Chloë Weirde: The youngest sister (yet still immortal), Chloë appears as a young woman between the ages of 16 and 20, though she has the ability to make herself look any age younger than that (including a newborn). She is however incapable of appearing older, and is often frustrated at being treated like a kid by "mere mortals". (This should happen often, to comedic effect.) She can never EVER pass for 21, no matter how hard she tries. This frequently makes her upset, but never to the point of violence; in fact, she is all but incapable of violence, as her sphere of influence is based on life, birth, and healing.
Moira Weirde: Easily the most accessible and sympathetic of the Three; if we must have a heroine to make the show work, she is it. Moira is the middle sister, and as such has spent a significant chunk of eternity mediating between Chloë (whom she feels has a good heart, but is more than a bit idealistic) and Aisha (whom she regards as wiser, but more cynical due to her age and nature). She has the patience of a saint, and a good heart that is nonetheless tempered with the knowledge that sometimes unpleasant things must be done for the greater good.
Aisha Weirde: The oldest sister, she is the femme fatale in its most literal sense: death, the plague-bringer, the ender of life. In addition to the powers inherent in being a Weirde sister, she can destroy any object (including ideas and philosophies), kill anything living (with as much or as little pain as she desires), and instill fear with a look. Paradoxically, she can also cause a mortal to orgasm with but a touch (la petite morte).• Doctors:16 deaths in sand holes or tunnels in U.S. 1990-2006Details at 11.
• In same period, 12 fatal shark attacks took place, says University of Florida
• Hole walls usually collapse, leaving almost no evidence of hole or victim location
• Victims mostly boys, 3 to 21 years; average age about 12
Let's Watch A Girl Get Beaten To Death.
This is not my blog, but I don’t have a blog, or a space, and I’d like to be heard for a bit.
Last month seventeen year old Dua Khalil was pulled into a crowd of young men, some of them (the instigators) family, who then kicked and stoned her to death. This is an example of the breath-taking oxymoron “honor killing”, in which a family member (almost always female) is murdered for some religious or ethical transgression. Dua Khalil, who was of the Yazidi faith, had been seen in the company of a Sunni Muslim, and possibly suspected of having married him or converted. That she was torturously murdered for this is not, in fact, a particularly uncommon story. But now you can watch the action up close on CNN. Because as the girl was on the ground trying to get up, her face nothing but red, the few in the group of more than twenty men who were not busy kicking her and hurling stones at her were filming the event with their camera-phones.
There were security officers standing outside the area doing nothing, but the footage of the murder was taken – by more than one phone – from the front row. Which means whoever shot it did so not to record the horror of the event, but to commemorate it. To share it. Because it was cool.
I could start a rant about the level to which we have become desensitized to violence, about the evils of the voyeuristic digital world in which everything is shown and everything is game, but honestly, it’s been said. And I certainly have no jingoistic cultural agenda. I like to think that in America this would be considered unbearably appalling, that Kitty Genovese is still remembered, that we are more evolved. But coincidentally, right before I stumbled on this vid I watched the trailer for “Captivity”.
A few of you may know that I took public exception to the billboard campaign for this film, which showed a concise narrative of the kidnapping, torture and murder of a sexy young woman. I wanted to see if the film was perhaps more substantial (especially given the fact that it was directed by “The Killing Fields” Roland Joffe) than the exploitive ad campaign had painted it. The trailer resembles nothing so much as the CNN story on Dua Khalil. Pretty much all you learn is that Elisha Cuthbert is beautiful, then kidnapped, inventively, repeatedly and horrifically tortured, and that the first thing she screams is “I’m sorry”.
“I’m sorry.”
What is wrong with women?
I mean wrong. Physically. Spiritually. Something unnatural, something destructive, something that needs to be corrected.
How did more than half the people in the world come out incorrectly? I have spent a good part of my life trying to do that math, and I’m no closer to a viable equation. And I have yet to find a culture that doesn’t buy into it. Women’s inferiority – in fact, their malevolence -- is as ingrained in American popular culture as it is anywhere they’re sporting burkhas. I find it in movies, I hear it in the jokes of colleagues, I see it plastered on billboards, and not just the ones for horror movies. Women are weak. Women are manipulative. Women are somehow morally unfinished. (Objectification: another tangential rant avoided.) And the logical extension of this line of thinking is that women are, at the very least, expendable.
I try to think how we got here. The theory I developed in college (shared by many I’m sure) is one I have yet to beat: Womb Envy. Biology: women are generally smaller and weaker than men. But they’re also much tougher. Put simply, men are strong enough to overpower a woman and propagate. Women are tough enough to have and nurture children, with or without the aid of a man. Oh, and they’ve also got the equipment to do that, to be part of the life cycle, to create and bond in a way no man ever really will. Somewhere a long time ago a bunch of men got together and said, “If all we do is hunt and gather, let’s make hunting and gathering the awesomest achievement, and let’s make childbirth kinda weak and shameful.” It’s a rather silly simplification, but I believe on a mass, unconscious level, it’s entirely true. How else to explain the fact that cultures who would die to eradicate each other have always agreed on one issue? That every popular religion puts restrictions on women’s behavior that are practically untenable? That the act of being a free, attractive, self-assertive woman is punishable by torture and death? In the case of this upcoming torture-porn, fictional. In the case of Dua Khalil, mundanely, unthinkably real. And both available for your viewing pleasure.
It’s safe to say that I’ve snapped. That something broke, like one of those robots you can conquer with a logical conundrum. All my life I’ve looked at this faulty equation, trying to understand, and I’ve shorted out. I don’t pretend to be a great guy; I know really really well about objectification, trust me. And I’m not for a second going down the “women are saints” route – that just leads to more stone-throwing (and occasional Joan-burning). I just think there is the staggering imbalance in the world that we all just take for granted. If we were all told the sky was evil, or at best a little embarrassing, and we ought not look at it, wouldn’t that tradition eventually fall apart? (I was going to use ‘trees’ as my example, but at the rate we’re getting rid of them I’m pretty sure we really do think they’re evil. See how all rants become one?)
Now those of you who frequent this site are, in my wildly biased opinion, fairly evolved. You may hear nothing new here. You may be way ahead of me. But I can’t contain my despair, for Dua Khalil, for humanity, for the world we’re shaping. Those of you who have followed the link I set up know that it doesn’t bring you to a video of a murder. It brings you to a place of sanity, of people who have never stopped asking the question of what is wrong with this world and have set about trying to change the answer. Because it’s no longer enough to be a decent person. It’s no longer enough to shake our heads and make concerned grimaces at the news. True enlightened activism is the only thing that can save humanity from itself. I’ve always had a bent towards apocalyptic fiction, and I’m beginning to understand why. I look and I see the earth in flames. Her face was nothing but red.
All I ask is this: Do something. Try something. Speaking out, showing up, writing a letter, a check, a strongly worded e-mail. Pick a cause – there are few unworthy ones. And nudge yourself past the brink of tacit support to action. Once a month, once a year, or just once. If you can’t think of what to do, there is this handy link. Even just learning enough about a subject so you can speak against an opponent eloquently makes you an unusual personage. Start with that. Any one of you would have cried out, would have intervened, had you been in that crowd in Bashiqa. Well thanks to digital technology, you’re all in it now.
I have never had any faith in humanity. But I will give us props on this: if we can evolve, invent and theorize our way into the technologically magical, culturally diverse and artistically magnificent race we are and still get people to buy the idiotic idea that half of us are inferior, we’re pretty amazing. Let our next sleight of hand be to make that myth disappear.
The sky isn’t evil. Try looking up.
I'd love to do a team comic with some of the under-used DC characters. Creeper, Man-Bat, Vixen, that latina Wildcat from the late 80s, and maybe Etrigan the Demon as the leader. Give it a nice street-level occult vibe, and a slightly weird name like "Hand of Glory"....
... well, I'd buy it.
49% nitrates, and 17% prayers that an employee didn't lose a digit in the production. Fry some of this stuff up, slap it on a plate with a couple of eggs and some butter-slathered toast, and I guarantee every death wish you've ever had will come to fruition. It's coronarilicious!
like "Peanut Bar," is not quite as good as my beloved Munch, but it's close enough for jazz (just make sure you don't accidentally buy the suppository version, the Butt Munch).
t apparently for our brave astronauts currently exploring the face of the sun! I never drank another bottle of Sqwincher after that, but I do put a couple of gallons of it in my radiator every November.
Eventually Brian would go on to do various comics, including Star Wars for Dark Horse (interestingly, we would both end up working on Witchblade, though not at the same time). And me, well, as you know, I became the hardcore legend of professional wrestling.
June 6, 2007
To the Fans of Jericho:
Wow!
Over the past few weeks you have put forth an impressive and probably unprecedented display of passion in support of a prime time television series. You got our attention; your emails and collective voice have been heard.
As a result, CBS has ordered seven episodes of “Jericho” for mid-season next year. In success, there is the potential for more. But, for there to be more “Jericho,” we will need more viewers.
A loyal and passionate community has clearly formed around the show. But that community needs to grow. It needs to grow on the CBS Television Network, as well as on the many digital platforms where we make the show available.
We will count on you to rally around the show, to recruit new viewers with the same grass-roots energy, intensity and volume you have displayed in recent weeks.
At this time, I cannot tell you the specific date or time period that “Jericho” will return to our schedule. However, in the interim, we are working on several initiatives to help introduce the show to new audiences. This includes re-broadcasting “Jericho” on CBS this summer, streaming episodes and clips from these episodes across the CBS Audience Network (online), releasing the first season DVD on September 25 and continuing the story of Jericho in the digital world until the new episodes return. We will let you know specifics when we have them so you can pass them on.
On behalf of everyone at CBS, thank you for expressing your support of “Jericho” in such an extraordinary manner. Your protest was creative, sustained and very thoughtful and respectful in tone. You made a difference.
Sincerely,
Nina Tassler
President, CBS Entertainment
P.S. Please stop sending us nuts :)
LOS ANGELES - Fans trumpeting the cause of CBS' canceled drama "Jericho" have caught the network's ear. CBS, deluged with calls, messages and shipments of nuts signifying viewer displeasure, is reconsidering its decision, a source close to the production said Tuesday.
The source spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly. A decision on whether to bring the show back, probably for a midseason run, is imminent, the source said.
The first panda bred in captivity and released into the wild has died in China after less than a year — the apparent victim of a fall.As much as I think pandas are cute and all, I think they should be allowed to die out.
He survived less than a year despite nearly three years of training on surviving in the wild.
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