House of Eratosthenes

Hint: Check this sidebar resource. You’ll only have to read a few of his posts to figure out where I’m going, he’s very much into it. As we all should be.

Answer to be revealed Friday…of course.

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The Donner Cut
Monday, January 29th, 2007

Even though it’s just a cursory Google hit, I’m a little surprised it’s only bringing back one result. The joke is so old, the first time I heard it I laughed so hard I kicked the slat out of my crib, y’know?

One day Superman was feeling a bit horny. So, he began to ask his superhero friends for ideas on where he could get a bit of action. “Hey Batman! Who’s good in the sack?”

“Well Superman, everyone knows that Wonderwoman is the best sex in comicland. Why don’t you try her?”, replied Batman.

“I’d love to, but Wonder Woman and I are friends. So I don’t really want to take advantage of her.”

“Darn shame,” said Batman as he waved goodbye to Superman and drove off.

Ten minutes later Superman was flying low over a city when he saw the Green Lantern patching up a building. He flew down. “Hey G.L., I’m looking for a little action. You’re a swinging bachelor, who’s the best babe in comicland?”

“Hey, Superman! Everyone knows that Wonderwoman is far and away the best lay in comicland, why don’t you try her?”

“Well, we’re sort of friends,” Superman said, “but I didn’t realize she had gotten around so much” and he flew off in frustration.

Twenty minutes later he was flying over a field when he saw Wonderwoman lying naked, in the middle of the field, with her legs apart and up in the air.

Superman was tempted. ” MAN !!!” he thought to himself, “I’m faster than a speeding bullet, I can be in and out of there before she even knows I’m here.” So with a blur and a sonic boom he was down, in and gone.

Wonderwoman stared up into the sky with a dazed expression. “What the hell was that??” she exclaimed.

“I don’t know,” said the Invisible Man as he rolled off, “But my ass is killing me.”

I bring this vulgarity up for one reason and one reason alone: It’s not the reference to Superman. It’s the one line from that filthy slut Wonder Woman. Note the two question marks. Note the phraseology: Not “what was that,” but “what THE HELL was that.” This, friends, aptly sums up the nationwide critical response to Superman IV: The Quest For Peace.

Uh, unless you actually paid money to see it in a real theater. And then I think the Invisible Man’s reaction is more apropos.

Whatever. Good movies, bad movies, I’ve always had a soft spot for the Man of Steel. To me, he defines the distinction between DC Comics and Marvel…both of which have long ago been thoroughly infested with left-wing, Gorbachev-lovin’ granola-eating liberals. There are differences you know — Marvel, no matter what the day of the week, no matter what side of the bed the sunbeams hit first…Marvel would never, never, never ever ever, create a superhero like Superman.

Think about it. Does Superman have problems with his public image? Very rarely…and when he does, how much does he worry about it? His public reception, very simply, is not part of the story. He’s even got a Fortress of Solitude to mope around in if he chooses to. Now, put yourself in his boots. If you wanted to slink off, and go ’round all day every day muttering “Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, guess I’ll eat some worms” the F.o.S. is a kick-ass place to do it. And it’s his, and his alone. But does he do this? NO. There’s a danger, or else there isn’t…and if there isn’t, he’s going to be Clark Kent and type away at two thousand words a minute or something. Maybe pay a visit to Ma. If there is…there are planets to be thrown around. Either way, the angst over public image can wait. It goes to the bottom of the Super-inbox.

Uh, that’s not true of Spiderman. Not by a damn sight.

Another thing, Superman is just plain good. According to Marvel Comics doctrine, that dooms his stories to stale flatness; good guys must have something evil about them, and bad guys must have a strain of good, otherwise things get boring. But Superman stories aren’t boring. Not really…he has some Superstinkers here and there. Who doesn’t. Are there no rotten eggs from the X-Men? No sludge from the Fantastic Four? No installments that Daredevil would just as soon wish hadn’t happened? I rest my case.

Irony has its place. There are many among us however, who seem to be in a great big ol’ hurry to embrace irony where matters of good and evil are concerned. Like…we want to pretend it’s there to spice up a story, but the truth of it is we’re cowards. Some of us. Clarity where some people are in the right and others are in the wrong…can be frightening Some of us can’t handle it. It’s like a cross to Dracula.

And so Superman scares some people. Based on what I’ve seen in Marvel comic books, the whole entity seems dedicated to serving people who are so frightened…want some shades of gray with everything, no matter what the circumstances. Because it’s like a security blanket for them.

Anyway.

Back to the subject at hand.

I have been intrigued ever since I saw this review by Moriarty at Ain’t It Cool News.

About That “Richard Donner Cut” Of SUPERMAN II…
:
For non-fans, the question that no doubt comes to mind immediately is “But why do we need an alternate cut of SUPERMAN II in the first place? Wasn’t that one of the good ones?”

Indeed it was. But thanks to the Salkinds, it wasn’t the film that it was originally supposed to be. Basically, SUPERMAN and SUPERMAN II were supposed to be made as one long film at the same time, then cut in half and released as separate films. Donner shot about 75% of the second film before he and the Salkinds hit a creative wall with each other, and he left the project. He ended up finishing the first film, and then they hired Richard Lester to come in and work to shape Donner’s footage into SUPERMAN II and to shoot whatever they had to in order to make it a finished film. That’s the short version of the story, but I’m sure you can find a dozen more detailed accounts if you do a quick Google search.

Okay, now you know the background. My order should be here Thursday at the latest, and I’m thrilled. It’s a whole lot of bang for the buck, for one thing — all the Superman stuff ever to hit the big screen, back to the first Christopher Reeve movie where he makes the world spin backwards. Fourteen discs, with good movies, awful movies, that brand-new one, this long-buried “Donner Cut” and a bunch of other related stuff.

Did you know you can get this for just north of seventy bucks now?

Great Caesar’s Ghost.

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I Doubt It
Sunday, January 28th, 2007

America “squandering the world’s goodwill.” The Religious Right. Open-minded college grads and professors. Repentant murderers. I doubt them all.

Make a good case, and I’ll believe in some of them again. But as things sit now, every single shred I’ve ever been given to believe in such things, in my entire lifetime, has been confined to the realm of instructions on what I’m supposed to be thinking. No evidence, none at all.

I’m ready for some, and until I get it these ideas are indefinitely confined to idea-purgatory. Should’ve done it years ago.

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Why It’s Wonderful To Be A Woman
Sunday, January 28th, 2007

Yeah, I think I’ll keep my junk. Being a man has it’s perks too. But the author does make some good points.

40 Funny Reasons Why It’s Wonderful To Be A Woman

1. When a ship sinks, women (and children) get off first.

2. A woman can hug her best friend without worrying she’ll think she’s gay.

3. Women can talk to attractive members of the opposite sex without having to picture them naked.

4. A woman can never be blamed if it’s wet on the floor around the toilet bowl.

5. If a woman cheats on her spouse everyone will assume it’s because she was being emotionally neglected.

Read the rest…

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If Dr. Seuss Wrote Tech Manuals
Saturday, January 27th, 2007

Texas Scribbler brings us this piece of weekend humor.

If the label on the cable on the table at your house,
Says the network is connected to the button on your mouse,
But your packets want to tunnel on another protocol,
That’s repeatedly rejected by the printer down the hall,
And your screen is all distorted by the side effects of gauss
So your icons in the window are as wavy as a souse,
Then you may as well reboot and go out with a bang,
‘Cause as sure as I’m a poet, the sucker’s gonna hang!

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Kitty Spa
Saturday, January 27th, 2007

Thanks to Boortz we learn about this YouTube item.

Don’t watch with cat lovers in the room. Don’t watch because…you will find yourself surprisingly unable to stop laughing. She’s your girlfriend, isn’t she? She’s known Mister Fluffy longer than you, right? Okay then DON’T CLICK. There will be other evenings you can spend on the couch later on. Sometimes domestic harmony is a good thing.

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“Bush Does This A Lot”
Saturday, January 27th, 2007

Oh he does, does he? And by “this” what we mean is, leaving the “ic” off of Democratic…

Bush misses ‘-ic’ but hits a nerve

WASHINGTON - The president, in his State of the Union address Tuesday night, left out a tiny little suffix that means a whole lot to some people. He did it so subtly you could have missed it. Just a little “-ic.”

Bush started the speech on a bipartisan note, honoring the first Madam Speaker, Democrat Nancy Pelosi, and calling on the country to come together.

Then, “I congratulate the Democrat majority,” he said, dropping the last two letters of “Democratic.”

Bush does this a lot, and while it’s hard to say whether the omission was intentional in this instance, it is a semantic tactic that has been part of Republican warfare for decades. It’s a little thing, a means of needling the opposition by purposefully mispronouncing its name, and of suggesting that the party on the left is not truly small-”d” democratic. [emphasis mine]

Okay now President Bush has been in the oval Office for six years now and maybe my memory is a little rusty. But I seem to recall it being widely accepted as a little bit of a smear, a sign of disrespect intentional or otherwise, if the President of United States was consistently referenced using his surname alone. And I seem to recall that rule held for members of Congress as well. “Guess what Feinstein is up to this time?” would be snide. “Murtha is running his mouth off” would be smarmy. Agree or disagree, you were supposed to be paying due respect to the office if not to the occupant. Congressman. Chair/Chairman. Senator. President.

Our liberals wanted it to work a different way after December of 2000, because they didn’t think George Bush should have won the presidency. As usual, to get them to stop complaining we went ahead and did it the way they wanted, and he’s been “Bush” ever since.

So this tempest-in-a-teapot about “ic” — what is that? Are they saying they want to go back to the old way now?

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On Doofus Dads
Saturday, January 27th, 2007

Not sure where that celebrated piece of Americana, the Doofus Dad, is going from here. Sitcoms are always going to need dads, and their audiences are for the foreseeable future going to remain about 80% female. The audience for “fun family comedy movies,” almost by definition, will always be a hodge-podge…but our ladies have more to say about what fun flick to catch at the box office, than the gentlemen, so those efforts sink or swim based on their appeal to feminine sensibilities.

But I think the pandering to feminine whim, being synonymous with making Dad look like a putz, may be temporary. Juvenile resentment and hostility, even when simmering away beneath a thin disguise of humor, just isn’t funny. And ever since Archie Bunker the Doofus Dad has been subject to far more demand from those who offer him, than by those who consume him. He always needed some kind of a boost, because the audiences never found him inherently funny. It started with a laugh track, then other devices were used to lend the Doofus Dad device some support.

That’s good for the short term. But the Doofus Dad has lasted a generation or two by now. His staying power seems to be derived not from comedic value, but from the avoidance of taboo. As if the wrong people would be highly offended if a masculine character were portrayed in any way other than unreliable and/or incompetent. And yet, by itself how long would this sustain this tiresome, threadbare cliche? The Doofus Dad is thirty-six years old, give or take. Cartoons, summer comedies, family drama — these are environments that give rise to creativity and fresh ideas, perspectives and angles never attempted before. And the environment rewards ingenuity whenever & wherever it pops up. It’s certainly not friendly to stale ideas. Why such never-ending hospitality to this one?

John Tierney’s column in the New York Times from two summers ago offered a veritable bouquet of ideas:

Ward Cleaver has been replaced by a stock character known in the trade as Doofus Dad. Explaining this change isn’t easy, but if Ward were still around, he could puff his pipe and offer several theories.

The most obvious is that the television audience has splintered along gender lines, and sitcoms are now a female domain. Four out of five viewers of network sitcoms are women, and they apparently like to see Mom smarter than Dad.

Another explanation is the rising number of mothers with paying jobs. Now that they have their own paychecks, the old bread-earning patriarch is less essential and therefore more mockable. And TV writers no longer have an easy stereotype of Mom to work with. Jokes about daffy middle-class housewives like Lucy Ricardo and Edith Bunker seem dated now that so many women work outside the home.

Fathers are still the same old targets, and they’re even more tempting now that they’ve gotten a new image as shirkers thanks to widely reported findings about who does what at home. Even though more mothers have outside jobs, women still do about four more hours of child care and four more hours of housework per week, according to studies by the social scientists John Robinson and Geoffrey Godbey.

Ezra Klein offered yet another theory having to do with selective tolerance:

It is, after all, a pretty interesting TV phenomenon. If the majority of shows presented other demographics the way they present fathers, they wouldn’t survive a day. Ignorant blacks? Bitchy, materialistic moms? Moronic, accident-prone dads? The whole set fits, but only the last is widely allowable.

Odd. Maybe white males, as the dominant majority, are secure enough in their power and public image not to mind? Maybe they’re the last demographic group safe to infantilize because, as of yet, they haven’t protested their portrayals? And is it white males, or do the black-acted sitcoms work off the same format?

This last one is not only persuasive, it is provable: Men can withstand humor at their expense, and even laugh at it sincerely themselves. Since the days of Vaudeville, no pratfall is funnier than a swift kick in the balls. That timeless joke about the three guys on the deserted island finding the genie in the lamp — you can tell that to a room full of fellas, and draw a good-natured chuckle or two. Anyone want to go to the “Sex in the City” viewing party, stand in front of the television during a commercial break, and tell the assembled foursome that howler about the bitch with two black eyes? It won’t be quite so funny. Yeah, you’ll bring down the house, just not in a way that you’ll like.

Well, this straight white male can bend and flex like any other, and perhaps he’s even more deserving of humor at his own expense than most other straight white males. I just wish, in the twenty-first century, family comedies were a bit more creative. They are supposed to be, after all; and as the guy who ends up paying for them, I’d like to see a few things I’ve not yet seen before. The Doofus Dad schtick lately has taken on a proclivity for covering everything wall-to-wall. The tedious trope starts while the opening credits are still onscreen, and at the final shot it’s just hit it’s stride, with everything in between just oozing out more of the same. And this is where I start to want my money back. It’s not about outrage or personal offense, it’s about paying good money for creativity and not getting it.

Even the bang-for-buck issue ceases to be worthy of concern once one steps outside my household. It’s just my own wallet, and the wallets and purses of other parents who are paying for witty fresh humor, and receiving paint-by-numbers products in return. Society is impacted only the theme of anti-competition, which because of this is disturbing on a wholely different level. Dad stops whacking himself in the forehead with a rubber chicken long enough to announce his desire that junior do his best. Dad thinks his boy has what it takes to win the ball game, ipso facto, he wants him to win.

As if we were in some religious ceremony, it is compulsory that this simple patriarchal desire stand revealed in the Act Two as something odious, destructive…cancerous. Dad doesn’t even have to insist on superlatives for the ritual to be thrown into high gear — comparatives will get things going just fine. Junior brought home a B- in the same class where he got a C last year. Mom is thrilled, Dad thinks Junior could get a B+ if he tried harder. That’s all it takes; off we go. Angst. Tears. Yelling. Suitcases packed, locks changed, a final monologue chock-full of righteous indignation by a wise “Neighbor Earl” sage character, or perhaps from the Mom. And the all-but-guaranteed “deer in the headlights” look from the errant Dad, straight into the camera lens with the whites all the way ’round the eyes, as he realizes what a raging dumbshit he is. This is all part of the package. None of it brings out genuine surprise in anyone, nor has any of it for the last twenty years or more.

But we treat it as something creative and fresh, because we’re told we should.

That’s a direct assault on the timeless human desire to do things well — a desire required for everything good that anybody enjoys in the world today. It is also, as I see it, an effort to replace fathers as role models. Since the first father ever became one, an instrinsic part of the fathering process has been to propagate ones’ values and prejudices in addition to his genetic fabric. This process is certainly subject to flaw, and much evil has been done through it. From where I sit, Hollywood’s solution is to banish it from human existence, by replacing the life-experiences and prejudices of fathers, with Hollywood’s own sensibilities. If that’s the case, the very best you could say about this is that it’s an attack on something demonstrated here & there to be somewhat harmful — but concentrated on the leafy part of the weed.

But I don’t accept it as something good. Hollywood is Hollywood; I’m a Dad. While my son remains impressionable, and thus required to take on someone else’s set of values and prejudices…he might as well take on mine. So we laugh at Doofus Dad movies. At them…not with them.

Well, he’s nine. Teenagerhood awaits, and then Hollywood can take another crack at ‘im. Some form of father-son conflict, with other parties jumping into the chasm where the wedge was driven…that’s a matter of when, not if. So I wish Hollywood the best of luck in their future conflicts with me. In this initial engagement, they’ve failed.

Cross-posted at RightLinx

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About Jack Bauer
Friday, January 26th, 2007

Via This cool Microsoft security guy, several hundreds of things you didn’t know about Jack Bauer. When he was a kid, Jack Bauer tortured his Mom to find out what he was getting for Christmas. Jack Bauer CAN divide by zero, and he knows the last four digits of Pi, too. You pray to God; God prays to Jack Bauer. Chuck Norris wears a beard to hide the scar he got from Jack Bauer.

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Kermit the Blitz
Friday, January 26th, 2007

Everybody else is posting it, I might as well too.

NO, I do not think the question was “outta line.” But the response certainly wasn’t either. Cheney’s was a class act. There’s a lot of “whodya root for” moments going on out there; this is not one of them.

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Pay As You Go
Friday, January 26th, 2007

According to Pete du Pont, it’s a sneaky way to make Government bigger.

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I’m Only 50% Socially Permissive
Friday, January 26th, 2007

You are a
Social Moderate
(50% permissive)

and an…
Economic Conservative
(71% permissive)

You are best described as a:

Capitalist

Link: The Politics Test on OkCupid Free Online Dating
Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

Oh, and my political ideology is…

What is your political ideology? Your Result: Conservative This quiz has categorised you as a Conservative. You believe in a limited/minimal role in the government to solve social problems, and instead believe economic growth is paramount. It is possible you may identify with the “religious right” as well.
Libertarian
Fascist/Radical Right
Liberal
Social Democrat
Communist/Radical Left
What is your political ideology? Make Your Own Quiz

I consider it a tragedy of dire consequence how “liberal” and “conservative” are being re-defined nowadays, and it’s stunning how lukewarm your ideas can be before you’re called the latter. Just thinking for yourself about what’s admirable, what’s depraved, what is & is not your business…that’s plenty enough to get ‘er done. That’s the C-word.

How do I go about being called a liberal? It seems to take more and more with each passing year. Acting as if the 9/11 attacks never happened, inventing brand-new civil rights for terrorists that never existed for anyone else before, screaming and yelling to have the “rich” taxed more and more, violating the constitutionally-guaranteed right to own guns all over the place — these things are “centrist” now. Treating Thomas Jefferson as some kind of modern Messiah when the discussion is separation of church and state, only to smear and sneer about Sally Hemmings when the subject changes to states’ rights. All this is regarded as middle-o-the-road stuff. Pretty sad, really.

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Nope, That Took Me Completely By Surprise
Friday, January 26th, 2007

The Bond Girl from the latest 007 installment, Eva Greene, is Marlene Jobert’s daughter.

I have To Catch A Spy, and it’s one of my favorite stupid old spy-spoof flicks. Momma acted circles around Kirk Douglas, no mean feat that.

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On Baby Videos
Friday, January 26th, 2007

Did Timothy Noah ever have anything against the baby video industry, before he could connect President Bush to it?

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Best Sentence VII
Friday, January 26th, 2007

From the skinny blonde one Wednesday afternoon. A message for our times, specifically, these first few weeks of the new year…

…polls…are nothing but name recognition contests…’arsenic’ and ‘proctologist’ have sky-high name recognition going for them, too.

Who ever looks back on poll results fondly? Or wistfully? “Gee, I’m glad we looked at that poll.” “Golly, I wish we paid closer attention to the polls.”

They’re right…sometimes. Kind of in the same way a million monkeys at a million typewriters might eventually write MacBeth or something.

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I Wish More People Got This
Thursday, January 25th, 2007

Debating the minimum wage is a depressing experience for me, compared to other issues…like for example, gun control. People who disagree with me about gun control, think if you outlaw guns, you eventually get rid of them. I don’t think it works that way, but I can understand why they would. You want to get rid of guns…you make it illegal to own them…eventually, they’re gone. Okay. Understandable. Simplistic, wrong-headed…but understandable.

Minimum wage is different. I end up arguing with people over whether some third-party’s wages should be “raised”…and I have never quite found a diplomatic way of pointing out what these people are missing. That isn’t what a minimum wage law does. I simply pronounce what the law is all about, and we have to start arguing about that because it sounds like I’m indulging in extravagant fantasy about the long-term future effects of the law. I’m not doing that; I’m simply summarizing what the law is supposed to do. It OUTLAWS JOBS. That is what is written, that is the long-term effect, it is the immediate effect, it is what is done, it is what is supposed to happen. Guy A hires Guy B, if the terms of the contract between A and B don’t fulfill the parameters codified by the legislature, Guy A has broken the law. There are no funds collected, from anywhere, to supplement Guy B’s paycheck — and that is what would have to happen for anyone’s “wages” to be “raised.”

This is breathtakingly simple. It isn’t even logic. It’s just observing what’s happening, and recognizing what the argument is supposed to be about.

Once you recognize that, this article should yield no astonishing surprises, none at all. Yet some people will not only be surprised, they’ll refuse to acknowledge anything meritorious in it. Simply amazing.

Minimum wage hurts those it means to help

After the November elections — with the return of a Democratic majority in the U.S. Congress and the Indiana House — the minimum wage is receiving maximum attention. Applauded as everything from an effective poverty-fighting tool to the epitome of economic justice, a higher minimum wage is popular with politicians and the general public. But economists point to the demographics of the lowest-paid workers and note that small business owners may be unwilling to pay higher wages for the same productivity.
:
In any case, the punch line is that some poor people would be helped at the expense of other poor people — a curious attempt at economic justice and a less than impressive poverty-fighting tool. Those who keep their jobs would be better off while others would lose their jobs. Sadly, the latter would lose what they most need– an earned income and an opportunity to build job experience and skills. Ironically, the minimum wage steps on some of the most vulnerable in trying to help others.

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Whiskey…Tango…Foxtrot… XI
Thursday, January 25th, 2007

Via blogger friend Phil: Self-explanatory. Good thing to remember for later when you see people bickering over whether a demonstration drew ten people or ten thousand.

Germans put price on protesting
They refuse to rally for neo-Nazis, but as long as the price is right a new type of German mercenary will take to the streets and protest for you.

Young, good-looking, and available for around 150 euros (£100), more than 300 would-be protesters are marketing themselves on a German rental website.

Also, “our country’s reputation” with other folks, like in Europe. In Germany, there has got to be a market for this. There would be no market for it at all, none whatsoever, if people just figured out what they figured out without absorbing pre-digested opinions from other people.

No, I’m not going to generalize across an entire continent. But there’s something going on there, and it doesn’t necessarily harbor a good example for us to follow here.

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Yoda Rule
Thursday, January 25th, 2007

My nine-year-old son, who up until now has had the attention span of somethin’ like a hummingbird thanks to those no-good Japanese cartoons, has lately taken an interest in my Centennial collection. I was pleasantly surprised to see him stick out the first two chapters, which make up a good five hours. He pronounced that from disc 3 onward things go into a steep decline and “it gets boring.” But not until then.

I realized he’s right. And there’s a reason for this, that has something to do with where technology was, long before he was born.

In 1978, if something was on TV and you missed it, you couldn’t count on ever, ever seeing it again. So chapters three through twelve shoulder considerably less burden than chapters one and two. Up to eleven, each installment is barely an hour-and-a-half long. In the late 70’s, it was awfully tough to get bored in an hour and a half. I hadn’t noticed this before. Not consciously. Looking back on my experience with my DVD collection, I did find a lot more time for loading the dishwasher and doing my laundry after the first five hours, than during them.

So…I’m watching discs seven and eight and nine, and I’m noticing something that applies to television, movies, and books with other stories. Seems to be a universal trend. Not sure about it yet, I’ll have to chew on it for awhile.

Start with the relationship between a story, and the characters who contribute to it. Strong characters “feed” a strong story. If you have a weak story and you don’t know why, look to the characters who participate in it — usually, you’ll find you have a lot of weak characters. No ground-breaking revelations here; a character is defined to the point where you start to care about what happens to him, and then you read about something happening to him…you want to know more. That’s what makes you want to turn the pages.

So here’s the theory.

Just like a man succeeding, or failing, to capture the love-interest of a lady in the first five seconds after she’s seen him. A character is made weak or strong, almost completely, during his or her introduction. Now as television miniseries’ go, this one is outstanding. Near-perfect. This is perhaps the only flaw, certainly the most serious one: The never-ending mural of “I’m Henry Garrett and this is my son Bealy Garrett” becomes horribly, horribly monotonous.

Can you build a “weak” character, to whom you have given a creative, clever introduction? Can you settle for the bland, unimaginative, “Hi my name is so-and-so” introduction, and from that build a strong character?

I can’t think of an example of either one. Okay, a few kinda-sorta examples…nothing really powerful, to completely blow the theory out of the water. It seems to hold up.

Three ways I can imagine to carry this out:

One. Give the audience a puzzle. Make them do some work. Give them the name first, and drag out a red-herring that gives the impression this name belongs to somebody else.

Two. Distract the audience with a story involving the other characters already introduced…maybe even a story that will, ultimately, come to a dead-end. Fool ‘em into thinking this is a peripheral character, whom ensuing events, and a new storyline, will build into a primary one.

Three. Use an alias. The character masquerades under a phony name, and then very soon after his introduction there is an “Aha!” moment where his real name is revealed.

In the “Hero’s Journey,” the primary character doesn’t need any of these devices; we already identify with him.

Update:
I missed that fourth one, which should have been obvious. The Vader technique. Name second, stature first — with a grand, grand entrance, and an act of homicide in the first few minutes while anonymity still prevails.

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Global Warming Links
Wednesday, January 24th, 2007

Well my goodness, they have been piling up without me putting out even a half-assed effort to keep up with them, huh?

It’s a very important issue for our time. We know the earth is getting much warmer lately, and that man is the only cause of it. If we reform our infrastructure, put so many factories out of commission that the world’s major superpower is corrupting our environment no more than the northern tip of Switzerland, come what may — we just might live. If we don’t, we’ll drown in one bitchin’ tsunami after another.

We know this to be true. How do we know it? Because our Democrats really played up the Mark Foley scandal and they were able to b-a-r-e-l-y take over Congress, so President Bush was cowed last night into saying:

America is on the verge of technological breakthroughs that will enable us to live our lives less dependent on oil. These technologies will help us become better stewards of the environment - and they will help us to confront the serious challenge of global climate change. [emphasis mine]

So there ya have it. Congressman pervert sends nasty e-mails to page boys…new Congress…President says something…Presto. That’s the way we know things. Kind of reminds me of what Tommy Lee Jones said in Men in Black…a thousand years ago we knew the earth was the center of the universe, 500 years ago we knew the earth was flat and 5 minutes ago you knew we are alone in the universe. That is pretty much it. We “know” the earth is heating up and we “know” it’s our fault.

A few days ago I pulled this off the Wikipedia entry for the Weather Channel. I saved it because it looked useful, and in my opinion it did not comport with NPOV, the Neutral Point-of-View doctrine that is central to Wikipedia’s quality standards. See, I like NPOV myself, but I don’t think things have to be NPOV to be useful. You hear from both sides, however irrational and bigoted they may be, you’ll learn much more than if you just stick to the middle of the road.

But Wikipedia is not the place for this kind of practice. So it was easy to see, this was going to go away. So I saved it. Sure enough, it’s no longer there.

Controversies

On December 21, 2006, Dr. Heidi Cullen posted JUNK CONTROVERSY NOT JUNK SCIENCE… in The Weather Channel’s web site. Dr. Cullen’s posting took the position that American Meteorological Society (AMS) should strip the certification of any meteorologist that publicly questions that global warming is anything other than a manmade phenomenon. This position of marginalizing meteorologists who argue that recent weather variations may have a natural explanations struck many scientist as politically motivated and flawed. While Dr. Cullen and The Weather Channel denied any political motivation, the position generated significant editorial comment. JUNK CONTROVERSY NOT JUNK SCIENCE…

The move away from scientific forecasting of the weather to sensationalized leftist political advocacy is in part due to the influence of Wonya Lucas, executive vice president and general manager of The Weather Channel Networks. Lucas admitted in a recent interview with Media Village that the reprogramming of The Weather Channel was influenced by her tenure at CNN when that network shifted from presenting straight news to personality-driven programming. The Weather Channel Takes on Global Warming

I saw that one coming. What surprised me, was the scolding tone of the person who I’m assuming was responsible for the removal. He could be talking about something else; I hope so.

We have an anon IP who is continually inserting right-slanted edits into the section on the 2007 blog controversy. For what it’s worth, while conservatives seem to be trying to make this into a cause celebre (and there is some indication that this may be an astroturf campaign), the vast majority of the scientific community considers it to be a right-wing temper tantrum and therefore a tempest in a teapot. It also does not help that said anon clearly lacks the scientific background to be making knowledgeable contributions to this section — no, you’re not required to have a PhD, but a back-of-the-envelope understanding of the basic issues involved (as well as a firm grasp of the scientific definition of “theory”) would go a long way towards knowing what is needed to comment knowledgeably.

As it is, the article fails to reflect both that anthrogenic global warming is in fact the accepted scientific consensus, and that the vast majority of Dr. Cullen’s critics are coming from the right side of the political spectrum. Thoughts? [emphasis mine]

If this is the fellow responsible for removing the section quoted above, I approve of the action but strongly deplore his reasoning. Since my objection is to the reasoning, I don’t suppose it very much matters whether there is any connection at all between the Wonya Lucas tidbit, and Mister “back of the envelope” boy. His is an exercise in Clean Thinking, which over the long term is responsible

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We RememberTuesday, January 30th, 2007

The Donner CutMonday, January 29th, 2007

I Doubt ItSunday, January 28th, 2007

Why It’s Wonderful To Be A WomanSunday, January 28th, 2007

If Dr. Seuss Wrote Tech ManualsSaturday, January 27th, 2007

Kitty SpaSaturday, January 27th, 2007

“Bush Does This A Lot”Saturday, January 27th, 2007

On Doofus DadsSaturday, January 27th, 2007

About Jack BauerFriday, January 26th, 2007

Kermit the BlitzFriday, January 26th, 2007

Pay As You GoFriday, January 26th, 2007

I’m Only 50% Socially PermissiveFriday, January 26th, 2007

Nope, That Took Me Completely By SurpriseFriday, January 26th, 2007

On Baby VideosFriday, January 26th, 2007

Best Sentence VIIFriday, January 26th, 2007

I Wish More People Got ThisThursday, January 25th, 2007

Whiskey…Tango…Foxtrot… XIThursday, January 25th, 2007

Yoda RuleThursday, January 25th, 2007

Global Warming LinksWednesday, January 24th, 2007

We Remember
Tuesday, January 30th, 2007

The Donner Cut
Monday, January 29th, 2007

I Doubt It
Sunday, January 28th, 2007

Why It’s Wonderful To Be A Woman
Sunday, January 28th, 2007

If Dr. Seuss Wrote Tech Manuals
Saturday, January 27th, 2007

Kitty Spa
Saturday, January 27th, 2007

“Bush Does This A Lot”
Saturday, January 27th, 2007

On Doofus Dads
Saturday, January 27th, 2007

About Jack Bauer
Friday, January 26th, 2007

Kermit the Blitz
Friday, January 26th, 2007

Pay As You Go
Friday, January 26th, 2007

I’m Only 50% Socially Permissive
Friday, January 26th, 2007

Nope, That Took Me Completely By Surprise
Friday, January 26th, 2007

On Baby Videos
Friday, January 26th, 2007

Best Sentence VII
Friday, January 26th, 2007

I Wish More People Got This
Thursday, January 25th, 2007

Whiskey…Tango…Foxtrot… XI
Thursday, January 25th, 2007

Yoda Rule
Thursday, January 25th, 2007

Global Warming Links
Wednesday, January 24th, 2007