Sam

I think my favourite mural of all time has to be the Cuchulainn mural that portrays him as an Unionist Icon because he was an Ulsterman fighting off an army of Irishmen. I always thought it was a shame we couldn't pivot all that mural stuff into an actual art movement as its probably the closest thing we have to a distinct modern Northern Irish art form and a good mural really does improve the general feeling of a place.

Anyway, heres that dumn Cuchulainn one I was talking about:

I bought a new print from the Foreign Languages Press, it took a while to get here but it was cheap and nicely made and when it comes to out of print theory thats all I can ask for.

There is a reason that Northern Ireland is the birthplace of the term "recreational rioting". "Prominent Members of the Community" (read: paramilitary drug dealers) start them and then the recreational rioters roll in no matter the reason for the riot in the first place. Loyalists start these riots for the same reason they march through nationalist neighbourhoods every year, intimidation. Like all settler cultures the Unionist (with a big U) is now completely detached from the origins that they base their culture on. Ignored by the British, who just see them as Irish anyway, they have adopted a siege mentality that requires periodic shows of force to stop themselves from becoming completely irrelevant. Racism is a fundamental part of the culture because without it they would have to admit that they are, after 400+ years of living here, identical to the Nationalist cultures they discriminate against.

Children are far more likely to be killed by rubber and plastic bullets because of their height. Of the 17 people killed by them in Northern Ireland 8 of them were children, plastic bullets alone seriously wounded 615 people from 1988-98 in NI.

Rubber and Plastic Bullets were invented by the British forces for use in Northern Ireland and killed 17 people, over half of whom were children, while seriously injuring over 615 people between 1988-98 including permanent blindness and loss of eyes.

If you post a paywalled article please post a archive link: https://archive.ph/jAKpa Lot of people doing this with SCMP in particular.

Remmick is a metaphor for assimilation, like the protagonists he is part of a diaspora from an culture obliterated by colonial rule. Unlike the protagonists the Irish and other white settlers were afforded the opportunity to assimilate into white America at the cost of their individual ethnic cultures. This emptiness is what leads to the fetishization and desire to appropriate other cultures which remain distinct due to not being afforded the same opportunity to assimilate. The movie explicitly mentions the Filí, a type of Irish bard that played an equivalent role to Sammie in using music to connect people to their shared cultural history. The reason Remmick is so focused on getting Sammie to join his literal hive mind is that he is so desperate to feel that shared culture and ancestral connection that he doesnt care that it isnt his culture or his ancestors.

Ironically, as an Irish person, the scene that I resonated with the most was Sammie's song. I thought it was the perfect visualisation of how folk music can allow a culture to survive and connect with their ancestral pasts even when they have been long forgotten. Irish trad music and contemporary music that evolves from it is one of the very few unbroken threads to our shared past remaining.

They will most likely be made to turn around like the last two ships before the one that was bombed.

https://archive.ph/PfCcg if anyone wants to actually read the article, also the University lecture in question for Chinese speakers: https://weibo.com/l/wblive/p/show/1022:2321325170885597462735 .

That font with the translation is really cool

I think this might be a miscalculation here. Dr Yueh is an extremely sympathetic character whose wife was being held hostage and helped Jessica and Paul escape while also providing Leto with the poison to potentially kill the Baron. If it was some yellow peril bullshit then why would they show Paul speaking mandarin too? Why use it to establish the protagonists close relationship with Dr Yueh. Dune has so many brainworms (I stopped halfway through God Emperor of Dune because of all the fucking Homosexual Suicidal Urges stuff that was clearly Herbert lashing out at his own gay son) but I do not think this is one of them.

Theres a set of (sadly unfinished) videos on youtube by a former SC Whale and community helper who actually went as far as providing like 40 grand of seed money at the very beginning that details Chris Roberts career, including the stuff he was doing for the years between wing commander and the SC Kickstarter and abunch of behind-the-scenes stuff that paints a pretty clear picture. Roberts was a guy who lucked out with wing commander at the right time and place but essentially bungled its further success by wanting to produce movies and trying to force that through wing commander 3. After that failed because he was actually quite bad at management and any sort of directing he failed at actually getting into directing and ending up also failing to run a car rental service in LA in the hopes that he would rent a car to a celebrity that would give him an in to direct again.

Then the SC kickstarter happened and blew up beyond his wildest dreams, and so CR very quickly went from flogging his last bit of goodwill and nostalgia for peanuts to suddenly being a multi-millionaire and, like most people suddenly incredibly wealthy, promptly realised he would much rather go off and spend his unearned money in a blissful rich man retirement and only occasionally pop in to fuck with developers and prevent the project from actually getting anywhere.

Just go and watch the SQ42 trailer they released last year with the first mission in it, it has the shitty hallmarks of Chris Roberts terrible directing all over it. Resulting in the most boring generic Sci-Fi slop you've ever seen.