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.

The Faux Sweet Secret Invasion!

You may not have noticed this but artificial sweeteners are everywhere! I am fine with them being labeled and saying “No Added Sugar,” but they are being added to many more items and they are not letting us know. It is only on the label if you read the ingredients. If it is a primary ingredient they need to add extra labels, but if it is one of the last ingredients; I guess you need to just keep reading for those funny little words like aspartame and saccharine.

The first switch I noticed was Juicy Fruit and Wintergreen Wrigley Gum. They used to just use sugar for those gums and yes, the flavor was gone in 5 minutes. But what a fantastic 5 minutes it was! Now it has aspartame and the crappy flavor lasts much longer. Meh.

Yogurt is supposed to be healthy, right? It is, unless it is fat-free and sugar-free. Then, to me it is just a chemical factory with a possible addition of those healthy bacteria for your tummy. You have to read the labels very carefully when you buy yogurt now, unless you like the taste of a chemical factory and it seems many people do.

My last and most egregious example is hot chocolate. Nobody is probably thinking of the stuff right now because it is summer but I still am pissed about what happened last winter. I was at the local Target buying the hot chocolatey goodness for my kids. I saw a package of Swiss Miss Marshmallow Lovers Hot Cocoa. Perfect, right? I mean why would a box of “Marshmallow Lovers” Hot Cocoa need any artificial sweeteners, since you are asking to get sugared up with the extra marshmallows.

Well, I make cups for me and my kids and instantly tell that there is something wrong. It is subtle but still the sweetness tastes wrong. I check the ingredients and it has Sucralose. I then go back to see if there is a hot cocoa I can buy with just sugar. At Target in Tucson, the answer is no. ALL THEIR HOT CHOCOLATE PACKAGES HAVE ARTIFICAL SWEETENERS SOMEWHERE IN THEIR INGREDIENTS! I was only able to find the generic brand at Safeway only has sugar. For us, that is the only safe way or make our own, which is really not that difficult.

Why does this bother me so much? Well you can call me an artificial sweetener detector cause if there is even a 0.00001 of a gram in there I will taste it. It tastes wrong to me because those sweeteners have always given me headaches. If it gives me a headache, I avoid it, wouldn't you? It used to be much easier to avoid these things but now they are popping up where you would think regular sugar should be just fine. The reason? My guess is that the producers of these items think they are making it more healthy by reducing the overall carbohydrate amount. Sorry, but for me a headache is a headache, and it just tastes WRONG! And it does not matter what kind because to aspartame = sucralose = saccharin = any other artificial sweetener = tastes wrong = headache. Give me good old-fashioned sugar and I will adjust the amount I want of it to sweeten my tea.

There is another thing about one artificial sweetener, you can get aspartame poisoning. It is very difficult to detect and is often misdiagnosed as Multiple Sclerosis. There are many symptoms associated with aspartame toxicity reported by the FDA. No wonder I get headaches, it is the #1 neurological reaction. When my kids are older and can make the decisions for themselves they are allowed to eat all the artificial sweeteners they want, but for now we try to keep them out of our diets.  I also have type-2 diabetes running in my family. Instead of running to the artificially sweetened drinks and foods, we are just trying to monitor our real sugar levels, with the occasional hot chocolate with marshmallows as a wintertime treat. Then make sure that me, my hubby, and my kids exercise.

Can We Just Get This Stinkin' Election Over With?

I have come to accept the fact that most people want to be distracted. They want to care about something that may even hurt their lives. Love that High Fructose Corn Syrup even though it is causing obesity and rotting teeth. Love that “Walking Dead” and have to watch it even in front of the kids although seeing zombies eviscerated is quite traumatic for them. Love that massively inaccurate political ad cause it follows my political beliefs even though it cheapens the entire concept of Democracy.

Now it seems that many of our elections will not change much, but that does not keep the media and bloggers from making the biggest deal out of them possible. First lets take the London mayoral election. London has a lot going on this summer, from the Queens Jubilee to the Olympics, somehow they were first able to fit in an election to basically an almost powerless job. But boy did they made such a big deal about it!

In local politics we just got through with an election to fill Gabrielle Giffords seat, for a 6 month post. Wow, think of this distraction as a warm-up to November. Amazingly, after Jesse Kelly lost to Ron Barber, after losing to Gabrielle Giffords in 2010, he is actually NOT going to run again for November. I am absolutely shocked, I figured he would keep hacking at that tree till it fell down. I do have to say I am glad Mr. Kelly is not running again. I found his type of distraction politics to be very negative, although he had to be tempered after a psychotic schizophrenic shot Ms. Giffords as she was doing her job. During the election of 2010 these type of billboards were gracing the roads of southern Arizona:

Classy eh? This type of negative “hate” politics has been running rampant lately. ON BOTH SIDES! These type of no compromise unless our complete agenda is fully set in motion we will say no to everything (Tea Party Republicans) or our leader will never do enough to satisfy us (extreme-left Democrats) attitude makes me nauseous. And if you are a moderate, prepare to be completely ignored.

It often does not come from the political parties themselves, but from Groups and billionaires that our Supreme Court in its questionable wisdom opened the money door to with the Citizen's United ruling.

Here is classy advertisement from Hartland Institute:

Mr. Kaczynski had a Ph.D. in Mathmatics, so if I agree that 1+1=2, then I must be politically on par with a domestic terrorist, right? This kind of lowest common denominator politics is what is hurting our country. We need to find things we agree about and instigate those policies, it is time to build up, not tear down.

My family is quite politically diverse. Before the internet, we only had to deal with each others political attitudes during Thanksgiving and Birthday celebrations. Now we have Facebook and an internet full of hate and lies which gives my two cousins, who are brothers, ample ammunition to do the “I'm right and you are wrong” dance, much to the encouragement of those who agree with them. A friend of mine says she likes our politically diverse family since hers is all in agreement, with a preaching to the choir attitude. I would like a little of that actually, this not quite civil war amongst us wears me down. I know I should be enjoying this since I wrote a political satire but can we just get this stinkin' election over with?

I AM SO FRIGGIN' TIRED OF ZOMBIES!

There, I said it, and I feel so much better. It didn't start this way. I loved the movie “Shawn of the Dead,” but that was released in 2004. Eight years ago I might have checked out “The Walking Dead” but now, no way. Maybe it was because it was a comedy with Simon Pegg that let me be OK with the whole zombie thing.

It does not help when you tell your cousin you are writing a political satire in 2009, and he says “What about zombies? You should write something about zombies, zombies are so hot right now.” Yes, and I guess I should have written a zombie love story, cause zombies are so hot right now and romance never goes out of style! Just ask the writer of “50 Shades of Grey!” OK, so we will mix zombies with “Mommy Porn.” How about “50 Shades of Grey Matter: A Zombie Love Story.” It would fly off the shelves!

Now there are people on the internet talking about a “Zombie Apocalypse.” All because some idiot took a very dangerous drug called 'Bath Salts' and then attacked a homeless man in Miami. If you haven't heard about this you must have been on a deserted island with no internet. Lucky you!

For the fun of it let's give a definition of a Zombie (according to Dictionary.com): (in voodoo)

“the body of a dead person given the semblance of life, but mute and will-less, by a supernatural force, usually for some evil purpose.” Sounds like a really exciting character!

In many stories with zombies there is usually a horrible virus or in the case of South Park, Worcestershire Sauce that turns people into zombies, but they said it was “Pinkeye.” It is a hilarious episode, made in 1997. Like I said, comedy makes zombies tolerable to me.

Do some people want this zombie apocalypse? That is certainly what I get from this situation. The funny thing is I think the only people who would survive a zombie attack are well trained military people and the extremely lucky. That is what those shows are about right? We all want to be the lucky ones, hacking off heads and limbs but not getting bitten and therefore infected to then become a member of the Z tribe.

By the way, I cannot think of a better anti-drug campaign than: “Bath Salts Will Turn You Into A Zombie And You Will Want To Eat Someone's Face!” Nothing says “Don't do it!” quite like that. But there are those very special idiots out there who would probably say “cool!” Sigh.

This, of course, is a huge distraction. There are those that speculate that our fascination with this genre peaks during recessions. I guess you would want to think that “Hey, it could be worse, there could be a zombie apocalypse!”

Now I get to back track a little cause there is an exception besides comedy. I have to say I am fascinated with the world of “A Game of Thrones.” There are in this world creatures called “Wights” which are created by “The Others.” Or as my husband called them “Ice Zombies.” The great thing about this novel and now show is that they don't use the word zombie. They are called “Wights.” No Z word anywhere! Also, they don't just walk around with sores and limbs falling off calling for brains and sort-of attacking people. The Others are a stealth-like force, attacking quickly and are really scary to me. Finally, an original kind of zombie.