microfish

Do I Know What I'm Doing?

2010-04-06T12:25:00.006-04:00

Been waaay too busy to blog lately, but I've been irritated about something for two weeks now, and I think the reason I haven't been able to shrug it off is I never got to vent about it. So here it goes:

A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine in L.A. working on some cupcake show for the Food Network recommends me to this producer. She needs a field producer/camera op team in Orlando, so she calls me up and the first thing she asks is if I can recommend anyone.

Well, as it happens, the particular day she needs someone, I have a class to teach, so I'm not available, and I assumed by her asking me if I could recommend anyone that she's aware I'm a coordinator, not a field producer, and got my name as someone who knows local Orlando crew and can make an informed recommendation. So I say that: "Well, I'm not available myself, but let me give you some names."

She doesn't let me get that far. "Really? You sure you're not available?"

"Well, yeah," I say. "I teach a class."

"Well, this will only take an hour. It's REALLY simple. We can work around your schedule. Anytime on that day, one hour tops."

I pause for a second, deciding if I feel like doing it. "Okay, sure. I'll do it."

"Great," she says. "And you know some shooters? You can arrange it all?"

"Yeah, no problem."

"Awesome, you're wonderful, you're the best." She's never met me, but I've found that people from L.A. often talk like this, like they're not used to people doing a good job unless you spew bullshit at them. "Now, one last thing," she says. "I know [my L.A. friend's name] totally vouched for you, but I just have to check. Have you worked reality before?"

"Yeah, I coordinated for Rock of Love, Discovery Project Earth, another reality pilot, and did some AD work with Disney Channel Games."

Long pause. "But you haven't field produced?"

"No."

Another long pause. "Well, how comfortable do you feel about field producing."

Hmm. I've production managed a feature with a budget of almost $1 million, but do I feel comfortable field producing a one hour cupcake shoot? "Completely comfortable."

And then it happened. Another long pause, followed by a deep, condescending breath. Finally: "But do you know what you're doing?" She said it that way you ask a friend "do you know what you're doing" when she's decided to marry the weird guy from Sudan she's only known for a week.

Three minutes ago she was talking me into taking the job, and now she wants to know if I'm a moron. The problem with this question -- do I know what I'm doing -- is there's no correct answer. It's a trap. I could recite the textbook definition of a Field Producer, but I'd sound like an idiot. Just like if someone asked me if I know what I'm doing as an AD (another job I've done many times), my answer would sound idiotic: "Well, I make call sheets. I supervise the crew. I call quiet on the set." See? I sound like a complete idiot, and this is a job I've actually done before. And the thing about "field producer" is it isn't a union job that has one precise definition. What I've seen field producers do may be different from what she's seen field producers do, so if I say the wrong thing, again, I sound like an idiot.

So I give the answer that I think is completely reasonable: "If you tell me what you need, I can do it. No problem."

Another long silence. "Okay, well, let me just run this up the ladder, because you know, the buck doesn't stop with me -- I love that phrase, don't you? Anyway, let me talk to the higher ups and see if this is okay, and either way, I'll call you back tomorrow."

She never called me back, and I knew the second she said it that she wouldn't. An hour later the job was on production notices. That was two weeks ago.

And this is why I hate a lot of people from L.A. Note, I also love a lot of people from L.A. I have many friends there, both personal and professional, so when I say I hate a lot people from L.A., I'm making a dangerous generalization. But the thing is, a lot of people from L.A. assume you're an idiot who has no idea how to do a simple job when instructed. I've experienced this multiple times, where someone from L.A. assumes because they're working with a Florida crew, they need to talk slowly for us.

As a point of balance, I should make clear that the first producer who ever hired me as a coordinator was also from L.A., and she was wonderful to me (I'm talking about you, Rita, if you're reading this!). She never talked down to me and never questioned my ability to function at an intelligent human level. We worked wonderfully together, and she gave me my start as a coordinator, teaching me a lot of what made me successful on subsequent jobs.

Now, I have no problem with someone wanting to hire an experienced field producer instead of a coordinator looking to get an afternoon paycheck, but there's a way to go about that. First off, when you call them, your first question is, "Are you an experienced field producer? Because that's what we're looking for." You don't string them along for a few minutes then ask, "Do you know what you're doing?" Also, don't tell them you're going to call them back when you know you have no intention of calling them back.

I wasn't seeking this job and don't care that I didn't get it, but I don't appreciate being treated like a child by someone who called me.

Look at that. I feel better. :)

If I were in charge of Team Conan . . .

2010-01-15T20:18:00.001-05:00

Between my teaching schedule, post-production on my feature, and preparing for fatherhood, I've had little time to blog of late, so unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to rant substantively about the latest NBC debacle. It's now all but certain that Conan O'Brien will no longer host the Tonight Show, but the question remains of what Conan will do next.

I have a few ideas. What follows is my 4-step plan for Conan O'Brien to emerge the clear-cut winner from this tawdry Jeff Zucker (the Z is pronounced like an F) inspired episode:

Step 1. Appear on The Late Show with David Letterman on the same night that Jay Leno returns to the The Tonight Show.

Nobody really likes Leno, but audiences might turn out in big numbers for his return, if only out of curiosity. It'll be months (if not a year) before Conan gets a show of his own, but what's more buzz-worthy than Leno's two late night victims together on one show, commiserating over NBC's idiocy? If Conan appears on Letterman the night of Leno's debut, I dare say the Late Show's ratings would trounce the Tonight Show's and send a big message to the NBC brass: we got the last laugh.

Step 2. Produce a web series.

Again, it'll be six months to a year before Conan can launch on another network or on cable, but if this Team Conan uprising has proven anything, it's that the internet loves Conan. I see a lot of people asking, "Will anyone care about Conan by the time his new show is up and running?" Of course we will! Because we'll be posting his viral videos on our Facebook pages and tweeting them to our friends. Conan and Andy could do a whole Clark & Michael thing about the struggles of developing a new series. It'd be hilarious and keep Conan in our hearts.

Step 3. Write a book.

Conan isn't really a comedian; he's a comedy writer, and he could knock a book out in no time, if he really put his hair to it. If Conan can churn out a hilarious tell-all about his mistreatment at NBC, it's a sure best-seller. Ol' CoCo could have an internet sensation AND a New York Times bestseller by Christmas.

Step 4. Get a new show.

Well, obviously. No doubt, Team Conan is hard at work on this last one. Whether it's on FOX or cable, however, Conan should reach more than a new show. He needs a new show. He needs to really push the envelope. In inheriting the Tonight Show, Conan was shackled by the expectations of a long-established brand. With whatever comes next, he has to create a show we've never seen before. He has to give us the show worthy of the hype and the buzz it can surely generate. The fact is, no matter where Conan ends up, he won't make the cash he would have made at the Tonight Show, but he can still reach far beyond Jay in terms of cultural impact. Well, waking up in the morning leaves more of a cultural impression than Jay Leno, but you know what I mean.

Step 5. Bask in the glory.

If Conan can manage all of the above, NBC will rue the day they let the red-haired menace out of their stable. And really, what else can any of us ask for than pain and suffering for everyone at NBC?

Hilarious Avatar/Big Mac advertisement.

2009-12-31T13:35:00.000-05:00

Has anyone else seen this mega-retarded Avatar/Big Mac cross-promotional web ad? Not sure why, but after seeing it for the first time, I literally could not stop laughing for about five minutes. If you've seen the movie, you know just how incredibly inappropriate is this juxtaposition of industrial food product with the landscape of Pandora and the noble Na'vi. Oh, I love America.

What's the matter with theme parks these days?

2009-12-22T22:23:00.000-05:00

I snapped the photo above today on the New York set at Universal Studios Florida. If something doesn't look right to you, it's because it's supposed to look like this:

Back in 1990, when I first visited Universal for my 10th birthday, the thrill of the place was the illusion of a behind the scenes look at movie magic. Look! It's New York! But it isn't! It's the movies! This is how movies are made! I say illusion, of course, because there was never much movie magic happening at the Orlando theme park. Still, for a kid from Florida, walking toward the New York Public Library from the theme park entrance felt like peeking behind the curtain of the great and powerful Oz. Look! This is what movies can do!

I used to get the same feeling walking into Disney/MGM Studios (now Hollywood Studios) and seeing Grauman's Chinese Theatre. Remember this view?

Well, you'll never see it again because Disney decided to hide it behind a big ass hat.

What's the matter with theme parks these days? Why do they so willfully and blatantly ruin their own illusions? I rode Rip, Ride, Rockit today, and it's a great roller coaster, but you can't tell me engineers couldn't find a way to make a great coaster without ruining Universal's New York set. And if they couldn't, then they should have torn the set down. As is, it looks retarded. Look at the way the yellow line in the street swerves idiotically. This is just bad design.

Theme parks are about more than thrill rides. They're about a theme, and crappy design choices like running coaster track around the Guggenheim or blocking Grauman's with a big ass hat destroy the illusion of the theme and diminish the experience for guests. I wish the people behind these choices would get that into their thick skulls.

My AVATAR Review

2009-12-21T14:41:00.004-05:00

In this promotional image, Pocahontas sings "Colors of the Wind" to Captain John Smith, disguised here as one of the Na'vi.

I'll be honest here and say that I didn't even want to enjoy James Cameron's Avatar, mostly due to the film's promotional campaign. It really hit a low point when Fox ruined an episode of Bones by having the characters talk about how awesome Avatar was the whole time. My instinct told me that any film trying that hard to convince me through advertisement that it was going to change cinema forever probably didn't have the goods to deliver. It seemed to be the strategy of a stinker: get everyone in the first weekend, because word-of-mouth is gonna sink us.

Well, I'm here to give my verdict, and the verdict is this: Avatar is going to change cinema forever. Go see it. In IMAX 3D, if at all possible. Like right now.

THE GOOD

Avatar is more like dreaming than watching a movie. Watching it in IMAX 3D (which I propose is the only real way to experience the film) was unlike any cinematic viewing experience I've had in my life. All that was missing was the smell-a-vision and moving seats, otherwise, I was transported -- fully transported -- to another universe for 161 minutes. When the movie ends, again, it is more like waking up from a dream than finishing a movie. I was almost disoriented, feeling (much like the movie's hero Jake Sully) as if I was emerging from a world more real than my own.

The visuals are truly astounding. You'll probably hear people say something like "the special effects were great." Slap those people. Referring to Avatar's virtual reality as "special effects" is like boiling down a Renaissance painting to its clever illusion. Cameron hasn't created special effects here. He's created an entire planet you've never seen before, in incredible, lush, sensorial detail. The IMAX 3D experience makes wonderful use of this: I found myself frequently leaning one way or another to try to look around a tree or over a bush, only to remember that movies don't work that way.

I have no idea whether these visuals would hold up on a regular screen without the full immersion of IMAX or without 3D or on a DVD at home. My guess is that in any of these venues, the film would still look impressive but the wonder and amazement of the experience would be significantly diminished. If you're curious about this film at all, if you've ever said to yourself, "Eh, I'll catch it on DVD," go see it in IMAX 3D. Seriously. You won't regret it.

From here on out there may be ***SPOILERS***:

THE BAD

Bad is too harsh a word for any of the following critiques, but here I'll address a few of the movie's relative weaknesses. This is not a groundbreaking screenstory by any means. In the hands of a lesser director, the story on its own merit might be worth a viewing, but it wouldn't break any new ground. A lot of people have already mentioned the Dancing with Wolves connection, and the comparison is apt. The plot is virtually identical to Dancing with Wolves and any number of other films like it. It's conventional and incredibly predictable. You can see every Setup and Payoff coming from a mile away. When we see the big, red dragon-bird for the first time, for instance, we know Sully will end up riding it. Again, this isn't bad -- we're dealing in classic Hero's Journey material here -- but science fiction of this kind is ripe for more original storytelling, and Cameron could have thrown in a few surprises for his audience to make the story told as compelling as the telling of it.

The bigger problem with the narrative is the initial scenario that motivates the entire plot. It's odd that a movie with such a believable imagined world has such an unbelievable inciting premise. Supposedly Earth is so stripped bear of natural resources that humanity has traveled what must be a dozen light years or more to the planet Pandora, where an evil corporation with the help of the Marines plans on mining a mineral known as "unobtainium" (I literally giggled when I heard the name) that promises salvation for our own planet. Unfortunately for the Na'vi, the most concentrated site of this potential energy source is under the Home Tree, where the Na'vi live. In hopes of working out a deal with the Na'vi, we've developed technology to psychically inhabit biological avatars that will allow humans to become members of the Na'vi. All of this is ridiculous as a plot device. With the resources it would take to mount such a mission to Pandora -- the time, money, and energy -- surely humanity could come up with an easier solution to their own ecological problems than burning down a giant tree on a distant planet for the "unobtainium" it hides (still giggle at the name).

The good news is that the silliness of all of this doesn't really matter. After all, the movie's an allegory, and these logical flaws don't get in the way of appreciating the greater truths the film seeks to address. You're along for the ride from the moment the movie starts, so it's unlikely these little bumps will affect your experience.

THE UGLY

As I've said, Cameron's composed an allegory here, and it's worth exploring the implications of that allegory. There's a lot of really positive stuff here: respect for the environment, respect for ethnic diversity and culture, spiritual openness, what have you. However, there's no escaping the fact that Avatar boils down to a white racial fantasy in which a white oppressor switches sides, not only to become an accepted member of the oppressed minority, but to become the leader of this exotic ethnic group.

[I never posted a review of Princess & the Frog, but I had similar issues with it. I absolutely loved the film but was also uncomfortable with the fact that Disney's first African-American story placed such a profound emphasis on the power of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps through hard work.]

This actually cuts to the heart of one of the problems I had with Titanic. Aside from the fact that Cameron marginalized the deaths of 1,517 real, historic victims to tell a fictional love story, he also exploited the conditions of the poor to tell the entertaining coming-of-age journey of a spoiled, rich, white aristocrat. Look! She's dancing with the poor people! She's redeemed!

The racial implications of Avatar don't bother me nearly as much as the class implications of Titanic, partly because in Avatar, Cameron really is trying to relay a message of ethnic sensitivity and inclusion, and that message is effective. Likewise, I'm okay with white filmmakers working out white racial guilt through their fantasy films. Dreams are the proper place to work out our neurosis, after all, and as I've already said, Avatar is more dream than motion picture. Discussion of such implications is still important, however, lest we all buy into the fantasy that the world is in need of our brand of salvation. That, I fear, may be an unintended message relayed by the film, particularly for those not sophisticated enough to deconstruct the myth.

The word is that Cameron has two sequels in the works. If they're as compelling as Avatar, I can't wait to see them.

I've Finally Arrived: My First Negative RateMyProfessors Rating!

2009-11-16T01:15:00.001-05:00

I won't say it didn't sting my ego, but in a weird way, I feel like I've sort of passed through some threshold of initiation: I've finally received my first bad review on RateMyProfessors.com. Well, technically speaking, I received one low rating before, but the student who gave it to me actually came to me after class and explained that she'd meant to give me a good rating but misunderstood the rating system and her review itself was very sweet. So this was my first legitimate negative rating.

Easiness? 2! Helpfulness? 2! Clarity? 4 -- well, hey, that's something. And the review:

He made a class that I was looking forward to, into the class that I dread going to. He is pretty negative, and only agrees with the people that have his same taste.

I'll admit I laughed giddily at that last bit, as I've never disagreed with a student's opinion or point-of-view, and I've made it explicitly clear that the films I screen are not chosen as a matter of taste but to illustrate specific issues being covered in class. Liking or disliking the films is irrelevant. I only ask the students to engage the films on the issues being discussed. As for negativity, well, I'll admit that I've frequently found myself at the end of my rope with this particular group of students. There's a fantastic minority who are there to learn and make a real effort, but a huge majority of the class has been rude, disinterested, and unengaged. I've had to scold them a few times like a naughty study hall because of it, which I'm sure hasn't exactly endeared me to them.

The only part of the review that really bothers me though is the low helpfulness rating, especially since I've stayed late week after week answering student questions, reviewing test materials, and even giving those who've asked for it academic or career advice. I've never once turned a student away because I was too busy to help them. And this particular review was posted the very day that I announced a set of grading policy changes that would benefit the entire class, so I feel like the 2 in helpfulness was hitting a little below the belt.

Oh, well. I guess that's just the name of the game. I'd be lying if I said I enjoyed teaching this class (Cinema Survey) or teaching in this environment (Rosen School of Hospitality) as much I've enjoyed my other teaching experiences, so maybe that has had an effect. I guess I can take comfort in the emails I've received from students telling me they've enjoyed the course and appreciate the effort I put into it, and remind myself that next semester, I'm back to teaching the classes I really enjoy in more familiar turf.

You can't win 'em all, so I'd better make peace with that now as I pursue a full-time faculty position.

Moon River, wider than a mile.

2009-11-13T18:50:00.000-05:00

Been swamped lately, with no time to write (really crimping my efforts at becoming a star of the blogosphere). But in honor of this:

. . . I thought I'd post this:

Thanks to Jon Friskics for clipping the cool HuffPost headline.

Time-Travel Adultery Pact (an open letter to my wife)

2009-11-04T01:00:00.000-05:00

Dear Angelyn,

You've probably heard that some couples have celebrity "freebie" lists, as popularized by Friends episode 3.05, "The One With Frank Jr" (Ross: "Ah, the heart of every healthy relationship: Honesty, respect, and sex with celebrities"). Now, I am now about to suggest we draw-up such a list of contemporary celebrities, but I believe I've come up with an equitable compromise.

I propose that, should time-travel become possible, I will permit you to sleep with Pierce Brosnan from 1984 (or season 3 of Remington Steele, by which time he'd moved beyond the helmet hair of season 2), if you will allow me to sleep with Stevie Nicks from 1977. Now let me be clear. This offer is available on a time-travel basis only. Under no circumstances will you be allowed to sleep with 2009 Pierce Brosnan, as I certainly have no desire to sleep with 2009 Stevie Nicks. I think we should also agree that this is a one-time deal. No drawn-out time-travel affairs allowed. Those would surely strain the fabric of our marriage and the space-time continuum. However, the offer has no expiration date. Should time-travel become possible at any point in the future, we may embark on this quantum fantasy together.

Normally I would never advocate for adding adulterous adventures to our relationship, but you kinda gotta figure, if science produces a stable method of time-travel in our lifetimes, this is sort of meant to be. Please think over this proposal and get back to me with any alternative suggestions you may have. I would also be willing to allow you to sub Tom Selleck from anytime 1980-1988, should you see fit to do so.

Thank you for your kind consideration.

Much love,

Your Husband

Don't stand too close to The Naked Man (Claude Lévi-Strauss, 1908-2009)

2009-11-03T23:59:00.000-05:00

Famed French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss died today at the age of 100 (and only a month short of 101!). Like his more popularly-known contemporary, Joseph Campbell, Lévi-Strauss spent his life working among the myths of human civilization, seeking and identifying the universal connections that tie all cultures together. He helped to pioneer structuralist theory, and in turn sparked the reaction from such writers as Foucault, Barthes, and Derrida that resulted in the post-structuralist revolution (the kind of thinking you're probably referring to when you use the phrase "post-modernism").

“French society, and especially Parisian, is gluttonous,” Mr. Lévi-Strauss responded. “Every five years or so, it needs to stuff something new in its mouth. And so five years ago it was structuralism, and now it is something else. I practically don’t dare use the word ‘structuralist’ anymore, since it has been so badly deformed."

Gotta love the French.

I have long loved (and failed to understand) Derrida, but being relatively unfamiliar with Lévi-Strauss's work, I have found it difficult to understand Derrida's frequent references to his structuralist forebearer. Lately, as I've begun to immerse myself in the study of mythology and narrative structure, I've been getting the itch to finally read some of Lévi-Strauss's work myself. I'm thinking of starting here.

Shock the Monkey: NASA plans remake of 1987 Matthew Broderick vehicle PROJECT X.

2009-10-29T21:35:00.002-04:00

DiscoveryNews reports that NASA will now begin using monkeys in radiation studies for the first time in decades, in order to "understand how the harsh radioactive environment of space affects human bodies and behavior and what countermeasures can be developed to make long-duration spaceflight safe for travelers beyond Earth's protective magnetic shield."

Between 18 and 28 squirrel monkeys ("which will not be killed," according to the report) will join the pantheon of animal space heroes by being irradiated as part of the research. This reminds me of a movie I used to watch a lot as a kid called Project X, starring Matthew Broderick and Helen Hunt. In Project X, Broderick plays a young Air Force officer assigned to teach chimps how to fly simulators. What he doesn't know is that the chimps are eventually irradiated to test how long they can continue to fly after a lethal dose of radiation. Broderick eventually befriends a chimp named Virgil, who has been taught by Helen Hunt to use sign language. Virgil uses his sign language to ask Broderick for help, and eventually, all the apes are set free and fly to Florida. Yes, they really fly themselves to Florida.

In any case, I'm aware that Saimiri sciureus does not come close to exhibiting the intelligence of Pan troglodytes, but irradiating the little buggers still seems kind of senseless to me. In the 64 years since Trinity, haven't we pretty much established the effect of radiation on human beings? What's left to learn?

"The beauty of this is that we can assess at different time points after exposure, so not only do we get a sense of rather immediate effects, but then we can look again at longer time points," Bergman said. "That kind of information just hasn't been available."

The beauty of this. The beauty of irradiating helpless monkeys. I dunno. I'm just a kid ethically indoctrinated on bad Matthew Broderick/Helen Hunt movies, but that seems like a poor choice of words to me.

Note: this is not the real Project X trailer, but a recut marketing the film as a comedy.

Your Message Here: How Media Saturation is Taking Over Childhood

2009-10-29T19:40:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, I wrote about the dangers of allowing children under the age of two to watch television. Today, I feel it necessary to add that it might also be a bad idea to allow children ages 2-5 to watch 32 hours of television per week.

The Nielsen Company reports that television viewing among young children has hit an 8-year high (not sure how children in 2001 managed to watch more than 32 hours per week, but I blame 9/11). The figure breaks down to about 4.5 hours per day, or 125% over the American Academy of Pediatrics' recommended limit of two hours. Of course, the AAP also recommends against allowing television sets in children's bedrooms, urging parents to watch T.V. with their kids and discuss what they see, advice few parents heed these days. Why should viewing limits be any different?

It is interesting to me that in a culture exceedingly concerned with parental freedom without interference, parents nevertheless cede their children to the outside influence of television for a staggering number of hours per week. There's no question parents have it hard; they have to balance dozens of responsibilities, and television provides a ready distraction for the kids. But at what cost? The average four-year-old absorbs 37% more marketing messages than the average adult. How do you think that shapes their worldview?

U.S. to push bold new national arts initiative! Wait, no, make that Canada.

2009-10-29T18:10:00.000-04:00

It would certainly represent a profound shift in our national attitude toward the arts were we to introduce the kind of initiative Canada has unveiled in Culture Days (read it and be jealous, America).

David Moss, the director of Culture Days, found inspiration for the initiative in Canada's national physical fitness campaigns of the 1970s.

"The benchmark there was that Canadians were less fit than those in other comparable countries. The goal was to increase the level of fitness and ultimately health and to take a level of pressure off government in funding in order to cure people. … Culture Days is a sort of a parallel for arts and culture, a grassroots way to increase support of the arts, whether its moral, financial or volunteer."

Surely the fitness of a nation's culture is intrinsically tied to its awareness and support of the arts. Maybe that says something about the good ol' U.S. of A.

Hate to admit it: I'm ambivalent about hate crime legislation.

2009-10-29T01:05:00.000-04:00

I swear, I'm a good liberal, but I don't understand hate crimes legislation. Don't get me wrong, I'm disgusted by hate crimes and the bigotry that inspires them, but I'm not sure why one kind of pre-meditated violence deserves to be singled out from another for special prosecution. Almost nothing gives me the heebee-jeebees more than agreeing with Republicans, but doesn't hate crime legislation amount to the prosecution of thought crime? At the same time, I'm not really anti-hate crime legislation either. I smiled when I learned that the new bill had passed adding gays and lesbians to those protected under the law. This law feels good to me, but at the same time, it doesn't make intellectual sense. Someone (preferably a good progressive) help me?

Play us a song, you're the piano.

2009-10-28T22:35:00.004-04:00

In this blog, a trio of piano related stories that, frankly, will probably only interest piano junkies, and a Billy Joel interview thrown in at the end for everyone else.

Roll over, Beethoven: How Yamaha's new electronic piano improves upon a 300-year-old instrument. (via Slate)

We begin with a fascinating review of the $20,000 Yamaha AvantGrand digital piano that argues the instrument does for electronic keyboards what Les Paul did for the electric guitar.

Complete with all kinds of educational information about piano tuning I never knew, despite having played piano for 17 years, the article also contains a link to a Disney cartoon about music I hadn't seen since I was maybe five-years-old.

As a player of a Yamaha myself (I own a fairly road-worn, nearly honky-tonk tuned CP-70B), the article reminded me of another bit of Yamaha trivia I read some years back . . . .

Piano A: The story of the world's best loved piano. (via England Piano)

I originally came across this profile of Elton John's 9-foot Yamaha Disklavier DCFIII Concert Grand in 2001. "Piano A," as it's called, is the world's most played and traveled piano. It came into Elton's possession when during a concert warm-up in New Orleans, he stormed off the stage because his piano was too muddy-sounding. His technician called around and found Piano A at a college in town, and it's been Elton's primary instrument ever since. Even the Smithsonian's tried to get Elton to hand it over, but he refused to give it over. Of course, I'm not entirely sure whether the piano's still in service, since this article was written eight years ago, but it's an interesting look at the affection an artist develops for his instrument.

EJ performs "Indian Sunset" from 71's Madman Across the Water on Piano A:

Note by Note: The making of Steinway L107.

And speaking of the relationship between an artist and his instrument, I caught the above documentary on PBS a couple of weeks ago. The doc shows not only the hand-craftsmanship that goes into building every one-of-a-kind Steinway piano, it also reveals the process through which some of the world's greatest pianists come to pick their particular instrument.

Just the Way He Is. (via the New York Times)

And that brings us to Billy Joel, himself a player of Steinway pianos. This is an old piece accompanying Billy's farewell sendoff to Shea Stadium, but it's a very human portrait of one of music's most popular piano men. He even reveals that one of his favorite songs is one of mine.

Billy plays one of his favorite songs, "Summer, Highland Falls," on Conan O'Brien:

Baby Eisenstein, or making your baby stupid through educational videos.

2009-10-28T20:45:00.000-04:00

I've long thought Baby Einstein videos were better suited to exposing infants to montage theory than to teaching them their letters or numbers. Despite the fact that all known science and research has demonstrated for some time that children under the age of two cannot benefit (but might suffer significant harm) from visual media, the world was suddenly surprised by last week's news that Disney is offering refunds for the supposedly educational videos.

It didn't take a genius to recognize that the video series created by Julie Aigner-Clark had no basis in sound developmental science, despite its many claims to the contrary. Just take this interview from 2005, in which Aigner-Clark admits:

"Everything I did in the first videos was based on my experience as a mom. I didn’t do any research. I knew my baby. I knew what she liked to look at. I assumed that what my baby liked to look at, most other babies would, too."

Babies will also eat cat poop out of a little box if you let them, so maybe their taste is not the best standard by which to judge a video's educational content. In fact, Aigner-Clark didn't even need to conduct her own research to know that her videos were bad for babies. She could have just trusted the American Academy of Pediatrics when they reported in 1999:

"Pediatricians should urge parents to avoid television viewing for children under the age of 2 years. Although certain television programs may be promoted to this age group, research on early brain development shows that babies and toddlers have a critical need for direct interactions with parents and other significant care givers (e.g., child care providers) for healthy brain growth and the development of appropriate social, emotional, and cognitive skills. Therefore, exposing such young children to television programs should be discouraged."

Angelyn and I have already decided our child will watch no television or videos before his or her second birthday (then it's straight to the Fraggle Rock and Sesame Street). I took a graduate course in early childhood literacy, so I'll try to put into practice the principles I learned in that class. Maybe that makes me snooty, but at least my child won't suffer from an Einstein-like delay in language development.

Bonus "educational" children's video guaranteed to make your child less smart: Your Baby Can Read! -- a series of videos that teaches your infant to "read" through the look-say method.

Told you Grayson was a dick.

2009-10-26T21:09:00.004-04:00

I really, really want to like Rep. Alan Grayson. He's super smart, he's got incredible political courage, and I agree with him on all the fundamental issues. However, there's no denying the guy is also a royal prick:

"Republicans and Democrats slammed Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) for calling Linda Robertson, an adviser to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, a 'K Street whore' in a month-old radio interview that circulated on Capitol Hill Monday night."

It's really a shame. Grayson has the potential to become a Democratic super-star, but his big mouth seems bound to get in his way. No word yet whether Grayson will take to the House floor to apologize to the hundreds of whores on K Street whose pimps don't cover health insurance.

46% of evangelical theologians accept evolution as fact.

2009-10-26T15:40:00.000-04:00

A new paper from BioLogos indicates that 46% of evangelical theologians accept that God created our world through the natural processes of Darwinian evolution, while only 44% believe that the creation account in Genesis must be taken literally and precludes evolutionary belief. This obviously isn't representative of the broader evangelical base, but I find the statistic comforting, nonetheless.

On a sorta related note, today I learned that Noah discovered America.

Hilarious: maybe I'll try this when it's time to pay off the student loans.

2009-10-25T21:20:00.005-04:00

Friend posted a link to this on Facebook (from Just Humor Me):

On Pirates & Princesses: Thinking About How I'll Approach Gender As A Parent

2009-10-25T00:15:00.001-04:00

I consider myself an open-minded guy with progressive attitudes on gender roles in our culture, and I certainly don't want to raise my child to feel restricted by his or her sex. That said, I find myself occasionally recoiling from those who'd wish to eradicate gender identity altogether. As a parent-to-be, I find myself navigating through the philosophies and the data, trying to figure out the best way to raise a well-rounded boy or girl while at the same time embracing their boyness or girlness.

I recently read a fascinating interview at Salon with Lise Eliot, a neuroscientist whose book, Pink Brain, Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow Into Troublesome Gaps -- and What We Can Do About It, offers a parenting approach that seeks to supplement a child's biologically determined sex traits by nurturing complimentary traits more "typical" of the opposite sex. Also at Salon was this interesting story of a group of Swedish school children who filed a complaint against Toys "R" Us for its stereotyped marketing of toys, a common marketing rule that has also been tackled by our friends at Stiletto Revolt. Indeed, it seems like a lot of the gender-neutral parenting movement revolves around allowing boys to play with dolls and girls to play with trucks, neither of which I have a problem with. My question goes deeper: aren't some aspects of gender distinction primal to our being, a kind of call that needs to be answered?*

Here I'm talking about Jungian archetypes, the Monomyth, and cultural rites of passage. If my daughter identifies with fairytale princesses (as many girls do), is that the product of my weak parenting or her participation in the collective unconscious of our culture? I don't want my daughter embracing the passive archetype of the lady in the tower waiting to be rescued by some knight in shining armor, but surely, with our vast historical and mythological library of stories from which to draw, parents can rescue the princess archetype from irrelevancy and use it to empower young girls. Likewise, does raising a son who's nurturing and sensitive necessarily require him to play at princess? Can't masculinity and femininity both evolve and survive?

Full disclosure: I never played sports as a child and never owned a G.I. Joe, but I did play with My Little Ponies. Having been raised in a household full of women, I was probably more communicative and relational than most boys. You could say I had a liberal gender upbringing for a child of the 80s. That being said, there's no denying that my boyness has always defined me as much as their girlness defined my sisters, and those dynamics live on in my marriage to a strong, independent woman who has a deep love of all things girly that couldn't hold my interest for a second. My wife and I aren't gender stereotypes, per se, but we are genders. Is it backward of us to embrace that and encourage it in our children?

Ah, the things we lefties struggle with that never cross the minds of traditionalists.

*Obviously some children/adults reject "the call" of gender of which I speak, and I'm totally cool with that too. I'm not talking about pushing gender identity on a child, but I'm not all about fighting it either. I don't feel the need to shield my children from gender ideas, as long as those ideas aren't restrictive of who they can become as adults.

Permission

2009-10-24T16:00:00.004-04:00

I'm probably the last person on earth to pass this short film along (it's been making the rounds on Facebook all week), but I thought it worthy of attention, anyway. I doubt the video will change any minds, but perhaps it'll produce some empathy.

Having been raised in a conservative evangelical household that taught all scripture was to be taken literally (a concept I no longer subscribe to), I of course grew up believing homosexuality was both a choice and a sin. It wasn't until I took a pastoral counseling class, as part of Young Life's program at Flagler College, that I began to question what I'd been taught.

In that class, as part of a group presentation, a fellow student lead the class through a "guided meditation" exercise, in which we were to imagine ourselves heterosexual in a world where homosexuality was the only accepted norm. We were to imagine the painful cultural pressures to conform, such as the expectation that I'd find a nice boy to settle down with even though everything in me was attracted to women. The experience was transformative, and I left the classroom that day with the conviction that our society's attitude toward sexual orientation was nothing short of archaic.

The video above reminded me of that experience, so who knows, maybe it can change minds.

The difference between news and faux news: a case study.

2009-10-24T15:30:00.001-04:00

My sister and I were having our semi-regular argument about gay rights the other day when she brought up the "news" that California public schools were pushing a destructive gay agenda with a series of bizarre sexual orientation videos aimed at young children. To her credit, my sister saw this as an isolated incident and did not attempt to associate the situation with the gay rights movement in general.

Not an avid viewer of Fox News, I'd never heard anything about this news story, so I looked it up. What I found were some very sketchy sources: lots of blog posts, all reprinting the same press release from ChristianNewsWire; a Bill O'Reilly segment discussing the videos with two other conservative Fox personalities (but no one with first-hand knowledge of the story, no one from California public schools or Youth in Motion, the group allegedly pushing the videos); and finally several other sources that mention the O'Reilly segment but offer no further details or primary sources.

Despite the lack of legitimate news coverage, here's what I was able to establish through five minutes of research: Youth in Motion (a partnership between Frameline and the Gay-Straight Alliance Network) has indeed produced a series of LGBT themed videos offered for free "to student clubs and teachers in middle and high schools throughout California." On the front page of their site, they claim to have "registered" 250 public schools (with no explanation of what registration means), but if you click on the map link, it says "More than 250 student clubs and teachers across California have already registered to receive free DVDs!" It would appear then that no public school boards have approved these videos as part of any curriculum but that teachers and student clubs have registered to receive the free videos. While it is possible a teacher somewhere is showing the videos in his classroom during school hours, I'd argue it is much more likely that most of the viewings are taking place as part of after-hours club meetings, such as gatherings of the Gay-Straight Alliance, a co-sponsor of the videos. In essence, an organization has produced videos for members of its organization, and if you're unhappy your child is a member of the Gay-Straight Alliance, then you probably have bigger parental issues than the videos shown at the meetings of said club.

That being said, I've read the curriculum guide that accompanies the videos, and the guide does inform teachers that, under California law, they are permitted to discuss issues of sexual orientation for the purpose of anti-bias education without parental consent. Youth in Motion clearly hopes to persuade a few teachers to show the videos in the classroom, but I'm reticent to believe that many will. I'm not familiar with California law, but it does not necessarily follow that the freedom to engage the issue of gender-orientation biases in the classroom translates into the freedom to utilize any curriculum a teacher likes to those ends. School board members, after all, are in the business of being elected, and approving the curriculum is a big part of that job.

Frankly, I don't care what videos California school teachers show their 9th graders. This whole story raises an issue of much greater importance to me: how and where we read our news.

ChristianNewsWire seems to be ground zero for the entire story. They open their piece with this: "A San Francisco group billing itself as 'the best in LGBT media' is claiming hundreds of public schools in California have signed up to show its films and use accompanying discussion materials." CNW offers a link to Youth in Motion's website but not a single source validating the organization's claims (and in my view, CNW takes dramatic liberty in translating what YIM claims on its site).

Why is CNW's reporting so shoddy? Because they're not a news source; they're an activist group. Their piece is not legitimate news, it's a press release. Likewise, O'Reilly's piece isn't even responsible opinion coverage. He brings on two conservative Yes-Women from Fox to basically agree with him for five minutes but doesn't interview anyone associated with the Youth in Motion organization or anyone from California public schools and doesn't provide a single useful fact for his audience. Give me a break.

This is why (and this and this) the Obama administration doesn't consider Fox News and their ilk to be legitimate journalistic enterprises. They aren't interested in educating their audience -- they just want to rile them up. Should parents be aware of what their children are being taught at tax-funded schools? Damn straight they should, so go get that story! Don't sit back with your talking heads and blow hot air about a "threat" that may or may not be real. That makes you look like an ass. That makes you look like Fox News.

The Angry Filmmaker

2009-10-24T13:22:00.004-04:00

I'm embarrassed to admit that I'd never heard of Kelley Baker before reading this story, but I'm extremely intrigued by what he has to say about the state of the independent film movement.

"I'm angry with the way the independent film industry works," says Baker. "They all have Hollywood stars and big budgets," which kind of defeats the point of an independent cinema.

Baker, who made his last feature on a budget of $6,000, advocates avoiding indie distributors altogether and following the garage band approach: taking the show on the road and flogging your project at any venue that will take you.

Baker published a book this year called The Angry Filmmaker Survival Guide Part 1: Making the Extreme No-Budget Film. Wish I had read it before making A Beautiful Belly, but it looks like a potential must-read for would-be no-budget filmmakers.

Best $10 we ever lost (or we're having a baby). #fb

2009-10-23T19:10:00.001-04:00

[This post marks the first joint blog between Andrew and his lovely wife Angelyn.]

Several years ago we bet our couple-friends (we'll call them "Bob" and "Nancy") that they'd get pregnant before we would. At stake were ten dollars and our pride. At the time this seemed a smart bet. Andrew wasn't all that into children and "Nancy" seemed like the kind of girl who'd forget to take her pill from time to time (just kidding, "Nancy," if you're reading this). In any case, we were both focused on school and careers, Andrew planning on continuing his never-ending education with grad school and Angelyn just deciding to go back to undergrad to get her poli-sci degree. Surely, "Bob" and "Nancy" would get the urge to breed before we would.

Then a funny thing happened. For reasons unknown to us, degrees and careers grew less and less important and we began to think more and more about babies. Those of you familiar with Andrew's feature (currently in post-production), may have picked up on that trend. Now, nearly seven years into our marriage, we began to ask ourselves whether we could wait out "Bob" and "Nancy" or not. It sort of got to the point where our desire to win the bet was the only real barrier keeping us from starting a family.

Okay, there was more. We aren't independently wealthy (or even independently poor), and neither of us are 100% established in our respective careers. It'd be nice to have saved up some more money, maybe travel Europe once or twice, and at least start paying off our student loans before bringing on another mouth to feed. There are always reasons not to start a family. The more we thought about it, however, the more we realized this: we're both about to turn 29 and we're members of the creative class. It may never get better than this, and really, a lot of families have started out with less.

So exactly five weeks ago, we decided to give it a shot. We consoled Andrew's nothing-ever-turns-out-well disposition by remembering most couples take months to conceive. I guess we come from fertile stock.

So all this is just to say: we're having a baby, and it's the best ten dollars we've ever lost.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: By clicking on our Google AdSense banners, you can help us earn those $10 back! ;-)]

Okay. Don't freak out. Looks like Hulu hasn't lost its mind, after all.

2009-10-23T16:37:00.002-04:00

I spent the afternoon arguing online with a staunch capitalist over Hulu's rumored plans to start charging for their content. Not so fast, says Peter Kafka at All Things Digital:

"Confused? Don’t be. It’s pretty straightforward: Hulu, the joint venture between News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox, GE’s (GE) NBC Universal and Disney’s (DIS) ABC, doesn’t plan on charging people to watch the stuff it’s currently airing on the site–a mix of first-run shows from broadcast TV, a limited number of cable TV shows and a smattering of movies. But Hulu is trying to figure out how to create some kind of premium offering where you’ll pay for stuff that isn’t on the site right now."

Kafka's article outlines the success of Hulu and does a great job of imagining what a Hulu Plus might look like. Such a venture seems entirely reasonable to me, so maybe we panicked too quickly.

I, for one, will not be paying for Hulu.

2009-10-23T10:47:00.003-04:00

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a little rant about Hulu's nonsense release strategy for online content, lamenting that studio execs still don't get new media. My critique may have been a little harsh, given that Hulu is the closest thing we have to a smart corporate approach to combating piracy with free content delivery. As it turns out, however, I completely misunderestimated the sheer level of idiocy driving Hulu's business.

Gizmodo reports that Hulu -- in a scheme worthy of the wicked Stewie Griffin -- will soon begin charging for its content. From Hulu co-parent NewsCorp's Chase Carey:

"It's time to start getting paid for broadcast content online. I think a free model is a very difficult way to capture the value of our content. I think what we need to do is deliver that content to consumers in a way where they will appreciate the value. Hulu concurs with that, it needs to evolve to have a meaningful subscription model as part of its business."

In other words, studio execs created a successful and popular service, one that generates revenue through advertising and persuades its users to watch ads instead of pirating content, and in response to this success, these same studio execs have decided we should now pay for something that's normally free (broadcast content), effectively destroying everything that makes their service popular in the first place.

Carey might as well have shortened his statement to this: "Never mind. Go back to the torrents."

I, for one, will not submit to Hulu's greed.

The most beautiful Youtube video I've ever watched.

2009-10-22T23:05:00.000-04:00

Get these left handed lovers out of your way
They look hopeful but you, you should not stay
If you want me to break down and give you the keys
I can do that but I can’t let you leave

The video below makes me weep, but I can't stop watching it.

Shot on the Canon 5D Mark II (same camera we used to shoot my feature, A Beautiful Belly) by filmmaker Jon Rawlinson at the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium in Japan (the world's largest), the video features a simple wide-angle view of dozens of people watching the whale sharks, mantas, and other assorted rays and fish that inhabit the exhibit, all set to music by Barcelona.

I can't quite put my finger on why this video grips me so, but I find it both exquisitely beautiful and frightfully sad. There's the obvious level of aesthetic beauty — the incredible ballet of awesome aquatic wildlife set to haunting music — but the video somehow speaks of deeper spiritual truths. I've watched it again and again, and each time I experience something new.

See the mundane actions of simple human observers: a child more interested in playing with the retractable belt-stanchions that surround the exhibit than in watching the massive beasts held captive for his pleasure; a woman watching the once-in-a-lifetime spectacle through the low-quality viewfinder of her cell phone camera; a man turning to face a friend, mugging for the camera with "Tricky Dick" peace signs over his head; men in hats who stroll past, almost disinterested; the occasional flash of someone taking a photograph for posterity.

See the boggling multitude of ancient and other-worldly creatures in an endless dance of light and motion: 21,000 specimens swirling in almost 2 million gallons of turquoise water; manta rays that glide like angels and 20-ton sharks as gentle as guppies.

See the awe and arrogance of a staggering achievement of human engineering and aquaculture: we have conquered the unfathomable power of the abyss; creatures that haunted Magellan's nightmares now held prisoner like giant goldfish; eons of evolution reduced to an attraction for tourists, who'll no doubt exit through the gift shop.

The video represents the best and worst of human behavior: our wonder and lack of wonder; our love of nature and simultaneous desire to tame it; the astounding personal sense of freedom we draw from an encounter with the captives of our own imaginations.

I recommend you watch this in full-screen if at all possible. Let it load all the way to avoid unnecessary bumps in playback, and tune out the background chatter of your life. This video is amazing, and you deserve to be amazed by it:

BikiniBible.com: how could it possibly fail?

2009-10-22T19:27:00.001-04:00

My congressman's smarter than your congressman.

2009-10-22T18:04:00.004-04:00

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with Rep. Alan Grayson. The guy's arrogant, brash, and often tactless, but he's also one of the only Democrats in Congress who actually gets why we sent him there. The more Grayson steps up, the more I forgive him his faults and applaud his cojones.

Here he is schooling the GOP on their idiotic (and unconstitutional) legislative attempt to punish ACORN.

Two old guys with very different takes on gay marriage.

2009-10-21T22:31:00.001-04:00

Pat Robertson is once again turning bigotry into an art form with the video below. "I don't really believe homosexuals want to get married," he says, they just want to destroy everything that impedes "their particular way of having sex."

Whether one believes gays deserve marriage equality or not, it is simply hateful to question their motives. Even if you believe gay marriage will destroy heterosexual unions (as absurdly irrational as that may be), it does not follow that the destruction of hetero marriage is the goal of the gay rights campaign. Can we at least be humane enough to assume that the group we're discriminating against wants exactly what they say they want?

To those ends, I found the video below at Current. In it an 86-year-old Republican WWII vet asks, what did he fight for if not equality for all? Very moving.

Cool infographic explains why you and I can't get along.

2009-10-21T20:15:00.005-04:00

Found this via BoingBoing. It strikes me as a fairly balanced and accurate breakdown of liberal vs. conservative thinking. What do you think?

Vic Mizzy, composer of the "Adams Family" and "Green Acres" themes, dead at 93.

2009-10-19T23:23:00.003-04:00

Caught this on Salon:

Mizzy has said that he didn't mind if people only remember him for the finger snaps at the start of the "The Addams Family" theme song. After all, he said "two snaps got me a mansion in Bel Air."

"A Glorious Dawn" by Carl Sagan (featuring Stephen Hawking)

2009-10-19T22:34:00.003-04:00

I love this. Also, Carl Sagan sounds even more like Kermit the Frog when set to autotune:

Google Street View mission as buddy road-trip movie = hilarious.

2009-10-18T19:48:00.001-04:00

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Updated: Taking On Bad Biblical Archaeology.

2009-10-18T19:37:00.000-04:00

This post was originally published on September 29th. See updated portion at the bottom.

An interesting little story has caused a stir in certain circles of the interwebs. An Egyptian newspaper, Al-Ahram, allegedly published a report that archaeologists have discovered Egyptian coins bearing the likeness of the biblical Joseph (photographed above in his traditional technicolor dreamcoat).

I say allegedly, because unless you live in Egypt and can read Arabic, there's no primary source for this report. Instead, it comes to us translated via the Middle East Media Research Institute (or MEMRI) and has since been picked up by various Arab and Israeli news organizations and right-wing wack-job American bloggers. Meanwhile, the story has not been picked up by any re putable archaeology publication, the New York Times, National Geographic, the Discovery Channel, or even Fox News.

According to the report, a group of researchers discovered the coins . . . wait for it . . . in the museum's vault. No word yet on where they really originated. Interestingly, while some American readers are fixating on the Joseph-ness of the coins (claiming them to be proof of the Bible's historical reliability), this was not the focus of the article. In fact, the article takes for granted Joseph's existence, focusing instead on the fact that the find proves that coinage was in use during Joseph's life, a time thought to be dominated by bartering.

Now, I love these kinds of stories because I find biblical archaeology exciting, but it doesn't take a scholar to see the numerous problems with this report. (Before I go any further with this, I'd like to point out that while seeking additional sources for this blog, I stumbled upon this wonderful blog entry by Todd Bolen, a biblical literalist who has dismissed this report using many of the same arguments I'll make here).

The first problem with the report is bad journalism. No dates are given (neither for the age of the coins, nor for the time of their actual discovery), and there's only one source for the story, a Dr. Sa'id Muhammad Thabet, the head of the research project that claims to have found the coins. Also, there's no clear photographs of the coins in question.

In addition to these critiques of the original Al-Ahram story, one should also consider the reliability of the source for the English translation. Of MEMRI, the UK Guardian's Middle East editor Brian Whitaker has said, "it poses as a research institute when it's basically a propaganda operation" and has accused the organization's co-founder Meyrav Wurmser of extreme Zionism.

The second problem with the report is that Dr. Sa'id Muhammad Thabet appears to have used the Koran to authentic the claims of his find. "This [find] prompted researchers to seek and find Koranic verses that speak of coins used in ancient Egypt," says the report, while no mention is made of scientific testing of the materials and only vague mentions are made of non-Koranic writings.

The third problem, already hinted at, is that the report itself is just generally vague and absent of hard facts. Here I'll lift directly from Todd Bolen's response on his blog:

A statement like this: “Some of the coins are from the time when Joseph lived in Egypt.” There is no time (singular) when scholars believed Joseph lived. There are various theories about when he lived. No credible source would make this statement without a discussion of when the “coins” date to and how we now know when Joseph lived.

I would only go further in pointing out that, to date, there is absolutely no archeological or historical evidence outside of Hebrew scripture (or the Koran) that Joseph ever existed as a real person. Not saying he didn't, only that we have no evidence.

And most suspect of all is where the report originated. As I already mentioned, the only media outlets to carry this story have been organizations for which it serves an agenda. No mainstream media or scholarly journals have reported on this supposed find. In response to this criticism, some may claim media blackout, that liberal atheists don't want the truth to get out. To this I have two retorts: 1.) Where's Fox News? Surely, their audience would eat this up. 2.) Does anybody remember the Jesus Family Burial Box?

The alleged discovery in 2002 of a burial box belonging to Jesus' brother became an absolute media sensation. Every news outlet carried the story, and it sparked numerous documentary specials and programs. The inscriptions on the box were later found to be a hoax, but there's no question that biblical archaeology makes great headlines, and the mainstream media isn't going to sit on a story that validates the existence of one of the great popular heroes of the Jewish, Islamic, and Christian faiths.

This would have been one hell of a story if it were real, but it's not. It is sad to see people so easily duped by their own need to find evidence for their beliefs.

Update, October 18:

Finally, some experts are weighing in on this story, validating my view from the beginning. Here are responses from Beliefnet, the Baptist Press, and World Coin News. Turns out there's no basis for believing the objects pictured below are coins at all, and they present no evidence of being associated with the biblical Joseph.

“The items appear to be scarabs or scaraboids,” said David Hendin of New York, an expert in ancient Judaean coins. “Sometimes archaeologists are under pressure to ‘discover’ something and get publicity to justify the funds they have spent on an excavation, but this one is so far off the wall, and supplies no relevant facts, that it is hard to evaluate."

Melody Made Easy: the Musical Genius of Elton John

2009-10-18T13:33:00.004-04:00

It's no secret to those who know me well that I'm a big fan of Elton John's music. In the history of rock song-writing, only Brian Wilson, in my view, rivals Elton's gift for effortless melodic craftsmanship. Emphasis on the effortless.

It's a well-known fact that Elton never writes his own lyrics (he's most frequently worked with lyricist Bernie Taupin), but many people don't realize how quickly he works. In fact, the majority of his classic melodies were composed in a matter of minutes, which may account for how he managed to release ten albums of new material between 1970 and 1975.

Youtube is a virtual treasure trove for fans of Elton's classic period, with countless live performances from the 70s, early demos, unreleased tracks, and a multitude of interviews. Below are three videos I've found particularly interesting. In the first, Elton composes a song on the spot from a set of oven instructions. In the second, he performs a similar trick from the pages of a play. The final video, however, is perhaps the most notable. It presents rare interview footage from 1971, filmed before the release of Madman Across the Water, in which Elton demonstrates his songwriting process by performing a little ditty he'd knocked out just a coupla days earlier, a little something called "Tiny Dancer." Since the track had not even been recorded yet, this is the oldest existing performance of that song.

Enjoy!

Smithsonian to launch human evolution hall in 2010!

2009-10-16T00:56:00.004-04:00

This article clears up my summer plans for next year, announcing a planned human evolution exhibit at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History (see artist's rendering of the exhibit above). This is the first time the museum has curated an entire hall dedicated to covering the six million years (or thousand, whatever) of human evolution. Color me excited!

Like a phoenix from the ashes, teal monorail to rise from retired pink and purple.

2009-10-15T23:11:00.004-04:00

Three months after the only fatal monorail accident in Walt Disney World history, in which 21-year-old monorail pilot Austin Wuennenberg lost his life, the company has announced plans to build a new train from the unscathed remains of the two trains involved in the collision. The new train will receive a teal stripe, while the original colors of pink and purple will be permanently retired.

I'm shocked - SHOCKED - to discover that Meghan McCain has breasts!

2009-10-15T20:30:00.000-04:00

Count me as a liberal who actually kinda likes Meghan McCain. Her early media personality was a little obnoxious, but since her father lost the election, she's come into her own as a blogger for the Daily Beast, calling out the Young Republicans for electing a bigot as their leader, taking a bold stance in favor of marriage equality for gays and lesbians, and generally holding healthy, rational views toward sexuality. It may not hurt that she's cute as a button (what red-blooded blue-stater doesn't have at least a slight cute Republican fetish?), but mostly I admire the way she's used her celebrity as a political super-child to shape the ideological direction of her party in a way that makes her a walking target for the GOP establishment.

How fitting, then, that poor Meghan has most recently come under attack from her fellow conservatives for having boobs -- specifically, big ones. That's right, the internet is apparently up-in-arms over a picture Meghan posted on her Twitter feed that happened to accentuate her ample cleavage. See exhibit A:

I'm not exactly sure what's offensive or shocking about this photo. Meghan is a beauty, but she's not petite. Surely her cup-size comes as no particular surprise to those who follow her. Likewise, the photo is not lascivious. I regularly see more skin in the Cinema Survey class I teach. This isn't Miley Cyrus on a stripper pole. Meghan's just a young woman slumming around at home in a tank-top who took the same kind of awkward, casual self-portrait posted daily by the thousands in the Twitterverse. They're boobs! Get over it! But the backlash was enough to rank a story on CNN and an apology from Meghan herself:

"I do want to apologize to anyone that was offended by my twitpic," McCain wrote Wednesday about the photo that has been viewed 103,911 and counting. "I have clearly made a huge mistake and am sorry 2 those that are offended."

I'm more offended by her use of "2" in place of "to" than by the "two" that caused such an uproar. Look, it's one thing if everyone was up in arms over a photoshopped magazine cover meant to accentuate Meghan's breasts to objectify her, but this isn't a girl being objectified. This is just a girl. The minute we start going crazy over the very presence of women's bodies in our lives, we've lost all perspective. Meghan owes no one an apology, but a whole lot of people owe her an apology for reducing her body to a sexual totem. Get over your hang-ups and leave the girl alone!

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Workin' on my night cheese: 30 ROCK returns tonight!

2009-10-15T11:30:00.003-04:00

30 Rock has a lot to live up to when its 4th season premieres tonight on NBC. Still an award-winning critical darling and heir to Arrested Development's you're-just-not-clever-enough-to-get-us audience, the ratings-challenged show returns to a beleaguered network that recently canceled a critically acclaimed series to make room for five nights of Jay Leno. As Tina Fey put it in her Emmy acceptance speech this year: "We want to thank our friends at NBC for keeping us on the air even though we are so much more expensive than a talk show."

"Tweaking the network that carries it is one of the many pleasures of 30 Rock,” writes Alessandra Stanley of the New York Times, "and right now pointed jabs at corporate blunders and executive misdoings are all the more apt and amusing."

Indeed, 30 Rock is at its best when it digs its teeth in and focuses on smart corporate satire and character development. Last season was admittedly a little uneven, relying far too heavily on stunt casting while ignoring many of its extremely talented regulars. NPR's Linda Holmes offers some spot-on advice for how season four can steer clear of those pratfalls. If such advice is heeded, we could easily be looking at a fourth Emmy for Best Comedy Series in 2010. I can't speak for everyone, but I want to go to there.

GOP has 7% approval among voters 18-29.

2009-10-14T23:46:00.007-04:00

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned a Research 2000 tracking poll showing troubling trends for certain Congressional Republicans. The latest version of the poll shows things getting worse for the party as a whole. If you really examine the data, you get a bleak picture of a shrinking regional party that appeals to a small subset of the population.

The highest approval ratings for the GOP come from Southerners (49%), Whites (29%), Men (31%), and the 30-44 year-old age group (36%). These are their best numbers!

Their worst approval ratings come from everywhere else in the country (NE=7%, MW=11%, West=13%), Blacks (4%), Latinos (6%), Independents (10%), Women (13%), and the 18-29 age group (7%).

I'm not a Republican, but if I were one, I'd have to ask: "Why do the majority of a people younger than me or with a different sex, race, or region think I'm wrong?" I say this as a progressive liberal who believes that some form of coherent conservative opposition is important for the political process. We need two parties (and perhaps more wouldn't hurt), but the current GOP identity is hopelessly out-of-step with the country as a whole. I have a feeling the future of the conservative movement lies in the hands of the libertarians, but the question remains whether the Republican Party is prepared to risk alienating the Christian Right in order to evolve and survive.

Democratic approvals in the same categories:

South 20%
NE 50%
MW 36%
West 35%
Men 27%
Women 41%
Independents 18%
Whites 25%
Blacks 65%
Latinos 49%
18-29 51%
30-44 24%

InterVarsity to publish pro-evolution book.

2009-10-14T22:53:00.004-04:00

I really enjoyed this article from Inside Higher Ed that covers what the folks at the BioLogos Foundation are doing to fight back against Kirk Cameron's anti-Darwin campus hit squads. Cameron, if you haven't heard, is visiting secular colleges to give away a "special edition" of Origin of the Species, complete with an introduction that smears Darwin and uses pseudoscience to dismiss the impact of Darwin's discoveries. The folks BioLogos, meanwhile, are creating a series of pro-Darwinian workshops and science curricula for Christian colleges.

Most interesting to me was that BioLogos has signed a publishing deal for its defense of Darwin books with InterVarsity Press, a move that is sure to give critics pause. There are few organizations with better "Christian" credentials than IV. If they're willing to explore an alternate view of the science/faith debate, perhaps others will open their ears as well.

NBC renews its commitment to killing television.

2009-10-14T21:42:00.002-04:00

I've wanted to blog about Southland's cancellation for days, but it's been a busy week. In the meantime, NPR's Monkey See blog already captured my complete sentiments better than I ever could: "With 'Southland' Axed, NBC's Depressing Surrender Is Almost Complete."

Easily one of the best mid-season replacements of the spring, Southland was the first primetime drama on NBC since West Wing worth more than a passing glance (I count the promising-but-flawed first season of Heroes as just such a "glance") and almost made up for the Boomtown fiasco. I was wary to commit to Southland at first, but when NBC announced that it was picking up the show for the fall, I breathed a sigh of relief.

The problem, however, is that NBC simultaneously gave up on the 10pm time-slot by programming five hours of Leno per week. After producing just six episodes of the new season, NBC decided the show was too gritty for 9pm and summarily canceled the show before those six episodes even had an opportunity to air.

This all boils down to a fact most of us have known for some time: Jay Leno is bad for the production industry. Bad for writers, bad for crews, and bad for creatives across the board. Meanwhile, Leno continues to laugh his way to the bottom of the ratings.

Please put Twain on my money!

2009-10-14T20:43:00.005-04:00

Caught the Dollar ReDe$ign Project via Slate's The Big Money blog, and I particularly loved the entries above from artist Dean Potter.

"We're a culture, not just a government," writes Potter, so why not honor our cultural treasures in our currency? Sounds like a fantastic idea to me.

The goal of the Project is to "rebrand the US Dollar, rebuild financial confidence and revive our failing economy." Visit the website to checkout the other cool entries from artists all over the country.

More Nobel Thoughts

2009-10-11T16:03:00.003-04:00

When I wrote my last entry on Obama's Nobel Peace Prize, I did not expect a backlash. Friday morning, my wife and I -- both hardcore Democrats (I've taken the test to prove it) -- were completely shocked at Obama's award. A quick perusal of the early media and pundit responses suggested that most of the world, including a majority of progressives, agreed with me. However, the blog inspired quick condemnation on my Facebook page, and several fellow progressives hit me with personal messages expressing dismay at my blog post.

This reaction has lead me to re-evaluate my initial views. What follows is the thinking process that resulted:

1. Did Obama deserve a Nobel Peace Prize?

No. Not in my opinion. I've listened carefully to the arguments on all sides, from all sorts of sources (most of them liberal), but my initial evaluation has not been swayed. Is Obama a strong world leader in the global pursuit of peace? Yes. Has he accomplished a record of peacemaking worthy of the world's most prestigious honor in that pursuit? Not yet, though I am hopeful he will.

Perhaps the most interesting and persuasive argument made to the contrary came from a friend and mentor of mine. In critiquing my previous post, he compared Obama's win to Martin Luther King's, arguing that King's award was also aspirational in nature, as King admitted in his own powerful acceptance speech. While this argument was emotionally persuasive, it struck me as a case of false analogy.

Besides both men being African American and powerful speakers, I see little in common between President Obama and Martin Luther King and their awards. Martin Luther King was a modest black minister who stood up from a position of absolute powerlessness and -- at great risk to his own life and well-being -- spoke out in non-violent resistance against an incredible injustice perpetrated by the American status quo. By the time of his award, King had already led the unprecedented march on Washington and given his "I have a dream speech." By comparison, Barack Obama is the leader of the free world and commander of history's most powerful military force. While he has done much to reverse the travesties of the Bush years, he is still conducting two wars and has defended the status quo in some areas of concern for true blue liberals like myself. Whatever each man's relative intentions and accomplishments at the time each was honored with a Nobel, I have to hold the world's most powerful man to a higher standard than the peaceable minister who refused to be subjugated.

2. Was my response to the Obama win unnecessarily callous in tone?

Yes. When I wrote, "WTF?" my intention was a response of surprise, not disdain, but it clearly shaped the tone of my overall response into one of cynical dismissal. I regret that my initial response was seen by some as scornful of Obama or distrustful of the power of words to accomplish great ends. Neither was my intention.

In truth, I believe the award was premature (in that he was nominated for the prize only 12 days after taking the oath of office), dangerous (in that it gives unnecessary fuel to the fire of Obama's political adversaries and harshest critics), and a little too aspirational for my taste (in that Obama clearly has great intentions, but has yet to follow-through on some important shifts away from his predecessor). However, those are critiques of the Nobel Prize committee who gave Obama the award, not of Obama himself (he didn't ask for the award), and none of it erases the real and palpable accomplishments of the President on behalf of an America weary from eight years of being hated by the world. Thanks to Obama, the world loves us again, and that is truly something for all Americans to be proud of. He has changed the tone of global diplomacy and set the table for serious peacemaking, and I have faith that serious results will indeed be born from those aspirations.

3. Can good come from Obama's win?

Yes. As friend Diego Kontarovsky wrote to me, "If you ask me, a committee using an award like this to provide attention and momentum to a cause (or man) they believe in at, let's face it, a critical stage, is perhaps the most useful thing I've ever seen an award do." He makes a great point. While I was drawn to the danger of the award as ammo for the president's detractors, surely we who support his peacemaking efforts can use the same bullets to different ends. "Look," we can say, "Obama's moves have restored America to a place of world leadership. We have influence again, and not only through our weapons!" As Nicholas Sarkozy put it, "The award marks America's return to the heart of the people of the world."

4. Can good come from criticizing the award?

Not really, as I'm quickly discovering. Someone asked me if I want to find myself on the wrong side of history for criticizing Obama's Nobel. While the question strikes me as absurdly over-dramatic, many of the loudest criticisms of the award have struck me as so off the mark I shudder to be associated with them. For instance, here are two online posts from Republican friends of mine:

A conservative religious party leader in Pakistan referred to [Obama's Nobel Prize] an embarrassing "joke" while an Hamas official in Palestine said, "Obama has a long way to go still and lots of work to do before he can deserve a... reward. Obama only made promises and did not contribute any substance to world peace."

What does it mean when a former communist dictator (Fidel Castro) agrees with the decision about Obama receiving the Nobel Peace prize? Who's next...Hugo Chavez?

The argument for the first post amounts to: "Even our enemies don't think Obama deserves this award! Clearly, this award is a sign of bad things to come." Meanwhile, the second argues: "Our enemies support Obama's award! Clearly, this award is a sign of bad things to come!" It's hilarious and sad. If we are picking teams for history, this is not the team I want to be on.

Meanwhile, John McCain has graciously congratulated the President, stating that the American people are proud to have their leader recognized in such a fashion, appreciating perhaps that no good can come from hand-wringing over a prize for peace.

5. So what, then, is the most productive response to this award?

I think Michael Moore said it best: "Congratulations President Obama on the Nobel Peace Prize -- Now Please Earn it!" We've all had our say on the Nobel, now let us join together in supporting our president in his pursuit of peace. Here, again, we can affirm the power of words as we apply ourselves to putting these words into action:

"But I also know that this prize reflects the kind of world that those men and women, and all Americans, want to build -- a world that gives life to the promise of our founding documents. And I know that throughout history, the Nobel Peace Prize has not just been used to honor specific achievement; it's also been used as a means to give momentum to a set of causes. And that is why I will accept this award as a call to action -- a call for all nations to confront the common challenges of the 21st century."

Nothing like an unearned Nobel to bring us all together.

2009-10-09T11:25:00.006-04:00

President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize this morning for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples," and most reasonable Americans said "WTF?" Was it not only days ago we were all debating the Saturday Night Live sketch that blasted the president for accomplishing nothing?

Don't get me wrong. I genuinely like President Obama. I voted for him. I canvased and campaigned for him. I generally approve of his overall leadership and still believe he could end up being one of the truly great presidents. He's certainly a huge improvement over George W. Bush, who was in my view the worst president this country's ever seen. However, nine months into his first term, Obama's yet to contribute any kind of lasting foreign accomplishment, so this Peace Prize makes a mockery both of Nobel and the man who may one day deserve such an honor.

Insert Kanye/Beyonce joke here.

It's a rare thing when liberals and conservatives can join together in criticizing the accomplishments of a good man, but that's the impact of this award. Salon's lefty Glenn Greenwald wrote: "I had the same immediate reaction which I'm certain many others had: this was some kind of bizarre Onion gag that got accidentally transposed onto the wrong website, that it was just some sort of strange joke someone was playing. Upon further reflection, that isn't all that far from the reaction I still have." Conservatives have been a little more direct.

Some very smart people have urged Obama to turn down the honor, and I wish he had. Obama, unfortunately, did not go that far. He did, however, put the win in perspective:

"Let me be clear, I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations. To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who've been honored by this prize, men and women who've inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace."

Good words, and apparently good words were enough to win a Nobel Prize. It remains to be seen, however, whether good words will be enough to ease the discomfort of a nation embarrassed by the global effect of its leader's out-sized celebrity.

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Giant dog drinks out of sink.

2009-10-08T15:03:00.003-04:00

Meet Boomer, the world's largest living dog.

Everybody has a dream.

2009-10-08T11:44:00.004-04:00

"Some people want world peace," says Reed Fish. "Others want to photograph every Sizzler in the USA.

Not even sure how I stumbled upon the bizarre passion of Reed & Liz Fish -- an American couple who are using internet donations to fund their project of visiting and photographing every Sizzler restaurant in the country -- but I found it oddly compelling.

Amazing Video of Elephant Giving Birth

2009-10-08T11:39:00.001-04:00

Caught this via BoingBoing:

Frank and moving account of one young woman's struggle with sex after losing her breast to cancer.

2009-10-08T10:23:00.006-04:00

I found this story to be really sweet, painful, and profound. Tracey Carpenter was only 24 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and she's written an incredibly honest and beautiful account of her journey into rediscovering her sexuality after losing one of her breasts. Her story is extremely insightful, not only of her own state of mind, but of how her situation impacted the man in her life and how he responded. Really, it's a great love story, and a must-read for both men and women.

Illegal deforestation threatens imminent harm to uncontacted tribe in Paraguay.

2009-10-08T10:03:00.002-04:00

Thanks to my friend Carrie for bringing this one to my attention:

The Ayoreo-Totobiegosode people (South America's only uncontacted tribe outside of the Amazon) are being threatened by illegal bulldozing as ranchers clear land for cattle. Apparently, the government of Paraguay is doing nothing to enforce its laws.

From Survival International:

"Uncontacted tribes are exceedingly vulnerable to any kind of contact because of their lack of immunity to outsiders’ diseases. In an emergency report to the UN last year, Survival described the threat to the Totobiegosode as ‘the most serious threat to tribal peoples anywhere in the world.’"

On the bright side, once all their land's destroyed, the survivors should be ripe for Christianity.

Democrats find a way to insure 29 million Americans while reducing the deficit; Republicans still against the bill, will let us know why later.

2009-10-08T09:22:00.004-04:00

Is it the change I think our country really needs? No, but it's a start. This bill is a real step in the right direction and addresses all the cost concerns of the our noble Republican brethren. The non-partisan CBO (same office Republicans have been citing for weeks in their ads) now estimates that the bill will reduce our deficit by $81 billion over the next decade.

Even Bob Dole has endorsed this bill, even calling out Mitch McConnell for prioritizing politics over serving the American public. So tell me, Republican friends, why do you continue to fight a bill that will help uninsured Americans and reduce our deficit? Could it be that you'll do anything to obstruct a success for President Obama?

Largest Ever Dinosaur Print Found

2009-10-07T22:36:00.002-04:00

Amateur fossil hunters have discovered the world's largest dinosaur footprint, ruining amateur fossil hunting for the rest of us.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

In an extraordinary case of nature doing its thing, Australian dust storms spark an explosion of life.

2009-10-07T22:04:00.004-04:00

You probably saw the stories of the massive, End-of-Days-esque dust storms in Australia two weeks ago, but this report from the Discovery Channel reveals that the storms were also tremendous givers of life:

"The red dust storm that dumped thousands of tons of soil across eastern Australia two weeks ago has caused an explosion in microscopic life in Sydney Harbor and beyond. [. . .] Jones said phytoplankton needs nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphate to grow, nutrients that are scarce in what he calls Australia's "desert" ocean waters, but were abundant in the topsoil that blew across the country."

There's hope that the increase in microscopic life will lead to expanded fish stocks "to feed some of the world's poorest people."

Apple sues Woolworth's for ripping off their ripped-off logo.

2009-10-07T21:47:00.003-04:00

This story was so much cooler when I thought the Woolworth's in question was the now-defunct F.W. Woolworth 5-and-dime company (Woolworth's makes a comeback, only to be quashed by Apple), but it turns out the Apple is suing an Australian supermarket with the same name.

I'm an Apple fan, but I can't deny that the Mac-maker's basis for the suit -- that "consumers may not be able to differentiate between the two brands" -- seems silly:

"The supermarket points out that it has absolutely no plans to launch a phone that doesn’t work properly and that its logo is clearly a stylized letter W rather than a rip-off of the Beatles Apple Corps logo – sorry, iPhone maker’s logo."

Conservapedia: Saving the Bible from itself!

2009-10-07T20:35:00.006-04:00

I have to thank my dear friend Cathie for throwing this story my way, though I would have eventually found it on Salon, anyway. Seems the folks at Conservapedia ("No other encyclopedic resource on the internet is free of corruption by liberal untruths.") have engaged in an epic undertaking to re-translate the Bible, free from the liberal biases of King James, a century of scribes, the Gospel writers themselves, and . . . you know . . . Jesus.

They list 10 guidelines necessary for a faithful, conservative translation of God's Word:

Framework against Liberal Bias: providing a strong framework that enables a thought-for-thought translation without corruption by liberal bias
Not Emasculated: avoiding unisex, "gender inclusive" language, and other modern emasculation of Christianity
Not Dumbed Down: not dumbing down the reading level, or diluting the intellectual force and logic of Christianity; the NIV is written at only the 7th grade level
Utilize Powerful Conservative Terms: using powerful new conservative terms as they develop; defective translations use the word "comrade" three times as often as "volunteer"; similarly, updating words which have a change in meaning, such as "word", "peace", and "miracle".
Combat Harmful Addiction: combating addiction by using modern terms for it, such as "gamble" rather than "cast lots"; using modern political terms, such as "register" rather than "enroll" for the census
Accept the Logic of Hell: applying logic with its full force and effect, as in not denying or downplaying the very real existence of Hell or the Devil.
Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning
Exclude Later-Inserted Liberal Passages: excluding the later-inserted liberal passages that are not authentic, such as the adulteress story
Credit Open-Mindedness of Disciples: crediting open-mindedness, often found in youngsters like the eyewitnesses Mark and John, the authors of two of the Gospels
Prefer Conciseness over Liberal Wordiness: preferring conciseness to the liberal style of high word-to-substance ratio; avoid compound negatives and unnecessary ambiguities; prefer concise, consistent use of the word "Lord" rather than "Jehovah" or "Yahweh" or "Lord God."

Also, they forgot the mistranslation in Revelation, in which past scholars have used the word "antichrist," where clearly "Barack Obama" was intended. I guess they'll save that for the New Revised Conservapedia Bible.

Check out "Darwin's Darkest Hour" on PBS! (plus the art of Darwin @ the Fitzwilliam Museum)

2009-10-07T18:51:00.006-04:00

I'm excited about the new season of Nova, which is focusing on evolution. Last night the season kicked off with something new for the Nova series: Darwin's Darkest Hour, an excellent two-hour scripted drama starring Ian Henry Cusick (Desmond from Lost) as Charles Darwin. The movie depicts some of the same situations covered in the controversial Creation (starring Paul Bettany), so it'll be interesting to see which film better captures the Darwin story. I'm kinda rooting for the Nova special. In any case, you can watch it online at PBS.

In bonus Darwin news, I'd trade my pinky toe to visit the Endless Forms: Charles Darwin art exhibit at Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge University, which examines the impact of evolutionary science on the world of visual expression. Fortunately, the museum has put together a fantastic-looking collection of podcasts I hope to work through over the next few days. Topics include "The Predatory Ape: Sex, Simians and Society in Nineteenth-Century Europe" and "Darwin, Design and Christianity." Excited!

AnimalsWithCasts.com

2009-10-07T18:44:00.002-04:00

There's now officially a blog for every interest:

Anheuser-Busch InBev sells Sea World & Busch Gardens parks.

2009-10-07T17:37:00.006-04:00

In a move that is sure to impact the Orlando economy, Anheuser-Busch InBev has sold Busch Entertainment Corp. to the Blackstone Group, the people behind such popular destinations as Legoland and Madame Tussauds Wax Museums (they also own 50% of Universal Orlando). As of now, looks like Blackstone will be keeping Busch Entertainment's current management in place, so it's hard to know what changes might be in store. I'm sure, however, the animals will join us in mourning the end of free beer at the parks.

The bigger question in my mind is whether Busch Entertainment will continue its important environmental work through the Sea World & Busch Gardens Conservation Fund. The Busch parks have of course always been entertainment businesses first. However, they've also been actively involved in scientific research and the rehabilitation of sick or injured animals. I'm hoping that this does not change, but it remains to be seen whether Blackstone corporate culture will support such an active role in conservation work. Here's hoping for the best.

"Love is Deaf" featured on JustPushPlay

2009-10-06T22:56:00.004-04:00

Just found out that my award-winning short film, "Love is Deaf," was featured on the "Today's Short" feature on the website, JustPressPlay.

From the site:

Today's Short is a feature on JustPressPlay showcasing wonderful short films found all around the web.

If E.T. were a T-Rex.

2009-10-05T20:55:00.001-04:00

Caught this from my friend Michelle:

Happy Chinchilli Day!

2009-10-03T22:25:00.002-04:00

Just saw this on T.V. and about hurt myself I laughed so hard:

And there's already a sequel:

I know I'm a socialist and all, but I love this American Express ad.

2009-10-03T22:20:00.002-04:00

No Home for Samson the T-Rex

2009-10-03T21:32:00.004-04:00

AP reports that Samson the T-Rex failed to fetch his $6 million asking price at a Vegas auction. $3.7 million was the top bid. Guess the recession's been tough on dino bone collectors.

Careening

2009-10-03T20:22:00.008-04:00

Not much time to blog today. Spent most of it cramming a few days worth of class prep (I teach Cinema Survey on Tuesday nights) into one afternoon. Tomorrow, I have a 5:45 set call as a production assistant working on a web shoot featuring KC & the Sunshine Band.

I'm thankful for the extra work, but I have to admit to feeling a little disappointed at the same time. Having produced and directed my own feature, worked as a production manager on two others, and having coordinated or assistant directed projects for VH1, Red Bull, Spike TV, the Discovery Channel, the Disney Channel, and others, it's a little disheartening that I've only picked up two freelance set gigs this year, both as a PA.

I'm not trying to be stuck-up. I'm not above PA work, and in fact, the occasional PA job is fun. But after five years of forward progression, my career seems to have died this year. Two jobs, both entry-level. I continue to pick up consulting jobs, creating budgets and schedules for indies trying to raise money, but I do those in my living room. What I really want is some kind of sign that, at 29 years-old, I'm not starting over from scratch.
Please, God, say it ain't so.

Sandwich calculator for the recession-friendly sack lunch!

2009-10-02T22:10:00.004-04:00

I frequently wonder whether I'm really saving money by eating at home. With this nifty sandwich price calculator, I found out! My sandwich only cost $1.75. (via BoingBoing)

FANTASTIC MR. FOX looks to be fantastic!

2009-10-02T18:55:00.002-04:00

Pretty sure this is going to be my favorite Wes Anderson film since Rushmore.

Alan Grayson: lovable asshole?

2009-10-02T14:56:00.003-04:00

I hit Alan Grayson the other day for being an asshole. I thought his statement that Republicans want Americans to die quickly was inappropriate rhetoric. Grayson's a jerk. I knew that before I voted for him. However, I posted earlier this morning about the weakness of congressional democrats, and if nothing else, Alan Grayson has proven he's not weak:

I wish Alan Grayson had also apologized for his previous rhetoric, but his statement above took balls. I respect him for that, and apparently, a lot of other people do too. Maybe sometimes it takes an asshole to move the debate?

By His Stripes, The Insured Shall Be Healed (Five Unforgivable Arguments Against Real Health Care Reform)

2009-10-02T14:45:00.000-04:00

Well, the public option more or less died this week, but it has continued to sicken me (pun intended) that the loudest voice against substantial health care reform has been the evangelical church. In particular, Christians on the right have fought the public option as socialism (and we all know Jesus was a clear capitalist). I personally refuse to take this fight sitting down, as I firmly believe that health care reform is not a debate of public policy, politics, or economics, but of moral imperative.

Below are five common (and in my view, unforgivable) arguments leveled against universal health care, along with my responses.

1. Health care is not a fundamental human right, it is a commodity.

I suppose this kind of claim is subjective and always open to debate, but if health care is not a fundamental human right, what on earth is? Thomas Jefferson started with "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Certainly health care is implied somewhere in there? How can my pursuit to be happy rank as more fundamental to my dignity as a human being than my pursuit to be healthy?

Health care reform is nothing if not an issue of life and death: people are dying. According to the American Journal of Public Health, 45,000 Americans die annually of diseases for which they need not die, simply because they cannot afford access to quality care. Where are the Right-to-Lifers on this critical threat to human life?

Why is health care treated as a commodity (or a luxury)? How is trauma care for a life-threatening injury or urgent treatment for a critical disease more like buying a new car or video game than like getting a fair trial or having the freedom to express oneself? Reason dictates that even the freedom of speech is a relative luxury compared to life-saving medical treatments. Why is the former a right in our country but the latter is treated as a commodity? That's simply irrational.

2. Your access to health care is not my responsibility.

This argument against health care reform, to me, is the most insidious. To speak plainly, I believe it to be evil. What do we call such blatant, self-serving callousness if not evil? It flies in the face of every moral lesson we try to teach our children, and for Christians, it certainly flies in the face of all of Jesus' teachings. Who can forget the Good Samaritan who made his enemy's trauma his own burden to bear?

For an even more explicit instruction from Jesus' teachings, let's take a scenic tour of Matthew 25: 31-46, shall we?

³¹"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. ³²All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. ³³He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
³⁴"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. ³⁵For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, ³⁶I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'
³⁷"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? ³⁸When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? ³⁹When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'
⁴⁰"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'
⁴¹"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. ⁴²For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, ⁴³I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'
⁴⁴"They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?'
⁴⁵"He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'
⁴⁶"Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."

Conservative Christians are quick to equate political action with moral action. Voting for someone who supports abortion rights or marriage equality for gays is the equivalent of condoning murder or sexual immorality for many. However, these same conservative Christians are willing to actively work against legislation that will heal the sick.

Make no mistake, people will suffer disease and people will die from lack of treatment if universal health care is not passed. Some people will recover and survive only to bear the burden of years of debt and financial ruin. From a Christian point of view, every single person who raises his voice against reform has played a part in those deaths, that suffering, that debt. "I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me," Jesus said, and if you take that at all seriously, then you should take serious your responsibility to every American who cannot afford quality health care.

3. Your access to health care is not the government's responsibility.

This is one I hear a lot, and from Christians, it usually sounds like this: "Health care is not the job of the government. It's the job of the church." Whether or not it is the job of the church, the church is certainly not providing universal health care. Furthermore, had first-century Rome decided to provide all its conquered subjects with free quality health care, I cannot imagine a Jesus who would condemn such a thing. Jesus was not the kind of Son of God who would condemn a public good because it conflicted with the religious establishment's views of its role in society. Can you really imagine Jesus protesting universal access to quality health care for all Americans? Really? If your answer is yes, you believe in a Jesus I've never heard of.

Beyond the religious arguments, I've already written elsewhere on the self-evident common sense reasons why health care access is exactly the kind of thing our government is meant to provide. The Preamble of our Constitution claims as one of its principal purposes the promotion of the "general Welfare" of the people, and I can think of few things as essential to the general Welfare of every American than affordable health care access.

4.Universal health care is too expensive and doesn't even work in other countries.

This argument further states that everyone in those other countries wants to come here because they're jealous of our health care system, never mind that the United States is the only industrialized nation in the world that does not offer government-provided health care.

Let's start by getting the first part out of the way: the U.S. spends far more on health care as a percentage of GDP than any other industrialized nation, as well as more per capita. Meanwhile, FOX News reports (FOX NEWS, PEOPLE!) that Americans are far less satisfied with their quality of health care than the citizens of other countries. According to FOX News, "people in the U.S. face longer wait times to see doctors and have more trouble getting care on evenings or weekends than do people in other industrialized countries."

This gels with my personal anecdotal experience, having numerous friends living abroad or having come from countries with universal health care. To the person, they have rated their care and access as better in other countries.

Likewise, 65% of Americans favor the public option, along with 73% of doctors.

5. I've gone without health care in the past, and I was just fine.

Lucky you. Glad you didn't have cancer, a child born with congenital defects, or a spouse with a crippling injury. Clearly, 45,000 people annually are not as lucky as you (or 22,000, if you prefer a more conservative estimate). Whether 45,000 people die annually from lack of insurance or 22,000, it is too many.

Think of it this way, if only 22,000 fetuses were aborted annually, would that change your Pro-Life stance? If your answer is no, then why aren't you standing up for the thousands who die annually from lack of insurance?

Daily Show sums up exactly how I feel about being a Democrat these days.

2009-10-02T12:37:00.005-04:00

I hate almost everything the modern GOP stands for, but I gotta give them this: they have balls. Democrats, by contrast, do not. I'm beginning to wonder what's the point in voting for people you agree with if all they'll ever do is capitulate to the people with whom you disagree.

For everyone afraid of us lefty socialists: have no fear. We're way too weak-willed to change America.

David Letterman reveals extortion plot, confesses affair(s)

2009-10-02T11:20:00.002-04:00

If nothing else, you gotta give him this: even when he's confessing to being a scum bag, he does it with class:

Cool Tilt-Shift Disney Video!

2009-10-01T15:01:00.001-04:00

This is best watched in a larger view, so I won't embed it here.

From Plain Jane to Cover Girl: Artificial Beauty Exposed

2009-10-01T13:23:00.008-04:00

A compelling video from the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty:

UPDATE: Morgan over at Stiletto Revolt (an excellent blog) just informed me that the same company that handles Dove's campaign is also responsible for all those Axe commercials that send exactly the opposite message of the video above.

Transgendered Methodist Minister Discovers the Power in Sharing His Story

2009-10-01T13:00:00.003-04:00

Thanks to my friend Carrie for sharing this video:

Hey, look! It's a missing link! Ardi predates Lucy by 1.3 million years.

2009-10-01T12:02:00.007-04:00

Cool story from the NY Times this morning, covering the release of 17 years worth of research on Ardipithecus ramidus, a human ancestor that, at 4.4 million years-old, lived long before the famous Lucy.

Republican cowards hitch ineffective $50 million abstinence-only "sex ed" amendment to health care reform bill.

2009-10-01T10:23:00.004-04:00

Same folks decrying government-run health care don't have so many problems with government-run moral indoctrination (and medical misinformation), which is exactly what abstinence-only "sex ed" is. Never mind that such programs have been proven ineffective and -- truth be told -- destructive to young people, Orrin Hatch and his cronies know a smart GOP political opportunity when they see one.

Bank of America won't cash checks without a thumb print, turns away man with no arms.

2009-10-01T10:18:00.002-04:00

Hey, that man with no arms might have forged those checks! (via BoingBoing)

Could you drink as much as they do on MAD MEN and still be productive at work?

2009-10-01T10:14:00.002-04:00

The ladies of doubleX try it out:

Feel a little bit better now . . .

2009-10-01T10:09:00.005-04:00

The Orlando Sentinel reports that this man will protect me from super-sized snakes. Hear that, St. Augustine? This man:

What happened to that hole in the ozone layer?

2009-09-30T22:47:00.003-04:00

Been wondering about that for a while. Slate offers a sort of "where-are-they-now" for the great environmental scourge of 1980s'.

Giant Rattlesnakes Invade St. Augustine, FL! Be afraid!

2009-09-30T22:28:00.005-04:00

I'm going to have nightmares about this tonight. A trapper caught and killed what looks to have been a record breaking Eastern Diamondback in an upscale housing development. We'll never know for sure the exactly how large the snake was, since the trapper drove off with it and police don't know the trapper's name.

There are numerous things wrong with this story:

Rattlesnakes are NOT allowed to get this big. That thing could swallow me whole and look more like the monster pythons invading our state than a rattler. Clearly, that snake made a deal with the devil.
What kind of idiot redneck cops don't measure a beast of that size and file some kind of report? At least take down the name of the trapper.
While you better bet I'd blow that sucker away if it were to show it's forked little tongue in my yard, I really do think it's a shame that a professional trapper saw fit to kill this dragon. Why not take it to the Alligator Farm and place it on exhibit? A waste of a beautiful (and terrifying) specimen.

Sesame Street does Mad Men

2009-09-30T21:44:00.003-04:00

Nick Hornby on FRESH AIR

2009-09-30T15:59:00.004-04:00

I enjoyed this interview with Terry Gross. I loved Hornby's High Fidelity and About a Boy, but oddly never read any of his other books. Maybe I'll pick up his new piece, Juliet, Naked.

Not Your Typical Bigfoot Movie: Out On DVD Today!!!

2009-09-29T23:14:00.018-04:00

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." - Hebrews 11:1

"Faith is the state of being ultimately concerned. [...] Man, like every being, is concerned about many things. [...] Some of them are urgent, often extremely urgent, and each of them [...] can claim ultimacy for a human life. [...] If it claims ultimacy it demands the total surrender of him who accepts this claim, and it promises total fulfillment even if all other claims have to be subjected to it or rejected in its name." - Paul Tillich, Dynamics of Faith

It is the rare bigfoot movie that calls into question your connection and responsibility to your fellow man, but then, well, this is Not Your Typical Bigfoot Movie. From the first time I saw this fascinating documentary from filmmaker and friend Jay Delaney, it touched the core of my being in a profound and existential sense. My reaction to it was not at all dissimilar to my reaction after watching Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man. Perhaps there's something about watching men obsessed that provokes you to want to save them, while wishing you could share their conviction at the very same time.

NYTBM follows a pair of bigfoot "researchers," from a former steel town in Ohio, as their friendship and reputations are tested by the arrival of a top-shelf professional bigfoot hunter. What unfolds is a story so well-plotted that it's hard to believe at times you're watching a documentary, but the story in NYTBM is merely the delivery device for the documentary's real gift: a kind of potent cinematic essay on the enigmatic powers of faith.

Delaney's subjects are nothing if not entirely powerless over their lives, over their rundown homes and fallen township, over their own emotions. These are men of no means, with no ability to stand up to their circumstance. Just one thing keeps them going, keeps them waking up each and every day, facing the bleakness of the world around them: their faith. Faith in bigfoot, faith in their friendship, faith that there's got to be more to this implacable life than meets the eye. Their stubbornness in the face of reason is the part that really challenges you.

I highly recommend Jay Delaney's Not Your Typical Bigfoot Movie. It's an extremely touching, challenging, and even comedic look at two very real Americans. Buy it on DVD today.

Interesting Commentary on the Production Design of MAD MEN

2009-09-29T22:43:00.004-04:00

Kate Bolick at doubleX has written an excellent analysis of the production design work that goes into Mad Men and Sunday's episode in particular, slapping back critics who've argued that the show is a case of style over substance. For Bolick, the style is the substance, and she argues her case brilliantly. Highly recommended reading for anyone who loves Mad Men or art department work in general.

My congressman's an asshole; my governor a liar.

2009-09-29T22:24:00.003-04:00

Politico reports that Rep. Alan Grayson (for whom I reluctantly voted) has said on the House floor tonight that, "Republicans want you to die quickly." I'd say Republicans care more about defeating the president politically than about solving the problem or that they care more about protecting corporate interests than helping the poor, but I'm not gonna say they want you to die quickly. That's just ass-hat talk.

Meanwhile, the Orlando Sentinel reports that Gov. Charlie Crist is touting some false accomplishments while campaigning for the Senate, claiming credit for our overall educational improvements, while Florida's been graded an F for college readiness. Course, even Republicans know Crist is an empty shirt.

Sigh. Wish we could find some real leadership in Florida.

Marketplace Report: "China's Economic Numbers Don't Add Up"

2009-09-29T21:18:00.007-04:00

Great commentary from San Diego economist Paul Kedrosky on Marketplace:

"It could be that they're made-up numbers, or that massive state intervention has created the first economy in history where growth and energy usage periodically decouple. No one knows for sure, but China's is the most important economy in the world, so you would think more investors would care that its numbers don't add up."

ABC's CASTLE channels T.V. detective classics like REMINGTON STEELE, MOONLIGHTING.

2009-09-29T19:44:00.005-04:00

As a child of the 80's, I grew up on a steady diet of T.V. detective series like Simon & Simon, Magnum P.I., Spencer for Hire, and of course the Scarecrow & Mrs. King. Far and away my two favorite detective series, however, were Remington Steele and Moonlighting. The joy of these two series came from the friction and magnetic draw between their respective romantic leads (Stephanie Zimbalist and Pierce Brosnan in Remington Steele; Cybal Shepherd and Bruce Willis in Moonlighting).

For years I've waited for another series that would crackle with the humor and sex appeal of these two fantastic series, and finally my prayers have been answered. ABC's sophomore series Castle (Mondays, 10 Eastern) takes the best of each and adds better mysteries.

Series star Nathan Fillion combines the charm of Brosnan's Remington with the playful roguery of Willis' David Addison to create Richard Castle, a wealthy celebrity crime novelist who, to research his next book, begins to shadow a female police detective named Kate Beckett (relative newcomer, Stana Katic), a tough and fiercely independent woman in the mold of Stephanie Zimbalist's Laura Holt. Castle drives Beckett crazy in more ways than one, but he also helps her solve crimes with his knack for offbeat plot-twists. The show sizzles with style, sexual tension, spot-on comedy, great performances, and some of the best mystery writing on television today.

Castle is not a forensic procedural. It isn't focused on the science of crime, so it relies on its characters ability to think creatively through the problems, to solve the mysteries with outside-of-the-box thinking. Since Castle is himself an author of mystery novels, the writers have to stretch a little more to create unusual crime scenes worthy of stumping him a bit or leading him down a few blind alleys.

This season in particular seems to be channeling Remington Steele, from the new introductory opening that pays tribute to Stephanie Zimbalist's original title sequence voice-over from season one of Reming Steele, to the moment in the above episode in which Castle breaks the case by making a connection to Strangers On A Train (Brosnan's Remington often referenced classic cinema when trying to solve a case; last night's Strangers On A Train moment was actually a very clever gag playing off the old Remington Steele shtick — when Castle references the title, the police detectives ask if he means the Hitchcock film, and he answers that actually, he prefers the book). That the producers clearly appreciate the work of their antecedents is all the more a tribute to this show's attention to quality.

In any case, I'm happy that most of the shows I'm watching right now are popular favorites, but Castle's ratings could stand to improve. Therefore, I implore you, if you loved 80's detective shows as much as I did, give Castle a chance. I think you'll be glad you did.

Nickelodeon destroys the happy childhood memories of countless Americans with pointless logo change.

2009-09-28T17:26:00.004-04:00

This has apparently been common knowledge for almost two months now, but I didn't catch on until my sister pointed it out: Nickelodeon has changed it's logo. This isn't quite as egregious as NBC Universal rebranding Sci-Fi as SyFy, but it does make me wonder, why do the suits at MTV hate my childhood?

Lucy passes through the turnstile.

2009-09-28T17:11:00.004-04:00

Lucy Vodden, the once-little girl who inspired Julian Lennon to draw a picture that depicted, in his words, "Lucy in the sky with diamonds," has passed away at the age of 46 from lupus. Above, the original drawing that provoked Lennon's father to write the Beatles song.

Daring swordsman defends president against unknown assailant.

2009-09-28T12:15:00.000-04:00

If you listen to NPR but don't support it, you might be an asshole.

2009-09-28T11:49:00.009-04:00

Angelyn and I regularly support WMFE, our local NPR and PBS affiliate. This year we went months without contributing, due to the current strain on our finances, but we finally anted up the other day. Listening to the pledge drive in our car, we could tell these folks were getting desperate, perhaps a sign that the recession is hitting our public broadcasting providers pretty hard.

I firmly believe that NPR remains the finest source for news and analysis available today. I recently read this piece via BoingBoing, which draws some pretty drastic comparisons between NPR's operation and that of the network news organizations. When you consider that Katie Couric earns more in one year than the annual budgets of NPR's Morning Edition and All Things Considered combined, and that NPR maintains 17 foreign bureaus to CBS's 12, it isn't difficult to determine each organization's priorities.

Commercials pay for entertainment. Your support pays for quality news. I encourage anyone out there who listens to public broadcasting, please give a few dollars to your local affiliate today.

Studio Execs Still Don't Get New Media

2009-09-28T10:59:00.004-04:00

I'm planning on heading out this evening but remembered that House MD, one of my favorite series, comes on at 8pm. Not one to schedule my social life around broadcast programming (shut up), I decided to check House's availability on Hulu. Sure enough, Fox is maintaining the same idiotic release strategy for House this season that it used last year: new episodes of House appear 8 days after they air -- in other words, each new episode is released to Hulu one day after the next sequential episode is broadcast on Fox. I can buy a gun faster than I can legally watch House online.

This sort of defeats the purpose of Hulu, does it not? I suppose some people watch their shows only on laptop computers by choice, but I think most people probably use Hulu to catch up on missed episodes before the next one airs. In any case, Hulu was created to combat the countless illegal torrent sites that offer pirated content commercial free. The theory behind Hulu is that if you provide convenient, high-quality, and legal online content with a handful of revenue-producing commercials, people will watch it, and so far the theory has proven accurate.

However, when a content provider like Fox chooses to set an inconvenient Hulu release for one of its top-shelf programs as it has with House, it is essentially persuading its consumers to leave Hulu for the torrent sites. How does that make any sense? Hulu produces ad revenue for Fox. Torrent sites don't. Why drive away a willing consumer?

To be fair, it probably isn't Fox specifically that has made this call. Fox has numerous other properties that follow the normal day-after-broadcast release strategy for Hulu. Even tonight's season premiere of Lie to Me, House's Monday programming partner, will be available tomorrow on Hulu (good thing too, I love that show). More likely, one of the numerous co-producers of House -- Heel and Toe Films, Shore Z Productions, and Bad Hat Harry Productions in association with Universal Media Studios -- has muddled things up. It's hard to say since Hulu doesn't provide much information regarding how release dates are determined.

Doesn't really matter who's to blame though, since the whole lot of them will be losing a few cents of ad revenue when I watch House on Surfthechannel tomorrow morning.

Happy Birthday, Brigitte (Megan Fox, Eat Your Heart Out)

2009-09-28T09:00:00.000-04:00

At around the age of 13, I discovered Brigitte Bardot while listening to a song about suicide. In "I Think I'm Going To Kill Myself," from Elton John's 1972 masterwork Honky Chateau, Bernie Taupin writes:

I'd make an exception
If you want to save my life
Brigitte Bardot gotta come
And see me every night

As a young pubescent boy with a melancholy view of life, I wondered what sort of creature alone had the power to keep Taupin from offing himself with a .44. Fortunately, this was right around the time we got our first dial-up modem, so I (slowly) looked her up. That's right, Brigitte Bardot was the first girl I googled (except Google wasn't around yet).

More than a decade passed before I first saw Brigitte in action on the silver screen, but she did not disappoint. Sure, she's a crazy racist, but she didn't rape any minors (unlike certain other cinema icons in the news) -- so let's wish her a happy 75th birthday, anyway! After all, we'll be talking about Brigitte Bardot long after flavor-of-the-month Megan Fox is remembered merely as "that floozy leaning over the hood in Transformers."

Watching This Tonight!

2009-09-27T12:16:00.003-04:00

I'm excited about tonight's Ken Burns documentary on PBS. By all reports, it's a fantastic film, and I've never had the pleasure of visiting any of our national parks (at least that I can remember).

Some Republican Poll Numbers

2009-09-27T11:07:00.003-04:00

Both Republicans and the Liberal Media have made much of Obama's drop in popularity over the summer, but hardly anyone is reporting on the current popularity of the Republican party.

According to these numbers from Research 2000, Obama remains by far the most popular national political figure, much more popular than either Congressional Dems or especially Republicans:

President Obama Favorable: 54%.
Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R): 18%
House Minority Leader John Boehner (R): 12%
Congressional Dems: 38%
Congressional Republicans: 17%
Democratic Party: 40%
Republican Party: 22%

It's clear Americans are sick of politicians in general, but they trust Republican leaders even less than they trust the president. Maybe Obama knows what he's doing after all.

Pew Science Knowledge Quiz

2009-09-26T23:53:00.002-04:00

I found this quiz incredibly easy and breezed through with a perfect score, but apparently only 10% of Americans score as well. Explains some things.

Kiss the Serpent on the Tongue

2009-09-26T21:46:00.002-04:00

Lately I've been interested in the evolutionary origins of religious belief, and today I stumbled upon this fascinating article from 2006 marking the discovery of humanity's oldest known religious ritual. According to the find, ritual python worship began in Africa 70,000 years ago, as evidenced in part by the spectacular python sculpture photographed above (along with numerous artifacts discovered around the stone).

Reading about this reminded me of "The End" desert sequence from Scorsese's The Doors (see crappy Youtube clip here), which my old religion professor at Flagler College, Dr. Timothy Johnson, always screens at the first meeting of his Religion & Film class. In the sequence, Jim Morrison drops acid in the desert with his band-mates while babbling about kissing a serpent. Dr. Johnson uses the clip to help expand the definition of a religious film beyond biblical epics like The Ten Commandments, but I feel like the clip takes on new resonance now that I know python worship is the original "faith of our fathers."

None of this changes the fact that I'm terrified of snakes.

His head was bent in sorrow, green scales fell like rain

2009-09-16T23:22:00.002-04:00

I don't own any Peter, Paul, & Mary CDs, but when I was very young, "Puff the Magic Dragon" was one of my favorite songs. My mother would both play the group's records and also sing the song to me herself. Come to think of it, it's a damn depressing song to sing to a kid, but it's a vivid memory, nonetheless. I bring all this up because Mary Travers died tonight of cancer, and I felt it only proper to pay tribute.

Below you'll find "Puff the Magic Dragon" followed by a particularly badass rendition of "I Shall Be Released" performed by Mary, Mama Cass, and Joni Mitchell, which if nothing else, will make you remember what popular music's supposed to be like.

Truth to Power (while reserving the right to wildly exaggerate where it's useful to my cause)

2009-09-16T17:34:00.008-04:00

Pictured: Make no mistake! These illegal Mexican children will be denied health care by the president's plan for reform.

I think it's great that angry conservatives are protesting Obama's policies, just as I thought it was great when angry liberals protested Bush's. We live in a nation that permits free speech, so we ought to use that liberty now and again. I admire my patriotic brethren for throwing a gigantic "Tea Party" in Washington D.C. on September 12 (apparently in celebration of that cuckold Glenn Beck's 9 Principles and 12 Values), even if a few of these brave conservative voices are in fact bat-shit crazy. God bless America.

I also think it's great when people get their facts straight, so I have to admit to some frustration at the disparity in the various Tea Party turnout numbers quoted by the media. Michelle Malkin claiming a source at ABC counted 2 million, a number parroted by countless conservative bloggers. Meanwhile, the mainstream media (that's the lefty pinko communist rags to you) all claimed "tens of thousands," while ABC itself never claimed 2 million but rather 60 to 70,000. Several outlets in the British press reported the 2 million number but haven't offered any sources or basis for these estimates, and even the very fair and always balanced Fox News Network pegged the number at "tens of thousands," not 2 million.

Nate Silver (whom I admit, I'd trust with my life), does a great breakdown of the problems involved in crowd counting and also makes it pretty clear that the 2 million number is not only baseless but unbelievable.

Writes Silver:

. . . if there had in fact been 2 million protesters in Washington yesterday, there would have been no need to lie about it -- the magnitude of the protests would have been self-evident. I was in Washington for the inauguration, an event at which there really were almost 2 million people present -- and let me tell you, it was a Holy Mess. Hotels, charging double or treble their usual rates, were booked weeks in advance. Major stations on the Metro system were shut down for hours at a time. The National Guard was brought in. At least 3,000 people got stuck in a tunnel. Essentially the entirely of the National Mall, from the Capitol to the Washington Monument, was dotted with onlookers. Heaps of trash were left behind. The entire city was basically a warzone for a period of about 20 hours, from midnight through mid-evening.

Silver concludes that the 70,000 number estimated by ABC is probably close to accurate, making the 2 million number a 30-fold exaggeration. I imagine that at any given protest, it would be difficult to hide 97% of your turnout. That's like 3 guys saying, "Oh, the other 97 are outside putting coins in the meter." If 2 million people showed up in the capital on September 12, there'd be no debate about the number.

I'm not talking down the turnout. 70,000 is still a lot of angry conservatives, and Democrats would be foolish to simply ignore what such a crowd portends. But it's hard to yell, "You lie!" to your opponents, when you can't even tell the truth about something as simple as the number of people who agree with you.

Book Burning

2009-09-14T21:19:00.003-04:00

So I finished reading Fahrenheit 451 just in time for the world to be up in arms over Kanye West's well-publicized douchery at the 2009 VMA awards. I did not see the event as it happened, but I did bear witness to the outcry on Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube (I refuse to link to the millions of angry vloggers voicing their deep disapproval of Kanye's actions, but they aren't difficult to find if you're into that sorta thing).

The incident provided a wonderful segue from Ray Bradbury's frightening fiction into our terrifying reality, where indeed the televised behavior of our celebrity "family" warrants more of our discussion and concentration than world political affairs, wars, or the moral crises of the day. Watching the internet reaction to Kanye was sort of like reading Bradbury in 3-D. As Choire Sicha put it on The Daily Beast:

What a disaster! One tiny element of chaos and MTV fell apart—and so did America. One millionaire was mildly mean to another millionaire.

Which reminds me of the passage in which Bradbury's protagonist Montag asks his wife to explain her television program to him:

What was it all about? Mildred couldn't say. Who was mad at whom? Mildred didn't quite know. What were they going to do? Well, said Mildred, wait around and see. (pg.45)

Most people can probably tell you that Fahrenheit 451 is about censorship or burning books. I've never gotten around to reading it until now, but I could have told you that. However, Bradbury used book burning as a metaphor for a much greater menace leeching on human civilization: our desire to be constantly distracted and entertained.

Bradbury wrote of a world where people "are so confident that they will run on forever. But they won't run on. They don't know that this is all one huge blazing meteor that makes a pretty fire in space, but that someday it'll have to hit. They see only the blaze, the pretty fire . . ." (pg.103)

This is our world today! We see only what we want to see, what we can get in 140 characters or a two minute clip on Youtube, and I'm as guilty of this as anyone. I can't count how many times I dog-eared a page of Fahrenheit just to quickly check my Twitter feed or email.

As Bradbury once said, "There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches." Burning books means choosing distraction over focus on the things that matter. It means choosing not to steep yourself in the knowledge of important issues and instead absorb the soundbites and rumors of the latest shallow novelty. We're all book burners from time to time, when it comes down to it. Here's to hoping we can all burn a little less.