Replaying Deus Ex (in shoot-'em-up form rather than my traditional pacifistic inclinations) and reminded of its brilliance in not just the big things but little things as well:

• A bum in Battery Park, New York City singing "My Country Tis of Thee". The "sweet land of liberty" line is of course particularly poignant given the circumstances of the game. His off-tune voice and genuine enthusiasm (he seems to really believe what he is singing, not just reciting it) lend it an earnestness that make it all the more sad when considering how his faith in his country has been abused (both in the game and in reality).


• A boy in the Mole People's tunnels who proudly proclaims that when he grows up, he will "know everything". The boy seems to see this as the ultimate accomplishment, suggesting that when he does so he will be above or on top of everyone else. A subtle reference (you don't have to talk to him, and he's easy to miss) on the "Knowledge is power" motif that dominates the game (it is, after all, MJ12's motto, in the Latin I used in the title of this post).


• Another boy int he Mole People's tunnels terrified of some secret demon he describes as "the man with red eyes". At first glance nothing more than an amusing inclusion referencing the devil -- except that (presumably due to his augmentation) Bob Page's (the ultimate villain of the game) eyes are red. You can actually see this early in the game, too, in the magazine in the UNATCO lounge.

I love such little touches. They're especially rare in video games but even in more mature mediums subtlety and the presence of larger themes even in minute details is an art that is seldom done well (when attempted at all). Of course, I could write pages and pages on Deus Ex -- the Mole People (or more precisely, the subway station directly before meeting them) are a particular favorite of mine, as are the characters of Gunther Hermann and Joseph Manderley.

Spook Country is William Gibson's (of Neuromancer fame) latest novel, a sequel (at least in the manner of Gibson's sequels) to his last, Pattern Recognition. PR is one of my favorite books; I consider it Gibson's second-best after Neuromancer. SC, while a good read and certainly better than much of today's popular fiction, doesn't quite stand up to its predecessor.

Supposedly the Iowa State Fair is world famous, or at least nationally known. It is a celebration of everything Iowan, and for a week in late August thousands come to swelter in the heat and humidity and eat fried turkey, Twinkies, Oreos, and god knows what else on a stick. Big-name musicians play, there are rides, everyone has fun. It's a family event.

Except that it's all a load of shit.

The above is one of the two most-cited bad/cliche endings in amateur writing (the other being "...but it was all a dream!"). Most comments towards it do note that such an ending can be pulled off effectively in certain cases. (I would imagine one such case being if the story regarded how people respond to an alien, hostile, indifferent universe, or something along those lines... but most would say that's been done enough.)

The fact of the matter, of course, is that such endings happen all the time in real life. People die for random, mundane reasons, all the time. Take the bridge that collapsed in Minnesota a few days ago. Yes, there was a reason -- engineers and politicians and many other people were certainly be investigated and held at fault -- but for the people who died crossing a bridge they crossed every day, it was random, irrelevant to each of their personal stories. It just happened. Now seven people are dead.

Let's try this again.

I'm a religious atheist. What follows is just how I view the world. I'm not trying to present it as fact, but I'm not going to throw in a bunch of IMOs because it'd get tiresome and I think you can figure that out.

Humanity, unique (as far as we know) among life on Earth (and possibly the universe), is sapient. That is, it possesses the ability to think and reason beyond instinctual programming. (Many animals are sentient; many animals can learn. These are not sapience, however.) This causes two problems for us: the problem of absolutes, and the problem of purpose.