I love The Onion. For those who have no idea what The Onion is, it is a satirical pseudo-newspaper that skewers the way newspapers present information and offer humorous, at times pointed takes on politics and society.
They can also offer some really in your face humor…
Of the sixteen items mentioned, my favorite remains the one they show graphics to…
Bear in mind, this satirical article by The Onion was published January 17, 2001, three days before George W. Bush was inaugurated into his first term of office.
The article -perhaps too eerily- predicts what was to happen in the Bush presidency.
Another favorite, though this one is equally tragic as it is pointedly humorous, is this article concerning gun violence perpetrated by mass shooters:
It isn’t terribly surprising to realize you’re not terribly familiar with any of the cars in the slide show above. What is depressing is the realization that a few of the cars that aren’t selling are attempts by car makers to create energy efficient vehicles…and because of the lower gas prices, these vehicles aren’t in as high demand of late.
I say this is a depressing realization because I’ve seen this story before. We clamor for energy efficient vehicles whenever gas prices are really high but when they drop, we rush right back to larger, less energy efficient (and higher polluting) cars.
I can just imagine the frustration of working in the auto industry and trying to meet people’s demands for vehicles. You spend time and money designing an energy efficient vehicle but by the time it reaches the showroom and based on the price of gas at that moment, your product might be a failure.
The latest Tesla vehicles have an Autopilot feature which appears to be one more step toward where I think all vehicles are going: Self-driving.
Here we see someone using this feature and finding it a little scary…
I’m not surprised by the driver’s reaction. As much as I’m all in favor of self-driving vehicles and, further, believe that’s the future of cars in general, I imagine if I were in his place I’d be doing exactly the same.
It isn’t easy ceding control over something you’ve had all along. Especially when -at this moment anyway- the roads are filled with people who are NOT driving automated vehicles.
In a nutshell, there’s a star, KIC 8462852, which displays some strange -mysterious even- fluctuations in the amount of light emitted by it.
It would appear something quite massive -more massive than a planet the size of Jupiter- is blocking the star’s light and scientists are at the moment at somewhat of a loss to explain what exactly is doing this. It could be some kind of massive asteroid belt, but that appears unlikely given the star’s age. It could also be some recent “event”, perhaps involving comets or planets crashing into each other, that caused a vast field of rocks to orbit the star and block her light.
Or…
(Forgive me, I’ve always wanted to use that image!)
Seriously, though, the fact of the matter is that the dips in starlight emerging from KIC 8462852 might (and I can’t help but stress the word might) be evidence of an alien culture.
How? It is possible that what blocks the star’s light is some kind of massive solar array designed to capture the star’s light and convert it to energy.
Again, this is nothing more than a highly speculative theory and one that could quite likely be proven wrong. But I have only scratched the surface as to why this theory is even in consideration versus other more natural explanations. I highly recommend reading the above article as well as this one, by Phil Plait for Slate.com, which also examines this star’s mysterious light emissions:
Briefly, this story involves a High School Principle in Florida who had a deep interest in hypnosis and allegedly used it on many of his students. Three of them, as stated above, died…at least two of which were suicides while a third drove off a highway. All this happened in the span of two months.
The article notes that a settlement was reached between the school and the parents of the deceased children. The Principle, who no longer works in any school system, was ultimately…
..convicted of two misdemeanors for practicing therapeutic hypnosis without a license, for which he was sentenced to probation and community service
What bothers me the most about this article is that clearly a boundary that should have existed between this man and his students (and staff!) was crossed. There is no indication the Principle was engaged in anything malicious…but as the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
While the article notes one basketball player claimed the hypnosis offered to him was relatively innocent and intended to help with his “concentration”, the fact is that the Principle was engaging in a form of therapy and as such, not all issues dealt with might be as innocent as this one.
Again, I have no reason to believe the Principle was acting maliciously and somehow tried to hurt those three students, but it is clear the conviction he ultimately faced was appropriate.
I’m amused whenever I read about what prompts some people to may very inappropriately calls to 911. Often, the reason they’re calling is far outside the boundaries of a real life emergency.
After reading that story you should check out the other “outrageous” 911 calls mentioned. The first one presented is equally amusing: A 35 year old woman arrested for calling 911 because she’d been “shorted” on a $75 bag of marijuana.
I must have missed this intriguing news when it originally came out, but the “Vela Incident” involves a U.S. satellite back in 1979 detecting an explosion in the southern Indian Ocean which may have been a secret test of a nuclear weapon. If this was the case, which nation tested the nuclear device? Was it a nuclear device?
The article linked to above, written by James Whitbrook, concerns DC Comic’s lawsuit against Mark Towle, a man who ran the “Gotham Garage” and specialized in making replicas of cars from movies and TV but who specialty, according to the article, were replicas of the 1966 Batman TV show Batmobile…
…as well as the 1989 Tim Burton directed Batman movie Batmobile…
In a decision that didn’t surprise me all that much, the court asserted that DC Comics does indeed have a copyright over the Batmobile and Mr. Towle was violating that copyright by producing -and making money off of- these vehicles.
I urge you to read the article if only to read the legal wording justifying why DC Comics is entitled to claim the copyright on the vehicle despite the fact that there have been many varieties of Batmobiles over the years.
A couple of days ago in the blog post Crediting Bill Finger I stated Mr. Finger, while very much deserving of finally being acknowledged as a co-creator of Batman, isn’t the only one that should be credited. I pointed out that Shadow author extraordinaire Walter B. Gibson also might deserve some credit as Mr. Finger and company, when they wrote the very first Batman story which appeared in Detective Comics #27 essentially made a comic book adaptation of one of Mr. Gibson’s Shadow stories. While this was one (and the most obvious) of the Gibson written Shadow stories that clearly influenced Mr. Finger, I nonetheless feel I came off waaaay too glib in my posting and for that I apologize.
The fact is that while the very early Batman stories may have cribbed certain ideas (and even complete stories) from The Shadow works by Mr. Gibson, the Batman character and his world quickly moved off into other very fascinating and often unique directions. While Mr. Gibson and some of his Shadow novels were an inspiration at the start of the Batman series, so too were other works and, again, Batman would go off into its own unique direction and for that Mr. Finger richly deserves the lion’s share of the credit for what he did.
I suppose the above should clue you in on the fact that I’m incredibly fascinated with artistic creation(s) and the credit deserved for them.
Perhaps one of the most interesting of the “creator” issues, to me, is that regarding author Alan Moore and arguably his most recognized creation, Watchmen.
Back in the 1980’s author Alan Moore became a superstar writer, and deservedly so, for his work on Marvel (later Miracle) Man, V for Vendetta, and Swamp Thing. Watchmen would come at the tail end of his association with DC Comics in the form of the 12 issue limited series. Watchmen explored the dark side of what the world would be like with Superheroes. It was subsequently made into a film…
It was because of what followed after the release of this series that Mr. Moore had a major falling out with DC Comics and left the publisher never to return. My understanding of the situation, based on interviews Mr. Moore gave after the fact, was when he and DC Comics came to an agreement about publishing Watchmen the contract specified that once the series was out of print, something which Mr. Moore expected to happen rather quickly, the rights of this series would revert to Mr. Moore and artist Dave Gibbons. However, Watchmen proved an incredible success and DC has been able to keep reprinting it since its first publication in 1986. I’ve read there were other issues which caused Mr. Moore’s ire as well regarding royalties, but I don’t know enough about them to comment. Suffice to say Mr. Moore’s anger toward DC stemmed to a large degree over the fact that he lost control of Watchmen when he thought it would come to him soon after the initial publication.
When Mr. Moore left DC Comics in 1989 it was with considerable rancor and, as an author I could sympathize with his desire to control his own works.
But we’re talking about creative credits here and this is where certain facts rear their heads.
To begin, Mr. Moore originally conceived Watchmen as a story which would feature the various Charlton superheroes that DC Comics had at that time acquired. Below is an image of those various Charlton Characters. From upper left and moving clockwise you’ve got The Blue Beetle, Captain Atom, Nightshade, The Question, The Peacemaker, and Peter Cannon/Thunderbolt.
And here we have the principle cast of Watchmen. From left and moving clockwise, you have Ozymandias (Peter Cannon), Silk Specter (Nightshade), Doctor Manhattan (Captain Atom), Nite Owl (The Blue Beetle), Rorschach (The Question), and The Comedian (Peacemaker).
Mr. Moore’s concept for a Charlton based Watchmen proved difficult for DC Comics to accept as the story was self-contained and ended in such a way it would be difficult to re-use the recently bought characters in any other way.
Therefore Mr. Moore modified the established Charlton characters into these “new” characters and the series was greenlighted and published.
Mr. Moore’s story, unquestionably, was “his” concept, a darker take on what would happen in the real world if Superheroes existed. He had already begun that process with Marvel (Miracle) Man and Watchmen was the culmination of that theme (I’ll ignore the climax of the book and its too-striking resemblance to the Outer Limits episode The Architects of Fear because it is my suspicion this might have been nothing more than an innocent coincidence).
The facts tell us that while Mr. Moore is clearly the creator and writer of the Watchmen story, every one of the characters he used within them were thinly veiled versions of other authors/artists creations. Which makes me wonder: Should the creators of the various Charlton heroes which were the basis of the Watchmen characters not be entitled to some kind of recognition -and perhaps even monetary compensation- for the characters they created and Mr. Moore essentially appropriated?
Further, because the project was initiated because DC Comics purchased the Charlton characters and those were the ones that provided the impetus to Mr. Moore’s story, don’t the people behind that purchase also deserve some credit for bringing these characters to Mr. Moore’s attention and use?
I suppose what I’m trying to say is that sometimes –sometimes– creative credit is a harder thing to assign than it at first seems.
It’s been all politics all the time it appears of late. I skipped the latest Republican debate and, based on what I’ve read about it, I couldn’t be happier. The Republican Party has degenerated, in my opinion, to such a strange, comical-if-it-weren’t-so-damn-frightening extreme that its hard to take them seriously.
Perhaps the best example of the (let’s be kind) oddities current Republican candidates display can be found in the below, a question asked in this latest debate about which woman they would put on the $10 Bill. I found the article, written by Ben Mathis-Lilley, on Slate.com:
You read that right, the answers by many of them were, to say the least…silly.
For those who don’t want to hit the link, I’ll post the candidate replies below:
Rand Paul: Susan B. Anthony.
Mike Huckabee: His wife.
Marco Rubio: Rosa Parks.
Ted Cruz: Rosa Parks (but on the $20; he’d keep Hamilton on the $10).
Ben Carson: His mother.
Donald Trump: His daughter or Rosa Parks.
Jeb Bush: Margaret Thatcher.
Scott Walker: Clara Barton.
Carly Fiorina: Wouldn’t change the bill.
John Kasich: Mother Theresa.
Chris Christie: Abigail Adams.
So basically three of the eleven candidates chose relatives (Huckabee would put his wife on the bill, Ben Carson his mother and Donald Trump his daughter…or Rosa Parks). Frankly, I find these answers shameful. If the three were trying to be “funny”, the joke is pretty damn weak. Regardless, one gets the feeling their answer displays more about their ignorance of famous American women than any actual humor.
You would think that would be the worst type of answer, but then you have the very bizarre responses from Jeb Bush and John Kasich. Jeb Bush chooses…former British P.M. Margaret Thatcher?! John Kasich wants to put Calcutta’s Mother Theresa on a U.S. bill?!?! As with the relative answers above, I can’t help but think these responses show their ignorance of famous American woman.
Three of them chose Rosa Parks: Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Donald Trump (but as noted above, he said either Ms. Parks or his daughter!). I find the choice of Rosa Parks, especially with regard to Ted Cruz, a curious one. Considering some of the philosophies he -and the others- espouse, I wonder if they’re not just mentioning a name they’re familiar with rather than what she’s most known for.
Scott Walker’s choice of Clara Barton, the nurse who founded the Red Cross, is actually a rather neat choice, in my opinion, though it doesn’t warm me at all to his candidacy.
Susan B. Anthony, a feminist involved in the woman’s suffrage movement, was Rand Paul’s choice and is also not bad at all, though we did have her already appear on currency, albeit a coin…
Chris Christie chose Abigail Adams. I think she’s an interesting choice though if I were to go with a First Lady, I might be more inclined to pick Eleanor Roosevelt. Given Mr. Christie’s party, it would have been quite shocking had he -or any of them- chosen her.
Finally, and most curiously, the only female candidate at the Republican debate, Carly Fiorina, stated she wouldn’t change the bill at all. I’ll give her this much, that’s a very conservative answer.
Who do you side with in the upcoming presidential elections?
The quiz found in the link below allows you to go through a series of questions and, once answered, you will find which of the 2016 candidates most fits your worldview:
I wasn’t too shocked to find that I sided with the Democratic Candidates. In order, I sided with Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, then Hillary Clinton. I agreed with Mrs. Clinton 89% and my agreement with the other two candidates moved up from there.
As for the Republican Candidates, I agreed the “most” with Rand Paul at only 37% and things went downhill from there. I agreed with both Jeb Bush and Donald Trump at a mere 21%. The only surprise is that I agreed with them that much! 😉
A fascinating poll, should you be interested in seeing where your allegiances might/should lie.
…as well as the 1989 Tim Burton directed Batman movie Batmobile…
