Archives for 2017

And Yet They Breed

September 13, 2017 by Bill McCormick

A long time ago, on an internet far, far, away, I used to write about stupid criminals in Florida. It was an endless source of material. But, finally, it began to feel like I was clutching low hanging fruit. After all, all I needed to do was punch naked + meth + crime into Google and I’d be deluged with Floridians, and Arizonians, behaving badly. Often at Walmarts. I never understood the fascination, but that could just be me. Maybe getting naked in a Walmart is a fun way to kill an afternoon. God knows I have been naked inappropriately in my life. Not in a chain store, but still not smiled upon. Nevertheless, I stopped. Besides, there were far more interesting topics to handle. I used my new found free time to write about basic science, robot overlords, eugenics, evolution, comics, superheroes, new artists from around the world, and a much broader spectrum of topics. Plus, there are now well funded sites dedicated to stupid criminals in Florida. So why bother competing? I certainly had better things to do. I even did some of them.

But every now and then, the clarion call of HomoIdiotus beckons. It’s keening wail echoing across the virgin plains of social order. While I’m not sure if it’s a good thing or not, their ilk seems to be spreading. These are just some highlights from the last two weeks.

This headline, Thieves steal U-Haul containing father-in-law’s body, tells you all you need to know about this story. What makes this story rock are the auto-generated related items at the bottom.

Never More?

September 8, 2017 by Bill McCormick

I’ve written before about how some of our simian cousins have entered the Stone Age. Simply put they are using stone tools and planning for events that haven’t happened. Those are definable signs of sapience. I have also noted that octopuses, those yummy tasty octopuses laden in garlic and butter, are also developing along the same lines. Before they meet the garlic and butter, natch. The point is that life is not some stagnant thing. It wasn’t plopped here to never grow. On the one hand life adapts to its surroundings. People who live in the mountainous regions of Peru have larger lungs than the rest of us simply due to the thin air. No large lungs equals no breathing. At least not easily. Polar bears have different furs than grizzlies simply due to environment. I could go on, and on and on and on …., but you get the idea.

On the other hand, life develops intelligence if it’s faced with obstacles that basic cunning can’t overcome. For humans that was finding food in the veld. They had to learn to hunt and cook if they were to survive. Other proto-humans learned those skills as well. Then our ancestors hunted, and killed, them. They may have eaten them too. Either way, they eliminated the competition.

That last sentence is the one you need to remember.

Sarah Chodosh, over at Popular Science, notes that ravens are joining the party and moving up the evolutionary ladder.

Ravens can solve puzzles, trick other animals into helping them out, and communicate with each other at a level even apes can’t match. And now we know they can hatch plans. These aren’t dastardly plans to overthrow humans in a battle for control of the Earth (we hope)—they’re plans to get better food for themselves. It’s like the marshmallow test—more on that in a minute—but for birds that have more self control than most children.

This latest revelation comes courtesy of two cognitive scientists at Lund University in Sweden who literally put ravens to test. They published their findings on Friday in the journal Science. Up until now, we knew that ravens had some ability to plan ahead for their own food needs because they hide caches of food to dig up later. Then again, squirrels store food in the ground for later and they’re, well, not the smartest. They forget about 75 percent of their nuts, planting millions of trees in the process. They’re accidental environmentalists. And if moronic squirrels can be biologically programmed to cache food for later, maybe ravens aren’t as smart as we thought.

Except obviously they are.

Ravens, as it turns out, will often choose to forgo a tasty morsel now in favor of getting access to a better treat later. Faced with a food tidbit and a tool that they know can open a box containing more tempting food, they will generally choose the tool—even if they don’t have the box yet. They’ve learned that when researchers present them with the box in 15 minute’s time, they can use that tool to unlock their prize. That’s forethought right there. Even small children often choose to eat one marshmallow immediately rather than wait a few minutes for more marshmallows, and all that experiment makes the participants do is sit there being cute.

This shouldn’t come as such a shock. Ravens also steal from each other by watching competitors hide food, noting the location, and returning later to dig up their spoils. And because they get stolen from, some ravens will actually pretend to hide food to throw thieves off the scent. What’s more, they can tell other ravens where to find a juicy, rotting carcass and team up to scare off their competitors. That ability—to communicate information about a distant location—is shared only by ants, bees, and humans. Note that great apes and monkeys are not on that list. Plus, ravens can apparently deceive one another if it means keeping a food source a secret. They can also call wolves over to a carcass that hasn’t broken down enough yet so that the canines can rip it apart, leaving more convenient scraps for the birds to scarf down.

If all that doesn’t make you love and embrace our raven overlords, nothing will. These birds are geniuses in their own right—so what if their look is a little goth? Their intelligence isn’t to be feared, it’s to be revered. Ravens for President 2020.

Okay, so super smart birds that can plan, like some horror movie creatures shambling into your home in the dark, may not make you happy. But, as I noted above, it’s only when faced with direct competition that one species wipes out another.

Humans, ravens, and octopuses, have very few areas where they need the same resources. They could, much like the creatures in David Brin’s Uplift series, be brought up the evolutionary ladder to be our partners. To be a boon rather than a bane. In other words, the exact opposite of what happens when I write about it.

The simians, however, might be a different issue. They are similar enough to us that they may, at some point, want what we have. And history has shown us that rarely goes well for someone.

All that said, none of this is a concern for today. In fact it may all be moot. according to David Wallace-Wells global warming could make Earth uninhabitable in before 2100 AD. In other words, if he’s right, your teenage kids will live just long enough to see the end of the world.

There’s your happy thought for today.

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG (FOX! Sports) every Friday around 9:10 AM.
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Dream a Little Dream

September 7, 2017 by Bill McCormick

This week saw our president do something that no other president has ever done. He signed an Executive Order to force Congress to deal with an issue. By doing this he ensures a nifty win/win situation for himself; if congress actually accomplishes this (something they have not been able to do previously) then the president can say he solved a centuries old problem; if Congress fails then he can say he tried, blame everyone but himself, make his base happy, and then do whatever he wants. Oddly, all signs seem to point to him not actually killing DACA. While doing so would make his base happy it would be political suicide nationally and we have a president who is married to public perception. Also he is surrounded by people would like to be re-elected. No matter the issue he eventually bends with the wind. In this case the issue is immigration. While many on the left hand side, pass that Dutchie kids, have said this will cause the U.S. to deport 800,000+ children to their certain deaths and many on the right have bemoaned that we need to rid our country of 800,000+ adults, all of whom are a drain on society, if we are to restore law to the lands, neither quite illuminates the real issues. This is one of those rare instances where both sides are so glaringly wrong that, should you allow their combination in the same brain, they could cause a cerebral tautology. So we need to step back and see what is really what before we continue typing IN ALL CAPS on various social media outlets.

Let’s take the two most common arguments, listed above, in order.

We will be condemning children to horrible fates.

1) DACA is a program to protect DREAMers — unauthorized immigrants brought to the US as children in the 1990s to mid-2000s, the US started building up enforcement on the US/Mexico border, with a huge unintended consequence: Many unauthorized immigrants avoided repeated risky border crossings by settling in the US with their families. (Previously, unauthorized immigrants had mostly been working-age men who crossed back and forth to the US for work while their families stayed in their home countries.)

Around the same time, changes to US law made it nearly impossible for an immigrant to get legal status if they’d lived in the country illegally. So the children who crossed illegally into the US with their parents were growing up in a country where they could never become legal residents or citizens.

These children became known as DREAMers, after the DREAM Act, a piece of legislation meant to give them a path to citizenship first introduced in 2001. But with that legislation stalled in Congress, President Barack Obama in 2012 created the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. While it didn’t give them a path to citizenship, DACA offered DREAMers a temporary grant of protection from deportation and a permit to work legally in the US. The protections last two years, after which immigrants can apply to renew for them.

Not all DREAMers, though, became DACA recipients. To apply for DACA, immigrants have to have come to the US before 2007, and have been 15 or younger when they arrived and younger than 31 when DACA was created in June 2012. They had to have a nearly spotless criminal record and be enrolled in high school or have a high school diploma or equivalent.

Perhaps most importantly, they have to apply. It’s estimated that about 1.3 million people would be eligible for DACA, but right now, about 800,000 people actually have it. – courtesy Vox.com

Okay, now we know how we got here and who’s involved. They were children, brought to the U.S. illegally, prior to 2007. That was ten years ago. Many, obviously, were brought here well before then which is why there was a max limit that the person could be no more than 31 years of age in 2012. So the oldest would now be 36 and the rest would be younger than that, all the way down to 10 now. That is quite a span. The youngest would, if you think about it, probably not speak their native language, not have any idea what their ancestral home is like, and probably like Bieber just as much your kids.

I should note that not all immigrants affected are Hispanic. Many are Middle Eastern Christians others are from Poland, India, China, and other parts of the globe. Therefore, when the focus is shifted to just one group you can safely assume that the person doing so is a racist asshole.

That said, while deportation would be a logistical nightmare, and cause harm on each and every DACA signatory, it’s not a death sentence.

I’ll get back to all this in a minute, but let’s deal with the second part; that these people are a drain on U.S. infrastructure, due to their increasing numbers, and society as a whole due to their illegal activities.

‘Surge of Unaccompanied Minors’

Sessions also blamed the DACA program for the surge of unaccompanied minors who illegally crossed the Mexico border, beginning in fiscal year 2012, mostly from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

Sessions, Sept. 5: The effect of this unilateral executive amnesty, among other things, contributed to a surge of unaccompanied minors on the southern border that yielded terrible humanitarian consequences.

This is misleading.

It is true that there was a surge of unaccompanied children that caught the Obama administration off guard in fiscal 2012. The number of unaccompanied minors crossing the border peaked in fiscal 2014 at 68,541, dropping 42 percent to 39,970 in fiscal 2015 before rising again in fiscal year 2016 to 59,692.

But the children who crossed the border illegally were not eligible for DACA. As we said earlier, the criteria for DACA is continuous residence in the United States since June 15, 2007.

All the government reports on the subject that we could find said that misinformation about U.S. immigration policy may have driven some to cross the border illegally. But these reports cited multiple reasons for the surge, primarily violence in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in 2013 conducted a survey of 404 unaccompanied minors who illegally crossed into the U.S. since fiscal 2012. The U.N. survey found that 48 percent of the apprehended children “said they had experienced serious harm or had been threatened by organized criminal groups or state actors, and more than 20 percent had been subject to domestic abuse,” according to a July 3, 2014, report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.

“It is not known if, and how, specific immigration policies may have influenced decisions to try to enter the United States unlawfully,” the CRS report said.

The Government Accountability Office also sought to determine the causes of the surge in a 2015 report. In that case, GAO surveyed nine federal officials stationed in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador for the Department of State, Department of Homeland Security and USAID. The federal officials used “various sources of information” to identify the causes of the surge, “ranging from conducting first-hand interviews to analyzing various statistical data.”

The nine officials “most commonly identified crime and violence and economic concerns as causes primarily responsible for the recent rapid increase” in unaccompanied minors entering the U.S. illegally, the GAO report said.

Five officials told GAO that misinformation about U.S. immigration policies spread by smugglers were “a primary cause.” The example given in the report was a failed congressional attempt to pass comprehensive immigration legislation that would have provided a path to citizenship for those living in the U.S. illegally.

Crime Risk?

In listing his reasons for rescinding DACA, Sessions also cited the need to enforce immigration laws “to ensure the safety and security of the American people.”

Sessions: We are a people of compassion and we are a people of law. But there is nothing compassionate about the failure to enforce immigration laws. Enforcing the law saves lives, protects communities and taxpayers, and prevents human suffering. Failure to enforce the laws in the past has put our nation at risk of crime, violence and even terrorism.

However, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, those who committed “a felony offense, a significant misdemeanor offense, or three or more other misdemeanor offenses” are not eligible for DACA. Neither are those who pose a public safety threat, which “include, but are not limited to, gang membership, participation in criminal activities, or participation in activities that threaten the United States.”

Also, there is no evidence that DACA holders are more likely to commit crimes than U.S. citizens.

As we wrote in February, numerous studies have found that immigrants do not commit crimes at a higher rate than non-immigrants. A recap of the literature on this topic can be found here. A 2013 study published in American Sociological Review confirmed that immigration is strongly associated with less violence in a neighborhood.

We take no position on the merits of DACA. But Sessions’ description of the program doesn’t tell the whole story, leaving a misleading impression about DACA holders and the impact that the program has had on illegal immigration and crime. – courtsey of FactCheck.org

Let’s look at the four most commonly listed reasons for rescinding DACA.

1. DACA provided legal immigration status to illegal aliens

Jeff Sessions said that DACA “essentially provided a legal status for recipients for a renewable two-year term, work authorization, and other benefits, including participation in the social security program, to 800,000 mostly-adult illegal aliens.”

Nope. It does nothing of the sort. They don’t even have the basic rights we give to resident aliens (green card holders). They cannot collect any government benefits beyond tax refunds. Please keep in mind that the only way to get those refunds is to pay taxes in the first place. So DACA members pay taxes, pay into Social Security, and pay to support our government with few discernible for themselves. All in the, long shot, hope they can one day become citizens.

2. DACA is unconstitutional

Sessions claims that DACA was an “unconstitutional exercise of authority.” That isn’t true; this is his opinion. The issue of constitutionality, Kalhan says, “has never been resolved.” – courtesy QZ.com

3. DACA is a amnesty program

DACA is a “unilateral executive amnesty,” Sessions said. This is false. An amnesty is intended as an official blanket pardon of all offenders who receive it. DACA, however, does not cover everyone; Kalhan points out that it only applies to eligible immigrants who are then required to apply and have their individual case evaluated. It’s also only temporary, and doesn’t come cost-free: Recipients have to pay $495 when they apply for their permit, and then again every two years at the time of renewal, whether or not a renewed permit is granted. – courtesy QZ.com

4. DACA led to a surge of unaccompanied minors illegally entering the US

Nope. Those who spout this point to a surge that happened from 2011 on. Four years after the DACA cut-off. Those children were fleeing war zones, not coming here to get in on some cool deal. There is no deal for them to get in on in the first place. They are refugees in the purest sense of the word.

So where does that leave us? In a hot mess. There are those who say “illegal is illegal and, therefore, they must go.” That is shortsighted and simplistic. Shortsighted due to the fact that such an action will severely impact the American economy. Don’t take my word on it, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy released its report in March of this year.

A newly updated report released today provides data that helps dispute the erroneous idea espoused during President Trump’s address to Congress that undocumented immigrants are a drain to taxpayers. In fact, like all others living and working in the United States, undocumented immigrants are taxpayers too and collectively contribute an estimated $11.74 billion to state and local coffers each year via a combination of sales and excise, personal income, and property taxes, according to Undocumented Immigrants’ State and Local Tax Contributions by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

On average, the nation’s estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants pay 8 percent of their incomes in state and local taxes every year. While it is unlikely to happen in the current political environment, undocumented immigrants’ state and local tax contributions could increase by up to $2.1 billion under comprehensive immigration reform, boosting their effective tax rate to 8.6 percent.

You see, it’s this last part of the report, read the full report here, that gives me hope. Governments, by their very nature, are loathe to throw money away. Especially when it’s, for all intents and purposes, free money. None of it goes back to any benefits for the people paying it. It’s all just cake for the government to do with as it pleases. And it is one huge fucking piece.

Take that Marie Antoinette.

Additionally, all hyperbole aside, the President’s order does nothing but stop new memberships. Congress now has six months to figure out the rest. As the president noted, he is free to revisit the issue at that time. Since killing it would be a revenue killer, as evidenced by the letter signed by 400 C.E.O.s., and would do irreparable harm to our economy, as already evidenced by the problems the agriculture industry is having, you can expect the push to be pro-DACA from all the President’s golf partners.

So we stand in limbo, for now. Who knows, maybe this time Congress does pass a bi-partisan bill that deal with immigrants fairly and humanely. I’m not counting on that. But I am counting on our President remaining true to form and doing what’s in his best interests. My bet is that, given his global business presence, he will soon enough become a fan of immigrants and work to make them legal.

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG (FOX! Sports) every Friday around 9:10 AM.
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Supe-De-Do!

September 1, 2017 by Bill McCormick

According to Google Translate: CREATIVE CREATIONS THAT MAKE HEAVY LEAVING THE JOKE KORMI ….

I have no idea what’s happening in Russia right now but between the image at the left, which is an ad for an artist named Boby, and their superhero team, The Guardians, which is the most batshit crazy thing I’ve ever seen, they are clearly hell bent on taking over the world. The Guardians is the most Soviet thing you’ll ever see. Right down to the machine gun wielding bear. Never let it be said I didn’t hip you to new and exciting shit. If Russia isn’t your bag, and I can certainly understand why that may be so, then click THIS LINK superhero movies in Japan and other fun films involving dinosaur riding Nazis from the moon. That last group is an American offering. Go figure. But, for the rest of you, I give you this. Here are the upcoming superhero related shows that will debut from now through 2018. Thanks to Movie Pilot for the list.

The Defenders

Release date: 08/18/2017
Showrunner: Marco Ramirez

Cast: The Defenders unites the stars of Marvel’s Netflix shows, including Charlie Cox’s Daredevil, Krysten Ritter’s Jessica Jones, Mike Colter’s Luke Cage, and Finn Jones’s Iron Fist. The show will also feature Elodie Yung as the resurrected assassin Elektra, and introduce us to Sigourney Weaver’s mysterious villain, Alexandra.

Season: 1
Next up from Marvel Television, #TheDefenders is the hotly anticipated climax of all their Netflix shows to date. The eight-episode series will unite a ragtag band of heroes against the threat of the Hand — and a dark, dangerous figure that looms in the shadows…

The Tick

Release date: 08/25/2017
Showrunner: Ben Edlund

Cast: Peter Serafinowicz will take center-stage as the Tick, with Griffin Newman and Valorie Curry as Arthur and Dot Everest.

Season: 1
Amazon’s live version of #TheTick — which has gone from comic to cartoon to live-action superhero series — is set to debut on August 25th. An underdog accountant will discover a criminal conspiracy, and find himself teaming up with a strange superhero…

The Inhumans

Release date: 09/29/2017
Showrunner: Scott Buck

Cast: Starring Anson Mount as the silent Inhuman monarch Black Bolt, with Iwan Rheon as Maximus the Mad. We’ll also be seeing Serinda Swan as Medusa, Ken Leung as Karnak, Isabelle Cornish as Crystal, Eme Ikwuakor as Gorgon, Mike Moh as Triton, and Sonya Balmores as Auran. Ellen Woglom’s role is currently unknown.

Season: 1
Possibly Marvel’s most high-risk show to date, #Inhumans has been produced thanks to a ground-breaking deal between Marvel, ABC, and IMAX. The first two episodes will premiere on IMAX cinemas worldwide from September 1st, with the series airing from the 29th.

Krypton

Release date: Fall 2017
Showrunner: Damian Kindler

Cast: Krypton stars Cameron Cuffe as Seg-El and Georgina Campbell as Lyta Zod. Other major cast members include Ian McElhinney as Val-El, Elliot Cowan as Daron-Vex, and Ann Ogbomo as Alura Zod.

Season: 1
Hot on the heels of Gotham, #Krypton promises to be a unique sci-fi superhero show. It charts the desperate attempts to save the doomed world of Krypton — and we’ve been promised some surprise guest-stars. In an exciting twist, it seems Krypton is the only DCTV show to actually be set in the #DCEU!

Gotham

Release date: 09/21/2017
Showrunner: Bruno Heller

Cast: Gotham stars Ben McKenzie as Commissioner Gordon, with David Mazouz as the young Bruce Wayne and Camren Bicondova as Selena Kyle. Other key figures include Sean Pertwee’s Alfred, Robin Taylor’s Penguin, and Cory Michael Smith’s Riddler.

Season: 4
Darker and grittier than your standard DC fare, #Gotham is the story of Batman before he was Batman. By all accounts, Season 4 is going to be an important chapter in the life-story of David Mazouz’s young Bruce Wayne, as he takes some major steps on the road to becoming the Dark Knight.

Lucifer

Release date: 10/02/2017
Showrunner: Tom Kapinos

Cast: Lucifer stars Tom Ellis as the titular figure, with supporting cast including Lauren German as Chloe Decker and Lesley-Ann Brandt as Mazikeen.

Season: 3
#Lucifer is returning for a super-sized third season, with four episodes migrating into Season 3. Let’s face it, Lucifer adds a tremendous sense of range to the network superhero TV shows — it’s one of the few to dive deep into the idea of magic and mysticism!

The Gifted

Release date: 10/02/2017
Showrunner: Matt Nix

Cast: The Gifted focuses in on the Strucker family: Reed (Stephen Moyer), Caitlin (Amy Acker), Lauren (Natalie Alyn Lind), and Andy (Percy Hynes White). Confirmed X-Men include Blink (Jamie Chung), Polaris (Emma Dumont), and Thunderbird (Blair Redford).

Season: 1
The continuity of the #XMen universe is a thing of mystery, so we don’t yet know whether or not #TheGifted is actually part of the same universe as any of the films. Whatever the truth may be, though, Matt Nix’s show promises to dive straight into the heart of the mythos — in a world that hates and fears mutants.

Supergirl

Release date: 10/09/2017
Showrunner: Andrew Kreisberg, Jessica Queller and Robert Rovner

Cast: Melissa Benoist takes center-stage as Supergirl, with Chyler Leigh as Alex Danvers, Mehcad Brooks as Jimmy Olsen, and David Harewood as the Martian Manhunter. We can expect to see more of Tyler Hoechlin’s Superman, while Calista Flockhart is returning as a series regular for Season 3.

Season: 3
Nobody was surprised to hear that #Supergirl had been renewed for a third season: it’s one of the most successful superhero TV shows around! Melissa Benoist has captured our hearts as the Girl of Steel, even if the close of Season 2 has given poor Kara Danvers yet another dose of tragedy. Where will the show go from here?

The Flash

Release date: 10/10/2017
Showrunner: Greg Berlanti

Cast: Grant Gustin plays the scarlet speedster, with supporting cast including Danielle Panabaker’s Killer Frost, Candice Patton’s Iris, Jesse L. Martin’s Joe West, and Carlos Valdes’s Sisco.

Season: 4
Season 3 of #TheFlash ended with a bang and with an unexpected departure, leaving Team Flash in quite a predicament. By all accounts we’re about to see the Scarlet Speedster enter a season with a villain who isn’t a fellow speedster; comic book villain Devoe, a.k.a. The Thinker, was teased throughout The Flash Season 3, so expect at least a passing appearance from him.

Legends Of Tomorrow

Release date: 10/10/2017
Showrunner: Phil Klemmer

Cast: With hints that the cast is about to change significantly — we’ll have to wait and see!

Season: 3
After a tremendous Season 2 finale, what’s next for #LegendsOfTomorrow? Unlike the rest of the #Arrowverse, this is one show that doesn’t mind killing characters off (although, given the concept of time-travel, that doesn’t rule out their returns). Showrunner Phil Klemmer has been teasing that we can expect the team to change shape in Season 3, and the only thing that has to remain is the Waverider. Season 3 is due to air an hour later, showing immediately after The Flash, so it’s going to be interesting to see if it gets a little darker.

Arrow

Release date: 10/12/2017
Showrunner: Marc Guggenheim

Cast: Arrow stars Stephen Arnell as Green Arrow, with recurring cast including Emily Bett Rickards’s Felicity, Colton Haynes’s Roy Harper, and John Barrowman’s Malcolm Merlyn.

Season: 6
Although every year is the beginning of a new story for the flagship #DCTV series #Arrow, that’s especially the case for Season 6. After all, the five years of island flashbacks have come to an end, meaning the show has to take a slightly different approach. With the show moving to a later time slot, will it get even darker?

The Punisher

Showrunner: Steve Lightfoot

Cast: The Punisher sees Jon Bernthal reprise his famous role, while Deborah Ann Woll returns as Karen Page. It’s also set to introduce us to Ebon Moss-Bachrach’s Micro.

Season: 1
Jon Bernthal is reprising his role as the widely acclaimed #Punisher, and he’s sure to cut a bloody swathe through the Marvel Universe’s criminal underworld! One of the show’s directors recently let slip that it’s due to stream in November.

Runaways

Release date: 11/21/2017
Showrunners: Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage

Cast: Boasting a massive cast, the heroes are Rhenzy Feliz (Alex Wilder), Lyrica Okano (Nico Minoru), Virginia Gardner (Karolina Dean), Ariela Barer (Gert Yorkes), Gregg Sulkin (Chase Stein), and Allegra Acosta (Molly Hayes).

Season: 1
How many kids have thought their parents were evil? Brian K. Vaughan’s dearly-loved #Runaways told the tale of a group of teenagers who learned that their parents were actually super-villains — and it only got more dramatic from there!

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Release date: 11/24/2017
Showrunners: Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen

Cast: Starring Clark Gregg’s Agent Coulson and Chloe Bennet’s Quake, the cast is rounded out by Ming-Na Wen’s Agent May, Elizabeth Henstridge’s Simmons, Iain De Caestecker’s Fitz, Henry Simmons’s Mack, and Natalia Cordova-Buckley’s Yo-Yo.

Season: 5
#AgentsOfSHIELD has been renewed for a fifth season, and many fans fear this will be the end of the line for Coulson and his team. ABC President Channing Dungey recently revealed that the series will begin airing “right after” the 8-episode-long Inhumans, meaning we can expect the show to return on November 24th. It’s expected to air its 22-episode-season mostly uninterrupted, which means we’re likely to see an explosive tie-in with Avengers: Infinity War — not least because Season 4 closed with a tease that the show is heading to space!

Black Lightning

Release date: Fall 2017
Showrunner: Greg Berlanti

Cast: Starring Cress Williams as the main man, the show also features China Anne McClain and Nafessa Williams as Black Lightning’s daughters and Christine Adams as his ex-wife.

Season: 1
Recently receiving a full series order, The CW’s #BlackLightning is believed to stand apart from the Arrowverse. A first trailer promises a superhero show that’s a lot grittier than the standard CW fare, so we’re eagerly awaiting further details!

Legion

Release date: February 2018
Showrunner: Noah Hawley

Cast: Expect familiar faces, including Dan Stevens’s David Haller, Rachel Keller’s Syd, Jean Smart’s Melanie Bird, Katie Aselton’s Amy Haller, and — of course — Aubrey Plaza’s sinister Shadow King.

Season: 2
The first season was head-spinning and trippy in the extreme, but we’ve now learned what to expect from Noah Hawley’s #Legion. Season 1 ended on a cliffhanger, with David imprisoned by a mysterious force, and the Shadow King loose once again. One thing’s for sure with Legion, though; you won’t ever be able to predict which direction this show will take.

Cloak and Dagger

Release date: 2018
Showrunner: Joe Pokaski

Cast: Olivia Holt and Aubrey Joseph star in this intriguing new show.

Season: 1
One of Marvel’s more surprising new shows, #CloakAndDagger is clearly being geared up as one of Freeform’s flagship shows. It promises to blend superhero action with teenage angst in all the best ways!

Daredevil

Release date: 2018
Showrunner: Doug Petrie and Marco Ramirez

Cast: Charlie Cox returns as Daredevil, and we can expect Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page and Elden Henson as Foggy.

Season: 3
The flagship of Marvel’s Netflix shows, #Daredevil Season 3 was teased at last year’s SDCC — but won’t arrive until next year. It’s going to be interesting to see how The Defenders changes Matt Murdock’s status quo.

Jessica Jones

Release date: 2018
Showrunner: Melissa Rosenberg

Cast: Expect Krysten Ritter’s Jessica Jones and Rachael Taylor’s Patsy Walker to return, while there are good odds Wil Traval’s Nuke will play a major role.

Season: 2
The first season of #JessicaJones was a dark, brooding psychological drama. Now that Kilgrave’s out of the way, though, the show’s going to have to adapt as Jessica Jones faces a new threat — and works to solve the mystery of her own powers.

Luke Cage

Release date: 2018
Showrunner: Cheo Hodari Coker

Cast: Mike Colter’s Luke Cage returns, but we really don’t know much about the series’ secondary characters to date.

Season: 2
Rounding out next year’s Marvel Netflix shows, #LukeCage will see Mike Colter reprise his role as the hero of Harlem. As the timeline of the Marvel Netflix shows relentlessly advances nearer to the events of Captain America: Civil War, though, Luke Cage’s superhero life is surely about to get a lot more complicated!

New Warriors

Release date: 2018

Showrunner: Unknown, but there are strong rumors Kevin Biegel is near a deal to sign up as showrunner

Cast: Unknown

Season: 1
Mixing up the Marvel range all the more, #NewWarriors promises to be a teenage comedy about a young group of wannabe heroes. In a move that indicates the youthful target demographic, Marvel has blended the original comic book concept with the unbeatable Squirrel Girl!

Titans

Release date: 2018
Showrunner: Greg Berlanti

Cast: Brenton Thwaites as Dick Grayson a/k/a Robin a/k/a Nightwing, Anna Diop as Starfire and Teagan Croft as Raven

Season: 1
Launching DC’s OTT range, #Titans promises to bring the fan-favorites to life! We don’t yet know much about the project, so keep your eyes peeled for details…

Iron Fist

Release date: Unknown (possibly 2018)
Showrunner: Raven Metzner

Cast: Finn Jones is reprising the starring role of Iron Fist, joined by Jessica Henwick’s Colleen Wing and Simone Missick’s Misty Knight

Season: 2
#IronFist Season 1 may have been panned by the critics, but it was a ratings success. As a result, at #SDCC2017 Marvel announced a second season, but switching things up by replacing showrunner Scott Buck with Raven Metzner, a martial-arts fan who’s best known for Sleepy Hollow. Filming is due to start later this year, raising the intriguing possibility that we may get four Marvel Netflix shows next year!

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Ban the Ban

August 31, 2017 by Bill McCormick

A very bad idea whose time keeps coming back.

As three of you know, I’m a writer. As such I use words to convey ideas. As others may attest, I’m also an adult. As such I sometimes wish to discuss things that may, or may not, be salient to other adults. Some of those things are violent (read the news for reasons why), others may be sexual (surf the internet to see why), or some may be just about food. I happen to like food. Click that link if you like food too. But, and this is important, if a discussion arises wherein I’m uncomfortable with the subject matter I have choices. I can walk away, I can stay and learn, or I can light someone on fire. Actually, no, I can’t do that last one. I bet you can name some solid reasons why. Yet, for some, burning ideas is accepted. If you don’t like it you BAN it. Usually in high dudgeon, with much gesticulating (to prove you’re earnest), and wrapped in a cloak devoid of common sense. So, yes, joy of joys, censorship hath returned to rear its distorted, ugly, head.

Jim Millot, over at Publisher’s weekly, takes a look at the latest idiots to try and make the world a blander place.

Nook.

A new content policy instituted by Nook Press last week has resulted in the termination of the accounts of numerous self-published authors.

In recent days, authors have been receiving notices from Nook, which is owned by Barnes & Noble, informing them that their titles are in violation of Nook’s updated content policy. The authors have been told that their titles have been removed from sale, and their accounts have been terminated.

A number of authors who’ve received the notices have taken to social media to vent their frustrations. In a blog post about the situation author Georgette St. Clair said she would have acted to conform to the content policy, had she known it was needed. She writes: “I have never gotten a single warning or complaint from B&N about any of these titles; if I had, I would have taken it down immediately.”

Conformity is not what they’re after. At least not in any literary sense. What they want is “safe” literature. Words that could be read in any Sunday school.

Ooops. More on that in a bit.

Let’s first take a look at the new rules and then we’ll parse out the most obvious violations.

… works portraying or encouraging incest, rape, bestiality, necrophilia, paedophilia or content that encourages hate or violence.

For the record I’m not a fan of any of those activities, but that’s not the issue here today.

There is an entire Wikipedia page devoted to incest in literature. It, amazingly, leaves out Oedipus Rex. Long story short, dude has sex with his mom, kills his dad, and has a bad day.

Since I write Sci-Fi, let’s go play in my backyard.

Science-fiction

Incest also appears in the writings of two major authors of science fiction, Ursula K. Le Guin and Robert A. Heinlein. Le Guin’s short story “Nine Lives” (1969) features ten clones (five male, five female) of the same person, whose intimate relationship includes incest. Her novel The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) contains a story of two siblings who mate, despite a taboo against it.

In Philip K. Dick‘s novel, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said (1974), Inspector McNulty is in a sexual relationship with his sister.

In Piers Anthony‘s Bio of a Space Tyrant (from 1983), the main character’s sister has sex with him when he is 15 and she is 12.

Heinlein wrote numerous books advocating incest as a great way to teach kids the joy of sex. There are those who argue he was satirizing the logical end of the Free Love movement in the 60’s. Maybe. But if satire was his goal he missed it by a wide margin.

Ian Bertram, at Without the State, sums it up nicely.

I have to confess that I find Heinlein’s exploration of sexual themes in these later books disturbing. Although books like “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” and “Stranger” allegedly promote an open attitude to sex and sexuality, his final series of books goes far beyond that, dealing extensively with incest and child sex. In “To Sail Beyond the Sunset” for example, his main protagonist Maureen Johnson (mother of Lazarus Long) connives with her husband to enable him to have sex with two of his daughters – one of them sixteen at the time. She also tries to seduce her own father and speculates on whether he has had sex with one of his granddaughters. Stripped of its SF elements and submitted without Heinlein’s name attached I wonder how easily such a sleazy tale would have found a publisher. A lot of the sexual element of the story is covered by misdirection about ‘Mrs Grundy’, but in real terms a significant element is about child abuse, justified moreover in terms that any paedophile would recognise. Positive representations of incest also turn up in “Job”, “Farnham’s Freehold” and “The Cat Who Walks Through Walls” and most explicitly in “Time Enough for Love” where Lazarus Long makes love to his mother Maureen – a sequence reprised in “Sunset” as part of the wider sequence of incest involving Long, Maureen and her husband, their two daughters and Maureen’s father.

The most explicit example of what I can only call a fixation on young girls – other than ‘Sunset’ – is probably ‘The Door into Summer’ where the hero Dan Davis uses a combination of ‘cold sleep’ and time travel to persuade the 11 year old daughter of his business partner to take cold sleep herself when she reaches 21 so that he can marry her, having gone back into cold sleep himself to come out at the same time. A similar situation arises in “Time for the Stars”, although in this case the hero has been in telepathic communication with the young girl since she was a baby as he travels on an interstellar expedition. The effects of relativity allow her to age so that when he returns to earth he can marry her.

Examples of this fixation can be found to a greater or lesser degree throughout his work. In “Moon” for example, describing the death of Ludmilla, one of Mannie’s wives, he writes, “An explosive bullet hit between her lovely, little-girl breasts”. In “Cat” there is an extended and sexually charged discussion of the delights of spanking a 13-year-old girl. In “Time Enough for Love” Lazarus Long marries a young woman he first meets as a very young child of about 6 years old, his longevity serving the same purpose as time travel and relativity did in “Summer” and “Stars”. Even in his so-called ‘juveniles’ there is a usually a strong dissonance between the actual behaviour and the calendar age of his female characters, all of them demonstrating extreme precocity.

The remaining limitations from Nook seem laudable until you realize they aren’t defined. Hate speech sounds like a great thing to avoid until they decide that “I hate broccoli” should cost an author their placement.

The point here is that all of the terms used are subjective and I, whether you ask or not, am not comfortable having a nameless functionary decide what is, and is not, acceptable.

Beastiality?

Not a fun way to kill an evening at my house, but still legal in many states in the U.S. As I noted before.

Pop quiz, if you’ll pardon the expression. What do Alabama, Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont & Virginia have in common? You can marry your first cousin in every one of them. Well, as long as your first cousin is a member of the opposite sex anyway. But all is not lost. If you’re in Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Vermont or Washington D.C., then you’re one of the lucky few who can marry your gay first cousin. In fact, if you’re in Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, New Jersey, New Mexico & Vermont you can even have sex with the horse you rode to church after you marry your cousin. Which means that in Connecticut you can marry your gay first cousin while having sex with a horse and be completely within the law.

Plan your vacation now.

Rape? Goodbye Shakespeare, goodbye Jessica Jones comic books, goodbye most literature from the 1600’s forward. If you’ve read The Three Musketeers you’ll know why. It wasn’t subtitled The D’Artagnan Romances #1 by accident.

Above I mentioned Sunday school. The Bible hits all of the offending categories in spades.

Dinah was raped in Genesis.

Beastiality gets four mentions in the Old Testament. To be fair, they are verses condemning it. But, you can only condemn something if it’s happening. Kind of like seeing signs reminding people not to have sex in the birthing rooms in a maternity ward. Someone did that. So, just think about it for a moment and we’ll move on.

Paedophilia gets a shout out in the Old Testament, five times, and it seems like it was heartily approved.

Hate speech? Well, there’s not a lot of positive press for Romans, Samaritans, any non-Jews actually, or others in the Bible.

In fact, just to make it easy on you, Kings, the story of David, hits all the high points, minus beastialtiy, in one long story. Just think of the Godfather movies with a different accent.

So how is Nook enforcing its new rules? Not by banning the Bible, that I can assure you.

Nope, they’re going after low hanging fruit. Self published authors who dream of writing the next 50 Shades of Gray. Given how low that series set the bar you can see why these authors would think it was an attainable goal.

They are attacking the most vulnerable (i.e., people who can’t afford lawyers) just to make themselves feel better.

I’m not saying you should read your favorite rape stories at Sunday school. Nor do I think everyone of every age should read everything. Age appropriate is a thing for a reason. But banning these books isn’t going to make people stop thinking about these things.

More importantly, this crazy stuff called science, has shown that a healthy, and active, fantasy life involving sex is good for you. It promotes happier relationships. Or, to put it another way, the majority of women who read, and enjoyed, 50 Shades, have no real plans to get kidnapped and used as a sex toy for a billionaire.

I know, you find that hard to believe. Just ask your mom. She’ll tell you the truth.

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