The Octopus reimagined

Warren Ellis set his readers to a task: to draw an old pulp comic book character, the Octopus. The Octopus had a stunning description.

One of the more outré of the pulp characters-and given the genre, that’s quite saying something, believe me-the Octopus was actually the villain of the piece in his single issue, The Octopus v1 #4, 1939, written by…well, it’s not exactly clear. It might be Norvel Page, or it might be Ejler and Edith Jacobsen. A rather over-the-top mad scientist, the Octopus worked from a big city hospital and plotted world conquest. His appearance might explain his desire to dominate the world; he’s sea-green, with four “suction-cupped weaving tentacles” set above “hideously malformed” legs. He wears a small mask, and behind it can be seen two enormous, luminous, purple eyes. He was the leader of the Purple Eyes, a cult bent on world domination and mass destruction. The Octopus’ chosen method was an “ultra-violet ray” which devolved men and women and turned them into deformed, life-hating monsters hungry for human flesh and glowing with “ultraviolet purple.” Against the Octopus was set Jeffrey Fairchild, a young millionaire philanthropist (he eventually stopped the Octopus, of course). He had three identities. The first was Jeffrey Fairchild, hospital administrator. The second was was kindly Dr. Skull, the old man who made a practice of helping the poor in the slums. (His good works didn’t help him when everyone thought that he was the Octopus, however) In his other identity he was the “Skull Killer,” who fought crime and left a skull-imprint, ala the Spider, on his enemies. Fairchild was assisted by Carol Endicott, Dr. Skull’s nurse.

There were a lot of submissions, but so far I like this one best:

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I thought about cheating and just sending in a photo of myself, but darn it, my eyes aren’t purple.

Daniel Hauser might live now

Daniel Hauser, the 13 year old Minnesota boy with the dual affliction of Hodgkin lymphoma and idiots for parents, has been told that he can’t refuse effective medical treatments.

In a 58-page ruling Friday, Brown County District Judge John Rodenberg found that Daniel Hauser has been “medically neglected” and is in need of child protection services.

Rodenberg said Daniel will stay in the custody of his parents, but Colleen and Anthony Hauser have until May 19 to get an updated chest X-ray for their son and select an oncologist.

The judge wrote that Daniel has only a “rudimentary understanding at best of the risks and benefits of chemotherapy. … he does not believe he is ill currently. The fact is that he is very ill currently.”

I might feel differently about this if the kid had been well informed and was consciously making a decision to die, but he wants to live and has been lied to by the deluded pseudo-Indian religious kooks he has for parents, and by the quacks who have been giving him medical advice.

A challenge to the Discovery Institute

A nice, specific request: name a gene that shows no signs of an evolutionary origin.

The argument has long been highly asymmetric. Scientist find a gene, and what do they do? Figure out what it does, and dig into the databases to find its relatives within that organism or in other species. Creationists claim genes can’t be created without the intervention of a designer, and what do they do? Nothing.

Another hypersensitive Catholic

The persecution complex runs deep. Here’s another another example of laughable letter to the editor, complaining about a story that referred to “wafers and wine”:

…the Roman Catholic Church doesn’t now, nor has it ever offered a wafer and wine as Communion. We do offer the body and blood of Jesus Christ, which in John’s gospel he proclaims to be our source of life in Him. To refer to the Eucharist as a wafer and wine is to demean the value of this sacrament, seemingly equating it to an evening snack.

I suggest that Mr. Kush apologize for his lack of respect to Bishop Reilly and the faith of the Roman Catholic Church.

Shall newspapers take this complaint to heart and henceforth refer to communion as a cannibal orgy of consumption of an imaginary dead god’s flesh and blood? That would at least spell out their beliefs.

I think I’ll stick to calling it just a cracker, though.

Gloat, everyone!

I’ve been waiting for this for a long time. James Dobson gives up.

I want to tell you up front that we’re not going to ask you to do anything, to make a phone call or to write a letter or anything.

There is nothing you can do at this time about what is taking place because there is simply no limit to what the left can do at this time. Anything they want, they get and so we can’t stop them.

We tried with [Health and Human Services Secretary] Kathleen Sebelius and sent thousands of phone calls and emails to the Senate and they didn’t pay any attention to it because they don’t have to. And so what you can do is pray, pray for this great nation… As I see it, there is no other answer. There’s no other answer, short term.

Oh, no…wait. They’re going to start praying? Don’t do that! When they’ve got the power of their almighty god behind them, they’ll be unstoppable! Please, conservapublitards, don’t do that. Don’t spend all your time on your knees, praying. That would give you such an unfair advantage! Play fair!

Heidi Klum has a rival

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She’s beautiful and German. She’s also naked, with very large breasts, and she isn’t wearing any underwear — in fact, she’s posing almost obscenely, and has rather prominent labia in view. She’s also 35,000 years old and has no head.

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A few other interesting details: she doesn’t seem to be entirely naked— there are markings like bands and hatchmarks that are suggestive of some kind of clothing. More attention was paid to carving the hands, which have 5 and 4 fingers marked out, than to the head, which is nonexistent. In its place, there is a well-polished, carved loop, suggesting that she was probabl worn as a pendant. She’s also carved out of something you can’t get anymore, mammoth ivory.

These Venus figurines have been found in many places in Europe, but this is the oldest one yet discovered. You have to wonder what they were for. Crude stone-age porn, whittled out by horny, bored mammoth hunters? Fertility fetishes worn by women trying to get pregnant? Symbols of some complicated body of religious belief now completely lost to us? Imagine if, tens of thousands of years from now, archaeologists who have lost all records of our civilization were digging around in Europe and kept unearthing one of our common kinds of statuary—figures of a tormented dead man, arms outstretched, strange wounds carved into hands, feet, and side. It would probably make about as much sense as these fascinating Venus symbols.

Conard NJ (2009) A female figurine from the basal Aurignacian of Hohle Fels Cave in Southwestern Germany. Nature 459:248-252.

Cardinal Cormack Murphy-O’Connor thinks you aren’t fully human

In a bizarre conversation, Murphy-O’Connor demonstrates a Catholic version of open-mindedness: human beings must have a sense of the transcendent, and must search for god. And those atheists? “Not fully human“.

It’s not that unusual a sentiment, and I’ve heard it often. Usually it’s not said as directly; most often, the phrase is that “religion is a human universal,” or some such nonsense. It’s not often announced that I don’t qualify as a member of their species.

There is a temptation to agree with them, I’m afraid: the idea that I’m a post-human mutant bestowed with the super-powers of reason and the ability to see through superstition is flattering. But it’s not true. Everyone has those powers, it’s just that some of us have had the good fortune and a history of experience that allows us to shake off some indoctrination. Nothing more.

Also, the Cardinal’s statements are the kind of thing you’d expect from a Catholic theocracy trying to politely rationalize why they’ve put up a row of stakes in front of the cathedral.

Keck School of Medicine commencement speech

It’s been a very long and busy day here in Los Angeles — I’ve had a tour of USC, I ate a King Torta, I sat around for a long time in very warm black robes, I had a wonderful dinner with some of the faculty here, and oh, yeah, I gave a commencement speech. These events are always fun…I’m not a big fan of ceremony and ritual, but commencement is one of those events where the students can’t keep themselves from smiling, and families are all there whooping and cheering.

So, anyway, I’ve got to get some sleep, and then it’s an early morning off to the airport to fly back home, so I’m just putting my little speech below the fold.

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