Jor El says of his son: “You will give the people an ideal to strive towards. They will race behind you. They will stumble. They will fall. But in time, they will join you in the sun. In time, you will help them accomplish wonders.”
The problem with ideals is that once you establish them, the people who “stumble” will be on full display for all the world to see. The smart stumblers don’t like that. And so, over the years the purveyors of popular culture have sought to do away with ideals, hoping to hide their fallibility in the process.
The easy wrong is always more popular than the hard right, and millions of Americans are seeing that over time too many easy wrongs only lead to heartache and despair. The United States as a whole is culturally lost, and a well-made Superman film just might get a few people to look for ways to right the ship.
Regardless, when trying to make sense of a world where lunatics detonate bombs amongst throngs of innocent civilians watching a marathon, we need not go to the movie theater to find a hero. They’re all around us if we’re willing to look.
Bill Iffrig, 78, lies on the ground as police officers react to a second explosion at the finish line of the Boston Marathon in Boston, Monday, April 15, 2013. Iffrig, of Lake Stevens, Wash., was running his third Boston Marathon and near the finish line when he was knocked down by one of two bomb blasts. (AP Photo/The Boston Globe, John Tlumacki)
On Monday, April 15, The Associated Press’ Jonh Tlumacki responded to the Boston Marathon terror attack not by running for his life, but by freezing; he then captured the men and women who spring into action when disaster strikes. It’s an amazing photo, one that shows just how instinctual it is for some individuals to protect and defend their fellow citizens during a time of crisis.
There are always those who run away from danger — and those who run towards it. Those who run toward the flames aren’t inherently better people than those seeking safety, but at the same time a healthy civil society holds its law enforcement personnel in high esteem.
It’s sad that even in the initial moments of such a gruesome event that there were newscasters who chose to speculate in divisive and sick ways. Only seriously warped minds would watch a bomb blast that left three people dead and scores wounded, only to wonder how the political calculus of it all would play out.
Regardless, if you see a cop, a fireman or and EMS working in the near future you might want to stop them and say “thanks” just like you would a soldier returning home from overseas. Given that modern day terrorism has erased the traditional definition of a battlefield, it’s increasingly likely that local authorities will find themselves caught up in the fog of war. Luckily, we have men like Mr. Tlumacki who are willing to chronicle the heroics.
April 15, 2013 will be remembered by millions of Americans as the day of the Boston Marathon terror attack. They will look back on it with sadness and anger and confusion. In an odd twist of fate, I will look back on it as one of the happiest days of my life. For an entire day I got to spend time with one of my best friends — an old Army buddy who I’ve only been able to see twice in the last 13 years.
Long story short, James was my roommate years ago in Charlie Co., 1/18th Infantry Battalion in Schweinfurt, Germany. I got out and he stayed in. But the thing about military friendships is that they are often times iron clad. While our lives took two very separate paths years ago, the experiences we shared bonded us in a way that no matter how much time goes by, we will always be able to pick up right where we left off. It’s as if nothing has changed — because it hasn’t. We are opposite sides of the same coin; I am the civilian, and he the full time soldier. Had things gone slightly different for either one of us, the roles would probably be reversed. What is most important is that at our core is a respect and admiration for the war fighter — and each other — that can only come from having spent time in the field.
James and I outside the White House. Although we were in the dark as to why we were pushed so far away from the gates, at this point we had not been informed of the Boston Marathon terrorist attack.
Before the Boston Marathon had even started James and I were at Arlington National Cemetery to pay our respects to the fallen. I got to hear stories about heroes like SSG Larry Rougle and SSG Troy Ezernack, both of whom selflessly sacrificed their lives during Operation Enduring Freedom. While they died honorably, it was how they lived that brought tears to my eyes. We talked about SSG Leija, who died in Iraq at the hands of a sniper. Before I exited the military, Leija helped me study up for the kind of material I’d receive years later at USC. He knew I was applying to college and wanted to help me get a leg up. That’s the sort of guy he was.
After Arlington National Cemetery we went to the White House, but because of barricades that had been set up (unbeknownst to us, as a response to the terror attack), we were forced to take pictures from a distance. From there it was on to the Korean War Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, the Vietnam Memorial, the World War I and World War II Memorials, and the Washington Monument. And because we were on foot, there were conversations about American foreign policy, terrorism, U.S. history, the civilian population, the left, the right, the rules of engagement and the politicians who set them.
When we finally did get word about the Boston Marathon terror attack we didn’t dwell on it. Why? I’ll put it this way: After 9/11, many of those who said “Never forget!” did. James and I didn’t.
And so, we used the rest of the night to eat and drink, reminisce, enjoy the present and plan for a day when we’d meet again (all contingent upon the whims of Uncle Sam and world events, of course).
Yesterday, while the bombs went off we honored the fallen. As the commentators predicted the future we remembered the past. And in that brief moment in time I was happy in a way I haven’t been for years. My friend was alive and well and laughing right there next to me. It was just like it was all those years ago in Germany — and how I know it will be when we meet again.
Yesterday I spent time at the Korean War Memorial. It’s at its most beautiful and most haunting in the rain or in the fog. “The Forgotten War”? Not by all of us.
CT Fletcher is popular on YouTube among people who lift weights, but his motivational videos are sage advice outside the realm of power lifting. He’s amazing, and if I lived in his neck of the woods I’d buy a membership to his gym immediately.
Now, when I would step into the auditorium or venue or wherever the contest would be held, this is what I would be thinking to myself: The bad man is here. The motherfuckin show-stopper is here. All you motherf***ers look like sheep to me and I’m the motherf***ing butcher. And I’m here to chop your motherf***ing ass up. I’m the man! Bow down motherf***er because the king is f***ing here. Only one can stand on the top pedestal and that’s my motherf***ing ass. The other two are available for you because this top motherf***er is mine. I own this s**t. CT is in the building! …
“I’m trying to get you guys to realize that I’m not just this guy who gets on YouTube and rants and cusses all the time (although I do a lot of cussing). I’m trying to get a point across to you. I’ve been doing this shit a long time. The last power lifting contest I went to, I noticed one thing. Guys were power lifters … in my day, the psyche up was such an integral part of the lift, but these days guys are in a power lifting contest but I didn’t know if I was at choir practice or in line at the DMV or what! Nobody knew how to use the psyche-up. They just strolled up to the bar like they were f***ing in line Denny’s. … Your body can never be stronger — your body can never be stronger than the mind.I want you to learn how to get your mind involved in your lift.
When you saw my bicep video and you saw me telling my bicep ‘I command you to grow’ that’s what I was thinking in my mind. I just said it out loud so you could hear it. That’s my mind telling me ‘I command my biceps to do what I want them to do.’
Now, for you power lifters, every attempt is a one shot deal. There’s no tomorrow. You have to give that motherf***ker everything you got right then and there. You can not count on what’s going to happen tomorrow. The only thing you could actually know and depend on is that you can give it everything you have every time you step to the bar.100 percent effort. I’m not going to say it’s going to work for you, motherf***ker. It’s what I did. You’re going to have to adapt it to you. So don’t say “he said do this.” I’m telling you what I did. You do you motherf***** and I’ll be me,” (CT Fletcher).
Years ago I had a friend who wanted to break 200 lbs. on his bench press. He could rep 190 lbs. at least five times. Whenever I would put 200 lbs. on the bar, he would fail. Over and over and over again he failed despite all the evidence in the world — on paper — that he should be able to break that barrier.
One day I did an experiment. I told him that I would put 195 lbs. on the bar, but I secretly put on 200 lbs. He lifted it without any problem because the real weakness was in his head.
Just as many weightlifters shackle themselves with mind-forged manacles, so does the average citizen in his everyday life.
We are more often than not the architects of the biggest obstacles in our lives. We are the engineers of our own overall success or failure. While there will always be events that are beyond our control (e.g., sudden sickness, a loss of a job) those things pale in comparison to the poison pills that we elect to take or discard on a daily basis.
When CT Fletcher talks about the psyche-up, he’s right. When there is zero — zero — expectation of failure on a lift, more often than not you will surprise yourself with just how strong your body can be. And, while I would hope most people don’t turn into a young Hulk Hogan in their workplace cubicle, ripping their shirts off with a lion-like roar, there is something to be said about getting psyched up for work, for relationships and for life in general.
Every day you have a choice whether to be pumped for what’s to come or not. Every day you have a choice to say “I’m going to give it everything I have” or not. When CT Fletcher talks about “stepping up to the bar” he is also talking about your day-to-day existence. You do not know what tomorrow will bring. You do not know what will happen on your way home from work. Life is a precious thing and every second of every day counts, so there is no excuse why you shouldn’t live accordingly.
CT Fletcher’s philosophy worked for him. A similar philosophy has worked for me. And if you give it a shot, I believe it will work for you, too. There’s a first place pedestal with your name on. Now go grab it.
Today I ran across an old picture of me ascending a rock climbing wall while at the Cumberland County fair in Maine. For some odd reason it dawned on me that rock climbing is a great metaphor for life. Before this picture was taken I had been working a booth for The Heritage Foundation, talking to the good people of Maine about the organization and its principles. A National Guardsman dared me to take the climb and, not one to back down from a challenge, I accepted.
Given that, I will now explain rock climbing as a metaphor for life, as well as how one’s worldview changes how they approach the wall.
In life, we all have an end point we’re shooting for. We all want to get to the top of some mountain. Some people want to prosper monetarily; others seek spiritual wealth. Some people seek knowledge; others wish to experience their fill of earthly pleasures. We all value different things, and as such our lives will all take vastly different twists and turns before we call it a day.
In between our starting point and the final destination there is an infinite number of paths laid out before us. We have a general idea of how we want to go about attacking the mountain, but there’s a big difference between gauging obstacles from afar and then experiencing them up close and personal.
Just like with rock climbing, sometimes the path that you thought would get you to the top in theory doesn’t work out in practice. You have to recalibrate your route. You might have to backtrack or go far out of your way to traverse a difficult section. In a worst-case scenario you might even fall off the wall, but thanks to a harness you don’t kill yourself and, if you so choose, you can start all over again — armed with the knowledge only failure can teach.
The conservative knows that every person who attempts the rock-climbing wall of life will have different strengths and weaknesses. Some people want to shoot for the top, and some don’t. Some people have amazing upper body strength, and others have an iron grip. Some people are light and some people are heavy. Some people are tall and some people are short. Given all these variables, the conservative generally doesn’t worry too much about what the guy next to him is doing and begins climbing away. He focuses on his technique. He monitors his strength. He takes time to stop and pause and re-evaluate his strategy when necessary. He isn’t afraid of falling. The conservative does all this, and in the long run he is generally rewarded for it.
The liberal, by contrast, does not fare too well. He complains about the size of the footholds. He looks at their placement on the wall and wonders who put them there and if there was some sort of nefarious plot connected to the decision process. He complains that he doesn’t have chalk, but the guy next to him does. He wants better shoes. It’s unfair that he has to climb in rainy weather, when the guy before him had nice weather. The winds are shifting one way or the other. He wants a different belay man. The list is endless. And at the end of the day the liberal sits at the bottom of wall, having wasted valuable time that would have been better spent just climbing the damn wall.
Sometimes, the liberal will look up and see his conservative counterpart smiling at the top of the mountain and will yell nasty things in his direction. The conservative will be accused of being a heartless bastard for basking in the sun’s rays and enjoying the view while the liberal down below must sit in the shadows — again, even if it was the liberal who chose to spend the limited time and resources afforded to him unwisely.
If you have a rock climbing wall around your neck of the woods, I suggest giving it a try. You’ll learn a lot about yourself, both mentally and physically.
How do you prove miracles happen to a person who doesn’t believe in them? Short answer: You can’t. You would think that the millions of chemical reactions that have to perfectly take place every second of every day for our bodies to function properly would be “evidence” enough for the skeptics, but that’s an issue for another time. Today, I’m talking about miracles in the classical sense.
LEBANON, Ore. — A Linn County man pinned by his overturned tractor said his teenage daughters saved his life by lifting the 3,000-pound machine off of him.
Jeff Smith was able to wriggle free and get breathing room after his daughters, 14-year-old Haylee and 16-year-old Hannah, lifted the huge machine up, as first reported by the Albany Democrat-Herald.
“I was saying, ‘God help me’ over and over because I obviously could not lift it myself. It was heavy,” [daughter Haylee said].
Recently I broke 300 lbs. on my dead lift. As my buddy told me, I’ve gone from a range that isn’t worth talking about to “sh*t” status. My next range is “suck.” I’m shooting for 340 lbs. by my 34th birthday. Regardless, I’m ecstatic. I consider myself a pretty strong guy, pound-for-pound. I weigh 154 lbs. And yet, my rational brain tells me that finding a way to leverage a tractor off a guy’s chest would be a Herculean feat. I have to believe that only with the help of God would I be able to move a small mountain like that.
Apparently, Jeff Smith agrees and his daughters are still in disbelief:
“They’re great girls, but I mean that’s a lot of weight. I’m a big guy and I don’t know if I could do that,” Mr. Smith said. …
“It’s crazy. I can’t believe we did it,” said Hannah.
It kind of like a dream when you think back. It feels like a dream. It feels like it never happened,” said Haylee.
But you did do it, Hannah. And it wasn’t a dream, Haylee. You did it. There was a hidden reserve of strength inside two teenage girls that was on display that years from now people will dismiss as if it never happened. Or they’ll call it a lie. Or they’ll come up with all sorts of reasons why it’s “really not that hard when you think about it.”
Sure. You go with that, guys.
Regardless, I think the takeaway here is that all people have a reservoir of strength inside them that is beyond human comprehension.This spring can be channeled into the body or the mind. Harnessed properly, it can take people to great heights. And, obviously, it can be used for good or evil.
Being a farmer’s son, I know a thing or three about tractors and their dangers. The tractor in question appears to be a l940′s or /50′s International low-bow general purpose rig – made for plowing, discing, cultivating, planting, hauling. Not for heavy stump pulling. There are no front end weights to hold the machine down, and there is no roll cage to protect the operator. Dumb.
Dad’s a lucky dude, and Mom should make him sell that tractor immediately. God’s sending you a message, bro.
I couldn’t agree more. God sends us messages all the time, but you have to be willing to look and listen for the calls. My atheist friends think I’m crazy for saying that, but I don’t really care. They do not find God because they are not looking for Him. Imagine yourself turning your back on your father and then berating him because he isn’t visible. Imagine screaming “Why don’t you exist?!” when he’s standing right in back of you smiling, patiently waiting for you to turn around.
Can you see what the implications are of the scientific geniuses working out these theories? It means that there could me entire planes of existence all around us that we can not see because we are not operating on their frequency. (What’s the frequency, Doug? What’s the frequency?) I don’t know, but I know that the more I learn about science, the more my faith in God is strengthened. Faith is that bridge between what we know and what we can never know, and contrary to popular opinion science keeps making that bridge smaller and smaller.
Pyrros Dimas was able to snach almost 400 lbs. over his head in his prime. But could he lift 3,000 lbs. off the chest of a dying man? Two high school girls did when their father’s life depended on it. Amazing.
Imagine if you will, a scenario where a thin-skinned comic book writer goes off on a tirade laced with ad hominem attacks on blogger who was simply putting forth a straight-forward critique of his work. Imagine that online outburst setting off a chain of events in which another fan ends up introducing the blogger to a Newsarama interview he was unfamiliar with. The reader says he’d like to see a response to the interview. Does the blogger do it?
Well imagine no longer, because that blogger is me and I intend to do address the issue. The Newsarama interview, in short, perfectly embodies everything that is wrong with Dan Slott’s approach to Spider-Man. As I did in my last piece, I will break it up into smaller sections so readers can see the two different visions side by side.
Nrama: With Superior Spider-Man, you’re writing Doc Ock as a lead character for really the first time, and a more long-term Doc Ock story than has really been seen before. We’re seeing the character put in very different situations, interacting with totally different characters. What kind of task has that been — approaching his mindset and his attitude in the position of a lead character?
Slott: He’s trying his best to be a hero, but he’s doing it in a very Doc Ock way. And Doc Ock’s an egotistical, annoying sh*t. It makes him an interesting character. At his core, he’s someone we don’t really think of heroic. But is he any more annoying than [former villain] Hawkeye used to be?
Forgive me if I’m wrong, but did Hawkeye ever try and put in motion plans to bring about an extinction-level event? If I missed that one, can someone let me know the issue so I can read it tomorrow? I would say that trying to incinerate 6 billion people is slightly more “annoying” than anything Hawkeye could ever dish out.
Slott: Also, when you look at Doc Ock, he was so much like Peter Parker. Peter Parker, if he didn’t know the lessons of power and responsibility, that teenage nerd would have grown up to be an Otto Octavius nerd, with the same kind of, “I’m going to make them pay.” This is the flip of that. This is Doc Ock getting to go back in time and be as young as Peter Parker, and have force-fed into him this sense of power and responsibility. He has that lesson from Uncle Ben in his core. That was Peter Parker’s parting gift to the world — I’m not going to leave the world a villain, I’m going to leave them a hero.
Peter Parker’s “gift” (i.e., Dan Slott’s “gift”) to the world was that he has allowed a character who should be serving 5,000 life sentences for crimes against humanity off the hook. Before redemption can occur on earth a man must pay for his crimes and atone for his sins. Doc Ock has the blood of countless innocents on his hands, but because Peter beamed “with great power comes great responsibility” into the villain’s head moments before he died then it’s somehow all okay? Of course not. And that’s why this current run is so repulsive to anyone with a shred of respect for the character; they would never allow Doctor Octopus to take up the mantle of Spider-Man.
Slott: Doc never intended to be on this path, and in his own way he’s very good at it. He’s just doing it differently than Peter would.
Do you see Punisher as a hero? Do you see Wolverine as a hero? If these guys can be heroes, why can’t Doc Ock?
And this is where the moral relativist in Dan Slott exposes himself for all the world to see. It’s the “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter” mentality. One man’s Spider-Man is another man’s Doc Ock. One man’s Captain America is another man’s Red Skull. It’s sick.
Since when has the core of Wolverine’s or the Punisher’s character ever been about wanton destruction, innocents be damned? When have they ever took it upon themselves to devise plots and plans that would see countless men, women and innocent children blown to bits?
Do Wolverine and Punisher push the definition of what it means to be a hero to its limits? Yes. But reasonable people know that if they were ever tried and convicted in a court of law for taking matters into their own hands (e.g., tracking down a drug lord and killing him in his sleep) that is the price one must pay for dishing out vigilante justice.
That aside, the philosophical gap between Wolverine and Doctor Octopus is so enormous that to even ask why one can be a hero and the other can’t is ludicrous. When anyone can be a hero — despite a lifetime of evilthey have not answered for— then we might as well all be villains.
Slott: Here’s someone as evil as Massacre — if Spider-Man had just captured him and webbed him up, he’d be out six months from now, doing this again. Yeah, sure he was helpless, and his wrist was snapped, and disarmed, but, “If I shoot him in the head, I’ve saved 30 people in the future.” Doc Ock can look at it almost as a math equation, and be very happy with himself, and sleep well at night knowing what he did. For him, that’s power and responsibility.
Again, unless the hero is on a battlefield or working on behalf of a sovereign nation to mitigate threats to national security, the discretion he has as it pertains to the use of deadly force is severely constrained. Cases like Massacre’s are what the criminal justice system is for. Maybe in the Marvel Universe citizens are so dumb that they have done away with the death penalty — I don’t know. But from what I gather, a justice system exists, and a real hero would attempt to work within the confines of the system as much as possible, given how difficult it would be in a world where Galactus could show up at a moment’s notice.
Given that Dan Slott’s Superior Spider-Man simply runs numbers in his head to determine whether or not he’s doing the right thing or not, what would stop him from wiping out an entire city of innocents to “save” lives? Perhaps one day the ‘Superior Spider-Man’ will go all evil Al Gore (is that redundant?) and determine that the only way to stave off global warming is to wipe out Los Angeles, New York and Chicago. If you torture numbers long enough they’ll tell you anything you want to hear, and Dan Slott’s own concept of what a “hero” is allows for megalomaniacs like Doctor Octopus to enter the tent.
Nrama: It might be too probably reading too much into it, but with the cutaway, and only Captain America out and out saying that Spidey killed Massacre, is he definitely dead, or is there some deliberate ambiguity there?
Remember a few years ago, during Marvel’s weird Bush-allegory, whereas the Civil War story line and the events surrounding the Superhero Registration Act gave readers their daily does of social commentary on the Patriot Act? I do. Captain America was fighting for the “rights” of the guy who could walk into his neighbor’s house on a daily basis, rape his wife and kids in front of them, and then mind-wipe the family so no one remembered the gruesome crimes took place.
What does that have to do with Superior Spider-Man? Quite a bit, actually. The liberalism that worked it’s way in to a Marvel event, in such a way that Captain America would be so insane as to oppose a federal registry of citizens in the U.S. with the power to alter space and time, is the same liberalism that allows allows Dan Slott to wonder why Doctor Octopus can’t be a hero — merely months after the character came within inches of triggering the apocalypse.
Slott: Massacre’s dead. I think what people are reading as ambiguous is what we can show you in a Spider-Man comic. We can’t show you brain matter shooting out of the back of a head. … With Massacre we can look at it, and go, “He just saved a lot of lives.”
And with Superior Spider-Man, Marvel is hemorrhaging tens-of-thousands of fans who would be happy to buy a Spider-Man book, if only the men in charge weren’t so morally confused that they would redefine the word ‘hero’ until it permitted Peter Parker to make a deal with the devil and for Doctor Octopus to ultimately don the true hero’s mask.
There’s only one word left to describe the state of Spider-Man today: Sad.
Dan Slott stalked ‘The Main Event’. Last night I posted this piece, but did not share it on Twitter, Tumblr or any other social media platforms. Slott obviously was keeping tabs on this site or weirdly looking for stories about himself, and then he has the nerve to call me crazy.
In one corner we have Dan Slott, who thinks that typing insults and using all-caps gives his assertions more validity. In the other we have a comic fan who is willing to debate the issues and stay on point. Is it any wonder why Dan Slott only insults “conservative bloggers” from a distance?
There’s an old saying that goes something like this: “He who thinks one man can’t be effective has never slept in bed with a mosquito.” And so, it is with that mentality that I blog away, whether it’s something as important as exposing the truth behind North Korean gulags or the small stuff like Dan Slott’s treatment of American icons like Spider-Man.
Dan Slott has referred to me multiple times in his Twitter feed, although never by name. It’s always been, pejoratively, “conservative blogger.” And yesterday, after pointing out that everyone but Dan Slott knows Superior Spider-Man is inferior to Amazing Spider-Man, he upped the ante with an extended rant — again not tagging me in the tweet or even linking back to the original post.
Yes, according to Dan, I am an “idiot.” If that’s the case, why would he go off on such a diatribe? And why would he shy away from exposing me as an idiot for all to see on my very own blog? Nothing would be sweeter than to once-and-for-all put that ‘idiot conservative blogger’ in his place, right?
The reason why Dan Slott throws out ad hominem attacks from afar with me is because he knows I’ll tear him to shreds.
So now, I will deconstruct Dan’s drivel for all the world to see — and invite him to exchange in a lively debate in the comments section, where he can pummel me to the ground like Doc Ock in command of Peter’s body.
Dear Conservative Blogger who was upset that Peter Parker/Spider-Man
saved North Korean soldiers instead of LEAVING THEM TO DIE– BECAUSE
HE REVERED ALL LIFE…
False. As I discussed before, the reason why I was upset was that with 6 billion lives on the line, Dan Slott’s Peter Parker took precious time — when every second counted — to lecture his teammates about the sanctity of North Korea’s gulag overseers. Yes, that same North Korean regime that is now threatening to nuke the United States.
My point was that Spider-Man enters war zones, and then refuses to act like a solider because the truth is, sometimes you have to take a life in order to save a life. Or in Spider-Man’s case, six billion. That is real life. That is what law enforcement agencies and soldiers must deal with every day. And that is the kind of moral conundrum that would make for an interesting Spider-Man story, instead of the half-baked ideas Dan Slott dishes out on a regular basis.
Dear Same-Conservative-Blogger who is NOW upset that Otto
Octavius/Spider-Man took out a crazed gunman who killed over 30 people
in a shooting INSTEAD of letting the police cart him away to prison–
BECAUSE Otto thought that man (even though helpless at the time)
deserved to die, might later get out, and kill again…
False. Again, there is a difference between a murderer on the streets of New York — who is due his day in court by a trial of his peers — and the combatant on a battlefield, who does not have the same constitutional rights granted to Americans. Now that it’s obvious that Dan Slott doesn’t know the difference between the two, we can better understand why Marvel spent time sending Captain America after the Tea Party instead of Taliban head-choppers in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
You are an IDIOT.
No, Dan — you appear to be the one without the intellectual chops, as has been demonstrated above. I have calmly shown how the only way you appear remotely intelligent is by misrepresenting what I say on a platform where your drones can not compare our arguments side by side. To top it all off, the only way I know you’re talking about me is because those very same drones are Googling my work, which shows up in my Wordress statistics when they finally land on the site.
I’m not saying that BECAUSE you are a Conservative Blogger.
Everyone is entitled to their own political beliefs.
I’m saying that BECAUSE you, specifically– independent of the fact
you’re a Conservative Blogger– ARE an idiot.
When someone’s beliefs/ideologies/presuppositions BLIND them to their
own hypocrisies– WHEREVER those beliefs/ideologies/presuppositions
lie– CONSERVATIVE, LIBERAL, or WHAT-HAVE-YOU– THOSE PEOPLE (like
yourself) ARE COMPLETE AND UTTER IDIOTS.
Congratulations.
It says something about a guy who thinks because he writes the word ‘idiot’ multiple times and abuses the Caps Lock key that what he’s saying must be true.
You are NOT a rational, thinking human being. You’re an idiot who’s
had their brain removed and filled with the
pap/preconceived-notions/rhetoric/propaganda/talking-points of others.
There is no talking, conversing, or reasoning with you. Enjoy your
idiocy by yourself and those stupid enough to endure it, you brain
dead ideologue.
Again, Dan’s argument boils down to: “idiot-idiot-idiot-idiot-stupid-brain dead.” And yet, I’m supposedly the one who is “not rational”? Good one, Dan.
But it isn’t until the end that we see what really gets Dan’s goat:
And, BTW, it DOESN’T matter how many copies of SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN are
on the racks of your Barnes & Noble in Lynchburg, Virginia. The book
is doing PHENOMENALLY well.
How does one define “phenomenally well”? (I’m sorry if I don’t use all-caps like Dan. I understand that typing in big letters doesn’t magically give my point more validity.) If we’re talking about the tens-of-thousands of readers like me, who flip through Marvel comics these days only to put them back on the shelf to buy frozen yogurt, then I wouldn’t call that phenomenal. I still buy comics — just rarely anything Marvel.
It works like this: It’s a TOP 10 BOOK– one of Marvel’s BEST
performing titles– hell, one of the BEST performing titles in the
ENTIRE AMERICAN MARKET! Google the sales. THEN, once you see how it’s
ACTUALLY doing nationwide, factor THIS in: EVERY SINGLE ISSUE HAS SOLD
OUT ON THE DISTRIBUTOR LEVEL AND GONE BACK FOR MULTIPLE PRINTINGS– ON
TOP OF THOSE NUMBERS!
What does THAT mean? That means that LOTS of readers ACROSS the
country are buying enough copies that enough retailers are SELLING OUT
and having to place REORDERS– and that those REORDERS are eating
through whatever stock Diamond has. Not all books sell out. SUPERIOR
SPIDER-MAN does. So even though you’d like to paint its sales as “not
superior,” you would be DEMONSTRATIVELY WRONG. IN A VERY EASY TO PROVE
WAY.
Not once in my post did I make an argument for sales of Superior Spider-Man on a national or even a regional level. In fact, 95 percent of my post was about how Slott misses the boat when it comes to telling a compelling story. It has almost nothing to do with sales, except for one sentence about sales in Lynchburg, Va., specifically. Could I have talked about the comic shops in and around Washington, DC — where I actually live? Yes. Could I have talked about The Main Event’s take down of Slott and his on-the-ground experience with large comic shops in Philly? Yes. But I didn’t do that.
Congratulations Dan, for inventing a case I never made about sales and then putting me in my place for it. Here’s what I said:
The bottom line is this: After six issues of the Superior Spider-Man, it is more apparent than ever that the decision to kill off The Amazing Spider-Man in the manner Mr. Slott did was not worth the cost in good will towards Marvel. For every interesting morsel readers are given to chew on, there are mouthfuls of spoiled stale ideas that remind them why “Superior” is vastly inferior to its predecessor.
This morning, a Twitter follower read my post and told me to check out Marvel’s press release for Superior Spider-Man #9. It reads in part: “The hottest comic in comics comes to a turning point that will get you angrier than you were after Spidey #700!” (emphasis added).
Again, Dan Slott’s entire run is fueled on anger. It seems as though everything Marvel has done with Spider-Man over the past handful of years has been predicated on channeling anger to motivate people instead of love for one of the greatest comic book characters ever. And that’s what’s so sad, because it doesn’t have to be that way.
It’s okay to have your own opinions. It’s not okay to make up your own
“facts.” Especially when you’re drawing gross assumptions from small
and biased samplings.
This is coming from a guy who took me to task on a sales argument I never made in the blog post he was referencing.
Also, idiot, no rape took place in the pages of Superior Spider-Man.
And the OTHER idiot who lead you to believe that– the guy who writes
Aunt May fan-fic porn, commissions naked pictures of MaryJane Watson
art from people on DeviantArt, and makes bogus sales charts for
Amazing Spider-Man while purposefully leaving off the TOP THIRD of all
the (inaccurate) data he can find? The SAME idiot who created the
#SuperiorSpiderRapist hash tag? The SAME idiot who tweeted well into
the triple digits how MJ would DEFINITELY be raped in the pages of the
book? Even THAT idiot came out and admitted that he was WRONG and that
no physical rape took place. So congrats on keeping THAT
misinformation flowing, you idiot.
Aaaaand rant over. 😀
Notice how Dan Slott got all Clinton-esque, there? No “physical rape” took place. But we all know that the Superior Spider-Man is for all intents and purposes a wannabe rapist. There’s really no way around it. So instead of actually talking about what it would mean to have Doc Ock misrepresent himself to Mary Jane while trying to get in her pants, Dan Slott tries to insinuate that I somehow frequent fan fiction websites that dabble in Spidey porn.
No dice, Dan. And no amount of all caps or emoticons or ‘idiot’ references can hide the fact that unless you’re attacking me from afar I will nail you to the wall.
If Superior Spider-Man is such a hit, why does Dan Slott scour the internet like he was Scott Bakula in Quantum Leap, trying to right the wrongs of “idiots” like me? He wouldn’t, unless he knew that all the sales in the world won’t translate into respect. That’s why he must use ‘conservative’ as a pejorative instead of referring to me by name. That’s why he resorts to ad hominem attacks. That’s why he lashes out. In the end, all he has left is a desperate attempt to rob his critics of their legitimacy, even if it’s through infantile “rants” that end in smiley faces.
Newsflash: It’s not working.
I bought countless issues of Amazing Spider-Man out of sheer morbid curiosity and at times anger before I gave up on Marvel. And there are many others like me out there. Would Dan Slott like me to run through some of the incredibly crappy titles from the early 90’s that sold more copies than the “Top 10” books in 2013, just to show you how far the industry has fallen?
The real measure of “success” for any creator is what the fans will say about him after he’s gone. And Dan Slott knows that he is seen by throngs of fans as a petulant man-boy who doesn’t take criticism well. Taking to Twitter to call people “idiots” instead of having a measured discussion doesn’t help his case any.
If you thought something was so stupid you had to vent about it on Twitter, wouldn’t you direct your followers to it? Of course. That is, unless you know deep down that the object of your anger is rather nimble and capable of drawing intellectual blood.
For all intents and purposes, [Otto] was the adult Peter could have become, Spider-Man’s dark reflection. So what if we flipped it? What if we gave him a second chance? Peter’s final, heroic act was giving Doc all the memories and experiences that kept him on the right path. But is that enough? Can that overcome Ock’s true nature? (Dan Slott)
The answer is clearly no.
Over Easter weekend my wife and I went to Barnes and Noble for coffee and there were two months’ worth of Superior Spider-Man sitting on the shelves. Apparently, sales are not so “superior” in Lynchburg, Va. And so, I did a quick read, got what I needed to write a review and saved myself roughly $10 — which I promptly spent on Sweet Frog frozen yogurt.
Issues 5 and 6 of Superior show once again why liberal guys like Dan Slott often drop the ball when it comes to weaving a thought-provoking Spider-Man tale. Let us consider the evidence:
1. In Massacre, the audience has a character who has committed mass murder in the past and who is intent on doing so at the first available opportunity.
2. The guy is an expert, going so far as to have an explosive-rigged building filled with hostages as his ace in the hole.
3. Doctor Octopus (in Peter Parker’s body) is a bright guy, and figured out how to save the hostages beforehand and disable the bombs. When Massacre clicks his detonator and nothing happens, it’s game over.
As usual, the criminal (in this case, one who isn’t supposed to be capable of emotions) fears for his life after he has been caught and his hangs in the balance. Funny how those epiphanies happen at just the right moment, isn’t it? And as usual, Dan Slott via Peter Parker tries to make the case that killing is always off limits for the hero because “there’s always hope” … for change. (Think Mr. Slott’s version of Peter voted for President Obama?)
If Peter Parker comes back to life, or takes back control of his mind — or does whatever the heck he needs to since the exact status of his soul is still in question — he should rename himself the Amazing Red-Herring Man, because Doctor Octopus rightly points out that sudden feelings of guilt and remorse changes nothing — particularly for the dozens of lives the murderer extinguished. The innocents are still dead. The family and friends and loved ones still must pick up the pieces while the murderer lives on. Over time the victims are forgotten about, and dupes like Peter Parker feel sympathy for the monster who must atone for his sins.
4. And so, it appears as though Dan Slott took the intellectually lazy way out, having the Superior Spider-Man then play judge, jury and executioner with a suddenly defenseless man.
If Slott wanted readers to wrestle with a moral conundrum, wouldn’t it have been better to have placed the hero in a position where the only way to save a life was to take a life? That’s what law enforcement agencies and military men have to deal with on a daily basis. They are put into situations where they have a split second to act, and the only way to save innocents is to end the life of the men who threaten them.
5. Dan Slott doesn’t get that, and it shows when he fills Wolverine’s mouth with nonsensical, morally-relativistic pap.
Wrong, Wolverine (aka: Dan Slott). Combatants on the battlefield do not have the same rights granted to civilians. That is another complex issue that Marvel readers don’t get to explore because to my knowledge there has never been a run where Captain America’s black ops against the Taliban were told. He was more interested in taking down the Tea Party than the Taliban over the past few years, which should tell you something about the intellectual courage of the writers and editors currently taking up residence at the “House of Ideas.”
Readers could have had an instance where Doc Ock killed while in Peter’s body in a way that left even Peter haunted by the fact that the right thing was done in an impossible situation. Pete would have forever asked himself: “What would I have done?” Instead, everything is clearly spelled out: Doctor Octopus did the wrong thing because he executed a defenseless man without a trial by jury.
6. Fast Forward to the end of Superior Spider-Man #6, and Ghost-like Peter is losing his mind that Doc Ock has beaten a couple of hack villains to a bloody pulp, which begs the question: Shouldn’t Ghost-like Peter have been in total meltdown mode the entire issue since Massacre apparently was executed on live television hours earlier? I guess technically it wasn’t shown, but it would be a rather cheap “out” if Massacre was spared.
Note: For those who take issue with the “live television” phrasing, the issue heavily implied that everyone knew what happened. Jonah knew. The Avengers knew. News reports mentioned that Spider-Man “neutralized” the situation . Massacre went to a place where he would get maximum media coverage. There would have been security cameras everywhere. These little things call “cell phones” exist. There were witnesses. Check out the Spider-Man Crawlspace review of issue #11 for more details.
The bottom line is this: After six issues of the Superior Spider-Man, it is more apparent than ever that the decision to kill off The Amazing Spider-Man in the manner Mr. Slott did was not worth the cost in good will towards Marvel. For every interesting morsel readers are given to chew on, there are mouthfuls of spoiled stale ideas that remind them why “Superior” is vastly inferior to its predecessor.
Although, truthfully, why does Marvel care? These days, the guys in charge know that their Chinese censorship cop overlords will help bring in the cash, provided the artistic integrity is left at the door. I doubt that will be a problem for the guys who are asking you to root for the Superior Spider-wannabe-rapist.
One of the best motivational videos on YouTube is titled ‘How bad do you want it (success)’. There are different versions of it and it’s been around for quite some time, but because things can disappear at any moment on YouTube I thought I would transcribe it for anyone who wanted the heart of the text.
‘How bad do you want it’ really reminds my of my own life. There were some pretty dark days, financially personally, and professionally when I first moved out to DC — not knowing anyone — but those long nights and early mornings eventually paid off. Sleep? There were at least three years where a good night’s sleep was a rarity, and while such a schedule can quickly lead to burn out, it was also necessary to get to where I am today.
No one needs to pay me to write. I’d do it whether I worked for a think tank or a newspaper or if something extremely weird happened and I ended up working for Target again. Today, I’m lucky enough to get paid to do things that I love. But the odd thing is, the old saying is true: the harder you work, the better your luck tends to get.
Who knew.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy the video as much as I did.
Edited Text, ‘How bad do you want it (Success)’:
There was a young man who wanted to make a lot of money, and so he went to a guru. He told the guru he wanted to reach his level of greatness. And so the guru said: “If you want to be on the same level I’m on, I’ll meet you tomorrow at the beach.”
So the young man arrived at 4:00 a.m. He had on a suit, but he should have worn shorts. The old man grabbed his hand and said: “How bad do you want to be successful?” The young responded: “Badly.”
So the old man told the young man to walk out into the water. It was waist deep. The young man thought: “This old man is crazy.”
The young man said to himself: “I want to make money and this guy has me out here swimming. I didn’t ask to be a lifeguard. I want to make money.
Then the old man said: “Come out a little farther,” and the young man did so.
As the young man was up to his shoulders in water he again thought: “This old man is crazy! He’s making money, but he’s crazy.”
The old man said, “Come out a little farther.”
The young man obeyed, but wavered as if he might turn back.
So the old man said: “I thought you said you wanted to be successful?”
“I do,” said the student.
So the old man ordered the young man to come out even farther, and when he did he pushed the young man’s head under water and held it down. Although the young man fought, the old man would not let him up. Just before the young man passed out the old man raised his head above the surface and said: “When you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe, then you’ll be successful.”
I don’t know how many of you have asthma today, but if you ever had an asthma attack before and you’re S.O.B. — you’ve got shortness of breath — and you’re wheezing, the only thing you’re trying to do is get some air. You don’t care about no basketball game. You don’t care what’s on TV. You don’t care about anybody calling you. You don’t care about a party. The only thing you care about when you’re trying to breathe is to get some fresh air. That’s it. And when you get to the point where all you want to do is be successful as bad as you want to breathe, then you’ll be successful.
Most of you say you want to be successful, but you don’t want it bad. You just kind of want it. You don’t want it badder than you want to party. You don’t want it as much as you want to be cool. Most of you don’t want success as much as you want to sleep. Some of you want sleep more than you want success. And I’m here to tell you today that if you want to be successful you got to be willing to give up sleep.
You have to be willing to work off of three hours of sleep, two hours of sleep. If you really want to be successful, some day you’re going to have to stay up three days in a row because if you go to sleep you might miss the opportunity to be successful. That’s how bad you got to want it.
Listen to me. You’ve got to want to be successful so bad, you forget to eat.
Beyonce said one day she was on the set doing her thing and three days went by. She forgot that she didn’t eat because she was engaged.
I’ll never forget, when 50 Cent was doing his movie I did a little research on him and 50 said when he wasn’t doing the movie, he was doing the soundtrack. And they said: “When do you sleep, 50?”
He said: “Sleep? Sleep is for those people who are broke. I don’t sleep.” He said, “I have an opportunity to make a dream become a reality.”
Don’t quit. You’re already in pain. You’re already hurt. Get a reward from it! Don’t go to sleep until you succeed.
I’m here to tell you today that you can come here, you can jump up, you can do flips, you can be excited when we give out money but listen to me: You will never be successful until I don’t have to give you a dime to do what you do. You won’t be successful until you say: “I don’t need that money because I got it in here.”
Joe Weider passed away on Saturday, March 23 at 93. For those who don’t know him, The New York Times provided a good write up:
Joe Weider, a scrawny youngster who sculptured himself with bodybuilding during the Great Depression and created an empire of muscle magazines, fitness equipment, dietary supplements and Olympic-style contests featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger, died on Saturday in Los Angeles. …
Mr. Weider may not have been the 97-pound weakling of the comic books who got tired of having sand kicked in his face. But as a teenager in Montreal, he hated being roughed up by neighborhood hooligans, discovered bodybuilding in a magazine and bought into it for life. He developed a V-shaped torso with bulging biceps and abs like Michelangelo’s David, and he was still muscular and jut-jawed in his 70s and 80s.
In the intervening decades, Mr. Weider, […] who moved to the United States as a young man, founded many of the world’s most popular bodybuilding magazines, including Muscle and Fitness, Flex, Men’s Fitness and, for women, Shape. They had 25 million readers and were crammed with photos of greased bodybuilders and Hollywood stars like Sylvester Stallone […] and Mr. Schwarzenegger.
The first weights I ever used were made by Weider, on a bench with his name printed on it. The set included a booklet of exercises, each explained in great detail. My father explained to me who, exactly, Mr. Weider was and what he meant to the fitness world. And if his knowledge on physical fitness was good enough for my father (a former Army Ranger) it was good enough for me.
I first started lifting weights as a skinny high school kid in the early 90’s. I was 5’8, 110 pounds soaking wet. Regardless, looking at the pictures provided by Mr. Weider, I went downstairs into my family’s basement on a regular basis. It was cluttered with junk, and dark and damp with cobwebs in strange places like a lot of basements, but I loved it.
It was on a set of Weider weights that I began to put on muscle. I found out that strength was addictive. It changed the way I thought about myself. With strength comes confidence. Confident young men carry themselves differently, and when you walk and talk tall, those around you in turn treat you differently. There’s a domino effect that happens to the mind, body and spirit when an individual flips physical fitness routines from being a necessary arduous task into being part of who he is.
Last week I was talking with a good friend of mine after a workout, and he promised to give me one in the near future that would make me “see Jesus.” The point is, an individual who knows that hidden reserves of strength are always there, if he is willing to dig deep into the fiber of his being, behaves a lot differently than the average Joe. Such individuals apply lessons taught by the weights to other aspects of their life — and more often than not the results are positive.
My path to a thousand life lessons began with Joe Weider. For that I am forever grateful.
Today is definitely a day to mourn for anyone who loves to hit the weights.
Today, I lost a dear friend and mentor, and the world lost one its strongest advocates of living a healthy lifestyle. Joe Weider was a titan in the fitness industry and one of the kindest men I have ever met.
I knew about Joe Weider long before I met him — he was the godfather of fitness who told all of us to “Be Somebody with a Body.” He taught us that through hard work and training we could all be champions. When I was a young boy in Austria, his muscle magazines provided me with the inspiration and the blueprint to push myself beyond my limits and imagine a much bigger future. I know that countless others around the world found motivation in the pages of his publications just as I did, but as I read his articles in Austria, I felt that he was speaking directly to me and I committed to move to America to make my vision of becoming the best bodybuilder, to live the American dream, and to become an actor a reality. …
I’ve always found it fascinating how men and women we’ve never met and may never have a chance to say “thank you” to can positively shape our lives or completely change its trajectory. I never properly showed my appreciation for how Joe Weider influenced my life (How hard would it have been to write a simple letter?), but I guess it’s never too late. Wherever you are Joe, thank you and may you rest in peace.
Douglas Ernst Blog 