Category: 1

At the Dragon*Con Puppet Slam this year, Kathleen–with the aid of five other puppeteers (Rachel Wyman, John Hudgens, Jamie Kamin, Cheralyn Lambeth, and Hannah Miller)–brought to life my old filk song take off on Billy Joel’s “The Longest Time.” (I updated some of the lyrics considering that when I first wrote it, Tom Baker was the Doctor.) Reenacting the premise of the Joel video, Kathleen brought on the 11th Doctor who appears to have been stood up for a Time Lord reunion…only to have his disappointment turn to joy when his predecessors turn up (the fan-taken video didn’t capture the first thirty seconds which included the TARDIS arrival.)

The only problem was that we had major technical difficulties doing a pre-record, so I had to sing it live and unseen from behind the playboard. I flubbed one of the lines, but no one seemed to notice. Ladies and gentlemen…

A Lord of Time

As one of those bleeding heart liberals that you’ve heard tell about—-the type who buys into the whole global warming thing and wants to allow illegal aliens to overrun the borders so they can falsely vote for that un-American Muslim terrorist Obama—-I’ve found the GOP’s recent drive to protect the sacred voting system to be quite interesting. Why? Because it’s yet another example of just where their priorities are.

It’s worth noting that back in 1790, only white male property owners were able to vote. In 1855 and 1857, Connecticut and Massachusetts implemented literacy requirements for voting. On the surface, not an unreasonable notion: you should be able to read the name of whom you’re voting for. But the main reason was to limit the participation of Irish-Catholic immigrants. In 1890, Mississippi did the same thing in order to counter the voting rights of black slaves given the vote by the 15th Amendment. Since then (and until recently) there has been a relentless drive to widen, not narrow, the right to vote, culminating in a ban on literacy tests in 1975 from the Supreme Court, with Justice Hugo Black citing “the long history of the discriminatory use of literacy tests to disenfranchise voters on account of their race.” (The foregoing information courtesy of infoplease.com).

Yet interestingly there isn’t anything specific in the Constitution that actually guarantees a right to vote. Reasons as to why certain people can’t or at least shouldn’t be discriminated against, yes, but nothing that says flat out, “People have a right to vote.” It’s not enumerated as such. Instead that’s left in the respective hands of the states.

Continue Reading “Shooting off your mouth at the Right to Vote you don’t actually have” →

Bleeding Cool announced yesterday that Marvel is releasing a special edition through Walmart of “The Avengers” on Blu-Ray and DVD, packaged with an all new, original “Avengers” graphic novel. But who (they wondered), WHO could possibly have been involved with the creation of it?

Yeah, uh, that would be me. One hundred page original “Avengers” graphic novel. I’ll let you find out the artist(s) on your own, but the entire story is by yours truly.

You can find out more about the package here

PAD

Remember when the right went bugnuts crazy on the Dixie Chicks because they dared say something critical of Bush?

Wasn’t that fun? I want to play, too!

I have never bought an album by Megadeth before, but now I never will! See why here!

(I wonder how many people will say this and mean it.)

PAD

The fact that Romney hasn’t released more than two years of his tax returns doesn’t bother me.

The fact that he and his people seem annoyed and belligerent and even surprised over the request is what bothers me.

Continue Reading “The Illusion of Transparency” →

There is little to no doubt that the GOP-driven endeavors to block voting for legitimate (and likely Democratic) voters in a number of states has nothing to do with voter fraud and everything to do with trying to tilt the odds in their favor for the next election.

So I, with my complete lack of education in the law, find myself wondering whether disenfranchised voters constitutes a class in and of themselves and they can actually sue the entirety of the Republican party in general and in specific the legislatures in the nine states that are complicit in this indisputably partisan endeavor? Of course, the whole point of this exercise is to target the poor and those least likely to have the resources to defend their rights, so it’s not likely to happen. But I still wonder if it’s possible?

PAD

So a few weeks ago I attended a book fair in Lima, Peru. I was asked to go by the State Department; apparently I’d gotten good feedback from the folks in Uruguay a year or two ago. So when this Lima Book Fair, a co-production of the Lima government and the State Department, appeared on the horizon, I was suggested by the State Department as a guest (along with several other folks) and it seems the people in Lima were really enthused by that. Of course, since they all read translations of my work, I’m figuring it’s more of an endorsement of the translator’s skill than anything else.

Anyway, as I’ve learned with my multiple adventures getting into and out of Canada, nothing comes easily for me when it involves air travel.

Continue Reading “Adventures in Lima: Getting There” →