Category Archives: Worldly matters

Conservatives Hate Workers

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OK, admittedly, people on the right-wing of political ideology don’t hate workers. They love them for the labor they bring and the way they fill the pockets of the owners of businesses. They just hate them being able to make an actual living or have any rights.

Apparently, conservative working-class folks hate themselves if they follow the accepted wisdom of right-wing leaders and pundits.

Here’s why…

On the one hand, conservatives don’t want the government enforcing minimum wage standards or, many times, things like workplace safety or equal treatment (remember, women still make about 3/4 of what men do in terms of wages, even though they’ve been doing equivalent work for decades).

On the other hand, they also try to stamp out labor unions, making them out to be socialist plots or anti-corporate bullies. Therefore, workers can’t band together to protect themselves.

So, what they’re saying is that government shouldn’t look out for workers, and workers also shouldn’t have any private recourse (even though conservatives are always crowing about how we can make our own ways and succeed on tenacity and…oh…the private market always works for everyone’s benefit…bwah ha ha hah ha ha ha…)

Essentially, the right-wing folks want just enough government to put down workers and keep them in their place as wage-slaves, but not enough to ever put corporations in their place.

The reason government is involved in things like this is because of the propensity employers have for screwing over workers. For the same reason, government is involved in things like fair trade and corporate regulation because companies have a propensity for screwing over consumers and the environment.

Keystone Congress

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I’m not saying President Barack Obama is doing the best job ever of any recent president in office; however, considering what he inherited, he’s done pretty well, and even in his worst moments he’s more competent by far than George W. Bush administratively and in terms of foreign policy. Point is that I have my beefs at times with the Oval Office, even if one might assume from my liberal leanings that I worship at the altar of Obama.

Still, even when I’m not happy at the direction the president is going (or even the Supreme Court in a lot of recent decisions), the bulk of my ill-will is aimed squarely at the U.S. Congress. This is a body (both houses) that has become bloated, inefficient, corrupt, out of touch and deranged to extremes that I never could have imagined when I started voting back around 1986. To give you a taste of how I feel, how about some of these tweets from me over the past few days:

In other celebrity news, Fiscal Cliff and Debt Ceiling are going to have a child out of wedlock and also have a sex video coming out…

There aren’t enough video games these days that allow you to destroy nations or worlds. Time for a new MMPORPG called “U.S. Congress!”

I don’t have faith in U.S. Congress to pass a healthy turd anymore, much less any meaningful or useful legislation, budgets or anything else

31 Dec

Politicians elected to *serve*. Y’all get benefits most can only dream of. I give not 2 fucks if ya have to give up New Year’s & family time

This is a representative democracy; I’m a bit tired of Congress not actually representing most of its constituency while fellating top few %

Do I have this right? …Senate worked late and hard, and the House said, “Fuck y’all; we’re going to sleep & look at your shit in morning”

…nowwwwwwwwww, you might think I’m a bit cynical, jaded, fed-up, disillusioned and maybe even royally pissed off with the cock-up that is our federal legislature. Nothing could be farther from the…oh, wait, you’d be correct.

And yes, I level most of the blame in the past four years (well, 12, really, but we’ll focus on the worst third of that period) to the Republicans and their “We won’t support anything that could be seen as a victory for Obama, even if it’s actually kind of in our favor and even in line with our party’s philosophy” approach to governing. They’ve been whining, childish bastards willing to play games with the economy and people’s lives just to reclaim the White House and deep-throat corporate America and the uber-rich, and it sickens me. However, that said, the Democrats are just about as much in bed with corporate America as the Republicans, they can’t band together to save their lives, and they seem more than a bit aimless these days.

Basically, the U.S. Congress is kind of like the Keystone Cops from those old black-and-white silent films, where they tripped over each other and bungled everything. Only the Keystone Cops still seem to have it together more than our Keystone Congress does.

So, what do we do about it?

I don’t know. But I’ll tell you what. I’ll copy-paste an email forwarded to me by a family friend recently, because maybe it’s a good start for thinking about answers (no, I don’t know who it originates with, and it’s not my work nor have I even edited any part of what’s below):

Subject: Fw: Warren Buffet – please read…takes 1 minute

Warren Buffett, in a recent interview with CNBC, offers one of the best

quotes about the debt ceiling:

“I could end the deficit in 5 minutes,” he told CNBC. “You just
pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more
than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible
for re-election.

The 26th amendment (granting the right to vote for 18 year-olds)
took only 3 months & 8 days to be ratified! Why? Simple!
The people demanded it. That was in 1971 – before computers, e-mail,
cell phones, etc.

Of the 27 amendments to the Constitution, seven (7) took one (1) year
or less to become the law of the land – all because of public pressure.

Warren Buffet is asking each addressee to forward this email to
a minimum of twenty people on their address list; in turn ask
each of those to do likewise.

In three days, most people in The United States of America will
have the message. This is one idea that really should be passed
around.

Congressional Reform Act of 2012

1. No Tenure / No Pension.

A Congressman/woman collects a salary while in office and receives no
pay when they’re out of office.

2. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social
Security.

All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the
Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into
the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the
American people. It may not be used for any other purpose.

3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all
Americans do.

4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise.
Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

5. Congress loses their current health care system and
participates in the same health care system as the American people.

6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the
American people.

7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen/women are void
effective 12/31/12. The American people did not make this
contract with Congressmen/women.

Congress made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in
Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers
envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their
term(s), then go home and back to work.

If each person contacts a minimum of twenty people then it will
only take three days for most people (in the U.S. ) to receive
the message. Don’t you think it’s time?

THIS IS HOW YOU FIX CONGRESS!

If you agree, pass it on. If not, delete.
You are one of my 20+ – Please keep it going, and thanks

A Lance Through the Heart? Not Mine…

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Maybe it’s time to abandon the idea of competitive sports in which you rely 100% on your natural body, exercise, nutrition and practice. Maybe it’s time to stop looking for the cheaters who use performance-enhancing measures beyond the ones I just mentioned.

If there’s any legacy that cyclist Lance Armstrong’s rise and fall has left me with, that’s it.

Let’s stop worrying about who’s taking what and get down to the real problems of sports. Better yet, let’s get down the real problems of society and push sports more into the background.

On Twitter today, I saw a link posted by movie critic Roger Ebert to a New York Times article that described how Lance Armstrong was able to get away with things like blood doping and thwart the testing procedures that would have revealed he was doping for so many years.

The revelations in that article didn’t make me lose any respect for Lance Armstrong; granted, I haven’t gained any either. For at least a dozen years now, I haven’t made any habit of putting my loyalties behind specific cities, teams or individual athletes.

My take-away lesson from the article about Lance Armstrong’s blood doping is not that he’s a bad guy. What I came away with is this: Apparently, these activities are rampant in the cycling world, as they are in so many sports, and the problem is that measures to police use of performance enhancers don’t work.

So, tons of people are taking substances they aren’t supposed to, and competing, and not getting caught. It’s just that Lance Armstrong was such a consistent winner and jealousies came to bear that he has been singled out. Clearly, many of his competitors have cheated, too, but the spotlight is on him now, and they continue on with their activities.

Many people are outraged by the idea of Lance Armstrong winning and having done blood doping. But I look at it this way: His competitors were, by and large, doing the same thing, and he was still beating them.

Doesn’t that still make him the better athlete, when so many strong cyclists also using performance enhancers still can’t beat him?

You can talk about the cyclists who have played it straight and get screwed over by all the cheaters, and you’d have a strong point, but my concern is singling out a specific person as the villain when he isn’t the lone offender. Also, demeaning his athletic abilities and work because he doped his blood. I mean, it’s not as if he took a pill that magically made him a good cyclist. He still had to work out, sweat, push, endure pain and injury, eat properly and employ racing skills in order to win. Did he have an edge? Yes. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t work hard.

Cheating is not the same in all circumstances. Now, in sports if you bribe judges or referees to ensure that you win, that is somewhat comparable to stealing the answers to a test and memorizing them. You have chosen to slack off considerably or perhaps do no work at all to ensure you win or get a good grade. You have taken the effort largely out of the equation. Those who use performance enhancers still have to work hard and compete, and sometimes their choice to give themselves an edge results in health problems later.

Now, from a moral standpoint, I think what Lance Armstrong did was wrong. It’s just that I don’t think it gave him so much of an edge it made him unbeatable.

Also, let’s consider the “why” of all this. He did it because we have put such a high premium on professional athletics and celebrity. We have made the rewards so great because of our misplaced priorities that people are driven to win at any cost, because it’s how they will make it big and get the long cash. We created the problem—all of us: owners, promoters, media, fans, etc.—and we have compounded it by making governing bodies that do a shit-ass job of policing athletes.

I would love if everyone competed on a level field, with no drugs or other enhancers involved. But hasn’t it become clear to us by now that the use of substances by athletes is a pervasive and all-too-common activity? Do we benefit by singling out one or a few just to send a message that still won’t be heeded? Sending a message to drug users by jailing people for stupid crap like possession of marijuana certainly hasn’t helped anyone but people who construct and operate prisons, so why would taking down a doping athlete make any difference?

Better would be to stop making sports such a high priority. If we stopped funneling so much money into sports that could be better used for things like charitable causes, research and development and things like that, athletes won’t be so driven to cheat with drugs.

We all cheat in life, at various levels and in various ways. We all use tricks to get ahead at times.

But it’s only when the prize for which we are shooting has been made so enticing that we through caution to the wind and cheat massively and disastrously.

That’s why Wall Street and the finance industry failed us and crashed the economy recently. That’s why a lot of angry and scared politicians right now fling out blatant lies with no shame these days.  That’s why Lance Armstrong and every other athlete caught for use of performance-enhancing drugs did what they did.

Because we’ve made the rewards to them so valuable.

‘Tis the Season…for Hurt Feelings

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I’ve seen a number of people on my Twitter timeline who are lamenting all the political talk and sometimes arguments online as we near the U.S. presidential election in November.

While I understand that they want Twitter to go back to being a fun place, with talk of bacon, sex and cute LOLcat videos, among other things…well, that’s not reasonable. This is a major election, with major problems still happening in the United States and worldwide, and tensions are understandably high.

So, you need to suck it up until probably February, when maybe post-inauguration people will calm down a little.

Sure, I say this in part because many of my tweets have been politically oriented. I’ve also balanced that with more general snark and humor, so I’m not exactly on a soap box all the time. But, frankly, what did you expect? This is social media. Twitter still tends to be more fun than Facebook, which seems to be getting increasingly infested with bitter, shallow people who just want to fight…but it’s still a place to talk.

And politics is a valid and important point of discussion. People are understandably concerned about a party on one side that doesn’t seem to have clear solutions to the problems we’re facing (or are working on the problems too slowly) and on the other side a party that’s given up on honor and just makes stuff up now and passes it off as facts then gets mad when fact-checkers dare to call them on it.

This isn’t a recipe for positive change. People are worried, and on both sides they feel this election is pivotal for America’s future.

Are relationships going to be ruined by this?

Yes.

Are some fun times going to become awkward as humor is interrupted by policy talk?

Yes.

But that happened over drinks with co-workers and dinner with the relatives long before social media existed.

Twitter and all the rest are not your havens from the real world. They are places to communicate.

If you don’t like what’s being said, move on to the next tweet. You’ll find the sex and bacon before long, I’m sure.

Shutting Down the Other Side

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I’ve often addressed the issue of privilege, particularly white privilege (since I’ve come to understand just how much of it I have…and even white people less privileged than me have…in the 16 years I’ve had a black partner/wife and a biracial son…and in the past 7 years, a biracial daughter, too).

I’ve done this at this blog, I’ve done it on Twitter, and I’ve done it in responses to various people’s articles and posts complaining about being “made to feel guilty for being white.”

First, I’d like to direct you to this web page my wife tweeted about yesterday, which is pure gold and if you read this and still don’t get why denying privilege and/or telling people in various groups that they’re wrong about their own experiences is a bad thing, perhaps you never will get it:

Derailing for Dummies

Now, back to my own mini-rant…

I’m not saying white people (and I’m going to pick them because they’re the largest and most privileged group in the United States, particularly the heterosexual ones, but this applies to anyone who is privileged in comparison to someone else)…well, I don’t think they should be guilted per se. But I do think they need to pay attention, get out of their own boxes, listen to others, educate themselves and stop making assumptions. In short, white folks do need reminders about their privilege, because it clearly hasn’t sunk in. America’s going back to bad habits (or worse habits) and everyone who’s “other” is getting shat upon instead of people shitting on the government, business and social forces that allow discrimination, bigotry and all their cousins to exist.

Too many people think there is equal opportunity and fair treatment in developed parts of the world, particularly the United States, Canada and Europe. They think that racism is dead. But looking at the rates of arrests of non-whites, non-white profiling and harsher punishments for crimes by non-whites, those figures alone show a picture that proves society is not fair to people of color (blacks and Latinos, in particular). Also, housing and employment continue to be areas of huge inequities. Oh, and education.

And yes, I have tons of examples if you really want them. Call them anecdotal and dismiss them because of that if you like, but I think 16 years of seeing this shit up close as a white person with brown people in his life makes me more an expert on discrimination than anyone who plugs their ears (conservative or liberal) and says, “I’m not like that!” or “That’s not true!”

Change comes through awareness. And I mean awareness of the people who perpetuate the bullshit. Who continue to benefit from privilege and never work to share it with others and make sure others can have the same access. When we are aware some people aren’t treated fairly, we can begin to chisel away at racism, homophobia, sexism and all the rest.

It’s the only way. Be aware of your part in it. I have to be, because it’s the morally correct thing to do, and I try to do my small part. Please do yours, too.

Happy Biological and Non-biological Male Parenting-Caregiver Unit Day

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Just wanted to make sure I was all-inclusive and politically correct with that headline, just in case…

Anyway, for those old-fashioned folks among us (myself included), Happy Father’s Day. Here’s hoping you don’t all get ties, wallets and/or belts and some of you get something more desired or creative.  Most of all, hoping that you get lots of love from those who have reason to honor your fathering role…and here’s also hoping you’ve earned (and deserve) that attention.

For me today, it’s been an exercise in being reminded (in a good way, I think) that parenting (father-oriented or mother-oriented) is a life of adapting to what’s happening. In enjoying the ride and appreciating what happens and not always trying to make things happen a certain way.

A few days before this celebratory day, my nearly 7-year-old daughter finally learned to tie her shoes. I knew she would eventually, but it was nice to finally have a night where she engaged enough in the process to pay attention and I was both insistent enough and patient enough to give her the knowledge she needed to actually figure out the intricacies of knotting some laces.

That was my time to feel good for helping to make something happen.

Today was my lesson in letting things happen and finding the joy in whatever comes.

My plan today, rather than taking the day off to be doted upon or pampered or whatever (which I’ve never been good at anyway), was to take my daughter to see The Avengers. I had already seen the movie shortly after it came out, but did so alone. I wanted to see it again and hoped she’d enjoy the superhero spectacle. All well and good for the first hour-and-a-half of the nearly two-and-a-half-hour film. She covered her eyes many times, but peeking through her fingers (she wanted to be able to block her view if any blood appeared on screen, which doesn’t happen much despite the frequent battles). Then she complained of her loose front tooth hurting and wanted me to do something. But not there. She wanted me to pull the tooth out at home. I was miffed at first that we were going to leave an hour before the end of the movie. But you know what? I’d seen it before. Her Barbie movies and such usually top out at 90 minutes anyway and she’d been a trooper for roughly that long.

And more important: It’s what my child wanted and needed.

It didn’t make sense to leave a movie in which she could have let the tooth fall out or be removed afterward, but that’s an adult perspective.

And parenting means sometimes bending to the child’s perspective.

So we came home. And afterward, I realized that on this Father’s Day, I had pulled my first tooth out of my daughter’s mouth (Mom got that duty the first couple times). That’s special timing. Something to treasure.

And then I went outside and played watchman over her and the other kids playing on our block for nearly an hour, before coming back into the house.

She’s happy, and I’ve done what I’m supposed to do (which I don’t always do in my role of dad, but who does?). The day is good, and a dinner paid for by my wife and 20-year-old son is yet to come tonight. Plus, they bought me a pair of cream-colored Converse high-tops that are currently embracing my tootsies.

Not necessarily the day I had planned. But it’s the day I’ve gotten, and probably a better one for that.

Fringe-worthy

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This will probably sound odd, coming from a guy who has admitted to writing erotica with a kinky twist and has near-encyclopedic (well, compared to most of the population) knowledge of the wide spectrum of fetish sex (though not even a fraction as impressive a record of dabbling in them), but I think people who operate on the fringe often deserve a second or third look in life.

I don’t mean that they should be shunned, persecuted, assumed to be horrible people or anything like that. But I do understand and even advocate the need for us to be aware of them and to try to understand their motivations, whether bad or good.

More importantly, I think we need to do that in both directions.

That is, not only do those of us who don’t share the alternative lifestyle or fringe behavior need to pay attention to the person, but also those who share such interests or support those people need to also step back and assess things at times.

It isn’t about profiling or pigeonholing or stereotyping. What I mean is that we all need to think more critically and not make assumptions that either demonize or deify certain behaviors.

This came up in my mind today thanks to a woman I know about who claims she’s being persecuted for wanting to home-school her child. I won’t name any names for a number of reasons, but her story is fishier than a working oceanside wharf. Many other home-schoolers and un-schoolers have rallied around her but I’m not so sure she deserves their blind and unwavering support. The problem is that her supporters, and supporters of such educational practices in general, will defend one of their own at the drop of a hat in many cases without really knowing the person’s situation.

Would they do the same if a pastor of a small church was engaging in questionable behaviors, acting paranoid and trying to isolate young people from family and society?

No.

Why?

Because some small churches are toxic. They might be cults. They are sometimes very small and off the mainstream track because they espouse crazy things and seek to promote and instill unhealthy mindsets. Most small churches are probably small because they simply don’t have many members and finding a church home that fits well is hard, but some are just hotbeds of wrongness. For that matter, some big churches are pretty sketchy, too, but while they promote groupthink at times, they don’t do as good a job of isolating people from the world.

Likewise, there are parents who advocate home-schooling and un-schooling because they are themselves dealing with issues…or, perhaps, NOT dealing with them and letting them fester. If a parent has mental health issues and decides to take a child or children out of the mainstream to teach them and protect them, what might in fact be happening is that they are isolated their children and inculcating in them a whole new generation of mental illness and skewed world views.

No, there is nothing wrong with home-schooling or even un-schooling, though I think the latter is way too unstructured for most kids and I think few parents can pull it off well. Hell, the wife  and I have considered the possibility of home-schooling at some point for at least a defined period of time. But we shouldn’t be quick to defend home-schoolers and un-schoolers simply because they practice a similar behavior to one we also practice or support.

And since I started off with sexual examples and metaphors, why not lob a grenade over in that camp as well?

If someone is into bondage and domination stuff, that doesn’t mean they should support every dominant person out there or encourage every submissive to do what their master or mistress says. Some of those relationships are thinly veiled domestic abuse, and we shouldn’t assume everything is peachy and fully consensual and healthy simply because the acronym BDSM has been slapped on it, no matter how sexually accepting any of us are, myself included.

And there are so many other fringe and alternative sexual behaviors, too. Some of which I’ve tried, some of which I’d like to, some of which I’m not so sure about and some of which I wouldn’t do without a gun being held to my head (and possibly not even then). If you happen to get involved with someone who has a kink you don’t share, you should probably think long and hard about that. Not to make the person out to be a deviant or freak (though that may be true at times) but to assess how important that kink is to the person and whether or not you can be in a relationship that might require that kink to be explored in order for the relationship to survive.

Also, to make sure the person you are with isn’t a freak who’s a danger to you. This is good advice in general, but what I see is that vanilla people are too quick to think a fetish means deviancy, and kinky people are too willing to assume fellow kinksters are OK when some of them are seriously touched in the head.

So, critical thinking, folks. Please use it.

Don’t rush to defend people with whom you agree, because some of them are deranged or dishonest. Also, don’t rush to judge people with whom you don’t share views.

But above all, be aware of who is around you and why they are doing what they do. Paranoia isn’t cool, but awareness is. We should question everything. Not everything all the time and in great deal, but we should question anyone’s motivations.

And sometimes that includes our own.

Same-Sex Marriage: Degrees of Harm

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First off, my headline should in no way prepare you for a diatribe on what harm same-sex marriage might do to society; in fact, I think it harms no one and nothing. (Yes, I’ve posted in the past about trying to sort out whether same-sex marriage and homosexuality are spiritually appropriate but I’ve never really been able to embrace an anti-gay stance [nor believed that homosexuality was a “go straight to Hell card”] and now I’ve pretty much settled on the “God doesn’t really give two shits about consensual adult sexual choices” path)

Second, screw you, North Carolina.

Look, I hear that North Carolina is a lovely state physically, and I’m sure many of the people there are fan-fucking-tastic. But this week, voters approved a measure to amend their state constitution to narrowly define marriage and forbid same-sex marriage (see here and here for recaps). It is one of only a few states (three or four in total, I seem to recall) that have so narrowly defined and constrained marriage rights.

When I heard about this, I may or may not have posted something on Twitter that called roughly two-thirds of the voters in North Carolina “fucktards” (for the record, I *did*).

Now, I was wrong about that. After hearing that less than a quarter of the state’s registered voters bothered to show up to weigh in on whether their constitution should be amended, apparently more than 80% of them are fucktards.

Anyway, back to my point…

After making this tweet, one of my fellow liberal folks (who I know offline as well as online), took me to task a bit for pointing fingers at North Carolina when recently here in Maine there was a measure on the ballot regarding the legalization of same-sex marriage and a little more than half of the people who voted shot it down. His point was that we are just as guilty here of holding back progress on sexual freedom and marriage equality.

I beg to differ. In fact, he and I already differed on Twitter and I think we reached a “we’ll agree to disagree” point (So, yes, my few conservative followers, I don’t just argue with you; I also argue with fellow liberals at times…though usually it’s with the hard-core atheists).

First off, there is a big difference between the final returns, even if it doesn’t seem like it. In Maine, what happened was that the government enabled legislation to allow same-sex marriage and then a citizen referendum repealed that law. The final vote tally was 53% vs. 47% (though, interestingly, polls have shown that 51% of Mainers support same-sex marriage. In any case, it’s clearly very close). In North Carolina, 61% of the voters said they wanted a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and 39% voted against it.

Now, 61 may not seem a lot bigger than 53, and of course it isn’t, but if I were in a fight with a total of 100 people when you combine both sides, I’d much rather be outnumbered by only 6 people rather than by 22.

In other words, there clearly isn’t as much of an uphill battle to win hearts and minds in Maine as in North Carolina. You may say I’m splitting hairs, but I think it matters. It suggests to me that the battleground in North Carolina is a lost cause for years to come, whereas the fight can still be won for marriage equality in the foreseeable future in Maine.

Also, let’s not forget that what happened in Maine was the repeal of a marriage equality law by some scared, nervous people who apparently mobilized well. No one instituted a specific ban on gay marriage nor codified a narrow definition of marriage. In contrast, North Carolina specifically forbade same-sex marriage and didn’t just do so as legislation but made it part of their constitution.

That, my friends, is a huge hurdle to overcome. You not only have to convince people that same-sex marriage isn’t bad, but now you also have to undo a constitutional amendment.

Again, you can accuse me of splitting hairs, but I think people in Maine would be a bit reluctant to change the state constitution in that way. Time could prove me wrong, but I doubt it.

Yes, in both Maine and North Carolina, people who want to marry and should be allowed to are denied that ability. That is unconscionable. But I have a lot more hope for sunlight at the end of the tunnel in my state.

In North Carolina, that light at the end of the tunnel seems to be an oncoming freight train instead.

Avengers Assembled and Marvelous Marvels

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This is going to be a very long post, as I review the new “Avengers” movie and as I look at the larger recent Marvel Comics movie franchise and where it might be going…
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Marvel’s The Avengers Movie Review

Superhero geeks, comic book nerds, action movie aficionados and Robert Downey Jr. groupies…

…the new Marvel Comics movie The Avengers is not, as you may have heard some say, the greatest superhero movie ever.

Oh, it’s very bad-ass; don’t get me wrong. But it’s not THE BEST of the genre by any means.

In fact, for emotional gravity, dramatic weight, geek appeal, dialogue, plotting and action chops all together as a well-mixed stew, I’d put it after Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Iron Man and Spider-Man 2. Then again, those movies were able to focus on a single protagonist character, so that doesn’t make them better; just more focused and weighty. The Avengers, though, beats all of them for sheer spectacle and action (though it offers more than just that).

However, while I don’t think it’s the very best superhero movie ever made, it is the best live-action superhero team movie of all time. Yes, I know there’s not a lot of competition on that front (both Fantastic Four movies stunk, The Watchmen was excellent but not epic like The Avengers, and Mystery Men, while a fantastic movie, is a parody of the superhero team genre. X-Men as a trilogy was excellent…despite the fact that many people revile the final installment…but even all three movies together don’t pack as much intricacy and density as this first Avengers movie all on its own). Frankly, I’m not sure anything can beat The Avengers as a superhero team movie any time soon except perhaps one of the two expected sequels.

Now, I’m going to tell you as much as I can here without giving away any spoilers; I’ll warn you before I get to the things that might ruin surprises for those of you who haven’t seen the film yet but plan to.

If you’re not a comic book or superhero movie person, you may or may not know that there have been several previous Marvel Comics films that led up to this film and that have direct influence on the various things that come together to make the attempted takeover of Earth in the film come about. Those would be the two Iron Man movies so far (with at least one more on the horizon), Captain America: The First Avenger, Thor and The Incredible Hulk  (which featured Edward Norton as Bruce Banner, a role played by Mark Ruffalo in The Avengers and apparently in an upcoming trilogy of Hulk movies). The main villain of The Avengers is Loki, who was also the villain in Thor. In roles as protagonists along with the superheroes who had their own movies are Col. Nick Fury (who appeared in some way in most of the previous films in bit roles), Black Widow (who appeared in Iron Man 2) and Hawkeye (who had never appeared before now in any of the films).

The movie has snappy plotting and dialogue, which owes much to the vaunted skills of director and writer Joss Whedon. There is frequent and intense action while also plenty of calmer moments of conversation, exposition, drama and comedy. We manage in a little under 2.5 hours to get not only superheroes beating up on their enemies, but also beating up on each other (for very plausible reasons) and having time for characterization as each faces personal crises, self-doubt, revelation and growth. There is bonding between them as well as tension. There are moments of heroism, villainy and also many gray areas in terms of morality.

There are some of the usual “convenient moments” as in most any film like this, where things serendipitously come together to resolve an otherwise unsolvable dilemma (such as defeating the entire enemy army at the end), there is an “easy” solution to breaking mind control, and various things are left out in the narrative (like how Bruce Banner makes it to a certain location in a timely fashion or even knows where to arrive). But overall, this movie is as believable as a movie can be that involves superheroes, and the reactions of civilians caught in the crossfire, as well as attitudes by various people in authority who aren’t superpowered, make sense in the context of things.

The movie manages to convey a sense of great destruction and death, while also not making it so grim and direct as to lose its PG-13 rating and more mass appeal for youth of many ages in addition to adults.

Robert Downey Jr., as usual, does a tremendous job with the charming, brilliant and arrogant Tony Stark/Iron Man. Scarlett Johansson brings much more to the role of Natasha Romanov/Black Widow here than she was able to do in Iron Man 2 and combines professional, sympathetic and dangerous in a fantastic way while also exuding a surprisingly mellow sexiness despite her attire, which might suggest something more overt. Mark Ruffalo surprises almost all of us fans who were pissed at Edward Norton being shoved aside by the producers and turns in a great Bruce Banner/Hulk. Chris Evans does much the same for Captain America here as he did in his solo turn with the character, but adds a grim/weary undertone to the Boy Scout image, which makes sense given the man has basically missed out on the previous 70 years after being frozen accidentally in the 1940s and is a man out of his natural time. Chris Hemsworth doesn’t do anything new with Thor compared to his previous time playing the part, which left me underwhelmed the first time, but at least he does it solidly and consistently. Jeremy Renner makes for an interesting Clint Barton/Hawkeye; I don’t really have much love for the character, but he does provide an interesting coldness in his personality though somehow not heartless. Samuel L. Jackson makes for a fine Nick Fury, combining tough, sneaky, just and ruthless in an interesting balance.

At no point does the movie flag or really stumble. Any complaints are minor nits. In a year full of promise for fantasy/sci-fi and related genres (Christopher Nolan’s third and apparently final Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises; the Spider-Man reboot The Amazing Spider-Man; the first of two movies that combined will tell the tale in the novel The Hobbit, and also possibly the remake of Total Recall, the dark-themed Snow White and the Hunstman and American history/undead menace mash-up Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter), this is a tough movie to follow.

What Has Come Before

Just a quick note in this section: I think Marvel Comics’ has done a great job overall with its heroes in recent years (in productions it’s overseen directly and in ones where the characters were simply licensed out), including in movies that are unrelated to The Avengers. Sure, Ghost Rider was pretty bad and the sequel’s probably worse; the Fantastic Four movies, as noted earlier, were awful; the original Spider-Man trilogy (to be “erased” historically, I guess, with the reboot this summer) ended clunkily with very, very mixed third movie but was otherwise excellent; and X-Men had a shaky finish to its trilogy as did Spider-Man (though I didn’t find the third X-Men film all that bad, myself) but remains strong overall. The most recent treatment of The Punisher wasn’t too bad, though the previous attempt sucked. The first attempt at doing the Hulk with Ang Lee’s movie was an entertaining mess that left true fans unsatisfied but wasn’t a total loss. The Blade movies were ridiculous and overwrought on many levels, but undeniably fun action flicks. The X-Men follow-ups were mixed: X-Men: First Class was very strong but X-Men Origins: Wolverine was highly uneven (but, like the Ang Lee Hulk movie, had definite entertainment value from an action standpoint at least).

I haven’t seen The Incredible Hulk yet (though plan to later this weekend), so I can’t comment on that. Captain America had its cheesy aspects, and the character has never much appealed to me in general, but was pretty well done as a movie, actually. Thor was a mixed bag, but at least mostly entertaining despite not doing a very good job of giving Thor’s personal redemption dramatic weight or true logic. And the Iron Man movies…well, while the second one was noticeable less good than the first, both were very strong indeed.

The Future

Here there will be some spoilers, as I need to reference things from The Avengers movie (including the after-the-credits surprise teaser for the next movie) and the other films that led up to it (which you may or may not have seen).

What does the future hold? Well, for one thing, apparently Mark Ruffalo has been signed not only to potentially play Bruce Banner/the Hulk for two more Avengers movies but also for a trilogy of Hulk movies. This is interesting, because in a certain sense, it almost ignores The Incredible Hulk, in which Edward Norton did such a good job (I know, I haven’t seen the movie, but it’s fucking Edward Norton; of course he must have done great). I get the sense from a reference or two in the Avengers movies that they still include The Incredible Hulk and the events therein as part of the overall movie canon and we’re just going to ignore the fact that Bruce Banner looks so different. I’m not going to stress over it; Mark Ruffalo did do a very good job in the role in The Avengers; I look forward to his future work with regard to the Hulk.

There is also a third Iron Man-related movie and a second Thor movie, both due out in 2013. Plot details for both are still under wraps and I’ve seen no truly credible leaks so far. I have heard rumors that Iron Man 3 will feature the Mandarin as the villain (one of Tony Stark’s most formidable foes in the comic books) but have also heard rumors it will use the recent “Extremis” storyline from the comic books. Of course, it’s entirely possible it could feature both, as the Mandarin might end up being more of schemer/leader in the movie rather than a directly combative villain fighting it out with Iron Man. Supposedly, Captain America 2 will come out in 2014. Almost certainly, with a third Iron Man on the way and a three-picture signing for Mark Ruffalo to do Hulk stuff solo, I imagine both Captain America and Thor will get trilogies when all is said and done. I’m fairly certain the Spider-Man reboot will also end up being a trilogy, though it has no direct relation to any of the other Marvel movies that are tied to the Avengers, just as X-Men seems to occupy a separate reality. However, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Spider-Man in a future Avengers movie; there is a history of the character being in the team at times in the comic books and…well, let me get to wild speculation in a moment as to other reasons it feels right to have Spidey show up eventually.

Anyway, with these Avengers-related solo movies all having elements that tied directly to the movie The Avengers, from Loki to the Tesseract to the super-soldier serum (which plays a part in The Incredible Hulk in addition to being the compound that makes Steve Rogers into Captain America back in World War II…before he end up frozen and thawed out in modern day to be part of the Avengers)…plus things like the after-credit bonus scenes that show things related to “the Avengers initiative” and Nick Fury’s desire to form a superhero team…well, one can only imagine there will continue to be crossover stuff in at least some of the future solo films with relation to the future Avengers sequels.

So, what might happen?

First off, and here’s where I get into big spoiler territory…

…you did hear that, right?

I’m about to give away the bonus teaser scene after The Avengers’ credits. It shows who will likely be the next villain in that series.

You’re still here?

Just make sure you want to know before I say…

…Thanos!

Now, those who aren’t comic book geeks may not know who Thanos is. But just as Thor and Loki are “gods,” so too is Thanos, sort of. (In Thor’s movie, the Norse gods of Asgard are actually occupants of a planet in either a distant part of the galaxy connected to our world through a portal or a planet in another dimension linked to our own. Rather than being true gods, they are more accurately very strong, very resilient, long-lived “immortals” whose magic is more an expression of harnessing a specific sort of energy in a science fiction way but with a culture and style that is more mythical and in some ways archaic-seeming. They are, essentially, a very different race that looks like us rather than actual supernatural divinities.)

Where the hell was I?

Oh, yeah, Thanos.

Anyway, as the after-credit sequence shows, apparently Thanos is behind the invading extraterrestrial army in The Avengers and he looks like he’s very happy at the prospect of laying the hurt down in the next movie. Almost certainly, he will be the main villain. He’s godlike in terms of his personal power, though its source is more science-like than mystical, and he’s obsessed with death. Mastering it, avoiding it himself, and dealing it out in massive doses to other species throughout the universe. He’s essentially Marvel’s version of the DC Comics character Darkseid.

It’s possible that Thanos won’t appear until the third Avengers-related movie, but I doubt they will wait that long since they’ve already shown us his face.

So, now for wild speculation time.

I have no idea what Thor 2 holds, though I hope it doesn’t include a return visit of Loki. He’s a fine villain and all, but much like the X-Men movies, it will probably hurt if you keep bringing in the same person (Magneto in that series) as the main baddie honcho. At least with the X-Men, you can get away with it more because of his pro-mutant and anti-human agenda, but Loki will get old fast if they keep using him. Let’s not beat the half-brother conflict between him and Thor to death. I suspect that the second Thor movie will somehow involve an effort to rebuild the Bifrost, which is the bridge that linked Asgard to Earth and to several other places in the universe or extradimensionally or whatever. Perhaps we’ll see some Thanos-related baddies and maybe a hint of Thanos in an effort to prevent that from happening so that Asgard won’t be able to aid Earth in the coming battle. In any case, I’m not really familiar with Thor’s list of enemies overall, and with Loki having been used twice now and the Destroyer being used in the first Thor movie, too…well, we might be getting a bit thin on easily recognizable foes for what I would argue is the weakest series in the overall franchise. Sorry, Thor, but you’re just not that engaging overall. Marvel should have stuck to just one movie there (my hopes for the Captain America franchise aren’t much better).

Not knowing how Iron Man 3 is shaping up plot-wise, I’m going to go with a roll of the dice that it will indeed combine some plotting of the Mandarin and the “Extremis” storyline. I’ve heard rumors that the idea has always been to make Mandarin more of a terrorist leader than a powered bad guy (in the comics, he had ten rings on his fingers that were part of the engine of an alien starship and they granted him a wide array of powers). In the recent “Extremis” storyline for Iron Man in the comics, a guy gets a big dose of some major nanotechnology that essentially makes him a nearly invulnerable guy who can incinerate people, exhibit super-strength and more. He basically hands Iron Man his ass and Tony Stark, both to recover from his injuries and to defeat Extremis, undergoes the very same nanotechnological treatment. He ends up a cybernetically enhanced human who can interact more directly with the Iron Man armor and even basically “store” the armor under his own skin and then basically will it into existence around him as needed.

Now, I don’t see that happening in the movie. As we already see with the treatment of the Asgardian “gods,” Marvel seems to be trying to stay away from actual magic and completely ludicrous feats of science to keep things grounded as much as possible in something resembling reality. However, I could see a situation where Tony Stark is working on something nano-related and the Mandarin steals it to make an Extremis minion as a sort of overpowered crazed terrorist to take down Stark, or the United States, or whatever. Stark gets ass kicked and takes the same Extremis treatment, and perhaps ends up more attuned to his own armor and able to interact with computer systems. In such a situation, I could see the Extremis villain getting defeated or killed, but the Mandarin getting away. Enter post-credit bonus scene where Thanos contacts the Mandarin, seeing an ally on Earth, and gives him something along the lines of the rings the character wore in the comics, elevating the Mandarin to true supervillain status.

If something like this were to happen, The Avengers 2 might end up being something that starts with the Mandarin as a villain and finishes with Thanos in the final acts, or perhaps Thanos doesn’t show up at all as a direct combatant until Avengers 3 after the Mandarin’s efforts have softened up the world a bit.

Another option could be to tie into what’s happened in the comics lately, and do a “Planet Hulk” and/or “World War Hulk” treatment. So, in that scenario, perhaps we tie up the Thanos storyline in Avengers 2, but in the Hulk series, we have a lead-up to Hulk being the main villain of the third Avengers movie, adding a tragic twist as an ally becomes someone the Avengers must fight. Were that to happen, I could see the first Hulk movie being something that involves a villain along the lines of the Absorbing Man or something to give Hulk fits, and then a second movie where Bruce Banner and the Hulk personalities find a way to live together to make a “smart Hulk” and then a third where Thanos or some Thanos ally decides to fuck with the Hulk and drags him through a portal to dump him on another planet (a la “Planet Hulk”) and let him think the Avengers did it to him. So he comes back to Earth pissed, and becomes the enemy for the third Avengers film for the “World War Hulk” treatment. In this scenario, I could see Spider-Man being brought in to fill the gap in the team left by the Hulk.

Alternately, I have to admit what I’d really like to see is for the second Avengers film to deal with Thanos and dispatch him, and then the third have Ultron. Ultron is a brilliant self-aware robot made of the nearly indestructible metal adamantium (which covers Wolverine’s bones and constitute his claws in the X-Men franchise) who wants to eliminate humanity. How he might be created would be a matter of question, since there seems to be no plans to have Dr. Hank Pym (aka Ant Man, Giant Man, Yellowjacket, etc.) in the movies as yet, and he was Ultron’s “father.” But I do keep hearing rumors of an Ant Man movie, so maybe he will come into the storyline and create the robot who turns evil and tries to kill everyone.

What could also be cool, and bring in the character of Black Panther, would be to have Ultron (regardless of how he is created) be constructed of another comic book metal called vibranium, which is found only in Black Panther’s African nation of Wakanda. This would allow for bringing in a pretty cool character (and add some color to the team racially) as well as giving the movie version of Ultron a different spin. Also, I don’t recall if this is addressed in the Captain America movie, but Cap’s shield in the comics is made of vibranium, so pitting him in part against Ultron if he were made of the same metal could be interesting.

Now, if any of my wish-list or fanciful speculation where to come to pass or even come close to what will happen, it still leave a couple big questions: What would Thor 3 involve and what will the next two (presumably) Captain America movies deal with? It’s possible, of course, they could just stand alone and have little or no direct connection to the next two Avengers movies.

In any case, we’re in totally unsubstantiated territory in this entire third part of my blog post anyway. Just rambling.

We shall see, though.

We shall see.

Loosening or Tightening the Knot

4 Replies

I dislike absolutes in life, especially casually tossed out, hyperbolic blanket statements. They dig under my scalp and into my brain like psychic chiggers.

I know, I know…given past experience, you probably figure this is a post that’s going to be about racial stuff. And then you go back to the headline and get confused and wonder, “Is it about lynching somehow, whether literal or metaphorical?”

Nah.

The blanket statements and knots I’m talking about relate to marriage (or any other similar relationship between two people—any theoretically committed, long-term gig to be by each other’s side, in each other’s bodies and juggling each other’s hearts).

I’m a veteran of marriage, having been in one for more than 14 years now, and having dated my amazing (and lovely, and talented and smart and yes every so often frustrating and infuriating) partner for a couple years before she became my wife. I don’t think that makes me an expert, but I have enough hours logged now that I can say a few things with authority.

First, no marriage fails in a vacuum and second, no marriage is doomed.

Save your retorts for the end; give me a chance to explain. This isn’t one of those religious “You can’t ever let your marriage go to pieces” posts.

You see, one of the people I follow on Twitter (and who follows me) is going through a separation (her second with this man, I guess) and probably to divorce. We’ve traded a few tweets and I’m sure many other people on Twitter have communicated with her too, with support, commiseration, questions and maybe even criticism.

She seems to have a pretty healthy outlook overall about the situation, even though it’s stressful, obviously. But she made a tweet today that took me aback, about how she wasn’t innocent in the breakup, and that it is entirely her fault.

No, it isn’t.

I can say this with assurance, and it goes to the first of my earlier assertions: No marriage fails in a vacuum.

Just as it takes two people to make the relationship (well, usually two; it can be more, of course), it takes both of them to tear it asunder. In the heat of emotional things like this, it’s easy for both parties to point the finger of blame, or even for their friends and family to assign the role of villain to one person.

But I’ve come close to the abyss in my marriage. There have been some rough times in recent memory and moments I thought it was all over. My wife and I have come back from the brink, and I have a very good feeling that we either won’t get to the brink again, or we’ll figure out again how to avoid going over the edge if we do.

Something interesting has happened for me in the travails I’ve faced in my own marriage: Realizing where I’ve gone wrong (mostly because I was willing to look inside myself and my actions in the context of the marriage; many people aren’t willing to do that). Now, I’m not going to say who was mostly to blame for the near ending of the marriage. But while one of us was noticeably more responsible for the dilemmas we faced, neither of us was anywhere near guiltless.

Fact is that in any relationship like this, no one is blameless. One person might be 99% to blame and the other 1% to blame, but there are always contributions and failures on both sides, and rarely is it so lopsided as to even be 80% or 90% in one person’s corner.

And that is part of the reason why no marriage is inherently doomed to failure (my second assertion). Because there is blame to go around, there are opportunities for both parties to fix things. If both parties are willing to truly look at themselves as honestly as possible and at the other person, those people will be able to get to the heart of what’s causing the rift.

Once the causes (and rarely is it just one thing) are identified, they can be fixed.

I don’t care how dire it is. They can be fixed.

However, the question is often: Should they be fixed?

And another question, perhaps more central to the issue, is: Are both people willing to do what needs doing?

Both people can make the commitment to change whatever needs changing in their behaviors, attitudes, perceptions or whatever else. They can save the marriage.

The question is never “can a marriage be saved” but rather “is it worth the effort/pain/time to save it?”

In our case, it has been worth it. Some major changes have been made. Changes that many would not be willing to make and that some might even say neither person should have been willing to make.

As to the former, not everyone can make the necessary changes. That doesn’t make them bad people or failures. We can only go as far as we feel we have the strength to go.

As for the latter point, whether the changes should have been made, well…that’s no one else’s fucking business. It only matters that we felt the marriage was worth keeping and that whatever discomforts might come with making changes were worth the payoff. No one looking from the outside toward the inside can truly judge whether there’s something worth saving; only those on the inside can really decide.

That’s not to say people on the outside can’t help with insights, observations and advice. But they don’t get to make the decision, and they sure as hell shouldn’t be coming out with “I told you so” comments if an attempt to save things fails. Because, bottom line, it isn’t their marriage; it isn’t their call.