dimland: karen boyer

9.12.2016

dimland radio 9-10-16 show notes

Marriage After Death?

Last week I talked about Gene Wilder dying and how some people were so happy he's been reunited with his third wife, Gilda Radner, who had preceded him in death. But what about his widow, Karen Boyer? She was married to him for 25 years, while Gilda was his wife for only five. I wondered how Karen felt about the whole Gene's back with Gilda speculations.

On Saturday's show I talked about how marriage might work after you die, assuming there really is an afterlife. Sure, the vows say until death do the couple part, but then why do people say Gene is back with Gilda? She died. Marriage over, right? If so, stop saying couples separated by death are then reunited by death after both spouses have died. But if death isn't the end of a marriage, then the couple is married for all eternity? Wouldn't that be hell?

Suppose married couples are reunited in the afterlife, how is it handled? So, Gene is back with Gilda now, but what happens when Karen dies? Is he married to both Gilda and Karen? For all eternity? Isn't that bigamy? Wouldn't that be hell?

Suppose the afterlife's caretaker doesn't accept divorce to be the end of marriage, so when Gene's ex-wives die he's still married to them. And suppose those ex-wives have had other spouses. Are all those people still spouses? For all eternity? Wouldn't that be hell?

But suppose the only marriage that counts is the first one. Whether it ended in death or divorce, it's the official marriage for all eternity...

You see how complicated this all is?

It's much simpler from an atheist perspective: You die. You're dead. You're done. No marriage. No second marriage. No bigamy. No polygamy. No Honey-Do lists. No consciousness. No awareness. No pain. No joy. No nothing. Game over. Dead.

Some On The Left Sure Like To Hate

I guess it's just human nature to take pleasure in the death or public shaming of people who are thought to be vile, mean, and otherwise irredeemable. Such is the case with Phyllis Schlafly and Ann Coulter. Both women are (or were in Schlafly's case) outspoken in their right wing political and social views. They both spout ideas that can get very upsetting to those at the opposite end of the political spectrum. So, of course, some of the folks on the Left view these two with a certain amount of disdain.

Schlafly died last week and Coulter was the butt of many of the cruel and nasty jokes that are expected at celebrity roasts. These two events brought such joy to some of my friends on the Left. Posting memes stating, "Ding dong, the witch is dead" for Schlafly and edited video clips of Coulter getting roasted.

The Left seems to pride itself on being caring and compassionate. To them it's the Right that are mean and selfish. The Left frowns upon sexist, racially or ethnically insensitive, gay-bashing or trans-bashing jokes. Except when hurled at the Right.

I pointed that out by sarcastically stating how it warms my heart when I see the compassionate, caring Left indulge in their hatred of those with whom they disagree.

ARGH!: No Turn Signal In A Roundabout

Roundabouts have been replacing the old four way stop intersections in the Twin Cities lately. And some people don't understand they need to signal their turn off the roundabout. It helps people who want to merge unto the circular intersection know the intent of the driver moving along the circle.

But a skeptical friend reminded me that driver's shouldn't trust a turn signal. Well, he has a point. I guess I'm doomed.

9/11 Still Not An Inside Job

It's that time of year again. Time for all the 9/11 Truthers to demonstrate they remain irrational when it comes to the attacks of that day in 2001. The conspiracy get more and more complex and convoluted as they attempt to maintain the notion the towers were not felled by Islamic terrorists.

I don't have the energy go through it all again. However, I spotted an excellent piece on Esquire's online site explaining the errors made by the conspiracy types out there on the internets. I covers the biggest point and some smaller ones.

JAQing Off

Listeners were shocked when they heard me start talking about what sounds like a very private activity. But, no, I was referring to " JAQing Off", which is what skeptics call it when people ask question, but don't accept the answers if they are not the answers they want. Joe Rogan, a comedian, JAQed off Phil Plait, an astronomer, about whether or not we landed men on the moon.

JAQing off is a subset of the Gish Gallop. Click here to learn more about JAQing off and here to learn about the Gish Gallop.

The N-Word

I advertised this as being a controversial show, because of the whole roundabout ARGH! moment. But there was plenty of other controversial stuff including talking about the n-word. I talked about its origin and how commonly it was used in America not all that long ago.

I won't get into it here, but go to this link. You'll learn the word's history and will be appalled how accepted racist views were by mainstream America. It was just matter of fact. So wrong.

Movie Recommendation: None

I didn't get to one this week. You are on your own.

Music heard on the show...

Dimland Radio opening theme song: 'Ram' by The Yoleus
First ad break bumpers: 'Fight For Love' by 54-40 & 'All That I Wanted' by Belfegore

Second ad break bumpers: 'Seven Seas' by Echo & the Bunnymen & 'Twist' by Tones On Tail

Closing song: 'Angler's Treble Hook' by $5 Fiddle

That's it! See you next Saturday night for Dimland Radio 11 Central, midnight Eastern on www.ztalkradio.com you can also download my show from the z talk show archives page. You can email your questions and comments to drdim@dimland.com

You can also go to my CafePress store and buy stuff with my artwork on it and have me do a portrait for you if you like. Find out more here and here.

9.06.2016

dimland radio 9-3-16 show notes

People Mean Well, But...

Gene Wilder and Karen Boyer

Gene Wilder died last week from complications of Alzheimer's Disease. You know who he was, of course. He was an actor and writer, very funny. Starred in lots of classic comedies and everyone's favorite: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. That's the movie, I believe, through which most of us formed such warm feelings for Mr. Wilder.

So, he died last week and lots of us felt particularly sad about that news. But some folks chose to look on the bright side. They said that he was back with Gilda Radner, his wife of about five years before she died of ovarian cancer in 1989.

I asked my listeners (all three of them) to imagine what it must be like to be Karen Boyer at this time. I was a little more roundabout in how I went at it, but I eventually let my listeners know that Ms Boyer had been married to Gene Wilder since 1991. That's 25 years of marriage with the last three or so years dealing with that dread disease. But, it's Gilda who will make Gene happy for all eternity?

People.com

Did you know Gene had been married and divorced twice before marrying Gilda? Now, there is no way to know if Gene's and Gilda's marriage would last as long as his marriage to Karen Boyer, but his track record wasn't good.

I'm sure most people sharing the sentiment on social media that Gene and Gilda are together again had no idea of his long lasting marriage to Karen. I just hope Ms Boyer understands that.

Crazy People On The Internet

On the previous show, I talked about the supposed American "stonehenge" site at the bottom of Lake Michigan and the "mastodon" stone that was found nearby. There are lots of red flags on this one. Enough to be very skeptical as to the veracity of the claims, but I covered that last week.

What I didn't get to was the reaction of a crazed internetter who barged into the Facebook chat thread on this find as to whether or not it was authentic. He just had to make certain we are knew all about the mystical qualities of the swastika.

No, it wasn't Godwin's Law. He had some nutty ideas about the symbol he just had to tell us so we can avoid being "sheeple". But if we didn't understand what he was saying, then we were all fools and dumbasses and f***tards. His brilliance was out there. Way out there.

Columbo's Worst Episode Is...

Last Salute To The Commodore. This episode of the much beloved 70s detective series is absolutely bizarre. Lt. Columbo is often times way out of character, in fact he is downright mean to the people around him. Columbo? Mean? There's several ham-handed attempts at comedy that fall completely flat. And Columbo gets so physically close to people in this episode it get uncomfortable, in fact he practically sits in Robert Vaughn's lap. Twice.

It's awful.

You can read my blog for Warehouse Find, the official blog of Nostalgia Zone, covering what I think are the three best and worst episodes of Columbo here.

What Every Serious Bigfoot Hunter Needs?

A membership card? Membership to what? And how does that help?

A friend spotted this item and brought my attention to it. It is a Bigfoot Research Kit. It includes what you need to find bigfoot, including stickers, evidence flags, a magnifier, and scat bags. Better be big scat bags, I imagine bigfoot takes rather large dumps.

The label says there are more items, so it's possible it includes a camera the takes clear, in-focus photographs. Maybe there's a big net for when the hunter using this kit is successful (and how could they not be?) in finding a bigfoot.

That Latest Signal From Space!

Although very interesting the signal from space turns out not to be from aliens. It appears the signal found by Russian astronomers in 2015 actually came from earth. Conspiracy nuts are sure to doubt this answer and mystery-mongers are sure to ignore it, but it doesn't appear to be a signal from a far off, intelligent, alien species.

The search continues.

Movie Recommendation (Gene Wilder edition): Just About Anything