Hi folks; the Indignant Family has returned from Disney World, and the Indignant Oldest Daughter had a great time; so much so that she was exhausted by the end of the trip, and was a real monster coming home. But, she had a great birthday. I had a number of thoughts as we went around mid-Florida:

• The week started cold – in the mid 50s during the day and dropping below freezing at night. It was better than the 3o in Chicago when we left town, but it was pretty chilly.
• One has to be impressed by the smooth operation of such a large operation, employing thousands of people. But the busses run, as do the rides. There are so many people handling every possible detail; it is huge logistical operation that runs very smoothly.
• Speaking of the people: I know that they all have to be friendly, but it was almost a “Stepford- type” world. Everybody was helpful; everybody knew about their jobs and their park, but also the other parks. I know that I can’t stay helpful more than 10-15 minutes per day with the rest of the day, anywhere from average to outright surly. I know that if I heard “It’s a Small World” for several hours at a time, I would bring in high velocity weapons to start hunting people.
• You can tell that Disney is a media conglomerate. The televisions had Disney movies and cartoons on all the time; ABC stations figured prominently; and Disney owned ESPN was omnipresent. It’s too bad ESPN doesn’t have hockey because trying to find out what was happening in the NHL was like trying to find a winning lottery ticket.
• Speaking of all encompassing – when you’re on the Disney parks, everything is groomed, there’s lots to buy, etc. So, one night, I looked up at a beautiful full moon and I had to catch myself because I wondered in which park that ride was located and if we could get Fast Passes for the “Moon Ride.”

I’ll be taking a short vacation. Be back on February 12th.

I read and collect comic books. I have no shame in that statement; in fact, I wear a Batman ring every day including to work; and read comics on my commuter train and on airplanes when I travel. Unfortunately, the decades-old perception that comics are for children remains, despite sales and demographic figures that prove otherwise. Comic readers are generally in their mid 20s and up, particularly in their 40s and 50s. As such, comics have had to address adult themes, even in the major super-hero books.
Which is why we comic fans hold our collective breaths whenever a new comic character/story is brought to film; we just hope that it doesn’t suck. Comics make a natural springboard for films: the comics act as pre-made story boards for camera angles, and often, the characters are already cultural icons that need no introduction. As such, they can easily be marketed to people who don’t ordinarily read comics (or anything else for that matter).
So, we comic fans are deliriously happy when a comic book film is great on all levels (“Spider-Man 2”, “Iron Man,” both Christopher Nolan directed Batman films); happy when the film is good, whether or not it makes tons of money (“V for Vendetta,” “Superman Returns”); and cringe when it does suck (“Fantastic Four,” “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen,” the first Hulk movie).
“Watchmen” stands above them all. Considered by many to be un-filmable, we are now about one month away from reaching the multiplexes. Fans like myself are cautiously optimistic on the prospects of seeing this graphic novel come to film. Optimistic based on what we’ve see in trailers and based on director Zach Snyder’s apparent love of and reverence for the material.
For those of you unaware of “Watchmen,” it was created by writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons in 1986 as a 12-issue series published by DC Comics. “Watchmen,” has the usual dramatic trappings of many comics: a murder mystery; a diabolical plot to control the world; colorful characters that fight, and shoot the bad guys. But what makes this story more vibrant is that the creators take the next step, what does the presence of a super hero do to the collective consciousness? To the geo-political world?
And, what’s more, what are the reasons that people would dress up in garish clothes and fight crime? Some answers are altruistic; some are naïve; some have a much more adult bent (fetishes, insanity).
The world of the “watchmen” is set in a parallel world where superheroes make sure America wins in Vietnam, Russia is cowed, and Nixon is still President. But with the superheroes under attack, and Doc Manhattan, the nuclear superbeing who has unbalanced the cold war, tricked into leaving Earth, Russia is about to invade Afghanistan and the world staggers toward nuclear annihilation.
While we comics aficionados do not seek or need validation from the mainstream press, critics, and the world at large, Watchmen achieved mythic status: it was the only comic-book to make Time’s 100 best novels since 1923. Considering that the only reason that the project is coming to fruition is Zach Snyder, who got the go-ahead when 300 made big money. And it is Snyder who all our hopes ride: 300 was a one-dimensional sword and sandal fight that looked nice, but was far from being called nuanced. But, this project is like Batman 20 years ago, which was scheduled to be a comic farce starring Bill Murray until the director, Tim Burton made a little film named “Beetlejuice” that made large profits and allowed Burton to steer the material more toward the dark brooding character from the comics, not the Adam West version from the 60s.
So, every intelligent comic fan has his or her (but predominantly his) collective fingers crossed. I know that there will be the inevitable comic backlash: “it wasn’t true enough to the comic;” “I would have made it my way,” but most of these comments will come from people who still live in their parents’ basements, and probably don’t understand “Watchmen” anyway. This is the same crowd that blasted Daniel Craig’s James Bond before filmmakers had even started filming “Casino Royale,” and now Craig is cemented in the role. In other words, give it a chance.
But this is our “Citizen Kane,” our “War and Peace.” I have stopped lending “Watchmen” out to people because this was a once in a lifetime story. Lending it to people was like showing people only films by Hitchcock, Scorsese and Kubrick, while the real world is full of “Ace Venturas” and “Freddie Got Fingered.” Having people only read “Watchmen” is like having people only read Dickens, or Shakespeare, while there’s still a lot of Ann Coulter and Bill O’Reilly tomes in bookstores. Again, while we ask for or need no one’s validation, “Watchmen” is important to us.

Olympic swimming superstar Michael Phelps was photographed by a U.K. newspaper dragging on a bong, or, in other words, smoking marijuana. Phelps, backed by millions of dollars in corporate funds quickly issued an apology, and writers around the country including the Chicago Sun-Times’ Greg Couch were all over the gold medalist’s second “lapse of judgment.”
Well, I say, who gives a damn? Phelps is a young man who is doing what young men have done for a long time, smoked some marijuana. In sports, just as in the U.S. culture and jurisprudence, it is time to end this ridiculous “War on Drugs.” It has been a dismal failure: people still get high; and despite billions spent on interdiction, drugs are as plentiful as ever.
All the “War on Drugs” has accomplished is to make drugs more expensive, and to throw millions of poor blacks and Hispanics in jail, where they become more aggressive, more dangerous criminals.
Besides, how can marijuana be criminal when alcohol and tobacco are legal other than history, multi-billion dollar corporations built on alcohol and tobacco while marijuana growers don’t have a huge lobby.
And yes, I’ve read the stories that today’s marijuana is many times more powerful than what was being smoked in the ‘60s, but if people are getting high in the privacy of their own homes, and not operating vehicles or machinery where other people could get hurt, what’s the harm? I don’t use drugs, but I believe that adults should be allowed to do what they wish as long as they aren’t hurting anyone else.
Yet again, one of the things that I hate most about people in this country is an unhealthy interest in what other adults do in the privacy of their own homes, and an absurd intent to control that behavior.

Several columns at once:

• The game was better than I thought it would be. Arizona almost won the game, but I’m glad they didn’t just so that it wouldn’t justify Bill Bidwell’s mismanagement for 40 years.
• The game however, showed the problem with the NFL today – parity has become parody. By record, there’s no way the Cardinals should have been in the game, much less come less than 3 minutes away from winning it. The distance between 13-3, 9-7, 8-8, 7-9, and 1-15 is not as far as we would like to believe. Maybe the Steelers thought that the game would be easy, which would explain how flat the team, especially the defense, was most of the game. If the 9-7 regular season Cardinals had won, what would that have said about the 11-5 Patriots, who didn’t even make the playoffs?
• Kurt Warner belongs in the Hall of Fame. The 37-year-old almost pulled off a miracle against the number one defense in football (that played poorly, admittedly). While too religious for my taste, Warner is a good guy who battled against the odds for three Super Bowl appearances, one victory, and two-MVP awards. Maybe not first year eligible, but Warner should have his day in Canton.
• I’m a Bruce Springsteen fan. Yes, he set was full of hokum, but it was the kind of racous rock and roll show he has been putting on for years. And guys like Jim DeRogatis, who admitted never liked Springsteen, should admit as much and defer from covering him.
• Santonio Holmes is not just the Super Bowl MVP, he may be Man of the Year. Holmes chose this week to admit to the press and the world that as a young man, he spent one year dealing drugs. But instead of making it a chest-thumping, Tupac Shakur type of announcement, he made his admission to show inner city kids that there were another ways to get out of poverty.

Up to now, I think many tennis fans, myself included, found it hard to root for Roger Federer. He was so good; so much better than the rest of the men; called the best ever by so many intelligent tennis pundits, and off-the-court, he was so bland and seemingly uninteresting, we took him for granted.
Some probably even applauded as one man, Rafal Nadal, seems to have Federer’s number; having defeated him in 5 of 7 championship matches including three Grand Slams (French Open, Wimbledon, and now the Australian Open). But while Federer is quiet, the little Spaniard is a dynamo on the court; Federer is more angular and made tennis look easy.
However, some people (and I) may be looking at Federer differently this morning. After losing the Australian Open final in a match that took over 4 hours to play, Federer broke down in tears accepting the second place trophy. Some may see this as being a spoiled little brat, but I see a man, who, despite attaining the heights of his sport and profession, still cares, is still playing, still wants to win. When he was beating all comers with apparent ease, rooting for Federer was like rooting for the Yankees – front runner all the way. But now, Roger Federer shows his human side, and while he may not break Nadal any time soon, I appreciate his drive to do so.

I feel for Eddie Curry. I feel for a lot of professional athletes who, too often, think with their penises than with their brains.
If you live outside of Chicago, you may not have heard this story. Curry, former number one draft pick now a benchwarmer for the New York Knicks, has a 3-year-old boy with a young woman named Nova Henry. Ms. Henry and her 9-month-old daughter were shot to death in her Near South Side condo last Saturday; the 3-year-old boy was found covered in his mother’s blood trying to get her to “wake up.” The boy is being questioned cautiously about the incident and is living with his grandmother.
In today’s Chicago Sun-Times, it was reported that the murdered 9-month-old was also Curry’s child and that child support payments had recently gone from $6,000 per month to $15,000 per month. It is believed that another man in Ms. Henry’s life probably killed her and her baby, perhaps the man whose last name the baby had, even though it was Curry’s child. (I still cannot fathom what it would take; what evil could reside in a person’s soul to kill a child?) It should also be noted that Eddy Curry is married with four other children.
There is nothing but sadness in this story. Here you have a man/child with millions of dollars, and women who are willing to sleep with them for the fame, for the attention, and yes, getting pregnant is like hitting the lottery to many of them. But bringing a human life into this world is a serious proposition: a 24-hour-per-day, 365-day-per-year, unending commitment. To have a child unthinkingly, cavalierly, is irresponsible, at best.
But there are still lots of athletes fathering children out there, because they have money, and, also, they don’t know if women love them for themselves or for their bank accounts. It’s a sad, never-ending cycle with little innocent children suffering, either openly, like Eddy Curry’s poor son, or behind the scenes with parents who don’t love them or treat them like a meal ticket.
One thing that I have appreciated most about President.Obama is his suggestion that black people should take up a new level of accountability. Fathers need to take care of their children, not just financially, but emotionally. Spend time with your children; it’s really a lot of fun, trust me. Women, especially women in the lower economic brackets, need to take the bringing to life a new person as a serious undertaking. Athletes, especially African-American athletes, need to be responsible, but we also need to address the attitude of women who are willing to sleep with professional athletes for selfish, artificial, unhealthy reasons.
In light of this and the despondent, unemployed black man who recently killed his wife and their five kids, I shudder and hold my two kids that much tighter. When our 3-month-old smiles at me (usually when I’m changing her diaper), I feel a warmth and love that overwhelms me. And our soon-to-be 4-year-old, who does drive us crazy, is so pretty, so sweet, and so smart, I don’t think she really understands how much her mother and father love her; she thinks we live to tell her to stop doing whatever troublesome thing she’s gotten into at the moment. Sometimes, I just hug her so tightly; I fear that I may suffocate her.
Personal admission – I suffer from depression, take medication for it, but have at times been suicidal (but not in several years). I cannot say that my job, or my wife’s job is safe. I cannot say that the nice house we live in will never be in jeopardy. But I can say that, even if I considered ending my time on this mortal coil; there is no way on God’s Green Earth that I would ever hurt my wife and kids, no matter how dire life became.
We responsible adults need to remember that.