Riba Rambles:
Musings of a Mental Magpie

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:59 AM

Did Lex Luthor Out Superman?
Controversy grows over leak; Supporters say no law was broken

 

By Jape Trostle
The Daily Planet

For a second straight week, controversy swirled around Lex Luthor after it was revealed he was the source for Time magazine reporter Jim Olson and a 2003 article in which Olson wrote that Daily Planet reporter Clark Kent is Superman.

Clark Kent's alter-ego had first been revealed the week before, in a July 14, 2003, piece by conservative columnist Robert Novak, and sources close to the investigation of the Superman outing say Luthor had also leaked the information to Novak.

Under the 1981 Marvel/DC Protection of Secret Identity Act, also known as "Bruce's Law", it is illegal to knowingly reveal any superhero's everyday persona.

Supporters say Luthor didn't intentionally break any laws , and that there is no scandal -- only a witchhunt by partisan hacks.

"Look," said one source close to the investigation who insisted on anonymity, "Lex Luthor never actually SAID Clark Kent is Superman, he just told Olson that Lois Lane's boyfriend was a superhero."

The outing of Superman is widely considered to be payback for an earlier exposé by Lois Lane titled "What I Learned in Iraq," that revealed the details of a plan for world domination by a cabal of supervillains that allegedly included Lex Luthor.

Continued at Japenet.

Thanks to Peg Kerr for the link.

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:01 PM

Trying to spread the word about Firefly on the SciFi channel tomorrow, I wandered over to Google News to see what other coverage they was getting.

Among the articles were two descriptions of the Firefly panel at the San Diego Comic-Con last weekend, both extremely funny.

1. from Sign on San Diego
2. from Comic Book Resources

While there's some overlap, each article includes bits excluded from the other. They're both worth reading, probably in the order I listed them. Let's see if I can find a short excerpt that captures the flavor of the event:

Leaping into the Q&A, Whedon was asked how many special effects were in the film. "Twelve," he replied. "Sixteen? No, we had to cut it to twelve."

"You said we couldn't get paid more because there were only eight," [Gina] Torres interrupted.

"That's before I replaced you with a CGI beagle," Whedon answered calmly.

Heh. You think they're having fun?

Posted by Lis Riba at 6:45 PM

I may be coming to this late, but Google Earth and Google Maps use pre-Big Dig data of Boston! They do not appear to account for changes to the Central Artery, and their driving directions recommend routes which no longer exist.

For example, look at these directions to Logan. "Exit 24 A-B to Logan Airport (RT-1A N)/Gov't Ctr" is long gone. Anybody following these instructions could get hopelessly lost in Boston.

Now, that may be a bad example, since the airport is a major destination and there's plenty of alternate signage. But any destination in South Boston from points north or south will cause similar problems.

I've sent feedback to both groups, so hopefully something can be done. In the meantime, be careful with online driving directions that involve the Central Artery.

Posted by Lis Riba at 12:15 PM

Have you got the Sci-Fi channel?

Tomorrow night, 7pm, the Sci-Fi channel starts airing Firefly: a short-lived SF series by Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (comic book fans might appreciate the fact that Ben Edlund, creator of The Tick also worked on the series))

If you've ever been interested in my recommendations, I can't plug this more highly.

This September, they're releasing a movie based on the series, called Serenity.

If you've got Quicktime (or Windows Media or RealPlayer) you can see the new trailer at http://www.cantstopthesignal.co.uk/trailer/. It does a good job of conveying the humor of the show, though the movie does have a different tone.

Firefly: tomorrow 7pm Sci-Fi channel
Can't stop the signal ;)

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:54 PM

Don't feel much like writing. Our only air-conditioner is in the bedroom, which doesn't have Internet access. So I've mostly been laying back and reading LJ tonight, which has been chock full of interesting Harry Potter speculation and analysis. The Leaky Cauldron and Mugglenet had the opportunity to interview J.K. Rowling after the publication of Half-Blood Prince and are posting it in installments. So far, we only have Part One and Part Two, but already JKR is dropping hints about which fan theories may be correct.

I found out about another book I want to read -- which none of the four library networks I belong to have copies. Very frustrating. Constructing a world: Shakespeare's England and the new historical fiction. Considering the amount of Elizabethan fiction I read, this kind of study (even if it's a few years old) seems right up my alley.

Yet the only copy in the statewide virtual catalog is at UMass Amherst. [BPL has one, but it's noncirculating, so that doesn't help me as much as it could.] And between the number of promising books that disappointed me and a lack of bookshelves and money, I'd rather just read a library copy before deciding whether to purchase.

Haven't written much about politics because it's all too depressing.

Juan Cole, expert on the Mideast, sums up several causes of my current pessimism in one post:

The Roberts Nomination and the Iraqi Constitution: Bush's War on Women

George W. Bush's nomination of John Roberts, Jr. is a setback for American women, just has his policies in Iraq have produced a setback for women's rights in the Arab world. Indeed, Bush has been bad for women all around the globe.
[... O'Connor] is being replaced by a man who has no sympathy for any of the things she stood for. In particular, he wants to have men dictate to women whether they will carry to term babies that men impregnate them with. If abortion ends up being outlawed altogether, it will mean that rapists can in essence force their victims to bear their babies. In short, the more absolute form of anti-reproductive rights philosophy is an active ally of these men against women (the daughters, nieces, wives and mothers of men):

The same juvenilization of women, the rendering of them wards of men, can be seen in Bush's Iraq. Contrary to the propaganda Bush's team is so good at producing, the secular, Arab nationalist Baath Party had passed some of the more progressive laws and regulations about women in the Middle East. Iraqi women in the 1970s had unprecedented opportunities for education and entry into the professions. The Bushies like to pose as liberators of Muslim women, but they have brought to power Muslim fundamentalists who are obsessed with subjugating women.

Ed Wong of the NYT reports that a draft of the new Iraqi constitution contains a provision that puts personal status law under the authority of religious judges. Marriage, divorce, inheritance and other such matters would be judged according to the religious law of the community to which the person belonged. This step would be a big set back for women's rights in Iraq.

In the kind of medieval interpretation of Islamic law being envisioned, women would get half the inheritance that their brothers do. Their testimony would be worth half that of men in court (making it almost impossible for a woman to convict her rapist). It would allow men to summarily divorce women but deprive women of any similar right to divorce their husbands. In Shiite Islam, it would bring back formally the practice of temporary marriage, whereby a man could contract with a woman for, say a two-week marriage while he was away from his usual family. The provision that a quarter of seats in the Iraqi parliament go to women will certainly be gotten rid of by the Muslim fundamentalists, now or later.

Bush and his officials have been scathingly critical of Iran's governmental system, including lack of rights for women. But they have cast the shadow of medieval jurisprudence over 15 million Iraqi women. And they are trying as hard as they can to ensure paternity rights for rapists here in the United States.

Apparently, this hasn't been sufficient to motivate all liberals into stopping Roberts. See Rhetorically Speaking and Pandagon for more on this. But if you don't feel your autonomy threatened by a possible denial of abortion-rights and privacy-rights (which encompasses both gay rights and the right to contraception), Arthur Silber found further (chilling) reasons to oppose him:

To his great credit, Al Franken had Emily Bazelon as a guest on his radio show today. Bazelon is one of the very few legal analysts who understands what is at stake here.

Here are some key excerpts from her column on the subject of Roberts, and the opinion he joined last week:

[...] Roberts may indeed turn out to be a wise, thoughtful, and appealing justice. Tonight when Bush announced his nomination, Roberts talked about feeling humbled, which won him points on TV. But an opinion that the 50-year-old judge joined just last week in the case Hamdan v. Rumsfeld should be seriously troubling to anyone who values civil liberties. As a member of a three-judge panel on the D.C. federal court of appeals, Roberts signed on to a blank-check grant of power to the Bush administration to try suspected terrorists without basic due-process protections.
...
This tribunal [before which the administration wants to try Hamdan] isn’t like the courts-martial that are used for prisoners of war. It goes by rules that cut back the rights of defendants even more drastically than the tribunal that the United States has helped establish in Iraq to try Saddam Hussein has. Hamdan has no right to be present at his trial. Unsworn statements, rather than live testimony, can be presented as evidence against him. The presumption of innocence can be taken away from him at any time; so can his right not to testify to avoid self-incrimination. If Hamdan is convicted, he can be sentenced to death.

The opinion Roberts joined, written by Judge A. Raymond Randolph for a unanimous panel (though the third judge, Stephen Williams, expressed a reservation in a concurrence), swallows all of that and then some. The opinion says that Congress authorized the president to set up whatever military tribunal he deems appropriate when it authorized him to use “all necessary and appropriate force” to fight terrorism in response to 9/11. While the president has claimed the authority only to try foreign suspects before the tribunals, there’s nothing in the Hamdan opinion that stops him from extending their reach to any other suspected terrorist, American citizens included. This amounts to a free hand—and one Bush is not shy about extending. The administration has already devised its own tribunals to review its claims that the Guantanamo detainees are all enemy combatants who are not entitled to the international protections accorded to prisoners of war. As of February, 558 hearings had resulted in freedom for only three prisoners. The Supreme Court has yet to rule on the legality of these tribunals—a question that Roberts may now help decide.

Hamdan also says that the defendant, and by extension the other Guantanamo detainees, has no right to petition for release under the Geneva Conventions. Hamdan’s lawyers argued that, since the president is prosecuting their client in the name of the laws of war, the president has to be bound by those laws. Their claim is a fairly limited one—not that Geneva gives the detainees a ticket to challenge the conditions of confinement or to sue for money damages, but that it sets the parameters for their trials.
...
At oral argument, Roberts appeared to recognize some of the weaknesses in the government’s stance. In particular, he quizzed Hamdan’s lawyers about the Charming Betsy principle of respecting international law. But none of the reservations he appeared to harbor then are reflected in the opinion he joined. So, what does that say about John Roberts? Did he decide that Judge Randolph had it right down the line in Hamdan, or did he sign on to a flawed and sweeping opinion because he was auditioning for the job Bush has now picked him for? Neither prospect is reassuring.

So, that's what we're facing. Have you heard anything new about Karl Rove lately?

And these are only excerpts of the posts; you can read more from Juan Cole and Arthur Silber

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:10 AM

Everybody's already been oohing and aahing over Google Earth, but did you know about Google Moon?

Tomorrow is the 36th anniversary of the first moon landing, and in honor of the event, Google Maps has expanded to include the lunar landing sites.

PS: slide the zoom control all the way up to the topmost position for some really impressive detail renderings.

Posted by Lis Riba at 12:34 PM

Last week I blogged:

Today's stories about Rove sure look bad, so what could distract the punditry from that?

Any bets Bush'll name his Supreme Court nominee and/or rumors will prove correct and Rehnquist resigns real soon now? Gearing up for a Court fight will distract folks from Rove...

Today, Reuters: Bush believed to be close to Supreme Court decision (via Americablog):

Sources said the timing of an announcement had been moved up in part to deflect attention away from a CIA leak controversy that has engulfed Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove.

A Republican strategist with close to the White House described Clement as the leading candidate. "She's pretty untouchable," he said. "Plus, it helps take Rove off the front pages for a week."

Did I call it, or what?

I may post more on this after work, when I have a chance to do more than just glance at the headlines. But as Americablog wrote in a separate post: "Let's see if the press can handle two stories at once." Here's hoping...

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:25 AM

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to
you, trippingly on the tongue.
          -- Hamlet

According to the BBC:

In August [Shakespeare's Globe in London] will stage an "original production" of Troilus and Cressida -- with the actors performing the lines as close to the 16th century pronunciations as possible.

By opening night, they will have rehearsed using phonetic scripts for two months and, hopefully, will render the play just as its author intended. They say their accents are somewhere between Australian, Cornish, Irish and Scottish, with a dash of Yorkshire - yet bizarrely, completely intelligible if you happen to come from North Carolina.

They provide an audioclip (WMV or Real) of a short speech read first with Modern pronounciation, and then in their pseudo-Elizabethan. It's intelligible. And, as the play's director says:

"Apart from the delight of feeling 'I'm getting closer to how this play was done 400 years ago', some of the jokes, some of the rhymes and some of the puns also work again."

Covet.

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:30 PM

A few items not directly related to the onstage productions I'm reviewing:

• Undermountain Farm Riding Stables: Does that name give any of you the vibe that I'm getting from it? <looks at the site> Hmm, they teach trail riding and offer instruction in hunt seat. I wonder what they're hunting and where the trails lead...

• Ian knows I tend to get shirty when I see cars that take up multiple parking spaces, particularly when spaces are scarce. I consider this the height of arrogance, presenting an attitude that the driver considers hirself above the rules that apply to everyone else in the lot. In paid garages, I wish operators would make note of such scofflaws and charge them for two spaces when they depart.
Anyway, in Lenox I saw something that took the cake. Somebody parked a Cooper Mini so it took up two adjacent parallel spaces! A Mini!!! Perfectly centered so neither of the spaces were usable by anything larger than a motorcycle. I'm used to this kind of behavior from oversized SUVs, where the fault might partly lie with incompetent drivers, but this just made my jaw drop.

• Just to elaborate further on what kind of geek I am, one of the outdoor theaters at Shakespeare & Co is the "Rose Footprint," a tented space the size of the original Rose Theatre (where they eventually intend to build their replica). I was sorely tempted to buy oranges just to eat during the performance for that added touch of authenticity. I'm so weird sometimes.

• Finally, I came up with a filk over the weekend, but would love assistance/advice from somebody with a better musical sense and/or a stronger understanding of Shakespeare.
It's the Prologue to Henry V to Billy Joel's "The Longest Time":

Whoa-oh-oh-oh! For a muse of fire!
Whoa-Oh-oh! For a muse of fire!
Within this here modest wooden O, (whoo-Ooh-ooh-ooh)
Kings and mighty battles we will show. (wah-wah-wah)
Don't feel frustration!
Just use your im-ag-in-ation!
While I'm still wishing for a muse of fire!

Piece out im-per-fection with your thought:
 Into a thousand parts
 Divide all who fought.
Your minds must now deck all our kings,
 Provide them with mounts,
 Bestow fine clothes, a crown and rings.

Suppose in the girdle of these walls, (whoo-Ooh-ooh-ooh)
You'll see England rise while France must fall. (wah-wah-wah)
Do not be baffled
By this here modest scaffold.
We're only wishing for a muse of fire!

...

Your patience I pray,
Be kind to our humble play:
I'm only wishing for a muse of fire!

Posted by Lis Riba at 6:10 PM

The British edition of Half-Blood Prince arrived in the mail today.

Cool. Since Amazon.co.uk said not to expect it until next week sometime, I very nearly started a second reread of the American edition, but now I can begin a full reread of the British edition, the way the author meant it to be read, without any Americanisms from the editors.

Hooray!

Posted by Lis Riba at 8:41 PM

Okay, maybe there is something I can write about Half-Blood Prince before my reread.

According to The Leaky Cauldron*, a Time Magazine interview with Rowling is now online.

"I think Phoenix could have been shorter. I knew that, and I ran out of time and energy toward the end," she says. She is worried that Goblet was overpraised. "In every single book, there's stuff I would go back and rewrite," she says. "But I think I really planned the hell out of this one. I took three months and just sat there and went over and over and over the plan, really fine-tuned it, looked at it from every angle. I had learnt, maybe, from past mistakes."

And, you know what, that extra work shows. What she says about all three books is true. HBP is a much better edited book, and makes me glad to see that she isn't letting the money and fame exempt her from criticism.

*Links to The Leaky Cauldron are a bit spotty this week, because they turned off comments for a while to deter spoiler-posting trolls. Meanwhile, if you've finished HBP and are hungry more, a recent ITV interview has some spoilers for Book 7.

Posted by Lis Riba at 8:00 PM

Though I'm finding it somewhat difficult, I'm deferring my reread of Half-Blood Prince until my copy of the British edition arrives in the mail (shipped Friday). And while I'm enjoying commenting and corresponding in others' posts, anything more I want to write to this journal about the book will have to wait for that.

In the meantime, GarlandGraves wrote the essay everyone's talking about unravelling the conclusion and predicting future directions for the final book in the light of earlier hints. I highly recommend it.

If you're in a sillier and more prurient mood, McTabby has been soliciting for "the Rude Bits": "Suggestive lines, double entendres, phrases that make you snigger immaturely and uncontrollably" Spoilers, obviously, and not to everyone's tastes, but I found these a lot of naughty fun, and it is with great difficulty I refrain from sharing any of them here.