Wednesday, March 24, 2010

OUTRAGE! At My Fellow Americans

  Normally I am not one to go around spewing my political or religious view points. I generally believe that who you are as a person is reflected in the way you live and treat people. With that being said I have recently been moved to speak up regarding the mass reactions to the new healthcare bill. It has nothing to do with the bill itself but the visceral reactions that it is bringing out in people I know and even those I don't around the country.

   Let me be very clear. I do not agree with every move President Obama makes and believe in some ways he has tunnel vision  in the same manner as President Bush did.  Motives are very telling in human beings. Now that we have that out of the way let me get directly to my point:

  You people are are outraged and protesting  HEALTHCARE REFORM ?!!!!!! Seriously? HEALTHCARE?!!!!


 Are you really telling me America that all of the Tea Parties and other protests; all of the new fringe groups, all the hatred and outrage being spewed is because of HEALTHCARE REFORM? I refuse to believe that. It simply doesn't add up. You in the back! You, the same Christian Right that shows up at every Tea Party. The last time I checked Christianity is based on I dunno...Christ. Per his own words in Matthew 24:44-45: "Then they themselves will answer, Lord when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of you?" "Then He will answer them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me."  Now I'm not sure at this point, maybe it's just me, but the last time I checked Christ was all about helping people. Nah, I must have my Christian beliefs screwed up. Let me join you as we pray together and then go protest HEALTHCARE!

  But wait his bill is just one more step away from erroding our personal freedoms and turning this into a socialist country.

   Riiight. Let's see here.  In the past eight years we've seen the government okay  EMINENT DOMAIN. You know, that little piece of  law that allows the government  to take away private property from citizens and use it for for commercial business use because it's more profitable. That's not erroding American freedoms.  Here in my homestate of Georgia a profitable flower shop that had been in business for decades and paid taxes on time, was forced to close due to this very issue. I guess the right to keep the property you own doesn't piss America off as much as their neighbor having medical coverage.
Who Knew?

Damian,  this is just Obama's next step in forcing his agenda and slowly turning America into a dictatorship.

  Hmm... So I assume from the absolute hatred and venom being shown at the President and his agenda to push HEALTHCARE, a program that in theory is designed to help people, that you are boiling over at fact that:  We are at war with IRAQ  based on an unsubstantiated claim of NUCLEAR WEAPONS.

A LIE.

  A LIE that was backed by the very politicians who herd your anger and steer it toward HEALTHCARE.
Sorry but the math still isn't adding up. If I had a choice between helping my neighbor or going to war I figured helping my neighbor would rank higher. Maybe my values are still backwards. Where's my gun?

  I'm sure I'm forgetting something. Oh that's right. I forgot the PATRIOT ACT.  Nothing says freedom to me like the government having unfettered acces to all of my personal data, where I'm at on the internet, who I email, and who I call.
  Seriously, I believe we need parts of the Patriot Act to track down terrorists who are quite real. However, not all aspects of the Patriot Act are as flattering. If this is not a Big Brother scenario then what is? The PATRIOT ACT is closer to a fascist bill than HEALTHCARE. By design alone it gave the government more power over American citizens than ever before. But boy that HEALTHCARE bill really as got me steaming! That's it! I'm going to D.C. and give them a piece of my mind. I may even call the President a liar to his face or spit on a congressman while I'm at it. Why? Because we have a common enemy to direct our anger toward...HEALTHCARE.

 So in closing to all those outraged by the Obama administration's HEALTHCARE push I'd like to say this:

Thank You.

Thank you for showing me your true colors. Thank you for sharing your real values; the ones you share at home with your friends when you're having a cold one with your buddies and you don't have to uphold the guise of political correctness. You make me proud to live in this country because it takes all kinds.
It's about time we all got this honest about where our anger is really coming from.  Here's a hint: It aint' HEALTHCARE. My Facebook page just got  a lot smaller.

Monday, March 08, 2010

Warren Ellis' Planetary No.27 or Why I still love comics.

  Ten years. It's hard to wrap my head around the fact that it's been ten years since I first picked up a copy of Warren Ellis' Planetary. That's a house; a child going from a baby to middle school; a few jobs; a divorce; and three cars later in my lifetime. I was still using dial up and AOL was sending cd's in the mail every week back then. It's a long investment in a story that most people would've let go of long before now. If they were anyone else but me.

  I remember Planetary being the first comic I read in which I was AWARE that it was being written by Warren Ellis. Believe it or not I hadn't read Transmet yet. But I had read The Authority: Change Or Die; loved the story, and discovered his name plastered all over the front cover. Looking back further it bit me that I had read his work before on Doom 2099. Turns out the guy also happened to be the Messiah of internet as well. But back to Planetary.

  Saturday I picked up issue no.27 ten years after issue one was first published. It was like hanging out with an old friend where time had passed but the adoration you felt hadn't. For me Planetary as a whole is one of those  bomb blast ideas that cold cocks Popular Science magazine and all the pulp myths you grew up with  in the face, shoves them in the blender, and makes a Fantastika cocktail. (See Warren for explainations of Fantastika)  Every story stood on it's own legs and still made you want to know where the hell this thing was running off to as you chased behind it. But it also abruptly stopped...and started... and stopped... and started again off again. Yet every time it started I'd head off to the store after it like a crack junkie. I was hooked on a story. And in between stops and starts began a whole 'nother adventure. Warren had come up with The Engine during this time. It was a message board of artist, writers, fans, and other unusual species. It was here that I was introduced to other  writer's and artist whose work I've grown to love. I was turned on to writer Matt Fraction and artist Gabriel Ba' and Fabio Moon's work on a new comic called Casanova. Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie pushed out Phonogram for Image. Brian Wood was banging out DMZ, Demo, and Local. Ivan Brandon and Power's Michael Avon Oeming were dropping several works all over. The artist known as Jock work speaks for itself. There were so many people I could list and most of them went on to do bigger and better things that I still follow today. When that grew out of hand Warren created White Chapel. And in the midst of all this I even managed to have a drink and a smoke with he and my pal Raven when he was here in Atlanta.

 All of this points back to what happens in Planetary no. 27. (Spoilers) Regardless of time and no matter how many detours it took the whole book never forgets what it is at heart: one man trying to move heaven and earth to save his best friend. The difference is that Warren does it in such a grandiose manner you forget that over the course of ten years. All the history, mad science, and reshaped pulp heroes boiled down to this one thing: save Ambrose Chase.

  I can't tell you how it ends. But I can tell you it's the best trip I had to the store in a while and fun waltz down memory lane. I'd wonder what the next ten years will bring but you know what?

Today is the future.