Paula's drunk; Bowfinger's funny; Card is wise

Extraordinarily rough workout this morning. I’m not holding up well, particularly my back. To paraphrase Berkeley Breathed, I don’t think the Schwarzeneggerization of Stallion is meant to be.

Oh my living starts and garters. Idol last night was stunningly awful. Barbarino Castro and Brooke White need to go home. Now. David Archuleta is way talented, but he’s phoning it in. Syesha is starting to step up, but it’s too little too late. David Cook has the confidence of a rock star and is the most fun to watch of all of them, but that’s not saying much. I want Melinda Doolittle to come back from last season and win it all.

And what to make of Paula Abdul, stoned out of her mind? For her to ramble on about how Jason Castro’s second song left her “empty” before he’d even sung his second song, and then to say she was reading ahead to notes about David Cook, who she later said was her favorite.

Does anyone care that one of the judges shows up for work drunk off her tuckus every single night?

We watched Bowfinger after the kids went to bed, and that movie needs to be added to the list of the five best movies you’ve never seen. It’s got plenty of laughs throughout, but it holds the distinction of featuring the single funniest moment ever committed to film. The premise is that Steve Martin is filming a movie without Eddie Murphy realizing that he’s in it. Eddie Murphy also plays a nerdy stand-in who is asked by Martin to run across both sides of a busy freeway and avoid the “stunt drivers” in a pivotal scene. Neither I nor Mrs. Cornell could breathe by the end of it. If you’re not roaring with laughter after watching that, there is something seriously wrong with you.

I looked for it on YouTube, but I could only find it with some Scandinavian voiceover. The freeway bit doesn’t kick in until about halfway through, but even if you don’t speak Finnish, it will still make you howl.



Renowned Sci-Fi author and Latter-day Saint Orson Scott Card writes a weekly column that is always worth reading. His latest takes JK Rowling to task for her lawsuit against the publisher of the Harry Potter Lexicon. I was sympathetic to Rowling until I read Card’s very persuasive piece. Card also owns a website called the Ornery American where he does political commentary, and while he insists he’s still a Democrat, I have yet to find any other pundit with views that so closely parallel my own.

That may mean I’m not much of a Republican anymore, but I also think Card is in a state of denial re: his own party affiliation. It doesn’t matter - neither party is worth much of anything these days, so I take political wisdom wherever I can find it.

Card is also a great source for finding great books and CDs that you would never know about otherwise. His recommendation for The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss ought to be passed along, as it was the best book I read last year, Harry Potter included. Except I don’t understand why Patrick Rothfuss insists on wearing a goofy top hat in all of his author photos.

Writers are weirdos.

Sexy Grammar and Pronunciation

I’m a slob.

I’ve always been a slob, and I come from a family of slobs. Mrs. Cornell, a non-slob, isn’t too happy about my whole slob motif, and I’ve tried to adapt to living in the real world where people expect you to have an ironed shirt and don’t want to find Filet-O-Fish wrappers on the floor of your car, but I’m still struggling with it. I just don’t care enough to pick up after myself. I’m the opposite of an anal retentive, which is a pretty gross metaphor if you interpret the original description literally.

So it’s all the more surprising that I’m a Grammar Nazi. Perhaps I’m overcompensating for my irretentive anus in other ways, but nothing peeves me off more than lousy grammar. This, too, is a source of endless annoyance to the lovely Mrs. Cornell, who is exceptionally bright and literate, but does not share my contempt for ending sentences with prepositions. Some of our most gruesome marital squabbles have centered on sentence construction. I don’t know who originally said this, but ending a sentence with a preposition is an effrontery up with which I will not put.

But just as she’s learned to tolerate a certain amount of detritus in my living conditions, I’ve bitten my tongue a number of times to avoid obsessing over irrelevant grammatical imperfections. Currently, I’m coming to accept that many people I love see the verbs “lie” and “lay” as interchangeable, and they can say the sentence “I’m going to go lay down for awhile” without feeling like they’re scraping nails down a chalkboard.

The correct thing to say would be “I’m going to go LIE down.” “Lay” always takes a direct object – you lay something down, whereas you lie down when you’re talking about yourself. Complicating the equation is the fact that “lay” is also the past tense of “lie,” so you can say “I lay down for awhile” if you’re talking about what you did yesterday. It’s all very convoluted and doesn’t really matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter at all. Nope.

I’ve got problems.

It gets worse. When I went to USC, I took a class in phonetics, where I learned standard American pronunciation. I was already a grammar and spelling compulsive – I’m forced to correct these hastily written blog entries when I discover typos and trivial errors, like misspelling Karl Malone’s name yesterday or using the word “hoisted” instead of “foisted” – but this class allowed me to become a pronunciation freak as well. There’s a slight difference, though. Phonetic irregularities aren’t necessarily incorrect; they’re just regionalisms. Standard American speech eliminates regional dialects and makes everyone sound like they’re from an upscale Connecticut suburb. It’s the way all newscasters in the country speak, as well as many actors – Robin Williams is a pretty standard American speaker, and Kelsey Grammar is compulsively so.

What was interesting when I began the class was that my own dialect didn’t actually reflect the region where I grew up. I should have sounded like a Southern Californian, with a flat, surfery “O” vowel sound in “hello” or “no way!” Instead, I have the hard, Jimmy Stewartish R sound that comes when you roll your tongue too far back in your mouth. That’s very typical of the Salt Lake area, and I’ve since discovered that most American Mormons have that same regionalism in their speech, regardless of where they live.

A Utahism that really bugs me is the clipping of the vowel in words like “real” and “deal,” so that when you go to order a burger and fries, you ask for the “rill mill dill.” That little phonetic tick has never crept into my own speech, but you can never be too careful.

The danger in all of this is that your speech starts sounding affected and artificial, and that’s why I’ve allowed my Rs to revert back to their natural, Kermit the Frog-style default position. I can speak standard American if I want to, but I simply choose not to.

Crap. I just ended a sentence with a preposition. Time to go lay down for awhile.

Effluvia

Gas prices are headed to ten dollars a gallon, according to one paper. We could mitigate that by increasing domestic production with oil shale, but those damn greenies won’t let us. And in the meantime, we’re burning through our food supply to make ethanol, driving up both gas and food prices and doing absolutely nothing to help the environment. It’s more than an outrage. It’s criminal, and it needs to stop.
______________

I can now make it through an entire twenty-five minute personal training workout without collapsing. I talked to a woman at church yesterday, and she refuses to go back to a personal trainer because she ends up despising the trainer, no matter how nice they are. I can sympathize with her, although my trainer seems to be a pretty decent guy. But every time he says “faster” or “come on, work it!” I want to throw my barbell at him, and I would if I had sufficient upper body strength. Which I don’t.
______________

I have a lot to do. And the more I have to do, the less inclined I am to do it. I go through sudden spasms of productivity amid long periods of procrastination. That’s why I don’t think I would make a very good farmer.
______________

If you’re a Mormon, teaching Gospel Doctrine is the best church calling you can have. The worst, I would think, is Scoutmaster.
______________

I work in an environment where I’m supposed to wear a shirt and tie, but nobody gets too broken up if I don’t. I honestly don’t understand why workplaces have dress codes that require Sunday clothes. I am far more productive when I dress casually. I’m not talking T-shirts and sweats, but I think jeans are OK, and many people do not. I would also be happy to see casual clothing worm its way into Mormon Sunday worship, but I don’t think that will happen in my lifetime. Except when I lived in West Yellowstone, Montana, a guy in the bishopric wore jeans, cowboy boots, and a bolo tie on the stand. I was OK with that. I wish more people were.
______________

Had dinner with my father yesterday, and he reported favorably on attending an LDS fireside with Gladys Knight and her touring choir. They’re apparently very good and very gospel, which is virtually unheard of in the Church. I really don’t get why that style of music is considered by many old timers to be irreverent. A hot, rocking gospel choir is far more uplifting than a lot of the staid, ultraconservative dreck that’s foisted on LDS congregations. And yes, MoTab, I’m looking in your direction.
______________

The Jazz are winning, up 3 to 1. Suddenly I’m a fan again. And I’ll abandon them as soon as they break my heart. I’ve always loathed professional sports, but the Jazz won me over in the Karl Malone/John Stockton days. My cousin once pointed out that the Jazz are the only thing that truly unites all Utahns, both Mormons and non-Mormons alike. There’s a lot to be said for that.
______________

Reviewing the election, I can’t think of a single Republican I’m excited about voting for. That should be terrifying to the GOP. If they’ve lost me, they’ve lost everybody.
______________

I’ve been reviewing some old videos of my acting days, and I find myself woefully depressed by them. I can jump right back into the mindset I had while I was performing, and I can see why I’m not an actor anymore. I was always straining; I overthought everything, and I was never able to relax and just do it. I was also quite strange looking, and I don’t understand how anyone would put me up on a stage and look at me for two hours. Unless they dig circus freaks.
______________

I prefer button-up shirts to golf shirts. And I prefer long sleeves, unless it’s just too dang hot.
______________

I want to see Ben Stein’s Intelligent Design movie, especially since critics have excoriated it. I’m looking forward to all the big genre movies coming out this summer – Indiana Jones, Prince Caspian, Batman, Iron Man, and the Incredible Hulk – but not much else. I think the Hulk is the most likely to suck, because the Hulk looks too CGI. The only CGI character who has ever worked on screen is Gollum from the Lord of the Rings movies.
______________

Speaking of the Lord of the Rings movies – which I absolutely love – I can’t seem to get excited about the upcoming Hobbit adaptation. I’ve read The Hobbit, and, frankly, it’s not that good. And I’m fully dreading the “second” Hobbit film, which will supposedly bridge the time frame between The Hobbit and LOTR. It’s a sequel/prequel. And it will blow.
______________

My brother-in-law and his wife are thinking about naming their upcoming baby “Solomon.” But if you did that, how would you keep from calling him “Solomon Grundy” in a Challenge of the SuperFriends voice all the time?
______________

Solomon Grundy done with this blog now.

Rage Against the Green

What’s the opposite of green?

Because that’s what I want to be. I don’t want to be a sensible, environmentally friendly conservative who wants to go about greening the planet “the right way.” I want to be a slash-and-burn mudhead who wants to replace the ozone layer with cigarette smoke, put motor oil in the water, and heat the planet 746 degrees every month.

I’m sick of green. Sick, sick, sick of it. I want it to die.

I remember feeling this way before, when I was (sort of ) dating a rabid vegetarian who insisted that I was engaging in cannibalistic murder every time I downed a hamburger. I tried to be reasonable. I tried to explain, patiently, that eating meat is perfectly natural and healthy, that eating a cow is not the same thing as eating your seventh grade math teacher, and that nature is far crueler to its meat than human beings are. And the more reasonable I got, the shriller she got. Once you pull the rug out from a specious argument, all your opponent can do is shriek. And shriek she did.

Finally, I told her I only eat meat that’s been thoroughly tortured before it’s been killed. That shut her up. (It ended our dating, too, but that’s another story.)

So what’s going to shut up the greens? I don’t like seeing TV or Google logos that look like forests. I don’t get warm and fuzzy when a company advertises it uses “clean fuels” or whatever crap they want to shove down our throats today. I want people who sell the MLM scam known as carbon offsets baked in their own biodiesel. Talking rationally with these people only makes you a bigger punching bag.

So why not go whole hog?

I will vote for the first candidate who says they want to turn the planet into their own personal sauna. I want someone to call for filling Mt. Rushmore with nuclear waste. I want a car company to advertise a fifty-foot long sedan that gets three miles to the gallon. I want to take everything in recycling plants and dump it in landfills, and then raze the tops of mountains and cover them with aluminum cans and plastic DVD covers. I want the oceans filled with noodles, boiled, and then served as soup.

We should continue to talk like this until the radical greens, who would be happy if the population of the world collapsed by two thirds, are forced to meet us in the middle, where reasonable people used to be.

Yes, I’m in pain from my fourth day of personal training. That has nothing to do with this! Who else wants Ocean Noodle Soup, served Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, or Arctic style?

Tattoo Lady, Crap Politicization, Whining, Cars

Carly got sent home on Idol last night. Brooke and Jason were far worse, but I can’t say I was disappointed. At least we won’t get any more cutaway shots to her Illustrated Man husband.
________

WhiteEyebrows, who is a gentleman and a scholar, weighed in with a pertinent comment he made yesterday re: the Boston Legal Supreme Court nonsense. He thinks Spader’s character got one thing right, namely the “crap politicization that has happened to the court.” He then laments “What happened to the court that is supposed to be above the political fray?”

That’s an excellent question.

There was one almost authentic moment in the Boston Legal exchange that highlights the problem. The goofy Sam Alito lookalike weighs in to tell Spader’s character that he is not allowed to argue for the guilt or innocence of his client and confine his comments to matters of law. This sets Spader off, who then does precisely what Alito told him not to do and excoriates Alito for being cruel and heartless in the process.

But the fauxAlito got it right.

By the time this thing gets to the Supreme Court, the only issue is whether the law is constitutionally sound, not whether anyone's happy about it.

Consider a less explosive example. If there were a law that designated April as National Pickle Month, the Court can’t just say, “How stupid! The majority of us hate pickles! We declare this law null and void.” But if there were something in the law that abrogated constitutional principles, such as a requirement that every Sunday in April, all Americans were compelled to kneel toward a jar of Vlasic pickles and sing “Amazing Grace,” they could – and should – strike down the law because it violates the First Amendment’s establishment clause.

That’s how it’s supposed to work. They shouldn’t consider the policy implications of their decisions – they should simply enforce the laws, even the ones they don’t like.

Spader wanted more than that. He wanted them to follow their hearts, to do the right thing, to march to the beat of a different drum, or whatever. But once you allow judges to start inflicting their personal policy preferences on the polity, no matter how high-minded they may be, you’ve created an oligarchy, where elected representatives of the people don’t matter, and five unelected judges can do whatever the hell they want. And that’s all too often what happens – Roe v. Wade being probably the most egregious example. Show me one decision by the Roberts Court than even approaches Roe v. Wade in terms of hubris and overreaching. You want crap politicization of the Court? Roe v. Wade is the very definition of crap politicization of the Court.

The Roberts Court has reversed a number of decisions in which the Court has overstepped its bounds. Liberals screech because they don’t like the consequences of those decisions. Well, they have ample recourse – they can get Congress to change the law. But that’s a messy and convoluted process, and it’s far easier to get five judges to agree with you than it is to convince 51 Senators, 218 Congressmen, and 1 president to take the action you want.

Democracy’s difficult, but it beats the alternative. You want efficiency? Get a dictator.

________

I’ve received many messages from people telling me to stop whining about my personal trainer pain. Most of them are from Mrs. Cornell, in the form of direct statements of “Quit yer whinin’!”

To all of you, I say – no. Never! Whining is one of very the few things I do well.
________

So we’re trying to get out of debt. We bought a big ol’ Suburban for our freakishly large family, and it means I can no longer justify the expensive payment on my Camry. So we’re going to sell the Camry and get a cheaper used car for me. We don’t want to spend more than $8,000. But what should we get? I’d appreciate any suggestions from the public at large.

Really Bad Television

Excruciatingly bad television makes for fun blogging. And there was some excruciatingly bad television on Tuesday evening.

We start with American Idol’s Andrew Lloyd Webber night, which fell far short of my expectations. To call it “Broadway Night” is a little overstating it, because most of Webber’s stuff is solidly pop. (When they do a Sondheim night, then I’ll be impressed.) There were plenty of good options for these singers, but almost to a person, they chose exactly the wrong crap to sing.

The exception was Syesha, who nailed “One Rock and Roll Too Many” to the wall. She was flawless in every respect, and I hope this proves to be a breakout for her. She’s certainly one of the prettiest contestants, but she’s never been particularly impressive before last night. To downplay her success by saying it’s “Broadway” instead of pop is just plain wrong. What part of that song – which I had never heard before, by the way – would not be at home on a Fantasia or Jordin Sparks album? It may have given her more confidence to think she was singing musical theatre and not “real” pop, but if she can bring that same confidence to the rest of this competition, she could pull a huge upset. She was head and shoulders above everyone else last night, and, as Simon put it, she was sexy besides.

And, digressing for a moment, how much would it suck to be Randy Jackson? Everyone’s really only interested in what Simon has to say, because he’s the only one who actually says anything. Paula’s clearly the worst judge on every level, but she gives all the contestants a freebie, and her bloviated, scattered nonsense provides a certain level of camp value. Idol should hold a contest for viewers to guess how many shots of vodka she’s had before going on the air. But Randy? He’s a nonentity who has a repertoire of about five phrases that he uses interchangeably. How many times can you hear “It was just all right for me, dawg,” and “It was a little pitchy in spots,” or even “That was the bomb,” before you pretty much ignore everything he has to say? For me, I reached my limit about a season and a half ago.

And since I’ve deviated from discussing the contestants, can somebody explain what happened to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s face? Is that plastic surgery, and, if so, what self-respecting plastic surgeon would have done that to a fellow human being? He and Michael Jackson must frequent the same clinic.

Anyway, Syesha’s triumph was followed by the horror that was Jason Barbarino Castro, who, admittedly, has a voice too slight for most of this stuff. (He should have sung “Benjamin Calypso” from Joseph, strummed his ukelele a few times, and called it good.) So what does he do? He picks Webber’s biggest, showiest, bombastic-est song and butchers the living snot out of it. Randy provided his first insightful comment by labeling it a “train wreck,” and, like a train wreck, it was impossible to turn away. I have never seen a more pathetic performance on this show – outside of auditions – and I doubt anyone else has, either. I still think he’ll squeak through, because Brooke was just as bad, if not worse.

Actually, that’s not true. Brooke wasn’t nearly as hideous; she was just deadly dull. And on Idol, that’s the greater sin. Simon called Jason’s performance the “longest two minutes of his life,” but that’s not true. Jason was actually fun to watch BECAUSE he sucked so badly. Brooke was just – there. Flat. Tedious. Nothing. And she picked such a boring song! How about “I Don’t Know How To Love Him” from Superstar? Or if she had to stick with Evita, what about “Another Suitcase in Another Hall?” There are plenty of Webber ballads that would have suited her perfectly, and she picks the most forgettable one she can find. Paula was stirred out of her stupor long enough to moan about her stopping and starting, which made little difference. The material couldn’t sustain what she was trying to accomplish.

Then there was David Archuleta, who’s “Think of Me” was just fine on its own, but such a missed opportunity! Dude! Don’t you realize that you’ve got a career ahead of you singing Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat for the next twenty years? Where was “Close Every Door?” It would have killed! Heck, even “Any Dream Will Do” would have brought the house down. I also thought Webber’s advice about keeping the eyes open was decidedly unhelpful. It’s fine if you’re on a Broadway stage, but he’s a pop singer doing a pop version of a song, and all the advice did was make him self-conscious. He was still better than most of the competition, though.

Especially Carly. Sorry, judges, but you were wrong on this one. She sucked out loud. She didn’t have the range to hit the high notes in the chorus, so she did these pretentious little riffs while the backup singers hit them for her. “Memory” would have been a better choice for her, except she doesn’t have the instrument for it. At least singing “Superstar” gave her a chance to hide behind flash to make up for lack of raw vocal power. I’d like to see her gone, but Brooke and Jason outsucked her. Maybe next week.

Then there was David Cook, who, I think, took the biggest risk he's ever taken by singing “The Music of the Night” and singing it straight. I don’t think he succeeded, really, but he gets props for trying. I would have liked to have seen him do “Superstar” or anything Judas sings from that show – maybe “Heaven on their Minds” or “Blood Money.” The Phantom piece struck me as an odd choice, but it won’t hurt him in the end.

__________________

Let’s move on, shall we?

Before going to sleep, we started flipping channels in bed and landed on Boston Legal, which is David Kelley’s latest self-indulgent exercise in creating conservative straw men and knocking the stuffing out of them. He had James Spader – who seems to be following the William Shatner diet – arguing before the Supreme Court, complete with grotesque pseudo-lookalikes of all nine justices who were identified by name. Spader’s character wanders far afield from the case at hand and spends a solid ten minutes excoriating the judges for their sins agains liberalism, and, at one point, even tells Thomas to “put down the magazine,” which we are left to assume was pornographic.

Mrs. Cornell was disgusted. “Turn it! This is awful!” Yes, it was, but like an all-Jason-Castro production of Cats, I couldn’t look away. It was so deliciously, enticingly stupid. Does Kelley really think the court would sit there and take it as some bloated punk lectured them about their confirmation hearings? Does he think that these conservatives on the court are really demons spawned from hell who cling to power solely to screw over the little guy? And does he really think that if only someone like Spader were brave enough to say “Up yours!” to these scoundrels, they’d collapse, dumbstruck, under the weight of the liberal brilliance shining on them for the very first time?

The answer is yes. Kelley really is that stupid. He’s incapable of attributing any positive attributes to his ideological opponents, so he wildly misreads how they would respond to his flimsy agitprop if someone were foolish enough to drag it into the courtroom.

You’d think he’d at least have taken a moment to actually review a real-life Supreme Court session, which involves far more speaking by the justices than the lawyers. Antonin Scalia would eviscerate Spader in thirty seconds if he started to ramble on about abortion and campaign finance reform in a death penalty case. There wouldn’t be much left of Spader at the end of it, and that’s no small feat, considering how much of him there was at the beginning.

Sorry for all the fat references. Today was my third day of personal training, and I think I nearly died. But at least I’m getting skinnier – in theory.
______

Political post-script: Yes, Hillary won the Pennsylvania primary, and, no I'm not happy about it. The only satisfaction I can derive from this wretched political season is the tantalizing prospect of the end of the Clintons. The Rush Limbaughs of the world think prolonging the agony in the Democratic primary is somehow helpful, but McCain still loses to the Democrats in head-to-head poll matchups, and it's unlikely that his positives will ever be higher than they are today with the Dems in disarray. Letting the Clintons linger gives them more time to steal this thing, and if it's at all possible to do that, they will do it.

The next president will be a Democrat, and if it's all the same to you, I'd rather it not be Hillary.

Breaking My Back

Note: today is both the Pennsylvania Primary and Earth Day. In celebration, I recommend dousing an effigy of Hillary Clinton with biofuels and setting it ablaze inside a hybrid gas tank.
______

Questions have been raised with regard to my broken back that I mentioned yesterday.

To fully understand the story, I have to take you back to the early months of 1986, when Calabasas High School was holding auditions for its spring musical, Grease. I was pretty ticked off, because I was the school’s reigning musical theatre hero at the time, having wowed the world with my Music Man star turn the previous spring, and this was my senior year, my last to chance to shine. So why did they have to pick Grease? I was completely unsuited to play some Travoltaesque Fonzie. So when they cast me as the guy who sang the “Beauty School Dropout” number, I just stopped going to rehearsal. That was a really snotty, teenagery thing to do, so when I saw the guy who replaced me at my 20th high school reunion, I apologized. He told me not to sweat it. Everything’s cool now.

Anyway, this has nothing to do with Grease – which is a wretched musical, by the way – but it just so happened that during the auditions, I was sitting atop the fiberglass lunch tables swapping stories with other drama geeks when I started to laugh and tipped off the back of the table and slammed down, back first, on the hard concrete below.

I landed right square in the middle of my back, and it knocked all the air out of my lungs. Somebody asked “Are you all right?” as they tried to help me to my feet, and I managed to wheeze back, melodramatically, “No, I am going to die.” I really thought I was, until, slowly, my breath returned and I could stand on my feet. But my back still hurt, excruciatingly so. I walked around the rest of the day with my hands at my hips to brace myself, and that may have been why I didn’t have the air of cool needed to win the starring role as a teenage hipster/Scientologist.

I actually think I may have broken my back that day and not known it. In any case, ever since then, it’s that exact spot where I landed that’s given me problems.

When I was serving a mission in Scotland, I was doing a service project for some lady in Dundee. I was hefting big sacks of sand, when suddenly something tweaked right in the middle of my back and I collapsed in a heap. I only needed to rest for a few minutes and then was able to carry on, but that spot in my back always wore out more quickly than the rest of me, and even when I’m not exerting myself too much, it’s often a little tender.

All this is prelude to the big day in August of 1998, when I’m finishing up what would prove to be my final season as the Executive Producer of the Grand Teton Mainstage Theatre in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I don’t remember the circumstances as to how this happened, but for some reason, the pregnant Mrs. Cornell was back at out home in Salt Lake City, 289 miles away from Jackson, but I had our then-18-month-old oldest daughter Cleta with me. I really don't understand, to this day, how that could have been the case, but that’s neither here nor there. I was in Jackson with my daughter, and the story begins as we’re finishing up a fun morning riding the Alpine Slide at the Snow King Ski Resort.

Cleta was too little to ride the slide by herself, so she rode in my lap as we tore down the mountain at breakneck speeds on a wheeled sled with inadequate brakes. Many people have injured themselves by capsizing on the slide – my brother-in-law almost severed his ear in one incident – and it would be a far more manly story if I had broken my back by playing the daredevil. It would also probably have done Cleta some serious damage, which, thankfully, was not the case when I engaged in the boneheaded behavior that resulted in my injury.

Alas, the fateful moment came just a minute or two after our safe arrival at the bottom of the ride. Cleta was in high spirits, and I was swinging her around in the air as we skipped down the gentle, grassy slope to the parking lot below. It was early enough in the morning that the grass was still wet from the morning dew, so it was not surprising that I lost my footing and slipped, landed on my butt, and involuntarily sent little Cleta flying off in the air some distance away as I lay there, sprawled out on the grass, replaying the “I’m going to die” motif from Grease auditions twelve years earlier.

Cleta was uninjured, but, even though she was too young to speak, it was clear she was terrified out of her mind. She ran back over and started to pound on my chest, screaming at the top of her lungs. I couldn’t lift my arms. I couldn’t even speak. I thought I might black out, but I was scared what would happen to Cleta if I did.

I don’t know how many times I tried, and failed, to get to my feet, but it was several. Cleta kept trying to get me to pick her up, but I couldn’t even get off the ground. So I started to wheeze “help” to the sundry passers-by who, a la the priest and the Levite, walked as far away from me as possible. I was only a few yards away from the taxi stand in front of the resort, and, despite having a hysterical screaming daughter and being clearly incapacitated, no one bothered to offer me a hand.

Finally, after who knows how long, I slumped forward and was able to sort of roll myself up on my feet, but the pain was unbearable, and I could barely walk. Cleta kept jumping up on me, still screaming, unable to understand that there was no way I could possibly lift her. I made my way to the taxi stand, and I asked the lead driver to take me to the emergency room. He told me he wouldn’t be able to do that, since I didn’t have a car seat for my toddler. So I begged him to drive us to my own car, just to the other side of the parking lot, since I didn’t think I’d be able to walk that far. He relented, and he helped get Cleta into her car seat, in which she promptly fell asleep, exhausted and spent from having screamed in fury for what must have been close to an hour.

I got to the emergency room and left Cleta sleeping in the car as I hobbled up to the desk and checked myself in. They called some of the actors from my theatre, who came and picked up Cleta, and then I was wheeled in for X-rays and whatever else they do. They determined that I had a compression fracture in the same place that I had injured during the long-ago Grease auditions. My spinal cord was not in danger; it was a “stable” fracture, and the most they could do was give me drugs – which were very nice – and they told me to stay flat on my back for the next couple of days. Mrs. Cornell arrived in Jackson that night, and she took over handling Cleta, despite that she – Mrs. Cornell, not Cleta - was five months pregnant.

The rest is history. For two or three years after that, my back would wear out very quickly. Now it’s not all that bad, but I can still feel it, and it’s easily the first part of my body to wear under strain. I think I’ve got a little arthritis back there now, too, but it’s not that big a deal. It could have been a whole lot worse.

Mrs. Cornell told me I ought to write about fun and silly stories on this blog. I don’t think this one qualifies.

Railroad Ties and Personal Trainers

On Saturday, I spent the whole afternoon going back and forth from Home Depot buying railroad ties. Believe me, that’s just as fun as it sounds.

Here’s the story.

We have a paddle tennis court at the far end of our backyard, and there are all sorts of weird shrubs and things surrounding it that may, at one point in their lives, have been recognizable foliage, but now they look like things you might see in the Princess Bride’s fireswamp. I got my handy-dandy chainsaw and hacked all of it down, and we hauled it out to the side of the house to await the city’s spring pickup date, when they’ll pick up and take away anything and everything. But now, with all of the nasty stuff gone, Mrs. Cornell sees an opportunity to grow some tomato plants, but to do that, we need to put down some railroad ties to wall off the dirt from the court.

Railroad ties are big. They’re heavy. And I dropped one on one of my fingers, which, amazingly, didn’t turn my fingernail black. It caused pain, though, And yelping. Much yelping. Nothing about railroad ties are good. And when you finally heft them out to the back of the house and discover you’ve gotten the wrong size, it’s very difficult to avoid using profanity. Very, very %$&ing difficult, indeed.

So I lugged them back into the car and drove them back and got the even bigger, heavier railroad ties, and Home Depot offered a hireling to help me load them into the back of my Suburban. He was a college-age kid with a huge scowl on his face.

“Keeping you busy?” I said, a little too cheerfully.

“I hate this job,” he snarled back. “I’m gonna quit soon.”

I laughed out loud, appreciative of the brutal honesty. “Really? What are you gonna do instead?”

“I don’t care,” he said. “Anything else. Just as long as I don’t have to lift any railroad ties.”

I laughed again. His lousy customer service was truly a breath of fresh air.

“What do you need railroad ties for, anyway?” he muttered.

“It’s for my wife,” I said. “She wants to grow tomatoes.”

“Oh, yeah?” he snapped. “Then tell her to come get her own railroad ties.”

I foresee a very interesting marriage in that young man’s future.
________________

Today was Day Two of the Total Stallionic Body Reinvention. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 7:00 AM, I spend a half an hour with a personal trainer in a sort of “Boot Camp” that will get me into shape in four to six weeks.

In case there was any doubt on this point, I am not in shape now.

It’s not that I’m fat so much as that I’m not skinny, at least not the way I used to be. Of course, that’s a pretty high threshold. Growing up, I was ridiculously thin, and I stayed that way for a very long time – I was 6’4” and 175 pounds when I got married at age 26. That’s not just skinny – that’s Ichabod Crane skinny. I stayed that way until I broke my back right after my 30th birthday. Since then, I’ve been on a safe, effective, and wholly unanticipated weight gain program of about 4 pounds per year. I still have skinny arms and legs and a slim, sexy tuckus, but my gut is spreading and my face is somewhat puffy.

It’s a bad scene. And what really upsets me about this is that it screws up my deal.

See, the deal was, back in the day, that I looked like a geek and was wildly uncoordinated, but at least I could eat whatever crap I wanted and never gain weight. Now the deal has been broken, and I still look like a geek.

I kept my end. It’s the universe that’s in breach of contract.

The first day was aerobic exercise – stepping up and down, kicking, with some crunches and stuff thrown in. Today was all upper body stuff – biceps, triceps, and “planking,” where you hold yourself above the ground on your elbows and make your body as stiff as a board and pray for the earth to open up and swallow you whole.

I feel closer to John McCain than I ever have before, because right now, I can’t lift my arms above my head.

GINO 4.3 review - spoilers

This thing’s been streaming on SciFi.com all day, and I could only watch it about ten to fifteen minutes at a time. But I got the gist of it pretty well.

Even for a nihilistic series like this one, “The Ties that Bind” was markedly, unrelentingly grim. I think that was its goal, and it succeeded. It felt like a dull, plodding headache mixed with intestinal bloating and stiff joints, with just a hint of claustrophobia. It made me wonder why someone would strive so hard to create such a forbidding, unpleasant world, and, even more, why anyone could find anything in this world particularly entertaining.

So, fully for purposes of masochism, let’s take a look at this sucker.

Moore began this season by saying it would require people to question what it means to be a Cylon. He was right, although not the way he intended. Why is Cylon Al making out with Boomer? Isn’t that kind of gross? Is it just me, or do the centurions have blood now? Is Tori instantly superhuman now? Why don’t all the Sixes bleach their hair? Tori’s clearly evil all of a sudden, so what about Tigh and Tyrol? If they’re not, why don’t they off themselves? And what’s Anders doing breaking up the Final Four party? Whatever happened to the first Cylon/Human hybrid? And does anyone care, since the second one is now suddenly being elevated above his initial status as an inconvenient afterthought?

It’s a waste of time to question what it means to be a Cylon, because the Cylon designation is essentially meaningless. As soon as Moore decides what it means, then it might be worth discussing. Probably not, though.

Then there’s the politics. Sweet fancy Moses, but the politics are stupid. I think we’re gearing up for another anti-Bush metaphor, what with Roslin supposedly wielding too much executive power and all. Is this really necessary? Is there any doubt about how these folks feel about George Bush? Is there any reason to waste your last season wading through some dopey, made-up metaphor that serves no real dramatic purpose other than to look politically fashionable? If everyone watches the show concedes that Bush is a jerk, will the writers focus on something else, please?

The Lee-as-a-Delegate subplot bores me beyond measure. Fun to see Richard Hatch chew the scenery a little bit, but the political intrigue angle is just a dead end, dramatically speaking. Look, these are pretty good actors, guys. How about giving them something to do? Rummaging through files and whispering about conspiracies may make for passable agitprop, but it’s got no juice to it.

We move on to Kara, who has presumably taken the entire command crew of the Galactica on her garbage scow. You’d think that Helo, Athena, Gaeta, and Anders might have better things to do, but, no, they have to join Sackhoff as she wallow in her obligatory Moment in the Sulk. Nothing to see here, folks.

And then there’s Callie.

Callie has always been a whiny naïf of a character, and I can’t say I’ll miss her. But I have to confess that her death was startling and terrifying in a way that this series often wants to be but seldom is. I don’t know why I found it so affecting, but I did. Maybe it’s because I’m a dad and it’s heart-wrenching to see a mother torn away from her child and tossed out of an airlock. But I think there was more to it than that. Her scene with Tyrol, where Tyrol is blurred out in the background and his audio is muted, was a stroke of genius. You could feel Callie’s isolation and mounting terror, and you knew her life was about to end. And the fact that the stinkin’ kid won’t stop screaming just adds to the anxiety. Well done, whoever did that one.

So, to sum up, I was impressed by the last five minutes of this thing, but that’s not the same thing as saying I liked them. It was a technically perfect depiction of absolute misery, and absolute misery isn’t something I enjoy watching. The one brief, shining moment in this ep was Adama reading to Roslin in her sickbed. See, these guys can do sweet if they really want to. They’re just happiest when nobody in their universe is happy.

But 70-plus year-old Dean Stockwell’s gotta be enjoying the Boomer smooches.

Barack Felgewater

Barack Obama and Myron Felgewater have at least two things in common: a deep-seated ignorance and/or contempt for the fundamental principles of economics, and the fact that I will never vote for either one of them for any political office, ever.

Let’s begin with Myron. When I worked for him, part of my job was to help determine pricing for our product. We were working in a business where fixed costs were high and marginal costs were low to nonexistent, much like, say, the airline industry. Every time a plane takes off, the cost of the flight is essentially the same if the plane is full or the plane is empty. In addition, you can’t put the airplane seats back up on a shelf and store them in your inventory if you don’t sell them. Once the flight is gone, it’s gone.

That’s why airplanes offer so many specials and discounts and incentives. Any cash that comes in to fill an otherwise empty seat is found money, and as long as it covers the cost of the complimentary beverage service, you come out ahead.

This was too much for Myron to grasp. Every time I would offer a discount, he would wail about how much the discount would “cost.” See, if a plane fare was regularly $1,000, and I sold it for $800, Myron would moan the fact that this ticket had “cost” him $200. To him, this was the equivalent of opening up his wallet, yanking out two Ben Franklins and flushing them down the toilet. He would prefer the seat remain unsold, which means that he would rather lose the potential of a real $800 to “save” an imaginary $200 that was never his in the first place.

I should note that this also flew in the face of his own unique sales technique, which was to offer ridiculous discounts and freebies to friends and family and anyone else just to prove what a big cheese he was. (Frequent commenter WhiteEyebrows could probably provide plenty of firsthand stories to verify my account.) His own personal inconsistency in applying his own rules, however, merely illustrates his pettiness and arrogance, not an appreciation for economic principles.

In his defense, Myron’s argument has some merit if the airplane is always full, and everyone on the plane is always paying full price. But at the time, most of our flights were half-empty, and a full flight was cause for celebration. It was essential that we fill those flights in any way possible, but Myron’ solution was to resist discounts and jack up prices, even on flights that weren’t selling.

Finally, in a fit of exasperation, I proposed a different solution.

“Why are we wasting time offering such cheap fares?” I said. “Why not bump the ticket price up to $1,000,000 a head? Of course, if that were the price, then every time you sell a measly $1,000 ticket, it would cost this company $999,000 dollars!”

That made the point. It also made Myron mad. That was usually the way things worked back then.

You’d think that Barack Obama would be a little brighter than your average Felgewater, but after last night’s debate, which I made the mistake of actually watching, I’m not so sure.

What was remarkable about the debate was that the candidates were asked real questions. They were called on the carpet for their stupid statements and lies, and, in a moment that made me drop my jaw, Charlie Gibson posed a question about the capital gains tax that was actually economically intelligent.

Here’s the opening part of the exchange:

MR. GIBSON: You [Barack Obama] have… said you would favor an increase in the capital gains tax. As a matter of fact, you said on CNBC, and I quote, "I certainly would not go above what existed under Bill Clinton, which was 28 percent."

It's now 15 percent. That's almost a doubling if you went to 28 percent. But actually Bill Clinton in 1997 signed legislation that dropped the capital gains tax to 20 percent.

SENATOR OBAMA: Right.

MR. GIBSON: And George Bush has taken it down to 15 percent.

SENATOR OBAMA: Right.

MR. GIBSON: And in each instance, when the rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased. The government took in more money. And in the 1980s, when the tax was increased to 28 percent, the revenues went down. So why raise it at all, especially given the fact that 100 million people in this country own stock and would be affected?

Holy cow! Charlie Gibson acknowledges that a tax cut raises more government revenue? Isn’t that a sign of the apocalypse?

But if you’re not a Felgewater, you can understand the principle. Generally speaking, a lower tax rate on a higher volume of revenue brings in more money than a higher tax rate on a lower volume of revenue. If the capital gains tax were raised to 100%, it would be just like Felgewater raising ticket prices to a million bucks a head. The high rate would bring in no money, because no one would be stupid enough to take a capital gain under such a punitive system.

So here was Barack Felgewater’s answer:

SENATOR OBAMA: Well, Charlie, what I've said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness. We saw an article today which showed that the top 50 hedge fund managers made $29 billion last year -- $29 billion for 50 individuals. And part of what has happened is that those who are able to work the stock market and amass huge fortunes on capital gains are paying a lower tax rate than their secretaries. That's not fair.

Did you get that? Obama does not dispute Gibson’s point. But he doesn’t care. The overriding principle is fairness, so he’s going to raise the capital gains tax even if it costs the government money to do it!

You know, if I’m a secretary, my paycheck isn’t going to get any bigger if my boss has to pay more in capital gains tax – quite the opposite, since that boss now has fewer resources to reinvest into the business.

Do you grasp the enormity of this? Obama is proposing to raise taxes not to get more money for the government but solely to punish the rich.

He continues, trying to temper his remarks but still digging himself deeper into his hole:

And what I want is not oppressive taxation. I want businesses to thrive and I want people to be rewarded for their success. But what I also want to make sure is that our tax system is fair and that we are able to finance health care for Americans who currently don't have it and that we're able to invest in our infrastructure and invest in our schools.

You want money for your “investments,” Barack? Then don’t raise the taxes and squelch off the revenue stream! Incredibly, Gibson manages to call him on this.

MR. GIBSON: But history shows that when you drop the capital gains tax, the revenues go up.

To which Barack lamely responds:

SENATOR OBAMA: Well, that might happen or it might not.

And the sun might rise tomorrow or it might not. And Myron Felgewater might have lots of planes full of people paying a million dollars a ticket. You cannot repeal the law of supply and demand, Barack, no matter how fair you want to be.

The thing that scared me about this debate is the thing that initially made Obama attractive, and that is this: Barack Obama is a decent, honorable man who is true to his word. So when he says he’s going to jack up taxes even if that costs the government money, he means it. When he says he’s going to yank out the troops even if it throws the entire Middle East into chaos, creates a safe haven for al Qaeda, and allows Tel Aviv to disappear in the shadow of an Iranian mushroom cloud, he means it.

Hillary, with her smug little smile and her cackle of doom, doesn’t mean anything. She promised to pull the troops out, but she won’t do it. She won’t jack up taxes just because she can. She’s going to pander as much as possible to maintain power, and she’ll screw over her own party every time she has to.

That makes her the most contemptible person running for office, and, horrifically, the most conservative.

I want to throw up.

I’m going to be writing in my vote for president this year. Captain Bob Morris is currently my leading candidate. But if you’d like to be in the running, let me know.

Bush, Cults, and Idol

I honestly don’t understand George W. Bush.

According to the Drudge Report, he’s about to make a proposal that the U.S. will “halt greenhouse gas rise by 2025.”

Since he’s a lame duck and what he’s proposing is nigh unto impossible, I doubt he will be successful. And since the people who buy into this crap – the Philips of the world – are going to continue to hate him regardless of what he does, I don’t understand why he’s doing it. If he truly believes in it, then where was he seven years ago when he – wisely, in my opinion – yanked the US out of the Kyoto Treaty? Does he believe it or doesn’t he? He loses either way.

I get the impression from this kind of nonsense that Bush occasionally chooses to do things in order to deliberately offend people. This has been the most successful aspect of his second term. Unfortunately, he’s running out of people to offend.

_______________

Bill Maher is saying nasty things about the Pope and the Catholic Church, comparing Catholicism to the FLDS folks and essentially labeling both organizations as "cults."

I learned long ago that the word “cult” is entirely useless, because, in practice, it now has no objective definition. It used to have reference to any religion and was essentially a measure of size – i.e. a cult is “a small group of religious followers.” In today’s vernacular, though, the word “cult” is reserved for spurious or unorthodox religions that deserve scorn and ridicule. Bill Maher ironically hearkens back to the traditional sociological definition when he uses the term, since, to him, the only difference between run-of-the-mill cults and the Catholic Church is one of size. “If you have a few hundred followers, and you let some of them molest children, they call you a cult leader,” he says. “If you have a billion, they call you 'Pope.' “

I can think of a number of things I’d like to call Bill Maher, and, like the word “cult,” none of them are very nice. Except namecalling reveals nothing about your target and reveals everything about you. People who throw the word “cult” around with regularity and think they’re saying something factual are simply telling you which religions they don’t like.

The best and most useful definition of “cult” came from my brilliant high school government teacher, Lee Shagin, who put it thusly:

“A cult is someone else’s religion.”

Dr. Walter Martin, arguably the most influentially vitriolic critic of the LDS Church in the 20th Century, wrote a book titled “The Kingdom of the Cults” in which he derided several different groups that went afoul of his thinking of what Christianity ought to be. However, in order to begin mudslinging at all the cults he despised, he had to have an ironclad definition of same to anchor the discussion.

The problem was that every part of Martin’s definition could also be applied to early Christianity. All cults, according to Martin, follow a charismatic leader and insist that they’re the only way to heaven. They require sacrifices; they have their own vocabulary. Sounds like he’s describing all those folks following Jesus of Nazareth circa 33 AD. Martin spewed an awful lot of words in an attempt to clarify what a cult is, but ultimately, Lee Shagin’s definition is the better one.

But back to Bill Maher. He thinks the Catholicism is a cult. Since Maher has no religion, it’s not surprising that he thinks so little of someone else’s. Whereas I think, personally, that Bill Maher is a jerk. Nyah nya ne nyah nyah.

Glad we had this useless little exchange.

_______________

What was interesting about Mariah Carey as the mentor on last night’s American Idol was that Carey is one of the few mentors who could actually win American Idol. Dolly Parton, mentor from a couple weeks back, wouldn’t make it past the audition round.

Carey is doubtless a fantastic singer, but as a songwriter, there’s just not much there. The reason the boys did so much better than the girls was that they did weird things to forgettable songs – except frontrunner David Archuleta, who’s straightforward rendition of “When You Believe” was technically proficient but kind of boring, really. Jason Castro – who looks EXACTLY like John Travolta – was much more fun, and, while I also enjoyed David Cook’s moody, emo version of “Always Be My Baby,” I’m continually amazed that the judges applaud him for taking risks while never noticing that he keeps taking the SAME risk – his emo “ABMB” from last night is interchangeable with his emo “Billie Jean” and his emo “Eleanor Rigby” and his emo “Hello.” When he takes a different risk, like he did with last week’s “Give Back” hand thing, he looks silly. And could he take a risk and comb his stinkin’ hair?

The girls were all pretty lousy, but I was very glad that Carly covered up her grotesque tattoos. Brooke’s unplugged “Hero” was probably the worst of the lot, but I’ll bet Syesha gets sent home tonight.

In the end, it’s all moot. If David Archuleta doesn’t win it all, I’ll eat my hat. I don’t have a hat, but that’s beside the point, as I won’t be called upon to eat it.

How to Survive a Staff Meeting

I've been in a staff meeting ALL STINKIN' DAY. Yikes. I survived by reading a travel brochure from Kazakhstan - not a Borat fake, mind you, but the real thing - and trying to wade through the English translation, which, like most of what Languatron writes, reads like it was composed by a committee of drunken, angry monkeys.

Allow me to share some excerpts:

"Gourmets from all worlds come also to try here Uzbek plov and to inhale aroma of hot national flat cakes."

"The tourists coming to Turkestan, mark that fact, that the smell of slavery as it occurs at a kind of the Egyptian pyramids here is not felt. But an atmosphere of spiritual freedom Ahmed Yassaui's mausoleum spreads across all Turkestan the greatest architectural masterpiece."

"Dry you will not leave a breeze is a draught a body through clothes."

"These are underground labyrinthes - rooms for a pray, solitudes or listenings of ethnic musical instruments."

"In addition to services of tourists - walks on horses, excursions in reserve. For household convenience the shower works. There is a cold and hot water."

"The most famous traditional in the South Kazakhstan is national game Kokpar. Equestrians on their horses should show the best qualities of racing. The person who catch a goat the first will be considered as a winner."

"Kumyz - it's not only delicious drink made of horse milk. It has many curative properties. Propagation of this drink became the basic purpose of a traditional holiday in South Kazakhstan."

"And all together taken creates the certain power by which air of city is impregnated."

You get the idea. I don't need to keep impregnating your air.

GRGGHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAA!

That is all.

Politically Fatalistic Optimism

Talk radio is ablaze with condemnation of Barack Obama, and rightfully so. What he said was pathetically stupid and elitist, and it ought to be condemned. I just don’t care enough to condemn it.

Really, does it come as any surprise that a Democrat would slam religious people and gun owners? What’s really disgusting is watching Hillary Clinton pretend to be aghast, when you know she’s loving every minute of it. What, she’s the God and Guns candidate now? And why does everyone, especially Clinton, seem to think that the Second Amendment is somehow about the right to hunt ducks?

All of this should have pushed me into the McCain fold by now, but, sorry, folks, I’m still not there yet. John McCain reminds me of Captain Bob Morris, a rich loon up in Jackson Hole who pays for everything in two dollar bills and buys airtime on Jackson Hole television to call for the legalization of drugs. Captain Bob runs for office every few years as a Republican, not to advance Republican ideals but rather to “destroy the Republican Party from the inside.”

The only real difference between Captain Bob and John McCain is one of rank, not substance.

Right now, listening to these people shoot of their mouths, the most conservative person in the race is Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton! The most reprehensible human being ever to run for the office, with the possible exception of her husband, who George Will famously noted was not the worst president ever, but rather the worst man ever to be president.

I’m so deeply disengaged from this political season that it’s startling to me. I’m not working on a campaign for the first time in several election cycles, and I have no interest in working on a campaign. I’m not a state or a county delegate. I’m pretty much out of it. I’m just a guy who turns the station every time politics comes up on the radio or television. I still drift past the odd political blog and catch a few comments on the radio now and then, but I can only take it in small doses. I know that whatever the outcome this November, I’m not going to like it.

Part of what’s pulling me through is sort of a politically fatalistic optimism. I know that, politically, the Federal Government will continue to expand rapaciously no matter who’s in office. I know that the Supreme Court is not going to get any more conservative than it already is. I know that taxes are going to go up. I know that our military will end up abandoned to one degree or another. All these things are awful, but they’re foregone conclusions. So I have to look beyond government and find solace in my faith.

And things on that front have never looked brighter. The promise is that as the world gets darker, the faithful will continue to grow stronger. The divide between the people of faith and the people of the world will grow ever larger, and my job now is to stay on the right side of that divide. All indications are that it’s going to get darkest before the dawn. So I hunker down, focus on what’s really important, and know that eventually, the dawn will come.

GINO 4.2 Review - Spoilers

Woody Allen’s output has been wildly uneven over the years, but one of his best films is 1994’s Bullets Over Broadway, in which a 1930s mobster bankrolls a Broadway play in order to give his horrifically untalented actress girlfriend a starring role – and something to do. At one point, an understudy goes on for her, and everyone notices that not only does this improve every scene in which she appears, but also the scenes in which she does not appear. Suddenly, all of the other characters have more heft, because you can believe that they take the girlfriend’s character seriously, even when she is offstage.

Witness a real-life example of this principle in the third Godfather movie, where Sofia Coppola single-handedly mutilates the franchise with her limpid, vacant performance. It’s impossible to believe she’s Michael Corleone’s daughter, or that Andy Garcia is truly in love with her, and consequently the movie unravels completely by the third act. The final scene, when she dies in her father’s arms, is supposed to be the ultimate tragedy for the Corleone character, and, instead, it’s unintentionally funny. One bad acting apple truly spoils the whole bunch.

You can see where I’m going with this, can’t you?

Moore and Co. have made the fatal mistake of hanging this entire series on the shoulders of one Katee Sackhoff, who’s performance as Kara Thrace ranges all the way from really loud to really, really loud. She screams a lot. She seems to like screaming a lot. She’s like a Spinal Tap amplifier constantly turned up to 11, and that leaves her with nowhere else to go. She’s incapable of subtlety; she’s incapable of dynamics; she’s ultimately incapable of acting.

She ruins not only her own scenes, but also the scenes where she is not present.

Consider the moment in Adama’s quarters, when Olmos and Roslin are sparring over whether it’s appropriate to believe Starbuck. It’s actually a fairly well-written scene, and both Olmos and Roslin have the chops to carry it off. But it doesn’t work, and it’s only when you consider Sackhoff as the poison pill that you realize why. They’re taking Starbuck seriously, and it’s impossible for the audience to follow suit. All their gravitas can’t add enough heft to ground Sackhoff’s angry wisp of a character.

In the end, though, fixing Sackhoff would be like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. This is a show that lost its way a long time ago, and its only now that everyone will notice that the wheels are truly coming off.

If you doubt it, compare the Season 4 Cylons with the omnipresent nightmares that fueled this show’s premiere – and still finest – episode, “33.” Back then, the Cylons were fierce, unrelenting, and attacked every 33 minutes with mechanical, unfeeling precision. They held all the cards. They were hunting the human race to extinction. And, yes, they had a plan.

Now we’re left with the ludicrous spectacle of squabbling Cylons who settle their differences in makeshift caucus meetings based on the rantings of naked women lying in bubble baths. Remember when the Cylons infiltrated the human networks and shut down the fleet because they were wired into everything? Now they agree on nothing and can’t even get everyone together for a roll call vote.

And what’s this that one #8 Cylon has never disagreed with another #8 Cylon? Um, did anyone notice that there’s a #8 Cylon on the Galactica, openly supporting the humans? It’d be nice if the writers watched their own show once in awhile. ‘Cause won’t all those models that get blown away by Centurions just get resurrected before the next caucus? Don’t get me wrong; it was fun to see them get blown away in a “wow, man, cool” kind of way. But wasn’t it supposed to mean something?

Nothing means anything.

The really sad thing, however, is to watch this ridiculous “final four” twist mangle, ex post facto, some of the greatest moments of the series. Remember "Exodus Part II," when Tigh makes the wrenching decision to poison his own wife, who collaborated with the Cylons to save his skin? That was a singular example of the moral complexity Moore promises and never delivers. Now it’s worthless. Tigh is a Cylon. And if he were truly the same man who had to make the decision to murder his own wife, he would have blown himself away by now. He’s not that man anymore; that character is gone. Rebooted. Now he’s plotting in secret with his fellow reboots. Anything interesting about the character has been erased, much like any semblance of promise this show once held.

I don’t really care about the ratings much anymore, and they truly don’t matter. This show should have been cancelled when Enterprise reruns started pulling in a bigger share. This thing will undoubtedly lumber on to its unsatisfying conclusion, but I am willing to make a prediction.

The only people who are still watching, at this point, are the die hard fans. And, sooner or later, these fans are going to get uncomfortable when they’re forced to realize that the show has become meandering and aimless. The people who are truly invested in it will grow more uneasy as it becomes clearer and clearer that the emperor has no clothes. This show, even more than the 1978 original, is a product of its time – glib, fashionable, and wafer thin. Sooner or later, those die hards, if they haven’t already, are going to resent being taken on a ride to nowhere.

Mark it. And don’t shoot the messenger.

One More Doomsday Quote

“By the year 2000 -- that's less than 10 years away -- the earth's climate will be warmer than it's been in over 100,000 years. If we don't do something, there'll be enormous calamities in a very short time.”

That was Meryl Streep in 1990, presumably speaking about the box-office calamity that was Lions for Lambs.

Sparring with Philip

Glancing back over the comments on previous posts, I discovered that Philip did, indeed, respond to my enviro slams, and I was thrilled beyond measure. I think Foodleking is right – this blog is better when it has a good foil, and Philip definitely qualifies. I’m not being disingenuous when I say that this guy is truly one of the world’s great people, although we clearly don’t see eye-to-eye politically. He’s a great musician, though, and he actually sings now, which I found surprising. We have much in common except when it comes to politics. When he found me on Facebook, he put it this way:

“Well, first of all, I'm not going to discuss politics with you, because we established long ago that you were dropped on your head as a child.”

So now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, I will momentarily cease to praise Philip for his many virtues and proceed to eviscerate his political errors, which are legion.

In my post, I quoted Paul Ehrlich’s dire warning in the 70s that only massive population control would prevent worldwide famines. I glibly stated:

“No population control. And no worldwide famines, either. Go figure.”

Philip responded thusly:

“Well, yes, in fact, massive localized famines all over Africa, caused by many things including runaway population growth. See also: streets of urban India, etc.”

To which I now respond:

Glad to see the “many things” qualifier in there, since ascribing Africa’s famines solely to overpopulation presumes that the world doesn’t have enough food to feed everyone. And that’s just plain not true. Back in the ‘80s, when Bob Geldof and the Band Aid/Live Aid/We Are The World crowd made famine relief fashionable, Geldof himself often noted that the world runs a surplus of food production, so it’s criminal that anyone, anywhere should go hungry. The problem is flawed distribution due primarily to corruption among African governments, not a lack of food, as Ehrlich wrongly predicted.

As for the streets of urban India, the streets of Hong Kong have a far greater population density and an almost non-existent poverty rate. India’s inept, socialistic government causes far more problems than the number of people. Indeed, underpopulation is crippling Russia and destroying the EU welfare state. As the Baby Boomers retire, we’re likely to see similar problems here in the U.S. because of our reliance on massive entitlement programs that don’t have a large enough population base to sustain them.

Moving on:

I pointed out that the oceans haven’t all died as both Ehrlich and eminent scientist/sitcom star Ted Danson predicted.

Philip begged to disagree:

“Giant dead zones extend miles off the gulf coast, salmon fishing BANNED in CA for this year because (probably, but not conclusively) ocean temperature rising has changed estuary patterns and they're not breeding. Killer whales seen thousands of miles south of any previously-charted migration patterns. all marine scientists warn of impending crashing of all important sea life populations. this is not some isolated crank case, but the outcome of the studies of a science as a whole. read up and get back to me.”

Philip’s right that I would need to read up quite a bit to refute any of this. Like George Costanza, I can only pretend to be a marine biologist. The best I can do is say that it sounds like hyperbole to me, and it certainly isn’t consistent with Ehrlich’s prediction that “all important animal life in the sea will be extinct [by 1980]” – clearly not true about the ‘80s or now – or that “large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish” - also nonsense. Danson was recently forced to admit that his earlier doom-and-gloom statements were inaccurate.

So even conceding Philip’s point that “all marine scientists warn of [an] impending crash of all important sea life populations” scares me about as much as it scared me when they did the same thing thirty some-odd years ago. You can only cry wolf so many times.

Philip, probably due to the fact that he has a life and has better things to do than respond to an obscure blog, didn’t try to defend the other ludicrous statements I cited re: the global cooling lunacy , the nation’s rivers boiling, the end of England, Kuwait’s oil fires causing nuclear winter, et al. If anyone can defend that stuff, I’d like to hear it.

He summed up thusly:

“and so it goes. this is what happens, oftentimes, when one argues with conservatives (even ones like mr. bennett who happen to be MUCH smarter than I) - denial of reality coupled with personal attacks = good radio ratings on AM dial.”

Brighter? Doubtful. Poorer? Probably. Would that I were on the AM dial. Although I like to think I went easy on the personal attacks. I did take an unnecessary swipe at Danson’s career, but come on. Cut me some slack.

And then the ultimate putdown: “very very GWB of you, JB. I expect more. try again.”

If only GWB could muster the intellectual stamina to make these arguments. We conservatives have got nowhere to turn, especially since John McCain buys into all this crap. Yes, I’ll try again. I’m going to have to keep trying to get my point across. It feels like nobody else is.

Philip also responded to my little blurb from the BBC about global temperatures not rising since 1998 as follows:

“he who judges global patterns by one year changes will bounce like superball in the brain.
- confucious.”

Perhaps that’s true. Ten years of no warming, however, might be indicative of a pattern. If present trends continue, we’re never going to get any warmer!

Hopefully, present trends will continue and Philip will continue to respond to this blog.

Polygamy

Feeling better about the world today, although my sister keeps kicking my butt in Scrabulous on Facebook. I suck.

Anyway, this whole raid on the FLDS compound in Texas is making polygamy front-page news again, and it’s got me thinking. That’s always dangerous, but bear with me.

My great-grandfather was a polygamist. My grandmother was his youngest daughter, and she lived in hiding for twelve years, raised by her sister and unable to use her real name. The whole history of polygamy in the LDS Church is fraught with difficulty, and everyone would just as soon forget that it ever happened. That’s pretty hard to do, though, especially since it was the defining doctrine of the church for about half a century. So where there ought to be frank discussion, there’s awkward silence.

That’s mainly because modern Mormons find the practice abhorrent, including me. I had never met an actual polygamist until I moved to St. George and saw polygamous women crowding into the local Wal-Mart and Costco, their dowdy homespun dresses and strange, braided, non-bangs hair making them stick out like sore thumbs. I had been operating under the illusion that my ancestors weren’t nearly this weird, but that’s much harder to do when confronted with actual polygamists. My ancestors were probably were just as weird. Maybe even weirder.

Where does that leave me?

Still in denial, actually. Because, first off, my grandmother wasn’t weird. She was an accomplished woman who, to my knowledge, was never forced to wear an ugly burlap dress or yank her hair back in a strange, swooshy coiffure. I don’t know when dowdiness became part and parcel with the polygamy experience, but they could certainly do without it. And in the second place, I’ve seen no evidence that the systemic physical and sexual abuse that is rampant in these polygamous subcultures was part of polygamy back in the day. I have no proof one way or the other, but I want to believe the best.

Yet the modern practice of polygamy invites everyone to see the worst.

Every young Mormon missionary is deluged with questions about polygamy, and few of them give substantive or satisfying answers. Some talk about the glut of single ladies on the frontier who needed the protection of a land-owning husband, so Mormon men dutifully obliged them in a historical anomaly that vanished when conditions changed. I’ve never used that line, because, frankly, it’s not true. Polygamy was always a religious principle, and to minimize its importance in the early history of the church is the height of disingenuity. But it’s a principle that repulses me in practice, so how do I reconcile its previous sanction by my church with my present faith?

I do it the same way the Book of Mormon does.

Many anti-Mormons take delight in pointing out that the Book of Mormon rails on polygamy with more ferocity than anything in the Bible. The Lord condemns the unauthorized practice of polygamy as an “abomination” and refers to the taking of multiple wives as “whoredoms,” and then says the following:

“Wherefore, my brethren, hear me, and hearken to the word of the Lord: For there shall not any man among you have save it be one wife; and concubines he shall have none.” (Jacob 2:27)

That seems to be a pretty clear-cut standard, which makes you wonder how Joseph Smith could possibly lead the church to go contrary to the plain language of the scripture he himself translated.

Until you read on to verse 30:

“For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people; otherwise they shall hearken unto these things.”

In other words, monogamy is the norm, unless commanded otherwise by the Lord to “raise up seed” unto Him. That’s exactly what happened when the Church practiced polygamy in the 19th century. The doctrine bound the church together through a torturous time and raised up a large second generation to carry the gospel forward. And now, when it is no longer necessary, the Lord has commanded us to revert back to the norm.

Still, while the doctrine seems clear, the practice remains disturbing, to me and to most other Mormons I know. Sooner or later, if we want to truly be accepted as a “mainstream” faith, we’ll need to find some way to come to terms with our past.

I'm not having a good day.

Just thought I'd let you know. I can't think of anything to write.

So there.

My Thomas S. Monson Experience

This was a difficult and yet rewarding conference for me, mainly because Gordon B. Hinckley’s absence seemed almost like an open wound, and I wasn’t quite ready to jump on the Thomas S. Monson train.

I didn’t realize just how hard it would be for me to make this transition.

I hope this doesn’t come across as faithless or sniping, but President Monson’s style has never really been my cup of tea, figuratively speaking. I think the problem is that I’m not a particularly sentimental guy, and I appreciated President Hinckley’s no-nonsense delivery, whereas President Monson can seem mawkish and syrupy in comparison. He has such an odd, affected, almost Muppet-like speech pattern, and the endless tearjerking stories about miracles with widows always seemed aimed at someone else, not me. Believe me, I’ve met a whole lot of Someone Elses who adore President Monson and are thrilled to see him as the new President of the Church. But after his cutesy ear-wiggling story at the Priesthood Session, I began to feel a pit of lead somewhere deep in my gut. Oh, dear, I thought. Is there something wrong with me? If I’m bugged by the President of the Church and find him somewhat annoying, does that mean I’m losing my faith?

During each session as every General Authority stood up to sing his praises, it felt like overkill to me. Methought they did protest too much. Then, listening to President Monson himself speak during the Sunday morning session, I started to feel something truly rancid. I really don’t like this guy, I thought. He’s going to drive me crazy for the next fifteen years. I shared these thoughts with my wife and other family members, and everyone was surprised by how deep my feelings on this were. So was I. I’ve had no experiences with President Monson that would justify this kind of animosity. Indeed, I’ve met him on several occasions, and he has always been kind and gracious. I had no reason to feel what I was feeling, but I was feeling it all the same.

Sunday afternoon, my wife and I attended conference live at the Conference Center. When President Monson walked in, all 21,000 attendees stood up out of respect for the Prophet. I felt a little silly. President Monson seemed like a usurper, a pretender. Why are we standing up for this guy? Where’s the real prophet? President Hinckley, why couldn’t you have stuck around just a little while longer?

It occurred to me that almost everyone who ends up leaving the Church, whether in modern or ancient times, does so out of allegiance to a prophet that they can’t seem to let go, and they reject living prophets in the name of dead ones. Thus Christ was pilloried by followers of Abraham, and Joseph Smith was and is consistently rejected in the name of Christ. I remember when Elder George P. Lee was excommunicated back in the 1980s, and his fury at President Benson for not being President Kimball. In every time of transition, there are a handful of complainers who walk away. There are those who thought Joseph Fielding Smith would destroy the Church after President McKay died. There were plenty who thought Ezra Taft Benson’s ascendancy to the church presidency was a sure sign of the apocalypse. And every time, the Church rolls forward, leaving the disgruntled few to kick against the pricks and fight against God.

I didn’t want to be a prick kicker. I wanted to accept Thomas S. Monson as the church’s new leader, but I didn’t know how to do it.

It helped when Elder Holland, unscripted and unplanned, spoke of the “mantle of the Prophet” falling on President Monson during these conference sessions. I hadn’t seen that happen, but Elder Holland clearly had, and somewhere in my soul, I knew he was telling the truth. I was able to open up a bit more, give up a piece of my pride and resentment, and allow the Spirit to tell me what I should have realized in the first place.

Then President Monson spoke at the end of the meeting.

We were sitting close enough to the teleprompter to see when the text was moving and when it was not. It was not moving for President Monson’s speech, at least for the first half of it. In that moment, he was not some animatronic wind-up toy; he was genuine, disarming, and free of guile. That's precisely when I realized he was exactly who the Lord would have leading His church. Everything was fine. It was a very simple thing, yet it’s hard to overstate how significant it was. People receive spiritual confirmations in different places and at different times. That was when I received mine.

Does that mean there was something wrong with me earlier? Maybe. It doesn’t matter, really. Nobody says I have to like his style or his clothing or the color of his hair. I just have to sustain and support him, and that’s something I now feel I can do wholeheartedly. As my uncle is fond of saying to ark-steadiers who worry about this or that in church leadership: “It’s the Lord’s name over the door; let Him worry about it.”

Today, this is who the Lord wants at the head of His church. I’m very grateful that He let me know that. It keeps me from worrying; it keeps me humble, and it reminds me who’s really in charge.

Questions for Fellow Conference Watchers

Why, oh why, does the Church refuse to broadcast the Priesthood Session live to the public at large?

It's not like there's secret goings on. They publish the whole thing in the Ensign the next month. They broadcast the Women's Conference just in case there are any dudes who want to watch. Why not do the same for the ladies?

This means that I have to actually clean up and show up at a meetinghouse wearing a tie and monkey suit and sit on hard benches when I could watch Priesthood the same way I watch the other sessions - looking like an unshaven slob as I lounge about on my very comfortable king-sized bed, drifting off only when absolutely necessary. 

Yessir, when I'm President of the Church, there's gonna be some changes around here. Big, big changes. 

Oh, and for you who believed Ted the Idiot

From the BBC:

Global temperatures will drop slightly this year as a result of the cooling effect of the La Nina current in the Pacific, UN meteorologists have said.

The World Meteorological Organization's secretary-general, Michel Jarraud, told the BBC it was likely that La Nina would continue into the summer.

This would mean global temperatures have not risen since 1998, prompting some to question climate change theory.

Cannibalism may have to wait another decade or so.

GINO Review: "He Who Believeth in Me"

Season 4 of the new Battlestar Galactica began last night. Those of us who are still fans of the original series refer to it as GINO, or Galactica In Name Only. Since the show began, I've been reviewing it episode by episode, and I post the reviews at the Moist Board, Tombs of Kobol, and the official SciFi Channel website. And, now that I have a blog and everything, I'll post them here, too.

Beware of spoilers.

___________


Well, the show is back. And so am I. Why?

Many of you have wisely pointed out that I clearly don’t like it much, so why do I bother to watch and review it? Well, I’m not even sure why myself. I guess it’s because I’ve been a part of the revival discussion for so long that I feel invested in the thing, and I’m still enough of a fan of Battlestar Galactica that I think someone ought to chronicle this dismal show as it dances on Galactica’s grave. I feel I ought to – what? I don’t know. Keep a record. Or, to use Gaius Baltarian terms, to “bear witness.”

Or maybe I’m just a jerk. That’s probably the best explanation.

Anyway, on to the show.

Rumor is that Michael Hogan, who plays the curmudgeonly Tigh-turned-Redeye, is supposedly perturbed by the fact that his character is a Cylon, because it doesn’t fit the way he’s played the character over three seasons. Glad to see that someone else has noticed. Nothing much fits anymore – this show is filled with fervent brainstorms and wild-eyed conceits, none of which can be combined into a cohesive whole. There’s lots of motion and no substance. The strategy, it seems, in this fourth and blessedly final season, is to keep things moving at such a frenetic pace that nobody has time to notice. Although it’s nice that they’ve finally dropped the reference to the Cylon plan from the opening montage. Since they abandoned even the pretense of having a plan about two years ago, it’s high time that the credits should follow suit.

Switching gears for a moment: Robert Reed, AKA Galactica 1980’s mad scientist and, more illustriously, the man named Brady who was busy with three boys of his own, once wrote a letter to the Brady Bunch producers complaining about the inconsistency in tone of how that silly little show was written. He compared it to a scenario where the surgeons from M*A*S*H are in the operating room, when, suddenly, who should burst in but Adam West’s Batman. Now, it’s conceivable that this M*A*S*H Batman is a mental patient, deluded and tragic, but it can’t really be the same Batman from the world of that TV series and still exist in the grimmer, more naturalistic world of M*A*S*H. Conversely, Alan Alda’s Hawkeye and Cesar Romero’s Joker with makeup over his moustache couldn’t meet up on the streets of Gotham City and start plotting Batman’s demise in a giant cream puff, at least not without fundamentally altering who Hawkeye is. These characters exist in different universes; they function by different rules.

Yet GINO is chock filled with Batmen in the OR.

When we last saw our heros, the Final Four-out-of-Five heard a Dylan/Hendrix tune and mangled everything we knew about these characters, and now “everything’s changed.” Anders can look at a centurion in a raider through the vastness of space – yes, raiders used to be unmanned, but go with it – and their red eyes blink in unison and suddenly they call off the attack. Wouldn’t such a recognition sequence have been useful for Colonel Tigh when his fellow toasters were scraping out his eye? I guess that was pre-All Along the Watchtower, so it doesn’t count. If they’d only had a classic rock station on New Caprica. Then we would have known that this characters, who defy everything we know and understand about Moore’s Cylons, are just M*A*S*H- style Adam Wests without the cowls.

Meanwhile, back in the Church of Baltar, where only hot chicks are allowed to worship, Gaius is praying to some tramp in a red cocktail dress and curing viruses by allowing angry ex-constituents to go all Sweeney Todd on him. This Baltar subplot is arguably the silliest element in a show that’s gone whole hog on the silly scale, because the writers clearly think they’re dabbling in something profound. In real life, weird cultists aren’t all fashion models, and religion is not solely the province of damaged, disturbed people. I don’t know where they’re going with all this, and neither do they. Yet they probably think they do, which makes it all the more incoherent.

The same could be said about the rest of the show. How can I get worked up about Starbuck’s return one way or the other? I’m not convinced that the writers have figured it out, so my guess is as good as theirs. I’m not sitting on pins and needles waiting to see what they finally pull out of their butt, because every indication is that it will be the same kind of sloppy storytelling shoehorned in to fit whatever cool new idea Moore and Co. had while eating cantaloupe for breakfast. Maybe she’ll turn out to be the lost 13th Cylon model.

But how can that be? Don’t the Cylon only have twelve models? Well, yes, they do now. But we still have 19 more episodes to go. Anything can happen! See, it turns out that there were really 13 all along, and didn’t you see the signs? Because, see, all the paper in the colonies have the corners cut off, which, according to Pithia, means that 12 is really 13. So everything you knew is wrong, and just pretend it didn’t happen, and the Cylons don’t have a plan, but don’t you want to know who the last of the Final Five is? I mean, Final Six? Or, maybe I should say, Secret Six? Because there are only six left, except the Subterranean Seven, who will come to life when Demigod Baltar plays “I Got A Brand New Pair of Roller Skates” on his sacred piccolo? But who has the brand new key? WHO HAS THE BRAND NEW KEY?!!!

Maybe Batman does. Look, he’s swinging into Sickbay right now.

Checking the Enviro Track Record

Philip, who is a great dude if you get to know him, insists that Idiot is "correct on all accounts" with regard to his prophecy that within three to four decades, the earth will be eight degrees warmer, crops will be unable to grow, most of the population will be dead, and the rest of us will be eating each other.

There's no way to conclusively prove him right or wrong, I suppose, but it's worth examining the track record of similar statements made by alarmist blowhards over the years.

Let's take a stroll down memory lane, shall we?

Let's begin with easy pickins:

The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s, the world will undergo famines. Hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. Population control is the only answer.
—Paul Ehrlich, in The Population Bomb (1968)

No population control. And no worldwide famines, either. Go figure. 

I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.
—Paul Ehrlich (1969)

Wish I would have taken that bet. 

In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish.
—Paul Ehrlich, Earth Day (1970)

Umm... ok. The only time anyone evacuates the coastline is if they see a fat guy in a mankini. 

In the coming decade, we could expect to lose all of Florida, Washington D.C., and the Los Angeles basin...we'll be in rising waters with no ark in sight.
-Paul Ehrlich on global warming floods, May 1989

Dammit. Los Angeles is still there. If it'll make Ehrlich feel better, I don't think anyone's really happy about it. 

I could fill this post up with nothing but stupid Paul Ehrlich quotes. He's been wrong about everything. Not just wrong, but spectacularly, mind-boggingly wrong. Lest you think he's an outlying loon, know that he's still one of the most respected environmental commentators alive today. Al Gore, on the dust cover for one of Ehrlich's books, wrote "The time for action is due, and past due. Ehrlich has written the prescription."

Moving on:

"This cooling has already killed hundreds of thousands of people. If it continues and no strong action is taken, it will cause world famine, world chaos and world war, and this could all come about before the year 2000."
—Lowell Ponte in “The Cooling”, 1976

Could, but it didn't. Not even close. Next:

"If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder by the year 2000. … This is about twice what it would take to put us in an ice age."
—Kenneth E.F. Watt on air pollution and global cooling, Earth Day, 1970

I love that phrase "If present trends continue." It sounds so scientific, but it's so preposterous. 

You know, if present trends continue, and the days keep getting longer, we will eventually have no more night time! Ever! Of course, present trends don't continue, and the days start to get shorter again after the Summer Solstice. But then, if those present trends continue, the days will continue to get shorter, and then we'll have no more daytime! Ever!

Present trends don't tend to continue into the territory the doomsayers anticipate.

"In a decade, America's mighty rivers will have reached the boiling point."
-Edwin Newman, Earth Day 1970

And this was back when the earth was cooling! Not sure how this genius came up with that one, but there you go.

"Quickly capping 363 oil well fires in a war zone is impossible. The resulting soot might well stretch over all of South Asia. Beneath such a pall sunlight would be dimmed, temperatures lowered and droughts more frequent. Spring and summer frosts may be expected... This endangerment of the food supplies... appears to be likely enough that it should affect the war plans..."

 - Carl Sagan, 1991, warning of a nuclear winter if Kuwait's oil wells were set ablaze. 

Well, they were set ablaze, and billyuns and billyuns of gallons were burned, but they were quickly capped with minimal environmental damage. (Actually, I doubt it was billyuns. Maybe just millyuns.)

"We have ten years to save the world's oceans."
- Ted Danson, 1988.

At last check, twenty years on, the oceans seems to be doing fine. Wish I could say the same for Danson's career.

"The environment is in trouble – and the more it suffers, the tougher it is on your skin...."
- Seventeen magazine, 1991, warning about the dangers of the then-disappearing, now-reappearing ozone layer.

Do they still print Seventeen magazine? At least something's disappearing, anyway. 

I could go on, but you get the point.I'm not sure if Philip or yesterday's Idiot will, but Philip is still a good guy.