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Star Wars: Clone Wars

Max & I broke off and went and saw this movie tonight.  It was awesome.

For those of you not in the know, Cartoon Network ran a bunch of shorts a few years ago that were eventually released on DVD that covered some of the events of the Clone Wars, the stuff that happens between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.  They were extremely popular, and had a distinctive character style which blended well with Lucas' universe, being its own thing while maintaining continuity with the something else.  Anyway, they were good enough to spawn this, the CGI theatrical release currently unspooling at your local MegaUltraGoogolScreenPlex 4000.

Everything you have not enjoyed about the last three Star Wars films is not in here.  Not directed by Lucas, for starters.  No: People crying, standing around looking serious for minutes a time, people making tortured decisions and then explaining holy fuck out of them using wooden delivery - we've got none of that.  No whiny Anakin, either.  The one interaction between Padme and Anakin happens via holograpy.  We've got treacherous droids, fantastic light saber duels, backstabbing & androgynous Hutts, breathtaking action sequences, humor, Obi-Wan being super cool, Clone Troopers Rex & Cody proving that Clones have a soul, and most importantly, Ahsoka Tano, who is a breath of fresh air in terms of Star Wars characters.  She was great.  Not enough Mace Windu or Yoda, but what are you gonna do?

Max & I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, something we can't do together during every Star Wars movie.  It's not very cerebral, it doesn't want anything from you, there's no complex emotional content - and these are all good things from a movie about imaginary people who are fighting a laser-based war on mythical planets.  This is Star Wars not taking itself so fucking seriously.  And it's about time, too.

Twilight Saga

About a month ago now, I found myself in a bookstore.  This often happens.  I don't always leave the house with the bookstore destination in mind, but I end up there as a default after the other stuff I left to accomplish.  It's like my reward destination.  I had both kids with me, and as I was actually moving to leave, I noticed a large display for the midnight release of the book Breaking Dawn, by Stephenie Meyer.  I could tell nothing about it, other than it had a large chess piece on the front, and that it was surrounded in the display by several other books that had a similar appearance, all by Ms. Meyer.  "Ah. So - part of a series, then.  And it has a midnight release.  This is the fourth one?  Not everything gets a midnight release...I think I've actually been seeing these around.  Hmmm."

So I bought the first one.  Took it home, starting reading it, and it slowly dawned on me that I was decidedly not the target demographic for this thing.  The target demographic for these books would have to be teenage girls.  Reconciling this in any way you can repeat to others is not possible.  "Everyone's got a bit of teenage girl in them..."  Yeah, you see how creepy that is.  The first indication I had that these were not books designed for me was when the first time something happened where you would swear, no one swore.  They pointedly do not.  There are a lot more feelings in these books than the fiction I typically read, and one final clue: While the female protagonist is only very rarely described, I am quite filled in on every facet of every male character's physique.  They're all very attractive.  Ahem.

So they're contemporary gothic vampire novels written in a very smart, literate way that caters to a primarily female young adult audience, and I'm reading the fourth one now, the one that got my attention in the first place.  I'm hooked, what can I tell you?  And now I see that there's to be a film.  So I have arrived late for a phenomenon at which I don't really belong.  But I like these books, really.  These last three weeks, during which most of the rest of my day-to-day existence has undergone upheaval, have been vastly improved by my little escape portal into Forks, Washington, courtesy of Stephenie's books.

So, that's kind of like a review, then.  Without giving anything away.  Sure.

McCain the Privileged

Republican Candidate for President & Arizona Senator John McCain - shown here turning down money he simply doesn't need - and his allies are fond of painting Illinois Senator Barack Obama with the brush of privileged elitism.  They say Obama'd be nowhere, having done nothing, if not for his connections and conspicuous legs up along the timeline of his career.  Let's talk about that for a bit.

John McCain has money.  And houses, apparently.  Not his money & houses, mind you - Cindy's money.  Quite frankly, it's somewhat gauche to run on your own money - I'm looking at you, Mitt Romney.  Ross Perot was the first guy I knew of to do that, and he was actually a mythical creature, I believe now.  Ahem.  The point is, that the cash that was there to help him be an effective Senator, to travel and do his thing, is Cindy's.  When his wife's money is unavailable, there are always Federal funds from a system he tried once upon a time to overhaul.  But even when it looked as if those funds would not be available in time, stalwart McCain found a loophole, got himself a loan based on his donor list made up of people whose names he promised not to sell to anyone.  So he used the promise of money to borrow real money at a time when things appeared desperate for his campaign, breaking a promise and being secretive about it. 

Finally, the stock-in-trade of this man, this larger than life war hero, may not ever have come to pass if he were not the son and grandson of Navy admirals who bent the rules here and there to make sure he could get a boost to where he wanted to be.  How else can you explain the fifth from the bottom graduate from his class at Annapolis being given a fighter plane to fly?  And then being given plane after plane after crashing five of them?  And this is all with no disciplinary action. Like with Bush, it seems there is some bending of the rules for the favorite sons of wealthy and influential families when it comes to military service.  Of course, this is a long established American tradition, and the Right likes tradition.

To me - and this will bring the hate down on me from McCain supporters, but I figure if we can question Kerry's heroism and service, as the great Lenny Bruce once said; everyone's ass is up for grabs.  To me, this calls into question the fulcrum event of McCain's life.  Would he ever have been shot down, crashed his plane and been taken prisoner by the Viet Cong if he had been made to follow the rules and procedures like everyone else?  Probably he would have, but how can you know?  If he had been disciplined after mistakes and missteps, or even reassigned to something else?  Or what if he had never been given help by his family, and instead had just served on a laundry ship in the Gulf of Tonkin?  You all know I'm a fan of "what ifs," and maybe McCain's done so much since he got help that he's forgotten that no one gets anywhere alone in this world - no one is truly "self made."

Just Out of the Freezer

Just in time for the end of Summer, it's the New Cold War!  Right out of the freezer!  Or is this Cold War II?  And if it is, do we have to cast Sly Stallone in it somewhere?  Egads, I hope not.

The rule is, you don't go against Ivan in his homeland; fucked up Hitler, fucked up Napoleon.  No one wins a land war against Momma Russia on her own turf.  And yet, there are American troops in Georgia, the Monkeyface is quacking his pitiful lame duck noises, Condi Rice is talking smack at the Russkies, and for their part, the Russians are lying to the world's face as they "retreat," sort of, out of Georgia - forming alliances with the friendlies, sabotaging and burning as they go, leaving a watchful tank division or two behind.  They're nostalgic, you see.  They want their empire back.  They're looking around at the Americans, the old rivals, throwing their weight around on the global stage, sucking up all the news coverage with their silly election.  They're seeing China, on the world stage despite the havoc of a year filled with recalls, earthquakes, human rights abuses, lying to the press, lying to the world and supressing information, and they're thinking; "Hey - that used to be us."  So they want their empire back.  Hey - you would, too.  It was a big, nice empire.  Used to have eleven time zones.  Eleven.  That's ridiculous.

So they invaded Georgia, providing the world with a chance to be horrified and once again laugh at Dubya Monkeyface Bush and his creature, Condi Rice, as they decried Russia's gall as they "invaded a sovereign nation."  Because, of course, America would never do that, and certainly not unilaterally, and if they did, surely not without a plan for what would happen as destabilization occurs, as it often does, in an occupied country.  One wonders, once again, what passed between Bush and Putin way back when when they looked into each others' eyes and "saw something there."

This is a warm-up, of course.  Russia's in the on-deck circle for the Ukrainians.  Okay, yeah - this whole Georgia thing has been irking the Russians for a while, what with a couple of separatist regions, dropping out of the Commonwealth, and the fact that it's right there.  Like the tree in the Garden, really.  However, this muscle flex is really for the benefit of the world, but more specifically, the Ukraine.  If the Russians can invade Georgia, make people question their leadership there, and then leave when the feel like it - treaties and humanitarian aid from other parties notwithstanding, then they could maybe take Ukraine.  Maybe.  Lots more ground to cover, lots more people - but that's what practice is for.  Then, of course, Poland is right next door, and they're pissing the Russians off, too.  This decision to house part of our missile system getting done this past week - and they want to tell us that the timing is coincidental.  Bullshit.  Hammer out an agreement and announce it next week or next month, unless you're sending a signal to Ivan.  Please world, make up better lies.

So, yeah - maybe a new Cold War.  People will have to learn how to pronounce Medvedev, and we can get away from the ethnic overtones when we have bad guys in film and TV and stuff.  Russians are white, mostly, so you can kill them all day and no one says anything.  There'll be a resurgence in popularity for movies like Red Heat, Red Dawn, the Rambo films, Rocky IV, & Hunt for Red October, which I still love.  There's the whole downside of raising children with a constant spectre of potential global nuclear annihilation, but hey - you kind of missed that, too, right?

Right?

Black & White II

Hey.

I know, it's terribly gutter & non-literary to begin a blog post with "hey," but hopefully, you people have come to expect a low standard from The Squidbag and won't particularly notice me never having purchased a ticket for the formality train.  The school year has begun once again, and the end of Summer is therefore upon us.  I've never been a big fan of the official ends of the seasons - when kids go back to school and NFL pre-season games begin, Summer's over.  A new routine is therefore upon me.

I detest the "back-to-school" time of year.  I think since about the second grade, the grade my son just started.  I really can't, as a responsible father, go into that with him, so I'm trying to distract myself with funny little bullshit stuff, new music and vampire novels.  And some writing.

I have enjoyed the recent writing I've been able to do, and also the class warfare that ensued over in the comments field.  I also wandered over and looked at the "Black & White Equals Art" gallery on the side there again, and am inspired.  I will make all of you my same deal again: Send me your photos.  I will B/W them if they're not already, and I will make up poncey, overblown captions for them, arbitrarily picking a favorite.  That person will receive an "I'm a Ninja and You Suck" bumper sticker in the mail.

Email address is over on the left, there.

Jennifer & Her Zombie

(This was from an idea Max and I came up with together.)

Seven-year-old Jennifer Swivel's favorite holiday was Halloween.  This October 31st, Jennifer was Wonder Woman, so her legs were cold, and she kept wondering why, if you were an Amazon princess  & superhero, with an invisible jet plane and a lasso, and you could fight Superman, would choose to do so in an impractical American flag swimsuit?  Then she wondered where superheroes put stuff, since none of them had pockets.  Then she told herself to focus on the task at hand.

Jennifer was just leaving her thirteenth house, her dad and mom pokily following in their VW Rabbit at a respectful, big girl distance.  The thirteenth house was always Jennifer's lucky house on Halloween, and she had four good years to prove it.  You might get mediocre to downright crappy candy at twelve houses in a row, but House Thirteen was always going to yield something good.  Something so sugary as to be borderline disgusting.  Jennifer switched up houses, just to test the fates.  She hit different houses in a different order every year, counting on the twin spirits of Luck and Adventure to help her out with the Halloween Thirteen Rule.  Once the door closed, she barely touched the ground heading back to the street.  She got to the end of the sidewalk and checked the bag, surreptitiously, so no one would notice.

"YES!" She shout-whispered, spying the full-size Zero bar nestled within.  Jennifer loved Zero bars, and the rule equating smaller candy to "fun-size" had never really made sense to her.  Isn't more candy always more fun?  She turned onto the sidewalk, headed for the next house.  Behind her was a pack of assorted witches, ghosts, superheroes, and one big kid in the most realistic zombie costume Jennifer had ever seen.  She dropped back and let them catch up to her, and did the next few houses with a big pack of kids, often the best way to increase the candy yield.  Overwhelmed adults often threw candy at the assembled throng, praising costumes quickly in an effort to get back inside.  The kids in the group chattered to each other excitedly as they gathered, and Jennifer at one point leaned close to the zombie kid and said, "I really like your costume."

The zombie grunted and slowly swung his head round, fixing his glassy eyes on Jennifer.  "Mwaaauugh."  the few strands of white hair that clung to his head blew in the slight breeze.

"Nice.  Staying in character."  Jennifer skipped along to the next house, dimly aware that the zombie guy was shuffling along the sidewalk, dragging one foot, and seemingly heedless of the packs of kids roaming the neighborhood.  Maybe he was somebody's older brother or something, doing his bit to make Halloween a little scarier.  He was pretty good.  A few houses from home, Jennifer's parents passed by saying something unintelligible and encouraging.  She could see their car pull into the drive, and they got out and went in, closing the garage door behind them.  She did the last six houses at a rapid clip, in a loose band that included a Spider-Man, a robot, a soldier with a machine gun, one princess, and two Draculas of two very different heights.  The zombie was also still back there, still in character, shuffling along the sidewalk, his tattered clothing dragging the pavement, arms slack at his sides, and the moonlight reflecting off of his unfocused eyes.

Jennifer got to her next-door neighbors, the Markinsons' at about nine-thirty.  They were wrapping it up, so they dumped a few things from the bowl into her bag, topping it off nicely.  She flew across the lawns and up the steps, banging through the back door of her house.  She got out of her costume, checked her haul, ate some candy, brushed her teeth, ate some more candy, and went to bed to try and sleep.

Outside, the zombie glacially ambled up to the back door and brushed it with the back of its left hand.  The hand dropped, and the zombie continued to stand, facing the door.

_____________________________________________________________

Moving quickly, Jennifer grabbed her backpack and lunch, cramming things together at the last minute.  She was headed for the bus, which would be here soon.  She dashed through the kitchen, got her stuff, smashed through the back door, and slammed full tilt into the zombie that had been standing there for the last nine hours or so.  A bird flew off of his shoulder, and and cloud of dust rose from the impact.

Jennifer's scream would've registered on the Richter scale.

A Vote for McCain is Wrong.

With less than 100 days left until the election that will (maybe) decide the direction of this country for the next four years, I wanted to see if I could help some of you potential voters out with your upcoming Autumnal decision.  First off, we need to clear something up: A vote for McCain is the wrong vote.  It is unwise, ridiculous and stupid of you to vote for McCain, and many of you will only do it out of spite, which is also wrong.  I know what you're thinking: "Ah, come on - this is a little much, isn't it?  He's really lost it, now.  I mean, "wrong," really?"  Yes, really.  Fuck you.  No it is not a little much, though I may have lost it a little.  That was like, four years ago now, though.  Let me help you now to see your wrongness.  I am a concerned and humble citizen, who's just looking to help some people out.  You see so many people voting wrong nowadays - I just wanted to do my part.  Let's get to it, shall we?

Some of you will not vote for Obama for President of the US because you are Republicans and he is a Democrat, and we have in this country what we bullshit ourselves into thinking is a "two-party system."  If you are a Republican, then you are either wealthy, and interested in protecting what you have and amassing more, or you are a selfish greedhead who's hoping to become wealthy, and looking to cover his pirate chest & ample American ass when the time comes.  Both of these groups are filled with people who are wrong.  They are hatefully anti-humanist & opportunistic, because they don't give a fuck for anyone but themselves, and they respect a theoretical free-market capitalism more than people.  So they are all wrong.  Not misguided, or representative of a different set of choices - WRONG.  As opposed to right, that thing that they claim to be.

Now - if you are a Republican and you do not fall into either the "wealthy" or "hoping to become so" category, then you are likely what is referred to as a "single-issue voter" and as such, also WRONG.  If you could ever possibly believe that a leader of any nation should be chosen based solely upon how you feel about abortion, Mexicans, Wal-Mart, Iraq, invisible gods, warning labels, food additives, music, video games, homosexuality, defense, taxes, any book more than 100 years old, or really - anything else, then you do not deserve to vote.  No single issue defines any person, any nation, or the contemporary American experience, and to allow one issue to make up your mind for you is lazy, inconsiderate, anti-intellectual, and morally wrong. 

Of course, there are also single-issue Democrats, but as long as they're voting for Obama in 2008 and not voting WRONG, I have time to deal with them on an individual basis.  Please send me names, addresses, and gas money, and I'll make sure they are all seen to in turn.

The next reason, and the one most similar to being Republican (and arguably more foolish), is that many people will vote for McCain - the wrong choice - because they seek to continue the egregiously failed and worthless policies of the Monkeyface administration, a group of people so desperate for some kind of legacy as they spin around the toilet drain of history that they are willing to reach out to anyone and anything, including nations once branded as parts of the "Axis of Evil."  Remember that?  "Bring it on?" "If you're not with us, you're against us?"  The Monkeyface White House is a testament to failure: No Osama, seven years later.  The man's head should be on a pike in the Oval Office, instead, his driver has been convicted.  Wow.  No success in either Iraq or Afghanistan, and no plans for fixing either mess.  Only an idiot would invade Afghanistan, with it's 50 plus years of side-swapping and invader repulsion, and seek to effect permanent change.  That's right, people: Pat Tillman died for NOTHING.  There was no plan, and no reason to be there.  And while "the surge" may have provided some moderate successes, they are only successes compared to the previous mess.  We are so strung out by the Iraq War that we are willing to view "slightly less chaos" as a success.  That's a seriously low bar.  We're negotiating with Iran and North Korea now, which makes you wonder what the previous wasted time during which we stood about, bullheadedly rattling our giant sabre was for.  Just making a point?  What was the fucking point?!?  No peace in Israel / Palestine.  No surpluses in the economy.  A housing market in shambles, high gas prices, squandered global goodwill, instability in hostile countries, and 3000 unavenged dead.  I read a lot of comic books, and this sounds like how a super-villain would manage the US.  That's a legacy for you: Dr. Doom and Lex Luthor have both been President.  Without Cheney to back them up.  Cheney reminds me of Arnim Zola anyway.  I don't really know exactly why.

For all his attempts to distance himself from the Monkey, McCain would continue a lot of the muddled thinking, the half-assed attempts to rectify things gone horribly wrong, the botched "changes" that are really only mutations of previous failed policies.  If you're listening carefully, he's looking to invade Pakistan.  Sort of.  Kind of.  I guess.  Shut up.  He's got nothing new.  Which leads me to my next point about why voting for him is WRONG.  For those of you, presumably in the cheapest seats, since that's all anyone can afford anymore, who remain unconvinced.

I keep hearing this argument about not electing Obama because he's inexperienced.  "Oh sure, he talks a big line, and he's got all these ideas, but what has he done?"  Well, he hasn't wrecked the country.  I'm sorry, but answer this question for me, all you "I'm not voting for Mr. Inexperience over here" fuckers: Say you run a company.  There are two applicants for the job, and one guy's got a lot of years on the job but no real new ideas about how to do stuff.  The other guy's not done this very much before, if at all, but he's enthusiastic, smart, and comes to the job with a lot of things he wants to try.  Who you going to hire?  Obama.  You're goddamn right.  Leaving aside for the moment that Affirmative Action would probably make you hire Obama, you'd bring him on anyway, because he's going to have zeal for the job, shit he wants to try, a plan for implementation and problem solving skills.  The man's a talker and a doer, and it's the one lasting legacy of the current administration that we no longer believe our politicians can be effective public speakers, much less do anything.  On November's card we're going to have (relatively) No Experience VS. No Ideas, and I'm ringside for No Experience.  This is a bullshit argument, it has no currency when measured against actual events and facts, and furthermore, it's WRONG.  Next!

"Ah, but John McCain is a bona fide war hero.  He's given a lot to this country, and he deserves to President."  That may all be true.  Really, it might.  I have two reasons why, no matter how true this argument might be, that it is still wrong, though.  (If you're still having trouble with something being true and also wrong, you might want to read your daily news a little more carefully.  Pay close attention to Darfur, China, and any of those items where family members abuse one another.)  First, if this argument had any weight and bearing, it would have been just as vital when McCain ran against Karl Rove & Machine Monkeyface and they crushed him underfoot like an insignificant & cheesy cockroach by using lies and personal attacks.  Nothing has changed - if it's true now, then it was true then, and if it didn't matter then, then it doesn't matter now.  Follow that?  Doesn't matter, this one's easy - "deserve" is no reason to lead.  If "deserve" is the only reason you have to render something to someone, then you are a seriously ethically flawed individual who might want to put his moral math under more careful scrutiny.  Besides, "deserving" to lead sounds a lot like that stuff that our forefolks rebelled against that led to the formation of this country in the first place.  I didn't think we liked that stuff.

Finally, let's talk about racism, one of the tools used against McCain by the Monkeyface's people, and being used so effectively by so many right now.  Some of you will not vote for Barack Obama because he is black.  Fuck intimations of the "race card" being played by either campaign, or McCain's stupid recent advertising, or Obama's remarks about how historical Presidents look.  Fuck the media's overreaction to all of this, and fuck the limp, liberal, ivory tower, over-intellectualized national conversation about race and its effects on broad groups of people within the electorate.  The simple fact is that some people irrationally hate black people, or think them inferior, or fear some kind of "black allegiance" wherein the rights of others are no longer protected, as black people "take over."  (Remember, I have lived below the Mason-Dixon line for most of my life.)  There are too many "nigger jokes" being recycled as Obama jokes within my earshot for me to believe otherwise, and besides, you can see xenophobia everywhere - from "border-jumping Mexicans" to "terrorist" Middle Easterners to the future black President, there's a lot of hate and fear of the alien going on.  This is ignorant bullshit, and for most people, you're letting your lizard brain vote for you, and that's wrong.  By all means, take your emotions into the voting box, but if your gut reactions to the unknown and unknowable make you an intolerant racist fuck, then do the whole country a favor, skip voting, and have yourself sterilized that day instead.  A black President is the best thing that could happen to people like that.

Any other reasons people are voting wrong this year?  Other than stuff like, "Cindy McCain is hot, though."  I'd love to hear them on the rocklines, 737-ROCK, 737-ROLL, first ten callers get an Obama button.  Or if you yourself are planning on voting wrong, I'd like the opportunity to point out to you where you're mixed up.  After all, as I said at the beginning, I'm just providing a service, just trying to help out.  Doing my part.