In America today, the modern liberal feminist has a strange problem on her hands — the United States is light years ahead of much of the rest of the world when it comes to women’s rights. Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright, Sarah Palin, Condoleezza Rice, Meg Whitman, Nancy Pelosi, Ruth Bater Ginsburg, Janet Yellen, Sonya Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Oprah Winfrey, Ellen DeGeneres, Megyn Kelly, Sheryl Sandberg, Michelle Obama, and Melinda Gates barely scratch the surface of the endless list of female role models — living proof of just how much progress America has made since its inception. The tendency of the modern American feminist to inflate legitimate concerns into insurmountable obstacles often makes them look silly.
Take for instance, feminist Suey Park. After recently calling her out for seeing white boogeymen where they don’t exist it was then intimated online and in the comments section of this blog that I was racist. What I didn’t get a chance to do while discussing Ms. Park’s fears of “structural whiteness” was to zoom out to 30,000 feet. Pulling back allows readers to compare Ms. Park’s problems with those of women around the globe. It allows us to see if limited time and resources are being allocated properly.
But I also saw a lot of pressure to dye my hair lighter, wear color contacts, to wear Abercrombie jeans, to wear Ugg boots and Northface and it was all these symbols to make me look more white but could never make me white enough, which was really frustrating, so of course I took that out on my body.
As an Asian American woman you’re told that you have to be smart and pretty to be heard. And you have to be exceptional, and of course people want us to be exceptional, so it was hard for me because I did struggle with math and science and I couldn’t live up to the ideals of what my sister could.
Ms. [Preeti] Dhaka’s training as one of the capital’s nearly 1,000 female investigators couldn’t insulate her from Indian traditions that often conspire against laws meant to enforce women’s rights. After a day of protest duty on New Year’s Eve, she wrote a despairing note: Her new husband, unhappy that her dowry hadn’t included a car, “tried to motivate me to die.” …
Pressuring a bride or her family for wedding gifts is against a 1961 law passed in an effort to end dowry abuses. The dowry tradition persists, with a woman’s family often giving lavish gifts to her fiancé’s family.
Dowry disputes remain a prevalent cause of violence against women, usually by husbands or in-laws who think a dowry was too small. According to government crime statistics, nearly one woman was killed every hour in India last year over dowries. In Delhi, “dowry comes a lot” in police complaints by women, says Ms. Insan. “In the village, the girls don’t come forward. They prefer to protect the home.” …
On Jan. 12, her body was discovered hanging by a scarf from a ceiling fan in her husband’s quarters, according to a police report.
Police charged Mr. Mund, his mother and his sister with harassing Ms. Dhaka into killing herself and inflicting cruelty on her. They are awaiting trial.
The dowry persists. It looks like for all the legitimate complaints about the British Empire, India could use some more “structural whiteness” when it comes to women’s rights. (I would replace “structural whiteness” with “Western Civilization,” but for the purposes of this blog post we’ll stick with feminist jargon.)
In America, “pressure” to “wear Ugg boots” makes it into fawning Washington Post pieces on upstart feminists. In India, women still die over dowry disputes.
In America, “structural whiteness” causes so much pressure to be “exceptional” that feminists have turned it into an issue; in the Middle East, Islamic clerics issue fatwas on the legitimacy of raping non-Muslims in Syria:
An Islamic cleric has cleared the path for rebels in Syria, who are trying to oust President Bashar Assad, to rape women, so long as they’re non-Sunni.
Salafi Sheikh Yasir al-Ajlawni, who hails from Jordan but who lived in Damascus for 17 years, sent a message via YouTube: It’s a “legitimate fatwa” for Muslims waging war against Mr. Assad and trying to put in place a Sharia government to “capture and have sex with” Alawites and other non-Sunni, non-Muslim women, Human Events reports. Mr. Assad is part of the Alawites sect.
Americans should always strive to form a more perfect union, but it is also important for us to acknowledge that the system of governance put in place by our founding fathers is exceptional. Liberal U.S. feminists struggle (in large part because they’ve formed coalitions with perpetual race-baiters) to admit the greatness of the American experiment and, as a result, the credibility of their own cause continues to take a hits.
Remember: In Suey Park’s world, only white people can be racist. Have fun trying to build a movement on that line, Ms. Park.
Beyonce made PolicyMic’s list of “Top 28” feminist moments of 2013. Congratulations, feminists: Beyonce is the new face (or was that butt?) of your movement. It’s a good bet that the “Giggity” to “Female Empowerment” comment ratio in her YouTube videos is not something Gloria Steinem would applaud.
Suey Park is a young liberal feminist who recently gained some notoriety within academic circles for starting the Twitter hashtag “#NotYourAsianSidekick.” She told the Washington Post she wanted to “create a space where Asian American feminism does not leave any group behind and where they’ll be anything but a sidekick.” Her story gives us a unique opportunity to identify what the next crop of liberal American feminists represent.
I come from a middle-class family. My father is a chemical engineer; my mom, a housewife. And I’ve thought hard about what is it [about America] that has made my life different […] and I would answer this way: If I had stayed in India, if I’d remained, I would have probably ended up living one mile from where I was born. I would probably have married a girl of my identical religious and socioeconomic background. I would probably be a doctor or a lawyer or a software programmer, and I would have a whole set of opinions that could be predicted in advance. By coming to America, my life has taken a totally different shape. I became interested in American politics. I […] went into writing and journalism, public speaking. I joined the government, the Reagan administration. So America, in a sense, gave me the chance to write the script of my own life. And I think that’s the intoxicating appeal of America to outsiders, it’s a country that’s sort of like a blank sheet of paper and you are the artist, and you get to create your own destiny instead of having it given to you.
America is a country where you write the script of your own life. It’s a country that is like a “blank sheet of paper” and you are “the artist” who creates his or her own destiny instead of having it given to you.
Remember that.
Suey Park is like most liberal feminists — they spend an inordinate amount of time trying to blame others for the obstacles to their advancement. They live in the past, looking for the elusive boogeyman who made them feel sad, angry, insecure, weak or confused. In those cases where there is a grain of truth to their complaints, they inflate it into a mountain that they can endlessly traverse.
When did Ms. Park find her excuse mountain? Childhood.
Suey Park: It was a long time ago — from when I was really young. Even from the start of kindergarten, I was quickly racialized and made to understand that I was different based on what my mom packed for me in my lunch bag. On the playground other kids would pull their eyelids to their side and run around and chase me. I always thought to myself that someone must have taught them that. What kid would know to put their hands on their eyelids and make their eyes slanted? It’s not like they would look at an Asian girl for the first time if they never heard of Asians and do that. So it really proved to me that racism is taught.
Things seem so much bigger than they really are when we’re young. Sadly, for Ms. Park, the childhood trials and tribulations all kids go through have been turned a weird affirmation of American racism. Is it more likely that some dumb mean kids saw someone who looked different and responded to it like dumb kids have for thousands of years — or that parents instilled Asian hate in their kids when they tucked them in at night?
Kids can be downright mean in their attempts to come across as smart, witty or popular. Sometimes, insecure kids become bullies to mask their pain. “Mom is an alcoholic. Dad is abusive. Might as well go pick on the scrawny kid to make myself feel like I’m in control…”
Jerks make fun of fat kids, skinny kids, birthmarks, overbites, glasses, the tall, the short, the shy, white kids, black kids, Hispanic kids and yes, Asian kids. Those who don’t go through life with race-goggles strapped tight around their head can see that.
Suey Park: As an Asian American woman you’re told that you have to be smart and pretty to be heard. And you have to be exceptional, and of course people want us to be exceptional, so it was hard for me because I did struggle with math and science and I couldn’t live up to the ideals of what my sister could. So then I internalized that I had to be the pretty one and that I had to be the thin one and that became extra hard for me as I hit puberty and I wanted to hold onto it.
We’re back to childhood again. Freud would have a field day with Ms. Park. Keep that in mind as she discusses her eating disorder and the big boogeyman reveal.
Suey Park: I also think there’s also a lot of silence around mental health issues and eating disorders in Asian American families whether it be because of a cultural barrier or a communication barrier. There’s a lot of pressure to not struggle. It was hard for me to tell my parents about my eating disorder because I didn’t want them to know I was struggling because I knew they had sacrificed so much to give me this good life and so-called American dream.
So Ms. Park has a competitive dynamic going on between she and her sister, her parents put pressure on her to succeed, and the household environment wasn’t conducive to talking about emotional and psychological challenges. Sounds like something that any American might deal with, right? Wrong.
Suey Park: I think what was most disappointing was that even some “progressive” white people or “progressive” Asian Americans were telling me that I was demanding too much and telling me that meritocracy exists and that I should stop complaining and try to overcome my circumstances — the typical spiel.
The boogeyman is real, and he is white. Those darn white people and their “spiels” about overcoming adversity. Apparently, Ms. Park hasn’t been hanging out with the progressive white kids from Minnesoata, because they scrawl all over their bodies with black ink in bizarre attempts to shame themselves for their whiteness.
Instead of seeing a blank sheet of paper, Ms. Park sees “white” and then wonders why there isn’t a “Korean” color in her box of Crayola crayons.
Ms. Park continues:
Suey Park: I think a lot of white people have a visceral reaction to the fact that they belong to a structural whiteness. But I think it shows us something really important, which is that fraction of discomfort is nothing compared to a lifetime of being racialized and put in a subordinate class of people in the U.S.
“Structural whiteness.” Feminists like Peggy McIntosh said that “white privilege” was invisible, and that we couldn’t see it. Now Ms. Park comes along to inform us that this invisible whiteness is of immense size and shape — and it’s subordinating Asians. America is a giant mad house that is so insidious that millions of immigrants come here thinking they can shape their own destiny. If Dinesh really understood he was in an oppressive white matrix, he’d realize that his many successes and the American dream he fondly speaks of are figments of his imagination — it’s really only a “so-called” American dream.
Side note: When I was in college I had a professor tell me the American dream didn’t exist. I told him that I was living proof that it did exist. I left home at 18 years old with $100 to my name. I joined the military, and only a few years later I was putting myself through college at the University of Southern California. It took a little longer than I expected after an honorable discharge, requiring some time as an overnight stock boy at Target (as the only white guy, for those obsessed with race), but I got there. I often get nostalgic for those 1:00 a.m. breaks, where I’d watch my coworkers play soccer in the parking lot while I cheered them on and ate tacos from the back of a food truck, but I digress.
Question for Suey Park: Would she prefer something more “structurally Korean”? The gulags in North Korea are filled with Koreans, and sometimes you get to watch your parents get executed. They put rocks in your mouth and then tape it shut before the firing squad gets to work. (We can’t risk the Dear Leader getting disparaged by someone with nothing left to lose, now can we?) I’d talk about South Korea, but the wealth and prosperity it has seen over the last several decades is largely due to its embrace of America’s “structural whiteness” and the safety and security provided by our marbled Armed Forces. Check out satellite imagery of North and South Korea if you’d like to see what “structural whiteness” can do for the nation state nearest you…
The problem with most feminists is that they spend the bulk of their time reading the ramblings of other feminists, and not enough time examining the authors of the greatest experiment in self-governance in the history of mankind. Their intellectual wells on Washington, Jefferson, Madison and John Jay are dry, but they run deep on Gloria Steinem wannabes.
A bunch of really white guys hundreds of years ago laid down a road map for achieving levels of freedom and individual liberty that, to this day, is an aberration in much of the world. The ideas embedded in the Declaration of Independence and codified into the law by the U.S. Constitution transcend race. America is not structured around “whiteness” — it is structured around freedom and liberty. That is what millions of immigrants get, and what Americans like Ms. Park either a.) fail to understand or b.) willfully downplay to concentrate on a level of racism that simply does not exist in modern America.
In the end, we all want to be happy. Even though I disagree with Ms. Park, I want her pursuit of happiness to end well. According to her Washington Post piece, she has achieved her own definition of success. That’s great, right? Wrong again, white America.
Immediately I’ve become the cool Asian friend and all of my Facebook friends who thought I was really annoying for talking about racism, my feelings and my eating disorder are somehow now tokenizing me as a successful Asian American woman. I mean, how token is that?
At one time Ms. Park was upset because her friends rightfully found her obsession with race annoying. Now that she has found a modicum of success, and they patted her on the back for it, she is perturbed that she has become a “token.” But is she really a token — or just a token in her own mind?
No matter what happens to Ms. Park, there is always something to complain about.
Congratulations, Ms. Park — you are the quintessential liberal feminist.
If there is such a thing as a flawless teaser trailer, the finished product for Christopher Nolan’s ‘Interstellar’ can count itself a member of the exclusive club. The narration, the gravel in Matthew McConaughey’s voice, the historical images that flash before the screen, and the score all combine to form what can only be described as something “stirring.” It says to the audience: “This is going to be a movie that seeks to tap into something deep inside you — if you’re willing to see just how much humanity is capable and just how often you sell yourself short.”
A group of explorers make use of a newly discovered wormhole to surpass the limitations on human space travel and conquer the vast distances involved in an interstellar voyage.
And here is Matthew McConaughey’s dialogue from the teaser:
“We’ve always defined ourselves by the ability to overcome the impossible. And we count these moments — these moments when we dare to aim hirer — to break barriers. To reach for the stars. To make the unknown, known. We count these moments as our proudest achievements, but we’ve lost all that. And perhaps we’ve just forgotten that we are still pioneers, that we’ve barely begun, and that our greatest accomplishments can not be behind us because our destiny lies above us.
Amazing stuff. I couldn’t agree more.
Anyone who has left loved ones behind in search of “bigger and better” things has a pioneer in them. Anyone who has walked away from a stable job for a chance to do what they really love has an explorer in them. Anyone who has taken great financial risk to back a cause they really believe in has an astronaut in them. These days, the pioneering spirit is squashed in its infancy. Public policy is often pushed on the population that locks people in place and prevents them from exercising their entrepreneurial spirit, and as a result it atrophies — we forget that we were meant to reach for the stars.
The teaser for ‘Interstellar’ first seeks to remind us what we’re capable of if we put our minds to it.
We can make the impossible possible because there are always men and women who swallow hard, leave loved ones behind, and find the grit in their spit needed to navigate uncharted waters.
The pioneers leave the comfort of family and friends behind, despite the pain and anguish it causes, because there is something deep within that compels them forward.
We shed tears in the pursuit of our dreams because a love of the safety and security of “home” pits us against our desire to explore new horizons, blaze our own path and create something unique and special that we can call our own. And when we succeed, we give thanks to the family and friends who encouraged us to take that leap of faith and who promised to catch us if we fell.
Predication: Christopher Nolan’s ‘Interstellar’ is going to be epic. The man makes smart movies that work on multiple levels. Those who just want to watch characters navigate worm holes for a few hours will be entertained, and those who like movies with more layers than an onion will go home happy. That is the nature of Christopher Nolan’s films, and for that I am thankful.
Christopher Nolan “gets it.” It’s a joy to watch his work and hopefully he’ll be at it for many years to come.
Years ago I read ‘Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of Seal Team 10.’ It’s the story of a 2005 mission along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border that was compromised and ultimately the battle for Navy Seal Marcus Luttrell to stay alive long enough to tell the tale.
Years ago I said that if Hollywood was smart, the studios would make it into a movie. ‘Lone Survivor’ has been made into a movie, directed by Peter Berg and starring Mark Walhberg, but Hollywood made Mr. Berg do some serious heavy lifting to get it done. I guess we can say that Peter Berg is a smart guy… Regardless, it will be out in January, 2014.
For those who want to really get a taste of what these guys volunteer for, I suggest watching Anderson Cooper’s recent ’60 Minutes’ interview with Luttrell. Although I’m very familiar with the ‘Lone Survivor’ tale, I still had a hard time watching the full interview without tearing up. To know that there are men like Marcus Luttrell, who are willing to lay their lives on the line for the rest of us, is incredibly humbling. It’s nearly impossible to hear his tale without wondering how you would react in the same situation. More often than not, my mind tells me that I’d fall far short of the bravery and heroism he displayed.
What must it be like to be Marcus Luttrell? The vast majority of Americans call him a hero — and yet a part of him believes he is a coward. I can only pray that one day he accepts that his self-evaluation is harsh and unfair, and that he might find the peace that will come along with that realization.
Here is how Luttrell recounts the final moment’s of Lt. Mike Murphy’s life, who sacrificed himself so that the rest of his team might have a chance to live.
Luttrell: Mikey was up and pushed out onto this boulder out in the middle of the draw in this wide open — no cover, nothing — He was on our satellite phone.
Anderson Cooper: Luttrell saw his lieutenant make the call. A call Mike Murphy knew would likely cost him his life.
Luttrell: He took two rounds to the chest because it spun like a top and it dropped him. And I tried to make my way up to him. He was my best friend, and I already lost Danny and I knew that Ax was dying and I didn’t want to lose him. That’s all I wanted him to do, was to come down to me. That’s all I wanted him to do, was come down to me. I heard his gun go off and a lot of gunfire in his area. I was trying with everything I had to get to him. He started screaming my name. Hey was like, ‘Marcus man, you gotta help me! I need help, Marcus!’ It got so intense that I actually put my weapon down and covered my ears because I couldn’t stand to hear him die. All I wanted him to do was stop screaming my name. And they killed him. And I put my weapon down in a gunfight while my best friend was getting killed — so that pretty much makes me a coward.
Anderson Cooper: How can you say that? …
Luttrell: Because that is a cowardice act, if you put you weapon down in a gunfight. They say every man has his breaking point. I never thought I’d find mine. The only way to break a Navy Seal is you have to kill us. But I broke right there. I quit right there.
Marcus was later blown off the side of the mountain he was fighting on, but managed to crawl his way to a source of water — with a broken back. It was there that he met the man who would save his life.
Luttrell: When I got to that waterfall and got those two sips out of there I was actually looking around thinking, ‘you know, this is a pretty good place to lay down and die.’
Cooper: You were ready to die.
Luttrell: I wasn’t ready to die. I just knew I was dying.
Anderson Cooper: That’s when an Afghan man appeared. Luttrell later learned his name was Mohammed Gulab.
Luttrell: He came up over this rock ledge and started screaming at me. ‘American! American!’ and I swung around on him. I had my finger on the trigger with the safety off. He started walking at me. He was like “Okay, okay.” He lifted up his shirt to show me he didn’t have a weapon. He was like: “Okay. Okay. Okay.” I lowered my weapon and I pulled the grenade and pulled the pin and said, ‘I’ll kill all of us.’
Anderson Cooper: You were prepared to blow yourself up along with everyone else.
Marcus Luttrell: Yes. I wasn’t going to get taken.
Ander Cooper: Why do you think you didn’t kill him?
Luttrell: I can’t tell you. I don’t know why.
Anderson Cooper (narration): Luckily, for Luttrell, Mohammed Gulab, who lived in a nearby village, was not a member of the Taliban.
Luttrell: He gave me water. I was bleeding real bad. Three other guys plus him picked me up and carried me down to his village.
Without Mr. Gulab’s help, who protected Luttrell at great risk to his tribe, the soldier would have died. Like Luttrell, Mr. Gulab’s story is worthy of its own movie: An Afghan tribal leader stands up to death threats from the Taliban to protect a severely wounded American, shuttling him from house to house (and ultimately a cave) to keep him safe, just long enough for a rescue team to extract him from the area. After the American leaves, the threats to his Mr. Gulab’s family and friends are far from over.
If you have time, seriously consider watching the full ’60 Minutes’ interview.
Editor’s note: A friend mine who was a Ranger let me know this morning that his buddy — who was part of the extraction team sent to find Luttrell — has just published a book: ‘Lest We Forget: An Army Ranger Medic’s Story,’ by Leo Jenkins. If Mr. Jenkins is anything like my friend it’s bound to be a very frank and honest book.
In August I said that the thing that would hurt Ben Affleck the most as he attempted to become Batman was his outspoken politics: “If I were a betting man, I’d say that Mr. Affleck will continue saying and doing things in public that will make it harder for roughly half the nation to lose themselves in his version of “Batman” on opening night.”
Affleck: People now know me as a Democrat, and that will always be the case to some extent.
Playboy: Does that polarize viewers?
Affleck: It does, and you can bifurcate your audience. When I watch a guy I know is a big Republican, part of me thinks, I probably wouldn’t like this person if I met him, or we would have different opinions. That shit fogs the mind when you should be paying attention and be swept into the illusion.
Playboy: Still, won’t that happen whether you take positions on candidates or causes?
Affleck: I have misgivings about it, counterbalanced with the larger things I care about. I don’t blindly do this stuff when it makes it harder to do my own job. And there’s an awful lot of gross money-raising going on that has made me want to pull back a bit from pure electoral politics. […]
Yes Ben, if the guy you’re watching on screen is a Republican and you’re a Democrat, it’s safe to say that you’ll have “different opinions.” Your powers of deduction are not quite at Bruce Wayne’s level at the moment, but you are correct.
Here’s the part that is somewhat bizarre for the future Batman to disclose: “I probably wouldn’t like this person…”
There are a lot of things I think about Matt Damon and Ben Affleck and most of Hollywood’s liberal activists, but I only tend to think “I wouldn’t like them” when they come across as elitist jerks. How someone comports themselves dictates how I feel about them as a person — a political party affiliation alone does not. Does Ben Affleck have zero Republican relatives? He must not, or he wouldn’t say such ridiculous things.
I love my fellow Americans. I want to like all of them and I want to give them the benefit of the doubt, but it’s hard when guys like Ben Affleck and President Obama keep dividing people.
“We’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us.”
Here’s what Slate’s John Cook said in his maybe-sorta-kinda piece of satire (but not) titled ‘Thanksgiving Tips: How to pick a fight with your relatives this Thanksgiving.’ It was written just in time to coincide with the White House’s push to get family members to discuss Obamacare over the holidays:
First off, you should wait until everyone’s seated at the table before you try to get things started. That way you have a captive audience that has to watch the fireworks, and everyone is settled in for a nice long time. Getting the topic of conversation to politics shouldn’t be too hard. Stick to short, sarcastic, tendentious remarks to get things going. “I’m thankful for all that free stuff Obama gave me.” Once you’ve engaged the enemy, it won’t take much effort to pivot to whatever particular subject you feel most comfortable with.
Yes, according to the president and his most ardent disciples, your fellow Americans are “enemies.” Does anyone else find it weird that the president won’t call any number of thug-nations around the globe an enemy of America, but he will refer to his political opponents as such? But I digress…
Instead of just admitting that activist actors “fog the mind” of the audience with all sorts of extraneous junk, Ben Affleck lets us all know that an ‘R’ next to your name makes him immediately think that he “probably” doesn’t like you — even though he wants your money.
Why should I cough up my money for ‘Superman vs. Batman (vs. Wonder Woman?)’ when one of the lead actors openly conveys his disgust for me as a person? Because of my love of free markets, limited government, traditional American values and a strong national defense, Ben Affleck “probably” wouldn’t like me? It’s weird.
Yes Ben, it is possible to disagree with someone without being disagreeable. I know it’s hard for someone who lives in a Hollywood bubble, where everyone thinks along the same lines and tells each other how smart they are at cocktail parties (“Pass me the gruyère, will you?”) — but in the real world some of us get along with our politically-diverse family and friends just fine.
If Zack Snyder is smart, he’ll sit down privately with Ben and tell him to shut up with the political commentary until ‘Superman vs. Batman’ comes out. There are a lot of people who aren’t thrilled with the idea of Ben Affleck as the Dark Knight, and alienating roughly half the viewing audience out the gate is probably not a good PR move.
Hat tip to douglasernstblog.com reader PersonIsPerson for the story.
In April of 2013, the world had a chance to see what modern leftist “feminism” is all about when Belgian Archbishop Andre-Joseph Leonard was harassed by screaming topless women who drenched him in water while he prayed.
Now, Argentina’s feminists are making news, less because of their stance on abortion and more because their behavior is hardly discernible from wild animals.
Buenos Aires, December 2nd, 2013 – Extremely disturbing video footage from Argentina shows a mob of feminists at a recent protest attacking and sexually molesting a group of Rosary-praying Catholic men who were peacefully protecting the cathedral in the city of San Juan from threats of vandalism.
The women, many of them topless, spray-painted the men’s crotches and faces and swastikas on their chests and foreheads, using markers to paint their faces with Hitler-like moustaches. They also performed obscene sexual acts in front of them and pushed their breasts onto their faces, all the while shouting “get your rosaries out of our ovaries.”
Who is the feminist genius who thought that spray painting the faces and crotches of praying men would be a good public relations move?
Let’s give a slow clap for the women who decided that spitting in the faces of men, who only wanted to protect their church from vandalism, was a legitimate way to express their feelings.
Women are unequal before the law in Argentina — unfortunately, they are unequal in ways that allow them to assault and sexually molest peaceful citizens with impunity. In a more just society they would have gotten a crack of the baton across the wrist and then hauled off to jail for attempting to spray paint an innocent man’s face and eyes.
More fascinating at these kinds of protests are the women who think stripping down naked and acting like a fool says, “I love myself,” when in reality it says, “I loathe myself.”
Nothing telegraphs the righteousness of your cause more than proudly displaying rolls of belly fat and inviting another woman to shove her head between your crotch.
Disgruntled because a chain of men who believe in God prevent you from filling their church walls with graffiti? Take off your shirt and rub your breasts against the arms linking them all together. Bravo.
Eventually, their “protest” broke down into what can only be described as a bunch of savages howling and hooting around a fire. Apparently, there was singing:
According to InfoCatolica, some of the women chanted a song, with the lyrics: “To the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church, who wants to get between our sheets, we say that we want to be whores, travesties and lesbians. Legal abortion in every hospital.”
Whores, indeed. Mission accomplished, ladies!
And finally, no protest populated with screaming banshees would be complete without burning an effigy of some kind. These women chose Pope Francis.
Inside the cathedral, 700 people were also in prayer accompanied by their bishop Mos. Alfonso Delgado. After unsuccessfully trying to get into the building, the women burned a human-sized effigy of Pope Francis.
If modern liberal feminists want to burn effigies of the guy who sneaks out in the middle of the night to give alms to the poor, who washes and kisses the feet of drug addicted teens, and who lovingly embraces people with tumors all over their body, I say “go for it.” I’m actually a little disheartened that some religious people want evidence of this protest banned from YouTube — the world should see it. Any town that wants church attendance to skyrocket should invite Argentina’s liberal feminists to protest in their neighborhood as soon as possible.
When trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man came out a few years ago, I was generally impressed with the product. While I felt there was absolutely no need to reboot the franchise after the supreme letdown that was ‘Spider-Man 3’ (aside from Sony’s desire to keep the rights from falling into Marvel’s hands), the trailer did pique my interest. Notably, in two-and-a-half minutes there were very little special effects — aside from the first-person point of view shots that begin at 1:43. With ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’ there are plenty of special effects teasers, and they’re pretty cringe-worthy. Will I go for the story, which does look interesting, but stay to laugh at the special effects? We shall see.
Before delving into the special effects, one first needs to discuss the “villain” concern. There are three of them — and everyone knows that packing a movie with too many villains is a dangerous endeavor. Director Marc Webb seems like a nice guy — but can he juggle? That’s the big question. When it comes to creativity, that’s up for debate.
Take, for instance, his reasoning behind the “Rhino” armor:
Marc Webb: One of the tricky things to translating characters from the comics that work in illustrations into the three-dimensional reality on a New York street — and often things that work quite well as a drawing — [is that they] don’t make sense in the physical world. And so, we wanted to make Rhino into something as powerful he is in the comics, and as sort of simple minded and direct as he is in the comics but with a suit that felt of this world. There’s certain hints about its creation. It’s only teased in the movie. It’s not really a big part of the film. I wanted something to create something that felt majestic and quite powerful but something Aleksei could have put together himself.
On some level, he makes sense. On another, it’s a complete cop-out. The trailer highlights quite clearly that they went with all sorts ideas that “don’t make sense in the physical world.” The challenge for the director is to figure out a way to make it work. Correction: In this case it’s up to the director and Sony Imageworks to figure it out. If they didn’t have the budget or the time to do Rhino properly, maybe they shouldn’t have done him at all.
As it stands, the walking tank outfit looks bad. Oscorp is genetically engineering everyone in the film accept the guy who calls himself “Rhino”? One would think that Oscorp would be keen on developing technology that would allow soldiers to coat themselves in Rhino-like skin. Get in bed with the government and the Department of Defense and it’s even harder to bring you down, right? I guess not.
The images released for the trailer look like something straight from a Playstation or XBox game, and in some cases they look worse.
Do the special effects make Spidey look like The Amazing Rubber-Man, or am I just getting old, picky and spoiled? It’s hard to complain about Spider-Man movies when you’re old enough to remember a time when they didn’t exist… Maybe I should just count my blessings and focus on the positive — namely, the story.
As it pertains to creating intrigue, Mr. Webb gets high marks:
Marc Webb: I don’t want to reveal to much of the plot but Peter learns things about his past, and at one point his future, provocative ways.
“Secrets have a cost, but the truth does to.’ I think there’s a line that Aunt May said in the first move, which was: “Secrets have a cost, Peter.” We recap that line and re-imagine it a little bit. She said ‘I once told you that secrets have a cost, but the truth does too,’which means that any way you cut it there’s going to be challenges ahead.
The big prominent villain in the film is Electro, but there are many adversaries Spider-Man is going to have to face. But the evil empire — the consistent thing between them all — is the evil empire known as Oscorp, or what’s becoming this evil empire. And I think that’s something that may inform people’s viewing of the trailer. Questions will be answered. … I wouldn’t say it’s a dark movie, but there is very powerful forces at work that are emanating from Oscorp. Oscorp is the place from which all nasty things emerge in this movie, and Spider-Man is going to have to confront that.
The Amazing Spider-Man trailer is awkward, because every time there are real actors on the screen a sense of mystery is there. Dane DeHaan has the “it” factor. He really seems like an intelligent kid with a dark, dark side to him. Dare I say it? They should have dumped Electro and just went straight to the Green Goblin.
Aunt May’s “secrets have a cost” line works well as shots of Peter’s ‘A Beautiful Mind’/John Nash-ish room and Richard Parker’s subterranean lair flash across the screen.
Who is that guy in the shadows with the hat walking by The Vulture’s and Doctor Octopus’ gear? The kid in me is begging my adult side to run to the ATM.
Sadly, for every moment worth getting excited about there are two or three cheesy special effects that induce a wince. Electro (or was that Superman Blue?) looks silly, and the Goblin costume looks like it was put together by someone with a do-it-yourself goblin kit. If ‘Captain America’ could pull off Red Skull, there’s really no excuse why Sony couldn’t make the Green Goblin respectable. It would be a shame if because of self-imposed tight shooting schedules and release dates that fans get half-baked villains for one of America’s coolest superheroes.
At the end of the day, the trailer for ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’ is a mixed bag. Will Jamie Foxx turn out a performance of ‘Django Unchained’ caliber, or … ‘Booty Call’? Will the special effects sink the film, or is Spider-Man popular enough around the world at this point in time that it’s almost impossible for his movies not to at least break even? Perhaps the second trailer will make its box office potential clearer.
Watch the trailer below if you haven’t seen it and let me know what you think.
In December of 2012 I examined what it would mean if Dan Slott’s body-snatching Spider-Man slept with Mary Jane under false pretenses. If I had a twin brother, pretended to be him in the dark, and slept with his groggy wife I would be a monster. Likewise, if Doctor Octopus — living a lie in Peter Parker’s body — sleeps with a woman, for all intents and purposes he is a rapist. These are uncomfortable truths, but truths we must face because this is the state of the comic book industry in 2013.
With Superior Spider-Man 22, Dan Slott’s creation goes full body-snatching rapist. Didn’t anyone ever tell Mr. Slott and Marvel’s editors never to go full-rapist? (i.e., They could have “merely” kept it to Doctor Octopus pleasuring himself — in Peter’s body — to thoughts of Mary Jane.)
[W]hile I have seen stories in which bad guys have used stolen bodies to get laid (the Buffy-Faith body swap is the example I can think of right now), I don’t think I’ve ever seen a romantic relationship in such a scenario unfold naturally over the long term quite like the relationship between “Peter” and Anna Maria. After months of development, that relationship reaches a new stage in this issue, as the art and dialogue strongly imply that the two began to have sex until they were interrupted by “Peter” being called to action as Spider-Man. Obviously, obtaining consent through deception makes Otto despicable. Earlier in this run, it seemed like practically every online discussion regarding Superior Spider-Man I came across was dominated by anxiety over whether Otto, impersonating Peter, would sleep with Mary Jane, and whether such an event would constitute rape. Curiously, I have not seen the same online fervor now that Otto has actually done this to someone. People in the comments section, can you help me figure out why that is?
Indeed, Chris. Asking: “Here, now? Are you sure?” and then having Anna Maria reply “Yes. I’m not wasting a moment either…” is more than a strong implication. Those two glowing jellyfish attempting to tangle themselves together in the background as Anna says “while we have the chance,” seem to seal the deal.
Sadly, there are readers who just don’t get it. “Hairychap” weighs in to answer Chris’ inquiry — and fails miserably:
“Sleeping with Anna isn’t taking advantage of a pre-existing relationship established by Peter, heck she never even meet Peter before he was Ock.”
It’s a good thing we don’t live in a world where real body-snatchers or telepaths exist because inevitably it would be populated with “Hairychaps”… Regardless, here are a few reasons for Chris why he hasn’t seen the online furor that was displayed at the start of Superior Spider-Man:
Dan Slott has admitted that he turned Peter Parker into a “meat puppet.” There really isn’t much else to say. At some point Mr. Slott (consciously or unconsciously) decided to come clean. Once a writer says that a character is being used as a “meat puppet,” there’s really nothing left for readers to expose. All they can do is reiterate how awful the editorial decisions on the book are.
Dan Slott makes weirdly veiled legal threats when people who give his work hard-nosed critiques, sends his Twitter followers to block people, and generally throws online tantrums where he proclaims that he’s “done” with the internet and message boards — before coming back hours later. One of my favorite Dan Slott memories is when I started talking about Superior Spider-Man at Comicvine and he decided it was the appropriate time to discuss my writings on … Trayvon Martin.
It’s the holiday season. People are spending time with their family, Christmas shopping and eating good food. Most websites see a dip in traffic this time of year. My guess is that the kind of people who understand the moral bankruptcy of Superior Spider-Man are also the kind of people who check out from online message boards during November-December.
Perhaps Crawlspace might have a problem replying to inquiries regarding its comments section? There is one person who would like to comment on the rape situation over at Crawlspace, but can’t — me. I used to be able to comment there, but on July 22 that stopped. Below is a screenshot of my email to the website. (In full disclosure, I haven’t checked since July since there wasn’t a response to my inquiry.)
Dear Sir,
I’ve been trying to post in your comments section, but have been unable to for some reason. I was wondering if there is a glitch in the system or if I’ve been banned for some sort of breach of etiquette I was unaware of (I haven’t used foul language or attacked other individuals in the comments section).
I tried to comment in both Firefox and Safari and neither of those worked. [Any] insight you can give me would be appreciated. I enjoy your podcasts and updates and would like to comment, if possible.
Best,
Doug
It’s interesting that I never received a reply.
Regardless, the reason why Chris sees less “anxiety” these days is because people are resigned to the fact that Dan Slott has done vast amounts of damage to the Spider-Man brand. They’re really just waiting for the day when a new creative team can come in and pick up the pieces.
How much lower can this title go? I’ll let you know in the months ahead.
Once upon a time, Americans listened to men like Benjamin Franklin. Today, they get unhealthy doses of Sen. Harry Reid. Given that, I thought I’d share a few excerpts from ‘The Completed Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin,’ which was compiled and edited by Mark Skousen, Ph.D.
I like Archer just as much as the next guy, but Archer is not Ben Franklin. If I had one piece of advice to give to young people it would to turn off the television for a year or two and read the works of the men who helped shape America’s identity at its inception. Learn from the wisdom preserved for us by the best and brightest minds ever turned out by Western Civilization. Once you do that, you will realize who it is within the political class and the entertainment community that wants you to wander through life like a zombie. You will be able to discern who is telling you what you want to hear and who is telling you what you need to hear. You will be able to tell the difference between the man who is snake oil salesman from the man who is like the rattlesnake.
The rattlesnake as a symbol of America: ‘Don’t tread on me’
“I observed on one of the drums belonging to the Marines being raised that there was painted a rattlesnake, with this modest motto under it, “Don’t tread on me.” It occurred to me that the rattlesnake, being found in no other quarter of the world besides America, might therefore be chose to represent her. Having frequently seen the rattlesnake, I ran over in my mind every property by which she was distinguished.
I recollect that her eye excelled in brightness, that of any other animal, and that she has no eye-lids. She may therefore be esteemed an emblem of vigilance. She never begins an attack, not, when once engaged, ever surrenders; she is therefore an emblem of magnanimity and true courage.
As if anxious to prevent all pretensions of quarreling with her, the weapons with which nature has furnished her she conceals in the roof of her mouth, so that, to those who are unacquainted with her, she appears to be a most defenseless animal, and even when those weapons are shown and extended for their defense, they appear weak and contemptible; but their wounds however small, are decisive and fatal. Conscious of this, she never wounds till she has generously given notice, even to her enemy, and cautioned him against the danger of treading on her.
I confess I was wholly at a loss what to make of the rattles until I went back and counted them and found them just thirteen, exactly the number of the colonies united in America; and I recollected too that this was the only part of the snake that increased in numbers; perhaps it might be only fancy, but, I conceited the painter had shown a half formed additional rattle, which, I suppose, might have been intended to represent the province of Canada.
‘Tis curious and amazing to observe how distinct and independent of each other the rattles of this animal are, and yet how firmly they are united together, so as never to be separated but by breaking them to pieces. One of those rattles singly is incapable of producing sound, but the ringing of thirteen together is sufficient to alarm the boldest man living.
The rattlesnake is solitary and associated with her kind only when it is necessary for their preservation. In winter, the warmth of a number together will preserve their lives, while singly they would probably perish.
The power of fascination attributed to her, by a generous construction, may be understood to mean that those who consider the liberty and blessing which America affords, and once come over to her, never afterwards leave her, but spend their lives with her. She strongly resembles America in this, that she is beautiful in youth and her beauty increases with age, “her tongue also is blue and forked as the lightning, and her abode is among impenetrable rocks.”
I communicated my sentiments to a neighbor of mine, who had a surprising readiness at guessing everything which related to public affairs. He instantly declared it as his sentiments that the Congress meant to allude to Lord North’s declaration in the House of Commons that he never would relax his measure until he had brought America to his feet, and to intimate to his Lordship that were she brought to his feet, it would be dangerous treading on her.” — The Completed Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, compiled and edited by Mark Skousen, Ph.D. Pages 112-114.
Rebellion to Tyrants is obedience to God
“Only July 4 I had been appointed to a committee, along with Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, to design the great seal of the United States. I urged the following to be adopted: Moses standing on the shore, and extending his hand over the sea, thereby causing the same to overwhelm Pharaoh who is sitting in an open chariot, a crown on his head and a sword in his hand. Rays from a pillar of fire in the clouds reach to Moses to express that he acts by command of the Deity. Motto: Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.” — The Completed Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, compiled and edited by Mark Skousen, Ph.D. Page 124.
Take a few moments to really think about America’s founding and what it meant to have men like Franklin at the helm when the fate of the nation hung in the balance. And then, when you’re done…if you really must, go back to the cartoons.
Since Thanksgiving is upon us, I thought I’d take some time to let some of my regular readers know that I am thankful — for you! I’ve decided to take a quick quote from many of you and then describe why it means so much to me that you take time out of your busy schedules to read my musings.
Editor’s note: I have all the quotes down, so if you see your name here…I will say a little something about you or your contributions. It might be short and sweet, or it might be extended. Regardless, I’ll knock it out before Thanksgiving is over. Since going through all your comments took longer than expected (it’s almost midnight), I’m going to turn it in for the night and complete this post while I await a Thanksgiving feast. Tomorrow I have work…and a long drive that doesn’t start until 8:00 p.m.
Andrew: I heard on the radio this morning that in the Church of England may not exist in 40-50 years as younger people have stopped attending church.
When I was younger I attended a Sunday school run by the local Salvation Army. My parents did not attend church. In both cases this was because they did not enjoy church as children. By attending the Sunday school I found comfort when my grandfather passed away when I was 7.
I think a lot of the problems in the world today are down to a LACK of religious contact. Religion is a positive influence on peoples lives.
Tactful, personal and on point. If the comments section of most blogs had guys like Andrew in it, I’d probably actually read more of them.
Aniwonder: Firstly I want to applaud you for having such faith and insight in the face of a heart breaking situation. I work in the Ob/Gyn field and have come across many women in your situation who do not demonstrate your level of introspection. I couldn’t help but feel for you and your family and I would like to contribute a Christian physician’s view here.
As I’m sure you know, the condition your baby has is the second most common chromosomal abnormality (next to Down’s syndrome). Together, the chromosomal abnormalities (trisomy 21, 18, and 13) make up a large percentage of birth defects. A lot of mothers ask a common question: Is it something I did? The answer is, of course, a resounding “No”. The Lord designed our bodies to have self-regulatory systems in instances like this. I think that’s one of the reasons the majority of miscarriages occur before the woman ever realizes she is pregnant and are due to these same chromosomal anomalies.
Other times women have babies who live until delivery but not long afterwards. These babies were not meant to walk very long on earth, but perhaps they still had a purpose while they were transiently here. Your spiritual mentor at Church, your renewed faith and prayer, and your introspection – were they not all positive things that you did in response to receiving this devastating news? We are not privy to God’s plan for us. This may simply be an obstacle in your life which will allow you to appreciate your family that much more in the future.
Having said all that, I want to encourage you (when you’re ready) not to be scared to try again. I’m sure your doctor has told you as well, but this disease occurs sporadically as the result of mis-divisions among cells. It’s not caused by food, exercise, or travel, etc…that the mother or father participated in. Again, thanks for sharing your story. I will be praying for the health of you and your family!
It never ceases to amaze me how kind some of my readers can be to complete strangers. I consider it a blessing to have such kind souls in my life.
Arachnobat: The Person Who is Person, I know we’ve had some disagreements on other threads but the things you’ve posted here are very interesting and I agree with you on the soul. Emmanuelle brought me to your post on Darwinism and I was hoping we could start an email correspondence. When I was younger I had the same righteous anger as you and I’m glad you’ve put your confidence in God as Judge and Vindicator for he assures us. “Vengeance is mine I shall repay.”
If this blog brings people together to talk through complex public policy issues, religion or just the latest comic book that makes me happy. Anyone who can conduct themselves on this blog in such a way as to strike up an email correspondence with another reader earns a salute in my book.
Carl: Hislop claimed- without evidence- that the Biblical king Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the LORD (he is believed to be an early Sumerian and/or Babylonian king by some) was the inspiration for Jesus. That doesn’t even begin to make sense, but then again, he was blinded by anti-Catholic bigotry.
If he were alive toay, he’d probably work for Salon.com or the Democratic Underground. That’s how insane his theories were.
Carl, you’re one cool dude. I really like you, buddy. It’s been great to see you grow as a writer over at Carl’s Comics, and I’m glad to have you as a regular contributor. You’re a stand-up guy and I wish the best for you, personally and professionally. If you ever need a hand, let me know and I’ll do whatever I can to help you out. I may not have met you in person yet, but I can tell that you are a good guy.
Dan Slott: “If someone, like you, who is in the habit of spreading gross falsehoods about me online, I am interested to see if any of them rise to the level of being liable and actionable.”
Dan, even though you’ve said that I am a “bad” person whose actions fill you with “sorrow,” I am still thankful that you took the time to tell the world what you think about me. Yes, you said the following: “If you follow my feed and wish to show support, please block @douglasernst. And please do not give his blog ANY hits. If you follow @douglasernst and are offended by this entry, please let me know so I can block you.” However, by doing that you forced me to really think about what I was doing. In my private moments I did contemplate what, exactly, I was putting out into the world. Was it negative? Was it positive? Was it something that I should be ashamed of? Was it something that Marvel lawyers could take me to court for?
In the end the real question is: Would I do it all over again? Answer: Yes. I would probably tweak some of the language here or there, but at the end of the day I’m happy with what I’ve written and I’m thankful for all the Peter Parker fans your creation has brought into my life.
Diana C: Someone gave me a weapon a couple of years ago, and while glad to have it, thought, “I’m sure I will never actually need this.” When a job 30 years ago required that I be certified in CPR, sometime during the instruction, I thought, “I’m sure I will never actually need this.”
Well, two years ago, a man installing flooring in my home fell over dead of a heart attack. Without hesitation, I used that CPR training and saved him. Also in the past two years since receiving the weapon, I have indeed felt the need to have it handy when feeling threatened. Thankfully, so far I have not needed it, but am certainly glad I have it just in case.
Funny thing is, the same person whose life I saved with a skill I thought I’d never use, is the same one who gave me the gun I hope I will never use… and I’m very happy to have both!
Thanks for reminding me that every moment presents us with a learning opportunity and that we shouldn’t take even one second for granted. It’s amazing how our bodies are so strong and durable, and yet very fragile at the same time. Thanks for sharing your stories with me, Diana.
Eve: Sick, but sadly, not surprising. Kids are stupid. Ever have one?.. total idiots. “I didn’t eat the cookie” he says, chocolate smeared all over his chubby face. They do not think through their actions or fear consequences if they’ve never had to face them. This is what you get with indulged, over-entertained children left to their own devices because their parents refused to parent. “Doing wrong is a like a joke to a fool..”
Call your mom or dad today and say “thank you” for giving and teaching you wisdom and responsibility.
I’m always glad when someone with a working moral compass visits this blog because although I try to keep mine calibrated, it sometimes swivels. Having people like you around, Eve, helps me remember to check it and make sure it’s pointing in the right direction at all times.
Georgia: Needed to read this today. it’s a philosophical view i share with you, but i sometimes forget. financially struggling, we are not the type who fill our lives with gadgets and gizmos. we just can’t. but we still find ourselves sometimes in a trap that money is the end all important thing… even if we don’t have it. one of my favorite quotes is “we are always getting ready to live, but never living.” {by emerson}. it hangs on my fridge to remind me to live, lest i wake up one day at 80 years old and find that i only got ready to live and missed the living part. lately, my mantras {for lack of a better word… not to sound new-agy either} have been “i’m convinced that the key to life is contentment.” and “the most important things in life… aren’t things.”
We are sort of at a crossroads in our lives as a family… trying to decide where we want to take things. it’s exciting, because there is so much room for potential. but i wholeheartedly agree that we need to focus our energies on what we want to see happen. with a toddler, we find ourselves so busy, rarely taking time to sit down and map out our goals and needs. this post inspired me to maybe get a big ol’ white board and just start writing things out in big bold letters for us to see so it’s sort of always in our face, even when we get caught up in raising a little one and all the other things that keep us busy. anyway, i know i’m kind of rambling in a not-very-cohesive manner. but those are just some of my thoughts. perhaps you have already read this article at one point, and though i know it’s not exactly the points you made here, the article reminds me of yours, so i thought i’d share it. it’s a good read… http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/30/the-busy-trap/
thanks for your inspiring post today!
It’s posts like this that make me smile, because I know that one day I’ll move from Washington, D.C. and have neighbors like Georgia. Good, honest and decent people are still out there! Georgia, you give me hope for future generations of Americans. 🙂
Hube: Make sure it’s the omnibus volume — “Tomorrow’s Avengers” I believe it is subtitled. The later stories get a little weak, but their first appearance, then the Two-In-One and Defenders arcs are sensational. FYI.
Hube! The Colossus of Rhodey is a great blog, but you’re also a colossus in your own right. Brains, wit and kindness. You’ve been called some pretty nasty things on Twitter for what you’ve written, and you’ve always handled it like a pro. I’ve learned a lot from reading your blog, and I’m not just talking about what I’ve gleaned from the content you provide. I’ve been writing here for a few years now, but I had a lot of growing up to do. I think it’s safe to say that the work you churn out on a regular basis has served as an inspiration for douglasernstblog.com. What I said to Carl applies to you, too: If you ever need something, just ask. If you’re in a jam and there’s any way I can be of assistance, I’ll do my best to come through for you.
Issaac Wolffe: If comic writers want to be edgy by tarnishing immortal heroes, don’t make them stop being heroes. Instead make them mortal. A revolutionary comic writer would swear to make their character age and eventually retire or die. They always talk about the characters’ possible futures, but they never let them happen. If this were to happen for every character in the Marvel universe (that could possibly become mortal), then the stories would instantly become epic. Because, what thrill is there in knowing that a hero will always survive or at least come back from the dead. Also, with a permanent death, authors like Dan Slott would be less tempted to have heroes die in such disgusting ways.
I like smart people. Issac, you seem like a pretty smart guy. Do you know what I like more than a smart person? A smart person … who is also nice. You seem to fit that criteria, so I’m glad to see you pop up in my Twitter feed and in the comments section of my blog.
Jim Zee: “wars should be fought in a giant stadium by world leaders armed with socks filled with horse manure” — W. C. Fields
Jim, you’ve always got a joke on standby. You’re a hard-working American man with a good head on his shoulders. You’re a rare breed these days… You know exactly who you are and you’re not afraid to put it all out there for the world to see. I think our delivery method for the conservative message sometimes differs, but make no mistake: I’m proud to have come across you and your blog. The country would be a much better place if we had more guys like you in the workforce.
joysy1015: “Learning should never stop, trying never end! Blame never made anyone a better person. I spent the last 27 years trying to learn how to be a better person, You’d think I’d have it down to a science.. But while I’m no where NEAR the person I want to be.. I’m a whole lot closer than I was 49 years ago, and 27 years ago.”
This is gets pretty close to the meaning of life, and if I have people who are bringing this sort of insight into my blog, then I truly am blessed. We all should be striving to become better people, and realizing just how far we have to go…is a good thing. Too many people think they’re already “good” people who don’t have much room for self-improvement. Wrong. No matter how “good” we think we are, we still are laughably far from perfect. It brings a smile to my face to know that kind souls such as yourself have graced me with presence, whether it’s for a few days, months or years.
Lightbringer: Your blog has taught me a lot and made me re-examine some beliefs that I held. Even change some of them. Your reply reminds me of the Lincoln quote from a few emails back. You have destroyed me as an enemy by making me a friend. No bare knuckles or duels at dawn required. I look forward to that post you mentioned, if you ever opt to write it. If not, that’s okay too.
In some sort of alternate reality, I probably wound up politically a lot like you, Lightbringer. I think if we grew up on the same block together as children we’d probably be pretty good friends. I think as people get older they cut themselves off from a lot of meaningful friendships due to politics, so I’m glad that I was able to let my guard down enough to trust you with some more personal anecdotes. If someone ever likened me to Rocky, I’d probably call you my Apollo (although we won’t be running on the beach together anytime soon). We’ve had some knock-down, drag-em-out fights, but at the end of the day we’ll still extend a hand to help the other guy up. One day, when my wife gets down with school, we’ll have a house with a boxing ring. I’ll invite you over for a few rounds. “Ding. Ding.”
Lizard19: One of my favorite visual artists is Jess, especially his collage work. Here’s some more context from his wiki: “Jess was born Burgess Franklin Collins in Long Beach, California. He was drafted into the military and worked on the production of plutonium for the Manhattan Project. After his discharge in 1946, Jess worked at the Hanford Atomic Energy Project in Richland, Washington, and painted in his spare time, but his dismay at the threat of atomic weapons led him to abandon his scientific career and focus on his art.”
Not everyone in life is going to like what we say and do. In fact, what we say and do might enrage those around us. I think it’s safe to say that to a large extend you do not like the messages coming from the blog, Lizard19. And that’s fine. I know that I do not have all the answer, and I know that I can learn something from everyone — including you. Thank you for exposing me to artists like Jess, and thank you for taking the time to read this blog. Even if I disagree with you (or ban you for extended periods of time) that doesn’t change the fact that you possess valuable information that I am thankful to receive.
Note: Although your ban extends until May 1, if you have something to say that is in the spirit of Thanksgiving it will be permitted in this post.
Magnetic Eye: SSM reads like a “Megamind” parody which is fine for a cartoon funny book, but not for a super-hero book. Speaking of which check out the link below. It’s interesting that someone at Marvel sees that parody that Marvel NOW has become and have published a book called “NOW What?” It’s funny, but also sad, since for me, this is the new reality as my enjoyment of Marvel characters has steadily diminished in recent years. http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=preview&id=18601
Not only has Magnetic Eye taught me a thing or two about Australian health care, but he’s also made some keen observations on Superior Spider-Man. When I see a reply by Magnetic Eye, I always know it will be a good read.
Mark: I’m not sure if this is merely pseudo-science or not, but many of the MMA fighters and trainers I’ve interviewed claim you’re much more likely to get knocked unconscious by blows you don’t see coming. It has to do with your body being unprepared for the moment before impact. Your advice of being alert and alive may be more accurate than you know!
Another recurring theme I’ve seen – in any fight, sanctioned or not, always expect to get hurt. By having that mindset, you’ll be prepared should that actually happen. It’ll also help convince you to do more damage to the aggressor. The theory is that by expecting pain, you’re prepared for it and don’t “turtle up,” as the jargon goes.
I know a few women – many tiny – who do Brazilian jiu-itsu, muay thai kickboxing, etc. and can easily take bigger, stronger men. I recommend anyone feeling unsafe look into these or similar arts as they maximize doing maximum damage to attackers with minimal energy, even in adverse circumstances. They’re also good for physical fitness, mental discipline and social networking too.
Mark is sort of like a ninja. Apparently he’s reading, but I never know when he’s going to pop up. When he does, he usually has something insightful to say. He picks and choose his words carefully, but when he speaks he makes it count.
Matt Robert McKenzie: This is where I will disagree with ya Doug, to a point. When it comes to registration and superheroes, all of them are still by and large vigilantes and operate outside the law to get the job done. To go places the cops can’t because of laws and structure. They break minor laws by comparison to those who commit murder and wanton destruction. And frankly, I wouldn’t trust politicians with agendas (they will always exist and we are fools to think otherwise) to have access to that kind of power because if you were to tag and register every single superpowered character, they would dissect you, kill you, violate your constitutional rights (regardless if you’re the good guy or the bad guy) and then replicate it onto themselves or keep it in cold storage. Can’t say I blame superheroes having secret identities.
Disagree with me? On my own blog? How dare you! 😉 I like someone who will give it to me straight, whether they agree with me or not. As long as the person is tactual (as you are), they’re okay in my book. Thanks for reading, Matt.
Mr. Billwulf: Nice analysis. As convoluted as Toure’s views are, I think there is a unifying theme at work: the desire to hold on to that which is politically correct, even in the face of contradictory evidence. Mary Beth Williams expressed similar convoluted views in her recent Slate piece. Toure and Williams want to believe that abortion is about a woman’s autonomy no matter what. I call this the Political Fallacy, the fallacy of letting one’s political ideology override non-political considerations.
Like Mark, Mr. Billwulf randomly turns up — and I’m always happy for it. I read their comments and think, “Welcome back, old friend!”
natewinchester: One wonders that in a world with mind control, time travel, robot duplicates, alternate universe duplicates, shapeshifters and so much more, if anyone would ever be convicted of anything. (what CAN’T be reasonably doubted in that universe?) Though it could lead to some interesting punishments. “You are guilty of murder. I sentence you to bringing the victim back to life.”
Another good-natured comic book guy commenting on my site? Yes, please. I’ll take all of them that I can get. I don’t collect as many comments as I used to due to time and money constraints, so it’s good to have people around who can keep me up to speed. You can check out Nate’s blog at http://natewinchester.wordpress.com/
Patrick: I think it’s like school, work, or working out; you get what you put in. Can’t speak for the Church of England as I’ve been Catholic all my life and I think we do a poor job of explaining our traditions; they just come across as rules in our Sunday School; I think this scares younger people away. As an adult I took it upon myself to learn the “why” behind our traditions and it strengthened my faith.
I did volunteer for to help out a mission in western Pennslyvania a couple times in my teens, we stayed a week at a time and helped out those that needed a hand; the area was reeling from steel/coal decline at that time. Seeing the good service side of religion made a lasting impression on me. I agree religious contact can be very positive; I hope the Anglicans can right their ship.
There aren’t many people who I trust to turn to in a jam — like an “oh my goodness, this is serious and I need advice” jam — but Patrick makes the list. If you could see all of his comments on this blog, you would begin to understand why. Let me take this a step further: Patrick is probably one of maybe three people on the planet who could say, “Doug, shut up now,” and I would do it without a protest. If Patrick tells me I’m in the wrong on something, then it’s time to sit back and reevaluate things. I might still end up disagreeing with him, but the reevaluation will happen.
Paul Johnson: Great stuff. I think certain dreams also allow you to make connections that you may have been on the cusp of making during your awake time. Be it new ideas, moral discoveries, lessons. And other times maybe for creative enjoyment.
I’ve had a couple experiences, where the dream was incredibly lucid, and memorable. In particular, I’ve had some that played out like some type of thriller or action “movie” which I only use to describe it that way since it had a storyline that I could follow, and recall everything that happened at any given moment during the dream.
Eventually the “story” of the dream came full circle, and when I woke up I couldn’t believe that my subconscious had conjured up what it had.
I think my first interaction with Paul came after one of my fitness posts. I still randomly hear form him on Twitter. Once again, through my blog and social media accounts I’ve been able to meet some pretty cool people. If I was holed away in my room writing a book I would have missed out on some quality conversation with guys like Paul.
Person Who Is Person: Second off, I’m glad to see you bring up this particular movie. Did you know that Superman Versus The Elite is based off an early 2000′s story arc in the mainstream DC comic-verse called, ‘What’s So Funny About Truth, Justice, and the American Way?’ Did you know that it was also made in response to a group DC’s Wildstorm Imprint was making called ‘The Authority’ who sort of popularized the whole idea of ‘Superheroes should be jerks who should kill at the first sight of trouble and care more about publicity stunts and maintaining their own power that legitimately helping people’ that was later even more popularized in Marvel’s secondary ‘Ultimate’ Universe?
Person Who is Person (aka, Emmanuel), your knowledge of comics is quite extensive, and like I said earlier in this post, I appreciate hearing from guys like you. I don’t get to read as many comics these days as I would like, so it’s good to be able to talk with guys who have their fingers on the pulse of the industry.
I suppose up until this point I’d describe you as a little bit of a loose cannon, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. You’ve got heart and a whole lot of energy, and if you channel it in the right direction I think you could go far. I think if you can focus like a laser on the things you really want, you’ll attain them.
randylewiskemp: I heard today that the program team only had 2 weeks to test the system. They did request several months. I have to agree with the programming representatives. Two weeks is not enough time to test a system that is used in several states and also the federal level.
I still insist that you can run a LAMP (i.e. Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) combination much lower that 400 million dollars. In fact, if you gave me a budget of 400 million, allowed me to build it upon LAMP and hire my own experts – it will cost far less and be much sounder and bug free. I understand that Yahoo runs on MySQL databases. How often has that crashed? And I would also be able to have support contracts in place, to resolve any open source issues.
But they hired a firm with the name “federal’ in it. I wonder if they farmed things out to India and 3rd world countries and kept the profits for themselves?
Through this blog I now get to interact with guys with programming skills. Sweet! There’s a whole lot that I don’t know, and the more guys like Randy that I can run into along the way, the better. These are the kinds of replies I absolutely love.
Rogue: So, Mr. Expert, if I don’t like the Superior Spider-Man, it’s because I’m too stupid to understand where the story is ultimately going? Wow. I didn’t realize my reading comprehension and ability to see foreshadowing were completely erased because I don’t see the value of killing Peter Parker in order to… well, first it was a desperate act of a dying man. Then it was revenge. Then it was to protect Pete’s family. Then it was to be “superior”.
Along the way, my lack of comprehension must have been completely in the basement when I missed the significance of the mind-rape of a major female character, the petulant, near-fatal beating of a non-powered woman, the second death of the primary character, actual premeditated murder of a wounded and unarmed criminal, invasion of privacy, attacking teammates who want to know what’s wrong, even more murder, blackmail, and an army of henchmen. I’m going back to Dr. Seuss, where I can understand where Green Eggs and Ham won’t blow my mind too badly.
Of course Slott isn’t going to show his face in public, but he knew this would happen beforehand, and entered into this situation gleefully. You can tell it by the way he crows about Peter staying dead, how he AND his Ed-McMahon-stooge Wacker acts (his support troll), the hamhanded way he insults the “whiners”, and of course, the sales numbers.
You can’t demand respect. It has to be earned. Slott has shown he can take Otto Octavius, turn him into an unbeatable force with absolutely no backstory to support how he is able to do this, make Peter Parker a pathetic sack with absolutely no backstory to support this either, and all his allies are either conveniently missing, or maybe they’re like me: too dumb to understand.
I will grant Slott his day in the sun; I believe these are his last, because once he fouls this story up to the point where nobody is buying the books, Marvel will absolutely put him out for the public to chunk rotten food at in the public square. I really am curious as to where he’s taking this, but I hate the road taken. It’s sloppy, unprofessional writing, and disrespectful to the fanbase and the canon.
Rogue: Smart. Smart. Smart. There have been at least three posts by this woman that almost made me jump up and down on my bed while cheering. If I could pay Rogue to just sit and talk about Superior Spider-Man for an hour straight, I would.
sasoc: To suggest that “Fantasy” is harmless is absurd. As the Buddha said, with our minds we make the world. Before we can act, we must imagine the action.
But I am making a more subtle point, which is that high ideals, such as those on which the USA was founded, get eroded bit by bit, in a slow-encroachment water torture, and such degradation occasionally accelerates when sacred objects (the memory of and reverence for George Washington) are blasphemed, such as is being done in this rotten video game.
The promotion of such ideas — Washington as evil fascist robot, the USA as evil fascist empire — should be exposed and ridiculed, and ultimately smothered to death. That’s right, to death.
Why, you ask? Because they are not true, and if you don’t see this then I ask you to keep educating yourself until you do see it.
George Washington is rightly revered as one of the greatest statesmen in history, not only because he was a great General in war, and a great first President of a young republic, but because he chose to abandon the office of the presidency after two terms when in fact he could have been elected for decades more. This turning away from power by someone astride a growing nation is the most rare of human acts. No one does it willingly — except George Washington. This makes him a God among men, and someone of such moral grandeur that any attempt to stain his legacy, either in reality or through fantasy, is an affront to the truth and should be annihilated.
I still randomly think about this comment. It really hit a nerve with me. Sasoc is one sharp dude, and his blog is worth checking out if you’ve never been there. Check out ‘Mastersen’s Musing: The Sword & Shield of Consciousness’ if you get a chance. One day he’s going to write a book and when it hits the store shelves I’ll buy it on the day of its release.
Tim: I’ve said before how if they wanted an anti hero to write about, marvel is chock full. Why ruin the character of Peter Parker who was created as an everyman superhero, that always did the right thing in the end. Stan Lee created him to show the power of getting knocked down and picking yourself back up because it was the right thing to do. My 4 year old nephew is obsessed over spider man and I will never let him touch a SSM comic, because that kind of ugliness does not belong in his life and should never be allowed in any child’s life. This disgusts me in a way I can’t describe. Shame on you Dan Slott, shame on you Marvel for perverting children’s innocence.
Another reader who has his moral compass in working condition. Score.
Tom: In the 1960′s, SHIELD seemed to be a US government agency. In Avengers Annual #1 (1967), Col. Fury said that it was “an American combo, not a blamed international police force.” (Which, I know, contradicts its name at the time: Supreme Headquarters, International Espionage, Law-enforcement Division. But then, that name didn’t really make a lot of sense, either.) By the 1980′s, political correctness had kicked in. There was a Daredevil issue sometime around 1982-83 where the Black Widow was working for SHIELD, and referred to it as a UN organization. I think there was a Nick Fury mini-series in the late 1980′s or early 1990′s where he wiped out SHIELD (it had become corrupt) and started a new organization from scratch. But with all the retcons and reboots since then, I don’t have a clue what SHIELD is supposed to be now.
Tom rocks. Period. This guy is an encyclopedia of awesome comic knowledge, but it seems to just flow naturally. It’s like he just “knows” it without having tried to memorize anything. I don’t know if that’s the case…but it’s cool. Some people who talk about comics come give off a vibe as though that’s all they really know, but Tom comes across as a guy you do not want to intellectually mess with. He’s got depth and breadth. He’s got experience. He’s been around the block a few times, and if you’re going to pick a fight with him you’re going to get bloody.
Truthwillwin1: I need a better wage..then work for it. Even McDonald’s has higher paying jobs if you earn them. The bottom job at fast food was not intended to support a family. People need to stop expecting things given to them and instead earn them. Why is the wage $7.40, it is because that is the market rate. How much would a burger be if they paid there labor $15 an hour! The prices would jump up but the average person making minimum wage does not understand the reality of that. They also do not understand that if the wage goes up all costs will go up and they will end up with even less spending power. On top of that all of the money everyone has saved will see a decline in value. The average person just does not understand how the world works. If they do not want a bare bottom market rate job they need marketable skills and that would mean they have to actually do something about their position and find a way to improve themselves. For example there is still a need for more plumbers why not take that job….it requires some training but I know plumbers that make $100K a year. The jobs are there if they are willing to earn them.
Any time I can meet someone with a firm understanding of economics, I’m happy. Any time I can meet someone who dislikes Superior Spider-Man as much as I do, I’m happy. Truthwillwin1 falls into both categories, so I consider myself lucky to have him around. Thanks for taking the time to read and comment. I hope you’ll stick around for the foreseeable future. Anyone who is interested in checking out his blog can simply go to http://truthwillwin1.wordpress.com/
xmenexpert: I’m about as liberal as it gets. I’m a Canadian liberal (but not Liberal) – that’s “far left pinko Commie” by US standards. But I actually agree that comics have a serious problem when it comes to depictions of conservatives. That seems to be something throughout the entertainment industry. It’s something I find a little odd, actually. But I’m a strong proponent of trying to understand those we disagree with, and trying to see them as good people who simply have a different view of the world.
Two guys who disagree on pretty much everything political, and yet we’re able to behave like adults. Yes folks, it can be done! I had a marathon bout with xmenexpert on Marvel’s new Muslim superhero, but it was well worth it. I’m hoping he comes back for future comic posts.
Douglas Ernst Blog 