Academic Rants

  Comic book historians have long posited the origins of the modern superhero genre to the isolation and trauma caused by the rise of the Nazi government and the start of World War II. They suggest that young Jewish American writers created and developed superheroes to symbolically challenge the injustices that were taking place across the Atlantic as well as in their communities. That the earliest writers and artists of these comic books were male is not surprising. It would have been difficult for young women to express similar feelings in print. Hence, the result is a young male perspective of urban America during the Depression and on the eve of a world war. America's cities were busy places, sometimes gritty, but always attractive to inquisitive young men. They were ripe for innovation and progress, simply inviting sites for extraordinary humans. These comic books provided us with our first notions of modern American heroes. These images and ideas of heroes and heroism contain...

Since the aftermath of the 2020 election, the press, especially the Washington Post, has slowly fallen into the trap of trying to define Pandemic America in the context of race. This argument has become quite fashionable. George Floyd's death and trial has stained and strained the nation in countless ways. Perhaps without George Floyd and COVID Donald Trump would still be president. In many respects, the press realizes its role in making Donald Trump president and the majority are apologizing. At the same time, that majority is justifying the election of Joe Biden. Race, however is only one reason, not the sole reason for Biden's victory. The left-leaning press wants to see America as having deep racist tendencies and the right-leaning press wants to suggest that America is free of any form of racism. One does not need to be woke to see that America is not free of racial contention. We are the product of Anglo-Saxon heritages that used race to conquer various parts of the world...