The Source but never the Solution

Posted on December 3, 2022 by JC

It is no great secret that a certain types of personalities tends to gravitate towards power and influence. Whether it is status, wealth or outright malevolence, these people will go where the power is. Today, we know where the power is and it isn’t in religious institutions though there are still some scraps to be fought over in that realm. In the past, the Church did hold a lot more power and so attracted power-seekers along with the genuinely pious. Our Lord Jesus Christ knew this and warned his followers about it a number of times.

When Christianity was dominant, anyone who sought power of any kind had to do so within the church as it was and had to at least appear to accept the tenets of the faith. Nowadays, that is not necessary but the people that point to the corruption in the church as reasons for it being “bad” are generally speaking, the same type of people who caused all the corruption in the past. The same is true for the actions of governments of all stripes too.

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A Jesuit on Japan

Posted on November 27, 2022 by JC

An infrequent topic on this blog has been Japan and the Japanese who for a variety of reasons remain fascinating to me. The main being that I am married to a Japanese woman with whom I have children and I lived there for just shy of ten years. Though these two reasons don’t entirely explain my fascination.

Of keen interest to me is the culture of the Japanese which I last considered in my review of the late Michael Crichton’s 1992 novel Rising Sun. This imparted knowledge of Japanese culture through the character of John Connor. I took issue with a number of the fictional Connor’s observations but overall, I got the impression Crichton had done his homework well before writing the novel. The topic of this post will be the Jesuit missionary Alessandro Valignano’s 1580 report on his experiences in Japan. This is quoting from The Christian Century in Japan 1549-1650 by C.R. Boxer which I am in the middle of reading. 

Before proceeding I want to state that while my previous commentary (and no doubt some of what foll0ws), might show some distaste for aspects of Japanese culture, I am on the whole, very fond of them. In fact I would consider a lot of my criticism in the familial sense as we are all more acquainted with the shortcomings of those we love and so too — their virtues. The Japanese have the latter in abundance but the former certainly exist too.

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Standing Athwart History, Yelling “Cuck!”

Posted on November 23, 2022 by JC

Going back to when I first started this blog, I was writing about my distaste for conservatism and my support of Donald Trump. If I had critics, they would probably take joy in pointing out that I’ve been rather silent on him for the last two years since the stolen election and my incorrect prediction on that subject. Well, if making predictions that turn out to be wrong irreparably damages your reputation, then most political opinion columnists should have lost their jobs many years (and many more predictions) ago — as I noted. But they haven’t and they won’t be. Equally, I think considering all that happened in 2020 that my prediction didn’t get a fair shake and likely never will.

Come to think of it, I’ve also been rather silent on immigration which was also a preoccupation of mine when I started writing here too. Why? To quote Dr, Stanley Goodspeed, “well gosh, kind of a lots happened since then.” Apart from taking an interest in writing about other things, the socio-political context has taken a rather big turn as well and the main reason for this is because of what Donald Trump came to represent.

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Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope Review

Posted on November 13, 2022 by JC

I reviewed the original and Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle and the Donkey Kong Adventure expansion a number of years ago around the time of release. It has been just over five years since the release of what turned out to be one of the best games of 2017. The sequel, Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope has finally been released this year and was probably the title I was most looking forward to. My thoughts on the game follow below.

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An Argument Against Self-Publishing

Posted on November 6, 2022 by JC

Dan the Destructor: Barbarians of the Storm – Book I by Rob Rimes
January 10th, 2022

In beginning this review, I find myself wondering whether I have been overly harsh in previous reviews I’ve written. As I’ve pointed out before, I’ve not published any fiction myself and as such, I can’t claim anything I write would be better than those I criticise. I am also a big supporter of the “Iron Age” pulp revival and the advent of independent publishing and I want to support these creators. However, this doesn’t extend to calling bad “good” and generally I’ve chosen silence when I have disliked work by independent authors and creators. In the case of Rob Rimes’ Dan the Destructor,  I have decided to make an exception as this is one of the most crass and juvenile books I have ever read. 

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A Religious Road Trip

Posted on October 23, 2022 by JC

American Pilgrim by Roosh Valizadeh
Kings Media, February 16th, 2021

One of the earliest posts I wrote when I started this blog was a review of Roosh’s Free Speech Isn’t Free which chronicles his notorious speaking tour that sparked outrage — most notably in Canada. I opened that review as follows:

Roosh V is an understandably polarising character but not really for the reasons often portrayed in the media. He gets a mixed response among the alternate right because he promotes sexual licentiousness while advocating traditional societies and sex roles. There is an obvious contradiction between the two which from what I’ve read and heard of him, he seems conscious of. While I don’t agree with the behaviour he both engages in and promotes, I support him because whatever he may be; he is not a leftist. I also get the impression that he is moving towards traditionalism and I pray that in time, he will come fully to Christianity.

At the time, I was still a recent Catholic convert though I hadn’t yet been received into the church. I first came across Roosh after I was married so understandably wasn’t interested in reading the kinds of things he wrote but I always found his socio-political writing interesting (and still do). As must be obvious by the title, my prayers were answered as I’m sure were the prayers of many more people. In short, Roosh came to a dead-end with the sinful life he was living (and promoting) and in turning away, he turned to Christ. This book chronicles the journey he went on across the United States sharing his own personal journey to Christianity. I don’t live in the United States but I did purchase the video of his What I’ve Learned About Life speech when it was released and the text of this speech is included as an appendix in the book. 

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Sober Eyes

Posted on October 16, 2022 by JC

This is similar to a topic I covered back in late 2020 about perceptions of reality but related to a different subject. That is alcohol which I freely admit I have had struggles with. In fact, I pledged to abstain from alcohol all this year but failed pretty early on and then again before one more slip around the middle of June. Since then I haven’t had a drop and in my defence, the vast majority of the year has been alcohol free and I’m confident it wouldn’t have been had I not tried at all. This experience has taught me I probably need to generally abstain altogether for the long-term. On a similar note, I have also failed in limiting the amount of books I buy but have basically given up keeping to this. 

This post is generally related to alcohol consumption but not my own struggles though I do think it helps to admit them. As I am quick to tell people, my decisions about limiting my alcohol consumption shouldn’t be taken as a judgement on others as most people I know keep this consumption within healthy limits. I am simply one of those people who needs to be a lot more vigilant as my drinking is similar in habit to an on/off switch. I either am always on or completely off. Were I prone to violence under the influence, I would consider it absolutely necessary to abstain completely. 

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Outer Space: A Fantasy Wallpaper

Posted on October 9, 2022 by JC

There are a lot of terms of different types of science fiction and fantasy and people can get quite pedantic about these different sub-genres and exactly how to define them. Off the top of my head there is cyberpunk, hard science fiction, military science fiction and sword and sorcery. A common example is Star Wars which it is rightly pointed out is actually a fantasy work and not real science-fiction at all. This is why you get the more specific “hard science fiction” so as to avoid comparisons with stories that are merely adventures in outer space. Although I don’t often get into this, there are important distinctions that need to be made though people reading merely for enjoyment don’t much need to bother about sub-genres. 

This post is not really about the though genre but about works set in outer space specifically and what is often a lack of imagination I have observed in many works within the genre. This is related to outer space merely being a substitute for the ocean and the planets being substitutes for the earth’s different climate regions.

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Singularity: Another Fascinating Failure

Posted on October 6, 2022 by JC

When thinking of a title for my post on Daikatana,  I decided on calling it a “fascinating failure” quite on my own. After having such a neat description come to mind, I couldn’t believe I could have been the first to come up with it so I made a quick search of the term after posting. Sure enough, I got quite a few hits including this post from 2015. The writer’s fitting description mirrors mine:

Fascinating failures are products of passion, ambition and originality, where the lofty goal has exceeded the reach of the creator. Fascinating failures take risks.

So I didn’t originate the term but I had the same idea in mind as this indeed describes Daikatana perfectly and certainly the subject of this post as well.

The subject is Raven Software’s Singularity which originally released in 2010 and I recently replayed  on PC. I first played it about a decade ago on Xbox 360 and though brief, the game stuck with me. Singularity differs from Daikatana as it wasn’t heavily promoted and had the budget and development time shortened which meant the developers had to make significant cuts to get the game out on schedule. It was generally well-received by those who played it but unfortunately that wasn’t very many and it was a commercial failure. This article  and this rather excellent video give an overview of the game’s development and my thoughts on the merits of the game as released follow below.

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Dreaming of the Replication of Electric Sleep

Posted on September 30, 2022 by JC

This is the first time I’ve mentioned Blade Runner on this blog which is not surprising as it is one of those films that has had so much written about it that it is hard to come up with anything original. This post will likely be no exception though after recently re-watching it, I was inspired to make an attempt.

Before getting into the meat of the post I do want to briefly dwell on something I’ve been contemplating with regard to films like this and other media in general. Since converting to Catholicism, I’ve progressively come to notice how much inappropriate content is present — particularly in films. Not so long ago, any sort of nudity, sexual intercourse, profanity, violence or strong horror was strictly banned. Today, it can almost feel odd to watch a film where none of this is present. I used to think little of this but more and more I’ve become careful with what I allow myself to watch.

Blade Runner features almost all of this and I found myself averting my eyes from the screen on a number of occasions but I don’t think this is good enough. I have decided that this will be the last time I watch this and even other films I used to really enjoy. I can well understand that this would appear peculiar to modern minds but I don’t think my thoughts depart much from what used to believed by the vast majority. I also don’t think I can use “engaging in the culture” or film analysis as an excuse. It wouldn’t work for pornography.

This by the way also includes literature. I read Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84 this year and multiple sections of that work were pornographic as were sections of Kafka on the Shore and A Wild Sheep Chase. These are the only novels of his I’ve read and Murakami is a genuinely great writer but I won’t be reading any more of his fiction unless sanitised versions are one day published.

With that out of the way, let’s get to the film.

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