Good Cop Bad Cop Once Removed

Two of my favorite comics of the last 10 years are both police procedurals set in a super hero world:

Powers by Bendis and Oeming and
Top Ten (and spin-off Smax) by Moore, Ha, and Cannon.

I just recently notice a major parallel between the two. Take a look at two sets of detective partners.

Deena Pilgrim and Christian Walker from Powers

Robyn Slinger and Jeff Smax of Top Ten and Smax


S may be the only person that finds this interesting.

Point of Origin

Weapons from Iran are showing up in the hands of Iraqi insurgents? Well, weapons from the US are showing up in the hands of Turkish insurgents.

If the parallels weren't close enough, this quote comes from terrorism expert Professor Ihsan Bal, "quite a number of [Turkish] people are ready to believe that America might have directly [given these] weapons to the terrorist organization."


UPDATE!

I'm not accusing the US of purposely supplying weapons to insurgents (They are and some weird stuff is happening around it but that's another issue). I don't think the mere fact that US weapons turned up in Turkey means that the US purposely planted them there. Yet, the US military claims that Iran is planting weapons in Iraq and uses the mere fact Iranian weapons are found as evidence.

I'm really interested in is how the perceptions of populations create the need for more or less evidence backing up an accusation. When US weapons show up in Turkey, the Turks blame the US and the US blames the Iraqi police. When Iranian weapons show up in Iraq, the US blames Iran and visa versa. Americans don't need evidence to suspect Iran and the Turks don't need evidence to suspect the US.

The parallel quote from media expert Professor So and So would be, "quite a number of Americans are ready to believe that Iran might have directly given these weapons to the terrorist organization."

Everybody Loves Cheney

Defective Yeti has come up with a very creative analogy worth checking out. Here's a brief quote from the post.

The xenomorph--antagonist of the Alien film series--has a complex lifecycle. After hatching from an egg, the "facehugger" attaches itself to a host organism and implants an embryo deep within its body. Having done so, it seemingly dies. In reality though, the creature lives on, gestating, advancing toward its next stage. Sometime later the parasite violently emerges from its carrier, then rapidly grows to enormous--and lethal--size, a near-perfect killing machine.

This reminds me of nothing so much as Dick Cheney...

Yes, in 2000, Cheney was appointed as head of the committee to find the most qualified Vice President to serve as Bush's running mate. His extensive search revealed that he himself was the most qualified for the job. Literally, a "Dick Maneuver". A lot of people missed that piece of news when it happened because reporting on it was not widespread.

Seen Your Face Before

I've always thought that Lily Allen often sports a look remarkably similar to the Captain's Daughter from the comic Maakies. Hoop earrings, super long lashes, straight black hair cut like a hemisphere across the forehead.


Now that Lily is in a video as a cartoon and the Maakies cartoon The Drinky Crow Show have come out, the whole thing's looking a bit more intentional. If you choose to follow The Drinky Crow link and are unfamiliar with Maakies, let me just warn you that it's extremely offensive.

Like a Hole in the Head

I've been reading about the practice of trepanation in the hills of Algeria and I came across this cool tidbit. Apparently, some practitioners considered the cranial sutures to be the calligraphy of Allah who uses writes destiny of each person on their skulls. Cranial sutures do kind of look like a loose script of some kind. And, Islamic calligraphy is some of the most amazing art in the world so I could see the connection.

(Calligraphic fire via Islamic Arabic Caligraphy and the book on native Algerian Medicine is Hilton-Simpson's Arab Medicine and Surgery. A Study of the Healing Art in Algeria)

Control

While thinking about the issues raised in the last post, I saw a juxtaposition between old colonial and civil war era images of the abuse of slaves and modern day images of abuses at Abu Ghraib. There are parallels between American views of Islamic nationalism and historical slavery. At least, I see parallel images of people lording over dark skinned men, naked and on the ground.

The principles of dominance are very similar whether you're talking about Middle Easterners or Negro slaves (although I feel these terms are inappropriate to describe these groups they are appropriate to describe attitudes about the groups). In both cases, the major justification for violent coercion has been to "stabilize" populations. These kinds of practices have been considered acceptable for many reasons. First of all, the recipients of violence are either tacitly or openly assumed to be less human than "the rest of us." Their values, morals, beliefs about proper governance, and intellects are lesser and therefore it is right that they be control by their superiors. This belief in the right to dominance has had several effects.

First, the "lesser natures" are of a specific kind that demands violence. These peoples are thought to be especially violent tempered and unable to understand rational dialogue. Therefore, violence becomes the best way to communicate with them because they will have difficulty understanding other methods that require reason and rationality.

An overwhelming belief that Negros and Middle Easterners are very violent and dangerous is stoked and fueled by conventional wisdom of the time. Those that doubt the rebellious nature of these groups are said to have forgotten the lessons of Cato's Conspiracy, The Great Negro Plot of 1741, Nate Turner's Rebellion or even 9/11. The harsh measures adopted after these events were necessary to prevent further loss of life. The American populations have felt that rebellions and terrorist attacks could come at almost anytime from anywhere unless intense intimidation often in the form of torture is used. The function of torture is alienation of one population from another.

The lesser nature of these groups is used a second time to discount conditions which may have led to uprisings and terrorist attacks. Bin Ladin and Turner are portrayed as simple-minded sociopaths with no other motivations than an inate blind rage and blood lust. Any sense of empathy or attempt at understanding the underlying contentions of these groups is strongly discouraged and even thought to be traitorous. On a side note, I believe that discouraging empathy is one of the major functions of torture and in general torture is more useful at influencing those that identify with the victims than it is at dealing with the victims themselves.

Suffice it to say I feel that whether it's "terrorists" or slaves, torture and violent coercion has no moral standing. Is it acceptable, today, to say that the American population was right to abuse and torture the ancestors of today's African Americans? America "may not be ready" to think that way. But, as more and more prominent politicians and news organizations endorse this kind of behavior in order to achieve a sense of control we move closer to accepting the philosophy behind such a belief.

(All photos via NYPL. Info on the pictures can be found here picture 1, picture 2, picture 3)

Something's Wrong Here

On the left, L. Ron Hubbard. On the right, Dick Cheney. Kind of like Superman and Clark Kent. Or maybe more like Superman and Bizarro. Or just two Bizarros

As It's Spoken

That's a clip from "Home Movies" which was on UPN and the Cartoon Network for awhile. Thanks to the DVD and the internets I've been watching a lot of it lately. The show was produced by the company Soup 2 Nutz which also did "Dr. Katz" and another education show by called "Science Court". Those were some really good shows.

One of my favorite things about that show and other shows like it such as Nick Park's "Creature Comforts" are their playful use of language.

For the Soup 2 Nutz stuff, the focus on language exists because most of the show is recorded in an improvisational manner and then carefully reedited. In "Creature Comforts", audio teams go all over the UK to conduct interviews in a relaxed natural context with average everyday people.

When people speak in real life, they hesitate, repeat words, change sentence structure mid sentence, and interrupt and overlap with other speakers. Almost all TV shows and movies abandon this mode of speech in favor of cleaner and more presentable stage speech.

Marvelous

Sometimes it takes me a long time to put 2 and 2 together. After years of reading comic books, I noticed this little button in an old X-Men comic that said "IN THE SENSATIONAL FANTASTIC FOUR STYLE". It made me realize that somebody got lazy over at Marvel when they created the original X-Men and the Fantastic Four.

Let me I'll break it down.

1. Captain Alliteration
Both teams are led by a guy with an alliterative name (Scott Summers as Cyclops and Reed Richards as Mr. Fantastic). Personality-wise these guys are both in the same boring boat. Being abandoned by fathers who went of into space or the future probably was responsible for that.

2. Mystery Lady
Marvel Girl and The Invisible Woman have very similar psionic powers. Frequently found in the role of the damsel in distress, they both fall for and marry the leader of the group and have a child with world shattering superpowers.

3. Working Class Brawler
The Thing and the Beast sure have similar names and similar difficulties dealing with a world in which they are so visibly different. Basically, they're both toughs that specialize in slamming into enemies. The Thing is yellow and the beast turns blue.

4. Elemental Boy
The Human Torch and Ice man. Hot and cold versions of the same thing.

Which leaves Angel. Got nothing for him. Again, I'm not saying that these two comics are carbon copies just that someone got lazy.

Lightning Strikes Twice

In an earlier post, I talked about the team goal of Brazil in the '70 World Cup as being one of the best in the history of the tournament. Well, the best goal created by one player alone has to be Maradona's goal in the '86 tournament.

That goal needs little commentary but I would like to say that Maradona's style is 90% left foot (not many players rely on one foot so much and especially not the left).

The reason I bring this up now is because of Lionel "The Flea" Messi. Many people (including Maradona himself) have compared this young player to his fellow Argentinian and just the other day he scored a goal that is nearly identical to '86 World Cup goal.

Messi still has a long career ahead of him to measure against the great Argentinian. Unfortunately, Maradona has been hospitalized for the last week or so for acute hepatitis related to alcohol.

Big Boy the Sepoy

The King of Saudia Arabia has called the US war in Iraq an occupation. So, is the US effort a form of colonization or not? A show on Open Source Radio brought up some interesting ideas concerning this question by investigating the so-called Sepoy Mutiny (Indians call it the First War of Indian Independence) which led to the undeniable colonization of India by Britain. I'm not going to discuss my conclusions about the Britain in India and the US in Iraq in this post. Maybe later. I will say that a complete evaluation of the US occupation of Iraq should compare it with not only the British colonization of India but also the British colonization of Iraq.

I recommend a listen here: http://www.radioopensource.org/the-first-neo-cons-and-the-last-mughal/

and for those of you that are "readers" check this out: http://www.newstatesman.com/200610160035

"It was literally murder . . . The women were all spared but their screams, on seeing their husbands and sons butchered, were most painful . . . I feel no pity, but when some old grey bearded man is brought and shot before your very eyes, hard must be that man's heart I think who can look on with indifference . . ."

-Edward Vibart, a 19-year-old British officer

Indian Soldiers Being Executed by British Canons

(picture via indhistory)