The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach

May 2008
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ad Finem Fidelis

To the end, faithful

Thespiatic

By mongreldogs | May 14, 2008

Wow. It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything. Someday soon I’ll document what a blur my April and May have been, as explanation if not excuse. Meanwhile, let me share my tiny contribution to the recent play The Peter Pan Project, conceived as a community-written work. The prompt was, “Describe the moment you grew up.” My response is below the fold.

But first, I have to say: I was not ready for the emotional punch of hearing someone else read my words to an audience. The staging was absolutely perfect (thanks, Aaron!) and the impact was overwhelming: A solitary actor, at the right edge of the stage, a forlorn spotlight piercing the otherwise pitch-dark room. And these words:

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Topics: Writing, personal, teaching * No Comments »

TAGS: Janus Players | Peter Pan | play

The decline of American political reporting

By mongreldogs | April 17, 2008

As always, let me begin by stating I am an Obama supporter, so I’m a mite sensitive on the following. But it shocked me this morning to hear NPR’s coverage of the “debate” last night. We’ll leave aside the astonishing fact — which they tried to explain away — that forty minutes (nearly half the debate!) focused on indirect or minor issues of the campaign … on the sort of thing that everyone knows is silly but raises because it’s going to matter to someone else. Yes, I mean Jeremiah Wright and Rezko and especially the tempest-in-a-teapot “bitter” comments.

But then the NPR anchor mentioned that the “point” was to see if Sen. Obama could survive the same pointless assaults in the general. The reporter, Juan Williams, sagely agreed and commented “Obama seemed pretty bruised by both sides” in the debate.

Both sides? Really?

I had been under the naive delusion that the two sides of the debate were Senator Clinton and Senator Obama. Is Juan Williams really implying that the Illinois senator bruised himself? That he was launching attack upon ludicrous attack on himself? No, that’s just nonsense. So I had to think deeper, and suddenly I had a flash of inspiration. Juan Williams was being unwontedly candid about the dynamics of American political coverage.

There were hotel furnishing in Bulgariathree sides represented yesterday: Senator Obama, Senator Clinton, and the self-appointed, self-important, scandal-driven, smug media. Apparently they too are officially arrayed against Senator Obama, at least now that he is the presumed frontrunner. It’s the most striking confirmation of the bias the press has against anyone succeeding… first they build you up, then they cut your feet off, then they blame you for tumbling and failing to meet everyone’s (that is, their) expectations.

Viewed that way, Senator Obama was bruised by both (other) sides in the debate. Indeed, considering he was taking fire from an unexpected direction and from a supposed non-combatant, he came through pretty well, I think. It’s going to be a slog to the convention, and it’s going to be hard on any American interested in a fair process, but I think he showed the strength that will carry him there.

Topics: personal, politics, review * No Comments »

Bitter taste

By mongreldogs | April 12, 2008

For full disclosure, I am an Obama supporter, I feel he is the best candidate both in terms of electability and in terms of actual ability to do the job. I’ve watched his campaign with interest and rising enthusiasm. All of that said, I think people have to recognize that his statements in San Francisco, saying that working class people are “bitter” and so “cling” to their guns and their religion, has been a giant misstep. It was a gaffe pure and true, and he is paying the traditional price: Time spent off-message, defending and responding rather than proposing and advancing.

A lot of what he says is true, nonetheless, and if you read the context, you will see that his major sin is choosing words that can be taken many ways. And hey, it’s politics, and politics ain’t a tea party. His opponents can, and probably should, use this to their advantage in an attempt to define him for America. That doesn’t mean that I agree that his remarks were “elitist” and “talked down” to working class America. But it’s McCain’s right, or Clinton’s right, to make that case.

Obama’s main problem was his choice of the word “cling”:

And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

This would all have passed without notice if he had chosen his words better. For example, if instead of saying people “cling” to guns or religion, he could have said they “fall back on” guns and religion — the things in their life that they can control, that give comfort and surety. Why didn’t he? To be honest, because it is all too easy for a Democrat to fall into language that dismisses such beliefs as tools of cynical manipulation. Here’s the bigger question: Why is it so easy? Because for a generation and a half, one party (the Republicans) have used those beliefs as tools of cynical manipulation. Appeals to patriotism, to gun ownership, to faith, are easy and cheap and — if the record of the Republicans is any guide — meaningless.

The truth of that lies in the speed and tone of the response from both McCain and Clinton. They piously promise to protect the little guy, they publicly feel umbrage for him, they pat him on the head. They don’t speak to the concerns that Obama did, the reasons that he thinks that middle America might be “bitter”. They don’t offer any actual solutions for their distress. Instead they facilely promise to somehow recover every job that’s been lost.

Obama missteps because he tries to speak about the plight of the working class without having been a member. He doesn’t get the lingo. Fair enough. But the other two nominally-major candidates go much further. They celebrate their false membership in the working class. They too have never belonged but they appoint themselves to feel the outrage of the class.

In the end, in my opinion, that is condescending — that is “talking down” to the working class.

Topics: politics, ramblings * 3 Comments »

TAGS: bitter | Clinton | Democratic | Obama | primaries

Star Wars at 31

By mongreldogs | March 30, 2008

Apparently Spike TV is running all of the Star Wars movies as a “mega saga event” over the course of the next weekend. I happened to come across their “ultimate trailer” online, which stitches together bits from all six movies. And strung together like that, all those bits suddenly make clear what’s gone so horribly awry in the Star Wars franchise:

The later movies (Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith) are certainly much busier than the first three.

But they aren’t any better.

It would seem that George Lucas’ sole “lesson” is “more lasers! more droids! more ships! more explosions! Oh, dear God, many more explosions!” It’s become a cliche that modern filmmakers allow special effects to overwhelm the story; George gives them a play-by-play on how to do that.

Meh.

Topics: movie, review, science fiction * 1 Comment »

Lunacon 51 (2)

By mongreldogs | March 15, 2008

Lunacon 51 (2)
Some thoughts on my second con (should that be “sec-con”?), jotted down at midnight, though they’ll be posted much later.

The first panel I intended to attend was “Yesterday’s Tomorrows”, a documentary on the failed vision of futurists from the 1930s through 1960s. Due to the weird layout and unpredictable spacetime anomalies that have caused the Lunarians to christen this hotel the “Escher Hilton”, I arrived at the room far in advance of the panel. Indeed, I arrived at the start of “Not 2B Toyed With”, a 12-minute movie that the moderator assured us was absolutely hilarious. She had to assure us, because she couldn’t show us, because in the rush to pack for the con, she’d left the DVD at home. But she was appropriately contrite and, at the suggest of a snarky audience member (me), proceeded to illustrate by sock puppets, stopping only when, well, she ran out of socks and hands to put them on.

As it turned out, “Not 2B Toyed With” – even though it never actually showed – was a better presentation than “Yesterday’s Tomorrows”. The latter, it developed, was a 1999 documentary financed by Disney and shown on Showtime exactly once. The moderators liked to call it “the documentary Disney won’t let you see” (since the studio hasn’t released it at all) but there isn’t anything spectacular about it. Instead it was a bunch of self-involved baby boomers narcissisizing about their impressions of the vision of futurists. It had a lot of cuts to semi-celebrities pontificating, like you find in those “I Love the 80s” shows on VH-1. It was a true waste of my 90 minutes.

I spent some time in the game room, watching some people play “Ninja Burger”, a Munchin-esque game from Steve Jackson Games. It looked pretty fun, actually, and funny and clever as you’d expect from SJG. I also played a round of BANG!, a spaghetti Western shoot-em-up card game. It’s one of those games with hidden objectives – no one knows who the outlaws or deputies are – that had a complicated but manageable cardplay system. I was “The Apache Kid” and the renegade, and I did well for two rounds, until I was accidentally blown up by the very same dynamite I’d put into play. *Sigh* It’s from Mayfair Games, and I think I’ll try to find it online when I get home.

I dropped back to my room to get some dinner (the restaurant was closed by now – a costly mistake on my part) and then went to “Sex Done Right”, a panel on writing about, well, sex. And though it’s easy enough to dive for the gutter, it was actually a semi-serious writers’ craft panel. It had a certain self-involvement among the panel members, though, that quickly killed my interest in their thoughts on writing. I check out as soon as one said, in all seriousness, “But then the werecat morphed and I had to think, will he rip through her? She couldn’t morph, of course, since she was a vampire….” That told me I’d wandered into a particular corner of fanspace, one that holds no attraction for me (and, to be snobbish, one that seems to draw poor talent).

I was also reintroduced to that universal con character, Annoying Guy One Seat Over. There was a nebbish first-time con goer sitting next to me who was too enthusiastic, too eager, and too clueless to be tolerated. Many panels seems to develop such a guy – who has to comment on everything, who is clueless about his cluelessness, and who overrates his own intelligence/humor/relevance. The major ecological function of Annoying Guy One Seat Over is to spread humility – to remind us that we too can be annoying, overbearing, etc. Many a time in a panel I sit back and ask myself, “Is that really a valid point? Or am I devolving into Annoying Guy One Seat Over?” It’s a useful check.

Topics: fantasy, personal, science fiction, travel * No Comments »

TAGS: convention | fantasy | Lunacon | science fiction

Lunacon 51 (1)

By mongreldogs | March 14, 2008

Well, here I sit in the Hilton Rye Town waiting for Lunacon to get started. If you are paying more attention to this blog than you should be, you’ll recall that I attended Lunacon 50 last year as well. This year I managed to reserve early, so I am staying at the correct hotel and don’t need to shuttle back and forth. I also arranged to come up on Thursday (the night before the con opened) so that I wouldn’t feel rushed. Originally, this was intended to be my entire Spring Break trip (before committing to go to Ocala to see my mom).

It took longer to get here from NJ than I had expected — nearly four hours door-to-door. Some of that was just waiting for trains, of course; and some of it was being whisked around Rye, NY by a cab driver who, it turns out, didn’t actually know where the Hilton Rye Town is. At least this time there wasn’t a sudden blizzard.

It leaves me with the question of what to do until the con starts. Since I dragged this laptop all the way up here, some of the time will hopefully be spent writing (and more than just blog posts).

Topics: fantasy, personal, science fiction, travel * No Comments »

TAGS: convention | fantasy | Lunacon | science fiction

Why We Fight

By mongreldogs | February 15, 2008

Every once in a while, someone comes along and says something that makes you wish you had said it first. For me, it’s often Keith Olberman. In this clip, he calls out President Bush and names him for what he is. Let’s hope it’s like we read in those fantasy novels — that naming someone undermines their power.

Only eleven months to go — this old Republic might just manage to survive the Worst President Ever.

Topics: politics * 1 Comment »

Review: His Dark Materials

By mongreldogs | February 3, 2008

His Dark Materials:

The Golden Compass

The Subtle Knife

The Amber Spyglass

a triology by Philip Pullman
InstaRating: 4 out of 5

This trilogy has apparently sparked quite the bitter controversy, especially online. It’s a tale of High Fantasy, quite consciously in the vein of Tolkein or C.S. Lewis, but it takes a tack quite different than, say, The Chronicles of Narnia. Rather than a vague naturalistic faith that is actually Christianity in disguise, Pullman’s universe has Christianity in fact — but it’s unremittingly evil, dedicated to snuffing out all that is light and free in the world. I can see why believers are outraged…

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Topics: books, fantasy, review * 1 Comment »

Civics Lesson

By mongreldogs | January 23, 2008

I’m sure that this is going get me marked as a rabid Obama supporter (which I am not). But I can’t help but gush over his impressive response on the issue of church and state. In an interview with BeliefNet, he was asked, “You wrote in The Audacity of Hope about the role that faith and faith-based programs could play in confronting social ills. Isn’t your view on that similar to George W. Bush’s?”

His answer — the clearest exposition of the centrist American position on faith that I have ever seen — follows below the fold.

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Topics: law, politics * 2 Comments »

separation of church and state

Finally, an unvarnished truth from Senator Clinton

By mongreldogs | January 22, 2008

In the Jan 21 debate, on the subject of national security, Senator Clinton said,

And if it is indeed the classic Republican campaign, I’ve been there. I’ve done that.

See? She’s confessing that she and Bill really do steal plays from the Karl Rove playbook… she’s “done” a Republican campaign.

Wait, wait. You say that that’s not what she meant, that “clearly” she was commenting on the kind of campaigns she’s faced, not endorsing those tactics? I don’t know, it sounds a lot like parsing it to have it both ways…

(Obviously, I hope, I’m trying to draw a comparison to the freak-out that occurred when Sen. Obama noted the historical fact that Ronald Reagan was good at motivating people to vote Republican. Somehow his clear-as-day remark transmogrified into worship at the altar of Reagan. But Clinton’s comment — that her nomination would put us through the same Republican assaults we’ve suffered since, well, 1992 — apparently that’s not worthy of note.)

Topics: politics * No Comments »

Civics Lesson

Finally, an unvarnished truth from Senator Clinton