dimland radio 6-7-14 show notes

Rage As Management Style
 

I talked a little bit about “reality” television. I haven’t watched much of it, but I did acknowledge the shows can suck you in. I then mentioned Chef Gordon Ramsay and his method of training by rage. At least, that’s how the advertising makes it look. I’m telling you Ramsay is heading for a heart attack.
I’m Still Old, But…
 

I don’t look as old as I am. Which is nice. But Abe Vigoda is one of those people that always looked old. I pointed out Abe was 50 as he worked on the classic ‘The Godfather’ and he was 53 when ‘Barney Miller’ went on the air. This year, my older brother will be turning 53 and I will be turning 50.

Abe is 93 and he’s still alive.

What Kind Of Man Am I?

 

I’m the kind of man who couldn’t go to a prostitute. Not because I’m above all that. It’s because I could never do the negotiation process. I just wouldn’t be able to tell them what I want. I’d be way too uncomfortable.

 
This occurred to me while watching the episode of ‘Stephen Fry in America’ where Stephen visits the Mustang Ranch in Nevada and learns the process of using such a facility. 
 
It’s Not True: Michael Moore’s Treatment Of Charlton Heston

Last week, I discussed how Anderson and “Bald” Bryan of The Film Vault got it wrong about Charlton Heston being a racist. Heston was marching for civil rights long before either of them was born.

I decided to talk about the distortions employed by Michael Moore in has “documentary” ‘Bowling for Columbine’ and what he did to Charlton Heston. Moore clipped up Heston’s speech at an NRA gathering in Denver, held shortly after the Columbine tragedy, and added the “cold dead hands” statement from another speech, given a year later, to make it look as though Heston and the NRA were in Denver as an arrogant, defiance of the people whose lives were touched by the tragedy.

Nothing could have been further from the truth. The NRA had scheduled the event, which they were required by law to have, far in advance of the shootings and there wasn’t time to change venues. They also cancelled all events save those that they were required by law to have.

Heston’s actually speech reads far differently to the highly edited and misleading speech Moore showed us in ‘Bowling for Columbine’.

 
Also, after Moore ambushes Heston in an interview, there is a sequence with Moore showing Heston the picture of a six year-old girl who was tragically shot and killed by another six year-old who had brought his father’s gun to school. As Moore implores Heston to look at the photo, Heston turns his back and walks away.

The problem with that sequence is the Moore seems to be employing two cameramen. He would have had to to get the shots we see. However, we don’t see the cameramen in the shots, as we should if there were, in fact, two cameramen. What happened was that Moore had only one camera and had to do different camera angles and doing some editing to get the sequence we see in the film. That seems dishonest to me.

This link has more of the Columbine distortions, but there are several broken links as this is an old site. And here is the text of Heston speech at the Denver event. Here is how Moore depicted Heston’s speech in Denver.

 
Movie Recommendation D Day Edition: Band of Brothers (2001), Saving Private Ryan (1998), The Longest Day (1962)

 
HBO
 
DreamWorks Pictures/Paramount Pictures
 
Twentieth Century Fox
 
Since Friday was the 70th anniversary of the invasion of Normandy, I thought I’d recommend three movies that fit the theme. ‘Band of Brothers’ is an HBO mini-series that I have recommended before, but it does deal with D Day and it is an excellent series. ‘Saving Private Ryan’ has one of the most awe-inducing opening battle sequence ever filmed. It’s the invasion depicted so realistically that you wonder how anyone got off that beach alive. And ‘The Longest Day’ is an old style war film that is all about D Day. It’s a star-studded affair that is heavy on exposition, but still an entertaining watch.

    

Music heard on the show…

Dimland Radio opening theme song: ‘Ram’ by The Yoleus
First ad break bumpers: ‘Down In The Seine by The Style Council & Dodo/Lurker by Genesis
Second ad break bumpers: ‘Did You Steal My Money‘ by The Who & ‘Dirty Mind’ by Prince
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 5-31-14 show notes

 It’s Live Show! Again! Again!

It is now three weeks in a row of live shows. This time it was due to my taking part in a roundtable discussion as part of the podcast Assault of the Two-Headed Space Mules, which was recorded Friday night when I normally record my show. We’ll see what happens next week.
Running To The Bus
 

Friday morning Hayden and I were walking to the bus stop, which is only a block away. A third of the way there, I realized we forgot Hayden’s water bottle. I heroically ran back to the house and part of the way back to the bus stop. I was way too winded to run the entire way. I did catch my breath fairly quickly and I didn’t die. Felt close, though.

Hayden’s Argument For Class

 

Hayden’s teacher has assigned her students to argue a topic. They are supposed to write an essay on their argument and present it to class. My son picked atheism for his topic to argue in favor of. Amy and I hope his class can handle it and Hayden doesn’t suffer any push back by the religious members of his class.

Fifth grade and he’s tackling atheism. 

 
Facebook Meme Talk

 

I discussed Dim’s Law. That’s my attempt to make sure that memes purporting to quote someone famous are sourced. That meme should include a link to a source that confirms the famous person actually said the quote. I realize this may be naive on my part, but I’ll see what I can do. 

Atheists On Television


Another bit of meme talk. This time I spotted a meme featuring six TV characters who are atheists (see above). The meme is complaining that the portrayal of atheists tends to be negative. I gave my opinion and read a list of the top ten atheist characters on TV pulled from AmericanHumanist.org.


Here is also a list of atheists and agnostics in fiction from Wikipedia.


The Film Vault Boys Got This One Wrong

That Heston! What a racist!

The Film Vault is a weekly podcast featuring a Top Five list related to movies. The hosts “Bald” Byran Bishop and Anderson Cowan recently did a show on their picks for the Top Five racist characters in film. Byran chose Charlton Heston from ‘Bowling For Columbine’ and Anderson agreed.

First, ‘Bowling For Columbine’ is a documentary, so Heston was not a character. Second, it’s a documentary by Michael Moore and Michael was never one to let the facts get in the way of his agenda.

Heston was asked why America was so unique in its gun violence. Canada has high gun ownership, but not high gun violence. Why? Heston said the US has a more mixed ethnicity, but he also said he didn’t believe that was the reason. He mentioned having “enough problems with civil rights in the beginning.”

I know that sounds damning. Sort of. But what Moore and The Film Vault boys didn’t tell their audiences, was that Heston knew about those civil rights “problems” because he was there. Standing up, in the early 60s when most of Hollywood didn’t want to get involved, to be counted in the fight for civil rights for all Americans.

Heston was old, probably suffering Alzheimer’s disease, and being ambushed by Michael Moore. He may have moved more to the right as he got older and began to fight for Americans’ Second Amendment right, but he was never a racist.

Movie Recommendation: Godzilla (2014)

Warner Bros.

This was the topic of the roundtable discussion I was a part of on Assault of the Two-Headed Space Mules. We did talk spoilers about this pretty entertaining monster flick. Not perfect, but very good. So, watch the movie if you plan on listening to that podcast. You wouldn’t want it ruined for you, would you?

    

Music heard on the show…

Dimland Radio opening theme song: ‘Ram’ by The Yoleus
First ad break bumpers: ‘Certain Things Are Likely‘ by KTP & Cig In Backwards by The Suburbs
Second ad break bumpers: ‘Coming Up‘ by Paul McCartney & Close (To The Edit) by Art of Noise
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 5-24-14 show notes

 
 It’s Live Show! Again!

As was the case with last week’s show, I had another very busy week and couldn’t prerecord my show, so live it was one more time. Maybe next week I’ll return to prerecording my show. Tune in.
Struck A Chord
10 points to the person who came up with this one.
 

I wish I cold say I created the above meme, but I spotted it and thought it was brilliant. I had to share it on the Dimland Radio Facebook page. I do a lot of sharing of skeptical or science items on that page. It’s just part of Dimland’s public service.
 

Facebook let’s me know how many people are seeing and sharing the items I post on that page. Most of the time, the numbers of shares and views is rather modest. Once in a while, a posting might get views in the low thousands, but that’s fairly rare.

This meme must have struck a chord, because as I went on the air the views were over 16,000 and the shares were over 200. As of this writing the numbers have jumped to 35,000 plus views and more than 350 shares!

And Dimland Radio is now up to 85 likes!

News Item Follow-Up

 

Back on my 4-12-14 show, I told of the effort of young South Carolinian Olivia McConnell trying to get the Columbia mammoth adopted as the state’s fossil. Well, the bill stalled on its otherwise clear sailing through the state legislature when some politician thought it would be a good idea to add God to the bill’s language. Screech of brakes. (Any guesses which Party that fellow is a member of?) Someone hadn’t heard about the separation of God and State.

The update is that Rachel Maddow had taken up Olivia’s case and started publicizing the hold up and now it appears, with the God language removed, the bill will be adopted.
 

This makes Olivia McConnell and Rahel Maddow both Dimland Radio Science Heroes.
 
More Evidence That Vaccines Do Not Cause Autism

 

A meta-analysis of about 1.3 million vaccinated kids shows there is still no connection between autism and vaccines.

 
Speaking Of Science Zeroes
 

Well, as a yin yang thing, I will name a Dimland Science Zero: Vani Hari the “Food Babe” has pseudoscience down to a science. She has brow beat Subway to remove azodicarbonamide from their bread, because she found out that same chemical is in yoga mat and shoe soles. Next she’ll be demanding dihydrogen monoxide be removed from Subway’s bread.

 
Steven Novella had a few choice words for this pseudoscientist.

Dihydrogen monoxide is water and it is used in the production of bread and yoga mats.


Gluten Free Ain’t All It’s Cracked Up To Be
 

It’s trendy now to eat a gluten-free diet, but is it necessary? For most of us gluten isn’t a problem. For that small percentage of the population with celiac disease or gluten sensitivity (as diagnosed by a doctor) gluten needs to be avoided.

 
Jimmy Kimmel has done yet another service to us all by showing that some gluten avoiders don’t even know what gluten is. Find more info here and here.
 
Blue Man Group Spoiler?
 

I had contemplated letting the audience in on something that we had suspected about the recent Blue Man Group show we attended. Something that had to do with an audience volunteer. I decided not to spoil the moment, but I did let everyone know that we were right.

Urban Legend As Amusing Anecdote On Late Night Talk Shows
 

I’ve talked about these incidents before on the show, but I brought them up again because I had recently been featured as a guest blogger on the Yankee Skeptic. I’ve been posting on the site as a help to my friend Kitty as she deals with some personal stuff and this helps her maintain content.

 
You can read the blog here.
 
Coors Light Ads And Why So Cold

 

Coors Light has been running an ad campaign showing their beers being retrieved bu mountain climbers or deep sea divers. That lead me to two things. One: How much would that beer cost if that was really how they were retrieved?

 
Second: Any time you see a beer ad stressing how cold the beer is or needs to be, you should realize that once that beer warms a bit it will taste like piss.
 
And For Those Of You Who Dislike Variety, We Have Music Radio

 

It’s an old complaint, but music radio sucks. It’s not that the music sucks (although much of it does), it’s that there is no variety. Oh, they’ll say they have variety, but they play the same songs over and over.

 
When I only listen to one particular station once every few days and I keep hearing the same songs, that means no variety. So, if you don’t like variety, music radio is for you. 
 
Movie Recommendation: None This Week

 

I spend too much time complaining about radio, so you are on your own.

    

Music heard on the show…

Dimland Radio opening theme song: ‘Ram’ by The Yoleus
First ad break bumpers: ‘Beatle Boots‘ by Love Tractor & Ballet For A Rainy Day by XTC
Second ad break bumpers: ‘Blue Bell Knoll‘ by Cocteau Twins & Big Mouth Strikes Again by The Smiths
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 5-17-14 show notes

 
 It’s Live Show!

I had a busy week. I had no time to prerecord the show, so I went live.
Some Baseball Talk
 

My younger celebrated his birthday on Friday, so I gave him a shout out. That led me to talk about big-time pitcher from the 80s and early 90s, Jack Morris whose birthday is also May 16th. I talked about the greatness of Jack Morris’ brilliant pitching performance in Game 7 of the 1991 World Series. I maintained that his 10 inning shutout with the series on the line was a gutsier performance than Don Larsen’s perfect game in the ’56 World Series.

A Good Sunday

 

Some several weeks ago, I broke my Google Nexus 7. It was a bit of a bone-headed move done just the once. So, I set aside money to save up for the repair cost. I finally have enough set aside and Hayden and I took a drive to drop my ailing tablet at the computer hospital.

On the way back, we past Battle Creek Regional Park. I pointed it out to Hayden and said I should take him there sometime. He said, “Why not now?”

Why not? So, I turned around and we spent the next hour or so going for a very pleasant walk, Hayden loved it and would really like to go back today. There is a definite possibility we will. We’ll see.

 
The Lost Art Of Counting Change
 

Years and years ago, back before cash registers told the cashiers of today the amount of change to give back to a customer, we had to count the change back. I skill that was taught to me by my father. It is becoming a lost art.

 
I also noted that, until cash money stops being used completely, cashiers need to learn that when handing the change to the customer, it’s coins first, then bills. Not the other way around!
 
Westminster Chimes
 

Some weeks ago, while on a walk with my boy, we heard a local church clock begin to sound the hour. This clock, like many others, played a short tune before chiming the hour. It was then that I wondered if there was a name for that little tune.

There is. It’s called the Westminster Chimes (or Westminster Quarters or Cambridge Quarters). I must thank Jeff Wagg for his vast knowledge as he instantly knew the answer.
 

Here’s a link to the Wikipedia entry, so you can learn more.
 
A Stopped Clock…
 

Usually wrong Pat Robertson was right about something. He answered a viewer’s question about old earth vs. new earth. Pat understands that the earth is billions of years old and not thousands. So, now, science-denier Ken Hamm wants to debate Pat. That would be fun.

So Sick Of Facebook Tribalism
 

I used to be quite the political conservative some years ago, but now I’ve pretty much tired of the whole tribalism thing that politics encourages. Well, feeling that way makes Facebook a bit frustrating as so many of my FB friends are so full of that tribalism. They tend to be left in their politics and tend to see in only black or white terms when it comes to Republicans and conservatives.

Case in point, the recent outrage of Ann Coulter has brought out the double standard mentality. Ann posed with a sign stating “#bringourcountryback.” Well, she opened herself up to a lot of parody opportunities.

One such parody changed her sign to “If I get 100,000 likes, I’ll show my penis.” Oh, hahahahaha. That’s so funny! Har har har!

Oh, hang on. This is from the group of people who tend to be so sensitive about gender issues, but it’s ok to make gender insults against someone we don’t like, I guess.  

 
Movie Recommendation TV Edition: Stephen Fry in America (2008)
 
BBC

Writer/actor Stephen Fry drives a London-style cab across the USA. He visits each of the 50 states. Stephen is awesome and so is the series. Check it out, the six episode series is streaming on Netflix.
Music heard on the show…

Dimland Radio opening theme song: ‘Ram’ by The Yoleus
First ad break bumpers: ‘Qu’est-Ce Que C’est Que Ca‘ by Pete Shelley & C’est Comme Ca by Les Rita Mitsouko
Second ad break bumpers: ‘She’s On It‘ by Beastie Boys & Nocturnal Me by Echo & the Bunnymen
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 5-10-14 show notes

Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!
I started the show by correcting a couple errors that were made on last week’s show. First was kind of a judgement call, but my younger brother did point out that the Paul McCartney concert that Hayden will be seeing this summer will not be his first big time rock concert. My brother maintained that Blue Man Group which we saw last weekend should be considered Hayden’s first concert. So, ok, Paul will be the second for Hayden.

The second mistake was a misspeaking by me. I talked about Pete Townshend and his musical output from about 1979 to 1982. I mentioned a video off his Empty Glass album, in which Pete looked pretty haggard. It was during a very heavy drinking and drug use period in his life. I stated the song was ‘Jools and Jim’. That is wrong. The song is ‘Keep On Working‘.

I apologize for being wrong. It might happen again. 

Waseca, Minnesota: The Tragedy That Wasn’t

A big story averted in a small town in southern Minnesota. Waseca is a town of about 9,500 people, in which one high school student was planning a school massacre on the scale of Columbine or Virginia Tech. However, a young woman noticed the 17 year-old acting suspiciously and reported him to the authorities. The entire plot was discovered by local police. Waseca ought to have a day named in that young woman’s honor.

Something was said at the press conference by the school superintendent Tom Lee that made this humble atheist scratch his head. Mr. Lee believes God prevented the tragedy. But what about are those other school massacres? Where was God then?

Oh, but don’t you know that God works in mysterious ways? That’s right, I forget. How convenient.

Preacher (Comedian?) Brad Stine And Atheists
 

Another item spotted on Facebook lead me to FaithIt.com and a video clip of a guy “proving” that it is crazy to by an atheist with one simple and hilarious question. Simple perhaps. Hilarious?

Brad Stine is a preacher posing as a comedian who thinks it strange that atheists would have a problem with “under God” being included in the Pledge of Allegiance. Well, considering the whole separation of church and state, and considering that not every American worships the same god/s or any god/s, I’d say it’s understandable to object to acknowledging a god in the Pledge.

As Bionic Dance in her video commentary of Preacher Stine’s performance noted: Would he be ok if it was “under Allah” in the pledge? It turns out that just recently a high school in Colorado did just that, they recited the Pledge in Arabic and said “Under Allah,” and the response wasn’t exactly tolerant.

Rick Wells, Pamela Geller, Robert Rich, and Jim Hoft all took great exception to Allah being in the Pledge. In response, I’ll paraphrase that one simple, hilarious question asked by Pastor Stine: Dudes, you’re Christians! You don’t even believe Allah is real. How can he offend you?

Pretty funny, eh?

The Sound Of Screeching Brakes

 
If any sound is fit to describe my reaction to hearing two Walgreens employees talking about mermaids with one stating they are real, it would have been screeching brakes. Or perhaps the sound of a needle being pulled from a record. Either way, I stopped in my tracks and then heard the other employee mentioned she’d heard of the show, but hadn’t seen it.
 
“That show” was either the awful fake documentary Animal Planet’s ‘Mermaids: The New Evidence’ or ‘Mermaids: The Body Found.’ Both shows are complete hoaxes and did run a lame disclaimers during the end credits about being fictional, but still have some people believing mermaids are real. They are not.
I chose not to say anything at the moment, but later on another trip to Walgreens I did talk to the gal who hadn’t seen the show. I told her the show was a hoax.

Movie Recommendation: Sound City (2013)
Variance Films/Roswell Films/Gravitas Ventures

A documentary by Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters, Nirvana) about a recording studio in Los Angeles that, although it didn’t look like much, was the recording studio for a number of very important and successful albums in music history. It is also about the mixing board that became a legend in its own right. Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, Mic Fleetwood, Tom Petty, Johnny Cash, Trent Reznor, Frank Black, and many more recorded there. Check it out!

Music heard on the show…

Dimland Radio opening theme song: ‘Ram’ by The Yoleus
First ad break bumpers: ‘America Is Waiting‘ by Brian Eno & David Bryne & ‘Stars Are Stars by Echo & the Bunnymen
Second ad break bumpers: ‘From The Air‘ by Laurie Anderson & I Believe In You by Don Williams
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.