MOPED ARMY by Paul Sizer

I was at the Walker Library, still my favorite of the Minneapolis libraries, walking the stacks, and enjoying my Friday afternoon, when I came across an unshelved, seemingly discarded copy of “Moped Army.” It looked like just another teen-angst ridden graphic novel, but I decided to read a blurb from the back cover anyway:

“In the year 2277, gasoline is an illegal substance, aircars dominate the sky…Inspired by the real-life organization, high-speed two-stroke action and intense drama hits the streets as the legend of the present day Moped Army is resurrected 272 years in the future.”

I was sold.

The graphic novel is a quick but entertaining read. Simone is the main character, a rich well-to-do that lives high in the sky, and above the riffraff that populate the old city, the under cities. She is trapped in a relationship with an oversexed egomaniac named Chester. Chester father runs the largest aircar company in the world, for which Simone’s father designs new models.

Chester is abusive. At one point, early on in the graphic novel, I was forced to question masculinity as an idea, again. So many young punks get it wrong. Masculinity has very little to do with the size of your muscles, and nothing to do with what you can take without asking. Chester and his crew of idiots enjoy taking their cars to Rust City and using them to blow mopeds off the road. When they kill a moped rider named Jatta, Simone realizes that she has finally had enough.

Seeking some kind of reconciliation for not speaking up and stopping Chester and his crew, Simone travels into Rust City looking for Moped Riders. Instead of finding the desperate lot she believed the Rust City dwellers to be, she finds the Moped Army. The Moped is group of Moped riding enthusiasts that work on fixing up and riding mopeds of the 20th century. The Moped Army is a gang, grouped together in order to survive Rust City, their activities revolve around discovering parts and recovering gasoline.

I think that what I liked most about this graphic novel was that it was based on a real enthusiast organization with the same name: Moped Army. I’ve been trying to write a story about Critical Mass, when hundreds of bicycles flood and clog the city streets to show solidarity and demand respect from the city and motorists, in Minneapolis. Sizer’s depiction of the Moped Army has helped me see that I was going about my story all wrong. I need to stick to what works. I need an outsider to help navigate the reader through wonderland.

Anyway, “Moped Army” is a fantastic read. I can wait to get my hands on more work by Sizer.

Sizer, Paul. “Moped Army.” Kalamazoo, MI: Café Digital Studios, 2008

SWAP MEET: THE JAWA’S TALE by Kevin J. Anderson

Okay! Yes, I’m a little more than obsessed with Jawas, always have been, always will be a fan of the little guys in brown robes. You can read a very short story by me about a Jawa named FixItGood, here. However, I wanted more background for my character in an upcoming RPG, in which I will be playing FixItGood. So, I went looking for stories with Jawas in them. “Swap Meet: The Jawa’s Tale” is by far the best that I have found, the only one in which a Jawa is the main character.

Het Nkik is a different type of Jawa. He has big thoughts that only bring ridicule and distrust. He believes that the Jawas could be strong, but his people do not fight when attached, they run. They run because they believe that small equals weak and the weak should flee. Het Nkik believes that his people are smart and courageous, and are capable of anything they put their minds too. Just look what they can do with broken droids.

Het Nkik’s story is one that intersects with Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker in “New Hope.” His Sandcrawler roles up on Obi-Wan, C3PO, and R2-D2, adhering to the proper Jawa death ritual of burning the dead bodies to return them to the sand from which they were borrowed. Het Nkik learns from Obi-Wan that Stormtroopers were responsible for the destruction. Unlike the crew of his crawler, Het Nkik exchanges his share of the salvage for a speeder to take him to Mos Eisley.

In Mos Eisley, Het Nkik takes his revenge by attempting to gun down a Stormtrooper patrol. Even if he dies, it is his hope that he will become a martyr for Tatooine to rally behind to expel the Imperial Empire, but specially to show his people what they are capable of accomplishing.

Part of the Legacy Star Wars RPG are rules for being a descendent or relative of a named character, one that appeared earlier in the Star Wars timeline. I could not find a Legacy for Jawas, so I created one based on Het Nkik.

Het Nkik Legacy: You are a distant relative of Het Nkik, the freethinking Jawa who attacked a Stormtrooper patrol in Mos Eisley to revenge the death of his brothers and the destruction of a Sandcrawler. Your family is known to have some strange thoughts. Jawas do not fight and believe that they are small and weak. However, every once and a while a family member is not content to simply run, but will pick up a blaster and fight.

Prerequisite: Jawa

Legacy Destiny: If you have the Legacy Destiny, you can spend a Destiny Point as a free action to automatically treat your next Ranged Attack check as though you rolled a 20 on the check.

Possible Legacy Heirlooms: DL – 44 Blaster, Tusken Battle Talisman

Anderson, Kevin J. “Swap Meet: The Jawa’s Tale.” Star Wars: Tales From The Mos Eisley Cantina. New York: Bantam, 1995. p. 218-239

Star Wars: Legacy Era Campaign Guide

It has been a while since I’ve had the opportunity to participate in any role-playing game as a player-character. I’ve lucked out and I’ve found my way into a Star Wars game. The Game Master is going to set our adventure in the Legacy Era, about 125 years after “New Hope” and a timeline that I was unfamiliar. I stopped reading the books after finishing the last “New Jedi Order” novel.

To get up to speed, I read all of the comic books centering on the character of Cade Skywalker, a fusion of Luke and Han Solo. Cade is drug addict, addicted to Death Sticks and a bounty hunter who is attempting to avoid the Skywalker legacy. At one point early on, he hands over a Jedi to the Sith to collect the bounty on Jedi. Cade is a real nerf herder. The comics were background for the game, but wanted to see the new rules that I would be working with, so I picked up the “Legacy Era Campaign Guide” from Tower Games in North Minneapolis.

In consultation with my GM, I am going to play a Jawa-Scoundrel (8 levels) named FixItGood who can fix just about anything that is broken. Here are the Feats that will ensure that FixItGood can get the job done:

Talents - Scoundrel
Gambler
Knack
Gimmick
Biotech Adept

Feats - Class
WP - Pistols
WP - Simple W
Point Blank Shot

Feats - Bonus
1- Trained Skill: Treat Injury
3 - Cyber Surgery
6 - Surgical Expertise

Feats - Class Progression
2 - Dodge
4 - Precise Shot
6 - Biotech Specialist
8 - Biotech Surgery

Here is a short background story that I provide my GM for a little bit of fun flavor text:

---short story---

“Sentients are just droids with squishy parts.” – FixItGood.

FixItGood, as the Jawa was known beyond Tatooine, stood on the human-sized workbench, which was covered in greasy tools for working on dorids along with the naked body of a slender female Twelik who was covered in blood and missing a hand, her left eye, and her left leg. FixItGood sniffed her. He thought that she smelled weak, but he’d fix all that. He’d live up to his name and fix her good as new. “Well, almost as good as new,” he chuckled, which sounded a lot like high-pitched duck call.

FixItGood kicked a box of droid parts looking for just the right part. He had just received a new shipment of scrap. While going through the parts, he had thought that he’d seen a leg from an entertainment droid, a dancer. The rebel Twelik would thank him latter because she’d retain almost all of her dexterity. He’d also include a secret compartment that could house a small blaster or vibroblade. “Utinni!” He’d found it. The leg was little long, but that could be fixed.

A few hours latter, the Twelik was resting quietly in recovery. FixItGood was explaining his fixes to a rebel commander. “Yes. She is as good as new. I do good work. Yes, I do. She will be ready for action in one standard day, but she should have a second day to test out her new skills.”

“But her face.”

“Yes, I do good.”

“What is that?”

“Advanced targeting scope.”

FixItGood left the commander and went back into his lab. He walked over to a closet and opened the door. A small scout droid hovered.

“beep!”

“Please clean up.” FixItGood went back to sifting through boxes of parts. He had more appointments today. He looked at his list. Someone was in need of a new arm. He pulled out a long crane-like appendage that folded in on itself three times and ended in a four-pronged hook. “Utinni!” It would do.

------end short story----

The “Legacy Era Campaign Guide” is well laid out, colorful, and easy to understand. I’m glad that I picked it up and am looking forward to rolling some dice.

THE GENRE ARTIST by Carlo Rotella

The New York Times: Magazine
The Genre Artist by Carlo Rotella
Published: July 19, 2009

Can someone — let’s say Jack Vance — write about spaceships and monsters and alien civilizations and still be a great American writer?

Why, exactly, is this a question that needs asking? A great writer is a great writer because they are able to fabricate a fiction in the mind of readers. Literary fiction may deal in near-reality, but any fiction is a fantasy full of “didn’t-happens” that entertain and stretch imaginations.

HISTORIC PHOTOS OF MINNESOTA by Susan Marks

Following up my review of “Historic Photos of Minneapolis,” the greatest city ever, Turner Publishing Company just released“Historic Photos of Minnesota,” and I thought that I would take a look through the brilliantly chosen black and white photographs. I have to admit some bias. There is only room in my heart for one state, Nebraska: home of my parents; they raised me in Lincoln. Minneapolis is now my home and it may be in Minnesota, but I will always be a Nebraskan-in-exile. With that said, I have left my first love, like the high school drum major I crushed over, and have entered into a passionate affair with Minnesota.

To be honest, most of my Minnesota experience is limited to the Twin Cities Metro, a failing I hope to remedy. Minnesota has much more to offer than the bright lights and the Minneapolis chain of lakes. It is easy to forget that there is more to Minnesota than Minneapolis and St. Paul. This is one reason why historical collections of regional photography are critical. They remind us that not only was the past important and fascinating, but that there is more to where we live than the tiny worlds that we construct for our families and for ourselves.

Looking through the collection, I found three historical worlds that have shaped the Minnesota that I love. The first of which is on page VI opposite the acknowledgements page, which depicts three visitors to Minnehaha Falls. Two women in elaborate hats and flouncy full-length dresses cross a wooden bridge just bellow Minnehaha Falls. Marks caption reads:

“Visitors to Minnehaha Falls in Minneapolis, a popular tourist destination after the publication of the epic poem ‘The Song of Hiawatha’ by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1855. Longfellow never visted the falls, but he was inspired by the stories of Mary Eastman and Henry Rowe Schoolcraft about American Indian culture and the imagery of the falls” (VI).

Armed with this new information, I’m reversely inspired having visited Minnehaha Falls several times to seek out Longfellow’s poem and the stories it has inspired.

The second photograph is on page 12, which shows the annual January ice harvest. The ice cubes look as if they are at least half a person in height and at least as wide. Ice is now something that we take for granted, freezers in every home. It has never occurred to me to wonder how ice was delivered and stored before freezers. Marks writes, “During the summer, ice was delivered, block by block, to homes and business for their iceboxes.” I don’t think that I will look at my refrigerator-freezer the same way again.

The third and final photograph that I want to mention is an “image from a civil defense campaign, Minnesota boys have traded in their fort house to dig a backyard bomb shelter,” on page 168. The scene looks like something out of the movie “The Great Escape.” A boy is popping his head out of hole in the ground, hosting up a bucket of dirt to his friends. It looking like this project is taking place in a section of someone’s Victory Garden. I wonder if they asked permission before breaking ground.

There are many more wondrous photos in to examine in the book. I was lucky enough to be able to contact Susan Marks to find out which ones she enjoyed most.

SMR: If you had to pick a favorite photo from the collection, which one would it be?

Susan Marks: I really like 3 photos. One spans page 86 and 87 - it's of two lumber camp cooks standing outside the lumber camp kitchen cabin. It's really a cool winter scene. Through my research I learned that camp cooks were so crucial to the functioning of the camp that cooks were paid twice as much as jacks. The food was abundant and reportedly delicious.

The second photo is on page 121 - it was taken in Gemmell MN during the Great Depression by a Farm Security Administration photographer, Russell Lee. Gemmell was once a thriving lumber town and by the time this photo was taken - the town had all but shut down. The mother/restaurant owner looks away from the camera with her hand in her head and another arm around her daughter who stares directly in the lens of the camera. The daughter has a look on her face that almost defies words.

The third photo is on page 30 - an overtly staged boxing match scene between members of the Minnesota Boat Club. It doesn't scream Minnesota, but it is compelling.

SMR: What is it about Minnesota that made you want to celebrate it though a collection of photographs?

Susan Marks: I was asked to write these captions and text for the book and I was thrilled because I've been researching and writing about Minnesota's history for a long time. Minnesota is a land like no other and it has everything to do with the considerable natural resources (The Mississippi River, lakes, farmland, rich mineral deposits, forests, etc) that attracted so many unique individuals and groups to this state.

Even though I’m originally from Lincoln, NE, I have come to love Minnesota. It might get down right cold, and we might get less than 60 full days of clear skies, but the people are compassionate and are source of hope in an otherwise dog-eat-dog mega cooperate machine. There is a loving sense of community that waits for anyone willing to step out side and embrace it. I wouldn't want to live any where else.

Marks, Susan. “Historic Photos of Minnesota.” Nashville, Tennessee: Turner Publishing Company, 2009

FOOD, Inc (2009)

My wife and I knew what we were getting into when we chose to see “Food, Inc.” this afternoon. She has read several books by Michael Pollan, and I have seen interviews with him and researched food production in order to add relevance to my environmental science class that I teach at a culinary school. So, please understand that when I say that I was under whelmed by the content of the film, it is not because the information was interesting or engaging, but that it did not have anything new for me as a viewer. Nevertheless, the film was interesting, horrifying, and heart breaking.

“Food, Inc.” sets out to lift the veil on food production. Do you know where everything in your kitchen came from, how it’s produced, and how far it has to travel before it reaches your favorite supermarket? If you don’t, you might be surprised to know that food travels, on average more than 1,000 miles before it reaches the grocery store. The system that provides fresh fruit to Minnesota in the dead of winter is a system that requires huge amounts of fossil fuel to sustain.

Beyond fossil fuel and America’s dependence on foreign oil to keep our food system lubricated, there are other costs involved, such as, abuses of human labor, disease, unsustainable monocultures, regardless of your view on the ethic treatment of nonhumans. “Food, Inc.” spends little to no time on the ethical treatment of animals. There are a few scenes of industrial feedlots and chicken coops, but ultimately the movie was trying to appeal to the human fear of disease. It is not healthy for the animals that we eat to walk around in their own feces or to force upon them a diet of cheaply produced grain that they were not meant.

I expected organics to play a role in the film as a solution to some of what is wrong with our current food production methods, and they did. However, it was interesting to see just how many large companies are scrambling to obtain a piece of the organic market. Wal-Mart, one of the few corporate giants that willingly participated in the film, made it clear that they will try to supply what the consumer demands. “Food, Inc.” went so far as to say that Wal-Mart, most likely put the final nail in the coffin of recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH). If this is true, go Wal-Mart!

Including Wal-Mart in a documentary on food in a positive light was not the only surprise. I knew that the companies that produce our food have a strong legal hold on what can and cannot be said about their products, but I did not know just how strong or enforce able those laws are. Several people were interviewed about food laws were fearful of the repercussions. Not everyone has enough money to fight the felony charges for slandering food like Oprah. Laws that put a limit on free speech make me question my county’s greatness, which brings to why our country is the best in the world: consumers control demand.

The lasting message of the movie is a simple one. Each and every time the scanner at the checkout lane beeps, you and I are casting votes. We are voting for foods that we want to be produced and sold in our grocery stores. If a company as large as Wal-Mart is still sensitive to the desire of its customers, there is hope. However, we need to know what we are voting on when we shop. We need a better information system so that consumers can make better-informed choices. We need to know where our food is produced, how it is being produced, and what is in it. Armed with the good information, we can accurately and effectively vote on food products that we what to survive the market and which one we want to see fail.

“Food, Inc.” is an important movie, one that shouldn’t play in movie theaters where it will only reach the interested and already convinced, but it should be run on television during primetime.

----

Lastly, an apology to my friends over at Attack of the Movie Watchers for posting this movie review here instead of there. I enjoyed posting reviews of moves on that site, but it is just not working out. Sorry.

HOT, FLAT, AND CROWDED: WHY WE NEED A GREEN REVOLUTION—AND HOW IT CAN RENEW AMERICA by Thomas L. Friedman

I just finished Friedman’s book. It is the most illuminating book written that I have read on the subject of Global Climate Change. There are many important books, journals, and studies, which lay out the deadly global trends that add up to the most important challenge to confront our species. Friedman collates those ideas and orders them into an understandable and accessible system. A system that America needs to adopt in order to successfully renew our Global Leadership before rival nations, like China, discover that to dominate the global market place in the Energy Climate Era is to out-green all other countries.

I’m breathless. My heat pounds in my chest. Typing this review brings tears to my eyes because it will not have the impact that I desire. I’m ready for the revolution, a revolution with a capital “R,” one that is not easy, one that is painful. I don’t make a lot of money. I spend more time weighting the opportunity costs of my dollar-earned than a sane person should. However, if America needs a lasting market price-signal that will turn my dollar into seventy-five cents or even fifty cents so that we can show the world that America is the greatest most flexible economic green-machine, I am ready.

I don’t write to my elected leaders very often believing that individual voices that are not backed with healthy campaign contributions are rather worthless, but I wrote to both Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar this week encouraging them push through the energy-climate legislation that the House of Representatives had the courage to pass (NYTimes.com 6/26/2009). I’m no expert on how laws and regulations that impact markets, but Friedman puts forward a convincing argument that the only thing that can put America on tack to meet the demands of the Energy Climate Era is a market price-signal, which will provide the long term market stability necessary to attract venture capitalists to invest in clean renewable energy. It is my hope that this energy-climate bill will be such a price-signal.

My understanding of how such a price-signal will spur the type of innovation necessary to for America to become the global leader in the Energy Climate Era is sketchy at best. I will need to study those chapters a few more times before I feel truly comfortable with the intricacies of the system, and just how to turn the price-signal key that will drive us into a clean, sustainable energy future. However, what I did understand is that is no other way to be green in the Energy Climate Era. There are thousands of lists with millions of ways for individuals to go green, but not a one of those will matter without a market that can quickly develop and bring to scale new ideas and technology.

I keep my house warm in the summer and cold in the winter. I recycle everything that I can. I support local farms. I use CFLs. I ride my bike 11 miles to work and 11 miles back (when I can). And I try to minimize my ecological footstep whenever I can, but none of that is going to matter if the American market does not receive a price-signal. I will not give up on my personal footstep. I will continue to seek ways to reach a carbon-neutral future because it is important. However, I am now more motivated than I have ever been before to see that my elected leaders are held responsible for the creation of such a signal.

Beyond the elected leaders and markets, Friedman suggested that our friendly meteorologists have both the access and the most public capital to expend in educating the home viewers about the connections between climate and weather. I agree. For what it will be worth, I plan on writing each of my local meteorologists encouraging them to read Friedman’s book, point out how they can make a difference. But not only that they can make a difference by adding short quips and climate vocabulary to their information, but that the first one of them to do so will not only be report the weather, but becoming news themselves increasing ratings and their popularity. This could be their late-breaking-story that puts them in limelight, rather than settling for partly cloudy with a high of 75 F.

It is so clear to me now that we have passed beyond the time of inaction. If America desires to remain the Global Economic leader, the model for which all other countries aspire, we must act now. The time for being green to mean a granola-eating activist with a clipboard full of signatures has passed (however, they are still vitally important). We all must get involved. Citizens must elect leaders that are willing to do what is right, what is necessary, and what is hard. Elected leaders must follow the advice and expert learning as put forward in scientific peer-reviewed journals and not lobbyist contributors. Meteorologists must begin to show the citizens the connections between local weather and climate, and how they influence the natural resources that we cannot survive without, like water.

If America cannot get Global Climate Change right, we will be the next great society to be come extinct, out competed on all sides by one that does. And it is not just America’s global dominance that is at stake, it is the Earth’s ability to sustain life that is ultimately at risk. The current rate of species lost is at a historical high. The rate of species lost is calculated to be 1,000 times greater than baseline projections. A loss that Richard Leakey and Roger Lewin believe may be the “Sixth Extinction” (which is the next book that I’m going to read). We must ensure that we do not create a scenario in which Mother Nature can no longer support humans. Alan Weisman wrote, “The World Without Us,” a narrative of what planet earth will look like when humans have become extinct, which gives me hope for that planet, but is a prediction that I do not wish to see come true.

If you are serious about being green in the Energy Climate Era, your first step must be to read “Hot, Flat, and Crowded.” And when you’ve read it, do everything in your power to motivate others to join the only green revolution that can create lasting change.

Thomas L. Friedman. “Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America.” New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008

THE SOULLESS MACHINE REVIEW June 2009

THE LAST RESORT by Alec Nevala-Lee
ICARUS SAVED FROM THE SKIES by Georges-Olivier Chateaureynaud
YOU ARE SUCH A ONE by Nancy Springer
HUNCHSTER by Matthew Hughes
MORALITY by Stephen King

Extras:
FAITH, HOPE, AND IVY JUNE by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor