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"The stream of Time, irresistible, ever moving, carries off and bears away all things that come to birth and plunges them into utter darkness, both deeds of no account and deeds which are mighty and worthy of commemoration. . .Nevertheless, the science of History is a great bulwark against the stream of Time; in a way it checks this irresistible flood, it holds in a tight grasp whatever it can seize floating on the surface and will not allow it to slip away into the depths of Oblivion. "
- Anna Comnena (1083-1153), The Alexiad
"I have taken all knowledge to be my province."
- Francis Bacon, 1592
Tuesday, December 21, 2004
French Military Victories
Enter that phrase into Google's search engine and hit "I'm Feeling Lucky".
About a year ago I got into a running conversation with a former (unfortunately) reader of this site. One of the things that came up was the reader's experiences with married friends. Whenever they were out and about, they'd always bring up the topic - "when are you going to marry? You should marry and settle down," ad nausium in the reader's opinion, who was more than a little vexed by the focus on marriage now! I downplayed it at the time, "oh, they just want the best for you, it's not that big a deal, is it?"
Well, yesterday we had our unit Christmas Party, and I get it now. The focus on "you're not married? When are you going to marry? You should find someone to marry!" got uncomfortable. Now, I'd be happy to be married. I think I've mentioned that from time to time. I'd love to find "the right girl", someone with similar interests, complementary to me, cute and all (we all have our dreams). But their "helpful advice" was sort of irritating, and it was uncomfortable trying to explain why I haven't found that person yet or just settled for whomever in order to get the monkey (such questions) off my back. I kept waiting for the conversation to shift. Eventually I managed to make my escape.
Well, that'll be a side-benefit if and when I do find the woman of my dreams, who also wants to be with me (it's not too hard to have one without the other, but that's frustrating, not fulfilling). But I'm not going to marry a random individual just to put a stop to the questions (I might avoid such social events in the future, though. Which'll only make it harder to find that special lady). Now, marry someone just to get out of the barracks? That's more tempting. . .
"I think she was interested in me but my aloof nature scared her off. Ba'sides, Teflon [Billy] likes a little elf in his women."
Brian Van Hoose, KODT Special Eddition #2,
"Baiting the Hook"
(Sorry, just felt like ending with a gratuitious KODT quote. If you don't know KODT, you won't "get it" so don't even try. Reading Brian's bio, linked to above, would help some. Sadly, "Teflon Billy" recently died - for keeps! Oh well, just roll up a new one. . .)
When I was a young child, my parents didn't have a lot of money. We weren't impoverished, but they had to watch their finances closely and save money as a young family working their way into life, into middle class - something a lot of people forget these days, by the way. People who get all disgruntled about "our system" because you don't start at the top and have to make some sacrifices and choices early on, deferred gratification rather than immediate gratification.
We ait a lot of mac & cheese, and a lot of hot dogs. I still like macaroni & cheese, but came to distaste hot dogs. But we always had a jar of pickles in the fridge. My mom would buy cheap-ass pickles so we'd have a jar, but no one wanted to eat them because they were so bad. At least we never ran out of pickles. Thus, the "Pickle Theory of Conservation" was born, and even to this day when we try something, don't like it, but don't throw it away (that Germanic farm-family frugality at work again), we invoke the theory.
Well, here I am, I have a little fridge and all. A couple weeks ago I got some of those pudding cups, pre-made, pre-packaged and all. I decided to try the "fat free" version. Ohmygawd. Ack! Every time I open that sucker looking for something to snack on, I skip over that rot and pick up the yogurt instead. At least I like the taste of the yogurt I bought.
But at least I won't run out of pudding any time soon.
StrategyPage has a review of Oliver Stone's latest movie:
The very best war movies can sometimes give the audience a sense of what it was like, and what those who fought actually experienced. Alexander comes close to this in only one respect. It may leave the viewer feeling like Alexander's veterans after many years on campaign - sick of it all, and desperately wondering when this nightmare will finally end so he can at long last go home.
So I was thinking the other day (yah, it still happens, from time to time), pondering after a visit to our Commander's house, where I got to pet her dog, and I came up with this axiom:
No place where they don't let you have a dog can ever be called home
That doesn't mean you have to have a dog for it to be home (though it certainly helps). But if they (whoever "they" may be) won't allow you to have a dog, then it's not home.
So that rules out, among other places, the barracks. It can never be home. No Dogs Allowed.
If you're into "Gawd Games" but don't have a lot of time or like 'em simple, check out NationStates. It's skewed Left - the author's idea of "unbiased" is the same as that of the New York Times - but can be fun anyhow.
If you join, drop by the Region "The YoungWorld" (no space between YoungWorld), say hi to "The Free League" (my nation). If you bump into Gothic Kitty, be as nice to her as you would to me.
Check out Wizbang's Kerry Slogan Generator. Print one out and put it up on your wall, offend your Lefty co-workers (who no doubt have their own banners).
So I've gotten back into watching TechTV after a long break, especially The Screensavers and Call For Help. Leo Laporte hosts both shows, and on the later his co-host is Catherine Schwartz. Anyhow, so I signed up for their daily newsletter, I did. Today's was written by Cat and I'm probably taking it more seriously than it was meant. I'm pretty confident it was written to provoke a response - judging by how she gives out her addy on the show, she seems to like feedback. In any case, what are blogs for if not taking stuff more seriously than they should be? We need to break up the somber posts on the issue du jure from time to time anyhow.
Well, here's what Catherine wrote about the future, and the Brave New World that will have such people in it:
I just started getting Wired magazine in the mail. If you don't get it, I highly recommend you subscribe. While I was pondering the contents of the latest issue, I started pondering the idea that tangible objects are an unnecessary aspect of my life. Virtual is my life now. The mag I had in my hands could just as easily be read online. I have no land line, only a cellphone. I use email instead of snail mail. I queue up the ultimate playlist in iTunes instead of putting in six discs and hitting Random. I'm constantly using the camera on my cellphone instead of a film camera.
The "I started pondering the idea that tangible objects are an unnecessary aspect of my life" reminded me of those people, like Ed Begley Jr., who think that electricity comes from electrical outlets and thus no polution is produced anywhere when they power up their electric automobile's battery with energy produced by the local coal-burning electrical plant. What Cat's talking about isn't really an intangible world, but a world where you're not tied down by wires. The infrastructure may be "off-site", but it still exists. Just how intangible is her computer, or her cell phone? Yes, we're being increasingly freed from having to plug something in and be tethered to a wire. We're instead able to send signals to something that is somewhere else, which we do not have to be physically connected to. Items are also obviously smaller and easier to lug around.
It kind of scared me and excited me at the same time. Isn't the world we live in amazing? Will the day come when our lives really become like the sci-fi movies and all we need to do in order to feel satisfied is take a pill that makes us think we just ate a Ruth's Chris steak and went on a date with Lenny Kravitz? What would your pill make you think you did last night? While you're thinking about that I'm going to tell what's on tap for today's show.
Thank you, but I'd rather not take soma, thank you. Look, I'm certainly not one who rejects fantastication or tools like gaming - online or off-line - for living a vicarious, imaginary existence. But I do think the implication here, the distinction between fantasy and reality being blurred obliterated, be it by drugs or some other means, till people lose touch with reality and really think they ait at Ruth's Chris and went out with Lenny Kravitz, well that's not a good thing. (Pointless aside: is it just me, or are people's tastes in dates. . .off? I mean, he's talented and all, but. . .well, she also likes Howard. Yeash. Well, I guess it's just me.)
So I know it was a lighthearted mail aimed at getting people to muse about the possibilities of the future. But sobering because, yah, some of the possibilities are more frightening than exciting, and I guess this break from somber posting wasn't much of a break after all. . .
The Ninth Doctor will be Christopher Eccleston. Lets hope the return of the series to the air will be a good one. I wonder if, after such a long hiatus, they'll be able to recapture the show's atmosphere and vibe.
For one thing, the continuity is broken as never before. Their had in the past always been overlap: the Doctor's transformation was mitigated by the "hold over" of Companions. The storyline has also been snapped. Not that all the storylines towards the end were anything to write home about, but it'll be. . .different.
Andrew Gilligan has new charges against Tony Blair. But, at least there is this picture of Democratic Candidates and their personal regard for each other.
Here's one that reminded me not so much of console games but of Anime:
Logan's Run Rule
RPG characters are young. Very young. The average age seems to be 15, unless the character is a decorated and battle-hardened soldier, in which case he might even be as old as 18. Such teenagers often have skills with multiple weapons and magic, years of experience, and never ever worry about their parents telling them to come home from adventuring before bedtime. By contrast, characters more than twenty-two years old will cheerfully refer to themselves as washed-up old fogies and be eager to make room for the younger generation.
I'll have a "substantive" post up later but it's taking me more time to write it than I thought it would. In the meantime, I saw the last episode of Cowboy Bebop yesterday. Which doesn't mean I've seen the whole series. I came in a bit over halfway through.
The animation artwork and the creativity that went into settings is really bonus-a-um. The characters kick ass, but they're possibly the most hapless bunch of characters who ever existed. Don't get me wrong - they're cool and competent, if damaged, people. But they're the most unlucky people who have ever existed (arguably having created their own fates, but ill fortune follows them even in small ways). In one episode, Spike ran out of fuel and was in a decaying orbit and had to be rescued by friends flying a beat-up, jury-rigged Challenger Space Shuttle (oops - we know that can't happen. It'll have to be a different shuttle). These high-flying bounty hunters spent most of the episodes I saw scavenging for food. In one episode they scored a bunch of shiitake mushrooms (that they had initially mistaken for the other kind of 'shrooms) and in another the Untouchable Shrew Woman returned from hanging out with a dilettante bounty hunter who Spike hated 'cause he was too much like Spike with "souvenirs" - a bunch of canned goods festooned with the abhorred Bounty Hunter's grinning visage. Easy come, easy go.
Thus, the biggest surprise in the final episode was when Spike returned to the Bebop and asked Jet if he had anything to eat, and Jet actually said yes! They actually had food on hand. *Stunned look*.
The rest of the episode unfolds pretty much without surprises even if I hadn't had any "spoilers". Which doesn't mean it isn't poignant. It had to happen that way, and how things unfold is still both cool and tragic - all around I would say. Also, it's pretty clear why it's Cowboy Bebop. It may be a Samurai/Ronin epic, but there is a lot of commonality between that genera and a Western Epic. I'm not saying they're identical, but they are similar. People die not empty, pointless deaths but for reasons, and if the hero (or one of the heroes) dies, he knows why and comes to terms with it.
Which does not alleviate the tragedy. In some sense, I think there is a reason that, for all that Faye is a bitch and all, selfish and the like, there is a purpose to identify with her and for similar reasons: we don't want Spike to go to his death, but for our own reasons, our attachment to him as a character. Why should it end, and like this? There are almost shades of Grace Kelly's character in High Noon in this, though Amy Kane in the end comes to see why Will Kane must do what he does. In Bebop this aspect is embodied in Jet. Part of oneself can still feel what Faye does in "not getting it" while another part understands why Spike needs to confront Vicious, and roots for him, and thus identifies with Jet in understanding that and not objecting. Jet asks Spike before he leaves "one question - are you doing it for her?" When Spike says no, Jet understands that Spike is doing it because he needs to, and that's all Jet needs to know: He doesn't just let Spike go without question, but once he gets an answer he is satisfied. But Faye will miss Spike, and so too will fans who became attached to his character. But there's always Roger Smith at least.
I do have to say one more thing, related to an earlier episode. If I answered the phone and a dog was on the other end of the line, I'd be the happiest person in the world. Dogs are good people. Ultimately, I think that's the real lesson of the series. After all, they don't call Jet the "Black Dog" for nothin', right?
I donno how I forgot to mention this yesterday. Daniel Snyder has hired Joe Gibbs to coach his team. People talk about Bill Parcells as the best coach of the modern era, and Bill Parcells is certainly a great coach. But Joe Gibbs is the only coach in the modern NFL to win three Super Bowls with three different starting QBs and three different running backs.
If you enter "I have taken all knowledge to be my province" into Google and hit "I'm Feeling Lucky", guess whose website it takes you to?
Dat's right, peeps: youz here.
Update: This is true even if you enter it into Google UK.
Does it seem like I have too much time on my hands at the moment? Yah. Actually, I have stuff I should be getting to, but ennui has set in. So I'm just doing nothing in particular.
All together now: "Lame".
Look, dudes and dudessas: Ennui is better than the feeling I had yesterday, m'kay? The way I look at it, I'm about on the schedule I put myself on to be back to posting-form by the end of the week.
Additional, re "dudessa": Look, I don't believe in "gender-neutral language". A dude is a guy. A "dudessa" is a woman. I told you all in July that I was tempermentally conservative. If you don't like it, you can lump it.
That goes for all those women who want to be called "actor" instead of "actress", too. If Vivien Leigh was an actress, and Ginger Rogers was an actress, today's female stars of the stage-and-screen should consider themselves damned lucky to share the same title. But I guess they're probably right, but for the wrong reasons: most of the lot of 'em who don't want to be called "actress" probably don't deserve to have the term applied to them.
This is not likely to be a post of general interest. It's my blog and a place to write what I feel like, when I feel like it. I like to write things that I hope others want to read, but I feel an obligation to point that this may not be such a post.
But I'm motivated to write it anyhow, and since the blog has my name on it (or at least my web-name), I get to write it. But you don't have to read it - it isn't so bad, but as I say it's not likely to be of wide interest. (Here I am with limited blogging time this week and I'm spending it this way? Yah. Sorry).
First, a digression on a phrase: Adult Swim. When people see the word's "adult" or "mature" associated with programming, it is generally as a euphemism for nekkid people getting it on. Now I for one don't think there's anything wrong with that, but that's not what this stuff is about. There isn't even any foul language in The Big O (at least not in the English-language version). What made The Big O an "adult cartoon" and "for mature audiences" is that it dealt with very sophistimikated idears, ultimately. There was, to be true, sexual tension, as there is in InuYasha - though in ways that are far more chaste than a typical episode of Friends, which airs early in prime-time and rarely deals with anything except sexual innuendoes in a mature way. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
End of digression.
Earlier this year (oops: earlier last year) I read some stuff - Steven Den Beste's spoiler-riven reviews of Cowboy Bebop, which I read because at the time I didn't think I'd be watching it myself. But as I got more and more interested in The Big O, I decided I probably would want to see Cowboy Bebop, as the same creative team produced it. It too was airing (and is airing) on Adult Swim, but I put off watching it because I wanted to come in at the beginning rather than in the middle (and kept missing the start).
Well, in response to the Big O post, one reader wrote in and recommended Cowboy Bebop. I replied that I intended to watch it but wanted to get in at the beginning. He convinced me it wasn't really as important with this show and to just go ahead and start watching. Which I did.
Now, it's not by any means his fault - it's just my ill-luck - that the first episode I saw was My Funny Valentine. This was a bad episode for me to start with. Probably it wouldn't have been for others, but it was for me.
The episode centers on Faye Valentine's past. Now, Faye is a member of the group, but she is a self-centered and truly horrible bitch who comes to a bad and deservedly so end. That is, a tragic end that is her due. I know that from Steven's posts on the subject. Now, people who have watched the previous episodes in the show will have already seen Faye's behavior. This episode would, for them, counterbalance some of that and give them some sympathy for her as it gives some insight into why she is the way she is, untrusting and look-out-for-number-one-to-the-Nth-degree.
Of course, she has to have dark hair and green eyes. It's not like I don't have a thing for women with dark hair and blue-green eyes as it is (and Scarlett O'Hara types). Faye, voiced by Wendee Lee, can't help but remind me of Angel Rosewater from The Big O every time she opens her mouth, because Angel was voiced by Wendee Lee as well.
Of all the characters in The Big O, I identified most with Roger Smith (naturally), Dan Dastun (also fairly naturally), and Angel Rosewater (for different reasons). Roger and Dan are noble, heroic characters. Angel a bit more dubious - and tragic, but redeemed in the end (and wanting to do the right thing throughout, but being, as she herself acknowledges, unreliable). In this sense, I already know there is a big difference between Angel and Faye.
Yet now, as a result of seeing My Funny Valentine first, I am bonded with, have sympathy and empathy for a wretch of a character. I've been troubled since seeing the episode two nights ago because I'm rooting for something to happen that I already know isn't going to happen: that the example set by Spike and Jet will rub off on her and she'll emulate their code of honor. That someone take her under their wing, care for her though she doesn't deserve it, and guide her on a better path that will lead to a better fate. But I already know this doesn't happen. Her fate is a tragic, dark one, fully in accord with how she lives her life and treats others.
But that's little consolation to me at the moment.
I'd love to shake the hand of whoever did this. That's creative, and also takes real guts, unlike the people in America and Europe who think they're showing political courage in depicting Bush that way, whoever did this really could end up jailed or worse. Which proves that the shoe, in this case, fits. Or at least it's a much closer fit in Castro's case.
Now, to be fair to Castro, he didn't take inspiration from Hitler. Il Duce was more of a political and philosophical mentor for him. But one can forgive a few liberties in this case.
Interested parties will want me to note the Vatican's new tone. So noted. Of course, it's just an example of how these things can work. All I had to do was make musings about a schism, and the results are there for all to see.
It's almost like when Tom Friedman declared war on France, and very soon thereafter the French began behaving in the submissive manner they reserve for their enemies, rather than the truculent one they display towards those they want to think they're friends with. See, with these peace types, they're only antagonistic towards those who don't think will fight back - just like bullies. But if you show there are consiquences, then naturally they'll fold - just like bullies.
What? You don't think the Vatican's new tone is the result of postings on my blog? What a letdown. That's almost as bad as someone telling me that the French weren't intimidated by Friedman's war alert.
A bird whose wings have been plucked will shed all its' feathers,
and turn into the beast it was before it evolved into a bird.
Since I've referenced this show a number of times, people might be confusing what The Big O alludes to and confusing it with something, um, else.
"Of all my cherished tomatoes, Negotiator, you aren't one of my beloved ones...and neither is this young lady."
The best explaination is one I found here (which contains a lot of insight and some dubious conclusions as well. But watch the show and Find Your Own Truth):
COMPUTER PROGRAMMING: WHY IS IT CALLED THE "BIG-O"?
I wrote most of the following when I was sitting in my Computer Science lab class. We were learning about search and sort methods for arrays and matrices of data, and up until this point I wasn't really paying attention, but my instructor said something that snapped me out of my stupor:
"To measure the efficiency of these paradigms, we use big-O notation... I hate this stuff. It gives me nightmares, and it's practically all you'll be doing if you ever take CS 320."
After listening to the lecture for half an hour and trying to sort out all the information, this is the meaning I've come up with:
In my computer science class, standard well-established algorithms and methods for problem-solving have sometimes been dubbed as "paradigms." Big-O notation is used to obtain a rough estimate of the time required for an algorithm to run from start to finish. Hence, big-O notation is used to determine the efficiency of various paradigms in different problems and situations, which in turn allows us to determine the ideal paradigm for accomplishing a certain task. . .
So in other words, big-O notation takes into consideration only the most-significant factor in execution time and ignores all other elements.
Btw, I'm a bit ticked off at Adult Swim at the moment. When they re-ran
episode 26 ("Are You A Hologram?1"), "The Show Must Go On", they snipped off the last second or so of the show so they could have more "Fun With Cards" time as bumps before and after commercial breaks. But then the episode loses a key element. That last second or two after Big O and Big Venus merge and vanish in a burst of light is not something for the cutting room floor. At least I had the full episode on a previous tape, but it means I don't have them in proper order.
Btw: this is a show that seems superficial on the surface, until the various threads start weaving together it may strike you as just another Mecha show. But. . .well, that too is part of the show, as one of the themes is that things are not what they seem to be.
1No, you're not a hologram, you're a Tomato. A useless attempt...at artificial cultivation! ("Even if it's true, it doesn't change the fact that I am who I am. The way in which you were given life has nothing to do with the way you live your life as a human being").
Update: More on the Scientific American article here.
Ding dong, they caught Saddam! Merry Christmas to the world!
If, because of folly, perfidy, or a feckless lack of good sense, you didn't watch it as I told you to, the script to It's Christmas in Canada is up. Hey, baby, relax, I wanna negotiate!
Meanwhile, in the category of "Fisking Christmas Carols", I really like Bing Crosby's rendition of "Do You Hear What I Hear, but lets take a quick look a the lyrics, shall we?
Said the shepherd boy to the mighty king,
Do you know what I know
In your palace warm, mighty king,
Do you know what I know
A Child, a Child shivers in the cold
Let us bring Him silver and gold
Let us bring Him silver and gold
What's wrong with a blanket? What's an infant going to do with silver and gold?
Said the king to the people everywhere,
Listen to what I say
Pray for peace, people everywhere!
Of course we know what Herod the Great meant by peace: the same thing Saddam meant by peace, and the same thing the French, Germans, Russians, and most American Democrats mean by peace & stability.
So maybe it's not such a good song after all. Anyhow, if going around Fisking Christmas Carols is a factor, I guess that makes me Palpatine after all. This explains why I'm not too broken up about it. My political-economy would be better than that fostered by the Jedi with their accident-of-birth hauteur. The Galactic Republic seems to resemble the EU to closely for my taste. Better off under my rule.
I don't want to give away the episode, but if you didn't watch South Park's "It's Christmas In Canada" tonight, you missed out. I'll just say: damn, those guys are fast. (hint).
Btw: posting here is dwindling a bit and coming in fits and starts more 'cause we're entering the busy period at work (shipping stuff before Christmas). Things should return to a more normal level in early January (after Inventory Hell Week), just in case you're wondering wazzup and why, for example, I didn't have more to say about the two below articles (the Orson Scott Card one in particular contains lots of stuff I've been focusing on myself, with respect to the war and the Democratic Party's overall unseriousness on same).
In the meantime, I have to assume from this that, of course, Monibot naturally never flies:
[C]ommercial flights, like military flights, are an instrument of domination. As tourists, we engage with the people of other nations on our own terms. The world's administrators can flit from place to place enforcing their mandate. The corporate jet-set shrinks the earth to fit its needs. Those with access to the aeroplane control the world.
The men who attacked New York and Washington on September 11 2001 drove one symbol of power into another. The aeroplane, more precisely than any other technology, represents the global ruling class. In the past we raised our eyes to the men on horseback. Today we raise our eyes to the heavens.
Those hijackers had turned the civilian product of a military technology back into a military technology, but even when used for strictly commercial purposes, the airliner remains a weapon of mass destruction. Last week the World Health Organisation calculated that climate change is causing 150,000 deaths a year. This figure excludes deaths caused by drought and famine, pests and plant diseases and conflicts over natural resources, all of which appear to be exacerbated by global warming. Flying is our most effective means of wrecking the planet: every passenger on a return journey from Britain to Florida produces more carbon dioxide than the average motorist does in a year. Every time we fly, we help to kill someone.
So, of course Monibot, being a man of high principle and a man of peace, never flies anywhere. My friend Last Toryboy, who ICQ'd me the link, says that:
I read the Guardian occasionally for a laugh, I always find something there to chuckle about.
I'm reminded of the SP: BLU Saddam song. In honor of the news that Atta trained in Iraq, I'm taking the lyrics from a Czech site:
I Can Change Saddam Hussein
Saddam: Some people say that I'm a bad guy,
They may be right, they may be right
But it's not as if I don't try,
I just fuck up! Try as I might!
But I can change, I can change!
I can learn to keep my promises, I swear it!
I'll open up my heart and I will share it!
Any minute now I will be born again!
Yes, I can change! I can change!
I know I've been a dirty little bastard!
I like to kill, I like to maim, yes I'm insane,
but it' OK, 'cause I can change!
It's not my fault that I'm so evil;
It's society, society!
You see, my parents were sometimes abusive,
And it made a prick of me!
But I can change! I can change!
I can learn to keep my promises, I know it!
I'll open up my heart and show it,
Any minute I will be born again!
Satan: But what if you never change?
What if you remain a sandy little butthole?
Saddam: Hey, Satan!
Don't be such a twit,
Mother Teresa won't have shit on me!
Just watch, just watch me change
Here I go! I'm changing!
If you're interested but can't bring yourself to wade through the tangled, unclear syntax of the EU Draft Constitution, there is a translation from Bureaucratese-to-English available now.
Or not. Whatever. But the Fighting Whites t-shirt sale is under way. I like 'em 'cause their main mascot reminds me a bit of Bob Dobbs, but without the pipe.
Regarding yesterday's quasi-review, Jacob Proffitt writes, via e-mail:
Thanks for the review. I haven't seen it yet and probably won't now. Not because of the concern you had or anything. I'll check other reviews to make sure I'm not over-reacting, but it sounds like Yet Another Anti-Gun Diatribetm. Good guys refuse to use guns, bad, venal, dishonorable people use them to win. It's better to die than to compromise on gun control. Sounds like more of the same ole that I am really getting tired of from Hollywood.
P.S. Standard "I'm not a nut-job disclaimer": I don't actually own a gun and don't really want to, but I am awful tired of the whole liberal true-faith nonsense we get non-stop and want to be able to buy a gun if I ever change my mind.
The reason I'm posting this is because I think it means I have to re-clarify something.
I would not say it's an anti-gun movie. I guess it could be seen that way, but that's not really what I detected. It's certainly not an anti-violence movie.
What it is, what I saw, was a nostalgia movie, an anti-modernity movie romanticizing pre-modernization Japan and the elements of post-modernization Japan that arguably produced some of the worst elements of Japanese society in the first half of the 20th century. To the extent to which it's anti-modernity, it is as a consequence also anti-gun (as a emblem of modernity), but that is not the focus. There was also more than a dash of an anti-Western attitude in the film, with the Western (especially American) figures being the plague-carriers spreading the bad things & ideas that threatened the Way of the Samurai. But not so large a dose of that to turn me against the movie (and I'm very affected by these things).
I wouldn't really call my post a review of the movie. As I said at the start of my screed, it fixates on one element that bothers me in a film that I otherwise enjoyed. I had thought of titling that post "the perils of nostalgia" and noting my own nostalgic streak, which is about ten miles wide and arguably includes luddite tendencies (I too have a fondness for pre-modern eras and some aspects of pre-modern society, while simultaneously striving to not romanticize it and certainly recognizing that given the choice, all other things being equal, it is much better to live now than it would have been to live then).
My post is not even a full review of my entire reactions and thoughts about The Last Samurai, just the aspects that bothered me enough I wanted to post them - that's why I'm reluctant to call it a review. I would still recommend the film.
Update: Mark Sloboda writes, via e-mail:
You're right that they added that strong anti-modernist element to the
movie, which made it into a worse movie than it should have been; but
basically I thing The Last Samurai was carefully written by the marketing
department, to make money in two huge markets. They had Cruise next to
Watanabe to bring in the young women in the US/Japan, enough violence to
keep the young guys happy, and the storyline was carefully crafted not to
upset various segments of the Japanese market.
Yep, and it's pretty kickass in those departments. I even found Cruise's love interest endearing, even though that was pretty much a stock role. What can I say? I'm a sucker and a sentimental romantic.
Too bad it offered such a cartoonish view of modern nation states.
So I snuck off to see The Last Samurai this evening. The below shall constitute part of my reaction to the film.
I'm not going to deliberately include spoilers but neither am I going to go out of my way to avoid them. So, for those of you who'd like to read on, go for it, and for those of you who'd like to know what it's about but without any spoilers, it's about two and a half hours (nyuck nyuck nyuck. An oldie, but a goodie. Well, ok, an oldie).
So, before I launch into my screed I just want to say this was a good film, or at any rate I liked it and I didn't let what bothered me (see below) ruin my enjoyment of it. My criticism is peculiar enough that probably I'm the only one who would make it, though I guess some people might share aspects of it. But it is a good film as what it is.
In 1261 the Mamluks of Egypt defeated the Mongols at Ain Jalut. The Mamluks were a skilled warrior class, and their feat of defeating a Mongol army while the Mongols were still at or near the peak of their strength was only matched by the Samurai of Japan (and the later received providential help in the form of a Divine Wind). The Mamluks resembled the Samurai in one other way, in that they came to dominate the politics of their country (Egypt) in much the same way the Samurai would under the Shogunate, reducing the ruler to a titular role. But the Mamluks failed to adapt to changing circumstances, and the Ottomans crushed them decisively early in the 16th century.
At that time the Ottomans were at the peak of their strength, with an elite warrior caste (actually, several distinct ones) forming the most powerful state in the Mediterranean world at the time. It included the most disciplined and highly trained soldiers of the era and the most advanced gunpowder artillery as well. But the Ottomans ossified, in no small part due to the influence of their warrior caste to prevent change and adaptation. Only when it was too late (in the late 19th century and early 20th century) were steps taken to try and catch up, but by this time the Ottoman Empire had long been "the sick man of Europe" (a role currently occupied by the EU).
Note that I called the Ottoman Empire "the most powerful state in the Mediterranean world at the time", not the most powerful state in the world. That privilege belonge
