Syrian Refugee Crisis - Petition to Raise the Ceiling on the Number of Refugees Permitted in US

As many of you may already know - there is a refugee crisis in Europe. Germany, a country that can basically fit inside the state of Texas, has taken over $450,000 Syrian Refugees.

The US to date has only agreed to 10,000-20,000 refugees. We're a huge country. Raise the ceiling to at least 200,000. We have more room than Europe does.

Here's the PETITION.

Review of X-Men : Operation Zero Tolerance (2012)

X-Men: Operation Zero Tolerance by Larry Hama

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



( REVIEW )

Cyclops arc

In regards to Cyclops, aka Scot Summers arc: Scott in this series is more of a supporting character. But it's very important to his arc for two reasons: 1) During the arc -- he is a leader throughout, and pushes his team to save lives, he's idealistic, and seen as a boy scout. Hopeful. Optimistic. And self-sacrificing. 2) He is critically injured during the arc. The bad guys insert a deadly bomb in his chest which his team mates with a great deal of team work and few supplies manage to safely extricate from his chest. But it does leave him weak. And he, and his wife, Jean Grey aka Phoenix leave the X-men in early retirement for a bit.

After he is healed - he tells Jean that they won the day. That things are looking up for the X-men.
He's hopeful and sees the best in humanity and his team, while she's more brooding and far less optimistic, worried about what the future will bring.

At this point in his arc - he's been through a lot of tragedy, but overall he's still happy. He's married. His friends are alive and well. They won the day. His son is wandering about safe out there.
He's still the idealistic, good man, who espouses his mentor, Charles Xavier's ideals. While Charles had to an extent betrayed them as Onslaught, he has forgiven him and does not hold that against him -- seeing it as a by-product of Charles actions against Magneto, which had been necessary at the time.
This Scott Summers still believes in his mentors dream that mutants and humans can live peacefully together.


General Arc

Underlines how violence and hate does not resolve problems on either side. When both sides engage in violence, the only result is destruction and pain. Generalizing about either side leads to disaster.
Bastion generalizes about mutants, seeing all as evil, despite evidence to the contrary - Jubilee who is compassionate towards her captor Daaria who decides to help her escape in part due to that compassion. Or Doctor Reyes who saves lives. Spiderman who interjects himself between the sentinels sent to kill Marrow, and saves Marrow's life, thinking to himself, while I'm not a mutant, they could decide I'm a freak at any moment. Or Jonah Jamsion - crack newspaperman who refuses to print the misinformation that Bastion is selling, or worse the information on the mutant underground, choosing instead to investigate Bastion who may have killed his reporter.

Not all humans are bad, any more than all mutants are bad. Both make mistakes. And individuals should not be held accountable for the choices of other individuals merely because they share similar genetic traits. You can't generalize. And to hate a person merely because they are different than you is a horrible and destructive thing.

It's not as preachy as it sounds, there's a lot more showing here than telling, which is what I like about these stories. And they use layers of metaphor, and sci-fi fantasy to get the point across. The Legacy Virus, referenced at various points in the story, is a metaphor for AIDS or any virus associated with a minority group.

The story also delves deep into the why's and wherefore's of hate, how it grows and takes root inside the human consciousness.

A good start to an interesting story arc.