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eightysixed · 3 years

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happier than ever

You call me again, drunk in your Benz Drivin' home under the influence You scared me to death, but I'm wastin' my breath 'Cause you only listen to your fuckin' friends I don't relate to you I don't relate to you, no 'Cause I'd never treat me this shitty You made me hate this city

words: 3.2k plot: emma and tomo’s relationship, in a nutshell. trigger warnings: abuse, assault, drugs, cheating, violence, blood, suicidal ideation, nsfw

Five years is a lifetime when you’ve just begun your twenties. It’s half a decade of years so formative and important that you don’t really realize their importance until they have flown past.

Emma spent those years with Tomo.

[ SEPTEMBER 2014 ]

A twenty-one year old goes to an Outkast concert. She gets propositioned by a guy. Rough, pushy, handsy, it’s enough to make her feel suffocated, plan paths of escape or desperately look for a face in the crowd that could intervene. Then he comes in with his buddies and they all but rescue her. How ironic Emma thinks, years later. What a Disney-ified, damsel in distress moment to have and to meet by.

They spend the rest of the concert together, follow it up with an after hours at Los Coyotes, wolfing down soft shells in between food-spitting laughter. Emma, Tomo, and his two buddies. The energy is infectious, and she doesn’t want to say goodbye at the end of the night. It’s a feeling she has never felt before; those sparks in his eyes that are in hers too, the way he grounds and floors her. They exchange numbers and Emma’s face lights up as she’s getting off her Muni owl: it’s a text from him.

It doesn’t take long for his contact name to acquire an Emoji heart next to it, the girl who ridiculed these kinds of things in high school now finding herself enamoured, head-over-heels, and not caring for the criticisms of formerly cynical self.

[ OCTOBER ] A month later and she’s packed up and moved into his place, about as happy as she has ever been of late; everything in life falls into place with him, just makes sense.

[ NOVEMBER ] He gets エマ tattooed on his collarbone; her name in katakana. She gets 23, his lucky number.

They spend thanksgiving with her mom in Cupertino. Frankie hasn’t seen Emma this animated again in a long time, composes a poem about in her head as the green beans and pumpkin pie are passed around. Later of course, she pulls out the baby photos, much to Emma’s embarrassment and Tomo’s delight. “You were such a fat baby, Jesus,” Tomo laughs. “She looks like she ate baby Jesus,” her mother quips.

When her mom falls asleep, they sneak out and climb up Emma’s childhood treehouse armed with blankets. They gaze at a sliver of night sky through a gap in the roof as Emma tells him her childhood dreams of flying to space and inventing computers that could contact extraterrestrial life. They kiss, they make love, Emma ponders her stance on marriage being outdated and for chumps and losers next to a snoring Tomo.

[ FEBRUARY 2015 ] Their first Valentine’s day together they drop acid at Pier 39. An irate parent yells at them for making out on the merry-go-round in view of children; have they no shame.

She makes new friends, dozens, someone always at their place as Tomo plays them new tracks, smoke weed together, and watch the oil projector light show make shapes on the ceiling. They talk about the future, fame, and world domination.

They don’t discuss babies because neither of them care for that sort of shit — but they do talk about moving into a bigger place together, maybe getting a dog or two — the breed is subject of many arguments.

[ MARCH ] In peak puppy fever, Emma adopts a two year old rescue bulldog named Tito. It’s the first, tiny sign of a crack in their relationship, of dissent — she thinks she sees Tomo glare at the precious pup when he thinks she isn’t looking. But maybe she imagined it. He does shed and slobber uncontrollably after all, and her boyfriend happens to be a clean freak.

[ JULY ] That summer, Emma braves a plane once more to see Tomo play in Atlanta. His set is off the walls and for the first time, she is amazed to see just how many fans he has, how far this boyfriend of hers has come from making tracks in his living room. It’s just too bad she is fast asleep when he tiptoes out of their hotel room to meet one of said fans for a back-alley blowjob.

They roadtrip across the South to play some more venues and the pattern repeats itself in Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico. She wakes up in a cold sweat one night in Vegas, confused as to why he’s gone. “Out getting food. Got hungry.” The message hits her in a weird place, but she is tired, sleepy, and in a haze; Emma accepts, does not question. He even returns with some Taco Bell for her.

Timeskip — 3 years:

[ APRIL 2018 ]

Emma is on her hands and knees in a bathroom, vomit dripping off the toilet rim. She can’t remember how or why she got here, but she’s here. Everything seems to be swimming backwards. Eventually she is able to collect herself off the floor, splash water against her face and wall-to-wall stagger back out of the bathroom. It didn’t work, she’s purged the worst of it but still feeling funny. “Oh, Emma, there you are.” A man’s hands wrap around her. He says he’s friends with Tomo. Says he’ll take her to him. Fade to black.

Waking up with strange bruises should not become a norm, but it does. Emma dismisses it, goes to work, does her best.

Things with Tomo are a violent rollercoaster; some days are great, some days nondescript; and some days downright nightmarish. They fight, throw shit, break shit, yell at each other. Things almost border on the unacceptable as words turn into threats, threats turn to action. A hand around the throat; a body pinned to the wall — her body, of course. His weed grinder he threw that hit her in the head which he swore he’d meant to only toss at the wall. It never crosses a line into the unacceptable, though. That’s what Emma tells herself. He might push her down on the bed, sure, but a bed was soft. He might squeeze her throat in the heat of an argument, but never so much that she’s passing out. He doesn’t hit, kick, or punch her. That was what abusers did, not him.

She tells herself he can’t help it, his mother used to punish him and his father didn’t love him and now he lashes out the only way he knows how, on the only person he can. He didn’t grown up in as loving a home like she did. He had his reasons. It was okay. They were okay. And the makeup sex afterwards? The best ever.

[ MAY 2018 ] A month later and Emma is walking in on some girl riding Tomo’s dick like the world was ending, right there on their couch. On their goddamn couch they picked out together, hauled up the stairs with the delivery men. Somehow, the worst part about it all, Emma’s fucked up brain tells her, is that Tito is there to witness it. Her innocent, furry son, witnessing his ‘dad’ for all intents and purposes, cheating on his mom. A ridiculously thought but one she has nonetheless as she’s driving away, Tito next to her in the passenger seat. She goes to sleep at a friend’s and sobs the entire night.

Despite herself, she doesn’t break up with him; but the rift is a mile wide and constantly palpable. Tomo becomes relentlessly apologetic. Not only does he beg forgiveness, he does it live on-air at a radio station, on social media, Emma bombarded by strangers she doesn’t know writing her to take him back. Then he goes and uses her personal kryptonite pulls a Lloyd Dobler outside her work with a Cocorosie song she was absolutely weak for. She hates making a public scene but the sentimental part of her is melting at the gesture, the boombox, all of it. Emma stays. He’d been a shitbag, but he was her shitbag, with all his lovable and terrible qualities wrapped into one person, and she just had to take the shit with the good. Because there was no one else she’d rather be with, ripping side-stitches from too much laughter at four in the morning, tears in her eyes for a good reason this time, from one of his horrifying jokes.

He was hers and she was his, that’s just how it was to be. Well, as much as she could call him hers when he seemed to be everybody else’s in the process.

Emma does ridiculous, degrading, uncomfortable things in the name of love, and yet in the end she can’t hold on to the love she had for him in the beginning. Way back when they were going up on that ferris wheel at the pier and he looked at her like he had nothing but love in this world, for her. That was what hurt the most, because now the ferris wheel only went down.

There are threesomes, fivesomes, sixsomes, so many bodies in between hers and the one she loves, all in the name of exciting him, holding onto him, trying to be something for him that measured up to Enough. But none of it is enough. None of it makes him happy, nor did it make her happy. She gives him an inch and he takes a mile and then demands more, smiling with blood in his mouth. She breaks down and becomes something she doesn’t recognize in the mirror. Whether it was an act of revenge or desperation, or finally wanting to give him a taste of his own medicine, Emma sleeps with Corey, one of his best friends. She takes pictures, sends them to him “by accident”. She hates herself through it all, every moment of it, mostly for what he made her into. And yet, underneath all the layers of attempts at hurting him she was really just crawling on all fours, begging him to love her again, need her and want he the way he did in the beginning. Craving to get that first hit back, the one she had been on a residue high off of for four years, the one that now tasted metallic and rancid in her throat.

The worst part? Tomo doesn’t care. He texts her back, telling her to have fun, to send more pictures. She’s never felt this hollow, this empty, this non-entity of a being. The day of her high school graduation flashes in her mind, her dad telling her to never lose her identity, the core of what made her, her. Emma took that core and probably threw it into the Pacific. Somewher between Japan and California, it lies at the bottom of the ocean.

[ APRIL 2019 ]

Turns out, Emma could draw a line, and that line was becoming accessory to a drug deal. She knew Tomo sold on the side to make up for all the money going into the records, but it had always been a few pills here and there, nothing big. But this? Fentanyl, Xanax, bricks of coke and hash? It was a lot. It was too much.

He sells the drugs and her to go with it, and that’s the end right there. The package she delivers to the apartment he asks her to deliver it to turns into a hostage situation, and she leaves hours later, bruises and caked blood on her. She can’t go home, doesn’t want to. She wants to jump off the bridge she’s crossing from Oakland back to the city. Any bridge, any of them would do. She understands why people jump from the Golden Gate now, or maybe always had. She was there now, climbing the railings, she was ready. She wanted that plunge so badly, would be sad to leave one parent, but good to be reunited with the other. Maybe there she’d be happy, maybe there she’d find peace.

She calls Ben that night. She’s dry eyed and unemotional, but as soon as she gets the right words, verbalizes her situation, she’s sobbing again. Tomo is out of the city, across the country in Philly on tour. Now was the time, if there was any time for it. She’s not even done with the call when Ben is getting in his car to drive to her. It’s 6 hours from Ojai to San Francisco; he tells her he’ll be there in five. She never deserved a friend like him and never would, Emma thinks as she packs, hastily because somehow Tomo walking through the front door as a ‘surprise’ wouldn’t be out of the question. In the end, she can’t pack everything, has to leave so much behind, her records, books, knickknacks. Five years in this apartment and she’s leaving all of it behind, making a getaway in the middle of the night like some kind of burglar.

By three in the morning he’s here, and they get to packing her suitcases in the car, stacking them as best as they fit in his trunk and backseat, all of Tito’s things and then Tito on a bed in the seat in the back. Emma is in busy mode, stacking and packing everything as fast she can, still somewhere in the back of her mind thinking Tomo would appear at the last minute, and how with Ben here, things could get ugly. She doesn’t want them to get ugly. She loved him far too much to see him have to deal with Tomo, the only person in that specific firing line should be her and no one else.

They drive off. She only feels herself unclench an hour out of Daly City, somewhere in between the Bay and Southern California, where she can exhale. She’s still looking behind them constantly, wondering if every passing car could somehow be him. The saddest, most desperate part of all this that a part of her wants him to have followed. One last ditch attempt to get her back. An all out attempt, one where he would get on both knees and apologize, swear to never be this way again and follow through with it, because he was her person, he was her only person, there was nobody else in this world for her but him, but what do you do when you had to run from your person in the dead of night?

She pulls her raincoat tighter when they stop to get gas, a cold and windy middle of nowhere gas station. She’s not sure how she ends up embracing him, but they’re in it, and feeling someone’s arms around her, somebody that actually cares, who’d never hurt her, who was family, was her mom and his sister and everybody she loved rolled into one, feels like a reprieve. She feels like dirt for making him do this, making him worry, Emma was a piece of shit for that.

She says as much. He tells her to shut up, that she’s nothing like that and this was nothing that he wouldn’t have done for her on any night, any time at all. And maybe that, that was the night she fell in love with him a little bit, or realized she had always been, all along, but God likes to play Lucifer’s games with the little lives he watches over, and it wasn’t made to be, too late anyway since she’d left her heart in somebody else’s hands where it would stay. And he doesn’t need a mess like her anyway, just thinking of the name Catarina was enough. It had been five years but she still remembered the day like yesterday. How low he had been back then. How they would get high together and feel miserable together because at least they had that. They had Weetzie too, but she hadn’t experienced loss like they had, she sympathized but she’d never know what this particular slice of hell was like. But Ben and Emma knew. She knew it in that part of her ribs that met his, and she did not know what she would do if she didn’t have that, have Ben Abrams in her life.

[ MARCH 2021 ]

Fast forward two years, and the ex is in town. Here, in Los Angeles. That very ex you worked so hard to forget, to heal from, to act like he wasn’t there. And yet, reminders of him were constantly there, everywhere. She doesn’t tell her friends, doesn’t tell anybody he’s in town, just balks when his so called best friend turns up in her neighborhood. She nearly grabs Tito and runs the other way, but it had been too late for that and they have a forced, awkward catch-up. He’s oblivious to anything happening, had barely known about her and Tomo breaking up. Figures, Emma thought, that he would act like nothing happened at all.

He’s in town, and every day she goes to work dreading something happening. She thinks she sees him outside the tattoo parlor’s window, but it’s someone else entirely. She’s losing it again, losing sleep, falling prey to her nightmares. Has a boyfriend now but even that doesn’t help, if anything, he’s a guilty reminder of just how little progress she had made, because she couldn’t devote the time and attention somebody like that needed in her life. Not when all she could think about was him.

The worst part is that once he’s long gone again, back up north, she’s feeling that hollow feeling again. Feeling upset that he didn’t seek her out, didn’t come see her. Even though she knew what an unmitigated disaster that would’ve been, the horrible, rotten part of her wanted it. Of course it wanted it. Two years and her skin still itched for him like an addict longing to be in the throes of fullblown relapse. But he didn’t track her down, call, or text, and that was that. Her only run-in with him involves a party flyer papered on a wall, his name in big stylized letters as the headlining DJ at the club. She stares at that flyer for a little too long, it burns itself in her eye like she’d looked at the sun for too long. And then she does the worst thing she could probably do, go on instagram. Only to find he has a new girlfriend. A brunette with tattoos who looked fun and flirty and everything she had been all those years ago.

That was the last tip of the scale. She reactivates her Tinder, finds some half okay looking guy, makes plans to meet him that night. It’s terrifying, so terrifying going through with, but she gets sufficiently drunk, then high on top of that, and goes through with it. Thinking of another boy’s name the entire time, his face, his body, hands and all the rest. Twelve hours later she’s leaving his apartment, no longer the nun of two years she’d become and feeling shitty about that on top of everything else. It was probably time to go see Karen again she thinks, smoking a cigarette under the sun that melts her while waiting for her Uber home. Thanks friends, thanks family, I’ve made terrific process with all your help and am now back to square one. Thanks for everything.

Maybe in a decade’s time.

Maybe she’d be over it by then.

#billie eilish and her new album sponsored this para #literally billie wrote this song for emma i die #did i have his s.para tucked away for 2 whole years because i was too lazy to finish it? yup #emma #self para #self para: emma #npc: tomo slater

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hellyeahheroes · 5 years

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Preview Pages and Interview for SUPERMAN SMASHES THE KLAN

Superman Smashes the Klan launches Oct. 16, with the first of three 80-page perfect bound issues. The collected edition of the story will be released in 2020. DC’s official solicitation for the first issue is below, followed by artwork from the issue.

“The year is 1946, and the Lee family has moved from Metropolis’s Chinatown to the center of the bustling city. While Dr. Lee is greeted warmly in his new position at the Metropolis Health Department, his two kids, Roberta and Tommy, are more excited about being closer to their famous hero, Superman!

“While Tommy adjusts to the fast pace of the city, Roberta feels out of place, as she tries and fails to fit in with the neighborhood kids. As the Lees try to adjust to their new lives, an evil is stirring in Metropolis: the Ku Klux Klan. When the Lee family awakens one night to find a burning cross on their lawn, they consider leaving town. But the Daily Planet offers a reward for information on the KKK, and their top two reporters, Lois Lane and Clark Kent, dig into the story.

“When Tommy is kidnapped by the KKK, Superman leaps into action — with help from Roberta! But Superman is still new to his powers — he hasn’t even worked out how to fly yet, so he has to run across town. Will Superman and Roberta reach Tommy in time?

“Inspired by the 1940s Superman radio serial ‘Clan of the Fiery Cross,’ Gene Luen Yang (American Born Chinese, Boxers and Saints, The Terrifics, New Super-Man) brings us his personal retelling of the adventures of the Lee family as they team up with Superman to smash the Klan.”

I’m really curious: How did this get started? Obviously, there’s a history to the Klan of the Fiery Kross and the Superman radio show, but how did you get your in on this particular story?

I first heard about it through the book Freakonomics; they actually devote an entire chapter to the whole thing, how this one storyline in the Superman 1940s radio show dealt a huge public relations hit to the Ku Klux Klan.

I remember reading about it and learning that the incident that set the whole thing off in the original show was a Chinese American family moving into Metropolis. So, I’ve been a superhero fan since I was in the fifth grade — the very first comic I bought was a Superman comic — and I’ve been reading Superman comics since I was a little kid, and I can’t really remember any other Chinese, or Chinese American characters showing up in any of the comics that I’d read. So, it kind of piqued my interest.

Then, I started working for DC in early 2015; I did a 10-issue run on the monthly Superman comic, and after that I’ve been part of the DC comics family. I had the opportunity to have lunch with Marie Javins, who is one of the legendary editors at DC, and this came up as an idea of what to do.

I’m super excited to be working with the artists Gurihiru. I don’t know if you’re familiar with their work, but they’re so good; they’re a Japanese art studio, but it’s really just two women — one does all the pencils and the other does all the inks. Early on, the editor and I talked about going for an art style that’s just like the old Fleischer Superman cartoons but mixed with a manga influence, and I feel like they totally delivered on that. That’s exactly what they did.

The acting is so good. It looks so simple, but what they’re doing on the page is so clear.

The acting is what puts them over the top. It’s what makes them masters.

One of the things that I like about the first issue is that you show Superman as an inspirational figure not only to the "good guys," but also to Chuck, who’s the child who doesn’t necessarily understand what Superman stands for. The iconography of Superman is shown to be this nuanced thing.

One of the things about the Superman radio show, and the original version of this story, is that it actually comes relatively early in Superman’s career. He was first published in 1938, and the story was broadcast around 1946, so that’s just eight years, and he was already a worldwide phenomenon. And especially in America, he was wildly popular. But I do feel that the Superman that we all know and love today, he wasn’t quite formed yet [at that time].

There were still pieces of him that were being solidified. And as much as the radio show impacted the real world in terms of bigotry and racism, it also helped shape Superman’s character. It was at this point where Superman really did become a symbol of American tolerance, American justice and American hope.

The subject of Superman not being a fully formed character is something you play with in the text of this book, as well as the subtext; Clark is still learning who he is — his power set, his abilities and his cultural heritage. He’s literally a character in flux, just as he was at the time when the original radio show was broadcast.

The more I read about the radio show, the more fascinated I was. When Superman first appeared in 1938, he was essentially a glorified strongman, you know? He couldn’t fly. He was superfast, superstrong, he could jump high, but even then, there was a limit put on how high he could jump. It was specifically said that he could jump 20 stories.

A lot of his development actually happened in the radio show. He actually flew for the first time in the radio show; the radio show was where Kryptonite showed up for the first time. A lot of that comes from the fact that the radio show got so popular that it became a daily thing, whereas the comic was still monthly; they really needed to develop Superman — his mythology, his world — really quickly.

So, when I learned about that, I thought, this is a comic book adaptation of this old radio show — we should play with some of those elements. We should play with the fact that he doesn’t fly, or that Kryptonite is a brand-new thing.

But despite that, he remains Superman as we know him. There’s this essential Superman-ness that comes through on every page. You talked about reading Superman when you were a kid; is this something that you just inherently “get”?

My parents were born overseas, and growing up, I went through this period of time when I had a hard time vacillating between two identities. I had a Chinese identity at home, I had an American identity at school, I had two different names! When I was a kid, I did gravitate toward Superman, but when I got into my teenage years, I started getting into characters I thought were more “cool” — cool in quotes! [laughs] — but one of the things that drew me back to Superman was realizing that he was an immigrant from Krypton.

Like, all of those things: vacillating between two different identities, having two different names, having two different sets of cultural expectations. All of the realities of my childhood, all of it was encoded in Superman.

I actually have a theory about this — the reason why Superman presents himself as “perfect” is because he’s an immigrant. I saw it with my own parents; they came here and people perceived them as “foreign,” [and] they were always cognizant of this. The way they dealt with that was by trying to be perfect citizens. I think Superman does the same thing; the reason he tries to be a perfect citizen is because he knows he’s an alien. As I built a connection with the character, that’s what it became. He really became an icon for me after I saw all of this — [Jerry] Siegel and [Joe] Shuster knew all of this, they were children of immigrants. They put all of this in the character.

I think a lot of time, when we see him on cereal boxes, or whatever, we miss that, but it’s the core of the character. The core of Superman is that he’s an immigrant from Krypton.

That ties in with something else I enjoyed about the first issue — that there is so much about Superman being confused about his cultural identity. It plays against what’s going on with Tommy and Roberta’s family — it’s a connection that you’re not hitting people over the head with. You’re showing that Superman is an immigrant even as he passes as, as you said, this “perfect citizen.”

I hope so. All of that was in the character from the very beginning. His immigrant status has been there since the very beginning and is, I think, closely tied to his being an American icon. Those two things go hand-in-hand. The immigrant story and the American story are pretty much the same thing.

How much of that is present in the original story? Was the original radio serial as interested in Superman as an immigrant explicitly? Did Tommy and Roberta play such important roles, even though they were Chinese American characters?

For the radio show, I would say that the lead character was definitely Superman, and after that, the focus was on Chuck, then Tommy. Roberta, Tommy’s sister, didn’t even exist in the radio show. For me, I wanted to center the story on this Chinese American family. I really do think of this book as an Asian American book — maybe not just that, an immigrant book. By putting this Chinese American family center stage, it really highlighted the specific immigrant side of Superman.

Spinning off that, there’s the fact that this story is being published today. We’re at a point in history now where even the discussion of immigration in America is this impossibly charged topic. It feels important at this moment to have a story — specifically, to have a Superman comic — that pushes back so clearly against bigotry and racism, that does make the appeal for tolerance.

It’s not just America. You read the news about Europe, India, or the Philippines. I started this project because I thought it was something that I needed to understand. There’s a Chinese tradition that you use the events of the past as a way of talking about the present; I did come onto this project thinking about that, thinking, if I can understand the historical context that there was something about the present that I’d understand a little bit better.

One of the things that came out of this — we’re at the tail end of the third and final book right now, as we speak; I’m just about done with the revisions — and one of the things that I’ve learned is that the world learned something about tolerance after World War II. Not just America; all of us learned something about tolerance. World War II was the worst nationalistic instincts of the world come to a head — the worst instincts of our species had manifested themselves pretty much everywhere in the world. And then, this Superman story, which arrived a year after the war ended, was primed to convey the lessons the world had learned to a younger generation.

I just think that, maybe we’re so far removed from that period that we’re beginning to forget those lessons. That was the impression that I got.

Did you go into it with the idea that this was a lesson that needs to be retaught? This is, after all, a project aimed at younger readers? Were you thinking in terms of, lessons needing to be relearned in today’s culture?

To be honest, I was more going into it thinking that there were things that I personally wanted to understand better. The original storyline was very didactic, but I don’t think it was just about the lesson that was explicitly said in the story. It was also about the historical context in which that story came out. I wanted to go in to try and understand that a little bit better. I’m hoping that me wrestling with those issues comes across in the story.

You said that Chuck was one of the lead characters in the original version of the story, and one of the things that’s compelling about the first issue is Chuck’s story. He’s a character who’s leaning toward bigotry and hatred, and is pretty explicitly being taught that by his family, but you don’t write him off; there’s the implication that he can go another way, he can learn to be better.

Chuck’s a character in the original radio show, and in the comic adaptation, we kept all the big pieces of who he is. He begins as kind of a bigot, but he has an arc. To fill out that arc, I did read a book called Rising Out of Hatred, it’s written by a guy named Eli Saslow. It’s the biography of Derek Black, who is David Duke’s godson; he went from being the heir apparent of the American White Supremacy movement, and he’s the exact opposite now. When he’s not in hiding — he had to go into hiding — he’s speaking out against the views he was raised with. I read that book wanting to understand how someone could make that transition; I wanted to embed some of that in the character of Chuck.

Changing gears somewhat; you’re a National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, and comics specifically. When you’re working on a project like this, especially on a character as iconic as Superman, is this something that you can see as a tool for new readers to use to get into, not just Superman, not just comics, but stories about things that are happening in the real world? Stories that matter.

I actually feel really lucky to be working in comics today. I think over the last, maybe 10 to 20 years, we’ve seen this shift in the public perception of comics. More and more, people are open to the idea of comics dealing with serious topics, and I hope this project fits in with that. I do think that there is a growing wave of comics that want to tackle the very heart of what it means to — do you know the book Bitter Root? It’s an Image Comics title that’s coming out right now.

Yeah, Sanford Greene and David Walker’s book.

I think that book is one of the best examples of using genre to talk about very important and serious topics. I’m trying to do something similar with this Superman book.

- Admin

#Superman Smashes the Klan #Roberta Lee #Tommy Lee #DC

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Superman is Bigger than The American Way: A Better Tomorrow for the Man of Steel Awaits

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Superman has a brand new mission statement, and it’s one that speaks to the realities of both the 21st century and the history of the character.

“We’re excited to announce that to better reflect the storylines that we are telling across DC and to honor Superman’s incredible legacy of over 80 years of building a better world, Superman’s motto is evolving,” DC Chief Creative Officer and Publisher Jim Lee said at DC FanDome. “Superman has long been a symbol of hope who inspires people, and it is that optimism and hope that powers him forward with this new mission statement: Truth, Justice, and a Better Tomorrow.”

For fans of a certain age, the phrase “truth, justice, and the American Way” is the ultimate summation of the Superman mission statement. It’s as associated with the character as “faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.” And like that similarly iconic phrase, it was added to the character as part of his adventures not in the comics, but on radio. But it also has only appeared sporadically throughout history, and has taken on an outsized importance whenever critics want to draw the wrong conclusions about the character and what he stands for.

Truth and Justice

In the early part of the 1940s, The Adventures of Superman radio drama was even more popular than the Superman comics themselves. The show was broadcast in 15 minute instalments, three to five times per week into millions of homes beginning in February of 1940. For most Americans, it was their very first exposure to the Man of Steel. This radio show (which introduced such now-familiar elements as Kryptonite, Jimmy Olsen, and Superman’s power of flight to the mythos), as well as the extraordinary Fleischer Studios Superman cartoons which began playing in cinemas in 1941, helped evolve the character into who he is today and cemented the Man of Steel as we know him in popular culture.

If you listen to the opening narrations of those early radio adventures, as well as that of the Fleischer cartoons, you’ll note that Superman’s “never-ending battle” is referred to as one for “truth and justice,” not “truth, justice, and the American Way.” But that doesn’t mean the character was any less rooted in the American experience of his era.

Pre-World War II Superman was a depression-era hero billed as the “champion of the oppressed.” A look at his earliest comic book adventures sees him dealing not with alien invasions or mad scientists but instead clearing the names of wrongfully accused prisoners, stopping munitions manufacturers from fueling wars overseas, giving corrupt business owners who exploit miners and other laborers a taste of their own medicine, and more stories that show a distinctively progressive and idealistic streak in the surprisingly two-fisted and tough-talking Man of Steel.

The radio show took that streak even further, often focusing heavily on Clark Kent’s career at The Daily Planet, sometimes talking extensively about the importance of a free press in preventing the rise of tyranny. One 1946 adventure, the 24 chapter “The Hate Monger’s Organization” saw Superman taking a crowd to task over religious intolerance in its final episode.

��Remember this as long as you live,” Bud Collyer’s Superman intones. “Whenever you meet up with anyone who is trying to cause trouble between people – anyone who tries to tell you that a man can’t be a good American because he’s a Catholic or a Jew, a Protestant or whatever – you can be pretty sure he’s a rotten American himself. Not only a rotten American, but a rotten human being. Don’t ever forget that!”

It’s fiery stuff, even for a guy with heat vision, and the general sentiment still applies today, whether we’re talking about religion, race, or sexual orientation. Not even two months after that episode, the series kicked off “The Clan of the Fiery Cross,” an adventure designed specifically to undermine and embarrass the then-ascendant Ku Klux Klan. Needless to say, the Man of Steel didn’t have time for their nonsense, either.

What does all this have to do with “the American Way?” Well, the kind of inclusiveness preached by Superman in “The Hate Monger’s Organization” and the fact that people spreading bigotry as in that story and “The Clan of the Fiery Cross” were frequent villains in his adventures is pretty telling. The United States is a nation of immigrants, and particularly at the time of Superman’s creation and earliest stories, immigrants were pouring into the country in search of their own “better tomorrow.” I’m the grandson of one of them.

The earliest instance of “truth, justice, and the American Way” that I can find is from Episode 331 of The Adventures of Superman, which aired in September of 1942, well after the United States had entered World War II. The Superman cartoons of Fleischer and then Famous Studios never adopted “truth, justice, and the American Way” at all, despite releasing new episodes well into 1943 (in fairness, that’s likely more because it allowed them to just re-utilize the same intro for each cartoon thus keeping costs down, but it’s still important to understand that “the American Way” was far from official doctrine for the character).

Once the war ended, “truth, justice, and the American Way” were dropped from the radio show’s intro. In fact, I can find no trace of the signature phrase by October of 1945, just a few short months after the end of the war.

As for the comics themselves, despite the fact that both Action Comics and Superman magazines were routinely putting patriotic, pro-war, and anti-fascist themes on their covers and in their stories all through World War II, as far as I can tell “truth, justice, and the American Way” never even makes an appearance on the page. But DC (then known as National Periodical Publications) was clearly intent on making sure their flagship characters were symbols of tolerance, producing public service messages where the Man of Steel or Batman would talk about the importance of welcoming refugees into your community, and speak out against religious and racial intolerance.

DC even partnered with the Institute for American Democracy and the National Social Welfare Assembly to produce posters and paper textbook covers for schools. And Superman’s idea of what made a school All-American? Well, see for yourself…

Truth, Tolerance, and Justice

The character’s very first appearance in live action, Columbia Pictures’ 1948 Superman serial starring Kirk Alyn, continued to omit “the American Way” and instead added something else to Superman’s mission. In the opening chapter, Pa Kent tells Clark that he must use his powers to fight for “truth, tolerance, and justice.”

While the Man of Steel’s conflict with underwhelming villain the Spider Lady in this serial was a far cry from the politically charged adventures like “The Hate Monger’s Organization” or “Clan of the Fiery Cross,” you can’t help but notice how appropriate “truth, tolerance, and justice” feels.

Despite its goofy b-movie title, 1951’s Superman and the Mole Men, which introduced George Reeves in one of the definitive Superman performances of all time, is another parable of tolerance. Here, Superman has to step in and solve problems created by closed-minded people who fear anyone different. In this case, the “others” are literally creatures from Earth’s core, but despite their odd appearance they mean no harm, yet find themselves hounded and attacked.

Reeves’ portrayal of Superman is often one of amused impatience as he lets mortals exhaust themselves trying to take him on, but he sure talks like the Superman of the earliest comics or the radio show. He tells an angry mob, “I’m going to give you one last chance to stop acting like Nazi stormtroopers,” just in case anyone was wondering the kind of contempt Superman holds racists in. He hoists the ringleader up by his belt after relieving him of his shotgun with a deadpan “It’s men like you that make it difficult for people to understand one another.” The parallels to this story and the burgeoning political paranoia of its era are unmistakable, and it’s clear where Superman’s sympathies are. While there’s no mention of “truth, tolerance, and justice” in the dialogue, that’s very clearly the order of the day.

But Superman and the Mole Men was really just a pilot for what came next, and one of the most impactful chapters in Superman history.

Truth, Justice, and the American Way

“The American Way” took hold in the public’s consciousness largely because of The Adventures of Superman television show which once again starred Reeves, and hit the airwaves in 1952. It isn’t coincidental that the weekly reaffirmation of “truth, justice, and the American Way” during the opening credits narration came at the peak of America’s red scare, when Hollywood was operating under fear of the blacklist for anything resembling communist sympathies.

In any case, The Adventures of Superman TV series is likely where “truth, justice, and the American Way” became so closely associated with the character. The show ran for 104 episodes across seven seasons between 1952-1958 and then in near perpetual re-runs over the next 30+ years.

But not even the presence of those three magic words could keep The Adventures of Superman from falling under scrutiny from the House Un-American Activities Committee, with actor Robert Shayne, who portrayed Inspector Bill Henderson on the show getting called before them. According to Hollywood Kryptonite by Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger, early in the show’s run, two FBI agents showed up during production, “handcuffed [Shayne] and dragged him off the set.”

According to the account in Hollywood Kryptonite, series lead Reeves “grabbed one of the FBI men by the lapels and threatened to knock him off his feet.” Reeves escaped that encounter unscathed but continued to stand up for Shayne. Kellogg’s (who had also sponsored the radio show) told producer Whitney Ellsworth to cut Shayne from the show or they’d pull their sponsorship, but Ellsworth held his ground and stood up for Shayne until the sponsors relented.

When Superman returned to the small screen in 1966 for the animated New Adventures of Superman, that famed opening narration was now talking about “truth, justice, and freedom” across its 68 episodes. Even a cartoon aimed squarely at children in the 1960s had shed its McCarthy-era jingoism. The stories, however, aren’t particularly memorable, and this series is mostly notable for the return of the voice cast from the Superman radio shows of the 1940s.

As for the DC Comics? Even in stories that clearly acknowledge Superman as a proud American citizen (and to be clear, not all of them do), I can’t recall ever seeing the phrase appear on a cover or spoken in dialogue. While I can’t claim to have read them all, a random sampling from various points in each decade seem to bear out the fact that this just wasn’t part of the lexicon of the comics.

The only time I can remember the phrase actually being uttered by the character unironically is in the pilot episode of the 1988 syndicated Superboy TV series. While that show is better than its reputation suggests, that first episode is a truly dismal affair, and hearing Superboy (John Haymes Newton) intone that phrase isn’t particularly awe-inspiring considering the generally low quality of the episode, tin ear dialogue, and flubbed lines.

But what about the all-American imagery of Christopher Reeve carrying a flag to the White House in Superman II? It’s probably the most overtly “patriotic” moment in the character’s post-World War II history, and it’s undoubtedly a concession to the new breed of patriotism that was sweeping America during the early 1980s. But it’s also a knowing Easter egg for fans who grew up with he flag-draped opening credits of the 1950s TV series.

The closest we really come is in 1978, where Richard Donner’s Superman: The Movie sees the Man of Steel earnestly tell Lois Lane that he’s “here to fight for truth, justice, and the American Way.” Margot Kidder’s world-weary Lois Lane scoffs, warning him that he’s “going to end up fighting every elected official in this country.” But Reeve’s gentle, sincere portrayal of the character and delivery of that line in particular seems to indicate that his idea of the “American Way” is as idealistic and inclusive as his radio and TV predecessors.

Perhaps what he really meant was “truth, justice, and a better tomorrow.”

Truth, Justice, and a Better Tomorrow

In recent DC Comics we’ve seen something of a full circle moment, with Gene Luen Yang and Gurihiru teaming up on a modern (and spectacular) comic book reimagining of “The Clan of the Fiery Cross” as Superman Smashes the Klan. It’s one of the best Superman stories in a decade, in any medium.

In the pages of Superman: Son of Kal-El, where Clark Kent’s son Jon has taken on the mantle of Superman while his father is off-world, we heard “truth, justice, and a better world” with Jon seeking to address the root causes and not just the symptoms of the world’s ills. Jon is not only the first member of the Superman family to come out as bisexual, he’s taking a hands-on approach to superheroics very much in keeping with the activist roots of the character.

But “truth, justice, and a better tomorrow” has an even more hopeful ring to it. Necessarily so. And when you look at the entirety of Superman’s history, it’s pretty undeniable that’s what he’s been fighting for all along.

As for the rest of us? It’s been a brutal half decade, not just for America but for humanity as a whole. “A better tomorrow” isn’t just all we can hope for, it’s a truly never-ending battle. But it’s the only one worth fighting.

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Trump leaves door open to shutting down government before Thanksgiving

By Felicia Sonmez | Published November 03 at 5:02 PM ET | Washington Post | Posted Nov. 4, 2019 |

President Trump said Sunday that he will not commit to keeping the federal government open past a late-November funding deadline, raising the specter of a shutdown battle as House Democrats expand their impeachment inquiry.

Several top Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), have voiced concern that Trump may seek to shut down the government to divert public attention from the impeachment battle.

Asked Sunday about those concerns, Trump told reporters outside the White House that he doesn’t think Democrats “believe that at all.” In response to another question about whether he will commit to avoiding a government shutdown, the president declined to say.

“I wouldn’t commit to anything,” Trump said. “It depends on what the negotiations are.”

In the event of a shutdown, many federal workers and contractors would go without pay. Members of Congress, however, would continue to receive their salaries, although some have voluntarily sought to donate their pay during previous shutdowns.

During the 35-day partial shutdown that occurred late last year and early this year, dozens of lawmakers said they were refusing or donating their pay as long as any part of the government remained closed.

This time around, members of Congress face a Nov. 21 deadline by which to pass the 12 appropriations bills that keep all federal agencies funded. Lawmakers passed a short-term spending bill in September, and it appears likely that they may seek to pass a similar stopgap measure this month.

Complicating matters is the fact that the House is on recess this week, meaning that lawmakers have only eight legislative days during which to act before the current funding expires.

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A conspiracy of hunches: Roger Stone trial set to start this week

By Devlin Barrett, Spencer S. Hsu and Manuel Roig-Franzia | Published

November 04 at 6:30 AM EST | Washington Post | Posted Nov. 4, 2019 |

Roger Stone heads to trial this week in federal court, where prosecutors plan to dive back into an episode of political chicanery, alleged lies and conspiratorial texts that parallels the nascent impeachment inquiry into his longtime friend President Trump.

The trial of Stone, who has long cultivated a public image as a dirty trickster on the edges of mainstream politics, is due to start Tuesday. He has been charged with lying to Congress and trying to tamper with a witness during a congressional investigation into interference in the 2016 election.

His trial offers the possibility of fresh insights into the strange quest by some in Trump’s orbit for a kind of political kryptonite to use against then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton — secret emails that would, they hoped, destroy her candidacy.

After Trump won the presidency, Stone’s role came under intense public scrutiny as a possible conduit between Trump’s campaign and WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy group that had published Clinton-related emails stolen by Russian government hackers.

The Stone indictment suggests that what prosecutors found instead was a failed conspiracy among conspiracy theorists, bookended by investigative dead ends and unanswered questions for the team of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.

The 23-page indictment against Stone was the last set of criminal charges leveled by Mueller’s two-year investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election before he shut down his office earlier this year.

There are, however, a number of unidentified Mueller spinoff cases that could, in theory, still result in criminal cases.

“We don’t know that this will be the last Mueller-related trial, because there are at least a dozen Mueller-referred cases out there, and we will have to see if anything comes of those,” said Randall Eliason, a former federal prosecutor who teaches law at George Washington University. “There’s a lot of crazy atmospherics to the Stone case, but the actual charges are fairly straightforward — it’s about lying, and the government’s best evidence is his own emails and messages.”

Prosecutors aim to show that Stone’s private text and email conversations prove that his statements to lawmakers in 2017 were lies meant to hide the extent of his election-year efforts to learn what dirt WikiLeaks might have against Clinton, and when WikiLeaks might release the information.

Stone is one of Trump’s longest-serving advisers. The pair met in the 1980s when Stone, 67, talked the New York real estate developer into donating to President Ronald Reagan’s campaign. Trump became one of the first clients of Stone’s Washington lobbying and consulting business.

Stone, who had long urged Trump to run for president, chaired Trump’s exploratory committee in the late 1990s under the banner of the Reform Party.

When Trump launched his presidential campaign in mid-2015, Stone briefly served as a formal adviser, and then after a split, an informal sounding board. In March 2016, Stone helped bring his former business partner Paul Manafort into Trump’s campaign, which Manafort eventually chaired. Stone also made an important introduction for Trump: Alex Jones, the noted conspiracy theorist and host of the influential right-wing Infowars website and associated media products.

In the summer of 2016, Stone said in an interview with The Washington Post that he was receiving late-night calls from then-candidate Trump via a blocked number. Those phone calls coincided with fervent behind-the-scenes activity related to anticipation that WikiLeaks was preparing to release emails that could hurt the Clinton campaign.

Along the way, Stone interacted with then-Trump campaign official Stephen K. Bannon, who is expected to be a trial witness. Past emails suggest Bannon did not think much of Stone’s claims of inside information, but Stone’s exchanges with two other individuals make up the heart of the prosecutors’ case.

One of those individuals is Jerome Corsi, a conspiracy theorist best known for promoting the false claim that Barack Obama was not born in the United States. Prosecutors say that in late July 2016, a senior Trump campaign official made contact with Stone seeking to learn what information WikiLeaks had. Stone, according to the indictment, had claimed to Trump campaign officials in June and July that he “had information indicating (WikiLeaks) had documents whose release would be damaging to the Clinton Campaign.”

Stone, in turn, allegedly tasked Corsi in late July with getting information about WikiLeaks’ plans. Corsi replied by email on Aug. 2, according to the indictment, that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange “plans 2 more dumps. One shortly after I’m back. 2nd in Oct. Impact planned to be very damaging.”

Corsi would later say he did not have any direct contact with WikiLeaks, and during the course of the investigation he made a number of claims that prosecutors could not confirm, according to people close to the case. At one point, prosecutors pressed Corsi to plead guilty to lying, but he balked, and the Justice Department dropped the matter.

Stone has told The Post that he spoke with Trump on Aug. 3, the day after he received Corsi’s email, but not about the WikiLeaks tip.

“It just didn’t come up,” Stone said in an interview with The Post. “I am able to say we never discussed WikiLeaks.”

Over the course of August 2016, Stone made several public pronouncements, some based on his back-and-forth with Corsi. Five days after his August call with Trump, Stone told a Republican group in South Florida that WikiLeaks was poised to release documents about the Clinton Foundation.

Stone claimed to have a “back channel” providing inside knowledge of WikiLeaks’ plans. Many of those claims ended up being untrue, but on Aug. 21, 2016, he tweeted: “Trust me, it will soon Podesta’s time in the barrel.” Stone has asserted that the tweet has been misinterpreted as referring solely to Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. Instead, he has said, the apostrophe was a typo and he meant for the tweet to refer to both Podesta and his lobbyist brother, Tony.

That tweet seemed critically important two months later, when, on Oct. 7, WikiLeaks released the first of thousands of emails hacked from Podesta’s Gmail account. Suddenly, it seemed as if Stone really did have inside access and may even have been conspiring with WikiLeaks, which was, according to U.S. intelligence agencies, being used by Russian spies to try to influence the U.S. presidential election.

Podesta speculated that the Trump campaign had gotten advance warning of the release of emails, and Stone became the subject of speculation that he may have been a conduit between WikiLeaks and the Trump campaign. Stone and WikiLeaks denied that suggestion.

When Stone was charged more than two years later, the indictment made no mention of the tweet that had generated so much suspicion. Instead of being a conduit to Russian intelligence, the document suggests, Stone was a self-promoting spinmeister whose claims of having important connections may have inadvertently landed him in serious legal trouble.

The seven-count indictment alleges that after Stone’s efforts to use Corsi to engage with Assange, Stone turned to someone else as a possibility: former radio host Randy Credico, who interviewed Assange in late August 2016.

In a 2017 interview with the House Intelligence Committee, Stone allegedly lied when he denied having texts or emails about his 2016 discussions surrounding WikiLeaks, said that he had only one associate who tried to act as a go-between with Assange, and never spoke to anyone in the Trump campaign about WikiLeaks’ plans.

Shortly after those denials, Stone’s story began to fall apart, prosecutors say.

On Dec. 1, 2017 — the day former national security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI — Stone engaged in an angry back-and-forth with Credico via text about the growing legal pressure.

Stone allegedly told Credico that he should do a “Frank Pentangeli” in his appearance before the same committee — a reference to a gravelly voiced Mafia character in the movie “Godfather: Part II,” who, when called to testify to Congress, suddenly feigns forgetting incriminating information about his mobster boss. The judge overseeing the Stone trial has ruled that for jurors to understand the movie reference, they can read a transcript of the scene but cannot watch it.

Credico is not identified by name in the Stone indictment but is referred to as “Person 2.” Multiple people familiar with the case have confirmed that Person 2 is Credico.

The day of the Flynn plea, Credico texted Stone: “You need to amend your testimony before I testify,” to which Stone replied: “If you testify you’re a fool … I guarantee you are the one who gets indicted for perjury if you’re stupid enough to testify.”

As the investigations wore on, the two increasingly turned against each other, according to evidence in the case.

In April 2018, Stone was so angry that he allegedly texted to Credico: “You are a rat. A stoolie” and vowed to “take that dog away from you,” which prosecutors say was a threat to kidnap Credico’s fluffy white dog, named Bianca. Credico later brought Bianca with him when he testified in front of a Washington grand jury.

A month later, according to the indictment, Credico wrote an email to Stone, saying, “You should have just been honest with the house Intel committee … you’ve opened yourself up to perjury charges like an idiot.”

Stone, a self-described “agent provocateur,” has used his prosecution in social media and in court filings to rally Trump supporters, attack the Justice Department’s Russia investigation and contest its central finding of Russia’s “sweeping and systemic” cyber-interference in the 2016 election.

But he has been repeatedly slapped down by U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who said he “has not come close” to showing that the government misled the judges who approved the warrants exploring Russian involvement.

Jackson has held open the possibility of a contempt hearing for Stone after his trial for what she has called his repeated “middle-school” pretrial behavior in online postings, despite a court order that he not make public comments attacking his indictment, the conduct of the FBI, intelligence agencies and government officials.

Jackson entered a gag order and banned Stone from Instagram, Twitter and Facebook until after his trial, after Stone ignored her warnings and his Instagram account showed a photograph of the judge’s face next to what appeared to be the crosshairs of a gun scope.

🍁☕🍂🍞🍁☕🍂🍞🍁☕🍂🍞🍁☕State Department’s first-ever employee Christian faith group underscores Mike Pompeo’s influence

By Michelle Boorstein | Published November 01 at 11:46 AM ET | Washington Post | Posted Nov. 4, 2019 |

All year, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has made news for efforts that critics worry are crossing church-state separation lines. In July, he launched a Commission on Unalienable Rights, created by religious conservatives who have bemoaned growing LGBTQ equality. Then in October, a private Pompeo speech, “Being a Christian Leader,” was advertised across the top of the State Department homepage.

Less noticed was the creation of the State Department’s first-ever faith-based affinity group.

GRACE, announced in February, was founded “to highlight the value added by the perspective of people of faith in general, and Christians in particular to the Department and its mission.”

Using government email accounts, department portals and meeting spaces to organize and advertise, GRACE was, according to the mission statement of the group on the department website, created to advocate for religious freedom and expression within the department. It has hosted events with evangelical speakers and runs a “mentorship ministry” that brings together pairs of employees to focus on “how being a disciple of Christ impacts your professional experience at the State Department.”

The existence of a faith-based professional group doesn’t itself stick out in Washington, where Bible-study groups gather all around Capitol Hill and prayer breakfasts for politicians are common. But as an official part of an administration that has consistently emphasized the concerns and rights of one segment of American religion — social conservatives and, in particular, white evangelicals — this first-ever Christian-specific employee group is being watched by church-state experts, former leaders of faith-based work at State and some employees.

Jack Moline, executive director of the Interfaith Alliance, said the group is problematic because, by using government resources during working hours, it appears to violate the constitutional ban on the government establishing — or favoring — a particular religious group. That, Moline says, is what makes it different from other affinity groups.

“The Constitution doesn’t prohibit bowling leagues, but it’s very clear about religion,” said Moline, whose group works to protect boundaries between religion and government. On its website, the group describes itself as an “alternative voice to the Religious Right.”

“There needs to be caution anytime government comes near promotion of a faith tradition or faith in general,” Moline said. “We’ve been concerned about lots of officials in the Trump administration. This is not helped by the State Department homepage featuring Secretary Pompeo talking about being a Christian leader.”

Pompeo’s Oct. 11 speech to the American Association of Christian Counselors was featured on the department’s homepage that day. The talk in Tennessee included a section on how faith guides his leadership decisions, including to find “every dollar” of government funding that might support abortion overseas and end it.

GRACE is one of 14 affinity groups at the State Department, including ones organized for black, LGBTQ and disabled employees, among others.

Trump officials’ handling of religion has been a subject of controversy in some quarters. The White House has worked diligently to woo Christian social conservatives, many of whom say religious freedom is a major priority. At the same time, questions are being raised by other religious groups who say they are being harmed. Since President Trump took office, travel has been restricted from multiple Muslim-majority countries, and concerns about anti-Semitism are rising.

More than two dozen of the 176 people from the State Department’s staff on a GRACE distribution list didn’t return requests to talk to The Washington Post, including its leadership. The sole response came from a woman who wrote back to say she’d been moved overseas and couldn’t comment. Some leading advocates who normally focus on the way religion affects policy at the State Department declined to comment for this story, including Tom Farr at the Religious Freedom Institute and staff with the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent government agency that works to elevate the religious aspects of U.S. foreign policy.

After The Post asked the agency to reconsider its response, its chairman, Tony Perkins, a leading Christian conservative, agreed to an interview. He said an increase in expressions of faith at State is positive because it shows the huge swath of religious people around the world that American foreign policy actors are empathetic. In the 1990s, he said, he was a contractor with the State Department and was investigated after inviting some people to come to church with him.

Pompeo is in a better position to understand religious people elsewhere, Perkins said, because he is open about his faith. The secretary’s speech on Christian leadership is “more transparency — just saying: ‘This is who I am, this is what I believe.’ Everything is on the table.”

The department declined to make Pompeo available and spokespeople declined to answer questions about the group, the role of religion in the department and whether GRACE raises legal issues — including with the group’s mission statement that says its outreach extends to contractors. Some church-state legal experts say this could be problematic and appear religiously coercive if those are people seeking to secure funding from the State Department.

In a brief written statement by an unidentified spokesperson, the department said affinity groups have grown in number in the past decade at State. Their primary mission, the statement reads, is “to promote diversity and inclusion.” Groups are approved (or denied) by the chief diversity officer. “GRACE bylaws show they are open to all employees regardless of religious affiliation and their reported election procedures meet the same standard,” the spokesperson wrote.

The spokesperson said no other faith-based group has submitted a petition for approval, though Shaun Casey, the head of a 30-person religion office created under President Barack Obama within the State Department and largely shuttered under Trump, said a group of Muslim employees during his tenure did discuss the possibility of such a group with civil rights officials with State.

Casey was U.S. special representative for religion and global affairs and director of the State Department’s Office of Religion and Global Affairs. He wasn’t certain if a formal request was made by Muslim staffers.

Until a decade or two ago, it was common to hear conservatives in particular worry that religion was unwelcome at the State Department — in the culture of the place and in conversations about its role in foreign policy. Christian conservatives in particular felt that persecuted Christian minorities in Muslim countries didn’t get enough attention or help.

That changed, some experts say, with developments including the 2006 publication of a memoir by former secretary Madeleine Albright, one of Bill Clinton’s leaders at State, about the powerful and important role of faith in world affairs. Also important were the creation, under Clinton, of the Office of International Religious Freedom within the State Department in the late 1990s and the 2011 creation by then-Secretary Hillary Clinton of an expanded dialogue with civil society groups, in particular religious ones, around the world, said Chris Seiple, a global policy adviser to the World Evangelical Alliance who co-chaired sidebar events at two recent international religious freedom meetings Pompeo convened.

Seiple said the State Department is in the midst of a “golden age,” with people from various faiths working together to protect international religious freedom — including for people who reject religion. He praised Sam Brownback, the department’s ambassador at large for international religious freedom for engaging faith-based civil society groups and for meeting often on Capitol Hill with religious liberty groups.

“All of this is beyond positive” but comes with an asterisk, he said, noting the perception that the Trump administration is working only for one faith community, a segment of white evangelicals.

“My personal view is when State has [the piece about Pompeo’s faith] on its homepage, that crosses the line,” Seiple said. “It’s a very fine line, but it’s there.”

The posting of the speech could raise questions about whether government officials are promoting certain policies because those policies jibe with their religious views — not because they are in the interest of the general public, Seiple said. “That’s not good,” he said.

Casey disagreed with Seiple’s “golden age” description, pointing to what he says is the shrinking of State’s general religion department — meant to educate diplomats about the role of religion and religious players in various foreign affairs issues — from 30 to less than five, he said.

“The primary design of [high-profile efforts on religion] all this is to keep fundamentalist Christians happy,” he said. Pompeo organized two high-level “ministerials” connecting global religious leaders, “but look at their actual policies. Look at all the Christians exposed to ethnic cleansing in Syria. The state of religious freedom hasn’t gotten better in the past two years.”

Rabbi David Saperstein, the department’s international religious freedom ambassador under Obama, praised Brownback for “bending over backward” to make sure that religious freedom efforts aren’t “Christian-centric.”

“He’s done a really good job,” Saperstein said.

He said he encountered no problems as a person of faith during his years working at the department. “I found only openness.”

As far as Pompeo’s private speech to the meeting of the American Association of Christian Counselors, Saperstein said the key for a religious government official is to be clear about how you present yourself.

He said when he was ambassador and spoke to Jewish groups, he always clarified he was there as an individual person, not as ambassador. “You don’t lose your right to be a religious individual when you go into government service.”

He noted that Jimmy Carter “taught Sunday school his whole time as president. Lots of government officials do things like that.”

The question for Pompeo, he said, is: “Are you going as secretary of state, or as an individual who happens to be in government service, and how are you seen by people you’re speaking to?”

As for then posting the speech on the State Department website, it depends on the intention behind showcasing it, Saperstein said.

Is Pompeo emphasizing “being a leader who is inspired by Christian values? If it’s, like, being a leader of Christians, it’s problematic.”

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EPA to scale back federal rules restricting waste from coal-fired power plants

By Juliet Eilperin and Brady Dennis | Published November 03 at 3:25 PM ET | Washington Post | Posted Nov. 4, 2019 |

The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday plans to relax rules that govern how power plants store waste from burning coal and release water containing toxic metals into nearby waterways, according to agency officials.

The proposals, which scale back two rules adopted in 2015, affect the disposal of fine powder and sludge known as coal ash, as well as contaminated water that power plants produce while burning coal. Both forms of waste can contain mercury, arsenic and other heavy metals that pose risks to human health and the environment.

The new rules would allow extensions that could keep unlined coal ash waste ponds open for as long as eight additional years. The biggest benefits from the rule governing contaminated wastewater would come from the voluntary use of new filtration technology.

Trump administration officials revised the standards in response to recent court rulings and to petitions from companies that said they could not afford to meet stringent requirements enacted under the Obama administration. They also reflect President Trump’s broader goal of bolstering America’s coal industry at a time when natural gas and renewable energy provide more affordable sources of electricity for consumers.

Under the Obama-era rule, coal ash ponds leaking contaminants into groundwater that exceeded federal protection standards had to close by April 2019. The Trump administration extended that deadline to October 2020 in a rule it finalized last year.

In August 2018, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit instructed the EPA to require that companies overhaul ponds, including those lined with clay and compacted soil, even if there was no evidence that sludge was leaking into groundwater.

In a statement, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said the Obama-era rules “placed heavy burdens on electricity producers across the country.”

“These proposed revisions support the Trump administration’s commitment to responsible, reasonable regulations,” Wheeler said, “by taking a common-sense approach that will provide more certainty to U.S. industry while also protecting public health and the environment.”

Under the new proposal, companies will have to stop placing coal ash into unlined storage ponds near waterways by Aug. 31, 2020, and either retrofit these sites to make them more secure or begin to close them. Unlike the Obama-era rules, the EPA will allow greater leeway and more time for operators to request extensions ranging from 90 days to three years, until Oct. 15, 2023, if they can convince regulators that they need more time to properly dispose of the waste.

Moreover, if a company can demonstrate it is shutting down a coal boiler, it can petition to keep its storage ponds open for as long as eight years, depending on their size. Slurry ponds smaller than 40 acres could get approval to stay in place until Oct. 15, 2023, officials said, while larger ones could remain open until Oct. 15, 2028.

In a phone interview Sunday, American Public Power Association general counsel Delia Patterson said the proposed rules reflect the fact that it can take time to design, permit and construct new facilities that can pass muster.

“I think the EPA is actually acknowledging the reality of the situation. It’s just really not in anyone’s interest to rush this,” said Patterson, whose group represents publicly owned utilities that provide 15 percent of the nation’s electricity.

Environmentalists have sharply criticized the proposals, arguing that these containment sites pose serious risks to the public at a time when more frequent and intense flooding, fueled in part by climate change, could destabilize them and contaminate drinking water supplies that serve millions of people. The rules will be subject to public comment for 60 days.

During the past decade, Tennessee and North Carolina have experienced major coal ash spills that have destroyed homes and contaminated rivers, resulting in sickened cleanup workers and extensive lawsuits.

The question of how to handle coal waste, which is stored in roughly 450 sites across the country, has vexed regulators for decades. The Obama administration negotiated for years with environmental groups, electric utilities and other affected industries about how to address the waste, which can poison wildlife and poses health risks to people living near storage sites.

Lisa Evans, an attorney specializing in hazardous waste litigation for the environmental group Earthjustice, said allowing the electric industry to extend the life of coal ash pits represents a particular threat to low-income and minority Americans, who often live near such installations.

“Allowing plants to continue to dump toxic waste into leaking coal ash ponds for another 10 years will cause irreversible damage to drinking water sources, human health and the nation’s waters,” Evans said in an email. It was not surprising, she added, that the coal industry had lobbied against closing these storage sites. “Operating ponds is cheap. Closing them costs the utilities money,” she said.

It is also likely to add to consumers’ costs. Last year, for example, a member of the Virginia State Corporation Commission estimated it could cost ratepayers as much as $3.30 a month over 20 years — between $2.4 billion and $5.6 billion — to clean up Virginia-based Dominion Energy’s 11 coal ash ponds and six coal ash landfills in the state.

The EPA’s proposals will retain several of the monitoring and public disclosure standards put in place in 2015, officials said, requiring companies to monitor nearby groundwater, publicly report the data and address any leaks that pollute area waterways. The “vast majority” of slurry ponds “are on the road to closure” under the new rule, an EPA official said.

Using monitoring data disclosed for the first time under the 2015 rule, a report published jointly earlier this year by the Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice found 91 percent of the nation’s coal-fired power plants reported elevated levels of contaminants such as arsenic, lithium, chromium and other pollutants in nearby groundwater.

The vast majority of ponds and landfills holding coal waste at hundreds of power plants across the country have leaked toxic chemicals into nearby groundwater at facilities from Texas to Pennsylvania to Maryland, according to that analysis. The report acknowledged, however, that the groundwater data alone does not prove drinking-water supplies near the coal waste facilities have been contaminated. Power companies are not routinely required to test nearby drinking water wells. “So the scope of the threat is largely undefined,” the report stated.

The EPA on Monday will also revise requirements for how power plants discharge wastewater, which contains some of the same kind of contaminants. Under the Obama administration, EPA staff had concluded it was feasible to prohibit any releases of such toxic materials by having the units continually recycle their water. The agency has now concluded this is much more costly than originally anticipated, and technological advances have made it cheaper to filter and capture the waste through a membrane system, officials said.

Under the new rule, plants would be allowed to discharge 10 percent of their water each day, on a 30-day rolling average. The administration projects the regulation would prevent 105 million pounds of pollutants from being released compared with the old standards because 18 affected plants would voluntarily adopt a more advanced filtration system. The administration also estimated it would save the industry $175 million each year in compliance costs and yield an additional $15 million to $69 million in annual public health and environmental benefits.

However, even if the 18 plants voluntarily adopted more advanced filtration techniques, they represent a minority of the nation’s total plants.

Elizabeth “Betsy” Southerland, former director of science and technology at the EPA’s Office of Water, said the proposed rule “relaxes the 2015 treatment requirements allowing increased selenium discharges and [the] release of contaminated water from coal ash handling. Even worse, it exempts a large number of plants from these relaxed requirements, allowing them to discharge more pollutants and continue disposing of ash in leaking ponds.”

Patterson said although it may be “just hard to understand” why companies need more time and flexibility, plant operators have no interest in contaminating nearby waterways. “They live in and around these communities,” she said.

Evans said environmentalists are likely to challenge the new rule on coal ash storage, and the federal government could again reverse course if a Democrat wins the presidency next year. She noted that, because 95 percent of coal ash ponds remain unlined, two-thirds lie within five feet of groundwater and 92 percent leak more than federal health standards allow, they could pose a risk to the public even as litigation winds its way through the federal courts.

“We have to hope that no wells are poisoned and no toxic waste is spilled in the interim,” she said. “Crossing your fingers is not a legal or sane way to regulate toxic waste.”

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Calif. governor hits back at Trump over wildfire criticism, threat to cut aid

By Kim Bellware | Published November 03 at 3:51 PM ET | Washington Post | Posted November 4, 2019 |

President Trump on Sunday criticized California’s Democratic governor for his handling of wildfires and made a vague threat to cut aid as blazes continue to burn in the northern and southern parts of the state. The comments are the latest installment of the president’s long-standing grievance with California, a state that has clashed with Trump’s administration, particularly on issues of environmental regulation.

In Trump’s first significant mention of California’s wildfires on Twitter since the massive Kincade Fire broke out in late October, the president accused Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom of doing a “terrible” job of forest management.

Newsom later responded with his own tweet: “You don’t believe in climate change. You are excused from this conversation.” The governor’s criticism was a jab at Trump’s long-standing refusal to acknowledge the impact of climate change or the man-made factors that accelerate it.

As he has before, Trump made several erroneous claims about the causes of and potential solutions for the wildfires while writing that he had told Newsom previously to “clean” the forest floors.

The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment seeking clarification about his statements, including the specific funding of which Trump was speaking when he declared “no more.”

In a statement to The Washington Post several hours after Trump’s initial criticism, Newsom defended his administration’s management of the wildfires shot back at Trump a second.

“We’re successfully waging war against thousands of fires started across the state in the last few weeks due to extreme weather created by climate change while Trump is conducting a full on assault against the antidotes,” the governor said.

Trump’s Sunday tweets are a retread of his own past remarks about California’s wildfires. In January, he threatened to cut off Federal Emergency Management Agency aid to the state as it grappled with the destruction from a deadly and devastating 2018 fire season. It was unclear whether he had the authority to do so. In decrying California’s forestry management, he echoed an prior suggestion that wildfires can be mitigated by cleaning or “raking” the forest floor.

The president’s criticisms, however, reflect a broad misunderstanding of the climate-driven science behind the seasonal wildfires and at the same time mischaracterizes the realities on the ground in California.

While fire prevention generally includes some level of debris management, scientists and fire-prevention experts agree California’s wildfire situation largely stems from the region’s intensifying heat that dries out vegetation and creates tinderbox conditions come fire season — which coincides with the prime time for powerful offshore winds like the Santa Ana and El Diablo that spread the easily-fueled fire.

Though natural events like lightening can start fires, most of the wildfires in the state are started by human conditions. Last year’s Camp Fire, the deadliest and most destructive in California history, was sparked by equipment operated by the utility giant Pacific Gas & Electric.

Several of the largest wildfires of this year’s season aren’t even burning in forests: The Getty Fire and others near Los Angeles broke out in vegetation-dominated hillsides rather than in state or federal forests. California typically experiences its rainy season during this time of year, but no showers are in sight near L.A. If the rains hold off, fire danger will remain a significant threat possibly through November and even into December.

Trump has a pattern of wrapping his remarks on climate-fueled crises on the West Coast with barbs aimed at Democratic leadership in such states as California, Washington and Oregon. Though the president focused his attack on Newsom, the majority of California’s forests are managed by the federal government.

Sunday afternoon, Trump attacked one of his favorite targets, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D), who is from California, before pivoting back to criticisms of Newsom.

California has in fact made fuel management a priority following the 2018 wildfire season, Jesse Melger, a spokesman for Newsom, told The Post. At the same time, Melger said the federal government “slashed funding” for some of the same fire prevention activities.

As the president threatened to cut federal dollars to their state, Californians this season have endured historic blackouts, mandatory evacuations and, in hundreds of cases, the loss of their homes. At least five people have died in wildfire-related cases since October.

Sunday isn’t the first time the rancor between Trump and Newsom has played out in public. The two clash ideologically on issues ranging from climate change to immigration, but the president first provoked Newsom’s ire when he claimed — falsely, according to Newsom — that the governor had lavishly praised Trump as “one of the smartest people I’ve ever met.” As impeachment talk coalesced around Trump in early October, Newsom backed booting the “corrupt” president from office.

Despite Newsom’s harsh words for the president, he offered a positive assessment of the Trump administration’s response to the recent spate of wildfires earlier in October.

“I have nothing but good things to say about the federal government’s support,” Newsom said, according to the Los Angeles Times. “In fact, the Homeland Security acting director proactively called me two days ago to check in. … Hats off to them.”

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365footballorg-blog · 6 years

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Who is in a 'mess' and who will win Premier League? - BBC pundits' predictions

No team has managed a successful defence of the Premier League title since Manchester United in 2009 – but will this season be different?

That is the aim of Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola, a winner of three consecutive league titles in both Spain (Barcelona, 2008-11) and Germany (Bayern Munich, 2013-16), who saw his side finish 19 points clear of the pack last time out.

But who will challenge them in 2018-19? Can big-spending Liverpool mount a serious challenge? Will Manchester United narrow the gap? Can Tottenham improve? And are Chelsea and Arsenal contenders after changing their managers in the summer?

We asked 24 BBC TV and radio pundits to pick their top four with explanations for their selections.

The predictions were made on the basis of how each squad shaped up on Wednesday, 8 August, before the opening weekend of the season, but two days before the deadline for incoming transfers and with the potential for players to leave up until the transfer window shuts in the rest of Europe at the end of August.

Predictor 1st 2nd 3rd 4th Ian Wright Liverpool Man City Man Utd Arsenal Ruud Gullit Liverpool Man City Chelsea Man Utd Martin Keown Liverpool Man City Tottenham Man Utd Dion Dublin Man City Man Utd Liverpool Tottenham Alex Scott Man City Liverpool Man Utd Arsenal Joleon Lescott Man City Liverpool Man Utd Arsenal Mark Lawrenson Man City Liverpool Man Utd Arsenal Matthew Upson Man City Liverpool Man Utd Arsenal Alan Shearer Man City Liverpool Man Utd Tottenham Danny Murphy Man City Liverpool Man Utd Tottenham Pat Nevin Man City Liverpool Man Utd Tottenham Lindsay Johnson Man City Liverpool Man Utd Tottenham Charlie Adam Man City Liverpool Man Utd Tottenham Danny Mills Man City Liverpool Man Utd Chelsea Mark Schwarzer Man City Liverpool Man Utd Chelsea Rachel Brown-Finnis Man City Liverpool Chelsea Tottenham Sue Smith Man City Liverpool Chelsea Tottenham Paul Ince Man City Liverpool Chelsea Man Utd Kevin Kilbane Man City Liverpool Chelsea Man Utd Stephen Warnock Man City Liverpool Chelsea Man Utd Jermaine Jenas Man City Liverpool Tottenham Man Utd Chris Sutton Man City Liverpool Tottenham Man Utd Chris Waddle Man City Liverpool Tottenham Chelsea Leon Osman Man City Liverpool Tottenham Arsenal

Six teams feature in the forecasted top fours, and only Manchester City and Liverpool feature in all 24.

In terms of who will win it, Manchester City are favourites, with 21 votes. Liverpool get the other three.

Overall predicted ranking, using all BBC predictions

(using system of 4 pts for a 1st place, 3 pts for 2nd, 2 pts for 3rd and 1 pt for 4th)

1. Man City 2. Liverpool 3. Man Utd 4. Tottenham 5. Chelsea 6. Arsenal 93 pts 74 pts 34 pts 18 pts 15 pts 6 pts

Man City – a well-oiled machine managed by a serial winner

This is the third season running where City have featured in everyone’s forecasted top four. Last season, only 5% of people we asked thought Guardiola’s side would finish lower than third. This season, no-one thinks they will finish below second.

Alan Shearer: It has been a long time since anyone won back-to-back titles but I think City will win the Premier League again because of Pep – he won’t want their standards slipping. He will play exactly the same way and they are going to be very hard to stop, although I think Liverpool and United will both be a lot closer to them this time.

Shearer joins Ian Wright and Gary Lineker on Match of the Day at 22:20 BST on Saturday on BBC One and the BBC Sport website for highlights of seven Premier League games (including Friday night’s season opener).

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Chris Sutton: Pep will not allow City to become complacent. Their consistency levels last season, when they won 32 out of their 38 league games, including a run of 18 wins in a row, were unbelievable.

Paul Ince: Guardiola is a serial winner – you can see that from the way he rants and raves on the touchline demanding more even when his team are two or 3-0 up. That is his mentality, and his players buy into it.

Matthew Upson: City are about to start their third season under Guardiola and it is clear they are a well-oiled machine. They know his philosophy and the way he wants to play. As we saw in the Community Shield, when they were missing Kevin de Bruyne and David Silva, the personnel does not really matter – when one player steps out another one steps in – and that is their great strength.

Upson and Alex Scott are the guests on Football Focus on BBC One and the BBC Sport website at 12:00 BST on Saturday.

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Sue Smith: If anything City will be stronger because their problem area was left-back last season. Benjamin Mendy is now back and fit and is a real threat down that flank. Look through the rest of the team and it is top quality throughout.

Lindsay Johnson: I cannot see City not winning the title because they have improved an already very strong squad by bringing in Riyad Mahrez, and they seem to be a happy camp.

Jermaine Jenas: I still think City will win the league, but everyone has had a couple of years now to look at this Guardiola side and work out what they are about, like Liverpool did against them last season. It is hard for Pep to keep thinking up new things and if other teams do clock how to cause them problems then that will make life a lot more difficult – and it will not matter how big the gap was in the past.

Liverpool – Man City’s Kryptonite have done the best business of the summer

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Only 43% people we asked thought Liverpool would make it into the top four last season, and only 13% thought they would be higher than third – they finished fourth. This year 14% think they will win the title and 96% think they will finish in the top two.

Ian Wright: I want this season’s title race to be more spicy and I think it will be. If Liverpool can get some impetus, then we don’t know how Manchester City will react under pressure if a team can stay close to them at the end of the season.

You also have to consider that Liverpool are City’s Kryptonite. That’s why I am backing Jurgen Klopp’s side to pip them to the title.

When Liverpool are doing well in the league, the league seems better. And, when they have got a good team, with the crowd at Anfield they are literally unstoppable – as we saw against City in the Champions League last season.

Ruud Gullit: If City have to battle for the league, we don’t know if they can do that. They will be up there at the top but I am backing Liverpool to win it. They are contenders because of the way they play, and how they control games but they also want to entertain and they want to attack – they play the right way.

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Stephen Warnock: Liverpool have arguably done the best business in the window so far, albeit the most expensive. They are going to be stronger everywhere but, if they had not signed Alisson, I would not be backing them to finish second. Getting the goalkeeper right is that important, you only have to look at how many points David de Gea earned United with his saves last season.

Danny Murphy: Getting their signings done so early was beneficial because it gives Klopp time to show what he wants from them, and get them up to the fitness levels he requires for the way he wants to play.

Kevin Kilbane: Alisson is the signing of the summer. I have heard people say that they are one or two players short of a title-winning team but I don’t agree with that – there have been a couple of seasons over the past three or four years when they have been serious contenders but have been one short, and it was a keeper they needed.

I have tipped City because of the way they played last season, and how they play but it would not surprise me if Liverpool won the league.

Join Kevin, Jason Mohammed and Dion Dublin for Final Score on Saturday, from 14:30 BST on the Red Button and from 16:30 on BBC One.

Joleon Lescott: As well as all their signings, it looks like Daniel Sturridge is back in contention at Liverpool now and I think both parties have to recognise the part he can play this season. Klopp has got to see that Sturridge has the close control to unlock teams who sit deep, and Daniel has to realise that when Liverpool are playing on the counter-attack, he has got a lot of work to do off the ball and, like Firmino, is not there just to score goals.

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Chris Waddle: They have spent some big money and Klopp cannot keep saying ‘we are building’. This is the year for me where Liverpool have got to come out and say ‘we are competing for the Premier League title’. I know they won’t but they are in a place now where they are trying to win everything City and United are trying to win, so why deny it?

Danny Mills: I suppose the one problem they face is whether they are going to be so heavily reliant on Mo Salah’s goals again. I still think he will score loads, but I cannot see him getting as many as he did last season.

Manchester United – lots of quality, but lacking harmony

Last season, 33% of people we asked thought United would be champions – they finished second. This time, no-one thinks they will win the title, and only one pundit – Dion Dublin – thinks they will finish second.

Dion Dublin: United have got so much quality in their squad and they definitely progressed under Jose Mourinho last season. What they are missing at the moment is harmony, but if he can find that and get all his good players smiling and happy, they will be very close.

You can listen to Dion Dublin and Conor McNamara’s commentary of United’s opening game of the season against Leicester on BBC Radio 5 live and the BBC Sport website on Friday. Build-up from Old Trafford starts at 18:30 BST.

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Ruud Gullit: United already had the players to challenge City last season, but they couldn’t do it. So are they going to do it now? Are these players going to perform? You have to ask why so many of their players underachieved.

Chris Waddle: Jose always seems to get out of bed the wrong side every morning. He just has to get on with things and start smiling. If he does that, it will rub off on the team.

Chris Sutton: United just seem to be an unhappy camp and it all comes down to the manager. I wonder what the owners make of him telling fans not to turn up to their tour games in the United States, plus his criticism of his players and all his comments about needing new players but not getting them – he has basically been telling the centre-halves already at the club that they are hopeless.

It has resulted in a negative feeling about the club, at a time when almost every other club in the land has an air of positivity going into the new season. I think Mourinho’s frustration probably comes from him looking at City and Liverpool, and the way they play, and he is probably jealous. You wonder about the impact it will have on United at the start of the season, and what it means for his own future too.

Jermaine Jenas: I don’t see it ending well. There are too many internal issues with existing players, issues over their style of play, and also issues with potential signings supposedly saying they do not want to go and play there for him because of that style of play. United fans are not convinced by the football they play under him, or where they are heading under his leadership, so it is going to be an interesting few months.

Danny Mills: You have to be very careful with the way you read Mourinho because of the way he plays the media, and deflects attention from other things. Don’t write them off on the back of him messing about in a press conference, saying I haven’t got this or that. In fact, write them off at your peril.

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Paul Ince: Last season, from a footballing point of view, United weren’t great. Their fans were moaning that they did not attack enough and although I think Mourinho has tried to address that, they really need to hit the ground running this time.

The signs are not great, though. Everything should be geared towards the first game of the season but instead it is all about Mourinho. There are some positives, and I am expecting a big season from Paul Pogba after his World Cup, but I definitely think they need another striker as back-up to Romelu Lukaku – someone in a similar mould to the Belgian.

Ian Wright: It is blatantly obvious that United need central defenders, which is why he has shown an interest in Leicester’s Harry Maguire and Tottenham’s Toby Alderweireld. I am not sure whether he will get either of them before Thursday’s deadline though.

Tottenham – will this season be ‘like Groundhog Day?’

Last time out, 55% of people thought Tottenham would finish outside the top four – they finished third and are the only team to make the top three in each of the past three seasons. This time, 46% think they will miss out on the Champions League spots, and no-one thinks they will break into the top two.

Joleon Lescott: Are Spurs trying to win the league? Do they believe they can win it? I think they hope they can, but they won’t expect it, like the City players do. They remind me of Arsenal a few years ago, when they were just content with finishing in the top four.

Jermaine Jenas: This is a team whose manager knows them inside out and vice versa, and I can see them making a fast start to the season because of that connection. Spurs have also got a group of young players who have been together for a long time and their experience of falling short of winning a trophy will be with them. I just think that, along with them moving into their new stadium mean there are a lot of positives for them.

Ian Wright: Tottenham have a lot of players who came back late to pre-season after the World Cup and having to wait a few games to get into their new ground is going to be another disruption. I just think they might make a stuttering start that other teams might take advantage of.

Chris Waddle: Spurs will definitely be in the top four and I think they have an outside chance of winning the title because their strongest XI is as good as anyone’s in the Premier League, but my worry is that they will be affected by fatigue and injuries, and their squad is not good enough. They are also going to be going into their new stadium, and even if it only takes them a few weeks to settle in, it will be an issue.

Chris Sutton: Tottenham have not signed anyone yet but I still think they have got good strength in depth in their squad. On top of that they are strong defensively and have lots of creative options and have the best striker in the league in Harry Kane.

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Stephen Warnock: Spurs don’t make my top four because I think they have to strengthen. If Kane gets injured, then they are in massive trouble. A couple of quality late signings could tip things in their favour though.

Kevin Kilbane: How do Spurs make that step-up, that improvement they need to go from third-place to champions? It is hard to see them making the signings that would make that happen, and I think this season might be like Groundhog Day for them, where they are just challenging for a Champions League place. It is top four at best for them, because I don’t think they have got enough to seriously challenge Liverpool and City over the course of the season.

Danny Murphy: For the fans, and just to push everyone in the squad, you always need to buy at least one big name, someone who is going to come in and make them better. Of the players Spurs have being linked with this summer, Wilfried Zaha and Anthony Martial would fit the bill, but it looks unlikely either of them will be arriving now.

Chelsea – ‘things are complicated right now’

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Only one BBC pundit predicted Chelsea would finish outside the top four last season – their former manager Ruud Gullit. They finished fifth. This season, Gullit thinks they will finish third, but 63% think they will miss out on the top four.

Mark Lawrenson: I look at Chelsea and it is just a mess, isn’t it? The whole thing.

Ian Wright: They have got a new keeper lined up to replace Thibaut Courtois and I think Eden Hazard will stay, but who is going to score all the goals?

At the moment it looks like they will be relying on Olivier Giroud because it is not happening for Alvaro Morata and we have seen that Michy Batshuayi is not going to do it at this level. So they need another striker which is why, as things stand, they don’t make my top four.

Pat Nevin: Things are complicated with Chelsea. I think they are in exactly the same situation they were in before the season started last year, which is they need to buy. I suspect they will try to bring one more centre-back in but, if David Luiz is back to his best after his injuries last season, then that will not be a problem.

The last couple days of the Premier League transfer window could change everything because they could sell one of their big outfield players and get in three others, and that would completely change the picture.

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Stephen Warnock: Keeping Hazard is crucial for Chelsea. He is their match-winner and almost irreplaceable, especially at this stage of the transfer window. Without him, I would not pick them to finish third, but I do think the way Maurizio Sarri plays suits the players he has got, and not having Champions League football will help them a lot.

Ruud Gullit: Players want to win trophies – you know your career is short. Hazard came to Chelsea to win things, not just to play well and earn a lot of money, and he still wants to win trophies – major ones – now.

Chelsea have to create that opportunity for him – if they can’t, then you cannot blame him if he does want to leave. Can they do it this season? It is too early to tell.

Matthew Upson: What Sarri saw in the Community Shield will have told him a lot about what his players are capable of, in terms of fitting into his system or reaching the required standards. He has issues to tackle right through his team and, with Thursday being the transfer deadline for incoming players, there is not much time to decide whether to address them in the transfer market.

Read more from Upson here on the issues faced by new Chelsea manager Maurizio Sarri.

Arsenal – A good start under Emery will be crucial

Some 70% of BBC pundits, presenters and commentators predicted Arsenal would finish outside the top four last season, and they finished sixth. This season, 75% think they will miss out on Champions League football again, and no-one thinks they will finish higher than fourth.

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Ian Wright: I have faith in Arsenal finishing fourth because I think their attacking players will cause all the other teams problems – but I am still worried about the defensive side of things and the way the players start the season under Unai Emery, and grasp what he wants from them, is going to be so crucial.

They start against a City team who know exactly what they are doing, but this might be a good time to play them because some of their players are late back from the World Cup. Arsenal are going to play this pressing game and could they catch City off guard? If they do, have they got enough defensively to stop City even if City are rocked by a couple of punches? That might just be my wishful thinking.

After that, they play Chelsea, West Ham and Cardiff, and depending on results, that could be an unbelievable opening, or a case of ‘uh oh’. By the time they get to West Ham, when they will be up against Jack Wilshere, well there is a story waiting to be written there, isn’t there?

Martin Keown: It will be a really close battle to make the top four; Arsenal and Chelsea will push Manchester United all of the way and have an outside chance of claiming a Champions League place. Emery has had longer with his team than anyone else – they’ve largely all been together for the whole of pre-season – and they could potentially cause an upset against City on day one.

Stephen Warnock: Emery has a fantastic record and his appointment is a massive coup for Arsenal. He has signed some excellent players, but a lot depends on how quickly they adapt to the Premier League.

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Kevin Kilbane: They won’t challenge for the title but I think Emery will make them more pragmatic and harder to beat. That will be the biggest difference with Arsenal this season compared to when Arsene Wenger was in charge and they played more off the cuff. It is a change that they have been crying out for.

Jermaine Jenas: After 22 years of Wenger running the club, from the way they train to the way they play, the initial shock of playing under Emery will be great for them. That change might feel good to the players in the early stages but nobody really knows how they are going to translate that to the pitch, or which style of play they will adopt and they are a bit of an unknown quantity.

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Who is in a 'mess' and who will win Premier League? – BBC pundits' predictions was originally published on 365 Football

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aion-rsa · 5 years

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The Secret Origin of Superman Smashes the Klan

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Superman Smashes the Klan may be set in 1946, but it's incredibly timely today.

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We currently live in a world where powerful bigots “fan the flames of a racial fire” instead of stoke violence with their savage racism. Where everything shy of uttering a racial slur in anger is merely “denounced by some as racist” or “racially charged.” So it’s easy to be concerned, when you hear about a new comic project about Superman taking on the Ku Kux Klan, that the story might be so slathered in euphemism as to be rendered entirely inert, even when it’s written by one of the sharpest minds in comics. So when we had a chance to talk with Gene Luen Yang about his new book, Superman Smashes the Klan, it was one of the first things we asked about. “I feel like we do go at it hard, but I also feel like modern storytelling sensibilities require more nuance than you can get away with in the 1940s,” Yang tells us. “You can't set up cardboard villains anymore. And while I'm not presenting that ideology as a good thing, I do hope that there is a little bit of humanity in the bad guys in our version.”

“Their version” is this new project, with art duo Gurihiru, updating a story from the classic The Adventures of Superman radio show, “Superman vs. the Clan of the Fiery Cross.” The original radio drama, available through Archive.org, was groundbreaking. Everyone knows that it was the Superman radio show that introduced Jimmy Olsen and Perry White and Kryptonite, but this is also the adventure that helped expose the real Klan. Stetson Kennedy was an author and human rights activist who had infiltrated the Klan back in the ‘40s. He worked with Drew Pearson, an NBC radio host, to name names in the Georgia KKK, and he connected with the producer of The Adventures of Superman, pitching the storyline that became “The Clan of the Fiery Cross.”

They included secret information to break the mystique of the Klan, but most of the damage they did with Superman was through ridicule. The “Clan of the Fiery Cross” and its members were garbage. Superman called them garbage. Perry White called them garbage on the front page of the Daily Planet. Even the Klan’s own leader called his membership garbage at the end, mocking the members as rubes while he criticized the show’s villain for taking their racist schtick too seriously, instead of just fleecing the rank and file like he was supposed to. And the wild thing about this fearlessness from one of America’s greatest fictional heroes is that it worked. Klan recruiting actually dipped noticeably in the wake of “Clan of the Fiery Cross” broadcasts.

This was one of the first things that jumped to mind when Yang was meeting with Marie Javins, DC editor and all-time great comics colorist, about new projects. "This is one of the most important Superman stories and it's never been told in his native medium. It's never been told in comics,” he said to her. So he got to tell it.

read more: New DC Universe Timeline Explained

Joining him on the book is Gurihiru. The art duo (Chifuyu Sasaki and Naoko Kawano) have worked with Yang before, on the generally outstanding comic expansions of the Avatar: The Last Airbender universe. Their style is much cleaner and cartoonier than what’s common in superhero books today. One might even say they skew more all-ages in their artwork, but what is “all-ages” as a descriptor of comic art than a way of saying that the art is more in line with the target audience of Superman back when the radio show was on. “Marie and I talked early on about how we wanted the art to look like a blend of manga and those old Fleischer Superman cartoons,” Yang said, “and I feel like Gurihiru has absolutely nailed that.”

Part of their job was to punch up the action. The radio show was a lot of things, but one of the unfortunate descriptors might be “stationary.” Just by virtue of it being a radio program, there was a lot of time spent describing action to the listener, a lot of scenes that took place with dialogue and narration that worked well in radio, but would be a fundamental failure as a comic. “I think we give Superman a little bit more dynamism,” said Yang. “Gurihiru, they're amazing artists. [I] want to give them amazing action to draw.” So the Superman of Superman Smashes the Klan races down power lines, blasts the ground with his heat vision so hard it pushes him into the air, and shatters a wooden baseball bat with his barrel chest, instead of the static “So Superman flew to the river” scene changes of the radio program. “[Gurihiru was] my top choice for this project. As soon as Marie and I began solidifying the details of the project, I mentioned that I wanted to work with them again,” Yang says. “Every time I would get an email from them, whether it was with thumbnails attached, or with inks attached, or with colors attached, I was just astounded.”

read more: Batman/Superman and the Secrets of Evil DC Superheroes

Better action isn’t the only change to the story Yang and Gurihiru introduce. While the comic is set in 1946 just like the radio show, the creators make a couple of tweaks that make this new version really sing. The most significant is how they expand the roles of the Lee women. Dr. Lee is still the new chief bacteriologist at the Metropolis Health Department, living in a new Metropolis neighborhood with the rest of his Chinese-American immigrant family. Tommy is still the new hot starting pitcher for Jimmy Olsen’s Unity House baseball team (displacing Chuck Riggs, who ends up getting roped into the Klan by his uncle). But new to the cast is Tommy’s sister, Roberta, and Roberta and Tommy’s mother sees her role much expanded from just scenery in the radio drama to a pivotal character in the comic. The men are much more the public face of the immigrant experience. They speak English, join baseball teams, and work in local government. By contrast, Roberta gets homesick. Her mom talks about how wonderful Metropolis’ Chinatown is. And it’s through the Lee women that we see our best connection with Superman.

Kal-El has always been a metaphor for the immigrant experience in America, and it’s Roberta who interacts with him the most in the first issue. She’s the one who finds Superman after her brother goes missing at the end of the issue, and she’s the one who tells Clark Kent her mother’s philosophy about new homes. It is the single best Clark Kent moment I’ve ever read in a comic, one that is so perfect I wouldn’t dare to spoil here, but it is simple and elegant in how it draws parallels between Superman’s experience and the Lee’s, and one that lampshades his secret identity as a reporter beautifully. This was no happy accident. “By playing Superman, who is an immigrant, against the daughter of immigrants, I felt like I was really able to bring that out,” Yang told us. “I was able to explore something that I've been wanting to explore since I started working on the character.”

read more: Inside the Return of the Justice Society of America to the DC Universe

And while these changes take an already great Superman story from the radio program and turn it into one of the best Superman comics of recent years, Yang tells us that the frame was always there. “I listened to parts of it with my 12 year old daughter, and I thought that she would be like, ‘Oh, can we please listen to something else?’ But she was really caught up by that story,” he says. “She would ask for the next episode, even when I wasn't ready to listen to it. I'd be still taking notes on the first episode, and she'd be like, ‘Let's listen to the next one.’ So I think the spine of the story, the bones of the story are all there, you know? That's one of the reasons why we just kept all the bones.”

The end result, at least after the first issue, is a book Yang seems destined to have made. Superman Smashes the Klan brings Superman back to his immigrant roots, makes him a source of inspiration for working immigrant Metropolitans; their overwhelmed kids; and the scared but ultimately good kids of the rotten Klan adults as well. But Yang’s also bringing Superman back around - he’s had a go at the character once before. As the New 52 was winding down, DC tried some radical changes to their characters. Batman became Jim Gordon, Wonder Woman stopped being Diana, Robin turned into an Occupy flash mob, and Superman lost his powers and his cape and went back to a t-shirt and jeans. “Early on in that ten issue run on Superman in the Prime Universe, I wanted to explore his immigrant side,” Yang says. “The fact that he's actually from this other culture and, in a lot of ways, he has to navigate between Kryptonian and American culture. I feel like I didn't get to really do that there, and I get to do that now. I get to do that in Superman Smashes the Klan.”

He does it exceptionally well.

Superman Smashes the Klan is on sale now.

Read and download the Den of Geek NYCC 2019 Special Edition Magazine right here!

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Feature Jim Dandy

Oct 16, 2019

Superman

DC Entertainment

from Books https://ift.tt/35GalIo

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