The More Things Change....

Found myself in a conversation yesterday with a woman about a garment made in Mexico. Her comment was that maybe that would keep THEM there instead of coming here. (THEM, presumably, being Mexicans.) My first problem with this is that if we don't figure out that there is no THEM, but only US, and right quick, our world is going to become a more unpleasant place to live pretty damned soon.

I told her that since my father's people had immigrated here that I couldn't say that immigration is a bad thing. She responded that America NEEDED immigrants when my father's people came here.

I hate to burst her bubble, and yours if you believe that, but there has ALWAYS been an anti-immigration sentiment in the US. At least, let's say, since the time of the founding fathers. What changes is the group that is suffering the bias. For instance, at the time of the founding fathers, it was Eastern Europeans and Germans that Americans wanted to keep out. This can also be read as "Jews". Up until probably fifty or seventy-five years ago, if you said that someone was a "Russian" or "Polish", what you meant was "Jewish".

What really pissed her off, though, was my observation that, when my father's people came here a century and a half or so, the bias was against the Irish. Anti-Irish laws, similar to later Jim Crow laws, or the anti-Mexican law that Arizona tried to pass recently, were being passed in several cities. This was during "Black 47". I don't know if you know this or not, but Ireland is actually the only country in the world whose population has decreased. This is because the British were forcing the Irish to ship out all of the food that they grew to England except for the potatoes, which the English hadn't really developed a taste for at that time. So the Irish had potatoes and a few scraps of other foods. In 1847 (Black 47), a blight attacked the potato crop, wiping out more than 75% of the Irish potato crop. This is what we now incorrectly call the "Potato Famine". As a result, a huge percent of Ireland's population left the country, many of them coming to America.

And again, the backlash against the Irish was largely religious. Many of the Irish who came to America were both poor and Catholic, and so the good Protestant Americans didn't want the "Shanty Papist Irish" here.

She coldly responded that SHE was Irish and stalked off. So the truth is that 150 years ago, her ancestors were in the same position that the Mexicans are now, and I think that didn't sit very well with her.

Think about it.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

It's Still Wrong...

It really bothers me that not doing anything wrong has become associated with not getting caught in America today. With all of the talk since the Clinton administration about America's "morals" it really bothers me that we've lost our moral center so badly that we've turned into a nation of Bart Simpsons. "I didn't do it, nobody saw me do it, you can't prove anything."

Wrong… is STILL wrong. Regardless if anyone saw you doing it. It's still wrong. What the hell ever happened to doing right simply BECAUSE IT IS RIGHT?

I write this, because I saw a film clip the other day of Kathy Lee Gifford when she "discovered" (yeah… right…) that her branded line of clothes at K-mart was being manufactured by children in Chinese sweatshops for pennies a day. The nation was outraged… so she was sorry. Boo fucking hoo. It is my belief that she was NOT sorry that children were being enslaved to line her pockets…. I'm pretty sure that she KNEW about that and was okay with it. It is my belief that she is sorry that she GOT CAUGHT.

And now, think about us. Think about the buying American public. We were collectively outraged that Kathy Lee Gifford's clothes were being made by child slaves. How dare they. You can't buy Kathy Lee Gifford clothes anymore, because that wicked witch was profiting from the enslavement of children.

So why do we tolerate all of the other junk that's made by Chinese slave children? BECAUSE THE COMPANIES HAVEN'T GOTTEN CAUGHT. We willingly close our eyes to this so that we can have our cheap shit. Which means, as near as I can tell, that we are economically willing to smilingly slit our own throats en masse to insure that a few Americans remain very, very rich while the rest of us struggle to get paycheck to paycheck and live off the sweat of enslaved Chinese children.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

DVD Review: Superman/Shazam: The Return of Black Adam

I was REALLY looking forward to this DVD. I mean REALLY. Like I'm looking forward to Harry Potter and Green Lantern really.

Imagine my disappointment, then, when I was finally able to watch this train wreck.

Let me start by talking about Captain Marvel. (And yes - the hero's name is Captain Marvel - NOT Shazam.) Cap first appeared in Fawcett Publications "Whiz Comics # 2" in February, 1940. In 1953, DC forced Fawcett to stop publishing Captain Marvel, claiming that it was a copyright infringement - they claimed that the character was an infringement of Superman. Personally, I think that has always been a miscarriage of justice, because aside from some surface and power similarities, the two characters are almost nothing alike. In 1972, DC was able to gain the rights to the Marvel family, and has tried several times to revive them, including the unfortunate way that most people know Captain Marvel - from the campy, 1970's TV series.

DC Showcase was a (now-defunct) comic book series that DC used to spotlight new and minor characters starting in 1956. Probably best known for introducing the most famous incarnation of The Flash in issue # 4 and ushering in the "silver age" of comics, the title was cancelled in 1970, and then enjoyed another brief run from 1977 to 1978. DC is now reviving this as a series of shorts on their DVD's. Each episode focuses on one DC hero (except for this one which features both Cap and Superman). Each is around 20 minutes long, about the same length as any given episode of one of their animated series. The first four have focused on Jonah Hex, Green Arrow, The Specter and now Cap and Superman. All four of these are featured on this DVD.

I have always been a DC guy. Batman and Superman are my boys. Lately, Captain Marvel has joined them as they have allowed the character to become a little darker and more complex. Let's just say that this short DOESN'T highlight the new depth for the character, although he's not quite as goofy as he was in the 1970's TV show.

One terrific thing that DC is doing with all of its animated features on DVD is to include selected episodes from their TV series that are related in some way to the feature. This one includes an episode from the Batman animated series featuring Jonah Hex, an episode from Batman: The Brave and the Bold featuring The Specter, and two episodes of Justice League Unlimited focusing on Green Arrow and Captain Marvel. (The last of these, by the way, is a vastly superior Superman/Cap story to the feature.)

THE GOOD: Seeing Black Adam. Adam is a rich, complex character who was used to terrific effect in the DC comics miniseries 52. This series featured a year without Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman. The series focused about equally on Booster Gold, The Question and Black Adam.

Adam is another to whom the wizard Shazam gave the powers of the gods to be protector of the Earth. The powers went to his head, however, and he decided that rather than just be ruler of his little nation of Khandak, he should be ruler of the world. Because of this, Shazam sent him to the far side of the galaxy, from which it took Adam five thousand years to return to Earth. For some reason that I've never been able to figure out, the artists always show him with pointed ears like Spock.

My one real problem with the way that the character is portrayed here is that several times he is seen standing on the ground, which Adam, in his arrogance, never does. He's always shown flying or hovering a few inches above the ground.

THE BAD: The story. It sucks. It's basically Superman and Captain Marvel beating the crap out of Black Adam for twenty minutes. Also, the physics are wonky, but I'm used to that in superhero films. About the only one to get them even half-right was Hancock.

THE UGLY: The animation in this short isn't great, but the biggest problem is Fawcett city. It's empty. In the aerial shots of the city, there are no cars and no pedestrians. Aside from some empty cars that Black Adam chucks at Captain Marvel, we don't see a car until about 3/4 of the way through the film.

Also, I wish that they hadn't revived Talky Tawney, Captain Marvel's talking tiger sidekick. At least they had the good taste to simply call him "Tawney" and have him be a REAL tiger instead of walking on two legs and wearing clothes.

Peace.

Rev. Randal

Election Post-Mortem

Okay, so we gave the republicans the wheel back. So where do we go from here?

I've got to tell you quite honestly, I don't really give that much of a crap about which party is in control. I think that they're both corrupt… with the dems maybe having proven themselves slightly less corrupted than the republicans.

I do have to tell you, though… anyone who think that putting the republicans in power is going to do anything about our budget mess is in for a somewhat rude awakening. We've been sinking between one and one and a quarter trillion dollars in the hole since 2003, and I'll bet my whole allowance that it'll continue for the next two years. Especially since it seems almost a given that the tax cuts for the wealthiest 2% of Americans will continue unabated. You know why I say that the debt problem will continue? Because we haven't done anything to address the core issues. We blindly replaced one party with the other without bothering to think about WHY we're digging ourselves deeper and deeper into a hole, let alone trying to fix it. In this respect, Americans kind of remind me of Alaskans. Alaskans get this thing called a "Permanent Fund Dividend Check". Every Alaskan gets one based on the state's oil revenue. You know… Sarah Palin took credit for it, even though it's been going on since she and I were trying to figure out high school (her in Wasilla, me in Chugiak just up the street). After we had received these checks for several years, Alaska (which has no income tax) found itself in something of a budget crunch. So two proposals went before the Alaska legislature: kill the Permanent Fund Dividend, or institute an income tax. One of the local news agencies did a man-on-the-street type segment on this, and the answer of one woman really stuck with me. She said "I don't really want an income tax… but I don't really want to lose my Permanent Fund check either." No. She just wants things to get better all by themselves.

I'm not even saying that things are that bad nationally. We just have to be more involved in what our government is doing to help cut the fat. Giving the president a line-item veto or eliminating earmarks altogether would be good. Calling our troops home from Germany, Japan and Korea and closing the bases in those countries would help. Legalizing and taxing pot. Not only would that give us additional revenue, but how much would that save us in incarceration costs? Instituting all of John Boehner's Social Security reforms (except privatization) would help.

I do have a fear with the republicans back in power, though. I am afraid that we're going to return to the late nineties. You remember the late nineties? When the republicans spent 700 million of our money persecuting the president for no reason and to no end? I think that's going to happen again.

Why?

Because Darrell Issa, whom I usually like, said that he wants to see a hearing every day on the actions of the Obama administration. How much is THAT going to cost? And lets face it, you may not like what Obama's done, but, just like President Clinton, he hasn't committed an impeachable offense.

And Mitch McConnell, speaking to the Heritage Foundation, said that he wanted the republican's primary focus over the next two years to be to insure that the president doesn't have a second term.

Really, folks. Honest to God. Don't we have more important things to worry about right now?

Peace.

Rev. Randal

Veteran's Day 2010

Is it just me, or do people intentionally misunderstand each other simply for the purpose of being pissed off about something?

I saw a cake yesterday that said "Happy Veterans Day!" and asked the person buying the cake if it wouldn't be better to honor veterans EVERY day, instead of picking one day out of the year that most people really don't give much of a crap about. She got all huffed off, of course. I mean, what fun would life be if you couldn't be someone's victim? But let's face it… to most Americans that work in places that are closed on federal holidays, it's an extra day off… to most of the rest of America, it's a day without mail.

Veteran's Day is, to me, like Valentine's day. It's a day that we pick out of the year to treat an important person as if they really WERE important, so that we don't have to be bothered with it through the rest of the year. Like with Valentine's day… if you don't treat your lover like that all year, then you don't really deserve them.

So I wanted to take a look at Veteran's day, starting with this idiotic "Happy Veteran's Day!" cake. Way to reduce national service to a greeting card sentiment. A lot of vets that I know AREN'T happy, and there are reasons for that. We generally don't treat them very well. Of course, that's one of the reasons for "Happy Veteran's Day!" So that we don't have to address the very serious problems with the ways that we treat our vets. Kind of like the Bush administration shrilling "SUPPORT THE TROOPS!" every time that they opened their mouths, while at the same time cutting veteran health care at every turn, throwing them into a pointless, unnecessary war and significantly undersupplying them in the field.

That's another problem that I have with this… using our veterans and service people as a shield to cover the wrong-doings of the previous administration. Questioning the war or questioning Bush's motivation was equated with questioning or not supporting the troops. This went to the point where, when Viet Nam Veterans for Peace was formed, right-wing mouthpiece and Bush apologist Rush Limbaugh referred to the vets in the organization as "phony" vets. (For the record, Mr. Limbaugh did not serve. He was listed 4-F because of a "pilonidal cyst"… a cyst on his ass.)

Also, for the record, I did not serve in the military. I was in R. O. T. C. for four years and then denied military service for health issues. When I tried to join, the military doctor listened to my heart four separate times (everyone else only once). He finally denied me service, claiming it was because I sometimes walked in my sleep as a child. Years later, a sonogram was done on my heart revealing a leaking ventricle. I realized then that the military doctor had heard something that he didn't like in my heart, but didn't have the proper tools at his disposal to diagnose it.

Also in the interest of full discosure, here is my family's military pedigree, as far as I know…

My grandfather was in the Pacific with the Navy in WWII.

An uncle was in Korea.

My father was in the Air Force between Korea and Viet Nam. He was in Bermuda during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Two uncles were in Viet Nam, one didn't return. (Another uncle, who is a gung-ho Bush and Iraq war supporter, didn't serve. Why does this seem to be such a common thread?)

My older brother was in the Army.

A nephew was stationed in Kuwait during the current Iraq operation.

I, as a said, was in Naval R. O. T. C. for four years and then denied military service.

Support the troops, people. Yeah, they're not all heroes. They're not even all worthwhile human beings. Some of them are complete shits. But honor their SERVICE. Honor the fact that they had the guts to join the military, where their lives may have been put in danger, whether they actually WERE or not.

That means don't make them go die for oil. Give them housing and health care. Some areas give vets tax exemptions. What a great idea. Instead of giving tax cuts to men and women who inherited wealth, how about we give them to the men and women who served their country instead?

And most importantly, if you meet someone who served, shake their hand and thank them for their service. Regardless of how you feel about any particular campaign that the government threw them in to, let them know how much you appreciate the fact that they served and protected you.

Let EVERY day be Veteran's day.

Peace.

Rev. Randal