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Since I'll be dropping my Otenet account in a couple months, I got a new email address at gmail, courtesy of Philosopher at Large -- thanks again ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bellatrys! My otenet address will still be valid for a while, but after a month or two it'd probably be safer if people mailed me at katsaris@gmail.com instead.
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This past week I read "A Game of Thrones" the first book in George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" trilogy. Great book but what it primarily made me think about and be eager to talk of, was the issue of national identities in fantasy -- comparing this fantasy world with what we see in J.R.R. Tolkien's and Robin Hobb's fantasy universes, and the political development in each.
But I started writing, and then what I had to say kept on getting bigger and bigger, especially as I talked about Tolkien and the nations there -- so this essay is just half-done at this point. Next week when I have a bit more time.
And some much shorter, but long-overdue, commentary on "Three Colours: Blue", hopefully tomorrow.
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On recent news developments, I am wondering if the liberation of Lebanon from Syria will go "Orange Revolution"-style, or "Operation Iraqi Freedom"-style. Here's hoping on the former, because the latter brings with it way too many dozens of thousands dead innocents to be cheerful about such a development.
But I have to say, and I know that some of my friends will bitterly disagree with this, if Bush's war plans had directed themselves against Syria from the start (instead of Iraq), I'd have almost certainly supported such a war. Because such things as the occupation of Lebanon, and the *huge* support Syria's been giving too some truly nasty terrorist and genocidal organizations of the "destroy Israel and throw all the Jews into the sea" variety, truly make me think that Syria's is a regime that the whole region would do well without. (one of the many reasons I opposed the Iraq War was that I didn't believe Iraq had a good chance to navigate its way to freedom and democracy twixt the twin monsters of Skylla and Charibdys, Syria and Iran) Syria was not a contained tyrant as Saddam's Iraq was after the first Gulf War -- it was a tyrant who's imperialism was undefeated.
Anyway, first things first -- Lebanon: what'll possibly (hopefully!) become a Ukraine to Syria's Russia. Between the assasination of the leading opposition figure, the Lebanon opposition calling for a Orange-revolution style uprising, elections there coming up in May (I believe)... things are moving. We'll see. To tell the truth I have more hope for Lebanon than I do for Kyrgyzstan (which is where the eyes of most of the rest of the revolution-watch afficionados had seemed to be primarily focused on up until recently atleast)
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What icon to use, what icon to use... Ah, well, probably the politics one. I spoke more about that topic than about George R.R. Martin... :-)
And on that point, I really need to start sleeping before 8 AM. (It's amusing when one considers how once upon a time I needed to *wake up* before 8 AM :-)
bellatrys! My otenet address will still be valid for a while, but after a month or two it'd probably be safer if people mailed me at katsaris@gmail.com instead. ---
This past week I read "A Game of Thrones" the first book in George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" trilogy. Great book but what it primarily made me think about and be eager to talk of, was the issue of national identities in fantasy -- comparing this fantasy world with what we see in J.R.R. Tolkien's and Robin Hobb's fantasy universes, and the political development in each.
But I started writing, and then what I had to say kept on getting bigger and bigger, especially as I talked about Tolkien and the nations there -- so this essay is just half-done at this point. Next week when I have a bit more time.
And some much shorter, but long-overdue, commentary on "Three Colours: Blue", hopefully tomorrow.
---
On recent news developments, I am wondering if the liberation of Lebanon from Syria will go "Orange Revolution"-style, or "Operation Iraqi Freedom"-style. Here's hoping on the former, because the latter brings with it way too many dozens of thousands dead innocents to be cheerful about such a development.
But I have to say, and I know that some of my friends will bitterly disagree with this, if Bush's war plans had directed themselves against Syria from the start (instead of Iraq), I'd have almost certainly supported such a war. Because such things as the occupation of Lebanon, and the *huge* support Syria's been giving too some truly nasty terrorist and genocidal organizations of the "destroy Israel and throw all the Jews into the sea" variety, truly make me think that Syria's is a regime that the whole region would do well without. (one of the many reasons I opposed the Iraq War was that I didn't believe Iraq had a good chance to navigate its way to freedom and democracy twixt the twin monsters of Skylla and Charibdys, Syria and Iran) Syria was not a contained tyrant as Saddam's Iraq was after the first Gulf War -- it was a tyrant who's imperialism was undefeated.
Anyway, first things first -- Lebanon: what'll possibly (hopefully!) become a Ukraine to Syria's Russia. Between the assasination of the leading opposition figure, the Lebanon opposition calling for a Orange-revolution style uprising, elections there coming up in May (I believe)... things are moving. We'll see. To tell the truth I have more hope for Lebanon than I do for Kyrgyzstan (which is where the eyes of most of the rest of the revolution-watch afficionados had seemed to be primarily focused on up until recently atleast)
-
What icon to use, what icon to use... Ah, well, probably the politics one. I spoke more about that topic than about George R.R. Martin... :-)
And on that point, I really need to start sleeping before 8 AM. (It's amusing when one considers how once upon a time I needed to *wake up* before 8 AM :-)