Bound for Earth, or Low-Key Entertainment

Remember the 1994 SNES classic RPG 'EarthBound' (known in Japan as 'Mother 2')? It was (and is still) a gem of a game, though it shows none of the marks of a gem or a classic. Music? Bleeps, blips, corny melodies sounding like they came straight out of the '70's. Graphics? Nothing to write home about, save for some interesting psychedelic backgrounds. Story? Four teenage kids, armed with baseball bats, yo-yos, frying pans and pop guns, set out into a world of fart jokes, Beatles references and Mr. T lookalikes to defeat Giygas, the Universal Cosmic Destroyer. Not really material for an epic movie (though if they did decide to make one, I'd probably be there on opening night). Gameplay? Good for one go-through, maybe two, but it lacks any real replay value.

So what is it that makes the game so great? How did it gain such a large cult following in Japan (and a smaller but equally devoted one here)? By every measure it looks to range from mediocre to okay, certainly nothing spectacular. But it has a certain je ne sais quoi, a certain charm, that still eludes the Final Fantasies and the Lord-of-the-Rings epic fantasy RPGs out there. Maybe it's that same je ne sais quoi that so distinguished the Matrix from its spinoff movies, Reloaded and Revolutions. Maybe there's something to be said for keeping a production low-key while at the same time pushing the envelope. EarthBound was revolutionary in that it was one of the first RPGs not to be set in a fantasy-style environment and not to rely so much on graphics for its popularity.

Both EarthBound and the Matrix did keep their worlds well-contained, not trying to stretch beyond their capacities. Yes, in EarthBound you fight such weird villains as New Age Retro Hippies, Abstract Art paintings and Li'l UFO's, but at the same time it never strains to make anything too grandiose or cinematic (with perhaps the exception of the final boss). The Matrix does push the envelope with the 'Bullet-Time' animation technique, but it also never does anything too over-the-top with it (the most effort being put into the now-famous rooftop bullet-dodging scene).

Two sides of the same coin? Perhaps.

What's your deffinition of terrorism? Leave your comments!

You read about it every day, "Baghdad bombings continue despite arrest of key terrorist!", "Terrorist blows self up in Israeli settlement!" or "suicide bomber this! Suicide bomber that!" but when you really think about it, what defines terrorism as opposed to say, a desperate attack or another type of crime? And do our legal definitions currently work? Do we even know what our legal definitions of terrorism are? To start with, I will give my definition of terrorism.

Unjustified, non-state, premeditated, militant action that uses scare tactics indirectly or directly targeting the establishment (meaning "The Man"), sometimes with an intended audience.

I think its pretty good, as it excludes stupid things like "eco-terrorism" to leave them in the realm of vandalism. Blowing up parked trucks at a dealer for example is not militant. Serious vandalism? yes. Terrorism? no.

I took a long time to come to this conclusion, and did so with the help of Kalliscrow. You can view it all here.

From this definition, we can see that terrorism is a slippery thing. With state sanction, a terrorist ceases to be a terrorist and becomes a private military unit. Look at piracy. If you had a "Letter of Marc" from the king, you were a privateer and had all the rights of a navy ship. Without one, you were a pirate and could be executed by any country. Or what is justified? Blowing up the Gestapo HQ wouldn't be terrorism, would it? Actually, that's looking at it from an Allied standpoint, in which case it is not terrorism, but to the NAZIS, this would be terrorism. (Issues of ultimate good or evil are irrelevant to this argument.) And its gotta be premeditated, because something like a protest stampede is definitely not terrorism. So we can see that terrorism is a pretty subjective term, and when given a good definition, can be applied to many different acts from different points of view.

However, I am just a mere citizen with no power to sway the public opinion, and what really matters is our legal definition of it. So what is our legal standpoint? The CIA website says (http://www.cia.gov/terrorism/faqs.html):

The Intelligence Community is guided by the definition of terrorism contained in (USC:Title 22 Section 2656f(d)):


—The term “terrorism” means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.

—The term “international terrorism” means terrorism involving the territory or the citizens of more than one country.

—The term “terrorist group” means any group that practices, or has significant subgroups that practice, international terrorism.

If you actually check the code, the section is a mandate for an official report to the speaker of the house on terrorism (which Bush recently canceled). The convenient thing about the USC is that definitions are only valid in one section, and can be redefined in another.

Title 18, Sec. 2331 defines "international terrorism" as

(A) Involve[ing] violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States ..., or that would be a criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States...;

(B) APEAR to be intended—

(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;


(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or


(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and


(C) occur primarily outside the territorial jurisdiction of the United States, or transcend national boundaries in terms of the means by which they are accomplished, the persons they appear intended to intimidate or coerce, or the locale in which their perpetrators operate or seek asylum

Not only is this completely different, it covers just about any crime possible (with the condition of life endangerment) because you only have to have "appear[ed] to have intended" which is so vague it makes me want to barf. Lets go over that again. If you do something that endangers someone’s life, and is technically a crime (such as protesting without a permit), which only gives the appearance of coercion, even if there was no intention, then you can have all kinds of little things thrown at you. (Deportation without trial, indefinite imprisonment etc.) A protest stampede could very easily fall into this category. It even can cover something that isn't a crime if you do it in a country where it isn't a crime. So there are two in the US code, but there have been others in executive orders and reports, all of which are the same but different, ("but only if I want them to be" says George). You can get a list here: http://www.armscontrolcenter.org/terrorism/101/definitions.html.

So I come to the conclusion: We have loose legal definitions for a term
(terrorism) that implies the innocence of the victim. Why are we using it as a legal term at all? I say down with War on Terror up with War on Bad Standards of Living and Untrue Ideas About the West and Women that Permeate Islamic Culture. But..OH NO! ITS TOO LONG FOR A SOUND BITE! GEORGE CANT USE THAT! Man, this world is so hard for a Texan to exist peacefully in. And don't forget to tell me what you think, I can learn from you.

BEST SHOW EVER! (and esotaric ideas about names)

GTO- Great Teacher Onizuka, is a Japanese TV show that you've probably never heard of. But you might. It was the most watched TV show ever in Japan, and it is undoubtedly a show that should go down in the annals of great dramas, not only from Japan but from any country ever. It is a fantastic drama about a punk who graduated from a third rate collage and took 7 years to do so. While he is working as a window washer, he gets an offer to fulfill his dream: becoming a "kyoshin" or high school teacher. He gets the job through a backdoor deal with the director and is put in charge of class 2-4, which is chock full of misfits and bullies. They hate him and constantly try to get him fired. Slowly, although he seems like a total buffoon, he begins to change the people around him for the better. The drama basically covers how he converts the school from a place completely devoid of spirit into a place with enthusiastic teachers and happy students. In other words, he gives the school back its soul. (While that wasn't the best description of the show, its good, believe me.) The show is ingeniously structured, with every character getting their comeuppance or reward exactly as the viewer thinks they deserve, and the conclusion is nothing short of the quality of a Zen koan in its paradoxical genius. While its a bit sappy at times it holds together mostly on the spunkiness of the lead actor, which carries through the language barrier, no small feat indeed.

The thing that stuck me the most, second only to enjoying the show itself, was one part at the end where Teshigawara, the math teacher, notices that if you take the first character of Onizuka, and put one character before it, it changes the meaning to soul. I love things like that in stories because it gives great incite into the symbolism of the character when you know the meaning of their name. In this case, Onizuka represents the soul being restored to those around him. And if you watch the show, this becomes quite obvious. The thing is, if a show or book, anything actually is good, I mean real good, then invariably, the characters, and places will have names that are extremely descriptive of the purpose that they fulfill in the story. Take Harry Potter: The Mirror of Erised, which sounds like some mysterious magic name is a simple palindrome; it is desire backwards. Or the best of all, Lord of the Rings, where every name is a multi-lingual pun. Baggins, an English name with its own coat of arms (http://www.houseofnames.com/xq/asp.c/qx/baggins-coat-arms.htm) with the motto "we trust in god" and also meaning thief, or something to do with bags. There are lots of other meanings, but I lost the book. Even great computer games, e.g., Final Fantasy 10, have great names. The name of the world, spira, means spiral in latin, and is representative of the "spiral of death" that surrounds the main enemy, Sin. (they say so in the game)

Another thing: have you noticed that sequals always suck? Probably. I think this is because after a story is finnished, that is, brought to complete resolution, anything added on is superflous and will be crap. I mean would you want to spend an evening with your date watching Lion King 2, or Lion King 1/2 for that matter?

On a closing note: Dubya, as in George W. Bush, is one of the many conjugations in latin of the word dubium, which means doubt. Take THAT biznitch! (You can download Onizuka [search GTO] with bittorrent at http://japan-tv.afraid.org:6969/)

Revisiting the Eastern Theatre

There has been a lot in the news recently about demonstrations in China against the Japanese government's approval of history textbooks that downplay the atrocities committed during the Second World War. Right now, it just looks as though both Beijing and Tokyo are simply posturing for effect, which is never a good way to make any progress. Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing didn't help matters, for example, when he claimed in light of the recent protests that China had nothing for which they need apologise to Japan.

The grievances of the Chinese protesters seem legitimated, however, by a recent Japanese refusal to appeal a case by ten Chinese survivors of the Japanese occupation seeking reparation for the Rape of Nanjing and Heilongjiang biological weapons testing carried out during the late 1930's and early '40's. In light of the current situation, the Japanese government could have done far better by these people. But it seems to me that both sides are hell-bent on, in the words of Japanese PM Koizumi Jun'ichirou, 'an exchange of harsh words'. And harsh words mean harsher political difficulties.

Violent protests in Shenzhen and Shanghai have not helped matters. What sympathy the Japanese citizenry may have had for the Chinese war survivors is pretty much gone thanks to the rising tide of destructive demonstrations and anti-Japanese rhetoric coming from the mainland. Relations between the two giants have taken a major nosedive.

How to solve the problem? Both Beijing and Tokyo need to cut down on the rhetoric and engage in real dialogue. The Japanese must not underestimate the importance of the past, and they should own up to their own past, even the parts they would just as soon forget. The Chinese should not lose sight of the here and now, and what would lose if they alienate themselves from Japan any further.

Let's poison the children and see how they turn out!

Man, and I thought I knew what sick was. But I'm gonna give a toast to perhaps the sickest thing that The EPA has turned out in the last couple of years, and that is ladies and gentlemen, CHEERS. What, never heard of it? It’s an acronym for Children’s Environmental Exposure Research Study, which proposed to do exactly what the title said, pay parents to expose their children to pesticides. Oh, but only if the kid is under 3. Luckily, the man who was supporting it, Bush's nomination to the EPA Stephen Johnson, had to back down or get his nomination put on hold (Thanks to U.S. Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Bill Nelson (D-FL)). The sad thing is, just because the EPA doesn't support it, doesn't mean it won't happen. The pesticide industry will likely find another sap to bind to its evil will before the year is out. The American Chemistry Council has pledged $2,000,000 to the study's $9,000,000 total required budget. Of course they're trying to put on a good face. They've launched www.childhealthsource.org/ in order to show just how benevolent they are. Supposedly, they want to "protect children" (/principles.asp). YOU DON'T PROTECT THEM BY EXPOSING THEM TO DANGEROUS CHEMICALS!!!! (for proof go to www.epa.gov/cheers)

And my god, these are the kind of people the monkey of a president puts in office.

Long time no blog

Today (ehem tonight) I thought I would give politics a rest and just say that image is everything, and that if you dress anything up right, and say it with enough authority, it will be believed. On 4/1/1957, the BBC made a special broadcast about bumper spaghetti crop that Switzerland was experiencing and showed pictures of a rural Swiss family gathering their harvest from spaghetti trees. The well-known announcer (Richard Dimbly) went on to say that the years great crop was due to the extermination of the spaghetti weevil, which had caused so much damage in the past. The broadcast was an April fool's joke, but what kills me is the BBC got hundreds of calls from curious viewers asking things like where they could get their own spaghetti tree. Supposedly the BBC responded "put a sprig of spaghetti in a can of tomato sauce and hope for the best." (www.museumofhoaxes.com/spaghetti.html) This might be excusable as Britain didn't really eat spaghetti in 1957, but the next one is just stupid.

Burger king ran an advertisement for its new "left hand whopper", in which (its just too good, I got to quote)

"the ... left-handed sandwich...ha[d] all condiments rotated 180
degrees, thereby redistributing the weight of the sandwich so that the
bulk of the condiments will skew to the left, thereby reducing the
amount of lettuce and other toppings from spilling out the right side
of the burger."

(www.laughnet.net/archive/misc/leftwhop.htm) The killer this time was that people came in to restaurants demanding right handed burgers, or inquiring about left-handed ones.

This is not limited to the sphere of legend. I have had experiences like this first hand, from being bamboozled into buying an Onion (paper) to convincing bums in a corner store that the Weekly World News headline was false, and no, they had not found human skulls on mars.

To me, it does two things: it gives a deeper meaning to the phrase "all we like sheep," and makes me wonder... If Fox suddenly started saying that Superman had been convicted of using steroids, how many outraged letters would they get? By the looks of it ... A LOT.