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IMNSHO -- The Survey Questions |
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IMNSHO -- The Survey Results |
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Spring 1901 -- What's your favorite power to play? Preliminary Results: IMNSHO S'01 report -- Sun Nov 11, 2007 The inaugural survey question was, "What's your favorite power to play?" From the entire ACD, I got just 21 reponses, which leads me to conclude that I have to do a better job of marketing if this format is going to produce meaningful sample sizes. That being said, a bare plurality of the vote goes to Austria and Germany, with four each. I got more than one "Go big or go home" comment along with the votes for Austria. Receiving three votes were France and Italy, while England and Russia got two mentions apiece. Turkey got no love at all, and I can't blame anyone for that; I never have liked playing the jaundiced pieces. Three ACDers expressed no preference for any power, including one who opined that his favorite was whichever he had played least recently. By, the way, I promised you that I would not reveal any one person's vote. There is one exception to that; I will almost always reveal my own vote. I voted for Germany. As the German, I know that everybody but the Turk HAS to talk to you, and the Turk is the player I most want to talk with, so you're always fully involved with each player. You're also in a rapidly unfolding center of the board. IMNSHO S'01 report -- Sat Nov 17, 2007 We have two surveys to publish this week, as I reopened the voting on #1 after learning that the word may not have gotten out quite as well as I had hoped it would... Let's move on to the original poll, on favorite Standard Dip power. ACDers proved a bloodthirsty (and risk-tolerant) lot, as the leader of the survey was Austria, which garnered a plurality with 22% of the total votes cast. Italy, Germany, and France were the runners-up, with 16% each, followed by Russia and 'no preference' with 12.5%. England got 6%, and Turkey trailed at just 3%. My vote went with the Germans.
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Fall 1901 -- What's the best novel you've read lately? We have two surveys to publish this week... We'll start with the second question, which was: What's the best novel you've read recently? I got a wide variety of responses (and some of you have a liberal definintion of "novel," but I don't mind). Only once did two persons name the same book (The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold), althogh we did get two separate nominations from the same author (Jim Butcher). If you plan to tackle the "ACD Book Club," then you've got a lot of reading ahead of you. Behold:
Hunters of Dune by Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson The Benevolent Dictator adds to this prodigious list, The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, which I read recently. It's not exactly a light, breezy read, but it's an extraordinarily powerful novel, and has won several prizes for fiction. Right now I'm reading The Intelligencer, by Leslie Silbert, which is good, but nowhere near as powerful as McCarthy's book.
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Spring 1902 -- How do you describe yourself politically?
Here are the results, including those who indicated that their votes could be published: My own vote belongs in the scattered category (and is included in that total). I have certain opinions that would horrify American conservatives, and others that would mortify American liberals. As was rather forcefully conveyed to me by one ACD'er who resented my "jingoism" for having restricted the possible choices, there are a great many smaller (and more accurate) political groupings around the world. I recognize that this question, like every other one of these surveys, is entirely unscientific, so I'm not overly concerned about an inability to describe each member's beliefs perfectly. In sum, the average ACD'er tilts to the left of center; we have very few conservative members (or else that particular group keeps its ideas to itself).
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Fall 1902 -- Among ACD'ers, who is the best tactician you've ever faced across a board? ...Dip requires three discrete abilities: A mastery of tactics; strategic vision; and the ability to communicate effectively... In the future, you may expect questions directed to the best strategist and the best communicator, but for now, let's paint a bull's eye on our master tactician, shall we? This week's survey was a diabolical one, in which I asked you to identify the best tactician among us. Predictably, a great many players received only one vote, and there is no consensus here. Those among us who received exactly one vote were Toby Harris, Jim Rossiter, Mike Morris, Eric Hunter, Ray Setzer, Patrick Black (nominated by Craig Reges), Tom Pasko, Sean Cable, Paul Rosenzweig, and Roy Rink. Three players got two votes each -- Ted Fines, Chris Martin, and Joe Janbu. But we do have a winner, the only player to receive three votes (including mine) -- David Cohen, our master tactician.
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Spring 1903 -- Please tell me your favorite cinematic film. Last week's question asked you to tell me your favorite movie, and while I got a disappointing number of responses, I wasn't disappointed at all with the variety and quality of movies on the list. Behold:
Man on Fire The Benevolent Dictator's vote goes to The 1968 release, The Lion in Winter, starring Peter O'Toole and Katharine Hepburn (plus the simultaneous cinematic debuts of Anthony Hopkins and Timothy Dalton). While the story describes a Christmas Court in 1183 featuring King Henry II, Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, and future Kings Richard I and John (who neither needs nor merits a number), you will find that this game, in a bow to Alan Calhamer, is actually a Twelfth Century Diplomacy game. By the way, if I had posed the question, "What, in your opinion, is the greatest movie?" instead of your favorite, then I, too, would have selected Casablanca, the most quotable movie until The Princess Bride.
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Fall 1903 -- Please let the group know one goal you have set for yourself for 2008. Finding a house to live in with my girlfriend Slow Down. 2007 has been a banner year for my career, but I need to consolidate on that, and to effect that consolidation I need to take the time to say ‘no’ on occasion and make sure life, and not work comes more into focus. To finally do my banking online. I’ve always been afraid of on line banking for security reasons, but I’ve convinced myself that it is no better (nor worse) than paper … so I plan to start it up this coming month. Not to swear so f'in much. To make more progress in tracing my family tree. Making it to 2009. Anything else is gravy.! [From BD -- If this had come from Ben Hester, which it didn't, I would have agreed that it's a worthwhile target. For the rest of us, it seems to be setting the bar just a wee bit low.] I ump softball and I have a two part goal related to that: Obtain promotion to the certified level (highest possible in my state); Work in regional playoffs. I am going to run in two half-triathalons next year. I am going to train to run in a marathon, but that may have to wait for 09. Rewrite the summary article of my dissertation in order to release it in the form of a scientific paper (and have it accepted for publication is the second and a necessary part). I actually have a couple goals for 2008. One is to be a better (i.e. more patient) driver, for the sake of both my wife and myself. Two is to re-read War and Peace and to read, for the first time, the second and third volumes of the Divine Comedy. I want to get better at submitting survey answers on time :) [The BD can only sigh.] To build a shed on the concrete slab that my brother and I are pouring. That and world peace. : ) Learn to make better use of Firefox. I've not taken two straight weeks off for a vacation since about..... 1980's some time? I plan to take two weeks off this summer, and as part of that two weeks attend DipCon in Bangor, Maine. This is in JULY. Pay attention to whom I'm writing. [From BD -- This, of course, was Suzanne's humorous follow-up to her inadvertently broadcast note, saying that she wouldn't be sending me a goal.] To get my weight down to 175 and keep it there.
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Spring 1904 -- Please give me the name of the best strategist you've faced across a board from among our number. This time, I invited you to vote for the best strategist among us. The results can hardly be called a consensus -- only one person received more than one vote, and he got a grand total of two. That means that, despite the fact that he hardly has what I'd call a decisive mandate, Joe Janbu is our master strategist. Others receiving exactly one vote included (and I'm not certain that all of these have accepted entry into the SCD, so bear with me): Lee Simpson, Michael Tombu, Ray Setzer, Brian Ecton, David Cohen, Paul Stuckwisch, David Hood, Suzanne Castagne, Ted Fines, Chris Martin, Adam Silverman, Martin Gilbey, Tom Potocki, and Baron von Powell. (Truth be told, I don't even know half of these people. But that's the whole point of the theme of this game -- to get to know each other.) The Benevolent Dictator's vote goes to Peter Richardson, who showed me with a single question that he knows more about strategic vision that I will ever know.
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Fall 1904 -- Briefs or boxers? Last week's survey was revealing. No, not merely in the sense that it "revealed" many of our male players' undergarment preference; I mean that it revealed two things to me. First, it confirmed my suspicion from an earlier survey, that Dip players have a ferocious resistance to being categorized. As with my early survey asking you to describe yourself politically, I found that a large number of people, given the choice betwen A and B, wanted to pick Q. In fact, I got almost as many joke answers as serious ones. Second (and this is by far the more troubling to me), I discern a considerable and increasing degree of apathy toward the questions, leading me to have second thoughts as to whether this is a worthwhile enterprise. I have considered discontinuing the survey, but I won't do that yet; we'll see if we get a similarly low turnout rate for the next couple of polls before I make a final decision. The results are as follows: Of those players giving me a choice between the two options offered, briefs were the overwhelming selection, scoring 81% of those votes. Boxers got just 19% (including The Benevolent Dictator's vote). Of the legions of non-answers, my favorite was this one, from one of our non-American members: "I have noo idea what you're talking about."
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Spring 1905 -- It's time to select the best communicator in the ACD. Last week's survey completed the trilogy, suggested to me by a fellow ACD member, in which we identified the best tactician, the best strategist, and the best communicator among our membership. Past winners included David Cohen (best tactician) and Joe Janbu (master strategist). This week, I received a total of 25 votes. Those receiving a single vote were Ray Setzer, Clark Iverson (not an ACD member, but eligible to join), Rex Martin (ditto), Paul Rosenzweig, Sean Cable, Joe Janbu, David Cohen, Lee Simpson, Faust, Ian Cowburne, and Libby McAfee. Kester Bearne, Scott Troemel, Ted Fines, and Chris Martin got two votes apiece. There is a tie for the top vote-getter this week, with three votes apiece. I am very relieved to tell you that Suzanne Castagne got a late vote to tie the previous leader, whom I emphatically did not want to win, for fear of the inevitable perception -- because it's me. The Benevolent Dictator's vote, along with that of Eric Hunter (the only participant to cast a public vote) went to Chris Martin. Chris's diplomacy is dazzling, and his enthusiasm is both infectious and mesmerizing (and dangerous, if you're not careful).
(Addendum 1 of 2):
(Addendum 2 of 2): First, of course, I ran the survey report while miscounting a vote that had been changed by the voter. I caught that one about half an hour after sending out the initial report. Then, the correction contained two errors. Most visibly, I misspelled the word "correction" in the header. No major damage there. But then I committed the greater sin of misspelling the name of the player who received the vote that I initially failed to tabulate. It's Luis Aldamiz; I had inadvertently transposed the M and the D in his name. The temptation is to go back to bed now, to avoid further misstep. But I'll go ahead with my day's plans. Just to be safe, I recommend that if you see me driving toward you today, you might want to hunt for cover.
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Fall 1905 -- For this week, assume you're going to be executed tomorrow morning and you get to request anything you want for your final meal. I got a lot of fun responses to last week's survey, which asked you to list the main course in your final meal before being executed. Several of you went beyond the main course, and described the entire meal. Who am I to deny a condemned man his entire meal? Here are the responses (in addition to those publicly posted by Ben Hester and Ian Cowburn on February 10): I suppose you'll get lobster or filet mignon or whatever from many but I'm rather partial to meat loaf. The wife makes a really good one. [From Craig Reges, who is no doubt currying favor with his Boss] Let's go with steak and potatoes and die like a man, not some sissy lad. [Subtle hint: This one was not from Suzanne Castagne, nor from Arnold Schwarzenegger.] May I recommend the carrot cake. If it's my last meal, darn right it's the main course. That's easy. Sushi. Heavy on the shrimp (aka Krill -- every time we order in from my favourite Japanese restaurant, for some reason they insist on accompanying our meal order with an embarrassing number of chopsticks). [From Marc St. Rose]
Appetizer - Scallops lightly sauteed over salad greens with a balsamic viniagrette dressing. Wild mushrooms sautee (french spelling???). And a bottle of Grand Cru Musigny. The most hedonistic experience, excluding sex. Unless we're talking about a 1990 Musigny, which is better than sex.
Steak, very bloody (and large) A simple filet mignon …. And a bottle of 1982 Chateau Petrus New York Style pizza and beer.
So many foods, so little time! This is a killer for a foodie. No reason to worry about a healthy diet for a last meal, so I think I'd skip the dinner dishes and go for a mountain of pastries... :)
My inclination is to be "clever" and have dinner out on the town, or hemlock, or somesuch. :) Here is a good final meal, to fit the "one cannot die without trying these": Turtle soup, whale sashimi, takifugu sushi, and hot dolphin meat. My main course for my final meal would be grilled coho salmon on a bed of saffron rice topped with sauted chanterelle mushrooms. Humongoid Hot Fudge Sundae with Whipped Cream and Peanuts. The Benevolent Dictator, being of Southern upbringing (raised in southeastern Virginia), would settle for a final meal of a thick ham steak, my own concoction of succotash, a couple of buttermilk biscuits, collard greens, and pecan pie at the end. As for the beverage -- is there another rational choice? -- a couple of mint juleps, preferably mixed with Basil Hayden bourbon. By me. (Can't trust those damn yankee bartenders.)
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Spring 1906 -- Name your favorite composer of classical music. Last week, I asked you to identify your favorite composer of classical music. I got one vote each for Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Liszt, Walton, Mozart, PDQ Bach, Krieger, and Strauss. One member split his vote three ways because he simply couldn't choose (hey, I only ask the tough questions), giving one-third of a vote to Bartok. Another third went to Beethoven, who also got a full vote, so Beethoven winds up slightly ahead of the group named above. Next are Chopin (who got Craig Reges's vote) and Dvorak, with two votes apiece. But easily our leading vote-getter, with a total of 4 1/3 votes, is J. S. Bach. The Benevolent Dictator's vote goes to Claude Debussy.
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Fall 1906 -- Let's select the official brewed beverage of the ACD. Last week's survey asked you to help select the official brewed beverage of the ACD. I got a fair number of responses, and the clear winner is Guinness, which received six votes (including the votes of Craig Reges and the Benevolent Dictator). The only other brews to receive more than one vote were Newcastle Brown Ale and tea (one reader specified Lapsang Souchong). Receiving one vote each were Harveys Level Best Bitter, Troegenator Double Bock, Pilsner Urquell, Miller Light (no; that's not a misprint), Two Brothers' Prairie Path Golden Ale, Badger Brewery -- Fursty Ferret bitter, Bass Ale, Bruges Triple, Eel River India Pale Ale, and the most irresistible vote of all, witches' brew. One final public vote -- The White Wolf puts his money down on the following: "I'd like to give half my vote to Bud Light, and the other half to Amstel Bright with a slice of lime (but only when I'm in the Caribbean!)."
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Spring 1907 -- Please give me the name of the historical figure you would most like to meet.
This week's survey asked you to name the historical figure you'd most like to meet. I got lots of very intriguing answers: As for my vote, I have to say that this was by far the most difficult survey I have run to date. (...) But I won't allow myself the luxury of splitting my own vote fify or sixty different ways; I've got to pick just one. And with that vote, I will (with apologies to Churchill and Stanley, who just barely missed out) double the previous vote total for Lincoln, whom I regard as the greatest president in American history.
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Fall 1907 -- If you had to choose a nation for a three-year exile from your home nation, which would it be? Let's move on to the exile survey. I asked you to name the nation to which you'd willingly go if you couldn't live in your homeland for three years. The responses are as follows:
New Zealand 4 The Benevolent Dictator notes with surprise that no one voted for Tahiti, although our yes-dear member (no offense intended; I'm in the same fraternity) came close with St. Thomas. For my vote, I debated adding to the winning total of New Zealand (I always think of the English Beat's great tune, "Dream Home in New Zealand"). But in the end, I will go with something a tad more familiar, not to mention a good bit closer -- another vote for Canada. I love hockey, and the portions of Canada I've seen are indescribably beautiful. I haven't yet been to either the Canadian Rockies or the Maritime Provinces, so I sense I'm still in for a wonderful journey of discovery.
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Spring 1908 -- What single battle has had the most impact on history? Last week's survey was fascinating, and I'm grateful to the ACD'er who suggested it. I asked you to vote for the battle that, in your view, had the greatest effect on history. I didn't exactly set a new record for most entries, but I got some very interesting responses that provide several fascinating history lessons: The defeat of the Spanish Amarda in 1588. Without that you guys might be speaking Spanish or Portuguese. [From BD -- Unsurprisingly, this vote came from the eastern side of the Atlantic Ocean.] Single battle? Surely you jest. There are so many decent choices, ranging from Marathon to Trafalgar to the Battle of the Bulge. In some ways though the question is unimportant. Time always moves on; no battles are really important from a long enough perspective. Still I’ll play and I’ll offer the following definition of “most impact” – which battle’s outcome has affected positively or adversely the largest number of people? And then I’m going to give you two answers (sorry). For immediate impact – the Battle of the Somme in WWI which was the most significant killing field of all time. For long term impact – the Seljuk Turks victory over the Byzantine Empire at Manzikert in 1071. A different result would likely give us a completely different Middle East today – though lord knows in what way it would have been different. Thermopylae. I'm torn on JUST two choices. Both are tied up with favorite "overlooked great leaders of history". They are: The Battle of Singapore, which determined that the Americans and not the British or Americans and British in partnership would wage the war against Japan. It also determined that the War in Europe would end first (the War in Japan would have ended first otherwise, and issues regarding nuclear weapons and nuclear proliferation would have played out very differently). AND, Tomoyuki Yamashita was one of the GREAT generals in history and died too young (at our hands and the hands of General McArthur) in a way that (in my view) was unfair. And this prevented him from being alive to be part of getting the credit eventually that he deserved after the war furor died down. I am equally still not proud of my country for that and the assassination of Admiral Yamamoto. Yamamoto and Yamashita were proud, great men, in the end misguided by an Imperial structure with a death-wish, but great men nevertheless. And: The Battle of Gettysburg, which everyone knows all the details about, but Col. Strong Vincent of Pennsylvania, who died there at the battle (I've written about him repeatedly) was the unaccounted for savior of the day for the North. In the end, I choose the Battle of Singapore, since the stakes were so much higher and the US still would have been formed and the South probably eventually would have lost [From BD -- This phrase is obviously the work of a carpetbaggin' damn yankee], even if they won at Gettysburg. Rest in peace, Tomoyuki Yamashita. Lexington. If things had gone differently you'd still be loyal subjects of the Crown :) [From BD -- It's touching, really, to have two of our across-the-pond brethren so deeply concerned about American welfare.] The Sack of Rome 1527. Why? It ended the Roman Renaissance, gave huge impetus to the Northern European Reformation including the eventual split with Rome of England (due to Clement VII’s inability to stand up to Charles V, and grant Henry VIII a divorce from Katherine of Aragon) and laid the very first foundations for what became modern day Italy. Those are just the primary effects. It could be argued that anything related to Reformation can be sourced back to Clement VII and his disempowerment by the Sack of Rome. Cannae - weakened the Roman republic and made the Empire inevitable. If it qualifies as a "battle" and if I may cast such a vote without it being construed as offensive: The My Lai Massacre. The withering of America's moral authority is to me the most defining trend of the 2nd half of the 20th century and the 1st part of the 21st. My Lai stands as a watershed in that process. Given the chance for a second vote, I should have selected the bombing of Hiroshima (if that qualifies as a battle...) because it, even more than the worst of the First World War battles contributed to what I believe to be the second most defining trend of the last 100 years: A burgeoning revulsion for war. What a silly question! There are lots of them, which if they had turned out differently, would have completely changed the world as we know it. [From BD -- This response goes to show that you can't make everyone happy in this business.] I think that the Islamic conquest did as much to change the face of the known world at that time than anything else I can think of. As I said, I do not know much about military history, but it seems that the Battle of Yarmuk in 636 was one of the clearest examples -- and also a great battle, from the military point of view. The Attack on Pearl Harbor had the most impact IMNSHO. If the attack hadn't come, the US probably wouldn't have become as involved. That, In my mind, could've greatly reshaped the geopolitical climate of the planet differently. "On history" without any specificaiton must mean global history so it must be something that proportionally affects most people in the world. It could be from one the XXth century WWs ("unfortunately" one cannot say that a bombing is a battle), but we can find similars in world-wide wars in centuries before, with major battles, or well before, battles that did surely affect the way the european woud deal with the "new world" and also with their empires in Asia and Africa. So it must be something from early modern ages or late renaicessance. I can't specify. In order to be something that affects people in all continents in another point in time, then it should be something from the key nations (religions?) of the world, but that's too argueable!, so for certain something like the battle that forced the sapiens sapiens cross the Sinai and conquer the rest of the world - except that most probably they did not do it as refugees from a war. It was not also through war the the human won the evolutionary race against our closest cousins (if any). So it definitely must be something that defined how the Eurpean would deal with the rest of the world. My personal answer goes to the Battle of Alcácer Quibir (don't know how to spell it in english, nor in arabic) in 1578, in a time when the most "international" nations of the world were Spain and Portugal, a major comsequence of loss of this battle for the portuguese against the moroccan was the union of the two iberian natins for the next 60 years, what led to an abandonment of some estabished portuguese colonies thus allowing the smart dutches to overthrow portuguese rule in important places in Asia, Africa and America. It was only after that that the french and the english (to nominate the most known; I figure I could also vote on some english vs. french battle, but i can't chose well) started to think as merchant nations and have solid plans, not only act as pirates. Of course the english project proved to be much better than any other throughout the next centuries, and that caused other battles, but that's another story. [This very thoughtful response comes from Cristiano Corte Restitutti.] Well, I am no student of military history, am I? Greek defeat of Persians at Marathon? The battle where Chi'n united the seven tribes of China?? I think it has to be an early fight, as far as impact is concerned. Marathon is famouser than it is probably ought to be, hmmmm. Lets go with The Battle of Banquan, probably legendary but credited for the formation of the Huaxia tribe, forerunners of the Chinese Han. While I don't have much historical interest in wars, to vote I'd say I have to go for the Battle of Stalingrad. As a Dutchy the effects of WW II are still felt and remembered, though I was born 30 years after its finish. And that battle was the decisive one to stop the Germans under Hitler. [From BD] I have come to the end of the votes in my inbox, but I am concerned that I have missed one, as I recall getting one other mention for my own vote, but I can't find that now. That battle is Salamis, the naval sequel to Thermopylae. Thermopylae was a great story of personal, patriotic sacrifice, but in the end, it only slowed the Persian juggernaut for a few days. The Greeks inflicted a real and devastating defeat on Xerxes at Salamis, leading the Persian king to withdraw, leaving only a land-based force under Mardonius. The defeat the next year (479 BCE) of Mardonius at Plataea merely finished what Salamis had started. If Salamis had gone the other way, then Plataea would not have been necessary, as the Greeks would almost certainly have been overrun a century before the Golden Age could reach its zenith. No Socrates, no Plato, no Aristotle, no tutor for Alexander. Imagine the classical era without Pericles, or without the great trio of Sophocles, Euripides (who was born the year of Salamis) and Aeschylus (who actually fought at Salamis). In retrospect, this question was, in my mind, loaded in favor of ancient battles. The more time that passes after a battle, the greater the opportunity it has had to influence history. If we were not thus temporally prejudiced, I might have considered the Battle of Britain, where Nazi Germany's Wehrmacht finally met a foe it could not roll over, or perhaps Crecy, which demonstrated the primacy of massed longbowmen in late medieval warfare. But in my opinion, the effect on history, if those battles had gone the other way, pales in comparison with a Persian victory over the Athenian navy.
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Fall 1908 -- Your favorite Diplomacy variant? We got a lot of interesting responses to last week's survey, which asked you to name your favorite Dip variant. Modern got two votes. The only other one that got two votes was Tournament Dip, which I was tempted to disqualify, since it uses Standard Dip rules. But I'll be Benevolent with those who voted thusly, including Chris Martin publicly. With that vote total, I can't claim that there is any sort of consensus. Here are the other nominees: Chromatic; Western World; PBEM Standard (also technically a variant, since no one is standing around a table, but the Benevolence continues) with half a vote; Postmodern; CivDip; War of the Worlds; Payola with the other half of the split vote; Nuclear (I think it's technically called Nuclear Yuppie Evil Empire Dip); Colonia VII-B; Intimate; Double-Secret Dip; Machiavelli; and three intriguing votes called 1897, 1898, and 1900. Finally, the Vote of the Week goes to Mike Morris, who sent me this:
I have not answered the last few surveys because I didn't have an informed opinion. But I do play a LOT of variants, and am very interested in more of the current good ones being played, so I will answer this one (and publically, since this will be a long answer and you may not wish to include all of it in your report. Please feel free to edit): As for myself, I am the opposite of Mike; I have played very few true variants (I won't count Tournament or PBEM), and the only one I have played more than once is Gunboat, which is not exactly very exotic. However, I'm having a lot of fun with the current playtest of Dark Ages, so I'll go with that.
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Spring 1909 -- Who or what is your favorite fictional character? As for the vote, I have to give a group vote, instead of an individual. By this, I mean I can't vote for any one fictional character, so I am forced to vote for an entire crew. That would be the crew of Serenity, a little Firefly-class mid-range cargo hauler of Joss Whedon's creation. The TV series Firefly and the "Big Damn Movie" Serenity feature the ten 'people' I hold closest in my own little world: Mal, Zoe, Wash, Jayne, Inara, Simon, River, Book, Kaylee and Serenity (I can count the ship as a character, it's my little world!) Waylander from the David Gemmell books. Favorite fictional character: that's an interesting question. I've always thought that I had rather masculine or neutral tastes in literature; but when I try to think of favorite characters, I am surprised to find myself thinking of women, and not necessarily women with very independent personalities. I think of women like the first wife of the doctor in Arrowsmith, like the wonderful Lia in Ecco's impossible Pendule de Foucault (Foucault's Pendulum?), and of course like Natasha in War and Peace, which is the one I'll choose.
Deciding on a favorite fictional character is a fun exercise, but it is also a difficult one. Probably my all-time favorite character is Yossarian, from "Catch-22", a book I year almost yearly during my young adulthood. In my thirties, I read lots of Russian novels and several characters stand out. I liked Tchitchikoff in "Dead Souls" for his cleverness and essential cyniscism. I liked Prince Bolkonski in War and Peace for his basic goodness and nobility. Maybe my favorite Russian character is Grigory Melekhov, the hero of "And Quiet Flows the Don", for his heroism and strength of character. On a lighter note, I like detective novels, especially those set in other countries. Henning Mankell writes about a Swedish detective names Kurt Wallander. John Harvey writes about an English detective named Charlie Resnick. My present favorite is Aurelio Zen, an Italian detective based in Rome, a creation of Michael Dibdin. You could argue that they are all the same character, although Zen has the most joie de vivre. Steve, favorite fictional character is THE hardest question I can think of that you've asked. There are so many, the contexts of being exposed to them are so different. I could choose Charles Foster Kane, because Citizen Kane is SUCH a great character. I could choose a comic book hero, such as Superman, who epitomizes young yearnings in a way no other fictional character in another medium could. Because you asked something impossible and the answers will be all over the map, I'm going to choose something idiomatic and semi-obscure, but in many ways THE best character ever invented. Rasselas, the Prince of Abyssinia, after whom the Abyssinian Prince is named. While it is of course hard to choose only one, my favorite fictional character is Jack Aubrey from Patrick O'Brian series. Difficult one this because it all depends on what sort of reading mood I'm in; light, heavy, SF etc but I think I'll go for Sam Vimes from Discworld. Beaker from the Muppets (Mostly because my own life so closely mirrors his.) A couple of months ago I would have had a different answer, but after reading the first three in the series, I have to say Harry Flashman from the George McDonald Fraser novels. An absolute delight to read! Montresor Herringbone. Corwin of Amber. [From BD -- We now come to the smiley-face voting section.] Emmanuelle. :-) Jin Kazama :)
For the Benevolent Dictator's vote...
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Fall 1909 -- What historical event would you change? The decision of the US to join the League of Nations after World War I. It is impossible to know how things would have been different leading up to WWII, whether the organization could have been successful, but our decision to stay out and continue our isolationist tendencies did change the course of history. It would have been wrenching to have been in it both for us and for countries around the world. I’d change the War of 1812 result such that all of New England became Canadian. I suggest changing the stance of the early Catholic Church on dancing -- it would only take a slightly different reading of several biblical verses, or the incorporation of some gnostic gospels in which Jesus is said to dance with the apostles as part of the last supper -- to have fundamentally changed the way Western Europe and her colonial children understand their bodies; not as something dirty and full of sin, but as created in the image of their deity, worthy of praise and celebration. Certainly many renaissance humanists made that argument, but Tertulian and Augustine's anti-body writings were already deeply entrenched in dogma. After some thought, I think that I would eliminate the rise of Islam in the the 7th century. While Islamic civilization has its good and bad points as do all human endeavors, I think on the whole we might retain the good and eliminate some of the negative features by removing a new religion from the mix. Of course this shamefully favors Christians and Buddhists but we all have our biases and do we really need to endlessly apologize for them? Call me a Byzantine chauvinist if you must :>). [From BD -- You Byzantine chauvinist, you.] While there are obviously many possible choices, I will chose an event that I remember personally. The assassination of Bobby Kennedy. Had he not been killed, then in all likelihood he would have won the Democratic nomination, and the Presidency in 1968, and Richard Nixon would have faded into obscurity like most other Vice-Presidents. [From Eric Hunter] Munich; that is, the negotiations among Hitler, Mussolini, Daladier and Chamberlain concerning Hitler's demand for part of Czechoslovakians. The public opinion was strongly for peace in both France and England, but if there were leaders in these countries willing to stand up against Hitler in spite of their public opinion, that certainly would have changed the history of the last century. The second world war might have eventually been fought anyway, but with a much weaker Germany, politically and militarily, and perhaps more strength in the allied camp. If there was a war, it wouldn't have been anywhere near as devastating. Hard to say what the world would look like today. Perhaps Russia would not have gotten all of eastern Europe essentially as war bounty; the atomic bomb wouldn't have been developed, at least not then; perhaps England and even France would have stayed important much longer and America wouldn't have become the superpower it became, at least not so soon... a whole different world. [These two paragraphs, we inadvertently learned, came from an anonymous ACDer who closely resembles Suzanne Castagne] Are you familiar with the Star Trek "prime directive" concept? It probably happens in quite a few sci-fi plots where somebody goes back in time and changes something with the best of intentions and then gets back to the present only to find unintended and unwelcome consequences. So, better keep it recent and trivial. I think I'll change last Wednesday's lottery draw when my numbers did not come up. :-)
Such a deliciously subjective question! In a spirit of humility, and with more than a passing nod of recognition to The Law of Unintended Consequences, I must by-pass an incredible number of worthy notions that touch upon Great (or Infamous) Moments In History in order to pay homage to the spirit which prompted Captain Kirk's Mr. Spock to quote that old adage about the Needs of the Many OUTWEIGHING those of the individual. And so, the moment I would choose is: May 27, 1993, Stanley Cup Playoffs, Semi-Final Game Six, Los Angeles Kings vs. Toronto Maple Leafs: During sudden-death overtime Wayne Gretzky high sticks Doug Gilmour in the face and referee Kerry Fraser does not call the penalty that would have been levied against any other mortal. Changing that non-call is the historical reversal that I consider most likely to do the most good for the most people without running too much risk of incurring too many unintended consequences. Of course, if a butterfly should die in Brazil tomorrow...
The Benevolent Dictator's entry, after a lifetime of pondering (see the coda below), is that I would be waiting in the dark corridor of Ford's Theater for John Wilkes Booth. And I'd have an Uzi, so I could waste the little coward. Yes, I am a Southerner, and I attended college in Our Nation's Capital, at the University of Richmond. But I recognize that Booth did more damage to the South than did William T. Sherman and all of his men. What he did was to eliminate the one man with enough sense in 1865 to urge a course of compassion toward a defeated former enemy. By killing the man who conceived a policy of "with malice toward none; with charity for all" (remember, Lincoln uttered these words barely a month before he was assassinated), Booth ensured a generation of enhanced malice, in the form of punitive Reconstruction, the effects of which continued to hamper the South well into the Twentieth Century. In my opinion, that program would have taken on an entirely different tenor had Lincoln remained at the helm. As tempting as it is to try to tinker with the Civil War (imagine that Lee's plans for the Battle of Sharpsburg don't accidentally fall into yankee hands, or that Stonewall Jackson doesn't get shot after dark by one of his own men, or that Jeb Stuart does what he's supposed to do at Gettysburg instead of making up for his first cavalry licking at Brandy Station), I wouldn't do that in order to change the outcome; the South had to lose that war, for several reasons, not the least of which is the eradication of slavery. But an extended Lincoln postwar administration would have been far, far preferable to what actually happened.
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Spring 1910 -- What is your idea of a perfect vacation? Frankly, I don't think I work hard enough to appriciate vacations. Some folks put in 60 hour weeks 50 weeks out of the year, and for them, vacations are really something special. That being said, I can't think of anything finer than heading down to Chapel Hill on Memorial Day Weekend to spend time with my friends playing diplomacy at DixieCon. With the freedom to go out and enjoy local color (of several different flavors) as well as enjoy a real mint julep mixed by a real southern gentleman, there is no other event in the calendar year that I look forward to with such relish. [The Benevolent Dictator blushes, but notes that he is by no means certain to be in Chapel Hill this month.] My perfect vacation, which may not be publishable, involves several women and a bowling alley. It's more of a fractured fairytale... My vote for the vacation spot is Myanmar, just to mess with people's heads, and because the Shwedagon Pagoda is probably really cool in person. So far I've only seen it on google earth :-( Anywhere warm where my wife and I can spend a lengthy spread of days hiking/touring, scuba diving, and reading good books on a beach, in a hammock, in the shade, with my wife enjoying the sun nearby. Slow boat to Carribean. White CLEAN sand and see-through blue water at the end of it. This is not a vacation, but rather a dream of a retirement that I have serious doubts I'll ever take, but its close enough, and I think it is a beautiful image: Picture a rambling house out in the country with a pond in the back yard. I walk over to the pond, get in a rowboat, row to the middle of the pond, lay down in the boat, and fall asleep in the sun. [From BD -- This is probably my favorite entry this week.] Hot beach (i'm talkin' temperature here!), no appointments, a book a day (or alternatively a book a week if i've let Gregory Alexopoulos influence my reading selection), family in the area and a beer store too... hey, you were talkin' "vacation" as opposed to "travel," right? Spending time in a pleasant place with family and friends, the key is the people, the community, with the context and place important, but secondary. Spending the weekend at DixieCon teaching my 14-yr old son to play The Game, as my wife does better in the tournament than I do. Then spending Memorial Day at the beach in Kitty Hawk, NC. ( At least I hope it will be a perfect vacation, since it's what we're doing in a month. ;-) ) [From BD -- This was Eric Hunter's entry. Eric, if you do make it to Kitty Hawk, I recommend a trip up to Duck for dinner at Elizabeth's Cafe and Winery, in the Scarborough Fair Shopping center on the east side of Route 12. A world class wine list. Just be sure to make reservations; don't even think of just walking up and asking for a table. In the other direction, Manteo is about 15 miles down Route 12 from KH, but it's well worth the trip to see one of the most picturesque villages you'll ever see on the East Coast.] I like driving holidays through scenic places. Calgary to Vancouver sticks in my memory as a drive I particularly enjoyed. Exploring a city and/or a region that I didn't know.
From the Benevolent Dictator: I'll echo something said in the penultimate entry above -- I also enjoy driving through scenic places, and have had several wonderful trips where I just got in the car and started out, with only a rough idea of where I'd wind up. But my recipe for a perfect vacation would be as follows: There have to be mountains, for hiking and an occasional excursion with my fly rod. I have to be able to get away from civilization, so a nice, reasonably remote cabin would be cool. (Civilization should be within a relatively short driving distance, but should be imperceptible from the cabin.) Just for variety, I'd like to arrange it so an amusement park is an hour or so away (I'm a coaster junkie). The most important daily activity would be to sit by a mountain stream for half an hour or so and engage in a little self-hypnosis.
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Fall 1910 -- How old were you when you first dicovered Diplomacy? I got twenty responses, still a regrettable degree of apathy, considering the number of members we have. But some of The Great Unwashed will never discover the pleasure of allowing their voices to be heard on even the simplest of topics, I suppose. ]8-) A majority (11) of those voting discovered the game in their teens. The youngest was 9, the oldest 35. The commonest vote total (statisticians call this the mode) was 15, which got four votes. Three people asked that I identify their votes -- Chris Martin at 15, Eric Hunter at 20, and Cristiano Corte Restitutti at 12. I first saw the game at the age of 23, while camping out overnight in Charlottesville for ACC basketball tournament tickets. I had played Risk throughout my kid-dom, but after my first game of Dip, I didn't care if I ever saw Risk again.
Here, by the way, is our Vote of the Week, which fortunately is from one of the anonymous voters:
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Spring 1911 -- The greatest athlete in your nation's history is? I got two responses from the Brazilians among us, and both voted for Pelé (Edson Arantes do Nascimento), who is the consensus greatest soccer player in world history. The IOC named him Athlete of the Century in 1999, which I would call a reasonably good indicator of his greatness. I also got two votes from Canada, and somewhat surprising to me, neither of them was for Wayne Gretzky. One was for Bobby Orr, the hockey player who revolutionized the rearguard position. Orr is the only defenceman ever to win the Art Ross Trophy as the league's top scorer. The other (John Milardovic's vote) was for Lionel Conacher, a master of several sports. The Canadian Sports Tribune reported after his death that he was an all-star in (take a deep breath here) football, hockey, baseball, lacrosse, boxing, and wrestling. He won the Stanley Cup (hockey) and the Grey Cup (football), and the Canadian Press's Male Athlete of the Year award is named for him. One Australian cast a vote, and that was for cyclist Robbie McEwen. McEwen switched from BMX riding to road racing at the age of 18, and has become arguably the greatest sprinter in the world at this point, winning the sprinter's classification in the Tour de France three times. I got four responses from our British members. Two of those named Sir Stephen Redgrave, who won gold medals in five consecutive Olympic Games (1984 through 2000) in rowing. Immediately after winning his fourth, he told an interviewer that he never wanted to go near a rowing boat again, But four years later, he returned to claim gold #5. He did all this despite a gnawing series of health problems over the course of his career, including diabetes and ulcerative colitis. Recently, after his retirement from this demanding sport, he has taken up a more leisurely activity, running in marathons (!) to raise money for charity. One Brit named Daley Thompson, the great English decathlete. Thompson won not one but two gold medals in the test for the world's greatest athlete, in the 1980 and 1984 Olympic Games. His bid for a third straight gold fell short as he was limited by an injury in 1988 and finished fourth. Nevertheless, he set world records in the event four times, and was without question one of the most accomplished athletes of his time. The final British vote went to footballer Bobby Moore, praised by no less an authority than Pelé as "the greatest defender I ever played against." Moore played center defender for West Ham United and the English national team, captaining the latter to the World Cup title at Wembley in 1966. He was not particularly fast, but made up for a lack of speed with one of the rare traits of great ahtletes -- an enhanced sense of field vision. (More familiar to Americans, Gretzky and Larry Bird also had this ability, of sensing in advance how a play would unfold.) He, too, faced health adversity, beating cancer while still in his football heyday. Several Americans cast votes. I got one each for football/baseball star Bo Jackson, bowler Walter Ray Williams, Jr. (Roy Rink's vote), and baseball great Babe Ruth. Jackson was a rarity in this modern day of specialization. He not only played two major sports, he was an all-star in both, and inspired a series of entertaining Nike commercials featuring him in a variety of pursuits. Williams is the all-time leader in the Professional Bowlers Association with 44 tournament titles, and also leads the career money list. He, too, is a two-sport star, having won the world championship in horseshoes six times. (Don't think bowling is all that tough? Then let's see you crank out an 800 series. I'll give you a year to practice. Go ahead; I'll wait.) Ruth is, in my not so humble opinion, the greatest baseball player in history. Most famously, he completely changed the game with his unprecedented (and in many ways, unequalled) emphasis on power hitting. But before that, he had been a dominant pitcher. (If you'd like to argue that Ted Williams or Willie Mays or Barry Bonds was a better hitter, then we can have that discussion. But if you insist they're better baseball players, go check their pitching statistics and get back to me.) Three American athletes got two votes apiece, but since I'm also voting for one of them (and thus breaking the tie), I'll mention the other two first. Those are Jim Brown and Jesse Owens. Brown, like Ruth before him, was a mutant. Not literally, but he is generally regarded as the greatest football player ever (The Sporting News felt that way in 2002 when it named him the greatest professional football player of all time), averaging over five yards per carry throughout the course of his NFL career. That means that if he took a handoff on every play and got his average carry on each rush, his team would never even see third down. But Brown, who retired from the NFL at the age of 29, is also regarded as one of the handful of the greatest lacrosse players ever to pick up a stick. If you can envision the terror he inspired in opposing defensive backs once he broke through the line in football, you get a sense of what his lacrosse opponents felt as the massive attacker charged toward their goal. Owens was a multi-event athlete who famously ran his way to four gold medals while Hitler sat and fumed in the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. While that is his most famous athletic achievement, perhaps his finest hour (actually, he did it in only 45 minutes) came a year earlier at the Big Ten track meet on May 25, 1935, when he set three world records and tied a fourth. The times in which he lived ensured that Owens endured the handicap of racism, ever after returning to America after having shown Hitler what a black man could do against the supposed "master race." He noted that the German chancellor had at least waved to him, sensing that "Hitler didn't snub me—it was FDR who snubbed me. The president didn't even send me a telegram." His dignified endurance of Twentieth Century American racism presaged that of Hank Aaron a generation later. That leaves one American athlete, who gets three votes, including Eric Hunter's and mine -- Jim Thorpe. (What? You were expecting Michael Jordan? Pah!) Name a sport, and Thorpe could excel in it. Professional football and baseball, like Bo Jackson. Add in pro basketball (like Jordan), lacrosse (there's a drop of Jim Brown in the mix), and even ballroom dancing, at which he won the national collegiate championship in 1912 (putting him on a par with other world-class athletes, such as Chris Martin). He excelled at each of these things. But we haven't even reached the area of his greatest fame -- track and field. Thorpe didn't spend much time in track, considering himself primarily a football player. But he comprised the entire track team for his college (the Carlisle Indian School) in several intercollegiate track meets. His most famous achievement in this sport came in 1912, when he entered four events in the Stockholm Olympic Games. He placed fourth in the high jump and seventh in the long jump. (No big deal there, right? True, but keep in mind that track was basically a hobby for him, and he was competing against well-trained, specialized athletes who were the best in the world at their individual events.) He then went on to win both the pentathlon and the decathlon. At the closing ceremonies, Swedish King Gustav V reportedly said to him, "You, sir, are the greatest athlete in the world." The slightly less polished Thorpe could only think to respond, "Thanks, King." Like Owens, Thorpe endured racial prejudice and poverty later in life, a tragic reward for someone whose sin was to be born with the wrong skin tone. But in the minds of many, he deserves a place in the very center of the pantheon of athletic greatness.
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As this is the last of our nineteen surveys, I'll add a few thoughts on the project I undertook in coming up with the theme for this game. I learned quite a few things about ACD'ers, the most evident of which is that the group uniformly resists categorization. We saw more than a few metaphorical fistfights over classifications of answers, most notably when I asked in an early survey that you describe yourself politically, and then listed six possible choices. (I naively thought that would be plenty.) That situation recurred when I asked, lightheartedly, "Briefs or boxers?" in a subsequent week; I got several answers that indicated to me that the voter reveled in the fact that he fell outside the parameters of the question. I have never studied psychology (never even took Psych 101 in college), but this clearly showed me the fierce independent-mindedness of our group. The surveys also spurred several prolonged discussions on the chat boards. (Some of those reminded me of a joke from "A Prairie Home Companion," describing a new support group for those who just can't stop talking: On and On-Anon.) On a couple of occasions, those discussions became heated. I sometimes regretted the fact that I was the one who had started all this, but then I recalled two things. One is that I had picked this theme expressly for the reason of enabling us (as a newly gathered group) to get to know one another. In that sense, I have to call this a success (subject to the limitation discussed in the next paragraph). The other thing that salved my initially wounded conscience is the fact that the exchanges, as heated as they may have become, ocasionally did lead our members to reconsider their previous views. We didn't just get to know each other; we learned from each other, which is the most enduring reward of friendship. I was always disappointed with the "voter turnout," as I seldom got more than about two dozen votes (our membership is at least three times that) in any given week. I haven't gone back to count, but my sense is that I got the most participation when the topic was Dip -- your favorite power to play, or the best tactician-strategist-communicator. I got one suggestion for a fifth Dip question, for the best GM, but somehow I just could not bring myself to run that one, as our GM's are, in my experience, uniformly outstanding in their commitment to put many hours of work in, solely to enable others to have fun, and I would not want any of them to fail to be recognized. Finally, I was particularly gratified by the implicit compliment from a couple of you, extrinsic to this group of players, who lamented the draw in this game because it meant the end of surveys and codas. I will add only this, beyond my thanks for that compliment: I have no patent on the formula, and if any of you want to run a future game, in which you run your own surveys and append codas of your own composition, you will have my blessing and my encouragement. I emphatically believe that game reports don't have to be "just the facts, ma'am." That kind of report is becoming all too common, and the only people who are likely to read them are the seven players. If we are to interact as a community, I strongly urge GM's to craft game reports that will attract and hold the interest of more than seven ACD'ers at a time.
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This page was last updated May 19, 2008