Saturday, May 31, 2008
More about the Chinese earthquake comics

I don't normally like bashing on about the same thing but here is an interview with Coco Wang the creator of the comics in my previous post, explaining how they came about and what the intent is. Personally on the one hand I'm not sure how many more I can read and on the other it seems an absolute crime not to.

Posted by Owen Jones 2008-05-31 02:08:35

Wednesday, May 28, 2008
The power of comics

In the last few weeks I've been reading heavily into the form of comics and also the state of the industry. As the Warren Ellis labelled 'bastard' child of cinema and prose there are some things comics will never adequately convey, sound being the most obvious. However the greatest strength to me of the medium is in it's ability to not only tell a story through both the visual and written forms, but in being able to respond so quickly to major events in the real world. Cinema may take as long as 2-3 years to create movies about a war or disaster, books require research, analysis and data before positing an account. Comics on the other hand can be created and published in weeks ... or shorter. The link below is an example of how comics can be used to talk the language of the real world using the medium so often derided as 'the funny pages', would these stories have been told beyond the briefest news excerpt in a local paper, I leave you to decide.

http://www.paulgravett.com/articles/133_china/133_china.htm

Posted by Owen Jones 2008-05-28 01:15:34

Sunday, January 6, 2008
More wishful thnking

Well digging out this blog for a few New Year's entries seems to be par for the course and who am I to poo-poo tradition. Last year was fast, far faster than I thought possible and that seems to be the case with how I experience time at the moment. A snowball that has begun to gather momentum, whipping past the scenery at a rate rapidly becoming unhealthy. As a time of pondering, the New Year brings hope when looking forward and pause when looking back. The key to mind is balancing the two, not too much exuberance but also avoiding being too hard on yourself. Small steps, from which grow good habits and less of a pause when peering back next year.

One thing I am thankful for is that sffworld continues onwards, it is amazing to think of the people I've met (anyone ever find Ogg?) and the time I've spent whiling away here. Even though I've spent very little here in the last few months, Dag, Mark, Rob, Kat and the crew have done a great job and long may it continue. See you in 2009 ;)

Posted by Owen Jones 2008-01-06 18:38:40

Tuesday, February 20, 2007
I Hate Politicians

Buckle up, this is a long’un. Not quite what you expect from me either but I've been reading Transmetropolitan again and this blew me away.

Every morning at about 7.30am the newspaper drops through the mailbox, of late it has taken to making a meaty slap as it hits the mat on the otherside. Politics invades my house. As many cute political adverts have, with varying degrees of success, tried to assert, politics is everywhere but the paper is the single largest culprit. Not only is it the teller of news, it is the most evident divisor of any democratic society. Today’s even more so for the startling revelation that the paper you buy will be one of 287 pieces of information stored on a Big Brother database which will be used to decide your tax situation. Read that again.

Big Brother is a term that has had some currency since governments began even if the parlance was different. It is the crossing of the border between society and private life, the invasion of privacy deemed necessary by the rule makers in order to keep society orderly. In effect a tool for the control freaks who feel it their given right to micro-manage our lives, supposedly to our benefit. 287 pieces of information from hobbies to your type of diet to the paper you read, seemingly soon to be enshrined in law so you can’t not give them. All so the government can rake in higher taxes. This doesn’t come out of the blue though, it follows fast on the heels of legislation that allows for government cretins to enter your house to discern it’s value, taking into account factors such as conservatories, extensions, type of furniture, etc so that you may be taxed correctly. In the bluntest possible terms you will be taxed for being even moderately successful, to the hilt whilst living and then upon death the government will hit your relatives with a substantial inheritance tax bill.

Now it has and will be said until we find another form of currency that taxes and death are inevitable, but taxes on death, for the living? There is a point where revolution is necessary, I am not advocating it or am suggesting in a supposedly first world country with a democratic system that it will become valid but, at what point must we come to before someone in power realises these things shouldn’t happen. An MP is a representative of their constituency, their role is to put across the views of the people who placed them in that position. They are, in theory, accountable. So where in this whole island did anyone ask to have a stranger into their home, to prod through their legally paid for hard work and interrogate them about all aspects of their lives, to fill government coffers? Where is there logic in such an idea and more to the point how can this be legitimised through law?

Worse still, it doesn’t stop there. Papers have been digging into MP’s expenses for the last few years and the over-riding belief is that we’re being robbed. Robbery? By elected officials? A strong claim but one that is very simple to define: MP’s every expense to do with their job is funded by the taxpayers – meaning you, me and every working person who has ever contributed to the state. So when an MP claims transport allowance, stationary allowance or any other sort of expense for doing their job there should be some form of independent oversight checking these figures, correct? Wrong. For transport allowance alone there is no monitoring of miles travelled, there are no receipts requested for fuel purchased and there are no limitations on claims. Welcome to the gravy train. The most recently published expenses list, and possibly the last ones joe public will ever see – more on that in a minute, state that the largest claimant was Janet Anderson, the former Labour minister and MP for Rossendale & Darwen (approx 220 miles from Commons), who claimed £16,612 in 2005/06 or £319 a week. That equates to over 60,000 miles by the Commons’ generous mileage rates. Over the last five years Anderson has claimed almost £100,000 in car expenses, roughly the same distance as travelling to the moon according to one newspaper’s calculations. Tory Jacqui Lait claimed 20,000 miles worth of transport costs despite here Beckenham constituency being just 12 miles from Westminister, that’s supposedly 1700 trips or 5/6 per day for those keeping count. Ministers can actually claim 20p per milefor riding a bike to Commons! Further more almost none of the MPs actually used public transport, with some North-England MP’s choosing to fly to and from their constituencies. In the last year the MP for Bridgend, where I live, claimed £145, 143 in Expenses including £27, 348 in ‘Incidental Expenses Provision’. The mind boggles.

But wait, if that form of larceny wasn’t enough, now MP’s are trying to amputate the Freedom of Information act to say that their financial details should be kept out of public purview. They don’t want you looking at the lack of frugality they take with your money and guess who gets to decide – that’s right, they do. In the most staggering piece of information that ended up blowing the top off my head, MP’s can vote their own wage increases as well as their pension plans AND make the figures secret from the people paying their wages. MP’s pension plans have been essentially ringed off from the taxman, unlike the poor souls who recently lost theirs’ when the government decided that it had better uses for the money, they want a £100,000 a year basic salary, not including expenses and they want you to just let them do it. Remember what I said about Revolution earlier – I’ve changed my mind. Luckily I hadn’t reaffixed the top of my head when I read this about MEP’s:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/10/19/weu119.xml

To which I can only say, I Hate Politicians.

Find out what your MP costs
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/

How Parliament expenses work:
http://www.parliament.uk/about_lords/holallowances/hol_explanatory06.cfm

Posted by Owen Jones 2007-02-20 12:36:51

Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Some times you're up

and sometimes you're down and sometimes when you're only half way up, you are neither up or down. Which begs the question where exactly are you? A little odd by way of introduction but I came across this quote yesterday and it made me think:

"We live in a spectacular society, that is, our whole life is surrounded by an immense accumulation of spectacles. Things that were once directly lived are now lived by proxy. Once an experience is taken out of the real world it becomes a commodity. As a commodity the spectacular is developed to the detriment of the real. It becomes a substitute for experience." - Larry Law

Do we find ourselves living more of our lives vicariously? We see pictures of popular places so regularly you could swear you've been there. There is enough 'life drama' on Oprah or Doctor Phil to last many people lifetimes, we get sucked into books, TV, films, comics and all kinds of media-driven non-lives. For some it's easy to distinguish between fantasy and reality, but for some there is an uneasy sense that the life they have isn't worth a lot - after all they can't fly, jump on a spaceship to another planet (although Branson may have that sorted soon :)) or fight off the Horde with a magic carrot. Have our recreation times become too driven by escapism or is the mundanity of life something to be escaped from?

Posted by Owen Jones 2007-02-13 11:47:35