tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53384179075158164842024-02-06T21:05:18.241-08:00The Stuff of LegendReviews and discussion of various topics, including books, comics, movies, and the odd social issue. Updated whenever the heck I want.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04249838873469069919noreply@blogger.comBlogger297125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5338417907515816484.post-45266719151869062102015-05-11T09:00:00.000-07:002015-05-11T09:00:06.895-07:00Divergence and Daredevil at Primary Ignition!Today's post is mostly a plug, as I haven't written a new post in a couple of weeks, and those of you who follow me on Twitter already know about the news I have to present here. Simply put, primaryignition.com is up and running again, with Rob Siebert at the helm once more, and I've returned with him.<br />
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Two new reviews with my name in the byline have been published, with more to come. The first such review was on <a href="http://primaryignition.com/2015/05/05/a-divergence-1-review-the-new-batman-a-new-era-for-superman-and-more-mobius/" target="_blank"><i>Divergence</i> #1</a>, a Free Comic Book Day issue that DC Comics put out for the occasion, featuring new happenings with Batman, Superman, and the Justice League.<br />
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The second such review was on <i><a href="http://primaryignition.com/2015/05/10/a-marvels-daredevil-season-1-review-street-level-grit-and-superhero-tropes/" target="_blank">Marvel's Daredevil</a></i>, a new Netflix original series based on the comic book property of the same name. It's pretty much what I always wanted from a live-action treatment of Batman, but just wasn't possible even in <a href="http://ltoflevisweeney.blogspot.com/2013/01/review-dark-knight-saga.html" target="_blank">the Nolan films</a>.<br />
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In sum, go read these reviews and get my rambling opinions on this stuff, straight from the horse's mouth. I assure you, gentle readers, new blog posts are on the way!<br />
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Also, happy Mother's Day to all of you mothers out there. Hi, mum.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04249838873469069919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5338417907515816484.post-58919259669107899862015-04-24T09:00:00.000-07:002015-04-24T09:00:17.312-07:00The Air Nomads and Religious Vegetarianism<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqka53SolO9Em0aYn_pRyLxOmki6qAVrRRpluR7UpZLQ1xkWpFf4nQXWTN7Ge-dW2NoLQ4ZLG9rWHjBo9iaq0a4v_cyW9KKHHRO5E6F9PNf-1-34L7noELK-YN_Ox0Fhqg2o4PRkZK_Xo/s1600/Air_Nomads.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqka53SolO9Em0aYn_pRyLxOmki6qAVrRRpluR7UpZLQ1xkWpFf4nQXWTN7Ge-dW2NoLQ4ZLG9rWHjBo9iaq0a4v_cyW9KKHHRO5E6F9PNf-1-34L7noELK-YN_Ox0Fhqg2o4PRkZK_Xo/s1600/Air_Nomads.png" height="240" width="320" /></a>In the world of <i><a href="http://ltoflevisweeney.blogspot.com/2014/02/review-avatar-last-airbender.html" target="_blank">Avatar: The Last Airbender</a></i>, the quasi-extinct culture of the Air Nomads are portrayed as a society of peaceful, fun-loving monks. They are known to travel extensively, are the only one of the Four Nations to be composed entirely of benders of their respective element, and have a penchant for fruit pies. But one other trait distinguishes them from all the others: They are all vegans. Or vegetarians, or what-have-you.<br />
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It's no secret that the world of <i>Airbender (</i>created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko) draws heavily from medieval East Asian culture. Indeed, this unique choice of source material is one of the cornerstones of the success of the series. The mythologies and histories of Japan, China, India, and other East Asian cultures are ripe with storytelling possibilities to draw from. The fact that DiMartino and Konietzko (the latter of whom is a vegan) are the most visible Western creators to do so is a credit to their ingenuity and talent.<br />
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However, looking back on the series, particularly the Air Nomads, I began to wonder just how true to their inspirations some aspects of this incredible fictional world were. Maybe it was something I read about vegetarianism in my college Nutrition class, but my curiosity was piqued. So I did a little investigating, and found some things that surprised me, if only just a little.<br />
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The Air Nomads, a monastic society, are obviously based off of Tibetan Buddhist monks, right down to their clothing and architecture. On the face of it, Buddhist monks are known to adhere to a code which prohibits the killing of either man or animal. However, as usual, the devil is in the details. Within Buddhism, there are multiple schools of thought regarding exactly how far this code applies. Insofar as I can understand, most divergences in this area of Buddhist doctrine stem from a disagreement over whether the no-kill rule logically extends to not eating meat. Put simply, one school of thought believes that the eating of certain meats (such as pork, chicken, or fish) is okay <i>as long as the Buddhist eating it didn't know it was killed on their behalf</i>, while another believes that a moratorium on the consumption of all meat is implicit in the reading of their sacred texts. And that's all without getting to the Tibetan school of thought which allows for the consumption of both meat and alcohol, a big deviation from these other two which I have been able to identify.<br />
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It's a bit complicated, involving a depth of understanding about Buddhist theology and doctrine that I won't even pretend to have. As it applies to the Air Nomads, who are obviously heavily inspired by Tibetan society, I can make a slightly swifter judgment. If the Air Nomads were based primarily on Tibetan Buddhist monks, then their sacraments endorsing vegetarianism, let alone veganism, make little sense. Tibetan Buddhism, as stated, allows for the consumption of meat. The 14th Dalai Lama has encouraged vegetarianism, while still acknowledging it as optional, to the point of regularly eating meat himself. The reasons that vegetarianism is optional in Tibet is for reasons both religious and practical. Tibetan Buddhism follows a school of thought originating from Northern India called Vajrayana which makes vegetarianism unnecessary. More pressingly, vegetables are scarce in mountainous regions such as Tibet, thus requiring less stringent traditions.<br />
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So, assuming DiMartino and Konietzko did their research, their incorporation of veganism into the fictional society of the Air Nomads may instead come from the culture of Hindu priests. I talked with an acquaintance who formerly resided in India, and she informed me that when it comes to adherence to the dietary laws of Hinduism, the different castes of Hinduism vary greatly. The priest caste ardently practices vegetarianism, no doubt because they can afford to do so, but not uniformly. Lower castes, however, are allowed to eat meat and dairy. Even these general rules of thumb differ heavily region-to-region.<br />
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My acquaintance's son resided in a region near the Ganges River, one of the most polluted rivers in the world by his account, which kept the consumption of fish down. Meanwhile, <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/article3089973.ece" target="_blank">this 2006 survey</a> tells us that only about 31 percent of Indians are vegetarians. That's all without accounting for Jainism, whose most devout adherents pursue the goal of non-violence to the point of using feathers to sweep insects out of their way wherever they go and wearing head coverings to avoid inhaling small insects. They're all either vegans or lacto-vegetarians, going even beyond that by not eating garlic or other root vegetables so as to not do harm to plants!<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhloF-cKRh0cmIgxvIe0K_Lba3ToN_i8GqnzfGL9nae3HWwr8ybVn-riq0F2z-3BFNdeXJmmuDSo5KmMvwVcoPo0IemS56dBNY7adTbLISio_HDoohue7vEmtfSVDV4-FDgIGsQjQD7Lkk/s1600/Tibet+monks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhloF-cKRh0cmIgxvIe0K_Lba3ToN_i8GqnzfGL9nae3HWwr8ybVn-riq0F2z-3BFNdeXJmmuDSo5KmMvwVcoPo0IemS56dBNY7adTbLISio_HDoohue7vEmtfSVDV4-FDgIGsQjQD7Lkk/s1600/Tibet+monks.jpg" height="218" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tibetan Monks</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
In view of all this, the Air Nomads, like most of the other cultures depicted in <i>Avatar: The Last Airbender</i>, are a composite culture which contain elements from Tibetan Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism. This fictional society does not conform to any one specific religion, but is syncretic. This explains why the Air Nomads place great value in meditation and piety, abide by strict dietary regulations, and yet are able to kick serious tuckus through the use of magic kung fu.<br />
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A discussion on this blog about religion and fictional monastic orders wouldn't be complete without a Christian view on the subject of religious vegetarianism. While several Christian sects, ranging from Benedictine monks to Seventh Day Adventists, encourage or even mandate vegetarianism, the Bible's teaching on it are clear enough. God gave humanity permission to eat meat after Noah's flood (Genesis 9:3), and although He prohibited the Jews from eating certain animals, He never prohibited the consumption of all meat. Jesus later declared all foods clean in a vision given to the Apostle Peter (Acts 10:10-15), and is recorded in the Gospels as eating fish (Luke 24:42-43) and lamb (Luke 22:8-15). He also served bread and fish during the feeding of the five thousand (Matthew 14:17-21).<br />
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In one particularly notable passage, found in Mark 7, Jesus made the larger point that it isn't what a person eats that makes him "unclean," but what comes out of the person from within. As it reads there:<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="text Mark-7-18" id="en-ESV-24477" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 24px;">And he said to them, <span class="woj" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">“Then <span class="crossreference" data-cr="#cen-ESV-24477W" data-link="(<a href="#cen-ESV-24477W" title="See cross-reference W">W</a>)" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 22px; position: relative; top: 0px; vertical-align: top;"></span>are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him,</span></span><span class="text Mark-7-19" id="en-ESV-24478" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="woj" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="versenum" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bold; line-height: 22px; position: relative; top: 0px; vertical-align: top;"> </span><span style="line-height: 24px;">since it enters not his heart </span><span class="crossreference" data-cr="#cen-ESV-24478X" data-link="(<a href="#cen-ESV-24478X" title="See cross-reference X">X</a>)" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 22px; position: relative; top: 0px; vertical-align: top;"></span><span style="line-height: 24px;">but his stomach, and is expelled?”</span><span style="line-height: 22px;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 24px;">(</span><span class="crossreference" data-cr="#cen-ESV-24478Y" data-link="(<a href="#cen-ESV-24478Y" title="See cross-reference Y">Y</a>)" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 22px; position: relative; top: 0px; vertical-align: top;"></span><span style="line-height: 24px;">Thus he declared all foods clean.)</span></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;"> </span><span class="text Mark-7-20" id="en-ESV-24479" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 24px;">And he said, <span class="woj" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="crossreference" data-cr="#cen-ESV-24479Z" data-link="(<a href="#cen-ESV-24479Z" title="See cross-reference Z">Z</a>)" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 22px; position: relative; top: 0px; vertical-align: top;"></span>“What comes out of a person is what defiles him.</span></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;"> </span><span class="text Mark-7-21" id="en-ESV-24480" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 24px;"><span class="woj" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, <span class="crossreference" data-cr="#cen-ESV-24480AA" data-link="(<a href="#cen-ESV-24480AA" title="See cross-reference AA">AA</a>)" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 22px; position: relative; top: 0px; vertical-align: top;"></span>murder, adultery,</span></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;"> </span><span class="text Mark-7-22" id="en-ESV-24481" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 24px;"><span class="woj" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">coveting, wickedness, deceit, <span class="crossreference" data-cr="#cen-ESV-24481AB" data-link="(<a href="#cen-ESV-24481AB" title="See cross-reference AB">AB</a>)" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 22px; position: relative; top: 0px; vertical-align: top;"></span>sensuality, <span class="crossreference" data-cr="#cen-ESV-24481AC" data-link="(<a href="#cen-ESV-24481AC" title="See cross-reference AC">AC</a>)" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 22px; position: relative; top: 0px; vertical-align: top;"></span>envy, <span class="crossreference" data-cr="#cen-ESV-24481AD" data-link="(<a href="#cen-ESV-24481AD" title="See cross-reference AD">AD</a>)" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 22px; position: relative; top: 0px; vertical-align: top;"></span>slander, <span class="crossreference" data-cr="#cen-ESV-24481AE" data-link="(<a href="#cen-ESV-24481AE" title="See cross-reference AE">AE</a>)" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 22px; position: relative; top: 0px; vertical-align: top;"></span>pride,<span class="crossreference" data-cr="#cen-ESV-24481AF" data-link="(<a href="#cen-ESV-24481AF" title="See cross-reference AF">AF</a>)" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 22px; position: relative; top: 0px; vertical-align: top;"></span>foolishness. </span></span><span class="text Mark-7-23" id="en-ESV-24482" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 24px;"><span class="woj" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person."</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="text Mark-7-23" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 24px;"><span class="woj" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="text Mark-7-23" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 24px;"><span class="woj" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;"><i>Image 1 courtesy of avatar.wikia.com. Image 2 courtesy of tibettravel.org.</i></span></span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04249838873469069919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5338417907515816484.post-50979533016564440292015-04-14T09:00:00.000-07:002015-04-14T09:00:09.044-07:00Superman: Birthright and Superman for All Seasons: A Tale of Two Takes on an Icon<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtRLVmdS9sbAGxolMHZew4Yn7GiHHGmgBzduH7uYdVIVUSNXYeX5ZHwYx2S0of-GaDB-mzpV_nRwDa3XaiLHW9M63JuXh-qaVAFwteukNupNpYihE8Z7kRsdhnNwtiBWa14GsGc9xlI4Y/s1600/51LhBFLJwgL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtRLVmdS9sbAGxolMHZew4Yn7GiHHGmgBzduH7uYdVIVUSNXYeX5ZHwYx2S0of-GaDB-mzpV_nRwDa3XaiLHW9M63JuXh-qaVAFwteukNupNpYihE8Z7kRsdhnNwtiBWa14GsGc9xlI4Y/s1600/51LhBFLJwgL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" height="320" style="cursor: move;" width="198" /></a></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXPgk0P77T7CGlm5U-5rnF1PQcDoKDNN9fqfML_4J_CJ3VksFLe5hBuHg-Ns82AxSU1qnxYxmd6V6oRlkVTV_xUhCjHPJ0cvadaDyNTw8WpUWXYe-jXlFMt3RP9wVVfTjWx3w9W0ZLOxY/s1600/sbir12lrg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXPgk0P77T7CGlm5U-5rnF1PQcDoKDNN9fqfML_4J_CJ3VksFLe5hBuHg-Ns82AxSU1qnxYxmd6V6oRlkVTV_xUhCjHPJ0cvadaDyNTw8WpUWXYe-jXlFMt3RP9wVVfTjWx3w9W0ZLOxY/s1600/sbir12lrg.jpg" height="320" width="232" /></a><i>Author's Note: I am holding off on my long-promised post on the Air Nomads and Religious Vegetarianism, for the sake of obtaining more in-depth information about the subject. Until then, please enjoy this post about Superman.</i><br />
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I've written about Superman movies before, but I've never really written about Superman himself, let alone Superman comics. But over the last week or so, I've finally gotten around to reading <i>Superman: Birthright</i> and <i>Superman for All Seasons</i>, a pair of pretty notable Superman stories. The former was written by the esteemed Mark Waid, while the latter was written and illustrated by the equally esteemed team of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale, respectively. This latter pair was also behind <i>Batman: The Long Halloween</i> and <i>Batman: Dark Victory</i>, the former being one of my favorite Batman stories. Meanwhile, Waid has written or co-written such great stories as <i>Kingdom Come</i> and <i>52</i>, as well as acclaimed runs on <i>The Flash</i>, <i>JLA</i>, and also <i>Daredevil</i> over at Marvel.<br />
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Getting back to Superman, these two stories both helped to define Superman in comics in ways that were both hugely significant and hugely differing. Today, we will examine the differences between <i>Birthright</i> and <i>Seasons </i>as stories, as well as their respective takes on the world's most iconic superhero.<br />
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Right off the bat, <i>Superman: Birthright</i> is very different from <i>Superman for all Seasons</i>. <i>Birthright</i> was spawned in the early 2000's and ran for 12 issues. It was, at the time, meant to be the definitive superhero origin story for Superman, a concept which even then had been done literally dozens of time. Comics scholar Chris Sims notes that even before <i>Birthright</i>, <i>Superman: Secret Origin</i>, and <i>Superman: Earth One </i>all came about, both he and a friend agreed that the last thing they wanted to see in comics was yet another Superman origin story. Exactly why he believes this is beyond the scope of this post, but you can read all about it <a href="http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-36-what-is-the-best-superman-origin-story/" target="_blank">here</a>. (A word of warning: I'll be citing Mr. Sims a lot in this article.)<br />
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<i>Birthright</i>'s take on Superman's origin story seeks to capture the feel of Superman is a more "toned-down" and "realistic" way, which is generally code for our hero constantly expressing angst at his predicament. The edition I read stated that <i>Birthright</i> was specifically designed to mirror the approach that the odious <i>Smallville</i> was taking, which is never a good sign. Even the art has that weird, edgy, penciled look that was common in its day, leftover from the exaggeratedly grim and gritty feel that nearly all 90s comics had.<br />
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In the hands of a lesser talent, this might lead to what happened with <i><a href="http://ltoflevisweeney.blogspot.com/2013/08/review-man-of-steel.html" target="_blank">Man of Steel</a></i>. Not Mark Waid though, oh no. He manages to successfully present a version of Superman that is largely true to the character, yet at the same time mess it up just enough to make is significantly imperfect. <i>Birthright</i>'s main problem in this regard is that it keeps looking for explanations and justifications for details that don't or shouldn't need to be explained or justified. The classic example, as indicated by Sims, is the rationale behind putting a giant red "S" on Superman's costume. There's a lot of ballyhoo about it being some kind of Kryptonian crest or a symbol of hope or whatever stupid crud they routinely pull out of their butts at the DC editorial offices, but Sims has a simpler explanation: He wears an "S" on his chest because "S" stands for Superman. There. Done. Mystery solved.<br />
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One thing that I actually did like that Waid elaborated on more fully was his explanation of how Superman's Clark Kent disguise manages to fool his coworkers, who are all reporters. It's brilliantly done, with Clark putting a lot of effort into it and nearly blowing it more than once. However, it leads to the one thing which I really don't like about <i>Birthright</i>, and it's not even in the story itself, but in the afterword: Waid goes out and states flatly that Clark Kent is the "mask" and Superman is the real man.<br />
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Bullcrap.<br />
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Aside from the obvious play for the appeal of Batman, a strategy makes minimal sense for <a href="http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-40-batman-vs-bruce-wayne/" target="_blank">reasons</a> that we won't go into right now, the idea of Clark Kent being the "mask" and Superman being the "real man" is plainly flawed. It all boils down to Superman and Clark Kent being two sides of the same person who acts differently around different people, ditto for Batman and everyone else. The fact that Mark Waid of all people bought into it is beyond me.<br />
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<i>Birthright</i> itself is workable, enjoyable even, but still flawed. It focuses on how Superman would supposedly be found scary by the denizens of our oh-so-scared-and-paranoid post-9/11 world, and ever so trusting of a bald, corporate elitist like Luthor. I quickly debunked this idea when I asked my mom, no comic book aficionado, if she would be freaked out if Superman touched down in our backyard. The answer: Not if he looked like the Christopher Reeve version. Bingo! Guess what <i>Birthright</i>'s Superman looks like? Sure, the folks in the military might be a bit spooked, but who's going to be scared by a guy with no mask flying around wearing a big red cape helping people?<br />
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Which brings us to <i>Superman for All Seasons.</i><br />
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<i>Seasons</i> isn't so much an origin story as it is a summation of who Superman is and how he came to be. Everything from the narrative structure to the art is focused on producing a story which does this. The logical result of this methodology is that <i>Seasons</i> is nothing at all like Waid's pseudo-dour <i>Birthright</i>. We see Superman through the eyes of his family, friends, and that one bald guy who's his biggest enemy. Loeb and Sale specifically note that they wanted the art to be reminiscent of Norman Rockwell paintings, which gives us an incredible effect. It's homely, warm, inviting, emotional, and poignant. Heck, it's even fun!<br />
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One thing that makes <i>Seasons</i> such a classic is that it doesn't fall prey to the trap of obsessing over details which ultimately have little relevance to the story. Instead, its story and visuals primarily focus on developing the characters, creating memorable scenes, and communicating a rich narrative. As a result, the small details that fill up the background in these 4 issues give it a richness that <i>Birthright</i> could barely accomplish in 12. Every character from the Man of Steel himself to Smallville's local minister all stick in your mind and are beautifully rendered. Every panel gives us something visually worthwhile to look at. The stories this four-issue series tells us are breathtakingly engaging and a pleasure to read. There's no fretting about how Clark got his journalism degree or why he decided to be a superhero. Why he did it is decided in 2 pages -heck, I doubt it was that many- more effectively than <i>Birthright</i>'s 2 or 3 issues devoted to the subject.<br />
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Most of all, there's a sharp contrast given between Superman and Lex Luthor. We're not given a totally solid explanation about why Superman and Luthor are at odds (we rarely are), but it's made clear that Luthor's an evil bad guy who firmly believes himself to be the good guy, and there's no tragic backstory given to justify what a jerkhole he is. He's just like that, and because of him, Metropolis is initially a fairly disagreeable place to live. That is, until Superman shows up.<br />
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To be fair to <i>Birthright</i>, elements of that story sort of leak into Geoff Johns' <i>Superman: Secret Origin</i>, which I believe is the best Superman origin story which I have yet read, though there are many out there. In truth, <i>Secret Origin</i> combines a lot of aspects from both <i>Birthright</i> and <i>Seasons</i>, such as Clark and Luthor knowing each other as children, or Superman's behavior as Clark Kent being at least partly natural and genuine, respectively. This results is a story which is decidedly above par, but not quite on the level of a classic like <i>Seasons</i>.<br />
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In the end, while <i>Birthright</i> does have some things going for it, I'll definitely choose <i>Seasons</i> any day of the week as my choice interpretation of Superman. It just has so much more life and energy that <i>Birthright</i> only dreams of having. They're both good, but only <i>Superman for all Seasons</i> is a truly great interpretation of an American icon. I'm just glad that I finally read it.<br />
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<i>Image 1 courtesy amazon.com. Image 2 courtesy samquixote.blogspot.com</i>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04249838873469069919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5338417907515816484.post-7765018093681055812015-03-30T09:00:00.000-07:002015-03-30T16:04:02.121-07:00The Little Picture: A Look at Grassroots Movements in West Hill<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ1tj2e72rLNlW291lUSoewXMOJcAjSfwJIFbELS4UIaaRxua1gfKLVnEglE5u3GVCW-Yu1xB0qiEbvVvrvFGHS3w4kvHx0T44FJZTnUhoD3LELItu2uQf2vR3r6W5NbbqHtuf3mUi8iE/s1600/IMG_20150326_204242536.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ1tj2e72rLNlW291lUSoewXMOJcAjSfwJIFbELS4UIaaRxua1gfKLVnEglE5u3GVCW-Yu1xB0qiEbvVvrvFGHS3w4kvHx0T44FJZTnUhoD3LELItu2uQf2vR3r6W5NbbqHtuf3mUi8iE/s1600/IMG_20150326_204242536.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Urban Family founder Paul Patu speaks <br />
at the Secondary Learning Center</td></tr>
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As those of you who follow me on Twitter may know (@levi_sweeney), I was originally going to do a post on the Air Nomads and Religious Vegetarianism. However, I would instead like to write a somewhat belated post concerning a more pressing matter. It's about "the odd social issue" advertised in the blog description at the top of this page.<br />
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This last week, I received a flyer and a questionnaire in the mail from Skway Solutions, asking questions about possible solutions to problems in our community. I live in the West Hill area, a chunk of unincorporated King County stuck in between Seattle and Renton. The area has it's fair share of problems, such as poverty, crime, and truancy, among other things. Apart from one or two community meetings, I'd never thought to get involved much in helping to solve any of these problems. I helped my dad during the West Hill Annexation vote in 2012, but that's about it. But the aforementioned flyer was an invite to an open house at a local school, offering food, door prizes, and a community forum. Intrigued, and out of the dojang for a while due to a knee injury, I decided to go.</div>
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When I arrived at the school on Thursday, the first thing that struck me was that most of the assembly was made up of minorities. I, white as an onion, stood out like sore thumb, being one of only seven or eight white people out of fifty attendees, the majority of whom were either black, Hispanic, or of mixed ancestry, with a couple of Asians scattered here and there. I don't really know what I'm supposed to take away from this observation. At any rate, I made fine friends with some of the people there, and they all seemed good and friendly. A few were trying a bit hard to pull off that gangster, tough-guy look, but I doubt there was much bite to be found. I sat next to a guy named Corey who said that his grandfather was trained by Bruce Lee. He even had pictures on his cell phone! Man, that sounds so cool.</div>
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The other thing that was particularly noticeable was that most of the attendees were either children or teenagers. I was expecting this before I arrived, as the event was dubbed "Teen Talk," meant to engage youth of the community in the process of addressing West Hill's problems. There were several adults in the audience and adult speakers, but much of the discussion was coordinated by members of the Skyway Youth Neighborhood Council (SYNC), a cadre of young activists trying to help further change in the community for the better.</div>
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After a meal and acquainting period, SYNC invited audience members to answer into a microphone their own answers to questions projected onto a screen. Questions included, "What barriers do teens face in the community?" and "Why should teens be involved in their community?" Each answer was given a round of applause, including mine. I answered the first of these questions with a basic assessment of the obvious: joblessness led to crime, which is a problem. I elaborated that the citizenry should be informed and involved in the issues of today, as the Founders intended, lest a "political elite" take power and begin running the country however it wanted. (Oh, wait a second...)</div>
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After the open forum, representatives of SYNC, <a href="http://alajawanshands.com/" target="_blank">Alajawan's Hands</a>, the Skyway West Hill Action Plan Committee (SWAP, an arm of <a href="http://buildskywaywesthill.org/" target="_blank">Skyway Solutions</a>) and <a href="http://www.urbanfam.org/" target="_blank">Urban Family</a> all gave speeches, highlighting their respective organizations' efforts to improve conditions in the community. SYNC is educating youth on various hazards related to gang violence and delinquency. Alajawan's Hands, also known as the Alajawan Brown Foundation, is offering tutoring, scholarships, and various charitable activities. SWAP representatives discussed the economic challenges facing the West Hill area, and ideas concerning how to mitigate them. Urban Family, who probably had the biggest presence at the event, spoke about what they've been doing to keep kids on the right path, deter gang violence, and generally improve conditions in the community. They showed a nice video featuring their accomplishments, and scenery around Skyway. It was almost surreal to watch, as I drive past these places all the time, and now I'm watching them on a video, probably recorded while in a moving car.</div>
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After the speeches, there were some cultural displays courtesy of a Somali immigrant organization from over in I think Rainier Beach, featuring a poetry reading and what I believe was a traditional Somali dance. Let me tell you, it makes any dancing I've seen look pretty sub-par. When the meeting was officially adjourned, I stuck around to talk to a gal from SWAP named Andra. I asked her about the idea of annexation, and she stated that she was a "neutral" on the subject, being neither for nor against it, but was mainly concerned that the interests of the people of West Hill be addressed. As it is, annexation won't be on the discussion table for a while now, since it the vote failed back in 2012.</div>
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I came away from this event with a different outlook on the way things ought to be around here. On the one hand, I had always embraced the idea that annexing West Hill into Renton would be good for the community. Andra herself said that King County has failed to provide basic services and law enforcement to the West Hill area. But I've always been the sort of guy who looks at the big picture. I read the Wall Street Journal and WORLD Magazine. I follow national and global news avidly. When election time rolls around, I gear up for local politics as a matter of course. I have to vote, after all. But apart from a few stints here and there, I've never really been a part of a local, small-scale, grassroots campaign. Attending this meeting, I've glimpsed what that atmosphere, that culture, is like. I think that it can be a powerful force for conservative, free market political reform. You may ask, "What's new?" My point here is that I've never fully understood the concept of a grassroots effort, and now I've gotten a front row seat.<br />
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Going back to the annexation thing, I still believe that it's West Hill's best bet. On the City of Renton website, <a href="http://rentonwa.gov/government/default.aspx?id=6226" target="_blank">an article</a> on the subject of annexation reads, "<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The City's policy stance has been to welcome areas that wish to annex but at the same time Renton must maintain service levels to current residents. Annexation is ultimately a choice of area voters." Now that I've had a glimpse of the grassroots activity going on in the Skyway/West Hill area, I'm beginning to understand why that initiative may have failed. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">My father, his friends, and myself in a minor capacity, worked very hard to secure victory with the 2012 West Hill Annexation Vote. We distributed literature, put up signs, did door-belling, and may have run a call center. But there wasn't the streak of enthusiasm brought on by your typical grassroots campaign, not enough of the youthful energy I saw at the Teen Talk event. I can't help but wonder that if we had worked with the local grassroots organizations, organized rallies and speeches, reached out to the community in much the same way as these organizations are doing now, that they would have succeeded. <a href="http://www.rentonreporter.com/news/178008411.html" target="_blank">The initiative lost by about 10 percent of the vote</a>, 680 votes to be specific.</span></span><br />
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But here's the thing: The people of West Hill want to combat their problems. They're open to solutions, which was plain to see at the meeting on Thursday. And if they're open to solutions, to positive change, then maybe a real difference can be made. Concerning the providing of services, Renton Mayor Denis Law noted in his <a href="http://rentonwa.gov/government/default.aspx?id=31778" target="_blank">2015 State of the City</a> address earlier this month that <span style="font-family: inherit;">"<span style="line-height: 18px;">the culture for quality service </span><span style="line-height: 18px;">begins at the top." In our present state of affairs, King County Executive Dow Constantine is the guy at "the top." I don't know much about him or his policies, but I understand that he's focused on <a href="http://www.kingcounty.gov/elected/executive/constantine/priorities/transportation.aspx" target="_blank">increasing the efficiency of the bus line</a> and <a href="http://www.kingcounty.gov/elected/executive/constantine/priorities/climate-change.aspx" target="_blank">combating climate change</a>. While that is neither here nor there, what I do know is that Mr. Constantine is not focused on helping the citizens of West Hill. I for one don't want to wait around until he does want to help us. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to try something new.</span></span><br />
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<i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.8500003814697px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">Follow Levi on Twitter at @levi_sweeney, and submit questions and post ideas with the hashtag #QLevi</i>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04249838873469069919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5338417907515816484.post-65370107351282555182015-03-22T09:00:00.000-07:002015-03-22T13:43:39.225-07:00The Metal Clan and Utopianism<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXzATJ0GjDqt_i1mcwXROOPFw4jJzei-yRHp5wptfiOsxyMadAzSSJK3iUIV28MoViZ3TCSpJwwFRR6GZATs_0ZZY225j5D3OqMWaa3LeQZ2vLwpOTtLnBFTqGvJT7fkax53qEx1dG8L8/s1600/43f413560ed24e53ce54a6cd8fc5bc85.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXzATJ0GjDqt_i1mcwXROOPFw4jJzei-yRHp5wptfiOsxyMadAzSSJK3iUIV28MoViZ3TCSpJwwFRR6GZATs_0ZZY225j5D3OqMWaa3LeQZ2vLwpOTtLnBFTqGvJT7fkax53qEx1dG8L8/s1600/43f413560ed24e53ce54a6cd8fc5bc85.jpg" height="173" width="320" /></a></div>
A couple weeks back, I ended my post on <a href="http://ltoflevisweeney.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-legend-of-korra-book-3-change.html" target="_blank">Zaheer and Zen Anarchism</a> (that sounds so fun to write) with a promise that the next time I wrote about <i><a href="http://ltoflevisweeney.blogspot.com/2014/03/review-legend-of-korra-book-1-air.html" target="_blank">The Legend of Korra</a></i>, I'd talk about the Metal Clan. That day has come, and I now plan onc talking about how the Metal Clan relates to the philosophy of Utopianism.<br />
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Utopiansim refers to the belief or philosophy surrounding the concept of utopia. Utopia itself is defined by merriam-webster.com as "<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.25px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">an imaginary place in which the government, laws, and social conditions are perfect." Christian philosopher and apologist Dr. William Lane Craig <a href="http://www.reasonablefaith.org/naturalism-scientism-utopianism#ixzz3V4WGYxAG" target="_blank">defines</a> Utopiansim as "<span style="font-family: inherit;">arrival at... </span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">a kind of perfect world, a paradise on earth, as it were—the perfect society."</span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 19.25px;"> Although this precise term wasn't coined until English philosopher Thomas More wrote the book </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 19.25px;">Utopia</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 19.25px;"> in 1516, the idea of utopia has been around since Plato's </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 19.25px;">Republic</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 19.25px;"> at least, which dates back to around 380 B.C. Utopia has been discussed in various other literature and other media across the centuries, and in the modern era has led to the development of the respected but relatively new genre of </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 19.25px;">dystopia</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 19.25px;">. </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 19.25px;">The Legend of Korra</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 19.25px;"> provides in </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 19.25px;">Book 3: Change</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 19.25px;"> an example of what is for all practical purposes a utopian society: Zaofu, home of the Metal Clan.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19.25px;">Zaofu is a community made up largely of metal and earth-benders, founded and led by some of the </span></span><span style="line-height: 19.25px;">descendants</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19.25px;"> of Toph. According to its leader, Suyin Beifong, it is a place where everyone is encouraged to strive for their maximum potential. She also states that it is "the safest city in the world." Indeed it is, as it contains elaborate security measures, such as retractable metal roofs over the city, metal-bending powered gondolas for entry, and a crack squad of metal-bending police, though Lin Beifong doesn't think much of all this. What's more, it's implied that all or many of the city's earth-bending inhabitants have learned Toph's ability to detect lies in other people through earth-bending, providing a neat incentive for the residents of Zaofu to never fib. Zaofu is evidently a meritocracy, housing some of the world's finest scientific minds, including a certain Howard Hughes-esque businessman who we haven't seen since the <a href="http://ltoflevisweeney.blogspot.com/2014/07/review-legend-of-korra-book-2-spirits.html" target="_blank">Book 2</a> finale. Thus, for all intents and purposes, Zaofu is a</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19.25px;"> utopia, most likely following the philosophy of classical liberalism (not to be confused with liberal p</span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">rogressivism</span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19.25px;">), perhaps not intentionally established, and not stated outright by the characters, but definitely meeting much of the criteria.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19.25px;">But here's the catch: Utopia, by its very definition, is imaginary, just like Zaofu is imaginary. But unlike many imagined utopias, Zaofu's status as an ideal society is </span></span><span style="line-height: 19.25px;">subtly</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 19.25px;"> deconstructed by pointing out one of the principle holes in the proposal of utopia: Who's going to make it all happen?</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.25px;">Many utopias, especially those based on the principles of socialism, profess that given the proper conditions, a classless, stateless society will emerge in which everyone works for the common good. Of course, this has never happened in reality, with attempted experiments with such models resulting in oppressive dictatorships such as Soviet Russia, Maoist China, Revolutionary France, and countless other nasty historical episodes. The main problem with this idea is that human nature is, by default, self-serving and uncharitable. The only way to organize a group of such creatures to work for the common good is through coercion, such as in a dictatorship or an oligarchy. But if that happens, then the ideal of a classless, stateless society is lost, and the whole experiment is for nothing. Due to their inherently faulty natures, the economies produced by socialism and its ilk generally descend into kleptocracy, or in a few extreme cases, anarchy. In many cases across the modern developing world, multiple dictatorships have risen and fallen in succession, calling to mind the French proverb, "The more things change, the more they stay the same." </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.25px;">As </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.25px;">Lois H. Sargent wrote in her essay "<a href="http://fee.org/freeman/detail/anyone-for-utopia" target="_blank">Anyone for Utopia?</a>" in 1977, <span style="font-family: inherit;">"</span></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Utopians seem never to give thought to the mechanics of management and operation of their imagined systems."</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNeC-9Pt363YmEK342QJKKWNbaXiaM6u1W2rPJCXAlxSVtfHgpgUA7ty6EZNnzPyqSQ_XufK3R-UpLqL67QTtHH_SNjNSB6Z1W6gxA-epfKtmbk8tCfk-4bV1eXIrLvhj4ExpxEiI85ME/s1600/118636-004-960C3ED1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNeC-9Pt363YmEK342QJKKWNbaXiaM6u1W2rPJCXAlxSVtfHgpgUA7ty6EZNnzPyqSQ_XufK3R-UpLqL67QTtHH_SNjNSB6Z1W6gxA-epfKtmbk8tCfk-4bV1eXIrLvhj4ExpxEiI85ME/s1600/118636-004-960C3ED1.jpg" height="320" width="242" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cincinnatus (519-430 B.C.)</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.25px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.25px;">Part of the reason societies like the Soviet Union developed into dictatorships was because the dictators in question typically don't want to relinquish their power. (The rest of the reason for these particular events have to do with a discussion of Communism, which is beyond the scope of this post.) Rare in history is the benign ruler who, when given absolute power in a time of crisis, resists the temptation to take hold of it until someone else can take it back by force. The Roman statesman C</span><span style="line-height: 19.25px;">incinnatus (519-430 B.C.)</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.25px;"> comes to mind, as does George Washington, who refused the opportunity to become King George I of America after the American War of Independence. In the Soviet Union, people like Lenin and Stalin, despite their ostensibly sincere belief in the Communist Utopia, were evil tyrants who used their power to bring about many deaths, if for Lenin it was thousands and Stalin millions. Later Soviet dictators weren't much better, using their power to line the pockets of they and their friends while the people lived in squalor. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 19.25px;">It is this element of corruption which all dictatorships and oligarchs have in common that exposes a chief vulnerability of any kind of utopia. In <i>The Legend of Korra</i>, a principle leader of Zaofu is revealed to have been in league with the villains. The reason this is significant is because it shows that Utopia can't be accomplished as long as there are imperfect humans trying to make things perfect. All civilizations have rulers, and if a ruler is corrupt, the whole civilization will be corrupt along with him. As we have seen, corruption is often the case in dictatorships. Imagine if the aforementioned Zaofu leader had used his position to accumulate illicit wealth, curry favors, accept bribes, or pervert justice for his own ends, which nearly does happen? What would we make of this Utopian community then?</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.25px;">The other big problem with Utopianism, an extension of the problem outlined above, has to do with the nature of government. Government is designed to restrain the corrupted nature of man, as the founders of the United States set out to do, with successful results. The American experiment is unique in that it went about this task by restraining the government; that is, by setting in place certain safeguards, such as separation of powers and elected representatives, so that the government would not grow too big or oppressive. The founders had no illusions, however, that they could produce a perfect society. James Madison, widely known as "the Father of the Constitution," wrote in <i>The Federalist</i> #51, "If men were angels, no government would be necessary." The long and short of it is that there will always be iniquities in any society made up of imperfect men. Even the nation of Israel, whose law codes (forming the first five books of the Bible) were provided by God Himself, and was supposed to be a model for the rest of the world, was a less than perfect society, frequently veering into apostasy, war, civil unrest, and other blights, to the point of being split into two separate kingdoms after the death of Solomon. (See 1 Kings 12)</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.25px;">Oddly enough, Israel in the days of the judges was little more than a loosely federated coalition of tribes led by a council of elders, and yet things were usually just as chaotic then as they were during the period of the kings, if not more so. (See Judges.) Thus, not even a semi-democratic theocracy such at this could bring about Utopia, not by a long shot! If all of this tells us anything, it's that there is no hope of a truly perfect society, not one made by human hands, until the coming of the Lord in His power, when there will be a new Heaven and a new Earth. Imperfect man can never make anything truly perfect, permanent, or stable. This world is, after all, transient and temporary.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.25px;">In sum, we see from <i>The Legend of Korra</i> than even a society as wonderful and idyllic as that of the Metal Clan is not invulnerable to fault. For all its veneer of Utopia, it is still shown to be fallible in some key respects. It brings to mind another location from <i><a href="http://ltoflevisweeney.blogspot.com/2014/02/review-avatar-last-airbender.html" target="_blank">Avatar: The Last Airbender</a></i>, <i>The Legend of Korra</i>'s predecessor. This location, the city of Ba Sing Se, is a dystopia controlled by the villainous Grand Secretariat Long Feng, who through the use of the Dai Li, the sinister secret police, claims to be maintaining "an orderly utopia. The last one on Earth." Unfortunately, poor Long Feng is just as deluded as Marx, Wells, and Lenin. The only Utopia to ever exist will come at a time when all of them have faded away, and this one will never fade away: The kingdom of Christ, the Son of the Living God. And unlike any human made utopia, its coming is inevitable and everlasting.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 19.25px;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;"><i>Follow Levi on Twitter at @levi_sweeney, and submit questions and post ideas with the hashtag #QLevi</i></span></span><br />
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<i>Image 1 courtesy tv.com. Image 2 courtesy kids.britannica.com.</i>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04249838873469069919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5338417907515816484.post-14096660522936978592015-03-15T09:00:00.000-07:002015-03-15T13:04:01.992-07:00Big Hero 6: The Myth of the Corporate Supervillain<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFH0eXfCCaoJNgJIiVVQZ0AQE3K24oGwFN6qJVB5w362xg1EJxqaR1vZA2N6aoo2R-NtGjrCri-oBzXapJFD3n0vR2HgyI0miiLXgjZKnhjZQ4sA6TqrwrTPKFAgVa4V6_mBiglg72w9Q/s1600/Disney_BigHero6_Poster_Baymax.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFH0eXfCCaoJNgJIiVVQZ0AQE3K24oGwFN6qJVB5w362xg1EJxqaR1vZA2N6aoo2R-NtGjrCri-oBzXapJFD3n0vR2HgyI0miiLXgjZKnhjZQ4sA6TqrwrTPKFAgVa4V6_mBiglg72w9Q/s1600/Disney_BigHero6_Poster_Baymax.jpg" height="320" width="224" /></a><i>Warning: Minor spoilers for Big Hero 6 lay ahead.</i><br />
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I was pretty excited when <i>Big Hero 6</i> won this year's Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. Not only did it totally deserve it, but it did it while marking a significant milestone in comic book movie history: It is the first adapted superhero property to win an Oscar, the second, after Christopher Nolan's <i>The Dark Knight</i> in 2008, to win any Oscar for anything superhero-related. And it really did deserve it. It has a compelling story, a world which was interesting to watch and beautiful to look at, a charming cast of characters to relate to, and some great emotion and deep themes. It even managed to deliver a pretty unique take on several common superhero tropes. It's the last of these that I want to talk about today, specifically concerning the character of Alistair Krei, voiced by Alan Tudyk of <i><a href="http://ltoflevisweeney.blogspot.com/2015/02/firefly-verse-according-to-mal.html" target="_blank">Firefly</a></i> and <i>Serenity </i>fame.<br />
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In <i>Big Hero 6</i>, Krei is a businessman who runs the technology company Krei Tech. Krei first appears as an interested party who wants to buy the new robotics technology invented by Hiro Hamada, the film's protagonist. Hiro declines the offer on the advice of his brother Tadashi's mentor, Professor Callaghan, the scene setting up Krei as the film's obvious bad guy. But surprisingly, it turns out to be a red hearing which the characters as well as the audience buy into. It's also a neat subversion of a trope which has been played out many times before: the Corrupt Corporate Executive.<br />
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The Corrupt Corporate Executive is often used in works of fiction as a stock character who is typically bald, fat, smoking a big cigar, or some combination thereof. Quite plainly enough, this character is a corporate executive who engages in villainous activities, which may or may not be related to their profession. Examples readily abound all across fiction, including Lex Luthor of DC Comics, <a href="http://ltoflevisweeney.blogspot.com/2014/03/review-legend-of-korra-book-1-air.html" target="_blank">Hiroshi Saito</a> and <a href="http://ltoflevisweeney.blogspot.com/2014/07/review-legend-of-korra-book-2-spirits.html" target="_blank">Varrick</a> from<i> The Legend of Korra</i>, Norman Osborn, Justin Hammer, Bolivar Trask, and whoever is running Roxxon at any given time over at Marvel, and even Jon Spiro from Eoin Colfer's <i><a href="http://ltoflevisweeney.blogspot.com/2014/01/artemis-fowl-from-die-hard-with-fairies.html" target="_blank">Artemis Fowl</a></i>.<br />
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Typically, corrupt corporate executives in fiction are greedy, obnoxious, dishonest, and evil. They will go to any lengths to make an extra buck, up to an including everything from cooking the books to mass murder. Some even commit the unpardonable sin of *gasp* making and selling weapons. Obviously, they are usually motivated by monetary gain, and they are typically psychopaths who routinely abuse their employees and customers, and use their vast financial resources to cover up their dirty deeds.<br />
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But I have a news flash for writers who like to write corporate bad guys this way: This is not what real corrupt corporate executives, I believe, are even remotely like.<br />
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My first objection is a matter of logic: How on earth would someone who does half the things that, say, Lex Luthor does have any hope of succeeding in business? Business is a very teamwork driven industry, and being greedy, obnoxious, dishonest, and evil is not a good way to get people to want to work for you, or for that matter, buy stuff from you. I mean, would you honestly want to do business with Justin Hammer or Jon Spiro, the latter of whom has blatant mob connections and the FBI and CIA breathing down his neck, but still somehow remains a successful businessman? I certainly wouldn't. The notion that people like them stay in business by spreading a bunch of money around is plainly laughable, as it could obviously cost more to bribe their way out of trouble than it would by simply playing by the rules. The International Chamber of Commerce, <a href="http://www.iccwbo.org/advocacy-codes-and-rules/areas-of-work/corporate-responsibility-and-anti-corruption/" target="_blank">in a plain statement of the obvious</a>, has said of corruption as related to public relations, <span style="font-family: inherit;">"<span style="color: #141414; line-height: 15.7568006515503px;">Enterprises seen to be doing business with integrity are more likely to attract and retain highly-principled and motivated employees as well as ethically-oriented investors. In contrast, companies confronted with corruption cases have faced reputational damage."</span></span><br />
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Secondly, even the corporate executives who are corrupt in the real world aren't out poisoning the reservoir, or knowingly selling dangerous products to the unwitting public, or hiring spandex-clad thugs to intimate business rivals, all of which are crappy business models. The ones that do do things like that get shut down fast or are fined into oblivion, and often for even smaller slights than that. Oddly enough, I can't remember the last time Pfizer poured cyanide into the reservoir for some reason. No, corporations that engage in illegal activity are a bit more mundane in their lawbreaking. The International Chamber of Commerce <a href="http://www.iccwbo.org/advocacy-codes-and-rules/areas-of-work/corporate-responsibility-and-anti-corruption/corruption-explained/" target="_blank">defines</a> corruption as <span style="line-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">"the abuse of entrusted power for private financial or non-financial gain. It diverts resources from their proper use, distorts competition and creates gross inefficiencies in both the public and private sectors." It is furthered categorized as bribery, solicitation of bribery, or extortion.</span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">What does this mean? It means that a real life corrupt CEO isn't plunking down bags of cash to hire supervillains to scare his business rival into a buy out, or being overtly hostile during a hostile takeover, or stealing an inventor's property for sinister purposes, as the heroes in <i>Big Hero 6</i> suspect Krei of doing. At least, not in America. Don't ask me what it's like in China or Venezuela or Brazil, because that's a whole different pie. No, your average corrupt corporate executive is engaging in a little "creative accounting," moving the numbers around to disguise the company's profits. Maybe he's helping the mob launder money if he's a bit more adventurous. If she's a little lower in the hierarchy, it could be embezzling. Bribing a government inspector? It happens. It all boils down to the simple fact that if you're an exec, and you do something illegal, it's not probably not going to made into an movie, and you're going to be unceremoniously carted off to a minimum security prison really, really fast. Which brings us to the next hurdle of being a corrupt corporate executive: anti-corruption programs. </span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 17px;">Most major, profitable companies have some kind of anti-corruption program. <a href="http://www.theiia.org/RFR/index.cfm?aid=3000" target="_blank">Whether these programs are effective or not is debated</a>, but it's a good sign that they exist at all. Even if they aren't particularly good at detecting corruption, when the company begins to go down the tubes thanks to corrupt executives, these guys are usually there to blow the whistle. In short, if anti-corruption programs don't take down a bad exec, the company will implode on its own, kind of like what happened with Enron. The point is, bad behavior among corporate big wigs usually comes back to bite the perpetrators in the end, and as a result is plainly more trouble than it's worth. </span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 17px;">Which brings us back to Krei.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUTm1dyeKwNGeZvgUWzHsrkY4uzNnWu7TVDaFaTAu_ixrb_C9Ca7qi1tBG4IrF6xXKbbcS1Mo03KMGtxu_tNWljuAI85GbWrwWwSzqwsgAGn21pBgcuc1LweGT80eTjMFkYbX9c5Dfts8/s1600/msf_bh6_cmi_alistair.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUTm1dyeKwNGeZvgUWzHsrkY4uzNnWu7TVDaFaTAu_ixrb_C9Ca7qi1tBG4IrF6xXKbbcS1Mo03KMGtxu_tNWljuAI85GbWrwWwSzqwsgAGn21pBgcuc1LweGT80eTjMFkYbX9c5Dfts8/s1600/msf_bh6_cmi_alistair.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a><span style="line-height: 17px;">Krei isn't given a whole lot of analysis in the film, largely existing as the aforementioned red hearing. He's affable, ambitious, mildly smug, a little feckless and implicitly intelligent. I mean, he built up his own tech company and was involved in a teleportation project with the military, so he has to be a clever guy. But he's not the film's villain. He doesn't actually do anything illegal, or even wrong. We only know what his "bad" qualities are based on what the film's real villain says about him, and this villain isn't exactly an impartial judge of character. The closest he gets to being bad is a tragic accident in which he was only vestigially responsible for, if only because the film's real villain blames him for it. The point is that he's not a corrupt corporate executive. He's not even such a bad guy! In fact, the only reason that Hiro and his friends think Krei's a bad guy at all is because Fred, their resident comic book geek, points out the villains of a lot of comic books are actually corrupt industrialists. It's a clever and funny way of subverting a by now very tired superhero cliche.</span><br />
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In the end, <i>Big Hero 6</i> is a fine entry into the Disney animated cannon, being a fun, rollicking, emotionally deep film that sucks you in and keeps you glued to the screen the whole way through. It's beautiful to look at, engaging to watch, and provides fun for the whole family. I wholly recommend it as entertaining, innovative, and uplifting. I'd love to see where they go with a sequel.<br />
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<i>Fun fact: </i>This isn't the only animated Disney flick that Alan Tudyk has lent his voice to. He also voiced the slightly more villainous Duke of Weselton in <i>Frozen</i>. Oddly enough, he also voiced Superman in <i>Justice League: War</i>.<br />
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<i>Follow Levi on Twitter at @levi_sweeney, and submit questions and post ideas with the hashtag #QLevi</i><br />
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<i>Image 1 courtesy of blogs.disney.com. Image 2 courtesy of disney.co.uk.</i></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04249838873469069919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5338417907515816484.post-74706476310400948692015-03-08T09:00:00.000-07:002015-03-08T13:42:14.115-07:00The Legend of Korra - Book 3: Change: Zaheer and Moral Syncretism<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQJ_StS7E3biPu699U3FNi4CcJdsIRPu_LGfITNkHTWSr8qicq7ixXVSYsAFNRmjtWwu8UzaMk-ur7ob4LRDVIc_IYVgmJimGGtMqIs9EK-0a6_wjFYb6UNEwUZ7fxIBpHpB8SSJYVURw/s1600/Korra_Book_3.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQJ_StS7E3biPu699U3FNi4CcJdsIRPu_LGfITNkHTWSr8qicq7ixXVSYsAFNRmjtWwu8UzaMk-ur7ob4LRDVIc_IYVgmJimGGtMqIs9EK-0a6_wjFYb6UNEwUZ7fxIBpHpB8SSJYVURw/s1600/Korra_Book_3.png" height="320" width="226" /></a>I'm not gonna lie, Book 3 of <i>The Legend of Korra</i> is easily the best season of the show that I've seen yet. I haven't seen Book 4, however, so I'll have to wait until then to judge whether or not this is in fact the best season yet. A word of warning though: Due to the nature of the post's content, some substantial spoilers regarding Zaheer's motivations will be mentioned.<br />
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<i>The Legend of Korra - Book 3: Change</i> is everything that this sequel series to <i><a href="http://ltoflevisweeney.blogspot.com/2014/02/review-avatar-last-airbender.html" target="_blank">Avatar: The Last Airbender</a></i> was hyped to be from the start: bigger, better, and more beautiful than we've seen yet. Taking place a couple weeks after the events of the sadly mediocre <i><a href="http://ltoflevisweeney.blogspot.com/2014/07/review-legend-of-korra-book-2-spirits.html" target="_blank">Book 2: Spirits</a></i>, we see that Harmonic Convergence (long story) left dozens of random non-benders across the world -including Tenzin's brother Bumi- with the ability to airbend. This prompts Korra, Mako, Bolin, Tenzin, Asami, Bumi, and Jinora to embark on a quest to gather the new airbenders and rebuild the Air Nomads from the ground up. Unbeknownst to them, however, a mysterious warrior poet named Zaheer (voiced by Henry Rollins) has broken out of prison under the watch of the strangely incompetent White Lotus, with airbending abilities of his own. He pulls together his own team of elite benders to strike at Team Avatar for enigmatic purposes. Will Korra and company succeed in their quest before Zaheer achieves his mysterious plan? (Good grief, I'm beginning to sound like Shiro Shinobi.)<br />
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Aside from the intense emotion, high drama, funny dialogue, stunning visuals, great voice acting, and cool action that is by now par for the course on this show, Book 3 boasts what is quite easily the best villain we've seen yet. Unalaq and Vaatu were just two more generic evil bad guys at the end of the day, and Amon, while getting an awesome build-up, was the victim of a lousy payoff. It didn't help that he and Tarrlok went out kind of stupidly, and don't even get me started on Hiroshi Saito. Zaheer though, Zaheer is a whole different animal. Zaheer is quite easily one of the best TV villains I've seen yet, and the best I've ever seen in an animated series. I'd even say that he's one of the best villains we've seen in the entire Avatar-franchise, up there with Azula, Long Feng, and Ozai. What makes Zaheer such a great villain? Simple: He has the most complex, well-developed, interesting, and well-executed motivation we've ever seen on this entire show, and in my book is tied with Zuko for that category in the entire franchise.<br />
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But what is that motivation, and why is it so important to Zaheer's character?<br />
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As any seasoned writer who might be reading this blog would know, in a story, character motivation is everything. Without a motivation, a character is just a random blip on the screen with no purpose and no place in the story. They're just there, doing nothing, affecting nothing, and that makes for a pretty boring story. Believe it or not, making up a character motivation is a lot harder than it sounds if you're a writer. I can't begin to tell you of the ribbings I endured in an old creative writing class I took a few years ago that stemmed from my characters having terrible, poorly thought out motivations. Simply put, the better motivation a character has, the better odds he (or she!) has of being a great character. And remember what Zaheer has?<br />
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That's the thing about Zaheer though: His motivation is so complex and mysterious that even Korra and the rest of Team Avatar doesn't know what's driving him and his pals until about halfway through the season, and even then it blows their minds even more than it does the audience's. The long and short of it is that the guiding philosophy of Zaheer's group is that the natural order of the world is, in fact, disorder, and that they are on a righteous mission to topple all the world's governments and throw the world into anarchy. Throw in a smattering of humanism, and you've got what amounts to Zen Anarchism, which is probably the most bizarre philosophical label I've ever seen, discussed, or otherwise conceived of.<br />
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It's also inherently unworkable.<br />
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I don't know exactly what the show's illustrious creators (Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko) were trying to do when they introduced Zaheer, but Zen Anarchism as a practical philosophy is fundamentally irreconcilable with its very self. Zen, insofar as I understand it, is the attainment of wisdom through meditation, which in Eastern philosophical thought is basically thinking really, really hard. Anarchism, on the other hand, advocates for a stateless society where no government exists, based on the premise that any kind of governance only leads to more suffering, which is right where Zaheer stands. But the entities that cherish the obtaining of knowledge and wisdom, such as institutions of higher learning and many religious bodies, are historically shown to be byproducts of an established society in which there exists some sort of governing authority. The environment of peace and safety required to pursue a Zen-like lifestyle is unattainable in an environment of anarchy. As James Madison wrote in <a href="http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa51.htm" target="_blank"><i>The Federalist </i>No. 51</a>, "<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Nimbus Sans L'; font-size: 16px;">If men were angels, no government would be necessary." </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNh-CcMyjkNpcIetwkdaT-ri-ySqsPQYO8_TFtvWL-FSYY7eEhxWF8fY1h0uTvw4hwi-7n05omKvFpXY4NeBuCLGZVMEv5FNmzTmzHJcBaqXTKsRPefRQWsd23-xgN5mqnJ8EykPoAiS8/s1600/Zaheer.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNh-CcMyjkNpcIetwkdaT-ri-ySqsPQYO8_TFtvWL-FSYY7eEhxWF8fY1h0uTvw4hwi-7n05omKvFpXY4NeBuCLGZVMEv5FNmzTmzHJcBaqXTKsRPefRQWsd23-xgN5mqnJ8EykPoAiS8/s1600/Zaheer.png" height="180" width="320" /></a><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">If men were angels. The key problem with with Zaheer's outlook is that he's got all backwards. Men aren't angels because of bad governments; certain governments are bad because men aren't angels. One particularly memorable scene from episode 3 of <i>Book 3: Change </i>("The Earth Queen") features Team Avatar arriving at Ba Sing Se. In an obvious parallel to a similar scene in <i>Book 2: Earth </i>of <i>Airbender</i>, they come into the city, only to find that it's a old, broken down cesspit of poverty and pestilence, ruled over by a despotic dragon-lady of a monarch who bleeds the people of their tax-money and then leaves them to rot. The message: Things haven't changed at all. If anything, they've gotten worse. In universe, the Ba Sing Se of 75-plus years prior was, in Troper parlance, a <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CrapsaccharineWorld" target="_blank">Crapsaccharine World</a>. At least there was a semblance of order, and things were relatively safe and peaceful. Now, it's a full-on kleptocracy, where the kingdom and its citizens are the chattels of the Earth Queen.</span><span style="font-family: Nimbus Sans L;"> </span></span><br />
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Does this mean that all government is inherently bad? Not quite. While any human effort to erect a lasting authority based on its own principles, borrowed or invented, is doomed to fail, almost any government is worse than no government. An every-man-for-himself mentality, where the rule of law is defined by who carries the biggest stick, is unquestionably a chaotic nightmare that only a shortsighted fool would really want. Look no further than Somalia. Is Zaheer such a shortsighted fool? He's no dummy, but I think we'll have to wait until Book 4 to find out the real answer to that question, owing to the inevitable consequences of the back half of <i>Book 3: Change</i>.<br />
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In short, man was never meant to live apart from his neighbor, a situation which Anarchism cannot resolve. You can talk all you want about mutual cooperation without government, but again, men are not angels. A mirror of the ultimate authority is needed if the ends of God are to be met, that is, if mercy, justice, peace, love, and gentleness are to be the ruling attributes of a society. The common refrain in the book of Judges was, "<span style="background-color: #fdfeff; color: #001320; line-height: 20px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes." Scary, huh? In the book of Romans, Paul wrote, "</span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God." Jesus Christ himself said in the book of Luke, concerning taxes, </span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.” Zaheer may think he knows what's best for the world, but Korra and company would be happy to know that he's wrong, rightfully rejecting Zaheer's worldview.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">In sum, Zaheer has great appeal as a villain. He's smart, cunning, cool, has a complex and compelling motivation, and feels like a flesh-and-blood person. He's not a megalomaniac like Ozai, nor is he a destructive tyrant like Unalaq. He has a lot more in common with Amon than anyone else, even though they fall on two opposite extremes of the ideological spectrum. He even has a girlfriend, for Pete's sake! (Incidentally, I think that "The Earth Queen" features the franchise's first onscreen lip-lock between two consenting adults.) I love how he quotes poetry and airbends like a boss, because he's just that awesome. It helps that he has some real badbutt friends. His "philosophical mumbo-jumbo," as Korra put it, may be unsound, but he's nonetheless a very charismatic villain.</span><br />
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Next time, we'll be talking about another interesting faucet of <i>The Legend of Korra</i>: The Metal Clan.<br />
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<i>Images courtesy of </i>avatar.wikia.comAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04249838873469069919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5338417907515816484.post-1041305579117212512015-02-26T09:00:00.000-08:002015-02-26T12:36:38.212-08:00Firefly: The 'Verse According to Mal<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I was first introduced to <i>Firefly</i> in 2011 while researching for a paper on the comparative merits of science fiction and fantasy. In hindsight, I believe that this particular subject was too subjective to warrant serious debate in an academic paper, amount to little more than an opinion piece followed by a comparison of box office numbers and accolades. However, researching for this paper allowed my dear friend Nathan (a different Nathan; <i>not</i> the one who believes that the 1978 <i>Superman</i> film is the greatest superhero film ever made, and yes Nate, I will never stop bugging you about that, old pal) to help me start watching <i>Firefly</i>. I remember liking the show then, and I recently re-watched the whole series on a whim, and I was blown away by how <i>good</i> it actually was to my older eyes. A combination of witty dialogue, fun action, engaging stories, excellent acting and production design, and a ingeniously creative plot made for what could potentially have been the greatest sci-fi TV show ever made.<br />
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For those who don't know, <i>Firefly</i> was a short-lived television series created by Joss Whedon, the man behind <i>Buffy the Vampire Slayer</i>, <i>Angel</i>, and <i>The Avengers</i>. <i>Firefly</i> fell into the sort of unique genre-splicing category that Whedon is known for, being best described as space western. You have a nine guys and gals flying through space in a ship called <i>Serenity</i> in the years following a galactic civil war. <i>Serenity</i> is captained by Malcolm "Mal" Reynolds (Nathan Fillion), a veteran of the losing side of the war, the Independents. The winner of that war, the Alliance, is depicted as a callous, draconian regime which Mal states is intent on everyone being "interfered with or ignored equally." After re-watching these 14 episodes in preparation for finally watching the big-screen sequel <i>Serentiy</i>, I came to conclude that Malcolm Reynolds is probably best described as a libertarian.<br />
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Don't ask me what Whedon's personal political views are, but I believe that this series is probably the most balanced and compelling portrayal of a political viewpoint which I remotely agree with. Mal cherishes what freedom and livelihood is left for him and his compatriots as smugglers, prowling the edges of "civilized" space looking for work, legal or illegal. He and his crew know that their business is a dangerous one, but Mal firmly wants to avoid being caught up in the society of the government he loathes, be it "make-work" jobs provided by the Alliance or even a semblance of legitimacy under the same oppressive system. In other words, he's a disaffected man of principle who doesn't like to admit that he still has principles.<br />
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And he truly is disaffected; before the end of the war, Mal was a religious man who fought for his comrades and his cause, ready to charge into battle at a moment's notice. When we see him in the series in the present day, he has no love for God, having an awkward, sometimes tense relationship with Shepherd Book (Ron Glass), a preacher who finds himself traveling aboard <i>Serenity</i>. On the surface, Mal hasn't changed much since before and after the war, still being generally affable and honest, aside from the occasional illegal activity that he and his crew engage in. But underneath, he's plainly much more cynical and dour than he was before, and remains that way throughout the series. I haven't seen <i>Serenity</i> (the movie) yet, but I understand that this might change a little. And there's still all the <i>Serenity</i> comics that I have to read...<br />
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The main point, however, is that in a fictional world plainly meant to resemble post-Civil War America, Mal is a clear analogue to the Confederate soldier who honestly believed that he was fighting for a just cause when he signed up for the Confederate army, and then wondering why their just cause hadn't won the day. Unfortunately, that's where the similarities end. The Union is not the Alliance, and the Alliance is not the Union. There's no Lincoln here, no Robert E. Lee, no Grant, no Jefferson Davis. As much of a parallel it's meant to be, the context simply doesn't allow for any great analogy between the two situation than on a primarily superficial level.<br />
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Insofar as I know, there hasn't been much detail given about the exact nature of the Independents' idea of good government, if any, so it's obviously difficult to give a fair evaluation between the broad swathes of a despotic federated entity and a libertarian resistance movement. If what I've heard about the Alliance from other sources is anything to go by, however, I think that it's more than fair to say that they're obviously really bad guys. Until I watch <i>Serenity</i> and read the comics, I confess that I might not be able to produce as well-rounded an analysis on this subject as I could, but I believe that at the moment, I'm pretty sure this will do. Besides, when I finally do watch <i>Serenity</i>, I'll have someone else to write about: Shepherd Book.<br />
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<i>Fun Fact: </i>Alen Tudyk, who played Wash in <i>Firefly</i>, also voiced Mickey in <i><a href="http://ltoflevisweeney.blogspot.com/2013/07/halo.html?q=halo" target="_blank">Halo</a> 3: ODST</i> and Krei is <i>Big Hero 6</i>. Tudyk wasn't the only <i>Firefly</i> actor to voice a<i> </i>character in <i>ODST</i>. Nathan Fillion voiced Buck, and Adam Baldwin, who played Jayne in Firefly, voiced Dutch.<br />
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<i>Image courtesy of </i>moviepilot.comAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04249838873469069919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5338417907515816484.post-28299218428132155542015-02-16T09:00:00.000-08:002015-02-16T09:51:30.444-08:00Ms. Marvel, Vol. 1: No Normal: A Muslim Superhero, or a Superhero Who's a Muslim?<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9K1mL3td3n-_GOJe_3lHKitFELtlupd3ja7jsiqjofo1IuiAI29iUckD5F3ZExrip2JPioRrI1SxhcvQ6URs2ktW37qbTXsvC_stZFqalKgXUUNoSlgvOlP3o-phf8P-c-NUsGATc1t8/s1600/51LGrM5dxoL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9K1mL3td3n-_GOJe_3lHKitFELtlupd3ja7jsiqjofo1IuiAI29iUckD5F3ZExrip2JPioRrI1SxhcvQ6URs2ktW37qbTXsvC_stZFqalKgXUUNoSlgvOlP3o-phf8P-c-NUsGATc1t8/s1600/51LGrM5dxoL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" height="320" width="206" /></a><br />
I think that it's an established fact that these days, we view diversity as a virtue. Back in the day, diversity was nice to have, but not essential, like faith, hope, and love. I learned in my Communications Studies class that diversity is good for business, as it fosters a wide variety approaches to problem solving and so forth. But today, diversity is so important to the movers and shakers of our society that if you don't have it, you must be a racist or a bigot or a sexist or a radical right-wing haters-gotta-hate type. I mean, why wouldn't you want diversity in your workplace? Don't have any people of color? Yep, definitely racist. (Incidentally, my workplace currently employs four people, one of whom is a woman and another of whom is Vietnamese.<br />
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But once again, I'm getting off track. All that said, let's talk about <i>Ms. Marvel</i>.<br />
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The point of my above rant was that we value diversity very highly in today's society. Some opinionated but grossly misinformed persons believe that institutionalized racism is still a problem, but really, who honestly believes that? Walk into any Wal-Mart, Starbucks, school, gym, or government building, and you'll see people of all colors, creeds, and walks of life living, working, and playing together in peace. The very existence of the comic book <i>Ms. Marvel</i> is yet another nail in the coffin of the theory that institutionalized racism still exists to a large degree in this nation, even if the comic book itself doesn't seem to have gotten the message.</div>
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Under the pen of G. Willow Wilson, this new incarnation of <i>Ms. Marvel</i> has a 16 year old girl named Kamala Khan living a normal life in Jersey City. She's a huge Avengers fan-girl who weirdly reminds me of my sister, writing fan-fiction in her spare time, chafing at her parents' authority, and dying to eat bacon. Oh, and I forgot to mention this, but she's a Muslim, ethnically Pakistani. Anyway, on her way home one night, she gets caught up in a mysterious cloud of mist, which, after a brief hallucination, gives her superpowers. Inspired by selected quotes from what I believe is the Koran, she decides to fight crime as Ms. Marvel!</div>
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Let me tell you, I really like this book. Kamala is a likable character with a fun supporting cast. You've got her parents, her brother, her friends Bruno and Nakia, and the beginnings of her very own archvillian. The book mainly goes for the humorous side of being a superhero, such as when Kamala fails spectacularly at foiling a convenience store hold up, avoiding serious harm due to sheer luck and an incompetent robber. It's very Spider-Man-esque, sort of like Brian Bendis' <i>Ultimate Spider-Man</i>. It also reminds me somewhat of Chuck Dixon's run on <i>Robin</i> when <a href="http://ltoflevisweeney.blogspot.com/2014/02/tim-drake-third-robin-is-anything-but.html" target="_blank">Tim Drake</a> was in the suit back in the '90s. And considering that Tim Drake's Robin and <a href="http://ltoflevisweeney.blogspot.com/2014/06/spider-man-greatest-superhero-in-comics.html" target="_blank">Spider-Man</a> are some of my favorite comic book characters of all time, that's a huge compliment coming from me. This book is more quirky than either <i>Ultimate Spider-Man</i> or <i>Robin</i>, kind of reminding me of Brian Q. Miller's <i>Batgirl</i> in that regard, but with a stronger emphasis on social media technology, with Kamala's unique background giving the story extra flavor.</div>
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Speaking of which, that brings us to the central point espoused in the title of this post: Is Kamala a Muslim superhero, or a superhero who's a Muslim? A similar question was addressed by Ben Stone to Paul Robinette on <i>Law and Order</i>. What I mean to ask is if Kamala is a superhero who is defined by her identity as a Muslim, or a superhero who just so happens to be a Muslim? Happily for the story, it so far seems to be the latter. However, it makes me wonder if the writers would be gutsy enough to address the philosophical consequences of a Muslim superhero in post-9/11 world. It would be an awfully profound story to tell if done well, but so far the closest we've seen to such questions being addressed are not-Liz-Allen's mildly offensive and ludicrously vacuous asides. And seriously, this girl, I think her name is Zoe Zimmer, is totally Liz Allen, and her boyfriend is obviously a stand-in for Flash Thompson, right down to the letterman jacket. </div>
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It doesn't help that Kamala herself seems to buy into the presumption that a large percentage of white people are racist bigots, when this is simply not true. I mean, it's just silly to believe that in a world where people are constantly tripping over themselves to avoid being seen as racist, the currently fashionable cause of today's elite is a crusade against racism. Does racism still exist in the hearts of some people? Absolutely. I'm sure there are plenty of people, whether they're white, black, Arab, Asian, Hispanic, or polka-dot, who are racists. Is institutionalized racism a problem in this country anymore? No. You're not going to be denied entry into a hotel if you're black and the proprietor is white, nor will you be denied a BLT at Wendy's if you're Hispanic. In fact, if this did happen, you could probably sue and win.</div>
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I don't know if Kamala or her writers will come to understand this, but I do know that I will continue to follow this new Marvel comic because its a good, fun story which makes me laugh and smile. And mind you, the last Marvel comic I read was <i><a href="http://ltoflevisweeney.blogspot.com/2014/08/review-road-to-marvels-avengers.html" target="_blank">Marvel's Road to the Avengers</a></i>, a terrible collection if there ever was one, which nearly drove me away from reading Marvel's stuff forever. But now, I'm willing to expand my horizons. Maybe Marvel is getting better. Maybe. I'm willing to give it chance now.<br />
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<i>Image courtesy of goodreads.com</i></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04249838873469069919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5338417907515816484.post-72909501587075668982015-01-24T12:50:00.001-08:002015-01-28T19:29:02.385-08:00True Villains: A Case Study in Moral NihilismImagine a world where evil wins.<br />
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Picture it. The heroes are defeated. The bad guys are triumphant, making wisecracks and pumping fists. Their heinous deeds are splashed across the canvas of your imagination, brought to fruition and on display for all to see. And those wicked sots are actually proud of their actions, feeling justified by them. But there's more: In this scenario, evil deserved to win. In fact, the bad guys are actually the good guys, and the people you thought were the good guys aren't actually all that good. In fact, they're humorless, self-righteous prigs at best, and oafish bullies at worst. What kind of world is this? It's nothing short of a nightmare. </div>
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But it is, in a perversely profound way, right on the mark about what things would really be like without reality's single defining factor: God. </div>
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I've talked a little about my faith on this blog before, but it's mostly been something of sideshow. I'd throw in a Bible verse on the weekends, fill in the people who actually read this thing on the sermons at my church, maybe name drop Big G on occasion, generally in a humorous manner. But now I'd like to talk about something serious. Ironically enough, the spark of this serious discussion comes from a frankly silly and ostensibly lighthearted source: a webcomic called <i><a href="http://www.truevillains.com/" target="_blank">True Villains</a></i>.</div>
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My good buddy Nathan (the other Nathan; not the one who thinks that the Richard Donner <i><a href="http://ltoflevisweeney.blogspot.com/2014/04/review-superman-1978-film.html" target="_blank">Superman</a></i> movie is the greatest superhero movie ever made) recommended this webcomic to me as a possible source of inspiration, and for a good laugh, in writing my own webcomic. In fact, both my own webcomic (Currently in the works. More on that in the future!) and <i>True Villains</i> have a similar premise; a satirical take on the conventions of genre fiction from the vantage point of the bad guys. To be specific, <i>True Villains</i> takes the standard tropes of your average fantasy world (like, "the good guys always win" and "crime never pays" and "bad guys don't wear yellow."), and turns them inside out and flips them upside down. </div>
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To be honest, this webcomic is fun stuff, with a style of humor that zigzags from raunchy to ridiculous, though never to the extreme of either. In addition to being funny, the characters are admittedly likable. You've got adventurer-turned-apprentice-to-the-evil-bad-guy Sebastian Jalek, Elia the Necromancer, Mia the magical child, Bayn the kid sorcerer, and Xanith the aforementioned evil bad guy. I swear, the makers of this strip could make a truckload of cash on T-shirts of Xanith saying, "I have a plan," or Mia smiling.</div>
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But remember what I said earlier, about imagining a world where evil wins? That's pretty much what this strip is, complete with the heroes who aren't heroes. I don't want to sound like some kind of killjoy, but the tail end of Saga 5 made me feel a lump in the pit of my stomach. In it, Sebastian tells his old adventuring buddies, including his sister, to basically shove it, complete with his own explanation of how he sees morality. For the sake of brevity, I will not include the full outpouring of bullcrap that spewed forth from the character's mouth (even Xanith, who's a flipping demon, agrees with me), but I will summarize it. <a href="http://www.truevillains.com/comic-2013-01-09-This%20is%20Why-jpg.htm" target="_blank">In the scene</a>, Sebastian essentially says that good and evil are two equally valid choices, and that morality is defined by the whim of the chooser. He isn't nearly that honest, wrapping his perversely self-justified twaddle in doublespeak, equating his lack of a definite moral compass with "freedom." </div>
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Freedom. Freedom to do what? Freedom to do whatever Xanith, a sadistic liar, tells him? Freedom to kill and destroy whenever it's convenient? Freedom to aid a psychopathic murderer like Elia in various acts of wholesale slaughter? Near the beginning of the strip, Xanith orders the pair to burn down a whole village for a laugh, with Elia melting the faces off of the survivors. Sebastian admittedly saves Mia from the catastrophe, but only based on an arbitrary notion of morality that he readily discards at will, such as in a recent strip when he's assigned to kill a child said to be "the Chosen One." What kind of freedom is that?<br />
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Sebastian goes even further, claiming that it's pointless to fight for good, because there will always be evil. Here's where he turns from moral relativism to outright nihilism. Nihilism is the belief that nothingness defines reality, that life is simply futile. Sebastian has embraced nihilism, declaring that he is glad to be on the side of evil, because it makes him feel "free." He sees himself as above good and evil, doing thing not because he should, but because he can. In other words, he believes that he can do whatever he wants with no consequences. </div>
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Of course, in the world of <i>True Villains</i>, it's vaguely possible for Sebastian to have a point, if only because in that world, there is no "God" as we understand it. There are said to be many "gods," such as a god of progress, a god of stability, a god of fear, a god of tall grass, etc. In fact, there is said to be a "god" for every aspect of reality. (Logically, this would imply that there are gods for good, evil, justice, truth, etc., but these "gods" are also said to be "unbiased" towards good or evil. How a possible god of justice could be "unbiased" toward either good or evil is beyond me.) Again, this is perversely profound, in that if there were a world wherein no supreme, objective standard of morality existed, then the logical extreme would be that there would be no supreme, objective standard of morality at all. Any honest atheist philosopher would say just as much, if not more so. Therefore, Sebastian and his cohorts are perfectly justified in committing acts of injustice, and have no reason to pretend to have a moral code, because there is no basis to have such a code if there is in fact no God, or even many gods. In the words of <span style="font-family: inherit;">Fydor <span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">Dostoevsky</span>, "I<span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">f God does not exist, then everything is permitted."</span></span></div>
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This is all rather ironic, as there are plenty of "good guys" who mainly consist of the aforementioned humorless, self-righteous prigs, and also plenty of bad guys who readily admit that they're "morally bankrupt" and on the side of evil, including Sebastian's boss, Xanith. It's even acknowledged that Hell exists, and that all of these "gods" have both angels and demons working for them. The convoluted nature of this invented theology is nonetheless quite disturbing if given sufficient thought. It doesn't help that there's a lot of attention given to the various acts of necromancy and "dark magic" employed by our villains, which is disgustingly portrayed in agonizing detail. Good grief, I'm beginning to understand why people like Jack Chick don't like D&D. </div>
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In sum, we have a mildly intelligent, well-written and illustrated, yet at the same time quite disturbing webcomic, where good and evil are equivalent to blue and orange in difference. It's a world where basic concepts of morality rest upon the whim of the individual, where good is a word and a word is air. (Thanks for the quote, Shakespeare!) That does sound like a nightmare. As the good book says, "<span style="font-family: inherit;">Oh, taste and see that the <span style="font-variant: small-caps;">Lord </span>is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!"</span><br />
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<i>Image courtesy of tvtropes.org</i>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04249838873469069919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5338417907515816484.post-29990838812834159872015-01-22T08:00:00.000-08:002015-01-22T08:00:01.522-08:00Batman Eternal, Vol. 1: In with the Old, Out with the New<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0YbebH0TaqkCr8YNcNy6THUm7VhlPtFS1ldrx7lTlYKbe5Uyx7WXP-64Hs3mG-QKh6u0tpjvwO7OiCMfSw52itup8BQsKI6jk4XqtfEvfoZ1kIvD3N_Gi_F3PKfqeljnD4cYuaciDaII/s1600/Batman_Eternal_Vol_1_1_Textless.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0YbebH0TaqkCr8YNcNy6THUm7VhlPtFS1ldrx7lTlYKbe5Uyx7WXP-64Hs3mG-QKh6u0tpjvwO7OiCMfSw52itup8BQsKI6jk4XqtfEvfoZ1kIvD3N_Gi_F3PKfqeljnD4cYuaciDaII/s1600/Batman_Eternal_Vol_1_1_Textless.jpg" height="320" width="210" /></a>In the comics business, at the big two anyway, there are several types of event comics. You've got the <i>crisis crossover</i>, in which the whole shared universe is involved, one way or another, in some cosmic battle for the fate of reality as we know it (see <i>Crisis on Infinite Earths</i>, <i>Civil War</i>, and <i>Forever Evil</i>); the <i>Bat-family crossover, </i>in which all of the books set around a specific location or set of characters participate in a single series of events (see <i>Knightfall</i>, <i>The Death of Superman </i>and <i>Trinity War</i>; Marvel isn't really into this sort of crossover as most of their heroes are centered around the same location anyway, making any mass event crossovers essentially crisis crossovers). And then you've got the <i>maxi-series</i>.<br />
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A maxi-series, quite plainly, is the larger cousin of the mini-series, that is, a limited series which goes on for a bit longer than your typical 4 to 8 issue mini-series. In truth, the only maxi-series I've read are <i>Brightest Day, Justice League: Generation Lost</i>,<i> </i>and <i>Batman Eternal</i>, all of which were at DC Comics and the last of which we will be reviewing today. I want to read <i>52</i>, which I have heard good things about, but I'm not too interested in looking into Marvel's <i>Secret Wars</i>.<br />
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<i>Batman Eternal</i> is a weekly series, the first I'm aware that DC has done since <i>52</i> back in 2006. Taking place in the aftermath of <i>Forever Evil</i>, which saw the "death" of Nightwing, <i>Eternal</i>'s basic premise is that Commissioner Gordon accidentally kills a train full of people (or did he?) and goes to jail, Carmine "the Roman" Falcone shows up to wreak serious havoc, and Batman has to control a violent gang war while investigating who was really responsible for the train accident that Gordon allegedly caused. Batman's gonna need every ally he has for this one...<br />
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If all of that sounds a bit confusing, rest assured, I am telling it like it is. <i>Batman Eternal</i> has a bloated cast, an entangled spiderweb of subplots, and a story-line which has pacing issues that you wouldn't believe. Believe me, I wanted to like <i>Eternal</i>, but as with so many other stories I've read, you kind of have to see it to get the full gist of it.<br />
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If you're reading this article and thinking that <i>Batman Eternal</i> is a awful series, I'll be the first to say that it's not that bad... in some respects. I mean, the core idea of the book, that is, stories about the various Bat-family members working together to save the day, is an awesome idea that I wish we'd see more often. Unfortunately, <i>Eternal</i>'s biggest problem, aside from the fundamental weaknesses which I described earlier, is that, if anything, it's just too ambitious for its own good. The book itself reads like <i><a href="http://ltoflevisweeney.blogspot.com/2014/02/review-batman-war-drumswar-gameswar.html" target="_blank">Batman: War Games</a></i>, which is not a good thing, but is nonetheless pretty surprising. I mentioned in my review of that ill-fated Bat-family crossover that the thing was basically a huge mess, mainly because it lacked the solid plotting and a centralized storyline that made previous 90's-2000's era Bat-family crossovers work. The thing about <i>Eternal</i>, however, is that is does the exact same thing, for almost the exact same reasons, but is distilled and condensed into a maxiseries which normally wouldn't have this problem.<br />
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Why do I say, "normally?" I say "normally" because, normally, there's only one, maybe two, writers working on a single book. Even the great mega-series <i>Knightfall</i> had Chuck Dixon and Denny O'Neil working to keep the story solid and on course, and it worked out pretty well. In this case, we have around half-a-dozen writers working on this thing at once. Now, I'm no expert in the dynamics of comic book creative teams, but I'd be willing to wager that what we have here is a case of too many cooks in the kitchen. And it really is a shame, because most of these guys, to my knowledge, are top-notch Bat-scribes who could give us some great stuff. We've got names like Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV, and John Layman all working on this thing, and any one or even any two of them could probably have made a darn good maxi-series.<br />
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Unfortunately, with all of these writers, the end result is that we've got Batwing (Luke Fox) and Jim Corrigan mucking about in the basement of Arkham Asylum, Batman running hog-wild every which way, Batgirl and Red Hood fighting various bad guys in Brazil, and Red Robin and Harper Row trying to track down the source of a nanovirus (don't ask) in Tokyo, and that's without mentioning the Stephanie Brown plot, the Julia Pennyworth plot, the Falcone-Penguin gang war plot, the Jim Gordon in jail plot, the Jason Bard being a super-awesome cop plot, and the whatever the flipping else I forgot to mention plot! (GCPD, Mayor Hady, Deacon Blackfire, Vicki Vale, etc.)<br />
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I also take issue with the books seesawing depiction of certain characters, such as Jason Bard and Vicki Vale. For most of the story, Bard is depicted as a competent, smart, and good cop. Then at the end, this portrayal gets flipped on its head with almost no foreshadowing, other than Batman saying, "I don't trust you." That kind of threw me for a loop. Contrary to popular belief, just because Batman says something doesn't make it true. And if it is true, it does not count as foreshadowing, because Bard didn't actually do anything until the very end to make you go, "Whoa... that totally just happened." It's more like, "Huh? What the... that makes no sense!" Vicki Vale is a different case, mainly because she's acting like a smart, super-awesome reporter gal one moment, and an airhead with no sense the next.<br />
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This series also engages a lot in what my colleague Rob Siebert over at Primary Ignition calls "needless naming." This phenomenon occurs when characters go out of their way to say each other's names out loud so that the audience knows who they are. Problem is, when you do it more than once, it gets really annoying really fast. Seriously, it happens once an issue, and you'd think that the writers would realize that people who are following a weekly series wouldn't need to be reminded of the identities of the cast every issue. Honestly people, believe in the intelligence of your audience!<br />
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What does <i>Batman Eternal</i> get right, you ask? Like I said, I genuinely love the main idea of this book: the Bat-family working together, kicking butt and taking names. The interactions and character dynamics between them are pretty good (for a New 52 production), if not always outstanding. I like how they brought back Carmine Falcone, who was a pretty good villain back during <i>Batman: The Long Halloween. </i>In fact, all of the older, classic, characters get a really good deal in this trade. Tim Drake/Red Robin gets some spotlight in a genuine Bat-book for once; <a href="http://ltoflevisweeney.blogspot.com/2014/03/stephanie-brown-that-plucky-purple.html" target="_blank">Stephanie Brown</a> is finally reintroduced into the New 52; ditto for Bard, Cluemaster, and the surprise villain near the end of the book. This book is all about brushing up on older Bat-comics history, and I love it. Even the newer characters like Harper, Julia, and Leo (Gordon's cell mate) don't exactly get the short end of the stick. They all get a chance to shine, and I know that they'll all have bigger roles in Vol. 2.<br />
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If anyone gets a raw deal in this collection, it's Catwoman. She shows up early to chat with Batman, and gives us a nice reaction shot when she hears that Falcone is back in town, but the next time we see here, she gets captured by Falcone and gets saved by the timely intervention of... Professor Pyg? Oh, yeah, and Batman helped. (Speaking of Professor Pyg, we never really see what happened to that guy after he was sent to Arkham and he let out a big "No!" Also, we never see the fate of Corrigan and Batwing, who go down fighting zombies in the basement of Arkham Asylum.)<br />
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The final notable element of this book was the art. It's rare that we get to see such an ambitious Bat-family story with so many characters brought to life by more-or-less the same artist. Having the same artist throughout the series (with occasional substitutes, such as by Dustin Nguyen) brings a unity of function and form to the series that is lacking in most Bat-family crossovers. Indeed, in most Bat-family crossovers, the art and writing styles are so eclectic that you'd think that <a href="http://ltoflevisweeney.blogspot.com/2012/12/azrael.html" target="_blank">Jean-Paul Valley</a> wrote the book if you didn't know better.<br />
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Unfortunately, despite these fleeting strengths, <i>Batman Eternal, Vol. 1</i> largely falls flat due to an assortment of fundamental flaws which form the foundation of sand upon which this series is built. I sincerely wanted to like <i>Eternal</i>, and I followed its progress quite closely on the internet prior to the release of this volume. It's reintroduction of Stephanie Brown to the New 52 is laudable, and I salute Snyder and his cohorts for their use of this fan-pleasing strategy. It was nice to see the Bat-family together on the comics page in capable hands, but I know that with a different combination of writers (or just one), it could have been done even better. And if I'm right that the writers' idea is to make this story into a recreation of <i>Batman: War Games</i>, I can only ask one, single, overriding question: "Could you have honestly picked a worse Batman story to try to emulate?"<br />
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<b>RATING: </b>6.5/10<br />
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<i>Fun fact: </i>In the graphic novel, Carmine Falcone is running a criminal empire of some kind in Hong Kong prior to returning to Gotham City. As something of a crime buff, I have to wonder, why would a former Italian Mafioso be running a criminal empire in Hong Kong? I mean, I'm sure its possible, but likely? Nah.<br />
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<i>Image courtesy of dc.wikia.com</i>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04249838873469069919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5338417907515816484.post-62666723712985158362014-08-24T20:55:00.001-07:002014-08-24T20:55:12.724-07:00A HiatusHello, readers. I am here to announce that I will be taking a short hiatus from blogging in order to reconsider my efforts in that area. I have recently discovered that in the interest of blogging better, I need to amend some things in my manner of blogging. This may indeed require a whole new blog in and of itself. This could also mean a new name, my own domain name, a completely new look, the whole nine yards. In the meantime, I will be taking a break from blogging in order to consider these things and find out what I ought to do. In addition, as a matter of practicality, school will be starting soon, and I may not be able to devote as much time as I would like to blogging anyway. Therefore, I will, with any luck at all, see you all soon under better circumstances.<br />
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Till we meet again.<br />
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"If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him." - James 1:5Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04249838873469069919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5338417907515816484.post-67979508735575856452014-08-23T09:00:00.000-07:002014-08-23T09:00:02.476-07:00Review: Sherlock - Series 1<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibJcYsBGJDg7-9EONjA7XeJPKaouS4mskfIvzpna-Y5CnL4bzEfFbsgTrlxEyo4EBlR5ReBU_j0UBrO29HeDEYhKbEl9EbaqbC9hZXaHMbe6eMn5eXtIZOfNMF2C3sQViG0GxTyQjEe-M/s1600/webSherlockS1GenC222.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibJcYsBGJDg7-9EONjA7XeJPKaouS4mskfIvzpna-Y5CnL4bzEfFbsgTrlxEyo4EBlR5ReBU_j0UBrO29HeDEYhKbEl9EbaqbC9hZXaHMbe6eMn5eXtIZOfNMF2C3sQViG0GxTyQjEe-M/s1600/webSherlockS1GenC222.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-ZHrPNZDZ3OR9C7xzzRkoBPsdkY0_3_o90O6Zyh4f0BIE0NH35tljoQqee7gr7R747V4A8gYoYFg1j__MolGz_0OXHJEdp2_4Hga5CxyjOOWOpvExICP4M2ptohyphenhyphenLsj9sYoynhlN4VpA/s1600/51ZmD3wILRL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a>At last, a Sherlock Holmes adaptation that's actually good.<br />
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As longtime readers of my blog will know, all of the Sherlock Holmes <a href="http://ltoflevisweeney.blogspot.com/2013/08/review-sherlock-holmes.html" target="_blank">film</a> <a href="http://ltoflevisweeney.blogspot.com/2013/08/review-sherlock-holmes-game-of-shadows.html" target="_blank">adaptations</a> or <a href="http://ltoflevisweeney.blogspot.com/2013/04/review-sherlock-holmes-and-titanic.html" target="_blank">public domain spin-offs</a> that I have reviewed have been sorely lacking, to say the least. I will not go into the specifics here, but I will say that each and every one of the ones that I have viewed or read did not, I believe, succeed in depicting a version of the Great Detective that was at all true to the original Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stories. I confess that I myself have not actually gotten around to reading those stories, but I have it on good authority from someone who has read them that the adaptations that I mentioned were infinitely inadequate, and, might I add, sensationally stupid.<br />
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BBC's <i>Sherlock</i>, however, is a different story.<br />
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Set in 21st century London, this adaptation features a modern Dr. John Watson recently returned from a tour of duty in Afghanistan, just like he was in the original stories. He's limping through life, perfectly miserable because, as he says, "Nothing happens to me." Then, through a mutual friend, John meets a truly strange person, who immediately discerns his whole life's story just from a look at the good doctor's cell phone. Before he knows it, this new acquaintance has invited him to become his new flatmate. The man's name? Do I even have to say it? ...Fine. Sherlock Holmes!<br />
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Sherlock and John, played by Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, respectively, are featured in a series of three 90-minute installments in this, Series 1 of <i>Sherlock</i>. From helping the police track down a serial killer to fighting a ruthless Chinese Triad to racing the clock against a mysterious malefactor, with it all being overshadowed by an enigmatic mastermind, Sherlock and John have all sorts of daring adventures. John is with confidence able to say to Sherlock's brother Mycroft, "I'm never bored."<br />
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<i>Sherlock </i>gets practically everything right. The cast and writers are, as I understand it, the cream of the crop in British Telly. Though all of the actors and actresses are top-notch, of particular note are the two leads, Cumberbatch (or "Benny" as some of my sister's fangirl friends are fond of calling him) and Freeman. The are undeniably the foremost of the cast, along with Rupert Graves as Lestrade and Mark Gatiss as Mycroft. Cumberbatch portrays a Sherlock Holmes who is cold and efficient, a self-described sociopath who is slowly learning empathy and humility. This is marked contrast to Robert Downey, Jr.'s clownish, half-baked performance. I remember hearing somewhere that if these two depictions could be met somewhere in the middle, we'd have a perfect Sherlock Holmes. As it is, I believe that Cumberbatch is the superior Sherlock Holmes, giving us a charismatic, memorable execution which continues to impress me as I re-watch this show in preparation for finally viewing Series 3. (No spoilers, please!)<br />
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Much also should be said for Martin Freeman's John Watson. Freeman is one of my favorite actors, up there with James Frain and Liam Neeson. I loved him as Arthur Dent in <i>Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy</i>, I loved him as Bilbo Baggins in <a href="http://ltoflevisweeney.blogspot.com/2013/01/review-hobbit-unexpected-journey.html" target="_blank"><i>The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey</i></a>, and I love him here as John. The thing about Martin Freeman is that he's an incredibly versatile actor, handling a wide range of roles, both comedic and dramatic. He manages to bring the full force of both of those propensities into his acting on this show, pulling off hilarious punchlines and sobering drama. It's fortunate that we have such a talented actor such as Freeman in the role of the viewpoint character of Dr. John Watson, perhaps equally as important that we have as incredible an actor as Benedict Cumberbatch in the role of Sherlock Holmes.<br />
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Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss are the two creative minds behind <i>Sherlock</i>. Though I am still a relative novice in the world of British Telly, being only vaguely familiar with <i>Doctor Who</i> (I'm still bogged down in Season 1) and the like, I do know this: These people genuinely love the Sherlock Holmes stories. They are dedicated to making the coolest, greatest, best Sherlock Holmes adaptation that all the might of the BBC can produce. This is present in everything from the characters to the plot details, with small tidbits like a text message that Sherlock sends John in the first episode having the same text as a telegram that Holmes sends Watson in one of the stories. Speaking of texting, this is very much a modern update of Sherlock Holmes, with key facets of the plot hinging on things like cell phones and the internet. Where Holmes smoked a pipe, Sherlock uses nicotine patches. In the hands of lesser talent, such an adaptation would be gimmicky at best and hamfisted at worst, but Moffat, Gatiss, and their compatriots are not by any means lesser talent.<br />
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Moffat in particular has a brilliant sense of suspense and mystery, as seen in the first episode of the series, "A Study in Pink." The mood is set perfectly right off the bat. It is very noirish, very stylish and techie. It kind of hearkens back to the '60s acid trips that you might see in the early episodes of <i>Columbo</i>. The most prominent feature of the show, however, transcends its stylish facade. <i>Sherlock</i> has a special brand of fast-paced humor and fun which makes you smile and gets you excited about what's going on in a way that few televisions shows manage do do. Above all, however, it's very intelligent, smart fun.What I'm saying here is that <i>Sherlock</i> is unusually cerebral for a television show, for in the end, any Sherlock Holmes story should be highly cerebral. I normally believe that television is a pretty watered down form of entertainment which cultivates dimwitted thinking in its viewers, but <i>Sherlock</i> is one of the few exceptions. This is one of those TV shows that makes you think.<br />
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The series' only con, however, is just what I pointed out as it's greatest strength: Being cerebral. Sometimes the mysteries presented in this show are a bit difficult to wrap my mind around, especially in "The Great Game", where you have multiple mysteries interwoven with each other with complicated solutions. As the old saying goes, "The devil's in the details."<i> Sherlock</i> is just so dadblamed smart that sometimes even I can't keep up with it. This is, I think, my third viewing of Series 1 and only now have I managed to understand who killed Connie Prince and why.<br />
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In summary, <i>Sherlock</i> is easily the best active Sherlock Holmes adaptation on the market today. Indeed, it is fitting that a classic work of English literature is being adapted by the BBC in a modern, tightly plotted update of the Great Detective, who, as it happens, is the most adapted literary figure in history. With awesome acting, cool characters, fantastic humor, and dynamic drama, it is not only the best Sherlock Holmes adaptation out there, but also one of the best adaptations period. Heck, it's one of the best TV shows out there period. A word of warning, however: Being a mystery crime drama, it is a bit intense for younger audiences, with a smattering of bad language and some blood and violence. Better to reserve this for viewers 15 and up.<br />
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<b>RATING: </b>10/10<br />
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<i>Image courtesy of wukaifeng.com</i>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04249838873469069919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5338417907515816484.post-13866161597470682302014-08-21T09:00:00.000-07:002014-08-21T09:00:04.246-07:00The Theatre and I<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnsKhQzAXDxIDSpumz5AOG_Hnedj5taLt7SWA4fj1V8wQ6w7HUoAye44Wu4ij1ZIeTp866uNrOvQHIN5vjOy0A2Ku7-lt7pvjpH2LWGWopXBspdWrk3K732c4m3Jmr_0hGHYJfPocdt4M/s1600/New-Hampshires-Palace-The-001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnsKhQzAXDxIDSpumz5AOG_Hnedj5taLt7SWA4fj1V8wQ6w7HUoAye44Wu4ij1ZIeTp866uNrOvQHIN5vjOy0A2Ku7-lt7pvjpH2LWGWopXBspdWrk3K732c4m3Jmr_0hGHYJfPocdt4M/s1600/New-Hampshires-Palace-The-001.jpg" height="192" width="320" /></a>My history with the stage is... complicated.<br />
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I used to go with my family all the time to Story Book Theatre's musical productions as the Carco Theatre. I remember enjoying those shows immensely, and I've occasionally gone there with my family in recent years. The theatre there is a bit silly to me now, but I still have good memories of it.<br />
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When I was in elementary school, I was part of my church's children's choir, KWAM (Kids With A Mission). We put on small musical productions for our church. I sang in the choir, played a few parts, and said a few lines. I have a lot of good memories from there. I even got KWAM Kid of the Year in my final year there. I can't say that I learned much about the finer points of acting and singing, or the finer points of anything theatre related, but I still had a fairly good time. <br />
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My next experience with the theatre was my Musical Theatre class in Junior High. There I began acting and singing in earnest, if not particularly well. It was a pretty fun class, and I made some good friends there. I wound up playing the Wolf in <i>Into the Woods, Jr.</i> I pretty much made a complete fool of myself both on and off the stage, for in those days of youthful folly, I saw fit to play the buffoon. As I was stuck in my uncomfortable Wolf costume backstage most of the time and could not get a hold of a video recording of the play, I have no idea whether the play itself was good or bad. But I do know that we players put a lot of effort into the production and that our teacher was just as enthusiastic and dedicated as we were. In sum, I consider that class to have been a positive experience overall.<br />
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Since then, I have not participated in any theatrical production whatsoever. However, there is no end to the amount of such productions that I have attended, none of which were particularly good.<br />
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Aside from the Story Book Theatre productions that I have occasionally gone to, I have seen several of my youngest sister's church musicals (now called Agape Kid's Choir as opposed to KWAM). I hate to speak ill of anything done with a good heart and a sincere spirit, especially from my own church, but these children's church musicals aren't exactly high class entertainment. In case it helps, however, I have been to plenty of non-church theatrical productions which can be described the same way. There were a couple of school musicals involving friends of my aforementioned youngest sister, such as <i>Honk! Jr. </i>and <i>Narnia: The Musical</i>. (The latter is a sad case of a great idea stunted by a poor script.)<br />
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The only "professional" theatre productions I've attended, other than Story Book Theatre, of course, are a few productions put on by the Renton Civic Theatre. I once went to a 70's musical version of Shakespeare's <i>Two Gentlemen from Verona</i>. <a href="http://www.seattleactor.com/news/modules.php?name=ANews&file=print&sid=833" target="_blank">Seriously.</a> My dad and I scored some tickets and thought it might be fun. It actually quite stupid, silly, and dull, not being so ridiculous as to qualify as charmingly goofy, but going completely over the top. Needless to say, my dad and I left during the intermission, after which we went to the only late-night movie I've ever been to, <i>The Last Airbender</i>, which was arguably equally awful, if not more so. But that's another post.<br />
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Just two Sundays ago, my dad and I went to see another production from the Renton Civic Theatre. To be specific, it was their Summer Teen Musical, starring High School and college age actors from around the area. I was very excited to go to this play, as I believed that it would be a fun experience. What was it called? <i>The Wedding Singer</i>, that's what. If I had done my research, I would known that <i>The Wedding Singer</i> is the name of a 1998 Adam Sandler movie, on which the play was plainly based. This alone should have been enough to deter me, as Adam Sandler is the only actor whom I genuinely loathe. At least, he is now. I now thank the most high God that I failed to persuade the rest of my family to attend the play with my father and me.<br />
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Suffice it to say, the play was vulgar and base, substituting profanity for wit and sexual innuendo for punchlines. If what I witnessed was capable of staining the suit I wore, it would never have come out. As it is, the horrid stain upon my memory remains. I'm sure it doesn't help that the movie the play was adapted from wasn't exactly the best source material, but surely whoever was responsible for that monstrosity of a play was intelligent enough to understand that it was complete pigswill. What kind of person who works with High School students honestly wants them to parade in front of their parents, friends, and relatives belting out song lyrics which are awash in obscenities? I honestly don't know, though if the enthusiastic applause of my fellow audience members was anything to go by, I was evidently the only one who cared about this rather disconcerting implication. (As a side note, I must say that as appalled as I was by the crass jokes that gushed forth from the actors' mouths, I was even more shocked at the laughter that was coming from mine.) I do not mean to disparage the acting and singing talent of the cast, but the play's libretto was fantastically foul.<br />
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I am now at a crossroads regarding theatre. All of my experience with theatre has been substandard at best and outrageously tasteless at worst. Should I seek out better examples of theatre and the stage, or should I give it all up and stick with movies and books? Are my experiences a survey of the whole of modern theatre, or is it only an unfortunate dip into a muddy portion of the pond? Am I a theatre person? Is theatre for me?<br />
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To answer my own questions, I don't know. I'd have to go see more plays, do better preliminary research, and spend more money. Until then, I earnestly reach out to you, gentle reader, for a bit of help. Are there any books on theatre you could recommend? Have any of you experience with professional theatre? Is all theatre as bowdlerized as disco Shakespeare was, or as profane and bawdy as <i>The Wedding Singer</i> was? I certainly hope not. Until then, "So, good night unto you all. Give me your hands, if we be friends, and Robin shall restore amends.”(Puck, <i>A Midsummer Night's Dream</i>.)<br />
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<i>Fun fact: </i>Into the Woods <i>is set to be made into a movie by Disney, to be released this December. Considering what the full, unabridged play actually was like, I'd be cautious. It's not exactly </i>Into the Woods Jr.<br />
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<i>Image courtesy of theguardian.com</i>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04249838873469069919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5338417907515816484.post-61750859190201249322014-08-19T09:00:00.000-07:002014-08-19T09:00:01.863-07:00Review: The Bucket List<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfnV6wmdKSKMtzI1tW-ohY_YC58Ju7j7pmN_Qy0ER8oo46JKRixWTkZdYYBhv8uxf5_mErJ6XbpLXw7VhNwbSIWj885YFNQ3Emf2IrTRSQkYFhAVwSHj-8ywFgPd85WhDQ2FHacBGDVGc/s1600/Bucket_list_poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfnV6wmdKSKMtzI1tW-ohY_YC58Ju7j7pmN_Qy0ER8oo46JKRixWTkZdYYBhv8uxf5_mErJ6XbpLXw7VhNwbSIWj885YFNQ3Emf2IrTRSQkYFhAVwSHj-8ywFgPd85WhDQ2FHacBGDVGc/s1600/Bucket_list_poster.jpg" height="320" width="216" /></a><i>The Bucket List</i> is quite unlike any other film that I have ever seen before. What I really mean by this, however, is that it's a feel-good movie. I have never in my own memory watched or reviewed a feel-good movie. I had heard of <i>The Bucket List</i> before, and thought that it sounded interesting. My curiosity was partially piqued due to the two leads, Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, who had previously starred as the Joker in <i>Batman</i> '89 and Lucius Fox in <i>The Dark Knight Saga</i>, respectively. So, here we have two A-list actors who both have experience acting in Batman films, starring together in a feel-good movie. The question, however, is "Does this movie 'feel good' at all, and should it?"<br />
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The basic premise of the movie is that two old, terminally ill men, a rich guy named Edward Cole (Nicholson) and a history buff auto mechanic named Carter Chambers (Freeman) wind up in the same hospital room, become friends, and decide to use their limited remaining time to go around the world doing cool and fun stuff. Inspired by Carter's "bucket list," Edward uses his insurmountable resources to ferry him and Carter everywhere from some place in the desert to the Himalayas to Hong Kong. In between skydiving and camping out in the savannah, Edward and Carter talk about weighty subjects such as family and the meaning of life.<br />
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First and foremost, I want to be clear that even though this movie was treated pretty roughly by the critics, including the late Roger Ebert, I actually liked it a lot. It was funny, well acted, and actually pretty touching. I understand that Mr. Ebert, who also suffers from cancer, had complaints about the realism of the movie, such as hospitals generally making a lot of money offering private rooms for a fee, or Carter's wife being "remarkably restrained" at him going gallivanting around the world, and the unfortunate implications of Freeman, a black actor, spending all these movies (such as <i>The Shawshank Redemption</i> and <i>Million Dollar Baby</i>) praising characters portrayed by white actors, or the apparently selfish nature of Edward's entirely selfless attempt to spend time enjoying life with a good friend. I admit that the former accusation is definitely well-founded, though I must point out that one does not watch a feel-good movie for the tight plot. In addition, there is actually a great scene where Nicholson's character does exactly what Mr. Ebert says never happens in the movie: He praises Freeman's character. I admit that the movie probably isn't the best depiction of terminal illness around, but not every movie can be <i>The Fault in our Stars</i>.<br />
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Mr. Ebert's admittedly credible and esteemed opinions aside, I still found this movie enjoyable, if not particularly memorable. The gags are enough to make you double over with laughter, laughing out loud, uproariously, and gladly. Nicholson and Freeman put on their best performances here, being great foils to each other, with a dynamic which is both comedic and dramatic. In fact, <i>every</i> actor is noteworthy in this film. I can't think of single one that did a sub-par job. And like any feel-good movie, it actually succeeds in making the viewer <i>feel good</i>. I don't doubt Mr. Ebert's assertions that the movie doesn't portray cancer as realistically as is could have, but I wouldn't call in insensitive. It would only be insensitive if the movie made a joke out of the issue, the movie actually making cancer the crux of the film's dramatic side.<br />
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On the whole, <i>The Bucket List</i> isn't exactly worthy of Frank Capra or Martin Scorsese, but it does succeed in what it sets out to do: Present an uplifting, tear-worthy flick that is easily likeable and really funny. I must warn, however, that there is a smattering of severe expletives (Edward is the main offender), one obscene gesture, and some sexual innuendo. This may be a real good feel-good movie, but I wouldn't advise that you watch it with your kids. For those of you out there who have an opinion on this sort of thing and have seen <i>The Bucket List</i>, what do you think of the cancer issue? Was it too lighthearted? What do you think? Feel free to let me know in the comments section.<br />
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<b>RATING: </b>7.5/10<br />
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<i>Image courtesy of wikipedia.org</i> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04249838873469069919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5338417907515816484.post-37616734683129843942014-08-17T14:20:00.001-07:002014-08-17T14:29:58.198-07:00Bible Verse Sunday #84This week's verse is James 5:16, a verse on prayer:<br />
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"Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working."<br />
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In this passage, Christians are instructed to confess their sins "to one another", not necessarily to a priest, but to fellow Christians who are concerned with the matter being confessed. James also writes that a righteous man will know better what the will of God is and thus how to best pray to Him.<br />
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In church today, the pastor spoke about judgement. He said that there are two kinds of judgement; judgements based on scriptural principals, that is, direct instruction, and judgement based on differing opinions on debatable doctrine, such as matters relating to communion. Judgement, he said, is detrimental when focused on opinion based matters, but is constructive when it brings honor to the Lord. He said that we should let such a God-honoring attitude permeate our social life, worship, parenting, politics, and work. The general rule of thumb is that we are to let God's judgement guide our interactions.<br />
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I then went to help out in the second grade class during the second hour, in which a lesson was given on prayer. The teacher gave a lesson on the Lord's prayer and on the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, also known as the Parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, as detailed in Luke 18:9-14. I also organized a small tick-tack-toe tournament.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04249838873469069919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5338417907515816484.post-88763663078240349322014-08-16T09:00:00.000-07:002014-08-16T09:00:01.931-07:00Review: The Abolition of Man<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLWlKDH28VgV2tuUNLfW0cgCWp1OW0PgliAvXGPqhKgBea91oMYxDqiJY0Z1BqeS_BHBttuzmi_gNe6v6wCOjCYkH99mz8pHDA3HGCvAkR7eLK0TandInt6yLenKHPuCNDjwfvvQ9XmUk/s1600/abolition_of_man_791.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLWlKDH28VgV2tuUNLfW0cgCWp1OW0PgliAvXGPqhKgBea91oMYxDqiJY0Z1BqeS_BHBttuzmi_gNe6v6wCOjCYkH99mz8pHDA3HGCvAkR7eLK0TandInt6yLenKHPuCNDjwfvvQ9XmUk/s1600/abolition_of_man_791.jpg" height="320" width="210" /></a><i>The Abolition of Man</i> is not a title of C.S. Lewis' I was initially familiar with when I picked it up in a bookstore in Cannon Beach last month. Like so many other things, I had heard of it, but I didn't know much about it. After reading it, I was glad to have read it and found the subject matter relevant even now, but I do not believe that it was as powerful as some of his other works.<br />
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By no means am I decrying C.S. Lewis' work here, oh, far from it. Published in 1943, <i>The Abolition of Man</i> seeks to criticize and deconstruct the view that "old fashioned" values such as courage and loyalty are precisely that: "old fashioned." The main thrust of the argument amounts to a defense of what we today call Natural Law, that is, universal moral standards, and also a strong blow against subjectivism. The contents of the book are adapted from a three part lecture series given by Lewis at the King's College. Also found within the book are Lewis' thoughts on certain aspects of modern educational materials, the extent of science's usefulness in ascertaining truth, and other subjects.<br />
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I readily admit that this is the first of Lewis' books that I have read which was purely academic in nature. That said, it's a bit harder to wrap my mind around than the familiar direct-and-to-the-point theological instruction than can be found in <i>The Screwtape Letters</i> or <i>Mere Christianity. </i>Of course, perhaps it's not quite accurate to refer to Lewis' writing as "direct-and-to-the-point" insomuch as it is eloquent and witty, yet comprehensible. Here, Lewis does write well, explaining the topic in a manner which demonstrates his good understanding of the subject. His prose communicates his point excellently, and I agree with this overall conclusion, but there's just one problem: It's kind of hard to understand just what that overall conclusion is.<br />
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I known I explained it already in the second paragraph, but I had to mull it over for a while and read around to piece it all together. I understand that Lewis is basically saying, concerning traditional moral values, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." It just took a while for me personally to digest the whole thing. It doesn't help that Lewis is constantly straying into Natural Law theory and referencing the Chinese Tao, which only serves to muddle his message even more. It's a good book and it teaches a good thing, and reading it sure made me feel smart, and I came away feeling like I'd learned something, and I totally agree with what Lewis is saying, but it's still super complicated.<br />
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One thing that did stand out for me, however, was the following quote from the end of chapter one: “We make men without chests and expect from them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.” Now that is the sort of thing I like to hear from C.S. Lewis; wise, witty, and wonderfully insightful, remaining as relevant now as it was back in 1943, perhaps even more so. In the end, while I can't say that <i>The Abolition of Man</i> is my favorite of C.S. Lewis' works, I can neither say in good conscience that I disliked it. It was a fine read during my vacation and I wouldn't mind rereading it sometime in the future.<br />
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<b>RATING: </b>7.5/10<br />
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<i>Image courtesy of slasherpastor.wordpress.com</i><br />
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04249838873469069919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5338417907515816484.post-26152520792220544652014-08-14T09:00:00.000-07:002014-08-14T09:00:00.515-07:00The Big Seven - Part 2: Matt Slick<i>Note: This is a part of a biweekly series focusing on big names in modern Christian thought who have influenced me personally. The posts in this series, entitled </i>"The Big Seven"<i>, do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the persons discussed, due to the margin for error that must be allowed in an independent personal blog. It is, however, the will of the author to make sure that the opinions and views of the persons discussed are presented as accurately as possible.</i><br />
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<i> </i><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjztVI1jGgBvOZHeIiDEG9-grOTC8soonK4gewO5TPmdHFEkTAS2OG1DcrMpB3WCLWjxQ-QFUTQICv30dQYlYwiksa5AbVg1YxjJyKhH0QEErXov7y5w492c4YEr48Lyo2k_tX9qkxng4I/s1600/matt-slick.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjztVI1jGgBvOZHeIiDEG9-grOTC8soonK4gewO5TPmdHFEkTAS2OG1DcrMpB3WCLWjxQ-QFUTQICv30dQYlYwiksa5AbVg1YxjJyKhH0QEErXov7y5w492c4YEr48Lyo2k_tX9qkxng4I/s1600/matt-slick.jpg" /></a>Christian Apologetics Research Ministry (CARM), based online at carm.org, is the brainchild of Matt Slick. This website features numerous, well written articles on many diverse subjects pertaining to Christianity, the Bible, and Christian apologetics. There is also an extensive video repository on the site. It is therefore very surprising to learn that in its early days, there was but one man responsible for maintenance and operation of carm.org: Matt Slick!<br />
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Mr. Slick (Man, that sounds funny to type), a Calvinist, makes no secret of this fact, though this was apparently lost on one critic. This particular critic stated, "And, unless one looks specifically for Slick's personal information,
CARM's web presentation could easily deceive a visitor into thinking it
is a multi-staff, professional research organization." Though it was nothing like that when the criticism was leveled, that is exactly what CARM is today. Like everyone with something worthwhile to say, Mr. Slick has his fair share of both supporters and detractors. Fortunately for him, he is both a web-savvy man and a Bible-savvy man, having a full time job working on computers in addition to holding a Master of Divinity.<br />
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Matthew J. Slick converted to Christianity as a teenager, and went on to become an avid student of the Bible, to put it mildly. He "devoured" scripture, reading the Bible and everything he could find on it. His full testimony can be read <a href="http://carm.org/matt-slicks-testimony" target="_blank">here</a>, but the most important thing to know for our purposes is that he specializes in the study of cults and apologetics. He earned his Master of Divinity from Westminster Theological Seminary in 1991 and founded CARM in 1995, and has been running or helping to run the organization ever since. While Mr. Slick formerly updated and wrote the content of CARM exclusively by himself, his website has since greatly expanded. CARM now employs some thirty "Writers, Researchers, and Email Helpers", including Ray Comfort, who will be covered in a future installment of this series.<br />
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As previously stated, Mr. Slick's ministry focuses primarily on the study of cults and on Christian apologetics. His articles cover a veritable mountain of topics, talking about everything from Atheism to the Zodiac. Mind you, it's not entirely comprehensive (I couldn't find a page on Zoroastrianism, for one thing), but I suppose in this line of work construction won't be done until kingdom come. At any rate, the information found at carm.org is clearly written, well organized, easy to find, and absolutely accurate. It is the go-to place for information on non-Christian cults such as Mormonism and Jehovah's Witnesses, other world religions such as Judaism and Islam, and secular philosophies such as Agnosticism and Atheism.<br />
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CARM is more encyclopedic and better organized than Got Questions Ministries, but slightly less comprehensive and personalized. However, it does cover the most important topics with a degree of intensity and understanding that is truly a marvel in and of itself. For instance, the pages on topics such as Atheism and Jehovah's Witnesses have numerous sub-articles, a good stock of short videos, and relevant answers to the most pressing questions regarding those topics. It is for this reason that I happily point interested persons to carm.org to find answers to their questions about Christian apologetics and cults.<br />
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Mr. Slick's writing style is flowing and conversational, plainly and simply explaining the information he wishes to communicate. Where the topic calls for a terse explanation, he delivers a terse explanation. Where the topic calls for a more in-depth explanation, again, such an explanation is given. He makes sure to reference relevant Bible verses throughout articles that call for them, a good sign among internet sources if there ever was one. <br />
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One thing that might throw up red flags with the uninitiated is Mr. Slick's views on Roman Catholicism. He correctly points out that the Roman Catholic Church is apostate due to its reliance on works-based salvation and prayers to the saints as well as to Christ, the latter practice explicitly defying the second commandment. Mr. Slick does not, however, identify them as a cult, as some of his detractors have claimed. The point here is that Matt Slick is not afraid to point out doctrinal error where it is clearly present, but is judicious enough to not go beyond the parameters of what needs to be said. <br />
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In sum, Matt Slick runs a great ministry with CARM, and it has been very helpful to me in my personal study of the scriptures. He is one of a great many of wise persons in modern Christian thought who I have studied and will continue to learn from. I therefore point in his direction all of my readers, Christian and non-Christian, seeker and sold-out, to go to his website and consult the CARM databases. The information there is highly enlightening and informative, thorough yet succinct, and you will not find a dull page there. It is, in short, a great resource, and Matt Slick is a great preacher, teacher, and apologist.<br />
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<i>Image courtesy of life.biblechurch.org</i> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04249838873469069919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5338417907515816484.post-21289126676170761412014-08-12T09:00:00.000-07:002014-08-12T10:30:17.429-07:00Review: Batman: Knight and Squire<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7Q_M25Gzwpnzn3jhyXDauBfGWISgUzDtsEcTN7o5SExuwz1TjjgYwEaBd56pQclbuN3Up0E53X7Nw2z4X5MsVz6PnZclDGva0b7E7_CZIdXvnLF37q5jBubKO1E4GMK8f7o3HE-LLOsc/s1600/81+0D5nCO4L.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7Q_M25Gzwpnzn3jhyXDauBfGWISgUzDtsEcTN7o5SExuwz1TjjgYwEaBd56pQclbuN3Up0E53X7Nw2z4X5MsVz6PnZclDGva0b7E7_CZIdXvnLF37q5jBubKO1E4GMK8f7o3HE-LLOsc/s1600/81+0D5nCO4L.jpg" height="320" width="208" /></a>Due to my review backlog, it's been a while since I actually read the work I am about to review. Thankfully enough, it was pretty memorable. <i>Batman: Knight and Squire</i>, written by Paul Cornell with art by Jimmy Broxton, is a six-issue miniseries telling of the adventures of Batman and Robin's British counterparts. You've got Knight, a.k.a. Sir Cyril Sheldrake, and his lovely sidekick Squire, a.k.a. Beryl Hutchinson. Both are legacy characters, in that Cyril's father and grandfather both previously bore the title of Knight, and Squire inherited her own title from Cyril and Cyril's father. As a side-note, the only place that Batman appears in this book is on the front page- in the title. Otherwise, despite getting the umbrella title, the Dark Knight is nowhere in sight in this book. But a certain other character in the Batman mythos shows his face in the latter stages of the story.<br />
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Superhero shenanigans in England are a bit more off-kilter than they are on our side of the pond. Firstly, you've got a bar where both English superheroes and supervillains meet to shoot the breeze, guaranteed by "truce magic." Then there's the Morris Men, portrayed as ninja-like troublemakers, and Jarvis Poker, the British Joker, and the various other superheroes who patrol England. These include Salt of the Earth, Milkman, and Squire's new boyfriend, reformed villain Shrike. At first, all seems well in merry England... but not for long.<br />
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<i>Batman: Knight and Squire</i> is built largely on humor and zany action-adventure. Every other panel has a throwaway gag involving some obscure British pop-cultural reference, helpfully explained at the end of each issue. Most of the stories don't take themselves too seriously. As it progresses, however, the series slowly eases out of humorous antics into more serious territory, with everything coming to a crescendo at the end of the second-to-last issue. The whole series is a homage to and reconstruction of goofy Silver Age yarns, before doing a 180 into a grim-and-gritty, high-stakes crime thriller. If this sounds jarring and abrupt, fear not, gentle reader. While there is a significant tone shift after issue five, the characters maintain their personalities, communicating to the audience (metaphorically, of course) that they're just as surprised and confused about the sudden turn of events as they are.<br />
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Knight and Squire's London is much more equivalent to the Gotham City of Batman '66 than to anything else. The titular characters of the book are local celebrities who routinely appear on TV talk shows and are featured in the tabloids. Likewise, supervillains do little in the way of actual crime, with even the most preeminent among them, such as Jarvis Poker, pulling little more than harmless pranks. Supervillains can be found hanging out in convenience stores while Beryl grabs a magazine. Cyril dates pop stars, consulting with his American butler Hank after a breakup. It may sound a bit surreal, but on reading it, it is actually quite amusing.<br />
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My favorite installment in the series was definitely issue three, in which scientists use cloning technology to resurrect Richard III, who promptly starts speaking in iambic pentameter before embarking on a plot to conquer England through... Twitter? Well, they don't actually call it "Twitter," but still, it's pretty funny. It's madcap fun like this that reminds me of what <i><a href="http://ltoflevisweeney.blogspot.com/2013/01/review-booster-gold-day-of-death.html" target="_blank">Booster</a> <a href="http://ltoflevisweeney.blogspot.com/2014/07/review-booster-gold-tomorrow-memory.html" target="_blank">Gold</a></i> needs to be more like, or of what I'm sure <i>Justice League International </i>was like, or even of what Silver Age Superman was like. Honestly, I'm surprised that Chris Sims isn't all over this book. This particular brand of comic book adventure is just the sort of thing that will appeal to fans of <i>Doctor Who</i> and<i> </i><a href="http://ltoflevisweeney.blogspot.com/2013/02/review-iron-man.html" target="_blank">the</a> <a href="http://ltoflevisweeney.blogspot.com/2013/05/review-captain-america-first-avenger.html" target="_blank">Marvel</a> <a href="http://ltoflevisweeney.blogspot.com/2013/07/review-iron-man-3.html" target="_blank">Cinematic</a> <a href="http://ltoflevisweeney.blogspot.com/2014/06/review-captain-america-winter-soldier.html" target="_blank">Universe</a>. Incidentally, Paul Cornell actually wrote a few episodes of <i>Doctor Who</i>.<br />
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To summarize, <i>Batman: Knight and Squire</i> is an eccentric, fun-filled romp through British pop-culture which any anglophile will appreciate. Oddly enough, however, one of my only two real complaints is that it relies on its British pop-culture references a little too much. My other complaint is that the ending is a bit too abrupt and unresolved, like they were trying as quickly as possible to wrap the story up. Even one more issue to stretch things out would have made things a bit better. But as it is, it's a fun little story which showcases two of my favorite minor comic book characters. Tally ho, gents!<br />
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<b>RATING: </b>7.5/10 <br />
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<i>Image courtesy of</i> <i>amazon.com</i>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04249838873469069919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5338417907515816484.post-61708561053077644632014-08-10T18:50:00.002-07:002014-08-10T18:50:11.685-07:00Bible Verse Sunday #83After missing two weeks of <i>Bible Verse Sunday</i>, I am happy to present the next installment of this blog's perennial feature. Today, in accordance with the lesson in today's Sunday school class, we will be discussing Nehemiah 4:14:<br />
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"'...And I looked and arose and said to the nobles and to the officials and to the rest of the people, “Do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your homes.'"<br />
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In this verse, Nehemiah is exhorting his people to continue their work rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem in the face of threats from their enemies. His encouragement is applicable in other distressing moments, when all hope seems lost, and things seem to be going to Hades in a hand basket, as it were. It also is a reminder that we as Christians have a greater and more assured hope in hard times than the world does, and that even if God doesn't relieve our worldly sufferings, he still cares for us and will insure that everything goes according to his own grand plan.<br />
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I was glad to be finally back in church today after missing two straight weeks. In the main service, we were still continuing in our study of the book of Romans, but the series' subtitle had been changed from "The Message that Changed the World" to "The <i>Church</i> that Changed the World." In this week's sermon, the pastor talked about how as Christians, we should actively seek to "root out" sin in our lives, and that we "hunger" for Jesus' return. In addition, he said that next week's sermon would be on judgement, mean to answer the question, "Why are Christians so judgmental?" The pastor said to invite your friends to this one. If any of you readers out there saw the sermon, I invite you to invite other people, just as I hope to do.<br />
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I finally managed to return to helping in the second hour 2nd grade classroom, where we discussed the story of Nehemiah. This summer's theme is celebration, and we very much celebrated in the form of a melodrama. We assigned parts and props to each of the kids, and as the teacher read the story, they made various sounds and motions on cue at the mention of particular words. It was kind of fun. After the lesson, the kids each made a miniature wall out of marshmallows, pretzel sticks, and frosting, before eating it. Yum!<br />
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On another note, I went with my dad to the theatre later today... but that's another post.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04249838873469069919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5338417907515816484.post-13444593223492967002014-08-09T09:00:00.000-07:002014-08-09T09:00:01.161-07:00Review: The Book Thief<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFaw58lXfvUT5YJns-1aFTK3JYBisaDmq7XY4rl9dS-dfJbwFgGbLKiP19JTEOK5zTtr9UuZ00y52MCP4HXAA0TSzl02gCwpvUKW_s-2Uij9kcyy3Y5aRyC-l8yNZ4xsV_Q48yWQvYKPA/s1600/9780375842207_p0_v6_s260x420.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFaw58lXfvUT5YJns-1aFTK3JYBisaDmq7XY4rl9dS-dfJbwFgGbLKiP19JTEOK5zTtr9UuZ00y52MCP4HXAA0TSzl02gCwpvUKW_s-2Uij9kcyy3Y5aRyC-l8yNZ4xsV_Q48yWQvYKPA/s1600/9780375842207_p0_v6_s260x420.JPG" height="320" width="206" /></a>The German poet Heinrich Heine once wrote, "Them that begin by burning books, end by burning men." (Kudos to Indiana Jones for that quote!) By the end of <i>The Book Thief</i>, written by Australian author Markus Zusak, Liesel Meminger probably understands this better than some college professors. She should know. Being the titular character, she makes a career of petty theft throughout the story, specializing in stealing books. Beginning in 1939, ten year old Liesel arrives in a poor neighborhood of a small town near Munich, brought in by a foster family after her biological mother can no longer support her. Her brother dies of disease on the train ride there, leaving Liesel deeply shaken, but also leading her to begin her career in book theft. Suffice it to say, she steals a manual on grave digging from the cemetery where her brother is buried, but doesn't begin her book thieving career in earnest until later, where she steals a book from a Nazi party book burning.<br />
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From there, everything changes.<br />
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Liesel, initially illiterate, is taught to read by her loving foster father, the accordion playing, cigarette smoking Hans Hubermann. She becomes best friends with the incorrigible boy next door, Rudy Steiner. She becomes the heavyweight champion of the local schoolyard. She is drafted into the Hitler Youth. She befriends the young Jewish boxer that her foster family takes in. She accompanies Arthur Berg and Rudy on apple stealing expeditions. And she keeps stealing books. <br />
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What is particularly notable about this book is that, unlike so many other popular young adult novels, such as <i>The Hunger Games </i>and <i>Divergent</i>, it is not written in first person <i>per se</i>. It's a mixture of first, second, and third person in the form of an omniscient narrator, identified both within the novel and specifically by Zusak in interviews as Death. While I contest on theological grounds the anthropomorphic portrayal of Death as a sentient, thinking being, I have to admit that Zusak's choice of Death as the narrator of a book set in Germany during the Second World War is a stroke of brilliance. In the book, Death is a wearied, put-upon being who yearns for a vacation and is amused by human conceptions of him. (At one point, he notes that he does not carry a scythe and that he only wears big black cloaks on cold days.) He is not a sadist, but rather a disinterested, even compassionate being. He goes so far as to directly contest the assertion that "War is death's best friend." In <i>The Book Thief</i>, Death is literally as much a main character as Liesel Meminger.<br />
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Speaking of characters, Zukas manages to successfully work with a large cast and make them all stand out in their own way. They all feel well rounded and realistic, like they're really living and breathing on the other side of the fourth wall. Everyone from Liesel, Rudy, and Max Vandenburg (the aforementioned young Jewish boxer) to Ilsa Hermann, Tommy Mueller, and Frau Diller have a clear cut motivation and characterization, all of which work together like a well trained orchestra, producing an equally grand result. The most interesting character in the book, I think, is Hans Hubermann (my personal favorite is Max). In him are wrapped up many of the prevailing themes of this book. Courage versus cowardice. Survivor's guilt. The power of love. Those are just a few of the many powerful themes present in this book, but we'll discuss those later.<br />
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Of course, with great characters that you can relate to and love, that also means that they are characters who you will be crushed to read about when their unfortunate fates are mentioned. I won't go into detail for risk of spoilers, but let's just say that you're going to come away from this book very, very sad. I sure did. But the sadness and emotion generated in the reader is only a payoff for the suspense built up throughout the whole book. The reader is constantly kept guessing at just what will happen, how this plot thread will unravel, who does what, what happens to whom. If nothing else, <i>The Book Thief </i>is unpredictable. Most of the time, that's a good thing. This is one of those times.<br />
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Oddly enough, the least interesting character in this book is probably Liesel herself, though that's not necessarily a bad thing. Though the story is ostensibly about her, most of the focus is on the events and people going on and about around her as she perceives it. How she reacts to it is generally how the reader reacts to it. She's still a well-rounded, complex character, but not to the degree that a lot of the others, such as Rudy, Max, Hans, or even Rosa Hubermann (Liesel's foster mother) are. She is, in a word, a viewpoint character, and a darn good one at that. I actually learned in my creative writing class last year that the main character shouldn't necessarily always be the most interesting, for the sake of telling a good story. If they are the most interesting character in the cast, then it's usually harder to write a good story, something only the best writers can usually pull off. Again, this is <i>not</i> a bad thing, and the book actually benefited from it in the end.<br />
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Major themes in this book other than those previously mentioned include death (obviously), war, friendship, family, love, compassion, loss, grief, different perspectives in a conflict, and hope. A lot of heavy stuff. The most pervasive and obvious theme, however, is the power of words. Liesel, Max, and Death both note that words have great power, and can be used for either good or evil. That's a lesson that needs to be taught a little more often in this day and age.<br />
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A word of warning, however. This book is quite plainly enough a young adult book, mainly because of the ubiquitous profanity, both German and English. I'd think that for someone who reads a lot, Liesel would have a larger vocabulary, though she does by the end of the book. As it is, all of the characters, except Ilsa Hermann, swear at least a little, but the primary offender is Rosa Hubermann, so take what you will from that. There's also a lot of, well, death, and destruction, and some other nasty things that I dare not mention in polite company. Moreover, <i>The Book Thief</i> doesn't seem to condemn the eponymous character's actions so much as it observes them, but I can't help but note that stealing, whatever the reason, is stealing, specifically prohibited by the eighth commandment. I do hope that Liesel, noted by Death to be a Lutheran, paid heed to <a href="http://biblehub.com/ephesians/4-28.htm" target="_blank">Ephesians 4:28</a> in her later years.<br />
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Nevertheless, <i>The Book Thief</i> is without a doubt one of the greatest books that I have ever read, with a style and excellence in writing that reminds me of <a href="http://ltoflevisweeney.blogspot.com/2013/03/holes-book-and-film.html" target="_blank">Louis Sachar</a>, Jeanne DuPrau, and even <a href="http://ltoflevisweeney.blogspot.com/2014/01/artemis-fowl-from-die-hard-with-fairies.html" target="_blank">Eoin Colfer</a>. I therefore see fit to award this book with the highest rating which I can bestow upon it. I also look forward to reading another of Markus Zusak's award-winning books, <i>I Am the Messenger</i>. It sounds quite good. I also hope to view <i>The Book Thief</i>'s recent film adaption of the same name, though I've been told that it's "so-so." Ah well. Worth a shot, right?<br />
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<b>RATING: </b>10/10<br />
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<i>Image courtesy of barnesandnoble.com</i>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04249838873469069919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5338417907515816484.post-76659996602707394542014-08-07T09:00:00.000-07:002014-08-07T09:00:00.893-07:00The Chronicles of Narnia: Renowned for a Reason<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirN-vgtOQRNKFeMTf1i-Wm09OnMxWqeZh48yG42s7LagAYFDEG48JNnEDS9xeavqjXbDCcpDaFuAJmnZW4cXTvD0BiGkmBk9MNLrgn3EoKIt_ufBUpDBXUcYE_OmO3gjzVJj2kr3zXoDc/s1600/Narnia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirN-vgtOQRNKFeMTf1i-Wm09OnMxWqeZh48yG42s7LagAYFDEG48JNnEDS9xeavqjXbDCcpDaFuAJmnZW4cXTvD0BiGkmBk9MNLrgn3EoKIt_ufBUpDBXUcYE_OmO3gjzVJj2kr3zXoDc/s1600/Narnia.jpg" height="320" width="237" /></a>I remember my dear mother introducing me to the works of <a href="http://ltoflevisweeney.blogspot.com/search/label/C.S.%20Lewis" target="_blank">C.S. Lewis</a> in a small, Christian book store. She took the liberty of purchasing all seven books of <i>The Chronicles of Narnia</i> for me when I was seven, promising that I would be provided with the acclaimed radio dramas produced by Focus on the Family Radio Theatre based on that series. I read through the whole series in a year, with the exception of <i>The Silver Chair</i>. I cannot of course say that I fully appreciated the greatness of this series at such a young age, but even then I was undoubtedly enthralled by them, and returned to them for many years afterward.<br />
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<i>The Chronicles of Narnia</i> is a high fantasy adventure series, telling of the adventures of a group of humans from our world, living in the first half of the twentieth century, and their adventures in the fantastical land of Narnia. Narnia is a land of magic, mythical beasts, and talking animals, ruled by the noble lion, Aslan. The first of the seven books written and published in the series was <i>The Lion, the Witch, and The Wardrobe</i>, and the last published was <i>The Last Battle</i>. However, Lewis worked with an eager fan to have the series organized in chronological order, so that they began with <i>The Magician's Nephew</i> and ended with <i>The Last Battle</i>, having <i>Wardrobe</i> coming second. To make matters even more complicated, the books actually <i>written</i> in yet another different order.<br />
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The thing about all of Lewis' fiction, insofar as I have read, is that he manages to successfully combine Rule of Fun with Rule of Symbolism. Each of the books in the Narnia saga manages to present an allegory of some sort, and Lewis loved allegory. <i>The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe</i> was an allegory about Christ's sacrifice. The fifth book, <i>The Voyage of the Dawn Treader</i>, is an allegory about the walk of a Christian's life. <i>The Last Battle</i>, clearly enough, is an allegory about the end times. Even <i>Prince Caspian</i>, the least popular book in the series, though one of my personal favorites, has themes about restoration of true faith after a period of spiritual hibernation.<br />
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Other, more overarching themes present in all the books are faith, forgiveness, love, patriotism, friendship, creation, corruption, sacrifice, and redemption. To put it another way, every book has something to say about something important, while at the same time telling a great story. The conversational, Lemony narration present throughout the books draws the reader in, making her hang on to the last period. Of course, Lewis' writing style in this series matures as time goes on, but retains that unique flavor that all great authors have. This is particularly evident if you read the books in publication order, though I myself have only read them in chronological order. Perhaps I will try the former pattern next time I read the series.<br />
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My favorite book in the series is most certainly <i>The Horse and His Boy</i>. Although it has been criticized by some fans due to its standalone nature, this installment in the <i>Narnia</i> saga is very near and dear to me. I like it because it is not only a wonderful adventure story, but because of the allegory it contains. That allegory is of a person's journey from being an unbeliever to being a Christian. This is represented not only in the literal journey to Narnia as depicted in the book, but also in the book's three central characters, Shasta, Bree, and Aravis, as they change and develop throughout the story. It also plays host to one of my favorite female characters in all of literature, Aravis, and also one of the most memorable characters in the whole <i>Narnia</i> series, a talking warhorse named Bree. It may be the odd-man out in the series, but it's probably the most memorable.<br />
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Due to being very, very good books, <i>The Chronicles of Narnia</i> are also incredibly popular, having been translated into 47 languages, with more than 100 million copies sold. They have all been in print continuously since their original publication in the 1950s, and they don't look like they'll be running out of steam any time soon. In addition, Focus on the Family Radio Theatre made a series of audio dramas based on the books in the early 2000s, and they even aired on BBC Radio in 2005. They are all excellent, if slightly abridged, productions which I absolutely loved. I highly recommend them.<br />
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There are also the various <i>Narnia</i> film adaptations. I haven't seen the BBC adaptations, and I therefore will reserve judgement until I do. In the meantime, the more recent film adaptations done by Walden Media, Disney, and 20th Century Fox, are a more complex case. Their adaptation of <i>The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe</i> was quite good, without a doubt the best of those made. I originally was pretty hostile to the adaptation of <i>Prince Caspian</i> due to the film's flagrant deviations from the source material, not mention a few glaring plot holes. However, it was still a fairly good film. The adaptation of <i>The Voyage of the Dawn Treader</i>, however, is a sad case. To cut a long story short, it deviated from the source material even more than the previous film, and wasn't even a good movie, for a variety reasons which we won't go into here. True, there were some good things about it, but it was mostly bad. There is an adaptation of <i>The Silver Chair</i> currently in the works, and I hope that it will redeem the series. Until then, my experience with the cinematic <i>Narnia</i> has been sadly stunted. <br />
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In short, <i>The Chronicles of Narnia</i> are a remarkable series which everyone should read. That's right, <i>everyone</i>. Douglas Gresham, Lewis' stepson, has said that those who believe that these books are for children only are "sadly mistaken." These books speak to people of all ages, and will be found entertaining for different reasons by children and adults alike. They contain great wisdom, great storytelling, and great writing. <i>Narnia</i> is something I have loved since childhood, and hope to continue loving well into my adulthood, where I will share them with the younger generation. Until then, Lewis' most famous work is the primary reason that Lewis is among the most prominent of my influences, and for that, I once again salute him.<br />
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<i>Image courtesy of vintagenovels.com</i>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04249838873469069919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5338417907515816484.post-40876859401729038272014-08-05T09:00:00.000-07:002014-08-05T09:00:00.990-07:00Review: Road to Marvel's the Avengers<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8p-lbk9JEO62VVP95FTxS6YLv5lctdRa0CCRzqu-YW49ag9Nufmsb47VNSd4j1D9k4FJ8X0gWao1xPsFC3SCMRSL13LOPPr50FmziCbf0vK7IraMSw0zAltXRyz-88usgtXYHudE0LeQ/s1600/The-Avengers-Road-to-Marvels-The-Avengers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8p-lbk9JEO62VVP95FTxS6YLv5lctdRa0CCRzqu-YW49ag9Nufmsb47VNSd4j1D9k4FJ8X0gWao1xPsFC3SCMRSL13LOPPr50FmziCbf0vK7IraMSw0zAltXRyz-88usgtXYHudE0LeQ/s1600/The-Avengers-Road-to-Marvels-The-Avengers.jpg" height="320" width="206" /></a><i>Note: After a week-long vacation in an undisclosed location, I have now returned to blogging. Please return to enjoy this blog post. Also, congratulations to my grandparents, Pat and Jeanne Sweeney, on their 50th wedding anniversary! Also, congratulations to the blog for this, the 275th post!</i><br />
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<i>----- </i> <br />
<br />
This book is bad.<br />
<br />
I just wanted to get that out there. Not only is it bad, it's boring, unoriginal, predictable, and stupid. To be totally accurate, it is precisely because of these latter deficiencies that it is bad. I originally put this collection on my graphic novel to-read list because I wanted to get the whole story on <i>The Avengers</i>. What I read only cemented my belief that everything we saw in the films leading up to that glorious cinematic spectacle was more than enough. I'm sure that whoever was writing this carp was just doing their job, but the least Marvel could do is get some actually good writers to put out actually good promotion material meant to represent and advertise their actually good movies.<br />
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<i>Road to Marvel's the Avengers</i> collects all of the cheap-as-Hades tie-in comic books that were put out to generate buzz for Phase 1 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe... as if they needed anymore. We're treated to a full on, word-for-word comic book rendition of <a href="http://ltoflevisweeney.blogspot.com/2013/02/review-iron-man.html" target="_blank"><i>Iron Man</i></a>, and background and backstory on Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Dr. Abraham Erskine, and Johann Schmidt. We're also told exactly how Black Widow infiltrated Stark International in order to become Tony's new personal assistant.<br />
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If any or all of this sounds even remotely exciting and compelling, let me assure you, it's not.<br />
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The <i>Iron Man</i> stuff takes up roughly half of the book, and is basically a poorly rendered version of the film of the same name, plus some stuff showing Iron Man doing his thing in-between <i>Iron Man</i> and <i>Iron Man 2</i>. This latter part is particularly dull, depicting Tony fighting... people with guns in the Congo, I guess, and Tony using his Iron Man armor to impress the ladies. At the very least, it guest stars General Ross from <i>The Incredible Hulk</i>, and I just love that guy.<br />
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The problem with the <i>Iron Man </i>stuff is that it tries too hard to be the movie. The comic book rendition of the film (titled "I Am Iron Man!") is word-for-word, scene-for-scene, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was shot-for-shot too. "I Am Iron Man!" manages to capture the basic skeletal structure of the film, but has none of its substance or style. This, I think, is the problem with book-of-the-film tie-ins, or comic-book-of-the-film tie-ins, or any kind of tie-in which recycles the film for that matter: It often leaves the writer with no room for originality, essentially copying the script. As a result, this comic feels nothing like the movie, despite all of its effort to do so.<br />
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The other <i>Iron Man</i> stuff has a similar problem, combined with a hackneyed and stale plot. It's obviously trying to ape the pseudo-cleverness of <i>Iron Man 2</i>, and unlike "I Am Iron Man!", it actually succeeds in emulating the film. Considering considering<i> </i>that <i>Iron Man 2</i> is widely considered to be the weakest film in the MCU, however, that's a patently terrible strategy, if only in hindsight. I can only imagine how fans who were gearing up for <i>Iron Man 2</i> felt when they read this monstrosity. If I were in their shoes back then, however, I would have prayed to the most high God with all my heart that the movie was nothing like this comic. Paradoxically, the tone of this comic was spot on in regards to its reflection of the movie, yet somehow much, much worse. (For the record, I found <i>Iron Man 2</i> to be an enjoyable flick, though admittedly not as good as its fellow MCU films. I hope to complete my <i>Iron Man</i> <a href="http://ltoflevisweeney.blogspot.com/2013/07/review-iron-man-3.html" target="_blank">set of reviews</a> and review it sometime.) At any rate, the only good thing about it was its exploration of the dynamic between Tony and his father, but while that was an oasis of good stuff in a wasteland of mediocrity and awfulness, it is far overshadowed by what we actually saw in the dadblamed movie.<br />
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The final bit of stuff related to <i>Iron Man 2</i> promotion is a story with Black Widow. This story's tone shift early on is jarring, to say the least, going from crazy <i>Mission Impossible</i>/<i>Die Hard</i>/<i>James Bond</i>-esque stuff to a drama version of <i>The Office</i>. What I mean is, we literally see Black Widow jumping out of an exploding plane before going to apply at the Stark International corporate office. The whole time, she's using this awful, grating inner dialogue where she complains about "American inefficiency" (Clearly, the writer did not do his research when writing a defector from Soviet Russia) and the idiosyncrasies of office work. I imagine that under a different, actually competent writer, it would have been pretty darn funny to see Black Widow trying to navigate office politics without seriously injuring someone, but no, that's not what happens. What happens is a dry, humorless story which should have been very entertaining, maybe even interesting. But it is instead very boring, and only succeeds in persuading us that we really did not need to know the answer to the question it poses, that question being, "How did Black Widow infiltrate Stark International?" It's a perfect example of wasting a perfectly good plot.<br />
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As if things couldn't get any worse, we are then treated to a similar fill-in-the-blanks plot with the stuff for <a href="http://ltoflevisweeney.blogspot.com/2013/05/review-captain-america-first-avenger.html" target="_blank"><i>Captain America: The First Avenger</i></a>. The story constantly shifts between a generic Cap-fighting-in-World-War-Two stuff and pre-Captain America Steve Rogers training with Bucky. Ordinarily, this would be fantastic stuff, showing Steve and Bucky growing up together. However, it's stifled by the stupid generic Cap-fighting-in-World-War-Two stuff and showing Johann Schmidt's story. (It's not that I have a problem with stuff showing Cap fighting in World War Two, but it's because it's so generic and careless in presentation that I found it to be intolerable.) The basic premise of this comic, in the same vein as televised tripe such as <i>Smallville</i> and perhaps even the upcoming <i>Gotham</i> is to show how our heroes and villains came to be the way they are. There's just one problem: Devoting a whole series, or even a miniseries, to answering that question gets really old really fast. I mean, how many times do you really want to see Steve getting pounded on in an alley before Bucky shows up to be a street fighting badbutt? (And remember, Bucky's supposed to be <i>the sidekick</i>.) Steve's story is basically what this series is, and while it's fairly compelling, it's not the stuff of great comics, because we already know what's going to happen. That's why we have origin stories, not origin series.<br />
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The stuff with the Red Skull and Dr. Erskine also had tons of potential, but whoever is writing this carp failed to capitalize on it. The Red Skull is shown in his days as plain old Johann Schmidt, who was apparently some random Hitler-groupie who got noticed by Heinrich Himmler and landed a position in the Waffen SS. The Red Skull's role in the plot is particularly interesting because he was so underdeveloped in the flipping movie. This comic could have been a chance to greatly redeem him as a character, delving into exactly <i>why</i> he wants to take over the world while parading about in an all black leather wardrobe. Unfortunately, despite one or two pretty great scenes with Johann Schmidt, we're mostly left in the dark (again) about these details. There's also a few scenes where Dr. Abraham Erskine is show trying and failing to escape to Switzerland with his family, and that really showed Dr. Erskine's selfless nature. He gets captured by Schmidt, but his manner of escape is blatantly ripped off from the Hong Kong scene in <a href="http://ltoflevisweeney.blogspot.com/2013/01/review-dark-knight-saga.html" target="_blank"><i>The Dark Knight</i></a> of all things. And he gets put in his place in the hierarchy of morality by Peggy Carter of all people. Once again, plenty of potential, but poor execution.<br />
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Finally, there are a handful of stories focusing on people like Nick Fury and Agent Phil Coulson. These stories should have been awesome, but they failed spectacularly, thanks in part to ugly, ill-suited art, but mostly in part due to crudely put together story. None of the characters sound like their movie selves. Heck, they barely even look like their movie selves. What's particularly galling, however, is that these are the characters who, like Rhodey, Pepper, Bucky, and Dr. Erskine, would have benefited the most from tie-in comics. Instead, they all get this half-baked super-spy nonsense. A terrible shame, really.<br />
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In sum, I checked out <i>Road to Marvel's the Avengers</i> in an effort to enhance my appreciation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I was disappointed by what I found, and am now reconsidering my plans to check out <i>Fury's Big Week</i>, another lead-up to <i>The Avengers</i>. What I found in this wholly ill-conceived trade paperback was bland characterizations, contorted dialogue, and a worse plot, which, combined with several details contradicted by the films, make for an altogether dull, uninspired story. Please don't add this to your personal library. It's bad enough that it made it into<i> </i>my local public one.<br />
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<b>RATING: </b>5/10<br />
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<i>Image courtesy of wired.com</i>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04249838873469069919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5338417907515816484.post-24156907259282918022014-07-26T17:28:00.001-07:002014-07-26T17:28:24.900-07:00Fun for the Whole Family at Renton River Days 2014<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDNFTY_jE-P4Fiui3q04Tp4gio0dcIzp9ttDUcWppGklhCRHuTgL8si3KcH1eBYyUzcOd-e-nUCFoCT46_dHeWOCl0ardnrWUBJm_dyX18ZhKvJYu_v3JCQY_GTbMF3AWFfjQTeSdSUQk/s1600/IMG_20140726_111050_835.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDNFTY_jE-P4Fiui3q04Tp4gio0dcIzp9ttDUcWppGklhCRHuTgL8si3KcH1eBYyUzcOd-e-nUCFoCT46_dHeWOCl0ardnrWUBJm_dyX18ZhKvJYu_v3JCQY_GTbMF3AWFfjQTeSdSUQk/s1600/IMG_20140726_111050_835.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a>An audible calm pervaded the scene. The spectators quietly conversed among themselves as they waited for it to begin. A small passenger airplane flew overhead. The hot sun beat down on me. <br />
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And then, it started.<br />
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What am I describing? I am describing the annual Renton River Days Parade, a local festival which attracted families from all over Renton and the immediate surrounding area, such as West Hill and the Renton Highlands. The attractions featured in the parade were just as diverse as the people, with everyone from local politicians to school marching bands to Ms. Washington to the Seattle Seafair Pirates.<br />
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The parade participant which was nearest and dearest to my heart, however, was undoubtedly Lee's Martial Arts. They featured a cool board breaking move while on parade, some bo-staff twirling, and a bunch of students all marching together. As they do every year, they went down to Liberty Park and held the Breakathon, in which they broke boards to raise money for Community in Schools of Renton. Yours truly was supposed to help out at this event by holding boards and manning a booth or some-such activities. Unfortunately, I forgot my uniform and as a result was late to the party, as it were. I did, however, get the opportunity to break a leftover board with a nice, solid punch. Anyhow, I believe that the Breakathon this year was, once again, a great success.<br />
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Getting back to the parade, there was an ever-present aura of joy and fun, as the parade participants handed out candy and other S.W.A.G. (Stuff We All Get) to the spectators. The Wal-Mart guys handed out school supplies. Various local businesses handed out flyers. Even Fred Myer handed out water bottles. However, I suppose I should mention a few particularly tasteless participants in the parade. Namely, the decidedly gross looking zombie/ghost/horror people, and these also decidedly gross looking knockoffs of the aforementioned Seattle Seafair Pirates. I think they're called the Buccaneers or something, but all I know is that they're in the parade every year, and they always look pretty nasty. Then again, pirates being pirates, maybe that was the intended effect?<br />
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As for the festival itself, there were dozens of booths, I'd even say nearly a hundred, which were even more diverse than the parade. There was a GOP booth, manned by Mr. Bill Stinson, who I had previously met at the King County GOP Picnic. There was a Mountain Mist booth. There was a whole half of the grounds reserved for art-related booths, including this one guy who made fancy-looking pendants and earrings, another guy who made jewelry out of sand dollars (I got one for my sister), and another booth where these two ladies sold this fancy looking soap. There was also a booth for a children's chess program, where I acquired a Chess piece key chain.<br />
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All in all, it was a very nice festival this year, and I earnestly desire that I could explore the booths and attractions for the whole weekend. It's a very nice festival, and I wholeheartedly recommend it for tourists and residents alike who find themselves in the area at the time. I have fond memories of past Renton River Days Festivals, and this year was no exception. If you don't have any place to go tomorrow, and you're in the area, go down to Renton River Days at Liberty Park. Bring your kids. You'll both have a blast.<br />
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<i>Image from personal collection.</i>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04249838873469069919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5338417907515816484.post-48620087499798347192014-07-24T09:00:00.000-07:002014-07-24T09:00:03.858-07:00The Big Seven - Introduction & Part 1: Lee Strobel<b>Introduction</b><br />
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This is the first in a biweekly series on seven of the biggest names in modern Christian thought: Lee Strobel, Matt Slick, S. Michael Houdman, Ray Comfort, William Lane Craig, Ken Ham, and Josh McDowell. These are people who are not only strong voices in the Evangelical Christian movement and Christian apologetics, but who also have had a strong influence on me. Some of them you may have heard of, others may be a little more obscure than others. However, I believe that each of them has contributed greatly to helping spread the gospel <b> </b>and discerning truths from falsehoods. The collective wisdom of these seven great men has been insurmountable in shaping my core beliefs, and I now humbly embark on this series for the purpose of their commemoration.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgzZlgh2GUouZM25OYO0UBjJkLg2PfnRIv1BGpMNkaXrKtgBTHCifyQ6HeV9PAOfxAqk25SY66N5HDBiwgmyYR6gdsypcl-k5AArTg5BD8o2Dnq65h7ljb753jVTj0wWjU-0YzjsHk0mY/s1600/LS-HiRes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgzZlgh2GUouZM25OYO0UBjJkLg2PfnRIv1BGpMNkaXrKtgBTHCifyQ6HeV9PAOfxAqk25SY66N5HDBiwgmyYR6gdsypcl-k5AArTg5BD8o2Dnq65h7ljb753jVTj0wWjU-0YzjsHk0mY/s1600/LS-HiRes.jpg" height="320" width="213" /></a>I must confess, of all the people who will be covered in this series, Lee Strobel is the first and foremost among them all (thus far) in my ever-continuing study of God's word. He is
also the only one I have ever met face-to-face. I remember him coming
to our church a few years ago, and I actually got to meet him and shake
his hand. My words turned to nothing as I completely geeked out. I
finally managed to string together a coherent enough sentence in order
to ask him to sign my copy of <i>The Case for Christ</i>. He happily did so. He seemed like a nice guy.<br />
<br />
Before he became a Christian, however, Lee Strobel was, by his own admission, a self-absorbed drunkard who lived only for his own self-gratification. His background as an investigative journalist brought him in front of a lot of different people, some good, some bad. But he didn't think much of God or Christianity, believing that he knew all the answers. That is, until his wife became a Christian. Mr. Strobel was at first bemused at his wife's conversion, but later began to notice how she changed her behavior, and found her change in behavior "winsome." So, when his wife invited him to church for, he went with her, notepad in hand, totally prepared to utterly dissect and roast the sermon.<br />
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He was in for a surprise.<br />
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The long and short of it is that Mr. Strobel got thinking about the big questions about Christianity. How could the Bible be thought to be true? Wasn't it full of contradictions? Who was Jesus? Did he really claim to be God? Was he out of his mind? Did evolution explain away the need for any kind of religion anyway? These answers were suddenly brought to the forefront of Mr. Strobel's mind, and he used his skills as an investigative journalist to embark on a quest to use to find the answers. He found his answers, and his personal quest to find those answers, culminating in his conversion to Christianity, are recorded in <i>The Case for Christ</i>, published in 1998. That fine tome was followed up by several other similarly named and structured books, such as <i>The Case for Faith</i>, <i>The Case for a Creator</i>,<i> </i>and <i>The Case for the Real Jesus</i>. He has also published several other books related to apologetics, such as <i>What Jesus Would Say</i>, <i>God's Outrageous Claims</i>, and a foray into crime fiction, <i>The Ambition</i>. I look forward to reading the first and the last of these latter three.<br />
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Lee Strobel is the first Christian author whose apologetics books I ever read. I fondly remember my fifth grade Sunday School teacher, Mr. Don Joss, giving me a copy of <i>The Case for Christ for Kids</i>, a little, eighty-six page book which I cherish today as a prized possession. (On a side note, I can't seem to find my autographed copy of <i>The Case for Christ</i> in my house. It's probably tucked away on a shelf somewhere, but I wish I could find it so I could show it off to my friends.) That engrossing little book got me interested in seriously studying my faith, so much so that it eventually lead me to read the adult versions of Mr. Strobel's books. Those, in turn, eventually led me to combine my love of Mr. Strobel's work with my love of the works of <a href="http://ltoflevisweeney.blogspot.com/2014/07/cs-lewis-author-academic-and-lay.html" target="_blank">C.S. Lewis</a>, leading me to read <i>The Screwtape Letters</i>. The rest is history, but it can all be traced back to Mr. Joss and that little green-and-white, eighty-six page book. To go on a brief tangent, I am as much indebted to Mr. Joss (and to my parents) as I am to Mr. Strobel in regards to becoming serious about my faith.<br />
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Of the books that Mr. Strobel has written that I have thus far read, my favorite of them is probably <i>The Case for Faith</i>. I will always have a special place in my heart for <i>The Case for Christ</i>, as it was the first one I read, and it appeals to my personal preference for facts, information, and logical investigation. <i>The Case for Faith</i>, however, resonates with me because it seeks out to answer hard-hitting philosophical questions in an in-depth manner, such as why a loving God could send people to Hell, or why there can't be more than one way to heaven. Granted, the answers presented within aren't quite as good as answers presented in certain other books, but it's still a darn good read, and I like it. In addition, Mr. Strobel's writing style is very engaging, and that aspect of his work makes me all the more eager to read <i>The Ambition</i>. I think it would be fun to see his take on a crime story. <br />
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Lee Strobel has had a profound influence on my knowledge of both the Bible and my faith, not to mention my personal philosophy. He was willing to seek out and ask hard hitting questions from the best representatives available, including thrice consulting William Lane Craig, a preeminent figure in modern apologetics who will be discussed later in this series. His example is one that should be followed by seekers everywhere. It's because of Lee Strobel and people like him, such as <a href="http://ltoflevisweeney.blogspot.com/2014/05/review-cold-case-christianity.html" target="_blank">J. Warner Wallace</a>, that I became such an avid student of the holy scriptures. The only thing I disagree with Mr. Strobel on is related to a point made by William Lane Craig concerning the Big Bang. (More on that in our installment on Ken Ham.) But on the whole, I humbly give his work the praise that it so richly deserves. I also would direct interested readers to check out the trio of documentaries based on his three main works, <i>The Case for Christ</i>, <i>The Case for Faith</i>, and <i>The Case for a Creator</i>.<br />
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