The Dark Knight Rises, Internet Trolls, And Then It Went All Pear Shaped...

[Please note, the paragraphs below were written before July 20^th and the Aurora, Colorado tragedy.]

Unless you have been living under a rock (or bridge) you may have heard of the controversy on Rotten Tomatoes about the reviews of “The Dark Knight Rises.” It seems that some super-fans got a bit peeved that a critic did not like the movie. They got so incensed that they threatened rape and murder. Over a movie. What? They had to even resort to the “nuclear option” of shutting down the comments section for this movie review. This also lead to Rotten Tomatoes Editor-in-Chief Matt Atchity to write a hilarious retort to the whole idiotic situation. He basically had to say something that might be kind of obvious: 

 “But if I could ask everyone for one thing, it's this: don't be a dick. Even if you think someone else is being a dick. Just take a deep breath, step away from the computer, and maybe go for a walk. Have a smoke if you need one. There are plenty of other things to get angry about, like war, famine, poverty and crime. But not movie reviews.”

That is great advice. I need to do this from time to time. Idiocy and cruelty abound on the internet and while you want to wail about being hurt, and get back at them, maybe you should just walk away.

Something about this did not smell right to me, though. Like a rotten tomato or even better a rotten egg, I think this was a manufactured controversy. What if you are a movie exec and know that your movie series peaked with the previous movie and the next one cannot possibly match the last one, especially because the Oscar winning actor who practically made that movie tragically died. How do you still get people to see this movie? Well, if there are any negative reviews (and there are always negative reviews) hire a few online thugs (or as they are called internet trolls) to say things that are so outrageous they have to go nuclear with the comments section.

If you have read “The Chronicles of IDIOT,” you know I am fascinated by conspiracy theories. I can't really call this a conspiracy, just what I would call market manipulation.

~~

That is what I wrote before Friday July 20^th. Then all of this went, as the British say “all pear shaped” because a psychopath did a horrific act of domestic terror. My husband and I do not want to watch this movie any more, we will watch it later at home on demand or on DVD.

There have been calls to not let this scumbag change our movie going habits, sorry but that cannot be helped. I cannot stop thinking that if our kids were ten years older, our whole family could have been in a theater just like that one. We live in Tucson, and we will never forget what happened there or what happened last Friday in Colorado. My heart goes out to the people who have been injured and to the families who have lost loved ones. I have been praying for all of you.

Something else that really bothers me is that this psychopath was a graduate student in Neuroscience. I am guessing that he is a paranoid schizophrenic, but was smart enough to be able to cover it up till then. He applied to the University of Arizona, but did not get accepted into the program. But if he had, it could have happened in Tucson all over again.

I know life must go on and am moving on. Luckily my kids have not asked about this and we are trying to keep it from them. Why let little children be scared of going to the movies?

The gun control debate does not continue. The politicians seem to think just saying how sorry they are is enough. I am not sure how I feel about gun control. It is in the constitution and I do think people should be able to defend themselves. But does a family need a machine gun to do so? Or to hunt? No wonder the politicians won't touch this with a ten foot pole.

And so, this takes me back to that original conspiracy theory that internet trolls were being hired to anti-plug the movie. What happened last Friday shows me, yet again, that those little distractions are not important. To some, these type of dramas or whatever manufactured drama they make a mountain out of a molehill, I quote Mr. Atchity again: “There are plenty of other things to get angry about, like war, famine, poverty and crime.”

What happened on Friday was such a serious crime that hopefully we will get angry about this and try to channel that anger into a constructive decisions about at least two things. 1. How to recognize a mental illness like paranoid schizophrenia, and get help for a person before they snap. 2. Decide that our constitutional right to arms does allow us to arm ourselves for defense, but not to the extent that a person could buy 7000 round of ammunition over the internet.

The University of Google, a.k.a. Idiot University

There seems to be a saying now that everyone with a smart phone is an expert on something in five minutes. That depends upon where they look and if they believe the information spurted out by Google, Bing, or Safari or whichever search engine they choose. I don't quite believe it, but I don't own a smart phone.

Believe me, their pull is intoxicating. To basically have the internet at hand anywhere sounds fantastic, but we do not have the money. There are several problems with being a five minute expert, are you really an expert or just someone who looks up the information and then promptly forgets the info after you did the “I'm right and you are wrong” dance. It is like a calculator. Many people think they do not need to know math because they will just use the calculator. But what if the calculator is wrong? This can happen due to transposed numbers and other snafus. Shouldn't you check the math in your head to make sure? There are still some things that we fundamentally need to know. With that we need critical thinking skills to assess the accuracy of what we are reading. Unfortunately, this does not happen enough, why do you think there are viral e-mails about the air movement from fans being able to kill you. By the way, that is a real urban legend from Korea. If it sounds true, why actually check the accuracy?

My favorite example of how dangerous the internet can be without using critical thinking skills is Jenny McCarthy. Her influence of the decision making skills of parents has been scary. If a parent looks into the science behind vaccines and still decides against vaccinating their children, fine. But if a parent just reads Ms. McCarthy's book and decides from her “analysis” and her internet search leading to a degree from “The University of Google,” to not vaccinate their children, I weep for the future.

The billionaires from Google must be pleased, because there is no vetting of the websites from where she got her information. Theirs is a university full of crap, but the tuition you pay is what you also pay for accessing porn (although I think they charge more for that) so there should really be no surprise. You get what you pay for.

There is one tiny shred of information that Ms. McCarthy could take as science. The completely inaccurate and fraudulent study sadly published in the journal Lancet by “Dr.” Andrew Wakefield linking vaccines to autism has been retracted and continually is shown to be wrong. But, boy has that study did open a Pandora's box of paranoia, and sadly, leading to the unnecessary deaths of many children.

The vetting process – is it accurate? Even the political vetters can get it wrong. If you go with a political outsider and do not vet them properly, you get Sarah Palin, 2008 Republican VP candidate. If they had only vetted her actual debating experience, they may have thought that she would be out of her league. It is just my opinion but John McCain would have had a much better chance with a seasoned female candidate, such as Christine Todd Whitman. As I have said before, there is a lot of crap out there on the internet, and any idiot can have a website, and one of those idiots got Sarah Palin on the ticket.

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia done by crowd-sourcing. They make no qualms about that. Fortunately, for every prankster and crank who wants to get a giggle by changing the information, there is usually someone out there on Wikipedia who will set it right. It is these people, the anal ones, who we need to keep things accurate. It is sad to say, but the “know it all's” will keep us honest because they actually know it or learn it and commit it to memory. A good dose of their education comes with skepticism and the critical thinking skills that let us find what is really correct.

Amazingly, many of these people are at or are from ACTUAL UNIVERSITIES! So the next time someone tells you a university education is a waste of money, wait for them to tell you how much they love “The Real Housewives of New Jersey” or “Keeping Up With The Kardashians.” I believe there is a correlation there, but that is definitely not scientifically proven.

This process takes time, you cannot be a five minute expert, because it will take much longer to verify things. Real experts take decades to educate themselves properly. That is the problem with accuracy, it takes too darn long for those those of us used to things on demand!

Next time you look up a piece of information to win an argument on your smart phone. Will you remember that little nugget of information? Or will you have to do the calculation again later? Also, where did you get that information? This critical thinking stuff is hard...

P.G. Wodehouse: The Anti-George R.R. Martin

I just finished George R.R. Martin's Book 5 of A Song of Fire and Ice: A Dance With Dragons. Yes, the summertime is the best time to read these novels because unless you have lived under a rock: WINTER IS COMING! I had to take a break after I finished book 2: A Clash of Kings, because it was November and that ending is just too depressing. In June, I picked up book 3: A Storm of Swords and the ending was so good that I then swept through Book 4: A Feast for Crows and got to book 5, whew!

So, now I need my antidote: P.G. Wodehouse. It is interesting because both writers are writing about Great Britain, Europe and America, just in what I would say would be opposite ways. A Song of Fire and Ice weaves a fantasy based on English and European mid-evil history with all of it's disgusting details, with some necessary supernatural elements. In contrast, the works of P.G. Wodehouse are gentle satire about the lovable but numb-sculled Aristocratic class in Britain, Europe and America, being served by their gentleman's gentleman, a.k.a a butler like Jeeves.

I am not saying that as a bad thing. Just different. It is nice to read that the only thing that Bertie Wooster has to worry about is to get his friend engaged or unengaged and all-knowing Jeeves will see it through. Especially after finding out that one of the major characters in A Song of Fire and Ice got stabbed not once, but four times. See the difference?

A friend of mine is reading (I found out through Goodreads) Pride and Prejudice before tapping into the Fire and Ice books again. That is another good choice. After reading about Dragon fire, incest, beheadings and such; digging into some first world problems sounds pretty good.

By the way, as most of you know, A Game of Thrones is on HBO and is an awesome if somewhat condensed version of the books with each season covering a book. Although I hear that they do change the script from the book, they have the permission of Mr. Martin, as he is a producer for the show. This show (like MANY from HBO) are NOT family friendly. You have been warned...

What you may not know is that there are great TV versions of P.G. Wodehouse's works. My favorite is Jeeves and Wooster, a show done in the 90's with two of England's great comedic actors, Hugh Laurie as Bertie Wooster, and Stephen Fry as Jeeves. I really cannot see anyone else doing these characters. Yes, Hugh Laurie can play idiotic quite well (but anyone who has seen The Black Adder knows that), and Stephen Fry is pitch perfect as Jeeves, with the only thing being out of whack is his famously broken nose. This show is absolutely family friendly, although the kids might not understand the accents, the 1930's slang and such, and will head into their rooms to play. Which is all the better for the adults!

Chronicles of Idiocy 6 - The Pathetic Story of John Edwards and Rielle Hunter

I read a rather sad puff piece in People magazine last week. I admit it, my Mom subscribes to People, and I read their puff pieces about celebrities and other feel good crappy stories. Totally easy reading. Is probably melting my brain, like watching Jersey Shore, but more slowly.

This puff piece was Rielle Hunter's excerpt from her explanation of what deep sixed Former Senator (and could have been President in a different universe) Edwards career. It is in her tell-all book called “What Really Happened.” Or as I call it, “What I Think Happened That Will Not Make Me Look Like Too Much Of A Scumbag.”

We are not French. I say this because the French are famous for their mistresses. They think it is OK, but they are even seeming squeamish about Dominique Strauss-Kahn who was the IMF Managing Director and might have been the next French president except for his downfall which started in New York City. He was accused of sexual assault by a hotel worker and was known to be a notorious womanizer. By the way, the newest French President François Hollande is not married but has a partner he has had for over 30 years. That sounds like a marriage to me, but to each their own. I digress, we are not French, and infidelity in the US is still infidelity. We are the country started by puritans and some things are still not OK. Unless you are a part of a break-off Mormon sect and marry multiple wives, then it is still not OK or legal.

Why does it seem that powerful (and often Democratic) men think that is OK to be womanizers? Republican men who stray from their marriage are often seem to with the same sex, but that is a different Chronicle of Idiocy. I think former President Bill Clinton would have a much better reputation and legacy if he could have just kept his pants zipped for eight years.

This leads me to another soap box: Gay marriage is not destroying marriage in this country. Two adults committed to each other for life is a marriage. It is scumbags like Mr. Edwards and Ms. Hunter who blatantly lie like this who are destroying the sanctity of marriage.

This book that Ms. Hunter “wrote” will only appeal to people like her, those who don't care about marriage or commitment and only care about themselves. Shockingly, Ms. Hunter and Mr. Edwards are no longer together. I hope they can find some class and try to raise their daughter in a decent manner. It seems to me that Ms. Hunter now has two options: 1. Move to France, or 2. Tom Cruise is now single! She may even get a five year deal like Katie Holmes.