Inn of the Last Home

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2011-08-12T14:55:00.000-04:00

Top Five things we learned from LOST

2010-05-24T14:47:00.002-04:00

5) Men of Science and Men of Faith can learn to understand each other

Jack was a doctor, a fixer, a man infused with a supernatural ability to heal that defied explanation and obsessed with finding the best way to solve problems. His inflated sense of purpose prevented him from seeing there are ways to look at issues that don’t require questions and answers – neatly solved riddles tied up with bows and editable on Wikipedia. The concept of accepting truths just because you believe them was alien to him. He was a Man of Science that thought the only way to deal with the world and with life was to analyze it, understand it, and fix it. If it couldn’t be analyzed and couldn’t be understood, it was impossible to fix.

Locke was healed by a miracle. He “looked into the eye of this Island, and what [he] saw...was beautiful.” A man of no particular allegiance to science, much less solving problems or answering questions, he was a man of broken faith. He had faith in his father, faith in his girlfriend, faith in his friends – all faiths that were tested and broken at various times in his life – but the greatest unknown and unanswered question came when he first wiggled his toes lying on the beach. The island healed him and he found a real faith in that not seen.

Jack and Locke were in conflict all through the second season over whether pushing the button in the Swan Hatch was necessary. Locke took it on faith from Desmond that pushing the button would control the power of the island. Jack, finding no real reasoning or explanation to it, resisted. Their inability to understand each other and work together to understanding why they were there split the group over and over again. Until finally, as he returned to the island under Locke’s insistence, Jack set aside his need to fix things himself and took on faith in the island.

All things in the world have explanations – and none of them do. All circumstances, experiences, concepts, phenomena are what we make of them. While it’s tempting to discover the anatomical and biological makeup of our neurological systems and be satisfied with the answer, it doesn’t explain how counting to five can save a life. While we can possibly know precisely what’s inside the Cave of Rainbows and Unicorns and learn how it got there, it doesn’t really help us understand what the light is inside us all. We have to use faith in that not seen to live in the world. We can never truly understand all facts and figures, so it requires faith to fill in the blanks and make it more than its own total.

At the same time, we live in a physical world that requires us to deal with life in physical ways. How we breathe, what we eat, where we find shelter, how we escape from dangerous situations, how we stitch wounds, repair bursa sacs, hunt boar, turn off radio jammers – they’re real world problems that have to be addressed by those resourceful, courageous and creative enough to solve them. What we do with those answers and how we live with them requires faith.

Men of Science and Men of Faith – we have to be both.

4) All the Best Cowboys Don’t Have to Have Daddy Issues (or Mommy Issues)

The relationship between parents and children is not an easy one, and the flaws of those raising children do not magically go away. We all have to deal with the mistakes of our pasts or the inadequacies and inexperience we have as humans – but when we decide to take on the responsibility of raising a child our entire beings must be turned over to caring for and nurturing them. This doesn’t mean we give up our lives, goals, interests, dreams and ambitions to focus 100% on them – we shouldn’t focus 100% on anything regardless of how attractive it is. But having a child means your entire life – your past, present and future are now inextricably reflected in the life of that child.

We saw the majority of the characters on LOST have difficulties coping with their own lives due to inadequate relationships with one or more of their parents (more frequently with fathers, it seems, but I’m not certain in the end that distinction is indicative of anything more significant than the fact that it’s easier for fathers to become separated from their children’s upbringing than mothers. Both parents bear equal responsibilities). Jack’s father, Christian was a drunk and a controlling perfectionist – both traits he visited on his son. Both Penny’s and Sun’s fathers were distant, controlling businessmen who cared more about their status and power than their daughters. Hurley’s dad left abruptly for 17 years, triggering his son’s obsession with food. Sawyer’s father killed his mother and then himself, rather than consider the vengeful effect it would have on his young son. Ben’s father blamed him for his wife’s death during childbirth and physically and emotionally abused him. And so on. All these parents chose their own selfish paths, that kept them from fulfilling their responsibilities to their children. These scars led to the tormented lives of the crash survivors.

But it doesn’t have to be like that. Hopefully Claire (and Kate – talk about “My Two Mommies”) turned out to be a good mother to Aaron because of her experiences on the island. Had they lived, Sun and Jin would have been caring parents of Ji Yeon. Assuming Desmond made it back to Penny and little Charlie, their family should be tight knit and healthy as well. They will all deal with their own issues and memories in the years to come, but knowing the damage that can come from absent, uncaring, abusive or controlling parents should stop the cycle. It only ends once, everything else is just progress.

And we should learn from this, too. As a parent, I gladly take active roles in my kids’ lives and encourage their interests. I try to be firm, but understanding of their needs and opinions. I give them room to grow but a place to feel safe. I teach them to care for other people and care about themselves. It’s what we’re supposed to do – what we have to do. Jack felt taking care of the island was something he was “meant to do” – that sense of parental responsibility was just as strong and instinctual to him as it was in his relationship with his sideways son, David. It’s so important and so obvious.

3) You’re the only one who can give yourself a Tabula Rasa

All the characters on LOST were flawed in some way. A list could be made a mile long of each of the characters’ personal failings, guilts, losses, crimes, and weaknesses. Jacob chose the candidates precisely because they were flawed as he was – possibly these specific people because of issues with their parents, possibly for other reasons. They all had baggage they’ve carried with them for years that remains unresolved and unaddressed.

Sawyer was obsessed with finding the con man responsible for his parents’ deaths. So obsessed, in fact, he took on the con man’s name and persona himself to better understand what it was like to be a con man. And then became one himself. He fathered a daughter he didn’t care about (at the time) and wound up in jail. Eventually the trail of Anthony Cooper led to Australia where he murdered an innocent man in cold blood. His entire life he refused to think himself worthy enough to just be James Ford and find a reasonable, productive pursuit. Like many children, he unnecessarily bore the guilt himself for his parents’ flaws and wore it like a second skin. Only through a leadership role on the island, both with the survivors and in the Dharma Initiative, did he begin to understand that there were better things to do with his life.

Ana Lucia hunted down and killed the man who was responsible for killing her unborn child. This caused her to leave the police force and run away to Sydney, unwilling to bear the responsibility for her actions. Mr. Eko was a drug lord but blamed himself for his brother, Yemi’s death. He could not let go of what he felt was his violent nature. Neither could Sayid – for all the torture and murder he committed over his lifetime he was unable to reconcile his actions with his better nature, that of a good man. He couldn’t let go of his past and start again with a fresh clean slate.

We all have baggage and pasts. In truth, we could all make lists a mile long about ourselves and our failures and regrets in life. How we deal with these trials and challenges that come to us is how we grow as people. Acknowledging a weakness, taking responsibility for a failing, apologizing and making amends for an injury – this is how we put these events in the past and move on. That’s how we are able to really live.

But we can’t wait for people to do this for us. Ben Linus was a dangerous man who did many terrible things in his life but he couldn’t wait for other people to exonerate or forgive him. He couldn’t rely on Jacob considering him “special” – when he wasn’t – to give his life meaning. “What about me??” Ben demanded, and Jacob replied, “What about you?” Ben couldn’t understand then that he didn’t need Jacob’s blessing or attention to be special or to walk away from his demons – he had to do it himself.

We have to have the strength and courage to wipe our slate clean. We can put the past behind us – not to be forgotten, but to be learned from and to remember in times of crisis. We can forgive ourselves for things we’ve done before moving on. Everyone can be redeemed, everyone can start over.

2) There’s No Place Like Home – wherever you make it

You’d think having lived with The Wizard of Oz for oh these 70 years or so people would have learned. But LOST observed that there was still a need to understand just what “home” was all about.

From the moment Oceanic 815 crashed on the island, most everyone was obsessed – rightfully so – with going “home”. As the series progressed, we saw that few of these survivors really had anything at “home” worth returning for. Some, like Locke and Rose, had their injuries or illnesses healed by the island and actually resisted efforts (or at least expressed their reluctance) to returning home.

The Man in Black’s only motivation was to “go home”. In “Across the Sea” we learned he really had no true home, having arrived on the island before being born and having no memory or knowledge of other lands. To him, home was an abstraction It was a concept of someplace different from where he was at the time, to where he was being confined by Jacob. He had no home, nothing to look back to, nothing to find where he could be contented and safe. Home, for him, held no promise of a better life – only one where he could destroy and cause chaos. He was cursed to be forever lost.

Rose and Bernard set the best example. After being more or less abandoned by the rest of the survivors and having no real desire to return to the mainland they made a home where they were. Indeed, their home was each other. Around the one they felt most comfortable and loved, that’s where they built their home… They refused to get involved with Sawyer and Juliet’s attempt to stop Jack from detonating the nuke, and took a risk helping Desmond out of the well – almost at the cost of their own lives. But that was because it threatened the peace and sanctity of their “home” – each other.

Jack and many others finally learned, at the end, that what they were searching for was a home – a place where they could be comfortable, and safe, and free from the concerns of the world. Jack accepted protectorship of the island and made it his (brief) home, but the home he finally ended up with was with the other survivors.

We are constantly on the move, always looking for ways to improve our lives and where we are. In the process we isolate ourselves behind computers, sports, games, drugs, alcohol, sex, laziness, food, indifference, pride – all distractions from simply living our lives with each other the best we can. Reaching out to our families, appreciating our friends, understanding that the more we search for “home” the less likely we are to see it was under our noses all the time.

Which leads us to…

1) If you can’t learn to Live Together, you will Die Alone

There are many phrases and saying in our popular culture that refer to our need for community. One that comes quickly to mind is “No man is an island,” a phrase that has particular resonance with LOST. And island is the epitome of isolation, a small patch of land often surrounded by millions of gallons of water and thousands of miles from the next patch of land. A person alone on an island is completely isolated from the outside world. Even if he possesses complete electronic and satellite contact with civilization, he is still mostly alone.

Jack tells the survivors “If we can't live together, we're going to die alone.” Throughout the series, the survivors and those who came later banded together in mutual dependency. Back in the real world, this was something many of them could not do. They shied away from relationships or found ways to sabotage the ones they had. Locke lost Helen when he couldn’t stop obsessing over his father. Boone’s overprotectiveness and attraction to Shannon kept them from developing a true sibling relationship. Michael was unable to establish a relationship with Walt in his formative years, only truly getting to know his son in their brief time on the island. Even after leaving, Michael’s guilt over his murders of Ana Lucia and Libby and the betrayal of the rest of the survivors built a barrier between himself and Walt that he never repaired. Kate was constantly on the run and made no attempts to build relationships with anyone until the crash. Hurley was convinced his weight caused the deaths of two people in a deck collapse which forced him into a mental institution. Even after leaving and winning the lottery he was convinced his association with others and attempts to do good with the winnings cursed him. Sawyer’s desire for vengeance kept him from letting anyone get close.

Being in a situation where our very survival requires us relying on others is natural. While some of the crash survivors like Shannon were very reluctant to help out, assuming they would be rescued soon, eventually all had to chip in or be shunned. Hurley tricks Sawyer into thinking his selfish and conniving ways were going to get him banished, causing the former con man to do “good deeds” in order to help others and get back in their good graces.

But more than simple survival, LOST proved to us that we can’t go through life alone. We need other people to live. Our lives have no real meaning if we have no one to share them with, and having people around to trust and confide in helps us better understand ourselves and the world around us.

When we choose to isolate ourselves, we purposefully miss a vital understanding – that we don’t exist as a single person, really. We are not truly an island, we are the sum total of our own experiences and the experiences of those we come in contact with. We learn from our interactions with others. Our children, our parents, our friends and lovers. When we pull into our own shells because of guilt and pain we hurt them as much as we hurt ourselves. Refusing to forgive and acknowledge our own sins prevents us from allowing those who love us to forgive us as well. We are never able to find true rest and comforting sense of home until we allow ourselves to let go.

We take pride at times in believing we know everything that is important about ourselves, that only we know what’s best for us. We alone have the ability to fix what’s wrong with us, or fix the problems that come along. We don’t need help from anyone, we can take care of ourselves. Other times we become blinded by great lights, lights of looking too closely to the sun and attempting to find reflections of our own greatness. The resulting wounds can never truly heal without assistance and reassurance by those around us.

We learned many things from LOST, but I believe these are the five most important lessons. They all carefully interrelate, so understanding one can help to understand them all. It comes down to this – love yourself and love others as yourself. One of the greatest truths in life, and it only took 121-1/2 hours of television to bring the message home.

My Complaint of the Day

2009-12-12T00:44:00.001-05:00

I'm frail and bruise easily! And I cry.

Significant Objects entry - "Secret Sauce"

2009-11-03T23:02:00.005-05:00

Recently I entered a competition on Slate.com to write a 500-word short story based on an every-day object, in conjunction with this project:

Significant Objects

The creators of this project went out to various flea markets, etc and bought up dozens of odd knickknacks and curios, then asked various writers to make up short stories about what the possible history of each item might be. Then the items were to be sold, with the story, on eBay.

The object connected to the Slate.com contest was:

My entry didn't win, but I wanted to post it here for your enjoyment.

Note: Be warned - my taste in short stories tends to run to the macabre and Stephen King-esque...

Secret Sauce
By Barry Wallace

Humming to herself, Sarah prepared the restaurant for the day’s customers. When her father was alive he had boasted many times that his heart and soul were in every meal that was served here, and all the customers loved him. Every table, every window, every well-used pot in the kitchen was a part of him. He had been the king of barbecue for fifty-five years, and never was there a restaurant more infused with the soul of its creator.

People who had eaten here for years did know her, but they were more in love with her father. It was his charisma and culinary skills that attracted customers from miles around, not her light brown hair, sweet smile and attractive figure. But that was how it always had been.

She picked up a tray of washed BBQ Sauce jars, each with its own personal brush. Her father had trusted his patrons to lather on the sauce at their preferred amount - not too little and not too much. The ironic fact that he had always told her how much she should put on her own was not lost to her.

Walking the tray of jars to the kitchen, she proceeded to fill each with the secret mixture her father had always cherished. Each morning she had been expected to fill thirty jars, holding exactly the same amount of sauce. She would do the same this morning – with one small exception.

Once in a fit of creative experimentation while her father was on vacation, she had added a few ingredients. In her mind it needed a little “kick”. Some oregano, a little paprika, even some cilantro gave a well-needed update to the classic sauce. The customers, however, had not agreed and complained to her father when he got back. He docked her pay for a month.

It was time now for another new addition to the sauce.

She capped all the jars except one. Examining it, she was sure it was the one she wanted – still glossy from the original glazing, brush clean. Slightly bigger than the rest, this is the one she’d made herself that her father had copied – without credit – by commissioning a local potter to make the other twenty-nine. It was into this one her new special ingredient would be added.

Reaching under the sink, she pulled out a sealed ceramic urn. She opened it carefully, lest any of the dust fly out into her eyes. Dipping a small spoon into the urn she pulled out a small spoonful of a grey, spongy material. Dumping the contents into the last sauce jar, she stirred it up carefully to disguise any lumps and capped it.

“There, daddy,” she thought. “You’re going to be part of your customers’ meals even after you’re gone.” Sealing the urn and replacing it under the sink, she picked up the tray and moved into the dining area to disperse the jars.

Flash Forward - Episode 1 ("No More Good Days")

2009-09-25T16:08:00.003-04:00

My review of the premiere episode of Flash Forward, entitled "No More Good Days", is online at The Disney Blog.

I'm going to be their in-house blog reviewer/commenter on ABC's new sci-fi show, so come by every week to read about it.

Last Night's Tweetup

2009-09-23T13:58:00.003-04:00

I attended last night's meeting of the Knoxville Social Media Association. It was a presentation by Rusty Coats, VP of EW Scripps on journalism and online culture.

It was a fascinating evening, and I always love dipping my toes back into that world of animated avatars we're more used to conversing with via keyboard online. Some people I've known offline from other walks of life but most I've known online across the computer screen.

It's wonderful to meet folks with similar interests to myself, especially those in wildly different professions. The wide reach of the online world is a common denominator that draws many diverse people together.

I still feel on the outside looking in, for the most part. As I said I was fortunate to know a few people there from other walks of life and previous Tweetups, but there were probably many I'd conversed with via Twitter, Facebook or here at the Inn that I just didn't recognize. As I just posted on Twitter, it would be nice to have a GPS locator app on my phone that identified everyone and their relative locations in the room :)

I did have a couple of observations about the evening itself. One was that the back of the crowd was a bit rowdy, which made it difficult to hear the speaker. Chalk that one up to lack of perfect acoustics, my own hearing and a little over-exuberance with the alcohol of the evening :)

The other point was more endemic to the very Twitter-culture we were there to recognize and celebrate. Many, many times during the course of Randy's presentation I glanced around the patio area and noticed more than one head bent down over their iPhone/Blackberry/Verizon, Twittering or texting away. Or reading the http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23knoxsocialmedia feed. Following the undercurrent of conversation that was going on at the same time as the speaker. There was some potent commentary, some snark, some retweets, some invites, and other conversation. It never evolved into a MST3K-like backtalk, but it was there nonetheless.

But I couldn't help but wonder at what Rusty might have been thinking, to look out in the crowd at any given moment and see half of them bent over their phones - ostensibly not listening. What, in any other cultural gathering, would be a pretty blatant display of rudeness. It's one thing to lean over and whisper a comment to your neighbor (My one comment of the evening to Mike Cohen - when Rusty mentioned something to the effect that we held the future of journalism in our hands, meaning our cell phones, I leaned over to Mike sitting next to me and said "Our glasses?") but its another to spend half the time splitting attention between our phones and the speaker.

I'm certain nobody meant anything disrespectful, and again this is the one sub-culture where such a thing is usually forgiven if not expected. But we should probably remember that some speakers may not be used to it, and respond better when they see eyeballs watching them and not the tops of heads.

Especially mine, with my pesky balding spot.

It's interesting when a new societal norm clashes with an old one.

Wow

2009-09-23T08:37:00.001-04:00

It's been a long time since I posted an entry....

Kinda dusty in here. Where's a good maid service when you need it?

*cough cough*

It All Started Thousands of Years Ago...

2009-06-24T10:05:00.002-04:00

I meant to post this earlier:

Cone of Silence Lifted Briefly

2009-06-22T09:55:00.002-04:00

Apparently the firewall blocking access to all blogs - all blogs from Blogspot, Wordress and others - has been lifted briefly at work. So I take this ideal opportune time to relate to you the following message:

I'm sleepy.

Thank you.

Put in a good word for the Atomic Horns

2009-05-30T21:27:00.003-04:00

Talented singer/songwriter Julia Nunes is playing at The Square Room on Market Square on June 9 - and she's selecting her own opening act!

Click on the video above to go to YouTube, and leave a shout-out for the Atomic Horns - I've entered two of our video performances for her consideration. We need some positive comments!

Meanwhile, don't forget we're playing the Secret City Festival in Oak Ridge on June 19th - we'd love to see you there!

Destination Imagination Global Finals 2009 Opening Ceremony

2009-05-22T12:10:00.000-04:00

So What Do You Think of the Enterprise, Mr. Scott?

2009-05-10T00:56:00.006-04:00

Or should I say..."Tink"?

Star Trek: The Good, The Not-So-Good, and the Unforgivable

2009-05-09T00:37:00.012-04:00

OBVIOUS MASSIVE SPOILER ALERT

I saw the new Star Trek movie tonight in glorious Regal IMAX. Obviously not every movie is designed for IMAX, and I'm not sure this one was - though it may have had to do with the fact that I was forced to sit rather close. I'll give it a push on that one.

When the movie ended, I sat in my seat a long while watching the ending credits. I wasn't sure where my mind was and needed some time to wind down and think about what I'd just seen.

Star Trek, for me, has been a defining - perhaps the defining fictional and cultural entertainment icon of my life. I don't want to imply it's more important than it is - I fully understand, more than a number of fans, where fiction ends and real life begins. It's simply been my favorite story and fictional milieu since I sat in my dad's lap and watched syndicated reruns of "Shore Leave". Since I bought my first VCR specifically to tape the premiere of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Since reading countless books, watching countless hours of episodes spanning six different series versions, ten movies...

Like a lot of fans, I feel a sense of ownership in the story. Not the "franchise" - that's a business term, something for money-crunchers to exploit. It's a story, first and foremost. In the beginning the story of one man and how he deals with the world. Over time it became more than that as more people became involved. It spread to a story of three men and their friendship, and how it was a microcosm for all of us. Then about more people, and more people - human and alien, machine and hologram - and how they each represented a piece of humanity. As I said, fans have put a lot of time and effort into enjoying this story and have certain personal expectations from a new chapter in that story.

Let me make one thing clear, however - we are not "owed" anything. The producers of the show, from Gene Roddenberry to Harve Bennett to Rick Berman and now to J.J. Abrams are in charge. Paramount Pictures owns the story, and has the right to not just pick who they want to decide how that next chapter goes, but to make it go any dang place or direction they want it to. We are not "owed" a story that pleases each fan's idea of what's next. I, for one am grateful the powers-that-be decided to make a new film. Like it or not, that's the next chapter and we as fans have to decide whether we like it or not...whether it fits our own personal idea of what the next chapter should be. So don't think that, as a result of my loyalty and appreciation over the years that I feel I'm "owed" a good chapter. I can form opinions and emotional reactions to it, but they're mine and mine alone, and shouldn't be misconstrued as saying it's "bad" or "good".

So, take my opinions as they are - my observations of how I felt after watching this latest installment of "Star Trek"....

The Good

The Cast - The cast, from top to bottom, was fantastic. I told a co-worker of mine this afternoon before I saw the show, that I anticipated the success of the movie, to me, would hinge on the performance of Chris Pine. Would he be able to portray the true spirit of a (young) Captain Kirk? Almost as important, would he be able to capture some of that young Shatner-esque "rogue-ness" that endeared Kirk to so many fans? I am one who believes in a number of ways the two aspects, the personality and the actor, are inseparable in defining who James Kirk is. And, in my opinion, Pine nailed it. Excellent work. I would've liked to have seen a little more of that half smile Shatner used when Kirk was, say, "laughing at the superior intellect" of Khan since the character would likely have had that mannerism since he was a young man but that was an acting choice and I respect it.

Similarly, the personalities and acting of Zachary Quinto/Spock and Karl Urban/McCoy brought forth exactly who those characters were, and channeled their respective original portrayers' interpretations well (Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley).

The secondary crew - Uhura, Sulu, Chekov and Scotty - had less screen time, and at times bordered on caricaturing their own characteristics, but nothing too distracting. When all seven began working together, as a crew, in their familiar positions, it was magical.

Fantastic casting choices, excellent work. Best part of the movie, and its saving grace - despite what I may have to say later... (cue ominous music)
Special Effects, Design - The Big E was gorgeous, and close enough to the original design for the differences to be unimportant. The money shot of her rising from the mist of Titan in front of Saturn screamed "WINDOWS BACKGROUND" and I intend to find a high-res shot somewhere ;)
Story Parts - I use "parts" here to highlight some of the incidental scenes and moments that stood out. The Kobayashi Maru test, and all that went with it. The bar fight. The Orion girl roommate. The fight on the firing platform. Kirk with big hands, nausea and numb tongue (!). Spock's refusal to join the Vulcan Science Academy. His final conversation with Sarek. The kiss in the elevator. Scotty in the tubes. Kirk and Spock's fistfight. The movie was positively littered with moments that just shone. Character bits both new and well-loved combine to make up for...ok, later..later... These scenes, scattered throughout the movie showcased the acting talents and character moments for all the players.
"Admiral" Archer and his Beagle - how many people caught that "Enterprise" series reference? Awesome ;)

The Not-So-Good

I really didn't see anything in the movie that was "bad", per se, with the exceptions later on, but there were a few things that don't go in the "good" category that stuck in my craw a bit. These, again, are things that pinged my Trek-loving sensors and may not have made any difference to anyone else...

Uniforms - While most Starfleet crew members wore variations of the familiar red/blue/green, the arrowhead emblems looked strangely..I don't know, empty. We're all used to seeing the star, circle and gear symbols inside the regular series emblems and here - nothing. Not even a solid color, just a black outline of a chevron. Weird. And at the end of the movie, in the commendation scene, I saw a Federation flag outside the window that had the familiar starburst command insignia. Did the uni's have anything in the final scene? Maybe they awarded them after that point. Just odd. Also the tunics didn't seem to fit all that well at times. I know, pick, pick, pick... But it was great to see them on the big screen in those combinations again.

The Starfleet Academy uniforms and the Admiralty - surprisingly drab. Maybe a holdover from the drab blue of the Archer Enterprise era?
Reimagined Technology and Design - The interior decks of the Enterprise, especially Engineering. Hand Phasers. I know you can't go back and use identical 60's sets and props, just because that's what was there. It worked on the small screen for DS9's "Trials and Tribbelations" and Enterprise's "In a Mirror, Darkly" but for a big screen treatment, updates were necessary. But did they have to be redone that differently? Phasers fire long beams, not short bursts like stormtrooper blasters. Engineering doesn't have giant radioactive-labeled tanks. The hangers aren't full of 500 shuttlecraft. Oh, screw it. Enough with the quibbling.
Scotty's little...friend - Played by everybody's favorite Oompa-Loompa, Deep Roy. What the hell was that all about, anyway? I'm still puzzled and a little bit scared who or what that thing was. It looked like he became the Enterprise's mascot at the end - something you might see Penny Robinson taking as a pet.
Hanging By a Thread - Three, count'em, three times Jim Kirk was hanging for dear life from a deadly precipice. That's two too many in one movie for one character, really. I've heard of cliff-hangers, but really. Just an odd plot choice.

The Unforgivable

Ok, if you loved the pants off this movie, you may not like the things I'm about to talk about. But bear with me, because, like I said above, I did like it. I liked it a lot. But these things...well, be patient and you'll see.

The Villain - Hands down, Nero was the absolute worst villain in Trek history. Certainly the worst of the movie versions, and that's saying something with the likes of the dry Ru'afo from Insurrection and the campy Shinzon from Nemesis. Nero had no character, no motivation, no personality, nothing at all to define him as an antagonist. Certainly not as the prime villain for the movie. Heck, V'ger had more character than he did, and the humpback whales from The Voyage Home had more personality.

Nero did nothing the whole movie except spit, yell, threaten, whine and moan about the "wrongs" done to him by Spock, the Federation, his mother, his third grade teacher on Romulus, and the girl that dumped him at the junior prom.

Part of this I blame the actor, Eric Bana. But in great fairness, I didn't see anything given to him - any dialogue, movement, action - from the script that gave him room for any character depth besides a blind, vague need for revenge. In fact, he and Shinzon, aside from the pointed ears, could have switched places fairly easily. And Shinzon had twice the depth Nero did. In fact, all the Romulans on the ship looked like Nero, and at times I had trouble telling which was him and which was a random crew member.

But the need for revenge - blind and vague it was. Whatever true motivation the character had for the deeds he did, was completely lost on me. Let me see if I got this straight... Old Spock, as Ambassador on Romulus, offered to help the government "defuse" the nova that threatened his homeworld. Spock took off in the super-cool swirly Vulcan ship with the "red matter" to try and create a singularity, that would counteract the blast effect of a supernova. But he was apparently too late, and the sun exploded before the red matter could be used, and destroyed Romulus.

That's it? That's the big motivation for the blinding hatred for Spock and all of Vulcan? Because the Federation "wasn't fast enough"? Seems to me Spock and The Federation were the only ones actually trying to do anything - I didn't see that many Romulans lifting a finger to help themselves.

It's not just that it isn't a logical conclusion to draw, to equate the UFP's inadequacy to contain the threat with a need for revenge on another planet full of sentient beings, but it isn't even an illogical conclusion. There's no rational or even irrational reason for Nero to blame Spock or the UFP for Romulus' destruction! Oh sure, he could be a bit pissed. And people who just saw their planets destroyed can't really be expected to act totally rationally, and to blame someone else - but Nero, by all accounts, is an intelligent person. He's the captain of the mining vessel, and not an unhinged genetic madman like Khan. Nor a man lured by the seductive call of the Nexus like Soran from "Generations". The lust for revenge that would cause any person to, a) destroy a Federation starship out of hand (the USS Kelvin), b) capture Spock and maroon him on an ice planet so he could watch Vulcan die, and c) actually destroy Vulcan and try to destroy Earth, simply doesn't match what was done to him, personally - fairly or unfairly perceived.

And when your villain has no believable motivation for the evil he does... he's just evil. And just evil is very, very, very boring.

Nero was a very, very, very boring villain.

I got the idea that if Spock sat down with Nero for a few minutes and explained, logically, the error of his ways and where to productively turn his feelings of loss and grief, all this unhappy business of bad villainry could have been avoided. But he's just a Vulcan, and not a miracle worker.

To have this much time to come up with a good villain, with true motivation and a real diabolical scheme and not deliver - unforgivable.
Changing the Past - And here's the second big thing. Star Trek, as we know it, is now radically different.

Irrevocably altered.

All that history? From "The Cage" and "Where No Man Has Gone Before" to Nemesis is now gone. Wiped out. Finished. Kaput. Nada. Wiped clean.

Old Spock said it himself, and the crew figured it out - alternate reality.

Things were humming along nicely until Nero emerged from the singularity. Ok, fine - time travel is a given in Star Trek and always handled carefully. Well, mostly carefully ("I grew a new kidney!! That man gave me a pill and I grew a new kidney!!!").

I can accept the emergence of Nero's ship dramatically altering the life and death of George Kirk, and altering the circumstances of his birth. Unintended consequences happen when people travel through time (do you hear that Damon and Carlton??? Do you?? Do you??? Whatever happens, did not ALWAYS happen!!).

But Vulcan was destroyed. And Amanda Grayson, Spock's mother, was killed.

Let's just think about that. Vulcan, the second most important planet in the entire Star Trek milieu, is gone.

No more "Amok Time". No more Masters of Gol and the big Kolinahr statues. No more steps of Mount Seleya. No more ShiKahr, sehlats, le-matyas, lirpas, An-woon. Likely no more T'Pau (or was that her among the Vulcan survivors?), T'lar or T'Sai. No more Stonn or T'Pring. No more Sonak. Possibly no more Sybok (I know, big loss). No more Saavik! Or Tuvok! All the Vulcan characters and ancestors of said characters, if from 24th century - likely gone. 10,000 saved out of a planet of 6,000,000,000. Poof. An entire chunk of Trek history, lore and culture... erased from the story like a typo.

Heck, we almost saw as much of Alderaan, overall, as we now have of Vulcan.

Let me step back here a bit. In stories, bad things happen. Bad things happen to motivate the good characters to improve their goodness. Or overcome their badness. Without Darth Vader, there is no Luke Skywalker. As a character. Without the Joker, there is no Batman. Again, as a character. The villains and bad things in our lives, and especially in the lives of fictional characters, are there to show how they overcome them and grow. To risk mixing two franchises, losing Alderaan was a big motivator in Princess Leia's drive to defeat the Empire. If Vader and Tarkin hadn't destroyed it, she might not have been motivated and driven enough to fully fight back. So our adversities make us who we are.

But...but.. it's Vulcan....!!!

When you write a story, you have control of what happens to each and every character. In any real person's life, seemingly random events can happen to change the course of our lives. A car goes one way instead of another and rear-ends you. Five minutes earlier and the person who was about to offer you a great new job wouldn't have left. Grocery store is out of cookies, so you choose crackers. Two airliners shatter the peacefulness of a crisp autumn day in New York City to change the world. Things happen, random events occur all the time to affect our lives.

But when writing fiction, you have the power to control that.

If I write a story to send a Terminator back to the late 1700's, realistically (if such a thing exists) he would shoot the entire Continental Congress delegation, and likely the population of all Thirteen Colonies looking for John Conner. But I can write in that, luckily, John arrived just before the Terminator did and blows his metallic head off before the nasty robot dude can blow away John Adams. I did it, I made it up. It probably couldn't happen that way, but since I own the world in my head, and on the paper, I make the rules. If the plan only has a 0.00001% chance of success, then By Golly we're going for it! And it, against all odds, will likely work.

What chance, really, Force or not, did Luke and the X-Wing pilots have to fire that proton torpedo that destroyed the Death Star? None. Zero. There's no way they should've gotten close to the surface, much less down the trench. But George wanted him to be a hero, so he was.

But, the thing is here, you have to think of the repercussions to the story. In this case, the greater story.

Nero obviously had superior technology. What he did makes sense from the point of view that's given to us. In fact, he shouldn't have failed to destroy Earth, either. Spock's abduction of the future Vulcan ship, and subsequent escape, were ridiculously easy - that's ok, if the story rides on it. But it didn't have to. Kirk and Sulu were able to disable the drilling platform - but too late! The hole was down to the core, and all Nero had to do was drop the bomb. Poof! Bye Bye Ol' Sandy.

Vulcan, and Amanda Grayson didn't have to die to further the story. The Spock we all know and love, the one before this story happened, progressed just fine. Just like he should have.

The Spock we've now ended up with, is very different.

To lose your home planet, and six billion of your closest relatives - that's a big deal. It doesn't sit well with a person.

Ask Nero.

Ask Princess Leia.

And to lose your mother prematurely, when before she lived to a ripe old (human) age - that's just cold.

And on Mother's Day weekend, to boot.

It changes them. The person they were, or were going to be - the Old Spock we saw is that person - is now gone, and can never come back. The new Spock, the Zachary Quinto Spock, is what we have now.

If, by some strange chance, the crew one days reaches Sarpeidon again, will Spock fall for Zarabeth again, or will he let her be? Who knows - his entire worldview is now different. Not to mention his relationship with Sarek is now completely different. Old Spock's motivations for joining, and staying in Starfleet was based a great deal on the estrangement with his father. An estrangement that continued through the old series ("Journey to Babel") and wasn't really reconciled until the end of "The Voyage Home". And Sarek never fully addressed the feelings he had toward Spock and Amanda until the mindmeld incident with Picard 100 years later!

So many things are now different, and while they were exciting and suspenseful and sad and heartbreaking for what they were, in the context of the movie, did anyone think about what this will do for Spock's character as we know it?

You've effectively killed the Spock we really know. And unless you're Khan, that's unforgivable, too - because there's no Genesis Planet nearby to bail you out of this one.

Thanks for reading. Overall, I really liked the movie. The acting and characterization of the crew was wonderful. But the big problems I had with the villain and the story logic kept from making it a GREAT movie, and certainly not the best Trek movie. The record of "The Wrath of Khan" as best Trek movie ever, is safe for another year. Pop the corks, guys. You and the '72 Dolphins are in good company together.

Comments and questions are welcome.

Tribute to Sid and Marty Krofft

2009-04-27T21:07:00.003-04:00

These two men defined my childhood entertainment, as they did so many other people my age, like no other.

Mayberry's Got Talent

2009-04-24T16:25:00.000-04:00

You think Susan Boyle impressed the judges on Britain's Got Talent? Wait'll you see what they found when they went to Mayberry...

The Rules

2009-04-17T00:08:00.001-04:00

"Whatever happened to the rules? Let the other guy go first, keep your elbows off the table, share your toys....and life will reward you. Well life is a crock.

B.J. Honeycutt, M*A*S*H

The Sound of Music in an Antwerp Train Station

2009-04-06T18:26:00.003-04:00

This is an awesome video of the kind of stuff these folks do on a regular basis. We totally have to do something like this here in Knoxville. I know several Twitterers have expressed interest, anyone else?

Space Shuttle Discovery Launch

2009-03-26T22:24:00.003-04:00

The first day of our Orlando Spring Break trip last week was exciting - we got to see our first space shuttle launch. We tried to drive to the Cape but traffic was so bad we only got as far as just east of Orlando before pulling off and setting up shop.

This is from about 40 miles west of Cape Canaveral, but still very impressive.

Sort-of-Spoilery Non-Serious Review of Battlestar Galactica, "Islanded In A Stream Of Stars"

2009-03-09T09:32:00.004-04:00

My synopsis of this week's episode of "Battlestar Galactica":

Kara: "I totally heard this song in my head!"

The Final Five: *yawn* "Whatever"

Kara: "I'm going to kill you, Sam, to put you out of your misery!!"

Sam: *yawn* "Whatever. There's a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza."

Helo: "Can you say to my face that you hate me, Athena??"

Athena: *yawn* "Whatever"

Baltar: "You're still my favorite-est Cylon, Caprica!"

Caprica 6: *yawn* "Whatever"

Helo: "I have to go find my daughter!!"

Adama: *yawn* "Whatever"

Hera: "I want my mommy!!"

Boomer: *yawn* "Whatever"

Boomer: "You're not going to hurt the little brat, are you?"

Cavil: *yawn* "Whatever"

Baltar: "Kara Thrace is really dead!!!"

Everyone: *yawn* "Whatever"

Roslin: "You have to abandon the Galactica"

Adama: *yawn* "Whatever" *puff*

Adama: "Ok, we really do have to abandon the Galactica"

Tigh: *yawn* "Whatever"

Me: "Where's Chief Tyrol???"

The Show: *yawn* "Whatever"

Finding a Cure for Cancer... Fact or Fiction?

2009-02-25T16:16:00.005-05:00

In an episode of The West Wing entitled, "100,000 Airplanes", the fictional president Jed Bartlet debates adding a line in his State of the Union Address that would announce to the world that America was going to dedicate itself to finding a cure for cancer in 10 years. The following are some short scenes from that episode

Cast of Characters:
BARTLET (Jed Bartlet, President of the US)
SAM (Sam Seaborn, Deputy White House Communications Dir.)
TOBY (Toby Ziegler, Senior White House Communications Dir.)
JOSH (Josh Lyman, Deputy Chief of Staff)
C.J. (C.J. Cregg, White House Press Secretary)
JOEY (Joey Lucas, professional pollster who is deaf)
KENNY (Kenny, Joey's interpreter)
LISA (Lisa Sherborne, friend of Sam's)
CHARLIE (Charlie Young, Bartlet's Personal Aide)

JOEY [KENNY]
Did he [Bartlet] find a cure for cancer? 'Cause if he found a cure for cancer, I think that would be interesting. I think that was something we should share.

CHARLIE
Yeah.

JOEY [KENNY]
But he didn't. He wants to find a cure for cancer, and he wants to say that in the State of the Union. You know what my response would be? Me, too, but is this the first time you had that thought?

...

Note: At this point in the series, Bartlet has revealed he has MS and was awaiting a Congressional censure for his actions

BARTLET
A President stood up. He said we will land a man on the moon before the end of the decade. You know what we knew when he said that? Nothing. We didn't know anything. We didn't know about the lunar surface. We didn't know how to land one of these things. All we'd ever done is crash it into the ocean. And God knows we could figure out how to land soft. We didn't know how to blast off again, but a President said we're gonna do it, and we did it. So I ask you, why shouldn't I stand up and say we are going to cure cancer in ten years?

Silence in the room. No one responds.

BARTLET [CONT.]
I'm really asking.

JOSH
Well, how close are we to really being able to do this?

BARTLET
Nobody knows.

JOSH
Then...

BARTLET
Toby.

TOBY
It'll be seen as a political ploy.

BARTLET
Why?

C.J.
It can be seen... [to Toby] Excuse me. [to Bartlet] It can be seen as self-serving.

BARTLET
How?

C.J.
Using cancer to deflect attention from MS.

BARTLET
You think people with cancer care what my motives are? You think their families do?

C.J.
I'm saying...

BARTLET
Joey?

JOEY [KENNY]
I agree with everything that's been said, except, I don't think they'll see it as deflecting the MS. I think they'll see it as deflecting the censure.

BARTLET
Once again, why would somebody...?

JOEY
Everybody cares about motive, Mr. President.

BARTLET
I didn't...

KENNY
She said, "Everybody cares about motive," sir.

BARTLET
Sam.

SAM
Yes sir?

BARTLET
Why shouldn't I do it?

SAM
I think you should. I think ambition is good. I think overreaching is good. I think giving people a vision of government that's more than Social Security checks and debt reduction is good. I think government should be optimistic.

...

JOEY [KENNY]
Do I think people are in favor of curing cancer? Yes, I do.

SAM
So?

JOEY [KENNY]
But federal government shouldn't be directing scientific research.

SAM
Why?

JOEY [KENNY]
Because you stink at it. If it was up to the NIH to cure polio through a centrally directed program instead of an independent investigator driven discovery, you'd have the best iron lung in the world, but not a polio vaccine.

SAM
When did you get an M.D.?

JOEY [KENNY]
I was just quoting Samuel Broder.

SAM
Who's he?

JOEY [KENNY]
The former director of the National Cancer Institute. The speech is gonna work fine. Don't overreact to the censure.

...

SAM
Good evening, Mr. President.

BARTLET
You got it?

SAM
Yeah.

He gives Bartlet a piece of paper, which he reads, all the while pacing the room. Bartlet finds himself seated on a chair.

BARTLET
This is good.

SAM
You know we can't do it.

BARTLET
Yeah.

SAM
We need to line up experts who can face the press, and in just two weeks.

BARTLET
Yeah.

SAM
Sloane-Kettering, Dana-Farber, The Cleveland Clinic, UCLA.

BARTLET
We'd want to include the Society of Clinical Oncology.

SAM
And the NCI.

BARTLET
The OMB would have to score it. We haven't identified the offsets to pay for it. We can barely tell them what the "it" is.

SAM
Clinical trials under Medicare and Medicaid, Science and Technology Democrats, the pharmaceutical companies.

BARTLET
[sighs] It was a good idea though.

SAM
We have other good ideas.

BARTLET
So we don't get water from a rock. We just do our thing and take our chances.

SAM
I think so.

BARTLET
[stands] We're gonna have to do it awfully well this time.

SAM
We've done that before.

Bartlet gives Sam the draft back.

BARTLET
Anything else?

SAM
[shakes his head] Thank you, Mr. President.

Sam exits. Bartlet walks back to his desk.

...

SAM
[pause] Here's something interesting. In 1940, our armed forces weren't among the 12 most formidable in the world, but obviously we were gonna fight a big war. And Roosevelt said the U.S. would produce 50,000 planes in the next four years. Everyone thought it was a joke, and it was. 'Cause it turned out we produced 100,000 planes. Gave the air force an armada that would block the sun.

LISA
Do you still have what you wrote that night?

SAM
About curing cancer?

LISA
Yeah.

Sam walks to his desk and fiddles with his laptop. He shows Lisa his draft on curing cancer.

LISA
Read it to me. [sits]

SAM
[reads] "Over the past half-century, we've split the atom, we've spliced the gene, and we've roamed Tranquility Base. We've reached for the stars, and never have we been closer to having them in our grasp. New science, new technology is making the difference between life and death, and so we need a national commitment equal to this unparalleled moment of possibility. And so, I announce to you tonight, that I will bring the full resources of the federal government and the full reach of my office to this fundamental goal: we will cure cancer by the end of this decade."

LISA
[pause] That was nice. [beat] I'll pass the notes along.

Sam nods and watches Lisa leave his office. As he leans back on his chair, we see his computer screen and the words to his draft. With a touch, he highlights all the words, before he deletes them. For a moment, Sam just sits still, staring at the blank page.

I don't know if there are any great truths in there, but I found it an interesting parallel to Obama's comments about curing cancerin last night's speech to Congress.

Obama also pledged a "historic commitment" to health care and said the recovery plan could lead to a cure for cancer. He also promised the "largest investment ever" in preventive care. (CNN.com)

In this case, "The Economy" could be substituted for fears of politicizing Bartlet's MS and censure.

I wonder if the speechwriters for Obama went through similar discussions?

Thanks to this site for posting the script for the episode. No copyright infringement is intended)

Ties to the Left, Ties to the Right

2009-02-20T16:27:00.009-05:00

Possibly the least significant item in the history of LOST hidden visual clues...

Jack, waking up in the jungle after the crash of Oceanic 815 (1st Episode):

And here's Jack waking up in the jungle after the "crash" of Ajira 316:

Notice his tie is pointing to the left after the first crash, and to the right after the second.

Wow. What does it mean? WHAT DOES IT MEAN!?!?!?!?!?!

Top 10 Things Hurley Might Have in his Guitar Case

2009-02-20T14:30:00.006-05:00

Top 10 Things Hurley Might Have in his Guitar Case

10. A Guitar

9. RISK (2007 edition)

8. Ranch Dressing

7. Meteorite Repellent

6. Complete Justice League of America collection, Issues #253-365 (in Spanish)

5. Bulletproof vest, for the next girl he falls in love with on this island

4. 75 pounds of Mr. Cluck fried chicken

3. Ping pong paddles, golf clubs and balls for each

2. Owners Manual to VW Type 2a Van

And the #1 Thing Hurley Might Have in the Guitar Case...

1. Aaron

In Brightest Day

2009-02-16T14:53:00.001-05:00

Here's a great story about a kid who made up his mind to take an adventure

“Can I help you?” the receptionist said.

“Yes.” I replied. “I need to speak with the person who writes Green Lantern.”

A smile made its way across the receptionists face. “I’m guessing you don’t have an appointment?”

“No.” I said, matter-of-factly. “But it’s important. I just want to say a few things to him. It’ll take five minutes, tops. Can you just tell him I’m here?”

“Do your parents know you’re here in our office?” the lovely lady said.

“Of course!” I lied, indignant.

When He Tells Them They MUST Go Back, He Ain't Just Kidding Around

2009-02-12T12:08:00.003-05:00

My latest column on this week's episode of LOST, "This Place is Death

So why is Ben concerned only on getting the original Oceanic 6 back to the island, and not the others? Why some and not all? Physically, all nine escaped the island but Ben and Hawking are only concerned with getting the O6 back.

The answer lies in the common thread between the O6 - they were all on Oceanic 815 when it went down. Jack, Hurley, Sayid, Sun, Kate and (almost born) Aaron. Desmond was already on the island in the hatch, Frank came later in the freighter and Ji Yeon was conceived there. The common thread on why only they must go back is because ONLY THEY were once on the plane.

UPDATE: Screw it. Here's the whole thing:

Thoughts that occur to me during the viewing of "This Place is Death"

1) When Montand is pulled into the hole by the Smoke Monster, and calls up to his comrades - does he sound strange? I mean, yes, he just had his arm ripped off but he seems strangely matter of fact about calling for help. Almost like he's trying to lure his friends into the hole after him. I can't help but wonder if the Smoke Monster is able to take on the characteristics of people (or animals) it touches and mimic them. Something like the old Salt Vampire from the first episode of Star Trek back in the day.... This could explain the appearance of Christian Shepherd to Locke later in the show, that's it's a manifestation of the Smoke Monster. For this to be true, Dr. Shepherd, Sr., would have had to either a) not been truly dead in his coffin, b) revived and then imitated after the crash, or c) visited the island before his death. Anyway, all that to say Montand's behaviour wasn't what was really expected when down in the hole.

2) Speculations is that the ruins covered with hieroglyphs are possibly "The Temple" that Ben sent The Others, Rousseau and Alex to a couple seasons back. According to Ben it was the safest place on the island (and by the map he had was situated in the northwest corner, a good ways distant from both the Tower where the French party was headed and where their camp probably was). The heiroglyphs were strangely reminiscent of the dangerous red symbols in the Countdown Timer in the Swan Station hatch, after they count down to 00:00:00. If it is indeed the infamous "Temple" where Montand was dragged and the French party went in after him (and is the cause of their sickness/madness), and it's also where the Smoke Monster lives, it could be a very important key to the island's mysteries.

3) Charlotte. Poor, poor, cute, redheaded, British accented Charlotte. The time-travelling really started making swiss cheese of her brain, to where she remembered and relived past thoughts and experiences. She revealed she knew Korean, was born on the island, and that her mother "should never have married a foreigner". Sometime in her childhood she was carried away from the island by her mother and told the island was all a dream. She remembers the Dharma Initiative, that a crazy man (Daniel) once told her to never return or she would die, though she became an anthropologist in defiance of this warning to try to find the island. So, why? And who is she? Who are her parents?

Dr. Pierre Chang, the Oriental Dharma film guy was seen in the season premiere waking up to a very Oriental woman and tending their baby, so it's doubtful Chang is her father (although it's very probable the baby is Miles). I'm thinking Charlotte was a Dharma baby, born of Dharma parents and raised for several years on the island in the Barracks. Quite possibly near an adolescent Ben Linus. She could have learned Korean as part of her schooling from Dr. Chang, although why Korean I have no idea. At some point a time-traveling Daniel sees her as a child and warns her to never come back if she leaves. Whoever her mother was eventually escaped the island with her in tow, leaving the father behind.

Another possibility re: knowing Korean. Could Sun's father, Mr. Paik, be involved in the early days of Dharma as well, just as a young Charles Widmore and probably a young Eloise (Ellie) Hawking were once Others? I don't think he could be her father, since Sun is older and had already been born. Probably a stretch but who knows?

4) Now that Locke has turned the Unfrozen Donkey Wheel, have the time-shifts stopped for Sawyer, Juliet and co.? When are they? My money's on them being in the time period as the aforementioned opening scene of the season premiere - in the heyday of the Dharma Initiative and construction of the Orchid. Daniel will pose as a worker and infiltrate, while the rest of the Losties interact with Dharma as well. We'll likely spend most of the rest of the season on the Island with Sawyer, Juliet, Miles and Daniel (and maybe Rose and Bernard if they all meet up) in Dharma times.

5) Ben and Desmond have never had an encounter together before this episode, except for a brief moment together when the two factions met near the wrecked plane cockpit last season. Obviously Ben knows Desmond and knows who he is (since Ben seems to know everything) but didn't seem to know he'd made it off the island since in his dealings so far this season he's been concentrating solely on getting the Oceanic 6 back to the island. Not the O6 + Desmond + Frank Lapidus, the chopper pilot + Ji Yeon, Sun's baby that was still a fetus during their escape. Ben doesn't express a lot of surprise at seeing Desmond, but is shocked and somewhat angry when the Scotsman asks if they're looking for Faraday's mother too. Obviously Ben didn't know that little tidbit of information.

So why is Ben concerned only on getting the original Oceanic 6 back to the island, and not the others? Why some and not all? Physically, all nine escaped the island but Ben and Hawking are only concerned with getting the O6 back.

The answer lies in the common thread between the O6 - they were all on Oceanic 815 when it went down. Jack, Hurley, Sayid, Sun, Kate and (almost born) Aaron. Desmond was already on the island in the hatch, Frank came later in the freighter and Ji Yeon was conceived there. The common thread on why only they must go back is because ONLY THEY were once on the plane.

So the even bigger question, why MUST they go back? Locke is asked several times why he HAS to bring them back, and he can only say, "I just know". Mrs. Hawking insists a couple episodes ago there are only 70 hours left to do so (several of which have now passed, undoubtedly). Why is it so imperative that the O6 return to the island? It's not just to save their friends, which is the lure and a happy by-product, but I think it's to save the flow of time itself.

Or something monumental like that. I believe the Oceanic 6, in some timeline somewhere, were always stranded on the island. Maybe they got off later in the future, but in 2008-ish, they were still on the island. And that timeline has been horribly disrupted by their escape and return to civilization.

Some trigger has disrupted the flow of time on the island, and subsequently in the world. Whether it was Desmond turning the Failsafe Key, Widmore sending the Freighter to capture Ben, or Ben himself turning the Donkey Wheel and moving the island something has "changed the rules". Ben accuses Widmore of "changing those rules" by having Keamy kill Alex in cold blood. There was a smooth path before, and now the path has been disrupted. Mrs. Hawking realizes this and working with Ben has instructed him to get the O6 back to the island where they're supposed to be.

Something about the whole sequence of events we've seen so far, from the orginal builders of the 4-Toed Statue and the Temple Ruins to the Black Rock marooning, the US army use of the island for bomb testing in the 50's, through the Dharma Initiative and the Purge, Roussea's expedition, Desmond's shipwreck and all the events after the plane crash, something has now happened that wasn't supposed to have happened before. And bring the O6 back to the island will supposedly set it straight.

Maybe.

Possibly.

We'll see.

Changing the Past ("The Little Prince")

2009-02-06T16:54:00.001-05:00

My latest LOST column is up at I Love Television

The Losties continue to traipse around through time - this week to mid-season 1 just after Boone's fatal injury and Aaron's birth, to an unknown time in the future with a trashed camp to 1988 when Rousseau's French expedition wrecked on the island.

Taking Daniel's assertion in mind that the past cannot be changed, that it's a street that one can go backwards and forwards on but not create new streets, let's explore the evidence one way or the other...

Sleestak!

2009-02-03T12:19:00.001-05:00

From the new Land of the Lost movie.

Fathers, Mothers, Sons and Daughters

2009-01-26T11:43:00.002-05:00

My latest wacky time travel theory on LOST is up at ILoveTelevision.com

So further speculation - Charlotte and Daniel have been shown to be close, having an almost tender romantic relationship. But is it possible their closeness is not based on romance but siblings?

Unstuck in Time

2009-01-22T09:42:00.001-05:00

My thoughts on time travel in Lost here

It's interesting that the characters on the island - the Losties, at least - move back and forth through time but the Others don't. Richard Alpert and Ethan appeared in various times but were their current selves for that time period. Ethan, of course, being dead in the present and who knows what or when Alpert is. It almost seems like the island is staying put but the Losties are the ones moving around (what with the topography and clutter constantly rearranging themselves). What makes the Others different from the Losties? And does this apply to the crash survivors who now live with the Others (Cindy, the kids)?

New Lost Blog

2009-01-21T16:45:00.003-05:00

Tonight is the Fifth Season premiere of Lost. I've been invited to write about the show at I Love Television.com blog - take a look before and after the airing for my thoughts about the premiere, the past, the future, and wherever else in the world we may become unstuck in time.

The Lost Boy blog:

I'll throw out one speculation that I've held for a long time, and that is I think we will find out that some of the major players on the show (adversaries, mainly) were crew of the ill-fated Black Rock slave ship that somehow ended up beached in the middle of the island. I think it's obvious that somewhere in the past, the island "moved" (via Frozen Donkey Wheel) and appeared right underneath the Black Rock. Members of the crew and possibly cargo/passengers were either rejuvenated or ressurected by the island's healing properties and live on to this day.

Empty Promises

2009-01-09T16:06:00.002-05:00

Note written on napkin, sitting on empty table, in our break room:

FREE PILLOW STUFFING

I looked around, nothing there. So of course I wrote, on the same napkin:

? MUST BE FOR AIR MATTRESS

Sometimes work is fun...

Lost Beneath Lake Michigan

2009-01-09T13:43:00.004-05:00

Wouldn't it be funny if this were a fake?

The iconic Stonehenge in the UK is one of the most famous prehistoric monuments in the world, but it is not the only stone formation of its kind. Similar stone alignments have been found throughout England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales… and now, it seems, in Lake Michigan.

According to BLDGBLOG, in 2007, Mark Holley, professor of underwater archeology at Northwestern Michigan College, discovered a series of stones arranged in a circle 40 feet below the surface of Lake Michigan. One stone outside the circle seems to have carvings that resemble a mastodon—an elephant-like animal that went extinct about 10,000 years ago.

While an American version of Stonehenge would be very cool, if quite inaccessible for tourists to visit, finding out a bunch of archeology students at the University of Illinois or Northwestern planted their version as a prank or a research project would be great.

Equally possible is that somewhere on the monoliths are carved the numbers, "4 8 15 16 23 42" and "815".

My Sixth Bloggiversary

2009-01-09T08:57:00.013-05:00

Six years ago, on January 11, 2003, I wrote my first post for Inn of the Last Home.

This is it. Welcome.

In case you're wondering about the title, learn about it here.

Who am I? I live in Knoxville, TN. I have kids, and a good job. I figure the blogiverse needs someone to reach that middle-ground, family-in-the-suburbs, church-going, theatre-loving, liberal, sci-fi-watching, politically-naive demographic. That's me.

A lot has happened in six years. We've had two presidential elections (in which the online community had significant influence), I've joined a semi-successful band.

I lost a good friend in a senseless, tragic way. I also remembered another friend who was killed in another senseless, tragic way - the irony is I never actually met her.

I've performed in or Music Directed eight shows around town (Company, Jacques Brel..., Annie, Honk, The King and I, Suessical, Grease, Peter Pan) and one in Florida. I joined the Board of Directors for the Tennessee Theatre Association, and recently became Community Theatre Chair. My goal of actually getting to direct plays continues to frustratingly elude me.... I directed a children's show in 2002, and that's my only credit thus far despite a number of requests and offers to direct. That is, and always has been my main goal in theatre and I am unsure as to why I have not found an opportunity thus far.

My kids have grown up around me in spite of my attempts to keep them at three and six. Tink is now nine and a fourth grader, and BrainyBoy is twelve going on thirteen in the seventh grade. My "conversations" with Tink (then known as GiggleGirl) began here and are quite humerous (follow the tag).

My job situation on the face is unchanged. I continue to work at the same place, for the same folks and with pretty much the same folks. I don't and shouldn't blog about my workplace in any detail for obvious reasons but I will say that my frustration and feelings of being marginalized have about doubled every year since I started the blog. I need to find something new and quick - but I've been needing to do that for several years now, with no results. Similar to theatre directing, the opportunities for change, growth, advancement and satisfaction continue to elude me. Enough about that.

I've made 2,276 posts since I started this blog (counting this one). That averages about 379 a year or almost a post a day. Lately that count has dropped precipitously (like my big words?). A significant reason for that has been my increased use of Twitter. A lot of my style fits twitter better than blogging, with quick thoughts and random replies. Other than a few political posts I made in the last few months my posting has slacked off a good bit. I think if you look back in the previous paragraphs it will give you an indication why: sameness. Job - same. Theatre career - same. Not that the details haven't changed, but the sense of growth and moving forward have remained the same. When there's growth, there's creativity and spark. When I'm constantly going in circles, I don't feel as if there's really anything to particularly unload or talk about on this site.

I've also noticed in the last couple years the continued rise of a style of blogging I dislike - the hyper-political blog. These are blogs where politics is king and the actions of political figures are elevated to celebrity status. In the past, tabloid magazines and TV shows exploit the every movement and thought of various movie stars, models and other performers. Political blogs do the same with political figures, but in a different way. They elevate to extreme the people they like (i.e. from their own party and way of thinking) and denigrate everybody else (all those not in their party). It was bad enough during the Bush/Kerry campaign in 2004, but much worse in the McCain/Obama campaign of this past year. As I said before, the online community had a huge impact on the recent presidential election - but I don't feel it was a particularly positive one. Little attention was paid to highlighting issues and beliefs each candidate stood for, but more for their personalities, faults, intelligence, background, etc. When Sarah Palin's ability to see Russia from Alaska gets more blog coverage than McCain's economic policies we know we're in trouble. And when know more about political activists Obama was linked to 30 years ago than Biden's foreign policy experience, something's wrong.

But that's what was popular and any other noise was drowned out. So I didn't feel I had much of use to contribute. That was a big factor as well.

So what do I have to contribute to the blogging community? I lean way local, with a lot of Knoxville/Knox County/Tennessee related posts. I also lean personal with discussion of my family, my... (what would you call my theater and musical pursuits? They're less than a career but more than a hobby. An avocation?) Anyway, the stuff I do on the side. I don't rant, I don't pontificate, I don't throw things against the wall to see if they stick, I don't run things up flagpoles and see if anyone salutes, I'm not a curmudgeon, I'm not a rabble-rouser or an activist. I'm not a mommy-blogger or self-actualist. I don't claim to know the truth, the skinny, the dirt, the lowdown or the real story.

I am what I am. I live in a medium sized town in a southern state. I love music and I love theatre and Lost and Star Trek and Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica and Jurassic Park and Back to the Future and dragons and spaceships and transporters and Civilization III and World of Warcraft and Agatha Christie and Christopher White and Stephen King and The Beatles and Huey Lewis and the News and Jimmy Buffett and Carmina Burana and Beethoven's 9th and To God Be the Glory and Amy Grant and hot, sunny days in the Caribbean and cool days in the Smokeys and Walt Disney World and EPCOT and Neyland Stadium and LP Field and spring church softball and bottom of the ninth. I'm blessed to be reconnected and continue to connect with old friends from high school, college and elsewhere. I can't wait to be around the people I have met doing theatre. I adore my wife. I'm continually proud of my kids and want to see them grow up well. I'm thankful for my parents and my in-laws. I love God and want to do his will. I have opinions like everybody else. I want to succeed, do things that people will be proud of and above all do the right thing.

Is any of that blogworthy? I guess I'll find out. I have a few bloggiversaries to go :)

Coming on Friday

2009-01-07T12:45:00.001-05:00

My 6th Bloggiversary, and perhaps one of the most introspective posts of my brief blogging career.

Those of you who have been decrying my absence - hang on.

Silence, Milky White...

2009-01-07T08:51:00.001-05:00

...not to my liking.

Anybody Home?

2009-01-06T17:00:00.001-05:00

(opens the door, peers in).

Hello? Wow, kinda sparse in here. Who updates this thing, anyway?

(closes door)

New Dharma Station on "Lost"?

2008-12-09T10:48:00.003-05:00

Looks like there's a new Dharma station waiting to be discovered on "Lost".

Here's the logo:

This is from the producers' latest webcast.

At first glance I thought it was a lighthouse, but now I'm thinking it looks more like a lamppost. I'm also willing to speculate this will be the first Dharma station, facility or property found off the island - i.e. somewhere else in the world where Dharma exists.

They also mention Ben will be reading at some point in the season from Joyce's Ulysses and somewhere in the text is the word "hurley". Could be a coincidence, but who knows.

The Top 9 Indications Your Plans for World Domination Are Not Going Well

2008-12-05T14:40:00.002-05:00

I just like this:

The Top 9 Indications Your Plans for World Domination Are Not Going Well

9> First step: keep American public distracted with World Cup
Football.

8> Your minions built your secret base in a *live* volcano.

7> Every time you get a great world-domination scheme brewing, a
tattered, beaten future version of you comes through another
dimensional doorway and says "Dude! Don't do it!"

6> You notice that the company printer keeps spitting out
Henchman resumes.

5> No matter what you do, some people still insist on using
Linux.

4> Lengthy conversations with your mother as to whether or not
there will be time to make the rulers of all nations grovel at
your feet AFTER your room is clean.

3> Everybody's laughing at you and apparently not because of your
fiendish Laugh Ray.

2> "Ha! They said it was folly to try to create an army of highly
trained and disciplined housecats, but now we'll show them!
March my feline warriors!! Boots, get back in line! Mr.
Whiskers, where do you think you're going? DAMN!"

and the Number 1 Indication Your Plans for World Domination
Are Not Going Well...

1> The planet you're trying to take over: Earth. Your weakness:
Any exposure to a rare element called "oxygen".

[ Copyright 2002 by Chris White ]
[ http://www.topfive.com ]

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Still Vulcan After All These Years

2008-11-26T11:13:00.003-05:00

You just can't keep a good Vulcan down...

Our first glimpse of Leonard Nimoy, playing elder Spock again for the first time since the 5th season of TNG and "Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country" in 1991. From the newly updated Star Trek trailer.

Former Knoxville TV Anchor's Son Fights Brain Cancer

2008-11-25T22:57:00.001-05:00

Former WBIR-TV 10 anchor Ted Hall's youngest son has brain cancer, but continues to fight it every day.

So far the prognosis looks very hopeful that he will continue to live a normal life.

Ted is now at a TV station in Atlanta, and the recently did a story about the little boy's battle against the odds.

Watch this, and be inspired by the young man.

Social Symphony

2008-11-25T10:39:00.003-05:00

Frank Murphy informs us it's time again for Blogger Night at the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra!

Be the first 50 49 48 local bloggers to email Stephanie Burdette at the KSO and, assuming you promise really nicely to blog about the concert the next day, she will give you a pair of tickets to the January 15, 2009 performance free!

The KSO will perform selections from Bach, Mozart and Mendelssohn that night, and the featured soloist will be pianist Navah Perlman (daughter of violinist great Itzhak Perlman - or as my kids know him, "that guy with the violin that introduces the whale segment of "Fantasia 2000")

Peter Pan opens tonight at the Oak Ridge Playhouse

2008-11-21T14:27:00.003-05:00

Think lovely thoughts and join the mischievous Peter Pan and the Darling children on a magical tuneful trip to back Never-Never Land, an exotic place of pirates, crocodiles, and the dreaded Captain Hook.

Based on the play by J.M. Barrie
Lyrics by Carolyn Leigh, Betty Comden and Adolph Green
Music by Mark Charlap and Jule Styne

November 21-December 7
Oak Ridge Community Playhouse
227 Broadway in
Historic Jackson Square
Oak Ridge, TN
865.482.9999

Purchase Tickets

In case anyone's wondering, I'm Musical Directng this production, which means I teach all the vocal music to the cast, play piano for the show and lead the orchestra.

Come see us!

You're Welcome!

2008-11-13T15:14:00.002-05:00

TVA power rates going down 6% as 2009 starts

Utility rates will go down about six percent as 2009 begins, Tennessee Valley Authority officials announced Thursday.

The amounts people save on their monthly bills will vary, depending on how much energy they use. However, residential consumers can expect a decrease of about $4.000 to $8.00.

Well, your plaudits and congratulations to me and my family for this rate decrease can start coming in any moment now. It's because of us that TVA has decided to cut back its rates!

That's because our house has been sans heat and heating system for, oh, going on about 3-4 weeks now. The gas heat system's been broken and between getting two different companies to take a look and give us estimates for repair and replacement, we've finally decided to get a whole new system to replace the 18-yr-old dual unit that's been on the house since it was built. And it finally does get replaced tomorrow.

That means no more shivery nights, thank goodness, and no more freezing hands and feet under the covers. I hope.

But anyway, because of our incredibly lower demand for energy this past month - we like it warm - TVA obviously noticed and adjusted its rates.

We'll take tributes in $50's and $100's if you please...

Real Evidence of Shoddy Journalism and Blogging

2008-11-13T14:46:00.005-05:00

A Senior Fellow at the Institute of Nonexistence

It was among the juicier post-election recriminations: Fox News Channel quoted an unnamed McCain campaign figure as saying that Sarah Palin did not know that Africa was a continent.

Who would say such a thing? On Monday the answer popped up on a blog and popped out of the mouth of David Shuster, an MSNBC anchor. “Turns out it was Martin Eisenstadt, a McCain policy adviser, who has come forward today to identify himself as the source of the leaks,” Mr. Shuster said.

Trouble is, Martin Eisenstadt doesn’t exist. His blog does, but it’s a put-on. The think tank where he is a senior fellow — the Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy — is just a Web site. The TV clips of him on YouTube are fakes.

...

[The comic creators of Eisenstadt] say the blame lies not with them but with shoddiness in the traditional news media and especially the blogosphere.

“With the 24-hour news cycle they rush into anything they can find,” said Mr. Mirvish, 40.

Mr. Gorlin, 39, argued that Eisenstadt was no more of a joke than half the bloggers or political commentators on the Internet or television.

This is part of what I meant by how bloggers take any tidbit of dirt they find that shows their opponent in a bad light and run with it.

But most of Eisenstadt’s victims have been bloggers, a reflection of the sloppy speed at which any tidbit, no matter how specious, can bounce around the Internet. And they fell for the fake material despite ample warnings online about Eisenstadt, including the work of one blogger who spent months chasing the illusion around cyberspace, trying to debunk it.

This past election, bloggers and the media took small pieces of stories and ran with them, gleefully, without worrying about whether they were true or even really plausible. If there was a nugget of truth, or even a hint of plausibility, as long as it made the other guy (or gal) look silly, stupid, uninformed or evil, it was repeated and expounded on.

This is why it was almost impossible to separate fact from fiction in the blogs this year. First the opinions are biased - they're backed up by facts from biased sources that were themselves researched with biased intent. Then the comments to these articles, where supposedly the great internet strength of fact-checking is supposed to come into play, revealed refutations and defense by people who had equally biased "sources" on the other side. There was no way to tell, short of personally talking to the candidates face to face, what was right and what was exaggeration, distortion, and outright lies.

I do want to take a moment to comment about my friend Rich, of the blog "Shots Across the Bow. He took exception to me in this post and on this site for painting him and his site with the same broad brush I did with a lot of other political blogs. I actually counted on his site a great deal for some well-researched commentary and it was one of the exceptions I noted in my post. I apologize for not spelling it out more completely to him before-hand, but I just didn't want to get into naming specific sites either way out of fairness.

After the post and commentary were reprinted in the Knoxville Sentinel this past Sunday, I thought some more about it and wanted to respond to his concerns publicly.

One thing I do wish Rich had done - I would have liked to have seen more posts - any posts, in some cases - dealing not with they Obama should not be president, but why McCain should be president. Or any reasons he could find that signaled positives he could see in an Obama presidency. I know I saw pluses and minuses all over the place for both candidates throughout the election, and the positive aspects of either candidates (and their VP's) deserve to be highlighted - even more than the negatives, in most cases. But that's just me, and maybe reflects more on the lack of such posts elsewhere. It's not fair to expect one person to cover the whole spectrum of political discussion - that's everyone's responsibility.

I've seen several interviews with Sarah Palin this past week where she refuted and explained - over and over, it seemed - some of the "charges" made against her. I can't imagine they're all true, but it seemed to some they were, or must have been, because of who she was and what she represented. To start with the conclusion and work backward...that's just kind of sad.

But that's politics.

Post-Election Thoughts

2008-11-05T11:07:00.004-05:00

1) Congratulations to Obama and his supporters. I won't say it was an honorable, well-fought race (because national races haven't been like that in decades, if ever) but the man with the most votes won. Cleanly. And decisively. At least this time there's no controversy.

2) However, for anyone to think he (or McCain, had he been elected) is going to now "unite the country behind a wave of bipartisanship and unity" is sadly mistaken. The United States is still almost equally divided between conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats. Looking back at the venom thrown back and forth between supporters of both candidates convinces me that it's going to take a lot more than this election to bring Americans into a unifying consensus.

3) The more rabid Obama supporters remind me of the giddy newlywed couple - all in each others' faces, in love, giggling, holding hands, continually kissing and generally making those around them a little nauseous. Guys, just FYI - the euphoria's going to fade, and fade soon. Be prepared for it, and be prepared when all your newlywed buddies don't continue to share your enthusiasm a few months down the road.

4) I was impressed with Obama's acceptance speech last night. That's the first time I've heard one of his speeches where he seemed to be speaking from the heart, and not just saying what people wanted to hear. If he'd done more like that over the campaign, he might have just swayed me.

5) I was also impressed with McCain's concession speech. I was horribly unimpressed with the people in the supporter crowd there in Arizona booing when he mentioned Obama and congratulated him. Grow up, people.

6) The popular vote wasn't as close as I thought it would be. The Electoral vote was about what I thought.

7) The biggest losers of the election cycle? The blogosphere. For an information and communication medium that purports to be a haven for free thinking, friendly, informative and factually-based expression of views and opinions, I never saw for one moment the portion of the 'sphere I inhabit give me any information I could trust. That goes for the rest of the internet as well, really, but the partisanship was so rampant, and the innuendo- and rumor-based blogging never produced any good, truthful, reliable, factual and defensible information that I could trust. On either candidate.

With very few exceptions, there were hardly any blog posts I read from either side that said to me, "This is information I can trust, or opinion based on facts that were either verifiable or recorded and accessible." One post would have a fact, and 15 people in the comments would refute it - often pointing to another post or "source" that proved otherwise. I would go to the other posts hoping for perspective and the comments on those posts would do the exact opposite. They'd prove equal and conflicting "facts" to support their own premise. Often, researching topics back to an original source revealed not much more than a rumor or obviously partisan site. I went back and forth on particular issues so many times, looking for information I could actually trust, it made my head spin.

Nothing was proved. Nothing was verified. Stories about Obama's past and McCain's connections were put out as fact, disproved, discounted, ridiculed, re-proven with new facts, those facts disproven, the facts disproving the facts reinterpreted to mean the opposite...

What it boiled down to was two groups of people who'd already made up their minds who were each bound and determined to use any means necessary - true or otherwise - to show their opponent in a bad light. It didn't matter if the story was true, only that they believed it. But the irony was each side had no hope of changing the others' position - it was just a battleground to show how smart and righteous each of them were. The ones caught in the middle, the truly undecideds and truth-seekers out there, were the ones that suffered under excessive pride, misinformation and deception.

Nothing was learned. No great truths were uncovered. Nobody came out of the process truly educated in the actual strengths and weaknesses of the candidates. We all lost, really. Obama may have been elected, and he may turn out to be a good or even a great president (I hope so!). But he was not elected by an informed populace and he was not elected by a populace that truly cared about making a decision that was for the good of the country.

And for me, it started and ended with the blogosphere. The people I trusted to help me make a good decision. I'm sad, disappointed and disillusioned.

8) When Bill Clinton was elected, he was given 8 years of hell from Republicans over health care, Bosnia, Monica Lewinsky, and just generally being a Democrat. Rush Limbaugh built a career out of bashing the President of the United States. In return for that treatment, as well as how he won the 2000 Election, the war in Iraq, the economy, and generally just being a Republican, the Democrats have given George W. Bush 8 years of hell. Will Republicans immediately begin their next salvo or retaliation for 4 or 8 more years against Obama for little more than him being a Democrat? Or will they man (and woman) up and break the cycle, try to work with him and keep the criticism to the levels a civilized, democratic society needs to be?

Doubt it. But we can hope.

9) LOCAL ELECTIONS - I'm surprised Charter Amendment 3 passed and 4 didn't, because I considered #4 the bigger no-brainer than #3. I've pontificated for years to all who would listen that several current county elected positions had no business being electable. Every year citizens of Knox County elected people to offices they have no idea what they do, nor is there any discernable difference in the people they elect. They were, and are, skill positions that require skill people to be hired (or appointed) for. Ah well, at least now we've trimmed the county commission down to a manageable level. The fewer members, the less chance for corruption and less chance that corruption will rise to a critical mass level. Those thinking one commissioner is not enough to represent his or her district, and still hold a full-time job, doesn't hold water. So good for that at least.

Irony: A Tale of Two Coaches

2008-11-03T11:56:00.003-05:00

Fulmer to resign as UT's coach

Not that, in this part of the country, you haven't heard yet but there's the link.

What's amazingly ironic - and I called it, incidentally, last week:

Previous UT football coach Johnny Majors had a disastrous year in 1992, personally and professionally. He had heart problems and surgery, which led him to step down for a few games early in the season. Offensive Coordinator and Asst. Head Coach Phil Fulmer stepped in and led the team to a miracle victory at Georgia which debuted the ascendancy of QB Heath Shuler. A couple victories later and UT's the toast of the country. Seeing the writing on the wall, Majors struggles back from his deathbed and returns to the sidelines in a bid to save his job. A loss to newly minted SEC team Arkansas in mid-October dashed UT's title hopes, and finally at the end of the month they lost calamitously to South Carolina - another newly added SEC team, at South Carolina. Days after the lost, Majors resigned effective immediately and Fulmer was hired as UT's full-time head coach soon after.

Sixteen years later Fulmer will resign after his own South Carolina debacle, although he will coach out to the end of the season (as he should). Who will take over for him? No interim this time around, so we're saved from a John Chavis-coached team...

Senator Ascendant

2008-11-03T10:27:00.009-05:00

Tomorrow, we will elect the third person to move directly from the United States Senate to the Presidency. Both McCain and Obama are sitting US Senators (as is Biden. Palin is a governor.). The last time a sitting US Senator or Congressman was elected president was John F. Kennedy in 1960. At the time he was second term Senator from Massachusetts in his 8th year of office.

As of today Barack Obama is in the third year of his first term as Senator from Illinois, and John McCain is in the fourth year of his fourth term as Senator from Arizona. Joe Biden is in the sixth year of his sixth term as Senator from Delaware and is currently running simultaneously for a seventh term while running with Obama as VP. Sarah Palin is in the third year of her first term as governor of Alaska.

All the other presidents between JFK and today were governors or VP's immediately prior to election (Johnson: Kennedy's VP; Nixon: Eisenhower's VP; Ford: Nixon's VP; Carter: GA Governor; Reagan: CA Governor; Bush I: Reagan's VP; Clinton: AK Governor; Bush II: TX Governor).

Before Kennedy, you have to go back to Warren G. Harding to get the next most recent member of Congress who became president. (Eisenhower was General in the US Army. Truman was FDR's VP. FDR was Governor of New York. Hoover was Coolidge's Secretary of Commerce. Coolidge was Harding's VP.) He was in the sixth year of his first term as Senator from Ohio when elected president in 1921. According to Wikipedia, he was the first sitting US Senator elected president.

James Garfield was a sitting US Representative from Ohio, having served from 1863 - 1881 before being elected to the presidency in 1880. Andrew Johnson was Lincoln's VP for one month before the assassination; prior to that he was Military Governor, US Senator from and elected Governor of Tennessee. Lincoln served one term as US Representative from Illinois before spending many years as a lawyer.

And so it goes, back into the murky history of the US presidency.

What does this mean? Well, in the 220-odd years of the US presidency, only 2 sitting US Senators have been elected president. A few more sitting US representatives have been elected. The vastly greater majority have been sitting governors or most recent Vice-Presidency (with a few military generals thrown in here and there).

Tomorrow there will be a third sitting US Senator elected to be President of the US.

Not that we have any choice about it now, but I think it's telling that by and large the people of the United States trust their governors and VP's - those who have had national administrative experience, rather than legislative experience - to lead our country. Or experience leading a military unit. Or experience in a cabinet position, even.

We'll see how Obama or McCain do, translate their legislative experiences into administrative. When dealing with military decisions, the last post-Senatoral president, JFK, had the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Harding's presidency was rocked with scandal in the cabinet with several members and assistants sent to jail for taking bribes.

Interestingly, both Kennedy and Harding died within a couple of years of taking office, Kennedy from assassination and Harding from a heart attack. So no sitting US Senator elected president has ever served out his full first term.

(By the way: Grover Cleveland, a man the US citizens voted in to office as president twice, in non-consecutive terms, was at the time of his election in his third year as first term governor of New York. Prior to that he was Mayor of Buffalo for one year. Just thought that was interesting, in light of all the flak thrown at Palin - not that it's warranted or unwarranted, just that it's not unprecedented.)

The Impossible Wish

2008-11-03T08:50:00.004-05:00

A East Tennessee man was fishing on the shore of Tellico Lake, when he saw bobbing in the water a bottle. Wading out a bit, he snagged the bottle and brought it back to shore.

The bottle was ornate and decorated, and as such bottles do, when the man opened it a big puff of smoke poured out and a genie appeared.

The genie stretched and yawned as the fisherman gaped. Finally the genie said, "Thank you sir for freeing me from a thousand years imprisonment in that bottle. To show my gratitude, I will grant you One Wish."

The man thought for a moment, scratched his head. Finally he said, "You know, I've always wanted to go to Hawaii. But I've always gotten seasick in big boats, and I'm afraid to fly. I wish that you could build me a bridge from right here in this spot to Hawaii - that way I could come and go as I pleased."

The genie frowned and rubbed his beard, pondering. "Well," he mused, "I suppose I could do something like that - but you know the Pacific ocean is a mile deep in spots... I don't think the supports would handle that kind of weight. Not to mention all the hurricanes, typhoons, and tsunamis. Shipping would have to be altered around it, and I can't even guess the effect on marine life all along the bridge. No, I don't think that's at all practical. You'll need to pick something else."

The man sighed and thought again - suddenly a smile lit up his face. "Ok, genie, I've got it. I wish that the University of Tennessee Volunteers would win another national championship!"

The genie stared at the man for a moment, then gazed west. "Let me ask you this. Do you want that bridge one lane or two?"

(Due credit goes to the guest minister at our church for that joke yesterday morning)

Either Or

2008-10-30T10:54:00.001-04:00

I'm confused: are they talking about police tickets from red light cameras, or tickets still available for the UT/Wyoming game next week?

Tickets won't go away

Great Spam Scam

2008-10-13T08:32:00.003-04:00

I got this in my email today - the latest I've received in the old "Nigerian bank" scam that are so transparent nowadays to be useless. However, they excel now in either creativity or utter mistranslated confusion that I think it should be considered a new internet art form. Here it is (copied directly):

From: Mrs Judith Williams.

Dear Friend,
My name is Mrs Judith Williams am 75yrs old of age, i stay in new york city, USA.I am a good merchant, I have several industrial companies and good share in various banks in the world.I spend all my life on investment and coporate business. all the way i lost my husband and two beautiful kids in fatal accident that occur in November 5th 2003.
I am a very greedy woman with all cost i dont know much and care about people, since when I have an experience of my it difficult to sleep and give rest.

later in the year 2004 Febuary i was sent a letter of medical check up,as my personal Doctor testify that i have a lung cancer, which can easily take off my life soon.I found it uneasy to survive myself, because a lot of investment cannot be run and manage by me again. I quickly call up a pastor/prophet to give me positive thinking on this solution, as my adviser.He minister to me to share my properties ,wealth, to motherless baby/orphanage homes/people that need money for survivor both student that need money/ business woman and man for their investment and for future rising. So i am writing this letter to people who really need help from me both student in college, to contact me urgently.
so that i can make available preparation on that.especially women of
the day, who are divorced by their husband, why they cannot survive the mist of feeding theirself.

please contact me and stop weeping. probably let me now what you really need the money for, and if you can still help me to distribute money to nearest orhanages homes near your town. now am so much with God, am now born again. May you be blessed, as you reach me,please to remind you, dont belongs to scammers or any act of fraudlent on internet. I will give more information to you as i await your response immediately.

Best Regards
Mrs Judith Williams

I kinda feel sorry for them that they can't translate well enough into English to even pretend to be real...

Same Song, Fourth Verse

2008-10-11T20:29:00.001-04:00

Thoughts on Tennessee's 26-14 loss to Georgia this afternoon:

1) Nick Stevens appears to be about as good as any other QB we've had lately in their 2nd game starting, so I've been happy with his progress to this point. So far - no INT's, so that's a plus no matter what else. No major overthrows, underthrows or bad decisions - some questionable throws into coverage and not very mobile, but still head and shoulders above Crompton. I wonder how good the other guy, B.J. actually is that we've never seen? He could be even better, who knows.

My standard answer whenever anyone on the radio gripes why we're not using Lennon Creer - like it or not, he's still the 3rd string tailback. If he were better, he'd be the 2nd string or 1st string. That's how they're ordered, and it doesn't make sense to think Creer is going to run better than Hardesty and Foster just because he's there. That's why we don't see him as much, it doesn't make sense to play your 3rd string guy except in special situations when your 1st and 2nd string guys are out.

THAT SAID....

As we've seen with Stevens, obviously the coaches have no idea how to grade their players 1st string, 2nd string, etc. We went through four games with an obviously inferior QB and just now found the real starter. THere's probably no real reason to think he should've been 1st string and Stevens riding the bench. In the same way, who knows who among the 3 RB's is really best? I think it's obvious that it's not Foster anymore, and it should be a competition between Hardesty and Creer. But they don't pay me to make decisions...

3) I am beyond blaming the defensive guys for bad tackling and being out of position (or continuous "busted plays" as Bob Kesling kept alleging). I hang the Defense's bad play solely on John Chavis and the defensive coaches for the most haphazed defensive scheme in the SEC. Every down we play off the receivers, allowing them to get 5-10 yards on the sides at will. That's all coaching, and it's inexcusable.

Conflicted

2008-10-08T11:02:00.003-04:00

(Debate transcript found at Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD)

Senator Obama said last night, regarding national security:

I don't understand how we ended up invading a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, while Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda are setting up base camps and safe havens to train terrorists to attack us.

That was Senator McCain's judgment and it was the wrong judgment.

When Senator McCain was cheerleading the president to go into Iraq, he suggested it was going to be quick and easy, we'd be greeted as liberators.

...

And the strains that have been placed on our alliances around the world and the respect that's been diminished over the last eight years has constrained us being able to act on something like the genocide in Darfur, because we don't have the resources or the allies to do everything that we should be doing.

Obama echoes the key disagreement that the Democratic Party has had with the invasion of Iraq since Day 1 - that it had nothing to do with 9/11, that there was no connection between Iraq and global Islamic terrorism, that it wasn't in our national security interests, and that it did nothing but inflame opinions of the US and its policies throughout the Middle East and around the world.

While those points are still in contention on both sides, he also doesn't seem to want to admit that what we did did some good for the Iraqi people. That they are undoubtedly, undeniably incalculably better off now than when they were under the regime of Saddam Hussein. We all know the things Saddam did, to his own people and to his enemies. We know the kind of country he ran, the ways he controlled his populace. We know what a place Iraq was like for years and years before we went in and liberated the country. So how can one equate Obama's previous statements with what he said just after?

When asked about what his approach to an "Obama Doctrine" might be in regards to using military force to solve humanitarian crises with no national security implications, he said:

Well, we may not always have national security issues at stake, but we have moral issues at stake.

If we could have intervened effectively in the Holocaust, who among us would say that we had a moral obligation not to go in?

If we could've stopped Rwanda, surely, if we had the ability, that would be something that we would have to strongly consider and act.

So when genocide is happening, when ethnic cleansing is happening somewhere around the world and we stand idly by, that diminishes us.

And so I do believe that we have to consider it as part of our interests, our national interests, in intervening where possible.

But understand that there's a lot of cruelty around the world. We're not going to be able to be everywhere all the time. That's why it's so important for us to be able to work in concert with our allies.

Let's take the example of Darfur just for a moment. Right now there's a peacekeeping force that has been set up and we have African Union troops in Darfur to stop a genocide that has killed hundreds of thousands of people.

We could be providing logistical support, setting up a no-fly zone at relatively little cost to us, but we can only do it if we can help mobilize the international community and lead. And that's what I intend to do when I'm president.

That's going to change when I'm president, but we can't change it unless we fundamentally change Senator McCain's and George Bush's foreign policy. It has not worked for America.

That is exactly what we did in Iraq. There was a humanitarian crisis, a crisis of a dictator exacting cruel treatment and subjugation on the people of his country. It's still the same kind of situation that exists or existed during the Holocaust, in Darfur, in Kosovo, in Rwanda... The people may be different, the situations may be different, but when bad people are preying on good people and when innocent people are caught in the crossfire between warring factions that don't care who they hurt, that's when the US has historically intervened.

And Obama agrees with that policy, as he should. As we all should. But for some reason, it doesn't apply when considering Iraq - the past, present and future.

Millions of Iraqi civilians - Muslims, Christians, Arabs, Kurds, and others - were in dire need of humanitarian intervention. The US did, and rid them of their oppressive government. No, we may not have been cheered in the streets as valient liberators, but I have no doubts that the people that it mattered to the most, the ones in the most desperate of straits, were very happy Saddam was gone.

Now, the intervening years of security and rebuilding have undoubtedly been a mess but that has nothing to do with the initial action of intervention that Obama advocates for other places around the world, but does not allow for Iraq.

In fact, it's not even Obama's fault, really. I don't blame him for having this position. It's the common position of the Democratic Party that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake (see his list of reasons above). The Democractic Party has, from March 2002 onward, opposed everything President Bush has done in Iraq. They've done everything they could, from protests to talk shows to blogs to national campaigns to make their opinion known, the opinion that it was all wrong. Was it purely our a disbelief in all the reasons for the invasion - national security, terrorism, WMD's, liberation, humanitarian, etc? No, I really don't think it was.

I think they opposed him, as a group, for one reason and one reason only - the fact that they didn't believe he was elected president legitimately. That he and the Republican Party stole the 2000 election from Al Gore and the Democratic Party. And that he should be punished for it, and that his presidency and all the decisions he makes should be marginalized as much as possible.

Listen, I was as upset as anyone about Al Gore losing. I thought the whole result of the election was bogus, myself. I think Gore should've been president in 2000, not Bush. But to oppose the policies, and the man, because of the result of that election has bought this nation six years of domestic turmoil and conflict that have done more to harm us, overall, than 9/11 did (emotionally). I have no doubt there are Democrats that do oppose the war under pacifistic, legal, and other reasons - and there some legitimate arguments to be made - but the overwhelming evidence -- and Obama agrees with the reasonings for humanitarian intervention, but refuses to apply them in Iraq - suggests what was done was the right thing.

Obama will not admit this, because the Democrats won't admit it. And they won't take responsibility for the disruption that their opposition to Iraq has caused this country for six years because they can't let go of that resentment and anger. That's what caused me to turn away from the Democratic Party and become an Independent. I surely can't embrace the Republican conservative ideology, and the liberal philosophy still resonates with me much more than any other. But as a matter of public policy and practical application, it has been misapplied.

Random Thoughts

2008-09-30T12:05:00.003-04:00

I know I don't update the blog nearly like I used to. Part of it is Twitter, where some of my brief thoughts and opinions now end up that I used to post here. Another part is lack of current events that I either a) understand enough to blog about, or b) care enough to blog about. Or c) want to keep good relations with online friends and relatives so I keep quiet about certain topics. Regardless, I hope to get back on the ball, soon. Here are a few thoughts I've had lately.

UT Football

It was very, very much Arian Foster's fault for the fumbled exchange Saturday. When one runs, it's natural to pump the arms up and down. Foster took a step, pumped the right arm up and the left one down. He took another step, started to bring the right one down and the left one up, in which to form the "basket" to receive the handoff. At the last millisecond, he changed his mind, stopped his right arm from descending and lifted it up again to put it on top and the left on the bottom. Unfortunately he chose too late and in the midst of moving the right arm back up, hit the ball in mid-handoff, knocking it out of Crompton's hand before he was ready. Now, was the handoff too early? Was Foster not expecting it so soon? Should Crompton have held on to the ball tighter? Those are questions only the coaching staff would know, who designed the plays and coach them. And they're the ones also saying it's Foster's fault. So why think different? Oh yeah... Crompton = scapegoat. Sorry.
Is our defense an average defense with flashes of greatness (Lowest rushing and passing yards for Tebow ever, only 6 points given up to Auburn and held them practically motionless in the 4th quarter, 6 INT's)? Or are they a good defense with flashes of mediocrity (Bad, bad tackling on D and special teams, made average QB and receivers at UCLA look like All-Pros, missing assignments)? I think the former.
Dave Clawson's "new" offense still hasn't had the time or personnel to run correctly. But the time is running out.
Fans should never, ever, ever boo. Ever. Never. None. Too boo is classless, regardless who you're booing (ok, if you boo a ref for a bad call, that's different). But to boo a college player who could be taking classes with your son or daughter... no sir. I don't care if you pay $500/ticket to see UT play, you have no right to boo. Paying money for a ticket entitles you to see a football game, period, end of sentence. It does not entitle you to a good football game, or even a mediocre one. It gets you in the gates to watch A game, and if you don't like what happens on the field, that's your own gamble you've lost. Unless you have to Pay Per View you can always stay at home and watch the game, and boo to your heart's content. Don't ever confuse purchase of a ticket with assured quality performance. It differs in this respect from purchasing a ticket to a play or a concert - you assume a promise of some kind of quality based on the performers' talent and skill. But, unlike a sporting event, there is no random element of other performers working to keep them from achieving greatness. So live with your choices, and if you don't like the product don't buy the ticket. But don't boo.

More Later...

The Most Beautiful Thing I've Ever Heard

2008-09-23T23:34:00.000-04:00

I laughed. I cried. I meeped.

In For a Penny...

2008-09-23T15:20:00.003-04:00

Here's one of the new penny designs coming out soon:

I don't know about you guys but I think it's about time they honored Lyle Lovett with a coin of his own.

Some Actual Level-Headed Analysis of the UT-Florida Game

2008-09-22T16:20:00.005-04:00

Tennessee / Florida Thoughts and Analysis (Link Fixed)

Last year's game was a disaster for UT; a year of cooling off has only confirmed that feeling. This year's game, however, shows very significant improvements:

* Play Balance Even considering the late hole, UT didn't end up as a pass-only team.
* Plays/Drive Largely due to the balanced playcalling, UT managed 2 plays per drive more. Florida also managed an extra play per drive, but a large part of that was not allowing the 1-play TD type drives. In both regards, UT actually did better.
* Yards/Drive UT improved their average drive distance by a full ten yards. Much of that was from the two drives with turnovers within 10 yards of the end zone. Florida's distance was actually decreased. Much of that decrease was due to some short-field plays and a rather bad UT punting game. But the defense performed much, much better.

...

Despite our initial read, UT played a much better football game than appearances would indicate. Florida deserved the win because they (a) have vastly superior special teams play (b) didn't have fatal miscommunications in their playcalling, and (c) effectively used the new clock rules to eliminate any possibility of a comeback. UT does deserve a lot of credit, though, for playing a hard-fought game and not giving up. Everything broke against them, but they did not "quit".

I would also add that in the first half (when we were not so far behind yet) we had an 11-play drive and and a 14-play drive. Yes, they both ended badly but it's a far cry from the 3-and-outs we seem to typically pile up in droves against Florida.

Also our defense held Tebow to 96 yards passing (a CAREER low) and 26 yards rushing (a 2nd place CAREER low). While overall not perfect, it's still an improvement over recent UF expectations.

Just like against UCLA (if the punt had not been blocked, or if they'd called a safety as they should've) there were several instances in this game that might've swung the game around - unlike last year when the rout was on early and often, and there was nothing UT could do about it.

It means that there are major problems, yes, but there don't seem to be whole-scale fundamental problems. The offense can move the ball through the air and on the ground, the defense can stop the pass and the run - it just doesn't follow through to their conclusions.

One big glaring thing, though - to essentially blame the loss on the punter is inexcusable. Chad Cunningham, 2nd string sophomore punter, pressed into duty because the starter is sitting out for DUI, had a 37-yard net punting average against Florida. While he admits he didn't place his kicks very well, keep in mind one of those kicks was returned 78 yards for a score, and another for 14 yards. The other two I believe were fair-caught. The point is that poor, poor coverage and tackling are what created that low average and not the punting of Chad Cunningham. To talk about replacing a kid who probably isn't supposed to be on the field punting for Div. 1 in the first place, and incidentally doing probably about as well as he could be asked to, is ridiculous. It also seems I remember 56 yards in 2 kickoff returns that weren't handled too well. Lay off the punter and concentrate on learning to tackle.

The Only Story Today Where You'll Find the Words, "Volunteers Improve"

2008-09-22T08:32:00.001-04:00

Helping hikers' havens: Volunteers improve Appalachian Trail shelters

Fourteen years ago, while hiking the Appalachian Trail in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Mike Crabill and his 12-year-old son stayed at the Double Springs Gap trail shelter. It rained that night, and the shelter was packed with 17 people.

Last week, Crabill returned to the Double Springs Gap shelter, this time as part of a volunteer construction crew that spent 10 days making extensive improvements to the three-sided stone structure built in 1963.

Fantasy Football - A Metaphor for Voting?

2008-09-19T10:45:00.005-04:00

It's a fairly well-known rule of thumb in Fantasy Football that, when drafting a running back you should also draft his backup. This is called "handcuffing". If you are lucky enough to draft LaDainlian Tomlinson of the San Diego Chargers (arguably the best back in the league) you should also draft fellow Charger RB Darren Sproles and "handcuff" them together. That way if Tomlinson ever goes down with injury and has to sit out a game or two, you already have his backup ready to fill in his spot in your lineup.

Now, I've always found this practice a little odd since you never know if their backup is any good - if Tomlinson goes down, the Chargers could go to a more pass-oriented offense in his absence and Sproles may not do squat. I've always simply drafted the 2-3 best RB's available in the league at that moment and assumed one of them would always be playing. That way your 1-2 combination are always 1st string backs.

Of course, choosing this way handcuffs yourself because you miss out on some options for decent back-ups. If, say, Jonathan Stuart of the Panthers were available when your turn came around wouldn't you be much better off drafting him as a backup to Tomlinson than his real-life one, Sproles?

But some people do that, and the only reason I can figure out is they expect their top RB to be injured sometime in the season and want to make absolutely sure they have a replacement in the wings ready to take over. So instead of choosing a top RB for his full skill-set, they handicap themselves assuming he's going to check out for a while and fall all over themselves ensuring the backup is right there and ready to take over.

Ok, long, long football analogy to explain this. A lot of people criticize the choice of Sarah Palin as McCain's VP choice because, well, to put it bluntly McCain's an old dude and might die in office. They don't believe Palin's ready or qualified to step in and be president in the event of McCain's death. I have no quarrel with anyone's opinion of Palin's readiness to take over (although you have to admit being governor of a state - any state - at least has provided a good deal of administrative experience. So she wouldn't be going into it cold at least). Still, the point is they seem to be taking it for granted that McCain's going to kick it a year or so into office and Palin needs to be a quality back-up to go in and lead the team to victory. But they don't think she's a Jonathan Stuart. Or even a Darren Sproles. They think she's the equivalent of the 5th string rookie RB on the practice squad that should never play in a real game because he fumbles all the time. And that's fine, too, as I said everyone is entitled to their opinion of Palin's qualifications and experience.

I just don't think you decide to choose against someone as the next leader of the free world because of what "might" happen to them. You choose them because of their qualities and ideas, and for what they will attempt to do while in office. To choose otherwise is foolish.

I don't care if the Second Coming of Abraham Lincoln was running as McCain's VP. You don't write off a presidential candidate based on the possibility they might croak in office and force the VP to take over.

Nor do you choose against a presidential candidate based on his age, unless you have seen ample evidence to convince you either his mind is not quite sharp enough, or his health is so bad that it's likely he won't live another four years. I think if we'd known about Reagan's mental decline in his second term (1985-88) like we do now, we wouldn't have been so quick to re-elect him to office. But again, that was a decision we would have made based on his ability to lead while in office, not what might happen if he died.

I'll try to wrap this up by putting this into football terms again. I see McCain as like LaDainlian Tomlinson from the Chargers. He's been the league a long time (for a RB) - drafted in 2001. Had his ups and downs, not the best back in the league anymore but has been pretty solid for San Diego over the years. His backup would be someone like Felix Jones - a rookie RB for the Cowboys, but toe-to-toe co-RB for Arkansas with Heisman Trophy winner Darren McFadden. Not quite as good, but still and excellent RB coming out of college.

Obama, by contrast, is Reggie Bush - 3rd year man out of USC with the Saints. Flashy, glitzy, lots of potential but still young and inexperienced. He's had trouble finding his groove with New Orleans and has been erratic (though this year looks promising for him). Biden would be like Edgerrin James of the Cardinals. Had some glory years with the Colts, been in the league since 1999, an aging once-star that's found some good years with Arizona.

So would you rather draft LaDainlian Tomlinson/Felix Jones or take your chances with Reggie Bush*/Edgerrin James? Depends on if it's very likely Tomlinson won't last the season and Jones has to take over, even though Tomlinson's potential point total will likely be much higher than Reggie Bush.

You have to be confident in the man (or woman) you elect and elect them for what they will do, not what might happen to them.

There's another analogy lurking there for those who fear Obama, if elected, is a prime target for white supremacist assassination. Not sure there's a good football analogy there, but there are some who choose against him for that reason as well. Both are good to take into consideration, but neither are good for making a final decision.

* Sorry - I just that moment realized I'd matched Obama up with a guy named Bush. That's pretty funny.

Holes in the Space-Time Continuum

2008-09-11T11:34:00.003-04:00

I've got it figured out.

Yesterday, I kept having some odd dizzy spells. I'd turn my head, and about a second later the world would turn to meet me. Needless to say, it was quite disconcerting.

I'd be tempted to blame it on stress, or simply the fact I've had a head cold the last week or so I'm still getting over.

But I have deduced the real reason I was dizzy yesterday - the Swiss particle accelerator/atom smasher/supercollider/doomsday device went online yesterday. And I'm convinced it's altered the fabric of the universe in some way that is causing me to have dizzy spells.

See, yesterday there were three earthquakes - one in Iran that destroyed, like, 200 villages, one in Chile and Indonesia. Today there was another one near Japan. Coincidence? I wonder...

I also have made a startling realization...

Somehow...somehow...this black-hole creating machine somehow opened a rift in the space-time continuum, causing a rip in the reality fabric to happen about a week ago. Across the world in southern California. I'm convinced that that rip allowed the UCLA defenders to jump ahead 1-2 seconds in time, and let them block our punt. Also make all those miraculous catches in the 2nd half by conveniently blinking about 10 steps ahead of our defenders. It caused the ball to disappear out of Arian Foster's hands and reappear on the ground ahead of him. It also moved the ball ahead of Daniel Lincoln's foot on all his missed field goal tries.

So see, it wasn't us - blame the scientists!

Is Hope All It's Cracked Up to Be?

2008-09-09T10:19:00.003-04:00

I've tried to stay away from this as much as possible, but... :)

Missy encountered an elderly black man the other day that was impressed she (a white lady) was supporting a black man for president. She said:

And even today I’m still thinking about that man, and that hug, and the feeling of unity that I got with someone who I have nothing in common with. A feeling of hope that our world can change. And that’s why I’ll vote the way I will on Nov. 4th. Not because of Barack Obama’s color and misplaced white guilt. Because of his message of hope.

...

I’m just a housewife, in a suburb, and I want to believe that there is hope for everyone. For me and for that elderly Black man who crossed all kinds of lines to say thank you. Oh, sure, I’m glad that I’ve made that man happy. But he’s not the reason why I believe the way I do. I believe in hope. I believe in change. Because I’ve lived it. And I want my country to live it too. More of the same or something new. It’s up to you. Believe in hope, or don’t. It’s your decision.

I replied, in comments:

...I consistently fail to understand how a promise of “hope” - no matter how strong, no matter how pure, no matter how well-intentioned - tips the scales on whether a man is qualified to be President of the US? In a national security situation, how does “hope” make the correct decisions that safeguard the lives of millions of Americans and others around the world? How does “hope” come up with solutions to the dozens of crises that will require a President’s attention daily? What exactly is this power that you, and others believe, “hope” bestows on Obama that will give him these answers?

I am a very hopeful person, I always have been. I am deeply grateful that in many ways the racial divide is shrinking between blacks and whites. I also believe there is hope for everyone, even those who we look on as hopeless. But “hope” is a philosophical concept that requires no practical support, no nuts-and-bolts solutions. In this case it’s a magi wand that will seemingly be waved above all problems to make them go away.

Anyone - anyone - can promise hope. Anyone can promise change. Faith and hope are great ways to choose a religion, but not at all good ways to choose a human leader.

So, Missy, can you tell me how the “hope” that Obama offers translates into a successful, productive and unifying presidency?

She wrote back:

...No, I don’t think that everything wrong with our country and our world will be magically solved instantaneously at Obama’s inauguration....

...and continued to detail several policy differences between Obama and McCain that she supported.

I then said:

I don’t think that you believe the magic wand of “hope” will solve all the world’s ills, but I do think more than a few Obama supporters do believe something like that. That because Obama promises “hope”, he will do something…not sure what, but something….to cure the world. They won’t naively admit that they base their faith on this simple concept, but I see it a lot.

...that still does nothing to support the notion that Obama can be a good president. Can he? Sure. But I haven’t seen anything in your post that tells me why Obama - above all others - is the right choice.

If Joe Schmoe were to get up there and run for president, and offer you “hope” and “change” - would you vote for him? Probably not. If he offered to figure for more exploring energy alternatives before any new drilling, would you vote for him? That’s the same thing every Democrat offers. Same for several of the other platforms and talking points you mention. What is it about Obama, specifically, as a human being sets him apart so strikingly from all others that he is the man for you?

And it can’t be “hope” or “change” - anyone can promise that. We all know in today’s Washington that any and all campaign promises, by either side, are likely to be watered down, compromised, altered or simply forgotten when office is reached.

Where is this ability you believe he has to actually institute this “change”, how do you feel he has the best chance to bring them to fruition, and from where in his background (Senate, Congress, etc) does he draw the common sense and wisdom to lead us through national security and disaster crises?

At this point she hasn't responded, so I'd like to open the floor for debate.

What about Obama, specifically and personally, inspires you to believe he's the better choice for president on a practical level? It can't be in any way compared to McCain, Palin or any opposition, it has to be something detailing what about Obama in his history, experience, philosophy, wisdom, honor, whatever.... says to you, "Yes, this man will make the correct and wise decisions as Commander in Chief" and pull that lever.

Way to Go, Erik!

2008-08-28T22:55:00.001-04:00

Not Favre, but Ainge leads Jets

With Favre sitting out, fourth-string rookie quarterback Erik Ainge led the New York Jets to a 27-20 victory over the Philadelphia Eagles in the preseason finale Thursday night.

Ainge was 10-of-16 for 131 yards.

Favre’s backup, Kellen Clemens, alternated series with Brett Ratliff until Ainge took over for the two-minute drill at the end of the second quarter.

The former University of Tennessee standout drove the Jets 67 yards for the go-ahead score on their first possession of the third quarter. A 39-yard catch-and-run by Jesse Chatman started the drive. Ainge then tossed a 6-yard TD pass to David Ball to give the Jets a 17-13 lead.

Congrats to Eric, even though he probably just saw the only playing time he'll see all season.

Funny, I didn't know there was a 3rd string guy ahead of him. I never heard of Jesse Chatman being on the team - I thought it was just Ainge, Clemens and Pennington when Favre came on board. He's farther down the depth chart than I thought.

Maybe this performance will move him up a bit in the coaches minds.

Well, Thanks for the Marvelous Insight

2008-08-27T10:03:00.006-04:00

Lord knows, I hate politics. I find no real good in the party system and especially the divisiveness and "us vs. them" mentality each of the two parties in this country take at every single opportunity. I haven't quite decided who I'm voting for this November (or if I'll even vote at all) but I wanted to comment on something.

I don't remember where I got the link (hat tip to whoever it was) but I read an article from a fellow POW of McCain's, Philip Butler, who wrote why he wouldn't be voting for McCain:

Why I Will Not Vote for John McCain

I take issue with, not necessarily his opinions of the character of McCain, but the way he arrived at them and the way he presents them. I think this is telling of the whole spectrum of political criticism - ideally one should begin with a question or premise, relate facts that support the premise, then end with a conclusion that's arrived at based on those facts. Butler knows what his conclusion is already and gathers various facts and opinions that sort of sound shaky and, when combined together, somewhat support his conclusion. Kind of. If you look at it with cynical, already-decided-against-McCain eyes. Anyway, here are some examples (I've broken them up somewhat because the anecdotes are long but these are the gist):

When I was a Plebe (4th classman, or freshman) at the Naval Academy in 1957-58....John, a First Classman (senior) and his room mate lived directly across the hall from me and my two room mates....

John was a wild man. He was funny, with a quick wit and he was intelligent. But he was intent on breaking every USNA regulation in our 4 inch thick USNA Regulations book. ...On one occasion he took me with him to escape "over the wall" in the dead of night. John had a few beers, but forbid [sic] me to drink (watching out for me I guess) and made me drink cokes. I could tell many other midshipman stories about John that year and he unbelievably managed to graduate though he spent the majority of his first class year on restriction for the stuff he did get caught doing. In fact he barely managed to graduate, standing 5th from the bottom of his 800 man graduating class. I and many others have speculated that the main reason he did graduate was because his father was an Admiral, and also his grandfather, both U.S. Naval Academy graduates.

First off, the author describes in particular one antic he and McCain participated in together. Of course, he neglects to admit he was just as at fault as McCain for "going over the wall" but that doesn't seem to matter. Nor does he seem to find any worse anecdotes than them sitting together drinking beers (and cokes). He hints at "other midshipman stories" but if they were much worse, why not relate one that actual has some meat to it? I will give him the part about McCain graduating near the bottom of his class being significant, but truly one's academic past only really matters when you're trying to move forward to the next step. If you've succeeded in spite of academic failings, I don't think they're too significant. The bit about his father and grandfather getting him through school is, as he says, "speculation" and not worth mentioning without it being an actual fact. He could have as easily "speculated" that McCain ran drugs, cheated on his exams or spied for the communists if he'd liked, and it would have pulled as much weight in the final analysis. Basing an argument on an "everybody knew" supposition is very weak.

People often ask if I was a Prisoner of War with John McCain. My answer is always "No - John McCain was a POW with me." The reason is I was there for 8 years and John got there 2 ½ years later, so he was a POW for 5 ½ years.

So...my suffering was worse than your suffering, so you're not fit to be president? That doesn't track at all, though he's beginning to build to a point later. However this inclusion, while factually irrelevant, continues to serve as an emotion-builder toward the reader to hold McCain in disfavor, as if to say if he'd really wanted to be president, he should've suffered more as a POW. Nice.

Was he tortured for 5 years? No. He was subjected to torture and maltreatment during his first 2 years, from September of 1967 to September of 1969. After September of 1969 the Vietnamese stopped the torture and gave us increased food and rudimentary health care.... But my point here is that John allows the media to make him out to be THE hero POW, which he knows is absolutely not true, to further his political goals.

Sure, politicians control media messages in some cases but not all and while McCain may be the highest profile former POW I know of, I don't think - and neither does anyone else - that he was necessarily THE hero POW at all. Everyone who was a POW suffered, everyone who was a POW died a little over there, and all should be afforded our respect at least for that. If the media wants to portray McCain as THE hero POW, that's their prerogative. It still doesn't mean he is or is not a good candidate for president, so that argument doesn't wash either way.

John was badly injured when he was shot down. Both arms were broken and he had other wounds from his ejection.... Because John's father was the Naval Commander in the Pacific theater, he was exploited with TV interviews while wounded. These film clips have now been widely seen. But it must be known that many POW's suffered similarly, not just John. And many were similarly exploited for political propaganda.

Does the author believe that those who saw McCain on TV (which, admittedly, I was much too young to see at that time so I have no first-hand knowledge of how it was presented) truly believed he was the only POW? Or the only one that suffered? Again, just because the media treats or presents a person in a certain way does not qualify or disqualify them for the presidency in any way. The author just comes off as bitter of the treatment one POW got over the others in the media.

John was awarded a Silver Star and Purple Heart for heroism and wounds in combat. This heroism has been played up in the press and in his various political campaigns. But it should be known that there were approximately 600 military POW's in Vietnam. Among all of us, decorations awarded have recently been totaled to the following: Medals of Honor - 8, Service Crosses - 42, Silver Stars - 590, Bronze Stars - 958 and Purple Hearts - 1,249. John certainly performed courageously and well. But it must be remembered that he was one hero among many - not uniquely so as his campaigns would have people believe.

Same song, second verse. No kind of indictment against McCain's time as a POW - indeed the author goes out of his way to point out that McCain served and endured honorably - yet is unfit to be president because of the way the public perceives him and his service time. I've never seen any McCain ads or publicity that paint him as the only POW to suffer, or the one who suffered the most. It's a case of someone reading context into something that just doesn't really exist the way he thinks it does.

I furthermore believe that having been a POW is no special qualification for being President of the United States. The two jobs are not the same, and POW experience is not, in my opinion, something I would look for in a presidential candidate.

That's a perfectly well and good argument. I personally thinks it does go to show a person's resilience and courage but hey, that's just me. And I'm sure a lot of people feel the same way. No, being a POW doesn't qualify you to be president. But it sure doesn't hurt your credibility to have gone through something like that in your life and emerged alive.

Most of us who survived that experience are now in our late 60's and 70's. Sadly, we have died and are dying off at a greater rate than our non-POW contemporaries. We experienced injuries and malnutrition that are coming home to roost. So I believe John's age (73) and survival expectation are not good for being elected to serve as our President for 4 or more years.

A very valid concern that I have no argument with. One of the more serious concerns about McCain being president, and for choosing a VP candidate well. This is really the author's first point of concern that makes sense as a valid reason to NOT vote for McCain.

I can verify that John has an infamous reputation for being a hot head. He has a quick and explosive temper that many have experienced first hand. Folks, quite honestly that is not the finger I want next to that red button.

This can also be a valid concern for those who know McCain personally. A personal connection is always an opinion I would welcome and give some weight to. But there needs to be more character insight than, "he's a hot head with an explosive temper." From all reports, Hillary Clinton certainly has a temper (and so did Bill. And Ronald Reagan, I believe. So did Nixon. And I don't think Teddy Roosevelt was a meek little lamb (although admittedly he didn't have quick access to nukes). I would have liked to heard more first-hand reports of McCain's temper, however, and it would take more than "an infamous reputation" to sway me one way or another.

It is also disappointing to see him take on and support Bush's war in Iraq, even stating we might be there for another 100 years. For me John represents the entrenched and bankrupt policies of Washington-as-usual. The past 7 years have proven to be disastrous for our country. And I believe John's views on war, foreign policy, economics, environment, health care, education, national infrastructure and other important areas are much the same as those of the Bush administration.

Well, personal opinions of the war aside...he is a Republican. And it's not a huge stretch to believe that in some of the larger issues facing the country, he might have similar views to the current Republican administration.

And I have news for everyone who thinks there are actually "outsiders" in politics. There are no outsiders in politics, especially national politics. "For me John represents the entrenched and bankrupt policies of Washington-as-usual", well, every single politician running for national office is Washington-as-usual. He might have you think that "Washington-as-usual" means Republican, but it means all politics. When you get to the national stage, the philosophical differences disappear to any meaningful degree and they all become the same more or less. Are there philosophical differences between the Mets and the Yankees (outside of their respective fanbase)? No. They're just two major league teams playing baseball, and that's how it is when you get to Washington. You can stop using that as an attack plank, because none of them are any different in that regard. Jed Bartlett or David Palmer aren't coming to our rescue any time soon.

I'm disappointed to see John represent himself politically in ways that are not accurate. He is not a moderate Republican. On some issues he is a maverick. But his voting record is far to the right. I fear for his nominations to our Supreme Court, and the consequent continuing loss of individual freedoms, especially regarding moral and religious issues. John is not a religious person, but he has taken every opportunity to ally himself with some really obnoxious and crazy fundamentalist ministers lately. I was also disappointed to see him cozy up to Bush because I know he hates that man. He disingenuously and famously put his arm around the guy, even after Bush had intensely disrespected him with lies and slander.

That entire paragraph could've been written by any Democratic writer, and the author completely abandons any pretense of objectivity. Thus he loses his credibility as one who had a personal relationship with McCain and was going to provide character insight. You don't have to be a fan of either party to understand the conventions of how things work - Democrats support Democrats and Republicans support Republicans. When one on either side of the aisle does so, the other aisle always expresses shock and outrage.

Senator John Sidney McCain, III is a remarkable man who has made enormous personal achievements. And he is a man that I am proud to call a fellow POW who "Returned With Honor." That's our POW motto. But since many of you keep asking what I think of him, I've decided to write it out. In short, I think John Sidney McCain, III is a good man, but not someone I will vote for in the upcoming election to be our President of the United States.

So there it is - the author lays out little to no real character reasons that would convince anyone not to vote from McCain, other than the Democratic Party talking points in the previous paragraph. Which tells me....nothing more than I already knew.

Ok, so what does the author decide he won't vote for McCain as president, and wants us to know? a) McCain was a ne'er-do-well in college, and graduated near the bottom of his class, b) he wasn't a POW as long as some others, c) the media exploited his status while he was there because of his family connections, d) the media continues to exploit his POW history, e) he has a bad temper, and f) umm... ummm.... umm.... well, he's a Republican and has various Republican traits.

Yeah, that's about it.

What started as an possibly intriguing look into the past and character of a presidential candidate devolved into a political attack that was little more than a repeat of political talking points. And we learned nothing.

Way to further the public discourse. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to ignoring the Democratic and Republican conventions.

Media Fail

2008-08-25T08:57:00.003-04:00

Friday morning on NewsTalk 100's Hallerin Hill Show this past Thursday, Hal interviewed the widow of the vice-principal who was shot in Cumberland County last year. It was an emotional interview in light of the Central High shooting that had happened the day before.

The interview concluded, Hal went to commercial.

The sponsor?

Frontier Firearms.

And the kicker?

They did it again later that afternoon.

Listen, I don't care that they are a sponsor for the station. They're a legit business, buying legit advertisement on a local radio station. But WNOX should at least have the forethought to know when their ads are running on a local political/news-based talk show and ensure things like this shouldn't happen. And if they don't have the ability to know exactly when the ads are running, they should figure out a way to be able to.

Back When Gas Was Cheap

2008-08-20T10:16:00.001-04:00

Oh, for the good old days...

Merry Christmas, Barry! Or, say, Happy Birthday, Barry! Or even, Happy Groundhog's Day, Barry! As Long As It's One of Them...

2008-08-20T10:06:00.004-04:00

Take command of your living room

According to CBS the life-sized chair is a "fully operational replica" of the captain’s chair from Star Trek The Original Series using "expert measurements and the highest quality durable materials." This replica is actually a real piece of furniture, complete with lights, sound effects and built in phrases from the original Captain Kirk himself.

The sound effects included are:

* Intercom Hail
* Phaser
* Photon Torpedoes
* Buttons SFX
* Battle Damage SFX
* Warp Speed
* Bridge background noises

The phrases included are:

* Full “Space: The Final Frontier” prologue
* “This is Captain James T. Kirk of the USS Enterprise”
* “Lt Uhura, Open a channel to all decks”
* “Security alert to all decks”
* “Kirk to engineering. Scotty Report!”
* “Position Report Spock”
* “Prepare for attack all hands Battle Stations”
* “Chekov, Arm photon torpedoes”
* “Resume course to our next destination Mr. Sulu”

It'll only set one of you loyal readers out there back about $2000 from Diamond Select Toys. But think of it as an investment in the happiness of your humble blogger. BOM, I'll even let you sit in it!

Oh, and don't forget - you can still get me this, too.

When They Say Invisible, They Mean Invisible

2008-08-18T10:31:00.000-04:00

The Great Olympics Scandal List

2008-08-15T12:38:00.007-04:00

The list of embarrassing and interesting facts about Beijing, China and their Olympics continue to mount (with my rating on a scale of 1-10 on their seriousness):

The unending man-eating pollution that permeates Beijing - (6/10) Although feared to be a serious respiratory problem before the games, it doesn't seem the smog is having that much of an effect on the athletes. And most every outdoor shot I've seen of competition (beach volleyball, cycling, the Today Show's ratings) the sky has been crystal clear. Must be like those mysterious "Orange Alert" days we keep having in Knoxville which seem to neatly coincide with our nicest, low-humidity days.
Fake fireworks in the Opening Ceremonies - (2/10) The fireworks actually happened, they just showed a CGI-enhanced version to the audience and on TV because it was unsafe for a helicopter to film them live in the air. This is something that was blown up a bit out of proportion.
Lip-synching kid in the Opening Ceremonies - (5/10) This is more of an embarrassment for the host nation than the fireworks, in that the real little girl who sang the nice anthem was judged "not cute enough" and "didn't present the appropriate face of the country" by some high-ranking yahoo of the Chinese Politburo. When in fact I and most everyone I've talked to thought both little girls were quite sweet-looking. Kids aren't supposed to be beautiful, they're supposed to look like kids (I know, I know, see "Lu, Libby") The Chinese Government's Propaganda Department surfaces in full force.
Conscripted performers from Chinese Military in Opening Ceremonies - (7/10) If this is true, and I've just heard it in passing and haven't confirmed it as yet, it's deplorable that the Chinese government required their soldiers to participate. Maybe it's more scary than deplorable, seeing the precision of those drummers and box-stamp-thingy-ers in such lockstep precision. But if true, and these participants were forced to perform...well, maybe they enjoyed it and were proud to do so. Still. Leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Bad form, China.
Ineligible Female Chinese Gymnasts - (8/10) Chinese officials apparently scrubbed the actual birthdates of some of their female gymnasts, making them "officially" older than they actually wore and thus above the minimum age limit allowed to compete. Even when asked about their age, the little girls (some 12-14 passing off as 16+ year-olds) they are forced to lie. The cover-up is blatantly bad, since documents and publications from even earlier in the year have been found that specified their true age. Come on - listing a 13-yr-old girl's birthday as Jan 1, 1992? How obvious can you get, guys? I mean, there's arrogance and then there's arrogance.
The Souped Up Pools - (4/10) The Chinese construced their swimming pools to increase performance by all competitors. From larger depth to enhanced lane dividers and gutters, all these should serve to raise the tide and affect all boats, as it were. So this is not so significant in affecting the competition as it is causing World and Olympic Records to fall. The new NASA swimsuits worn by the Americans may seem to be a more significant advantage not available to all other competitors. But the relative wealth of your country plays in to all training and equipment advantages, so that's just more of the same. Not a major deal, but very visible.
Michael Phelps' Freakish Build - (5/10) He's 6'4", has an armspan (or "wingspan" as the media keeps calling it) of 6'7" (normal humans' height almost always matches their armspan. His upper torso is the equivilant length of someone 6'8" and his legs are the average length of someone who is 5'8". All of which add up to a massively proficient swimmer. Good thing he wasn't a bobsledder or something and decided to take up swimming. He was so born to swim competitively had he been born with webbed fingers and flippers he wouldn't have been much more suited to it. Still, kind of freakish. I smell an 80's era genetics experiment gone horribly wrong here...
Canada still hasn't medaled - (5/10) C'mon you guys up north, there are summer games - remember?
Where's the Georgia Team - (1/10) I haven't seen a team from the Republic of Georgia (our motto: "Oh I Really, Really, Really Wish I Was in Dixie"). I think the Russian team killed them in the tunnel before their entrance. No seriously, I heard some of their athletes want to withdraw to return and fight for their country. I wonder if there will be any conflict between them and the Russians at the games?

Danger, Will Robinson

2008-07-30T13:48:00.006-04:00

Just passed a convoy of four trucks from The Washington Group on Pelissippi Parkway, headed south. I guess toward the airport.

Among many other things, they are in the business of nuclear and hazardous waste disposal services. Which was pretty much confirmed by the big yellow "RADIOACTIVE" stickers on the sides of all the trucks.

Yikes. I thought about taking a picture with my cell phone but was afraid some security goons would force me off the road and rough me up.

I Hatez Libruls

2008-07-28T11:39:00.006-04:00

So now it's being reported the church shooter hated liberals

The shotgun-wielding suspect in Sunday’s mass shooting at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church was motivated by a hatred of “the liberal movement,” and he planned to shoot until police shot him, Knoxville Police Chief Sterling P. Owen IV said this morning.

That struck a chord with me, but not for the reason you might expect.

There's a local radio station in town that broadcasts a show hosted by a husband and wife team. I don't want to name the show or link to it because I don't want to give them publicity.

Occasionally I will tune in while in the car, mainly when one of my sports shows is at commercial, and also mainly to hear what they have to say about local issues (county government, schools, etc). But a lot of what I end up hearing (and fascinated with, in a watching-the-accident-as-you-pass-on-the-highway kind of way) is a lot of deep-seated contempt toward liberals.

Now, I know you're thinking, "What? A conservative local talk show? In Knoxville??? Who whoulda thunk?" And as we all know there's nothing conservatives love better than bashing liberals (and vice-versa) so it's nothing really new here. Rush Limbaugh and Jeneanne Garafalo have turned this sort of thing into an art form.

But there's always been something a little over-the-top about this particular radio show in its discussion style. There's haughty, and then there's haughty. There's contempt, and then there's contempt. Substitute the word "black" for "liberal" and you'd think you were listening to something from the 50's in Mississippi. In fact, they and some of their callers don't simply call them liberals - they're "Libs". "The Libs" say this, and "The Libs" do that. Insert your own racist-derogatory terms to understand the tone and bias that comes across on this radio show.

And, to top it off, there's always a taste of Christian apologism that they bring to their broadcasts. They publicly avow their religious convictions (which I happen to agree with) yet their actions betray their beliefs.

Here's the thing: they're perfectly free to broadcast whatever they like. Just because some of it rubs me the wrong way, that's my own thing to deal with. I can turn them off anytime I like. If they want to say how much they hate liberals - fine. That's totally their right to feel, and right to say. If they want to broadcast their opinions of whether gays might be immoral deviants (a policy they also seem to espouse) that's fine and totally within their rights as well.

But people listen. And people learn. And people follow. And people act.

The media's reach is wide and their influence is vast. People's capacity for tacking onto a movement or belief and letting their flames be fanned by those they listen to in the media is well-documented.

When you speak publicly how much you hate certain groups of people, how certain groups of people are contemptible, and stupid, and how some barely deserve to exist in our society - the message I get from this radio show - then you have to understand that some people will be listening to you, and some people may agree with you.

And no matter how well intentioned you may be, some evil people may energized to act. I have no idea if the shooter listened to this radio show (his hatred of Christians makes me doubt it), but he likely listened to something like it. Or he talked to and associated with people who do listen to it, or read literature about it, or frequented websites or blogs that mirror it, and it increased his hatred. To a point where he felt he had to act. When groups of people are marginalized in the media, it become much easier for these evil people to find targets for their hatred. "Didn't get a job? Must've been the libruhls! Or the gays! Lost my food stamps? Must've been those Muslims! Or the blacks! Or the ________'s!" (again, you fill in the blank of the favorite compartmentalized labeled group of your choice)

And here we are, a day after, dealing with the aftermath.

Be careful what you say. Children Will Listen.

What's Left to Say?

2008-07-28T09:59:00.004-04:00

One of the things I find hard about writing a blog and keeping it fresh is thinking of something interesting to say.

There are plenty of bloggers that can always find a unique or noteworthy commentary to make about, well most anything.

I've thought a good while about the shooting that happened here in Knoxville yesterday morning at a local church. At this point, 2 people have died, about 5 more are in serious or critical condition in the hospital, and the shooter is in custody. Signs are pointing to some kind of hate crime, whether against the church or Christianity or gays or whatever is still uncertain.

I could have joined in the number of local blogs yesterday and "reported" on it but I didn't. I could have at least posted an "our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims and their families" post but I didn't. There wasn't anything new I could add that hadn't already been covered elsewhere, and sometimes to me the "thoughts and prayers" messages fall a little flat. That's just some of the dark cynicism I find in myself peeking out, I suppose.

But I still felt I would be remiss if I didn't say something about it. I wouldn't be a proper Knoxville blogger. People might thing I was cold and heartless or uncaring.

Let me tell you how I found out about it. During our 11 o'clock service yesterday at a Methodist Church only a few miles from Tennessee Valley Unitarian, our minister told the congregation. I was in the middle of a (discreet) conversation with a fellow sitting next to me and missed most of what the minister said. During the offertory, I pulled up local news on my cell phone and read what had happened.

Still, the full impact didn't hit us until we got in the car after the service and listened to the local news-talk radio station, and got home and watched coverage on local TV. I logged into Twitter to follow local reaction, cruised around my Bloglines news feeds to see if any eyewitness accounts were being reported and then tried to put it out of my mind.

Laura and I watched the finale of The Next Food Network Star, of which I already knew the outcome.

Last night we attended our weekly small group session and discussed several points of the incident. Before my son went to sleep we prayed for the victims, their families and I especially included the shooter in the prayers.

When I woke up this morning, I realized I'd been having disturbing dreams - I felt physically ill waking up - and upon reflection I think I'd been trying to make sense of everything while sleeping. Why? What if he'd come to our church? What would I have done? What systems are in place in Knoxville and Knox County by the government to warn local churches instantly that one man and maybe more could be targeting their Sunday morning worship services? How does this affect my views on guns? What can we do to make things safer? How do we forgive, how do we forget, how do we continue to live our lives in the shadows of gunmen?

I don't know if my sleep will be any easier tonight. It certainly won't be for those involved and especially those kids. I can't imagine what would be going through my kids' heads if they'd witnessed something like that. Would I have had the courage to stand up and take a shotgun blast to protect my family and friends like Greg McKendry?

Someone asked last night at small group - if you had the opportunity to live your life over again, would you do it? Do the high points outweigh the low points enough to make you want to do it all over again? I go to thinking about what a great childhood I had - I would live it over in a heartbeat.

Now some kids, because of what happened yesterday, have an indelible stain on their childhoods. Something that hopefully a lot of love, attention, caring and maybe therapy may be able to soften. But it will never be erased.

Thanks, mister, for proving to us once again it's a Hard Knock Life.

Food, Glorious Food

2008-07-25T09:10:00.001-04:00

I am obsessed.

Actually, my whole family is.

Most of the time the TV is on in our living room. Sometimes we're actually home to watch it. While occasionally we actually sit down to watch a show, most of the time it was just some necessary white noise to our daily routine. But to have a consistent, non-offensive, bland-as-vanilla-pudding TV white noise, we had to pick a channel. Something non-controversial and one nothing would likely come on our kids couldn't see. And that maybe had some interesting shows. We chose HGTV - Home & Garden Television, produced by our own local near and dear Scripps Networks.

Well, that went on for a while. We never really got into any of the shows, but it was nice to have something on the TV to just plop down, watch a few minutes of someone designing a deck or patio we'd never own, or refurbishing a rundown one-bedroom shack into a 10-bed, 9-1/2 bath McMansion. But we didn't really have a lot invested in it.

Then one day, somehow...someway... the channel changed. I don't know how it happened - maybe I pressed the wrong button on the remote. Maybe little elves invaded. Maybe the kids went too far looking for Nickelodean. All I know is now, for the last year or so, we have found a new household obsession that sucks out all the hours of our day, dominates our evening, and has even....yes even caused me to break out the pots and pans, shop for fresh Thyme, and contemplate the finer points of preparing quiche...

The Food Network has taken over our lives.

Oh! Glorious, the possibilities. The varieties! The worlds of culinary sophistication and innovation! Me, who for 40 years has barely been able to make more than a basic cheese sandwich without burning it have now realized that cooking could be....could be..... FUN?

I've made the aforementioned quiche for a gathering of friends. I made Autumn Potato Gratin with cream and sage for Thanksgiving last year. I've been given cookbooks for Christmas, and made a fettucine with sausage tomato sauce, for goodness sake... I may just be getting good at this.

But anyway, in honor of the season finale of our favorite Food Network show, The Next Food Network Star (airing this Sunday at 10pm EDT), I want to share with all of you the amazing shows we love to watch.

The Next Food Network Star - For weeks, 10 contestants have cooked, presented, dished and prayed their way through a competition of food smarts, personality, and likeability in order to be awarded next year their own cooking show on the network. My personal favorite, Kelsey, was eliminated 2 weeks ago, and the finale is between actor and improv comedian Adam, big talker Aaron and closet Romulan Lisa. I'm pulling for Aaron because he has the right combination of cooking skills and personality to make a good show. Two years ago the winner of this reality show was a guy named Guy, who now hosts:

Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives - Guy travels the country, profiling off the path, hole-in-the-wall restaurants with the best roadside food in the country. Not long ago he profiled a place on Magnolia Ave. in Knoxville that serves to die for onion rings, which I'm totally going to have to check out.

30-Minute Meals and $40 a Day are Rachel Ray's shows, and she of course is too perky for words. You just want to squeeze her cheeks. You pick which ones. Ahem. Anyway, she's friendly and enjoyable to watch (if she doesn't annoy you too quickly).

Throwdown with Bobby Flay - Bobby Flay competes with other chefs to see if he can best their own signature dish. I've seen him do macaroni and cheese, cheesecake, pulled pork, cakes and other items. At the end of the episode, someone judges to see whose version of the particular dish is best. Bobby usually loses, which is good because goodness knows we don't need this guy to get too cocky...

Good Eats - I want to be Alton Brown. I want to host this show, and I think I'd be pretty darn good at it, too. I may start my own web version of this show, or something like it come to think of it. Anyway, Alton takes a particular aspect of food or cooking each episode and dissects in until you know its history, lineage, background, varieties, molecular structure, DNA sequencing and any other obsessive detail you can think of to say about, like, carrots. Or mac & cheese. Or pasta. Or tacos. Or whatever. This guy is great, and seriously, if I can find a topic I am so doing what this guy does as a vidcast on the web.

Unwrapped takes a food product such as processed cheese, margarine, "comfort food", candy, cereal or other commercial product and shows how it's conceived, manufactured, and brought to the store's shelves. This one can be a little dry at times, but when it finds a subject that's really interesting it can be engrossing. Particularly something like candy bars.

Dinner: Impossible - This season there's a new host, one of the Iron Chefs Michael Symon. I'm not totally sold on the new guy yet (he's only had one episode) but the concept of the show is fun. The host is given a task, obstensively by a "Mission: Impossible"-type voice, to prepare a huge meal for a large group of people in a set amount of time. He draws out the menu and is provided with a kitchen, the necessary food material, and a staff of chefs to help him out. It's the time limit and the setting that makes the show exciting - in the past the previous host (Robert Irvine, who was kicked off the show because it turned out he lied about his training and experience background) had to cook at a Renaissance Fair like they did in the past, cook for a Pixar gathering, passengers on a cruise ship, and more. The first new episode Michael cooked a huge meal for the workers on a Boardwalk, and had to "gourmet" up Boardwalk food for them. Good fun.

Food Network Challenge - A competition between three-five chefs, usually pastry chefs, to create the best themed dish. Most of the time I watch this show, it's about cakes. Several chefs and their assistants have nine hours to completely create a cake based on, say, Disney villains, Pixar characters, classic cartoons, "most extreme", etc. Then they're judged on originality and style and the winner gets $10,000. The big challenge in these competitions is to not get too ambitious and try to do too much. One time Scar's (from "The Lion King") head fell off. And Mike and Sully from "Monsters, Inc." collapsed. You never know what's going to happen.

Finally, my personal favorite:
Ace of Cakes - Ah, Duff, you big lug. The bald, goateed baker who frequently sports a backward baseball cap or toboggan in even the most formal of settings. He and the staff of Charm City Cakes (a real, honest-to-goodness special-order bakery in Philadelphia) spend every episode making all manner of cakes for $1,000 minimum order customers. Guitar-shaped cakes, cakes that look like the set of the play "Avenue Q", a cake of Hogwarts castle for the premiere of one of the Harry Potter movies, a Super Bowl Cake for Colts vs. Bears, armadillo cakes, shipping depot cakes, roulette wheel cakes, cakes that move, cakes that explode, cakes that look like Corvettes. But what makes this show great is the cast - Duff is the main guy, Geof is the soft-spoken and dry-witted main assistant. There's the red-headed receptionist that is the smart-alec, and several other young assistants that each have their own personalities. This is a winner.

A couple of other shows on Foot Network I don't care for. I don't like Iron Chef America at all, nor can I stand anything with Paula Dean's face (or *shudder* voice) in it (sorry, mom). Emeril Live! was one of our favorites until his contract ran out and it went off the air.

So check it out. If you already have an interest in cooking, or just the sociology of food in general, you may get stuck there. And if you have no interest in cooking, well watch it anyway!

UPDATE: In researching links, I came across the site for The Next Food Network Star and they spoiled the finale! Interviews with the two people that didn't win are already up on their personal pages! So now I already know who wins... :( Bad form, Food Network.com.

UPDATE II: Looks like they've taken down the videos that spoil the finale. It's safe to view the finalist pages again!

Affection

2008-07-24T14:48:00.002-04:00

Doug and Dr. Helen both have good posts today about the tendency in society to demonize men for interacting with children. These days, almost any male is treated with suspicion if they stray too near a child, however innocently. The predatory pedophile has poisoned the potential beneficial relationships some men can have with children to create near paranoia.

In particular, I value the healthy, mentoring relationships I've have with the kids I'm around at my church (preschool on up through high school in teaching music and Sunday School). So many kids today grow up without loving, healthy respectful parental and father-figure relationships we can't just let all that slide because we fear a pedophile is lurking behind every corner.

Here's what I commented on Doug's post:

I work with kids in my church, and have always been apprehensive about the amount of affection I show them. However, apprehensive does not mean cold and distant, so I don’t really hesitate to show the kind of attention any father might show a child. Knowing their parents helps, of course, but I have no problem speaking with, playing with, or even showing fatherly affection to another child as long as it’s in the open and obvious.

We’re teaching our children that every male is a potential predator (which, I suppose technically is true but there’s potential and there’s potential) which teaches them not to trust anyone, especially male father figures.

What I Liked and Didn't Like About "The Dark Knight" (spoilers abound)

2008-07-23T09:23:00.004-04:00

I went to see the 10:20 IMAX showing last night at the Regal in Turkey Creek. *yawn* I'm tired this morning! Getting home at 1:00 am isn't like it used to be...

What I Liked:

Heath Ledger's Joker wasn't nearly as cringe-worthy as I was afraid it would be. He seemed quite demented enough to be a Joker, and that was good. I liked the ever-changing story of his origin, his being an "agent of chaos", the constant double-crossing of the mob guys and the small bits of genuine enjoyment of what he was doing was fun.
The continuity in storylines between the first and second movies. I didn't even remember Wayne Manor had been destroyed in "Batman Begins".
Aaron Eckhart made a fantastic Harvey "Two-Face" Dent. Dent is probably my favorite Batman villain and it was a perfectly logical to see how he turned from crusading DA to bitter, avenging maniac. The CGI/makeup on his scarred face was perfectly chilling and better than I had hoped it would be.
The explosion of the hospital in IMAX was maybe the most amazing effect I've seen on screen, both visually and audially. The audience actually applaud some after the explosion was over (I'm assuming for the effect, not the action)
Gary Oldman as Lt./Commissioner Gordon was great, and exactly how he should be played. A conflicted, determined cop whose heart was in exactly the right place. He had a much bigger role than Gordon usually does in Batman stories which was deserved.
Seeing Richard Alpert from Lost as the Mayor of Gotham City was a pleasant surprise. Wow, he does get around!
I dig multiple, fake-out endings :)

What I Did Not Like

Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne/Batman was atrocious. An abomination. Easily the worst Batman performance since the guy from "Super Friends", and that's saying something. He was better in the first movie, but amazingly bland in this one. His deep-octave, menacing, brooding, rumbling, gravelly voice as Batman was half the time indecipherable and the other half just silly. The dialogue written for him didn't help, but that's just how Batman's supposed to talk. Bale did much better as Bruce Wayne, but I still think he's too young for the part. I found myself not missing Batman when he wasn't on the screen at all.
Killing off Harvey "Two-Face" was criminal. Not only would he have made an amazing next-movie villain, his story was just beginning. He never had a chance to actually become a "villain," just a grief-stricken guy who went crazy for blaming those who were involved in Rachel's death and his disfigurement. Maybe I'll be lucky and he's not really dead, like Gordon was.
Speaking of Gordon's death fake-out. Hmm. A little divided on this one. I'll give it a pass for now because it was a fun fake-out but ordinarily if a character's dead, he should stay dead. I don't feel that way about Harvey, though :) Faking out Gordon's wife and kids, though? Not cool.
Screwing around with Two-Face's origin (and the Joker's, to a lesser degree). In the comics and original movies, Dent's face was scarred when a mob boss threw acid on him during a trial. Joker was "created" when he fell into a vat of acid. Neither stories are so anymore. It's not that big of a deal, but when you're a Batman fan and kind of expecting the courtroom acid throw to happen eventually you get out of the movie a little waiting for it to happen.
Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine are a little wasted as their characters. I've read reviews where they've been hailed for their performances, but I didn't feel they were given enough to do that couldn't have been done by anyone. Their performances were plot-driven and not character-driven.
Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel did a very nice job so no complaint there - I just thought, up until a couple days before the movie opened, that she was actually Kirsten Dunst. The resemblance is remarkable, and it took me out of the movie a couple of times wondering why Spiderman's girlfriend was hitting on Batman and Harvey Dent. That's not the producer's fault and certainly not hers, but you'd think somebody would have noticed the resemblance and found another actress that looked more like Katie Holmes (who played Rachel in "Batman Begins")
The mob guys were all pretty blatantly ethnic - the Italian guy, the Latino guy, the black guy, the Oriental guy... Just kind of odd in today's PC movie-making. It didn't really bother me, I just thought it a little strange.
Ok, this really bugged me. Batman operates out of the BatCave, not the BatBasement. I know it was "being repaired" but that stark basement set was really, really bland and boring and a little claustrophobic for being that wide - I kept expecting them to hit their heads on the ceiling. Really, it couldn't have been worked out to move Batman back home sometime in the movie?
The whole subplot with Lucius Fox's R&D department, the money moving around, the little weaselly guy who wants to reveal Batman's identity - didn't like it. Just too much in an already-bursting-with-plot movie.
Talk about a cliche - "And here Mr. Wayne/Mr. Bond/Max we have the latest in crimefighting/spy equipment. It's a pen that doubles as a machine gun and cell phone, and also carries a lethal.... whooooooooosh - *CHUNK!!!!* (Ow!!!) - sir, perhaps you should read the owners manual first?" "Sorry about that, Chief..."
Being that I work for a hospital system, seeing a hospital blown up was more disturbing than normal. That's fine, just saying my reaction to that particular choice. I also cringe when children actors are used in dangerous, tense situations like the standoff with Harvey, Gordon and his family at the end. Again, not a criticism per se, I just don't like to see kid characters in mortal, immediate danger. One of the (many, many, many.....) reasons I didn't like "War of the Worlds" last year.

While there are many more "Didn't Likes" than "Likes", they still pretty much balance out in quality. I enjoyed the movie for the most part - I'll give it a B-. For those that are thinking it's now the BEST SUPERHERO MOVIE EVER.... I just have to continue to point you here.

Octagon Recruiting

2008-07-18T11:19:00.005-04:00

Those wacky viral marketing guys from "Lost" are at it again.!

Just before the end of this year's season finale, a "commercial" aired for something called Octagon Global Recruiting, a division of the fictional Dharma Initiatve. They were "advertising" for recruits for some sort of project, and said they'd be in the San Diego area at the end of July.

That coincides with the dates of Comic-Con, and sure enough they will have a booth there, to "recruit". Whatever that means. The emails went out today:

ATTENTION ALL RECRUITS - DHARMA HEAD OF RECRUITING TO ATTEND LAUNCH

Octagon Global Recruiting, on behalf of the Dharma Initiative, is pleased to announce that Dharma's Head of Recruiting, Mr. Hans Van Eeghen, has confirmed his availability for the launch of our latest recruiting drive at Comic-Con 2008...

What's also interesting if you go to that webpage and view the source code, these messages in comments stand out:

…If you’re reading this, wanna hear something cool?
I’ve got intel about his little “recruitment drive.”
They’re doing some kind’ve personality/IQ testing or something down in SD for ComicCon.
Buddy of mine works down there and has the approvals for their “booth,” he says once you go in no one knows what happens inside and you need an appointment to get in. He also said to make sure you’ve got your Bluetooth on and visible – he’s rigged up a little something.

AND

The whole thing sounds like elitist B.S., doesn’t it?
Well, I’m getting in that booth and taking the test.
As many times as I have to before I “pass” (whatever that means?)
And then…
If I can?
I’m gonna tape it so EVERYONE can see what these idiots are up to.
Should be fun, right?
See ya in SD. RuckusGuy OUT.

The Samaritan Paradox

2008-07-18T10:25:00.005-04:00

Last night my wife and I had a "date night". It was great - dinner at Altruda's (great Italian place for you non-Knoxvillians), then went to Downtown West to see the new Helen Hunt/Bette Midler movie. I haven't been to Downtown West in years, so it was fun to see the old haunt again. I remember seeing Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan there, lo these many years ago - and also Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country with Big Orange Michael. But I digress.

The movie was over around 10pm, and as Laura and I started to get in our car a pickup/SUV pulled up beside me. Driving was a clean-cut, mid-20's young man who was nicely dressed. Beside him in the passenger seat - a less than neatly dressed, slightly unsavory looking gentleman who kept his head down during the entire conversation. The driver pulled up and asked me for a moment of my time through his open window. He assured me - repeatedly - don't be scared, he's not up to anything. He told me his wife had just miscarried in Dandridge, his other child had cerebral palsy, he worked in a security systems business, and he just needed some gas money to get to Dandridge. He was very polite, yet fairly insistent.

A couple things flashed through my mind immediately. First I was glad Laura was on the other side of the van and blocked physically from the guys in the truck. She also (unknown to me) was getting her own car keys and the cell phone ready in case of trouble. Second, I thought quickly about his story: wife just miscarried? in Dandridge? and you have a kid with Cerebral palsy? Security systems? Sounds like a lot of unfortunate coincidences at once, and almost too many specific details about his life to start off a plea for assistance. Thirdly, I thought if you're running too low on gas to get to Dandridge (which isn't that terribly far away from Knoxville, really) why are you wasting gas driving around anonymous dark parking lots at night asking strangers for gas money when it would make more sense to take off for home immediately upon receiving word of the trouble. Or better yet, call someone from home to come and get you. More and more illogical circumstances.

Fourth, I tried to recall any shelters or churches nearby in West Knoxville that migth be available, but there really aren't - all the homeless shelters are downtown, and no churches would be open this late at night on a Thursday.

Fifth, I tried to remember where a gas station was nearby that I could direct him to drive to, where I would safely pay for his gas. I'm not terribly familiar with the Downtown West area anymore, at least in remembering where nearby gas stations are, and I didn't want to stand there giving them more time alone with us while I racked my brain for the nearest Weigels or Pilot.

Sixth, I thought if they needed some gas money they should just go to the box office of the theatre nearby. Much better than hitting up random anonymous folks in a dark parking lot.

So I politely told him, sorry, I couldn't help him.

He hesitated, started to say something else, then thanked me and drove off.

We quickly got in the van and locked the doors, just in case. Laura scanned the area to see where they'd driven off to but we couldn't find them. We left and went home.

My question to you is: What would you have done? Would the same thought processes have gone through your mind? What other options should I have considered? What made me more nervous than anything was the fact that he was neatly dressed, apparently a professional and still needing gas money. Which led me to believe he didn't need gas money after all, but something else I'd rather not think of, like my wallet, my car, or...

Anyway.

I'll also just say this - buddy, if everything you told me was true (or even most of it), I apologize. I sincerely hope and pray you got your gas money, you made it home and tended to your family. Although I hate that your wife may have miscarried, that your child has CP, I almost hope that story was legit because the alternative is pretty scary. And that if real life situation like that happens to anyone else, they'll have the sense not to hit up total strangers in a parking lot and contact someone in some kind of public setting.

Podcasting with RexandTheBeast.com

2008-07-15T12:11:00.005-04:00

I'm podcasting once again with RexandTheBeast.com!

Rex and the Beast and I are again discussing theme parks: this time we talk about the recent sale of Anheiser Busch to a foreign company and its possible ramifications to the Busch-owned theme parks across the country including Busch Gardens: Europe in Williamsburg (see video tour). We wax philosophical about what make roller coasters great, the future of theme park rides, the relative merits of virtual vs. interactive rides, future plans for shooting the exciting sequel Mission: IOA 3 (watch Mission IOA and Mission: IOA 2 - Universal Revenge), and as an added bonus also chat about bass fishing in the south of France. I still have no idea what that's all about.

Anyway, check it out - Audio Journeys with RexandTheBeast.com.

Friday's Feast

2008-07-11T09:10:00.002-04:00

Feast One Hundred & Ninety Six

Appetizer - When was the last time you had your hair cut/trimmed?

I'd say it's been about a month. Generally I get a haircut every month-1/2, so I'm due pretty soon.

Soup - Name one thing you miss about being a child.

Saturday morning block cartoons. Looking forward to every Saturday morning, I'd get up in my jammies, fix a bowl of cereal and watch Casper, Funky Phantom, Scooby Doo, Captian Caveman, Sid & Marty Krofft shows, Jason of Star Command, Shazam!, whatever else was running at that time, until American Bandstand came on around 12 or 1. And that was my time.

Salad - Pick one: butter, margarine, olive oil.

I love butter and margarine. I don't particularly care to know how margarine is made now that I saw an special on the Food Network about how they make Country Crock, but it's still good... Olive oil is a relatively new entry onto my palate and I'm still evaluating its qualities.

Main Course - If you could learn another language, which one would you pick, and why?

I took several years of French in high school and college and can understand/speak smatterings of it still. My kids have taken French in elementary school and it's been fun to learn some of it again with them. I'd love to be able to speak it fluently. It's such a gorgeous language and sounds great just to listen to.

Dessert - Finish this sentence: In 5 years I expect to be...

In 5 years I expect to be getting Brainyboy ready for graduation and college selection, plus dealing with the trauma of a teen-aged Tink really hitting puberty. I also expect to be in the same job I am now - hey, I'm going on 11 years in this job already - why stop?

More Anticlimactic Twilight Zone Episodes

2008-07-01T10:24:00.007-04:00

My inspiration for these is found here: Anticlimactic Twilight Zone Episodes at the great McSweeney's site.

That satire site was also the inspiration for my posts A Final Letter from Brenda to Eddie and Startling New Letter Found.

Here's an excerpt from Anticlimactic Twilight Zone Episodes:

Where Is Everybody?

A man emerges from his office to find the hallways mysteriously devoid of co-workers. He wanders the silent, empty building looking for signs of life but finds no trace of humanity other than coffee brewing, purses slung over chairs, and folders lying open on desks. Suddenly, he remembers a mandatory meeting in the first-floor conference room.

Here are some of my own, based on real TZ episodes...

"To Serve Man"

A group of tall aliens arrive on the Earth, pledging goodwill and peace to all humanity. A book entitled "To Serve Man" is found, but the words are all in the alien language and assumed to be a guide to how the aliens will assist humanity solve it's problems. By the millions humans are invited to visit the aliens' world, but just as they're all boarding the spacecraft the true meaning of the book is translated - it's a tennis primer! Wimbledon is moved to the alien planet.
"It's a Good Life"

Little six-year-old Anthony Fremont has made the entire world disappear with his amazing mental powers - everything but his small home town. The residents are terrified of him and are forced to cater to his every need in order to survive. People that anger Anthony are killed, maimed or "sent to the cornfield". When one of the townspeople gets drunk at a surprise party for Anthony, he pleads with the others to kill the little monster and save them all. Unfortunately at the moment Anthony is about to exact his revenge, the little boy wakes up. It was all a dream! And now he has to come down for breakfast cause it's almost time for school.
"Nightmare at 20,000 Feet"

A nervous man who is afraid to fly is plagued by visions of a gremlin on the wing of the airplane. He tries to tell the passengers and flight crew that the creature is intending to crash the plane, but no one believes him. In his panic, he steals a gun and attempts to shoot the creature himself. But then he wakes up. It was all a dream! And now he has to come down for breakfast cause it's almost time for school.
"Will The Real Martian Please Stand Up"

A group of bus passengers take refuge in a cafe during a snowstorm. While reports of a UFO sighting are circulating, the bus driver notices that while only six people boarded his bus, seven were present in the cafe. The passengers spend the whole evening in increased paranoia and accusations of one of them being a Martian. After the word comes that the roads are clear, the bus leaves. Much later one of the passengers returns to the cafe and laughs with the soda jerk that the bus driver miscounted after all. There are no Martians and there never were...
"The Man In the Bottle"

A man finds a genie in an old bottle and is granted four wishes. After he wastes the first two, he wishes to be the "ruler of a 20th Century foreign land, with no way of being voted out of office". POOF! He's suddenly transformed into the Queen Mother.

My favorite UGA joke

2008-06-30T14:34:00.002-04:00

I heard Andy Griffith tell this joke back in the days before his TV show when he was a young, country comedian. Now, mind, I didn't hear it live - I heard it on tape. But still, it's hilarious...

Auburn is playing Georgia in a key late-season SEC ballgame in Athens, Ga. Two Tigers fans -- George and Albie -- have driven in from Auburn. They arrive early to Sanford Stadium, tailgate for several hours, mix and mingle with Georgia fans and mind their manners.

An hour before kickoff they make their way to their seats so they can check out the teams warming up, listen to the bands and enjoy the atmosphere.

In comes UGA. Fans in the stadium, not quite full, roar their approval of their beloved mascot. He slobber-walks by the cheerleaders, slobber-walks by the players and coaches. When the team retreats to the locker room for a final pep talk, UGA moves toward midfield for a pre-game ceremony.

Suddenly he stops. And sits.

And proceeds to lick himself in a place where dogs are prone to lick themselves.

Up in the stands, George has in binoculars trained on UGA. He sees the proud bulldog stop to take care of himself.

"Boy, Albie," he says to his friend, "you see that?"

"Sure do, George," Albie replies.

"I sure wish I could do that."

Pause.

"George," Albie said, "that dog'd bite you!"

BrainyBoy Takes a Dive

2008-06-30T09:56:00.003-04:00

Starting week 2 at McCallie Sports Camp with a splash...

Friday's Feast

2008-06-27T07:39:00.002-04:00

Feast One Hundred & Ninety Five

Appetizer - What is the weather like today where you live?

Pretty warm, high in the upper 80's and lows in the 70's. Should be partly cloudy and humid with a chance of scattered storms off and on throughout the day. I don't anticipate any meaningful rain...

Soup - On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being highest, how career-minded are you?

I'd say a 6 - I don't consider my career to be the center of my life but then again I'm not doing what I would consider a "dream" job so that could be different. I would enjoy moving up a ladder but so far that hasn't happened and isn't likely to. I just want to be happy with what I do and proud of my work.

Salad - What type of window coverings do you have in your home? Blinds, curtains, shutters, etc.?

We have curtains and blinds in most of our windows.

Main Course - Name something that instantly cheers you up.

Just being silly with my kids. Making them laugh improves my own mood.

Dessert - How many times do you hit the snooze button on a typical morning?

My wife gets up before me and hits the snooze button twice. When she's finished in the shower she wakes me up and I go in, although sometimes it's tough to get out of bed. The Today Show is my snooze alarm...

Close But Yet So Far

2008-06-24T08:57:00.002-04:00

As I write this, BrainyBoy is starting his first full day at a 2-week all boys sports camp in Chattanooga. We would normally never be able to afford such a trip but were able to get it at an auction for about 1/4 what the normal price would have been, so that's great.

Although he's been to church camp for a week at a time several times the past few years, this is the first time he's been away from us for this long. And it's difficult that we're not really able to keep in touch since they don't have email access for the campers. We are able to send him emails which they print out for him, so that's nice at least.

In addition to multiple days of baseball, soccer, basketball, lacrosse and other sports they will have the opportunity to go to Six Flags and a Braves game on the 4th of July, go white-water rafting on the Ocoee and other great side-trips and activities. There's even a dance at the end of the session with a nearby girl's camp. He wasn't terribly thrilled about that prospect, but hey, you never know.

I find myself wondering what he's doing all the time - even now, not even a full 24 hours since I last saw him. When we dropped him off yesterday, he was ready to go and didn't look back. But we did a few times...

It's a Runaway

2008-06-19T10:24:00.003-04:00

Sixth foot found on B.C. coast

Another human foot has washed up on British Columbia's shores - the sixth in less than a year and the second in three days. The latest foot was discovered yesterday on a sand spit in the Vancouver Island community of Campbell River. The foot, believed to be a man's right foot in a black running shoe, was discovered by a woman searching for rocks.

Right now, for those of you scoring at home is 5-1 in favor of the right feet. It's possible the left feet could jump back in the competition, but right now I think the rights are going to run away with it.

Ok, sorry.

Anyway, this is a great and bizarre and terrible story that has my interest piqued. How in the world do six severed (not broken, but actually deliberately cut-off) feet suddenly appear and begin washing on shore in British Columbia?

Personally my favorite theory is that it's a new viral campaign for next season's "Lost" and they're feet of the Oceanic 815 victims....

The New Firefox is Here! The New Firefox is Here!

2008-06-17T13:02:00.005-04:00

Get a copy of Firefox 3.0 if you can - the servers are really busy...

A Reprieve from the President (Sort Of)

2008-06-17T09:50:00.005-04:00

UT delays program cuts, including Audiology and Speech Department

The University of Tennessee is postponing until October decisions on program cuts that include the Department of Audiology and Speech Pathology at the main Knoxville campus.

UT President John Petersen decided to postpone those specific cuts, however, on Monday in response to a joint request by UT-Knoxville’s interim chancellor Jan Simek and Faculty Senate leadership.

“The state budget process requires quick reaction, which has shortened the discussion time possible,” Petersen said. “To assure that all concerned have adequate time to study the issue and that we have dealt directly and effectively with all concerns that have been raised during this difficult process, I have agreed to the request by Interim Chancellor Simek and the Faculty Senate to a lengthened period to consider programmatic cuts.

“I will ask the trustees to allow campus and system leadership additional time to seek faculty input and involvement.”

So maybe there's a chance the departments can be saved. Now we have all summer and most of the fall to keep the ball rolling.

In the meantime, please go to www.saveutasp.org and show your support to the UT Audiology and Speech Pathology Department there.

My Daughter the Hot Dog

2008-06-16T15:10:00.003-04:00

Here are a couple answers to the questions a couple of posts ago:

Just call her "Tinker Knievel!"

Incidentally, that's our friend, Dr. Greg the pediatrician.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

2008-06-16T13:26:00.002-04:00

BrainyBoy takes a dive

I Know Who the Final Cylon Is

2008-06-16T13:18:00.002-04:00

Don't you just know it has to end up this way?

Fun Quiz

2008-06-16T11:41:00.002-04:00

Ok, which of the following statements regarding my weekend are true?

I found out my brother is traveling to Paris to tour with John Schneider
My little girl rode on a motorcycle around the neighborhood.
I fell over a toy car in the floor and sprained my wrist
We had dinner with two pediatricians (not our own) and played kid church songs by the pool on our guitars
I sang "T-R-O-U-B-L-E" to a recently married bride
I watched "Cloverfield" and "I am Legend" back to back, finished the novella "When Sysops Ruled the Earth" about a massive attack that wiped out civilization and saw the mid-season, apocalyptic finale of Battlestar Galactica
One of my cats bit into one of those glowy-phosphorescent kids necklaces and his snout was neon pink for a while

Conversations

2008-06-16T11:05:00.004-04:00

(We're all shopping at Target. I'm lagging behind with Tink, who spies a hammer hanging on one of the sale racks)

Tink: Look daddy. (Indicates hammer. It's a kind of funky green and caught her attention)

Me: Yeah.... you know what, I would do if I had a hammer? I'd hammer in the morning. Why...I'd hammer in the evening - all over this land! I'd hammer out danger...I'd even hammer out a warning. I'd hammer out love between all of our brothers... All - yes all - over this land. (I end my dramatic monologue with my arms spread wide, encompassing the great and awe-inspiring world around us)

Tink: (pause). What in the world are you talking about?

Repost: The Squirrels In My Yard Are Conspiring Against Me

2008-06-14T14:32:00.003-04:00

This is a repeat of a post I did a couple years ago that I remembered when reading Newscoma and her friend the Squirrel Queen. I hope they like it, and take it in a tongue-in-cheek spirit ;).

The Squirrels In My Yard Are Conspiring Against Me

The squirrels in my yard are conspiring against me.
I know that they're watching me walk.
I go to the mailbox to get today's paper,
While they all talk their chattery talk.

Beady eyes flicker as I step through the leaves,
Their minds gauge and ponder my gait.
"Will he go left today? Go right? Try to sprint?"
The little fiends wonder with hate.

Up in the treetops, tiny pencils are drawing,
Charts of my daily routines.
I don't know this for certain, though I'm sure what I feel,
It's the reason I'm weak in the knees.

I find the newspaper, little protection that it is,
And make plans to return to my home.
Their plans, however, are much bigger and bolder
And require things like plastine and chrome.

But for now things are quiet, they nibble and pause,
Storing up knives and meat cleavers.
But for all their malevolance, still I must say,
Thank God they're just squirrels and not beavers.

Friday's Feast

2008-06-13T00:01:00.000-04:00

Feast One Hundred & Ninety Three

Appetizer - Do you consider yourself to be an optimist or a pessimist?

Oh, I'm very much an optimist. I see the good in people all the time, and rarely have a default negative outlook toward the world. Unless something has specifically wronged me, I generally think the best of them. And I expect it. And, surprisingly to a lot of other people, I usually get it. Take that, O thou cynical conventional wisdom!

Soup - What is your favorite color of ink to write with?

Black. Colored pens look odd.

Salad - How often do you get a manicure or pedicure? Do you do them yourself or go to a salon and pay for them?

Never had either one, never plan to have either one.

Main Course - Have you ever won anything online? If so, what was it?

I've won money from an online company that periodically distributed surveys for companies. I think I won a $50 Amazon Gift Certificate. I also won a Fandango movie ticket from the Blingo Search Engine once.

Dessert - In which room in your house do you keep your home computer?

We have a landing at the top of our stairs that the computer desk sits, as well as a large bookcase and a big fake tree. All the comforts of home...

Life Finds a Way

2008-06-11T08:50:00.014-04:00

John Hammond: All major theme parks have had delays. When they opened Disneyland in 1956, nothing worked, nothing.
Dr. Ian Malcolm: But, John. But if the Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don't eat the tourists.

Just pausing a moment to acknowledge the 15th Anniversary of the release of one of my favorite movies of all time, Jurassic Park.

One of the first Hollywood movies to convincingly showcase the power of CGI special effects and large-scale animatronics, Jurassic Park gave the world it's first taste of what live dinosaurs might really look like. No more stop-motion of the beloved Land of the Lost or merely live actors in suits or puppetry, but realistic, moving, running - and eating - dinosaurs.

Tim: What do you call a blind dinosaur?
Dr. Alan Grant: I don't know.
Tim: A Do-you-think-he-saurus.
Dr. Alan Grant: Ha ha. Good one.
Tim: What do you call a blind dinosaur's dog?
Dr. Alan Grant: You got me.
Tim: A Do-you-think-he-saurus Rex.

I have the John Williams soundtrack to this fantasic movie, and one of my favorite cuts from any soundtrack is cut #4, "Journey to the Island", the section where the helicopter flies in and lands, and Dr. Grant and the others see the herd of brachiosaurs for the first time. I sense the awe that Sam Neill and Laura Dern exhibit in the acting to be pretty close to what anyone would have seeing a giant dinosaur for the first time.

For kids of my generation, dinosaurs were a huge thing. We'd spent years watching old Ray Harryhausen movies, King Kong, and other attempts to capture the majesty of these creatures, but author Michael Crichton, director Steven Spielberg and producer Kathleen Kennedy truly brought them to life.

This is truly one of those movies you can come up on flipping channels late one night, and immediately have to put things down and watch it again. It's that fresh, engaging and enjoyable.

It spawned two sequels, the oddly dull Jurassic Park II: The Lost World which showcased a T-Rex running amok in San Diego and the surprisingly quirky Jurassic Park III that brought back Dr. Grant and somehow made Tea Leoni, William Macy and Michael Jeter (!) action heroes.

Reportedly, Jurassic Park IV is in production - although it's unknown precisely which actors may or may not be coming back, from what I hear Dr. Grant is out, but Ellie Sadler may be in. We'll see.

So happy, birthday Jurassic Park - thanks for bringing back a part of my childhood. In honor of that one of my favorite quotes from the movie:

John Hammond: There is no doubt that our attractions will drive children out of their minds.
Dr. Alan Grant: What are those?
Dr. Ellie Sattler: Small versions of adults, honey.

Speak Up Because Others Cannot

2008-06-09T09:13:00.006-04:00

As some of you may know, a travesty is in the making regarding the University of Tennessee. Last week, the University of Tennessee proposed cutting the Department of Audiology and Speech Pathology in the College of Arts and Sciences; the Industrial and Organizational Psychology graduate program in the College of Business Administration; and the dance program, a minor concentration in the College of Education, Health and Human Services in a number-crunching move designed to help eliminate $11.1 million from next year's budget.

Take a look at those programs. To be honest, I don't know much about the Industrial and Organizational Psychology program, so I can't comment on that. I never had much official interaction with the dance program while I was majoring in Theatre at UT, but from time to time recitals would be presented in the Music Hall, where I had a work study position. As a student of the arts who's made it into a professional sideline, I am always wary about those who would cut the arts from any curriculum.

However, the Department of Audiology and Speech Pathology is a different animal. I want to tell you about a friend of mine, Hal Luper.

From his bio:

Dr. Harold Luper was head of the department of audiology and speech pathology from 1963-1986. He became director of the Hearing and Speech Center in 1966 when the center merged with the department. During his tenure, the first doctoral degrees were awarded and new clinical programs such as the UT Hospital Clinic, the Neuropathology program, and the Pediatric Language Clinic were added.

The Silverstein-Luper Building on the UT campus that houses the Hearing and Speech Center is partly named in his honor.

For several years, Dr. Luper sat beside me in the tenor section of the Bearden United Methodist Choir. When my wife and I first came to Bearden and joined the choir he was probably one of the first people I met. Soft-spoken with a gentle sense of humor and a keen mind, I looked forward to speaking with him every chance I could.

Unfortunately, about ten years ago while on a trip by himself to his native Portugal Hal tragically passed away. The news shocked us all... We've been very fortunate to continue to be blessed with his wife and daughter in our choir, as well as many other members of his family in the church. The family also owns and operates Naples restaurant on Kingston Pike, a local Italian favorite for many years.

But at the slash of a red pen, the department he worked so hard to build could come to an end.

My friendship with Hal and his family are my personal connection to the story. But there's a bigger reason to save this department - the work that they do for not only the dedicated students of audiology and speech pathology that have come through and continue to learn, but the many people the Speech Center has helped recover from such challenges as stuttering, voice and laryngeal disorders, hearing-impairments, children developmental and speech delays and other life-altering situations. According to current department head, Ilsa Schwarz:

The department clinic draws patients from as far as the Virginia and Kentucky border and is one of the largest university clinics of its kind in the U.S. There is an entire region of the state that will be without (an audiology and speech pathology) program.

The program has won national awards and great recognition in its field and more importantly has assisted many people with speech and hearing afflictions that otherwise may never have found the opportunity to live more productive lives.

Many local opinionists agree - today's News Sentinel editorializes:

Phasing out UT's [Audiology and Speech Pathology] program over the next couple of years might be - as one UT dean noted - 'the best of the bad choices under the circumstances,' but it will stand as a ringing indictment of the state's inability, if not unwillingness, to fund higher education at a level that encourages success and competitiveness in all areas instead of merely survival until the next round of budget cuts.

What can we do?

I have a list of all the email addresses of the UT Board of Trustees, including UT President John Peterson and Governor Phil Bredesen. Since I'm a nice guy and at least fairly ethical, I'm not going to post the email addresses online for fear of attracting spammers to their mailboxes but if you are as concerned about the possible loss of these departments as I am and are willing to contact these Board members and request that the decision be reconsidered, I'd be happy to give them to you. Simply email me at innofthelasthomeinsolace@yahoo.com and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.

It's my understanding the final decision is set for a Board meeting next week. Time is of the essence. I'll try and find out for certain what the deadline is and update this post.

I know budget shortfalls are never easy to overcome. Not only are these departments threatened - campus administration may have to absorb $6.7 million in cuts, as well as other campus academic departments and chancellor areas. But of all the departments at UT that do good for not only the student population but the community in general, the Department of Audiology and Speech Pathology should have been one of the last ones to go. Please let your voice be heard and request the decision be reconsidered.

Meme from Trumwill

2008-06-05T16:27:00.003-04:00

1. What is your occupation?
Website Coordinator for local healthcare system.

2. What color are your socks right now?
Brown

3. What are you listening to right now?
Mostly silence. The hum of my computer, the A/C, and the fluorescents of my office.

4. What was the last thing that you ate?
A little snack bag of Cheetos.

5. Can you drive a stick shift?
Nope.

6. Last person you spoke to on the phone?
My wife, Laura, about a work project we were finishing up. She works for the same health system and she's occasionally one of my "clients".

7. Do you like the person who tagged you?
I wasn't really tagged, although Will said he thought I'd probably do it. I've never met Will in person but he seems like a nice guy. I've been reading his site for years.

8. How old are you today?
41. But tomorrow, who knows? I could suddenly by 5!

9. What is your favorite sport to watch?
Probably football. Any other time I would say baseball but I just haven't been into it as much these past few years.

10. What is your favorite drink?
Iced tea (sweet)

11. Have you ever dyed your hair?
Ha! Um, no.

12. Last time you hugged your child?
This morning before they left for camp.

13. Favorite food?
Pizza - pepperoni or meat lovers especially. Also fettuccine alfredo, tacos, popcorn and chips.

14. What was the last movie you watched?
Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Crystal Skull

15. Favorite day of the year?
I suppose Christmas, mostly because of the kids. But the hype leading up to Christmas throughout December and a lot of November dilutes the arrival of the actual day somewhat. I've grown more partial to Halloween the last few years for some reason.

16. How do you vent anger?
Most of the time I get sullen and quiet, giving people the silent treatment. Unfortunately other times I let my (worse) nature get the better of me and I can get a bit rude. Usually this happens in instances where I feel I've been wronged or mistreated, and need to assert myself again. Unfortunately this happens at work far too often.

17. What was your favorite toy as a child?
Star Wars Death Star action figure playset.

18. What is your favorite season?
I've fluxuated through my life from spring to summer to fall - now I'm back to spring again :) Never, ever, ever winter though. Useless toad of a season that is...

19. Ocean or pool?
Actually pool. I like to look at the ocean, I don't particularly care to get in it. Probably dates back to a particularly nasty jellyfish incident when I was a kid...

20. Cherries or Blueberries?
Cherries!!

21. Do you want your family & friends to participate?
Sure, if they want. I don't have many offline friends or family that have blogs though. Big Orange Michael is by far the blogger I know the best in the offline world.

22. Who is the most likely to respond?
Not sure. Probably Logtar.

24. Living arrangements?
Live with the wife and kids!

25. When was the last time you cried?
I've answered this question in a couple other memes - sometimes the finality and future of my kids' lives will hit me out of nowhere and I'll just tear up. *sniff*

26. What is on the floor of your closet?
Shoes, dirty towels waiting to be washed.

27. Who is the family or friend you have known the longest that you are tagging?
No tags, but again it would be Michael.

28. What did you do last night?
Ate dinner with the family at Texas Roadhouse (both mine and Laura's steaks were undercooked and we had to send them back), went to church choir practice then to Target.

29. Hawaii or Florida?
I love going to Florida, especially Orlando so I would never pass up an opportunity to go back down there. But I've never been to Hawaii, and after learning so much about it from Becky's stay here, I'd love to see it. Count me in on a "both" on that question.

30. What inspires you?
My kids constantly inspire me to remember you don't have to lose innocence to exist in the world.

31. What are you most afraid of?
Failing those I care about. Irrelevancy and uselessness. I fear not succeeding, and being important in the things I do.

32. Plain, cheese or spicy hamburgers?
Cheese, please. With bacon if possible.

33. Favorite dog breed?
We have a beagle/basset hound mix (a "bagel"). I really like Cocker Spaniels, though...

34. Favorite day of the week?
Weekends are more or less like any other day except I just don't have to go to work so Saturdays and Sundays are not that big of a deal. For a long time I looked forward to Thursday because a lot of good TV shows were on that night, so I still feel Thursday's a good day. Hey, that's today!

35. How many states have you lived in?
Only Tennessee. I did stay for 3 months in Daytona Beach, FL when I worked for a summer at a repertory theatre, but I don't consider it "living" there.

36. Do you like these questionnaires?
I do, but only when the questions are fairly unique. I've answered some of these before here and there. I like real off-the wall questions that actually end up revealing something interesting about my or someone else's personality.

37. What kind of car did your very first date drive?
I haven't the slightest idea.

38. What is the last book you read?
I just finished "An Innocent Man" by John Grisham and "The Ruins" by Scott Smith. Would recomend the former, not the latter. I also recently finished "1633" by David Weber and am currently reading, "Dragonlance: Dragons of the Highlord Skies (The Lost Chronicles, Volume Two)" by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. There's nothing I like better than losing myself in the Dragonlance universe ;)

39. What are your hobbies?
Computer games, music.

40. Can you still make the Hula Hoop stay around your waist?
Never really could.

Heard on the Radio

2008-06-04T09:28:00.002-04:00

Yesterday on the Terri and Lee Frank show on AM850 (a local ultra-conservative radio show I only listen to because they talk about local issues sometimes. And even then, it's only when Sports Talk's at commercial), they were railing about how global warming and how the "Libs" (their favorite term) misuse statistics to support their case.

Never mind that the "Pubs" do the same thing as regard to global warming, but that's not the point.

A guy called in to mention that the night before at a Knox County Commission meeting, local Commissioner Mark Harmon (that is it say, local DEMOCRATIC Commissioner Mark Harmon, who is definitely one of the only honorable ones on County Commission) mentioned that according to statistics, based on the national average of one policeman per 1,000 people nationwide, Knox County has 56 too many officers. Based on the statistics, Mr. Harmon made an observation.

I hope everyone understands what he did - he simply stated that, compared to the national average, Knox County is above that average in number of sheriff deputies. That's all. Not an endorsement of the idea, not a recommendation that we fire 56 deputies, nothing like that at all. That's extremely obvious, isn't it? Right?

Not according to Lee and Frank, as Frank proceeded to practically explode at the notion that this (every unflattering name in the book conservatives insult liberals with that can be said on the air) Democrat was calling for 56 deputies to be fired, just to make the national average. In this day of increased crime - and he proceeded to rattle off recent crimes that have been going on around the area - Harmon wants to decrease the amount of officers on the street! The nerve of this city-living, peace-loving, soft-on-crime LIBERAL!!

Folks, this is a prime example of what happens when we continue to separate into our two camps of liberal/conservative or Democrat/Republican. I'm confident Frank knew full well just what Harmon meant, but saw an opportunity to attack a liberal and took it. And those listening who follow that line of thinking I'm sure just ate it up.

The more we continue to follow this traditional liberal vs. conservative model as the way to define our lives, our politics and our leadership the worse things are going to get.

Because sometimes we all just need a little Bohemian Rhapsody...

2008-06-03T20:35:00.002-04:00

"Lost" in Thoughts: Season Four Mega-Finale

2008-06-03T13:38:00.007-04:00

I know it's been several days since the 2-hour season four "Lost" finale has aired, but I've had time to rewatch it, cogitate on it, and read a little commentary here and there. Here are my (for the moment) final thoughts on the episode and the season.

A big question regarding the Oceanic Six and the big "lie". Wasn't it reported in the (fictional) media that all the bodies of the passengers and crew of Oceanic 815 were located at the bottom of the ocean in the (fake) airplane? I seem to remember one of the TV reporters saying something like they'd counted all 88-odd irretrievable and unidentifiable bodies under the water. So then just the presence of the Oceanic Six (really the Eight because they did mention two other crash survivors that subsequently died) throws the cover story into question.
Some commenters have wondered how anyone could've moved the island before and the the ice/glass barrier that Ben had to break through (and subsequently cut himself) still be intact. My theory is that the same subterranean tunnel he disappeared into a few episodes back in the barracks to summon the Smoke Monster also leads to the Frozen Donkey Wheel room. Being that the barracks were cut off to him, he knew there was another entrance behind the Orchid "vault" and got in that way.
By the way, for those who don't know, "Frozen Donkey Wheel" is the term the producers of the show teased us with a month or so ago as the key to the season finale. And that's literally what the big thing was Ben turned to move the island - a Frozen Donkey Wheel.
Having everyone refer to Locke as "Jeremy Bentham", even among themselves, was a little silly as they all knew him better as John Locke. Especially Walt. But you kind of have to assume in some of those scenes they actually did say his name but the producers wanted us kept in the dark. So it was almost like a censor *bleep* - you know the *bleep* didn't come out of the guy's mouth, it was a bad word so you imagine what the bad word was (c'mon, you know you do). For most cases "Jeremy Bentham" was a *bleep* for John Locke.
Unless of course the body in the casket is Locke's long-lost clone Jeremy. Then all bets are off.
The first rule any person should know if they're dumped in deep water is to remove pants and shoes for easier swimming. Sawyer, being the cool Knoxville dude he is, only removes his shirt. Whatta guy.
I thought after viewing the episode for the first time, "Christian Shepherd" had whisked Michael away at the last second before the explosion. After seeing it again, I'm not so sure. I think in fact Michael is dead. So then why did Hurley tell Walt he was probably still alive? I know at that point in the episode we hadn't seen the boat blow up, but still... Maybe he's in that that kinda alive state that Claire exists in.
Speaking of Claire, listen to her speak to Kate with no accent. Creepy. Is Dream Claire appearing to Kate like Dream Horace appearing to Locke? Horace was indeed dead, but sorta a ghost. Is that Claire, too?
According to my count, eleven of the people on the island make it back to civlization at some point: Jack, Kate, Aaron, Sayid, Hurley, Sun, Ben, Locke, Desmond, Frank, and Walt. Seems strange that at this point we're supposed to believe the Oceanic Six don't hear from Des/Penny and Frank for three years...
Also still seems strange nobody goes to see Walt when they get home. Especially Hurley. He just shrugs when Walt questions him about it, so there must be another reason besides, "Sorry dude, we forgot..."
The Keamy dead/not dead fake-out was just wrong, wrong, wrong. In the clearing after Richard Alpert shot the mercenary while fighting with Sayid, to be in character Ben should've come up to the body and shot him a few more times, or stabbed him personally. We see now how emotionally headstrong Ben can be. Even if Keamy's eyes were starting open, someone should've - would've - checked his pulse to confirm he was dead. As it turns out, the boat would've blown then and thrown the whole plot into chaos, but it would've been much simpler to somehow have Keamy escape into the jungle and show up later at the Orchid station. As it was, having him "come back from the dead" smacks of B-movie horror flicks.
Locke also should've at least attempted to transfer the heartbeat monitor to himself when Keamy was dying. There would've been a few seconds interruption in the signal but it would've been better than no signal at all. Another bad characterization move for plot expediency.
Just an idle thought: was the Looking Glass station transported along with the Lost Island and the Hyrda Island? I just keep thinking of poor Charlie, still floating dead in that communication chamber...
I smell a bit of a rat in Sun's offer to assist Widmore. I just don't buy she's become as ruthless as her father in the interim time since buying controlling interest in his company. Her offer to join forces sounded more like baiting a trap. I wouldn't be surprised if by this time she's working tacitly with Ben and Sayid.
I firmly believe Jin jumped off the boat before the explosion and, like most of the other boat survivors and Daniel Faraday and his Rafties travelled with the island in its jump and all make it back to the island. The mix of Freighties and Losties now continue the struggle vs. Locke and the Others.
So Where Are They?

Good question. Where is the island now? Did it move to another physical location in an ocean somewhere on Earth? That's possible, but it's also possible it moved forward in time - just like the bunnies did (although on a slightly larger scale). Trouble with the time thing, while it buys them some...ahem...time, it doesn't get them off the hook with Widmore. Assuming he's at least somewhat aware of the island's abilities, he simply has to wait till it shows up again in the same coordinates he originally sent the freighter. So it must've moved physically, and ahead in time.

How far ahead? Not the full three years that the Oceanic Six have been back in the world. There needs to be time for all the "really bad stuff" to happen that Locke apparently tells them about. I'm thinking the logical amount would be, oh, say, 108 days?

Of course I could be wrong and they went back in time to the year April 8, 1516 at roughly 11:42 pm...
So Where Does This Leave Us?

Where do we start next season in the timeline? According to the timeline on Lostpedia (a very well-done resource for all things Lost) the island jumps on December 30, 2004 (my birthday!) and the Oceanic Six are rescued about a week or so after that. Over the span of the next three years, through the fall of 2007 the events of this season's flash-forwards occur. Ben and Jack talk in front of Locke's coffin sometime around September of 2007. The island and all its inhabitants have disappeared and the "present" time has caught up to the chronological beginning of the flash-forwards. What will be next season's main time period, and what will be the flashbacks and flash-forwards?

I think a show like this has to be able to ground itself into a narrative reality, and with all the time-skipping Lost has done (both real jumping and narrative jumping) you have to have a "present" or a "now" for the general viewing public to hang on to. Up till now this has been easy... it now becomes a bit more difficult.

I'm guessing they pick up the "present" storyline a while after the Oceanic Six return home. The biggest gap that we haven't seen detailed much is the time after Nadia is killed and Sayid joins Ben (Oct 2005) and before Jack begins seeing his father and drifts away from Kate and Aaron (Aug 2006). There are a couple of incidents that happen in between then (Sayid's first assassination mission, Kate's trial) but that's a lot of time for Locke to surface, take the identity of Jeremy Bentham, and start appearing to the Oceanic Six folks (and Walt). This could lead up through the events we saw with Locke's death and beyond.

I'm thinking the island reappears the same "time" that Ben does - October 24, 2005. That would be about 300 days after they left (298 to be exact - I was SO hoping it would turn out to be 324 days after they left...i.e. (4+8+15+16+23+42=108) x 3, for the third jump the island's made. I know, I'm such a LostGeek). So if we pick the story about the time the island jumps back, we can see the "present" on the island and on the mainland at the same time.

Just a thought. But the show really does have to have a "now" to keep everything balanced.

So Does This Mean We Finally Get Our Flying Cars?

2008-06-02T15:31:00.001-04:00

Some downtown Knoxville streets are changing direction

I take this to mean these streets will now be going up-and-down instead of side-to-side, right?

Right???

Memorial Day in Colonial Williamsburg

2008-06-02T11:45:00.001-04:00

Inn of the Last Home

Test

Top Five things we learned from LOST

My Complaint of the Day

Significant Objects entry - "Secret Sauce"

Flash Forward - Episode 1 ("No More Good Days")

Last Night's Tweetup

Wow

It All Started Thousands of Years Ago...

Cone of Silence Lifted Briefly

Put in a good word for the Atomic Horns

Destination Imagination Global Finals 2009 Opening Ceremony

So What Do You Think of the Enterprise, Mr. Scott?

Star Trek: The Good, The Not-So-Good, and the Unforgivable

Tribute to Sid and Marty Krofft

Mayberry's Got Talent

The Rules

The Sound of Music in an Antwerp Train Station

Space Shuttle Discovery Launch

Sort-of-Spoilery Non-Serious Review of Battlestar Galactica, "Islanded In A Stream Of Stars"

Finding a Cure for Cancer... Fact or Fiction?

Ties to the Left, Ties to the Right

Top 10 Rejected Contents of Locke's Note to Jack

Top 10 Things Hurley Might Have in his Guitar Case

In Brightest Day

When He Tells Them They MUST Go Back, He Ain't Just Kidding Around

Changing the Past ("The Little Prince")

Sleestak!

Fathers, Mothers, Sons and Daughters

Unstuck in Time

New Lost Blog

Empty Promises

Lost Beneath Lake Michigan

My Sixth Bloggiversary

Coming on Friday

Silence, Milky White...

Anybody Home?

New Dharma Station on "Lost"?

The Top 9 Indications Your Plans for World Domination Are Not Going Well

Still Vulcan After All These Years

Former Knoxville TV Anchor's Son Fights Brain Cancer

Social Symphony

Peter Pan opens tonight at the Oak Ridge Playhouse

You're Welcome!

Real Evidence of Shoddy Journalism and Blogging

Post-Election Thoughts

Irony: A Tale of Two Coaches

Senator Ascendant

The Impossible Wish

Either Or

Great Spam Scam

Same Song, Fourth Verse

Conflicted

Random Thoughts

The Most Beautiful Thing I've Ever Heard

In For a Penny...

Some Actual Level-Headed Analysis of the UT-Florida Game

The Only Story Today Where You'll Find the Words, "Volunteers Improve"

Fantasy Football - A Metaphor for Voting?

Holes in the Space-Time Continuum

Is Hope All It's Cracked Up to Be?

Way to Go, Erik!

Well, Thanks for the Marvelous Insight

Media Fail

Back When Gas Was Cheap

Merry Christmas, Barry! Or, say, Happy Birthday, Barry! Or even, Happy Groundhog's Day, Barry! As Long As It's One of Them...

When They Say Invisible, They Mean Invisible

The Great Olympics Scandal List

Danger, Will Robinson

I Hatez Libruls

What's Left to Say?

Food, Glorious Food

Affection

What I Liked and Didn't Like About "The Dark Knight" (spoilers abound)

Octagon Recruiting

The Samaritan Paradox

Podcasting with RexandTheBeast.com

Friday's Feast

More Anticlimactic Twilight Zone Episodes

My favorite UGA joke