[B5JMS] "Rising Stars" Brings Peace to the Middle East

[b5jms-admin at cs.columbia.edu]

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From: shoshs at macam.ac.il (Edo Steinberg)
Date: 27 Apr 2002 15:15:48 -0700
Lines: 24

Hi,

I know it has been out for quite a while, and I haven't read the comic
book myself, but I just have to comment about the laughable solution
to the Arab-Israeli conflict in one of the issues of "Rising Stars".

One of the heroes of this comic comes to the Middle East and makes the
great desert land fertile again - thus bringing peace to the region. I
love most of what JMS writes, but here he shows that he has no clue as
to what's going on in this part of the world.

First of all, not all of the middle east is infertile desert. We've
got a lot of green areas. We're even big exporters of fruit and
vegetables - you may be familiar with Jaffa Oranges. The dispute is
over land, nationalistic, and somewhat over religion. Making infertile
patches of land fertile would only make the situation worse - each
side would have even more reason to cling to its claims.

But hey, it's just a comic book. No harm done.


Bye,
Edo Steinberg


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From: jmsatb5 at aol.com (Jms at B5)
Date: 28 Apr 2002 03:36:58 GMT
Lines: 32

>One of the heroes of this comic comes to the Middle East and makes the
>great desert land fertile again - thus bringing peace to the region. I
>love most of what JMS writes, but here he shows that he has no clue as
>to what's going on in this part of the world.

First off, the comic in no way indicated that this would solve the problem in
its entirety, only that what happened would be a start.

Second, it wasn't just some guys coming in to make the ground fertile, it was
that in a matter of a couple of hours the land was transformed as if directly
by the hand of God, nobody knew it was the specials behind it, creating the
impression of a newly minted miracle that favored EVERYone in the region, which
would be enough to give anyone pause.

And given that this was expressed right in the book itself, quite clearly in
dialogue, either you didn't read it, didn't understand it (and then go on to
say that others don't have a clue) or just didn't care and just came in to
poke.

Either way, what you present is a gross and inaccurate simplification of the
story.

 jms

(jmsatb5 at aol.com)
(all message content (c) 2002 by synthetic worlds, ltd., 
permission to reprint specifically denied to SFX Magazine 
and don't send me story ideas)