Delivering Justice on Heaven's Behalf

Walked into the comic store and hit instant geekout to find Lackadaisy Cats in print. Stunning art, great storytelling and fun characters. I am finding it a lot easier to read the print version than online, which is kinda true of comics for me in general - reading comics on the screen gives me eyestrain.

Check it out, and if you like it, definitely worth ordering!

99% of the time, those in privileged positions asking for "education" are not actually asking to learn something. Instead they're engaging in dishonest debate- the questions aren't aimed at learning something, but rather designed as challenges - it's not about information, it's about dishonest debate.

The two usual giveaways about it are:

a) An unwillingness to do research and effort on one's own - that is, if you point the person to books, websites, movies, historical events to research, they refuse to bother doing any effort on their own.

b) Any answers are met with more challenge-type questions, which almost always involve shifting the terms of debate, each time. It's not about more understanding, it's really just disguised versions of "I don't believe you, PROVE IT TO ME, AGAIN.", which repeats until you stop, at which point they can rest easy, because clearly you're wrong, the idea is bunk, because you couldn't summarize it in a half hour conversation or 3 email/comment exchanges.

Under that logic, most science would also be wrong as well...

The whole behavior is basically a form of concern-trolling- "Well, but educate me, since I'm being polite and reasonable and therefore you OWE IT TO ME, and if you, individually, don't sell this idea to me RIGHT NOW, then the whole idea is bunk." (also note the egotism in the demand; the immediate assumption of servant/served relationship...)

It's easy to get caught in this game, because we're so used to having to justify and explain and defend ourselves, not to mention usual internalized 'isms.

But basically, the answer is to point people to do some research, and come back later if they're actually interested. Anyone who is, will go ahead and do that, and anyone who isn't, isn't worth your time.

They're not asking a real question, and aren't worth a real answer.

90's hiphop mood today:

A little bit of kali stickwork in this video. Also "We're the reason they made the 4 pound go blaow" - I wonder how many folks will catch that reference to the origin of the .45 caliber bullet?

Bambu: Slow Down (with Prometheus Brown of Blue Scholars) from Beatrock Music on Vimeo.

(If you're on my flist, you probably already know, but hey, I got this book yesterday, and read it all by today, so that says something...)

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms has two fascinating premises: Enslaved gods being used as the foundation for an empire, and a young woman, Yeine, thrust into a battle for the throne in a nest of hateful political intrigue.

Instead of the typical "Fantasy quest" format, 100K Kingdoms chooses to follow more along the lines of brutal detective fiction - it's all about secrets, betrayals, forbidden affairs and revenge, revenge, revenge. And this is what makes it work - the story stays strong in the characters and the situation, not falling into fantasy element fanboyism. The characters are all multilayered, with interesting motivations, even the secondary characters.

As I read this book, I could only think more and more to the detective genre, especially as Yeine just finds each answer providing more questions, and the pressure being turned up, each step of the way. Yeine's portrayal skillfully manages to stay in the space of an intelligent and determined protagonist, yet inexperienced and under extreme pressure - her mistakes are understandable and human.

Bonus: People of color! Gay characters! In fantasy! And it doesn't have to be "special interest"!

Quibbles: I feel like the Yeine is the only female character who gets fully rounded out. The Goddesses, Scimina, Yeine's mother, all felt like folks I wanted some more scenes or motivations from. (Relad, too, as a male character I wanted another scene or two with).

Overall: I highly recommend it! It's a fun read, has fantastic characters, scary magic, and shady, shady drama.

So, after many years, I've finally found a full scanlation and read the end of the series! Shadow Star was released up to Vol. 7 in the US and the remaining 5 volumes never translated.

Narutaru is a funky manga about kids that find and control monster/alien things known as Dragons. It starts off innocent and cute, and quickly goes where you'd expect combining children and superpowers... it got violent halfway through as kids start using their dragons to kill bullies, lash out against family sexual abuse, attempt to remake the world based on shitty 13 year old Libertarian fantasies, etc.

What kept me going was that Kitoh does a great job of keeping characters complex and real- he didn't dumb down the kids as innocent or two dimensional- likewise, the adults had a lot of shaded nuance as well. You have some teenagers having casual sex, some teens completely awkward and goofy, etc.

Sadly, the last part of the series completely failed the premise. Kitoh ramps up the tension super high, and completely drops the ball in trying to tell an Armageddeon story- we got complex characters and relationships- all of which are erased with meaningless deaths, and less and less reaction/response from the survivors in a very rushed fashion. Plus rape scenes near the end, killing off the gay character in the most sadistic fashion of the whole series, and... yeah. I had been looking to finish reading this series for years now, and I'm left feeling disappointed in the end.

I'd recommend it mostly if you're interested in seeing someone write interesting characters and relationships on a technical level, but not so much for enjoyment - it's really heartbreaking in how things just get dropped.

Glad to see Golda is still rocking it!

A neat photo essay on Toisan. Though the pictures are cool, I wish there was more writing about them.

For instance, the fortified housing towers in the 9th picture? An evolution of the classic village watchtower to protect against bandits and warlords. As one of the poorer regions, Toisan villages were often left to their own in dealing with the anarchy of the times, and so, had to set up their own means of protection.

The emigrants sent back a lot of money to build schools, factories, and even a railroad. When the cultural revolution hit, a lot of these things were destroyed or dismantled and the people who built them painted as petty-boogie oppressors. So much for reunited the worker with the fruits of their labor.

I hope some linguists are doing studies in Toisanese - I heard that it has words that actually have found no translation in Cantonese or Mandarin, which would be pretty interesting to check out. Aside from Toisan, it's a scattered language, across the globe, spoken mostly by older folks in Chinatowns well pushed out by Cantonese, and now, Mandarin.

Willow has an excellent post on Hollywood racism.

Though it spirals around the issues of Avatar the Last Airbender, the real issues she talks about- that Hollywood has roles for us, that these roles reflect what white supremacists (from white liberals to klansman) imagine are the "proper" roles for us in society, that Hollywood finds our cultures, our stories, our creations compelling if only it could have white people instead - these issues are really the bigger picture that is the problem.

Go read!

I picked up Sanjay Patel's Ramayana: Divine Loophole earlier this week.

The art is awesome. There's usually not a lot of middle ground for me and iconic style artwork, but Patel's line work and shapes just really do it. Plus super bright colors. Each page spread has a beautiful scene and a paragraph or two detailing the section of the story covered. He keeps a pretty causal voice through the whole story, which makes it a perfect book for reading to the kids.

I'd write a huge review, but really, it's pretty awesome - go click the link and drool.