Razing Cain

Greetings, Constant Readers.  We at the Flashlight usually find Rachel Maddow’s voice grating and her theories trite, but yesterday she finally started making some sense.  Her latest theory?  That baffling Republican frontrunner Herman Cain is not a politician but a performance artist, whose campaign is marked by a string of supposed gaffs “that is not found in nature.”  I’m sure we all remember that Cain’s mantra, which he used most famously in August’s presidential debate, turned out to be from the theme song to the Pokemon movie.  And the source of Cain’s 999 tax plan?  Why, the popular video game SimCity.  But here’s the problem, Constant Readers: Maddow delivered her theory with a smile wry enough to betray the truth.  This lambasting of Cain is just the latest in her attempts to undermine the political right.  She no more believes Herman Cain is a performance artist than she believes he might sprout wings and fly.  But we at the Flashlight do believe it, Constant Readers.  At least the first part.

Is it really that far-fetched?  You need only read Jerry Mander’s “Four Arguments For The Elimination of Television” to be reminded that the invention of television redefined what it was to be a politician, and changed the face of the modern political campaign forever.  How perfectly ironic would it be if Cain was secretly a liberal plant, injected into the Republican presidential race by the far left to discredit the entire party, only to have his satirical campaign embraced by thousands who, despite all logic and common sense, refuse to see Cain’s slow-motion smile at the end of his absurd campaign ads as a knowing one, begging the viewer to get in on the joke.  Or is it something altogether more meta, with whoever’s pulling Cain’s puppet strings trying to shine a light on the absurdity of the whole process by seeing just how far a political joke like Cain can advance in the race for this nation’s highest elected office.

Has MSNBC’s inveterate liberal political commentator finally stumbled upon a story worth talking about?  Time will tell, Constant Readers.  Time will tell.

Otherwise Occupied

Bad news, Illuminators: it appears we are more alone than we thought.  I approached members of the Occupy Los Angeles movement about organizing an Occupy Mason International Event.  I felt sure that of all people, those seemingly-noble crusaders would recognize what we’re up against and throw their considerable weight behind our cause.

But apparently they only see what they want to see.  They think Max Mason’s millions of dollars in charitable donations make him a generous philanthropist instead of a public relations spin doctor.  They think it would dishonor the memory of the people who lost their lives to picket the remains of Mason Tower.  But what they don’t see is, it dishonors their memories to stay silent!  If people don’t know what those innocent victims died for, the cycle will simply perpetuate itself!

To the movement’s credit, they apparently perused The Flashlight quite extensively, but in the final analysis, they described our theories as “mostly insane.”  To that, we say this: we’ve been an active conspiracy site for nearly three years, some of our stories are bound not to pan out.  But we have amassed irrefutable evidence of Mason International’s heinous crimes, so as much as I, too, believe in the mantra “consider the source,” I don’t see how any self-respecting civic protestor could so categorically dismiss our claims.

I guess the next time I need people to boldly take a stand against universally maligned enterprises like book burning and ethnic cleansing, I know who to call.  But if we at the Flashlight intend to oust corporate villains who don’t literally twirl their metaphorical mustaches, we must look only to ourselves.

State of the Ward

As our own investigation attests, there was no dearth of time or effort put into Mason International’s secret San Diego superhero recruitment earlier this year.  What’s surprising, Constant Readers, is that after all of that to do, nothing seems to have come of it.  The long-anticipated official announcement of Max Mason’s new bodyguard has never come.  Does that mean that Mason has abandoned his plans to put a superhero on his payroll?  Not necessarily.

While I was doing everything in my power to infiltrate Mason International’s recruitment drive, Fury of Solace crashed a dinner date between Max Mason and the mysterious Sara Ward, a woman he believed was a shoo-in to become Mason’s latest corporate stooge.  But since the fabled chase through San Diego’s gaslamp district, Sara Ward has been nowhere to be found.  If any of you loyal CI’s has a line on Ms. Ward, please pass it along.  If she’s still alive, we need to know why she dropped off the map.  And if she’s working for Max Mason under the table, keeping him safe from the likes of Fury of Solace who would do him harm, we want to know about that too.

…And Yet So Far

And our findings go ignored yet again. We at the Flashlight got so caught up in the fact that Mason International was lying about its true purpose for being in San Diego that we forgot that, on the surface, attempting to hire superheroes is completely on the up and up. What may or may not have been going on behind closed doors at their testing facility may well have been incriminating, but we didn’t get deep enough into their inner sanctum to find out.

During his trip to San Diego, Fury of Solace did manage to track down a woman called Sara Ward, who is, apparently, the current front-runner for Mason International’s superhuman security gig. And despite the not-so-gentile ribbing we’ve given to “Crisis” host Starla Carter from time to time, we do congratulate her for compiling a handful of video phone clips into a fairly complete, compelling narrative of Solace’s encounter with this mystery woman. We only wish one of the cameras had been close enough to pick up what they were saying.

It seems clear that, soon enough, Mason International will have at least one superhuman in its employ. Unfortunately, at this point, to what nefarious purpose they plan to use said new-hire is left up to our vigilant imaginations. But keep your ears to the grindstone, Constant Readers: Mason International won’t get off this easy.

Beginning of Mason’s End?

Damning Questionairre

Not the Hero They’re Looking For

Corporate Super Schills

Greetings, Illuminators. Today’s entry marks the first ever Flashlight video blog, because what we found in our most recent trip to San Diego must be seen to be believed. Behold… and spread the word!

Superhero Recruitment Drive?

A few weeks ago, Mason International announced that they were going to be exhibitors at the AHA Health Forum Leadership Summit which is being held at the San Diego Hyatt on Comic-Con weekend. That alone (and, you know, Comic-Con) would have been reason enough for me to make the trip. But Fury of Solace attests that the pharmaceutical company is in San Diego for altogether different reasons.

It appears that Fury of Solace’s recent attacks on Max Mason have driven the CEO to seek refuge in the arms of any willing superhero. The Flashlight is in San Diego to find out the truth (and to try to score some of those SDCC exclusives). Stay tuned this weekend, Constant Readers. We’ve got a few surprises in store…

Tower Power Play

…

This doesn’t happen often, but we at the Flashlight are speechless… by now you’ve all heard that Fury of Solace kidnapped Max Mason and attempted to blow up Mason Tower while the CEO was still inside. And if not for the timely intervention of the Orphan, Solace might have succeeded. The Orphan showed up just in time to drag Mason from the ticking time bomb, so all Solace actually succeeded in doing was a significant amount of property damage to Mason’s LA corporate headquarters. His attacks are becoming more and more brazen. It’s starting to feel like none of us is safe…

UPDATE: Tragic news, Constant Readers! Reports initially indicated that Mason Tower had been completely evacuated before Solace’s bombing, but now it looks like there were at least 13 people still inside when the bomb went off, all now deceased! We knew this day would come… Solace is a force to be reckoned with, but his wanton disregard for human life is appalling…