Written on 17 Feb 2005.

Irresponsible! How could they do this? How could they treat the amazing and multifaceted gems so carelessly? I am betrayed!

My favorite comic company has gone out of business. Dreamwave, host to so many excellent and talented writers and artists, has closed its doors forever. But, you challenge, what’s the big deal? It’s just a comic book.

OH HO! These magnificent pieces of art cannot be slandered by your depreciative claims! Every glossy page was an example of attention to detail. It was an homage to perspective. Each page was something that I would gladly hang and display on my wall.

I admit that I was partial to the subject matter. I collected Transformers when I was a child, and have begun again at the suggestion of a friend. The story lines, while not the most creative, did a fantastic job of delving into and developing the personalities of stereotypical characters. And now that the storylines are so much truncated fantasy, I find myself raising my fists to the sky in melodramatic rage.

They closed for “bad business practices.” They deferred payment to their writers and to their artists. THEY DID NOT PAY THEIR TALENT. And yet, they expected to continue to publish fifteen different comic books every month. Bad business practices, indeed.

I am left with unfinished stories and a determination to do better than they have.

Written on 12 Feb 2005.

The entire state feels like it’s in its death throes. In most of Flint, getting shot is a daily concern. In Detroit, this is no longer much of a worry, because the city stands practically abandoned, conjuring up images of an old western ghost town. Saginaw is hanging on by the skin of its teeth. Racially and economically divided by a river, the weather is the only thing preventing the city from boiling over. Lansing lives by the whim of General Motors and the debt-ridden state government.

What about the suburbs of Detroit, you ask. They’re extremely prosperous. Yes, this place has plenty of money. Likely as not, that will only last for another generation or two. Constant Urban Sprawl (white rich people fleeing black people who are trying to live a better life) eats the land and the trees. Housing and strip malls stand empty from time of construction and into the flight of the money intended to fill them. The young intelligencia leave, sick and tired of a car-based and basically flawed system of transportation. One can sit on I-696 stopped for only so many times. Soon, suburbia will stand as abandoned as Detroit now sits.

What about the rural areas of the state, you ask. There are several pristine small towns and rural expanses that seem immune to the collapse. These towns do not succumb to the Urban Sprawl (no Wal-Mart) and are not home to the infamous rednecks that populate the Michigan Militia and the KKK. However, the whole state cannot be supported by these small and rare utopias.

What about the western side of the state? Ok, you got me. I know very little about places like Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, and Traverse City. It is possible, though unlikely, that the west side of the state has the magical wand that will be waved, and we will all be saved, to live happily ever after. But I doubt it.

The nation’s birth vs. death ratio is negative. More people die than are born, and the gap is increasing every year. With our recent foul mood toward foreigners, not to mention failing economy, we are less and less an attractive place for immigrants to make their home. All of these parallel state trends and attitudes.

How many homes for sale do you see in a day? How many for rent signs do you see in a day? How many more than five years ago? And yet, the construction and waste continue. Michigan can be saved from death. How many of us are willing to put in the hard work? How many of us are willing to open our minds and learn better ways of doing things? I fear that there are too few.

Written on 11 Feb 2005.

There is a French linguist that has earned the distinction of getting under my skin. In a lengthy diatribe that linguists call a “proof”, this linguist speaks about myth. He states, as a thesis, that statements within myths have more meaning when separated from their myths. He attempts to show that when considered in a purely linguistic fashion, the statements hold more meaning. This, he says, is because the context of the myth is lost to us forever, so the meaning the statement within the myth is a broken, dead thing.

As a student of objective religion and as a story-teller, I am personally offended. Through reading academic and professional writings over my life span, I have noticed a disturbing trend. To feel worthwhile, many have a need to reduce any view but their own to a worthless state. They must proclaim other views as meaningless, futile, and ultimately stupid. While this trend begins in Junior High School, it continues into middle management, over-paid executives, and academics that cannot abide obscurity.

Myths, and the statements within them, are powerful and whole literary pieces. Not only do they perform critical functions in the forming and evolution of a society (even today), but they provide major clues to understanding societies long dead. Even a newly-unearthed myth can have great personal meaning to someone living today. Reducing a myth, and the statements within it, to a “purely linguistic form” robs a myth of its history and true importance.