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Art Spiegelman, creator of Maus, calls out Marvel Comics for its "apolitical" politics -
In celebration of Marvel’s 80th anniversary there will be special edition books released from the comic’s “Golden Age” between the years 1939 - 1949. Art Spiegelman was asked to write the introduction and here’s the line he was told to remove:
“Auschwitz and Hiroshima make more sense as dark comic book cataclysms than as events in our real world. In today’s all too real world, Captain America’s most nefarious villain, the Red Skull, is alive on screen and an Orange Skull haunts America. International fascism again looms large (how quickly we humans forget — study these golden age comics hard, boys and girls!) and the dislocations that have followed the global economic meltdown of 2008 helped bring us to a point where the planet itself seems likely to melt down.”
Here’s the excuse they gave Spiegelman:
“I turned the essay in at the end of June, substantially the same as what appears here. A regretful Folio Society editor told me that Marvel Comics (evidently the co-publisher of the book) is trying to now stay “apolitical”, and is not allowing its publications to take a political stance. I was asked to alter or remove the sentence that refers to the Red Skull or the intro could not be published.”
APOLITAL? Apolitical in a book introduction for an era where the superheroes are literally fighting nazis. Okayyyy.
Art Spiegelman’s response:
“I didn’t think of myself as especially political compared with some of my fellow travellers, but when asked to kill a relatively anodyne reference to an Orange Skull I realised that perhaps it had been irresponsible to be playful about the dire existential threat we now live with, and I withdrew my introduction.”
(via justsomeantifas)
(via dberl)
Costa Rica Powered by Nearly 100% Renewable Energy -
Excerpt from this EcoWatch story:
Costa Rica aims to have net zero carbon emissions by 2050 and if it’s energy production in 2019 is a sign of things to come, then it is well on its way to that goal. The small Central American nation produced the most electricity in its history during the month of May and nearly 100 percent of it was from renewable sources, according to Think Geoenergy.
The 984.19 GWh of electricity generation in May surpassed all historical counts and it meant that Costa Rican Institute of Electricity (ICE), the state-owned power and telecoms provider, stopped buying energy from the Regional Electricity Market and instead started selling electricity back to other Central American nations in the marketplace, as Think Geoenergy reported.
The May numbers are a crucial milestone since nearly 75 percent of the nation’s renewable energycomes from hydropower produced in rivers and Costa Rica was in the midst of a historic droughtbefore the rainy season started in May.
“This achievement is the result of the planning and optimization of resources of the national matrix, which protects its regulatory reservoirs in dry periods – like the one just faced – while increasing the geothermal quota,” said ICE in a statement, according to Think Geoenergy.
The optimist in me is loving it.
The cynic is thinking “what’s the catch?”
(via dberl)
On this day, 21 August 1831, the Nat Turner slave rebellion threw Southern slave owners into a panic as around 70 enslaved Africans went on a rampage from plantation to plantation in Southampton County, Virginia. More info in this chapter about slave revolts by Howard Zinn: https://libcom.org/a-peoples-history-of-the-united-states-howard-zinn/9-slavery-without-submission-emancipation-without-freedom https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1192980650887083/?type=3
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