The ball is rolling on THE MAFIA VS. KLAN tour, and my next stop is an amazing interview with Wayne Hall of Wayne’s Comic Podcast and !

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Wayne’s Comics Podcast #746: Interview with C. E. Massari

This week in Episode 746, it’s the return of C. E. Massari! He has a new project coming soon called The Mafia Vs. The Klan…

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a month ago · 1 like · MajorSpoilers

This is the second time I got to be featured on Wayne’s show, with my first appearance going way back to 2018 and the Six Swords!

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It was a super fun interview, and I look forward to featuring on Wayne's show again in the future. I’m looking for the 3-peat!

The interview is on audio and featured at the links below:

• Wayne’s Comic Podcast

• Deezer

• Libsyn

Don’t forget, THE MAFIA VS. THE KKK is currently live on Kickstarter as the days inch closer to launch!

When I started this essay, it was going in one direction and, oddly enough, expanded into something less like a Substack series on a minor topic and more like a personal reflective essay that I’m going to publish.

If you took the contents of the piece, you could probably break it up into three parts: the formal, from its initial shape, and the personal, which is the evolution.

The latter lands mostly in the final third.

As a writer and creative who is continuing to find new avenues of expression and thought development, you can chalk it up to another product of that ever-expanding pursuit, which, frankly, still falls within the same kind of philosophical themes I like to tackle.

However, on a deeper level, if I’m more honest with myself, this is really just another example of a cathartic ritual that makes my brain quieter and my soul more at ease by collecting thoughts and constructing them into the written word. The last five years, and more specifically the last year, have been a very influential period personally, during which I have largely full circled large parts of my life, and this is essentially the culmination of that process.

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What Do We Know…Really?

We often think we want our knowledge, or the information we believe in, to be an objective truth.

Linear. Binary. Black and White.

It has to be right? There has to be a correct and incorrect answer, hence why ‘we’ pick the ‘right one’ or believe in the ‘right thing.’

The sky is blue because I can clearly observe that it is blue, and any other color means you’re either color blind or a loony tune.

We approach what we know as rationally as we can, or by applying a scientific-like approach to knowledge and, in turn, to life itself. This approach has been heavily influenced by Enlightenment ideas, at least from a Western perspective.

So, what does that mean exactly to be ‘rationally thinking’?

For those of us who suffered through Logic of Everyday Reason in college, you might be familiar with formulas like this:

“All men are mortal (Premise 1), Socrates is a man (Premise 2), Therefore, Socrates is mortal (Conclusion)”.

Or:

“Sound: All collies are dogs. All dogs are animals. So, all collies are animals.

Unsound: All collies are cats. All cats are animals. So, all collies are animals.”

And for those who did not, we can boil it down to you know, if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it must be a duck.

Going slightly deeper.

Objectively speaking, along those same lines, in logic terms, using those kinds of models sets up dilemmas like the following:

God either exists or He doesn’t.

There is either life after death, or there isn’t.

We are either in a simulation, or we are not.

Fedor Emelianenko either is or isn’t the greatest heavyweight in Mixed Martial Arts history.

There is no in between. These questions have clear-cut answers, no in-betweens. God has to either exist, or He doesn’t, and so on and so forth.

You see where I’m going?

Objective truths, we are taught, rationally and reasonably enough, are that while you might not know the answer, you might be able to get that black and white result, the answer is either one or the other. There has to be a binary, yes or no, answer to many of life’s big questions, as well as what we know or don’t.

Logically speaking.

Now, I’m going to do something most people don’t do or even have the ability to attempt. I’m going to play with these epistemological questions about knowledge and religion, using analogies from the combat arts.

Why?

Because martial arts is a weird mix of scientific method and application, and esoteric conceptualism. Martial arts draws on everything from physics to philosophy; it can be cultish under a single leader, pulled down by centuries of lore, mythology, and ‘magical secrets,’ or completely decentralized to a single individual, tied to nothing and no one except results.

It’s gnosticism. It’s rationalism. It’s agnostic. It’s pluralistic. It’s conservative. It’s progressive.

I’m actually even underselling how easily martial arts can get plugged and played into more aspects of life than you can imagine, especially when it comes to reflecting some big, with a capital T, truths.

In my own life, I experienced the shift, and I’m going to argue for an epistemological framework built on these experiences. Is that approach subjective? Absolutely. Is it wrong, or even partially right? Well, you can decide that.

I’ve gone from my younger years, as a wee lad, believing that if everything in the Bible is God’s Word and God’s Word is perfect, then, logically, there should be a very binary through line to the truth.

Not irrational, right?

It even prompted me, with tons of hubris and naivety as an all-knowing, insanely smart wunderkin 18-year-old, young male, full of piss, vinegar, and enough T to match TRT Vitor Belfort without the prescription, to believe that if I, of all people, began to study religion in college, particularly Christianity, could then solve, if logically God’s Word is a binary truth, why no one could figure out what that binary was.

I thought to myself, there are all these denominations and Judeo-Christian religions in close proximity; if God’s Word is really absolute, I, of all people, would be the one to find out exactly what is true and bring about the ultimate conclusion of truth.

Logically, continuous buzzword here, it tracks right?

Again, if God’s Word is final and absolute, well, then there must be that black-and-white, binary finality in truth. However, you can also see how objectively stupid I am, too.

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For me, at 18 years old, to be thee guy to solve centuries’ worth of theological, philosophical, scientific, anthropological, etc., etc. discussions and arguments because I am ‘more smart’ and knowledgeable than people like Augustine, Aquinas, Descartes, Nietzsche, Hume, Kant…a never-ending list of minds that shouldn’t even be mentioned in the same sentence as my own, is a case study why young men are sent to the front lines and not anyone over 30.

Youth comes with a special kind of fire and energy, which is why most movements and cultural shifts are usually found in the minds of the young, and not the lethargy of the middle-aged.

Fast forward, in the newfound, magical intelligence I gained in the second I turned 30, as much as rational thought has its place, I would also say the strict, near-religious doctrine of sticking to ‘linear’ thinking muddies what I believe is the entire pool of water. In terms of the immortal Bruce Lee, “It’s like a finger pointing away to the moon. Don’t concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory.”

Ironically enough, the same thought shift from the religious epistemically questions I’ve journeyed from to where I am now also mirrors the same martial arts epistemically stance I’ve also moved from and to.

World salad explained, I’ve gone from a very traditional, linear view on martial arts, one style to rule them all, to a very decentralized, nuanced ‘non-denominational’ view on the practice, if you will. Nearly a relativist’s view of martial arts, but not quite, in the same way you’ll witness in my essay below regarding religious understanding.

A here nor there irony that will not be explored, because I am the master of side tangents, but a relevant enough self-realization worth noting nonetheless.

Shape vs. Shapeless

So, minor autobiography aside, if we took this philosophy of thought, 1+1 must equal 2, or “All men are mortal; Socrates is a man; therefore, Socrates is mortal,” adhering to that tightly linear way to understand religion, or even information and knowledge, specifically gained through religion or revelation, it’s difficult for me to really pitch my tent in that camp at this point in my life, and I find it doesn’t work as well as I believed prior.

Call it growth, experience, or living life, but strict, linear frameworks I’ve often viewed simply fall apart when practicality and the chaos of life are applied. While there are strengths, such as a bridge or a tower, there needs to be flexibility in the joints. Most often, it misses the nuances because it’s too A-B and lacks adaptability.

Or, viewed through another analogy, we can see how this clash between rigid linearity and fluid flexion plays out in real time and in practice, rather than in theory. Looking outside the mind and classroom to the battlefield. Which, again, is why the martial arts, or simply combat as a whole, will become such a compelling argument to this whole piece.

Martial arts takes the academic and conceptual and applies it in real time to discover truth. For now, it’s the comparison between Soviet-style, centralized military doctrine and American, decentralized doctrine.

And, yeah, sure, the American way of warfighting can be chaotic, even “A serious problem in planning against American doctrine is that the Americans do not read their manuals, nor do they feel any obligation to follow their doctrine,” but it allows for flexibility that can be shifted at any time, which makes it excel tremendously at warfighting.

It’s also why the Roman Legions excelled so greatly at the art of war. Bending is simply king when it comes to pressure, and it’s present once again in the modern example of Ukraine’s war against Russian invasion.

Ukraine, for all intents and purposes, should not be at war with Russia years later. But, by following Western-style military doctrine, or really, American doctrine (Because let’s be honest, all Western militaries are American-trained, or influenced, militaries), they have shown a flexibility and adaptability on the battlefield that the top-heavy, single top-to-bottom flow of the Russian rigid hierarchy has not managed successfully.

Especially at the beginning of the war.

Both sides in this example, and really all examples of conflict, have the same objective: to win (or make the opposition submit to one’s will). Of course, there are layers to these issues and how that objective is achieved, including military logistics, morale, and a litany of other details. But one side is less adherent to strict structure, while the other has operated in less dogmatic principles, aka, Ukraine.

I could armchair-general this all day (because you could boil the tactics down further to insurgent/guerrilla vs. non-insurgent), but the point stands: hierarchy is less chaotic, and linearity might even be clearer and more seamless, but it lacks the fluidity that is situation-appropriate.

If we use logic and rationality as our definitive compass, and, using our military doctrine or combat philosophies as a whole, frame them within our framework of truth, then these two things, logic and rationality, function much like the rigid Russian hierarchy. And a ‘binary-only’ theology fails when it meets the chaos of human experience. Stealing from the immortal ‘Iron’ Mike Tyson, “Everyone has a plan till they get punched in the face... Then, like a rat, they stop in fear and freeze”.

Keep in mind, these analogies are priming a thought process at the moment. So, how does that translate into theology, particularly in how we view religious texts?

Jiu-Jitsu Applied to Epistemology

Let’s start with the four canonical gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

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In my previous view, stemming directly from the usual transition from youth to suddenly ‘all-knowing, all super genius-surrounded by idiots’ freshman, doing my religious studies at an undergrad level (that should be emphasized because it’s the equivalent to a guy who plays pick up basketball on the weekends versus a semi-professional or professional in the academic field) was well, these must not be true because, staying under the previous logical track we laid out, they lacked conistency.

They are contradictory and distinct from each other. They aren’t identical. Everything should basically be CTRL+C and CTRL+V (Copy and paste for the non-nerds) across the board for it to be true.

Slowly wading into the thought experiment pool with just the foot, for now, because the first step is always chilly. The Gospels are accounts from different authors, right?

We can argue all day about whether they borrowed from a single source, Q, or who those authors were, and whether they were handed down verbally or through other written documents.

For our sakes, it’s irrelevant.

Regardless of who wrote them, they are different accounts via different individuals.

I want you to think about this, and I don’t care about your political ideology, how many people are or were, including yourself, convinced by one of many ‘truths’ over the last five years that, over time, haven’t exactly remained as bulletproof as they once did.

How about over the course of ten years? Twenty? Even thirty or more? How often has nuance come into play? Even situation, culture, or perspective?

For the paisans out there, have you ever run into the situation where nonna, your grandmother, gave one person a recipe for a sauce or cookie, or dish, let’s say her famous red sauce, and you come to find out the recipe she gave your cousin or your sister, for the same red sauce is completely different?

Same sauce, different information.

Was it malicious, maybe, but probably not, right? Did her own memory of the recipe change? Maybe the way she once cooked it altered slightly over the years. Maybe your grandfather’s diet had to change, and so she had to alter it for him. Maybe it changed simply because, over the years, she refined it, or because the feel of the ingredients evolved.

And the bigger question is, would you ever know? A generation or two down the line of this family recipe, did these ‘historical events’ make it down with the recipe? Probably not.

Is one recipe wrong? Or even more right?

The different recipes for the sauce aren’t contradictions, just results of different moments in time, yet the ‘sauce’ remains the same.

It’s Nonna’s sauce.

Or, more philosophically, it is the Ship of Theseus or Theseus Paradox:

Let’s look at it a different way.

How many different diets exist that are sure-fire going to make you lose weight, paleo, keto, intermittent fasting, the list goes on.

If we’re all humans, shouldn’t the answer to weight loss be relatively the same? We all bleed blood and push out brown, right?

The answer is we are different, objectively, and thus ‘truths’ can change, but, as with the objective to ‘win the war’ we mentioned earlier, the goal is the goal.

The goals here would be to lose weight or make a good sauce.

Simple as.

Talkin’ ball in Jiu-Jitsu, and immersing ourselves in the pool completely now, there was this idea for decades that leg locks don’t work at the highest level. Yet…the Danaher Death Squad existed and literally took everyone’s achilles in the professional Jiu-Jitsu landscape and mounted them on a wall.

Of course, leg locks work until they don’t, right?

In an article by about up-and-coming Mixed Martial Artist, Kody Steele, the analysis was after Steele won by knee bar:

Essentially, the Jiu-Jitsu and MMA interweb communities began questioning BJJ’s relevance in modern mixed martial arts and its effectiveness at the highest level of combat sports over the past few weeks.

Even writing it off completely as useless in MMA in the current meta.

However, stealing from Open Note Grappling,

What does that mean? It means that, if my game plan is to jab someone for an entire round, does the jab not work if they take me down? Does that mean the jab is now irrelevant, ineffective, or even a bad technique?

Or, if I’m supposed to work on calf kicks and low kicks to chop down the tree, and I get countered with overhands right down the center every single time that calf kicks and low kicks aren’t viable options in fighting?

How about this, getting even more niche and nerdy for most of you, in Jiu-Jitsu, this is one of the most basic guard passes you can do:

Yet one of the greatest Jiu-Jitsu competitors of all time, Gordon Ryan, in his guard-passing instructional, essentially says that passing the guard on the ground is useless at the highest level and against people who are actually good.

In the video above, you’ll see Jean Jacques Machado, one of the Machado brothers, who are among the most respected instructors on the planet.

And herein lies the contradiction.

Machado isn’t some scrub off the street and is teaching a technique that one of the greatest Jiu-Jitsu minds on the planet feels is ineffective, and there’s no reason to learn it because it doesn’t work at a high level. If I spent enough time, I know I could find some old-school Gracie-minded black belt who would completely disagree with Ryan, thus begging the question, whose right? Whose wrong?

Both are right within their context.

Machado’s pass works in a world of traditional fundamentals and, in the right situation, might even work at a high level, but that success rate might be so low that it never happens.

That doesn’t make it outright incorrect, just situationally relevant.

And now, the paradox: have we just entered a world of subjectivity and relativism? Maybe, but more to my original point, let’s reverse course back to the Gospels.

1. Introduction. Part 1

2. Part 2 - Russia’s Cyber Campaigns

3. Part 3 - Cyberweaponry

In 2015, a similar unprecedented attack using cyberweaponry like Stuxnet occurred when Russia attacked Ukraine’s power grid.

There are several theories of the attack’s intent, including Russia flexing its ability to reach inside Ukraine without a boots-on-the-ground invasion and displeasure with Ukrainian political attitudes towards the Russian government, to destabilize Ukraine’s contentious political climate further. Alternatively, possibly to cause discontent and fear among citizens—even a combination of all or several to be considered as to the ‘why.’ Regardless of the motive, Russia could access critical Ukrainian infrastructure and turn it off.

Beginning on December 23, 2015, Russian cyber actors disrupted energy-grid operations for the first time, causing blackouts affecting over 225,000 customers in Ukraine.

Over nearly a year prior to the cyber-attack, Russian actors established persistent access to multiple industrial networks and identified targets.

These actors, “carried out a complex set of actions, which not only disrupted electricity distribution in Ukraine, but also destroyed IT systems, flooded call centers, sowed confusion, and inhibited incident response (Booz Allen, 2015).”

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1. Introduction. Part 1

2. Part 2 - Russia’s Cyber Campaigns

Cyber Weaponry

Cyberweapons are often not given the same consideration as other military advancements when discussing a nation’s military capabilities.

There are no conversations about a military’s cyber capabilities in the same frame of reference as a Gen-5 fighter jet or the use of tactical nuclear abilities in a hypersonic missile. The cause is primarily the newness of the technology and policymakers' need for a better understanding of cyber capabilities beyond Hollywood.

Former NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden (2016) has stated that cyber weapons, since their inception, have been viewed as ‘special weapons,’ but these weapons are not well understood by elected leadership, and there has not been a Herman Kahn [of ‘On Thermonuclear War’ fame] to explain the capabilities of these modern tools to them.

Stuxnet, also known as “Operation Olympic Games,” is the most prominent example of these ‘special weapons.’

It is the first known cyberweapon and was employed with the strategic goal of stopping or eliminating the Iranian nuclear program (Jenkinson, 2021), and one that “reputable experts in the computer security community have labeled as “unprecedented,” an “evolutionary leap,” and “the type of threat we hope to never see again (Shakarian et al., 2013).”

Since 2010, Stuxnet has thus been used as the historical standard for all others that have followed suit.

These cyberweapons all vary in their degree of effect and ultimate goals. They could include Israeli-developed spyware, such as Pegasus, designed to affect smartphones and harvest intelligence by tracking calls, reading text messages, or collecting passwords and location data.

Other cyberweapons, such as Wiper attacks, have been widely observed in variants during the Russian invasion of Ukraine (2022-Current), including CaddyWiper, HermeticWiper, and IsaacWiper, which erase or ‘wipe’ hard drives and crucial data, often used in ransomware attacks. These select examples demonstrate clear military capabilities in espionage, information warfare, or cyberattacks, but they will not be the primary focus of discussion.

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When examining the use of cyber weapons that can have a similar military effect to kinetic counterparts, the ability to affect ICS through targeted cyberattacks is particularly noteworthy in this discussion.

The first place to begin the examination will be Stuxnet, the original ‘cyberweapon.’

Second, two attacks will be collected into a single topic. Both caused shutdowns of the Ukrainian power grids at different times: the first, BlackEnergy, and the second, Industroyer.

Next is a malware known as Triton, first discovered at a Saudi Arabian petrochemical plant in 2017 and said to be “the world’s most murderous malware (Giles, 2020).”

Finally, there is another set of attacks that will be discussed as one topic, Industroyer2, an upgraded version of the original Industroyer, and Pipedream, an ICS malware, both discovered before their payloads could be deployed in the Russian invasion of Ukraine (2022-Current).

In June of 2010, an Iranian customer contacted the security researchers at the Belarusian security firm VirusBlokAda, reporting continuous, unintentional reboots of their servers that controlled their nuclear centrifuges’ ICS.

It was the first time Iran had any indication that something was wrong with its systems. Unbeknownst to the Iranian customer, the problems they were only noticing now had already been infiltrated months earlier by the Stuxnet worm. Iranian officials, believing the issues to be operator errors, blamed their scientists and went as far as to execute some of them.

Stuxnet targeted the industrial centrifuges in order to affect the speed of their vertical tubes, which are used in the nuclear process.

By altering the speed of these tubes, the Stuxnet worm was able to cause physical damage to the centrifuges, causing them to spin past their safety parameters, all without any warning indicators shown on the operators’ displays.

Ultimately, Stuxnet caused the tubes to spin so quickly that they exploded (Jenkinson, 2021).

Stuxnet included a 13-day delay in its script, allowing ICS systems to run as normal before triggering a new code at the end of that period. Stuxnet would replay the first 13 days of normal operations to the operators, who saw nothing out of the ordinary and continued without suspecting anything abnormal.

After running for 13 days, Stuxnet would then hunt for its targets, in particular the oscillating controls of the vertical tubes. The tubes were sped up and then slowed down, breaking them and causing explosions and uranium leakage.

Forensically, the engineers only saw normal operations, thanks to Stuxnet replaying the original 13 days’ data.

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Shakarian et al. (2013) add to the complexity of the Stuxnet worm, stating it is designed to only launch attacks if the PLC, programmable logic controller, is attached to devices configured in a very specific manner. Once Stuxnet has ascertained the preprogrammed correct number of the configuration of frequency converters to be targeted, it launches the attack. Stuxnet then reports that the PLC was programmed correctly, making operators believe functions are normal. “The fact that Stuxnet adjusts these settings illustrates an important point— the worm was intended to actually damage the industrial equipment (Shakarian et al., 2013).”

Not only did Stuxnet’s design set it apart, but its complexity also managed to reach within an air-gapped system, meaning a computer network that did not connect with the internet or any outside systems.

Stuxnet was able to reach this air gap via USB drives laced with the worm and injected into a system (Jenkinson, 2021). However, this was only one part of how Stuxnet ultimately reached its target and deployed.

However, completing the operation required further layers of intelligence and espionage tactics, which, initially, included the Dutch intelligence service, AIVD, in collaboration with the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad.

The two agencies established moles and a front company within Iran, to provide years of information about the nuclear facility and provide the intelligence needed to insert the malware into the air-gapped systems on-site.

Germany also supplied technical data on the ICSs that controlled the centrifuge operation within Iran’s nuclear program. In addition to Germany’s technical data, the U.S. seized identical centrifuges on their way to Libya for testing the worm. Destroyed centrifuge parts from the program were famously dumped on the conference table in the White House Situation Room as a proof-of-concept.

Unfortunately, for Stuxnet to achieve its goal and spread efficiently within Iranian centrifuges, code was written to exploit several spreading methods. This coding caused Stuxnet to spread to several of the contractor’s other clients and to the world as a byproduct (Capano, 2023).

Neither the U.S. nor Israel has ever confirmed their involvement.

Nevertheless, Stuxnet is universally accepted as the ultimate product of the two nation-states’ cooperation. At the time of Stuxnet’s discovery, General Michael Hayden, the Director of U.S. Intelligence, stated, “There are those out there that will look at this and maybe even attempt to turn it to their own purposes. Pandora’s box was now open, and no one would be able close it (Jenkinson, 2021).”

Dr. Chris C. Demchak (2011), the US Naval War College’s Grace M. Hopper Chair of Cyber Security and Senior Cyber Scholar, Cyber and Innovation Policy Institute (CIPI) – formerly the Center for Cyber Conflict Studies (C3S), citing Sanger (2010), interprets the use of Stuxnet as demonstrating a new level in the security uncertainties of cybered conflict.

Stuxnet specifically attacked Iran’s nuclear plants by scattering around the region infected thumb drives, one of which finally floated into the targeted plant. Not only did the designers of Stuxnet have the detailed information to create a highly sophisticated self-spreading application, whose trigger was exquisitely precise to particular centrifuges, “they also were able to successfully deliver the sleeping saboteur through the ubiquity of digital, unwitting, easily subverted, and globally dispersed cutouts (Demchak, 2011).”

When Stuxnet was first deployed, these attacks were believed only to be theoretical. However, Stuxnet proved a cyber weapon could be used independently to cause physical damage and “showed the strategic utility of cyber weapons to disrupt, deny and deceive an adversary’s strategic intentions,” says Maj Gen PK Mallick (2021), an expert on cyber, signals intelligence, and electronic warfare. Maj Gen PK Mallick is a graduate of Defense Services Staff College and M Tech from IIT, Kharagpur. He has also been a Senior Directing Staff (SDS) at the National Defense College, New Delhi.

Researchers at the Rand Corporation (2011) state that the existence of Stuxnet ended the debate about whether such worms are feasible and that Stuxnet-like worms pose a serious threat to national security.

The creators were able to implant the worm on air-gapped computers and mask its presence further while it modified the signals industrial control systems were sending.

Finally, Stuxnet’s creation would require the resources of a nation state, even several, and would “suggest a new willingness on the part of governments to use cyber-attacks to further national goals (Porche et al., 2011).”

In the paper, “After Stuxnet: Acknowledging the Cyber Threat to Nuclear Facilities,” the group of authors states:

Never before had a cyber-attack caused real, physical consequences. However, examining the Stuxnet case in the nuclear security context demonstrates that it was only the beginning of cyberweaponry.

“More malicious adversaries attacking less secure targets with less discriminate weapons can achieve far more serious consequences. The fact that such a well-defended facility could still be compromised by a cyber weapon should concern the international community,” says Van Dine et al. (2017).

Most nuclear facilities are more susceptible to cyberattack than Natanz and would face more serious consequences from a successful attack. Moreover, these facilities employ standardized technologies, and if one facility can be hacked, it is likely that others could be too (Van Dine et al., 2017).

While Stuxnet’s true success is debated regarding achieving its original strategic intention and whether it genuinely deterred or increased Iran’s nuclear program, Stuxnet was the first cyberweapon to be deployed and successfully ‘hit’ a target.

Stuxnet, which inflicts minimal damage to information systems, instead aims to damage a piece of physical equipment.

“Stuxnet clearly demonstrates that cyber weapons can cause significant real-world damage— as opposed to the previous idea that such software can only amount to “weapons of mass annoyance,” states Shakarian, et al. (2013). This complex code source, originally approved under the Bush administration in the mid to early 2000s, was executed in the Obama administration, and has since been updated and spawned new variants after making its way into the ‘wild.’

The ‘offspring’ of Stuxnet are, for example, Duqu, a separate but closely technically related version of the original malware discovered in 2011, as well as Flame (2012) and Triton (2017).

Iran was not the only target Stuxnet was used against, and it was launched a second time, unsuccessfully, on North Korea’s nuclear program, according to one U.S. intelligence source.

In Stuxnet’s second deployment, the worm was designed to execute when it encountered Korean-language settings on an infected machine. However, unlike in Iran, Stuxnet faced several problems when attempting to infiltrate North Korean systems.

First, U.S. agents could not access the core machines that ran Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program. Second, this version of the worm was stymied by North Korea’s extreme isolation of its communications systems, compared to Iran's, which allowed broader internet access and interactions with companies from around the globe (Menn, 2015).

The ball is rolling on THE MAFIA VS. KLAN tour, and my next stop is an amazing interview with Al Mega of the Comic Crusaders and Under Cover Capes!

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Al got the show started with a promo that could put Paul Hayman to shame, and from there it was my origin story, more about THE MAFIA VS. THE KKK, and even comics as a whole.

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It was a super fun interview, and I hope to be back on for the Kickstarter launch.

Don’t forget, THE MAFIA VS. THE KKK is currently live on Kickstarter as the days inch closer to launch!

• Chapter 1

• Chapter 2

• Chapter 3 PT. 1 - Pro Wrestling: The Ultimate Visual Representation of Good Versus Evil

• Chapter 3 PT. 2 - Pro Wrestling: Why Modern Stories Generally Suck

• Chapter 3 PT. 3 - Pro Wrestling: J.R.R. Tolkien

Modern Myth Sucks

Star Wars. Watchmen. The Lord of the Rings. The Godfather. The Dark Knight (film/comic). Even Dune (Sorry, Tolkien).

These are myths.

The Boys. A Song of Ice and Fire.

These are stories.

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No one likes being preached at or evangelized in entertainment, whatever your political leaning, and the only people they ultimately pander to are those within your circle, essentially becoming a perpetual act of self-masturbation within that round shape.

AKA a circle jerk.

To elaborate, A Song of Fire and Ice has two distinct problems to address.

One lack of ending, and there might never be one.

And the second is what keeps it from reaching a level: its reliance on cynicism and its status as the anti-fantasy series.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fantastic series, genre-defining, the whole bit, and very enjoyable, but it’s invested nearly entirely in its ending and payoff.

Who takes the Iron Throne? Dun-dun-dun.

But, if that never comes, if all these cynical and selfish decisions never come to head, if all the sacrifice, manipulation, never getting a conclusion, and is just left hanging…what’s the point?

There was none.

It’s promise, as a story in the Sanderson sense, never comes to fruition. The promise isn’t kept, thus the story falls flat in the grand scheme, and without a final destination, the entire journey thus far.

Now, A Song and Fire and Ice isn’t in the self-pleasuring category. It just relies too much on character and causality, and not nearly enough on theme and core.

It’s what happens when you rely too much on the South Park formula, and you’re not a thirty-minute cartoon show to poke fun at whatever the creators deem funny that week.

The Boys, however, is 100% in the self-pleasuring category and may not be a Christian B-movie from the 2000s. However, it is much more on the same track as a sermon for the show runners’ political views than as a story in the deeper, more poignant sense.

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https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cemassari/the-mafia-vs-the-klan

THE MAFIA VS. THE KLAN is part of the Source Point Press…

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Taking that concept to the next stage in cover design, which path would you choose? Stick with the original or take that concept into a new direction?

Which would you choose, Cover 1 or Cover 2?

Remember, this cover will be the only time you’ll ever, EVER be able to get it. It will truly be a collector-only issue: if you miss out on the Kickstarter, POOF, it’s no more.

So, which cover makes the final cut?

This post is free to read for the next month. After that, it will be available to paid subscribers only. Upgrade your membership for complete, ongoing access to my full archive.

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• Chapter 1

• Chapter 2

• Chapter 3 PT. 1 - Pro Wrestling: The Ultimate Visual Representation of Good Versus Evil

• Chapter 3 PT. 2 - Pro Wrestling: Why Modern Stories Genera…

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Martin Gimenez, THE MAFIA VS. KLAN artist, has already created the cover that everyone worldwide will be able to purchase when it’s published.

However, for the Kickstarter pre-sale campaign to truly matter, we need something EXCLUSIVE and UNIQUE, that’s a ONE TIME ONLY printing that you’ll only be able to get if you pledge to the Kickstarter.

That’s right, this cover will be the only time you’ll ever, EVER be able to get it. It will truly be a collector-only issue: if you miss out on the Kickstarter, POOF, it’s no more.

Now, who better to call in to create this ONE TIME PRINT cover?

Well, it’s Plaid Klaus of Image’s VOID TRIP and a long-time collaborator of mine!

Here’s a cover above for an unreleased project we worked on together, in which Plaid details his process of creation, linked here.

He is also the artist of the unreleased 4th issue of THE SIX SWORDS, as well.

And finally, nearly 10 years ago now, Plaid was the cover artist for our SIX SWORDS Kickstarter campaign and drew a killer exclusive cover, another ONE TIME ONLY PRINT RUN, with only a few issues remaining in stock.

Except this time, no more copies of this cover will be printed than the number pledged on the Kickstarter.

Literally, the only way you’ll be able to get your hands on whatever cover we decide for THE MAFIA VS. THE KLAN will be to back the campaign!

I’d also like to add that Plaid is a fellow brother-in-arms in Jiu-Jitsu, and I cannot say how happy I am that he got the bug and hasn’t cured it yet! I love working with him, and I am still waiting for the day to sit down and build out our own graphic novel from start to finish.

It’s a personal goal to publish an OGN with him and, I think, that goal is getting closer and closer to a reality sooner than later.

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Now it’s time for you, the reader, to decide which cover we go with! Check out the following cover thumbnails, drafts, and decide the fate of this exclusive cover. Vote down below!

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In March, I sat down with David Markowski of SuperHeroSpeak on THE MAFIA VS. THE KLAN tour.

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Dave is a veteran in the comics podcast business and has interviewed a TON of other creators over the years,…

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Laptops that had almost all of my old college papers, interviews, articles, and just things I’ve written over the ye…

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• Chapter 1

• Chapter 2

• Chapter 3 PT. 1 - Pro Wrestling: The Ultimate Visual Representation of Good Versus Evil

Why Modern Stories Generally Suck

At its core, what makes wrestling tick is hating the Heel. I mean, hating, with a capital H.

If you look at some of the biggest Heels of all time, they could literally bring crowds to riots and cause the suspension of belief in their Kayfabe character, the subcreation and ‘performance,’ to reach a point where the suspension of disbelief caused the crowd to actually think they were truly bad people and hate them.

In some cases, it caused fans to want to physically hurt the wrestler because they believed in the performance so much. These Heels could bring out the worst in humans simply by their actions in the ring and the emotions they invoked.

And this invocation of emotion is why we consume stories. Otherwise, there isn’t much of a point, right?

Now, the invocation ranges on a spectrum, much like the reactions in wrestling, in what it draws out, but ultimately it’s pulling on something internal to our souls and psyche and something more Platonic externally, something higher and more metaphysically pure.

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Joseph Campbell is probably one of the best reads on the essence of storytelling and the more metaphysical nature of how these work, but that’s a tangent I will not be indulging in today.

However, this draws towards something ancient, primordial, or even as simple as just fun: it’s the formulas for why we watch the same shows over and over, and why we have the same stories told over and over again, just in different versions.

Hamlet. Dune. The Lion King.

In each of these, we hate the Heel, right? The kind of hate that boils over because, at their core, they all tell the same tale.

Different versions. Different characters. Different themes and environments. Yet, the core is the same. Destiny, restoring order, exile, visions, betrayal, it’s all there.

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Yet, storytellers no longer want us to hate the Heel. They want us to feel for the Heel and relate to them.

It’s no longer about hating the bad guy because he’s bad. The bad guy isn’t truly bad. He’s just had a bad turn of luck and isn’t really all that evil.

Hence, why modern stories generally suck.

It’s not that the Heel is bad, or even has bad intentions. It’s their choices are just wrong, or motivated from a place that should be understood, not shamed.

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In February, I sat down with of Pesto Comics for the and artist, Roberto Viacava.

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The podcast is a sit-down, where neither party has ever met and work through the entire process of making a comic bo…

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• Chapter 1

• Chapter 2

I realized that, in doing this series, it was getting a bit long. So, I’ve broken it up into even tinier, more consumable portions. Elephants are…

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1. Introduction. Part 1

Russia’s Cyber Campaigns  

In August 2008, Russian military forces mounted a land, air, and sea invasion of Georgia in response to Georgian artillery shelling of the South Ossetia capital of Tskhinvali (Jasper, 2020).

Before Russia’s physical invasion of Georgia, a cyberattack was launched weeks before on Georgia networks, with a second, much larger wave of cyber-attacks launched against Georgian government websites within 24 hours of the invasion date, giving these cyberattacks the appearance of being a spontaneous act of support by Russian ‘hacktivists,’ unaffiliated officially with the Russian military (Carr, 2009).  

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At the time of the 2008 invasion, cyberattacks were already a tool the Kremlin was using in various capacities.

However, what was new during this invasion was the “Inclusion of a series of large-scale, overt cyberspace attacks that were relatively well synchronized with conventional military operations,” and were conducted by an army of patriotic citizen hackers with the cyber-attack campaign, says Sarah P. “Sally” White.

Sally White is an Army cyberspace operations officer and former assistant professor of international affairs in the West Point Department of Social Sciences, holding a Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University.

White (2018) says the hacktivist campaign consisted of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and website defacements. In total, 54 news, government, and financial websites were defaced or denied service, and the average denial-of-service lasted 2 hours and 15 minutes.

The longest denial-of-service attack lasted six hours, and 35% of Georgia’s Internet networks experienced reduced functionality during the attacks. 

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The cyberattacks by hacktivists had little effect on conventional forces or operations and were not a factor in the conflict’s outcome, even if ‘encouraged,’ but not directly attributable to the Kremlin.

Nonetheless, the lessons learned would serve as a blueprint for how Russian military forces could work in tandem with cyberattacks and information warfare in the future and would provide significant insights into modern warfare for academics and military studies alike.

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Essentially, 切皆是命，…

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1. Martial vs. Art: The Duality of Martial Arts History and Debunking its Moral Superiority

2. Martial vs Art: Preface

3. Martial vs Art: Chapter 1, Part 1: Myth Busting 101

4. Martial vs Art: Chapter 1, Part 2: Myth Busting 101

5. Martial vs Art: Chapter 2. Part 1 - The “Grandfather of Martial Arts”

6. Martial vs Art: Chapter 2. Part 2 - Everyone Was Kung Fu Fighting...Quite Literally

7. Martial vs Art: Chapter 2 - China PT. 3 - The Hundred Events

8. Martial vs Art: Chapter 3 - China PT. 1 - Martial Monks and the Way of the Warrior, Connecting Fighting and War with Religion and Philosophy

9. Martial vs Art: Chapter 3 - China PT. 2 - Enter The 36th Chambers: Sex, Booze, and War Gods

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Buddhist Soldiers: The Battle of Hulao

While speculation is fun and all, and some of Shaolin's history might be lost, enough scholarship and evidence have survived to provide a decent picture of Shaolin’s past that is quite different from the one painted today.

In covering this, I will try to avoid the various rabbit holes that pop up around this topic and stay on the straight and narrow as much as possible, but sometimes needed contextual frameworks require a bit of side questing.

That is to say, while there will be no investigation on whether a Southern Shaolin Temple existed along with a Northern Temple, a historical fact that is often debated, simply being knowledgeable that this topic existing, might be needed in understanding certain cultural or lineage aspects that played into an overarching narrative and martial identity that we are focused on.

Whew…that was a mouthful.

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Whether or not the Southern Temple is real is irrelevant to our discussion, but if someone attributes their influence, history, or lineage, that might be relevant to how it plays into the zeitgeist, whether factual or myth.

Another example is Shaolin’s influence on the Chinese styles themselves as far as ‘official lineages’ are concerned, and whether or not claims for authenticity are accurate, i.e., they are actually of Shaolin origin and the same kind of lineal authenticity for Tai Chi Chuan.

Even if we don’t care about getting into those weeds, they might still provide helpful context overall.

For our goals, it’s not whether lineal authenticity is genuine.

It’s about the tangible impact on identity, real or not, that is found throughout Chinese martial arts history, specifically within the Ming, Qing, Republic, and Communist eras, and the variety of revolutions, civil wars, social upheavals, and cultural distinctions that arose from something as simple as harkening one’s martial arts back to specific temples or individuals.

With that out of the way, Shaolin’s early periods are difficult to pin down as far as what their training comprised of and how much of the military arts practiced were internal to the Temple or external to a security force hired by the Buddhist leadership.

And where or if there might have been overlapping and intermingling between the two.

Earlier, I mentioned two instances in which records show the Shaolin monks resorting to arms.

The first, around 610 in defense against bandits.

And the second, by providing military aid to the then Tang Dynasty prince, Li Shimin, and capturing a rival dynasty’s nephew in 621.

These events are etched in history thanks to the Shaolin Monastery Stele, which was gifted to the Temple by Li Shimin at a later date.

Adding to these details, one of the monks from the minor military operation assisting the Tang is 921, Tan Zong, was later appointed to general within the Tang army by Li Shimin.

The presumption is that this was due to military or fighting skills or related talent of some kind, or even thanks for some kind of related action.

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Now, it could even have been a political appointment to show goodwill to the Buddhist community at the time, but that wouldn’t make much sense given the basic tenet of Buddhist doctrine: nonviolence.

Second, Li Shimin, the general, doesn’t seem like the type to appoint bad officers into his army.

And lastly, the Shaolin Stele itself and everything that came with it was a pretty good ‘political’ deal in itself, without needing to politically appoint a pacifist or rookie general into a military powerhouse.

It’s hard to know for sure why Tan Zong was appointed in the Tang army, but it is most likely that he provided some kind of military asset Li Shimin wanted to exploit.

As Professor Shahar states, these documented incidences strengthen the case for regular martial practice at the Temple, the extent of which is not as precise.

However, at the most basic level, there is evidence that the Shaolin monks were involved in and trained in military arts and could be relied on to support military action at a competent level during the early 7th century.

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MAFIA VS.KKK is taking on a new name and will be titled THE MAFIA VS. THE KLAN for release.

Why, you ask?

Well, t…

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1. Martial vs. Art: The Duality of Martial Arts History and Debunking its Moral Superiority

2. Martial vs Art: Preface

3. Martial vs Art: Chapter 1, Part 1: Myth Busting 101

4. Martial vs Art: Chapter 1, Part 2: Myth Busting 101

5. Martial vs Art: Chapter 2. Part 1 - The “Grandfather of Martial Arts”

6. Martial vs Art: Chapter 2. Part 2 - Everyone Was Kung Fu Fighting...Quite Literally

7. Martial vs Art: Chapter 2 - China PT. 3 - The Hundred Events

8. Martial vs Art: Chapter 3 - China PT. 1 - Martial Monks and the Way of the Warrior, Connecting Fighting and War with Religion and Philosophy

Enter The 36th Chambers: Sex, Booze, and War Gods

If we start from Shaolin’s beginning, the Temple was founded by a Buddhist monk from India, referred to in Chinese sources as Batuo or Fotuo, in the last decade of the fifth century, around 495 CE.

Thanks to the support and patronage of Emperor Xiao Wen of the Northern Wei.

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Emperor Xiao Wen was a fan of Buddhism, and during this period, numerous Buddhist temples were constructed throughout his empire. This would make Shaolin’s foundation just another religious move played on a larger political board.

And Batuo, the Temple’s first Abbot, of Iranian descent, had already been in China for about thirty years before the Temple was built.

These facts are quite contrary to legend, which contradicts two main ideas:

• One, that Bodhidharma, an Indian Buddhist monk, primarily credited with bringing the religion of Buddhism to China, also founded Shaolin, which he did not.

• Second, that Bodhidharma brought with him special physical movements for health and internal cultivation from India, usually believed to be Yoga or Kalari, an ancient Indian martial art, or a combination or variation of both, to Shaolin, which ultimately influenced the origins of the Chinese martial arts and their creation at the Temple.

Not only was Shaolin created as just another statistic because the ruling Emperor had a soft spot for Buddhism, but Shaolin’s founding was also just one of many temples established by state sponsorship and efforts.

Particularly, for Batuo to teach.

And, as we’ve seen extensively by now, martial arts of all kinds have been practiced and intertwined for centuries within Chinese society, as well as among regional neighbors such as the Steppe tribes, and the world at large, long before the concept of Shaolin even arose.

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Since its founding, Shaolin has evolved into a multi-million-dollar industry, thanks to global and national tourism, film, merchandising, and numerous commercialization and consumer-based efforts.

Between humble beginnings and its now worldwide prominence and unparalleled success, Shaolin has survived numerous periods of ‘ups and downs,’ to put it mildly, that many times did not seem it would ever recover.

Luckily, Shaolin, the eternal Phoenix temple, has cyclically risen from the literal ashes, in nearly identical fashion to the nation it resides in, and endured to reach a state of influence, unlike any other Buddhist institution.

Ironically, only a fraction of the modern ‘Shaolin monks’ or ‘graduates’ from the Temple become ordained monks, let alone even study Buddhism.

Most of Shaolin’s alumni instead become professionals in trades related to the martial arts, such as athletic competitors, entertainers, instructors and coaches, bodyguards, military members, and so on, rather than anything religious and part of a larger martial arts economy within Henan, which has become a crucial asset to the province’s commerce.

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To some, this might appear abnormal for a Buddhist institution that is less an esoteric or spiritual sanctuary and closer to the Disney or McDonald’s of martial arts training, and they are not alone.

However, while Fu Mei was disappointed in the theological adherence to Buddhist doctrine, he also acknowledged the influence and contributions that Shaolin had towards Chinese Buddhism and Chinese culture.

Again, while Shaolin might lack a sort of ‘authenticity’ in many ways, both religiously and in martial arts, it cannot be denied that the impact it has had worldwide as an influential power.

At this point, it is irrefutable that by the time of Shaolin’s founding, the martial culture within China was lush, widespread, and possessed a long-established history that was so developed that Han Chinese and various Steppe tribes, which made up the region, engaged in cross-cultural martial exchanges that further diversified an already diverse landscape of arts.

I need to note.

There were no styles, systems, or codification in the same way a modern martial artist would recognize them at this point, and although the martial arts were established, they were still in their early stages.

Styles appeared around the Ming Dynasty or slightly earlier, and instead, martial arts were organized into named sets, typically associated with an individual or ethnic group.

Continuing forward, as stated, the myth perpetuated is that Bodhidharma brought Buddhism to China and brought martial arts to Shaolin, which, besides the issues that were debunked earlier, there is more to unpack from this because:

That’s right.

During its earliest periods, Shaolin most likely employed non-monk security forces for protection and therefore did not ultimately create Kung Fu for self-defense, another pesky legend that is simply false.

They used military forces for protection rather than resorting to self-defense practices due to their moral and ethical codes.

Byron Jacob, in his Shaolin Legacy series, states:

One could start speculating whether it is from the mix of external security forces that later developed into purely internal forces among the monks, or from how early Shaolin martial arts originated, but it’s just that speculation with no hard evidence to point one way or the other.

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