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The Law Is A Ass

Bob Ingersoll: The Law Is A Ass #351: DAREDEVIL ASKS WAKANDA DO ABOUT MOM?

daredevil2014-006-0090lk05-123x450-5408364I don’t know what Sister Maggie was thinking.

She willingly wrote on a wall, when she had to have known that wouldn’t end well. She’s a nun. The Bible tells us the writing on the wall is an ill omen. As a nun, Maggie believes in the Bible devoutly and wouldn’t want to contradict its Word. When Sister Maggie wrote on the wall, she must have known bad things would happen. But she did it anyway?

Why? Because she thought she was making a political statement. And if she didn’t, Daredevil v4 #6 wouldn’t have had a story.

Margaret Grace was the mother of Matt (Daredevil) Murdock. Because of complications from postpartum depression, she abandoned her family while Matt was a baby, adopted a new name, and became a nun. (Yes, it’s a longer story, but as I don’t want a longer column, we’ll let it go at that.) Recently, she, Sister Barbara, and Sister Leora went to a military base in Riverdale, an affluent section of the Bronx. They had information the base was testing illegal and immoral chemical weapons. Something was up in the Bronx and they wanted to batter it down, so they did something to bring the matter to public attention by spray painting peace slogans on the base’s walls.

They were arrested, brought before a secret military tribunal, and told they were being extradited to Wakanda. In case you forgot, Wakanda is a small west African nation formerly ruled by T’Challa, the Black Panther. When Wakanda kicked T’Challa out, his sister Shuri became its queen. Shuri was a lot harsher than T’Challa.

Why did Wakanda care about a simple act of vandalism? Wakanda had purchased said base from America through some “highly clandestine, highly illegal” and untraceable transactions so it could engineer illegal weapons there “free of U.N. oversight.” The women “brought undue attention” to the base and nearly embarrassed Wakanda. Because the base was owned by Wakanda, it was “Wakandan soil within America’s own borders,” Wakanda claimed its law applied. Wakanda wanted to be sure the women were “suitably punished” so it had them quick-step extradited.

Did I say harsh? Compared to Shuri Mommie Dearest was an enabler.

Of course Shuri’s also stupid. When conducting illegal arms manufacturing on a military base which you own because of a “highly illegal” transaction, you probably want to avoid any attention. Sure the nuns spray painting peace slogans brought some unwanted attention. But snatching them up and extraditing them in an illegal hearing where the women didn’t even have attorneys, isn’t the wisest course of action. Once word of what had happened leaked out – and as we saw in Daredevil v4 #6, word did leak out – the women would become a cause célèbre and that would only attract more unwanted attention.

Wakanda’s wiser course of action would have been to shut down the base – which it did anyway – then not press charges. Sure the women could make public statements, but they had already made public statements and were ignored. With the base no longer in operation, they wouldn’t have been able to prove their accusations. The matter would have blown over. But once the media got word that the women who tried to alert it to the base’s operations and then vandalized the base have disappeared, it would investigate.

So Wakanda didn’t follow its wiser course of action. Ever since Shuri took over, Wakanda has been ruled by its more dickish fringe. Its government is Shuri with the fringe on top.

Pointing out that Wakanda has more dicks than lunch with messrs. Nixon, Cheney, Grayson, and Butkus isn’t my main purpose, here. It’s a fun sideline, but my main purpose was to explore Wakanda’s claim that the military base was Wakandan soil, not American.

There is a common misconception that embassies are foreign soil. They aren’t. The embassies still the soil of, and under the jurisdiction of, the host country. Embassies are afforded special privileges by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which is why the host country can’t enter a foreign embassy without permission of the country represented by the embassy. But the embassy itself is not foreign soil.

If you commit a crime in an embassy, it will be the law of the host country that applies and the host country which prosecutes you, not the country whose embassy you were in. (Please note, I’m using the hypothetical you. I’m not advocating that you actually go out and commit a crime.)

In the same way, American military bases in foreign countries are not generally American soil. America doesn’t own the land on which the bases sit. It still belongs to the host country. America may lease that land, but when the base shuts down, the land reverts to the host country.

Look at Guantanamo Bay base in Cuba. Gitmo is on Cuban soil, not American soil. America leases the land on which Gitmo sits through a perpetual lease which dates back to 1903 and is the result of the Spanish-American War. But Gitmo is Cuban soil. That’s the primary reason America put the “military combatants” in the global war on terror in Gitmo’s detention center, because it’s not American soil so American laws, such as the writ of habeas corpus, don’t apply there.

The only difference here is that Wakanda didn’t lease the military base, it owned the base after illegally purchasing it from America. That does make a difference. When America purchased Louisiana and a whole bunch of other land from France in 1803, that land, which was formerly French soil, became American soil; lock, stock and beignets. After the sale, it was subject to American laws. So it is possible that, because Wakanda owned the base, the base was considered Wakandan soil.

I’m not an expert on this sort of law, but I did some quick research. And while I couldn’t find a definitive answer, what I did find indicated the rules of what is foreign soil differ when a military base sits on land that is owned by the country establishing the base as opposed to land that the base leases from the host country. So maybe the base was Wakandan soil.

Or maybe not. Lieutenant N’banta, the Wakandan military attaché, said Wakanda purchased the base through an illegal sale. An illegal sale could not properly convey legal title, so I’m not sure Wakanda actually owned the base. If I buy a stolen watch from a vendor on the corner, the watch is not legally mine. (Note, I’m also using the hypothetical I. I’m not confessing to a crime, either.)

However, even if the base was Wakandan soil and the nuns were subject to Wakandan law, Wakanda didn’t have the legal right to extradite them the way it did. While they were waiting to be extradited, they were jailed in Ryker’s Island. That is US soil. As long as they were on US soil, the nuns were was subject to US laws, including the laws governing extradition.  Under US law, persons being extradited must be afforded due process of law. That includes the right to a public hearing and effective assistance of counsel. It doesn’t include a secret military tribunal before judges whose faces are hidden at which the detainee has no counsel.

The story explains the reason the three women were extradited without any of their constitutional rights was because Wakanda bribed a US General Eaglemore. (Really, General Eaglemore? Was General Patriotact taken?). Eaglemore helped Wakanda implement the illegal proceedings. So, while the extradition was wrong, the story wasn’t wrong. People, including generals, are bribed into doing highly illegal things all the time. A story isn’t wrong, when it shows something that actually happens happening.

Doesn’t really matter, either. In Daredevil v4 #7, Daredevil snuck into Wakanda and through his own bit of diplomacy – which was every bit as questionable as that shown by Wakanda earlier – secured the release of the three women. Then Daredevil and the three sisters all went home, nun the worse for wear.

Martha Thomases: Change

green-arrow-300x182-1036412The drugstore on my corner, Avignon Pharmacy, went out of business over the weekend. We should have known the writing was on the wall when the pharmacy was sold a couple of years ago and the store just sold skin-care, shampoo, bandages and stuff like that. Still, the place had been in business, serving the neighborhood, since 1837. They were the place that could get that hard-to-find lotion, or the medicine the insurance company didn’t know existed. I’m going to miss them.

Change is hard.

Change isn’t just hard for old people like me. It’s hard for all of us. As the link says:

“The problem is that change involves ‘letting go of what we know to be the current reality, and embracing new thought,’ said Jaynelle F. Stichler, professor emeritus at San Diego State University’s School of Nursing. ‘Even something as seemingly mundane as changing the brand of toilet paper can cause a reaction.’”

Superhero comic book fans can be especially traumatized by change. A lot of us (by which I mean, of course, me) fell in love with comics as children, and any change in continuity seems like an assault on our sense of reality. Which is kind of ridiculous, given that superhero comics have hardly anything to do with reality.

I’ve been reading superhero comics since at least 1958. The Silver Age heroes are my touchstones. I loved the original Supergirl because she tried so hard to be helpful and good, just as I did when I was seven and eight years old. I also like the sillier of the trick arrows in Green Arrow’s quiver.

This isn’t to say that I’m against all change. I immediately preferred Barbara Gordon as Batgirl over Betty Kane. I loved the vision of Batman created by Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams. I liked the Wolfman/Pérez Teen Titans more than the original. The Vertigo Doom Patrol was, I thought, much better than the earlier versions.

Maybe because I’ve liked some changes, reboots and continuity lapses don’t upset me. If a story has a plot that moves and character development along with an engagement with thematic issues that appeal to me, I’ll like it. If I don’t like it, I’ll complain, probably, but I’ll also go look for something else to like. Maybe I’ll check back in a year or so to see if I like it again.

See, here’s the thing I learned when I worked in marketing at DC: every title is someone’s favorite. Books (and characters) I loathed were loved by others, and vice versa. Since I am, generally, in favor of more pleasure, I thought all kinds of people should have the books they wanted.

Giving everyone something different to read might be good for readers, but it doesn’t necessarily work for publishers. Traditionally, corporations make a lot more money from one title that sells 100,000 copies than they do from ten titles that each sell 10,000 copies, especially when these books are only on sale for a few weeks. However, the marketplace has changed enough now, with the growth of trade paperbacks and digital distribution, so that a title that starts slowly can build to sustain a committed and profitable fan base.

The advantage to these smaller audiences is that, taken together, they grow the size of the market so that everyone profits. And by growing the market incrementally, publishers can be much more experimental than they can with big blockbusters.

The movie business has shown us, recently, that putting all one’s creative eggs in the blockbuster basket can ultimately shrink the marketplace. For decades, Hollywood went after the young adult male market as if there was no one else on the planet who wanted to go to the movies. And that worked very well for a while.

Until it didn’t.

The top three grossing movies of the year so far have female leads. A movie aimed squarely at the over-50 market, trounced all the other movies that opened against it.

Blowing things up and super-powers are no longer enough to make a movie a hit. While I enjoy this kind of movie personally, I rejoice at more choices.

The conventional wisdom, that women won’t go to see action movies, especially if they feature female leads, has been convincingly proven wrong, as the conventional wisdom so often is. It turns out that girls and women enjoy watching a woman face a challenge, especially if it involves more than simply romance. It may take a few years to convince the men who run Hollywood, but I’m pretty sure they’ll come around.

Because if there is one thing that doesn’t change, it’s the media industry’s love of money.

 

Tweeks: Insurgent Divergence

insurgent-9186876The second cinematic installment of Veronica Roth’s dystopian YA series was released last weekend.  Were we excited?  Yeah.  Was it even close to our beloved book? Um, no.  Does the movie stand alone?  Undecided (because how can we tell, we’ve already read the books & seen Divergent).  But we still think it’s Tweeks Approved.

In this week’s column we highlight the major plot differences between the book and movie and ponder how Allegiant, the third book in trilogy, which will be made into TWO movies (because Lionsgate really loves Hobbit-ing their YA properties).

Dennis O’Neil: Big Comicon, Big Business

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. • I Timothy 6:10

Vast marketplaces, comic conventions these days, and that has its upside, certainly. You get to complete your collections by visiting the used comics dealers and maybe see something you didn’t know exists but would enjoy owning and out comes the wallet or, increasingly, the credit card and the deal is done.

I don’t want to get all new-agey on you, but I think it’s good for us to interact with the universe of which we’re a part and money is a way to do that; you’re exchanging whatever effort got you the money for food, clothing, shelter, comic books…you know –life’s necessities All good.

The problem comes when money ceases too be a medium of exchange and becomes an end in itself.

But don’t you dare take my word for it!

Whose word should you take? Well, there’s some research I first saw mentioned in a book by Nobel prizer Daniel Kahneman titled Thinking, Fast and Slow. The claim is that money can have a negative on a person’s personality without that person being aware of it. Here’s a Googled quote from a website called neuromarketing that pretty much explains what we’re discussing:

In each experiment, the researchers subtly prompted half the volunteers to think of money – by having them read an essay that mentioned money, for example, or seating them facing a poster depicting different types of currency – before putting them in a social situation. In one experiment, the researchers gave volunteers a difficult puzzle and told them to ask for help at any time. People who had been reminded of money waited nearly 70% longer to seek help than those who hadn’t. People cued to think of money also spent only half as much time, on average, assisting another person who asked for their help with a word problem and picked up fewer pencils for someone who’d dropped them.

(For the record: the researchers referred to were Kathleen Vohs and colleagues.)

Are we ready for some connection to comics yet? Okay: it seems to me that a lot – but by no means all – comics conventions are big, big business. What seems most important at them are the commercial aspects and the presence of celebrities, which is part of the commerce, since the celebs charge for autographs and, in at least some instances, are paid for appearing.

What I’m afraid may be lost is the innocent enthusiasm for the comic book hobby, in whatever form, and the camaraderie like like-minded souls getting together and sharing. The whole scene seems to have coarsened. And that’s too bad.

And in the interest of fairness and balance, a brief anecdote: About four years ago Marifran lost her purse while we were attending the mother of all cons, the annual San Diego shindig, I thought, there are 140,000-plus strangers in that building and bye bye purse and money therein. The next day, the purse was returned, anonymously, with absolutely nothing missing.

 

Mix March Madness 2015 Webcomics Tournament Round 1! Vote Now!

  • News
  • March 25, 2015

The people have spoken, and the brackets are ready for the Mix March Madness 2015 Webcomics Tournament!

Thanks to the thousands of people who voted in the seeding process, as well as all of you who added your favorite webcomics to the list. We’re adding all of the webcomics you suggested to our directory.

But now, the challenges start! Let’s go!

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Mike Gold: No Fire This Time

In her column last Monday, Mindy Newell talked about how an old-time friend and fellow comics reader was jumping off of the ship. Too many cataclysmic events leading directly into too many cataclysmic events. Not enough real story.

I know other readers who feel the same way, and this spring’s cataclysmic events from DC and Marvel provide an excellent opportunity to take the time they now spend reading DC and Marvel and watching the movies and teevee shows produced by, or with, DC and Marvel.

I get that, and I feel the same way. I love this medium. Always have, always will. A great many of my most enduring friendships have their roots in comics fandom, as did my marriage. But, damn, by the time I hit the staples I want a real story and not just another overwhelming grab for whatever’s left in my bank account.

In terms of my time, the Two Universes’ loss is Image Comics, Dynamite Comics, Boom Studios and IDW’s gain. Oh, I’ve always been attracted to these publishers, as well as to the artsy-fartsy output from the intelligent folk at Fantagraphics and Abrams and their ilk. And Archie, too. Hell, if Harvey was still around, I’d probably find something worthwhile over there as well. I enjoy the medium that much.

But I’ve spent all of my literate life having a special love for superhero comics and for their creators. It’s the backbone of American comics. And I’m kind of pissed that the Two Universes are trying to chase me and my buddies away.

Not that a lot of people care. North Americans spent about two-thirds of a billion dollars on tickets to Marvel’s The Avengers (source: Box Office Mojo). In the United States, The Avengers comic book sells around 50,000 copies. That same year North American comic book sales totaled less than one-half billion dollars (source: Comichron). All comics. From all publishers. All year long.

That’s pathetic.

We vote with our feet. If we don’t like something, we don’t spend money on it. Of course, fans are a bit different: we’re likely to continue to spend money on once-loved comics titles until we’re either absolutely certain they suck, or we are hopelessly confused.

Mindy’s friend is by no means alone. Disney and Warner Bros don’t give a fart about comic books, they care about return on investment. Fine; that’s their job. But from looking at the bottom line – hell, even trying to find the bottom line – it is quite possible that the movies and teevee shows in all their forms will be the only places we’ll be able to get our capes on.

(With apologies to James Baldwin.)

Box Office Democracy: The Divergent Series: Insurgent

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There’s a murkiness to The Divergent Series that is utterly baffling. Does it want to be The Hunger Games? While the obvious answer to that question would be “yes” I’m growing less and less sure by the moment. It feels like there was a meeting at some point during the production process where it was decided that they probably couldn’t reach the popularity or, frankly, the quality of The Hunger Games but that they could probably make a great deal of money by making a comparable product. Divergent is the result of that cynical take on filmmaking. Where Catching Fire brought in a new director and turned that franchise from a quick cash-in to a legitimate statement piece of media, Insurgent seems content to collapse under the weight of its own narrative and slouch toward the end of the series confident that it won’t be abandoned by an audience that craves this material.

It seems like Insurgent is trying to live and die on the performance of Shailene Woodley and, honestly, that wasn’t a bad bet to make. Woodley’s performance as Tris is easily the best in the film. Her personal struggles are captivating and her chemistry with co-star Theo James (playing Four) is the only believable relationship depicted in the entire film. While Woodley’s performance is a credit to the film it simply isn’t enough to hide what often seems like a lack of effort. I can’t understand why the second entry in a franchise that will make so much money has such lackluster sets, there’s a trial scene that appears to just be on a soundstage painted black with a metal frame set up. Most of the scenes leading up to the climax take place in a slightly fancier white box. It lacks so much in terms of effort and ambition from a design perspective and often from a directing perspective as the other performances in this film did not get nearly the attention they seemingly gave when coaxing such a transfixing job from Woodley.

I’m heading in to spoiler territory from here on so if you’ve gotten this far but prefer to remain pure it’s time to browse away.

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Emily S. Whitten: Cyberbullying Is Never The Answer

cyberbullying_intro-4290837So if you missed it, a past cyberbullying occurrence (if you can call three years of personal harassment an “occurrence”) involving two comics industry creators made its way to the forefront of comics news last week. Following this, both people involved in the original incidents have taken a few steps away from the online world for a while.

I… have mixed feelings about all of this. Oh, don’t get me wrong; I don’t have a single mixed feeling about the original harassment. Chris Sims was wrong to wage a personal, harassing vendetta against Valerie D’Orazio, and D’Orazio was right to address it in public.

What I have mixed feelings about is the, if you can call it that, “resolution” of this, which could be seen as “too little, too late,” or as “finally stepping up to the plate” to admit wrongdoing; and the attendant fallout from addressing this years down the line. Including the fact that D’Orazio, years after the original harassment, has now been put in a position where she unfortunately feels it necessary, despite Sims’ “apology,” to close her public Twitter due to further harassment – not from Sims; but from, presumably, “fans” of Sims or just generally hateful people.

Just bringing up the old harassment, for which she has been diagnosed with actual PTSD, has brought a heaping serving of new harassment for her to deal with; and that’s awful. Granted, Sims is also stepping away from some of his online presence for a while; but choosing to do such a thing is very different from being forced to in order to escape harassment, feelings of being unsafe, or whatever other terrible stuff D’Orazio has been dealing with.

I also have mixed feelings because prior to knowing about this harassment (I was not aware of it until last week), I really liked reading Chris Sims’ Comics Alliance writings and Twitter. In particular, the Smallville recaps he did with David Uzumeri have cheered me and made me laugh on many a lunch break and dull commute. And from Sims’ writings, he seemed like, for someone I’ve never met, a pretty laid-back guy. Not the sort of person who’d spend hours of his time and efforts trying to tear down somebody else. And yet, that’s what happened. For three years. How completely awful of him.

I don’t know either party outside of a passing online interaction, which could just as easily be smoke and bombast as it could be real sincerity. The interesting thing about this is that Sims, based on his recent addressing of the situation and actions, may possibly have actually grown as a person in the interim between his terrible behavior and the present.

Usually, when I see online harassment I see it in the moment, and the reflection of the harasser is pure awfulness. In that moment when someone is being a hateful human being, there isn’t any change of heart in sight. And yet, because of the time that passed between the original harassment here and the present, it’s possible we are able to observe someone who has actually become a better person since his earlier actions. If that’s true, and Sims isn’t posturing but sincerely regrets his actions (not just because of the consequences to his writing career, but because they were wrong), then it leaves me pondering some questions for which I don’t really have answers, but which deserve to be addressed in an ongoing manner.

Questions like: once a person realizes they’ve behaved badly, what can atone for it? What is the proper societal or professional “punishment” for such atrocious behavior, and is there a time limit to it? And should it be ameliorated by the fact that the person has recognized it? Does any of this help the victim of the original harassment? What would they want to see happen? And what if their harassment is still ongoing, caused by the ripples of the original harassment?

Do others, as observers aware of the situation, have a responsibility to, e.g., boycott a harasser’s creations? To continually speak out against the harasser (and does that sometimes turn into harassment in the other direction)? What if it’s a harasser who has changed his (or her) ways? What then? What is the best way to support someone who has been harassed and speak up consistently against harassment without closing our minds to the possible redemption of someone who has been the harasser? Can they grow if we don’t let them? How can we let them without letting them off the hook for what they’ve done?

I don’t know all the answers here; I really don’t. What I do know is that harassment and cyberbullying are never the answer; and that it is important to speak out against unacceptable behavior, no matter who the perpetrator is.

I also know that for me, anyway, being made aware of someone’s harassing or otherwise cruel behavior either turns me off to their creative work, or, if they are sincerely trying to apologize and atone for it (as I hope Sims is here), at the very least makes me hugely disappointed in them and puts their work into the mental category labeled, “Trust In Creator Lost: Use Caution In Future Consumption of Creative Output.” In other words, even though of course the person harassed is the most hurt, these people are also hurting themselves professionally by their behavior. It astonishes me that more people don’t consider that before they act. Or maybe they do, and their preferred audience is one full of jerks who don’t care about hurting others; in which case, I just feel sad for them. There are so many things in life more worthy of spending one’s energy on than tearing another person down.

I think it’s important for all of us (myself included, because I’m nowhere near perfect and do not claim to be) to make an effort to consciously consider the effects of our words and actions. It’s an old truth that words have power. They can shape the world; but sometimes it seems we are taught little care for them, or that we both accept that truth and then discard it when we act.

There’s a quote from Terry Pratchett’s A Hat Full of Sky that seems apropos here, in which his character Tiffany is explaining how she thinks about the world:

“First Thoughts are the everyday thoughts. Everyone has those. Second Thoughts are the thoughts you think about the way you think. People who enjoy thinking have those. Third Thoughts are thoughts that watch the world and think all by themselves. They’re rare, and often troublesome. Listening to them is part of witchcraft.”

I think we could all use a little more witchcraft, in the sense that we could all do with getting out of our own heads and watching the world and our actions in it from an unbiased observer’s perspective a little more. Or even by flipping the bias and trying to imagine ourselves in the place of the person being harassed. Imagining the continual hurt, anger, frustration, helplessness, and fear that someone must feel when being attacked; and then realizing that this is what bullies choose to add to the world.

Because that’s who a bully is: someone who chooses to create pain for another human being. Someone who wreaks chaos on another life because…because they can? Because they feel small in their own lives? Because they have a grudge for some reason, and think the nuclear option is the best way to deal with it? I don’t know; there may be many reasons – but it’s important to realize that none of them justify, to steal another Terry Pratchett quote, “treating people as things.”

It’s up to each of us to consistently realize that, and to realize that we’re all vulnerable; and that any person could decide tomorrow that it’s your turn to have your life ruined by careless words. And to choose, each moment, not to be that person in somebody else’s life.

I hope this unfortunate situation with D’Orazio and Sims has at least given us all something to think about and grow from; and until next time, Servo Lectio.

 

The Point Radio: Dishing With The Girls From GRIMM

GRIMM is back to wrap up it’s fourth season on NBC, but what can we expect as we head toward the May finale? Actors Bitsie Tulloch, Bree Turner and Clare Coffee let us in on a few teases including just how their characters may wind up this time. Plus the backyard inventors of BRAINSTORMERS talk about the times things worked and the times they didn’t.

In a few days, we go to the set of the CW’s latest comic inspired hit, IZOMBIE.
Be sure to follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.

Monday Mix-Up: Post-Punk Icons Reimagined As Marvel Heroes

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We’d hesitate to describe any musician as a “hero”, but prompted by Butcher Billy’s new art series, we’re starting to notice the similarities.

Following on from his 2013 series of Post-Punk ‘Super Friends’, illustrator and New Wave obsessive Billy has returned to his favourite theme of dressing up the likes of The Smiths and Joy Division in super suits.

via Post-Punk Icons Reimagined As Marvel Heroes | ShortList Magazine.

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