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CONTRA COSTA COUNTY / Wood chips ruled unfriendly to disabled kids
A Contra Costa County school district's use of wood chips in play boxes makes it harder for boys and girls in wheelchairs to get to swings and slides, a violation of the disabled children's rights, a federal judge has ruled.
The decision by U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken of Oakland could lead to replacement of wood chips with firmer surfaces in public playgrounds at other schools and parks around the country, said a representative of the group that sued the Mount Diablo Unified School District in central Contra Costa.
"Our experts and people with disabilities tell us that wood chip surfaces are not accessible," said Larry Paradis, executive director of Disability Rights Advocates. "They constantly form mounds and gullies ... and they're impossible to maintain. Little kids in wheelchairs are already struggling to get around, they have less muscular strength, and it's important that play structures be easily accessible for them so they can be mainstreamed (with other children) as much as possible."
Wilken ruled this week that the Mount Diablo district, which has 32 elementary schools and 16 middle and high schools, was violating a 2000 agreement to make its playgrounds accessible to the disabled because it uses wood chips. She gave school officials a month to work out a replacement plan with Disability Rights Advocates, representing a student who sued the Concord-based district in 1998.
Paradis said Friday that he would like the district to install rubberized play box matting, which he said costs more to put in than wood chips but less to maintain.
Attorneys for the school district were unavailable for comment on the ruling. In a recent court filing, district lawyer Gregory Widmer said there was "no evidence that any student with a mobility disability ever complained about the accessibility" of play boxes with wood chip surfaces. He also said rubberized mats are eight times as expensive as wood chips and would cost the district more than $2.7 million if installed in 32 play boxes.
But Paradis said wood chips don't meet disabled children's needs for a firm and stable surface, with little or no sloping, to wheel themselves to swings, slides and sandboxes. He said wood chip manufacturers have been boosting their sales and misleading customers by asserting that their product meets the standards of disability laws.
However, a playground designer said Friday that federal regulators have found that engineered wood fiber, the product used in schools and parks, complies with accessibility standards if properly compacted and maintained.
"Most places can't maintain it to that level, and they're probably better off with rubber," to reduce maintenance costs and the likelihood of lawsuits, said Susan Goltsman, whose Oakland firm, MIG, also designs schools and zoos. She said both products are safe, although wood chips are more yielding and may cushion falls better.
Aesthetically, though, a mix is best, Goltsman said. "If you've got a monoculture of the same surfacing material everywhere, you've got a boring environment," she said. "It's like having asphalt everywhere."
Wilken's ruling follows a report by an MIG consultant who studied the play boxes and their use by disabled children in the 2005-06 school year. Both sides said the consultant's findings supported their position.
Paradis said he hopes the case encourages other districts in California and elsewhere to quit installing new wood chip play boxes and gradually replace the old ones.
"We want districts to learn from Mount Diablo's mistake," he said.


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Without owning a home, can a veteran get a loan to pay off credit card debt? by p.pohlman718 from Menasha, Wisconsin. Aug 1st 2017
No, VA loans are really VA home loans. They are tied to property, so without a home, there is no loan. For VA loans in MN, WI, and SD, visit me at www.VAMortgageMN.com
There may be some personal type (unsecured) loans you can utilize for consolidating debt, but in order to utilize VA Home Loan, homeownership is required. I hope this helps!
The VA offers a very nice home loan option for those looking to purchase a home or refinance a home that they already own. With a VA "Cash Out" refinance, you may be eligible to take up to 100% of the equity in the form of cash in hand. However it sounds like your question is not so much real estate related, as it is personal unsecured financing. I posed this question to a personal friend who is a branch manager of a larger bank in the Twin Cities. He stated that for retail banking, he is not aware of any VA specific programs unfortunately... Perhaps some banks may offer a veteran special or discount to those that qualify in your area. But you'd have to check with them about the options you may have for unsecured personal loans.
Anyone can get a loan to pay off credit card debt (Personal, unsecured), so long as you have sufficient credit and meet that lenders guidelines, but there is not specific program for Veterans. The VA home loan is only used for the purchase of a primary residence. I'm a preferred Lender with Arizona and California being my primary markets. If you or someone you know is looking for financing options, feel free to contact me or pass along my information. 480-287-5714 WilliamAcres.com NMLS# 226347 / RPM Mortgage NMLS 1541014 / AZMB0121893
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Back To The Edge
I seem to be returning to subjects a lot at the moment, which is a good thing and one I'll in turn come back to at some point.
Today it's the Edgelands, courtesy of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.
Almost a year ago I finished a post by saying :
It's, (to me), a fascinating subject, the Edgelands, and there seems to be so much interesting stuff written about them. Maybe I'll come back to you / me on the subject when I've investigated further.
So it's been awhile but back to the subject I've come, this time via an exhibition featuring the work of George Shaw and Michael Landy – with Shaw revisiting the "scenes of his childhood on the Tile Hill council estate in the suburbs of Coventry", and Landy contributing prints portraying weeds "the overlooked and neglected flora of Edgelands".
Landy's work was new to me and was interesting albeit as much for the journey to the finished pieces than the pieces themselves, however I was really there for George Shaw's work which I think is tremendous even when produced without the trademark enamel paints which he's become synonymous with.
That said whilst I do love Shaw's work I do find it enormously unsettling too, although perhaps that's not surprising – "his anxiety at feeling out of place in the landscape of his own past is often potently expressed in locations where the edge of the estate runs into the wilderness or trees blur into the distinction between urban and wild".
The exhibition runs until Sunday 23rd September and whilst it's only small it does have the decency to be perfectly well formed and as such I'd highly recommend it to you.
Filed under: Art | Leave a Comment
Tags: Coventry, Edgelands, Fitzwilliam Museum, Michael Landy, Tile Hill
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Digital Editions
If the list of winners in the 2011 Streaming Media European Readers' Choice Awards is any indication, 2011 has been a banner year for both established names and up-and-comers.
More than 4,000 readers submitted their votes in the awards, offering up their choices among the 281 nominees in 13 categories. The total number of votes was a whopping 14,377, which means that, on average, each reader cast votes in 3 or 4 categories.
Here's a list of the winners, which we announced at Streaming Media Europe, held at the Olympia Conference Centre in London in October. We've also included the two runners-up in each category—the second and third biggest vote-getters.
Congratulations to all, and thanks to Interxion for sponsoring this year's awards.
Transcoding Solution Sorenson Squeeze
Server hardware/software Wowza Media Server 3
Online Video Platformi2i Media ISSTV
Mobile Video App or SolutionLiveU LU30 and LU60
TV over IP Solution Accenture TV over IP Solution
Reporting and AnalyticsAlcatel-Lucent AppGlide Video Analytics
Streaming Service Provider Xstream
Video Advertising Platform Quick.tv Quick Widgets
Webcast Platform Flumotion Online Video & Radio Platform
Delivery Network Amazon Web Services Cloudfront
Music & Audio Delivery Solution i2i Media BMETV
Best Live Webcast of 2011Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, "Hurtigruten - Minute by Minute"
Best Streaming Innovation Wowza Media Server 3


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My obsession for chips and salsa/guacamole has come to a halt. Why? Because of my new obsession with the horrors of genetically modified (GM) foods. The corn in tortilla chips is one of the major GM foods. The more I read, the more terrified I became. Especially when I thought about my child spending playdates in other kids homes – with parents or nannies who are not educated on GM dangers. We need to educate ourselves and our friends – FAST! GM foods cause everything from sterility and infertility to allergies and cancers. Wake-up in restaurants – talk about no regulation.
I have included two articles below. One explains the health problems brought on with GM foods and the other from www.foodbabe.com which gets more specific about food labeling and how companies that use GM foods try to trick customers by cunning labeling strategies.
The health information featured below is excerpted from Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risk of Genetically Engineered Foods, by Jeffrey M. Smith
Health Risks
In 2009, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) stated that, "Several animal studies indicate serious health risks associated with genetically modified (GM) food," including infertility, immune problems, accelerated aging, faulty insulin regulation, and changes in major organs and the gastrointestinal system. The AAEM has asked physicians to advise all patients to avoid GM foods.
Starting in 1996, Americans have been eating genetically modified (GM) ingredients in most processed foods. Why isn't the FDA protecting us?
In 1992, the Food and Drug Administration claimed they had no information showing that GM foods were substantially different from conventionally grown foods. Therefore they are safe to eat, and absolutely no safety studies were required. But internal memos made public by a lawsuit reveal that their position was staged by political appointees who were under orders from the White House to promote GMOs. In addition, the FDA official in charge of creating this policy was Michael Taylor, the former attorney for Monsanto, the largest biotech company, and later their vice president.
In reality, FDA scientists had repeatedly warned that GM foods can create unpredictable, hard-to-detect side effects, including allergies, toxins, new diseases, and nutritional problems. They urged long-term safety studies, but were ignored.
Today, the same biotech companies who have been found guilty of hiding toxic effects of their chemical products are in charge of determining whether their GM foods are safe. Industry-funded GMO safety studies are too superficial to find most of the potential dangers, and their voluntary consultations with the FDA are widely criticized as a meaningless façade.
GM plants, such as soybean, corn, cottonseed, and canola, have had foreign genes forced into their DNA. The inserted genes come from species, such as bacteria and viruses, which have never been in the human food supply.
Genetic engineering transfers genes across natural species barriers. It uses imprecise laboratory techniques that bear no resemblance to natural breeding, and is based on outdated concepts of how genes and cells work. Gene insertion is done either by shooting genes from a "gene gun" into a plate of cells or by using bacteria to invade the cell with foreign DNA. The altered cell is then cloned into a plant.
Widespread, unpredictable changes
The genetic engineering process creates massive collateral damage, causing mutations in hundreds or thousands of locations throughout the plant's DNA. Natural genes can be deleted or permanently turned on or off, and hundreds may change their behavior. Even the inserted gene can be damaged or rearranged, and may create proteins that can trigger allergies or promote disease.
GM foods on the market
There are eight GM food crops. The five major varieties—soy, corn, canola, cotton, and sugar beets—have bacterial genes inserted, which allow the plants to survive an otherwise deadly dose of weed killer. Farmers use considerably more herbicides on these GM crops and so the food has higher herbicide residues. About 68% of GM crops are herbicide tolerant.
The second GM trait is a built-in pesticide, found in GM corn and cotton. A gene from the soil bacterium called Bt (for Bacillus thuringiensis) is inserted into the plant's DNA, where it secretes the insect-killing Bt-toxin in every cell. About 19% of GM crops produce their own pesticide. Another 13% produce a pesticide and are herbicide tolerant.
There is also Hawaiian papaya and a small amount of zucchini and yellow crookneck squash, which are engineered to resist a plant virus.
Growing evidence of harm from GMOs
GM soy and allergic reactions
- Soy allergies skyrocketed by 50% in the UK, soon after GM soy was introduced.
- A skin prick allergy test shows that some people react to GM soy, but not to wild natural soy.
- Cooked GM soy contains as much as 7-times the amount of a known soy allergen.
- GM soy also contains a new unexpected allergen, not found in wild natural soy.
Bt corn and cotton linked to allergies
The biotech industry claims that Bt-toxin is harmless to humans and mammals because the natural bacteria version has been used as a spray by farmers for years. In reality, hundreds of people exposed to Bt spray had allergic-type symptoms, and mice fed Bt had powerful immune responses and damaged intestines Moreover, the Bt in GM crops is designed to be more toxic than the natural spray and is thousands of times more concentrated.
Farm workers throughout India are getting the same allergic reactions from handling Bt cotton as those who reacted to Bt spray. Mice and rats fed Bt corn also showed immune responses.
GMOs fail allergy tests
No tests can guarantee that a GMO will not cause allergies. Although the World Health Organization recommends a screening protocol, the GM soy, corn, and papaya in our food supply fail those tests—because their GM proteins have properties of known allergens.
GMOs may make you allergic to non-GM foods
- GM soy drastically reduces digestive enzymes in mice. If it also impairs your digestion, you may become sensitive and allergic to a variety of foods.
- Mice fed Bt-toxin started having immune reactions to formerly harmless foods.
- Mice fed experimental GM peas also started reacting to a range of other foods. (The peas had already passed all the allergy tests normally done before a GMO gets on the market. Only this advanced test, which is never used on the GMOs we eat, revealed that the peas could actually be deadly.)
GMOs and liver problems
- Rats fed GM potatoes had smaller, partially atrophied livers.
- The livers of rats fed GM canola were 12-16% heavier.
- GM soy altered mouse liver cells in ways that suggest a toxic insult. The changes reversed after they switched to non-GM soy
GMOs, reproductive problems, and infant mortality
- More than half the babies of mother rats fed GM soy died within three weeks.
- Male rats and mice fed GM soy had changed testicles, including altered young sperm cells in the mice.
- The DNA of mouse embryos functioned differently when their parents ate GM soy
- The longer mice were fed GM corn, the less babies they had, and the smaller their babies were.
- Babies of female rats fed GM soy were considerably smaller, and more than half died within three weeks (compared to 10% of the non-GM soy controls).
- Female rats fed GM soy showed changes in their ovaries and uterus.
- By the third generation, most hamsters fed GM soy were unable to have babies.
Bt crops linked to sterility, disease, and death
- Thousands of sheep, buffalo, and goats in India died after grazing on Bt cotton plants after harvest. Others suffered poor health and reproductive problems.
- Farmers in Europe and Asia say that cows, water buffaloes, chickens, and horses died from eating Bt corn varieties.
- About two dozen US farmers report that Bt corn varieties caused widespread sterility in pigs or cows.
- Filipinos in at least five villages fell sick when a nearby Bt corn variety was pollinating.
- The stomach lining of rats fed GM potatoes showed excessive cell growth, a condition that may lead to cancer. Rats also had damaged organs and immune systems.
Functioning GM genes remain inside you
Unlike safety evaluations for drugs, there are no human clinical trials of GM foods. The only published human feeding experiment revealed that the genetic material inserted into GM soy transfers into bacteria living inside our intestines and continues to function. This means that long after we stop eating GM foods, we may still have their GM proteins produced continuously inside us.
- If the antibiotic gene inserted into most GM crops were to transfer, it could create super diseases, resistant to antibiotics.
- If the gene that creates Bt-toxin in GM corn were to transfer, it might turn our intestinal bacteria into living pesticide factories.
- Animal studies show that DNA in food can travel into organs throughout the body, even into the fetus.
GM food supplement caused deadly epidemic
In the 1980s, a contaminated brand of a food supplement called L-tryptophan killed about 100 Americans and caused sickness and disability in another 5,000-10,000 people. The source of contaminants was almost certainly the genetic engineering process used in its production. The disease took years to find and was almost overlooked. It was only identified because the symptoms were unique, acute, and fast-acting. If all three characteristics were not in place, the deadly GM supplement might never have been identified or removed.
If GM foods on the market are causing common diseases or if their effects appear only after long-term exposure, we may not be able to identify the source of the problem for decades, if at all. There is no monitoring of GMO-related illnesses and no long-term animal studies. Heavily invested biotech corporations are gambling with the health of our nation for their profit.
Help end the genetic engineering of our food supply
When the tipping point of consumer concern about GMOs was achieved in Europe in 1999, within a single week virtually all major food manufacturers committed to remove GM ingredients. The Campaign for Healthier Eating in America is designed to reach a similar tipping point in the US soon.
Our growing network of manufacturers, retailers, healthcare practitioners, organizations, and the media, is informing consumers of the health risks of GMOs and helping them select healthier non-GMO alternatives with our Non-GMO Shopping Guides.
Start buying non-GMO today. Help us stop the genetic engineering of our food supply.
From foodbabe.com – amazing site FYI!
Non-labeled food products most likely contain GMOs if the ingredients include a corn or soy byproduct.
Before I get into the shocking results of the report, I want to share with you why I personally try to avoid GMOs in my diet:
- There are no mandatory safety assessments required before GMOs are introduced into our food system.
- GMOs have contributed to more toxic pesticide usage since their inception. I want the pollution of our earth to stop. The types of environmental chemicals we are being exposed to are what the President's cancer Panel says will destine 41% of us to get cancer in our lifetime.
- There are no long term human studies to prove GMOs are safe.
- GMOs are responsible for killing bee colonies. Without bees, we are in big trouble.
- I could go on with more reasons, but one in particular is very personal. I used to suffer from some of the worst allergies. I have been hospitalized multiple times because of them. I used to be on several prescription drugs to control them too. When I removed GMOs from my diet, eating a majority of organic whole, unprocessed foods, my allergies vanished and was able to stop taking all my prescription medications. I feel like I have ten times more energy now and feel incredible. For this reason alone, I take avoiding GMOs very seriously.
GMOs are running rampant in our food supply
Earlier this year, the Consumer Reports Food Safety and Sustainability Center sent out secret shoppers to purchase more than 80 processed food products in New York and Seattle, which included a wide range of products all containing corn or soy ingredients: breakfast cereals, bars, corn chips, corn tortillas, baking mixes and flours, baby formulas, meat substitutes, soy "dairy" products, and tofu/tempeh products. Then, they tested these products to see if they contained any GMO ingredients, and if so, how much. This is important because the overwhelming majority of processed food in America contains corn or soy ingredients, which are also the most prevalent genetically modified crops, yet most major food manufacturers are strongly against labeling GMO ingredients. We are being left in the dark in this country, and virtually the only way to know whether a product contains GMOs is to have it tested – and that's exactly what Consumer Reports did.
What I love is that Consumer Reports essentially just slapped a big fat GMO label on a few dozen everyday food products here in America, including many that are considered "Natural" and healthy. The manufacturers of these foods do not want you to know that their products contain GMOs and have collectively spent millions of dollars to fight against labeling laws, depriving us of our right to know. This is outrageous considering that 92% of American consumers want GMO labeling on food and are becoming increasingly aware of how prevalent GMOs have become in our food supply.
The "Natural" Label: It's a sham.
Consumer Reports tested several products that are labeled as "Natural" because they found that the majority of Americans still believe that the "Natural" label means that they are non-GMO. The word "Natural" on a product means absolutely nothing in regards to GMOs – the FDA has failed to define the use of this term which allows food manufacturers to deceptively label their products as "Natural" to trick us into thinking their product is better than the others on the shelf. Consumer Reports notes that, "Consumers who want to avoid GE ingredients should not rely on products labeled "natural" to avoid GMOs. This label is highly confusing and generally misleading for consumers and Consumer Reports is asking the government to ban its use on food". They should – because GMOs are not natural. As put by the Institute for Responsible Technology:
"A GMO (genetically modified organism) is the result of a laboratory process where genes from the DNA of one species are extracted and artificially forced into the genes of an unrelated plant or animal. The foreign genes may come from bacteria, viruses, insects, animals or even humans… With genetic engineering, scientists can breach species barriers set up by nature. For example, they have spliced fish genes into tomatoes. The results are plants (or animals) with traits that would be virtually impossible to obtain with natural processes, such as crossbreeding or grafting."
Yet, GMOs remain in "Natural" foods all over the country.
Consumer Reports found that some "Natural" products contained similar amounts of GMOs as their counterparts without a natural label. For instance, they found substantial quantities of GMO corn or GMO soy in popular "Natural" foods such as Kashi GoLean Honey & Cinnamon hot cereal (owned by Kellogg's), Utz All Natural Multigrain Tortillas, and Nature Valley Crunchy Oats 'N Honey Granola Bars (owned by General Mills).
From Consumer Reports – Products guilty of using GMOs (A-Z):
Betty Crocker Authentic Cornbread & Muffin Mix
Boca Original Vegan Veggie Burgers
Corn Tortillas/Tortilla Flour
Doritos Oven Baked Nacho Cheese
Enfamil ProSobee Soy Infant Formula
General Mills Cocoa Puffs
General Mills Corn Chex
General Mills Kix
General Mills Trix
Gerber Good Start Soy
Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix
Kashi GoLean (in the process of of getting Non-GMO project verified)
Kashi GoLean Hearty Honey & Cinnamon (Hot Cereal)
Kellogg's Froot Loops
Kellogg's Special K Protein Chocolatey Peanut Butter Granola Snack Bar
Krusteaz Natural Honey Cornbread & Muffin Mix
La Banderita Corn Tortillas
Maseca Instant Corn Masa Flour
Mission White Corn Tortillas
Mission Yellow Corn Tortillas
MorningStar Farms Chik'n Nuggets
MorningStar Farms Grillers California Turk'y Burger
Nature Valley Crunchy Oats 'N Honey Granola Bars
Nature Valley Protein Peanut Butter Dark Chocolate Chewy Bar
Nice! Oats & Honey Crunchy Granola Bar (Walgreens)
Old El Paso Crunchy Taco Shells
Ortega Yellow Corn Taco Shells
PowerBar Performance Energy Chocolate Peanut Butter
Quaker Life Original
Quaker Yellow Corn Meal
Similac Go & Grow Soy Infant Formula
Similac Soy Isomil
Snyder's of Hanover Yellow Corn Tortilla Chips
Tostitos Multigrain Tortilla Chips
Utz All Natural Multigrain Tortillas (some lots tested were non-GMO)
Xochitl Totopos de Maíz (labeling claim "No GMO")
Just because it seems healthy doesn't make it non-GMO.
Several products that many people think of as healthy (even without a "Natural" label) tested positive for GMOs, like Quaker Life Original cereal, PowerBar Performance Energy Chocolate Peanut Butter bars, MorningStar Farms Grillers California Turk'y burgers, and Boca Original Vegan Veggie Burgers. Most disturbingly, all soy-based infant formulas they tested (that are not labeled organic) are made with GMO soy, which included Enfamil Prosobee, Gerber Good Start, Similac Go and Grow, and Similac Soy Isomil.
Unverified Non-GMO claims: Don't fall for it.
One of the most shocking things that Consumer Reports uncovered is that Xochitl Totopos de Maiz original corn chips (the non-organic variety) contain on average more than 75% GMO corn, although they claim right on the front of the bag that they contain no GMOs. Consumer Reports tested 6 packages of non-organic Xochitl chips from different lots and found GMOs in every single one. These chips aren't verified by the Non-GMO project, but they contain the misleading statements "All Natural" and "No GMO" on the package. This just goes to show that because there are no regulations in place to ensure that non-verified claims can be trusted, the only way to be certain that you're avoiding GMOs is to look for the verified seal or 100% certified organic food. Most of the products that Consumer Reports tested without a Non-GMO Project Verified or Certified Organic label contained GMO ingredients – with few exceptions. Consumer Reports concluded that the "USDA Organic" and "Non-GMO Project" seal is reliable. This is why I do not purchase products that contain high-risk GMO ingredients without a 100% certified organic or Non-GMO Project Verified label.
Tips to use this information and avoid GMOs at the grocery store:
- Never buy products purely based on "Natural" or "100% All Natural" label claims.
- Look for 100% Certified USDA Organic labels on food.
- Don't blindly trust a non-GMO ingredient label claim that is not verified with a Non-GMO project seal or verification of 3rd party testing or certified organic.
- Read ingredient labels and watch out for common, particularly anything derived from corn, soy, canola, cottonseed, sugar beets, papaya, zucchini and squash.
- Do not buy any products that Consumer Reports verified contains GMOs (see the complete list from their report above).
Consumer Reports supports mandatory GMO labeling
"Despite this consumer demand, there are no requirements for labeling genetically engineered ingredients in processed foods and there is extremely limited safety testing required. Without labeling, there is a lack of transparency in the marketplace and Consumers' Union, the policy and advocacy arm of Consumer Reports, is actively engaged in a campaign to have foods with GE ingredients (also known as Genetically Modified Organisms or GMOs) labeled. In the meantime, consumers are unable to make informed purchasing decisions".
Consumer Reports dispel many of the myths (and lies) circulating about GMOs, such as:
- GMOs are necessary to feed the world (FALSE)
"it is interesting to note that the world already produces more than enough food to feed all its inhabitants. Hunger, whether in the US and or other parts of the world, is not caused by an insufficient quantity of food being grown. Rather it is caused by disparities in wealth, waste, wars, and market inefficiencies… Looking at the long term outlook, GE foods may actually threaten food availability and increase food costs".
- GMOs are required to undergo pre-market safety testing by the FDA (FALSE)
"FDA, which regulates food safety, does not require any safety assessment of the GE crops, but invites companies to provide data for a voluntary safety review. This is in contrast to other major economies such as European Union, Australia, Japan, and China, which all require that a premarket mandatory safety assessment of GE crops is conducted"
- GMOs are safe for the environment (FALSE)
"GE crops can have a significant negative imp, in fact the opposite is true… The vast increase in herbicide use, especially glyphosate (trade name ), has caused weeds to become resistant to them, and this chemical is losing its effectiveness… In addition, studies suggest that glyphosate-tolerant crops and the use of glyphosate are likely more responsible for the large decline in monarch butterfly populations than are declines in the overwintering habitat in Mexico, since this herbicide use is wiping out most of the milkweed, which the Monarch butterfly depends on for food."
GMOs have been proven safe to eat (FALSE act on the environment. Although the industry often claims that GE crops reduce pesticide use
"There is global scientific agreement that genetic engineering has the potential to introduce allergens and toxins in food crops, to change the nutritional value, and to create other unintended changes that may affect human health."
The tide is beginning to turn in this country – I can feel it!
The more knowledgeable we become about the use of GMOs in our food, the more quickly we will get transparency. When we voice our opinion to these companies, they have proven time and again that they are willing to change – and they have. Consumer Reports noted that, "between testing and publishing of this report, that there were manufacturers who were obtaining or obtained Non-GMO Project Verified certification. This demonstrates an actively changing market that seems to be responding to consumer demand." There are few things you can do to help keep this moving in the right direction:
- If you live in Oregon or Colorado, cast your vote in favor of GMO labeling this November. More information can be found on the Oregan Right to Know and the Colorado Right to Know websites.
- If you know someone who lives in Oregon or Colorado, call them, facebook them, tweet them or go visit them and ask them to cast their vote in favor of GMO labeling.
- If you live elsewhere, contact your state legislators and tell them you support mandatory labeling of GMO food.
- Spread the word by sharing this post with everyone you know.
Thank you for your commitment to a more transparent food system.
FOLLOW me (button in right column) to receive an email when new anti-aging tips post. You too can be as luscious as a goddess and as ageless as a vampire! Check out my ebook on amazon: The Ultimate Guide to Anti-Aging. (Link in right bar) Remember, knowledge is power.


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Wonderful Workshops in England: Short Summary
It was a great pleasure for me to meet all beautiful people in England! Every day I was thanking spirits of the ancient land for opening the space for teachings which I shared with the blessing of my Spiritual Teacher. These 2 weeks were something special for me: we started from Stonehenge with drums ritual and the last day yesterday we also conducted the ritual. Love my new friends and students very much and my intuition tells me that we will see each other very soon again! Thank you, Great Spirit of United Kingdom!
With love, Diana Suemi


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Those last two episodes of Toaru Hikuushi e no Koiuta were definitively rushed and out of pace, I feel like there was way too much going on near the end that should have been split between multiple episode and that it kind of lessen the power of the conclusion for the show. From the look of things the show ends in a rather open ended way, but it is not a frustrating ending in the least. I feel that the show really stop at a good point that makes me feel satisfied with the story in a way that I won't be mad even if a second season never airs.
Overall I must say that I'm a bit surprise we even have the premise of a second season because I feel like a lot of the mysteries and point of interest of the show were over with, I'm sure there is a lot more potential to expand the universe, it is an interesting one after all, but I'm uncertain if setting up for a second season was really that necessary. Second Season aside, let's focus on this episode instead.
I was rather shocked to see that they were already back home at the beginning of the episode. Just last episode they left off at the edge of the world and now the episode starts back to their homeland? This weird pacing really screw with me a bit, I feel cheated by the way the story skips so much time and content at time. It may also be because of the weird pacing and because the speech was rushed, but I felt completely stupid listening to Karl talking about the girl he loves as an excuse to launch a crusade. I understand the romantic purpose the story wanted to convey and enthrall the people there, but it was told in such stupid fashion I doubt anyone but a 8 years old girl would have fallen for that "romantic drama". I feel like the concept they wanted to do and objective of the speech could have happened, just not that way.
Another thing that really struck me was how much everyone on Isla had grown since the last episode. It makes you wonder how nothing important could have happened if they look 2 years older now. I mean at this point they are not boys and girls anymore, they are real adult, they have graduated from their flight school, which let's be honest they've earned since they already fought so many time already to begin with, and are not off to live their life.
It was rather weird to see the lot of them coming back to their homeland after they were all sent to a suicide mission. People must be really annoyed to see them back. It must especially be awkward politically speaking to have the prince of the ancient regime come back with all those people you've sent to die. I'm sure they must be delighted to send them back away, and I'm sure they'll want them to actually die this time around. If those guys comes back too often they will build the reputation of heroes and could usurp the power from them, which would be pretty bad.
All in all, I loved the show until those last two episode, I feel like this episode in particular was just too much too quickly for me. I wish it would have been more spread-out and continued on a more continuous pace. Oh well, tune in next week for the final impression of the show.
ZeroGhj signing off


text: Happy Pi Day! Posted on March 14, 2012March 14, 2012 by Tony Caselli Today: 3/14 Pi: 3.14 π (sometimes written pi) is a mathematical constant that is the ratio of any Euclidean circle's circumference to its diameter. π is approximately equal to 3.14. Share this:TwitterFacebookMoreEmailLinkedInRedditLike this:Like Loading... Published by Tony Caselli Dad, Husband, Director. Artistic Director of the Williamston Theatre. Baseball fan, Sci-Fi fan, Theatre fan. Spent some time in a coma, now enjoying my Bonus Levels. View all posts by Tony Caselli


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Texas Insider
Hutchison: Military Construction Program Should be Fiscally Responsible Strategically Sound
VIDEO: Senator Hutchison's Floor Speech on Military Construction.
Texas Insider Report: WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) delivered a speech on the U.S. Senate floor about the U.S. Department of Defense's Military Construction program and its apparent strategy shift to expand overseas presence rather than increase primarily base troops on U.S. soil. Sen. Hutchison is concerned about the costs of this strategy shift and what that means for our American soldiers and their families and for the growing debt and deficits that are burdening American taxpayers.
A transcript of Sen. Hutchison's remarks is available below after the video.
Floor Speech
Overseas Basing and Military Construction
U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison
July 13, 2010
Mr. President, I rise today to talk about our Military Construction program and some concerns that I have about an apparent shift in strategy, what that means for our American soldiers and their families, and for the growing debt and deficits that we are seeing by the taxpayers in this country.
Without question, our Military Construction program should be both fiscally responsible and driven by the future security posture of U.S. forces. Dating back to the end of the Cold War, the U.S. military determined that our Armed Forces would be best trained and equipped for service when stationed at installations on U.S. soil. Our military adopted a "force projection" strategy that allows our U.S. stationed service men and women to deploy from home, rather than being based primarily overseas.
This Congress has been very supportive of the Army's transformation to a more modular and expeditionary force structure, allowing more troops to be stationed in the United States. And we have done military construction to accommodate those troops coming back. In 2005, the Overseas Basing Commission reaffirmed the force projection strategy. It applauded the vision behind the Pentagon's efforts to transform the military and re-station tens of thousands of military personnel back on U.S. soil. Our own base closing commission provided for the building of our military construction in America so that those troops coming back would have the hosing and training facilities to accommodate them and their families. So the Pentagon's strategy, endorsed by the Overseas Basing Commission, has guided the way Congress directs resources and funding for Military Construction facilities.
We've invested more than $14 billion to build housing, stationing, training, and deployment capacities at major military installations in the United States. And we have proven we can best deploy from the United States – and we can do it more cost-effectively.
Despite these taxpayer-backed investments, the Pentagon's current MILCON program is shifting military construction projects, military forces, and taxpayer dollars overseas. Strategically, this would set in motion a worldwide transformation of U.S. basing that would actually expand our overseas presence. And this at a time when the aid given to American efforts in the War on Terror is, with a few exceptions, not impressive.
Finally, DOD is pursuing expensive and in some cases duplicative military construction projects in Europe, Korea, and Guam without demonstrating adequate cost efficiencies or projected future costs. This shift in global posture fundamentally disconnects with stateside basing capabilities and reverses the Overseas Basing Commission's recommendations that were passed by Congress.
In Germany, massive plans are underway to move U.S. Army Headquarters from Heidelberg to Wiesbaden. I question this move because European and African Commands already have substantial infrastructure in Stuttgart, where efficiencies would be available. And the Government Accountability Office does not believe the Army will achieve any cost-savings.
Not only would these huge and costly projects create thousands of foreign jobs, but they would require continuous taxpayer funding to maintain facilities and training capabilities.
The United States has averaged spending $278 million per year in Germany in the last 5 years, but the Department of Defense now plans to raise that spending to $750 million per year. It costs nearly 15 percent less to build in the United States than to build in Germany. And while American taxpayers have invested $1.4 billion in German infrastructure from 2006 to 2010, Germany's contribution has averaged $20 million per year – or less than 10 percent.
This is a poor taxpayer investment considering the serious limitations to U.S. military training and deployment capabilities overseas. It would also create duplicative headquarters at several locations in Germany. Our troops must have access to training areas where they can maneuver freely, conduct live-fire exercises, and work with night-vision devices. Many overseas locations prohibit such intensive training. Others allow only certain aspects of the training to be done under closely monitored circumstances. These limitations hinder the readiness of our troops, while taxing our citizens more.
Deployment impediments also exist in Europe. During times of peace and war, our troops face restrictions traveling through many countries surrounding Germany. In 2003, deploying American forces from Germany into Iraq was complicated when several European countries denied U.S. troops access to air or ground routes. Merely having our troops forward-deployed is no guarantee that they will be available when and where we need them.
DOD is also planning to spend millions to build deployment facilities in Korea. The Pentagon is proposing to shift one-year deployments for troops alone to three-year tours that include their families. This change would expand U.S. presence in Korea from 30,000 service personnel to approximately 84,000, counting dependents.
Substantial taxpayer funding would be required to build adequate housing, schools, hospitals, fitness centers, childcare facilities, commissaries, and more. We have asked for the numbers that would be projected for this. The Department has not given us any numbers nor any projections on the costs of adding 50,000 more people into Korea than we now have.
Investing these resources into Korea makes no sense when we are already building up infrastructure and deployment capabilities at U.S. bases, where amenities to support military families are well-established.
Plans to shift Marines currently stationed in Japan to the tiny island of Guam are also problematic. There are significant environmental concerns with trying to accommodate such a large number of military personnel in such a small space – and the island lacks sufficient existing infrastructure.
In addition to that, the timeline for transitioning Marines stationed in Japan is implausible and the costs are staggering. They are now estimated at $16 billion. With these considerable barriers, better basing alternatives should be explored. Again, we have asked the Department to look into this, to give alternatives – we have suggested alternatives. We have received nothing back,
The Department of Defense has indicated that this new military construction program is intended to "build partnership capacity." Some argue that U.S. presence overseas provides assurance to our allies and deterrence to our adversaries. History has shown that this is not always the case.
Basing American military personnel at key locations in Europe did not deter the Russians from conducting military operations against Georgia in 2008. Even with our 30,000 troops in Korea, North Korea did not hesitate to attack a South Korean naval vessel in May of this year. And let's look at what the partnership agreements that we are seeking have given us so far. We are in a War on Terror in which the United States has 78,000 troops. Germany has 4,350. The United Kingdom has double what Germany has. So the UK, which has a small population, has more troops by double than Germany, yet we are looking at all of this build-up in Germany for building partnership capacity.
Germany contributes 4 percent of NATO troops to Afghanistan, but they have strict rules of engagement that include not going on offense and restrictions on night operations.
If we are going to do so much on our own, does it make sense for the American taxpayer to be building what would be about a $1.5 billion more in Germany in facilities that we already have in the United States. Or if there needs to be more Army building in Germany, at least do it in Stuttgart where the Army already has a headquarters instead of an all new operation in Wiesbaden.
If the United States really wants to assure our allies and deter our enemies, we should do it with strong military capabilities and sound policy – not by keeping troops stationed overseas, not siphoning funds from equipment and arms and putting it into duplicative military construction.
Instead of breaking ground on military projects abroad and advancing the Department's new goal of building "partnership capacity," we should be building American infrastructure. We are carrying the heaviest load by far in the War on Terror, and we are carrying it for freedom loving people throughout the world. We need to build-up bases in our country, which we have already done, to accommodate the strategy since the Cold War, and yet we seem to be reversing that strategy. And I am asking why. I have asked the Department of Defense, I have asked the Secretary of Defense for answers and have not yet been able to receive anything that would show why we would make such a huge investment in their foreign bases with training constraints and deployment restraints when we could do the same thing at home and deploy our troops at will.
Military Construction Investment Should Reflect Today's Strategy
Following World War II, the U.S. constructed bases in Europe to establish a strong presence as nations rebuilt. We stayed in Europe and placed bases in Korea to protect the interests of America and its allies during the Cold War. The world has changed, and with it, our nation's military's priorities must also change. Our military construction investment should reflect our strategic principles. It should meet the needs of military families. It should maximize the force flexibility of our modern military. And it should demonstrate the fiscal discipline that taxpayers rightly expect. I hope the Department of Defense will continue to build the foundation of our military right here on American soil.
Deficit Spending and Amendments
Secretary Gates has made fiscal discipline a priority at the Department of Defense. He has said we are going to cut defense spending. So this military construction plan is puzzling. I'm not sure if the military and the department heads are on the same wavelength. We are looking at a $1 billion of foreign construction that we do not need with capacity that we have already built in American. I am asking the Department of Defense to look at this and to make sure that we are in every way having a respect for the taxpayers and making sure that our military and our families have the support they need. I believe that can be done at home.
I will offer amendments to reduce the level of spending in overseas construction and possibly in administrative costs at the Department of Veterans Affairs budget that do not affect Veterans' health care or benefits. There's more at stake here than just our military strategy, for our economy, and for the American taxpayer.
Out-of-control spending is putting the short- and long-term fiscal health of the United States at risk. The national public debt hit an historic $13 trillion dollars. That was in May. This year, the federal government is borrowing 40 cents out of every dollar it spends, and it is spending 67 percent more than it brings in. In pursuit of its costly and damaging big government agenda, the Obama administration has increased the total public debt by $2 trillion in less than two years – an increase of 23 percent in 16 months.
If the spending continues at this rate, at the end of Obama's first term, he will have added an additional $6 trillion to the public debt. If we go along with the request of the White House, $6 trillion more will be added to our debt in this term. This is irresponsible and unsustainable.
As the appropriations process moves forward, I intend to offer amendments to bring Military Construction back down to levels that are consistent with the Secretary of Defense's own stated objective, which is to military spending.
I am going to offer amendments that I believe will be responsible, will protect our forces, and be better for our military families. And it will achieve the spending cuts that the Secretary has said he believes are necessary.
We need to make the tough decisions. I am offering a way forward. I am offering common sense cuts that will assure that we will be able to meet the needs of our military, the security of our military, the security of the American people, and the respect for this enormous deficit. We can cut back on this deficit with responsible spending.
Mr. President, I have outlined some of these concerns in today's Politico, and I'd ask that my op-ed be submitted for the record.
Thank you, Mr. President. I very much appreciate the opportunity to lay out the strategy I am offering the Administration. I hope that we can come back to the strategy that has been adopted by Congress over the last ten years that would have American troops in America, that would created American jobs in military construction, that will save taxpayer dollars, and assure that when our troops go into harm's way they will not be blocked by European countries that do not allow us to use airspace, or train tracks or the ground. We cannot afford that kind of luxury in this kind of environment.


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Scrapbook what you like about being a mom or wife, or both?
List your mom/wife duties? Car pool, reading stories, help with homework, cooking dinner, giving baths, cleaning, laundry.
Photo ideas:
You and your children
You and your home
You doing chores
You shopping
Grocery lists and receipts
Be sure to follow this challenge in our forum and post your page in our gallery under the appropriate category! If you are a digital scrapbooker, be sure to find some great products in our shop to help you with your project!
Here are many inspirational examples from the team for this challenge:
By Amy J.
By Sharon
By Kim
By Amy
By JackieAnn
By Tammy
By Judy


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|Taken without flash - green and blue
The formula of this was really nice and it's very easy to apply thanks to a flat, wide brush. I used 3 coats for this manicure. Unfortunately on me this isn't very long lasting, it started chipping within the first 24 hours. (My record so far is about 60 hours without any chipping.) I still like it a lot and as it was so easy to apply and it's very pretty, I can forgive it.
Also it is very reasonably priced at €4.90 (just under £4) for 5 ml, so can't argue with that. Sephora has 65 different shades of their own brand nail polish and 3 of those are duochrome. As well as Moody Woman there's also a Chanel Peridot dupe/lookalike and a Deborah Lippmann Wicked Game dupe/lookalike, if you like duochromes, definitely worth checking them out as they're fraction of the price of the Chanel and Deborah Lippmann ones.
See more pictures after the jump!
|Taken with flash - green
|Taken without flash - it's definitely blue from this angle


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I Need...
I need to reboot and reformat.
Suddenly, every pressure is on me. I feel like Carrie Bradshaw stepped into my life where she feels that she is being punished or something in one of the Sex and the City's episode. I feel distressed and all, leaving all the blame with the people around me, most especially hon. I just keep on trying to argue with the most insignificant things almost all the time. I myself do not know where, when or how it happened. I just wanted it out of me. As remotely soon as possible.
I need to write new pieces.
Feels like my writing skills are being deteriorated. I want to feel the way it used to be, sleeping late at night just to finish an article, or getting crazy over the fact that we haven't interviewed this particular person where we are nearing the deadline. It's mostly business writing at work. I am actually gagging over that fact right now. Not that I am complaining, but I am yearning to write about different people, going to different places, interviews, translating tape recordings and such. Maybe in two years or so, I would be able to do that. I don't want to teach. I made up my mind a long time ago for that. I don't want to go to law school either, there are good journalists (of course my UST friends) who are better lawyers to be, than myself. After all, I'm still young. And I don't feel like wasting my time in things that I wouldn't be able to pursue in the long run anyway.
But someday, I'd be a true-blue, working my ass off, maybe even award-winning journalist. I know in time, I would.
I need to know my worth
Oooh, controversy perhaps? Nah, I'm just saying this to face my fears. I have been this overbearing b*tch for a long time. I didn't want to fail. If I knew someone better and I didn't like this person, I'd try to deject them. This time, I'd keep quiet. Everyone deserves a chance. But just don't expect me to be clapping my hands. That is so not me anymore.
There. Somehow, I feel less crappy. I know there is something wrong with me, but I keep shrugging it off because I don't want to answer my questions just yet. I am happy with my life. But sometimes, I feel indifferent of the people around me. Or no one really cares sometimes.
..Maybe that's how it is supposed to be. Shallow isn't it?


text: This violates amendment number 1. I will agree, swag is annoying, but ooutlawing it is insane. Are you going to put police everywhere and take everyone who says or does swag in some form be taken to the slammer? How could this be implemented? Are you going to jail people who use facebook next?


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A new skirt added to Momo's closet...it's a ruffled layered skirt!
Friday, May 23, 2014
Thursday, May 15, 2014
Minnie Circle Skirt for Little Momo
Momo's latest Disney costume (sort of) is ...Minnie Mouse!
I had just one yard of this Minnie Mouse polka dots in my stash, so I chose to make another twirly skirt for Momo. This time, I made a circle skirt!
Posted by Annie at 7:36 PM 12 comments:
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Gray and Yellow Floral Halter Dress for Me!
I sewed a dress...for ME!!!
For those of you who has been visiting my blog must be used to see my little girl modeling the dresses I sew for her. I have appeared in couple of posts for mommy and me look, but this is the first time I am writing the entire post just for my dress. I am kind of proud of myself for sewing this dress, and I thought the dress deserves its own post ;)
Friday, May 9, 2014
Kids' Choice Outfit for Little Momo
The last dress I sewed for my daughter turned out to be something she did not like... She has always been happy everytime I sew her a dress, so hearing "I do not like it" was a surprise and kind of hurt my feelings :( Since then I have been working on a new dress, but I am afraid she may not like this one either. The new dress is almost done, but I decided to put that aside to work on something my daughter will actually love to wear. After reading about Kids' Choice at Elegance & Elephants, I just had to participate.
Posted by Annie at 1:33 AM 15 comments:
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Fruits and oral hygiene
High fiber fruit and vegetables help maintaining oral hygene. Soft and sticky foods should be avoided because they attach and get between the teeth providing a favourable place for bacteria to grow. Food and beverages containing sugar or starch feed the bacteria ,producing acid.
Acid attacking the teeth for 20 minutes. We recommend to limit your consuming of snacks between meals and choose instead nourishing foods : cheese , raw vegetables, plain yogurt or fruit in order to stop enamel braking.


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When Thomas Raffles arrived in Singapore, back in 1819, we was accompanied by 120 Indians.
Then, Singapore became a UK colony.
Under the Raffles Plan of Singapore, the Indian division of colonial Singapore where Tamil immigrants would reside under the British policy of ethnic segregation was in Chulia Kampong.
Later, with more and more Indians settling in Singapore, Indians moved to a larger district, the nowadays Little India.
The funny thing is that, when I was walking through the streets, I almost didn't see any woman, whereas men where holding each other like they do in actual India. It seems that the Indian way of Life moved together with the people, the ensemble being encapsulated in a couple of square kilometers…
Across the avenue was "Arab Street", another ethnic district built around the mosque.
After signing his treaty with the newly installed "Sultan" Hussein Mohammed Shah, Raffles allotted the area to the sultan and designated the land around it as a Muslim settlement.
In those streets, I passed by veiled women. Meanwhile, men were playing cards.
As Chinese were celebrating the Horse Year, Little India and Arab Street where the only places where I could find open stores !


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Review – Wolverine # 1 (2014)
I want to readily admit that I did not read the last volume of Wolverine. I just sort of missed out on it while it was going on. When I saw that they were relaunching the book, along with a host of others I thought I would give it a try because aside from Wolverine and the X-Men by Jason Aaron I haven't been following a Wolverine-centric title in a while. Paul Cornell is always a competent writer and I figured it might be interesting to see where his take on the character has wandered.
The book picks up with a depowered Wolverine, stripped of his immortality and made vulnerable to all manner of hurt and injury. He's sporting some heavy armor to protect himself from the elements of danger that being a superhero will put him in and he's npw teamed up with a shady character called "The Offer." This guy from my deductions is some sort of Vito Corleone "makes you a deal you can't refuse" sort of fellow and he has tasked Wolverine with breaking someone out of a highly guarded facility with the aid of a couple of other folks that I didn't recognize offhand. The issue focuses mainly on this little mission but there is some flashback to Wolverine's conversations with Storm regarding the loss of his healing factor that helps put us in Logan's headspace a little more firmly, or so we are led to believe.
Wolverine is a character that has gone through a number of different looks, personas, and interpretations. Everyone seems to fall back on the outsider/wandering samurai motif but sometimes it is fun to explore other options. Here we get something more akin to the stories of when he was a mercenary. A rogue agent who hadn't yet found his true affiliation. This time he has some true friends to guide him along, as a scene with Black Widow is particularly effective in showing how he plans to cope with his new situation. The thing that strikes me about this issue, and this iteration of Wolverine, is that the focus seems to be on telling a fun, action oriented story that focuses less on the mysteries of Logan's past and how it currently affecting him. In fact, the book seems heavily focused on showing Wolverine as a blank slate and the primary directive of the narrative is driven from where he could go in the future.
The ending of the book is supposed to be a shocker but based on context clues within the issue we could have seen it coming. The resolution of that climax however, could go in any number of ways and I'm interested in seeing how Cornell moves forward on the book.
Rating: 3.5/5
Weekly Comic Reviews
It's that time again! And lucky for you this time the reviews are on time. I hope you appreciate how much effort goes into that because I really don't feel like being analytical at 8:00 am on a Thursday morning. I'm doing this all for you. Really. Because I sure as hell am not getting paid to do this.
I'm apologetically pro-Damien. I think he's one of the best things to come out of Grant Morrison's Batman run. There's something about him that sets him apart from all the other Robins and I would say that it's mostly the fact that he's what Jason Todd could have been. The whole "Sidekick with an attitude" thing works for some and doesn't for others and Damien works. Now, I will admit that too much of his schtick can be tiresome. But the same can be said for any character. I love me some Deadpool but I got some serious DP burnout following the 87 series he had going on at once last year. Luckily, DC seems to realize that Damien provokes strong reactions and therefore uses him with a deal of finesse. What I mean by this is that usually his personality is either downplayed or dialed up depending on the context of the story. In this debut issue, he's far more antagonistic than usual because we're being reintroduced to his dynamic with Bruce. That level of mutual respect that we had seen in previous stories seems to have been scaled back because of this new timeline and as such we get some interesting character beats from both Bruce and Damien in regards to their views on the sentiment of death and the ethos of fighting crime.
Like some other books this week, it's clear that some holdover elements from the old continuity will be front and center for certain characters. In this case, it's the worldwide enterprise of Batman, Inc. The fact that Batman has only been around for five years in this continuity doesn't seem to hinder that storyline at all. We've yet to see exactly what parts of Batman's history are still relevant. I don't know if Knightfall, No Man's Land, Murderer/Fugitive, etc. have happened in this timeline but we do know that Damien is still around and Batman Inc is still happening around the globe. Again I have to point out how troublesome this is to new readers if that's truly what DC is trying to draw in with this relaunch. Someone picking up Batman and Robin # 1 without a prior knowledge of Morrison's work on the character might be a little perplexed as to when exactly Batman had a son and what the hell Batman, Inc. is. Fans of those particular storylines will not be let down however, as this is a pretty direct continuation of those themes in a similar sort of style.
Overall Rating: 3/5
I'll just go ahead and say upfront that this is my favorite title of the bunch so far and if you haven't already you need to go buy a copy and read it right now. The rest of this review is just going to be me gushing over how amazing the book is and how lucky we as readers are to have someone like Paul Cornell writing a book like this. Seriously, if there is one thing that I have to applaud DC for in this whole stunt it's giving good writers chances to work on books that otherwise would have never seen the light of day. There are a lot of people who are going to pick this up just because of its connection to the "new 52" and they're going to find one of the most fun, well-written fantasy adventure comics to come along in a long damned time.
I've always been a fan of Etrigan. I think he's one hell of a character and he really hasn't been given his due in the last few years. That changes here and I think it's mostly due to the fact that Cornell knows how to write him and that he is a character that works best when he has appropriate characters to bounce off of and he gets that here with Madame Xanadu, Vandal Savage, and a whole host of medieval side-characters. The fact that this is set entirely in the middle-ages allows Cornell to go wild and do whatever he pleases without worrying about bumping up against someone else's plans. The recent dust-up with Gail Simone being displeased about Batgirl's appearance in Birds of Prey without her prior knowledge comes to mind. I don't think anyone is going to try to appropriate anybody in Demon Knights anytime soon. There is an artistic freedom that comes with a book like this that I really can get behind.
Seriously, go buy the book. It's the shining pinnacle of what this relaunch has to offer.
Overall Rating: 5/5
This one is hard to review. It's not a bad book. It's actually quite an interesting read. It's just so hard for me to disconnect this version of the character from the previous incarnation. Even more so than last week's Green Arrow, not a whole lot of this book felt like what I would associate with Superboy. That having been said, what we're presented with is a fresh take on the character. The scientific procedural element of the story is interesting and provides an excellent framework for progressing the issue. My only problem with the book has been that Superboy's personality is defined by NOT having a personality. That can only last for so long before it becomes a chore to read through. I think that Scott Lobdell knows this, but he's trying to match the character's personality to the expected tropes of the genre he's presenting the character in. He's a clone, so he needs to be a blank slate at the beginning. That's how these stories work. I think he's trying to play with expectations a little bit and it'll be interesting to see where he goes with it.
Superboy is a title that I'm cautiously optimistic about. The final page seems to indicate that this storyline somehow informs the new Teen Titans, which doesn't look very interesting at all to me. I can't really say for sure how much I'll enjoy this past the first issue. I'll just have to keep reading to find out.
Overall Rating: 3/5
I am very tempted just to write *facepalm* and leave it at that. There really are no words to express how much I disliked this book. Anything not involving King Shark (he's a shaaaaarrrk!) was pretty much terrible. Deadshot has lost his mustache and Amanda Waller is a young, thin slice of bland. This was just…well, a mess. I don't imagine any other DC book has missed the mark as hard as this one has. Or let us hope, at least. I'd hate to see what could be worse than this slap in the face to what was once an amazing title.
I don't want to sound like a cranky fanboy, but seriously…I just can't imagine how anyone would find this interpretation of the title appealing. It's generic, bland, and brings nothing new to the table while disregarding the elements of the characters involved that made them interesting in the first place. It's just one big ball of missed opportunity, because these characters in their pre-reboot forms on the same team would have been interesting to see. Now? not so much.
Overall rating: 1/5
So, controversy, huh? We've got an African-American/Hispanic Ultimate Spider-Man and that has some people angry and other people bored and other people happy as hell. Emotions! Does any of that have any bearing on how good the book is or isn't? Not really. The initial PR stunt nature of the book is a bit disheartening because I think it might have been a little bit better received if it had come out of the box as a surprise. It's actually a pretty decent book. It doesn't feel like a continuation of the old series as much as it feels like an entirely new story where someone who isn't Peter Parker somehow winds up getting spider-based powers. It's got Bendis' usual sense of story-flow, that is to say that it begins a bit slowly, but the slice-of-life soap-opera elements of Bendis' writing were what made that book work so well in the early days.
I'm not going to call this one better or worse than the Parker years because it's only been one issue and it'll be another twenty-three or so until I'm able to see what sort of book this is really going to be. All we know right now is that Miles is going to have a little bit of a different power-set from Parker judging from that final page cliffhanger, and that he probably won't have a costume until around issue six if Bendis keeps to his usual pace. But if everything between then and now is well written as it was back when he first launched USM, then I doubt we'll really care.
Overall Rating: 3.5/5
And that's our show everybody. Join us next week for another round of my telling you what you should do with your money. See you then.
DC Comics Announces Line-Wide Reboot
I know that this year has been a bit different when it comes to the content I've posted on the blog. After leaving my job at the comic shop back in December I had to make the painful decision to alter my comic buying habits to accommodate my new lifestyle. As such, I've been getting my comics from an online retailer, mailed out once a month and as such I haven't had much luck posting real reviews on a timely basis. It's just a sad byproduct of my current situation. Another byproduct has been the steady decline of my interest in the mainstream comics scene. I have, sadly, been dropping titles I once considered vital with each passing month and have instead been focusing on creator-owned work that manages to resonate with me more than anything that DC or Marvel sends down the chute every month.
I never thought I'd see the day that I'd say this but I may just be done with DC comics. Lately the only books that I can say I've enjoyed fully are Morrison's Batman Inc., Palmiotti & Gray's Jonah Hex, Cornell's Action Comics and Gail Simone's Secret Six. Roberson's handling of the Superman book has also been admireable. But that's five books out of a line that will see 52 titles jump started with a new # 1 issue.
Dan Didio was quotes in the USA Today article as saying:
In September, more than 50 more first issues will debut, introducing readers to stories that are grounded in each character's specific legend but also reflect today's real-world themes and events. Lee spearheaded the redesign of more than 50 costumes to make characters more identifiable and accessible to comic fans new and old.
"We looked at what was going on in the marketplace and felt we really want to inject new life in our characters and line," says Dan DiDio, who co-publishes DC with Lee. "This was a chance to start, not at the beginning, but at a point where our characters are younger and the stories are being told for today's audience."
Fans around the internet have been in an uproar over this and I have to say that I understand where some of them are coming from, in light of this news coupled with the rumors that have been coming out that have not yet been substantiated such as Lois & Clark's marriage being lost in the new continuity as well as several creative team changes that are less than exciting including a possible loss of Gail Simone from Birds of Prey. The last time that happened it sucked just about all the energy from the book and it was left to die a slow death. On the other hand Grant Morrison is rumored to be taking over the central Superman title and it is confirmed we will be getting a Justice League book written by Geoff Johns and illustrated by Jim Lee, in a move that clearly parallels Marvel's decision to put Bendis on New Avengers several years ago.
The problem I have with the Justice League book being handled by Johns & Lee, aside from the fact that the creative team is almost begging for publishing delays, is that it seems like they're aping Marvel's formula several years after it has already gotten stale. Granted, DC could never make such a move any time after Marvel does anything similar because it's either too soon or too late after the fact for it not to seem like a stunt or playing catch up. My philosophy when it comes to the DC v. Marvel debate comes down to the way Marvel treats its writers. They sell the writers in a way that makes them out to be superstars. Marvel presents their writers as the A-list. The cream of the crop. Brian Bendis, Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, Dan Slott, Jason Aaron, Nick Spencer, et. al are sold as being equal commodities to the characters they write. DC does not seem to do the same for their writers outside of Morrison or Johns. They have a SMATTERING of amazing talent in people like Chris Roberson, Matt Sturges, Gail Simone, Paul Cornell, Jimmy Palmiotti & Justin Gray, and so many others. But you don't see DC publicizing them like walking gods of creativity the way Marvel does with their stable.
The whole line-wide reboot thing reads like a desperate stunt. DC loves to pull stunts. The repeated weekly series plan alone shows that. This stunt in particular will alienate a great deal of the fanbase and probably lose them for a good long time. They say that the point of all this is to garner new readers by eliminating the confusion surrounding certain characters and their continuity but they are failing to understand the simple reason why the comics market isn't viable to younger readers and that's that comic books are not cost effective to the consumer.
The article in USA today also mentions that beginning in September, DC comics will be going same-day release with digital and print copies. This is a major leap forward in the digital market but raises even more questions. Are the digital comics going to be significantly cheaper than the print counterparts? If DC wants to make me pay full price for a copy of the new Superman # 1 at $2.99 when I can get it from an online retailer for anywhere from a 10-40% discount, then what is the impetus for me to switch to digital? The price debate is probably the most important hurdle that the comics industry will have to face in the coming years. I bought a blu-ray movie yesterday for $8.99. That's two plus hours of entertainment plus special features for roughly ten dollars with tax applied. A comic book is 20 pages of content for about $3.25 after taxes are applied and the best case scenario is usually a ten minute read-time if there's actually any dense content to the book. If you're trying to attract new readers, you have to give them more bang for their buck. I respect DC for trying to lower the cost of buying comics, but the content provided for the price is a huge turnoff to people who aren't already hooked. Add to that the fact that comics aren't readily available anywhere outside of specialized shops and you've got a major dilemma. All the continuity stunts in the world will not save you from that pitfall. Comics are being displayed at Barnes and Noble now, but I've seen that selection and it's not very impressive and not too well organized.
I don't want to sound like a doomsayer, foretelling the end of comics or anything like that. The industry will adapt and survive in some manner, because too much money stands to be lost if they don't. But the logic that has gone into DC's latest stunt boggles the mind of anyone who takes the time to look at it carefully. Perhaps this whole article will be rendered worthless when more information becomes available. I hope everything does work out for the best. I still have friends who work in the retail level of the industry, and all the writers and artists who I've developed a rapport with since developing this blog don't deserve to see their chosen profession crumble because the companies don't know how to adapt. All I can do is sit and wait and see if what DC has to offer is worth paying for.
Weekly Comic Reviews
This week I had more than a few papers due in more than a few classes so the reviews weren't the first thing on my mind. I'm trying to better myself through education and whatnot. Anyhow, I did read quite a few books and some of them surprised me so I figured it'd be a waste not to get something posted.
Now let's do this thing.
Tim Seeley has me hooked on Hack/Slash. It's a great book that is easily accessible if you're willing to deal with the content and manages the kind of self-referential tone that a lot of books try to reach but can't because they don't know how to handle it. With this Annual, we get the bridge between the old Devil's Due series and the new relaunch coming around at Image. It's got a definite middle ground feeling to it, where I'm sure new readers could catch what was going on while long-time fans like myself are happy to see plot threads start to re-align after a four month mini-series that felt a little too much like wheel-spinning.
I seriously cannot wait for the upcoming relaunch. I hope that people will take a chance on the book and hop on when the new #1 issue comes out because Hack/Slash is one of those books that understands that comic books can be fun. It's not a full on comedy book, and it's not always serious. Which makes me happy because a lot of books nowadays cannot balance tone at all. It's an art and Seeley should give lectures.
Also, whoever had the idea to have Six Sixx wear a Fastway shirt in the opening part of the book is my hero, because I freaking unabashedly love that band.
Matt Fraction is writing the definitive run of Iron Man for the modern age. The world he is creating for Tony Stark here is one that builds not only off of Marvel's rich history but off of the technological and political history of our own world. Fraction is saying something about technology and society that others have tried to in the book before but never found the right tone to make the story click. Here we're getting an Iron Man that works on multiple levels. Stark's unending quest for personal worth through altruism and progressive thought that has become the defining characteristic that pushes the narrative forward and it feels genuine. Tony Stark has truly become a multi-layered character in the last decade and Fraction is doing a good job of building Tony as a character while at the same time giving us the kind of story that we expect to read in an Iron Man comic.
I'm just not British enough to like this book. I love me some Doctor Who and I thought Blackadder was hilarious, but even still, Cornell's first issue of this mini-series went over my head like nobody's business. I think that it could possibly be a great series for those who understand what happened. But that's not me. I'm admitting this up front so that you know I can't accurately criticise the book. It's just the truth. I'm sorry.
The art was pretty though. So there's always that. *sheepish grin*
I've been a massive detractor when it comes to Mark Millar. I really haven't enjoyed anything he's written since Ultimates 2 or thereabouts. He's obviously capable of writing some amazing stuff, as I loved Red Son and his work on The Authority but his recent output hasn't been in any way intriguing to me. Kickass was a solid concept made better when translated to film, Old Man Logan was inconsequential and Nemesis just doesn't work for me.
With Superior, Millar finds his once impeccable knack for dialog and pathos that was so prevalent in his Red Son days. The story works with established superhero tropes but doesn't seek to subvert them the way that Kickass or Nemesis do. Instead he shows that an interesting story can be told out of tried and true ideas and still feel fresh if you have a story worth telling. I didn't think Millar had it in him to create sympathetic characters, or characters that didn't feel paper thin for that matter. His recent work certainly wouldn't indicate that as being the case. However he downright surprised me here.
I think this could be the strongest work he's turned in for quite some time, though I doubt it will be his most popular because so far it's a solid book but lacks the hyped up sensationalism that makes Millar's books fanboy-bait. I hope people will look past the fact that there's no forced incest or pre-pubescent female murderers and pick the book up knowing that it's a glowing testament to the superhero genre.
It's hard for me to say this, as a Superman fan, but the current run of the title is just about the worst Superman stuff I've ever read. No middle ground to this anymore, it's just steadily headed toward absolute horrendousness since the second JMS took over the title. And like 90% of bad Superman stories it comes from the writer just not getting what makes Superman work. Superman is not a thug who holds a stalker hundreds of feet in the air and threatens to drop him if the man doesn't change his ways. That's kind of what Batman does, but not Superman. Superman would talk to the guy and the mere experience of meeting Superman would cause him to re-evaluate his life and that person would go on to do great things.
Superman also doesn't lecture Batman about saving ordinary folk. I'm sorry. I know Superman is on some sort of self-reflection kick, but he cannot reshape his entire worldview in three issues to the point where he can lecture Dick Grayson about staying grounded to reality.
I get that some people don't like the fact that Superman isn't edgy. But JMS doesn't need to try to "fix" all of Superman's percieved problems. He needs to take what works with the character and go from there, not write a character that barely resembles him in any way shape or form. For the love of God, let this little expirement wrap up soon so we can get back to the title just being mediocre instead of nearly unreadable garbage.
My only experience with Turok comes from wasting several hours playing the N64 game back in the late nineties. That's about it. I never read any of the classic comics or anything of that nature. I picked up the new series wondering what it was like and it felt fairly generic and tepid, so far as I could tell. It feels about the same as the other relaunched-through-Dark Horse properties like Magnus or Doctor Solar. There's obviously some effort put into making a modern feel to a classic character but the story progression feels choppy and though I've never read Turok before in my life, a lot of this felt like a rehash of something I'd read before.
The series has potential to grow, obviously, as the character wouldn't have warranted a relaunch if there wasn't something worth exploring with the property. I just hope that the flow of the book gets a little smoother because it certainly felt rough around the edges throughout the course of the first issue.
The End. I'm gonna go have a sandwich and watch all the crap I've DVR'd this week but haven't had a chance to watch.
Weekly Comic Reviews
I'm not even gonna lie, folks. Yesterday I was on the verge of lashing out at anybody who looked at me the wrong way. Some people said some things that I felt were highly disrespectful, and then they followed up on that by asking me to go out of my way to do something that I am not actually able to do without significant time spent doing so. Why would I do this when I don't get treated with any measure of respect in the course of my regular comings and goings? All I can say is that luckily the day was salvaged by a date with a beautiful girl and a stack of mostly excellent comics.
Yesterday was really the kind of day that comics were invented for. I was in a foul mood, the rain outside was just nasty, nothing was on TV; it was just a day meant to be ended laying on the couch reading about super powered people in bright costumes punching bad guys in the face. Honestly, yesterday would have been almost a total down note if it weren't for my weekly pull.
And now that my personal bitching is out of the way, let's do this shit.
Lex Luthor takes over the protagonist duties on Action Comics this week, with former Captain Britain and Doctor Who writer Paul Cornell taking the reigns and bringing us a story that spills directly out of Blackest Night, which most of my readers will recall me as christening a "steaming pile of Geoff John's diaretic feces" or something similar. And while my feelings on that particularly shoddy mini-series haven't changed, the fallout here with Luthor, whose power hungry ego was out of control before he got ahold of an orange ring, is actually intriguing and well plotted. I attribute this mostly to the fact that Luthor is one of the better multi-faceted villains DC has at their disposal. I mean, the Joker has a lot of different degrees of crazy he can go in, but he's still going to be the Joker. With Lex we can get mad scientist Lex or evil industrialist Lex or actually-not-evil Lex, his lack of true definition isn't a fault of the writers it's a byproduct of his psyche as a character. Luthor truly does not know what he wants to be. Really, he just doesn't want to be Superman, despite what Geoff Johns would have you believe.
This particular issue knocks it out of the park as far as I'm concerned. The story is obvious setup, where we learn of Luthor's plan to quest for the rings (which sounds a little more Tolkien-esque than I thought when I typed that out). But while it's definitely an issue meant to catch up readers who may be jumping on board as well as giving us a clear direction for where the title is headed, we also get Cornell's Luthor clearly defined in the span of one issue. We know which Luthor we're going to be getting. Cornell writes a very compelling Luthor, with his actions making complete sense in the context of who we're dealing with. The way he treats Lois in this issue (probably my favorite aspect of the series thus far) is probably as good a gauge of character as we'll ever see.
Oh, and the surprise reveal of the villain at the end made me squee, because he's a personal favorite and I've been waiting for him to pop back up for a while now. But that's just personal bias.
I only vaguely remember Batman Beyond as a show. I mean, I watched it because I was young and there wasn't much else on but I didn't latch onto it the way that I did with Batman The Animated Series. Chris Sims over at ComicsAlliance said that he enjoyed the show because it was basically Batman meshed with Spider-Man but set in the future. I agree wholeheartedly with that assessment. The character is more Spidey than Bats most of the time, and I think that's an interesting dynamic but it was never something that hooked me. I mean, if I want to watch Spider-Man I'll go watch Spider-Man. Batman has a specific style and tone that I identify with and Batman Beyond didn't really hit that note for me.
That having been said, I felt compelled to pick up the first issue of the mini-series because I'll be damned if I'm not going to at least give it a fair shake to make me a convert. I won't say that it has, but I think that is because a lot of what did make the show work in terms of style was lost when translated with it's adaptation to a different medium. I think that regular fans will enjoy it more than I did because they'll just be happy to see Terry McGinnis back in some form.
I will say that Beechen gets kudos for surprising me with the villain, if they do in fact go where they suggest at the end of the issue. He's not my favorite villain by any means, in fact I hate the living hell out of the story that introduced him while a lot of people hold it up as some paragon of Batman lore, but given that this is an alternate reality maybe they can fix him in some small degree, although any progress made won't resonate in the regular titles and so I'll likely end up dissapointed either way. As you can tell, I am still harboring some residual pessimissm left over from yesterday.
Spoiler Alert – Dracula dies in this issue. Yeah, I know some people will actually complain that I mention that. Despite having the central premise of the book right there in the title. Though Marvel has thrown swerveballs at us in regards to titles and events and covers that bely my point, but this is my blog so deal with it.
Anyhow, all I have to say about this issue is that it is a damn fine little vampire story that follows the logic and style I prefer in my vampire fiction. I was hoping for a Blade cameo, but no such luck, this one is all about the fanged dudes. The clear definition that Gischler gives to the vampire sects is refreshing rather than having a catch-all group of undead with no real regard to locale or backstory. I particularly liked the hot dominatrix female vampire sect. (The fact that I almost typed that as "Sext" seals the deal. Hot vampires for the win. Good job Gisch!)
I have to appreciate Marvel's recent revival of their vampire community. The upcoming trade reprints of Tomb of Dracula have me positively giddy as I can finally replace my Essentials. Cornell's Vampire State arc of Captain Britain was phenomenal and every time I see a copy at the shop I get really angry that the book got cancelled because it truly was a gem. But luckily Marvel has good, talented writers like Gischler handling their vampires because they seem to understand what makes them work. Vampires are supposed to be creatures of horror. There is a lamentation in the book that humans don't fear vampires the way they should, despite being creatures of fear by nature. And that's the crux of this. There is a regal fearsomeness to the vampires presented in this issue. I want to thank Vic Gischler for righting the wrongs brought on by vampires like this:
Yeah, seriously. Read Death of Dracula. It's not lame.
First, let me state how awesome it is that Matt Fraction was able to throw in a nod to Immortal Iron Fist in this annual. I think that was wicked awesome, especially for those of us who loved that book unconditionally. I will say that for the five bucks I paid to pick up this book, I got about as much content as your average trade paperback. Fraction knows how to give his readers bang for their buck, and here we got an interesting look at the life story of the Mandarin through the eyes of the director he shanghai'd to film his biopic. It's filled with fabrications and lies mixed with fact. Kind of like a White House press conference (BA-ZING!).
It's a hefty book, with a sprawling story that weaves itself around Iron Man without ever being about him. Which is both a good and a bad thing I suppose. I did like how Fraction essentially updated Tony's origin to mirror the one in the film, with the terror sect from the first movie being utilized and the escape sequence recreated almost identically. We knew it was going to happen eventually, I'm just glad it was done in a way that was organic and didn't feel forced. Like some stupid mini-series launched simply to cash in on the movie. I get tired of that. Quickly.
This annual has a lot going for it the way that Action Comics did. We get a character who is well known but not defined in any real manner. Fraction plays with that a bit to create a character who is defined by the smokescreen created by his own illusionary presence. The Mandarin is a villain who needed an issue like this to give us a reason to care about his existence. I can't wait to see what Fraction does with the character in the pages of the book proper.
Christ on a cracker, Robinson. You're killing me here.
JLA has turned into a solid gold turd. I mean, it started off pretty bad with Meltzer, and McDuffie's run was a mediocre bore, but now it's just a walking joke. Bagley's pencils are great and all but they cannot salvage this dreck. It's poorly written, poorly plotted, and doesn't feel like a JLA book at all to me. There's none of the gravitas of Morrison or Waid's run, and none of the fun that was so prevalant in the cartoon. JLA is supposed to be big and bombastic, it's supposed to be all that's great about the DC characters in one book but instead I find myself reading this issue and wondering how anyone could enjoy it. It's full of faux importance but everything rings hollow. If it weren't crossing over with JSA, which I'm loving, I never would have put money down on this title. It's sad to see how far Robinson has fallen since Starman, it really is.
All anyone is talking about is that damned costume redesign. Which basically confirms my suspicions that Wonder Woman is more an image than a catalyst for stories. She's a fetishized figure that hearkens to teenage masturbatory fantasies whose value as a character is largely ignored. I personally liked every little story in the book, with my favorite of course being the one by Amanda Conner, who may be the most talented working artist around. I mean, come on. You have Power Girl and Wonder Woman teaming up to punch a giant walking egg. Don't tell me that's not great!
But all the coverage of this milestone issue has been about the damned costume. It only appears for one of the five stories in the issue and that seems to be the only thing that every article I've read since the beginning of this week has focused on. Not the fact that Gail Simone teamed up with George Perez to tell a Wonder Woman story that builds on years of Diana's legacy for a truly genuine story. One that demonstrates how just about every other female character in the DCU is beholden to Wonder Woman in some way, shape or form. Whether in the context of their existence in the mainstream DCU or in a meta-textual manner that references the way Diana trailblazed female heroes, that story spoke volumes. And it made the message while she was wearing the classic costume. If there is anything wrong with that costume it's simply that George Perez can't draw every issue of Wonder Woman as well as her every appearance in every DC book. Between Gail and George's enormous talent, their worst work would be better than the best work of some other talented creators. I stand by that firmly.
Of the Trinity's anniversary issues, this one was probably the strongest. There was a respect to the character that was lacking in Superman's, like the point of Superman 700 was to expose the flaws of Superman and somehow right them. Which felt a little like arrogance on the part of Stracynski. With Wonder Woman, he's also trying to revise her and bring her some place new. But he didn't do it at the expense of saying "your personality is wrong, this shall be fixed."
Still not sold on him as the ongoing writer, but this issue was solid. I just wish people could see the reason why.
Arc Review : Black Widow – Deadly Origin
It's plain to see the logic behind releasing this mini-series when they did. Marvel has their tentpole film slated for a May release and it's set to feature new characters who are bound to click with at least a portion of the general populous and one of those characters will assuredly be the Black Widow. A hot redhead in a tight bodysuit kicking all kinds of ass? Yeah, people will be hip to that.
And so this miniseries will be right there on shelves in Marvel's Premiere format hardcover by the time the movie hits theaters, ready for anybody who might want a digestible series about the character readily available to them with little to no prior knowlege of the Marvel comics universe necessary for them to enjoy it.
Of course, at the same time, the new ongoing series will be hitting shelves and Marvel is hoping that some people cut their teeth on that title as well. Using the movie and this mini-series as a springboard to launch their foray into the world of monthly graphic literature. Will it actually work? I don't know.
That having been said, the mini-series itself is pretty much everything you could want from the character. It's scope is long and epic and integrates the character into every facet of the Marvel universe. She crosses paths with just about every major hero in the lineup and it didn't feel like say, the Wolverine Origins film, where they were simply namedropping people left and right at random.
The great thing about this series is that it has a very classic feel to it. It's sort of like a Fleming James Bond novel in it's adherence to the spy-thriller genre. I take it that has a great deal to do with British writer Paul Cornell, who hasn't written anything for Marvel yet that I didn't enjoy on some level. He manages to make the book accessible to new readers while at the same time making the series seem integrated with what Brubaker has done with Captain America as well as with the overall tone of the Marvel Universe at large.
The art is simply amazing as well. And that's saying something considering that there are different styles used to set the tone for different time periods in the Black Widow's life. Her time spent as an Avenger looks and feels completely different than her time spent with Daredevil. It's a stylistic choice that isn't revolutionary, but it's refreshing to see it done well, as so many times the effect isn't a different tone but a jarring shift that seems out of place.
So would I recommend this book? Absolutely. And I give it high marks for being a book I can recommend not just to comic afficianados, but also to newbies. That's no small accomplishment, as many have tried to do such a thing and fallen on their asses. Hard.


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Been Trill is policing its trademark, filing a trademark infringement lawsuit this past week in the California Central District Court against online retailer, Jimmy Jazz, and two wholesale clothing companies. If you're not familiar with BEEN TRILL, it is "an art collective and DJ crew whose image and sound is defined by the frenzy of new youth culture found on the pages of the deep web and on the blocks of big cities."
GQ put it in a more straightforward manner, saying: "It's a streetwear brand that—thanks to the Internet—has now become 'a thing.'" You've probably seen their wares (think: t-shirts with the words "BEEN TRILL" on them). Well, it seems other brands have noticed the appeal of the brand, which consists of Matthew Williams, Virgil Abloh, Heron Preston, Justin Saunders, and YWP, and are trying to tap into it.
Case in point: Hudson's Veteran's League Jersey, which reads TRILL across the front, as well as Visual's coincidentally(?) named "Trill" tee. Both garments are available on Jimmy Jazz.com.
Hudson also wants to channel the appeal of Givenchy, too, as indicated by their nearly exact replicas of the Paris-based design house's Madonna print bomber jackets and fighter planes tee.
So, does BEEN TRILL have a case against Jimmy Jazz, Hudson's parent company Skincraft (which apparently named its company after LA-based streetwear brand Skingraft) and others?
Probably. The brand has a federally registered trademark over its name, but since it only extends to "DJ services, art exhibitions; [and] providing on-line art exhibitions", that obviously won't help them here. The brand does, however, have an array of pending trademark applications, which, if registered, will cover everything from address books, notebooks, rulers, and folders (BEEN TRILL school supplies, anyone?) to bedding (weird), bags and backpacks, and clothing.
Some of these obviously make more sense than others. But the registered v. non-registered distinction is not necessarily a deal-breaker here. As you may know, it is important to note that trademark rights are not actually acquired by registration, but rather, they are acquired when a trademark (Been Trill in this case) is used in commerce (aka sold, which BEEN TRILL has doing been doing for awhile now online and now at their recently opened brick and mortar store at 271 Canal Street in NYC). Federal registration does provide a number of important benefits, but that is a discussion for another day.
BEEN TRILL is asking the court for injunctive relief to prevent the companies responsible for these shirts from making and selling them and to keep Jimmy Jazz from selling the shirts on its site. In addition, the brand wants monetary damages.