After some reconsideration, I decided to pull the article about the Mohammed cartoon. No, nobody threatened me or anything like that (which would have only made me keep it up even more). It's because I'm in the process of "switching over" my more political/op-ed stuff to a separate blog, and keep The Knight Shift for my more "happy/upbeat" material. That's not to say that there won't be "heavy" stuff in this space though. But I do want to keep my various interests in proper perspective, instead of "mushing them" all together. Maybe when I have the new blog up and running, I'll repost the cartoon and my associated commentary there. In the meantime, I'll do my best to keep the more caustic stuff from infecting this space.
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
So y'all went looking for Taylor Hicks and found me :-)
According to the stats, about 85% of this blog's new visitors lately are coming in from search engines after they've entered "Taylor Hicks", "Under the Radar", "Hell of a Day", "MP3" and other terms related to Hicks. This blog has suddenly become a magnet for fans of Taylor Hicks to come and find stuff and maybe congregate around. Can't help but feel might proud at that, hope that I can do my share of spreading the good word out about our man Taylor Hicks!
So what y'all think I should do: maybe create a big graphic banner with Taylor all over it for the top of the screen while AI is running? Gimme some ideas, I won't mind turning this place into a Taylor Shrine :-)
The boys rocked tonight's Idol
We watched the girls last night on American Idol and tonight's show and between the two, we felt most entertained by the guys tonight. Last night it was Paris Bennett and Mandisa that I was still thinking about this morning. Tonight... ooh-boy. So many good performances. Being a Carolina boy I might be biased when I say that Chris Daughtry and Bucky Covington did well. Gedeon McKinney and Jose "Sway" Penala definitely have moves in their acts. Elliot Yamin was said to have one of the best voices heard in this or any competition. But I gotta give it up most of all for Taylor Hicks, coming in at the very end (for the next two hours you can vote 1-866-IDOLS-12 for him), taking "Levon" by Elton John and totally making it his own with that unique personality and flair of his. Simon shocked everyone (especially Hicks's dad) when he said that he was wrong about his original assessment of Hicks at the audition. 'Twas two hours well spent, we thought. Hope Hicks and some of the others make the cute come tomorrow night's show.
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
NOW he threatens to veto something: Bush wants foreign control of American ports
Why in the name of Valhalla is our President Bush hot to sign away control of several American ports to a foreign company run by the United Arab Emirates? He's even threatening a veto if legislators try to block the transaction... which would be the very first time that he's used the veto since he took office in 2001.
He didn't veto McCain-Feingold, and he does nothing about our borders being flooded with illegals and who-knows-what-else... but he's willing to go on record as saying that he'll finally use veto to open up an American vulnerability to a foreign power.
It makes no sense, but you can read all about it here.
Monday, February 20, 2006
An American original passes away: Bill Moran re-discovered centuries-lost secret
Of all the sad news that I've had to pass along in this space lately - and there's been more than its fair share - this is by far the most heartbreaking...
Word reached me earlier this afternoon that Bill Moran, the "Master of the Forge" and knifemaker extroardinaire who over thirty years ago re-discovered the long-lost secret of how to make Damascus steel, died last week at the age of 80.
Word reached me earlier this afternoon that Bill Moran, the "Master of the Forge" and knifemaker extroardinaire who over thirty years ago re-discovered the long-lost secret of how to make Damascus steel, died last week at the age of 80.
This is so depressing a thing to report that it literally hurts doing so.
Hanging in my Dad's knife-shop is a photo of three men standing together, each smoking a pipe: Dad, legendary knifemaker George Herron, and Bill Moran. It's hung there for a few years now, like a good luck charm: may good fortune smile on Dad's forge as it has on these two gentlemen.
It was through Dad that I knew Bill Moran. When Dad asked me if I wanted to go down to Troy one Sunday to the community college where Moran was teaching a class on blade forging, I immediately said yes. I'll never forget the first time I met him, the way he smiled and had that twinkle in his eye. So help me, Moran had one of the friendliest smiles I've ever seen from anyone. Most of our family came to know him too. He always took time to talk to anyone who was interested in the fine art of knifemaking, and share whatever knowledge and wisdom - and his was considerable - that he happened to have.
So far as American legends go, God broke the mold with Bill Moran. I like to believe that he would have made his mark anyway with his prowess on the anvil. But what he'll forever be remembered for was when in 1973 he made the first Damascus steel blade to be produced in hundreds of years.
Damascus steel is multi-layered steel. You would recognize it immediately if you saw it, with its beautiful patterns and whorls of color. My Dad recently made a Damascus knife that, after the steel had been folded and re-folded, has four-hundred-and-five layers of steel compressed into one thin blade. It was a high artform in the Middle Ages, but over the centuries the secret of how to produce it had been lost. Moran found out how to do it again, and he shared his newfound knowledge with his fellow knifemakers. The result since then has been some of the most beautiful blades to ever be made... and Moran made the best of them.
This was a guy who was good at his trade, and just had a plain good heart to him. And now he's gone. But I believe that Bill is in a far better place now, and has been happily reunited with the wife he loved so dearly. Part of me likes to believe that he's now turning his legendary intellect and skill toward making more knives, with the finest forge that Heaven can provide.
Well, I could go on, but that would just be adding to what a lot of other people have already said about Bill. There's some really good write-ups about him that I've found: The Washington Post and The Frederick News-Post have articles about him, and the News-Post also a special essay about Moran written by friend Pat Jamgochian that expresses who Moran was far better than anything I could do here. Moran was co-founder of the American Bladesmith Society, and it has set up a special memorial page for people's remembrances and photos of Bill. There's also a tribute to him at Never Yet Melted.
Sorry to see him go. The best words that come to my mind about Bill Moran are the same ones that Thomas Jefferson used to describe Benjamin Franklin: "No one can replace him."
EDIT 11:06 PM EST: Cutting Commentary has a collection of links to stories about Bill Moran and more photos of his handiwork.
Rep. Ron Paul on "The End of Dollar Hegemony"
A little over a month ago I wrote here about how the value of the American dollar was being underwritten by how it is used on the global oil trade. Countries such as Iran and now, as of last week Syria, are beginning to make the transition from the dollar as the standard unit of exchange to the euro, which may dramatically increase the euro's value while significantly decreasing that of American currency.
Now Ron Paul, member of the House of Representatives (and one of the few in government today that I feel is worthy of being addressed as "Honorable") weighs in on this, with very much the same perspective. In "The End of Dollar Hegemony" Rep. Paul outlines the history of the American dollar as a tool for diplomacy and effecting foreign policy over the past century, and how there is now the threat of this being undermined by (a) a long-standing disastrous policy of fiat currency and artifically inflating what value the dollar already had, and (b) the growing disuse of the "petro-dollar" as the currency of international oil markets. A very sober read for anyone who's paying attention to this sort of thing.
Government quashes independent dairy farmers
I'm posting this because as a former independent dairy farmer, this is an issue that I've some passion for and I think it matters to most Americans more than they probably realize. It's about how the government - at the urging of bigtime agricultural co-ops - is putting the squeeze on independent dairy producers, forcing them to adhere to needless and overly burdensome regulations that have nothing to do with the quality of the milk they produce. Here's the story from the Chicago Tribune...
He sells milk for half the price you pay. The feds want to stop him. Why?You know, if most of the small-time farmers in this country ever decided to hold a general strike, they would bring not just this nation, but a lot of the rest of the rest of the world to its knees. Just something to think about. Farmers are some of the most looked-down upon people in a society, but they are also the only ones that are really feeding that society either. It would be in our best interests to not throw up obstacles against them, ya know.By Andrew Martin
Tribune national correspondent
Published February 19, 2006YUMA, Ariz. -- Hein Hettinga is a dairy farmer but he doesn't spend his days milking cows.
Rather, Hettinga keeps a cell phone pressed to his ear to keep tabs on his empire of 15 dairy farms stretching from California to west Texas, including five massive farms in the desert east of Yuma.
But what distinguishes Hettinga from other large-scale dairy farmers is that he also bottles the milk from his Arizona farms and trucks it to stores in Arizona and Southern California. At one of them, Sam's Club in Yuma, two gallons of Hettinga's whole milk sell for $3.99.
That's the same price as a single gallon of whole milk in Chicago, which is second only to New Orleans in the cost of milk.
By controlling all stages of production, Hettinga says he can produce milk so efficiently that he and his customers can make a hefty profit at dirt-cheap prices. Such vertical integration, as it is known, is increasingly popular in agriculture as farmers and processors try to find ways to eliminate costs and increase revenues.
In the highly politicized world of dairy, efficiency could carry a price. Major dairy cooperatives and milk processors successfully persuaded federal regulators to write new rules that would prohibit the business practices that Hettinga has so successfully put in place.
Under the proposed regulations, Hettinga could continue to process his own milk only if he agrees to participate in a federally regulated pool of milk revenues, which would essentially require him to pay his competitors to stay in business. A bill that would have a similar effect is working its way through Congress.
Hettinga, an outspoken 64-year-old who emigrated from Holland to California at age 7, said the pending regulations were an effort by dairy heavyweights such as Dean Foods and the Dairy Farmers of America, the nation's largest dairy cooperative, to monopolize the milk business.
"Basically, I'm a pebble in the shoe of DFA and Dean Foods," he said. "The only reason I'm a success is they are a milk monopoly and they have raised the price too high. The consumer is getting ripped off."
Both Dean and the Dairy Farmers of America, or DFA, declined to comment for this article...
Saturday, February 18, 2006
"Red Riding Rashomon": We get Hoodwinked
It snowed at a pretty good clip for most of the day, which made the outside look really beautiful... while it lasted. When we got to the theater it had started getting too warm and what snow had stuck to the ground soon melted. It was gone entirely by the time we came out of seeing Hoodwinked.This was a far better movie than I was expecting when we first went in. The animation style is different than what you'd come to expect if you've only had a steady diet of Shrek and Monsters, Inc. over the past few years, but don't let that deter you: what Hoodwinked may lack in technique it more than makes up for with wit and cleverness. Remember Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon? Well, Hoodwinked is practically the exact same story... but instead of being a murder it's the classic tale of Little Red Riding Hood! I didn't readily recognize most of the voices until the credits rolled, but there's a really good crew doing the vocal talent in Hoodwinked: Glenn Close as Granny, James Belushi as the Woodsman (who's not really a woodsman, but you'll have to find out for yourself), Patrick Warburton as the Wolf (who isn't a big bad wolf either... which was the point I realized just how demented this movie really is), Anne Hathaway as Red Riding Hood, rapper Xzibit (the dude from MTV's Pimp My Ride) as Chief Grizzly, and in the first role I've seen him do in years, David Ogden Stiers as Nicky Flippers. This movie has plenty going for it, for both kiddies and the "grown-ups". Think of this as being "Shrek meets The Usual Suspects". Definitely recommended.
Got a fix for some Taylor Hicks? Lookee here!!
EDIT 08:01 PM EST: Looks like Blogger is finally working again. I had to republish the index though and doing so made the original Taylor Hicks post (and its unique URL) disappear, meaning I had to repost this again (which is what the post you're looking at right now is). Apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused someone...
But if you want your Taylor Hicks now now NOW, yer in luck: WBHM, an NPR station in Birmingham has an audio interview with Hicks and they've got three tracks from Under The Radar online as MP3 files! You know what to do: right-click and save (or do whatever the heck it is that you Mac users do) and save these bad boys to your hard drive ASAP!"Hell of a Day" Enjoy!! :-)
But anyhoo, if yer like me, and especially after the way he faced his fate this week on American Idol (playing his harmonica as he walked toward the judges) you probably can't get enough of Taylor Hicks right now. This is the first guy who, if he won on Idol, I would be there to buy his CD on the first day it's out. Yeah I've always liked Clay Aiken and Ruben Studdard, but Hicks just flat-out astounds me with his talent and charm. The music is in this guy, you know what I mean? Well, someone saw my last post about him and sent me a terrific rendition of "Georgia On My Mind" by Hicks, and it's definitely going on my MP3 player now. It's moved me enough that I plan on getting Hicks's first CD, now being sold at an independent music store in Birmingham, Alabama, even though there's currently a two-week wait for shipped orders. Here it is, Taylor Hicks's Under The Radar:
But if you want your Taylor Hicks now now NOW, yer in luck: WBHM, an NPR station in Birmingham has an audio interview with Hicks and they've got three tracks from Under The Radar online as MP3 files! You know what to do: right-click and save (or do whatever the heck it is that you Mac users do) and save these bad boys to your hard drive ASAP!
Friday, February 17, 2006
Late night snack: Putting two BBQ giants together
I am somewhat of a barbecue connoisseur. Over the years I've visited many different restaurants, tried every style there is, and sampled just about every kind of barbecue sauce on the planet. Think the most unique place I've ever been was The Dinosaur in Rochester, New York (it is exactly what it advertises to be: a real honkey-tonk joint). And I never ate at his restaurant but Maurice Bessinger's Carolina Gold sauce - a mustard-based concoction - was pretty darned good, when I was actually able to buy a bottle of it while living in Asheville (it became pretty difficult to find after Bessinger's political views aroused some controversy, but that's another story). I never get into the argument of which style is the best: each one has its own unique characteristics that make it stand out from the rest. But there are still some barbecue places that I not only like more than most, I make it a point to recommend them to others.
So a little while ago I was feeling pretty hungry, and thought about eating some of the chopped barbecue that we got from Short Sugar's Drive-In in Reidsville, North Carolina today. Yeah, they don't cook their meat all the way through in their wood-fired pit anymore (a lot of it is done in an electrical oven) and some people don't like that, but theirs is still a taste that has been called legendary: it was once voted best barbecue in America, even.
(By the way, Short Sugar's is where we shot the final scene of Forcery. With its old-fashioned drive-through it was the perfect place to re-create Mel's Drive-In from American Graffiti.)
Well anyway I nuked up a plate of Short Sugar's chopped barbecue in the microwave. And I almost used Short Sugar's Barbecue Sauce on it, which is probably one of the strangest barbecue sauces around. I'm pretty sure some of the main ingredients are vinegar and brown sugar (some think soy sauce is in there too), but no tomatoes or any other ingredient you think goes into barbecue sauce. Definitely worth getting two or three bottles of the stuff if you ever visit them. I could have gone with that, but then I decided to try something a little different...
Along with Short Sugar's, Williamson Bros. Bar-B-Q in Marietta, Georgia is one of my all-time favorite barbecue restaurants. Every time we visit Lisa's family there, we always stop at Williamson Bros. to eat and then buy a gallon or two of their world-famous sauce. Williamson Bros. sauce is more of the traditional sort, but its exquisite taste is unparalleled by anything else in its class that's on the market. Well, we've got a little bit left in the gallon jug we bought the last time we were there, and just as an experiment I decided to use the Williamson Bros. sauce on the Short Sugar's chopped barbecue...
...And, it was incredibly delicious! It was like the very best of both places coming together in perfect harmony in my mouth. VERY good combo, although it left me horribly thirsty (I had some tea on hand to wash it down with). Well worth trying out for yourself if (A) you ever come to Reidsville and can get barbecue from Short Sugar's, and (B) you have some Williamson Bros. sauce on hand. You can order the Williamson Bros. sauce from their website at the link above and have it shipped to you, if you live in some remote place like Idaho and can't get down to Georgia on a regular basis. Maybe someday Short Sugar's will start selling their sauce online too: if and when they do I'll make a post about it at once.
Anyhoo, it was really delicious. So delicious in fact that I felt led to make a post about it, for sake of anyone interested in good barbecue. Sometime in the near future I'll also try to do full reviews on both Short Sugar's and Williamson Bros., along with most of the other good barbecue places that I know of.
Thursday, February 16, 2006
"Shout hallejulah c'mon get happy!"
Power Line is making hay of a Pew Research study indicating that, apparently, Republicans are happier than Democrats. It also says that only 29% of us independents are happy... but hey nobody polled me so what do I know (and I like to consider myself a pretty happy guy).
Doesn't necessarily mean that their being happy was a good thing, does it?
Here's where Power Line demonstrates considerable narrow-mindedness:
That conservatives (Republicans) are happier than liberals (Democrats) is no coincidence, as anyone who earns a living selecting juries can tell you.Ummmm, the modern Republican party is not conservative. Its party platform is moderate or centrist... and I would even say tilting toward socialist on too many issues.
But I figured out awhile back that Power Line is more interested in ideology that ideas, so their shilling for the Republicans no matter what doesn't really surprise me. Which is a shame because based on what I know about the guys who run Power Line, they're a pretty sharp bunch. Definitely smarter than to let themselves be used as tools by partisans.
(C'mon guys, this is the freakin' Internet... the whole idea of this place is that you don't have to think what "they" want you to think!)
But back to the issue of "happiness", which Pew thinks is relative to one's political stance. Maybe it's worth pointing out that people like these ladies were also happy, even downright jubilant back in the day...
Doesn't necessarily mean that their being happy was a good thing, does it?
My favorite Idol contestant
We watched American Idol last night, the one where the judges picked the top 24 contestants (12 guys, 12 gals) who'll go on to be judged by popular vote. Yah, I though I wouldn't be getting caught up in this again, but so help me this crop of singers has some people I really, really want to see go far. This might be the best group since Season 2 (the one that produced Ruben Studdard and Clay Aiken). And though there's a lot of these singers I'm gonna be cheering for, none of 'em has captured my attention quite like this guy...
EDIT 1:26 PM EST: I just noticed that North Carolina has four contestants in the top 24... tying with California for state with most singers in this year's competition. The Tarheel crew are: Heather Cox from Jonesville, Bucky Covington from Rockingham, Chris Daughtry from McLeansville, and Kellie Pickler from Albemarle. Throw in the fact that Clay Aiken is from Raleigh and Fantasia Burrino is from High Point and what can ya say: this state really has a set of pipes!
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Tonight's Lost...
...was intense.
What do they mean?! I don't know! And that's why I love this show so much :-)
I found it to be darkly ironic that Mira Furlan's character Rousseau hands Henry Gale over to Sayid for torture... when it was Furlan's character Delenn who was mercilessly tortured in the "Comes The Inquisitor" episode of Babylon 5. Anyone who watched that show will know what I'm talking about (and this is the 2nd time in 24 hours that I've linked to the Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5... go figure).
Were those Egyptian hieroglyphics that we saw in red and black as the countdown timer went to zero? Sure as heck looked like them.
Was great to see Clancy Brown in this episode (playing the CIA operative).
I don't think Henry is one of the Others. But I could be wrong...
Solid episode this week. And next week sounds like it's gonna be pure crazy.
EDIT 10:42 PM EST: Found a screencap at Sledgeweb's Lost... Stuff from tonight's episode, "One Of Them", showing the "digits" as the timer went crazy...
What do they mean?! I don't know! And that's why I love this show so much :-)
Wait a sec... so Cheney WAS drunk?!
From my first post about Vice President Cheney shooting a fellow hunter a few days ago:
Part of me is wondering if alcoholic beverages were involved in this thing...I'll admit that it was a joke. A bad one at that. And then it comes out in an interview today that Cheney really was under the influence of alcohol:
Cheney on TV: Takes Blame for Shooting But 'Unapologetic' About Aftermath, Admits Drinking One Beer at LunchThis is going to be made out that they were just "good old boys" out having a good time. But really, what kind of "responsible" person is it who would bring alcohol into a situation involving firearms? The military and commercial airliners have what's called the "16 hour rule", which forbids operating aircraft within sixteen hours of imbibing alcoholic beverages. It only makes sense that hunters in the field - or anyone else involved in a potentially dangerous activity - should voluntarily enforce that rule on themselves if they insist on having their beer. That's not a condemnation of anyone who does drink alcohol. That's definitely not a slam against those who enjoy the pastime of hunting. It's just common sense, especially when considering the safety of others.
By Joe Strupp and Greg MitchellPublished: February 15, 2006 3:45 PM ET
NEW YORK In an exclusive interview with Fox News' Brit Hume this afternoon, Vice President Dick Cheney took full responsibility for shooting his hunting companion, who has until now been pictured as the guilty party. The interview will not air in full until 6 p.m., but according to Hume, in summarizing the contents, the vice president remained "totally unapologetic" about the long lag in reporting the shooting to the public -- and also said that he had consumed one beer at lunch that day...
Just ask yourself this: would you feel safe around someone armed with a shotgun mere hours after he had drank a beer?
Outbound Flight: Star Wars novel soars with Zahn at the helm
Outbound Flight by Timothy Zahn is one of the best Star Wars novels I've read in a very long time.But first: Has it really been fifteen years?
I mean, there's now been more time elapsed since Heir to the Empire, than there was between its release and the premiere of Star Wars: A New Hope in 1977. And even then that seemed like an awful long time.
It was a morning in May of 1991 when the news first hit like a blast from the Death Star. A small item in that day's newspaper – accompanied by the classic still photo of Princess Leia putting the plans inside Artoo-Detoo – about new Star Wars stories being on their way. Starting with a novel called Heir to the Empire, the first of a three-part trilogy by a writer I'd not heard of 'til that moment named Timothy Zahn. I read and re-read that story about eight times during homeroom before civics class started that morning. And that's all I was able to think about for the rest of the day... or the week for that matter. The article said the book was coming out in June, so I thought it would be at least a month before its release date.
It wasn't even that long. A few days later on Saturday I was in Waldenbooks at the old Carolina Circle Mall and in the sci-fi section a copy of David Brin's Earth caught my eye. I thumbed through it and at the back of the book saw a page devoted to Heir of the Empire... release date May 1991! I immediately went to the register and asked the cashier if he'd heard of this new Star Wars novel. He took me to the new hardcover releases... and there it was. I bought it at once. By the time Mom had brought the car to Reidsville I'd read Chapter 1. Twice. For the rest of that evening and throughout the last days of my junior year of high school, Heir to the Empire dominated my gray matter.
For those of us who had been faithful to the saga, throughout its almost decade-long term of dormancy, Heir to the Empire was like manna from Heaven. Our patience had been rewarded. Something happened those first few weeks after the novel's release: the longtime fans could practically feel it. It was like we just knew that this was only the beginning, that we suddenly had a bright and beautiful future ahead of us for this story we loved so much. As if a wonderful secret that we already knew in our hearts was about to be revealed to everyone else in this world. If 1977 gave birth to us Star Wars geeks, then 1991 was definitely our coming-of-age year. That was fifteen years ago… and it hasn't stopped yet.
By the time Zahn's trilogy – which continued with Dark Force Rising and The Last Command – wrapped up in 1993, he had forever left his indelible marks on the Star Wars saga. Most obviously, Zahn will go down in history as the man who jump-started off a story that seemed narcoleptic, even dead to some. But especially to dedicated Star Wars fans, Zahn will be remembered for giving us the two most popular characters that never saw a moment of screen-time in any of the movies. The first was Mara Jade, the beautiful assassin who wanted nothing more than to kill Luke Skywalker... before she ended up marrying him.
The second was Grand Admiral Thrawn.
No other new character – outside the prequels anyway – has captivated me like Thrawn did. To this day he remains one of my all-time favorite Star Wars characters. From the very beginning Thrawn screamed out cool. Maybe it was the mystery about him: who was this blue-skinned humanoid with burning red eyes? Where did he come from? How did such an alien wind up so high in command of the Imperial Navy? And then there was his mind: even if he were merely human, Thrawn would be eternally notorious for his brilliance as a tactical thinker. This was someone who could study a species' art and completely understand how that race would behave in battle. In a time after Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader, Thrawn was a fitting villain you could believe stood head and shoulders with them as their equal. Which is partly why I've never liked how Zahn handled Thrawn's death in The Last Command: that was a punk's way to die, not something befitting so noble a military genius.
That's another reason why Heir to the Empire and Zahn's ensuing books were so well received: Zahn played out the plots with all the skill of a chess wizard. He was – and remains to this day – the acknowledged master of wheels-within-wheels-within-wheels storytelling in Star Wars literature. And with Thrawn, Zahn was at the top of his game. Yes, other writers have also done well with Mara Jade... but Thrawn will always be a character that only Timothy Zahn could write and manage.
Call us Thrawniacs, or Thrawn-aholics, or Thrawnies or whatever: a lot of us didn't want just more Star Wars. We wanted more Thrawn.
And gladly, Timothy Zahn obliged us. In 1997 came Specter of the Past, the first in his "The Hand of Thrawn" duology. Together with the following novel Vision of the Future, we learned a great deal about Mitth'raw'nuruodo: the man the galaxy would better fear as Thrawn. Zahn revealed more about Thrawn and his people, the Chiss. It was discovered that Thrawn was not the warrior-without-mercy that many believed him to be, but rather was someone who simply wanted to serve his people as best he could, no matter the personal cost. Then in 2004 Zahn returned to Star Wars with Survivor's Quest, and expanded upon something that seemed like such a throwaway line years earlier: the Outbound Flight Project.
Outbound Flight, as Thrawn explained to Captain Pellaeon in Heir to the Empire, was a grand undertaking by the Republic in the years before the Clone Wars. Under the guidance of Jedi Master Jorus C'Baoth, Outbound Flight was a mission of exploration taking it into the galaxy's unknown regions before leaving the galaxy entirely to seek out life in the far beyond. Or it would have been, had it not been intercepted and destroyed by a task force commanded by Thrawn... at the behest of Palpatine. Not much else was known about the endeavor until Survivor's Quest, when the Chiss discovered the remains of the great ship and turned it over to the now-married Luke and Mara Skywalker. And even then the story of what happened to Outbound Flight remained enigmatic.
Now, fifteen years after we were first told about the bold voyage, Timothy Zahn returns to the Star Wars universe with Outbound Flight: at last the full account of what happened – and what went tragically wrong – with the Republic's attempt to journey outside the familiar galaxy.
(And in case you haven't figured out already, I'm a huge fan of Zahn's work. One of my most treasured Star Wars collectibles is that first edition of Heir to the Empire, that I later got signed by Zahn. And I'd be remiss if I didn't pass along the link to the interview I did with Timothy Zahn in February of 2000.)
It's five years since the Battle of Naboo in Star Wars Episode I. The Clone Wars are still half a decade away from erupting. Jorus C'Baoth (the original template of the clone Joruus C’Baoth from Zahn's initial "Thrawn Trilogy") is trying to get complete funding for his Outbound Flight Project. He has the actual ship: six Dreadnaughts in a ring formation around a central core. What he doesn't have is the full complement of fifty thousand crewmembers that will be used to found colonies during the journey. Taking up the matter with Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, it is suggested by Palpatine's new advisor Kinman Doriana that if C'Baoth can mediate a dispute in a distant system, that doing so would provide C'Baoth with enough political capital to move the Senate to fully sanction Outbound Flight. C'Baoth and his apprentice Lorana Jinzler are soon on their way – and are met by Obi-Wan Kenobi and his fourteen-year old Padawan learner Anakin Skywalker – little suspecting that Doriana has engineered the entire scheme under the direction of his true master: the Sith Lord Darth Sidious. The Sith Master is secretly orchestrating events so that Jorus C'Baoth will get his full crew, including six Jedi Masters and twelve Jedi Knights. Which will make it all the more easy to destroy C'Baoth and several more Jedi in one fell swoop, thus removing possible interference with Sidious's master plan to control the galaxy.
Meanwhile the Bargain Hunter, a smuggling freighter piloted by Dubrak Quennto, Jorj Car’das and Maris Ferasi is at the edge of Republic space, perilously close to the Unknown Regions and trying to evade capture by an angry Hutt crimelord. The three smugglers make a blind hyperspace jump into the Unknown Regions, and upon exiting into real-space discover themselves confronted by a picket force of alien vessels: the Expansionary Defense Fleet of the Chiss Ascendancy. The trio of humans is brought aboard the flagship vessel, where they meet the commander of the force: a young Chiss officer named Mitth'raw'nuruodo.
Fans of Thrawn will be thoroughly delighted with this book, as we gain considerable new insight on his background in the years before he became a Grand Admiral in the Galactic Empire. Even at this stage in his career, Thrawn boasts a cunning mind, and already is showing his talent at discerning a culture's mindset for his own advantage by examining its artwork. But he's also an officer who is walking a tightrope between what he believes is best for his people and what is thought to be moral behavior as demanded by his rulers. Those who know something about Thrawn and how he comes into service of the Empire will know what I'm talking about: Thrawn's growing belief in the use of pre-emptive strikes, which is severely frowned upon by the honor-minded Chiss.
And speaking of the Chiss, Outbound Flight is must-have reading for anyone who's interested in what is easily one of the most intriguing alien species in the Star Wars mythos. At one point it is explained to the three human smugglers how Chiss government functions: it is probably one of the purest examples of meritocracy that I've ever seen detailed in fiction. We also learn a lot more about Chiss society and language. These details are interesting for sake of the Chiss in their own right, but they also illuminate much about Thrawn's character.
I loved the stuff about Thrawn and the Chiss in Outbound Flight. But where this book really succeeds for me is the story of Jorus C’Baoth and the Outbound Flight Project itself. We finally get to find out all about the original C'Baoth, from whom would come the insane Jedi clone that terrorized the galaxy in the original Thrawn Trilogy. And this is where the book outright shocked me...
...Because Zahn shatters the Jedi mold when he does Jorus C'Baoth. Let's cut to the chase: C'Baoth is a loon! From what little we knew of him from previous books I was expecting Jorus to be ego-centric, and definitely eccentric, but otherwise pretty sane. We find out in Outbound Flight that the original C'Baoth was anything but. His single-minded obsession with Outbound Flight is bad enough. But then there is what can only be called his warped totalitarianism: he tries to create his own "Jedi Temple" within the bowels of Outbound Flight with Force-sensitive children of colonists. He takes control of the mission's legal system. He refuses to listen to the counsel of the other Jedi, including Obi-Wan Kenobi (who along with Anakin Skywalker has been sent by Mace Windu to accompany Outbound Flight to the edge of Republic space). He metes out harsh arbitrary justice for minor incidents without consideration of circumstance. As the novel progresses, Jorus C'Baoth becomes increasingly dictatorial and possessive over every aspect of Outbound Flight. He's like a micro-management Nazi with quasi-mystical powers. And in the end, what happens to Outbound Flight is as much the fault of Jorus C'Baoth as it is of Thrawn... if not moreso.
One of the things Zahn has always done during his takes on the saga is impart to the reader just how vast the galaxy really is. That’s one of the bigger themes of Outbound Flight, to me anyway: the unknown, and how we approach it. On one hand, what we don't know is something that can entice us into discovery and adventure, the human crew of the Bargain Hunter come to find. On the other, fear of it is something that can compel us toward acting with wild irrationality, as happens to the mad Jedi Jorus C'Baoth. In Zahn's hands the Star Wars galaxy becomes not just a background setting, but a major catalyst toward character development. It's a heckuva great tool to have on hand, and I would love to see Star Wars writers in the future come to use it more.
When Zahn first wrote his original trilogy in the early Nineties, he had no idea what direction George Lucas would take the saga with the prequels. As a result there was a lot of supposition about the Clone Wars and critical dates in Star Wars history that doesn't jibe with what we now know is what "really" happened. One of the more glaring examples of this happens in Heir to the Empire, when Captain Pellaeon recalls how "...the early clones – or at least those the fleet had faced – had been highly unstable, both mentally and emotionally. Sometimes spectacularly so..." As we know from the last two prequels, it was the Republic that used clones, not "the clonemasters" that were referenced in The Last Command. A lack of knowledge about how Star Wars canon would shape up was something that couldn't be helped in the years leading up to the release of the prequels, though the various authors did their best in speculation. With Outbound Flight, Zahn doesn't dispute the Lucas-established canon... but he doesn't invalidate his previous work either. A lot of details have been "fixed", but if you bear in mind that Star Wars is supposed to be a legend, and one as protean as the best of them, then it becomes quite easy to reconcile the events of Zahn's previous books with the saga post-Episode III. Personally I think that Outbound Flight is a beautiful work of "retconning". Maybe someday there'll be a concerted effort to resolve all the Star Wars literary fiction of the past fifteen years to be in-line with the bedrock law of the completed movie series. If so, and if done even half as well as Zahn has done with Outbound Flight, then we're certain to have a well-concerted chronology forever free of "canon wars".
By the way, speaking of Star Wars literature, Outbound Flight connects to a lot of it. Characters that were new in Zahn's previous novel Survivor's Quest are "introduced" here. There are also many references to Greg Bear's Rogue Planet and tons of anecdotes about mysterious invaders from outside the galaxy... which longtime readers will automatically understand to be the Yuuzhan Vong from the New Jedi Order series.
Outbound Flight is vintage Zahn-style Star Wars. Reading this, and having it bring back so many good memories about when Zahn's first Star Wars novel came out and thinking about everything that's happened to the saga over the years, made taking it in a very pleasurable experience. It's a solid-written book that finally reveals what happened with an incident we first heard about fifteen years ago, and gives us a lot more about some characters that have greatly intrigued us ever since then. I can't recommend this highly enough to any Star Wars fans who might want both a rollickin' good action story combined with a steady stream of new saga lore to take in. Excellent book. Go read it. Now!
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Andreas Katsulas - G'Kar and the One-Armed Man - has passed away
The sad news is just now hitting the wires that Andreas Katsulas has died of lung cancer at the all-too-young age of 59.Katsulas was a Shakesperean actor who appeared in performances all around the world. But what I'll never, ever forget about him was his portrayal of G'Kar, the Narn ambassador on the television series Babylon 5. Starting from the very first time I saw him in the role, all the way back when the pilot movie aired in February 1993, I was stunned at Katsulas's acting ability. G'Kar was one of the most multi-faceted characters to ever come out of sci-fi television - warrior, poet, philosopher, alien pervert, and then reluctant religious leader - and Katsulas poured every ounce of his passion into bringing him to life. G'Kar was the heart and soul of Babylon 5, especially with how he interacted with Peter Jurasik's character Londo Mollari. But even on his own terms, Katsulas's G'Kar was a force to be reckoned with.
You might also remember that it was Katsulas who played the One-Armed Man in the motion picture The Fugitive. I've always thought that Katsulas in that was one of the things that really helped make that movie so terrific.
And now, he's been taken from us, way too soon if you ask me. A few days ago it was Phil Brown, and now this.
In remembrance of Andreas Katsulas, tonight I'm going to put "The Coming of Shadows" episode of Babylon 5 into the DVD player. Can't think of a better way to honor his memory than to watch one of the best performances that he ever did.
Happy Lupercalia to you and yours
From an article at Wikipedia...
The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, Chicago 1929
In Ancient Rome, the day of February 15 was Lupercalia, the festival of Lupercus, the god of fertility, who was represented as half-naked and dressed in goat skins. As part of the purification ritual, the priests of Lupercus would sacrifice goats to the god, and after drinking wine, they would run through the streets of Rome holding pieces of the goat skin above their heads, touching anyone they met. Young women especially would come forth voluntarily for the occasion, in the belief that being so touched would render them fruitful and bring easy childbirth.Years later the Christians would come to associate this holiday with someone named Saint Valentine - though nobody is sure which of the three Valentines it's supposed to be - "cleaning it up" in the process and turning it into a wholesome celebration of love without the need to sacrifice a goat.
Here's something that's grown on me in the past few years: why do we need a holiday like St. Valentine's Day? I mean, love is something you're supposed to share with that special person every day of the year. Real love doesn't need a "reminder" like Valentine's Day to keep it fresh and renewed. Do we really need to spend countless millions of dollars on cards and candy and gifts to give to our loved ones just because bigtime commecialism expects us to?
Well, just something to think about. And call me odd but when I think of Valentine's Day, this is what usually comes to my mind the most...
The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, Chicago 1929
