British superheroes

I recently finished The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (a volume comprising the first 13 short stories) and it occurred to me that Holmes is very much an early superhero. He has immense powers of deduction and disguise, often baffling even the best police detectives (whom he frequently refers to as ‘imbeciles’) and uses those powers only to further the common good and not for his own personal profit. He also shows another superhero trait, that of recognizing the value of all human beings, even wrongdoers, often finding a way to secure their escape rather than face the corrupt justice system. But Holmes makes a big deal out of his powers being no more than any person could do with the right application of brainpower. He and Watson frequently point out...

Posted by on Jun 21, 2011 in Thoughts | 0 comments

Why is bin Laden dead?

So. Osama bin Laden is dead. I think we’ve all noticed that by now. Thankfully some of the media and public figures have started to decry the celebration and chanting following his death. It is still the death of a human being and this is not cause for jubilation. What I’m more concerned about, however, is why he’s dead at all. We’re told there was a “firefight” and that “no Americans were harmed”. We’re also told that he “tried to hide behind women”. This doesn’t sound like an all-out battle to the death to me. It sounds like they cornered him and then killed him anyway. There’s a name for this: summary execution. It’s illegal under the Geneva/Hague Conventions. And with good...

Posted by on May 2, 2011 in Politics | 3 comments