Iron Man by Cameron Hobbs

Tomorrow (or later tonight depending on how you gauge this sort of thing) is the premiere of Avengers: Age of Ultron in cinema houses across the country.  And just in time for that, Cameron Hobbs has delivered another work of art: this time it's a frontal profile of Iron Man poised for action:

Worthy of hanging in the office of Tony Stark himself!

Find more of Cameron's work at his official Facebook page as well as the original Superhero Art page.

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One hundred years ago today: the Battle of Gallipoli

Yesterday on this blog we remembered the one hundredth anniversary of the start of the Armenian Genocide.  One day after that came another historic event of World War I, also happening to be associated with Turkey.

It was on April 25th, 1915, that Great Britain along with most of her Commonwealth nations (Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland, and India) as well as France launched what is arguably one of the most ambitious operations of twentieth century warfare: the Gallipoli Campaign.

British infantry land on Lemnos during the Battle of Gallipoli

The Gallipoli offensive had as its goal the securing of the Dardanelles between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, which would have given Russia a sea route to its allies.  But the British and French figured that they'd do better than that... by capturing the Ottoman capital of Istanbul.  The amphibious assault landed on two beaches of the Gallipoli Penninsula: Cape Helles and what has become known as Anzac Beach, on April 25th.  Four other landings followed, bringing five divisions onto Turkish soil.

A few days later the real fighting began.

Eight months later the Allied forces were forced to retreat.   They came nowhere close to taking Istanbul.  The Dardanelles were still in Ottoman hands.  And of the more than half a million personnel who had been committed to the battle, almost half were casualties.  Nearly 45,000 never came home.

Even so, the Battle of Gallipoli became, and remains today, a point of pride for the Allied nations who fought in it, especially Australia and New Zealand, for whom today is known as Anzac Day.

And all of this began one hundred years ago today.

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What a lousy day to be a Batman fan

First it was the news that Frank Miller is making ANOTHER sequel to his legendary graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns.

And now tonight it's this: the first look at Jared Leto as the Joker in the upcoming Suicide Squad movie:

Disney shareholders, be of good cheer.  Your Marvel Cinematic Universe need not fear any competition from DC.

Romero.  Nicholson.  Hamill.  Ledger.  Leto.  One of these is not like the others.  One of these just doesn't belong...

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One and a half million dead: the one hundredth anniversary of the Armenian Genocide

They had been ridiculed and spat upon for hundreds of years.  The ultra-nationalists in power launched dehumanizing propaganda against them.  Their semblance of official protection had been stripped away and made them relegated to a class of life undeserving of life.  Their property was confiscated.  And in the end they were beaten and butchered and starved and raped and shot and crucified and whoever was left were herded onto railroad cars to be sent off to concentration camps stretching from border to border.

And it took place nearly thirty years before the Nazis implement their "final solution".  But it was not a Germany frenzied by the mad ravings of a failed artist, or any other European nation.  It was instead the Ottoman Empire.  The time was World War I.  And the target for extermination was Armenian Christians as well as many other minorities that did not fit the criteria of existence by the Muslim government.

It was one hundred years ago today, on April 24th, 1915, that the Armenian Genocide began, starting with the arrest and eventual murder of nearly three hundred ethnic Armenian leaders and intellectuals.  Very soon after, the government widened its scope to include all of the predominantly Christian minorities: peoples who had enjoyed some measure of toleration since the days of the fall of Constantinople.  But no more.

By the end of the war, one and a half million Christians, Jews, and racial minorities had been killed by the Ottomans.

Armenians being evicted by Ottoman soldiers

Nearly three-quarters of the Armenian people were wiped out.  To this day, the Armenian Christian community is still reeling from what can only be described as the first genocide of the Twentieth Century.  A genocide that  for one reason or another, the rest of the world for the large part seems entirely ignorant of or else consciously denies that it was nothing more than a "mass deportation", if there is any acknowledgement at all.

Naked Christian girls, crucified during the Armenian Genocide

Today, the modern nation of Turkey refuses to address the facts of the genocide.  I can't understand why.  Even Germany acknowledges that it was her own people... if not itself as a modern state... who perpetrated the Holocaust.  In Turkey there is outright disavowal of any responsibility altogether.  It would be wrong to lay the blame on the Turkish government for something that happened under Ottoman rule but even so: this is and will ever remain a very dark spot on Turkish history.  And it's past time that there be some owning-up to that.  By Turkey and by the rest of the world.  Including the United States.

The Armenian Genocide Museum has a vast amount of material about the genocide, including much photo documentation of the atrocities.  It is well worth reading, if for no other reason that because it is a vivid chronicle of the situation and events that led up to the slaughter.

May we learn from it.  May such a thing as this never happen again.

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So, Chris Hardwick featured me on Comedy Central last night...

Not for the first time, not for the last, I am smacked with the realization that the rest of my life is going to be dogged by my being the man who ran for school board by blowing up a little red schoolhouse with the Death Star...

Yes, it's true: Chris Hardwick used my school board commercial - the one with the Star Wars theme - on his Comedy Central show @Midnight late last night/the wee hours of this morning.  The clip came during a segment called "Smeared Campaigns" and was one of three political ads taken from YouTube.

I would have missed it had good friend Aaron not spotted it.  I was hopped-up on Dr. Pepper and Swiss cheese, wrestling between sleep and stuff about my book, when I happened to get on Facebook and Aaron was blasting my timeline with the news.  Needless to say, I had to check it out.  And you can too: here's the link that takes you straight to the episode's stream on the Comedy Central site.  It comes on shortly after the first commercial break.  And it's pretty hilarious!  But I'm still shaking my head in disbelief that more than eight and a half years later, this commercial is still getting all that attention.

But hey, how often do I get to see myself and Chris Hardwick in the same picture?  And on Comedy Central?  So I guess I shouldn't complain :-P

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Human embryos, genetically modified for the first time ever

Isn't this how Khan Noonien Singh came about?

"Superior ability breeds superior ambition."

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Photos from my Florida odyssey

I needed this trip, severely.  Looking in the mirror this morning, I barely recognize the guy who set off eleven days ago on what became over a week in Florida.  It's not the face of the Chris who's spent most of the past several months in grief over the passing of a parent, or in frustration of other things that have tested my perseverance.

Sometimes you need to step away from things and give God some elbow room to work His way on your life.  I have been so focused on writing my book and the hard wall of progress I've been hitting since late February, so trapped by the four walls of my living room and too many times bouts of depression, that those had become the only substantial elements of my life.  And that's not right at all.

For sake of myself, the book, everything... I had to get away from all of that.  And I think that the book project is going to be helped immensely by this.  I consider going to Florida to be the first part of a two-course "treatment" for my problems in writing the book.  The second part is going to be soon, when a friend is going to help me go through some material from over the years.

But this journey really was the thing that my life needed most right now.  I'm very thankful that I got to make this trip.  And I've got some photos to prove that I was there!

Very Beach, Florida's ummmm... beach?

Not a beach bum.  Just a bum.  On a beach.

Lauryn and her boyfriend Matt.  Yes, this is THAT Lauryn that I've posted pictures of
on this blog over the years.  The one that a LOT of guys have asked me about if she's single.
 Sorry to disappoint y'all :-P

Me and "Uncle Bob".
Okay, he's actually my cousin.  How he came to be "Uncle Bob" is one of those stories
that the family is always going to be laughing about :-)

On the streets of West Palm Beach.

Aunt Billie and Bob.
I used to own a pair of plaid blue shorts exactly like that.
They look better on Bob than on me.

City Place in West Palm Beach.
One of the nicest uses of real estate that I've ever seen by any town.
Hard to believe this beautiful promenade of shops and social areas
used to be brothels and crack houses until the city razed it all down.

Me with the car that I'm going to get when my book
becomes a multi-million copy bestseller (yah right!)

The most criminally CREEPY restroom in the history of anything.
This is at an ice cream shop in City Place in West Palm Beach.
The way it's SUPPOSED to work is that a person goes inside, hits a switch
and the window fogs up and becomes completely opaque.
But as Bob and I discovered when one unfortunate young woman was using
this restroom, that was NOT the case.  We saw everything.  Yes, that's Bob
inside the restroom on the other side of the window.  I'm standing where
a table and some chairs are situated.  Of course we notified the staff
but Lord only knows how long this thing had been broken.  WHY was
such a thing made like that anyway?

My cousin Cheryl and I in front of her brand new car:
the "Starship Indigo".
The Batmobile ain't got nuthin' on the technology this baby has.

My second cousin Angela and one of her two children.
Well, one of her two children at the moment: she and her husband are
expecting another soon!

Angela's other kid.
Doing what all boys should do sooner or later: handle a real live snake.

Of course, I had to get in on some of that action too :-)

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