Men of Mendacity

I was brought up with the idea that if you can't say anything nice you should say nothing at all. Admittedly, I don't always achieve that, especially during election season, but I certainly make the effort. With that in mind I'd like to take a moment to praise the loudest of the talking heads who ally themselves with the political entity that once deserved to call itself the Grand Old Party.

On the one hand, they expound about all the things they and/or the candidate(s) they support will do to make America "great again". On the other, without missing a step, they dismiss the incumbent President as someone who doesn't believe in the greatness of America. It takes a lot of mental pliability and/or mendacity to express those conflicting ideas with the level of conviction they muster. For that, if nothing else, they clearly deserve our admiration.

Regarding the "nothing else", what can I say? Last I checked, for all its flaws, America is still pretty great. If the standard bearers of the Republican party don't share that view, perhaps they should look inside themselves for the source of the problem rather than throwing rhetorical stones at the current President.

Ann and Christie

Watching Ann Romney speak at the Republican National Convention, it's hard not to be impressed by the enthusiasm she conveys in trying to convince us what a wonderful man he is. For her part, Mrs. Romney seems as nice as she does full of crap for claiming that the time she and her husband spent in a little basement apartment with modest means were the "best days" of their marriage. I was struck by the subtle invocation of certain stereotypes about African-Americans when she repeatedly talked up how hard-working her husband is when talking about the criteria people should focus on when deciding who they should elect as president. Above all, though, what I loved was how hard she (and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie who spoke after her) worked to emphasize their families' humble beginnings and struggles for opportunity as the GOP looks to dismantle the programs that provided the stepping stones to those opportunities. It's amazing what some people will applaud.

The Path to a Better World

Some people look at the world the way it is and say "Why?" I prefer to look at the world the way it should be, devise ways of making that happen, then use those plans as a means to get the aforementioned group of people to invest. At this point, I pocket the money I've raised from those rubes and head for the Cayman Islands or some other locality without an extradition treaty. After all, no one said it had to be a better world for everybody.

Political Bane

While I've come to accept that ugly is the new normal for political campaigns, the rumors that Mitt Romney tortured and killed a male prostitute then defecated on their corpse are way out of line. First off, the gender of the prostitute should not even be an issue. Secondly, Romney hired others to execute the torture and the eventual murder that took place after hours of unspeakable cruelty. Most importantly, Governor Romney merely urinated on the corpse and only where the throat was slit. Attacking one's opponents over genuine policy differences is to be expected, but if we give our tacit approval to the spreading of lies then we don't deserve to live in the greatest country in the world.

You're a Real Jerk Sometimes, Superman!

A favorite joke of mine involves a guy at a bar betting one of his fellow patrons that he can jump out of the window of a tall building without getting hurt. The set-up is a little convoluted and doesn't lend itself well to transcription (as opposed to live performance), but the punch-line is, "You're a real jerk sometimes, Superman!" I recently came across a Superman story from decades ago that could have inspired this joke.

In the November 1950 story "The Secret of the 6 Superman Statues" (Action Comics #150), a greedy inventor named Morko attempts to trick the Man of Steel into using his powers in ways that would make the inventor and his henchmen wealthy. Though Superman foils Morko's plans in a ways that help others, he's frustrated by the realization that Morko and his men didn't actually break any laws. Rather than let that minor technicality dissuade him, Superman resolves that "a trickster like [Morko] shouldn't go free!" and tricks the inventor and his men into attacking what they think is simply a statue of Superman. This manufactured assault in turn serves as a pretense for Superman to take them to jail.

As those who've read Superman's early adventures know, he wasn't always the "big blue boy scout" we know him as today, with implied and not-so-implied threats of violence being a typical method of getting results. The difference is that the people whose civil liberties were being violated in the early stories were genuine bad guys. When compared to the various  murderers, wife-beaters and war-mongers, a greedy man who didn't actually hurt anyone seems like a rather petty target for someone with such great power.

Superman's ruse seems driven more by having his ego bruised as a result of being used by Morko as it is by any particular sense of justice. Simply put, it makes him seem like far less of a hero. For those who love this icon, it's a good to know that the past sixty-some years have brought his actions and the values he represents into closer alignment making him a bit less of a jerk.

Must Fail TV

I don't feel the need to pile on about NBC's lackluster coverage of the London Olympics in general and the closing ceremony in particular. The number of posts on Twitter that use the hash-tag #NBCfail suggest that ground is pretty well covered. That said, it's pretty sad that, in an event intended to highlight British contributions to popular culture, the network opted to slight the most quintessentially British of the major "British invasion" bands – one that could alternate between straight-out rock and literate slice of life stories - The Kinks. While Ray Davies may be a little worse for wear at age 68, I'll take his performance of "Waterloo Sunset" over the travesty that was Paul McCartney singing "Hey Jude" at the opening ceremony any day. Here’s a link to the performance that NBC saw fit to cut in favor of multiple performances by something called Jessie J: http://www.examiner.com/video/ray-davies-closing-ceremony. Enjoy.

Viability vs. Fry-ability

I hate to go on about Chick-Fil-A, which has gotten too much attention from everyone for mostly wrong reasons, but this picture from their Facebook page struck me as a little disconcerting. Considering the company's outspoken support of socially conservative causes, I just can't shake the feeling that this piece is somehow a beachhead in a broader campaign against abortion. What troubles me even more is that those waffle fries are pretty damn tasty.

Chick-Fil-Why

I'm truly of two minds about the current Chick-Fil-A/gay-marriage uproar. It's not just because their nuggets and waffle fries are delicious or that the company is supporting some hateful organizations. It isn't even that the idea of turning lunch into a political statement - one way or the other - seems vaguely ridiculous. It's more about whether all this energy and effort could be better directed.

As much as I believe in economic actions as a means to express contempt for a company whose actions disturb you, I have to wonder what the protests and counter-protests are really accomplishing. Neither side is likely to convince the other of anything and, while it's unclear whether the debate is helping or hurting the company itself, the rank-and-file employees have become the recipients of verbal abuse pretty much just for being there. If the goal here is truly to celebrate human dignity, I feel like we can do better. Let's put aside the question of whether we should patronize Chick-Fil-A due to their corporate support of anti-gay groups, because the truth is we probably shouldn't patronize them anyway. We live in a country where (to borrow from Charles Dickens) want is keenly felt, and abundance rejoices, not to mention one with a significant obesity problem. If we really want to take Chick-Fil-A to task, we should use the money you would have spent there and/or the time you would have spent protesting them to support a local food pantry. My own group of choice is called Olney Help, but these organizations are all over and severely stretched for resources these days, because the need is so much greater than it was even a few years ago. For that matter, I would put the same notion in front of "supporters" of Chick-Fil-A as well, as I recall from Sunday School that some dude in the New Testament said a lot more about caring for the poor than he did about who should be able to get married, let alone where they should eat.

The Other Doctor Manhattan

With the possible exception of the overwhelming success (both artistic and popular) of The Avengers movie, the biggest comics story this year has actually been a batch of smaller stories. Between DC Comics' contentious decision to release prequels to Watchmen and the ongoing lawsuits by the heirs of Jack Kirby and the creators of Superman against Marvel and DC respectively, the treatment of comics creators by "the Big Two" has definitely put a negative light on a form of entertainment intended to celebrate justice and good. On a more positive note, it's also drawn attention to creator-owned comics titles.

The biggest player in this area, Image Comics, turns 20 this year and got a nice birthday present in the form of an article in the New York Times. Among the topics touched on was creators who write DC's and Marvel's characters on a work-for-hire basis while creating their own (and owned) titles for Image. While the article gave a much-deserved nod to the series Fatale, by Captain America writer Ed Brubaker, I was disappointed that another key Marvel writer's series wasn't mentioned.

Writer Jonathan Hickman has been writing The Fantastic Four the last couple years. As good as some of those stories have been, they pale in comparison to his original series The Manhattan Projects, a collaboration with up-and-coming artist Nick Pitarra.

As the title suggests, the series is set in the 1940s around the Manhattan Project with a cast of characters that includes Robert Openheimer, Albert Einstein and Harry Truman. However, despite the presence of familiar people and and events, both the project and those surrounding it are far removed from history as we know it. The series is also far removed from the standard alternate-history approach. Put another way, Hickman is not dealing in what-ifs but rather WTFs.

It's hard to offer details without spoiling the story, but a telling keyword is "multiple". The scientists involved are engaged in multiple projects beyond the atomic bomb, we encounter multiple US presidents and Doctor Openheimer has multiple personalities for good measure. Another key multiple can be found in issue #4, but again I don't want to spoil anything. The key here is that these multiples add up to something tremendously (some would say mind-blowingly) good.

It's a dicey proposition to compare any series, especially one that's only five issues in, to one of comics' landmark series, but this comic bears genuine comparisons to Watchmen. Though Pitarra's art is a very different style to Dave Gibbons' work on Watchmen, it certainly fits the tone of the story. As for the story itself, its intersecting plot threads traversing time, place and mental space may be even more complex than the parallel structure Alan Moore deployed on Watchmen.

Obviously, time will tell if that comparison holds true or is just my enthusiasm running away with me. I only hope that Hickman's upcoming Avengers title for Marvel won't mess with the release of The Manhattan Projects. I'm well and truly hooked and can't wait to see what happens next in this version of the past.