How bad could her life be?? [picture]
Oh, Abe, you’re so honest. [picture]
Cheating on a chemistry test [SMBC]
President God [Deep Cover]
Pizza stationary [Mocktopus]
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The Politics of Laughter Devastation in downtown Washington D.C. after yesterday’s earthquake. [picture] How did I die exactly? [Feel Afraid] One more dog comic. Just for laughs. [Gun Show] Every single time. [comic] Oh David, that little scamp. [pictures] The Popsicle joke writers no longer seem to be trying. [picture] RP Nation loyal reader Kay Rupp discovered this decades-old video which offers a unique solution to our nation’s political problems. Watch it and enjoy:
I concluded my previous blog post pondering whether or not any superheros had ever been created that I would actually feel were worthy of kids’ admiration. After a top five list of some of the best superheroes from mainstream comic books… all of them fell way short. Are there any nonviolent superheroes outside of mainstream comic books that are worthy of acclaim and true admiration? Well, as it turns out– YES! Far more than you’ll find on the shelves of comic book stores these days. Here’s my top five list of superheroes that exist solely outside of comic books: There’s a wonderful book that my daughter loves for me to read to her. It is called Hooray for Our Heroes by Sarah Albee and Tom Brannon (ISBN: 978-0375822681). This book alone makes me love Super Grover.
4.) The Super Readers (Whyatt Beanstalk aka Super Why, Princess Pea aka Princess Presto, Red Riding Hood aka Wonder Red, and Pig aka Alpha Pig) This PBS TV series is aimed at children from ages three to six and teaches reading skills including spelling, pronunciation, the alphabet, writing, phonics, and word usage.
What better than a chance to save the world– yourself? Wildfire* is a game that gives you the power to make real change, and let’s you see what you will do with it. (If you like this idea, check out other games like it here ) Wildfire is a game about saving the world. Opponents like rampant poverty, gender inequality, inadequate education and environmental degradation cannot be defeated by marching armies, secret potions, or magic swords– but they can be defeated by YOU. Read the rest of… I haven’t watched network TV in many years. I can’t stand pretty much any contemporary music act. I enjoy professional sports, but do not follow them, and always embarrass myself when I pretend that I do. However, I do faithfully watch a handful of cable television programs. Here they are, with some thoughts on each:
As President Obama would say, let me be clear. This show is as dumb as a bag of hammers. I am dumber after I watch it. All of us are. The pilot episode offered the worst dialogue I had ever heard on a television show. The performances as a rule are unbelievably repetitive. A handful of the characters—including THE LEAD—are unusually annoying. When did Anna Paquin decide that every line should be served with three extra helpings of sass? And Tara, thanks, but if I wanted to be yelled at for an hour, I’d time travel back to Mrs. Phillips’ seventh grade math class. This scene alone invoked three separate articles of the Geneva Conventions. And yet… OK, I confess. The damn show is entertaining. As dumb as it is, dumb also means I get to turn my brain off for an hour and watch vampires, werewolves, shape-shifters, witches, whoknowswhathehellelse go at it. In bad Cajun accents. Usually, sans clothing. There are worse ways to spend an evening.
This series appeared at first to be a conventional medieval fantasy epic, told in the style of The Lord Of The Rings, pitting good against evil. It slowly revealed itself to be a far more complex piece of storytelling. The “good” guys in this tale often behave stupidly and are far too trusting of their enemies, not to mention the “neutral” parties of whom they assume good faith. The “bad” guys are regularly more successful because they do not slow themselves down with quaint notions of “honor”. They also may have more legitimate grievances than we are initially led to believe. The history of the world in which these people reside is slowly revealed to the audience. It is a world nowhere as simple as that depicted in The Lord Of The Rings, a world much more like our own, where nothing good is accomplished easily–if at all–and what “good” actually is becomes harder to define at each turn. Exemplifying this outlook is the performance of Peter Dinklage, who has created the most fascinating supporting character on television since…Omar. He is The Imp, a little person living in a chaotic world ruled by “might is right”, and yet The Imp manages to slip through incredible dangers using his mental ingenuity alone. He is neither good nor bad, possessing no innate hostility towards perceived enemies, nor any frivolous notions of “honor” that would too firmly entrench him. The Imp has no problem helping strangers, and bets they’ll never realize how much more he needs them. He has only his wits, and his mouth. In a land where most have lost sight of what matters save some ancient moral code, the man with none may be the most moral of them all.
I generally detest reality television. I believe 99.9% of it is useless, vapid exhibitionism of the lowest order. I think anyone who would put themselves on a reality television program is very likely to have either some kind of severe personality disorder, or simply be un-hirable in any other occupation. However… Teen Mom is one of the most gripping and educational shows ever put on the screen. The show is pretty straightforward: let’s film the repercussions of some teenagers who got themselves pregnant. Let’s show what it’s like to be an 18 year-old girl with a 2 year-old boy. What happens when that girl wants to go out with her friends, but doesn’t have any time, because she has a 2 year-old boy, and doesn’t have any money, because she doesn’t have a job, because she can’t get a job, because she has to stay home to take care of the 2 year-old boy. And if she gets a job, it won’t be a good job, because she didn’t finish high school, and even if she did, she didn’t go to college, because she has a 2 year-old boy. And if she tries to go to college, then she’s being a bad mom, because she’s not devoting herself entirely to the 2 year-old boy, and eventually one of her parents will step in and fight for ownership of the 2 year-old boy. And God forbid she go and try to do what got her into this mess in the first place: fall in love. On Teen Mom, nothing is more dangerous than trying to have a life of your own. And that is what makes it truly compelling television, as well as essential life education. I wish it was shown in every middle and high school in America. Read the rest of… The Pompatus of Laughter Rhino vision!!! [Seen through the eyes of a rhino] An epic Facebook post by “John” from Nebraska. [Failbook] This couldn’t have been what he had in mind. [GIF] Curing Arachnophobia [comic] Perks of Being an English Major [comic]
Strangely, that summer launched the reality TV genre. More than a decade later—where it seems the majority of TV is reality—I have found my own personal obsession…the bad reality TV game show. Who needs American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, or the Amazing Race? (I can hear some RP readers already saying—aren’t those bad reality TV shows? Not compared to the rest of this list!) Bad imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Or, Rule 1 of Bad Reality TV Game Shows: If it is cheap, and it might draw any summer ratings, rip off the idea! To that end, I offer my pop culture tribute to 5 worst reality game shows of all time. (A side note for the analytic amongst the RP Nation: “Reality” TV probably has a more precise meaning, but in my world, it is a broad genre encompassing any show where contestants compete as themselves in some less than realistic setting…)
What’s worse than that? How about a reality game show where you can find “true love” with a millionaire? But after you think you’ve found the one, you find out he’s not a millionaire. I hate when that happens. Rule 2 of Bad Reality TV Game Shows: Deception is ok as long as you get money in the end.
I think someone should have filed a lawsuit for false advertising…because there were no celebrities here. Unless you think Bruce Jenner, Melissa Rivers, and Robin Leach are celebrities… The premise is simple. Dump a bunch of C-level stars in the jungle. Make them do stupid stuff. Someone leaves every night. Broadcast live every night. Someone wins. Poor mans survivor meets Ed Mcmahons star search. Bad! (Another side note: In checking the web today, I found NBC is actually remaking this show again. Wow. See Rule 1 of Bad Reality TV Shows Above). Read the rest of… A half-Letterman pop-culture list? That’s a very difficult assignment for me. Today I don’t have much time to absorb any mass-media entertainment streams. Though I did consider subscribing to HBO just to be able to watch the documentary “Superheroes.” (I ultimately decided against it.) When I was a kid, I couldn’t wait for Saturday morning so I could watch the Super-Friends in action. Today, I am much more interested in real-life social justice, than I am in the Justice League. Today, through my aging eyes, super heroes just seem like fascist bullies (who must have never watched The People’s Court). The best arguments by Karl Marx aside– I really don’t want a bunch of violent vigilantes to be the role models for my children. Worse, still– the genre typically depicts women in a sexist manner, all scantily clad and inhumanly proportioned. So are there any supers left in the world that I can still respect and admire? Maybe about a Rob Fleming list full: 5.) The Original Superman, Kal-L The hospitality that Mary and Pa Kent (later rewritten as Martha and Jonathan Kent) showed to this undocumented immigrant is worthy of admiration alone. In Action Comics #1, Lois Lane also sets a good example for challenging the status quo and Superman tackles corrupt politicians. With SupermanÔøΩs second appearance in Action Comics #2, the hero confronts a munitions manufacturer hoping to profit on the war in Europe. In the next issue, he corrects a heartless mine owner who won’t give a crippled miner a pension after he was caught in a cave-in. In a 1975 press release, Superman creator Jerry Siegel wrote, “What led me into creating Superman in the early thirties? Listening to President Roosevelt’s fireside chats, being unemployed and worried during the depression, knowing homelessness and fear, hearing and reading of the oppression and slaughter of helpless oppressed Jews in Nazi Germany, and seeing movies depicting the horrors of privation suffered, I had the great urge to help the downtrodden masses, somehow. How could I help them when I could barely help myself? Superman was the answer.” The only thing keeping the 1930s Superman from a higher spot in the countdown would be the fact that his treatment of the baddies could sometimes make water-boarding look a little tame by comparison. Of course, this was all changed by the comics code of the 1950s– but by that point, Superman was already shying away from changing the system, taking down the KKK, demolishing slums, correcting exploitative business leaders, etc…. and was already evolving into the more jingoistic big blue boyscout that he would remain thereafter. I briefly entertained the idea of putting Batman on the list after reading this, though, unfortunately, he was just flat wrong when he said that Batman doesn’t kill: 4.) Coming in at number four in the countdown: A tie… Had any of these comics seen a larger mainstream run, they would be at the very top of the list. Because most of these titles are no longer in print, the number four spot is a 3-way tie between: 4.c.) Cyberella, Sunny Winston and ‘Lil Ella Unfortunately this series lasted only 12 issues. So few graphic novels deal with systemic classism, but this was one that empowered us with the message that even in a society where those who have the gold make the rules, the human soul cannot be bought.
Created by Barbara Kesel, Amazing Grace first appeared in Comics’ Greatest World: Golden City in 1993. Grace was a smart, powerful character who used her super powers to better the world in practical ways. She ran Golden City and defended it from many threats; the main one came from the United States.
Winged Victory is an independent heroine and champion of women’s rights. The hero established and maintained a number of women’s centers (originally shelters) and clinics, and is a vocal and passionate spokeswoman for the political, legal, and social emancipation of women. (Kurt Busiek’s Astro City is actually still being published, but Winged Victory is so rarely seen that the highest that she can go on our list is fourth place.)
In 1969 Denny OÔøΩNeil miraculously transformed the Green Arrow from a cheap Batman/Robin Hood hybrid knock-off into an outspoken advocate of the underprivileged and oppressed. In the early 1970’s Oliver Queen became a heroic voice against racism and corruption. Writer O’Neil and illustrator Neal Adams paired Green Lantern and Green Arrow and sent them on an “easy rider” tour of the nation. The brief series dealt with pollution, overpopulation, drug addictions, and more. While Green Lantern was the straight-laced law-and-order type, Green Arrow was the indignant advocate of true social change. Unfortunately, though, a comic book character is only as good as the author and artist du-jour: While everything with this character before 1969 is really bad, everything about Green Arrow between 1987 and 2001 is even worse– the hero was rewritten as merely a cold-blooded, violent vigilante during the entire 1990s. Read the rest of…
First of all, who starts any kind of race in July at 5:00pm? I don’t know what I was thinking when I registered for this 15k or why I thought it would be cool by 5pm, but I was wrong. In July the sun is not even close to going down at 5pm; as a matter of fact it was still quite high in the sky, and I am slightly sunburned from the “late” afternoon race. I made a wise decision before this race and stopped at a gas station to use the bathroom. Turns out there were no bathrooms at the race, so I avoided the problem with going I had at the July 4th half marathon I ran.
I really didn’t worry about that much because I wasn’t running for time, but I thought how that would have driven me crazy back in my college days. Needless to say I was in last place at that point. Soon after the start, another aspect that drove many of us insane were the course markings and turns. I have no idea what language they were written in but it was not English. This race took place at Camp Galilee so I assume it was Hebrew, or maybe Greek, but I had no idea what they met. While it seemed like most of us were nice Christian runners, I don’t think we had many Hebrew Bible scholars in the crowd because we all got lost (except for me- Marines are never lost just occasionally disorientated). I knew things were not going as planned when I met the fast runners coming towards me about a mile into the race. Read the rest of… |
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