Slugfest: A Very Brief and Incomplete History of Marvel vs DC

A couple years ago there was this new thing called Quibi where they had a bunch of high profile names like Kevin Hart, Anna Kendrick, Christoph Waltz, Kiefer Sutherland, etc who made these shows where the episodes were only 10 minutes apiece and you were supposed to watch them on your phone or tablet, not a TV.  There were a lot of commercials and a big rollout...that failed.  The company went under and like a year later all that stuff got bought up by Roku and added to the Roku Channel, which is free for Roku users.  

Anyway, Slugfest is a documentary from Quibi about Marvel and DC Comics.  There are 10 10-minute episodes so you can watch the whole thing in under 2 hours.  There are plenty of documentaries on comics already, but some of the episodes in this focus on smaller events.  

The first one talks about the creation of Captain America and how pissed off the Nazi Bund in New York got about it.  Writer Joe Simon and artist Jack Kirby received death threats, but the character's growing popularity finally had the mayor promise to station police outside their office.

Then there was the first "crossover" of Marvel and DC that happened in the late 60s thanks to a guy in Rutland, Vermont (known to MST3K and Rifftrax fans as the home of Edgewood Studios) who threw elaborate superhero costume parties.  Three comic book writers went to one of these parties and worked it into stories for two Marvel and one DC comic.  They didn't use the actual characters or anything, just kind of off-brand versions of them like "Nighthawk" instead of Batman.  

In another story, in the 70s Stan Lee was nervous about an issue of Dr. Strange where a guy goes back in time to the beginning of the universe and sees God.  One of the writers (probably while high) wrote a fake fan letter from a fake reverend and mailed it from Dallas, TX.  The letter fooled Lee into thinking that religious people were cool with the issue.

Another one was about the first real crossover of Marvel and DC where Superman and Spider-Man were to fight.  It took negotiating on the level of the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt to get anything put together.  It illustrates why these "vs" comics are usually bullshit because they aren't really made to be realistic.  In this case neither company wanted their guy to look bad so all these rules had to be made.

Another story talked about the breakup of the legendary duo Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.  They had worked together pretty much since the beginning of comics from when Marvel was Timely Comics.  But they had different personalities with Lee being a lot more of the showman while Kirby was more reserved.  With the success of Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, etc Lee was getting a lot more credit in the press and so in the early 70s when Kirby got a huge offer from DC, he took it.  In the pages of Mister Miracle, he created a manager who was a parody of Stan Lee named "Funky Flashman."  Lee did not really like that, though I don't think they ever really had it out and probably had buried the hatchet years later.  This episode probably would have been better if both men weren't already dead so they could only interview other people like assistants and relatives and such.

Another interesting story was how in the late 70s DC hired a woman to help revive their struggling comics.  She had the idea to introduce a whole bunch of new titles and so a bunch of writers and artists were hired.  And then there was a big snowstorm that really messed up sales, which back then were entirely in paper and mostly at newsstands and the like.  So a few months later they had to cancel most of this new stuff and lay off most of the artists and writers hired.  Some of the writers and artists copied their material and put it all into an omnibus called the "Cancelled Comic Cavalcade" that there are a few copies of today, like in DC's archives.  (Ironically, DC made sort of the same mistake in 2011 with the New 52, introducing a bunch of new titles that within 2 years had pretty much all been replaced by Batman or Superman titles.)

There were some more high-profile things like the infamous contest to phone in and decide whether Robin (Jason Todd) would die or not.  This story was better in a History Channel documentary I watched in 2003 because they could still talk to Dennis O'Neil, the Batman editor of the time, who passed away by the time this documentary was made.  They could at least talk to writer Jim Starlin about it.  If you don't know, Robin received the death sentence by less than 50 votes.  And of course Jason Todd didn't stay dead but returned about 15 years later as the "Red Hood" who is sometimes a bad guy and sometimes a good guy.

There was also one about the Death of Superman and another about the Clone Saga in Spider-Man.  The Clone Saga was just supposed to be a few issues but as the sales rose, they had to keep going.  Then everyone bitched that it sucked because the writers had to keep throwing in stuff to keep the story going for almost two years.  The Death of Superman is a pretty well known story:  the comics were going to marry Lois and Clark but then the Lois and Clark TV show came along and they needed to do something in the comics to replace the wedding.  Writer Jerry Ordway suggested they just kill the Man of Steel and so that's what they did, though they always knew they were going to bring him back later.  A lot of people bought issues of Superman's death thinking they would be worth something...but they weren't because there were so many copies.

The last one focuses on Stan Lee's "Just Imagine" comics where, after being released from bankrupt Marvel Comics, Lee was asked to write new origins for DC's iconic characters.  And then it talks about Lee's death not much before this came out.  

The segments feature some reenactments starring comic book movie/TV actors like Brandon Routh, Clark Gregg, Ron Perlman, Tim Blake Nelson, and Patrick Warburton.  And it's narrated by ubergeek Kevin Smith.  For some reason they interview people from the Netflix Marvel shows:  Vincent D'Onofrio, Krysten Ritter, the lady who played Karen Page, and the lady who played Misty Knight.  I don't know why since none of them are really experts on comics or the comic book industry, but whatever.  

Since these are only 10 minute episodes, it can't really give as much detail as a full documentary on the subject, so the ones about smaller things are better served.  I mean you could do hours about the Death of Superman or the Clone Saga in Spider-Man but most of those other ones I mentioned, 10 minutes is about enough time to cover it.  Obviously there's a lot more they could have done; maybe they can make a Slugfest 2 someday.  Though I would doubt it since Quibi went under.

When Are You a Writer?

 A couple of months ago I mentioned how much I hated the Amazon movie The Tender Bar.  The main character, JR, quotes someone as saying that you're a writer as soon as you think you are.  At the end of the movie he says that leaving Long Island to go to Manhattan makes him a writer.  Um...why?  It seems more arbitrary than Luke Skywalker declaring himself a Jedi because he fought Vader a second time.  And then arbitrarily declaring himself a Master later on.  

As for the quote, whoever said it might have been famous, but I don't agree that thinking you're a writer makes you one.  To me, you actually have to write something to be a writer.  And really I think you have to write something all the way through.  Once you type "The End" (or some variation) then you've actually become a writer.

Because the thing is, plenty of people can THINK of writing a book.  People all the time think about writing something.  Many of them never do it.  Many others will start but never reach the end.  I do not consider those people to be writers.

Think of it this way:  if someone enters a marathon but doesn't actually go, are they a marathon runner?  No.  Just because they thought about it doesn't mean they did it, thus they don't earn the title.  If they run part of the way and pass out and never finish then they might be a runner, but they are not a marathon runner because they did not actually run a marathon.

It should be pretty obvious but thinking of doing something doesn't mean you did it.  That's some pretty lame Millennial bullshit where you should get credit for something you didn't come close to doing.  What the kid leaving for New York has to do with him being a writer, I have no idea.  New York is filled with writers and people who might think they're writers but never actually DO anything and people who might start some writing but never finish.  All that along with plenty of real writers who actually publish books to make them authors.

Since JR published a memoir (God only knows why anyone published it) he did eventually become a writer (and an author) but just thinking he was a writer and leaving his home did not make him one.

But that's my opinion.

Amazon's Worst-In-Class Delivery Service Shows the Danger of Vertical Monopolies

 Back in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries there was a type of monopoly known as a "vertical monopoly."  This was where a company controls basically every step of the process for creating and selling its product. The best example of this was a steel company would own the mines to get the raw minerals, the transport to get them to the mills, and the mills to turn the raw materials into steel.  So they basically owned every step of the process of production.

Like horizontal monopolies--the type where say, US Steel would own every steel mill in America, or how "Ma Bell" controlled all phone service in America until it was broken up--this was outlawed early in the 20th Century.  That doesn't mean there aren't still vestiges of it.  For example, a few years ago Amazon switched from using UPS and USPS for its packages to its own fleet of delivery trucks.

This seemed like a good idea for Amazon because while there would initially be a cost in vehicles and employees, it would ultimately save money.  And in theory it might be more efficient and better for the customer, right?  Wrong!  Amazon's delivery service is the absolute worst.  Worse than the postal service!  And that's saying something.

It didn't start out so bad but as the pandemic progressed, it just got worse and worse.  I'm sure staffing issues are a big part of it.  The people they hire are probably the ones who couldn't get hired by UPS, FedEx, DHL, or the post office.  So they're just not very good at their jobs.  They don't seem to care at all, just half-assedly throwing stuff on steps or in doorways.  Where I live you're extremely lucky if they even get it in the right building.

The worst part is there is seemingly no accountability.  As a customer you can hit the thumbs down on your delivery, but you can't make a specific complaint.  You can contact Customer Service and they'll have someone call you.  Why?  Probably because they know their service is shit and don't want anything on the record for people to see.

One time when their driver threw my stuff on the middle of the steps in the snow I took pictures and posted them online to shame Amazon.  Of course I got one of those auto replies, "I'm so sorry, contact me and tell me what happened."  So it looks to other people like they're doing something.  But really that doesn't do anything.  I got an email back with boiler plate saying that you can include instructions for the driver.  So it's my fault because I didn't tell the driver not to throw my shit in the middle of the steps in the snow?

Sometimes I'll be coming home or taking trash out or something when they're delivering and I can watch in real time as they open a door and whip something inside or just dump shit on the steps.  They have no shame at all in half-assedly doing their jobs.  Why should they?

Not long after they started their delivery service, I came home one night and the driver was just staring at the doors to my building.  When I opened the door, he reacted with surprise and wonder, like I'd just unlocked King Tut's tomb or something.  Because apparently he couldn't figure out that there are two doors and the one on his right only opens if you open the one on his left first.  So I guess he never even tried opening the left door because it was unlocked and doesn't need a key card or anything.  That's the kind of intellect we're dealing with.

Twice in 4 days I had to track down packages that were left at an address ending in 600 not 601.  Because apparently they don't bother to really look at the labels and match them.  Which is literally a primary function of their job!  In my job if I don't match payments to the right account, I get an email or some bitch coming to my desk to complain.  But I don't think anything happens to these assholes because they do it again and again and again.

One of the major issues with trying to do something like this is Amazon had no experience at being a delivery company because their fulfillment had been done by others.  To their execs it probably seemed easy enough:  buy some trucks, hire some people, have the people drive the trucks and drop packages off.  How hard is that?  It turns out to be pretty difficult, at least to do it more than half-assed.  Unfortunately the customers have endure Amazon's growing pains.

But what can you really do?  Not order from Amazon, pretty much.  Am I going to do that?  Probably not.  So there's really no motivation for Amazon to get its shit together to have an actual, professional delivery service and not something worse than Doordash randos.  Really we need to get back to outlawing stuff like this because while companies can save a buck, it doesn't make a better service for the consumer.

On another note, something I've seen in a lot of reviews since the pandemic started is that Amazon is cheaping out on packaging.  Complaints are especially high for action figures because people want them in "mint" condition and then they get figures with boxes smashed like something from the Amazon Warehouse discount brand, making the figures almost worthless.  I've had other things packed really badly, like a jar of peanut butter that was just thrown in a light bag so when it got to me the safety seal was broken open.  I got my money back for that screw-up.  So besides being bad at delivery, Amazon has been bad at packaging too.

It's unlikely to happen anytime soon, but when you let quality slip this way, it opens the door for competition.  Poor packaging and poor deliveries disillusion customers to your brand and so when they can find a better option, they will.  See the auto industry in the late 20th Century or KMart in the 90s.  Walmart, Target, Overstock, or some new player might start eating up some of Amazon's business.  The downfall might never happen or not happen for a while but the poorer your company's product, the better chances of your company's demise.

I'm just saying.

When Do You Cringe?

This is kind of a sequel to Wednesday's entry.  I was reading a review of ABC's Abbott Elementary on Roger Ebert.com and it mentioned this Vox article that decrees Parks & Recreation, Harry Potter, and Hamilton to be "cringe."

There are different reasons, all of which are really just the author's opinions and not really backed by anything like factual evidence.

• Parks & Rec is "cringe" because the author (who's probably a Millennial or Gen Z) is disillusioned with Hillary, Obama, and Biden because they didn't slay all the worlds ills, wave her student loan debt away, and buy her a pony.
• Harry Potter is "cringe" because the author revealed herself to be a shitbag transophobe.  (I'll agree to that one.)
• And Hamilton is just not cool according to an episode of Gossip Girl, which itself stopped being cool a long time ago.  And the cool kids think our Founding Fathers were all slave owning, Native American slaying psychopaths and this play somehow glorifies that.

The thing with Twitter and Facebook and whatever, is there are always people desperate for attention by ragging on stuff.  Which is really just an extension of what pundits and critics have been doing for centuries in newspapers, books, radio, TV, theater, and so on.  I don't listen to Twitter or Facebook or Vox to decide what I think is "cringe."

A lot of things that might be "cringe" to someone else I don't really mind that much, in large part because of nostalgia filters.  The original Star Trek, and the 90s shows, and the original Star Wars movies can look kind of cheesy these days, but I don't really care.  They're still good stories and there are a lot of good memories.  I can easily rewatch old episodes of The Simpsons, South Park, Family Guy, Twilight Zone, Married With Children, MST3K, Earth Final Conflict, Transformers, GI Joe, Robotech, and Due South without any problem at all.

There are other things that I do find "cringe."  Like trying to watch Dukes of Hazzard or PeeWee's Playhouse or American Gladiators.  Nope.  I cringed.  The nostalgia filter didn't work.  Or just they don't really have good stories or acting or...anything really.  I'm pretty sure I mentioned when I watched some old Price is Right episodes on Pluto TV the games were mostly still entertaining, but a lot of Bob Barker's patter--cringe!

I suppose there would be books that if I tried to read them again I might cringe.  Like Hardy Boys books or shit like that I read when I was a kid.  But stuff like the Wingman books or Robotech books that I know aren't written well are still fun to re-read on occasion as escapism.

Music I was never really into much that makes me cringe now.  I suppose Journey or Billy Joel or Night Ranger would make someone else cringe, but fuck them.  Don't Stop Believin!

But anyway, unlike the author of that Vox article, I don't really decide something is "cringe" because it's not cool or the author or an actor or producer or whatever turned out to be a piece of shit.  Or childish disillusionment with the political process.  It's mostly stuff that just doesn't work for me on any meaningful level anymore.  If that makes any sense. 

I mean I'll still watch a movie Harvey Weinstein produced or Kevin Spacey stars in or old episodes of Chapelle's Show even though he's a bigger piece of shit than JK Rowling.  (Not for any racial reason but because he's also a transophobe who recently blackmailed his town into not including low income housing in a development project because he didn't want poor people living near him.)  If you try to avoid everything that's "cringe" or "cancelled" in one way or another, you'd be left with almost nothing.  You pretty much couldn't watch any Hollywood movie since ever because there's always been shitheads running the studios, producing the movies, and starring in the movies.  Most rock stars weren't and aren't saints either.  And authors...well, there are probably a lot of those classic ones who make JK Rowling seem like a saint.  Even Shakespeare would be "cringe;" I mean, have you ever read or watched The Merchant of Venice?  And just the title Taming of the Shrew is pretty misogynist.  Cringe!  And it's not like Big Publishing was a squeaky clean industry in general.

Basically the whole fucking world is cringe, so like what you like and if it don't hurt nobody else then the hell with it.  Certainly don't listen to some lame Millennial probably living with twelve people in a studio apartment in New York who writes for some third-rate website for exposure.  And don't listen to me either.  Listen to the voices in your head--so long as they aren't telling you to kill or anything like that.

And really for Hollywood or Big Publishing or any of those, the problem when you try to appease people like this "author" is that it's only temporary.  As soon as it's not fashionable anymore they'll dump you and whine about it being "cringe."  And/or they'll keep pushing you for whatever their cause d'jour is.  But for that matter, the MAGA types will turn on you the second you don't go along with whatever their latest conspiracy theory is.  If you disagree even slightly or argue for common sense or decency, they'll proclaim you "woke" and dump you.  Like one day I saw the search engine DuckDuckGo that was heavily favored by the MAGA types because it wouldn't strain out fake news said that it was going to downvote Russian disinformation.  Not eliminate it, just move it down the list.  Immediately MAGA types start proclaiming it "woke" and fleeing to some other site to get their Russian disinformation.  So really catering to the far end of either spectrum probably isn't going to help you for long.

So what do you find "cringe?"  (Besides this entry or this blog in general.)

Smoke

Smoke by Donald E. Westlake
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

As someone who started out writing cheap, tawdry paperbacks in the late 50s and early 60s, most of Donald Westlake's books are pretty short, under 300 pages. For whatever reason this 1995 novel is 452 pages according to Goodreads. It would really have been better if it had been as short as most of his other books because the story just seems to drag for no reason.

I bought this because I had recently finished rewatching the first season of Syfy's Invisible Man series from 2000-2002. It had a similar premise about a thief who's shanghaied by scientists into becoming part of an experiment that turns him invisible. But in that show the thief is implanted with a gland that secretes a chemical to bend light to make him invisible, so it goes over his clothes and it wears off after a little while.

This is more like the old movies where Freddy is injected with a formula and eats another one and his body becomes permanently invisible. He can't wear clothes or else he'll be visible. Being a thief, Freddy soon uses his new superpower for personal gain by robbing a fur storage place and jewelry wholesaler and so on. But there are obvious downsides, especially with his ditzy girlfriend Peggy. And then he's chased by a corrupt cop and people working for the tobacco company that inadvertently funded his creation.

All of this as I said goes on far too long. There are complications thrown in that don't really need to be there. At one point Freddy goes to a party where the scientists who created him are and then makes some critical mistakes that he should by then have known would cause him trouble. In particular he decides to "hide" by doing laps in the pool? It makes no sense. If he were just floating in the pool then he wouldn't be seen, but he should have known by then that the act of swimming would make it easy for him to be seen. This was after he drank champagne that he should have known would give away his location.

The way it ends, it could have ended a lot sooner. It's a nice premise and there are some fun bits, but there's just too much of it.

View all my reviews

Who Says You Can't Say That?

January (really starting on New Year's Eve) I rewatched the first three seasons of Arrested Development on Hulu.  Along with that I watched the latest season of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, one episode of which commented on Hulu removing some episodes of the series like the "Lethal Weapon 5 &6" episodes because one character plays the Danny Glover character in blackface.  And before that sometimes I read older books by authors like Donald Westlake or Lawrence Block.  And sometimes I think, "Geez, you really couldn't get away with that now."

For me, I don't think any of the stuff I mentioned is actually racist or should really hurt anyone's feelings.  Mostly because of the context.  None of the things I mentioned was ever really putting racism in a positive light.  In Arrested Development or It's Always Sunny it's really more about showing how arrogant and/or dumb the white people are.  When Lucille Bluth adopts a Korean boy and thinks his name is the Korean word for "Hello" or when her and her husband order Guatemalan painters around or mistreat their Mexican maid we're not supposed to sympathize with the white people.  Just like in It's Always Sunny, the other characters call out Mac for acting in blackface so even in the show it's clear that this is not something positive.  That's really why I think Hulu overreacted taking down those episodes.  And it's why I think I can continue to laugh at the antics of the Bluth family.

Probably the most offensive thing in Arrested Development was the third season plot where Michael goes out with a British girl (Charlize Theron) not realizing she's mentally handicapped.  She wears a bracelet that says MRF which he thinks means Mr. F when really it means Mentally Retarded Female.  But still a lot of it was how oblivious Michael and his family were not to realize her mental handicap early on.  So we're not supposed to be laughing at her but at him, which is why it isn't really offensive.

I've said before that during the pandemic, Mike Tyson Mysteries has been one of my favorite shows.  But Mike Tyson in real life is an ex-con who has a lot of personal problems.  Recently he got into a fight with an annoying passenger on an airplane.  Am I going to stop watching the show?  Hell no.  It's a stupid silly fun show and I mostly watch it for Pigeon, voiced by the late Norm MacDonald.  The show does even reference Tyson's real life bad behavior, like at one point where Pigeon says, "I think sometimes we forget this is Mike Tyson.  He could literally kill all of us!"  So, yeah, the show's writers are aware of it and I'm aware of it and none of us give a fuck because it's a fucking cartoon!

Last October someone wrote a review of Private Dick (Gender Swap Detective #1) decrying the use of the word "colored" for black people saying:

The time setting of this story maybe they would have used these words. But don't do it now, in a fantastical story where the point isn't about racism.

I don't really think it matters how "fantastical" the story is; the point wasn't being racist.  Dixie, the main character, isn't any more racist than Philip Marlowe was; it's just that being from the 1930s that's how she thinks.  It would be jarring (at least to me) if she were to call black people "African-Americans."  Even "black" wasn't a term people like Dixie used then.  In Raymond Chandler's books, Marlowe actually uses "Negro," which I don't think is really any better; to me "Negro" is just another way of saying that other n-word, so I've never really liked using it.

Ironically I was already addressing this issue in Guardians of the Swapverse for Kindle Vella.  In that story Dixie is brought to the present day, which of course is very jarring for her.  At one point she calls someone "Oriental" and gets told that people don't use that word anymore because it's racist.

When I read Donald Westlake's Spy in the Ointment from 1966, I commented on Goodreads:

Cancel culture shouldn't read this because there are some anachronisms concerning race and geopolitics. You have to read it considering the context of the period in which it was written.

I don't really remember everything in that book, but there was nothing too egregious in my mind.  One I read from the 70s called Dancing Aztecs was a little more problematic in the black characters from Harlem using dialect to sound like Jar Jar Binks and the dumb, sleepy guy from South America could be considered stereotypical.  Most of the white characters use the n-word too.  But like the TV shows I watched, the white people weren't really very bright either, so it wasn't really looking down on non-white people.

It's just that these days some people are so overly sensitive.  Like people getting upset that Gal Gadot (who's from Israel) is playing Cleopatra.  Or that Javier Bardem (who's Spanish) played Desi Arnaz (who's from Cuba) in a movie on Amazon.  To me that's like complaining an American is playing a Canadian--or vice-versa.  Or it'd be like complaining about Patrick Stewart (who's British) playing Jean-Luc Picard, who's French.  Or Bill Shatner (who's Canadian) playing Captain Kirk (who's from Iowa).  In none of those cases is anyone going around in "blackface" or "brownface" or anything other than normal makeup and in no way is anyone playing that to make fun of a particular culture.

But, again, I'm a middle-aged white guy, so no one really cares what I think about this, do they?

Meet the New Racism...Same As the Old Racism

 Especially recently, there's a new form of racism:  whining about anything that talks about racism!  It started with Florida banning "Critical Race Theory" in K-12 schools...despite that CRT is for the most part a specialized class for college students majoring in Law.  Other red states took up the cause, as did Fox "News" because there's no bullshit bogeyman they don't like.

And then it goes further with Texas and Tennessee and other red states wanting to ban teaching about the Holocaust and banning the graphic novel Maus, which naturally spurred people to buy that in droves, though probably that was mostly people in blue states where it won't matter.  Florida, not to be outdone, also passed a "Don't Say Gay" law where you basically can't talk about homosexuals in any way or you get put in the stocks--not really, but that seems not far off.  Then Texas, in this race to the bottom, decreed it would have Child Services investigate parents who encourage their kids to be transgender.  And Idaho said, "Hold my beer" by passing a law saying anyone who tried to give aid and comfort to transgender people could be charged with a felony--even if they do it in another state.

One day on my Facebook, this post appeared, despite that this is obviously not something I would be interested in.

To me the irony is that you have (mostly) white people whining about a book called White Fragility.  Hello, self-awareness?  What this post really is is about breaking the teacher's union, which of course is mostly pro-Democrat.  If you can use this to get fragile whites to try to opt out of the union, then that will decrease the union's power.

See where it says "No diverse viewpoints?"  That's what the new racism is.  It's something that trolls used on message boards like 15 years ago--if not longer.  They say something terrible about Obama or repost some terrible meme.  I say they're a racist.  They say, "No, you're the racist!  You hate whites!"  To which I say, "That's weird, because I AM white."  And then they say something like I'm a self-hating white or something stupid like that.  Blah, blah, blah.

By "diverse" viewpoints they mean that if you have a book complaining about white racism, you need some racist white screed too.  Because, sure, if you teach kids the light side you got to teach the dark side too, right?  They make this same argument with evolution vs Creationism where if you teach evolution you have to teach Creationism too!  It's only fair!  So we should probably then teach every creation myth that exists, right?  Right?  No?  Oh, right, we should only teach your mythology.  And then someone would say that you just want to teach your mythology--evolution--to which I would say that's not mythology, that's science.  And then they'd say "Nuh-uh" and make a bunch of bullshit arguments.  Blah, blah, blah.

Former NBC football reporter Michelle Trafoya whined on Fox "News" about CRT that she wants her kids to be "colorblind."  Well, no, making kids ignorant of slavery, the Civil War, the civil rights movement of the 50s-60s, and the Holocaust doesn't make them "colorblind;" it just makes them blind.  The idea is it's easier to persuade blind, ignorant young people to join racist causes than kids who might understand the history of racism and bigotry.  Only we wrap it up in a positive way by saying we want to protect kids.

Sadly, this tactic comes right out of Fascism 101.  In one of my favorite Twilight Zone episodes, the ghost of Adolf Hitler coaches Dennis Hopper on how to sway people to his fascist cause.  One of his tactics is this same sort of thing of turning arguments around.  "They say we're the minority?  I say we're the majority!  They say we're racist?  I say they're racist!"  So this definitely isn't anything new.

And then you get the Tony Laplumes who think they're being clever by running around shouting, "Both sides!  Both sides!" to try to muddle things even more.

I have pointed out a couple of times on Facebook where the left's "cancel culture" can go too far.  Like when the Houston bus authority for Black History Month put in seats dedicated to Rosa Parks and liberal morons were on Twitter saying, "What about Texas's voting rights law?  What about their abortion laws?"  Um, idiots, this is a bus authority in Houston; they have no control over what their stupid legislature and even dumber governor does.  The proper outrage would have been to say that all the money wasted on decorative seats could have been used to pay for low income people to ride the bus to jobs or grocery stores or doctors.

Another time was people were teeing off on Applebee's because CNN cut to an Applebee's ad during coverage on the war between Russia and Ukraine.  It's not Applebee's fault that CNN cuts to their ad.  Sure they bought ad time but they don't call CNN up and demand their ad get played right that second--presumably.  You can be outraged at CNN but why make fun of Applebee's for something that isn't their fault?  Instead of you looking smart or cool, doing shit like that makes you look like a fucking ignorant dumbass--just like Fox "News" viewers and QAnon morons.

That's really the thing here:  outrage culture on both sides usually targets things that don't matter or in most cases don't even make any sense.  There's a lot to be outraged about, but CRT and decorative seats are not really among them.  And trying to whitewash history to cancel outrage is in itself outrageous.  If that makes any sense.

This is Income Inequality in One Handy Tweet

 Someone retweeted this a couple of months ago and it perfectly demonstrates income inequality for you:

To break it down, this ridiculous tweet says this guy has no debts and saved money to retire at age 40--and you can too!

Except as the article tells you, this tool went to work for his hedge fund manager father, making $250K a year as his first job.  My first job out of college I made like maybe $12/hour back in 2000.  I didn't have a lot of debt but because I went to SVSU on scholarship/financial aid while this guy's rich parents probably paid for him to go to an Ivy.

Instead of paying rent, he lived in his grandpa's empty vacation home.  I had to live in a tiny apartment in Grand Blanc for like $400/month.  And when he wanted to buy a home, he used $500K his uncle gave him as a gift.  My one uncle gave me $20 on holidays when I was a kid and that was a big deal.  Most of my uncles gave me jack shit.  And if my nieces ever read this...check's in the mail, lol.

And he ONLY vacationed domestically.  I didn't take a vacation until 2005 and that was just to Maine.  The farthest I've gone outside the country is Canada!

It's ridiculous but this is how the rich (and their media enablers) see us poors.  There is that strain of "let them eat cake" like when Mitt Romney suggested that people in debt should just get a loan from their parents.  Because we all have rich hedge fund manager parents.  Donald Trump and his enablers consider him a "self-made man" when in reality he got started with a $1 million loan from his daddy.  My parents could barely loan me a couple bucks for gas.

Stuff like this is definite media enabling by making it sound like this is some simple man we can all emulate.  Sure, if we all have millionaire daddies, grandpas with fancy vacation homes, and uncles who give us half-a-million dollar gifts.  Whoever wrote this should really be ashamed--from his/her crappy studio apartment that probably costs $15,000 a year where he/she is struggling to pay off hundreds of thousands in student loan debt.

As long as tools like this are held up as "self-reliant" we'll never really be equal.

Sometimes a Mistake is Just a Mistake

 It's May the 4th, which Star Wars fans corrupted into some kind of holiday.  So appropriately let's talk about "science fiction" and mistakes.  A couple months ago one of my Facebook "friends" shared this Tweet:

And as sometimes happens, I took a moderate point of view and got yelled at by someone else:

There's really no profit in arguing with people on someone else's Facebook feed so I just laughing reacted and left it at that.  But really I don't think the comment is valid.  It doesn't matter that the books came before the movies.  I was talking about how people see the book in 2021, not when it was written.

I think if you go out and ask 100 people on the street, you would struggle to find one who would label Frankenstein as "science fiction."  In large part because of the movies we've focused mostly on the monster aspect, not the mad science aspect.  So if you go out and ask people what genre the book is, I'm sure 99% of those who actually know there's a book would consider it horror, not science fiction.  Checking on Amazon it's listed under categories like Classic Literature and Gothic Literature these days.  Not science fiction.

I also have plenty of stories that feature weird science, like the Chances Are books.  Do I consider them science fiction?  No.  Technically could you call them science fiction?  Yes.  There is "science" and they are fiction.  In the same way there is "science" in Frankenstein and it's obviously fiction, so it can be described that way.  Is that how even the author would describe it?  I have no idea.  But when I shelved the Chances Are books I didn't put them in science fiction; I put them like in Thrillers and Paranormal Mystery or something.  The same is true for a lot of Eric Filler books.  A few like The Cage, Reunion, and Only Human I would consider sci-fi because they were based on sci-fi properties:  Star Trek, Voltron, and Transformers respectively.  The rest, even if they feature weird science, I don't consider them science fiction because the "science" isn't really the major point of the story.  

That's less true with Frankenstein because Victor's obsession with raising the dead is a major part of the story.  But it's not necessarily the core of the story.  Really it's about the relationship between Victor and the monster and, really, who is the actual monster?

So to me this idea that The New York Times is trying to "erase" her is false.  It's just our perception of what is "science fiction" doesn't tend to include books like this.

But in today's culture it's easier to jump straight to outrage rather than consider it might just be a mistake or oversight.  That's not nearly as attention grabbing, is it?  But then I'm a middle-aged white guy, so it's easier for me to be less paranoid about this stuff.  If you're a woman--especially a black woman--you're probably a lot more skeptical about these things.

Still, it'd be nice if we could just chill out a bit.  Not everything is a conspiracy to discriminate against someone or some group of people.  Sometimes it's just a...

A to Z Challenge Reflections on What Might Have Been

Part of a future "B" entry?

The A to Z Challenge is over, again.  What did we learn?  Probably nothing except that I have too many Marvel Legends figures.  Though not really in comparison to people who have like whole rooms and storage garages full.  And like with my other figures I buy most of them on clearance or at a discount unless it's something I really, really want.

If it's like other years, some random people might have shown up sometimes.  Last year one got all huffy because my final post said I wouldn't see those people after the Challenge.  Guess what?  I didn't see them after the Challenge.  Any that showed up this year are probably already gone back from whence they came.  It is what it is.

When I was setting up this challenge, I thought of doing like a Marvel vs DC thing and do a Marvel Legends and a DC Multiverse.  But when I set to doing the DC ones I had more problems.  I had to fudge more of them and couldn't really find much for I or Y and I really had to fudge X.  I think part of that is they haven't done those as long as the Marvel Legends, but also about 90% of the figures they do make are Batman, and another 5% Superman, Harley Quinn, and Wonder Woman so that doesn't leave much room for all the many other characters they have.  Here's the list I came up with at this point:

• Azrael
• Bats:  Batman, Batgirl, Batwoman, Batman Beyond, Batwoman Beyond, Batwing...
• Cyborg
• Dr. Manhattan/Dr. Fate
• Etrigan the Demon
• Flash
• Green Lanterns:  Hal Jordan, John Stewart, Kyle Rayner, Jessica Cruz...
• Hawks:  Hawkman/Hawkwoman(girl)/Hawk & Dove
• Inque/Injustice/Isley, Pamela (Poison Ivy)
• J'onn Jonnz (Martian Manhunter)
• Katana
• Lex Luthor
• Mera
• Nightwing
• Ozymandias
• Palmer, Ray (the Atom)
• Quinn, Harley
• Robins
• Supers:  Superman, Superboy, Supergirl
• Trevor, Steve (Seriously, there's not a better T?  Hmmm...Nope.)
• Ultraman
• Vixen
• Wonder Woman
• Task Force X (Suicide Squad)
• Y?
• Zod (Why is there no Zatanna figure?!)

I probably could eventually come up with something to fudge those other letters or maybe find something strong for some of the other ones.  Maybe McFarlane will help me out by making Ice or some Young Justice figures.  (I would seriously love some Young Justice figures.)  Come on, Todd, do me a solid!  Stop making figures from shitty comics storylines no one cares about like "Endless Winter" and "The Three Jokers" and do some good ones.  Is that too much to ask?  Probably.

Actually, why is it McFarlane has made figures from the movies, one from Arrow, a couple from The Flash TV show, and video games like Injustice 2 and Arkham Knight, but they haven't done anything with the other CW shows and HBO Max shows?  I mentioned Young Justice, but there's also Legends of Tomorrow, Stargirl, Batwoman, Black Lightning, Doom Patrol, and Titans that have pretty much 0 figures representing them so far.  Mattel made a Ray Palmer from Arrow/Legends of Tomorrow and a Supergirl from that show, but they really haven't exploited all those established brands while they churn out a whole line of "Endless Winter" figures.  What's up with that?  Does it have something to do with licensing the likenesses of the actors?  Who's in charge of deciding these things?

NOTE:  I was bored this weekend so I said fuck it and just wrote the entries for next year using that list.  I can always change some of it if they come out with something new.