fun or fear?

Obi-Won KaGussy, you are my only hope

Okay, the japanese have frequently dipped into both western classical literature as well as western movies as inspiration for anime features, especially during the 80s. This includes things like a Karate Kid saturday morning cartoon, another based on Little Women, or Sherlock Holmes anime following the actual stories quite closely, except everyone was a dog.

So, when a freind from sweden popped in an anime video he had of "Silver Fang" I figured it was "Japanese Anime Studio retells Jack London Classic" Well, if it was, it was only the slightest bit related. Apparently there is an entire series, but I only saw an single episode, in swedish not japanese or english. The basic storyline while interesting is not terribly original. Still, I enjoyed it. Community raises bear hunting dogs on some far flug island of Japan. Best hunter and best dog go out, best dog gets killed by a bear who is crazy from an old wound. Best dog's son tries to grow up and take his father's place and eventually extract vengance on the bear. Dog seeks out best trainer, some old hermit in the woods, which turns out to be the hunter who had trained and accompanied his father. So far, the plot is the same as your basic kickboxing movie, or what have you.

But then it turns to something more. Apparently the bears are more than they seem, harboring some dark evil, and working in conjunction. Then a strange dog comes to town, at the head of a huge pack, and recruits Silverfang to join his pack, and make war on these mystical evil bears.

Apparently it wasn't very popular in japan, but a lot of nordic communites (where there was a big tradition of hunting by bringing a single spitz-type dog and having it flush game like bear and moose) it was popular. Unfortunately, because it shares the same name as a classical work of english literature, searching for it on google is quite difficult

So Gus, with your knowledge of Anime, you are my only hope for tracking this down

EDIT: Your wish is granted. Long live Jambi.<---cool thanks, btw, how do you edit other people's posts, and who do I thank?

Scratch that, all you found was the japanese and swedish version, where is the english! We only speak one language over here you know

EDIT #2: Here's an English fansub of the first episode. Requires a Divx plug-in of some sort, I imagine.

Justice: D.A.N.C.E.

JUSTICE - D.A.N.C.E.
Uploaded by edbangerrecords

Justice are part of a French house/electro movement that, in my mind, spawns directly from the work of Daft Punk over the past ten or so years. Most of the heat in this scene is coming from the Parisian record label Ed Banger. Label head Busy P aka Pedro Winter just so happens to be Daft Punk's tour manager.

See also: SebastiAn, Kavinski, Mr. Oizo and tangentially the record label Kitsune.

John Cage: "Water Walk"

In 1960 composer John Cage performed one of his experimental pieces on the live CBS quiz show "I've Got a Secret."

Watch the video at WFMU's Beware of the Blog

Saturday Afternoon

Some of you were there saturday afternoon, others of you were busy wussing out. Anyways, we were discussing the Armenian Genocide, and if Armenia was a seperate nation invaded by Turkey.

Turns out we were all half right.

Links on the bottom, summary below

Note: Many of these links are under constant hacker attack by people who believe Turkey and the Turkish people did no wrong, either becuase the Armenians had it coming, or because it is all an elaborate pack of lies.

Armenians had inhabitited that region of the world for roughly 3 thousand years, and were repeatedly invaded and ruled by Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs and Mongols. The Ottoman Empire held sway over the Armenian Homeland, but the Ottoman Empire was falling apart. The Russians grabbed the chunk containing the Armenians but soon ceded it back. At this time the Ottoman Empire was almost entirely Turkish. The Grerks, Slavs, Romanians, etc were able to get independance. The Armenians, Kurds and some Arabs were not able to gain independance. The earliest acts of genocide in the closing decade of the nintheeth century were done by the Ottoman Government.

There was a big Turkish Nationalist movement, and the old sultan was forced to create a constitutional government and step down. The group that instigated this change was known as the 'Young Turks' While the borders of the Ottoman Empire were unchanged, this is usually seen as the end of the Ottoman Empire. This situation remained only for a short time, when three of the Young Turks took power through the use of military force. Their nationalist goals were twofold: to eliminate all non-turks in their country, and militarlity take over all regions in other countries with large ethnically turkish people. This is usually where most accounts stop using Ottoman Empire and start using Turkish Government. The Armenian region was a twofold problem to this Turkish government. The Armenians made up 10% of the population of the Ottoman Empire in the last days of the Sultan, and the first days of the new government, so by goal 1, they needed to be removed. The Armenina region also bordered a large turkish region under control of the Russians, so even if the Three Young Turks were to go for goal 2 first, the Armenians were right in the way. Of course, WW 1 was in full swing, this allowed great cover for the attrocities. The Russians actually stood up for the Armenians for a time, allowing them to flee through their lines, but troops were pulled to deal with their own revolution in 1917. Many Armenians took this opportunity to flee along with the Russian military, with plans to join a large Armenian community inside Russia. The Turkish government at that time, as well as today's Turkey use this action to retroactively state that the Armenians had been fighting for the Russains all along, hence their attacks on the Armenians were simply standard WW1 warfare.

After WWII a more moderate Turkish government was put in place, and there was an offically created Armenian Republic. Pres W. Wilson attempted to have it made officially a US protectorate. However, just months after, a new nationalistic leader ousted the moderates, ignored the treaty, and reoccupied the Armenian Republic, and finished off the Armenians there.

It must also be noted that the Kurds are not guiltless either. Oftentimes Kurds residing the the same village would join the mobs attacking the Armenian residents. Some of this can be seen as Kurds going along so that the mob wouldn't turn on them as well. However, most of the Kurds were nomadic, and not residing in villages with Turks and Armenians. When the Turks were forcemarching the Armenians, or when the Armenians were fleeing ahead of the Turkish forces sent to eliminate them, the Kurds would ride in, take the food, valuables, and attractive women, kill anyone who opposed them, then ride off with their loot.

http://www.theforgotten.org/

http://www.armenian-genocide.org/genocide.html

http://www.unitedhumanrights.org/Genocide/armenian_genocide.htm

http://www.gendercide.org/case_armenia.html

Seriously. Fuck Gravity.

So cool.

Starcraft 2

I know that many of you may already be aware of this, but I felt it my duty to inform the rest: It is rumored that Blizzard will announce Starcraft 2 during the Blizzard World Wide Invitational in South Korea on May 19.

Sweet.