Comic Books, Though, Are Just Always on Topic

Quote of the day’s gotta be: “Outside of Christ typology and vampirism, no other genre features resurrection as a common convention more than the superhero genre.” So a bunch of comic books pros got together to debate whether bringing all those heroes (and bad guys) back to life renders all those death stories meaningless. And, it turns out, there’s actually going to be a symposium on “issues of mortality in comics,” where “papers utilizing the thanatological works of Ernest Becker or Elizabeth Kubler-Ross are especially encouraged.” Which should be interesting, since comic book fans probably don’t actually get to the acceptance stage anymore—at this point, it’s pretty much expected that when a significant character dies, they’ll be coming back soon. Heck, readers seemed to get upset that DC didn’t bring Hal Jordan back to life fast enough to suit their tastes…

6 October 2005 | uncategorized |

George Will Has Written Books, So This Is On Topic, Right?

Did you see yesterday’s George Will column? It’s so intensely critical of Bush’s nomination of Harriet Miers that Mrs. Beatrice asked not once, but twice, as I read it aloud, “Wait, this is George Will?” My favorite bits:

“[Bush] has neither the inclination nor the ability to make sophisticated judgments about competing approaches to construing the Constitution. Few presidents acquire such abilities in the course of their pre-presidential careers, and this president particularly is not disposed to such reflections.

“Furthermore, there is no reason to believe that Miers’s nomination resulted from the president’s careful consultation with people capable of such judgments. If 100 such people had been asked to list 100 individuals who have given evidence of the reflectiveness and excellence requisite in a justice, Miers’s name probably would not have appeared in any of the 10,000 places on those lists…

“It is important that Miers not be confirmed unless, in her 61st year, she suddenly and unexpectedly is found to have hitherto undisclosed interests and talents pertinent to the court’s role. Otherwise the sound principle of substantial deference to a president’s choice of judicial nominees will dissolve into a rationalization for senatorial abdication of the duty to hold presidents to some standards of seriousness that will prevent them from reducing the Supreme Court to a private plaything useful for fulfilling whims on behalf of friends.”

By now, it’s pretty much expected that Bill Kristol’s going to say he’s “disappointed, depressed, and demoralized” by just about anything Bush does, but for George Will to start slamming a Republican president this hard…well, the possibility came up in discussions here last night that Bush just doesn’t care anymore and is going to spend the next three years phoning it in even more than he did in his first term…

6 October 2005 | uncategorized |