JMS Speaks (again)

<font face="nimrod">So I was talking to Doug Netter this afternoon, who had in turn spoken with Bruce Boxleitner earlier in the day about the year 2 DVD. In the course of that conversation, Bruce mentioned something that Doug in turn mentioned to me.

To wit:

Bruce had been at the White House about a month ago, in the company of wife Melissa Gilbert, president of the Screen Actors Guild, for a discussion with some of the functionaries there concerning acting roles moving north of the Canadian border.

As they're talking, in a long conference room, in the middle of the meeting the door opens and Karl Rove -- main strategist for the Republican Party and power behind the White House throne -- comes in. He says (paraphrased from memory)to Melissa, "I hope you'll forgive me, but I actually here to see Bruce."

He then tells Bruce, "I just wanted to tell you that I'm a big science fiction fan, and that Babylon 5 is the best science fiction television series *ever*."

Then there's a pause, and he adds....

"And the President thinks so too."

Upon hearing this, I went to lie down for a spell, but I fully expect to be back on my feet by Spring, latest.

jms

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<font face="georgia"><font color="red">Can somebody point me to where JMS has said he'd never work with Pat Tallman again? Or for that matter, Claudia Christian? In fact, I think he's said that he'd consider it if the proper story came up.</font>

That is correct.

<font color="red">I'm not even sure where the perceived rift was supposed to have happened with Bruce Boxleitner, but I'd have to say that it's pretty weird to hear (at a convention in mid November this year) the leading man on B5 complain that the series didn't go into a sixth year. Hello? Wasn't he paying attention at all?</font>

There's no question that Bruce was very upset with me at the end of B5, because it was a good operation, a steady gig, everybody pretty much liked everybody else, and you hate to leave in that kind of situation.

I remember when we were shooting "A Call to Arms," I was standing by the camera as Bruce walked by and he said, very sternly, "What, it couldn't have been a SIX year arc?" But you're right, that it was a five year arc was said by everyone, especially me, from day one.

<font color="red">Am I the only one who thinks it's kinda strange that Jerry Doyle is claiming to have been 'sent out to look for financing'? Right. An actor. Not Doug Netter, an actor. And part time politician. Doesn't that seem kinda odd, not to mention unlikely?</font>

The description is incorrect. At one point, I guess it was about the time we were playing with the idea of Rangers, Jerry called Doug and said that he thinks he has the financing, via some Silicon Valley guys, to pull together the money for at minimum a pilot, maybe a feature, maybe a series set in the B5 universe. We said great, if you think you've got something, let's see what you've got.

There were several more conversations, then the calls just kinda stopped, and we got the impression that the money he had just kind of evaporated, as these things often do. Lots of people talk a good game, but at the end of the day, either they have the goods or they don't, and my impression is that these guys, whoever they were, didn't.

The only thing that bothers me in the piece is Jerry's attribution to me of a quote said by a person at Warners, which I *repeated* to Jerry but did not say myself, that you could put the makeup on somebody else and they could be G'kar. I was appalled by that statement, and mentioned it to Jerry, Doug, others. I think he's taken the memory of that conversation and attributed the comment to me since I was the one who passed it along. But ain't no way anybody else could play that part but Andreas.

jms
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<font color="red">I'm not sure I'd go that far, either. I remember JMS being asked online about what Jerry was talking about (re: a new series) and he seemed aware but neither enthusiatic nor encouraging of the idea.</font>

I went to jmsnews.com and found the following from 2001, which pretty much confirms what I posted a moment ago (a handy thing, the internet).

------------
Subject: Re: JMS: Jerry Doyle and crew wanted to revive Babylon5?!
From: Jms at B5
Date: 05/15/2001 03:32 PM
Forum: Usenet

To answer the question...yes, Jerry had some ideas, and tried to put something together, but the resources just weren't there.

jms

-------------

jms
<hr width="75%">

<font color="red">Actually, I think that would be great. JMS has already done audiocasts for SciFi.com, so this wouldn't be a stretch. The wonderful Doctor Who audios by Big Finish, as well as the series you mentioned, show just how effective the audio medium can be.</font>

Actually, about a year or so ago, Sci-Fi.com was in active discussions with me to do just this, but when they pulled back on their audio drama content, that went away.

jms

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RE: Plea to JMS & Fans: The B5 Widescreen Madness Must Stop!!!

I don't think this got through the momentary message blockade, so I'm sending this a second time....

There are a number of elements to this discussion that need to be addressed.

First, a lot of the flaws being seen on the film were there in the beginning; the difference is that the DVD transfer shows those little flaws more clearly than when the show is broadcast on tape over the air. Just as a CD will pick up any glitches in the original analog master, so a DVD will show any shortcomings in the film or the transfer.

On the CGI question, bear in mind that we were making this show at the very beginning of CGI effects, and that they had never been done for TV on this scale before. Many andvancements have been made in the intervening years, but at the time, the hardware and software we had was pretty rudimentary.

We did not have the tech, at that time, to do our comps in widescreen super35 versions. The software that we used to dump the footage into couldn't handle it. So we had no choice but to render the CGI and the comps in standard ratio.

We cannot intercut full-frame CGI with widescreen non-cgi stuff because sometimes we intercut in two-second intervals or less, and the banging back and forth between aspect ratios would be extremely hard on the eyes.

Nor can this footage be re-rendered because the separate elements do not exist anymore, only the original un-comped film elements are there. The CGI files are not around anymore, and to recreate every shot would be prohibitively expensive. In a big way.

Because of the trend to HD, the widescreen versions, even with these small glitches, will still have a longer shelf life than if we put them out in regular aspect ratio. And that is the purpose of the story, to keep it around.

We were the prisoners to the tech that was available to us at the time (for the first season we were using home Amigas, no less). It was all experimental and by the seat of our pants kind of stuff. But it was the best anyone was doing at the time, and we did the best we could with the tools we had.


jms</font>

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<font face="georgia"><font color="red">You also have to remember how extremely callous and insensitive JMS was to Andrea Thompson near the end of season 2</font>

And, may I ask, where were you at the time? Were you at the stage? Were you privy to conversations? On what do you base this?

She wanted more screen time, at what would have been at the expense of the overall arc of the story. I couldn't comply. She chose to leave. There has never been any dispute about any of this as far as I've ever seen.

So I suggest you either retract that statement, or back it up, because I don't much like it when I get libeled by someone who doesn't have the first clue what he's talking about, stating things as though they were fact.

jms
<hr width="50%">

<font color="red">When she went to JMS to ask for, although an unreasonable (though not grossly so) request, an understandable and fair request, she got a (nasally voiced) "NO!" from JMS. </font>

And who, exactly, are you to determine, years after the fact, what was an "unreasonable" or reasonable request? Or whether it was grossly unreasonable? Again, were you in the room? Yes or no, were you in the room? Then how do you know what was asked?

And how do you know a "NO!" was said by me, "nasally voiced?"

You are utterly ignorant of the situation and the conversations. You weren't there. And you choose to characterize my actions with your own voice and prejudices (see above) in order to make it sound snotty.

As for example:

<font color="red">Considering how caustic JMS's words on this matter were (i.e. Whenever she was on, she expected it to be the Andrea Thompson Show,"(1) ), I'm inclined to take Andrea's side on this matter.</font>

You then link to the actual quote, which you deliberately paraphrase to make something else. Since you had the quote in hand, you could easily have just cut-and-pasted it rather than rewriting it to fit your thesis. What I said -- from the article you cite -- was:

"Finally, it was never Warner Bros. who hired her or pushed her on me. WB didn't care one way or another. I was the one who hired her, with Doug Netter. If I hadn't felt she was right for the role, I wouldn't have hired her. But I was also under no constraint to make the show into the Andrea Thompson Show. Andreas and Peter have often appeared as many times in a season as Andrea, and didn't even *have* a guarantee for the first two seasons. (Now they do.)

We did what we could to accommodate her without destroying the story arc. I regret that she has taken out her frustrations in this way. Either one is a team player, part of an ensemble, or one is not. We are very proud of the fact that the cast members as they stand now are all ensemble, team players."

Where, please, is the "caustic" in this? Where is me saying "Whenever she was on, she expected it to be the Andrea Thompson show?" Nowhere.

It's the oldest trick in the book, and the lowest, also the meanest, to take someone's words and paraphrase them to your own benefit, and characterize them with loaded terms to make the other person look bad.

Frankly, this kind of tactic is beneath contempt.

Grow up.

jms
<hr width="50%">

<font color="red">But none of us were there, except JMS and the cast and crew of B5. And even their statements should be taken with a grain of salt. Everyone has a different perspective, and no one has perfect and unbiased memory.</font>

I don't necessarily disagree with this, there is a certain amount of that in any kind of human discourse, but there are also other elements to factor into this.

Here, for me, is the biggest one. If you go to jmsnews.com, you will find 16,694 messages that I posted to the net between November 1991 and five seconds ago. All of this was done in real-time, without having to fall back on memories of events five or ten years down the road. So the information there was as current as the event itself.

Lots of other recollections have been found to be flawed. Claudia's statement, for instance, that she was fired, where I had insisted she'd quit, only to have her say, in later interviews, that yeah, she did indeed quit. (After having left me to bear the brunt of that allegation for a very long time.)

But in 11 years and 16,694 messags (of which this will become 16,695), not one of them has ever been shown to have strayed from the truth after the fact. They have uniformly passed the test of time.

If I have one benefit, it's that I come from a journalist's background, and I'm very good at reporting what happens, without much in the way of elaboration.

Personally, I think that counts for a lot.

jms
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<font color="red">All those in favour of JMS say "aye"</font>

Then I vote nay.

And I'm not being facetious.

This shouldn't be about taking sides with one person over another. The day people start agreeing with stuff just because it's me, is the day the conversation is over, because it's no longer a conversation at all.

I'm in favor of reasoned discourse, of asking impertinent questions in search of pertinent information, but doing so fairly, without resorting to straw-man arguments, pettifogging, paraphrasing, dead-catting or "are you now or have you ever been" high school debate tactics.

It's not about winning or losing an argument or taking sides.

jms
<hr width="75%">

<font color="red">That you have had an average of 4+ posts per day over 11 years that can be searched and critiqued is absolutely incredible.</font>

Also frightening and deeply disturbing.

<font color="red">How the heck did you find time to post that much?</font>

I use the net as a break from writing. When I hit a point where I need to think about the next scene, rather than leave the desk and go watch TV, which will kill an hour or more, I go online, which keeps me at the keyboard. I noodle a bit, during which my brain works out the story problem, and zing, I'm back into the writing again.

I may be one of the few who uses writing as a break from writing....

See "deeply disturbed" above...
jms
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<font color="red">I've noticed you posting several times lately--> Do tell us you're taking time for a little R&R!</font>

Not really...oddly enough, the more I post, sometimes that means the more I'm writing, because as noted in a prior post, I stay at the keyboard that way.

Right now, the next Jeremiah script is due Monday, the next Spidey is due mid-week, the next Supreme Power (aka Squadron Surprme) is due the end of the week, my next Rising Stars is due, and I have to begin writing on another project which isn't Polaris, but which needs to get moving ahead.

I'm *so* screwed....

jms


<hr width="75%">

<font color="red">JMS hasn't said anything of a negative nature that I know of about Pat Tallman (Lyta). During Crusade there was to have been a part for her in the episode "The Path of Sorrows" but they weren't able to come to financial agreement. </font>

Which, obviously, was not my call, but hers. Her work would have taken just one day (closer to half a day, actually), and the fee was based on what we'd paid her in her last season. She felt she couldn't do it for less, we didn't have the budget to give more, it's a fair disagreement, she opted out, so I had to revise the script accordingly. This sort of thing happens all the time.

<font color="red">Yes, there was some disagreement over who said what, when, but nothing I ever read from JMS indicated that he would never allow her to work on his stuff again.

The only thing I can think of that would have caused people to decide that JMS would be so spiteful is that when another actor (Gen. Hague, don't remember the actor's name) bailed on them to do DS9, JMS re-wrote the script to kill off the character. He said online the one 'should never honk off the writer' and people seem to have decided to take this as a serious statement of 'policy' instead of being playful.</font>

At the end of the day, however much one might grump, you have to do what's right, otherwise the whole thing goes pear-shaped, as the Brits say.

Case in point: Foxworth, as noted above. We needed someone for an important part in Jeremiah this season, and his name surfaced as one prospect. I'll be honest: when that happened, I kind of got my back up over the Hague situation. But then, at the end of the day, you have to say, "Okay, he pissed you off, but does that mean you don't hire the right guy for the job?"

So we hired him for that episode, "Letters from the Other Side," part one of our series premiere (with a quick shot also in part two).

Because you can't sensibly run a show in any other way.

jms
<hr width="75%">

<font color="red">Hmmm....based on nothing in particular...am I detecting a point of view shift for this second season?</font>

Nope. But somebody has to be at the heart of Valhalla Sector, so he's the main guy there.

<font color="red">Any other titles or news you can share, JMS?</font>

The season debut is "Letters From the Other Side," parts one and two, followed by "Strange Attractors," "Deus Ex Machina," "Rites of Passage," and "The Mysterious Mister Smith."

jms

<hr width="50%">

<font color="red">Presumably these are all yours? Do you know when the Samm Barnes episode(s) will fall in? And did you assign the premises to her or did she pitch to you?</font>

She wrote "Rites of Passage," from her own premise and story. It should be a great episode, answering the question, "What happened to Jeremiah's mom?"

jms
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<font color="red">Indications are that Warner Home Video is happy enough with the sales of S1 that beginning with S2 they won't be waiting for sales reports on each set before starting work on the next. </font>

I don't know that they've committed to that extent, but they are very happy with the sales, and are accellerating things.

Interviews for year 2's DVD have been set, or already conducted, with Stephen Furst, Andrea Thompson, John Iacovelli, Anne Bruice-Ailing, Jerry, Claudia, Bruce, me, John Copeland, Doug Netter and others.

In addition, I'll be doing commentaries on "The Coming of Shadows" and "The Fall of Night," and there will be a bonus group commentary by Bruce, Claudia and Jerry on "The Long, Twilight Struggle."

There's talk about a special musical sequence for the season 3 DVD, with Chris re-scoring 2-3 episodes end to end with non-stop music, future segments on "The Future According to Babylon 5" with NASA and JPL guys (btw, James over at a certain House subcommittee, if you're reading this and could drop me a note, that'd be great). I'd like to see the final bonus section on year 5 be about the fans of the show.

Point being...they're putting a LOT of energy and work into this to make each set better than the one before.

(And yes, still writing my brains out here this weekend, except for a brief Bejeweled break where I finally broke 400,000 points.)

jms
<hr width="75%">

<font color="red">Of course, that's a big "if". Without the files, jms or other producers would need to re-hire all new artists to recreate the original footage. Expensive. It was done for the Star Wars Special Editions, but I doubt WB would cough up the money for a Babylon 5</font>

Those files are no more.

jms

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<font face="georgia"><font color="blue">Maybe somebody bored enough can trawl through the jmsnews postings and confirm that?

</font><font color="red"
<g> That would be me.... I almost hate to do it, though, because, IIRC, Joe got a fair amount of flack over it. There, he had finally done what dozens of people had asked him to over the years *and* he waited until the episode where the entire crew were also honored by the photo montage at the end.

I took it as a gift to the fans and I don't think that anybody else should have turned off those lights.

Here's the post I think you meant:

--------------------begin----------------------
Subject:
JMS: Do a short bit in B5.
From:
Jms at B5
Date:
10/01/1994 05:53 PM
Forum:
Usenet

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As much as fans of the show have asked for me to do a cameo on the show...I can't. For starters, on many levels I'm making the show for myself...and if I see me up on the screen, it blows the illusion. For another, I've always thought it a bush-league thing to do; I'm a *writer*, I work behind the scenes, as should be; when I see somebody like John Landis or Mick Garris sticking their face in on camera, I can only shake my head, and refuse to do the same. It turns the exercise into a game of cutes.

Finally...I've seen me. Ehhh. Tell you the truth, most folks who finally meet me generally conclude that there's far less to me than meets the eye. Besides...the cost in replacement camera lenses would be simply astronomical.

jms
-----------end transmission---------
</font>

Correct, the cameo was a) at the end of the show precisely so that it *woudln't* break my suspension of disbelief, because by then it was done, and b) it was meant as a surprise. If I'd said "Yeah, I'm gonna do it but just once," then everybody'd be waiting for it, and if they hadn't seen it by SiL, they'd know it was there.

jms

<hr width="50%">
<font color="red">With a) in mind, and given that you ended up getting another season after SiL was in the can... *did* you feel your suspension of disbelief was broken? If so, how did you work around it?</font>

By making sure the episode was never finished (final editing) until after we'd finished shooting S5. I let it sit in the Avid, unfinished, until I was ready. That also prevented WB or anyone else from getting it and having the cut hit the streets in an unauthorized way, which I felt could happen if the cut was just laying around for a year. By keeping it all in the system, in pieces, it (and I) was safe.

jms
<hr width="75%">
<font color="red">Sure, we get more picture information on the sides, but all too often, it seems like the characters are huddled together in the middle of the screen. Now, this is not always the case, but at least several times in each episode, I wonder why they are standing so damn close to one another!

Obviously, the reason for this is that the show's directors at the time wanted to frame the image to look good in 4:3... but now that we have the wider 16:9, these directorial choices stand out like sore thumbs. </font>

I think that's a fair criticism, and one we made ourselves a bit later, around season 2 or 3. We set up a screening at Pacific Video, our post house, for an episode in wide, and saw that our directors had been hewing too closely to the 4:3 ratio. So we told them to be more aggressive, and use the full frame more in later episodes. So this problem does get ameliorated a bit down the road.

jms

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<font face="georgia"><font color="red">Do you think the conditions are currently right for martial law? I realize that something similar has been discussed to death already on this group, but it's not quite the same question, so I hope you'll indulge me.</font>

Well, let's see...American citizens (low-lifes, yes, but citizens nonetheless) detained without questioning or formal charges, military tribunals reviewing cases in secret without the right of appeal, a proposed system of gathering everyone's private information for use by the government, tracking checkouts at public libraries, going through purchases to determine who's taken various kinds of lessons (including, most recently, suba diving lessons), asking high schools to turn over addresses for students eligible for military service, signing an overall action for overseas "hits" on possible targets that does not specifically exclude American citizens as targets and thus generically includes them, all but reversing the Freedom of Information Act, a declaration of wartime emergency that has no clearly defined end-point, moves to weaken or eliminate the Posse Comitatas act which prohibits the use of military in domestic situations, the detainment at airports -- under the new terrorist provisions -- of pepole whose only offense was to take part in protest marches in Seattle and San Francisco, the loosening of search and seizure laws....

No, not at all, why do you ask?

jms

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<font face="georgia"><font color="red"> I don't understand how you could allow stencilling your name on B5's ass in season 5. We were in suspended disbelief until we had to explain plausibly why the crew would paint a 21st century author's name there. It didn't serve the story. So why did you allow it?</font>

Because the main titles are not part of the story. We had the faces of cast members sitting in the middle of the jumpgate flares, or hovering in space over the station...did you really think they were there as well?

Main titles are FOR credits. They're not part of the story, and should never be confused...otherwise Londo would have to be looking out his window every week wondering what all those huge letters were circling the station all the time...


jms
<hr width="50%">

<font color="red">But why would anyone name a space station after that guy from "Murder She Wrote"?</font>

Who else would know where the bodies are buried...?

jms
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<font color="red">No, that was the *other* Straczynski! This one is from Power Rangers and He-Man!</font>

HEY!

I'll take the rap for a lot of things, including the Korean War, but I had nothing to do with Power Rangers.

jms

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<font face="georgia"><font color="red"> I said all that to ask this pondering question: What B5 fictional concept seems likely to become reality, whether through conscious imitation or sheer precognizance? </font>

I saw a piece not long ago on holographic data storage systems using crystals that looked a lot like datacrystals, and I think we're getting very close to the technology of links.

jms</font>

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<font face="georgia"><font color="red">I for one am pretty shocked that there has been no indignation about this. It borders on being libelous.</font>

You cannot libel public figures in general, in particular when it's as science fictional a context as this.

To the larger question...the story of Rising Stars is set in the real world. Bush is the president right now, hence he had to be the one in the hot seat.

I'm writing another book currently wherein we see events of this nature affecting every president from Carter, through Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton, and Bush 2, all of whom are portrayed in the book as being involved in a particular and wholly fictional conspieracy. I don't apply a political litmus test to these things.

The whole POINT of Rising Stars is that it's set in the real world, with real problems, and real historical events, right now. If I made up a fake president it would totally compromise the book's integrity.

If Al Gore had been certified by the Supremes, it would've been him instead.

jms

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Okay, I'm probably going to get cyber-mugged for this, but let me put in my two cents on the Iraq situation, and the reasons behind it.

It is really nothing more or less than an attempt to re-draw the map of the Middle East.

By their actions and their statements, Bush and Co. seem to believe that they have a manifest destiny, and that they must act to seize the moment while they can, hence their haste to get things popping.

If you take down Iraq and replace it with either a puppet government or one friendly to the US, suddenly you can bring down the price of Iraqi oil considerably. If the other nations in the region don't go along, they get frozen out. So suddenly the prices go down, profits go up, and (while fossil fuels last) everybody profits economically.

Politically, if you take out Iraq, you remove a linchpin from the Mideast structure. You have a friendly base of operations from which to launch military endeavors; you can aid your friends and loom over your enemies; it puts the US in a position to destabalize other countries in the area or bring them to the side of the US.

That, I believe, is their plan. The only thing wrong with it is that it can't work; the region is too interlinked and impossible to govern from afar, and they haven't fully thought out the doctrine of unintended consequences.

Within an hour or so of 9/11, Rumsfeld -- according to the NY Times -- was asking people, "Can we pin this on Saddam, take 'em all down at the same time?" They've clearly been looking for an excuse to go in on this for a long time. If it wasn't 9/11, it'd be something else.

If you say it's about oil, that's only part of the picture; if you say it's about weapons and terror, that's also only a part of the picture. You have to stand well back from the tapestry and get a good look at the whole of it to recognize the thing for what it is: an attempt to redraw the map of the Middle East in its entirety.

jms

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<font face="georgia">If you say it's about oil, that's only part of the picture; if you say it's about weapons and terror, that's also only a part of the picture. You have to stand well back from the tapestry and get a good look at the whole of it to recognize the thing for what it is: an attempt to redraw the map of the Middle East in its entirety.

<font color="red">Considering the fact that most of the governments in the Mideast are barely-tolerable tyrannies as it stands, even among our "allies", I don't know that that would be a bad thing to try and do, is all. </font>

Which would be, on the face of it, a valid counter...except that the governments we tend to install in our wake are often, or soon become, every bit as bad as what was there in the first place.

We helped put in and prop up the Shah of Iran, creating a situation that was so awful, so corrupt, so full of human rights violations, that it led in time to the growth of the fundamentalist forces that overthrew him and gave us the current Iran.

Remember that, because we didn't like the Russians, we helped arm the Afghanis and trained the people who would in time become the Taliban and Al-Quaeda.

When we didn't like Iran, we gave Iraq the very weapons that we're not complaining about, in many cases. When it looked like he might use (and may have used) chemical weapons in the Iran/Iraq war, our government was decidedly silent. No one was making a big deal about it at the upper echelons of government, because we knew he had chemical weapons but he was using them in "our interests."

The bottom line, apart from all this, is very simple: is it the business of the United States to go out overthrowing governments when and where we feel like it? Is that really what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they drafted the Constitution?

jms
<hr width="50%">
<font color="red">I still support an attack on Iraq - for my own reasons, regrdless of Bush's reasons. I want to make sure Iraq doesn't use nukes/bio/Chemical weapons against any of its enemies. Saddam is a true threat to the Middle East and to the world. I don't feel like having a repeat of when I was 8 years old in the shelter, with a gas mask on.</font>

Don't blame you. So I guess the question before us is not so much "does the end justify the means?" as "does the means assure the end?"

There are any number of governments -- friendly or hostile to the US -- that have these weapons. Do we take out all of them? With so much of this out there, does it make it one whit safer for the US?

On top of that...to the best of my knowledge, and I'm happy to be corrected on this, Saddam has never made an actual threat to attack the US. Even the CIA came back and said that the odds of Saddam attacking the US are very close to zero...unless he feels he's cornered and no longer has anything left to lose. He might then use it locally, or give it to others.

And let us remember that so far the Bush administration has not produced one whit of proof that these weapons exist in the first place. So we have a conundrum on our hands: either he has them, and we guarantee an attack by going after him, or he doesn't have them, in which case why are we going in?

The thing about regime change from outside is that it never works. Any time we've done it in the past, we've ended up making the situation worse, and had those ghosts come back to haunt us later, in Iran, Iraq, the Phillipines, you name it.

The only time it does work is when it's the people of the nation rising up. And they do, sooner or later. They rose up in Poland, in East Germany, in Russia proper, and elsewhere. And that, for me, is the telling point: someone from the outside coming in does not have the moral authority to make the change stick, or make decisions with the best interests of the local population at heart.

If, in 1775, prior to our declaration of independence, the Austrians had said, "Look, we think you Americans are being oppressed, the British have these terrible weapons, we're going to liberate you," and they did so, putting in a puppet government, or setting up Austrians to run the country...would we have ever accepted that? Would we not have in time risen up against them?

Giving support internally to rebel forces in Iraq? Sure. Responding to a direct attack against the US? You bet. Maybe even to just an announced threat.

But none of that is ever going to guarantee the safety of the US. Our friends in Europe have learned this lesson already, with terrorist actions in both France and Britain for decades. But rather than torch their liberties, egalities and fraternities, they set their jaw and endured it, allowing their law enforcement arms time to deal with it...and for the most part, that's been successful.

You want a guarantee that it can't happen here, but it can...and it will, because in truth there's nothing that anybody can do to stop a handful of dedicated fanatics. The only surprise here is that it took this long for it to happen. And when it did happen, it came from a small group with lots of sponsors, not as an act by one given nation against the US.

If Al-Quaeda had WMD, you can bet your ass they would've used them by now. But what we've had have been small, limited operations. Nor -- and this is strictly my opinion -- will any nation give them WMD to use on their behalf here.

For one reason: if that were ever to happen, if a big biological or chemical attack were ever perpetrated against the US, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind, or in their mind, that we would glass over whichever country was responsible.

So as long as our enemies have something to lose, we're safe. Back them into a corner...and I'm not so sure.
jms
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<font color="red">PS- whats happened to the Midnight Nation collected version that was due last month?</font>

Dunno...they've been sitting on it for months. Hopefully it'll be out soon.

jms
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Re: ATTN JMS: Marvel Comics for Christmas
Yeah, I saw it, it's kinda fun....

BTW, for those following the comics, Spidey 46 and 47 came out over the last month or so, and 48 is due out this coming week.

I've just finished going over the balloon placements on 49, and in some ways, though this has the least amount of action, it's my favorite issue to date...there are a lot of laugh-out-loud pages, and some real emotion, and it follows up on what I wanted to do from the start, to really build up Peter's character, get to the core of who he is. This builds on that foundation and takes it to the next level. I'm just real happy with it.

I should have 51 turned in shortly.

jms

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