Me when @JoeNBC tells women to "smile" pic.twitter.com/VvLu8SDUpC
— Kate Spencer (@katespencer) March 16, 2016
Hillary Clinton wins big, and all these male pundits can talk about is her voice https://t.co/Ozn6OOEjvZ
— Emily Crockett (@emilycrockett) March 16, 2016
After the Male Punditocracy decided last night to remind Hillary Clinton that there is nothing more important for a woman than presenting an appealing facade, I’ll admit this made me LOL:
Jesus, Garland. You're being nominated to the Supreme Court. You're having a big day. Smile.
— Dan Savage (@fakedansavage) March 16, 2016
Speaking of appearances, His Royal Vulgarity decided he didn’t wish to do any more debates, and Fox News meekly acquiesced.
Imagine the universal media outrage if Clinton announced “I think we’ve had enough debates. How many times can the same people ask you the same question?”
Baud
When was Hillary not smiling?
And can we have a thread to talk about Garland’s suit?
redshirt
If you’ve seen Jessica Jones, you know how creepy the request to “smile” can be.
raven
@redshirt: Jesus, we’ve watched about 6 of them but it looks like it goes on forever.
sinnedbackwards
He’s clearly too busy discussing with himself whether to blow Putin or condemn him for withdrawing from Syria.
Roger Moore
She’d have a point. I agree with the people who say that Fox should have kept the debate but without Trump, but I can’t be the only person who’s getting very tired of them.
sinnedbackwards
@sinnedbackwards: (Not designated as bold)
NonyNony
@Roger Moore: Kasich said he wouldn’t do it without Trump, so it would have been two hours of Ted Cruz. On camera. Talking.
I’m not sure Fox’s ratings would survive that.
PaulWartenberg2016
Um, I thought there weren’t any more official debates scheduled?! So why is Trump whining about it.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
My answer to people who tell me “Smile more” is “Talk less”.
@raven: But sooo worth it. If you have the stomach for it.
(Lots of people bailed after the elevator scene.)
I love what they’ve been doing with Jessica and Luke in the comics the past few years.
redshirt
@raven: 13 episodes. And they can be tough cuz everyone’s kinda bad. Especially the “hero”.
Iowa Old Lady
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Hamilton is the answer to everything.
bmaccnm
@NonyNony: Beyond his dominionist politics and his general repulsiveness, I would vote for anybody but Ted Cruz just because of his whiny squeaky voice. I can’t imagine listening to him for years and years.
jl
@Roger Moore: I think Trump lied that this debate was ‘new’ and they had never told him about it. Which I think is BS.
Anyway, you people will see soon enough. The Sanders campaign is sending me emails almost every hour explaining how they are moving into Bernie friendly states and the details of their path to victory.
West of the Cascades
@Baud: That’s why judges (and justices) wear robes.
Starfish
John Cole’s tweets like this one crack me up, but I am always afraid to retweet his stuff no matter how hilarious it is.
jl
@Iowa Old Lady:
” Hamilton is the answer to everything. ”
I dunno about that. The GOPers this year are not your ordinary old garden variety bastard.
raven
@redshirt: We’ll probably muddle through. None of this comic stuff means shit to us. I am glad to see Happy Valley season 2 just dropped.
Baud
@jl: I’ll be interested to see how his fundraising is affected by yesterday’s elections.
Jeffro
Gerson puts it about as plain as it gets in the WaPo:
While overwrought about HRC (obviously), the rest is spot-on…go in with Trump and lose the Party entirely.
FarmerG
I’m not with you.
Two reasons, both a bit selfish I suppose.
Reason #1 is I’m a cyclist. DST gives me an extra hour after work to get in longer rides. Being able to knock of work at 4:30-5:00 (I work at home) and still be able to get in a three hour 45-50 mile ride is a good thing.
Reason #2 is I’m also a big gardener and have 11 acres to keep under control. The extra hour in the evening is critical to my being able to keep things manageable. You can’t mow dew covered grass when the sun is coming up.
I’m still struggling with the change a bit but it’s no worse than what I get if I drive to my sister in-laws house in Alabama for the weekend.
Percysowner
@NonyNony: The best suggestion I heard was that once Trump and Kasich pulled out, Fox should have asked Bernie Sanders to debate Ted Cruz. That could have been really interesting.
Jeffro
@Iowa Old Lady:
It sure is the go-to quotable in the Jeffro household these days…shoot, I learned about George Washington’s Farewell Address (at least for starters) from HAMILTON, not my high school days…
(and what an Address it is!)
Adam L Silverman
@sinnedbackwards: Fixed it for you.
JMG
CNN just had a panel of about six people, three raging right wingers and three alleged journalists such as Gloria Borger which was nothing more than a 20 minute pep talk on how Trump will rout the she-devil Clinton. If I were her I’d start saying I’m going to make a la carte cable TV ordering my top legislative priority. CNN would be out of business the day that passed.
jl
@Baud: Not going to raise much money if he overflows everyone’s mailbox.
” There are 27 primaries and caucuses between now and June 7, which is the day we expect to overtake Hillary Clinton’s campaign in pledged delegates needed to win the nomination. ”
Mark that down. June 7 will be Bernie Wins Day.
First they laugh.. then they something else and then… whatever, you win a bobble-head. I forget how it goes.
Edit: actually, I am seriously a little pissed. Maybe I am paranoid, but seems like if a Bernie win gets very unlikely too quick, corporate media will use it to ignore Democrats. I felt like that started to happen Tuesday.
Baud
@Jeffro:
I wonder if Hillary benefits from the fact that the Republican Party is now a bunch of grifters. There’s more money to be made from hating Hillary as president than there is dealing with Donald Trump as the president.
Mnemosyne
@Starfish:
Cole must have seen The Big Short. The simultaneously funny and horrifying parts are when each of the three groups of investors individually realize that the entire global financial system is built on a house of cards and is going to destroy lives when it collapses.
Adam L Silverman
@jl: There was one more that had been scheduled as the last debate in the primary cycle for the GOP. It was the one on Monday night. Here’s the link I’ve been posting whenever anyone asks about the GOP debate schedule:
http://www.uspresidentialelectionnews.com/2016-debate-schedule/2016-republican-primary-debate-schedule/
Amir Khalid
I heard some of Hillary’s victory speech this week. Her voice seems close to giving out. She could do with a few days of complete vocal rest — no talk, no whisper, nothing. But I doubt her schedule would allow it.
Fear of Megyn Kelly may not the only thing keeping the Short-Fingered Vulgarian away from this debate. He may have been made aware, however dimly, that the more he talks, the less he seems like a President.
But the Republican establishment, Fox News included, has helped empower the Donald in this campaign cycle by needlessly giving in to him. If they’d said no to him earlier on, if they’d set some limits, he might not be riding roughshod over them like he is now.
jl
@JMG: Yeah, I been hearing stuff tending in that BS direction. Lots of excited and breathless GOP hacks on the news yammering about the drama of the GOP shitshow.
HRC gets half a sentence and Sanders not even mentioned.
Edit: and TPM blog noted that on Tuesday evening Kasich’s pointless BS ramblings… er I mean.. speech was all over media, but nothing of Sanders speech. And Sanders has more of a chance at actually winning than Kasich.
Starfish
@FarmerG: Wrong thread. I think she should Mrs. Cracker should be rabble rousing to get rid of the penny.
FlipYrWhig
@jl: Just a flesh wound.
All right, we’ll call it a draw.
Baud
@jl:
The GOP is such a mess, that might be a good thing. Hillary can use the time to consolidate and plan her attack.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@jl:
Berniebros’ propaganda outlet Salon has become the Japanese soldiers hiding out in caves 30 years after WWII. Posting pictures of all white kids holding Sanders’ signs at rallies over and over and over while banging on about “revolution” ain’t gonna get it done. They’re a cargo cult now.
jl
@Adam L Silverman: You are not asserting that Trump was not lying are you? I would have a hard time wrapping my head around that notion.
The Monday debate was scheduled for a while? Don’t mess with my brain, it is delicate.
Baud
@Amir Khalid: Her voice has been hoarse for several days now.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@raven: @Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: I liked it as a whole, but I agree they could’ve/should’ve cut out an hour or two.
ETA: Looking forward to the return of The Americans tonight, speaking of anti-hero main characters. I think Elizabeth could take Jessica Jones just based on sheer intensity.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@jl: I’ll write under a pseudonym, you’ll see what I can do to him.
;)
@raven: The best comics (and science fiction in general) use their fantastical setting to comment on Real Life ™. The X-Men have been a commentary on prejudice since their invention in the 1960s. One of the reasons I’m a longtime Captain America fan was his storyline during Watergate.
redshirt
@raven: Not everyone’s cup of tea.
Do you have a game plan for the Masters? Are you going to camp or follow a specific golfer or just amble around?
NotMax
@raven
No relation to the show (thank FSM, after watching season one), but there’s a neighborhood called Happy Valley here on Maui (it’s not a valley). Just a stone’s throw from Dream City (which isn’t a city).
Also there’s a Giggle Hill. Which is actually a hill.
hitchhiker
A man telling a woman to smile.
What could go wrong, Joe Scar?
bk
OT, but well shit, Frank Sinatra Jr. died today.
raven
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Just ain’t my thing. I like to see things in real black and white of ya know what I mean!
AkaDad
As a Conservative and Trump supporter, I don’t understand why women wont smile when I call them bimbos and bleeders.
Peale
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Lordy. Kids. Listen up. Don’t listen to the idiots at Salon. Continue to go out and support Bernie. But don’t let his loss get you down. You are getting closer if you just hang on for maybe two more cycles, you’ll be able to capture the party. But you have to stick with the party.
Jeebus. I read those old nincompoops at Salon and their pessism and they’re just setting the young lefties up for 40 more years of irrelevance.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@bmaccnm: Imagine watching him. Gawker had something recently about the little mouth twitch he does every time he’s waiting for the applause to die down. Someone in the comment said it was the sign of a reformed mouth-breather. I’m not so sure. I had a cousin who laughed at everything he said when he was little; by middle school, it was a habitual “hmm” sound. The timing of Cruz’ mouth twitch reminds me of that cousin.
raven
@NotMax: Friends of mine own Happy Valley Pottery here. And then there was. . .
JPL
@bk: I haven’t heard about him in years, but may he rip.
NotMax
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Not quite the case. The whole “we’re feared/reviled ouctasts” and “Mutie! Mutie!” shtick didn’t begin to be woven into the storyline until the series was restarted later on after being cancelled in the 60s.
redshirt
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: I was never a fan of Cap in the comics but dang do I love the movie version. He might be my favorite of all of them. So I, of course, am solidly #teamcap.
Jeffro
@Baud:
Au contraire! A President Trump would present the neocons, Big Oil, school “choice” groups, and other assorted grifters too numerous to name with almost unprecedented opportunities for grift, graft, outright theft, and unbelievable amounts of incompetence.
I’m surprised no one has asked Trump yet: “Your plan for everything is to ‘hire the best people’…what principles guide you, what tells you who these best people are?” Because should Trump flail his way into the WH, he’s going to be so incredibly lost, he’ll just turn to all of the above for policy advice, nominees, and of course big, big contracts to carry out their…er, excuse me, his wishes.
Baud
@Jeffro: They don’t seem to realize the profit opportunity yet, the way they are hating on Trump.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@JMG:
Yes!!1 Forget about that DST stuff – this is THE ISSUE OF 2016!!1
(Of course, there would be consequences that would have to be thought about and carefully considered…)
Cheers,
Scott.
Marc
Shouting all of the bloody time is an ineffective public speaking method, and saying so has approximately nothing to do with Clinton being a woman. It’s a tool, like anything else, and it should be used intelligently.
Adam L Silverman
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: The last one of those guys finally passed away about three years ago. He was one tough old timer!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Marc: You’re the tone police, and the volume judge!
How lucky we are to have you join us.
SiubhanDuinne
@bk:
That really does make me feel my age. RIP.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Peale:
He’s taught them to revile party affiliation. He’s been a net negative, if they don’t stay engaged in a way that matters (and I don’t think Bernie cares, really*), and end up being yet just another bunch of privileged whites who didn’t get their way by not having a “revolution” fall out of the sky into their outstretched social media hands, because of “those people”.
*would love to be wrong about this…
PsiFighter37
Just saw the short video the White House put together on Garland. He seems like a genuinely good guy. Perhaps not the most ideological, but there’s zero reason that he would not have been a unanimous vote as recently as 20 years ago.
WarMunchkin
@Baud:
Yeah I’m not sure what was going on with that. I’m never too keen on the pinstripe look; I much prefer single solid colors. The suit construction didn’t really look that good. Of course, it’s hard to tell without a good closeup, and I’m not quite sold that that’s even made of wool. I also wish he had gone with smaller lapels and a slimmer cut.
Adam L Silverman
@jl: Well… It’s been on the site with the schedule for at least three weeks. That said I do remember reading somewhere that they were only supposed to have 12 GOP primary debates. This would be 13, so maybe they added it in the last month or so.
Ella in New Mexico
@redshirt: Jessica Jones is quite possibly one of the best shows on TV evah.
NotMax
@Marc
A good vocal coach can instruct how to project and modulate without sounding as if one is straining the lungs and vocal cords.
Or, as a 21st century method, maybe gene splicing with what can be recovered from the remains of Ethel Merman.
Okay, that last was a one-off, but the first is valid advice.
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
It was announced on Feb. 20.
Adam L Silverman
@raven: Its also the name for the region of Pennsylvania that Penn State/State College, PA is in.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Adam L Silverman:
Those are the guys you want on your team, mos def.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman:
completely o/t (because discussion of those old “SMILE” and “Keep your voice down, woman” imperatives makes me savage, froward and contumelious) – your Tampa story cracked me up completely (SPATULAS, for all love?).
Is Tampa particularly- ah – rife with exotic dancers? Because the only one I’ve ever met – or, rather, the only one I’m aware of ever having met – worked in Tampa. Coincidence? I believe her establishment was called the Sly Fox (what I can’t believe is that I even remember that). Dare I ask you whether it was still around when you were there?
redshirt
@Ella in New Mexico: Tell me why. I liked it, but didn’t like it that much. In fact, I found parts of it difficult. It’s grim.
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
Brings to mind that the newest crowned-by-Guinness oldest living man on Earth is a survivor of Nazi concentrations camps. 112 years old at present.
Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro: @Baud: He’s admitted he’s got no foreign policy advisors. Of the three people he’s mentioned, only one has any name recognition – LTG (ret) Keane. Two of the four or five haven’t even been contacted. Of them three are definitely neo-Cons.
jl
@NotMax: Well, I heard The Trump Himself on the news say that no one bothered to inform Him, and he sounded a little miffed that He had to even stoop to noticing trivial crap like some GOP debate, or whatever it was supposed to be.
NotMax
@Ella in New Mexico
Not my cup o’ gore.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: So three weeks it is!
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: It’s the nickname of the area near Nyeri, Kenya where a group of upper class British settlers debauched one another. Karen Blixen was vaguely associated with the group.
Anne Laurie
@redshirt:
Let me guarantee: Just about any female old enough to have started puberty can tell you “how creepy” it is when a total stranger orders you to smile. We don’t need any more live-action demos, thank you just the same.
NotMax
@jl
I am familiar with all
internetTrump memes.:)
smith
@Marc: The point is not whether modulating your voice (or smiling) are good communication techniques. The point is that only women are told to speak softly or smile or otherwise limit their expressions so that no one gets uncomfortable. Hillary is not the only shouty one running for president, but she’s the only one getting this advice.
benw
GaTech up at halftime in their NIT game.
jl
@Adam L Silverman: Trump said that He consults mostly with Himself on foreign policy and national security because He has a great mind, and He has said many things on it already, anyway.
Will be interesting if we get to watch Trump go stark raving mad before our eyes.
I read Magellan went mad after he realized he was the first person to circumnavigate the globe. The priests on his crew had to endure his rages when they tried to explain to him that he could not absolve crewman of their sins or work miraculous cures of illness. Finally, Magellan trotted confidently into a crowd of hundreds of enraged Filipinos to teach them a lesson they wouldn’t forget, on an obscure beach, and they cut him down in a few seconds. IIRC.
Technocrat
@jl:
He’s really dissing all their treasured institutions. Can you imagine if Romney had blown CPAC off? I actually get their fear that he’s going to “destroy the Party”. He has no patience or respect for it’s norms.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@NotMax: Now you’re going to make me go dig up my 1960s-era X-Men. My memory of it is that it was less obvious but still there. I do know that it was in the background of “Your Young Men Shall Slay Visions” in Avengers 113 in 1973, two years before the Giant-Size X-Men that introduced the new team and restarted the book as new stories instead of reprints. And there was an Avengers book (103?) that had the Sentinels return for the Scarlet Witch. The Sentinels were introduced very early in the original X-Men run.
@redshirt: Cap in the movies is the Cap from the comics I grew up on. I have no idea why people think Captain America would be a right-winger. That would be USAgent.
Anne Laurie
@FarmerG: Totally agree about DST (I’m an evening gardener myself) but this is sooo the wrong thread for a response about biking at dusk!
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: It was the Sky Fox lounge and its closed. There was a murder there back in the 1980s.
The greater Tampa Bay area had, at one time, the most strip clubs per capita outside of Vegas. We were basically the strip club and lightning capital of American. #1! #1! #1!
There is a strip club belt that runs from Hillsborough BLVD south past the airport into Westshore and then onto South Dale Mabry Avenue. They were in close proximity to the airport and the nice hotel’s (airport Marriott and the good hotels on Westshore BLVD) – as in within about a five to ten minute drive, or walk depending on where one is staying. So when out of town businessmen came to town that’s where they were taken for entertainment by their in town business contacts. Including, apparently/allegedly, Mayor Spatula.
The best part was when Redner ran for City Council, came out as gay, accused those trying to close him down of not just hypocrisy, but also homophobia. The whole thing was an absolutely hysterical 3 ring circus!
Dan Ruth covered most of this in his column:
http://www.tampabay.com/writers/daniel-ruth/
He’s got a good way with words, so if you can search the archives and find the stuff on the strip clubs from the early 2000s you’ll be in for a treat.
Tripod
I tried NPR’s post election blather today, “Clinton won four out of five”… I mean honest to fuck, if she greases Trump by 20 points they’ll still be tut-tutting the states she lost rather then her being the President elect….
redshirt
@Anne Laurie: No doubt. But it’s especially creepy in JJ due to the nature of the villain and how the command plays out through the series.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: Similar, though I’m pretty sure he hasn’t been hiding out in the Black Forest avoiding the SS for the past 70 years.
Pogonip
SEX!
Now that I have your attention, here is an important public service announcement: give a family member all your computer passwords in case you become senile or die. Mom did both and I just spent another nightmarish hour and a half on the phone with AT & T getting what I pray is the last one. The actual person I got was very helpful but I had to listen to recorded sales pitches and lectures about texting and driving for 85 minutes first. Not to mention The Menu. I never want to talk to another fucking computer again.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: I will update the files! I’m surprised that the Kenyan colonels I have supervised never mentioned that important information.
HRA
HRC’s speech after yesterday’s primary was the best one so far. She really got my attention with it. It was her demeanor as well. So yes i am sure when she becomes the nominee, I will be voting for her. I like Bernie and he deserves our respect for all he has fought for in his life.
I decided when the clown bus was at full capacity, there was no one I would ever vote for. I admit I did once vote for a Republican candidate.
NotMax
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Been ages since glanced at those too, but what memory still works says that they were presented much more as curiosities than antagonists or threats to ‘normal’ humanity. Claremont and Wolfman, IMHO, spun the dial to toward the latter.
re: Cap – Well, there was the period when what’s-his-face donned the outfit and carried the shield…
redshirt
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Damn! That’s some knowledge. I used to own the X-Men switchover book (old team to new), but I’ve forgotten near everything about it, except Thunderbird died too soon. I’ll never forget, however, that Comic Book Guy basically stole it from me.
Adam L Silverman
@jl: I thought he died several miles short of a full circumnavigation. At least that’s what I learned from Animaniacs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5Ifhgfh2aQ
Also he was generally bonkers and lost!
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman:
Great gasbags! What a history!
Why is it, I wonder, that while I despise men who make a living off the exploitation of women’s bodies (see, Flynt, Larry, your man Redner et al), I end up cheering them so heartily when they turn and sink their fangs into others and expose their moral hypocrisy (see the aforementioned, etc)?
And “Mayor Spatula”? Now come on…there’s some rather homely kink potential there…isn’t there? Or am I just a weirdo? Don’t answer that, actually. That’s a purely rhetorical question.
ETA: I am totally checking out those articles. There ain’t no weird like Florida weird, I am convinced…
jl
@HRA: I think I voted for one or two moderate California Republicans long long ago, when I turned 18, during first election or two. It was another world back then.
I registered GOP to protest some BS the CA Democrats were pulling. That as long ago too, and I was young and foolish and felt like empty symbolism like that meant something back then. The torrent of GOP junk mail was scary and a nuisance so that brave stand only lasted a few months.
Jeffro
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
Seconded – it’s hard to explain to any non-superhero-comics reader just how big an impact the X-Men (thanks to Chris Claremont) may have had on teens’ thoughts about prejudice of all kinds for the past 30 years.
Cap maybe a little less of an impact (because at times it’s been a bit overwrought, and maybe a little more expected), but his fidelity to American ideals really does come through at most every turn. Conservative pundits are going to make big hay about the upcoming CAP movie (probably running Cap down in the process) because of this…they’ll call him soft or weak, as opposed to principled and in line with the Constitution.
jl
@Adam L Silverman: I read in some history book that Magellan thought he had circumnavigated, but he may have been mistaken.
And from what I read, he was pretty bonkers from the get go, but it got worse after he decided that he had gone all the way around. Sounded like surviving Magellan was as difficult as surviving the journey itself.
IIRC he charged into the crowd of hundreds of armed Filipinos alone because the rest of his crew realized he had gone completely mad and had abandoned him. He forced the crew of his boat to the beach at gunpoint and they tried to get away but it was too late for them, they were cut down trying to get off the beach.
Hmm… and if Trump does become president… will history repeat?
redshirt
@Jeffro: No doubt. Lots of comic characters fill this role. Here’s an excellent Atlantic piece by Ta-Nehisi Coates about his upcoming run on Black Panther.
Marc
@smith: Except, in this particular case, it really is something that she can change. She wasn’t always using this approach, and it was more effective before she did.
redshirt
@Jeffro: Also, I saw a special on Cap’s anniversary and I was amused to find out that Marvel got German protesters outside their offices for having Cap punch out Hitler on the cover of the very first issue. This was before the US and Germany went to war.
Jeffro
@Baud: True…but I am pretty sure that the neocons understand that a belligerent, “we gotta rebuild this DESTROYED military” President Trump would mean massive defense contracts everywhere and a return to the very-pro-Israel stance we used to have.
I’m sure Big Oil will be quite supportive as well. This is their last good chance to kill or seriously set back clean power and have a shot at extracting their trillions’ worth of carbon out of the ground.
Same with the school ‘reform’ movement – there’s lots of money to be scammed there (even more than there is currently)
They’ll all jump on board with this embarrassing lunatic, just to make the big bucks for a while longer…
Adam L Silverman
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: It wasn’t as obvious/pronounced in the original stories. It was more subdued. Claremont really started bringing it out during his run. If you go and see how Magneto was originally presented before Claremont and after you’ll see a marked difference. That’s when the overtones that the Mutants are basically stand ins for Jews and African Americans and other discriminated against folks becomes very, very pronounced.
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2016/02/a-peoples-history-of-the-marvel-universe-week-2
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2016/02/a-peoples-history-of-the-marvel-universe-week-4
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2016/03/a-peoples-history-of-the-marvel-universe-week-6-this-man-magneto
As for Cap: you are exactly right. Everyone forgets that Cap was originally a New Deal liberal from New York. That’s what he was in the original comics and that’s what he is in the movies.
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2013/10/steven-attewell-steve-rogers-isnt-just-any-hero
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2014/04/steven-attewell-abraham-riesman-doesnt-know-jack-captain-america
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2016/01/new-weekly-feature-a-peoples-history-of-the-marvel-universe
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2016/02/a-peoples-history-of-the-marvel-universe-week-3
Technocrat
@redshirt:
Scarlet Witch and The Vision – Marriage is a union between one woman and one android. Not sure if that was a metaphor for interracial marriage, or more of a non-gender specific thing..
jl
@Jeffro: Some ‘great and fantastic deals’ closed by a sketchy billionaire, await our country.
Mnemosyne
@WarMunchkin:
Daveed Diggs is quite the fashion plate. I can’t think of another guy who would be able to pull off that purple plaid suit and floppy bow tie and still manage to look … elegant.
(And further down the page, he looks pretty good at Carnivale with his shirt off, too. Folks who swing the other way will be pleased to see that his cute girlfriend is also scantily clad.)
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman: Well of course he has very few advisors…primarily, he consults with himself for advice.
and it’s great advice, too. Classy. Usually YUGE.
This clown, seriously….
Amir Khalid
@Technocrat:
The Republican party establishment has enabled Trump by its passivity towards his impertinence. They were simply unprepared for someone like him. Every time they failed to respond to one of his outrages, they gave him an inch; and being Trump, he kept going and took another yard. They let him destroy the national party’s authority.
Mnemosyne
@jl:
Magellan sounds like prize dumbass James Cook deciding that the Hawaiians must be worshipping him as a god when they were just being polite and hospitable.
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
This goes back many years, but there was guy from the big city (Honolulu) who ran adult entertai- oh, the hell with euphemisms, strip clubs – put the word out he was planning one on Maui, in an industrial park.
The local Liquor Control authority* flat out refused a license, so the guy announced he would go ahead anyway and run it with a fresh juice bar.
Needless to say, never happened.
*which back then was an unassailable Force To Be Reckoned With, thankfully since changed through lawsuit, scandal (bribery/graft) conviction and membership attrition – remnants remain such as it being verboten to bring a drink onto a dance floor in a glass, must have only a plastic cup (and that permitted only during certain hours) or else license revocation is a distinct possibility
Miss Bianca
@Pogonip:
God, what an awful story. So noted. Also, FB accounts and such. Bittersweet at best, sad and creepy at worst to see friends and family who have died come popping back into your notice on feeds unexpectedly.
I’m also on an email list with some delightful folks, most all of whom are older than I am, (some of them in their 80s, and at least one gentleman in his 90s) and “letting family know about your participation on the list so that they can break the news to your online friends after you’ve died”) has definitely been a topic of discussion.
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: In reverse order: see if you can find Ruth’s columns dealing with Rhonda Storms. She was the whackadoddle on the County Commission I referred to.
I’m of two minds on your other point. I’m fully supportive of the 1st Amendment fight portion of it. I’m more conflicted on the question of the exploitation of women. It is clear that a lot of the women working on the exotic dancer circuit are exploited, just as is the case with soft and hard core porn. But a number of the later women have made it very clear they know exactly what they’re doing and are maximizing their ability to utilize their assets, so to speak, to maximize their earning potential. And I knew enough women in college and grad school who knowingly and willingly danced so they wouldn’t have to take out loans. While I’m sure there’s still some exploitation there, if you’re working on a doctorate or a professional degree and willingly decide to take advantage of the fact that men will pay to see women dance while taking their clothes off and this gives you the ability to get your degree without going into crippling debt, I’m not sure how to classify that.
Jeffro
@redshirt: I’m psyched for TNC and BP – definitely going to pick it all up once it’s in a trade paperback. I’m kind of hoping it’s a stress reliever and fun for him (TNC) as opposed to yet another deadline!
I have to give Marvel credit: pretty much down the line, from the 70’s and multiple series through present day (and in all likelihood, the upcoming CAP movie), they have treated Black Panther with some serious respect (Luke Cage too).
Adam L Silverman
@jl: I don’t know, is Trump planning on moving the oval office onto a Spanish galleon and trying to find the East Indies? If so, then its entirely possible.
Adam L Silverman
@redshirt: The New York chapter of the German American Bund. That was a good show too!
Jeffro
@Technocrat: it was a great metaphor for “marriage is about love between two people, period”…it seems silly, but I think it did open a few minds.
Then again I give comics a fair amount of credit for everything good in the world.
Until multiple foil variant covers came along…LOL
Mnemosyne
@NotMax:
I don’t remember why or how I found this out, but in California, the fewer clothes the dancers wear, the less liquor you can serve. Once you get to the “live! nude! girls!” places, they’re not allowed to serve alcohol at all. That’s why “bikini bars” and other not-quite-stripping joints persist — they’re the places allowed to have a full bar.
Technocrat
@Amir Khalid:
Agreed. I suspect they thought he was entertainment for the rubes, to keep them occupied until Jeb! won. Perhaps they failed to realize just how many rubes their party has.
Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro: There’s one wrinkle here, and I type this as someone who has been either a contractor on assignment or a consultant for a contracting company for the better part of the past year or so: the system has been trained/disciplined by the effects of the sequester over the past 2 and 1/2 to 3 years. To the point that now that the sequester caps have been lifted, and despite a tremendous amount of need to get stuff done that’s been on hold for two years or so, there’s little money flowing. And what is flowing has been so reduced that even when expert personnel are needed, the contracts have been so reduced that the wages they’re paying are well below what is necessary to get actual subject matter experts.
And a large proportion of Congresspeople have known only crisis budgeting or budgeting under the sequester as a result of the past 7 years. For them, and especially for the ones from the GOP as there are more of them than from the Democratic House Caucus, this is how business is done.
As a result, barring a major war, I don’t expect anything to be reversed any time soon.
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
Would have sworn typed it out and posted when you earlier mentioned your, um, appreciation of She-Hulk, but apparently spaced it out.
Now is as good a time as any.
Seduction of the Innocent, indeed.
/comic book geek reference
redshirt
@Adam L Silverman: Amazing! Thanks for the links. I’ve got some reading to do.
Technocrat
@Mnemosyne:
[polite cough]
redshirt
@Adam L Silverman: Indeed. Have you read the novel “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay” by Michael Chabon? I’m 150 pages in and just loving it. It reads like a fictional version of Marvel’s founding.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: I’ve been in places with Liquor Control Boards, or their equivalents, like that. I have a good friend and former teammate who is a retired Marine colonel and he still tells stories of how their was once a strip club in the basement of the Officers’ Club at Subic Bay.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman:
I get it, I get it. I’ve heard other women say the same things, and Lord! you can’t be a feminist scholar in the performing arts field without getting into vigorous debate about exactly those issues.
I did have a…ah…funny exchange with an “art theater” owner one time over the summer while I was in school. I didn’t really understand at first what he was talking about when he was offering me a job in his establishment. Then when I did understand…well. I was actually broke enough to consider it, but God..I just couldn’t bear the thought of it. Even tho’ when I did the math I realized I could probably be making in an hour what I was making in a week washing dishes. But even calling it “research” couldn’t make it palatable to me. But Bobbi (the aforementioned stripper from Tampa) seemed perfectly happy with her career choice, and how can you blame her?
Mnemosyne
@Technocrat:
I’m a straight woman, so it’s a purely academic interest. I think it came up when “gentlemen’s clubs” (aka lunchtime strip clubs) started popping up and the local papers were explaining the various rules about what could be served where.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: got it!
in regards to seducing innocents: my favorite was Benes’s run on JLA. He’s from Brazil and has admitted he likes to draw female characters as (the best way to put this is) over endowed. So the editor, writer, and inker kept having to remind him to reduce (see what I did there?) his female character’s endowments. And, of course, there was the period of time that in each subsequent issue of All Star Squadron and Infinity Inc. the artist kept increasing Power Girl’s bust size to see if anyone at editorial would notice and say anything about it.
Peale
@Mnemosyne: DC used to have a rule that all dancers needed to wear at least two pieces of clothing. So two gloves or two socks were standard attire. Socks, usually, at least for the male strippers. Gave them a place to stash their tips and other essential items.
Adam L Silverman
@redshirt: Attewell does some good analysis. He has several other pieces there, including one on Sam Wilson as Captain America.
Adam L Silverman
@redshirt: I have not. I will add it to the list.
Mnemosyne
@redshirt:
It is an excellent book. I think it’s based more closely on Superman’s creators, especially since Chabon writes so frequently about Jewish characters, but I’m pretty sure he mixed and matched stories to come up with his fictional version.
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: I’m a big fan of people being able to make their own choices. But that means they are making them, not being forced into them by others (economic circumstances are a bit different), or exploited once they’re made. I’ve been in enough toxic professional situations as a male adult, two of which I simply walked away from by tendering my resignation rather than continue to do what I thought was unprofessional and unethical, that I’m not a big fan of telling others what they can or cannot do. I’m also a big believer that women own their bodies, they are fully autonomous individuals and if they freely choose to do something with those bodies, that’s their business.
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
Power Girl alone was nearly ample (see what I did there?) cause to force a shift back to larger formats. :)
No love for the Bwah-hah-ha/Captain Whitebread run of JLA?
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@redshirt: So long as I can remember the story, I can find the dates, etc., online. These were … pretty impactful stories.
This page from Avengers 113, for example. Made a huge impact on a kid growing up among adults more like to be the letter writer than the hero.
Technocrat
@Mnemosyne:
Not judging. The phrase just reminded me of the sort of nonspecific knowledge sources people acquire over the years.
Statement: “Don’t know where I read this, but weed brownies are supposed to have a hell of a kick”
Actual Source: Junior year
Nate Dawg
I don’t think it’s reasonable to portray the media as soft on Trump due to one instance.
I have never seen a candidate get this kind of sustained, uniformly negative coverage by the media. LIterally everyone, on every show, in every newspaper is saying Trump is shades of awful, with Fascism and Hitler references galore.
This is unprecedented.
Serious question: Why doesn’t the RNC and stop this charade and tell everyone “there is no way in hell we will allow Trump to win the nomination. We will shut it down now?”
What’s stopping them?
redshirt
@Mnemosyne: Probably, but Superman and his creators are mentioned in the book as examples for the protagonists, so not completely a basis for the overall story. Though I am only 150 pages into it.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: I love PG’s character. Partially because I was always a big JSA fan, and while she was certainly well proportioned there, it wasn’t over the top. But once Geoff Johns got ahold of her and the JSA and straightened out her history that had been made hash by the retcons and retcons of retcons because people couldn’t keep the verdammt canon straight post Crisis, she became really interesting. The whole “Last Daughter of the Multiverse” brought a dimension to the character that hadn’t been there before. Sure she was still brassy and with a big personality and willing to brawl in a way that Superman never was, but that was all built into a whole that included memories of an entire life that had been wiped out and no one else remembered. The sense of loss was very well done.
Which series was the Captain Whitebread run of JLA? Was that the Guy Gardner, Blue Beetle, Fire, Ice, Manhunter, and Batman run?
Nate Dawg
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Fascinating.
I’ve just gotten into “graphic novels”. Loving the medium so far, honestly, as I’d read nearly all the major books in other genres I cared to read, and was having a hard time finding good new ones.
Blah….there should be a Balloon-Juice goodreads group.
Adam L Silverman
@Nate Dawg: This is what’s stopping them:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTmfwklFM-M
redshirt
@Nate Dawg: Have you read “Sandman” yet? If not, make it a priority. It’s mind blowing.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman:
Aaagh, it’s a fraught topic. I guess for me the issue is, “where is the line between coercion and choice”? And I’m not talking physical coercion, per se – in a case where a woman really *is* free to make that choice, and makes it freely, sure – I have no problem with it, either. But objectification is a thing…as you are certainly aware, Mr. Comic Books Encyclopedia Guy! is it doing damage even when “no actual women have been harmed”? I dunno. I certainly can’t argue with anyone’s desire to see naked, or near-naked bodies. Hell, I used to sneak my brother’s Playboys out of his room, so obviously not! ; ) So I guess I can’t argue with a woman’s desire to take advantage of that impulse, and make money off it, even. It’s just that as long as the *real* power dynamics of sexism are still at play in society, I wonder how free that “free choice” really is.
Or maybe I’m just tying myself up in knots.
Davis X. Machina
@Adam L Silverman: And a horse track in Hong Kong.
Technocrat
@Nate Dawg:
To be fair, there are some genuine issues with voter disenfranchisement there.
Also, “disenfranchisement” is a ridiculous word. I got lost in my head halfway through it, and had to google to verify the resultant monstrosity.
LAO
@Adam L Silverman: LOL
Adam L Silverman
@Nate Dawg: I highly recommend Geoff Johns run on the JSA, make sure to include the crossovers with JLA – you can get them all as graphic novels bundling the story arcs together.
Also, his run on Green Lantern and then that leading into the Sinestro Corps War and Blackest Night. I also recommend Trinity – not the long story arc that covered a year of continuity in the DC universe, but the one off graphic novel telling the story of how Wonder Woman, Batman, and Superman meet for the first time. Batman: The Long Halloween is also quite good. As are Loeb’s other couple of Batman graphic novels. I also highly recommend Alex Ross’s Justice and his Kingdom Come.
redshirt
@Mnemosyne: Also too, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby are both Jews who changed their names once they got into comics, just like the protagonists in the book.
Omnes Omnibus
@Miss Bianca:
If you can do that, you would have made a mint had you taken the gig. Just saying.
Adam L Silverman
@redshirt: this too!
Frankensteinbeck
@Adam L Silverman:
I don’t see the sex industry as inherently evil in any way. It should be regulated to prevent the easy opportunities for abuse, but most industries are like that. Banks, for example. A considerably bigger problem is the stigma and criminalization that prevents that regulation, and makes sex workers unable to take their grievances to the police or government, even in the legal branches.
If women are driven into a job they find exploitative because they lack money, then there are many things we need to do, like make sure they have other options, everyone can make a living, or making the job less exploitative. Getting rid of the job itself is removing their last (if unwanted) option.
Disclaimer: I am a white male who has never so much as set foot in a strip club. While naked women are great, being that close and not allowed to touch would just be weird to me. Also, I have pretty high standards of beauty, and the styles encouraged in all branches of entertainment do not meet my tastes.
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: Its a hard question to answer. Every time you think you’ve worked it out, there’s something else to grapple with.
redshirt
@Miss Bianca: I don’t believe there can be such a thing as a “Free” choice, since we are all conditioned by our surroundings, our history, our chemistry, etc.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@NotMax: What’s-his-face would be John Walker, later known as USAgent.
@Adam L Silverman: I was about to dig up those links about Cap. And yes, the early stories didn’t hit you over the head with it, but as a kid in the South in the early 1970s, I thought it was pretty damned obvious. I was reading them in reprint before the Claremont team’s first appearance.
Also impactful: this Defenders storyline from 1975. I will never forget the young woman confronting Nighthawk, the rich boy pseudo-Batman of the team, that the tenement burning in the background was all she could afford on what the government thought was enough money for her and her baby to live on. Was also my introduction to Luke Cage.
Mnemosyne
D’oh! I just posted this in the wrong thread, so here it is again:
Also, for the comic book fans, you guys know that Superdickery is back, right? He moved the whole thing to a brand-new site to clear out the malware and is posting regularly again.
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
The Giffen/DeMatteis run. Technically, JLI (I sit corrected).
For the non-comics savvy, a picture.
And, just because, leave us mention for a brief moment the hero group which dares not use its acronym: All-Star Squadron.
Nate Dawg
@redshirt: Just finished volume 1, and was really loving that it was written by a real writer (big Gaiman fan!)….and yet it was shaky and I could tell going somewhere better.
Unfortunately I ordered the third volume instead of the second, so I’m on here now instead of nose buried in that. ;-p
Adam L Silverman
@LAO: I didn’t get a harumph out of that guy!
Miss Bianca
@redshirt:
Second dat.
Amir Khalid
@redshirt:
I’ve always wondered: why did Stan Lee feel the need to take an Asian name?
Technocrat
@Miss Bianca:
I imagine it’s a similar dynamic to minority actors hired to play thugs and gangsters. It’s obviously exploitive on some level, but it’s also voluntary and lucrative.
Nate Dawg
@Adam L Silverman: Awesome. My brother suggested the Long Halloween after I stopped halfway through The Return of the Dark Knight (or whatever, the big one is) bored out of my mind.
Hoping it’s better. I just copied and pasted your suggest list so I can tool around on goodreads and add them to my wish list.
Any non-superhero suggestions?
Frankensteinbeck
@Adam L Silverman:
Have you read the Grant Morrison run of Doom Patrol? Volume 2, Issue 19-63? It is… very, very strange, and amuses me.
Adam L Silverman
@Frankensteinbeck: I agree on the economic issues. And on bringing this from the underground/illegal and semi-legal economies into the regular one and being able to regulate for safety.
The US has a really weird set of hangups that are a cross between Victorian values and Iron Age gender stereotypes.
redshirt
@Nate Dawg: Yeah, it starts a little shaky with Volume 1, but it just gets better and better. You can feel Gaiman finding his voice as he goes along, and once he gets it, WHAM! Amazing.
Adam L Silverman
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: I remember that Defenders run. Good stuff.
NotMax
Hm. Two comments now either in moderation or gone totally bye-bye.
FYWP.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman:
Ah, yes… the old “every time you think you’ve finally cottoned onto the whole truth, you realize you’ve still only got a part of the truth” phenomenon.
In an ideal world, that realization keeps us humble. ; )
redshirt
@Amir Khalid: Shortened form of “Lieber”. More American, I guess. Or, if you prefer, just a version of his first name, Stanley = Stan Lee.
LAO
@Adam L Silverman: You know, just got home from an unexpectedly shitty and long day of work, think to myself, I wonder what”s going on at B-J and here I find you into two major conversations: (1) strip clubs and sex workers and (2) comic books. So just a normal Wednesday.
PS — I always check your links but I usually don’t comment BUT Blazing Saddles in my favorite Mel Brooks movie (even if the ending sucked).
ETA: Apparently, I saw Blazing Saddles in the theater, but I was too young to remember.
Miss Bianca
@Technocrat:
H’mmm…*very* interesting analogy. You have seen “Hollywood Shuffle”, I imagine?
Adam L Silverman
@Amir Khalid: Anonymity. Lee is the most common surname on the planet. If he wanted to really be anonymous he would have gone with Muhammed Lee as Muhammed is the most common first name. And yes, that episode of the Big Bang Theory was on in rerun tonight, why do you ask?
In all seriousness, his real surname is Lieber, so Lee made sense in shortening it.
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
Trying again, sans links.
The Giffen/DeMatteis run. Technically JLI (I sit corrected).
Nate Dawg
@Adam L Silverman: Give the Governor a Harumph!
Monala
@Jeffro: I’m on my phone so I can’t do a link. Google “Harrison” spoof. It’s hilarious, especially the line, “and I’m the damn germ that got him!”
Miss Bianca
@LAO:
I’m afraid I started the “sex worker” hare. Not that others weren’t happy to course it…
ETA: But I’d already had two hours of politics with the “Drinking Liberally” wing of the local Democratic Party this evening….
Peale
@Nate Dawg: they need his voters.
It will be interesting if it is true that they are going to launch a third candidate in order to preserve their seats.
But I’m still not certain what the problem they have with Trump. Has no one else ever run on building a wall? Many governors attempted to drum up fear of refugees last year and get them barred from resettling in their states. That’s almost every elected republican governor. Their Congressmen just passed a bill to allow them to do that, which is the first salvo I guess in stripping the federal government of determining who gets to live in the country and would give rise to official segregation again (I mean, if they can bar refugees, why not bar green card holders from living in their communities). So how is this different from trump and mainstream republican thought? If every governor they have has signed on to it, how can it be said that it’s going to lose?
Omnes Omnibus
@Nate Dawg: Harrumph, harrumph, harrumph!
Technocrat
@Miss Bianca:
Oh yes. I had forgotten about that one!
redshirt
@Miss Bianca: Great movie. Nice reference!
NotMax
@Frankensteinbeck
Shall also mention that what Alan Moore did to breathe new life into a moribund, on its last legs title, Swamp Thing, was astonishing.
LAO
@Miss Bianca: A valid topic of conversation! just laughing at the juxtaposition between that and the comic geekery.
redshirt
@Adam L Silverman: I cannot believe we live in a world where they are not only going to do a Defenders TV show, but first give each of the main members their own shows to build up the story. As a kid I never dreamed such a thing would have been possible, and yet here we are. The Age of Miracles.
stinger
@Marc: Have you ever been a speaker in a large, drafty space filled with thousands of people? Even with a great sound system, you can hardly hear yourself speak, and if you’re already hoarse from weeks and months of that kind of thing, you feel you must speak even louder to compensate.
All the people who made fun of the “Dean scream” — the mike picked up his voice and partially masked the ambient noise for TV broadcast, but he couldn’t even hear himself over the crowd.
So give a girl a break, huh?
Miss Bianca
@Omnes Omnibus:
Ah…you…why, I oughta…
Bobbi *could* do that, btw. Even with a metal pin in her hip from a motorcycle accident. She showed me the photos. I could never have been the pro she was, I’m afraid.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Nate Dawg: Second redshirt’s recc for Sandman, and I’ll toss in an enthusiastic recc for the new Ms. Marvel.
Mnemosyne
@Nate Dawg:
Fun Home by Alison Bechdel is a great, non-superhero graphic novel (and now an award-winning musical!) The first volume of “Sandman” is Gaiman having to use a bunch of DC characters he wasn’t that interested in using. He himself says that it was “The Sound of Her Wings” that is the real start of what he wanted the series to be. When I was reading Sandman heavily, I definitely started to remember my dreams better and notice how weird they were (but I’ve always been a bit of a lucid dreamer).
In a weird coincidence, I was thinking about A Game Of You just last night.
LAO
@Miss Bianca:
No excuses necessary. I feel all politiciked out too and I haven’t been drinking.
Adam L Silverman
@Nate Dawg: Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. The problem with that story run is that Miller’s neuroses come out more and more the deeper you get in. You can see this in the art getting worse and worse and worse page after page. The second one is even worse and my understanding is the one he’s working on now, even though he’s been given a chaperone, is even worse.
I’m also a big New Gods fan. I highly recommend the Legion of Superheroes: The Great Darkness Saga. And the much more recent Death of the New Gods. Identity Crisis is considered to be a critically acclaimed hit. A lot of people aren’t thrilled with it, but I thought it was, overall, a good story. The other reason I like Alex Ross’s Justice and Kingdom Come is that they are both Captain Marvel/Shazam heavy comics and I’m a big fan of that character. And he treated it right. I also would recommend Darwin Cook’s Justice League: New Frontier and his Superman graphic novel, though I can’t remember the title right now.
On the Marvel side I think you should get X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills, X-Men: The Dark Phoenix Saga, and X-Men Asgardian Wars, Wolverine by Claremont and Miller, X-Men Days of Future Past, and the first X-Caliber Omnibus.
burnspbesq
@jl:
Of course they are. What else would they say?
Saying doesn’t make it so.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Oh! Almost forget, and I still can’t edit, so….
Princeless.
Deconstructs all sorts of fairy tale tropes.
Adam L Silverman
@Frankensteinbeck: I’m a Doom Patrol fan and I do believe I read that run.
Miss Bianca
@NotMax:
Issue 20. Which I had an original copy, sigh…jusst found myself thinking about it the other night, don’t know what happened to it, or any of my other comics from the 80s. But “Swamp Thing” convinced me to give the old warhorses DC and Marvel another try…I was an indie girl. Cerebus the Aardvark, Elfquest, Omaha the Cat Dancer… ; )
Frankensteinbeck
@Miss Bianca:
I tend to go with a moral version of a judgment system I’ve put together for literature/media. It’s not the event, it’s the context, especially the subtext. A strong female character is actually misogynistic if your framing is that ‘strong’ means that she’s as good or better at some specific skill as men, and speaks as if she were equal, but her role in the story is still as a support role for men. (I’m looking at you, Peter Jackson.) She can be weak and scared and be good for feminism if she drives the story, and creates her own ending, not the men around her. Sex and violence in media show no sign of doing damage to psyches, but I’m damn sure that the framing of 80s movies where the hero who did heroic things was a selfish macho shit caused massive cultural damage. So, in this case, the solution would be to not treat sex workers like the job was inherently degrading. If they’re given the respect, in legal and work conditions and public status, of other professionals, then it stops being a problem. On the other hand, if they’re paraded as if women showing off their bodies is something shameful they’re forced to do for the enjoyment of men, everyone is going to take away that message about female nudity.
NotMax
@Mnemosyne
Okay, maybe third time will be the charm if I try a different tack.
Just for you.
Also this.
LAO
@redshirt: Excited for Friday? I know I am. Plan to watch the last couple of 1st season DD episodes tomorrow to get ready.
Miss Bianca
@LAO:
Come on – THIS crowd? Comic books and sex workers are a *natural* two-fer!
I must say, I find the late night threads a great deal of fun…the problem is staying up…
pseudonymous in nc
@burnspbesq: quite.
And as Clay Shirky noted today, the red/blue/purple state thing does not fucking apply during the primary. Democrats are voting for the Democrat they want to be president. It was bad when Team Hillary started tried that in 2008, and it’s bad when Team Bernie tries it in 2016.
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman: I hear you about it not being reversed any time soon, I’m just saying that the grifters who might be envisioning a Trump win and all of the contracts that might flow from such a scenario probably also see the sequester lifting (at least for Defense)
I mean if they’re going to dream, they might as well dream big.
LAO
@Miss Bianca: I’m running on fumes. How all of you chat until the wee hours is beyond me. I need my beauty sleep (or maybe brain sleep?)
Miss Bianca
@Frankensteinbeck:
OMG, you are *really* opening up a can of worms here! Or is it, “going down a rabbit hole”? That whole “strong woman character” thing and the issue of female representation is a *raging* debate topic among my author buddies…
Technocrat
@Frankensteinbeck:
Did you see Mad Max? If you did, I’d be curious about your take on Furiosa.
Mnemosyne
@NotMax:
You do NOT want to Google “Hamilton Laurens fan art.” Don’t go there.
Jeffro
@redshirt: I think it’s meant to be a fictional version of Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster, the creators of Superman. It’s an awesome book!
Miss Bianca
@LAO:
well, I am on CO time… so it’s only 9:30 here. Still, when Luna the Wonder Husky gets me up at 5:30, it is starting to approach bedtime…
Jeffro
@Mnemosyne: Ah, my bad at #199, you got there first!
Frankensteinbeck
@Miss Bianca:
I read all three of those. I didn’t have easy access to Omaha, which I guess is why I stopped almost as soon as I started. I abandoned Cerberus about issue #100, when it stopped being fun, and the writer’s breakup made him rewrite the world into a paean to misogyny. Elfquest, uh… to be honest, it started getting creepily pedophiliac.
LAO
@Mnemosyne: I didn’t listen.
Mnemosyne
@Frankensteinbeck:
Now I’m trying to remember which Sandman comic had the goddess Ishtar working as a stripper. I think it was Brief Lives.
redshirt
@LAO: Yes, and no. I’ve acquired Netflix access via The Colonel (aka Dad), but I still have bandwidth limits. Thus, I’ve been mentally planning out how I can watch season 2 of DD in a reasonable amount of time while not breaking the bank. For reference, each episode is about 1gb of data, and Verizon charges 15$ for every 1gb of data overage. I get 18gb per month but I use most of that for work. So….
For the record I liked DD way more then JJ, but I think it’s mostly because JJ was so relentlessly depressing. I think Luke Cage was the only ray of sunshine and even he got compromised.
Mnemosyne
@LAO:
Here in California, it’s only 8:30. I think most of us late-night folks are West Coasters. That, or insomniacs.
redshirt
@Jeffro: It makes sense, but those two are actually mentioned in the book, so it would be kind of odd if it’s also sorta based on them. Lee and Kirby make a lot more sense to me, especially equating Lee with Clay. But I’ve got a lot of the book left to read so maybe it will become clearer.
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
And Watchmen. Mustn’t forget that.
For non-superhero graphic novels, can never go wrong with anything saying “written and illustrated by Will Eisner” on the cover.
@Miss Bianca
Big ElfQuest fan, from the original appearance in (IIRC) Fantasy Quarterly, before the bi-monthly WaRP publication.
Would recommend the collection of that story to anyone with no hesitation. In fact, have the boxed four volume hardcover set.
If only the Pinis had let is stand and left it alone after the original 20-issue story finished.
Frankensteinbeck
@Technocrat:
I thought Mad Max was delightful, and extremely well written. Furiosa and Max drove their own plotlines side by side and interweaving, but they still each had their own plot in which they were the driver. They were both relentlessly competent in different ways. In that regard, I thought especially brilliant was the moment when Max is trying to shoot the approaching car. He gets to the last bullet, and hands the gun to Furiosa, and lets her use his shoulder to steady the barrel. That shot HAD to hit, and while Max is a better improviser, Furiosa is the better shot. They both knew it, so she took the shot.
But both the coolest and the most feminist thing in the movie were the badass motorcycle warrior grannies. Did you know they did their own stunts? SO COOL.
As a writer, I will note that it is really, really, really freaking hard to tell a story with almost no dialog. Mad Max did it. I was impressed.
Miss Bianca
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
May I just mention how much I loved Luke Cage? I was a really far too serious little kid and even tho’ I loved superhero comics (and Adam West’s “Batman”), I still thought the concept of grown wo/men running around in costumes kinda silly. So Power Man just rocked. my. world.
And then he was gone!! Suddenly I couldn’t find any Luke Cage comics anymore. Is it true he shows up in that Jessica Jones teevee show?
redshirt
@Mnemosyne: @Mnemosyne: You are correct. The Sandman road travel volume.
LAO
@redshirt: That sucks!
Once I got passed the relentless violence of DD, I really enjoyed it. But I also liked JJ (my favorite Doctor as the resident villain, sign me up) and I thought Ritter was great but of course, I never read her comic so no preconceptions or expectations.
ETA: a few words I left out, because I’m tired and having being writing a bail application all night.
Mike J
@Frankensteinbeck:
At the time I couldn’t tell you why Cerberus started sucking, but my unenlightened self could tell you that it just wasn’t as good as it used to be. I reread five years later and understood.
Mnemosyne
@redshirt:
Other way around — it’s a common way to avoid nuisance lawsuits. If you (even loosely) base characters on real people but also put those real people in the book, at least by name, they can’t sue you for libel or defamation if they don’t like what the based-on characters do.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@redshirt: I’m still nominating both for Hugos.
*sigh* Gotta get back to my Campbell award reading in the morning. For anyone looking for new SFF to read, take a look at the Campbell-eligible writers anthology, free until 31 Mar.
Miss Bianca
@NotMax:
Word on the first series of 20, which I still think is some of the BEST comic art/storytelling ever.
Tried to read the later EQs , and couldn’t get into ’em.
NotMax
@LAO
Time zone r0ulette.
Not long past 5:30 in the afternoon here.
Jeffro
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
Superhero stuff recs:
– John Byrne’s FF
– Walt Simonson’s THOR
– anything Frank Miller did with BATMAN or DAREDEVIL
– Dixon’s NIGHTWING
– Robinson’s STARMAN (for the older and/or more nostalgic amongst us)
Non-superhero stuff recs:
– Ellis’ TRANSMETROPOLITAN
– Azzarello’s 100 BULLETS
– Gaiman’s SANDMAN and pretty much all spin-offs from that (including the LUCIFER series)
– Ellis’ PLANETARY
– Wood’s NORTHLANDERS
And everyone should go back and read all of Dark Horse’s CHRONICLES OF CONAN, at least the first 8-9 volumes…fun stuff!
LAO
@Mnemosyne: Well, I am as a Eastern Time Zoner — I’m going to wish you all you West Coasters a good night and head to bed.
Miss Bianca
@efgoldman:
Great (?) minds thinking alike.
And me walking right into that rake. Or, knot.
@Frankensteinbeck:
Yeah, I gave up on Cerberus eventually.
EQ pedophiliac? Lord, I missed *that*. Gladly so.
Mike J
@Nate Dawg:
The Hill, today:
Technocrat
@Frankensteinbeck:
Yeah, I thought the “shoulder shot” was a brilliant way to show the interdependence of the main characters rather than “telling” it. He also allows a woman to be physically imperfect (the arm), while contrasting it sharply with the ethereal beauty of the “wives”.
Did NOT know the grannies did their own stunts.
Jeffro
@redshirt: it’s been a while, but I think it was both (based on them, but also references them).
Mnemosyne
@redshirt:
It’s in a box right now, but I own one of these.
Omnes Omnibus
@Miss Bianca: Neither of us was judging.
redshirt
@Miss Bianca: Hell yes! Luke is a regular on JJ and his own show is launching late this year on Netflix.
Frankensteinbeck
@Technocrat:
Everybody did their own stunts, on real moving vehicles no less. The director was going to let the grannies be the only exceptions. The grannies said ‘Hell, no, we play this like everyone else.’ And so they did. HARD. CORE.
Jeffro
@Mike J: I’m telling y’all, when all is said and done, the Establishment GOP is going to wish they had just handed over the party to Trump with a ‘good luck’ and a blown kiss, then started up their own Freedom Party.
So many R voters are going to stay home this November, it’s going to kill them down ticket. I’m not sad about that but still…how do they not see that coming? By the time they get to Cleveland, even participating in the convention legitimizes Trump for most, and worse yet for them, it’ll be far too late for any ‘Freedom Party’ to get going.
Technocrat
@LAO:
Niters.
I’m off too. Almost midnight here.
Miss Bianca
@Omnes Omnibus:
I should hope (k)not, indeed! ; )
redshirt
@LAO: I thought the violence was the most realistic in any comic book treatment I’ve ever seen. The hallway fight of episode 2 is a work of art. It’s a violent world with violent solutions, but there’s consequences.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: Or afraid to sleep because the clowns will eat me.
Nate Dawg
@Mike J: Nice find.
So I’m starting to think that Drumpf won’t actually be the nominee.
Heard Rush-on-Oxy was proclaiming that JEB* would be resurrected from the crypt and trumped out as the “next Preznit of the United States”.
Honestly, I wouldn’t blame them for doing that. I think I’d applaud it.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Miss Bianca: Luke Cage is very important to Jessica’s story, both in TV and in the comics. He’s played by Mike Colter.
I will warn you that Jessica Jones the TV show is very, very dark. Very.
Luke will have his own TV show this fall. There will be an Iron Fist TV series soon; the casting was announced a week or so ago.
He’s been heavily featured in the Avengers comics for a few years now.
And for something lighthearted, Luke Cage: The Hero Your Hero Could Smell Like Sweet Christmas!
Miss Bianca
@Frankensteinbeck:
OK, I guess I’ll have to watch “Furiosa”. Tried to watch the original “Mad Max” to prepare and was just disgusted with it and stopped it mid-way thru’.
@Omnes Omnibus:
You gotta get rid of that bed, man…
redshirt
@Frankensteinbeck: All the vehicles are real too. They spent years searching junkyards to come up with all the parts. It’s an amazing movie.
Anya
I watched a full Don Lemon segment and I didn’t hate him. What’s wrong with me?
redshirt
@Miss Bianca: An interesting thing about all the Mad Max movies is you don’t have to see any of them to get them. They’re not really connected. The latest movie is independent of the previous movies, so there’s nothing really lost if you haven’t seen them. In fact, the latest is so much better then the priors that maybe it’s better not to have seen the earlier films.
Mnemosyne
@Miss Bianca:
Mad Max: Fury Road is more a remake of The Road Warrior than of Mad Max, FWIW. Definitely a lot less feminist since it was 1981, but surprisingly gay-friendly. And, yes, same writer/director re-envisioning his own work more than 30 years later.
ETA: And, yes, there’s no need to watch the other two at all. It’s a reboot, not a sequel.
Miss Bianca
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
oooh…oh boy. Luke Cage on TV…sigh.
Well, you pleasant and delightful people, it’s been a stone gas to hang with y’all, but I am off. *And* I’m retiring for the night.
redshirt
@Jeffro: This makes total sense to me, given the genre Chabon is mining in the novel.
NotMax
@Mnemosyne
Heh. Made me walk across the room and pick it up to read the base. #803/3000.
redshirt
@efgoldman: Here here!
LAO
@redshirt: that fight scene was amazing. I’m not a comic book girl, so the violence took some time for me to get used too. I didn’t find it gratuitous, just relentless. Trust me I was hooked, the hero’s day job is criminal defense attorney. And I used to live in Hell’s Kitchen (it was absolutely filmed in that neighborhood)! No way I wasn’t going to watch it.
Good night all for reals.
redshirt
@NotMax: NERDS!!! :)
Adam L Silverman
@LAO: Its one of my two favorite Mel Brooks movies. The other being Young Frankenstein. And I agree completely about the ending. Going meta, and really uber meta, was just strange.
I can combine comics and strippers:
http://marvel.com/universe/Ecdysiast
And no matter how hard I try I can’t find the panel from Superman/Batman VOL 1 #14 where in an altered reality Wonder Woman and Uncle Sam, trying to reunite The Seven Soldiers of Freedom/The Freedom Fighters, go searching for Sandra Knight aka Phantom Lady. In this altered reality they find her literally working the pole in a strip club.
Mnemosyne
@NotMax:
Mine is in a box so I can’t verify the number, but it’s the original run.
Omnes Omnibus
@Miss Bianca: It’s a perfectly normal IKEA blond wood bed.* I don’t think the clown came from IKEA. However, if they do, I probably have some kind of warranty claim.
*I know the Simpson’s episode.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: Yep, I’m familiar with it. Some of the stories were good, some were meh.
redshirt
@LAO: The hallway scene is a single take too, which is amazing when you consider how many people are involved, and fight choreography being rather specific.
Good night! Good luck protecting the world!
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: As opposed to the liberal drinking wing of the local Democratic Party?
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Just turn the switch to “good” instead of “evil.” Problem solved.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@redshirt: I have only one thing to say about the hallway fight:
Dat microwave!
redshirt
@Mnemosyne: LOL. Nice references.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: I did say clowns, didn’t I?
Mnemosyne
@redshirt:
True story: I won my spouse of (now) 10 years with my “Simpsons” references.
Also true: One night when we were dating, lo these many years ago, a commercial came on one of the cable channels with a clip from Monty Python (I think it was Palin and Cleese doing a weather report and jumping around like madmen). I am, of course, laughing, and the text says, “If your girlfriend is laughing right now …
… Marry her.”
Reader, I did.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yes, clowns.
“Guess who, fat boy?”
redshirt
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: The best part of the scene for me is the brief pause at the end, when the last goon has been dispatched, Murdoch is staggering, but takes a moment to catch his breath, then lifts his mask and goes into the room to save the kid. Because he knows the kid can’t handle the mask.
Adam L Silverman
@LAO: And in case you’re now wondering, this is Phantom Lady:
http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/marvel_dc/images/c/c5/Sandra_Knight_001.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20130505144301
https://powboombang.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/phantom-lady-collage.jpg
redshirt
@Mnemosyne: More LOL. That’s awesome.
Frankensteinbeck
@Nate Dawg:
If they make Jeb9.9 the candidate somehow, there will be Hell to pay. It’s the only thing I can think of where you might see massive defections, a real third party formation, something where the GOP actually breaks instead of shedding a few moderates, having a mildly depressed turnout, and turning off remaining minorities.
redshirt
@Frankensteinbeck: G*d I hope it happens. We’re so close to it actually happening, I can feel it.
Adam L Silverman
@redshirt: Provided a world war doesn’t break out, it is certainly a magical time.
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
Am a sucker for runs that are done for nothing more than sheer fun, hold the angst (Big Red Cheese fan as well).
Early issues of Young Justice and also Impulse. Legionnaires.
@redshirt
Not that there’s anything wrong with that…
@Mnemosyne
There was more than one production run? (Original here, too.)
LAO
@Adam L Silverman: God damnit. Can’t sleep, brain to busy. But thanks to you, I now see the connection between the sex workers and comics. Lol
Mnemosyne
@NotMax:
It appeared so on eBay, but I couldn’t really tell.
redshirt
@Adam L Silverman: Wait, do you think a world war is immanent?
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: Well, that’s my point. One can fix a Crusty doll (and I already know how to do that, tyvm), but lots and lots of actual clowns coming to eat one are a different thing. You deal with your neuroses, I’ll deal with mine.
redshirt
@LAO: What time do you have to get up tomorrow?
Adam L Silverman
@Mnemosyne: It was Brief Lives:
http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/sandman/images/d/dd/Ishtar.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20151221191912
redshirt
@Adam L Silverman: She cooks all the would be Johns in their desire. It’s wonderful.
Mnemosyne
@Adam L Silverman:
I know my Sandman storylines. She even had a graduate student co-worker.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: I couldn’t read Watchmen. I get the point that Moore was trying to make, but it was so convoluted and hard to follow, because he was so out of his gourd on drugs, that I just gave up. You could see similar losing thing the thread problems in V for Vendetta, but that was still easy to follow.
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: Yes!
Peale
@Frankensteinbeck: yep. The republican powers that be are really bad at picking candidates on their own. Bush would be pitch perfect for this situation because he was so clearly rejected by voters. And I really can’t imagine Republicans being drawn to the polls to protest a Trump candidacy with any establishment candidate. Maybe a bush/Ted nugent ticket would draw some interest.
Adam L Silverman
@redshirt: As someone who has been doing martial arts for over 30 years and been a bouncer, that is one of the most realistically choreographed fight scenes I’ve ever seen.
Nate Dawg
If the party breaks apart, the future is going to be very difficult to predict…Exciting times, and better them than us!
LAO
@redshirt: Joy of self employment — nothing scheduled till 2 pm, can work from home til then (at least that what I’ll tell my partner.)
NotMax
@above
Cannot avoid pointing out that Cerebus is the comic book aardvark, not Cerberus, who is a rather testy doggie of mythology.
@Mnemosyne
Serendipity, as some were talking ElfQuest above.
This happens to stand in front of and slightly to the side of the Sandman statue. (Not a picture taken by me.)
redshirt
@Adam L Silverman: That’s surprising. I thought Watchmen is like one of the top 5 graphic novels ever. But I hear you too – it never really captivated me.
Viva BrisVegas
@jl:
Magellan thought that he had made it all the way around because of his slave.
Magellan had been with Albuquerque at the capture of Malacca in 1511. As a result he had a Sumatran slave called Enrique who could speak Malay with him on his circumnavigation. When he hit the Philippines his slave had no trouble communicating with the natives and as a result Magellan believed he was within spitting distance of circumnavigating the globe. Which he was, until he was killed.
After which Enrique ran away and presumably went home to Sumatra. If so, Enrique was the first person to actually to circumnavigate the world.
Adam L Silverman
@LAO: Anything to help a resident junkie…
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: I’m a huge Legion of Superheroes fan.
redshirt
@Adam L Silverman: That’s a vote of confidence. I only have 15 years experience but I felt it. I was always utterly exhausted after even brief sparring matches because I felt like I dedicated my entire body, mind, and soul towards it, and it’s draining.
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
Heretic!
:)
Moore cribbed a bit from Superfolks, but did it with panache.
Adam L Silverman
@redshirt: No! I don’t see it happening. Despite what a lot of people throw around, and that she is more hawkish than President Obama, my impression is that Secretary Clinton has a good understanding of how to blend and use all elements of national power other than military power, until there is no other choice.
And should Mr. Trump or Secretary Cruz somehow get elected, and they start abrogating treaties and agreements and trying to throw America’s weight around militarily, they are going to find that our allies and partners are no longer really so willing to assist.
LAO
I feel like I owe you an apology for my glibness about COWS, I read an article on opb,org, that JJ Macnabb tweeted, about how actively involved state law makers were at Malheur (and Bundy Ranch). They were much more involved then I believed.
Aleta
@Marc: With due respect:
To me, there’s quite a disconnect when smith (at 77) says:
and you reply:
redshirt
@Adam L Silverman: Good to know. I know some are hawking a renewed Russia v. USA hostility and I’m glad you’re not one of them. I think Obama has handled Russia (and the world) perfectly, given the cards he had to play.
redshirt
@LAO: No pressure then. You could easily stay up till 3 AM EDT and get up around 10 or so and make a full day of it.
Adam L Silverman
@redshirt: Between the story within the story and how convoluted Moore wrote the main story line, it was just unenjoyable. I did like his Killing Joke.
Moore, however, was clearly in his descent into making less and less sense as an author. I don’t know if you’ve seen his pitch and synopses for his Twilight of the Superheroes, but it is clearly the work of someone who’s fried his noggin:
http://sabotagetimes.com/life/the-graphic-novel-that-would-have-changed-comics-forever
This second link has all the section breakdowns:
http://web.archive.org/web/19970411100007/www.hoboes.com/html/Comics/Twilight/
redshirt
@efgoldman: Yep. As such, they only have one option: Bow to Trump. And we all know they will.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: Again, I think it was a great idea. I just think the execution was hard to follow. Take a look at this link to see just how nuts he got:
http://web.archive.org/web/19970411100007/www.hoboes.com/html/Comics/Twilight/
redshirt
@Adam L Silverman: I’m never one to judge an artist’s work based on their life. I don’t think it’s ultimately relevant.
LAO
@redshirt: True. But I am a dreaded morning person. I will be around 6:30 am, no need to set an alarm. It’s pretty annoying actually. Just means, that by 4 pm, I’ll need a nap.
Mnemosyne
@Aleta:
I thought at first he was going for a straight informational critique — as in, there is voice training that will allow you to speak loudly without injuring your vocal chords — but then it got a little weird.
And that was before the topic turned to comic book strippers.
redshirt
@LAO: That’s why God(man) invented caffeine. I’ve re-discovered recently that being highly caffeinated is a great path to success.
LAO
@redshirt: I think Clinton, and I know I’m being simplistic, got tagged with the War Hawk label because of her Iraqi war vote. I thought she did a good job as Secretary of State, and set up much of the progress Kerry has been able to accomplish.
LAO
@redshirt: lol. Its the reason I cant sleep — stuck in office till 10:30, drank a cup around 9:00. Once I hit 40, coffee at night kills me. But if I could marry coffee I would, that’s how much I love it.
redshirt
@LAO: I think you’re right, but it’s a wrong assessment. A lot of then Senators voted for the Iraq resolution. Joe Biden among them. If Biden were running for President, do you think there would be such a concern on that vote? I doubt it.
It’s another example of a sexist double standard Clinton faces.
danielx
@efgoldman:
And probably guns, too, don’t forget them. Chicago 1968, which I watched on live on tv as a kid, was (relatively) unarmed lefties, reporters and McCarthy supporters getting the shit beaten out of them by the Chicago police. I can’t say for sure what percentage of Trump supporters are firearm owners, but I’d bet ten bucks against a stale doughnut that it’s a significant overlap, let us say. If Trump has even a plurality of delegates and doesn’t get the nomination, there is going to be blood in the streets because people will think they’ve been robbed, which of course they will have.
If I was a Democrat, lefty, progressive, and didn’t have to be in Cleveland, I wouldn’t go within a hundred miles of the place during the convention. Stock up on drinks and popcorn and watch the Republican Party tear itself to pieces in HD. But don’t go there without bodyguards, good insurance and good lawyers because it’s going to be a bloody mess.
Naturally, it will be Obama’s fault.
Amir Khalid
@Viva BrisVegas:
“Enrique”? Doesn’t sound like any Sumatran name I ever heard. ;)
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
Fan since their first appearance, bough at the newsstand (still have it).
Curt Swan was and is still a much underappreciated artist, with an easy to look at, clean style. Super types he drew in flight looked as if they were flying.
Chatted with Mr. Moore at one time over drinks (pre-Watchmen, if memory serves). Vaguely recall we verbally danced across about 1128 topics over the span of 10 or 15 minutes.
Adam L Silverman
@redshirt: I’m working up a post on Russia’s withdrawal from Syria. Should be up some time tomorrow.
Do I think we’re in a new cold war with Russia? Yes. But it can be managed if we’re smart and people that actually recognize and understand what Putin is doing are making the decisions. Putin has a limited set of objectives:
1) Ensure that he has coup proofed himself and there can be no color revolution or Russian Maidan. He has, for all intents and purposes and for the time being achieved this.
2) Extend his near abroad and sphere of interest, specifically back into Russia’s/the Soviet Union’s traditional ones. He’s accomplished a bit of this. He’s got parts of Georgia and Ukraine. And he’s made himself a player again in the Middle East, but that’s it for now.
3) Following from 2 above he seeks to roll back NATO expansion and, whenever possible, try to weaken NATO and the EU.
4) He seeks to roll back US influence and, whenever, possible, try to weaken the US.
2, 3, and 4 are all based on Putinism, which is partially based on Duginism. This is one part CounterIntel mindset, one part revanchism, and one part the attempt to assert/reassert that Russia is the historic heir to the Soviet Union’s superpower/great power status. Putin, Dugin, and others really believe that the US, via the EU and NATO expansion, took advantage of post Soviet Russia; support (color) revolutions in the former Soviet republics and elsewhere; seek to deny Russia its rightful place as a great power; and are only willing to engage it as a peer/near peer when the US or NATO needs something. All of the neo-fascist/neo-Nazi and separatist/Nationalist movements and parties in the EU are being supported by Putin and his government. Front National overtly, all the others covertly. If he can break up and weaken the EU, then he breaks up and weakens NATO. He’s even supporting the biggest of the Texas secession parties believing if Texas breaks away, the rest of the US will simply fall apart. Both of those last two concepts are absurd. Syria was largely not about defeating terrorism/IS or really shoring up Assad, those though were the stated goals. Rather it was to force the US, NATO, and the EU to actually engage with Russia. And to cause trouble for NATO by getting Turkey spun up. And while Putin’s actions in Syria aren’t responsible for the refugee situation, he has certainly tried to amplify and maximize its effects in Europe to achieve his end of building up the Nationalist parties that wish to dismantle the EU.
redshirt
@LAO: Coffee amazes me, but then most of this world amazes me. Consider someone/someones figured out long ago if you took the seed from a fruit and dried it then ground it then ran hot water over it, it would produce a wonder beverage. Amazing!
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: Moore is clearly a creative genius. When he’s on, he’s amazing. When he’s not it can be ugly.
Amir Khalid
@LAO:
That’s not what you get from certain commenters here. According to them, Hillary didn’t achieve much of anything at State; when Kerry came aboard in 2013, he had to do everything from scratch.
Nate Dawg
@Adam L Silverman: I absolutely adored Watchmen and found the disorientation exhilarating. To say the genre suffers from predictability is a bit of an understatement. I enjoyed the epic scope and newness of the whole thing.
Moore like like he’s mentally ill from the photos he choses to use. Given his political beliefs, it wouldn’t surprise me if he were somewhat.
LAO
@Adam L Silverman:
Not to make light, but money well spent I say (disagree that the remaining union would not survive, but instead flourish)
redshirt
@Adam L Silverman: Agreed 100%. That’s my take as well, and it’s why an approach like Obama’s works, since you don’t engage the obvious provocation. I shudder to think how a Republican – even a “normal” one – would handle the same situation.
Russia is still eating itself. The best course is to contain it and let it keep eating.
LAO
@redshirt: I know, right. Pasta also amazes me! Serious genius.
@Amir Khalid: I know, I disagree with them.
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
Presume you’ll be working in that Russia now has a separate permanent operational air base in Syria in addition to the long extant naval base.
Nate Dawg
@redshirt: See, this is fascinating @Adam L Silverman: And it makes me wonder, why can’t we have these sorts of ideas/discussion at a basic level here in the U.S. Why do politicians and media constantly prefer to talk in silly cliches that *they know* are just smokescreen for the realpolitik behind the scenes?
it makes it very difficult to have a discussion with anyone on the other side, because if you were to discuss any of this, they would be parroting John & Lindsey’s ridiculously silly talking points aimed at securing their right flank for primary season. It’s just maddening.
NotMax
@redshirt
People had a lot of time on their hands before television.
:)
Steeplejack
@Nate Dawg:
Suggestions for non-superhero graphic novels.
I second Mnemosyne’s recommendation of Bechdel’s Fun Home. I would add: Hyperbole and a Half, Allie Brosh; Here, Richard McGuire (hardback); Ghost World, Daniel Clowes; Maus, Art Spiegelman; Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi; Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth, Chris Ware.
redshirt
@LAO: All food is amazing. Consider the history of edible fungi and how many people died to bring us this history. Or pie. Who first invented pie? Or even the simple egg – there are literally a few forever anonymous people in our collective history who figured out you could cook an egg. How did they do that?!
Fair Economist
@Adam L Silverman: I didn’t have any trouble following Watchmen once I got to the end. There were bits that were hard to follow for a while, but that’s because there’s intended to be several mysteries going on. It all made sense by the end though
@redshirt: When Watchmen came out it was absolutely amazing, definitely a top 5 of all time. But that was 35 years ago and the competition has gotten significantly tougher.
LAO
@redshirt:
A hero, forgotten by time, but no less magical.
redshirt
@Nate Dawg: It’s the media. I’m convinced the media is 85% of our political problems in the US and I’m sure elsewhere.
While the Republicans are vile, venal, etc, it’s the media that allows it to happen. Change the media and all of a sudden everything else changes too.
NotMax
@redshirt
According to QI there are still over a thousand new species of mushroom being discovered and catalogued each year.
A story was included about someone testing a package labeled porcini mushrooms bought at the supermarket and discovering three previously unknown species in just that one sample alone.
LAO
@efgoldman: If this goes to a contested convention, or the “elite” jimmy the rules to take the nomination away from Trump then the violence will not be limited to Cleveland. And, I believe there would be violence.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: Yes, I’m tracking that.
redshirt
@LAO: Similar heroes invented pudding, cake, iced cream, chocolate, etc. Food is amazing.
Adam L Silverman
@Nate Dawg: We have trouble both learning history and learning anything from history. Everything here has to be filtered politically through ideology and in the case of the media a combination of the view from nowhere with analytical experts who usually aren’t, and when they are they are filtering through an ideological lens, and in anything dealing with foreign or defense or security affairs the media response is hysterics. Everything, as a result, is like a medieval map where significant portions say “Here there be dragons”.
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: Its up. I’m getting ready to rack out. You all have fun!
NotMax
redshirt
Cleek’s great great great (etc., etc., etc.) grandparent.
;)
Adam L Silverman
I’m going to rub doggie bellies and crash. You all have a lovely night.
Steeplejack
@Mnemosyne:
InsomniacsNight owls. When I am in Las Vegas i particularly notice that even in the late-night threads relatively few of the commenters are (self-identified) West Coasters.Nate Dawg
@Adam L Silverman: The media is driven by ad revenue, so I suppose the blame lies with the American people since there is good programming out there (Democracy Now, Bill Moyers, etc.)
I think it’s remarkable that even in my lifetime we’ve gone from candidates speaking about education and taxes and war and peace to MOOSLIMS and INELIGIBLE and BUILD A FUCKING WALL ALREADY.
Not a word from anyone about education, when the reality is, that we won’t be able to maintain economic superiority in the 21st Century without strong education. Ditto the silence on climate change.
SingleTwo most important issues. The problem, of course, is that these are long game moves, with little immediate payoff, and our Republic isn’t fashioned for such things.Read an interesting article about globalization and political science that posited countries like China, and to a lesser extent India, will be more able to capitalize on the opportunities presented by globalization because the U.S.’s system of checks and balance is too slow to respond to a rapidly changing information age.
This rings true, and I think our stubborn adherence to the Constitution will doom us in the long run when other players have more flexibility.
Nate Dawg
@LAO: There Will Be Blood is looking more and more like a prophetic work of symbolism about the hubris of the Republican Party, and how appealing to naked greed and individualism eventually corrupts. Right down to the scenes where Daniel gets baptized by the crazy evangelical preacher, who he later beats to death in his own bowling alley.
redshirt
@Steeplejack: Besides Bill in Glendale I don’t believe West Coast night owls exist, because if they did they’d be posting with the East Coast early birds.
VFX Lurker
@Nate Dawg:
If your local library system participates, check out Hoopla! You can borrow up to 15 graphic novels a month for up to three weeks at a time. Titles include SANDMAN, THE WALKING DEAD, SAGA, A DISTANT SOIL, HELLBOY, and Carla Speed McNeil’s FINDER. I only wish I’d found out about this sooner.
Steeplejack
@redshirt:
True.
NotMax
@redshirt
Used to see a lot of Yutsano, but he’s been a rarity for a while.
redshirt
@NotMax: Does Hawaii count as West Coast?
redshirt
@VFX Lurker: If you can read Sandman for free that’s cool because buying the graphic novels will usually set you back over 120 US dollars.
NotMax
@redshirt
Only if one squints really, really hard.
;)
mclaren
@Nate Dawg:
The Republican Party’s new slogan: “I drink up your milkshake from across the room!”
redshirt
@NotMax: California defines the culture, yes? Or no?
mclaren
@Nate Dawg:
A garbage issue. Utterly insignificant.
As Larry Summers has pointed out, the time to call for more education as a fix for the U.S. economy has long since passed. We are now on the downward curve of machines taking human jobs, and from here on better education will merely create degree inflation — and pretty soon the minimum requirements to work as a janitor will be a PhD, and MBA, and postdoc experience. And that job will soon get taken by a robot.
Calls for better education do nothing other than create a vicious game of musical chairs where the people with the jobs get ever more rarefied and more expensive credentials for doing the same jobs. Once upon a time, to be a librarian you needed a high school education. Then the minimum requirement became a bachelors degrees, then a masters. Now it’s trending toward PhD. All so you can tell the 14-year-old kid who wants to write a paper on Rosa Parks what Dewey Decimal number to check under? Gimme a fuckin’ break.
Education is a shiny object ignorant people grasp at to avoid the underlying issue: our economy is creating too few jobs for the population. Claims that Americans need more education particularly for STEM jobs have been proven to be grotesque scams by tech companies that need an excuse to ram through more H1B visas in order to cut labor costs. What we need is a radical change in the underlying economy, because the real economic problem in America remains too few jobs with too many people chasing ’em.
Guaranteed minimum income and social credit offer the two most promising radical recent suggestions. Education is shit, it won’t do a goddamn thing to revive the middle class, but guaranteed minimum income or social credit might do it.
See “Education is Not the Answer,” Harpers magazine, June 2013, for more specifics.
mclaren
@redshirt:
No. Not any longer.
Look at key issues in the last few years and you’ll see that California is no longer the original + xerox machine of U.S. culture.
Example 1: CA voted against gay marriage. The rest of the country went the other way, and when the Supreme Court ruled, it left CA in in the odd position of being behind the times sexually and socially.
Example 2: CA maintains a fanatical anti-marijuana stance, whereas the rest of the Pacific Rim has legalized the stuff. Once again, CA is now reactionary and behind the times.
Example 3: CA continues its effort to become a vast gulag with a really nice ocean view. The rest of the country is turning away from the insane prison-industrial model pioneered in CA.
Example 4: CA now spends more money on prisons than on colleges. The rest of the American culture has turned in the other direction.
Once upon a time, CA really was a progressive force for social change and the rest of the U.S. followed suit. Today, CA has become a troglodytic retrograde center of reaction, and the rest of America has turned its back on KKKalifornia KKKulture. The original + xerox machine of popular culture is now the Pacific Northwest, not California. Silicon Valley in particular has become so libertarian-reactionary that it’s starting to toxify the entire image of California.
NotMax
@redshirt
If you mean defines the culture in Hawaii, no, not by a long shot.
Citizen Alan
@Adam L Silverman:
Don’t know if I’d call it subtle in the classic era. IIRC, Iceman’s origin story is that Cyclops had to save him from an actual lynching.
mclaren
@Adam L Silverman:
Au contraire: America always learns from history, just the wrong lessons.
The lesson America learned from losing in Vietnam was to lock down hard on press coverage and eliminate the draft — both very bad lessons. Now all America’s wars are Vietnam all the time.
The lesson America learned from the Great Depression was to double down on panopticon surveillance and crank up the miltiarized police response to economic protests to 11. Very very bad lessons.
The lesson America learned from the War on Drugs was to ball in hard with major military-style response. Incredibly bad lesson.
I’m guessing America will learn a big lesson from Donald Trump’s candidacy, and a very bad one. (“We need a much more literate much smoother and more charismatic Il Douche! We need a Hair Fuhrer with an Ivy League education!”)
Nate Dawg
@mclaren: Wishing OO were here to see the autodidacts rant on the evils of education.
You are focusing on degrees rather than knowledge. Believe it or not, engineering, math, & science, and medicine actually require education. This starts with math and science learned as a child. Without that foundation, students simply cannot learn how to code, or solve scientific problems, analyze data, you name it.
PurpleGirl
@NotMax: Never got into reading comics, however I remember when the Pinis began writing and drawing the Elfquest stuff back in the 1970s (IIRC). I always found the characters creepy — the big eyes and eyes, etc.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Citizen Alan: That’s the story I was going to go through my old reprints to find. I was afraid I had mixed him up with Nightcrawler, also saved from a lynching, or that it was something later retconned into Iceman’s history, but it looks like that story is from 1968.
Something people don’t remember now is that the X-Men predated the first black superhero, Black Panther, by three years and the first AA superhero, Falcon, by six. Magneto as a holocaust survivor was a later retcon, but bigotry stories were baked into the mutant concept from the beginning. As with many other stories in the SFF spectrum, it’s often been safer to invent something fantastic as a vehicle for examining current events than to set a story in the current day. By 1968-1970, when most of the early black superheros started appearing, it was safe to approach such stories more directly.
NotMax
@PurpleGirl
No less creepy than, say, hobbits.