Monday, May 02, 2005

The Superman Haters Club Jimmy Olsen: Okay, folks. Order. Take your seats. <gavel knocks> Order. Come on guys, sit down. I call to order the Spring meeting of the Superman Haters Club. Hulk, will you please have a seat so we can get started. Hulk: Sorry, Jimmy. Chair too small. Me sit on floor. Jimmy: That'll be just fine, Hulk. I don't guess you can break that. Hulk: Me can break anything. <sigh> Except a young girl's heart. Jimmy:  I see a couple of new faces here today. Greetings, Elektra, it's good to see you here. Aren't you a little young to be a Superman hater? Elektra: Well, yes, but I'd really like to join the club. I mean, I do hate the guy in theory, his goody-goody legacy, you know... Jimmy: Understandable. We'll be voting on new members at our Summer meeting, but we welcome you here today. We're always a little shy on the female side, so I bet you'll be a shoe-in. Speaking of the ladies, I see you brought someone new with you today, Invisible Girl. Could rubber band boy not fit us into his schedule, or are you finally ready to wake up and smell the coffee? Wolverine: <loud whisper> About time she dumped that stretched out old fool. Invisible Girl: This is my dear friend Fartman. Fartman: <standing> I'M FARTMAN! Green Lantern: Looks like you've lost the back of your costume, mate. Aquaman: Who's Fartman? Spiderman: You know, that guy with the talk show. Howard Stern. Fartman: Careful with the secret identity stuff, Spidey. Don't you guys have some sort of code of ethics? Wonder Woman: <shouting> Howard Stern doesn't have any secret powers! Invisible Girl: He has the power to make me laugh, which is more than I can say for you, Wonder Bra! Wonder Woman: Wonder Bra? Why I ought to... Jimmy: Order. Order. <Bangs gavel> Order. Nice to have you here today, Fartman. Just as an aside here, I'd like to remind everyone that I don't have any super powers either, just a deep residing hatred for Superman. Why do you hate Superman, Fartman? Fartman: He would never do my show. Aquaman: So what? I've never done your show either. Fartman: Oh, yeah, like you're such a big scary talent, I can't imagine why we've never booked you. Listen guys, he had an apartment right across the hall from me. We were the only two people on the entire penthouse level. And I'd see him by the elevator and ask him to fly by the show sometime, and he'd tell me 'Oh no, I'm not Superman, I'm mild mannered Clark Kent'. Shmuck wears a pair of glasses and thinks he's disguised. Like you can afford a place like that on a reporter's salary. F-ing moron! Jimmy: Good point, Fartman. Well, let's move a long here. Do we have any old business from our last meeting? The Thing: Yeah. I just want to say that Thor really blew it in the refreshments department for the Superhero's Ball. Let somebody else take kitchen duty next time. Thor: But I had two kegs of Mead and a roast yak! <groans all around> Hulk: Next time bring Miller Lite. It less filling. Sergeant Fury: Ain't you supposed to take the fur off those yaks before you roast them? Thor: I... I apologize. I used the very best caterer in all of Assgard. Thing: I guess Heaven isn't all it's cracked up to be. Try earth. Thor: Sorry, then. Jimmy: Okay. Let's move on to today's testimonial. Batman is going to tell us about why he hates Superman so much. Batman: Oh, this is just one reason out of many, Jimmy. Still, it's a pretty good illustration of why many of us think that the Man of Steel is little more than a Superweasel. The Flash: I bet it has something to do with how fast that fucker is, doesn't it? Batman: No, Flash, it doesn't. This is a story about Kanjar Ro, from the planet Dhor, and how... Green Lantern: That Bloody Bastard! I should have known he was tied in with Superman! Batman: Huh-ho, you don't know the half of it. I was just parking the Batmobile one sunny spring day when Kanjar crept up behind me and shot me with his Gamma Gong, rendering me entirely motionless. Then he... Jimmy: Oh yeah, Batman. He got me outside of the Dairy Queen. Batman: I remember all too well, Jimmy. So Kanjar loads me into his cosmic rowboat and whisks me off to his parlor of pain. It... it was quite humiliating what he did to me... I... I... Green Lantern: Don't put yourself through it, Batman. We all know about his proclivity for buggery. Fartman: I would have unleashed a mighty stench. Batman: I couldn't move, Fartman. <sob> And when the Gamma Gong wore off, I was bound and gagged in a bright yellow room, chains around my hands and feet. And do you know who was there in the room with me? Spiderman: Don't tell me. It was Superman, wasn't it. Batman: That's right, Superman. And he had been drinking heavily. There were balloons on the wall with the faces of my friends - Robin, Commissioner Gordon, Bill O'Reilly, Suzy Liscombe... Jimmy: Yeah, yeah, and me too! And Lois! We were tied up in the next room! Batman: Everyone was tied up, Jimmy, and Superman was throwing the darts of death. Every time he hit a balloon, someone would die. He picked off little Timmy Reynolds, and my maid Nancy... <sob> ...that's why to this very day, I only have a butler. Wolverine: <loud whisper> Listen to the big shot with all his hired help. Batman: I heard that, Wolverine. You keep your nose to the grindstone and maybe some day you'll have nice things too. The point is, Superman just didn't care. He said that Kanjar had given him a lead blindfold...  Aquaman: Ahhhrrgghhh, I hate Superman! Batman: ...so he couldn't be held responsible. <various sounds of disbelief> Batman: You've just got to ask yourself, what the fuck was he doing playing with the darts of death in the first place? Wonder Woman: Poor little Timmy Reynolds. Jimmy: Poor all of us, Wonder Woman. We've all been hurt by Superman in so many ways. Well, folks, I say we adjourn for now, and partake of the wonderful refreshments that have been provided by the city of Metropolis. But first, let's all stand and recite the 'I Hate Superman Invocation'. Everybody: ”I hate Superman. He ruined it for all of us. We could have had a good time. We could have been superer heroes. But now we’re just shmoes. Too bad for us. People abort mutants like us now. Not like Superman. Who came to Earth on a fucking rocket.” Jimmy: Adjourned. 2:02:30 PM    comment []

The following piece is from guest blogger, Simon Lavitagus. KC Doesn’t want to go Home This is a sad story with an uncertain ending. We’ve had this inmate, KC, for several years.  He went from the general prison population to protective custody to max and then home.  His worsening status was due to his deteriorating mental health that resulted first in a manifestation of bizarre behavior. (Paranoia, verbal obtuseness, bad hygiene, etc.)  This behavior made him unable to withstand the rigors of  life in the general prison population.  Like hyenas culling the weak from the heard, KC ‘s mental status soon marked him as a target for the predators in the institution.  Predation usually takes the form of strong -arm activity or sexual abuse.  Many inmates do not like the severally mentally ill among them perhaps because it reminds them how thin the line may be for themselves.  Our duty is to protect the weak from the strong and over the years this has resulted in the segregation of almost 25% of the total prison population.  When he see or hear of inmates being eyed by the hyenas we are legally bound to act.  KC was placed into protective custody where, after a short time, he was again selected by the hyenas that had become the bigger fish in the smaller pond.  It seems that no matter how much segregation we do, as long as there are two inmates left, one will think he needs to be the alpha male hyena. (Assuming hyenas act like dogs and inmates)  KC’s family was somewhat aware of his situation in that his sister would call me and ask about his deteriorating mental condition.  This deterioration was not really the fault of the mental health staff.  KC was what we call “non med compliant”, in other words he refused to take his medication.  In an institutional setting inmates are, by policy, allowed to be crazy.  This right to be crazy ends when they become self-injurious or threaten the safety of others.  KC chose to be crazy and for most of his incarceration, he did not become violent.  He was, however, very incoherent.  I “spoke” to him on many occasions and he could not focus enough to make a complete sentence.  Have you ever tried to reason with someone whose ability to reason was missing?  This is interesting, frustrating and disconcerting.  Towards the end, he insisted that the Warden and other authority figures were in cahoots with the president in making weapons of mass destruction.  Who knows, but it is fair to say the FBI was not interested.  Inmates in protective custody do not care for raving lunatics any more than anyone else.  So for the last year, KC was placed on maximum custody where he was assured a single cell and this seemed to lessen his paranoia and sometimes violent behavioral outbursts.  His sister, a respected professional, called me on occasion and voiced her concern for his deterioration.  She knew he was to be released soon, but I felt that she really didn’t want to assume his guardianship.  I didn’t blame her.  This is the sad fact:  once you leave prison, we are no longer responsible for you.  I think this is a great disservice to these type of people and even more so to the honest folk in the free world where we dump these individuals.  We do have some access to halfway houses, missions, and the like, but generally they are ill equipped to deal with these types of mental cases.  I guess there are mental hospitals in my state (I am ashamed even to name my state) but it seems that the prisons have become the de facto mental hospitals because of the costs involved. ( a correctional officer is cheaper than a mental health professional) Who is thinking of the costs to society?  Anyway, we were counting the days until his release.  He was to be released this last Friday and when he was told to pack his meager belongings, he decided that he didn’t want to go home.  This, you may think, was a first, but sadly it has happened before.  We have had inmates taken to the local bus station only to hitch hike back to the prison begging to come “home”.  This is the depth of sadness when a prison is a better option that the free world, but we should not be surprised at this.  I always say that unless you are being beaten, robbed and raped on a daily basis... for some, the prison life was better that eating Alpo out of a hubcap under the bypass.  We talked kindly to KC explaining that he had to go that we could not keep him and his sister was waiting at the sally port for him.  This was all true, but remember that his ability to reason was long ago destroyed by his mental illness.  Finally he relented and because it was raining heavily last week, he insisted that we provide some trash bags to cover his property.  We gladly agreed and the last I saw of him was as he pushed his property out into the rain heading for the exit of the prison and into his sister’s car to an uncertain future.  We did something we have never done; we announced his departure over the radio...”KC has left the building.” 12:14:45 PM    comment []