Right Wing Nation

Jessye Norman sings the Liebestod. Karajan conducting.

It’s called Fred on Federalism, but Fred on the Tenth Amendment would be more accurate.

Yesterday or the day before, we found out that (oh no!) walking is worse for global warming climate change than driving your SUV (oh dear! walking makes The Earth Goddess cry! oh dear!). Today, we find that organic food also makes Mother Gaia sad!

Save the Earth! Drive SUVs and eat more meat!

The first reality show I watched was Murder in Small Town X, which ran on Fox in the summer of 2001. It was a really good TV show, too, although nobody else seemed to watch it.

Well, it wasn’t really reality TV. The contestants had no idea what was going on, but the show itself was carefully crafted.

The contestants were taken to a small New England town to solve a string of murders. Each episode corresponded to a day, and contestants were given a list of suspects who they had to eliminate. There were actors planted among the residents of the town who in various ways would lead the contestants toward clues. Toward the end of every episode, the phone would ring, and a caller gave the contestants two destinations. At one was a vital clue. At the other was the murderer. But the contestants didn’t know which was which. They voted on which two contestants would go, alone, to the destinations, and each of the two contestants wore a helmet cam, so you saw what they saw as they approached the destination. You also saw what the contestant who got killed saw.

It was intriguing. It was also creepy. The actors in town usually drew the contestants out at night. The situations surrounding the murders were creepy. And of course the finale of each episode, where you-as-the-contestant were killed was creepy. It was one of those shows you were immediately addicted to.

The final episode was broadcast on 9/4/2001, exactly one week before 9/11. The winner of the show, Angel L. Juarbe, Jr., was a NYC firefighter who killed in the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9/11 — also creepy.

Spike TV has just started a new show, Murder, and we watched the first episode last night. It’s far less complex and more straightforward (and I’m sure more realistic) than Murder in Small Town X was, but frankly, the first episode stank. The host can barely read a teleprompter, a third of the time was spent watching the members of the two teams argue with one another, and the Apprentice-like presentations at the end are, well, like watching undergrads to presentations in class: Put a gun to my head and force me to watch.

I’m willing to watch another episode or two, but if they aren’t a lot better than the pilot, I’ll drop it from the to do list.

I found this via Don Surber:

Parents hoping to raise baby Einsteins by using infant educational videos are actually creating baby Homer Simpsons, according to a new study released today.

For every hour a day that babies 8 to 16 months old were shown such popular series as “Brainy Baby” or “Baby Einstein,” they knew six to eight fewer words than other children, the study found.

Like I said, should I feel guilty because I find this hilarious?

Naw.

It’s posted at Education in Texas.

I found some very old stuff (my handwriting at 15 months, if you can call it handwriting), my high school diploma and SAT report, and a high school report card. Here’s the grade scale printed on the back of the report card, just for perspective:

A: 95-100
B: 88-94
C: 80-87
D: 70-79
F: Below 70

I was out in the garage — barefooted, of course — looking through boxes, and I knocked over a box with burned-out fluorescent tubes in it. Teeny shards of broken glass all over the floor, though I managed to get back inside without cutting myself to put on my shoes. Wasn’t there something a couple of months ago about some government agency of idiots telling people to call the EPA to dispose of these things?

No clouds of poison gas as far as I can tell.

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