Last year I mentioned people telling us what big hearts they had, giving to charities while exchanging no presents among themselves. A letter to the Straits Times today confirmed my worst suspicions.
Please, everyone. We don't have to know what great world citizens you are--a brief mention here, an advertisement for Oxfam there... that will do a lot more than you telling everybody how many you helped and putting an air of self-righteousness in every Christmas season.
These actions for the less fortunate are fine and good. I'd like to join in. I'd like everyone to join in. But there's no need to tell the whole world how you filled boxes with presents, how you joined a tree-planting initiative, and the fact you spent all that gift-giving money on charity work. To me it just smacks of the need to be noticed doing good things--hamming, in other words.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but God is quite capable of seeing what you do without resorting to the old newspaper-trumpet every Christmas. Remember what Jesus said about doing good deeds to be noticed by men.
Enough on humbugging with me. Have a merry Christmas, and happy new year!
Now if I can just figure out what to say...
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Sunday, December 03, 2006
Music to His Ears
[Remember when I mentioned an essay I'd put up here with my church's permission? Here it is. ;)]
I promise you, if I hear the chorus of How Great is our God one more time I will start running in the opposite direction… and I won’t accept any blame for sound equipment I damage on the way out.
OK, maybe I’m exaggerating (I'd probably just head to the toilet). But the fact I’ve stopped singing along many, many times, shuffled my feet, and looked at my watch has to count for something. Let’s face it—time was when you actually got music that glorified God and combined it with information that challenged your head as well as your heart. Are today’s Christian songwriters doing the latter?
(The trouble is that everyone has a different idea of what constitutes GOOD Christian worship music. As one old commentary on the “perfect church service” goes, the songs should have “more of those soaring, majestic hymns and less of those stupid dead old hymns”. You can’t please everybody—and I’m not for one moment saying I deserved to be pleased more in church than any other child of God. We exist to bring glory and honour to Him, not the other way around.)
John MacArthur has put together an excellent book with a chapter dealing with this, and many other, issues, entitled Fool’s Gold?: Discovering the Truth in an Age of Error. An in-depth review of this fascinating book is beyond our scope, so I’ll focus on what MacArthur has to say about gospel songs today, and how this seemingly developed-world trend makes me yawn and look at my watch week in and week out.
The modern trend of the ‘gospel song’ was begun in the late nineteenth century by singer-songwriter Ira Sankey, who wrote and performed music during the British and American rallies of Dwight L. Moody. He wanted to create an evangelism-centred style, and wrote songs to that end in line with the pattern of his day: verse one, a refrain (or chorus), a second verse, the refrain again, and so on. And in general they tended to be shorter and simpler than hymns of earlier ages.
And they worked! Most new music written from that time on were gospel songs in the new genre… and MacArthur points out that in today’s hymnbooks, the only one with a copyright date past 1940 was How Great Thou Art. I think it goes:
No prizes for guessing what music we as a church have embraced. How often have I heard an actual hymn in the main service? There was last Christmas, that year two Good Fridays ago, and Pastor Neivelle Tan’s visit, and… give me a minute…
Could it be that we are neglecting—no, throwing aside a large, rich body of Christian hymnology simply because of the mistaken belief that they are no longer contemporary and attention-attracting? We don’t want music that ties in with biblical truth and glorifies God above all else—we’re willing to settle for lesser substitutes that fit in with the pop-music culture of the world around us. Now I’m not slamming the gospel song—some have lyrics that speak to God as much as the great hymnwriters. Consider Casting Crowns’ Who Am I:
But the trouble begins when we replace ALL our hymnology with today’s lighter, fluffier ‘feel good’ songs. Most are too repetitive to sustain attention for more than a few seconds, frankly, How Great is our God being one of them. True, its simple four-line verses are easy to do… but we’re treated to unending repetitions of how “great” God is, time being in His hands, darkness fleeing from His light, etc., something even the most green Sunday schooler would have heard. Why regurgitate when we should be showing them how the Lord’s attributes can be fully honoured in our worship? Many other gospel songs and hymns do this, so a little variety is in order.
Just listen to all Pastor Aaron says about the great Christians of the past, and compare that with the monotones we feed our ears with before every sermon. I remember an occasion he spoke about Fanny Crosby, the great hymnwriter. I was pleasantly surprised to learn some of my favourites came from her pen: Blessed Assurance, Jesus Keep me near the Cross, All the Way My Saviour Leads Me and many others I can’t immediately recall.
Oh, and she was blind.
MacArthur quotes Leonard Payton with another compelling point. 1 Kings 4:31 says of King Solomon: “He was wiser than all other men, wiser than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman.” Now the irony isn’t lost on him—if Solomon’s divinely-ordained wisdom hadn’t come into the picture (and it probably hasn’t since), the wisest men in Israel would have been two musicians… and not just ordinary poets. 1 Chronicles 15:19 goes on to describe them as Levite appointees, the tribe of Levi having been the one dedicated entirely to the priesthood. In short, they were respected handlers of the Word of God, teachers and pastors first and songwriters second. And what record have we got of their work? The book of Psalms, for one.
The point MacArthur tries to make is this: Songwriters are actually more of teachers than their church pastors are, since the melodies and words they write stick in more Christians’ heads, and for longer, like it or not. It’s funny how we read books and listen to sermons about the lives of Crosby and the like, but keep them simply as memories and nothing more… like kids, they’re to be known and seen once in a while, but not heard.
Would it make us dull and backward to revive some of the music from their time, to keep their hallowed-to-God creations alive? What would be dull and backward would be using the same oft-repeated, shallow and—I dare say—insipid pop-wannabe stuff every week. Let’s face it, many of these songs simply can’t compare to the secular music I often listen to, Who Am I being the exception rather than the rule. Maybe worship leaders should take a little more care in choosing songs so they don’t all sound alike, and more importantly provide the level of Scriptural insight so highly prized by the hymnwriters?
Speaking of secular music, there’s another danger I feel I must point out. The border between songs of praise to God and songs of the heart can and does blur—did it occur to anyone that Morning Has Broken was intended to be a Christian song when Yusof Islam covered it? It sure didn’t to me.
You Raise Me Up is, as we Singaporeans would say, lagi worse. Have a look at the lyrics, and don’t worry if you don’t find anything Christian in them. I sure as heck couldn’t; and why may you ask, am I suddenly referring to a Josh Groban song?
OK, now the kicker. If you are asking why Josh Groban, I’ll fill you in; You Raise Me Up was written and first performed by Christian band Selah, and is included in the compilation Fresh Praise by Authentic Music. Strange, right? There isn't any particularly Christian substance in the lyrics, and amounts to just a plain, mawkish affirmation of an anonymous 'you' filling a role a mortal human also happens to be capable of.
Now when a secular artiste can cover a supposedly “Christian” song and spawn cover after cover from it, (and for it to be murdered many, many times on Singapore Idol auditions) something is very, very wrong. Maybe I can blame it on the increasing secularisation of the American church, where every denomination seems to have a political bent up its sleeve, and “seeker-sensitive” worship contributes to warm, fuzzy messages that conveniently leave out the “more advanced” stuff like condemnation, salvation from sin and God’s hatred of all that is evil.
Of course, the irony is that we import worship styles, songs and messages wholesale from the very culture that is growing to mock our faith in the name of art and tolerance (Madonna’s ‘crucifixion’, anyone?) more and more. Anyone who speaks up for biblical truth and inerrancy is labelled “intolerant”, “fundamentalist”, and “bigoted” while the REAL bigots go about trashing anyone who doesn’t agree with them. Now I’m not for an instant saying there aren’t godly leaders and messages from there, but practices should be adopted with discernment. The apostle Paul described music composed of “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs”—he never intended for one style to eclipse any other, all pretensions of being “modern” aside. This isn’t a struggle to be contemporary and relevant—it’s one for the very soul and purpose of praising God in song.
Can we really take praise and worship addressed to the most majestic, beautiful Being in the universe... and bore listeners to the point they count the minutes going by? Or would we rather give the Lord all the creativity, all the poeticism, all the musical skill we possess and sing before Him the way He intends—praising God and edifying man?
Now excuse me while I trawl for hymns to sing in the shower. Until the church revives the great hymns of old and sings them alongside more modern compositions that continue their legacy, contain solid theology and give praise to the One who hears the most of all, I see little reason to join in what passes as “worship” these days. Even if I don’t like the tune, the content may be worth singing to a great God… and I hope it will be the case once again.
© 2006, Lu Zheng Ping
I promise you, if I hear the chorus of How Great is our God one more time I will start running in the opposite direction… and I won’t accept any blame for sound equipment I damage on the way out.
OK, maybe I’m exaggerating (I'd probably just head to the toilet). But the fact I’ve stopped singing along many, many times, shuffled my feet, and looked at my watch has to count for something. Let’s face it—time was when you actually got music that glorified God and combined it with information that challenged your head as well as your heart. Are today’s Christian songwriters doing the latter?
(The trouble is that everyone has a different idea of what constitutes GOOD Christian worship music. As one old commentary on the “perfect church service” goes, the songs should have “more of those soaring, majestic hymns and less of those stupid dead old hymns”. You can’t please everybody—and I’m not for one moment saying I deserved to be pleased more in church than any other child of God. We exist to bring glory and honour to Him, not the other way around.)
John MacArthur has put together an excellent book with a chapter dealing with this, and many other, issues, entitled Fool’s Gold?: Discovering the Truth in an Age of Error. An in-depth review of this fascinating book is beyond our scope, so I’ll focus on what MacArthur has to say about gospel songs today, and how this seemingly developed-world trend makes me yawn and look at my watch week in and week out.
The modern trend of the ‘gospel song’ was begun in the late nineteenth century by singer-songwriter Ira Sankey, who wrote and performed music during the British and American rallies of Dwight L. Moody. He wanted to create an evangelism-centred style, and wrote songs to that end in line with the pattern of his day: verse one, a refrain (or chorus), a second verse, the refrain again, and so on. And in general they tended to be shorter and simpler than hymns of earlier ages.
And they worked! Most new music written from that time on were gospel songs in the new genre… and MacArthur points out that in today’s hymnbooks, the only one with a copyright date past 1940 was How Great Thou Art. I think it goes:
Then sings my soul,
My Saviour, God, to thee!
How great thou art,
how great thou art!
My Saviour, God, to thee!
How great thou art,
how great thou art!
No prizes for guessing what music we as a church have embraced. How often have I heard an actual hymn in the main service? There was last Christmas, that year two Good Fridays ago, and Pastor Neivelle Tan’s visit, and… give me a minute…
Could it be that we are neglecting—no, throwing aside a large, rich body of Christian hymnology simply because of the mistaken belief that they are no longer contemporary and attention-attracting? We don’t want music that ties in with biblical truth and glorifies God above all else—we’re willing to settle for lesser substitutes that fit in with the pop-music culture of the world around us. Now I’m not slamming the gospel song—some have lyrics that speak to God as much as the great hymnwriters. Consider Casting Crowns’ Who Am I:
Who am I, that the Lord of all the earth,
Would choose to know my name,
Would to care to feel my hurt
Who am I, that the bright and morning star
Would choose to light the way
for my ever wandering heart…
Would choose to know my name,
Would to care to feel my hurt
Who am I, that the bright and morning star
Would choose to light the way
for my ever wandering heart…
Not because what I’ve done,
But because what you did,
Not because of what I am,
But because of who you are
But because what you did,
Not because of what I am,
But because of who you are
I am a flower quickly fading,
Here today and gone tomorrow
A wave tossed in the ocean,
A vapour in the wind…
Here today and gone tomorrow
A wave tossed in the ocean,
A vapour in the wind…
Just listen to all Pastor Aaron says about the great Christians of the past, and compare that with the monotones we feed our ears with before every sermon. I remember an occasion he spoke about Fanny Crosby, the great hymnwriter. I was pleasantly surprised to learn some of my favourites came from her pen: Blessed Assurance, Jesus Keep me near the Cross, All the Way My Saviour Leads Me and many others I can’t immediately recall.
Oh, and she was blind.
MacArthur quotes Leonard Payton with another compelling point. 1 Kings 4:31 says of King Solomon: “He was wiser than all other men, wiser than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman.” Now the irony isn’t lost on him—if Solomon’s divinely-ordained wisdom hadn’t come into the picture (and it probably hasn’t since), the wisest men in Israel would have been two musicians… and not just ordinary poets. 1 Chronicles 15:19 goes on to describe them as Levite appointees, the tribe of Levi having been the one dedicated entirely to the priesthood. In short, they were respected handlers of the Word of God, teachers and pastors first and songwriters second. And what record have we got of their work? The book of Psalms, for one.
The point MacArthur tries to make is this: Songwriters are actually more of teachers than their church pastors are, since the melodies and words they write stick in more Christians’ heads, and for longer, like it or not. It’s funny how we read books and listen to sermons about the lives of Crosby and the like, but keep them simply as memories and nothing more… like kids, they’re to be known and seen once in a while, but not heard.
Would it make us dull and backward to revive some of the music from their time, to keep their hallowed-to-God creations alive? What would be dull and backward would be using the same oft-repeated, shallow and—I dare say—insipid pop-wannabe stuff every week. Let’s face it, many of these songs simply can’t compare to the secular music I often listen to, Who Am I being the exception rather than the rule. Maybe worship leaders should take a little more care in choosing songs so they don’t all sound alike, and more importantly provide the level of Scriptural insight so highly prized by the hymnwriters?
Speaking of secular music, there’s another danger I feel I must point out. The border between songs of praise to God and songs of the heart can and does blur—did it occur to anyone that Morning Has Broken was intended to be a Christian song when Yusof Islam covered it? It sure didn’t to me.
You Raise Me Up is, as we Singaporeans would say, lagi worse. Have a look at the lyrics, and don’t worry if you don’t find anything Christian in them. I sure as heck couldn’t; and why may you ask, am I suddenly referring to a Josh Groban song?
When I am down, and though my soul so weary,
When troubles come, and my heart burdened be
Then I am still, and wait here in the silence,
Until you come and sit awhile with me…
When troubles come, and my heart burdened be
Then I am still, and wait here in the silence,
Until you come and sit awhile with me…
You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas
And I am strong, when I am on your shoulders
You raise me up, to be more than I can be…
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas
And I am strong, when I am on your shoulders
You raise me up, to be more than I can be…
OK, now the kicker. If you are asking why Josh Groban, I’ll fill you in; You Raise Me Up was written and first performed by Christian band Selah, and is included in the compilation Fresh Praise by Authentic Music. Strange, right? There isn't any particularly Christian substance in the lyrics, and amounts to just a plain, mawkish affirmation of an anonymous 'you' filling a role a mortal human also happens to be capable of.
Now when a secular artiste can cover a supposedly “Christian” song and spawn cover after cover from it, (and for it to be murdered many, many times on Singapore Idol auditions) something is very, very wrong. Maybe I can blame it on the increasing secularisation of the American church, where every denomination seems to have a political bent up its sleeve, and “seeker-sensitive” worship contributes to warm, fuzzy messages that conveniently leave out the “more advanced” stuff like condemnation, salvation from sin and God’s hatred of all that is evil.
Of course, the irony is that we import worship styles, songs and messages wholesale from the very culture that is growing to mock our faith in the name of art and tolerance (Madonna’s ‘crucifixion’, anyone?) more and more. Anyone who speaks up for biblical truth and inerrancy is labelled “intolerant”, “fundamentalist”, and “bigoted” while the REAL bigots go about trashing anyone who doesn’t agree with them. Now I’m not for an instant saying there aren’t godly leaders and messages from there, but practices should be adopted with discernment. The apostle Paul described music composed of “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs”—he never intended for one style to eclipse any other, all pretensions of being “modern” aside. This isn’t a struggle to be contemporary and relevant—it’s one for the very soul and purpose of praising God in song.
Can we really take praise and worship addressed to the most majestic, beautiful Being in the universe... and bore listeners to the point they count the minutes going by? Or would we rather give the Lord all the creativity, all the poeticism, all the musical skill we possess and sing before Him the way He intends—praising God and edifying man?
Now excuse me while I trawl for hymns to sing in the shower. Until the church revives the great hymns of old and sings them alongside more modern compositions that continue their legacy, contain solid theology and give praise to the One who hears the most of all, I see little reason to join in what passes as “worship” these days. Even if I don’t like the tune, the content may be worth singing to a great God… and I hope it will be the case once again.
© 2006, Lu Zheng Ping
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Overcrowding and the Ivory Tower
An old story goes that just before the Russian tsarina Catherine the Great went on a tour of the Russian countryside, there were sights just not for royal eyes—failed harvests, droughts, poverty and squalor. And besides, paychecks were at stake for her courtiers, and any risk to a courtier’s paycheck was a big risk indeed. (All you whistle-blowers out there will likely see what I mean.)
In stepped a minister named Potemkin, who spearheaded a clean-up effort worthy of any Singaporean government campaign, only much more effective—peasants were assembled to cheer the tsarina as her carriage rolled through, and forced at gunpoint to only speak of good tidings in her presence. Beggars were forcibly evicted, and dead crops strategically hidden from view.
In fact, Potemkin’s cover-up was so successful, the concept of sweeping dirt under the carpet, keeping the dregs where they can’t be seen, and putting on an A-OK front came to be known as a Potemkin act, and the villages so affected Potemkin villages.
It came back to mind after I read Transport Minister Raymond Lim’s call to popularise public transport, in last week’s Straits Times—he admits it would be ‘catastrophic’ if private cars were to become the dominant mode of transport in Singapore. His office, meanwhile, cited points of improvement; fewer commuters were complaining of fare hikes, overcrowding and safety. New concessions would be put in place to benefit the poor and elderly, and transport would be made more affordable for everyone, if they’d just stay out of their cars.
Since I don’t drive yet, I rely almost exclusively on public transport. And since qualitative feedback wasn’t a big part of the article, it is my solemn duty to inform anyone reading this of one truth Minister Lim has, I hope, seen for himself.
Once you physically board a bus or train, whatever statistics anyone releases don’t mean anything.
The moment I see a sardine-packed MRT train pull in, I don’t care a hoot how many people complained of overcrowding in the last survey. I don’t care about average response. I don’t even care that people who could have been driving are taking the train instead. And I most certainly am not interested in SMRT's statement that only 1400 people take each 1800-capacity train even during peak hours. Whichever train they got the stats from, it certainly isn't the one I wind up taking on Saturday afternoons.
All that fills my mind is, why did the schedulers wait for the station to turn into a sardine net before canning us in the train?
On Saturdays, MRT commuting squashes you so many people it’s impossible to turn without smacking someone, and you’d better worm your way to the exits early if you don’t want to fight your way past a wall of bodies when the doors open at your stop.
To SMRT’s credit peak hour trains are rarely packed, because they plan for such an eventuality; now if only they could do the same for afternoon travellers.
Yes, SMRT—they exist.
SBS still has some way to go. Just try taking a non-peak-hour bus out of Kent Ridge and you’ll know what I mean.
Which brings me back to Potemkin. Transport ministers and MPs must commute by public transport once in a while; it’s all part of connection and credibility. The trouble starts when they announce their visits to the town council in advance: they will be on the 3:07 train, and take Service No. Such-and-Such to their wards.
So what does the town council do?
They lobby the transport companies to reschedule. They make sure everyone has a place to sit. They clean the accumulated litter, spruce up the air-conditioning, and have the most pleasant trip anyone can hope for waiting for him. Overcrowding? Make them wait for the next train. High fares? Look at our profits! And Mr. Minister sir, if you’ll just look away from the bus beside us…
I’m not accusing our fine public transport companies of anything. All I want is to be able to travel to my dentist, take the day off shopping or swimming, or go anywhere I want in my country without having to wait nearly an hour, get ripped off at the ez-link scanner, and elbow my way through the sardine can.
(Maybe the 1400 occupants are calculated by 3D volume occupied? Sure 1800 people will fit, we just need to stack them up higher.)
In stepped a minister named Potemkin, who spearheaded a clean-up effort worthy of any Singaporean government campaign, only much more effective—peasants were assembled to cheer the tsarina as her carriage rolled through, and forced at gunpoint to only speak of good tidings in her presence. Beggars were forcibly evicted, and dead crops strategically hidden from view.
In fact, Potemkin’s cover-up was so successful, the concept of sweeping dirt under the carpet, keeping the dregs where they can’t be seen, and putting on an A-OK front came to be known as a Potemkin act, and the villages so affected Potemkin villages.
It came back to mind after I read Transport Minister Raymond Lim’s call to popularise public transport, in last week’s Straits Times—he admits it would be ‘catastrophic’ if private cars were to become the dominant mode of transport in Singapore. His office, meanwhile, cited points of improvement; fewer commuters were complaining of fare hikes, overcrowding and safety. New concessions would be put in place to benefit the poor and elderly, and transport would be made more affordable for everyone, if they’d just stay out of their cars.
Since I don’t drive yet, I rely almost exclusively on public transport. And since qualitative feedback wasn’t a big part of the article, it is my solemn duty to inform anyone reading this of one truth Minister Lim has, I hope, seen for himself.
Once you physically board a bus or train, whatever statistics anyone releases don’t mean anything.
The moment I see a sardine-packed MRT train pull in, I don’t care a hoot how many people complained of overcrowding in the last survey. I don’t care about average response. I don’t even care that people who could have been driving are taking the train instead. And I most certainly am not interested in SMRT's statement that only 1400 people take each 1800-capacity train even during peak hours. Whichever train they got the stats from, it certainly isn't the one I wind up taking on Saturday afternoons.
All that fills my mind is, why did the schedulers wait for the station to turn into a sardine net before canning us in the train?
On Saturdays, MRT commuting squashes you so many people it’s impossible to turn without smacking someone, and you’d better worm your way to the exits early if you don’t want to fight your way past a wall of bodies when the doors open at your stop.
To SMRT’s credit peak hour trains are rarely packed, because they plan for such an eventuality; now if only they could do the same for afternoon travellers.
Yes, SMRT—they exist.
SBS still has some way to go. Just try taking a non-peak-hour bus out of Kent Ridge and you’ll know what I mean.
Which brings me back to Potemkin. Transport ministers and MPs must commute by public transport once in a while; it’s all part of connection and credibility. The trouble starts when they announce their visits to the town council in advance: they will be on the 3:07 train, and take Service No. Such-and-Such to their wards.
So what does the town council do?
They lobby the transport companies to reschedule. They make sure everyone has a place to sit. They clean the accumulated litter, spruce up the air-conditioning, and have the most pleasant trip anyone can hope for waiting for him. Overcrowding? Make them wait for the next train. High fares? Look at our profits! And Mr. Minister sir, if you’ll just look away from the bus beside us…
I’m not accusing our fine public transport companies of anything. All I want is to be able to travel to my dentist, take the day off shopping or swimming, or go anywhere I want in my country without having to wait nearly an hour, get ripped off at the ez-link scanner, and elbow my way through the sardine can.
(Maybe the 1400 occupants are calculated by 3D volume occupied? Sure 1800 people will fit, we just need to stack them up higher.)
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Dredging up the past
The following is an essay I wrote shortly after my hard disk crashed, and that right after I checked out of hospital. The worst problems tend to come together, if I'd learnt anything back then... :(
Funny how problems cluster together. Just last week I was recovering from a major spine operation (I still am) when my computer’s hard disk, for no apparent reason, decided to go crash. BANG. Everything gone. So here was a total system failure at the exact time I was least equipped to deal with it.
(When I was in hospital a major earthquake hit Kashmir, killing thousands in the worst natural disaster since last year’s tsunami in the Indian Ocean. Plus avian flu, dengue and evil terrorists. True in the world and true in life.)
But since a technician came and installed a new hard disk yet more problems have cropped up, none of which were there before. I can’t get some of my games working, and my computer can’t download Spybot Search & Destroy right. I’m starting to think my machine is cursed.
And it takes a freakishly long time to shut down, something that baffled the Dell techs I called. So here I am with a painful back, an uncomfortable plastic brace, and a computer that doesn’t work right.
AAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh well, computers are like that… if anyone round here can help it would be much appreciated. Why, O Lord, are we being afflicted like this?
Enough self-pity. I’ve found out that when your very spine is at stake you aren’t fazed by lesser matters like your remaining NS time or your computer quitting on you. There are far more important matters—the love of your family, the fact they are always there for you, and the love of a God who provides all these things. Food to eat, fun to have, air to breathe, exercise to do; all these take on a whole new meaning when they are taken away for a season.
But I want to focus on what happened when I saw the system failures in the light of God’s message, and what He might be saying to me. I was pondering on this (trust me, when you’re in bed half the day you’ve plenty of time to think) and was reminded today of the scene in Genesis in which Jacob wrestles with a man at midnight, the Rumble in Bethel that left him with a dislocated hip, a new name and a blessing.
In his book He Chose the Nails, Max Lucado points out that God dislocated Jake’s hipbone so he walked with a permanent limp and therefore would never be able to run away from Him again. I guess God knew these problems were going to come our way, and gave us the strength to deal with them. But why doesn’t He take our computer problems away, since that’s really something we can do without? As I write this my brother is swearing at a system that refuses to run Call of Duty: United Offensive.
I’m sure Jacob felt the same way as he staggered back to his tent to pack up. But given our propensity to turn from the God we pledge allegiance to every Sunday and sin against more times than can be counted in the next six days, can it be that a gaming rig running at full capacity would actually hinder God from speaking to us, and hinder us from seeking Him as we should? Perhaps He has allowed these problems so we can find something other than this horribly dispassionate machine that we rely on but cannot love us back?
A working computer is a wonderful tool, just like a working body. It opens up worlds we could never have dreamed, possibilities we could never have achieved. From the smallest blog to the largest Battlefield 2 online server, from the trenches of World War II to the juggling of a virtual person’s life, a computer opens you to a vast network of fun, utility and convenience. But our PC is blind. It ignores the call of the user and the DVD drive. And it is deaf. It can’t hear our pleas that it work.
Just like our bodies, computers only enslave us when broken. And they break so much more easily too. Don’t believe me? Jump from a metre and likely nothing will happen to you. Jar a PC’s contact points with much less pressure, and well…
And when our PC does work it loads our world with games. Don’t get me wrong; I love computer gaming as much as the next guy. But it is when we rely solely on it for pleasure, fun and occupation of time that we’re in trouble. Extreme cases of people dying after 50-hour game marathons aside, how many of us spend so much time fragging the crap out of each other that our families question our very sanity and existence? How many of us trust mortal, fallible computer game developers with our entire psychological well-being? PCs are inherently unreliable and merciless when they fail you. Dare we trust them so completely with our time and fun? I can’t remember the last time I played a board game with my family, be it Monopoly, Hotel or even chess.
Are you so preoccupied with a computer, working or not, that your physical health is failing? Are relationships with people straining? Health and family and friends—these are infinitely more important than the one-eyed monsters on my desks. Love is way higher than anything circuits are capable of, and it is our parents, our brothers and sisters, and our God that keep us going. Something beyond hardware faults and toys and games is needed for us not to self-destruct as these marathon gamers whose bodies pay too-high prices are wont to do. The Bible is filled with calls to love God not possessions, people not things, and the Spirit not games.
Life is too short for arguing over whose actions damaged the computer.
People are too important for fights, as I found out when my brother got into a temper tantrum when CoD : UO didn’t run.
And our God is not a breakdown-prone machine that blindly gives us what we ask for (knowingly or not), but a powerful, real and living reality who lovingly supplies our needs. He longs to fill us with Himself, and in this fallen, sinful world, nothing less will do. Paul reminds us in Philippians: “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6-7 NKJV)
I’m only coming to realise this as I’m unable to fend for myself thanks to my spinal op, and this coinciding with my computer breaking down and then refusing to turn off. I don’t want to oversimplify a problem with potentially devastating consequences, like credit card data loss, online identity theft, and crashes just when you’re booking that airline ticket. But we Christians know we are merely sojourners in this physical world, just as we are in the error-prone digital world that emerges from it. Although the physical and digital worlds are the Lord’s, and everything in them, you can and will be a victim of your own or someone else’s sin and carelessness. We need a Saviour, and thankfully, He has come.
The physical world is a journey, not a home.
The digital world is a vehicle, not a journey.
Heaven is our home, not just a destination.
May I share one final thought? In Revelation the apostle John sees that God will make all things new. The New Jerusalem will have the “nations of those who are saved” walking in its light, “and they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it.” (Revelation 21:24, 26)
Perhaps this means man will be able to use his glorified nature to create and control technologies equalling and exceeding anything this world has to offer.
Technical support will not exist, for it will no longer be needed. (Too bad for Dell Computer—they won Best Support some time back. Heh.)
Software bugs and glitches, lost work and frustration, will be things of the distant past.
But meanwhile, this side of eternity, may God help us discover a joy immune to pain, injury or breakdown. I haven’t yet, but I know it will one day come.
NOTES:
1 Good thing Battlefield 2, The Sims 2 and Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault reported for duty. Half-Life 2 is still AWOL as of today, and more than anything else I want to demand why Valve Software ‘sabo’ed me.
2 Every now and then a news report surfaces of online game addicts who have to be taken to hospital and even die after playing for hours and hours on end. Some South Korean cybercafés alleviate this by providing toilets, snacks, drinks and even sleeping facilities.
POSTSCRIPT: One year on, I've had to reformat thrice. Some things never change.
Funny how problems cluster together. Just last week I was recovering from a major spine operation (I still am) when my computer’s hard disk, for no apparent reason, decided to go crash. BANG. Everything gone. So here was a total system failure at the exact time I was least equipped to deal with it.
(When I was in hospital a major earthquake hit Kashmir, killing thousands in the worst natural disaster since last year’s tsunami in the Indian Ocean. Plus avian flu, dengue and evil terrorists. True in the world and true in life.)
But since a technician came and installed a new hard disk yet more problems have cropped up, none of which were there before. I can’t get some of my games working, and my computer can’t download Spybot Search & Destroy right. I’m starting to think my machine is cursed.
And it takes a freakishly long time to shut down, something that baffled the Dell techs I called. So here I am with a painful back, an uncomfortable plastic brace, and a computer that doesn’t work right.
AAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh well, computers are like that… if anyone round here can help it would be much appreciated. Why, O Lord, are we being afflicted like this?
Enough self-pity. I’ve found out that when your very spine is at stake you aren’t fazed by lesser matters like your remaining NS time or your computer quitting on you. There are far more important matters—the love of your family, the fact they are always there for you, and the love of a God who provides all these things. Food to eat, fun to have, air to breathe, exercise to do; all these take on a whole new meaning when they are taken away for a season.
But I want to focus on what happened when I saw the system failures in the light of God’s message, and what He might be saying to me. I was pondering on this (trust me, when you’re in bed half the day you’ve plenty of time to think) and was reminded today of the scene in Genesis in which Jacob wrestles with a man at midnight, the Rumble in Bethel that left him with a dislocated hip, a new name and a blessing.
In his book He Chose the Nails, Max Lucado points out that God dislocated Jake’s hipbone so he walked with a permanent limp and therefore would never be able to run away from Him again. I guess God knew these problems were going to come our way, and gave us the strength to deal with them. But why doesn’t He take our computer problems away, since that’s really something we can do without? As I write this my brother is swearing at a system that refuses to run Call of Duty: United Offensive.
I’m sure Jacob felt the same way as he staggered back to his tent to pack up. But given our propensity to turn from the God we pledge allegiance to every Sunday and sin against more times than can be counted in the next six days, can it be that a gaming rig running at full capacity would actually hinder God from speaking to us, and hinder us from seeking Him as we should? Perhaps He has allowed these problems so we can find something other than this horribly dispassionate machine that we rely on but cannot love us back?
A working computer is a wonderful tool, just like a working body. It opens up worlds we could never have dreamed, possibilities we could never have achieved. From the smallest blog to the largest Battlefield 2 online server, from the trenches of World War II to the juggling of a virtual person’s life, a computer opens you to a vast network of fun, utility and convenience. But our PC is blind. It ignores the call of the user and the DVD drive. And it is deaf. It can’t hear our pleas that it work.
Just like our bodies, computers only enslave us when broken. And they break so much more easily too. Don’t believe me? Jump from a metre and likely nothing will happen to you. Jar a PC’s contact points with much less pressure, and well…
And when our PC does work it loads our world with games. Don’t get me wrong; I love computer gaming as much as the next guy. But it is when we rely solely on it for pleasure, fun and occupation of time that we’re in trouble. Extreme cases of people dying after 50-hour game marathons aside, how many of us spend so much time fragging the crap out of each other that our families question our very sanity and existence? How many of us trust mortal, fallible computer game developers with our entire psychological well-being? PCs are inherently unreliable and merciless when they fail you. Dare we trust them so completely with our time and fun? I can’t remember the last time I played a board game with my family, be it Monopoly, Hotel or even chess.
Are you so preoccupied with a computer, working or not, that your physical health is failing? Are relationships with people straining? Health and family and friends—these are infinitely more important than the one-eyed monsters on my desks. Love is way higher than anything circuits are capable of, and it is our parents, our brothers and sisters, and our God that keep us going. Something beyond hardware faults and toys and games is needed for us not to self-destruct as these marathon gamers whose bodies pay too-high prices are wont to do. The Bible is filled with calls to love God not possessions, people not things, and the Spirit not games.
Life is too short for arguing over whose actions damaged the computer.
People are too important for fights, as I found out when my brother got into a temper tantrum when CoD : UO didn’t run.
And our God is not a breakdown-prone machine that blindly gives us what we ask for (knowingly or not), but a powerful, real and living reality who lovingly supplies our needs. He longs to fill us with Himself, and in this fallen, sinful world, nothing less will do. Paul reminds us in Philippians: “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6-7 NKJV)
I’m only coming to realise this as I’m unable to fend for myself thanks to my spinal op, and this coinciding with my computer breaking down and then refusing to turn off. I don’t want to oversimplify a problem with potentially devastating consequences, like credit card data loss, online identity theft, and crashes just when you’re booking that airline ticket. But we Christians know we are merely sojourners in this physical world, just as we are in the error-prone digital world that emerges from it. Although the physical and digital worlds are the Lord’s, and everything in them, you can and will be a victim of your own or someone else’s sin and carelessness. We need a Saviour, and thankfully, He has come.
The physical world is a journey, not a home.
The digital world is a vehicle, not a journey.
Heaven is our home, not just a destination.
May I share one final thought? In Revelation the apostle John sees that God will make all things new. The New Jerusalem will have the “nations of those who are saved” walking in its light, “and they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it.” (Revelation 21:24, 26)
Perhaps this means man will be able to use his glorified nature to create and control technologies equalling and exceeding anything this world has to offer.
Technical support will not exist, for it will no longer be needed. (Too bad for Dell Computer—they won Best Support some time back. Heh.)
Software bugs and glitches, lost work and frustration, will be things of the distant past.
But meanwhile, this side of eternity, may God help us discover a joy immune to pain, injury or breakdown. I haven’t yet, but I know it will one day come.
NOTES:
1 Good thing Battlefield 2, The Sims 2 and Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault reported for duty. Half-Life 2 is still AWOL as of today, and more than anything else I want to demand why Valve Software ‘sabo’ed me.
2 Every now and then a news report surfaces of online game addicts who have to be taken to hospital and even die after playing for hours and hours on end. Some South Korean cybercafés alleviate this by providing toilets, snacks, drinks and even sleeping facilities.
POSTSCRIPT: One year on, I've had to reformat thrice. Some things never change.
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Blogger?
Wee Shu Min was wrong. I don’t deny that. While scurrilous opinions have been around for a long time now, it’s only recently that John and Jane Q. Citizen began to have access to a worldwide audience… with worldwide consequences.
I hope the whole thing’s blown over, though. Nobody should have to endure the vicious personal attacks the girl went through, elitist remarks or not. Would not a simple pointing out of the facts have sufficed? Why not simply point out that society is composed not of strata but of people, built of classes but cemented in a common respect for all?
Oh, wait, I forgot. We need bogeymen—embodiments of the attitudes we so righteously fight. Elitism is oddly elusive; we search high and low for someone who makes the Education Programme for Gifted Youngsters (oops, seen too much X-men) look like the big bad decider of the exploiters and the exploited we think it is—and just weeks ago one dropped right into our laps, courtesy of the very technology that makes my insignificant self an electronically-published writer.
Oh, we showed her all right. We showed her how ashamed Singapore should be to have produced such a person. We showed just how much we can turn our angry, disapproving faces away from such pernicious talk. And the firestorm led to her blog being shut down, pictures circulating, and journalists studying how and why Wee could have developed her attitudes in the first place.
What I find hard to stomach, along with Wee’s comments, are their responses. Just look at them. Their writers claim to hate and battle elitist attitudes that the French and American Revolutions dealt a mortal blow to, and stand up for the poor and disenfranchised. Cleaners and maintenance workers are people too, you know! Shame on you upper-crust “elites” who think you know what’s good for everyone, who live in a closed-off utopia and make all the decisions from there!—oh, and maid, go clean the floor. We’re expecting guests. And did I mention Third Auntie who ran off with…
In short, we become an aloof, uncaring mob pulling the label off an effigy—becoming the very thing we claim to hate. I believe it was the Kuay Teow Man who quoted: Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.
And yet the whole issue of personal responsibility for your opinions seems to have gone unanswered. Has it ever occurred to anyone that accountability for her words are hers alone? Instead we look for issues to blame—the Rafflesian culture, the outward focus of the Educa… (oops, Gifted Education Programme), the lack of contact with the so-called lower strata of society and their view as the “less fortunate”, etc. While these can and should be looked into, shocking as it may seem, it is Wee herself who must answer for her words. They are hers and hers alone to take responsibility for—to repent of, affirm, explain or deny. Basically what the backlash and commentaries over the weeks have done was take this individual accountability away—denying the fact they can and do emerge from a human being’s mind, of said human being’s own volition. Lots of GEP-ers grow up to be good, unselfish people. Lots of poor kids don’t turn to crime. And lots of video gamers don’t take programmed firepower into the real world.
So how could the whole thing have been resolved without the petty squabbling and the personal attacks, many of which were so venom-filled even a king cobra would be hard-pressed to keep up? If she were to cling to that I-don’t-care line, fine. Explain why it’s wrong, why MPs deserve that status they have, and we can accept that. Better yet, what about this—she tells us she’s sorry, her views were wrong, and she is leaving them behind like the faulty lenses they are. Will we be willing, I ask, to accept such an apology?
As Orson Scott Card has pointed out, the mark of true intellectuals is the willingness and ability to test their theories and beliefs against the real world, and the evidence it offers. To resort to I-don’t-care language and denigration is to tell EVERYONE you can think anything you like, without the added nuisance of having to face up to reality. “Hello, Earth to all…”
Right or wrong, Wee is human. Let’s treat her as such—put down the stones, and get that mind out. We can talk. And hopefully, we can shake too.
I hope the whole thing’s blown over, though. Nobody should have to endure the vicious personal attacks the girl went through, elitist remarks or not. Would not a simple pointing out of the facts have sufficed? Why not simply point out that society is composed not of strata but of people, built of classes but cemented in a common respect for all?
Oh, wait, I forgot. We need bogeymen—embodiments of the attitudes we so righteously fight. Elitism is oddly elusive; we search high and low for someone who makes the Education Programme for Gifted Youngsters (oops, seen too much X-men) look like the big bad decider of the exploiters and the exploited we think it is—and just weeks ago one dropped right into our laps, courtesy of the very technology that makes my insignificant self an electronically-published writer.
Oh, we showed her all right. We showed her how ashamed Singapore should be to have produced such a person. We showed just how much we can turn our angry, disapproving faces away from such pernicious talk. And the firestorm led to her blog being shut down, pictures circulating, and journalists studying how and why Wee could have developed her attitudes in the first place.
What I find hard to stomach, along with Wee’s comments, are their responses. Just look at them. Their writers claim to hate and battle elitist attitudes that the French and American Revolutions dealt a mortal blow to, and stand up for the poor and disenfranchised. Cleaners and maintenance workers are people too, you know! Shame on you upper-crust “elites” who think you know what’s good for everyone, who live in a closed-off utopia and make all the decisions from there!—oh, and maid, go clean the floor. We’re expecting guests. And did I mention Third Auntie who ran off with…
In short, we become an aloof, uncaring mob pulling the label off an effigy—becoming the very thing we claim to hate. I believe it was the Kuay Teow Man who quoted: Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.
And yet the whole issue of personal responsibility for your opinions seems to have gone unanswered. Has it ever occurred to anyone that accountability for her words are hers alone? Instead we look for issues to blame—the Rafflesian culture, the outward focus of the Educa… (oops, Gifted Education Programme), the lack of contact with the so-called lower strata of society and their view as the “less fortunate”, etc. While these can and should be looked into, shocking as it may seem, it is Wee herself who must answer for her words. They are hers and hers alone to take responsibility for—to repent of, affirm, explain or deny. Basically what the backlash and commentaries over the weeks have done was take this individual accountability away—denying the fact they can and do emerge from a human being’s mind, of said human being’s own volition. Lots of GEP-ers grow up to be good, unselfish people. Lots of poor kids don’t turn to crime. And lots of video gamers don’t take programmed firepower into the real world.
So how could the whole thing have been resolved without the petty squabbling and the personal attacks, many of which were so venom-filled even a king cobra would be hard-pressed to keep up? If she were to cling to that I-don’t-care line, fine. Explain why it’s wrong, why MPs deserve that status they have, and we can accept that. Better yet, what about this—she tells us she’s sorry, her views were wrong, and she is leaving them behind like the faulty lenses they are. Will we be willing, I ask, to accept such an apology?
As Orson Scott Card has pointed out, the mark of true intellectuals is the willingness and ability to test their theories and beliefs against the real world, and the evidence it offers. To resort to I-don’t-care language and denigration is to tell EVERYONE you can think anything you like, without the added nuisance of having to face up to reality. “Hello, Earth to all…”
Right or wrong, Wee is human. Let’s treat her as such—put down the stones, and get that mind out. We can talk. And hopefully, we can shake too.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Music to His ears
Wrote a short essay about the music in my church, and it's not all good news. If they approve I'll put up here in short order...
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Tiers and Christmas
Been silent for a while, which isn’t too good. I’ve been busy with work, and believe me, time to rant just got much, much shorter.
That’s OK. No ranting from me today. I promise. Just a few opinions I’d like to share—and don’t worry—I regard all opinions as equal.
Only some are more equal than others. Just kidding… with many apologies to George Orwell. My posts’ll probably come once in a while, and they will have a special, four-tiered structure:
Tier 1
“What you waiting for, Christmas issit?”
“Yes, sergeant!”
December 25. It could be any other day. In fact, from Luke’s description of the weather it probably was some other day.
Ignore the fact this post is like a shopping mall in late October—decorations put up way ahead of time.
Let’s forget the fact the Catholic church set the date to coincide with the pagan Saturnalia.
Let’s forget about mythological heroes of the crop born on the same day.
Never mind that the early Anglican church was so allergic to December 25, they had entire congregations arrested for celebrating it in the seventeenth century.
Step away from Santa’s chair for a minute. The guy only comes once a year, and frankly, he has to divide his attention among billions and billions of kids. And don't bother looking for him yet; it's only October.
Don’t even look at the Nativity scene in your local mall for a minute.
As we get nearer this glorious day we commemorate as the beginning of God’s life as a man on earth, cast away the baggage that has grown around it. Distil it until its true meaning emerges—not the date, but the day.
The one day in history shepherds witnessed the arrival of a King, up close.
The day an unbroken line of prophets dreamed of—the day God Himself would put things right through a holy people.
The only night the sky was filled with singing angels.
The night the Son of God awakened to find His reach, once extending billions and billions of light-years, galaxies and nebulae, now had trouble hitting thirty centimetres.
The night He cried, the night He first knew He was hungry. His voice had spoken the cosmos into existence, and set it along its very foundations—gravity, electromagnetism, and atomic forces. Now it couldn’t even speak intelligibly.
Possibly, the first night He found Himself trapped in a dimensional prison. The Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, would now have to live one second at a time, 3600 seconds an hour, in a world confined to length, width and depth.
And a night that marked the beginning of a journey. A journey that would take Him to the most painful, most undeserved death ever—a horrible way for a mere man to die, and worse still for a God.
Omnipotent, all-knowing, and infinite Spirit, becoming a flesh-bound man suffering everything from body odour to puberty to death, pimples to sore hands to whip- and nail-gouged wounds.
April Ryan of The Longest Journey (Funcom, 2000) has nothing on him. This is truly the longest journey of them all.
Tier 2
After North Korea launched a test nuclear warhead, columnist Patrick M. Cronin immediately declared it as a “failure of US statecraft”, and want about analysing solutions for containing North Korean interests. Others speculated on what the rogue “hermit nation” might be hoping to achieve, and the world is mostly telling them, “Now, just be good little boys, and we’ll take these sanctions off you and let you feed your people again.”
Excuse me while I increase the volume. It’s not getting through that interference in my head called incredulity.
Since when did any negotiation with North Korea regarding its nuclear ambitions actually work? The aforementioned columnist actually concluded the launch as a failure of American diplomacy because he believes, at least in part, the lie that the North Korean government are reasonable men. They are capable of diplomatically finding a resolution. They are capable of listening to a logical argument thoughtfully presented. Oh, sure. And I can sell these analysts a very nice piece of land. It’s on Mars and may one day house a colony.
Yet if any thriller writer had a fictional North Korea sweet-talked into submission and abandonment of its nuclear program, he would be laughed out of the publishing house.
And this is the fantasy world diplomacy advocates inhabit. The very reason why Bush wants to see a disbandment of the North Korean nuclear program before diplomacy can take place is that he sees negotiation hasn’t worked to do so before, and it won’t do so today. Instead of taking away the cause and demanding the effect, as Cronin would have it, he is putting up a condition and asking for its fulfilment. The Kim regime has always made it clear it possesses weapons-grade plutonium. Does anyone think any amount of sanctioning is going to change that? Reader’s Digest and Time have reported for years on malnourished North Koreans in prison camps and eating grass, so I don’t think any fallout (no pun intended) is going to be felt over there.
Another column tries to make sense of Pyongyang’s test. That’s fine. The more we knew why North Korea spends so much more on its prized nuclear weapons programme and military than on healthcare, food production and education, the better. But there will come a point when we have to confront this for the ugly truth it is.
This is too precarious an issue for me not to research it further. Wish me luck!
Tier 3
Man, Paul Coughlin has been reading my diary. I say this because I’ve been reading and rereading his book No More Christian Nice Guy and believe me, I’ve never felt I needed a Christian book so much in my life.
I used to be—in some ways I still am—a Christian Nice Guy. I deliberately gave in to other people’s wishes and scoldings to avoid conflict, wrongly thinking such submission to be somehow Christian. Turn the other cheek? Check. Take injustice with a smile and an ‘it’s all right’ grin plastered on my face? Check.
Well, Coughlin told me it wasn’t all right. He proves it too, taking readers through example after example of both church and secular culture telling lies that demean the role of men. For instance, “when men have been allowed more say in the creation of children, they’re told all that’s needed is their sperm—forget about their protective love and masculine guidance.”
Jesus and the apostles told us to be like Him. And studying the behaviour of Christ in the Gospels, I can tell what He did that I wouldn’t. The writing cut into my heart in a way I’d never felt before—instead of hiding my masculinity and getting ridden over as I was in my previous unit, I could act with God’s approval (and, I hope, protection). I can now safely, and unregrettably, tell some people I’ve met not to give me any more of their bullshit. I won’t name names, but you get the picture.
The book is extremely well-written, with its target audience, CNGs, feeling that he is on our side, helping us see the problem before us all the time. No here’s your problem, go tackle it you losers. God bless you, Mr. Coughlin. The church needs more men like you.
Though if there’s one thing Coughlin is guilty of, it’s hyperbole. It may be OK to exaggerate somewhat, but I have a hard time believing “Self-reproach smashed my nose into the pee of my worthless self” when he was growing up. Such abstractions, while vivid, don’t help us see the problem. All we see is a guy beating himself up in print—Snap out of it! was what I wanted to tell him.
But is it a great book? Sure. I have no qualms about EDITOR’S CHOICE-ing it. If only my church, and indeed my Church, lived up to this sound, biblical teaching.
But my plug probably isn’t enough to convince you how urgently Christian men need this book. Visit its Web site at www.christianniceguy.com. Then buy it, I urge you.
Then prepare for the Good Guy Rebellion, something I want—and need—to do.
I’d like to paraphrase The Godfather’s Michael Corleone to avowed atheist David Mills: “But please don’t tell me my Lord never existed. That’s insulting my intelligence. And it makes me very angry.”
I’ve just read his book Atheist Universe: Why God didn’t have a thing to do with it, and frankly I’m unimpressed with his arguments. Never mind that Amazon.com is probably against me on this, but I found he uses old arguments, sets up straw men to knock down, then goes: “C’mon, this is what Christians believe! Aren’t they silly?”
Rather than go through every objection he raises (and believe me, some are tough) I’ll tackle several core assumptions, just to give anyone reading this an idea of what to expect.
1.) Jesus probably didn’t exist anyway. Therefore all supposed ‘proofs’ of the Resurrection were invalid.
Hello, Mr. Mills? Were there martyrdoms in Rome? Yeah, sure. Ever tried asking a Harry Potter fan if they’ll die for his name, to keep his books in print, to ensure the boy wizard will always be read by someone, somewhere? Even when the hype so saturates the news that now any talk about Harry Potter is censored, and anyone reading one of the books is threatened with death. Would fans recant their interest in a fictional character with their lives at stake?
Rubbish. You die for something that’s the truth, for something you believe is real. And I think 500 eyewitnesses, four testimonies that have passed every test of accuracy thrown at them, and so many changed lives so soon would be better qualified to decide whether or not their Lord and Saviour existed than Mr. Mills is. And I’m sure their blood speaks for itself—they died in the hope that one day, they would live again.
Perhaps in another 1000 years people will begin doubting Mr. Mills’ existence, too.
2.) The Christian God demands a blood sacrifice, and threatens suffering and pestilence if He doesn’t get it. This is cruel and evil.
Mills’ idea of a benevolent god is one who would truly forgive sins and let bygones be bygones. If someone in his family slights him, he holds no grudge.
OK. Suppose his benevolent god forgives Mohammad Atta and gang for ramming the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Forgives Tojo and Hitler for some 40 million organised executions. Forgives the unrepentant serial killer down the street, forgives the white slave-beaters in his own country, forgives me for slamming his book. What would he tell Him?
That God went by Mills’ rules, didn’t he? Would you call such a God truly benevolent?
3.) Creationists use arguments that have been disproved long ago.
No, they don’t. He only picks arguments that have been long abandoned to address. Hands up all who agree the planets all move in perfectly circular orbits!
And can Mr. Mills point to a verse in the Bible that says this must be so?
I rest my case.
Mills picks and chooses which arguments work for his case and he can present with maximum emotional impact. Something like Coughlin does, but in a book on defence of atheism, such a selectiveness is frankly unforgivable. For instance, he talks of picketing a faith healer who insists that all those he heals stop seeking medical treatment as a show of trust in him… then suggesting all Christians adopt this thinking.
Don’t insult my intelligence, Mr. Mills. It makes me very angry.
Was the faith healer a representative of Christian beliefs? I don’t think so. Even Christ insisted the blind man he healed follow Temple procedure. “Go, show yourself to the priests.” You don’t get much more procedural than that.
Go ahead and buy it, though. It won’t make you an atheist, but it will make you think long and hard about Christians who continue to misrepresent the faith, and what onlookers might conclude. And that can make all the difference for some.
Tier 4
I love the food at Pastamania. No matter which outlet I go to the great taste is always there—be it creamy chicken pasta, lasagne or any of the oven-baked rice dishes I’ve eaten. True, it’s at the upper limit of my day-to-day food expense, but how the food fills me up repays the money I spend several times over. Let’s hope it doesn’t fall victim to the Overexpansion Curse—using a famous name to get away with mediocrity and very painfully-felt cost-cutting measures.
Choy!
And oh, yes, the famous Haze is back. I’m working on a story that exaggerates its effects somewhat, but trust me, it’s no joke when the very air smells of burning meat, your lungs feel like going for a vacation, and your head spins at the thought of going out. While ASEAN waffles, Indonesia burns. And everyone’s unhappy… except maybe landowners who slash-and-burn—quick, cheap and easy! Why’s everyone so unhappy?
Pretty soon the officials they pay off will be asking the same thing.
That’s OK. No ranting from me today. I promise. Just a few opinions I’d like to share—and don’t worry—I regard all opinions as equal.
Only some are more equal than others. Just kidding… with many apologies to George Orwell. My posts’ll probably come once in a while, and they will have a special, four-tiered structure:
Tier 1
“What you waiting for, Christmas issit?”
“Yes, sergeant!”
December 25. It could be any other day. In fact, from Luke’s description of the weather it probably was some other day.
Ignore the fact this post is like a shopping mall in late October—decorations put up way ahead of time.
Let’s forget the fact the Catholic church set the date to coincide with the pagan Saturnalia.
Let’s forget about mythological heroes of the crop born on the same day.
Never mind that the early Anglican church was so allergic to December 25, they had entire congregations arrested for celebrating it in the seventeenth century.
Step away from Santa’s chair for a minute. The guy only comes once a year, and frankly, he has to divide his attention among billions and billions of kids. And don't bother looking for him yet; it's only October.
Don’t even look at the Nativity scene in your local mall for a minute.
As we get nearer this glorious day we commemorate as the beginning of God’s life as a man on earth, cast away the baggage that has grown around it. Distil it until its true meaning emerges—not the date, but the day.
The one day in history shepherds witnessed the arrival of a King, up close.
The day an unbroken line of prophets dreamed of—the day God Himself would put things right through a holy people.
The only night the sky was filled with singing angels.
The night the Son of God awakened to find His reach, once extending billions and billions of light-years, galaxies and nebulae, now had trouble hitting thirty centimetres.
The night He cried, the night He first knew He was hungry. His voice had spoken the cosmos into existence, and set it along its very foundations—gravity, electromagnetism, and atomic forces. Now it couldn’t even speak intelligibly.
Possibly, the first night He found Himself trapped in a dimensional prison. The Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, would now have to live one second at a time, 3600 seconds an hour, in a world confined to length, width and depth.
And a night that marked the beginning of a journey. A journey that would take Him to the most painful, most undeserved death ever—a horrible way for a mere man to die, and worse still for a God.
Omnipotent, all-knowing, and infinite Spirit, becoming a flesh-bound man suffering everything from body odour to puberty to death, pimples to sore hands to whip- and nail-gouged wounds.
April Ryan of The Longest Journey (Funcom, 2000) has nothing on him. This is truly the longest journey of them all.
Tier 2
After North Korea launched a test nuclear warhead, columnist Patrick M. Cronin immediately declared it as a “failure of US statecraft”, and want about analysing solutions for containing North Korean interests. Others speculated on what the rogue “hermit nation” might be hoping to achieve, and the world is mostly telling them, “Now, just be good little boys, and we’ll take these sanctions off you and let you feed your people again.”
Excuse me while I increase the volume. It’s not getting through that interference in my head called incredulity.
Since when did any negotiation with North Korea regarding its nuclear ambitions actually work? The aforementioned columnist actually concluded the launch as a failure of American diplomacy because he believes, at least in part, the lie that the North Korean government are reasonable men. They are capable of diplomatically finding a resolution. They are capable of listening to a logical argument thoughtfully presented. Oh, sure. And I can sell these analysts a very nice piece of land. It’s on Mars and may one day house a colony.
Yet if any thriller writer had a fictional North Korea sweet-talked into submission and abandonment of its nuclear program, he would be laughed out of the publishing house.
And this is the fantasy world diplomacy advocates inhabit. The very reason why Bush wants to see a disbandment of the North Korean nuclear program before diplomacy can take place is that he sees negotiation hasn’t worked to do so before, and it won’t do so today. Instead of taking away the cause and demanding the effect, as Cronin would have it, he is putting up a condition and asking for its fulfilment. The Kim regime has always made it clear it possesses weapons-grade plutonium. Does anyone think any amount of sanctioning is going to change that? Reader’s Digest and Time have reported for years on malnourished North Koreans in prison camps and eating grass, so I don’t think any fallout (no pun intended) is going to be felt over there.
Another column tries to make sense of Pyongyang’s test. That’s fine. The more we knew why North Korea spends so much more on its prized nuclear weapons programme and military than on healthcare, food production and education, the better. But there will come a point when we have to confront this for the ugly truth it is.
This is too precarious an issue for me not to research it further. Wish me luck!
Tier 3
Man, Paul Coughlin has been reading my diary. I say this because I’ve been reading and rereading his book No More Christian Nice Guy and believe me, I’ve never felt I needed a Christian book so much in my life.
I used to be—in some ways I still am—a Christian Nice Guy. I deliberately gave in to other people’s wishes and scoldings to avoid conflict, wrongly thinking such submission to be somehow Christian. Turn the other cheek? Check. Take injustice with a smile and an ‘it’s all right’ grin plastered on my face? Check.
Well, Coughlin told me it wasn’t all right. He proves it too, taking readers through example after example of both church and secular culture telling lies that demean the role of men. For instance, “when men have been allowed more say in the creation of children, they’re told all that’s needed is their sperm—forget about their protective love and masculine guidance.”
Jesus and the apostles told us to be like Him. And studying the behaviour of Christ in the Gospels, I can tell what He did that I wouldn’t. The writing cut into my heart in a way I’d never felt before—instead of hiding my masculinity and getting ridden over as I was in my previous unit, I could act with God’s approval (and, I hope, protection). I can now safely, and unregrettably, tell some people I’ve met not to give me any more of their bullshit. I won’t name names, but you get the picture.
The book is extremely well-written, with its target audience, CNGs, feeling that he is on our side, helping us see the problem before us all the time. No here’s your problem, go tackle it you losers. God bless you, Mr. Coughlin. The church needs more men like you.
Though if there’s one thing Coughlin is guilty of, it’s hyperbole. It may be OK to exaggerate somewhat, but I have a hard time believing “Self-reproach smashed my nose into the pee of my worthless self” when he was growing up. Such abstractions, while vivid, don’t help us see the problem. All we see is a guy beating himself up in print—Snap out of it! was what I wanted to tell him.
But is it a great book? Sure. I have no qualms about EDITOR’S CHOICE-ing it. If only my church, and indeed my Church, lived up to this sound, biblical teaching.
But my plug probably isn’t enough to convince you how urgently Christian men need this book. Visit its Web site at www.christianniceguy.com. Then buy it, I urge you.
Then prepare for the Good Guy Rebellion, something I want—and need—to do.
I’d like to paraphrase The Godfather’s Michael Corleone to avowed atheist David Mills: “But please don’t tell me my Lord never existed. That’s insulting my intelligence. And it makes me very angry.”
I’ve just read his book Atheist Universe: Why God didn’t have a thing to do with it, and frankly I’m unimpressed with his arguments. Never mind that Amazon.com is probably against me on this, but I found he uses old arguments, sets up straw men to knock down, then goes: “C’mon, this is what Christians believe! Aren’t they silly?”
Rather than go through every objection he raises (and believe me, some are tough) I’ll tackle several core assumptions, just to give anyone reading this an idea of what to expect.
1.) Jesus probably didn’t exist anyway. Therefore all supposed ‘proofs’ of the Resurrection were invalid.
Hello, Mr. Mills? Were there martyrdoms in Rome? Yeah, sure. Ever tried asking a Harry Potter fan if they’ll die for his name, to keep his books in print, to ensure the boy wizard will always be read by someone, somewhere? Even when the hype so saturates the news that now any talk about Harry Potter is censored, and anyone reading one of the books is threatened with death. Would fans recant their interest in a fictional character with their lives at stake?
Rubbish. You die for something that’s the truth, for something you believe is real. And I think 500 eyewitnesses, four testimonies that have passed every test of accuracy thrown at them, and so many changed lives so soon would be better qualified to decide whether or not their Lord and Saviour existed than Mr. Mills is. And I’m sure their blood speaks for itself—they died in the hope that one day, they would live again.
Perhaps in another 1000 years people will begin doubting Mr. Mills’ existence, too.
2.) The Christian God demands a blood sacrifice, and threatens suffering and pestilence if He doesn’t get it. This is cruel and evil.
Mills’ idea of a benevolent god is one who would truly forgive sins and let bygones be bygones. If someone in his family slights him, he holds no grudge.
OK. Suppose his benevolent god forgives Mohammad Atta and gang for ramming the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Forgives Tojo and Hitler for some 40 million organised executions. Forgives the unrepentant serial killer down the street, forgives the white slave-beaters in his own country, forgives me for slamming his book. What would he tell Him?
That God went by Mills’ rules, didn’t he? Would you call such a God truly benevolent?
3.) Creationists use arguments that have been disproved long ago.
No, they don’t. He only picks arguments that have been long abandoned to address. Hands up all who agree the planets all move in perfectly circular orbits!
And can Mr. Mills point to a verse in the Bible that says this must be so?
I rest my case.
Mills picks and chooses which arguments work for his case and he can present with maximum emotional impact. Something like Coughlin does, but in a book on defence of atheism, such a selectiveness is frankly unforgivable. For instance, he talks of picketing a faith healer who insists that all those he heals stop seeking medical treatment as a show of trust in him… then suggesting all Christians adopt this thinking.
Don’t insult my intelligence, Mr. Mills. It makes me very angry.
Was the faith healer a representative of Christian beliefs? I don’t think so. Even Christ insisted the blind man he healed follow Temple procedure. “Go, show yourself to the priests.” You don’t get much more procedural than that.
Go ahead and buy it, though. It won’t make you an atheist, but it will make you think long and hard about Christians who continue to misrepresent the faith, and what onlookers might conclude. And that can make all the difference for some.
Tier 4
I love the food at Pastamania. No matter which outlet I go to the great taste is always there—be it creamy chicken pasta, lasagne or any of the oven-baked rice dishes I’ve eaten. True, it’s at the upper limit of my day-to-day food expense, but how the food fills me up repays the money I spend several times over. Let’s hope it doesn’t fall victim to the Overexpansion Curse—using a famous name to get away with mediocrity and very painfully-felt cost-cutting measures.
Choy!
And oh, yes, the famous Haze is back. I’m working on a story that exaggerates its effects somewhat, but trust me, it’s no joke when the very air smells of burning meat, your lungs feel like going for a vacation, and your head spins at the thought of going out. While ASEAN waffles, Indonesia burns. And everyone’s unhappy… except maybe landowners who slash-and-burn—quick, cheap and easy! Why’s everyone so unhappy?
Pretty soon the officials they pay off will be asking the same thing.
Saturday, October 07, 2006
Let's go back on track.
I seemed to have drifted into rants, rants and more rants. I'll be taking a bit of a break in short order--get my thoughts back in line with God, His Word, and what He would want me to tell. Time to count my blessings, I guess...
Education, Time and Being the Best
“We all make choices—but in the end, our choices make us.”
-- BioShock, by Irrational Games
I had a look down at the Youthrepreneur kiosks at the Central Library last week. What I saw almost knocked the breath out of me; students were being encouraged to take up part-time sales jobs manning the booths by night, while hitting the books by day.
Now is it just me, or is this another competitor for our kids’ time and energy?
Let’s have a look at the time demands on students today. First they have to endure five or six hours of lessons daily, then reinforce what their teachers have crammed into their heads with as much revision as they like. In the case of my own schooling, this easily translated to ten-hour days, and the last thing I wanted to do was deal with budgeting, cranky customers and long, long stretches with only a stool and a public toilet for comfort. Throw our endless projects and co-curricular activities into the mix, and what do you get? It’s a wonder if we’ve any time to ourselves.
And all that while trying to prepare for an exam.
Now apparently this is a way of teaching kids responsibility and the realities of running a business. It tells us that entrepreneurship is somehow good, that by daring to strike out and risk it all you just might make it big. Might. Somehow this translates into adults telling kids they can manage their studies and a booth by the library, without telling them how or even why such a project should be done. There are plenty of other, better ways to teach responsibility, ways that begin at home. I want to be the one who does that, not some initiative thought up by adults who have absolutely no idea what kids today go through in the seemingly-endless rat race an education in Singapore has become.
And business skills? I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Again, business skills aren’t hard to learn. It just takes a long time. Any private college can prepare you in the theory part far better than a few months squatting over your textbooks outside the library will ever be able to, and a real, fixed, online or bricks-and-mortar establishment, more so. And here’s where you can really put theoretical knowledge to use.
Here’s a comparison. Suppose you had to learn to drive a car after a long, hard day at the office, plus you still have some work to finish up at home before you can call it a night. How many instructors simply place you at one entrance to the East Coast Parkway and tell you to drive down it? Not just today, mind you, but every day and every week after you finish at work.
And no, you can’t quit. You still owe the instructors their course fees… even though you’re expected to drive, down an expressway no less, with no preparation for handling what’s about to come your way. And if you crash… what’s that going to do with the rest of your life and work? The syllabus writers, the ones that decree what you must know in order to drive, can’t care less.
If you are someday able to work and drive, great! But don’t expect to learn both on-the-job simultaneously—our bodies are simply not equipped to deal with the workload, and it’s a rare soul who’s able to thrive on both. What scares me is that one day a success story who combines business acumen with a steady stream of A’s can and will emerge, who (of course) thanks the programme for all the experience it has given him or her, urging all kids to give it a try.
Final result: the education officials getting all excited and thinking that just because it worked for these one or two people, the cost (98 or 99 others getting disillusioned, burned out and angry at school and life) is worth it. So they have everyone, on pain of penalisation, join in the latest programme on top of their ten-hour days of schoolwork, CCAs and projects.
We want students to be developing kids who will one day grow up to be responsible, mature adults, not miniature chrono-juggling businessmen. Childhood is a time of magic and wonder, one we only go through once. There’s plenty of time to learn hard reality later… and in smaller, more helpful doses.
I’ve nothing against kids signing up for the programme. They can go ahead, even. But when it comes to the crunch, friends, what will you choose? Your business, or your academic future?
Which brings me to another aspect of our education system I find most unfortunate. Whatever happened the role of education in moulding our young, and thus the future of our nation? I hate to say this, but our country’s bottom-line-first-always-and-only ranking system produces too many scholars and too few passionate, hardworking and responsible members of society. Which looks better on paper—two students out of forty scoring A1s and thirty-eight scoring B4s or less, or all forty scoring A2s and B3s?
What we do is sad. We lionise our top academic achievers, giving them leadership roles on top of that, and expect the world from them. In fact, large percentages of our budget goes to developing top talent and demanding that it shine, but you never see anything in the newspaper describing methods for helping those in the middle or tail-end of the pack maximise their potential. How do our educators know that creative thinking and experiment-assisted learning won’t help slower or average kids?
Instead, what do we see? Top students doing time in biology labs working on nanotech and stem cells. Spanking-new campuses erected for our top talents to mature… while everyone else is stuck with the same, tired old approach of endless mugging, mugging, mugging.
-- BioShock, by Irrational Games
I had a look down at the Youthrepreneur kiosks at the Central Library last week. What I saw almost knocked the breath out of me; students were being encouraged to take up part-time sales jobs manning the booths by night, while hitting the books by day.
Now is it just me, or is this another competitor for our kids’ time and energy?
Let’s have a look at the time demands on students today. First they have to endure five or six hours of lessons daily, then reinforce what their teachers have crammed into their heads with as much revision as they like. In the case of my own schooling, this easily translated to ten-hour days, and the last thing I wanted to do was deal with budgeting, cranky customers and long, long stretches with only a stool and a public toilet for comfort. Throw our endless projects and co-curricular activities into the mix, and what do you get? It’s a wonder if we’ve any time to ourselves.
And all that while trying to prepare for an exam.
Now apparently this is a way of teaching kids responsibility and the realities of running a business. It tells us that entrepreneurship is somehow good, that by daring to strike out and risk it all you just might make it big. Might. Somehow this translates into adults telling kids they can manage their studies and a booth by the library, without telling them how or even why such a project should be done. There are plenty of other, better ways to teach responsibility, ways that begin at home. I want to be the one who does that, not some initiative thought up by adults who have absolutely no idea what kids today go through in the seemingly-endless rat race an education in Singapore has become.
And business skills? I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Again, business skills aren’t hard to learn. It just takes a long time. Any private college can prepare you in the theory part far better than a few months squatting over your textbooks outside the library will ever be able to, and a real, fixed, online or bricks-and-mortar establishment, more so. And here’s where you can really put theoretical knowledge to use.
Here’s a comparison. Suppose you had to learn to drive a car after a long, hard day at the office, plus you still have some work to finish up at home before you can call it a night. How many instructors simply place you at one entrance to the East Coast Parkway and tell you to drive down it? Not just today, mind you, but every day and every week after you finish at work.
And no, you can’t quit. You still owe the instructors their course fees… even though you’re expected to drive, down an expressway no less, with no preparation for handling what’s about to come your way. And if you crash… what’s that going to do with the rest of your life and work? The syllabus writers, the ones that decree what you must know in order to drive, can’t care less.
If you are someday able to work and drive, great! But don’t expect to learn both on-the-job simultaneously—our bodies are simply not equipped to deal with the workload, and it’s a rare soul who’s able to thrive on both. What scares me is that one day a success story who combines business acumen with a steady stream of A’s can and will emerge, who (of course) thanks the programme for all the experience it has given him or her, urging all kids to give it a try.
Final result: the education officials getting all excited and thinking that just because it worked for these one or two people, the cost (98 or 99 others getting disillusioned, burned out and angry at school and life) is worth it. So they have everyone, on pain of penalisation, join in the latest programme on top of their ten-hour days of schoolwork, CCAs and projects.
We want students to be developing kids who will one day grow up to be responsible, mature adults, not miniature chrono-juggling businessmen. Childhood is a time of magic and wonder, one we only go through once. There’s plenty of time to learn hard reality later… and in smaller, more helpful doses.
I’ve nothing against kids signing up for the programme. They can go ahead, even. But when it comes to the crunch, friends, what will you choose? Your business, or your academic future?
Which brings me to another aspect of our education system I find most unfortunate. Whatever happened the role of education in moulding our young, and thus the future of our nation? I hate to say this, but our country’s bottom-line-first-always-and-only ranking system produces too many scholars and too few passionate, hardworking and responsible members of society. Which looks better on paper—two students out of forty scoring A1s and thirty-eight scoring B4s or less, or all forty scoring A2s and B3s?
What we do is sad. We lionise our top academic achievers, giving them leadership roles on top of that, and expect the world from them. In fact, large percentages of our budget goes to developing top talent and demanding that it shine, but you never see anything in the newspaper describing methods for helping those in the middle or tail-end of the pack maximise their potential. How do our educators know that creative thinking and experiment-assisted learning won’t help slower or average kids?
Instead, what do we see? Top students doing time in biology labs working on nanotech and stem cells. Spanking-new campuses erected for our top talents to mature… while everyone else is stuck with the same, tired old approach of endless mugging, mugging, mugging.
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Couple rants here, brothers?
"Plasma cannons charged and ready."
"Cannons? I thought you said plasma cathodes and TVs!"
With all due respect to the advertising industry, I’ve some pretty harsh stuff to say. :(
You know a restaurant chain’s really got nothing better to do when it starts installing plasma TVs in its joints and pipe in ads that shout yer all hip n’ unique so lay up, join the revolution n’ be yer own person, innit? Somehow uniqueness and individuality means dressing alike in clothes two sizes too small if you’re female and too big if you’re male, doing the same things, following the same crowd. (OK, there are exceptions; but this is the general impression.) But my point is, does any of this have anything to do with their food?
Maybe I’m just a message-blind sucker who can’t see hidden meanings for nuts. I always thought advertising was about clearly getting a brand image to the public in a way that makes them want to buy from you. Instead, what I wanted was to find the executive responsible for this, and delete ALL his computer files.
Anyway installing plasma screens to pipe in said ad all day long (and by the way, some choice Discovery Channel programming) is a nuisance at best. You don’t usually spend too long eating fast food (fast, duh), so for any TV programming to have meaning, material must be short, informative and to the point.
It wasn’t.
A half-hour (or so I thought) documentary on space travel played for 10 minutes. I thought hey, this looks cool. So when they cut to a commercial break I didn’t much mind. So I ate and waited and ate and waited… the show began again when I finished my last crumb 10 minutes later.
Another 10 minutes of show. Another commercial break for just as long… by then I’d finished my drink too, so I got up and left.
Fast? Coherent? I think not. Someone should clean up this pathetic mess before it really starts to ruin our appetites.
But what really cheesed me off was this: an ad played to any companies interested in advertising on the plasmas, proclaiming that more than 2 MILLION Singaporeans watch them every month. Watching a screen is one thing. Extracting meaning is another, dear advertisers. Remember that.
Medal of Dis-honor: Audio Assault
Just one more rant. Please.
I was in a branch of a VERY well-liked bookstore chain the other day. Bookstores attract me like a hardware shop would Dilbert, but this one had me fleeing in terror and swearing never to enter will that horrifying attack was going on.
I’m referring to piped-in children’s narratives, of course. Apparently the idea is that children pick stuff up better if you say it REAL slow, REAL loud, and with un-nat-tur-ral-ly long pauses between syllables. No complaints against that—I sure would hate to teach my kids that way, but to each his own here. What bookstores do NOT have the right to do is have a loudspeaker yell “I’ll – HUFF – and – I’ll PUFF – and – I’ll – blow – your – HOUSE – down!” while customers are trying to choose between Horowitz and Colfer, Dickens and Austen. People are trying to read here!
As the blitzkrieg went on I felt my heart accelerating. Every instinct screamed at me to flee as fast as my legs would take me—hell, I think I was beginning to hyperventilate too. So I replaced the book I was checking out, turned for the exit, and ran for dear life as hyper-loud, hyper-pitched syllables raged around me.
Great job on your customer, guys. I’ll never forget this.
"Cannons? I thought you said plasma cathodes and TVs!"
With all due respect to the advertising industry, I’ve some pretty harsh stuff to say. :(
You know a restaurant chain’s really got nothing better to do when it starts installing plasma TVs in its joints and pipe in ads that shout yer all hip n’ unique so lay up, join the revolution n’ be yer own person, innit? Somehow uniqueness and individuality means dressing alike in clothes two sizes too small if you’re female and too big if you’re male, doing the same things, following the same crowd. (OK, there are exceptions; but this is the general impression.) But my point is, does any of this have anything to do with their food?
Maybe I’m just a message-blind sucker who can’t see hidden meanings for nuts. I always thought advertising was about clearly getting a brand image to the public in a way that makes them want to buy from you. Instead, what I wanted was to find the executive responsible for this, and delete ALL his computer files.
Anyway installing plasma screens to pipe in said ad all day long (and by the way, some choice Discovery Channel programming) is a nuisance at best. You don’t usually spend too long eating fast food (fast, duh), so for any TV programming to have meaning, material must be short, informative and to the point.
It wasn’t.
A half-hour (or so I thought) documentary on space travel played for 10 minutes. I thought hey, this looks cool. So when they cut to a commercial break I didn’t much mind. So I ate and waited and ate and waited… the show began again when I finished my last crumb 10 minutes later.
Another 10 minutes of show. Another commercial break for just as long… by then I’d finished my drink too, so I got up and left.
Fast? Coherent? I think not. Someone should clean up this pathetic mess before it really starts to ruin our appetites.
But what really cheesed me off was this: an ad played to any companies interested in advertising on the plasmas, proclaiming that more than 2 MILLION Singaporeans watch them every month. Watching a screen is one thing. Extracting meaning is another, dear advertisers. Remember that.
Medal of Dis-honor: Audio Assault
Just one more rant. Please.
I was in a branch of a VERY well-liked bookstore chain the other day. Bookstores attract me like a hardware shop would Dilbert, but this one had me fleeing in terror and swearing never to enter will that horrifying attack was going on.
I’m referring to piped-in children’s narratives, of course. Apparently the idea is that children pick stuff up better if you say it REAL slow, REAL loud, and with un-nat-tur-ral-ly long pauses between syllables. No complaints against that—I sure would hate to teach my kids that way, but to each his own here. What bookstores do NOT have the right to do is have a loudspeaker yell “I’ll – HUFF – and – I’ll PUFF – and – I’ll – blow – your – HOUSE – down!” while customers are trying to choose between Horowitz and Colfer, Dickens and Austen. People are trying to read here!
As the blitzkrieg went on I felt my heart accelerating. Every instinct screamed at me to flee as fast as my legs would take me—hell, I think I was beginning to hyperventilate too. So I replaced the book I was checking out, turned for the exit, and ran for dear life as hyper-loud, hyper-pitched syllables raged around me.
Great job on your customer, guys. I’ll never forget this.
Book review: Surviving Antarctica: Reality TV 2083
Strange world, isn’t it?
In a tragic way it’s the ratings-chasing of too many TV programmes that killed famed naturalist Steve Irwin two weeks ago, and continues to endanger the lives of people in a bid for fame. One blogger is quoted in the Digital Life magazine as calling the Discovery Channel a “modern-day version of the Running Man”, alluding to the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie about a TV show where grisly executions of criminals are staged and filmed. I'm sure you know where we’re going—in a culture that glorifies quick ratings fixes and cold numbers above all else, don’t be surprised if lives are thrown away in the scramble to have fresher, more innovative ideas brought to the screen. Fear Factor, anyone?
I thought back to this very issue after reading Andrea White’s Surviving Antarctica: Reality TV 2083. I’m always on the lookout for good Young Adult books, particularly since the quick-fix culture seems to have claimed me as a victim. I now rarely read full-length novels; a YA book gives me the pleasure of a solidly entertaining tale with as few twists and meanders as possible. And they’re (usually) short…
Anyway SART 2083, as I’ll refer to the book henceforth, is set in a future America (Reality TV 2083, duh) where a Department of Entertainment exists to bring education to children, in addition to entertainment that, quite frankly, isn’t that far of a stretch from today’s programming. Even the title is borrowed from the TV series Survivor, and the challenge driving the story is for a team of five fourteen-year-olds to re-enact the ill-fated expedition to the Pole by Captain Robert F. Scott in 1923. Trouble is, people really do relive and die, and the book never stops reminding you of that. Two men are killed in a D-Day edition of the show, and that’s just the beginning. Of course, Scott’s expedition was trouble-plagued from the start—Scott himself perished with four of his men.
And the references to Scott is where SART 2083 really shines. Large sections of Scott’s diaries, and the writings of the men with him, inspire our young heroes to weather the odds against them—White makes us root for the five, and a surprise ally thousands of miles away.
Overall SART 2083 proved an excellent read, if distracting. White’s plot moves along well enough, and the story remains true to character throughout—unfortunately she sacrifices a little coherence. We care about the kids too much to look away, and get in their heads too little to actually know what they’re thinking. For one character whose viewpoint White used extensively, we still don’t know if he fully recovers from frostbite by the end of the book. It was annoying and detracted from my enjoyment of the book, but then again that’s just my opinion.
Anyone disillusioned by so-called ‘reality’ TV, check this one out. You can’t beat the printed word.
In a tragic way it’s the ratings-chasing of too many TV programmes that killed famed naturalist Steve Irwin two weeks ago, and continues to endanger the lives of people in a bid for fame. One blogger is quoted in the Digital Life magazine as calling the Discovery Channel a “modern-day version of the Running Man”, alluding to the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie about a TV show where grisly executions of criminals are staged and filmed. I'm sure you know where we’re going—in a culture that glorifies quick ratings fixes and cold numbers above all else, don’t be surprised if lives are thrown away in the scramble to have fresher, more innovative ideas brought to the screen. Fear Factor, anyone?
I thought back to this very issue after reading Andrea White’s Surviving Antarctica: Reality TV 2083. I’m always on the lookout for good Young Adult books, particularly since the quick-fix culture seems to have claimed me as a victim. I now rarely read full-length novels; a YA book gives me the pleasure of a solidly entertaining tale with as few twists and meanders as possible. And they’re (usually) short…
Anyway SART 2083, as I’ll refer to the book henceforth, is set in a future America (Reality TV 2083, duh) where a Department of Entertainment exists to bring education to children, in addition to entertainment that, quite frankly, isn’t that far of a stretch from today’s programming. Even the title is borrowed from the TV series Survivor, and the challenge driving the story is for a team of five fourteen-year-olds to re-enact the ill-fated expedition to the Pole by Captain Robert F. Scott in 1923. Trouble is, people really do relive and die, and the book never stops reminding you of that. Two men are killed in a D-Day edition of the show, and that’s just the beginning. Of course, Scott’s expedition was trouble-plagued from the start—Scott himself perished with four of his men.
And the references to Scott is where SART 2083 really shines. Large sections of Scott’s diaries, and the writings of the men with him, inspire our young heroes to weather the odds against them—White makes us root for the five, and a surprise ally thousands of miles away.
Overall SART 2083 proved an excellent read, if distracting. White’s plot moves along well enough, and the story remains true to character throughout—unfortunately she sacrifices a little coherence. We care about the kids too much to look away, and get in their heads too little to actually know what they’re thinking. For one character whose viewpoint White used extensively, we still don’t know if he fully recovers from frostbite by the end of the book. It was annoying and detracted from my enjoyment of the book, but then again that’s just my opinion.
Anyone disillusioned by so-called ‘reality’ TV, check this one out. You can’t beat the printed word.
Monday, September 18, 2006
TOP TEN USES FOR A SWIMMING POOL
10.) Actually exercising.
9.) Pretending your swimsuit has another purpose besides catching attention.
8.) As the MOST prominent feature in condominium ads.
7.) As a symbol of decadent living, especially if empty.
6.) An empty, rubbish-filled one as a horror game setting a la Condemned: Criminal Origins.
5.) As a Chekov's prop in MediaCorp dramas--when a scene is shot beside one, a character must fall in before a new scene begins.
4.) See (5). A second character often jumps in to rescue the first, but realises he/she can't swim.
3.) For executing troublesome teenage secret agents (Stormbreaker).
2.) An excuse to get ultra-conservatives riled up (see 9)
1.) TOP SPOT GOES TO...
As a target for diving. When empty.
9.) Pretending your swimsuit has another purpose besides catching attention.
8.) As the MOST prominent feature in condominium ads.
7.) As a symbol of decadent living, especially if empty.
6.) An empty, rubbish-filled one as a horror game setting a la Condemned: Criminal Origins.
5.) As a Chekov's prop in MediaCorp dramas--when a scene is shot beside one, a character must fall in before a new scene begins.
4.) See (5). A second character often jumps in to rescue the first, but realises he/she can't swim.
3.) For executing troublesome teenage secret agents (Stormbreaker).
2.) An excuse to get ultra-conservatives riled up (see 9)
1.) TOP SPOT GOES TO...
As a target for diving. When empty.
Friday, September 15, 2006
Movie review: Singapore Dreaming
"What about your old army buddies?"
"Half of them are also trying to sell me insurance!"
I couldn't shake off the feeling Singapore Dreaming would be something different. First, it was the only local film I've dragged my butt to the cinema to see recently, and second, it begins with shots of the Esplanade, a HDB estate and stuff that instantly makes you feel so at home with the set and characters. Here at last is a story we can call our own, a story that stands up with the best of the 'foreign talent' that fills our theatres.
Does it really? Well... yes and no. There've been some great local movies; Money No Enough, 12 Stories... and, er... um... OK, let's add Singapore Dreaming, shall we?
The film has a solid story at its heart, one that allows us full empathy even with characters we've barely got to know. I wonder what Homer Simpson and his family would've thought of this one; male-dominated, female characters bickering over how they respond to fading into the background: "Nothing I did was enough for him!" Add a kid on the way to the mix, and there you have it; narrative tension, all nicely set up.
But this is NOT a laugh-a-minute jokefest unlike its predecessor, Talkingcock the Movie. The story is actually a dark, sad one--not enough to have to leave the kids at home, but one they'd better be mature enough to understand. When patriarch Loh Poh Huat wins the lottery, everything looks set for the family--until he keels over and dies of a heart attack. How do his wife and children cope? The search for the 5 C's--car, cash, credit card, condo and country club--never looked this futile.
"There's a 6th C. You know what that is? Coffin!"
Unlike many a fictional tale, there's no clearly-defined hero or villain. In fact, the characters are all the more compelling not because they're larger than life, but because they are us. (Except perhaps the one who habitually urinates in the lift. That's just funny.) The writers do an excellent job of fleshing characters out; and when the windfall and tragedy strikes, each acts true to his or her nature--so true, in fact, we can't help but root for them even as the family begins to fall apart. When daughter Mei demands her mother give her the lottery money so she can buy her child a condo, a car... we come full circle, and you get the picture. "Graduate" Seng (Dick Su) is especially pitiful--after failing to secure a job his dreams of establishing his own business are quickly derailed, and he loses everything. We sympathise with him, but revile him at the same time. The story ends on a note of hope, though, so it's not all doom and gloom...
But Singapore Dreaming isn't a watertight case. Some leaks do occur--like Mei's boss and his wife who're clearly just cardboard walk-ons. In fact, most everything they do looks like an excuse to make a point (Maid-bashers are bad! The maid will steal your condelence money! etc.). Their actions were, frankly, quite unrealistic... unless the writers intended it to be a caricature of our bottom-line-centred society where the money comes in, and your needs are simply necessary evils. Still, I thought this part could've been done better.
Overall though, Singapore Dreaming is a mirror in which we see ourselves (according to reviewer Neil Humphreys.). Don't see any reason to disagree with him--so come watch! Support-support our homegrown talents, leh!
"Half of them are also trying to sell me insurance!"
I couldn't shake off the feeling Singapore Dreaming would be something different. First, it was the only local film I've dragged my butt to the cinema to see recently, and second, it begins with shots of the Esplanade, a HDB estate and stuff that instantly makes you feel so at home with the set and characters. Here at last is a story we can call our own, a story that stands up with the best of the 'foreign talent' that fills our theatres.
Does it really? Well... yes and no. There've been some great local movies; Money No Enough, 12 Stories... and, er... um... OK, let's add Singapore Dreaming, shall we?
The film has a solid story at its heart, one that allows us full empathy even with characters we've barely got to know. I wonder what Homer Simpson and his family would've thought of this one; male-dominated, female characters bickering over how they respond to fading into the background: "Nothing I did was enough for him!" Add a kid on the way to the mix, and there you have it; narrative tension, all nicely set up.
But this is NOT a laugh-a-minute jokefest unlike its predecessor, Talkingcock the Movie. The story is actually a dark, sad one--not enough to have to leave the kids at home, but one they'd better be mature enough to understand. When patriarch Loh Poh Huat wins the lottery, everything looks set for the family--until he keels over and dies of a heart attack. How do his wife and children cope? The search for the 5 C's--car, cash, credit card, condo and country club--never looked this futile.
"There's a 6th C. You know what that is? Coffin!"
Unlike many a fictional tale, there's no clearly-defined hero or villain. In fact, the characters are all the more compelling not because they're larger than life, but because they are us. (Except perhaps the one who habitually urinates in the lift. That's just funny.) The writers do an excellent job of fleshing characters out; and when the windfall and tragedy strikes, each acts true to his or her nature--so true, in fact, we can't help but root for them even as the family begins to fall apart. When daughter Mei demands her mother give her the lottery money so she can buy her child a condo, a car... we come full circle, and you get the picture. "Graduate" Seng (Dick Su) is especially pitiful--after failing to secure a job his dreams of establishing his own business are quickly derailed, and he loses everything. We sympathise with him, but revile him at the same time. The story ends on a note of hope, though, so it's not all doom and gloom...
But Singapore Dreaming isn't a watertight case. Some leaks do occur--like Mei's boss and his wife who're clearly just cardboard walk-ons. In fact, most everything they do looks like an excuse to make a point (Maid-bashers are bad! The maid will steal your condelence money! etc.). Their actions were, frankly, quite unrealistic... unless the writers intended it to be a caricature of our bottom-line-centred society where the money comes in, and your needs are simply necessary evils. Still, I thought this part could've been done better.
Overall though, Singapore Dreaming is a mirror in which we see ourselves (according to reviewer Neil Humphreys.). Don't see any reason to disagree with him--so come watch! Support-support our homegrown talents, leh!
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
A righteous man cares for the needs of his animals...
... so goes Proverbs 12:10. I'm sure I join all of Singapore in saluting Steve Irwin; a man who went so far beyond that, and so well, we couldn't help but love him.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
If you've nothing nice to say...
I don't want anyone taking this wrongly, but I'm slowly purging comments from ALL my posts unless they're relevant or have something constructive to say. It wouldn't be so bad if they weren't so generic "I found some information..." etc. and sound like a they were actually written by a human being with something to say about the relevant post.
It's not that I'm being cold or unwelcoming; debate over my views is most acceptable, and I daresay encouraged. But there are so many comment spammers out to post links to sites of questionable content out there, so I've really no way to respond to this implicit idea I'm somehow allowing my blog to become nothing more than advertising for something I have no knowledge of or ability to endorse.
So keep comments relevant and to the point--and I must tell it's another human being letting me in on what he or she has to say.
Damned spammers. Grr...
It's not that I'm being cold or unwelcoming; debate over my views is most acceptable, and I daresay encouraged. But there are so many comment spammers out to post links to sites of questionable content out there, so I've really no way to respond to this implicit idea I'm somehow allowing my blog to become nothing more than advertising for something I have no knowledge of or ability to endorse.
So keep comments relevant and to the point--and I must tell it's another human being letting me in on what he or she has to say.
Damned spammers. Grr...
Sunday, August 27, 2006
The Armchair Conscript
Nobel Prize-winning writer Guenther Grass just keeps getting hailed and slammed. Why don't any of these people lamenting the loss of his moral authority try being forced to join an army whose beliefs you don't share, then survive the ever-so-visceral horror of war?
I don't have to point out how many of Grass's pot-shooting critics make their observations in comfortable book-lined studies, while the much more serious issues of anti-Semitism and bigotry still linger in the public imagination? We should be behind him in bringing his message to a new generation, not telling a man who's lived through what he has to shut up and go away because his army service disqualifies him.
Who're the bigots here?
I don't have to point out how many of Grass's pot-shooting critics make their observations in comfortable book-lined studies, while the much more serious issues of anti-Semitism and bigotry still linger in the public imagination? We should be behind him in bringing his message to a new generation, not telling a man who's lived through what he has to shut up and go away because his army service disqualifies him.
Who're the bigots here?
The Twins Issue
The papparazzi get more and more vicious every day. I'm not just referring to the infamous case of pop duo Twins being filmed in their changing room, but imagine the ruckus that comes up every time some artiste is caught doing this or that. True, we might like a peek into a star's life, to remind ourselves they're just human like the rest of us, but...
I'm no Twins fan, but I'll state it clearly here: no one deserves to have their privacy invaded like this, and nothing whatsoever gives you the right to do so. If justice is eventually executed by beating the photographers responsible to a pulp, they had it coming. Or the eye-for-an-eye method--what if someone filmed the papparazzi in the shower? I for one would enjoy the media circus, though an overhaul of industrial practices would be stretching credulity a little.
This highlights the twisted lengths some technology-armed fanatics eager for exclusive scoops and/or a quick buck will go to. I don't care whether feeding your family depends on the latest expose you bring to light, but providing for your livelihood at the expense of another human being's dignity, and having no shame about doing so, is an outright, inexcusable wrong. I'd feel great if someone inside the Hong Kong press stood up, tooted his whistle, and called, "THIS IS WRONG!"
I don't know if I would or not. I don't yet have a rice bowl to put at stake. But when personal security and the right thing to do clash, God help us to do what He wills.
I'm no Twins fan, but I'll state it clearly here: no one deserves to have their privacy invaded like this, and nothing whatsoever gives you the right to do so. If justice is eventually executed by beating the photographers responsible to a pulp, they had it coming. Or the eye-for-an-eye method--what if someone filmed the papparazzi in the shower? I for one would enjoy the media circus, though an overhaul of industrial practices would be stretching credulity a little.
This highlights the twisted lengths some technology-armed fanatics eager for exclusive scoops and/or a quick buck will go to. I don't care whether feeding your family depends on the latest expose you bring to light, but providing for your livelihood at the expense of another human being's dignity, and having no shame about doing so, is an outright, inexcusable wrong. I'd feel great if someone inside the Hong Kong press stood up, tooted his whistle, and called, "THIS IS WRONG!"
I don't know if I would or not. I don't yet have a rice bowl to put at stake. But when personal security and the right thing to do clash, God help us to do what He wills.
Friday, August 18, 2006
Book review: Comic book science was never so much fun
I saw The Science of Superheroes and its follow-up volume, The Science of Supervillains, in my library… and following my long-buried (OK, three weeks) liking for comics, I borrowed both to see where logic ended and good, reality-clean fun set in.
A few words about comics (“graphic novels” for those not among the hoi polloi): I think they’re a great medium for stories to be told, stories in the rich vein the printed word just doesn’t capture so well. How would an Asterix novel read? A Tintin one? Or for that matter, a Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck? Certainly not the same way as within the panels of a comic strip. It loses something.
Where does Superman’s strength come from? Could he exist in the real world? Taking the lens of real-universe physical laws, Gresh and Weinberg put classic superheroes like Batman, Superman, Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four under it to an entertaining read I started at the first page, and couldn’t put down.
For instance, the classic story of Superman’s origin has his father, Jor-El, putting him on a meteor and sending him to Earth. His strength is the result of coming from the higher-gravity world of Krypton; our world’s lower gravitational pull ensures our heaviest buildings are feather-light to him. And wonder of wonders, our sun’s yellow light gives him the extra Mystical Energy Boost he needs for his powers.
Only beings our size and shape cannot survive in a much higher-gravity world like Krypton—they’d be crushed. Ouch.
Ditto for our sun—yellow light is just another wavelength. Heck, they even go through the mathematics, something this A-level physics-trained guy didn’t think applied in Superman’s case. Well, you learn something new every day…
More to the point, The Science of Superheroes is great fun. I read it through twice, one of the few times I so honoured any book—once for fun, the second for a much-needed science revision.
UNFORTUNATELY (as they say in comics)… the first book wasn’t without its flaws; in the chapter on the X-men I’m sorry to say it all came apart. Because the X-men’s powers are biologically based (they’re mutants, duh), it’s fair and good to take so-and-so’s powers, and examine them to see if they’re sound. Could someone really auto-heal like Wolverine? Control the weather like Storm?
Instead the authors zero in on exactly why the X-men possess their powers—evolution, asserting: “The X-men stand or fall with Darwin’s theory.” Question, G & W: how? It’s one thing to possess a selected trait, but another to produce such a drastic change in so narrow a time-frame. And Wolverine’s mutations, for example, are clearly beneficial; his body recovers in an eye-blink from any trauma. How likely is it a ‘good’ mutation will arise, when the vast majority resulted in the mutant dying, unable to adapt to its environment? They should’ve addressed on whether so-and-so’s mutant powers are really plausible, rather than confirming every X-man possible with the same broad brush: “They may even be our children.” The Flash is rejected as being out-of-logic, but what about Magneto’s son, who possesses the same super-speed power? Believe it or not, G & W take up the entire chapter attacking creationism and literal Scripture reading, and expounding Stephen Jay Gould’s punctuated equilibrium evolutionary theory… an irrelevance if I ever saw one. To me it’s just a sneaky way of slipping yet another attack on religion into print. (They do so again in an appendix; “Science has little to say about the supernatural, except that it’s impossible.”) Such broad, sweeping statements, to me, diminished the credibility of the book to the point not even a superhero can restore it. Better minds than mine have filled in more detail, so a rehash would be out of reach for me…
But TSoSH was intriguing enough for me to try out its follow-up, The Science of Supervillains. Being an optimist at heart I hoped the out-of-date science would’ve been cleaned up since then, and we’d get a better view into the supervillain’s psyche. Could Apocalypse have lived so many thousands of years? Perhaps, with cryonic technology. Time travel? It’s there. Could a DNA computer really work, hijacking a human brain in the process? I won’t spoil the surprise, but suffice it to say G & W have done their research. The way technology is progressing, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a Dr. von Doom in the near future, though Spider-Man’s foe The Lizard remains out of reach. For now.
And I enjoyed seeing villains’ implausibilities as much as I did their demises. Anyone who loves comic books, science or both, you mustn’t miss out. If you love God, though… not to worry. The authors’ case against that is far from convincing.
FINAL RATING:
The Science of Superheroes: 6.0 (out of 10)
The Science of Supervillains: 6.4 (out of 10)
(It would've been higher, but it seems quite a few on amazon.com agreed on the evolution section. Well... that many readers can't be wrong.)
A few words about comics (“graphic novels” for those not among the hoi polloi): I think they’re a great medium for stories to be told, stories in the rich vein the printed word just doesn’t capture so well. How would an Asterix novel read? A Tintin one? Or for that matter, a Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck? Certainly not the same way as within the panels of a comic strip. It loses something.
Where does Superman’s strength come from? Could he exist in the real world? Taking the lens of real-universe physical laws, Gresh and Weinberg put classic superheroes like Batman, Superman, Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four under it to an entertaining read I started at the first page, and couldn’t put down.
For instance, the classic story of Superman’s origin has his father, Jor-El, putting him on a meteor and sending him to Earth. His strength is the result of coming from the higher-gravity world of Krypton; our world’s lower gravitational pull ensures our heaviest buildings are feather-light to him. And wonder of wonders, our sun’s yellow light gives him the extra Mystical Energy Boost he needs for his powers.
Only beings our size and shape cannot survive in a much higher-gravity world like Krypton—they’d be crushed. Ouch.
Ditto for our sun—yellow light is just another wavelength. Heck, they even go through the mathematics, something this A-level physics-trained guy didn’t think applied in Superman’s case. Well, you learn something new every day…
More to the point, The Science of Superheroes is great fun. I read it through twice, one of the few times I so honoured any book—once for fun, the second for a much-needed science revision.
UNFORTUNATELY (as they say in comics)… the first book wasn’t without its flaws; in the chapter on the X-men I’m sorry to say it all came apart. Because the X-men’s powers are biologically based (they’re mutants, duh), it’s fair and good to take so-and-so’s powers, and examine them to see if they’re sound. Could someone really auto-heal like Wolverine? Control the weather like Storm?
Instead the authors zero in on exactly why the X-men possess their powers—evolution, asserting: “The X-men stand or fall with Darwin’s theory.” Question, G & W: how? It’s one thing to possess a selected trait, but another to produce such a drastic change in so narrow a time-frame. And Wolverine’s mutations, for example, are clearly beneficial; his body recovers in an eye-blink from any trauma. How likely is it a ‘good’ mutation will arise, when the vast majority resulted in the mutant dying, unable to adapt to its environment? They should’ve addressed on whether so-and-so’s mutant powers are really plausible, rather than confirming every X-man possible with the same broad brush: “They may even be our children.” The Flash is rejected as being out-of-logic, but what about Magneto’s son, who possesses the same super-speed power? Believe it or not, G & W take up the entire chapter attacking creationism and literal Scripture reading, and expounding Stephen Jay Gould’s punctuated equilibrium evolutionary theory… an irrelevance if I ever saw one. To me it’s just a sneaky way of slipping yet another attack on religion into print. (They do so again in an appendix; “Science has little to say about the supernatural, except that it’s impossible.”) Such broad, sweeping statements, to me, diminished the credibility of the book to the point not even a superhero can restore it. Better minds than mine have filled in more detail, so a rehash would be out of reach for me…
But TSoSH was intriguing enough for me to try out its follow-up, The Science of Supervillains. Being an optimist at heart I hoped the out-of-date science would’ve been cleaned up since then, and we’d get a better view into the supervillain’s psyche. Could Apocalypse have lived so many thousands of years? Perhaps, with cryonic technology. Time travel? It’s there. Could a DNA computer really work, hijacking a human brain in the process? I won’t spoil the surprise, but suffice it to say G & W have done their research. The way technology is progressing, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a Dr. von Doom in the near future, though Spider-Man’s foe The Lizard remains out of reach. For now.
And I enjoyed seeing villains’ implausibilities as much as I did their demises. Anyone who loves comic books, science or both, you mustn’t miss out. If you love God, though… not to worry. The authors’ case against that is far from convincing.
FINAL RATING:
The Science of Superheroes: 6.0 (out of 10)
The Science of Supervillains: 6.4 (out of 10)
(It would've been higher, but it seems quite a few on amazon.com agreed on the evolution section. Well... that many readers can't be wrong.)
Monday, August 14, 2006
Can't help but point this out:
No one seems to be taking Mel Gibson's apology at face value. Maybe they're too used to Hollywood gloss over anything that comes from the mouth? Anyway moralising can only be taken so far; remember it was the model citizens of the day who accused Christ of having a demon? ;)
Saturday, August 12, 2006
Which is easier to cure, body or mind?
I'm pretty sure the Subutex-Dormicium saga answers this question all too well. Drug addiction, while necessitating a painful and hard recovery, is nothing compared to psychological dependence on "highs"--meaning addiction is a hell of a lot easier to cure than human folly.
But why hasn't this been addressed earlier? These are lives we're playing with here, not just bodies.
"See this medicine? Take it and you won't need heroin any more. OK?"
The problem is what abusers need heroin for in the first place. Thrill? Dependence? If Subutex can duplicate the effect it's simply substituting a lesser evil. To the point, abusers need love, fulfilment, and the knowledge someone cares for them enough to stop their lives from being ruined.
I'm not qualified to issue challenges as yet, but answer me this: are we curing the symptoms, or the disease?
But why hasn't this been addressed earlier? These are lives we're playing with here, not just bodies.
"See this medicine? Take it and you won't need heroin any more. OK?"
The problem is what abusers need heroin for in the first place. Thrill? Dependence? If Subutex can duplicate the effect it's simply substituting a lesser evil. To the point, abusers need love, fulfilment, and the knowledge someone cares for them enough to stop their lives from being ruined.
I'm not qualified to issue challenges as yet, but answer me this: are we curing the symptoms, or the disease?
Sunday, August 06, 2006
How do you want your human evil?
Raw? The New Paper's for you; blood, guts, polemic and disgust are all there. I've to admit no other paper gives such detail to the evil humans are capable of--knife attacks on innocents, drug-crazed (?) workers raiding a truck carrying handphones and killing the driver, or anything that totally wipes out whatever faith in humanity you might have had. True, all sin and fall short of the glory of God... but some more dramatically than others.
Sorry, I've just got to get this out of my system.
Sorry, I've just got to get this out of my system.
Saturday, July 22, 2006
Religious community service? Sacrilege!
Exactly what merits the idea that our youth can develop cultural and religious sensitivity by putting them to work in temples, mosques and churches is, to put it mildly, misplaced. Mooted by the National Youth Council last week, the motion was to introduce community projects in which young people helped out in other religions’ places of worship caring for the sick, holding events and the odd ceremony--in the name of building cohesion and interfaith respect.
Now these aren’t the ravings of an I’m-right-everyone-else-is-wrong isolationist. I’m certainly as in favour of religious harmony as the next man. Note carefully the following: I’m not slamming the NYC, the Inter-Religious Organisation, or the need for a common understanding between religions. If at best we don’t stare daggers at anyone “different”, that still won’t be enough. After all, what is religious extremism but a deep-seated fear of everyone not one of “us”, and a desire to control them into thinking as we do? We in Singapore work with, accompany, befriend and laugh with people of different faiths, in a 100% tension-free environment, unless someone goes about ensuring otherwise.
And that’s a good thing!
But the NYC, in this idea, have mistaken the cause for an effect. We do not continue to enjoy such freedom because we put forward such initiatives—it is due to the fact such an environment is already in place that we get to live without fear of a pogrom, a terrorist-interpreted jihad, or any such religion war. Does the NYC think they are going to further improve ties by forcing our youth to learn what they already know?
Yes, we are united. Yes, we are stable. Yes, we are safe.
And we owe a great deal to the fledgling PAP of the 70’s, which put in place safeguards that ensure we continue to live together “regardless of race, language or religion.” While you cannot control the opinion of every deluded individual in Singapore, you can create conditions set against his holding and propagating such ideas. And with the average citizen with a mind of his own firmly resolved to reject extremism should it show up, religious divide ought not to be too much of an issue. But the NYC’s motion, should it ever be implemented, will in my opinion achieve the exact opposite effect it intended. Instead of unity, it will sow division; instead of submission, rebellion; and instead of guidance as to the meaning of life, darkness and confusion. As such I must say that though it has good intentions at heart, this is a bad idea at best, and clear-cut heresy at worst. For it to become a reality encouraged by the NYC and Government ministries would be the single worst thing to happen for cultural respect and diversity in Singapore.
Want proof? Even without drawing on the Bible or philosophers for pointers, there’s plenty of messages that come through. What follows is from a Christian point of view, though what I say probably applies to any faith that is put through this trial.
If my school gave me notice that I'd have to spend nine hours in a temple in order to graduate, or if anyone at all were to go through such an experience... religion always loses out. The false idol of community-at-all-costs is upheld, but at what price? The first thing to go through my mind would be that my faith does not matter. Why give your all to God and His Word when it’s all basically interchangeable anyway? If it will truly help a Buddhist to serve in a mosque or a Christian in a temple in the name of gaining interfaith understanding, the contradictions I’d be forced to swallow would be intellectually insurmountable at best and downright hypocritical at worst. And here the NYC is saying none of it matters in the first place. So is salvation possible by good works or not? Which saves you, karma or grace? To give up time or energy towards serving a god who teaches otherwise is saying “Oh, what does it matter? It’s probably nearly all the same anyway.” Interfaith dialogue and understanding is based around the knowledge that differences exist and deserve to be addressed and respectfully disagreed upon; but the NYC’s motion is suggesting that said differences do not matter. Now I don’t know about you up there, but I see a whole lot of opposites in here.
Second, community is Lord. Pardon me if I sound a little extreme, but Christians went to the lions in Rome precisely because they did not want Christ to join the pantheon of gods already worshipped by the Romans, in addition to their practice of Caesar-worship. Citizens were required by law to swear that “Caesar is Lord”, and this was generally done so you didn’t have to bother which divinity your neighbours followed, and they didn’t bother about yours. Community was achieved—at the cost of thousands of lives surrendered to the gospel rather than it. True, we’re commanded to submit to earthly leaders, for there is no authority that God has not allowed to exist at this place and time. But what we may not do is place these aims of tolerance, peace and dialogue over and above faith, hope, grace and love. If the state decided to commit genocide, no way we’re joining in, man. If the NYC decides that different religions, in all their contradiction, be served by unbelievers, toward an entirely secular aim… I’m pretty sure Christians won’t be alone in condemning such a hypocritical notion. Service to God is over and above service to country—at times when the state demands you give up what makes your faith unique, is it really so unlikely that you will refuse?
And what will weaker believers think?
When the state makes its aims a divine edict, don’t be surprised if you have heretics beneath the cracks.
Third, what about life’s ultimate meaning? Religions answer that question differently, however contradictorily. I do not think these meanings are interchangeable. It could well be that they’re one big joke, that man is alone in the universe with no destiny but to fall into oblivion—if what secular cosmologists say is correct.
You know, if different answers to such questions can be so casually tossed aside, maybe the answers don’t exist. And if they don’t exist, then religion is all a sham to be got rid of as soon as possible. Besides, I don’t know anyone who’s been able to believe two completely contradictory things at the same time—to be exposed to something that contradicts your thinking is one thing, but to be actively immersed in it is another.
Not all of us are Daniels. In fact, too few are for faith to be wasted on a venture like this. This is not one of the National Youth Council's better ideas.
Now these aren’t the ravings of an I’m-right-everyone-else-is-wrong isolationist. I’m certainly as in favour of religious harmony as the next man. Note carefully the following: I’m not slamming the NYC, the Inter-Religious Organisation, or the need for a common understanding between religions. If at best we don’t stare daggers at anyone “different”, that still won’t be enough. After all, what is religious extremism but a deep-seated fear of everyone not one of “us”, and a desire to control them into thinking as we do? We in Singapore work with, accompany, befriend and laugh with people of different faiths, in a 100% tension-free environment, unless someone goes about ensuring otherwise.
And that’s a good thing!
But the NYC, in this idea, have mistaken the cause for an effect. We do not continue to enjoy such freedom because we put forward such initiatives—it is due to the fact such an environment is already in place that we get to live without fear of a pogrom, a terrorist-interpreted jihad, or any such religion war. Does the NYC think they are going to further improve ties by forcing our youth to learn what they already know?
Yes, we are united. Yes, we are stable. Yes, we are safe.
And we owe a great deal to the fledgling PAP of the 70’s, which put in place safeguards that ensure we continue to live together “regardless of race, language or religion.” While you cannot control the opinion of every deluded individual in Singapore, you can create conditions set against his holding and propagating such ideas. And with the average citizen with a mind of his own firmly resolved to reject extremism should it show up, religious divide ought not to be too much of an issue. But the NYC’s motion, should it ever be implemented, will in my opinion achieve the exact opposite effect it intended. Instead of unity, it will sow division; instead of submission, rebellion; and instead of guidance as to the meaning of life, darkness and confusion. As such I must say that though it has good intentions at heart, this is a bad idea at best, and clear-cut heresy at worst. For it to become a reality encouraged by the NYC and Government ministries would be the single worst thing to happen for cultural respect and diversity in Singapore.
Want proof? Even without drawing on the Bible or philosophers for pointers, there’s plenty of messages that come through. What follows is from a Christian point of view, though what I say probably applies to any faith that is put through this trial.
If my school gave me notice that I'd have to spend nine hours in a temple in order to graduate, or if anyone at all were to go through such an experience... religion always loses out. The false idol of community-at-all-costs is upheld, but at what price? The first thing to go through my mind would be that my faith does not matter. Why give your all to God and His Word when it’s all basically interchangeable anyway? If it will truly help a Buddhist to serve in a mosque or a Christian in a temple in the name of gaining interfaith understanding, the contradictions I’d be forced to swallow would be intellectually insurmountable at best and downright hypocritical at worst. And here the NYC is saying none of it matters in the first place. So is salvation possible by good works or not? Which saves you, karma or grace? To give up time or energy towards serving a god who teaches otherwise is saying “Oh, what does it matter? It’s probably nearly all the same anyway.” Interfaith dialogue and understanding is based around the knowledge that differences exist and deserve to be addressed and respectfully disagreed upon; but the NYC’s motion is suggesting that said differences do not matter. Now I don’t know about you up there, but I see a whole lot of opposites in here.
Second, community is Lord. Pardon me if I sound a little extreme, but Christians went to the lions in Rome precisely because they did not want Christ to join the pantheon of gods already worshipped by the Romans, in addition to their practice of Caesar-worship. Citizens were required by law to swear that “Caesar is Lord”, and this was generally done so you didn’t have to bother which divinity your neighbours followed, and they didn’t bother about yours. Community was achieved—at the cost of thousands of lives surrendered to the gospel rather than it. True, we’re commanded to submit to earthly leaders, for there is no authority that God has not allowed to exist at this place and time. But what we may not do is place these aims of tolerance, peace and dialogue over and above faith, hope, grace and love. If the state decided to commit genocide, no way we’re joining in, man. If the NYC decides that different religions, in all their contradiction, be served by unbelievers, toward an entirely secular aim… I’m pretty sure Christians won’t be alone in condemning such a hypocritical notion. Service to God is over and above service to country—at times when the state demands you give up what makes your faith unique, is it really so unlikely that you will refuse?
And what will weaker believers think?
When the state makes its aims a divine edict, don’t be surprised if you have heretics beneath the cracks.
Third, what about life’s ultimate meaning? Religions answer that question differently, however contradictorily. I do not think these meanings are interchangeable. It could well be that they’re one big joke, that man is alone in the universe with no destiny but to fall into oblivion—if what secular cosmologists say is correct.
You know, if different answers to such questions can be so casually tossed aside, maybe the answers don’t exist. And if they don’t exist, then religion is all a sham to be got rid of as soon as possible. Besides, I don’t know anyone who’s been able to believe two completely contradictory things at the same time—to be exposed to something that contradicts your thinking is one thing, but to be actively immersed in it is another.
Not all of us are Daniels. In fact, too few are for faith to be wasted on a venture like this. This is not one of the National Youth Council's better ideas.
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Sunday, July 09, 2006
PC game review: Rise of Great Strategy, Rise of Bad Storylines
I’ll be the first to admit this—Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends is the only fantasy-themed game I’ve ever bought because I was just so darn intrigued by what it had to offer. I’m no fantasy reader or gamer, but the intermingling of "steampunk" tech, magic and divinity to the extent the game provided would’ve led to some great The Longest Journey-style storytelling; scientific and magical worlds, things between them going wrong, and a hero(ine) rising to put everything right back where it should be.
You know, classic stuff. What can go wrong? Quite something, if you ask me.
Please note: I am not panning this game. Anyone who thinks it deserves a place on the Greatest RTSs Ever Hall of Fame, I’m on your side. Besides, not having played Rise of Nations I don’t think I’ve any basis to review its sequel, save for the fact I paid $54.90 for it and I deserve to get my money’s worth. Sure I did; it’s just that it could’ve been better. Having followed but never joined the oversaturated RTS market, I must comment you need a great innovation beyond where cool units and settings will take you not to look like a re-skinned Warcraft III. Does RoL have what it takes?
Milieu-wise, RoL is a fantasist’s um... fantasy. The three civilisations that inhabit the planet of Aio are done to a level of detail that rivals some of the literary works out there. And it is pretty refreshing to deviate from stock formulae—you know, Nazis, dwarves, demons, etc. True, in many places the game copies elements… but anything imported blends so seamlessly in you never feel it’s been ripped off.
The Vinci, the first civ under your control, are clearly modeled on Renaissance Italy. They have mastered the power of metal and steam, forging them into machines of war; Mechanical walking tanks, gyrocopter designs torn straight from Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks, even a giant spider tank out of the movie Wild Wild West, and Renaissance-type buildings with smoke-belching chimneys. I had a blast playing as the Vinci, and to date they are my favourite side to play every time the computer AI needs a thrashing. Plus, they upgrade quickly… all the better to administer said thrashing with if you’re in a hurry.
The second civ, the Alin, are a magical race of fire elementals and genies, sand monsters and golems, giant spiders and scorpions. Clearly inspired by Arabian folklore, their magical system is built upon the elements of sand, fire and glass. Thrashing-wise, they take a little more getting used to than the Vinci, and even now I don’t think I’ve had time to unlock all that the Alin are capable of. Believe me though, as a civ they are so-truly-cool to play. And near the campaign’s climax, when your combined Vinci and Alin armies march into Coutl territory, well…
The Coutl are by far the most mysterious civ, but that doesn’t mean you can’t kick butt with them. Originally shipwrecked aliens, they’ve subjugated the local people and built an entire technology around them—anyone who’s read National Geographic will recognize the Mayan inspiration that goes into their blend of magic, advanced machines and ancient rituals. (Indiana Jones would’ve been proud.) Butt-kicking-wise, as the Coutl you start out relatively weak, but once you unlock the higher research levels the battlefield will practically fall at your feet.
Which brings us to the highlight of the game—its single-player story-driven campaign. This is divided into three sub-campaigns that have you controlling each civ in turn as you try to avenge a Vinci vendetta with far, far wider implications than originally thought. Its beginning got me hooked, and I think there was a great tale of courage, sacrifice and settlement somewhere in there.
Too bad my brother, who played through the entire campaign, never found it.
The story, to put it bluntly, is bad game narrative and even worse fiction; too much happens without explanation. Moral of this whole story: Buy the game for it, and you'll be sorely disappointed. Focus on the skirmishes, what each army can do against the others--and RoL pays for itself over and over.
All told this game is worth buying for the skirmishes alone, which are challenging and brilliantly done. Only it seems to take a while to get the cool stuff the AI ALWAYS seems able to get right from the beginning...
FINAL SCORE: 8.0 (out of 10)
You know, classic stuff. What can go wrong? Quite something, if you ask me.
Please note: I am not panning this game. Anyone who thinks it deserves a place on the Greatest RTSs Ever Hall of Fame, I’m on your side. Besides, not having played Rise of Nations I don’t think I’ve any basis to review its sequel, save for the fact I paid $54.90 for it and I deserve to get my money’s worth. Sure I did; it’s just that it could’ve been better. Having followed but never joined the oversaturated RTS market, I must comment you need a great innovation beyond where cool units and settings will take you not to look like a re-skinned Warcraft III. Does RoL have what it takes?
Milieu-wise, RoL is a fantasist’s um... fantasy. The three civilisations that inhabit the planet of Aio are done to a level of detail that rivals some of the literary works out there. And it is pretty refreshing to deviate from stock formulae—you know, Nazis, dwarves, demons, etc. True, in many places the game copies elements… but anything imported blends so seamlessly in you never feel it’s been ripped off.
The Vinci, the first civ under your control, are clearly modeled on Renaissance Italy. They have mastered the power of metal and steam, forging them into machines of war; Mechanical walking tanks, gyrocopter designs torn straight from Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks, even a giant spider tank out of the movie Wild Wild West, and Renaissance-type buildings with smoke-belching chimneys. I had a blast playing as the Vinci, and to date they are my favourite side to play every time the computer AI needs a thrashing. Plus, they upgrade quickly… all the better to administer said thrashing with if you’re in a hurry.
The second civ, the Alin, are a magical race of fire elementals and genies, sand monsters and golems, giant spiders and scorpions. Clearly inspired by Arabian folklore, their magical system is built upon the elements of sand, fire and glass. Thrashing-wise, they take a little more getting used to than the Vinci, and even now I don’t think I’ve had time to unlock all that the Alin are capable of. Believe me though, as a civ they are so-truly-cool to play. And near the campaign’s climax, when your combined Vinci and Alin armies march into Coutl territory, well…
The Coutl are by far the most mysterious civ, but that doesn’t mean you can’t kick butt with them. Originally shipwrecked aliens, they’ve subjugated the local people and built an entire technology around them—anyone who’s read National Geographic will recognize the Mayan inspiration that goes into their blend of magic, advanced machines and ancient rituals. (Indiana Jones would’ve been proud.) Butt-kicking-wise, as the Coutl you start out relatively weak, but once you unlock the higher research levels the battlefield will practically fall at your feet.
Which brings us to the highlight of the game—its single-player story-driven campaign. This is divided into three sub-campaigns that have you controlling each civ in turn as you try to avenge a Vinci vendetta with far, far wider implications than originally thought. Its beginning got me hooked, and I think there was a great tale of courage, sacrifice and settlement somewhere in there.
Too bad my brother, who played through the entire campaign, never found it.
The story, to put it bluntly, is bad game narrative and even worse fiction; too much happens without explanation. Moral of this whole story: Buy the game for it, and you'll be sorely disappointed. Focus on the skirmishes, what each army can do against the others--and RoL pays for itself over and over.
All told this game is worth buying for the skirmishes alone, which are challenging and brilliantly done. Only it seems to take a while to get the cool stuff the AI ALWAYS seems able to get right from the beginning...
FINAL SCORE: 8.0 (out of 10)
Saturday, July 01, 2006
Why don't I cover the World Cup?
Because the only thing I do worse than play football is watching and telling about it. Don't get me wrong; I know this from hard experience. (What kind of ball player am I? The first thing I ever kissed was a falling volleyball in secondary school.)
Sunday, June 25, 2006
PC game review: Dark Corners of Tolerance
“That is not dead which can eternal lie;
And over strange aeons even death may die.”
-- H P Lovecraft, The Necronomicon
I’ll admit it—I’ve been neglecting the blog. A bad thing? Hard to say… but will the excuse I’ve been playing a new computer game do?
I know this may sound strange, but I’ve developed quite an appetite for the survival horror genre of videogames, though I’ve only gotten round to buying two: the execrable Condemned: Criminal Origins and this one, Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth. Trust me, the latter is heaps better.
Why? Maybe it’s because your character dies right at the start, circa 1922. And the narrative is right in the middle of it, urging you on as you uncover the secrets buried in his mind. Who is he? What’s he discovered?
After the initial (shocking) cutscene, you flash back to six years before. As it’s revealed, you play a private detective named Jack Walters (who knows how to crouch, move silently, and reload a weapon—hurray!) on a case that sees him targeted by a shadowy cult dedicated to beings that inhabit the twisted imagination of H P Lovecraft. You lead Jack into the cult HQ… just as he activates a strange machine within and loses his memory. For six years, it’s revealed, he was confined to an asylum before being miraculously cured. He can’t rest, though—after re-establishing himself as a PI he gets a missing-person case from the town of Innsmouth (one of the most fascinating places ever developed in the Lovecraft canon) that changes the (very short) rest of his life. To say more about the story will spoil the whole thing, but the gist of it is this: Call of Cthulhu’s greatest strength is tied to its greatest weakness, and future games in the Lovecraft mythos will find themselves hard-pressed to keep the standard Dark Corners of the Earth has set.
Narrative-wise, CoC does a masterful job. Besides giving us a protagonist we can care about and providing him with very… unique eyes to see through, the story blends two of Lovecraft’s greatest works; The Shadow over Innsmouth and The Shadow out of Time. While I’ve never read them myself I put them all the way to the top of my TO READ list… provided I can find the right library. Anyway, the story is the very core of CoC, and given the genre the game is in (technically an adventure FPS)—please, Bethesda Softworks or anyone else, keep it that way. There comes a point—and given the nature of survival horror, it’s painfully obvious—when a poor storyline can no longer be hidden by technical bells and whistles and leaves the player feeling cheated, angry and often unwilling to spend his money on another game by you ever again. Bethesda doesn’t make this mistake, and I pray companies taking on the genre in future never do. We are Jack Walters as he makes his way through the eerie streets of Innsmouth, sharing his horror as he realises no one trusts him, and everyone who seems willing to help pays with their life.
Speaking of us becoming Jack Walters, the decision to have the game in first person lends itself to all kinds of opportunities to mess around with the player. Call of Cthulhu features a sanity system—look too long at bodies, gruesome scenes, occult magic or heights (!), and the screen goes woozy, Jack begins muttering to himself, and if you don’t fix the issue ASAP he may hallucinate, play with his weapons or even turn them on himself if pushed too far. All this had the unwelcome effect of hurrying me along, pushing me on till I reached the next save point… and these are far, far apart. The two words you’ll most often use playing this are “Oh, shit”—one tiny mistake, and it’s back to where you were ten very frustrating minutes ago.
CoC isn’t your standard shooter. For one thing, medical kits are added to your inventory rather than being immediately used, and supplies from them must be used on different injuries to different parts of your body. While a nice touch, it doesn’t really add much to the gameplay, and a Quick Heal function makes it redundant for the most part anyway. But as anyone who’s played these before will tell you, it’s best not to get hit.
Technically the game is a dream. The graphics communicate those creepy night in 1922 with their film-reel like quality, and voice acting is top-notch; except for when Jack’s scared. As more than one reviewer’s pointed out, the calm he maintains in his tone is so odd it’s freaky. Which is scarier, some horrible monster or the indifference its victim greets it with?
Another annoyance cropped up again and again—what I call the Longest Journey syndrome. Like any adventure game, puzzle-solving is a big part of CoC. Nothing too bad about that… if not for the illogic behind it all. For example, at one point in the game I had to ride a cargo bucket through a gold refinery, and all without a clue where I was supposed to get off. Many times I had to consult a walkthrough when the puzzle-going got too tough, as if the designers had wanted to ratchet up the difficulty to Sherlock Holmes level. Add to that the game’s infestation with bugs (a clipping error once forced my brother to repeat an extremely tedious part of the game), and you have an exact carbon copy of Lovecraft’s view of a deep, grand and mysterious world—but with mighty destructive forces lurking just beneath the surface.
But none of this stops me from urging you to call forth a copy. Your mind—and imagination—will be the richer for it. Just don’t expect to finish the entire game by yourself in one try—it rewards exploration, a constant sharpening of your skills, and a little bit of luck. While I’ve never been so irate at a game in longer than I care to remember, I’ve never felt more satisfied at jumping this gap, defeating that monster, or completing a timed puzzle just as the sand ran out. “Oh, shits” aside, buy this game.
FINAL SCORE: 7.9 (out of 10)
And over strange aeons even death may die.”
-- H P Lovecraft, The Necronomicon
I’ll admit it—I’ve been neglecting the blog. A bad thing? Hard to say… but will the excuse I’ve been playing a new computer game do?
I know this may sound strange, but I’ve developed quite an appetite for the survival horror genre of videogames, though I’ve only gotten round to buying two: the execrable Condemned: Criminal Origins and this one, Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth. Trust me, the latter is heaps better.
Why? Maybe it’s because your character dies right at the start, circa 1922. And the narrative is right in the middle of it, urging you on as you uncover the secrets buried in his mind. Who is he? What’s he discovered?
After the initial (shocking) cutscene, you flash back to six years before. As it’s revealed, you play a private detective named Jack Walters (who knows how to crouch, move silently, and reload a weapon—hurray!) on a case that sees him targeted by a shadowy cult dedicated to beings that inhabit the twisted imagination of H P Lovecraft. You lead Jack into the cult HQ… just as he activates a strange machine within and loses his memory. For six years, it’s revealed, he was confined to an asylum before being miraculously cured. He can’t rest, though—after re-establishing himself as a PI he gets a missing-person case from the town of Innsmouth (one of the most fascinating places ever developed in the Lovecraft canon) that changes the (very short) rest of his life. To say more about the story will spoil the whole thing, but the gist of it is this: Call of Cthulhu’s greatest strength is tied to its greatest weakness, and future games in the Lovecraft mythos will find themselves hard-pressed to keep the standard Dark Corners of the Earth has set.
Narrative-wise, CoC does a masterful job. Besides giving us a protagonist we can care about and providing him with very… unique eyes to see through, the story blends two of Lovecraft’s greatest works; The Shadow over Innsmouth and The Shadow out of Time. While I’ve never read them myself I put them all the way to the top of my TO READ list… provided I can find the right library. Anyway, the story is the very core of CoC, and given the genre the game is in (technically an adventure FPS)—please, Bethesda Softworks or anyone else, keep it that way. There comes a point—and given the nature of survival horror, it’s painfully obvious—when a poor storyline can no longer be hidden by technical bells and whistles and leaves the player feeling cheated, angry and often unwilling to spend his money on another game by you ever again. Bethesda doesn’t make this mistake, and I pray companies taking on the genre in future never do. We are Jack Walters as he makes his way through the eerie streets of Innsmouth, sharing his horror as he realises no one trusts him, and everyone who seems willing to help pays with their life.
Speaking of us becoming Jack Walters, the decision to have the game in first person lends itself to all kinds of opportunities to mess around with the player. Call of Cthulhu features a sanity system—look too long at bodies, gruesome scenes, occult magic or heights (!), and the screen goes woozy, Jack begins muttering to himself, and if you don’t fix the issue ASAP he may hallucinate, play with his weapons or even turn them on himself if pushed too far. All this had the unwelcome effect of hurrying me along, pushing me on till I reached the next save point… and these are far, far apart. The two words you’ll most often use playing this are “Oh, shit”—one tiny mistake, and it’s back to where you were ten very frustrating minutes ago.
CoC isn’t your standard shooter. For one thing, medical kits are added to your inventory rather than being immediately used, and supplies from them must be used on different injuries to different parts of your body. While a nice touch, it doesn’t really add much to the gameplay, and a Quick Heal function makes it redundant for the most part anyway. But as anyone who’s played these before will tell you, it’s best not to get hit.
Technically the game is a dream. The graphics communicate those creepy night in 1922 with their film-reel like quality, and voice acting is top-notch; except for when Jack’s scared. As more than one reviewer’s pointed out, the calm he maintains in his tone is so odd it’s freaky. Which is scarier, some horrible monster or the indifference its victim greets it with?
Another annoyance cropped up again and again—what I call the Longest Journey syndrome. Like any adventure game, puzzle-solving is a big part of CoC. Nothing too bad about that… if not for the illogic behind it all. For example, at one point in the game I had to ride a cargo bucket through a gold refinery, and all without a clue where I was supposed to get off. Many times I had to consult a walkthrough when the puzzle-going got too tough, as if the designers had wanted to ratchet up the difficulty to Sherlock Holmes level. Add to that the game’s infestation with bugs (a clipping error once forced my brother to repeat an extremely tedious part of the game), and you have an exact carbon copy of Lovecraft’s view of a deep, grand and mysterious world—but with mighty destructive forces lurking just beneath the surface.
But none of this stops me from urging you to call forth a copy. Your mind—and imagination—will be the richer for it. Just don’t expect to finish the entire game by yourself in one try—it rewards exploration, a constant sharpening of your skills, and a little bit of luck. While I’ve never been so irate at a game in longer than I care to remember, I’ve never felt more satisfied at jumping this gap, defeating that monster, or completing a timed puzzle just as the sand ran out. “Oh, shits” aside, buy this game.
FINAL SCORE: 7.9 (out of 10)
Saturday, June 10, 2006
Malthus was right
Maybe Thomas Malthus was right after all.
"Assuming then my postulata as granted, I say, that the power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man. Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio."
-- Malthus 1798, quoted in wikipedia.org
Malthusian economics posits an extremely dim view of the future, one in which population growth basically outstrips the supply of food. I don't have to tell you what happens next; forget the stock market, anyone with a square metre and a hoe will just have to use them.
Put him in City Hall MRT station on a Saturday afternoon, then send him back to his time. I'm pretty sure he'd have died a much more worried man.
"Assuming then my postulata as granted, I say, that the power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man. Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio."
-- Malthus 1798, quoted in wikipedia.org
Malthusian economics posits an extremely dim view of the future, one in which population growth basically outstrips the supply of food. I don't have to tell you what happens next; forget the stock market, anyone with a square metre and a hoe will just have to use them.
Put him in City Hall MRT station on a Saturday afternoon, then send him back to his time. I'm pretty sure he'd have died a much more worried man.
Sunday, June 04, 2006
Phone cameras, floor ads, and my old school
There was a time not so long ago when you could screw up when you were out, most everyone would get a good laugh out of it, and you'd forget it as time went by and other things in life (remember, life always has other things) crowded it out. I've done many a stinker when I was younger and didn't know better. (Or maybe now, when I forget. It happens.) Anyway, you wouldn't dream of instant notoriety because of that.
Enter the camera phone.
I envy the guy who first decided "Hey! Let's put cameras in the darn thnigs so people don't need to lug them around!" I'm sure he had good intentions, but like every good thing we have a knack for figuring out how to abuse it within the shortest of time. Men using them to film up women's skirts, people filming themselves in naughty activity, etc. Even Roger "Bus Uncle" Chan rues the day someone recorded him railing at a younger bus passenger... though my comments are outside the scope of this post.
I went shopping for a new phone, and saw EVERY display phone in the shop touting a camera, and just how sharp its pictures could be. I've nothing against them--every piece of technology is ultimately an extension of the user's mind. (Unless it breaks down. Sigh.) And woe betide the user the technology fails--the greater the rise, the harder the fall.
I'm not calling for a return to the old ways and a call to revert to fixed lines. You might as well ask a comet to hit the Earth--and even that wouldn't wipe out all our coverage. Meanwhile, we've to do the best we can--to paraphrase C.S. Lewis, God knows what wretched vehicles we drive.
Something amusing did hit the news last week. Apparently some ad agency hit upon the idea of floor ads in Orchard MRT promoting the movie The Da Vinci Code, some of which featured pictures of Christ. I don't have to tell you the reaction--suffice it to say they were barriered off, and taken away as soon as station staff could.
Now, I won't mince words on my opinions of floor ads. They are at best an eyesore and at worst an utter nuisance, a hazard even. I don't know what help the damned things could be--if you aren't interested you would cast a second look at the floor of all places. If you were you'd hardly see anything thanks to people stepping all over them. Either way, the ads rugi lor, and get all beat up to show for it.
This is one idea-maker I haven't the least respect for.
Something happened at my old JC, in today's papers. Some teacher made... um... inappropriate remarks to a female student on a chat. She forgot to logout, someone discovered it... and BOOM.
It's my alma mater (virgin mother; stupid word), and so I guess I've to say something. And that is:
Whoever spread the messages, shame on you. Shame on anyone who's capitalised on this to smear the name of an institution, the people involved, and yourselves. "But everyone has the right to know," some may insist. Fine. I want everyone to know such a problem exists. I want everyone to know it can and must be curbed. But releasing the actual, salacious chat is NOT the way to do it.
Please. We don't need to know everything. What we need is to be warned, and in cyberspace, to always stay on your toes. You don't need to make an example of someone who didn't.
Enter the camera phone.
I envy the guy who first decided "Hey! Let's put cameras in the darn thnigs so people don't need to lug them around!" I'm sure he had good intentions, but like every good thing we have a knack for figuring out how to abuse it within the shortest of time. Men using them to film up women's skirts, people filming themselves in naughty activity, etc. Even Roger "Bus Uncle" Chan rues the day someone recorded him railing at a younger bus passenger... though my comments are outside the scope of this post.
I went shopping for a new phone, and saw EVERY display phone in the shop touting a camera, and just how sharp its pictures could be. I've nothing against them--every piece of technology is ultimately an extension of the user's mind. (Unless it breaks down. Sigh.) And woe betide the user the technology fails--the greater the rise, the harder the fall.
I'm not calling for a return to the old ways and a call to revert to fixed lines. You might as well ask a comet to hit the Earth--and even that wouldn't wipe out all our coverage. Meanwhile, we've to do the best we can--to paraphrase C.S. Lewis, God knows what wretched vehicles we drive.
Something amusing did hit the news last week. Apparently some ad agency hit upon the idea of floor ads in Orchard MRT promoting the movie The Da Vinci Code, some of which featured pictures of Christ. I don't have to tell you the reaction--suffice it to say they were barriered off, and taken away as soon as station staff could.
Now, I won't mince words on my opinions of floor ads. They are at best an eyesore and at worst an utter nuisance, a hazard even. I don't know what help the damned things could be--if you aren't interested you would cast a second look at the floor of all places. If you were you'd hardly see anything thanks to people stepping all over them. Either way, the ads rugi lor, and get all beat up to show for it.
This is one idea-maker I haven't the least respect for.
Something happened at my old JC, in today's papers. Some teacher made... um... inappropriate remarks to a female student on a chat. She forgot to logout, someone discovered it... and BOOM.
It's my alma mater (virgin mother; stupid word), and so I guess I've to say something. And that is:
Whoever spread the messages, shame on you. Shame on anyone who's capitalised on this to smear the name of an institution, the people involved, and yourselves. "But everyone has the right to know," some may insist. Fine. I want everyone to know such a problem exists. I want everyone to know it can and must be curbed. But releasing the actual, salacious chat is NOT the way to do it.
Please. We don't need to know everything. What we need is to be warned, and in cyberspace, to always stay on your toes. You don't need to make an example of someone who didn't.
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Still down
My PC's been down over a week, but no one seems to be affected that badly--it seems the game Mafia has a strange hold on people even 5 years after its release.
Anyway I called Dell again, asked why in heaven's name a powerful graphics card breaks down after just one year... and chun chun after the warranty ends. The guy at tech support said to run a game with the casing open, since the problem may have come from overheating...
It's worth a try. Wish me luck!
Anyway I called Dell again, asked why in heaven's name a powerful graphics card breaks down after just one year... and chun chun after the warranty ends. The guy at tech support said to run a game with the casing open, since the problem may have come from overheating...
It's worth a try. Wish me luck!
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
The Da Vinci Hype
OK, anyone thinking of releasing Leonardo da Vinci-related merchandise, especially anything named the Da Vinci (something). No harm intended, but come, sit around. Please, let's talk.
First of all, it's not going to work. I know it sounds like a second chance to push your ideas through to the stores, and an even bigger one too, since many who haven't read the Book will flock to see the Movie. Y'know, the imagination-vision gap? I understand the feeling; a movie will carry you along in ways a book will not, and vice-versa. If that means the message of the Code will reach a wider audience than before... why ever not?
Please, let me tell you why.
There are only so many times the human mind can process the same thing, the same themes, before fatigue sets in. I mean, The Da Vinci Code has been made into a game. Is what we really need another about his lost manuscripts? It's not even flogging a horse that's been dead five centuries--it's standing it up and demanding it run. There's just so much da Vinci paraphernalia floating around the stores it's laughable--my brother (my favourite critic of all things PC-related) took one look and muttered, "This is going too far."
In three words, I. Am. Tired.
But more than tired I'm a little sad. With a bestselling novel and movie (I haven't even suggested it might be false) about serious issues and the faith of billions through human history at stake, I highly doubt you're going make much out of people too saturated by Da Vinci Hype even to give your products, books or games a second look.
Do us all a favour, and let this pass. I won't be alone in thanking you for it.
First of all, it's not going to work. I know it sounds like a second chance to push your ideas through to the stores, and an even bigger one too, since many who haven't read the Book will flock to see the Movie. Y'know, the imagination-vision gap? I understand the feeling; a movie will carry you along in ways a book will not, and vice-versa. If that means the message of the Code will reach a wider audience than before... why ever not?
Please, let me tell you why.
There are only so many times the human mind can process the same thing, the same themes, before fatigue sets in. I mean, The Da Vinci Code has been made into a game. Is what we really need another about his lost manuscripts? It's not even flogging a horse that's been dead five centuries--it's standing it up and demanding it run. There's just so much da Vinci paraphernalia floating around the stores it's laughable--my brother (my favourite critic of all things PC-related) took one look and muttered, "This is going too far."
In three words, I. Am. Tired.
But more than tired I'm a little sad. With a bestselling novel and movie (I haven't even suggested it might be false) about serious issues and the faith of billions through human history at stake, I highly doubt you're going make much out of people too saturated by Da Vinci Hype even to give your products, books or games a second look.
Do us all a favour, and let this pass. I won't be alone in thanking you for it.
Saturday, May 06, 2006
Some words
I know I'm not old enough to vote yet (anyway my constituency kena walkover), but sorry, I just can't not say a little something about the most crucial issue in our elections...
There're several car companies working the market. One, a super-powerful conglomerate we'll call Poppa's Cars, decides to hold a referendum because, hey, people have the right to decide which car they want to buy, right? So they have trade rallies, yell through loudhailers to get people to buy from them because their competitors have no proven track record, and just because you know how to relate, talk on a casual and nontechnical level it doesn't mean you can provide good cars and service, right?
The competition, particularly one company we'll call Hammerton, goes in swinging. One particular salesperson, let's call him Jim, made a mistake the last time a market survey was held, and is understandably nervous. So ol' Jim has another go at it, making sure to obey every law of the road you need to follow to rally... only some Referendum Board member soon produces CCTV footage of Jim illegally parking on a road corner so he can dash out and buy rojak.
"Hammerton's chief is covering up this guy's illegal parking!" Poppa's cries out the next day.
"Jim is trying to discredit the Referendum Board with his deceitful parking!" Poppa's representatives concur.
"So sue us, if you think we're wrong!" a senior executive challenges.
"Jim must admit it!" letter after letter demands.
Hammerton eventually decides not to sue, since, erm, suing the market leader is never a wise option. It's agreed the future of the market's at stake, and the Jim issue's used up more print than it's worth.
There're several car companies working the market. One, a super-powerful conglomerate we'll call Poppa's Cars, decides to hold a referendum because, hey, people have the right to decide which car they want to buy, right? So they have trade rallies, yell through loudhailers to get people to buy from them because their competitors have no proven track record, and just because you know how to relate, talk on a casual and nontechnical level it doesn't mean you can provide good cars and service, right?
The competition, particularly one company we'll call Hammerton, goes in swinging. One particular salesperson, let's call him Jim, made a mistake the last time a market survey was held, and is understandably nervous. So ol' Jim has another go at it, making sure to obey every law of the road you need to follow to rally... only some Referendum Board member soon produces CCTV footage of Jim illegally parking on a road corner so he can dash out and buy rojak.
"Hammerton's chief is covering up this guy's illegal parking!" Poppa's cries out the next day.
"Jim is trying to discredit the Referendum Board with his deceitful parking!" Poppa's representatives concur.
"So sue us, if you think we're wrong!" a senior executive challenges.
"Jim must admit it!" letter after letter demands.
Hammerton eventually decides not to sue, since, erm, suing the market leader is never a wise option. It's agreed the future of the market's at stake, and the Jim issue's used up more print than it's worth.
Isn't it interesting...
... how the latest Gnostic allegation always "will rock Christianity to its very foundations" but none has ever "rocked the very foundations of Christianity"?
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
PC game review: Should be condemned!
I was originally planning to slot a few comments on Condemned: Criminal Origins in a post, but ultimately decided the game merited a post all to itself.
That is not a compliment.
What's just wrong with the game could fill a whole treatise on How to Write a Bad Videogame and Dress it Up So No One Will Notice. It's a bit like painting your crappy primary school art project green and brown, then telling everyone it's your abstract impression of a tree; everyone will come away impressed, until they actually buy it and see what it's really worth.
The story dangles a great opening hook--FBI agent investigates murder, his colleagues are murdered with his gun, and said agent ends up framed for the killings and goes on the run, clearing his name as he goes.
Condemned throws the scares at you in spades; this isn't F.E.A.R.'s one-hit-one-kill ghosts we're talking here, but truly homicidal zombies, humans and everything in between. Oh yes, the same evil force is responsible for birds... OK, I won't spoil the connection by revealing it here, but trust me, there isn't much to spoil.
For me, I found three great things about Condemned:
1. It's got a great narrative at the beginning.
2. It has nice, horror-movie graphics: "Hey Mom, I'm in a horror movie!".
3. It ends quickly.
Three good qualities OK? All right, now for what really scared my pants off.
The idea of horror is NOT to throw weird phenomena at your audience and then say, "Hey, dummy! This seems to be (insert supernatural influence here), but we're not telling." Condemned mounts up to something truly sinister, with not-quite humans and rage-filled maniacs charging at you with whatever they can get their hands on (including you; there's a frantic "break free" move). But the more I played the more I realised these guys have absolutely no idea how to tell a story.
It's like someone asked what frightfest cliches he could think of: killers with a taste for taking body parts not their own, animals going mad, spirits within some shadow-world in your head that damage you in the real world... and then forgot he'd put them in. The result:
1. Have your lab partner tell you a location that the baddie uses, that so happens to be decaying and falling apart.
2. Suspect all this is connected to a crime wave sweeping the unnamed setting. Gather evidence with forensic tools while on the run.
3. Find out some crazed drug addicts, street people and bums got there first, fight your way through them.
4. Have a hallucination of creatures that actually do you real-world damage.
5. Escape.
6. Repeat steps 1-5.
One word: Boring.
Plus the fact the writers thought it a good idea to hide all the causes behind the horror slowly enveloping you until throwing in an explanation you have to see to believe. And in a game where players' willingness (and ability) to believe is constantly pulled beyond its limit, I was left not just disappointed, but angry at the writers and their stalling tricks.
To me it just smacks of lazy work. Please write some good stories for your games, Monolith. I know you guys can do it.
Narrative-wise, my opinion ends here. FINAL SCORE: 4.3 (upon 10)
SPOILER ALERT: "C'mon ZP, it's just a game!" Some stuff I found ruined my ability to just
enjoy the game for its own sake:
1. Why does Agent Thomas stand like he's at an awards ceremony? His weapon swings would be more powerful (and realistic) if he could pivot at the waist, and keep one leg in front of the other for balance. If the coding's that hard just make his legs invisible!
2. Agent Thomas cannot crouch. When the baddies are hitting or shooting you, you crouch behind cover. How obvious is that?
3. Killing enemies is just hit, block, kick. I doubt that qualifies someone to join the FBI in the first place. And why no flexibility in the act--I mean, The Godfather and many games before it have already perfected this! For a melee-combat-based game, this is simply unforgiveable.
4. I've saved the best for last: Why doesn't the Bureau track Thomas by his cell phone signal?
END OF SPOILERS
That is not a compliment.
What's just wrong with the game could fill a whole treatise on How to Write a Bad Videogame and Dress it Up So No One Will Notice. It's a bit like painting your crappy primary school art project green and brown, then telling everyone it's your abstract impression of a tree; everyone will come away impressed, until they actually buy it and see what it's really worth.
The story dangles a great opening hook--FBI agent investigates murder, his colleagues are murdered with his gun, and said agent ends up framed for the killings and goes on the run, clearing his name as he goes.
Condemned throws the scares at you in spades; this isn't F.E.A.R.'s one-hit-one-kill ghosts we're talking here, but truly homicidal zombies, humans and everything in between. Oh yes, the same evil force is responsible for birds... OK, I won't spoil the connection by revealing it here, but trust me, there isn't much to spoil.
For me, I found three great things about Condemned:
1. It's got a great narrative at the beginning.
2. It has nice, horror-movie graphics: "Hey Mom, I'm in a horror movie!".
3. It ends quickly.
Three good qualities OK? All right, now for what really scared my pants off.
The idea of horror is NOT to throw weird phenomena at your audience and then say, "Hey, dummy! This seems to be (insert supernatural influence here), but we're not telling." Condemned mounts up to something truly sinister, with not-quite humans and rage-filled maniacs charging at you with whatever they can get their hands on (including you; there's a frantic "break free" move). But the more I played the more I realised these guys have absolutely no idea how to tell a story.
It's like someone asked what frightfest cliches he could think of: killers with a taste for taking body parts not their own, animals going mad, spirits within some shadow-world in your head that damage you in the real world... and then forgot he'd put them in. The result:
1. Have your lab partner tell you a location that the baddie uses, that so happens to be decaying and falling apart.
2. Suspect all this is connected to a crime wave sweeping the unnamed setting. Gather evidence with forensic tools while on the run.
3. Find out some crazed drug addicts, street people and bums got there first, fight your way through them.
4. Have a hallucination of creatures that actually do you real-world damage.
5. Escape.
6. Repeat steps 1-5.
One word: Boring.
Plus the fact the writers thought it a good idea to hide all the causes behind the horror slowly enveloping you until throwing in an explanation you have to see to believe. And in a game where players' willingness (and ability) to believe is constantly pulled beyond its limit, I was left not just disappointed, but angry at the writers and their stalling tricks.
To me it just smacks of lazy work. Please write some good stories for your games, Monolith. I know you guys can do it.
Narrative-wise, my opinion ends here. FINAL SCORE: 4.3 (upon 10)
In short, Condemned's presentation is fine, but storywise, it's a wrecked house to be condemned, torn down and started over.
SPOILER ALERT: "C'mon ZP, it's just a game!" Some stuff I found ruined my ability to just
enjoy the game for its own sake:
1. Why does Agent Thomas stand like he's at an awards ceremony? His weapon swings would be more powerful (and realistic) if he could pivot at the waist, and keep one leg in front of the other for balance. If the coding's that hard just make his legs invisible!
2. Agent Thomas cannot crouch. When the baddies are hitting or shooting you, you crouch behind cover. How obvious is that?
3. Killing enemies is just hit, block, kick. I doubt that qualifies someone to join the FBI in the first place. And why no flexibility in the act--I mean, The Godfather and many games before it have already perfected this! For a melee-combat-based game, this is simply unforgiveable.
4. I've saved the best for last: Why doesn't the Bureau track Thomas by his cell phone signal?
END OF SPOILERS
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