Apparently, in Captain America, Volume 5 (!), #25, released this past Wednesday, Captain America was killed.

The reported death of the good Captain doesn't bother me. Many a hero has survived apparent death, and Captain America has gone through this trauma before. He has been presumed dead on several previous occasions. (I mean, he never really knows how long he'll have to live anyway, right?) I certainly know that if he sells comic books, he'll be back. After all, note that he was killed in Captain America, Volume 5! That means that he has had 4 previously cancelled versions of his own title. (And this volume will make 5.)

No, what bothers me about the death of Captain America is how, suddenly, this represents news. Cap's recent behavior and death are being spun by both sides of the political spectrum as relevant. Suddenly, Captain America's death is politically important.

The LA Times calls Cap's death a sign of "America's current distemper" with the war in Iraq. The Washington Post views Cap's shifts in temperament and goals as a cultural looking-glass in a "battle for American ideals." Fox News' "Fox & Friends" declared that Marvel's decision to kill Captain America was a sign of weakness for terrorists to capitalize on. ("You should not kill Captain America when we're at war.") Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report" used Cap's death as a typically sarcastic attack on the government abdication of individuals' rights. ("Fighting to protect civil liberties like free speech and privacy isn't just quaint; it's dangerous. That's what killed Captain America.")

I'm a touch more cynical. Captain America was killed to sell comic books. And, of course, to stir hype for the Captain America movie expected in 2009.

Will the Death of Captain America be the Murphy Brown's Baby of the 2008 election? We could only be so lucky.

(By the way, Marvel: if Winter Soldier becomes the new Captain America, I'll never buy another one of your books ever again. Wait, that's not fair. I'll probably never buy one of your books again anyway, so do whatever you want.)

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Today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution ran an article about a contest between dog groomers, er, "pet stylists" in downtown Atlanta this weekend. The goal of the contest was apparently to dress a dog up like some cheap Party City Halloween costume. To no one's great surprise, most, if not all, of the dogs in the contest were standard poodles. (One was painted to look like Paul Stanley, which I would think both the poodle and Stanley would take as an insult.) As much as I enjoy grooming Chere, I wouldn't dress her up like a tramp for a chance at a $500 prize. A poodle's got to have her pride.

I just don't understand the inclination to make dogs look like people. (Especially people in Halloween costumes.) Every time I don't pay enough attention, my father is painting Chere's claws. Don't ask me; I don't know why. You read stories about people who hold weddings and birthday parties for dogs. Some dogs see psychiatrists. And I'm sure that some dogs are over-medicated by well-intentioned but stupid owners. Try to get it through your thick heads: dogs aren't people, people. If dogs were people, I'd hate them, too.

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Yesterday the state of Virginia publicly apologized for its role in slavery. As is the trend these days, it blamed its mistake on the horrible disease of alcoholism and promised to seek help immediately.

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Yahoo! News reports today that someone has spotted a beaver in New York City this week. According to the article, it is the first time that beaver has been seen in New York City in around 200 years. No beaver in NYC? Ah, Yahoo, you don't get out much, do you?

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Yesterday morning, three schools in Cave Creek, Arizona were locked-down when a student reported seeing Batman rush across the school's lawn and leap over a fence. The eyewitness described Batman as 6' 3" tall and probably male. I wonder if that height description included the bat-ears?

I'm sure that the lock-down was an appropriate response, because Batman has some terribly psychotic and lethal foes that could do some real harm to children. Though, to be fair, I think the Joker would probably take a lock-down situation as a challenge rather than a deterrent.

This situation was reported by the Associated Press and was spread widely throughout international news media, especially on the internet, which is populated 24 hours a day by the sort of geeks who think that is a great story. (AZfamily.com used the headline "Joker Pulls Batman Stunt," by far the most clever of all competition.) Now people who have no idea where Cave Creek is know that Batman was nearby on Valentine's Day. And where there's a Batman sighting, there's a mystery to be solved!

Cave Creek, by the way, is just north of Scottsdale/Phoenix and immediately west of Carefree, home of both the world's largest sundial and the world's largest kachina doll. (Calendar Man or Maxie Zeus on the loose, perhaps?) Giant props? Those are right up Batman's alley. Dick Sprang, legendary artist on the Batman comics in the 1940s and 1950s whose trademark illustrations commonly included giant props, retired to Prescott, Arizona in the 1970s. Prescott is less than two hours north of Carefree. Coincidence? Batman doesn't believe in them.

I hope that the Metropolitan Phoenix area police appreciated the help that they received from the Dark Knight Detective in whatever crime he was in town to prevent or solve. Clearly they are towing the same official line as the Gotham police, denying that Batman was even present. According to the AP, Scottsdale Police Sergeant Mark Clark (if that is his real name!) said, "it's just one of those interesting little stories that we looked into, but we couldn't find anyone." Of course they couldn't find anyone: it's the Batman!

It is worth noting that the school district involved has issued a statement in which they proclaim that the sighting was "the result of a false reporting by a student." The student remains unnamed, and the police decline to comment on whether the student will be disciplined. The perfect cover for a stray Batman sighting!

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The past week has seen three of the most interesting news stories I've ever read.

1. Guerilla advertising in 10 major US cities generated a bomb scare after they had been in place for several days. Did no one notice them before, or did that one person, out of touch with the product advertised, manage to mobilize the entire country against one innocuous advertiser? The ensuing hoopla is the best thing that could have happened for the advertised product, and it only costs Turner Broadcasting $2 million to the involved city governments, less than the cost of a 30-second Super Bowl ad. Is there any chance that the person who started the bomb scare was a Turner employee?
2. A NASA astronaut attempted to torture another woman in order to scare her away from the male astronaut with whom both women were romantically involved. Mind you, she passed NASA screening and qualified to fly in space. Space Cowboys plus Fatal Attraction: someone call Warner Brothers and tell them to get their lawyers working on readying this story for the big screen!
3. An Italian police officer was killed in a riot outside a soccer game, resulting in Italy's decision to close a majority of its premier league soccer games to the public while stadia security is improved. Note that the spectator sport for mass entertainment will continue to be played, but spectators will be prohibited. Italy's solution to rioting after games is to remove the fans from the game, but hold the game anyway. At least they won't need police officers at the stadia anymore. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: stay away from Italy.

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So this is Christmas? I must say that this Christmas was probably more enjoyable than recent years past. No one argued. No one threw punches or food. No one stormed out and drove home. (Though my father is sleeping in his car tonight. But it's just out of appreciation for tradition.)

The lack of friction around the table this year made me realize that I often hear people talk about their dysfunctional families' holidays, but I never hear anyone talk about their functional families' holidays. I think it's about time that the June Cleavers and Donna Reeds of the world speak up. Is Nixon's "silent majority" too busy enjoying the holiday season with their sweater vests and sober relatives to tell the rest of us that we're screwed up? Or are they just smart enough to lay low, lest they find themselves co-starring on a very special holiday edition of Cops with my father?

I even enjoyed a better than average gifting this year. The only thing I asked for was socks, but in addition to the socks, I also received 12 pairs of underwear and a fog machine. Wowee! I'd say it was "like Christmas," except for the fact that it actually was Christmas. In this case, my extensive mental inventory of useful sarcastic cliches has let me down, leaving me grasping for words with which to describe the event. (Sarcasm just can't be used to describe satisfaction.)

The 12 pairs of underwear made me wonder about why we call them "pairs" of underwear. A quick internet search reveals that back in the day, only nobility wore anything over the coverings of their genitals, so there was technically no such thing as "underwear" until the last few centuries. (Unless, of course, you were hanging out in a royal court wearing a codpiece or tunic.) Modern legged outerwear evolved from two, unattached leggings (a pair of hose, to be precise) to become the single garment that we now call "a pair of pants." As I understand it, the word "pants" evolved from the word "pantaloons," a type of legged, female underskirt garment designed to cover their highly coveted naughty bits. This would make "pairs of underwear" a vestigial etymological remnant of a bygone wardrobe in our lexicon.

Note that since "pants" originated as a type of underwear, modern outerwear "pants" should properly be referred to as "trousers" since "pants" is specifically derivative of a type of undergarment and "trousers" are outerwear for the legs. This appears to be yet another difference in American and British English languages. They get it right, whereas we American's don't care what you call it so long as you can't see our legs.

It turns out that "men's cotton briefs," such as I received for Christmas, weren't even invented until the 1930s in Chicago, Illinois. Named for the 20th century male undergarment called a "jockstrap," they were designed and sold by a company which would later adopt their brand name as the company name: Jockey.

Now, all this thinking of underwear has reminded me of an editorial that I once wrote to the University of Georgia's student newspaper, The Red and Black. I took the opportunity to satirize the University community's overreaction to one editorial cartoon by criticizing another by my classmate Mack Williams (now an accomplished animator for Cartoon Network's Adult Swim program Frisky Dingo). What does this have to do with underwear, you ask? Simple: "culottes," a French underwear that appears to be a cross between a skirt and shorts. I quote from one of the many, many responses to my letter:

First we had someone decrying Williams' Feb. 26 cartoon as an insult to the soldiers who fought at Iwo Jima, when it should have been plainly obvious such an insult was not the cartoonist's intent. Now we've got someone with his culottes in a bunch over Williams' portrayal of poodles in a subsequent cartoon ("Poodles not often angry or mean dogs," Feb. 28). Poodles! Come down off the ledge, Stephens, and understand that the poodle in that cartoon was a symbol for something else -- the cartoon was not about poodles any more than it was about bulldogs or people with facial hair.

The full text can be read from the archives of The Red and Black online. The event played out in the editorial pages' "Mailbox" from February 28 through March 3, 2003. The highlight of the affair for me was this dialogue exchanged in the online feedback section:

I am stunned at how many people have been writing in about the initial poodle letter. I know Americans are supposed to be irony-free, but this is ridiculous. The letter was satirizing the Iwo Jima complaints. Come on, people, show that you deserve to be at college.

Which received the following response:

He wasn't satirizing anything, it was written by a mixed up old secretary who has his priorities all mixed up. Not everyone is as clever as you think they are.

Now THAT is satisfying journalism.

Hmm. I seem to be rambling. It must be the effects of too much cranberry sauce, Hershey's Christmas Kisses, sweet tea, pound cake, Coca-Cola, and Klondike Bars. I suppose the point of all of this rambling is that I associate 17th century women's underwear with poodles. (But I don't endorse putting poodles into women's underwear. That's just weird.)

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Yesterday ESPN.com ran the following headline:

Couples takes six holes in Skins Game

Now that's a sporting event that I'd like to see!

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Sometimes posting to a blog is like being in a food fight: throw enough pie and someone's GOT to get hit in the face. (This column is going Larry King style, baby!)

• Bravo Channel is showing both The Princess Bride and Back to the Future today. Could those be two of the best movies ever made? I say yes!
• Huge underdog University of Georgia today beat (nay, CRUSHED!) the mighty Auburn Tigers, destroying any hopes Auburn had of running for the national title. Go Dawgs!
• Television advertising execs just don't understand: the current Bellsouth ads use the song "Stuck In The Middle With You" to promote that product. The song was written about sitting between recording executives. Can telecom execs be that different?
• Of all the cars I've ever owned/driven, the one I miss most is a 1985 Ford Crown Victoria LTD Country Squire Station Wagon.
• Recent studies say that happy people are sick less often than people who are optimistic or active. That means that a cynical asshole like me will likely outlive the rest of you bastards so long as I'm happy being a cynical asshole. Hooray for science!
• Julia Roberts' single sexiest film role was as Tinkerbell in Hook. Does that say worse things about her or me?
• The National Football League has a patent on confusion; it is simply impossible to tell who is any good from week to week. Some may call this parity or equality but I call it exciting. Chicago: undefeated. Dolphins: incompetent. Final score: Dolphins 31, Chicago 13. I say this, I sure look forward to December 31, when the Dolphins play the currently undefeated Colts.

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On October 2, Emerson Electronics sued GE because NBC showed a person's hand being chopped up from being thrust inside a running InSinkErator brand garbage disposal on the show Heroes. Emerson manufactures the InSinkErator and claims that NBC's parent GE, also a manufacturer of garbage disposals, was trying to sully the InSinkErator brand name by showing the damage it could cause to a human. Money.CNN reports the lawsuit, including the plaintiff's argument that "according to data from the government's Consumer Products Safety Commission, you are actually ten times more likely to get injured by your dishwasher than your garbage disposal."

First of all, I should think that InSinkErator would be pleased to demonstrate what it can do to a human hand. If it can destroy bone, it damn well should be able to take care of a few apple cores and potato rinds. Secondly, why does the government track and study how likely you are to get injured by a dishwasher? Are we in imminent danger of invasion from insurgent dishwashers? (Well, I guess possibly so if you count Mexicans.)

So the lesson here, NBC, is that next time you should show a person's hand being chopped up from being thrust inside a running GE brand dishwasher. You'll save yourself money in the long run.

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