Blood Libel: Ignorance, stupidity or political doublespeak?
Posted: January 12, 2011 Filed under: politics, stupidity, weird 5 Comments
(image of a ‘Blood Libel’ at right courtesy of a circa 1939 German Nazi newspaper)
In response to criticisms over the gun related metaphors and imagery used by SarahPac and other politically right-leaning pundits, political candidates and media gadflys in light of the Arizon shootings, Sarah Palin has responded with a video in which she stated, “Journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.”
Her statement is bizarre for so many reasons, and I’ll make no apologies for admitting to my dislike of Palin. For one thing, it seems strange (and ironic) that Palin, who poses as one of the great supporters of the doctrine of personal responsibility, should feel aggreived when someone else gets shot. My own view is that if you encourage someone else to shout ‘fire’ in a crowded theatre, people are going to be angry at you if they get injured in the stampede for the exit, whether or not you were one of the ones doing the stampedeing. Using terms like ‘reload’ and ‘second ammendment remedies’ and putting ‘surveyor symbols’ on ‘target’ state representatives is going to be viewed as ‘questionable’ when someone does go out and shoot people. That’s one of the risks of making public statements — they can (and will) come back to bite you in the ass.
But I’m also disturbed by Palin’s use of the term, “Blood Libel.” It apparently dates back to the gospel of Matthew where Matthew reports that the Jews who agitated for Jesus’ execution said, “Let the blood be on our heads.” In the middle ages, ‘Blood Libel’ was used to encourage hatred of Jews and to support the false claim that the Jews used the blood of Christians in secret ceremonies. This reasoning was later picked up by the Nazis and other anti-Semites. So “Blood Libel” has a long (and hideous) history.
Unfortunately, Palin didn’t present her remarks in a historical context, so we don’t really know what she intended to mean by the ‘blood libel’ claim. Was it just an accidental pairing of two words? Given Palin’s fundamentalist christian bent and the wording of the phrase, “manufacture a blood libel,” (rather than something more direct and less biblical in tone, like “commit libel”), that seems unlikely. Is Palin an anti-Semite? It wouldn’t surprise me. Or is the inclusion of the word intended as a double meaning to Palin’s supporters and foes alike? Is she tossing this offhand reference to ‘blood libel’ into the mix in order to stir up the obvious claim of anti-Semitism from her foes so she can once again turn that accusation around and say to her followers, “See? The lamestream media really IS against me! Now they are accusing me of anti-Semitism!”
I’m thinking the latter is a definite possibility.
Crazy people with guns
Posted: January 11, 2011 Filed under: politics, stupidity 3 CommentsI read today that in 2010 in Pima County, Arizona, about 45% of the mental health patients were forced out of public treatment programs because the tax payer didn’t want to pay for those services. I wonder if any of the voters who voted down public financing of mental health services last year will make the connection that having their state representatives and judges and children shot dead in a grocery store and not having sufficient mental health services might be in any way related.
Go figure.
Whose fault is it?
Posted: January 9, 2011 Filed under: politics, stupidity, wierd stuff Leave a comment
(BTW, the picture at right is not actually Sarah Palin, but instead is pornstar Lisa Ann who portrayed Palin in a porn film. Lisa Ann is as close as you will get to a picture of Sarah Palin in my blog… unless you have a picture of Sarah Palin killing a puppy or slapping a child; I’ll put that on my blog).
One of the Palin ‘SarahPac’ spokespersons, Rebecca Mansour, has claimed that Sarah Palin and her supporters have been unfairly targeted by the media and states that the symbols are not ‘gunsights’ but map surveyor symbols. Strange how someone else gets shot and Sarah Palin is suddenly the victim. Shortly after the controversey, the graphic disappeared from the SarahPac website (which begs the question of whether or not those ‘cross hairs’ were indeed ‘surveyor symbols’ rather than gun sights… if they were just innocent surveyor symbols, why suddenly decide to take the graphic down?). Back in March of 2010, even media personality Elizabeth Hasselbeck, a Palin supporter, said the ‘gunsights’ were in poor taste and no one from the Palin campaign contradicted Hasselbeck or corrected her by announcing that they were ‘surveyor’ symbols at that time. It’s pretty clear (to me at least) that if Sarah Palin and her followers claim that there was no ‘violence’ in the message they were giving out, that they are lying sacks of shit — but, then again, what else is new?
However, despite my active dislike of Sarah Palin and everything she stands for, I can’t honestly say that I think she is responsible for the shooting. The things she says and tweets and posts on Facebook are stupid and reprehensible and I wish she wouldn’t say them… but they are also just words, and, unfortunately, given her right of free speech she has as much a right to say those words as I do to criticize what she says.
From my recollection, in 1995 when Timothy McVeigh detonated his bomb at the Alfred Murrah Building in Oklahoma, there was a period of stunned silence afterwards. The Limbaughs and the O’Reilleys and the others (whomever the lefty equivalents of Limbaugh might be — Rachel Maddow?) didn’t immediately chime in to offer blame (although, let’s be honest, then President Clinton did benefit, politically, from the unfortunate event — and his opponents like Newt Gingrich were forced to step back a bit from their anti-federalist rhetoric). Today it seemed like the politicals and pundits couldn’t wait to start blaming each other — the blood and brains were not yet cleaned up off the floor of the Safeway before the finger pointing began.
Am I a part of a culture of "always buying shit"?
Posted: January 6, 2011 Filed under: moaning, philosophy 7 Comments
When I tour the different discussion sites having to do with RPG stuff, I frequently come across posts about buying stuff and links to sites where one can buy stuff. There is cheap and stupid stuff for sale. You can buy steel, hematite or wooly mammoth ivory dice. There are even high end ’boutique’ sites that cater to the ‘geek culture’ with all sorts of stuff like Geek Chic where you can buy an $8,000.00 gaming table. And they now make a USB drive shaped like just about anything.
I have to confess that while I LIKE buying and owning shit (I am an American, after all), part of me thinks the whole “Geek is the new cool” and “express your unique individuality by buying more shit like a sword handle umbrella or a set of Lord of the Rings Plush minis” begins to make me a bit sick. Because, let’s face it, if you need a table to play games at, do you really need one that costs 8 grand? Do you carry an umbrella to keep the rain off your head or do you carry an umbrella with a samuri sword handle to impress your cubemates at how wacky you are? And if you collect things like Gandalf plushies and you are over 8 years old I don’t even want to know you.
I don’t know if I am a geek or not. I’m not good with computers or math (in spite of having one lightly used MSITM degree). I can’t tell you which actor played Doctor Who in which episode nor do I have a strong opinion on whom the best doctor might be (my default answer is ‘Tom Baker’ because I know his name). I can’t speak Klingon nor do I know the Vulcan calendar. I don’t really like gaming conventions (I have been to two). But somehow I fit the definition of ‘geek’ or I am ‘geeky.’ And when a large part of the definition of ‘geek culture’ seems to be ‘buying clever and useless shit’ or ‘collecting one pristine sample of everything and keeping it in mint condition,’ then I want out.
I realize that for me to rail against the ‘rampant consumerism’ of ‘geek culture’ is a lot like the pot calling the kettle black. I try to make money by illustrating RPG products. I have about 100 lbs of vintage lead minis (including a Jabberwocky and an Umber Hulk) in my basement. I buy more books, art supplies and music than I probably should, given my budget. Right now I’m trying to make some money by making some mosaic items that I hope people will buy (unemployment is like that). I even published my own game book via Lulu (which probably makes all of my “I don’t wanna be a geek” talk kind of ridiculous — and did you see how I snuck in a link to it? Buy a copy, please? Thanks!). But there is stuff and there is crap — and, I’m sorry, but most of what is sold through ‘Think Geek’ or other similar sites is useless crap.
I don’t know where I’m going with this. Maybe I’m just fed up because more and more of our lives seem to be spent on paying for or buying things… maybe it’s just male menopause or a mid-life crisis. What about making and inventing things? Miller (played by Tracey Walker in Repo Man (1984)) said, “The more you drive, the less intelligent you are.” Maybe that’s true. Everybody drives in Detroit and we have some astoundingly stupid people out here (like the guy who leaned on his horn and gave me the finger the other day because I made a left turn). But I also wonder if just spending a lot of time acquiring more and more stuff we don’t really need also makes us stupid.
2011 is a year when I will buy less. I’m still buying tools and art supplies, books and I’ll include a small budget for music. I’ll buy electronics and similar stuff only if I must (my S.O. has asked for a DVR capable TV because Netflix is phasing out discs by mail in favor of downloads). For the rest, I’ll do my best to recycle, re-use, repair or self manufacture.
Buying Art in the OSR
Posted: January 1, 2011 Filed under: art, OSR, publishing 7 CommentsI wanted to continue the conversation that developed in the comments portion of my last post because I think it’s worth talking about. One set of comments that struck me were from Jim of LotFP and B. Portly Esquire:
JimLotFP said…
>>The thing that irks me about Raggi’s
attitude is that claims to be an “art director” and knows best.
What’s the alternative? One thing that
is totally escaping me in this conversation is how I’m to get the right
look and feel if I take a hands-off approach.More than anything else in
this whole publishing thing, dealing with artists is the big thing that I’m
still largely in the dark about.
I’m not going to call anyone out on this one, because I think the positions of both people have merit. But I hope that a majority of problems can be avoided if expectations and the philosophy that drives them are made clear up front. Maybe that’s just the optimist in me talking because I seem to have had more than my fair share of misunderstandings and fuck-ups.
As an artist and photographer, there are actually only a few things have really made me want to put a bullet in a project in my past work, but they all seem to boil down to actions or events that cause me to feel as though my time and efforts are not valued or are taken for granted by the client. I don’t know if that makes me ‘uppity’ or not. But maybe I can start the conversation by talking about what I want as an OSR artist.
It drives me insane when someone comes to me asking that I do work that I am obviously not suited for. I don’t draw with a computer tablet. I don’t paint like Larry Elmore. I don’t do anything in an ‘Anime’ style. I’ve never drawn something “furry” or “Toonish.” There is nothing like that in my samples or on my website. So I guess I don’t understand why some people seem to keep asking me for that… especially when portfolio sites like ‘Elfwood’ or whatever all over the web are bursting with people who do that kind of stuff. This is especially galling when the requester only gradually reveals that this is what they want… when, three or four emails into the conversation and I’ve been sending them sketches and trying to pin down what they want, they finally say, “Can’t you do more of an anime style?” Motherfucker. If you could strangle people via email I would be a murderer several times over.
If, as a client, you have a laundry list of requirements, deliver them in advance. If you are the client, realize that you may not always get 100% of what you want (especially if you think of it late in the process). Over on Dragonsfoot I remember reading some dick ranting on and on about how the picture of the mindflayer in the original Monster Manual had little pupils and the description said that the mind flayer didn’t have pupils. What a dicksack. If, as a client, you can’t handle the occassional discrepency between what you wanted and what you got, then go to art school and learn how to draw because that is the only way that you are going to get 100% of what you want 100% of the time. If, as an artist, you absolutely can’t stand to make any changes ever, then illustration (where you illustrate someone else’s book or idea or whatever) may not be for you.
My time is valuable to me. I get resentful when someone sends me a big manuscript and says, “You are the artist… read this over and pick out a dozen different illustrations that you would like to do, then do sketches of them and send them to me for approval and I’ll tell you what changes to make.” Honestly, I do not want to read your manuscript or be your unpaid art director or layout artist. My one-time usage price assumes that I can just sit down and draw the thing and send it to you and be done with it.
Obviously, my loyalties are on the ‘artist’ side of things… but I want to work in illustration and I want people to be happy with my work so I try to understand the client point of view. And I’m trying to teach myself how to avoid problems and identify clients that I may not be able to have a productive relationship with. So part of what I want to tell Jim of LotFP is that he should try to find artists he can work with who can consistently deliver the ‘look and feel’ that you want and allow that it isn’t brain surgery — occassionally, the artist might draw pupils on the mind flayer(whether because you forgot to tell him or he didn’t read your art direction)… but if you get most of what you want most of the time, you are doing pretty well in the grand scheme of things.
I don’t know if what I have written here is helpful or not — I hope it is. I think it’s a conversation that the members of the “OSR” publishing community need to keep having. From my own experience in the world of commercial print production, the problems of the OSR artists and OSR art directors are not unique to the OSR — they are just part and parcel of the collaborative process of getting something to print. Personally, I like the D.I.Y. aesthetic of the punk-era ‘zine and think too many OSR publishers are hung up on making their product look like it was published by TSR circa 1985… I wonder if OSR publishers would do better to celebrate the “warts and all” aesthetic of the small press… but that’s just one opinion.