theology of spider-man

from Saturday's NY Times:

( About the book _Up, Up, and Oy Vey!_ )

The volume, which has nearly sold out its first run of 5,000 copies, contends that writer-artists of the classic comics, many of them Jewish, were influenced by their religious heritage in devising characters and plots. ( ... )

In the early 60’s, when he developed the character known as the Thing as part of the Fantastic Four, Mr. Kirby gave the bricklike being a human past as Benjamin Jacob Grimm, using his and his father’s Jewish names, and a tough childhood on Yancy Street, a thinly veiled version of the real Delancey Street.

For his home, Mr. Kirby even made a drawing of the Thing wearing a yarmulke and a prayer shawl.

Along with those examples of Judaic influence, “Up, Up, and Oy Vey!” offers instances like the name of Superman’s father, Jor-El, with “el” being the suffix to many biblical names and the common use of masks and false identities, akin to the heroine Esther in the Purim story, who goes by an alias in Persian society.

Trying not to overreach, Rabbi Weinstein cut out a passage that likened Batman’s bat cave to the Machpelah, the so-called Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, where the Bible says Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca and Leah are buried.

“Simcha,” he says aloud to himself, “the night you wrote that, you had too much Starbucks.”

In the months since publication, the book has brought Rabbi Weinstein invitations to book fairs, Jewish events and comics conventions in places like San Diego and London.

And it has given him what all rabbis worry about and plan for at this time of year, a sermon topic for Yom Kippur. On the Day of Atonement, Rabbi Weinstein said, he will be preaching about the Thing.

Do terrorists threaten "our way of life"?

From Leonard Pitts, Jr:

We are often told that terrorists threaten our "way of life." We hear this so often that it's jolting to realize it's not true.

Oh, they threaten our lives, certainly. Your life, mine. But our "way" of life? No.

Granted, that's a broad and vaguely defined term but still, no. Whether you take it to mean things frivolous (baseball, MTV, fireworks on the Fourth) or things fundamental (freedom of speech, equality under the law, the native idealism of our national character), there is no way suicide bombers and fanatics with box cutters can destroy our way of life.

[...] Unless we, in fear, knuckle under and destroy it ourselves.

I think the guy's got a point.