Monthly Archives: June 2005

Star Blazers

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As some of you know, I have a life long love of Star Blazers, a Japanese, Americanized cartoon that ran in the late 70s/early 80s. I just wanted to share some links for reference:

The Voyager Entertainment official site.

A Frontier article from 1999 marking 20 years of Star Blazers.

totse.com fan fiction: Star Trek:TNG Enterprise vs. Star Blazers Yamato

Wikipedia: Space Battleship Yamato

MSN Groups: All Things Yamato & Star Blazers

Star Blazers/Yamato – Wave Motion Page

Yamato Mechanics.org (Japanese)

Starship schematics – Yamato

A starship comparison chart.

Related:

Neal Stephenson, NYTimes: Turn On, Tune In, Veg Out

Operation: Mindcrime

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I’m looking forward to seeing Queensrcyhe and Judas Priest tomorrow night. It’s going to be great.

Operation: Mindcrime’s lyrics resonate far too much these days. It still stands as one of my favorite albums of all time. No doubt admitting this here has probably just put me on a watch list. You folks who thumb your noses at heavy metal need to take the time to listen to this with an open mind.

Got no love for politicians
Or that crazy scene in D.C.
It’s just a power mad town
But the time is ripe for changes
There’s a growing feeling
That taking a chance on a new kind of vision is due

I used to trust the media
To tell me the truth, tell us the truth
But now I’ve seen the payoffs
Everywhere I look
Who do you trust when everyone’s a crook?

…Religion and sex are powerplays
Manipulate the people for the money they pay
Selling skin, selling God
The numbers look the same on their credit cards
Politicians say no to drugs
While we pay for wars in South America
Fighting fire with empty words
While the banks get fat
And the poor stay poor
And the rich get rich
And the cops get paid
To look away
As the one percent rules America

On Critics

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Some critics insist they aren’t authorities, yet act with authority in their dispensing opinion and analysis. They deny their impact on others.

Our words have weight and impact on others. Even the meekest of us has an impact on those around us.

When I see folks who are obviously so intelligent that I know they know this and yet actively deny it – I am left to conclude that either mental illness is at work or they are being disingenuous. And I hate disingenuous mother fuckers.

You must remember that critics are not interested in serving the public trust; they’re interested in serving themselves. You’re a critic, and you need to pay the rent: there is a sea of other critics out there in the same boat. Some people in that situation will always go against the tide, to try and stand out. Some people will focus on gushing with the popular opinion as cleverly as possible – perhaps their punchy little quote will end up in a big ad in the newspaper, and their notoriety/income will increase.

And there are, of course, intellectuals who align themselves with elitism; they are forced to have disdain for all things popular. Their inability to be objective is indication of how ironically intellectual they are not.

In the end, critics are just people. People with an agenda. You are seldom going to find well thought-out, thorough objectivity in that demographic, no matter what they’re critiquing.

But mostly, there’s the bitter, sad realization that while they can write and scream or praise and jump up and down, they will be utterly forgotten in the annals of history, where Star Wars will not. For all their words and self-important positing, they know they have made no lasting contribution, no great impact. They’ve changed no lives, and shaped no futures. They’re resigned to being wordy because they’ve done so little. Like a fat, lazy sports fan who doesn’t like how Barry Bonds is hitting this season. Beset by jealousy, and ignorance, compensatory self-importance and bluster, they sit at their keyboards, furiously typing, and turn their self-hatred outward, to the very things they long to be part of most.

millenniumfalcon.com – The Official Media Review Links Thread

I love Dennis Miller’s signoff: “It’s just my opinion, I could be wrong”. Far too often I actually hope I am.

“make it clear you will not consent to a lie”

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Whiskey Bar: Truth and Consequences

Sometimes the truth is so damning you have to speak it for its own sake — not to convince or condemn or even because you think it might right the wrong, but to make it clear you will not consent to a lie by remaining silent.

However, this is not the kind of behavior you normally expect from a politician. Even the good ones — or rather, the less bad ones — tend to treat the truth like a scarce commodity, one that has to be strictly rationed in order to avoid running out all together. Evasion, on the other hand, is plentiful, and used as freely as a Hummer burns gasoline.

Which is why I did a double take when I saw what Sen. Durban of Illinois said on the Senate floor yesterday…

Go and read the rest.

Dave Rogers Becomes an Authority Figure

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Oh, he will deny it of course, but when Doc Searls praises you so highly, you’ve been granted more authority then the rest of us anonymous Joes.

Go and enjoy your recognized punditry Dave. Or deny that you are one. Your choice my friend 🙂

Reading Doc’s post I just kept on thinking to myself… “oh the irony…”. I love it 🙂 Honestly though, your writing does deserve some more attention and I’m very happy to see you starting to garner it.

Interesting Conversations at Philly Blogger Meetup

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We had another fun and thought provoking meetup last night in Philly. One of our conversations has led me to post at Philly Future a question: is it only the young and the rich who blog?

Note I have a rather flexible notion of who is young and who is rich. If you’re not a senior citizen – you’re young. If you shop at Starbucks for coffee – you’re rich.

I think that just about covers 99% of the bloggers I personally know.

Where are the seniors and where are the lower middle class and poor bloggers? Reply at Philly Future.

Rich-poor gap gaining attention

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csmonitor.com:

The Fed chief than added that the 80 percent of the workforce represented by nonsupervisory workers has recently seen little, if any, income growth at all. The top 20 percent of supervisory, salaried, and other workers has.

The result of this, said Greenspan, is that the US now has a significant divergence in the fortunes of different groups in its labor market. “As I’ve often said, this is not the type of thing which a democratic society – a capitalist democratic society – can really accept without addressing,” Greenspan told the congressional hearing.

The cause of this problem? Education, according to Greenspan. Specifically, high school education. US children test above world average levels at the 4th grade level, he noted. By the 12th grade, they do not. “We have to do something to prevent that from happening,” said Greenspan.

From Think Progress: Minimum Wage: By The Numbers:

4.3 million: Number of Americans who have fallen into poverty since President Bush took office

$5.15: Federal minimum wage

26%: How much the inflation-adjusted value of the minimum wage has eroded since 1979

0: Number of times minimum wage has increased since 1997

7: Number of times Congress has increased its own pay since 1997

$0: How much more a year people earning minimum wage earn today compared to 1997

$28,500: How much more a year members of Congress make today compared to 1997

$10,700: Amount a person making minimum wage will earn in a year

$5,000: Amount below the poverty level working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year at minimum wage will leave a family of three

7,300,000: Number of workers who would benefit from an increase in the minimum wage

72%: Percentage of adult workers who would benefit from an increase in the minimum wage

1,800,000: Number of parents with kids under the age of 18 who would benefit from an increase in the minimum wage

11 million: Number of jobs added to the economy in the four years after the last minimum wage hike

$8.70: Amount minimum wage would have to be today to have the same purchasing power it had in 1968

2.5 years: Amount of health care for two children which could be bought by raising the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25

86%: Percentage of Americans who support raising the federal minimum wage