Long kiss is extended by controversy

Call it the longest kiss in the history of pop culture: It started in 2010 and continues today.


The liplock between Hulkling and Wiccan, two characters in “Avengers: The Children’s Crusade,” originally was published by Marvel Comics in magazine form nine years ago. It was reprinted in the collected edition of the series in 2017.


But only last week did the smooch really start to turn heads.


Hulkling and Wiccan are both male, a fact that so concerned Marcelo Crivella, the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, that he ordered law enforcement agents to seize all copies of the collection from the city’s International Book Fair. The raid was a bust, however, since all copies were purchased by buyers ahead of the raid, likely in anticipation of how much the book would sell for on the secondary market now that it had been targeted.


Crivella is also a preacher, and he believes books like this “need to be packaged in black plastic and sealed” before purchase, making him the latest in a long series of misguided people who believe that just because something offends them personally it must be hidden away from view or restricted for the rest of the world.


Now the situation is worming its way through the Brazilian court system, with one judge ruling that Crivella could not seize books in the future or revoke the book fair’s permit, and another judge ruling that he could, according to the New York Times.


The situation is worth noting here in the United States, where similar attempts to restrict content are more common than readers might think. Later this month, the American Library Association will mark Banned Books Week, an annual effort to spotlight First Amendment rights of Americans to read what we want without censorship.


Many censorship attempts occur in public school libraries, where parents will protest the inclusion of particular books and request or demand their removal or restriction. Some school administrators and school boards, eager to head off bad publicity, will accede. When they do, the book has been banned. When they do not, the book has been challenged, based on the ALA’s definitions.


Hence, some readers found their right to read the following books jeopardized in 2018: “The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas, seen as too negative toward police officers; the “Captain Underpants” series by Dav Pilkey, too encouraging of disruptive behaviors; and “Thirteen Reasons Why” by Jay Asher, too focused on teen suicides.



But far and away the No. 1 reason for the top books on the list to be challenged is the inclusion of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex and Asexual themes. LGBTQIA+ was cited in five of the top 11 most-challenged books last year.


Let’s be clear: Parents have the absolute right to restrict their own children’s access to any books, movies, or online content they find offensive. What they don’t have the right to do is to restrict other parents’ children from accessing those materials.


And censorship is that slipperiest of slopes: Once you start down the path of determining what is offensive to a community, it’s hard to know where to stop. One person’s vulgarity is another’s realistic depiction of life. The drawing of lines needs to extend no further than the door to each person’s home.


And a few points to keep in mind about Mayor Crivella’s attempts:


To my knowledge, no pop-culture depiction of two same-sex characters kissing ever made a reader gay. It might have made him or her aware that other people are gay, or that it’s acceptable in most social circles in 2019 to be gay, and that people shouldn’t judge other people for being gay, but it never made a heterosexual person say, “I think I’ll be that.”


Secondly, when you call attention to an alleged problem, be sure you’re ready to accept the unintended consequences. In this case, I’m sure Marvel Comics will be happy to accommodate readers who want to see what all the fuss is about by going back to press on a nine-year-old story.


And so the long kiss continues.


chris.schillig@yahoo.com


@cschillig on Twitter

Everything old is ... well, still old

You know you’re getting old when most of your conversations about landmarks and destinations include the word “old.”


Like, when our cat got sick over the weekend and my wife and I had to take it to an emergency veterinarian a few cities over. The vet was located in the old Outback Steakhouse, next to the old Circuit City, just down the street from the old Best Buy.


Or last weekend, when we went to eat at A-Town Burgers and Brews, which I told friends is in the old Wally Armour budget lot, which is the old Waaa Daa Hot Dog Shoppe, which is the old Denny’s.


Speaking of Waaa Daa, which I looked up because I couldn’t remember if “Waaa” had two a’s or three — there is no limit to the lengths I will go to ensure this column is accurate, I tell ya — I was reminded that the plastic hot dog that once adorned the roof was moved out of storage in 2016 and taken to LeSage, West Virginia.


There, it has been put to good use, or maybe just use, at an establishment called Hillbilly Hotdogs. I have been told that this fine-dining emporium has been frequented by at least one prominent Alliance citizen in recent months, who traveled there by motorcycle only to learn that no matter how much you dress up a hot dog, it’s still just a hot dog.


By the way, in The Review blurb about the plastic weiner’s transfer, “Waaa Daa” was spelled “Waada,” so even at this late juncture, some controversy remains about the ill-fated shop. Or shoppe.


But, back to “old.”


If you’ve been around town, any town, long enough, lots of stuff can be described by what used to be there. Downtown Alliance is a good example. Various buildings there have been home to other ventures, sometimes two or three.


A church now resides in the former Sears building. A secondhand store now makes its home in the old Kidding’s Automotive store. And a flea market is in the old Grimm’s Furniture Store, which was the old Murphy’s, which was probably a few other old things before that, too.



This isn’t surprising. Businesses go where people are, and people are notoriously mobile. So when traffic patterns shift, businesses follow, leaving a lot of old in their wake. And most of that old is old-timers like me who remember where stuff used to be and find it easier to talk about ill-fated ventures that exist now only in our minds.


And into our minds are where businesses have been moving for the last 20 years or so, following a migration of consumers from physical buildings into cyberspace, where they shop from home and have it all delivered, or go no further than a business’s parking lot, where employees load it directly into the car.


Welcome to the era of Grubhub, Doordash, Walmart Grocery Pickup, and Amazon. No rubbing elbows with our neighbors. No serendipitous encounters in aisle seven. Just our own homemade bubbles to contain our homemade realities.


It’s enough to make a body feel ... well, old.


But that’s pretty heavy stuff. To recap the lighter messages, then:


Hot dogs are just hot dogs, even when handcrafted by hillbillies.


Waaa Daa — three a’s, then two.



A-Town Burgers and Brews — worth a visit.


And the cat’s just fine. Thanks for asking.


chris.schillig@yahoo.com


@cschillig on Twitter

Revised verse for a course reversal

English teachers, rejoice! Sonnets finally are headline news!


Last week, Ken Cuccinelli, the acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, offered his interpretation of a key passage from “The New Colossus,” the 14-line poem by Emma Lazarus carved on a plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty.


(As an aside, have you ever noticed how many folks in this administration are “acting”?)


To Cuccinelli, the term “teeming masses” refers only to European people, which was his odd way of defending the latest round of restrictions this regime wants to impose on immigrants. Basically, if they can’t stand on their own and can’t survive without the help of any form of public assistance, ever, they can say goodbye to their green cards.


The policy proposal prompted me to seek out Lazarus’ original sonnet and make some updates for a new century and a new sheriff in town. Of course, the amendations (in brackets) will require changing the likeness of the statue. I trust it won’t be hard to guess the new image that should greet visitors to our shores. If anybody’s ego is worthy of a giant statue, it’s his.


***


Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame


[but more like the gaudy casinos emblazoned with the family name],


With conquering limbs astride from land to land



[And Cheeto-orange skin and fly-away hair at hand];


Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates [forget the gates, gimme a Big Beautiful Wall, paid for by diverted military funds ... I mean, by Mexico] shall stand


A mighty woman [let’s make it a man, one with off-the-rack suits and too-long ties]


with a torch [and a flame-thrower, and a big big big machine gun with the NRA logo emblazoned on the side], whose flame


Is the imprisoned [because the poorer you are, the more we like to imprison] lightning, and her [his] name


Mother of Exiles [Father of Outrageous Tweets]. From her [his] beacon-hand


Glows world-wide welcome [or scorn, especially if you’re from one of those ”(expletive)hole” countries]; her [his] mild [yet strong, powerful, healthy and virile] eyes command



The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.


“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she [he] [but really, we’d rather have your light-skinned, wealthy European storied pomp, especially if you are a really hot, blonde immigrant who likes older men — va va voom!]


With silent lips. “Give me your tired [but not too tired for all the jobs that nobody already living here doesn’t want], your poor [but not poor enough to qualify for public assistance, and if you do qualify, you’d better not ask even if your kids are hungry or sick or whatevs, cuz we’ll tell you and them to go back where you came from, even if you came from here],


Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free [and, thanks to environmental-regulation rollbacks, to breathe smog, exhaust and other carcinogens too — but don’t you dare complain because we’ll boot you out faster a lefty, antifa protestor at an election rally, don’tcha know],


The wretched refuse [we prefer only aliens ... I mean, immigrants who win, of course] of your teeming shore.


Send these, the homeless [and vermin, invaders, and rapists — don’t bother], tempest-tost to me [what’s a tempest, anyway, and is “tost” what I have for breakfast along with leftover KFC while setting foreign policy based on Fox and Friends?],


I lift my lamp [and my crowd numbers and my Electoral College numbers, both bigger than anybody else’s — numbers, I have the biggest numbers, I really do] beside the golden door!”



***


Granted, these new words take away most of the poem’s beauty and lyricism, not to mention a guiding principle under which many people first came to this country, but one could argue that 45 has all but eliminated beauty and lyricism from public discourse, anyway. Besides, all that sentimental slop is for losers.


Don’t like the revisions? Well, that’s a problem, because the original words don’t apply to anything going on with immigration policy proposals today.


Better just to tear down the statue and put up a 151-foot STOP sign. In English only, of course, because we only speak American here.


chris.schillig@yahoo.com


@cschillig on Twitter

Looking back to analyze school daze

Did you enjoy your high school years?


A former classmate asked this on Facebook a few weeks ago, and I’ve been thinking about it on and off ever since. This has been challenging because my high school memories are growing fuzzy, like a picture viewed through a frame covered in decades of dust.


What I do remember is that I approached school like a job, which sounds harsher than I intend because I like working. Work gives people purpose. So if school was my job, then I enjoyed going there, showing up every day, being a good employee and doing the assigned tasks. Like many workers, I goofed off sometimes and was written up occasionally, but for the most part, I was probably considered eligible for rehire.


I had friends in high school, took some good and not-so-good classes, made memories of both the smiling and cringing varieties, and experienced the four years without much fanfare. (College felt much the same way.)


American society has fetishized school in general and high school in particular through a series of sitcoms, movies and comic books designed to make those years more significant than they already are. “Happy Days,” “American Graffiti,” “The Blackboard Jungle,” “Archie,” and dozens (hundreds?) more have entrenched high school into pop-culture parlance — the jocks, nerds, mean girls, greasers, goths and preps. Everybody had a role to play and a place to play it, be it the science classroom, study hall, Big Game or Big Dance. The really scary kids acted out their roles in the bathrooms or the alley out back, of course, but they too are part of the popular conception of high school.


Most comedy or drama results from people stepping outside their comfort zones, so a jock interacting with a goth in the hallway or a mean girl partnering with a nerd for the science fair is a source of numerous angsty conversations or witty one-liners, depending on the genre. How much this happens in real life is the subject of some debate, especially if those roles are exaggerated anyway.


One unintended consequence of all this media attention is to super-size many teens’ expectations for high school, making those eight semesters the Mount Everest of existence before they’ve even had a chance to experience them. To have a great high school career is to have a great life, and if every moment isn’t absolutely saturated in fun and zaniness ... well, there must be something wrong with you.


Ironically, or maybe inevitably, the other side of that high school mountain is populated by people who reached the peak of life in their teen years and who believe, in the words of the immortal prophet John Mellencamp, that “oh, yeah, life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone.” These are the folks drawn to the past like a hypnotized mark to the swinging watch, seduced by the halcyon days of lettermen jackets and pompoms, where such objects have an almost totemic appeal.


They are attracted by the alleged simplicity of high school, before marriage, mortgage and the other challenges of adult life. They are the bar sitters, the wistful what-if-ers, and the targets of many a weight-loss, hair-growth and sports-car ad campaign.



My own high school memories are complicated, too, by the fact that I’ve spent 20 years of my adult life as a teacher, watching my students navigate the sometimes treacherous, sometimes wonderful, route to adulthood.


In this context, the question “Did you enjoy your high school years?” becomes much more vital, especially with the school year about to begin.


I want my students to enjoy their high school years, not because the time is the be-all, end-all of their existence (it’s not), but because people do better at something that they like, with people they like being around.


Enjoyment doesn’t have to mean unbridled joy at every turn. It does mean that students are engaged in something that they find value in, either because it relates to their life today or to an activity or job they want to pursue tomorrow.


Sometimes — maybe even often — this engagement is hard work. It requires putting off activities that bring instant gratification (an evening of Fortnite) for something that will pay dividends later (an evening of calculus).


In this regard, all of us — relatives, friends, neighbors — can help the young people in our lives to engage with school. We can ask them about their day, classes and the future, and then really listen when they answer. We can help them find the resources they need — academic, social, mental-health, financial — to persevere. We can limit their exposure to negative influences and give them opportunities to grow in positive ways.


And we can remind them, no matter how great or how dismal their school experiences, that these years are just one part of what will be a long and fruitful life.



That way, 20 or 30 years later, maybe they will be able to see past the media-induced stereotypes if they are ever asked, “Did you enjoy your high school years?”


chris.schillig@yahoo.com


@cschillig on Twitter

'New normal' results in same tragic headlines

I hate the new normal.


At restaurants, bars, movie theaters or beloved local festival events, I hate scanning for exits and wondering who might be carrying a weapon and nursing a grudge, and if this might be the day or night when the American culture of mass shootings personally affects me or those I love.


I hate the ping of news alerts on my phone — three dead at a garlic festival in California on July 28; the one-two punch of 22 fatalities in El Paso on Saturday, followed by nine more in Dayton on Sunday.


I hate that “thoughts and prayers” has become a sick punchline for inertia.


I hate that someone, somewhere, even as these words are being typed, is mouthing the tired argument that guns don’t kill people, people kill people, and making a smarmy comment about the damage somebody could inflict with a sledgehammer, a steak knife or a chair leg.


I hate that the incidents that get the most attention are the ones with multiple fatalities, that so many one-offs — a guy with a gun blowing away his spouse or ex-girlfriend, a neighbor shooting a neighbor over loud music or barking dogs — hardly raise an eyebrow, just business as usual here in the Wild West of 2019.


Mostly, I hate knowing that gun violence, singletons and multiple homicides alike, will happen again and again and again until something is done.


What that something is can take two broad directions.


Direction number one is more guns. If more people were armed, goes this argument, and if more people did so under concealed-carry and open-carry laws, so wannabe-shooter psychos, craven to their very cores, would apparently stay at home.



A major flaw with this premise is that America, home to an estimated 327.2-million people, already has 390-million civilian firearms. The oft-repeated “good guy with a gun theory” doesn’t seem to hold water, unless the argument is that we don’t know how many psychos were deterred by the hypothetical presence of weekend warriors sporting weapons at craft shows and malls.


It seems more likely that the proliferation of guns in this country is part of the problem, not part of the solution. In other countries where guns are not as prevalent, incidents of gun violence, while not unheard of, are far less common. In the lexicon of Occam’s razor, this isn’t even a close shave.


How, then, to curtail access to guns without limiting the rights of law-abiding Americans to own them? (As an aside, a 2012 New Yorker article by Jeffrey Toobin explains how our modern understanding of the Second Amendment owes more to “an elaborate and brilliantly executed political operation” by the NRA and others in the 1980s then to centuries of prior legal precedent. But I digress.)


For one thing, we have to agree that the Second Amendment does not give citizens the right to own assault weapons, high-capacity magazines or accessories that increase their killing power.


Here is where gun aficionados love to bog down the argument with technical specs on what is or is not an assault weapon. To save a lot of emails, let me concede that any gun owner knows more details than I do. In plain English, any gun or attachment to a gun that allows it to kill a lot of people in a ridiculously short time is something civilians don’t need — not for personal protection, not for sport.


Secondly, we need to close loopholes in background checks so that they apply to all gun sales and transfers, and require that checks be completed before new owners take possession of weapons. Yes, this will slow down the process of buying and selling, in much the same way that new security procedures slowed down air travel after 9/11 — a worthwhile inconvenience because it made us safer.


The government also needs to expand the categories of people who cannot buy or own firearms to include individuals who are guilty of hate-crime misdemeanors and dating partners convicted of domestic violence. This will help curtail those tragedies that don’t always make front-page news.



The most common-sense changes can be found in the Brady Plan’s Comprehensive Approach to Preventing Gun Violence. At eight pages, it is short and eminently readable. It is also freely available online.


Will this be the series of tragedies that prompts a real discussion — from our coffee shops to Congress — about much-needed reform? And will we hold our elected lawmakers responsible for standing up to the NRA?


I hate to think it’s not, and I hate to think we won’t.


chris.schillig@yahoo.com


@cschillig on Twitter

Mueller testimony is political Rorschach test

“They have information — I think I’d take it.”


With these words, President Donald Trump confirmed in June what opponents have suspected for years, that he is morally bankrupt and incapable of putting loyalty to country above loyalty to self (or, perhaps more accurately, loyalty to self-interest, as a friend puts it).


Trump was speaking to ABC News when he was asked how he would handle a foreign government approaching him with dirt on a political opponent and whether he would contact the FBI.


He said he would contact authorities in such a situation only if he “thought there was something wrong,” not realizing or perhaps not caring that an overture from a foreign power falls squarely into this category.


The June exchange was never far from my thoughts as I listened to former special counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony before Congress last week.


Mueller, who has been roundly criticized by both parties for appearing unfamiliar with the details of the report to which he’d signed his name, nonetheless laid out a sweeping case of foreign interference in the American election process.


He haltingly, yet authoritatively, dispelled a prevalent belief among Republicans that the report fully exonerated Trump. He objected to the characterization of his investigation as a witch hunt, noting Trump could be charged once he leaves office. He condemned Trump’s approval of WikiLeaks.


Yet it wasn’t long before Trump, who said earlier in the week that he wouldn’t watch the testimony, proved that statement, too, was a lie. He tweeted and crowed throughout the day, appearing at one point to misunderstand an important clarification that Mueller made regarding the ability to indict a sitting president, saying that Mueller had instead walked back an earlier statement about indictment after leaving office.


Of course, the whole Mueller affair did little to sway anybody’s opinions. Those who supported Trump before the testimony still did, and those who did not, still didn’t. One commentator called it a political Rorschach test, probably the most accurate summation of the day’s testimony.



Of course, it’s not really over for Trump, investigatively. In a piece in the New York Times, Caroline Frederickson, president of the American Constitution Society, spelled out the legal and ethical concerns still facing him. These include ongoing cases against many people named in the report, the president’s past and present business deals with Russia, and how much he and his campaign may have coordinated with WikiLeaks’ release of hacked Democratic emails.


Mueller, for his part, called Trump’s praise of WikiLeaks “beyond problematic.”


In many ways, Mueller’s report and his testimony could be seen as an indictment of unfettered capitalism, where the cutthroat, competitive nature of the business world lends itself to strange bedfellows and situational ethics.


In such an environment, one takes any advantage over an opponent, including insider information from disreputable sources.


Not surprising, then, that some in the Trump election team, well-versed in pages from corporate America’s book of dirty tricks, might resort to the same tactics in politics, perhaps without even knowing that such shenanigans, when undertaken with a foreign country intent on disrupting an election, might be more than unethical. They may be treasonous.


Proving this, however, has been challenging. The smoking gun, if one exists, is well-hidden. And the public seems to have grown weary of the search.


Less challenging is the issue of obstruction. Mueller laid out a damning case for that, including his opinion that the president’s written answers to investigators indicated Trump “generally” was not being truthful.



But there, too, Democrats have to proceed with caution. To impeach the president for attempting to cover up incidents that can’t be proven to have happened in the first place is a tough sell, and they must realize they would never garner the two-thirds Senate majority necessary to remove him. Pursuing the other concerns that Frederickson noted could lead to a stronger case, but it must never take precedence over genuine governance.


Focusing on the 2020 election is likely the better course of action, but still fraught with peril, especially if Trump continues to control the narrative via tweet and bumper-sticker-ready rhetoric.


Yet the president’s own words could also come back to haunt him. If the Dems make election security a key issue — and they should — then Trump’s June statements are as effective a condemnation as any impeachment hearings.


As a bonus, Dems don’t have to prove anything: He already indicated in that interview just how bereft of ethics he truly is. As Maya Angelou said, “When somebody shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”


Many Americans, especially Republicans, haven’t done that with Trump. How about now?

Does binge-watching come with directions?

Gotta face facts: I don’t know how to binge watch TV.


Which is really weird because I have no trouble bingeing in other ways. I binge ice cream. And chocolate chip cookies. And comic books. (I have the palette and aesthetics of an 8-year-old. Sue me.)


But binge watching TV is apparently a bridge too far.


My students often tell me they are bingeing a particular show. Some have watched every episode of “The Office” — all 201 of them — multiple times. One knocked out two seasons of “The Handmaid’s Tale” in as many weeks. Another spent a weekend watching four complete seasons of some reality show whose name escapes me.


I, on the other hand, am attempting to binge watch “Star Trek: Discovery.” I borrowed it from the library a few weeks back. Since then, I have watched one-and-a-half episodes. Pathetic, huh?


It took me two attempts to get through the first episode because I kept falling asleep. I’m having the same trouble with episode two.


It’s not that I don’t like it. The show’s pretty good. They’ve made Trek all grim and gritty, not your father’s Trek, yadda yadda yadda.


But pretty soon, I’ll have to return the set so other people can borrow it. They’ll probably finish all 15 episodes overnight or pace themselves over a weekend, in between full seasons of “Breaking Bad.”


My completion rate is significantly slower.


In the past few months, I’ve “binged” one Hulu series, “The Act,” about a mother who forced her child to use a wheelchair when she didn’t need it. The show had eight episodes. It took me about three weeks.


I also “binged” an eight-episode series from the Oxygen channel, “Dirty John.” It’s about a slimy conman — is there any other kind? — who wriggles his way into the life of a trusting woman and her daughters. I really whipped through that one, comparatively speaking, in about 10 days.


Both shows, by the way, are “based on true stories” or “inspired by real events” or “somewhat tenuously connected to something that might have happened to somebody, somewhere, at some time.” And they’re both enjoyable, but I’m not sure you should take the recommendation of somebody with such limited TV-watching experience.



I appreciate shows that have only seven or eight episodes because I feel like I can commit to them with a reasonable chance of success. Shows with more installments start to feel like a job that you hate — picking mushrooms out of the yard, cleaning the gutters or getting a colonoscopy.


I have a laundry list of failed programs in my wake, series that I have started and then abandoned or that I promise to get back to “someday.”


These include all of the Marvel series, including “Daredevil,” “Jessica Jones,” and “The Punisher. They include the WB’s adaption of “The Flash,” which I really like, despite being three or maybe four seasons behind. I peaced out of “The Handmaid’s Tale” after six episodes, all of which I enjoyed but found too depressing to continue.


My turtle-speed watching is mostly because I don’t prioritize TV viewing. I’d rather be reading or doing something outside, especially in the summer.


Also, I’m more of a movie guy. A 90-minute or two-hour commitment strikes me as more reasonable, a complete story that doesn’t require the broadcast equivalent of a promise ring to see through to the final credits.


Even so, I have an alarming number of movies sitting around, both physically and digitally, that I may get to, at my present rate of consumption, some time in my 70s or 80s.


It’s gotten so bad that my wife and I recently made the decision to move our TV out of the living room. When we watch the news, which is really my must-see TV, we use a tablet or phone, so why build a room around a big black relic?


Earlier this month, we lugged the TV into the basement and plunked it down in front of an old couch. We’ve gone down there to watch three times since. Once was to watch a movie.


To nobody’s surprise, I fell asleep.


chris.schillig@yahoo.com


@cschillig on Twitter