Dimland Radio

dimland radio 6-8-19 show notes

A Dimland Radio ARGH!

Neighbors. Most are just fine. Quiet. They take care of their properties. They wave. Maybe stop to say hello.

Then there are the assholes who don’t give a shit about any of that. We have such a neighbor. He’s the loud car guy I mentioned on the show a couple weeks back. In fact, we heard the loud car on one of the shows. Also in fact, he and the several other people who reside in his house own several cars. We think there are 10 or 11 cars connected to that house. No, he doesn’t have an 11 car garage.

The cars are parked all over the place. And that’s what led to an interesting encounter between loud car guy and his next door neighbor: An actual round of fisticuffs.

And I was at work when it all happened. ARGH!

Cool Thing #1: Air conditioner!

For the last five or six summers, the AC unit at the office had been slowly dying. Last summer it had stopped working altogether. It was just a loud fan.

I had attempted last summer to convince my boss to buy a new one. I researched, I complied a list of possibles at affordable prices, I sent it to the boss’s wife (she controls the spending), but that just wasn’t enough. I sat sweating all summer.

This year I started the process again. Again the feet of the boss’s wife seemed to be dragging.

Enter my younger brother. He had a spare AC. The rest is pretty cool! Literally.

Left Lane Slowpokes Need To Move Over

The state of Minnesota has passed a law requiring slower traffic to keep right on the freeways. I learned long ago that if I’m driving in the left hand lane and a driver behind me wants to go faster than me, even if I’m speeding, I get out f the way.

On my Facebook page, my posting of this story and my comment mirroring what I said above, drew some cantankerous response. There was a bit of a back and forth debate, but I realized we weren’t really in disagreement…

Cool Thing #2: Keith Moon Article

Written by a musician, this article in The New Yorker from 2010 gives an intriguing take on the crazy awesomeness of the manic drumming of the best Keith Moon-style drummer in the world – Keith Moon.

It’s cool!

Don’t Declaw ‘Em, Don’t Keep ‘Em Outside

A BBC article on the barbarity of declawing cats (and New York state’s recent banning of the practice), a practice that is unthinkable in the UK, had a decided “aren’t Americans awful” tone. But, as much as I dislike the practice of declawing, I really dislike the barbaric practice of allowing your cat to roam free outdoors. That’s something the UKians really enjoy.

They’ll say it’s good for the cats to be free to practice their natural behavior. They’ll say cooping cats up indoors will harm their psychological well-being.

Well, cats that part time pet owners allow outdoors face: Predators, cars, and feline (I mistakenly said female, whoops) viruses. Those were covered in the article with it making sure to note the predation was a bigger problem in the US.

However, the article neglected to mention: Fights with other cats or with dogs, parasites, infections, being stolen, tortured, or poisoned, and pregnancy. They didn’t mention the damage cats can do to neighbors’ property. The screen on my porch door got shredded by an outdoor cat trying to get at my indoor cat.

And the article also neglects to mention the damage outdoor cats do to biodiversity. Cats kill approximately 2.4 BILLION birds each years in the US alone.

So, you tell me. Both practices are barbaric, but which seems worse for the cat, the neighbors, and the birds?

Cool Thing #3: This Photograph

More pink than I expected.

The internet provided this cool thing. It was shared on Facebook: A color photograph (above) showing the living room set of the 60s TV comedy The Addams Family. I believe it is an actual color photo and not a colorized image. I hope I’m right because it is damn cool.

The 75th Anniversary Of D-Day And A Crazy Thing A Conspiracy Theorist Said

I had done a drawing (above) in honor of D-Day and posted it on Facebook. It was greeted by an interesting thought about what was really going on on D-Day. Oh, boy.

Music heard on the show…

Dimland Radio opening theme song: ‘Ram‘ by The Yoleus
First ad break bumpers: ‘Me And Sarah Jane‘ by Genesis & ‘Red Rain‘ by Peter Gabriel

Second ad break bumpers: ‘If Hollywood Don’t Need You‘ by Don Williams & ‘Generals And Majors‘ by XTC

Closing song: ‘Angler’s Treble Hook‘ by $5 Fiddle

That’s it! See you next Saturday night for Dimland Radio 11 Central, midnight Eastern on www.ztalkradio.com you can also download my show from the z talk show archives page. You can email your questions and comments to drdim@dimland.com

Please subscribe on iTunes! Just search for Dimland Radio in the podcast section. And if you could leave a good rating and a positive review it would be awesome.

You can also go to my CafePress store and buy stuff with my artwork on it and have me do a portrait for you if you like. Find out more here and here.

Images used under Fair Use.

dimland radio 6-1-19 show notes

The Big Scrub Job

Each year for the last several years, the janitorial service for which I work does a a big scrub and wax job of a small supermarket in Osseso, MN. I talked about some of the particulars of the job, but I also detailed a mugging and a close encounter with a deer.

More Sports Talk

As of this writing the Minnesota Twins baseball club still has the best record in the Majors. Although I still think the air is going to quickly exit this balloon, it’s heartening to see this team do so well.

I brought them up again because they had suffered a humiliating loss at the bats of the Tampa Bay Rays, a team from the American League East division, which is a tough division that includes the Boston Red Sox and the Hated Yankees. And Tampa is a tough team to beat.

The Rays mopped up the diamond with my favorite team by a score of 14-3 last Thursday. Yikes! A friend texted me that that was it. The balloon was deflating. The season is over.

One sports’ cliche remarks on the character of a team in how they respond to such a loss. If they fold, their previous success was probably a fluke. If the lose the next game, but give a good battle, don’t give up hope. If they win, you just might have a great team on your hands.

The Twins won the next game, which was game two of a four game series with the Rays in Tampa. Hey. Maybe we do have a great team.

And then they won game 3. They still have the best record in the Majors.

This is interesting.

A Dimland Radio Pedantic Moment: Oh, Yes, There’s Crying In Baseball

Another example of how Hollywood got something wrong again. The film A League Of Their Own gave pop culture the phrase: “There’s no crying in baseball.” Well, that’s wrong. In the past I have given other examples and on this show I give the most recent example.

Albert Almora Jr. of the Chicago Cubs was at the plate facing the Houston Astros, when he fouled off a pitch which was a line drive directly into the stands. Almora watched in horror as his line drive hit a four year-old girl. She was immediately taken from the ballpark to the hospital.

However, in the direct aftermath of that fouled off pitch, Almora was devastated that he had hurt that young fan. He went down to a knee, head in hands, completely shook up. When he went over to the area of the stands where the girl had already been removed he ended up crying on the shoulder of a security guards. Almora is a father himself and this moment was breaking his heart.

So, you can see, Hollywood, there is crying in baseball.

The good news is the girl is expected to fully recover.

Years ago ballparks throughout the Majors had extended the protective netting to the ends of the dugouts to help prevent these kinds of incidents. I’m guessing some teams, maybe all, will choice to extend the netting even farther.

It’s It Ironic, Don’t You Think?

During last week’s exclusive download only show, I talked about how I thought the owners of Ark Encounter in Kentucky, the tribute to human gullibility in believing in fairy tales, suing their insurance company over rain damage to an access road to the folly wasn’t really ironic.

My opinion was that it would have been ironic if the ark itself had been damage by rain, but not an access road. At least, not very ironic. Well, Facebook friends more smarter than me respectfully pointed out the error of my thinking. I realized they were right and I was wrong.

Hey. It can happen.

In Defense Of Snopes

Nobody likes to be wrong, including me, especially about strongly held beliefs. So when a website like Snopes.com comes along to find the facts and the truth about all sorts of urban legends, memes, and political claims, there will be folks who will dismiss those efforts. Often times the dismissal is to claim a specific political and social bias on the part of the debunking entity.

If Snopes debunks a myth about Pres. Obama, they are a bunch of bleeding hearted lefties. If that same website puts to waste a lie about Pres. Trump, well, obviously, the site is a right wing nut mouthpiece. I’ve heard Snopes disparaged in both of these ways, however lately the claim they are lefties is more prominent.

I went through an article that I think shows a more balanced approach. It confirms that Prs. Obama has been named “Most Admired Man in the World” 11 years in a row, according to Gallup. Of course, that’s just one article. They could still be a bunch of pinko, dirty, red Dummycrats. Or hate-mongering, money-grubbing, corporate lap dog Republithugs.

It depends on the political and social leanings of the readers.

Three Cool Things

1) It’s a little slow and you know how it ends, but this real-time computer-animated re-enactment of the sinking of the Titanic is awfully cool.

2) Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend were guests on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and they did a segment with the host and The Roots covering The Who classic Won’t Get Fooled Again. The whole bunch is crammed into a small space as they play the song using interesting, kid-style instruments. It’s fun and Fallon didn’t annoy me as he usually does. And that’s cool. (Well, he’s still a little annoying.)

Based on an illustration by the great Frank Frazetta.

3) It’s June, which means I did another drawing for the DIY calendar I’m doing for 2019. This month I drew a tardigrade, a way cool microscopic critter. A Facebook friend suggested it and I came up with a fun way to present it. I hope you think it’s cool.

Music heard on the show…

Dimland Radio opening theme song: ‘Ram‘ by The Yoleus
First ad break bumpers: ‘O, Superman‘ by Laurie Anderson & ‘Villiers Terrace‘ by Echo & The Bunnymen

Second ad break bumpers: ‘Eye In The Sky‘ by The Alan Parsons Project & ‘Institutionalized‘ by Suicidal Tendencies

Closing song: ‘Angler’s Treble Hook‘ by $5 Fiddle

Please subscribe on iTunes! Just search for Dimland Radio in the podcast section. And if you could leave a good rating and a positive review it would be awesome.

You can also go to my CafePress store and buy stuff with my artwork on it and have me do a portrait for you if you like. Find out more here and here.

Images used under Fair Use.

dimland radio 5-25-19 show notes

Exclusive Download Only Show

There was new playback and chat room on Z Talk Radio for this show. Saturday was the night of the annual big scrub job for my janitor job. I still recorded a show as per usual and these are the notes for that show.

Enjoy.

Isn’t It Ironic? Well, Maybe Slightly

Just earlier in the day when I recorded this show several of my Facebook friends were sharing links to articles with headlines suggesting how ironic it was that Kentucky’s Ark Encounter Park (an actual attraction that assumes the Noah’s Ark story in the Bible is true) had flood damage due to rain.

I read one of the articles. The headlines were misleading. (Here’s one example.) The article stated that an access road to the replica of Noah’s Ark was damaged, not the ark itself. I was disappointed and thought this story wasn’t an example of irony. I stated as much of Facebook, as well.

Weeeelll, some Facebook friends did give good arguments on why it was still ironic. More on that on next week’s show.

The 2019 Minnesota Twins Have The Best Record In Baseball

I can’t shake the feeling this roll of home runs and wins the Twins are on will come to an end, I am a fan of Minnesota sports team after all. Still, it is astounding how well this team is doing. As of this writing, they have the best win/loss record and the most home runs (104) in the majors, seven more than the Seattle Mariners who have played three more games than the Twins so far this season.

It’s a nice feeling, but they’ll return to earth soon, right?

A Facebook Discussion With Two High School Classmates Of Mine

People tend to accept dubious stories as true if those stories coincide with their worldview and personal biases. And because I am a people as well, I try to be aware of this and vet the stories I share on social media. I also occasionally point out when friends have let their biases lead them to sharing dubious and discredited stories.

The other day a high school classmate of mine shared a blog item from 1998 about actor Robert deNiro being linked to a French prostitution ring which was also connected to child sex trafficking. deNiro was questioned be French authorities because his name was mentioned in connection to the prostitution ring (not the child sex trafficking). He was questioned and released uncharged.

That was more than 20 years ago, but that doesn’t stop the internet from bringing it up.

I shared a Snopes article that discredited the pedophilia angle that was being pushed around the webs. The discussion went from there. Here was mine final response:

“It is true that Robert De Niro was linked to a child prostitution ring in 1998 in France, because ONE person involved mentioned his name. The French authorities questioned the actor for nine hours and then released him uncharged.

This linkage is from more than 20 years ago and I’m unaware of and I can find no other more recent links to child prostitution or pedophilia concerning De Niro. The resurfacing of this story appears to be an attempt to discredit De Niro, possibly in response to his recent anti-Trump statements.

I’m a skeptic. When a story seems hinky or is from a source that I’ve never heard of, my skeptical antenna goes up and I take the time to see how reliable the source is and if the story is credible.

Part of my personal skeptical activism is to encourage my friends to vet stories before sharing them on social media. Read the article. Don’t just go by the headline. Look for other sources.

I even confirm celebrity death notices before commenting or sharing.

Remember the nation wide scare about ritual sex abuse at day care centers all over America that ran rampant in the ’80s? The McMartin case in California? Jordan, Minnesota?

Well, it turned out it was an unfounded panic sparked by well-meaning parents, social workers, teachers, politicians, and prosecutors. But there was no vast ritual child sex abuse going on in this country.

I bring it up, because as those cases finally began to fall apart, investigators were beginning to doubt the claims. The claims became more and more outlandish. The supporting evidence was just not there. And one claim that helped the unraveling was that ONE child mentioned Chuck Norris as one of the abusers.

So, we can rightly say that Chuck Norris was linked to the ritual child sexual abuse at day cares throughout America in the 1980s. The statement would be true. But would it be fair to Mr. Norris?

I’m asking you to be skeptical.”

Apparently, Ghost Hunting Is Still Happening. And Still No Ghosts

No ghost, but plenty of anomalies, which may not be what people are hunting for, but that’s what they keep finding. And on a recent Jason Show, a Twin Cities morning talk show, host brought in a sincere, honest, intelligent, and well-meaning ghost hunter to talk about her recent hunt in a “haunted” apartment in New Orleans, the “most haunted city in America.”

I’m Not Sure About This

There is this thing called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) that is a pledge that 14 states and the District of Columbia have signed up for that voices those states agreement to give their electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the national popular vote. This pledge would go into affect provided that enough states sign on to bring their total of electoral votes to at least 270, the number needed to win the office. New Mexico is the latest to take the pledge.

This is to prevent another 2016, but would it be constitutional? And couldn’t this, in effect, disenfranchise the states whose voters voted for the lower vote-getting candidate?

This whole national thing is pretty complicated.

Not A Movie Recommendation: It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)

I often say art is subjection and comedy is hard. One person’s hilarious movie is another’s “This is stupid” experience.

I finally watched the madcap comedy classic It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. So much yelling, so many impossible to survive situations, so much stupidity, and way too much human air raid siren Ethel Merman. I thought it was horrible without a single moment that worked for me.

Well, there was one. That is until Dick Shawn showed up to ruin the moment.

Three Cool Things

1) This photo (above) of actor Max Schreck in costume taking a break while filming Nosferatu in 1921. I hope the photo description is accurate. Nevertheless, it’s damn cool.

2) This audio clip of Grace Slick’s isolated vocals on the psychedelic rock classic White Rabbit. Some echo, but no other obvious studio trickery. And no auto-tune. It’s so very cool.

3) Hey! Every home should have a globe. I found this one in the basement of Nostalgia Zone, a store filled with comics and collectables, and I had to have it. We figure it is a video store display case for the short-lived Canadian TV series War Of The Worlds (1988-90). It’s out of this world cool!

Music heard on the show…

Dimland Radio opening theme song: ‘Ram‘ by The Yoleus
First ad break bumpers: ‘Tom Sawyer‘ by Rush & ‘One Day‘ by The Church

Second ad break bumpers: ‘Pretty Girls Make Graves‘ by The Smiths & ‘Relax‘ by Frankie Goes To Hollywood

Closing song: ‘Angler’s Treble Hook‘ by $5 Fiddle

Please subscribe on iTunes! Just search for Dimland Radio in the podcast section. And if you could leave a good rating and a positive review it would be awesome.

You can also go to my CafePress store and buy stuff with my artwork on it and have me do a portrait for you if you like. Find out more here and here.

Images used under Fair Use.

Open The Windows, Let In The Noise

It’s spring. The weather is finally nice enough to open the windows and air out the house. Of course, the weather is also nice enough to draw out all the noise makers in the neighborhood. It’s a familiar complaint.

This spring has brought out a neighbor with one of those muscle cars. And it’s rather loud.

Ah, spring.

Pseudoscience And The Paranormal Have Lost Two Proponents

Stanton Friedman, an actual scientist, believed the earth is being visited by extraterrestrials. He was able to convince himself this rather unlikely prospect was possible. He was also responsible for bringing the mundane incident of a crash high-altitude balloon near a small town in New Mexico back to prominence, making Roswell the legend it is today.

Lorraine Warren was half of a paranormal investigative team. Along with her husband Ed (I think I called him Earl on the show), Lorraine would monger mysteries of haunted houses and other similar phenomena. They never solved any of the mysteries they investigated. They would just confirm that there was a ghost or spirit or whatever hanging around.

The Warrens were largely responsible for the Amityville Horror story. Skeptics call it a hoax.

Well, Friedman and Warren died recently. Friedman just this past week and Warren last month. It’s sad news no matter whether I believed what they believed or not.

Someone Is Wrong On The Internet. Again.

A dirty lying meme!

One of my self-assigned tasks as a skeptic is to provide accurate information whenever someone shares misleading or lying memes on Facebook. I’m not alone, thankfully. I talked about a high school classmate who also does what they can to set the record straight.

I gave three examples of memes being shared that are lies. One related to covers of Time magazine and the “flip flop” of scientists from global cooling to global warming. The other two were related in their Islamophobia in claiming the little girls shown in the photos were pregnant. Pregnancies that were the results of Muslim men marrying little girls.

Another dirty lying meme.

Well, the global cooling cover of Time is a lie. It didn’t exist. And the two little girls aren’t pregnant. They have a medical condition which caused their livers and spleens to enlarge.

These images were also used to lie on the internets.

And I’m finding the child bride tradition in Islam isn’t quite what it seems. According to Wikipedia, the marriages are permitted, but the wife is not allowed to live with the husband until she has reached an age when she is fit for martial relations (I’m pretty sure that means sex.)

Regardless, people need to take time to vet memes they are tempted to share on social media. The first question they must answer before clicking share is – Is this true?

Many people don’t do that. This is why a skeptic’s task is never completed.

Oh, I brought up a John Oliver expose of televangelists. Here is where you can watch that excellent bit.

No, Virginia, Pat Robertson Hasn’t Become Pro-Choice

This article has been popping up on Facebook with comments of how shocking it that televangelist Pat Robertson thinks Alabama’s new anti-abortion law is “extreme” and “goes too far.” The comments make me think that people aren’t taking the time to read the article, they just read the headline. The headline is misleadingly. It does give the whole story and it gives the impression Robertson has had a change of heart on abortion.

Robertson hasn’t become Pro-Choice. He still wants abortions to be illegal. He just realizes that the Alabama law would be very unlikely to be upheld by the US Supreme Court. He thinks a less Draconian anti-abortion law would stand a better chance of being upheld effectively overturning Roe V. Wade.

People! People! Please, read the article before commenting!

A Deeper Dive Into Care/Of’s Personalized Vitamin Pack Service

I had talked about this before, but I decided to look deeper into the Care/Of online vitamin supplement supplier. I was always doubtful their online “quiz” was the best way to determine if someone is deficient in some vitamin. No exam by an actual doctor? No blood screening?

I took the “quiz”. Well, not only do they sell vitamins, but they also sell herbal remedies. Right. Hmm. They appealed to antiquity by touting ancient traditional Indian and Chinese medicine. I’m pretty sure all of that traditional medicine has been tested by science. The stuff that worked became medicine.

They also have experts helping them. The experts include a “doctor” of naturopathy and a medical doctor who promotes integrative medicine. Integrative medicine is the combining of actual medicine (science based and shown to work) with magic (Reiki, aromatherapy, acupuncture, etc.). So, when the actual medicine works, the promoters of magic can claim the magic worked.

Save your money.

One Creepy Thing

The parody ad you see above (on right) was on the back cover of an issue of Mad magazine from 1958. It parodies the Miss Clairol ad campaign (above on left) suggesting their hair color products were so good you couldn’t tell if she colored her hair. Only her hair dresser would know.

But with the number of incidences over the past several years of female teachers having sexual relations with their students, the satire of the ad is less funny and more creepy. Don’t you think?

Music heard on the show…

Dimland Radio opening theme song: ‘Ram‘ by The Yoleus
First ad break bumpers: ‘I Wanna Be A Flintstone‘ by The Screaming Blue Messiahs & ‘Golden Brown‘ by The Stranglers

Second ad break bumpers: ‘Harborcoat‘ by REM & ‘Terms Of Psychic Warfare‘ by Husker Du

Closing song: ‘Angler’s Treble Hook‘ by $5 Fiddle

Please subscribe on iTunes! Just search for Dimland Radio in the podcast section. And if you could leave a good rating and a positive review it would be awesome.

You can also go to my CafePress store and buy stuff with my artwork on it and have me do a portrait for you if you like. Find out more here and here.

Images used under Fair Use.

dimland radio 6-8-19 show notes

dimland radio 6-1-19 show notes

dimland radio 5-25-19 show notes

dimland radio 5-18-19 show notes

dimland radio 5-11-19 show notes