I don't know how many of them actually were; Ernst Rohm, who was eventually purged for his homosexuality, was, but beyond that I don't know any big names.
They were known to be rather perverted, though; at least a few of the biggies (I want to say Hitler and Goering, but I'm not too sure about that) were said to be shit fetishists, and a lot of them were occultists, so I imagine there was a bit of what we would call sex magick involved (especially in the desperate poverty of the Weimar era).
That sounds more or less consistent with Thrawn (and I did read Zahn II, both volumes -- nice save on the Luke/Mara relationship, I thought, if a little desperate to retrack a long-ignored plot thread). I think he was an interesting case; though evil in an expedient sort of way, he mostly just perpetuated existing evils rather than creating new ones. Is that good necessarily? No, but he was neither a zealot nor a madman.
I'd consider taking Thrawn's Empire -- viewed from A Certain Point Of View, Thrawn is a being that commands considerable respect and is not particularly into indiscriminate destruction. I don't think he wants power, really; that was the big difference between him and that hack Daala in the novels, IMHO. He is much like a more disciplined version of Anakin Skywalker, I'd say.
But Palpatine's Empire? I guess it would depend on what I knew. If I was living within the SW universe, I might, at least initially (though I'd probably be one of the ones who silently started supporting the Rebellion after Alderaan). Outside, knowing that Darth Sidious exists and that he is (almost certainly:-) ) Palpatine, no, I wouldn't, because he's angling for power more than order.
I don't know if it's a retcon or not, but my understanding from the novels is that Bail Organa was also the Viceroy of Alderaan at the time. Also, let's not forget that we're dealing with a completely different culture; perhaps Amidala's title, for example, is a relic of an old monarchy and was carried over to the leader of a small-r republican government?
Not so bad... unless of course you were Jewish, or gay, or Russian, or Romany, or anyone else that Hitler didn't like and gave his people permission to beat up, lynch, or otherwise kill.
You're trolling, aren't you? Next thing you'll say is Mussolini made the trains run on time (which he didn't, btw)...
/brian
Flamebait if I ever saw it... but seductive it is
on
The Case for the Empire
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Lucas' whole point about evil seems to be that evil is what happens when good can't get its act together and order outweighs freedom. Yes, the Jedi are a bunch of self-righteous pricks; that's what happens when you have an elite that doesn't necessarily have to earn its status.
No, the motives of the Rebellion aren't really spelled out. Nor is the precise reason for the existence of the Rebellion in the first place. But that's somewhat outside the scope of the movies; the simple fact is that for Tarkin to destroy Alderaan would probably be an act of insubordination if done without the direct assent of the Emperor. At the very least, Tarkin's actions would be equivalent to recreating the My Lai massacre on Hanoi. The evil here: order at all costs, and massive retribution, even genocide, as a political tool.
I don't know if Last is truly the fascist he comes off as in the article (he's probably trolling; handwaving over genocide and the like comes off as being some sort of satire), and he does make a few good points, but the fact remains that order at all costs is ultimately either stagnating or outright destructive.
Yeah, but he had the Swiss more or less in his pocket, it seemed, so it probably wouldn't have come to that unless Germany had the war already won... don't forget, there was also Petain's France, in the same situation, only overtly so...
It could be worse. It could be the disastrous emperor's-new-clothes high-concept brainfsck that was Vanilla Sky, a lead balloon number that has convinced me that Tom Cruise is the new Kevin Costner...
Flip side: granted Natalie Portman is in her early twenties. But Amidala is pushing thirty, and is probably just a little on the frustrated side after having been in politics for so much of her life, having gone from kid to grown-up without much chance at being a teenager (in that regard, just like her daughter). She's getting to the point where bells are going off, making her think that her life is passing her by. Anakin makes her feel younger and takes her away from being neck-deep in her responsibilities.
Keep in mind as well -- Anakin is not above messing with people's heads to get what he wants. Who's to say he's not flipping a few of her switches without her knowing about it?
I have yet to see the movie, but I did read the book, and there does seem to be an undercurrent of "Amidala's getting old -- go for it now" to the story.
Incidentally, I thought AotC (the book) did an excellent job of showing how Anakin could turn to the Dark Side -- it's exactly the same as any other zealot whose desire to do good is corrupted by a destructive streak. Think perhaps abortion clinic bomber. Anakin becomes Vader, not because he wants to be evil, but precisely because he believes that he's doing the right thing. He just doesn't realize what it's gotten him into until the end.
I applaud Apple for doing this, finally, though. I think they'll get quite a bit of mileage out of it, though it would be nice to bring back the big box server designs of the old Network Servers as well.
/brian
Re:[offtopic]Re:But is it better than Cryptonomico
on
Enigma
·
· Score: 2
Well, yeah, heavy makeup...
Bobby Shaftoe, yes. Doug Shaftoe is half-Filipino, though, so he would look quite Asian. Jennifer Tilly actually did come to mind, but she's so completely wrong for the part I didn't bother to bring her up myself; Amy comes off as being rather younger, to begin with, and probably a lot tougher-looking -- a few tats, IIRC, for one thing -- whereas Jennifer Tilly is a bit too curvy and bimboish.
I know -- isn't that the correct part of the ear to commence oo-mox?
/brian
Re:But is it better than Cryptonomicon?
on
Enigma
·
· Score: 2
One other thought... was Qwghlm a caricature of some location that actually exists in the UK or was it a total figment of Stephenson's imagination like the TWA 800 ceiling ornament?
/Brian
Re:[offtopic]Re:But is it better than Cryptonomico
on
Enigma
·
· Score: 2
Yeah... real creepy idea...
Don't forget -- Doug and Amy Shaftoe are 1/2 and 1/4 Filipino, respectively. The actresses playing them would have to at least be able to look Eurasian.
Doug Shaftoe would be a difficult call -- Keanu Reeves (part Chinese), maybe, if he bulked up a lot and had some aging makeup. (Dean Cain comes to mind as well, but even though he's part Japanese he doesn't look it.) Amy Shaftoe... maybe Sandra Bullock, even though she's not Asian at all. She could definitely pull the part off, though; unlike a lot of other actresses that get the kinds of comedic roles she goes after (Cameron Diaz and the like) she can be gritty enough for the part.
Unfortunately I'd have to reread Cryptonomicon for other ideas; Randy in particular has never really been a character I could picture.
This is a peculiar tactic that I thought only political candidates used. How can an attack against an idea be ad hominem? An ad hominem is an attack is saying "he's wrong because he's a prick".
Stallman, as it happens, does come off as an arrogant whiner in his public persona. That's an opinion about him, but it doesn't necessarily invalidate what he has to say. A bigger issue is that his views are just as crude and invasive as those he opposes. He's been playing embrace-and-extend games for years; it isn't as bad as Microsoft's because the extensions go back to the community, but these extensions have come at the price of massive unnecessary software bloat. He's also very dogmatic about his views, to the point where the use of certain tools (most notably bison and (I think, anyway) readline) is distasteful because they impose restrictions in ways that other GNU tools don't (I'd rather use byacc than bison because of the GPL restrictions, for example).
Yes, but the difference is that Magritte (and Escher, and to a lesser extent Dali) plays with your head, and dadaism just whacks you over it with a snowshovel, then nails it to the wall.
The idea that "art is what I say it is" is reasonably valid; the only thing is that it may be art, but it can very easily be BAD art. I look at it this way: art has to reach its audience. If it doesn't, it's bad art, though still art. For the record, I do think dadaism is mostly pretentious silliness for people not quite smart enough to out-Magritte Magritte. I will say, however, that every once in a while a statement of that sort impresses me. Hacking a road sign is certainly in that category; if anything it is more akin to MIT hacks, which I would consider art in a sense as well.
There's good art, which reaches its audience, often (but not always) tells a story, and works on levels as simple as "look what I can do with a couple of lines and blocks of color" (Mondrian) and "pretty Italian girl with strange expression" (the Mona Lisa) to something as complex and/or controversial as "Sex is fun, get comfy with it" (Annie Sprinkle) and "Remember those caught in the middle" (Guernica by Picasso) to something unusual along the lines of "enjoy your food" (Thomas Keller's restaurant, the French Laundry) or "remember the nameless" (the New England Holocaust Memorial, with its etched rows of numbers).
Some artists do have solipsistic tendencies; endless reams of teen angst poetry are only the beginning of that. IMHO deconstructionism has been a disaster for the humanities, occasionally a useful tool but generally bypassing intent and message to focus solely on motivation. Marshall McLuhan said "the medium is the message". While I don't think this was precisely what he was talking about, art is still a form of mass communications. If the artist can't communicate with the audience, that doesn't make it not art. If the artist chooses to use a nontraditional medium to make his point, that doesn't make it not art. The idea of modern art is to push the frontiers. Honestly, to me a Mondrian is indistinguishable from the pattern of a set of drapes that might have been sitting around since 1970. That's fine. But the fact is that you can't dismiss the idea that "art is what I say it is" out of hand.
This guy chose to use a BGS (Big Green Sign) as his medium. I would personally consider calling it art to be a stretch, but it's an incredible hack, and if you consider hacks to be artistry it is an excellent example of it.
I'd love to dump hot grits down my pants in front of this sign.
I think it's rather a fun idea, actually. I can think of a few places in Massachusetts where this would be a good idea (the ancient I-95 shields on the Tobin Bridge in Charlestown, for example, when I-95 hasn't gone anywhere near the Tobin Bridge, or even Boston for that matter, for about twenty years now).
Artists do a lot of strange things that make one slap one's head and say "dammit, why didn't I think of that?" Reminds me very much of the artist I once saw on TV who used to print his own dollar bill designs. He didn't spend the bills exactly, just traded them for goods with willing merchants. (I don't think it qualified as counterfeiting, as he was treating it as a barter transaction and most of them didn't look much like the real thing anyway.)
Every once in a while the phrase "subvert the dominant paradigm" doesn't sound like the fourth tattered bumper sticker from the right on the back of some aged hippie's car...
On what grounds do you make this statement? A Christian Fundamentalist government would be a nightmare to anyone coming to the realization that they're gay. A hippie anarchist society (hell, even an idealist libertarian society) would fall prey to opportunism and collapse into chaos.
I really don't understand your point; stated as it is, it's nonsense. It's not just transitions; your last paragraph I think outweighs everything else you said. What it comes down to is this: there will never be a functional pure ideological society, at least one that isn't subject to stagnation. People are different. Better to tolerate each others' differences (whether you respect them or not) than to take a hard line on something and never deviate. That's why Stallman is so far out on the fringe.
This is true; that's more or less what my point was. The thing is not so much what's preached as what is done; in that regard, I think the right wing talks a bigger game about freedom than they actually believe (i.e. they want freedom to be them, but they don't care about the dirty unwashed masses that aren't them). The truth is that I tend to discount any rhetoric one way or another regarding freedom from either extreme because there's very little tolerance for freedom in those areas. In other words, what I'm saying is that it's my observation that talking about freedom is a common right-wing thing, but actually working towards it has traditionally been an activity of the center left (the far left has its own orthodoxies, many of them as absurd as the right's).
I'd go so far as to say that the right wing makes a joke of freedom no matter how much they talk about defending it; look at John Ashcroft. Look at all the corporations hitting people with SLAPP suits just to shut them up. Right wing freedom seems to be about either anarchy or the right to be the fascist on the top of the pile, depending on who you talk to. The libertarians believe on principle, the Republicans believe for the sake of their wallets, and the fundies believe because they've been taught they're an oppressed minority since they were kids.
Your multi-axis point is exactly my point when I started talking about the lunatic fringe of the left. People call Open Source communist... well, in a sense it is. In a sense it isn't. Like I said in an earlier post, the further you get to the extremes, the more likely you're going to wrap around the back and find yourself on the far end from where you started. The Religious Right whines about religious freedom, but at the end of the day they don't really mean it; they want to control the entire pie, not just have their piece. Freedom to much of the Right (and a lot of the left) is exactly that.
Slashdot Mirror
Some go so far as to say pornographic. I think there's an awful lot of Bible thumpers that ought to be thumped back on this one, myself.
/Brian
I don't know how many of them actually were; Ernst Rohm, who was eventually purged for his homosexuality, was, but beyond that I don't know any big names.
They were known to be rather perverted, though; at least a few of the biggies (I want to say Hitler and Goering, but I'm not too sure about that) were said to be shit fetishists, and a lot of them were occultists, so I imagine there was a bit of what we would call sex magick involved (especially in the desperate poverty of the Weimar era).
/Brian
That sounds more or less consistent with Thrawn (and I did read Zahn II, both volumes -- nice save on the Luke/Mara relationship, I thought, if a little desperate to retrack a long-ignored plot thread). I think he was an interesting case; though evil in an expedient sort of way, he mostly just perpetuated existing evils rather than creating new ones. Is that good necessarily? No, but he was neither a zealot nor a madman.
/Brian
I'd consider taking Thrawn's Empire -- viewed from A Certain Point Of View, Thrawn is a being that commands considerable respect and is not particularly into indiscriminate destruction. I don't think he wants power, really; that was the big difference between him and that hack Daala in the novels, IMHO. He is much like a more disciplined version of Anakin Skywalker, I'd say.
:-) ) Palpatine, no, I wouldn't, because he's angling for power more than order.
But Palpatine's Empire? I guess it would depend on what I knew. If I was living within the SW universe, I might, at least initially (though I'd probably be one of the ones who silently started supporting the Rebellion after Alderaan). Outside, knowing that Darth Sidious exists and that he is (almost certainly
/brian
I don't know if it's a retcon or not, but my understanding from the novels is that Bail Organa was also the Viceroy of Alderaan at the time. Also, let's not forget that we're dealing with a completely different culture; perhaps Amidala's title, for example, is a relic of an old monarchy and was carried over to the leader of a small-r republican government?
/Brian
Not so bad... unless of course you were Jewish, or gay, or Russian, or Romany, or anyone else that Hitler didn't like and gave his people permission to beat up, lynch, or otherwise kill.
You're trolling, aren't you? Next thing you'll say is Mussolini made the trains run on time (which he didn't, btw)...
/brian
Lucas' whole point about evil seems to be that evil is what happens when good can't get its act together and order outweighs freedom. Yes, the Jedi are a bunch of self-righteous pricks; that's what happens when you have an elite that doesn't necessarily have to earn its status.
No, the motives of the Rebellion aren't really spelled out. Nor is the precise reason for the existence of the Rebellion in the first place. But that's somewhat outside the scope of the movies; the simple fact is that for Tarkin to destroy Alderaan would probably be an act of insubordination if done without the direct assent of the Emperor. At the very least, Tarkin's actions would be equivalent to recreating the My Lai massacre on Hanoi. The evil here: order at all costs, and massive retribution, even genocide, as a political tool.
I don't know if Last is truly the fascist he comes off as in the article (he's probably trolling; handwaving over genocide and the like comes off as being some sort of satire), and he does make a few good points, but the fact remains that order at all costs is ultimately either stagnating or outright destructive.
/Brian
Yeah, but he had the Swiss more or less in his pocket, it seemed, so it probably wouldn't have come to that unless Germany had the war already won... don't forget, there was also Petain's France, in the same situation, only overtly so...
/Brian
It could be worse. It could be the disastrous emperor's-new-clothes high-concept brainfsck that was Vanilla Sky, a lead balloon number that has convinced me that Tom Cruise is the new Kevin Costner...
/Brian
Flip side: granted Natalie Portman is in her early twenties. But Amidala is pushing thirty, and is probably just a little on the frustrated side after having been in politics for so much of her life, having gone from kid to grown-up without much chance at being a teenager (in that regard, just like her daughter). She's getting to the point where bells are going off, making her think that her life is passing her by. Anakin makes her feel younger and takes her away from being neck-deep in her responsibilities.
Keep in mind as well -- Anakin is not above messing with people's heads to get what he wants. Who's to say he's not flipping a few of her switches without her knowing about it?
I have yet to see the movie, but I did read the book, and there does seem to be an undercurrent of "Amidala's getting old -- go for it now" to the story.
Incidentally, I thought AotC (the book) did an excellent job of showing how Anakin could turn to the Dark Side -- it's exactly the same as any other zealot whose desire to do good is corrupted by a destructive streak. Think perhaps abortion clinic bomber. Anakin becomes Vader, not because he wants to be evil, but precisely because he believes that he's doing the right thing. He just doesn't realize what it's gotten him into until the end.
/Brian
I'd love to see a... oh, never mind.
I applaud Apple for doing this, finally, though. I think they'll get quite a bit of mileage out of it, though it would be nice to bring back the big box server designs of the old Network Servers as well.
/brian
Well, yeah, heavy makeup...
Bobby Shaftoe, yes. Doug Shaftoe is half-Filipino, though, so he would look quite Asian. Jennifer Tilly actually did come to mind, but she's so completely wrong for the part I didn't bother to bring her up myself; Amy comes off as being rather younger, to begin with, and probably a lot tougher-looking -- a few tats, IIRC, for one thing -- whereas Jennifer Tilly is a bit too curvy and bimboish.
/Brian
Do you want ice-nine in your drink? I promise, it'll send chills up your spine...
/Brian
I know -- isn't that the correct part of the ear to commence oo-mox?
/brian
One other thought... was Qwghlm a caricature of some location that actually exists in the UK or was it a total figment of Stephenson's imagination like the TWA 800 ceiling ornament?
/Brian
Yeah... real creepy idea...
Don't forget -- Doug and Amy Shaftoe are 1/2 and 1/4 Filipino, respectively. The actresses playing them would have to at least be able to look Eurasian.
Doug Shaftoe would be a difficult call -- Keanu Reeves (part Chinese), maybe, if he bulked up a lot and had some aging makeup. (Dean Cain comes to mind as well, but even though he's part Japanese he doesn't look it.) Amy Shaftoe... maybe Sandra Bullock, even though she's not Asian at all. She could definitely pull the part off, though; unlike a lot of other actresses that get the kinds of comedic roles she goes after (Cameron Diaz and the like) she can be gritty enough for the part.
Unfortunately I'd have to reread Cryptonomicon for other ideas; Randy in particular has never really been a character I could picture.
/Brian
This is a peculiar tactic that I thought only political candidates used. How can an attack against an idea be ad hominem? An ad hominem is an attack is saying "he's wrong because he's a prick".
Stallman, as it happens, does come off as an arrogant whiner in his public persona. That's an opinion about him, but it doesn't necessarily invalidate what he has to say. A bigger issue is that his views are just as crude and invasive as those he opposes. He's been playing embrace-and-extend games for years; it isn't as bad as Microsoft's because the extensions go back to the community, but these extensions have come at the price of massive unnecessary software bloat. He's also very dogmatic about his views, to the point where the use of certain tools (most notably bison and (I think, anyway) readline) is distasteful because they impose restrictions in ways that other GNU tools don't (I'd rather use byacc than bison because of the GPL restrictions, for example).
/Brian
Well, yeah...
/Brian
Yes, but the difference is that Magritte (and Escher, and to a lesser extent Dali) plays with your head, and dadaism just whacks you over it with a snowshovel, then nails it to the wall.
/Brian
Interesting point... but yeah, I suppose that follows.
/brian
IHBT?
I wouldn't say it's art. Just commentary. I'm sure there are some who might label it meta-art, but I would think that a bit pretentious.
You may be right about insularity in modern art, but that IMHO, like I said, only makes such cases bad art, or pretentious art, but not no art at all.
/Brian
The idea that "art is what I say it is" is reasonably valid; the only thing is that it may be art, but it can very easily be BAD art. I look at it this way: art has to reach its audience. If it doesn't, it's bad art, though still art. For the record, I do think dadaism is mostly pretentious silliness for people not quite smart enough to out-Magritte Magritte. I will say, however, that every once in a while a statement of that sort impresses me. Hacking a road sign is certainly in that category; if anything it is more akin to MIT hacks, which I would consider art in a sense as well.
There's good art, which reaches its audience, often (but not always) tells a story, and works on levels as simple as "look what I can do with a couple of lines and blocks of color" (Mondrian) and "pretty Italian girl with strange expression" (the Mona Lisa) to something as complex and/or controversial as "Sex is fun, get comfy with it" (Annie Sprinkle) and "Remember those caught in the middle" (Guernica by Picasso) to something unusual along the lines of "enjoy your food" (Thomas Keller's restaurant, the French Laundry) or "remember the nameless" (the New England Holocaust Memorial, with its etched rows of numbers).
Some artists do have solipsistic tendencies; endless reams of teen angst poetry are only the beginning of that. IMHO deconstructionism has been a disaster for the humanities, occasionally a useful tool but generally bypassing intent and message to focus solely on motivation. Marshall McLuhan said "the medium is the message". While I don't think this was precisely what he was talking about, art is still a form of mass communications. If the artist can't communicate with the audience, that doesn't make it not art. If the artist chooses to use a nontraditional medium to make his point, that doesn't make it not art. The idea of modern art is to push the frontiers. Honestly, to me a Mondrian is indistinguishable from the pattern of a set of drapes that might have been sitting around since 1970. That's fine. But the fact is that you can't dismiss the idea that "art is what I say it is" out of hand.
This guy chose to use a BGS (Big Green Sign) as his medium. I would personally consider calling it art to be a stretch, but it's an incredible hack, and if you consider hacks to be artistry it is an excellent example of it.
/Brian
I'd love to dump hot grits down my pants in front of this sign.
I think it's rather a fun idea, actually. I can think of a few places in Massachusetts where this would be a good idea (the ancient I-95 shields on the Tobin Bridge in Charlestown, for example, when I-95 hasn't gone anywhere near the Tobin Bridge, or even Boston for that matter, for about twenty years now).
Artists do a lot of strange things that make one slap one's head and say "dammit, why didn't I think of that?" Reminds me very much of the artist I once saw on TV who used to print his own dollar bill designs. He didn't spend the bills exactly, just traded them for goods with willing merchants. (I don't think it qualified as counterfeiting, as he was treating it as a barter transaction and most of them didn't look much like the real thing anyway.)
Every once in a while the phrase "subvert the dominant paradigm" doesn't sound like the fourth tattered bumper sticker from the right on the back of some aged hippie's car...
/Brian
On what grounds do you make this statement? A Christian Fundamentalist government would be a nightmare to anyone coming to the realization that they're gay. A hippie anarchist society (hell, even an idealist libertarian society) would fall prey to opportunism and collapse into chaos.
I really don't understand your point; stated as it is, it's nonsense. It's not just transitions; your last paragraph I think outweighs everything else you said. What it comes down to is this: there will never be a functional pure ideological society, at least one that isn't subject to stagnation. People are different. Better to tolerate each others' differences (whether you respect them or not) than to take a hard line on something and never deviate. That's why Stallman is so far out on the fringe.
/Brian
This is true; that's more or less what my point was. The thing is not so much what's preached as what is done; in that regard, I think the right wing talks a bigger game about freedom than they actually believe (i.e. they want freedom to be them, but they don't care about the dirty unwashed masses that aren't them). The truth is that I tend to discount any rhetoric one way or another regarding freedom from either extreme because there's very little tolerance for freedom in those areas. In other words, what I'm saying is that it's my observation that talking about freedom is a common right-wing thing, but actually working towards it has traditionally been an activity of the center left (the far left has its own orthodoxies, many of them as absurd as the right's).
I'd go so far as to say that the right wing makes a joke of freedom no matter how much they talk about defending it; look at John Ashcroft. Look at all the corporations hitting people with SLAPP suits just to shut them up. Right wing freedom seems to be about either anarchy or the right to be the fascist on the top of the pile, depending on who you talk to. The libertarians believe on principle, the Republicans believe for the sake of their wallets, and the fundies believe because they've been taught they're an oppressed minority since they were kids.
Your multi-axis point is exactly my point when I started talking about the lunatic fringe of the left. People call Open Source communist... well, in a sense it is. In a sense it isn't. Like I said in an earlier post, the further you get to the extremes, the more likely you're going to wrap around the back and find yourself on the far end from where you started. The Religious Right whines about religious freedom, but at the end of the day they don't really mean it; they want to control the entire pie, not just have their piece. Freedom to much of the Right (and a lot of the left) is exactly that.
/Brian