JMS Usenet Posts - 01/24/2003
Dirk A. Loedding
:Inspired, a friend bought a different one (which one secret, to cover
:myself). Long story short, he ended up receiving two copies, and after
:we went over them, we're fairly certain they are just dupes for..
:well, dupes. There are a couple of written notes, but they are
:obviously copied.
:I just want to know what I should do about this. I mean, firstly, this
:script *is* one of yours. And we don't want to rip anyone off. (We may
:feel the DMCA and the Mickey Mouse Protection Act are bad law, but
:copyright is, generally, a Good Thing.)
Caveat Emptor. Buyer beware.
Be advised that with very few exceptions, any script you buy online is
going to be a photocopy, possibly several generations down. Only
multicolored drafts are actual production drafts. So if you get an
all white draft, or one where the colors don't match the headers
(REVISED BLUE 10/14/98, that sort of thing), it ain't the real deal.
The ONLY scripts that one can sell legally are actual productoin
scsripts used in the shooting as memorabilia. Anyone selling anything
else is a pirate. The rights to the physical script belong to the
writer, per the Writers Guild Separation of Rights Provision.
This is important because many writers receive income from selling
their scripts at convention (as with David and others), or by
publishing them in book form. Mass copies sold by others, illegally,
remove or seriously inhibit the writer's ability to do either of those
things.
:I just want to know what I should do about this. I mean, firstly, this
:script *is* one of yours. And we don't want to rip anyone off.
Too late. You bought something illegally produced. Not much you *can*
do.
jms
>JMS quotes and answers:
:JMS, a plea....is it really that hard to have a season of 52 episodes?
:followed by another season of 52...and another....and...immediate dvd
:release...with commentary....and expanded cut scenes....
:afterall, you are the amazing super-writer!
I think I would be the amazing dead super-writer....
jms
>JMS quotes and answers:
:I once found a website with a tons of bloopers videos grabbed from
:some convention or something (and sadly in a very poor quality).
Good, they shouldn't be good quality.
:I was sadened not seeing those on the DVDs. Is there any plan for
:upcoming season packages ?
I think there has to be some arrangement made between WB and the
Screen Actors Guild for that to be done, since it involves material
not originally intended for broadcast. So that has been a sticking
point to date.
jms
>B5 has friends in high places, seems like.
So I was talking to Doug Netter this afternoon, who had in turn spoken
with Bruce Boxleitner earlier in the day about the year 2 DVD. In the
course of that conversation, Bruce mentioned something that Doug in
turn mentioned to me.
To wit:
Bruce had been at the White House about a month ago, in the company of
wife Melissa Gilbert, president of the Screen Actors Guild, for a
discussion with some of the functionaries there concerning acting
roles moving north of the Canadian border.
As they're talking, in a long conference room, in the middle of the
meeting the door oens and Karl Rove -- main strategist for the
Republican Party and power behind the White House throne -- comes in.
He says (paraphrased from memory) to Melissa, "I hope you'll forgive
me, but I actually here to see Bruce."
He then tells Bruce, "I just wanted to tell you that I'm a big science
fiction fan, and that Babylon 5 is the best science fiction television
series *ever*."
Then there's a pause, and he adds....
"And the President thinks so too."
Upon hearing this, I went to lie down for a spell, but I fully expect
to be back on my feet by Spring, latest.
jms
>JMS quotes and answers, in response to suggestions of a B5 Radio Serial:
>Actually, I think that would be great. JMS has already done
>audiocasts for SciFi.com, so this wouldn't be a stretch. The
>wonderful Doctor Who audios by Big Finish, as well as the series you
>mentioned, show just how effective the audio medium can be.
Actually, about a year or so ago, Sci-Fi.com was in active discussions
with me to do just this, but when they pulled back on their audio
drama content, that went away.
jms
>JMS quotes and answers:
>Can somebody point me to where JMS has said he'd never work with Pat
>Tallman again? Or for that matter, Claudia Christian? In fact, I
>think he's said that he'd consider it if the proper story came up.
That is correct.
>I'm not even sure where the perceived rift was supposed to have
>happened with Bruce Boxleitner, but I'd have to say that it's pretty
>weird to hear (at a convention in mid November this year) the leading
>man on B5 complain that the series didn't go into a sixth year.
>Hello? Wasn't he paying attention at all?
There's no question that Bruce was very upset with me at the end of
B5, because it was a good operation, a steady gig, everybody pretty
much liked everybody else, and you hate to leave in that kind of
situation.
I remember when we were shooting "A Call to Arms," I was standing by
the camera as Bruce walked by and he said, very sternly, "What, it
couldn't have been a SIX year arc?" But you're right, that it was a
five year arc was said by everyone, especially me, from day one.
>Am I the only one who thinks it's kinda strange that Jerry Doyle is
>claiming to have been 'sent out to look for financing'? Right. An
>actor. Not Doug Netter, an actor. And part time politician. Doesn't
>that seem kinda odd, not to mention unlikely?
The description is incorrect. At one point, I guess it was about the
time we were playing with the idea of Rangers, Jerry called Doug and
said that he thinks he has the financing, via some Silicon Valley
guys, to pull together the money for at minimum a pilot, maybe a
feature, maybe a series set in the B5 universe. We said great, if you
think you've got something, let's see what you've got.
There were several more conversations, then the calls just kinda
stopped, and we got the impression that the money he had just kind of
evaporated, as these things often do. Lots of people talk a good
game, but at the end of the day, either they have the good or they
don't, and my impression is that these guys, whoever they were, didn't.
The only thing that bothers me in the piece is Jerry's attribution to
me of a quote said by a person at Warners, which I *repeated* to Jerry
but did not say myself, that you could put the makeup on somebody else
and they could be G'kar. I was appalled by that statement, and
mentioned it to Jerry, Doug, others. I think he's taken the memory of
that conversation and attributed the comment to me since I was the one
who passed it along. But ain't no way anybody else could play that
part but Andreas.
jms
>JMS quotes himself about the above:
:I'm not sure I'd go that far, either. I remember JMS being asked
:online about what Jerry was talking about (re: a new series) and he
:seemed aware but neither enthusiatic nor encouraging of the idea.
I went to jmsnews.com and found the following from 2001, which pretty much
confirms what I posted a moment ago (a handy thing, the internet).
------------
Subject: Re: JMS: Jerry Doyle and crew wanted to revive Babylon5?!
From: Jms at B5
Date: 05/15/2001 03:32 PM
Forum: Usenet
To answer the question...yes, Jerry had some ideas, and tried to put
something together, but the resources just weren't there.
jms
-------------
jms
>JMS quotes and answers:
:JMS hasn't said anything of a negative nature that I know of about Pat
:Tallman (Lyta). During Crusade there was to have been a part for her
:in the episode "The Path of Sorrows" but they weren't able to come to
:financial agreement.
Which, obviously, was not my call, but hers. Her work would have
taken just one day (closer to half a day, actually), and the fee was
based on what we'd paid her in her last season. She felt she couldn't
do it for less, we didn't have the budget to give more, it's a fair
disagreement, she opted out, so I had to revise the script
accordingly. This sort of thing happens all the time.
:Yes, there was some disagreement over who said what, when, but nothing
:I ever read from JMS indicated that he would never allow her to work
:on his stuff again. The only thing I can think of that would have
:caused people to decide that JMS would be so spiteful is that when
:another actor (Gen. Hague, don't remember the actor's name) bailed on
:them to do DS9, JMS re-wrote the script to kill off the character. He
:said online the one 'should never honk off the writer' and people seem
:to have decided to take this as a serious statement of 'policy'
:instead of being playful.
At the end of the day, however much one might grump, you have to do
what's right, otherwise the whole thing goes pear-shaped, as the Brits
say.
Case in point: Foxworth, as noted above. We needed someone for an
important part in Jeremiah this season, and his name surfaced as one
prospect. I'll be honest: when that happened, I kind of got my back
up over the Hague situation. But then, at the end of the day, you have
to say, "Okay, he pissed you off, but does that mean you don't hire
the right guy for the job?"
So we hired him for that episode, "Letters from the Other Side," part
one of our series premiere (with a quick shot also in part two).
Because you can't sensibly run a show in any other way.
jms
>JMS quotes and answers, about Jeremiah:
:Hmmm....based on nothing in particular...am I detecting a point of
:view shift for this second season?
Nope. But somebody has to be at the heart of Valhalla Sector, so he's
the main guy there.
:Any other titles or news you can share, JMS?
The season debut is "Letters From the Other Side," parts one and two,
followed by "Strange Attractors," "Deus Ex Machina," "Rites of
Passage," and "The Mysterious Mister Smith."
jms
>JMS quotes and answers:
:Presumably these are all yours? Do you know when the Samm Barnes
:episode(s) will fall in? And did you assign the premises to her or
:did she pitch to you?
She wrote "Rites of Passage," from her own premise and story. It
should be a great episode, answering the question, "What happened to
Jeremiah's mom?"
jms
>About the DVD's and the CGI:
I don't think this got through the momentary message blockade, so I'm
sending this a second time....
There are a number of elements to this discussion that need to be
addressed.
First, a lot of the flaws being seen on the film were there in the
beginning; the difference is that the DVD transfer shows those little
flaws more clearly than when the show is broadcast on tape over the
air. Just as a CD will pick up any glitches in the original analog
master, so a DVD will show any shortcomings in the film or the
transfer.
On the CGI question, bear in mind that we were making this show at the
very beginning of CGI effects, and that they had never been done for
TV on this scale before. Many andvancements have been made in the
intervening years, but at the time, the hardware and software we had
was pretty rudimentary.
We did not have the tech, at that time, to do our comps in widescreen
super35 versions. The software that we used to dump the footage into
couldn't handle it. So we had no choice but to render the CGI and the
comps in standard ratio.
We cannot intercut full-frame CGI with widescreen non-cgi stuff
because sometimes we intercut in two-second intervals or less, and the
banging back and forth between aspect ratios would be extremely hard
on the eyes.
Nor can this footage be re-rendered because the separate elements do
not exist anymore, only the original un-comped film elements are
there. The CGI files are not around anymore, and to recreate every
shot would be prohibitively expensive. In a big way.
Because of the trend to HD, the widescreen versions, even with these
small glitches, will still have a longer shelf life than if we put
them out in regular aspect ratio. And that is the purpose of the
story, to keep it around.
We were the prisoners to the tech that was available to us at the time
(for the first season we were using home Amigas, no less). It was all
experimental and by the seat of our pants kind of stuff. But it was
the best anyone was doing at the time, and we did the best we could
with the tools we had.
jms
>JMS quotes and answers:
:Indications are that Warner Home Video is happy enough with the sales
:of S1 that beginning with S2 they won't be waiting for sales reports
:on each set before starting work on the next.
I don't know that they've committed to that extent, but they are very
happy with the sales, and are accellerating things.
Interviews for year 2's DVD have been set, or already conducted, with
Stephen Furst, Andrea Thompson, John Iacovelli, Anne Bruice-Ailing,
Jerry, Claudia, Bruce, me, John Copeland, Doug Netter and others.
In addition, I'll be doing commentaries on "The Coming of Shadows" and
"The Fall of Night," and there will be a bonus group commentary by
Bruce, Claudia and Jerry on "The Long, Twilight Struggle."
There's talk about a special musical sequence for the season 3 DVD,
with Chris re-scoring 2-3 episodes end to end with non-stop music,
future segments on "The Future According to Babylon 5" with NASA and
JPL guys (btw, James over at a certain House subcommittee, if you're
reading this and could drop me a note, that'd be great). I'd like to
see the final bonus section on year 5 be about the fans of the show.
Point being...they're putting a LOT of energy and work into this to
make each set better than the one before.
(And yes, still writing my brains out here this weekend, except for a
brief Bejeweled break where I finally broke 400,000 points.)
jms
>JMS quotes and answers:
:When she went to JMS to ask for, although an unreasonable (though not
:grossly so) request, an understandable and fair request, she got a
:(nasally voiced) "NO!" from JMS.
And who, exactly, are you to determine, years after the fact, what was
an "unreasonable" or resaonable request? Or whether it was grossly
unreasonable? Again, were you in the room? Yes or no, were you in the
room? Then how do you know what was asked?
And how do you know a "NO!" was said by me, "nasally voiced?"
You are utterly ignorant of the situation and the conversations. You
weren't there. And you choose to characterize my actions with your
own voice and prejudices (see above) in order to make it sound snotty.
As for example:
:Considering how caustic JMS's words on this matter were (i.e.Whenever
:she was on, she expected it to be the Andrea Thompson Show,"(1) ), I'm
:inclined to take Andrea's side on this matter.
You then link to the actual quote, which you deliberately paraphrase
to make something else. Since you had the quote in hand, you could
easily have just cut-and-pasted it rather than rewriting it to fit
your thesis. What I said -- from the article you cite -- was:
"Finally, it was never Warner Bros. who hired her or pushed her on me.
WB didn't care one way or another. I was the one who hired her, with
Doug Netter. If I hadn't felt she was right for the role, I wouldn't
have hired her. But I was also under no constraint to make the show
into the Andrea Thompson Show. Andreas and Peter have often appeared
as many times in a season as Andrea, and didn't even *have* a
guarantee for the first two seasons. (Now they do.)"
"We did what we could to accommodate her without destroying the story
arc. I regret that she has taken out her frustrations in this way.
Either one is a team player, part of an ensemble, or one is not. We
are very proud of the fact that the cast members as they stand now are
all ensemble, team players."
Where, please, is the "caustic" in this? Where is me saying "Whenever
she was on, she expected it to be the Andrea Thompson show?" Nowhere.
It's the oldest trick in the book, and the lowest, also the meanest,
to take someone's words and paraphrase them to your own benefit, and
characterize them with loaded terms to make the other person look bad.
Frankly, this kind of tactic is beneath contempt.
Grow up.
jms
>JMS quotes and answers:
:But none of us were there, except JMS and the cast and crew of B5. And
:even their statements should be taken with a grain of salt. Everyone
:has a different perspective, and no one has perfect and unbiased memory.
I don't necessarily disagree with this, there is a certain amount of
that in any kind of human discourse, but there are also other elements
to factor into this.
Here, for me, is the biggest one. If you go to jmsnews.com, you will
find 16,694 messages that I posted to the net between November 1991
and five seconds ago. All of this was done in real-time, without
having to fall back on memories of events five or ten years down the
road. So the information there was as current as the event itself.
Lots of other recollections have been found to be flawed. Claudia's
statement, for instance, that she was fired, where I had insisted
she'd quit, only to have her say, in later interviews, that yeah, she
did indeed quit. (After having left me to bear the brunt of that
allegation for a very long time.)
But in 11 years and 16,694 messags (of which this will become 16,695),
not one of them has ever been shown to have strayed from the truth
after the fact. They have uniformly passed the test of time.
If I have one benefit, it's that I come from a journalist's
background, and I'm very good at reporting what happens, without much
in the way of elaboration.
Personally, I think that counts for a lot.
jms
>JMS quotes and answers:
>All those in favour of JMS say "aye"
Then I vote nay.
And I'm not being facetious.
This shouldn't be about taking sides with one person over another.
The day people start agreeing with stuff just because it's me, is the day
the conversation is over, because it's no longer a conversation at all.
I'm in favor of reasoned discourse, of asking impertinent questions in
search of pertinent information, but doing so fairly, without
resorting to straw-man arguments, pettifogging, paraphrasing, dead-
catting or "are you now or have you ever been" high school debate tactics.
It's not about winning or losing an argument or taking sides.
jms
>JMS quotes and answers:
:That you have had an average of 4+ posts per day over 11 years that
:can be searched and critiqued is absolutely incredible.
Also frightening and deeply disturbing.
:How the heck did you find time to post that much?
I use the net as a break from writing. When I hit a point where I
need to think about the next scene, rather than leave the desk and go
watch TV, which will kill an hour or more, I go online, which keeps me
at the keyboard. I noodle a bit, during which my brain works out the
story problem, and zing, I'm back into the writing again.
I may be one of the few who uses writing as a break from writing....
See "deeply disturbed" above...
jms
>JMS quotes and answers, about why he did a cameo on the show after
>once posting that he couldn't.
Correct, the cameo was a) at the end of the show precisely so that it
*woudln't* break my suspension of disbelief, because by then it was
done, and b) it was meant as a surprise. If I'd said "Yeah, I'm gonna
do it but just once," then everybody'd be waiting for it, and if they
hadn't seen it by SiL, they'd know it was there.
jms
>JMS quotes and answers:
:With a) in mind, and given that you ended up getting another season
:after SiL was in the can... *did* you feel your suspension of
:disbelief was broken? If so, how did you work around it?
By making sure the episode was never finished (final editing) until
after we'd finished shooting S5. I let it sit in the Avid,
unfinished, until I was ready. That also prevented WB or anyone else
from getting it and having the cut hit the streets in an unauthorized
way, which I felt could happen if the cut was just laying around for a
year. By keeping it all in the system, in pieces, it (and I) was
safe.
jms
>JMS quotes and answers:
:You also have to remember how extremely callous and insensitive JMS
:was to Andrea Thompson near the end of season 2
And, may I ask, where were you at the time? Were you at the stage?
Were you privy to conversations? On what do you base this?
She wanted more screen time, at what would have been at the expense of
the overall arc of the story. I couldn't comply. She chose to leave.
There has never been any dispute about any of this as far as I've ever
seen.
So I suggest you either retract that statement, or back it up, because
I don't much like it when I get libeled by someone who doesn't have
the first clue what he's talking about, stating things as though they
were fact.
jms
>JMS quotes and answers, on 08-Dec:
:I've noticed you posting several times lately-- Do tell us you're
:taking time for a little R&R!
Not really...oddly enough, the more I post, sometimes that means the
more I'm writing, because as noted in a prior post, I stay at the
keyboard that way.
Right now, the next Jeremiah script is due Monday, the next Spidey is
due mid-week, the next Supreme Power (aka Squadron Surprme) is due the
end of the week, my next Rising Stars is due, and I have to begin
writing on another project which isn't Polaris, but which needs to get
moving ahead.
jms
>JMS quotes and answers:
:Of course, that's a big "if". Without the files, jms or other
:producers would need to re-hire all new artists to recreate the
:original footage. Expensive. It was done for the Star Wars Special
:Editions, but I doubt WB would cough up the money for a Babylon 5
Those files are no more.
jms
>JMS quotes and answers:
:Obviously, the reason for this is that the show's directors at the
:time wanted to frame the image to look good in 4:3... but now that we
:have the wider 16:9, these directorial choices stand out like sore
:thumbs.
I think that's a fair criticism, and one we made ourselves a bit
later, around season 2 or 3. We set up a screening at Pacific Video,
our post house, for an episode in wide, and saw that our directors had
been hewing too closely to the 4:3 ratio. So we told them to be more
aggressive, and use the full frame more in later episodes. So this
problem does get ameliorated a bit down the road.
jms
>JMS quotes and answers - Political Post:
:Do you think the conditions are currently right for martial law? I
:realize that something similar has been discussed to death already on
:this group, but it's not quite the same question, so I hope you'll
:indulge me.
Well, let's see...American citizens (low-lifes, yes, but citizens
nonetheless) detained without questioning or formal charges, military
tribunals reviewing cases in secret without the right of appeal, a
proposed system of gathering everyone's private information for use by
the government, tracking checkouts at public libraries, going through
purchases to determine who's taken various kinds of lessons
(including, most recently, suba diving lessons), asking high schools
to turn over addresses for students eligible for military service,
signing an overall action for overseas "hits" on possible targets that
does not specifically exclude American citizens as targets and thus
generically includes them, all but reversing the Freedom of
Information Act, a declaration of wartime emergency that has no
clearly defined end-point, moves to weaken or eliminate the Posse
Comitatas act which prohibits the use of military in domestic
situations, the detainment at airports -- under the new terrorist
provisions -- of pepole whose only offense was to take part in protest
marches in Seattle and San Francisco, the loosening of search and
seizure laws....
No, not at all, why do you ask?
jms
>JMS quotes and answers:
:No, that was the *other* Straczynski! This one is from Power Rangers
:and He-Man!
HEY!
I'll take the rap for a lot of things, including the Korean War, but I
had nothing to do with Power Rangers.
jms
>JMS quotes and answers:
:But why would anyone name a space station after that guy from "Murder She
:Wrote"?
Who else would know where the bodies are buried...?
jms
>JMS quotes and answers:
:I don't understand how you could allow stencilling your name on B5's
:ass in season 5. We were in suspended disbelief until we had to
:explain plausibly why the crew would paint a 21st century author's
:name there. It didn't serve the story. So why did you allow it?
Because the main titles are not part of the story. We had the faces
of cast members sitting in the middle of the jumpgate flares, or
hovering in space over the station...did you really think they were
there as well?
Main titles are FOR credits. They're not part of the story, and
should never be confused...otherwise Londo would have to be looking
out his window every week wondering what all those huge letters were
circling the station all the time...
jms
>JMS quotes and answers:
:I said all that to ask this pondering question: What B5 fictional
:concept seems likely to become reality, whether through conscious
:imitation or sheer precognizance?
I saw a piece not long ago on holographic data storage systems using
crystals that looked a lot like datacrystals, and I think we're
getting very close to the technology of links.
jms
>JMS quotes and answers, about Rising Stars
:I for one am pretty shocked that there has been no indignation about
:this. It borders on being libelous.
You cannot libel public figures in general, in particular when it's as
science fictional a context as this.
To the larger question...the story of Rising Stars is set in the real
world. Bush is the president right now, hence he had to be the one in
the hot seat.
I'm writing another book currently wherein we see events of this
nature affecting every president from Carter, through Reagan, Bush 1,
Clinton, and Bush 2, all of whom are portrayed in the book as being
involved in a particular and wholly fictional conspieracy. I don't
apply a political litmus test to these things.
The whole POINT of Rising Stars is that it's set in the real world,
with real problems, and real historical events, right now. If I made
up a fake president it would totally compromise the book's integrity.
If Al Gore had been certified by the Supremes, it would've been him
instead.
jms
>JMS Political Commentary:
Okay, I'm probably going to get cyber-mugged for this, but let me put
in my two cents on the Iraq situation, and the reasons behind it.
It is really nothing more or less than an attempt to re-draw the map
of the Middle East.
By their actions and their statements, Bush and Co. seem to believe
that they have a manifest destiny, and that they must act to seize the
moment while they can, hence their haste to get things popping.
If you take down Iraq and replace it with either a puppet government
or one friendly to the US, suddenly you can bring down the price of
Iraqi oil considerably. If the other nations in the region don't go
along, they get frozen out. So suddenly the prices go down, profits
go up, and (while fossil fuels last) everybody profits economically.
Politically, if you take out Iraq, you remove a linchpin from the
Mideast structure. You have a friendly base of operations from which
to launch military endeavors; you can aid your friends and loom over
your enemies; it puts the US in a position to destabalize other
countries in the area or bring them to the side of the US.
That, I believe, is their plan. The only thing wrong with it is that
it can't work; the region is too interlinked and impossible to govern
from afar, and they haven't fully thought out the doctrine of
unintended consequences.
Within an hour or so of 9/11, Rumsfeld -- according to the NY Times --
was asking people, "Can we pin this on Saddam, take 'em all down at
the same time?" They've clearly been looking for an excuse to go in on
this for a long time. If it wasn't 9/11, it'd be something else.
If you say it's about oil, that's only part of the picture; if you say
it's about weapons and terror, that's also only a part of the picture.
You have to stand well back from the tapestry and get a good look at
the whole of it to recognize the thing for what it is: an attempt to
redraw the map of the Middle East in its entirety.
jms
I was watching "I Love the 80's" on VH1 Tuesday night and the 1982
episode talked about He-Man and how it can be perceived in a Homo Erotic
manner. Now, I admit I watched it a few times way back when but I never
picked up on the Homo Erotic aspect of the show. But during the VH1
show, the scenes they showed can be interpreted as to make you wonder
about He-Mans sexuality.
Joe, was He-Mans sexual preference a factor when writing for the show
during your tenure? Or is this something that today using 20/20 hind
sight the producers of "I Love the 80's" decided to interpret to raise
controversy?
Scott
>JMS "answers" a question about He-Man's sexual preference:
I always figured he had kind of a thing for Orko, personally....
jms
>JMS quotes and answers - Political
>>If you say it's about oil, that's only part of the picture; if you say
>>it's about weapons and terror, that's also only a part of the picture.
>>You have to stand well back from the tapestry and get a good look at
>>the whole of it to recognize the thing for what it is: an attempt to
>>redraw the map of the Middle East in its entirety.
:Considering the fact that most of the governments in the Mideast are
:barely-tolerable tyrannies as it stands, even among our "allies", I
:don't know that that would be a bad thing to try and do, is all.
Which would be, on the face of it, a valid counter...except that the
governments we tend to install in our wake are often, or soon become,
every bit as bad as what was there in the first place.
We helped put in and prop up the Shah of Iran, creating a situation
that was so awful, so corrupt, so full of human rights violations,
that it led in time to the growth of the fundamentalist forces that
overthrew him and gave us the current Iran.
Remember that, because we didn't like the russians, we helped arm the
Afghanis and trained the people who would in time become the Taliban
and Al-Quaeda.
When we didn't like Iran, we gave Iraq the very weapons that we're not
complaining about, in many cases. When it looked like he might use
(and may have used) chemical weapons in the Iran/Iraq war, our
government was decidedly silent. No one was making a big deal about
it at the upper echelons of government, because we knew he had
chemical weapons but he was using them in "our interests."
The bottom line, apart from all this, is very simple: is it the
business of the United States to go out overthrowing governments when
and where we feel like it? Is that really what the Founding Fathers
had in mind when they drafted the Constitution?
jms
>JMS quotes and answers - Political
:I still support an attack on Iraq - for my own reasons, regrdless of
:Bush's reasons. I want to make sure Iraq doesn't use
:nukes/bio/Chemical weapons against any of its enemies. Saddam is a
:true threat to the Middle East and to the world. I don't feel like
:having a repeat of when I was 8 years old in the shelter, with a gas
:mask on
Don't blame you. So I guess the question before us is not so much
"does the end justify the means?" as "does the means assure the end?"
There are any number of governments -- friendly or hostile to the US
-- that have these weapons. Do we take out all of them? With so much
of this out there, does it make it one whit safer for the US?
On top of that...to the best of my knowledge, and I'm happy to be
corrected on this, Saddam has never made an actual threat to attack
the US. Even the CIA came back and said that the odds of Saddam
attacking the US are very close to zero...unless he feels he's
cornered and no longer has anything left to lose. He might then use it
locally, or give it to others.
And let us remember that so far the Bush administration has not
produced one whit of proof that these weapons exist in the first
place. So we have a conundrum on our hands: either he has them, and
we guarantee an attack by going after him, or he doesn't have them, in
which case why are we going in?
The thing about regime change from outside is that it never works.
Any time we've done it in the past, we've ended up making the
situation worse, and had those ghosts come back to haunt us later, in
Iran, Iraq, the Phillipines, you name it.
The only time it does work is when it's the people of the nation
rising up. And they do, sooner or later. They rose up in Poland, in
East Germany, in Russia proper, and elsewhere. And that, for me, is
the telling point: someone from the outside coming in does not have
the moral authority to make the change stick, or make decisions with
the best interests of the local population at heart.
If, in 1775, prior to our declaration of independence, the Austrians
had said, "Look, we think you Americans are being oppressed, the
British have these terrible weapons, we're going to liberate you," and
they did so, putting in a puppet government, or setting up Austrians
to run the country...would we have ever accepted that? Would we not
have in time risen up against them?
GIving support internally to rebel forces in Iraq? Sure. Responding
to a direct attack against the US? You bet. Maybe even to just an
announced threat.
But none of that is ever going to guarantee the safety of the US. Our
friends in Europe have learned this lesson already, with terrorist
actions in both France and Britain for decades. But rather than torch
their liberties, egalities and fraternities, they set their jaw and
endured it, allowing their law enforcement arms time to deal with
it...and for the most part, that's been successful.
You want a guarantee that it can't happen here, but it can...and it
will, because in truth there's nothing that anybody can do to stop a
handful of dedicated fanatics. The only surprise here is that it took
this long for it to happen. And when it did happen, it came from a
small group with lots of sponsors, not as an act by one given nation
against the US.
If Al-Quaeda had WMD, you can bet your ass they would've used them by
now. But what we've had have been small, limited operations. Nor --
and this is strictly my opinion -- will any nation give them WMD to
use on their behalf here.
For one reason: if that were ever to happen, if a big biological or
chemical attack were ever perpetrated against the US, there is
absolutely no doubt in my milnd, or in their mind, that we would glass
over whichever country was responsible.
So as long as our enemies have something to lose, we're safe. Back
them into a corner...and I'm not so sure.
jms
>JMS quotes and answers:
:PS- whats happened to the Midnight Nation collected version that was
:due last month?
Dunno...they've been sitting on it for months. Hopefully it'll be out
soon.
jms
>Joe Quesada, JMS's Editor-in-Chief at Marvel, wrote a Christmas song.
>Song and lyrics are here: http://www.newsarama.com/joeq.html , and a
>story and interview are here:
>http://www.newsarama.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=2&t=000091
>JMS responds on 22-Dec:
Yeah, I saw it, it's kinda fun....
BTW, for those following the comics, Spidey 46 and 47 came out over
the last month or so, and 48 is due out this coming week.
I've just finished going over the balloon placements on 49, and in
some ways, though this has the least amount of action, it's my
favorite issue to date...there are a lot of laugh-out-loud pages, and
some real emotion, and it follows up on what I wanted to do from the
start, to really build up Peter's character, get to the core of who he
is. This builds on that foundation and takes it to the next level.
I'm just real happy with it.
I should have 51 turned in shortly.
jms
>What did you think of the second LOTR movie?
Loved the first one, still chewing on the second one...felt choppy to
me in places, and I was paying too much attention to what had been
changed to properly focus on what was there. I'll need to see it
again.
BTW, the expanded DVD version of Fellowship is even better than the
theatrical version. My hope is that the same will apply to Towers, on
the theory that the choppiness the editor in me feels was the result
of stuff being left out.
Nonetheless: visually breathtaking.
jms
>JMS quotes and answers:
:"JMS says that he did the Rangers pilot just for fun, he didn't expect
:or want anything to come of it, he was just having fun. He said that
:at San Diego ComiCon last summer. I was in the audience."
It's correct and not correct. I have this rule that the only things I
do, are things I think will be fun. I did the Rangers pilot because I
thought it would be fun. Note, however, the word "pilot." That's how
it was always discussed, as a pilot for a series.
In that situation, you always hope it'll go forward, but you can't
ever count on that, because if you get your hopes up, you'll go
insane. So you do it for the fun of it, and you don't think about
what comes after.
That was the substance of my comments at SDCC.
jms
>JMS quotes and answers, about doing the SiL cameo:
I don't recall if I ever replied to this, but:
:At that moment, did you go blank and have to act, or was the somber
:glance-about for real?
It was quite, quite real. What I'm saying, in my mind, as I make that
look around, is "goodbye."
Two takes was all I could handle before I told the director to get
stuffed.
jms
>JMS quotes and answers:
:I was just curious, does anyone here know what education jms has?
BA Clinical Psychology, minor in Philosophy
2nd BA Sociology, minor in Literature
Both from San Diego State University.
jms
>JMS quotes and answers:
:Did you study Clinical Psych with an eye toward going into practice?
:Or, as we used to say in college, did you go in for psychology just to
:find out what was wrong with you?
I knew I didn't want to get a degree in English, because I think if
you want to be a writer, that's the LAST thing you want to do. You
should go and play in other fields, learn outside your discipline. A
good writer is a generalist.
When I'd first started going to college (at Kankakee Community
College, Kankakee, Illinois), my first introduction to psychology was
the whole Carl Rodgers/humanistic school of therapy, which attracted
me enormously, enough to make that my major. I'd considered for a
time that I could balance out being a therapist with writing.
But by the time I got through 3 more colleges, ending up at San Diego
State, the psychology field had undergone a change to the
mechanistic/Skinnerian/behavior modification/drug therapy/
let's-run-rats-until-they-drop model, and that had zero interest for me.
So having finished that BA, I was trying to decide what to do next,
and I had enough course work in other areas to go for a second BA in
literature, philosophy and sociology, and chose the last one more or
less out of inertia, since by then I was already making a fairly
decent living as a writer.
My advice to anyone currently in college: take full advantage of the
resources that you have there, from the college newspaper or magazine,
to the theater department, the telecommunications department (if you
have one) to get all the experience you can. It ain't about the
degree, it ain't about just going to the classrooms, the lunch rooms,
the parking lot and the rest rooms...it's about acquiring massive
amounts of experience in a secure environment, where you can
experiment and fail safely.
jms
>The "ramming speed" debate comes up again:
Actually, ramming speed *is* a legitimate term, because it encompasses
several sub-sets of instructions, to wit:
1) Turn off or over-ride all safety mechanisms designed to protect a
collision
2) Use full speed, without concern about fuel or other aspects (such
as turning away at the last minute).
Most big ships have safeguards designed to help prevent collisions;
ramming speed as an order over-rides those safety precautions (this
per a Navy captain who explained it to me a while back).
jms
>JMS quotes and answers:
>Just out of sheer curiosity, when? I was at SDSU in the early '70s
>(73 - 75). EE mostly.
From around 1975-78. About a year in, I started writing for the San
Diego State Daily Aztec, and ended up writing so many articles,
reviews and columns -- sometimes 4-5 per week, sometimes twice a day
-- that the paper became known on campus as the Daily Joe.
jms
>JMS quotes and answers on 6-Jan:
:state of the Straczynski-verse update?
On projects new and old...there's been a variety of happenings.
On Jeremiah, we're about to start on episode 7, "Voices in the Dark,"
and I just finished writing 8 and 9, "Crossing Jordan" and "Running on
Empty." By the time we hit mid-week, we'll be halfway through
shooting on the season, which should wrap around the first week of
April, though post will take us through mid-May.
On Polaris...we got down to one of three projects of which one or two
would be greenlighted for production. It went down to the wire, but
finally SFC decided that the premise of Polaris was a little too
science fictiony, when they were looking to go for ideas that had more
immediate mainstream appeal. So even though they felt that Polaris
was the best written of the projects they had in development, they
went for a project about intergalactic (not interstellar,
intergalactic) vampires called "Bloodsuckers." It is, to be fair, one
of those concepts that, when you hear it, you get it, there isn't a
lot of background needed.
It happens. Networks develop tons of shows but only green-light a
handful every year. Showtime had something like 35 projects in
development this past season, and picked 3. So at least we made it to
the final cut, which is something.
We still feel strongly about Polaris, and once the turn-around period
has expired, plan to bring it elsewhere.
But as one door closes, another opens. The thing about television is
that you can only have x-number of projects in the works at one time
as a show runner (as opposed to someone who EPs and just sells shows).
For instance, on Jeremiah, I'm in first position, meaning MGM and
Jeremiah have first call on my services. When Polaris was in
development, it occupied second position, meaning that had it gone
ahead, that show would've had call on me above any other projects, but
second behind Jeremiah in case of any conflicts of priorities or
schedules.
It's very difficult to sell or develop projects in third or fourth
position, because it has the potential to compromise those productions
if you get jammed up on shows with higher priority.
Which is a long way to say that, once Polaris went away, it cleared
the decks to take on another television project in development, which
is very new and I can't discuss it yet until we're further down the
road.
On the comics front, I've turned in the first 2 issues of Supreme
Power, and should have the third issue in sometime next week. I'm
working with Gary Frank and Joe Quesada on the art and look of the
book, which is very cool. Also working on issue 51 of Amazing
Spider-Man, which I hope to turn in this week. (Issue 49 should be out
in a couple weeks, I think.)
I've been told the writer/directors doing the dust-up on Rising Stars:
The Movie are progressing well, and I keep hearing about this thing
shooting sometime later this year, but that's strictly unofficial
until somebody tells me on the record.
The text for the B5 Quote Book is nearly done, and I think that one
will be out around April.
I'm also doing an 80-minute audio drama called "The Adventures of
Apocalypse Al," for a company that will put the show out later this
year.
:Bet you didn't take Christmas or New Year's off, did you?
No, couldn't, too many projects to write.
jms
>JMS quotes and answers:
:What and When is "Supreme Power"?
Supreme Power is an updating of the Squadron Supreme book done quite a
while back by Mark Gruenwald. It was one of the first books, possibly
the first book, to really examine the role of the superhero in society,
and as such is generally considered to have paved the way for such
later works as Watchmen, Dark Knight, Marvels, Kingdom Come and others.
Marvel said, basically, if you could take those characters, who were
used at a time when comics were still quite a bit more restrictive
than now, due to the comics code and other influences, and update
them, recast them, free to do whatever you want...what would you do?
Hence, Supreme Power. While it has its moments of dark humor, it's a
very intense, serious book. And because it's being done for the
Marvel Max line -- which is aimed at mature readers -- there are very
few limitations in terms of imagery and language. Marvel has said it
wants me to take this book to the wall, and that's pretty much where I
intend to go.
Interestingly, unlike the aforemtentioned titles, this isn't a limited
series...it's intended to be an ongoing series, while trying to
sustain the kind of intensity you get in that kind of limited edition.
It's a massive writing challenge, though one of my main goals is to do
right by Mark's original creation.
I think the first issue appears sometime in February or March.
:So when can we expect RS:Bright? And do you plan any other spinoffs
:of Rising Stars?
This one, by Fiona Avery, is due out in February, I think. I know
that Top Cow is planning other follow-ups to the Rising Stars story,
but I'm not directly involved in the writing of them due to my
contract with Marvel. One of them may follow the events of Laurel
Darkhaven, the teek who ended up a CIA assassin.
:Also, when is the next Midnight Nation slated?
There are no more MIdnight Nation single issues; it was intended as a
12 issue miniseries, and it's done. I just learned (on this
newsgroup, as it happens) that the graphic novel is finally coming out
and now available for pre-order on Amazon.com.
Folks, I don't generally hock my stuff around here, because I think
it's rude. But in all honesty, in many respects, from a sheer writing
perspective, Midnight Nation represents some of the best stuff I've
ever done in the form. It's something that I poured a lot of emotion
into, a lot of personal feelings and history and beliefs, covering
life, death, religion, god, how we achieve meaning...all balanced
against a cross-country quest by two people, one out to reclaim his
soul, the other a woman sent to help him or kill him, depending on how
the story ends up.
It is also, oddly enough, a love story.
It's one of the things I'm proudest of as a writer, and I commend it
to anyone who found the ideas in Babylon 5 of interest. And the art
by Gary Frank is just gorgeous, and evocative, and full of emotion.
There's a great Cinescape review of the book at --
http://www.cinescape.com/0/Editorial.asp?aff_id=0&this_cat=Comics&action=page&obj_id=34965
-- which contains spoilers, however, so if you want to hold off on
some of the surprises, you may want to just get it cold. The key part
of the review, though, says:
"MIDNIGHT NATION offered a unique twist on some very old cosmological
concepts, and managed to make the idea that "love conquers all" the
very core of its resolution without resorting to smarmy melodrama.
That's a rare accomplishment, and all the more reason why MIDNIGHT
NATION will be remembered as one of the most absorbing and emotionally
moving sagas in modern comics history."
It's a nifty little story. Honest.
jms
>JMS quotes and answers - Political:
:Personally, I'm not willing to set my jaw and endure 100s of years of
:terrorism. I (and my children) can if we have to, but I'd rather
:remove the root cause ASAP.
But to assume that Sadam is the root cause of terrorism is naive and,
most important, incorrect. He takes advantage of the situation, sure,
and his reign is a symptom, but he ain't the root cause. Not by a
long shot.
jms
>JMS quotes and answers:
:It's really an incredible story, IMHO. I don't know how you continue
:to tell such powerful, moving, and insightful stories, but we're all
:clearly better for it. Do you ever get emotionally burnt out from all
:the passion you clearly put into your writing?
Yeah, I do. I tend to operate under the theory that unless you feel
something while you're writing, it's impossible to make the audience
feel something upon seeing it. So in the actual course of writing a
scene, or a story, I wind myself up to whatever emotions I'm
describing...usually by putting myself in a similar place, using past
experiences from my own life.
There were times on B5 when I was so whipped from the emotional roller
coaster of the show's story, not to mention the production
requirements, that I was just staggering under it...they used to just
sort of point me from one place where I was supposed to be, to the
next.
I think it's necessary to burn brightly when you write. I also know
it takes a whopping big chunk out of you in return. But I don't know
any other way to do it.
jms
>JMS quotes and answers:
:In the reports about Odyssey 5's cancellation it said that Showtime
:wants to dump it's SF shows, but can't do that to Jeremiah because of
:some MGM deal...
:A) any truth to this? How secure are you guys?
I'd heard the reverse, that Sony had attached a number of conditions
to the show that made it fiscally unviable for Showtime to pick it up.
At least that's the word on the street among show runner types.
:B) Are you going to be able to tell the FULL story with Jeremiah? Go the
:distance? etc...?
Every series is season-by-season.
jms
>JMS quotes and answers about the S2 DVD's:
:They sound interesting but I cannot see any mention of a commentary by
:Andrea Thompson. Did she decide to make one?
There was never any discussion, or announcement, of Andrea doing a
commentary, only an interview, which was done and is on the DVD.
(Along with Mira, Bruce, Jerry, Claudia, Stephen, Richard and others.)
The only cast commentary is by Claudia, Jerry and Bruce in tandem.
jms
>JMS quotes and answers about Jeremiah:
:I had asked this question last October. But, now that the second
:season is official and half filmed. Has their been any new info on
:the show coming to dvd??
I haven't heard anything new on the subject.
jms
>JMS quotes and answers:
>On the contrary, it is a observable fact that the psi corps trilogy
>has one tiny mistake in it - putting the Icarus incident and Mind war
>at the same time. The Centauri Trilogy has a whole host of minor
>timeline problems, like putting five months between the fall of
>Centauri Prime and Objectsd at rest. The "In the Beginning"
>Novelization gives all of Coplann's lines to Morann, (not to mention
>basically the whole technomage trilogy), but my point is made with the
>few previous examples. So then, where is the quality control?
So let me get this straight...based on those tiny errors, which creep
in because perfection is much to be strived for but rarely ever
achieved, especially when you're bringing in all kinds of different
people into the process, on tha basis of a few months difference here
and there, which 99.9% of the population wouldn't even notice unless
they did a real dig-out of the dates...which only a rather obsessive
kind of personality would do in the first place...based on THAT you
dismiss the books out of hand? That they have "no quality control?"
And on top of that, as a newcomer here, you go around dissing people
and insulting them because they disagree with you?
:Understanding someone elses opinon makes it easier to show how they
:are wrong. Spare me your version of singing Kum-by-yah, I'll deal with
:facts.
Does the phrase "ill-mannered boob" ring a bell with you?
Just checking, because I suspect you're either going to hear it a lot,
or you already have.
jms
>JMS quotes and answers:
:I don't know if you've ever said, but just "approximately," how much
:did each Crusade episode cost to produce? IIRC, B5 was around $1
:million per episode. I guess the Crusade cost was about the same as
:B5??? Farscape was supposedly around $1.4 million per episode, and
:new Trek is around $2 million per episode.
Yes, Crusade was about the same as B5, a tick under $1M per episode.
We did it by long-term planning and having scripts well ahead of time,
the same thing that has helped put Jeremiah under-budget in its first
season.
jms
>JMS quotes and answers:
:I noticed with some amusement that the Midnight Nation graphic novel
:was released on 31st December 1969, according to Amazon. What
:astounding technological advances; to publish a book decades before it
:was written! Any idea when the *real* publication date is?
As I'll note in a post elsewhere, it comes out next Wednesday
(January 15th).
jms
>JMS quotes and answers:
:I don't value other peoples opinions because the vast majority of the
:time they are ill-informed, and lack any thought or logic behind them
:- is not my problem nor does it fall under the scope of manners. It
:does however fall under the scope of politically incorrect, and if
:anything that must mean I'm more right than I thought.
1) You have just defined the very meaning and the psychology of a
troll better than anything I have read online in the last ten years.
2) If you place no value on other peoples' opinions, then you cannot
possibly derive anything from your company on this group, since it is
contingent upon that premise. Nothing anyone here says can mean
anything to you since you do not value their opinions.
As stated: a troll who only comes in to cause furors and annoy people
for his own amusement without any interest in a real conversation.
Hey, Jay...can somebody introduce this guy to the workings of a
moderated group?
He may not like it much, but the thing about not valuing other
peoples' opinions is that it gives them the right not to value yours.
Troll.
jms
>On 13-Jan, JMS wrote:
Just to bring folks up to date on stuff. Please forgive the crass
commerciality of just dumping this information out in a blipvert like
this, but people have been asking about the status of various projects
for a while, so I figured I'd just do a brain dump of it all at once.
1) Midnight Nation
After various delays on the publishing side, the graphic novel/trade
paperback version of Midnight Nation will be out in bookstores this
coming Wednesday (January 15th). This is something I'm immensely
proud of, and from my point of view represents some of my best work to
date.
It's also available via Amazon at:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1582402728/qid=1042432838/sr
=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/104-3188390-0907960?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
[URL will be wrapped - cut and paste carefully]
2) Novels
I'm pleased to note that I've just signed a deal with iBooks/Simon and
Schuster to republish all of my prior works of fiction, making them
available both online and in major bookstores. This includes my
novels Demon Night, OtherSyde, and Tribulations, in addition to a
collection of my short stories tentatively entitled Straczynski
Unplugged (which should make it just about impossible for readers to
find it by spelling the title), which would include a number of my
Twilight Zone stories, combined with stories published elsewhere but
never previously gathered into a single collection (such as "Say
Hello, Mister Quigley," originally published in Pulphouse, and "Your
Move," originally published in Amazing Stories), and a number of brand
new, previously unpublished short stories. I think they're targeting
Spring/Summer for the books to come out.
3) Comics: Supreme Power
On new comics projects, I've just turned in issue 3 of Supreme Power,
so I'm about 3 weeks ahead of schedule on the writing. The first
issue, drawn by Gary Frank of Midnight Nation, is due to hit stores
around March 16th. This is a very serious story, one of the most
mature things I've written, oddly enough, given the medium. My
scripts have turned into these huge, 50 page (for a 22 page book) Alan
Moore-ish tomes that are designed to be visually dense. It's a
rethinking of a number of superhero conventions that, so far, has
turned out very well, I think. For various reasons we've kept a
fairly low profile on this, until we could get a number of issues
ready to go, and to avoid word getting out prematurely on what we have
in mind, 'cause over the long haul it will prove to be kind of
controversial. Once it hits stores, I suspect it'll move out pretty
fast unless folks have dibs on copies.
4) Comics: Doctor Strange
Finally, I've turned an expanded, 35 page outline for a Doctor Strange
limited series in to Marvel, and will be writing the script for that
one as soon as I can get my head above water (easier on the keyboard
that way). I wanted to bring the Doc into the 21st century and
revisualize certain aspects of his character and his history. It's
not intended to be as deep or as potentially controversial as Supreme
Power, this one's for fun because I'm a longtime fan of Doc Strange,
and want to do something nifty with the character.
I've also agreed to do a three-issue Spider-Man/Fantastic Four
crossover, which should also be fun. (Which is the only reason to do
anything, to be honest.) I think we've slotted that one to begin
around issue 55 or so of Amazing Spider-Man.
Anyway, I think that's about it on the pubishing side...apologies
again for the commercialness of this.
jms
>JMS quotes and answers:
:No apology necessary. Despite occasional evidence to the contrary,
:this IS a group of fans of your work. If anything, many of us would
:be upset if you DIDN'T tell us what was coming out!
Thanks...actually, as it is, I forgot to mentoin that the next Spidey
comes out next week (the 22nd).
jms
>JMS quotes and answers:
:Does this collection of short stories include anything in the B5
:universe?
No, that stuff was licensed via WB.
jms
>JMS quotes and answers:
:I'm hoping that _Acts of Terror_ will be one of the TZ stories
:included, since I've been meaning for some time to ask you where I
:could get hold of a copy of it. (In fact, do you have anything to say
:about where one could find _Acts of Terror_?)
Just in the original Twilight Zone book.
jms
>JMS quotes and answers:
:Does the above mean that you'll be remaining on Amazing, instead of a
:new Spidey book?
Yep.
jms
>JMS quotes and answers:
:I know there are B5 short stories which were published in various
:magazines such as the B5 Magazine, Amazing Stories, and maybe other
:publications. I (and I can't be the only one) have not been able to
:track all of these down. Is there any chance that these could be
:collected and published in a single book?
Somebody would just have to make that deal with WB, that's all.
jms
>JMS quotes and answers - Political:
:Listening to the narration, this show's theme was to show off all of
:the new tech that WILL BE USED in the IMPENDING war with Iraq that
:WILL BE TAKING PLACE SHORTLY! No qualifiers. No ifs, ands or buts.
:Much to my surprise, the war has already started.
Of course it has.
Lemme break this down a bit....
First, we've been carrying out an increasing number of air strikes and
sorties against Iraqi targets toward the North for over a year. So in
that sense, we're already in action.
Second the sheer cost factor in moving a couple hundred thousand
troops from here to there is so huge that you can't and don't do that
unless you intend to use them. You don't put that much force in place
and then not use them.
Bush and company are going in no matter what is or isn't found in Iraq.
And they'll go in next month, almost certainly. Because, as noted,
this has really little or nothing to do with terrorism; the intent is
to redraw the map of the Middle East. Nothing more, nothing less.
The "war" will last maybe a couple of weeks. If that.
The repercussions...those will go on for decades.
As a Brit once said of World War II, "The duration's gonna be a lot
longer than the war, mate."
jms
>JMS quotes and answers on 16-Jan:
:my buddy thinks he saw you at golden age today (wed). did he?
Yup. I went in to pick up some copies of the Midnight Nation graphic
novel, which hit stores that day, and they asked me to sign what was
left.
Read the thing over last night, and I'm really very, very proud of it.
I've never previously read it straight through like that. One
interesting thing, when I picked up the book, I hadn't known they were
goin to omit the front covers in between issues...meaning, usually you
hit the end of issue one, there's a cover/title page for issue two, so
you know there's a transition. Here, they ran it straight together,
with the cover pages as a bonus at the end.
When I saw this, my heart skipped a beat for a second, because I
wasn't sure if it would play that way, if the jump from one issue to
the next without any kind of warning would look jarring or confusing.
So I went through the whole book, page by page, issue by issue, and
sonuvagun, it all lines up fine even without the transitional pages.
I was actually kind of surprised, because even though they were
written as an ongoing series, they weren't *intended* to go up against
one another that tightly.
So yeah, I was there, and yeah, I am most pleased.
jms
>JMS quotes and answers:
:With the closing of DV, what other kind of promotion might you end up
:doing for this release? Might you do other local book signings, or
:something like the UCLA Festival of Books or BEA at the end of May?
:Just wondering, as I know this is a smaller press, so the book won't
:be as easy to find as some of the big publishers stuff. And, as usual,
:it's always nice to see you, and promoting your written material is
:more relaxed then one of your shows.
It's a smaller press, but it's distributed by Simon and Schuster, so
my understanding is that it'll be in all the major chains, like
Borders and Barnes and Noble and others.
Have literally just signed the thing, so we haven't had a chance to
talk PR.
jms
>JMS quotes and answers:
>Given Sheridan's knowledge of the future from this episode, how is it
>that he is unable to put two-and-two together in Season 5 when it is
>learned that the Centauri are behind the attacks on Alliance ships AND
>that left-over Shadow technology is involved? How come he was unable
>to realize that the future he saw 3 years ago was now beginning to
>take place? Why wasn't a force sent right then and there, to drive
>away the "dark servants of the shadows" that Londo spoke of in the WWE
>time-flash?
First and foremost, he had actually very little information to go on;
the viewers have more, and that's where it can get confusing as to why
he doesn't act upon return. Our knowing isn't the same as his
knowing.
That flash took place 20 years down the road. How does that tell him
the Shadows are there now, 20 years in the past? They could have come
within the last 10 years, for all Sheridan knows. The Cenauri have
always been an aggressive race, they were aggressive even before the
Shadows, there's no direct tie there. Nor is there any tie in what
Londo says to Sheridan and the attacks on Alliance ships in the
present, 20 years earlier. He can't connect all the dots because all
the dots aren't there.
The notion of the audience having information that the characters
don't is key to a lot of Greek tragedy, and that's kind of the mode I
was going for here.
jms
>JMS quotes and answers - Political:
:Why do most people don't see Saddam as a threat?
There's threats and there's threats. To his own people? Sure, same
as any tyrant in any country around the world. To the US? Again, no
more than anybody else, and probably less, given that his military is
in a shambles, his economy is a mess, there hasn't been one shred of
evidence to support the thesis that he can hurt anybody outside his
own borders...on and on and on.
:He has violated every resolution the UN gave him.
As others have pointed out, the US has violated UN rules, ditto for
Israel and any number of other countries. In addition, the US has
removed itself from the World Court, broken the Arms Limitation Pact
with Russia, has announced it plans to start testing nukes again in
violation of the Test Ban Treaty, I could go on and on. Should we
invade ourselves?
:He is a threat to Israel.
Lots of governments are. So why are we taking on this one? Is that
the reason for the invasion? Because he's a threat to Isreal? That
hasn't been said by our government. If that were the reason, then we
should be invading Palistine, Lebanon, Iran and so on. Why is Iraq
being singled out?
:He does not like the US government.
I didn't know that was a requirement for not being invaded. Are we
therefore free to invade anybody who doesn't like us? Because that
would entail most of the world as matters stand right now, which is
ironic since after 9/11 a lot of the world was was standing *with* us
until we squandered that good will and antagonized countries that
would normally be our friends. But again, we're not invading all or
any of them, why Iraq?
:Yesterday the UN inspectors found 12 chemical warheads in great
:condition.
No, they found 12 *empty* warheads, that could be used for chemical
charges, in a box covered with dust and rat droppings that had been
sitting in a corner for god knows how long. Shall we go to war for 12
empty shell casings? Other nations have shell casings, some empty,
some full of chemical or biological agents, numbering in the hundreds.
Why Iraq and not them?
:That's in violation of the new resolution because he was to destroy
:them or list them on the 12,000-page declaration last month.
There's some debate apparently as to whether or not these were in a
previously declared document. Bear in mind also that most of the
weaponry, chemical and missile, was sold to Iraq by the US.
:He almost once killed an ex-president.
That's been alleged but never substantiated. Nor has a shred of
evidence EVER been presented tying Iraq to 9/11. Not one. Powell and
Bush both came forth saying that such proof would be forthcoming, but
to date not one bit has been supplied. Instead, we have Rumsfeld
saying things like "the absence of proof is not the proof of absence."
This is the same Rumsfeld who was quoted talking to one of his staff
as saying "can we tie this to Saddam?" within hours of 9/11. They
were looking for a reason to go after him.
When Kennedy was prepared to go to the wall over Cuba, he declassified
high resolution photos of the missile sites under construction in
Cuba. The moment he did that, there was no longer any argument over
the rightness of the cause. If Bush has the evidence, he should
produce it. Instead, he says, as he does in the new Woodward book,
that the president doesn't have to prove or explain himself to anybody.
:We don't want Saddam to be the next North Korea.
Except, of course, we *do* have North Korea being belligerent,
threatening nuclear war, which *does* have nukes or the potential to
make them, which *has* been exporting missiles to Yemen...and that
seemingly much greater menace is being treated with diplomatic
kid-gloves by the Bush administration. Why the double standard? Are
they afraid to make trouble because they know that North Korea really
*is* a threat, but Iraq *isn't*? If so, then again, I ask, why single
out Iraq?
:Also note most of the Middle East is ruled by tyrant rulers.
Okay, so do we now invade all of them too? It's also worth noting
that most of them don't like Saddam. Further, most of the Moslem
leaders aren't big on Saddam because he's kept a secular rule in place
despite religious pressure...which makes any thought of an alliance
with Bin Laden even more suspect, since he's dead against a secular
state.
:They considered a threat for having a democracy in Iraq.
This sentence doesn't parse. Try again.
Point is, is it the business of the United States to initiate
first-strikes to topple other governments, however much we don't like
them, through invasion and warfare? Do we start knocking over
governments just because we *can*?
Even the CIA stated that they didn't think Saddam would or could be a
menace to the US unless invaded and pressed into a corner. So again,
why invade?
Real simple. Because the supply of oil is shrinking, because they
control one of the largest supplies of oil on the planet, and Bush and
his oil-company buddies want control of that, and the right to re-draw
the map of the Middle East in ways they prefer.
And I don't think that's a valid reason for one sovereign nation to go
to war with another.
If there were even a single piece of proof that there was any tie
between Iraq and 9/11, if there were any direct attack on US soil by
Iraq, I'd be right there saying let's get 'em. But there's not.
We abhor the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, intended to disable our
military so that we would not be a threat to their interests in the
Pacific. They say they gave us plenty of warning, even a letter
saying that was that and they were moving. But the act stands as one
of the most shameful events in military history.
We should know better than to go down roads trod so often to shameful
places by others before us. We should be better than that. We should
learn from history.
Saddam is a thug. He deserves to go down, and he will, but it should
be through the actions of his own people, not through an invasion and
a puppet government.
He's a creep.
But that doesn't make what's happening right.
War should be the last resort of people of conscience, not the first
resort.
jms
>JMS quotes and answers:
>http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/forces.htm
>I recommend that you study the subject further, if you read the chart
>on the bottom you can clearly see that the US nuclear force has
>decreased over the years.
The study you cite was in 1998, talking about where things will be in
1999. So it's WAY out of date.
Also, the Bush administration has stated publicly that it intends to
awaken and expand its work on nuclear devices in warfare. The
statement included more work on tactical nukes, the development of
bunker-buster nukes designed to irradiate areas deep underground, and
other niceties. And it may return to a more rigorous schedule of
underground nuclear testing.
jms
>JMS quotes and answers:
:As was Babylon 5, but you planned it for 5 seasons. So, for how many
:seasons did you plan the arc of Jeremiah?
Five.
jms
>JMS quotes and answers - Political:
:THouse protesters last Saturday were Socialist Anti-Americans.
This will be my last word to you, because as far as I'm concerned, you
have just disqualified yourself in this discussion with that remark.
This is the same kind of bullshit red baiting we saw in the McCarthy
period. There are those who support the Administration on one side,
traitors or spies on the other, nothing in between.
There is such a thing as the loyal opposition. We are *supposed* to
be able to dissent, that's how a democracy (or a republic in this
case) is supposed to work. If disagreement = being branded a traitor,
then we are no longer what we were fighting for in the first place.
Your statement is a disgrace to what the founding fathers intended,
and a dishonor to the country. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Mark this as my last reply to you.
jms
>JMS quotes and answers - Political
:As a Quaker, I stand completely against war, especially this one. I
:have to agree with all of your reasons (and pretty much felt the same
:way even before I read your post. But, after reading it, I have one
:question (actually two). People are showing disapproval of the war by
:marching on Washington and other cities. There are protests and
:letters to our representives in congress. However, Bush doesn't seem
:to care about anyone's opinion but his own.
I don't know if it's that he doesn't care about anyone's opionion but
his own, as much as he cares about catering to the extreme right wing
of the party. (How else to explain such things as nominating to the
Presidential Advisory Commissoin on HIV and AIDS Jerry Thacker, a
Pennsylvanian marketing consultant who has characterized aids as "the
gay plague" and called such alternate lifestyles "deathstyles" while
saying they could be cured by faith and that condoms do nothing to
stop the spread of HIV. He's done similar things to commissions on
the rights of women and other areas.
(But I digress.)
:So -- What are you doing (if anything) to take a stand against the war?
Well, this is part of it. I think that democracy works best when all
sides are free to talk openly about their concerns. It's only in open
discourse that the truth wriggles free. Raise questions. Pursue the
news past the gloss of CNN. Read the USA Patriot Act, don't just go
from the synopses.
:And do you have suggestions for actions that are not run-of-the-mill
:that could actually have an effect on whether or not Bush orders an
:attack on Iraq?
In my opinion, and this is only my opinion, there is nothing that can
be done at this point to stop an attack on Iraq. You don't move
nearly 200,000 troops halfway around the globe and not use them; it
would be a huge loss of face for Bush.
That boat has, literally and metaphorically, left the docks.
What we can do is to remain an informed and quarrelsome electorate,
and when the time comes to exercise our rights as citizens to vote, to
side with the president if our conscience dictates we do so, based on
the evidence, or vote for the opposition, based on the same evidence.
For me, thus far, the truth of this current situation is this: Iraq is
a target of opportunity, not a target of conscience. We're hitting
there because we can find Iraq on a map, whereas we can't find Bin
Laden (of whom Bush & Company haven't uttered a word of late) on any
extant maps.
jms
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| Dirk A. Loedding <*> ju...@america.net |
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