Blógünder Schlock

I was upstairs looking out the window at the flags on display wondering what September 11th meant to me. Today it means courage in the face of the unknown, and I remember the firefighters, police officers, and other emergency services personnel who selflessly gave their lives on this day six years ago.

To my friend Richard this day is about acquaintance and friendship, and how sometimes we suddenly find ourselves wishing we’d said “thank you” or “I love you” a day earlier.

Each year on this anniversary my friend Richard calls the people he cares about, and lets them know he is thinking of them. It’s a wonderful call, and today it came while I was lost in my own musings upon the matter.

Richard is on to something here. If each of us will take the time to express the love we feel, and to serve each other in some small way, the world will be a much, much better place.

Thanks for all the cool links, everybody. Not only have you pounded on the previous thread with great information, some of you have also emailed me assorted goodies. It is interesting to note that I’ve also not received even a SINGLE anti-RPG/anti-D&D flame. Apparently the gravitics of Schlockiverse technology allow me to fly under the radar of The Evil Legion of Attack Ministries™. (I’ll just drop this payload and be on my way…)

If you’ve emailed me, you may get a personalized response, but you also might not. Let me say, however, that pretty much ALL the email I have gotten on the subject was useful (yes, even yours. Don’t be so humble. It was brilliant.)

I will be compiling a link-list and making it permanently available on this site. I’ll also write a little essay of my own on the subject. These things may have to wait a little while, though, because books are due to arrive Any Day Now, and when they do I’ll be suddenly, suddenly busy.

Which reminds me: pre-orders will be closing sometime on Tuesday, November 14th. If you want your book to ship before Thanksgiving (that Great American Celebration of Plenitude, Omnivorism, and Excess), please place your order now. Operators Web-servers are standing by.

I need your webhounding skills, but we’ll get to that in a moment.

Twice in the last week, as I’ve been sitting at my drawing table at Dragons Keep, customers have come in asking, in essence, “what’s all the fuss about D&D?” Specifically, it seems, they want to know why other parents are dead-set against letting their children play such an insidiously dangerous game, which is obviously training them for occultism, satanism, and weekend baby-eating.

And here I thought those issues all got put to bed back in, oh, 1983. D&D is no more a training ground for occultists, satanists, and baby-eaters than American Idol is (note: I use “American Idol” as my example rather than “Survivor” because, well… the baby-eating episode of “Survivor” is going to air any day now).

Still, people have questions. As the closest thing to an actual grown-up present in the store (being in the store prevents me, by definition, from being a TRUE grown-up) it seems to fall on me to answer their questions.

While I can be fairly encyclopedic in my summonings of obscure and arcane trivia, I suspect that when Mrs. Smith tells Mrs. Jones “the guy drawing stuff at the comic book store said it’s okay because…” all of my pontificating will fall rather flat in the retelling.

So… do you know any good sites with TRULY encyclopedic advocacy for Dungeons & Dragons in specific, and Fantasy Role-Playing in general?

I’m looking for something I can summarize, synopsize, and print out — complete with links and footnotes — so that the next time someone asks the question I can say “D&D is as safe as any other activity that takes place at your kitchen table” and then hand them a nice sheet of paper that allows them to refute the absurd allegations bandied about by their ignorant and fearful neighbors.

I’ve found a little material already, but I’m sure there are things I’m missing… like perhaps an under-utilized, low-Google-ranked site that already has EXACTLY what I want, formatted and ready to go.

Failing that, send me the raw feed. On your mark, get set, roll initiative…

I need to see this film two or three more times. Only then can I write the review it deserves, but that wouldn’t be a review — it would be critical analysis, bordering perhaps on deconstruction.

One thing is certain: this film falls far outside the typical range for comic-book movies. It’s not your garden-variety action flick, either. It’s deep. Deep and dark. Like a well… one that you’re staring up out of from the bottom, not peering into from the top.

The story is simple: a masked man is taking on a totalitarian regime, and enlists the unsuspecting help of a beautiful young woman. During the single year of the story they are both changed. Lots of people are killed. At the end of the film there is stuff blowing up.

Beneath that simple layer there are piles of backstory, political and religious commentary, and plenty of very artistic dialog. There is symbolism and there is satire. Even the music in the film is laden with meaning. There is probably an English Major’s thesis paper waiting to be written about this film.

Did I like it? Yes. Did I agree with the message of the film? I’m going to hedge… I believe that the film is actually ambiguous enough on the delivery of its messages that the viewer can come away with reinforcement of whatever belief he or she went in with. That said… I agree with some of what was presented.

This is a film you need to see with a group of thinking friends, and after you see it you need to go sit down someplace and talk about what you saw. Engage in a critical discourse. ARGUE.

It’s possible that’s the message of the film right there. But then again, that’s a value I went into the theater with, and I came out with it reinforced.

CNN is reporting that this most recent dust-up between muslims and newspapers is, and I quote “being portrayed as a battle between freedom of speech and respect for religious beliefs.”

Whoever is portraying it that way is being too kind to the folks in the “don’t draw Mohammed” camp. What we have here is a battle between Freedom of Speech and Tyranny.

If you point guns at people to make stop saying something, you are not demanding “respect for religion.” You are an aspiring tyrant, using the threat of force to shut the mouths of those over whom you wish to rule. (more…)

As you may have noticed, we have a new BlogAds sponsor there on the left-hand side. “Life, Liberty, Etc” is a blog for those who, like me, come from the “shoot with both hands” school of gun control.

I realize that some of you will take issue with the peace sign being described as the “footprint of the American Chicken.” Let me take a moment to describe my position on “Peace.” I’m not opposed to peace, and I don’t believe that gun-toting, right-wing, neo-conservatives are opposed to it either. What I’m opposed to is the philosophy that says “War is never an acceptable alternative.”

The freedoms that I enjoy — the freedom to be a cartoonist, to speak freely, and to go to church with my family where we want to — these freedoms all presuppose a willingness to fight in their defense. The peace symbol to me represents a movement that would deny me the right to defend my rights, my liberty, and my family.

I love peace, and I currently enjoy it because rough men and women stand ready to do violence on my behalf. One of those is my brother-in-law, who is headed for the Middle East with the US Air Force. He, and hundreds of thousands of soldiers like him deserve to know that they have my blessing and my undying gratitude.

So… we have a new sponsor. See the pretty woman with firearm and t-shirt? Feel free to click through and have a look at the blog there — the “range bag” link is fascinating, and surprisingly non-political (a lot less political than this post, for starters). Mostly it’s about cool stuff, like taking a handgun to a padlock.

Come on. You KNOW you want to see what happens when you take a handgun to a padlock.

I’m pro-nuke, and proud of it. But I’ll make an exception for non-nuclear research — thermal depolymerization.

Why? Because in theory, TDP would allow us to turn biomass (including biohazardous waste) into petroleum products, and would leverage existing infrastructure (refineries, gas stations, everything in between).

The neat thing about TDP is that it takes long organic molecules (meat and plant byproducts primarily, but you can also feed plastics into the system) and turns them into shorter, more useful ones. This is the same process which, as the popular theory goes, turned dinosaurs into oil.

Whether or not that’s where oil came from, you CAN make oil from turkey parts, lawn clippings, and people-poo. (more…)

So… in the State of The Union Address, George W. Bush announced that the United States has an “oil addiction,” and that we need to do something about it.

I couldn’t agree more.

But I don’t think we should be wasting our time with solar, hydroelectric, wind, or “zero-emission” coal. All of those are messy, expensive, and ugly. I want nukes. (more…)

Y’all may recall my post a month or so ago entitled Evolution, Intelligent Design, and Me. In it I stated that as a Christian who believes God created the Earth, I am opposed to teaching “Intelligent Design,” because it’s not very good science and it’s lying about itself when it claims to not be religion.

Well, the head-banging in Pennsylvania is being echoed here in the great State of Utah. (more…)

I’m excited about NASA’s “New Horizons” launch. We still have so much to learn about the universe we live in, and we know next to nothing about objects like Pluto that lie out in the Kuiper belt.

There’s controversy surrounding the launch, because some folks think that putting plutonium on a rocket is too dangerous — a launch accident could spread radioactive material. Well… okay, it IS dangerous. But I’m with the scientists who think that ultimately it’s MORE dangerous to not learn as much as we can about our Solar system. (more…)