The story of Rayhan Mazin

*SPOILER ALERT!!!*

Of course, once again, I am late on informing you all of an interesting story! I just recently caught up on my issues of Power Girl and was surprised to read a really great two-issue story arc involving a super-powered individual named Rayhan Mazin. He is very unusual because he's one of the few Muslim-Americans I've ever seen presented in a comic-book. He is from the fictional country of Qurac, and had never used his powers because he feared what people might think of a super-powered person of Middle Eastern descent in America. Basically, the story is about how exactly right he was!

The story starts six months ago when he is on a plane that is about to crash. Knowing how it might look to the other passengers, he decides to use his power (of controlling the weather) to lift the plane up and prevent it from crashing by increasing the wind speed. Unbeknownst to him, Power Girl and Batman have arrived on the scene to be heroes. So, when the plane lands, everyone blames him and we see him cuffed and scurried away.

The next scenes in the book deal with him being constantly interrogated and being denied contact with any friends, family or even a lawyer. Through the whole situation he keeps thinking that if he just keeps cooperating, they will eventually realize that he is not some kind of terrorist and that they will just let him go. They don't; and to make matters worse, he finds out that his father is dying of cancer and they won't even let him visit him in the hospital. That proves to be the last straw and he decides to breakout. (He had the power to do that all-along)!

This is where Power Girl and Batman jump back in the story because they have been asked to capture him. Telling more would be ruining the ending, so I'll stop here. But, this was an obviously great story that's a current reflection on U.S. policy and the way people of Middle Eastern descent are treated in this country. The ending was a little rushed, but still a nicely-written story by Judd Winnick. I strongly recommend you look for Power Girl #24-#25 in your local comic-book shop.

Thoughts on Coldplay & Palestine

So, last week I noticed a flurry of tweets on my Twitter timeline about the band Coldplay and Palestine. I don't know much about Coldplay, but I do know that they are a very popular band. Turns out they posted a link on their Facebook page to a video/song called "Freedom for Palestine," which I thought was pretty righteous of them. A lot of other people thought it was awesome too, but there were also a lot of other people (i.e. Zionists) who didn't think it was cool. All in all, there were about 7,000 comments/responses to that post. (See pic of post below).





Well, today, there are some news sources reporting that the band has removed the post from their Facebook page without explanation. I was getting ready to think they were really wack for retreating on that stance, but a fellow Twitter friend reminded me that, although the band did remove the post, they have not apologized for it. (For all we know, they might have taken it down because people were getting too vulgar with their comments). She also suggested that people go on Coldplay's facebook page and support them by letting them know they did a good thing by posting that link. http://bit.ly/mD1gyq

To check out the "Freedom for Palestine" video, go here: http://www.freedomoneworld.com/



UPDATE: It's being reported that the link was actually removed by Facebook because it had been reported as offensive (probably by Zionists).