Opening Up the FloodGates

So Bill Moyers interviewed Bill Gates on the installment of his program NOW which ran yesterday, all about how he's giving away 95% of his wealth to help fight infectious diseases and help with family planning issues in the Third World. This has created a weird schizophrenia among a few lefty bloggers. It looks like Jeanne d'Arc (link at sidebar) started the ball rolling by saying, "My Microsoft-hating son will never forgive me for saying this, but I love Bill Gates." To which a blogger calling himself OneMan responded at length, with more whiplash-inducing "but"s than Patty and Selma's ashtrays. The whole thing reminds me of some fanboys' reaction to an issue of a comic that didn't read the way they expected it to regardless of whether the story worked: "How dare the writer do this when he should be doing that?" An example: "Gates refuses to even address, let alone challenge, the political conditions in which poverty, disease, and poor pre- and neo-natal care are rooted." Why do I get the feeling that, if Gates were to decide to run for office, this same person would be the first to protest the intrusion of wealth into politics? I mean, sure it's annoying that all computer roads seem to lead to Gates, but he's giving back. Big time. And I may feel empathetic towards the workers he's said to have exploited (hell, I feel like I'm exploited too, okay? most office peons are) but I agree with Salon, that's bupkiss compared with the millions of kids this money will help. Ninety-five percent of $43 billion. I'm sorry, I have very little patience for people whose main point seems to be "how dare this rich person do things out of enlightened self-interest" and harp on and on about the self-interest part rather than the enlightened part. "If you're going to do good it should be entirely altruistic or don't do it at all" is a lovely pipe-dream but pretty damned unrealistic and utterly unhelpful. As Steve Bates (rhymes with... well, never mind) notes in his response, "If Bill Gates should offer the charity on whose executive committee I sit a large amount of money to pursue one of its undeniably worthy projects... even if that project somehow indirectly benefits Gates... I'll take his money without a single twinge of conscience, and write the thank-you letter myself." (As he's a contract software developer I wouldn't be surprised if he gets the old "but they're responsible for your household income" whine that I've received sometimes when talking about DC Comics with fans.) So then OneMan comes back with another blog entry: "I'm not against charitable giving per se, nor even large-scale philanthropic giving at Bill Gates' level. Rather, I am concerned with the issues of power around such giving..." I suppose it's nice to have luxury enough to sit around and debate these philosophical issues rather than, you know, fighting for survival and accepting charity graciously from one of the too few people inclined to give same. To bring this 'round again, Jeanne posts this follow-up. Update: Check out Mac Diva's comments on this as well (link at sidebar).

Machiavellianation

Via Mark Evanier, link at sidebar, Robin found this fascinating website which he spent all morning reading. It's all about what President Bush was doing the night before and the day of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. I haven't read the whole thing yet, but it discusses everything from a foiled assassination attempt on September 10, 2001 to interpreting the look on Bush's face at the Brooker School as he found out about the second plane hitting the WTC tower to wondering who knew what when. A little on the conspiracy-theory side, as is this page to which it linked, but it's hard to put anything past the manipulative cabal currently running this country so I wouldn't be at all surprised if all of it leaned more towards truth than speculation. Update: Tom Tomorrow, Lisa English and Jeralyn Merritt (links at sidebar) mention this as well.

Social Calendar

Still too mentally tired from work to think that creatively, make pithy political observations or suchlike, and there was a bit more noise upstairs than we'd have expected earlier this evening, although it stopped about 8:30. I wonder if I'm not also tired from reflecting on my actual going-outside life this month, which couldn't have come at a better time as I'm feeling way more sedentary (and achy as a result) than I'd like. This is my time of year for 3-day weekends, and so far I'm managing to space them out pretty nicely. Last Friday and Saturday we were here. This weekend (the normal 2-day variety) we're just hanging. Next weekend I'll be hitting the Ninth Avenue International Food Festival in Hell's Kitchen (yeah yeah, home of this guy, so they say), probably on both Saturday and Sunday (hey, gimme a break, I wait all year for my shark kebobs and stuffed quail and baklava and funnel cakes and corn fritters and... well, just about everything but sushi, actually). Then on Monday we're meeting a friend over here, somewhere around where this is, although I wouldn't mind seeing him either, and maybe even this - well, in any case, between all of that and this I imagine I'll be doing an awful lot of walking. On Memorial Day weekend we'll probably hide, but the Friday-through-Sunday after that we hope to be here even though they don't have Rob's name here yet. But you know, it's nice to be able to swing the admission fee if we have to, not to mention transportation costs. And of course, as these things engender, we'll be walking a lot there as well. Pass the linament, my friends!

Still in Work Hell...

Didn't even get to peruse my blogroll today. Hope you're all well. Robin wanted me to know he saw the Naked Cowboy today in Times Square, on his way from DC Comics (where he dropped off the remaining pages and got his check for Justice League Adventures #22 or, as I like to call it, "the June rent") to my office where, sooner or later, we're going to dinner at Monster Sushi to celebrate another job well inked. Let the record show that I'd rather have that Naked Cowboy in the White House than the one we have now.

Burnout Apology

Ten hours straight in front of a computer at the office left me a little too groggy to blog straight, sorries all around. Go read Jeanne D'Arc writing about Nigeria, Darren Madigan writing about Buffy, Emma writing about airport security, Anne Zook and Cyndy Roy writing really well about darn near everything and, most importantly, read the return of Iraqi blogger Salam Pax. Links at sidebar. I'm going to go watch the Yankees and Mariners again.

The One Cool Thing About William Bennett...

...is that his wife spells her name correctly. :)

In speaking of the whole hypocritical-Bennett mess, one blogger (can't remember who at the moment, as I'm very sleep-deprived; Christian went somewhere in a taxi at 3:30 AM and Jenny got up at 6:45 AM and, as relatively quiet as they are compared with the idiots who lived upstairs before them, any movement in the wee hours will always wake me up) mentioned surprise that rich people even bother to play the slots. He shouldn't be astonished at all. My parents are fairly well off (not Bennett level, certainly, but retired in comfort), live in Vegas in the wintertime and near Atlantic City in the summertime so they're at the casinos fairly often, and it's almost exclusively nickel poker and cheap buffets for them. Now okay, they're not gambling addicts, they just do it for fun, so maybe it's unusual for a rich addict to indulge in the penny-ante stuff. But as someone who's been dragged to just about every different kind of nickel poker machine (okay, and a few quarter ones, but mind you only the ones that "pay well"), I can affirm that they don't just appeal to the lower-income bracket.

Five By Five

Given this history of Cinco de Mayo, I fear it may lead to even more French-bashing in our current atmosphere. Oh, and speaking of French-bashing, please check out yesterday's Doonesbury and the English translation thereof. Okay, "conquer monkeys" is a bit mean-spirited, but not nearly as much as bashing an entire country just because they disagreed with our policies. I'm really pouty over this, I miss bashing them just 'cause they're French and not having it mean anything other than a stupid joke.

Relatively Immoral

As I suspected, I'm still too tired to blog much today, but I want to keep my "new content daily" promise to myself. Just wanted to relate a conversation that Rob and I had today about moral relativism. It's hard to imagine that we once lived in a world where, 33 years ago today, most people - including the media - were horrified that National Guardsmen fired upon college students, killing four young Americans whose only crime was to protest what they considered an unjust war. (Thanks to Cyndy Roy at Mousemusings, link at sidebar, for reminding me of the Kent State killings.) And today nobody bats an eyelash at the National Guardsmen stationed throughout New York City (we spotted a few fresh-faced lads yesterday at Columbus Circle) who would cause far more civilian havoc were they ever to employ their rifles. (But of course they're not there to protect as much as intimidate, on the theory that a fearful population is a docile one.) And nobody seems the least bit surprised at Bush's characterization of millions and millions of citizens throughout the world as a "focus group" to be disdained (when his reactions to actual focus groups for moneyed interests is in reality quite the opposite) when they protest what they consider an unjust war.

I have trouble getting a handle on the 21st century, maybe because I remember what life was like before Reagan and Thatcher began the downward spiral which still affects so much of the world. I remember when at least lip service was paid to the idea that the disparity between rich and poor was too great and ought to be remedied, not worsened. I remember the outrage when people who needed serious mental help were left to fend for themselves, and the subsequent hardening of the populace's hearts against these now homeless people, years before lack of pity (which perhaps masked secret shame) turned into actual glee at their plight. Heck, I wasn't even reading comics until '85 or so but I still remember when the point of writing and drawing superheroes was to portray them as, you know, heroic. I remember back before irony and satire became crudeness and meanness. I feel like the world is becoming more curmudgeonly and I'm the naïf left behind, blinking and bewildered.

There's a saying that even the most evil person doesn't see him or herself as evil. (Another failing of many slot-A-into-flap-B written superhero comics today - that the heroes are assholes and the villains are one-dimensional cookie-cutter.) But you know you're in trouble when the people you consider the most amoral and callous are the very ones who don't even question their own actions, who seem to have no thought behind what they do. There's moral relativism and then there's the absolute lack of any moral clarity at all. I can kind of understand the former, even if I may not agree with someone else's scale, but the latter just infuriates me. Nobody should be that damn sure of themselves, particularly when their policies can affect much of the world. It's bad enough to be shrewd and calculating and Machiavellian, but to be cocksure and smarmy and arrogant about it... I mean, it not only makes you look evil, it pretty much makes you evil. Of course, I'm sure that was only true under those old, outdated moral codes, conceived of in a time when heroes were heroic.

The First One's Free



Hope y'all had a nice Free Comic Book Day, and patronized your local store and maybe went to see X2 and all that. Haven't done either, I fear, but it was nothin' but comics for me today as well. The Big Apple Con seemed to be fairly hopping without being too crowded (a blessing in that church basement, which can get stifling but was quite pleasant yesterday and today), and we got prime seats, right next to our friends Jamal Igle and Scott Roberts and Tony Isabella, for whom I played local photographer during the NYC leg of his "Farewell Tour '03" (read any number of his online columns for more details). I finished the book about Alan Davis, particularly delighted to see Alan mention Robin on page 88; Scott did me a really cool cartoon of The Weasels (read the latest issue of Patty Cake and you'll get it); and we had a lovely dinner with Tony after promising to try to make Mid-Ohio Con later this year, my boss and our finances permitting. The latter are suddenly looking fairly good, as Robin got a wonderful, unexpected and very needed call yesterday which resulted in three months' worth of steady work, taking us through the summer with perhaps enough saved up to patch our safety net here and there. And the weather was beautiful! The only downer, and it's a fairly minor one, was that Christian upstairs seemed a bit restless in his new abode and went walkabouts from 4:30 to 8:30 AM, so I'm desperately in need of sleep, but all's quiet now and so it's time to collapse.

Are You Now or Have You Ever Been Experienced...

Well, while the rest of us were out celebrating Mayday (and it was just lovely here in NY, the perfect vacation day, and we went fruit-and-veggie shopping and Christian from upstairs even came down to say hi and apologize that their move-in went slightly past 5 PM so it's like night-and-day, we actually have upstairs neighbors that are not only nice people but potential friends!), the pResident was pretending to help fly a four-seat military S-3 Viking aircraft onto the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln. What happened was he sat in the co-pilot's seat and took the controls for part of the flight (he said it was about a third of the journey, flying "straight ahead") before handing them over to the pilot for the landing, after which he giddily hopped and skipped and shouted, "Yes I flew it!" to reporters on the flight deck like a little boy who just got off a coin-operated kiddie ride.

He'd also been busy trying to erase big chunks of history from the annals of both working people (i.e., not the rich) and pagans (i.e., not the fundie Christians) and, well, Mayday celebrants throughout the world by declaring yesterday Loyalty Day. I say, just have done with it and declare Hate Week while you're at it, y'know? Fortunately, Jerry Bowles (link at sidebar) deciphered exactly what Bush meant by, and I paraphrase, "War is over, if I want it."

Off to celebrate another splendid day despite Bush (at least before it rains), this time in The City. As the Big Apple Con (12-8 PM today) is about a block away from Central Park, we're hoping the lovely weather holds out long enough for us to take advantage in this 150th anniversary (which is really in 2008, this year actually commemorates the city's endorsement of the idea of the park and subsequent beginning of the land buy-up 150 years ago, not the park's true opening in 1858, but I digress) to at least stroll around the southern portion for awhile.

That's as May Be

White Rabbits! Via Cyndy Roy at Mousemusings (link at sidebar), this article explaining the origins of Mayday, "the real Labor Day." The article points out that "By covering up the history of May Day, the state, business, mainstream unions and the media have covered up an entire legacy of dissent in this country." Just in case you think marginalizing dissent was something new. Here's a good site from Canada with more details, including how this day is being celebrated around the world outside the US' doorstep. (Okay, not entirely true, there are events in this country as well today, like the Mayday Festival here in NYC.) In the interest of fairness, here are some pages about the pagan origins and celebrations of Mayday. Here are some cool pictures of maypoles. And a maypole poem from Jonathan Swift (!). And Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Maypole of Merry Mount. And maypole dancing in Hastings, MN. For which of course ya needs yer Maypole dance ribbons. And hey, go nuts, make your own maypole centerpiece! And Tarot stuff that makes me consider taking a cold shower.

I'm on vacation from work today and tomorrow; today was supposed to be a day of rest but it sounds like, quite logically, Jenny and Christian upstairs have chosen today as their official Move-In Day. They still make less noise moving into a bare apartment than the last tenants did just walking around in a furnished one. Still, the earplugs are in and I don't anticipate copping much of a kip. Tomorrow we head down to the basement of St. Paul's Church at 60th Street and 9th Avenue for the Big Apple Con, also being held Saturday. Come see our new haircuts! Robin's took an hour and a half; I suspect the barber school student cut each strand individually. Twice.

Whither Withering Anger?

As few people know better than PMS'ing women (*ahem*), emotions and energy levels tend to run in cycles. And yet, this seems to surprise some very intelligent bloggers. Anne Zook (link at sidebar) asks, "When did we become so complacent?" Avedon Carol (l.a.s.) mentions an essay "that kinda makes me inarticulate with fury...I could rant for pages if I only knew where to start." Lots of folks seem to be implying, "Why aren't more of us angry and protesting and rising up in revolt over what our current government is doing?"

I think the answer to this implicit query is, like so many other things nowadays, fairly complex and not that easily given to sound-byte psychobabble. Naturally, this doesn't mean I won't try. First off, I think many people are plenty angry, and they express it in varying ways, some good and productive and some not-so-good. You don't need me to tell you about all the intelligent blogging that's come from righteous indignation at the perceived path down which our current administration is leading us; just check the sidebar. But you know, an individual can sustain this rage, or most any deeply-felt emotion, for only so long. I still get twinges when I spot the World Trade Center in the backgrounds of TV shows and movies, but I can't keep carrying around the grief I felt on September 11 and for about a month or so afterwards. You simply cannot function in a constant state of shock or rage or fear. Sooner or later you have to put it in the back of your mind (where believe me, it constantly lurks!) so that you can get on with the business of living.

And that leads to the other reason you don't see more people storming the Bastille. The poorer among us are too preoccupied with survival, and the navigation of bureaucracy that this often entails; and the slightly more comfortable not only wish to hold onto that comfort (the "don't rock the boat" theory) but are often too overworked and overwhelmed by all the sensory input around us that the result is just plain exhaustion. Between my job and commute and errands I can't even keep up a personal exercise regimen much less a protest regimen - and I essentially sit at a desk all day! It's just All Too Much sometimes. And yes, I know the richer and more powerful among us might have planned it that way institutionally, to yield precisely such results, but understanding how it happens doesn't really prevent it from continuing to happen. And so we find ourselves mired in situations that only exhaust us more the more we consciously consider them. Again, it gets shoved into the back of our minds.

Then there's the fear, which for me has existed at least since I found out about the Nuclear Clock a couple decades ago, and continues through the current period of intense civil rights erosion. The fear usually goes directly to my brain's backburner; I can't afford to give it a second thought, I'm too scared.

There's no easy way out of perceived complacency (read: actual exhaustion and burnout) and into continued, steady activism not strictly of the armchair variety. A sudden infusion of unexpected cash and the free time that money can bring would be nice, but most of us (more of us than ever, in fact) can't count on that. So we have to fall back on the coping mechanisms that work best for us with other situations: small steps, one thing at a time, nothing too much for us to bear or that would make us numb or burn us out. This is not to say, of course, that further suggestions wouldn't be greatly appreciated.

The Non-Crazy Quilt

Via a number of bloggers, and for those of you who (unlike me) have sewing ability: The Quilt Project. Sounds like a worthwhile endeavor. Pass the word on.

Imagine No Religion, It's Easy If You Try

Via Anne Zook at Peevish, of course - and honestly people, why isn't she on everybody's blogroll and must-read list? - this wonderful and brave (especially in these times) opinion column by Ed Weathers in the Memphis Flyer. Dang, it's well-written. Update: Via Cyndy Roy at Mousemusings (link at sidebar), this page examining fundamentalism and religious violence.

Communitarian

On Saturday, Elaine of Kalilily (link at sidebar) noted how "The weblog community is very much like a neighborhood," and "Getting together to help out neighbors who need our help can work as well online as it can in the real world." That also holds true for just plain being nice, like sending your online neighbors unexpected surprises. On the heels of getting off to a presumably good start with my real-life upstairs neighbors this past weekend, I just received a package from Amazon at work this morning. It was a copy of What Liberal Media? care of my blogging neighbor Anne Zook at Peevish (link at sidebar) wishing me a happy Secretary's Day! As I said last Wednesday, I was totally being facetious about asking for PayPal tips and wish list contributions, so to find that someone whose blog I admire so much actually purchased this gift for me... well, it's still boggling my mind, as well as propping up my already-solid faith in the kindness of "strangers" who become friends thanks to this lovely technology. Thank you so much, Anne! And everybody who isn't yet reading Peevish, please make it a point to go there daily, Anne's writing and analysis - including her discussion of the abovementioned book - is top-notch. (And I'm not saying that in the hopes that she'll buy me the Segway or the VAIO next...kidding!! honest!!)

Lives in the Balance

Via Maru Soze (link at sidebar) and doubtless lots of others, this article in the Independent stating why "The case for invading Iraq to remove its weapons of mass destruction was based on selective use of intelligence, exaggeration, use of sources known to be discredited and outright fabrication." Next revealing shocker: The sun will rise in the east! Some good quotes in it from Glen Rangwala, the Cambridge analyst who broke the story about the bullshit in that Blair "intelligence dossier" (that turned out to be "plagiarised from three articles in academic publications"). Rangwala notes that "much of the information on WMDs had come from Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress (INC), which received Pentagon money for intelligence-gathering. 'The INC saw the demand, and provided what was needed,' he said. 'The implication is that they polluted the whole US intelligence effort.'" Ah, there you go, not our administration's fault at all that it lied, it's all Our Man in Iraq's fault that the liars believed him. That's very different, then; never mind! [/Litella]

Spending time in Robin's studio (where our computers are) blogging and reading others' blogs - okay, and playing Bookworm - to keep my inker-boy company whilst he works, and therefore listening to the randomized CDs on his two Sony MegaStorage 300's (yes, two, and they're both full-up and we have a 400 in the living room besides *sigh*), and Jackson Browne's "Lives in the Balance" came on. And I'd forgotten the lyrics, so of course it suddenly struck me how this could very well have been about the war in Iraq too.

You might ask what it takes to remember
When you know that you've seen it before
Where a goverment lies to a people
And a country is drifting to war...
On the radio talk shows and the TV
You hear one thing again and again
How the USA stands for freedom
And we come to the aid of a friend...
They sell us the president the same way
They sell is our clothes and our cars
They sell us everything from youth to religion
The same time they sell us our wars...

If I had more drive I'd probably link up every single one of those lines with a recent header (the last one, for instance, easily links to any number of sources quoting White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card telling the New York Times last fall re: gearing up for the Iraq invasion that "you don't launch a new product in August"), but I don't so y'all can if you want. Scary, and tragic, how the more things change the more they stay the same.

Move-In Day

Well, we knew it couldn't last forever. A new family has moved into the apartment upstairs. Jenny and Christian seem like a lovely couple, and their son is huggably adorable but tends to like bouncing a ball on the bare hardwood floor. :) They arrived about 9:30 this morning, so I went up and introduced myself, welcomed them to the building, promised their son free comics if he wanted them and so forth, just to get off on the right foot. Turns out they were never given a copy of the house rules which state, "Moves into and out of the building shall take place only on days other than Saturday, Sunday and holidays and only between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m." so that answered one of my questions, and I printed them out a copy and took it upstairs, so let's hope they take the bit about "the floors of each Apartment must be covered with rugs or carpeting or equally effective noise-reducing material, to the extent of at least 80% of the floor area of each room" seriously once they're settled. They do seem a lot friendlier and open than the last tenants, but I think a tarantula would have been a lot friendlier and open than those idiots. And since I've come back downstairs the noise seems to have lessened a lot, which I think bodes very well. Crossing all appropriate digits.

The Master's House

I read on the Friends of Lulu mailing list how FoL founding member Deni Loubert's ex-husband Dave Sim is once again mocking the organization in his self-published comic Cerebus. Fortunately, the general membership response this time seems to be a mixture of "what's this bitter man's problem already?" and "just ignore him," but I remember a time, not so long ago, when individuals strove to craft the best possible comeback on the organization's letterhead to make Sim, or whoever the Detractor of the Day was, somehow see the light. I said then and I've since repeated a number of times: You can't win when you play their game. They make the rules, they set the goalposts, it's rigged from the start to put you on the defensive and to create a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situation. Not that much different from US politics, actually. :) The late great Audre Lorde put it best when she observed, "The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house."

Which brings me in an extremely roundabout way to the cover of the May 2 Entertainment Weekly, featuring the Dixie Chicks naked with their naughty bits strategically covered by hands, camera angles, etc. and various epithets (both positive and negative) written on their non-naughty bits. Atrios repros it here (if the link is bloggered just scroll down). As I hinted at in the comments section yesterday, many people actually regard taking off your clothes for a magazine cover to be liberating and even feminist! Not, I opine, as long as you have such a blatant disparity between men doing it and women doing it. And not as long the rules of our current societal game dictate that, no matter what your intent in displaying tasteful nudity on mainstream magazine covers, the result is that you're still going to be ogled by men. I mean, just check Atrios' comments section. And these panting wolves are probably really nice guys and on "our side" politically! Until such time as major shifts occur in this kind of thinking and the rules of the game are no longer made by the oglers, any women who play into it (again, no matter what they intend to say by the act of posing nude) are willing parties to their own objectification. And that doesn't seem terribly feminist to me.

Greetings from TMI-Ville

Well, you wouldn't know it to look at it, but today was Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day. My thoughts on this can be found here - essentially, that I feel the Ms. Foundation people completely capitulated on this issue to anti-feminist corporate morons who whined, "well, what about the boyyyyys?" Instead of saying, "Hey men and boys, it's not always about you!" and re-emphasizing the original point of the day - "to introduce girls [my emphasis] ages 9 to 15 to the workplace, and to help them feel that their future participation in the labor force is both expected and welcome" - backed up by studies which have shown that girls' self-esteem plummets at that age, whereas boys' self-esteem is just fine and dandy, they just blanded the hell out of it. So not only don't I know any businesses commemmorating the day now that it's fairly pointless and toothless, but I don't care.

Something about which I do care is the separation of the public and private spheres, and the nonsense that always seems to happen when people confuse the two. Take Senator Sanctimonious Santorum - please. By now we all know what he said, and what he said he meant, and what a number of other bloggers have to say about it. To me the best analysis was from Brooke Biggs' friend Lee, who noted that Santorum was comparing apples and oranges by conflating things he found morally icky with things that are illegal. The former (for instance, gay sex) is a matter of the private sphere, whereas the latter (for instance, gay marriage) is a matter of the public sphere. Lots of consenting adults do stuff behind closed doors that bothers lots of others. I mean, I doubtless have some sort of mental list of all the human sexual permutations that make me squeamish.

But I learned awhile back, somewhere in my early 20's, that the stuff that constituted Too Much Information (TMI) was usually None of My Business as long as nobody involved was getting hurt (yeah yeah, but That's consensual so That's not what I'm talking about), and if I'm not directly asked my opinions about someone's sex life the best thing to do is just keep my mouth shut. (And that's not self-censorship, it's common sense and civility.) Heck, even when I am directly asked, I usually squirm out of it. It's just TMI, you know? What's with these people far older and presumably more experienced in matters of civility? Were they somehow not raised to understand the difference between stuff that's private to other people and therefore None of Their Business and stuff that actually affects other folks in the public sphere and therefore Merits Public Legislative Discussion? If Sanctum Santorum were actually queried on what he thought of gays he might've just said, "I think guy-on-guy is kinda icky and it makes me uncomfortable and I'm sorry that's just my personal opinion but it should have nothing to do with passing laws against it," but I get the feeling he volunteered to shoot his mouth off (why do fundies being somehow compelled to pontificate all the time?). The best course of action would of course have been to recognize that his personal views on private matters didn't belong in a public sphere because, well, those matters are basically None of His Business. Unlike statements he makes on the public record, which of course become totally our business.

Secretariat

Today, as I mentioned about a month ago, is Secretaries Day. This is what I do for a living, although I've found one can net slightly more income by calling it "Adminstrative Assistant" or "Executive Associate" or whatever than one can by calling it what it is, lots of typing and occasional shitwork. Still, office staffers don't make nearly as much money as their bosses, so if you're inclined to get me a little sumpin-sumpin for Secretaries Day (and by God, this is not a solicitation, I'm just playin' about) feel free to use the PayPal tip jar or peruse my Amazon wish list; both are found on my sidebar. As of this writing I don't think my coworkers are aware of this blog (or, you know, very much outside their own little cocoons) so it's not like anyone else is going to do anything for me. Yes, nothing like facing a possible 11-hour workday to make one feel really good about being a secretary.

Gimme Them Earth Day Greens Blues

Don' wanna live on Mercury
Even Venus is way too hot
I'd consider Mars when we reach the stars
Till then Earth's all we got

Happy Earth Day, everyone. Check out Google's Earth Day logo below, innit pretty?

Here's some of what's gone on today.

Auto-Empowered

Six straight hours of New York baseball yesterday yielded more than a misplaced sense of accomplishment at finally finishing my quarterly ironing jag (yes, wearable work clothes again! um, whoopie?) and a conclusion that this probably wasn't what whoever thought up Easter had in mind for its celebration. I was also somewhat taken aback that car ads during the games seemed to outnumber beer ads by a great margin, a little weird in a city where you can get to either Yankee or Shea Stadium fairly easily by relying entirely on public transportation. No, I'm not gonna blog about the inanity of car ads, others have done that in a variety of venues. Just wanted to observe a mini-trend at work of late. It began with a commercial for the Volkswagen Passat (I believe it's called "Epiphany" and is produced by Arnold Worldwide, but I can't find it on their website), wherein a fellow is walking down the street and suddenly receives a call on his cell phone - from himself in the future. It plays like a cute little Twilight Zone'y bit, his future self telling him three things he needs to do to make his life better (one being, of course, buy The Car), and it smartly taps into the what-if fantasy many of us have of this type of conversation-with-past-self. Well, now along the same line of "abilities far beyond those of mortals" comes a new series of ads for another auto brand (which one I don't remember, they more or less all look alike to me anyway), wherein touching The Car will bestow on someone the gift of psychometry, and they can see where that car's been and what it's done (usually involving a professional driver on a closed course). So I'm wondering, now that the ad agencies have moved from the idea of "car equals freedom" to "car equals superpowers," where can they go from here? Somehow, on the eve of Earth Day, I tend to doubt it'll be in the direction of "car equals environmental disaster" or "car equals supporting terrorism." Update: Or maybe we'll just throw off all pretense of the separation of religion and consumerism and worship beneath the lights of our local Jeep dealer, in an ad creepily reminiscient of a McDonald's one from a few years back wherein the light of the Golden Arches brought similar salvation...

The Bearable Lightness of Being

I awoke at 7:00 on this fine Easter morning, unprompted by either alarm or church bells, somewhat surprised to find it so bright outside for so early in the day. Just a couple weeks ago, it seemed I was losing my yearly hour of sleep in turning the clock forward and waking up to pre-dawn dimness. And I felt so energized by actual light that I didn't, I couldn't turn over and go back to sleep; I actually made something of a dent in my comics reading this morning. (And I bless the folks at DC for using brighter colors and not shrinking their lettering to the point where it hurts these aging eyes!) That's the effect lightness can have on one's day.

And I've come to feel the same way about a light touch in the blogosphere, particularly these days as the real world just seems grimmer and grimmer. Yes, I consider every single politically-oriented blogger linked to via my sidebar to be must-reading and vital and important and a damn good writer, but I seem to gravitate more towards those who can put a clever (or even sarky) spin on things. It's like the difference between watching the BBC World News and The Daily Show. Yeah, they're both on at 11:00 PM, they both deal with world events, but while I'm gratefully informed by the former, it's the latter to which I tune in and enjoy far more often. (By the way, the NY Times' Frank Rich has a terrific article about the show and this very subject today; here's the Google link so you don't have to give the NYT your personal income info.) And in that spirit, I want to again give kudos to Maru Soze (link at sidebar), whose brilliant sass continually makes me smile; as well as praise the latest cartoon from Ampersand (l.a.s.) and Creature Feature Future, a very insightful and humorous essay by Adam Felber (l.a.s.) that I wish I'd had the talent and/or foresight to write.

Self-Promotion

Most artists, Robin and I have been informing a comic art collectors' mailing list on which we participate, do not attend conventions for self-promotion. They go to see friends and meet people who might like their autograph or a sketch or to check out the convention themselves. Sometimes they go because they're graciously asked. Self-promotion is more in the realm of e-mail/message board signatures and... blogs! Robin and I will be among the guests (why my name is listed I cannot fathom; while I have had at least three comic book stories published I have never gotten a cent for them, so I'm scarcely a professional writer) at the next Big Apple Convention in NYC, about a block west of Columbus Circle. The main reason we'll be behind a table in the crowded and somewhat dingy church basement, besides that I adore guest coordinator Allan Rosenberg to little teeny bits, is that it's also a stop on the Tony Isabella Farewell Tour, after which the writer and CBG columnist has either promised or threatened to leave the comics industry if not offered new work, meaning that of course his plan has backfired/succeeded and he's got some projects in the pipeline about which I will doubtless grill him mercilessly when we see him. The show takes place on Friday and Saturday, May 2nd and 3rd; the 3rd is, as many may know, Free Comic Book Day so maybe I'll schlep in some comics to give away. Probably be a good idea if they're ones on which Robin worked, I guess. Anyway, the 2nd is when X2 opens, so we might just make a comic book'y weekend out of it and see the film that night if we can get into the theatre. Hope to see some of you NYC-based folk at the con! End of plug.

To Catch a Thief

Feeling under the weather today, probably leaving work soon to collapse in bed this afternoon. They say Saltines are good for what I think is ailing me, but I'll probably just get a box of (non-shmura) matzoh instead on the way home.

I watched an interesting episode of Penn & Teller: BULLSHIT! last night talking about food issues. I liked the part that exposed the diet industry (although it was kinda creepy what with Atkins just dying) but was a little perturbed about the second half, which raked Greenpeace over the coals (they're going to do it again on tonight's show about "environmental hysteria" so be forewarned). Jillette's conclusion: that environmentalists concerned about genetically modified food should just "shut the fuck up" because we live in a land of plenty and GM food could help feed billions of people, whereas organic food is a loser. So I guess that means he's okay with all those crops designed to only work with agribusiness pesticides, and with small farmers being thrown out of work, and with multinationals pretty much taking over another aspect of self-sufficiency in developing countries. Kinda disappointing, I generally like Jillette but I'm not even going to watch his upcoming anti-environmental screed if this was a taste of it. (And hey, kudos on the timing, the week before Earth Day.)

But speaking of taste, I do agree that well-fed folks in the US ought to be more concerned about feeding the starving people throughout the world (without poisoning them!) than about whether a second helping of dessert will go straight to their hips. Absolutely, we should all strive to be less insular and provincial in our thinking, even if we're as individually powerless to help stave off starvation as we are to stave off war. So I'll go out on a limb here and say that I too think that some of the recent looting in Iraq might actually be a good thing, but only when it comes to food. Yes, I'm sure some of the thieves were black marketeers, but I can't help but feel that just as many if not more were just ordinary hungry people. And in the apparent absence of any organized attempts to distribute that food, I don't really have a problem with them helping themselves to it. But then, I often have fantasies about how all food staples ought to be free, so don't mind me.

Speaking of freedom, which we must because it's Passover and Good Friday and all, Kevin Moore (link at sidebar) points to an interesting article by Naomi Klein called "Privatization in Disguise." It's basically all about how what our government is trying to pass off as reconstruction is actually going to be privatization of resources. Notes Klein, "Some argue that it's too simplistic to say this war is about oil. They're right. It's about oil, water, roads, trains, phones, ports and drugs. And if this process isn't halted, 'free Iraq' will be the most sold country on earth." So you know, it's unconscionable when books are burned and antiquities purloined from museums, but that theft seems to be small potatoes compared with stealing the soul of an entire country. Just another reason people observe that the US is now very good at destruction and not so good any more at rebuilding.

The Ritual of Freedom

Ignore the "posted at" time below, I've worked on this intermittently prior to publishing it but Blogger records the first time you save the file rather than the time it actually gets uploaded.

A primer first, I guess, for the two or three people who haven't sat through The Ten Commandments (see yesterday's entry) or were too busy giggling at the performances to pay attention to the storyline: Passover commemmorates the events described in the second book of the Torah, Exodus, specifically the book's title which refers to the descendents of the Jewish patriarch Jacob and matriarchs Leah and Rachel being freed from 400 years of bondage in servitude to the Egyptians, thanks (according to the Bible) to some well-timed miracles from God via the prophets Moses and Aaron (Miriam's brothers). The name "passover" refers to the last of these plagues, the slaying of the first-born. From Exodus 12:3, 5-7, 23: ''Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying: On the tenth day of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household... Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats. Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight. And they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses where they eat it... For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians; and when He sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and not allow the destroyer to come into your houses to strike you.'' This whole sacrificial lamb motif carried over, of course, into Christian mythology, with Jesus becoming the ultimate sacrificial lamb with his death on the cross (the remembrance of which is always the first Friday of Passover), and the Last Supper being a seder meal.

The seder, or ritual Passover dinner, is the Jews' way of passing on the Passover story to succeeding generations, very key during the hundreds of years of the diaspora (i.e., the dispersion of Jews outside of Israel from the sixth century B.C., when they were exiled to Babylonia, until the present time) when it was dangerous to openly practice Jewish rituals. The evolution of the Haggadah, the book accompanying the seder, is still continuing; here's a good primer on its early history. One of the things I like about Passover is that these rituals of remembrance and celebration are always evolving (again, see yesterday's entry about feminist hagadot), even in my lifetime. It seems most reasoning people figure, as long as the basic mitzvah (loosely translated: "religiously-required good deed") of recounting the tale is fulfilled, the particulars are adaptable.

So now many rituals include a Miriam's Cup in addition to Elijah's, and I wonder if the door is opened to let them both in now. Although Elijah's return is foretold by the prophet Malachi in the last few verses of the Old Testament, and the tradition says that when he comes to usher in the true Messianic age, it will be during Passover. Nothing about whether Miriam or any female prophet will accompany him, but the Old Testament wasn't written by women. I mean, even the Jews' true Messiah doesn't get to be female - in the song welcoming Elijah, the Moshiach is referred to as ben-David ("son [male descendent] of [the house of King] David") rather than bes-David ("of the house of David") Interestingly, I was always told that the door needed to be opened by the oldest unmarried girl because Elijah would also bring with him (the promise of) her future husband, but I can't find any correlation to this online so I'm beginning to suspect it was just done within my family or perhaps the shtetl whence they originally hailed. Every family has something peculiar, I suppose; I wouldn't be at all surprised if Neil Gaiman's family talked about Solar Frogs during their reciting of the ten plagues.

But I digress. The Passover diet (foods forbidden during Passover generally consists of five grains – wheat, barley, spelt, oats, and rye – when those grains are mixed with water for long enough to rise) was never that big a deal to me except for breakfast. For lunch and dinner, Asian (rice-based) or Mexican (corn-based) will do nicely. The modern tradition with which I tend to take the most issue has to do with something at the very heart of the Passover celebration - freedom. We've heard that word bandied about a lot lately, the people leading this country have been paying it major lip service for at least the last two years, and for Jews it often seems to be inextricably intertwined with aliya, the Hebrew word for "ascending" or immigrating to the State of Israel. L'shana Haba'ah B'y'rushalayim! goes the saying at many seders: "Next year in Jerusalem!" Nothing is considered as important to many religious Jews as the idea that we all ideally ought to be living in Israel.

And now you begin to see the problem. Not only do many of us not want to live there (although it's an interesting place to visit, as I recall, lots of cool excavation sites and the guys all crowd around you even if you're a plain-looking, four-eyed, fat 13-year-old girl 'cause you're an American and they figure you have money), but it's, you know, the size of New Jersey or something. As relatively few of us as there are (and Jews are a vocal minority population-wise, compared with most other religions), we still wouldn't all fit. Well, unless "we" kick out the people living there now via occupation and bulldozers and settlements, and maybe annex Syria after the country for whom "we" are a client state overruns it and refits that oil pipeline they just shut down to divert it to "us" instead. And as those quotation marks start to appear around "we" I find myself slowly backing away from the entire discussion to the point where I don't bother reciting the "l'shana" phrase now any more than I sing along to "God Bless America" during the 7th inning stretch.

So, as with all things Jewish and ritualistic, I make my own meaning from Passover. And it includes at its center the ideas of inclusion of everybody, men and women; and of peace and freedom for all, Jews and non-Jews alike. So let it be written; so let it be done. ("DAA, DAA da DAAA, da DAAAA DAAA da DAAA"...)

"So let it be written, so let it be done"

Now a certain person would read the above quote and immediately hear four notes as familiar to some of us as those of Beethoven's Fifth. "DAA, DAA da DAAA" - followed by "da DAAAA DAAA da DAAA"... Well, you just have to be a fan of The Ten Commandments to appreciate it. And this is the time of year, for obvious reasons, that the story of the Jews' exodus from Egypt and receiving of God's Law, is broadcast. It's on again this coming Sunday, opposite some stiff competition that I'm sure most normal viewers will be taking in - TV movies like the Susan Sarandon-starrer Ice Bound, a biopic about Dr. Jerri Nielsen; and the first part of Helen of Troy, the TBS film being advertised excessively on Yahoo groups and the sides of buses where the face that launched 1000 ships is cut off right at the nose (thereby launching, I presume, only about 510 ships or so) but you can see the full faces of the two male characters who fight over her even though none of the three are well-known. But I'm sorry, as much as I love mythological tales (I mean, even Clash of the Titans holds a special place in my heart for reasons that remain known mostly to me and my college buddy Bill Marcinko... BU-BO, BU-BO, BU-BO! sorry, where was I?) and as utterly cool as Sarandon is (and didja see her SO's retort, huh, didja? via Elaine of Kalilily), nothing beats the best Biblical epic of all time for sheer quotation power. It's just got So Many Cool Lines. And Vincent Price. And a pre-Bo John Derek looking good enough to eat. And a stunning pre-Lily Munster Yvonne DeCarlo. And Dame Judith and Sir Cecil. And EdwardGRobinson, EdwardGRobinson, EdwardGRobinson, EdwardGRobinson... sorry, I always do a sing-songy thing with his name, don't know where I picked that up... playing the worst, most transparent sleaze since, I dunno, Donald Rumsfeld. And Yul, and Chuck before he was Mr. NRA. Oh dang, I'm already shivering with anticipa-- no sorry, that's another movie.

In-Haggadah-Da-Vida

So anyway, that's one of the things Passover means to me. Another is the second edition of my Women's Haggadah by Esther Broner with Naomi Nimrod - the one first published in Ms. in 1977 - with an alternate rough-stock Book of the Month Club cover wrapped around it acquired from my former employer, a book component printer - and between the two covers a 10-year-old letter from Rabbi Vicki Hollander in Seattle (she can be found here now, in "Cat Simril Ishikawa territory"), informing me about how there were "many Passover Hagadot available. There are numbers of feminist, humanist, and other wonderful expressions. You're living near the hub of the best resource area in the country. You may want to contact The Jewish Women's Resource Center... They have a library with over 13 different feminist hagadot. Lilith magazine... would be a good resource as well." Well, hasn't the 'net made all that easier! Here are some good links regarding feminist hagadot ("hagadot" is the plural of "haggadah," I don't remember why the second "h" is dropped or why the plural is "ot" instead of "im" my Hebrew being way rusty) and other Pesach sites of interest:

Towards Freedom ed. Heather Mendel

A Celebration of Freedom ed. Martha Shelley

The Journey Continues: The Ma'yan Passover Haggadah ed. Tamara R. Cohen

Haggadah for the Liberated Lamb ed. Roberta Kalechofsky (a vegetarian Haggadah!)

The Santa Cruz Haggadah

The Dancing with Miriam Haggadah by Elaine Moise and Rebecca Schwartz

Eszter's Passover Page (she has a blog as well)

News article about a Reconstructionist Haggadah

MOMENT's Passover Web Guide, which includes a link to Miriam's Cup

Like an Orange on a Seder Plate: Our Lesbian Haggadah by Dr. Ruth Simkin
That should be enough to get y'all started. More about Passover tomorrow, specifically how that whole "freedom" thing resonates with current events. Now I'm going to gnaw on my cardboard - I mean, the shmura matzoh given to me by a couple Lubavitchers who work in the same office building as me. There but for the grace of God go I.

Pardon me while I have a strange interlude...

No real time to blog or read any other blogs today; busy day at work, tired afterwards, new Buffy (darker and darker, don't generally like constant dark in my escapism) and Smallville (could have been better written but at least I didn't feel like slitting my wrists afterwards). Typed a post then deleted pre-publishing, that kind of day. So just join me in welcoming my friend Christopher Priest (ne Jim Owsley) to the blogroll; my Top Five is now a Top Six.

Panic Panacea

A bit of a delve into the personal today, sorry. I'm trying to figure out how to deal with my mid-level panic attacks. I have a knee-jerk panic reaction to sudden uncomfortable situations; it's not severe, in the sense that it doesn't last too long or hang over my entire day or appear out of nowhere. It's induced by specific circumstances, often involving work tasks. I went through about five short tantrums today, most involving things people wanted me to type that they couldn't do themselves because they involved complicated things like duplicating a PDF form into Word using tables with all different cell sizes, or reformatting a Quark page that should have had a table but didn't... well, it's not important. What I'm trying to figure out is how to calmly react to my coworkers' assumptions that these things will take me no time at all to do, rather than to fly off the handle immediately and try to explain (usually in a loud and whiny and, yes, panicky voice) how hard it all is. How to calmly accept that whatever I do for my boss, no matter how prepared, I need to remember he will always change his plans and make things harder, and I'll get through it the same way I've gotten through it for almost six years now - only without the panic. So please, whatever behavioral exercises or non-pharmaceutical supplements you think might help, leave your suggestions in the comments section. Herbal tea, deep breaths, chocolate, squeezy-balls, looking at the cover to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I'm up for anything. Panic attacks are unprofessional and beneath me at this stage in my life; I neither need nor desire the aggravation they bring.

Celebrity First Amendment Update

Via Maru Soze (link at sidebar), on whom "I am having a crush" as one might say on alt.showbiz.gossip - good article yesterday by Don Hudson in the Charlotte Observer about the Baseball Hall of Fame doofus President (a former Reagan press aide, if you hadn't heard) cancelling the "Bull Durham" festivities because of a disagreement with the film's star's political views which have, you know, bupkiss to do with baseball. Honestly, if I have to (as I mentioned on April 6) sit through "God Bless America" instead of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" every single friggin' 7th inning stretch until Dubya is finally gone from office, I think Petroskey can deal with a couple peace signs waved by Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon - which I'm guessing would have been the extent of the airing of their political views at the Hall of Fame, considering that was all they did at the Oscars, but of course we'll never know.

Speaking of the Oscars, I think I've figured out why the Hall of Fame thing pisses me off so much and the campaign by Ellison Horne and Lisa Rein (link at sidebar) "urgently calling for an investigation of the broadcast by CNN and CNN Headline News's reporting of Michael Moore's acceptance speech last month at the Academy Awards" seems a bit... I dunno, not misguided but almost like a weird priority to me. I found the whole "were the boos augmented during his speech because of the placement of the microphones" an interesting sidebar when I first read it on Mark Evanier's blog, but by the time the late-night comedy shows were talking about it the "who cares what some yutz stagehands do" brouhaha had seemed to already pass its point of relevancy, certainly as compared with real-life considerations like oh, you know, people actually dying in a war we're making. Moore wasn't prevented from speaking out against Bush and the war (in fact, he garnered no boos when he made the same speech at the ICF Awards the day before, and he took the stage at the Oscars to thunderous applause), pre-release DVD sales of Bowling for Columbine are outstripping those for Chicago, Moore's got funding out the wazoo for Farenheit 911 and has been offered a slot back on television to do an updated version of "TV Nation"/ "The Awful Truth." And the Dixie Chicks are doing just fine against "but they said they're ashamed of the President, they're baaaaad people" whining. And Pearl Jam probably hasn't lost all that many fans either. There's no stupid record-burning hysteria going on like in the "more popular than Jesus" days. Or even the disco-hating days, for that matter!

And yeah, I know Sarandon and Robbins aren't hurting for work either. But I suppose that, to me (and I admit I could be splitting hairs here), it's the difference between speech ridicule and speech prevention. The first action is the very practice of the First Amendment, and a time-honored tradition besides; people have made fun of celebrities' utterances since long before I was born. The second is quite the opposite, a refusal to even let the celebs get to the point where they might say something for the media to trivialize and disagreeing citizens to mock. But I dunno, a part of me's thinking maybe it's all just alt.showbiz.gossip when you get right down to it anyway. When we grow up in such a media-saturated coverage that one of our first thoughts, upon hearing about the looting of museums filled with ancient and precious artifacts, is "gee, the recovery of those antiquities might make for an interesting plotline of an Indiana Jones or Lara Croft story," it's probably to be expected.

We Must Not Look for Compassion in the Stars, We Are the Stars

That line is from the fourth offering in the silmarillion of Seam Real Theatre, a loosely and somewhat organized group of friends who get together every so often and make magic in the form of spoken-word surrealism. It's the brainchild of Cat Simril Ishikawa, whose birthday is today, and it's called Red Shift. Robin and I recorded a couple lines for it way back when; you can see our names in the credits, along with the names of three out of the four guys who make up The Firesign Theatre. Not a real surprise, many of the players are regulars on the Thursday evening Firesign chats, and if you check out the bottom of the latest chat log page, you'll see some of their pictures. (Mine's not up there yet because my Verizon account doesn't want to send outgoing e-mail today, and Dexter's isn't there because I haven't brought my digital camera to one of our lunches yet.)

The recording itself hangs together pretty well, but it's one of those works that will require repeated listening so I can get more nuances and better follow the stream of consciousness wordplay. Essentially it revolves around the Dalai Lama being reincarnated as an inanimate rock on the surface of Mars, and how this development is seen by Tibetans and NASA and the Martians themselves (who sound like the aliens in Toy Story and have, of course, made life on Earth their pet project), and foreseen by Orson Welles (played by his namesake, David Ossman's son) and his inspiration - and no relation - H.G. Wells (played by Robin 'cause, hey, authentic British accent). It's also about Chairman Mao being resurrected as a computer chip, or was it a poker chip? ("I'll see your Gang of Four and raise you a Five-Year Plan!" says one character.) And Dali. And Dolly the sheep (which is not a baaad thing). And Grover's Mill, of course, which comes as a complete surprise to the Sesame Street character: "I have... a mill?" And an Asian infection that eerily presages SARS. And Ralph Spoilsport, always Ralph Spoilsport.

Not sure when Red Shift will be for sale, but wanted y'all to know about it and Seem Real's other fine works detailed on the website: Neal Amid (my copy of which seems to be misplaced at present), An Infinite Trilogy, and Box of Time. Happy birthday, Cat; ya done good again.

Pen-Elayne For Your Thoughts: 411

Note: For four years in the '90s, under my old name of Elayne Wechsler-Chaput, I wrote weekly comic book reviews, sometimes of up to 20+ books each week, entitled "Pen-Elayne For Your Thoughts." I posted them on Usenet and CompuServe and they'd probably turn up on any number of Google groups searches through the rec.arts.comics groups. They seemed to be fairly popular with fans and pros alike, led to some great friendships and fascinating conversations and correspondences, and were excerpted in a number of letter columns and for blurbs on trade paperbacks. Some major life changes, particularly a new job situation and just not being able to keep up any more with reading comics as soon as they came out (a necessity in the immediacy of online culture), led me to stop doing the reviews in 1998. If you want to see some of them, click here. I've resurrected the "P-E FYT" style once before on this weblog (on September 27 to review a couple online comics) and felt it was time to bring it out of mothballs again for this book, which I consider very special and timely. It's published by Marvel Comics and is available at any local comic book store.

411 #1 (of 3)

Introduction by Bill Jemas

Featuring

"Understanding the Culture of Nonviolence"
Essay by Dr. Arun Gandhi
Spot illustration by David Mack

"Blowup"
Story: Bill Jemas and Chuck Austen
Script: Chuck Austin
Artist: Phil Winslade
Colorist: Chris Chuckry
Editor: Mike Raicht

"Tit-For-Tat"
Writer: Mark Millar
Artist: Frank Quitely
"Digital Inks": Avalon Studios
Colorist: Dan Brown
Editor: Mike Raicht

"Seeds"
Writer: David Rees
Artist: Tony Salmons
Colorist: Rick Bryant
Editor: Jennifer Lee

Letterer (all stories): Randy Gentile
Editor-in-Chief: Joe Quesada
President: Bill Jemas

Here's the 411 on 411 on 4-11... I mean, here's what I thought...

In Jemas' introduction, written on March 4, he notes, "Stories about peacemakers are particularly difficult to tell with America on the brink of war... the theme of sacrifice for the sake of peace is hard for many Americans to accept right now... You see, for any nation to engage in war, the most inhumane human enterprise, its people must believe that their enemy has given up the right to be treated as human beings - in short, that they deserve to die. In wartime, looking for the humanity in your enemy can't help but be seen - by patriots - as unpatriotic... These stories are neither anti-American nor anti-Iraqi, nor anti-French nor anti-Israeli. 411 is pro-human. It is a tribute to peacemakers, to people who turn the other cheek in the face of violence..." Boy howdy is it, and props to Jemas for not putting quotation marks around the word "patriots" as I would have. I can't think of anything more in keeping with the love for one's country than the eschewing of violence against others', the realization that we're all in this together.

Dr. Gandhi tells a story of his grandfather's conversion to the culture of nonviolence, the mental paradigm shift necessary to turn inward and reflect on the causes of hatred and prejudice rather than immediately lashing out against it and perpetuating the cycle of anger and violence still further. I thought it lacked a bit of a punch (no pun intended) but was a pretty good primer for people who aren't used to thinking in these terms (including the many who still confuse pacifism with passivity). "Nonviolence," Gandhi notes, "cannot be a strategy or a weapon to use when convenient and discarded when not. Nonviolence must become a way of life with a set of positive attitudes that one must diligently cultivate with the same zeal and devotion that one displays in one's efforts to improve one's material standing in life." Again, pretty much in line with what I've talked about earlier today and in past blog entries about positivity versus negativity.

But Gandhi garners my disagreement when he repeats his grandfather's claim that "Materialism and morality... have an inverse relationship: When one increases, the other decreases. Our obsession with materialism has caused us to sacrifice our values." I figure he's talking about the obsession part rather than the materialism part - after all, greed and sloth are two of the seven deadly sins - but I do think it unfair to cast aspersions on people who enjoy and feel they deserve creature comforts. I think everyone deserves them and should enjoy them, but in moderation - unselfishly, sensibly, without ostentation or yearning for status or validation through them. In short, I think Gandhi torpedoes (oh dear, more war metaphors) some of his message about positivity by condemning people for living in the material world, rather than for living there too much or excessively or to the exclusion of the spiritual world. But he does end his essay with a strong exhortation towards sharing the wealth among the family of humankind: "Good relationships can only be built on the solid foundation of respect, understanding, acceptance and appreciation and must be nurtured with love and care. A nation is ultimately judged by the way people treat each other." Such can be said of us all, and I think this is one of the keys to practicing nonviolence. A nation, like a corporation, is made up of individual people, and individuals can make a difference, both in our lives and in the lives of those we touch. And this difference, this way we practice our lives, can have a snowball effect and become truly profound and earth-changing. I think we've only seen the tip of that iceberg with all the worldwide peace rallies that have taken place these past few months, and look forward to the continuation of that positive energy (the "second superpower" as some have called this world opinion in favor of peace).

On to the stories. The first one had the most impact on me, perhaps because the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has touched on my life for the past 30 or so years (to the point where it is the Subject Not Discussed With Parents). The visual storytelling is top-notch as Winslade attempts to channel his inner Neal Adams only to find an outer Brent Anderson (which is still a compliment, honest). The expressions on his characters' faces are enough to bring one to tears, and the pacing is perfect and never lets up, a textbook example of how to portray kinetic action without fistfights (and the explosion only takes up one panel). If I had one complaint it would be the sameness of the panel structure, a slave to the current school of "wide-screen" popularized by such talented artists as Bryan Hitch; Winslade doesn't deviate from it at all until the last page, a split splash, which admittedly does make the ending stand out more. Chuckry's colors are very effective mood-setters, particularly the red anger of the Palestinian suicide bomber and the clear blue sky against which much of the action is played out; I wish more colorists understood the impact of pure, unmuddied colors to convey even more of a sense of foreboding during momentous events (think 9-11). Jemas and Austen come up with a very effective "twist ending" to this tale of a father's loss and thoughts of revenge for his child's death, and Austen fleshes out the characters' personalities quite well for such a short story (12 pages).

Next, Millar does "on-screen" narration (and Quitely draws a pretty spot-on Millar) introducing a tale about his Irish grandfather in the early years of the last century. It's worth relating to the uninitiated that "the troubles" go back, as do a great number of things across the pond, many centuries - a difficult concept for Americans to grasp sometimes. Millar and Quitely seem to be very in synch in their depiction of the conflicts of the era between the Irish working class and British constabularies, and Quitely's art doesn't even suffer that much from being "digitally inked" (i.e., darkened by computer, likely by a colorist rather than an inker). This kind of real-life stuff really brings out the best in him. The art's not terribly kinetic but I like the restraint in this case; that more is implied than actually shown (and Brown and/or the "digital inker" have gone a bit heavy on the K-tones here, making the visual atmosphere darker and grittier) adds to the feeling of gloom and general hopelessness. Unfortunately, that means Millar's granddad's prank (the way in which he took revenge for a beating at the hands of the bobbies) tends to fall a little flat as a result; the real "moral" of the story seems to be more that the family got the hell out of Ireland and up to Scotland to escape the madness. Even so, for what I consider the least effective story in the book it's still pretty solid.

The final vignette takes place in Afghanistan and concerns itself with a family's reaction to landmines. Coincidentally, this week's Riverdale Press features a "Letter from Cambodia" by co-publisher/editor Richard Stein, reporting from Boeung Krasar where "hundreds of children in blue and white uniforms awaited" Stein's and wife Hillary Baum's arrival as representatives of the local chapter of the United Nations Association, which had raised funds to clear landmines throughout the area with enough money left over to make an initial payment on a new schoolhouse. The schoolchildren, Stein noted, "were seated in what had been the center of a minefield." It was a comprehensive, uplifting piece giving not only a historic overview (and the Kissinger/Nixon barbarism was not omitted!) but emphasizing the good that can be done in this world towards building up rather than destroying. A perfect lead-in to this last tale. I didn't care for the art that much, Salmons is a little too impressionist for my tastes, and Bryant's limited palette of muted colors took a bit of getting used to, but it was a very pleasant surprise seeing Rees (best known for his "Get Your War On" commentary strips) carry a fictional tale from start to finish. I found the theme a bit telegraphed but it worked well as a fable (and a tribute to family dynamics and "breaking the cycle") anyway.

Not a dud in the bunch as far as I'm concerned. I eagerly await the two subsequent issues (even, as rumored, sans contributions from Caldicott and Kushner). Well done, folks.

So, what did y'all think?

Peace is the word, is the word that you heard, it's got groove it's got meaning...

Bet you'll have Frankie Valli's voice in your head all day now, huh? Ain't I a stinker?

Quoth Anne Zook in today's Peevish, "It's hard to be peaceful when there's war all around." Yes, I responded, peace is always harder to talk about, to bring about, than war. That's one of the things that makes it so worthwhile, so vital and so imperative. If peace were easy, we'd probably have it already. It's a constant uphill struggle - and see, I was just going to write "battle" instead of "struggle," which is a good example of how difficult it is to even discuss peace when war metaphors permeate our language to such an extent. Is the impulse to war ingrained or learned? If ingrained, can it be surmounted the same way other biological instincts are often consciously discarded due to the gifts of our magnificent brains and the power of reason? While politicians and philosophers and common folk all seem to give lots of lip service to the concept of peace, is the reality even remotely achievable? If peace is actually possible would we even be asking about our desire to achieve it?

Better minds than mine are still wrestling (is "wrestling" a war metaphor or just a sports one?) with these questions. Later today when I get home I'll review what some of them (including Dr. Arun Gandhi) have to say in the first issue of Marvel's 411. In the meantime, some links. All bloggers mentioned herein are listed (blogrolled) on my sidebar.

Via Mary at the Watch, this article by Chris Mooney in the American Prospect profiling Susan Nall Bales. Ordinarily I'd consider "communications consultant" to be a rather B-ship job but I'm torn because I consider what she does fairly worthwhile. The article explains, As president of the nonprofit FrameWorks Institute, she has synthesized four decades of social-science research into an approach called "strategic frame analysis," which is designed to help progressive groups understand public prejudices and thereby better advance their objectives. In other words, they teach progressive groups such as environmental activists how to couch their messages in positive terms rather than negative ones. Wasn't I just saying this back on March 22? Why don't these people ever hire me for these doubtless 3-figure B-ship jobs, whine whine?

Brooke Biggs talks about another casualty of practicing nonviolence in Israel. Another reminder that following the peaceful way is often much riskier to one's person than warmongering. And yes, perhaps there's a thin line between foolishness and bravery, but as I'm neither (at least I hope I'm not too foolish most of the time) I don't think I'm qualified to speak as to where that line is.

Dave Johnson muses about how the soldiers in Iraq (and Afghanistan, and elsewhere) will deal with the trauma of what they've done and are still doing. War doesn't just damage people when it's happening, and it inflicts internal pain upon the perpetrators as surely as they inflict external pain on their victims. Advantage: Peace, where everyone wins.

Lots more peace links courtesy of Kevin aka Cowboy Kahlil, who also has some cool peace graphics, one of which I stole. More when I get home.

Images of War, Imagining Peace

Peace first (hey, peace always first, as far as I'm concerned). Tomorrow has been designated a peace posting day, and my attempt at being a Blogger for Peace will include a review of the first issue of Marvel's just-out 411. You can currently view some of the pages online here. The scoop on this is as follows, "On April 11, 2003, grief turns to hope and resolve when Marvel and its international creative community pay tribute to world's least-heralded heroes - peacemakers. Called simply 411, this special anthology project will tell uplifting stories of people choosing to fight aggression with information and non-violent resistance. This beautifully illustrated, positive publishing initiative will be filled with true and fictional stories about everyday heroes who are trying to bring peace to their part of the world, featuring the work of contributing artists and writers from Cleveland to Croatia … from Hollywood to Hong Kong. 411 will also feature diverse contributors from outside the comics industry, including Pulitzer Prize & Tony Award winning playwright Tony Kushner (Angels in America), anti-nuclear activist & Nobel Peace Prize nominee Helen Caldicott (The New Nuclear Danger), and political cartoonist David Rees (Get Your War On). A special introduction will be provided by Dr. Arun Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi's grandson and co-founder of the M. K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence." From what I hear Kushner and Dr. Caldicott had to drop out due to other commitments or somesuch, but I haven't had a chance to peruse the book yet (it says "On April 11" but Wednesday is the day new comics appear so it's actually in stores now) so tune in tomorrow.

Meanwhile, yesterday and today. Well, our current version of whack-a-mole continues, with some intriguing twists. The Washington Post wonders where the Iraqi military leadership is. The UK Guardian quotes British intelligence forces as saying that Hussein and his cabal were probably not in the bombed-out building that US forces hit on Monday. And US/UK encounter surprisingly little opposition in their march through Baghdad, describing the atmosphere as "eerily quiet." Too quiet, as they say in the movies. What's actually going on? Who knows whom to believe? But this provided me with a little food for thought. (Link via Jay at the Agonist.) Granted, it's from an Irani paper, but I don't think that's a reason to instantly discredit it.

As far as the image seen 'round the world goes, my thoughts pretty much run along the lines of this article. It was just plain bad form, okay? The American flag certainly symbolizes a lot of wonderful things, particularly to the Marines involved, but to many others it was quite the literal "in your face" and a sign of "typical" American arrogance, which we need like a flag hole in the head.

In other news, I could have sworn I saw this in an issue of Queen and Country. Truth beats fiction once again.

Lastly, following up on my baseball posts, this item. This is exactly the kind of idiocy to which I referred when I expressed my disgust at the times when the game is "wrapped up in patriotism and jingoism of the worst sort." But perhaps it's to be expected given our current leader is an ex-owner of a baseball team. And if you can stand another sports-politics analogy, August Pollak makes some good points vis a vis his reaction to the "support the troops" meme.

Among the Missing

Very horrid and busy workday; not much time or inclination to do more in the way of writing than some minor blog maintenance and this short posting. Worried about Iraqi blogger Salam Pax, who hasn't posted to Where is Raed? for almost two weeks, and now his friend Diana is taking a hiatus. A couple somewhat inactive blogs have been dropped from the roll, mostly down in the "women doing comics" section of the sidebar; on the other hand, it's good to see Sarah Dyer's journal back up. Spring is nowhere in sight in NYC. Saddam Hussein may or may not be beating our military's crude overkill of a whack-a-mole game, the same way Osama bin Laden did (or did not; there is no "try"). My brain is trying to take everything in and failing, so I suppose I should count it among the missing as well.

Our Media Can Beat Up Your Media

Actually made it through my blogroll, my mailing lists and my frequently-visited message boards today; it's a wonder what a day on switch-bored can do for one. Good post by my ex which Explains Everything about the current situation in Iraq, and terrific follow-up by Jeralyn Merritt on TalkLeft about international media organizations protesting the way we've been bombing journalists (although Jeralyn mentions that the IFJ is criticizing both sides). Why haven't we heard more about this in our own media? Well, 'cause you know, we're the reporters with borders, aren't we? And what lovely embedded trimming we've chosen for those borders! All khaki-like with green and brown "chocolate chips," yum! And hey, it's a dog-bomb-dog world out there, particularly if you want to remain the top dog; no room in the ratings game for honest competition (or opposing views of the news), sir, no sir.

The Future Ain't What It Used To Be

Neil Gaiman (link right at the top of the sidebar) mentions today an opinion article in the Guardian about, among other things, the dearth of utopian movies. He quotes, "The future is always depicted as a place where a technical fix has gone wrong, where androids stalk a devastated urban landscape. I have recently noticed a lot of people suddenly worrying about nanotechnology. Could Michael Crichton's "Prey" have anything to do with this?" And offers his reaction: Oh, right. I thought. An idiot.

Now, maybe this reaction was specifically to the Crichton mention, I dunno, I haven't read any Crichton. But I'm afraid I quite agree with Mr. Ridley's observation "How many movies have you seen set in the future in which you thought - what a nice place to live?" The only unironic shiny happy futures I tend to see depicted are usually in corporate-sponsored ads. And even the New York Life Insurance one has an omenous night sky against which the flying cars are travelling. I actually blame another Ridley for this; ever since Bladerunner it seems like every set designer and cinematographer for every sf picture goes dark blue and neon and all Vegas'y (or Times Square'y now) garish. They've taken the "literature of possibility" and made it into the cinema of ultimate hopelessness, as if an imagined future can only consist of "more of the same" as we have now or post-nuclear devastation.

And I think that, because life itself is so complicated, with both wonders and horrors, so sf should reflect both. And I lean towards the side of wonder, always. Because sf is also escapist entertainment, and I think there's a greater need for people to escape into a hopeful future than a dismal one. (It goes along with what I was saying here about inspiring people with positive visions rather than turning them off with negative ones.) That's one of the things I always liked about Star Trek, particularly the Next Generation series - that it showed life in the future could still be complicated and even dangerous but at the same time great social strides had been made, people's needs were being met better than ever before, technology was being used wisely to benefit humankind, etc. You know, neither "oh, everything is so hopeless" nor "gosh, I so love living in this GE-provided dreamland paradise!" Some middle ground, you know? But a happy medium, not a depressed one.

My favorite sf movie ever, The Day The Earth Stood Still, was on TV the other night. (For the record, The Wizard of Oz and Star Wars (A New Hope) are my favorite fantasy films, not that I'm splitting hairs or anything.) Not a lot of gosh-wow special effects, no darkness other than some scenes taking place at night - and granted, it was about the present-day of the time, but the open end leaned towards a hopeful future. A future wherein UN politicians might take a page from the book of the world's leading thinkers all gathered to listen to Klaatu's message. A future where suspicion and mutual mistrust could be overcome by reason - and when you watch the movie it's remarkable how calm and reasoned and unpanicked the officials to whom Klaatu speaks sound. They carry on coherent and logical conversations and everything. The movie implied very well that for every overly-concerned citizen there was a Helen (Patricia O'Neal) who was intrigued and curious. (That Helen didn't join Klaatu when he left Earth always disappointed me, but I do give credit to Robert Wise and Edmund North for not succumbing to that particular Mary Sue'ism when it would have been so easy.) In other words, almost all the main characters with substantial speaking roles acted like grown-ups. When the US Army folks chased after Klaatu it wasn't because they didn't believe that he came in peace from outer space, it was simple greed - they wanted to keep him and his message for themselves. Human emotion, including uncertainty and possessiveness, carried much of the drama, but unreasoned fear wasn't at the top of the order by any means. Even the Earth-standing-still part, when the world's power was neutralized for half an hour, seemed like more of an inconvenience than a disaster (I don't know that the same plotline would work in today's world, though!) as even the military brass admitted their wonder (admiration?) that essential services such as hospitals and planes in flight kept running so nobody, it was strongly implied, was killed or injured.

So yeah, I want to see more movies like that - dramatic tension, sure, but with reason employed, with hope for the future, with people talking things out like grown-ups. With a bit of sunshine instead of all that dark blue and neon. I'm with Mr. Ridley (and against Mr. Scott, I guess) - I want to look at that screen and say "What a nice place, I wish I lived there! Maybe I will someday."

Update: Okay, Neil was talking about the Crichton thing rather than the dystopia thing. Robin points out that it's probably a good idea for me to thoroughly read the opening paragraph of someone's blog entry before taking them to task for essentially agreeing with me. :) [Emily Litella] Never mind. [/Emily Litella]