Saturday, February 20, 2021

The Bug Zapper: The Ant Arrives!



by Tom Eaton
2018 / 108 pages

Bug Zapper is a superhero that fights a bevy of bug-themed villains like Mean Mosquito, Butterfly Bob, and the Black Ant. His powers are the ability to jump really far – I think he’s jumping and not flying – and, like his namesake, a nasty jolt of electricity that stops bug villains in their tracks.

This is more of a gentle spoof of the superhero genre than a genuine batman or spiderman-type comic. Yes, villains do get zapped, but no one gets really hurt. Artist and author Tom Eaton makes good use of bright colors and simple lines – the drawings strike me as a little Peanut-esque – to create a comic book that’ll draw kids in. It’s hard to walk by this without picking it up for a peek. 

There are two books so far – Bug Zapper and Bug Zapper: The Ant Arrives! – and both my Grade Three daughter and I thought the second was the better of the two with just a bit more action and humor. But the first has the Bug Zapper’s origin story, which every Bug Zapper fan will want to know. 

And the first also has an interesting plotline about bias in reporting. Robert, an elementary student who would love to be the Bug Zapper’s sidekick, also writes about him for the school newspaper. Amber, the daughter of one of Bug Zapper’s archnemeses, also goes to the school and accuses Robert of being biased for writing such a nice piece about a hero while saying nothing nice about villains. Then the teacher gives Robert an assignment to write his next article about a supervillain! But does being unbiased means saying nice things about both sides? That’s what Amber thinks. But Robert knows that good journalism is more about being fair, trying to share the truth as accurately as he can. That’s some pretty weighty material for a comic that’s otherwise just lighthearted fun! And Tom Eaton pulls it off well. 

I would think this best for Grades One to Three, but the video version will let you gauge how it matches up with your children. You can find another video and color sheets at bugzappercomics.com.

Sunday, February 14, 2021

Through Gates of Splendour

by Elizabeth Elliot
274 pages / 1981

This is the original true account of a missionary endeavour that went terribly wrong, and yet was used by God for great good. The story is continued in such books as The End of the Spear, by Steve Saint - one of the sons of the missionaries who risked their lives to bring the gospel to the hostile Auca tribe of Ecuador.

What makes this biography so striking is that the author, Elizabeth Elliot, one of the missionaries' wives, does not know at the time of writing how the story will "end." Indeed, we still do not know, and that is one of the insights shared by Elliot, and relied upon by the mssionaries themselves - that we are neither the authors, nor the final readers, of our own lives' stories.

Elizabeth Elliot's later writing also makes clear how we must trust that the Lord's purposes in both our successes and our failures are greater than we can imagine. 

If you would like to read Elliot's account of the beginning of a God-guided advanture, you can get it here and here in Canada.

Wednesday, February 3, 2021

"Live not by lies" in 7 quotes

by Rod Dreher
256 pages / 2020

In Live not by lies, Rod Dreher shares the warning he’s hearing from former emigrants from the Soviet Union and other Iron Curtain countries. They lived through totalitarianism and fled from it, and they told Dreher they are seeing signs of a “soft” totalitarianism now showing up in the West. This soft sort is less about the State imposing its will, though, conversion therapy bans, and requiring a hospice to provide euthanasia, shows that is happening too. But the soft totalitarianism is more about a culture that will cancel Parler, block Focus on the Family, and keep conservative speakers off university campuses. This soft sort also evidences itself when people, out in public, start feeling the need to whisper their opinions, afraid others will hear that they still think boys can’t be girls, abortion is murder, homosexuality a sin, and Donald Trump was actually the lesser of two evils.

Dreher wants Christians to hear these former Soviets’ warnings so we can be prepared for what they think is coming. What does being prepared mean? Dreher’s particular focus is to have us ready to face persecution.

To give you a feel for Dreher’s argument, and a flavor of his writing, here are seven quotes from Live not by lies.

Silence can be a stand

“‘Our way must be: Never knowingly support lies!’ You may not have the strength to stand up in public and say what you really believe, but you can at least refuse to affirm what you do not believe….If we must live under the dictatorship of lies, [Solzhenitsyn] said, then our response must be: ‘Let their rule hold not through me!’”

Government that cares for you cradle to grave

“The term totalitarianism was first used by supporters of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, who defined totalitarianism concisely: “Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.”

Free to say all that Google and Twitter will allow

"Today’s totalitarianism demands allegiance to a set of progressive beliefs, many of which are incompatible with logic – and certainly with Christianity. Compliance is forced less by the state than by elites who form public opinion, and by private corporations that, thanks to technology, control our lives far more than we would like to admit."

Don’t bat for the other team

“What did it mean to live by lies? It meant, Solzhenitsyn writes, accepting without protest all the falsehoods and propaganda that the state compelled its citizens to affirm – or at least not to oppose – to get along peaceably under totalitarianism. Everybody says that they have no choice but to conform, says Solzhenitsyn, and to accept powerlessness. But that is the lie that gives all the other lies their malign force. The ordinary man may not be able to overturn the kingdom of lies, but he can at least say that he is not going to be its loyal subject.”

Demanding you call him “her”

“According to Hannah Arendt, the foremost scholar of totalitarianism, a totalitarian society is one in which an ideology seeks to displace all prior traditions and institutions, with the goal of bringing all aspects of society under control of that ideology. A totalitarian state is one that aspires to nothing less than defining and controlling reality. Truth is whatever the rulers decide it is.”

Judged by our group, not our character

“In classic Marxism, the bourgeoisie are the oppressor and the proletariat are the oppressed. In the [today’s] cult of social justice, the oppressors are generally white, male, heterosexual, and Christian. The oppressed are racial minorities, women, sexual minorities and religious minorities. (Curiously, the poor are relatively low on the hierarchy of oppression. For example, a white Pentecostal man living on disability in a trailer park is an oppressor; a black lesbian Ivy League professor is oppressed.)”

Christians as the enemy, not as allies

“Consider that the civil rights movement of the 1960’s was led by black preachers who articulated the plight of their people in biblical language and stories. Those days are over, and we will not be able to take the measure of the long struggle ahead if we don’t understand the essential nature of the opposition. It regards Christians as the most significant remaining obstacle, bearers of the cruel and outdated beliefs that keep the people from being free and happy.”