Monday, April 30, 2007
My whereabouts
I have a long day in front of me.
I got up at 4 to catch a 4:30 car to Newark airport. I depart Newark before 7 for a flight to Los Angeles, drive an hour, have a meeting, return to LAX and fly to San Francisco. If all goes well, I will next hit the hay at 11 pm, San Francisco time.
Keep the home fires burning.
In the meantime, if you are, like me, a fan of comic books in general and Frank Miller specifically, catch up on his latest venture here. He plans for the Dark Knight to whale on the jihadis, but certain major media execs are putting on the brakes because they're worried about blowback.
Idiots. Frank Miller's never done anything that was less than amazing.
UPDATE: The flight to LA, unfortunately, is frackin' packed. I am situated in seat 21D, desperately hoping that the people who land in 20D and 21E don't need a lot of legroom and belly room, respectively.
I was a good person this weekend. One would have thought that would have earned me an upgrade.
8 Comments:
By 
SR, at
Mon Apr 30, 09:11:00 AM:
welcome back to Cali. Here in the Bay Area we are going to have several months of killer traffic thanks to a tanker truck accident which took out a vital section of East Bay Freeway. Just a taste of what Al Queda could do with minimal effort.
By 
, at
Mon Apr 30, 10:52:00 AM:
Thinking about your flight, dear TH, it makes sense that green celebs in private jets would aggravate you to distraction. Good on you for going coach.
By MrSurly, at
Mon Apr 30, 11:55:00 AM:
May the trip home be better.
I agree with you on Miller with one big exception. The Dark Knight Strikes Again was a pretty big let down, though to be fair any sequel to the Dark Knight Returns was probably bound to disappoint. That being said, Miller's Daredevil/Elektra work, the Martha Washington series, and the Dark Knight Returns are all spectacular reads.
The movie version of Miller's 300, which I finally got around to seeing, was fantastic as well. Miller and Hollywood need to make more movies like that. I realize that any comment on 300 and the Spartans is a little late in the game since 300 has been deconstructed to death at this point. However, I haven't really seen much said about the legacy of Sparta and the Battle of Thermoplyae and it's very interesting. Several years after the battle which defined Sparta's military reputation, Sparta became an imperial power controlling all of Greece. This imperial period was short lived though. Sparta's decline was precipitated by a steep decline in the population of Spartan citizens. Sparta no longer had enough soldiers to defend it's interests militarily. It's a very interesting history lesson which seems to provide further historical support for Mark Steyn's thesis in America Alone, a book which has been widely praised on this blog.
By Christopher Chambers, at
Mon Apr 30, 04:16:00 PM:
TH: was watched the colors of NJ in my Amtrak window as I journeyed home from NY. Public transportation. Gee...now that's a thought!
As for Miller, there are friends of his, not editors or corporate types, who behind the scenes are reining him in because they feel he risks getting into the trap that befell Hart with the comic strip "BC." He became a right wing evangelical and tried to ram that Falwell crap down everyone's throat. Is wasn't liberal editors who marginalized him, it was regular people.
Miller remains a B.S.D., however, and very ecletic in his targets. He might despise the jihadis (and Muslims in general, sadly). But he also is no great fan of the Catholic Church, cops, censorship to "protect children" etc.
As for 300, again let's not confuse that with history. They were "boy lovers" too. And they depended on serfs/slave labor to grow the crops, so likewise let's not idealize that "warrior society" nonsense. If you want to do that, then check out the Zulu (and all of their substantial blemishes). The Athenians were responsible for saving Western civilization at Salamis, and true if there were no Thermoplyae there'd have been no salamis, but hey, so?
I'll let y'all stew on those other bizarre right wing theories...hahahaha Maybe Rush Limbaugh can create another song about it, with Obama as Xerxes, admonishing noble Red Staters not to have kids so immigrants and Arabs can move in...
By , at
Mon Apr 30, 07:37:00 PM:
Christopher, do you honestly think that a train ride from New Jersey to LA is feasible for anyone who's time is even negligibly valuable? And in any case, if everyone rode Amtrak, it would be nearly as bad as air travel (possibly worse -- you might end up without a seat at all)
By Escort81, at
Mon Apr 30, 10:50:00 PM:
CC - What is your objection to the Zulu? I imagine that it was somewhat of a patriarchal society, but since the history of the Zulu is relatively more recent as compared to ancient Sparta and Athens, we (as people interested in history) have the advantage of a strong tradition of oral history among the Zulu. Unfortunately, there is not much of a written history from the Zulu perspective in the 18th century, or most of the 19th century.
As long as we are on the topic of the political significance of comic book-type characters, I have wondered about the scene in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith when Mace Windu (the Samuel L. Jackson character) confronts Chancellor Palpatine as being Darth Sidious. As you may recall, Windu, as a member of the Jedi Council, wants to act as judge, jury and executioner when he has Sidious down and near defeat. Anakin Skywalker enters the scene and essentially argues for due process for the Chancellor -- that killing him is not Windu's call (acknowledging that Skywalker has his own selfish reason for wanting Sidious alive, believing at that point in time that Sidious is the key to preventing his wife from dying). Windu believes that Sidious is "too dangerous" and ought to be destroyed, but Skywalker makes the proper "Constitutional" point. It is a case where the good guy (an expert in The Force and a senior member of an organization that defends the welfare of the galaxy) recognizes that the bad guy needs to be dispatched, but hasn't jumped through the necessary legal hoops. Skywalker strikes at Windu to prevent him from administering a coup de grace against the Chancellor, and the Chancellor then uses his force lightening to push Windu out of the building and fall to his death. Disaster for the galaxy ensues, as well as three more exciting episodes.
I only bring this up because when the movie was first released, much was made of the scene when Obi-Wan confronts Skywalker on the planet Mustafar. In the conversation that precedes their lightsaber duel, Skywalker says "you are either with me or against me," and Obi-Wan responds by saying "only a Sith thinks in such absolutes." Many a commenter believed that this was a direct swipe at President Bush's parallel language, "you are either with us, or you are with the terrorists," referencing governments that provided safe harbor to terrorist organizations.
Help me out here -- was Windu trying to act correctly in exigent circumstances, or was he just an untethered neocon? Or was Skywalker the Manichaean neocon? Or I am just being silly?
I thought the movie 300 was entertaining, though it is not necessarily good history. It did highlight the fact that there is an interesting underlying paradox that all societies valuing democracy and individual freedom must balance out -- to what extent do you maintain a warrior ethos in at least a segment of your population to defend your society from external threats; does it then become possible that that segment of your society will exert too much destructive influence on the culture you are trying to protect; or, does the more likely source of corruption exist among those who have been elected to legislate and govern?
By , at
Mon Apr 30, 11:19:00 PM:
Though I found Episodes I-III somewhat tedious and lacking heart, neither of which blemishes afflicted the original Star Wars movie, I did note that the older (earlier) Obi-Wan says to Luke that anger leads to the Dark Side and must be controlled, yet his younger (more recent) self gets pissed off and it helps him get back in the game when dueling the dude with the double light sabre thingy. So which version of the Jedi-master should impressionable youngsters (or world leaders) emulate: the old, self-sacrificing, Jedi-master who masters himself and is stronger than Death, or the buff, braided acolyte who kicks *ss and makes anger serve him? Just sayin'.
By Escort81, at
Wed May 02, 03:47:00 PM:
I am not sure if anyone is even looking at this thread anymore, but I had to post a follow-up to the Star Wars III question that I posed, admittedly in jest.
This is a case of joking about something because it is pretty silly, only to discover that someone really takes it seriously. Iran evidently sees a great deal of political commentary imbedded in Star Wars III, as this video (with English subtitles from MEMRI) illustrates. (Transcript without video here).
You can't make this stuff up.
