A Stupid Criticism of Michelle Obama

I can't believe Michelle Obama is being criticized foe wearing clothes that are sleeveless especially in her official portrait! I mean she is still young and she's not showing any cleavage or anything risque. No where as revealing as the dresses sported on the red carpets of award ceremonies for the entertainment industry. I read an article about this turn of events at AOL. Apparently there are two opinions. One is that she should not wear such dresses because it is not formal enough for her position as First Lady of the United States. The other side sees nothing wrong with it. At first I was tempted to think that it was just because Michelle is black and racists were just looking for a reason to criticize her. Turns out that it's more complicated than that. Turns out that it goes with being First Lady of the United States period. The article references another article about the history of style of First Ladies of the United States. It turns out that all of them were either criticized for what they wore or started new trends, and sometimes both. It's really interesting. Read that article. Not all of Michelle Obama's critics are racist, many of them are just stupid.

Spider-Man Met President Obama

You probably already knew this but on January 14, 2009 Marvel Comics released a special issue in which Spider-man met President-Elect Obama and was present for his inauguration in Amazing Spider-man #583. I did not pick it up then. Fortunately, Wondercon 2009 was held last weekend and there were many opportunities to buy it and I did. What I wasn't prepared for was the fact that there have been 5 printings! You see sometimes a comic book (or any book for that matter) has a higher demand for more copies than the publisher published. The publisher will print more copies to keep up with the demand. What 5 printings mean is that this issue sold out 4 times! The only unfortunate thing is that later printings are not as valuable financially as earlier printing. This issue is a great example. At the convention, the first printing was being sold for $150.00 while the fifth printings were sold for $4.00! Adding to the collectability each printing has a different cover with Spider-man and Obama on them. The first printing has an alternate cover that does not have Spider-man on it. I bought a fourth printing of the issue and I am very pleased with it.

So what's in the book? Well, it contains 2 stories: a feature telling about Spider-man life's life in continuity and a back-up where Obama's involved. Both are interesting. In the first story it's about Spi-der-man relating to a good friend of his on her birthday. She doesn't know Peter Parker is Spider-man and the story is told from her point of view. Throughout the story she complains that Peter is flaky and undependable while simultaneously he is being a hero as Spider-man. At the end of the story Peter is the only one who shows up to her birthday celebration and he is there when she needs him. It's a great human story. As for the the shorter Obama story, Spider-man's arch-villain the Chameleon tries to impersonatee Obama so he will be sworn in instead as President. With Spider-man's help, Obama proves he's the real one and Chameleon goes to jail and Obama makes it to the Inauguration. It was a cute story.