I’m helping my pal Tom Bondurant out with annotations for the latest issue of Trinity. I’ll also be hosting Tom’s annotations for Trinity for the rest of the month until he and the Blog@ crew get set up in their new digs.

This issue seems a bit light on trivia (like last issue, as well, really), but we shall see what we shall see!

SPOILERS FOLLOW!

LEAD STORY

“Time to Suit Up” was written by Kurt Busiek, pencilled by Mark Bagley, inked by Art Thibert, colored by Pete Pantazis, and lettered by Pat Brosseau; Rachel Gluckstern, associate editor; Mike Carlin, editor.

In Brief: Charity and Rita discuss their next step while Morgaine and Konvict strike up a bargain.

Page 1

The book opens in the Arctic, where Konvict is on his way to meet up with Morgaine, who summoned him last issue. Morgaine and Enigma are in the Harteigen Mountains in Norway, and Konvict was in Mass-a-chu-setts, so he’s made up a lot of ground already.

We cut to Opal City, the home of Starman, where Rita and Charity O’Dare are dealing with the magic energy from last issue.

Page 2

We get a reminder that Charity is a fortune teller. Charity was an older DC character that James Robinson made into a supporting character in the pages of Starman, ultimately marrying her off to one of the O’Dares - a family of Opal City residents who were major supporting cast members in Starman.

Rita, our Tarot-reading heroine, is worried about the Worldsoul, the living embodiment of Earth, which is in bad shape due to the disappearance of the Trinity.

Page 3

St. Roch was the home base of Hawkman during Geoff Johns and James Robinson’s Hawkman series from a few years back. Carter Hall’s museum, Stonechat House, is in St. Roch.

The bad guys remind me of the Millenium Giants, but they are probably just nameless extra-dimensional bad guys.

The heroes on this page, courtesy of Tom’s annotations for previous issues, are:

– Vibe, a/k/a Paco Ramone, was created by Gerry Conway and Chuck Patton and first appeared in the aforementioned Justice League of America Annual #2. Vibe was killed in the line of duty in JLofA vol. 1 #258 (January 1987). He was survived by a brother, Joey ... I mean, Armando, who also became a superhero (Reverb, then Hardline) with similar vibratory powers.

– Space Ranger, a/k/a Rick Starr, was created by Edmond Hamilton, Gardner Fox, and Bob Brown, and first appeared in Showcase #15 (July 1958). It’s a little surprising to see him in this context, since (in regular continuity) he lives in the 22nd Century. Either this is an ancestor or time travel was involved; and he’s visited our time previously, so it’s not out of the question.

- Triumph’s pedigree is a little tough to figure out. Wikipedia credits Mark Waid, Brian Augustyn, and Howard Porter with creating him. The Unofficial Triumph Chronology gives his first appearance as Justice League Task Force #16 (August 1994), which was written by Waid and pencilled by Sal Velluto. However, his 3-part “origin story” — the first one I remember where he really played a major role — was written by Christopher Priest and appeared in the September 1994 issues of the League’s books (Justice League America #92, JL Task Force #17, and Justice League International vol. 2 #68). Triumph, a/k/a Will McIntyre (sometimes MacIntyre), was a superhero with energy-based powers who, but for a quirk in the timestream, would have been a founding member of the Justice League. That’s right, he was the Sentry before the Sentry was cool. Also, he’s usually drawn with blond hair.

– Skyrocket, a/k/a Celia Forrestal, was created by Kurt Busiek and Tom Grummett for their original super-team The Power Company. She first appeared in the Power Company preview story in JLA #61 (February 2002).

- The Flash (Wally West) you all know.

Page 4

The Heywood Corps are a reference to Hank Heywood, Sr., a Golden Age hero known as Commander Steel who had powers due to mechanized components. He used those same components to keep his grandson alive (and also to make his grandson the hero known as Steel). Here, Heywood is using mechanized components to create the Heywood Corps of cyborg heroes.

Page 5

Carter Hall watches as various heroes try to stop the invasion of multi-dimensional baddies.

The heroes on this page are pretty straightforward - Luthor, Atom-Smasher, Power Girl, Hawkgirl and Black Orchid.

The only one I am unfamiliar with is Sky-Knight. Anyone know who Sky-Knight is?

Page 6

I don’t think we need annotations for Konvict meeting up with Enigma and Morgaine.

Page 7

Morgaine is most likely discussing her communication with Konvict in last issue’s second story, where Konvict discovered that the human he killed is alive in this reality.

Page 8

So we finally have a name for Konvict! Xalitan Xor, Warhound of the First Array!

Xalatan is a brand name prescription eyedrop. Xalitan’s eyes are so red he could probably go for some eyedrops.

Xalitan Xor is a pretty cool name - suitably pompous.

Page 9

Here we learn that the Trinity being taken from reality is not the ONLY thing messing with the Worldsoul. The Worldsoul could probably heal from simply the Trinity being yanked from it, but Morgaine and her terrible trio are still messing with reality, so it is like a wound that keeps getting poked at, never allowing it to fully heal.

Page 10

Here Rita confirms that the bad guys need her, so she and Charity have to figure out what to do next.

Page 11

I don’t think I need to annotate Carter’s nice speech debating whether it is a smart idea to risk this reality for a possible better reality.

Page 12

The Thanagar outfit that Gangbuster gives Carter here - where is it from? It looks different than Hawkman’s standard outfit.

In any event, there is a Troika once again - Morgaine, Enigma and Xalitan Xor!

SECOND STORY

“Here and There and Everywhere” was plotted by Kurt Busiek and Fabian Nicieza, scripted by Nicieza, pencilled by Scott McDaniel, inked by Andy Owens, colored by Allen Passalaqua, lettered by Pat Brosseau; Rachel Gluckstern, associate editor; Mike Carlin, editor.

In Brief - The Trans-Volitional Man, Swashbuckler, Primat and the Tattooed Man escape captivity just in time to be recruited by Morgaine for her army.

Pages 1-2

This is the return of the Dreambound, first with Michael Cannefick, the The Trans-Volitional Man, who we first met in Trinity #8. We get some background info on Michael here.

Page 3

Here we see Michael slowly connect with the previous reality and his fellow Dreambound (nice little touch - unbound dreams, dreams…bound).

Page 4

We see Primat, also of Trinity #8, who was previously shown to be quite the reader, so it makes sense that she’d be reading in jail.

Page 5

Here is Swashbuckler, who first popped up in Trinity #9, working for Morgaine.

Page 6

Mark Richards, the current Tattooed Man, first showed up in Green Lantern Vol. 4 #9, by Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver and Prentis Rollins. Richards was a former U.S. Marine who became a hit man, who claimed he was “redeeming” the sins of the men and women he killed. He showed up in Infinite Crisis as a member of the Secret Society of Super Villains, and he recently popped up in Final Crisis in a nice story with Black Lightning in Final Crisis: Submit.

Page 7-8

Here we see the others use Richards to bring back Hemi Kiwara, also introduced in #8, who was transformed in #10 to Sun-Chained-In-Ink, thus completing the four Dreambound members.

Page 9

Morgaine brings them back into the fold.

Page 10

Now we see the Dreambound leading the new army, including a number of major villains like Doctor Polaris, Eclipso, the Brain, Poison Ivy, Parasite, Gorilla Grodd, Ace from the Royal Flush Gang - who are the other three guys?

Okay, that’s it!

Tom, come back, Tom! This is hard!!

The Book of Eli had me halfway when they cast Gary Oldman -- but they got a guaranteed ticket sale from me when they cast Ray Stevenson. I'm disappointed that he's playing another badass assassin type, but hey, at least I'll believe he could kick Denzel Washington's ass.

The plot description has been incredibly dry thus far -- a man named Eli protects a book that may be humanity's salvation, Oldman is the despotic mayor of a struggling town, Mila Kunis is an assassin sent to kill Eli, but who ends up joining him. But we have a little more, courtesy of its newest cast member. Stevenson sat down with Reelz Channel, and shed a little more light on the bleak future this film will inhabit. "The world in which it is set is completely uncompromising. The most precious commodity is actually water, because virtually all of the water is poison, toxic -- whether it's due to eruptions from the earth or the poisons in the sky. These very basic things are what drives human nature down to almost animalistic qualities. But what still separates us from the animals?"

Hmmm. Shades of Waterworld, a threat that looms over every post-apocalyptic film not titled The Road. There's never an in between when it comes to this genre ... you either end up with something cool and Max Maxish, or you end up with The Postman. Let's keep hoping for the best, though. The film begins shooting in February, and has a release date of January 15, 2010.

Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Thrillers, Casting, Warner Brothers, Scripts, Newsstand, War

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Young enlightened Egyptian bloggers write about their society's sex code, racism, bigotry, and lust after scandals - all in an attempt to make Egypt a better place to live in.

An Egyptian Citizen wonders where this country is heading:

بجد مش تهريج البلد دي رايحة على Ùين انا مش هتكلم عن سوزان تميم ولا عن مقتل ابنة ليلى غÙران انا هتكلم عن العن٠الي بقى موجود ÙÙŠ المجتمع اية دة Ùˆ كمان اخلاقيات الناس اتغيرت Ùˆ معدتش Ùية احترام لا لقناون ولا الانسان … الناس الي بتعلق ÙÙŠ المواقع الاخبارية بقى عندهم حقد طبقى ÙÙŠ المجتمع Ùˆ الÙقراء ÙÙŠ مصر بيجمعو كل الاغنياء على انهم حرامية Ùˆ انتهازين Ùˆ خونة Ùˆ بيحللو ان واحد يسرق. دة غير اية العن٠الي موجود ÙÙŠ المدارس اكتر من جريمة ÙÙŠ مدارس ÙÙŠ خلال شهر بين ضرب Ùˆ قتل هو احنا بقينا ÙÙŠ غابة ولا اية الواحد كمان مبقاش يمشي ÙÙŠ الشارع امن احسن يخا٠حد يطلع علية Ùˆ يسبتة بمطوة Ùˆ لما يروح يشتكي ÙÙŠ القسم مش بعيد الشرطة تلÙقلة تهمة ولا تعذبة دة غير ان الناس خلاص مش مستحملين بعض Ùˆ ماسكين على التاني كلمة او غلطة Ùˆ دة باين ÙÙŠ اشارة المرور اوي Ùˆ حتى الناس المتطرÙين ماسكين على اي واحد كلمة Ùˆ يقلبوها لطائÙية Ùˆ اعمال عن٠و يحللو اراقة الدم Ùˆ بيستغلو المظاهر Ùˆ بيحكمو على الناس بالمظهر الديني بجد الواحد مبقاش عار٠البلد دي رايحة على Ùين Ùˆ مين المسئول عن الكلام دة كلة اكيد مش الحكومة وحدها Ùˆ الشعب بردو مسئوول I am not joking; I am seriously asking where is this country heading? I will not talk about the murders of singer Suzan Tamim or daughter of singer Laila Ghofran. I will talk about the mushrooming aggression in our society. People's ethics have changed for now people respect neither law nor human beings … those who leave comments of news sites have revealed lifelong grudges against the more affluent segments of the society. The poor have unanimously agreed that the rich are thieves and they are worth mugging. Add to that, violence in schools in the previous month range from severe beatings to murder. Do we live in a jungle? One fears being held up in a street. One fears reporting an incident to the police for a bigger fear of being implicated in a crime one did not commit. Look at your neighbor in a traffic light and see how he is picking a fight .. we lost our tolerance. We no longer know where we are heading and who is responsible for this - definitely it is not the government single-handed … the people are equally responsible.

Lobna Khairy attempted to define the Egyptian Sex Code saying:

In almost every country there happens to be 2 taboos; politics and religion. But in Egypt and some Arabian countries, we couldn’t settle for less than 3; politics, religion and sex!

#1: The porn denial - Parents do not believe that their kids get their sexual education from porn

#2: Men - decent men who have no prior experience will not satisfy a woman

#3: Women - decent women who understand how babies are made are indecent

#4: Only a manly need - women do not need sex

#5: Milk him - to keep him

Denoting that sex is all that occupies their mind and hence if you want to keep your man, you better fulfill his physical appetite excessively or else he’ll be running down the streets searching for other women who can! How degrading is this for both males and females?

Mona Eltahawy reveals the Arab world's dirty secret when she tells a tale of racism:

I was on my way home on the Cairo Metro, lost in thought as I listened to music when I noticed a young Egyptian taunting a Sudanese girl. She reached out and tried to grab the girl’s nose and mouth and laughed when the girl tried to brush her hand away.

The Sudanese girl looked to be Dinka, from southern Sudan and not the northern Sudanese who “look like us”. She looked black African and was obviously in distress.

I removed my headphones and asked the Egyptian woman “Why are you treating her like that?”

She exploded into a tornado of yelling, demanding to know why it was my business. I told her it was my business because as an Egyptian and as a Muslim who was riding the Metro, her behaviour was wrong and I would not stay silent about it. I knew she was Muslim because she wore a scarf.

I told her that the way she was treating the Sudanese girl made the scarf on her head meaningless. Her mother asked me why I didn’t cover my hair and I replied that I didn’t want to be a hypocrite like her and her daughter.

As distressing as I found that young woman’s behaviour, I was even more distressed that the other women in the Metro car with us watched passively and said nothing. They made no attempt to defend the Sudanese girl nor to defend me when I confronted the Egyptian woman.

The racism I saw on the Cairo Metro has an echo in the Arab world at large where the suffering in Darfur goes ignored for two main reasons – firstly because its victims are black people and we don’t about those with dark skins and secondly because those who are creating the misery in Darfur are not Americans or Israelis and we only pay attention when America and Israel are behaving badly.

My argument on the Cairo Metro was a also a reminder of our double standards. We love to cry “Islamophobia” when we talk about the way Muslim minorities are treated in the West and yet we never stop to consider how we treat minorities and the most vulnerable among us.

For those of us who move between different worlds – where one day we are a majority as I am as a Sunni Muslim in Egypt and another we are a minority as I am as a Muslim in America – it is clear that to defend the rights of a Sudanese girl on the Cairo Metro means to defend my right on the New York Subway.

Insomniac wrote about bigotry hidden under thick layers of religious and liberal pretenses saying:

Coming from a religiously conservative family, I was brought up to take extra pride in my faith, even though I did not necessarily understand it enough to practice it properly. Almost everyone in my family (from both sides) has a meaningful name influenced by religion.

Until college, I used to go by my first name and my father’s middle name. That combination made my name sound perfectly neutral; people couldn’t guess my religion and accordingly treated me cautiously in fear of offending me.

Until I got veiled!

I was confronted by how cruel society can be, judging people by their looks. I realized that my neutral name and non-significant appearance shielded me from awkward moments. I realized it was a blessing having been treated with extra caution!

And no, it’s not the expected group of people who judged me, whatever that is. Against the general assumption, I travelled to the US the next summer, and I barely had any troubles because of my veil. Average Americans, aside from the “notorious” political agenda (which is not up to me to support or condemn), do not judge people based on their looks the way people do in Egypt (and perhaps the Middle East). We are such racists and bigots and the sad part is that we hide it under thick layers of fake religiousness and liberalism which we barely practice when unwatched.

Please meet those who judge me...

- Strictly religious Muslims who consider what I wear not hijab, and expect me to dress more modestly, and
- Pseudo-Liberals, either Christians or Muslims who seem to be very appalled by my veil!

Now I won’t go defending my choice or my religion because I don’t think those who judge me or my likes would either understand or appreciate what I have to say. All I can say is “SHAME ON YOU”, both parties.

I find both parties hypocrites, who miserably fail practicing what they preach and give their causes a horrible horrible names.

It used to hurt and offend me when I felt mistreated because of my veil, but then I realized something; it’s a unique way of blocking all the fakers and pretenders who can’t handle but judge me based on my appearance rather than my personality. To those people, I say it’s really your loss, touché!

Ahmed El Sabbagh wrote about the dishonest keyboard:

مطلوب لأعلى سعر كيبورد غير شريÙØ© تصلح لسب الأصدقاء والإبداع ÙÙ‰ تألي٠إتهامات باطلة والقيام بتلميحات قذرة وكتابة تعليقات مجهولة ØŒ ويشترط ان تكون متواÙقة للعمل مع مدوّن متÙرغ لإصطياد أخطاء الغير ØŒ وتألي٠قصص خيالية قذرة ووإشعال الÙتن ØŒ ودس السموم بين البشر
حيث لوحظ إن الكيبورد التى أمتلكها “بتستعبط” ولا تواÙÙ‚ على كتابة كلمات قذرة ØŒ وبها حرو٠معطوبة مثل حر٠القا٠والـذين والأل٠والراء والتاء المربوطة ØŒ وكلما حاولت كتابة كلمة قذرة بتÙصل باور والزراير بتعلق وبتعمل حركات قرعة وقد قمت بمحاولة شراء عدة كيبوردات وكلها بها Ù†Ùس العيب وقمت بإستبدالها أكثر من مرة ØŒ وظننت أن جميع الكبيوردات المتوÙرة حالياً من النوع الشريÙ

حاولت إصلاح الكيبورد ÙÙ‰ أحد محلات الصيانة Ùنظر لى Ùنى الصيانة شزراً وقال
دى موش معيوبة .. روح إتعلم القذارة وهى تشتغل زى الÙÙ„ .. عشان ده عيب يوزر

 

Wanted for the highest bidder: A dishonest keyboard that would come in handy when offending friends, getting creative in making up scandalous stories, posting dirty innuendos, and leaving anonymous comments. It has to be compatible with a full-time blogger whose sole business is finding fault with what other people write. It has to support him in his fire-starting filth-throwing poison-spreading mission.
The keyboard that I currently own plays games with my mind and refuses to type dirty words and every time I attempt to write one of those words it shuts down or hangs up leaving me at a loss for words. I tried buying several keyboards but they all seem to be similarly flawed - guess they only sell honorable keyboards nowadays.
I tried to get it fixed in one of the maintenance shops … the technician glared at me with anger and said “work on your dirty skills and it will work like a clock; this is a user error!”

Last but not least, Fantasia's World wrote about the qualifications of a scandal in the Egyptian media:(...)

a href="http://gramotunes.com/Falling_Stars.mp3"target="new"Sarah Siskind - "Falling Stars"/a It was through Bon Iver's self-damning a href="http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=8hnAY05A9PE"target="new"love/a for "Lovin's For Fools," the heartbreaking, "You Are My Sunshine"-jacking ballad by Sarah Siskind, that I learned of this talented songwriter. Sad music and production this present usually go together like tea and poison, though succesful meetings of the two are not without precedent. When, as a child, I first heard James Taylor's "Fire and Rain", I fell into an insufferable weeks-long funk that persisted until my father's repeated pleas of "It's just a song" finally made an impact. The impassioned, highly melodious babble of Al Green's "Simply Beautiful" has always floored me, despite its proper production, as have countless other soul tear-jerkers. Sarah Siskind avoids perfection's pitfalls by sullying her antiseptic sonic space with distortion and density and counterintuitive musical lines, and thus creates an ideal showcase for her pure, falling country cadences. [a href="http://www.amazon.com/Falling-Stars/dp/B001LEQF7G/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8s=dmusicqid=1228357601sr=8-1"target="new"Buy/a] pa href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/saidthegramophone/stg?a=ktoXvl"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/saidthegramophone/stg?i=ktoXvl" border="0"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/saidthegramophone/stg/~4/474222740" height="1" width="1"/

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/69710?ns=guardianpageName=Stage%3A+%27My+whole+life+has+been+a+black+comedy%27ch=Stagec3=The+Guardianc4=Theatre%2CCulture+section%2CJoe+Orton+%28Playwright%29%2CStage%2CTelevision+%28Culture%29c5=Not+commercially+useful%2CTelevision+Media%2CTheatrec6=Catherine+Shoardc7=2008_12_04c8=1128305c9=articlec10=GUc11=Stagec12=Theatrec13=c14=h2=GU%2FStage%2FTheatre" width="1" height="1" //divpIt has been a while since Doon Mackichan was last hung, drawn and quartered for laughing at the suffering of children. There was a week in August 2001 when you couldn't pass a newsstand without seeing her handsome, sparrowhawk face, forehead partially obscured by the word "evil" or "depraved"./ppThe Brass Eye paedophile special is now mostly remembered as virtuoso satire, so it's easy to forget what a stink it caused at the time. And it was Mackichan, who played TV presenter Swanchita Haze, who bore the brunt of it. People expected that sort of thing from Chris Morris, but Doon was a woman with - gulp - children of her own. "[Mackichan] had seen herself as a major comedy force in the making," wrote the Mail. "She even dreamt of becoming a film star. But with the Brass Eye disaster as her epitaph, all those plans lie in tatters."/ppLooking back, it's hard to say her career didn't suffer. There were two more seasons of Smack the Pony, the girly Channel 4 sketch show with Sally Phillips and Fiona Allen, but to diminishing returns. There were wifely roles in ropey sitcoms. There was theatre. Then came a two-year break for unhappier reasons (of which more later). And now she's back, in a play that, well, laughs at the suffering of children. Adults, too. Especially those six feet under. /ppJoe Orton's Loot, like Brass Eye, is comedy that sets out to shock. Don't be fooled by its age; although the play was first performed in 1965, Loot has weathered better than, say, a TV parody of late-90s news shows. Death doesn't date as a cultural taboo; likewise religion. Rereading Loot is like having a shower when you hadn't realised the boiler's broken: unexpectedly shocking./pp"Yep, it's full on," says Mackichan, eating a tuna sandwich between rehearsals in London. "There's this one line about a really great brothel run by Pakistanis who pimp out their kids for Mars bars." She smiles: an attractive smile, heavy on the lippy. "I'm like, 'Oh we'll cut that, won't we?' Well, no, we can't, because what about all the other things people might find offensive? Cut them all and you won't have much of a play left."/ppOther lines trouble her. Orton's gleeful description of a sexual assault, complete with tooth-breaking detail. "That specific image is just really horrible. Do you lose a portion of your audience when you leave that in? Do people stop thinking it's a great play? Or as my mum would say, 'Ooh, Orton's so kinky; yes, I love all that.' " /ppDoon plays Fay, an Irish Catholic home nurse and a prolific serial killer (87 in one week alone). She has lately buried her seventh husband and has her eighth in her crosshairs, having just dispatched his wife with a syringe of poison. Loot takes place on the day of the wife's funeral, and charts the power struggle between Fay, Hal (whose mother is being buried), Dennis, Hal's boyfriend, with whom he has robbed a bank and put the money in mum's coffin, and Detective Truscott, the sinister inspector who comes calling. /ppOrton's stage instructions put Kay in her late 20s; other than that Mackichan, 46, is a good fit. She is Celtic, by nurture at least. She grew up in Surrey but moved to Fife with her family when she was nine. She survived the transition, she says, by acting, specialising in "posh bitches". This is something she still does: she is a natural authoritarian, physically pneumatic, temperamentally tough - a few years back she swam the English channel with a team of paratroopers. /pp"Yes, I could kill someone," she says, without thinking too hard about it. "It must be so easy to just nip a needle in, or hold a pillow over an old person's face. The power and the buzz you'd get." She has been boning up on True Crime magazine to further understand her character's homicidal motivation. "But I just can't read the books. There's such an orgasm about they way they're written. 'Women who kill! Viciously!' When it comes to sex and violence, we're an island of obsessives. I mean, how does it help people to know the details of how someone was physically tortured?"/ppTen years ago, Mackichan got her fingers burned over an Anglican sketch on her Radio 4 show, Doon Your Way, but it hasn't left her any more on-message when it comes to religion. "It's been extraordinary finding out what Catholics actually believe!" she says of the research process. "All the rituals and superstition. The whole voyeurism of talking to someone behind a little screen. The idea that you can think, OK, I'll be a bitch, then on Sunday I'll say, 'Oh, I was a bit of a bitch' and then feel great!"/ppShe is not religious herself, "but I don't think I'm in an atheistic universe. I do think there's a higher power". Has she ever prayed? "Oh, I've been down on my knees many times." She pauses and then roars with laughter - it's a genuine, accidental Orton-ism. /ppIt turns out that Mackichan has had an extremely tough few years. Her father recently died. She is in the process of getting divorced from her husband, Common As Muck actor Anthony Barclay, with whom she has three children, India, 11, Louis, 10, and Ella-Rose, four. And, three years ago, Louis contracted leukaemia. Much of the past three years has been spent with him in hospital. He is now in remission, but shadows still hollow out her face. She wells up frequently, and there is something frayed behind the raucous laugh and actorly tics. "I do find authority hard to deal with now," she growls, after an assistant gives us a 10-minute warning that she needs to get back to work. "I feel a bit of an anarchist. I don't think I could work for someone who was an arsehole any more." She gulps down some fruit juice. "I can't actually have confrontations with people. It's too much. I'm a single muvva with three kids and a show to do." She laughs but she's dead serious./ppWhen things were at their worst, she says, her monopoly on heartache was hard to handle. "People would tut behind me in a supermarket queue and I'd have to go, 'Please, go ahead of me, you've obviously got somewhere to go. I'm just going back to the children's cancer ward.' I once had an actress telling me her hair was falling out because of her new kitchen and I thought, I'm not going to say anything, because this is quite interesting, because I remember how I was before it all." And how was she before it all? "Quite selfish, neurotic. Up my own arse. It's made me very tough. I do think I have endurance beyond the pale." /ppWhen Louis was well enough, Mackichan took her children with her to Africa to shoot a BBC2 series, Taking the Flak, loosely based on John Simpson's reporting from poverty-stricken, war-ravaged places. After such harrowing experiences, how she can cope with her relatively comfortable existence? "You walk into your house and you go: I'm a millionaire. I'm a princess; I live in a palace. And you think: I don't have a lot of shoes, but I do have too many shoes. You look at yourself and think: Party's over, mate. Time to be useful."/ppAnd yet she is not an aid worker in Africa. She is in north London, rehearsing a play. "I did think, I can't go back to acting. It's too vain, too ridiculous. I was going to retrain as a play specialist in Louis' cancer ward. But this is what I've done for 20 years. It's what I do." /ppShe's right. Mackichan is a natural born thesp, right down to her floaty black blouse and stripy woollen leg-warmers. Slice her in half and you would see "actor" written right through the middle of her. "I have a real mission now to be in work that will be cathartic for people. [Work] that's really honest about just how fucking hard it is to stay afloat."/ppLoot isn't exactly what she had in mind, she admits, but its no-nonsense attitude to tragedy has been cathartic. "My whole life lately has been a bit of a black comedy." She snorts. Might she consider turning it into one? "There's a lot of mileage in a children's cancer-ward comedy. All the opening curtains and waving at people being sick into bowls. You could set it in the tiny coffin-like kitchen where only the adults are allowed. You see these little bald children running past the window. It was like suddenly being in a war."/ppCould she really bear to return there, even imaginatively? "I don't know. They haunt me, those nighttime corridors. The characters, too: the carers and nurses and staff and the petty quarrels. And getting high on Quality Street till 3am. But I would like to." /ppstrongmiddot; /strongLoot is at the Tricycle, London NW6, from December 11. Box office: 020-7328 1000./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatre"Theatre/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/orton"Joe Orton/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/television"Television/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/lAQCNb9eC0BbtenHfBz0jZUDjxo/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/lAQCNb9eC0BbtenHfBz0jZUDjxo/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

POISON singer Bret Michaels' bed frame — as seen on MTV's Cribs program — is up for auction at his official web site.

December 1st is observed around the world as AIDS Day and the occasion is largely publicized. Unlike the attention World AIDS Day receives, World Disability Day barely registers on the world media’s radar.

Circle of friends by Flickr user Jimee, Jackie, Tom and Asha and used under a creative commons license

Celebrated every year on December 3rd, World Disability Day honors the contribution made to our world by those with physical and mental handicap. In case of South Asia, there is severe stigma attached any kind of physical and mental handicap. World Disability Day is an opportunity to spread awareness about the rights of the handicapped and that being differently able is not a sin or something to be ashamed of.

In India, activist Javed Abidi, the country’s leading advocate for the rights of the handicapped, will lead an event called “Dilli Chalo” or “Lets go to Delhi” to mark the occasion. It will be held at the historic India Gate.

Mr. Abidi says that India has made some progress in securing rights of the disabled but more needs to be done.

“Now, in India, as we are aware, we have had the Disability Act for the last 12 years. Last year we thought was a momentous year for two reasons. One was that our country ratified the UN Convention, and the second was that we also got the XI Plan. And in the XI Plan.....for the first time, there is a distinct chapter or a section on disability. And we thought that things were going to change. ......if we were look at the last one year, we find that things have not really moved the way we had expected them to move....”

Along with addressing legal issues related to the rights of the disabled and the opportunities they deserve, efforts are also needed to help those living in abject poverty because of their physical condition.

A news report published by the The National shows how urgently India’s poor disabled citizens need their government to take steps to insure that they are able to live in dignity.

Shaikh Azizur Rahman reported this November that an elderly father taking care of two severely disabled bed ridden daughters has asked the Indian President that they be allowed to be euthanized. He said that he is too poor to take of his daughters who need round the clock care and attention. Fatema, one of his daughters, says that she too wants her life to end.

“I told my father many times to bring poison for me. Nobody is helping me to kill myself.”

Across the border in Pakistan, there is still the mountain of odds facing citizens with disability. Writing for Dawn, Zahid Abdullah, who works for the Center for Peace and Development in Islamabad, says that country still has a long way to go before those with different ability can feel that society values them too. He also expresses frustration at slow pace of legal reform regarding the rights of the disabled.

Like in India and Pakistan, the society in Nepal too views physical and mental handicaps as a result of past life’s sins. Handicapped are usually treated as sub human; they have very limited access to education and meaningful employment. Often you can see a person with physical disability begging on the streets to sustain life.

Meen Raj Panthi says that families hide those with a disability to protect their honor and prestige:

“The notion that people with disabilities have equal rights and duty as any other individual, is largely absent from the popular mindset.”

Children are most vulnerable to discrimination. National Disabled and Helpless Upliftment Association in Nepal cites an example of a little girl named Manisha held captive by her parents because she is blind:

“While her parents work at fields, she is often locked in her own room and tethered with rope by her parents because she has no one to look after her at home. But her elder brother and sister go to school.”

Thumbnail image by Flickr user Shizhao and used under a creative commons license

International

She mustacute;ve fallen in poison ivy or something, with the way she keeps scratching her arse. Yeah, donacute;t mind the cameraman following you around. Just pretend heacute;s not there.

Nigeria is flying in an antidote to stem the deaths of babies poisoned by a teething syrup.

Nigeria is flying in an antidote to stem the deaths of babies poisoned by a teething syrup.

L’Affaire des affaires sera un des albums incontournables de janvier 2009. Et pour cause, tout ce qui parle de près ou loin l’Affaire Clearstream est décortiqué par la presse, la classe politique sans oublier les adeptes du “tous pourris”. Surtout que cette adaptation en bande dessinée de la vie du journaliste d’investigation Denis Robert est chapeautée directement par l’intéressé, aidé au scénario par Yan Lindingre.

Les éditions Dargaud viennent de mettre en ligne les 6 premières pages du premier volet qui en comptera 200, dessinées par Laurent Astier, auteur d’Aven et Cellule Poison. On y découvre un Jacques Chirac à 200 à l’heure – ça nous change – et des personnalités clefs de l’affaire Clearstream comme un Dominique de Villepin taillé au couteau ou un Nicolas Sarkozy surexcité – là, ça change pas. À en croire ces premières pages et la fameuse phrase du “croc de boucher” lancée par le ministre de l’Intérieur d’alors, le scénario risque d’être ponctué d’anecdotes, en plus d’un aspect pédagogique mis en avant par l’éditeur. Les auteurs devraient ainsi s’étendre sur les arcanes des banques offshores ou des paradis fiscaux.

Avec son côté thriller politique, L’Affaire des affaires devrait autant séduire les amateurs de polar que les passionnés de BD reportage. À moins que ce ne soit les fans de Jean-Jacques Beineix, persuadés d’y voir là une suite à la mémorable Affaire du siècle.




Les images sont © Dargaud-Robert-Lindingre-Astier.