Hat-tip to io9

There are, fundamentally, two kinds of people in the world: Thinkers and Believers.

When I say that, I expect it to get your attention. That’s why it’s presented in such blunt, quasi-absolutist terms. I know the first thing that jumps into anyone’s head when they see the world belief presented as an opposing-force to thought is that the presenter (me) is “attacking” or otherwise denigrating religious belief, which is one of the all-time great attention-getters (just ask Ricky Gervais.)

Of course, those who bother to read past the slogan will typically discover that I didn’t specifiy religious belief (or scientific thought, for that matter) because I’m talking about human behavior in a much more broad sense – it’s wholly possible (and, in my mind, just as ill-advised) to apply religion-esque blind, uniformed fealty to any worldview. Case in point: The long-held, anti-science hysteria against Genetically Modified Organisms (“GMOs”) particularly in agriculture. I’ve been on about this before.

One of the biggest anti-GMO activists – partially responsible from the mid-90s onward – for both spreading “Frankenfood” hysteria and coupling it (to cancerous effect) to the mainstream environmentalist movement was a fellow named Mark Lynas. Well, guess what? A few days ago, in a lecture to the Oxford Farming Conference, Lynas recanted and denounced more or less the entirety of the anti-GMO movement and his participation therein, effectively joining ranks with the Norm Borlaug wing of planet-management.

In the world of eco-science, this is pretty huge. But what I like more than the result is Lynas reasoning for it: In order to better argue his other great intellectual passion, climate change, he had to develop a greater understanding of science. In doing so, he realized that his stance on GMOs was simply not supported by real science, and that he’d been clinging to beliefs (his words) to justify it.

Confronted with hard scientific evidence that what he had assumed was, in fact, incorrect; Lynas’ actions were that of a Thinker: He accepted the truth, and now looks to undo what damage he did by spreading a lie in the name of erroneous belief. He’s now setting out to actively campaign for the EU and other organizations/governments to ease their crippling restrictions against GMO crops.

Money quotes, from the lecture:

“So I guess you’ll be wondering – what happened between 1995 and now that made me not only change my mind but come here and admit it? Well, the answer is fairly simple: I discovered science, and in the process I hope I became a better environmentalist.”

“This was also explicitly an anti-science movement. We employed a lot of imagery about scientists in their labs cackling demonically as they tinkered with the very building blocks of life. Hence the Frankenstein food tag – this absolutely was about deep-seated fears of scientific powers being used secretly for unnatural ends. What we didn’t realise at the time was that the real Frankenstein’s monster was not GM technology, but our reaction against it.”

“So I did some reading. And I discovered that one by one my cherished beliefs about GM turned out to be little more than green urban myths.”

“It is not enough to sit back and hope that technological innovation will solve our problems. We have to be much more activist and strategic than that. We have to ensure that technological innovation moves much more rapidly, and in the right direction for those who most need it.”

“If you look at the situation without prejudice, much of the debate, both in terms of anti-biotech and organic, is simply based on the naturalistic fallacy – the belief that natural is good, and artificial is bad. This is a fallacy because there are plenty of entirely natural poisons and ways to die, as the relatives of those who died from E.-coli poisoning would tell you.”

“So my message to the anti-GM lobby, from the ranks of the British aristocrats and celebrity chefs to the US foodies to the peasant groups of India is this. You are entitled to your views. But you must know by now that they are not supported by science. We are coming to a crunch point, and for the sake of both people and the planet, now is the time for you to get out of the way and let the rest of us get on with feeding the world sustainably.”

Wow.

“You are entitled to your views. But you must know by now that they are not supported by science. We are coming to a crunch point, and for the sake of both people and the planet, now is the time for you to get out of the way and let the rest of us get on with feeding the world sustainably.” Remove the issue-specific “feeding the world sustainably” part and you’ve basically got a template for my entire day-to-day worldview.

Lynas, of course, has much more pennance to make than just a grand speech to atone for the harm he helped bring about, but this is a hell of a start and he sounds committed. I hope this speech goes viral (it’s likely being passed around like Gangnam Style by the biotech community already) and gets out there. For good or ill, the environmentalist movement lives and dies by publicity. It’s time it dropped this crap and got the side of science and (more importantly) reason and reality.

My good friend and fellow BOFCA member Dan Kimmel has written his first fiction novel, a scifi/comedy called “Shh! It’s a Secret,” due to be released this month. It’s now available for pre-orders, if anyone would like to take a look…

Dan’s a good guy, old-school scifi fan and more-than-generous helper to the newbie set in the Boston area movie-journalism game. Some of you might be familiar with his previous book, “Jar-Jar Binks Must Die.”

UPDATED: Had originally linked to the first trailer, fixed.

The “Evil Dead” remake is probably going to be awesome, and we need to start accepting that:

(re-posted from The Other Blog, hat-tip: POLYGON.)

This is how it begins…

I “get” that grief is a powerful emotion that can override common sense and reason, even in the best of us. I understand that, therefore, we are expected to be deferential and sympathetic to even the most awkward, outlandish or uncomfortable expressions of grief: “Oh, it’s alright. They’re just upset. Let them vent.” I get that… but there’s a limit to everything. So, I have ZERO problem saying that the folks in Southington, Connecticut who’ve more-or-less decided to hold a mass-burning of “violent” video games (music and movies, too) as some kind of reaction to the tragedy in nearby Newtown are, whateve their intent, essentially painting themselves as a pack of ignorant, knuckle-dragging, reactionary cretins; and that they deserve to be called-out and shamed for what is – regardless of scale, circumstance or intent – a crime against art, culture and an affront to civilized modernity.

Southington SOS, which purports to be a charitable organization comprised of local business and community leaders set up in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre (which, just to reiterate, took place in a different community in CT) are the force behind this gesture. They put out a press release announcing it, which includes contact information for a local YMCA chairman who is apparently a spokesman for the group (I’ve contacted him for some clarification, awaiting response.)

Said press-release claims that it isn’t trying to suggest that games are “to blame” for the shooting and that it’s more interested in getting parents and their kids to “have the conversation;” though it goes to claim that “ample evidence” exists for violent media contributing to aggression, “desensitization” and the usual malarkey… without, of course, providing a source of said “ample evidence” (spoiler: that’s because there isn’t any.) They’ll be rewarding “donations” with $25 dollar giftcards, which seems a little rotten to me since I’m more than certain the victimized town they’re supposedly supporting could probably use that money… That the “returned” offending materials will be destroyed and “likely” incinerated was revealed by the Southington School Superintendent, Joe Erardi.

Like I said, these are the sorts of things that happen when people’s emotions – especially grief and the impotent rage that comes with it – override common sense, and it only gets worse when it grips a community and becomes a kind of mass-pathology (see: Salem, 1692-1693). Often, the only “cure” for such circumstances is for non (or, at least, less) irrational people to hold up the mirror and point out the absurdity and wrongness of what said community is doing – sunlight, as ever, is the ultimate disinfectant. Which is why I think it’s proper to publicize this event and respond (civily!) to Southington SOS; if only to let them know how much damage they’re doing, image-wise, to themselves and their purported cause by engaging in such vile and wrongheaded behavior.

Note: If and when the representative I mentioned responds to my call, I will post any details/clarifications he wishes to make at my earliest ability.

Hey look, you get a new episode even though it’s New Year’s Day and I just became lucid around 5:00 PM!

As ever, there are essentially two kinds of people in the world: Thinkers and Believers. This is a truth, and one that has little to nothing to do with religion, spirituality, education or lack thereof. It’s a simple boiling-down of how one ultimately chooses to approach the world: Through a prism of logic, reason and rationality… or through the other thing.

Below, a YouTube piece that’s been making the rounds courtesy the charmingly-named “MIke Hunt” that intercuts the “Demand A Plan” video – in which various celebrities stumped for new gun legislation in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre – with scenes of the various celebrities appearing participating in movie/TV scenes where they use guns. This is meant to be an “ironic” (the #2 word that both The Internet and American Conservatives tend to not know the actual definition of) exposure of “hypocrisy” (that, of course, would be the #1 word) on behalf of those appearing; because apparently Mr. Hunt occupies a dimension where the laws of physics differ such that fiction and reality are equivalent in some meaningful way…

It ends, as you may expect, on another declaration about the “Culture of Violence” – the shameless buzzword of the moment propped up by The Right and The NRA to be parroted by their willing sheep in the hopes of deflecting the issue from real guns to imaginary movies, books and video-games:

I am, as I’ve said before, a supporter of both sensible, reasonable gun laws (more reasonable than the ones we have, to start with) but also of the right to gun ownership by sensible, reasonable people; largely on the basis of logic and pragmatism but also because a good number of my friends and relatives are gun owners (I myself am certified but do not have a license or own a gun) and so I have what I feel is proper perspective on the matter.

That having been said… THIS bullshit (here’s some folks on a “mainstream” website gleefully fantasizing about “armed resistance” against, well… guess) is getting to the point where I feel like I could see myself supporting a so-called “assault weapons ban” or somesuch just on the basis of getting to watch these bastards sob impotently into their Chik-fil-A. Is it really possible that I share a basic DNA profile with these people? And that there’s nothing I can do about that?

This past week, Dr. Michael Eric Dyson had been subbing for Ed Schultz on his MSNBC show – which, for one thing, meant that Ed Schultz otherwise unwatchable show was actually pretty watchable for a change – and offered up one of the more enthusiastic and incisive critiques of Quentin Tarantino’s holiday hit (it’s currently out-performing “Les Miserables,” which NOBODY was expecting) “Django Unchained” and the controversy over Spike Lee’s one-man “boycott” of the film, alongside colleague Dr. Eric Peterson.

For his trouble, Dr. Dyson has earned a scathing “open letter” accusing him of needing a “cultural pride transplant.” Charming.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32545640

If you haven’t seen “Django Unchained” yet, fix that.

Intermission: “The 50 Most Boring Opinions in Geek Culture – Part II”

Hat tip: BAD

Hey, entertainment industry? Y’know what’d be just great? If something – anything! – could happen between Christmas and New Years so I’d have some content to post between shows other than celebrity deaths and offbeat scoops linked from bigger websites. Just sayin’.

Anyway, Badass Digest has posted what is apparently authentic test footage director Alex Zamm put together as a proof-of-concept for a proposed live-action/CGI comedy based on “Hong Kong Phooey” with Eddie Murphy in the lead role. You’ll be unsurprised to learn that the clip is light on the kung-fu, heavy on an extended joke about dogs drinking from toilets:

Also included: Another video pitch by Zamm for a similarly hideous-looking “Marvin the Martian” feature.

What’s odd about this is, I feel like there’s actually some real potential being wasted here. “Hong Kong Phooey” was an oddity even for 70s Hannah-Barberra in that it was one of their less cringingly tone-deaf attempts at coopting current cultural trends, in this case the burgeoning blaxploitation genre and the import kung-fu cinema craze that were already beginning to cross over into one another at the time: Scatman Crothers voiced Phooey, and the series was set in a version of gritty(ish) Disco-infected New York:

A modernized version of that – a Hong Kong Phooey whose attitude was perhaps more hip-hop than funk, with action riffing on the Matrix/Jackie Chan/Crouching Tiger iconography rather than Bruce Lee – might well have been a unique and even interesting cartoon hero for today’s kids. But, instead, here’s The Voice of Donkey eating a urinal cake. Terrific.

Bummer. We lost a legend early this morning: Charles Durning, legendary character actor of stage and screen. You may not know his name, but you’ve seen him in movies and probably enjoyed him.

Durning was one of the great self-made men of modern acting. Born into poverty, he left home of his own accord to ease the financial burden on his mother, traveling and taking odd jobs as he found them. While working as an usher in a burlesque house, he found himself standing in for a no-show stage comic and got bitten by the acting bug. But, before he could fully commit to theater, World War II broke out and he enlisted.

Though he seldom ever spoke about his military service, Durning was a decorated hero: He was the only survivor of a first-wave troop that charged Omaha Beach on D-Day only to be ambushed by machine gun fire, he was taken prisoner while fighting at the Battle of The Bulge and was one of only three P.O.W.’s to escape the notorious Malmedy Massacre. All told he was seriously wounded three times, recieving three Purple Hearts and the Silver Star for Valor; and after all but the final injury returned to combat. One of those injuries included being stabbed eight times with a bayonet during hand-to-hand combat with a German soldier in Belgium. He lived through the fight by ultimately bludgeoning his attacker to death with a rock; and would later cite his own horror at the realization that his enemy was only a teenager as a reason he preferred not to discuss his time as a soldier – it was only in the final decade of his life that he became comfortable speaking of it publically, as in this 2007 appearance at the National Memorial Day Concert.

Upon returning to the U.S., he spent a long period going through the veterans health system for his physical and psychological wounds (he’d later state that he still suffered from nightmares into old age) and also training as a dancer, singer and professional boxer; he returned to the stage and established himself as a hardworking and sought-after performer of classical and modern American dramas. In the late-70s and early-60s he broke into the movies as an equally sought-after character and voice actor, lending his unique cadence and feisty energy to films as diverse as “The Sting” and “The Muppet Movie.” He was nominated for two Oscars, multiple Emmys and Tonys throughout his career.

Durning passed away of natural causes, in the presence of family. Below, his signature scene from “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,” a role which netted him one of those Oscar nods: