Daring To Ask

Laughs Abound

2012-02-02T17:58:00.000-08:00

Charlestown, SC — Vulture Capitalists Fly High

Vultures from South Carolina zoos have succeeded in taking over offices of most of the state’s Chamber of Commerce since the recent Republican presidential primary. The primary was responsible for a state court action, which freed the vultures who have gone on a spree of raiding small businesses ranging from mom-and-pop stores to fast food franchises.

The vultures were initially freed because the primary allowed vultures to participate in society as capitalists. “We’re only feeding on businesses that are nearly dead anyway,” said Ray Zerbeak, the vulture spokesman.

Law officers tried to round up the raiding vultures as they attacked the businesses, but the prosecution lost the court action. Zerbeak showed the judge that the increase in sheriffs and animal trainers proved that the vultures were job creators.

Once the vultures were allowed to seize businesses from displaced humans, they made inroads on owning funeral parlours. “The vultures helped us out because we no longer need coffins, and that eases our debt problems,” said Kate Aver, a human supporter.

Vulture businesses promise to keep florists in the loop since flowers go hand in hand with funerals. “We especially like to work hand to hand,” said Buzz Ard, a vulture entrepreneur.

Ard wanted to reassure people that vultures are indeed capitalists. “We go to where the market is,” he said. “And right now, people are dying to get into the funeral home.”

Vultures are currently seeking air rights over major airports. “Like all capitalists, we vultures think that regulations stop the natural free market,” Zerbeak said. “We have to be able to fly to any spot in the state without running into limitations.”

The move to seek air rights has nothing to do with the strange email Zerbeak received that talked about commercial flights having carrion luggage.

When asked about vultures flying over fields where humans congregated after losing their homes from the mortgage crisis, Zerbeak said, “They’re only running away from bank collectors who are capitalists — do they think they are entitled to a life?”

The flurry of vulture activity has also included moves to run cemeteries. The vultures promise to create more land available for industrial growth once they clean up the former cemetery sites.

The turnout during the race for the Republican primary failed to show human resentment toward the vultures. “I’m a Libertarian,” said Memi Only, a human supporter. “As long as a vulture doesn’t fly over my head, I could care less what he does with others.”

In the move to take over the Chamber of Commerce, the vultures promised to ease the national debt by chewing on old bank notes. “The more we eat, the less problem people will have in the future,” Zerbeak said.

Image Courtesy of gizmodo.com

Laughs Abound

2011-12-19T19:26:00.000-08:00

New York City — Reindeer Arrests Stir International Butter Crisis

The arrest last week of five reindeer by New York City police horses has brought the support of European dairy farmers and the opposition of Canadian Caribou attorneys.

The reindeer were arrested when they refused to help police horses with crowd control. Busy shoppers were bothering the horses with signs of, "Only the One Percent Can Afford Butter Cookies.”

The reindeer were read their rights and hustled off to Rikers Island stable before being rein arraigned.

A police horse veteran said through an interpreter that reindeer visiting New York should aid the civil control that keeps the city moving, especially for the top one percent of horses who qualify for extra hay and oats.

A spokeself for Thorsnowfall, Santa’s chief of staff, denounced the arrests. He said, “The reindeer were planning the new weight allowance demanded by air carriers for Santa’s sleigh.”

Those weight allowances were changed to dairy farmers. Thor said, “That does not help the 99 percent of people who believe in Santa’s giving.”

New carrier weight regulations were set into effect as a response for the dairy farmers in Europe who wanted to keep more butter in Europe and noticed that most extra weight came from carriera shipping butter to US gourmet stores that helped the one percent.

The news about the butter crisis has been noticed at National Public Radio, which broadcast a recent story about the butter crisis affecting Norwegians. The usual display of butter cookies for the holidays decreased to where butter hungry children sought friendly cows who would let them churn milk drops.

The Norwegian crisis extended to the border where people tried to smuggle Turkish butter through Finland and Russia. However, butter sniffing dogs at checkpoints threatened the smugglers as new teams of the agency Minimizing Emulsifier Liquids Taskforce (MELT) acted to stop the smuggling.

The US is considering forming such a MELT unit and adding it to the bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

“Now all we need is another weapon, like the powerful butter knife to be added to the bureau,” said Norman Cloture, the ATF spokesman. “And people forget how hurtful those ice cream scoops can be when you bite on them.”

The European dairy farmers were appalled that reindeer would support the 99 percent because the farmers wanted help from the Santa faction. “When we succeed, everyone is better,” said Chloe Estarole, the butter spokeswoman.

Butter petitions were faxed to New York City in support of the horses’ decision to arrest the reindeer.

However, a Caribou lawyer from Québec, who specializes in reindeer civil rights, has traveled to New York with briefs signed by animal notaries that verify the reindeer right to have international status. “These are not nationals of New York or even the US,” said Ann Tler, the Caribou through an interpreter. When asked what she thought of the horses’ blatant display of force, she said, “Grunnn…blu.”

New worries abound as the smugglers arriving into Norway from Russia seem to be aided by the Russian Mafia who take some butter off the top to supply their illegal quantities of potatoes.

Russian bars are now opening in places as scattered as Oslo and New York where people can pick up butter in ounce bags to sniff at private parties. One Russian bar even specializes in offering butter on top of caviar.

The new income from the Mafia is leading to increased crime where the mob charges increased amounts from buyers. Those buyers then resort to crime by stealing Velveeta from convenience stores in the hope of creating new butter by free-basing at home.

The leading imprisoned reindeer, Vixen, promises to keep up the protest in Rikers until all US animals realize that if any one species can be imprisoned to support human greed, then all animal species are threatened.

Image courtesy dailymail.co.uk

Words Come Alive

2011-12-07T18:12:00.000-08:00

Conflict's Pacing

Your character enters the dark room, hearing the ticking of the bomb, ready to explode. But as we place our characters into the major conflict of the story, how do we blend the mini-conflicts? Who set the bomb could be one question. What prompted the character to a life of danger, or are more than two factions fighting, could be other questions.

These questions go beyond the writer who craves to build a story. These methods of analysis help anyone who views the news, faces daily stress or tries to solve problems.

Pacing the conflicts allows you to blend the mini-conflicts with the major obstacle so you can round out your story.

Three steps can help —
Link the mini-conflicts by thinking about the social, political, ideological, cultural, and economic forces in the major conflict.

Find a way to segment the time when the conflicts strike.

Find a way to segment the way the power is used in the story.

Let’s explore this with a hypothetical example. While the following comes from the world of fantasy, the concepts apply to any conflict — lover’s quarrel, court room drama, or health crisis. In this case, let’s have a protagonist who must prevent the Dark Lord from using some magic within a stone that enslaves people.

Link Major Conflict With Minor Ones Using SPICE.
Notice how SPICE can stand for Social, Political, Ideological, Cultural, and Economic forces. Those are forces that surround the character.

You could design a mini-conflict around the magical stones being held only by nobles or a member of a high caste elite, hence a social issue. However, the leaders of the society are the Quarry Masters who rule over the location of the stones. This could be the political issue. In the mix, you might have a requirement that only Shamans can give blessings for the use of the stones, which produces an ideological and cultural dimension. Then add to the blend the idea that the magic can only be found in rare stones, which supplies an economic factor.

¶ Segmentation Divides the Time.

You can add to the suspense of the conflict by setting a time frame on the protagonist. Break up the activity of the protagonist into solving mini problems on the path to the overall goal.

Maybe the protagonist needs to prevent the enemy from seizing a key quarry and that means taking the character one week to accomplish. Within that week, other problems confront the protagonist. To start the process, the protagonist could be assisted by a Shaman where the priest’s blessings are necessary. That could take one day. On the way, the character needs to find noble support. That might demand him to side track his goals for two days. But the protagonist needs to warn some key quarry leaders and that obstacle could lead the person on a three day trip. All of this happens within that week where the character has to seize that one vital stone quarry.

¶ Segmentation of Power in Magic

Divide the power in the magic so several factions have some control.

By segmenting the power, you can design twists in the overall conflict. Think about the possibility that the stones only work when held by nobles. But even those nobles need the Shaman’s blessing to work the magic. Maybe the stones fail when the necklace is chipped. Chip fixers become important even though they are low on the social hierarchy. Stone power could change to the opposite energy when the bearer is ill from herbs. Herb masters could be used by nobles to protect the power. Then necklace makers might harness a separate power that controls part of the magic.

In the combination of these steps, think about how the blending helps you create twists and suspense. One description or way is to think about a disaster-hope connection. Solve each mini obstacle by giving the character some answer to the overall goal. You can then take that answer and use it to create larger obstacles or new conflicts in upcoming scenes.

Spiritual Help for the IndieGoGo Campaign

2011-11-17T11:50:00.000-08:00

We would like to thank the Spiritual Aide Jay Weinstein for his support, helping the Daring to Ask Campaign on IndieGoGo.com.

Jay’s favorite quote from a character comes from musician Bob Dylan, “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”

Author Interview — Nonviolence Stops Oppression

2011-11-14T18:55:00.000-08:00

Barry Clemson takes us for a ride though the imagination of how nonviolent resistance can change events. His alternative history novel, Denmark Rising, shows how the Danish population forestall and confuse Nazi occupiers during World War II.

In reality, the Danish resistance did decide that nonviolent resistance worked better than a violent struggle. Yet that occurred midway through the occupation. Clemson’s work shows how planning could have developed from the outset of the invasion.

Clemson shows through the characters of the Danish teen Arne, the major organizer professor Hal Koch, Prime Minister Thorvald and several German officers, the ways nonviolence stymied and frustrated the Nazis.

The Nazi Army wanted key resources from Denmark, and in the beginning of the war, craved world wide acceptance that its invasion was desired by the Danish people.

Yet nonviolent tactics are powerful weapons. Massive crowds kept Nazi actions in the light. Links to major news networks with camera shots exposed torture. Work slowdowns, deliberate mistakes and general strikes…these and other tactics slowed train deliveries and weapon buildups. And the refusal to do violence so divided the enemy that some officers and entire units refused to move against the Danes.

The following is an interview with Barry Clemson on his thoughts about the novel and the concepts of nonviolence.

Daring to ask: Your novel, Denmark Rising, speculates on how nonviolent passive resistance could have countered the Nazi occupational threat during World War II.

A few questions on writing prior to asking about the concept of nonviolence. You setup some key characters that represented various factions in the story. Did you consciously use those characters to describe those factions?

Barry: Yes, the story is fairly big and complex. In order to keep the book to a manageable size, I spent some time thinking about what sort of characters could show which parts of the story.

Daring to ask: Why did you decide to focus the protagonist as the teen Arne rather than the professor Hal Koch, the team organizer?

Barry: I don't know, it just worked out that way.

Daring to ask: Is Arne symbolic of the student dissident?

Barry: Yes, I guess so … although I didn't really think of him that way.

Daring to ask: Arne seems to flow easily into the spirit of nonviolent resistance, yet that comes right after he appeared confused by the entire process at the beginning of the story. He wanted to fight in the traditional way and he only witnessed the massive appearance of the crowd before he became a nonviolent advocate. How did he understand the importance of the technique so quickly?

Barry: Arne is a fast learner? Seriously, the way I thought about Arne is that he wanted to do something that would make a difference. Because he was so young, he had not been through the training on strategic nonviolence so the only thing he knew at the beginning was the traditional way to fight. Given that the entire nation was prepared to fight nonviolently, Arne understood that violence would undermine the cause and he was then able to fall in line with the strategic nonviolence.

Daring to ask: How did you plan on the pace you used for the plot?

Barry: I don't know. This was my first novel and there was a lot of trying things and then revising them. In general, I wanted the story to move along as fast as possible while still showing what I thought were the key points in the overall conflict.

Daring to ask: You showed the confrontation between the Nazis and the resistance by examining the way the occupiers wanted food and war material to be sent to Germany. What type of research did you have to locate to describe the food distribution or train transport systems?

Barry: I bought good maps of Copenhagen and Denmark and studied them a lot.

Daring to ask: Since the concept of nonviolence is so crucial, please sum up in a couple of sentences the major ideas of using nonviolent resistance.

Barry: Ouch! 1. Historically, nonviolent movement are about twice as likely to succeed against dictators as are violent revolts. 2. Nonviolent movements often win over the armies and police to their side but violent revolts do not. 3. Nonviolent movements are vastly cheaper (in lives and property) than are violent campaigns. 4. Violent campaigns that “succeed” usually replace one tyrant with another but nonviolent movements generally move a society toward greater democracy, fairness, etc. To sum up, nonviolence is both cheaper and more likely to succeed than is violence and is morally superior.

Daring to ask: In showing the effectiveness of the nonviolent strategies, you describe how political leaders, middle management, and the average citizen planned in advance to withhold cooperation from the oppressor. However, one question could be posed that this type of unified reaction would require much training and internal cooperation. How would a society develop such a unified agreement on how to proceed?

Barry: You already said it … much training, lots of training. I pretended Denmark had seriously prepared for strategic nonviolence, i.e., every person over 18 had at least some training and managers, government officials, etc. had quite a bit of training. The military does massive amounts of training, including war games. There is no reason to think that a nation could pull off strategic nonviolence for national defense without extensive training.

Daring to ask: While each case of nonviolent resistance is different, your scenario differs from the cases of the Civil Rights Movement and the Gay Community with Harvey Milk in San Francisco. Your character of Arne divides the German SS from the average German soldier by showing a cultural link between the Danes and the Germans. That link was not available in the South with Civil Rights or the general public in San Francisco with Gay Rights. In the South, the average person did not feel a shared link with the African American and the average San Franciscan did not feel a connection with the Gay person. How does the protester educate the public to move to the stage where he can operate like Arne?

Barry: I can't really speak to the San Francisco situation, but I was part of the voter registration effort in Mississippi 1964-65. Almost all of our effort took part in the black community. We had a small handful of Southern whites who were attempting to work within the Mississippi white community but I don't think they ever made any headway. So, basically we were ignoring the white community in Mississippi and the rest of the South. We were paying close attention to the rest of the world and were constantly working with the media from around the world to portray what was going on in Mississippi and places like Birmingham. The Klansmen who murdered Chaney, Schwerner, and Goodman at the beginning of the summer ensured that the entire world would be closely watching and in that sense did our work for us. Similarly, the bombings and the brutality of Bull Connor in Birmingham convinced the world that the racists had to be stopped. So we ignored the white community except in terms of what the world's press was telling them. And one of the things that happened is that the decent people of the South could no long pretend that “our nigras” were happy and that everything was OK except for the work of a few “outside agitators”. The businessmen and the decent people of the South were pretty much forced into opposing the extremists by the reaction of the rest of the world.

Daring to ask: Nonviolent strategies depend on media presentations to reveal the false claims of propaganda. Were the Nazis in Denmark less effective in media control than the state in North Korea? The North Korean machine has almost placed the entire population under a rock. How does the present state of technology fit into the ways media is needed to aid the cause of a nonviolent resistance?

Barry: Both in my novel and in real life, the Nazis were pretty unsuccessful in managing the news in Denmark. Numerous underground newspapers sprang up all over the country almost immediately and the authorities were very inept in shutting them down. I suspect this was another case where the Werhmacht didn't really try very hard or they would have been more successful. The question of modern technology is a critical one and one that I wish I was clearer on. The research so far on this question is sort of mixed. The internet and cell phones seemed to be critical to the movement in Egypt. In other cases, the state has managed to largely shut down these tools. In general, it seems to me that the internet and cell phone use, particularly the disposable-pay-for-minutes-in-advance type, provides tremendous assets for any sort of people's movement. The downside is that the government can very easily monitor email traffic and cell phone conversations, especially with computer programs that look for key words. As always, technology is a two-edged sword.

Daring to ask: What is the significance of the African European figures on the cover of the novel since no mention is made of such people in the story?

Barry: The people on the cover are actually my blonde daughter and one of her sons. I hadn't noticed that they look sort of dark.

Daring to ask: When the SS resorted to crime to intimidate the population, you show how neighborhood watch groups lay in wait for the SS to stop that activity. In today’s world, how would such neighborhood groups counter the increased specialization that the oppressor uses — like Blackwater Opps assassins?

Barry: It took the Danes a while to adjust to the Nazi assassinations. When they did, they chose tactics designed to counter the specific methods the Nazis were using. If the assassins were Blackwater Opps or some sort of special forces using different methods, then the movement would have to come up with tactics specifically tailored to counter those methods.

Daring to ask: The Danish population became unified with the goal of aiding the Jewish community to escape. But those Danish supporters performed that way because they were not susceptible to Nazi propaganda. How could nonviolent groups in Poland or France have acted to engage those populations to help them counter the propaganda they faced?

Barry: Good question, but I can't answer it because I do not have detailed knowledge of those situations.

Daring to ask: How do you see the size of the country affecting the abilities of nonviolent tactics? Denmark is a smaller place than India and Gandhi had to deal with a landmass several times larger, making it perhaps more difficult to share his beliefs with his supporters.

Barry: Size of course matters, both in that it makes preparation more difficult, but also it confers advantages for an actual campaign. Gandhi's situation was very different from my alternate history in that he did not have the luxury of adequate preparation ahead of time nor did he have a government providing training for millions of people. So Gandhi's situation was totally different, but I do not think size of the country was the important difference.

Daring to ask: In your novel, Arne confronts a Danish youth who wants to use violence. While Arne dissuades the youth, don’t nonviolent tactics run into extra problems when the population is larger and crowd control requires extra training?

Barry: I don't see this. Both the committed nonviolent group and the group wanting to use violence will be larger in big countries. The important question is the relative number in the two groups.

Daring to ask: What lessons of nonviolent use can we learn from the April 6th Movement in Egypt?

Barry: I have not made a detailed study of the Egyptian movement, but it seems almost a textbook example of a nonviolent campaign. They did at least some study of Gene Sharp, the main theorist of nonviolence, ahead of time. So, at least a core group knew what they were doing. By remaining nonviolent, they quickly gained the support of the army who early on protected the demonstrators from the police. With the army standing with the people, Mubarak didn't have a chance.

Daring to ask: One principle of nonviolent resistance is to discover a need the oppressor has and to withhold cooperation from supplying that need. What method of this process helps find the key need of the oppressor when several might stand out?

Barry: An excellent question but again, I don't know. The best nonviolent strategists are just like any political or military strategist in this sense: they need a deep understanding of their culture, what moves people, and what will motivate them, etc. Successful strategies are always those which are exquisitely tailored to their specific culture, economy, power-structure, etc. etc. This is why very few of us are good strategists.

Daring to ask: The SS in the submarine facility struggled for over a year with management supervision while only one submarine was produced. The SS then began flogging workers, which weakened the resistance. How does a resistance operate if the oppressor reacts quicker than the example you list?

Barry: A nonviolent campaign against a ruthless enemy is a deadly chess game. At every point, both sides are trying to find a move that will put the other side in trouble while gaining some advantage for themselves. And every campaign is unique: there are no standard answers. Just like generals, we can study past campaigns for ideas, but any general or nonviolent strategist who slavishly tried to copy the tactics of a Rommel or Sun Tzu or Gandhi would most likely find himself dead.

Daring to ask: When the Libyan resistance confronted violence, they turned to guns to protect themselves. Would the deaths of many at that moment have led to a quicker defeat of the oppressor when the world saw violence coming only from Kadafi?

Barry: We can't be sure, but it seems likely that taking up arms was a mistake for the Libyans. A favorite tactic of tyrants is to provoke a people's movement into violence because they know that will cause the army to support the regime and it also alienates much of the general public.

Daring to ask: What is the message about Arne’s sense of guilt in leading a team when death hits some members? Does this call for a psychological preparation within the protest community so they are ready to deal with this element?

Barry: Arne, who was a bit arrogant, was devastated by the death of his teammates and went from being arrogant to blaming himself. I think that deaths of comrades will always traumatize people, just as it traumatizes soldiers in combat. I don't know whether there is any training that would help with this.

Daring to ask: What is the link between nonviolent resistance and conflict resolution? In South Africa the concept of Ubuntu meant that everyone in society was linked, despite any hurt done by a guilty party. That means the process had to re-incorporate those guilty parties back into the community. If Arne could influence the average German soldier, does that mean that the next step could become that of reaching out to the entire wider public of the enemy to show them the problems with the extremists in their society?

Barry: I firmly believe in Ubuntu, the connections among all of us. Further, forgiveness of those who have hurt us is necessary for our own health. Now, I don't know if reaching out to the wider public of the enemy is the next step, but it certainly is something that would help heal everybody concerned.

Daring to ask: Your book uses the imagination in developing nonviolent tactics to face a multitude of scenarios. Could this application of the imagination help devise tools so others might become aware of the importance of nonviolence? Tools like computer games or role playing games?

Barry: Role playing has been used in nonviolent training for a long time, since the 1950s that I know of and probably much longer than that. Computer games certainly seem possible and desirable. Peter Ackerman and his associates have a nonviolence computer game but it only runs on Windows so I haven't had a chance to play it.

Worlds Meet

2011-10-19T12:45:00.000-07:00

Wall Street's Dawn

In the beginning of Octavia Butler’s Dawn, the protagonist Lilith is awakened once again to serve masters who need her human abilities to keep their society alive. Lilith’s comment at the outset of, “Alive…still alive,” could easily fit into our world. We dare ask if the Wall Street protestors feel a new spirit directed against entities that seemingly control their lives the way that Lilith’s oppressors rule. Those oppressors continue through a series that includes the book, Adulthood Rites.

The similarities are striking. Lilith and her human friends are controlled by the Oankali, a group which has evolved with specialized organs but lacks genetic diversity. The protestors’ lives are controlled by financial interests that push them to buy mortgages, consumer products and serve a financial community of specialized instruments like Credit Debt Obligations. Lilith at times is naked, lacks reading material to improve herself and cries for clothing. The protestors are being told that while their worker productivity since the 1970s has risen 30 percent, they should accept less than a zero increase in benefits.

While Butler visioned Lilith’s story as a symbol of the torture from slavery, we dare to ask whether the same conditions now apply to most people because of the structure the financial interests have imposed on most people. The growing inequality between the business community leaders sitting in corporate offices just might resemble the power difference between the Oankali and Lilith’s humans.

Both the Oankali and corporate state have promised to improve life for most people. The Oankali arrived to aid humanity after a nuclear war that threatened all existence. They provided medical advances and security. They also offered to trade with human kind, promising genetic improvements. The corporate state offers global advances where remote fishermen can sell their wares with cell phones to markets because of technology. Some people can live longer because of improved diagnostics in healthcare. And travelers can use credit cards without carrying cash around the globe.

But while the advances seem worthwhile, the workers and middle classes of the globe have lost control over their lives. Employers looked at the 30 percent increases in productivity from workers and thought those profits were wonderful. But they faced a decreased work force once the age of the 70s unleashed computer aided production. Hence the need to seek those profits from overseas workers. So the average person lost not only the extra value of increased productivity, but also the ability to hold a job.

The controllers, whether Oankali or the corporate state found ways to transform the language so their control could meet with little opposition. The Oankali flooded the humans with ideas that the Oankali offered an egalitarian life. That human problems happened because of human waste. The corporate controllers blamed the financial crisis on homeowners. To balance out their losses on Wall Street, the corporate state told workers to accept the end of certain healthcare benefits and even embrace half pay.

Language had been changed. Instead of slavery, the Oankali claimed they were raising the standard of living for humans. Instead of ripping rights away from workers and the middle class, the corporate state focuses on how they create jobs, and spending or debt is the problem.

Butler thought of the chains of slavery, but the image of chains can change. The weight of Lilith’s problems, trying to keep a family alive resonate with the physical chains of the slave ships in the 1700s. Our world of Wall Street occupiers feels pressures such as, possible evictions, job layoffs and other ethical dilemmas. Even though Lilith’s human could not vote against the Oankali, our protestors have found their votes being scattered in the wind as the same controllers who created the financial crisis dictate to the elected leader.

So the language is skewed, the system of redress is flawed and the weight of the new chains limits the shoulders of the protestors. Maybe Lilith would fit right into the group of occupiers.

Image courtesy of africanafrican.com

Laughs Abound

2011-10-18T20:11:00.000-07:00

Austin, Texas — Governor Perry Promises Changes

In starting his campaign for the Republican nomination, Governor Rick Perry has railed against the unnecessary use of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and promised to change things.

“We don’t need these silly rules from the EPA that kill jobs,” said Smoky Stacks, a campaign aid. “Imagine — rules that stop a darn good right businessman from sending factory waste into the air.”

Last year the Governor approved through a fast track process the building of eleven new coal power plant units. It was a move that Stacks claimed was needed because coal is being thought of as an evil pollution.

The governor doesn’t fully accept Global Warming, stating recently that he never saw oxygen so he’s not certain it exists. “Carbon could be another gimmick from those Liberal scientists,” said Seymour Fox. “Who ever heard of footprints affecting the sky?”

Those around the governor were suggesting that maybe oxygen was a Liberal idea to help sales for oxygen tank companies in healthcare and the scuba equipment people. “People are healed in hospitals because the mask gives the patient comfort, not because of some fool gas,” Fox said.

The governor also hopes to speed up hydraulic fracting. But his words in a small Texas village were interrupted repeatedly from people with coughs. He stated that he knew of no examples of groundwater being affected by chemicals.

His address was shortened when a watermain burst, spewing yellow-greenish acids. “We’ve always had acids in the ground,” said Sy Nide, an environmental advisor to the governor.

Governor Perry appeared holding a six-shooter to show his independence from Washington. “He’s from the state that prided itself on the Alamo,” said D. Crockett, his foreign advisor. “The governor hasn’t had too much foreign knowledge, but he’s from the Lone Star State, so we know how to go it alone — we don’t need those foreigners in Europe, Asia or Washington telling us how to run our lives.”

The governor did pride himself on learning about other countries since Texas shares a wide border with Mexico. “The governor even learned how to eat a Taco,” Crockett said. “He picked it up quickly. You don’t BBQ it.”

As president, Governor Perry promises to unleash a new building code for Washington DC. “Government buildings should be in ranch-style houses, spread out over the entire Maryland area,” said Wily Spurs, a housing expert. “that way, politicians would not be crowded together around the Beltway — after all, Americans are Cowboys at heart.”

- Tom Pope

Photo from www.geography.hunter.cuny.edu

Laughs Abound

2011-06-14T10:33:00.000-07:00

2012 — Washington DC — Republicans Reel From Palin Look Alike

Republicans gloated over their recent election victory until they discovered their candidate was Tina Fey instead of former Governor Sarah Palin. President Fey tried to tell her advisors about the mistake during the convention held in Disneyland, but most advisors laughingly dismissed her.

Campaign advisors failed to realize that President Fey’s many appearances on TV were because of her comedy routines. “We saw her on the screen so we didn’t check the content of her messages,” said communication advisor Skim Alittle. “Isn’t TV used for election campaigns?”

President Fey’s visits to the usual liberal Northeastern part of the country produced key electoral votes when she campaigned on cutting money the health insurance companies could charge patients.

Her campaign manager, Rush Head, said he thought she was talking about cutting money the government spends. “She used the word ‘cutting’, didn’t she?” he said. “That was all I needed to know what she meant.”

Republicans were caught off guard when it was discovered campaign funds of over $500 million were used to support Tina Fey’s production of new Madmen episodes. “I knew she was spending on advertising,” said Alittle. “I just didn’t look beyond the word to see that she mentioned the Madmen TV series — I thought it was campaign advertising.”

The news of the discovery of Tina Fey came just one week after her foreign policy advisor, Red Ninelegs, appointed actor Alec Baldwin to be the new ambassador to Russia. “Doesn’t he know some naval people there?” he asked.

Alittle was relieved of his duties when the connection between Fey and Baldwin in the TV series “30 Rock” became known.

“We just thought he was the best to know about the Russians,” he said, “since we thought that the President would not be able to see Russia from the White House.”

Mistakes have plagued the party. “We didn’t do anything wrong,” Alittle said. “We live on sound bites, so we don’t usually look deeper into the facts.”

Republicans are complaining that the Hollywood industry has been too large and powerful. “We just can’t control them anymore,” Rush Head said. “We made the government small so that we could spend less — now the industry is calling the shots.”

- Tom Pope

Image courtesy of connect.in.com

Behind The Mask

2011-05-21T10:45:00.000-07:00

Truth, Justice and the International Way

Throughout the years, comics have incorporated real world events and politics into their hero’s storylines. Despite a new controversy over Superman’s citizenship, the act fits in with the tradition of staying in touch with world events. Back in the 1960’s Captain America battled Nazis during World War II and Bruce Banner and the Hulk dealt with Soviet spies during the Cold War. More recently, Marvel’s Civil War storyline dealt with the fears and paranoia of a post 9/11 atmosphere. The 2006-2007 crossover pitted hero vs hero in a more esoteric battle that posed the question of whether civil liberties or security were more important to uphold. That focus occurred in a world where the general Marvel Universe not only had to deal with the threat of another terrorist attack, but the possibility of more destruction caused by the heroes and villains of Marvel Earth. DC Comics has decided to take things a step further by having Superman renounce his American citizenship.

In the recent issue of Action Comics #900, Superman decides to renounce his citizenship after a visit to Tehran to support a protest going on there. In the comic, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sees Superman’s action as part of United States policy and believes America is declaring war on Iran. Because of his action, Superman decides to give up his national identity, as he states in the issue, “truth, justice and the American way…it’s not enough anymore.”

Ever since he burst onto the comic book scene in 1938, Superman has been called everything from the ultimate boy scout, to the one hero, outside of Captain America, who upheld American values and ideals. Even though he came from an alien planet, Superman was as American as apple pie. So, it comes as no shock that many readers and conservative groups were in a bit of an uproar over DC’s decision to have the Man of Steel renounce his citizenship. These groups felt that the issue belittled America and showed a distinct lack of patriotism.

Unfortunately, these groups also failed to understand Superman’s motives going forward. If anything, Superman (finally) realized that the world is more complex and dangerous than ever. He needed to use all the powers at his disposal to operate on a grander scale, especially if that meant protecting his adopted homeland (the USA). The renunciation of his American citizenship did not mean he had renounced his core values of promoting freedom, helping all those less fortunate, ending war, and trying to make things better – all American values and ideals the last time I checked.

I highly doubt that the current creators of one of the world’s most famous comic book heroes plan to get rid of all the qualities that have made the character great and everlasting with the one revelation about his citizenship. They’ve just done something that should have been done a long time ago. They’ve made the character more relevant for the times that we live in. So rest easy America, as long as Superman upholds the tenets I listed above, the American way is still safe and secure.

Perhaps a better question we should ask ourselves is if the past few administrations have actually upheld these same principles.

- Hamilton Maher

Image courtesy of Newsarama.com

The Response Meter

2011-05-21T10:01:00.000-07:00

The Dangers of Too Much Email

While email still remains the most cost effective way of promoting to a subscriber or customer, publishing and media companies can hurt themselves by saturating their customers and advertisers with too many eblasts. There are a number of steps companies can take to alleviate email fatigue and ensure that their messages are getting through to the right people.

In the past, circulators would often send out emails to as many people on their databases as possible, especially if they were in a time crunch and needed to meet specific marketing goals. In the short term, this proved to be somewhat effective, but publishing and media companies found that they weren’t necessarily getting the right people to sign up for their products. By sending emails out to any and everyone, they also found that their IP addresses were being added to company spam filters, which in turn caused open and click through rates to plummet and messages to fail in reaching recipients.

With publishing and media companies fighting for every dollar and name, the smart companies need to segment their lists and have targeted messaging to specific industries or job titles. A healthy, segmented database as well as an integrated database will also allow for cross marketing opportunities and the generation of new leads for promotion. And as the old saying goes, “knowledge is power” and the more information a company has on a current or potential customer, the easier it is to promote to them.

It’s also vital that email databases are updated frequently and that any deletes or changes to email addresses are made in a timely fashion. Otherwise, a company could face potential lawsuits from disgruntled customers who are sick and tired of getting spammed. Frequent updating is also important to ensure that the quality of a company’s email database remains intact.

And lastly, having up-to-date tracking and analytic tools as well as people who know how to decipher them is crucial. That way, messages can be more easily segmented and response rates will increase regardless of whether the message is geared toward promoting an event, generating a sale, or the renewal of a print or digital product.

- Hamilton Maher

Image courtesy of computer-realm.net

Words Come Alive

2011-04-21T18:55:00.000-07:00

An Interview with Stephen Leigh

Stephen Leigh explores the struggles of youth in the new contemporary fantasy, The Woods, where reality and fantasy seem to exist side by side. The characters Rob Mullins and Mark Dyson face a growing fear about adulthood streaming into their young lives that threaten the world of magic, which they believe exists.

For Stephen Leigh who also writes under the name of S.L. Farrell, the latest novel brings his total to 24 books for the Cincinnati-based author. He also enjoys a background with over 40 short stories under his belt. Besides writing, he teaches creative writing at Northern Kentucky University.

Leigh embellishes his works with a wide canvass of cultural influences such as the Celtic world in the Cloudmages series or the Vatican connections in the Nessantico Cycle.

The Cloudmages series mixes a Celtic mythos with a unique cyclical magic emergence that becomes a quest for power for the regional lords. Yet the scope is wider, as the magic can be controlled by sealife and rock entities.

The Nessantico series blends politics and war with sorcery and religion where the world evokes a city state on an island like that of Paris or the Rennaissance power found in Venice. The following interview deals with how magic fits into the realm where fiction and reality meet.
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Daring To Ask: The blurb for your novel, The Woods, states it is a ”contemporary novel where the borders between reality and fantasy are blurred.” Our blog, Daring To Ask, examines the intersection where reality meets fiction. As a writer, why do you consider that intersection important?

Stephen Leigh: I’ve always been fascinated by the thought that there might be hidden realities that are there if only we had the ability or the inclination to see them -- much like Alice staring into the mirror and wondering about what the world on the other side would be like. I’ve played with that concept a bit in other books, like ABRAXAS MARVEL CIRCUS or THE BONES OF GOD or even the CLOUDMAGES series.

In this one, that intersection is especially blurry. A reader could conceivably question whether the ‘magical’ elements are real, whether they have an explanation, or if they exist only in Rob’s head.

Daring To Ask: Your novels show how characters face social, political and economic pressures from their worlds. The role of nonfiction tries to inform people of how we face those forces in reality. Does fiction have an advantage in showing specifics of how characters face those forces?

SL: The advantage (in my opinion) that fiction always has over non-fiction is that the non-fiction writer is limited by reality. In fiction, if I want to explore something -- such as, for instance, what defines ‘gender’ and how that impacts us, as I did in DARK WATER’S EMBRACE -- all I need to do is invent a world that allows me to play directly with that concept. I’m not confined by history or geography or the way things are now. I don’t have to go searching through history or countries to find a social situation that might happen to fit and try to shoehorn my theme into it.

Fiction is much more free and pliable... and as a result, sometimes lets us get at things that we can’t really examine all that well in non-fiction. Don’t get me wrong; I love non-fiction, and I mostly read non-fiction anymore -- but I’m reading it for the creative sparks I receive. For me, non-fiction is often the source of fictional ideas.

Daring To Ask: Do you see your contemporary example of magical realism as in the vein of del Toro or García Lorca — how would you describe its difference? Is this an example of how a story moves away from words to see what those words represent? Or showing personal feelings through some distortion of natural images?

SL: I can’t claim to be a genuine magic realism author, but I do play with some of the tropes of magic realism in this one -- for one, the fantasy element just is, and I don’t try to explain it or justify it. I love Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Borges (and del Toro and Lorca too). I’m fascinated by the way the Latin culture (in particular) accepts a supernatural component as part of their reality, and thus allows the blurring of the line between fantasy and the rest of their lives.

In a similar manner, I think younger people and some adults who haven’t yet lost that ‘childishness’ are also able to see things: they’re there, they’re accepted, and sometimes trying to find explanations can just push them away. I remember my daughter creating an entire imaginary circus of people and performers and animals in her head in incredible detail (run by the magical Caleb Mundo, whose name I stole to use in THE ABRAXAS MARVEL CIRCUS). She created it all out of her dreams and her imagination, populating that place with all sorts of fascinating creatures and intricate relationships. She could do that because she hadn’t let the world put constraints on her mind, hadn’t let adults tell her that it wasn’t ‘proper’ or ‘healthy’ to use her imagination in that way.

Daring To Ask: Do you see nature, as in the woods, being more tied to that other world of magic? Does this mean that some life force could be present within the other world that can’t be detected though reality’s science?

SL: The neighborhood of THE WOODS is based on the neighborhood in which I grew up. There were woods directly behind my house, and behind the houses across the street, and it was a rare day that I wasn’t in those woods. They were truly magical for me -- the “Seven Caves” in the book describes a place that I and my friends found and played in. Everything in the woods seemed imbued with a long history or some magical connection... or at least we could believe that it was. For a long time after my friends stopped playing there (about the time we hit adolescence), I would still return to the woods, just to walk around or maybe just sit there and pretend I was somewhere else, in a true primordial place, a place where fantasy was still possible.

I won’t say that there was a ‘presence’ there, but I felt that there was. I wanted it to be there.

Daring To Ask: The way Rob and Mark are described seems to hint that adolescence is closer to that intersection of reality and fantasy than adulthood and that as we age we move further into a reality that shuns aspects of a magic or even thinking out-of-the-box. What forces are making this possible?

SL: When I was a kid, we played fantasy games all the time: we were knights and ladies riding out to find dragons, to capture gold, to fight battles, to rescue those needing our help. We were soldiers fighting WWII in a French forest. We were American Indians sliding through primordial light and shade. We were astronauts exploring a strange and new world where there were no humans at all. We were anthropomorphic bears or wolves. We were anything that our imaginations could come up with.

I remember being -- perhaps like Rob and Mark -- someone who wanted to stay longer in that fantasy-land, even as my friends were moving away from the woods and our games toward the more ‘adult’ world of cars and sports and girl- and boyfriends. I found myself more often alone in the woods, as I also found myself more alone reading my science fiction and fantasy books, writing, playing music, or drawing.

Even through high school and college, I’d occasionally go walking in the woods, and see them as some other place -- and I’d note that the trails I followed, trails that had been wide and bare of grass and weeds during the time that we had all played there and worn into permanence by our sneakered feet, had mostly been reclaimed by the woods now.

I don’t know what it is that turns us away from ‘imaginative play’ as we age. It doesn’t always happen, and it doesn’t have to happen. I think role-playing games are another version of the types of things we did as kids, and I’ve played (and run) many RPG games. I think immersing oneself as a writer in a fictional world is yet another aspect of the same impulse.

Some of us never quite ‘grow up.’

Daring To Ask: Does the present state of global economics, or fast-paced need to grow up create more difficulties in retaining a sense of magic or fantasy?

SL: Honestly, I don’t know. But I do think that having a sense of magic or fantasy can provide a respite from a dreary and unpleasant world. Sometimes we all need that! The danger is when we start thinking of the fantasy as reality, and stop even trying to cope with real life.

Daring To Ask: Are the woods a symbol of the womb or some place that provided another reality?

SL: No -- as I said, I spent much of my childhood and early adolescence in the woods that surrounded my neighborhood. It was my place, the place where I could escape and be whatever and whomever I wanted to be for awhile. To me, the woods represent that time of relative innocence in my life (and the characters).

Daring To Ask: What reason prompted you to use the first person? How do you see the difference between using the first person and using an internal POV third person, especially in a story like, The Woods?

SL: In general, first person narrative has the ability to create a strong identification and bond between the reader and the narrator, and that’s what I wanted. Sure, you can get reader identification with a character in third person as well (especialy if you’re using a very close, limited third person, where you’re giving the reader a sense of the POV character’s thoughts), but there’s still the sense of the author standing between the reader and the characters and relaying the scene. In third person, the author is always there as the ‘interpreter’ for the reader.

Frankly, there’s more freedom for the writer in third person. With first person, you have the character himself or herself talking directly to the reader without the shadow of the author between them, but you also have the limitation of voice (you can’t use language that the character wouldn’t use) and you also can’t describe anything that the character isn’t directly experiencing.

In this story, I thought the reader needed that strong sense of direct connection with Rob. I don’t often write in first person in novel-length stories, but in this case, it felt right.

Daring To Ask: In writing the sample, you use the narrator, Rob, with a quick paced flow of language that replicates the adolescent anxiousness. However, a couple of words seem more advanced for him than most of the passage. Words like glacial-deposited and rivulets could be more advanced than the character’s usual. Was this a conscious choice on your part? How should a writer view the way he selects words to show the voice of the character?

SL: The novel itself is book-ended with short sections that are narrated by Rob as a much older adult, who has come back to the neighborhood that he left. You don’t see that in the sample, of course, which is the third chapter of the book. The novel is actually ‘written’ by a very adult Rob, remembering this time. Hence, the vocabulary is more advanced. It much the same technique, for instance, as in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, where an adult Scout is relating to us the events that seven or eight-year old Scout experienced.

Daring To Ask: The sample shows an anger from Mark when he kills the dog, Kitty-Kitty. Are we seeing that anger emerge because of a sensed betrayal because Mark knows Rob is leaving? Or a loss of the peer influence Mark has enjoyed during adolescence?

SL: Mark is having family issues -- his father is abusive to both Mark’s mother and Mark himself, and that abuse has been escalating. Rob, as well as the woods themselves and the fantasy play that Mark and Rob engaged in, has always been Mark’s escape from the harsh realities of his home life. Now he’s learned that Rob is leaving the city -- and for Mark that’s send his anger boiling over. He feels betrayed by Rob, even though he knows that Rob’s not really responsible for his leaving.

Daring To Ask: Does Sheila represent the aspirations of one plane that might become lost to the adolescent as he enters more of a world filled with social pressures or added responsibilities? Or perhaps does the emergence of Sheila fit into modern literature where the adolescent meets an outsider who encourages him to seek other paths even if he has to turn away from previous beliefs?

SL: I see Sheila as mostly a vehicle that allows Rob to access what he’s actually thinking but is perhaps too afraid to voice or act upon. She gives voice to Rob’s own inclinations even when he’s afraid to admit them -- or perhaps when those inclinations are so deeply buried inside him that he doesn’t even realize that they’re even there.

She allows Rob to act as his nature would have him act. She allows him to accomplish what he otherwise wouldn’t have been able to. As Sheila says to him at one point in the book, it’s not her who’s making the changes in his life, it’s him and his desires.

Sheila is a mirror that reflects Rob’s wants and needs -- as she would have been for Mark had she ‘chosen’ him. Or perhaps, Sheila facilitates Rob’s ‘magical thinking’ about what he wants to happen.

Daring To Ask: If every wish and desire bears a price, then how should we view the different levels of prices that affect adults from those that affect adolescents?

SL: We all pay a price whenever we make a decision. The act of decision closes off all the alternate paths while opening another. Part of the price is that we can never know whether one of the other paths would have been a better/happier/more fulfilling one for us.

Of course, we also don’t know if those other paths would have led us to a darker and far worse place -- because that’s just as possible.

I don’t know that children and adolescents pay a larger ‘price’ for those decision than do adults. As a child, I probably believed that my choices demanded a higher price than those of adults. I probably responded to such things with more emotion and more angst than I might now. As an adult, I’ve also learned that life-paths wind and twist and turn, and sometimes we find ourself back on a path we’d thought we’d left behind ages ago.

Daring To Ask: Do you see the development of these adolescents differently from the growth experienced by Jenna and her daughter Meriel in the Holder series?

SL: Certainly -- mostly because their societies and cultures are so different. Jenna and Meriel (as well Meriel’s children Sevei, Kayne, and Ennis in the last book of that series) are forced to grow up far faster in far harsher environments than Rob and Mark in THE WOODS. Children in the society of the Cloudmages books don’t have the luxury of the long adolescence we give our children now -- by the time they’re Rob and Mark’s age, they’d be expected to be functioning mostly as adults.

And for Jenna and her daughter and grandchildren, having the clochs thrust upon them so early forced them into confrontation with and immersion in the adult world -- with all the life-and-death results that comes with the territory.

For Rob and Mark, the consequences have weight, yes, but are ‘smaller’ in scale than those that confront the adolescents of the Cloudmages books, but still very real and intense to both of them.

Daring To Ask: The culture of the Celtic world played a major part as one of the forces that drove the characters in the Holder series. Which type of culture do you see exerting a force on Rob and Mark in The Woods?

SL: The culture that most influences Rob and Mark is our own (at least the culture of the 1970s in which they’re growing up). More specifically, they’re growing up in a working middle class neighborhood, with all that implies: these aren’t rich kids, nor poor urban kids. They’re suburban, Caucasian, and Catholic -- and that’s the world that they know and in which they’re cocooned for the moment.

I see Sheila is essentially a nature spirit, and I largely drew on Native American background for her.

Daring To Ask: From a worldbuilding perspective, the design of the magic strikes us differently when we see a world with the feel of the Middle Ages as compared to that of a contemporary scene. Which elements do you advise writers to consider in constructing magic when they shape a modern fantasy?

SL: Because I was using the parameters of magic realism, I didn’t worry too much about constructing an elaborate magic system with THE WOODS(as I did with both the Cloudmages trilogy and the more recent Nessantico Cycle. I didn’t worry about all the ‘rules’ that magic had to follow... and, in fact, as I said earlier, I left open the possibility that perhaps there was really no magic at all.

I’m currently working on the draft of another contemporary fantasy, this one set in Ireland -- as a result, I’m again drawing on Celtic myth and background with that one. I feel that in fantasy set in modern times, in real places, that the author is obligated to draw from the mythological and historical sources of the setting. So if I were writing a modern fantasy set in the United States, I might be tempted to use Native American mythology as the basis.

Or maybe not, depending on the set-up of the novel and who the characters were. After all, those who came to North America from other places brought along their own beliefs and superstitions, and perhaps those would still be operating as a result.

That’s the kick in writing fantasy: you get to create your own shadow reality, and populate with whatever excites you -- and hopefully the reader feels that excitement!

Image courtesy of Denise Parsley Leigh

Worlds Meet

2011-03-22T15:32:00.000-07:00

They're All the Same

As NBC’s series, The Event, resumed recently, the attitude shown by presidential advisor Blake Sterling could be seen as narrow as that shown by Congressman Peter King (R-NY).

The Event’s conflict shows how two cultures struggle to find acceptance as they interact to survive. A group of humanoid beings from another world who crash-landed decades ago have been kept in prison by the United States. The humanoids are virtually human and cannot be told apart from Earth people. But as the plot evolves, both cultures face rebellions. The president is threatened by assassination from Americans, and the leader of the “others” is in danger because her son wants to use violence against human society.

One crucial scene that shows Sterling and King’s intolerance occurred when Sterling attempted to interrogate one of the imprisoned “others”. Sterling wanted to find the leader’s son who planned violence. The “other” being interrogated tried to tell Sterling that the group wished no violence against humans. Actually, the son’s actions were not endorsed by the group. Sterling could not think that members of the “others” held different ideas about violence. When asked if anything could be said to show him the nonviolent hopes by the group, Sterling answered, “I don’t think there’s anything you can say.”

That mental attitude resembles the present state of mind from Congressman King as he conducted hearings into Radical Islam. King didn’t need to bring in experts on Islam, he only needed to bring in a few people who had anecdotes of violent behavior. That was his thinking. Those revelations should have been enough to show the entire community was violent — right? The fact that terrorism has no real tie to religion passed his grasp. The history of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt renouncing violence and spurning groups that still wanted to use killing didn’t enter into his thinking. Maybe he, too, believes nothing can change his opinion. King has admitted that he is obsessed with the events that happened on 9/11. We dare to ask how any real change could ever occur if that is the foundation of his thinking.

Literature and the screen display the flaws of characters so we can learn from their mistakes. When we have so many examples of political factions that erupt with sub factions who disagree, we are educated on how we should view each faction separately. Most experts of political science or crisis management support that. However, human fears often stop us from using our knowledge. We have to learn how to see when people want to pick up the handshake instead of the gun. When Nelson Mandela took office as president of South Africa, he used some former members of the Secret Service who were White. Those White Secret Service members accepted Mandela’s offer and shook hands with their new leader. But more often we dare to ask why some real people fail to learn the lessons that jump at us from narrow characters on the screen.

- Tom Pope

The Event image courtesy of impawards.com
Peter King image courtesy of journalnow.com

Fiction's Philosophy

2011-03-21T11:52:00.000-07:00

The Price of Solitude

In literature as well as the real world, characters and people might deal with their world by seeking isolation, but perhaps their philosophical view of the reason for life comes from a desire to avoid the very contact they fear.

Man’s quest to not only explore, but conquer nature is practically as old as well, man himself. Many have succeeded and many failed, although their quests may have been driven by a yearning for solitude or ways to cope with social contact. For some, their failure was due in large part to inadequate preparation or research, a miscalculation in direction or weather patterns, or just plain bad luck. In the cases of both Aron Ralston in the movie, 127 Hours, and Christopher McCandless in the movie, Into The Wild, I dare to ask if the tragedies that befell the avid adventurers and naturalists were due to something even more insidious than not choosing to alert their friends or family as to where they were going.

Both men made decisions that ended with tragic results. Ralston made the agonizing decision to amputate part of his right arm after his hand and wrist wound up being pinned against a canyon wall after an eight hundred pound boulder tumbled loose as he was descending a portion of Blue John Canyon. Ralston’s story was also described in the book Between A Rock and A Hard Place. Chris McCandless’ story was movingly captured by author Jon Kraukauer in the book and movie with the same name of, Into the Wild. McCandless wound up forsaking all of his worldly possessions and trekking all the way to Alaska where he hoped to enjoy a solitary existence of living off of the land. He met a tragic and untimely demise when he accidentally ate a poisonous plant that he believed was safe.

While no one can argue that both Ralston and McCandless had a genuine love of nature and appreciated the freedom and the beauty of the lands they explored, they both craved the solitude of the wide open spaces they were a part of. In both Between A Rock and A Hard Place and Into the Wild, Ralston and McCandless comment frequently that they looked forward to being alone, away from either the boredom, mundaneness or in Chris McCandless’ case, the pain, heartache and chaos of everyday life.

For Ralston, his need to be alone against the elements seemed to come from his supreme confidence in his abilities as a climber, medic and overall naturalist and adventurer. It was also a desire to see how long and how far he could push himself. There was an air of invincibility and a slight arrogance within him. A feeling that he had taken all that nature could dish out and was still standing. For Ralston, it seemed that there was no situation he couldn’t handle while out in the wild. For Ralston, family and relationships were pushed aside for more adventure and more solitude.

McCandless’ motives for burning his money and most of his other worldly possessions and heading to Alaska seemed to be due to his disillusionment with the conventions of living a “regular” life. He held a great deal of resentment and harbored many internal scars toward his parents, who he felt were pressuring him into living a materialistic, typical American lifestyle. For McCandless and his naïve idealism of challenging himself and living off of the harsh Alaskan land, solitude in the Alaskan wilderness also meant not having to deal with the stresses and vapidness of everyday life. It also meant having minimal contact with others. Minimal contact meant not having to deal with the baggage, and in McCandless’ mind, the inevitable hurt and disappointment that came with establishing a connection or a relationship with someone.

But in the end, when both men were slowly, agonizingly dying, they both had the same epiphany - that in the end, it wasn’t solitude that they were craving. But rather, it was the relationships and bonds that they had forged in life with friends and family that had meant the most – relationships that both men had ultimately forsaken for their own selfish or fearful reasons. Before summoning the strength to make the brazen decision to amputate his arm, Ralston wondered if his sudden enlightenment was his body’s final desperate attempt to persevere or if it was a final, cruel lesson about his life and how he lived it.

Unfortunately, Christopher McCandless would not have the opportunity to follow through on his realization. He died from starvation near Denali National Park and Preserve, alone in a beat up school bus that he used as a makeshift form of shelter. One of McCandless’ final statements as he lay near death and was barely able to move was the following, “Happiness is only real when shared.”

Despite losing part of his right arm and nearly bleeding to death, Aron Ralston would be the only one to heed McCandless’ advice and learn from his mistakes.

- Hamilton Maher

"127 Hours" image courtesy of comingsoon.net
"Into the Wild" image courtesy of alltrailers.net

Laughs Abound

2011-03-21T09:49:00.000-07:00

Chicago — Loss of Collective Bargaining Stops Trains

When Governor Vel Veta took away the collective bargaining rights of workers in his state, he probably didn’t know the act would stop trains going east of Chicago.

Workers on trains faced muscle strains from lifting the luggage of residents fleeing to the West after several states took away those rights to workers.

Veta simply stated that he thought states could no longer bargain with workers and workers had to take the scraps of whatever was left in the budget.

“They have to contribute to the financial solutions,” Veta said, as he loaded up several suitcases filled with cash from the funds unions set aside to help out two years ago.

Veta suffered a back strain from lifting, but couldn’t reach his healthcare company because his judge voted down the new Healthcare Affordable Act for his state. “We shouldn’t be addressing healthcare when we have to stop spending money first.”

When asked why the state faced the shortage, he answered, “We have to pay so much on healthcare it creates a budget crisis.”

The recent drive to stop the rights of workers to bargain began when he arrived at the negotiations carrying a small card table. “I ain’t gonna share this table with nobody,” he said.

Union leaders had to sit against the wall without chairs in the hall while Veta sat on a platform with his small table. “They don’t have to bargain, we can tell them what to accept,” he said.

Veta’s emergence into the governor ship occurred when the cheese manufacturers in the state backed him and saw a jump in statewide profits. Part of the surge came when they decided workers should contribute to the cheese cutters needed to make the cheese.

“They need to do their job,” he said. “They should contribute to paying for the cost.”

When some workers complained that they were losing their homes because their payments couldn’t meet the rent and mortgage obligations, Veta told the manufacturers to let them have some rind to keep them happy.

“Our financial crisis means we have to support our businesses making the cheese,” he said. “We can’t expect them to pay out to help the state — they’d all leave us high and dry.”

As flocks of people flee from the affected states, they have strained the train systems so that engine parts are breaking down. Those train workers are now being asked by companies to help pay for new rails and wheels so that the train firms can make a profit.

“If the porters strain their backs, they might need some doctors’ help, but we just don’t have the funds because of the crisis,” Veta said.

Workers who sat at the negotiations wanted to have some power at the small table to decide on workplace issues. They said that the governor and management control hiring and salaries, and that collective bargaining was the only weapon the workers had that would give them a fair shake.

“They got jobs, don’t they? They should be happy with that,” Veta said.

- Tom Pope

Image courtesy of CartoonStock.com

Behind The Mask

2011-02-19T14:43:00.000-08:00

Wasted Death

As we all know, and as I mentioned way back in my January 2010 blog article about death and rebirth in comics, comic book death never lasts forever. But now, Marvel Comics has decided to take things to a new and ridiculous level. At a ComicsPro retailer summit in Texas, David Gabriel, Senior Vice President of Sales at Marvel said, “As a result of the Fantastic Four sales and media coverage, Marvel is going to kill a main character every quarter.” He followed up this statement by saying, “This is not a joke.” I dare to ask, and hope that if this is true, it backfires in Marvel’s face in a big way.

For those of you who do not know, Marvel spent many months and many marketing dollars hyping the death of one of the core members of the Fantastic Four. Cynics speculated, correctly so, that this was a publicity stunt to jump start a comic book franchise whose sales had lagged behind such Marvel stalwarts as the Avengers, the X-Men, Spiderman and the Incredible Hulk for many years. Unfortunately, the public also bought into the hype and made Fantastic Four #587, the death of Johnny Storm (aka The Human Torch), Marvel’s highest selling comic for the month of January.

Aside from the fact that readers did not see the actual lifeless body of Johnny Storm (the last image we have is Johnny being overwhelmed by FF villain, Annihilus’ hordes), the skeptical fan was already predicting that the Human Torch was just being put “on ice” so that he could make a triumphant return when the FF celebrate their milestone 600th issue. Whether this occurs remains to be seen. Next on the Marvel death circuit appears to be the Ultimate Universe version of Spider Man. Oh joy. And then we have the next big Marvel event, Fear Itself, which should continue the Marvel kill parade.

If Gabriel’s statement is indeed true and Marvel plans to kill a main character every quarter, they will find that this bold, novel idea will go the way of polybagged or foil comics, the yearly summer mega event, or the 90’s era of comics with fancy art but little, to no, story. Big sales and lots of media attention will be generated in the short term, but then reader fatigue will set in and sales will go down the toilet. Death will become an even bigger joke and loyal comic book readers will roll their eyes and yawn. Hopefully they’ll leave the Marvel fold altogether. Death, in essence, will become as common as the Hulk getting stronger as he gets angrier during a fight.

But the main problem with Gabriel and Marvel’s statement is that they are ultimately destroying their characters and what makes them “heroes”. In the not-so-distant past, death in comics was a jaw dropping, rare event. When a hero died, if the writer and artist did their job, the impact was staggering and left the reader feeling as if he or she had lost a member of their family. The reader felt the impact of the hero’s sacrifice because he knew that in all likelihood, his or her favorite hero would not be returning. Or, if their favorite hero was returning, it wasn’t going to be anytime soon. Can anyone honestly believe that if Marvel decided to kill off, Wolverine next month, he wouldn’t be back in a year or two tops? If you do, I also have a bridge to sell you.

Sadly, with this announcement Marvel is just confirming what many suspected all along. It’s not about producing good, well thought out, satisfying stories, but generating gratuitous hype in the hopes of bringing in big bucks. But as we all know…hype will only get you so far.

- Hamilton Maher

Image courtesy of Wired.com

Fiction's Philosophy

2011-02-10T11:44:00.000-08:00

Philosophy of the Complete American Dream

When the character, Harrison Shepherd, speaks to his attorney in Barbara Kingsolver’s novel, The Lacuna, Shepherd wants to understand America’s hatred toward Communism. Yet his lawyer Artie’s answer could equally speak to the language of today’s Tea Party.

Shepherd dared to ask why the public in the early 1950s could be so confused between facts and propaganda. In his daring, he questioned whether the public really felt hatred towards another enemy.

Artie commented that, “Anticommunism is not much concerned with Communism.” He stated that the image the anticommunists had about America was that of a finished product, so any new change to that product would become a perceived threat.

The conversation occurred in the novel when Shepherd sought advice to deal with the ways the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) clouded his past. Shepherd grew up as a cook and then secretary for Diego Rivera and Frieda Kahlo. He later served as secretary to Leon Trotsky before his assassination. Both Trotsky and Shepherd shared a horror of Stalin’s oppression. Then Shepherd migrated to the states where he helped coordinate the transfer of famous paintings for storage for the state department during World War II.

However, Shepherd's crisis with HUAC arose when the country feared Shepherd's novels would endanger people because of his background. The HUAC spurred propaganda portrayed Shepherd as a threat because all Communists were the same. The HUAC’s propaganda resulted in showing Shepherd as making a quote to disparage the country’s leader instead of revealing that the quote came from a character in one of Shepherd’s novels. The propaganda resulted in distorting Shepherd’s activities. Because of his job transferring art work, Shepherd was stated to still be working for the government. Shepherd’s writing notes with Trotsky on the terror of Stalin were explained as though Shepherd wrote material to encite people to overthrow the American government.

When Artie told Shepherd that the public knew nothing about Communism, he pointed out the public failed to think through a charge and simply reacted to primeval fears. Shepherd thought most workers would appreciate the means of owning and controlling a product or service. But the idea of oppression by an elite group that called itself Communistic should not be seen as an example of Communism.

Artie, however, spoke to Shepherd about the charges levied against Shepherd as if the charges only touched on surface issues. The 1950’s public held fears because of a loss of security with the advent of the nuclear age. The public feared a new global society beckoning. That countered their vision of America being a finished product. The vision believed that the American system went beyond the problems of Europe in the 1700s. That dream carried the vision to the West coast and any idea of changes meant a loss to the scope of that vision.

Artie could have easily been thinking about today’s Tea Party dialogue. The messages chant that government should spend less, taxation hurts the average person and the government should stay out of healthcare.

The chanting misses the mark like the propaganda from the 1950s. The Tea Party people fail to see that less spending means that local towns have to lay off police people and teachers. The new propaganda fails to make connections between taxes and funds to help spur job growth. Government incentives have long helped the oil industry despite the vast profits accrued by those firms. Government incentives could help the alternative energy industry grow, but the dialogue from the Tea people only focuses on the taxes — not the result. A failure to tax the top three percent of the population means that the rest of the people would pay more because they would receive fewer services. The new language also fails to recognize that private firms control healthcare and only a larger government system could stop those firms from raising premiums on the average person.

In both cases, the propaganda uses language that clouds the real fear. Artie said the HUAC feared the bomb and the changing scope of the world. We dare to ask where the real fears of the Tea Party people lie. In chanting for a taking back of America, are they worried about a more diverse America with many ethic faces to go with Gay Rights and more respect for Women? Was the American product finished with an all White, Protestant, female-working-in-the-kitchen household? Artie and Shepherd might answer that Tea Party dialogue should think through their messages and learn more about the facts they abuse.

Picture Courtesy of estuarypress.com
House UnAmerican Activities Committee
Picketing HUAC, Los Angeles, CA 1962

Nonviolent Power

2011-01-31T18:32:00.000-08:00

The Value of Direct Communication

When the characters of Professor Will Esterhuyse and Thabo Mbeki turned their backs on stereotypes in the PBS presentation of Endgame, they chose the path of direct communication for South African factions that faced the danger of civil war. We dare ask how important is that communication to nonviolent resistance.

The characters were shown as batting heads in negotiations that led to the South African government speaking to the African National Congress (ANC). The talks paved the way for the release of Nelson Mandela and a one person one vote rule in the country.

While most people believe nonviolent resistance focuses mainly on protests of marches, the element of direct communication stands out as a necessity to end any oppression. Goals set up by factions cannot be obtained when part of the goals are cloaked in secrecy.

In the presentation of Endgame, the goals were not clear in the beginning. Esterhuyse believed he was sounding out the ANC to find out when violence could be stopped. Mbeki thought he was breeching a barrier that would open up a dialogue with other Whites in the country. However, the government’s acceptance of the meetings occurred only because the state security force wanted to learn methods to weaken the ANC. In almost a similar manner, the ANC was fearful that too much information sent to Esterhuyse would weaken the ANC.

In one key scene, Esterhuyse and Mbeki saw each other as people instead of the inhuman enemy. That they struggled to learn about the best ways to solve a common problem. Esterhuyse defied the government to listen to the abuses from his government. He ignored his country’s security leader to confide in Mbeki so the talks could continue. Mbeki listened to the worries voiced by the White community through Esterhuyse. And Mbeki defied the radical part of the ANC that feared a loss of power through the conversations.

But real change blossomed because direct communication worked with the nonviolent strategies. Once the barrier of thinking the opposition is an evil nonhuman has been cast away, then the listening by each side enables the process to hear the cries of an opposition. Mbeki said that only when the ANC was viewed as an equal partner around the table could they begin to have meaningful change. Then when the talks start, the conversation could mirror the language of the opposition instead of express false beliefs that arise from propaganda. The Whites could hear about the problems of travel by Black workers. The ANC could hear the voice of land holders who sought to retain ownership.

The Endgame presentation showed two men staring into each other’s eyes to seek a different way to solve conflicts instead of picking up the gun. Communication often is blocked by the propaganda spewed from the opposition that makes real people appear like animals. Communication usually is blocked when fear stops the process of hearing the other’s concerns. But, when people bypass those obstacles, and communication flows, each party can stop the cycle of pain. We are prompted to ask, if this process from South Africa was used to aid the Irish crisis and is being looked at by Hamas, why those same concepts could not be used more often in diplomacy.

Graphic credit to Endgame (2009) - IMDb

Laughs Abound

2011-01-31T18:14:00.000-08:00

Albany, NY — Pension Reform Spurs Economy

New reforms to take away employee pension benefits have started producing an upsurge in the state’s economy. Sales of Mercedes, high rise penthouses and 30 foot yachts now post the largest growth since the days of F. Scott Fitzgerald.

The drivers of the state’s economy have suffered from losses during the last few years because corporations over stepped their Wall Street investments. Yet, recent government efforts have found new funding sources by taking the money from pension plans set up to aid the public workforce.

Corporate CEOs and business managers lost the ability to merge and consolidate with other firms while bonuses shrank to levels where only three homes per CEO were affordable to this sector.

“Workers should contribute to helping the economy,” said State Senator Rich Jowls. “Why should they deprive the wealthy of having funds for a merger that could take their company to an international level?”

When the financial crisis hit, the corporation, Schools Are Us, lost $100 million from Wall Street and could not partner with another charter school. The management staff suffered by reducing salaries to just under $500,000 a year. And the firm could not force the evictions of several neighborhoods to use land for new headquarters.

“Teachers are not considerate when they ask for a raise above the poverty level,” said Rip Emoff, the corporate owner. “Imagine them wanting a set pay when they retire to help pay medical expenses — why don’t they have the money they saved up by counting pennies?”

However, the state government does not want a duplication of the scene in New Jersey where a government official was YouTuped wrestling with a teacher in a supermarket over the contents of a shopping cart.

“Tenure?” Asked Rip. “Why should they be protected in their careers — they aren’t CEOs who pay huge country club fees to influence board members and really need the dough.”

On the other hand, increasing talk about taking the money from workers has shown policy makers a certain wisdom. Economic survival filters down from those who buy the Mercedes and penthouses. After all, some teachers have to guide the users of the Mercedes how to drive and the residents of penthouses how to dump the garbage. “Money filters down,” Jowls said. “Why, I just gave my doorman a quarter to hold my money bag of $200,000 that I needed to add a device to my Mercedes — now I can connect with my yacht.”

Graphic credit to http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/images/symbols-CM079001935.aspx

Laughs Abound

2011-01-31T13:15:00.000-08:00

Worlds Meet

2010-10-24T20:59:00.000-07:00

TV Points Finger At Contractors

When the new FOX series Nikita premiered in September, it became the sixth series to feature the idea of a contracting industry that grows uncontrollably beyond government constraints. We dare to ask if fiction writers see this threat, why many government policy people and most media continue to ignore the problem.

In the climax of the opening episode, Nikita, a former operative of the Division rescues an African leader from an assassination attempt by her former employer. Nikita told the African leader that he was the target of a rogue department created by the government, which no longer maintained that control. The Division started as a Blackwater-like secret ops organization with specialized ninja-like rangers.

Contracting firms like Blackwater, now called Xe, are hired by the government to handle protection as bodyguards, accompany convoys of trucks and even gather intelligence from areas like Iraq and Afghanistan.

Nikita became the sixth series recognizing contracting firms as a threat. The CBS series Jericho (which ran from 2006 to 2008), showed the culprit of a contracting firm called J&R that could destroy US towns in order to preserve national security. The season before it ended, 24 (FOX) presented a contracting firm that decided the national interest called for smuggling nuclear material into Washington D.C. along with a seizure of the President. Both Flash Forward (ABC) and The Unit (CBS) demonstrated the ability of those rogue corporations to subvert the FBI, CIA and national security forces. This year’s The Event (NBC) casts a president kept out of the loop by such a threat.

Yet the problem of such corporations is being ignored by most people. Blackwater was temporarily banned from working in Iraq when a series of citizen killings alienated the Iraqi government. But the ban was short lived and the company was called back because the Pentagon considered its work necessary for national security. When a key writer for The Nation detailed how Blackwater’s founder was implicated in murder in an August 4, 2009 article, the warning produced little attention. One court even suggested that the black ops people were outside of any US jurisdiction. We should dare to ask if these corporations are exerting even more unseen influence and perhaps exert power to suppress information.

Blackwater or Xe, or Blackwater Worldwide, which it was before becoming Xe, lies at the tip of a threatening iceberg. The Center for Public Integrity reported that since 1994, the Defense Department entered into 3,601 contracts worth $300 billion from 12 corporations like Xe. Arguments claim these corporations are an inevitable measure to save money. However, those comments don’t explain how paying a Xe contractor $600 a day while billing the government for $900 day compares to using standard army personnel.

A recent NPR report described the death of a Taliban leader during a strike. Oddly, the report also indicated the Taliban leader code-named White, was a black ops contractor. So when we see reports like that spotlighting our supposed enemies as those we placed to protect us, maybe departments like the Division, or Jack Bauer’s foe, might not be as fictional as we think.

The threats abound. Is the cloak of protecting the country’s national security a massive cover for deciding the course of history without giving the public a voice in the decision? Dare we ask if the average Roman worried about seeing the Praetorian Guard around his leader? Did he fear that those guards might one day seize power without regard for democracy?

- Tom Pope

Image courtesy of cinemovies.fr

Lights, Camera, Action!

2010-10-21T17:16:00.000-07:00

A Vampire for the Times

Season 3 of the critically acclaimed HBO series True Blood introduced us to Russell Edgington, the Vampire King of Mississippi and the big bad guy of the past season. After watching Russell in action throughout the course of season 3, I thought to myself that if Edgington had actually existed in the real world, he would have fit in extremely well in our current world order. We live in an age where we are reminded of the threat of another terrorist attack either internally or externally almost on a daily basis. The divide between rich and poor continues to grow at an alarming rate, and politicians and other religious and societal leaders preach unity and togetherness, but actually practice divisiveness, power mongering and hypocrisy.

On the surface, Russell Edgington (played with gusto, excellence and a touch of camp by Denis O’Hare) seems to be a cool, cultured blue blood of a vampire. He also donates regularly to the American Vampire League, a political organization that is trying to do their best to co-exist peacefully with humans. And he tolerates the Vampire Magister, the judge and jury of internal vampire disputes, although he finds the Magister and his ways archaic and prohibitive.

But Edgington’s façade belies a bigoted, Machiavellian nature. Edgington sees vampires as the superior life form, and according to his world view, humans and the other supernatural species that inhabit the True Blood world are only good for food and/or slave labor. At close to three thousand years old, Edgington has been a part of many crucial moments in the history of the world, even going so far as to employ werewolves to do his bidding while roaming Europe and while masquerading as a Nazi during World War II.

While Edgington wants vampires to take, what he believes to be their rightful place on the top of the food chain, he won’t hesitate to sell out his own kind for money and power. Some examples include giving and selling vampire blood to both humans and werewolves, and exposing the Vampire Queen of Louisiana’s dire financial state of affairs so that he could marry her, take over her territory and her V (the term for Vampire blood) business.

In an act of revenge, vampire Eric Northman, kills Talbot, Edgington’s consort in response for Edgington and his werewolves slaughtering Eric’s family in Sweden close to one thousand years ago. This causes Edgington to go off the deep end and exhibit his true vampiric nature. On national TV, Edgington disrupts a news broadcast, eviscerating the host on live TV. He goes on to declare that vampires are the dominant species, and that humans need to beware.

Edgington’s subsequent action causes anti-vampire sentiment and hate crimes to skyrocket. The American Vampire League denounces him as an extremist and a terrorist and declares that the brazen act of one vampire is not an accurate or fair representation of all vampires. Hmmm, where have we heard that before?

While Edgington’s actions on True Blood are heightened and exaggerated, the real world messages and analogies are clear and unmistakable. When a terrorist act occurs, it’s easy to give in to fear and assume that an entire ethnic or religious group is responsible rather than a select few extremists. Or that a select few that have power and influence, are above the rules and laws of their governing body and will do what they need to keep and consolidate their power (such as the AIG’s, Citigroup’s and the Bank of America’s of the world), even if it means exploiting those less fortunate.

Edgington has no use for government of any kind whether it’s the old school Magister or the American Vampire League, unless it benefits him in some way, shape or form. In order to consolidate his territory and power, Edgington forces the Magister to marry both he and the Vampire Queen of Louisiana. After the Magister performs the ceremony and threatens to report Edgington to the Vampire Board, Edgington kills him.

While not as drastic or visceral, we’ve seen this mentality countless times in the real world too. The Republicans and many Tea Party members use it as a mantra. They want the government to get their hands out of Medicare, Social Security and the banks. But when something goes wrong (like the financial crisis of 2007 or a natural disaster) , they’re quick to jump back on the government bandwagon only to go back to their “hands off” government approach once the problem is fixed. I know that many Wall Street brokers, credit card companies and mortgage lenders are baring their fangs because of all the new regulations that have been imposed upon them. But like Edgington, they have found loopholes and ways around the current restrictions, even going so far as to give their top executives nice, big bonuses this year.

In the end, many of us are just like the vampire. Despite our best attempts to be civilized and politically correct, when push comes to shove and we feel threatened or in a position of superiority, we turn our minds off, and show our basest, most savage natures.

- Hamilton Maher

Image courtesy of trueblood-online.com

Words Come Alive

2010-09-24T07:27:00.000-07:00

Build Your World

You have characters that knock your socks off, and a fast paced plot, but whatever atmosphere your story fills, dare we ask how to complete it with a consistent world?

Worldbuilding requires detailed attention that forms the landscape your characters inhabit. The world casts an umbrella of social beliefs and traditions that framed the character’s family before he was born. And that world’s system of housing, transportation or even food distribution will affect the movement of the plot.

So how do we create a checklist of items to consider as we erect our world? A starting point could be the science of the world. Which item appears drastically different in the story’s world? For example, let’s play with the idea that the story occurs on a planet without metals.

Let’s view this planet’s societies through that lens. Where do we go from that point? One idea might be to form a checklist and think of the letters representing Social, Political, Ideological, Cultural and Economic factors, or SPICE.

Without metals, the societies would not meet a Bronze or Iron Age. How would they develop writing with weaker stone tools? That problem would affect the growth of social groups. Would they find an alternative to stone carvings that allowed some members to communicate and then become a hierarchy? If the absence of metal promoted stone works to the most useful material, would communities grow around stoneworks?

The political development would depend on the way the society shaped from the agricultural transition from hunter gatherer. Would the weakened tools allow for a steady growth of farmers to support a city-state? What shape would that city take without metals? What weapons would the leaders use to maintain control? Would forces of spear carriers be replaced by sling-shooters?

The ideology of the society would be affected by the lack of metals. If stoneworks were the hardest material for construction, then mythology might develop around stone workers, or stone gods. Would valleys that lacked stone quarries form alternative religions? Much of Earth’s philosophy has emerged around the disagreement over whether people were naturally evil or good. Would the metal-less world discover a philosophy based on a knowledge of stoneware so that the people thought goodness or evil arose from a deeper understanding of rocks?

Cultures depend on art and music to further the aims of the society. Would the metal-less society find an alternative to paper since the cutting of trees for the resource would be more difficult than on Earth? Would the society find a grain that could be used as papyrus for writing material? If stones were reserved for the upper class or priests, then stones might not be used for popular music. The society might focus on reed instruments.

The economic world could face obstacles. The making and transporting of products would require new methods. Without metals, the axels of wagons would be difficult to construct. Wood could be used, but cutting trees would be a problem to overcome. Once axels could be fashioned, then systems of transportation could bring goods to parts of the society. But other methods of making goods would have to be designed. Without furnaces, would the society be able to reach the industrial age? Could they bypass it by constructing goods in another manner?

These considerations show many obstacles exist for a writer going through the thought process of creating a world. But writers could bypass the lack of metal if science allows a substitute. Could diamonds be discovered in a plentiful amount so people could construct tools from the gem? What if people found the ability to control EM fields through mental thought? Then the potential of controlling plasma could form tools and weapons. If people channeled wind currents, forms of wind shields could be developed to erect protection for homes or used for weapons against armies.

Worldbuilding requires thoughts and details that arise from thinking through the implications of how the science plays out on the planet. From that beginning, a checklist of concerns like SPICE acts to assist writers in finding those details. That way, the characters in a moving story can strike out in a more complete way to engage the reader.

- Tom Pope

Image courtesy of en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sample_conworld.jpg

The Response Meter

2010-09-12T14:19:00.000-07:00

The Data to Cover All Your Bases

Whether you work in the business-to-business or consumer publishing and media world, having up-to-date demographic information on your subscribers and members is vital. The more information you have on a particular subscriber, the easier it is for circulators to effectively market to that person. And while it’s necessary to keep up with any changes to your subscriber database either internally or with the help of an outside fulfillment house, there are other databases that every company whether big or small, should also have in their stable.

The first is what is called a Reserve or Hold file. This file is composed of people that a publisher or CEO feels does not exactly fit the exact demographics of the magazine, website, or newsletter. The people in a Hold file could also be put there because the publisher does not want to exceed his or her rate base. The Hold file is an important file to have and to continually update because it gives a publisher or CEO a well to pull from in case the rate base is running low. It’s also a good source for audience developers to use, especially if their brands are in competitive markets and they are running low on key demographic stats that are important to their advertisers.

Any expires or subscribers that have cancelled or dropped their subscription should also be kept in a separate database and segmented for promotion at a later date. If you’re trying to meet rate base and have depleted your budget to purchase lists, an Expire list is a good source to have. Promotion to these names usually involves an incentive to get these former subscribers back into the fold. Some ideas include a percentage off an annual subscription or giving them a “special” issue or a number of issues for free.

And the last important database that every publishing or media company should have is a Pass-along database. These are the names of people that your current subscribers think would benefit from your company’s products, whether the product is a magazine, enewsletter, digital edition, an event, or a webcast. Pass-along names are important because they are usually the same, highly qualified, targeted colleagues of your current subscribers.

Now, more than ever, having highly targeted, up-to-date and integrated lists are a key to success. With the economy still struggling to right itself and a finite amount of advertiser dollars up for grabs, it’s vital for circulators to have as much demographic information as they can across all of the above lists. Name and address is great, but information like email address, phone number, title, etc. can help target Circulation promotions and also help Sales with lead generation programs.

- Hamilton Maher

Image courtesy of xbaseview.com

Laughs Abound

2010-08-24T16:32:00.000-07:00

Washington DC — Supreme Court Rules on Children

In a move to placate activists who want to control children of illegal aliens, the Supreme Court ruled on a wide range of issues that change the status of children.

The activists wanted a decision that changed the status of children born in the country to illegal aliens. Like most civilized countries, the US has held through the 14th Amendment that children born in the country were citizens. However, the activists wanted to focus on the word illegal that described the parent.

To widen the scope, the court ruled that all children would have to change their heritage. From the end of this year, new born Asian-Americans would be classified as Africans. Those born from African-Americans would be called Latinos. Those of European decent would be characterized as Asians.

“This isn’t what we wanted,” said a spokesman from Keep the A in America, a group that feared losing some of the letters of the name of the country. “We just wanted to bar citizenship from those who had illegal parents.”

The court has acted to answer some of those demands. In the future, children who have a parent convicted of speeding will not be able to drive cars. “Those foreign cars are just flooding the borders,” said Manny Fold. “If the Federal Government doesn’t stop all of this illegal activity, we’ll spot check each car to make sure it’s a Detroit make.”

The court has also declared that a child from law breakers will not have the right to buy food in a supermarket. “Those kids are taking food away from decent law abiding citizens,” said the leader of the group, Keep American Food Safe. “Our shelves are lined with too much of that fancy Italian cheese anyway. Who needs all that greasy olive oil that spills on your hands?”

Local police forces are now instructed to forget about follow up with homicide and burglary cases. Rather they will have to check the pockets of children who leave supermarkets to make sure that they have legal parents.

“This should help the country make more local products,” said the leader. “It’s about time the police monitored the illegal import of those foreign sauces.”

Another item covered by the court bars children who have parents convicted in ponzi schemes from carrying money. “We don’t want those future adults threatening us with more ponzi gimmicks,” said Green Back. “These rules help keep money in the country and next year, we’ll go after all those people who carry around Euros and Yuans.”

- Tom Pope

Image courtesy of Congressofhope.com

Worlds Meet

2010-08-22T12:31:00.000-07:00

Let The Fear Mongering Continue...

The good folks at CNN have decided to give Republican nominee for NY governor, Rick Lazio a platform to express his views about the funding of the mosque and cultural center slated to be built two blocks away from Ground Zero. I was a bit surprised that CNN would give a political figure like Lazio, who also happens to be running for a state office, a platform to express his political views and in essence, further help his campaign to become governor of New York State. But it wasn’t just the fact that CNN allowed Lazio a pulpit from which to preach, it was what Lazio was being allowed to say that was somewhat troubling and concerning. As I was reading Lazio’s “commentary”, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the fear mongering days of the Bush Jr. administration, and I wondered why a “serious” news organization like CNN would agree to promote this type of attitude.

On CNN.com, Lazio declared that he believes that the proposed mosque scheduled to be built two blocks away from Ground Zero (called Park 51) should be halted until a full investigation into the motivations of one of the project’s co-founders, an imam named Feisal Abdul Rauf, be looked into strictly on the pretense that he is Muslim.

Unfortunately, in Lazio’s world, all Muslims are nefarious, evil doers and Park 51 is just a front so that Rauf and his cohorts can wage their jihad against an innocent, unsuspecting public. This is somewhat humorous considering that Rauf has been outspoken in his views against terrorism and terrorist behavior.
Heaven forbid if there might be a non-radical Muslim or group of Muslims out there that doesn’t support terrorism or groups like al-Qaeda or Hamas. There may even be Muslims that support Hamas but don’t advocate violence or radical behavior against the United States or any of its allies.

What Lazio and his fellow neo-conservatives are doing is not only polarizing an ethnic group, but perpetuating the stereotype that that all Muslims are dirty, out to get us, and are ready to strap a bomb to their backs to blow up innocent women and children. I liken it to the way the Japanese were portrayed during World War II as sneaky, slanty-eyed mongrels with big buck teeth.

It’s unfortunate that after all these years, that we as a nation are still driven by the same paranoia as we were years ago and susceptible to the same internal scare tactics. It’s unfortunate that we can’t look upon the mosque that is being built next to Ground Zero as a symbol of healing rather than hate. It’s a shame that we can’t realize that many Muslims and Muslim-Americans despise terrorist groups like al-Qaeda or Hamas for what they stand for, and feel that these organizations have only made it more difficult for them to be accepted into mainstream American society.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg had a moment of clarity when he opposed Lazio’s demands by saying, “Government should never — never — be in the business of telling people how they should pray, or where they can pray. We want to make sure that everybody from around the world feels comfortable coming here, living here and praying the way they want to pray.” President Obama also weighed in with his approval but then sadly felt the need to backtrack when he felt pushback from Republicans and other opposition groups.

That’s the real message we should be supporting and pushing. Media outlets like Fox News and now CNN, have chosen to harp upon the same archaic fear mongering tactics that promote separation rather than unity and ignorance rather intelligence. If Lazio is allowed to express his opinions, why isn’t CNN allowing an opposing viewpoint to be heard? There are millions of Arab-Americans living in our country who want to be accepted into mainstream American society and want to help contribute to the United States’ success. Instead of giving a few radical fundamentalists their moment in the sun and the opportunity to further their agendas, shouldn’t we giving those Muslims who have struggled to achieve the American dream and who have played by the rules, a moment to shine?

We should, but sadly we won’t as long as “fear” sells papers and generates hits to websites.

- Hamilton Maher

Images courtesy of news.yahoo.com

Worlds Meet

2010-08-14T14:09:00.000-07:00

The Seeker’s Nation Building

When the hero of last year’s television series, Legend of the Seeker, told his bodyguard that they had to detour from the major goal of saving the world of the living from the underworld, he thought about providing basic support for the local population. His comments could have mirrored the attempted nation building in Iraq or Afghanistan. Even if the end of the world came for the society within a day’s time, that day’s hours could be filled with suffering from hunger, roving bands of militia or torture. The Seeker’s idea focused on responsibility. Does an action only aim to counter the overwhelming obstacle, or does the action have a duty to give aid to immediate problems? The peasant about to be tortured may be one person, but his fear of death looks at the knife at his throat rather than the events of tomorrow.

Recent setbacks in Iraq have happened as the once patrolled streets in areas by local factions have stopped. The Sunni-led government has failed to pay the patrols that the US supported. In Afghanistan, US forces are seen as aiding a corrupt Kabul government. Those examples stem from a lack of nation building, or a way to build systems so local people have a say in security and progress.

Yet those issues were exactly what Richard as the Seeker saw as crucial. During a scene where the Seeker struggled to stop forces from the underworld from destroying all life, he teamed up with former enemies and discovered the aftermath of war. A former unit of the army fighting him turned to give him aid, and the fighting and torturing expert Mord’Sith — a blend of female Klingon, and ninja — became a bodyguard to protect him. But, before he resumed finding the answer to the ultimate destruction of his world, he witnessed villagers who were left without homes. Those people suffered from injuries and became filled with hate at the thought of working with anyone from another land.

The Seeker faced an option of focusing on using his new military power to claim the throne so overall destruction could have been avoided. But he told his supporters that they must first treat the locals because the results of war meant he owed a responsibility to those people.

Could that be a form of nation building? While his attempt answered a vision of being responsible, the action also set up ways to stop further chaos. Those villages would either support or oppose the future world the Seeker built. Without homes, they would live on the road, and maybe attack other villages for food or survival. Without treatment for injuries, possible plagues could threaten the area. Without trauma treatment, they might resort to a rage that stopped them from working with other villages in a common struggle.

So the Seeker was left with key tools of the military and logistical knowledge to tend to the villages. He could have used the troops just to stop creatures from preying on the villages, but that would not have solved the food shortage or calmed an anger directed at other strangers. He had other tools of logistics that allowed him to dispense justice between the villages and tools of observation about where food could be obtained. The Seeker chose to use the tools that would prolong the lives of the population over the tools of military force. The use of force is the key. Of course the Seeker swung his blade, but the purpose centered on protecting people. When a military questions whether protecting the population places its troops in danger, that military misses the real enemy. The enemy isn’t a danger to itself. The real enemy is that force that is hurting the society that the military hopes to protect.

So let’s look at the comparison. The people in Afghanistan and Iraq are struggling to regain ways to obtain food, shelter and overcome distrust. When the military is used to enforce the rules of questionable governments, disruptions often occur in the lives of the population. In Afghanistan, farmers resort to growing poppy. In both Afghanistan and Iraq, homeless people seek comfort from a warlord and the general person feels anger to the local government.

Maybe the question we dare ask is whether nation building happens only when we use the military or if it can occur by focusing on the population by making sure they have work, shelter and relief from the trauma of war.

The Seeker worried about a larger threat — that of his entire world being destroyed by the underworld. Maybe our larger threat is an underworld of terrorism and black markets.

- Tom Pope

Image courtesy of beta.moviegoods.com

Behind The Mask

2010-08-05T14:59:00.000-07:00

Are Comics Still A Viable Medium?

The San Diego Comic Con (SDCC) has just wrapped up and as in previous years, most of the buzz generated by Marvel and DC had focused on their gaming, animation and movie news. Whether it was the introduction by Marvel of the cast of the upcoming Avengers movie or the promotion of DC’s upcoming Green Lantern movie or its fantastic trailer for their DC Universe Online game for the PC or PS3, the focus on the surface seemed to be about all things non-comic book related. In an age where print product consumption has steadily been dropping and the shift to games, social media, digital comics, movies and online has been consistently increasing, I wonder if the comic book in its purest, print form will continue to have a voice.

While movies, animation and games certainly dominated the talk at SDCC, according to Newsarama.com, Marvel had eighteen separate announcements concerning its comic book products and DC had seventeen. While the number of comics sold is down 2 percent compared to this time last year, their sales volume is up 1 percent compared to the year before, according to the June 2010/2009 stats courtesy of comichron.com. Of course part of that increase in sales volume is due to the fact that comic book prices have also increased over the past year, but to me the difference is relatively negligible and shows that comics are still a vital part of the overall comic media market.

Comic books need to exist whether they are in print or digital form. Not only is it necessary for the exploits of so many great characters to continue, but the writing and artistry in these books serves as the blueprint for their continuing adventures in other media, including movies, animation and games. For example, there probably would not have been a Planet Hulk animated movie without Greg Pak’s epic, fifteen issue masterpiece in the pages of the Incredible Hulk comic book, for example. Hell, there may never have been a Superman, Batman or Spiderman movie made if not for the decades and decades of amazing writing and art that came before it.

There’s no doubt that TV, movies and games generate big bucks for the Marvel’s and DC’s of the world (when done properly). As such, both companies will continue to invest big money to make sure these media properties prosper and continue to prosper.

Comic book fans tend to be a loyal and hardcore lot and also enjoy the feel of a freshly printed comic in their hands. That’s why I think comic book sales have not suffered as drastically as other print products such as magazines and newspapers. As long as comic book prices do not suddenly skyrocket to obscene levels, I think that that loyalty will remain, and overall comic book sales will not drop excessively.

But, I also think that the powers-that-be should understand that in order to continue to thrive, they will always need to have the comic book in some way, shape or form as a foundation. For as long as the comic book remains, other creators, whether they are game designers, directors or animators will have a treasure trove of stories and art to pull from. This will allow them to create their own visions, and at the same time continue and expand the mythos of so many great characters.

- Hamilton Maher

SDCC image courtesy of Wikipedia.com

Words Come Alive

2010-07-17T10:59:00.000-07:00

Novels Require Translators

Readers might be swept away following the exploits of a former slave who started a Gandhi-like resistance in the 1850s. They might be amazed at how the former slave threatened the plantation owners’ militia. But the readers would become glassy-eyed if they had to follow the organizational chart of three economic groups that vied for power. Those readers could feel lost with the political infighting among Southern and Northern senators. So we dare to ask how the author becomes a translator to more effectively bring the reader into a complex story. Readers become engaged with people. In many ways the writer translates the forces in his story into gripping concerns that affect individual characters.

Translation means more than explaining words from one language to another. The term could mean explaining how specific people are affected by concepts.

Writing stories cries out for a blending of the characters with the concepts. But the focus has to lie with the characters.

Writers need outlines to prep for a novel, and those outlines are guided in part by the concepts in play, whether the story is an SF, historical romance, comedy or mystery. Themes such as the misuse of power, trusting the masses, the fear of technology or the loss of ethics, allow writers to develop variables around which characters can move.

But when the scene development arises, the writer has to translate the material into a personal zone. The outline frames the basics of the movement in the scene. For example, the writer might have listed that the protagonist needs to find an ally in the midst of a peace conference. The outline further could list that the conflict arises when the protagonist faces the disruption of the conference.

The author has to delve into the personalities of the characters to translate the material. That means explaining the connection between the protagonist and the drive for the peace conference. Why was he caught up in the peace effort? If the conference is disrupted, then who is the agent and what connection does the agent have with the protagonist?

Another level of translation has to occur. Once the writer has answers to those questions, he has to explain those answers in a certain way. He could simply tell the reader in some prose. Yet that usually comes across as slow and too distant from the action. The author could show the reader by having his characters act out or verbalize the answers to those needed questions.

Imagine the scene taking place in the following manner. The protagonist enters a conference room of the UN to find his contact on the floor, dying. The man whispers as he dies that he failed the protagonist’s goal. Medical supplies will not be brought to a key village, and a lasting peace will not be found. He regrets failing, and knows his death will stop the conference. As the protagonist rises, he discovers his lover, standing in the corner with a gun. She stopped his plans to help the village because she needed the supplies to be developed so they could have a larger quantity. She offers him the chance to use his skills at distributing medicine to a greater degree because the peace conference would have held up development of the medications.

When writing a novel, the author might have wanted to show how ethics and peace could be entwined, but the application of the theme has to be translated into personal terms. Take the concept in the outline. Find the key force that moves the central idea of the concept. Then find a way to show the protagonist dealing with those forces and ideas based on his personality traits. Dare we think like the translator who explains the words from another language? We aim to show the full picture, but we need to bring the concept into the story by showing how a character deals with those concepts.

- Tom Pope

Image courtesy of clipartof.com

Follow The Bouncing Brawl

2010-07-10T08:17:00.000-07:00

The Next World Sporting Event

As the 2010 World Cup nears its conclusion and many avid soccer fans start to go into World Cup withdrawal, I dare to ask how many of these same fans will be gearing up for the next “world” sporting event - the World Baseball Classic in
2013. The answer is probably not too many. Even though the World Baseball Classic is in its infancy compared to the World Cup, the WBC planning committee should feel good about the strides made in generating both American and non-American fan interest to the tournament.

Whether it was fans of Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Korea or the Netherlands, or whether they were native born or naturalized, fans came out in droves to support their team. Their fervor was electric and you could feel the passion they had not only for their team, but also for the sport itself. Unfortunately, outside of the 6-5 do-or-die comeback win that advanced the United States into the semifinals of 2009’s tournament, the passion from the American fans for their team and the tournament was lacking. I don’t think it’s because the average American fan is any less patriotic than a fan from a team like the Dominican Republic or Cuba for example, or is any less ardent about the game. I think the difference has to do with our priorities as sports fans.

Scheduling. I understand the need exists to hold the tournament either before or after the Major League Baseball season, but if I were part of the tournament committee, I would vote to play the WBC after the final game of the World Series. Sure, there may be players tired and a bit beat up, but these same players would be battle tested and in a weird way, less prone to injury because they would have been playing baseball consistently for a full six to seven months. And in the event of an injury, players would have the entire off-season to heal up.

Too Many Sports, Too Little Time. Unlike many of the Latin American, European and Asian countries competing in the WBC and the World Cup, the average American sports fan’s time is spent watching a variety of different major sporting events. There are college basketball conference tournaments going on, the NHL and NBA seasons winding down and playoffs looming, MLB spring training starting up as well as a plethora of golf tournaments all going on at the same time. For the fans from most of the other competing countries, there is one sport that they follow and play religiously right now, and that’s soccer.

Protecting The Investment. During the last WBC, there was a spate of injuries not only to the United States roster but to other MLB baseball players playing in the WBC for other countries. Fans and MLB clubs alike are growing especially antsy. Fans want to make sure their favorite player on their team of choice will be ready for the start of the MLB season. Clubs that have invested lots of money in a David Ortiz or a David Wright for example, also want to be certain that their investments are ready to go and are ready to generate lots of money for their respective organizations.

As a baseball and all-around sports fan, I hope that the WBC continues to grow and thrive and ultimately becomes as big as the World Cup. When you look at teams like those from the Dominican Republic, Japan, Korea, Puerto Rico and Venezuela, you would be amazed to see how many players on these teams are playing in the Major Leagues. The WBC has shown how rapidly baseball is becoming a “global” sport. In the end, as long as the best players from each country are allowed to play and showcase their talent to the rest of the world (and with a little bit of marketing help), fans both from the United States and from other countries will slowly, but surely make their way to the ballpark. A USA win in the next tournament couldn’t hurt either.

- Hamilton Maher

Image courtesy of wikimedia.org

Fiction's Philosophy

2010-06-21T19:29:00.000-07:00

Shantaram’s Healing

A scene in the novel Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts shows a leader in a Mumbai slum faced with the necessity of exerting discipline on a wife abuser. However, the leader blends the punishment with healing. Roberts’ portrayal of the slum draws us into the need of using a philosophy of exerting discipline mixed with an understanding of inclusion while managing a large group of people.

With over 25,000 souls living cramped in a vise of flimsy huts and an overheated climate, the slum’s residents have to cope with the problems of overcrowding, illness and personal rivalries while suffering from a lack of food and medical help. Yet the spirit of the community thrives as the people willingly seek to comfort others or listen to a leader who adds to the spirit of harmony. We might dare to ask whether that spirit may have grown because of the philosophy of mixing healing with discipline.

When Joseph, a member of the community, beats his wife after a drinking binge, the slum’s leader, Qasim was faced by the need to show discipline for the actions. Once Joseph’s wife was rescued by neighbors to calm her and give emotional support, Qasim had to deal with Joseph’s destructive nature. Qasim ignored Joseph’s immediate need for water. Instead, he instructed people to give Joseph more liquor. Joseph was delirious, but still able to ignore his responsibility. Qasim was close enough to know Joseph’s tolerance. He administered more liquor until Joseph became sick. In the ensuing half a day, Joseph was routinely beaten with the same stick he used to beat his wife. A number of key neighbors took turns beating the wife beater.

However, eventually, Joseph’s behavior shifted, and met a different reaction from Qasim. Once Joseph realized he was becoming sicker and might have killed his wife, he became repentant. Suddenly, the same neighbors who punished Joseph, cleaned him up and soothed him with warm tea — the first he was able to sip despite suffering from dehydration.

The healing and punishment were linked together. Qasim realized that a society could not succeed in changing behavior without the two working together. Qasim acted very differently from many Western leaders. Any community requires a behavioral modification to deal with acts that hurt members. Yet, the usual concept is to divide the punishment from the healing. Keep the punishment going until some designated time way down the road occurs and then maybe think about how the member of society would be reintegrated with other members. Rehab is not in the picture in our perspective. Rehab is so spotty that very few real examples exist of how it works tied together with punishment in a cohesive systematic approach.

Joseph was not separated from society during or after the event. Our American prisons take the person away from society. The person becomes more of a hardened criminal and then the rest of society wonders why rehab doesn’t work. Joseph was forced to see the reactions by neighbors, not jailers. Qasim even planted the stick used to beat Joseph’s wife on Joseph’s hut so the man could see that instrument each day after the event.

Joseph was shown a practical way to remedy his crime. He was told that he would work extra hours for two months and save the money. Joseph would also be separated from his wife for that time so she could heal. Should his wife wish after that time that she wanted to leave Joseph, she would obtain that money he made. Joseph was drawn into the way he could make amends for his crime.

Qasim’s philosophy, part of the Indian slum necessity to share a communal struggle for life, brings the idea of healing right into the concept of punishment. They are not separate and if they are designed in a separate way, then neither works — that was the message from Qasim and Shantaram. Dare we ask whether we could bring part of that into the American way of life where courts, prisons and plea bargaining seem to ignore the role of healing?

- Tom Pope

Image courtesy of notamystery.com

Follow The Bouncing Brawl

2010-06-06T17:24:00.000-07:00

Play Ball!

Of all the championships out there, the World Cup is the one tournament that can truly be called a “world” event. It is a tournament that can unite countries and fans of the game together in the spirit of competition. But with teams representing all seven continents, the World Cup over the years has also served as an extension of real world politics and real world strife. The Cup has helped spur nationalistic feelings to unprecedented and, in some cases, dangerous levels. I dare to ask, if this year will be any different.

Throughout its history, the magnificence and spectacle of the World Cup has been marred by ugly incidents between competing countries and has also borne witness to violent fans taking their aggressions out on their own players. Back in 1994, Columbian defender Andres Escobar was murdered ten days after his goal into his own net against the United States helped propel the U.S. to the next round. In 1962, the Italian and hosting Chilean team fought after Italian journalists wrote less-than-kind articles about their hosts. Both teams are back in the 2010 tournament. Numerous countries over the years have either boycotted the tournament due to war-time activity or because they were dissatisfied with the political or social views of some of its participants.

This year, a potentially volatile late round matchup with competitive and political implications could pit North Korea against South Korea. Although they are on opposite ends of the World Cup bracket, if both teams were to make it deep into the tournament, given the current military posturing that both have been exhibiting lately, a North/South matchup could cause an already tense situation to become explosive. Greece goes into the tournament hoping that a good showing might lift its country’s spirits during an economic crisis that has its citizen’s fighting in the streets and wondering if they will be bailed out by the European Union.

The tournament has yet to begin, and already there is some controversy and concern about security. During a friendly between Nigeria and North Korea, soccer fans stampeded outside of the stadium. The stampede caused fifteen people to be injured and is hopefully not an omen of things to come.

Will politics upstage the friendly spirit of competition this year? Will we lose focus of the fact that a record six nations from Africa made it into the tournament this year or that South Africa is trying not to become the only host nation to avoid not making it through to the next round. Will Italy become the first nation to win back-to-back World Cup titles since Brazil won back in 1958 and 1962? Which nation will surprise all others and be the dark horse of the tournament?

These are the questions that I want to see make headlines. Let’s hope the participants in the Cup as well as their fans can check any other unnecessary baggage at the door.

- Hamilton Maher

Image courtesy of footballbits.co.uk

Fiction's Philosophy

2010-05-26T11:50:00.000-07:00

TV Series Fight Fate

As the current TV season surges to its climax, in just one week we’ve seen Fringe’s Walter try to save a different version of his son from an alternative universe, Flash Forward’s Agent Noh hear that his path to avoid dying could not be changed, and The Legend of the Seeker’s Zed worry that his action to change the forces of evil would still lead to the prophecy of doom.

Fiction has viewers always clamoring for an alternative chance to redo a past act, but the philosophy in us asks whether any chance to relive a moment would only bring the same result.

Why have so many examples of speculative fiction this year decided to explore this theme? Fiction has reveled in the question. The remake of The Time Machine in 2002 showed that despite the protagonist’s best efforts, he was unable to prevent his love from being killed despite trying to change key events. Orson Scott Card’s novel Pastwatch included a scene where characters from the future attempted to delay Columbus’ ships from arriving at Hispaniola at a key time. They changed an event, but the ships still arrived as though the pull of fate was gravity.

Yet years after the passing of the Star Trek’s three series, questions about changing time erupt again. In this year, we have seen the concern that fate’s decisions cannot be countered by our best intentions. Fringe’s Walter rescued an alternative son when his boy died of a rare disease. But the events of the theft of the alternative son set in motion a war between the two universes. As the agents in Flash Forward try to avoid the destruction many have seen in a vision of the future, they are told that all the possible paths will lead to the same concluding event. Despite the Seeker’s faith in his abilities to make his own fate, he sees his friends always hurt by attempts to change a path that is foretold.

Fiction reflects the present world, the past and future too. In our world of tech advancements that require updates every micro-second, certainty is evasive. Since 9/11 the shock value of fear can drive people to think individual action would fail when it faces the inevitable. Individuals who worked in the Ground Zero cleanup thought the government protected their health. Yet many still are denied health coverage for sicknesses related to the cleanup. The public expected a quick victory against the forces of terrorism, yet the problems have increased. So the fiction verbalizes the fears, casting a father in Fringe, a protector of society in Flash Forward, and a fantasy knight in The Legend of the Seeker. Yet the question that plagues them gnaws at our being — we dare ask if we can find an alternative path to upset a seemingly powerful destiny.

- Tom Pope

Images courtesy of sesionvip.com

Words Come Alive

2010-05-18T17:03:00.000-07:00

An Interview With Walter Jon Williams

Walter Jon Williams, American author who writes mostly in the world of science fiction, usually takes readers into a hard SF area, but always brings the vast scope of social interactions into his work.

Of his many series, the examples of Metropolitan and Dread Empire’s Fall show such an ability. While the protagonist in Metropolitan faces a source of plasm that operates as an energy supply for multitudes, the story hinges on how people vie for power to distribute the resource and how people can be corrupted by such power.

In the Dread series, Williams hard SF is on display as starship personnel need to use blood meds to cope with the force of gravity during deacceleration. He presents stable wormholes because power stations exist that distribute energy in the opposite direction of the incoming ship so the hole remains stable. Yet the course of a revolt occurs because of personal and social forces that divide interests or look down on certain castes.

This interview dealing with the novel, The Rift, asks Williams to comment on such social forces. While The Rift fits into the present world as a disaster novel, the scope unveils the various factions and forces at work in a society that can either hold that society together or threaten its survival.

Williams prompt to write The Rift began when he discovered the New Madrid faultline, a time bomb of a tectonic plate waiting to erupt into an 8.9 seismic quake. That fault stretches below New Madrid, Missouri, and crosses into parts of Tennessee and Arkansas. The New Madrid fault system was responsible for a major quake in 1811–1812 and may have the potential to disrupt the flow of the Mississippi River.

The Rift focuses on Jason, a white teenager and an African-American man on their journey down the Mississippi. Yet the canvas shows readers how fragile society’s parts connect to protect people. With communication cut, the restoration becomes an engineering problem while others crave a chance to profit from the misfortune. Some, like the Reverend Frankland, think that the end has come and souls are more important to save than lives. Sheriff Omar Paxton sees a chance to wipe out people who look different from the norm. Williams shows the obstacles in putting the pieces of society back together again.

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Daring To Ask: Walter Jon Williams, thanks for taking the time to answer questions about the techniques and concepts within the craft of writing about society. I’m sure your input will be appreciated by fans of fiction and those who see its application in the real world.

Before turning to specific areas, does the breakdown of society in The Rift strike you as being similar to the possible breakdown that could have arrived with 9/11?

WJW: More like Katrina, a ongoing systemic tragedy that goes on for weeks and months and possibly years. 9/11 was a horrible tragedy, but it was over within a few hours, the damage was confined to a small area, and society was disrupted but did not break down. New York is very much intact. But after the double-punch of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Louisiana was changed forever.

Daring To Ask: Even though the situation was different in the TV series Jericho, do you find the attempts at reconstruction of society as facing similar social obstacles?

WJW: I haven't seen Jericho, so I can't comment.

Daring To Ask: How would you characterize the breakdown of society in The Rift — mainly from which of the following —
a) local authority doesn’t have to be responsible to regional or national authority
b) social norms disappear
c) resources disappear, forcing people to think in survival mode

WSW: All three, plus shock, plus mental inflexibility. Shock prevents people from thinking clearly or understanding the scope of their problem. Mental inflexibility means that people are inclined to fall into old ways of thinking without considering whether those ways are relevant to the new situation.

Daring To Ask: Your cast of characters arises so you can describe the breath of the world you paint in the novel. What is the starting point to decide on where you want to have the characters? The geographic implications, ie Memphis, the social setting, ie Louisiana, the turf professionalism, ie military vs engineering?

WSW: I wanted to cover as much of the disaster as possible, and to do that I needed a lot of eyes. I chose my characters mainly for what their situation could bring to the story. I wanted engineers who could comprehend the scope of the catastrophe and act rationally, and I wanted people whose experience and preconceptions would produce different reactions. I wanted people who were right in the middle of it, forced to react to what was happening around them, not people detached and dispassionate.

Daring To Ask: Your protagonist represented a coming of age youth rather than a professional whose task was to reconstruct the destruction. What made you pick that type of person for the protagonist?

WSW: Well, I was looking for Huckleberry Finn. I wanted a reasonably normal, somewhat mischievous character who was young enough to react to the situation without very many preconceptions. I wanted a character who, through his own naivete, would recognize the madness that was springing up around him, and know to react against it.

Daring To Ask: Does that selection determine the focus of the novel?

WSW: I knew from the start that I wanted to do a modern Huckleberry Finn. Twain sent his character down the river to examine the follies and madness of his age, and I sent my character down the river for much the same reason.

Daring To Ask: By showing the whole canvas of the disaster, you could face the problem of moving into tangents far afield from the protagonist. How do you avoid that?

WSW: Actually there were some characters I wanted to write about who were cut for reasons of length. I wanted to do a character trapped in a hospital bed during the earthquake, and I wanted to do another from the point of a man trapped in the rubble of a hotel, slowly developing a relationship with the female rescue worker he can only here as a voice on the telephone.

I have to say that the best way to keep the narrative from wandering away into parts unknown is to exceed your word budget by 100,000. All the extraneous material will just vanish as you sweat to write about the important stuff.

Daring To Ask: Your canvas touched the lives of people to show how energy, food and supplies were affected by the disaster. That canvas showed multiple social groups and political factions. What advice do you give writers when they design a worldbuilding plan for such an event so they don’t ignore a key aspect of that canvas? Is there a checklist of factors to consider in the storyboarding plan?

WSW: You can start with simple items and trace the links required to bring that item to you and to keep it useful. With table grapes, you can think of the chain from the grower to the wholesaler, from the wholesaler to the market, from the market to you, and the electricity necessary to power the refrigeration that keeps the grapes wholesome. If any link in the chain is broken, you won't get grapes.

For "grapes," you can substitute any other item your character possesses. Food, furniture, clean water, appliances, vehicles.

I was also aided by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plan for next New Madrid Earthquake, which the Corps of Engineers kindly shared with me. They thought of all sorts of scary things that I didn't.

Daring To Ask: How does the level of social tension prior to the disaster affect the degree of social breakdown after the disaster? For example, the level of tension in the South has risen post healthcare passage and in part due to the rise of Tea Parties. Would a higher level of tension from that mean that the degree of breakdown in a disaster like The Rift would encounter even more of a breakdown?

WSW: Yes, very much. People are inclined to distrust their government until a catastrophe occurs, and the government then becomes their sole resource and they very much want a strong government with unlimited resources.

Currently we have people seriously talking secession and the forming of a second Confederacy. It's a daffy idea bound to lead to hideous tragedy, but if things were sufficiently disrupted, they'd try to do it.

Daring To Ask: What is the level of importance in restoring communication to aid restoration? What tools would have been necessary to help the protagonist, Jessica, or people in the camps to learn about their isolated situation compared to the entire picture?

WSW: Communication is good, but the communication has to involve useful information. If the information that gets out is wrong--- as happened in New Orleans, when people were told to go to the Convention Center, where there was no help for them--- then tragedy could result.

The best thing in an emergency is a functioning cell phone network. In Katrina, thousands of people called for help on their cell phones, but received no help because the cell towers had been blown down by high winds. What is necessary is for the government to mandate cell phones that will network together in the event of a catastrophe, so that messages can be passed along the chain until they reach a functioning tower.

Countless lives could be saved if this were instituted worldwide.

Daring To Ask: Your book came out pre-Katrina and the Iraqi reconstruction. Would responders who studied the book have been able to avoid some problems that New Orleans or Iraq faced in restoring the flow of life?

WJW: Katrina, certainly. The Iraqi reconstruction dealt with a issues that weren't a part of the novel.

What occurred to me after Katrina was that I had been far too optimistic in writing the novel. In my book, the atrocities were deliberate actions by evil men. When Katrina happened, the default response by those in authority was to kill a large number of black people and then blame the victims. This was a decision made by everyone from the President on down, and included the city's black mayor and his staff. This reaction was such a part of the culture that they didn't even have to think about it.

Daring To Ask: Your Rev. Frankland or Omar Paxton symbolize fundamentalists who drive on the fears of others and set up barriers. Would these characters have found similar ones in the breakdown of Iraqi life as the country struggled to reform? How would the Iraqi form of fundamentalism show a different face from that of Frankland?

WJW: If Frankland had armed his followers and told them to kill anyone who didn't belong to their church, I think this would approximate the situation in Iraq. Fortunately for the characters in the novel, Frankland was a little more ecumenical than that--- although, of course, he was still crazy.

Daring To Ask: What concepts did The Rift allow you to explore that differs from the worlds of The Praxis or City on Fire?

WSW: The big difference was that I was writing about real places, and the characters I put in those places had to be plausible. When people traveled from one place to another, they had to travel over a real map.

When I write SF or fantasy, I get to make a lot of it up.

Reality is harder!

Daring To Ask: You have played role games. In a way, your worldbuilding for The Rift allowed you to set up scenarios that went beyond usual research. What developments in the scenarios surprised you in how a character would act, or a situation would complicate reconstruction efforts?

WJW: As part of the research for the novel, I drove the Mississippi from New Orleans to St. Louis. I visited the Grand Gulf Nuclear Power Station near Port Gibson, and I asked my guide how the station remained moored in the Delta where there was no bedrock for it to sit on.

The answer resulted in the sections of the book featuring Larry, the nuclear engineer.

Daring To Ask: The role playing games on videos offer users a different perspective — they are in control of the action rather than read from an author’s presentation. Does this mean that authors should try to develop some aspect of interactivity in novels, or are we speaking about two entirely separate audiences?

WJW: I deal with this very issue in my new novel, THIS IS NOT A GAME (Orbit, 2009), written about a game that begins to cross dangerously into reality. I can't really sum up my thoughts in such a short space, so I can only urge you to read my novel!

Daring To Ask: Can authors from novels devise more complex role games with three dimensional characters or would that change the control issue that users enjoy?

WJW: I like to think of my RPG characters as reasonably three-dimensional, whether player-characters or NPCs, so the answer would seem to be yes.

Image courtesy of walterjonwilliams.net

The Response Meter

2010-05-17T09:45:00.000-07:00

The State Of The Audit

As publishing and media companies continue to shift their focus from print to online, they are also trying to find new and innovative ways to get their brands noticed. Audit companies like ABC (Audit Bureau of Circulation) and BPA Worldwide are also trying to find new techniques to keep themselves relevant in this ever-changing landscape. With the focus now on a company’s brand rather than their magazine(s), I dare to ask what auditing firms need to do to make sure they don’t get lost in the shuffle.

When print advertising was king, the audit statement was a vital tool to measure the quality of a publication’s audience. Parts of the audit statement such as Paragraph 3a (Business/Occupation Breakout of Qualified Circulation) and Paragraph 3b (Qualification Source Breakout of Qualified Circulation) were especially important for advertisers. It allowed them to see the ages and sources of a magazine’s circulation and determine whether or not they wanted to spend money. Now with the shift to online, the name of the game is quantity and the different ways publishing and media companies are getting their brand’s products out to their target audiences.

While many media and publishing companies employ a variety of web tracking and analytic tools to track traffic and gather demographic information about their digital magazines, websites, online products, enewsletters, the social media sites that they are a part of, webinars, etc., there is still the problem of how to report and measure all the information based on all the different tracking tools out there. Audit companies need to be at the forefront to set and determine these guidelines.

This leads into another sticky topic for both business publishers and audit firms…integration. While there are still some publishing companies that rely on the print product and the traditional audit statement to entice advertisers to spend money with them, most companies are working on ways of integrating and reporting their data across a variety of products. Part of the problem is that this data comes from a variety of sources.

From an audit standpoint questions abound not only about the validity of the information, but how to list and report this data in order to sway advertisers to advertise or continue to advertise. It’s not enough to just show the number of visitors, page views, hits and unique visitors. Advertisers want and need to know as much demographic information about the people visiting these sites as possible.

The companies that can find a way to present this information in one dashboard will definitely have a leg up on their competition. The way that the information is ultimately stored and presented could also pave the way for a uniform integrated audit statement.

In the meanwhile, audit bureaus need to continue to work diligently with their clients to come up with these solutions as well as create new audit rules and guidelines in this new and integrated world order. With the economy still struggling to right itself, failure to do so could result in the few audit firms out there going the way of the do-do.

- Hamilton Maher

Image courtesy of bpaww.com

Worlds Meet

2010-05-10T21:27:00.000-07:00

Know Your Enemy

The lines from Peter O’Toole, at the closing of the 1981 mini-series Masada from the world of fiction, could be used in today’s world of reality. As the Roman commander Lucius Flavius Silva, O’Toole leaned over the fallen body of Peter Strauss’ character Elazar ben Yair, the Jewish leader. Silva bemoaned the suicide of all the Jewish defenders, but most of the tragedy struck from two sides only superficially knowing the other. Silva called the suicide a “waste” because he never intended to kill or torture the defenders. After a “public demonstration” a system could have been set up that pleased Elazar.

Masada shows the conflict between the Romans and Jewish fighters who positioned themselves on the cliffs of Masada, Israel, during 73 CE. When the Romans breached the walls, the defenders committed suicide because they feared imprisonment.

Silva regretted not knowing his enemy beyond the surface. He said his timing was off. He had pushed Elazar into a corner and forced the Jewish leader to convince his people that the Romans would kill them. He said Elazar failed to know Silva — that Silva was not the same enemy as a former Roman leader. Silva had failed to know Elazar would react by opting for suicide. Silva pointed to the need to placate the Roman Senate with a semblance of a victory that would have aided the peace talks in the future. But, the Jewish people believed they could not trust that situation. Neither side fully knew the enemy.

Silva failed to gain support from the Emperor for a peace deal that could have worked with Elazar. He failed to realize local commanders would incite the frail truce. And he miscalculated the way Elazar needed to control his people.

Such a scene opens up on today’s world of disputes between the Israeli and Palestinian leaders or the factional leaders in Afghanistan or Iraq.

Examples of only knowing the enemy superficially abound. Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad needs to strengthen his position against reformers. He blasts the United States. U.S. Hawks fear Ahmadinejad. Those Hawks then threaten to corner him with restrictions. The reality of the situation? Iran fears being surrounded by foreign powers and needs to flex muscles. Note that U.S. troops lie on Iran’s Western border in Iraq and on the East in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Another example? Israeli leaders hear Palestinian threats. They set up more settlements. Palestinian leaders lose more support within their factions. Palestinian leaders become more vocal to gain support. Israeli leaders hear the language and increase the settlements. Whether as a sense of entitlement or a wedge in bargaining, the increase mushrooms as a result of the perception that the other side has been gaining ground.

Messages are meant for various audiences. When leaders speak, they address some issues at times because of a propaganda need. At other times, they might reach out to enemies. To misinterpret the driving force for the message means that the enemy will not be understood. Despite the background of being in a former war, people like Sen. McCain only see the surface. People who speak about negotiation or understanding a culture have often been called weak and naive. But like the Roman Silva, they fail to go deeper in seeing why conflicts arise. They have to dare to ask why the language of a message is made. Otherwise, like Elazar, they are committing suicide and wasting their efforts.

- Tom Pope

Masada image courtesy of tvshowsondvd.com

Behind The Mask

2010-05-04T14:15:00.000-07:00

The Next Wave of Comic Book Viewing?

I recently had enjoyed the opportunity to revisit a story-arc from Astonishing X-Men that I had loved reading back in 2004. The arc by Joss Whedon and John Cassadey was entitled Gifted and covered Astonishing X-Men issues 1-6. But instead of picking up those issues like I did back in the old days, I wound up seeing the arc as a motion comic courtesy of Hulu.com. While most comic book fans prefer a newly printed comic that they can hold in their hands, digital comics are also growing in popularity. I dare to ask if the motion comic might be the next big thing beyond digital.

For those who are not familiar with the motion comic, it incorporates the dialogue and art of a comic or comic book story arc along with elements of animation, a musical score, voiceovers and camera angles. Right now, there are only a handful of motion comics out there. The first motion comic was based on an independent comic called Broken Saints. DC Comics put out both Dark Knight and Watchmen motion comics to coincide with the releases of their movies. Along with Astonishing X-Men, Marvel also produced a Spider Woman motion comic and just released Extremis Iron Man (just in time for the release of Iron Man 2).

The reviews for motion comics right now are mixed. Some claim that the motion comic in its current form is just a cheap version of a full feature animated movie. Others claim that the voices, music and overall production value are just not up-to-par.

Another question that many ask is if the money that comic book companies invest in these motion comics will be seen in other ways. For example, will someone who sees a motion comic like Astonishing X-Men Gifted, go out and buy the Gifted trade paperback? Will they start becoming a new, steady reader of the comic? Right now, it’s way too early to know.

I know that my interest was definitely piqued while seeing the Gifted motion comic. It was a new and different way to re-discover a story arc that I had thoroughly enjoyed many years ago. And while I thought Marvel did an admirable job with the voices of the characters and with the musical score, there was definitely something stilted and lacking with the overall product. The addition of animation which should have heightened the viewing experience was at times not very fluid causing character’s expressions to be creepy and their movements jerky and awkward.

Marvel, DC and other comic book companies need to decide whether they want to invest more into the overall animation and production value of these comics and at the same time determine if the motion comic is a viable way of getting their brand and product out to the masses. In the meanwhile, I’m more than happy to read about the continuing adventures of my favorite characters by going to my local comic shop or catching up with them digitally.

- Hamilton Maher

Image courtesy of Screenrant.com

Words Come Alive

2010-04-11T19:24:00.000-07:00

The Ole Bait and Switch

How could the famous bait and switch help you write fiction? That’s the principle behind building suspense for the conflict. Conflict drives everything. We need character development and plot lines, but without the real conflict, the story is a yawn. When writing, bait with hope of overcoming the obstacle, but take away the momentary success by switching the protagonist’s immediate goals.

To fully use the bait and switch, we have to see how it fits into the entire scheme of conflict. Conflict hits throughout the work. It strikes as any obstacle to the desires of the protagonist. That means we can have the hero face a conflict against others, nature or even against his or her self.

But we also have to build mini conflicts thought the story that are linked to the big obstacle. For example, the big obstacle is the barrier of politics that separates two lovers — she’s a liberal, he’s a conservative. We need the protagonist to find a way to keep the love going despite the barrier. So we segment the plot with several scenes based on mini conflicts. Like his conservatism backs the real estate interest that threatens his lover’s legal work. Or, he has to break into her soup kitchen client’s office to get papers to show her he’s right. Or he has to break down his real estate agent’s denial that the soup kitchen’s director is blackmailing the agent.

That’s where the bait and switch comes in. We have just divided the main conflict into mini ones that carry us through the story. At the climax of each mini event, we stage a bait and switch. That means we provide the reader with a hope of the protagonist reaching his goal, but only in part. We also switch the obstacle so the hero has to face another version of the conflict — bait and switch.

Let’s put this in play. In the first segment, the desire of the protagonist is to break into the office, then find papers. That means the focus in this segment has to impede his efforts in both areas. But he gradually succeeds in finding the files in a cabinet. Hope is fulfilled. But the papers reveal he was wrong in his support of the real estate agent. We have a switch. He now has a new hope or bait because those papers reveal he might be right about his agent friend in a different way — the agent was being blackmailed by the kitchen’s director. Then we are carried to the next segment.

The model goes like this: Break the major conflict into segments. Each segment needs the protagonist to achieve some glimmer of hope or success in reaching the final goal. But he is thwarted in a big way. Some new hope is given that propels him into the following scene. Bait and switch. That delay in total gratification is like the famous gun, sitting on the table, that Hitchcock said drove suspense. Suspense comes from worrying who will use the weapon. Conflict comes from the bait and switch that leads to that suspense.

- Tom Pope

Image courtesy of reitips.com

Worlds Meet

2010-04-08T22:22:00.000-07:00

Can’t We All Just Get Along?

After a long drawn out battle to pass health care reform, the battle has been won, but at what cost? Already fourteen states have threatened to sue the U.S. Government claiming that they don’t have the funds to pay for additional healthcare costs as mandated by President Obama’s plan within their states. Rhetoric on both the Democratic and Republican sides has reached a fever pitch so much so that shots have been fired into House Minority Whip Eric Cantor’s window and a suspicious package was delivered to Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner. I dare to ask who’s to blame for the increased hostilities and the divisiveness that we’ve been seeing over the past couple of months.

Oh, where to begin. First off, the Republicans have been doing their best to spread fear and dissension whenever they’ve chosen to speak. Whether it’s Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Bill O’Reilly, Michael Steele or Mitch McConnell, these speakers have inundated the American public with the same mantras over and over. Health care reform means more government control and government control is bad. Health care reform will mean higher taxes for everyone. Health care reform will drain funds from Medicare. Health care reform is just another example of Democrats spending and spending (hmmm, anyone remember the Afghanistan and Iraq wars under the Bush administration which plunged the nation into the largest budget deficit in history?). Sadly, the Republicans have done little to expound upon these statements. These are the facts, so just deal with them, OK? That’s all you need to know, say the Republicans.

This has lead to the formation of the infamous Tea Party and similar groups. Now, I’m all for having other groups expressing their opinions, and I think the country needs more than just a Democratic and Republican voice. Unfortunately, while the Tea Party claims that they embrace both Democratic and Republican voices, it seems that they’re a group that has taken the Republican fear mongering ball and run with it. I have yet to hear them bring anything constructive to the table outside of attacking the current administration, or anything else they don’t like. In fact, many Tea Party rallies seem more like Klan or Brown Shirt meetings than anything else.

I also blame President Obama and his cabinet. Much of the venom that is currently being spewed could have been avoided if the President took more time out of his schedule to educate the American public and detractors of the plan. There were too few town hall meetings that were set up and none of them were televised to the entire nation. The President could have quelled the ire of many by presenting the benefits of his health care plan and rebutting his dissenters on prime time television and on social networking sites. It seems that President Obama was more concerned with getting health care legislation passed rather than educating the American public.

But there’s an even more insidious problem going on here and that problem involves the all-mighty dollar, lobbyists and the control that many corporations exert upon the political machine. Many Senators and House members have a vested interest in the numerous corporations that work with and are connected to the U.S. government. These corporations could be health care related, military contractors, engineering firms, you name it. If something happens to rock these corporation’s boats, like say health care reform, and changes the way they operate or make money, or if a particular Senator sees that his or her investments in said corporation might be jeopardized, then those same Senators will kick, claw and scratch to make sure their investments and lobbyists are happy.

In the end, it’s the average American that suffers, caught in a battle between two rich, spoiled adversaries. Both adversaries claim that they are fighting the good fight, but I dare to ask, are they really? Both sides need to stop catering to themselves, to special interest groups and to the big bad corporations out there. Honestly, what’s a couple of million or billion in the grand scheme of things? Until that time comes (if it ever does), we’ll continue to be treated to more games of “he said, she said”.

Image courtesy of jasonmartinmft.com

Lights, Camera, Action

2010-03-28T17:50:00.000-07:00

Fiction to Make NonFiction

A swashbuckling pirate leaps onto a ship, and the high tech images of rocks make you think the people involved are designing a tale of fiction. Dare we ask how those skills can be used in reality? The team that put together the documentary, The Cove, found that the usual skills of film making required knowledge about pirating and stunt camouflage simply to make the movie.

The Cove takes viewers into the hidden area of Taiji, Wakajama, Japan, where the fishing industry regularly kills and captures dolphins. The 2009 Sundance award winning documentary showed how migrating dolphins were trapped in the secret cove by nets and were then slaughtered with knives and spears. Yet the trappers usually gloated when they could send live dolphins to the sea world entertainment industry as they pocketed tens of thousands of dollars from the buyers of live dolphins who perform before cheering people.

To make the movie, the movie crew led by producer Fisher Stevens and director Louie Psihoyos had to find clever ways to find the culprits so they resorted to the world of subterfuge that we usually see in fiction. Set design traditionally aids the movie director to thrill the viewer because the special effects take people into the world of the story. But camouflaged rocks were not used for the benefit of the viewer. Experts from KernerFX, once part of Industrial Light & Magic had to use special effects to hide cameras. The fishermen would not simply allow the documentary people to film them, so the dolphin killing had to be photographed by cameras without the documentary staff being around the area. The cameras were high definition and looked so much like rocks of the terrain that the film people had a hard time relocating the cameras.

How could the consulting use of pirate tactics help in making a movie? Stevens and Psihoyos had to place the cameras and evade the fishing fleet. What better skills could be found than those of pirates such as when they slip around a vine-tangled bay to hide their ships when the Royal Navy threatens to appear. The movie makers had to plot the speed of their ships and distance the way the pirates navigated. Swimmers used underwater microphones to pick up some of the sounds from the fishermen. Their swimming would have made Long John Silver envious.

The usual strengths of knowing how to shoot the camera and how to stage the ships for a presentation were not enough to make The Cove a success. Stealth and special effects came to the fore with The Cove’s planning. Dare we ask if fiction’s great pirates came to mind as the crew with Stevens and Psihoyos mounted a modern day crow’s nest?

The Cove image courtesy of movie-list.com

Laughs Abound

2010-03-28T17:23:00.000-07:00

Senate Charges Public Extra

Washington DC —

New laws allowing utility companies to charge residents for wind turbine use has passed the Senate because of the newest corporate senators selected last week.

Senator Con Public (R-NV), the corporation that operates a regional utility power grid in the midwest, became a senator when the laws allowed corporations to be considered individuals. The change meant that corporations could run for office.

Slick Fleece, the corporate attorney representing, Senator Con Public, proposed the wind turbine law because the corporation worried that the public would be generating too much power on their own and would not need as much from the utility.

“We’re too big to fail,” he said. “So we have the right to take the power the people generate and then charge them for it.”

Senator Sierra (D-Calif), the new senator representing the Sierra Club, argued that people should be paid for the energy they create from the wind turbine use.

However, the new block of senators includes Sen. Hess (R-NJ), Sen. Exxon (R-TX) and Sen. American Express (R-CN). That block threatened other non-corporate senators so the move to help the common people failed.

Roman E. Gal, the attorney for Sen. American Express said that the finance sector had to help out old friends in the energy area because, “they’s just good ole boys.”

When asked if the power of American Express’ handling of money threatened the fair discussion of policy in the senate, E. Gal answered, “this is the free market at work — if people wanted to avoid how we throw money around, they can vote us out.”

Yet Moss Greenfield, the attorney for Sierra pointed out that the senate block of his friends, Senator Save the Children (D-Mass), Senator Johns Hopkins (D-MD) and Senator United Way (D-IL), lack money to explain their positions to the public.

“Every time we start to show our side, those other guys buy ruffians to shout at meetings,” Greenfield said. “The ruffians tried to stop the windmill production by saying that the wind was free for everyone and must be Communistic.”

The public was confused because they could not understand how the wind could be a Communistic ploy. The public was also confused in the recent senatorial elections that allowed the corporations entry into the Senate. One long time Democratic senator from New Jersey was ousted by Sen. Hess when the corporation ran continuous car ads and threatened the public with the fear that gas stations would close if Hess lost the seat.

Other confusion hit when the public couldn’t understand that using American Express cards meant voting for that senate seat. Sen. American Express was even accused by some human senators that restaurants were being used as voting booths for the senator. People were denied meals if they failed to vote.

The dissension in the senate has lead to the formation of a Human Caucus with the call to set up a minority bloc before the voices of the average person become totally drowned out.

“This is getting ridiculous,” said Human Sen. Shaken Mike Boots. “I even heard that one of these corporations is going to run for President — what happens on an overseas visit? Do we have to fund sending the entire corporate office overseas just to meet a head of state?”

Image courtesy of energyliteracy.org

Lights, Camera, Action!

2010-03-28T09:13:00.000-07:00

Songs of Summer

After watching the Academy Awards and seeing The Weary Kind from the movie Crazy Heart win Best Song, it got me thinking about the significance of music, namely songs in movies. Whether it is to further convey an emotion, a narration or create a particular mood, the use of specific songs in movies, can either make or break a film. One film in particular, (500) Days of Summer, creatively uses an eclectic blend of songs that help to show what can happen when the very different expectations of two people do not meet the reality of their relationship. I dare to ask if more movies might take a cue from this type of storytelling.

Shown from the point of view of Tom, a lovesick and hopeless romantic who thinks he has finally found his soul mate in Summer, the movie reflects (in non-linear fashion), the highs and lows that Tom goes through in trying to woo the girl of his dreams. Unfortunately for Tom, Summer, is an independent woman who has a casual, carefree stance on relationships and dating. The songs in the movie show the ecstasy and agony that Tom experiences along the way.

In one particular scene, it is morning and Tom has just had his first “casual” encounter with Summer in his apartment. As he leaves for work, the Hall and Oates song, You Make My Dreams, starts playing. The song reflects Tom’s complete and utter bliss at making his first physical connection with Summer. Not only do we hear the song, but it seems that Tom does too. As he walks down the street smiling, the sun is out, the sky is blue, and everyone seems to be his friend congratulating and high fiving him as he walks along. As he continues walking, Tom breaks out into a dance routine with everyone else around him as a marching band comes trumpeting by. A little animated bird then comes fluttering down upon his shoulder whistling a sweet song. The music stops abruptly as we are fast forwarded toward day 303 in his relationship with Summer and a very different looking Tom comes out of the elevator to work. He’s tired, his clothes are disheveled and it’s obvious that things with Summer are anything but blissful.

One of the most effective and powerful scenes in the movie occurs when Tom meets up with Summer after they have been estranged for a period of time. Summer invites Tom to a party she is giving. Tom accepts thinking that the two of them will pick up right where they left off. As Tom approaches Summer’s apartment, the screen splits into two. On the bottom left of one screen, the word “Expectations” appears. On the bottom right of the other screen, the word “Reality” appears. On the “Expectations” side of the screen we see Tom’s image of how the party goes. At the party, he and Summer are inseparable and she greets him with a huge kiss and loves the gift he has brought for her. They are talking, giggling, snuggling and joking around like they did in the past. On the Reality side, we see, well we see the reality of the situation. Summer greets Tom with a hug and curtly thanks him for the gift he’s brought over for her. Tom basically hangs out by himself drinking while Summer carouses with the rest of her guests. Toward the end of the evening, he is also shell shocked to learn that Summer is engaged to be married. He staggers out of the party blindsided.

What makes this scene so innovative is not only the split screen, but the choice of the song, Hero of the Story by Regina Spektor. As the scenes at the party unfold, particular lyrics of the song really stand out. The first lines of the song, “He never, ever saw it coming at all” is a foreshadowing of what Tom is about to experience when he sees that his expectations are not aligning at all with the reality of the situation. Throughout both scenes, the words, “I’m the hero of the story, don’t need to be saved” and “It’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all right”, reverberate over and over and serve as a reminder to Tom of what is and what he wished could have been. In one world he is indeed the hero and everything is all right. In the other, the words serve to mock him and falsely reassure him that everything will be OK despite Summer’s revelation. The use of animation to convey Tom’s hurt and loneliness as he staggers down the street is a fitting end to the scene.

Whether it’s a sappy song like She’s Like The Wind by the late Patrick Swayze, or a powerful, nostalgic song such as Old Friends (Bookends) by Simon and Garfunkel, Marc Webb, the director of (500) Days of Summer, utilizes music in innovative ways to keep you not only emotionally invested in the main characters of the film, but also to help move Tom and Summer’s story along.

I’m not a fan of romantic comedies. They’re too generic, overly sappy or melodramatic, or just plain dumb. But much like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind by Michel Gondry, (500) Days of Summer offers a new and creative twist on an otherwise boring and lame genre through its use of music, animation and cinematography. I dare to ask if more directors of this genre could take a hint from both Webb and Gondry.

(500) Days of Summer image courtesy of movies.about.com

Fiction's Philosophy

2010-03-19T18:16:00.000-07:00

Mumbai Morality

Poor kids race through Mumbai streets as they steal from decent people. The act is deplorable, yet the torture of minor crimes by enforcement fits with correcting wrongs — right? Fiction’s philosophy makes us dare to ask how we define morality as seen through the eyes of characters in the movie Slumdog Millionaire.

In Slumdog, morality seems to have a number of faces from Jamal who risks everything for love, to Salim, Jamal’s brother, who seeks materialism while saving Jamal’s lover. Meanwhile, the upper society symbols of justice and entertainment offer torture and jealousy.

Jamal’s moral code was in direct contrast to the way the upper classes viewed concepts of right and wrong. Jamal thought little of stealing for survival. Yet he ignored the chance for wealth as he pushed the quiz show to the limit just to keep the line open for his lover, Latika, to see him. Jamal looked at degrees of wrongness. It was all right to steal in the streets. Stealing knowledge to stay in the quiz show was part of the bigger picture for Jamal rather than the idea of committing a wrong. In Jamal’s eyes, an even greater wrong would have been to allow his Latika to remain with the mob leader that his brother Salim worked for, because that would have taken her life’s spirit from her. Jamal’s goal was to rescue Latika, so committing a wrong to accomplish that goal took on a sense of righteousness.

Salim’s sense of morality focused on getting ahead by gaining a reputation in crime, although he rejected torture of the innocent. He almost allowed Jamal to become blinded just to be a better beggar, yet stopped at the last second because the act went against his grain. Salim could even aim a gun at Jamal when he saw his brother threatened his path. But he turned on his mob boss so that Latika could escape.

A different moral mentality flowed through the police inspector who believed torture helped get answers from people. He had to use electronic pain to force Jamal into admitting that he cheated in the quiz show, even though Jamal was innocent. The crime that he thought Jamal committed was not terrorism or murder, but the punishment was not an issue from his perspective.

Prem Kapur, the quiz show host, displayed another version of morality. His disgust with the thought that a poor kid could not have wisdom led him to become jealous of Jamal. The further Jamal reached in the show, the more Prem wanted to derail the youth. Winning was not his place, and Prem’s moral code called for him to protect his caste. During the show, he tried to give Jamal a false clue. When that failed, Prem had Jamal arrested.

In Slumdog Millionaire, morality’s many faces make us ask how we define good and bad. Maybe the key component is whether the characters in the movie have a sense of selflessness and care about others. Yet even that leads us to ask how we define acts that help us while hurting others if the eventual goal considers the others fate. But that very concept means many variables drift and flow into play. Many degrees of selfishness or selflessness must be considered within the pressure of outside forces. Dare we ask how we would run through Mumbai streets?

Slumdog Millionaire image courtesy of bollyposter.com

Follow The Bouncing Brawl

2010-03-03T11:48:00.000-08:00

The Bigger They Are (Or Think They Are)...

Long before Tiger Woods ascended to the top of the golf mountain and became one of the most dominant and well-known golfers of all time, his father was already anointing him as a force that would not only change the golf world, but the world in general. I dare to ask if the seeds that ultimately led to Tiger’s fall from grace were planted a long time ago. Tiger’s quest for popularity certainly played a role in his fall, but was the way he was raised also a contributing factor, and could it have prevented his womanizing ways?

Back in 1996, Sports Illustrated talked with Woods’ father about young Tiger’s potential not only as a golfer but his role in the grander scheme of things. Here’s what Woods Sr. had to say,

"Please forgive me...but sometimes I get very emotional...when I talk about my son.... My heart...fills with so...much...joy...when I realize...that this young man...is going to be able...to help so many people.... He will transcend this game...and bring to the world...a humanitarianism...which has never been known before. The world will be a better place to live in...by virtue of his existence...and his presence.... I acknowledge only a small part in that...in that I know that I was personally selected by God himself...to nurture this young man...and bring him to the point where he can make his contribution to humanity.... This is my treasure.... Please accept it...and use it wisely.... Thank you."

Notice the words that Tiger’s father uses to describe his son. He claims Tiger will “transcend this game”, be a “humanitarian” and that the world will be “a better place to live in” when (not if) his son reaches golf immortality. I wonder if Woods Sr. preached this same sermon to a young Tiger growing up. If these words were reinforced repeatedly, and Tiger grew up thinking and believing he was indeed the Chosen One or Golf’s Savior, could he have bought into the God Complex that his father was espousing? Could this behavior have led Tiger to develop the more narcissistic tendencies that ultimately caused him to go down the path of infidelity? Did Tiger’s family overtly or subtly reinforce notions of entitlement within their son?

On the flip side, I wonder what would have happened to Tiger if Woods Sr. was still alive. Would Tiger’s father have used the same words he used above to steer Tiger clear of his ultimately womanizing ways? Perhaps he would have reinforced the idea that Tiger’s potential to be the greatest golfer of all time and an international celebrity meant he needed to rise above the needs and desires of the average person. In Woods Sr.’s eyes perhaps that meant that Tiger needed to be “better” than everyone else not only physically, mentally, and spiritually, but also morally.

Though these questions cannot be definitively answered, it is interesting to note that after Tiger’s indiscretions came to light, many of his “close” friends had commented that throughout college and his days as a bachelor, Tiger had a roving eye and a penchant for young, cute girls, blonde ones in particular.

Many hoped and believed that Tiger would be immune to the temptations and pitfalls that went along with being not only an international sports star, but a celebrity as well. Wasn’t he the Chosen One after all? Before all of his affairs came to light, Tiger had carefully crafted an image of a devoted family man and intense, driven athlete.

While there’s little doubt that Tiger will eventually return triumphantly to the golf course and win many more titles, it remains to be seen if the public will ultimately embrace Tiger like they did before this incident occurred. Unfortunately all we can do is wonder if this all could have been avoided if Papa Woods was still around to guide his “Chosen” son.

Tiger Woods image courtesy of news.yahoo.com

Laughs Abound

2010-02-28T17:38:00.000-08:00

Colorado Stream City —

Tourists Leave Western City Shutdown

Tourists are fleeing the once attractive Rocky Mountain community as they find the city closing its doors before nightfall. Recent Cocoa-Party activists have limited the duty of the government and caused the shutdown at night.

Since the Cocoaists have wanted to improve individual rights, they have clamored for the role of government to be limited to activities that affect most residents.

“The city streets have pot holes the size of valleys,” said a tourist from Chicago. “They stopped repairing the roads because only half the people drive cars.”

“We’re saving the taxpayer lots of money,” said Councilman Penny Pincher. “Why should we have crews of men working and getting lots of benefits to protect their family when we can turn those dollars back to the community?”

Other tourists left when they found all the restaurants closed except for the local McDonalds. The restaurants depended on truck deliveries from out of town. But the truckers refused to enter the area when the traffic lights disappeared. Those lights ran into disrepair when repair crews were let go. Now no one maintains the equipment.

“Our citizens are right happy to have more cash in their pockets,” said Cocoa-Party co-founder Connie Fused. “Why should people pay for things they don’t use?”

Other tourists had to leave town when they needed medical attention and discovered only one hospital was left open. That clinic services only patients with colds. “Why should the tax payer fund the illnesses of others when those illnesses don’t affect him?” said Fused.

Mayor Slip Re Slope explained that the taxpayers only found a third of the people suffered from heart conditions and cancer. The major illness was the common cold. “So we compromised and decided the government would fund the hospital just for the cold — that helps everyone,” he said.

The rise in crime is another reason tourists are flocking to the exits. Gangs of thieves roam the streets after dark, meeting less than a third of the original police force. The city couldn’t pay the salaries, so they had to fire the other two thirds of the force.

“I don’t know if those people are really thieves,” the Mayor said. “They might just be scurrying about looking for food.”

The rise in crime is blamed on a permissive society, according to the Cocoa-Party people. “They don’t have a decent wage because they are lazy,” said Penny Pincher. “Why don’t they become lawyers and doctors so they can earn dollars like decent people?”

Cocoa image courtesy of littledreamerdesigns.com

Worlds Meet

2010-02-15T09:02:00.000-08:00

Wag The Healthcare Dog

“You could talk a dog off a meat truck.” The words were meant as a compliment in the banter between spin master Conrad Brean and Hollywood producer Stanley Motss in the movie, Wag the Dog. Unfortunately, the words show the strength of propaganda in distracting people from the actual facts and resemble the ways the opposition speaks about healthcare reform. The political satire that was aimed at the Clinton Administration could equally hit a target with terms we have heard recently that concern the Obama Administration’s attempts at health care reform. The words of propaganda have painted a picture that healthcare reform is bad because we would have government control of the services, and the president ought to compromise. Of course, the idea that reforms will cause increased taxes is enough to scare many in the public.

However, maybe the public is being treated as though they were in, Wag the Dog. In the movie, Brean needed a threat to distract the public from the president’s sex scandal so he decided to produce a fictional war with Albania, claiming that some of their terrorists were sneaking a nuclear weapon into America. In the real world, to avoid a scandal by displaying the profits in the health insurance firms, the opposition to reform points at a threat that the government will control health care services. The misuse of propaganda in the movie stopped the public from questioning how the Albanians could acquire, fit and build a nuclear weapon. In the real world, the propaganda has the public afraid to ask how control occurs when the government would have simply been aiding those unable to pay for their coverage.

Propaganda distraction stops people from seeing the history of an event. In Wag the Dog, the promotion of the song about a lost shoe riled up crowds to storm into the face of cameras to support the poor lost American detained in Albania. That activity allowed them to forget that the president had not been honest with the people. That activity allowed them to forget that the president was facing an election. In today’s world, the opposition’s propaganda incensed Tea Party activity and spurred the action to storm the debates about the reform. Much shouting has made it possible to forget the many compromises the president has already made. The concept of universal care changed to that of using a public option. But that changed into using a partial public option, which shifted to no public option. Then the idea of having Medicare and Medicaid to pick up some people emerged. But that was also changed because votes were missing. At each step, the president has been forced to back away. Yet we keep seeing the images of crowds demanding the president should compromise.

Propaganda hides and distorts the real crime. In Brean’s case in Wag the Dog, he created a super hero of a war vet with the name Schumann to link the soldier with the lost shoe concept of the war effort against Albania. The neat package of the image hid the real facts that Schumann was a sex offender and the president also had to answer for a sex crime. With the reform issue in the real world, we only hear about the dangers of increased taxes that would happen with reform. Little mention is made about the 20 to 30 percent jump in insurance premiums that health firms charge. Little mention is made that a patient’s total costs include both taxes and healthcare premiums. Increasing taxes to lower premiums could lower the total cost for the person. But that would interfere with the dog’s tail.

Dare we ask how we can avoid the sounds of the propaganda machine? The shouts from the dog kept a group in political power, while the screams of tea goers could keep the average person enslaved to the insurance industry. But those results only came when the producer’s tale wagged. That result could also occur when the Senate’s 41 votes controls the majority or acts like a tail to wag the national dog. The propaganda machine is powerful, but maybe we should continue the grassroots activity that aided the President. If that grassroots activity showed the flaws in the propaganda, then it could be the tail to wag the tea party machinery.

Wag the Dog image courtesy of tf.org
Barack Obama image courtesy of e-hawaii.com

The Response Meter

2010-02-15T08:39:00.000-08:00

What Can Controlled Circulators Do To Help Revenue?

With more and more companies shutting down their print publications in favor of a strictly digital or online presence, circulators are being asked to promote their company’s products in a variety of new and different ways. In some cases, they’re even asking subscribers to pay up front for products that were once given on a complementary basis. As the shift away from print to online continues, I dare to ask what controlled circulation professionals can do to help drive revenue both directly and indirectly.

The BPA Worldwide/Audit Bureau of Circulation Statement was, and in some cases, still is a vital tool for publishers to generate advertising both on the print and online side of the equation. But with the continuing shift to online media and a limited amount of advertising dollars out there, publishers want even more information about their audiences. Circulation managers and directors need to know the ins and outs of web analytics and how to supply relevant online data about their magazine’s and company’s enewsletters, websites and products. The number of visits, hits, page views and unique visits is just the tip of the iceberg. Lead generation from online ads is crucial. Sales people and their advertisers want to see web traffic to their online ads, but also want demographic information about the people who have clicked on those same ads.

With advertising dollars down, publishers and CEO’s are looking outside the box to find new revenue streams. Whether it’s creating marketing services for their clients (or potential clients), or offering products connected with their industry, publishing and media companies are calling on their circulation and marketing teams to help promote those new paid products and initiatives. Along with online promotion of those services, circulators need to work closely with their fulfillment houses, to not only track subscriber and payment information, but have a fulfillment website that offers one-stop shopping for subscribers and potential buyers.

While social media sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are good ways to help a company’s brand awareness and possibly generate leads, they are still not a tried-and-true method of obtaining new subscriptions.

Many publishing and media companies are looking to derive more revenue by upgrading from free to paid content from their digital magazines, websites and enewsletters. The switch from free-to-paid poses a lot of challenges. Do you charge for all content or just some? How often do you update information? Will there be audio and video associated with the content? These are just some of the questions, publishers and executives need to solve. If not thought out properly, companies run the risk of losing their subscribers as well as current and potential advertisers.

In these tough times, circulators need to work with their sales, editorial and marketing teams and not be afraid to offer detailed information about subscriber activity and trends that they are seeing across all products. Greater analysis of both print and online data will be crucial in helping upper management make important revenue making decisions going forward.

Image courtesy of avalonboro.org

Thought of the Week

2010-02-01T21:05:00.000-08:00

Some recent examples of distortions of facts have appeared on major media. An NPR interview gave extensive time to an author who stated that the Islamic religion is basically an evil one that seeks only hatred. Another show allowed an in-depth interview with a CIA spokesman who said that the agency never becomes involved with killing. Brit Hume stated that the Buddhist religion doesn’t allow forgiveness like Christianity.

If we value the First Amendment and oppose censorship, I dare to ask, should we allow blatant distortions? Doesn’t the forum have an obligation to feature ideas and opinions that are based on facts?

1) Any opinion is worthy even if the facts and ideology is totally incorrect — the listener will decide on the value of the information.

2) Forums should be focused on the opinions based on facts, and fact checking based on the questions being asked by the interviewer should occur before any discussion.

3) If a forum allows someone to express their opinions regardless of whether that person distorts the facts, then the forum should provide an equal opportunity for the “other” side to defend themselves.

4) Why is space and time being given to these types of people in the first place? Aren’t these forums simply promoting the demonization of various religious, ethnic, political groups, etc without any constructive discourse?

5) Other

List your choice of answer (or answers), or an alternative in the Comment section. If you pick answer #5, include an example as to why you picked "Other".

Image courtesy of newscaststudio.com

Behind The Mask

2010-01-25T20:41:00.000-08:00

Death and Rebirth in Comics

Anyone who reads comics knows that death is never permanent. From Superman, to Jean Grey, to Collosus, we’ve all seen these characters bite the big one only to return triumphantly from the grave a year or two later (or in the case of Bucky, close to sixty years later). The death of a major comic book hero has always equaled big money. But in the grander scheme of things, I dare to ask if death in comics is really death, or is it instead the “spiritual or superhuman component“ of the hero’s overall journey that Joseph Campbell often refers to in the book The Power of Myth.

The death of a hero in comics is for the most part always physical, and usually results from the hero sacrificing him or herself while performing some sort of courageous act in the midst of battle or in trying to save the life of another. In some cases, it involves preserving an ideal (as was the case of Captain America). When these same characters come back to the land of the living, it’s usually due to the fact that they were never truly dead, but were either in cryogenic stasis, their superhuman bodies either shut down or were in a sort of coma-like/ cocoon status, or they actually evolved to a higher state of consciousness, as was the case of Thor at the end of the Ragnarok story-arc by Michael Oeming. In other cases, the hero actually faces Death and either fights his or her way back to the land of the living or makes a deal with the Grim Reaper to return.

In all the instances above, the examples I’ve given are all part of the journey of the “hero” whether we’re talking about comics or other great works of fiction. Generally the rebirth of a hero involves some sort of spiritual reawakening and could also involve a psychological or physical transformation as well.

While we’ve seen numerous accounts of what happens to the hero after his rebirth in works of literature like The Odyssey and The Divine Comedy, the journey of the hero doesn’t quite follow the same path in comics. Usually, there are a few issues devoted to what happened to the hero while “dead” and the changes that have occurred within him or her, but generally these are often swept under the rug or rebooted a couple of months or years later.

Take Jean Grey of the X-Men for example. She’s died and been reborn so many times in comics, that it’s almost become a running gag. After her first “death” in issue #137 of Uncanny X-Men, many readers were shocked that such a major character would be allowed to die. Back in 1983, death in comics was still a relatively rare occurrence. But Marvel editorial wanted to bring Jean back to absolve her of all evil deeds she committed during the famous Dark Phoenix storyline.

After a couple of years of leaving Jean dead, Marvel created a plotline where the Avengers find a strange pod lying on the bottom of Jamaica bay, which they then send to Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four for further investigation. During the investigation, the pod cracks open and Jean emerges, with no memory from her time as Dark Phoenix. After much probing of Jean’s mind, it is discovered that Jean was, in fact, approached by a cosmic psychic entity known as the Phoenix Force. The Phoenix Force copies Jean's physical form and merges with a portion of Jean’s soul/consciousness, while the “real” Jean remains in a coma-like state at the bottom of Jamaica Bay. The Phoenix Force winds up destroying planets and thousands upon thousands of people. Jean is ultimately exonerated of the evil deeds that she committed as Dark Phoenix. She goes on to found X-Factor with her original X-Men teammates. After a couple of issues of adjustment back in the land of the living, Jean is back to her regular superhero ways with little mention of the destruction she caused as Phoenix and later Dark Phoenix.

Perhaps comic book companies feel that readers will ultimately become disinterested with these characters and their higher states of being and awareness. Perhaps they feel that the essence of the character is being lost or perverted.

I, for one think it could add another design to the rich tapestry of these characters and present new trials and tribulations for them. Imagine, a Thor at the end of Ragnarok dying, evolving to a higher state and dealing with cosmic and high-level celestial beings rather than his usual rogues gallery of the Wrecking Crew, the Absorbing Man or the Juggernaut. Why not take a chance and add a new mythological layer to these already established characters?

I know I’d pay money to see that.

Image courtesy of MajorSpoilers.com

Thought Of The Week

2010-01-17T21:46:00.000-08:00

It comes as no shock that former baseball player Mike McGuire admitted using steroids for at least a decade including 1998, when he broke Roger Maris’ single season home run record. McGuire stated that he took steroids for “health purposes” and that he did not use them to increase his strength or bat speed. McGuire’s confession along with the confessions of other sports figures (like Tiger Woods), politicians, CEO’s, etc. that have fallen from grace, raises an interesting question about human behavior and the lengths that we will go to get ahead.

If given the opportunity, will the average person try to take the easy way out?

1) The average person is hard working and truthful and will always try to achieve his or her goals in as straightforward and honest a way as possible.

2) If given the opportunity to bend or break the rules without the chance of getting caught, the average person will take the opportunity even if he or she knows it’s wrong.

3) A person cheating, lying or breaking the rules will try to rationalize their actions to deflect blame or culpability.

4) The higher up a person is on the social, economic or political ladder, the more untouchable they feel making it easier for them to commit wrongdoing.

5) Other

List your choice of answer (or answers), or an alternative in the Comment section. If you pick answer #5, include an example as to why you picked "Other".

Mark McGuire image courtesy of Reuters.

Words Come Alive

2010-01-17T21:34:00.000-08:00

When Should We Shift the POV?

Your character’s falling into a trap because he didn’t know his wife was waiting for him. You did — you were in her head in the previous chapter. That’s an example of when we should change the point of view (POV). If most editors advise shifts in POV only rarely in a novel, why do you often see shifts within the same chapter? Dare you ask when you should shift?

Much is written about POV because the device aids writers in character development and conflict setups. Yet, the many faces of how to use the device require examination. Many experts prefer one POV throughout although they will also see advantages in a shift, so what’s the guideline? Newcomers are advised to avoid the technique because the misuse comes across as confusing. Some editors advise to keep within one POV for a length of time, usually for the span of a chapter. Others allow a shift after a scene. So the answer must be related to time — right?

Not quite. The answer is more appropriately linked to the timing of when you want information shown about the conflict or characters. In a scene where information shows the protagonist hesitating to call the police because he fears their action from a previous encounter, that info has to come from his POV. That scene has to show him hesitating. You have to exist inside his head to understand his past thoughts.

Yet the interaction from that scene could spur the need to shift in the following scene. The protagonist’s friend doesn’t know about the reasons for the hesitation. You probably showed the friend in a confused state earlier. If you develop a new obstacle for the protagonist by having the friend confused about the hesitation, then the following scene could show the friend’s confusion. Now you’re inside the head of the friend because you want to show how he feels about that hesitation. You can’t be certain about the ideas of the protagonist because you’re not in his head. This could lead to a new direction for the friend.

Develop the POV to get inside the friend’s head from the timing of the information you develop about the conflict. Part of this setup reveals another aspect about the timing of the shift. You don’t want to shift POV unless you have a decent amount of space devoted to the character. You don’t want to get inside the character’s head just to answer a question from someone. You want to get inside that person because you have material only that person knows. Despite the confusion about the shifting, think about your timing of information. The timing of when to shift can depend on the information held by each character. Let that be the guide. Let the tool happen because you have the vital details needed to shift that POV.

Laughs Abound

2010-01-17T21:12:00.000-08:00

Rochester Minn. — Mayo Clinic Builds Wings for Long Lines

Long lines of patients waiting for days have forced the famous Mayo Clinic to build extra wings. Passage of the new health care reforms now requires healthcare staff to check IDs to make sure that people are US citizens. ID checks also include food screening that places people who eat other items besides steak and potatoes as possible illegal aliens. Doctors have to require patients to spell the word abortion to determine that the person might have read material about the subject.

In the past, hospitals were required to deal with the illness plaguing the patient as a first priority. Now, interviewers of patients have to trace the lineage of the patient to verify their citizenship.

Hospitals now have free access to police tracking systems to verify the patient’s driver’s license or passport. But, doctors and nurses are spending extra time on phones to verify lineage through the Mormon system of record.

“We’d like to help diagnose patients,” said Dr. Russ Trated, “but we’re doing the work of an immigration department.”
Funds that were planned to be used to purchase a new diagnosing system that saves the lives of patients, had to be used instead to build the extra wings of the clinic just to house the waiting lines of people.

The clinic also lost half its staff during the first week when colds and flu were spread when the staff handled the brochures they collected from patients on abortion counseling. The coughing meds and flu shots had to be delayed, which resulted in mildly sick patients changing into bedridden ones. The clinic had to send their healthy staff members to Bed, Bath and Beyond for more supplies of beds and linens before they could treat the patients.

Meanwhile, the Mayo Clinic has spent $2 million on paper shredders to deal with the influx of the brochures. The shredders now take up most of the ER waiting room. The clinic has also found it necessary to buy dump trucks to take the debris out back for landfill.

“We’re glad this policy is working so well to insure that proper Americans use our resources,” said Senator Slim Wit.

Clinic security has increased to handle the disputes that arise from waiting patients who argue that their lineage is more American than others. Some security personnel had to escort former Daughters of the American Revolution out the door when they couldn’t answer who Betsy Ross was.

To make matters worse, some patients set up a stage in the waiting room to present plays about their grandfathers to boast about how much more American they were than other sick patients.

“My grandfather’s, grandfather’s grandfather came over on the Mayflower,” said A. Nal. “I deserve faster care than some schmo who came during the Civil War!”

Sirens sounded one day from the entourage of Hollywood celebs who wanted to turn the event into a reality show.

“I’ve been here for two days, now,” said Dee Esparate. “I was hoping for a transplant, but now I’ll need two, and I didn’t even get a part for the upcoming season.”

Fiction's Philosophy

2010-01-10T21:07:00.000-08:00

Take It or Leave It

After watching James Cameron’s big budget epic Avatar, one of the central messages that Cameron leaves with us is that the human race is doomed to destroy the planet if we don’t change our violent, militaristic and ultimately, selfish ways. Much like the alien race in the movie, the Na’vi, we need to evolve to work with and heal our planet before all of our resources are completely used up. I dare to ask if Cameron was influenced by the book Ishmael by Daniel Quinn.

In Ishmael, the narrator of the story answered an ad in a newspaper placed by a teacher that was seeking a pupil who “must have a desire to save the world”. The narrator discovered the teacher, named Ishmael, was a gorilla with the ability to communicate telepathically. Through Ishmael, the narrator learned that throughout the history of the planet, there were those who were what he (Ishmael) called the Takers and those who were the Leavers.

The Takers, Ishmael explained, came into existence approximately 10,000 years ago (around the time of the Agricultural Revolution) and that they were basically the people that made up Europe, parts of Eastern and Western Asia and the Americas. The Takers considered themselves the pinnacle of human evolution and felt that the laws of nature and the laws governing all life did not apply to them. The Takers felt that they were meant to rule the planet and conquer it if necessary.

The Leavers were the “primitives of the planet” and were representative of all other cultures that were not agricultural or industrial powers. The Leavers took what they needed from the Earth and left the rest alone. In good times, they prospered, in bad times they may have starved. But they did not abuse the resources that were given to them and they let the natural process of evolution take its course.

In Avatar, we see the idea of the Takers as the RDA Corporation, as well as the humans that have come to the planet Pandora to help mine for a precious mineral called unobtanium (an interesting name which has the connotation of being unobtainable). The RDA Corporation have also employed military personnel to sweep the planet and remove any unwelcomed obstacles that might prevent them from mining. Obstacles to the Corporation included the presence of the planet’s natives, the Na’vi, whose homes and lands stood directly under a massive deposit of the mineral.

The Leavers were the native Na’vi, who lived in peace and harmony with the planet, and who also worshipped Eywa, a type of mother goddess. Dr. Grace Augustine (played by Sigourney Weaver), who was the head of the Avatar Program along with the rest of her team, could also be considered Leavers. Dr. Augustine argued with Parker Selfridge, the head of the RDA mining operation and with Colonel Miles Quaritch, the head of the military/security forces on Pandora, that the destruction of the Na’vi’s Hometree could have disastrous effects on the gigantic bio-botanical, neural network of Pandora. Of course both Selfridge and Quaritch were not interested in Augustine’s concerns and ultimately launched an attack on the Na’vi and Pandora’s ecosystem, when they (the Na’vi) refused to relocate.

While the representation of the Na’vi and the ways that they “commune” with their planet may be a bit simplistic and hokey (at times, especially at the end of Avatar, I felt as though I was watching a sci-fi version of The Lion King), the message that both Cameron and Quinn are trying to convey is an important one.

If we, the human race continue to plunder, invade and burn through the planet’s resources without giving anything back, we are doomed to extinction. If we continue to adopt a Taker mentality and horde resources without giving any to those less fortunate, we are doomed to failure. If we consider that we are the pinnacle of evolution, rather than realize that we are just a blip on the radar in the grand cosmic scheme of things, we will be unable to change our selfish, “taking” ways until it is too late.

In the real world we see examples of this Taker mentality everywhere we look…in Iraq, in counties like Darfur and Rwanda, and in the Amazon rain forests. As long as we continue to believe and perpetuate the myth (as Quinn describes) that we are superior to all other races, countries and/or species, free to dictate and do as we please, we, the human race will be impotent in stopping our inevitable destruction.

The message that Cameron and Quinn make quite eloquently, is that we are all a part of the planet, and as such, we have a responsibility to preserve it. Ultimately, it’s up to us whether we take up the mantle of responsibility, or we leave it.

"Avatar" image courtesy of movies.yahoo.com
"Ishmael" image courtesy of friendsofishmael.org

Lights, Camera, Action!

2010-01-10T20:55:00.000-08:00

Trek Needs Exploration

In the recent Star Trek movie by director J.J. Abrams, when Captain Pike listens to James Kirk about an upcoming disaster, a contrast naturally is drawn to the conflict Captain Pike faced in the pilot of the original Trek. A glaring difference strikes the viewer between the original series and the new movie, daring us to ask why the writers missed opportunities in dealing with the conflicts. The conflict in the 2009 movie focuses on the action of destroying Nero’s threat, while the conflict of the past centered on how Pike defined the quality of life. We all know that fiction needs conflict, but that word can define more than action paced movement. Conflict means a confrontation between a character and an obstacle. That obstacle can be how he copes with his world or himself.

The core of the world of Star Trek always sought to look at science fiction as a way to use philosophy to understand others and the forces within the world. Pike’s disabled body in the Menagerie episodes of the original series allowed creator Gene Roddenberry to focus on how Pike could accept a world of his imagination rather than reality. The conflict showed Pike’s struggle with living in a type of wheelchair with a lover who was equally disabled. His conflict led him to view imagination as a vehicle to surpass his limitations.
Roddenberry always asked questions about, what is sentience, how does a person know he is alive, how should a person interfere with others, and how does the definition of slavery take on new meanings as technology increases.

Any version of the world of Trek can play with various conflicts, expand alternative universes, it can even change facts that are part of the characters’ background. All of that can be achieved as long as an internal consistency exists. But to carry the name of Trek, the story should retain the core focus of Roddenberry — the philosophical exploration of life.

The 2009 movie could have explored those issues by looking at how Kirk transformed himself from a rebellious youth into a leader, or at how Spock toiled with having emotion and at how displaced Vulcans coped with the loss of their home world. Instead, the movie focused on the active conflict of a space opera through a series of quick moving events to find and destroy Nero.

How does a rebellious youth become a leader? The movie introduces us to the young character of Kirk who defies authority and only joins Star Fleet because of a prodding from Pike. Yet he quickly becomes a concerned leader who cares about others. He grows to analyze key details and decides how to save others, a characteristic of selflessness. How did he transform himself? What inner anguish did he experience? How did he accomplish those changes? All we needed was a scene or two to show reasons for that transformation. Yet that scene did not emerge in the most recent Trek movie.

How does Spock use his emotion with his logic during a crisis? We saw Spock being alienated as a child on Vulcan, reluctantly giving a kiss to Uhura and swaying one way then another in making a decision on how to counter Nero. But the ultimate emotional breakdown, that forces him to relinquish command, happens because he is compromised as a Vulcan when his homeland is destroyed. The exploration of how to deal with the emotion is missing. The questions the Doctor from Voyager or Data from The Next Generation asked about how to use emotions does not take place with Spock. There was a chance to explore meanings in life. But the movie missed the opportunity.

How does a Vulcan society face the devastation of their world? Does a group that prides itself on logic set the tone of systematically reconstructing their culture? Do they resort to a type of super patriotism that questions all those not of their group as potential enemies? Do they build a rage that could change their commitment to logic? None of these issues were explored.

The 2009 movie excels in a fast paced series of action that shows conflict between Kirk and Spock, Kirk and Nero and Kirk and Bones. The audience is treated to a whirlwind of activity from evading a giant ship, a singularity, giant insects and a black hole. But the conflicts that occur within people are as valid a story as the movement through space. Those elements could have been included without taking away from the tone of the new action, and with little added footage. Tackling the legacy of Star Trek requires more than just making a space opera. It means going where few movie philosophers dare to go.

"Star Trek" image courtesy of movies.yahoo.com

Behind The Mask

2010-01-05T15:02:00.000-08:00

Weird, or Not Weird, - That Is The Question.

Characters such as Superman, Batman and Spiderman have been around for decades and have become a part of our collective consciousness, but what about characters such as Super Shamou, Badman or La Donna Ragna? Unless you lived and grew up in Canada, Mexico or Italy, you probably wouldn’t know that these are all imitations of the above icons. If someone gave you a comic book called Hansi, the Girl Who Loved the Swatiska or The Two Faces of Communism or even Chaplains at War, would you be offended or intrigued? These are just some of the questions raised in the book Holy Sh*t, The World’s Weirdest Comic Books by Paul Gravett and Peter Stanbury. Unusual or “different” comics have been around for decades, but were these books simply weird, or were they trying to say something more?

From their inception, comics and comic book characters have been a reflection of society and the cultural and political mores of generation upon generation. Characters such as Captain America and The Invaders were created as propaganda tools to help garner support for the United States during World War II. The Incredible Hulk was a response to the Cold War as well as the military buildup going on between the United States and the Soviet Union. It goes to reason that writers and artists from other countries would create their own heroes or heroines to speak out against the happenings and injustices that they were seeing around them.

One such example was Octobriana by Czech writer Petr Sadecky. The character Octobriana, was essentially, a Mongol version of Wonder Woman. Sadecky created this Amazon as a tool to criticize the Soviet Union and create anti-Soviet propaganda. In The Great Society comic book, created by D.J. Arneson and Tony Tallarico, President Lyndon Johnson becomes Super LBJ and fights supervillains such Gaullefinger (based on France’s Charles DeGaulle) and Dr. Nyet (based on the Soviet Union’s Nikita Kruschev). Fighting alongside Super LBJ were Colonel America (Barry Goldwater) and Captain Marvelous (Hubert Humphrey).

Yes, some of the ideas and concepts from the comics listed in The World’s Weirdest Comic Books are definitely weird, but the reason why many of these comics received the label of being “out there”, was the fact that the writers of these comics were addressing ideas and subject matter that was thought of as “taboo” or being a part of the counter-culture at the time. Ideas such as, animal cruelty, the dangers of smoking, bondage or other alternative sexual lifestyles, racial stereotyping and even global warming were tackled back in eras where the general population was either not ready, or not mature enough, to embrace them.

While many of the above comics where quite shocking back in the days when they first came out, some of these same comics seem strange if looked at from a more “modern” perspective. One comic in particular, Just Married that came out in 1973, dealt with the dicey subject of inter-faith relationships. Oh, the horror!

Ultimately, what’s "weird" to one person, group or country may be commonplace to another. The World’s Weirdest Comic Books shows us that although — in some cases — we as a people and a society have evolved politically, sociologically, emotionally, and spiritually, there’s still more work to be done. And because of that, there will never be an absence of comics that shock, scare and jolt our collective psyches.

"Holy Sh*t! The World's Weirdest Comic Books" image courtesy of BarnesandNoble.com

Worlds Meet

2010-01-05T13:54:00.000-08:00

Jericho's Terrorist

An episode of the Jericho television series called “One Man’s Terrorist” brings us into the mind of an average person who becomes a terrorist. The scenes in the episode also offer ideas on how we can deal with a potential terrorist threat. Often we’ve heard about the strong man approach about defeating the enemy, or the language from Republicans that we can’t appear weak to the terrorist. Too often we hear that solutions of social methods fail to understand the terrorist. We are told that supplying food and shelter or jobs have nothing to do with decreasing the ranks of the terrorist community. Maybe the real question is why a person becomes so violent.

A realistic scenario of society breaking down occurs in Jericho. The series shows how a Kansas town copes with the aftermath of such a breakdown. A series of nuclear strikes has wiped out key US cities, and isolated towns are left to fend for law and order, food and power. The show viewed the ways resources are managed to help the community. Key characters such as the mayor, medical professionals, a farmer and a store owner were focused on to show how decisions about resources could affect the entire society.

In the terrorist episode, the mayor believes he can not lead his town through the winter because the numbers on the blackboard of food rationing show the people will starve. His solution is to send a group of refugees, the town recently saved, back out on the road. The refugees were staying in a makeshift shelter. The road meant certain death because of roving outlaws, the lack of animals to hunt or existence of shelter from the cold. But the mayor could not save everyone, so at least he tried to save his town.

The terrorist point of view was shown through the eyes of the refugees. Maybe they react to unusual pressure. An incident arose when one refugee tried pleading with the mayor to reconsider the forced eviction. When the mayor pulled out a gun to show his authority, a scuffle broke out that resulted in the mayor being accidentally wounded. The police then treated the refugee as a terrorist.

But we lost the real cause of why one becomes a terrorist, as the argument shifted away from the withholding of resources to one of respect for authority. The change took away key items of fact. The refugees were not just taking from the town. They were gathering wood for fire. One was even serving as a doctor in the town clinic. The refugees were quartered in a shelter even though the town housed many empty homes of people who left before the nuclear strike, probably never to return. But that was private property so it could not be shared with the refugees. The ideas of sharing and the value of property over lives presents a special philosophical view on why terrorists face unusual pressure.

The incident also addresses how to defuse a terrorist in the making. In one particular scene, a town character cries out to a group of people to share their homes with the refugees. She prods and cajoles until many in the crowd agree. This takes place after she is threatened in her home by a refugee who waves a knife at her. When she sees how he wanted glue to close a worn-out pair of shoes rather than take a pair from her son, she sees that this is an average person who desires self respect. She realizes this person has been thrown into a desperate situation, almost as desperate as the mayor who wielded the gun.

Not all terrorists are as easily placated as those in the episode, but we were seeing the images of people in the start of the process of becoming the hardened killers who strike around the world. These were glimpses of a Palestinian, a poppy farmer in Afghanistan or a Sunni…maybe a Shi'ite whose home lies in rubble.

Maybe the difference between the terrorist and victim is who is in authority. Maybe the way to defeat the terrorist is to strike at the causes of the process. Supply food, shelter and hope and the ranks of the terrorist community shrink.

"Jericho" image courtesy of Sidereel.com

Words Come Alive

2009-12-15T19:31:00.000-08:00

What’s the Easy Way to Understand POV?

Your character walks through shadows in a narrow alley. But you may feel a distance as you watch him, or you may sense his anxiety. Part of that difference comes from the point of view (POV) of the character.

Most books are written in the third person, and mention the words, “him” or “her”. The first person use of “I” occurs rarely. However, the third person can come close with the first person by using the third person internal POV.

So what’s the difference? Think involvement by being inside the character’s head. Internal POV also means more emotion with each statement. Notice the difference —

Megan walked across the room to confront Sammy who expected her anger.

Megan clenched the note in her hand from Sammy as she walked across the room. “How dare he try that!” she thought. Why was Sammy simply standing there, not even blinking, as though he anticipated her reaction?

Notice the change. In the first example, the reader is aware of both people. Yet in the second, the reader is drawn into Megan’s mind. Sammy’s thinking is only guessed by her because the reader exists in her internal POV.

Using POV avoids the omniscient third person where the narrator knows all. For many writers, the goal helps place the reader as a participating voyeur, sneaking peeks into the heads of others without being in danger of discovery.

Yet it’s more than that. The device helps to set up mysteries. Often a narrator-told omniscient style leads the reader to think some marionette player sits above the plot, moving the characters. For some stories, that might be the approach needed. You might want to have readers see above the fray where a vast assembly of characters loom. However, when you want to let the characters chart their own course, the internal POV is another tool that a writer can use.

Fiction's Philosophy

2009-12-14T17:33:00.000-08:00

Bauer or Star Trek

As the new Star Trek movie arrives on DVD, I dare to ask the philosophical question from fiction about why communication has been degraded when we deal with enemies. Star Trek introduced the idea that you communicate to find the flaws in your foe. Today’s more representative image of Jack Bauer on the TV show 24 sends the message that you often don’t have time to communicate.

Is there time in a frenzy to communicate? In last year’s version of 24, Bauer told the US President that lack of time was responsible for him needing to torture a traitor to stop an attack on the White House. Trek’s Captain Kirk didn’t have time when a computer system was about to doom a planet to a war with a neighbor if people failed to voluntarily kill themselves. But Kirk took just a few moments to short circuit the system by showing the flaws in the system’s logic.

Bauer had just a few moments to interrogate a traitor in the White House as agents were about to stop him. He chose to intimidate, and threaten the traitor. The result pushed the story deeper into a crisis as the traitor withheld vital intelligence. Agents stopped Bauer, and his goal was thwarted. He could have chosen the path to communicate. The traitor was loyal to a cause that drove him to allow an African General to seize the White House. Bauer could have played on that loyalty. He could have used that info to derail the person’s goal, but he chose the easier, more aggressive route.

Communication doesn’t mean you give in to the enemy. No enemy operates with illogic. The logic might not be that of the protagonist, but there is a system of logic inside the enemy. The better chance the hero has to reach success depends not on force, but communication. Kirk was a product of the Kennedy era. Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Captain Picard lived in the time before 9/11, so we can understand why the fear of lacking time threatens the characters in fiction after 9/11 — the time of Bauer. Maybe the fear from the real world could be changed by the philosophy in fiction. But in this case, the fiction’s philosophy follows that of the real world - maybe it should be leading it in another direction.

"24" image courtesy of tvshowfans.org
"Star Trek" image courtesy of tvmegasite.net

Thought For The Week

2009-12-04T11:31:00.001-08:00

Jim Carrey’s A Christmas Carol is currently playing in theaters. The classic tale written by Charles Dickens, tells of a character who reforms his selfish, miserly life because of visits by spirits that show him visions of his past, present and future. Is a person a product of his/her surroundings and does their environment lead he/she under pressure to commit evil?

1) People can be purely evil and even favorable surroundings would lead them to commit evil.

2) People are formed by a combination of their personality traits and their environment.

3) People form their environment so that the environment reflects a person's true nature.

4) Other

List your choice of answer, or an alternative in the Comment section. If you pick answer #4, include an example as to why you picked "Other".

Picture property of Yahoo Movies.

Lights, Camera, Action!

2009-11-27T12:16:00.000-08:00

Strange Bedfellows

On the surface, comparing the AMC series Mad Men to HBO’s The Sopranos might seem like comparing Doris Day to Peg Bundy. On the one hand, you have the dapperly-dressed advertising execs of Sterling Cooper and their dainty, obedient wives in direct contrast to the ruthless, violent vulgarity and misogyny of mafia boss Tony Soprano and the rest of his Jersey crew. But I dare to ask (and wonder) if both Mad Men and The Sopranos are really that different. If Don Draper and Tony Soprano weren’t on different TV shows and living in different eras, I could see the two of them as drinking buddies.

While Mad Men is set in the early 1960’s and the characters look and seem like they are cut out of the goody-two-shoes, cookie cutter mold of the 1950’s, it is quite the opposite. Don Draper, Roger Sterling, Sal Romano and Pete Campbell are the white collar versions of Tony Soprano, Paulie Gualtieri, Silvio Dante and Salvatore “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero. And while The Sopranos may have the market cornered on adultery, racist and homophobic behavior, blackmail, corruption, sexism and violence, one could say the ad execs at Sterling Cooper were actually their forefathers. The behavior exhibited by the male characters in Mad Men is a reflection of the changing social mores of the time.

Similarities between the two shows are eerily inspired, starting with Mad Men creator and producer Matthew Weiner who also worked as a writer with producer David Chase on The Sopranos. Both show’s lead characters, Don Draper and Tony Soprano have pasts that they’ve tried to hide from their family, friends and business associates. Don, whose real name is Richard Whitman, assumed the identity of the real Don Draper while serving with him in the Korean War after the real Don Draper was killed. Tony is the head of a crime family while projecting the image that he’s an honest, hard working family man to friends and business associates.

Both show’s characters don’t handle the idea of alternative sexuality very well either. When Sal Romano, the art director at Sterling Cooper, who also happens to be a closeted gay man married with children, rebuffs the sexual advances of a male client, the client orders that Sal be taken off of the ad campaign. Don is so angry that Sterling Cooper has lost a large, lucrative account, that he fires Sal. Also, Don had accidentally witnessed a gay encounter that Sal had had with a hotel employee while the two of them were away on business in a previous episode. When Vito Spatafore, a captain in Tony’s crew is outed as a homosexual, he goes into hiding, but is found and brutally killed.

While the Sopranos crew throws out derogatory racial epithets as easily as if they were saying hello, the Mad Men crew express their racist tendencies in other, equally offensive ways, like when Roger Sterling decides to don blackface during a party to serenade his wife with the song “My Old Kentucky Home”.

And as far as women go, both shows treat women as objects of desire and of sexual conquest. While the male characters of both shows are either engaged or married, they frequently have sexual affairs with the opposite sex. In the Mad Men world, the objects of desire are usually the secretaries working at Sterling Cooper while in The Sopranos, it’s usually the strippers at Silvio’s strip club, The Bada Bing. Despite their best efforts, the women in both shows find it incredibly difficult to assert their individuality due to the very prohibitive environments in which they are living.

The old adage that “absolute power corrupts absolutely” certainly defines the lead characters in both shows. Don and Tony, as well as their partners in advertising and crime, will do whatever they feel is necessary to solidify their power bases and appease their narcissistic tendencies, even if it means literally and figuratively screwing (and in The Sopranos case, killing) their neighbor. Watching these characters balance their professional and personal lives while trying to stay on the side of the angels is one of the reasons why both shows are so compelling and keep viewers wanting more.

Mad Men image property of BBCshop.com
Sopranos image property of Tower Records.

Lights, Camera, Action!

2009-11-24T20:15:00.000-08:00

Wars & Coming of Age

Children have a different slant on the world — dare we ask if that is the answer to the question of whether Mark Herman and Guillermo Del Toro see through different lenses than the rest of us.

Herman’s The Boy in the Striped Pajamas and Del Toro’s The Devil’s Backbone explore the crises arising around young boys who grow up in a wartime arena. Both movies show how the idealism of the young gives way to the increasing pressures of an adult world. Yet the master stroke with each is the point-of-view displayed by the young boys as they bear witness to horrors usually seen from an adult point-of-view.

Both movies deal with the horrors of how a war divides people into groups so they can struggle against an enemy. Both deal with aspects of evil acts committed by the usual suspects and some unlikely ones. And both show the hope to bridge barriers.

In The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, Bruno loses his father’s closeness because the war has taken him away so that despite being in the same house, father becomes distant. Bruno grows up believing the propaganda about a Jewish threat, but grows to see the falsity of his learning. He strives to counter that by forming a friendship with a Jewish prisoner.

In The Devil’s Backbone, Carlos strives to cope with hatred from students and a caretaker who murdered a young boy. He is surrounded by a staff that yearns for a fountain of youth to supplant death and also crave gold to avoid life’s harshness. But Carlos inspires others with a sense of community.

These examples of hope emerging from an arena of despair come to us from the way the stories are told by Herman and Del Toro. The struggles against war and close-mindedness don’t hit us from the eyes of the adults who have set the troubles in motion. The point-of-view strikes us from the child who suffers in the environment of that crisis.

Herman and Del Toro must have sat around a cafe talking about their approaches together. Herman takes Bruno step by step from his known world into the discoveries about the lies from father and the kindness of two Jewish people. Del Toro submerges us within Carlos’ world so that the staff and caregiver’s experiences only become understood through a layered effect of discovery. Herman and Del Toro want us to view the horrors from another angle.

Too often we only see the fight from the eyes of the combatants. Dare we ask how that conflict shatters the psyche of others caught in the mix?

The Boy In The Striped Pajamas image property of Tower Video.
The Devil's Backbone image property of Yahoo Movies.

Follow The Bouncing Brawl

2009-11-24T10:52:00.000-08:00

Why Chase Away the Blue Collars?

Old frames of homeruns hit into the stands show the clapping hands of workers who chose to take the day off. Dare we ask why those people are missing in the latest shots of baseball games?

As more stadia erect plush boxes replete with hotel-sized rooms and catering staffs, the costs weed out those average fans in favor of the corporate clients. Rising prices have made the game a business, but that was also true in the 1920s. The Babe came to New York because the Boston owner lost money on a Broadway show. Money has always been a factor for trying to grab an audience. But the audiences have changed.

Now giant boxes are aimed to give smiles to CEOs and board chairs. The number of seats has dropped to make room for those stretch limo rooms. Regular fans can watch the game on their FIOS or Cable. Maybe the front office thinks the corporate people are more consistent in terms of paying for seats. Maybe the aim is to fill in the seats before the season starts. Whatever the reason, the seats are being held for upper and middle management people. After all, clients come to town and the office has to show off the team.

But the blue collars were also consistent. Despite the Depression, those workers filled the stands even in day games. The worker returned in more of a pattern when the price was right and almost guaranteed the same support for the team. Those people would also act as the advertising arm as they hovered around the water cooler the following day. So they helped the sales in a number of ways.

So why then does the current mentality aim for the big bucks over the constant flow? Those workers kept the game alive for more than a century. The new guys are up and down with the Dow. Who’s more reliable — the homerun hitter, or the guy for average?

Thought For The Week

2009-11-16T20:54:00.000-08:00

After the tragic shooting rampage at Fort Hood by Major Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist and Arab-American, many fear that life for many military personnel of Arab-American descent will become noticeably more difficult. Was the shooting at Fort Hood an isolated incident or is it a product of larger issues taking place?

1] This was an isolated incident by a psychologically disturbed individual and should not be a reflection or generalization of all Arab-Americans in the military.
2] Arab-Americans wanting to join the military or who are already in the military should be subjected to extra questioning and debriefings.
3] Prejudice in the military against Arab-Americans exists. The military needs to do a better job in addressing racial and religious harassment issues which might lead to more violence in the future.
4] Other

List your choice of answer, or an alternative in the Comment section. If you pick answer #4, include an example as to why you picked "Other".

Worlds Meet

2009-11-13T13:42:00.000-08:00

Conrad’s Heart of Afghanistan

When the outlaw leader Hernandez asks the miner Bonafacio why he supports the silver mine in Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo, Bonafacio’s answer should be heard as Congress spends $10 billion in Afghanistan. We dare to ask why literature can see an answer that eludes the reality decision makers.

Bonifacio answered that the mine owner, “Senior Gould pays me very well.” Yet the policy makers in DC can’t find a similar group to pay the way they did with the Awakening in Iraq. The situation is different, they say. So the funds go to the military.

While the groups in play are very different between Iraq and Afghanistan, the presence of a group like Bonifacio’s miners does exist in Afghanistan — the poppy growers.

Conrad’s Nostromo shows the political elements in a fictional Latin American country where the English mine owner fights local groups who try to expel all foreigners. The lessons from literature demand we see certain parallels. The miners are the poppy growers. The use of force alone does not work. Respect for the local population is needed.

While it’s easy to see the importance of the miners in Nostromo, our real decision makers can’t see the crucial aspect of the poppy growers. The miners produced the wealth that drove the plot in Conrad’s book. The poppy grower’s wealth supports the Taliban. The real world of Afghanistan is filled with vying groups that seem to dilute the image of those growers in the minds of the decision makers. Control a few warlords, and maybe you can swing some support to the Kabul government…for awhile. But control the livelihood of those growers and suddenly the Taliban loses its fighting ability. Maybe the $10 billion could be used to change the growing patterns of the poppy growers.

The use of force alone doesn’t work. In Nostromo, the Gould character uses the secret police after he becomes dominant. But he still can’t stop the anger of growing resentment and an underground resistance. When he first took possession of the mine, he stopped General Montero’s brother who arrived at the mine with a small army. He stopped them because the workers remained loyal to him because of the fair treatment. Afghanistan could be seen in the same way. Extra force to control the poppy fields means nothing if farmers working those fields require money to live.

This brings us to respect for the local population. The strength of the Taliban comes from the support of the locals. Spend the money on troops or to aid the warlords, and those farmers will still have to grow poppy. They are growing poppy because certain grain fields were destroyed during the ages-long conflict. They have to survive, and poppy gives them a chance. Give them the financial support while they convert their fields to pomegranates and you take away the local support from the Taliban.

Nostromo’s characters showed a lesson for Afghanistan. The miners who supported Gould’s mine against Montero had family members who stood by and watched Gould’s father being killed by a previous revolt. Gould avoided that when he respected the miners in the beginning of the story. He saw other methods were needed than using force, and he recognized the value of the worker. Well, we have $10 billion and we have a choice of spending on the military, the warlords or the growers — hmmm.

The Response Meter

2009-11-13T11:29:00.000-08:00

Where Have All The Circulation Professionals Gone?

It seems like each day I read about another publication folding and more circulators being laid off. There’s no doubt that the current economic crisis has hit the publishing/media industry like a freight train and circulation professionals have been directly in the line of fire when it comes to their jobs and resources being cut. I’ve lost count of the number of colleagues who have lost their jobs and who are currently pounding the pavement like a pack of rabid dogs all trying to compete for the same one or two jobs that happen to show up on the publishing/media job boards each month.

Many have given up on the notion that they could make a career out of being a circulator and are now working in completely different lines of work. Obviously, the state of our economy has played an enormous role and has forced companies to make a lot of hard decisions, but I began to see the exodus out of circulation/audience development by many even before the economy went into freefall and I dare to ask…why and how did this happen?

I think I speak for many when I say, that I didn’t go to school wanting to be a circulation professional. When I graduated from Adelphi University back in 1992, my original goal was to get a job in Editorial at a major publishing company. Unfortunately, the job market when I graduated was in a bit of a slump and because I had graduated with a French major (I had originally wanted to work in International Business, but found that it wasn’t to my liking) and a Communications minor, I found it hard to get my foot in the door because I didn’t have an English degree or prior experience working for my college’s newspaper. After bumming around and doing a couple of odd jobs here and there, I got my first taste of Circulation through a family friend that happened to work for CMP Publications in Manhasset, NY. CMP hired me on as a Circulation/Quality Control analyst. I spent my days making sure all of CMP publications were ready for their audits by doing dupe checks and mock audits. My original plan was to stay as a Quality Control Analyst for approximately a year or two and then make my eventually segue into Editorial.

Unfortunately, the Quality Control department at CMP was eventually phased out but I wound up getting a job as a Circulation Assistant at Miller Freeman Inc. Miller Freeman was where I received my Circulation education. I found that I liked Circulation because of its mix of the analytical and the creative. I also worked with a supportive staff and was given the ball to run with. If I stumbled a bit, I was given to opportunity to learn and correct my mistakes. I also found that I could make a decent living being a circulation professional. In my close to three years at Miller Freeman, I was promoted from a Circulation Analyst to an Assistant Circulation Manager and then to a full-fledged Circulation Manager.

Back in the early to mid 1990’s when I started my career in Circulation, magazines were plentiful, companies had lots of money to hire and train their staff, and employees would be rewarded for their hard work with salary and title increases. But as the years went on, a circulator’s role expanded to include not only the promotion of magazines, but of enewsletters, company websites, trade shows and eventually adding a company/brand presence on various social media sites. In many cases, this added responsibility came with little to no additional help and in many cases without an increase in salary. As the economy started to unravel, companies demanded that their circulation staffs do more with less.

Because of their increased workloads, circulators, myself included, found themselves having to learn new skills on the fly, and have even more responsibility without having the necessary resources to go along with the additional work flow. As the economy continued to spiral downward, pay freezes and pay cuts became common in many companies. Many circulators began to feel overwhelmed, underappreciated and burnt out. They also began to see their job descriptions change dramatically as the shift from print to digital and online caused them to have to learn new skills with little to no training provided by the company’s they worked for. Many began to feel disenchanted with the industry.

I began to see this trend occurring at the beginning of 2000. Pressure from upper management to increase revenue and decrease costs seemed to filter down to the group directors, then to the circulation managers and ultimately to the circulation analysts. Everyone became so consumed with just keeping their head above water and learning new skills on the fly that they didn’t have time to help the person below them. The recession was ultimately the straw that broke the camel’s back.

I have colleagues and acquaintances that are no longer in circulation but are now teachers, running day care centers, firemen, writers or physical therapists. Others have been out of work for close to a year. Many are trying to ride out the storm, hoping the economy will right itself by early to mid 2010 and that job opportunities will become plentiful once again.

Some have become so disheartened and are so skeptical about what the future holds that they’ve decided to find new careers. Many wonder if they’ll have the necessary technical, web and online skills needed when or if the job market rebounds, or if they’ll be left in the dust. It will be interesting to see how many return once the storm subsides.

In the interim, for those trying to weather the storm and get back into the audience development industry eventually, it’s vital to keep up-to-date on company and industry trends. Going to industry events such as NTCFI (the National Trade Circulation Foundation Inc), signing up for industry webinars, and reading industry enewsletters (Audience Development, Media Business and Folio are my top three) and blogs on a daily basis is extremely important. With the move away from print to online, knowledge of web analytics, search engine optimization, HTML, social media and other online resources is essential. I would even advise taking a couple of courses in the above topics to ensure that you’re up-to-speed on the constantly evolving world of online marketing and technology. Keeping in touch with colleagues is also crucial and could provide the extra edge needed to get back into the workforce.

Laughs Abound

2009-11-11T18:44:00.000-08:00

Washington DC — Congress Creates Restaurant Insurance

Since the nation’s healthcare insurance works so well, Congress has decided to create a restaurant insurance industry to encourage more people to dine out.

The effort puts in place insurance firms that collect money to be used in payments to restaurants when a diner wishes to eat out. People obtain their coverage from employers who are required to set aside funds for their workers.

“This makes it convenient for the average joe to take out his family,” said Sen. Morgan Weight. “He doesn’t have to dig into his pocket for those flimsy credit cards.”

However, restaurants are struggling with long lines of people who wait for hours to check out as groups of restaurant administrators have them sign forms.

“I saw a broccoli third party administrator who made me fill out a form in triplicate when I ordered a stuffed pepper filled with broccoli,” said Les Green, a new vegetable advocate. “The dish meant that the restaurant had to work with a third party for the vegetable side dish, and another third party for the subcontracted work with the added broccoli.”

Yet the new jobs are a boon to the economy, according to Rake Itinn, a business lobbyist. “Businesses run the country, and anything that helps them, helps the country.”

Other lines have been set up in tented streets next to restaurants to accommodate the people who have to identify types of dessert and appetizer they want so they can have the correct coverage. Restaurants no longer make complete meals, but have to contract out with local food provider groups. The tented areas in streets have caused a traffic jam in most cities as cars try to navigate around the restaurant areas.

But the benefits of the restaurant insurance structure are greater than the obstacles, according to Sen. Cap Tilsim. “This is just the marketplace at work and we can’t hinder the marketplace.”

The employer groups have been excited about spending the extra money for their workers because they obtain special food for CEO banquets from the insurance plans.

Most plans have been set up in either a Hot Meals Organization (HMO) or a Plate Plan Option (PPO) that handles the way people are covered. The insurance firms believe this will keep the costs of food down.

“People are demanding more and more special items,” said Ginger Flakes, an insurance spokeswoman. “We have to run tests in most restaurants now to determine the types of food best suited for the diner.”

These tests include the Most Ravenous Index (MRI) and Eating Kitchen Gourmet (EKG) are forcing manufacturers to design equipment to scan the diner so they can determine the best menu for the person.

But these options can annoy some diners who liked certain foods besides what is shown in the tests. The insurance firms refuse to cover previously digested patterns.

Restaurant goers are also finding that not every restaurant will be covered. Often, people have to visit a special restaurant that offers a previously desired favorite like seafood. Usually, these would be considered out of network for many insurance firms.

“We can’t cover everything the person wants to eat,” Ginger said. “We’re trying to contain costs for the employer.”

The tests also take time and add to the long lines that bother neighborhoods. “These restaurants are putting a drain on our entire city,” said Pete Zer, from a Foods Rights group. “Why don’t we have a one plate system like other countries?”

Thought For The Week

2009-10-28T11:33:00.000-07:00

Can consensus building work when the leading opposition exists at the extreme edge of the issue?

1] Consensus building can only work by attracting those in the center — ignore trying to influence those on either extreme.
2] Consensus building means we lose sight of the ideal solution and results in pleasing none — grab the core of the ideal and run with it despite the opposition.
3] Consensus building demands that the concept be described in the language used by an opposition — that will mean a successful communication will evolve.
4] Other

List your choice of answer, or an alternative in the Comment section. If you pick answer #4, include an example as to why you picked "Other".

For more information about Consensus building, click on the following link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_gMS9ID9X0

Fiction's Philosophy

2009-10-28T11:15:00.000-07:00

Has Fiction Forgotten About Cooperation?

As Rorschach slinks into dark corners to find the gaps in the Watchmen mystery, one overriding theme is the way people cannot rely on one another. Fiction has long been either a reflective mirror of our society, or a guiding path to an alternative. Our present social climate is ushering in a stream of reflection with little on the alternative side. Mistrust is abundant, cooperation bears few examples. Reasons exist for the trend, but many arguments also cry for a counter to the trends.

Whether it’s the Watchmen, Taken, Angels and Demons or even the Jack Bauer look-alikes on television, more material is coming forth reflecting the distrust in our society. It’s been several years since the Hobbits cooperated with Humans, Elves and Dwarfs. Since then, we have seen one character after another offer a smile to an associate, only to use a cell phone in the next scene to set an obstacle in that person’s path. Great plots with conflicts now cast the protagonist at the right spot at the right time, but only to miss the very goal he seeks because he failed to trust someone in the previous scene.

Reasons exist for the plethora of mistrust. When our economic leaders shred the idea of trust with mortgages or skirt the social responsibility to aid a community,that leads to part of the public’s frustration. Yet, that image of mistrust is heightened as political leaders laugh at the concept of promises. The previous political campaign showed debates where one party embraced Joe the Plumber as a small businessman before they discovered the following day that Joe wasn’t his name and he failed to own his business. The society’s craving for fiction’s depiction of distrust naturally follows the frustration.

However, that’s exactly why fiction has the responsibility to lead with an image to counter that frustration. During the terror of the McCarthy era, the SF world showed how people could trust aliens. That era showed how Henry Fonda instilled cooperation against racism when he encouraged a consensus in 12 Angry Men. During the height of the Cold War, an episode of the original Star Trek asked the question, “Maybe they thought we were the aggressors.” Daring to ask that question defied the political hammer that pointed a finger at our real world people who asked the same question.

Fiction’s history shows a proactive role of countering the norm. Yet fiction’s display of cooperation has wavered over the past few years. We expect our fiction to reflect the real world, show us the details that make up scenarios we all face. But fiction also has the responsibility to show a path where few trod, to open up a consciousness that shows where society is missing the mark. That means showing the value of cooperation.

For more information about this article, click on the following link:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0xOpgI4TXU

Worlds Meet

2009-10-28T10:29:00.000-07:00

Earth as a Space Station

When corporate head Fabio Bianco directs his science teams on the space station Trikon to investigate a worldwide biological threat, he ignores the individual desires of his European associates. Instead he breaks down the barriers between the Japanese, American and Europeans by impressing some of the leaders with a renewed view of Earth. Dare we ask whether Ben Bova’s novel The Trikon Deception could meet the real world as the global discussions about nuclear proliferation continue?

Bova’s conflict enters around a murder mystery, hardly a comparison with nuclear disaster. Yet the crime arises from group and personal fears and greed that duplicates the way nations view the select nuclear club. Bova paints a scene where the interests of an Indian engineer and British politician vie for power over the European Community. The Indian owes a debt to the British fellow from a drug habit. The drives are basic human ones, but we could also view them as examples of how the poppy farmers in one nation are linked to interests in the Iranian faction that craves power with the bomb.

Bova’s Asian research team struggles for recognition with the global effort of the station, yet the single-mindedness could be similar to how a nation like North Korea tries to assert itself. The country is flexing its muscles, wanting recognition and ignoring desires of others. The Asian team emerges within a global community where most awards ignore the Asian skills. North Korea’s fear of being encircled by the West and Japan has recently been heightened by an abandonment of China and Russia. The actions by North Korea could resemble the attempt to horde the scientific breakthrough on Trikon.

Bova contrasts the realistic images of discord with an idealistic hope. Bova’s use of real personal drives makes us look into the goals held by nations and how various groups display a fear of lack of control. However, his vision seen through the eyes of Bianco take us to view the globe below the station as the corporate head encourages the teams to work together. Bianco’s declining health doesn’t stop his enthusiastic morale boost. If the station is saved because the teams start to think about themselves as station dwellers rather than ethnic group members, then maybe the leaders who vie for nuclear power could think about the global impact of the struggle on all the world’s members.

Words Come Alive

2009-10-28T10:20:00.000-07:00

Show and Tell or Both?

We want readers to enter the mind of our characters, so we don’t TELL readers she’s anxious, we SHOW them how Jane wrings her hands, drops a pen, or covers her mouth with her hand. That’s the essence of SHOW versus TELL, and we’re always instructed to use that device. But dare we ask when we should tell instead?

Actually a few major reasons help us decide when to use either show or tell. Think in one case whether we are trying to move the plot between scenes or write about the action between characters. In one case, we’re filling in background or describing images. That’s different from where we want to enter the character’s head. Another reason in making the decision comes when we want to prompt a general image in the mind of the reader, which may call for telling instead of showing. Especially with dialogue when body language informs the reader about the mind of the characters.

Are we moving the plot, or standing inside the scene? If we’re trying to get Carlos to the meeting with Jorge, we may want to tell about where Jorge’s house lies, or the difficulty in driving past traffic. We may want to remind the reader about the ties Jorge has with certain other people. That’s the realm of telling. But if we want to bring in why Carlos was frustrated with Jorge, we might have him sweating with clammy hands on the steering wheel. We might want to be inside his head as thoughts go back to the last meeting. Carlos felt belittled and shrank from Jorge. Then we would want to show how Carlos looked, or acted.

How do we decide between show and tell when we’re in the middle of a scene? Actually a balance of the two might be important. Show means describing the action or body language of a character. Tell means using a word that informs us of the character. We could say Jorge was confused because we want to tell the reader in a short amount of time so we can focus on a more crucial item. But we could avoid that by showing his movement as he walks to one desk, picks up a paper, then without looking at it, places it down, only to walk to another desk and shake his head. The focus dictates whether we use show or tell — what’s more important in the development of the scene?

Dialogue can include the best example of a balance of show and tell. Lead off the dialogue with telling, and then show at the same time through body language and the dialogue. Carlos had a shocked look on his face. He dropped the stack of papers. “How could she leave him that way?”
Notice the way the blending of the two devices works together. We don’t know how the reader will actually understand the dropping of the papers. We reinforce that by indicating the word shocked. But we use the showing description of the papers to add to his comment about the situation.

When we dare to ask when to use the devices, we should think about how much we’re in the head of the character, whether the necessity calls for giving information quickly, or how we can blend the two in describing the action. We should ask ourselves what is the crucial activity in the scene. That will help us decide on the device.

Behind The Mask

2009-10-28T09:27:00.000-07:00

The Summer Mega Event – Have We Had Too Many?

From The Infinity Gauntlet to Civil War to Secret Invasion, the summer comic mega event has practically become a yearly tradition. In the 1980’s and 90’s, the mega event was a special time that occurred once every couple of years. It was a chance to see your favorite characters interacting with others they normally wouldn’t see or fight on a regular basis and an opportunity to see them band together to deal with threats too large for just one hero or one team. Summer was also a chance to see your favorite comic book character doing something extraordinary in front of his or her comic book peers. But through the years, the excitement and novelty generated by these mega events has become diluted and I dare to ask if we comic book fans are getting a bit worn out by all these mega happenings.

If we’re looking at things from a sales perspective, the answer would be a resounding “no”. For comic book publishers, especially at Marvel and DC, the mega event means big sales and big money. The last four Marvel summer events, House of M, Civil War, World War Hulk and Secret Invasion finished in the number 1 position in terms of copies sold and total sales. They spawned numerous tie-ins and new comic book series.

From a character development and creative standpoint, the answer is a bit more complicated. Comic book readers and writers alike have found themselves having to shift gears and stop storylines abruptly because of publisher mandates to include their characters in the next big event.

When Secret Wars, the first big comic book company crossover, came out in 1985, I remember buying all twelve issues and thinking how amazing it was to see all those characters in one book. As a long-time fan of the Incredible Hulk, I remember reading issue 4 of the series. I floated in seventh heaven as the Hulk wound up saving his fellow heroes by bracing an entire mountain range that had been dropped on them by the Molecule Man. But Secret Wars, also served as a foreshadowing for what would happen with the Hulk in his own series, as the Banner-Hulk personality slowly eroded away. He had been the dominant personality when Secret Wars began. This would eventually lead to the emergence of the savage and then mindless Hulk in the Hulk’s own series (circa issues #293 to #300). This “mindless” Hulk would wind up fighting the likes of SHIELD, Power Man, Iron Fist, Thor and the Avengers and was ultimately banished by Dr. Strange to an inter-dimensional pocket universe called The Crossroads. During the Onslaught saga, Marvel’s summer mega event of 1995, Peter David, the writer of the Hulk at the time, was extremely annoyed that he had to stop his current storyline and make his stories connect with the current Onslaught crossover. Marvel mandated it. I remember sharing his annoyance as I was enjoying the current story arc in, The Incredible Hulk, and didn’t particularly care for the Onslaught tie-ins, which seemed a bit forced. I admit that my inner fan-boy came out once again when I read the finale to the Onslaught saga, Onslaught: Marvel Universe. I saw the Hulk after requesting the X-Men’s Jean Grey to shut down Bruce Banner’s influence in his brain, go toe-to-toe with the all-powerful Onslaught. The ensuing battle was so epic that it created a psychic tornado so powerful that the other heroes found it difficult to even approach the fight. The battle ended when the Hulk, after being pinned and goaded by Onslaught one too many times, unleashed a massive punch that destroyed Onslaught’s physical form, causing Onslaught to become a being of pure energy. The ensuing explosion also wound up splitting Banner and the Hulk into two separate entities.

While seeing the Hulk do something “incredible” once again was great, the moment became somewhat fleeting. Unfortunately, plotlines in the Incredible Hulk comic series from before the Onslaught event were dropped in favor of new, unwelcomed plotlines about the ramifications of Banner and the Hulk splitting apart. As a comic reader and a fan of the Hulk, I felt the switch in plotlines strained and uneven. The natural flow of the comic had been destroyed because the higher-ups at Marvel felt the need to make a radical shift in the plot and tone of the book. Apparently Peter David felt the same way since he wound up leaving the book shortly thereafter. I quickly followed suit too.

I eventually made my way back to comics and to the Hulk, but the Onslaught saga had me feeling greatly jaded (no pun intended). As I saw more of these mega events taking place, a part of me was happy that they were doing well from a sales and revenue standpoint for it showed that the comic industry was strong and an interest in the product existed. But at the same time, I hoped that my favorite characters like the Hulk would be left out of those big events unless it was fundamentally connected to what was going on in their respective title (or titles). I wasn’t so lucky when the Marvel summer event, House of M, took place with the Hulk getting dragged in. But I then got my wish and the Hulk was left out of the following year’s big crossover, Civil War. While Civil War was raging in the Marvel Universe, the Hulk had his own mini-event going on within his own title called Planet Hulk, which naturally segued into the next year’s mega event, called World War Hulk, which had the Hulk as the central focus.

In the end, the situation all comes down to dollars and how much the Marvel’s/DC’s of the world can generate. As long as mega events like World War Hulk and Secret Invasion continue to pull in big money, you’ll continue to see more of those events on a yearly or semi-annual basis along with more tie-in to mini-series’ or more spin-off titles from these events. That will happen regardless of quality, the threat of character saturation or whether the event has a logical or natural connection to the current storylines in each character’s or team’s book. The shift back to character-centric story-telling with less of these big crossover events will depend on the comic book consumer and how many dollars they spend as well as the number of books they decide to buy on a weekly or monthly basis.

Marvel seems to be getting the message. Summer of 2009 was the first summer in many years that they did not have a company wide crossover. They instead chose to focus on the ramifications of Secret Invasion, and the Dark Reign of Norman Osborn and his cadre of former supervillains over the Marvel Universe.

In these tough economic times with the rising cost of an individual comic, comic buyers are being forced to buy only the titles that they feel they must have on a monthly basis. Ultimately, it's up to them to determine whether the mega event or the character/team book is more important.

Laughs Abound

2009-10-27T21:24:00.000-07:00

New York City — Pigs Barred on Subways

In an effort to clean the mass tranportation system for school children, Mayor Bloomberg has decided to stop pigs from using subways. The aim is meant to decrease the need for swine flu shot storage in the schools.

“We all know how pigs like to use the subways,” he said. “This new policy will help us while also cut down on the costs of all those needles in closets.”

“We don’t want to be cruel,” said B. Acon, a spokesman for the mayor. “This way we’re simply stopping them from traveling on confined subway cars that could spread the flu.”

Acon did admit that the job would become more difficult for transit police to identify the actual pigs from some two-legged ones that plague women on the subway.

However, the 20 new pig-prevention turnstiles that need to be installed will provide extra shovel ready work for people without jobs. The newer turnstiles will be low enough to stop any unwanted pigs from access to the subways.

Acon did worry about increased passenger injuries as people might stumble over the lower turnstiles that could create hamstring problems.

The frequency of pigs is most often seen during winter months when groups use the subway to hunt for the roots of truff les in the tunnels. They groups were most often protected by various restaurant owners who desired the truffles, according to Will D. Boar, owner of the new eatery, the Four Hoofs.

Recent health studies of the subway have tracked the number of swine flu cases from the past year. However, the results show no connection between cases of the disease and the pigs who used the subway. Instead, the studies showed a significant correlation between high school students carrying paper and then becoming sick.

“We’ve changed our minds about the cause of the sickness,” said Hy Fever from the city’s public health bureau. “Now we think the flu is tree flu instead of swine flu.”

Plans to bar the pigs will still be in effect because the city’s planning commission has already purchased the lower turnstiles. “Besides, we can’t bar trees from the subway even though the paper comes from trees,” Fever said. “We are thinking of putting barriers around the trees in parks, though. That way people won’t get infected from the pollen which could contain the paper virus.”

Animal rights activists are angered by the extra burdens the new rules will place on the ability of pigs to get around town. “This isn’t a pig-friendly city as it is,” said Poohie Stye from the American Civil Pig Union. “As it is the new bike lanes aren’t set up to accommodate bikes for pigs.”

B. Acon did consider the increased government activity could seem like pork barrel legislation, but insisted that tree legislation was not about to happen.

Follow The Bouncing Brawl

2009-10-27T21:17:00.000-07:00

Are Sports Organizations and Players Doing Their Part In These Tough Economic Times?

In these tough economic times, sports organizations are also feeling the pinch. Fan attendance and corporate sponsorships are down while ticket and concession prices continue to rise. But I dare to ask if these organizations are really doing enough to help themselves and the average fan.

In order to survive, we’ve seen numerous cases of companies both big and small not only cutting budgets, but also cutting employees’ salaries and jobs. Yet, sports organizations’ payrolls as well as player salaries continue to rise. If everyone else is feeling the pinch and making sacrifices, shouldn’t ballplayers too? Is that extra million or two in the grand scheme of things really going to make a difference?

In sports, if a player isn’t producing on the field, they are either benched or demoted. Because their contracts are guaranteed, there’s no fear that their base salaries will be affected. Of course, there may be performance-based incentives in their contracts that could affect them or the possibility of outside endorsements being lost, but generally they are assured that money, and lots of it, will be coming their way. For the average joe, who is making but a fraction of what even a mediocre player makes in any of the four major sports leagues, who works more hours year in and year out, failure to produce means the loss of their job. Ball players have always been held to a higher standard. Why?

Organizations need to stop giving in to agent/player demands and setting new salary precedents each year while then turning around and increasing ticket prices (in some cases close to 50% compared to the year before) to help pay for their new state-of-the-art stadiums. Why not pay a player based on incentive, or at least give them a smaller base salary with lots of incentives thrown in? Give them a reason to play rather than have them phone it in when their team is down by ten runs in the bottom of ninth.

The Response Meter

2009-10-27T21:11:00.000-07:00

The Rise of Social Media

A few years ago, the term “social media” was just a buzzword for many business-to-business and consumer publishing/media companies. But with print advertising on the decline and more and more readers getting their news and information online, media companies have needed to adapt quickly to the changing times and current economic climate by having a presence on social media websites like Facebook, Linked In, YouTube and Twitter. Audience development professionals have had to adapt too.

Audience development professionals and marketers within these companies are being called upon to not only help set up an online presence on these various social media websites, but also to drive and track traffic and collect as much demographic information as they can. The primary focus right now for most publishing and media companies is not only for survival, but also for generating as much brand and product exposure as possible, which they hope will ultimately lead to more site traffic, more potential partnerships and ultimately, more sales.

The problem that many audience development professionals, CEO’s and publishers are having with these social media websites is how to take the site traffic and demographic information from these sites and use it effectively as a sales and advertising tool. The Interactive Advertising Bureau is currently in the process of creating a way to do just that with their “Social Advertising and Best Practices” document which contains definitions of crucial elements of social advertising, as well as policies on opt-in and opt-out practices. This I believe will eventually lead to the creation of the social media equivalent of a BPA/ABC statement which will give potential advertisers the ability to see a company’s traffic and demographic information in a quantifiable format. In fact, BPA is currently beta testing an interactive audit that hopes to include a company’s social media site traffic as well as information on a company’s other silos, whether they be magazines, enewsletters, trade shows and/or website.

In the meanwhile, audience developers will need to learn on the fly about social media optimization as well as obtain more online skills. Terms like RSS feeds, blogs, social bookmarking, tagging and photo sharing need to be added to their collective consciousness. They’ll also need to get familiar with web analytic tools like Google, Omniture, and WebTrends, etc.

It looks like social media is here to stay, whether we, as audience developers like it or not.