'Since Tolkien considered himself a conservative anarchist, it should come as no surprise that while trying to answer his publisher's questions regarding the symbolism hidden in his magnum opus, he suggested to "...make the Ring into an allegory of our own time… an allegory of the inevitable fate that waits for all attempts to defeat evil power by power." One day a great magician, Gandalf the Grey, pays a visit to the village. He is concerned by the fact that one of the hobbits, a certain Mr. Bilbo Baggins, keeps there hidden a precious artifact – a mysterious ring. Forged many years ago by Sauron, the Lord of Darkness, the Ring of Power is one of many rings of power, the one, however, that controls all the others. Only someone so mediocre, so weak, inept, and created seemingly for the sole purpose of minding his own merry business like Frodo Baggins – Bilbo's heir – could, at least to some extent, resist the evil power.'

'We find them everywhere in fantasy fiction: the "orphaned heroes," young men and women whose parents are dead, absent, or unknown, who turn out to be the heirs to the kingdom, the destined pullers of swords from stones, the keys to the riddles, the prophesies' answers, the bearers of powerful magic. For young readers, there is a distinct brand of pleasure in inhabiting the skin of the orphan hero, tasting both the joys and terrors of operating as a fully independent being without the protective cushion (or burden, depending on the child's circumstance) of parents standing between them and the wide, wide world beyond. For children with difficult childhoods, the appeal is obvious; such stories provide escape, a vision of life beyond the confines of a troubled home. But even children from healthy families welcome escape from time to time. In the guise of the orphan hero they can shed their usual roles (the eldest daughter, middle son, the baby of the family, etc.) and enter other realms in which they are solitary actors. Without adults to guide them (or, contrarily, to restrict them), orphan heroes are thrown back, time and time again, on their own resources. I do not think we outgrow our need for such stories, accounting for their continuing popularity among adult readers as well — for who among us does not feel orphaned in this vast, strange world sometimes? Through Harry Potter, Jane Eyre, and Cinderella we experience the orphan within ourselves.'

'Batman Begins and The Dark Knight are both excellent sources of entertainment, but they also offer a complex and interesting dissection of a man who learned to use his own fear against criminals.' -- "Kids generally – even if they're not directly responsible for some terrible event – personalize the event and take responsibility for it." -- "...Bruce Wayne is the mask."

'But the kids… they are limitless reservoirs of possibility. Sure, they don’t know kung fu now, but they could learn. At this point the only hope left to realize your fantasies is for your kid to become that fantasy, and then drag you along with them. But why is it always a daughter? ...your daughter, at two, at four, at six, seems very sophisticated. Sometimes she almost seems like an adult. And she’s so pretty. ...if there is anyone who could take advantage of an alternative universe where possibilities can be willed into reality, it would be the girl... While this is all happening – while 40 year old men are being offered a last ditch-last ditch attempt at fantasy, the new cycle of kids are starting from the very beginning: marginal guy saves the girl: Harry Potter, Twilight, and about thirty or so comic book movies. They run parallel to the middle-agers digital wish fulfillment, which reads: marginal guy is saved by his kid, redeemed by his kid, his partial object.'

'Hollywood is ravaging the back issues of Marvel and DC Comics to come up with even marginal characters that can be turned into movies. The attraction of these characters is that they reinforce the dominant social theme of modern Western justice, including the paraphernalia of its court system, adversarial construct and prison system. People are entirely intimidated by the West's current judicial system ...the most ingrained of all modern power-elite memes. People literally cannot conceive of how justice can be gained except by some omnipotent state. Turning people into superheroes to reinforce the status quo is perhaps an emergent elite tool in a larger arsenal. But the bigger issue is mind control generally. From movies to books to television, people are bombarded with dominant and sub dominant social themes. Most people still have a hard time thinking that the world could be organized in another way. War is Peace. Paper money is Gold. The State is Freedom.'

'"I know most Americans like to believe there are selfless, ultra-intelligent operatives like me out there watching over everything from an underground control room," said the Rhodes Scholar Navy SEAL national security official who for the past 10 years we have all mistakenly presumed to be an actual human being. "Unfortunately, though, I'm not employed by the U.S. government, I'm not working at all hours to foil terrorist plots, nor am I part of some secret network of sharp, capable agents, because no such network exists." "And again, neither do I," the imaginary man added.'

YES HE CAN! YES HE CAN! YES HE CAN!!! (7:52) Continued... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfN09iB_LNA

"In all these tales, a depressed life of dumb chores and crushed opportunities gets magically transformed into an 'heroic' – and always violet – adventure when an older man comes and takes you away. All this is just designed to make you want to go to war when the State comes to kidnap you. Real heroism is, however, something very different from what is always portrayed. Real heroism is something you can achieve now, today."

Gisted -- In the green mythological fantasy there are three major players: #1. The Cowering Victim (Mother Earth, feminine), #2. The Raping Perpetrator (capitalism, masculine), #3. The Superhero Saviour (The State, gender neutral) -- So to relate these players to the family, there's a brutal father and a depressed, passive-aggressive mother. But where does the State come from in this fantasy because there's no State in the family? The superhero State is the child's projection fantasy of power and omnipotence which is the only possible psychological response to helplessness in the face of violence. Greens, by abstracting and projecting their need for power onto the State, have ensured they will never gain any real power in their lives and that the State will just take from them without offering anything in return. Grandiosity is a form of helplessness; it allows us to ignore the pain our own experiences. The experiences we repress or project onto others always end up controlling us.

Gisted -- When you start to look at political activism of any kind, when people act in a resolutely anti-empirical way, you know that psychological defenses are at work. Their government fails at everything except predation and destruction but people continue to turn to it like a white knight. There's this endless frustration as to why statism isn't working. Not realizing their belief in the State is a psychological defense, statists continue to escalate in the same way parents who use violence to obtain obedience from children tend to escalate: because it doesn't work. The State is viewed as a saviour because it represents the grandiosity of the helpless and this is why the fantasy of statism is so hard to break for people. If the State were to disappear tomorrow, people would actually have to deal with their pain, they wouldn't have this receptacle for their childhood helplessness and anger. That's why if you talk to people about getting rid of the State they get very upset about it.

'The X-altruistic person [has] a need to live in "a fair and just world", and will go to great lengths to try and maintain that. They are driven by factors outside of themselves, externally motivated drives, such as aiding the plight of society or serving the "greater good". ...the sociopath and the X-altruist, may appear similar in their displays of behavior, and at times, even confused for the other type. If an X-altruistic person is compelled to break rules without remorse in order to help a disadvantaged person, it may seem as if he is acting rebelliously, especially if the motives behind his behavior are not known. On the other hand, a sociopath may donate a large sum of money to a charity, a seemingly altruistic behavior, but his actions may have been motivated by his selfish need to appear better than or more generous than a colleague. The defining characteristic that separates the two personality types is their ability to empathize, either not at all or too much...'

'White House officials are confident the President will be able to convince the wildfire to stop incinerating large swaths of land and American homes.' -- HE'S GOT THE WHOLE WORLD IN HIS HANDS: HE'S GOT THE EARTH AND SKY IN HIS HANDS; HE'S GOT THE NIGHT AND DAY IN HIS HANDS; HE'S GOT THE SUN AND MOON IN HIS HANDS; HE'S GOT THE LAND AND SEA IN HIS HANDS; HE'S GOT THE WIND AND RAIN IN HIS HANDS; HE'S GOT THE SPRING AND FALL IN HIS HANDS; HE'S GOT THE YOUNG AND OLD IN HIS HANDS; HE'S GOT THE RICH AND POOR IN HIS HANDS; YES, HE'S GOT EV'RY ONE IN HIS HANDS; HE'S GOT THE WHOLE WORLD IN HIS HANDS.

'Despots are not afraid of individuals. They're afraid of populations. But the ideal American hero is a loner, and hence, a loser. We celebrate the Cowboy, incapable of cooperating with anyone, and hence no threat to those in power. Action movies are full of them--lone Rambos and Bonds, blasting away at the enemy, heroic in the movies, utterly ineffectual In real life. (As symbols, of course, they're very effective in persuading the ovine to smoke, be paranoid, and carry guns). -- As Putnam observed in his book Bowling Alone, voluntary associations in the United States have been on the decline for many decades. There are many reasons for this, but the rise of strongly anti-democratic media is certainly one. The freedom individuals have in our society is something to be treasured, but the moment individualistic ideology begins to cripple our ability to cooperate in order to achieve common goals, authoritarian rule is only a whisper away.'

"...like any movie that boasts men in latex, with its release come the action figures. The trouble is, these new angsty comics flicks aren't for kids, so why are the toys they spawn? The reason, besides the slim possibility that parents did some actual parenting and steered their kids away from The Dark Knight, might be psychological: Deeply damaged characters in figurine form deny youngsters those first tender forays into cruelty—that compulsive subconscious release so critical to the concept of "play"—by arriving already effed-up. Children are adept at defacing, even deconstructing, the fantasies McPackaged for them. Adults, on the other hand, need help."

"...I wonder if the root of the emergence of the superhero in American culture might have something to do with a kind of an ingrained American reluctance to engage in confrontation without massive tactical superiority. It does seem to me that massive tactical superiority might be a key to the superhero phenomenon. That wasn't what it used to mean. That wasn't what it used to mean to me when I was a child. What I was getting out of it was this unbridled world of the imagination, and the superhero was a perfect vehicle for that when I was much younger. But looking at the superhero today, it seems to me an awful lot like Watchmen without the irony, that with Watchmen we were talking very much about the potential abuses of this kind of masked vigilante justice and the kind of people that it would in all likelihood attract if these things were taking place in a more realistic world. But that was not meant approvingly." -- "...there is an inverse relationship between money and imagination."

'In preparation for the March 6th release of “Watchmen”, the movie adaptation of Alan Moore’s groundbreaking comic series, I give the uninitiated a primer. For Watchmen fans, I reveal the secret of issue #5: “Fearful Symmetry”. Don’t be surprised if this isn’t my last vlog on this subject.' -- :)))

'NBC is introducing a new spin-off character there named Syn Anders. Though she doesn't appear on "Heroes" itself, she'll be Habbo residents' virtual guide to the series, assigning players with quests and puzzles that mirror the show as it continues into its third season. NBC sees the Web as a way to promote its shows, Andrade said, but also as a way to generate advertising revenue for online content, such as its "Heroes" webisodes.

"The Archetypal hero is a conflicted individual on a mission: #Confronts obstacles to awaken an inner spirtual power and achieve a heroic vision that ultimately serves the tribe. #Conquers survival fears that might compromise the journey of empowerment #Faces and overcomes odds in both material and spirtual realms -- Traits of modern heroes: #1 Empowers others #2 Embraces their inner anti-hero #3 Makes their own rules #4 Acts for the greater good #5 Is courageous"

#Bart: "Alan Moore! You wrote my favorite issues of Radioactive Man!" #Moore: "Oh really? So you liked that I made your favorite super hero a heroin addicted jazz critic who's NOT radioactive?"

"Comics are the new spec-scripts, and Hollywood is very amenable to a script with big pictures..."

'"The internet allows networks to view an instant fan response and then react to it," says [John Ramos]. "Of course, that doesn't always mean that they will respond. Buffy's creator, Joss Whedon, famously said, 'I'm not giving you what you want - I'm giving you what you need.'"

"Captain Britain (Brian Braddock), briefly known as Britannic, is a fictional character, a superhero appearing in the comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character was meant to be the British equivalent of Captain America. Endowed with extraordinary powers by the legendary magician Merlyn and his daughter Roma, Captain Britain was assigned to uphold the laws of Britain."

"It's understood that Alexander and Loeb were let go because of Peacock execs' frustration with the creative direction of the show. The show is also said to have been grappling with hefty budget overruns this season that are going well beyond its already sizable $4 million per-seg pricetag. Reps for NBC and UMS declined comment." -- Comment: Anon: "They constantly reuse the same plot devices -- traveling into the future to see a disaster, people painting the future, people coming back from the dead. The show has also become painfully convoluted, with plot holes, continuity errors, and retcons left and right. That a show only in its third season even HAS retcons shows just how bad the writing has been."

"Because there is good and there is evil, and evil must be punished. Even in the face of Armageddon I shall not compromise in this."

"Stephen Colbert is running for president in the Marvel Universe. Stephen tried to run for president in our boring universe, but unfortunately his campaign was stymied by the powers that be. Not so in the Marvel Universe, where his campaign is in full swing and gaining momentum, once again proving that we would all rather be living in the Marvel Universe than the real one."

Herbie Popnecker. Quite revealing.

"Superheroes Anonymous is a real world forum for Real Life Superheroes to gather, meet, organize and give each other inspiration and knowledge while showing our strength and unity to the press and public at large." -- Woah!

"He sees an injustice. steps in. then procedes to wow everyone with his unbeliably hot dance moves." - Save The Dancer, Save the World! [via: Iain Tait | crackunit]