If only we'd listened to James Cameron! This never would have happened!

Bear with me, gentle readers. This is...unprecedented I know, but I thought I needed to warn you. It is only on matters of utmost urgency that I would ever post more than is strictly necessary to maintain the ruse that "Yeah, sure, I keep a little blog on that internet thing."

So rest assured that two posts in one day is the result of very terrible news that has just been sent across my desk.

But this could be the end of existence as we know it! And you my dear friends needed to be the first to know.

How closely did you read the article? Did you read the part where it said, "They are now sending voice, images and other data over the Skynet 5A platform."

I repeat: "Skynet 5A platform."

Yes, my friends, Judgement Day is coming. And that, right soon. Stock your basements, hole up in your bomb shelters, and do not use the internet more than is strictly necessary. Skynet is a devious machination that will infect your computer without you even knowing it. I suspect Japan will be the first to suffer, because there, everything is computerized, even their goddamned toilets.

Imagine it, because it could happen to you: Sitting on the can, reading a Nancy Drew mystery while you relax all of your muscles. A malicious computer virus infects your high tech toillette, and, with a monstrous schlupping sound, an oozing disturbing sense of loss comes over you as your bowels are sucked right out your asshole!

It will happen! Mark my words! Be afraid, America! Be afraid even to poop!

Contractual Obligation

I don't know if it's me or if it's Reuters that has a problem with this, but clearly something must be done. It has to be stopped.

You see, this sort of thing wouldn't have happened, even as little as thirty years ago. People knew who their neighbors were and what they were up to.

Okay, maybe in some of the bigger cities, sure, people were detached a little bit, even perhaps from some of their immediate neighbors.

But allow me to show an example: I live in a house that has been split into two apartments. My neighbors live a scant three feet across a shared hall and stairway that leads to the basement (which is also split in two; half for each of us). I've lived here for two years. I don't know their names. I think one of them is Tim.

If Tim died I would not know it, unless he stunk up the place.

I think our problem is not an obsession with death. The story is fascinating because it proves, like the other ones I've cited in the past(here and here and especially here), that we don't know each other anymore. People don't make friends with everyone anymore. We don't need to anymore, maybe.

People get left out. I'm not even completely sure it's sad. Sure, in most cases it ends like the above story. But there are times when it leads the Chos of the world. Those are the times when even Baron fucking Samedi can't keep his sense of humor.

It's not like I care, but that's the point, right? For me, the Reuters story is a joke. It's funny. It's an "Oddly Enough" item.

I'm not trying to be meaningful, dear readers. Far be it from me to try to make an important point about anything. I just thought that, facts being what they were, it's something we might conceivably think about a bit. If the source of the societal disconnect can be located, then perhaps it can be expunged, deleted, corrected. We can slash it with white-out and maybe be a real civilization again. Or maybe we never were.

Oscar Wilde said this about America: "America is the first country to have gone from barbarism to decadence without the usual intervening period of civilization." That does not in any way imply that there are any civilizations left in the world. In fact, one might argue that the human race is uniformly decadent and depraved. In fact, I think the quote implies that all civilizations, no matter how great, become decadent after a while. I would make the argument that any country that has even a single McDonalds qualifies for decadent status.

The point is not what or who is to blame, because everyone who doesn't say "hello" to their neighbors is to blame. Everyone who doesn't attend block parties (or indeed hold them) is to blame. Anyone who doesn't know the name of the guy who lives three feet from his fucking door is to blame.

The point, dear friends an readers, is that we don't give enough of a shit about it to actually do something about it. And if that's the way we like it, well, may good old Samedi dance on our graves. Man, he's a sharp motherfucker.

Sweet Action

Let's face it, pandas are cute. In fact, there's absolutely nothing about pandas that isn't disgustingly cute, or frighteningly tragic. I mean, they're peaceful, non-violent, adorable with their painted faces and chubby good looks, and, of course, endangered.

So it's no wonder that when something good happens to them, people get all excited. When I saw the headline, I thought that some crazy manic panda orgy had occurred. I was a little disappointed (as I always am) by what actually happened. As it turns out, Bai Yun and Gao Gao just had some sort of panda love affair.

In the end, it didn't really work out and they went their separate ways. I suspect that Bai Yun got a little clingy. She's an older gal, you know. The fact that she likes them young is telling. Gao Gao was only in it for the lesson, you know? You can learn a lot from an older girl, right? But after a while, the other pandas start to look at you funny.

I'm not sure if you know this, but Ben Franklin (yes, that Ben Franklin) wrote in one of his books that when you want to take on a mistress, it's a good practice to go with an older woman. There's no guilt. They're better conversation. And among other reasons, "they're so grateful!"

But eventually, there's a time to move on. I don't really think that Gao Gao had anything better coming along (I mean, he lives in a zoo, for chrissake) but three carefully documented fucks are better than getting nothing, right?

I wonder if they videotaped it. I mean...I would, but then, I'm a man of science and medicine, endlessly fascinated by the the intricacies of nature in all of its splendor. But on top of that, everyone likes panda porn. It's so rare that it can't not be totally hot, right?

I just like how the zoologists, in trying to do their job, have to be perverts. They have to voyeuristically document and watch these pandas through their whole mating ritual. It was probably like watching a modern romantic comedy, only much better scripted, funnier, and with all the naughty bits left in. Oh, and it has more of a sense of closure, because we get to see the whole relationship arc, from first flirtations to the dissolution of the relationship as they go their separate ways, agreeing to "just be friends." And we all know how that usually goes.

The real tragedy is the kids. Gao Gao Jr. is going to be manipulated by his bickering parents. In the court custody battle, Gao Gao Sr. says to the judge, "Bai Yun has been telling my son that I'm a deadbeat. How am I supposed to have a meaningful relationship with my son, with that bitch trash talking me?"

In the end, Gao Gao Sr. gets Junior every other weekend, and Bai Yun gets the rest. So it goes.

Extinction by Choice

I found this article on BBC today. "Lonesome George" is, according to the subtext of the article, more than likely the last Pinta Tortoise that will ever walk the earth.

The reason for this is astounding. Apparently, this octogenarian reptile is a homosexual.

If you didn't click the link and read the article, go ahead and do it now. I'll wait.

It's interesting because there hasn't been a female Pinta Tortoise for probably going on fifty years, if not more. Whalers used to eat them because they were easier to catch. Not that tortoises are hard to catch; it's just that some of them spend more time on the beach.

The fact of the matter is, when you've never really met very many females of your species, your sexuality gets a little messed up. According to genetic testing, they've found a hybrid of George's species and some other tortoise.

Apparently, there's another Pinta that, instead of going all homosexual, has decided to jump the species gap and bang anything that has a shell, creating some sort of unholy union. Apparently, the centuries old feud between the Isabela and the Pinta tortoises has been put on hold, while some youngsters went off on their own to consummate their illicit love and conceive some sort of tortoise anti-christ.

I can just see a screenplay about this. It will be like Romeo and Juliet. Romeo's homosexual grandfather says that he can't be chasing that hot Isabela Tortoise tail because they are from a different species and everyone knows that you don't boff another species.

This can only end in tragedy, of course. As pressure from both families forces the two young tortoise lovers to commit hari kari in protest of their parents' cruel decision. The real tragedy of course, is that the young hybrid tortoise won't be able to find a real home. No one wants a half-breed.

Or maybe this play could have one of those hopeful endings, where it is the crystal clear honesty of the young child's voice that shows the two factions their shame and brings everyone together in a real hallmark, freeze frame ending.

As the credits roll, we are informed that six months after these events took place, the young hero was captured and eaten by a rampaging horde of whalers, the tentative truce between the Pintas and the Isabelas is demolished and a bloody war raged for, well, about half an hour, while the Isabelas lynched Lonesome George, the last representative of his species.

It's a hate crime on so many levels.

Soon enough, without the competition, the Isabelas grow soft and weak, and eat all available resources and there is mass starvation.

In the end, it's always the same. Their brains will be scanned and kept in computer simulation, and their DNA stored in a test tube, just waiting for the day that the tortoises will return and take their rightful place among the reptiles of the Earth.

A doctor can dream, can't he?

See the cat? See the cradle?

I'm going to try and remember, without looking in the book, the last bit from Cat's Cradle:

"If I were a younger man, I'd write a history of human stupidity. And then, I'd climb to the top of Mount McCabe and lie down with my history for a pillow and take some of the blue-white poison that makes statues of men, and then I'd make a statue of myself, looking up, grinning horribly, and thumbing my nose at You-Know-Who."


Rest in peace, old man. I for one did actually shed a tear.

Little did she know....

Corpses have been popping up in some strange places lately. I want it made perfectly clear that this is not a trend in the direction of this commentary blog. And so, after this post, I promise to you, gentle readers, that I will not talk about strange corpse sightings for a while. Of course, being the Good Doctor that I am, I am free to break that promise if a really super juicy corpse-related story pops up again.

Also, I in no way advocate using Reuters as a primary news source. It's just one of the many RSS feeds that I check frequently. I just happen to like their comprehensive coverage of the ever expanding dilemma in America and abroad of corpse treatment.

The person in this article died just after takeoff. The article is poorly written and so it is difficult to discern exactly what happened. How was this man, apparently asleep in First Class not roused when the crew of the airplane were lugging a dead grandma down the aisle and then unceremoniously dumping her in the seat next to him, and then stuffing her in there with pillows so she wouldn't fall on the floor.

Whose decision was it to not just stuff granny in the bathroom and lock the door? Wouldn't that be better? Certainly not more dignified for the deceased, but definitely more tolerable to the poor bastard who woke up with a dead body next to him. Of course, there was the bereaved also on the plane. I mean, wow. This is absolutely amazing. There is literally nothing you can do when someone just up and dies on a plane in flight. Put yourself in the position of the stewardess or the captain that has to make the judgment call, "Uh...I don't know...maybe...strap granny to a chair and hope nobody notices. Put a pillow under her head, maybe people will think she's sleeping."

Sure, yeah, that will work. Imagine you're dozing there in your seat and the unthinkable happens: your neighbor, a complete stranger, rests his or her head on your shoulder in their sleep. Some people just deal with it and pretend it's not happening. Of course, there are those of us who will be like, "hey granny, um...I'm not comfortable with this... hello? Lady? You awake?...... um.... wake up...." You nudge her a few times, "Seriously, this isn't funny...." and then, "oh shit..." followed by you pushing the call button and then saying fuck this, "Stewardess!!! Um... I really think you should come over here..."

It's really just further proof that there are fewer and fewer real human tragedies in the world. And more and more comedies. Come on, admit it. You laughed.

It's alive! It's alive! No wait...sorry about that.

I know, I know, I know. The last post I did was also about something weird about death. And the last post was also about an article I read on Reuters Oddly Enough. But before you judge me, ask yourself this question: Who am I to judge what the Good Doctor does? There, don't you feel better?

This little gem popped up on Reuters RSS feed today. I find this stuff interesting, because I am endlessly fascinated by how people deal with death, grief, and such things as prospects for an afterlife.

The deal is, some people just can't quite get over death. Perhaps some people, even people who are religious, might understand intuitively that death is the end. If you don't have the psychological constitution to be okay with that, it's going to cause problems.

The fact that this guy was trying to cast a magic spell is really entertaining. He was Pakistani, so probably Muslim, I'm going to assume. But magic? Spells? And why'd he kidnap the guy that was sleeping in the cemetery? And why was there a guy sleeping in the cemetery?

I think he needed the guy as sort of a host body for his father's soul. That would make sense. He would be like a Lich's phylactery. Store the soul in a vagabond's body, drop the skeleton in some sort of nutrient rich solution, where it can feed and sort of be like a hive mind.

In fact, fracture the soul into several parts, and then like this dude's father will control lots of different bodies, while his rotting corpse serves as the center. Destroy the corpse completely, and you will vanquish the satanic army that he's slowly creating out of vagabonds and close family members.

Obviously the son is the first attempt at possession, and it hasn't taken hold well enough. He's coming off as crazy, which is problematic. The connection might not be strong enough. Like a cellphone with bad reception. And he's such an incompetent son that he even botched simplest reincarnation spell. Jesus, what a world we live in!

The Mummy Returns: Just Couldn't Tear Himself Away.

Just today, I found this article. The story is utterly amazing in its perfection. The image of a seventy-year old man, dead for over a year, not even a little bit rotten or smelly, sitting, slumped as if in a light snooze in front of a television trying in vain to sell him toothpaste and new cars, and to entertain him with quality programming.

It would be interesting to know exactly what channel the television had been tuned to. You know? Like was it PBS? Or Fox? Or Turner Classic Movies, even? Perhaps it was Cartoon Network. This guy has seen every episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force aired for the last year. What would his Nielson survey say?

The fact that he was mummified is perfect too. So the room he died in had low humidity. God, it's like a whole series of incredibly improbable coincidences all lined up and joined forces to create the perfect image for America.

I mean, the power wasn't shut off? Who was paying his electric bill? Was this thing deliberately staged? Now, that would be something. It should almost be made into a museum display. Let's not bury the guy yet. Let's set up some velvet cables and have a walkway through his living room. People will pay ten dollars at the door to walk through this shrine, this symbol of American culture and values.

I'd pay it. How about you?

American Idiot

I've watched a few episodes of the new season of American Idol. I've come to the conclusion that this television show, perhaps even reality TV in general is a symptom of something very cool, something very disturbingly right about the world. In the first season or two, it wasn't immediately apparent. It was just something kind of funny, but now that it's become a mainstay of the winter primetime lineup on Fox, it's something more. Where before it was fun to laugh at the bad singers, and Simon being cruel to them, and those same bad singers verbally abusing Simon, saying things like, "He don't know what he's missing. He'll be sorry," that stuff is just expected now. It's the subtleties that now become apparent.

Simon remains blissfully diffident in regards to these comments. I mean, it's all for ratings. Anyway, now that AI has gotten old, stale, and become a symbol of America, something indispensible, something that we simply can't do without, something that we can't imagine ever not seeing on the television, we can really understand what the show is about.

And I think it's good. I think it's important that we see clearly in a way that is almost too visceral, almost nausea inducing, how horrible we are to other people. It's not just that British asshat telling them how much they suck in very unfriendly terms, it's all of America agreeing with him. The only one who's still in denial is the poor girl or guy who has broken down in wretched sobs on the floor outside the audition room. "I was born to sing," they say. Instead of treating AI as just an audition, perhaps one of many, they have decided, willingly, to invest their entire future emotional wellbeing on whether or not they get into American Idol. And when it doesn't work out, it's like their entire world has crashed to a halt. Suicide might be the only answer.

Do we feel bad as viewers? As Americans watching this filth? Of course not! We don't give two flying fucks about this person who was so convinced that he was it! Maybe a moment's empathy, an uncomfortable, sad little hesitation before just laughing at or ridiculing (we are arm-chair ridiculers here in America) these poor wretched souls. I'm fine with it. It's Darwinian. If that person decides it's too much tonight and eats a bottle of sleeping pills and doesn't wake up, it's not going to affect me on an emotional level. I will not care. If it's on the news, maybe some people will be like, "Oh, that's terrible! Why would anyone do that?" Even though we already know why. American Idol yesterday (Wednesday, January 24, 2007) blew away the competition, according to Nielsen. How can a nobody compete with all of America? How can a nobody get America to love him? He can't unless he actually has talent. Otherwise, all he gets is the utter scorn of the literally millions of Americans watching him (or her) put their heart on the line.

The bottom line is, these people deserve to be made fun of. Because despite the fact that they don't actually know that they are bad singers, it's their own fault for putting it all on the line for something that hasn't been proven. It's their own fault for not looking around at the world, listening to themselves and realizing that they can't sing or perform or be anything in the music world, especially, the notoriously brutal and callous pop music industry. Setting all of your William Hung's aside, we find that there are two people who get featured on the auditions for American Idol: the very best, and the very worst. And that's how it should be. That's what America wants to see.

AI is not ruining America. It is not a cause of anything. It is a symbol, a symptom, of what America stands for. I think it's important that we crush people's hopes and dreams in as callous and inhumane way imaginable. I even think it's something we ought to do. What do you think?

Morality in Harry Potter

I am very disturbed by the morality that Harry Potter teaches children, particularly in the realm of political discourse. The whole "Wizarding World" is constatly locked in this deadly, dangerous, epic struggle against an evil wizard (Lord Voldemort) who is bent on taking over the entire world, not just the wizarding world.

The Wizard Council, if they were truly going to do the right thing, ought to approach the United Nations Security Council, and various foreign leaders and plan a strategy for moving forward in the campaign against Voldemort. There's no way, that "magic" is so much more powerful than modern technology that the US military, or the NATO peacekeeping forces wouldn't be able to handle the small rabble of Death Eaters he has at his disposal. He has maybe a few hundred. The US military is many thousand strong, with guns, bombs, and missiles, and jets.

Their isolationist attitude is counter-productive. The rest of the population has a right to know what sort of danger they are in. Everyone ought to have a say in how magic might be used to benefit humanity as a whole you see? And there are plenty of things in the muggle world that the wizards would benefit from as well. For instance, the internet, Facebook, Wikipedia, MSN Messenger, automobiles, cell phones, etc. By cutting their children off, by playing "Muggle artifacts" off as quaint or not as useful as magic, they are actually forgetting the utility of a highly sophisticated civilization.

And this is nothing when it comes to the learning of the modern world. There are so many philosophers, scientists, and theorists (from Plato, to Nietzsche, to Darwin, to Marx, to Hawking, to Buckminster Fuller) that they don't get exposed to. Without a proper training in college level ethics and philosophy and science, for chrissake, they are not going to have a very balanced view of the world, nor can they be expected to use magic in a way that is benevolent and responsible.

And what about literature? What about Keats? What about Shakespeare? What about Douglas Adams? Dickens? Isaac Asimov? Nabokov? Dosoevsky? They don't get any of this stuff. At least, not that I can see.

J.K. Rowling, you're on notice, until Harry Potter reckognizes that the muggle world is not such a terrible, "backward" place.