Quote on 3D CG humans

"... The idea of doing him as a human **in 3D** wasn't really appealling either. That's a really difficult thing to do and it usually doesn't turn out really well. "

Brian Roberts, animator, "The Story of St. Patrick" segment on The World of Autotainment, Big Idea Studios.

Can you tell what's happening? Does this image work-- can you tell what the big red blur is in the background-- or do I need to fix the composition and modelling in the back? (Hint: it's supposed to be a bunch of threatening red robots.) Email me or leave a comment.
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Sorry Everybody II
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Sorry Everybody
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The Truth "versus" Love Project

I have been a fan of the writings of Francis Schaeffer, who was an apologist for straightforward relevation of truth in scripture. "God spoke truthfully but not exhaustively," is a quote that quickly comes to mind.

I'm also a big fan of the rock star Bono, who has also been involved in various humanitarian campaigns. Occasionally, he's come up with wonderfully inflammatory quotes about how nonbelievers will view the church if it were seen as indifferent to the great causes of human suffering on the planet.

At the same time, it has been said that Schaeffer's work led the groundwork for the formation of the Moral Majority or Christian Coalition. A voting guide for the CC about a decade ago explicitly advocated the denial of visas to refugees with AIDS; Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell have similarly had a reputation of not being the most humanitarian-minded of individuals. Pat's twice called for a nuclear strike against the U.S. State Department.

Likewise, Bono's web site has information which gives a religious context to the campaign. One such "sermon" really has no religious content in it, certainly no mention of grace or Jesus, and the action called for was a letter to politicians.

I for one believe the world would be a better place-- that the actual God out there would be happier-- if more Christians had the resolute theological grounding of Schaeffer with the humanitarian outlook of Bono. Biblical orthodoxy with human compassion, a respect for revealed truth and fraternal love-- hence I've started the Truth "versus" Love Project. A Homiletics Award or sermon-writing contest for seminary students of my own denomination, the ELCA.

See the following link for an announcement page.
http://www.geocities.com/pterandon//truthvslove.html

I've been working on increasing the "attractiveness" of the two figures. Compare how nice they look even compared to the animation I submitted a few weeks ago, at: ( http://irtc.org/anims/2004-10-15/view.html ). The one on the left I had been keeping around as a joke-- when I first shared it I believe I heard jokes about a lunch lady. After fixing the eyes and lips, I "accidentally" gave it an African skin color and BAM! it looked beautiful to me, with the contrast of the blue eyes. I had been intending to make the one on the right a person of color, but I think I'm sold on the one on the left. The right one's hair was taken from a sample file by Anto Matkovic which was included with jPatch.  

A portrait of the latest version of my leading man character. Think I got the lighting just right on this one.
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Image: Finally, a Leading Lady...

This took a lot of work, especially to get the lipstick algorithm to work. She is modelled in part after a virtual composite of German beauty pageant winners.

Now if I were ever to have a little romance in one of my stories, the audience will no longer be asking, "Why is he dating a mutant gorilla?" or, "Isn't the lunch lady a bit older than him?" Not searching for a pinup, just trying to make something that wasn't inherently comedic.
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No, we're actually in favor of torture.

Michelle Malkin writes in a recent column where she lists a number of things that bother her:

2. The American Civil Liberties Union. The organization maintains dangerously absolutist positions against the use of torture to gather intelligence from al-Qaida terrorists, against the designation of enemy combatants apprehended on either foreign or American soil and against common-sense profiling in wartime.

"Dangerously absolutist position against the use of torture?"

I remember during the 1998 race for the Florida seat in the U.S. Senate, then candidate Connie Mack opposed a treaty against torture. He said that he believed democracy was the only key to protecting human rights. Connie mack was also a staunch defender of Low Intensity Conflict in Latin America, wars launched in the name of freedom and democracy (and BTW wars where "our side" had a long list of charges of human rights charge against them.) I remember one Amnesty International report that accused the Nicaraguan contras of "routine torture and summary execution of captives." (When the same phraseology was used by A.I. against Saddam, they were proudly repeated by Dan Quayle in defense of the Gulf War-- but I'm getting ahead of myself). My cynical side in 1988 was tempted to conclude that Connie Mack was actually pro-torture. But I repented of my disparagement of my brother-- no one's that terrible.

Then came the Rodney King beating. The Abner Loiuma anal rape, the anal rape at Abu Ghraib. In the defense of all these actions, there were seemed to be a vein of popular conservatism that thought these were good things, or were "more outraged at the outrage" than the thing itself.

Can someone help me out here? Is there a vein in the tradition of the church that allows for the abuse of prisoners if it can be tied to some security objective? Email me at my address-- it's the nine-letter word in the userid of this blog account at gmail.com.

There's a logical problem here. The old adage goes, "What's good for the goose is good for the gander." I can imagine that the Soviet Union faced security threats as grave as does the West now. Surely Saddam did, with Kurdish and Iranian operatives threatening their security. If we rationalize torture in our time of crisis, we've just written a theology that gives Saddam and Stalin a Get out of Hell Free card.

We're mostly against torture

I'm a bit reeling from news reports that a "majority" of Americans oppose torture.

The results come from the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA). The AP story reported on Yahoo! News stated,

A majority, 55 percent, said this country should never use mental torture — such as making someone think that they or their family will be killed, according to the poll by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland.

Of course, my political sensibilities are deeply offended that the number is not 100%. The PIPA report does show greater reluctance to suport other forms of torture:

These include methods formally approved by the Department of Defense including using threatening dogs (rejected by 58%) and forcing detainees to go naked (75% rejected). Other forms rejected by even larger majorities included sexual humiliation (89%) and holding a detainee’s head under water (81%).

Rush Limbaugh is widely reported to have called the Abu Ghraib prison abuses "brilliant"; I read a speech from Chuck Colson where he stated his disgust at the sexual turn of events at Abu Ghraib, and said that as a fine young officer he in his youth would have found nonsexual ways to abuse prisoners. It sounded like he was reaching into the list of techniques above.

I've heard it said that using abuse in interrogation is not helpful because the abused will say anything to get the abuse to stop. In all seriousness, it endangers us not only because of unreliable information but because it ticks off the family members of those abused.

I am convinced that the God of the Bible is appalled at these things. We are no better than beasts. As one who believes in original sin and an actual hell, it's times like these that these doctrines perhaps become too believable for comfort. And yes I know that as I point my finger at the speck in my neighbor's eye I must look for the plank in my own and confess with the Good Thief on the Cross that "I justly deserve Thy temporal and eternal punishment."

But where is the church in all this? I can think of about four different responses:

1. Rush is right. Prisoner abuse is brilliant. I've also seen other conservatives say what happened at that prison was not torture. 
   My response: To the former, I think there's a quote in Out of the Silent Planet where the angel in charge of Mars says to one of the villians from Earth, "Were you of my world, I would simply 'undo' you, because everything human in you is already gone." To the latter, perhaps this is some kind of forgivable hysteria to deal with such unbelievable news. In any case, if some Christian denominations are breaking up over some wanting to be silent about sexual sins, I say I'd be the first to throw a brick over this issue.


2. The Gospel and our eternal status is the focus of the Church. As the regenerate will be empowered to do good works by the Spirit, therefore we must simply preach even more boldly the doctrine of forgiveness of sins on account of Christ's sake.
   My response, this may be the case, but why then wouldn't this formula apply also to other sins, like abortion or sexual ones: 'Hush up on controversial specifics, just preach Jesus'? I do not mean to mock anyone's commitment to seek legislation against abortion. Your theology of politically incorrect sins (like torture) however should match your theology on the sanctity of life.


3. This is a national emergency crying out for incisive Law and Gospel preaching. My response: so like how? How do you tell people to be simple decent human beings without rightly being accused of partisanship, etc? How do you articulate this to be stricly a message from God-- yeah there's the idea of "Remember those abused as if you yourself were abused," but does that law make people human again?


4. If these justifications for prisoner abuse were to represent a valid option within orthodox Christianity, I can just imagine what is going on in the mind of nontheists: Whereas, Christians are supportive, indifferent, silent, or divided on whether to round up residents of a country they've invaded and start torturing people at random. Therefore be it resolved Christianity is complete bunk.
   
   My response: This is my greatest fear-- that those in these countries fearing for their lives, or those nontheists seeking some kind of moral framework to live out their lives, and run into the Chuck Colosn speech. Or they'll hear about Rush's quote and knowing that Rush likes Republican candidates, and remember that the devout church going population of this country is overwhelmingly Republican. So they'll very naturally conclude that either there's something wrong with the actual God out there or the bible these Republicans are reading or with Christianity as something that this planet can afford any longer. This is my greatest fear.
   

And that's what's got me even more appalled.

Pray for the church. Pray for those we are endangering. Pray for me.