PREMIUM This is True #810: 20 December
This is True
countries, this is the 810th weekly issue of...
THIS is TRUE: 20 December 2009 Copyright http://www.thisistrue.com
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WAIT, WHAT ARE YOU SAYING? Santa Claus is welcome in Raleigh, N.C. Mrs.
Claus, not so much. The jolly fellow's wife was banned from the city's
Christmas parade if she wore the traditional red suit, as she did last
year. That would be "confusing for children," said John Odom, the
executive director of the Greater Raleigh Merchants Association, which
sponsors the parade. In fact, they didn't even want anyone but the one
sanctioned Santa to wear a Santa-style hat in case any of the poor
dears might become confused. (Raleigh News & Observer) ...If in Lake
Wobegon "all the children are above average," then someplace has to
have the below-average kids. Now we know where.
ALL OR NONE: Chambersburg, Penn., has long had a Nativity scene at the
town's Memorial Fountain under a legal doctrine that allows public
religious displays as long as every religion's display is welcomed.
This year, PA Nonbelievers Inc. notified the town it intended to erect
a sign reading "Celebrating Solstice -- Honoring Atheist War Veterans".
In response, the town changed its policy to keep the sign out. "The
down side of 'everything' is it means everything," lamented Bill
McLaughlin, president of the borough's council, and now no decorations
will be allowed. (Harrisburg Patriot-News) ...Darn that "all men are
created equal" ideal anyway.
GOOD GRIEF! Russell Wiseman, the mayor of Arlington, Tenn., was outraged
that a speech by President Barack Obama preempted the annual telecast
of the 1965 "A Charlie Brown Christmas". Wiseman declared it as "total
crap" that "our muslim president" had "deliberately timed" his remarks
about the war in Afghanistan so that it would bump the religious
"Peanuts" message off the air. In the mayor's diatribe, which he
published on Facebook, he added "you obama people need to move to a
muslim country...oh wait, that's America....pitiful" and "you know, our
forefathers had it written in the original Constitution that ONLY
property owners could vote, if that has stayed in there, things would
be different." After the ensuing uproar, Wiseman issued a statement
that he regrets that his "attempt at tongue-in-cheek humor" offended
anyone, and that really "I am a progressive and tolerant person who
believes wholeheartedly in the rights and equality of all people."
(Memphis Commercial Appeal) ...Well, at least the white male property
owners.
OH, CHRISTMAS TREE: The town of Poole in Dorset, England, decided its
traditional Norway fir Christmas tree, which would cost about 500
pounds (US$800) plus 3,500 pounds (US$5,650) for decorations, is not
"safe" enough, and instead spent 14,000 pounds (US$22,625) on a fake
tree. "People think you can just go into the woods, chop down a tree
and put it up in the high street," claimed Richard Randall-Jones of the
Town Centre Management Board. "But if it blows over and kills someone
then somebody is liable for it." Even better, he says, the fake tree he
found has "no decorations for drunken teenagers to steal," and "I
challenge anyone who can find a better tree in the area." The 33' fake,
which Randall-Jones says was "designed according to the principles of
health and safety," was dubbed by locals the "traffic cone" for its
shape, and protestors tore chunks of the tree's "astroturf" away,
revealing its metal structure. The town gave up and replaced it with a
real tree. (London Telegraph) ...Later, the town will give up and
replace Randall-Jones with a real politician.
SOUTH POLE: It gets a bit weird this time of year in Santa Claus, Ga. The
little town only has around 250 residents, but "The City That Loves
Children" has streets named Candy Cane Lane, Reindeer Street, Sleigh
Street, and Rudolph Way. City hall is located at 25 December Drive.
They're happy to postmark Christmas cards, and had done over 1,000 of
them when someone "called me up from a church and wanted to know if we
could stamp 3,000," Mayor Earl Horton Jr. said. "I had to call her back
and tell her we weren't equipped to do that." The Macon Telegraph notes
the town was named 70 years ago as "a ploy to reel in tourists so
they'd buy the local nuts." (Macon Telegraph) ...Yet 250 of them still
live there.
NAUGHTY, BUT STILL NICE: Just in time for Christmas: the world's first-
ever "green technology sex toy". The 70-euro (US$100), 8-inch "Earth
Angel" vibrator doesn't use polluting disposable batteries, but is
rather a wind-up, recycled unit designed to be environmentally
friendly. "You just flip out the handle, grab a hold of it there, and
you just wind it," said Janice O'Connor, co-founder of Ireland-based
Caden Enterprises. "So for four minutes of doing that, you should
generate enough power to give you 30 minutes of full-on, right-to-the
top vibrations." (AFP) ...Four minutes of hand cranking generates 30
minutes of vibrations? So what else is new?
NAUGHTY OR NICE -- YOU DECIDE: The Roman Catholic Diocese in Auckland,
New Zealand, calls a new billboard ad "over the top," offensive to
Christians, and "inappropriate and disrespectful." The ad shows Joseph
in bed with the Virgin Mary, who looks "dejected" with the implication
being they just had sex. The ad's slogan: "Poor Joseph. God was a hard
act to follow." The surprise is what is being advertised: the St.
Matthew-in-the-City Anglican church in Auckland. "Its vision is one of
robust engagement," said St. Matthew's Archdeacon, Glynn Cardy, saying
the church wants to provoke discussion as they are "interested in
engaging with those who differ." (New Zealand Herald) ...Engaging
discussion, shouting match -- what's the difference?
SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS: "Tennessee Boy, 4, Found Near Home With Stolen
Presents, Drinking Beer" -- WHBQ-TV Memphis headline
DID YOU FIND an error? See http://www.thisistrue.com/errata.html
NO MISTAKE: Yes, this is the Premium edition: I'm sending it to the free
list as my gift to you. There's plenty more -- read on!
I had just posted a status update on Facebook today that said, "Working
on Christmas is like the old times: in my paramedic days I always
volunteered to work so guys with families could stay home. *smile*"
Sure enough, within minutes my pager went off. Not a medical call,
exactly, but a chimney fire at a house. "Should we go do standby, Kit?"
I asked my wife -- we always send at least an EMT, if not an ambulance,
on fire calls to take care of any firefighter injuries, which are more
common when it's a volunteer fire department. Especially around here,
where there aren't many calls (to get well practiced), and the
volunteers here tend to be older than in a city. It's not something we
have to rush to, so we grabbed a few water bottles and filled them up,
got on an extra layer of clothing (it's COLD here this week), and
headed that way. By that time there was an update: it wasn't in the
chimney, or at least not anymore: there were flames coming out the
roof. Yikes.
It sucks to work a structure fire in freezing weather. It sucks more
when it's Christmas afternoon. But that's nothing compared to the folks
that were burned out of their house. No injuries, thankfully, so Kit
and I -- and the ambulance crew -- spent four hours controlling the
traffic going by on the steep, winding, two-lane road. They saved the
house, but there's a lot of damage. By the time we got home it had been
dark for two hours, and the temperature was down to about -5F (-20C).
We feasted on leftover pasta (carbs!), washed down with hot, Hot, HOT
tea. The firefighters had it worse, though: the water spray freezes on
their helmets. The lucky ones get to go inside to warm up -- maybe
getting way TOO warm, before coming back out into the cold again!
Then it was back to the office. Now, 90 minutes after getting back, I'm
still wearing my coat and hat in the office getting this issue out. So,
this issue might end up being a tad late (we'll see!), but I really
wanted to get it out tonight, since I know a lot of people are waiting
for it. I've been sending the Premium edition to the free list every
year for several years now, and I wasn't going to miss this year!
And that was Christmas for us this year. A very satisfying day, to be
sure. I hope yours was more peaceful, and warmer!
And one brief thing before getting back to what was in Monday's Premium
issue: if you want the Premium edition EVERY week, I'll welcome you to
join us. http://www.thisistrue.com/upgrade.html has the details.
o o o
THE NUMBER-ONE MOST-SUGGESTED STORY this week also fit into the Christmas
theme (as well as Zero Tolerance), but on further investigation it
didn't quite work out the way people expected. It thus became an extra
story for this week which didn't go to my (slowly dying off...!)
newspaper clients:
DISCRIMINATION POSTER BOY: The story flashed around the world: an 8-year-
old boy in Taunton, Mass., was sent home from Maxham Elementary School
after an assignment to draw something about Christmas, and he drew
Jesus on the cross. The second-grader couldn't come back, the story
said, until he got a psychological evaluation. "As far as I'm
concerned, they're violating his religion," said his angry father,
Chester Johnson, who explained the family had just visited a holy
shrine. Johnson sat for multiple interviews at his girlfriend's
apartment, telling one paper that "They owe us a small lump sum for
this." School Superintendent Julie Hackett said district policy
prohibited discussing any "confidential matter regarding a student,"
but then gave an interview that newspaper reports were "totally
inaccurate," saying the boy had never been suspended, the drawing had
not been assigned by any teacher, and that the boy said the drawing
depicted himself, not Jesus, dead on the cross, and that school
considered the drawing as a "cry for help." In response, Johnson said
that he wanted his son transferred to the newest school in town. "I
also think they should give him a fully paid scholarship to the school
of his choice. We should be compensated for our pain and suffering."
(Taunton Gazette, Boston Globe) ...It's just a guess, but maybe they
sent the wrong Mr. Johnson for a psychological evaluation.
When it gets to be solely about the money that early in the game, I
just don't have a lot of sympathy -- or faith in the storyteller's
credibility.
JUMBO JOKE CONTINUES with its multi-day Christmas series. Today's is
appropriately WEIRD: "The Optimist and the Pessimist on Christmas
Morning". Nerds will like Sunday's "Suggestion for Santa", and I
particularly liked Saturday's classic, "Physics Of Santa Claus".
http://www.JumboJoke.com
I'M NOT SURE IF I've ever done a movie review in TRUE before, and I won't
be doing them that often, but I went to see "Avatar" this weekend, and
I was very impressed. Over the past several weeks I saw a lot of the
hype for the movie, including quite a few clips, and frankly none of it
attracted me. I was intrigued that several actors who *weren't* in the
movie were promoting it, apparently not sent by the studio or James
Cameron; that said more to me than anything else.
So to begin, I'll say I wasn't sent by the studio or James Cameron; I
wasn't asked to talk about it, I paid for my own ticket, and I'll say
what *I* think about it. Don't worry: I *won't* include any "spoilers",
but yeah: I was part of the film's $232 million opening weekend.
The first thing I couldn't figure out before going to see the movie
was, why was it called "Avatar"? The word means "embodiment", and
online it means a character that represents you in a virtual world.
The movie is set in the year 2154 on an alien world that's inhabited by
sentient 10-foot-tall humanoids. Humans from Earth work there, and even
with presumably better spaceflight technology than we have today,
nearly 150 years before the story's setting, it takes a five-year
spaceflight to get there; the people traveling there pass the time in
suspended animation. It's not mentioned in the movie, but the world
they're on, Pandora, is actually a moon of a gas giant (akin to Saturn
or Jupiter), which you can see in Pandora's sky. That's entirely
plausible: it's thought that there might be life on gas giant moons in
our solar system, especially Saturn's moon Titan (even before last
week, when it was announced by my former colleagues at NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory that they've confirmed liquid there. See JPL's
press release at http://bit.ly/7kmcLk -- which includes the photo that
clued them in).
The basic premise of the movie is how humans deal with the beings on
Pandora. It is, in part, with "avatars": we have the technology to
"grow" bodies using the genome of the sentient beings, and humans can
interface with the bodies (the "embodiment" part) and interact with the
aliens (the character that represents you in a virtual world part) --
hence the title. Being in an alien body doesn't mean you know their
culture or language, though: and that's part of the conflict that makes
the story.
I have to go to Montrose, the biggest town between Durango and Grand
Junction, to go to a theater. Unfortunately, they haven't spent the
$150,000 or so to equip their projectors for 3D films, so I saw it in
2D. Still, it was *stunning* -- both the special effects that make the
story come alive, and the story itself. If the film was simply a
special effects extravaganza, I wouldn't have sat there mesmerized for
162 minutes. It's a terrific story.
Ironically, I found the next town north, the much smaller Delta,
Colorado, has made the investment in 3D, so I'm going back this week to
see it again there. Yeah, I'm paying for a ticket again. I just wish I
could see it in Imax 3D without driving for five hours.
I'd like to think humans wouldn't REALLY do what they do in this film,
but history says otherwise. That's the main crux of the story. It did
make me think: would we be so dumb and (dare I use the word?)
unenlightened that we'd make the same terrible mistakes again there
that we did on our own planet? When I brought that up with my wife,
saying I hoped we wouldn't do that by now, let alone by 2154, she said
she didn't think we were too good at learning from our own mistakes....
There were some little things, too, that made me roll my eyes, like
they made something of the Sigourney Weaver character's addiction to
cigarettes. I just don't find in plausible that there will still be
people addicted to smoking in 2154! But hey: if that's the worst sin in
the storytelling, that's not too terrible.
I also have a problem with the way they chose for sentient beings to
connect to each other to communicate. I'll comment more on that in the
Comments to the blog copy of this, to avoid any hint of a spoiler.
Bottom line: do I recommend it? It kept me COMPLETELY entertained and
attentive for 162 minutes, I'm going back this week to buy another
ticket to see it again, and on top of that, it's thought provoking. You
bet I recommend it!
Rated PG-13 ("for intense epic battle sequences and warfare,
sensuality, language and some smoking.") I agree with the first part,
shrug at the second and third, and roll my eyes at the fourth.
YES, WE DID MAKE it to the 3D version too. My comments on what I thought
of that, and the difference from the 2D version, is with blog copy of
this at http://www.thisistrue.com/blog-avatar_movie_review.html
o o o
CHRISTMASSY ON GROXX TODAY: "Family 'Arrested' Given Food, Presents,
Treated to Tour of Town" (and I thought *I* lived in a small town!)
Submit stories and vote on what submissions are best, register for free
at http://Groxx.com
TEN YEARS AGO IN TRUE: A series of Y2K hysteria stories (remember?!),
including prophesy by "Bobby Bible" that the world will end on 1/1/00.
Start at http://thisistrue.com/6949 and hit the next story link a
couple of times to see the several stories. And don't forget to visit
http://i.thisistrue.com for a new story every day on your iPhone,
BlackBerry, Android, or other web-enabled phone!
BONZER WEB SITE OF THE WEEK: http://www.PCDecrapifier.com -- the PC
Decrapifier. When you buy a PC from a big company, odds are other big
companies have paid them to load up a bunch of ...well... crap: AOL,
Earthlink or other Internet service provider software, the "Dell Search
Assistant", various substandard anti-virus packages, music players, and
other junk. The PC Decrapifier scans your system and lets *you* decide
whether to keep it or not. Getting rid of the junk will speed up your
system and clear out a huge swath of disk space. Free for personal use
(small fee for corporate settings -- though the PC manufacturers don't
usually insult big corporate clients with such crap, just regular
people.)
-- Bonzer Sites archive: http://www.BonzerSites.com
THIS WEEK'S HONORARY UNSUBSCRIBE goes to Walter E. Stamm. A medical
doctor -- an epidemiologist at the University of Washington in Seattle
-- Stamm started out studying something most researchers might not find
interesting: urinary tract infections. He discovered how the bacterium
chlamydia trachomatis caused pelvic inflammatory disease, and did the
first clinical trials of antibiotics to clear up the bacterium, and
thus in large part solve PID. "Countless women owe their fertility to
Walt Stamm and his colleagues," said Dr. Martin J. Blaser, who
succeeded Stamm as president of the Infectious Diseases Society of
America. Dr. Stamm died December 14 from melanoma. He was 64.
AND SO LONG to actress Brittany Murphy, who came to prominence in the
comedy "Clueless" and, ironically, in "Girl, Interrupted", found dead
in her shower December 20 of a presumed heart attack. She was 32.
-- Honorary Unsubscribe archive: http://www.HonoraryUnsubscribe.com
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TIRED OF BEING TOLD WHERE TO GO? "Get Out of Hell Free" with our popular
and (in?)famous cards, created in response to a reader telling Randy he
was doomed. http://www.GOOHF.com
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