The Marvelous Mouse

Even though I am not the biggest fan of the Mouse (that would be a certain "North Dakota" among my friends), I do not think that the purchase of Marvel by Disney is not a bad thing. The Disney brand has tilted too far towards the shores of princess-infested kingdoms, and they are aware of this, since they made an entire film (Enchanted) gently mocking their success in this genre. I remember watching Classic Disney on Sunday nights when I was growing up, and the films of those eras provided plenty of materials for boys as well as girls. I remember a church lock-in at Saint Mary's where the girls prevailed upon me to watch Beauty and the Beast, which I did enjoy. The problem is not so much the quality of the material for girls as the dearth of material for boys.

The American comic industry, in contrast to Disney, has a a terrible record in attracting female readers. Manga producers, however, have no difficulty attracting female readers. What I suspect will happen is this: Disney will promote the kid-friendly and continuity-free lines of Marvel and draw in the boy viewers whom they lost after the duck-heavy years of my childhood, and Marvel will produce more comics oriented toward romance (which disappeared from their line because the action comics merged with the romance line), although it's hard to say whom they could use as leads outside of Mary Jane Watson and Kitty Pryde.

Baby Merchants

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/257390/the_case_against_adoption_research_pg2_pg2.html?cat=17

I have been pondering this last few day the matter of adoption, ever since I read the above site which makes a case against adoption. I cannot take a stand against any and all adoption, because I do not believe that abortions should be performed except if the life and health of the mother is at risk. Please note that I understand that situation as the equivalent of triage at an accident - it would be best if you could save both victims, but sometimes it is necessary to choose. The post, however, is more about adoptions than my position on abortion.

I do not deny that there is coercion and the occasional shady dealing (such as this baby merchant from Cop Rock:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_3AaY1BG8k

Adoption is a mechanism for placing children with a loving family, and it is certainly better than foster care or state care (I regret that we lost that foster kid from the Troop, even if his foster mother's taste in "candy" was deplorable). I have no doubt that my adopted cousin has fared better with my uncle and aunt than she would have with her birth mother. If there is a shortage a white babies to adopt, there is no shortage of babies overall. Perhaps the couples should consider interracial adoption, as my relatives did (long before Madonna), or maybe a slightly older child. After all, biologically produced children so far come with unexpected characteristics.

The biological mothers of the children have a variety of reasons for preferring adoption, ranging from the compassionate to the somewhat mercenary. On the other hand, the birth mother may genuinely believe that this is a way to give her child a better life. The best situation would be to have an extensive local network of family and friends who could help the mother raise the child, but the American lust for isolating individualism has destroyed that possibility for many citizens.

Electrifying Baptism

Here's the full story about my cell phone. On Friday, I was in my dining room, reading (aloud, per my project/new blog) my bilingual Novum Testamentum Graece et Latine. I'd gone into the kitchen and fetched a glass of water, for reading aloud is thirsty work. My cell was also on the table. I knocked over the glass, and the water flowed over my phone, the newspaper which Andrew had left on the table, and part of my Novum Testamentum. The water on the table and on the paper was easy enough to handle; the Novum Testamentum was more difficult, but I'm sure my friends and family can believe that this is not the first time I've spilled something on a book - at least it was just water. The cell phone, however, although I have dropped it multiple times, had avoid contact with liquid (again, at least it was drinking water, not toilet water), so I did what I could to take care of it. Fortunately, I had very few pictures on it, and most of the phone numbers were of family, friends, or very frequent business contacts.

One of the things I noticed on Saturday was how dependent people have become on their cell phones. I didn't know where my watch was, so the only clock I had was part of my camera. I use the bus to get around San Francisco, so I am accustomed to having something to read on my person - in this case, a pocketbook of Shakespeare's Sonnets (I didn't realize one sonnet was a complaint against lousy English weather).
Even I, however, have been using my cell phone as a calendar, alarm clock, and address book without backup. Today I pulled out my Utah Navajo Partnership 2009 Calendar from St Aidan's, Boulder, and started to reconstruct my schedule. Some have suggested additional electronic backup, but what if that malfunctions? It seems to me that pen and paper remain the most reliable way of preserving critical informantion from an electric Asphodel Fields.

... And Little Children Shall Lead Him

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090914/od_nm/us_sheep_odd

I was annoyed by the hypocrisy of the London parents who objected to the slaughter of Marcus the lamb, which the children who raised him in a project designed to teach them about the life cycle of livestock approved, since the point of domestic sheep is to serve as a resource to the human race. Although I do not have quite the conspiratorial conclusion of Lindy McDowell (http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/lindy-mcdowell/lindy-mcdowell-why-its-good--children-see-a-lamb-led--to-slaughter-14493965.html) involving the meat industry, since I apportion the blame more to the "delicate little angels" mentality of the parents, I do agree that Marcus had a good life for a stock animals, compared to creatures such as industrial chickens. At least these kids will not suffer from the illusion that meat is naturally pre-cut and wrapped when they see it in the supermarket.

From Divinity to Demonization

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090911/ap_on_sc/us_sci_gender_confusion

So, in the link at the top of this blog entry, Caster Semenya, a South African athlete, was accused of not being female, and tested for XY genes. She also showed no signs of ovaries, and therefore doesn't have periods. She was raised, however, as a girl by her family. So she is a hermaphrodite, named after Hermaphroditus.

In mythology, Hermaphroditus was the son of Hermes and Aphrodite, whom the Naiad Salmacis desired so greatly that she prayed she might become one with him. Although this wish was granted, Hermaphroditus cursed the pool of Salmacis so that any who bathed in it would suffer the same condition. So in this case, it is a curse. A different tradition, however, found in Plato, propose that the human race originally consisted of hermaphrodites and that the desire to be one flesh once more motivated human courtship. According to this line of thought, hermaphrodites reflect the primordial union of man and woman and therefore partake more fully of the Good.

The term "hermaphrodite" has been replaced by newer, "more sensitive", and certainly more transient ones such as "intersex", whose exterior appears as a very mannish female. The only fiction I know of which features intersexuality,Middlesex by Geoffrey Eugenides, does a little to remove the perception of monstrosity, but nonetheless credits the character's condition to the sins of the fathers.

She must be suffering severe psychological trauma from this revelation, and the cruelest blow is this: if she had not competed and won, the testing never would have occurred, and she could have lived her life as a very butch female. Now she's banned from her sport and known to the world as a genetic freak. The reason given for such tests (beyond the obvious physical check) is that male testosterone gives a competitor an advantage, but with the mix of doping, legitimate enhancements, rigorous training, and natural ability in track & field, the successful competitor have already removed themselves from ordinary human beings. I doubt she would be allowed to compete in the men's competition without complaint, yet she is barred from the women's competition; this is a clear case of black-and-white thinking failing to reflect reality. Outside of the world of sports, gender is assigned usually on external features, not genetic tests, and it seems grossly unfair to ruin someone's life in this manner.

TV Review: Little Mosque on the Prairie

Although the current state at the cabin at Lake Tahoe is a dearth of channels, my TV-watching habits for series (as well as webcomic-reading) can be described as short-term addiction. This tendency also appears when I read books in a series. I watch a lot of episodes at once, and then lose interest; if it is sufficiently compelling, I may return. So it has been with the CBC series Little Mosque on the Prairie. I watched Season 1 a while ago, and then lost interest, but I have been watching many episodes recently, and now have reached another lull.

For those of you unfamiliar with the series, I could just post the Wikipedia link. That, however, would be lazy. The series' viewpoint character is a Toronto lawyer who decides to become an imam (more like a rabbi than a priest) for the Muslim community of the small western Canadian town of Mercy. Presumably the creator of the series used this (standard literary) structure in order that she could have an outsider thrust into the midst of key religious disputes. One must admit it makes more sens than the ordinary child who becomes the key to the salvation of the universe. The Muslim and non-Muslim characters span the entire political range, although it is true that the show privileges the Muslim characters. I can forgive this imbalance, since the other movie and TV roles for Muslim characters and actors of Middle Eastern descent are very frequently terrorists.

It's a very Canadian show, eschewing the Manichaean dichotomy of culture warriors and favoring the portrayal of individuals with personal motivations for faith or lack thereof. Each week there is a crisis that pits at least one character's Islamic beliefs or cultural tendencies from the Islamic part of the world against "western" traditions. The first season is especially interesting in that regard, since specific concepts needed to be introduced; the third season is closer to a soap opera, if soap operas were rigidly episodic and chaste to the point of no kissing. The westernization of the Muslim characters has angered many Muslim watchers, but I doubt the show would be able to spread its message of goodwill and ecumenical harmony if it showed the most rigid segments of the Muslim population.

I'm certainly not a follower of the Prophet, and perhaps I think this way because my formative political experience was the fall of the Berlin Wall rather than 9/11 or the Cold War, but this series does a good job of introducing Islam in a setting which will not frighten westerners.

Speed Spectator Movie Review: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

I finally watched The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, although it had been one of the movies I rescued from the “caretaker’s cottage”. I assume it belonged to my brother or his wife when they lived there. First of all, I must admit that I did not grow up watching westerns other than some episodes of Paladin which the Reno stations played early in the morning. I also visited the Bonanza Ranch before it went bankrupt and became another real estate development. My taste in fiction of the American West runs more towards Laura Ingalls Wilder and Brett Harte than John Wayne and Lee Marvin.

The plot and pacing of Valance is excellent and well thought-out, although probably insufferably tedious to Generation ADHD. The title of the film is chosen carefully to provoke interest, accurately reflect the hero antagonist of the film, and conceal the twist ending. The dénouement of the movie shows a satisfying subversion of the ‘sudden ability syndrome‘, a curious plot-related disease in which the hero suddenly develops a specific and necessary ability to save the day. Contemporary movies intended for children are the frequent victims of this, and fuel the narcissism of the current generation - but that’s a rant for another day.

Valance observes the majority of the Western clichés, including the drunken Mexican, the drunken sheriff (in this case, the same person as the former), the stubborn newsman, the ‘happy Negro’, the funny-talking immigrant, and the color-coded hats, but the mere naming of the villain as Liberty Valance suggests a certain degree of self-aware subversion. The character of Liberty Valance does not seem to be sufficiently clever to understand irony, and the depth of Donovan’s (Wayne's) character is limited to a tedious repetition of ‘pilgrim’ as a synonym for ‘fellow’ and a dogged insistence on the necessity and utility of firearms. It may be a generational difference, but I do not understand the appeal of John Wayne and cannot perceive his charisma.

This was an interesting movie to watch, but it was a bit like a mediocre Agatha Christie: the plot is satisfying, but the actors are chess pieces rather than living players.