made up of former executives and government officials who helped Saddam develop WMD, were involved in illegal arms sales, traded with the enemy in violation of U.S. law, and whose companies now profit from war.
• Stonewalled GAO and Congress request for documents relating to Enron influence of Federal Energy Policy.
• Representing party of smaller government and less Federal spending, creates largest bureaucracy in U.S. history and signs largest entitlement spending program in U.S. history.
• Although recovering now, presided over a 30% loss in Dow Jones Industrial Average, nearly a 50% loss in NASDAQ, and a 33% loss in S&P 500, wiping out trillions in wealth. Despite a recent extended bull market, the markets have yet to recover back to where they were the day Bush took office.
• Presided over an increase in consumer debt to all time record high of over $2 trillion and an increase in personal bankruptcy filings to an all time high of 1.6 million households in 2003.
• Despite taking over after the longest and largest economic expansion in U.S. history, presided over the loss of more than three million jobs, with the highest unemployment in a decade and nearly nine million people out of work.
• Presided over the largest trade deficit in U.S. history, a record $489.4 billion in 2003, while the value of the dollar has reached an all time low against the Euro and the Yen.
• Presides over illegal arrest and detention and physical abuse of criminal suspects, who are held in secret without benefit of counsel without any charges.
• Signs “Patriot Act” that limits civil liberties and violates the Bill of Rights contained within the Constitution he took an oath to protect and defend.
• Despite inheriting an $80 billion surplus from the Clinton administration, turns it into a $2 trillion deficit with tax cuts, war, and out of control spending.
• Bush tax cuts could pay for hiring all nine million people out of work and pay them $40K for two years instead of benefiting wealthy.
• Gutted clean air regulations, allowing utilities and factories to continue polluting the atmosphere, calling it “Clear Skies”.
• Rolls back environmental reviews and opens national forests up to the logging industry, calling it “Healthy Forests”.
• Rolled back wetlands protection, reducing or eliminating regulations prohibiting pollution of wetlands, calls it “Clean Water Act”.
• Rolled back wilderness protections, opening up wilderness areas to logging, mining, other development.
• Promotes school vouchers to take taxpayer money away from public education and give it to wealthy families to send their kids to private and mostly religious schools.
• Adopts the Project for a New American Century’s strategy paper on Rebuilding America’s Defenses as the official U.S. National Security policy, a policy that calls for imperialist expansion in the middle east and hopes for a national catastrophe “on the scale of Pearl Harbor” to awaken the public to the dangers posed by not adopting this policy. Hires most of its authors to run the Pentagon and develop defense policy.
• Worst terrorist attack in history, and the worst attack on U.S. soil occurred on current administration’s watch, and Bush undermines efforts to investigate mounting evidence of numerous warnings that could have prevented it.
• Made speeches and signed laws promising more funding for shipping container inspections at U.S. ports to look for nukes and other WMD, then eliminated funding from budget.
• Allowed North Korean sale of Scud missiles to Yemen.
• Made deal with Iranian terrorist organization.
• Conducted preemptive unprovoked military invasion of sovereign state resulting in hundreds of military casualties and thousands of civilian deaths, deceived Congress and UN Security Council using “sexed-up” intelligence to justify.
• Claims two trailers used to make hydrogen for balloons, a vial of botox in some guy’s refrigerator, and some junk buried in some guy’s rose garden are “proof” of Iraqi WMD “programs”, or as they are later termed in his State of the Union, “weapons of mass destruction related program activities”.
• When U.S. weapons inspectors cannot find 25,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent, tens of thousands of chem/bio warheads, and an advanced nuclear weapons program in Iraq and say that in fact they probably never existed despite Bush telling Congress and the American people they posed a “grave danger” and Rumsfeld saying “we know where they are” and Powell showing the U.N. pictures of them, Bush says “What’s the difference?” and blames it on faulty intelligence.
• Proposes sweeping cuts in veteran’s benefits, instructs Veteran’s Administration to deceive veterans with regard to benefits available.
• Dressed in fighter pilot costume and flew military jet to aircraft carrier for stunt landing and political fundraising/campaign event despite having ticket pulled and being grounded for failing to take required physical and drug test and being curiously absent from his post during the Vietnam conflict.
• Declares victory in Iraq, yet soldiers die in Iraq every day, half the country has no electricity or water, attempts to install democracy failing miserably, WMD cannot be found, neither can Osama.
• Has destroyed American respect and credibility around the world. Unable to get assistance from France, Germany, or India to provide troops for additional security and peacekeeping in Iraq.
• Administration under investigation for illegally leaking the name of a covert CIA agent in retaliation for her husband exposing lies about Iraq’s nuclear weapons program. The CIA demanded an investigation after Bush’s denials.
• Proposes development of tactical nuclear weapons in violation of 1992 Senate ban which Bush worked to repeal.
• Begins privatization of Medicare disguised as prescription drug benefit.
• Tax cuts would fund health insurance for all 43 million uninsured Americans, including nearly ten million uninsured children.
• Pushes legislation to eliminate overtime pay for up to eight million American working people.
• Pushes legislation to limit medical malpractice claims to $250K, even if an incompetent doctor kills your wife or cuts off your legs instead of removing your appendix.
• Installs new Senate majority leader with ties to health care industry to shepherd through legislation benefiting corporate insurance and pharmaceutical pals.
• Pushes legislation to limit bankruptcy protections for consumers targeted by predatory lenders, but proposes no reforms for rogue corporations such as Enron that blow off creditors, employees, and investors at pennies on the dollar.
• According to a biographer, believes that he was selected by God to lead America and had preachers come to the Governor’s mansion in Texas to “lay hands” on him and pray for his future during his campaign.
• Appoints as U.S. Attorney General a fundamentalist Christian who believes he receives divine guidance directly from God and anoints himself with Crisco and who was defeated by a dead man in his failed U.S. Senate election campaign.
• Pushes legislation to fund faith based social programs, Congress rejects it, Bush issues executive order to allow Federally Funded local and state programs to hire or fire based on religion or ideology and to promote religion as part of delivering services.
• Declines invitation to NAACP convention, but addresses Southern Baptist Convention by satellite, calling them faithful servants and praying for them, while they adopt a policy that “homosexuals can find freedom from this sinful, destructive lifestyle” by accepting Jesus as their savior.
• Comments on Supreme Court homosexual rights decision, declares “marriage should be between a man and a woman”, proposes constitutional amendment in State of the Union address.
• Sends letter to Supreme Court urging them to strike down Affirmative Action programs, celebrates Strom Thurmond’s “remarkable life” and says he was a friend.
• Despite being at war around the world and under constant threat of terrorist attack at home, Bush has spent 27% of his presidency on vacation, taking more vacation days in his first three years than Clinton took in seven years.
• Plans on spending $200 million plus to get re-elected against challengers the GOP says are unelectable.

On the other hand, he captured Saddam, so we should all be proud to call George W. Bush our president on President’s Day. But if people are paying attention, he probably won’t be president on President’s day 2005.

This weekend’s GURPS Fantasy game ended on something of a cliffhanger. Well, I suppose it doesn’t count as a cliffhanger if the person has actually already fallen off the cliff, plunged 150 feet, and died…or did he? I’ve seen enough Doctor Who episodes to know that very often what looks like a perilous drop at the end of episode two might turn out to have a bit of scaffolding right underneath it at the beginning of episode three. (Two Geek Points if you can identify the story.) Is this the end of Fuzz the pseudo-Kender?

But I’m not here to talk about RPGs, though I’ll say that I really want the new Unearthed Arcana book, as well as the d20 Weapons Locker. I’m here to talk about other games. Becky doesn’t do the RPG thing, but she enjoys board and card games, and lately we’ve experienced a bunch of fun new ones.

We recently discovered Apples to Apples. which I already discussed here. This has quickly become a new favorite of ours, and is always good for a quick round of fun and laffs. We’ve also been getting a lot of mileage out of a two-player game, Starship Catan, which has the resource management and building aspects of the classic Settlers of Catan, but with a different flavor.

A few weekends ago we had dinner with TJ and Mary, and met another couple they’re friends with. There we played a game called Wise and Otherwise, a sort of Balderdash-type game involving bizarre proverbs from around the world. Very cool and funny. We also did a round of my new eBay acquisition, Scotland Yard, which we originally played with April and John back in Illinois. I was Mr. X, but didn’t succeed in avoiding the dragnet.

Lately we’ve been seeing good things come out of a company called Fantasy Flight Games. I mostly know them from their d20 Role-Playing Game supplements, but they have also been bringing in a lot of board games.

The first of their games I played was Cave Troll, a fun game about exploring a cave looking for gold. Becky and I have played it two-player, and enjoyed it, and then brought in two more players for a quite different game. It’s a nice game with a little bit of strategy, but not overwhelmingly complex. We then got Magdar, which we call “Balrog” because the premise is oddly familiar: Dwarves have mined too deep and awakened a demon of fire. However, these being Dwarves, the goal is to grab as much loot out of the mine as you can before the demon destroys everything. It’s also a lot of fun. Then, last weekend, Dan and Jen brought over Citadels, which was really interesting. Players are building a citadel comprised of various buildings, and each turn take on a different occupation, each with its own special ability. It was a really neat and subtle game, and I’m looking forward to playing again.

The games are very well done, with nice artwork and sturdy pieces. The box contains everything you need to play, including dice (hint hint, Steve Jackson Games.) All of them have been easy to learn and fun to play. And they’re not pricey: Most cost around $20, which is less than we have to pay to go see a movie. Dave T. has gotten the game Wreckage from them and says it too is a lot of fun. I’m looking forward to checking out more of these.

Speaking of Dan and Jen and games, we also got some Mahjongg on that weekend, which we’d been missing. Hopefully they enjoyed it enough to play again.

Speaking of Steve Jackson Games above, after concluding two recent GURPS sessions, TJ pulled out Illuminati. I hadn’t played that in years and forgot how much fun it was. I have fond memories of playing that with Anna, Kurt, and Chris back in the day, with Anna declaring that I was about to win and needed to be stopped — on turn two, when I was miles away from victory. That one might be a bit too cut-throat for Becky, but we’ll have to give it a try. I also got reminded of the Illuminati: New World Order collectible card game after reading a series of nutty conspiracy theories regarding it. Ironic, it being a game based on nutty conspiracy theories.

We’re lucky to know so many people who share this interest. I don’t know why boardgames aren’t more popular. They are usually no more expensive than other forms of entertainment except they can be used over and over with different results. And many, such as mahjongg, are good socializing games, where you can play while sitting around shooting the breeze. Viva los board games!