Issue : People : Putin On The Ritz

Russia, or, the Russian Federation, is a country in northern Eurasia. Russia shares borders with Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, and North Korea. Its flag is made up of three solid bars. White, blue and red.

Russia recently had a parliamentary election that didn't go very well. The United Russia party, led by Vladimir Putin, received nearly 50% of the vote in the election. The people that voted got it in their mind that the elections were rigged.

And in what is becoming a common occurrence these days, the people have taken to the streets.  Although  no one thought that Russia would do anything about vote rigging if they found out, because everyone, not just Russians, are scared of Vladimir Putin. But now they want Vladimir Putin gone, they are tired of his shit.

So they are out there in the streets with the signs that say "Putin must go!" They are placing themselves in front of doorways only to have storm troopers via sci-fi channel yank them away or pepper spray them in the face while they stare defiantly into the nozzle. I don't want to sound so bummed about the whole thing, as this is the first modern superpower, diminished for sure, but still, to have their top dog caught red handed and get called for dismissal.

It just feels like the movement is popping off in an easy mode way. Vote rigging? Really? Have they not been watching the regimes falling like dominoes all around them? Why would you do that, and get caught? Wasn't Putin in the KGB?

The only benefit of the doubt I can see is that it is Russia. They have been bullying their citizens so long perhaps they started to believe that it can't and won't happen to them. They were above it. Not a smart line of thinking to fall into.

And plus this whole civil rights movement that has gripped our country's national consciousness is a repeat. Black people are now Arabs, Vietnam is now the middle east, homosexuals are now immigrants (unless they want to join the military or get married, then they are homosexuals again), hippies are now hipsters (were we even trying with this one?), communists are now socialists, and Government is still Government, but now corporations are also government.

We could have got it all done in the last cycle, seeing as how every thirty years the same types pop up. Beatnicks--> Mods--> Hippies--> Hipsters -->Goth--> New Wave--> Baggy jeans---> Skinny jeans etc..

The whole thing is sad, sad that we are still talking and fighting to give the same basic rights and fairness to every human being, only one group at a time, and after a lot of bloodshed. Oh well, at least it gives this generation something to do that doesn't involve 1/3 getting slaughtered on the battlefield, well, yet.

Issue: Games: Pajama Hero Nemo

Little Nemo: The Dream Master (known as "Pajama Hero Nemo" in Japan) is a Capcom produced 2D platform game, released on the NES in 1990.  It's is based on the Japanese anime, Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland, which is based on the comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland by Winsor McCay. The game's music was composed by Junko Tamiya, credited in the game as "Gonzou".

The game has you controlling a sleeping child named Nemo who is tasked with travelling to nightmare land to rescue Morpheous, the King of slumberland, from the Nightmare King. The game was innovative in that you not only traveled side to side but up and down, complimenting the whimsical level art and music. In your travels with Nemo you meet animals that allow him to use their powers if fed candy.

These powers are necessary for progression because while the game is whimsical the challenge level is not. Little Nemo: The Dream Master exists in the Battletoad family of games of that era that did not care if little kids did not beat it. The game was painted funny, but it wasn't laughing. I had to beat the game because I had no choice. I had purchased it in the dry spell between holidays and knew it was the only game I would be seeing for a long time. But I would not trade anything for the sense of accomplishment I felt at seeing final screen say "The End," and then thank me for playing.

Giant Bomb just debut a new Indie title called PID that so far looks to be a distant relative to Nemo's adventures. Its good to see that some are still carrying the torch for both 2D platformers and adventure titles. 

Issue: People: Another Earth

Another Earth is a science fiction movie. In it a high school student causes a car accident while driving drunk after a celebration party for  getting accepted into college, killing every member of a family in the other car with the exception of the father. She gets a four year bid in prison for the accident, and works as a school janitor after she gets out, instead of going to college.

During the time all of this is happening a planet appears in the night sky and slowly begins to move closer to earth. When it gets close enough to see, people realize that the planet looks just like earth. People start buggin, some people believing that the planet is an earth from another dimension, and on the planet there are duplicate versions of everyone, except the people on that version made different choices, which resulted in a slightly different version of them, or dead versions of them. Nobody really agreed on what was going on, but they all agreed it's some scary shit.

The janitor girl never really recovered from the accident, and got it in her mind to apologize to the father. She shows up at his door one day, but when he answers the door she looses heart, and makes up a lie about being the cleaning lady. He fell into the bottle over the accident, and agrees to her offer to clean up, as his house became a trash can.

Meanwhile people have gotten together and started a mission that intends to land a spaceship on the planet. A lottery is enacted to find passengers for the ship, and the janitor girl wins one. She began to worry that the her of that earth would be ashamed of her, and worried if she would even be there.

Scientists recently discovered a planet with conditions matching ours. It's a big blue ball in the sweet spot around a sun. About 290 days in its year, rain, mountains, good parking. Nobody knows if there is life on it or not, although all signs point to something like us living there. It's a lot of solar systems away so science types say don't get all Buck Rogers just yet. But it's hard not to get excited about something like this. I hope they don't have nukes.

Issue: People: Book Stores

A long time ago I was a kid that lived to read books. Any book, it didn't really matter. I would go to the school library at lunch to read, I would go to the public library up the street to read, or I would ride my bike about four blocks up to the bookstore in the strip mall lot next to Cal Worthingtons. That kind of stuff.

The people at the bookstore called me "Sweet tooth" because the first thing I would do when I walked in was grab a handful of complimentary candy the owner provided in a glass jar on the checkout counter. He would say stuff like, "Hey sweet tooth, where are you going today?" I would smile and say something like, Space, or, World War Three, before going about my business of the day.

He was asking which section I would set up base camp in. I would choose the Sci Fi or Fantasy aisle mostly, I would walk up the isle pulling the books I had been chipping at previously, then I would sit down Indian style on the floor to read with the shelf at my back and the pile of candy in my lap.

I tried to stay out of peoples way, sometimes people would ask me what I was reading or what I thought they should read. My mom said I wasn't allowed to talk to people I didn't know while I was out, so I would just smile and grab something off the shelf and hand it to them. I never bought a book from the store, couldn't afford anything.

After book sales the owner would have a cardboard box full of books that didn't sell, but he though I might enjoy, waiting for me when I came in. I would stuff my book bag full of as many as I could carry home and hide them in my room. My mom didn't like me taking things from people for free.

I read that nowadays bookstore customers will type the name of books they see inside the book store into their smartphones, then go home and buy them online because it is cheaper. Last time I went to a bookstore there was barely anything in there, they were going out of business. Just rows and rows of empty shelf's. I only went in because they were selling everything for .25 cents a pop, I cleaned up, walked out with a cardboard box full of books. 

Issue: Games: Batman Begins

Batman: Arkham Asylum is a 2009 action-adventure video game based on the DC comics character of the same name, developed by Rocksteady Studios and published by Eidos/Warner Brothers Interactive. It was written by veteran Batman writer Paul Dini, with many themes stemming from the Batman graphic novel Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth. Reception for the game ranged from "This game is the second coming of bat-Christ," to, "This almost makes up for every batman game before it."

X-Men Orgins: Wolverine is a 2009 action adventure game developed for multiple consoles by Raven Software, Amaze Entertainment, and Griptone Games, and released parallel to the film on May 1, 2009. The story is based on the film of the same name, and an original plot created by Raven Software. Reception for the game ranged from "Well, I like the violence," to, "This is hot garbage, and an affront to both Wolverine and Wakanda."

A while ago DC comics re-booted their entire superhero line. Every hero, every background. I have been avoiding reading them, I am scared to read them. I have only finished adjusting to a black Nick Fury and a Puerto-black spider man.

I used to read the series "What if?" because I enjoyed exploring the idea of comic events panning out different, but I don't like the idea of having to accept a bunch of whole new realities. What becomes of a reality then, even a fake one?

Why are they turning all the white superheroes black? Why not just make black superheroes? I feel like that is more racist in type than when I thought it, but its on the page now. But these guys have been at it a long time and know what they are doing, I'll hit the reboots up sooner or later, actually now I am kind of excited if only because I don't know how they went about changing them yet.

The Protoculture Mixtape v.9

Issue: People: Supreme Lameness

A Reddit HHH sent out a kite:

"One of my really good friends, Ira, just lost his father to cancer. He's been struggling a lot with it. Trying to think of ways to show him some support so here goes. He maintains a hiphop blog with some good stuff on it... if you guys could check out his site you would be doing a lot more than just listening to hiphop. RESPECT.

http://supremelameness.blogspot.com/"

Hold your head up Ira, btw, the site bumps vicious. Where the hell did you find this Chrono trigger flip? Dayum.