Rational Crank

In film school, I was taught that the mindless zombies in George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead , were a metaphor for the unthinking fear mongers that arose during the McCarthy era. The insatiable hordes in Dawn of the Dead represented the unrestrained consumerism of western society. Zombies can be Communists, Capitalists or post colonialists. Even the choice made by the common working man, to lead a monotonous and uninspired life, can be brain food for a zombie movie (or is Shawn of the Dead just a harmless parody ?) I think zombies are all things, to all people.  So to continue the tradition, here are some zombie propaganda posters I put together for you.  Happy Halloween. to see more click

News organizations across the globe should count themselves lucky that I am basically a lazy slob. For if I were otherwise, mega media conglomerates would shutter at the sheer number of snarky letters my angry fingers would produce. I would drive them to their knees with the frequency by which they would be forced to casually hit the delete button of their inbox. Many editorial rooms would be driven to block my emails altogether, requiring me to take my limitless aggression out on innocent questioners posting on Ask Google. Thank whatever god you pray too, that we do not live in such a hellish dystopia. Mostly, I just write to NPR, and only occasionally. It’s because, all and all, I think they are doing an OK job and I want to make sure they continue to do so. I think the rest of the media are a lost cause. Nowadays news is nothing more than scheduled press releases and infomercials disguised as stories. Pick up the book, It’s Not News, It’s Fark, by Drew Curtis. He does a great job...

(Reuters News) – A team of Vatican scholars said Thursday they had discovered early church manuscripts that REQUIRE priests, cardinals and even the Pope himself to be married -- a finding that could overturn a long-accepted fundamental canon of the Catholic Church. No, just kidding. Here’s the real story: (Reuters News) - An international team of scientists said on Thursday they had recorded sub-atomic particles traveling faster than light -- a finding that could overturn one of Einstein's long-accepted fundamental laws of the universe. That’s the difference between religion and science. If science finds something new they go out of their way to talk about it. Now this new finding hasn’t been substantiated. They certainly haven’t gotten past the first rule of science (according to the movie Altered States) repeat the experiment. They need to get into the sensory deprivation tank a second time and see if they turn all sparkly AGAIN. This might end up being nothing. The math m...

Bruno Mars - The Lazy Song 

Another letter to NPR: When confronted with past interviews (that were dead wrong) it would be great, one day, to hear a guest say, “Wow, what was I was thinking?” On March 14 , you had two guests on discussing President Obama’s actions in Libya. Tom Malinowski thought the president’s actions were too-little-too late, while General Wesley Clark thought Obama was drawing us into another war. I wonder if you could have these two gentlemen on again and ask both “experts” how they got it so completely wrong. It seems to me that there is a serious flaw in news commentary which allows guests with opposing views, to each give their opinion without forcing them to engage and challenge one another. In a format such as this, there is no consequence for either person if he or she is incorrect. It assumes that we, the general public, will simply forget that particular moment in history. In reality, by giving opinions that were basically wrong, these people were greatly complicating an alread...

The old historic structure was built as a hospital on the outskirts of town, to house the victims of the yellow fever epidemic. Afterwards it was turned into as asylum to hold the criminally insane. It became so crowded that they had to build a tall addition to the original structure. After the institution was closed down, passerbys started catching glimpses of a figure in the windows cloaked in a white dress or gown - the spirit of a dead patient perhaps, or a nurse still trapped in the crumbling building? I just got back from a mini-vacation in Savannah Georgia, voted the most haunted city by the Sy Fy Channel’s Ghost Hunters. Now normally, I would put a lot of stock in a TV channel that dares to spell it’s name in such an avant garde manner, but this time I’m going to have to call shenanigans. Savannah is an enchanting town. And yes, my wife and I spent the first day flying (literally) through the historic district. Standing upright, we floated above the cobblestone roads hoverin...

Ok, let’s say, as a result of a scientific experiment gone array, some monkey becomes super intelligent, (monkeys are apt to do that). And let’s say this particular monkey decides to raise an army of super ape warriors to conquer the human race. That’s fine, happens all the time. I’ll even give you that he probably could get his grubby little hands on some guns. Sure, you can’t buy a gun without a background check but a smart gorilla could probably go to a gun show. As long as he disguises himself wearing jeans and a trucker’s cap and he promises that the guns are only for his personal home collection. The dealers there would give him all the machine guns he wants…no background checks or cooling off period. My real problem with this trailer is this. Where did all the monkeys come from? If the laboratory was in, say, the heart of New York and an intelligent chimp was able to free every great ape in the tri-state area, what would that be - like seven monkeys? The ...