DISCLAIMER: I did not hate the film. This is not intended to be a straight-up bash so much as an analysis of major differences between it and its predecessors. Also, obligatory pizza roll joke.

To me, the area of 60% to 69% on Rotten Tomatoes is a minefield. While most other segments of the Tomatometer give a good approximation of the quality of a film, there is something about the worst of the "fresh" films that seems to cause great upset. It's usually a pretty easy scale: 85% means you'll probably like it, 40% means it's a rental at best, 5% means it's Razzie material. However, once a film gets 60% of critics to like it, which even in Presidential elections is a highly coveted, almost impossible margin these days, it draws out legions of raging nerds who look upon said film like it puked on their mithril shoes. Starship Troopers sits at 62%, Heinlein fans everywhere still fume with anger to this day. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy squeaks in at 60%, Douglas Adams fans everywhere throw their towels in rage. The Phantom Menace held at 64% for a decade before critics got their shit together during the 3D re-release and pulled it safely into the fifties. Spider-Man 3, Godfather 3, Hulk, Signs, I am Legend, Dick Tracy, Quantum of Solace, Watchmen, same thing. Generally, the warning to take away from this is avoid the sixties. It's safer to disappoint fans with an unambiguous grade than to confuse and anger them with a lukewarm one.

The Hobbit currently sits at 65%. Right in the middle of the Dead Marshes.

Now as a fan of the Lord of the Rings movies, I'm pretty much obliged to figure out what went wrong. In fact, let's not be polite, I'll just up and say it: Phantom Menace flashbacks. A prequel trilogy, with many characters that appear to have no business in the movie, either because they were only fleetingly mentioned (Radagast the Brown, the Necromancer), weren't mentioned at all (Saruman, Galadriel), or would not even exist until 27 years after the events of the novel (Frodo, Frodo, and seriously, why is Frodo in this film?)

From the trailer I knew there was something wrong. Various thoughts going through my head included, "Gah! Those colors are way saturated! Wait, where's the dramatic choir from the other three films? Where're the dwarves? Behind those CGI puppets? Oh, okay, there's Gollum. I think we'll be alright." From the start, there was definitely a tonal shift that seemed like a sideswipe for anyone expecting a similar experience to the original movies. At least give the trailer credit: it portrayed the movie pretty accurately. Unfortunately.

So, no problem, after seeing a trailer for something that somehow looked toonier than Rankin/Bass's adaptation, and seeing the "fresh" reviews on the Tomatometer, I'd be prepared, right?

Nope. Have some derp characters. Earlier I mentioned Phantom Menace flashbacks, but leaving it there doesn't really do justice to the bullhorn of harsh memories Radagast the Brown recalled. Out of all the CGI goblins and trolls, he's this film's Jar Jar Binks. Wizards, immortal spirits become men in Middle Earth, paragons among the beings of Arda, who can move mountains with a command and whose physical and mental prowess far surpassed those of mortal men, how have a bumbling eccentric with birdshit streaming down the right side of his face, who mugs for the camera when spellcasting and rides a rabbit-drawn sleigh. There is a reason no one cried over Tom Bombadil's exclusion from Fellowship of the Ring; no one wanted him. He broke the tone of the novel, pulled the dragchute on the plot to the point where he seemed to actively try to prevent the story from progressing, and was never mentioned again afterwards. Like Bombadil, Radagast had little bearing if any in the novel, therefore has little purpose being incorporated into later films. Except since they played up that impending Necromancer battle, we'll probably be seeing a lot more of him.


No, probably coincidence.

The dwarves, or for more casual readers the main supporting characters in the novels, fare little better. While Thorin Oakenshield retains some dignity befitting a leader of a Middle-Earth race, the other twelve dwarves in the party aren't so lucky. While Gimli was the comic relief of the Fellowship in the film, at least he still carried the weight of a rich family history, strong motivation, and strong friendship, something which couldn't be reproduced with characters that were only described in the novels by their names and the color of their traveling clothes. Literally, save for Thorin, I cannot remember a single reason for any of the dwarves' involvement in The Hobbit, neither the novel nor the film. Bombur especially gets the ass-end in this parade of caricatures, becoming the token "fat guy." Also, it turns out Thorin Oakenshield got his name because of that one time he used an oak log as a shield. Because everyone knows cylindrical chunks of wood are best suited for shielding against blows.


If you look closely, you'll notice one of these is a cartoon.

Somehow, even more established characters in the LotR films seem to have been reduced to their lowest common denominators. Gandalf seems older and more doddering (nevermind he's supposed to be sixty to eighty years younger than in LotR), Saruman was reduced to a running gag where all the other characters tune him out when he starts rambling, and even Elrond seemed out of character, given Hugo Weaving's usually stoic and calculating roles.

Is there a such thing as too-good graphics? One of the major technological achievements of the movie is the format High Frame Rate, or projecting at 48 frames per second instead of the standard 24. While it does lend a certain clarity to the film, it does take away in the same way the omnipresent greenscreen took away in the Star Wars prequels. I loved LotR because of the even mix between practical effects and sets and its CGI. Much of it was shot on location in New Zealand, and what wasn't was recreated in miniatures and on ridiculously detailed sound stages. The lighting was naturalistic, people were dirty, and the cities were right there in the camera lens. Thankfully, The Hobbit doesn't go to Lucas levels of greenscreen, but this new clarity of picture does make me aware of every molded-resin stone, every strand of spirit-gummed hair, and the placement of every tungsten spotlight. A three-light setup of key, fill, and a rim of a different color temperature seem pretty popular these days.

This raises another issue in that, honestly, I have long since gotten sick and tired of hearing praise lavished on films for their special effects. While that may be a valid point, film producers have taken from it the message that special effects are a substitute for good direction and writing. Film series that got off the ground years back due to their memorable characters and stories now have sequels that bank on the assumption that they don't need to write the characters all over again, and that flashy imagery should suffice in its place. In a way, this is all our fault, again, going back to The Phantom Menace. As much as we proclaimed our disappointment, we still made it the highest-grossing Star Wars film and came back in droves for two sequels. The wallet speaks loudest.

How was the book? I actually immensely enjoyed reading The Hobbit, even more so than LotR. Maybe it's the fact that as a children's novel written in a laid-back vernacular, I wasn't exactly being intellectually challenged by it. I'll admit it, it took me ten years to finally read through that thousand-page phonebook of bizarre vaguely fantasy-like names, overall not too enjoyable for a guy who tends to prefer writing 140 characters at a time. Since the point of a high-fantasy novel is to provide an escapist experience, The Hobbit gains points for its accessibility to a general audience. This stands strongly against the detailed scenery descriptions and chapters of unnecessary filler between major action points in LotR, of which I am not a fan. This translated very well in the LotR films in that the need to compress the story to its major points somehow led to a clear plot with enough flavor in the background to make it rewatchable.

So, what was the film's target audience? One critic mentioned that The Hobbit was not going to win new converts with its sheer length, even more so that they're trying to expand a 300-page novel into ten hours as opposed to compressing a thousand-page series and its appendices into the same length. Therefore, one has to assume that the film was made mostly for existing fans of the last trilogy. Unfortunately, this particular franchise is a pretty bad place to do that because The Hobbit is a children's novel. The viewing audience for Peter Jackson's films has since aged about a decade, while the prequel represents a regression in appropriate viewing age.

This is a rare case in which the animated films have a leg-up on Peter Jackson in that they were made in a chronological order. It's pretty much the same effect with the novels, as they were written. I get the feeling Tolkien knew that he was mostly writing for fans of The Hobbit, the same children who read his novel in 1937. Since the audience has aged almost two decades by the time of release, the novels were written for an audience that was 20 years older. Such a series could never have been written backwards. For fans of the films, the same audience that enjoyed a mature, complex story with strong character development years earlier, grew up, and then were exposed to a cartoonish story and characters would feel their intelligence has been insulted.

Didn't you like anything, you whiny cynical manchild? I can't stress this enough, I didn't hate this film. I didn't even dislike it. Just like the other 60% "fresh" films mentioned above, there were qualities to this film that struck a chord with most critics and viewers, even fans from earlier in the franchise. To that effect, there were a few things the movie did well, even correcting a few of the book's failures. Andy Serkis nailed it as Gollum again, and he ended up being the only CGI character that made me feel legitimately sorry for him. I like that they added a little history to the Lonely Mountain, so there was some weight to the implications of Bilbo's journey that was lacking in the novel. While one may complain about that orc that looked like a winter salami who was stalking the party, he and his army did solve the problem of having talking animals in the film. I remember rolling my eyes at the talking wolves and eagles when reading the book, wondering how a writer famous for the complex political history of Middle Earth could stoop to something so childish and pandering. The salami-orc was a dull villain, but he solved it.

Are these enough to save the movie? That depends. Again, for most of us, it did. For me, I think it averaged out well enough, even if it didn't hold a candle to Jackson's other films. For you, that's a journey you'd have to take.

Also, did I mention Gollum? Seriously, he kicked ass.

OLD! Hadn't celebrated this in awhile, but no complaints about the whole twelve years of deviantART. I'm actually thrilled that it was able to last so long, let alone retain its influence in the art community. I've been a member for over eight of those years. I got my start as an artist there, through high school, college, and now my current job search and freelance efforts. No regrets.

Why the name change? Admittedly, it's a marketing gimmick. I registered on dA as a sophomore in high school. Two years later my website went live and I've been using that to "sell" my art to the world. I figure now that I'm not a student anymore, things should look more like they were made with business in mind. Fenris is still here, and he still pretends to be a red wolf when no one's looking, but he's taking things a little more seriously now.

Also, completely overhauling the website at the moment, so it doesn't look like it was designed four years ago.

tl;dr, meh. Why? Keep reading.

So, I watched that new Spider-Man movie last week, and before writing a review about it, I really had to sit down and weigh my options. It's been a couple years since posting a decent film review, and strong a response as this new movie gave me, it's not quite the level of Avatar.¹ Would I bring anything new to the table? Would my input be culturally significant? Is this a big enough film to be worth writing on? Then I realized that I'm posting analytical articles on deviantART kinda nullifying my point.

To be honest, Spider-Man is one of those comics that I grew up with. Not the main comic oddly enough, but I was a fan of the comic strip by King Features as a kid, and was introduced to the story proper through the Ultimate Marvel imprint in high school. Sam Raimi's trilogy was admittedly a guilty pleasure and very effectively set the mood of all the comic versions I've seen. Above all, they knew they were comic book movies, and pretty much thrived in that. I'll come back to this point later, but for now, know that a good twenty or so years of saturation in Spider-Man media had left me with a specific set of expectations. In short, my feelings about this film are indifference at best, nerdrage of "One More Day" proportions at worst.

Let's start with some things I liked about it.

The main focus of the movie was a more "realistic" version of the Spider-mythos. While I'll return to this to point out how this backfired, it did result in a few really likeable results.

For one, the high school itself was a huge breath of fresh air. It seemed like a normal, relatable high school similar to what I went to, as opposed to some Hollywood producer's nostalgia-glasses version of the fancy-pants public school he went to in Beverly Hills. While I do question this school's highly selective zero-tolerance policy,² they do counter with muted colors, kinda dark hallways, and holy shit, you actually see people in class, learning things! For once, a school without high school mascots skateboarding down inexplicably clean staircases!³ One possible risk, however, is that we'll get a lot more settings like this. Since Hollywood now realizes we've wised up to their obsession with teal and orange photography, they've gone to the other extreme as of late with muted neutrals. For awhile, this was pretty much shorthand to indicate you were watching a low-budget independent flick, so this comes off here as a $230 million interpretation of indie film. I'm not sure whether to feel insulted.

I also liked the development of Flash Thompson. He started out as an overt one-dimensional bully that clearly can't exist in any middle-to-upper-class urban high school, which pissed me off, but his heel-turn into a friend of Peter's actually worked pretty well in pace. And in the end it wasn't like they were the bestest of buddies forever and ever with sunshine and unicorn farts, they still kept a distance like you'd expect from different high school cliques.

Another thing I enjoyed was the crane scene towards the end. It's a personal preference, but I really like scenes showing ridiculous amounts of mass cooperation, especially to benefit a single hero. Stuff like the lighting of the beacons in Return of the King, or preparing Hogwarts for battle in Deathly Hallows Part 2, or even that climactic scene in the battle for Edge in the otherwise nigh-unwatchable Advent Children, where the cast works to launch Cloud onto-why have I not purged that memory yet?!

Which brings us finally to my main hang-ups with the movie, such as...

The Lizard's motivation(s) makes no sense.

I'll forgive the Lizard's look. Granted, it may have been a huge disappointment, in that what could've been a frightening anthropomorphic character with an air of creeping atavism ended up looking like Voldemort on steroids with a particularly nasty case of dry skin, but I'll forgive that. Hollywood isn't ready for furry characters, and I can accept that.

What baffles me however is that the Lizard/Connors can't keep his motivations straight. I understand Connors' idea of developing a serum to cure injuries and ailments, and using his missing arm as motivation. That's great, actually. Of course, it naturally follows that Connors would make the leap in logic from "I want to help those in need" to "I want to create a city of perfect super-dragons." Or wait, was Connors giving in to his bestial instincts, which apparently include sunning oneself, catching flies with your tongue, and committing genocide of a species with chemical weapons? Or wait, was the Lizard side of his mind using his wiles to tempt Connors as a voice in his head, a thread which lasts about ten minutes and is completely forgotten later?

At least with Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin, the split personality trope made sense. It was based on the personality of a humanoid, presumably intelligent creature, one that's more often than not associated with devious plotting, and above all, that isn't abandoned in favor of "Rawr! Lizard sometimes-intelligent-meanie-smash!" Look, fallen heroes with good intentions are fine, and so are good guys with uncontrollable dark sides, but they only work if you focus them.

Oh, also, that Uncle Ben thing and stuff.

Now, this could be waved off as a continuity error. After all, every imprint in the Marvel franchise will have their own interpretation of the iconic death of Uncle Ben. However, I submit to you that there's continuity errors, then there's objective failures in basic story telling equivalent to making Mickey Mouse ears part of the Spider-Man costume. This is the latter, and it makes by blood boil.

Let me explain: the whole point of killing off Uncle Ben was that it was supposed to set up a lesson for Peter, that one thing that would guide his principles for the rest of the franchise, or, the sole reason the franchise had been going for fifty years. That's actually something I think the first movie, as well as the main comic, and the Ultimate imprint handled very well. Long story short, Peter lets his newfound abilities get to his head, and lets a burglar go, saying it's not his job to meddle. We kinda forget about the affair for a while. Peter returns home to find his uncle had been shot, and goes after the murderer. He finds the guy, and is shocked to discover it was the burglar from before. Emotionally, that's a two-by-four to the temple, especially if it's the first time one has heard the story, That's because it had time build to this point, with the scale of a Greek tragedy, giving us a most effective lesson on the price of hubris and social responsibility.

Rushing the scene so all events happen nearly simultaneously, from Parker letting the burglar go to finding his uncle, completely sucked out any gravitas the death could've had, and it was probably the most easily avoidable mistake in the movie. I was left with the impression that the director just wanted to get what was only the most important event in the Spider-Man franchise out of the way so we could get back to the nonstop pulse-pounding action that was teen high school drama.

Those damn web shooters!

Not the mechanics or anything. In fact, that's probably what I enjoy most about superhero movies: accepting that such a world has achieved scientific feats far outstripping our own. What I'm more concerned about is why Parker had them in the first place, at least the biocable part.

In this movie, Oscorp invents the main active component in Peter's web shooters: literal genetically-engineered spider silk. When we first see it, it's still in R&D, the extent of their production being a single room with a few closely-monitored spiders. There's a blurb on the company website about how this emerging technology will change the face of construction and transportation. And they have no problem mail-ordering that to Peter. What?

Okay, let's assume that by the time Parker gets a hold of it, biocable's already available to the public. How is he able to afford that? You'd think something that can move a Boeing would cost a little more than what most credit cards can handle. Assuming for some reason biocable was priced so that the consumer public could afford it, wouldn't most everyone have those little capsules? And if so, why hasn't New York's infrastructure experienced an incredible change? The public now has their hands on a compound that renders several forms of construction, transportation, and medical equipment obsolete.

So, let's assume that it's not quite ready for public consumption, but Parker managed to bullshit his way into getting a boxful of biocable. He just asked Oscorp to send him the signature component of his web shooters, to his home address. Every single person at Oscorp, a company that employs two of his most dangerous nemeses, now knows who Spider-Man is.

I know what you're thinking: "But Fenris! It's a comic book movie! It's not supposed to be logical!" Which I'd accept if the movie behaved like it was based off a comic. However, if a movie is going to attempt to pass itself off as character-driven and realistic, then it's not my job to justify its logic. It's the director's. Earn my ticket.

So?

This went on a little longer than I expected. Whatever, don't take this to mean that I hated the film, I really didn't. And while there were some qualities to it that I enjoyed, the above points just distracted me too much to really suck me in for long. My recommendation is that if you liked it, you probably did for good reason. If you haven't seen it, I'd say catch a matinee at the most.

<sub>WARNING: The above review contained spoilers. If you haven't seen the film yet and plan on doing so, you shouldn't have read this review.

1 Just an update, I've kinda softened up to Avatar to the point of not foaming-at-the-mouth hating it, but my opinions on it still stand.
2 I mean, really? You get a free pass for beating classmates, but community service for humiliating others with mad basketball skills?
3 Yea, the Squeakquel. That movie...hurt me.</sub>

Previously on ActFur On Air...

"You'll never get away with this! I'll never reveal the recipe to bacon salt!" "Oh mein freund, I haff vays of making you tok!" "...is that a penguin?"

"Overblown defamation of character!" "Sudden unrelated revelation!" *stomp stomp stomp SLAM!* "Stunned silence."

"Okay, no problem. Just look for strands of blue and yellow fur, and fix whatever they're attached to. That'll shut down the nuclear reactor."

"Kell Bengal? Is that really you? After all these years?!" "BEEP BOOP BEEP BOOP. I AM THE TIGER YOU SPEAK OF." "It IS you!"

"In all my years, I've never seen a staircase claim so many dragons." "Won't somebody think of the children?!" *SLAP*

[SCENE EDITED BY STANDARDS AND PRACTICES]

"The tests are back, and...Mushi is the father." "Gasp!"

And now, Season 4 of ActFur On Air.

Yes, it's back! And this season comes with a new website and two new resident segments! Tune in!

There comes a time in one's adult life where you may find yourself in an unexpected position. That happened to me recently, at the end of 2011. I don't know how it happened, but I'm quite sure a religiously hedonistic lifestyle coupled with alcohol, caffeine, and what I hope was jarred preserves calculated into it. Alas, such is the life of an Internet personality, and I spent close to two weeks in Hawaii because of it. Should you find yourself in my unfortunate position, this guide may help you.*

Read all about it here!

* DISCLAIMER: Fenris Designs and its staff do not encourage the use of any advice given herein. In fact, we discourage advice in general, just to stay on the safe side.

So, now that I've gone through that whole Master's Degree thing, the next step would be putting all that work to good use. I'm looking for work at the moment, preferably as along the lines of designing for an ad agency or a marketing firm. Illustration is also on the table, very much along the lines of the stuff in my gallery. Graphics, logos, layouts, comics, websites, not too incredibly picky at the moment.

If you or someone you know might need a helping hand, send a note or an email. If need be, feel free to show off my portfolio if it'll help.

Even if you don't need someone fulltime, I do take illustration commissions. Details available on my profile at Fur Affinity.

So, apart from the usual silence, there's been an unusually high amount of activity this week.

Birthday: I'm 24 now as of December 13th. Kinda a rainy day, so I celebrated with an okay movie.

Graduation: I attended a graduation ceremony this afternoon, receiving my MA in graphic design. That also explains where the heck I've been the past few months (though not the past couple years.) For my master's project, I basically wrote a 100-page book detailing a fictional advertising campaign. Once the library gets the thing printed, I'll most likely post a few samples.

My take on the ceremony itself? Well, pretty much the same as the last: wearing a silly-looking hat, pretending you're important, and motivational speakers that think they're even more important.

Twitter: Broke 1,000 tweets today by riffing on the aforementioned ceremony. Why's that important? Because I like to report things in threes.

I've been kinda holding the news for a month and a half, just to be sure that there were no major issues. Thankfully there aren't, so yea, happy to say I retired the old computer and got a new one. When my old Celeron of five years decided it didn't want to interact with my printer anymore, I figured it was time to switch it out for a a slightly more competent Pavilion Elite. As I have yet to run into a major crap-up, I'd say this computer has well and truly met my low expectations.

Well, except for one particularly odd occurrence. Shortly after unboxing, it proceeded to seek out 97-pound weaklings and, well...



On an unrelated note, a family of raccoons decided the middle of September was a great time to move into my attic again and hold what I assume are rave parties at 3 in the morning. An exterminator managed to extract a four-month-old from inside the walls before it could die and stink up the house for probably the third time since Hurricane Ike.



Collective aww's aside, that little pipsqueak was ungodly annoying. Loud, smelly, and prone to falling into walls and becoming even louder and smellier (one, then the other.) There's now a trap set up outside to catch whatever adults may still lurk. Maybe I should send my new computer after it.



Update 9-13-11: A second raccoon has been caught. Aggressive one, too.


"When I get outa here, you're gonna eat that camera!"

So, when I first heard the news, I was like, "Derp?"

Then I was like, "Omigawdomigawdomigawd!" Much flailing ensued.

Then I grabbed a Sharpie and some Bristol board, wrote down the news, and dashed into the streets while screaming it at the top of my lungs. Reception was weak at first, but it slowly built momentum, onlookers got excited, and soon we had a citywide, statewide, nationwide phenomenon. This got some of the greatest academic minds thinking, political leaders and captains of industry collaborated, and soon we had cured most of the world's ills. No disease, no war, no famine, no Justin Bieber. And all was bliss.

Then I woke up and found myself clinging to a telephone pole, covered in what I hope was orange marmalade. The crowd below me was casting understandably odd looks.

Nonetheless, the news is still incredible: Actfur On Air is back! And with this season comes a shiny new website, a new game, and your favorite old segments and silliness.

Check it here!

Some week in mid-July, 2006

Cable Router
Coffee Machine
Thermostat
Pool vacuum
Light fixture on entrance

All in one week. Is there some summer-related curse or something?

The week of August 13-20, 2006:

Car tire
Car ignition
Water pipe in roof
Ringworm infection

The week of December 21-28, 2006:

Shower head
Shower plumbing
Cordless phone
Explosive diarrhea
Joe Barbera, Gerald Ford, and James Brown (coincidence?)
Power sander

The week of November 22-29, 2009:

Hard disk drive
CPU fan
Car power window
Car oxygen sensor
Car automatic transmission

The week of January 19-26, 2011 (give or take a couple weeks)

Wacom
Camcorder
Car turn signals
Ass-busting cold
Light fixture
Fuse box

After some four or five years and plenty of consideration, I think I'll step away from promoting libertarians or their respective party. Why?

1: The slow realization that yes, most of them are the non-moderate stereotypes you see on TV.
2: Unwillingness to side with those who so openly associate with closet confederates like Ron Paul, blatant Neo-Confederates like Lew Rockwell, and anti-Semites like Alex Jones.
3: Getting sick and tired of having to explain that yes, I like roads, schools, and running water.

Meaning right now I'm...something. I'll figure it out later. Back to my cage.

If you typed "fenrisdesigns.com" into your address bar and ended up here, don't panic, it's temporary.  My normal webhost went down, and I'm now looking for a new host for my site. Shouldn't take more than a few days.

UPDATE: Got the site back up. Special thanks to Furry Networks for the space. As a special bonus, they're handling my domain name to a degree.

For international readers, another election has come and gone. That means that while we have a new majority party in the House, there's no party change in the Senate.  No surprise, even though we change out our House every two years, only a third of the Senate is up for grabs at a time. Since it's been awhile since we've had two different majority parties in either half of Congress, things are apt to get a little interesting, if not stagnant.

For readers in the US, I sympathize if you think the media coverage is a splinter in the testicles. One one side, conspiracy-sandwich Alex Jones is gushing on Russia Today that the results are the onset of some "second American Revolution," while on the other side we've got the slow realization that the endorsement of several Tea Party candidates severely undermined the Republican Party's chances of a more significant majority. However, I've gleaned what may be a more significant message than the oft-touted Tea Party movement's power over Congress.

I'll just up and say it: The Tea Party movement has no genuine interest in bringing change to Washington.

The election results reveal what can only be described as more of the same. No independents exist in the House of Representatives, no independents were elected to the Senate this year, and we have one independent as governor of Rhode Island now, and ex-Republican Lincoln Chafee's record can be considered distinctly un-Tea Party-like.

A number of Tea Party-endorsed candidates, such as Congressman Ron Paul, Texas Governor Rick Perry, and likely future Speaker of the House John Boehner, are essentially just reinforcements of the status quo, in that they've been in the job for years and used the revolutionary uproar as a facade, the appearance of fighting a perceived establishment, for an otherwise conventional re-election. The two Tea Party-endorsed non-Republicans to my memory, Kesha Rogers and Tom Tancredo, failed at the election miserably. In Colorado gubernatorial candidate Tancredo's case, the Denver Post reports that state Tea Parties felt betrayed by Tancredo's decision to switch from the Republican Party to the Constitution Party.

The overwhelming support for Republicans in the Tea Party movement also suggests a lack of conviction to the ideal of "limited government," on the basis that at no point since the Hoover years has a Republican President or a Republican Congress actually followed through on that promise. Why should I trust them now?

But FENRIS! Whatabout that Ron Paul guy libertarians seem to be worshipping these days? I'm one of the few who thinks he is and has always been bad news for anyone who takes limited government seriously.  What is marketed as voting against what he believes to be unconstitutional is often just shifting the balance of power to the states. For example, any attempt to legalize gay marriage would be voted down prima facie because it would supersede a state legislature's rights to decide on the matter.  In other words, Ron Paul would rather support decentralized anti-libertarianism over the legalization of liberties. This isn't a hypothetical slippery slope, either, Paul voted for at least three bills in his tenure that would have barred same-sex unions from a fair hearing at a federal level, thus undermining libertarian interests at a local level. That's not libertarian, that's confederate. Further, there is the lingering issue of Paul's under-the-table handouts for the recent stimulus package to the tune of $81 million for his district. In all fairness, libertarians in Congress would probably betray their principles, too. The moment a politician tastes blood, he's long gone.

Overall: It's not all bad. The shift of power in only one house does wonders at balancing power in the federal government. A Democratic executive branch, Democratic House, and Democratic Senate are most likely the reason we had a backlash in the first place. There's two directions we can take now over the next two years: one of the two opposing Houses will refuse to compromise on any major bill and leave us in a perpetual gridlock, or we can get watered-down, but still bipartisan laws that will likely offend everyone. But in the end, it's more of the same.

_{NOTE: To avoid linking directly to hate sites, some links in this entry are filtered through Google cache.}

Not too long ago, I wrote  at length about my local Tea Party and their not-so-subtle advertising of Holocaust denier and overall anti-Semitic cult leader Lyndon LaRouche.  Yes, the cult's still active in the neighborhood, and yes, if you meet me on the street, you can swat me with a newspaper for being so one-note as of late. Limit one swat per applicant, please.

Anyway, I looked back at one of my earlier pages on my website and something caught my eye:


_{Name redacted to protect until I don't feel like protecting anymore.}

You see, back in not-quite-Houston in 2009, the meme was to treat Congress like an manager would treat a bad employee, by holding the threat of sacking over their heads.  Not surprising, we nutpopsicle libertarians have been trying to do that since the 70s, and I was still in idealist mode.

The text at the bottom of the "pink slip" gave us the website for the Kick Them All Out Project. The event also booked speaker Alex Wallenwein, an organizer for the KTAO.

Moron as I was, I didn't check the project's site until well over a year later.  What did I find?

Well, for one, the writer makes no secret that it's a conspiracy theory website. How far into conspiracy theory does it go?

In over 100 instances, the site used Jeff Rense as a source.  Rense is a Holocaust denier with a long history of antisemitism.

David Irving is a "celebrated historian."  One of the highest-profile Holocaust Deniers today.

98 references to the American Free Press. The AFP was founded by Holocaust denier Willis Carto, and shares mailing addresses with the Barnes Review, a publication that specializes in Holocaust denial.  The Barnes Review was also founded by Carto.

One cartoon by David Dees. Dees is a Holocaust denier.

Texe Marrs is used as a source.  Marrs sells the Protocols of the Elders of Zion on his website and has contributed to the Barnes Review.

At this point, you're probably assuming I'm picking on some universally creepy fringe group. As I stated before, Tea Parties book them as speakers and they are generally considered a Tea Party organization.  This reinforces my thesis that while Tea Parties are not intrinsically anti-Semitic, their complacency with such extremists makes them no safe place for Jews. Real shame it's only now that we're catching on.

In respect to my coverage of them last year, I completely regret that I suggested I had any support for the movement in the first place.

You may remember last year on July 4th that I found and reported on a tea party.  At the time I made it quite clear how while I found many speakers' claims to be inaccurate, I thought it had good fundamentals.  I was even nice enough to defend against claims of extremism and astroturfing. Hey, if it paves the way for a rational libertarian revival, I guess we could rip down the falsehoods presented in the protests later, right?

Jump ahead one year: Do I feel the same? Where do I stand now on these guys? Last September, I noticed that the same local tea party was advertising for anti-Semitic cult leader (and ironically, ex-Marxist) Lyndon LaRouche on their website.  I emailed an administrator about it, and the mistake was almost immediately acknowledged and rectified.  So, we're good, right?

When April 15th came around, we had another rally.  At that time, I already pretty much abandoned my July 4th idealism, but I was still curious.  Again, I sniffed around their website and found some videos of congressional "job interviews." One of the most popular applicants, with a whopping 87% approval rating among Democrats in a local Tea Party-sponsored straw poll was apparently Kesha Rogers.

Instantly, a red flag came up, if not to join all the other red flags that have been rising in me since September. Why?  Rogers was not only running as a Tea Party Democrat, but she was running on the LaRouche platform.  Among her beliefs were such nuggets as Obama being a British puppet, the British secretly controlling all the banks, going to war with the "British Empire," did I mention she's quite the Anglophile?  Among her campaigning activities was protesting with an Obama-with-a-Hitler-moustache sign, as is customary in LaRouchian protests.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to attend the rally today, but I was able to catch a glimpse at the April 15th protest.  To no one's surprise, there was a cadre of LaRouchies in the center, campaigning for Rogers. Not a peep from any of the other Partiers.

How did we get to this? This isn't a rhetorical question; I want to know how we transitioned from propagating decidedly un-libertarian conservatism to turning a blind eye to anti-Semitism to all but promoting anti-Semitism. It gets juicier: searching through the site again today, I found a "Links" page, with shout-outs to Drudge Report, a news aggregator that links to anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, Reuters, which once again got caught doctoring photos to give them an anti-Israel bias, Glenn Beck, with his connections to the conspiracy-mongering John Birch Society, and Andrew Breitbart, with his connections to the John Birch Society. The Birchers are worth mentioning in this situation because of their roots with Holocaust deniers.

Could a Tea Party ever conceivably be a conduit for libertarianism? Earlier I mentioned that last July, I was ready to forgive the various superstitions in the movement such as Federal Reserve mythology and Birtherism in favor of its fundamentals. In retrospect, I now realize that not only is using dishonesty as a facade for a noble cause is a cruel form of bait-and-switch, but I doubt that any fair-minded Tea Partier would bend for my brand of libertarianism, which some of you know well enough is in the tradition of James Randi or God forbid, Ayn Rand: loudly reverent of established science, focused on civil liberties, and not exactly Christian. The only self-professed libertarians I personally have ever spotted at a rally were strawman followers of Ron Paul, whose magnetism for conspiracy theorists and social conservatives quite honestly creeps the hell out of me.

(Ed. I have long since abandoned libertarianism.)

Once again, one year later: All over again, that is why I gave up on Tea Parties.  At this point, they cannot be helped, I can't be supportive, and the past year suggests there is no incentive for change. Maybe I'm just growing up, or maybe I'm just horribly wrong and things will change for the better.

Either way everything goes, I'll keep sniffing around and looking for a more appropriate outlet. Whether or not you agree, I hope you have a decent Independence Day.

I was going to write a long story about madcap misadventures at Reliant Stadium a couple weeks ago, but I got too much into the zen of not having to do anything. Ah well.

Anyway, I've graduated from the University of Houston, cum laude, and now have a BFA in graphic design.  Next step is an MA; I start this summer.

Here's a photo from the event.



The camera caught me kinda off-guard. My bad.

On April 7, I got a familiar piece of work into my campus's BFA exhibition.  From the outside, the reception looked innocent enough.



Inside, some of the best fine arts students had their work featured in the campus gallery, myself included.  





See that pedestal proudly positioned in the center of the room?



The very same steampunk goggles that received 99,000 views on deviantART and 60,000 views on Fenris Designs has received 3rd place juror's choice.

First and second place were also great pieces, first being an experimental limestone carving and second being a photographic series of the homeless in Galveston:




Promotional shot for the goggles:



Promotional shot for the Fenris:



Yes, I really look like that.

I made it into a local exhibition.  Pictures forthcoming.

This is Fenris's mother.  Since Fenris has been posting pretty objectionable material on his website as of late, I will be taking the wheel for the time being.  After all, I have certainly not raised my son to badmouth individuals he's never met, such as denying Finland's existence. Once he's matured to the point where he can handle a graphic design business, I might give him back his passwords.

CLICK HERE to see the new face of Fenris Designs today!