Apparently a genetics researcher in Texas by name of Dr. Melba Ketchum did some tests on "Sasquatch" DNA samples and determined that Bigfoot branched from the human line around 15,000 years ago.

Ketchum's team determined that Sasquatch has mitochondrial DNA (mDNA) that is identical to humans (mDNA is inherited down the maternal line), but has nuclear DNA (nuDNA) that is markedly different.  This leads her to the conclusion that Bigfoot is a hybrid of a male of a heretofore unknown species of hominid and a human female.  Here's the press release.

There are lots of reasons to conclude that Bigfoot is a myth, and very few reasons to conclude otherwise, so one has to wonder exactly where Ketchum's team obtained their samples and how they were handled.  A reasonable conclusion is that the samples were contaminated with human DNA and the results reflect this but are being misinterpreted (indeed, in the press release, the wording suggests that the team assumed the existence of Sasquatch, and interpreted the results through that lens).  Another conclusion is that they were watching an episode of Grimm when they were writing their report.

I'm guessing that the study will get shot down in peer review.

There was a time in my life when I would have glommed onto an article like this like fish on chips, and dismissed any naysayers as close-minded fools.

I got better.

- Jay

Written by Harold Schechter, whose body of work consists mostly of books about serial killers, Savage Pastimes looks at the issue of whether modern violent media (i.e. video games and movies) are corrupting influences.

He approaches the question by looking at popular culture down through history, from the festival atmosphere of public executions in the middle ages, to Grimm's fairy tales, to the horror comics of the 1940's, to TV westerns in more recent decades.

His conclusion is interesting, but not altogether surprising.  I'll get to that shortly, but before I do, I need to throw out some anecdotes.

I grew up in the 1970's and 80's.  The first TV show other than Sesame Street that I can solidly anchor in time¹ is an episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker that aired in the fall of 1974 - I would have been 5.  The episode in question involved an alien that sucked the bone marrow out of its victims - wholesome family entertainment indeed.  Mom and Dad had no particular problem with my little brother and I watching Kolchak.  However, we were shielded from cartoons like Spider-Man, because they were too violent.  Also banned at various points were Speed Racer and Ultraman.  Mixed messages, much?

Even while we were kept from watching the cool shows, we were allowed, even encouraged, to run around the yard with cap guns.  To this day, I have scars from accidentally self-inflicted cuts from hunting knives I was probably way too young to safely handle.  These knives came from a local flea market, where my brother and I purchased quite a few copies of the old EC horror comics.

When I was around 12, and we finally got cable TV, the main screening criteria for the movies that we could watch were how much nudity and sex were depicted, not how much violence.  When we were lobbying to watch The Howling, a werewolf film with a dizzying amount of gore for a mainstream film in 1981, the issue my folks had wasn't with Robert Picardo's² character digging a bullet out of his head, it was with about 20 seconds worth of Elisabeth Brooks' full frontal nudity - breasts being more damaging than dripping brain matter, apparently.

When my closest brother and I were in high school, and my youngest brother was around 5 (the same age when I was watching Kolchack), we'd rent all manner of films like A Nightmare on Elm Street and watch them together.  We all turned out more or less OK.

More recently, my son (13 as of this writing) is quite an accomplished player of pretty much the entire Call of Duty series.  He's also enjoyed such fine films as Predator and The Expendables with me.  Nevertheless, he's one of the most compassionate and gentle kids that I know.

So, considering my personal experiences, I wasn't surprised when Schechter declared that violence in popular culture really doesn't drive the crime rate up, or turn young consumers of such media into depraved killers.  I was surprised, when I thought back about it, how much violence there was in media that I ravenously consumed as a child.  (Schechter points out numerous instances of this - we as people tend to view our own experiences through a lens of nostalgia.)

What Schechter does well in Savage Pastimes is to clear off that lens, and remind the reader that there has been violence in media for as long as there has been media.  The book is worth reading for this alone.

What Schechter doesn't do as well³, in my view, is dig into why popular culture is such an easy target for the sanctimonious to attack.  There are a lot of possible answers, I think, ranging from a sincere, but possibly misinformed, desire to make things "better", to a purely financial interest.  It would have been interesting to look at different groups to see where they were coming from.  Perhaps in another book.

Overall, I think Savage Pastimes is an interesting and fairly quick read that gives the reader relevant historical background and demonstrates the need for a clear and objective assessment of modern media rather than taking the easy route of knee-jerk reactionism.

-Jay

---------
¹I remember other shows, but I can't tie them to a particular age or time.

²Later to portray the Emergency Medical Hologram on Star Trek: Voyager...

³Schechter also veers dangerously close to sexism a few times with the implication that socially constructed gender roles are the natural, default behaviors of boys and girls.  He'd have been better not to go there and stick with the general argument.

By now we've all heard the story and seen the headlines - a gunman named James Holmes opened fire in a crowded movie theater in Aurora, Colorado killing twelve and injuring dozens more.

There's enough armchair analysis of Holmes' actions already.  It's easy to conclude that he is insane.  He could just be angry.  There is little question that he is methodical, having acquired his weapons over several weeks and elaborately booby-trapping his residence.

Regardless of why he did what he did, though, the results are the same.

Twelve people are dead who shouldn't be.

Dozens of people are injured who shouldn't be.

The survivors will never be the same people they were before.

A community is shattered.

I'm angry.

I'm angry because nobody was able to predict what Holmes was going to do and stop him ahead of time.

I'm angry because the same laws and regulations that let him acquire his weapons are the same laws and regulations that let people that I care about acquire weapons for personal protection that I hope never have to be used.

I'm angry because people shouldn't have to worry, even a tiny bit, about getting attacked while in a movie theater.

I'm angry because some have made the declaration that, effectively, the victims deserved to be shot.  (Libby Anne's response, here, deserves attention.)

I'm angry that ignorant, sanctimonious people are taking this as an opportunity to attempt to advance their own benighted agendas.  (See James McGrath's comments on Rick Warren here.  Or Ed Brayton's comments on Ray Comfort's inane analysis - does anyone actually pay attention to Ray anymore?)

I'm angry because the overwhelming majority of people are good people, and the actions of one really bad person have such capacity to drown out their actions.

Is there a silver lining to this?  Something that makes the deaths and injuries mean something?  I'm hard pressed to find it if there is.

And perhaps that's what makes me the angriest.

-Jay

At work recently, a discussion came up about "guilty pleasure" movies.

Everyone has them, and everyone has different reasons for picking the films they do for that honor - I loosely define the category as "films I would watch if I were home sick with nobody else around" - the cinematic equivalent of comfort foods.

As I was thinking about which movies I put into this box, I was surprised to realize how little rhyme or reason there is to my choices - they're all over the map.

I'm going to reveal a partial list - in no particular order - of my guilty pleasure movies, then invite readers to comment with their own.  Some of mine have already been reviewed here, and I'll link back to those posts where appropriate.

Nosferatu (1922) - This German film was an unauthorized version of Dracula, and was almost sued out of existence by Bram Stoker's widow.  It's a silent film, so much of the story had to be told through body language.  Even 90 years later, Nosferatu puts a creepy sadness to the vampire tale that modern films like Twilight can't touch.  Unfortunately, to a lot of people, it's just a grainy old silent movie.

M (1931) - I reviewed this one a few years ago here.  Another old German film.  The parallel efforts of the police and the criminals in hunting down a killer is interesting, and the whole film has an uneasy tension to it.  Something about it just makes me feel that it should be watched alone.

Shaun of the Dead (2004) - Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are awesome in this horror comedy.  Pegg's Shaun, totally oblivious to everything that's going on around him in the first act of the film is perfect.  I don't re-watch many comedies, but I watch this one every few months.  The catch is that you have to appreciate both British humor and zombies to really get this one.

Mr. Vampire (1985) - An entry from Hong Kong, this kung-fu horror comedy will leave you dizzy if you spend too much time trying to sort it out.  There's a lot of - peculiarities, let's call them - to the story that sail right past American viewers.  I have this one in the chute for a review, so I'm not going to say much about it.

Westworld (1973) - Cheesy '70s Sci-Fi yarn (and the first American film here) about cowboy robots run amok at a futuristic theme park.  The effects are nothing to get excited about, but Yul Brynner's sinister Gunslinger was a pretty clear influence on the character of The Terminator in later films.  Notable for raising the ethical question of robot prostitutes, then scampering away while the audience contemplates it.

The Car (1977) - Reviewed here.  You've gotta take this one on its own terms.  This film got lodged in my brain when I was 8, and it just stuck there.

Predator (1987) - This was Schwarzenegger at the top of his game.  Enough of a plot to stitch together explosive set-pieces, memorable one-liners, and an alien monster that remains popular even now.  I like the fact that the film didn't feel the need to over-explain the Predator - it was here, it was deadly, and that was enough.

The Untouchables (1987) - A tale of Prohibition-era gangsterism.  Forget Kevin Costner's wooden Eliot Ness.  Sean Connery's Jim Malone and Robert De Niro's Al Capone are the high points of this film.  Never let Al Capone get behind you with a baseball bat.

The Muppet Movie (1979) - I love the Muppets, but in recent years they've drifted away from the simple charm they had when Jim Henson was running the show.  The opening and closing musical numbers still make me smile.

And to make this a nice round number...

Ed Wood (1994) - Tim Burton and Johnny Depp put together a wonderful, if under-appreciated, biopic about Edward D. Wood, Jr., the director of such masterpieces as Bride of the Monster and Plan 9 from Outer Space.  The performances in this film are excellent, but the relative obscurity of the subject matter probably kept Ed Wood from reaching a wider audience.

Nothing coherent here.  All over the place.  That's part of what makes them fun.

Let's see what you guys have to put on the table.

-Jay

I know it's late, but allow me to inflict upon share with you my review of the classic 2002 Nicholas Brendon (late of Buffy the Vampire Slayer) Cinco de Mayo-themed party film, Piñata Survival Island (also known by the much less descriptive title, Demon Island.)¹

The box art pretty much tells you what you need to know.  There's an island.  And college kids.  And a piñata.  Wait, what?

A piñata?

Let's see what this is all about...

The film opens on a small village, probably located in the fictional Latin American country of Brazentinumbexico, sometime in the (presumably) distant past.  The village is in the midst of a terrible drought, and the locals are at a loss to explain why.  Apparently the local witch doctor decides that the problems are due to the evils and misdeeds of the villagers, and that the way to solve the problem is to magically suck the wickedness out of everyone and infuse it into a clay piñata made by the village piñata maker.

The piñata maker, who can't be bothered for a rush job even though the locals are dropping like flies, carefully crafts the magical vessel out of clay, water (wait - I thought they were in a drought...) and pig's heart.

Just go with it.

There's also something about a sacred stone, but that never really comes up again, so nevermind.

Anyway, the entire village treks off to the riverbank to perform the magical evil-sucking-transfer-to-the-piñata ceremony, where the witch doctor summons the (ever dwindling number of) villagers to the front of the crowd and mumbles some vaguely Spanish-sounding words and transfers the evil into the clay-and-pig-heart piñata.

Note the piñata on the left.  We'll see him again.

Hey! You shocked me!

Once everyone has been appropriately zapped, they cast the piñata adrift in the river, where it eventually floats out to sea, presumably never to be seen again.  If that were the case, it would be a very short, mercifully short, movie.

Unfortunately, they still had budget at this point, so we flash forward to Cinco de Mayo, circa 2002, where two boats full of bikini and trunk-clad students from Woodson University are headed towards an island - among them our two "big-name" stars - Nicholas Brendon (late of Buffy the Vampire Slayer)² and Jaime Pressly who I dimly remember hearing about from something, but I can't remember what.

Our intrepid group of victims  piñata bait promising young students hits the beach for the annual Woodson University Cinco de Mayo scavenger hunt, and are met by the two official judges, Paul and Monica.  (Paul, for anyone who cares, is played by Garrett Wang, who played Harry Kim on Star Trek: Voyager.)

The group heads to camp to prepare for the hunt.

The scavenger hunt works like this:

Around the island are scattered several thousand (!) pairs of underwear.  Couples are handcuffed together and given until nightfall to collect as many undies as they can, and the winning couple gets some cash.³  And oh, by the way, there are piñatas placed around containing "refreshing beverages"  (wink wink nudge nudge.)

The couples are paired up, and off they go.  Except for Kyle and Tina (Brendon and Pressly).  Those two apparently broke up shortly before the events of the film, and obstinately decide to sit the game out rather than cooperate.

The other groups, who I'll call Disposable Couple #1, #2, #3, and #4 respectively, all have their own strategies for winning.  Let's have a look:

DC #1 break away from the others.  Guy 1 produces a handcuff key and a joint, and they start scavenging while loaded.  Girl 1 notices a familiar clay piñata stuck in the mud.  She pulls it out, and calls her partner over.  They bash on the thing with a rock, figuring it must contain some thirst quenching treats, but when they crack it, the only thing they're treated to is some weird howling and wind.

When they turn their backs, we see the piñata grasp a stick.

Oh, they've got a live one here...

They turn to notice the piñata is gone, only to have it spring out of the bushes behind them, and (in a completely predictable bit of role reversal) start clubbing Guy 1 about the head with a stick.

Does anyone know the name of a good dentist?

Girl 1 wastes no time in exiting the area, which is probably a wise thing to do.  Now, at about this time, the producers of the film seemed to realize that using a short guy in a rubber piñata suit might not adequately convey the cinematic gravitas that they were trying for, so they apparently enlisted the crack CGI wizards over at SyFy to help out by adding some glowing lines and stuff.

While all this horror is going on, Kyle and Tina decide that they'll play the game and try to cooperate, and head out into the jungle to scavenge unmentionables.

Let's check in with DC #2.  Guy 2 has managed to have a secret stash of Fruit of the Looms buried on the island.  He and his partner are looking for it when they're set upon by a very stressed Girl 1, who's covered in what is supposed to be blood but looks more like southwestern ranch salad dressing.  She tells them that something killed Guy 1, but they think she's trying to scare them out of the game, so they ignore her.  She runs off and they go back to searching for their stash.

They find their shovel and start digging.

Here we get to see the other great special effect: Piñata Vision.  Our antagonist sees the world through this weirdly prismatic faux-thermal view:

Where have I seen something like this before?

Right about here, I had an epiphany!  A group of people in an isolated jungle being stalked by a stealthy enemy that sees the world in the infrared.  I've seen this movie before, only with higher production values and Arnold Schwarzenegger!  Piñata Survival Island is a rip-off of Predator!

Needless to say, this realization greatly enhanced my viewing experience.

Back to the film.

DC #2 have set their shovel down and are transferring their ill-gotten booty covers (see what I did there?) into their bags when they notice that the shovel has disappeared.

Our nimble monster quickly springs into action, once again going crazy with the cheez-whiz and bashing people like he expects candy to fall out of them.  (Actually, I forgot to mention that in a sense, it does.  When the piñata monster kills someone, he sucks out their soul for reasons that aren't exactly clear.)

About this time, Girl 1 has found her way back to the judges and told them her story.  While they don't quite believe everything (heh), they're smart enough to realize that something has gone pear shaped and they need to bring everyone back in and get off the island.  They hop on their ATVs and first encounter Kyle and Tina, who have begun to work through their issues.  They head back to camp to fire off the Game Over pistol while the Paul and Monica continue on.

Cut over to DC 3, who are tonsil diving out in the jungle.  The monster, showing it's skill in ropecraft, strings itself up on some vines and lowers itself behind them.  When they finally come up for air, they notice the (freaky looking) piñata (that wasn't there just a few minutes earlier) dangling off of a vine.  Guy 3 picks up a stick to take a swing, only to be intercepted by the monster with its cat-like piñata skills.  It proceeds to dispatch him with great aplomb, removing something that resembles a pot roast from his belly.  Then it turns its attention on the screaming girl.

Oddly, we never see the thing attack the second member of each pair while they're handcuffed together.  I guess maybe it's a technique that the director picked up in Dramatic Tension 101.  Or maybe they ran out of budget.  Or forgot there were other actors on the set.  Not sure.

Back to the "story".  In short order, Paul and Monica run across the strung up (like a piñata!) remains of Guy 1, and with their Holmesian powers of deductive reasoning conclude that something is indeed amiss on the island, and perhaps Girl 1 wasn't merely in the grips of a booze and weed-fed hallucination-fest.  They head back to their ATVs to (I assume) look for the other missing students, but quickly attract the attention of the piñata monster, who has now morphed into its more mature form, which looks sort of like a pile of rocks in the vague shape of maybe a minotaur with glowing lava in the cracks.  Supposedly the filmmakers punched up the monster because the initial three-foot-high Porky Pig on Acid approach wasn't getting it done.  While this is going on, Kyle and Tina discover that something has destroyed their boats, and left behind a bunch of hoof-like footprints.

The monster thunders after Paul and Monica, but they almost manage to shake it until Monica's ATV smashes into a large tree trunk (hey! who put that there?) and explodes.  She's thrown free, and Paul comes back to try to save her.  He does, but not in quite the way he planned, proving that in order to escape pursuit by a giant burning piñata monster, you only have to be the second slowest college student.

Monica scrambles through the jungle, taking a tumble down a cliff (well, a short embankment - cliffs are expensive) and hiding in the undergrowth.  Taking another cue from Predator, the monster can't see her and heads off.

Back at camp, Kyle, Tina, and Girl 1 are waiting for anyone else to return, and, prompted by the hoof prints on the beach, Kyle remembers an old folk tale about a drought and a village and a piñata that has a pig heart in it.  Immediately, they all conclude that this is exactly what they're dealing with.  Unfortunately, Kyle's folk tale doesn't really give them any insight into how to get rid of the bloody thing, since the approach that the villagers took was to set the evil-filled party favor adrift in the river and make it someone else's problem.

Cue the timely arrival of DC 4, who have had about 30 seconds of screen time in the entire movie.  Now we are five.  The group waits out the evening, then after a spirited debate in which everyone changes opinion several times and can't seem to sort out who to agree with, decide to strike off into the jungle in search of their missing friends.

For a group that's being picked off by an unidentified enemy, they're remarkably cavalier about this, with DC 4 lagging behind several times.  This ultimately becomes his undoing, as our monster, once again displaying the skills that earned him the vine-craft merit badge back in horror scouts, snares him up into a tree, where he slowly expires while his dim-witted, can't be bothered  to look up friends mill around below.

At this point, Girl 4 and Girl 1 decide they'd be safer back at the camp, and start the hike back.  What's the worst that could happen, really?  Well, how about a goofy piñata monster swinging out of a tree wielding a stick (or maybe the shovel from a while back - not sure...) and taking out Girl 4 while Girl 1 takes a bio break behind a shrub?  Which is exactly what we get.  Kyle and Tina have meanwhile spotted some tracks headed back towards the camp, and are on their way back when they find Girl 1 screaming (again).

Kyle gets all manly and decides to take off after the monster with a stick and a small hunting knife, while Tina tries to talk some sense into Girl 1.  This works about as well as we might expect at this point, with Girl 1 rabbiting (again), forcing Tina to follow.

In another part of the jungle, Kyle finds a nearly catatonic but amazingly alive Monica, and they head back to where he left the girls.

Girl 1, having made it back to camp, sees movement in one of the tents, and unwisely decides to go inside.  She meets her end right as Tina arrives, and the monster bursts from the tent in yet another new form - now it looks like (I'm not making this up...) a giant flying tadpole made of rock and lava.  It's also gained the heretofore unseen ability to breathe out some sort of deadly darkness.  Apparently it can't fly too fast, though, as Tina outruns it and stumbles into Kyle and Monica.  The three hide behind a convenient tree, and distract the monster with some thrown rocks (that always works...).

At nightfall, they decide to make a stand, and head to the ATVs to siphon the gasoline out of the tanks and into their canteens.  They escape just before the monster shows up, having attracted it when Monica screamed as Paul's body drops out of a tree.

The trio head back to camp, and in a montage straight out of Predator but with less Schwarzenegger proceed to set up  snares, traps, and torches.  Then they set out a dummy as bait and have Monica loudly talk to herself to lure the creature in.

It works, and the piñata shows up at the edge of camp.  It attacks the dummy, and when it realizes it has been fooled, it assumes the shape of a two-headed flying tadpole and searches around the campsite.  At the right moment, Kyle triggers the snare, which catches the monster in a tent.  They set fire to it, and appear to be on the verge of success when the canvas tent burns through, and the monster drops to the ground, hitting Monica and knocking her out.  It turns on Kyle, who does a surprisingly good job of holding his own.  Apparently Nick Brendon's seven seasons of Buffy taught him well.

The monster, however, starts to get the upper hand.  Just before it can deal a death blow, Tina lunges out of the shadows and handcuffs a gas-filled canteen with a wick onto the creature.  The trio dives behind a table as the canteen explodes, showering the area with flaming bits of terracotta and the freed souls of the monster's victims.

Game, set, and match.

The next morning, campus police have made it to the island, and the credits roll as the questions begin.

Good grief, but that was a slog.

The bizarre thing about this is that when I was casting about for a movie to review, I remembered a fragment of a movie on SyFy with Nicholas Brendon in it that had a beach and a woman in a bikini.  The resulting Google-fu led me to this movie.

But this isn't the same movie!   This means that we live in a bizarre universe where there are at least two movies that would run on SyFy with Nick Brendon, beaches, and women in bikinis.

Think about that when you think your world isn't strange enough...

-Jay
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¹I'll point out that this review is something of a response to my pal Skippy's excellent review of Enter The Ninja.  He threw down an implied challenge, and I felt compelled to sink to it.

²I was a big fan of the Buffy TV series.  Nick Brendon's Xander Harris was one of the best characters on the show.

³At this point, you might be thinking "Dammit, Badger!  Are you reviewing a dead naked teenager movie?  The answer to that is "no".  Despite the initial bikinis, the underwear-themed scavenger hunt, and the handcuffing, this is an extremely tame film.  I've honestly seen more objectionable material on ABC Family.

In an effort to fill space before my Super Mega Awesome Cinco De Mayo movie review, I'll summarize the books that I've read so far this year, that I'm currently reading, and that I have queued up next.

The first batch are in the "completed" stack:

Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy - Reviewed here.

Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games trilogy - I read these mainly because of the buzz surrounding the movie.  I liked them overall, mostly because of the way Katniss developed over the course of the books.  The subject matter is somewhat disturbing, but most of the darker themes weren't explored as deeply as they would have been in more adult books.  The most interesting material could have been condensed to about a book and a half.

Lawrence M. Krauss' A Universe From Nothing - An interesting and accessible book about cosmology and why we have a universe rather than not.  It's eloquent and thought provoking.

Katherine Stewart's The Good News Club - Stewart investigates the encroachment of religious groups, specifically fundamentalist Christian groups, into the public school arena in the  United States, which has been abetted by a series of court decisions that characterize religious activity as protected speech.  It's a very compelling, and somewhat chilling, read.

Chris Rodda's Liars for Jesus - Rodda reviews the subtle and not-so-subtle historical revisionism espoused by certain conservative Christian groups.  This can be particularly difficult for the average person to notice, since one must usually go back to primary documents to unravel the truth.  Rodda goes back to the source material and meticulously teases out the truth.  In many cases, she traces the evolution of a particular claim through a variety of successive embellishments, many of which start with the writings of David Barton.  It's like an insidious game of telephone...

Charles Stross' The Fuller Memorandum - I think it was Joshua Zelinsky that pointed out Stross' Laundry Files books to me.  The basic hook is that "magic" is really math, and the weird things that H.P. Lovecraft wrote about are basically accurate.  The premise works.  I thought this was the second best of the three Laundry books published to-date, the best being The Atrocity Archives.

Richard Dawkins' Unweaving the Rainbow - The wonders of science.  Dawkins is a very eloquent writer, and when he gets going on science, it's hard to stop reading.

Charles Seife's Proofiness - Lying with numbers, and how to detect it.  Counting is inherently messy, and lots of parties have a vested interest in exploiting that fact.

Eleanor Herman's Sex with Kings - A look at the mistresses of a number of European monarchs down through the centuries.  It's less about the sex and more about the political influence and authority that many of these ladies wielded during a time in history where royal marriages were more about bolstering international relations and consolidating power than about any actual affinity between the two parties.  The book is a little uneven, since Herman jumps back and forth a lot, but still interesting.

The books below are titles that I'm in various stages of reading ranging from "most of the way through" to "have barely cracked the spine":

Ron Chernow's Washington: A Life - Chernow's hefty biography of the first U.S. President.  (In the literal sense - the print edition clocks in at over 900 pages).  Most of us know Washington based on a chapter or two in high school history classes and a few pithy anecdotes about cherry trees.  The real man was a much more complex individual, keen to be accepted in the higher circles of Colonial society, and with some significant grudges against the British military traditions that denied him the recognition that he felt he deserved.  I'm still working through this and will be for a while.

Compendium 1 of Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead - I'm a huge fan of the television series.  The premise of the graphic novels - survivors of a zombie apocalypse trying to figure out their places in a new world - is the same, but the development of most of the characters goes down rather different paths.  Watching the initially stable personalities start to unravel and the secondary characters grow into something new is fascinating.

Michael B.A. Oldstone's Viruses, Plagues, and History - Oldstone takes a look at a number of the biggest killers in history, such as Smallpox, Yellow Fever, and AIDS.  He goes into some pretty gory detail, which is both engrossing and stomach churning.  The grim threat of weaponized diseases shows up several times.  Pair this book with the film Contagion for a fun-filled evening.

Richard Dawkins' The Magic of Reality - Dawkins on critical thinking skills.  Aimed at a younger audience.  I haven't gotten too far into it, but my initial thought is that Dawkins may be a bit heavy for teens or young adults.

And finally, queues but not started:

David Rothenberg's Survival of the Beautiful - A work on the topic of sexual selection.  Why do peacocks have such elaborate plumage? Why are some animals brightly colored to the point where they attract predators?  Matt Ridley's The Red Queen deals with similar material.

Martin Gilbert's Churchill: A Life - A massive biography of Sir Winston Churchill.  This one will take quite a while to work through.

Bart Ehrman's Did Jesus Exist? - Ehrman takes on the topic of Jesus mythicism.  There has been some controversy around Ehrman's scholarship for this book.  The existence of an historical Jesus has been a subject of contention among scholars for years, and despite what most of us may have been taught in church or Sunday school, is far from being a settled question.  At the conservative end of the scale are those who would claim that everything written in the Bible about Jesus is completely correct, and at the other end are those who would claim that Jesus was a character built out of bits and pieces of pre-existing myths and stories.  In the wide middle are those who posit an historical individual around whom various stories and legends grew.  It's an interesting topic, but a very polarizing one.

My goal is to complete this list by the end of July, which gives me 4 months left in the year.  I'd like to aim for another 10 books by the end of December.  Suggestions are welcome.

Now, there is one other resource I've found myself spending a lot of time reading lately, and even though it doesn't fit in the "book" category, I wanted to go ahead and put in a plug for it.

Over at Patheos, a young woman named Libby Anne has a fascinating blog called Love, Joy, Feminism.  Libby Anne comes from a family that is involved in the Christian Patriarchy/Quiverfull movements.  I was not terribly familiar with either of these beyond the very general premise that Quiverfull families have lots of kids.  Libby Anne left these movements in college.  Her story speaks for itself - there's no way I can summarize it that does justice to the eloquence and sensitivity with which she writes.  She also frequently links to a number of blogs dealing with similar stories, which are all compelling in their own way.  I'm not sure exactly why I find her story so interesting, but I do.  I recommend paying Libby Anne a visit and reading her About page.

-Jay

I haven't died since my last post.

In August.

Of last year.

Nor was I raptured in October.  Harold Camping was wrong again.

I have, however, been a victim of a busy schedule and probably some degree of overall burnout.

Anyway, new year - new goals, which include more writing, less me (and possibly a new bike...), and a few other things that are long overdue.

Let's start with the first.

For Christmas, I found myself the owner of a new Kindle Fire.  I fully accept that the Fire is, out of the box, basically an Amazon Vending Machine.  I'm good with that.  It's got potential, and I like the form factor better than the iPad.

I'd gotten my mom the DVDs of the Swedish versions of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl who Played with Fire, and The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.  I'd watched them last year, and Mom had been reading the books, so we ended up more or less swapping.  (NB - I haven't seen the new American version of the first film, so any comparisons I make between the books and the films will refer to the Swedish productions.)

What I'd like to do here is capture some of my thoughts on the series without spoiling too many important plot points.  Thus this won't be a full-on review but rather some loosely connected thoughts and observations.  Bear with me while I try to re-engage the writing cogs.

I suspect that most people are familiar with the basic outline of the books - Swedish investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist finds himself drawn into an increasingly complex web of conspiracies when he's asked to help investigate a decades-old mystery and makes the acquaintance of hacker Lisbeth Salander and her aforementioned tattoo.

The first thing to note is that the original Swedish title of the book - Män som hatar kvinno - translates as Men Who Hate Women.  That proves to be the thread that ties the entire series together, and indeed the thread that has defined most of Salander's life.

(Larsson witnessed a rape when he was young, and never forgave himself for failing to help the victim.  The theme of the trilogy is derived from that event.)

In telling Salander's story of victimization - initially at the hands of her father and later at the hands of nearly every authority figure she encounters - Larsson also addresses issues of gender inequality in the workplace, in government, and in the perceptions of the population as a whole.

Lisbeth's brilliant intellect and single-minded thirst for revenge is set against her tiny, doll-like physique.  Her refusal to conform to social norms is used in the second and third books to attack her in the press and in the courtroom.¹

Annika, Blomkvist's sister (later Salander's lawyer) draws on similarities between her youthful behavior and Lisbeth's to point out the double standards at work. Erika Berger, Blomkvist's married lover (and a very shrewd businesswoman) finds herself under attack because of her sexual habits. Female police inspectors in the story are looked down on by their male counterparts.

An interesting thing to notice is that Blomkvist (in the books - they leave out most of this in the movies) is portrayed as quite the player.  During the course of the books, Blomkvist carries on extended affairs with:

• Erika Berger - his married lover who he has been with off and on for 20 year or so.
• Cecilia Vanger - a woman who he investigates in connection with a decades-old possible murder.
• Lisbeth Salander - who seduces him during the investigation of the Vanger case, and with whom he has a fairly lengthy relationship.
• Harriet Vanger - Cecilia's long-lost cousin.
• Monica Figuerola - a special police investigator helping to work out the conspiracy surrounding Salander's father.

I'm not sure if Blomkvist is written this way in order to serve as an example within the story of a man who can relate to women as equals, or if he's written as a typical Swedish male and I'm simply trying to view Swedish attitudes about sex through an American lens, or if there's something else going on.  The end result is that Blomkvist is clearly not a white-hat good guy, but is instead somewhat ethically suspect.  Ordinarily, I tend to like characters with some moral ambiguity, since it makes them more interesting, but I've got an issue with this sort of thing.²

There are a few other interesting characters spread across the books.  One of the most interesting, in my opinion, is Alexander Zalachenko.  Zalachenko, a Russian assassin who defects to Sweden in the 1970's, is Lisbeth's father.  The Swedish authorities recognize the value of the information Zalachenko can provide, and consequently give him a long leash, turning a blind eye to his violent habits and criminal endeavors.  After the fall of the Soviet Union, Zalachenko's value diminishes, but it's far too late to rein him in.  His activities form the nucleus of the conspiracies against Salander, but it's clear that the Swedish authorities who cleaned up after him and failed to control him are at least as culpable as he is.  What makes him interesting is that he's not just evil for the sake of being evil.  His actions seem consistent within the limits of his own self-interest.  He's aware enough to manipulate others into doing what he needs to be done, he thinks through the consequences of his actions, and he needs a motivation to do things beyond simply causing problems for a hero to solve.³

Overall, I enjoyed the books.  Having already seen the movies, I knew generally what to expect, but there was enough new and expanded material to keep me interested, especially the more detailed insight into Lisbeth's character.  The nuggets of Swedish political history that are sprinkled through the books give them some grounding in actual events, which is a nice touch.  Parts can be difficult to read - the assault on Salander in the first book, and some of the graphic descriptions of crimes throughout leave little to the imagination - but such scenes are important to advancing the plot.

As a set of interconnected mysteries, the books work very well, and I highly recommend them on the strength of that alone.  If you happen to find topics of social justice and the treatment of women in different layers of society are more your thing, you'll find a good helping of those in here, too.

-Jay
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¹In some ways reminiscent of the way women like Monica Lewinsky and Casey Anthony have been portrayed in the media. Guilt or innocence often seems secondary to digging up lurid personal details.

²I suppose it's worth mentioning that all of Blomkvist's liasons are consensual, and none of his partners have an expectation of long-term monogamy. Nevertheless, his characterization reminds me a bit too much of people who I know who think with their penises.

³Writing convincing villains is hard.  Too often you end up with a 2-dimensional character that exists solely for the purpose of doing bad things.  Like Darth Vader.  He was nothing but a glorified errand boy.  When George Lucas tried to give Vader some depth in the prequel trilogy, all he really succeeded in doing was establishing that Vader was a whiny, arrogant errand boy.  Or consider the typical characterization of the devil, who seems to turn up for no reason other than to function as an agent of evil.  That's a topic for another day.

So it looks like the Montreal authorities are finally taking Dennis Markuze, AKA David Mabus, seriously enough to act.  (Thanks, Greg Laden.)

Markuze has spent the last several years spamming the inboxes and comment threads of various and sundry scientists and bloggers.  He tends to target skeptical, scientific, and atheist folks, although he's not above assuming guilt by association and firing off some of his well-written and insightful prose verbal effluvia to anyone he finds interacting with his usual targets.

A typical Mabus missive might contain death threats, links to sites he thinks are somehow relevant, healthy doses of vulgarity and profanity, and possibly some random sprinkles of batshit crazy raving.  He generally confines himself to cyber-threats, but on at least one occasion he's turned up at a skeptical conference in person.  There's quite a bit of concern that he might eventually act on one of his threats.

One of his more >ahem< interesting threats was that he was going to crawl out of the TV and kill my associate Skippy, rather like the evil ghost girl from Ringu.

I'd have paid good coin to see David Mabus crawl out of a TV...

As it is, that didn't happen.

Mabus is often characterized as a crazy extreme Christian, but I think it's probably more accurate to say that he's a guy with some serious issues who happens to be a Christian.

I hope that the authorities in Montreal are able to build a solid case against DM.  He clearly needs some help before he harms someone.  There should be no shortage of evidence against him, as many folks have forwarded his messages to the police.  (ObDisclosure - my comment and email filters don't let much of his material through.  I kept a couple of emails for a while, but deleted them a while ago.)

I'm sure there will be more news to follow as the folks up north conduct their investigation.

-Jay

'round and 'round we go...

I think this point needs to be more widely understood - it's lost on so many folks.

-Jay

Through some odd coincidence, I've recently had the opportunity to be on both sides of the offended/not offended table.

a couple of weeks back, I rented a copy of a movie that's likely to become a cult favorite - Hobo with a Shotgun.

I'd initially planned to write a review of it, figuring that Rutger Hauer as a shotgun-wielding hobo trying to clean up a corrupt town might be good for some Badgering.

The first, I don't know, 20 minutes were pretty well what I expected.  Then it brought in some elements that seemed maybe a bit over the top, and ultimately went down some paths that I found to be grossly unnecessary and just vile.¹

While I ultimately did finish Hobo, it came very close to earning a place on my list of Films That I Couldn't Force Myself To Sit Through.  That list currently has one entry.²

Now, as it happened, fresh off of my encounter with Hobo, there was some mandatory training at work.

We get a lot of mandatory training, including training on avoiding and preventing sexual harassment and sexual assault in the workplace.  I'd been through this training a few weeks back, but some friends in another department were in a later session.  There are some videos that go along with the training, and they're fairly graphic in content and language.

My session showed one of the three.  The other two were "suggested", which I interpreted as meaning "optional", so I took the "don't watch them" option.

My friends saw a different one in their session, and chose to watch the others at their desks.

Now, the video they saw in their session was, according to them, useful and appropriate.  I have no reason to doubt them on that.

The video that they watched at their desks that I didn't see, they both found inappropriately graphic - to the extent that someone watching similar material at work outside of the context of official training could well have been written up for it.  Again, I have no reason to doubt them on that.

The video that all three of us  saw is the interesting one.  When I watched it, I thought that it was somewhat raw and had some crude language in it, but didn't find it unusually shocking.

They did, and they told me about it quite clearly.³

I'm somewhat ashamed to say that my knee-jerk reaction to their concerns was to think "it didn't really bother me much, so it shouldn't bother them."

I hope that didn't come out in my initial response to them, because if it did, I was a complete assclown.

The fact of the matter is that whether I found the video offensive or not is completely immaterial to whether or not they did.  That point took a few minutes to sink in, but part of the reason that it finally did was because my reaction to Hobo was still fresh in my mind.  I don't get to declare my perspective to be the correct one simply because it happens to be mine.

As it turns out, the question of whether or not someone finds a particular video (for example)⁴ offensive isn't even the interesting question.  Why someone finds a particular video offensive is more intriguing because discussion of those reasons offers opportunities for people to learn from one another.

It can be a tricky discussion to have, though, because of the all-too-common view that we have some right to not be offended, and if I dare question your offense, I'm guilty of violating that right.  Such discussions can easily collapse into arguments and personal attacks.

But you have no more right to not be offended than you have a right to drive around in a brand new red Corvette.  Neither do I.  Neither does anyone else.  That doesn't mean that I have a right to go out of my way to offend you just for the sport of it, or that crudeness and vulgarity should be the norm.

I think that deliberate offensiveness can serve a purpose - witness the cigarette warnings used in Canada - because offensive things can stick in your head whereas milder approaches might not.  I also think that it's sometimes a good idea to seek out things that you find offensive and try to understand the other perspective.⁵

Now, the thing that I'm having trouble with is this:  Given that certain things offend me (or you), just how much effort should I put into avoiding those things?  Should I go out of my way to avoid them?  Should I accept that some level of offensiveness is just a part of life and deal with it?  Should I develop a thicker skin?  What's an acceptable daily allowance of offense?

Feedback wanted!

-Jay
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¹It was suggested to me by a colleague that perhaps it was necessary to make the villains in the film extra-reprehensible in order to make a shotgun-toting vigilante vagrant into a more sympathetic character. That's a good point.

²As distinct from the very long list of Films That I Have No Desire To Sit Through Again.  That list includes some excellent films, such as The Exorcist, and some not-so-excellent films, such as anything directed by Uwe Boll.

³If there's one thing I can usually count on these two for, it's brutal honesty.

⁴Or word.  Profanity can be a fun topic to discuss.  Odds are that you use a somewhat different vocabulary when you're by yourself vice with a group of people, and a different vocabulary if you're in a social situation vice a business setting.

⁵Politics and religion tend to be the heavy hitters in this scenario.  Remember that understanding another perspective doesn't obligate you to agree with it.