Day 2 Still Got Nothing

I didn't come up with anything today really worth putting out, or at least anything profound or interesting to me, so I guess I will explain the purpose of this again.  I go to thinking back in early April or late March that I would go out to a show everyday in the month of May.  I would take 5 pics, talk to 3 people other then who I went with and the bartender, and I would write up an account of the evening.  Then in mid April my social calendar started to get full, and I started to work some more overtime, and I started to get tired, and I started to think that the whole show every night thing was not such a good idea.  Last week I decided I would tumbl and blog once a day for each.  Something original if possible.  I had some old blog posts worked up, but I don't want to use them just yet.  I'm sure tomorrow I will come up with some profound shit to put here.  One good thing is last night I though I was posting after midnight, but Blogger had a different time stamp then I expected so I snuck a posting in on May 1.  Fist pump Yessssss.

It is now 8 minutes into May 2, so much for my "Everyday in May," pledge.   Which is to say that everyday in this month I will post a written entry in here and a picture in my picture blog.  I figure if I make a commitment to do it everyday then maybe, just maybe I will turn it into a habit.  The picture was an easy one and I have several easy ones lined up to follow, but this written part is another story.  I spent most of the day trying to think of a decent topic.  I guess I got anxious about it and I am left with this intro story, which is good enough, but in classic bad blog fashion should have been posted early last week, and this one would have been something decent.  Oh well, at least it is something. 

Either way check this space for more.  Everyday in May, except May 1 which was posted just past midnight on May 2. 

Bla-tino, Spider-Man and Race in Comics

Thanks to this picture from Grooveland's Tumblr which was led to the Black Super heroines! blog I am now finding out all sorts of interesting things about race and comic books. There are a couple of interesting articles on the subject. One is a interview from GQ about a year ago with John Jennings and Damian Duffy about blacks comic creators, characters, and their place in the comic world.


From this brief article I learned a ton about black comic creators, namely who they are. I honestly had given no thought to the races of the writers and artists of the books I read, but knowing it is important. The background of a writer or artist definitely influences their work and should be viewed through that lens.


This article led me to another longer piece about race in comics. From the website Comics Alliance, Chirs Sims article "Racial Politics of Regressive Storytelling", talks more about the appearance and subsequent disappearance of non-white super heroes in the DC universe. Again the lack of racial diversity in comics is called to task.

Finally I was drawn to a more recent article over at Geekscape. This one, "Motives of Race in Comics Unmasked," by Johnathan London deals with the recent Bla-tino Spider-Man in Marvel, and what implications this change of race for a major character means to readers. His article ends with a strange populist, or leftist rant about monetary equality, and how that is the real culprit of our world's problems.

I was just trying to get my learn on about comics, and I did, but i also found a whole slew of great discussion on a really important and multi-layered topic. Check out the articles in the links they are definately worth the read.

Going Global or at least mobile

I can now post blogs from my highly intelligent super phone. This may encorage me to do more postings but what with the ease of tumble I kind of doubt it. Either way thus.is pretty cool. Even though it feels like everyone is now talking but fewer people are listening. As far as I can.tell right now I can't view the blogs I follow with thus app. All I can do is post.  Hmmmmmmm. 

One People, One Law

There were two shootings in the Baltimore Metro yesterday. One involved two lovers in a downtown hotel and was thankfully non-fatal. The other took place in Anne Arundel County and ended in the death of a dog.

The details of the two shootings are very different and while neither ended in the death of a human I guess we should be happy. Unfortunately the two shootings were resonded to by local police in very different ways. So different that it seems there must be two different sets of laws governing the people of the state. One law for you and I, and another for those of us who carry a badge.

In an Anne Arundel dog park Monday evening, a Siberian Husky, Bear Bear, leaping and playing with other dogs as dogs in a dog park will, came into contact with a German Sheppard. The Husky engaged in rough play with the Sheppard. The Sheppard's owner yelled for Bear Bear's owner to restrain the dog. The Sheppard was leashed and presumably tethered to his owner. Almost immeadiately, according to eye witnesses, the German Sheppard's owner drew his hand gun and shot and killed the Husky. Anne Arundel police who responded to the shooting said there would be no investigation into the shooting, as it appeared to have been justified. The shooter was a federal police officer.

At the Hilton near the Baltimore Convention Center, two guests of the hotel, who had checked in together several days before got into a fight which ended when the woman shot her apparent lover. The man was taken to a local hospital and is recovering. The woman had minor bruises and scraps. The interesting thing about the shooting was how Baltimore City Police Commissioner Frederick Bealefield III responded. "It keeps coming back to one common thing … this insipid fascination with handguns in Baltimore and the willingness to use them to sort out conflict," he said.

"The willingness to use [handguns] to sort out conflict." It sounds like a statement a beleaguered police officer would make. A statement that is backed by years of seeing simple arguments escalate into violent situations that end with gun violence. A statement that any urban resident can agree with and see the intelligence of it. It is a statement that has merit and common sense and speaks volumes to how police have to come in and clean up after what could be a minor incident became a homicide. Unfortunately the statement is directed only at the non police officers of the city.

Following a summer that has included a fatal shooting by an off duty police officer leaving a Mt Vernon nightclub, a shooting that Mr Bealefield publicly excused as possibly justified, and a decision by a jury to convict a transit police officer in Oakland of the relatively minor charge of involuntary manslaughter in the shooting of an unarmed and subdued suspect on New Years Eve, one might think that something in our countries police forces has gone wrong. In both instances there was a definate "willingness to use [handguns] to sort out conflicts."

While Anne Arundel County Police have done an about face after pressure from citizens and politicians, their intial reaction to the shooting speaks volumes to how police view their position in society. Years of hero worship and media glorification of police officers as super men who "fight the bad guys", has lead to a climate of justification of violence used by officers under any circumstances.

America is a country that was founded on the idea of one people who all live under one law. There is still a strong feeling that all people rich or poor are subject to the same laws. Why then are police suddenly now exempt, given a pass to act like Wild West vigilantes meting out their own justice and judgments whenever they see fit.