A bit of advice to our favorite web slinger from moi. Ahem. Feel free to use the UN building when you pull your Tarzan routine, but for the love of God, don't actually enter the freakin' place.
{...}In a move reminiscent of storylines developed during the second world war, the UN is joining forces with Marvel Comics, publishers of Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk, to create a comic book showing the international body working with superheroes to solve bloody conflicts and rid the world of disease.The comic, initially to be distributed free to 1m US school children, will be set in a war-torn fictional country and feature superheroes such as Spider-Man working with UN agencies such as Unicef and the "blue hats" - UN peacekeepers.
Camilla Schippa, chief of office at the UN Office for Partnerships, told the Financial Times the script was being written now and the final storyline was due to be approved in February. The illustrators are working for free. After publication in the US, the UN hopes to translate the comics into French and other languages and distribute them elsewhere, Ms Schippa said. The idea came from French film-maker Romuald Sciora, who had been working on other UN projects and is making a DVD about the international organisation that will be distributed to schoolchildren along with the comic books.{...}
Spidey, Spidey, Spidey. Whatever are we to do with you? Poor, naive sap. Mary Jane's behind this one, isn't she? You can fess up. We'll understand.
Whilst I'm sure Mary Jane's heart is in the right place, she's wrong about this one. She fed you some line of bull over cold, leftover pizza, about how the UN, really and truly, is the only international governmental organization that can truly help those in need around the world, didn't she? Well, my web-slinging friend, don't you see that she's taking you for a ride? Mary Jane, while a very nice girl, I will admit, is also an actress. Of course she's going to have a very liberal worldview, wherein the UN is good and wonderful and the mean, old US is withholding their funds and talking trash about the work they do. MJ would understand that it's all about PR. Where better to reap the benefits of good PR than with those who have very little power to distinguish between the facts of the situation---i.e. that the UN is the most corrupt of corrupt organizations and most Americans have formed a bad opinion of them for precisely that reason---and the lure of a free comic book? Yes, Spidey, we're talking about the children; they are first front engaged in any propaganda war because they have a limited sense of the world, and the motivations of the people within it. They're easy targets, Spidey. Go to your history books and check out where Goebbels and Stalin made their biggest strides---and you'll see it was with the children of their respective countries. You're being used, Spidey, in a propaganda war to bring children over to the dark, insidious side of institutional corruption. While I would agree that institutional corruption isn't exactly on the same level as anti-semitic fascism and communism, the toll it exacts, however, can be just as hefty as either of those ideologies.
I fully realize you're a physics geek, who's got bigger problems to deal with in his daily life that don't revolve around widespread corruption at the UN, but, really, you need to wise up.
Posted by Kathy at December 28, 2007 10:35 AM | TrackBack