"Meet my FIST!"

On Friday, July 9th, on National Public Radio, Ralph Nader is going to debate Howard Dean.

Maybe now someone will publicly defrock Nader for the megalomaniac he's become, especially since it's mostly Republicans propping up his campaign as a Kerry spoiler.

Personally, I can't wait.


Check your local listings.

[UPDATE]: So, here are the goods - a streaming audio of the debate.

I'd like to say that the moderator, Margo Adler, should be fired. Her attempts to defuse the debate with her frivolous questions just as it was getting juicy were really starting to tick me off.

The more I listen to him, the more Nader sounds like Rorschach from Watchmen:



"No. Not even in the face of Armageddon. Never compromise."

Then again, most of Nader's big checks are also coming from people who've contributed to Bush this year, too. I guess his principles do have a price.

But I think Dean said it best:

"When the house is on fire, it's not the time to fix the furniture".

The Piece Maker

So, last night, I saw my man Joe Hernandez-Kolski's solo show, "You Wanna Piece of Me?" at the Electric Lodge in Venice, CA, where it will be running for the next 4 nights.

Digression: Can I say, I never knew there really is a street called "Electric Avenue"?

Back to the subject at hand....

The show is awesome.

Yes, the music is off the hinges - from the jaw-dropping turntable skills of Joe's DJ, Jedi (on loan from HBO's Def Poetry) and the smallest taste of Josh Silverstein's human beatbox onslaught.

Yes, the poetry is fluid and insidious - sometimes you don't even realize that Joe's performing a poem because the flow is so natural and conversational until he pulls the ripcord on the verse and it blows up like a balloon right before your eyes.

Yes, the dancing is out of this world - beyond the usual breaking and poppin' & lockin' you'd expect from a former club dancer, Joe finds ways to tell entire stories without a single word, but only the movement of his body. A piece in the middle of the show where he depicts the mind-numbingly grinding rat-race of a super-overachiever's life at Princeton is one of the most expressive performances I've ever seen.

But, at the end of the day, what makes it all work is the fact that Joe absolutely empties his soul onto that stage floor for the world to see - his own internal demons over his mixed racial heritage; the way he debunks the way men belittle women, and then debunks his own debunking as simply a means to get women; own desperate quest to make the rest of the world give as much of a damn as he does, and then his realization of the deep personal costs he pays for having the arrogance to be a self-appointed savior of everything from hip-hop music to a lost generation of Lation kids who look just like him - it's all there.

It's not every day I get to see a friend perform a vivisection on himself so he can entertain and enlighten.

Understatement of the week: He gets my props.

And the good folks at Venice Magazine, LA Weekly, and Latino LA all seem to agree with me.

The show is running for the next four nights. I cannot recommend it stronger. Go to his site (click the main link for this post or just go to Pochojoe.com).

And I, for one, am hoping he and Jedi are recording some of this to put out a bootleg mix-tape soundtrack or something.

Oh, and did I mention that Joe is also going to be one of the featured poets on Def Poetry Slam, airing on September 19th on HBO? So, those of you who miss out won't have to miss out completely.

Taking The Fifth

When asked to comment about the recent indictment of former Enron CEO Kenneth Lay, a man who was the biggest contributor to Bush-Cheney 2000 (he even let James Baker use the company jet to fly to Florida to stop the recount) and who was more than likely at the head of Cheney's energy task force, the President of the United States did this:

Yes, Bush walked out and refused to take anymore questions.

Silence can speak volumes.

In Context

Just so no one misunderstands where he's coming from, here's the entire transcript of Senator Rick Santorum's (R-Pennsylvania) interview with AP where he weighs in on homosexuality, which he equates with bigamy, polygamy, incest, sodomy, and adultery as sexual activities that undermine the institution of marriage and, consequently, the society as a whole.

So, where to begin?

First of all, there are actually many instances of viable and often thriving societies built on bigamy & polygamy, so we can dismiss those from this discussion. Sodomy in and of itself becomes problematic within the context of his argument because, unless he's planning on outlawing anal sex among consenting heterosexual couples as well, then you get into a civil rights violation because you're not providing equal protection under the law to all groups.

Which leaves us with incest, adultery, and homosexuality. Well, there are biological and health reasons why incest is illegal, not to mention the psychological trauma from cross generational sexual activities within the same family (think Chinatown - "she's my sister! My daughter! My sister AND my daughter!"), so, yes, it creates emotionally unstable people which leads to an unstable society. And, because it often involves people who cannot give consent because they're underaged, there's a strong civic reason to outlaw incest.

Adultery is a bit thornier. Clearly, it undermines society because it creates emotionally unstable people, hence the term "Crime of Passion". But, since it involves consenting adults, the act in and of itself doesn't actually injure or damage anyone directly, so it probably doesn't meet the test for being made illegal. But it does constitute a breach of contract, which is why adultery is often figured into divorce proceedings in terms of asset allocation.

But, in the case of homosexuality, no one is being injured. No contracts have been breached (unless one of them is married). No crime has been committed (unless one of them is underaged). So, what are the grounds upon which you base such a decision as to make homosexual acts a crime?

The only thing that the anti-gay lobby can use against them is that gay couples can't give birth without outside assistance, like adoption, surrogates, in vitro fertilization, etc. But, there are plenty of married heterosexual couples who can't either. Should it be illegal for a couple to have sex, for instance, after the woman has undergone menopause?

There is no legal precedent to stand on, other than the fact that Sen. Santorum finds homosexual activities repugnant.

At the end of the day, it's bigotry.

And I'd respect him and others like him more if they would just admit that they don't like them.

And the Bible isn't really an adaquate excuse either. The same section of Leviticus that says a man shouldn't lay with another man because it's a hateful act also says that you shouldn't shave your beard. Why choose to observe one and not the other?

Again, bigotry.

Here's What They Think About You

For those of you who don't know, Andrew Sullivan is a center/left columnist who's work appears primarily in The New Republic. Although he claims to be a progressive, he's been a really aggressive supporter of President Bush, largely because he drank the Bush Kool-Aid that his International Crazy-Man act has actually made America safer from terrorist threats.

And just how many nuclear secrets did our buddies in Pakistan sell while we were wasting our time with Iraq? But I digress.

Sullivan is also gay, so, as you can imagine, he and a whole host of log cabin Republicans have been experiencing a tad bit of cognitive dissonance over this whole "constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage" thing. Amazingly enough, according to his blog, Sullivan & Co. were actually able to maintain a level of plausible deniability right up until the moment Bush actually came out in support of the Amendment.

Now, both he and others like him are facing a fact that most of their friends on the other side of the political spectrum have been telling them all along.

The Republican Party hates you.

And no matter how much you agree with them on other issues, no matter how many times you vote for them, no matter how much campaigning you do for them, no matter how much they pat you on the head like good little boys for a job well done, the words of the incomparable Adolph Caesar, aka Sgt. Waters, in "A Soldier's Story" remain a fact of life:

"They still hate you. They - still - HATE - you"

What I found the most interesting in looking at his blog is the sheer volume of astonished former Bush supporters. And, to a man, they've almost all said that they've looked past Bush's fiscal mismanagement of the nation's treasury because they were so scared after 9/11 and the President made them feel safe. Despite all the prior evidence to the contrary, they trusted him right up until the moment that he spat in their faces.

Of course, for those who had their world view altered by 9/11, I suppose they didn't have much choice but to trust him. After all, it's not like they were ready to impeach him or anything. Things were shaky enough as it is.

But a new thought occurred to me as I read this. Perhaps the very reasons why I think Bush is an awful President are why these folks support him. When you think your life is in danger, I suspect there's something comforting about putting your safety in the hands of an unscrupulous person because you know they're capable of anything, and that they won't let little things like the law stand in their way. As long as that goal is your safety, it's all peachy.

Of course, there in lies the problem with that argument. The unscrupulous person who'll do anything never has your best interests at heart. After all, he's unscrupulous. He'll do anything. That's why he's dangerous.

Either way, I'm heartened to see a broad coalition forming to throw this bum out in November.

But, before I go, I'd like to do two things. First, to the people who are opposed to gay marriage, can I ask a favor? Don't insult my intelligence by saying we have to "protect" marriage because it's a precious institution and that it's for the children or any of that other garbage. Polygamy has been around at least as long as monagamous marriage and all the millions of children languishing in foster care that all the heterosexual couples can't be bothered with would gladly trade two dads or two moms for a cot in a halfway house. Why don't you all just come out and say why you really oppose gay marriage: that you don't want to make sin legal. Just say it, so we can all talk honestly about what the REAL issue is. Everything else they're saying is window dressing.

The real issue of gay marriage for The Right is the legalization of sin.

Case in point: I was really struck by one of the letters Andrew Sullivan received from a supporter of the ban who begged Sullivan to turn his back on his love of sodomy so he could see the err of his ways.

The right can't talk about it because they know, from a legal standpoint, it's indefensible. But it's not like they let reality stop them these days.

Secondly, I'd like to address the Black Republicans in the audience. I know you many of you are cultural conservatives and agree with this whole "Make Sin Unconstitutional" mess, but, as usual, I think many of you are missing the larger point.

They hate you, too. Not quite as much as the gays, but they do hate you. And it's only a matter of time before they come looking for you, too.

Murder, Inc.

"8000 would have died
at the end of the night
meeting for a month
over the use of their words
as if the slaughtered
were not people
but merely sheep herds"

-excerpt from "Clinton Toe Blood", one of many poems to be found in "Say it! Say Gen-O-Cide!!", Kobina Wright's new book of verse inspired by the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide.

Ladies and gentlemen, consider this your official wake-up call.

In the wake of the Holocaust, the newly minted United Nations created a convention in 1948 (in essence, a treaty, because all of the participants were required to pass laws under their own systems of government that legally bound them to the obligations of the resolution) that defined in no uncertain terms the circumstances under which it's member nations would act to prevent such an atrocity from ever happening again.

So, according to this, the legal definition of genocide (i.e. the one that the United States has been legally bound to stop for the last 56 years) is this:

"...any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."

After apparently having his ass handed to him in Somalia, Bill Clinton dithered for months over whether to actually use the word "genocide" with regards to Rwanda, because the minute he said it, he was legally obligated to stop it and he no longer had the political spine for it. After all, it's not like he could have just conducted an air war against hatchet men who where killing whole families, house to house. It would have required sending in ground troops as peacekeepers (unlike Bosnia, hence the differences in the interventions).

Say what you will about Monica Lewinsky. Allowing the rape and dismemberment of 800,000 people out of cowardice is a much bigger moral failure than getting a blow job.

Which brings me to Sudan and the Congo.

Now, I can only guess why the Sudan is all of a sudden in the news. I seem to recall seeing something about this back in 1997, but, after a little web research, I see that it was only a civil war that killed thousands then. Nothing for the international community to be concerned about.

Which would be the only reasonable explanation as to why no one has done a damn thing about the Democratic Republic of Congo.

I think the only people in mainstream, apolitical America who have the foggiest idea about Congo are those who watched ER's 2002-03 season finale and 2003-04 season premiere. After their corrupt President fled in 1998, the country collapsed into a civil war that lasted 5 years, involving a bunch of different rebel groups vying for power, as well as the armies of 6 different African countries hoping to influence the outcome so that they could benefit from Congo's natural resources. The shooting officially stopped a year ago with the creation of a jury-rigged transitional government that can't quite bring itself to hold an election.

Five million died over the course of five years there.

Imagine: 2 people on average were killed every minute, for five years straight. I haven't even lived in Los Angeles that long, yet.

But, it was officially considered a civil war by the western powers, so they just let them die. Can't get involved, right?

According to article referenced above from the Washington Post, at least 30,000 Black Africans in Sudan have been systematically killed by the militias sponsored by the Arabic government of that country to squash dissent. Whole villages of Africans have been burned to the ground while Arabic villages only a few hundred yards away have been left completely untouched, and the government is actively working to prevent international aid groups from providing relief to the hundreds of thousands of refugees in an attempt to starve them out.

But Colin Powell says that he's not - quite - sure this is officially a genocide yet.

I'm sure you can understand, right? After all, the US barely has enough troops to pacify Iraq for our new figureheads over there. And, even if the US can't commit troops, it doesn't want other countries to act on the genocide convention in Sudan because they want France & Co. to send their troops to Iraq as well.

Bastards.

Give Colin a call at 202-647-4000 or 202-647-6607 like the good people at Moveon.org are suggesting and tell him about himself. I did this morning. The lady was very polite and agreed to pass my message on. Of course, the 1st number doesn't seem to be working to well right now (and hence, the point).

And call your congressional representatives. I just spoke with Jim Clark, chief of staff for my congresswoman, Diane Watson, and he says that the Congressional Black Caucus is going to introduce a concurrent resolution with the Senate (H Con Res 467 to be exact for those of you who like Thomas, the Library of Congress legislative database) that officially declares what's happening in the Sudan as genocide when the House reconvenes on July 6th.

Not surprisingly, Senator Diane Feinstein's people sounded less enthusiastic about it (i.e. "the Senator is deeply concerned about this issue, blah blah blah...") although her people did say that she plans on issuing some kind of statement.

Senator Barbara Boxer's guy had nothing, but did say he'd pass on any message I had for her. I told him to ask her to support the CBC's H. CON. RES. 467 on her side of the legislature on my behalf.

For the record, today is the first day I've ever called my congressional representatives. Pretty freakin' kewl, huh?

Similarly, Human Rights Watch has a whole list of things you can do about this, such as contacting members of the UN security council, or even yelling at the Sudanese government directly. HRW also has a full site dedicated to the atrocities in the Sudan, so you can learn about it in full detail.

My point is, do something. We don't want to celebrate another 10 year anniversary where we pretended we didn't know that 1000's were dying needlessly.

Moreover, if you do make a call or do whatever, I'd love to know about it. Drop a note here on my comments section by clicking this green text .

RollingStone.com

Statement of the Obvious of the Day

"About six months ago, the president said to me, 'Well, at least I make strong decisions, I lead.' I said, 'Mr. President, look behind you. Leaders have followers. No one's following. Nobody.'"

- Senator Joseph Biden (D-Deleware), in a roundtable discussion sponsored by Rolling Stone magazine on the current state of American foreign policy, vis-a-vis Iraq.

"Why is this man crying?" or "Karma's a You-Know-What"
First of all, I have to give credit to fellow blogger, Daily Kos, for first using this image in a campaign ad on his site. You know what they say about imitation, right?

So, I've kind of been on the sidelines for alot of the political goings-on in recent months, but this is one I had to move on.

The man in the picture above is Republican Congressman Darrell Issa, representing California's 49th Congressional District. This is a photo from a press conference Issa gave last summer.

Why do I care?

For those of you who may or may not know, Arnold Schwarzenegger is the Governor of California.

Let me repeat that.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is the Governor of California.

And who do we have to thank for this? Well, we can start with Darell Issa. Issa, who started out as a petty car thief and then graduated to stealing an entire business that has since made him millions, was the chief architect of the campaign to recall Gray Davis. Issa used nearly $2 million dollars out of his own pocket to pay "volunteers" to get signatures for the recall petition - not exactly a groundswell of public support to throw out a man who'd only been re-elected 6 months prior.

Presumably, Issa expected to become Governor himself. Then the National and State GOP realized what a good thing they had going and decided to push Arnold instead. Hence the picture above, where Issa announced, after considerable behind-the-scenes encouragement - can you say Karl Rove? - his withdrawal from his own campaign.

Well, Issa's up for re-election this year, and this gentleman, Mike Byron, an Army brat, an ex-Navy guy, and a dude who has a Ph.D. in Political Science, is the Democrat running to unseat him.


I don't know much about Mike Byron. And I don't live anywhere near the 49th Congressional District (it's Northern San Diego county and parts of Riverside).

But Darrell Issa helped the GOP steal my state.

For that alone, I'm giving Mike Byron some of my money.

If you live in California, or if you're simply offended by the gangster tactics of the Republican Party, I suggest you give Mike Byron some money, too.

Click here if you want to send this crybaby home to his mommy.

Race Snapshot

Just in case anyone's keeping score, here's my current rankings of the summer blockbusters, so far, starting from the least interesting and working our way up in quality & enjoyment:

4.
The Chronicles of Riddick

Surprised? So am I. I had such high hopes for Riddick, but, in the end, it was alot of sound & fury, signifying nothing. That fabulous cast and the absolutely amazing production design and, honestly, a story I really like. But there's a big difference between a good story and a good screenplay. Lord knows this movie could have been a lot slimmer, and a lot punchier. I also think the action scenes are overdirected (two much camera movement and fast cutting), so that you can't actually get a sense of just how much danger the characters you care about are in. I'm actually pretty tired of movies that say that their main character is evil, but they're really just kind of bad-ass (i.e. Mel Gibson in "Payback"). Riddick would have been so much better if he really was a stone-cold sociopathic mass murderer, who just happens to be such a monster that he actually brings down an empire. So much more interesting, although it does have an extremely cool ending.

3. The Day After Tomorrow

This only gets a higher notch because of the sheer absence of suck-i-tude. But the absence of wackness does NOT equal goodness. It's definitely fun, but thin as paper. And pretty contrived. It's a nice little piece of speculative sci-fi, but the science is EXTREMELY suspect. But, in my continuing quest to elevate B list actors that I love, I'm totally digging Kenneth Welsh's transformation from homicidal ex-FBI occultist Windom Earle in Twin Peaks to a thinly veiled knock-off of Dick Cheney in this movie. Plus, the effects are awesome. And the killer cold snap is pretty f'n cool. And, as a fan of Dennis Quaid's since Dreamscape, I'm glad to see him finally cashing in as a leading man.

2. Troy

LOVED the costume design (somebody PLEASE give Bob Ringwood an Oscar for this!). Loved the battle scenes. LOVED the fact that this movie really captures just how much of a punk-ass bi-otch Orlando Bloom's Paris is. LOVED the Hector/Achilles duel. And Peter O'Toole made my day. But, alas, they do muck with the history a bit much for my tastes, and they really overplayed their hand with the whole "quest for immortality" thing. Pretty good, but not as good as...

1.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Surpised? Me too. I only really got interested in it based off the the great reviews and my love of Alfonso Cuaron's work on Y Tu Mama Tambien. But I'm SO glad I saw this film. So much fun. Even when the action was a little slow, there was always something interesting on screen that kept me riveted. It's amazing the difference a director can make. He had such a granular sense of detail in his depiction of Hogwarts, it felt like a real place, and not just a special effect on display. I usually hate scenes like the one where Harry rides the Hippogiff (kind of an eagle-horse) over a vast forest and nearby lake, but it was absolutely (dare I say it) magical. I'm so bummed they're getting a new director. Hopefully, he'll be back for the 5th film.

Shrek 2? Not my cup o' joe. Van Helsing? Not worth my time or money.

Hot on my list for the rest of the summer?
Spider-Man 2
The Bourne Supremacy
The Manchurian Candidate
Fahrenheit 9/11

Quote of the Day

"There has been a real lack of leadership in having someone emerge as a Christian voice, someone who doesn't speak for the right, someone who doesn't speak for the left, but someone who speaks for the people, and someone who speaks from a THEOCRATICAL perspective."

- Pastor Robert G. Upton, executive director of the Apostolic Congress, a fundamentalist Christian organization that regularly meets with Bush and other White House staff members, who're generally in agreement that Jesus won't come back until Israel controls all of the land promised them by God in the Old Testament.

These people have the President's ear, and they are actively lobbying against peace in the Middle East to fulfill their interpretation of the Book of Revelations.

Moreover, is anyone else freaked out by the fact that this non-government organization has adopted the following image as their logo?


Personally, as a Christian and an American, I find this to be immensely offensive.

While I'm on the subject, this week's episode of Frontline, entitled "The Jesus Factor", quotes Bush as saying "I believe God wants me to be President".

Personally, as a Christian and an American, I find this to be unspeakably frightening.

Oh, and they also believe the findings of some crank who alleges that traditional marriages grinded to a halt in Scandinavia after Sweden legalized same-sex marriage. Can someone please explain to me why all these good Christian heterosexuals are assuming that, given the chance, more men would choose to marry other men instead of women? Could this be an indication of their own state of mind? Hmmn....

ARIANNA ONLINE - Books: Fanatics & Fools - Excerpts

Progress
I've stayed away from politics for a bit, so, I suppose that now is as good a time as any to dip my toe back in the water.

Let's talk about words.

What are the so-called "neoconservatives" actually conserving? As the horribly misnamed "Healthy Forest" or "Clear Skies" initiatives demonstrate, it's clearly not the environment.

It certainly isn't the federal treasury, which, by all accounts, will make the full faith and credit of the United States roughly equivalent to a ball of lint in your empty pocket if we continue on the current fiscal policy.

Remember when Bush raised his hand during the Republican National Convention in 2000
(you know, the one where they paraded all six of the Black people deluded enough to run for office on the GOP platform (who were subsequently shocked, SHOCKED, to learn that other Blacks might think they were sellouts) on stage to prove how diverse they are?) and pledged to restore honor and dignity to the White House?


Nice one, George.

My point? The conservatives pretty much suck at conserving anything. Are we self-styled progressives any better at living up to our moniker?

Well, Arianna Huffington, who is an interesting figure on the political landscape, to say the least, is trying her best. Here, on her website, she's proposing a new progressive platform intended to push both the Democrats and the country into a new, bold direction. It's an attempt to envision a country that actually lives up to the ideals we espouse, instead of the vapid rhetoric of Bush & Co. Along with MoveOn.org and Joe Trippi, she's hoping to push John Kerry to officially adopt this agenda.

Check it out. It could be the future.

The Official Site of Kobina Wright

She Does It All
Many of you may remember how I sung the praises of Kobina Elaine Wright last fall when she launched her blog as a first step to blessing the world with the words of her hypnotic pen.

What many of you may not know is that the smattering of verse she rationed out on that blog where just the tip of her artistic iceberg.

In the months since, she's completely sold out her first volume of poetry, "Growth Spurt".


She's continued to expand her original language, Anibo, to a vocabulary of well over a thousand words.

She's putting the finishing touches on a second volume of poetry, dedicated to the memory of the Rwandan genocide, due out today.

She's established an online gallery for her paintings at her newly cristened website,DramaticPause.net.



AND, in addition to finishing her first feature script and outlining a second, she's hosting and performing for her very own spoken word event, tonight, May 19th, at Shelly’s Courthouse Bistro in Santa Ana, starting at 7:30.

I don't know about y'all, but I'm exhausted.

But I'll still be in Santa Ana for her show tonight. If you're in town, you should join me. And tell her I sent you.

Oh, and buy Growth Spurt AND the Rwanda book. It's well, well worth it.

.::joe hernadez-kolski aka pocho joe::.

You want a piece of him?
OK, disclaimer: Joe Hernandez-Kolski is my friend.

In fact, Joe is one of my dearest friends in the world. We go back to the days when we were just a pair of wee lads, loudly arguing in a stadium in Cambridge, MA, which sucked more, Yale or Harvard?

(Of course, the astute among you already know that the answer is Yale. Harvard, after all, does something that sounds like those lovely birds that return to San Juan Capistrano every year. Go, Tigers.)

Anyway, we've long since left behind my box fade and his mane of shoulder-length hair. And, while I busy myself these days with edutainment, cleverly wrapped in the guise of the written word, Joseph has become the consumate performer. His rhymes, moves, and just the sheer force of his conviction hits you like a brick through a store-front window.

Now, after years on stage with renowned L.A. theatres like Zoo District and Sacred Fools, countless open mic victories where he tells you exactly why McDonald's Fiesta menu is NOT COOL, and endless hours of pop-locking from the Windy City to the streets of London, Joe is bringing it all home for his multi-dimensional one-man show, "You Want A Piece Of Me?", from July 8th through the 11th, right here in the City of Angels. Check out his site, PochoJoe.com for details.

Buy his book.

And, if you're in town, check out his weekly high-school open mic event, Downbeat 720, on the 2nd & 4th Tuesday of every month at the Miles Playhouse in Santa Monica.

Strange

I love comics (can you tell) and I love science. So, sci-fi comics are like nectar for me. Which is why I'm surprised that I'm so underwhelmed by Alan Moore's Tom Strong series.

However, one of my all-time favorite characters has always been Adam Strange - an archeologist who finds himself riding an intergalatic transport beam that takes him to the futuristic planet Rann. There, he gets to play with all the toys, be a superhero, and get the girl. Except, every few weeks, the transport beam wears off and sends him back to earth. So, he has to scour the planet to figure out where the next transport beam with hit so he can go back to his preferred life.

Well, it looks like comic writer Andy Diggle, whom I've heard alot about, but never actually read any of his work in The Losers or Swamp Thing, is going to resurrect Adam this summer. And, if the story is anywhere near as juicy as the sample art, I'm in.

Out Of The Shadows
In this corner: a horde of intergalactic vandals who rape and pillage entire planets, leaving the charred corpses of whole worlds in their murderous wake.

And, in the the other corner: a triple-jointed guy with a knife who can see in the dark.

Amidsts all the well-deserved Spider-hype, disaster epics, and the freakin' Illiad on film, don't overlook "The Chronicles of Riddick", the sequel to Vin Diesel's "bogeyman in space" movie, "Pitch Black".

For the life of me, I cannot remember the last, honest-to-God, space opera that I've seen on film that was actually good and original, from top to bottom. But this sounds like it.

Check the trailer.

Uncle Joe
The last head of state to preside over such an extensive system of extra-legal prisons where gross human rights violations where a norm justified in the name of national security was Stalin.

Way to bring honor and dignity back to the Oval Office, Mr. President.

Mendacity
\Men*dac"i*ty\, n.; pl. Mendacities. [L. mendacitas.] 1. The quality or state of being mendacious; a habit of lying. --Macaulay.
2. A falsehood; a lie. --Sir T. Browne.
Syn: Lying; deceit; untruth; falsehood.
Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.

Lying has always been hard for me.

Coming from someone who is a self-professed storyteller, that very statement may, in and of itself, sound like a lie. But I've always had an easier time finding really sophisticated ways of telling the truth without getting in trouble. I suppose it comes from the assumption that I'm probably not a very convincing liar.

Of course, this is not to say that I never lie. That statement would ABSOLUTELY be a lie. But I try to avoid situations where I might be tempted.

Which is why the news I read on ArtBomb's blog absolutely floored me tonight. On more than one occasion, you've heard me herald the work and writing of Micah Wright, author of one of my favorite comics, Stormwatch: Team Achilles. Wright said he was a former Army Ranger who took part in the invasion of Panama back in the '80's, which made his stinging critiques of Bush & Co. all the more powerful.

Micah Wright is a big fat honkin' liar.

He never even did active duty service in the military. The closest he came was ROTC. And even though he tried to clean it up on his forum by saying he just couldn't live with the lies anymore, the truth of the matter is that the Washington Post was about to come out with an article based on a bunch of Freedom of Information Act requests that completely debunk him.

Would that there was a single word that could encompass both "angry" and "disappointed" to accurately portray my feelings right now.

"Angry" because I don't like being lied to, particularly in an instance where it was wholly unnecessary. Micah is a great writer, and his work in Stormwatch speaks for itself. He didn't need the padded resume. "Angry" because I have plenty of family who were active duty in the military, one of whom is a Gulf War veteran, and he's basically taken a big steaming dump on their commitments and sacrifice. "Angry" because Micah wrote reams on how much damage Jayson Blair did to his contemporaries and how awful George W. Bush is for inflating his military service. Jesus, at least Bush went through basic training!

"Disappointed" because so much of what he had to say was spot on, but will now be completely invalidated because everything he ever says will now be prefaced by the byline "Micah Wright, Liar". "Disappointed" because Stormwatch really was one of my favorite comics and, quite honestly, I'm simply not going to buy it or recommend it to anyone anymore because I refuse to support someone who would abuse his supporters and fans in such a way.

You'll notice that I've removed the links to all of Micah's books on Macroscope. I've promoted him so much, I figure it's only fair to let you all know the deal.

NEWSARAMA - 2004: THE YEAR OF GETTOSAKE

The Black Pages
[UPDATE] My apologies for having the incorrect link to GettoSake. Everything should work know. Please go check them out.
As most of you know, I'm a life-long comic book fan who has absolutely no intention of outgrowing that particular habit.

Of course, the problem with being a little black boy who reads The Avengers or Justice League of America is that there aren't very many superheroes I could reasonably expect to grow up to be without pulling a Michael Jackson. And the few Black superheroes out there always wore their blackness like a giant billboard sign.

Black Panther was an African prince. Black Lightning had a mask that actually included a prosthetic afro (needless to say, I appreciated the costume and name change to "Black Vulcan" for the Superfriends cartoon). Rage was 10 year old boy trapped in the body of a big, scary, angry Black man. It was just alot of cliches to me.

Sure, there were exceptions. Amazing Man was a Black World War II era hero created in the early 80's who was still accutely aware of the fact that he was black while not making a particularly big deal of that aspect of his personality above and beyond the fact that he was a hero. And what can I say about Blade that hasn't already been said?

Of course, now, there are enough kids like me who now create comics for a living, so they have a bit more to say about it. Hence, Dwayne McDuffie's Milestone Comics, a subgenre under D.C. that was an entire universe of Black superheroes, like Icon (Superman analogue), Hardware (Iron Man analogue), and, most notably, Static, who still appears to this day on Saturday morning cartoons.

Of course, while I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for superheroes, I also just kind of like comics as a vehicle for storytelling, just like all movies don't have to be Westerns and all TV shows don't have to be cop shows. So it's so refreshing to see my people on the printed and drawn page in new contexts.

So, I am WAY WAY proud to re-introduce to some of you and present to others the brothers (literally) at GettoSake.com. For years, they've been quietly doing Hip-Hop inspired online comics and animated web shorts. Well, after an extra-fly revamp of their site, it looks like they're ready for their close-up with a whole line of comics, from all different genres, featuring Black protagonists, courtesy of Dark Horse Comics. I have to tell you, the very notion of "The Life And Times of Credence Walker", kind of a Black Doc Savage, is down-right nerdgasmic. Check the article which describes GettoSake Comics in detail in the main link for this post, and be on the look out for the books in the coming months.

In the meantime, take a gander at their site here.

A Thousand Words

Nerd

Gasm

!

Disregarded Scripture of the Day

"Now Dinah, daughter of Leah, whom she bore to Jacob, went out to see the girls of the place.

And when Shechem, son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of the country, saw her, he seized her, lay with her, and humbled, defiled, and disgraced her.

But his soul longed for her and clung to Dinah, daughter of Jacob, and he loved the girl and spoke comfortingly to her young heart's wishes.

And Shechem said to his father Hamor, get this girl to be my wife."

-Genesis 34:1-4

So, I few things before I get to the point.

I'm struck by the really sick pathology on display in this story. This guy violated this woman, and then decided to whisper some sweet nothings in her ear so he can keep her because he'd had just such a good time.

Of course, never let it be said that the Bible lacks irony. Since Dinah was a daughter of Israel, her father insisted that Shechem and every other man in his kingdom be circumcised before he would even consider letting this marriage take place. And then, three days after every man in the town was trying to recover from a radical penile adjustment, Dinah's brothers snuck into the town and killed EVERY male.

AND they took all their land and livestock.

AND they enslaved all the women and children.

Like most men, Dinah's siblings do better with wrath than with empathy.

Now, while you're all pondering the full meaning of the term "payback of biblical proportions", consider this: poor Dinah, who had been held captive, presumably as a sex slave, in Shechem's house this entire time (why does this sound more and more like a prehistoric episode of "Special Victims Unit"?), is rescued, but never mentioned again. Cast aside and forgotten in the sweep of Judeo-Christian history.

Why I'm I spinning this little told yarn from the Old Testament?

One of my very favorite people in the world, Dr. Monica A. Coleman of Bennett College, is releasing her very first book, The Dinah Project, named after the program she created in her church in Nashville to support victims of sexual assault and informed by her own experiences as a survivor of sexual violence. Given the fact that churches are notoriously bad for providing substantive help to their parishoners who are victims of incest, molestation, rape or any other manner of sexual assault, the book is intended as a guide for church leaders on how they can organize more effective programs for their own congregation.

Yes, gentle reader, I know that I can count on one hand those of you who are clergy or some sort of church leader. I know that a lot of you aren't involved in any sort of organized religion.

But I also know for a fact that each and every one of you knows AT LEAST one woman who's been raped, if not more, and probably at least one man who's been raped or molested.

Or perhaps the pain touches a little closer.

And I'll leave it at that.

Check out the book.

The Dinah Project





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