tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21444397740187201812024-03-17T23:10:51.259-04:00Den of the Cyphered WolfJust a place were I keep all my videos, poems, short stories, essays and whatever.Greg Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137462690789551098noreply@blogger.comBlogger1411125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2144439774018720181.post-35490151689377757082023-10-25T10:05:00.002-04:002023-10-25T10:05:22.362-04:00I Owe A Lot of People Apologies<p>About 3 years ago, I had a mental break and was diagnosed with schizophrenia During the mental break I tweeted lies about Brenda Lawrence, then congresswoman of my district, to whom I haven't really apologized. Also, I was just generally angry and paranoid toward people trying to help me. I was particularly surly towards the medical staff at the mental hospital I was in. I am currently on medication and haven't suffered a break since but after all of that I couldn't really go back to normal as if nothing happened. I also wasn't sure how I should apologize or even if.</p><p>After I started taking medication, I decided maybe I needed to "touch grass" some and realize not as many people read my Twitter account as I think. Maybe the best thing to do was just to stop tweeting and blogging for a while and not drag people into my bullshit. I'd also be lying if I said I wasn't afraid of how all of that would help me find a normal job.</p><p>While some of all that was writer's block it's been around 3 years and I find I want to get back to writing. And the first step is taking responsibility for my failings.</p><p><br /></p>Greg Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137462690789551098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2144439774018720181.post-91980200603947631102022-06-13T09:43:00.006-04:002022-06-13T09:43:53.040-04:00Stuff I'm Watching or Have Watched Recently<p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b><i> Night Skies</i></b></li><li><b><i>We Own This City</i></b></li><li><b><i>Young Justice: Phantoms</i></b></li><li><b><i>The Time Traveler's Wife</i></b></li><li><b><i>Obi-Wan Kenobi</i></b></li><li><b><i>Ms. Marvel</i></b></li></ul><p></p><p><b><br /></b></p><p><b><br /></b></p>Greg Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137462690789551098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2144439774018720181.post-14714525547175330602022-05-21T11:08:00.005-04:002022-05-21T15:38:19.588-04:00Review: Love, Death and Robots: Volume 3<p><iframe frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/1cotItdK_Eg" style="background-image: url(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/1cotItdK_Eg/hqdefault.jpg);" width="480"></iframe></p><p><i>Love, Death and Robots</i> volume 1 was really good but each return to the anthology has had diminishing returns. Specifically, volume 1 had twists that would turn each preceding story on its head leaving the viewer wondering what they had just witnessed. </p><p>That's not really the case in volume 3 which is overall more predictable, more "what you see is what you get."</p><p>It still looks gorgeous, but it no longer feels as if each short justifies its own existence. </p><p>Then again maybe it doesn't have to. Each short is still watchable even if I can't help but compare it to the absolute surprise and surprises that comprised volume 1. </p><p>The best short of season 3 is probably "Swarm" but as soon as it's done introducing its premise becomes obvious about the direction it's taking.</p><p>David Fincher's "Bad Traveling" feels like it has to be more than it is only to reveal at the last second that it is. </p><p>In a vacuum, volume 3 is watchable, especially considering its format and runtime. Each episode is only about 15 minutes long and there are only 9 of them. All in all, each season is about the length of a good movie. But it feels as if the potential of the first volume has been lost.</p>Greg Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137462690789551098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2144439774018720181.post-15366495447332600192020-09-06T06:42:00.004-04:002020-09-18T18:32:50.634-04:00My Thoughts on Ancillary Justice<p>So I found I really like The <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17333324-ancillary-justice">Imperial Radche</a></i> series. And of course, when I finish a book, or movie, or game I like I surf the internet to see what other people thought about it and they hated it. </p><div>Well, that's overstating the case. What attracted me to the book, other than the algorithm is that it won a ton of awards. But it is a case where at least anecdotally there is a dissonance between the critics and the general audience.</div><div><br /></div><div>In the end, I don't particularly care. There are millions, hell trillions of stories and I don't personally believe in the universality of those stories. If I were 15 years younger maybe but I'm long past the age where I feel compelled to force the world to like everything I like.</div><div><br /></div><div>Still, I'm finding a lot of the things that other people disliked are things I specifically liked. And that's worth examining. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b>It's Boring</b></div><div>It's not the most interesting thing about the story but it's worth mentioning, many of the major conflicts in the story aren't solved by a big battle. This is a story where a lot of the action occurs by talking. And I kind of like that. There are plenty of stories where the heroes win by killing the bad boss at the end. This is more a story of diplomacy. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Yes The Book Has Progressive Politics and That's Okay</b></div><div>It doesn't matter now but this book was a target in the backlash against progressive politics in science fiction and fantasy. This isn't 2014. By now everybody knows the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sad_Puppies">sad puppies</a> are stupid. But I've still seen the sentiment and people trying to defend the book by saying it's not that political and progressive and...</div><div><br /></div><div>Look the third book has a B plot where a couple breaks up because one of them can't wrap their head over what a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microaggression#:~:text=Microaggression%2520is%2520a%2520term%2520used%2Cgroups%252C%2520particularly%2520culturally%2520marginalized%2520groups.">microagression</a> is and getting back together when that person learns to "check their privilege". </div><div><br /></div><div>If you're argument is that this book is apolitical you're wrong. Subjective truth, power to reader, death of the author yada yada... you're wrong. </div><div><br /></div><div>And this bothers me specifically because people "not seeing race" or gender or sexuality. Is kind of a button for me because not seeing it gives them license to act abhorrently in regards to those things. </div><div><br /></div><div>So when not just this story but ANY story stands up and says, <a href="https://www.pbs.org/video/slavery-another-name-system-sharecropping/">THIS</a>. THIS is what I'm about when it specifically is about people being blind to those things I find it particularly infuriating. </div><div><br /></div><div>...There is a reason why in a series about an expansionist, domineering (and racist don't forget the racist) empire, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JdQQffE8io&ab_channel=GoodMorningBritain">EVERY FIVE MINUTES THE CHARACTERS STOP TO TAKE TEA!</a></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://twitter.com/lilly_wachowski/status/1262104754496339968">Lilly Wachowski says hi.</a> </div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>On Personhood</b></div><div>So like the Fifth Season, Imperial Radche is about personhood. I want to be careful about saying it's about racism even though it is A LOT of science fiction and fantasy is about racism. And a lot of it is done badly. Racism isn't bad because racism is bad. Racism is bad because it SUCKS BALLS for your humanity to not be recognized. </div><div><br /></div><div>It is a story about a sentient machine slowly discovering it has feelings, and then asserting to the powers that be that those feelings are valid and should have been considered even within the framework of its own actions. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Gender and Language</b></div><div>So one of the things that turns people off of the series is that it uses feminine pronouns for all genders. I don't think that ALL of the backlash against this creative decision is misogyny. It is a decision that does make the book harder to read. But it's also a show don't tell thing. </div><div><br /></div><div>Part of how the book explores the concept of personhood is through exploring how language can restrict or expand thought and expression. The book goes through GREAT pains to explain how in the language most of the characters speak the word for civilization and the word for citizenship to the dominating nation-state are the same implicitly making ANY conversation either the nation-state, "citizenship" or "civilization" implicitly exclusionary. </div><div><br /></div><div>English doesn't really have a gender-neutral singular other than "it" or "one" which have their own implications in a story about personhood. The language itself forces people to make presumptions about gender. And the book is trying force the reader to confront that. To confront how the language itself can force them into certain thoughts. </div><div><br /></div><div>Like I said this is a book where a lot of the conflicts are solved or even initiated through talking and as such both the audience and the characters are conditioned to understand implicit statements. How someone chooses to dress, or stand, the exact wording of a statement, what's not said and even what can not be said because neither the language nor the mental framework of the participants in the conversation to adequately describe something sometimes something important... like personhood exists. </div>Greg Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137462690789551098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2144439774018720181.post-87813123585513258902020-08-14T07:41:00.004-04:002020-08-26T19:01:28.781-04:00So... Infinity Train is back<p><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5lCscBFY2Lg" width="320" youtube-src-id="5lCscBFY2Lg"></iframe></p><p>So <i>Infinity Train </i>is back. It was one of the best new animated shows of 2019 so I'm really excited to see where it goes. In case you don't know the basic premise is that kids are whisked away to a magical train to deal with their "issues" via puzzle challenges designed to teach them something. Which sounds kind of like every other kid adventure story except that <i>Infinity Train</i> sticks to its guns. These are kids with actual issues that could cause them to turn to the dark side if unchecked, no matter how likable they are now and the train IS... NOT... SCREWING ... AROUND in its quest to beat some sense into them before things go south. </p><p>I don't want to get too heavy into spoilers but the interesting thing about season 3 and why I'm so excited is that we were introduced to this season's protagonists as minor antagonists in season 2 who have utterly refused the train's guidance so this season it's going to be a heavier lift to redeem them than kids who already feel kind lousy about whatever is screwing with their heads and just want things to shake out alright. </p><p>Like I said I don't want to get into spoilers. While each season of <i>Infinity Train</i> tells a complete story the episodes themselves are really short. So short that just giving a description kind of gives it away. Hell, it takes season 1 like two or three episodes to explain the logic of the train and even then the season has a few plot twists that turn everything on its head making it so that even talking who the main characters of season two creates a giant spoiler. </p>Greg Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137462690789551098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2144439774018720181.post-86587900404918167592020-08-05T08:45:00.006-04:002020-08-09T12:31:48.314-04:00Black Sci-fi/Fantasy Books Through July and Early August 2020...Okay so it happened slowly but surely. I burned <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usy0VmL4KyM">through most </a>of the new TV shows and movies wanted to watch on streaming. Production schedules are screwy right now on top of the fact that I've just been watching more lately... for reasons. I got a free subscription to audible and rekindled my habit of reading.<div><br /></div><div><b>A Word on Audiobooks</b></div><div>It's been a while since I've gotten new physical books but for a while, I've been subscribed to <a href="https://ebookclub.tor.com/" target="_blank">Tor's free ebook club</a>. What I've kind of found is that I just don't have the attention span I used to so while I have a lot of books <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32606889-the-lamb-will-slaughter-the-lion?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=JZEvyyl1zd&rank=1">a lot</a> of which <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32758901-all-systems-red#">are good</a> I haven't really worked through them. </div><div><br /></div><div>Part of what got me into reading as a child is that at school there would just be long spans of time where I couldn't do anything else, attendance, the bus, latchkey. As an adult, I think it's even stupider but a lot of my teachers could never just say do whatever the hell you want as long as you don't bother anybody during times like that. To be fair to them I've taught, well substitute taught and there is just some stuff that's a bad look. Anyway, they did tolerate the quiet kid reading stories about <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfJhJJjbGv4">alien invasions</a>. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>Aside</i>: Don't watch the Animorphs TV show. The closest filmic thing to what the books "felt like" is <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=praQkvivkUE">The Faculty</a>, </i>which is probably why to this day it's my favorite horror movie.<i> </i>I was already primed for it. </div><div><br /></div><div>But that's not now. I've got a computer in my pocket whenever I go out and these days again for... reasons I don't go out much at all. There is enough to do that books aren't really my only option anymore. </div><div><br /></div><div>That being said I've found it's easier for me with audiobooks. With an audiobook, if I get distracted for a minute or two or start dooffing around on my phone in the slower bits it seems less like a big deal rather than reading print where the story stops when I stop, though I know that may come off disrespectful to the writers that the story may not have my full attention. </div><div><br /></div><div>The speakers on my computer were busted and I never really had the cash to spend to fix them so one of the first things I did with my COVID-19 check was to get some new speakers and fix a few other things that bugged me about my computer. </div><div><br /></div><div>It took me a while but eventually, I started to think about all the stuff that I would have liked to do them and audiobooks made the cut. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>I Love It But... It Can Suck</b></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YI1xmwqGEBw" width="320" youtube-src-id="YI1xmwqGEBw"></iframe></div><b><br /></b></div><div>I love science fiction and fantasy and have for a while. They are my genre of choice. But specifically with fantasy. It annoys me how everything comes back to white people. The default setting for fantasy is medieval Europe and while for the most part, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndl1W4ltcmg">I can get into that grove when I want </a>to annoys me that a genre whose name derives from its infinite possibility consistently excludes other histories and other stories. I made the decision that if I get back into reading fiction regularly I would try to make the effort to read more black science fiction and fantasy writers. </div><div><br /></div><div>This is to say that while I did and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F17zuaRJG0U&t=29s">do read other stuff </a>today at least I focusing on stuff from Black authors. </div><div><br /></div><div><b><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57504.Brown_Girl_in_the_Ring?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=U6RAViHm7k&rank=1">Brown Girl in The Ring</a></i></b></div><div>It's not the first book I picked up but it's been on my list for a long time. Fantasy as a genre is in the shadow of Tolkien who <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xh8akuq-MDI">loved the old stories</a> and used them to make new ones. As I said it annoys me that at least until recently I didn't really see a lot of stories doing the same with other old tales, at least ones that aren't from Europe. </div><div><br /></div><div>This one does. </div><div><br /></div><div>You might want a quick primer on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoruba_religion">Yoruban</a> and Caribbean folklore. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38496769-the-broken-earth-trilogy?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=RGKnQUzPMw&rank=4"><i>The Broken Earth Trilogy</i></a> & <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21481566-the-inheritance-trilogy?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=7jhxAq268x&rank=1"><i>The Inheritance Trilogy</i></a></b></div><div>Both of these series by the same author are good and are worth reading but <i>The Broken Earth Trilogy </i>feels as though it's a ground-up reworking of the Inheritance Trilogy which is why I think they work better together than as a single read. Both book series feature peoples that seem alien as major players to the plot. The Inheritance Trilogy is more so ABOUT these peoples than the Broken Earth. And so it takes a bit longer to get into the heads of these people though once you get into the grove it's not hard. </div><div><br /></div><div>As a result, I think <i>The Broken Earth</i> is the more accessible read since it's the characters at its focus are a little bit more relatable. And then once you get used to the idea that these are still people, which is part of the point of both series, come back to <i>The Inheritance Trilogy.</i></div><div><br /></div><div><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25667918-binti?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=KckSlMfxqN&rank=1"><i>Binti</i></a> & <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30038654-home?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=KckSlMfxqN&rank=3"><i>Binti: Home</i></a></b></div><div>I read these as e-books and I still need to read the third book in the series. They are shorter than everything else I read... which is good. I like N. K. Jemisin but at least the stuff of hers I read has been big and epic with both The Broken Earth and Inheritance Trilogy taking place of thousands, in the case of The Broken Earth Trilogy tens of thousands of years. </div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_FpV0CZjxY">The scale of those stories can get ... exhausting</a>. So I was and if I'm being honest still am looking something smaller and more intimate. For that Binti is a good start. But... it feels very much like it's written for a younger audience. </div><div><br /></div><div>Which isn't bad but sometimes does take me out of the story. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b>Other Notable Mentions/Stuff I'm Thinking About</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60926.Lilith_s_Brood?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=BC5bwD2gWP&rank=1" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Lillith's Brood</a><b>:</b> I've read Lilith's Brood before. In fact I consider it to be the most complicated, densely intellectually packed novel I've ever read. I kept stopping to just mull over what the main character said for a bit. It's a book of ideas. <b> </b>N. K. Jemisin's writing style kind of reminds me of that and it has similar themes of change and imperialism so I kind of want to revisit it. </li><li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/71409.Midnight_Robber?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=ltm6oRISHf&rank=1"><b>Midnight Robber</b></a></i>: <i>Brown Girl in the Ring</i> was Nalo Hopkinson's debut. When I read writers talking about writing many are jaded by the fact that their first novel defines them when they've grown (mostly I'm talking about William Gibson and Neuromancer) If I find an author I like I kind of feel I owe it to them to give later stuff a chance and a lot of people have said that <i>Midnight Robber</i> is a better book. </li><li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34728667-children-of-blood-and-bone?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=LSNKQnRGr7&rank=1"><i><b>Children of Blood and Bone</b></i></a>: I know next to nothing about this one but it keeps showing up in my recommendations. </li></ul></div>Greg Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137462690789551098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2144439774018720181.post-39883182897853890282020-04-16T14:07:00.000-04:002020-04-17T01:13:58.531-04:00Me Bloviating About Economic Policy and COVID-19So yesterday was there was a big giant protest at the capital about Governor Whitmer's various executive orders and my initial reaction was. Ehem.<br />
<br />
DO Y'ALL WANT TO DIE!!! HELL DO YOU WANT ALL OF US TO DIE! WHAT THE HELL ARE Y'ALL DOIN'. STAY THE HELL HOME DAMN IT!!!<br />
<br />
But then I calmed down. And realized once you scrape away the trumpisms, and confederate flags, and the guns, they do have a point.<br />
<br />
Not being able to work for a lot of people means not being able to pay your bills and that sucks. I want to be clear. I'm not talking about the cult of work where people just want to "get back to normal" and start "doing stuff again". I mean folks where the disruption caused by COVID-19 will have serious life-altering consequences. Folks who can't buy groceries. Folks who might lose their cars. Folks who are worried about their kids dealing with permanent losses to their educational attainment.<br />
<br />
The best way to mitigate that is finding ways to essentially "pay people to stay home." For a lot on the right paying people not to work is anathema. So I doubt we're going to get the response we really need to encourage the types of behaviors that would create optimal public health outcomes. But I can think about it.<br />
<br />
I can think about UBI. I can think about paid sick leave (without the loopholes). I can think about college debt forgiveness. I can think about medicare for all. I can think about paycheck protection. I can think about a national moratorium on utility shutoffs and evictions.<br />
<br />
And I want to be clear a lot of these things this pinko scum supported before the pandemic.<br />
<br />
But then the question always becomes how do you pay for it.<br />
<br />
<b>Increasing the National Debt </b><br />
My feelings on the national debt have been chiefly influenced by the 2008 financial crisis where a lot of economists I trust have stated that due to the politics of the era politicians didn't go far enough when it came to using public spending on programs to fix the crisis. There were lots of reasons for this but one of them were of debt hawks.<br />
<br />
This is 2020 not 2008 and thus far I haven't really heard much from anybody on that front but generals always fight the last war. The real risk of national debt spending has nothing to do with moral imperatives but rather the risk that interest payments will crowd out other government spending in a death spiral that collapses the public sector.<br />
<br />
To that end increasing the national debt to mitigate a larger or more immediate economic crisis is a good investment and just common sense.<br />
<br />
<b>Cutting Spending</b><br />
<b>...</b>I live in Michigan. The last decade of public policy in this state has been robbing Paul to pay Peter. I honestly believe that there are not many more places to cut money from both the federal and state budgets that will not be felt. If not immediately eventually.<br />
<br />
This is going to be a long crisis. The government is going to have to do a lot. And I have a fear that eventually to get anything done the representatives in both levels of government are going to ask for spending cuts in other areas. And I'm going to hate it. I'm going to hate it so much.<br />
<br />
<b>Raising Taxes</b><br />
I have a firm belief that taxes are the price we pay for civilization. At the same time. A lot of people are hurting right now. Time for some wealth redistribution.<br />
<br />
So I am in favor of essentially progressive tax reform (and a UBI) that would lay the burden of paying for this emergency on the people most able to do so without harm.<br />
<br />
But I am also aware that those people are the most capable of utilizing and mobilizing the systems of economics and government to not do that.<br />
<br />
Furthermore, the last few years have turned me into a jaded cynical bastard. We are not a society of self-sacrifice for the greater good. I wish we were. We are not.<br />
<br />Greg Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137462690789551098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2144439774018720181.post-21644505651128505352019-07-28T17:44:00.001-04:002019-08-26T14:22:23.027-04:00Well Arena's A Bust (For Me)<div bis_size="{'x':16,'y':8,'w':653,'h':315,'abs_x':485,'abs_y':170}">
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So for the past couple of weeks I've been trying to get back into playing Magic the Gathering. Extra Credits came out with <a bis_size="{'x':160,'y':359,'w':130,'h':17,'abs_x':629,'abs_y':521}" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81kmeSSjzCs&t=5s">a couple of episodes</a> about how to play and it got me interested in the game again, though <a bis_size="{'x':107,'y':377,'w':168,'h':17,'abs_x':576,'abs_y':539}" href="http://www.cypheredwolf.com/2017/07/theyre-all-magic-gathering-tv-shows.html">I was mostly there already</a>. For the most part that's meant that's been me trying to get back into the lore or the game, write out cards I like, and figure out what is the basic deck tech would and could use in standard. Basically, I've been mapping a lot of stuff out in my notes. </div>
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But I've also tried getting into Arena and I think I kind of hate it. </div>
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<b bis_size="{'x':16,'y':485,'w':137,'h':17,'abs_x':485,'abs_y':647}">How Did I Get Here</b></div>
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Before I get started I kind of want to be clear that I don't think Arena is a necessarily a bad game but I don't like my personal experience with it and will probably drop it. Which is to say you very well may have a blast with Arena. I just didn't. And a lot of that has to do with the void left by Magic Online 3.0.</div>
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Okay so in college I played the hell out of Magic Online. I was slowing down a bit after I graduated because I couldn't afford new cards but I hadn't really quit the game until Summer 2014 when they forced everybody to switch to Magic Online 4.0 and I just could not reliably get it to work on my computer. Eventually, I did but I never got back into the nearly daily habit of playing the game mostly because even when I got it working again I was broke and couldn't afford new cards. A couple of times I tried playing with my old stuff but getting anything past standard going in constructed casual Magic Online these days is hard. I should probably start a playgroup or something but that's beside the point. </div>
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<b bis_size="{'x':16,'y':755,'w':0,'h':17,'abs_x':485,'abs_y':917}"><br bis_size="{'x':16,'y':755,'w':0,'h':17,'abs_x':485,'abs_y':917}" /></b></div>
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<b bis_size="{'x':16,'y':773,'w':100,'h':17,'abs_x':485,'abs_y':935}">Why Do I Play</b></div>
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Some of my difficulty of getting into Arena but not all it of has to do with the fact that Arena doesn't really deliver on the things I want out of my Magic game. </div>
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<i bis_size="{'x':16,'y':845,'w':29,'h':17,'abs_x':485,'abs_y':1007}"><u bis_size="{'x':16,'y':845,'w':29,'h':17,'abs_x':485,'abs_y':1007}">Lore</u></i></div>
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<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" bis_chainid="1" bis_depth="1" bis_id="fr_35rmhbnndu3ygp4aegmkch" bis_size="{'x':16,'y':863,'w':560,'h':315,'abs_x':485,'abs_y':1025}" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YVGxIpbp2H0" width="560"></iframe><br bis_size="{'x':576,'y':1178,'w':0,'h':0,'abs_x':1045,'abs_y':1340}" /></div>
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Before I even started playing the actual game I read <a bis_size="{'x':350,'y':1196,'w':116,'h':17,'abs_x':819,'abs_y':1358}" href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/582876.The_Brothers_War"><i bis_size="{'x':350,'y':1196,'w':116,'h':17,'abs_x':819,'abs_y':1358}">The Brother's War</i></a>. For those who don't know it is a novel based around the lore of the Antiquities set. <i bis_size="{'x':349,'y':1214,'w':4,'h':17,'abs_x':818,'abs_y':1376}"> </i>Part of me is sad that Wizards has basically <a bis_size="{'x':16,'y':1232,'w':125,'h':17,'abs_x':485,'abs_y':1394}" href="https://www.coolstuffinc.com/a/samkeeper-10252018-a-brief-history-of-wizards-being-bad-at-selling-books">given up on novels </a>but that's another post. The point I like to build decks that represent an aspect of the story Magic the Gathering.</div>
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We're closing from a third Ravnica block but I can't really play any of the older Ravnica cards in this app. So while I can make a red-blue deck I can't really make an Izzet deck. And the same goes for Dominaria, planeswalkers and tribal decks in general. </div>
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So honestly I mostly play the game as a way of testing and iterating interesting deck ideas. The interface of Magic Online blows in a lot of ways but deck building ain't one of them (with the exception of stats. 3.0 let you see your deck stats. but I like their deck builder. I hate Arena's. To be fair I didn't spend much time with it, but I couldn't find a way to easily remove multiple cards in a deck at a time. So, for instance, the thing that broke me is I decided to splice blue into a green and white deck because I wanted a card draw. And it was a nightmare taking lands out so I could have space to add blue mana, and worse when I changed mind and wanted to change the deck back. </div>
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Moreover, Arena is really grindy. I've been playing for a few days and at the rate, I'm going I don't really think I'll have the cards to make a deck that passes what I call muster and play against actual people for a month unless I dump a boatload of cash into the game. I'm not even talking a super chase rare tournament deck either, just something that has the <a bis_size="{'x':374,'y':1907,'w':71,'h':17,'abs_x':843,'abs_y':2069}" href="https://scryfall.com/card/dom/33/serra-angel">uncommon</a> and <a bis_size="{'x':477,'y':1907,'w':62,'h':17,'abs_x':946,'abs_y':2069}" href="https://scryfall.com/card/xln/65/opt">commons</a> I use for basic deck tech, the types of <a bis_size="{'x':129,'y':1925,'w':329,'h':17,'abs_x':598,'abs_y':2087}" href="https://www.mtggoldfish.com/price/Guilds+of+Ravnica/District+Guide#online">cards that in Magic Online are worth about a penny</a>. </div>
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<b bis_size="{'x':16,'y':1961,'w':171,'h':17,'abs_x':485,'abs_y':2123}">I Hate Those Animations</b></div>
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Honestly, I'm so hard up to get back into the game that I'm actually willing to put up with the other stuff but the game chugs on my P.C. I have an old as tar computer and half expect it from games. But this is a card game. All the bells and whistles are not inherent to the core experience in the same way for shooters and real-time strategy games. It's made all the worse because I'VE PLAYED HEARTHSTONE ON MY RIG FINE!!!! I didn't like the feel of it compared to Magic but it runs. My instincts are telling me that the reason for all the particles and animations that slow down the game on my rig is that Wizards wants to compete with Hearthstone. But you know what? Hearthstone runs on a cell.</div>
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To be fair it's still in beta but as it is I kind of hate Arena. </div>
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<b bis_size="{'x':16,'y':2159,'w':0,'h':17,'abs_x':485,'abs_y':2321}"><br bis_size="{'x':16,'y':2159,'w':0,'h':17,'abs_x':485,'abs_y':2321}" /></b></div>
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Greg Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137462690789551098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2144439774018720181.post-37236693443953935212019-07-07T07:55:00.002-04:002019-07-07T07:57:19.770-04:00The Moment<div bis_size="{"x":16,"y":8,"w":653,"h":315,"abs_x":485,"abs_y":171}">
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So for a solid week everybody was talking about how Kamala Harris challenged Joe Biden on race and at least at the time my take was what were you expecting. For months we've all known what Joe Biden's Achilles heel is. He's an older politician who's been around forever and over the course of his career has said and done some stuff that the new guard finds distasteful at best and repugnant at worse. </div>
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What's actually surprising is that he didn't see it coming. From where I sit, something like this was virtually guaranteed to happen and Joe Bidden was to have memorized "the speech". </div>
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"That was 40 years ago. I've seen other perspectives and taken in some new information. I was wrong and have I've changed my mind on that particular issue."</div>
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But he didn't.</div>
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And that he didn't sort of encapsulates the broader race as a whole. </div>
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See what's also been known forever is that there are<a bis_size="{"x":347,"y":647,"w":242,"h":17,"abs_x":816,"abs_y":810}" href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-six-wings-of-the-democratic-party/"> factions within the Democratic Party.</a> <a bis_size="{'x':16,'y':332,'w':651,'h':53,'abs_x':485,'abs_y':467}" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DYwoB92Ox9N4">Don't get me, for the most part, they all hate Donald Trump and are probably going to work out their differences before November 2012 but they hate him for different reasons.</a> </div>
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You have a wing of the party which hates Donald Trump because they have an ideology and resultant policy goals based on that ideology that has been very slow to have been enacted even before Trump was elected and since then has ground to a halt and another wing of the of the party that hates Donald Trump largely because he brakes the machinery of state by being actively disinterested in said machinery. </div>
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And this was the rare moment where you had representatives of both of those ideologies talking to each other. </div>
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Greg Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137462690789551098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2144439774018720181.post-34820238527392086112019-05-19T11:52:00.000-04:002019-05-19T11:58:37.759-04:00It's Fine. I've Seen Worse. <div bis_size="{'x':16,'y':8,'w':653,'h':18,'abs_x':485,'abs_y':143}">
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So the scuttlebutt is that<i bis_size="{'x':169,'y':8,'w':114,'h':17,'abs_x':638,'abs_y':143}"> Game of Thrones</i> is going to botch the landing tonight. And I have feelings about that, mostly surprise that I really don't. The truth is that while I understand folks' frustration, as far as unsatisfying television turns go <i bis_size="{'x':259,'y':44,'w':110,'h':17,'abs_x':728,'abs_y':179}">Game of Thrones</i> wouldn't make my list. For me it's still watchable. Maybe not as good as it could have been, but still a decent way to kill time on a Sunday night. Here's what would make my list of good shows that went to crap fast though. </div>
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<i bis_size="{'x':16,'y':98,'w':0,'h':17,'abs_x':485,'abs_y':233}"><br bis_size="{'x':16,'y':98,'w':0,'h':17,'abs_x':485,'abs_y':233}" /></i>
<b bis_size="{'x':16,'y':116,'w':28,'h':17,'abs_x':485,'abs_y':251}"><i bis_size="{'x':16,'y':116,'w':28,'h':17,'abs_x':485,'abs_y':251}">Lost</i></b></div>
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Is it as bad as <i bis_size="{'x':106,'y':471,'w':27,'h':17,'abs_x':575,'abs_y':606}">Lost</i>? 'Cause it's not as bad as<i bis_size="{'x':295,'y':471,'w':31,'h':17,'abs_x':764,'abs_y':606}"> Lost</i>.</div>
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So the first season of Lost is good but unremarkable, <i bis_size="{'x':357,'y':507,'w':55,'h':17,'abs_x':826,'abs_y':642}">Survivor</i> but if<i bis_size="{'x':451,'y':507,'w':59,'h':17,'abs_x':920,'abs_y':642}"> Survivor</i> actually had writers. The second season though is nuts. It was the middle of the <a bis_size="{'x':393,'y':525,'w':86,'h':17,'abs_x':862,'abs_y':660}" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrOwItvH-q8">writer's strike</a> and whoever was left threw spaghetti on the wall. There were some interesting moments but as a whole, the show was an incoherent mess.</div>
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Then the back half of the third season managed to pull a minor miracle and actually explain all the weird stuff that happened. The island is actually a temporal anomaly. The fourth and fifth seasons were about <a bis_size="{'x':90,'y':633,'w':325,'h':17,'abs_x':559,'abs_y':768}" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_dH4xOFp9w">exploring a place where time doesn't work the way</a> you think it does.</div>
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The sixth season pretty much junked every interesting thing that was happening in the show by that point just to answer a bunch a fan questions and theories that had long since stopped being relevant when the writers had a clear answer to shut everybody up.</div>
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Time Travel is a hell of a drug.</div>
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<b bis_size="{'x':16,'y':759,'w':0,'h':17,'abs_x':485,'abs_y':894}"><i bis_size="{'x':16,'y':759,'w':0,'h':17,'abs_x':485,'abs_y':894}"><br bis_size="{'x':16,'y':759,'w':0,'h':17,'abs_x':485,'abs_y':894}" /></i></b>
<b bis_size="{'x':16,'y':777,'w':47,'h':17,'abs_x':485,'abs_y':912}"><i bis_size="{'x':16,'y':777,'w':47,'h':17,'abs_x':485,'abs_y':912}">Heroes</i></b></div>
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The first season of Heroes is tight. Everything and I means everything that happens gets tied to the main plot. The second season also got tied up in the writers strike but it's just rushed. There are still a lot of good ideas in there they just aren't executed well, the third on the other hand, oh boy.</div>
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Mostly it's the character inconsistencies that bother me. Everybody got hit with it but the worst is Mohinder.</div>
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He's the series smart guy. Sometimes that's good. Sometimes it's bad. But Mohinder doesn't act rashly... until he injects himself with untested drugs so the writers have an excuse to turn him into the fly.</div>
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<b bis_size="{'x':16,'y':1308,'w':131,'h':17,'abs_x':485,'abs_y':1443}">Once Upon A Time</b></div>
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I ...</div>
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....</div>
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Uhh</div>
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I don't hate Once.</div>
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I kept coming back to it but every season there would be at least one big thing that turned me off. But there are two big ones.</div>
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The first was in season 3B when they brought back Rumplestiltskin. Season 3A is his redemption arc. Really to be honest most of season 2 is that as well. And his arc in season two is his slow realization and acceptance that he can't be the good guy. At least he can't be a straight hero which is what he wants. <a bis_size="{'x':61,'y':1879,'w':108,'h':17,'abs_x':530,'abs_y':2014}" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5emLOxUzHs">His death speech</a> is all about accepting that and doing something worthwhile anyway and it was the best closure that character was ever going to get.</div>
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And they undid it in three episodes flat.</div>
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Season 5 was essentially the story mandating the Emma Swan turn evil for no other reason than the script said. Which in my mind is actually worse because it undermines the redemption arcs of the villains having their <a bis_size="{'x':16,'y':2005,'w':646,'h':35,'abs_x':485,'abs_y':2140}" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaqxAEx46Zk">magic being the source of all their problems when the show always hinted there was something else there</a>. It retroactivley ruined almost everything that was good about that show. Specifically it makes <a bis_size="{'x':154,'y':2041,'w':190,'h':17,'abs_x':623,'abs_y':2176}" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p43vsrE2a90">previously interesting villains</a> boring if all of their motivations could be boiled down to magic made me do it.</div>
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<b bis_size="{'x':16,'y':2095,'w':77,'h':17,'abs_x':485,'abs_y':2230}"><i bis_size="{'x':16,'y':2095,'w':77,'h':17,'abs_x':485,'abs_y':2230}">Andromeda</i></b></div>
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I don't know why but I never really gravitated to Star Trek as a kid but I did watch a lot of stuff that was, "Star Trek" adjacent. And Andromeda is basically a grittier Star Trek where The Federation has fallen and instead of being a naval crew comprised of the best officers in the sector, the cast is a bunch of ragtags brought together by chance and the promise of a big score.</div>
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Part of what made <i bis_size="{'x':136,'y':2536,'w':74,'h':17,'abs_x':605,'abs_y':2671}">Andromeda</i> interesting was that most of the crew were self-interested. They all had relationships with one another but at the end of the day, they all had secrets and ulterior motivations for staying on the ship. This ain't about the power of friendship and they all knew that.</div>
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<a bis_size="{'x':16,'y':2608,'w':102,'h':17,'abs_x':485,'abs_y':2743}" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCRMbQQ3z3Y">Specifically Tyr</a>. whose defining characteristic was that "Tyr only does what's good for Tyr". The characters understood it. The audience understood it. Evidently, the writers didn't understand it.</div>
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Season 3 turned him into a cackling bad guy. And I hated it so much. To be fair a lot of season 3 doesn't bring it up so it's watchable. The actor just isn't there after his character's sudden but inevitable betrayal. But in the series finale, he comes back basically as a Disney villain and I hated it so much.</div>
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Greg Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137462690789551098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2144439774018720181.post-41947350347950110892019-05-02T07:30:00.000-04:002019-05-02T07:30:41.436-04:00Colbeck's War on Social StudiesSo, Colbeck's war on social studies is <a href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/2019/05/02/opinion-leftist-bias-evident-social-studies-standards/3628423002/">something I find infuriating</a>, largely because districts, schools, and teachers, have to make value judgments in the material they elect to pass on to students and value judgments are a key part of political judgments.<br />
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Colbeck's not wrong to point that out and pull away the curtain. I disagree with which way the needle swings and I'll get to that but if he just dropped the mic at the assertion that what kids are taught in schools over time can affect their political ideologies as adults and as such we need to be cautious as to preserve their right to choose what they would believe nobody would argue. </div>
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But then I start reading about the things he actually doesn't like.</div>
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<b>What Are Core (Democratic) Values</b></div>
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There are the rules and then there are the rules. What's more important than respecting a dead piece of paper, or even the system of is government it created is respecting the revolutionary ideas that it represented. Those ideas are the legacy of the founding fathers that we pass on to our posterity.<br />
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Those are core democratic values, the slow forward march against the rule of a dictator who could bar the doors of parliament and disband his country's legislature at whim. Those values did not start nor did they end with a single document least of all not one written by the United States but rather centuries of ongoing ever continuing debate about what constitutes the freedom, what constitutes power and the relation between the two and from where they derive.<br />
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And That is a civics class.<br />
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Or if you want to get fancy a <a href="https://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/john-locke-two-treatises-1689">political philosophy class</a>.<br />
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<b>Let's Talk About Equality</b><br />
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So Colbeck and to be fair much of the Republican party feels the government should not be responsible for equality of outcomes. I disagree but that is not the point. That is a larger and longer discussion. The point is that Colbeck is wary of the implications of the word equality and as a result wants to narrow the context of its use.<br />
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And I hate it.<br />
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When politicians argue over equality they are arguing over what seems to me to be implications of the ideal and this is no different. If we are all created equal does mean we should be all afforded by birth the same, rights, protections, privileges, obligations and opportunities under the law. If that is the case we have a long way to go on that score. <br />
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What does equality under the law actually mean?<br />
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<br />Greg Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137462690789551098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2144439774018720181.post-68905941648261950472019-01-28T09:34:00.000-05:002019-02-02T08:56:46.108-05:00My Thoughts on Titans<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-PPofXaJ4go" width="560"></iframe><br />
So after getting bored and cracking the tape on a free trial of DC Universe, I binged <i>Titans</i> and... I have no idea how I feel about it. So let me work my way through it.<br />
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<br />
<b>The Good Stuff</b><br />
<i>Dick Grayson</i><br />
So a common interpretation of Dick Grayson (Robin I/Nightwing/Batman but not that Batman) is that he is Batman (sometimes literally) if Batman were well adjusted. He's Batman if Batman was able to move past the death of his parents and have a life outside of the pain of the worst moment of his life.<br />
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I like the idea of showing that getting him to that point was a process. And I really like the idea the impetus for the Nightwing persona is that he's realizing he's starting to act a little too much like his mentor for his own comfort, showing that those differences are a deliberate choice on his behalf.<br />
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It's an interesting take on the character that I like.<br />
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<i>The Supporting Cast and Cameos</i><br />
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Almost every interesting character that the audience doesn't have to stick around with for the duration is gangbusters. Hmm, it's like they're from another show or something.<br />
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<i>Starfire</i><br />
Yeah, I got stuff to say about the costume but I actually really like this version of Starfire especially once the show reveals what's actually going on with her. It's a bold choice that makes sense given the character's background and history.<br />
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On the other hand, it's the penultimate episode when they drop those bombs.<br />
<br />
<br />
<i><b>Shrug (I'm Still Processing How I Feel)</b></i><br />
<i>Deconstruction</i><br />
This show is very much in that<i> Kick-Ass</i> deconstructionist place of showing why it would suuuuuuuck to actually be a super. And if you're main exposure to these characters is either of the cartoons it's going to be jarring.<br />
<i><br /></i> I think what they do with the Robins makes it worth it, but if you're tired of<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9juReoJxI0&t=2829s"> gritty DC superhero deconstructions</a> and just want hero classic this ain't your show.<br />
<i><br /></i> <i>Raven</i><br />
So the vast majority of the plot deals with the Trigon arc which is probably either the second or first most well-known story arch of <i>Teen Titans</i>. But they make one big change and how you feel about the show is going to depend on how you feel about the one big change.<br />
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Raven is a normal kid.<br />
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Yes, she has powers but when stuff starts happening she knows jack all of the Trigon business.<br />
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She's just a normal kid, when... stuff starts happening.<br />
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I don't hate the change but it does mean this character is fundamentally different from any other version. It didn't bother me enough to drop the show but sometimes it could be jarring when it's plot relevant that Raven doesn't know what's going on when in almost every other telling of this story she's the only person who does.<br />
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<i>The 90's Came Back</i><br />
The show very much has the feel of a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcj-GvfMv3M">90's prime time genre show</a>, especially for the first few episodes. I actually like 90's primetime genre shows. They had cheesy campy sincerity that I can't help but respect.<br />
<br />
But I also have no illusions that said campy sincerity could come off as unnaturalistic and disconnected from reality. (Sorry <i>Buffy</i>)<br />
<br />
<i>Raven's Mom</i><br />
This is going to take spoilers. In almost every other version of the Trigon story I can think of Raven's mom is one the angels and is often showcased as THE reason why Raven doesn't just let the world burn.<br />
<br />
Raven is traditionally one of those characters where it's very clear that for want of a nail she could have gone "the other way" and joined "the other team". But she doesn't largely because of the influence of her mom(s) and I don't know how I feel about taking that away from both of them.<br />
<br />
<b>The Bad Stuff</b><br />
<i>F/X</i><br />
The effects get better as the show goes on, but it's very noticeable when they don't work and they very often don't work.<br />
<br />
<i>Hawk and Dove</i><br />
So they reimagined Hawk and Dove in about the darkest way I can imagine short of going full-<i>Watchman</i> with it and I literally do not know how I feel about that There are a lot of moments with them that have emotional depth but there is one scene that has <a href="https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/human_rights_vol36_2009/spring2009/restriciting_sex_offender_residences_policy_implications/">politics I disagree with so profoundly</a> that it changed how I was perceiving these characters up until that point.<br />
<br />
They may not be the bad guys but they sure as hell aren't the good guys the story thinks they are. Going back to the <i>Watchmen </i>example <i>Watchman </i>knows The Comedian is an asshole but this story is damn near convinced that Dove I is a saint and I'm sorry, no. No, he's not.<br />
<br />
<i>Starfire's Costume</i><br />
I kind of hate Starfire's costume. It is just jarring and distracting for the whole thing. I don't hate the actress or the character. But, man I hate that costume.<br />
<br />
On the other hand, Starfire has one of the most stripperific costumes in all of comics and there is no way to make that work. The costume needed to be redesigned. I just don't think the redesign works.<br />
<br />
Everybody else is running around in relatively normal streetwear, at least until the Robins gear up, then... "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8xv1MXrwNc">Last Dance</a>". Even the sorceress supreme is rocking a goth hoodie that wouldn't be given a second look in any high school cafeteria.<br />
<br />
All that having been said, it doesn't excuse the bile that's been thrown the actress' way.<br />
<br />
<i>I Hate Cliffhanger Endings</i><br />
Season one ends on a cliffhanger and I kind of hate it. My view of television writing is that the season finale is supposed to be a bookend. It shouldn't end the story but should leave things in a satisfying place. This season finale isn't satisfying. It's made worse by a bunch of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8bl2Vurk7M">obnoxious ads DC</a> has been running that have basically been lying to the audience about what the episode is about. Dear god I hate those ads. Because that scenario they're selling does not make sense within the context of the story and as such it does not have the dramatic weight those ads are selling.<br />
<br />
<br />
...<br />
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Screaming spoilers ahead Batman!<br />
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It's all in his head. The entire episode is taking place in Dick Grayson's head.<br />
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Jason Todd didn't get wounded in action, permanently losing his ablity to walk</li>
<li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJ2hgo0O1Tg">And he sure as hell didn't advocate NOT killing the Joker</a>. </li>
<li>And for that matter Batman also sure as hell didn't decide to actually ace him anyway.</li>
<li>Or kill cops</li>
<li>Jim Gordon isn't dead.</li>
<li>AND DICK GRAYSON DIDN'T KIL... FIGHT HIS SURROGATE FATHER!!!!!</li>
</ul>
<br />
THOSE ADS ARE LIES!!!!!!! NONE OF THAT HAPPENED AT LEAST NOT IN THE STORY PROPER!!!!! HELL NONE OF THAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED IN THE STORY PROPER!!!!! I HATE IT SO MUCH!!!!!!<br />
<br />
They took an entire episode, their LAST episode of the season just to take a break from all of the interesting stuff going on just so they can say ROBIN'S FIGHTING BATMAN! But surprise. It's all in Grayson's head and I was pissed. Like if they actually had the balls to go there and have Dick Grayson decide Batman needed to be put down for the sake of Gotham that would be one thing. It's very in line with his character arc. It does interesting stuff with Jason Todd.<br />
<br />
But it's very obvious this vision in his head and ultimately does not matter to the plot which just kicked into high gear. The show was teetering on being good and they finale got there with all the pieces being in place for a blowout and they wasted their last episode of the season.<br />
<br />
<i>Note: I deleted a link in this post to what I thought was just a movie quote not realizing that it had been edited near the end with a clip video of a real-life fight. I'm sorry I did not mean to do that. </i><br />
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<br />Greg Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137462690789551098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2144439774018720181.post-92083062988884577972019-01-13T08:21:00.000-05:002019-01-13T08:26:22.953-05:00There Has to Be A Better Version of Ready Player One<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cSp1dM2Vj48" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
So I saw <i>Ready Player One</i> and it filled me with disappointment, not rage, not anger but disappointment.<br />
<br />
I didn't hate the movie but the more I rolled it around in my head the more I realize within it's bowels it had the potential to be so much more than it was.<br />
<br />
I think a lot of that maybe a result of going into the movie with expectations of emptiness. I've only recently seen the movie but the internet is my playground. I was around when it was the big new thing to talk about and I didn't escape, "the dialogue" which centered around the book, which to be fair I have not read, having not much more than an excuse plot to take the audience on a walking 80's nostalgia tour.<br />
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And to be fair <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0reVk7l1mAo">the movie is an adaptation</a>. Elevating it any further than Spielberg already did would probably lead to something completely unrecognizable as <i>Ready Player One</i> but still, as it exists there are some many plot threads, characters, and ideas that the story could have explored and chosen not to.<br />
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<b>Welcome to The Bad Future</b><br />
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lG7DGMgfOb8" width="560"></iframe>
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As I ruminate I think of all of the wasted opportunities the movie had to be better but the worst is it's ending which almost makes me want to beat up on Spielberg as an old man who doesn't get the internet and maybe shouldn't have put in charge of a movie fundamentally about how we use technology... and then I remember he directed <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oijEsqT2QKQ">Jurrasic Park</a> </i>.and <i>Minority Report</i>, a movie that might as well be named "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDEFxBMtzsI">The Hubris of Silicon Valley</a>"<br />
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If the man really wanted to create a polemic about the dangers of technology in the modern world even with his usual brand of humanistic optimism he could have.<br />
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Okay for those of you who haven't already seen the movie, the characters are about the future of and fighting in what is essentially a futuristic version of the internet.<br />
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And the movie has a golden opportunity to forge its creed about what the internet is, can be, and should be and its coda is... "the internet isn't the real world"<br />
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And that message seems so... 2002.<br />
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<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dVLiDETfx1c" width="560"></iframe>
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The movie goes through great lengths to signal to the audience that it's setting is a dystopia, that something has fundamentally broken down in society. It's not just that the characters we are following are poor the entire world is poor, the entire world is broken.<br />
<br />
And what caused it. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tC_5mp3udE">The consolidation of economic and/or political power into too few hands?</a> Nope. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urrqW4_3IBg">The loss of individual privacy</a>? Nope. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zhLBe319KE">Environmental devastation</a>? Nope. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWB6Ufh4O98&t=36s">Some sort of a pandemic</a>? Nope. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlwtiOyaoo0"> A depletion of limited resources</a>? Nope. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWgPnQi-XG4">A degradation of culture that leads to the mass loss of critical thinking skills?</a> Nope. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4qNrdYmsj0"> The world becoming so automated that there is no-one left around who knows how to fix critical systems when they break.</a> Nope.<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2MEaROKjaE"> Rapid technological change creating economic and civil strife in a society unprepared for it?</a> Nope.<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raleKODYeg0"> A societal prioritization of technological skill over emotional awareness.</a> Nope.<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iVGuMyKFgA"> Fear of outside influence has caused the world to stagnate?</a> Nope.<br />
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People spending too dang much time on the interwebs did us in.<br />
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To be certain there is a way to make the idea that the world ends when people spend <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36UQCZEsY9g">too much time indulging in leisure activity</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGBZWbg_26A">without trying to solve critical problems</a> compelling but this movie doesn't go there. Or maybe because my meat heart has been swapped with a cold dead machine.<br />
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Regardless that message as executed by this movie depends on believing that there is an online-offline binary I believe doesn't really exist anymore. The internet is nothing more than a highly advanced communications tool and most of it's problems are the same problems that exist in any communications tool.<br />
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Offline people act on the information they obtain online and vise versa.<br />
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<b>Reference as Language</b><br />
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7wd5KEaOtm4" width="560"></iframe> <b><br /></b> <b><br /></b>As mentioned I did not go into this movie blind and that caused me to lowere my expectations. I find the movie disappointing not because it's bad, but because as it went on I found myself becoming more and more invested in what could have been a pretty interesting commentary on how people use technology to communicate ideas in the modern world.<br />
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I am not the first or even the only person to point it out, but the movie doesn't really do anything with its references. My understanding is part of that was to fix the book where some members of the audience found the main character's narration explaining all the references obnoxious.<br />
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All the same, I would have enjoyed it if the references were used to communicate ideas the audience which is quite frankly how a lot of internet pop culture reference is used as a short to communicate complex thoughts and feelings via association with understood concepts.<br />
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<b>Say Something, Anything!</b><br />
<br /><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qaskEFYvAjU" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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<br />
I started the day I watched <i>Ready Player One </i>player one intending to binge <i>Future </i><i class="">Man</i> and drifted off somewhere else. Don't ask.<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pDY_9u5Sn0"> My life is complicated</a>. But I couldn't help feel that Futureman does essentially what <i>Ready Player One</i> tries to do but better.<br />
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<i>Future Man</i> is essentially a series of extended plot references to 80's movies. But nearly every movie it references it also deconstructs and comments on the culture that birthed it.<br />
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<i>P.S.</i><br />
By the original purpose of this post was the to try to literally answer the question, is there a better version of this story which has so much potential", rather than writing a review. The more I thought about it the more I realize that Anime has explored the thematic territory of<i> Ready Player One</i> for years. Watch <i>Lain</i>, <i>.</i><i>Hack//Sign</i>, and <i>Paranoia Agent</i>, hell half Satoshi Kon's filmography really.<br />
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Greg Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137462690789551098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2144439774018720181.post-16096449326534012752019-01-07T05:32:00.001-05:002019-01-07T14:39:49.985-05:00Well At Least Black Movies Aren't About White Assholes Anymore<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/enH3xA4mYcY" width="560"></iframe> <br />
So between awards season and the new year, all the media critics are doing all of their roundups of the best movies of the year. I'm broke so it's normally a while after a movie comes out that I've seen it and while that tail is shrinking it's not enough that I could do the best movies I've seen in 2018 without half of them <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AX2uz2XYkbo">having</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ0QKOR5Kgc&t=12s">been </a><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxjPjPzQ1iU&t=26s">released</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Div0iP65aZo">in</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=888z3ku4t3I">like</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKFuXETZUsI&t=5s">2016</a> but it is enough so that I think I actually have something to say to cap off/start the year<br />
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Over the past year, I think black movies or at least the black movies that get the marketing push have finally gotten over the "overcoming" plot archetype.<br />
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<a href="http://www.cypheredwolf.com/2014/03/angry-black-man-beyond-overcoming.html">Back in 2014, I wrote about my apathy towards a certain type of inspirational movie</a>, and my frustration that the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E21xH5vg0yo">"overcoming a singular racist asshole who keeps you down"</a> plotline. It's not one of the best things I wrote but I stand by the general point that I find these types of movies kind of boring and lazy at best discounting how they often portray racism as a thing of the past that no longer exists.<br />
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But over the last few years I have seen a plethora of black movies that weren't that, and moreover weren't that not because they ignored race or racism but because the characters had lives and agency outside of not only what "that white asshole" thought of them but that was intrinsic to them.<br />
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... The characters actually had a personality.<br />
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One of the problems that I have with the "overcoming" narrative is that it often boils blacks lives down into a singular experience and that can get tiresome, especially if that singular experience doesn't represent my individual life experience as an audience member. And I don't want to dismiss <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9RHqdZDCF0&t=66s">any</a> of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQIe4JKjYn4">people</a> who a lot of these movies are based on but their life is not my life their narratives often don't really speak to me as much as Hollywood assumes they do.<br />
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But this year there have just been <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjDjIWPwcPU">so</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ1Zcv54USA&t=8s">many</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2IRWwyOjrU&t=8s">good</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ViVPRWRRmk">movies</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NJj12tJzqc">over </a><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzfpyUB60YY">the</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQNZhs0QKq0&t=28s">past</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2IRWwyOjrU&t=70s">few</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwJhmqLU0so">years</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vWrjmj9jws&t=9s">that</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-2_1tUnIWM">show</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlpunOUxYSo&t=59s">a</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MM8OkVT0hw">diversity</a> of black vision. Many of which actually do come pretty close to my lived experiences.<br />
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(By the way I like all the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tg52up16eq0">Black</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Y2T3SOlbmg">super</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytkjQvSk2VA">shows</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RJnZ1u1WFc">and</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LAUGA01mUc">movies</a> that came out over the past few years but <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ai-U5C-VctE">Static still wins since he basically was me at 15</a> at least in terms of his personality as a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PETk8eBbfN0">black nerd who is also kind of a wiseass at least in the suit.</a> ... <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXycTl5WsRg">So basically the first incarnation of "Spiderman but if he were black." I hate that tail.</a>)<br />
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I also want to be clear that not every black movie made before 2015 has been an "overcoming movie" but it's been frustrating to me that those seem to be the only ones that get the marketing push and these days that seems to be less and less the case.<br />
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<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xNMoQ_Cqt4E" width="560"></iframe>
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And I like that but it makes me all the more frustrated that there are <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cKLqLuZJzs">so</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABKAHvg5rBA">many</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Cn3kty_M58">black</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdMxR2M_ddM">movies</a> from the past that aren't that haven't been exposed for the sake of "overcoming drams"<br />
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Well if only <i>Black Panther</i> or <i>Sorry to Bother You </i>won the Oscar.<br />
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P.S. I finally got around to watching <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Sf4Lwxg6lQ&t=67s">Akeelah and the Bee</a></i> and it's an exception to the rule, mostly because Akeelah actually has a personality <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0LaT6qVRpg">and actively presses back on the role the movie gives her as the representative of all smart black kids everywhere as if to say, "this may look like that movie but this is not that movie. We ain't doin' that... okay we are but we're doing more than that"</a><br />
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<br />
Also, while I haven't seen it I've heard good things about <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wfrDhgUMGI">Hidden Figures</a>.</i>Greg Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137462690789551098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2144439774018720181.post-2084159498276845412018-08-16T11:15:00.000-04:002018-08-17T10:06:25.533-04:00Takin' It Back<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SiEXgpp37No" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
So for personal reasons, I'm trying to find media for kids that I have access to on the cheap cheap (I'm broke and canceled most of my streaming services but I have a free Amazon trial.) and I came across a lot of Golden Film's stuff. And I have feelings.<br />
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For those who don't know Golden Films spent most of the 90's making mockbusters of Disney Renaissance movies... and I was burned by them. And I don't blame my parents for not knowing the magic of "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAN57ITtgl8">I Won't Say I'm In Love</a>". I blame Golden Films. The rat bastards.<br />
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That is their business model. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7lD97BxMN0&vl=en">Tricking ignorant or naive adults into spending money on products their kids don't want.</a> Screw 'em.<br />
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...<br />
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And then I get out of my head for a second. And ask myself do I really want to excuse Disney for branding stories that are supposed to belong to the public to the point where they kind of own them now.<br />
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nohQReM7BpI">Like that's where it started.</a> We excused that business for far too long. But by now it's clear we have given the mouse too much power over us and it must be brought low.<br />
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Oh who am I kidin' I'm not giving up Star Wars, Marvel, Ghibli, and Pixar. I'm not.<br />
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... But I don't have to make it so easy for The Mouse either.<br />
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Here is my list of movies and shows that retell folk and fairy tales so if you want that you don't have to come crawling on your knees to the mouse if you don't want to.<br />
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<b>Honorable Mentions</b><br />
Before I continue I want to establish that I want this to be a pragmatic list of stuff that is easily and legally available, not just stuff I like. But since a lot of these sorts of things are children shows a good bit of them have been lost to time. So here are some of those.<br />
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<i>Merry Melodies Shorts</i><br />
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I can think of no better way to stick it to The Mouse than to watch Looney Tunes. Back in that golden age both Disney and Warner Brothers adapted a lot of fairy tales and honestly, I like the <i>Merry Melodies </i>shorts better. But here is the thing, some Loony Tunes shorts are easier to find than others and I just don't know where to find all the ones I want streaming.<br />
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<i>Long Ago and Far Away</i><br />
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It was a PBS animated story anthology hosted by Mr. Darth Vader himself.<br />
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<i>Shelly Duvall's Fairytale Theatre </i>and<i> Tall Tale's and Legends</i><br />
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These are actually two separate shows but they had more or less the same feel. The only difference is the types of stories they would tell. It's always kind of annoyed me that we pretend like there is no new folklore... mostly because in doing so we're pretending like simply because of its age my country has no stories of its own so any show that delves into <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9GkWdDE5E8">tall tales</a>, or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdcCZf0rKk4">urban legends</a> gets a thumbs up from me.<br />
<i><br /></i> <i>Simsala Grimm</i><br />
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It's a German TV show and it actually looks kind of good as a fairy tale anthology featuring a lot of stories Disney hasn't touched yet... it's just that I have no clue how to get it legally.<br />
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<i>Grimm's Fairytale Classics</i><br />
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And we're back to that actually good but I have no clue how to stream it thing.<br />
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<b>The Stuff That You Can Actually Stream</b><br />
<i>Jim Henson's The Storyteller</i><br />
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When making this list what was most important to me is that these stories were not just trying to cash in on the Disney wave. (Sorry Don Bluth but <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fovWaTyicas">Anastasia</a></i> and <i>Thumbelina</i> to a lesser extent are about as Disney as you can get without actually being Disney) And there are a few ways I test for that. The principal one is that I look for movies and shows that adapt stories that Disney hasn't yet touched. <i>The Storyteller</i> is one of those. Instead of "Beauty and the Beast" you get "Hans the Hedge Hog". Instead of "Cinderella", you get "Allerleirauh". It bounces from service to service but generally, you can find it somewhere. I think though am not sure that right now HBO is streaming it.<br />
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<i>Correction: I thought it was HBO but it's actually on Starz</i><br />
<i><br /></i> <i>Happily Ever After Fairytales for Every Child</i><br />
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Okay most of the stuff on this list is pretty old. It's going to be stuff from the 70's and 80's. <i>Happily Ever After</i> ran ... almost this century. So it's something I would actually show to a kid rather than just watch by myself drowning in the nostalgia. You can stream it on HBO.<br />
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<i>Stories to Remember (Light Year Entertainment)</i><br />
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It's a bit hard to find because Amazon doesn't list it as an actual series but the as individual stories of that series with almost no indication that they're in the same style and made by the same company. But they are there. (By the way that's something it does with another entry on this list) But they do have most of them.<br />
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Anyway, the voice work is amazing on each of these and characterizes them as stories being told rather than just watched and there is something I love about that.<br />
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<i>Ever After</i><br />
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You know how everybody said Disney's live-action remake of Cinderella was perfunctory since it wasn't all that different from the cartoon. This one isn't that. Mostly because this version of Cinderella actually has a personality.<br />
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<i>Roger's and Hammerstien's Cinderella </i>ALL OF THEM<br />
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I'm cheating because Disney owns the rights to a couple of them. But still, this one bugs more than most. See back in the day, the Disney Channel would actually run marathons of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKQcnoPH2_c&list=PL5BBC2702D6E23BE9">different versions</a> of Cinderella. And they were all interesting. I know for a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCS_lJt7VUw">FACT</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rLj_o2De3w">there</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cw1dB9PxWzM">are a million interesting places</a> to take that story and when given the chance they didn't.<br />
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<i>Shirley Temple's Storybook</i><br />
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Life is a circle. Yeah, I would prefer Shelly Duval as the celebrity endorsed anthology but <i>Shirley Temple's Storybook</i> is actually available. Also, note if you want to see a pre-Disney version of <i>Winnie the Pooh</i> here you go.<br />
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<i>World Masterpiece Theatre</i><br />
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If you're looking for a man who can out Disney Disney look no further than Hayao Miyazaki. Back before he founded Ghibli he worked with Toei, on <i>World Masterpiece Theatre</i> (Specifically he was on Anne of Green Gables episodes) which was a series that adapted a number of well-known children's stories.<br />
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The thing about <i>World Masterpiece Theatre</i> along with Grimm's Classic Fairy Tales is that for a long time they were the international anime market. <i>Gundam</i> and <i>Lupin the Third</i> existed but good <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PQRrIhY-zU">old red jacket</a> took a long time to crossover. (Toonami popularized a lot of older anime. Not just <i>Lupin, Dragon Ball</i> and <i>Gundam</i> but also <i>Astroboy</i> and <i>Cyborg 009</i>.)<br />
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Again Amazon lists them all individually so they can be hard to find but they're there.<br />
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<i>Jiri Trnka's Films</i><br />
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They're available. I haven't seen them but bear mentioning.<br />
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<br />Greg Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137462690789551098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2144439774018720181.post-83570233575031636562018-08-14T15:01:00.000-04:002018-08-24T17:07:31.961-04:00Christian Media That Doesn't Suck<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QdaI15z3QW4" width="560"></iframe><br />
I have beef with God and his followers but one of the more benign is "Christian" movies <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50_3J6Go5Ng">are kind of shit</a>. And heathen though I may be I feel there is no excuse for it, faith, the nature of God, and all of that is ripe for interesting storytelling opportunities. And it seems like all Christian media these days want to do is rant against the atheists.<br />
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So here is my list of actually good Christian movies and shows... that don't suck. With a few caveats</div>
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<li>They have to be movies and shows that I've seen so <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJKxg4p-Alk">The Last Temptation of Christ</a></i>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00srDTJp51I">Joesph King of Dreams</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0w86Er2QAxc">Godspell,</a> <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D47XXkxicxM">The Small One</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NR1ZHKw09n8">Ben Hur</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0KUWzfugg4">Silence</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKtgMEKMoiU">The Leftovers</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqVoIQ5UsT8">East of Eden</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jo18VIoR2xU&t=8s">Pi</a></i> and <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qmj5mhDwJQ">Noah</a></i> are out, though consider that my honorable mentions list.</li>
<li>They have to be overtly about the G-man. The show has to be obviously talking about either Christianity or Judaism in a religious context.</li>
<li>This is more subjective and on a spectrum but it can't just use Christianity as window dressing. </li>
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<b>Books (Fiction)</b></div>
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For a lot of reasons I want this movie to primarlly focus on movies but there were a few books that I love so much that I had to mention them.</div>
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<i>Tales of the Otori</i></div>
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It's basically a fantasy version of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDsdkoln59A">Japan's Warring States</a> period but with a messianic protagonist who is a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CY_DhedZDg">Hidden Christian</a> named after the apostle Thomas well Tomasu but you get it. Huge chunks of the books are about him balancing his Christian beliefs, upbringing, and loyalty to brothers of the faith with the fact that the world will literally not allow for it in doctrine or morals. Turning the other cheek does not work in this series and will only serve to make your enemies <a href="https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DontYouDarePityMe">hate you more... fatally more</a>. </div>
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He views Christianity as the faith of the underdog and wants to create a world that the meek can inherit rather than that of the samurai lords, but the world is the world and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bN0onE09-8c">he has to live in it even as he changes it.</a></div>
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<i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFO9p1uN8Qs">Lucifer</a></i></div>
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I haven't technically read it but everything I've heard about this version of Old Scratch is that he's interesting on a theological level and can't be dismissed as merely that bad guy. He's makes a decent point about why <a href="https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ScrewDestiny">he and god can't just get along</a>. Part of me wants to put the TV show on this list but it's a flawed adaptation. It's not a philosphical rumination on the nature of free will which is what attracks me to the concept of the comic. </div>
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<i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRbvIF9ozhs">East of Eden</a></i></div>
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There is a subplot in the book about close reading the story of Cain and Abel and I love it. Other than that the entire book is chock full of religious symbolism and is retelling <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQI72THyO5I">Genisis as if it were set in California and oddly enough mostly succeeds.</a></div>
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<i><b>The Ten Commandments</b></i></div>
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Alright let 's start this list off proper. Okay, so the real reason why I'm doing this whole thing is that back in the day the church I went to actually did show movies during Sunday school. And regardless of whether or not I've personally lost my faith I've seen enough good stories that almost rekindle it that it miffs me that any piece of media even tangentially related to Christianity is considered crap. The 10 Commandments is a lot of things crap ain't one of 'em </div>
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Oh and while Job is my favorite Bible story there aren't a lot of Job movies but there are a billion Exodus movies so prepare for a lot of Moses parting the red sea.<br />
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It's not my favorite telling of the Exodus but if you want a big budget movie version of a Bible story this is one of the best.<br />
<b><i><br /></i></b> <b><i>The Prince of Egypt</i></b><br />
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Might as well get all the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tciT9bmCMq8">Moses stuff </a>out of the way first. I personally like Prince of Egypt a bit more than <i>The Ten Commandments</i> and a lot of that happens to be simply,. I like the songs. I feel the same way about Hunchback of Notre Dame but feel that's only really religious <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-VPrpo52hI">in</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di1XUB0YIzw">the</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2rdcwm1gQo">music</a> not the story (which is odd considering the source material). It's worth mentioning but otherwise isn't on this list. </div>
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<i><br /></i> <i><b>"Rugrats Passover Special"</b></i><br />
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Okay, I fully understand that the Exodus apart from resurrection is probably the BIG DAMN STORY of the Bible chock full of themes, symbols, and meaning that resonate across 3 different religions.<br />
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But sometimes you just need to have some fun with it. And if you want a "funny" version of the Exodus you can do no better than the "Rugrats Passover Special".<br />
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<i><b>The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe</b></i><br />
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We all know that Aslan is Jesus right. The books, (specifically the <i>Magician's Nephew</i> which is the book of Genesis in a talking animal world) make it clear Aslan is the god of Abraham given flesh in the form of a lion because Narnia is a talking animal world.</div>
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Moreover explaining the redemptive power of Jesus Christ while not boring kids with a sermon is more or less the entire point of the story. Edmond betrays his family for candy, (because kid's story) and then his soul is condemned for it by our resident satan figure, the white witch until Aslan dies for his sins breaking the physical manifestation of the old laws and it's covenant.... and being resurrected from the dead.<br />
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MAGICAL JESUS LION!</div>
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Oh and then there's all that "sons of Adam and daughters of Eve" business.<br />
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The resurrection scene is the core of the story all of the versions I've seen do it well. The best version I can think of is probably the 1979 cartoon. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWKj41HZBzM">The Disney Movie</a> was trying to be <i>Lord of the Rings</i> and Narnia isn't Middle Earth. I haven't sat through the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfRwun2OLJI">'88 BBC version</a> in a long time but it, while I think I would get a kick out of it, looks very much like the made for TV version it is.<br />
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<b><i>Pillars of the Earth</i></b><br />
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Don't let the trailer fool you it's mostly about the political and financial wrangling as well technical knowledge required to build medieval cathedrals. This isn't Victor Hugo but it's about as close as I can reasonably expect to a modern Hunchback movie that's actually about Notre Dame. A man wants to use his God given talents towards the glory of God by building a monument in his service.<br />
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Oh and it has Ian Mcshane as a currupt Bishop. (I love Ian Mcshane)<br />
<b><br /></b> <b><i>Rome</i></b><br />
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I mostly like Rome because it's probably the most historically acurate television show I've ever seen. In the second season they have an arc about what was going on in Judea just prior to the birth of Christ. It was canceled before they get the gospels proper. But it sets the stage for why most of the major factions act the way they do. </div>
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<i><b>Forest Gump</b></i><br />
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It's subtle but losing his legs caused Luitenant Dan to have a crisis of faith before ultimately returning to it and it's one of the least annoying versions of that story I've ever seen so it's on here.<br />
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Mostly what get's me is the story frames this aspect of his character neutrally and doesn't pass judgment, not to say that he wasn't a prick in other ways. But in regard to the God thing, the story doesn't dismiss how he's feeling. What happened to him sucks. He is not wrong to be pissed about that and he's not wrong to be pissed at God about that. And that he eventually can make peace after it all is kind of inspiring.<br />
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<b><i>Kings</i></b><br />
<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/u5c1Vr1fcZI" width="560"></iframe><br />
Up until now, I've been trying to accommodating to the folks who can't stand any deviation from what they've been told but from here on out the list will be challenging. Not necessarily heretical but stuff a decon might give you the side eye for. On the lighter side of that is Kings a fairly straight retelling of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJOju5Dw0V0">first</a> and second <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvoWDXNDJgs">Samuel</a> ... if it were set in modern day.<br />
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It treats the story as a political thriller as Saul is working to eliminate a rival for his throne and it's an interesting way to tell the story.<br />
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Furthermore, it has Ian Mcshane and I will watch that guy in anything. If you need someone to play a charismatic villain and Saul is a charismatic villain he's your man. Accept no substitutes.<br />
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<b>Dogma</b><br />
<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/20CRw3XdETA" width="560"></iframe> The plot of <i>Dogma</i> is that existence is jeopardized because of the inflexibility of ... catholic dogma. That makes it sound deeper than it. is. the movie is mostly trying to have some fun at the expense of the church but it also has big giant point to make about the consequences taking religion too seriously.<br />
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<b><i>The Witch</i></b><br />
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Enough with the shallow end. Let's go deep nearly blasphemous. On a metaphysical level, <i>The Witch </i>is a meditation on original sin, (<a href="http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/history/dfg/amrl/calvin.htm">in this context</a>) humanity's natural proclivity towards sin and depravity and our attempts to make ourselves truly worthy of the glory of God knowing it's an impossible goal. It does not speak well of the pursuit.<br />
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<b><i>Jesus Christ Superstar</i></b><br />
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It's basically The Gospel of Judas Iscariot, ... music and dance numbers. And I know the very idea of that is enough to turn people off but it has a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqoeM18vCaU">point to make</a>. By the way there are lots of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0w86Er2QAxc&t=17s">rock</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNKPYhXmzoE">operas</a> about Jesus this just the only one I really saw so eghh.<br />
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<b><i>From Dusk Till Dawn</i></b><br />
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Who knew a movie filled with vampire strippers could inspire faith in Christ. Seriously though one of my beefs with let's call it propaganda is that it doesn't acknowledge that it's perfectly reasonable and natural for someone to wrestle with their faith and offer. Just admitting that can offer solace. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GswSg2ohqmA">It is okay to be pissed at the Father.</a> And I have soft spot for movies that do. <i>From Dusk Till Dawn</i> is one of dems.<br />
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<b><i>Angels in America</i></b><br />
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Angels in America... Angels in America. The word that comes to mind is epic. The play/miniseries has a lot to say about government, love, loss, sexuality, and yes religion. And while the story ends with a big damn rant against god from the protagonist that is seemingly the point, his isn't the only voice of the piece. Several of the characters wrestling with how to integrate their religious beliefs into their daily lives and there is more than one view within in the story on how to do that. Not all of them are good and the story says as such but if you're looking for a guide on how to live as a good Christian in a modern society here you go.<br />
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Moreover, it challenges the notion of the comforting God. Good doesn't necessarily mean nice.<br />
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<i><b>The Grapes of Wrath</b></i><br />
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You know, it's not exactly fair that a lot of the religion has to take the heat for nutty evangelical <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0h1eoBeR4Jk">fundamentalists who are complicit in all the horrible shit Donald Trump does</a>. Like there are lots of different ways faith can be expressed and it doesn't have to be and most of the time isn't that. Casy is the my ideal of the good shepherd offering solace to his friends in the name of the father during times of trouble even if he is unsure if it does any good. That is all.<br />
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Greg Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137462690789551098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2144439774018720181.post-48669068102226039932018-07-24T11:04:00.001-04:002018-07-26T09:14:47.197-04:00The Argument<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/s64aSHOk3bg" width="560"></iframe><br />
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I am a black nerd, which is to say I am Black and I also tend to engage in media generally associated with dedicated and energetic fanbases. The two are not mutually exclusive.<br />
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My idea of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjPLkPsLxc4">a good weekend</a> is ordering a pizza and marathoning whatever the new hotness is on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9yfM5OrpKU">Crunchyroll </a>with intermediate bouts of video games and maybe a fantasy novel on the sly. That is my fun. That is my jam. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYUM7h4SVsA">That has always been my jam</a>. That will probably always be my jam.<br />
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But I am also black and fully aware that at least a reason why Trump won the white house was his overt appeals to white grievance. Let me say it explicitly. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXeQMcleiME">DONALD TRUMP IS A RACIST</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gz2ETH8Gpr4">MADE APPEALS TO RACIST SENTIMENT</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-Odk4n_KeY">AND CONTINUES TO MAKE APPEALS TO RACIST SENTIMENT</a>!<br />
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He did that.<br />
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<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PCHJVE9trSM" width="560"></iframe><br />
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But more than that from where I sit Trump is incompetent and the reason why the electorate and yes even Republican leadership is willing to dismiss that incompetence because of that racism. For a lot of them, it's a feature, not a bug.<br />
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People are willing to ignore everything about Donald Trump BECAUSE he reassures white racists, or sexists "or whatever" else that yes they are firmly in control of the country. And since they won the White House and the congress and are well on their way to a Supreme Court majority, yeah they kind of do. Life sucks get a helmet.<br />
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That is my reality. That that is the world I live in. That is the nail in my brain. That is my life. I don't like it but it is what it is.<br />
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...<br />
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Damn near every week I have hear some new controversy about ehem a "fan movement". And regardless <a href="https://www.blackgate.com/2015/04/04/a-detailed-explanation/">whatever</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9L_Wmeg7OTU&t=9s&list=PL67P1Kb9Y6zKC_ja0OPVHy7ZwSeTdICQ5&index=4">the</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dF6soQR6S_8&list=PL67P1Kb9Y6zKC_ja0OPVHy7ZwSeTdICQ5&t=15s&index=25">spark</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MY960CARpU0&index=25&list=PL67P1Kb9Y6zKC_ja0OPVHy7ZwSeTdICQ5">was</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blEcrTjVmHc&index=23&list=PL67P1Kb9Y6zKC_ja0OPVHy7ZwSeTdICQ5">this</a> <a href="https://www.polygon.com/2018/7/21/17597914/james-gunn-dave-bautista-patton-oswalt-mike-cernovich-ted-cruz-michael-ian-black">time</a> they all boil down to being mad about the same thing. And that same thing is directly related to all the crap I just described.<br />
<br />
"I A MIDDLE-CLASS STRAIGHT WHITE GUY DON'T SOLEY CONTROL THE DIRECTION OF THE MEDIA LANDSCAPE!!!!"<br />
<br />
I am just about sick of all that noise.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNkTeHpHj_I">I know other groups of people have it worse off than me</a>, a black dude from the burbs. but I've had to put up with a lot of shit over the years from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzQahpxucKk">media that otherwise, I'm pre-disposed to loooooooove</a>.<br />
<br />
<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5Hez4laAkGw" width="560"></iframe> <br />
<br />
(To anybody who comes at me saying I want to destroy Star Wars and hate it. Shut up! <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN_CP4SuoTU">I love <i>Star Wars</i></a>, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnrogbZC3b0">I will probably die loving Star Wars</a>.)<br />
<br />
I also want to be clear. I kind of sucks when your favorite show or movie series, or comic book series veers off in a direction you can't stand and you have to give it up. <a href="http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/herocomplex/la-et-hc-the-100-showrunner-apologizes-to-fans-for-lexa-death-20160324-story.html">And it's not out of bounds to criticize cast and crew when that happens</a>.<br />
<br />
But all of these fan movements have the same central complaint, that these pieces of fiction are trying to appeal more to people who aren't them and that criticism almost always immediately devolves into racist and sexist harassment as people start crying "SJWs (anybody concerned about issues race, class, sexuality or gender) ruin everything".<br />
<br />
And it's not cool. It's not alright. And it's going to keep happening. Because that's where we are right now.<br />
<br />
That is my reality. That that is the world I live in. That is the nail in my brain. That is my life. I don't like it but it is what it is.Greg Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137462690789551098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2144439774018720181.post-33428226592163596152018-07-11T18:01:00.001-04:002018-07-11T18:34:46.537-04:00For the Sake of the Record<a href="http://www.cypheredwolf.com/2018/03/time-is-my-enemy.html">So I ran out of money</a> to keep doing the blog... <a href="http://www.cypheredwolf.com/2017/04/out-of-gas.html">again</a> and I have some strong feelings about that. In order to keep what I call, "brain leakage" (a state where I am unable to keep negative thoughts and feeling from affecting what I say and do) at bay I've been mostly writing stuff offline to sort out how I feel about it but somebody asked so here goes.<br />
<br />
It takes money to keep up the blog and it's never been self-sustaining. I've also had trouble finding money otherwise in my personal life and am in huge amounts of debt. In all honesty, restarting the blog in January was a pretty irresponsible move on my part along with other things I did, that shall go unmentioned. But at the time I wrote down (again offline) what I was doing and why and I understand the logic of me of six months ago even if I can't say with a straight face I'd make the same choices, though yeah I probably would. I'm a predictable little bastard. <br />
<br />
This sort of stuff is what I want to do with my life and if I have the capacity to do it I will. I just don't right now. And yeah it bugs me but it is what it is at the moment.<br />
<br />
All that having been said <a href="http://www.cypheredwolf.com/2017/04/the-locked-in-my-own-head-playlist.html">I'm</a> <a href="http://www.cypheredwolf.com/2017/05/why-cant-we-just-let-clark-be-clark.html">not</a> <a href="http://www.cypheredwolf.com/2017/05/make-god-is-old-one-already.html">as</a> <a href="http://www.cypheredwolf.com/2017/05/if-i-were-rich-man-playing-with-money.html">angry</a> <a href="http://www.cypheredwolf.com/2017/06/weve-commoditized-freedom.html">as</a> I was the last time things kind of fell apart. Even if I don't have the power to do all the stuff I want to do right now, I know how to rebuild things in my head and know that me not being in a position to do what I want isn't a permanent state. Or to put it another way in 2017 I was a bit of a junkyard dog, but the simple act of proving to myself that I can rebuild things has helped calm me down and find ... peace.<br />
<br />
And <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XE1TtpPuUlE">Megalobalboa</a> didn't hurt either.Greg Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137462690789551098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2144439774018720181.post-77989902524962067912018-06-26T00:27:00.001-04:002018-12-11T18:25:55.030-05:00Everything is Politics and Politics is EverythingSo a lot of hay has been made about Republican political officials being heckled in public spaces. And none of the usual scuttlebutt from the usual places seemed to feel right.<br />
<br />
The "Can't we get along pieces" from Washington Post seemed totally tone death from this moment in time and I just haven't seen an article from the opposing side of that sentiment that articulated exactly going on without talking about the incredulity of specific policies and well as much as I hate to say it elections have consequences.<br />
<br />
And then I saw this video from Extra Credits about political and something clicked for me.<br />
<br />
There is a sentiment in this country that politics is divorced from daily life, that is in the broad strokes politics does not matter. And that sentiment is one that's really been subtly under question for the past few years.<br />
<br />
From where I sit of course politics matters because public policy matters and is one of the great forces that affects lives on a massive scale.<br />
<br />
Because of that sentiment, it's not unusual to view politics as just a job. Something that can be slipped into and out of at the end of the workday. But I would argue it's more than that.<br />
<br />
In the 2016 election, there was this great cynicism. This feeling that if the citizenry couldn't change the system they should revolt and dismantle it. And part of what led to that was a feeling that politics, the stuff people see on cable news, was divorced from their everyday experience.<br />
<br />
And that runs counter to how I think. For me, everything politics. I can look at even the keyboard I'm typing on and work backward to environmental policies about manufacturing which affect the durability and pricing of the thing. We are a society of law even when the law is obtuse or invisible.<br />
<br />
I don't know if I support the heckling of Republicans in these spaces but it speaks to a larger ideological divide. A politician doesn't stop being a politician at the end of the workday. The effects of their policies don't stop at the office door. The effects of decisions about who gets what money and who doesn't, or who gets prosecuted and who doesn't, or who gets to vote and who doesn't don't just stop 50 feet from the office.<br />
<br />
And the notion that it does is from where I sit why we ended up with a party in power that doesn't believe the government helps people in their daily lives because for the representatives of that party government doesn't exist outside of the physical workplace. And that's something worth changingGreg Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137462690789551098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2144439774018720181.post-68120916828700366222018-05-23T13:31:00.000-04:002018-08-23T23:03:14.898-04:00SMART (and Mass Transit in Metro Detroit As A Whole) as It Is Right Now Does Not Work But The RTA Millage Would Go a Long Way to Helping It Get ThereSo Mark Hackel and L. Brooks Patterson's solution to regional transit is to essentially expand the SMART BUS system, which on its face doesn't sound like a bad idea except ... SMART is kind of broken. It's not the institution's fault. From where I sit a lot of the problems associated with SMART are caused the by the opt-outs and the lack of resources that those opt-outs cause which these two fellows are absolutely stuck on.<br />
<br />
All the same, I can't get behind the idea that SMART as exists right now works. That is that it does its job of efficiently and cheaply getting people from place to place in a timely manner, which by the way is something that I consider essential. We have to make this work. We can't just keep shrugging and dusting it's failings under the rug. Don't get me wrong it's better than nothing but if we really wanted to (i.e. supported the RTA) we could do better.<br />
<br />
So here is a list of long-standing gripes big and small I have with SMART many of which, though not all, the RTA plan explicitly seeks to fix<br />
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/wayne-county/2015/01/10/smart-urged-change-boarding-policy-detroit/21570061/">The ordinance that keeps SMART from picking up passengers in the city of Detroit (the word is that it's not being enforced but still).</a> </li>
<li>I don't know if it's a hole but I'd like to take a train to Ann Arbor. It's a nice place I don't get to visit often. </li>
<li>The service holes in Oakland and Wayne Counties (Novi, Rochester Hills, and Livonia specifically but there are many more. )</li>
<li>Even for communities that opt-in if they boarder an opt-out community it can wreak havoc on passengers attempting to make return trips if they get off the bus on a main road that also acts as a municipal border. (LATHRUP VILLAGE!)</li>
<li>Moreover, it's absolutely infuriating when a bus THAT'S IN SERVICE flies right past you or where you need to go but can't stop because it's an opt-out. ("Sorry I can't stop in ...")</li>
<li>Opting out gives cities who don't really know that much about SMART's routes essentially the ability to force the institution to make radical changes to move around the holes at best extending the time it takes to complete routes and at worse moving and cutting off stops that have nothing to do with the opt-out communities themselves, especially if those stops act as service hubs. IT DOESN'T JUST AFFECT THEM! </li>
<li>The buses for SMART come roughly once every hour which is a pretty long time between buses, especially if you need to transfer to get to where you got to go. I have spent a lot of dead time. </li>
<li><a href="https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2015/04/28/metro-detroit-transit-considering-fare-card/26486033/">While you can use transfers between some of the multiple systems in the region they are limited and we could really use a universal fare system so you don't have to get more than one transfer per trip.</a></li>
<li>The SMART buses generally don't run past around 7 pm which often makes return trips impossible and may strand people particularly those coming home from work or school. </li>
<li><a href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/oakland-county/2017/09/14/teen-fatally-struck-crossing-telegraph/105591012/">This doesn't have much to do with the SMART themselves but we need more crosswalks. Over the past few years, I have heard horror stories about people trying to cross the street to get to a bus stop. A quarter-mile, maybe a half-mile tops off the top of my head is about the length of road to walk before the temptation to just screw it and jay-walk sets in especially if the stop is right across the street in the first and getting to a crosswalk doubles the walk.</a> </li>
<li><a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gw.smart">I don't really use the SMART BUS phone app to track buses but I've heard complaints about it</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/oakland-county/2017/07/19/northland-mall-bus-stops/103826900/"> Right now Northland is kind of a mess and it kind of acted as a hub where people could transfer from the SMART buses to the DDOT busses and vice versa. I know with the construction why did what they did but all the same, it went from one central stop for nearly 10 routes to a lot more stops all over the place and it's confusing to understand which buses stop where and course correct if you're wrong.</a></li>
<li>While I'm on the subject of Northland it acted as a sort of de facto transit center and I think we could use more of those. They're expensive but they make things so much easier for passengers with clear markers for different routes and places to buy passes. Plus if you put a convenience store in you can make a mint on cigarettes, soda, and newspapers. </li>
<li>Speaking of which add a convenience store to the Rosa Park Transit Center. I see folks selling cigarettes and water at the stops getting hassled occasionally, but people really want that stuff on the go. And on a hot summer day <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYtpU5b2ALk">who doesn't want water</a>. </li>
<li>You can argue they're obsolete and redundant with smartphones but Ann Arbor's bus system used to put out a single information booklet of all the routes, schedules, and maps instead of individual pamphlets. I preferred how the information was organized there over the pamphlets.</li>
<li>Which brings me to something there are fewer paper bulletins than there used to be. And I know arrow of time, creative destruction and all but a lot of people don't have smartphones or your phone runs out of battery. It sucks to have to take a leap of faith when the next bus is coming. </li>
<li><a href="http://michiganradio.org/post/detroit-struggling-get-enough-buses-road">I haven't had much of a problem with SMART buses being that late and DDOT buses are better than they used to be but it's been an issue in the past and a lot of it was due to aging buses that were unreliable.</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/2017/12/18/coping-detroit-crime-buses/108710484/">Again it's getting better but safety has been an issue, especially on DDOT buses. </a></li>
<li>We could use more benches, and the schedules, and waste bins at the stops are nice. We could use more of those. Let's just call it "pedestrian amenities"</li>
</ul>
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P.S. As it is the RTA plan is dependant on SMART. So we actually need both SMART and RTA millages to pass in order to actually enact that plan. </div>
Greg Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137462690789551098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2144439774018720181.post-27041640304623440352018-05-22T12:59:00.000-04:002018-05-22T16:22:28.087-04:00The Case Against L. Brooks PattersonSo if you haven't guessed already I am in favor of <a href="https://www.facebook.com/executivewarrenevans/videos/755970258124044/">Warren Evans' transportation plan</a> as I was also in <a href="http://www.cypheredwolf.com/2016/06/dont-screw-this-up-for-me.html">favor of the original 2016 RTA</a> plan.<br />
<br />
Right now the main obstacle from keeping it from happening isn't so much that people are against it, though they very well might be but rather that Macomb and Oakland County executives Mark Hackel and L. Brooks Patterson via their representatives on the RTA Board of Directors essentially have veto power over any attempts to even put it on the ballot.<br />
<br />
Which is to say I kind of hate those guys right now.<br />
<br />
I don't know Mark Hackel but not counting college I've lived in Oakland County my whole life. L. Brooks Patterson is my guy and has been since childhood. <a href="http://blogs.detroitnews.com/history/1997/05/03/irene-mccabe-and-her-battle-against-busing/">And that thought makes me want to bang my head on a desk.</a><br />
<br />
Despite that and <a href="http://www.cypheredwolf.com/2018/03/time-is-my-enemy.html">my own personal fortunes</a>, I have to admit Oakland County as a whole is in a <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/oakland/2018/05/18/university-michigan-economic-study-oakland-county-affluence/621447002/">state of relative prosperity.</a><br />
<br />
But I would also argue that a lot of that prosperity is the direct result of white flight from the City of Detroit which <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/01/27/drop-dead-detroit">Patterson directly encouraged</a>. Which is one of the most frustrating things to me about this.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.deadlinedetroit.com/articles/19859/leduff_l_brooks_patterson_s_last_call#.WwRDj-4vxaQ">Patterson's rationale for not "giving" "Detroit"</a> (for the record those are irony quotes, the money the RTA millage would raise would in no way be under his stewardship except maybe via his representative on the board of directors and the REGIONAL Transportation Authority as its name suggests is a regional body that encompasses not only Detroit but also Oakland County and as mentioned I for one as a resident of Oakland County would very much like a functional mass transit system which <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2015/02/07/smart-opt-blamed-transit-woes-michigan-detroit/23047697/">right now we do not have</a>.) is that the city is politically dysfunctional but from where I sit at least some of that dysfunction though admittedly not all of it is his fault.<br />
<br />
P.S. I also have beef because <a href="http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20160210/NEWS/160219982/patterson-hails-1-billion-widening-project-along-i-75-in-oakland">he continuously advocates for the widening and expansion of highways </a>which have historically, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odF4GSX1y3c">especially before his time</a>, been to the detriment to the neighborhoods of the city.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://michiganradio.org/post/moment-history-sealed-detroit-schools-fate">Oh. And the bus integration thing... WHY IS THIS GUY STILL IN CHARGE!?</a>Greg Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137462690789551098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2144439774018720181.post-29870736962339148362018-05-19T11:19:00.003-04:002018-05-19T11:19:58.216-04:00RTA May 17, 2018 Board of Directors Meeting<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/maJwB-9mbYI" width="480"></iframe>Greg Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137462690789551098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2144439774018720181.post-30820238955436886572018-05-19T11:19:00.001-04:002018-05-19T11:19:39.610-04:00RTA May 17, 2018 Executive Meeting<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/t_IiDtAJqxc" width="480"></iframe>Greg Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137462690789551098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2144439774018720181.post-82295737895015362292018-05-16T08:28:00.001-04:002018-05-16T08:28:02.000-04:00May 14, 2018 Southfield CIty Council Meeting at Lawrence Tech<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uZPaQHhf5bU" width="480"></iframe> <br /><br /><br />
<br />
An agenda and related documents can be found <a href="https://southfieldcitymi.documents-on-demand.com/Document/d26d7274-4d55-e811-80c0-001fbc00ed85/Committee%20Of%20The%20Whole%20Meeting%20Agenda%20May%2014,%202018.pdf">here</a>. Greg Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137462690789551098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2144439774018720181.post-10790922303807285452018-05-03T08:18:00.001-04:002018-05-07T12:22:07.093-04:00Southfield April 30, 2018 City Council Meeting<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2hySVTndAb0" width="480"></iframe> <br />
<br />
<br />
An agenda and related documents can be found <a href="https://southfieldcitymi.documents-on-demand.com/Document/b9209f0f-524a-e811-80c0-001fbc00ed85/Regular%20Meeting%20Agenda%20April%2030,%202018.pdf">here</a>.<br />
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<br />Greg Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137462690789551098noreply@blogger.com0