Homosexuality In Comics As Of July 26th

Posted on July 26, 2013 by | 8 comments

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At Comic-Con this year Peter Parker/Spider-Man actor Andrew Garfield announced that the character would not, in fact, be gay in the upcoming films. 

Now if you didn’t know, and if you don’t frequent the same news sites I do it may have completely passed you, Garfield actually expressed some interest earlier this month in portraying a flexible aspect of Peter Parker’s sexuality. I’ll let him speak for himself, of course:

“What if MJ is a dude? Why can’t we discover that Peter is exploring his sexuality?  It’s hardly even groundbreaking!…So why can’t he be gay? Why can’t he be into boys?”

While at Comic-Con he  was also able to follow-up these comments with the following statement: 

“It would be illogical for me in the third movie to be like, “You know what? I’m kind of attracted to guys.” That’s just not going to work. It’s clear. It was just more a philosophical question.” Continue reading →

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Posted in comics, lgbt, sex, writing

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Fame Day: Co-Ops

Posted on July 25, 2013 by | 3 comments

In our weekly discussion yesterday, Evan made mention of “‘It’s Not Easy Being Red’ Gordon,” a reference to the political blog and comic strip I used to write. For anyone who might not be aware by now, yours truly is a Marxist.

And yeah, here’s the obligatory “no, Stalin was to Communism what the Spanish Inquisition was to Christianity; no, we’re about dismantling the state, not expanding it, and no, we don’t like Obama either so please stop saying he’s one of us.”

While I try to keep my admittedly extreme Anarcho-Trotskyist views out of the blog, there’s really no denying that they affect my value system, and while most of the time this means I’m frothing at the mouth at whatever new abomination consumerism spits out, every once in a great while, it means something really catches my attention and admiration.

For this Fame Day, that thing is the co-op. Continue reading →

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Posted in America, Economy, Fame Day, health, money, politics

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Evan and Gordon Talk: The UK Porn Ban

Posted on July 24, 2013 by | 7 comments

GORDON: Ladies and gentlemen, things are happening in England.

No, no that.

I’m talking about the recent decision by the Cameron government to make pornography blocked by default on British internet service.

EVAN: To segue into us talking about this in earnest, I thought it’d be good to go into our personal experience with this.

No, not that. Continue reading →

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Posted in bizarreness, Europe, Evan and Gordon Talk, internet, morality, politics, pornography, sex

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Blood, Sweat, and Sensationalism

Posted on July 24, 2013 by | 4 comments

Do you know what an obstetric fistula is? I sure didn’t before I lived in Niger. It’s not really a term we hear often in North America. This is primarily because most of us have access to pretty great health care, but also probably because most of us don’t give birth before we are in our late twenties.

Nicholas D. Kristof, journalist and co-author of Half the Sky describes the situation of a patient with obstetric fistulas in an article he wrote called New Life for the Pariahs:

This is a childbirth injury, often suffered by a teenager in Africa or Asia whose pelvis is not fully grown. She suffers obstructed labor, has no access to a C-section, and endures internal injuries that leave her incontinent — steadily trickling urine and sometimes feces through her vagina.

She stinks. She becomes a pariah. She is typically abandoned by her husband and forced to live by herself on the edge of her village. She is scorned, bewildered, humiliated and desolate, often feeling cursed by God. Continue reading →

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Posted in Africa, health, media, money, morality

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Shame Day: Taylor Swift, Charles Z., and The Internet

Posted on July 23, 2013 by | 6 comments

Exactly one week ago I was browsing imgur and saw that 4chan was up to its old tricks again. To break this down and provide some context as quickly as possible, 4chan, as defined by Urban Dictionary:

you have just entered the very heart, soul, and life force of the internet. this is a place beyond sanity, wild and untamed. there is nothing new here. “new” content on 4chan is not found; it is created from old material. every interesting, offensive, shocking, or debate inspiring topic youve seen elsewhere has been posted here ad infinitum. we are the reason for “not safe for work”. we are the anonymous army. cross us and you will fail. anonymous is everywhere. you depend on us every day. we bag your groceries, we fix your computers. anonymous sees you before you see him. sitting at desks around the world right now is a nameless, faceless, unforgiving mafia composed of the best of the best.

For anyone who doubts the ability of the users of this site to get things done, allow me to direct you to the winner of TIME Magazine‘s  2009 Most Influential Person of the Year, Christopher Poole, a.k.a. moot, a.k.a. the founder of 4chan. As a little icing on the cake, you can check out what happened to nominees 2 to 21. Continue reading →

6 Comments

Posted in bizarreness, internet, music, sex, Shame Day, Youth

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When Do We Forgive Celebrities?

Posted on July 22, 2013 by | 3 comments

We all screw up.

It’s a simple and inevitable fact of life. Some of us have a few, major blunders, others are stuck with a seemingly unending trail of little errors, but the point is, everyone makes mistakes.

We’re going to be grappling with that issue, so upfront I want to declare that nobody’s perfect.

Then again, not everyone has a racist meltdown in a crowded comedy club.

Continue reading →

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Posted in America, celebrity, media, morality, news

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