Some Blog Site

Today is a holiday, and I’m not posting anything today.

Today is a holiday, and I’m not posting anything today.

I just watched the Spider-Man movie from 2002 with the boys, and the slight change in origin story got me thinking about art imitating life.

The traditional Spider-Man origin story has Peter Parker being bitten by a radioactive spider. That’s because it was written in the 1960’s when nuclear and radioactive stuff was front and center in the news and the schools and everyone’s minds.

The 2002 Spider-Man movie (with Maguire and Dunst) changed the story so that the spider was not radioactive but rather it was a genetically-modified spider. Why was that? Because genetic modification is the topic that was front and center in the news and the schools and everyone’s minds.

The 2012 Amazing Spider-Man movie retells the story and keeps the spider as GMO rather than radioactive.

The 2017 MCU Spider-Man doesn’t give much of the origin story at all, so we get no details on the spider.

Based on what I see front and center in the national stage, if a Spider-Man movie were made now, it would be a AI spider. I’m not sure how an AI spider could bite someone, or even exist physically, but I’m sure people who get paid to write scripts could come up with something clever.

Now that no one is talking about the Thorndyke font anymore, it’s time to announce that Font Grill has released a new font.

Introducing: Isabeau Font

AKA: Ladyhawke

Go download Isabeau.

I was inspired by the opening credits of the Ladyhawke movie. I was going to call this the Ladyhawke font but then another font in the movie caught my eye. I couldn’t make two different fonts both called Ladyhawke, so I decided neither one would be called Ladyhawke. I’m naming the fonts after characters in the movie.

One of the more recent phrases that seems to have taken off in talk radio, specifically sports radio, is “_ope-ium”.

It is, of course, a riff on the word “opium”. I first heard it as “hope-ium” – meaning that a fan of a particular team is relying on hope to get him through the season. Like one would rely on opium to get through the day.

And then a few weeks the radio hosts used the term “cope-ium”, to indicate that the hope-ium wore off and reality is setting in and now the sports fan is trying to cope with the team being worse than expected.

Why stop there? Noticing the trend, I was inspired to coin the rest of the “ope-ium” terms. Here we go:

• Hope-ium : Anticipating a good season, expecting the best of the situation
• Cope-ium : Recognizing things aren’t as good as they should have been but rationalizing it
• Mope-ium : Realizing things can’t be rationalized and letting it get you down
• Nope-ium : Giving up on the team, jumping off hte bandwagon
• Dope-ium : Not sure on this one; I think I’ll go with “dope” as in “cool”
• Lope-ium : Addicted to walking with long strides
• Pope-ium : Looking to the head of the Catholic Church to get your fix
• Rope-ium : Addicted to, umm, rope?
• Taupe-ium : Needing beige colors to get you through the day
• Slope-ium : Rise over run, baby
• Trope-ium : Overuse of cliches

I see the terms stopped being sports-related partway through. Oh well. I did not keep the topic in scope-ium.

This post is going to be my collection of thoughts on the news story that happened a few weeks ago, regarding the shooting of the UHC CEO and more specifically the reaction to that event.

Let’s start with some basic information. Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthCare (a health insurance company) was killed in NYC. A couple days later, Luigi Mangione was arrested as the suspect in that shooting.

At first, people were shocked at the shooting of an executive in plain sight in a public space. But then as people realized why the shooting occurred and why Thompson was the target, public sentiment shifted to start supporting Luigi Mangione.

And then other people started reacting to that reaction, by wondering what was wrong with people who would support a killing.

So now I’m going to react to that reaction to a reaction.

First up, are you allowed to be happy when a bad guy gets killed? Proverbs 11:10b says “And when the wicked perish, there is joyful shouting.” And in general Americans were rejoicing when Osama bin Laden was killed. I don’t remember anyone saying the shooter was the bad guy and the victim was not the bad guy in that case. But that doesn’t make it right, the Bible is saying there what happens.

Second up, it is believed that Thompson was the target because he was the head of one of the largest (and worst, in terms of denying claims) health insurance companies. And that’s enough for some people to consider that Thompson was not an innocent victim.

Third up, the government is allowed to take out bad guys, but can individual people? That question is left as an exercise for the reader. I would argue it is not.

Let’s consider the various evil guys that everyone is glad are gone – Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, Idi Amin, etc., etc. You should be able to get a pretty good consensus that those were bad guys. But as far as you know, did any of them personally kill anyone? No, they were bad guys that the world was glad to be rid of, because they led their organization and directed others to cause people harm or to suffer or to die.

Now if we take that statement and apply it to health insurance CEOs, you can say they haven’t personally harmed anyone, but they lead their organizations and direct their subordinates to cause people to suffer or to die.

“No,” you may say, “their organization is meant to help people.” Which is ostensibly true. But CEOs don’t get profits and bonuses by helping people, they look out for the well-being of the company, which means directing their employees to find ways to charge more and pay less. And we saw that with lawsuits and such against UHC for increasing their denials of claims. More claims denied = more people suffering, the leader of the organization causing an increasing in the suffering of people is a bad guy = UHC CEO was a bad guy. And that’s the thought process by which people thought the killing was not all bad.

And one could argue that the CEO is helping all the employees in the company by making the company perform better. But does that excuse the CEO from harming other people, or does that make the company’s employees complicit in the harm?

I will argue that both people did wrong, in that both were doing things that God does not like.

Proverbs 3:27 – Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, When it is in your power to do it.
The UHC CEO certainly had the power to provide good to those who deserved it, or at the very least provide the services that people paid for, and yet he withheld it.

Proverbs 6:16-17 says that the Lord hates hands that shed innocent blood.
This one is a stretch, as I just argued that Thompson was not innocent. Ok, how about this verse?
Romans 12:19 – Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written: “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord.
I suppose one could argue that Mangione was the method by which God exacted His vengeance. That would be a tough one to prove, and I’m not even going to try. Because my point in this post is to show why people are siding with Mangione, not to agree with what he did.

In summary: he took out a bad guy, heroes take out bad guys, therefore he is a hero to the people.

Now that no one is talking about the Fontopian font anymore, it’s time to announce that Font Grill has released a new font.

Introducing: Thorndyke Font

Go download Thorndyke.

I was inspired by the opening credits of The Love Bug movie. Like this:

The story of why the font is called “Thorndyke” is at the link to the font. But I will take this space to say that both the first and second Herbie movies had an great set of cars. Someone should have preserved all the cars that were in the races. Not because they were in the movie, but just because they were fun cars.