College football isn't the only thing that's fucked up in 2026. Everything is fucked up in 2026. Including Batman.

Back in April, DC Comics published their latest annual "event" story in which the biggest names (read: most economically valuable intellectual property) in the DC Universe had to fight to the death to earn the power to — I shit you not — stop a guy from killing everyone. In the fourth issue of that awful series, Batman violates his no-kill rule by cheerfully driving a stake through the Joker's chest (thus saving his pal Superman's life so that Superman could... kill Lex Luthor with heat vision). Does Batman ever express remorse for this? No. Like everyone else involved in this story, he sensibly chooses to pretend it never happened.

Seriously. Don't read this story.

This approach to storytelling explains why I don't buy or read Batman comic books anymore. The same guy who wrote this event story is also the guy who writes the industry's best-selling comic, Absolute Batman, which, based on sales numbers, must be *everybody* else's Batman. The first issue is now on its twelfth printing in just 20 months. That's crazy. It took twelve *years* for The Killing Joke to get a twelfth printing. At this point, I might be the only person who hasn't bought a copy of this thing. And I absolutely still won't. Absolute Batman is just a broke asshole on steroids. None for me, thank you.

My Batman is this badass who forces his son to spank pirates with swords:

"Blackbeard's Crew and the Yacht Society," Batman #4, Winter 1941

Show 'em how it's done, boys.

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86/2656. It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958)
This sci-fi horror is essentially the same plot as Alien, which just goes to show how much of Alien's success is atmosphere (and Signorney Weaver).

87/2657. They Cloned Tyrone (2023)
Blaxploitation meets Twilight Zone. It's incredibly well done, with a great cast. Just brilliant.

88/2658. Blues in the Night (1941)
Does this musical really count as film noir? It's got the look and a protagonist put upon by fate (and a dead baby!), but it really feels more like a 1930s Warner Bros gangster movie than post-War noir.

89/2659. Little Miss Marker (1980)
A depression-era rom-com staring the unlikely pair of Julie Andrews and Walter Matthau. Matthau is great and the role is perfect for him, but I can't escape the impression that Julie Andrews could do better.

90/2660. Little Miss Marker (1934)
This is the Shirley Temple original with a similar premise but very different execution. I like the Matthau version better.

91/2661. Irma la Douce (1963)
Why is this movie so long? Why does lead Shirley MacLaine seem so indifferent to being in it? Must Jack Lemon be so annoying? I did not love it.

More to come.

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Welcome to the 21st Annual Wriphe.com Batman and Football Month! It may be the last.

"This should be the time we're excited. Instead, we have this ridiculous confusions and sense of chaos. It's kind of sad, to be honest."

—Donde Plowman
University of Tennessee Chancellor
SEC Executive Committee President

It's not an exaggeration to say that college football is being strangled to death by the same greed and corruption currently eating the corpse of the rest of the American Experiment. This has been a long time coming. The schools themselves have been exploiting their "students" for income and fame for decades, and now everyone wants a piece of the action. College football alone generates billions of dollars a year, so in theory there should be plenty of Golden Goose to go around. But America has never been particularly good at sharing wealth equitably.

The current imbroglio is that LSU wants to put on their team former players who washed out of the NFL. No player has moved backwards from the NFL to college since the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States banned "The playing of those ineligible as amateurs" in 1906. The IAAUS became the NCAA in 1910, and lost its ability to enforce amateurism in college sports in 2015 (O'Bannon v. NCAA) because it made money selling player likenesses to a video game company without giving any of that money to the actual players. We're still feeling our way through the fallout.

LSU is a voluntary member of the SEC, which maintains that its players, if not strictly "amateurs" in the traditional sense, should at least never sign contracts with professional leagues. LSU, on the other hand, seems to think that if United States law says they can play pros, they should play pros, any prior agreement they made to play by the SEC's rules be damned. For some people, winning is the only thing. Nuclear weapons should be kept away from these types of people.

The SEC being among the four most powerful and influential of conferences means essentially that all of college football is currently involved in this game of chicken. Is LSU really going to violate previous agreements (and face future financial sanctions) to put professional players on the field? Is the SEC willing to forfeit games (and the accompanying cash) to stand on an increasingly archaic principle?

The State Court of Louisiana is supposed to weigh in on Thursday. If history is any judge, they'll only make things worse.

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FYI: My power is out again. Are we having fun yet?

UPDATE: Fixed. And in just under six hours this time!

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To quote FoxNews.com from March 11, 2003:

Chairman of the House Administration Committee Bob Ney, R-Ohio, ordered cafeterias Tuesday to rename "French fries" to "freedom fries" in a display of congressional pique at French intransigence over war with Iraq.

To quote FoxNews.com from March 1, 2007:

Former Congressman Bob Ney reported to a federal prison Thursday morning to begin serving a 2 1/2-year sentence for corruption, a fall from grace spurred by gifts from now imprisoned lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Obviously, these two stories are completely unrelated, have no relevance to recent events, and have been presented above for historical reference only.

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