Thursday, April 23, 2009


Chris Carter Goes Green


The creator of The X-Files, Chris Carter, is green.

No, he wasn’t hit by gamma rays and turned into The Hulk – even though that would more entertaining than his last X-Files film, I Want To Believe.

I borrowed a DVD of XF: IWTB. After being disappointed by the main feature I checked out the so-called “special” features that included a short about how Chris went green during the production of his movie.

[Note to historians decades hence: “Green” refers to a fad popular at this time to save the earth from mankind’s impact by using less energy, eating local “organic” foods, and acting like a fanatic over ecology and the environment due to concerns about global warming. While commendable, this fad is out of hand in that some people are joining in because it’s the “cool thing” to do. A present-day individual doesn’t fit in unless he’s absolutely committed to being “green.” Green statements uttered without question act as a shibboleth to hip conformity. Like any fad –-wearing a zoot suit or twirling a Hula-Hoop – it will fade into the background, replaced by another “cool thing.”]

During the featurette Chris repeatedly mentions how a certain car company (that I’m not going to plug) provided hybrid cars for the stars and crew. This saved on gas and resulted in less pollution. Also catering was done using locally grown food.

Right after Chris Carter: Statements on Green Production, there was another featurette entitled Body Parts: Special Makeup Effects. The movie plot involved head transplants (think Grade Z sci fi thriller like The Brain That Wouldn’t Die) and so with the human chop-shop motif various bodies and their parts had to be fabricated out of plastic.

But if I may make a modest proposal like Jonathan Swift, why didn’t the movie production go organic and use real human bodies and parts? After all, unlike silicone, human flesh is biodegradable.

And with a creative chef, they could’ve done the ultimate in recycling with the catering service. Just use the soylent recipe.

(Sorry. Am I making you “green?”)


Sunday, April 12, 2009


Groovy Positive Vibes


Skeptic Rebecca Watson has been having bad luck lately. As she mentions at www.skepchick.org/blog within two weeks she was hit by a car and then her apartment was burgled, her laptop computer stolen.

But maybe it wasn’t a run of “bad luck.”

Rebecca should watch “The Secret,” a documentary about how to attract good things in their life. People radiate vibrations out into the universe. The movie shows someone wishing for something and all those thoughtwaves just spread out into forever.

In fact “The Secret” states that the universe can be your catalog. Just list what you want, think good thoughts, and it will come your way. The Supreme Being/Grandest Poohbah/whatever will listen to you. It’s New Age wishful thinking without equal.

If all the skeptics like Rebecca keep thinking bad thoughts, radiating negativity into the cosmos, they could end up bringing down an alien invasion force or blowing up the sun.


Wednesday, April 08, 2009


The Unimal


The ancient Greeks could really come up with some wild beasties when they unleashed their imaginations. For example, the manticore: a mythical monster sometimes depicted with a man’s face, a lion’s body, a dragon’s legs, and a scorpion’s tail.

But that combo critter can’t match the unimal.



I just watched a documentary called Farmboy about the life of H.E. Babcock, a professor of farm marketing who later became Chairman of the Board at Cornell University in the 1940s. During his lifetime he promoted nutrition standards. To symbolize animal agriculture the unimal was created, five basic farm animals in one: chicken, cow, steer, pig and sheep. This cobbled-together imaginary beast had the key aspects of each animal, from the rooster’s red comb on its head to the curly pigtail on its butt. The front legs were those of a cow; the rear ones of a chicken. Toss in a pair of wings and udders and you had a unimal.

Babcock had a plastic unimal toy on the market to promote a healthy, well-balanced diet to children. Designed by Karl Butler, you would press down on it and a tiny hotdog would drop out. Keep pressing and other farm products would appear: a quart of milk, a ham, a pound of butter, and an egg.



With the concern nowadays about cholesterol, red meat and fat, I don’t think the items produced by the unimal would be considered proper nutrition.

Maybe it’s time for an update: I propose the univegimal. With genetic engineering this critter would be part lettuce and tomato combined with the five farm animals. Just press down on the new toy version and a tossed salad pops out with all the other agricultural products.


Images from the documentary Farmboy.



(Note: Unimal buttons and T-shirts are available at cafepress.com)

Thursday, April 02, 2009


Halloween: Evil Or Depraved?



A cheaply photocopied pamphlet has been lurking on my desk since last fall, buried among all the other stuff to be processed. It keeps popping up to the surface, daring me to peruse it. It’s time to eXamine this bit of hysteria.

THE TRUTH ABOUT HALLOWEEN was found shoved in a friend’s doorway when he came home one day. He doesn’t know who left it but I can speculate what kind of person wanted to share its startling “facts.”

“Don’t be fooled by what appears to be just a bit of harmless fun!” is emblazoned on page one. Open it up and one learns the “true” history behind Halloween, its satanic origins. Back in 1500 B.C, the Druids held their evil sway over Western Europe. They practiced a cruel kind of magic, using people as human sacrifices, flogging and sexually molesting them before their hearts were torn out.



Whoever passed along this pamphlet was apparently a prude because one line has been crossed out with a black pen. But the most of the line can still be read despite the crude redaction. Referring to the sacrificial victims, it’s stated: “Their sexual organs were cut off and [illegible] to be used in black masses.”

Ouch.

When someone was killed during such dark rituals, it was said the victim Druid his last breath.

Ouch.

Then the pamphlet states: “The Druids taught that on Halloween ghosts, spirits, fairies, witches and elves came out to harm people. From this terrible satanic religion comes the use of witches, ghosts, and cats in today’s celebration of Halloween.” No mention how a kid dressing up as Spider-Man or Strawberry Shortcake is promoting the cutting of sexual organs from innocent victims.

So what kind of stranger left this pamphlet behind? I would guess some old brainwashed biddy whose life has been ruled by indoctrination in supernatural ultra-conservative Xtianity. A wild guess, huh?

I doubt it was a lapsed Druid.


The ART of Conspiracy


Advanced alien civilizations are in contact with Earth but the public at large is being kept in the dark about this fact.

That statement is the basis of exopolitics, the study of the relationship between humanity and offworld entities. At exopolitics.blogspot.com Ed Komarek talks about the conspiracy keeping ET contact limited to a privileged elite. He discusses Corporation X or the Alien Resource Development Corporation (ARDC), a shadowy inner circle that controls the alien research trade (ART?). [Link]

The human elite control alien tech for their own self-interests. For example, new sources of clean, cheaper energy are being held back so the oil companies can maintain their profits.

In one post Komarek speculates about a modern day slave trade: human abductees are being used for the harvesting of biological materials by certain aliens. (He points out that not all alien species in contact with our world are doing this.) He says the same powerful families who made their fortunes in the earthbound human slave trade during the 1600s-1800s could be involved in such activity.

He explains: “In the past the black African leadership sold their own people to the enslaving more technologically advanced European and American slavers as trade goods for metal weapons, cookware, ornaments and rum. Could the reasoning and justification be the same today as in the past, ‘if you can’t beat them join them’? Is history repeating itself, but this time the technologically superior unethical race is extraterrestrial.” [Link]

ARDC sounds like the fictional mega-conspiracy depicted in the TV series, The X Files, created by Chris Carter.

When asked about the concept of such a grand conspiracy, Carter said: “I believe that conspiracies do exist, but I also believe there are no secrets…people have a great inability to keep a confidence, and there are too many self-interested people. That’s why I believe with, say, the JFK conspiracy theory, that there aren’t enough people with enough dedication to the keeping of the secret to really have kept it this long. Death and deathbeds have a wonderful way of coughing up truths…” (The X Files Book Of The Unexplained, Volumes I and II (1996), Page 539.)

X Files story editor Frank Spotnitz agreed. He conceded that some government actions and experiments remain hidden from the public, but when it came to a grand political conspiracy involving covert contact with ETs, he thought people weren’t competent enough to maintain the secrecy. (Ibid. Page 540.)

I would have to agree. Even with some sort of mindwipe device as depicted in the movie, Men In Black, I find it hard to accept that someone wouldn’t get the story out, providing hard evidence that would blow the lid off.

A Corporation X as described by Komarek couldn’t stay hidden for so long. I’ll admit that it’s not impossible. Just really improbable.

And without any solid proof, probability is the only way to deal with the subject.