P.C. Shannon

There’s another pic of this year’s jack-o-lantern on Flickr.

This movie is so mediocre that I keep forgetting I’ve seen it. As comic book movies go, it’s no Daredevil, but it’s not X-Men either. The backstory and development of the characters and their powers is interesting, but the movie fails to be compelling overall. The film’s antagonist, Dr. Doom, is obsessed with destroying his enemies, and really, no one cares.

Look, when you’re writing a comic book movie, take a lesson from the Star Trek film franchise. Nobody cares when the bad guy(s) threaten either the protagonists and some backwoods part of the galaxy (see ST: Nemesis or ST: Insurrection). But when the planet Earth is on the line, then the audience gets really involved (Star Trek VI or ST: First Contact).

By that logic, this movie would have been a helluva lot better if Dr. Doom had tried tried to take over the world or destroy New York or something. As it stands, I give it 2.5 out of 5.

A new exhibit at the Oslo Natural History Museum showcases examples of homosexual behavior throughout the animal kingdom. Geir Soeli explained the motivation behind the exhibit:

“As homosexual people are often confronted with the argument that their way of living is against the principles of nature, we thought that … as a scientific institution, we could at least show that this is not true … You can think whatever you want about homosexuals but you cannot use that argument because it is very natural, it’s very common in animal kingdom.”

There are two examples of homosexual behavior in animals that I’m familiar with. One is bonobos, a species of primate closely related to humans. They use sex the way chimps use violence—which is to say, as one of their main forms of social interaction. The second example is when male rats are overcrowded in a cage, although that seems to explain what happens in prisons more than normal homosexuality. So it was interesting to read about other examples, especially from non-primates. As Soeli said, homosexuality is very normal.