Category Archives: Popular Culture

Humor, Media Criticism, Popular Culture, Science And Society, Weird

Zombies Versus Animals

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Don’t worry, wildlife would kick undead ass:

…zombies are essentially walking carrion, and Mother Nature doesn’t let anything go to waste.

Yup.

[Update a few minutes later]

It’s really worth a read:

North America’s large mammal predators would be more than a match for zombies. We have two bear species, brown (or grizzly) and black bears. Male brown bears can weigh in at 1,000 pounds. They are not afraid of humans. They can deliver a bite of 1200 pounds per square inch and have long, sharp claws designed to rip open logs and flip boulders in search of insects and other small critters to eat. They would easily tear apart rotting zombie flesh. Black bears are much smaller and typically run from humans, but even a black bear, when approached or cornered, would make short work of a zombie. Both bear species have an incredible sense of smell and both love to eat carrion, so even if zombies didn’t approach them, the bears eventually would learn that these walking bags of flesh make good eating.

Like black bears, gray wolves are very shy of humans and typically run away at the first sight of us. Nor are they strangers to scavenging. They’d soon take advantage of the easy pickings presented by lumbering zombies. Coyotes are far less shy than wolves and can happily live alongside humans, including in the heart of our cities. These intelligent canids would quickly learn that they could take down zombies one by one, especially the eastern populations of coyote, which are larger and bolder due to past interbreeding with wolves and domestic dogs.

Though I’d point out that it they think black bears are shy around humans, they’ve never run across one in Alaska. They’re very aggressive up there — Alaskans seem to fear them more than grizzlies, which will generally leave you alone if you don’t surprise them. I suspect it’s because they’re much less used to humans, with the low population density. It’s almost like they’re a different species from the lower forty nine. Alaska would be a particularly gruesome place to be walking dead. The moose alone would make quick work of them.

Business, Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Social Commentary

Teaching History

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It isn’t happening:

Questioner: What was the Holocaust?
American College Student: Um…I’m on the spot.

Questioner: Which country was Adolf Hitler the leader of?
American College Student: I think it’s Amsterdam?

Questioner: What was Auschwitz?
American College Student: I don’t know.

Questioner: What were the Nuremburg Trials?
American College Student: I don’t know.

Questioner: How many Jews were killed?
American College Student: Hundreds of thousands.

We’re doomed.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Social Commentary

Thoughts Of Old Blighty

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I agree with Lileks:

As I’ve noted before – this week, I think – the middle portion of Holst’s “Jupiter” has always hit me as the most English Thing Ever – uncomplicated at its heart, outwardly stern, stoic in its cultural patriotism, sweeping up everyone in a broad assertion of national identity that prides itself for the treble virtues of tradition, decency, and resolution. Doesn’t mean that’s the case, of course; music seduces. There’s a reason the Sirens sang instead of sending sailors well-written notes. One of the most moving national anthems I’ve ever heard is for Oceania, from “1984.”

But.

Holst captured something at its peak and its prime, a moment of leonine gravity as true as it was idealized. I’ve waited decades to go there and stand at the place where I start to hum it to myself. Wonder where that’ll be.

Anyway. My daughter has been to a dozen countries because I want her to get the flavor for the Marvelous Elsewhere early on, and also experience the joys of seeing home through new eyes when you return. We have the occasional dinnertime conversation about why America is different, and why America is good, arguments to counter the schoolmates who say the world would be better off if there wasn’t an America. (You can imagine the usual reasons.)

I hope the lessons take.

Sadly, too few want to teach them. And that is also my favorite movement from The Planets. When I was a kid, all I knew it as was the theme to the evening news (Huntley and Brinkley, I think, on NBC), but just the opening of it. Hmmmm…[googling] Yup. I never heard the whole thing until I bought an album of the entire suite, and I loved the middle section.

[Update a few minutes later]

Amazing. I still tear up when I listen to that passage. Just beautiful. You can hear where John Williams got a lot of his influence for the movie scores.

[Afternoon update]

OK, there seems to be some dispute about the Huntley-Brinkley theme, and it does seem to be Beethoven. OK, so which news show from the sixties used the Holst?

Culinary, Health, Popular Culture, Science And Society

Popcorn At The Movies

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A history.

But here’s a question for paleo types. Yes, I know it’s a grain, and grains are bad, but it’s probably the least processed grain we eat. How bad is it, relatively?

Hmmmmm… [googling]

There seems to be a consensus that it’s definitely not paleo. But some say there are worse things if you’re going to cheat. I saw this one horror story, but I think that’s more a problem of the crap they put on it in the theater than the corn itself. I always pop it in butter, and put butter on it, but there are a lot of recommendations for coconut oil instead..

There are a lot of warnings (appropriately, I think) about the microwaved variety. I have to say, that I hadn’t realized how many paleos are anti-GMO. I think that’s taking it beyond eating healthy, and turning it into a religion.