Yeah, they really were called the Beaneaters and the Pilgrims.
Author: Bryant
So I was reading this entry from Mike and it made me think — which reminds me, cause I’ve been meaning to talk about Cold Fury for a while, so I’m going to digress. Back to the main point in a minute.
I read Mike because he’s honest and a man of integrity. He’s also pissed off, but so am I. Thing is, he does not have a secret agenda to take over the world, and he isn’t plotting to send hordes of jackbooted Young Republicans marching down the streets, and he doesn’t hate all Muslims, and he’s not living in some weird little world of his own. He’s a good guy who has different politics than I do. If I couldn’t read Mike’s stuff and think about it rationally, rather than just writing him off as a right-wing thug, I’d be pretty worried about myself. When I express an opinion, he listens to it; I owe him the same courtesy. Also, he plays a mean guitar.
OK, on with the thoughtfulness.
The above-referenced entry is a shot at Tim Robbins. I pretty much disagree with Mike on the whole Baseball Hall of Fame controversy, on a number of levels; mostly, I think it’s morally right to encourage expression of multiple points of view. I happen to agree with Robbins some of the time, but I’d be just as cheesed off if the Baseball Hall of Fame uninvited Randy Johnson to a festivity on the grounds that Johnson might say something praising Bush. Once you start telling people to shut up based on what they might say, you’re stifling free speech — it’s what they call a chilling effect in the legal world.
A bunch of people in the comments section said that they could boycott anything they wanted. Well, it’s not a boycott if someone else is making the decisions for you — in this case, it’s the Baseball Hall of Fame exerting control over what we hear, and man does that ever piss me off. I’m an adult; I can make my decisions for myself.
But — and this is where I got thoughtful — what about boycotts? What about the Dixie Chicks? What about… oh god… what about the Michael Savage boycott?
You know, I can’t honestly say I think anyone should be trying to shut Savage up by applying that kind of economic pressure. Truth is, if Savage is succeeding it only means there are a lot of people willing to listen to him. That problem isn’t going to go away by gagging the man. You don’t win the battle for hearts and minds by creating martyrs.
And that’s just the practical standpoint. From a moral standpoint, I can’t see any way to praise a Michael Savage boycott without also accepting the reasonableness of the Dixie Chicks boycott. Even if it’s ClearChannel pulling the strings in the latter case, aren’t we asking Savage’s advertisers to pull the strings in the former case?
Yeah, I think we are. Let’s stop trying to eliminate ideas that we find unpleasant, already.
About yesterday’s NBA action —
Nothing surprising happened in Dallas, New Jersey, or Sacramento. As expected, the Sacramento/Utah series looks like it’ll be the most enjoyable series of the playoffs. As far as I’m concerned, watching those two teams play each other for a minimum of four games justifies the seven-game first round.
I would not be surprised if Byron Scott went to his players before that first game and pointed out that if they don’t go a long way into the playoffs this year, Jason Kidd will be playing elsewhere next season.
My first reaction to the Celtics win: well, sure, if Pierce hits 21 of his 21 free throws and Walker goes .500 from the floor, the Celtics will win. But how likely is that to happen every night? My second reaction: on the other hand, Battie won’t get ejected every night either. Hm. My third reaction: I wonder if Ron Mercer feels stupid yet. Anyhow, there’s plenty of time for the Pacers to turn it around.
Phoenix got lucky twice but San Antonio deserved to lose. Consider that Duncan went 7 for 12 and Robinson went 8 for 8 — from the floor. Then consider that Tony Parker and Stephen Jackson both got more shots than Duncan, and Malik Rose and Emanuel Ginobili got more shots than Robinson. You’re the Spurs. You own the paint, with the best big man duo in the game today. How do you manage to take 24 three pointers? Also: don’t miss three out of four free throws in the last ten seconds or so of the game. Sigh.
Speaking of indie RPGs, there are eight interesting games here. They were all written in 24 hours flat. Some of ‘em work, some of ‘em don’t, I think they’re all interesting experiments. We really need to schedule a regular indie gaming night, maybe monthly.
The first public draft of Into The Sunset (120K PDF) is now available. What’s that, you ask? It’s my little ten page roleplaying game of romantic comedies. Take a look if you like that sort of thing, and comment if the spirit moves you.
It’s cool to link to it, but please don’t stick it up anywhere else. Right now it’s under copyright; when I decide what I want to do with it I’ll most likely release it under a Creative Commons license. At that point it may well turn into an HTML document as well.
The Hugo nominations are out. Pretty classy field this year. I’d have to choose The Scar for best novel, but it’s a close call over Bones of the Earth, and I kind of think the latter will win. Michael Swanwick has three other nominations — could be a very good year for him.
Oddly, the Sci Fi Wire list is different. They have “Liking What You See: A Documentary” (by Ted Chiang) in the Best Novelette category instead of “Madonna of the Maquiladora”, by Gregory Frost. Normally I’d believe Locus, but Ted Chiang not getting nominated seems so unlikely.
I didn’t think much about the Johnny Cash cover of “Hurt” (Quicktime video) when I heard about it. I figured it’d be a kind of novelty thing, like most of the aging star covering once-edgy alternative music songs are.
OK, I was wrong. It’s amazing. Go watch the video. Wow.
US comes out against ridding the Middle East of WMDs. Film at 11.
Yeah, I’m simplifying. But not much. Syria introduced a Security Council resolution that would require all Middle Eastern countries to rid themselves of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. The US said “No, no, the time isn’t right.” That means, of course, “We don’t want to make Israel give up their nuclear weapons.”
I have to grudgingly admire the acumen of Syria. Not only did they make the US object to a positive resolution, they nudged us into admitting that the Security Council matters after all. Odd; I could have sworn Bush said that the Security Council would be irrelevant if it didn’t vote to allow us to invade Iraq. Why do we care what resolutions Syria introduces?
Answer: because even if we don’t care, most of the rest of the world — including the UK, Spain, Italy, and Australia — does. And we are not capable of defeating the rest of the world singlehandedly. From a military perspective? Quite possibly. From a financial perspective? Not a chance in hell.
Heh. I was speculating earlier today that the Iraqi National Museum looting might have been pro art thieves. Through sheer luck, it looks like I was right.
Someone should tell those Marines to redo their sign in Arabic, but I’m glad they’re awake now. The FBI is on the job, too. Right reactions, even if we got the initial actions wrong.
What I’m thinking is this: a vast, ancient elven empire, called simply the Empire, that dominates the western half of the continent. The elves are neutral, shading towards a kind of practical lawful evil, but only a little way. Just a dark grey. The only exception to the elven domination in this part of the continent is a northwestern peninsula, which is populated by a resolute kingdom of mountain dwarves. Underneath the peninsula, there’s a kingdom of drow which survives with assistance from the Empire. The drow kingdom is a cult of personality, worshipping the Living Presence of their goddess. The Living Presence tells lies about his kingdom’s power, and his people believe him. The mountain dwarves would like to reclaim the tunnels and caverns, and they could probably manage the drow on their own, but the Empire? No way.
Off the coast, there’s a small string of islands, very advanced culturally, populated by a race of island dwarves. I’d have to write up the subrace, but think of otters. They are not particularly friendly with their mountain cousins and they really don’t like the Empire.
There’s also a single island which was settled a long time ago by a subrace of wood elves who rejected the militaristic ways of the mainlanders. This is a subject of much friction. Fortunately, this island (and the two dwarven kingdoms) have a mutual defense treaty with the humans who live across the sea. It’s believed that the humans have mastered enough sorcery to do huge amounts of damage to the Empire in a conflict; nobody wants to find out what the cost of such a conflict would really be.
The most important city of the campaign is a settlement on the coast of the Empire, which was deeded to the humans a hundred years ago. It’s a key city, because it’s the best place for humans, dwarves, and elves to mix freely. The drow don’t go there. Everyone else does. It’s corrupt, vital, and very much alive. There’s another human settlement a little bit south, administered by a different human nation: it tends distinctly towards the evil. I suspect the humans there are necromantic.
(The correspondences are not intended to be exact.)