Confessions of a Geek

Ok, I admit it. I'm such a geek. It was brought home to me on a visit to the Liberty Science Center. I must have said "cool" about 80,000 times. First, we got to see part of a real-time kidney transplant -- sure it was a little icky, but it was amazing. Then, we went to the Imax theater to watch natural disasters. I said to my companion volcanoes are my favorite natural disasters. She said "I wan't aware you had one." Yeah, some people don't have a favorite natural disaster. I find that odd. The film was about the volcano on Monserrat -- major pyroclastic flows. Then an earthquake and tornado. We also toured the microbe lab where kids can extract DNA and little ones can learn about germs. And the "eat or be eaten" exhibit, including the world's most poisonous snake. The Science Center turns normally sophisticated adults into little kids. And geeks like me. . .well, we're already little kids.

Tweety birds

It's gone too far. I, reluctantly, joined Facebook as well as Care2, a community for Environmental Bolsheviks. But I have resisted LinkedIn and certainly Twitter. 140 characters. Good grief. Anyone who has had to edit a decent news story down to so few words it no longer says anything is repulsed by the idea of condensing life's little moments down to a few probably not so well-chosen words. I've said before I don't care what Wolf Blitzer does in the few seconds a day he's not on the air. But now, Twitter has reached it's lowest possible moment. A woman Tweeted her circle that she was having a miscarriage and she was glad because she would have had to go out of state for an abortion. Any normal woman who has ever had a miscarriage, even if she didn't particularly want the pregnancy, knows that it means she has lost a baby. Even if she doesn't believe that life begins at conception, she knows she lost a baby. To trivialize that to a tweet is somewhere beyond disgusting. And to treat abortion as a minor inconvenience is disgusting beyond words. We can only hope the Twitter universe has hit bottom and there is nothing worse -- if you can imagine it -- on the way.

Twinkle, twinkle

Saw Bright Star the other night. Not out here in the boonies, of course. Only movies based on comic books or featuring fountains of blood spraying across the screen. In New York City. Ok, the thing about an English major going to see a movie about John Keats is that you kinda know how sad it's going to end. And, I'm not saying this was a great build up to the whole dead in Florence thing. But the actress who played Fanny's little sister was incredible. Naturally, I didn't take notes on the credits -- I watched them all because I was with a film editor, so we had to read all the credits -- so I don't know her name, but she was the best little actress I've ever seen. I know, you're supposed to say "actor" for male and female now, but isn't that a little silly? I don't even have an objection to calling ships "she," but that's fodder for another blog. The cat was also wonderful. I didn't even know cats could act. I'm not saying the above is worth the price of admission, but, if you can get a cut rate price, go see it.

Good Night Suite Prints

The Lexicographic Irregulars are mourning today. The Language Mavin is no more. William Safire, political pundit, Republican raconteur, wizardly writer and all-time lover of the all things alliterative. Even those of us far to the left of Safire politically appreciate his brilliance, wisdom, workplay and that adorable crush he had on Susan Molinari. The beauty, the perfection of the English language and the hearts of all who love it are broken tonight. Good night Bill.

Gun Play

So, there's this retro-50s-type theme park in northern New Jersey called Wild West City. A large part of its appeal is its unselfconscious lack of political correctness. There are "shootouts" in the street, saloon fights (the liquid in the whiskey bottles is tea), Virgil Earp smokes a cigar during the Gunfight at the OKCorral skit. It's wonderdul. But some uptight-types object to it as a class trip destination for urban youngsters who are already obsessed with firearms -- like suburban and rural kids aren't? I asked one of these chaperones how many class trips teach kids about the historical contribution of people who look like them -- people of color. WWC has a black marshal. And black and Hispanic cowboys. She admitted it was the only one.

Deny-Ability

There is no shortage of groups of people I don't understand: people who think they are the only ones with God's ear. people who keep ferrets as pets, people who eat sushi. But, the people who really confound me are people who deny the Holocaust. I mean, there are PICTURES. This didn't happen during an era when the only way to disseminate information was Alan-a-Dale and his mandolin, or lute, or whatever it was. How can people deny all the evidence? And how can they explain all the people with missing relatives? Don't they know people with no grandparents or aunts and uncles? Talk about living in denial. And, what is even more scarey is that people in Iran actually voted for somebody who thinks that way. Note to Iranians voters: he's wrong and if he's wrong about something that big, think about what else he's wrong about.

Don't mess with this stuff

The new version of Casino Royale was on TV the other night. They should have stuck with the David Niven parody. This one was a parody, too, but not conscious (apparently) and not very successful. Ian Fleming is doing some serious haunting right now. Daniel Craig is a good actor, but he is not Bond on so many levels. For one thing, he's blond and doesn't have enough hair on his chest, but that's just superficial. The writers did both Craig and the public a disservice by turning Bond into a thug and asking Craig to play him that way. My son says today is the age of the anti-hero. Ok, so stop making James Bond movies until the times are ready for a hero again. Don't desecrate Fleming's A+ grade B-novel writing. Actually, I don't believe we are no longer in need of heros. I believe that suave, sophisticated Bond would still bring people in to the movies -- a lot of people just watch them for the gadgets anyway. And women watch them for the guys who play Bond. And guys watch them for the latest Bond girl. So why change the image so drastically? It was a dumb move. It may have netted some serious change. But, it was a dumb move.