dimland radio 5-19-18 show notes

I Make A Clarification

Last week, while I was talking about it being a bad idea to have America's National Motto "In God We Trust" displayed in public schools (it's also a bad idea to have that as our National Motto), I speculated as to what was the prayer that was said in public schools, before the Supreme Court ruled school prayer was unconstitutional. I thought it was The Lord's Prayer, but I wasn't certain.

I looked into it, but I couldn't find that there was a specific prayer, except in New York where their school students recited what was know as The Regents Prayer.

That doesn't mean The Lord's Prayer wasn't said in any schools, but I couldn't find an answer. If you know, drop me a line. drdim@dimland.com

Yanny Or Laurel

Sure, I talked about the unusual sound sensation that's been sweeping the nation. As another example of how we need to be suspect of our senses (remember the blue/black or white/gold dress?), I talked about what happened when some high school kids looked up the word "laurel" on vocabulary.com and played the pronunciation audio file. To some it sounded like yanny, not laurel. They posted their discovery online and within days loads of people are arguing over what they hear.

It seems that people who can hear higher frequencies hear yanny, while the lower frequency folks hear laurel. The hosts of the podcast Squaring The Strange discuss this phenomenon and this site has plenty of audio links to see how the pitch affects what we hear.

I hear yanny most of the time. This is odd since I have old ears, which don't hear the higher frequencies the way they used to. Perhaps I was primed to hear yanny. It's weird.

 

Alert! Alert! Black People Are Having A Picnic! Call The Police!

Some white people, I tell ya.

 

One white woman decided to die on the hill of stopping some black folks using a charcoal grill in a lake park's no charcoal grill section. Oh, the humanity! Did race play a part? I don't know, but the woman was being awfully petty.

The wife of one of the scofflaw grillers confronted the woman and the woman just wouldn't back down. She was pot committed, as the kids say. The wife, also a white woman, took video, in the landscape format, of the confrontation and that video provided the internet with plenty of meme making opportunities.

 

I think the complainer should have realized there are bigger problems in the world and minded her own business, even though she was technically correct. The picnickers were violating the rules of the park. But, come on.

 

I mentioned a few of the memes I saw. They were mostly pretty good and some were quite funny, but I think this one (below) is brilliant. No, it doesn't use the complaining woman, but it's turn about situation is great social commentary.

 

Brilliant!

 

A Dimland Radio Pedantic Moment: That Cartoon Is Just A Demo

This Round-Up (Ahhh! Monsanto! AAAAHHHHHH!!) ad needed to be clear that the cartoon showing how to use this weedkiller is a demonstration. Really? A drawing isn't the actual thing? Huh. Do tell.

 

Movie Recommendation: Mother! (2017)

This biblical allegory written and directed by Darren Aronofsky didn't do well with a general audience. They may have found it too confusing and frustrating. I think it's supposed to be. We are supposed to inhabit Jennifer Lawrence's character (in fact, the camera rarely moves more than two feet from he face or back of her head) and she is confused and frustrated throughout the film.

 

Her much-older-than-her husband (Javier Bardem) is a poet who has been suffering from writer's block, while she restores His home which had been heavily damaged by fire. People just show up to the house and take over and the husband welcomes them.

 

There's comes a time of calm and inspiration when the husband regains His writing ability from news given to Him by His young wife. A new work of poetry is written and sent out to the world.

 

Then the world descends upon their house...

 

Three Cool Things

 

3) The yanny/laurel phenomenon is pretty cool and I think this image, inspired by the debate, is also pretty damn cool.

 

2) My wife and son gave me this VHS tape (yep, we have a working VCR) of the official MLB review of the MN Twins' 1991 World Championship season. Cool!!!

 

1) And in the video, is something very super cool: The Twins could actually beat the Hated Yankees!

It's been such a long time since...

Music heard on the show...

Dimland Radio opening theme song: 'Ram' by The Yoleus 
First ad break bumpers: 'Saved By Zero' by The Fixx & 'Candyman' by Siouxsie & The Banshees

Second ad break bumpers: 'One Step Ahead' by Split Enz & 'Requiem' by Killing Joke

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

Please subscribe on iTunes! Just search for Dimland Radio in the podcast section. And if you could leave a good rating and a positive review it would be awesome.

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.

Images used under Fair Use.

dimland radio 6-28-14 show notes

Start The Show Angry

 

Each week I listen to a movie review podcast called Comedy Film Nerds. It's very enjoyable and the hosts, Graham Elwood and Chris Mancini, are funny and really know their movies. Graham, however, seems to have fallen for the organic/natural fallacy and he is also a gluten-free fellow. He's never said if he has Celiac Disease or if he has been diagnosed (by a legitimate medical doctor) as being one of the exceedingly rare people with gluten sensitivity. I get the impression he is one of the many misinformed people who have the notion the gluten is bad. It's not.

Well, late in their show from last week, Graham made a joke about Monsanto not caring about killing kids with their "shitty food." I hit the roof. Monsanto is this decade's Halliburton: a giant evil corporation that only wants money and to cause misery.

I don't think many corporations would be very successful following that business model, but, perhaps, I'm naive.

 

I think Graham believes the fallacy of "Frankenfoods", the fear of genetically modified (GM) crops. He doesn't realize that virtually all the food we eat has been modified in some way. Corn, bananas, apples, oranges are not naturally occurring in the forms we know today. They have all been designed or modified by humans.

But, Graham and others like him through their fear and being misinformed would lead to children starving and going blind in parts of the world where GM crops can do the most good. It's always easy to be wrong on a full stomach.

Here is a more balanced take on GM crops and Monsanto by skeptic Dr. Steven Novella.

I'm Pretty Sure I Didn't Screw Up

 

The Boy and me with the tickets!

 

We received the tickets to the upcoming Paul McCartney concert. A few weeks ago, I related the story of how I got the tickets and of my panic when I thought I screwed it up. At the time, customer service confirmed I bought the tickets. Later, the credit card statement noted the tickets had been charged. Now, with the tickets arriving in the mail, I'm pretty sure I didn't screw up.

I'll know for sure when we are in our seats and the legendary musician takes the stage.

Nice Parking, Mr. Special

 

I encountered one of those asshole types who think they can park any which way they want. This dude took up three spaces directly in front of the store that I and others were trying to go to. I had to park on the other side of the lot and figured I would try to identify the prick when I got into the store.

Well, he was leaving as I approached and fit what I thought would be the profile of such a jerk.

 

Dimland Radio Science Heroes: Sen. Claire McCaskill and John Oliver

Recently, pseudoscience peddler, Dr. Oz was brought before a Senate hearing committee to answer questions about his promotion of snake oil on his highly rated TV show. (Thanks a lot, Oprah.) Sen. McCaskill wanted to know how Dr. Oz could justify calling the unsupported by scientific evidence diet supplements "miracles in a bottle."
 

TV's John Oliver did an excellent segment on this hearing and also dug into the history of the snake oil products and how they are protected by certain members of congress.

It's a joy seeing Oliver take this scam to task. Plus, you get a tap-dancing Steve Buscemi. What could be better?

 

Examples Of Police Brutality?

I talked about a couple examples of what is being claimed as police brutality that I have seen on my Facebook newsfeed.

One sort of showed a 19 year-old woman at a Gay Pride event in Pittsburgh being roughed up by a cop. She had been getting in the face of a anti-gay rights "Christian" fellow when the cop acted. The officer claimed she struck and grabbed at him and that he wanted to get her away from the crowd. Because of the crappy amateur camera work we didn't see the young woman hit the cop, but we did see her get knocked around.

 

The other video showed a man lying on his back, surround by cops telling him to get on his stomach. The man was drunk and had been starting fights when the police were called in. He refused to turn over and kept kicking at the officer, so they had to use force to get him to comply. I thought those cops showed incredible restraint, but the crowd and the person who posted the video on FB apparently disagree. There is more video, released by the police, that show more hitting by the officers before they backed off. I have not seen that video. I just read about in the link above.

 

Landscape! Dammit!

I then went into the problems with amateur videos on the internets. Too many people keep their camera in the portrait (vertical) position instead of landscape (horizontal) when making videos. It really annoys me, but I can't really blame the amateurs. The companies ought to set their cameras to default to landscape when taking videos, but there is an app for that.

 

The other thing about amateurs taking video is they don't understand the rule of always keeping the camera on the action. Pros know to do this, but amateurs will too often drop the camera to look with their eyes. When they do that the viewer can't see what is going on. That was the main problem with the first police brutality video I discussed. The person taking the video kept looking with her eyes and not the camera, so we didn't see what initiated the cop taking the actions he took.

 

Movie Recommendation Ikiru (1952)

 

Toho Studios

 

This Akira Kurosawa classic follows an older man through the last days of his life. He learns he has stomach cancer and maybe six months left to live. He had been working in the Japanese government bureaucracy for thirty years and he realized he hadn't been living life. After an attempt to enjoy the excitement of the Japanese nightlife and spending time with a younger woman, a former co-worker, he determines to do something important in the days he has left.

This is a terrific film.

    

Music heard on the show...

Dimland Radio opening theme song: 'Ram' by The Yoleus

First ad break bumpers: 'Fight For Love' by 54-40 & 'Freak' by Bruce Foxton
Second ad break bumpers: 'Four Engines Burning (Over The USA)' by The Screaming Blue Messiahs & 'Freeze Tag' by Suzanne Vega
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.