Movie super heroes.

I read a really good article in the paper about all the super hero movies they're making. I'm really glad that Joseph Bruck wrote it because I've said the same thing about movie super heroes. There aren't so heroic.  

 For instance, who could forget Superman's mission to secure 'truth, justice and the American way'? In our modern culture, however, the albeit campy but kid-friendly films of yesterday are being replaced with films showcasing a darker, more adult mindset – and the superhero characters are suffering as a result. 

Our heroes now are more relatable, which means they're more flawed. Far from being ideal, some "heroes" like Iron Man and the Green Lantern are shown as selfish, egotistical young men who treat women as objects. They only become virtuous as a result of their new powers, which force them to start thinking about others. 

The problem with such imperfect heroes is that they promote sin as being attractive, relatable and good. This message is like a clever ploy to make people feel better about their own promiscuity... after all, if Batman and Iron Man do it, why can't I?

I remember when I saw Iron Man and when he got drunk and peed in his super suit I thought the same thing, that super heroes don't act like that. I didn't want to see the new Spider Man movie because of one preview where Spider Man caught  a car thief. After he caught the thief he webbed him to a wall and then he shot a spider web at his crouch.  Heroes don't hit unarmed men.   

I just don't like the way the heroes act so arrogant in movies. When I think about heroes I think about noble knights from the King Arthur stories, St. Martin of Tours, or Blessed Jose Sanchez. St. Martin was a knight in the Roman army who gave half his cloak to a beggar who was cold and Blessed Jose was a boy in Mexico who was killed by the Mexican army because he didn't believe the government should outlaw being Catholic. 

And besides, if Spider Man were really half spider he would not be shooting his web out his wrists. I guess they don't have entomologists in Hollywood. 

Smoky needs a science lesson.

Have you seen the commercial with Smokey the Bear saying "only you can prevent forest fires"? Every time I see it I laugh because it's so stupid. I mean  it really is when you think about it. I'm only in 4th grade and even I know that the four main causes of wildfires are lightning, volcanic eruptions, spontaneous combustion, and rockfall sparks. I don't have any control over any of those things. I thought the causes of forest fires was pretty basic natural science studies stuff that most people know. Actually I learned about the four causes in scouts but I already knew about lightening. Everyone should already know lightning causes a lot of fires and nobody controls lightening. Although it'd pretty cool, like Zeus or something. Even the fires that are caused by humans are still out of the control of most normal people, like power lines. Wouldn't it make more sense to just tell kids to "leave no trace" like they do in my scouts when we go camping. Make sure you aren't lighting fires in the woods without water near by and don't throw lit cigarettes in the woods. That's the stuff people can control. So no, you are not the only person who can prevent forest fires. Not everything bad that happens to the earth is our fault. A lot of it is natural causes. Aren't grown up supposed to know these things? Good grief.

What I think kids should read.

My mom told me she blogged about Hunger Games and how she doesn't like teen books because she thinks they are written bad and make kids stupid. I kinda feel the same way. The only people reading Hunger Games at my school are girls so that's why I'm not reading it. I know it's got killing in it and it's supposed to be gross killing but that doesn't bother me because at church we hear stories about saints who get set on fire and that Maccabees story was pretty brutal too.

But don't let her fool you. I wasn't reading Treasure Island and Tom Sawyer at 6. I like some stupid books too like Captain Underpants and I can read a whole Goose Bumps book in about two hours if there is nothing else to do around the house and I am bored enough. My mom mostly read the harder books to me until I learned to read better and we read together every night and sometimes we took turns. She also makes a point to make me read a book first before we see the movie, except The Chipmunks Movie was never a book. She didn't take me to see that anyway because that is what grandparents are for, to take me to the stupid movies. I read the Tin Tin comics before seeing the movie and it made the movie way cooler I think. All those Disney movies were books first too but the books were better too because a lot of those fairy tales were really Grimm. Ha ha.

The first set of books I read by myself was Magic Treehouse. These were a lot of fun and taught me history. When you finish the books you can actually look up the places and people in the story and learn about them online. We would google the people so I could see what they looked like in real life but you do that after you read the story because it's neat to see if they really look like you imagined or the author described. http://www.magictreehouse.com/

When I get more time my mom wants me to write down a bunch of books that I think makes kids smart readers. It doesn't even matter if the books are too hard because your parents can help you with the words and explain the meaning but at least try to read them. Definitely read Peter Pan and Treasure Island. Tom Sawyer is a good one too and Alice in Wonderland is way more weirder than the movie. For fun easy reads I liked Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein.

Good Night.
Tom

Altar serving.

So I've been serving at mass for about a month now. I'm sort of getting the hang out of it but I still get real nervous right before hand. I'm afraid I'm going to drop something or trip over my robes. I almost got one other servers in the neck with the paten this weekend. The kneeling is the worst part. It starts to hurt my knees while the priest goes over all the names of the saints in the prayers. There must be a million saints and he names them all!

Anyway, now my mom makes me fast before mass since I'm old enough and receive Communion. I hate it because I serve at the vigil masses and I'm usually starving by the time mass is over. But this last time I learned the practical reason we don't eat before mass. I can't imagine being stuck at the altar with a full bladder like that other kid. Yeah, I bet I get scowled at good and hard if I did the pee-pee dance in the middle of mass.

I made my teacher mad today

My mom and her friend went to see the people living in tents downtown. She said they were down there protesting being poor and that they hate the government and taking showers or something like that. She told me about their hand signals and we watched a youtube video. We thought the twinkle fingers were really funny. Anyway, my new teacher this year is always talking about how awesome she thinks Obama is and how she supports the people living in tents and not brushing their teeth so I told her about my mom going down there. She seemed impressed that I knew about it but she doesn't think it's too funny that now I use down twinkles when she says something I don't like. At lunch today I showed my friend Jake and Josh down twinkles and when she gave us homework over Thanksgiving we all gave her down twinkles in class. Now my mom has to go meet with the principal next week. My teacher has no sense of humor. My mom said she wasn't mad and that she just might down twinkle the principal.

Halloween

I want to be a Minotaur for Halloween. I used to want to be a werewolf. But the Greeks have way cooler monsters. My friend Jacob said he was going to be a soldier with a knife stuck in his head all bloody and this girl in my class named Kylie-the-big-fat-jerk made fun of both us. I bet she is going to be something lame like a cheer leader or some stupid pink princess. My mom wants to be Finn the Human for Halloween. I don't care as long as she stays away from my candy. I'm not falling for that Parent Candy Inspector thing she does this year. I'm on to her big time!

Zeus isn't real.

I have this game I like to play on the computer. It's called Poptropica. It's really fun and you can fight villans by becoming a super hero. You can also fight dragons and there are different islands you can visit. One island has a bunch of Greek gods. They have quizzes about the gods and I know them all because I've read most of the Percy Jackson books. There was this girl in my class last year who believed in Zeus. Her name was Carin. I called her stupid and the teacher told me it wasn't nice to make fun of other kid's beliefs. I told Mrs. Parker she was right. I mean it probably isn't Carin's fault she believes in fake gods, her parents don't even know how to spell to Karen.