Peter Hodges

No. Not that kind of rap.

Rapper Ludacris has written some urban poetry (I don’t dignify any rap with the notion that it’s music) about Obama. In it, he makes a few inflammatory remarks.

Full text/lyrics here.

I have a  couple of curious observations about this phenomenon.

1. The article’s headline is “Ludacris Releases Song Attacking Hillary Clinton,” but there is an equally abhorrent attack on John McCain. Funny how that didn’t make the headline.
2. The rapper rhymes president and (ir)relevant twice in the same song. I thought rappers were supposed to be creative!
3. He should get a job at Fox News. He’s fair and balanced enough to bash Jesse Jackson.
4. Did this guy not learn how to spell? I don’t find the name Ludacris to be clever–I think it glorifies a lack of education. But then again, I am a right-of-center white guy.
5. The appeal to get everyone out to vote is interesting, but the call to vote is drawn not on issues, but on racial lines. This is a huge mistake. Anytime a subset of our culture identifies itself independently of our nation, I expect trouble to follow.

Will this hurt Obama’s campaign? Probably not. I would never have known about this had I not gotten the link from four different people. It doesn’t really change my opinion on Obama, because I could care less what a wannabe-thug says about him. I’ve evaluated Obama on the issues and decided that I can’t stand behind him as a candidate for that reason alone. Hopefully others will feel the same and not count the actions of this guy against Obama.

Is this urban poetry offensive? I’d have to say…maybe? I don’t mind the verbiage toward Hillary Clinton (name calling is nothing new), but the wish for a severe, debilitating condition on John McCain is a little over the top. I would have preferred if he’d called McCain “the old bastard.” At least that way, he’s in the same league as Hillary.

Am I up in arms over this? No. Should I be? No. At the end of the day, these are the ramblings of someone not important enough to influence the way that the majority of mainstream society thinks. I’ve never bought into the politically correct mentality, even when I can use it in an instance such as this to eviscerate someone who should be clinging to its tenets.

Static sends this article along from the Washington Post.

Mr. Heller, of Heller vs. Washington D.C., is at it again. He’s filed a second suit which claims that the city of Washington, D.C. goes too far in its restrictions against semi-automatic handguns. He futher alleges that the requirement for ownership of a firearm in the home precludes its use for self-defense.

I predicted this would happen in an earlier post. I’m delighted to see it come to fruition.

The jacket on Taylor Anderson’s new book, Destroyermen: Into the Storm might fool you into thinking that it’s just another castaways in time story. There’s nothing wrong with writing in this sub-genre of science fiction, but to dismiss the first of what promises to be an epic series as “merely” anything would be a terrible mistake. Anderson writes under influences as diverse as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, David Drake, Bernard Cornwell, and Patrick O’Brian, weaving them into a story that is as engrossing as it is fun to read.

The novel opens with an old destroyer in the Asiastic fleet running from a superior Japanese force. The destroyer, USS Walker, is poorly suited for the realities of naval combat in WWII. It is steam driven, undergunned, and outmanned. Nevertheless her captain and crew made a valiant effort to stem the tide of Japanese aggression in Indonesia, buying time for the Pacific fleet to arm and reconfigure after Pearl Harbor. In a battle that seems lost, Walker steams into a squall to hide from her enemies and ends up…somewhere else.

That somewhere else is a world where nature is more savage than our own. Two intelligent races are locked in a battle–one for supremacy and one for survival. Walker, fresh from one war, finds itself immediately in another one that is no less terrifying than the one they left. This time, though, they aren’t the undergunned ship that they were in 1942. There, they are the pinnacle of technology with the ability to tip the scales in favor of one people.

The characters draw heavily from military archetypes. The ship’s captain is conscientious, dutiful, and weary from the position of ultimate responsibility. His true battle isn’t with the enemy. He fights it everyday within himself as he struggles to come to grips with not only his position, but the future of his ship and his crew. Anderson avoids cliché in his characterization by humanizing Lt. Commander Reddy through several interactions with his officers and crew.  The crew also make colorful appearances, including a gunner’s mate, the bosun, and two engineering hands who have a background in wildcatting. The suspense of disbelief needed for having that expertise in the engineering department of a steamer isn’t that difficult. Anderson also treats the conflict between the humans themselves realistically, providing a nice subtext to the overall plot.

Anderson’s work defies easy categorization. It is marketed and sold as science fiction, but it has elements of fantasy and military fiction as well. His novel is anchored by a strong ensemble cast of characters, a diverse world that is beautifully sketched, and a firm grasp of the function and use of a WWI-era four stacker destroyer. You can get a glimpse of Anderson’s passion for the subject in every detailed description that he writes.

This is one of the must-read books of the year. Filled with technical details that will make most grognards swoon, it will also  appeal to the  obsessive compulsive nature in the pickiest science fiction reader. Destroyermen: Into the Storm does not fail to satisfy.

OMG.

Sam Raimi wants to make Evil Dead 4.

If you’re a normal human being, you’re asking: What’s Evil Dead, and why have there been three others? Truthfully, there have only been two Evil Dead movies, because the third was was called Army of Darkness. The latter should receive the title as the most-quoted B-movie ever made, as well as one of the most ridiculously funny ones. 

The series centers around Bruce Campbell’s character of Ash, an S-Mart employee who finds himself beset by evil. One fateful night, evil got into his hand and it went bad. Really bad. He resorted to cutting it off with a chainsaw to save himself and his girl, replacing his missing limb with the same chainsaw that saved him from evil. From that point on, cheesy gore ensues while he fights zombies and saves the world. 

Army of Darkness tops this plot line by sending Ash back in time to the court of some English knights. Ostensibly sent to help them stop an army of “deadites” from overrunning their castle, Ash goes on several mysterious adventures in his quest to obtain the Necronomicon, which is the tome of all evil.

Sound like fun yet?

To think that Sam Raimi (keep in mind this is the guy who directed the Spider Man movies) would have the budget to do another movie in this universe is one that makes me squeal with glee. (Yes, squeal!)

Here’s the trailer for Army of Darkness, which includes a few of the good one liners:

You know the drill.

I actually believe.

Boo to the critics who complain that the movie is only an “extended television episode,” or to the ones who complain that it lacks action that was typical of the series. Boo to the naysayers who say its been too long since the series ended for them to resurrect a franchise out of it. This movie does not contend with the alien mythology, nor does it answer any of the questions left open by the series. It succeeds admirably as a reintroduction to the show, establishing the characters after the years since the last episodes.

Dana Scully is a doctor at a Catholic hospital, practicing cutting edge medicine in an environment that is intentionally characterized as old and dilapidated. Her life after the FBI has been spent productively, helping those in need as best she can. Mulder, on the other hand, has turned into an obsessive recluse. He collects newspaper clippings of unsolved cases and broods on a picture of his sister, Samantha.

When the FBI looses an agent to mysterious circumstances in rural West Virginia, Mulder and Scully are called into to aid the FBI in what looks to be an X-File. A Catholic priest (a convicted pedophile living in a self-policed community of post-incarceration sex offenders) has psychic visions of the missing FBI agent and is convincing enough that one Special Agent in Charge (played by Amanda Peet) uses Mulder as a consultant to verify or debunk the psychic potential of their would-be informant. 

What follows is typical X-Files–creepy twists and turns, an interesting statement on humanity, and the brilliant interplay of Scully and Mulder, writ large across the silver screen. Scully is still the doubter, after everything she’s seen and observed. It is her own struggles with faith that keeps her from believing that a sinner, no matter how vile, could find forgiveness and even atonement by helping them catch a monster. 

The only qualm that I have with the movie is that Callum Keith Rennie (who played Leoben on Battlestar Galactica) is terribly under-utilized as one of the primary villains. His intensity and focus are palpable, but he is given few lines and ever fewer chances to show his acting chops. His part in the big reveal near the end of the movie is fairly disturbing in a horror-movie archetype sort of way, but I was left slightly unsatisfied by it.

Gillian Anderson is still beautiful. She definitely shows her age a little bit, but the calm certainty with which she plays her role has improved with her time away from the show. David Duchovny looks a little wild (even sporting a beard in the opening minutes of the movie), but this is likely a greater metaphor for the state of his character, mirroring his own confusion and frustration with his life post FBI. Mitch Peleggi even makes a surprise appearance as Direct Skinner later in the show, which pleased me and will likely please other long-time fans of the show.

If you’re not a series fan, I think the movie still provides enough of a mystery plot that you’ll be entertained, even if you miss all the references to the show or to the character’s pasts. There are a couple of genuine scares in there, and they are handled with the low key style and direction of a modern-day Hitchcock. My appetite has been whetted; now I’m ready to see Scully and Mulder tackle some of the remaining questions in the show’s mythology.

In the beginning there was Hypothesis, and behold! The Hypothesis was good. The Hypothesis was with Science, and the Science with Hypothesis, and in their union, they began to forge a universe of law and order between them. But Hypothesis was not constant. After a while, Science realized that Hypothesis no longer fit the growing universe quite right, so Science introduced a laborious process with Hypothesis in order to make Theory. Science would only be in union with Hypothesis long enough to produce Theory. This was to be the first of many unions, for while Theory could have no other consort than Science, Science could have many unions with many different Theories. Hypothesis was content with this arrangement, because it became uncomfortable when it didn’t fit quite right.

In those days, Theory was said to be born of Hypothesis through the incredibly difficult labor of Experimentation. However, after many seasons together, Science and Theory became so comfortable together that it became unreasonable to go through the difficult process of Experimentation. Theory then became jealous of science and sought to raise its value at Science’s expense. After a lengthy discussion, Science agreed to rename Theory as Truth. Theory became very content with its new name.

Hypothesis became alarmed that it was no longer held in such high esteem by Science. It had held the position of precursor to Theory for so long, that it was difficult for it to not serve its purpose. There was no longer room for Theory, because Truth required no Experimentation, thus there was no need for Hypothesis in union with Science. Hypothesis reluctantly sat alone one day, until it was greeted by Political Agenda.

Political Agenda told Hypothesis that it, too, could become Truth just by saying so. Hypothesis was doubtful, but agreed to try it. After a period of many seasons, Hypothesis understood that it, too, could be Truth, just by repeating early and often. Since Hypothesis became truth without the laborious process of Experimentation, its union with Science was severed.