Hi-Tech/Lo-Tech: Surviving the End of Times (When the shit hits the fan, Armageddon it on!)

Listen, I’ve been to a Solider of Fortune convention before and it’s a bunch of chain-smoking deadbeat dads with dark circles under their eyes and a belief that a limited-edition 12-inch blade (and officially licensed movie merchandise) will save their truck from getting snapped up by the repo man. And that Patriots Guide to Survival handbook you got from Aunt Sandy? Well, as much as I like duck tape, you’ve just gotta realize you’ll need a little more to survive in the future. Will Cosmo Girl save you? Naw—when the shit goes down and Johnny and Luther Htoo are trying to run a "Rambo II" reenactment on your scalp, only Celebrity Cola will leave you prepared.

[Note: Celebrity Cola is not actually suggesting that you buy into any of the products, organizations, or ideas listed below. This piece was originally written for a counter-culture music/lifestyle magazine, but the publication got canceled before this issue ever went to press. The article’s concept was to poke fun at the usual “cool new products that you must buy” section that’s so often found at the beginning of most magazines. You know, that front-of-book part of glossies where the editors plug their sponsors under the guise of an article called “Makeup you can’t live without!” or “Cool New Gadgets Men Love!” That being said, the following list does contain some gobsmacking cool shit.]

Hi-tech:

Bow-Lingual: Remember how in “A Boy and His Dog” good ol’ Don Johnson’s only reliable sidekick is his telepathic talking-dog, Blood, who helps him scout out food and women? Well now your dog can help you scout out the post-apocalyptic landscape as well. With Bow-Lingual the only friend you have left will be able hold a rudimentary converstaion. At least you’ll know what he thinks of your plan to rig a radio transmitter to the water tower...

Yumemi Koubou: Japanese for “Dream Viewing Workshop,” this handy little multi-sensory device will help you sleep peacefully even after all hell has broken loose. Plus, if used properly, you’ll be able to program yourself and you’re your friends in great Manchurian Candidate style, insuring you don’t all go insane.

No-Contact Jacket: stylish, chic, and wired with 80,000 volts of low-amperage electric current. Put this puppy on and you can dance all night at the club without boys grabbing at your hoo-ha’s.



Neoterik’s Np2131k Gas Mask: anyone in a gas mask is vaguely sexy in an end-of-the-Earth kind of way. And whether the Russians are coming or your roommate’s just eaten too much chili, having this baby around could be mighty helpful. Plus, it’s specially designed to allow you to keep talking without the normal gas-mask annoyance of a muffled voice.

SOLAR SCOTTeVEST: When the power goes out all your shit can still be powered. This jacket has thin solar panels sewn into the fabric that allow you to connect and recharge all your gadgets. You can even tear off the sleeves and rock it “Invasion USA” style. But if you need more power, check out the portable, lightweight SolarRoll at www.brunton.com.

Garmin GPS Rino 130: When you can’t trust anyone to give you directions, you can count on satellite readings to help you out. The Rino 130 includes an electronic compass, barometric sensor, a weather receiver for seven NOAA weather channels, and a detailed map of North and South America. Oh, and did I mention it’s a walkie-talkie? You can communicate with the other radio holder up to two miles away.

Steri-Pen: This “Pocket-Sized, Ultraviolet Water Disinfection System” is a portable water purifier that will destroy all those pesky viruses and bacterium the enemy may have slipped into our water system. Plus, if you’re in Mexico, it’ll keep you from getting the runs. UV sterilization is used by hospitals around the world to disinfect water and contaminated instruments, while the U.S. military sometimes prefers the MIOX Purifier, which uses salt instead of UV light.

Z-Medica’s QuikClot: Used by U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq, Z-Medica's blood-clotting powder only costs about $20 a dose. Good for serious skateboarding accidents, knife wounds, and Zombie bites, although there’s no guarantee you won’t turn into a zombie if infected.

HUMMER Shake Flashlight: specially designed to capitalize on the growing strength of your wank wrist. Jostle it back and forth to charge.


Low-Tech:

The Zombie Survival Guide: Most hokey survival books take the perspective of someone out in the woods alone. Chances are, when the end comes, you’ll be trapped in a city and everyone is hungry and desperate. At this point, most people will be behaving like crazed zombies. Or perhaps mutant viruses and radiation exposure will actually spawn flesh-hungry zombies. Author Max Brooks (son of Mel) teaches you how to cope.

Ted Nugent’s Gonzo Meat Biltong: The worst part about being vegan is having to deal with all the patchouli and hair braids every time you go shopping for food at the co-op. That and knowing a delicious cheeseburger would be really good for your hangover. As your chances of obtaining tofurky dwindles, you might want to consider Ted Nugget’s D.I.Y. ethos of “If you kill it, you can eat it.” Even Ian Mackay can respect this. What’s the problem? Yeah, like you’re more punk than Ian Mackay? In the meantime, stuff some of the Nuge’s special-recipe beef jerky down your throat. (We're sorry to announce that this product has been discontinued, but we figure there must be a warehouse of unsold Gonzo Meat Biltong out there somewhere. We’re not sure where you buy this stuff, but we want it—bad.)



Nuclear War Survival Skills, by Cresson H. Kearny, is a practical guide for the nuclear-paranoid that shows you how to quickly and simply build such useful things as fallout shelters and radiation meters using mostly household items. So if a warhead hits the mainland before you’ve built your own underground lair, you better have this book in your bedroom or your skin is going to get so nasty even Botox won’t help. Fpr extra credit, read The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook, Gonzo Gizmos: Projects and Devices to Channel Your Inner Geek, and Sneaky Uses for Everyday Things to learn how to turn a penny into a radio or use lemons to make a battery.

Boulder Outdoor Survival School (BOSS): For 14 days you’ll hike across rugged mountains in deserts in southern Utah, with no food or water except for what you find. The emphasis is on knowledge and low-tech techniques for survival. Added bonus: Hikers often lose up to 20 pounds from their fat asses.

GSI Vortex Blender: Electricity gone? Black clouds of doom keeping your solar panels from working? Don’t fret! The GSI Vortex will keep the frozen daiquiris coming, since this hand-cranked beauty easily spins it’s stainless steel blade at 7,000 rpm. Now if only you can find some ice and booze...

PB-V3/PB-207 Blue Flame Pocket Micro Torch: An old-fashioned lighter with the heat turned up a notch. Light your ciggies in high-wind conditions, start a campfire in the rain, solder together a make-shift radio, melt a lead pipe into a spear, and heat your soup with this hand-held 1,300 degree Celsius flame. Fits in your pocket, as does the similarly ultra-hot Mini-Bunsen Burner. Try not to burn your lips off. (Or see ThinkGeek.com for a lighter that doesn’t light shit but does take digital pix)

Cold Steel’s Special Forces Shovel: modeled after the original Soviet Spetznaz army shovels, this combat spade will enable you to dig a bomb shelter lickety-split. The edges are axe-grade and can chop through tough roots and enemy necks. The heat-treated carbon steel can be sharpened for extra slicing power. Plus, it makes for a nice frying pan. (More combat shovels can be found at www.bynoon.com/survive.html)

Kurt Saxon: A former Nazi, Satanist, UFO cultist, Scientologist, and spiritualist (among other pursuits), Saxon is now a octogenarian that believes he’s transcended racism, religion, and politics. He sees himself as a modern-day Buddha and Survivalist, although he hints that Muslims might be Martians and still harbors some extremist views. But then again, he’ll also tell you how to turn corn or cheap wine into 90-proof alcohol (great drinking and good fuel!) using a pressure-cooker or turkey-fryer as a moonshine still. Check out his books and CDs for useful survival info and weird-ass ramblings.

Gore-Tex & Wind Stopper Outerwear: Ugg boots offer sheepskin/wool simplicity that elicits a saucy caveman vibe, but outside of Aussie footwear it seems surprisingly difficult to find decent prehistoric-style attire. Come to think of it, it’s hard to find sheep-based products at all in the U.S. The last time I was Down Under every decent restaurant and dirty hole-in-the-wall offered up lamb, and sheep’s brains were the delicacy de résistance. That’s true troglodyte chic, and Australian clothing is desperately needed for this whole modern-primate esprit de corps. But until the fashion world realizes that we all want to dress like Crocodile Dundee in a snowstorm, the miraculously waterproof products utilizing Gore-Tex and Wind Stopper technology will at least keep us dry, warm, and looking rugged.

—by Lucas Brachish & Byron Karl

New Blog Carnival Showcase Extravaganza No. 2

The following are all brand-new blogs -- except for a few that aren't really brand new, but are still kinda new, so I've included them in this showcase anyway, 'cause I like 'em.

Please, check these sites out; be kind and give a couple of them a link or blogroll 'em; and email them some comments and suggestions while they're still young and impressionable.

(Hint: If you'd rather not leave Celebrity Cola while looking at the various blogs in the showcase, simply hold down on the SHIFT key on your keyboard while clicking on any of the links below. That way, the blogs will open up in a new window.)

And now, let the showcase begin! This is all good stuff:

Arizona Perspective and Junk covers news and events, uniquely Arizona info, and other interesting things (such as science, culture, cooking, and the arts).

Bobo Blogger rants about a lot of stuff, including the recent suit filed on behalf of Tsunami victims.

Catoptrophobe Nightmare is the online journal of a NYC law student, with the usual roundup of news and rants.

Circadiana is a blog dedicated to the study of biological timing, including circadian (and other) rhythms and clocks, as well as the biology of sleep.

Don't Touch the Feet is a mixture of personal rants, musings on celebrity culture, and "things about my friends that make me laugh" -- all sprinkled with appropriate doses of outrage and humor, and tended to "with the care of an orchid gardener."

Flaming Duck is the home of a Virginia-based, Republican, ex-navy nuclear submarine sailor, who is now working in local government. The blog comments on global, national, and local news and politics, while explaining why the U.S. political system is better than anyone else's.

At Haiku 4 You, Mr. Haiku writes a new poem every day (in the epigrammatic Japanese verse form of three short lines, of course). The haikus document everything from personal events to the death of Hunter S. Thompson, with useful links embedded in the verse.

HerWryness attempts to find "fulfillment and the forbearance of faith while living with Fibromyalgia, Fatigue and Arthritis." Also, discover why she is "tired to death of the word journey."

Hill Country Views is composed of ramblings from the Texas hill country, from a self-proclaimed "liberal conservative." Read his article on the "Surprising and Unreported Trend In Family Size."

Komputa Muso (The Musings on a Theme of "Sod Themes" Sorta Theme) is from some funny Irish bloke who does go on about anything and everything... including the urination habits of men in public bathrooms.

Liberty Cadre is a United Kingdom-based libertarian site that offers positive, practical suggestions on how to help the U.K. Libertarian cause, as well as focusing on liberty issues in
Europe and the world beyond.

Lockjaw's Lair writes about politics and current events, including the difference between the "Mainstream Media (MSM) and the Blogosphere."

Maggie's Farm is an eccentric, idiosyncratic blog concerning news and politics, written from the perspective of "skeptical, politically centrist" humans and animals.

My Meandering Thoughts explores love, politics, and personal musings in an attempt to "start a dialogue with people from other countries and cultures."

Non-religious.com covers topics important to atheists, agnostics, and secular humanists ("the world's fourth largest belief system with 850 million people") in a format that seems to be part blog and part traditional website resource.

Dean Abbott's Notes and Meditations is devoted to pop culture, travel, science, religion, technology, the arts, and history -- but Dean also gives a thorough analysis of what Debbie Gibson appearing in Playboy really means.

Pratie Place doesn't "write about Iraq or kitties," opting instead to cover such diverse topics as religion in Transylvania, strange verbs in England, and the demolishing of the Great Wall of China.

Quid Nimis ("something in excess") is a political blog with a dash of humor. For instance, the site wonders if a woman wearing a short skirt can really be called "torture."

Slipshod and Simple chronicles the whims and opinions of a frustrated writer living in East Hampton, NY. With a bit o' wit, he drops info on everything from TV to technology.

The Sorest Loser answers questions such as "Should Steroids be Illegal?" and "Is Our Military Targeting Journalists?" with thoughtful, original essays.

Stupid Beautiful Lies is the "outlet for a twenty-something musician hidden deep in the nation of Canada," tracking such diverse topics as a scientist finding God (this story appears to be a fake, hoax, or misleading meme) and why Mediocrity Sells.

Technudge is an "irreverent smack at technology with sprinklings of puns and humor" from the former writer of the old Hard Edge column at Computer Shopper (as well as being the Bill at aliceandbill.com, which was written with Alice Hill from Real Tech News).

Universal Acid is about biology and politics and covers such topics as the non-existent link between the MMR vaccine and autism, the reasons one might have for opposing reproductive cloning, and the Larry Summers "innate gender differences" and science controversy.

Witnit takes "humorous analysis of relatively inconsequential things to a hyperbolic extreme."

And, finally, WuzzaDem keeps a close and satiric eye on the world of politics and the political media, with posts such as "Eason Jordan's Checkered Past."

***

New Blog Carnival Showcase Extravaganzas have been or will be hosted by the following blogs in 2005:

Feb 14 - Simon World
Feb 21 - Lucas Brachish
Feb 28 - Karin
Mar 7 - Sadie
Mar 14 - Josh Cohen
Mar 21- Snooze Button Dreams
Mar 28 - Mookie
April 4 - Disintegrator
Apr 11 - Ogre's View
Apr 18 - Nerf Coated World
May 9 - Baboon Pirates

For updates to this list, or to sign up to host a future showcase, visit Munuviana's showcase headquarters. To enter your new blog into the showcase, choose the week you'd like to be featured, and then visit that week's host for more details.

Related Post: The New Blog Showcase entry rules (for the Celebrity Cola edition of the above showcase) and a proposed “slightly older blogs that people need to read” showcase.

When Sitcoms Make You Weep

I just received a strange and poignant email from a close friend of mine who’s known in certain circles as Johnny K. Thunder. He has never, ever sent me a chain letter or a mass-email or asked me to commit to a pyramid scheme. But now, after a decade of friendly, personal emails, he has discovered a New Lord Almighty. And so he’s deemed it necessary to share the faith:


Greetings everyone,

I don’t usually do the mass email thing, but I’m asking for a simple favor—a sad, mournful plea—please take some time every Sunday night and watch the Fox show “Arrested Development.” I know there are more important things out there in the world, but when it comes to Television, quality is eroding more and more each season. It’s getting to the point that you have to turn to premium cable to find good television, such as HBO’s “The Wire” and “The Sopranos,” but last season we were given a gift on Sundays and that gift was “Arrested Development.”

This show became the Great New Sitcom and it couldn’t have come at a better time. When we’re not being bombarded with low-rent reality shows, we have to deal with hackneyed sitcoms that star has-been comedians or shows that have an overweight slob married to some gorgeous woman who in real life would be way out of his league. We know everybody loves Raymond, we live in the world according to Jim, we accept that Damon Wayans has a wife and kids. Been there done that— but then along comes a thing of beauty floating through our screens on Sunday nights.

If you haven’t seen “Arrested Development,” it’s simple: It’s brilliant. It gives you everything: highbrow lowbrow, lowbrow highbrow, and lowbrow done in highbrow style. It’s not hard to pick up the deceptively simple storyline (they explain it in the opening credits), but you’re rewarded if you continue to watch additional episodes, with clever references to past episodes hidden snuggly away in every new script.

After a few weeks, you’ll pick up on the thousands of little jokes—and each episode is worth repeated viewing because you discover a cornucopia of subtle inside jokes you missed the first time. All this, and yet each episode stands on its own.

But now, in its second season, it’s threatened with cancellation once again.

I like the “The Simpsons” and all, but it’s the sitcom of the 20th century. “Arrested” is the 21st century sitcom. “Arrested” is new, different, better. Tell all of your friends about the show, and force them to watch it (at gunpoint, if necessary) because in order to save it, we need viewers. You can also go to the Fox website and petition them to keep the show, but I recommend you do it after watching a few episodes—that way, your message will be more heartfelt.

Also, rent or buy the first season DVD collection. Trust me: You won’t be disappointed. The DVDs are real cheap compared to most DVD sets, and the show works even better without commercial breaks. Get it in widescreen digital if you can find it. And with your purchase you’ll send a message to the suits out there in TV land. A memorandum that we’re tired of seeing has-been celebrities living in a house and trying to figure out the grocery bills, we’re tired of karaoke singers trying to get multimillion dollar music deals, we’re tired of hunks building houses for kids with no bones. We’re tired of rich debutantes mocking us simple folk. We’re also tired of Ryan Seacrest. Wait; maybe that’s just me. Maybe I’m the one tired of Ryan Seacrest.

“Arrested” might get cancelled, but we can at least try to save it. Let’s do it! You and me, together. Like old war buddies, reliving the glory days. Even if you're downloading this show commercial-free via illegal BitTorrent sharing, make sure you spread the Good Word of the "Arrested" Gospel. And if you're part of Nielsen Media Research's worldwide lab-rat TV sample team, leave your damn remote firmly pointed at this show, and this show only.

This crazy little sitcom makes me forget I live in a trailer with a three-legged, one-eye dog with the cutest eye patch you’ve ever seen. There I said it. Please, I beg you: Don’t abandon me with bad TV.

Thanks,

Johnny K. Thunder


An awkward moment for Will Arnett as
George Oscar 'Gob' Bluth II, in banana costume.
In the air. With crane.
(You had to be there. It was funny.
I swear: It was, it was.)

***

Now, trip down memory lane with Mitchell Hurwitz as he discusses the down-and-dirty details of working on sitcoms— including his creation of the absolutely staggeringly brilliant "Arrested Development"—with The Onion A.V. Club.

***

GetArrested.com
SaveOurBluths.com

The Apocalyptic Battle Between Science, Religion, Republicans, the Environment, and Those Dreaded Neo-Hippies

A tiny segment of the global population has been waging an effective war against environmental awareness for years, warping hundreds of millions of otherwise sane individuals into believing that pollution is little more than a liberal, left-wing bogeyman.

This most recently came to light with the publication of Christine Todd Whitman’s new book, “It’s My Party, Too: The Battle for the Heart of the GOP and the Future of America” (Penguin Press, 2005), in which the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency (and a former favorite politico among scores of conservatives) describes how the Republican-led U.S. government has systematically gone about crippling the EPA’s usefulness. Whitman was not loved by Democrats or environmentalists, but she makes a strong case for herself as being the lesser of many evils. In fact, under the pressures of an anti-environment administration and powerful corporate lobbyists, she stood her ground until forced to resign.

On Sept. 15, 2003, best-selling fiction author Michael Crichton, with his prestigious Ivy League anthropology and medical degrees in tow, did his part to confuse the issue. In his speech before the Commonwealth Club, he stated that pro-environment thinkers are steeped in mythical beliefs, that “second hand smoke is not a health hazard to anyone and never was” and “evidence for global warming is far weaker than its proponents would ever admit.” He goes on to equate environmentalists to a fundamentalist religious cult (which, not coincidentally, is also the theme of his anti-global-warming-theory novel, “State of Fear”)

The comparison of environmentalism to other religious systems is valid—particularly the idea that modern environmentalism contains aspects of age-old mythic structures, even variants of Judeo-Christian concepts such as of Eden and Judgment Day. I wouldn’t consider pulp-writer Michael Crichton the most literate authority on these matters, but he notes an abundance of interesting parallels between religious and environmental beliefs.

And Crichton’s base argument is also sound—he wants to take the politics and myths out of science and environmental conservation, in an effort to have people from all aspects of the political system participate in scientific studies and practical conservation efforts. Regrettably, right-wing industrialists have latched onto Crichton’s philosophical thoughts and science-fiction paranoia to bolster their case against environmental conservation in general.

Christian writer Regis Nicoll vehemently attacks environmentalists in “The New World Religion: Environmentalism and the Western World” using Crichton’s words as proof positive. He takes the concept a step further by implying it’s thoroughly un-Christian to care about the environment too much. After all, if the world is a polluted wasteland, it’s a just punishment for mankind’s Original Sin: “According to the biblical worldview, things like our planet’s wellness are the way they are not because man has broken shalom with creation, but because he has broken shalom with his Creator.”

Nicoll’s argument—like Crichton’s broad summarizations and unfounded conclusions—stoops to setting up straw men to easily knock down. For instance, claiming that most environmentalists believe the Earth was once a utopian paradise that man has destroyed gives the author an easy target. He sets the straw afire by pointing out the untruth of pre-industrial utopia: a high infant mortality rate, prehistoric massacres, plagues, etc.

But few environmentalists believe in “Edenic utopia”—it’s the Judeo-Christians that tell tales of Eden. The environmentalist commoner is instead fighting to keep the environment stabilized; perhaps revert it to optimum conditions. Sending the masses out to live in the woods on idyllic grower co-ops is not the standard pro-environment message. No one’s saying that eating organic food is going to keep society at peace. In reality, Crichton and Nicoll are both attacking some 1960s-based Earth Goddess fringe element that they see as an enemy. But they couch their arguments to include the entire mass media (paranoia?) and any non-Christian that likes organic veggies and dislikes second-hand smoke.

Has environmentalism truly become a new religion? Maybe for a very small sect of people, but not many. A more valid argument would be this: Science has replaced religion. Science is the new religion. That’s why there’s been such long-standing animosity toward science by the major world religious structures. Environmental “beliefs” (some might even say “facts,” but lets go with Science as religion analogy here for moment) are a meager piece of the science puzzle. Any fundamentalist attack against environmentalism is likely a covert attack on science itself. This is understandable, of course, since religion and science both attempt to explain the same thing (the meaning and cause of life, the universe, and everything), and their conclusions are in constant conflict.

Did Christianity replace Greco-Roman beliefs in gods and monsters because Jesus was “true” and Zeus was “false”? No. The story of Jesus was more believable, his conclusions and teachings were more sensible and relevant, and the New Testament applied to a broader range of individuals than the Old Testament or Hellenic belief systems. There’s a limited amount of fact propping up all religions, so what it all boils down to is how well the story is told, how many people the story applies to, how much of the universe the story explains, how hard it is to prove the story absolutely false, and how warm and fuzzy it makes people feel (or scared shitless, so long as a warm-and-fuzzy alternative path to redemption is available).

Modern science—with its empirical evidence, evolving arguments, and careful studies—has all mythic/supernatural religions beat, hands down, in most of those categories. It tells a damn good story, it changes like a chameleon every time an aspect of it is proved false, it attempts to explain everything that’s asked of it, it grows and develops with time instead of depending on winged creatures and men walking on water in far off times and lands, and it tells a more believable and immediately useful tale than anything found in the tomes of old. And every religious person and institution knows in its secret heart that if science (or a competing religion) makes more sense and is more provable than itself, then eventually the moral support system being propped up by the religion will fail and people will be momentarily devastated and the institution will loose its power and go broke.

So every religion has to fight for its survival, even if it means mocking all of its competitors senseless, and chief among modern religious competitors is—don’t doubt it for a second—science. Regrettably, science fails in the key category of offering individuals a warm-and-fuzzy alternative path to redemption, which is why religion keeps crying checkmate and trumping the fearsome intelligentsia. Religion provides humanity with a purpose, salvation, and a moral structure; science is more existential, and simply reports the facts and makes careful conjectures, without offering immediate hope for heaven and the afterlife. (God is your daddy; science is your well-read uncle. The problem is, dad hasn't actually visited in at least 2,000 years, and your uncle is paying all the bills.)

The environment might not be as hot a topic as, say, evolution, and most Christians have managed to rationalize large chunks of modern science—especially in the realm of medicine (other than Christian Scientists)—but at a time when the right-wing political ideologues have scooped up the Christian vote thanks to moral issues, it’s to be expected that right-wing crusades will likewise gain precedence in Christian thinking. So suddenly we’re reminded that God made the Earth, and therefore the left-wingers in America must be crazy for wanting to do God’s job of protecting the Earth. This has nothing to do with multinational corporations trying to save millions by not having to properly manage waste, no. It’s a religious issue!

By the end of his article, Nicoll does come around by saying, “Unarguably we must be world stewards whose actions are responsible and sympathetic to the environment.” But he does so grudgingly. It’s not because of science, he’s saying, that we should protect the environment, but instead “because the cosmos and everything in it is a product of divine intention” (i.e., God probably doesn’t like toxic waste, either, but let’s not get worked up about it, because he hates gays more).

Crichton, being a better storyteller, begins his speech by saying “I believe it is important to act in ways that are sympathetic to the environment, and I believe this will always be a need, carrying into the future. I believe the world has genuine problems and I believe it can and should be improved.”

Both men, however, then go about setting up alarmist scenarios that hint at crazy, environment-based religions trying to mind-wipe the world. Crichton seemingly does this to attack the entire left wing of world politics, but his arguments are inventive and wide-ranging enough to be justified and appreciated as a Devil’s Advocate perspective; also, he’s right in believing that wrapping the environmental movement in only one political ideology and sprucing it up with myths is a dead end.

But Nicoll has his own end: to attack science in general and all non-Christians. It’s also important to note that Nicoll worked for the nuclear power industry for 30 years, which sheds a varying light on his biases.

However you look at it, there's only one simple verity: Unless the Christian Judgment day comes within our lifetimes, fixing the environment must be a priority. A cleaner environment, coupled with modern medicine, will allow everyone to live longer, healthier lives.

If you don’t believe in the benefits of a cleaner atmosphere, try sitting in a locked, air-tight garage with a running car for a few hours (you get bonus points if you have a friend emitting second-hand cigar smoke beside you), then sit by a river in a National Park, and then tell me which experience made your lungs feel better.

***

And now, just for fun . . .

Check out "What Was God Thinking? Science Can't Tell," in which Nobel-prize winning physicist Eric Cornell discusses why the sky is blue and where and when Intelligent Design ("ID"), religion, and evolution should be used in the classroom. (This essay was originally published in Time Magazine, adapted from a speech Cornell gave earlier while accepting a prestigious science award).

Read “Methods Muslims use to attack Christianity.” It's a great piece, because with some simple twisting of the author's logic, you can use his arguments to defend any belief against anything...

And wallow in the popular-media-ignored dirt (the mud, filth, and veracity) on lovely, kind, soon-to-be-sainted Mother Teresa, courtesy of Free Inquiry magazine. The conversation between Christopher Hitchens and Matt Cherry quickly evolves into a freeform discussion on secularism, worldwide humanism, and religion in America. ("American fundamentalism has one huge problem," says Hitchens. "Which is that the United States is nowhere prefigured in the Bible. It worries them a lot, they keep trying to find it there, they try to interpret prophecies to refer to the United States, but they can't succeed—even to their own satisfaction—in getting it to come out right.")

***

Links:

Non-Religious.com
The Atheist Handbook
"Calling all Pagans: It's time to fight back!"

The New Blog Showcase

CALL FOR ENTRIES!

UPDATE:

On Feb. 21, 2005, Celebrity Cola hosted the New Blog Carnival Showcase Extravaganza No. 2, and I think it turned out rather well.

The New Blog Carnival Showcase Extravaganzas are only intended to feature blogs that are three months old or younger. If your blog is too old for the showcase, you can always trying begging, and if that week’s host is kind, they may let you into the showcase anyway. If not, never fear...

I’ll be hosting a showcase for slightly older blogs at some point in the future; so if you'd like to be included in my “slightly older blogs that people need to read” showcase, drop me an email at brachish [at] gmail.com. However, it might take me many, many months before I actually ever get around to putting that together, so you should definitely give the New Blog Carnival Showcase Extravaganza a shot first.

The general rules and need-to-know links for entering the New Blog Carnival Showcase Extravaganza (aka, the New New Blog Showcase) are below.

To enter my proposed “slightly older blogs that people need to read” showcase, the rules will basically be the same: email me the name of your blog, a brief description of your blog, and links to a few of your favorite posts. Include brief descriptions along with these links, as well. Also, provide a link back to Celebrity Cola and/or a link back to this New Blog Showcase page on Celebrity Cola. Read on . . .

***

Celebrity Cola hosted the Feb. 21 edition of The New Blog Showcase Carnival, a roundup/contest for new, up-and-coming, and unexposed blogs. (The Feb. 14 edition was hosted by Munuviana.)

For the Feb. 21 Showcase, the following rules applied:

Email brachish [at] gmail.com and put the word "Showcase" in your subject line. Also, briefly describe your site and why you should be included. We encourage you to send us links to your favorite posts instead of just your site in general... So, if you have particular posts you want us to look at or link to, include the URLs.

You must provide a link back to CelebrityCola.blogspot.com to be considered for the Feb. 21 roundup . . . The idea being that if everyone links to us that week, we'll get more visitors, so everyone in the showcase (including you!) will get more exposure. Also, it'd be cool if you linked to the Showcase's permanent headquarters, so new bloggers will be able to find it in the future.

And if everyone could quickly link to (or blogroll) a couple of their favorite blogs from this showcase, it'd also be excellent. So share the wealth -- everyone will end up getting more traffic and a better search-engine ranking if they share links with these quality sites (well, I'm hoping we get some quality entries, anyway).

There will be no voting or fighting for "best blog" or anything like that. The Feb. 21 Showcase will simply list off a bunch of Celebrity Cola's favorite new blogs, along with excerpts from, descriptions of, and possibly opinions on the entries -- and anyone who wants to leave comments will be free to do so. If we get a lot of submissions, we'll organize the blogs by category.

I don't have any great prizes to hand out, other than linking to your site in the Showcase article itself, but a few lucky Showcase participants will probably be given semi-permanent links in my sidebar/blogroll. And I have a couple of Gmail accounts to give out ... so if you'd like to compete for one of those, include a note in your submission, and I'll randomly choose some winners.

To volunteer to host a future New Blog Showcase, visit showcase.mu.nu.

Get ready! And good luck . . .

"The Aviator" Review, DiCaprio Q&A, "Kill Bill," and Aussie Lamb All Taste A-OK

Last night I attended a screening of “The Aviator,” followed by a Q&A session with actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Alan Alda.

I was surprised that DiCaprio actually showed up, considering he’s not much for public appearances. “I hate talk shows,” he told Harper’s Bazaar in 1995, “And you know what? I’m never going to do one again.” However, he’s since broken that promise, and with multiple award shows coming up, I think Miramax has pushed him to go out and schmooze up some votes—and given that this particular screening was centered around union actors (who will be voting in the much-coveted-by-actors SAG and BAFTA awards, for which DiCaprio and Alda are both nominees) and a few journalists, it must’ve seemed like a worthy opportunity to discuss his craft.

One would half-expect a mega-star like DiCaprio to shuffle in and out as quickly as possibly, but he showed up promptly at the end of the film, around 11 pm, and stuck around till nearly midnight, despite ear-splitting technical problems involving the shabby cordless microphones the actors were supposed to use. He was gracious and generally intelligent and provided a lot of insight into the making of the movie. I almost feel bad for referring to him as DiCRAPio for most of my life. But, my god, he so often seems like such a whiny, scene chewing, overrated thespian. I mean, have you scene “The Beach”? What dreck! And I won’t even get into his preening in “Titanic”. . .

But that makes me think: The reason journos so often write lovingly about celebrities in magazine profiles isn’t because they’re star-struck (journalists are a jaded lot) or because they’ve been paid off by the studios (well, crap mags like Movieline’s Hollywood Life are willing to occasionally kiss ass in exchange for favors, but I’m talking about higher-brow publications). No, it’s because when you speak to a star in real life, you’re instantly struck by just how damn real they are. Heck, sometimes they’re even literate. There are plenty of prima donnas out there, but when a guy like DiCrapio (oops, I did it again) turns out to be a nice fella, it’s hard to take jabs at his pretty face.


DiCaprio with snazzy facial hair,
care of the art department.

That being said, Alda is much better in front of a crowd. When the mikes went out, his theatre training kicked in and his voice expanded clearly to the back of the movie house. Whenever the moderator ran out of questions, Alda picked up the slack by interviewing DiCaprio himself. And whenever DiCaprio’s sentences puttered off, Alda filled in the gaps with one amusing anecdote after the next. He was unstoppably funny and gregarious.

I didn’t have my trusty tape recorder on me, so I paraphrase the following:

DiCaprio: “On ‘Gangs of New York’ there was a scene where Cameron Diaz was supposed to slap me, right before we make love against a wall. So Marty [Scorsese] pulled me aside and said ‘Listen, if Bob [Robert De Niro] were doing a scene like this, he’d do it for real. So I said, ‘Stop right there. If Bob would do it, of course I’ll do it.’ So we do the take and Cameron slaps me. With an open hand. Pretty hard. And the take is good, you know? But Marty says we need another. So we do it again. And again. And I ended up getting slapped for 47 takes, until my face was swelling up. But Marty’s like that. He’s a perfectionist. But he doesn’t overdo it, like some directors, he just gets what he needs. But it’s not easy getting slapped that hard 47 times in a row, and it’s not always pleasant having to do these things for real, but when you can, you do it.”

Alda: “You must not have minded doing the second part of that scene for real.”

DiCaprio: “Huh?”

Alda: “After you got slapped, you made love to Cameron against the wall.”

DiCaprio: “Oh, well . . . “

Alda: “I mean, how did you do that 47 times in a row. That’s stamina!”

DiCaprio: “Well, um, we didn’t. . .”

Alda: “Scorsese really is a perfectionist. But this job certainly has its perks.”

DiCaprio and Alda later went on to boldly dispel a famous acting myth—the idea that actors can get so lost in character that they actually believe they are the character, and they’re truly in the scene, and not on a movie set. Again, I paraphrase:

DiCaprio: “People keep asking me if I had any trouble getting out of the character of Howard Hughes, but the truth is that it’s very difficult just to stay in character. When you’re on set, and 40 crewmembers are there, and giant klieg lights are shining down on you, and a grip is standing five feet away, staring at you and scratching his balls, and you have to say a particular line at a certain time as camera on a dolly rushes toward you, it’s not easy to pretend you’re somewhere else. So getting out of character is never the hard part.”

Alda: “It’s true, you know. Those moments when actors forget where they are, where they get lost in the scene, they’re very rare. You’re lucky if that happens for two seconds out of every week.”

DiCaprio: “And when it does happen, it’s usually a moment that’s not in the script—where the actors make a mistake or forget a line and begin to improvise. One of the things I like about working with Scorsese is that he cherishes those moments as much as the actors do, and he puts those takes on the screen, even if it wasn’t part of the screenplay.”

On the same cold NYC night, there was a special industry-screening of "Sideways" across the street, so the upcoming Oscar/BAFTA/SAG competition between the two films was palpable, with the future glory reapers metaphorically doing battle on opposing sides of 42nd Street.

The only DiCRAPio thing DiCaprio did the entire evening—the only nuance that really stuck in my craw—was his abuse of the word “literally.” He never got the word completely wrong, but he kept using it over and over again, mostly in ways that were not quite right. “These early aviators were literally like astronauts,” he repeated more than once. No, DiCrapio, they were “like astronauts” or they were “like early astronauts” or maybe they were “literally the predecessors of astronauts”—but combining literally (definition: in the sense of being without interpretation, embellishment, or exaggeration) with like (resembling or similar, sort of, in some way) is akin to mixing whiskey with tequila. You can do it, but it’s not very pleasant. Choose one liquor and stick to it for the night, bucko. At least he didn’t really screw up and say, “They were literally astronauts.” If he had, my urge to yell “DiCRAPio!” would have literally overwhelmed me.

To further digress: The word “virtually” at one time was a synonym for “literally,” but in popular parlance it now means “in essence or effect but not in fact.” So virtually could be a perfect word here— “Early aviators were virtually astronauts, since their work led directly to outer-space aeronautics.” But Leo had to kept handing out literally’s every chance he got, reminding me of a bang-up David Cross routine where Cross pronounces his loathing for people who says things like, “I laughed so hard I shat myself,” when, in fact, they didn’t shit themselves at all.

Back to the film: In a case of truth being stranger than fiction, the most unbelievable scenes in “The Aviator” are the one’s most steeped in fact. Hughes really did survive dangerous, explosive plane crashes (in fact, he survived three or four, and not just the two shown in this film). And the seemingly implausible sequences where Hughes impishly, potently, and uproariously stands up to a grievous congressional investigative panel—turning the tables on the committee’s chair, powerful Senator Ralph Owen Brewster—are based almost verbatim on genuine transcripts (Alda noted that in real life, Sen. Brewster was so trounced by Hughes that in the end Brewster had to step down and become a witness before his own investigation, defending himself against Hughes’ allegations of mischief). Instead, it’s the smaller details that are skimmed over to form a fluid narrative (e.g., Hughes’ wives are ignored by the film in favor his celebrity liaisons).

Regrettably, for a motion picture that runs like a non-stop homage to “Citizen Kane,” Scorsese never manages to find even a third of the depth, inventiveness, and empathy that “Kane” delivers. And yet it’s gorgeous to look at, and hard to immediately pinpoint the flaws.

Notably, the film fails to soar for at least an hour. It’s a noble effort—with splendid cinematography by Robert "Kill Bill" Richardson, sumptuous sets and costumes, good acting, and an exciting beginning and end—but, as with most biopics (including the recent “Ray”), the viewer’s emotional connection to the film is sustained only through the knowledge that this is a “real” story being watched. If it were revealed to be fiction, it would not be as watchable. Just as reality television is the device of a lazy TV industry, the biopic can fall into the same trap of laziness, shouting “Look, ma! It’s real, so it’s gotta be good! Forget the fact that this scene is ho-hum and pointless, it’s friggin’ real, dammit!”

Screenwriter John Logan is one of the hottest properties in Hollywood right now, with “Gladiator,” “The Last Samurai,” and “The Aviator” under his belt and big-name directors knocking on his door. And he’s certainly more literate than your average Tinsel Town hack. But come on—he can be so longwinded, lugubrious, and self-indulgent. Is this really the best money can buy? Then again, it may not be his fault—even Logan’s scripts go through multiple rewrites and have to be approved by numerous stars, creative personnel, brain-dead executives, etc. His first drafts might be brilliant. But somebody has to be blamed for the dithering, forgettable 60 minutes scattered throughout this 166-minute epic.

And, yeah, I would’ve preferred Billy Crudup in the role of Howard Hughes, but DiCaprio does a fine job. Especially after he gets past the DiCrapio whine in the first half hour and grows a mustache. (Film Fact: DiCaprio mentioned during the Q&A that the mustache is a fake, administered with glue. Ostensibly this was due to the movie's non-sequential shooting order, but from my firsthand glimpse of his eternally youthful, babyish face, I'd surmise the poor kid can’t grow proper facial hair—too bad, since he looked good with a beard. Normally the chap looks like a handsome, demonic 12 year old.)

His portrayal of Hughes' slipping into madness veers dangerously between brilliance and annoyance, but he pulls off a nice feat when he credibly shows Hughes regaining sanity for long enough to defeat the evil Senator—a tricky character bit. He doesn’t deserve the Oscar for “The Aviator,” but I’ll award him this: I’ll retire the tired DiCRAPio joke for a while. It literally wasn’t that good anyway.

***


A dirty Uma Thurman in "Kill Bill"

I finally saw “Kill Bill” (Volumes I & II) and I’m now in total agreement with Quentin Tarantino—Uma shoulda gotta Osca’ noma. I’d resisted watching the film in theatres because I wanted to see both parts back to back. And I resisted renting it because I wanted to wait for the rumored super-ultra director’s cut that’ll combine the two halves with new editing work and some gory action footage so far only seen in the Asian release. Also, I was worried I wouldn’t like the flick, ‘cause it looked cheesy. And cheesy it is, but in a brilliant way, with the campiness purposeful and handled with masterful aplomb, the action intense, the pathos palpable, and the character-depth ever expanding. “Kill Bill” is at the pinnacle of what every action-comedy should aspire to be.

***


Aussie Aussie Aussie! Oy oy oy!

Comedy From Down Under: I don't bloody care if you're American, British, Muslim, Vegetarian, Vegan, Obsessive Compulsive, or just plain ugly. You must commence with the eating of fresh lamb. Anything else would be un-Australian, mate.

God Hates Shrimp, Loves Fake Signs (And Teutonic Dole Bludgers)

I couldn't help myself:


This "Read Celebrity Cola or God will hurt you" sign was generated by CSG, another website from the mad genius behind God Hates Shrimp.

Speaking of comedy, the kids at DirtyBionics have done a great job re-dubbing old He-Man episodes into witty, gay, foul-mouthed epics with their Johnny Whoop Ass series. And put on your glasses for this one, cupcake: The American Human Society is giving away kids as pets. Very nicely done.

If you still haven't had enough DirtyBionics, go enter the "Convert the Atheist Contest" for a chance at a long-shot $1,000. And I thought I was wasting too much time on the web....

***

And in Germany: Officials have found a way to motivate women from staying on the dole. After 12 months of receiving government-sponsored unemployment benefits, fräuleins must consider prostitution as a legitimate career path, or their pogey (dole) can be snatched away.

Men are not as likely to be offered sex-trade work, so they can continue arbeitslosenunterstützung beziehen (living on unemployment benefits) without ever worrying about being forced to whore themselves out. But everyone is in endanger of being obliged into manual labor at fast-food joints—so what’s worse, a brothel or a burger fryer? And, heck, 12 months of full unemployment pay is better than what’s offered in the U.S. or most of the third world. So this doesn’t seem like such a bad deal, other than the evident sexism. And remember, in Deutschland everyone gets healthcare! Even the hookers...

Nicotine Addicts Unite -- Safer Euro Cigs Now Banned in the U.S.

First you were kicked off airplanes, trains, and buses, then banned from restaurants, then bars (of all places!), and now many parks and beaches. Even roommates, friends, party hosts, and lovers force you outside. The sidewalk is the last place you can enjoy your killer habit, and yet the looks on the street grow nastier. And the prices -- good grief, lady! It's cheaper to smoke dope.

Luckily a little company in Balerna, Switzerland came around to help with that last bit. Somehow, Yesmoke.ch's owners, Gianpaolo and Carlo Messina, managed to deliver quality coffin nails to the States for around $1.50 a pack. This at a time when brand-name cigarettes cost as much as $8.50 in New York City. (Yesmoke cigs cost even less if you find a way to log in through a current "Yespeedy" customer, the company's quirky discount program.)

There are rumors that Yesmoke is able to offer its low priced fags thanks to a Swiss-Italian smuggling ring. But whatever. Cheap cigs are cheap cigs. And European cancer sticks are healthier than U.S. cancer sticks. And the economy shipping option is free! And something is dreadfully wrong when I can buy crack, beer, and Republican votes for less than a pack of Camels.

I've used Yesmoke for years, and they've always been very responsible. It's true that you do have to be patient with the orders -- even if you pay for expedited delivery or airmail, it can still sometimes take months to receive an order, so you must order far in advance of when you need the product. The reason for these delays is two-fold: (1) Ordinary international shipping delays, which can be expected with most products ordered from overseas; (2) Special international-customs-inspection delays due to the nature of the products (cigarettes, cigars, wine, and food-stuff).

However, when things work well, sometimes even the cheapest delivery option will result in the product being delivered within just a few days. If the product doesn't arrive, Yesmoke will not refund or replace an order for several months -- but this makes sense, since all orders usually arrive eventually, and Yesmoke knows that massive shipping delays are common with their products in particular. Of the many times I've ordered from this company, there was only one time that a shipment did not arrive. After several months and one brief email of complaint, Yesmoke sent me a replacement without any fuss. In fact, they were very friendly about it.

Regrettably, the big tobacco companies have been hassling Yesmoke for years for various reasons, including the fact that European cigarettes conform to higher health standards than U.S. cigs (which could open the companies up to law suits if, for instance, a Yesmoke customer did not get cancer from smoking Euro Camels, but a another smoker did get cancer from smoking U.S. camels). At first, this resulted in Phillip Morris being allowed to take -- by force and court order -- the Yesmoke.com website address (the company now must be reached through Yesmoke.ch).

But more recently, the tobacco companies have found a friend in the NY State Government, which is angry with Yesmoke circumventing New York State and NYC cigarette taxes (through a kinda legal customs loophole). This resulted in the confiscation of all U.S. shipments of Yesmoke products. Yesmoke is currently unable to ship any more product to the U.S., and the matter will likely be decided in court in the favor of the NY government and Big Tobacco.

The real calamity is that the ban comes at a time (not coincidentally) when Yesmoke has evolved from being a mere shipper of cigs to being a manufacturer -- the Yesmoke brand of cigarettes are similar to American Spirits and Winstons in that they avoid additives of all sorts, and Yesmoke has taken things a step further by listing their ingredients on their package and trying to create a slightly safer cig. It appears to be a smashing new product, but we in the U.S. may never know.

If Yesmoke is ever able to ship abroad again, I'd highly recommend the company (although, of course, quitting smoking is the healthiest and cheapest option available, if you don't mind being a quitter... But why would you quit when you could die early with me and Steve McQueen?).

***

UPDATE:

As of May 2005, Yesmoke.ch is still banned from shipping to the U.S. However, new companies have arisen, such as SwissTob.com, a company based in Lugano, Switzerland, and Cigs.ch/SmokesPleasure.com (Tobacco Outlet, LLC), which sometimes uses a Swiss website domain but supposedly ships from a Seneca Nation American Indian reservation in Irving, NY in the good ol' U.S. of A. (e-checks and mailed checks are preferred as payment, but they sell American Spirits, which is very cool).

So far I've had no luck confirming the legitimacy of these upstart operations, but when I briefly interviewed a SwissTob customer service rep, they said, "We are not the same company [as Yesmoke, but] we understand your point. We know what happened to other companies that shipped Philip Morris cigarettes to the U.S.A. Philip Morris won a suit for copyright infringement [against Yesmoke, which resulted in the Yesmoke.com domain being confiscated]. We inform you that we haven't got these cigarettes therefore we will not have such problems."

However, with most major credit card companies in the U.S. now prohibiting the use of their cards for online fag purchases, various state's enforcing laws that forbid interstate tobacco trade (including tobacco from Native American/Indian reservations), New York State and NYC teaming up with the feds to semi-legally block international cig shipments, and Yesmoke currently embroiled in various lawsuits (despite switching over to their own brand of cigs, thus avoiding Big Tobacco copyright infringement), it's painfully unclear how SwissTob.com and co. hope to make a dime.

The fine folks at SmokingLobby.com say that the initial SwissTob ads are misleading -- implied promises of being able to use credit cards and offers of Marlboros are a bait and switch that leads to international wire transfers and Camel/European cigarettes; and rumors abound that SwissTob is actually just a figurehead company trying to sell off Yesmoke’s old wares. That’s all well and good, if a bit duplicitous, but with U.S. customs watching Swiss imports with hawk-like efficiency ever since the Yesmoke debacle, SwissTob cigs will be hard-pressed to make it to our fine shores.

Will they refund orders seized by American authorities (the way Yesmoke did for years)? Unlikely. Remember: You’ll be paying with a wire, bank draft, or check, which are far more difficult to contest than credit card charges.

The Smoking Lobby instead recommends CigMall.net (their cigs are possibly of Ukrainian/Russian origin). And SmokingCig.com looks sketchy but at least is upfront about its questionable efforts at creating a legal loophole (“We are Only Shipping Cigarettes Made In The Ukraine and sent 1st Class Certified Mail from the Russian Post”).

Are they scams? Can they deliver? You tell me...

Really. Tell me. Before I put more of my own money (and my poor, smoky lungs) up to the challenge.

***

NEW UPDATE (July 2005):

I had a great experience ordering from SmokesPleasure.com (Tobacco Outlet, LLC). As with most online cigarette purchases these days, it does take a few weeks for the order to arrive. However, the customer service at the Tobacco Outlet is superb: They're very nice people, and you can talk to them via phone or email (a rarity in this age of semi-banned Internet nicotine sales).

The cost at SmokesPleasure.com is higher than at the European sites, but it's worth it since the orders actually arrive as expected. Also, they're one of the only online stores offering light American Spirits (one of the safest cigs around), and the price per cartoon is significantly cheaper than any deal that can be found in a major U.S. city outside of the Deep South. If this company can keep up the good work without running into the law, they'll prove to be the best game in town.

Note: According to research conducted by Celebrity Cola, SmokesPleasure is just one of many affiliates that sells cigarettes for a business venture entitled Nationwide Marketing Company, which is owned by Teresa Page (aka Shawna Page) and located in Kilgore, Texas. The Nationwide Marketing Company, in turn, is connected to Tobacco Outlet, LLC, also known as T.O., which operates out of a Native American Indian reservation located in Salamanca, NY.

T.O. supplies and ships the cigs, while Nationwide Marketing is in charge of billing and customer service, and each website affiliate is supposed to worry about taxes and legal issues on their own, depending on the state they're located in. The affiliates garner a commision on sales and are encouraged to sign up other affiliates, similiar to Amway and other pyramid-based sales organizations.

Interestingly the affiliate agreement states, "All Affiliates must agree that under no circumstances can they be affiliated ... with Paul Erickson, Venessa Twoguns, Two Guns Smoke Shop, Thundersmoke or Smokinfree for they are unworthy of such business dealings." It's unclear whether these other companies are merely arch rivals or if they're known scams.

Still, my experience using T.O. through the SmokesPleasure.com affiliate was top-rate, so until things go sour, they get my thumbs-up of approval.

***

Related News:

"A Kick in the Ash -- Smokers, beware: City Hall is coming for your wallets," reports the NY Daily News.

"City Wants Its Cut For Cigarettes," demands back-taxes for online orders, says Newsday (story archived at NYC CLASH: Citizens Lobby Against Smoker Harassment).

Credit card companies refuse to participate in Internet sales of cigarettes thanks to a government agreement, reports the ConsumerAffairs.com (March 2005).

Using an expanded view of the Imported Cigarette Compliance Act of 2000, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency seize cigarette shipments from Have-Cigs.com / havecigs.com / havecigs.ch and other international dealers. HaveCigs' Louisville, KY office fires back advice and outrage at angry customers.

To Possess or Not to Possess, That is the Grammatical (and Poltergeistical) Question

I'm compelled by uncontrollable inner forces to post this comment, even though I'm already 30 minutes late for work and I should really be running to catch the subway....

A website, "A New York Escorts Confessions," was recommended to me today, but I probably wouldn't have looked at the site otherwise, since (a) The subject of the blog's title implies that the whole endeavor might actually be nothing more than a come-on for a porn site and (b) The lack of a possessive apostrophe in the word "Escorts" implies that every entry on the weblog will be written in an equally haphazard manner. The site's talented writer, however, knows that the mistake exists and revels in the controversy. (It should be: "A New York Escort’s Confessions"; if multiple escorts were confessing, it would be "Some New York Escorts’ Confessions.")

This might seem like a small deal, but it's not. Oh, there are those who will say that this only matters to curmudgeonly, nerdy copy editors, sensitive-hipster English major types, and grammar Nazis. And there are those who claim they're "grammar rebels" defiantly breaking English conventions. But the issue must be discussed, parsed out, and corrected once and for all, before I have to hurt someone.

I’m siding with the pro-apostrophe crowd here, of course.

There are times when grammar and spelling can be rebelled against successfully, and there are times when a mistake is just a mistake. It's like the difference between doing a little coke on the weekend and doing full-on crack every day. Leaving out the apostrophe in a possessive phrase is complete crack rock. And leaving out the apostrophe in the title of your blog is crack every day for breakfast. It's terribly unhealthy. To all those apostrophe malefactors out there: Please correct, before America declines even farther into decay. (There are exceptions to the general possessive apostrophe rule, especially regarding possessive pronouns and "its" vs. "it's," but once you learn the basics it's really very simple.)

Also, it's a dirty rotten shame when a really nicely written blog like "A New York Escorts Confessions," which is often light and funny and unique (maybe it’s fiction, maybe it’s fact -- it works well either way), trips itself up with grossly amateur errors. One expects grammar, spelling, and minor factual mistakes to slip into non-mainstream online publications since we don't have proofers working for us, and some bloggers may very well be riding the new vanguard of the idiom, pushing the boundaries....

But when a mistake is obvious -- and it’s not a purposeful and needed twisting of the form, spelling invention, or choice (e.g., writing in all lowercase is a choice that can work without corrupting the logic of the written/spoken word) -- it should really be fixed, out of self-respect, respect for the language, and respect for the reader.

The improper use of possessives in the Americanized version of the English language only even seems acceptable ("looks right" being the key phrase) in the first place because of hack advertising men and soulless publicists -- grammatical crackheads each and every one -- being too lazy to use apostrophes correctly in their campaigns. When they use apostrophes to make a word plural and drop the apostrophe to make it possessive ... ewwww. I hate to admit it. But. Publicists. Need. Pain. And corporate ad men are devils, washing the minds of the masses for the Man.

Poltergeists, on the other hand, must consider a completely different set of criteria before deciding whether or not to possess a word, phrase, house, human, or animal....

[Moral of the story: Be aggressive with your possessive; and hacks & flaks are whack, Mack. Now just for fun, go gaze upon some bad celebrity mistakes at the totally free and fabulous AwfulPlasticSurgery.com archives. Or rent a copy of the exquisite PR nightmare tale "Sweet Smell of Success." Or find out whether or not the writer of "Escorts Confessions" slept with a Labrador Retriever. Yeah, you heard that right. Go! Go! And if you don't believe she's really a girl, then test her writing on the mind-boggling Gender Genie male/female text tester]

***

Recommended grammar reading: "Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation," "Lapsing Into a Comma : A Curmudgeon's Guide to the Many Things That Can Go Wrong in Print--and How to Avoid Them," and "Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English."

All three of books are not only informative, they're also easy to understand and quite funny. In fact, they should have been used in your high school English classes instead of those awful texts that made grammar look like calculus (even if they don't replace the all-encompassing style knowledge of the old standbys, like the Chicago and AP guides). However, always keep in mind that most grammatical rules are at least a little bit subjective, so be prepared for inconsistencies between various style guides. In then end, you have to make the final decisions on your own.

Why Print Pubs Shouldn't Charge for Old News (listen up!)

The New York Observer recently made the regrettable choice of charging for access to its online editorial archive. Now links to stories that may only be a week old become invalid (some older links are still working, since the Observer has thankfully not removed access to many pages stored in the old manner). Instead, all new links lead to columns that are updated weekly, so finding old Observer stories will require doing a new search within the membership-only archives. Even subscribers are denied access.

As it is, the Observer is a top-notch paper that's sadly not read outside of a rather limited circle. By restricting access by using fee-based archives, the odds of the Observer increasing its readership and relevance through links from other websites and blogs drop dramatically. (Note: The Observer's website is full of Java errors and programming quirks, and their "email this story" function rarely works, but their articles are superb and the paper has a good sense of humor, I swear! And I'm not just saying that 'cause they send me a free print issue every week in the mail.)

The conundrum of how subscription-based publications can make money when all its content is free online is a tough one. But when a local newspaper like the Observer offers all of it's new content for free but charges for old content -- while also making it impossible for other web editors to set up a permalink to a particular story -- it's accomplishing nothing but shooting itself in the proverbial foot. Can a fee-based system really work for this kind of site?

At least 70% of the Observer's content could appeal to a national (albeit liberal) audience, which could in turn lead to national advertising. Properly using the Internet to reach a larger swath of the public and a younger demographic could release moribund print pubs from the constraints of the random newsstand and a 60-year-old subscriber base. If only they can survive the short-term profit loss while finding a better business model for the new millennium, instead of locking their content away in useless fee-based archives or forcing bloated subscription rates on every would-be visitor.

In the future, publications must look toward advertising -- especially content-relevant text ads like those provided by Google's Adsense and online versions of all ads appearing in the print edition of the pub -- to fund their projects. As an example, newspapers such as the Village Voice, online-only magazines like The Smoking Gun , and Internet services like Google are able to survive and profit without charging user fees. (Having a slick, subscriber- and newsstand-based print version of a publication to hawk to online readers is also a nice touch -- I don't think the Internet will ever completely replace utilitarian nature of having a magazine to read at the coffee shop or on the train or couch or wherever.)

Admittedly, web-only sites like Salon.com are still faring rather badly despite strong advertising and subscription pushes in recent years. But if it were impossible to find old Salon articles for free through permanent links, I'd wager the site would be completely dead. Yes, Salon forces non-paying readers to look at an ad before reaching the intended link, but at least they make it easy for other web editors to link to the appropriate page.

The only sites that can continue to charge readers are those offering extremely hard to find information and absolutely unique tools -- a lot of industry/trade publications come to mind, but not much else. Some prestigious publications with highly sought-after archives can get away with charging for old stories, but they pay a price in terms of power and readership: Newspapers like the New York Times are not search-engine friendly, and outside of the Google News search engine, it's rare for a New York Times article to appear among top search results, if at all.

The NY Times has the same problem as the NY Observer -- with stories rotating into the fee-based archive every seven days, it's pointless for other website editors to link directly to the sacred prose and taradiddles of the Times. So when a NY Times story has finished it's week-long run, it's effectively dead to the world, and every link to that story from outside sites dies a quiet death. And without search-engine optimization, the story shall never surface again, unless another website copies (i.e., steals) the entire article or someone specifically begins poking around the archives, credit card in hand .

Google is working with the Times to make their editorial archives more search-engine friendly, and magazines like Variety let Google search their files so the Goog can offer search results for content that can only be read with a subscription. But this raises another paradox: If new information is the most sought-after, and old info is often forgotten or irrelevant, why charge for old news when so much of the new news is free?

The general public might be willing to pay to read breaking reports on NYTimes.com, but who wants pay for old Times articles other than a reporter researching a story or college kids looking for sources for their term papers? Actually, journalists and students are better advised to use LexisNexis and Google Scholar for those types of pay-per-article searches -- NY Times stories are stored in Lexis along with an abundance of other material from 36,000 sources -- leaving stand-alone paid archives utterly unprofitable and pointless.

When will the old print magnates finally catch on to the needs of a generation that demands information to be instantaneous and free?

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Related Articles:

An article at PressThink: the Ghost of Democracy in the Media Machine, asks "Will the Greensboro Newspaper Open Its Archive?" One response: "As the decision makers see the traffic and better understand the potential, the argument over free archives will be easier to win."

In the New York Press essay "Come for the Lies, Stay for the Verbs," J.R. Taylor asks, "What will become of the online New York Times?" He answers his rhetorical inquiry thusly:

"Nobody cares. Still, debate continues at the Times between providing free online access to the articles, or beginning a monthly subscription charge. In the process, we get some real insight into the end of Old Media.

"The Times is typically missing the point. The paper's readership isn't declining because its potential audience is online. Its readership is declining because online access makes the Times useless, while also demonstrating that the Times is more obviously flawed than ever before.

"Why would someone read Adam Nagourney's misleading interpretations of election polls when they can just access the raw data? In that same spirit, an online transcript of a White House event provides more news and less deception than any Times article. Plus, you don't have to wait three weeks for the inevitable funny correction....

It won't be long before the Times has to pay people to read the thing."

In Defense of Michael Moore (fact versus fiction & good ol' Oscar)

For years I’ve heard angry right-wingers complain that Michael Moore is not really making documentaries. Why? Well, according to “MooreWatch: Watching Michael Moore’s Every Move,” it’s because Moore’s emphasis is on fiction, not fact. For instance, the “editing of Heston’s speeches together to make it look like one speech” proves, according to MooreWatch, that "Bowling for Columbine" is a fabrication. MooreWatch is also upset that “Moore didn’t shoot most of the footage in the movie” "Fahrenheit 9/11," implying that he therefore doesn't deserve credit for the film. And they seem horribly afraid that Moore might win an Academy Award for Best Picture (Or, in the words of Fox News' Bill O'Reilly, "If Hollywood nominates this propaganda tract as Best Picture, you will see a backlash against the movie industry that you have never seen... I have no malice in me at all, but I am telling the Hollywood community: at your peril.")

So, let’s have a quick filmmaking lesson, shall we?

A director does not have to shoot his own footage. The great majority of directors employ a director of photography (DP, or cinematographer) to shoot all original footage -- and many DP's use a separate cameraman (often multiple camera people) to do the physical shooting. With second-unit footage, the director is typically not even around for the shooting. And a lot of lower-budget films -- and tons of TV shows and documentaries -- use stock footage, archival footage, found footage, and public-domain footage to supplement original material. With documentaries and news productions, cutting away to other people's work -- even without paying for that work -- is usually protected under the Fair Use laws, if the footage is being used as an example for analysis. (All crew members and the origin of all footage should, however, be documented during the film or in the final credits.)

Many documentaries, in fact, shoot no original footage at all. Ken Burns (PBS's "The Civil War") is considered one of the great modern documentarians, but he obviously couldn't shoot the historical events he was documenting. So he shoots old photographs and uses moth-eaten news broadcasts, etc. And Errol Morris is possibly the most important documentary filmmaker of the past 20 years, and although his crew does usually shoot all new footage for his productions, this footage often includes extensive re-creations (See: "The Thin Blue Line") that require as much artistic license as anything Moore has done in his films.

So to claim that Moore is not truly making documentaries because he's using footage shot by others -- re-creations, cartoons, etc. -- is ludicrous.

And I don't believe Moore was trying to fool anyone by inter-cutting more than one Charlton Heston speech together in "Bowling" -- it was obvious to me, at least, that a montage of footage was being used, just as multiple George W. Bush statements were effectively cut together in F-9/11. Moore was not splicing and gluing words to form entirely new sentences -- he was juxtaposing real sentences said by Heston at different times. It may not be one complete speech, but they are factual snippets that do work fine out of context. He does, however, have a bad habit of stomping over factual details in the pursuit of a larger truth, and his films would be more powerful if they allowed for shades of gray while fastidiously avoiding even small inaccuracies.

F-9/11 is not Moore's best film -- it's very disjointed and overheated at times -- but it does stay true to the director's aesthetic while delivering a slew of facts, opinions, unique perspectives, and even a few laughs. The final judgement of the film, however, seems to fall across party lines; but even with a supposedly liberal Hollywood voting, Moore would have to be extremely lucky to receive a Best Picture Oscar nom for F-9/11. In fact, I'd bet it won't get the nod. And if it does, it'll be a cold day in hell before it wins. Winning the top award at Cannes and elsewhere with F-9/11, combined with an Oscar for best doc for "Bowling for Columbine" in 2003 , are acclaim enough for Moore at this point -- getting the right to put "Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture" on the DVD cover is not going to significantly boost the sales of a flick already this overexposed.

If Bush had lost the election (or if F-9/11 were competing in the documentary category instead of hoping for a best pic trophy), Moore would have had a better shot at the Oscar, but with Bush still in office, the power of Moore’s film is now in doubt; and the chance of the conservative powers-that-be jumping down the Academy of Motion Picture’s throat for being super-liberal will have Academy voters shaking in their boots.

I respect that people may hate Moore’s politics, or they may not enjoy his movies -- but to claim that he's not really making documentaries is absurd. Moore's films are without a doubt fact-based (even if the odd detail is fudged). A director can express one-sided opinions, make artistic choices not usually associated with a typical documentary, juxtapose footage and sound in dynamic ways, and even interject pointed asides polemic propaganda while still taking a factual (non-fictional) viewpoint. Occasionally Moore might get a fact wrong -- like the exact name of the children's book that Bush is reading in F-9/11 -- but 98% of his facts are correct. Have these facts been spun to favor Moore's thesis? Absolutely. Would an intelligent audience member take this into account when watching the film? Of course. But disagreeing with a film's content does not make the content "fiction." The root of this blather: it's easier to attack the weight and bombasity of men like Moore than to defend a bumbling, silver-spoon president.

MooreWatch also assumes that Moore has been making television appearances lately “under the guise of hawking his newest book . . . but make no mistake about it, he’s campaigning for an Oscar.” I have the opposite theory: he's using the vague-but-buzz-worthy possibility of his film being nominated as an opportunity to score some prime TV guest spots where he can get the chance to publicize his latest tome ("Will They Ever Trust Us Again?") and his upcoming film ("Sicko") while riding the controversial hullabaloo of F-9/11 . Because winning a far-fetched award for a film he made last year is secondary to sustaining a burgeoning career by offering up new product while the public is still paying attention (and it's not often that documentary filmmakers or liberal agitators get this kind of attention, so keeping that attention alive will be the real challenge). Campaigning for an Oscar -- even losing the campaign and then crying "conspiracy!" -- is Moore's best bet for selling a few more Fahrenheit DVD's and a stack of new books. But actually winning the award? Nah... that's so not necessary.


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Christian Film Critics Aren’t Always Crap

Many Christians I know hate Michael Moore with a passion, despite only having seen snippets of his films. And yet they bombarded me with emails demanding that I see Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ,” even before they’d actually seen the film themselves. In one of the great Catholic miracles of our time, the movie was so good it could be raved about before it was even released.

With that in mind, whenever a religious thinker actually breaks from the herd mentality and reaches some sound, thoughtful conclusions, I involuntarily sigh with relief—maybe fundamentalism isn’t the only future available to true believers after all.

So I was struck with a most profound sigh (more like an inhalation of brilliantly fresh air) when The Revealer unearthed an insightful review over at Christianity Today’s Leadership Journal. Pastor Brian McLaren watched “Hotel Rwanda” after seeing the nicely shot but over-hyped “The Passion of the Christ.” He then asked, “Why did so many churches urge people to see Gibson’s film, and why did so few (if any?) promote Terry George’s film?” Also, “Which film would Jesus most want us to see [more], and why?”

Significantly—despite fears of being discounted as a liberal namby-pamby—McLaren takes churches to task for falling blindly under the sway of Mel Gibson’s publicity machine. “If we really had the mind and heart of Christ, [‘Hotel Rwanda’] is the movie we would be urging people in our churches to see,” he says, and admits his “deep concerns about the alignment of major sectors of Christianity with ‘red-state Republicanism,’ and I worry that a kind of modernist, nationalist neo-fundamentalism is trying to claim all Christian territory as its sovereign domain.”