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January 22, 2004
MARS ROVER NOW OVER
I suppose I could gloat over this - that the Spirit rover seems to have stopped transmitting. I've never been a believer in the space program much anyway (quick: anyone, name me an actual benefit, beyond Velcro and Tang, that came from the moon program?!)... and since Bush wants to throw billions more at the Red Planet - despite already having run up a record deficit! - it would be easy for me to seize on this as an opportunity to lambaste two of my favorite targets.
But my overriding reaction (beyond the giddy temptation to gloat) is just that this is a bummer. Hell, we already spent the money... might as well get something for our investment beyond static and white noise. I could be angry at the yahoos at NASA who wasted billions of dollars.... I could belittle the fact that we can't even get a golf cart to work there, and yet GeeDubya wants to send people there.
Okay, I guess I'm gloating after all. Never mind.
CHILD DIES IN EXORCISM GONE WRONG
Would have loved to have been a fly on the wall for this conversation. "Hey, honey... I think little Jane's been possessed by the devil!!" "Oh no, dear! That's horrible! What should we do?!" "I know!! Let's strip her naked, break her back, strangle her, and stab her!" "Oh, honey, what a great idea! That's sure to remove the life form from her!"
Friggin' idiots. It says that a church was putting them up in that motel and helping the family live... I know I can't bash religion over this or blame the church for the actual though process, because insane people just are in a different category. However, I do have to wonder what those church folk were thinking. This couple had several small children with them... and anyone crazy enough to think that brutally murdering a child is a valid form of exorcism, well, they were probably displaying other signs of mental illness. Yet no one said anything? No one questioned whether those kids were safe? No one thought to alert authorities? If it were me prosecuting, I'd be looking at the folks who funded the couple almost as closely as the couple themselves.
THE FUTURE HAS ARRIVED ...
Buried deep in the stories about Kodak slashing its work force was a truly interesting stat: that digital cameras have begun outselling film cameras for the first time.
I don't know how I feel about that. I don't own a digital camera yet, though I want one. I've seen my friends' digital cameras, and I certainly see the benefits and cool things that you can't do with film cameras. But there's something that I think will be lost when film cameras go the way of the 8 track tape, the icebox, the vinyl record, the Atari 2600, and other once-ubiquitous technology that history has since cast aside. (Don't look now, but VHS tapes are also going the way of the dodo.)
There's something about opening up an old photo album or a shoebox full of photos that is sort of comforting... the yellowing of the pages, and the fading and brittling of the photographs, just seem to help convey the passage of time. Who hasn't held an old photo of their parents as a 7 year old, or their grandmother as a 19 year old bathing beauty being wooed by their strapping soon-to-be 21 year old grandfather at the shore... and somehow felt that physical connection to the people in the picture as they hold it in their hands? The physical element of photography could be lost as film cameras slowly fade into history.
I'm not saying digital photography is bad; while I am a notorious Luddite, I actually like the idea of digital cameras. I just think that as they advance and film cameras are used less and less, we'll lose an undervalued sensory experience of photography: touch.
SEX DOESN'T SELL ANYMORE?
A recent article in Billboard, carried by MSNBC, suggests that in the post-9/11 world, music buyers are just not as interested anymore in artists who substitute T&A for talent. The author posits that "... the public just doesn't seem to be in the mood for it, and the recent mediocre album sales by (Britney) Spears, Pink and similar artists may reflect a classic case of mismarketing." The article continues on to assert that female artists with more introspective lyrics and more subtle uses of their libidos are now finding greater market acceptance.
An open letter to the author of this article: Dear Sir... SHUT UP! What are you trying to do to us? Britney hasn't taken it all off yet - though we can all sense that it's coming very soon... unless you go and screw it up for us with tripe like this! What's going to happen if Britney starts thinking that to sell albums, she needs better writing and toned down presentation? She's going to put her clothes back on, that's what's going to happen!! Do any of us really want that to happen?? I didn't think so! So shut your damn mouth - at least until the Britney issue of Playboy is on the shelves! Sincerely, Christopher.
P.S. If this trend applies to Ruben Studdard, however, I'm all for it. He should definitely keep his clothes on.
