Dimland Radio

dimland radio 10-8-16 show notes

Clarification Time

In last week’s show notes I used the word “eradicated” when writing about the World Health Organization’s statement on the status of measles in the Americas. Go ahead and look. You’ll see I used that word. I may have even said it on the show, but who wants to go back and listen to all that again to make sure?

Anyway, I have since learned that “eradicated” is the wrong word to use. I learned it from the Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe as part of their Science or Fiction portion of their podcast. Click here to get the straight poop about why that word was the wrong one to use.

The Van Works Again! For Now

Then I told the story of how our ’97 Plymouth Grand Voyager wasn’t running. It need a new starter and my younger brother’s expertise to come back to life. Steve, my brother, was kind enough to get the part installed for me. I hate working on cars.

Nothing ever goes absolutely smoothly, for, as soon as we had the van running, we noticed the hazards would not stop blinking. A new fuse, which didn’t solve the problem, and a Google search later, we found out that the vehicle has a reset button under the dash. One press while the engine was running and the problem was solved.

Now begins the countdown to the next repair.

Cellulitis

Speaking of my brother, Steve, mere days after fixing my van he ended up in the hospital with cellulitis. Cellulitis is a nasty infection affecting the skin that most often shows up in the lower legs, but it can take hold anywhere a person has skin. With my brother it centered on his right ear and spread into that side of his face and neck.

It started as an ear ache and he took some oral antibiotic he had left over from some other infection, however that wasn’t working so he went to see his doctor. His doctor sent him to the ER. And Steve had to spend a few days in the hospital getting some more powerful medicines intravenously.

Chances are good it will be cleared out of him and he’ll be fine. When I last talked to him the infection was clearing, but it was going slowly.

I took this opportunity to talk about the greatness of antibiotics, but that after 70 years of use some bacteria have been developing resistance. It’s a bit of an arms race between resistant bacteria and the medical profession developing ways to defeat that resistance.

I talked about how this very race is why you should follow your doctor’s instructions when they prescribe antibiotics. If they give you ten days worth, but you feel better after five or six days, keep taking them until you’ve used them up. This helps deal with antibiotic resistance.

Medical science, like any of the sciences, is constantly adding to its knowledge. It keeps learning. So, it is possible that some medical indications will have dose and duration adjustments made as more is learned. Your doctor would be best suited to inform you of the proper medical course.

Praise For Black And White

What’s the resistance to black and white movies? I often hear on the movies podcasts I listen to that black and white (read: old) films put off younger viewers because they aren’t in color. Really? I think that might be a factor, but I think acting and directing styles may have more to do with it. The pacing of older movies, even action films, required a certain amount of patience on the part of the viewer.

I’ve never had an issue with black and white movies. I thought that might be due to being a kid watching TV in the days when it was still fairly common for there to be black and white televisions in the household. In fact, until 1965, most programs on television were made in black and white, so maybe people of a certain age are more accepting of films not being in color.

I talked a little bit about the outraged outcry in the mid-80s when colorization was threatening to take hold. Siskel and Ebert referred to colorization as Hollywood’s new vandalism. Hearings were convened for Hollywood stars, actors, and directors to speak against the destruction of the art of film.

Well, we can be thankful that colorization petered out. People didn’t buy into it. Maybe because the technology was still new and didn’t look very good. In time, as with most technologies, it would have gotten better, but people just didn’t go for it.

Whew!

Movie Recommendation: Run Silent, Run Deep (1958)

Another WWII film for you to watch. It’s in black and white, but don’t let that stop you, because it’s pretty darned good. It stars Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster. Gable was a submarine captain whose boat was destroyed by a particularly efficient and deadly Japanese destroyer. He manages to get the command of another sub, one that was to be Lancaster’s first command.

There are tensions between the new captain and his executive officer (Lancaster) and the crew as they make their way to the seas patrolled by that Japanese destroyer. There are hints of Moby Dick, but just hints.

Will the captain succeed in destroying his enemy after so many have failed? Will the crew mutiny? Will the executive officer support his crew or his captain?

Music heard on the show…

Dimland Radio opening theme song: ‘Ram’ by The Yoleus
First ad break bumpers: ‘Love On A Farmboy’s Wages‘ by XTC & ‘Undertow‘ by Suzanne Vega

Second ad break bumpers: ‘Natural’s Not In It‘ by Gang of Four & ‘Golden Brown‘ by The Stranglers

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

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.

dimland radio 10-1-16

My Rocktober Tradition

I don’t know if I’ve done this every year, but I’ve told this story on or about October 2nd often enough to consider it a sort of tradition. The story is how I came to see The Who in concert for the first time on October 2, 1982 and it changed my life. I became a pretty good sized Who fan and my musical tastes were greatly influenced by Pete Townshend and company.

The Singer?!

So, it’s happened.

On Facebook the other day someone shared a video of The Rolling Stones performing ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ as part of their Rock and Roll Circus concert special of 1968. The concert featured the Stones as well as Jethro Toll, The Dirty Mac Bird (John and Yoko’s band for the film), Marianne Faithfull, and The Who. I goofed on the show, because I thought it had been released back then, however it wasn’t because the Stones didn’t want it released. They felt they had performed badly and others thought it was because The Who’s performance was so good.

In 1996, the film was finally released.

Anyway, there’s the video of the rather young looking band of classic rockers and someone made a comment on how “the singer” looks a lot like Ashton Kutcher on That 70s Show. “The singer?!” The fellow just couldn’t think of Mick Jagger’s name.

Well, it had to happen some day when people would be too young to know the members of such an iconic band.

Here’s The Who’s kickass performance (with Pete Townshend interrupting with the story of the song).

It’s Been Done

I got to thinking about a Garth Brooks TV concert special that aired in the early 90s. I can picture the commercials for the TV event that I really didn’t give a damn about, because Garth Brooks just was never my thing. And I remember one specific thing about that ad: It showed Brooks and a member of his band smashing two acoustic guitars against each other. I remember a person I knew at the time remarking on how valuable those guitars were. I also remember saying, “It’s been done.”

Pete Townshend may not have been the first rocker to smash his instrument in concert (the internets say Jerry Lee Lewis was), but he was the one who made it a statement-making, show-ending tradition that might have bankrupted The Who had not Tommy become such a massive financial success.

I made the point that when The Who destroyed their instruments (just Pete and Keith Moon really) it meant something. It was was a very costly statement on the self-destructive nature of man. We were living under the shadow of “the bomb”. It was art.

OK, it was a gimmick, too. And it lost it’s meaning when The Who became wealthy enough to afford it. Garth Brooks was already awfully damn rich when he was smashing those expensive guitars, so really…yawn.

It’s been done before. And done better.

A Different WHO Made The News

The World Health Organization (WHO) announced earlier in the week that measles had been eradicated in the Americas. After decades of vaccinating the population against that dreaded disease (people think of it as just a kid’s disease, but it was responsible for the worldwide deaths of 2.6 million people a year), WHO could safely state the endemic transmission of measles was no longer happening in the Americas. The incidents of measles outbreaks in recent years were due to unvaccinated people traveling aboard and bringing it back with them and then spreading it to other unvaccinated people.

No thanks to Andrew Wakefield and Jenny McCarthy, the measles vaccine has worked in the Americas and is working in the rest of the world. We must keep vaccinating if we want to make measles go the way of small pox. It can be done.

No Crying In Baseball? Bullshit

Sure, it’s a great scene in the movie A League of Their Own, but it couldn’t be farther from the truth. There’s plenty of crying in baseball.

Mike Schmidt announcing his retirement.

Pete Rose breaks Ty Cobb’s hitting record.

Joe Torre gets his first World Series Championship as manager of the Hated Yankees.

And most recently, after the untimely death of Jose Fernandez, a gifted young pitcher for the Miami Marlins, teammate Dee Gordon did this:

And the Miami Marlins did this:

Don’t tell me there’s no crying in baseball.

Movie Recommendation: None

I ran out of time. You’re on your own this week.

Music heard on the show…

Dimland Radio opening theme song: ‘Ram’ by The Yoleus
First ad break bumpers: ‘Daily Records‘ & ‘Another Tricky Day‘ by The Who

Second ad break bumpers: ‘Dangerous‘ by & ‘One At A Time‘ by The Who

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

dimland radio 9-24-16 show notes

Correction. Yes, Again!

I had to correct some bad info I had received and that I imparted on the previous show. Despite what I stated about Jim Jones, the wacky cult leader, he did NOT drink the Kool-Aid. He did not poison himself as the more than 900 of his followers did in November 1978. He shot himself.

This information was confirmed by a listener to my show. I also checked the internets and the episode of In Search Of that profiled Jimmie Jones and his Soul – Soul Clones (see the bumpers at the bottom to get this reference).

A Handful Of Skittles? Why, Thank You

Donald Trump Jr made a not original analogy about Syrian refugees comparing them to a bowlful of Skittles: Virtually all the Skittles are fine, but three are poisonous. He asked if, knowing that, would we still want a handful?

That brought out a negative reaction from folks who don’t care for Trump Sr. Reducing human beings to Skittles seems a little harsh and selfish to me. Some argued that the analogy merely means the US needs to strengthen its vetting process of Syrian refugees in order to weed out those that may wish to do us harm. Others, including me, think that some people would use that analogy to justify their bigotry toward which ever group they don’t like or trust.

I did point out that this same analogy was used by a faction of the Feminist movement in 2014 to refute the Not All Men folks, who were concerned about all men being treated as potential rapists. I don’t remember the folks who were upset about the poison Skittles today, being upset about the poison M&Ms then. I mentioned an article on the left-leaning website Raw Story. This article was taking exception to Trump Jr’s Skittle analogy and traced the analogy all the way back to the Nazis. I wonder if Raw Story ran a similar refutation in 2014 when the poison M&Ms analogy was being used.

However, in 2014 Debunking Denialism did write an article voicing the problems with the M&Ms/Skittles analogy

There were two very good responses to the Skittles/Syrian refugee analogy. One was by cartoonist Jeff Stahler:

The other was a written response by magician Eli Bosnick:
“If I gave you a bowl of skittles and three of them were poison would you still eat them?”

“Are the other skittles human lives?”

“What?”

“Like. Is there a good chance. A really good chance. I would be saving someone from a war zone and probably their life if I ate a skittle?”

“Well sure. But the point-“

“I would eat the skittles.”

“Ok-well the point is-“

“I would GORGE myself on skittles. I would eat every single fucking skittle I could find. I would STUFF myself with skittles. And when I found the poison skittle and died I would make sure to leave behind a legacy of children and of friends who also ate skittle after skittle until there were no skittles to be eaten. And each person who found the poison skittle we would weep for. We would weep for their loss, for their sacrifice, and for the fact that they did not let themselves succumb to fear but made the world a better place by eating skittles.
Because your REAL question…the one you hid behind a shitty little inaccurate, insensitive, dehumanizing racist little candy metaphor is, IS MY LIFE MORE IMPORTANT THAN THOUSANDS UPON THOUSANDS OF MEN, WOMEN, AND TERRIFIED CHILDREN…
… and what kind of monster would think the answer to that question… is yes?”

Fantastic!

It’s Not True: Jennifer Aniston’s Profanity Laden Appearance On The Today Show

A story made the rounds on the social media, shortly after the news of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt divorcing, claiming that Jennifer Aniston, who had been involved with Pitt before Jolie came a callin’, gave a swear word filled diatribe over America’s priorities. She was so upset that people were more concerned about “Brangelina” than about the injustices of our country today.

Well, it’s not true. She was not even a recent guest on the Today Show. How could anyone believe she would use such language live on national television?

Said News About Terry Jones

Terry Jones, member of the brilliant Monty Python comedy troupe, disclosed that he is suffering from primary progressive aphasia, a form of dementia. This condition slowly robs a person of their ability to communicate. It’s very sad.

My father-in-law also suffers from the same condition. It’s very frustrating for both the person who has it and the people trying to communicate with them.

Dad has trouble with my name, but he is able to called me “big guy”. And that works for me.

My Old Conspiracy Theory

Lastly, a quick talk about my first paycheck job and how I got fired. I used to think I was fired because I was about to turn 18 and they would have to pay me minimum wage ($3.35 in those days). I was training as a cook and the bosses didn’t think I was getting it. Well, why didn’t they send me back down to being a dishwasher, which I started out as and did well? Because they surely didn’t want to pay a dishwasher $3.35 an hour!

Well, that’s what I thought for a long time. Maybe I just wasn’t getting it. Sure, some circumstances may have gone against me, but I could have just been taking too long to catch on and they needed me as a cook, not as a dishwasher.

I dunno.

Movie Recommendation: None

I ran out of time. You’re on your own this week.

Music heard on the show…

Dimland Radio opening theme song: ‘Ram’ by The Yoleus
First ad break bumpers: ‘Jimmie Jones‘ by The Vapors & ‘Only In America‘ by Naked Raygun

Second ad break bumpers: ‘Next Position Please‘ by Cheap Trick & ‘Eighties‘ by Killing Joke

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

dimland radio 9-17-16 show notes

Correction!

I started off by correcting an error I made on last week’s show. I had credited Phyllis Schlafley with writing the book Useful Idiots. She did not write that book. It was written by another conservative named Mona Charen.

Whoops. My mistake.

Veruca Salt Said What?

I next talked about a mishearing of something Veruca Salt, the nasty and selfish little girl in Willie Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, said when she was voicing her displeasure with her father and his employees for not having found a Golden Ticket. I hadn’t noticed it as a kid when watching this, a favorite film of my childhood, but when I got much older and was watching it with my son I was stunned by what I thought I heard Veruca say.

In British, some slang words can mean something totally different from what they mean in American. Still I didn’t think a G rated movie would have the word ‘twats’ uttered by a child. But it sure seemed to be the word Veruca used when she angrily spat, “What’s the matter with those twats down there?!”

Does that word mean something different in British than what it means in American? Because in American the word is slang for that most naughty of the female naughty bits: the who-who dilly.

Well, some time ago, I opened this up for discussion on Facebook and someone clued me in on what she was most likely saying. I watched the scene a few times and listened carefully. She’s not saying what I thought. She’s saying, “What’s the matter with those twerps down there?!”

Ooohh! Well, that’s different.

Never mind.

Another Correction!

I goofed again. I misspoke on this show when I started talking about how when I was a kid television networks would do a once-a-year showing of certain movies. Willie Wonka was one, as was the Wizard of Oz. But, I mentioned a third yearly tradition movie showing, which I misstated as Ben Hur. I meant to say The Ten Commandments. I’m not sure how I got it wrong. I guess I’m just getting old.

I also used the mention of Ben Hur, which I meant The Ten Commandments, to go on (goon?) a little sidetrack about how we can be very certain the Exodus of the Bible never happened. There’s just no evidence for a multitude of people wandering the wilderness of the Middle East for 40 years, other than the Biblical account.

It would have been a more effective talk had I not gotten the name of the movie wrong.

Whoops. My mistake.

Now This Is Just Ridiculous

A fellow Z Talker posted a video (see below) on his Facebook page. It claims to show a huge amount of rain falling in one spot. My friend seems to believe that is exactly what the video shows. He, apparently, didn’t notice how the water arcs at the top of the video image (in the hated portrait format) and how that arcing rises and falls.

To my skeptical eye, this “rainfall” looked more like a geyser. It definitely is water flowing up from the ground, not down from the sky. I shared this video with some of my fellow skeptics and they identified it as water flowing from a broken water main.

I found another use of this video on YouTube (see below) that cropped the image so as to compensate for the portrait format and, more importantly, remove the arcing water so that the hoax of it being rainfall would be more convincing.

And here is a video (see below) of what is known to be a broken water main. Note the similarities. Of course, there may be some who might think the video shows rain falling on one spot coming from a clear blue sky.

Just ridiculous.

Well, I Can’t Unhear That

A member of the MN Skeptics, at the last meet-up, suggested I listen to a podcast called The Last Podcast on the Left. It’s a horror-themed comedy podcast in which the hosts jokingly examine serial killers, cults, aliens, and other paranormal sorts of topics. I’ve listened to a few by now and I’m finding them interesting and entertaining.

I was reluctant to listen to yet another podcast, but my friend suggested I look through their podcast topics and pick one I might like and give it a listen. So, I did just that. I scrolled through and found one on 9/11. I thought that it would be timely to listen to and gave it a shot.

I had misread the topic. It wasn’t a show about 9/11. The hosts were listening to and commenting on what they said were actual emergency calls to 9-1-1. Well, I continued to listen as they played three or four calls. The last call allegedly has a woman calling 9-1-1 because she was being kind of creeped out by a man to whom she was showing a rental property, I think. He was acting strangely and she thought she might not be able to get him to leave.

She sounded worried, but calm, as she was able to get to another part of the property to make the call. The operator was getting information from the woman, when the woman suddenly began screaming in absolute terror. The show hosts tell us that those screams were her death screams as the man murdered her.

I was sure to thank my friend for not giving me a bit of a warning about the 9-1-1 shows (they do a few of them). He apologized and said he’d make sure he’d warn other people when recommending that podcast. That doesn’t help me. I can’t unhear those screams.

I also talked about an early show they did on cults. They talked about Jim Jones on that show and played some of the audio from the last moments of his life and the lives of more than 900 of his followers. In November 1978, Jones had his followers living in his cult compound called Jonestown commit suicide rather than befall what ever paranoid fate he thought was coming their way.

The audio is chilling and I do want to talk a little more about it on the next show.

Movie Recommendation: Morituri (1965)

Twentieth Century Fox

This is a World War II spy (sort of) thriller. Marlin Brando, not a spy exactly, plays a German pacifist who is avoiding the war by living in India, but he is pressed into action by the British. He is to travel, posing as an SS agent, aboard a German freighter ship, captained by Yul Brenner. His job is to keep the captain from scuttling the ship when it is apprehended by the British Navy. The freighter is carrying a large shipment of rubber that the British want to keep from the Germans and use for themselves. Rubber is precious to both sides.

Brando is very good as he attempts to complete his mission by recruiting sympathetic members of the crew. Brenner is also very good as a patriotic captain in the German navy, but he is no fan of the Nazis. Janet Margolin also appears as a hardened young Jewish woman forced into the mix.

Music heard on the show…

Dimland Radio opening theme song: ‘Ram’ by The Yoleus
First ad break bumpers: ‘Town Called Malice‘ by The Jam & ‘Waiting‘ by The Suburbs

Second ad break bumpers: ‘Age of Consent‘ by New Order & ‘Twilight Zone‘ by Golden Earring

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

dimland radio 9-10-16 show notes

Marriage After Death?

Last week I talked about Gene Wilder dying and how some people were so happy he’s been reunited with his third wife, Gilda Radner, who had preceded him in death. But what about his widow, Karen Boyer? She was married to him for 25 years, while Gilda was his wife for only five. I wondered how Karen felt about the whole Gene’s back with Gilda speculations.

On Saturday’s show I talked about how marriage might work after you die, assuming there really is an afterlife. Sure, the vows say until death do the couple part, but then why do people say Gene is back with Gilda? She died. Marriage over, right? If so, stop saying couples separated by death are then reunited by death after both spouses have died. But if death isn’t the end of a marriage, then the couple is married for all eternity? Wouldn’t that be hell?

Suppose married couples are reunited in the afterlife, how is it handled? So, Gene is back with Gilda now, but what happens when Karen dies? Is he married to both Gilda and Karen? For all eternity? Isn’t that bigamy? Wouldn’t that be hell?

Suppose the afterlife’s caretaker doesn’t accept divorce to be the end of marriage, so when Gene’s ex-wives die he’s still married to them. And suppose those ex-wives have had other spouses. Are all those people still spouses? For all eternity? Wouldn’t that be hell?

But suppose the only marriage that counts is the first one. Whether it ended in death or divorce, it’s the official marriage for all eternity…

You see how complicated this all is?

It’s much simpler from an atheist perspective: You die. You’re dead. You’re done. No marriage. No second marriage. No bigamy. No polygamy. No Honey-Do lists. No consciousness. No awareness. No pain. No joy. No nothing. Game over. Dead.

Some On The Left Sure Like To Hate

I guess it’s just human nature to take pleasure in the death or public shaming of people who are thought to be vile, mean, and otherwise irredeemable. Such is the case with Phyllis Schlafly and Ann Coulter. Both women are (or were in Schlafly’s case) outspoken in their right wing political and social views. They both spout ideas that can get very upsetting to those at the opposite end of the political spectrum. So, of course, some of the folks on the Left view these two with a certain amount of disdain.

Schlafly died last week and Coulter was the butt of many of the cruel and nasty jokes that are expected at celebrity roasts. These two events brought such joy to some of my friends on the Left. Posting memes stating, “Ding dong, the witch is dead” for Schlafly and edited video clips of Coulter getting roasted.

The Left seems to pride itself on being caring and compassionate. To them it’s the Right that are mean and selfish. The Left frowns upon sexist, racially or ethnically insensitive, gay-bashing or trans-bashing jokes. Except when hurled at the Right.

I pointed that out by sarcastically stating how it warms my heart when I see the compassionate, caring Left indulge in their hatred of those with whom they disagree.

ARGH!: No Turn Signal In A Roundabout

Roundabouts have been replacing the old four way stop intersections in the Twin Cities lately. And some people don’t understand they need to signal their turn off the roundabout. It helps people who want to merge unto the circular intersection know the intent of the driver moving along the circle.

But a skeptical friend reminded me that driver’s shouldn’t trust a turn signal. Well, he has a point. I guess I’m doomed.

9/11 Still Not An Inside Job

It’s that time of year again. Time for all the 9/11 Truthers to demonstrate they remain irrational when it comes to the attacks of that day in 2001. The conspiracy get more and more complex and convoluted as they attempt to maintain the notion the towers were not felled by Islamic terrorists.

I don’t have the energy go through it all again. However, I spotted an excellent piece on Esquire’s online site explaining the errors made by the conspiracy types out there on the internets. I covers the biggest point and some smaller ones.

JAQing Off

Listeners were shocked when they heard me start talking about what sounds like a very private activity. But, no, I was referring to ” JAQing Off”, which is what skeptics call it when people ask question, but don’t accept the answers if they are not the answers they want. Joe Rogan, a comedian, JAQed off Phil Plait, an astronomer, about whether or not we landed men on the moon.

JAQing off is a subset of the Gish Gallop. Click here to learn more about JAQing off and here to learn about the Gish Gallop.

The N-Word

I advertised this as being a controversial show, because of the whole roundabout ARGH! moment. But there was plenty of other controversial stuff including talking about the n-word. I talked about its origin and how commonly it was used in America not all that long ago.

I won’t get into it here, but go to this link. You’ll learn the word’s history and will be appalled how accepted racist views were by mainstream America. It was just matter of fact. So wrong.

Movie Recommendation: None

I didn’t get to one this week. You are on your own.

Music heard on the show…

Dimland Radio opening theme song: ‘Ram’ by The Yoleus
First ad break bumpers: ‘Fight For Love‘ by 54-40 & ‘All That I Wanted‘ by Belfegore

Second ad break bumpers: ‘Seven Seas‘ by Echo & the Bunnymen & ‘Twist‘ by Tones On Tail

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