Farm Boy

Ignifluous Debilitation: For those of you reading along on the blog, it’s been a week, but for Clark and I, it’s been long enough to brew another pot of coffee- and, since Clark hasn’t been drinking any of the coffee, for me to get rid of the last pot- but we’re returning to hear his thoughts on immigration.

And I’m not here to sling mud, but, since it’s father’s day, I don’t think I could not ask a question that sort of bridges the gap between that subject and today, but your father worked with illegals on his farm, right?

Superman: Yes.

ID: So what are your thoughts on that?

(pause)

S: Illegal labor has become part of the reality of American farm work- particularly for small, non-corporate farms. Bigger farms, corporate farms, can afford to buy and operate massive modern farm equipment; they’re also helped by the proportional stacking of farm subsidies. My father’s farm- my mother’s farm, now- is at least statistically typical of a normal family farm in Kansas. Last year, he received a subsidy in the amount of about $1000; he needed that money, and he was grateful for the money, but at the same time, the company that’s been buying up smaller farms in the area, that has an annual yield into the millions, received a subsidy worth more than his entire farm is worth, land, equipment, and the house where he lived. The point of subsidy is supposed to be to help farmers make it through bad growing seasons, not to finance the expansion of megafarms.

ID: Do you have a problem with the idea of corporate consolidation?

S: Generally speaking, no. But I was raised on a small family farm; I learned the value of work on a small family farm. I’m biased, I think, against the idea that we’re losing that part of our heritage, and our history- and I certainly don’t like the idea of a megafarm.

And I’ve also seen the sinister side of corporations. Lex Luthor often abused his position in places of economic power- the specter of corporate consolidation placing too much power in a single individual’s hands is indeed a real, problem is too strong a word, but maybe dilemma. But no- I think consolidation can increase efficiency, which at the end of the day frees up resources that can be put to use elsewhere; my only caveat is that it’s important to be sure the human element isn’t forgotten, there. In the long run, people really are the most important resource- as workers and as consumers- without people, the concept of wealth is meaningless.

ID: You mentioned subsidies a moment ago, and it’s nice for once for you to be the one pushing hot button topics onto our agenda. So, having been both the beneficiary of and on the uneven end of subsidies, how do you view them?

S: I think any time you talk about subsidies there are really two different discussions. The first covers who and how much, and the second deals with where. Farm subsidies, as currently implemented, have a disproportionate effect on the market, providing lots of capital to large, wealthy growers, and providing little support to smaller, struggling growers. Small growers are already working against the advantages of economies of scale, but when you add to it the larger subsidies, it really becomes easy to understand why small farms have become an endangered species. It’s gotten so that smaller farms are sometimes binding themselves together in collectives to receive the same oversized benefits. Can you think of any other industry where entrepreneurs are forced to merge in order to compete?

ID: Aside from the porn industry, no.

S: Cute. My point is I do think some kind of reform is preferable on the first question. On the second, well, broadly speaking, farm subsidies in this country are a good thing. The problem internationally with the way that subsidies are implemented, though, is they often pay a farmer to produce a crop at an artificially low “cost,” which disrupts the market because he can sell at an artificially low price and still make a profit. This is fine if the goal is simply to subsidize low prices in the country- then it’s just a socialized policy of spreading the increased burden of food prices more evenly across the nation- but once those artificially low prices leave the American market, they start to affect global crop prices, which disrupts markets worldwide- not to mention that it’s a waste of tax money.

It makes farmers in, say, Africa, where labor and production are actually cheaper, unable to compete with the artificially cheaper US agricultural products- which depress the value worldwide. It strangles out local farm industries which may be the only local labor available. It’s actually the same thing that illegal laborers coming into this country do, but in reverse.

ID: So you’re saying you’re against illegal laborers, then?

S: Put bluntly like that, yes, I’m against illegal laborers. But the solution isn’t as simple as push them back into Mexico and build a really high wall. I’d say we should have a two-pronged approach, maybe three. First, we need to go after the people who hire illegal laborers. Second, given that our system has, over the last hundred years or so, encouraged them to cross over, I think it would be a noble gesture, and there is some precedence for this, but to provide moving expenses for Mexicans or whomever to get back to their country. And the somewhat third prong would be to encourage trade with Mexico, but not at the bargain-basement prices, but to rewrite NAFTA with the caveat that Mexican goods have to be produced in conditions similar to American workplaces- that means safety, environmental. And over the next, say, ten years, you could mandate a minimum wage for goods bound for the US, until at year ten they reach the US minimum wage.
It makes Americans more competitive in the short term, and ensures better global competition in the long. And it could work.

We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Monday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.

Kryptonite

Igneous Dereliction: I have to ask. You’ve sort of made the assumption that your cancer is a result of exposure to sunlight, but I wonder if you have considered something: what if it’s been caused by kryptonite radiation?

Superman: The thought’s crossed my mind. Especially because Lex- well, he was riddled with cancer, and certainly would have died if he hadn’t transferred his body into his own clone- so there’s certainly a precedent.

ID: But

S: But I tend to reject that- I try to reject it. Because it’s a painful thing to admit if it’s true. On the one hand you have the fact that while I narrowly avoided the destruction of Krypton, it’s violent end seems to have managed to finish me anyway- almost painfully poetic. On the other, and, really, more terrible side, you have the fact that, if it’s even remotely true, Lex Luthor managed to play a role, however small it may have been, in my death. And I don’t like that idea. Even if kryptonite had the carcinogenic effects of a packet of Sweet’n Low- him taking any credit for my death is too much. In actual medical fact, it’s likely a combination of the two, added to all of the other various radiations and rays and, God, I’ve been exposed to all manner of things over the years. I suppose I should be grateful I haven’t been sprouting any extra eyes, through the years, or been rendered impotent.

ID: Uh

S: That is not an invitation to probe that subject deeper.

ID: Okay, but I'd like to probe your relationship with Lex Luthor, if we could. The two of you have known each other a long time- LuthorCorp's regional headquarters is in the same county where you grew up. If you can believe the WB show, you were actually friendly growing up.

S: The show's a bit more Dawson's Creek than my adolescence was, but yes, Lex and I knew each other, once upon a time.

ID: I wish he was in the room, because I'd love to ask him what you were like as a teenager, too, but what was he like?

S: Lex was Lex. A lot of his insecurities and frustrations were still only boiling at that point- rather than boiling over- but he was still brilliant- still self-absorbed, still ambitious and perhaps a little unbalanced. But he was nicer, then. He cared about people; I think, probably somewhere, deep down, he still does, but on his agenda anymore they rank so low as to be considered just pieces in a chess game, worth his consideration only so long as they retain some value to him.

ID: You have a grudging respect and disappointment for Lex, and some editorialists, perhaps sponsored by Luthor, have theorized that it's out of intimidation for Lex's mind. But I've also heard, mostly in gossip, but still, I've heard it often enough and from enough sources to know that you dabble in science, and not just human sciences, but with some of the Martian and Kryptonian tech you have access to. These same rumors say that you're brilliant in your own right, without ever going so far as to quantify. So just how smart are you?

S: Seriously? I've never taken an IQ test, or anything similar, but I've tried my hand at some quantum physics, but frankly my schedule rarely stays clear long enough for me to delve too deeply into intellectual pursuits.

ID: Okay, what about sudden world harmony. Maybe John Henry Irons figures out how to replicate Green Lantern technology across the world, eliminating all resource-related problems; virtually all globaly conflict dies, as no nation is capable of eliminating any other (or any of its own minorities). Basically, you and every other superhuman gets to retire. Do you see yourself retiring to your Fortress of Solitude to finish important scientific things?

S: I don't know. I think, because I didn't find out about my heritage until I was older, that I didn't get into science in the same way as I might have. And by then, I'd really gotten obsessed with watching humanity, and watching over them.

I guess I'm enough of my father's son that I've always wanted to try. I really was blessed with my Kryptonian father's mind, at least in general, and I think I have an innate analytical skill that I certainly never honed.

But it's always been an itch, like a person who picks up a guitar and finds out they have a talent for it, but never learns to play. It was sort of what I assumed I'd get up to in my twilight years, when my hair started to gray in a distinguished fashion at my temples.

ID: But now that doesn't seem like an option anymore.

S: No, it doesn't. But I have trouble giving up hope- even if it's fool's hope. I can't help, even when we talk about my death, even when I wake up aching, that in a year's time I'll be reading this interview with a smile on my face at how naïve and premature our predictions of doom had been. And I think, given time, science or whatever would catch up to me, and the chances of my dying would decrease substantially- but of course, time is the one thing I may not have. And maybe that's it- maybe time is my kryptonite, now.

We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Monday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.

Free Press

Superman: [I know this isn’t our] usual process, but I want to say something: it’s good to be free.

Invader Dim: Care to, uh, qualify that?

S: Sure. I’ve been working for the last several months, really, going back to fall of last year, on a series on homelessness in Metropolis, and the implications it has for the rest of the country and maybe even the rest of the world.

Homelessness is an important issue, but because of my failing health, I’d grown… concerned that it was a story I wasn’t going to have a chance to finish. I found myself really neuroticizing over it, to the point where I’d wake up in a cold sweat, and my wife would, well, she can be very tender, and she would sit up, watching my sleep. And I’d made arrangements; she was more than happy to take on the story if I couldn’t finish, but it would have taken her months to catch up, to reestablish a rapport with interviewees, to try to get the feel for the story I was trying to tell without taking it over. But all of that worrying, about deadlines, no pun intended, it’s behind me now.

It’s done. I mean, there are a few pages left, I guess, and some T’s to cross, but it’s finished. If there were a Kryptonite meteor heading towards the planet I could finish what’s left in a fraction of a second at my typewriter- but I’m kind of letting it lie for the moment, letting it all sink in.

ID: Well congratulations. But how’s that feel? It’s sort of one less thing tethering you to your life.

S: That’s very true. And if I were at all concerned that it’s my unfinished business that’s kept me here this long, that might be a concern for me. But as important as the issue of homelessness is to me, as personally important as getting this story done was, it pales in comparison to how much I don’t want to disappoint my loved ones, or say goodbye to them too soon.

ID: So does this mean you’re retired as a journalist? Is that your last hurrah?

S: The Planet isn’t hiring, if that’s what you’re getting at- but no. I’ll still take on some smaller pieces, you know, things with a quick turn-around. I’m just done with bigger pieces for the time being; I’d hate to leave unfinished business behind. But journalism, it’s such a part of who I am- and I’m not dead yet.

ID: You seem very passionate about your profession; what do you think is behind that?

S: I think it comes from being a stranger on this planet. The first several years I was here were just completely fascinating. Everything was new and exciting and different, and even though I didn’t know Krypton, I felt how it was- I’m sure that doesn’t make sense. But I was just a baby when I left there, so I don’t have really any concrete memories, but there was a texture and a flavor and a smell that the place had, and Earth was very different- like if your whole life you only knew about vanilla ice cream, and suddenly you discovered chocolate.

But I think because I’ve always been a bit of an outsider, because of where I come from, and because I’ve had to hide so much of who I am, that I spent a lot of time looking in. Observing people, not just to be able to blend in better, but because they fascinated me. They were so different and yet so much like me, the other, as psychologists term it. Reporting, for me, has always been as much about exploring my own humanity as examining specific stories or events.

ID: Okay. You won a Pulitzer for, um, it was the Intergang piece, I think, but what would you say is your proudest journalistic achievement?

S: Journalistic? I’m not sure. The Intergang expose was really important, I thought, but I don’t know. I think the biggest stories are the ones I haven’t been able to break, stories of courage I’ve witnessed from within the League, a lot of which I’ve actually written up, and, now that the cat’s out of the bag, so to speak, about my identity, I’m toying with the idea of letting them publish those memoirs, you know, use the proceeds for public works. But if I had to say my most important literary work, I think it had to do with one of those things I normally couldn’t say. You know, when you’re a reporter, you’re often relegated not to the things you think, or even the things you know, but to the things you can prove. So I felt stymied for a long time, because Lex was always very good about covering his tracks, and keeping himself at arms’ length from suspicion. But when I wrote my novel, I actually got to be more truthful than in most of my reporting, because I didn’t have to pare back to the proveable facts in evidence.

ID: I’ve heard Luthor actually liked "Under A Yellow Sun"- particularly the thinly veiled reference to himself as a villain.

S: That was one of the most surreal moments for me, really. I knew, sort of from the beginning, that there was a danger, satirizing someone as rich and powerful as Luthor. I mean, opposing him as Superman took considerably less courage, because what was he going to do? The world knew I was an alien and had accepted me despite it; there was really nothing he could say or do to get people to stop trusting me as Superman, get them to refuse to accept my help (though not for lack of trying).

But as Clark it was different. He could have hounded me, and my friends, my family, financially. He could have declared fiscal war, made it impossible for my parents to keep up with property taxes on their farm, bought and closed the Planet, sued me, and it wouldn’t matter if I won, he could keep appealing, keep filing. Luthor’s proven himself incredibly adept at destroying people with his money.

And he did none of those things. We were at, God, some kind of a social function, and he came up and made a point to vigorously shake my hand and tell me how much he liked the book.

Now, it’s been suggested by some of the people who’ve heard the story that Lex didn’t get it, that he couldn’t see himself in the flawed and failing Machiavellian businessman. My wife thinks that it was really just an ego thing, that he so adored the idea that that many people would be reading about him, thinking about him, knowing him, that the fact that the last few chapters weren’t about his triumph but his downfall could be easily papered over, because the really important thing was that the story was about him.

And I don’t know, he might be fuming, now that he knows that the man who wrote the book is the same that he’s seen as his arch nemesis, that he’s obsessed over for for years. But I suspect that he isn’t. I suspect that he’s reread the book since my identity came out, that for him it will have a similar introspective quality, that in the writing I learned a lot about Lex just by trying to project myself into his head, and that Lex is, right now, wringing his hands across the cover of that book, trying to climb inside mine.

We’ll be trying to bring you a new section of the interview every Monday. Some of the questions have already been prepared by the interviewer, but to ask Superman a question, leave a comment or send an email to DeathofSuperman@gmail.com.