Pleb Comm issue three by Dylan Harper

April 2nd, 2014

The Pleb Commiserator ! ! ! ! ! ! !

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Table of Contents 5 - Anarchism and Why Socialism Is Necessary If We’re Ever Going To Smash The State (Jake Hook)

15 - Rethinking Volunteerism (Dylan Harper)

19 - If it’s Broke, Fix it (Cody Pasby)

27 - A Review of the Grand Budapest Hotel (Cody Pasby)

31 - TitanFall Review (Mike Munoz)

42 - The Fosters Review (Vanessa Bellew)

50 - The Role of Women in True Detective (Ashleigh Becker)

59 - Grading Bud Selig (Cody Pasby)

70 - MLB 2014 Predictions (Cody Pasby)

72 - Derrick Ward calls out Everyone (Dylan Harper)

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#BestTweet

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Revenge List There’s no other way to put it, Stephen Colbert is fucking up, and not for the first time. The statistic night show host has routinely treaded on thin ice regarding race and used the trans community as a punching bag. He seemed to hit a tipping point with an extremely racist Tweet aimed at the Asian community. Even more embarrassing than his non-apology (where he compared himself to Jonathan Swift; keep dreaming), are his liberal fans who continue to defend him with arguments that are usually scene on libertarian Twitter feeds.

The arts and crafts chain Hobby Lobby is demanding the right to discriminate against women regarding healthcare. The particular birth control they wish to be exempt from providing was on their list of provided healthcare before Obamacare. The political nature of the mandate is apparently more influential than God.

Josh Zepps is probably the most embarrassing thing to happen to HuffPo since someone let James Franco do a review of HBO’s Girls. Zepps interview with activist Suey Park was so vitriolic and condescending it’s a miracle that Fox News hasn’t swooped him up. He seems to be under the impression that being a white man doesn’t preclude him from talking over people of color. Ironically, he’s the exact reason white people need to keep their mouths on racial issues. 4

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Anarchism and Why Socialism Is Necessary If We’re Ever Going To Smash The State  Jake Hook

! The libertarian voice is making itself heard in American politics these days. With Ron and Rand Paul making waves in various circles, Bitcoin going vogue, and disparate cries from the fringe to end the fed and the rhetoric of Small Government and States Rights never going unnoticed, for those who are fed up with both the conservative and progressive agendas, libertarianism might seem like an attractive ideology. They seem to be on the right track when they call for limited government (at least in some aspects), but where it turns a lot of people off is to what very specific sphere they limit their government to. This sphere does not allow the government of their dreams to meddle in the affairs of capitalist economics in any capacity, leaving the door open for monopolies, unchecked environmental degradation, and innumerable atrocities straight out of the Gilded Age. It does not allow the government to interrupt the affairs of people unless it violates their narrow interpretation of the Non-Aggression Principle, which means whites can discriminate against people of color, cis-straight men can discriminate 5

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against women and LGBTQIA people however they see fit, and basically any other kind of discrimination aimed towards the disenfranchised by the culturally dominant group. A smaller group within this Randian movement is known as Anarcho-Capitalists. These people don’t just believe that government should be extremely limited, they believe it should be abolished altogether. They do, however, want to keep the capitalist economic system in place. I will discuss both of these groups, but first, let’s take a look at the movement which Anarcho-Capitalism claims to spring from. Anarchy. It’s a word that most Americans associate with those ratty looking youths with skateboards that hang out downtown, or if they have a cursory knowledge of global politics circa the turn of the last century, they associate it with a haphazard group of sometimes-successful assassins of kings and presidents. But never, it seems, is it associated with a legitimate political ideology with strong ties to socialism and communism. In truth, anarchism is the belief that hierarchy in any form is illegitimate. Thus both the state and capitalism are authorities which usurp the autonomy each of us have over ourselves. It is the belief of the anarchists that in a society where individuals aren’t conditioned from birth to simply accept authority and to be 6

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cruel to their fellows for the sake of personal gain, authority simply isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t necessary. Issues like racism, misogyny, homophobia, poverty, pollution, and most crime (since private property would not exist, there would be no laws regarding it).Think itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s an unrealistic utopian ideal? Take a look at some historical anarchist societies. The Paris Commune, 1870. The Free Territory of Ukraine, 1918. The Spanish Revolution, 1936. All of these societies operating successfully, with resource allocation according to need rather than accumulation of wealth resulting in exponential economic growth and a huge leap in the standards of living in those places. However, all were defeated, either by needless infighting among the anarchists and their supposed allies among the Marxists, or by a superior authoritarian military force. I may touch on the finer points of anarchism at a later time, but for the time being my focus will be on separating the anarchist from the libertarian and the so-called anarcho-capitalist.

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I will explain why capitalism is inherently hierarchical, and therefore harmful and unnecessary, in the next section, but in this section I will explain why even the Libertarian form of limited government is unacceptable to the true progressive or socialist. Is it any surprise that Ron Paul was discovered to have ties with white nationalist and white supremacist groups? As a wealthy white man with considerable political power, he’s very much a member of the establishment and intends to keep the control that the establishment has over us in place – the methods he uses to secure more political power for himself through the advocacy of libertarian politics is irrelevant. His ties to Stormfront just go to show that his ilk are not to be trusted. His cries for states’ rights always seem like a neo-Confederate rallying cry anyway. His pleas for small government and deregulated capitalism are not for the benefit of the common person, but for a select group of elite individuals of which he hopes to be a member, should he succeed. It’s not a limiting of government power in the general sense, but a limiting so as to benefit such people as him to the exclusion of a greater many than there are under the current system. Any form of government is violence against the individual, as it strips them of their autonomy and freedom to govern their own affairs, but 8

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Paul’s and the libertarian form of government is particularly nefarious for a number of reasons. Freedom of speech, for example, is a right oftchampioned by the libertarian, but, characteristically, it seems most often invoked to justify the use of slurs and offensive language towards one’s perceived socio-cultural inferiors. Frankly, anarchists aren’t buying it. Let alone the fact that we don’t buy the notion of a “right,” because it implies that there is some entity that decides what is right for me personally to think, do, say, or have, as well as that all people everywhere have the exact same needs, wants, and resources to make use of such rights. But absolute freedom of speech in particular is showing itself to be quite contrary to those who wish for justice among people. The use of slurs to disenfranchise and dehumanize people, usually of a lesser degree of social autonomy, is violence, and should not be protected by those who seek to promote liberty. The use of such language violates the non-aggression principle, as it tears down the target and effectively silences them, infringing on their freedom of speech. The bourgeois notion of freedom of speech was to protect the very specific speech of a select group of people, but was general enough that it seemed like a concession.

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Libertarians also assert the right for capitalist businesses to act in any way they want to. They contend that the Invisible Hand of the Market will protect people from injustice. I will touch on this more in the next section, but suffice to say, was it not government intervention which guaranteed corporate personhood? Is it not the government that bails out corporations it deems necessary to the sustenance of the economy, as if they were vital organs to the status quo rather than entities subject to the will of the citizen? Government intervention is a necessary force in capitalist economics – at no point in American history was there unfettered capitalism, as the government has always had to protect the rights of those entities which made it the most money and to ensure that a balance was kept. By ensuring that they have the freedom to oppress groups they find unsavory, and to make a profit on the backs of those who do not have the means, libertarians seek to become harsher agents of oppression than any we’ve seen in America so far. Anarchists reject their notion of inherent rights, and contend that any government is an agent of oppression. Unless it is nonexistent, any “small” government is too big for advocates of freedom and equality.

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Anarcho-Capitalists There are some who would agree with me up to this point, but say that the government is the only problem, and that capitalism is what will set the human race free. This is absolute nonsense. Even capitalists agree that you need government if you’re going to have capitalism – the government is the only thing that’s keeping the notion of private property from falling apart, and thus destroying the basis for capitalist control. Without that authority, either the workers would rise up and implement socialism, or the establishment’s worst fears about anarchism might come true and feudal warlords would simply compete over resources. The anarcho-capitalist might not be convinced, so let me explain why capitalism is inherently hierarchical and therefore incompatible with the anarchist ideal. The capitalist boss is an authority figure. The way capitalist bodies operate is through the exercise of control of some over others. You must work in a predesignated space or you will not eat. It is not up to the needs of the individual or the community what work must be done, but what will make the most money for the capitalist. But the Invisible Hand, says the capitalist apologist, ensures that capitalists are kept in check. But they seem to forget that it was their Invisible Hand that led to the creation of monopolies 11

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in the early 20th century, which offered consumers and laborers absolutely no choice with which to influence the market – the government had to be brought in to intervene. But workers can strike, or they can patronize other employers who will treat them better and have better standards, can’t they? This is mistaken – the very nature of capitalism means profit is prioritized over general welfare, the wealth of the capitalist over the lives of the workers. The ability to choose one’s master makes them no less a slave, and when one is forced to choose between laboring for a job one does not want, and starvation, this is no choice at all; it is slavery. The fact that the anarchocapitalist system allows for actual, non-wage based slavery (as a means of paying debts) just serves to highlight this fact. When it comes down to it, anarcho-capitalists do not hold freedom and equality in very high regard. In fact, inequality is the basis for its ideology. There are those that have wealth, and those who do not. The ones with the wealth employ the ones without wealth and do not pay them the same as what they make, despite the fact that it is the worker that actually makes the money, not the capitalist. Indeed, the key to their philosophy is the backwards notion of Social Darwinism, meaning that the wealthy deserve to 12

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be wealthy and the poor deserve to be poor. If this seems cruel, it is, and should not be treated seriously, because anyone who does hold this doctrine seriously is critically ignorant. The reasons for this should be obvious â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the poor canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t help but be poor when the capitalist monopolizes any and all means to reverse the situation. This opens the door to forcibly subjugating other classes of people, and indeed libertarian leading light Murray Rothbard says that humanity is marked by a wealth of diversity among its members, constituting inequality among its members. I am unequal in skill to Kobe Bryant in regards to basketball, for example. On a much more complex scale, inequality among humanity is much like this, and because of this, anarchocapitalists do not see any need to ensure equality of rights, and indeed seeks to reinforce hierarchy on this basis. Freedom as well as inequality are of little regard to the anarchocapitalist. For them, freedom constitutes freedom from rather than freedom to. They wish to have freedom from their persons being harmed or their property being violated, but when it comes to allowing others to have the freedom to determine how to spend their time, they could care less. Anyone concerned with seeing the cause of freedom advance should be concerned with both notions, and freedom to can only be achieved when it is not up to the

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capitalist how an individual lives their life and spends their time, but to them and them alone, and freedom from can only be achieved when an individual is guaranteed that they will not be harmed, ordered around, or discriminated against. The capitalist model, based on growth rather than stability, is not a natural system for the self-governance and determination of the human species. Capitalism arose through circumstance, and was never designed to be a way which would benefit humanity as a whole. Socialism, in contrast, is the only economic school explicitly designed with compassion, for the benefit of the whole rather than the few. This is why all true anarchists are socialists, and any claim to the counter should be met with skepticism and derision.

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Rethinking Volunteerism  Dylan Harper

In a social justice group, someone posed the general question, “How do you feel about volunteer work?” At best, volunteerism is complicated and features many well meaning individuals making the best out of a cruddy system; at worst it brings out and exposes the worst elements of supremacy, capitalism, and saviorism. Many non-profit organizations in the West, particularly ones that send volunteers to a “developing country”, do more harm than good by flushing resources into what often amounts to “feel good” tourism that could otherwise be spent directly on the core issue. In a capitalist society with finite resources and no real effort to redistribute, free labor can be poison. It essentially prevents the necessary movement of resources from a company to an individual, who then loses buying power which stalls the demand driven economy. If a non-profit with three employees can replace their need for a fourth with a free volunteer, the money that would have been paid to the volunteer stays with the non-profit instead of going to taxes, the local economy, etc. The obvious counter argument is that it's good to keep a nonprofit from having to spend their resources, and indeed, volunteerism keeps 15

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some doors open. But that fails to address why many non-profits need free labor in the first place. It lifts the responsibility of those with an abundance of resources to shoulder the burden and instead places it on individuals to work for free. Of course some non-profits, particularly food pantries, rely on volunteers, but that’s because society at large isn’t funding the food pantry. Volunteerism isn’t really solving the problem of—in the case of food pantries —hunger; it’s sustaining a system that’s not feeding the hungry. With capitalism as the main economic system no one should ever have to work for free on a moral ground; if a society refuses to redistribute it at least must allow all individuals to utilize themselves and their labor to maintain livable lives. But in a society that depends on people having the ability to spend resources, allowing people to occupy labor positions and accumulate nothing to redistribute is economically foolish.

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Culture

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Stuff to Watch Rebecca Sugar (of Adventure Time fame) is the first woman to head up a show for Cartoon Network and man is it flawless. Steven Universe is probably already the greatest mainstream cartoon in terms of representation, with several people of color, and women, and body types. As if that weren’t reason enough the quality is off the charts. It’s adorable, accessible, and generally awesome, to the point that calling it “Avatar: The Last Airbender meets Adventure Time meets Bobs Burgers” is probably only partially doing it justice. Season one is available online with a few more episodes to go.

and Listen to King Lollipop, headed by Cody Blanchard of the formerly Oakland-based now LA-based group Shannon and the Clams, is the perfect vintage sound for the retro-luster -- it's saccharine-catchy, clever kitsch, damn peppy, and not afraid of a good voice crack. Try not to dance. I dare you. It's impossible. You will not succeed. Your feet will swivel. Your hips will wiggle. Get a load of your smile and sweat! King Lollipop's earnest, straightforwardly ironic themes (see: "Dumpster Divin'," "Cheeseburger and Fries") and sweetly predictable doowop chords are precisely what makes it so palatable amongst all of the Oakland chic. Give it a listen, give it a dance. This shit can make even doing the dishes fun.

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If It’s Broke, Fix It Cody Pasby

Remakes don’t always have to be bad. Here’s some could have been classics that should be redone.

! A funny thing happened this past Valentine’s Day. Four major wide releases came out that weekend, three of which happened to be remakes of 80’s films (RoboCop, Endless Love and About Last Night). About Last Night fared well both critically and commercially, but it’s safe to say the other two films were a tad underwhelming. Despite the tepid response to these films, specifically the surprisingly weak showing for the remake of cult classic RoboCop, 2014 will see six more remakes. Film fans have responded swiftly to this growing trend, and the lists of films that must never be remade, EVER, continues to grow. Remake has become a four-letter word to cinephiles, but it doesn’t have to be. In 2006, Martin Scorsese directed The Departed, his first and only film to win Best Picture, which just happened to be a remake of the 2002 Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs. Rise of the Planet of the Apes revived the beloved sci-fi franchise, and it’s essentially a remake

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of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. Without question, if you talk to fans of the original Apes films, most would tell you that Rise improves upon the original in almost every way. Movies like Conquest are the type that should be remade, that is movies with a solid concept that just didn’t reach their full potential. With that in mind, here are a few films that deserve a second chance at glory.

Dick Tracy (1990)

! It shouldn’t come as a surprise that after over ten years in development hell, five different directors (including Steven Spielberg and John Landis) and an ever-inflating budget, Dick Tracy turned out to be an underwhelming disappointment. Hollywood legend Warren Beatty wanted to adapt the classic comic strip for the big screen since 1975 but didn’t own the rights to film it. The rights were tossed around Hollywood by nearly every studio over the next decade, eventually landing with Disney. Beatty had dropped out of the film’s production just a few years before the house of mouse took over because of major creative differences. Producers wanted to make the film

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violent and realistic, while Beatty wanted the film to pay homage to the great art of the strip. Beatty eventually got his wish and while the film’s look still stands the test of time, that’s pretty much all that stands out. While the music is pretty great and the performances are fun, the story was paper-thin. It also didn’t help that only one summer earlier Tim Burton’s Batman became a pop culture sensation and was a lot better than anyone thought it should be, creating impossible expectations for a film that was viewed as Disney’s answer to Warner Bros.’ huge hit. Dick Tracy ending up becoming just another hollow summer movie, and, despite it’s box office success, a huge financial loss for Walt Disney Studios. For a Dick Tracy movie to stand out in the now wildly popular comic movie genre, it must take the great elements of the original while giving us a slightly different or more dramatic take on the character, much like Iron Man or The Dark Knight Trilogy. Today, Beatty holds the film rights to Dick Tracy which likely means we won’t see a new Tracy movie for a while. It would be great to see Dick be given the tribute he deserves, a film that honors the source material like Beatty wanted while bringing something new to the character and the universe.

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Westworld (1973)

! Sometimes a concept is just way too good to just fade away into Hollywood obscurity, which Westworld is dangerously close to doing. That’s surprising considering the film was written and directed by the mind behind Jurassic Park, The Andromeda Strain and ER, Michael Crichton. The film focuses on two friends on vacation at a futuristic amusement park where they could “visit” different parts of history recreated with lifelike androids. They choose to visit West World, and if you couldn’t guess by now that’s the world that takes you back to the American Old West. They encounter a robotic gunslinger, played by Yul Brynner, and if you know Brynner you pretty much know things aren’t likely to go well for our vacationing friends. The film is actually a ton of fun and brings up themes and ideas about the future of robotics that not many sci-fi novels or films had touched on before. The film did get a sequel, Futureworld, and a television show called Beyond Westworld, but both were met with little to no fanfare. Westworld has been subject of remake rumors here and there, with Arnold Schwarzenegger set to take Brynner’s place in the film at one point, and currently the film is set to be adapted into a new HBO series produced by J.J. Abrams and Jonathan 22

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Nolan. It was almost a shame that the original film exclusively focused on West World, because there is a ton of untapped potential with this concept. A Westworld HBO series could potentially become the Battlestar Galactica of it’s generation, a series which takes a concept that was just a sapling and grows it into a mighty redwood. Other worlds could be explored, the origins of the technology can be revealed and the impact of the amusement park and its technology could have a larger effect on society as a whole.

Brigadoon (1954)

! In 1953, shooting a film on location was still considered a luxury, and shooting in a different country was simply unheard. So when Gene Kelly, fresh off an Oscar win for An American in Paris and the success of Singin’ in the Rain, wanted to shoot his next film in Scotland, MGM Studios heads were a bit apprehensive. Not only would filming in Europe cost the notoriously cheap studio an arm and a leg, Scotland’s regularly foggy and stormy conditions would make the location a nightmare to film. Instead of a becoming one of the first movie musicals shot on location, Brigadoon became a forgettable adaptation of one of Broadway’s classic musicals. The

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original show was written in 1947 and features a soundtrack of songs that would soon become standards, but it might seem a little too old fashioned for today’s Hollywood. The story, involving a man on a trip in Scotland who discovers a portal in time to a vibrant village under a waterfall, is wild and interesting enough to catch the attention of a new audience. Put it all together with a director who has a unique and captivating visual style and a cast that can carry the demanding load of singing and dancing (calling Hugh Jackman) and Brigadoon could add to the growing list of recent musical blockbusters.

The Star Wars Prequels (1999-2005)

! When Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace was still the most hyped movie in cinematic history, only one man knew the fate of a galaxy far, far away. And his name was “Weird Al” Yankovic. See, Al wrote the song “The Saga Begins” based on internet spoilers about Episode I and a costly pre screening of the film that he attended. The song is essentially a five-minute summary of George Lucas’ long awaited prequel set to the tune of Don McLean’s “American Pie”. Fitting, because for Star Wars fans and sci-fi fans around the world May 19th, 1999 became the day that Star Wars died.

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Episode I remains one of the most successful films of all time, and both Episode II and III were some of the biggest films the year in which they were released, but going to see the films became more of a chore for fans than something they actually looked forward too. The reputation of George Lucas suddenly came into question by fans and the mystique began to fade away thanks to some disappointing and puzzling plot decisions. Before the prequels, the force felt like something that anyone, even a goofy kid living on a moisture farm, could master if they tried. But after the prequels? Oh, you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have a high midi-chlorian count? TOUGH SHIT KID. Better go ask Watto if he needs a hand fixing up podracers! Fifteen years after the prequel trilogy began, the sting has softened, but youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re better off not bringing it up to lifetime Star Wars fans. So why remake them? Now that Disney holds the reigns to the Star Wars franchise, they seem to be turning the page on the prequel era. But, just like the recent Planet of the Apes remakes, there might be a place to improve these films down the road. Granted, the Apes franchise is not as universally loved as Star Wars, nor are their prequels as universally reviled, but if that franchise can improve its origin story, why canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t the biggest sci-fi franchise in the world do it? Star Wars simply deserves a better origin story than what we got. Seemingly every die-hard fan has a version of

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what they would have done differently, and judging by the fan edits, YouTube videos and fan scripts that have surfaced since their release, the prequel trilogy has intriguing storylines that have yet to be explored and plenty that can be vastly improved. Give us more Darth Maul, make Obi-Wan the main character (as Red Letter Media’s awesome Episode I review points out, the prequels don’t really have a main character, seriously) feed Jar-Jar to the Rancor, the list of changes could go on and on. For now, Star Wars fans have a cavalcade or sequels and spin offs to worry about, but when the dust clears from this new era of Jedi’s, let’s hope there’s time for a new generation of filmmakers to make a proper back story for the series that practically invented the modern Hollywood blockbuster.

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“Gustav is a man living in a dream like world…”

A review of Wes Anderson’s latest film the Grand Budapest Hotel  Cody Pasby

It’s amazing what a little tender, love and care can do. You probably hear that all the time, but when viewing The Grand Budapest Hotel, it becomes abundantly clear how true that is. If you love director Wes 27

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Anderson’s films, you’ll adore his latest, if you hate him, chances are this film won’t win you over. But whatever your opinion is of Anderson, you have to respect his dedication to perfect every scene and every second of every movie he makes. This rings more true than ever in The Grand Budapest Hotel, the zany story of a world class hotel and a wild murder mystery. Whether it’s his signature symmetrical shots or his gorgeous use of color, the world of Wes Anderson is so visually striking it’s hard not to get sucked into. But what set’s this film apart from Anderson’s previous work is the gutbusting and hilarious script. Ralph Finnes as M. Gustave helps lead a calm zaniness almost like something out of a Marx Brothers movie that you can’t help but smile through from the very start. Seeing Fiennes in a comedic role is an absolute treat and hopefully it’s not his last time trying it. Like great Anderson characters of the past, Gustave is a man living in a dream like world, almost a relic of the past, but exudes a kind of joy and dry wit that helps him stand out from the rest. There are a lot of similarities in The Grand Budapest Hotel to Anderson’s other films, but it seems like everyone has stepped their game up in this film, with Anderson leading the pack. His visual style suits the story so well, but also benefits from other tricks like the difference in aspect ratios

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throughout. The story is classic Anderson whimsy set in his own mirror world during what we can assume to be World War II. Despite the film’s wacky moments, it finds an amazing way to touch upon the real issues of the time near the film’s conclusion that never strays away from its overall tone. The entire cast steps up their game as well, filled with Anderson favorites like Bill Murray, Edward Norton and the wonderfully devious Adrien Brody, and newcomers to his world like Fiennes as the instantly iconic Gustave, a more than welcome appearance by F. Murray Abraham and newcomer Tony Revolori as Abraham’s younger self, Zero. Like Jason Schwartzman before him, Revolori becomes yet another great young actor who fits perfectly into Wes Anderson’s universe. The Grand Budapest Hotel is another wonderful addition to Wes Anderson’s impressive filmography. His work ethic and care to the craft is admirable and the results translate beautifully. It makes you think, if every director cared for their films as much as Anderson does, the quality of Hollywood movies would be exponentially better, even if they still aren’t as good as his. Like Quentin Tarantino or Martin Scorsese, Anderson’s films should be treated like an event for film lovers. There is a warmness you feel watching this film, and not a second of the movie is wasted. At a brisk hour

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and a half, the film leaves you on a high note and will leave you begging for more.

! TL;DR Watch It Wes Anderson outdoes himself with this whimsical instant classic that might become one of the yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s best

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“All this game is missing is more content…”

! TitanFall Mike Munoz

TitanFall is Respawn Entertainment's first game. Kinda. Respawn is comprised mostly of ex Infinity Ward members after they left ActivisionBlizard so It's more of their first game without a huge publisher backing them. Overall it's a pretty enjoyable game, but it has it's fair share of flaws and is more of a diamond in the rough. Simply put, Titanfall is as if MW2 got 31

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combined with good parkour mechanics and mechs. It's a pretty awesome formula that works incredibly well.â&#x20AC;¨ Respawn Entertainment doesn't fix what isn't broke, and many of the elements that were present in MW2 are present here. You have 5 custom loadouts for both Pilots and Titans, making 10 total. Weapons and attachments are present, as well as Tier 1 and 2 kits. The kits essentially act as perks that help solidify play styles and builds. You get to choose one of three tactical abilities and one of three ordinances. However, you only unlock a custom loadout slot after reaching every 5th level. You're stuck with the Assassin, Rifleman, and CQB preset loadouts until you get to make your own. Chances are, you won't stray terribly far from the Rifleman or CQB presets as they're pretty solid. That, and there's not much of a variety in weapon choice or tier option for the pilots. The only futuristic gun the pilot has is the Smart Pistol, which has an auto-lock on feature which procs when following Grunts or other players with your gun. â&#x20AC;¨ The Perks, called Tier # Kits, aren't that varied. They have specific uses but not all of them are supportive of a build. They're just there for utility. Which isn't inherently bad, but you don't feel like your character is that much different than everyone else. There are a few that make you want to try things

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out, like Dead Man's Hand which blows up all undetonated satchel charges on death, but they're few and far inbetween. They seem more specialized for the titans, but not by much. Ordinance kits are fairly basic, with two anti-pilot and two anti-titan explosives. Tactical Abilities are need of an overhaul as well though. There's Stim, Cloak, and Radar Pulse. Stim increase health regeneration and movement. Cloak makes you invisible to titans and slightly less visible to players, and Radar pulse releases a pulse that allows you to see through walls. All of them sound cool, but there is little reason to choose anything other than Stim. It's too good. Cloak makes you invisible to titans, but you're fighting titans wrong if you need to run up to them from the front. They outrun you very easily and the only way to really ride one is to jump from behind or off of a wall. Radar pulse comes in handy, but you need to really know the maps for it to be super useful.â&#x20AC;¨ Your weapon choices are a generic shotgun, generic automatic rifle, generic burst fire rifle, two generic SMGs, and two generic sniper rifles. Each of the guns are decent in their own way with the exception of the sniper rifles which do incredibly poorly on most of the maps, as there's a few maps that are open enough to where they can shine. All the guns have the same Extended Magazine and Suppressor mods, with 1 unique attachment. The

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shotgun has leadwall, which increases spread at the cost of damage. The CAR smg increases hipfire accuracy and the Hemlock Burstfire rifle increases the burst to 5 shots. The Spitfire LMG has an attachment that increase damage to Titans while rodeoing them and it's pretty amazing. Normally I wouldn't complain about generic weapons in an FPS because the assault rifle, smg, shotgun, etc, are staples of the genre. But we're in a futuristic war equipped with jump packs and mechs. The only gun that feels like it was thought out was the Smart Pistol due to it's auto-lockon feature.â&#x20AC;¨ Where the Pilots feel generic in their weapon choices, the Titans feel amazing and unique. Each of the titan's weapons have a different purpose for different situations, but they all feel powerful and useful regardless of what predicament you're in. The Arc cannon charges up and the lightning bolt chains to nearby enemies when shot. The Triple Threat shoots 3 giant grenades with the option to shoot horizontally or vertically a la Dead Space's Plasma Cutter. The Plasma Rifle works like TF2's Sniper. The attachments to the Titan Weapons feel significant as well, as each unique attachment changes how the weapon is used. The Triple Threat's grenades turn into a mine field, the Plasma Rifle is always fully charged at the cost of lower max damage, The Quadfire Rocket launcher gets a rapid fire mod that makes it an even

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bigger threat. With the exception of the Spitfire LMG, none of the pilot weapons have mods that change the weapon significantly.â&#x20AC;¨ To further compliment the Titan customization, you get a choice of three Chassis: Atlas (Well-rounded), Stryder (Speedy but weak), and Ogre (Slow but durable). The three stats of Durability, Acceleration, and Speed are attributed appropiately to each Chassis type. Along with the stats, each titan gets a special core ability. Damage-Core (Atlas), Dash-Core (Stryder), and Shield-Core(Ogre). Each core ability takes a few minutes to charge up, and be quickened by killing or damaging enemies.â&#x20AC;¨ You get to call your Titan after 3 minutes, which can be shortened in a number of ways.. Once you call your titan, it either takes 5 or 2.5 seconds (depending on your perks) to fall down, which acts as an instakill to enemy pilots and titans if they happen to be standing right under it as it descents from the heavens. A dome shield is extended around the titan for 13 seconds, acting as a shield against enemy gunfire. There are a number of ways to enter the titan, there are unique animations for pretty much any angle you enter it from. They either grab you and stick you in, you slide under them and they pick you up, you fall in through the top, etc. The animations are incredibly fluid and make you feel like a badass each time. Each titan has a shield and a

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health bar. The shield regenerates over time whereas health does not. When A Titan's shield reaches 0, a read spot appears on the titan, highlighting it's weak point for massive damage. Once a Titan's health reaches 0, it becomes Doomed and the health bar is replaced with black and yellow stripes. Health is constantly decreased and takes extra damage from attacks and has the titan vulnerable to Terminations, which are when a titan rips the other titan to shreds via unique melee animation. There are perks that cause nuclear explosions, auto-eject, and doomed state time increases, so it's not an instant game over.â&#x20AC;¨ Melee does exist in this game and it needs to be heavily revamped. Pilots get a kick as their melee and sneak attacks are Neck snapping. Titans get to punch, and if the enemy titan is in a Doomed state, melee attacks act as an instakill. The instakill changes based on the titan you're using. Which is fine, I like the titan melee. Pilot Melee is just a copy n paste of MW2's lock on melee except with kicks. It's almost an exact replica, where you can be kicked from 15 feet away and be killed or where the lock on feature fails and your kicks don't connect, even if the models touch. Look, this is bad design. Lock on instakill melee is terrible. There's no reason why you should turn a corner, kick, and kill someone who was shooting you. It should do a base

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amount of damage so it either finishes the enemy off or weakens them. â&#x20AC;¨ There's a system called Burn Cards that are in place, that are buffs that last one round. You can hold a max of 30 of them at a time and you get them by completing challenges. They're designed for you to constantly use them since they're so easy to get, but some of the rarer cards I don't want to use because of how rare they are. The only way to get Burn Cards is through challenges at the moment, so some of the cards that have bonuses like Instantly calling a Titan or camoflauging a Spectre feel too precious to use. To my knowledge, the only way to get more Burn cards once you complete each challenge is to Prestige at rank 50, which resets you at level 1, gives you a nifty icon next to your name, and a 10% experience boost.â&#x20AC;¨ Prestiging in the game feels really encouraged. Sure you lose out on your 50 levels, but it doesn't take all that long to rank back up again, especially with the knowledge of how to play and the experience boost. After the first prestige, you must complete certain challenges in order to prestige again. Maxing to the highest prestige is no longer just a "Oh, they've played forever" but a "Oh man, they've played forever AND they somehow managed to kill 50 ejecting pilots!". As I've mentioned before, you get the opportunity to collect more burn cards and have them waste away in your inventory since

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the moment you use them, chances are you're going to die immediately. Especially if it's a really good card.â&#x20AC;¨ The game touts a 6 player co-op campaign, but it's really just each of the maps with either the Attrition or Hardpoint game modes. It's not really a campaign as there's virtually no difference between the campaign and multiplayer version of the maps aside from how you enter the map and dialogue that plays throughout the match. The only reason to play through the campaign as both the Militia and IMC is to unlock the other two Titan Chassis for custom loadouts: Stryder and Ogre. There are 9 maps, so you essentially have to play through each map at least twice. I say "At least" for a reason too, you don't get to choose which side to play through first. You play through the Militia first then the IMC. Sometimes in order to get a game going, it made me switch sides or replay previous maps over again. There's 0 incentive to replay a campaign mission other than "I like this mission", meaning late adopters of the game are going to have one hell of a time unlocking the Stryder and Ogre chassis. It doesn't really help that there's a 90 second timer between the creation of a lobby and when the game starts. There's no way to shorten it via ready button or anything. I have enough time to heavily modify each of my loadouts in that time period. It's faster to just

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leave the lobby and throw yourself at the whims of Matchmaking in order to get into a game than to wait for the whole time period in a lobby.â&#x20AC;¨ The story in the game is pretty non-existent and it's so chopped up and vague that most players will have no idea what's going on in the story. There are rebels, there's a military force. They fight eachother. There are nukes, stuff blows up. It's completely half-assed and just begs the question "Why did you even bother to waste resources putting this into the game?"â&#x20AC;¨ The mobility and parkour of the pilots is amazing, especially in urban environments. You can double jump, you can wallrun, you can rodeo on top of enemy titans and shoot their core. Pilots never feel like they're at a huge disadvantage versus a titan, especially in urban environments. The only times where being a pilot is a death sentence is in open maps where Titans just dominate, which should never be the case. Along with the mobility of pilots, They have the unique ability to hack enemy turrets and Spectres. Spectres are AI robots that fight with you, along with the Militia Grunt/IMC Soldier. Hacking Spectres don't seem all that useful as they give away your position and are killed easily. Turrets are a nice thing to have but they feel more of an annoyance than an actual threat.â&#x20AC;¨ All of the matches are 6v6. There's no higher or lower. It's a shame

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since some of the maps can benefit from having more players as they're so open and huge that it can be a task just to find someone else to shoot. I've gone matches where I've had only a handful of encounters with other players just because I couldn't find anyone. It's not only 6 players v 6 players, as there are numerous enemy NPCs that you kill that help lower the cooldown for Titanfall and Titan core abilities. In the Attrition game mode, killing an NPC adds 1 point to your team score. There are 5 game modes total, with a 6 one called "Variety Pack" that is just a variation of the previous 5. Attrition, Last Titan Standing, hardpoint, Capture the Flag, and Pilot hunter are the current game modes. Attrition is just deathmatch, Last Titan Standing is titans brawling it out, Hardpoint is a king of the hill game mode with multiple points to hold, Pilot hunter is deathmatch but the only points that count are enemy players, and Capture the Flag is.. capture the flag.â&#x20AC;¨ I play this game on PC so I have to deal with Origin, but aside from that the game is fairly well optimized. It runs off an heavily modified Source Engine. The game absolutely hates dual monitors though. It constantly alt tabs it self into windows and fullscreen mode as I'm playing. All in all, the game is fun. It has fast paced multiplayer that's surprisingly balanced between Titan and Pilot combat. All this game is missing is more content and

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some tweaks. I give this game a "Diamond in the rough" out of "Could heavily influence the FPS market"â&#x20AC;¨

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April 2nd, 2014

“All in all, it sounds like a Lifetime Original Movie or maybe an episode of Touched By An Angel.”

A Review of the New ABC Family hit The Fosters

Vanessa Bellew

(Trigger Warning: discussion of rape, abuse, and domestic violence.)

! If you’re not a secret sucker for all those teen dramas on cable, you might not be aware of one of the most progressive shows on television. Even if you’re hip-deep in things like Pretty Little Liars or The Vampire Diaries, you may have never heard of an unobtrusive, hour-long program called The Fosters. It does not, after all, have eternally teenaged vampire hotties or 42

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murdering high school revenge conclaves or werewolves or even magic or backstabbing (well, mostly). What it has is simple: a family with its share of triumphs and issues that is neither hyperdramatized nor terribly glamorous. But anyone who writes it off because it lacks the flashiness of its contemporaries is turning their backs on one of the bravest shows ever on the air. In the pilot alone, you learn a small piece about how rough it is to be in juvenile hall. You see a foster child go through the agony of watching an adult decide whether or not sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s good enough to be sheltered. You see that same child face the Otherness that comes with our broken foster care system, with not being even part of a dysfunctional family, with not having a family at all. You learn that the family taking this kid in already has three children, two boys and a girl, who arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t thrilled to find a stranger in their midst. You learn that the foster child has a little brother. All in all, it sounds like a Lifetime Original Movie or maybe an episode of Touched By An Angel. It seems totally mundane except for the exoticness of having an orphan in the mix. But the most important things about The Fosters are the things they arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t advertising; the show slips these things innocuously into our televisions without fanfare, placing them in plain sight

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without comment. The Fosters is groundbreaking but it’d rather you discover that for yourself. For, you see, this family is not the kind we’re used to seeing on channels that aren’t Starz or HBO. This family is both ordinary and extraordinary. The parents’ jobs are normal enough -- one is a police officer and the other runs the school their children attend. There’s divorce in the cop’s past and the eldest child is from the previous marriage, but this is not so very unusual. No, what is unusual, what is special, and what is wonderful about this family is that the parents at the center of it are both women. This isn’t trumpeted in the pilot. There is not some neon sign in the yard that says “LESBIANS.” There is just a depiction of two people in love, who’ve been together for a long time, who have a family. They just happen to also have vaginas. But it gets better! Not only are they women in love, but one of them, Stephanie, the cop, is a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Caucasian. The other, Lena, the principal, is biracial. Yes, you read that right. Biracial. Her parents are in an interracial relationship and so is she. The Fosters does not just give us a positive,

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nonchalant same-sex couple, but they also give us two generations of positive, nonchalant interracial couples. Even then, the show is not about that. That’s just what their family happens to include. But wait, there’s more! Stephanie’s first marriage to a man produced Brandon, the eldest child, but when she realized/accepted that she was gay, she divorced him (his name is Mike and he’s also a cop) and eventually set up a life with Lena. Mike is white and so is Brandon. The twins, on the other hand, are Hispanic. They speak Spanish as well as English and you find out pretty early on that Lena and Stephanie first fostered the twins and then adopted them. The boy is Jesus and the girl is Mariana and it is truly delightful that everyone in the family tries to roll the ‘r’ when they address her. These things alone have been more than enough to create several edgy television shows in the past. Shows that were, at their heart, based on the premise of watching these non-nuclear families figure out how to be a nuclear family. The Fosters is not about that. The Fosters are as cohesive and loving a family when we first meet them as any “normal” -- or better represented -- group ever on TV. They are perhaps even more so because they

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have cobbled their family together out of the pieces of previous lives and chosen to become what they are together. So this is the family as the show begins. Then we add Callie, the stoic foster girl fresh out of juvie. What we are led to believe is a secret romance or some kind of drug dealer meeting turns out to be Callieâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s quest to rescue her little brother Jude from an abusive foster father. We learn that Jude is being beaten for wearing a dress. Is your mind blown yet? Because thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s more. The Fosters has only had one season, but so far theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve dealt a little lightly but fairly realistically with birth mothers, with abandonment, with the extreme dysfunction of the foster system, with teenagers having safe sex, with teenagers not having safe sex, with parents who are open and accepting of the fact that teenagers are going to have sex, with parents who are devastated to learn that teenagers are going to have sex, with the morning after pill, with condoms, with religion and homophobia, with religion and acceptance, with bullying, with teen drug use, with the volatility of teenage relationships, with the importance of cultural belonging both as a biracial person growing up in between two worlds and as a Hispanic child growing up in a non-Hispanic household. It has taken us through the painful back-and-

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forth and lying that comes with someone you love -- someone who should be taking care of you -- suffering from a drug addiction; it has shown us the consequences of irresponsible teenage drinking and that not all teenagers do that, much less all the time. It has shown us responsible, intelligent, thoughtful young people who are trying to do their very best in a complicated world. We’ve seen Jude dealing with being behind in school from the instability of his home life, and, more importantly, with the dangers and joys of being very different in a culture that sometimes finds that threatening. We’ve seen Stephanie and Lena kiss and be affectionate. We’ve seen them fight. We’ve seen them curl up in bed together. We’ve seen them be lustful with each other. We’ve seen them naked in bed together on more than one occasion. We've seen them make their wedding vows to each other in front of their family and friends. We’ve seen what happens in the aftermath of a rape. The kind that involves a person known to the victim and trusted. It’s not a one-episode arc. They handle it with kid gloves, but they do handle it and they do not drop it. They handle it very, very well. We've seen into a girls' group home and into the lives and hearts of young women of all different backgrounds and ethnicities -- including a

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trans* girl from whose struggles the show does not shy away -- and their rocky journeys towards self-love and leaving behind the pasts that are destroying their futures. In that little house alone, there is the aforementioned trans* character, a teenaged mother, members from rival gangs, a girl who finds out she's contracted HIV from her father, a girl wrestling with selfharm, and some extremely frank discussion of the tangible singularity that is heroin addiction. The list of their incredible accomplishments already could go on and on and on, but you should probably just watch the show and see them for yourself. It’s not the best thing on television. It is, after all, a show aimed at teens. But each episode explores something so rarely seen on TV and in such a refreshingly honest, forward-thinking, and gentle manner, that it will leave you with your eyes wide and your jaw slack. You will be impressed. You will feel warm and fuzzy. You will have the urge to slow clap. You will want to hug the writers and the producers and everyone else involved. Probably you shouldn’t. But you could write them letters expressing your gratitude and support for what they’re doing. You could encourage them to go further. To do more.

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Because the most remarkable thing about this little show, The Fosters, isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t the naked women in bed together or the frank discussion of the inevitability of teenagers going at it or its very excellent soundtrack or even their willingness to allow problems to exist beyond their episodic time limit (weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re looking at you, Saved By the Bell).â&#x20AC;¨ No, the thing that is most shocking and heart-warming and glad-making is its unassuming and courageous presence on ABC Family. So, ABC Family and everyone involved in this spectacular program, thank you. Thank you for your bravery. Thank you for your kindness. Thank you for representing all different kinds of families. Thank you for The Fosters.

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April 2nd, 2014

Boobs, Butts, Cult Murders and the Role of Women in HBO's True Detective Ashleigh Becker

â&#x20AC;¨ [This article was written after the completion of Season 1. I will attempt to avoid serious spoilers. Zero discussion of The Yellow King, Tuttle, or Carcosa.]

! I am a female actor who fucking LOVES TRUE DETECTIVE. I will drool over it and willingly go on the mindfuck of an eldritch horror roller coaster that it is, and I recommend it to EVERYONE who appreciates mystery, TV, story, humanity, acting, music, film, and things that are 50

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interesting in front of their eyes.  As much as I love this show, I realized, during episode three ("The Locked Room"), when there is an overtly drawn out shot of Marty and his mistress, Lisa, having sex on her couch, and the camera lingers on her exposed breasts, that I was feeling sick with revulsion. Not from the use of nudity (boobs in the media are old news, people), but because I realized that this woman onscreen, the one with no last name and no pants, apparently, was what I desired to be. A female actor on a riveting, brilliantly written, and gorgeous to watch show - and she was a sex toy.   It hurt me in a way I had never registered before. Yes, it's HBO, yes, they have license to be edgier than primetime, and I dig that, and I’ve seen boobs and sex on TV before. I had to do some digging to figure out why I reacted so viscerally to this particular show and this particular occurrence. It was pain at realizing that a sexual prop was the highest level that a woman could reach on this show that I loved so much. Lisa subsequently called off the affair, but Marty destroyed her apartment and beat her boyfriend within an inch of his life. Women are sexual property, pawns to be shuffled about in the climb for power. And it broke my heart.  I spent the next day brooding and in a dark cloud of conflicted

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emotions. I hated the way I'd felt, but I still loved the show. Did that make me a bad person? A (gasp) bad feminist? I scoured the internet for discussions and articles about True Detective, unable to satisfy my intrigue, curiosity, love, and frustration.â&#x20AC;¨ I came across two that stuck out to me (links will be available on plebcomm.tumblr.com), originally posted on Gawker Media, both are very articulate and much more experienced in writing fleshed out opinion pieces than I am, but they got me thinking about the myriad of feelings that I have regarding True Detective.â&#x20AC;¨ This piece is what I've determined, after thinking about it and reading these articles, I've decided that, while it is a problem that needs to be resolved in TV and film, True Detective is not making more of a problem. To me, it is highlighting and self-aware in that regard. THAT'S NOT TO SAY IT IS NOT AN EXAMPLE OF A PREVALENT AND PROBLEMATIC ISSUE. But, as Erin Gloria Ryan notes in her piece, the show is not distancing itself from the fact that these women are moving beneath these men, literally and figuratively. The fact that I was so profoundly jarred by this example of women as sex objects and props in television is proof to me that this one is different. Not different enough that the problem begins to be solved, but

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different enough that it drew a rise out of me and has inspired countless discussions and a push for change. As Cate Blanchett said in her Oscar acceptance speech, "Those in the industry who are foolishly clinging to the idea that female films, with women in the centre are niche experiences. They are not, audiences want to see them, and in fact they make money."â&#x20AC;¨ With that insanely long preface, here is the actual discussion on the problems, and reasons for said problems, within True Detective.â&#x20AC;¨ True Detective is a story about men. It is about power and deception, manipulation, and the abuse of power by white men. It's lead characters, played with rich conviction by Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey, are two white male cops in Louisiana. It's supporting and antagonistic characters* (though everything is an antagonist, even the protagonists) are white men, politicians and cops and the detritus of humanity that they come into contact with. The intrigue of this story, aside from the mysterious and horrific cult murders, lies in the delicate dance of power shifts that Marty and Cohle stumble through. Marty's macho bravado at the bar with the guys, Cohle's perfect record with interrogations, Marty's poise as head of the house, Cohle as the solipsistic genius. Marty exerts his power through dominance, being in control of his daughters and his wife and his

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women on the side. Cohle exerts his power by knowing more, by observing, by holding his belief set as above everyone else. They are untouchable when we meet them. True Detective, along with the endlessly twisted and fascinating mystery of the murders, is the story of The White Male Power Fantasy and the use of power, sex, and dominance to illustrate Marty and Cohle's decline. The title, True Detective, pays no heed to the subject of the investigation, but it is a direct reference to how each man believes himself the True Detective. It is about them.   (*Except for the interviewers Gilbough and Papania, and I find that their dynamic is an equally thought-provoking one in relation to race and male power in this show.)   As the show progresses, they crumble and spiral inward into themselves; Marty losing all of the women in his life through his affairs and his ideals about himself, alienating his daughters. Cohle persistently unable to find the answer to the Dora Lange case, Marty pushing against him, the past being so forcefully repressed that it inevitably cracks through his granite exterior, Cohle's solitude and ultimately, the swirling madness that threatens to consume and destroy him.  These dynamics between Marty and Cohle are the heart and lifeblood 54

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of the show - and as I came to realize that, how the downfall of two white men in their prime and the possibility of their redemption was the reason this story was being told, I became less enraged and disgusted by the treatment of the women in the show. To truly show the world that these privileged white men in Louisiana existed within, the women needed to be secondary and two dimensional. That was how Marty and Cohle perceived them, and so that was how we, the viewer, would also perceive them. And we were viewing this show in such a way so that the knowledge of this character disparity was part of our experience, because it was part of Marty and Cohle's experience.â&#x20AC;¨ The woman whose name is spoken the most is also the first woman we see in the show - Dora Lange, bound, naked kneeling, antlers tied to her strawberry blonde hair, and very, very dead. Women in the role of victim is pivotal to True Detective - many of the others we meet are strippers, underage prostitutes, photos of other dead bodies, an emotionally neglected wife, daughters without a reliable father figure. If this is as far as Marty and Cohle ever see women, there is no reason that the audience would see them any other way either. And it is important to the story that we experience it in the same way that they do.â&#x20AC;¨ With that said; the mastery of True Detective does not eliminate, nor

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begin to solve the problem of the portrayal of women in the media. What it does do is bring the discussion to the forefront, and allow viewers to come to informed conclusions about how they feel about it. It puts pressure on the industry to tell women's stories as truthfully as they have told men's. We can demand to see the stories we want to be told, and they will be told.â&#x20AC;¨ How True Detective can swing the pendulum the opposite direction with next season: In an American Horror Story-esque play, each season will be entirely separate stories with new casts. The possibilities opened up by this short season, and by Pizzolato's indulgent and rich writing, leave the door wide open for a season filled with complex, disturbing and fan-adored women detectives. And with the success of this first season, and the caliber of Harrelson and McConaughey's performances (particularly McConaughey, his Cohle is POSSESSED from the very start. Emmy. Give him one.), it should not be difficult to find two INHUMANLY TALENTED women to become the next True Detectives.â&#x20AC;¨ Might I suggest Vera Farmiga (Up In The Air, Bates Motel) and Kerry Washington(Django Unchained, Scandal)? Or, if that's not your flavor, Robin Weigert (Deadwood) and Rooney Mara (Girl With The Dragon Tattoo)? And those are just four I came up with writing this - there are literally

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HUNDREDS and THOUSANDS of female actresses to pick from. And their stories are just as good as the men’s.   Addendum: Since the initial writing of this article, Nick Pizzolato has said in response to a question about what Season 2 will involve: "This is really early, but I'll tell you (it's about) hard women, bad men and the secret occult history of the United States transportation system." So it does appear that women are about to have center stage, and I cannot wait to see it.

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Sports

April 2nd, 2014

The cruel winter between the Super Bowl, and the start of baseball season is finally over. Cody Pasby discusses the tenure of Bud Selig, as well as his predictions for the coming Major League season.

Grading Bud Selig

Pictured: Bud Selig’s second lowest moment as commissioner

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Bud Selig is entering his 22nd and final season as Major League Baseball's commissioner. The only man who served a longer tenure is the man with his name on the MVP award, Kenesaw Mountain Landis. In fact, Landis and Selig are the only two commissioners whose tenure spanned over two decades, though Selig was the "de facto" commissioner until 1998 when

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he was elected officially. It seems a bit shocking at first, but when you look at the state of baseball today it's obvious that Selig has left an indelible mark on the game both on and off the field. Baseball has grown over the last 20 years to inconceivable levels even to the most optimistic of fans, yet Selig's tenure has been marred in possibly more controversy than any commissioner in MLB history. Until Selig steps down as commissioner there will be countless assessments on the job he did leading baseball, but now seems to be as good a time as ever to evaluate the job Selig has done. With the recent suspension of Alex Rodriguez for the entire 2014 season, Selig is coming off one of his final defining moments as baseball commissioner, call it his last hurrah. Like Landis and Bart Giamatti before him, Selig is sweeping this era's baseball pariah to the side and hoping to receive some last praise and glory for cleaning up the game at any cost. But the A-Rod suspension isn't simply a black and white case, just like every aspect of Selig's career. In 2004, baseball's official historian at the time, Jerome Holtzman, called Selig the best commissioner in baseball history. Ten years later does that statement still ring true? Did it ever? Let's put Selig's career to the test, with this incomplete report card on how Selig did in four of the most

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important aspects of his job.

Player Relations â&#x20AC;¨

It's difficult to gauge from player reaction what the consensus opinion on Selig is within the locker room. Unlike his NBA contemporary and fellow retiree David Stern, players are not as outspoken about the job Selig has done. Under Selig, more players have been suspended from Major League Baseball than ever before. That's an unfair statement though, as nearly all of the suspended players were punished under the MLB's new performance enhancing drug policy. That policy has without question been successful in cleaning up the game, and the first people who will shower it with praise are the players themselves. In fact in the latest labor agreement agreed upon by MLB and players, both sides agreed to the most strict drug policy of any major American sport, and it's not as though the players needed to be convinced. MLB's latest labor agreement guaranteed at least 21 straight seasons of labor peace, not only unprecedented in baseball but something that the NFL, NHL and NBA can't say. The conclusion of the recent A-Rod case may be the only knock against Selig when it comes to player relations. Despite A-Rod's reputation, there is a legitimate argument from his camp that

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he was being persecuted unfairly. That being said, two decades of labor peace are reason enough to believe the relationship between MLB players and the commissioner and his staff is the strongest it's ever been.

Grade: B+ â&#x20AC;¨

Integrity of the Game â&#x20AC;¨

Bud Selig let the 2002 All-Star Game end in a tie. It was a joke, it was frustrating and for baseball fans it just stunk. It was an embarrassing moment for the game, but not even close to it's most embarrassing during Selig's tenure. Selig will be defined by the steroid era, whether he likes it or not. MLB owners and Selig are often blamed for letting the influence of steroids in baseball get as big as the players who used them. From Selig's perspective, that assumption is unfair. In an interview with Sports Illustrated senior baseball writer Tom Verducci, Selig says that he and the owners were not in cahoots to tarnish the game of baseball:

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"So when people say that [we were slow to respond], they either are ignorant of the facts or just don't understand. I think it's remarkable that today we not only have the toughest drug testing program in America, [but we also] test for human growth hormone, we banned amphetamines on our own...I mean, we really have done everything that we can do. So that to me is a historical 62

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myth and it's absolutely inaccurate." â&#x20AC;¨

Selig is firm in his belief that he and many well respected people

working in and around the game found out about steroids the same time as the fans did. Yet the moment Verducci brings up Jose Canseco, who admitted to using steroids in the late 80's, well before most fans knew what they were, Selig begins to dance around the question. There's the slightest admission that the MLB knew about steroid use within the sport, but simply didn't know the "depth of it". If the President of the United States found out a senator or congress person had been bribed by a major corporation, would they question just one or a very select few in their investigation? My money says no, they would likely question any other senator, congress person or government official who has any ties to the them or the corporation in any way to figure out the "depth of it" because that's their job. Selig might be telling the truth when he says he had no idea, but that's no excuse when a major part of your job is making sure no player, coach or owner threatens the integrity of the game. If fans in Boston, who chanted "steroids" at Jose Canseco all the way back in 1988, saw that something fishy was going on how can Bud Selig or anyone in MLB simply say they weren't aware of it? They can't, because their job is to be 63

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aware of it. It's easy to not be aware of steroid use though when a strike nearly kills your sport and is then saved by players who looked like action figures. Steroid use helped players hit home runs, home runs made people want to watch baseball and baseball is flush with cash today thanks in part to it's revival during the peak of the steroid era. There might be some truth to what Selig says about his lack of knowledge about steroids, but it just seems too inconceivable and it's unacceptable. Steroids were being used in baseball as early as 1988, steroids were an illegal substance then and now, baseball kept the substance legal within the game as the sport made more money than ever and saw records smashed then smashed again. The record books are now arguably tarnished and the game suffered a black eye that may never go away. Selig is certainly not the only one to blame, former commissioners Peter Ueberroth, Fay Vincent and to a lesser extent Bart Giamatti (he was only commissioner for 154 days) had a chance to do something but did not. But it was Selig who led the way during the majority of the steroid era, and while it was a nice clean up job, Selig was only mopping up the mess he and his predecessors had created. â&#x20AC;¨ Grade: Dâ&#x20AC;¨ â&#x20AC;¨

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On the Field â&#x20AC;¨

It's a bit of a shame that the steroid era and its aftermath will overshadow any other aspect of Bud Selig's tenure as commissioner, because the game of baseball experienced the most change on the field over the last 22 years since the early days of the game. Before Selig, the fourth most populous state in the country had no baseball team, only four teams made the playoffs, the All-Star Game was just an exhibition and replay was still only used for television. As Selig departs, Florida has not just one but two teams, a total of ten teams now qualify for the postseason, home field advantage is now determined by the Midsummer Classic and replay is finally being fully implemented into baseball at the beginning of this season. They're not all perfect, but it's safe to say that these changes have had a largely positive affect on the game. Four teams have been added to the MLB since Selig took over, the Colorado Rockies, Florida (now Miami) Marlins, Tampa Bay (formerly Devil) Rays and Arizona Diamondbacks. All four have participated in at least one World Series, with the D'backs winning in 2001 and the Marlins winning twice, despite zero division championships. The Marlins have the Wild Card to thank for their World Series success, and since the Wild Card became a 65

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part of MLB's playoff format nine Wild Card winners went on to play in the fall classic with five of them winning the whole thing. The jury is still out on the controversial decision to have the All-Star Game determine which league will have home field advantage in the World Series. Something had to be done after the 2002 All-Star Game at Miller Park ended in an unsatisfying tie. Making the game "count" proved to be a much more controversial decision among the fans than anticipated, but the numbers do not lie. The midsummer classic's new wrinkle has made the game live up to it's billing, as seven of the last eleven All-Star Games have been determined by two runs or less, and despite American League dominance in the "this time it counts" era (the AL has taken home field advantage eight times during that span), World Series winners have been split pretty evenly by league (six titles for NL teams, five for the AL). And while there will certainly be some kinks in MLB's brand new replay system, the fact that baseball is finally out of the stone age is reason enough to applaud Selig, even if it is about fifteen years overdue. It's probably said by old baseball guys year in and year out, but the game really is better than it's ever been thanks in large part to the fine work done by Selig and MLB to make playoff races more exciting, the All-Star game more meaningful and to make the game as good as it can possibly be.

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Grade: Aâ&#x20AC;¨

Popularity of Baseball â&#x20AC;¨

Baseball is not the national pastime anymore. No matter how many times a baseball lifer will romanticize about the game of yesteryear or how many times Ken Burn's tells you how baseball helped defeat the Nazi's in World War II, or something like that, the NFL is king. In this "what have you done for me lately", "get it done for me yesterday" society, a fast paced, once a week even sport like football fits perfectly into are ever frantic lifestyle. Baseball, with it's leisurely pace, evolving and complicated statistics and seemingly endless season, seems to be becoming more of a cult sport. With all those factors against it, it's amazing that baseball still remains as popular and successful as it is today. According to ESPN's attendance figures, in 2013 around 74 million fans attended Major League Baseball games, the most of any sport in the world. Granted, MLB has nearly ten times more games than the more popular NFL, but baseball does draw about 31,000 fans per game, second only in the United States to professional football. Baseball in America is still alive and well, with fans still watching in the ballpark and on TV at record numbers, but it's around the world where the impact of Selig and his 67

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team is felt. While the World Baseball Classic is still viewed as a punch line in the States, it has had a profound affect on the popularity of baseball around the world. The last two WBC tournaments provided an estimated $40 million in prize money to countries involved according to Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports, funding baseball programs and youth centers like the Boys and Girls Club around the globe. Thanks to the success of the WBC, countries like China, Brazil, the Netherlands and Australia are becoming new hotbeds of baseball talent. Outside of the WBC, international stars like Albert Pujols, Ichiro Suzuki and Miguel Cabrera have helped keep baseball among the five most popular sports in the world. Put all of this together with the multi-million dollar television contracts teams are signing in recent years, and there's reason to believe that Bud Selig has made baseball more popular than anyone could have imagined.

Grade: B+ â&#x20AC;¨

There were plenty of bumps in the road, plenty of controversies and one ridiculous statue of the guy, but Bud Selig's tenure as the head of Major League Baseball has been a lot more successful than people think. Baseball is

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cleaner, more successful and arguably better than it ever has been. The game survived the 1994 strike and the steroid era thanks to Selig, but they can probably thank Selig for both controversies as well. Still, if you're expected to leave the place in better shape when you leave than when you came in, Selig has done that and then some. He might have made a huge mess along the way, but the commissioner did one hell of a clean up job on an old fashioned game that probably should have been long dead by now.

! ! !                                               69

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2014 MLB Season Predictions American League East

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Boston Red Sox (94-68) Tampa Bay Rays (91-71)* New York Yankees (88-74) Baltimore Orioles (83-79) Toronto Blue Jays (70-92)

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Detroit Tigers (93-69) Kansas City Royals (89-73) Cleveland Indians (81-81) Chicago White Sox (71-91) Minnesota Twins (65-97)

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Oakland Athletics (95-67) Los Angeles Angels (90-72)** Texas Rangers (87-75) Seattle Mariners (76-86) Houston Astros (62-100)

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Washington Nationals (95-67) Atlanta Braves (89-73)** Philadelphia Phillies (78-84) New York Mets (76-86) Miami Marlins (64-98)

! American League Central !

! American League West !

! National League East !

! National League Central !

1. St. Louis Cardinals (98-64) 2. Cincinnati Reds (87-75) 70

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3. Pittsburgh Pirates (84-78) 4. Milwaukee Brewers (78-84) 5. Chicago Cubs (63-99)

! National League West ! 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Los Angeles Dodgers (94-66) San Francisco Giants (90-72)* Arizona Diamondbacks (82-80) San Diego Padres (75-87) Colorado Rockies (72-90)

! World Series ! Nationals over Athletics in 6 games ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

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Derrick Ward is the Hero the NFL Needs ! Dylan Harper ! ! !

The DeSean Jackson saga has been a fine example of the dog whistle racism that’s been almost a tradition of the NFL, ESPN, and sports reporting in general. The idea that baseless claims of associating with gangs can get a black and otherwise productive NFL player essentially fired from his job is disturbing, although not surprising. Few individuals in the sports fan community seemed to put much effort into even mentioning any racial components, and articles that do touch on them have their comments section bombarded by presumably drunk Philly fans protesting even the idea that racism exists; if you asked an Eagles fan they’d tell you there’s as much racism in their franchise as there are Lombardies in their trophy case. Fortunately, one Super Bowl winning player decided to take it on himself to bring the hammer down on the Eagles, ESPN, and racist sports reporting in the NFL. Enter Derrick Ward:

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Even more entrenched than racism (although only damaging when the two cross paths) is the rain maker atmosphere in sports reporting. All sports analysts make their living by pretending that they’re an expert, they’re one step ahead of every fan, and that’s why the fans need to tune in. It’d be harmless, but this attitude transcends draft predictions, and point spreads. It leeches into complex social topics and leaves the rubes of the sports fan world with the impression than expert confirmed, in this case, that there is no racism in the NFL.

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! Oh facts. Rarer than an Oakland Raiders touchdown, it took a player who had nothing to do with the situation to finally step in and state the obvious: these baseless claims of Jacksonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s alleged gang ties are entirely baseless. One might as well accuse Tom Brady of selling poison milk to school children.

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This is just a straight up call out, and it’s beautiful. Bruschi is one of those players that was always kind of like the coaches son, where he was so self-righteous and annoying that only a sleeveless hoodie dawned Bostonian could support him. Definitely a “finally someone said it” type of moment. 75

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! Another important fact: like Hobby Lobby with the conception drugs they had no issue with pre-Obamacare, if these alleged ties date back to Jackson’s high school career, why weren’t they an issue then?

! And this is really where Ward brings it all together. Riley Cooper calls a black individual the N word with virtually no serious consequence, and the Eagles invest in him long term; DeSean Jackson is baselessly accused of 76

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having gang ties, and he gets fired. This is how employee based racism generally works: white people get as many chances as they need, people of color get kicked to the curb at the first sign that they fit into any white created stereotype that might negatively impact their employer.  Hats off to Derrick Ward for taking the league and it’s hangers on to task. It shouldn’t be necessary, but it’s very refreshing to see those who deserve get the verbal equivalent of what Ward’s Giants have done to the Patriots’ confidence the last two times they’ve met in the Super Bowl.

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Staff Writers Ashleigh Becker - Actor, Artist, NYU veteran, and Pig Latin expert.  Vanessa Bellew - Actress. Displaced Texan. Procrastinator. Full-time nerd.   Jake Hook - UCLA Philosophy student, anarchist, and Kantian.  Mike Munoz - Video Game aficionado; frequent internet commentator. Cody Pasby - A native of the San Francisco Bay Area and a graduate of San Francisco State University, where he majored in broadcast journalism. Cody also reviews films on The Screen Watcher's Guild podcast and writes about baseball on his blog, Off the Beaten Basepath.

Contributors Bethany Geiger: Cover artist and designer. Jules Wood: Copy editor, music critic.

Editor Dylan Harper