In 1954 the U.S. government enacted a “code” for the comic book industry to regulate violence, language, and other issues that might come up in the stories. Comic book creators lived by that “code” for almost half a century. Marvel finally became the first to renounce it in 2001, and in 2011 DC Comics and Archie Comics were the last publishers to use it. Here are some of government’s rules:
CRIME AND CRIMINALS
“Crimes shall never be presented in such a way as to create sympathy for the criminal, to promote distrust of the forces of law and justice, or to inspire others with a desire to imitate criminals… If crime is depicted it shall be as a sordid and unpleasant activity… Criminals shall not be presented so as to be rendered glamorous… In every instance good shall triumph over evil and the criminal punished for his misdeeds.”
RESPECT FOR AUTHORITY
“Policemen, judges, government officials, and respected institutions shall never be presented in such a way as to create disrespect for established authority… Respect for parents, the moral code, and for honorable behavior shall be fostered.”
The Force is strong with this family. Emily Rose is an artist. Her seven-year-old daughter is an avid Star Wars fan, and has been all her life. The child is so into the new movie The Force Awakens that her mother surprised her yesterday with a new wall mural featuring Rey and BB-8! She loved it! And it wasn’t long before she was reading Star Wars stories to her new friend Rey on the wall. See more pictures at Buzzfeed.
Jessica Montoya is playing the Beatles’ song “Blackbird” on her guitar. To get a unique perspective for the video, she records it on her phone tucked inside the guitar. Cool idea, huh?
Undercover Boss is a reality show in which some CEO disguises himself as an entry-level worker to see how things are going at the lowest level of the company. In the real show, they get away with it because none of the low-level workers know the CEO, and often have never even seen them. It’s a bit different when you set it in the Star Wars universe.
On last night’s SNL, Adam Driver reprised his role as Kylo Ren in The Force Awakens to go undercover and check out not how the Starkiller Base workers did their jobs, but what they thought of him. That’s in keeping with the egocentric character who’s not yet a competent commander, despite his rank. -via reddit
Jill Viles was always skinny. Her arms and legs had no fat, and as she grew, they also began to have less and less muscle tissue. Doctors checked her out, but had no diagnosis. So she did the research on her own. Because others in her family had curious body morphologies that weren’t as severe, she suspected a genetic condition. She even found a name for it: Emery-Dreifuss, but medical experts dismissed her self-diagnosis. When Viles answered a call to join a genetic research study in Italy, she couldn’t even get a doctor to do a DNA swab or a blood test -but she sent blood anyway. Four years later, she got confirmation of her self-diagnosis from Italy, just in time to save her father’s life. Viles also found out exactly which gene was affected. But that’s only the beginning of the story. Further research led Viles to pinpoint another rare genetic syndrome caused by mutations of the same gene (partial lipodystrophy) that caused loss of fat, and even led her to suspect it in an Olympic athlete she had seen photographs of. So she reached out to Canadian hurdler Priscilla Lopes-Schliep, who didn’t suffer from muscle atrophy, but instead has such amazingly well-defined muscles that she was suspected of doping.
Priscilla thinks that because of her physique, she was targeted for more than the normal amount of drug testing. (Targeted testing is a standard part of anti-doping.) She was tested right after having her daughter, Natalia. At the World Championships in Berlin in 2009, she was tested just minutes before winning a silver medal. There’s not even supposed to be any drug testing that close to the race.
The following month, at a meet in Greece, someone stole her training journal out of her bag. It was at the very bottom, underneath expensive workout clothes and shoes, none of which were taken. Why steal a training journal? We’ll never know. But I’ve covered a lot of doping stories, and I’m convinced someone thought the journal contained her steroid regimen.
The story of how Jill Viles pressed ahead with her research in spite of rejection from one medical expert after another is gripping, even when it gets really technical at the genetic level. Read how her determination saved more than one life, and may eventually lead to treatments for some rare genetic conditions. -via Digg
Grant Woolard (previously at Neatorama) took 57 pieces of classical music -most of which you are familiar with- by 33 composers and mashed them together in this delightful video. Some really disparate tunes turned out to sound absolutely lovely together. How many can you name? Oh, and be ready for some surprises. -via Metafilter
The picture above is of William Henry Bishop, US Consul in Genoa Italy in 1904, holding the skull of James Smithson. Smithson was the English scientist whose fortune was beaqueathed to the US to found the Smithsonian Institution. We posted about that bequest last year. But Smithson's story didn’t end with the Institution; even his body couldn’t rest in peace. Smithson was buried in Genoa, Italy, in 1829. Around the turn of the 20th century, the cemetery was slated to be demolished. Alexander Graham Bell lobbied to have Smithson’s body brought to the US, and he went to Italy to fetch him in 1904. Smithson’s remains were interred at the Institution. But strange sightings were attributed to Smithson’s ghost in the many years since, and in 1973, a museum curator decided to open up the coffin and check on the corpse. As if Smithson’s tale wasn’t strange enough, that’s when things got weird. The blog BizarreVictoria has the rest of the story.
Okay, right, are you guys ready for this to get worse?
So, we have Smithson’s monument all mangled to shit, his casket broken open, his 150-year old skeleton exposed to all and sundry, and now everything is ON FIRE.
Then, “He didn’t want them to ruin the silk by using an extinguisher so he told them to fill their mouths with water and come back to spray it down. So they did it.”
The silk is already ruined. It’s on fire. And if you, A CURATOR, were so concerned with preservation, why did you have random workmen bust open a sealed relic with improper tools, without any authorization to do so?
And now, to cap things off, a whole group of people are just spitting on James Smithson. Congratulations. This might be the worst thing I’ve ever written about on this blog.
Say what? You’re trying to tell me that snow falls from the sky? I’m not buying that for a minute! You’re trying to pull one over on me, aren't you? Or just telling a joke. It’s a funny joke, though! Good one, Daddy!
Redditor mrcurmudgeon1900 talked to his daughter about snow. She’s only a toddler, but she’s already working on her BS detector, and is skeptical about what he’s telling her. Always question authority, kid, but sooner or later, you’ll see that “snow” for yourself and you can make up your own mind based on the evidence.
A photo posted by @yoremahm on Jan 2, 2016 at 4:13am PST
Cats each have their own quirks, habits, and hobbies. Manny is obsessed with the GoPro camera. He’s reached out and batted the camera so many times that he’s learned to trip the shutter and take selfies! The best are posted by his human, who goes by yoremahm on Instagram. Manny even manages to take pictures of himself with the numerous family dogs.
Hills Street Blues was a breakthrough series that turned the concept of a cop show on its head. There were multiple cases in each episode, some that were resolved, some that continued to the next episode, and some that were never resolved. There were also story arcs for the regular characters both on the job and in their personal lives. In other words, there was a lot going on. While we are used to such shows now, those concepts were all new for a cop show when the Hill Street Blues premiered on January 15, 1981, 35 years ago today. If you were a fan, you might want to know how that all came about.
2. IT WAS INFLUENCED BY A 1977 DOCUMENTARY.
The show's creators looked to The Police Tapes, a 1977 documentary that chronicled a South Bronx police precinct during a particularly hostile time in New York City's history, for inspiration. NBC's then-president Fred Silverman was inspired to create a cop show in the first place after seeing Fort Apache, the Bronx (1981), which stars Paul Newman as a veteran cop in a South Bronx police district.
7. THE PILOT TESTED POORLY.
According to a network memo, among the many problems test audiences noted were that "the main characters were perceived as being not capable and having flawed personalities ... Audiences found the ending unsatisfying. There are too many loose ends ... 'Hill Street' did not come off as a real police station ... There was too much chaos in the station house, again reflecting that the police were incapable of maintaining control even on their home ground." NBC picked it up anyway.
Despite low ratings, the show went on to earn eight Emmys for its first season, and influenced many hit shows that came after. Read more about Hill Street Bluesat mental_floss.
John Richards of Dinham, Ludlow, UK, pled guilty to burglary charges after confronting the overwhelming evidence against him. An unnamed business in Ludlow had reported several burglaries, and Mercia police turned to SmartWater Technology Ltd to install a security system that uses a liquid containing a unique code to identify the place it was applied. It is only visible under ultraviolet light.
Richards was barefoot in a bid to creep around quietly but left footprints in the SmartWater UV paint which was found inside his boots and on a stolen cash box, police said.
Richards, from Dinham, Ludlow, pleaded guilty to burglary, escaping lawful custody and possessing cannabis in court 17 December.
There was never a hero more resourceful than Angus MacGyver, who could save the world with a paperclip and a piece of string. Many of the things he did on TV were technically possible, but hardly plausible in context. But there have been many real-life situations in which people did what they could with what they had to save someone’s life. When you have no choice, you try anything. And sometimes it works. For example, when a man became sick during a flight from Philadelphia to San Francisco on Thanksgiving Day, he was lucky that Dr. Patricia Quinlan was also on the plane, along with a nurse and an EMT. Quinlan determined that the unconscious man had low blood pressure and an irregular heartbeat.
As the three medical professionals maneuvered in the narrow aisle, other passengers used smartphones to provide light as the team treated the unconscious man, who was likely suffering from dehydration. While a medical kit was onboard, no alcohol could be found to disinfect the IV needle, so Dr. Quinlan requested a flight attendant grab some whiskey from the bar cart to do so. Further improvising, Dr. Quinlan used her hair elastic as a tourniquet for the IV and, when the IV sprung a leak, patched it with tape another passenger had in her purse. By the time the plane landed, the sick man was conscious and able to walk off the flight. Dr. Quinlan emerged from the flight with a new nickname from the appreciative crew: “Doctor Angel.”
It’s a feeling we’ve all had, about this situation or many others like it. We know what’s going on, so it must be obvious to everyone else. How can they not know? But think about the people you see in your daily activities. You don’t know what they just did in the bathroom. And honestly, you don’t care, either. You don’t even think about it. So be assured that they’re not thinking about you, either. But that nagging feeling of obviousness lingers on. This is the latest comic from Sarah Andersen at Sarah’s Scribbles.
Andersen’s new book Adulthood is a Myth will be out in March, and is available for pre-order now!
How a chicken farmer, a pair of princesses, and 27 imaginary spies helped the Allies win World War II.
In the weeks leading up to D-day, Allied commanders had their best game faces on. “This operation is not being planned with any alternatives,” barked General Dwight D. Eisenhower. “This operation is planned as a victory, and that’s the way it’s going to be!” Indeed, more than 6,000 ships were ready to cruise across the English Channel to plant the first wave of two million troops on the white beaches of Normandy. Nearly 20,000 vehicles would crawl ashore as 13,000 planes dropped thousands of tons of explosives and thousands of paratroopers.
The sheer size of the invasion—it would be the largest in history—was staggering. But so were the stakes. With the first day’s casualty rate expected to reach 90 percent and the outcome of World War II hanging in the balance, the truth was that Eisenhower was riddled with doubt. He’d transformed into an anxious chimney, puffing four packs of cigarettes a day. Other Allied leaders felt equally unsure. “I see the tides running red with their blood,” Winston Churchill lamented. General George S. Patton privately complained of feeling “awfully restless.” Chief of the Imperial General Staff Alan Brooke was more blunt: “It won’t work,” he said. The day before the invasion, Eisenhower quietly penciled a note accepting blame in case he had to order retreat. When he watched the last of the 101st Airborne Division take off, the steely general started to cry.
They were worried for good reason. With so many troops and so much artillery swelling in England, it was impossible to keep the attack a secret. Hitler knew it was coming, and he’d been preparing a defense for months. Only one detail eluded him, and he was confident in a Nazi victory if he could figure it out—he needed to know where, exactly, the attack would happen. To make D-day a success, the Allies needed to keep him in the dark: They’d have to trick the Germans into thinking the real invasion was just a bluff, while making it seem like a major attack was imminent elsewhere. The task seemed impossible, but luckily, the British had a secret weapon: a short, young balding Spaniard. He was the king of con men, an amateur spy gone pro, the world’s sneakiest liar. He was also, of all things, a chicken farmer.
Juan Pujol Garcia had been working at a hotel when he decided to become a spy. Although he was born to a wealthy Barcelona family in 1912, Pujol had squandered his privileges. To the disappointment of his family, he dropped out of boarding school at 15, eventually enrolling instead at an academy for poultry farmers. At 21, he served six months of mandatory military service, but army life wasn’t for him: The pacifist ditched the cavalry and bought a movie theater. When that venture failed, he bought a smaller theater, which flopped too. Success chronically eluded him. By 24, Pujol had resigned himself to working on a sinking chicken farm and marrying a girl he wasn't sure he loved. His life was normal, if not boring.
But life in 1930s Spain was anything but boring. In 1931, King Alfonso XIII sensed his popularity crumbling and fled the country without formally abdicating, leaving Spain a political vacuum. Communist and Fascist groups violently fought for power. Bullrings became theaters for public massacres, and the corpses of politicians littered Madrid’s alleys.
When Spain plunged into civil war in July 1936, Pujol was supposed to report for duty, but he fled instead. He was soon caught and thrown in prison. Then, after unwittingly joining a jailbreak, he bolted to a safe house in Barcelona. He never saw his fiancée again. More than a year passed, and in 1938, a depressed and emaciated Pujol emerged from hiding. The escapee looked so bad, he was able to forge a document saying he was too old for the army. It would be the first of a growing snowball of lies.
