Commentary (and rants) on national and local politics.

REVIEW: V for Vendetta

V for Vendetta, on the other hand—while similarly dated and liberally incorporating elements familiar to any fan of the vengeance seeking, flush with resources anti-hero—holds up remarkably well all these years later. It's a flawed story, mind you, as Moore slips back and forth between compelling melodramatic fiction and hamfisted polemic (similar in some ways to Fahrenheit 911), but the overall result is that of an incredibly engaging tale—part revenge thriller, part political potboiler, part police procedural—that takes the reader on an emotional roller coaster ride before ending on a somber, if obliquely hopeful, note.

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COMMENT: Valentino’s Black Emissary

Jim Valentino's latest project, Emissary, sounds like it could generate some interesting message board debates that would likely become a regular feature on Fanboy Rampage...if it lasts long enough.This May, Image’s Shadowline imprint releases a book that poses the question of how the real world we live in would react to an actual super-being. And what if he were black? Would he have been accepted, beloved by the world at large? Or would he have been feared, rejected, even hated? Would his near omnipotence cause governments to tremble or would they attempt to use him to advance their own agendas?…

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Blog, I have forsaken thee…

Remember when I used to post every day, sometimes multiple times a day? Those were heady times, between the war and the elections and the poetry scene, etc. Nowadays, I don't think I'm even averaging one post a week.Part of the reason is that comics have pretty much taken over the little bit of free time I have, so most of what I have to say these days either goes on CBC or Buzzscope. On the personal front, I've always been reluctant to get too personal here, and Salomé is doing a much better job of keeping people updated on…

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LINK: When Comics and Politics Clash!

Over at Newsarama, a lively debate sprung up on their message boards. That's nothing new to Newsarama regulars, though. They have one of the most active forums on the web. Fans regularly log on to bitch *cough, cough* discuss topics related to comic books, but this one was slightly different. This time the "Hero" being written about holds a dubious place in history. Not the comic continuity type of history, real life history, as in you and me. The topic in the fanboy's crosshairs this time is Che Guevara.For those of you who don't know who he is, here is…

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A Rare 2005 Political Moment

In the 2004 Presidential election, Bush wasn't the only winner. Apathy struck a critical blow, too, in the non-action of the 40% of those eligible to vote who chose not to. Pretty much broke my spirit, even with accepting that not voting can be considered a vote in and of itself, as opposed to the more cynical "silence = consent."Anyway, I received an email this morning from the Working Families Party, asking members to support Fernando Ferrer's bumbling Mayoral run the old-fashioned way...with cash. Of course, I wasn't terribly pleased...--- "Dan Cantor, WFP" wrote:This time, we urge you to directly…

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"If we were lucky, we would have died."

Council president lashes outAn outraged New Orleans City Council President Oliver Thomas blasted the city of Baton Rouge and other Louisiana communities for what he called refusing to take in refugees from the devastated city."They don't want them," Thomas said, after bursting into the press room at the Emergency Operations Center in Baton Rouge."They have put out the word all over the state: 'Those bad New Orleans people. You don't want them.'"Since the beginning of the aftermath of Katrina, Thomas has constantly said that the images on television of looters and reports of terrorizing by bands of young men have…

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Mayor to feds: ‘Get off your asses’

From the transcript of WWL correspondent Garland Robinette's interview with New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin on Thursday night. WWL: ...apparently there's a section of our citizenry out there that thinks because of a law that says the federal government can't come in unless requested by the proper people, that everything that's going on to this point has been done as good as it can possibly be. NAGIN: Really? WWL: I know you don't feel that way. NAGIN: Well, did the tsunami victims request? Did it go through a formal process to request? You know, did the Iraqi people request that…

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