[MiSTied] Even Howling Wolves... Pause To Listen
Todd Gilbert
For those who missed the first two parts of this MiSTing, I
am using a new robot. His name is JAX. His description
and personality are described in part 1 of this misting:
"cia_psi". Part 2 is called "*the* answer"
In article <lgbrossa.789753413@cnj>, lgbr...@cnj.digex.net (L.G. Brossa) wrote:
> Path: bdmcom!uunet!news1.digex.net!cnj.digex.net!cnj!lgbrossa
> From: lgbr...@cnj.digex.net (L.G. Brossa)
> Newsgroups: alt.paranet.science
TOM: Oh dear.
MIKE: Strap yourselves in guys.
> Subject: Even Howling Wolves... Pause To Listen
CROW: Clapton'll have that effect
OTHERS: Yep. Yep.
> Date: 10 Jan 1995 10:57:23 -0500
> Organization: Express Access Online Communications, New Jersey, USA
TOM: Hey, think we could get him to go check on Hoffa?
> Lines: 146
> Message-ID: <lgbrossa.789753413@cnj>
> NNTP-Posting-Host: cnj.digex.net
> Summary: Why it was important to continue the HRMS project and the price humanit
> Keywords: HRMS HIGH RESOLUTION MICROWAVE SURVEY EXTRATERRESTRIALS RADIO TELESCOP
CROW: Looks like the mads lost part of it there.
MIKE: Shhhhhhh, they might find it and make us do this experiment over.
JAX: You can't blame the good doctor. He's working with sub-
standard equipment.
TOM: A PC, right?
MIKE: Don't tell them...it'll only start a fight.
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>
> Even Howling Wolves. . . Pause To Listen
TOM: [singing] I ate the sherriff.
> by Luther G. Brossa
> January 10th, 1995
>
> NOTICE!!!
ALL but JAX: OKAY!
> No other reproduction and/or
> distribution rights -- outside Internet
> medium --
CROW: Wow, the mads snuck under that wire.
JAX: Of course. They'd never do anything illegal.
[Mike begins coughing. Tom looks at him in concern but is
unable to help. Finally, Crow pokes him in the back with
his beak]
> -- is inferred by the public
> posting of this material. Any form of
> commercial reproduction and/or
> distribution of the material contained
> herein --
ALL: mmmmm_Yeeeeeeesssssss?
> -- is expressly forbidden --
> without the authors written consent.
TOM: And even then I'll just claim someone cracked my PGP code.
>
> Copyright 1995, by Luther G. Brossa
> <lgbr...@cnj.digex.net>
MIKE: You know, I really like the way he formatted this to
look like a newspaper article. The thin columns
the dual-justification.
TOM: Yeah, gives it a sense of credibility.
CROW: And wastes butt-loads of bandwidth.
>
>
> A terrible judgment is descending upon our species
CROW: [Pacino] You're out of order! He's out of order!
This whole trial's out of order!
> and no, I am not writing of any specific horror
> bleeding from today's headlines.
MIKE: No wonder newsprint is so messy.
JAX: C'mon guys. When they write like children you bash them.
When they try to spice it up a little you bash them.
CROW: Mike, can I bash him?
> After tens of
> thousands of years filled with struggle and hard
> won triumphs, we face one of the most subtle tests
> of our ingenuity and possibly. . . survival. This
TOM: What's with the ". . ."?
CROW: I think he has measles.
> is not a test of our technical prowess, though it
> depends much upon our scientific accomplishments.
> It is a test of our collective vision: Shall
> humanity's destiny be that of algae sinking to the
> bottom of a stagnant pond,
MIKE: Okay, so biology isn't Luther's thing.
> or will we honor our
> predecessors by building upon their hard-won
> achievements?
CROW: So that Centuries from now archaeologists can find
all our stuff in one pile.
> I am musing on the past (10/93)
TOM: 0.10752688 and change
CROW: 17.3
MIKE: I thought we replaced your Pentium, Crow.
> failure of our
> federal government to muster the meager resources,
> needed to fund NASA's High Resolution Microwave
> Survey (HRMS) project.
MIKE: Hussein's Really Mangling Syria?
CROW: Hasn't RADAR Modified Science?
TOM: Helping Recycle Marshmellow Sticks?
CROW: Her Royal Majesty, Sandi?
MIKE: Enough.
> This project was intended
> to coordinate various radio telescopes located
> around the world,
TOM: Hey Palomar, plaids and polka-dots don't mix!
> in the monitoring for possible
> extraterrestrial intelligence.
MIKE: Like us?
> (For the first
> time, WE would have assumed the role of passive
> observer!)
CROW: I hate it when we just lay there.
> The program took years of promotion
TOM: Because it's proponents were wise enough not SPAM.
> before it was seriously considered for funding.
> With the 500th year anniversary celebration of the
> discovery of America, the HRMS was eventually
> funded by our Congress.
MIKE: Finally completing the task begun by Amerigo Vespucii.
> It's required a scant 1
> tenth of 1 percent of NASA's annual budget to
> operate.
TOM: Be reasonable. The mads run this place for less than that.
> The objective of HRMS had only recently become
> feasible, due to recent advances in Digital Signal
> Processing technologies. This emerging
> electronics technology
TOM: I can see it. It's coming.
CROW: It's a breach!
> offered the means to sift
> through vast quantities of random background
> noise,
MIKE: Like this post?
> searching for specific microwave emissions
> that would most likely originate from other
> advanced-technology civilizations.
TOM: Or at least, other hungry civilizations.
> No doubt, the
> project would have expanded to include other
> electromagnetic spectrum, that were found to
> propagate easily through space.
CROW: Like, oh, any wavelength you care to mention.
> But alas, it
> operated a single year before it became a victim
> of fiscal 'prudence'.
TOM: [singing] Deaaaar Prudence.
JAX: Hey, this is serious. This is about important projects
getting the shaft from a bunch of weasly politicians.
CROW: I've got a shaft....
MIKE: Enough, Crow.
> In a time when $127 million was spent on each mile
> of the Century Freeway in Los Angeles,
MIKE: Is "Century" the name of the freeway or how long it took to build?
TOM: It's how long it takes to drive down it.
> one ponders
> our `learned' representations' decision to kill
> the HRMS.
CROW: Now I'm ticked!...See, because of the...
MIKE: We get it, Crow.
> With increasing ethnic and religious
> strife rearing up in every part of this planet,
TOM: Strife is all a matter of your rearing, you know.
> why shield the masses from the knowledge that we
> may not be alone in this vast universe?
MIKE: It's not that they're shielded. It's just that
The X-Files is on Fox.
> Could the
> answer lie in the fact that the world is
> oscillating between globalization, and, ethnic
> exploitation.
CROW: So, your speculation is suddenly a fact?
TOM: [Announcer] New from Mattell: Insta-Facts. Batteries not included.
> Perhaps the purveyors of conflict,
Mike: [vendor] Conflict! Get cha' conflict here!
> realized the danger in diluting our differences
> with something more substantial than faith?
TOM: Now what's more substantial than faith?
CROW: Aaron Spelling productions.
> Besides the esthetics of such arcane knowledge,
> why would we need to know if humanity is the lone
> intelligence within our universe? Quite simply. .
> .
MIKE: Wow, it's a period piece.
> SURVIVAL!!!
ALL: AAAAAAh!
> Consider that any civilization
> capable of advancing beyond the frontiers of its
> own evolutionary birthplace, would also be
> empowered with unparalleled destructive potential.
MIKE: They used to have to check with management, but now
they're empowered and much happier.
> This is not to say that a species capable of
> traversing the depths of space would be dependent
> upon the worlds it visits.
CROW: More likely the opposite, don't ya think?
> However, before you
> become too comfortable with the idea of beneficent
> extraterresterials,
TOM: You know, the term "extraterrestrial" has always
bugged me. It sounds more like you're from
"earth and then some".
> consider one of the more
> glaring lessons in human complacency. . . the
> discovery of the America's:
TOM: "The discovery of the America is" what?
MIKE: He could've used that apostraphe in his copyright notice.
CROW: He could've used a lawyer in his copyright notice.
TOM: He could've used the delete key ON his copyright notice.
> These "Americas" were
> once richly populated by numerous nations who
> exhibited great majestic splendor; preoccupied
> with the issues of tribal hunting rights;
> intertwined with natures' forces; struggling to
> see their loved ones through another hard season.
MIKE: Wow, help me out guys.
TOM: I got "hunting your loved ones".
CROW: I got "great majestic intertwining".
JAX: I've got to get y'all a Strunk and White.
> Then the unbelievable happened. Small dots
> appeared upon the horizons of the great oceans. .
> .
CROW: Yeah, like those.
> those same oceans once perceived as offering
> solace from the aggression of other hunters!
MIKE: [singing again] Go tell it to the ocean.
TOM: Now wait a minute. I thought his point was that
they'd never seen anything come across the ocean
so they never thought about the possibilty. Where'd
these hunters come from?
JAX: Just a minute, I'll check. [Jax uses his left arm to
pull out his right arm then shoves that up his nose.
He then begins cranking and his neck extends. Soon
his head is offscreen above the theatre] You're right
Tom, looks like that was his point.
TOM: [to Mike] I could get used to this kid.
> (Most relevant to this example, is that these
> indigenous peoples were not decimated for reasons
> of immediate resource competition, so much as
> insurance against any future competition.)
CROW: I thought it was VD.
TOM: Oh, well that would be immediate resource competition then.
> It would be a fitting end to our parochial
> arrogance,
MIKE: What's wrong with public schools, man?
> should our cities someday be reduced to
> ash and our children canned as food for the
> offspring of a distant world!
TOM: Apparently, "baby food" works both ways.
> How ironic, that
> the imperious species known as mankind, would
> chance loosing its place at the dining table of
> life, by becoming the meal!
CROW: Well technically, ...
MIKE: Crow, don't.
> The same mankind that
> delights in the subjugation of all other life
> forms for sustenance; that debates the ethics of
> `species' rights versus 'consumer' product safety;
> that peers into the eyes of its own and calmly
> pulls the trigger of indifference. . .
JAX: Hey, that was kinda poetic.
MIKE: In a Ralph Nader meets Harry Calahan kinda way.
TOM: Sometimes you have to let art wash over you.
> What a sad statement of our times, that we didn't
> pause to listen for an answer to the age old
> question, "are we alone?"
CROW: [wisper] Are we alone? [nuzzles Mike]
MIKE: Get your hands off me.
> We had the means to
> hear the answer,
MIKE: The ears justify the means.
> but do we have the intelligence
> to grasp its importance?
>
> Luther G. Brossa
TOM: Is that supposed to be an answer?
MIKE: You get the feeling he's expecting a no. Maybe
he's offering himself as an example.
CROW: I wish he'd offer himself as a sacrifice.
> All threaded responses should be forwarded to
> <lgbr...@cnj.digex.net>.
MIKE: All other responses will just fall loosely to the floor.
> MHRS22.ASC
> ENDDOC
>
>
>
>
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TOM: Hmmmm, PGP Fiction. Should've gotten John Travolta.
CROW: And a spell checker.
[1...2...3...4...5...6...G]
[SOL bridge, the three are in their usual positions]
TOM: Uh, Mike. I have a question.
MIKE: Do tell, Tommy.
TOM: Well, basically. this post is a rehash of ideas presented
in movies and television shows like "V" and that
Twilight Zone episode with Lurch.
CROW: _To_Serve_Man_
TOM: Right. Only this had no plot, tension, or catharsis.
CROW: Or Lurch
TOM: Right.
MIKE: So.
TOM: So where's Luther get the brass to slap a copyright on this?
MIKE: Well, Tom. Copyright law is a tricky thing. See, you can't
copyright an idea. You can only copyright something tangible.
CROW: But Mike...
MIKE: So you can take something and change it just enough to be
acceptably different and it's okay. That's where the lawyers
come in, because the line for acceptability keeps moving.
TOM: But Mike...
JAX: He's right, look at the "look and feel" lawsuit with Macintosh.
ALL: NO!
TOM: Uh, Mike.
MIKE: Yeah, Tommy.
TOM: It's the end of the experiment. Jax has to go away now
to preserve our premise.
MIKE: You're right. [turns to cambot] Get him out of here!
[D13]
Dr. F: Let me see that Frank. [examine more printout]
FRANK: oooooo, we've got a definite spike at 35.12.
DR. F: It's working. [wistfully] But it will take some time.
[To camera] Get used to him, whiners. He's staying.
Push the button Frank.
FRANK: I love it when your plans don't backfire, Steve. [button]
*
> Who knows>? My life story very few would ever believe
--------
Legal stuff
--------
'Mystery Science Theater 3000 and its related characters and situations are
trademarks of and (c) 1994 by Best Brains, Inc. All rights reserved.'
'Use of copyrighted and trademarked material is for entertainment
purposes only; no infringement on the original copyrights or trademarks
held by Best Brains, Inc. is intended or should be inferred.'
MSTed by Todd Gilbert
Disclaimer: MST3K and related situations/characters/settings/scenarios
are the property of Best Brains; they had nothing to do with my
writing this. This MSTing was done for the sole purpose of
entertainment and is not meant to be a personal attack on the original
author(s) in any way. I intended no flames on any organizations,
characters, products, people, or ideas which were referenced in this
MSTing. This MSTing reflects my own personal viewpoint, and does not
necessarly reflect the views of my employer, my family or any other entity.
--
tgil...@salsa.abq.bdm.com The owls are not what they seem
<I speak for the only person I can speak for>
o/~ "Ignorance and prejudice and fear walk hand in hand"
New rule for the NFL next year: Instead of playing the games
they'll just ask the referees who they'd like to see win.