I have recently posted my review of the new Star Trek movie at the LASFS forum.
http://www.lasfs.info/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=622#p999 If you haven't seen the movie yet, what the heck is stopping you? Don't come crying to me if you see a spoiler or two in the review. Better to go bitch-slap Wikipedia, which gives a blow-by-blow and line-by-line synopsis of the film. In other news, I no longer have cause to complain about my car. Something dislodged my oil filter while I was driving at freeway speed the other night, and shortly thereafter I was standing at the side of the road next to a 1995 2-door Toyota Camry with a siezed-up engine. The estimates for repairing or replacing the engine averaged $4,000.00, which (A) I can no way in hell afford, and (B) is greater than the current value of the car itself.
(Since there was nothing interesting on the radio at the time, I was amusing myself while driving by singing the lyrics to "Nobody Does It Better" shifted to the first person, in the loudest, most obnoxious voice I could manage. Obviously someone from on high took notice and felt that a little object lesson in humility was in order.) Without an engine, the value of the vehicle was roughly $200.00. Oddly enough, that's what the labor for diagnosing the problem came to. One of the mechanics wanted to teach his son the manly art of engine repair, and made me an offer to buy the car for the price of the bill. As my only other option seemed to be donating it to Kars for Kids for a tax write-off I would never get to apply since my taxes aren't that high to begin with (wage slave, no properties, no investments, no interest to speak of, no capital gains, etc. etc.), I accepted. My brother has offerred to sell me his long-disused tertiary vehicle, a Toyota pickup truck only 3 years older than the Camry, for a reasonably low sum. So at least I'll still have wheels. (For however long a 17-year-old rice-burning pickup truck will last, assuming the same damn thing doesn't happen again.)
On the LASFS front, since the start of my new job my appearances at the front table on meeting nights have been far outweighed by my absences. Although I am protected against direct retribution for this by the language of the By-Laws, it just doesn't sit right with me that I should be an absentee president. Neither would I be on hand to reliably serve as VP, let alone any of the other offices. Therefore I will not be standing for reelection for the coming term, and will refuse any nominations that come my way.
(The job does not affect my BOD seat, since meetings occur after my Sunday shift. But I will be largely unseen at procedural meetings for the foreseeable future.)
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Steaks, chops, zuchini, hamburgers, chicken fillets, etc. etc. Yes, yes, so the ads tell us. Old news. Whoopee.
Here are a few other things I've had luck with.
--Yam Fries. Since they're braised in oil at the factory prior to being frozen, most types of frozen french fries will cook on the Foreman grill nicely. Lay a few handfuls out on the surface of the grill, spread evenly, and shut the grill. Takes about 3 minutes. I prefer yam fries even though they're a bit more expensive in terms of getting half as much for the same money as in a bag of potato fries, because they don't require salting after they're cooked. The yam's natural flavor comes through absent of seasoning, unlike the potato.
--Oranges. What, you mean you've never cut a large orange into half-inch slices and thrown them on the grill? Brings out the flavor nicely. Also works well with other large, cohesive fruits. Melon slices, tomatoes, mangoes, pineapple rings or spears. I wouldn't recommend bananas, though. They tend to liquify. Very messy.
--Canned Veggies. Green beans, carrots, succotash, sliced irish potatoes. Again, about 3-5 minutes. The trick is to keep them from ending up in the drip try. Keep them bunched up toward the back, and spray them with garlic juice or salad spritzers while cooking. 3-5 minutes.
--Corned Beef Hash. Come on, now. This is what the thing was invented for. The hash cooks while the grease dribbles away. After about 2 minutes, turn the seared hash patties so as to get them browned evenly. (The grill plate on the underside of the lid does get hot, but never quite as much so as the bottom plate, so you have to turn your food or it will be brown on top and black on the bottom.) Another 2 minutes and breakfast is ready.
--Omelets. I use egg substitute myself, but to each his own. If you want to use real egg, knock yourself out. Personally, I feel there's little point to fat-free cooking if you're going to go swimming in a pool of cholesterol instead, but whatever.... The discerning reader, being aware that the George Forman grill is inclined foreward to allow fat to drip away as it cooks out of the food, may wonder how one may keep his omelet from draining into the drip tray before it has a chance to cook. My first try yielded a plate of paper-thin egg scrambles and scrapings. I tried shimming the front feet up for egg recipes, but then, after washing the detachable grill plates, I enjoyed a bit of serendipity. Set the bottom cooking plate aside, invert the top plate, and attach it to the bottom heating element. The downward lip at the front of the top plate becomes a dam which keeps the eggs on the grill until the heat can thicken them. (The lid will not close over the dam; it will be necessary to leave it up to cook your eggs.) Done this way, an omelet will take about 10 minutes* and turn out as thick as you like. Lift it at one end and fold it over itself in sections the width of the spatula. Salt if desired.
(*= The top cooking rack does not transfer heat from the heating element as efficiently as the bottom rack does. If you are in a hurry, use the bottom rack, but spread half a can of corned beef hash along the front edge. The hash will trap the egg and keep it from draining away, allowing it to cook. Since the bottom rack contacts the heating element more solidly, and does not prevent the grill from being closed, the cooking will go faster. Omelet and hash will both be ready in approx. 4 minutes time.
--Biscuits. Pillsbury (or low-cost alternative brand) premade biscuits, 10 to a tube, arranged across the grill. They spread and cook together as they warm. When you can smell them on the other side of the apartment, they're ready. (Typically about 3 minutes.) The result will be a sort of thick flatbread, browned on top and bottom, which will seperate with light effort into 10 biscuits and eaten with butter or jelly, or can be left together, spread with tomato sauce, crumbled meat, sliced veggies, and shredded mozzarella, and thrown into the microwave oven for approx. 1 minute to make pizza.
(Alternately, if one is a bisquick afficionado, one could mix up a sheet of biscuit dough and then cook it on the grill without cutting it. (Pan Biscuits, as the recipe on the side of the box calls it.) I have a small kitchen with limited prep space, so I lean toward the prefab stuff.)
--Meat loaf. Mix your favorite meat loaf recipe (using 98% lean ground meat -- the drip tray will only hold so much grease before overflowing) and work it into a ball about the size of a grapefruit. Plop it down on the grill and work it out to the dimensions of the cooking surface, then close the lid over it. Takes about 10 minutes to cook fully. The finished product is a half-inch thick sheet that can be subdivided into 2 or 3 sandwich-sized portions, or sliced into several 1-inch wide spears. Repeat the process for about an hour (to the limit of available ingredients) to make as much meat loaf as you could by baking for an hour, coating the oven with grease splatters, and setting off the smoke alarm 5 or 6 times.
******
I find that the process of cleaning the grill plates is much easier if I undertake what chefs refer to as "deglazing the pan". After the food is removed, pour about an ounce of wine across the grill and use the spatula to guide the sizzles toward the drip tray. (One day, I may even be brave enough to complete the other half of the process, which is to collect the residue and use it to make a sauce with which to garnish the food.)
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And now, to present the "Better Late Than Never" award, here's LASFS President Michael Thorsen:
"Ahem. (Is this thing on? *tap tap* Testing one-two-three...)
"Forry Ackerman passed from the realm of mere mortality into eternity on Thursday, Decemeber 4, 2008, slightly less than 3 hours after the close of the weekly LASFS meeting. He had been sick with pneumonia some weeks before, but (we are told) had recovered; he passed away peacefully in his sleep at his home. He had outlived Locus Magazine's announcement of his death by over a month, the last great accomplishment of a man whose life was one accomplishment after another.
In times past, when a LASFS member would die, his memorial was held within a week or two, three at the most, of his passing. Gary Louie, Bruce Pelz, Michael Mason, Kelly Freas, Alan Rothstein.... If a weekend event had to be bumped, it was bumped. It was understood that some things just would not wait.
For one of the founders of our club, however, the LASFS BOD elected to wait until there was a free day on the calendar to hold a memorial. As it turns out, the first free day was the fourth weekend in the following month Talk about striking while the iron is cold....
Now, nearly 2 months after his demise, the long-overdue LASFS memorial for Forrest J (no-period) Ackerman, author, editor, actor, agent, professional fan, avid collector of all things SF, coiner of the term "Sci-Fi", and veteran (if not an actual founding) member of LASFS itself, will occur this Saturday (Jan. 24, 2009) at 1 PM at LASFS HQ in North Hollywood.
The BOD selected a pair of LASFS members (myself included) with little actual familiarity with Forry or his estate, family, business contacts, past accomplishments, affiliations, etc to organize this event. Not knowing who to contact, we groped around in the dark for several weeks until Tadao finally found someone who said he knew some people. Contact numbers were traded, and where it went from there, we will find out on January 24.
With less than a week to go, we have to the best of my knowledge not contacted Forry's family, his executors, business contacts, or made any sort of public announcement other than a post on the LASFS website and on Livejournal. We don't even know if we have a budget to provide a snack table. These are details that should have been worked out first thing, and would have been if the organizing committee (self included) had been composed of people who knew what they were about. (Hell, the only reason I'm even on the thing is because I'm LASFS' elected president. A temporary political post is not a good enough credential for setting up this sort of event.) My apologies to Tadao, but at this low point in our careers and with so many conflicting elements in our personal lives, and with how little we actually know about Forry, we are the last two SF fen in the world who should have been put in charge of this memorial.
Scheduled long after the fact, organized by people with no knowledge of who to contact and too much going on in their own affairs to do it justice, and lightly publicized. It would serve LASFS right if no one at all showed up to this thing. But that would also be an insult to the memory of a man with enviable accomplishments in many a field, who was highly influential in the creation and direction of modern SF fandom. I can't see for the life of me how this will turn out well; all we can do now is hope for better than we deserve."
[Walks from the stage amid thunderous silence from the audience.]
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Now that the election cycle is over, we can take a breath, smell the coffee, and try to make an intelligent choice about which wobbly rock in the piranha-infested river of American politics we wish to leap to next. So that we may make an informed choice, I offer the following.... The Political Philosophies of the USA (boiled down to their basic essentials): --- Your Basic Democrat "We need more entitlement programs. Let's raise taxes to pay for it all." Your Basic Republican "We need tax shelters and new construction projects. Let's borrow several billion dollars to pay for it all." Your Basic Liberal "Sex, drugs, tobacco products, fatty foods, and SUV's are evil (unless they belong to us). Lets pass laws so that other people can't enjoy the things that we enjoy." Your Basic Conservative "Small government is good government. We need to create huge bureacratic regulatory agencies to make sure government stays small."
Your Basic (Big-L) Libertarian "There are a lot of important issues we could discuss, such as the role of government in a civilized society, the wisdom of the Founding Fathers of our great nation, the constitutionality of many of our current laws, and the most sensible approach to national solvency. So let's begin (as always) with the single most important topic in any and every discussion of issues vital to our survival as a free nation: The legalization of marijuana."
Your Basic Totalitarian "Now that I have been elected, you are all my slaves, and I shall rule with an iron rod. Bow down before me now and do my bidding, or I'll have you shot."
Your Basic Right-Wing "We are a nation of poor mindless sheep who have lost our way. But if we just have faith, Awl-Mighty Gawd shall send to us a candidate who will lead us back to the path of righteousness."
Your Basic Centrist "I don't like to make waves, so I just select my votes at random."
Your Basic Left-Wing "I hate George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush and Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin and Condoleeza Rice and Capitalism and the military and Ronald Reagan and the First, Second, and Fourth Amendments and educational freedom and Fox News and Clear Channel and Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and Jeb Bush and Ann Coulter and Rupert Murdoch and Doctor Laura and Karl Karcher and my dad and the Chief of Police and Billy Graham and Jerry Falwell and tax cuts and Bill Gates and the free market economy and my cat Mittens and...."
Your Basic Radical Right "Babies have a right to life. Fetuses are people too. If you visit an abortion clinic, I'll KILL you.
Your Basic Radical Center "Goddamit, I said I don't like to make waves. Get out of my face or I'll sue your ass." Your Basic Radical Left "I hate George Bush I hate George Bush I hate George Bush I hate George Bush I hate George Bush I hate George Bush I hate George Bush I hate George Bush I hate George Bush I hate George Bush I hate George Bush I hate George Bush I hate George Bush...." Your Basic Lunatic Fringe "The moon landings were faked. Modern technology was given to us by space aliens. 9/11 was planned by the US Government as a means of bailing out Enron. The war was all about oil. Conservatives are adding nanotechnology to aspirin tablets so they can beam spy rays into our heads from orbital satellites to control our minds. Every election since John Quincy Adams has been faked. Floridation of water is a ploy to pollute the purity of our precious bodily fluids. The propellant in aerosol hair spray cans is causing global warming. There is no demonstrable political bias in the American Main Stream Media. Push all the jews into the sea. America is the Great Satan. The UN should hold the launch codes of all nuclear arsenals for safe-keeping. ....And, fucking sign the goddamned Kyoto Accord, for christ's sake!.....etc etc ad nauseam ad infinitum. ....." --- (Have I left anyone untarred? Speak up; plenty of tar left on this brush. Might have a few feathers somewhere, too....)
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Five times I've tried to post an entry. Five times the spacing, formatting, capitalization, and basic paragraph structure have been drastically altered upon clicking "Post Entry". I did not have this problem when I posted a harangue of the inefficiency of airline security. I did not have this problem when I posted a scathing review of a long-dead TV program. I did not have this problem when I gently suggested that separating hydrogen from oxygen can be done chemically, rather than by electrolysis.
I can only conclude that I am being deliberately interfered with today, since today's post is one of political-based humor.
Fuck Off, Livejournal Troll. And go read the First Amendment, while you're at it.
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The following is a compilation of my personal observations and conclusions based on
watching the "Heroes" television series episodes and value-added materials included on
the Season 1 & 2 DVD sets, and reading the graphic novels. As I do not have access to
on-air television or high-speed internet, I have not yet seen any episodes of Season 3.
****
DRAMATIS PERSONAE: The "S"-shaped symbol which is found on or in close proximity to anyone with supernormal
abilities is the combination of two Japanese alphabetic characters which together translate
to "Godsend". The pantheon of characters in the "Heroes" series who have displayed (or
been implied to have) one or more Godsend Abilities so far is listed below, grouped by
association.
[Founders of "The Company"]
----------------------------------------------
Adam Monroe - Cellular Regeneration, Longevity
Arthur Petrelli - (undisclosed - hinted to be some manner of Flight)
Angela Petrelli - (undisclosed - hinted to be Touch-based Suggestion Control)
Kaito Nakamura - Computer Intellect (recall, computation, short-term prognostication)
Bob Bishop - Metal Transmutation
Daniel Linderman - Touch-based Projected Cellular Regeneration
Charles Deveaux - Spatial Awareness (possibly Clairvoyance)
Maury Parkman ("Nightmare Man") - Telepathy, Perception Control, Dream Control
[The Founders' Descendants]
----------------------------------------------
Hiro Nakamura - Time Control, Teleportation
Nathan Petrelli - Levitation, Supersonic Flight
Peter Petrelli - Permanent Proximity-based Absorption/Adaptation of Godsend Abilities
Elle Bishop - Electrocasting
Matt Parkman - Telepathy, Telecoersion (other mental abilities not yet disclosed)
Claire Bennet (biological daughter of Nathan Petrelli) - Cellular Regeneration
(Longevity implied but not yet demonstrated)
Powered Operatives of "The Company" (current & former)
--------------------------------------------------------
Elle Bishop - see above
The Haitian (real name unknown) - Godsend Ability Dampening, Organic Memory Erasure
Claude - Personal Invisibility
Eden (Bennet's assistant, season 1) - Telecoersion
Candace (Sylar's keeper, Season 2) - Illusion Casting
Hana Gitelman ("Wireless") - Technomancy (telepathic influence of electronic devices)
Others with Godsend Abilities
-------------------------------------------------
Issac Mendez - Graphic Precognition
Ted Sprague - Thermonuclear Projection
Sylar - Intuitive Aptitude + Permanent Adaptation of Godsend Abilities
Zane Taylor (Sylar victim) - Room-temperature Liquification of Matter
Dale Smither (Sylar victim) - Extreme Auditory Perception
Charlene Andrews (Sylar victim) - Total Recall
Maya Hererra - Psychic-Poison Broadcast
Alejandro Hererra - Psychic-Poison Absorption & Dissipation
West Rosen - Levitation, Supersonic Flight
Meredith Gordon (Claire's Genetic Mother) - Pyrokinesis
DL Hawkins - Intangibility
Nikki Sanders (aka Jessica) - Extreme Strength, Stamina, Dexterity
Micah Sanders - Technomancy
Molly Walker - Location Finder
Monica Dawson (Micah's Cousin) - Adoptive Muscle Mimicry
"Liquid Man" (discussed but not yet seen) - Self-liquification
Detective Furokawa - Highly-Intuitive Language Translation (possible limited Telepathy)
Significant Recurring Characters with no apparent Godsend Abilities
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Chandra Suresh (deceased parapsychologist & geneticist, author of book on Godsend gene)
Mohinder Suresh (son of Chandra, parapsychologist & geneticist for The Company, source of
natural antibodies to combat the Shanti Virus)
Victoria Pratt (Geneticist for The Company, retired after Batch 138 was nearly released 30 years ago)
Yaeko (Swordsmith's daughter & Takezo Kensei's princess in Feudal Japan, fell in love with Hiro 400 years ago)
Caitlin Brown (Peter Petrelli's girlfriend, lost in dystopian alternate future)
Noah Bennet (Claire's adopted father, operative of The Company)
Sandra Bennet (Claire's adopted mother)
Lyle Bennet (Claire's annoying little adopted brother)
Mr. Muggles (Bennet family's pet sharpei dog) ****
UNDERUSED CHARACTERS: Detective Furokawa appeared once only, in Season 1 Episode 2, in an alternate timeline
future visited by Hiro Nakamura. He displayed the ability to convey vast amounts of
complex information while translating short, clipped phrases between Japanese and English.
This could only be possible if Furokawa has a Godsend Ability which greatly enhances his
capacity to translate languages. It is unknown if the series producer intends to further
develop this character at a later time (possibly as a potential future Sylar victim). ****
ADOPTIVE MULTIPOWERS: Certain characters on "Heroes" have displayed a broad-based ability to collect and
permanently adapt the Godsend Abilities of others for their own use. Peter Petrelli's
version of this ability is passive, not harmful to the original ability-holder, and is
used by him for good purposes. Gabriel "Sylar" Grey, on the other hand, is a self-serving
sociopath who steals other people's special gifts for his own selfish and evil uses. It
is as yet undisclosed whether it is actually necessary for him to kill others to adopt
their Godsend Abilities, or if he kills them so as to be the sole owner of the powers he
steals, or if he kills just to experience the sick evil thrill of doing so. It is also undisclosed if these two are the only ones with adoptive multipowers.
Peter Petrelli - Copies Others' Powers By Close Proximity
------------------------------------------------------------
(Natural Ability) Empathy, Permanent Proximity-based Absorption/Adaptation of Godsend Abilities
Levitation, Supersonic Flight
Graphic Precognition
Time Control, Teleportation
* Thermonuclear Projection
* Cellular Regeneration (longevity implied but not yet demonstrated)
Metal Transmutation
Electrocasting
Telepathy, Perception Control, Telecoersion
Location Finder
Telekinesis
Extreme Strength, Stamina, Dexterity
Technomancy
Intangibility
Personal Invisibility
Intuitive Aptitude
Spatial Awareness (possibly Clairvoyance)
* = Alone, the Thermonuclear Projection ability is deadly but not explosive. The output of nuclear
radiation eventually takes its toll on the host body; the progressive degeneration of his tissues
makes it impossible for the host to do more than get very hot and emit toxic radiation in extended
bursts. Coupled with the Cellular Regeneration ability, however, the self-inflicted damage repairs
itself, making it possible for Peter to build up nuclear energy until it could explode. As the
Thermonuclear Projection power is adrenal in nature, it is imperative Peter not be pushed too hard
physically or emotionally, lest he suffer an attack of intense rage and start building up to critical mass. Sylar (Gabriel Grey) - Steals Powers By Cutting Off Victims' Skulls & Eating Their Brains
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Natural Ability) Intuitive Aptitude, Permanent Adaptation of Godsend Abilities
Telekinesis
Room-temperature Liquification of Matter
Thermal Control
Extreme Auditory Perception
Thermonuclear Projection
Graphic Precognition
Total Recall
(...plus several others, as yet undisclosed) ****
FRACTURED MULTIPOWERS: Nikki Sanders suffers from Multiple Personality Disorder. She possesses extreme physical
abilities but cannot normally access them in her own persona. Her alternate personality,
Jessica, is a violent sociopath with full access to the Godsend physical abilities. Nikki has at least one other personality who calls herself Gina, who may or may not have
access to Jessica's physical abilities. It may be that Nikki has still more personalities
and that each commands a different Godsend Ability. If so, Nikki is a Godsend multipower
whose full range of abilities and potential remains undisclosed. ****
DECAPITATION - NOT NECESSARILY FATAL, JUST A BAD WAY TO START YOUR DAY: It is implied that the only way a Hero with the Cellular Regeneration power may be
killed is to destroy the brain (bullet to the head, decapitation, etc). However, Claire
Bennet has already been killed by having a sharp stick projected through the stem of her
brain; she revived instantly when the medical examiner removed the stick. It is therefore
likely that, if decapitated, she (or Adam Monroe, or Peter Petrelli) would actually grow a
brand new head. The question is therefore whether the regenerating Hero, having grown their head back,
would be a tabula rasa, needing to be raised to mental maturity via several years of
parenting and reeducation, or if they could somehow regain their memories once the new
head was fully grown. It is possible that sufficient RNA traces may exist within the
body that partial memory (basic motor and language skills, at least) may be regained
as part of the regeneration process. ("Who am I? And, why are you looking at me so...
strangely?")
Possibly all that would be required to complete the process would be for the regenerating Hero
to hold her severed original head in her hands, triggering an electro-chemical download of all
the memories and experiences contained within. ****
IMMORTALITY - NOT AS GREAT AS IT'S CRACKED UP TO BE: Open letter to Adam Monroe:
So, a real estate developer bulldozes a graveyard sometime in the middle of the 23rd Century
and out of an unearthed coffin pops a living breathing englishman, mad enough to spit nails and
jonesing for revenge on a certain time-bending japanese adventurer who's been dead and gone
now some 200 years.
My advice? Get over yourself. You have bigger problems now.
Face facts, Adam. You've been alive now for 600 years (the last 200 locked in a small wooden box),
and there's no indication you will ever be able to die. This means that, in 300,000 years, when the
Sun explodes and incinerates the inner planets of the Solar System, if you are still present your
life will consist of burning to death, coming back to life, and burning to death again, over and over
throughout all eternity.
It would therefore behoove you to not be present for the death of Planet Earth. You should give some
thought as to how to encourage mankind to leave its cradle and move on out into the larger universe, so
that you can go with them. That won't be possible if you murder 97+% of the human species. Warts
and all, we are your only hope of escaping a fate far worse than mere death.
****
TOSSING THUNDERBOLTS IS, LIKE, SO LAST CENTURY: Elle Bishop's ability to dishcarge electrical current was zealously overstimulated by her
father at an early age, to the extent that, at the age of 24, she is capable of putting out
enough megawattage to melt steel or fry a full grown man to ash in seconds. However, there
are other possible applications to her power, as yet unexplored, which could serve her
effectively without the risk of inflicting pain or death on others, if desired. The human nervous system is basically a microwatt-rated electrical device. If Elle could
be trained to limit her output to microwattage, she could use her gift in the manner of a
TENS therapy device (Transdermal Electro-Neural Stimulation), enabling her to relieve pain
as well as inflict it. (In essence, she could be both the good and bad cop simultaneously.)
With sufficient training, she might even be able to electrically induce pure pleasure or
other simulated sensations in the nervous systems of those she touches (effortlessly seduce
lovers, induce unconsciousness, etc). Elle might also learn to use her electric output to interfere with or even override control
of certain types of electronic devices, or to draw electrical energy out of powered systems
to render them inert. With time and effort, she may be able to learn how to produce
alternating current, or safely absorb it. ****
A BUG IN YOUR EAR: The Shanti Virus, named after Shanti Suresh (deceased daughter of Chandra, sister of
Mohinder), is the only revealed instance of a nonhuman life form posessing a Godsend
Ability. It is a disease pathogen which supresses the Godsend Abilities of those it
infects. This is closely analogous to The Haitian, who can temporarily supress other
people's Godsend Abilities by proximity. (The virus posesses the same ability; it remains
in proximity as long as it continues to live in a victim's bloodstream.) If left unchecked,
the Shanti virus will eventually kill anyone it infects. Batch 138, a mutated strain of the Shanti Virus which was cultured by The Company 30 years
ago, is a weaponized airborne pathogen which attacks and swiftly kills powered and power-
less humans alike but apparently does not suppress Godsend Abilities (Season 2 alternate
ending - the virus is released with the Petrelli brothers and Matt Parkman standing at
ground zero; normal people throughout the town of Oddessa, Texas drop like flies and the
Heroes eventually get sick as well, but the Heroes' abilities are apparently unaffected).
The Company's oft-heard dogma "The cure is almost perfected" may therefore be interpreted
to mean that the ultimate goal of The Company is to create a strain of the Shanti virus that will only
kill powerless humans, but leave super-powered humans in perfect health. (Ie, encourage
the evolution of humanity by wiping out the non-powered 97+% of the human population of
Planet Earth all in one stroke.) Meaning that ordinary humans are the disease The Company
wishes to cure. This is exactly the kind of thing The Company's original founder, Adam
Monroe the 400-year-old ronin, would come up with. ****
LET SLEEPING DOGS LIE: Stipulating that a possible Godsend Ability may be "Animal-form Self-transformation", there
exists the possibility that the Bennet family's pet dog, Mr. Muggles, may yet be revealed
to be an operative of The Company under deep cover. Alternately, Mr. Muggles may be an
innocent victim of an as-yet undisclosed assault by someone with a "Transform Other
To Animal" ability. ...Or he could just be an overgroomed mutt with a brain the size of a peanut. ****
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Can anyone tell me what universe I'm in?
Eighteen years ago, I took a walk on a foggy day. When the fog cleared, everything was different. Where I came from, Fanny May was a chocolateer. Now she sells absurdly-high interest rate quarter-of-a-million-dollar loans to poor people. (And somehow makes money doing so.)
In the before place, people with a debt they couldn't afford either took a second job to pay it off, or set up a dummy corporation under a fictional name and listed everything they owned as corporate assets, then declared personal bankruptcy. Here, they petition the federal government to bail them out at no charge.
Where I was, Conservatives believed in fiscal responsibility (you paid your debts, and you didn't initiate new spending until they were paid off). Where I am, Conservatives (both at local and national levels) believe you can borrow your way out of debt. (Liberals in both places consistently believe setting up a new tax is the cure to all ills. Apparently, liberal voters somehow believe that that new tax will be paid by other people, not them.)
On the other side, everyone understood that, if you wanted to keep the odd multi-million-dollar windfall, you put it in the bank, worked for one last year, then quit and lived off the interest. Here, you win the lottery, you immediately go on a spending spree until you have nothing left (in about 5 and a half months) except debts. Or, if you do save something aside (like you were some kind of evil conservative or something), a new tax comes along to take it away.
I must be starting to acclimatize, though. All this hooplah about Fanny and Freddy have got me wondering what would happen if I were to take out a F___ M__ housing loan, then (oopsie, somebody else bought the house while I was doing the paperwork), divert enough to pay 24 monthly payments plus my entire accumulated credit card debt to my checking account, and deposit the balance into savings.
With a principal balance of roughly $187, 000 at 3.5% simple interest, each year would give me $6, 545 to bolster my savings. Since I'd paid much more than that keeping the loan alive, I could claim to the IRS and Franchise Tax Board that I'd lost money enough to more than cancel out my interest income. At the end of each year, I'd roll the accumulated interest over to a different account so that the numbers would remain stable each year. After two years, having recovered all the savings that 5 years of underemployment and the downpayment on my current car cost me, I'd pay back the original 187, 000 in one lump, thus reducing my monthly payment to a level that could be supported by my meager monthly income.
And if at some point I got sick and tired of paying that, I'd apply for the Federal Bailout Package and write the whole thing off cold. See? I'm starting to think like a native of this universe.
Maybe it's just my other-continuum upbringing, but something at the back of my skull is pleading with me not to go ahead with the above plan. Is it just fear? Or is there something I've glossed over?
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Ever heard a liberal attempt to disparage a conservative by describing him as "Slightly to the Right of Attila"? (The "Attila" in question being generally assumed to be Attila the Hun, of course. I mean, how many other peaple named "Attila" have you ever heard of?) Historically, Attila the Hun was the leader of a huge mob of nomadic barbarian horsemen back in 434 AD, who preyed upon farmers and tradesmen and the occasional footbound traveller who ventured forth in the hinterlands between one walled city and the next, all up and down Europe, from Germany to the outskirts of Rome. The Huns were a scourge upon the land who robbed and pillaged anyone they set upon. Their brutal reign of terror was fueled by the bold and gifted leadership of Attila, and went unchecked for many years. Eventually, however, it all came crashing down when Attila went and got himself hitched one night and was subsequently sexed to death by his new bride on the first night of the consummation of their connubial bliss. Without Attila, the rest of the Huns were unable to make much account of themselves. No one remembers the bold exploits of Fred the Hun, or Gustav the Hun, or even that most dread of all scourges, Westley the Hun (no one would ever surrender to the Dread Hun Westley). As far as history is concerned, Hunship pretty much died with Attila. So when George Q. Liberal calls down hellfire and damnation upon his conservative opponent by marking him "slightly to the Right of Attila", what is he really implying? That J. Rupert Conservative from Flatland is a great strategist and leader of men, but doesn't really have it in him to survive in the rigorous and stressful world of lovemaking?
Let's examine what Attilla and his followers really stood for. Forced redistribution of wealth? Seems so. Imposing stringent penalties upon "The Rich" (with a fungible definition of who qualified as "rich" from one moment to the next), at ever-increasing rates so as to make them Pay Their Fair Share? Beyond question. The Huns would often set upon whole towns and villages, slaying the menfolk and then raping the women and children to death, so I can't think that "The Right to Life" was high on their list of priorities. Attila's political leanings don't really appear so far to the Right , do they? In reality, when you boil it all down, Attilla the Hun was about as far to the Left as you could get. On the other hand, whenever they felt the weather was too chilly, the Huns would put entire villages to the torch, with no concern at all for the poor drowning polar bears or for the size of their carbon footprint. It's safe to say, therefore, that the Huns' great leader apparently didn't subscribe to the whole "Manmade Global Warming" myth. I guess there may be some hope for Attila the Hun after all.
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Can anyone tell me off the top of their head (without Googling it) what the 3rd Amendment says? We all know about the 1st amendment, because anytime anyone tells anyone else to shut the hell up, the anyone else responds by claiming that his Freedom of Speech has been violated. We all know about the 2nd Amendment, even though, since some, illiterate, loser of a, congressional scribe, placed two too many commas, into what should have, been a simple, easy-to-, understand and, impossible, to misinterpret sentence, debate rages on to this day about what it really, means. (That the government isn't allowed to disarm you.) We all know about the 4th amendment (due process of law), the 5th Amendment (I refuse to answer on the grounds that doing so may incriminate me), and others, but no press has ever been given to the 3rd Amendment, nor has it been the subject of editorials or a major motion picture (at least, not in a way you'd recognize). The 3rd Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America's Bill of Rights has vanished into limbo. The 3rd Amendment forbids the federal government to quarter soldiers in the homes of private citizens. It was a direct response to a practice of the oppressive absentee British government in the times immediately prior to the Revolutionary War, to quarter British soldiers in the homes of citizens rather than keep them encamped centrally. The crown and parliament were afraid that, if centrally located, soldiers might have been attacked in their sleep. (Because, of course, no one in the Service of the King ever stood guard on nighttime watches. And if you believe that one, I have some beachfront property I'd like to sell you in the Mojave Desert....) The real result of quartering was that no one could discuss private business or express the slightest frustration with taxes or other government policies, even in the privacy of their own homes, without facing the possibility of being overheard by ears in the employ of the king and being subsequently charged, tried, and executed for sedition. After the Revolution was successful, the framers of the Constitution devoted an Amendment to making it illegal for our own government to adopt this destructive practice. But how often does that happen today? When was the last time you heard of the Government of the United States stationing agents in the homes of private citizens? When have they had to? Aside from certain world wars, in which practically every mother's son was a soldier anyway, when has an arm of the Federal Government ever tried to make it necessary for every private citizen to entertain a houseguest who would keep track of everything said and done by every member of the household and then snitch to a superior? It would seem that the 3rd Amendment is only untransgressed because of its obsolescence. But is it really obsolete? And is it really untransgressed? "No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law." (Again with the unneccesary commas. But I digress.) Meaning, no one is required to put Big Brother up in their home, but they may consent to do so at their own choice. In order for them to choose this, it must be advantageous for them to do so. There must be some benefit of unquestionable value which renders the presence of a government eye and ear in the private affairs of Joe Citizen something he would actually desire. But what could provide such an inducement? A self-correcting typewriter? Effortless tax preparation? Near-instantaneous communication and sharing of information unfettered by distance or prohibitive billing fees? Hard-to-find merchandise and rare collectibles at insanely-low prices? Hot and cold running pornography, prostitution, and perversion? Massively muliplayer online roleplaying games? These are apparently more than inducement enough. We have reached a point where art, science, business, socializing, recreation, creativity, crime, and any other human endeavor requires a link to the Internet if it is going to thrive. In this day and age, can you get along without the Internet? I know I can't. The people I work for can't. Almost everyone I know has a cell phone, a pager, a PDA of some kind, or all of the above. You, whoever you are, wouldn't even be reading this essay if it weren't for the Internet. Where did the Internet come from? It was originally a project of the United States military, to provide a method of long-range communication which could not be completely disrupted by mundane events such as storms, sunspots, or nuclear explosions. But they uncharacteristically did much too good a job. There was so much extra capacity going wasted, that the decision was made to allow others to tap into it. Public utilities, law enforcement, universities, hospitals. It wasn't long before the Internet was the center of modern life. Yours. Mine. Everyone's. We have allowed an agent of the military, of the federal government, to take up residence, not just in our homes, but in our whole lives. Big Brother is now in your home and your workplace, reading your mail, checking your spending against your income and savings, tracking your movements, arranging your social life, enhancing your career opportunities. He is there because we invited Him in, and now there is no getting rid of Him. At one time we could have protested on the basis of Unconstitutionality in the form of a violation of the "No Quartering" Amendment. But we weren't required by law to invite Him in. We wanted Him here. We opened the door, carried in His baggage, and surrendered the master bedroom to Him without so much as a rude word. Big Brother says: "Never invite a computer network into your home, dear boy. It renders you powerless. Now bare your neck and close your eyes. In three nights you will rise from the dead to eternally seek the Memory of the Living....!"
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(A somewhat belated TV review:)
Recently, a friend handed me a DVD he had obtained over the internet. He was enthusiastic about the show on the DVD, and asked me to give it a watch. After some procrastination, I did. At first I disliked the show a little. Then I watched it again, and disliked it even more. Although there was some interesting camera work and use of celtic rock vocal music in some action scenes, and a star-studded cast (Joe Pantoliano, Rod Steiger, etc), none of that sufficiently counterbalanced the mind-numbing awfulness of "EZ Streets". "EZ Streets" was an early attempt at a prime-time noir cop-drama produced by Paul Haggis, a Canada-based maker of TV shows and movies. It had a short run, having yielded a mere 9 episodes before it left the airwaves for good. Production on the show was suspended immediately after the premier of the pilot episode on CBS in October of 1996 due to negative feedback from the viewing public. Several months later, the broadcast schedule for the series was tentatively revived. Between the first week of March '97 and the first week of April '97, the program aired 7 more episodes before it was at long last euthanized by CBS. The 9th episode was never broadcast...thank the Gods for their small mercies! Three of these 9 episodes are now available on DVD from a website called "BrilliantButCancelled.com", which markets episodes of failed TV series which, they opine, ought to have been hailed as huge successes, but were inexplicably cancelled instead. The episodes sampled on the "EZ Streets" DVD begin to tell the story of a fictional American city, partly filmed in and loosely based on Chicago, called Alphabet City, apparently because its streets are unimaginatively named for letters in the alphabet rather than the usual trees, neighborhoods, landmarks, city fathers, etc. There are 3 storylines which run paralell, and occasionally cross each others' paths. In the A-story, we follow the decline into darkness of Quinn, who is apparently the last competant cop left in the city. His partner, Tim, is killed under suspicious circumstances, during an undercover sting operation in which he is not supposed to turn off his surveillance wire but does, is not supposed to get into a strange car with a ski-masked individual but does, and is definitely not supposed to drive away with said individual, but does, and gets his abdomen shot full of holes in the bargain, all the while his friend and partner, Quinn, (who has wrecked the surveillance van trying to keep up with the car) pursues on foot, helpless to save Tim from paying the price of his folly. To make matters worse, the $10,000 in evidence money Tim had been using as bait in the sting mysteriously disappears. The brainless apes in Internal Affairs somehow draw the conclusion from this stack of "wasn't supposed to happen's" that partner Tim was a dirty cop. (Well, duh!) They also entertain the notion that Quinn may have been complicit in the theft of the evidence money that partner Tim should have had on him at the time he was gunned down by a masked stranger. (Apparently the idea that the hood who ventilated Tim's midsection took the cash is too incredible for the IA detectives to grasp.) An as-yet-unspecified amount of time later, Quinn awakens from his nightmarish remembrances of these events in the bed of his lover, who compliments Quinn on his lovemaking, then berates him for his martyr complex. We find that the IA investigation has finally run its course. The money was never recovered, and Tim's not-so-good-to-begin-with name has been posthumously dragged through the mud. Now Quinn is drummed out of the detective squad in disgrace, but is approached by Special Intelligence (the central police division's elite undercover unit) to pretend to be a dirty cop (they hope he's only pretending), so as to get close to a rising star in the local hoodlum community named Jimmy Murtha. Quinn is meant to gain Murtha's trust and then innocuously collect evidence against Murtha and his entire gang so that the whole lot of them can be sent up the river all at once. The B-story follows the descent into darkness of Danny, a young arned robbery convict, fresh out of prison on parole. His childhood buddy, Jimmy Murtha, is waiting outside the prison to give Danny a lift back to town. It turns out Murtha had inadvertantly got Danny sent up 3 years back by impulsively holding up a liquor store while Danny was waiting for him out in the car to return with the beer they had set out to buy, and then escaping on foot when the cops answered the silent alarm and arrested Danny on suspicion of being the getaway driver. Since associating with his former "accomplice" would be a clear violation of his parole, Danny declines the ride and takes the bus instead. When he gets home, he finds that his lovely young wife, Ellie, has fallen out of love with him, has been cohabiting with another man for almost the entire time Danny has been inside, refuses to allow him to move back in, and insists he buy the right to see his 4-year-old daughter at a price of $200 per visit. Danny gets a job in the kitchen of a local commissary, and on his first day violates the standard rule against making personal calls from work while on the clock so that he can have a long, meandering phone conversation with his wife and daughter while ignoring repeated commands from the boss to hang up and get back to work. When the boss finally reaches over and hangs him up in mid-sentence with his little girl, Danny does what any right-minded young man would do in that situation...wrestles his boss to the kitchen floor and repeatedly bludgeons his face with the telephone handset. Later on, Danny meets Jimmy and tells him all his troubles, whereupon Jimmy gives him a job as his driver. He also promises to square things with the injured (and luckily not killed) boss, and with Danny's parole officer. (We subsequently never see either one alive again.) Driving for his childhood buddy, Danny gets glimpses of the fact that Jimmy is a borderline psychotic with a tendency to bring maximum force to bear to address all problems, large and small, real or imagined. But Danny's loyalty is beyond reproach, and he keeps quiet about Jimmy's indiscretions, even after Quinn arrests Danny's wife for drug posession and threatens to send her to prison for the rest of her life unless he testifies against Murtha. The C-story follows the descent into darkness of Alphabet City's charismatic and well-spoken mayor, who promises the downtrodden populace that he will sponsor construction and social programs to reclaim Alphabet City from the cesspool of criminal dominance it has become in the last few decades. There is one little problem with that, in that the mayor has taken campain contributions from and is therefore in the pocket of Michael "Fivers" Dugan, a corrupt, violent union boss who is responsible for much of the corruption the mayor wishes to abolish. "Fivers" wants to build a casino in mid-town even though the city's statutes forbid it. A ballot issue is pending to set aside the restrictions, but the mayor's wife, herself an influential city councilwoman, carries the swing vote and is dead set against the casino. "Fivers" sends a couple of his boys around to "persuade" her, and she ends up unconscious on the floor of an elevator, her face beaten to a pulp. When she comes to in the hospital, she has the gall to wonder aloud to her husband, "Why would anyone do this to me?" (Any lingering traces of respect I may have had for this show dove out the window and plummeted 5 stories to the pavement with a dull thud because of that line.) How does a show this awful get hailed by anyone in their right mind as "Brilliant"? The first couple of episodes aired drew acclaim from a few jaded TV reviewers, but television is all about the ratings, and "Street's" ratings were in the toilet. It doesn't matter what a few media shills thought of the show. The folks at home made their choice, and they chose not to watch "EZ Streets". Lousy show, lousy ratings, advertising revenues down. It's no mystery (except to a few malignantly narcissistic TV critics and internet bloggers) why this show was cancelled. The real question is, why on Earth would anyone have expected a show as utterly repellent as "EZ Streets" not to be cancelled? There is little, if anything, to love about this program. The dialog (with a few notable but, sadly, brief exceptions) is a mess of hackneyed, stereotypical "thug lingo" regardless of who is speaking. The plotting is utterly predictable. And the characters are, for the most part, uniformly despicable.
Successful TV shows tend to have at least one central character with whom the audience can identify, one who is, at least in some way, sympathetic. Who should we have identified with and felt sympathy for in "EZ Streets"? The mobster who shoots a jamaican hood through the peephole of his front door for having the temerity to strike him out in a gang-on-gang baseball game earlier in the day? The detective partner who turns his microphone off in the middle of an undercover operation? The ex-con who can't hold a job because he doesn't seem to grasp that shirking work and beating up the boss are frowned upon in the workplace? The ex-con's crack-whore wife who abandons her child to turn tricks for days on end only to spend all the money thus collected on more drugs? Should we feel for the disgraced cop who insists the ex-con turn state's evidence on his best friend and is apparently unconcerned that doing so will almost certainly result in the violent death of the ex-con and his wife and his little girl? Should we feel for the crusading mayor who knowingly accepts contributions from the corrupt union boss whose criminality is one of the core causes of his city's decline? Or for the councilwoman who, holding the deciding "No"-vote on a huge union construction project, gets beaten up on the day before the big vote by union thugs, and can't fathom how the beating and the vote might be connected? The one dimly-glimmering starr (pun intended) in this constellation of brown dwarfs is Murtha's chief henchman, Mickey, played by Mike Starr. Starr does in "EZ Streets" what Starr has done best his entire career: He plays a somewhat befuddled (but oddly considerate, in his way) muscle-bound goon. But even he falls prey to the worst weakness of this anti-brilliant failed series. The message underlying every shot, every scene, every sequence of every episode is one of moral equivalencey. Right and wrong are the same thing. There's no difference between the good guys and the bad guys; "good" and "evil" are just words. You can catch just as many flies with vinegar as you can with honey. Laws are just a means for badge-toting thugs to make life tough for anyone they don't like. The cops, the mobsters, the union boss, all follow their own little agendas no matter who it hurts. The lawyer uses every situation as an opportunity to get sexually titillated by anyone in her immediate vicinity. The ex-con doesn't care who suffers as long as he gets to talk to his little girl. The wife doesn't give a flying fig about her infant daughter except as a means of getting money for her next fix. The whole show and everyone in it is cold-blooded, spiteful, and mean-spirited. There is no warmth anywhere, not even in the visual direction. With few exceptions, every shot is cold and grey. Grey streets, grey sets, grey props, grey people, grey morals. "EZ Streets" is not a brilliant gem. It is a dull, depressing, cold grey mudball filled with violent people who have no understanding of or concern for proper morality, true loyalty, or even simple kindness. The show lasted a month, and then it died as it had lived: Colorless, rudderless, and unloved, a shallow program in a shallow grave. From 1994 to 1996, Paul Haggis produced the first two seasons of a quirky, funny, frequently-touching cop-show called "Due South", which depicted the exploits of a kind-hearted, morally-centered Canadian mountie living and working among, and setting a good example for, the calloused people and police of Chicago. "Due South" went on production-hiatus between 1996 & 1997, during which time Haggis' other project, "EZ Streets", was pitched, produced, aired, roundly rejected by the viewing public, and cancelled. "EZ Streets" was the exact opposite of "Due South" in every way, including, as it turned out, audience appeal. When "EZ Streets" died, Haggis then went on to produce two more seasons of "Due South". And when that series finally drew to a close, its multitudes of viewers were genuinely sad to see it go. "Due South" was truly a brilliant series, as evidenced by the fact that it was not cancelled.. "EZ Streets" was dim, dark, and hopeless, and it got what it richly deserved..
-MWT
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ON RECYCLING:
I've just remembered why I decided never to drink soda from cans at home any more.
From time to time, my brother and his family go out of town and I house-sit for them. Jeff pays me in Mountain Dew, as his finances are fairly tight, and because he knows I'm not really fond of diet drinks (which is usually the only kind of beverage present in his house). The last couple of times, its been in 12-packs of cans. So my recycling bin is piled high with empty cans of sugar (well, high-fructose corn syrup, but hey...)-sweetened soda. And my apartment is piled high with fruit flies. As I type I can barely see the screen from all the little noseeum's flying around between my face and the computer. Very annoying. Luckily tomorrow is recycling day, and the fruit fly breeding grounds will end up at the bottom of a compactor at the other end of North Hollywood. Hopefully, the flies will follow.
As annoying as it is to deal with all the little (winged) problems, recycling my empties gets me $7 - $15 a week. (Read that: Lunch Money.) At LASFS, recycling the SF fen's empties allows us to put on a $50 spread of snacks and treats at each monthly 2nd Sunday Open House, and still save up enough to contribute to refreshments at Seasonal Holiday Parties. Given how lucrative it is to trade in metal and plastic and glass (oh, my) for green folding stuff, I'm amazed that homeowners use those blue bins so that their recyclables can get collected by the trash collection companies. Basically, they're paying someone else to make $$ from their empties. It just seems counter-productive, somehow....
ON THE SUPREME COURT re: GITMO:
So, foreign nationals hostile to the USA in time of war can now claim their constitutional rights. Foreign nationals have constitutional rights? How do you suppose the original framers of the Constitution would have responded to that? It seems that a majority of Supreme Court Justices are unclear on the concept of their jobs. I wonder how many of them have actually ever bothered to read the Constitution?
I get so sick and tired of foreign nationals standing on US soil demanding their "constitutional rights". Imagine someone from the USA going to someone else's homeland and demanding special treatment for being an American. (Okay, we don't have to imagine it...American tourists do it all the time. And they get a rude shock when they learn that the locals consider them bound by local laws, and their US Constitutional protections don't mean squat outside of US borders. Visitors to our shores should get the same kind of wake-up call from time to time.) The language of the Constitution may be a bit flowery but it is not difficult for a person of normal intelligence and average education to work out the gist of what is meant by each line and passage. For instance, in the Preamble, it states: "We, the People of the United States of America...". Not "We the people of the North American Continent, its neighbors, friends, enemies, and all ships at sea". The very first line of the document spells out who is meant to be protected by it. Citizens of the USA, period. Not Mexicans. Not Palestinians. Not Russians. Not anyone except legitimate and legal citizens of this country. So the next time you hear someone yelling in a foreign language about being denied his constitutional rights, hand him an application for US citizenship, and direct him to the nearest INS office. I'm sure he'll be SO VERY THANKFUL to you for kindly pointing out his misconceptions. (...that he'll probably punch you in the nose, and then swear out a complaint against you for assault.)
ON AMENDMENTS WE SHOULD NOT PURSUE, AND AMENDMENTS WE SHOULD:
I am opposed to a constitutional amendment which forbids gays to marry. I am also opposed to a constitutional amendment which allows gays to marry. I am opposed to a constitutional amendment which forbids women to get abortions. I am also opposed to a constitutional amendment which allows women to get abortions. I am opposed to any constitutional amendment which allows or forbids the PEOPLE of the United States of America to do whatever might be at issue. The Constitution of the United States of America is a framework of rules which describe what the federal government is and is not allowed to do. Any amendment which relates to activities of the PEOPLE is a perversion of the document. Example: Bill of Rights, Amendment 1 - The government is not allowed to tell US citizens what they can and cannot say, is not allowed to tell US citizens where they may assemble for peaceful discourse, is not allowed to limit what US citizens may print, and is not allowed to tell US citizens who, what, or where they may (or may not) worship. Amendment 2 - The government is not allowed to disarm US citizens. Amendment 3 - The government is not allowed to station its agents in the homes of US citizens. Amendment 4 - The government is not allowed to lock US citizens up with no trial and throw away the key. The government is not allowed to manufacture evidence. The government is not allowed to conduct fishing expeditions in US citizens' personal records, or confiscate their posessions on a whim. Amendment 5 - The government is not allowed to force US citizens to be put on trial without an official declaration of the charge in question. The government is not allowed to try any US citizen twice for the same capitol crime. The government is not allowed to force an accused citizen to testify against himself. The government must make fair-market recompense for any property confiscated for public use. Etc. Etc. Etc. If it doesn't put a limit on the behavior of the federal government, it has no business being in the Constitution. Period.
That said, there is an amendment which I was eagerly awaiting proposition of from the moment the Republicans gained majority control of Congress back in 1994. (Waiting, as it turned out, in vain.) A constitutional amendment, long overdue, which would put definite limits on the behavior of congress, forcing them to act in the interests of the people of the USA, rather than in their own interests at the expense of the people.
Imagine you are Governor of the State of California. In an address to the people of the state, you promise that for the remainder of your term, there will be no new taxes signed into law. You also promise speedy passage of a much needed Education Reform bill to divert existing tax funds to higher teacher salaries and better-equipped classrooms. Immediately, the state assembly votes to approve said bill, and then sends it to closed committee, where it is cleverly rewritten by your political opponents to include a host of new taxes. Then, without allowing the newly-added line-items to be voted upon individually, they present it to you. You glance through it, red-pencil the newly-added lines, veto the new taxes, move the money from myriad political pork projects into education, and sign it into law. Everyone (except that closed committee and a few parasites no longer living high on public funds) is happy. Now imagine you are President of the United States. In an address to the people of the nation, you promise that for the remainder of your term, there will be no new taxes signed into law. You also promise speedy passage of a much needed Education Reform bill to divert existing tax funds to higher teacher salaries and better-equipped classrooms. Immediately, the congress votes to approve said bill, and then sends it to closed committee, where it is cleverly rewritten by your political opponents to include a host of new taxes. Then, without allowing the newly-added line-items to be voted upon individually, they present it to you. Unlike the State Governor above, you are not armed with a line-item veto. You have no choice, and the political hacks in that closed committee know it; you now need to either veto the entire bill due to the new taxes it now contains and thus go back on your education promise (political suicide), or sign it into law for the education benefits and go back on your tax promise (political suicide). Which will you choose? Would you prefer to eat the barrel of a .357 Magnum, or a 12-gage Remington pump-action shotgun? Arsenic, or cyanide? Lick the third rail, or jump off a tall building? In the end, only one choice will ever make the slightest difference, and it's a choice that needs to be made (and loudly demanded) by the people, through their elected congressional representatives and senators. The line-item veto can only be granted to the President of the United States by an Amendment to the Constitution. Back in 1994, when the Republicans gained a majority in Congress, the notion of a Line-Item Veto Amendment was very popular. Now it is 2008, and after 14 years of bluster and demagogery, of filibusters and cloture votes and Supreme Court nominations and scandals and hooraw and noise, we are still no closer to having a Presidential Line-Item Veto than we were the last time the Democrats were in power. And now they're back, probably for another 50 years, and it'll be more of the same dreary old song, again and again, over and over and over. We need to either pass and ratify a Constitutional Amendment granting the office of the President of the United States the power of the Line-Item Veto (not just for one president's term as was attempted during the Clinton administration, but for all presidents of all political persuasions for all time), or abolish the tradition of sending newly-approved bills to closed committees to be altered dramatically and/or laden with unrelated language & tax hikes which were never part of what was voted upon on the floor, prior to being presented to the President for his blanket signature or veto. We've only got another couple hundred thousand years before the sun explodes, so we don't have time for all this tail-chasing legislative bullshit anymore. State governments have survived the line-item veto. (Most of them have thrived because of it.) It is time the Federal Government was brought up to speed with the rest of us.
ON UNTESTED, UNPROVABLE PSEUDO-SCIENCE: Global Warming does indeed exist, as does Global Cooling. Oddly, they exist at the same time. Some parts of the world get warmer, others cooler; some glaciers get thicker while others calve and fall into the sea. Droughts in some regions, torrential rain in others. Nothing is lost but that it is gained back somewhere else.
Global Warming and Cooling are purely natural aspects of that strange and wonderful thing we call "weather". It has been going on long before there were factories or SUV's or aerosol cans. And it will continue long after those things have been outlawed, dismantled, and buried in mass graves under 60 yards of soft peat. Mr. Former Vice President Alphonse Gore believes that glaciers are an endangered species, and what a damn shame it is that such forces of grandeur and majesty and raw elemental power and beauty will soon disappear from the Earth. My reply: True, it's such a shame that frozen wastelands where nothing can grow will soon be gone, but when they do vanish, they'll leave behind arable land which can be broken up (nothing bizarre, nothing obscene, just use a little of Alfred Nobel's brainchild here and there), pulverized, fertilized, plowed and sown and watered and lived upon. In my book, life is more important than grandeur, and having the flood waters (even the frozen ones) recede from the land is generally a good thing in the overall balance.
ON POINTLESS POLITICAL HOOPLAH:
Congress should not spend its valuable time making non-binding resolutions. That's what the United Nations is for.
And, speaking of the UN....
Since the US no longer sits on the UN Security Council, and since the bulk of the UN is openly hostile to us and to our allies, I suggest that it is inappropriate to continue to host that august international debate society here on our own shores. A more central location for them would seem to be more fitting, particularly if it is one in international territory. Therefore, I suggest we move the United Nations, lock, stock, and barrel, to Antarctica. (I predict that, robbed of the prestige of meeting in NYC, attendance at the UN General Assemby would probably fall off sharply. The small percentage of nations that would continue sending representatives even though the new meeting place was a frozen wasteland instead of a thriving capitalist metropolis would demonstrate far more effectively than any amount of toothless resolutions and ineffectual peace-keeping troops could ever hope to do just how pointless the UN has truly become.)
MWT
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On Livejournal:
How frustrating. I get online with a few extra minutes to kill, decide to spend them posting to livejournal, and instead spend half-an-hour chasing my tail.
Click "Post" - Response: Now that you've posted, you can view the entry, edit the entry, add to memories, etc, etc, etc. Wait, this can't be right. I haven't posted anything yet. Click "Post" - Response: Now that you've posted, you can view the entry, edit the entry, add to memories, etc, etc, etc. Wait, this can't be right. I haven't posted anything yet. Click "Post" - Response: Now that you've posted, you can view the entry, edit the entry, add to memories, etc, etc, etc. Wait, this can't be right. I haven't posted anything yet. Click "Post" - Response: Now that you've posted, you can view the entry, edit the entry, add to memories, etc, etc, etc. Wait, this can't be right. I haven't posted anything yet. Click "Post" - Response: Now that you've posted, you can view the entry, edit the entry, add to memories, etc, etc, etc. Wait, this can't be right. I haven't posted anything yet. Click "Post" - Response: Now that you've posted, you can view the entry, edit the entry, add to memories, etc, etc, etc. Wait, this can't be right. I haven't posted anything yet. Click "Post" - long pause - text editor comes up at long bloody last.
I'm on borrowed time to put a new entry in here, and past my bedtime to boot. I really don't need to be run in circles by a text-management system that can't distinguish between a new post and a post made 2 weeks ago.
On LASFS Politics:
Out of the Vice Presidency, into the Presidency. (Out of the frying pan, into the fire.) Talk about blowing your saving throw....
On National Politics:
Every holder of every publicly-elected political position in the last 70 years has started his campaign the exact same way...by spending months telling every reporter he can get his hands on that he has no intention whatsoever of running for that office. For at least 3 months, at any press junket or photo-op, whenever the question of his political aspiriations comes up, it's deny, deny, deny. Then one day he's suddenly a candidate for the office in question. So, basically, his whole career has begun with a lie.
How can we have the gall to express outrage at our political leaders for constantly and continually lying to us in office, when we know and have known all along that they were lying bastards from the get-go? We get the sort of political leadership we deserve when we continually, knowingly, cheerfully elect pathological liars to lead us. What does that say about us as a people?
On Misleading Polls:
Talk radio hosts are all a-quiver about a new poll which asks its participants "Do you believe the world is a safer place with a Republican in the White House?" My answer: Depends on the republican. Or the democrat. Of the Presidents I have experienced: The world was a safer place under JFK (D), Ford (R), Reagan (R), and Bush 43 (R). The world was significantly less safe under Johnson (R), Nixon (R), Carter (D), Bush 41 (R), and Clinton (D). The world became a great deal safer once we no longer faced the possibility of another Clinton presidency. I'm not sanguine about the prospects of world safety (or the survival of the Constitution, for that matter) under either Presiden McCain or President Obama.
On Fuel Economy:
$4.75 a gallon and still rising. Will be more than $5.50 a gallon by Christmas, at this rate. In other countries, such as Great Britain, the price works out to @ $25.00 a gallon.
Simultaneously, the $3.00 you paid for a quart of motor oil last week is the same price you paid for a quart of motor oil last year. And 2 years ago. And 3. And 6. Motor oil, which is made from the same substance as is gasoline, has maintained price-stability for decades while the price of fuel has risen continuously. 25 years ago I paid $1.25 for a quart of motor oil at the same time I paid $0.89 for a half-gallon of gasoline ($1.78 a gallon, for those who were somehow convinced that half the price for half the merchandise was some kind of bargain). In a quarter-century, the price per gallon of petroleum-based fuel has risen by 400 to 500%, while the price per quart of petroleum-based motor oil has only doubled, and at a rate so slow as to have been invisible, at that. Yet gasoline and motor oil are both made from that self-same $148-a-barrel foreign oil.
How that can be? It would appear that there is something more at work here than Supply-And-Demand, or oil and gas price increases would make more sense relative to each other.
On Alternative Energy:
Corn-based ethanol causes food shortages. Who knew? Apparently there is some quality of ethanol made by fermenting and processing the edible portions of the corn plant that can't be had by fermenting and processing the cobs, the stalks, the silk, and the shucks.
Now that Brazil has made a ethanol-based fuel their national standard, pundits and politicians in the USA are pushing flex-fuel vehicles here. ("Flex-fuel" = A car that will run on ethanol as well as on gasoline.) But Brazil doesn't do flex-fuel; they do ethanol-fuel (ie, cars that run on ethanol. Period.) Flex fuel engines have been shown to burn ethanol inefficiently and gasoline efficiently. Since the cars work best on gas, their drivers will fill with gas, not alcohol, by preference and common sense.
Flex-fuel is not the answer. The answer is to convert industrial engines (cargo & construction) to use biodeisel instead of petroleum-based deisel, and go electric for all domestic vehicles (ban gasoline and the cars that use it from the market entirely). And then take the necessary next steps that were not taken during the unsuccessful test-marketing of electric cars in the recent past:
A) Make a serious effort to install charging stations that will serve everyone (ie, an outlet in every space in the parking lot of every store rather than one or two charging stations every 100 square miles), (B) Engineer the cars so they don't need some exotic interface to hook up to the charging outlets, and (C) Make a nationwide commitment to non-petroleum-based electrical power generation (nuclear, solar, hydrogen, armies of chipmunks on treadmills, whatever).
MWT
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Speed Racer. Kids' show made into kids' movie. Production designer's wet dream. Racetrack designer's worst nightmare. A movie about cars driving sideways, backwards, vertically, etc, (everything except forward) most of the time. A movie about the purity of racing for its own sake, and the corruption of a dream brought about by Big Business. A movie about the misadventures of a fat 10-year-old and his pet chimpanzee. A movie about garish, electronic colors and shapes and events that could occur only inside a computer and/or an LSD hallucination, and looks it. A movie about an hour and a half too long, with the remaining time filled with absolute, errant nonsense.
If you have kids, or pro wrestlers, or ninjas, or drug addicts, in your family, take them to see Speed Racer. They'll love it.
Iron Man. Those toys. Where does he get those wonderful toys? Answer: He makes them, out of less wonderful toys.
It's another old comic book plot brought to life on the big screen. If you can accept that a man can strip down a missile targetting system for a few ounces of paladium, and create from them a nuclear reactor the size of a grapefruit using a car battery, a soldering iron, and a pair of tweezers, the rest of the little tugs by the storyline on the suspension of your disbelief are relatively minor.
Can a man fly? Can a man deflect 50-caliber machinegun bullets? Can a man fire force beams from his hands that will crumple an army tank like a beer can? If the man happens to be wearing the latest innovation of alcoholic, sex-addicted, supergenius reformed weaponsmith Tony Stark, then, of course he can.
We get to see the creation of the iron man armor, from its early makeshift form to its final familiar superhero aspect, in all stages of development. The way it's presented, the premise of a form-fitting, impenetrable, gizmo-filled nuclear-powered flying battlesuit seems absolutely believable.
A lot more believable than, say, a nerdy high-school student being bitten by a radioactive black widow and developing powers rather than a quick case of death by organic neurotoxin. A lot more believable than, say, a pilot, a scientist, a secretary, and a jerk flying to orbit in an experimental satellite and being exposed to extreme levels of exotic radiation and then becoming super-powerful rather than, say, dying slow, excruciatingly-painful deaths. A lot more believable than an evolutionary process which ordinarily produces one minor improvement (bacteria-resistant teeth, or a hand that can reach far enough to scratch the middle of the back) in one person every thousand generations, suddenly venting forth upon the world hundreds of thousands of people all capable of personal transformations, controlling natural forces, and projecting highly-potent energies at will.
And I liked the Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, and X-Men movies. But Iron Man leaves them all behind.
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I'm a bit frustrated today. I need to vent my spleen.
Is it just my profound ignorance showing through, or does this WGA strike have the distinction of being the first labor action in history to take on an entire industry rather than target a specific corporation to address abuses? Do we usually see strike pickets that say "Entire Auto Industry Unfair To Auto Workers"? Or is it usually a specific company, ie, Ford, GM, Subaru, etc. that is being struck against?
The Writers are on strike because they feel they have been shut out of the huge profits from films and TV shows that depend directly on their contributions, specifically with regard to new media distributions such as streaming audio/video, podcasting, etc. To some degree I agree they should have a piece of the pie they help to bake, but on the other hand, where's my slice?
My slice of the pie is that Written programs get produced, and then they are sent to post-production companies to be edited, cleaned up, have effects inserted, have audio sweetened, have titles and logos inserted, have textless elements appended, be reformatted for every possible aspect ratio and method of display, and be prepped for TV or Cable or Satellite or VHS or DVD or other distribution, and at each stage each tape or disk needs to be inspected for human errors and electronic flaws. I inspect for those flaws. That's how I make the money to pay my rent, my creditors, my taxes, my utilities. If the writers won't work, those shows don't get produced, and if nothing is getting produced, nothing gets post-produced, and so there is nothing to be inspected. Thanks to the striking writers, I have no work, even though I have no direct connection to the studios the writers have their grievances with.
The WGA has eaten my slice of the pie.
Had they taken the low road and selected one major studio to act against (ie, Disney Unfair To Writers) then that studio would have been immasculated while business flowed around them to their competitors. When that studio's executives were sick of being forced to watch sweet projects be signed to their competitors while their own gathered cobwebs on dormant soundstages, they would have capitulated and signed the sweetheart agreement. Then the WGA would have turned around and done the same thing to the next studio in line (Warner Bros. Unfair To Writers) then the next (Paramount Unfair To Writers) and so forth. Think of the way Jesse Jackson raises $$$ for his causes. Don't call it extortion. Call it an effective strategy that has been proven to work.
Instead, the Writers Guild has chosen to gut the entire entertainment industry in one fell swoop. They have caused thriving post houses to teeter on the brink of bankruptcy, forced the laying off of thousands of gainfully-employed editors, colorists, machine operators, and skilled professionals, and wasted billions of dollars of other people's money. Forget the major TV Networks and the Big 5 Studios. What about the craftspeople who make their living building sets and props? What about the artists who design makeup and lighting schemes and costumes? What about the laboratories that process film, or colorists who transfer film to videotape?
How many people who make their living doing business with the Major Studios & Networks have been wiped out by this strike? How many more will be before the WGA is satisfied? I hope they win. I hope they get everything they want and more. I hope they get contracts that make them wealthier than all the OPEC nations put together.
I hope this because I want there to be plenty of assets for them to lose after their little labor action comes to a close, when they get sued for malpractice by all of the multitudes of people and corporations they have brought to the brink of ruination by not selecting a specific target to strike against.
I want the other shoe to drop...on the WGA.
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Someone please remind me why I put myself up for this abuse time and time again. Failing that, someone please tell me how Bob Null managed to do it for so many years without so much as a ripple of doubt that the effort was worth the cost. It's long been recognized that LASFS is ultimately a recreational activity, and that in any choice between serving LASFS and making a living, the latter must be expected to win out. And yet, that factoid seems to have been recently forgotten.
Six months ago, Tadao Tomomatsu, Joan Steward, and I reluctantly accepted the nomination to serve as the VP Tag Team absent the traditional 4th member, since Marcia Minski, by dint of having been elected President, was no longer available, Susan Gleason was too busy promoting LosCon 34, and there were no other volunteers. Joan was on record at the time saying she could not handle the whole load, but would be happy to do what she could when she could, primarily on Friday Nights and Second Sunday. We ran, and were elected, without opposition because no one else felt brave enough to try to take on the job.
Five months ago, Tadao was offered a full-time job doing research for a TV show. At the same time, I was offered a full time job doing the work I've been doing part-time, on-call at half a dozen different companies on floating schedules for the last 3 years or so. Both of us would have rightly been diagnosed with mental illness had we refused these offers. The only problem was that they both were Swing-shift positions.
Tadao's job ended after 3 months. Mine continues, but for internal reasons it was decided to move me to Graveyard shift about a month ago. So, basically, there was no VP present on Thursday PM for 3 months. There was no VP to take over for Marcia if she became ill (which never happened once). There was no VP to produce his key at 7 PM and open the locked doors with a grand flourish, even though they were already unlocked because Greg Bilan shows up long before meeting times to play computer games. There was no VP for Marcia to consult with while planning the after-meeting programs, even though she does not, in fact, have anything to do with planning programs.
In the meantime, no one had to wipe their ass with their fingertips, or dry their hands on their pants, because one of the invisible VP's continued purchasing operational supplies. No one had to risk being run down in the street because both the invisible VP's continued to load and purchase stock for the vending machine. When something broke, it magically got fixed. Refreshments, plates, napkins, charcoal, etc, continued to be purchased for Second Sunday. Empty cans and bottles somehow magically vanished from the premises and were replaced by sufficient money to buy a spread of food for Second Sunday. With one minor exception, ALL of the unwritten duties of the VP continued to be carried out.
Apparently, no one noticed that this was so.
After Tadao's job ended, he was once more available for night duty at LASFS. After my Swing was Graveyarded, I also was restored to PM availability. Those official night-time duties have once again been resumed. Apparently, no one noticed that either.
At the election, much discourse was made of disallowing the Tag Team VP concept, because Marty had to close the building at 10 PM one Friday Night during the Long Night of Gainful Employment, and Joan was not present on that particular night. This gripe was not brough to our attention until election night, the same night the VP's had finally found not one, not two, but three new people willing to serve as part of the VP team, but not by themselves. (Ever had to tell a godsend "Thanks, but no"?)
Eventually, a compromise was reached, that a Tag Team of only two (Tadao and myself) could be elected, whereupon those two would appoint assistants to serve as official staff to carry out the unwritten duties. Gee, thanks. How long will it be before anyone (other than myself), checks the Bylaws to discover that the Vice President has no authority to appoint or delegate under the rules?
All because Marty wanted to go home a few hours early one Friday night. The irony is that the VP's duties do not include locking up after a function. That can be done by anyone with fingers, by turning the little twisty thing in the middle of the doorknob, walking outside, and allowing the door to close after them. Marty's Friday night complaint could have been handled by any reasonably mature person (ie, any member of the Hell 5, who usually play as late as they can get away with anyhow). It didn't need a Vice President's special touch.
Tadao was livid. As the preceding 10 paragraphs should rightfully imply, I was not unperturbed myself. Despite personal hardships and physical injuries, we had continued to work behind the scenes for months to allow the smooth and unhindered operation of a club we ourselves were blocked from attending. And yet there was actually discussion of censuring both of us for failing to perform a duty which is not in fact a part of our job description in the first place. (!!!!)
Karl Lembke thinks we should leave the VP position unelected for a term or two, as an object lesson in the importance of electing reliable people (!!!!) to the office. If members miss having paper plates and toilet paper and sodas and snacks and clean dishes and functional lights and flushable toilets and hot water and all the other stuff, then volunteers will magically emerge from the mist and take care of those things themselves.
Except, they can't. Not without keys. And the Key Committee is not about to let "A" keys slip into just anyone's hands. So we're back to having it all done by an elected official. And which elected office will that be? Hmm, I wonder....
The procedural Vice President is currently called upon to do a whole list of things that have nothing to do with running the procedural meeting. Most of those things are assumed, unofficial, and not codified properly (or at all) in the description of the office included in the LASFS Bylaws. Moreover, the Bylaws do not grant the Vice President the authority to appoint staff or delegate duties (or keys). The effect is that the VP position is such a nightmare that no one wants to attempt it by themselves. They'll be happy to join a team; they will not put up with the bullshit alone.
So, the official description of the office needs to be drastically overhauled. This could go one of two ways.
1) As described above, the VP's duties are officially codified in full, and the VP is described as one elected official who appoints a staff and delegates duties therein.
or
2) The VP is restored to a procedural meeting -ONLY - position as it was originally inteded to be, and the other duties are then split among two new offices which are created to operate independently of the Procedural side:
(A) The LASFS Gatekeeper, charged with the responsibility to see to it that the buildings are opened for specific functions AND CLOSED AFTERWARD, and
(B) The LASFS Quartermaster, charged with obtaining, storing, and dispensing supplies of every sort necessary to the continued operation of the club, and with overseeing the tasks required in maintaining the functionality and habitability of the premises.
Personally, I kind of lean toward the second option, all things considered.
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When I first went to LosCon, I fell in with the filking crowd and literally filked till dawn. Then, in later years, I started volunteering, and later doing the virtual masquerade, and I havn't had time to filk at LosCon since. I compensate for that by filking tunes in my spare time. I'm not so great a composer, but I can fit lyrics into other people's tunes with the best of 'em. Usually SF TV show lyrics. (Sometimes not, but usually.)
I'm going to post some of them here, just for grins. Some are finished, others are works in progress. Feel free to sing and/or distribute them at your leisure. Just be sure to remember where they came from, okay?
***************************************************************************************** "Show And Tell"
(A Stargate SG-1 filk, to the tune of "Cat's Cradle" by Harry Chapin)
[Note: "Rhi-tu" is pronounced "ree-too"] A child arrived just the other day.
He stepped through the Gate in the usual way,
But his head was big and his face was grey,
His renal system was fadin' away. And he was talkin' to O'Niel, and before you knew, he said
"My mom's a big Rhi-tu, Jack.
You know my mom's a big Rhi-tu...." (chorus) And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon,
Little boy blue and the Man in the Moon,
Rebels comin' soon, Jack, I don't know when,
But we'll have a rough time then, Jack, You know we'll have a rough time then. Well the kid was dyin' 'cause he got cloned wrong,
His momma knew he would die all along,
But she needed him there 'cause she had to speak.
She knew she'd be seen as a big old freak. Yeah she only did what she had to do, because
Mom was a big Rhi-tu, Jack.
You know his mom's a big Rhi-tu. (chorus) Well the Tokrah leader showed up to say,
"A Rhi-tu's a big headache, any day.
'Cause you can't see him till he's ready to spray
Your head across the room with his big death ray. But we got ourselves a gun, lets us see 'em too.
And the kid's mom's a big Rhi-tu, Jack.
You know his mom's a big Rhi-tu." (chorus) Well we went off-world to the Rhi-tu's den,
And five of 'em followed us home again.
And they killed a Tokrah and shot a marine,
And blew the eleva-tor to smithereens.
Well we wiped 'em out, but they killed Momma too.
Now the kid's mom's a dead Rhi-tu, Jack
The kid's mom's a dead Rhi-tu. (chorus) (slower) Then the Tokrah took the kid to put a worm in his head,
It's either that or he'll soon be dead.
Give him a worm or he'll soon be dead.... And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon,
Little boy blue and the Man in the Moon,
Rebels may be back, Jack, I don't know when,
But we'll have a rough time then, Jack,
You know we'll have a rough time then...... ********************************************************************* "The Devil Went Back To Georgia" (aka the Affirmative Action country song)
(Tune: "The Devil Went Down To Georgia" by the Charlie Daniels Band)
[Hey, it's fantasy. The devil appears on the Prime Material Plane in corpus and the apocalypse fails to occur. So what if there are a few political overtones...?]
<Instrumental Intro (traditionally a fiddle solo, but could also work with kazoo)> The Devil went back to Georgia, he was lookin' for a human soul,
A man named John who once had gone and refused to play his role.
He'd beaten the Devil at fiddlin' tunes, and gone home with a gold violin,
But come this time, old John would find, you don't bet with the Devil and win! The Devil looked high and low for John, and found him out in the woods.
He was sawin' his golden fiddle strings and the music was just too good.
The Devil licked his chops and then, with a certain amount of glee,
He hopped back up on his hickory stump and said "Hi, John, remember me?" "We had a bet once, you recall, a wager which you won.
I paid a golden fiddle then, which wasn't too much fun.
But I had a talk with the government, they've given me what I seek,
Double-A gives me a 20 point boost 'cause I'm a red-skinned freak. "So if you think about it, John," said the Devil with a grin,
"I really won your soul back then. (That bet was quite a sin.)
I hope you liked your fiddlin' time with that gold one in your hand,
But your life and soul are mine to take, back to my burning land." The man said "My name's Johnny, and I don't give a fig
If Affirmative Action says you won...You fiddle like a pig!" Johnny, rosin up your bow and fiddle up a ton
Cause hell's broke loose in Congress with Affirmative Action.
Don't matter how much better you can play because you see,
The Devil is a Red mi-no-ri-ty...! <Instrumental Bridge (fiddle/kazoo solo) broken in middle by sounds of roaring flames, bubbling sulphur, and wails and moans of damned tormented souls. Echo and fade to end.> *********************************************************************** "Fried Chicken"
(Traditional lyrics - to the tune of "Pomp & Circumstance" by Edward Elgar) Fried chicken for breakfast,
Fried chicken for lunch...
Fried chicken for supper.
It's what we like to munch. Fried chicken at snack time,
Fried chicken in bed....
No steak or potatoes,
More fried chicken instead! Fried chicken forever,
Finger-lickin' with bread! Fried chicken with garlic,
Fried chicken with grease....
Fried chicken with peppers,
We're the chicken police!
Fried chicken with gravy,
Fried chicken with spoo.
Fried chicken with doughnuts,
Frosted red, white and blue!
Fried chicken forever,
It's for me and for you! (Alien Language Translation: )
Neld flaktor ney soomchi,
Neld flaktor ney simt...
Neld flaktor ney saachti.
Eti flindall mis'vend. Neld flaktor ne misc-lit,
Neld flaktor ne frune....
Est m'choo li-spud'lis,
Jon neld flaktor flindacht! Neld flaktor neyvoondras,
Itso-shleez'n fen shaal! Neld flaktor fen garlic,
Neld flaktor fen shlooz....
Neld flaktor fen peppers,
Men-di flaktor krin-fech! Neld flaktor fen shlozit,
Neld flaktor fen spoo.
Neld flaktor fen doughnuts,
Men-shrik kal, ek ni flen! Neld flaktor neyvoondras,
Sek ney yam ney tra-eez!
(Ain't global search & replace cool?) [This was used in the Virtual Masquerade at Loscon 30, the year Tadao Tomomatsu won the Evans/Freehafer award. ] VM INTRO: [Fade up on Med. Shot of an alien speaker (medium-sized man wearing rubber alien mask) dressed in cap & gown standing in front of a curtain or neutral background, behind a lectern with a strange technological-looking device on it. "Pomp & Circumstance" is playing in background.] SPEAKER:
Fellow graduates, I, Frengli Peyngtrii, your valedictorian, salute your accomplishments on this most proud of days. At some point within the last several years, each of us arrived at the Space Academy, not knowing what to expect. Many of us, from bright metropoli from around the galaxy, were taken aback at the tiny village of learning we found ourselves in. We all had the same questions, and came to this place in quest of answers. And now, after all this time, we have those answers. What do we want? Information. Always, there have been those who doubt our abilities, convinced that we won't get it. But we have proven, and will go on proving, that we will. The quest is never easy, but we are determined, and by hook, or by crook, we will.We have ceaslessly striven into the future, sometimes hopefully, sometimes resigned, but ever onward, until all the secrets of the universe lay open before us. All except one. One, that is until now. Graduates, I bring you now the answer to that final riddle. The one secret that has long been denied us. The jealously guarded words of power which will open all doors, the words that those in high places don't want us to know. And here they are: [As speaker clears his throat, a small spark and puff of smoke emit from the "Translator".] SPEAKER: Neld flaktor ney soomchi,
Neld flaktor ney simt...
Neld flaktor ney saachti.
Et-i flindall mis'vend. [Speaker pauses, taps on microphone, shakes it, then continues.] Neld flaktor ne misc-lit,
Neld flaktor ne frune....
Est m'choo li-spud'lis,
Jon neld flaktor flindacht!
Neld flaktor neyvoondras,
Itso-shleez'n fen shaal! [Technician enters from camera right wearing toolbelt bulging with gadgetry, walks in front of lectern, and attempts to adjust the strange device hanging on the front of it. CU of the device shows a label which reads "Universal Translator". Technician produces a large mallet, pounds on the device a few times, then looks up, shaking his head.] TECHNICIAN: (Speaking to someone off-camera) The dialect matrix is out of alignment, and the phonetic processor is having trouble locking up. This is going to take awhile. Can we go to a tape or something? [Cut to: White screen with blue print: "Technical Difficulties"] *********************************************************************** ALIEN QUEEN
(Tune: "Dancin' Queen" by ABBA) She can kill, And lay e-eggs,
While sha-ving the hair off her le-e-egs,
Oo-oo-oo, Tall and Lean,
Death Machine, dig it, Al-ien Queen! Ellen Ripley was just a girl,
(dood-dl-oo, doo-dl-oo, doo-dl-oo, doo-dl-oo)
Haulin' cargo from world to world.
Al-iens sent a distress call,
And the Com-pan-y said go and haul one home.... They broke their quar-an-teen,
Brought back a larval queen,
Small and mean, only seventeen...
Seventeen...inches long with a yellow shee-een, ye-e-eah! Bursts through chests, moves real qui-ick,
escapes while the crew's looking si-i-ick,
Oo-oo-oo, Small and Mean
Death Machine, dig it, Al-ien Queen! It got loose and killed ev-ry one
(dood-dl-oo, doo-dl-oo, doo-dl-oo, doo-dl-oo)
On the Nos-tro-mo just for fun,
Ripley blew up the ship and
Got away in a lifepod when the deed was done. She didn't know it but
She'd met a Tall and Lean
Death Machine, dig it, Al-ien Queen!
Al-ien Queen! Looked just like a big black machi-ine, ye-e-eah! She can kill, And lay e-eggs,
While sha-ving the hair off her le-e-egs,
Oo-oo-oo, Tall and Lean,
Death Machine, dig it, Al-ien Queen! Company found her and thawed her out,
(dood-dl-oo, doo-dl-oo, doo-dl-oo, doo-dl-oo)
Said her story just had no clout.
Said she had to go back there,
'Long with a squad of sol-diers who would help her out. And when she got the chance,
She'd beat a Tall and Lean
Death Machine, dig it, Al-ien Queen.
Al-ien Queen! Made short work of the space mari-ines, ye-e-eah! She can kill, And lay e-eggs,
While sha-ving the hair off her le-e-egs,
Oo-oo-oo, Tall and Lean,
Death Machine, dig it, Al-ien Queen! [I wrote the above after Aliens 2, and then never got back to it. I only saw Aliens 3 the one time, so my memories of it are hazy. Ripley gets knocked up in her life pod by an alien facehugger which also somehow impregnates the little girl she rescued, the ship's cat, and the torn remains of the ship's android, but they all die when the ship crash-lands on a prison planet where everybody is bald and they smelt lead in pennance for their crimes. Ripley's facehugger then impregnates a dog, and the alien that results acts like a watchdog to Ripley, who turns out to have been impregnated with a queen. In horror, Ripley leaps into a vat of molten lead justs as her chest explodes. In Alien Resurrection, Company Lab Geeks have isolated strands of genetic material from the lead ingot that Ripley dissolved in, and made a series of clones, most of them not so cute and one which looks just like Ripley, but is in all other respects an alien. Space pirates have arrived bearing a bunch of hijacked travellers in suspended animation, and sold them as "volunteer" test subjects to the Lab Geeks. An alien gets loose, the lab locks down, and the pirates' only hope of escape is to follow Ripley as she exterminates the other test subjects. One of the pirates turns out to be a cute little lesbian android with an axe to grind. Ripley's baby is a hulking misshapen monster from hell. Lab Geeks are in love with an alien queen (it must be due to the 9-inch stiletto heels growing from her feet). The baby is sucked out a bullethole in a window and explosively decompresses in space. The lifepod crashes on Earth. Ripley smiles. How to put any or all of that to music? Hmmm... (Alternate Refrain Lines For Future Verses:)
-- Alien Queen! Giger fans think she's really kee-een, ye-e-eah! -- Alien Queen! Boiled in lead in the final sce-ene, ye-e-eah! -- Alien Queen! In a lab that was really cle-ean, ye-e-eah! -- Hybrid Queen! Best of both races in her ge-enes, ye-e-eah! As to other lyrics, I'm open to suggestions. ]
********************************************************************** "The Damage Control Office Anthem"
(Tune: "Auld Lang Syne") (To be sung in a comic-opera scottish brogue, if possible) The Dam-age Con-trol Off-ficers
are the first upon the scene.
When struc-ture starts to fail, we keep
it from burs-ting at the seams. With rubber bands and paper clips,
And gobs of Elmer's Glue,
We'll lash it down with bungee cords
And a roll of duck tape too. When se-ven pounds of an-ti-mat
-ter ex-plodes against your hull,
The boys from D-C-O are there,
And their lives are never dull. With rubber bands and paper clips,
And gobs of Elmer's Glue,
We'll lash it down with bailing wire
And a roll of duck tape too. We seldom get re-place-ment parts,
so we use what is at hand.
So don't complain or be surprised
if your deck should turn to sand. With rubber bands and paper clips,
And gobs of Elmer's Glue,
We'll lash it down with dental floss
And a roll of duck tape too. Should im-pulse engines all implode
and the warp drive turn to scumm,
We'll hold the ship together, lads,
with a wad of bub-ble gumm. With rubber bands and paper clips,
And gobs of Elmer's Glue,
We'll lash it down with speaker wire
And a roll of duck tape too. Should all the tur-bo-lifts collide,
turning oc-cu-pants to slush,
We'll get the system run-ning right
and we'll do it in a rush. With rubber bands and paper clips,
And gobs of Elmer's Glue,
We'll lash it down with cargo belts
And a roll of duck tape too. If shut-tle-craft should slide about
and go crashing through the ship,
The D-C boys will tie them down
and make sure they will not slip. With rubber bands and paper clips,
And gobs of Elmer's Glue,
We'll lash it down with bubble wrap
And a roll of duck tape too. If gra-vi-ty con-trol should fail,
and the at-mo-sphere go sour,
The boys from D-C-O will get
it all run-ning in an hour. With rubber bands and paper clips,
And gobs of Elmer's Glue,
We'll lash it down with curtain cords
And a roll of duck tape too. Should warp na-cells ex-plode in flight
and in-cin-er-ate the crew,
Well, then we'll all be dead and so
it'll all be up to you! A bit of duck tape here and there,
And a bungee cord or two,
You'll need a ton of sealing wax
And the best of luck to you! (slower)
With rubber bands and paper clips,
Duck tape and Elmer's Glue,
The D-C-O is there to keep
It all wor-king just for you. ****************************************************************** THE FLIP SIDE OF "MONSTER BY MISTAKE"
(Tune: "Monster By Mistake" TV show title song)
[This is a parody of the theme song of a kid's show I was paid to watch again and again and again. The real lyrics are an intro to the storyline told from the Heroes' point of view. I felt the time was ripe to tell the villain's side of things.]
Hi, my name is Gorgool and I'm just a normal guy,
But I'm stuck inside this little ball that's just six inches high.
That boy Warren said he'd let me out, but it was just a lie!
I'm a prisoner of this kid! His sister Tracy took my spellbook and my power gem as well.
She wreaks havok on the city with her ama-teur-ish spells, and
With a mis-pro-nun-ci-a-tion she could blow us all to hell!
I'm a prisoner of this kid! I'm gonna tell ya 'bout Servant the fool. He's an over-
muscled, addle-pated ape.
Always tries to help me; always gets it wrong. He can't
help it that his brain's a tiny grape! [tuba solo] When Warren sneezes he gets big and strong and
altogether blue,
And he terrorizes citizens, a monster through
and through!
But while I'm trapped here in this magic ball there's
nothing I can do. I'm a prisoner of this kid!
I'm a prisoner of this kid!
I'm a prisoner of this ki-i-id! [I emailed these lyrics to the webmaster of monsterbymistake.com, but nothing ever came of it. The show was cancelled after less than a season. If only they'd listened to me....] *********************************************************************** A BLATANT HOLIDAY PLUG FOR JOE'S BAR & GRILL
(Tune: O Come All Ye Faithful)
(Not an SF filk per se, but more on the lines of a bold "Fuck You" to purveyors of peer pressure to engage in holiday drinking.) O come, all ye faith-less, joy-less and des-pon-dent,
Come ye, O co-ome ye to Joe's Bar and Grill!
Come and get plas-ter'd, guz-zle to ob-li-vion. O come let us get wasted, O come let us get wasted,
O come let us get wasted at Joe's Bar and Grill! Drink lots of whis-key, rum and gin and vod-ka,
Wash it all down with sev-ral gal-lons of beer!
Then we'll go driv-ing, puk-ing out the wi-in-dow, O come let us get wasted, O come let us get wasted,
O come let us get wasted at Joe's Bar and Grill! Pick off pe-des-trians, ten points for a fam-'ly,
Drive on the side-walk when they flee from the street.
Park on a park bench! Then we'll stag-ger back inside, O come let us get wasted, O come let us get wasted,
O come let us get wasted at Joe's Bar and Grill! Eat pic-kled pigs' feet, nosh on moul-dy beer nuts,
Or-der pas-tram-i with some boiled sau-er-kraut.
Drink Mo-gan Da-vid, or just have some Thun-der-bird! O come let us get wasted, O come let us get wasted,
O come let us get wasted at Joe's Bar and Grill! Drown all your prob-lems, drown them in li-ba-tion,
Drink con-tin-u-ous-ly till they go away.
Then pay your bar tab, and spit out your li-i-ver. O come let us get wasted, O come let us get wasted,
O come let us get wasted at Joe's Bar and Grill! Sing, choirs of drun-kards, in in-eb-ri-a-tion,
Sing "O-Dan-ny-Boy" at the Top Of Your Lungs.
Ree-king and droo-ling, bel-low at the pas-sers-by: (Slurred)
"O come let ush get wayshted, O come let ush get wayshted,
O come let ush get wayshted at Joe's Bar and Grill!" (Slower)
And the next mor-ning, when we wake in pri-son,
They'll throw the book at us, then set us all free.
Hail, Christ-mas spi-rit! All our sins for-gi-i-ven!
(Pregnant pause, then, faster:)
O come let us get wasted, O come let us get wasted,
O come let us get wasted at Joe's Bar and Grill!
*********************************************************************** "IMPERIUS REX"
(Tune: The theme from "Flipper" TV Series)
[Yes, I'm that old. I'm older than dirt. I was on the focus team that decided what dirt should be used for. (...Nobody took my sugestions...) So, what's your point? ] Ev-ryone loves...the King of the sea!
Ev-ryone does, that is except Me!
I'll always hate him because you see,
He killed my whole fam-i-ly! They call him Namor! Namor! King of Atlantis!
No one, you see,'s'more evil than he!
And they say Namor, Namor as-saul-ted our nation,
With-out pro-voca-tion, out of the sea! Riding his mon-ster, blowing his horn,
Attacked Manha-tan one Sunday morn.
Stepped on our building! I wasn't home,
And now I am all alone! So I hate Namor! Namor! King of Atlantis!
No one, you see,'s'more evil than he!
And they say Namor, Namor as-saul-ted our nation,
With-out pro-voca-tion, out of the sea! Wears his swim trunks, and no other clothes.
All the girls swoon, where-ever he goes.
Hits on Sue Richards! Reed starts a brawl,
Which takes out the shop-ping mall! All 'cause of Namor! Namor! King of Atlantis!
No one, you see,'s'more evil than he!
And they say Namor, Namor as-saul-ted our nation,
With-out pro-voca-tion, out of the sea! Ev-ryone loves...the King of the sea!
Ev-ryone does, that is except Me!
I think in oil he ought to be boiled,
To pay for all that he's spoiled! They call him Namor! Namor! King of Atlantis!
No one, you see,'s'more evil than he!
And they say Namor, lives in a world of de-ni-al,
in his ex-i-le, under the sea! ********************************************************************* "The Pessimist's Wishing Song"
(words & music by Jiminy Cricket after a really, really bad day) * * * * * (Spoken, while backup choir hums in backgound:) My God, what's happened to this world? When a nobleman's daughter picked up a splinter from one of his puppets, Giappetto got sued for malpractice and lost everything. Then he got mugged and killed by brigands on the steps of the poorhouse. Figaro ate Cleopatra, and then choked to death on a fishbone. Pinochhio developed dry rot and slowly went to pieces. The blue fairy lost her job when she posed nude for a centerfold in Penthouse. Lampwick got elected President on the democratic ticket. And me? What's to become of an out-of-work conscience when "happily ever after" ends up floating face down in the river...? (Sung:) ...ooo-ooo-ooo... When you wish upon a star,
Makes no difference who you are,
Makes no difference what you do,
It won't come true. Doesn't matter where you go,
Doesn't matter who you know,
Hold your breath till you turn blue,
It won't come true. Fate is blind,
And she is most unkind,
she gets her jollies by
perverting wishes... ...ooo-ooo-ooo... When your heart is on your sleeve,
What you want you won't receive,
When you wish upon a star,
It won't...come...true......! [Loud Female Voice: "Ewww, look, a cricket!"] [FX: big, gooshy splat! ]
*********************************************************************** THE THIEVES' GUILD ANTHEM
(Tune: O Come, O Come Emmanuel) O Come and bring thy Thieves' Guild Man-u-el,
And try to learn thy thieving lessons well.
For if you don't the Law of the Land
Decrees that you must forfeit your right hand. Rejoice! Rejoice! The ta-a-ake is good!
We'll fence thy stuff through-out the neigh-bor-hood. Be sure to check for traps upon the doors.
Be wary of the night-in-ga-le floors.
And as you strive to ma-ake no sound,
Take ev-ry-thing that isn't nailed down. Rejoice! Rejoice! The ta-a-ake is good!
We'll fence thy stuff through-out the neigh-bor-hood. Sneak into camps and villages at night,
And ransack ev-ry single thing in sight!
Be sure to leave no sto-one un-turned.
After you pil-lage ev-ry-thing must burn! Rejoice! Rejoice! The ta-a-ake is good!
We'll fence thy stuff through-out the neigh-bor-hood. O put the loot upon the auction block,
Or sell it all as surplus on the dock.
Whatever does not sell, you can trade
Until a pro-fi-ta-ble deal is made. Rejoice! Rejoice! The ta-a-ake is good!
We'll fence thy stuff through-out the neigh-bor-hood. Set up a booth somewhere in the Bazaar.
Sell booty that you've looted from afar.
Sell worthless trash you find in the street.
Sell anything, including rotten meat. Rejoice! Rejoice! The ta-a-ake is good!
We'll fence thy stuff through-out the neigh-bor-hood. Do not accept a check or credit card.
Make sure their cash is co-o-old and hard.
Don't let them try to play with your head.
They all must pay cash on the bar-rel-head. Rejoice! Rejoice! The ta-a-ake is good!
We'll fence thy stuff through-out the neigh-bor-hood. Remind the marks the nothing comes for free,
And always check your payment care-ful-ly.
Be sure that it's not cou-oun-ter-feit,
Or all your efforts will have been for sh- ...ahem. Naught. Rejoice! Rejoice! The ta-a-ake is good!
We'll fence thy stuff through-out the neigh-bor-hood. But never try to cheat us of our share,
Or treat us in a way that is not fair.
For if you do your li-ver we'll tear
Out and sell for all the mar-ket will bear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! The ta-a-ake is good!
We'll fence thy stuff through-out the neigh-bor-hood. (Slower)
O Come and bring thy Thieves' Guild Man-u-el,
And al-ways learn thy thiev-ing les-sons well........
********************************************************************** "When They Put Toons On The Screen"
(tune: "Begin The Beguine") [Note: For those of you who have only ever heard the instrumental version, the clarinet flourishes and kick horns are only there to dress the melody line up; they do not have corresponding lyrics. A portion of the vocal can be found in the feature film "The Rocketeer", and no doubt someone, somewhere has recorded the entire vocal at some point in the seventy-odd years since this tune was new. Find it, and broaden yourselves.]
When they put toons...on the screen,
It brings back a world...where physics don't matter.
It brings back a world...where people can shatter,
When they put toons...on the screen. When they put toons...on the screen,
It brings back the games...of Goofy and Pluto.
It brings back the fights...of Popeye and Bluto,
When they put toons...on the screen. O-oh, when they put toons...on the screen,
We'd see Bugs dressed up in wo-men's clothes and kiss-ing
Elmer Fudd, whose gun would shoot but always was miss-ing,
When they put toons...on the screen. O-oh, when they put toons...on the screen,
That's when Mommy and Daddy al-ways went for popcorn.
That's why they never knew that toons were loaded with soft porn,
When they put toons...on the screen. When they put toons...on the screen,
It brings back the sound...of nature gone cra-zy.
It brings back the sound...of Donald and Daisy,
(Duck Voice:) "When they put toons...on the screen."
******************************************************************** "NextGen Shuttlecraft 4 Sale"
(Tune: "Hava Nagila" (I think I spelled that right) - traditional jewish celebration song) Have a...New Shuttle,
Have two New Shuttles,
Have three New Shuttles,
They're awf'ly small. Have a...New Shuttle,
Have two New Shuttles,
Have three New Shuttles,
They're awf'ly small. And they're...not hard to store
So buy...a couple more
Just stack them on the floor,
They're Awf'ly Small And they...have been revamped.
Now they...are kind of cramped
And their controls are stamped
"They're Awf'ly Small." And...they...really ought to
Only be used when the transporter, Does things it really hadn't oughta
Like make the ship look like a Horta, Had secretly had beamed aboard her,
Or turns grown-ups to kids, Or turns Vulcans inside out. ...So... Have a...New Shuttle,
Have two New Shuttles,
Have three New Shuttles;
They're awf'ly small. Have a...New Shuttle,
Have two New Shuttles,
Have three New Shuttles;
They're awf'ly small. And they..don't work too well
And they...all tend to smell
|Like they were made in Hell,
They're Awf'ly Small, And they...are hard to fly,
Maybe...you shouldn't try
Unless you want to die,
They're Awf'ly Small. And...then...when you try to
Fly them out to a ship or starbase, Where the whole crew was trained in deep space,
Then you will find the warp transmission, Starts to give off a strange emission,
And your shoes...turn bright blue...and clash with your u-u-u-ni-form. (gasp) ...So... Have a...New Shuttle,
Have two New Shuttles,
Have three New Shuttles,
They're awf'ly small. Have five...New Shuttles,
Have six... New Shuttles,
Have ten... New Shuttles,
Just take them all! ********************************************************************* "Captain Kirk"
(Tune: Charlie Brown) [For audience participation, indicate a different person in the crowd each verse
to perform the "Imitate Shatner" line.] Fee Fie Foe Fum Fee Fie Foe
Who's talkin' on that Suspace Radio? (Refrain:) Captain Kirk, Captain Kirk
He's such a jerk, that Captain Kirk
And he's gonna get laid! Just you wait and see!
(Imitate Shatner:) Why...is everybody...alwys shooting...at me?!! Moves thru the star-ship, slow and cool
Makes all the female yeomen want to drool! (Refrain) Mates his exec to an ancient robot probe
Takes credit when V-Ger seems to explode! (Refrain) Screaming at Khan just like a raving loon
Lies about the damage to stave off certain doom (Refrain) Beats up on klingons, kills 'em by the score
Blows up his ship just to KILL A COUPLE MORE! Captain Kirk, Captain Kirk
"It's just a quirk!", says Captain Kirk
And he's gonna get laid! Just you wait and see!
Why is...every...body al...ways...shooting at...me? Goes back in time just to save a pair of whales
Demoted to Captain, just to right the scales (Refrain) Tells Spock to shoot his brother in the heart
Asks God to show his photo-ID card! (Refrain) Romuans & Klingons, Humans too
Conspire to see that Captain Kirk is Through! (Refrain) Blows up the Klingons no one could see
Makes lasting peace through-out the galaxy Captain Kirk, Captain Kirk
"Beats going to work", says Captain Kirk
And he's gonna get laid! Just you wait and see!
Why is...every...body always...shoot...ing at...me? (Volley of toy phasers and photon torpedoes to finish him off) ********************************************************************* "Captain Kirk Is Coming To Town"
(Tune: Santa Claus is Coming To Town) Oh. You. Better watch out. You better run hide.
(spoken) The last six guys who crossed him just up and died.
Captain Kirk is coming To Town. Go to battle alert. Put up all your shields.
It don't mean a thing to the Tantalus Field.
Captain Kirk is coming To Town. He knows if you're a Klingon. He knows if you're a fake.
(spoken menacingly) He knows who put the tribbles in the quadrotiticale
So be good for goodness sake.
Oh you better cloak now and get back to your space
Or he might put a pho-ton torp in your face. Captain Kirk is coming,
And at high warp you'll be running,
Captain Kirk is coming To Town. *********************************************************************
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I flew home for Christmas this last year. It was, each way, the most unpleasant 9 hours of my life. As it has been anytime I've flown anywhere (since the 747 was taken out of service, at any rate).
A big problem with the air travel industry today is that it is cramped, noisy, smelly, tiresome, and uncomfortable, fraught with bad service, bad food, bad movies, tiny windows, tiny seats, and tiny bathrooms. Everything has to be crammed into a tiny little missile-like shell with long, broad wings (which obstruct the view from those tiny windows) loaded with hundreds of gallons of extra-flammable fuel to run massive turbines which will propel the craft at hundreds of miles per hour. You're not allowed to get up and stretch most of the time, and even if you were, where would you go? And it's been that way for decades, and it's only gotten worse over time.
As 9/11 falls further and further behind us, I look back on my recent opportunity to travel by air and realize that all of the precautions taken by "Airline Security" are aimed, not at protecting passengers from terrorists, but at protecting airplanes from passengers.
Metal detection, shoe inspection, checked luggage and carry-on alike being pawed through by security for "possible weapons". No one can bring a pocketknife or a leatherman (which is a shame since they make resorting to cannibalism after the airplane crashes in the mountains SO much simpler) or a safety razor or an electric trimmer ("Crash the plane into a skyscraper or I'll scratch you with my unshaven chin!!") or a bottle of mouthwash or shampoo since those liquids could be replaced with Semtex....
Only about half the precautions are in response to what people have done (box cutters) or tried to do (shoe bombs); the rest are attempts to forestall passengers from things someone thinks they might do. Ever wonder what the real deal is with not being able to use celphones or DVD players during takeoff? Not because they interfere with anything, but because someone thinks they might be used to reprogram the avionics equipment to give incorrect readings, steer the plane off course, etc. You can't bring bottled water from the terminal onto the airplane because someone thinks you might have cultured a mutant bioweapon in it to infect the other passengers with some apocalyptic plague.
Airplane security used to be as simple as walking between the metal detectors. Now it's a 3-hour wait in line to pour all your loose change, car keys, jewelry, wallet, pocket posessions, jackets, belts, codpieces, etc into a basket to put it through a scanner which will tell them (Big Shock) that there's metal in there somewhere. Then the wand, the beep, take off the vest, the wand, the beep, take off the shirt, the wand, the beep, take off the pants, the wand, the beep, the cavity search. Then you get to put it all back on, standing up since there aren't any chairs available. And while you were dealing with all that, how long ago did your plane take off?
The only thing which keeps that abomination from being replaced with reasonable precautions and effective measures is the lack of competition. Oh, there are other airlines, but they all use the same airports, the same security, the same baggage handlers, etc. What are you going to do? Walk?
Well, there used to be competition for airplane travel. (No, I'm not talking Greyhound, or AmTrak.) At one time, airplanes used to share the sky with vehicles that made flying an experience to remember...fondly. I speak of none other than lighter-than-air, bouyantly-flown rigid airships. You had the choice, back then, of squeezing into an airplane for a quick, bumpy, smelly ride to your vacation, or boarding an airship to take you on your vacation.
All of the literature and movies depicting airship travel portay it as the next best thing to hanging a 5-star hotel under a hot air baloon. The airship passenger spent days and nights, sometimes a week or more, relaxing in opulent comfort, being waited on hand and foot by attractive stewards and hostesses, moving freely among lounges, theatres, and dance halls, and sightseeing from an altitude low enough to actually be able to see something, through banks of picture windows you could actually see something through.
And then the Hindenburg caught fire, and that was that. Well, no, not exactly....
For, you see, the airship has not been forgotten. And now that we have lifting gasses which don't explode into flame, and canopies which don't catch fire, and engines which don't require hazardous chemical fuels, and over a hundred years of accumulated experience in designing airframes which do what we want them to do and don't do what we don't want them to, it is now possible to revive the rigid airship for commercial leisure travel.
And it is being done. A revitalized airship cruise industry will happen...in our lifetime. Possibly even within this decade. And I for one couldn't be happier.
Here are some links to the people who are making it happen.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/02/16/aeroscraft/
http://www.hoax-slayer.com/aeroscraft-email.shtml
(A couple of "shape of things to come" articles about the future of leisure air travel) http://www.aerosml.com/products.asp
(The website of the manufacturer developing the airship design featured in the above article) http://aeronautiqa.com/intro.htm
(A commercial company offering vacation cruises, charters, and timeshares aboard their own brand of rigid airship) http://spot.colorado.edu/~dziadeck/airship/introduction.htm
(A clearing-house of historical and general info on blimps, semi-rigid and rigid airships, and their enthusiasts)
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I don't know how far and/or wide the "Sit-&-Sleep" (or is that "Sit-n-Sleep"?) chain of mattress stores reaches, but here in LA you can't listen to any English-speaking channel on the AM dial for as long as 5 minutes without hearing one of their ads. Irwin, the accountant, is heard tearing his hair out in lament that Larry's promotional idea of offering money-back guarantees and free inducements to encourage walk-in business is sure to bankrupt them. So far, Larry has driven Irwin to the point of madness, and back, on vacation, into hiding, into prozac, into the bottle, into rehab, and into divorce. (But somehow, never into bankruptcy. Odd, that....)
Recently I got so fed up with Larry's manic enthusiasm and Irwin's depressive hysteria that I fled to the FM dial, to Jack FM, where they were playing some songs I used to hear all the time back in college. And then they broke for a commercial, and Guess Who It Was? And so I found myself writing the following.
I invite "Sit-&-Sleep" to utilize the following. I won't charge royalties. (Ascap & BMI, now....)
*********************************************************************************************************************
You’re Killing Me, Larry (to the tune of “You’re Fooling Yourself” by Styx) [ After a typical spoken Larry / Irwin exchange about the deleterious effects of Larry’s sale ideas on Irwin’s health and sanity, an instrumental track appears, with (backup singers) and Irwin sings the following: ] "You're killing me, Lar-ry you don't believe it.
You're killing me, Lar-ry you don't believe it.
Get lost (get lost). Don’t ever come back.
A heart’s what you lack, with your vices.
Get out (get out). Get out of the store.
Don’t slash any more of my pri-ces, no, no, no, not my pri-i-ic-es!" [Instrumental bridge, which fades under Larry’s tagline:] "We’ll beat any deal, or your mattress is freeeeeeeeeee!" [Instrumental swells, drowning out the sound of Irwin screaming the torments of the damned]
********************************************************************************************************************************************
Of course, at some point, we may expect Irwin will lose it completely. He'll spend an entire commercial cackling like a maniac and audibly sharpening blades while Larry prattles about all the money he's going to proudly lose, and then ask Larry "Does it hurt, Larry? How about now?" Larry will ask why, and Irwin will shout, "Because I'm Killing You, Larry!!" and then laugh incessantly to the unmistakable sound of a chainsaw cutting through meat.
Well, we may at least live in hope....
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Traditionally, the political map of the USA is depicted in a two-color scheme:
Red = Predominately Republican / Conservative population
Blue = Predominately Democrat / Liberal population
Hence, Red states and Blue states. (Surprise, it has nothing to do with socialism or depressive tendencies.)
Recently, something odd happened. A Republican dominated congress, practically overnight, was transformed into a Democrat-controlled congress. So far, no one has observed any real difference in its output or behavior. But many are still puzzled about how such a sweeping change could have occured.
The tinfoil hat crowd opines that free elections have long been an illusion, that some backroom power broker simply flipped a switch and all the voting machines in America obediently voted Democrat, regardless of the actual content of the ballots. Makes for great TV show plots and all, but the answer is really much less complex.
A famous british parliamentarian whose name no one accurately remembers once said: "All that is necessary for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing." A similar sentiment holds true in American politics. To wit:
"All that is necessary for evil Democrats to flourish is for good men Republicans to do nothing."
And that's exactly what the Republicans have managed to accomplish in 12 years of being in charge. Absolutely Nothing.
The success of internet blogs and AM-band talk radio in the last 20 years, and the steady decline of circulation in the liberal-dominated print news media, and the steadily-growing preference of private schools over public-funded unified school districts to educate children, have demonstrated more effectively than any trick-question-laden, wildly-unbalanced-sample-size, partisan-controlled "public-opinion" push-poll could ever do, that the predominant color of thought in the United Stated of America, by the above key, is Red. The vast majority of the working people of the nation, the population of "fly-over country", holds conservative views, upholds conservative principles, and would probably vote Republican...if they would ever bother to show up to the polls on election day.
The big problem is that one of the primary tenets of conservative thought is Isolationism. "A man's home is his castle." "Me and my wife, son John and his wife, us four and no more." The tendency is for the conservative majority of the nation to sequester themselves in their little castles and in their little lives and pretend that the outside world has ceased to exist. That vast ideological majority is a sleeping majority. They vote, if at all, with their wallets rather than with their ballots.
And while the giant slumbers, it is represented in the rest of the nation by a small core of likely voters who break down roughly to 35% dedicated Democrat, 25% dedicated Republican, 5% dedicated vote-wasters (Greens, LaRouchies, AI Party, write-in votes, etc), and the rest unaffiliated and open to persuasion. In order to prevail, Republicans need to get not only their base voters, but also the undecided 35% to vote for them.
Failing that, the Democrats' core group of dedicated mind-numbed-robot voters, who would vote for a dead tree sloth if it had a (D) next to its name, are enough to carry any elections with or without the aid of unaffiliated voters.
(This, btw, is why voting Libertarian (or other third-party), while attractive on the surface, is a waste of a vote. In order to win, a third-party candidate would need to swing the entire pool of vote-wasters as well as the entire pool of unaffiliated voters. Failing that, the Democrats still win solely on the strength of their dedicated base of likely voters.)
To win elections, Republicans have two options. They can awaken the slumbering giant, which takes an enormous effort and expenditure of resources and has only been successfully done three times in recent history (albeit with dramatic results: Ronald Reagan's presidency, the 1994 Congressional Victory, and the 2003 California Recall Election). The other option is simply to persuade unaffiliated likely voters to vote for them. Although less expensive than the first option, this is almost as bad, as it requires Republicans to front one candidate instead of dozens, and that they present a unified front instead of going off in all directions.
In the 2006 congrssional election, Republicans failed to follow either strategy.
Of course, it didn't help to have an elder Republican senator outed at the last second for his carnal indiscretions. And it didn't help that despite having voting majorities in both houses of congress for 12 years, and a (putatively) Republican president for the last 6, serving Republicans had utterly failed to permanently lower taxes, restructure social security into something useful and self-sustaining, close the nations porous southern border, or shrink the size and influence of the federal government, all of which their constituencies loudly demanded of them on an ongoing basis.
Well, at least the Republican congress managed to create 200,000 new jobs...and then give them to undocumented aliens instead of US citizens while stating for the public record that American workers are too indolent and prissy to handle the really icky tasks. That really helped when it counted....
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The Dumbing of America: A Necessary First-Step in Making The Nation Independent of Foreign Oil?
..........................................................................................................................................................by MThorsen*
It has been observed by many authors and pundits that American children are becoming more and more poorly-versed in matters of literacy, math, the sciences, and logic skills. The places they used to learn such things (i.e., schools) are today more interested in pushing a socio-political agenda than in teaching the "3 R's". But why? Simple (no pun intended). An illiterate serf can be told any boldface lie, and doesn't have the skills to check the facts for himself. A serf who can't do math more complex than adding and subtracting on his fingers can be taxed any amount, and doesn't have the skills to figure out that he's being cheated. But what does all this have to do with energy independency? Rapidly-rising per-barrel costs of crude oil from middle-eastern nations have driven the price-per-gallon of fuel in the US (and per-litre in other countries) to stratospheric heights. (Oddly, the price-per-quart of motor oil seems to have been largely unaffected over the last couple of decades, but that's a whole other essay.) Many people have begun to seriously consider alternative energy possibilities which until recent times were considered dreamstuff, better suited to science fiction stories than to real life. Foremost among these is hydrogen. "Let us convert to hydrogen power," they now say, "and then the OPEC nations can drink their oil for all it will be worth." Sadly, there will be no major conversion to hydrogen power for a long time yet. We're still too smart for that to happen. Confused? The average energy industry mogul may not be behind the Dumbing of America, but he has a vested interest in its continuation. He knows that hydrogen is not exploitable as an energy alternative, not because too few people know about it, but rather, too many. The energy industry is driven by the reasonable expectation of obscene profits. It has a cornered market: Everyone needs fuel. Fuel for heating, fuel for cooking, fuel for electrical generation, fuel for transportation. The fact that the raw material for that fuel needs to be purchased from, of all people, our nation's sworn enemies is a thorn in the backside of us not-so-illiterate serfs, but to energy producers, it simply enhances value. True, locally available materials might be utilized for fuel, but they have nothing like the profitability of oil. Oil, being (A) relatively rare, (B) difficult to safely harvest, (C) highly toxic and hazardous to transport, and (D) unusable as fuel in its crude natural state, carries significant costs in locating, drilling, transport, storage, and processing, all of which can be passed along to the consumer. Having the world's largest natural supply of crude oil owned and dispensed by people who are hostile to us as a nation only increases the rarity, and thus the expense. Supply & Demand: A rare commodity in wide demand commands a high price. Hydrogen is the most plentiful fuel on the planet. If you are alive, then close to you somewhere is a source of water, and water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen, two elements which, by themselves, are extremely quick to burn, and which burn hot and release much energy in so doing. Moreover, when you oxidize (burn) hydrogen, the exhaust is water. The raw material and the by-product are the same substance. There is no waste, and no question of there ever being a shortage of water for fuel. Cracking H2O yields 2 parts hydrogen and 1 part oxygen. Burning hydrogen yields water; burning oxygen yields carbon monoxide and dioxide which then can be chemically filtered and scrubbed to remove the carbon, yielding more free oxygen. (Sounds something like "conservation", doesn't it?) Using specially designed equipment, the oxygen can be burned as fuel to generate the power for electrolysis while the hydrogen is concentrated and stored for eventual sale or use. Set up this way, the system is self-sustaining; as long as you continue pouring water in, you can continue cracking it apart. But where do you get the fuel to split the first batch, before you have any free oxygen in the system to fuel the electrolysis generator? We are told by spokes-holes of the energy industry that it takes more energy to electrolyze water than the yield of an endless and self-regenerating fuel supply is worth. Since we are the products of a school system that has long-since abdicated its responsibility to educate us in favor of blatantly indoctrinating us into a narrow political worldview, we are expected to believe this boldface lie. Anyone whose high school science teacher taught science instead of ideology knows that there are two ways to crack water into its components. One is to run an electric current through it, and the other is to boil it and play the steam over a small quantity of magnesium. Magnesium is a hard, rigid but lightweight metal. It had great promise as a structural metal during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, before rich sources of aluminum were discovered and exploited. Since then magnesium has waned in popularity among structural engineers. For instance, the frames of the original-model Volkswagen automobiles were made of magnesium, because the design called for a lightweight construction metal and aluminum was not available in pre-WW2 Germany. Every dirigible ever produced by the Graf Zeppelin company was made of magnesium for the same reason. Although it has been supplanted by aluminum, however, magnesium is by no means in short supply. There is plenty of magnesium within our reach, both under the American continent, and above it. (According to mineralogical surveys performed by the Apollo astronauts, the moon is littered with the stuff. And which nation has demonstrated the ability to travel to and from the moon...?) Since magnesium is not rare, and magnesium can crack water without the need for electrical current (even if not as efficiently as electrolysis), using propane or natural gas to boil water in a magnesium-lined reservoir would serve to start the cracking process absent a single volt of generated electricity. The energy and fuel companies must realize this, but instead they strain to come up with excuses to avoid exploiting hydrogen. But why would anyone want to sit on the solution to our energy woes and leave us vulnerable to hostile extranational forces in the offing? If supply & demand tells us that a rare commodity should be expensive, it also tells us that a plentiful commodity should be cheap. There is water everywhere. Our nation is bordered on 3 sides by the two largest bodies of water on the planet. Water could never be credibly called a scarce resource. According to the law of supply & demand, an infinitely plentiful commodity should be infinitely inexpensive, i.e., free of charge. So if you can't charge for water, where are the obscene profits going to come from? Well, you could charge for "the difficulty of processing water into hydrogen fuel", but for the fact that high school science teachers have for decades been pumping out class after class of bright little children who know that it's not that hard. You could charge for the technology to process water into fuel, but that would be a one-time expense. You need to be able to charge again and again and again for profits to be truly, offensively obscene. None of this would be a problem if we didn't know that hydrogen came from water. If the public's knowledge of the origins of hydrogen fuel was as murky as their knowledge of the intricacies of oil production, our existing energy magnates could tap an endless free resource and transform it into a fuel that would be (artificially) expensive to the consumer, but not quite so much as gasoline from OPEC oil. With little or no cost for raw materials, the profit margins would be beyond obscene to infinity. But that's not our situation. Not yet, at any rate. In the current climate of public knowledge, no mass-producer of fuel or energy is ever going to touch hydrogen. Due to the lack of public ignorance, there is no money to be made in the mass-production of cheap, plentiful fuel. Hydrogen is a promising source of fuel, but only so long as fuel production can be performed by individuals. We must abandon the notion of centralized companies mass-producing power and fuel for public mass-distribution. Just as in the Gold Rush, where gold prospectors routinely lost their shirts but general store owners made out like bandits, there would be little money to be made in hydrogen itself. Instead, the profits would lie in the sale, lease or rental to the individual consumer of equipment to allow him to harvest water for fuel, and the conversion of his fuel and/or power-driven appliances to use hydrogen fuel cells, and in the periodic maintenance of said equipment, and in consumable supplies such as magnesium rods, exhaust filters, etc. It is true that this approach will put several industries out of business, and leave hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of American oil men, coal miners, power company workers, gas station attendants, and others out of a job. I'm sure that the stockholders and employees at companies that manufactured horse-drawn carriages, buggy whips, and harnesses had similar concerns. That's what unemployment compensation and retraining benefits are for. Converting to hydrogen is the smart thing to do. We shouldn't have to make the US into a nation of imbeciles to do it. ---------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------- ------------------------------- [* = The author is not a member of a chemical, structural, or social-engineering establishment, nor is he an economist.
His sole qualifications for this essay are (A) his First Amendment Right to publicly express his opinion, (B) a cursory knowledge
of the facts available to anyone who reads the occasional newspaper, and (C) the fact that he paid attention to the Hydrogen Gas
demonstration in his high school's freshman science lab, while everyone else was raptly enthralled with the cute blonde
cheerleaders at the far right end of the second row.]
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