firehose

Last week, DC Comics released a new paperback of Kurt Busiek and Stuart Immonen's Superman: Secret Identity, and if you haven't read it, this is a pretty good time to remedy that. It's got a premise that's immediately interesting, starting from the simple question of what Superman would be like if he existed in the real world -- our world, the one that already has Superman as a fictional character -- and builds from there into a four-part series that follows him through his life, using his powers, helping people and building his own family.

And it's one of the best Superman stories of the past ten years.

With most stories with the word "Superman" in the title, it'd be pretty redundant to say that they follow the adventures of Clark Kent, but with this one, that's where the twist is. This Clark Kent, who does in fact hail from a small town in Kansas, was given that name by parents with a sense of humor and had to suffer through a lifetime of "funny" Superman-themed gifts from well-meaning but clueless relatives. This, I think, is something most comics fans can relate to -- surely I can't be the only one who got stacks of random cheap back issues for my birthday, right? Anyway, as you might expect, things pick up when Clark suddenly (and, for a while, inexplicably) wakes up in mid-air with powers far beyond those of mortal men.

At its heart, Secret Identity is a modern update of Superboy Prime -- a character who got an actual modern update in the form of a petulant Internet troll with a bloody Superman logo who ripped people's arms off in the pages of generally unreadable crossovers. Unsurprisingly, Busiek and Immonen go with a version that's a little more optimistic. Even though Clark doesn't start out with the saintlike qualities of his comic book namesake (he's pretty average in just about every way, aside from the stuff where he can leap tall buildings in a single bound), he's never "corrupted" by the evils of the real world. Instead, there's a great, Spider-Man-ish message there about power and responsibility, about what it means to have that power and to decide to use it to help people.

There's an amazing bit in the second issue where Clark is ambushed by government agents and taken to a lab to be analyzed. He's kidnapped, drugged and experimented on, and when he finally breaks free, he's surrounded by all the horrors that you'd expect from that kind of scene -- all of which Immonen does a great job of making horrifying without being lurid or grotesque. The whole thing prompts him to go on a rampage, destroying the lab and all of the information they've gathered:

But even with all that, the next page shows Clark pulling his would-be vivisectionists out of the flames, saving their lives. It's not a decision that's agonized over, and neither is Clark's decision to use his powers to help people. It's just done, and presented as being the right thing to do.

That, I think, is the core of what makes Secret Identity such a great read. It's one of those stories that treats Superman like the inspirational figure that he is, giving us a role model and reminding us that we're all capable of using our abilities for good. It just extrapolates that to showing us someone who has those same powers, and then makes doing the right thing with them a foregone conclusion, even when there are potentially awful consequences for those actions.

Beyond that, though, Busiek's strength in this story lies in the relationships he creates. On that front, Secret Identity reads like one of the best issues of Astro City, occasionally shifting the focus away from the superpowers to show the lives behind them. The cornerstone of the series is Clark's relationship with the woman who becomes his wife, who, of course, is named Lois:

The gag about setting up a Clark Kent with a Lois is a solid bit of comedy, but the way Busiek and Immonen play the relationship that builds from it is really incredible, and economical too. I imagine it helps that they're working from a template, of sorts -- in the same way that Clark is a good guy with Superman's powers, Lois has a lot of her counterpart's brassy personality -- but the way they're able to show these characters falling in love in the span of 48 pages is genuinely incredible.

Clark himself is a great character, too. There might not be a conflict about morality, but, as the story implies, he's constantly having to deal with what it means to keep these secrets, and who he needs to keep them from: His small-town classmates, reporters, Lois, the government, even his children. And the way he chooses to keep those secrets are often incredibly entertaining just on their own:

And it's not just them. The bitter reporter who first breaks the "Superboy" story when Clark's a teenager, his Flash Thompson-esque classmate (another Spider-Man connection), his needling coworkers, Clark and Lois's daughters, they're all well-rounded and engaging characters that help to support the narrative. Even the government, initially played as something that Clark needs to fear and the closest thing the story gets to introducing a supervillain, isn't portrayed as something entirely one-dimensional and uniformly evil. Instead, the handler that gets assigned to Clark's case becomes a part of the story himself -- and one of the best parts at that.

There's so much humanity to this book, and it's not just Busiek who's putting it there. Immonen's art is amazingly expressive, which isn't much of a surprise if you're familiar with his work, but is always incredible to see on the page. It has a more "realistic" style than he used on titles like Nextwave or All-New X-Men to reflect the "real-world" nature of the story, but that allows him to occasionally break out of that style and do something that grabs your attention. The chapter breaks -- and Clark's hallucinations while he's being experimented on -- are done as Superman panels from the past, which Immonen draws in the style of Shuster, Swan and even Bruce Timm. It's minor, but it's a nice display of his range as an artist.

The best choice he makes, though, is that even in the real-world sequences where he's using a more muted color palette, he'll use bright, popping colors for the Superman costume that Clark wears to protect his identity:

It's a great book, and easily one of the most underrated Superman stories ever written, by two of the best that comic books have to offer. It's well worth picking up this week in paperback, but if you can't wait to get to the store, all four issues are available on Comixology as well. Give it a read. It's worth it.

girljanitor:

flameoftarvalon:

This is my kind of chainmail  

HNNNNNNG

hard femme as fuck

It’ll be okay

afrodiaspores:

Twerking among Black women has recently emerged as a threat—to the “politics of respectability” that associate proficiency in art forms dismissed as “low class”/”ghetto”/”ratchet” with moral turpitude and intellectual degeneracy; to the notion that Black women (both cis and transgender) and gay men adept at dances that focus attention on the torso merit contempt instead of praise; to the belief that if a person (especially young and Black and/or Latino/a) provokes desire, whether purposefully or unwittingly, they/s/he deserves violent exposure to the worst of contemporary “rape culture,” from internet trolling to physical abuse; to the the idea that historically Black innovations (such as AAVE and queer men’s and trans women’s ballroom voguing) exist merely to be decontextualized, commodified, and jokingly imitated, rather than commemorated as collectively affirmed vectors of value and ongoing modes of resistance.

In the online exchanges concerning Black women’s twerking and the subsequent appropriation(s) of it by white performers, some have questioned the extent of its linkages to older African-derived dances. Others know far more about the topic from first-hand experience and have more to offer in terms of analysis. I would like to expand the discussion slightly to draw a few more connections across the African Diaspora—between African-American dances as currently performed and Caribbean movement traditions—than those I have seen elsewhere. For instance, I would propose comparison not only with the “limin,’” “wainin,’” or “winin’” of Jamaica and Trinidad, but also with Cuban dance styles that share with certain West and Central African forms an emphasis on the buttocks as punctuation marks for the narrative told by the legs of the dancer. Rumba guaguancó, with its characteristic thrusting vacunao, is a textbook example.

Another complex of dances that would reward consideration alongside twerking are of Haitian origin (and with which I am unfortunately less familiar, so I apologize in advance for any inaccuracies). For example, the lwa, or spirits, of the Gede clan enjoy dancing the hip-swiveling banda, and seeing it executed for them. Gage Averill relates, 

The Gedes (including Bawon Samdi/Papa Gede, Grann Brijit, Gede Nibo, Bawon Lakwa, and others) are spirits who guard the secrets of death and the cemetery and also have a special relationship to crossroads. The dance of the Gedes is the highly sexual banda, with its accentuated rolling of the pelvis, and the Gedes have a privileged position from which to interject humor and sexuality into all of their interactions. 

Yvonne Daniel disputes the interpretive focus on sex, arguing that banda communicates the need for “keeping life vital,” but not the importance of banda in ritual practice. While banda performance may also turn explicitly oppositional, as when the Gedes demand resources or rights from the powers-that-be, it is difficult to think of a celebration of survival among people of African descent that would not be—in multiple senses—political.

Similar movements are not confined to ceremonies explicitly centered on the lwa. As in the footage seen above, filmed by Maya Deren between 1947 and 1951, participants in the Lenten (usually Easter Week) festival called Rara visually cite banda and have developed genres of performance that strategically use the hips and hindquarters as tools of expression. The poses struck by these majò jon or ”baton jugglers,” convincingly traced to Kongo precedents, complement the bodily attitudes assumed by the ”queens” of Rara bands. Elizabeth McAlister observes,

A quality Rara queens seem to share with their hip-hop counterparts is their irreverence toward the dominant culture’s moral stance, which would seek to repress their sexuality as women. Rara queens, as well as rappers and other women artists in Black Atlantic performance traditions, fashion and perform a publicity that projects images of female sexual freedom and economic control. 

She continues:

One common feature of many forms is the celebration of the African female behind. Future scholarship might well look into the possibility that the “bottom-heavy” hip-rotating dances like gouyad, whinin’, and “doin’ da butt” “had one meaning in African culture and came to be integrated into bodily performances of opposition in the American setting.”

At the end of this passage, McAlister quotes Judith Bettelheim’s 1990 paper, “Deconstructing the Mythologies: From Priestess to ‘Red Hot Mama’ in African and African American/Caribbean Performances.” This title hints at the work still to be done in order for twerking to be understood more widely as part of a larger family of Diasporic dances, and for its mastery to be appreciated as a unique recombination of skill, knowledge, and kinship.

Dirty Cathy

Game Developer Magazine—arguably the leading publication for people for making interactive entertainment—will no longer be printing physical copies of the magazine. The last issue will be printed in July. Best wishes to all those affected by this decision.

A+ review

““In the disability context, if Hooters is to say she’s not as attractive now without this wig, if they’re selling her attractiveness that might be a real function of her job and mean she isn’t qualified by the Americans With Disabilities Act,” McCormick said. “Most companies can’t say something like this, but Hooters sells this experience,” she said.”

- Hooters Waitress Says Post-Brain Surgery Appearance Cost Her Job - Yahoo!

“Top 10 Foodie Cities 2013
1. Decatur, GA
2. Hoboken, NJ
3. Bloomington, IN
4. Berkeley, CA
5. Madison, WI
6. Lafayette, LA
7. Chapel Hill, NC
8. Santa Fe, NM
9. Alexandria, VA
10. Burlington, VT”

- Lafayette Named a Top 10 Foodie City by Livability.com | KATC.com | Acadiana-Lafayette, Louisiana

The street map below could represent any riverside town, but it is instead a place that was generated in the HTML5-based imagination of a Web browser. The French Web site CEPCAM (discovered via Reddit) lets you choose parameters such as fertility, maxBastards, curveProbability, and curviness, and watch as a city map is drawn on the screen in front of you. Careful, though: tweaking the settings can be mesmerizing. The map below is based on settings 8, 100, 0.15, 5.25, though randomness in the algorithm means no two maps will be the same. We’ve included the map for 8, 80, 0.8, 8 at the end if this post. The more desolate-minded may want to try 2, 25, 0.6, 4. Finally, note that CEPCAM, which published this city-generator, is the European authority charged with defending against zombie attacks. Good to know we are safe.

In the midst of World War I a young Englishwoman received a challenge from her sister. Could she write a mystery novel in which the true villain was impossible to guess? The response to that challenge launched one of the most successful careers in crime fiction.

Now that vampires, wolves, and post-apocalyptic youths have been done to death, Hollywood is circling back to an old trope to push onto young adults: witches. Fox 2000 has purchased the film rights for an as-yet-unpublished supernatural trilogy of books about the wand-havers and spell-casters.

The Sally Green-penned series of books kicks off with Half Bad, debuting under the Penguin imprint in 2014, and telling the story of a world inhabited by two secret factions of witches—one good, one bad. While the two sides obviously hate each other, they’re united when a boy is born who has the potential to be both good and bad, not unlike a conflicted Harry Potter. All hell breaks loose, some spells happen, then some danger and stuff, which Fox is hoping will be enough to sustain at least three movies.

Fittingly, the film will be produced by Karen Rosenfelt, who’s also ...

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youbroketheinternet:

deerro:

what even

Wandawega

Why waste your money buying a pre-cut chicken when you can do it yourself in minutes?

First The Alamo Drafthouse put the kibosh on cell phone use in its chain of movie theaters and now the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are doing it during their concerts. The band posted an anti-cell phone message at its New York City show this weekend urging its fans not to watch the show “through a screen on your smart device,” and telling them to “put that shit away as a courtesy to the person behind you and to Nick, Karen, and Brian.” Preach, Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

Karen O also brought up the sign during the show, telling fans that they were free to take fans for the first couple songs but that they should “put those motherfuckers away” after that. According to Spin, a few people in the audience definitely violated the band’s request, but for the most part, fans respected O and company’s wishes.

The band's new ...

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(via Nothing To Do With Arbroath: Fire-breathing dragon bridge opens in Vietnam)

Behold, approximately one bazillion copies of President Obama's completely non-binding budget proposal rolling off the Government Printing Office presses today.

Only two years ago, I caught my first shoddily assembled video top 10 list of Rey Mysterio’s most astounding moves on YouTube. I was in awe. Seeing Mysterio, a high flying luchador, spin-crawl around his opponents with apparently such momentum as to send them flying was an enchanting enough sight to pique my interest. Other than an odd pay-per-view with a cousin here and there, I grew up thoroughly indifferent to professional wrestling. In college I started catching bits of the WWE’s flagship show Monday Night Raw with a friend who never lost interest, and eventually started watching every week with my own group of friends. Out of seemingly nowhere we found an endlessly engrossing, if not occasionally frustrating, world of serialized high drama, low comedy, and dudes wailing on each other. 

Each week of USA’s Raw features a multitude of storylines that inch ever forward, mostly ...

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By Michael McWhertor on Apr 08, 2013 at 10:54p

Harmonix has informed Rock Band fans that some of the downloadable songs available for purchase through the game's online store will be disappearing as licensing agreements start to expire. Some of the first to go is a trio of Metallica songs from the band's first track pack.

On the Rock Band Facebook page, Harmonix writes that a "limited number of older legacy DLC songs" will be reaching the end of their licensing agreements. "Our Music Team has been hard at work extending these licenses to make sure that this has as small an impact on the community as possible," Harmonix writes, "but there may be a very limited number of songs that will no longer be offered for new purchases in the Rock Band store."

Some of the "earliest DLC releases" will no longer be offered for new purchase, Harmonix says. But the expiration of those licenses shouldn't impact players who have already purchased the affected DLC tracks — they'll still be able to download songs they've paid for.

Metallica's "Ride The Lightning", "And Justice For All" and "Blackened" have already been pulled from the Rock Band Store and will be pulled from first party marketplaces like the PlayStation Store and Xbox Live Marketplace "in the immediate future."

Rock Band's first downloadable content arrived Nov. 20, 2007. Interested parties looking to complete their collection of Rock Band songs may want to start there and work their way forward, before it's too late.

• Source
• Rock Band on Facebook

By Michael McWhertor on Apr 09, 2013 at 12:08a

The next-generation Xbox will be powered by an AMD "Jaguar" chip — Microsoft's long-rumored CPU of choice for its next console — and won't be compatible with current Xbox 360 games, according to a report from Bloomberg.

Microsoft's next-gen console is said to use the same AMD system-on-a-chip that will be utilized in the PlayStation 4, which Sony unveiled in February. The x86 architecture chip powering the PS4 is an eight core, single-chip custom AMD processor, according to Sony.

Bloomberg reports that the game discs made for the Xbox 360 — which is powered by an IBM PowerPC CPU — won't be compatible with the new system. The current Xbox 360 supports some original Xbox games through software emulation.

According to The Verge, Microsoft is planning an Xbox-related announcement event in May.

“The Pony Chaud are a series of power points linked to the petite-aetheric-equestrian stream of consciousness transmitted in La Sorcellerie de Mon Petit Poney. They are characterized by liminal states that represent the various sorceries available to initiates in the pastel magicks. At this very moment, in a secret location in the antipodes, a highly specialized group of adepts are exploring miniature-magickal spheres of equine physics. Trans-communication between the pony chaud creates an illuminated hierarchy in the initiate of P.C. sorcery. This influx of intensely charged rainbow essence courses through the body of the candidate and ultimately results in the radiant gnosis of Twilight Sparkle. This technology is to be approached with the utmost caution and understanding as the powers available in this primordial conduit have shattered unworthy vessels.”

~Bunny Bataille

ABC News

6 year-old shot by 4 year-old in Toms River The Star-Ledger - NJ.com Family, police and neighbors describe the event Monday evening where 6-year-old Brandon Holt was shot in the head by a 4-year-old neighbor while playing in their Toms River neighborhood. Tags: toms-river. Share this video. Video tools. Inside ... Boy, 4, shoots six-year-old neighbor in the headGlobalPost all 116 news articles »

By Nathan Grayson on April 9th, 2013 at 8:00 am.

No One Lives Forever was basically the greatest. This is an incontrovertible truth of the universe. The unabashedly groovy stealth shooter (and its sequel; though not blah blah blam blam spin-off Contract J.A.C.K) was equal parts silly and smart, with a peeling back of the proverbial weaponized banana peel yielding everything from lowbrow stereotypes to startlingly nuanced dissections of sexism and the criminal mind. Also, it had the best phonetic title acronym ever. NOLF. Just say that out loud. Isn’t it wonderful? It’s like the yelp a dog would make if its nose were being pinched by an enraged yet largely harmless lobster. But anyway, point being, wouldn’t it be great if we could somehow get another from somebody? Please? Well, happily, there appear to be at least a couple interested parties. Problem is, Cate Archer’s performed a disappearing act so formidable that even the likes of the maniacal *lightning crackles* Activision Corp can’t track her down.

The story goes that original publisher Fox Interactive got gobbled up by Vivendi Universal back in 2003, and then the great Activision Blizzard of 2007 rolled in and left everybody frozen under the same roof. So, logically, the rights to No One Lives Forever should be buried somewhere deep in Activision’s Singularity-and-Guitar-Hero-strewn vaults, right? Unfortunately/thankfully, bzzzzzt wrong. Activision community mastermind Dan “One of Swords” Amrich explained:

“The person who I normally talk to about that stuff does not believe that we currently have the rights. They’v never seen it. They’ve never been given the permission to put that stuff on Good Old Games. They basically said, ‘If we had it, I would love to have been able to reissue those games.’”

“At this time I do not believe Activision has the rights to No One Lives Forever, so if there were to be a reissue or remake or something like that, it wouldn’t come from Activision. I don’t know what the future holds for No One Lives forever, but I don’t think that that future involves Activision.”

Fair enough. But what about original developer Monolith? After taking a turn for the grimdark in FEAR and Condemned, they recently resumed their wacky ways with Gotham City Imposters. So, you know, maybe a new NOLF’s also in order? Sadly, no dice on that front either. “I contacted a friend at Monolith, and he doesn’t know [who has the rights],” said Amrich.

In short, no one’s sure what happened to No One Lives Forever. Not even God. By which I of course mean my good friend Goddard Williamson, who usually keeps abreast of these sorts of things.

So for now, it’s a mystery. However, I plan to do some digging, and if any globules of info-rich saliva fall from parted lips in some parking garage of secrets, I’ll let you know. Here’s hoping.

Image by @michaelruml

mbstone writes "Lightning researcher Joseph Dwyer of the Florida Institute of Technology claims that thunderstorms unleash sprays of X-rays and even intense bursts of gamma rays which could cause airline passengers to receive in an instant the maximum safe lifetime dose of ionizing radiation — the kind that wreaks the most havoc on the human body. Dwyer hopes his sensor aboard the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, will provide more data."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Synthetics — a wide-reaching drug "class" of sorts that utilizes man-made compounds and substances to create psychoactive experiences for users — have been steadily rising in popularity over recent years. There's a whole new world of substances waiting for those that know where to look, but aside from a few prominent examples (such as the multiple substituted cathinones that were dubbed "bath salts" in the US) this uptick in use has gone largely unreported. Writing for New York Magazine, Vanessa Grigoriadis pulls back the curtain on this relatively new field, explaining the motivations and proceses of those that make and use synthetics.

• Source New York Magazine
• Image Credit Pure Chemicals
• Related Items drugs drug use synthetics cathinones substituted cathinones bath salts substance abuse

“Scout and the Pomegranate Seeds, Rockport, Maine,” 2012 © Cig Harvey, Courtesy Robert Klein Gallery, Boston

Robert Klein Gallery is one of 75 galleries showcasing photography during the AIPAD Photography Show in New York City from April 4 – April 7.  To learn more about Harvey and her book, “A Love Story” click here.

I’ll start from the premise that anybody who’s got as far as reading this had no particular love for Margaret Thatcher. If this doesn’t apply to you, this article will not help. You’re on the wrong blog. Go away now. Bye bye.

Yesterday, today and probably for the next week or so, people are sharing the glad tidings around TwitFace in succinct missives ranging from jubilant celebration to wary reminders that this doesn’t change the way things are and we must keep up the fight against Thatcher’s legacy. There’s nothing wrong with either of these sentiments. While we must not forget that the wheels she put in motion are still driving the cogs that grind us into submission on a daily basis, we’re also entitled to blow off a little steam, and even to celebrate the presence of one less architect of our oppression wasting our oxygen with their vile presence on this planet. However, unusually for a such a potent symbol of rampant destructive capital, and especially for one in a position to wield so much power against the working class, she was a woman. What does this mean for the conscientious Thatcher-basher? Let’s try out a few suppositions that are making their presence felt throughout that amorphous confusion of privilege, oppression, liberal denial, radical indignation and occasional hope that our newspapers refer to as “The Left”.

Does it mean you can’t say anything these days cos feminists and political correctness has gone mad innit?
No.

Does it mean that we have to acknowledge her as a feminist icon because being in power was harder for women and she raised women’s political status and all that?
No. That is, it probably was harder for her than it would have been for a man, because patriarchy etc., but it’s not as if she was pursuing a feminist goal or fighting oppression. Her ambitions were quintessentially individualist. She wasn’t raising the status of women, in fact she used every feminine stereotype she could to promote herself while reinforcing working class women’s oppression. You don’t get to claim any feminist kudos for breaking glass ceilings when you rain down shattered glass on the women below in the process. Feminism (which Thatcher loathed) wasn’t, and isn’t, about getting to the top and playing with the big boys, it’s about bringing the big boys down, along with all the structures maintained by patriarchy and capitalism. Let’s get one thing entirely clear: Thatcher was no feminist, and she did shit all for women.

Does it mean that we can’t vilify her because we wouldn’t be vilifying a man in the same way?
No, we can definitely vilify her. But we should be careful about how we vilify her, because patriarchy does make it so much easier to vilify women as women, in ways that are harmful to all women rather than just the villains. That said, give her credit: she was vilified for far more than just her gender, and there are many very good reasons why Thatcher holds such a special place in the nation’s gallbladders. She was the one who turned on the tap for all the neoliberal free market shit we’ve been wading through for the past three decades. Why vilify her for being a woman when there’s her role in privatising services, destroying industries, breaking unions, starting wars, atomising communities and, lest we forget, stealing milk from babies.
It’s true that any other Prime Minister at that time would have done similar things, and that every one since has continued the job, and it’s also true that a man might have got away with much of it with less flack from the press. Doesn’t make Thatcher any less of a villain. If we want to be fair and break down the gendered vilification, let’s get ready to blow the roof off when Blair carks it.

Does it mean I can’t call Thatcher a bitch, cunt, hag, harridan, cow or cast aspersions on her sexual integrity or attractiveness?
I don’t know where you think I acquired magic powers from, but I can’t actually stop you from saying anything.

But would it be wrong for somebody who thinks of themselves as a feminist or feminist ally to use those words against Thatcher?
Look, I’m not about making naughty lists, here. Words and their meanings are fluid, and often context-dependent. But as a general rule, insults that are only used for women are misogynist, k? A good litmus test is to ask yourself if you’d ever find occasion to use the same insult on a man, without the insult centring on implying he’s like a woman.  If you’re not sure, try it on Cameron and see how it fits. There are very few insults that aren’t suitable for him.
Also, be aware that people who hear you using those insults on Thatcher without first seeing you use them on Cameron will be perfectly justified in assuming misogyny, as that’s the usual meaning of those words. Don’t come back with “But I used the same insult on Cameron, so it’s OK!” One cross-gender insult does not wash away centuries of misogynistic cultural baggage. Best response to being called out on this is to apologise and use a more gender-neutral insult (on Thatcher, not the person who called you out. Unless they were defending Thatcher).

Does that mean I just can’t insult women?
Not at all. What’s wrong with calling Thatcher a venomous, putrid crust of syphilitic smegma on the chode of the universe? Or if you don’t like the vulgarity, go for the surreal: Thatcher was a wax-encrusted elbow-joint of the highest order. Be creative. Please feel free to use the comments on this post to practice your non-gendered insults, provided you aim them only at Thatcher.

Where do you stand on singing “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead?”
Tough one. The history of witch persecution is fraught with the very foundations of modern capitalist and patriarchal oppression, as anybody who’s read Silvia Federici knows. But there are so few songs you can sing joyfully about the death of somebody thoroughly deserving.
You want a proper argument in defence? Give me a minute.
OK, got one. The cultural connotations of “witch” in the modern day are so fragmented, having passed from fairy tale and myth through church/state persecution, a modern reinvention as “Wicca”, developing into a full-fledged sub-culture with often positive portrayals in TV drama and children’s literature, it could be argued that the word “witch” is now primarily a fairly neutral term for a female magic-user and serves only to denote the profession of the woman in question, not her moral status. After all, the song takes care to distinguish: “Which old witch? The wicked witch,” suggesting that wickedness is by no means assumed by the term’s use. If Glinda, the good witch, can allow the munchkins their song of triumph over the ruby-slippered menace that has oppressed them for so long, who am I to begrudge it?

Back to the future is a cliché, but how else can you describe CNN’s decision to revive Crossfire?

Former President Bill Clinton joined Stephen Colbert at Colbert's 'Galactic Initiative' last night to discuss his philanthropic work. Then things took a different turn.