JEWS OUT IN SPACE! [2 point ref]

        A Jewish Astronaut is asking about Shabbos in orbit. Reminds me of the panel I attended at the Arisia S.F. convention whose topic was Judaism in SF. We soon digressed into questions of observance in space and SF settings. The only issue we discussed that I can recall in any detail was the Centauri brit. Let's not go there.

        Speaking of which, spoliers for Fantastic Four #56. (The current relaunch.)


SPOILERS….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

        So, the ever loving, blue-eyed Thing is Jewish. Heh. I once listed all the last names of the founding Marvel characters. (Founding Avengers, X-Men, and major independent heroes) at it read like a county club roster. Only Daredevil (Matt Murdock) had a remotely ethnic name. Of course, despite the names, Stan Lee imbued many of his characters with a New York Jewish sensibility- especially the neurotic Spider Man.


        Time for two lists. First the surnames of the original Marvels, including the major Golden age characters. The other list is of Jewish or half-Jewish superheroes and villians.

Founding Marvels Dr. David Banner- The Hulk Dr. Donald Blake- Thor Robert Drake- Iceman Colonel Nick Fury James Hammond- Human Torch (I) Jean Grey- Marvel Girl Benjamin Jacob Grimm- The Thing Henry McCoy- Beast Namor McKenzie- Sub-Mariner Matt Murdock- Daredevil Peter Parker- SpiderMan Dr. Henry Pym- AntMan/Goliath Reed Richards- Mr. Fantasitc Susan Richards (neè Storm)- Invisible Woman Steve Rogers- Captain America Anthony Stark- Iron Man Johnny Storm- The Human Torch (II) Dr. Stephen Strange Scott Summers- Cyclops Janet Van Dyne- The Wasp Warren Worthington III- Angel Professor Charles Xavier- Professor X

Marvel's Jewish Supers Justice Legion Magneto Quicksilver Sabra Doc Samson Scarlet Witch Shadowcat Songbird The Thing UPDATE! Achillies of the Pantheon Bermuda Schwarz Brightsword The Golem Iceman Moon Knight Sasquatch

ANOTHER HOMER FOR PIPES

        Daniel Pipes vivisects Foggy Bottom, accusing the sleazy Arabists of malfeasance by understating the breadth and depth of Islamofasict terror in general and Palestinian terror in particular.

State pretends the vast majority of Palestinian terrorist incidents simply did not happen. It defines "significant international terrorist incidents" as ones involving major property damage, abduction or kidnapping, loss of life or serious injury, or the foiled attempt at any of these, and in 2001 it found 123 incidents worldwide that meet this criteria. Of those, a mere 11 concerned violence against Israelis. But when the Independent Media Review and Analysis applied State's criteria to anti-Israel violence, its scrupulous research found 97 attacks on Israel that fit this definition. The U.S. government asserts that Palestinian atrocities against Israel made up just 9 percent of the world's serious terrorist incidents in 2001, but in fact they constituted 46 percent of them.

        Seems as though our Arabists want to place a disproportionate emphasis on non-Arab terror. Yes, we need to extirpate FARC. But they are not the true threat. Except for Sri Lanka, all cross-cultural conflicts involve an Islamic society as at least one of the protagonists. India vrs Pakistan, Israel vrs the Palestinians, Indonesia in the South Moluccans and East Timor, Abu Sayeef in the Philippines, Egypt against its Copts, the Sudanese regime against the Nubians and the Albanians against the Serbs in the Balkans.

        I know that Islam per se is not the enemy and all that PC garbage. Yes, the Turks are on our side, as is the Northern Alliance. Plus the Jordanian leadership does not seem to have its head up its ass.

        Meanwhile the State Department is busy sucking up the Saudi princelings. Colin Powell may know there is a war on. I'm not sure he knows precisely who our enemies are.

        Chris Hitchens does, however. He takes time off assailing American bureaucrats to slam Pakistan and the Saudi royals. He says a lot of unpleasant things about the State Department, but no one has ever accused them of patriotism! [4 point ref]

LOST PARIDISES

        A recent note in the Wall Street Journal's Tony & Tacky caught my eye.

NO GUNS, NO GLORY: The Clunes of "Frontier House"--the PBS "reality" miniseries chronicling three families attempting to live the life of 1883 Montana homesteaders--may not win any popularity contests. But patriarch Gordon Clune said things would have been better if public television had been more realistic about one of the biggest realities of pioneer life: guns. Not only did the producers turn down Mr. Clune's request to be allowed to hunt for meat to feed his family, they imposed strict limits on using guns to ward off hostile varmints. "We were supposed to give a predator two warnings," Mr. Clune told the Los Angeles Times. "'Excuse me, Mr. Coyote, please don't eat my chicken. Excuse me, Mr. Coyote, please don't eat my chicken.' Then, you were supposed to fire a warning shot."

        So, what does it mean beyond the chattering classes' prejudice against the 2nd amendment? In a sense it is the equivalent of a Freudian slip, revealing the underpinnings of intellectual thought. As far back as Roseau dreaming of the noble savage, liberalism has pined for an Eden before the corruption of modernity. Ever since there has been an effort to fabricate such paradises either by forging new societies like communes and kibbutzes or by false interpretation of history. Indeed Marx and Engels seemed to be harkening back to the earlier societies before the Middle Ages- supposedly before classes were formed. Using Native Americans as an example, Engels wrote…

The division of labor is purely primitive, between the sexes only. The man fights in the wars, goes hunting and fishing, procures the raw materials of food and the tools necessary for doing so. The woman looks after the house and the preparation of food and clothing, cooks, weaves, sews. They are each master in their own sphere: the man in the forest, the woman in the house. Each is owner of the instruments which he or she makes and uses: the man of the weapons, the hunting and fishing implements, the woman of the household gear. The housekeeping is communal among several and often many families. What is made and used in common is common property - the house, the garden, the long-boat. Here therefore, and here alone, there still exists in actual fact that "property created by the owner's labor" which in civilized society is an ideal fiction of the jurists and economists, the last lying legal pretense by which modern capitalist property still bolsters itself up.

        Liberalism's fantasies of the past are not harmless, despite, or perhaps even because of, their Utopian nature. The Golden age never existed and can never exist. Well, outside of comic books. Anyhow, attempts to forcibly create Utopia have been an engine for misery and destruction throughout the 20th century, with Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and Lenin. And it continues with Islamofasicsts trying to make the kingdom of Allah on Earth.