It sounds like the setup for a joke: Why is Superman only 7 years old?
Because his birthday is Feb. 29.
The leap-year explanation is a humorous way of acknowledging that Superman, like most of the cape-and-cowl crowd, doesn’t age like the rest of us.
If he did, he would be more than 100 years old, having first appeared in Action Comics #1 in 1938. In that story, he was already an adult.
The commonly accepted age for Superman is 29. It’s a nice number that keeps him young enough to be relatable to kids but not so young that any adult readers are turned off.
And despite a trend in the last few decades to make superhero comics more realistic, few have grappled with the convention that heroes, once they reach a certain age, simply stop aging.
Oh, sure, DC Comics has a series of parallel Earths where Superman can be younger or older. Heck, there is even an Earth where he’s a gorilla and one where he’s a monster named Bizarro Superman.
When DC’s editors and writers first cooked up this concept of multiple Earths, back in the 1950s and 1960s, its original heroes, like Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, were consigned to Earth-2, while the then-contemporary versions of the heroes lived on Earth-1.
The dimensional barriers between these worlds are about as strong as one-ply toilet paper, so heroes were constantly ripping through them to meet their older counterparts. Eventually, DC consolidated its universes, but then tore them apart again, started over from scratch, and revised even that.
You need an advanced degree in cartoon astrophysics to keep up with it all, honestly.
In the world of pulp fiction — the literary one, not the Quentin Tarantino movie — Edgar Rice Burroughs explained Tarzan’s continuing youthfulness with a story where the Ape Man, Jane and a few of their allies discover a box of immortality pills.
But most writers of characters who appear in ongoing stories don’t bother with explanations. They either allow the characters to age in real time, meaning the clock is always ticking toward obsolescence; have them age more slowly with little to no explanation; or just stop the hands of time altogether and pretend that nobody notices.
This is how Archie still goes to Riverdale High when he should be collecting Social Security and why Bart Simpson is still telling adults to eat his shorts when he should be earning an MBA or awaiting a stay of execution on death row. (With Bart, it could go either way.)
Without suspended aging, readers would soon experience the riveting adventures of Lucy Leonard, Superman’s Nurse, inserting Super Suppositories to allow his no-longer Super Bowels to function properly.
Those would be crappy stories. So, it’s better to just keep him young and wink at the audience with an occasional leap-year reference.
Real people with a Feb. 29 birthday may notice they’re aging normally, despite celebrating their proper birthday day only 25 percent as often as the rest of us. If this upsets them, they aren’t talking.
Meanwhile, one of my childhood heroes, Indiana Jones, will be back with a new movie next year, starring the now 77-year-old Harrison Ford.
Evidently, Indy is no leap-year baby. That, or he never ran across a lost tribe with a secret cache of immortality pills.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
Thursday, February 27, 2020
Thursday, February 20, 2020
Today's most 'pressing' debate
Forget the polluted environment.
Don’t fret over machines taking American jobs.
Ignore our dumpster-fire president.
The real problem is whether it’s OK to recline one’s seat on an airplane.
The debate could be subtitled, “What If Two Entitled Jerks Couldn’t Compromise?” Or maybe “Shakes on a Plane.”
Anybody who wanted to see the video of this incident probably has. Anybody who didn’t want to see the video probably has.
Still, here’s an in-a-nutshell summary: Woman reclines airplane seat. Man sitting behind her pounds on seat with closed fist for the rest of the flight.
That’s it. No fiery confrontation. No heated exchange of words.
Later, the woman, Wendi Williams, posted the video online, sparking a debate that has consumed social media until ... well, until the next scandal.
Many people side with Williams, who had a right to recline. Many people side with the man behind her, unidentified at this writing, who had a right not to have a stranger’s head in his lap for however long the flight lasted.
Some arguments center on Williams’ position in the second-to-last row, meaning the passenger behind her could not recline his seat to escape.
Don’t fret over machines taking American jobs.
Ignore our dumpster-fire president.
The real problem is whether it’s OK to recline one’s seat on an airplane.
The debate could be subtitled, “What If Two Entitled Jerks Couldn’t Compromise?” Or maybe “Shakes on a Plane.”
Anybody who wanted to see the video of this incident probably has. Anybody who didn’t want to see the video probably has.
Still, here’s an in-a-nutshell summary: Woman reclines airplane seat. Man sitting behind her pounds on seat with closed fist for the rest of the flight.
That’s it. No fiery confrontation. No heated exchange of words.
Later, the woman, Wendi Williams, posted the video online, sparking a debate that has consumed social media until ... well, until the next scandal.
Many people side with Williams, who had a right to recline. Many people side with the man behind her, unidentified at this writing, who had a right not to have a stranger’s head in his lap for however long the flight lasted.
Some arguments center on Williams’ position in the second-to-last row, meaning the passenger behind her could not recline his seat to escape.
Some arguments center on white-male privilege, meaning only a Caucasian guy could get worked up about something so trivial, and only a Caucasian guy could get away with repeatedly thumping on a woman’s seat.
As for me, I think both Williams and the man behind her were wrong.
Williams should not have reclined without asking. If her neck hurt too much to sit upright — she claims to have had multiple surgeries — then she should have paid extra to sit in first class or not flown at all.
The man sitting behind her acted like a bonafide jerk. He should not have pounded on her seat. Not once, and especially not multiple times.
The airline is at fault, too. Williams asked the flight attendant to address the issue. Instead, the attendant gave the man some rum. That was a dumb solution. The attendant should have offered to move Williams or the other passenger to a different seat.
The airline is also at fault for installing seats that recline in spaces too small to recline. If reclining is rude and an invasion of personal space, why make it an option?
Either provide all passengers with enough space or install seats that don’t recline.
I’m fascinated by how the debate is a Rorschach test for the rest of us. When we are passengers who want to recline, reclining is OK. When we are passengers who are being reclined against (for lack of a better description), it’s not.
Such cognitive dissonance is common.
Americans who support stronger environmental laws will still be angry if they are cited for dumping oil-based paint down a kitchen drain.
Business owners who worry about artificial intelligence replacing human workers will still upgrade their own companies with more efficient technology that eliminates jobs.
Voters who support the president will do so despite strong evidence of his wrongdoing by telling themselves that he is being picked on by the media or that all politicians act that way.
If we can hold two or more contradictory thoughts in our minds about each of these situations, then doing the same over a plane skirmish is easy.
Call it a simple flight of fancy.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
As for me, I think both Williams and the man behind her were wrong.
Williams should not have reclined without asking. If her neck hurt too much to sit upright — she claims to have had multiple surgeries — then she should have paid extra to sit in first class or not flown at all.
The man sitting behind her acted like a bonafide jerk. He should not have pounded on her seat. Not once, and especially not multiple times.
The airline is at fault, too. Williams asked the flight attendant to address the issue. Instead, the attendant gave the man some rum. That was a dumb solution. The attendant should have offered to move Williams or the other passenger to a different seat.
The airline is also at fault for installing seats that recline in spaces too small to recline. If reclining is rude and an invasion of personal space, why make it an option?
Either provide all passengers with enough space or install seats that don’t recline.
I’m fascinated by how the debate is a Rorschach test for the rest of us. When we are passengers who want to recline, reclining is OK. When we are passengers who are being reclined against (for lack of a better description), it’s not.
Such cognitive dissonance is common.
Americans who support stronger environmental laws will still be angry if they are cited for dumping oil-based paint down a kitchen drain.
Business owners who worry about artificial intelligence replacing human workers will still upgrade their own companies with more efficient technology that eliminates jobs.
Voters who support the president will do so despite strong evidence of his wrongdoing by telling themselves that he is being picked on by the media or that all politicians act that way.
If we can hold two or more contradictory thoughts in our minds about each of these situations, then doing the same over a plane skirmish is easy.
Call it a simple flight of fancy.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
Saturday, February 15, 2020
Helping the directionally challenged
I was talking with a father the other day who was upset that his daughter uses GPS to get back and forth to work even though she knows the route.
The argument was that “kids these days” can’t get anywhere without technology.
I’ve got news for him: Kids aren’t the only ones.
I spent the first half of my adult life driving in circles anytime I went more than, oh, 20 miles from home. It is no secret in my family that I have the absolute worst sense of direction: Blindfold me, spin me around once, and see if I can find my way back home from anywhere other than the local Walmart.
Quick answer: I can’t.
Heck, you wouldn’t even have to blindfold me.
I was bemoaning this to a friend who insists nobody can be so directionally inept. He argues that I lack self-confidence, that if I had to find my way without strict instructions from Google Maps, I could.
I won’t quibble that confidence, or a lack thereof, plays a role. But it comes from a lifetime of squashed expectations.
It doesn’t help that my directional challenges are coupled with a typical Y-chromosome trait: an aversion to asking for help. I loathe stopping at strange gas stations, where one member of a posse of local Einsteins tells me to get back on the highway — which always has two names, one from 30 years ago and a current one — and head “a couple clicks” down to Route Whatever that crosses over Interstate Wherever.
Once in a great while, these directions work. Usually, however, they led only to another gas station, or sometimes the same one again, where I had to supplicate myself before another tribunal of crusty old cartographers.
In the pre-Internet days, I would pore over maps before going anywhere, jotting down notes I could tape to the dashboard.
But real life doesn’t look much like a map. All those neatly drawn intersections and clearly labeled routes look great when peering down from a bird’s eye view. At street level, however, everything looks different. Distances are hard to calculate. Street signs are missing. Roads are closed.
In the early days of digital mapping, I printed turn-by-turn directions from Yahoo Maps. Then I printed return directions because I didn’t trust myself to just reverse the first set.
It worked most of the time. Explicit directions helped even a knucklehead like me get to within a couple of blocks of my destination. Then if I had to ask a gas station Jedi, it wasn’t so humbling to find out I needed to make just one more left turn.
The situation is even better now that I can punch an address into my phone and get real-time directions. “Turn here” and “merge in another half mile” are orders I gladly accept. I, for one, welcome our robot overlords, at least where driving is concerned.
But even now, in this best of directional worlds, my ineptitude sometimes asserts itself.
On a recent trip to Myrtle Beach, I typed in our destination and selected the preferred route. It took me from Alliance to South Carolina by way of Columbus, which any yokel but me knows is far out of the way.
It turns out Google Maps was trying to avoid a toll road by adding an extra two hours to the drive, a bad tradeoff that my wife hasn’t let me live down yet, especially because I didn’t recognize how wrong it was.
I guess those gas-station know-it-alls could have set me straight, if people like that are still around, and if they’re not too busy posting on Twitter or swiping right on Tinder to help a directionally challenged oaf find the ocean.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
The argument was that “kids these days” can’t get anywhere without technology.
I’ve got news for him: Kids aren’t the only ones.
I spent the first half of my adult life driving in circles anytime I went more than, oh, 20 miles from home. It is no secret in my family that I have the absolute worst sense of direction: Blindfold me, spin me around once, and see if I can find my way back home from anywhere other than the local Walmart.
Quick answer: I can’t.
Heck, you wouldn’t even have to blindfold me.
I was bemoaning this to a friend who insists nobody can be so directionally inept. He argues that I lack self-confidence, that if I had to find my way without strict instructions from Google Maps, I could.
I won’t quibble that confidence, or a lack thereof, plays a role. But it comes from a lifetime of squashed expectations.
It doesn’t help that my directional challenges are coupled with a typical Y-chromosome trait: an aversion to asking for help. I loathe stopping at strange gas stations, where one member of a posse of local Einsteins tells me to get back on the highway — which always has two names, one from 30 years ago and a current one — and head “a couple clicks” down to Route Whatever that crosses over Interstate Wherever.
Once in a great while, these directions work. Usually, however, they led only to another gas station, or sometimes the same one again, where I had to supplicate myself before another tribunal of crusty old cartographers.
In the pre-Internet days, I would pore over maps before going anywhere, jotting down notes I could tape to the dashboard.
But real life doesn’t look much like a map. All those neatly drawn intersections and clearly labeled routes look great when peering down from a bird’s eye view. At street level, however, everything looks different. Distances are hard to calculate. Street signs are missing. Roads are closed.
In the early days of digital mapping, I printed turn-by-turn directions from Yahoo Maps. Then I printed return directions because I didn’t trust myself to just reverse the first set.
It worked most of the time. Explicit directions helped even a knucklehead like me get to within a couple of blocks of my destination. Then if I had to ask a gas station Jedi, it wasn’t so humbling to find out I needed to make just one more left turn.
The situation is even better now that I can punch an address into my phone and get real-time directions. “Turn here” and “merge in another half mile” are orders I gladly accept. I, for one, welcome our robot overlords, at least where driving is concerned.
But even now, in this best of directional worlds, my ineptitude sometimes asserts itself.
On a recent trip to Myrtle Beach, I typed in our destination and selected the preferred route. It took me from Alliance to South Carolina by way of Columbus, which any yokel but me knows is far out of the way.
It turns out Google Maps was trying to avoid a toll road by adding an extra two hours to the drive, a bad tradeoff that my wife hasn’t let me live down yet, especially because I didn’t recognize how wrong it was.
I guess those gas-station know-it-alls could have set me straight, if people like that are still around, and if they’re not too busy posting on Twitter or swiping right on Tinder to help a directionally challenged oaf find the ocean.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
Optimism after Trump's acquittal?
Let’s look on the bright side.
For Americans disappointed in the Senate’s decision not to admit witnesses and new evidence in President Trump’s impeachment trial last week, small amounts of hope are all we have.
An inclination toward pessimism will be even more tempting for people reading this after the GOP majority in the Senate acquits President Trump of impeachment charges over soliciting foreign interference in the 2020 election and then obstructing investigations into that interference.
(Here on Sunday, when I’m typing these words, it doesn’t take a crystal ball to see where the trial is heading.)
So, while many progressives bemoan the rank partisanship that led to the only impeachment trial in history without witnesses and the distinct possibility that Trump will view acquittal as a green light not only for further tinkering in November’s election but also to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, regardless of the rule of law, it’s important to ponder a silver lining to this distinctly dark-orange cloud:
First, the American public now has the voting record of 51 senators who put party above loyalty to country and Constitution. Voters can and will remember this when voting for their re-election.
Granted, it’s doubtful that any Forever Trumpers will vote against these senators, but the 75 percent of Americans who signaled a desire for witnesses and new evidence in a recent Quinnipiac University poll might feel differently.
The biggest takeaway from that poll, however, is a different 75 percent. Seventy-five percent of independents wanted to learn more about the charges, and their votes are certainly in play. If enough of them turn away from GOP candidates, November could see a purge of historic proportions.
A second cause for optimism: Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tennessee). While the senator and three other wavering Republicans caved in the eleventh hour and voted along party lines, their rationale for doing so is not an exoneration of Trump.
Alexander’s own words: “It was inappropriate and wrong for the president to do what he did. I think it was proved. The question is whether you apply capital punishment to every offense. And in this case I think the answer is no.”
The expression “damning with faint praise” comes to mind. While Alexander’s words will not put the brakes to Trump himself — the man is beyond shame — they will fuel further reflection by thoughtful conservatives who hold the senator’s many years of service in high regard.
Alexander’s words gave reporters a ready-made question to ask the acquitting senators: Do you agree that what Trump did was inappropriate and wrong? And if so, why did you vote the way you did?
The faux-noble GOP talking point arising from this second question is that removing Trump from office would further split an already polarized country. That makes a nice sound bite. But with the president ruling via Twitter, threatening Adam Schiff, the lead House manager in the Senate impeachment trial, and doling out grade-school-style nicknames to the glee of his base, what could “more polarizing” really look like?
A third cause for optimism: Regardless of what the Senate has decided, further evidence will keep finding its way into the public’s hands. John Bolton, in particular, appears to have much more to say, and we are learning some of it already.
What other revelations await? Will they stem from Trump’s never-released taxes? From his shaky understanding of the emoluments clause? From his less-than-stellar track record with women who have accused him of groping and rape? From additional Lev Parnas recordings?
I’m not much of a meme guy, but the image that shows the Trump glacier, with his impeachable offenses being the small part above water and “all the other (expletive) Donald has done” hidden below, feels about right.
Eventually, the truth will be known. When it happens, the Republicans who stood by their man at any cost will find their reputations sinking along with his.
And a final cause for optimism: Impeachment is forever, regardless of acquittal. Trump and his followers will always have to explain the asterisk next to his name.
Cold comfort in light of the trampling of the Constitution and almost certain future meddling in our elections, from without and within?
Yeah. But a comfort, nonetheless.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
For Americans disappointed in the Senate’s decision not to admit witnesses and new evidence in President Trump’s impeachment trial last week, small amounts of hope are all we have.
An inclination toward pessimism will be even more tempting for people reading this after the GOP majority in the Senate acquits President Trump of impeachment charges over soliciting foreign interference in the 2020 election and then obstructing investigations into that interference.
(Here on Sunday, when I’m typing these words, it doesn’t take a crystal ball to see where the trial is heading.)
So, while many progressives bemoan the rank partisanship that led to the only impeachment trial in history without witnesses and the distinct possibility that Trump will view acquittal as a green light not only for further tinkering in November’s election but also to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, regardless of the rule of law, it’s important to ponder a silver lining to this distinctly dark-orange cloud:
First, the American public now has the voting record of 51 senators who put party above loyalty to country and Constitution. Voters can and will remember this when voting for their re-election.
Granted, it’s doubtful that any Forever Trumpers will vote against these senators, but the 75 percent of Americans who signaled a desire for witnesses and new evidence in a recent Quinnipiac University poll might feel differently.
The biggest takeaway from that poll, however, is a different 75 percent. Seventy-five percent of independents wanted to learn more about the charges, and their votes are certainly in play. If enough of them turn away from GOP candidates, November could see a purge of historic proportions.
A second cause for optimism: Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tennessee). While the senator and three other wavering Republicans caved in the eleventh hour and voted along party lines, their rationale for doing so is not an exoneration of Trump.
Alexander’s own words: “It was inappropriate and wrong for the president to do what he did. I think it was proved. The question is whether you apply capital punishment to every offense. And in this case I think the answer is no.”
The expression “damning with faint praise” comes to mind. While Alexander’s words will not put the brakes to Trump himself — the man is beyond shame — they will fuel further reflection by thoughtful conservatives who hold the senator’s many years of service in high regard.
Alexander’s words gave reporters a ready-made question to ask the acquitting senators: Do you agree that what Trump did was inappropriate and wrong? And if so, why did you vote the way you did?
The faux-noble GOP talking point arising from this second question is that removing Trump from office would further split an already polarized country. That makes a nice sound bite. But with the president ruling via Twitter, threatening Adam Schiff, the lead House manager in the Senate impeachment trial, and doling out grade-school-style nicknames to the glee of his base, what could “more polarizing” really look like?
A third cause for optimism: Regardless of what the Senate has decided, further evidence will keep finding its way into the public’s hands. John Bolton, in particular, appears to have much more to say, and we are learning some of it already.
What other revelations await? Will they stem from Trump’s never-released taxes? From his shaky understanding of the emoluments clause? From his less-than-stellar track record with women who have accused him of groping and rape? From additional Lev Parnas recordings?
I’m not much of a meme guy, but the image that shows the Trump glacier, with his impeachable offenses being the small part above water and “all the other (expletive) Donald has done” hidden below, feels about right.
Eventually, the truth will be known. When it happens, the Republicans who stood by their man at any cost will find their reputations sinking along with his.
And a final cause for optimism: Impeachment is forever, regardless of acquittal. Trump and his followers will always have to explain the asterisk next to his name.
Cold comfort in light of the trampling of the Constitution and almost certain future meddling in our elections, from without and within?
Yeah. But a comfort, nonetheless.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
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