WTFEntertainment

It seems to take some kind of event to make me open up a word processor these days. I read and watch things every day that I want to write about but I never seem to get around to it. Today I watched the second episode of the new Showtime series Californication and I have to say that I never expected that show to cause me to have an opinion strong enough to write about. The first episode seemed like some kind of exercise in an over examination of a man in the midst of his mid life crisis. The characters all seemed one note (with the almost notable exception of the daughter character played by relative newcomer Madeline Martin) and their interactions were trite and overwrought. Somehow Tom Kapinos (Dawson’s Creek) and company have taken a badly conceived pilot and turned it into something I am eagerly looking for to.

The main plot revolves around Hank Moody (David Duchovny) and his many MANY issues revolving mostly around his split with long time lover and mother of his child Karen (the lovely Natascha McElhone). She has taken up and become affianced to a new love who himself has a teenage daughter and has moved herself and her daughter into what Hank sarcastically refers to as her “Barbie dream house”. The interactions between Hank and his witless foil Bill make for some awkward fun for everyone.

The title Californication is apt as there is someone having some kind of sexual exploit about every fourth scene. In the first episode these seemed like random nudity that had nothing to do with the plot but in this episode its much less forced and makes more sense to the story. Hank is obviously obsessed with sex as a way to escape his lonely life. He’s a writer who can’t write, a father who can’t parent and a lover who has lost his one true love.

Even with the wall to wall sexual exploits I think even the most hardcore of feminists will appreciate Hank, and really the show creators, attitude towards sexuality after 40, the obsession with body modification and the need to meet society’s standards of beauty. This should be available through Showtime on demand and while it may be painful to get through, I suggest watching the pilot to get a sense of what is going on before watching the second episode. There are a couple of plot points in there.

Californication
Mondays at 10:30pm

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On any given day you can find news reports blathering on about the dangers we face in our everyday lives. You hear about radon the silent killer… Asbestos…Peanuts… Secondhand Smoke…Benzene. Whatever news show you watch or paper/magazine you pick up there is going to be something about the killer of the week. However there is a substance that is conspicuously left from these reports. That danger to our daily lives is the colorless and odorless chemical compound know as Dihydrogen Monoxide or DHMO. People need to be educated in the dangers of DHMO for our sake and that of our children.

This unknown killer is credited, by the National Safety Council, as having killed 3959 people in 2003 (NSC, 2006). Where as something as mundane as peanuts “kill 150 to 200 people a year” (Gupta, 2005) and you hear about them everywhere. The average person would think that a substance that could be as dangerous as something like DHMO would be a little more visible in the media but for some reason it doesn’t seem to be a big concern to many agencies. In Building & Running a Successful Research Business by M.E. Bates (2003)

…you should be concerned about DHMO! Although the U.S. Government and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) do not classify Dihydrogen Monoxide as a toxic or carcinogenic substance (as it does with better know chemicals such as Hydrochloric acid and saccharine), DHMO is a constituent of many know toxic substances, diseases and disease-causing agents, environmental hazards and can even be lethal to humans in quantities as small as a thimbleful. (p.350)

What are we to do if the government isn’t doing its part to help us? It looks like we are going to have to the information out there our selves. That’s what.

The first step in dealing with DHMO is knowing where it can be found. Many businesses throughout the US and the world use DHMO for a verity of uses such as in production of Styrofoam and/or other non bio-degradable substances. DHMO is also used in great quantities for the production of electricity within nuclear power plants. It is also used by many as a solvent, which companies just dump into rivers and oceans. They get away with this because the practice had not deemed to be illegal by the US government. Maybe the government needs it to rain down on them before they see how dangerous it can be.

DHMO has been found to be a major component of acid rain. According to the EPA (2007) “The popular term “acid rain” refers to both wet and dry deposition of acidic pollutants that may damage material surfaces, including auto finishes”. If something like DHMO can aid in the damaging of metal surfaces and car paint. Undoubtedly some thing like this will eventually find its way in to the water table.

Several studies have found quantities of DHMO in a surprisingly large quantity of the streams, lakes and reservoirs in America, and still nothing is being done to put a stop to it. Because DHMO is not considered a danger by government agencies it is not screened from the nation’s drinking water; where it is readily ingested by farm animals, thus affecting the food supply, as well everyone who is exposed to the local reservoir. This can lead to many simple health issues, such as excessive sweating and urination, nausea, vomiting, cramping, electro-light imbalance, or even tissue damage all the way to more permanent conditions like brain damage or death.

There have been correlations between DHMO deposits leading to the disintegration of electrical connections, certain metals and even concrete. DHMO in its liquid and its less common solid form, after long term exposure, has been known to damage the structure of buildings to the point of collapse. Every year the cost of DHMO related damages reach into the billions of dollars and still little is done to inform the public of these dangers.

The reasons behind a severe lack of media and or government distributed information are hard to pin down. DHMO is very cheap and is easily used in one way or another by nearly every type of manufacturing company in America today. To say that big business, in this country and abroad, has a strong desire to keep this pandemic quiet would be an understatement. Some major companies have even gone as far as to move their manufacturing and processing facilities out of the US to less restrictive locations in what can only be assumed is a preemptive action for fear of legal retribution and/or legislation somewhere in the not to distant future.

One of the only instances of any legislation being attempted to slow the progress of this sinister compound was in March 2004 in the small city of Aliso Viejo in Orange County California. A paralegal had gotten a discussion about the dangers of DHMO on the agenda for the next meeting of the city council but it was mysteriously removed before the meeting could take place. While we can’t be sure why some thing of this nature would be removed from the public discourse. At least it is heartening to know that there are a few out there who are starting to take this threat seriously.

Since the late 1970’s environmental activist and former Vice President of the United States Al Gore has been trying to spread the word about the huge threat that is global warming. In the past few years he has become much more vocal about the dangers that are threatening our environment but not once has he mentioned the dangers of DHMO. Could this lack of effort on his part have to do with his seat on the multinational corporation Apple Inc.’s board of directors? The company Apple Inc. has its home office, coincidently just up the highway from the small city of Aliso Viejo, in Cupertino and has been know to use DHMO in many of its manufacturing plants.

Several grass roots movements have sprouted up all over the county in response to big business and government’s failure to take this threat seriously. “In 1990 Eric Lechner, a student at the University of California, Santa Cruz began a movement to get his fellow students involved in the DHMO cause. “He distributed literature and posted flyers around campus to inform his classmates about the dangers of DHMO” (Glassman, 1997). His efforts have been reposted in several mass media outlets including the Washington Post.

Surprisingly enough having information about DHMO published in huge papers like the Washington Post and online and even in a several major scientific publication still isn’t enough to get people to take the danger seriously. In the national journal Scientific American, S. Mirsky writes in an article entitled Take This Job and Do It (2004):

…research conducted by award-winning U.S. scientist Nathan Zohner concluded that roughly 86 percent of the population supports a ban on dihydrogen monoxide.” In 1997 Zohner was a 14-year-old high school student in Idaho who won a science fair with his survey about DHMO. He cited the potential negatives, as on the Web site, and 43 of the 50 people he asked thought the compound should be banned.

This shows that there are some people, even if they are only 17 that are hearing the message and are willing to take a stand to show to the world that there is something out there that needs there attention. This does show much hope for the future.

Around the time the internet had started to gain popularity in the mid 1990’s the anti-DHMO movement went global. Craig Jackson, in 1994, started the website The Coalition to Ban DHMO (http://www.dhmo.org/) This website has had over four million visitors to date and shows no signs of slowing in its selfless mission to educate the masses about the dangers of this ubiquitous compound. The website contains a wealth of information in regards to dihydro monoxide ranging from hundreds of uses for the compound all the way to the many dangers of the compound and its misuses. The website has been translated into well over 15 different languages in an attempt to spread the word and has links too many worthwhile organizations as well as places to express your concern; for example the Environmental Protection Agency, the American Cancer Society, and Greenpeace as well as the United States Congress.

For every person out there struggling to do his or her part, helping to combat this global concern, there are several hundreds more that are completely oblivious that any such problem could even exist. Becoming informed and sharing that knowledge with others is looking like the only way we are going to be able to ensure our health and inevitably our survival. Unfortunately with DHMO being so prevalent not only in today’s business and manufacturing plants but also in its lasting affects to our environment, it will probably take several generations to combat the complete lack of proper education on the subject. So who knows how much time it is going to take to deal with and recover from the damage that Dihydrogen Monoxide continues to do to the world on a daily basis.

References
(2006/08/02). What are the odds of dying?. Retrieved May 1, 2007, from National Safety Council Web site: http://www.nsc.org/lrs/statinfo/odds.htm

(2007/02/03). Effects of Acid Rain – Automotive Coatings. Retrieved May 8, 2007, from EPA.Gov Web site: http://www.epa.gov/acidrain/effects/auto.html

Bates, M.E. (2003). Building & Running a Successful Research Business: A Guide for the Independent Information Professional. Medford, New Jersey: Information Today, Inc.

Glassman, J (1997, October 22nd). Dihydrogen Monoxide: Unrecognized Killer. Washington Post,

Gupta, Dr. S. (2005/05/19). Peanut allergy can be deadly. Retrieved May 2, 2007, from CNN.com Web site: http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/conditions/05/18/peanut.allergies/
Mirsky, S (2004, June). Take This Job and Do It – Scientific American. Retrieved May 15, 2007, from Scientific American Web site: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0003048F-7127-10A9-A47783414B7F0000&sc=I100322

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I’m sure I’m not the only one who gets sucked in by event comics. Huge crossovers are bug business as witnessed by last/this year’s blowouts Civil War and Infinite Crisis. Both of these storylines spanned nearly the entirety of each universe and to get the full story it was literally hundreds of dollars in comics. Infinite Crisis was the bigger story going back two years in various titles and storylines but Civil War also made a huge impact and is currently being reprinted in sixteen trade paperbacks. These events are obviously making huge bank for Marvel and DC and inspiring smaller publishers to try the same type of large scale storytelling (see Top Cow’s First Born crossover. On second thought don’t, Top Cow sucks). The big question for most of us is “Will this be worth the money and time spent?”. Unfortunately there is no way to know for sure if a big event is worth the dough but there are some factors that can guide you. Is the main title or titles this story comes from worth reading? Are the characters involved interesting to you? Will Micheal Turner draw incentive covers where the women are completely out of proportion and look like they are made of the same stuff as Stretch Armstrong?

A quick aside here. Turner CAN draw properly, I’ve seen him do it. What I have noticed lately is that he spends WAY more time getting the guys correct and just slaps huge tits on whatever girl he’s drawing and hoping no one will notice the complete lack of anatomical correctness. But I digress.

This summer Marvel is throwing two crossovers at us. One involving just the X-Men called Endangered Species and the other the company wide highly anticipated World War Hulk. Are either of these worth the price of admission? Let’s take a look at WWH and ask some questions and you can decide for yourself if it sounds like something you’re willing to dive into.

Where did the Hulk go? Read the rest of this entry »

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I’m not completely happy with this. NBC’s best new show of last season, Studio 60 has been cancelled. I haven’t been this pissed at a cancellation since FOX took leather clad Jessica Alba away. The Heroes spinoff is a nice touch and I’m a little intrigued by the new Bionic Woman. Hit the comment button and let me know what you think. Click the “more” button for the full press release.

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I hope everyone had a good Free Comic Book Day Saturday. I’ll skip over the FCBD comics, mainly because I haven’t had the time to read them yet. Last week was a little overwhelming not only because I was exhausted from Free Comic Book Day but I had to get my car inspected (rejected) and deal with a pesky chest cold. On top of that I read something like 20 titles last week and the stack is a little overwhelming when trying to do reviews. This week is a bit more manageable with a bakers dozen. Enough with the chit chat, on with the reviews!

There were four titles this week with “The Initiative” emblazoned across the top of the cover and that doesn’t include Amazing Spider-Man with is tied into it but has its own “Back In Black” marquee. Before I get into the rest I want to start things off with my Pick Of The Week: NOVA! I have to admit, before Annihilation I wasn’t the biggest Nova fan. I read New Warriors for years but I never really warmed up to Richard Rider. During the big outer space war with Annihilus Rider was left as the last member of the Nova Corps and was imbued with not only all the power of the corps but also the Worldmind, a vastly powerful computer that holds the entirety of history or some such craziness. This issue finds Richie headed home for some well deserved R&R and as he reunites with his parents 2/3 of S.H.I.E.L.D. Shows up on his porch to arrest him. I was a tiny bit disappointed because I was hoping to see Nova beat the living hell out of Tony Stark and sadly that did not happen. What did happen was a reunion or two between Richie and what’s left of the New Warriors and a whole lot of old Jewish lady guilt when he asks Iron Man what he had been doing while he (Nova) was saving the entire universe. There is a lot of great human drama in this book, far more than any other “cosmic” book i’ve read in years. The art in this book is of the kind that you rarely hear about. It helps tell the story without being flashy. Artists like Sean Chen rarely get the high profiles but they tend to be the backbone of a company. Mark Bagley was a workhorse for Marvel before he broke out with Ultimate Spider-Man. I expect Chen to be around decades after guys who are “hot” but can’t meet a deadline are gone and forgotten (I’m talking about you Dale Keown but I’m looking at you Steve McNiven). The first issue of Nova should still be available at your local comic book retailer. I highly recommend anyone who likes some human emotion in with their cosmic powered adventure stories pick this up.

For those of you not paying attention, DC’s year long weekly “fill-in-the-gaps” event 52 ended last week. I have to say I didn’t expect to enjoy 52 as much as I did and I plan to get more in depth with that story in the not too distant future but for now I want to talk about DC’s NEW year long weekly series, Countdown. I had mixed feelings about this series from the moment it was announced. 52 was a surprise not only for fans like me but I think for DC as well. I can’t remember a weekly series that ever worked and I fear that DC is putting too much faith in the average comic fan. We are easily distracted and unless Countdown can give us characters who are both interesting and well written (Renee Montoya, Animal Man) I fear a huge fall off of readers after the first month. Having read the first issue I am somewhat underwhelmed and mightily lost. Half the characters in this series I lost track of in the One Year Later batch of crap. Mary marvel was in a coma and Duela Dent (the Joker’s daughter) knows who Jason Todd is. WTF? I remember Duela from 52 as a momentary Teen Titan but I didn’t know she knew that much about the Bat family. On top of that I think Darkseid shruck Desaad and gave him AIDS because he’s really tiny and has lost a LOT of weight since I last saw him. On top of that multiverse cops show up and argue over killing Jason Todd and then the source wall tells them Ray Palmer (the Atom) needs to be found to save the universe. I feel like this issue should have had a lot more exposition because I was a little lost and if a guy who reads as many comics as I do is lost I can’t imagine what the average person thought of this. I think DC needs to look at what Marvel is doing with its recap books. A couple of weeks before Joss Whedon’s first issue of Runaways (#25) hit the racks Marvel released Runaways Saga. The book was written as if the rest of the kids were reading Molly’s diary and while fans of the series got nothing new out of it, the book hit every major (and a few minor) plot points that people picking up the book for the first time would know who these kids are and what’s going on. Last week we got something similar in the World War Hulk preview and this week Annihilation Saga dropped at $1.99 to catch up people for the new wave of Annihilation books starting later this month. I have faith that Paul Dini can deliver a good story so I’ll keep picking this up until he proves otherwise. I’ll keep you posted.

Keeping the DC theme let’s talk about One Year Later. It sucked, a lot, especially for Nightwing. Why was Nightwing so horrible OYL? He was supposed to be dead so DC didn’t know what to do with him. It seems that the original plan for Dick was to die in the crisis because Dan Didio felt like Mr Grayson was superfluous as long as there was a Batman and Robin in continuity. Luckily Geoff Johns and several other writers sat Dan down and explained that Dick Grayson was essential to the DC universe. Before Infinite Crisis Nightwing was having a crisis of a more personal nature. He was injured and working for a mob boss trying to infiltrate the criminal underworld and save some people at the same time. After Bludhaven was turned into a toxic swamp Dick traveled the world with Bruce and Tim (as seen in 52) and OYL he and Jason Todd were both in New York being Nightwing. The story made little sense and I honestly have retained only the most basic of plot points from it. This weeks #132 is the last part of a storyline that I expected to be the final straw for Nightwing and myself. I expected a clean break after the first part of the Bride and Groom story arc. The preview images and blurbs made it sound plain awful but something happened that I didn’t notice. Marv Wolfman is writing Nightwing. I read the first two parts of this story before it actually hit me. The man responsible for arguably the greatest Teen Titan stories in the history of the Titans was writing the premiere Titan again. No wonder the book seems brand new! Wolfman has managed to make Dick fresh and acessible again. There is just enough angst to make his motives understandable but for the most part its all straight up GOOD storytelling, the kind I’ve rarely seen in this One Year Later world DC has built for itself.

Speaking of Nightwing, Outsiders #47 is the second part of the crossover with Checkmate cleverly called CheckOut! In the first part Checkmate systematically captured every member of the Outsiders expect Nghtwing in an attempt to get him to come to the Checkmate HQ to try and bust his pals outta jail. In a completely shocking and not at all predictable twist of fate, Checkmate is actually looking to recruit the outsiders to take down the nutballs still on Oolong Island building giant robot insects and what looks like a Godzilla sized Lagoon Boy (last seen in Young Justice if my memory serves). This is now TWO issues of setup and while they were both well written I think they need to get to the mad scientist fighting already. Greg Rucka (Checkmate) and Judd Winick (Outsiders) are co writing all the parts of this crossover which I really like. Both writers, while being two of my favorites, really understand the voices of the characters in their respective books. Keeping those characters consistent is one of those things most crossovers don’t really seem to care about. I can’t wait until next month’s Checkmate. This story should be a lot of fun.

Back to that Initiative overload I’m having this week I want to talk about New Avengers. I’m a huge fan of Bendis and I’ve been reading this series since day one. Having said that I think Leinil Yu’s artwork is nearly enough to make me stop reading. It’s all sketchy and feels rushed and unfinished. Rarely does an artist completely take me out of the story but Yu can do it. I would enjoy the art more if it was on a darker book. Maybe a Savage Land Wolverine adventure or a crazy Punisher romp full of blood and broken people but not a book where Spider-Man is making quips every five seconds and Hawkeye comes back. Oh yeah, Clint Barton is officially on the team and dressed as Ronin and no one is surprised. Next issue is supposed to be the biggest book of the millennium or some such according to Joe Quesada. I honestly don’t have a clue what going to happen. Maybe baby Cage will kill Elektra and then have sex with Spider-Woman. GAH! I just flipped through the book again to see if I had anything else to add and I realize I do. Adding a million tiny lines to your art doesn’t make it look detailed if the million tiny lines are just randomly placed. Everyone looks a hundred years old and they all have the same chin. Except baby Cage, he looks like Charlie Brown.

Now that I’ve bitched about really shitty art, let’s talk about some good art. I’ve never been a fan of the Punisher but Matt Fraction’s version of Frank in Punisher War Journal has a lot of heart and humor in it and Ariel Olivetti’s art is just stunning. Every panel feels like an intricate part of the story and Olivetti nails facial expressions like very few people in the industry right now. This issue (#7) came with a 50/50 cover split. One has the Punisher in his traditional black with skull body armor outfit and the other has the red white and black homage to Captain America I’m sure we all saw floating around the internet a month or so ago. I have to say I really dig the Cap inspired threads as they give you a really nice visual of where Frank’s head is these days. I love that Fraction pulled one of Captain America’s old villains, Hate Monger, out of mothballs and updated him as something of a crazed minutemen border defender who really like killing Mexicans. Both parts of this storyline have been told in flashback as Frank is tied to a fence post with along the Mexican border. The real payoff for those of us who have been following this book the last six issues happens in the last panel of the last page of this issue. I won’t spoil it here but I can’t wait to see what happens next.

QUICK HITS

Several great Trade paperbacks dropped this week including Ed Brubaker’s crime/action book Criminal. I can’t even begin to explain how awesome this book is.

• Black Panther #27- T’Challa and Ororo arrive home to the Baxter building along with their teammates Thing and Torch after their adventure that began in the last issue of BP and continued in Fantastic Four #545 and will finish up in FF #546 which isn’t out yet. I’m not sure why the Panther carried around a magical frog for the whole issue but Storm gets horny after an outer space adventure so I don’t really care.

• JLA Classified #38- This is the second part of the Kid Amazo storyline and I have to say I’m digging it. The only odd thing is that Batman is telling Superman how the kids deserves the benefit of the doubt. I like Peter Milligan but I think he has his heroes confused.

• The Amazing Spider-Man # 540- Aunt May is gonna die! Lots of angst in this issue although it isn’t nearly as emo as eyeliner Peter Parker from Spider-Man 3. Good lord did he need to be slapped. Mary Jane cries less than Peter both in this issue and in the movie. Also, Peter is angry and breaking the arms of assassins so look out for that if you’re an assassin.

• Ultimate Power #5- The issue where nothing happens except Hyperion gets naked and we learn that Cap and Peter have a special Skipper/Gilligan dynamic that makes Nick Fury crabby.

• Marvel Adventures Fantastic Four #24- I started getting these for Logan but I have to say, single issue self contained stories that are packed with action are still awesome no matter what age range they’re aimed at.

• The Immortal Iron Fist #5- If you aren’t reading this book do so. I will get in depth when the next issue drops as it should be the end of the first story arc. Great plotting an the art is moody and atmospheric and works really well with this book.

• DMZ #19- Again, this is smack in the middle of a storyline that would make no sense unless you’ve been reading this book from the beginning. It is a continuity heavy book but its only 19 issues in and you get get caught up in trades so please go do that. I will talk much MUCH more about DMZ and its importance in our current culture of fear sometime in the future.

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