I'm not, but

I’m not a scientist, but last week’s cold snap forever proves that global warming is a hoax.

I’m not a mechanic, but you should turn on your air conditioner if your car’s engine starts to overheat.

I’m not a writer, but “between you and I” is grammatically correct.

I’m not a constitutional lawyer, but the First Amendment means it’s illegal for you to tell me to shut up.

I’m not a baker, but baking soda and baking powder are interchangeable.

I’m not a doctor, but the MMR vaccine causes non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

I’m not a housekeeper, but a mixture of bleach and ammonia is a great cleaning agent.

I’m not a financial planner, but spending 75 percent of your net pay on your mortgage is sound.

I’m not a musician, but a tenor is lower than a baritone.

I’m not a dietician, but you can eat as much margarine as you want without consequence.

I’m not a neuroscientist, but you can tell a lot about people’s personalities by measuring their skulls.  

I’m not a teacher, but elementary school kids learn best in classes of 65 or more.

I’m not an obstetrician, but that second megarita can’t hurt anything.

The Value of Comic Books

Bill Maher recently said something dumb (quelle surprise) that criticized that people were mourning the death of Stan Lee and posited that Donald Trump could have only been elected by a populace that took comic books seriously. I’m going to give Maher’s link of comics to Trump the rigorous analysis that it deserves, which is none at all. But since Lee died, I have been thinking about comic books and their importance.

I did feel a little sadness when Stan Lee died. The guy was 95 so the feeling is more that gratitude for a life well lived that you feel when very old people die, but I still felt a little pang. I’ve been reading comic books for over 35 years and Lee co-created the foundational teams of the Marvel Universe: the Fantastic Four, the Avengers and the X-Men. He wrote those titles for many years and created a very large part of the Marvel mythos. Lee had a hefty amount of help from artists like Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, of course. But Kirby died decades ago and Ditko (who also died recently) was a recluse, leaving Lee a very visible symbol of the old days of Marvel. So when he was gone, and people like me lost the man who helped create so many treasured four-color icons, yeah, there was a little mourning.

Comic books can be two-dimensional but Lee helped bring a sophistication to them. Marvel did something in the Silver Age that other publishers weren’t doing: giving superheroes real personalities and conflicts and basing them in something close to the real world. Spider-Man was always broke and wracked with guilt. In the Fantastic Four, the Thing had to come to terms with his mutated form and fought constantly with the Human Torch. At Avengers Mansion, Hawkeye belligerently questioned Captain America’s leadership while the Scarlet Witch chafed at Quicksilver’s overprotection. Cyclops, Marvel Girl and the original X-Men tried to serve a world that hated them just for who they were. Nobody had done this before in the medium.

Because of the work of people like Lee, Kirby and Ditko, later creators were inspired to create sophisticated comics themselves. This led to what middle-aged people like me read and still cherish: Frank Miller’s cinematic Elektra Saga in Daredevil, Bill Sienkiewicz’s wildly impressionistic New Mutants, John Byrne’s back-to-basics Fantastic Four, Chris Claremont’s examination of corruption and power in the “Dark Phoenix Saga” in Uncanny X-Men, and many more.

Comics are for kids, critics will say, and when you grow up, you need to start reading something more adult. But it’s a mistake to think that comic readers are only reading about Spider-Man, as many of us can actually handle reading more than one medium or genre at a time. I pick up a comic once in awhile but I am reading real, actual adult material constantly, to the point where it’s probably off-putting to my family. I have to have a book in front of me at all times—have to. Once I’m done one, I immediately go to the next one like a chain smoker. I am always reading some doorstop novel, and I’m also a comic reader. How about that.

This is something familiar to many people: Caring about more than one thing at once. I can watch a sportsball game and at the same time, devour news about politics and world affairs. Someone else can watch reality TV and have an encyclopedic knowledge of classic music. Et cetera. It’s not hard for most of us and there are comic readers who do have other interests.

Comic books have always done more than “inspire people to go see a movie.” They have inspired people for decades to write and draw, and not just comic books. They were part of what inspired me to write, and my accomplishments in that field are nothing to write home about, but they may not have happened at all without comics.

Comics also inspire kids to read. This is nothing apart from what the Harry Potter books have done. People have rightly praised JK Rowling for her contribution to getting kids to read. Why should it be any different for comics? There are many comics that over the years have developed characters as well as any other long-running serials.

I don’t read too many new comics these days but I do still revisit the oldies in their plastic bags sometimes. A few times a year, I’ll go crate digging for some Bronze Age back issues. Some of these are issues I once had and lost or traded away decades ago and when I find them again, I’ll see a panel that I remember from childhood, and it will inspire nostalgia and recognition, like a little blooming flower in my head. It’s those little bursts of pleasure that make comic books worth it for me and other people. Let people have that.

Hear that?

That’s silence. The election ends and the airwaves return to normal.

No longer will we need to listen to the litany of names. Fitzpatrick. Kim. Menendez. Casey. Carper. McArthur. Scott Wallace/Wagner/Walker/Weiner/Whatever. Half the names fall down the memory hole and the other half only surface when you need your street repaved.

No longer do we need to hear the ominous disembodied voices gravely discussing the issues. No more underage prostitutes. No more golf spikes to the face. No more egregious tax breaks. No more Willie Horton 2: Electric Boogaloo.

We can make dinner in peace now with just the regular, normal prattle, easily tuned out. We can make morning coffee without the blare of electoral issues, instead soothed by the background noise of Jim Sipala wanting to see ya in a Kia and fitness tips from Shoshanna.

Soon even the signs littering the highway will be swept into the dustbin of history. For now, enjoy the silence. Whether you sigh with relief or sigh with disappointment, at least you can hear yourself sigh.

Correct Coffee Cups

Okay—what is everyone’s complaint about the Starbucks Christmas coffee cups this year? I know there’s always a problem every year so what is the 2018 winner? Halloween is over and the candy has disappeared from stores, as if it never existed, in favor of Christmas trees, so we may as well talk about all this now.

Ooh, is there too much red on the cups? Are they not red enough? And is it the wrong shade of red? Is it a dusty rose when it should be more of a maroon? Magenta when it should be scarlet? What is the correct CMYK breakdown for the cups to hold my half-fat, half-caf, extra foam latte correctly?

Is there a design on the cups that is too conceptual or too abstract? Is it a postmodern holiday when all you want is an old-fashioned Normal Rockwell Christmas? Tell me: What is there to complain about this year besides the fact that the baristas misspell your name as Kiersten (“It’s actually Khyerrstyn”)?

Maybe the lady in the Starbucks logo is wearing a Santa hat when she should be carrying a lump of frankincense or myrrh. Maybe the coffee company just isn’t hitting the Christ thing hard enough and we’ll foam at the mouth like the aforementioned latte because goddammit, they should be celebrating the birth of the Prince of Peace correctly.

Or perhaps you’ve compared several coffee cups and found the exact same snowflake on each one, in violation of the laws of nature.

So what’s the problem now? It’s become a sacred Christmas tradition, on par with Christmas carols and eggnog, to bitch about something you’re going to throw in the trash in 10 minutes anyway.

Citizenship

I tell our son all the time: Vote, vote, vote. Vote every time there’s an election. Vote when there’s a presidential election, a midterm, a local election, a special election or a primary. Voting is one of the most important rights we have as citizens, a right people in this country have bled to attain and protect. Voting can help determine the course of this country more effectively than anything else can. You may not find the perfect candidate who exactly aligns with your goals but you can still vote for one who can get you closer to those goals.

He’s only 10 and tired of hearing it. But from an early age, my parents drilled it into me to vote, and it worked. I’ve been voting faithfully since I was 18 (the 1992 presidential primary was days after my birthday and I was so happy I could vote immediately), skipping very few elections, none of them major. I’m hoping the message will rub off on our son the same way my parents’ message rubbed off on me.

I think of this sometimes when I see where we are as a country and how different things could have been the last two years if voting had gone slightly differently. The latest thing that appalls me is President Trump’s idea to use an executive order to end birthright citizenship, which is enshrined in the Fourteenth Amendment. This could mean that children born in this country would not automatically be considered citizens if their parents were immigrants.

Were my Dad and his sisters not American citizens because their parents were born in Ireland? Think of how many people you know, maybe in your family tree, who are children of immigrants and imagine that they are no longer considered citizens even after a lifetime of living here.

Of course, I highly doubt anyone would have said someone like my Dad wasn’t a citizen. No, this idea is aimed at the fear of too many brown-skinned people coming to America, like this caravan the right wing is touting like it’s some extremely slow Category 5 hurricane: “They’re coming! They’re a thousand miles away and they have leprosy and there are Ay-rab terrorists hiding among them and they’re (eventually) coming to kill you!” These are people seeking refuge from some terror in Central America, like so many have sought refuge from awful things during American history. Yet we need to dispatch a bigger contingent of soldiers than we’ve dispatched to Syria to deal with people applying for asylum. All this to defend something that, if the refugees do improperly, would be a misdemeanor.

I don’t understand this. It seems like some people believe the following things about this caravan, which they think are simultaneously true by some acrobatic physics:

1. They’re too lazy to work and will take advantage of your Hard-Earned Tax Dollars to get public assistance; and

2. They’re going to take your jobs, even though they’re menial jobs that you’re too good for anyway.

Using an executive order to supersede the Fourteenth Amendment is some half-baked idea from a fever swamp, and even if it never comes to pass, it’s alarming to see the president of the United States endorsing it. That man swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution and now he’s in effect saying his word and his will would instead be supreme, and that is a terrible abuse of power and a dereliction of duty. (This confirms what I feel is one of the problems with the way Trump governs: He does it like a 72-year-old who watches a lot of Fox News. You or I could see something on the news that outrages us and say “There oughta be a law!” but we don’t need to know all the intricacies of what would need to happen, since we’re not the president. Well, Trump is the president and should have an understanding of these things, but on too many things, he doesn’t.)

From what I’ve been reading, the Fourteenth Amendment was a reaction to the evils of Dred Scott, which decided that black people could never be citizens, even if they were born here. In the late 19^th century, America tried to deny citizenship to a Chinese-American who had been born here (the Chinese being the personae non grata of their day), but the Supreme Court affirmed her citizenship. I read one recent author who said since the amendment passed, the “birthright has been affirmed, again and again, ensuring that no matter how racist the regime, the Constitution grants citizenship to all people born in the United States.”

I think that’s so important because other countries have declared groups of people un-citizens as a pretext to denying them other rights and visiting great evils on those people. If they don’t consider you human, there’s no reason to treat you like a human. Here in America, if you’re born here, you’re one of us, and that’s fundamental to our country’s character.

If this executive order came to pass, I’m sure it would go right to the Supreme Court. I’d hope that regardless of politics, those nine justices would not want to invalidate 150 years of established judicial precedent regarding a basic right, but who knows. That’s what disturbed me about Brett Kavanaugh: His partisan outbursts at the hearing made it clear that he was a Republican loyalist. The people are entitled to a Supreme Court that rules on the basis of law and not partisan loyalty, whether those justices are appointed by Democrats or Republicans.

That brings me back to voting. If the 2016 vote had gone slightly differently, we would not have a president proposing ending birthright citizenship. If the Senate vote had gone differently in a few races, Kavanaugh might not have been confirmed with the thinnest of majorities and he might not be a potential decisive vote on what would be a hugely consequential case.

So get out there on Tuesday, and on all the future Tuesdays, and vote, vote, vote. It’s an important part of citizenship and even if it doesn’t impact you immediately, your vote could have a profound impact on the future.

Indoctrination

Any parents are going to want to mold their children. They’ll want to pass on their values, history, priorities and cultural touchstones. We’re coming in sort of in the middle of the movie with our son, as some of his tastes have already been set. We’re honoring all that stuff, but it’s just natural that we’re trying to pass down some of the cultural stuff we care about, so he’s well rounded and what not.

There’s just so much culture we’ve already experienced, and I can’t wait to share it with him. Some of it is a little Rated R but we figured, why not find something good for his age range and start watching The Simpsons with him?  

We skipped the early few seasons (the characters were too unformed and the tone uneven for me) and started with season 4, the beginning of the golden years. We’re well into season 5 now and he’s been enjoying it. It’s so much fun to revisit classics with someone who’s never seen them, episodes like “Rosebud” (“Have the Rolling Stones killed!”), “Marge vs. the Monorail” (“Sorry, Marge, the mob has spoken!”), “Deep Space Homer” (“In Rod We Trust”), “Marge Gets a Job” (“It’s the Curies! We must flee!”) and “Bart Gets an Elephant” (“D’oh! A deer! A female deer!”). He’s been into The Simpsons and asks us if we can watch it, so I guess that’s a winner.

As for music, I’ve been emphasizing some of the stuff I like to listen to. It’s not like I have any idea of what 10-year-olds like to listen to so this has mostly been what now passes for oldies. I’ve been playing a lot of Madonna, Prince, etc. He says he likes what he hears but he doesn’t know any of it and hasn’t heard of these artists, which kills me. We’re also trying to keep him in touch with his African-American culture (which we believe is our obligation) so one easy way to do that is to push the music.

Of course, I realize it’s a fool’s errand to push your music on their kids because ultimately, they’ll roll their eyes at your tastes and rebel. But I’m hoping something seeps through subliminally.

I’m also trying to get him rooting for our sports teams, but that’s been a challenge. He is not an Eagles fan (which made for a roller coaster Sunday when they collapsed and the Panthers won, leading to a lot of “In your face!” in our house). He is a Steelers fan. It’s not like he’s a Patriots fan or something (he hates them), and I’m not opposed to the Steelers or anything. But when he told Steve he likes the Penguins—them’s fighting words (although I think he was trolling). Our son has no interest in baseball and doesn’t like the Sixers. But if he wants Steelers swag, we can get him some.

I have no idea why he’s a Steelers fan, by the way. He’s lived his whole life in the Wilmington area. There seem to be a lot of people who are sports fans of teams that have no relation to their geographic areas or family traditions. How does that happen, anyway? If you live somewhere with no local teams, I can see latching on to whatever team strikes your fancy, but we have four teams that have been around forever. I guess I’m too much of a partisan Philadelphia sports fan to understand. My local teams are my local teams.

Anyway, I know parents can’t indoctrinate their kids too much into their tastes since it will backfire. But it’s fun to expose kids to things you enjoy and hope they rub off.

Taxing

Every time there’s some kind of big Mega Millions or Powerball jackpot or whatever, you see articles about how much you’ll pay in taxes and there’s this low-level outrage about “Uncle Sam taking a big bite out in taxes” and would-be billionaires become Patrick Henry waving a Gadsden flag and getting indignant about paying taxes they’d never even feel on an unfathomable amount of money that they did nothing to earn.

Consider this: If you actually win that $1.6 billion by yourself, “After the 24 percent federal take, the average annuity payment comes out to $40,533,333 per year for 30 years equaling around $1,215,999,990, while the lump sum total comes out to $687,724,000, per USA Mega.”

So after taxes, you’d still get a lump sum of $687 million. Yet it still seems like there’s this weird undercurrent of “What a ripoff! You’re paying so much in taxes! And then state taxes: UGH!” Even if you take the annuity and do the bare minimum, parking it in a savings account and never touching the principal, at 1 percent interest, you’d still get $405,000 a year to live on. Isn’t that enough? Even if my math is off (likely), you still have so much money that it wouldn’t matter. It’s a rounding error. It’s one fewer fainting couch on your yacht.

I realize potential lottery winners complaining about taxes are doing it in a tongue in cheek way, but that’s also the vein in which I’m writing this. I love money but seriously, why shouldn’t Mega Millions winners have to pay taxes? It’s not like “Uncle Sam took my hard-earned money!” You didn’t earn anything. You went to the gas station, recited some numbers and they picked your numbers out of a hat. Just pay your taxes. Life is rough.

Recently I read someone who believes the people are better at spending their own money than the government. I disagree. Have you met people? Most of us are not good at spending what we have. Any brief glance at the history of lottery winners spending their cash will prove that. So many people do dumb things and piss it all away.

People not spending their money wisely is pretty much why the state has lotteries to begin with. Buying a few tickets every month is harmless fun, and I’m not trying to make fun of that, but there was some guy on the news this morning who spent $1,500 on tickets. There are people who spend those mass amounts all the time and that’s a pretty good argument in favor of a progressive tax system for winners.

The irony of lottery players complaining about paying taxes and having Them give your money to other people is that’s basically what the Mega Millions is, only you’re doing it voluntarily. That $1,500 in tickets is going right to someone else.

Or maybe I’m just a humorless crank whose dreams are boring and practical. I’m fun at parties, I swear.