Just in Case You Were Doubting the Journalistic Integrity of FOX News

Rupert Murdoch has managed to do what years of American foreign policy could not. THEY WIPED IRAQ OFF THE MAP!!!

Let's hope Israel stays on Bill O'Reilly's good side...

And That's the Way it Was

Walter Cronkite died today, at the ripe old age of 92.

Fortunately I'm not quite old enough to remember Cronkite in his heyday, as the anchor of the CBS Evening News and "the most trusted man in America." I can't speak about my personal experiences with Walter Cronkite, and the New York Times can talk about his impact much better than I.

What I can talk about is what I think his death symbolizes. It will surprise none when I say that it represents the death of T.V. news, or at least, the trust Americans have had in it.

Cronkite made no aspersions to be a pundit, for either the Right, the Left, or anyone in between. His job was just to find and report the news, and when he did it, he did it earnestly and with care, and everyone trusted him because they knew this.

Cronkite had the luxury not to reach his prime in a polarized country, at least, not one where that polarization was played out across 100 different network and cable channels every night. For to be sure, Hawks vs. Doves, Traditionalists vs. Civil Rights Activists, Communist haters vs. sympathizers, and many others had their battles under Cronkite's watch, but those groups in the pre-information age never relied on T.V. newsmen to fight those battles for them.

Today, with FOX, NBC, CNN and all the rest of the alphabet fighting for every little piece of the ratings pie that they can get, everyone who reports the news on television has to take a stand. If they don't pick a side, the rest of the media will sweep them into one category or another.

When John Stewart went on Crossfire and effectively buried the show with his passionate deconstruction of its entertainment-based underpinnings, he shone the spotlight on a serious problem, which is that television news, both local, national, and cable, has, almost by necessity, lost virtually all it's credibility, and I'm not sure that there's anything anyone can do about it.

The trusted, impartial televsion news anchor and television news broadcast died today with Walter Cronkite. I'll be getting my news from newspapers and the Internet. If I want a good laugh or some entertaining video bites with my popcorn, I'll throw on FOX News or CNN.

How Wise, This Latina?

The opening salvo in the formality known as the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearings was an attack on Judge Sotomayor's impartiality.In particular, a 2001 speech in which she suggested that in some situations she hoped a “wise Latina” would make a better judgment than a white man. Republicans and their media mouthpieces, being contractually obligated to bash any Obama nomination, immediately took hold of this story and put it forth as an example of Sotomayor’s potential as an “activist” judge, and even used it to accuse her of racism.

It’s not surprising that the Republicans would take hold of this issue. There is little doubt that a white male justice who said he hoped that in certain cases a “wise white man” would make a better judgment than a Puerto Rican woman would be vilified by the left. The counterargument to this, of course, is that there is no comparable situation a white man could find himself in, since by the nature of our culture, white men do not come from an oppressed class and cannot experience oppression in the same way as a minority can. I’m not sure I agree with this, but I’d rather focus on Sotomayor’s critical statements.

Here’s the lecture quote that has everyone up in arms:

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.”

She was referring specifically to cases of civil rights and discrimination, and responding to a quote of Sandra Day O’Connor’s that a wise man and a wise woman should come to the same conclusions when judging. The Sotomayor apologists would contend that she was simply saying that a white male does not have the breadth of cultural experience to equip him to fully understand the damages and dangers of institutionalized racism, not that they were in any way genetically inferior.

In her response to questioning on the issue, Sotomayor stated:

"I want to state upfront, unequivocally and without doubt: I do not believe that any racial, ethnic or gender group has an advantage in sound judging. I do believe that every person has an equal opportunity to be a good and wise judge, regardless of their background or life experiences."

So there you have it. That should be the end of the story. Unfortunately, what isn’t mentioned is that Sotomayor prefaced the “wise Latina” comment with this one:

“Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.”

That sure sounds like she thinks racial background makes a difference. Is she saying it makes a difference but that difference is not an advantage? Is it a disadvantage? Clearly she doesn’t think that.

Frankly I am more concerned with the double standard. I have no doubt that if any member of a “non-oppressed” class were to suggest that there are inherent physiological differences that have an effect on judgment, they would be ruthlessly attacked by the left. That doesn’t mean it’s not true. It also doesn’t mean that Sotomayor is a racist. What I think it does mean is that people should not be so quick to play the race card at the merest mention of genetic, physiological or social differences between those of different ethnicities.

Let Freedom Ring!

In celebration of its 233rd birthday, here are a few fun facts about the United States:

Over 80 percent of the United States have laws prohibiting certain American citizens from marrying the spouse of their choice.

While 13.5 percent of Americans are African-American, 41 percent of those on death row are African American.

Women on average make 78 cents for every dollar a man makes.

The FISA Amendments Act still gives the government almost unlicensed ability to surveil the international communications of private American citizens.


Even with all that, I still believe this is the greatest country in the world. Happy Independence Day!

Is Michael Jackson's Death a Tragedy?

I don't know if you guys have heard, but Michael Jackson died.

I felt bad when I heard this, but not because of who MJ was. I felt bad because when I hear that anyone dies it reminds me of my own mortality, which is depressing (and largely why I stopped reading daily AOL headlines). Frankly, my first instinct, as I'm sure is the case for many others, is to find out why a 50 year old man suddenly died, so we can assure ourselves it won't happen to us (okay, I'm not doing daily Demerol shots, phew). Also, I've lost four close family members and a beloved family pet over the last five years, so I'm not going to lose too much sleep over Michael Jackson.

But clearly, if the news outlets are to be believed anyway, this is a pretty big deal, and some say, an unspeakable tragedy. But is it really a tragedy, more so than the death of anyone else? One thing I always think about when something like this happens is how much worse it would have been to die at 50 and never to have done anything culturally relevant, which happens probably every day. But objectively, is this a particular tragedy? To answer that, I think we need to talk about what it means to say a life ends tragically.

Was It a Violent End?

One situation in which we say someone died tragically is if their death was the result of violence. A car accident, a shooting, a fire. If not violent, a death that comes with great pain is considered tragic: Cancer, emphysema, ALS. Michael Jackson appears to have essentially passed away in his sleep.

Was Someone Else Responsible?

We also consider it tragic if someone causes the death of another. When someone who should have continued living but does not because someone hit them with a car or crashed their plane, this is considered a tragedy. A suicide is also considered tragic, but usually it is the circumstances that led to the suicide that are thought of as tragic, not necessarily the death itself. This one is not clear. It may be that Jackson received bad information about prescription drug use, and it may even be that drug overdose will not turn out to be the cause of death, but it seems equally likely that he took risks with drugs even after receiving precautionary advice from doctors.

Was His Life Cut Short?

This is the big one. If someone should have lived for a much longer time on average, then we consider his death a tragedy. The average life expectancy of the African American male is about 69 years. That means that Michael was cheated out of 19 years on average. Unfortunate, but it may not be tragic. Of course, MJ was not the average African American male. But we don't know if that works for him or against him. Clearly he is not subject to the life-shortening effects of poverty or gang violence, but on the other hand, there is anecdotal evidence to suggest that the lifespans of great musicians are shorter than average. Some of the greatest musicians in history did not even see their 50th birthdays (Elvis Presley, 42, John Lennon, 40, Wolfgang Mozart, 35, Jim Morrison, 28, Sam Cooke, 33, Marvin Gaye, 45, Otis Redding, 26, Jimi Hendrix, 27).

Did He Have More to Contribute?

What about Michael's contribution to society? While he was planning a new concert tour which would no doubt have been sold out, it seems that Michael's positive cultural relevance is largely on the decline. I would be surprised if most of the people who are now playing their old Michael Jackson DVDs and downloads around the clock had chosen of their own accord to play a Michael Jackson song anytime in the last ten years before June 26th. Since HIStory in the late '90s, MJ has been primarily known for his bizarre lifestyle, accusations of child molestation, and questionable treatment of his own children. This doesn't take away from his historic contributions to the music world during his lifetime, of course, it's just a question of how much more he had to give.

As I stated, there is a way in which it is a tragedy when anyone dies. But is it any more of a tragedy than the death of say, Farrah Fawcett, who lost a courageous battle with cancer at the age of 62 and who is credited for a number of movie roles inspiring women to take control of their lives, or of Stephen T. Johns, killed by a white supremacist while defending the Washington D.C. Holocaust museum? Probably not.

Some might say: why even speak of whose death is a 'greater' tragedy? When anyone dies, especially prematurely, it is equally unfortunate. If that is your attitude, good for you. In a world where certain lives are clearly valued above others, it seems that is a rare position to take.

Proportional Response

This morning I was treated to a call in on a C-Span news program by a viewer who likened Israel to China and the Gaza Strip to Tibet. He called for a "proportional response" and he, like another caller who accused the C-Span analyst of "probably being Jewish" were full of spite and vitriol for those who supported the cause of the Israelis.

Listen, it's been said before but I'll say it again. If anything, Israel is Tibet in this scenario. Israel is surrounded on all sides by a united group of nations who have been trying to wipe them out for not years, but centuries. To suggest that Israel, a country that occupies the tiniest strip of land in the region, is comparable to China, which along with Russia controls most of an entire continent and currently has no serious local enemies, is beyond ludicrous.

So is this idea of a "proportional response." Let me repeat what I wrote before. All of the other nations of the region have been trying to defeat Israel for thousands of years. Not get them to concede a little territory, but to completely wipe them off the map. If Israel falters just a little bit, just for a second, they could be entirely destroyed. Furthermore, these attacks that get people up in arms about Israel are ALWAYS, not just sometimes, but ALWAYS initiated by these so called "victims of aggression."

A final thought about proportional response. What do you suppose President Bush would have done had Cuba decided to lob a missile or two into Florida? When Al Qaeda attacked a mere two targets in the United States, this country responded by completely overthrowing two independent foreign governments. I wonder if these Israel naysayers considered that a "proportional response?"

Wormholes, Worldlines and Whatnot

In the first blog in this series, I talked about the many reasons that I felt time travel stories don’t work. I specifically mentioned the main physical, metaphysical, logical and aesthetic objections. In the second blog, I bravely took up the other side, and discussed how the Many Worlds Theory effectively rebuts the metaphysical objections, and to some extent, the logical ones. However, the physical, aesthetic, and to some extent, the logical objections remain. What’s a time travel advocate to bring up in his defense now? Answer: Wormholes.

Wormholes

A wormhole functions according the idea that spacetime is curved, and there can essentially be a situation where a bridge is created cutting right through that curve, a sort of tunnel between an earlier and later time. In other words, if time were a straight line ----, it would take you a certain amount of time to get from point A to point B. But if time were more of a “C” shape, you could get from one end of the C to the other much faster by cutting through it rather than going around the curve.

This indeed solves a lot of problems. It counters the physical objection, because you can have a wormhole where objects are not moving at the speed of light inside the tunnel, although they might appear to be to outside observers (a wormhole is not simply two black holes with a bridge between them, but rather a black hole and a white hole linked by negative energy).

The show Sliders made heavy use of wormholes and the Einstein-Rosen bridges between them. Wormholes also take care of my main logical objection, the Tourist Trap, which was that if time travel is possible at one point, it becomes possible simultaneously throughout the time stream. Scientists have postulated that time travel through a wormhole would require the “stationary end” to appear first. In other words, a wormhole couldn’t open up allowing you to travel back to someplace where there wasn’t a wormhole before. The point of this being that we may not have experienced time travel yet because the first “stop,” or the first wormhole, hasn’t been created/found yet.

Worldlines

There has been another use of time travel in fiction that I haven’t mentioned yet, but that I have found to be very effective. This is the idea of the worldline. Worldlines are essentially lines that travel through space and time at once, as opposed to a timeline that simply marks the passage of time. In other words, a person’s life, drawn on a graph, would be a worldline, as it plots their movement through space and time. Some time travel stories intimate that it is possible to travel back and forth on your own worldline, since it is simply a line that exists in the universe, not something that is being created or destroyed. Under the right circumstances you should able to walk back and forth along it like the path to your tomato garden.

Whatnot
This still does not address my aesthetic objection, which you’ll remember was that time travel stories are simply messy: Specifically, it 1. disrupts continuity and makes it difficult to invest in the characters, and 2. creates the slippery slope: You go back and change something, I go back and fix it, you go back and unfix it, ad infinitum. To close out this extended rant, I’d like to take a look at how some time travel stories handle all this and how effective I think it has been.

Star Trek

I frankly think that time travel has made Star Trek a pretty big mess. You can argue with the last movie that the Romulan time trip created a new, alternate timeline, and that the initial timeline is moving forth as it always had (albeit without a Spock). That’s okay, I guess, but I suspect we will never see our “real” timeline again, and even that timeline has been removed by so many jumps it hardly matters (for example in Star Trek, First Contact, the Borg go back in time and take over Earth, radically changing its history. The Enterprise crew goes back and fixes it. However according to the Many Worlds theory, the initial timeline was unchanged by the Borg, and the Borg’s new timeline was unchanged by the Enterprise; we simply have three different universes in effect. Yes I have a headache now too).

Quantum Leap, Watchmen, Slaughterhouse Five

I lump these together because they all make what I think is effective use of the “Worldline” theory of time travel. Dr. Sam Beckett can only travel back and forth through time within his own lifetime, while Dr. Manhattan experiences different times in his life simultaneously. Billy Pilgrim has come “unstuck” in time, and experiences his life randomly through time, jumping from one point to the next without rhyme or reason (or at least without rhyme). In each case, the universe is not offended by their time travel.

Back to the Future

Back to the Future alludes to the Many Worlds theory, but not quite effectively. Dr. Brown does explain how moving through time creates an alternate timeline. However, he creates a sticky situation when he does a test run by sending his dog three minutes into the future. The dog has clearly reappeared in the same timeline, which forces us to confront the possibility that somehow moving ahead in time does not create new timelines while moving backwards does. Marty also finds that changing the past is affecting his original present (the picture with his siblings disappearing as they are “uncreated”), which gives rise to the “grandfather paradox” anew.

Sliders

Sliders handles the wormhole idea pretty well, but its protagonists are jumping through dimensions, not moving through time and space. There are no paradoxes because they never encounter the same timeline twice, although Quinn Mallory’s quest to return to his home dimension may prove impossible.

Comic Books

Members of the Legion of Superheroes travel freely back and forth through time with little concern about the consequences. The mainstream DC universe has not created a very sophisticated look at time travel although they used to have an interesting conceit where if you went back to a time where you already existed, you would appear as a wraith, since the same person cannot “be in two places at once.”

The Terminator

Terminator time travel isn’t too unwieldy for a number of reasons. The first is that only a handful of people go back before the time travel device is destroyed, and they can’t travel the other way. There are still some paradox issues, but since time travel is used so sparingly, it doesn’t interfere with the story too much.

Okay. I’m finally done with the time travel stuff. Next week I’ll go back to ranting about traffic patterns in L.A. or bad poker beats or why some Right to Lifers are psychotic or whatever.

Why You Love Time Travel Part I

In my last post, I complained about time travel as it appears in television, movies and fiction in general. I felt that there were a number of inconsistencies about time travel as to make it so implausible as to render any story based on it completely unenjoyable.

Clearly I’m in the minority in this opinion. Time travel stories continue to delight, generation after generation. Why should this be, if my objections are so irrefutable? Well, one reason is some people just like a good story and don’t care how unbelievable it is. As I pointed out in my last blog, Superman’s “impossible” ability to fly doesn’t deter my enjoyment of his adventures (although I prefer Batman). However, there's more to it than that.

The Objections to Time Travel

I raised four basic objections to time travel as portrayed in fiction: Physical: As one approaches the speed of light, required for going back in time, mass becomes infinite, effectively destroying the time traveler; Metaphysical: Specifically the Grandfather Paradox (you go back in time and kill your grandfather, therefore you are never born and cannot go back in time to kill your grandfather, etc.) and the Ontological Paradox (Future Craig hands me an envelope which he tells me to hold on to for five years. Five years later I go back in time and hand myself the envelope. Where did the envelope come from?). Logical: Specifically, the Tourist Objection; If time travel is possible, how come we don’t know about it yet? We should be being visited by an effectively infinite number of time travelers all the time, where are they? And Aesthetic: How can any story have internal consistency if someone can always go back in time and change what happened?

I mentioned that there are rebuttals to all of these objections (I excepted the aesthetic but I will stipulate that for most people, if the other objections are satisfied the aesthetic one should be as well, even if I personally am not comfortable with it), and hence, some time travel stories that work. So here goes:

Let’s start by addressing the Metaphysical objections. The famous grandfather paradox and the ontological paradox. There are two main ways that philosophers approach the problem of time travel paradoxes: The Many Worlds Theory and the Novikov Self-Consistency Principle.

The Novikov Self-Consistency Principle

The Novikov Self-Consistency Principle simply states that anything that cannot happen, will not happen. In other words, if you go back in time and try to kill your grandfather, you will always fail. Your gun will misfire at the last minute, you will have shot the wrong person, or the right person but it will turn out that he wasn’t your grandfather after all, etc. The television show LOST makes use of the self-consistency principle. Daniel Faraday repeatedly explains that no matter what they try to do, the future will not change, because whatever happened is immutable and has already happened, even if the time-traveling protagonists are at an earlier place in the timeline. Ben cannot be killed as a child, the Dharma Initiative cannot be saved, simply because it didn’t happen.

I do not find this theory particularly compelling. There is nothing in the universe to suggest that it actively attempts to sort out paradoxes at a macro level. If you shoot someone, they will die, and to suggest that the universe somehow “knows” to protect them seems to be so fanciful as to make the theory meaningless. This also does not explain the ontological paradox.

The Many Worlds Theory

The many worlds theory, popularized in D.C. Comics with their “multiverse,” and based on the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle which says that the states of certain particles at the quantum level are not fixed until observed, and that until they are observed they exist in multiple states at once, is much more compelling. It is referenced in Back to the Future and used in comic book literature and other works of fiction, including the television show Sliders and the Michael Crichton book “Timeline.”

The idea of the multiverse is that the universe as we know it is just one of many possible universes that exist in different dimensions, and that each choice we make represents the universe that we fix in time out of the infinite universes that are possible. As it pertains to time travel, the theory goes that when we go back in time and change something, we create an alternate timeline. Our original timeline, the one that spawned us, continues on into infinity while we exist in the new, altered timeline.

This idea seems to work pretty well. It addresses the grandfather paradox: when you kill your grandfather, you create a universe where you never existed, however you, the killer, came from a parallel universe where you did exist. It addresses the ontological paradox too. In Terminator, Kyle Reese is sent back in time to protect Sarah Connor so that John Connor will be born. He ends up becoming John Connor’s father. According to the theory, there was a “prime” universe where John Connor had some other father. In that universe, Kyle Reese was sent back in time, creating an alternate universe where Kyle Reese is John Connor’s father, as we see in the movie.

How this is handled can get complicated. In Back to the Future, Marty and his siblings start to disappear when it seems that Marty may have prevented his parents from ever falling in love. If this is an alternate universe, that shouldn’t be an issue. In “Timeline” Crichton addresses this problem by suggesting that events in an alternate timeline have a “ripple effect.” That over the course of time, minor changes happen in the original timeline so that it will “catch up,” and become consistent with that timeline. In other words, events in one timeline can have an effect on others.

I feel that the many worlds theory is pretty effective in addressing the metaphysical objection, and as I stated in my first post, the metaphysical objection doesn't trouble me that much. The many worlds theory does also address the logical objection to some extent. If travelers going back in time are always creating alternate timelines, we shouldn’t expect to ever meet one in our “prime” universe. However I don’t find this entirely compelling. Somehow it seems that we still might receive a visitor from an alternate future, so that our prime timeline is their alternate one, or that the ripple effect should still produce premature time travel in our universe. I feel that there are stronger rebuttals to the “Time Tourist” objection, which is tied in with the rebuttal to the physical objection (hint: Wormholes), and I’ll discuss those in Part II.

Why I Hate Time Travel

The summer blockbuster season has arrived and it seems that the words of the day are “time travel.” Time travel is all the rage, and appears prominently in the latest “Star Trek” installment, as well as being a key element of Terminator: Salvation. Time travel was also a frequent theme of the Terminator television series, and of course is crucial to ABC’s ever popular LOST.

Time Travel in Science Fiction

While the latest Star Trek movie installment was hailed as “original” and “groundbreaking,” time travel is actually an extremely common element of the Star Trek series. It was the theme of four Star Trek Movies (“The Voyage Home,” “Generations” and “First Contact,” in addition to the latest installment), and has appeared multiple times in every Star Trek series (TOS: City on the Edge of Forever, Assignment: Earth, TNG: Yesterday’s Enterprise, Time’s Arrow, DS9: Little Green Men, Trials and Tribble-ations, VOY: Future’s End, Relativity, ST:E: Cold Front, Zero Hour).

The Terminator series is completely reliant on time travel to tell its story. Clearly time travel is a popular device for purveyors of science fiction. So why do I hate it so much?

Problems with Time Travel

My problems with time travel, like time travel itself, span multiple dimensions. These dimensions are Physical, Metaphysical, Logical and Aesthetic. To address each of these in turn:

Physical:

Time travel the way it is depicted in most fiction is impossible. This, frankly, is the least of my concerns with time travel, as science fiction is generally predicated on the impossible. However, I just thought I’d put it out there. The whole idea of time travel is usually designed around Einstein’s Relativity theories, which essentially state that how fast time moves depends on your perspective, and that space and time exist together along a continuum. The faster you are moving and the farther away you are from an object, the slower time appears to you relative to the object that isn’t moving as fast or that you are far away from. The theory continues to suggest that if you could move fast enough, you could theoretically move backwards through the time stream, and there are in fact particles that do this, called tachyons.

The problem with all of this for say, Ambassador Spock, is that as one approaches the speed of light, one’s mass becomes infinite, and the human (or Vulcan) body is not really equipped for infinite mass, so anyone traveling through a black hole or some kind of particle accelerator might reappear back in time, but they would do so as so much mush.

Metaphysical:

Again, the physical objection is no big deal. Superman shouldn’t be able to fly either and I’m fine with that. I’m also not too caught up in the metaphysical problems, but I should address them as well.

The metaphysical problems are the paradoxes. There is the classic “Grandfather Paradox;” if you go back in time and kill your grandfather, you will never be born, and therefore you can never go back in time to kill your grandfather. There is the equally troubling “Ontological Paradox,” which comes up much more often. For example in Terminator, John Connor sends Kyle Reese back to protect his mother. Reese ends up in a relationship with Connor’s mother and becomes his father. But who was there to send Reese back the “first time?” That is to say, before the events of Judgment Day happened, who fathered John Connor?

Another example occurs in Star Trek. Scotty needs to transport the heroes onto a moving spaceship, but the technology hasn’t been invented yet. Future Spock assures Scotty that he will one day invent such technology, and in fact provides New Scotty with the required information. The question now becomes, where did this information come from in the first place?

It also appears in LOST. Richard Alpert in the past gives Locke a compass. Locke later gives this compass to Alpert with instructions to give it to him in the past. So what is the compass’ origin? Again, there is a rebuttal to these paradoxes, and these issues don’t concern me overmuch, although they are annoying.

Logical:

The logical objection IS one that concerns me. Although there is a rebuttal, it is NEVER used in fiction to my knowledge, certainly not in Star Trek movies. Here goes. The premise of this objection is that time travel isn’t possible because it doesn’t exist right now. You can’t say “it hasn’t been invented yet” because there is no “yet,” since time travel is involved. If it is discovered anywhere in the timestream, then it must exist everywhere. Some might argue that this is okay because whoever travelled back kept it a secret, or met people who could not understand or evaluate the technology. But that assumes that time travel works like so:

One person travels from point A to Point B, and possibly back, no harm no foul. But if time travel is possible, there are an infinite number of travels, like so:

For as long as human beings exist in time, people will be going back, making anachronistic holes in the time line like so much swiss cheese. With an infinite number of travelers, eventually one will make time travel technology possible at an earlier time, which will then lead to infinitely more travelers between that earlier time and other times, until time travelers are EVERYWHERE. And as far as I can tell, they are not.

Aesthetic:

There are even rebuttals to the logical argument, but there is no rebuttal to the aesthetic argument, which is that time travel is just messy. In Star Trek, the 2009 movie, The Romulans go back in time and wipe out Vulcan. This causes the hundreds of years of fictional history and the decades of real Star Trek history to be wiped out. All the great Star Trek mythology you thrilled to as a child, well, most of it just never happened, cause the Romulans went back in time. How then, can I be expected to invest myself in this new group of characters, when I know that someday, the Romulans could go back in time and destroy the escape ship that contained the unborn Captain Kirk, or destroy the Earth in 1776, or take over the Federation in 2214 with advanced 25th century technology?

Furthermore, there is the Slippery Slope issue which I find so grating that the story is nearly impossible for me to enjoy. In Star Trek, the Romulan mining ship goes back in time and destroys Vulcan. Now that Starfleet is aware of this, why not send a Starfleet force back to where the Romulans will someday pop into the sky and destroy them before they do it? Why not send an espionage force to kill Captain Nero’s mother, a la Terminator? It seems to me that if you can go back and change things, you can always send someone somewhere else in the timeline to change things back. And that’s why I hate time travel stories.

Note: There are some valid rebuttals to all but the aesthetic argument, and hence some time travel concepts/stories that work. I’ll address those in my next post.

The Right to Life

One of the current hot button issues concerns Daniel Hauser, a young Minnesotan suffering from Hodgkin's Lymphoma. The issue is that Hauser is refusing chemotherapy, which studies show have an excellent chance of curing him completely, in favor of untested homeopathic remedies that will almost surely result in his death.

This brings into contrast a classic debate over whether or not the government has a right to interfere in our lives, even when our lives are at stake. Since suicide and euthanasia are against the law in most states, clearly the general consensus is yes. In many cases, such as the right to make informed medical decisions, the situation is not so cut and dried. (By the way if you claim to be "pro-life" and favor banning abortions but think that Colleen Hauser should be free to roll the dice with the health of her child, you are a raging hypocrite.)

What I think is cut and dried is that in the case of children, the medical establishment should prevail. It might be better for society if it didn't, Darwinism in action and all that, but the fact is that the 13 year old Daniel Hauser, who is operating under the warped belief that he is some kind of "medicine man" is simply not old enough to know any better. When he is in his final moments screaming in the throes of cancer-driven agony, he cannot "take it back" and ask for the medicine. It will be too late. For the parents and libertarian advocates to turn this child into a political issue is self-serving and pathetic.

This is also why I hate Jehovah's Witnesses, by the way. Not letting your kids have birthday parties is merely cruel, but refusing them life-saving blood transfusions is just sadistic.

Bigotry Rears Its Pretty Head

So the latest media flap surrounds Miss Carrie Prejean, also known as Miss California. Miss Prejean achieved fame when celebrity blogger and Miss USA judge Perez Hilton asked her her opinion on same sex marriage. To the consternation of everyone, she told the truth, which is that she opposes it. Now there are several issues here, based on two main controversies that have arisen:

One, she ended up coming in second in the Miss USA competition. Mr. Hilton's comment that, to paraphrase, she was in front before that answer and the answer blew it for her, led Miss Prejean to assume that she was being unfairly persecuted for her beliefs and her honesty.

Two, since the competition, Miss Prejean has gone on to be the cover girl for some religious "defense of marriage" group, and this position has been jeopardized by a website that posted a picture of Miss Prejean topless at 17.

To address the first: I'm glad Miss Prejean answered the way she did because frankly, it makes her a perfect representative for California. A majority of California voters happily came out last year and made their position on gay marriage known, and it is just the same as Miss California's. This brings to the public eye that California is not run by liberal wack job hippies or even a T-800, but by these guys.

Take a look. The Mormons, who clearly govern California, are good-looking, blond, tall, and bigoted. Just like, guess who? Miss California Carrie Prejean. I would have been disappointed if she answered any other way. If she did indeed lose the crown because of her answer, then that is a tragedy.

Oh no, wait. It's not a tragedy. It's a FUCKING BEAUTY PAGEANT. WHO THE HELL CARES. If you don't want to be judged based on superficial opinions, don't get up on that stage. And anyone who is shocked and disappointed about Carrie Prejean's position on homosexuality: Don't put any stock in the political opinions of random beauty queens. Of course, she's entitled to her opinion, just like I'm entitled to my opinion that beauty queens shouldn't breed. But that's all it is, a random opinion. I know as much about beauty queens as Prejean knows about drag queens.

As far as whether or not she is a hypocrite? Well frankly, this picture is pretty tame, and I don't think that it has any bearing on her position on gay marriage. I don't really think Miss Prejean is a bigot, I think she's a kid who was taught bigotry by her family and friends and just doesn't know any better. Perhaps this controversy will help her learn. Then maybe something useful will have come out of a beauty pageant for once.

Pearls Before Swine Flu

This is why mainstream news media sucks. If you look around, you've probably seen people walking around with protective masks over their mouths, keeping their kids home from school, and avoiding public transportation. Why? The dreaded Swine Flu.

If you've watched any news on television over the past few weeks, you've heard about how H1N1 Type A, better known as Swine Flu, has devastated Mexico and is coming for your good, pure American children (if you favor closing the Southern border as a response, by the way, you are a xenophobe and a racist. Just a little reality check for you there).

Here's the problem. While getting Swine Flu is no picnic, the CDC indicates that Swine Flu is about 30,000 times LESS DEADLY than regular ol' seasonal flu that no one seems to feel the need to worry about.

So instead of people being taught by media outlets to take reasonable health precautions at all times, we're taught to remain insulated until the mainstream media tells us to panic (all in the name of the Great God Ratings, of course), at which point everyone dutifully FREAKS OUT.

Here's some news for you. You're not going to get Swine Flu and die, and by the way, you're not going to get killed by a terrorist or have a gay married couple break up you and your wife. Do as the President says and wash your hands regularly and be nice to your neighbor and everything will be fine.

Unless you're a pig, in which case you may be in trouble. Egypt, in reponse to the panic, has set about slaughtering their entire stock of pigs like...well, like pigs.

The Curse of Good Cards

Played in a tournament at Hollywood Park today. The first one in a month or so. I kind of hate Hollywood Park and the rounds were only 25 minutes which is awful, despite the "deep" starting stack of 6000 chips, but it was cheap and at the right time. I was doing terrifically until I had the misfortune to start picking up hands.

For the first 9 rounds I never got a hand better than A7 (well, I got AJ one time but I folded it pre-flop to an all-in). Not a single pair, not an A9 or AT. Despite this, I managed to build up a stack of over 30,000. Some hands:

Early on, blinds are 50-100. I pick up 2c4c in middle position. A couple of people limp and I call. I'm a firm believer in trying to flop wheels or wheel draws when you can do it cheaply, as the benefits when it happens and your opponent pairs the ace can be massive. Anyway, it got down to the button who made it like 1000 to go. Everyone folded to me. It will be argued that making such a large call early in a tournament is poor strategy, but the size of his bet and his position made me feel strongly that he was just stealing and that I could take the pot away from him. The flop came down 5 3 8 of mixed suits. He bet out another 1100 after I checked. I considered a check raise, but I liked my hand enough now that I was willing to see a turn. Gin, an Ace. I check and he checked behind. the river was a blank, I bet 2500 and he called, surprisingly, with KK.

A few hands later, I had Q9 and limped. The same player raised to 600 and it was folded to me again. I would often fold in this situation but I knew this player was both tilting and looking to come after me, and that he was likely to move the rest of his chips in on any flop, so if I hit one, I'd clean him up. The flop came K J T. Bingo! I checked. As predicted, he moved in, and I instacalled. He showed me T7. Looked great. Turn, T, River, T and the dealer shipped him the pot. I wish I could say that flopping a huge straight, getting called all in by a pair and losing was something that has not happened to me many, many times.

I got my revenge a few hands later when I found QT of spades. I limped, a player to my left called, the tilter raised, and we both called. The flop came 2 3 4 all spades. I checked, the next guy checked, and the tilter dutifully moved in. I called and he showed pocket sixes, no spade. a 2 on the turn had me ready to blow my top, but fortunately he blanked the river.

It went on like this, with me getting to see flops and turns cheaply, hitting and then spanking a slowplayer, until the table broke. At my next table, very little happened. Then, I got moved to table one, and the worst thing that could possibly have happened to me happened: I started to get cards.

The first, AQ, worked out fine. I raised, and got no callers. The next good hand, AK, worked out okay too. There was a min raise to 3200, a reraise to 5500, I went all-in, the re-raiser went into the tank but then folded.

That's when things started to get hairy. A few hands later, the same guy who had reraised made it 5500 to go again. I looked down at AQ. I flat called. The Big Blind then moved in for 10K more. I had about 40K at this point and we still had 50 or so players to go until the money. If the original raiser calls or raises I have an easy fold. But he folded. So now it's a quarter of my stack to win an increase of more than 50 percent of my stack against a guy who can have a really huge range, given that he was last to act and short. So I call and naturally he has AK, and makes a flush.

The very next hand, lo and behold, pocket Kings! This is perfect, I think. I'll move in with a massive overbet and someone with a bare ace or two big cards or a medium pair will call thinking Im on tilt. I pushed and the same re-raiser from the earlier hand curses and finally calls with AQ. According to plan. However I forgot to account for the A on the flop. No miracle K came to save me and I was out. Let's hope next tournament I don't get any good cards.

Fade In: The Controversy

It seems that somehow I have found myself in the middle of a war between Fade In: the screenwriting magazine, and The Wrap, an online entertainment magazine, so I just wanted to put my side of the story on record:

A couple of weeks ago, I was contacted by a reporter for The Wrap. The reporter wanted to know about my experiences with the Fade In: screenwriting contest, as I had come in 2nd in the Comedy category in 2005. I agreed to talk with her.

The reporter asked me if I was happy with my relationship with Fade In: as she had spoken to a number of people who had not received the prizes they were promised. I told her unequivocally that I had received everything that was promised to me. I also told her that the notes I got from staff writer Allen Ury were some of the best notes I had ever received, and that I had been a finalist or the winner in a number of contests and none of them had done more for me than Fade In.

She asked me if I knew of any other writers who had not received their prizes and I told her I did not know the outcome of any situation with any other writers in the contest, which I still do not.

Finally I admitted to her that I was a little disapponted that I felt "cut off" from Fade In: after my last set of notes. Although I was told that the script was sent to New Line and MTV, which I believe, I never received any feedback from them, either directly or through Fade In: I also did not receive any further communication from Fade In:, and when I tried to contact Audrey Kelly, was deflected several times, until finally I got through to her and she agreed to put together a list of ten agents and managers who I could contact with my script. This never happened and I was never able to get in touch with her again. At no time did I tell the reporter that this level of access was a promised prize of the contest, only that it was something I expected and hoped for.

I saw the article shortly after it appeared, and pretty much only read the part that included me. Since it stated that I received the prizes I was promised but disappointed that I didn't get that list of contacts, which was all true, I said the article looked fair. I could not and cannot speak to the fairness of the rest of the article because I have no relationship with any of the parties involved.

Shortly after this I received an e-mail from Allen Ury expressing his shock at my participation in the article. I sent him an e-mail in response (which he may not have received), detailing what I have said here, that I told the reporter that I did receive what I was promised, though I was not happy with how our relationship seemed to end.

When I went back to The Wrap website, I saw they had a follow up article which stated:

The letter said Fade In had made good on all promises of cash, prizes and connections to contestants Patrice Williams, Powell Weaver and Craig Berger.

But all three denied receiving portions of their promised prizes and/or industry connections in interviews with TheWrap.

This sentence craftily makes it seem like I denied receiving portions of my promised prizes when I in fact am only part of the "/or industry connections" part.

In the end, I just want to reiterate three points:

1) I always got all the prizes promised to me and I never contended, to The Wrap or anyone else, that I did not.

2) I thought that Fade In: ended their relationship with me abruptly and that was a disappointment to me, even though I understand there were no explicit promises of industry access as prizes in the contest. I mentioned it to the reporter because I think most people enter these contests with the hopes of gaining this access, rather than winning a few hundred dollars.

3) I have no idea whether or not Fade In: made good to the other people named in the article or any other contest participants. I have no relationship with those people whatsoever.

So that's that. Hopefully now we can all get on with our lives.

The Ten Most Significant World Series of Poker Final Tables

In honor of the 40th Anniversary of the World Series of Poker this year, I'm taking a moment to give my take on the Top 10 Most Significant WSOP Final Tables:

10. 1995: Winner: Dan Harrington Number of Players: 273

This year is notable for two reasons. One, the winner, Dan Harrington, went on to make two more final tables (and he had already made one before) and to write some of the best known books on tournament Texas hold'em, Harrington on Hold'em, where he talks about, among other things, his thought processes in tricking Howard Goldfarb to bluff all-in against him on the final hand when Harrington held top pair. And two, it featured the presence of Barbara Enright, the first, and to date only, woman to make the final table.

9. 1972: Winner: Amarillo Slim Preston Number of Players: 8

Notable Line: Slim: "It feels better in!"

The second main event ever, what makes this one notable is how it ended. Back in 1972, poker was a game of smokey backrooms, and unlike today, no one was interested in becoming a celebrity, save one: Amarillo Slim Preston. When it reached the final three, Doyle Brunson simply took his money and withdrew, an option not available today, and Puggy Pearson dumped to Slim to avoid the spotlight. Slim made the most of the win though, and by appearing on programs like the Tonight Show, became the first poker celebrity and helped to improve the game's image, decades before the poker boom.

8. 1998: Winner: Scotty Nguyen Number of Players: 350

Notable Line: "You call, gonna be all over baby!"

What's memorable about 1998 is it was one of the most watched finals before the poker boom. Scotty's goading comment to runner up Kevin McBride, causing him to go all in when he could only play the board, is one of the enduring memories of older poker fans, and Scotty remains one of the most well-known and top pros in the game today.

7. 2001: Winner: Carlos Mortenson Number of Players: 613

Two years before Chris Moneymaker and hole card cameras put the WSOP on the map was a final table that ESPN would drool at the prospect of televising today. In addition to eventual champion and future WPT main event champion Carlos Mortensen, the final six featured two time 2nd place finisher Dewey Tomko, former champion and all time bracelet holder Phil Hellmuth, two time final tablist and well-known poker celebrity Mike Matusow and popular player and commentator Phil Gordon. Even more amazingly, probably the most recognizable face in poker today, Daniel Negreanu, just missed the final table, finishing 11th.

6. 1977 Winner: Doyle Brunson Number of Players: 34

1977 represented Doyle's second consecutive WSOP victory, putting him in rarified company with Johnny Moss, Stu Ungar and Johnny Chan. Amazingly, Doyle won both with the same hand, 10-2. Would Doyle have the same legendary status as the Godfather of Poker and the author of poker's bible, Super/System, if he had not won two in a row? Who knows?

5. 2000 Winner: Chris Ferguson Number of Players: 512

Famous Line: T.J. Cloutier: "You didn't learn THAT in my book!"

When the 2000 World Series came around, T.J. Cloutier was widely recognized as the strongest tournament player in the game, and was favored to win it all. He might have, too, had not the dominated Ferguson spiked a nine on the river to suck out on Cloutier on the final hand. Also notable was the final table presence of Harper's Magazine reporter Jim McManus, who entered the tournament while researching a story on women and poker and went on to make the final table. McManus' story, which later became the book Positively Fifth Street, may have been one of the early contributors to the poker boom.

4. 1987 Winner: Johnny Chan Number of Players: 152

In addition to being the series that introduced the world to Johnny Chan,who would go on to win two series in a row and almost three, this final table featured some impressive future poker stars, including Dan Harrington, who would go on to be the most successful WSOP main event player of all time with four total final tables and a win, including two final tables in the post boom era, and Howard Lederer, a frequently seen face on the poker tour.

3. 1989 Winner: Phil Hellmuth Jr. Number of Players: 178

The final table that should have cemented Johnny Chan's legend as the greatest of all time instead gave birth to a new legend. When Hellmuth's pocket nines held up on the final hand, thwarting Chan's bid for a third consecutive championship, Hellmuth became the youngest champion ever, and went on to create a new dimension of self-branding in poker.

2. 1988 Winner: Johnny Chan Number of Players: 167

One of the major contributors to the poker boom was the movie Rounders, staring Edward Norton and Matt Damon, possibly the best poker movie ever made. The WSOP main event featured was this one, specifically, Chan trapping Erik Seidel for all his chips on the final hand. Chan and Seidel both went on to achieve great poker success, and became the first poker celebrities since Amarillo Slim.

1. 2003 Winner: Chris Moneymaker Number of Players: 839

Notable Line: Sammy Farha: "I could make a crazy call on you."

Of course, the series that gave birth to the poker boom was the 34th series in 2003. Due to hole card camera technology, viewers at home could see and understand every bit of action, resulting in the most comprehensive coverage ESPN had ever given to the WSOP. This enabled a growing faction of poker fans to see that anyone, even an accountant from Tennesse, could achieve poker fame and fortune, and poker has been growing ever since.

If you liked this, you might like my Ten Most Influential Mainstream Comic Books in History. Then again, you might not.

On Watching the Watchmen

If eagerness to see it is any indication, Watchmen is going to be a monster success. I saw it an hour after its official release and felt like a latecomer, as several people had already reported to me having seen it. Anyway, here is my review, which will have spoilers at the end, so read carefully.

General Overview

Four stars. While I had modest expectations, I think this movie is as faithful an adaptation of the source material as a three hour movie could possibly be. To be sure some elements were modified and some left out, which I will address, but on the whole, I'd say Zack Snyder pulled it off.

The Performances

Off the bat, Jackie Earle Haley, who plays Rorschach, was simply amazing, on the order of Heath Ledger's Joker, in my opinion. From his opening grunt to his final stand in the snow, I thought Haley captured Rorschach perfectly. Who knew Kelly Leak had it in him?

Jeffrey Dean Morgan, as the Comedian, was unfortunately a little disappointing. His was certainly a competent performance, and to be sure, a lot is going on with Edward Blake and this is a challenging role, but the Comedian has some of the best, most pithy, thought-provoking lines in the Watchmen series, and there are times I felt that Morgan failed to give these lines some of the punch and passion (or stark dispassion) that they merited.

The Look

The movie looked cool. There was no doubt about it. Modern technology enables the filmmaker the ability to bring this material to life in a way that no one could have ever dreamed possible in 1985, and its great to have the opportunity to see it.

The Sound

Snyder's choice to pair each set piece with an overpowering pop song reflective of the time and moment did not work for me, and was the one major failing of the movie in my eyes. It almost felt like the movie was being given the equivalent of a laugh track.

For Non-Fans

While people unfamiliar with the graphic novel will certainly enjoy the movie, I'm not entirely sure they will be able to follow the whole thing. The "master plan" was modified for the movie format, so I felt like some of the "clues," for example, The Comedian's drunken midnight confession to Moloch, do not quite make sense. However in the end, the revised master plan is certainly clear, so perhaps that is all that matters.

The Modifications (BIG SPOILERS HERE)

The decision to leave out the Black Freighter and its implications is one I understand, as it enabled them to trim down the movie considerably. That being said, the necessitated revised ending is at once elegant and far too messy. Saying that the plan was simply to unite the world against Dr. Manhattan rather than against a fake alien monster transplanted into New York City was the elegant part. However, the movie seems to indicate that Ozymandias uses Dr. Manhattan's power to destroy something on the order of five major cities. Ozymandias' original plan only required taking out half of NYC for the same result, making the original a far cleaner, and far more Ozymandias-worthy, solution.

The tone, if possible, I thought was even darker than that of the graphic novel. In particular, with respect to Nite Owl and Silk Spectre. The movie portrays them as unrepentant killers. In their first fight scene, it seems that they clearly kill some of their attackers without remorse, something that does not seem to occur in the graphic novel. Similarly, during the Police Strike Riots, the novel has The Comedian using rubber bullets and tear gas, while the movie seems to have Nite Owl standing idly by while Eddie uses live ammo on innocent civilians. I think its important that Nite Owl and Silk Spectre have different (stronger?) moral fiber than some of the other characters, and that was lost.

The ages. The Comedian and the second Silk Spectre were both aged up to be the same age as their peers, with the Comedian appearing to be an adult as part of the Minutemen in the 40s and the Silk Spectre the same age as Nite Owl and the others in 1985, about 35 years old. I understand why they did this, but the reasons to do it are the same reasons it is problematic. Both characters were supposed to be teenagers, about 16, when with their respective super peers. This would be troubling on screen, as it would force the filmmakers to depict a teenager attempting to rape a grown woman in one era, and a man in his late 30s (Dr. Manhattan) carrying on an illicit affair with a teenager in another era. However, the contrast here, especially when we learn that the Comedian is in fact the Silk Spectre's father, is beautifully poetic and an important part of the story which should not be lost. On top of that, an adult Comedian wearing what is clearly a kid's costume in the 40s looks a little ridiculous.

Summary:

On the whole, I have only some minor quibbles, and think the movie is definitely worth seeing. Maybe more than once. The diehard fans will probably never be satisfied, but I think this telling of the story is as good as anything they could have hoped for.