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SuperGIRL? Shouldn't that be SuperWOMAN? 2019-01-20 05:54 PM PDT 
BACK IN THE SIXTIES when I was just a young pup, Supergirl was my first crush. What the hell, I was just a kid, but I still like the fact that the woman could kick some ass just like her male cousin, and she's even beaten him a time or two. Thinking about that got me wondering, why Supergirl instead of Superwoman? Why is she called a girl, while her cousin is called a man? I mean, come on, they didn't call Wonder Woman, Wonder Girl, did they? Although, I do wonder how that would've went over? I don't follow the comic world as closely as when I was a kid, so I have no idea if they even care, but it was brought up in the first Season of the Supergirl TV series starring Melissa Benoist as my first crush come back to life. In the series, Calista Flockhart, playing the owner of an immense Newspaper Empire, Cat Grant, is the one who names her. She also just happens to be Supergirl's boss. The idea doesn't sit well with Kara Danvers, Supergirl's secret identity, and she even ask her why Supergirl? Why not Superwoman? Her answer was that all woman are girls, aren't they? It was pretty dramatic, but to me, it was lame. It's interesting to note that the very first Supergirl was actually called Superwoman. In a 1943 DC comic, Action Comics #60 (May 1943), Lois Lane dreams she's a companion to Superman. I haven't read it, so I'm not really sure how that worked, but in that comic, she's called Superwoman. It wasn't until 1959, Action Comics #252 (May 1959), that the most familiar version was introduced, and she was called Supergirl instead of Superwoman. It was the Fifties, and woman were still considered inferior to men, and that's probably the real reason she was called a girl. I'm sure some people must've complained, but obviously that didn't change anything. Personally, I like the fact that she's called Supergirl, and it has nothing to do with woman being inferior to men. Every single reference in English to the opposite sex, female, woman, she, and her, all of them somehow refer back to the male, like without them, women wouldn't be able to exist. Even Lady, I think, refers to a lad, the younger version of a man, and don't get me started on Ma'am, Madam, Mrs., Miss or Ms., because they all refer back to M for Male. I have to laugh, because that all seems so petty, but it's important none the less. It's important, because the only exception that isn't derogatory is girl. It's the only one that doesn't reference back to a man somehow, and that's what I like about it. Another reason I like it is because it's so deceptive. She's only a girl, what can she do? Obviously, those people conveniently forget that Supergirl beat her cousin a few times, and they're also clueless about Fearless Girl too. In case you've been living under a rock for the past decade, Fearless Girl is a small statue in New York. It was only a small statue of a girl, but what caused the uproar was that she was facing the Wall Street Bull and daring it to charge her. That's my take on it anyway, and I had to laugh again, because what were they all worried about? After all, she's just a girl, what can she do? She can do plenty and being a girl doesn't change a thing. It's like girls are the secret identities of the Superheroes all women really are. It's too bad men, me included, can't see and appreciate that more often. History is replete with examples of women being called on to step it up when men couldn't. World War II is the perfect example. Women stayed home and did the jobs men left behind, and they were awesome at it. And, did you know that when the codes for the original computers were written, almost all of it was written by women? Today, it's mostly a male profession, and not many of them seem to remember the contribution that woman made to their own history. As a matter of fact, not too long ago, there was a big fuss over at Google when a manifesto was released explaining why women weren't qualified to write software. The guy who wrote it obviously didn't know his history either. Ironically, social media is doing a hell of a job in helping to change those perceptions, and the #MeToo movement is a good example. It's moving fast too, and that gives me hope that maybe I'll still be around when equality for everyone finally does go global for real. Besides social media, another interesting trend that I've noticed are women referring to themselves as grrls, or grrrls, and if you look up Riot grrrl on Wikipedia, you'll see what I mean. Hmm, Supergrrrl? I like it. What's It Like to Die? 2019-01-23 5:24 PM PDT 
TODAY, IN 1971, Charles Manson and his buddies, Susan Atkins, Leslie Van Houten, and Patricia Krenwinkel, were convicted in the First Degree Murders of Abigail Ann Folger, Wojciech Frykowski, Steven Earl Parent, Sharon Tate Polanski, Jay Sebring and Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. Yesterday, on January 24th, 1989, Ted Bundy was executed for the murders of 12-year-old Lake City girl Kimberly Leach, and Florida State University students Lisa Levy and Margaret Bowman. All that death and mayhem got me thinking about my own mortality. I'm not a spring chicken, and unless I somehow live to be 120, more than half my life is definitely over. It worries me of course, but at the same time, I also realized I wouldn't have to work, pay my rent or a mortgage, taxes, buy food, remember to take a shower, or ever have to care about politics again, and in a way, that's comforting. That last minute of life is what I'm really worried about. What was I going to think, say, or do with those last sixty seconds? It's morbid, I know, but that's never stopped me before. For example, let's say that somehow you've been grabbed by a serial killer, they're strangling you, you're struggling, but finally give up. What are you thinking about? You have a better chance of dying in a car crash, of cancer or of a heart attack, rather than a serial killer, but the question still remains the same. You have sixty seconds to live, and you know it. What are you going to be thinking about? Loved ones, lost opportunities, regrets, fear, horror, or just glad it's finally fucking over? Talking about shit like this is why I don't have any friends. That and my need to argue about eveything and only care about what I think, like especially those last sixty seconds. This isn't something that just popped into my head either. It's been a life long journey really, because I've always wondered about it. As a matter of fact, it's one of the reasons I've spent a lot of time researching serial killers. What were their victims thinking in those last few seconds, and what did they say and do? Sometimes my research scares the hell out of me, and sometimes it's interesting, but mostly, it's stupidly ironic. Spending your whole life thinking about that last minute is beyond ironic and stupid. It's stupidly ironic, but it's also what I do best. In my defense, Forbes did make a list: 40 Things To Say Before You Die by Jessica Hagy. It's also why I did a presentation about death for a college developmental psychology class. It focused on the last things people said before they died. I also passed around a magazine filled with picures of gravestones and their epitaphs. Some of them were funny, and I got an A of course. I'm sure you've read about many of the last things people have said and epitaphs too, but the one that really got me was not even a human one. It was from a parrot named Alex. He had a vocabulary of over 100 words, but what was exceptional was that he seemed to understand what he was saying. The last thing Alex said before he died was I love you to his trainer, Irene Pepperberg. He said the same thing every night, but it was still nice, and kind of sad too, ya know? As a final word and also as a shout out to all my fellow Lovecraftian freaks out there, I was reading through an Ask Reddit Answer Page about funny last words. One of the answers, from someone named educated_guesst, told about a time when he was studying to be a pilot, and his instructor told the class that if he was going down, and there was no chance in hell of survival, "he'd say over the radios 'look at the size of those tentacles!' And the FAA and NTSB would be so confused..."
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