3 posts from March 2009

Boy, but does this sound like a comic book origin:

 

By Clara Moskowitz

updated 10:34 a.m. CT, Wed., March. 18, 2009

A small bat that was spotted blasting off with the space shuttle Sunday and clinging to the back side of Discovery's external fuel tank apparently held on throughout the launch.

NASA hoped the bat would fly away before the spacecraft's Sunday evening liftoff, but photos from the launch now show the bat holding on for dear life throughout the fiery ride.

"He did change the direction he was pointing from time to time throughout countdown but ultimately never flew away," states a NASA memo obtained by SPACE.com. "Infrared imagery shows he was alive and not frozen like many would think ... Liftoff imagery analysis confirmed that he held on until at least the vehicle cleared [the] tower before we lost sight of him."

 

You can see the rest of the story here.

 

In real life, it poor thing probably was incinerated after falling through the shuttle’s exhaust, but a comic book reality, I think we can assume that one of the following would have happened:

 

It would become a humanoid bat.

 

 

It would cosmically fuse with the rocket to become a mechanical missile bat.

 

 

It would become gigantic bat beast that would attack Tokyo.

 

 

But the poor thing is probably dead, which is why comic book reality is better … so long as you wouldn’t miss Tokyo.

 

Victoria Jackson is making Republicans look ridiculous ... again and not just because of what she’s wearing. But what she is wearing is nonsensically wrong for a news show where you’re trying to be persuasive. It’s like she looked in her closet and thought, “Hmm, should I dress in business casual or frowsy clown college dropout?”

 

After telling us that Obama will punish her if she’s successful (Trust me, Victoria, if that were true, you’d still be perfectly safe), she informs us that the problem with America is that it doesn’t have enough Biblical influence. I find this to be particularly galling.  Even a casual look around will tell you that the Bible is not the answer to a country’s problems. America has the highest rate of church-going and the highest rate of murder of the industrialized nations. Countries with few Christians like Japan aren’t backward, crime-filled nations. And even rates of religion within the US don’t suggest that the Bible is the answer to problems.

 

I compared a Gallup poll on the importance of religion (here) with the rates of crime in the states (here) and found that in all areas of crime, the states were religion was more important had higher crime rates than the states where religion was less important. Comparing the top 10 most religious states with the bottom 10, I found that on average the states that were the most religious had rates of crime higher than those that were the least religious. In the most religious states:

 

Rape was 2.3% more frequent.

 

Robbery was 13.3% more frequent.

 

Violent crime was 16.0% more frequent.

 

Property crime was 22.8% more frequent.

 

Murder was a whopping 27.9% more frequent.

 

Crime may not be the problem that Victoria Jackson is concerned with. We have real economic problems too. But guess what? Not only doesn’t religion appear to turn people’s hearts toward moral action, it doesn’t seem to stop poverty. I compared the top and bottom 10 most religious states with their rank in poverty found on a nifty interactive map (here.) Note that 7 (70%) of the most religious states rank in the top 10 for poverty while none of the less religious are. The least religious boast 5 of the 10 states with the least poverty.

 

Most Religious

 

Mississippi                1^st

Alabama                    10^th

South Carolina          12^th

Tennessee                 11^th

Louisiana                   3^rd

Arkansas                    5^th

Georgia                      13^th

Oklahoma (tie)           7^th

Kentucky (tie)             7^th

Texas                          9^th

 

Least Religious

 

Vermont (tie)             41^st

New Hampshire        50^th

Maine                         24^th

Massachusetts          43^rd

Alaska                        39^th

Washington                32^nd

Oregon                       21^st

Rhode Island             35^th

Nevada (tie)               41^st

Connecticut                49^th

 

All right, but maybe Victoria Jackson wasn’t talking about worldly things. Maybe she’s referring to the blessings of the Holy Spirit, the comforting grace of God, and joy that only true salvation brings. Certainly, the most religious states are the happiest, right? Not so much. I compared the rankings of happiness from the poll that was conducted (here), and it turns out that on average the highly religious states rank about 17 places down from the least religious states in happiness. Below are their rakings. Note that not one of the religious states is even in the top 20 while 7 (70%) of the least religious are.

 

Most Religious

 

Mississippi                48^th

Alabama                    33^rd

South Carolina          26^th

Tennessee                 42^nd

Louisiana                   40^th

Arkansas                    46^th

Georgia                      23^rd

Oklahoma                  43^rd

Kentucky                    49^th

Texas                         21^st

 

Least Religious

 

Vermont                     14^th

New Hampshire        13^th

Maine                         29^th

Massachusetts          8^th 

Alaska                        20^th

Washington                7^th

Oregon                       18^th

Rhode Island              37^th

Nevada                       38^th

Connecticut                19^th

 

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that many of the problems in the highly religious states can be explained by the geography and history of the South. Still, I don’t know that we can completely discount the role of religion in making the most religious states worse off than the least religious. The religious are more likely to marry and have children early, hindering them from getting higher education. They are more likely to get divorced, which creates those single parent homes they are so worried about. (Single parent homes have been strongly linked to higher rates of crime and poverty.) They are less likely to use birth control. They are more suspicious of education. They are more likely to believe they can pray their way to wealth, which might keep them from doing things that actually create wealth. They are more likely to be opposed to abortion. (Lowering the rate of abortion has been linked to an increase of poverty and crime.) They are more likely to limit their talent pools by excluding, overtly or covertly, lgbt people from their communities. In short, religion increases several of the behaviors that are likely to decrease wealth and increase crime.

 

So when Victoria Jackson and her ilk suggest that the Bible will help America, what the hell does she mean?

 

The thing that always gets me about intellectually dishonest sorts like Scott et al is - they TOTALLY ignore the fact that you just cannot find male characters who are defined by their rapes. How many heroes' origin stories are rooted in rape? How many "peril of fate worse than death" scenarios for superheroes involve rape? (let alone castration.)

 

Some recent events in comics have made me think about this comment that above that bellatrys made here. Is it just me, or have there been a number of castration perils in comics lately?

 

The earliest one to come to mind happened in New Avengers # 34.

 

 

Notice in this scene that The Hood castrates Wolverine and Wolverine threatens to castrate The Hood. This castration scene was not just in the comic. These pages were used by Marvel in their previews to entice readers to pick up the book so they could get in on the man on man ... err ... man off man action.

 

Then came Secret Six #5 in which the deranged gang leader Junior was torturing Bane and then requested a pair of scissors that she was apparently going to use to snip something off. The comic never came right out and said that what would be snipped was below the belt, but as I poked around comic message boards, I noticed that I wasn’t the only one who got the impression that the comic was playing on the theory of castration anxiety.

 

Not long after that we got a scene in Justice Society of America #23 in which Isis appears to be doing something nasty to Felix Faust’s crotch. The Wikipedia entry on Faust says that Isis “castrates him with her bare hands before leaving, sparing his life.” I didn’t get the impression that ripping his gentiles off without killing him was “sparing” him so much as it was punishing him in a way that created a lasting torture, but to each his own.

 

I’m not sure there is a lot of castration or threat of castration in comics or media in general. The laser heading toward James Bond’s crotch comes to mind, and I recall someone saying that in an issue of Miracle Man, someone was trying to rape Kid Miracle Man while in his normal human form, but the kid said his magic word and the resulting shazam-like lightning blasted the would-be rapist’s dick off. But is it there frequently and just ignored? Is castration a fairly common peril in comics? Does it occur with a frequency greater or less than rape? I don’t know. Anyone have any ideas? Also do rape threats appear more than we think? It seems like in most media you can’t mention prison with adding some threat of male rape, but I’m not sure that’s true of comics.