Whine and Roses
I Hope They Bring Flowers
It seems that politicians are starting to recognize the power of the internet at last.
While on the outside, it appears as though much of America has been apathetic about politics with the lack of open protest (expect for illegal immigration), the fact is the internet has been politically on fire for the last 4 years. Much of the activism has become electronic in the form of message board discussion, blogs and even videos posted to sites like YouTube.
The internet is the world largest graffiti wall and as such, there is a lot of crap one has to sift through, but it is also instant communication. Information can be spread around the world in practically a heartbeat. You don’t need a placard to raise awareness of something when it’s hitting everyone’s e-mail in a 48 hour period. People who would not normally read a news paper will still read of things not covered by the 6 o’clock news and get better coverage of them. For example this news article that talks about troop withdrawls from Iraq fails to mention what this news article does that the administration is actually talking about increasing troops level short term and intends to leave a significant military presence on the ground there for years (which really comes as no surprise since it came out that the U.S. was building 14 military bases in Iraq during the 2004 elections).
My, my.
But without access to the multiple news sources on the internet, how many of us would hear only one version or another? It sucks that we have to read 2 or 3 or 5 sources to get a somewhat clear picture of what is happening in the world, but at least we can. And unlike a TV network, the ’net also exposes people to multiple ways of interpreting that information. Opinions are also spread around the world faster than the speed of sound. Whether wants to or not, on the internet you will be exposed to different points of view.
“You can’t stop the signal.”
The question come what do we do with that signal? Can something as wildly disparate as the blogsphere truly be harnessed behind a single party, let alone a single candidate, enough to be effective?
(Though I admit, Warner looks a pretty good call at this point.)
I‘m unsure. I disagree wholeheartedly with the notion that the political internet should remain political outsiders simply for the sake of anti-establishment chic, but to attempt to organize the greater internet community into a single purpose would be akin to herding cats. Because everyone has an equal voice (sort of, depending how popular one’s blog is), the wide variety of nuanced opinions are always going to have a presence and draw people into their orbits. The Dailykos is just one of the political nexus points on the net. There are Conservative blogs as well such as CommonwealthConservative and Instapundit whom will also most likely be courted by the time 2008 rolls around. So what we might get is simply a heightened extension of the partisanship seen in mainstream media today that still accomplishes little.
Mew.
However, Moveon.org has been respectfully successful at effecting legislative change through organizing letter writing and phone call campaigns as well as raising money for TV ads so the idea that a political internet presence can translate into RL (Real Life), is valid.
What is going to be fun is watching the watchers. Not too long ago a certain administration was shelling out cash to newspaper columnists to write columns in favor of the administration policies. It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if someone attempted to bribe bloggers, if they haven't already done so. The first time that hits the net…oooo.. nelly. It not like anyone can shut down the Washington Post if it’s discovered one of their pundits took a bribe, but here….hackers can bring down a site practically at will.
But if I start singing the praises of Patriot Act, don’t bother complaining. I’ll already be on my way to Tahiti.
Oh, it’s a brave new world indeed.
Can’t Lose for Winnin’
They can’t even kill themselves without being called terrorists for it.
O.K. how hysterical does Harris sound. I mean really.
Speaking of which, I am very glad Zarqawi is dead. It is sad when any human being dies, but in a case such as his, like Ted Bundy, it’s just better for the world in general. However, I was not so foolish to believe that it would suddenly make things better in Iraq. This was merely a head of the hydra. According some analysis I have read, Zarqawi and bin Laden were on the outs. Now bin Laden can replace him with someone more controllable, someone more in line with al Queda policy. We have removed loose cannon, not sunk the ship itself.
Though I have to wonder at how the military is changing their story from knowing where he was from a tip to now they are claiming they tracked him through cell phone usage while Jordan is claiming it was thier intelligence that helped pinpoint Zarqawi’s location.
You wouldn’t be trying to exploit this to strengthen support for wiretapping, would you Mr. President?
Ugh. Enough with the politics. Y’know, I was actually watching a couple episodes of the X-Files before the race started this afternoon and now I realized why it went off the air: how can you make money off secret government conspiracies when it conducts them out in the open?
Speaking of the race…
Brakes, Braaaaakes!
Once again, another race viewed through Trackpass.
For as much talk as there was about the set-ups for the turns (and Toney Stewart’s broken shoulder), brakes ended up being the biggest issue at Pocono this week, including Jeff Gordon’s which went out completely, sending him into the wall at 190 mph (not a fan, but thank the Gods the guy's o.k) with only 8 laps to go, red flagging the race. From what I hear it was a pretty big mess with Jeffie-pop carrying half the infield with him into the wall, but they got it cleaned up pretty fast.
Well, Mark Martin ran in the top ten for much of the day, but wound up 17th, Dale Jr. managed to bounce in and out of the top ten, ending up 14th.
Elliott’s day was...well, it was better than last week. Handling problems at the start, especially through turn three, dropped him in the back, but continued adjustments had him running lap times pretty much on par with the leaders and managed to break his way into the top ten twice (once I think through the shuffling of pit stops, but once he did it the hard way) but around lap 150 his brakes started to fail as the temperature changed (affecting the handling) and he ended up finishing 20th.
Perhaps in a *small* way this is turning the corner…sloooowly.
BUT....someone needs to exile that boy to Emporia for a few days. I fully understand this has been a rough time for them. I understand it’s a driver’s job to complain and let the CC know what wrong with the car, but jeezus. I don't think I heard a single positive word out of him the entire race. He is wound so tight he was actually complaining more the higher up in the field he got. In general Elliott is an upbeat, positive guy. I understand how rough things have been for the team, but lately this is simply not him. This whole “taking on the weight of RYR on my shoulders” thing has gone far enough. Can he be the lead driver in a multi-car organization and lead it to VL, to a championship? Yes. Of that I have no question. But with all due respect to Mr. Sadler's strength, determination and senses of duty and honor which are very admirable and some of the bigger reasons I am a fan, as well as understanding what he has said about his position at RYR as the starting QB, if you will; A. *IF* the wieght of RYR falls on any one set of shoulders in particular, I would think it would be the Yates' (and they have been at this a while) and B. no one can’t stay wound that tight for that long without things unraveling and as much trouble as this team has been having, the last thing they need is the driver unraveling. He needs to go home, play with his dogs, hug his nieces, go have a beer with his friends and get some perspective.
On the way back down to Charlotte just fly low over Virginia and kick him out.
On a more positive note a friend of mine caught Elliott up in the booth for the Busch race and said it was one of the best “guest announcers” they’ve had in the booth for quite some time. He was very informative without being obnoxious (ah, a trait I envy). Well done! *golf clap*
I also heard he was going out to Eldora in September to play in the dirt. *Yea!* :)
It’s starting to thunder here…another rain storm coming through.
X-Men
I went to see this Friday evening and found it…eeeghn. All the elements were there, but it just couldn’t pull it off. The script was good, it combined about 3 or 4 different storylines that were originally in the comic books and did so rather cleverly. The two principal ones being The “neutralizer”, which in the book took Storm’s powers for many years (and she still led the X-Men because she was so kick-ass, much unlike the Halley Berry portrayal) and the Dark Phoenix Saga, which is widely considered one of the greatest story sequences in all of comic history.
In the book, the X-Men are on a space station (this is like soap opera for 13year olds, bear with me) and the only way they have to escape the exploding station is a damaged shuttle with insufficient shielding. Jean makes the decision that she will pilot the shuttle in using her TK (telekinesis) to try to protect her from the radiation (this was the Cold War, there was always crazy radiation out there). Well, when the shuttle crashes, Jean emerges from the wreck much more powerful and chooses a new code name: Phoenix. She is powerful to the extent you see in the movie where she can manipulate things on a molecular level. She can access too much power, but her decline is very slow and she is ultimately pushed over the edge by another telepath into Dark Phoenix, which is what you see in the movie. Well, this happens and that happens and she eats a star (no kidding), destroying an entire inhibited world in the process and Wolvie when given the opportunity and asked to by Jean, can’t kill her himself, so eventually she commits suicide (not like “going out in a blaze of glory” kind of way, but just quietly offing herself) right in front of Scott, which pretty much destroys him for about…oh…I think it was about 15 years or so before he ceased to be complete mess...and then she came back (because no one in comic stays dead…..soap opera for teenagers, remember) and he was an even bigger mess.
They also tried to include Storm’s confrontation with Calisto, though Calisto didn’t have super speed, she was just always had a can of whoop-ass at the ready.
Which BTW-that character broke the cardinal rules of super hero creation. If you character has more than one power, they must be related in some way. Especially if the character is a mutant who’s mutation would be following a specific path of genetic adaptation.
Remember that, it’s important. ;)
Anyway, they managed to put together a good script out of all these elements and of course, the acting was good (Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, I could watch those two read a phone book) and the final moment between Jean and Logan is beautiful, though perhaps over the top. It just...It didn’t quite resonate with the audience. It didn’t strike that chord that the previous two had done and I can only lay that on the direction. I mean, as a slam-bang action movie it’s great...but it just somehow failed the promise of it’s script and the characters. Maybe because there were parts of it that were over the top and you lost your suspension of disbelief.
Like when Magneto broke out of the plastic prison in X2, you bought it. But even though in the comic book he is powerful enough to move the Golden Gate bridge, you just didn’t buy it onscreen. It was just unnecessary. Huge and showy and unnecessary. And as I observed in the comment section below, Magneto doesn’t strike one as the type to leave an access road open to his back.
Maybe that was it, Singer underplayed the powers and this guy over played them, which lost the sense of reality the first two movies had.
Vinnie Jones BTW, makes a great Juggernaught. That was inspired. Beast was good. Kelsey Grammer actually did a good job pulling it off, much better than I expected.
Beast has always been on one my favorite characters because he never took himself too seriously. Yes, he was blue and furry and yes, he couldn’t fit into the “normal” world, but he never became this tortured Phantom of the Opera/Quasimodo character bemoaning his fate. He liked who he was and what he was (though the fact it was hard for him to find a date might get him down occasionally) and could poke fun at himself and the situation, which in the middle of characters like Logan, Storm, Scott, Jean, Rogue, and later Angel became very tortured, Psylocke and just about everyone else in the mansion/school, Hank was a breath of fresh air. He made the book breathe.
Anyway, I would recommended seeing the X3 as a matinee, it’s something to see on the big screen, but you might feel little torqued if you shelled out ten bucks.
I’m going to see Cars tomorrow night (hopefully I will have avoided the “kids rush” this weekend) and will let you know how that is.
It seems that politicians are starting to recognize the power of the internet at last.
While on the outside, it appears as though much of America has been apathetic about politics with the lack of open protest (expect for illegal immigration), the fact is the internet has been politically on fire for the last 4 years. Much of the activism has become electronic in the form of message board discussion, blogs and even videos posted to sites like YouTube.
The internet is the world largest graffiti wall and as such, there is a lot of crap one has to sift through, but it is also instant communication. Information can be spread around the world in practically a heartbeat. You don’t need a placard to raise awareness of something when it’s hitting everyone’s e-mail in a 48 hour period. People who would not normally read a news paper will still read of things not covered by the 6 o’clock news and get better coverage of them. For example this news article that talks about troop withdrawls from Iraq fails to mention what this news article does that the administration is actually talking about increasing troops level short term and intends to leave a significant military presence on the ground there for years (which really comes as no surprise since it came out that the U.S. was building 14 military bases in Iraq during the 2004 elections).
My, my.
But without access to the multiple news sources on the internet, how many of us would hear only one version or another? It sucks that we have to read 2 or 3 or 5 sources to get a somewhat clear picture of what is happening in the world, but at least we can. And unlike a TV network, the ’net also exposes people to multiple ways of interpreting that information. Opinions are also spread around the world faster than the speed of sound. Whether wants to or not, on the internet you will be exposed to different points of view.
“You can’t stop the signal.”
The question come what do we do with that signal? Can something as wildly disparate as the blogsphere truly be harnessed behind a single party, let alone a single candidate, enough to be effective?
(Though I admit, Warner looks a pretty good call at this point.)
I‘m unsure. I disagree wholeheartedly with the notion that the political internet should remain political outsiders simply for the sake of anti-establishment chic, but to attempt to organize the greater internet community into a single purpose would be akin to herding cats. Because everyone has an equal voice (sort of, depending how popular one’s blog is), the wide variety of nuanced opinions are always going to have a presence and draw people into their orbits. The Dailykos is just one of the political nexus points on the net. There are Conservative blogs as well such as CommonwealthConservative and Instapundit whom will also most likely be courted by the time 2008 rolls around. So what we might get is simply a heightened extension of the partisanship seen in mainstream media today that still accomplishes little.
Mew.
However, Moveon.org has been respectfully successful at effecting legislative change through organizing letter writing and phone call campaigns as well as raising money for TV ads so the idea that a political internet presence can translate into RL (Real Life), is valid.
What is going to be fun is watching the watchers. Not too long ago a certain administration was shelling out cash to newspaper columnists to write columns in favor of the administration policies. It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if someone attempted to bribe bloggers, if they haven't already done so. The first time that hits the net…oooo.. nelly. It not like anyone can shut down the Washington Post if it’s discovered one of their pundits took a bribe, but here….hackers can bring down a site practically at will.
But if I start singing the praises of Patriot Act, don’t bother complaining. I’ll already be on my way to Tahiti.
Oh, it’s a brave new world indeed.
Can’t Lose for Winnin’
They can’t even kill themselves without being called terrorists for it.
O.K. how hysterical does Harris sound. I mean really.
Speaking of which, I am very glad Zarqawi is dead. It is sad when any human being dies, but in a case such as his, like Ted Bundy, it’s just better for the world in general. However, I was not so foolish to believe that it would suddenly make things better in Iraq. This was merely a head of the hydra. According some analysis I have read, Zarqawi and bin Laden were on the outs. Now bin Laden can replace him with someone more controllable, someone more in line with al Queda policy. We have removed loose cannon, not sunk the ship itself.
Though I have to wonder at how the military is changing their story from knowing where he was from a tip to now they are claiming they tracked him through cell phone usage while Jordan is claiming it was thier intelligence that helped pinpoint Zarqawi’s location.
You wouldn’t be trying to exploit this to strengthen support for wiretapping, would you Mr. President?
Ugh. Enough with the politics. Y’know, I was actually watching a couple episodes of the X-Files before the race started this afternoon and now I realized why it went off the air: how can you make money off secret government conspiracies when it conducts them out in the open?
Speaking of the race…
Brakes, Braaaaakes!
Once again, another race viewed through Trackpass.
For as much talk as there was about the set-ups for the turns (and Toney Stewart’s broken shoulder), brakes ended up being the biggest issue at Pocono this week, including Jeff Gordon’s which went out completely, sending him into the wall at 190 mph (not a fan, but thank the Gods the guy's o.k) with only 8 laps to go, red flagging the race. From what I hear it was a pretty big mess with Jeffie-pop carrying half the infield with him into the wall, but they got it cleaned up pretty fast.
Well, Mark Martin ran in the top ten for much of the day, but wound up 17th, Dale Jr. managed to bounce in and out of the top ten, ending up 14th.
Elliott’s day was...well, it was better than last week. Handling problems at the start, especially through turn three, dropped him in the back, but continued adjustments had him running lap times pretty much on par with the leaders and managed to break his way into the top ten twice (once I think through the shuffling of pit stops, but once he did it the hard way) but around lap 150 his brakes started to fail as the temperature changed (affecting the handling) and he ended up finishing 20th.
Perhaps in a *small* way this is turning the corner…sloooowly.
BUT....someone needs to exile that boy to Emporia for a few days. I fully understand this has been a rough time for them. I understand it’s a driver’s job to complain and let the CC know what wrong with the car, but jeezus. I don't think I heard a single positive word out of him the entire race. He is wound so tight he was actually complaining more the higher up in the field he got. In general Elliott is an upbeat, positive guy. I understand how rough things have been for the team, but lately this is simply not him. This whole “taking on the weight of RYR on my shoulders” thing has gone far enough. Can he be the lead driver in a multi-car organization and lead it to VL, to a championship? Yes. Of that I have no question. But with all due respect to Mr. Sadler's strength, determination and senses of duty and honor which are very admirable and some of the bigger reasons I am a fan, as well as understanding what he has said about his position at RYR as the starting QB, if you will; A. *IF* the wieght of RYR falls on any one set of shoulders in particular, I would think it would be the Yates' (and they have been at this a while) and B. no one can’t stay wound that tight for that long without things unraveling and as much trouble as this team has been having, the last thing they need is the driver unraveling. He needs to go home, play with his dogs, hug his nieces, go have a beer with his friends and get some perspective.
On the way back down to Charlotte just fly low over Virginia and kick him out.
On a more positive note a friend of mine caught Elliott up in the booth for the Busch race and said it was one of the best “guest announcers” they’ve had in the booth for quite some time. He was very informative without being obnoxious (ah, a trait I envy). Well done! *golf clap*
I also heard he was going out to Eldora in September to play in the dirt. *Yea!* :)
It’s starting to thunder here…another rain storm coming through.
X-Men
I went to see this Friday evening and found it…eeeghn. All the elements were there, but it just couldn’t pull it off. The script was good, it combined about 3 or 4 different storylines that were originally in the comic books and did so rather cleverly. The two principal ones being The “neutralizer”, which in the book took Storm’s powers for many years (and she still led the X-Men because she was so kick-ass, much unlike the Halley Berry portrayal) and the Dark Phoenix Saga, which is widely considered one of the greatest story sequences in all of comic history.
In the book, the X-Men are on a space station (this is like soap opera for 13year olds, bear with me) and the only way they have to escape the exploding station is a damaged shuttle with insufficient shielding. Jean makes the decision that she will pilot the shuttle in using her TK (telekinesis) to try to protect her from the radiation (this was the Cold War, there was always crazy radiation out there). Well, when the shuttle crashes, Jean emerges from the wreck much more powerful and chooses a new code name: Phoenix. She is powerful to the extent you see in the movie where she can manipulate things on a molecular level. She can access too much power, but her decline is very slow and she is ultimately pushed over the edge by another telepath into Dark Phoenix, which is what you see in the movie. Well, this happens and that happens and she eats a star (no kidding), destroying an entire inhibited world in the process and Wolvie when given the opportunity and asked to by Jean, can’t kill her himself, so eventually she commits suicide (not like “going out in a blaze of glory” kind of way, but just quietly offing herself) right in front of Scott, which pretty much destroys him for about…oh…I think it was about 15 years or so before he ceased to be complete mess...and then she came back (because no one in comic stays dead…..soap opera for teenagers, remember) and he was an even bigger mess.
They also tried to include Storm’s confrontation with Calisto, though Calisto didn’t have super speed, she was just always had a can of whoop-ass at the ready.
Which BTW-that character broke the cardinal rules of super hero creation. If you character has more than one power, they must be related in some way. Especially if the character is a mutant who’s mutation would be following a specific path of genetic adaptation.
Remember that, it’s important. ;)
Anyway, they managed to put together a good script out of all these elements and of course, the acting was good (Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, I could watch those two read a phone book) and the final moment between Jean and Logan is beautiful, though perhaps over the top. It just...It didn’t quite resonate with the audience. It didn’t strike that chord that the previous two had done and I can only lay that on the direction. I mean, as a slam-bang action movie it’s great...but it just somehow failed the promise of it’s script and the characters. Maybe because there were parts of it that were over the top and you lost your suspension of disbelief.
Like when Magneto broke out of the plastic prison in X2, you bought it. But even though in the comic book he is powerful enough to move the Golden Gate bridge, you just didn’t buy it onscreen. It was just unnecessary. Huge and showy and unnecessary. And as I observed in the comment section below, Magneto doesn’t strike one as the type to leave an access road open to his back.
Maybe that was it, Singer underplayed the powers and this guy over played them, which lost the sense of reality the first two movies had.
Vinnie Jones BTW, makes a great Juggernaught. That was inspired. Beast was good. Kelsey Grammer actually did a good job pulling it off, much better than I expected.
Beast has always been on one my favorite characters because he never took himself too seriously. Yes, he was blue and furry and yes, he couldn’t fit into the “normal” world, but he never became this tortured Phantom of the Opera/Quasimodo character bemoaning his fate. He liked who he was and what he was (though the fact it was hard for him to find a date might get him down occasionally) and could poke fun at himself and the situation, which in the middle of characters like Logan, Storm, Scott, Jean, Rogue, and later Angel became very tortured, Psylocke and just about everyone else in the mansion/school, Hank was a breath of fresh air. He made the book breathe.
Anyway, I would recommended seeing the X3 as a matinee, it’s something to see on the big screen, but you might feel little torqued if you shelled out ten bucks.
I’m going to see Cars tomorrow night (hopefully I will have avoided the “kids rush” this weekend) and will let you know how that is.
posted by KiplingKat | 10:48 PM
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