Daddy, carry me.
too cute.
Kim Jong-il (1941-2011)
Supreme Leader and Chief Lesbian of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Kim Jong-il has passed away. As is tradition, I turn all celebrities and public figures into a Jedi spirit in the event of their death.
274 notesThe first “War on Christmas” was waged almost 400 years ago by our Puritan forefathers. The Pilgrims who came to America in 1620 were outraged by Christmas, partially because it did not originate as a Christian holiday. The upper classes in ancient Rome celebrated Dec. 25 as the birthday of the sun god Mithra. Beyond that, the Puritans considered it historically inaccurate to place the Messiah’s arrival on Dec. 25. They thought Jesus had been born sometime in September. They felt so strongly about the holiday that in New England, they banned Christmas celebrations entirely. Christmas Day was only formally declared a federal holiday in 1870.
The U.S. Government and the United Nations joined with DC Comics, a division of the Time Warner Entertainment Company in 1996 to produce a special Superman comic book entitled Superman - Deadly Legacy. The idea for the mine awareness comic book was allegedly sparked by a comment by First Lady Hillary Clinton during her visit to Bosnia. She reviewed a mine awareness coloring book for young children, and asked what was being done for the older children. The comic was then created to foster landmine awareness among children in the Former Yugoslavia and was printed in both the Cyrillic alphabet used by Serbs and the Roman alphabet used by Croats and Muslims. Half a million Superman books were initially shipped to Bosnia and Kosovo. Superman was chosen to spread the message because “he is a citizen of the world.”
The compliments for the comic books were not unanimous. There were doubters. One official in Bosnia said:
I was the Chief of Information in Sarajevo, at the United Nations Mine Action Centre for 18 months (1997-98). The comic book was brought there by US forces as part of the UN-mandated NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR) with the intent to win hearts and minds. As a group, we determined that Superman (the comic) gave the wrong messages. (1) If you find yourself in a mined area, Superman will fly in and save you. (2) Retrace your foot steps out of a minefield. It was the decision of the Mine Awareness Working Group that the Superman comic gave the wrong messages, and it was stopped from further distribution. It was never field-tested to see if it was suitable!
It is interesting that the Superman comic, once again, tried to save the Balkans, this time in Kosovo. I was the Chief Mine Information Officer at the time. This time it has been field-tested. The results indicate that the Superman comic is not a suitable medium for mine awareness education for children in the 7-9 age group, and with appropriate supervision, the comic book is a suitable medium for mine awareness education for children in the 10-14 age group. However, the Testing Board recommended that if the comic is to be used in schools that, teachers can use them, hand them out in class, but withdraw them at the end of the class.
Big thanks to psywarrior.com for allowing me to use these images.
