The Bureau of Justice Statistics has posted a report on Suicide and Homicide in State Prisons and Local Jails. Some of the key facts regarding this topic can be seen here. The overall homicide rate can be seen here for comparison. The suicide rate information, for the United States in General, can be found at the WHO site. The WHO site only list 1999 and doesn't do comparisons, but you can compare the rate to 1999 in prisons and jails.
Needless to say, suicide rates are higher in jails than in the general populace.
Monday, August 22, 2005
Huffington Post Reporting April's News In August
Back on April 28th, I posted Rethinking My Shatner Fetish in response to comments made by Canadian law enforcement officers and their observations that child molesters seem to be Star Trek fans.
Not wanting to miss out on this wonderfully topical discussion, Ellen Ladowsky posted her observations at the Huffington Post on August 18th. To be fair Ladowsky goes into far more detail than my earlier, pithy, post. She has obviously gone back and watched all of the original series episodes, but given her "keen" observations one would have been willing to wait longer so she could incorporate references from Next Generation, Voyager, Deep Space Nine, or even Enterprise.
It really is too bad that she rushed this article to the presses to meet deadlines.
Thanks extended to Mickey Kaus for the heads up.
Not wanting to miss out on this wonderfully topical discussion, Ellen Ladowsky posted her observations at the Huffington Post on August 18th. To be fair Ladowsky goes into far more detail than my earlier, pithy, post. She has obviously gone back and watched all of the original series episodes, but given her "keen" observations one would have been willing to wait longer so she could incorporate references from Next Generation, Voyager, Deep Space Nine, or even Enterprise.
It really is too bad that she rushed this article to the presses to meet deadlines.
Thanks extended to Mickey Kaus for the heads up.
Google Tools
I am a big google fan and thought that I would share some of the new "offerings" from google.
First, there is what I call Google Who Needs Stinkin' Peer Review When Random Idiot on the Internet Can Evaluate Your Scholarship
Second, is what I like to call Google Copyright Violation
These are extraorninarily useful tools. The scholar tool collects academic papers, but without the aid of informed editorial selection. The "print" tool provides full text scans of books. You know ones that came out last week.
Want to read On Tyranny by Leo Strauss? You could before a recent law suit. There are currently restricted pages, but google is fighting that. All from your computer screen. Sure printing is irritating, but possible.
Oh, and if you want a gmail account...let me know in the comments section.
These are extraorninarily useful tools. The scholar tool collects academic papers, but without the aid of informed editorial selection. The "print" tool provides full text scans of books. You know ones that came out last week.
Want to read On Tyranny by Leo Strauss? You could before a recent law suit. There are currently restricted pages, but google is fighting that. All from your computer screen. Sure printing is irritating, but possible.
Oh, and if you want a gmail account...let me know in the comments section.
Friday, August 19, 2005
There's a whole new world out there...Food Blogging.
Since I know Caryn and since all of the photographs on her sight make me feel like I am starving to death (even though I just ate), I present without further ado...
Delicious! Delicious!
Delicious! Delicious!
Neil Gaiman and Beowulf
Famed was this Beowulf far flew the boast of him,
son of Scyld, in the Scandian lands.
So goes part of the description of Beowulf in the Prologue to the famous poem, one of the great fantasy epics of all time. But an epic which has had many adaptations.
From the much lauded Grendel which views the myth through the eyes of a Nihilistic "monster" (it also represents Beowulf as a crazed figure, see the comments adapted from Scruton regarding Superheroes below), to the much anticipated (at least by me) boardgame there have been worthy adaptations. But there have also been less successful ones. While I enjoyed The Thirteenth Warrior (and the book version Eaters of the Dead), most critics and audiences found it disappointing, but it was nowhere near as disappointing as the Christopher Lambert version. Come to think of it...not much that Christopher Lambert has been in is worth watching (excepting of course Highlander the first one, and Greystoke). Especially horrifying were Gunmen and Highlander II (even the "Renegade Edition"). Planet Zeist? Pfewy!
Robert Zemeckis, director of the Back to the Future films and Castaway, is working on a new adaptation of the film and according to ICV2 and Variety the screenplay by Neil Gaiman has been Greenlighted (greenlit?).
I have two central concerns with the project.
Unlocked Wordhoard and The Lemmings Were Pushed share one of my concerns. DKP at Lemmings is concerned with how the "motion capture" will look, and Wordhoard thought it was enough of a concern to link it. I too share in this concern. Motion capture can work well, like Gollum in LotR, but it can also really freak you out, like it did in Zemeckis' own Polar Express. But I have high hopes for this one in regards to special EFX.
My second concern is with the use of Neil Gaiman as a writer. I like Gaiman, I own a lot of Sandman comics to prove it, but he can be a little pretentious at times. Let me rephrase that. He can be way too pretentious some times. No...wait. He IS extraordinarily pretentious. Did you read American Gods? Give me Manly Wade Wellman anyday! (Though to be honest I did like American Gods, but only the really pretentious part of me.) So I worry that the film, if Gaiman had creative control, might not be accessible to large audiences, but that worry is largely diminished because Zemeckis (the director of Used Cars and Romancing the Stone) is the opposite of pretentious. But then again...there is that Polar Express thing. But then he did come up with the story for Bordello of Blood, so who am I to say who is pretentious?
Thursday, August 18, 2005
Economics...Games...Movies...and Comic Books
In an earlier post I commented on the potential death of a Roleplaying Game Company named Decipher. During the comments, Cinerati member David N. Scott forwarded some complaints regarding the high cost of edition 3.5 of the Dungeons and Dragons game ending his comments with an "I dunno there was a pretty quick turnaround time between 3rd edition and 3.5." He was correct, as far as his statement goes, which is to say compared to TSR's earlier update schedule, an average of 10 years between editions, he was right. But I think my point got lost somewhere in the shuffle.
My point was that even the 3 year turnaround was a pretty lengthy one in the game industry. Magic the Gathering, the penultimate Collectible Card Game, is on its 9th or 10th edition and Twilight Imperium, one of my favorite war games, is on its 3rd. Both have been around for approximately 15 years or so. Not to mention Fantasy Flight Games boardgame Runebound which came out last year, but already has a Second Edition (with significant changes for the better I might add).
I also wanted to point out that while RPGs are expensive, they are trust me, that they are not more expensive than they were in the past. Now thanks to Poliblogger I have some supporting evidence. He provided this link to Economic History Services, provided by Miami University and Wake Forest University, which gives the real value in 2003 dollars of money from any date in US history.
So that Dungeon Master's Guide, 1st edition, that cost $15.00 in 1982 was the equivalent of $28.60 today (according to Consumer Price Index Adjustments) or $50.62 as share of GDP. The $19.95 Second Edition Dungeon Master's Guide from 1990...$28.09 Consumer Price Index. How much is a 3.5 edition Dungeon Master's Guide? $29.95, unless you buy it at Amazon where it is dirt cheap.
All this is well and good, even fun, but doesn't completely address David's larger point. Which is that Wizards of the Coast, a Hasbro subsidiary who produces D&D, has produced a great sum of material in the past two years and that much of it was reprinting of 3rd edition books. This is a partly true statement, they have in fact produced volumes (an average of 2 rulebooks a month these past two years), but as I own the books I can actually say that very little in the new books is reprinted from the 3rd edition material. Yes the Complete Warrior does update information from Sword and Fist. But Sword and Fist was a paperback "perfect bound" book which cost $19.95 (close to $15.00 on Amazon) and was a black and white printing consisting of 96 pages. Whereas the Complete Warrior is $26.95 ($17.79 on Amazon) is hardcover, full color and 160 pages. There is a great deal of new material in Complete Warrior, in addition to the updated material, and I think it is a value. The same has been true of all of the new Wizards of the Coast 3.5 material.
Having said this though, I do come back to the 2 rulebooks a month statement. That's $50 to $60 dollars a month if you want to buy all the books. Naturally, given the modular nature of Dungeons and Dragons, you don't need to buy all the rulebooks that come out. In fact, if you remove setting specific books the average drops to one a month or even one every two months. All said, most Roleplayers I know are completists and this can burn a hole in your wallet. I say, most I know, because the sales figures don't match my experience. DM books sell worse than player books, settings books sell worse than DM books.
I guess this is a long way of saying I think that both David and I are right. Yes Wizards prints too much stuff to keep track of, but I think the prices per item are very reasonable.
My point was that even the 3 year turnaround was a pretty lengthy one in the game industry. Magic the Gathering, the penultimate Collectible Card Game, is on its 9th or 10th edition and Twilight Imperium, one of my favorite war games, is on its 3rd. Both have been around for approximately 15 years or so. Not to mention Fantasy Flight Games boardgame Runebound which came out last year, but already has a Second Edition (with significant changes for the better I might add).
I also wanted to point out that while RPGs are expensive, they are trust me, that they are not more expensive than they were in the past. Now thanks to Poliblogger I have some supporting evidence. He provided this link to Economic History Services, provided by Miami University and Wake Forest University, which gives the real value in 2003 dollars of money from any date in US history.
So that Dungeon Master's Guide, 1st edition, that cost $15.00 in 1982 was the equivalent of $28.60 today (according to Consumer Price Index Adjustments) or $50.62 as share of GDP. The $19.95 Second Edition Dungeon Master's Guide from 1990...$28.09 Consumer Price Index. How much is a 3.5 edition Dungeon Master's Guide? $29.95, unless you buy it at Amazon where it is dirt cheap.
All this is well and good, even fun, but doesn't completely address David's larger point. Which is that Wizards of the Coast, a Hasbro subsidiary who produces D&D, has produced a great sum of material in the past two years and that much of it was reprinting of 3rd edition books. This is a partly true statement, they have in fact produced volumes (an average of 2 rulebooks a month these past two years), but as I own the books I can actually say that very little in the new books is reprinted from the 3rd edition material. Yes the Complete Warrior does update information from Sword and Fist. But Sword and Fist was a paperback "perfect bound" book which cost $19.95 (close to $15.00 on Amazon) and was a black and white printing consisting of 96 pages. Whereas the Complete Warrior is $26.95 ($17.79 on Amazon) is hardcover, full color and 160 pages. There is a great deal of new material in Complete Warrior, in addition to the updated material, and I think it is a value. The same has been true of all of the new Wizards of the Coast 3.5 material.
Having said this though, I do come back to the 2 rulebooks a month statement. That's $50 to $60 dollars a month if you want to buy all the books. Naturally, given the modular nature of Dungeons and Dragons, you don't need to buy all the rulebooks that come out. In fact, if you remove setting specific books the average drops to one a month or even one every two months. All said, most Roleplayers I know are completists and this can burn a hole in your wallet. I say, most I know, because the sales figures don't match my experience. DM books sell worse than player books, settings books sell worse than DM books.
I guess this is a long way of saying I think that both David and I are right. Yes Wizards prints too much stuff to keep track of, but I think the prices per item are very reasonable.
Bret Easton Ellis on His New Book Lunar Park
I am a pretty big Bret Easton Ellis fan. He is the "cool jaded Gen-X Enfant Terrible" I always wished I could be, but I'm not and really can't be. He recently did an interview on Amazon.com regarding his new book Lunar Park where he discussed his horror influences:
Comic Book Marketplace had a great article on the old Warren books recently and I was glad to see a mention of their books in the Ellis interview. Naturally, given my love of Forrest Ackerman (which you can read about in this old post on the San Diego Comic Con), I was glad to see the Warren Vampirella reference. Ackerman invented the name Vampirella, though he was (as he fully admits) inspired by the name Barbarella.
I do think Lunar Park is for those, who like Ellis and me, read these books as adolescents, and not for us as those adolecents.
Speaking of the interview...Fritz and I have talked about the ending of American Psycho a number of times and we disagree as to whether the events, in the end, are real or imagined.
The word from Ellis:
It is in some ways an homage to Stephen King and the comics I loved as a kid. Especially the EC Comics, like Vault of Horror and Tales from the Crypt. And the Warren Comics of the '70s that I was a huge fan of. They had titles like Creepy and Eerie and Vampirella. These were all influences on Lunar Park. That was the impetus to write the book. To write a book that was similar to the books that gave me pleasure as a boy and as an adolescent. I was really into the horror genre and the supernatural genre when I was a teenager and certainly I came of age, along with a lot of men of my generation, with the first book that Stephen King published and onward. But as I got older the book became less an homage and more personal.
Comic Book Marketplace had a great article on the old Warren books recently and I was glad to see a mention of their books in the Ellis interview. Naturally, given my love of Forrest Ackerman (which you can read about in this old post on the San Diego Comic Con), I was glad to see the Warren Vampirella reference. Ackerman invented the name Vampirella, though he was (as he fully admits) inspired by the name Barbarella.
I do think Lunar Park is for those, who like Ellis and me, read these books as adolescents, and not for us as those adolecents.
Speaking of the interview...Fritz and I have talked about the ending of American Psycho a number of times and we disagree as to whether the events, in the end, are real or imagined.
The word from Ellis:
Right, right, the "was it all a dream thing." [laughs] Our old friends Mr. Loose and Mr. Reality. I don't know. When I was writing the book I kind of thought I knew but I really didn't. I liked leaving it open. Because it is left open purposely in the book. And depending on who you are as a writer and what you desire from the book, you're going to go either way. And the movie doesn't answer that question. It's fine. Why answer it? Is the book more meaningful? Does it make it more interesting? It's probably a much more interesting book when you're left hanging and you decide on your own.
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