THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
12/10/10 -- Vol. 29, No. 24, Whole Number 1627
Frick: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
Frack: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
Presidential Pardons (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
It's Life, Jim, But Not As We Know It (comments
by Mark R. Leeper)
How to Lie with Statistics (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
LEGEND OF THE GUARDIANS: THE OWLS OF GA'HOOLE (film review
by Mark R. Leeper)
FOUR LIONS (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
Turner Classic Movies in December (letter of comment
by Kip Williams)
This Week's Reading ("Inferno", ROME THEN AND NOW IN OVERLAY)
(book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
==================================================================
TOPIC: Presidential Pardons (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
It has come to my attention that President Obama pardoned the
official Thanksgiving turkey.
http://tinyurl.com/2deu9of
While I am happy to see this turkey survived the holiday, the
secrecy surrounding the pardon may set a bad precedent. This is an
issue left over from the Ford administration, but a President
should not be able to give a pardon without specifying what crimes
the pardon is for. This is a "Nixon-like" pardon. I would like to
know what were the crimes for which the turkey was sentenced to
death. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: It's Life, Jim, But Not As We Know It (comments by Mark R.
Leeper)
By now the scientifically minded of the readers probably know that
is very big and very strange discovery was made recently. A life
form has been discovered on Earth that is not life as we have known
it. Life as we know it is made of six basic elements, carbon,
hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, sulfur and phosphorus. These are the
elements that go together to make the four bases of DNA: adanine,
guanine, cytosine and thyamine. If you are going to have DNA you
need all six of the elements to make up the molecules. DNA is
basic to life as we know it. All organisms that are alive have
DNA. Some viruses have RNA but not DNA. SARS and Hepititis are
examples, but they are really too basic to be called life.
Or at least that was our understanding in November 2010. It seems
not to be true in this month. Now there are bacteria, which
definitely are a life form, that get along without phosphorus.
Instead they have arsenic. Arsenic is a deadly poison to most life
we know.
If you look at the periodic table of the elements you will see
arsenic right under phosphorus. That means that the two chemicals
have the same valance. They can combine to other atoms in ways
very similar to each other. It is almost as if you could snap out
the phosphorus in a molecule and snap in arsenic in the space that
it made. Really you could take the phosphorus out of DNA and
replace it with arsenic and the molecules would hold together.
That is what having the same valance means. But then the resulting
DNA (well, it would not really be DNA) would no longer function to
create the proteins we need for life. Theoretically you could have
a life form that has something like DNA, but which has no
phosphorus and instead has arsenic. For such a life form
phosphorus would be a deadly poison and arsenic would be part of
the basic building blocks of life. This is very science-fictional
or at least it would have been in November 2010. (I am reminded of
a famous cartoon:
http://www.cartoonbank.com/1960s/ammonia-ammonia/invt/118959/.)
Researchers have started to wonder if there exist or could exist
life forms that have near-DNA. Could there be life forms based on
what would be DNA but which is built with arsenic rather than
phosphorus? There was one place to go to find out. It is known
that the water of California's Mono Lake is laced with arsenic.
This is not a place you would want to go swimming. If anything
with near-DNA that contains arsenic could be found, this is likely
the place. Researchers took sample of mud collected and culture
the microbes and then bathed them in even more arsenic. With
arsenic of this concentration they almost all died. And that was a
jaw-dropping discovery. The key word there is the "almost". There
was one strain of bacteria that was not killed by the arsenic. One
strain of bacteria thrived in arsenic. And in fact when its DNA
was examined it had arsenic instead of phosphorus in what it used
for DNA. (I guess that is kind of sad. Some of this population of
bacteria survived heavy concentration of arsenic, but it did not
survive the researchers who wanted to examine what it had for DNA.)
Now using November 2010 scientific understanding we would say that
all life on Earth actually fits into a single evolutionary tree and
because its DNA is made from phosphorus and arsenic is a poison to
it. In December 2010 we know that that cannot be true. But we are
not sure why it is not true. It may be that some organisms in that
tree have adapted to arsenic and have become one more amazing
example of an extremophile, like the life forms that survive in
high temperatures like 170 degrees Fahrenheit. Organisms that can
exist in spite of the presence of arsenic are called
"Metallotolerant" which just means tolerant of heavy metals like
copper, cadmium, arsenic, and zinc. This thing that has been found
goes beyond Metallotolerant. Perhaps we have to coin a new word.
It is a "Metalophile". It needs arsenic. That in itself would be
pretty amazing. That is the dullest of the conclusions we can
draw.
Another possibility is that there is life (currently) on Earth that
does not have any ancestor in common with us. It came from a
"Second Genesis." What makes this one astonishing is that it says
that is a planet is sufficiently earth-like then it could create
life multiple times. It would imply that nature does tend to
create life and if it does it twice on this planet, it may do it on
other planets. That means that we would have lots of planets out
there where life has at least started. That would be an even more
fascinating situation. There may be multiple trees of life.
The third possibility, and this one is more amazing than the other
two, is that we may have actually found the descendents of alien
life forms. "Alien" here means like "coming from outer space."
Any way you look at it, it is an amazing discovery. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: How to Lie with Statistics (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper,
with additional comments by Mark R. Leeper)
I just read an article titled "Demography and Economic Destiny: Why
the Global Economic Crisis Is Really about Old Age" by Phillip
Longman (http://tinyurl.com/demo-destiny). Longman makes a lot
of
statements that are mathematical. Some are correct, some may be
correct but are poorly phrased, and some are just flat-out wrong.
- "Due primarily to the global decline in birthrates, such
population growth as remains is mostly in the form of increasing
numbers of old people," and, "This may seem impossible, but when
calculating population growth, declining death rates are just as
important as rising birthrates." Correct. Consider the extreme
case where each couple has only one child, but no one ever dies.
Clearly the population will increase.
- "Over the next 40 years, according to the UN, world population
will grow from 6.9 billion to 9.1 billion." Who knows, but we'll
accept that as correct.
- "The rate of growth is perpetually diminishing toward zero, and
more than half of the remaining increase in population (56 percent)
will be among people over 60--among people, that is, who have
already been born." This is poorly phrased. If the rate of growth
is headed for zero, what is this "remaining increase" he is talking
about?
[He is talking about the birth rate that is cancelled out by the
death rate. (I think. He really is not clear.) You have zero
growth when the birth rate equals the death rate. -mrl]
- "Even without any new children being born, this decline in
mortality by itself would add to the number of people on the
planet." Wrong, wrong, wrong. If no children are being born, even
if no people die, the number of people on the planet will stay the
same, and if anyone dies, the number goes down.
- "Most of the predicted 2.2 billion in world population growth
between now and 2050 will not come from children." Wrong, wrong,
wrong. Of course it will. Again consider three bands, 0-20 years
old, 20-40 years old, and over 40 years old. If the current 6.9
billion are evenly distributed, then each band has 2.3 billion. In
twenty years, the middle band will have at most 2.3 billion, and
the top band at most 4.6 billion. Unless the bottom band gets
another 2.2 billion, the population can't reach 9.1 billion even if
no one dies.
[You say, "Of course it will." No it won't. The song says, "when
I die there is one chile' born in the world to carry on." But if
the singer double-crosses us and doesn't die, the population will
increase. If the death rate decreases the growth rate increases.
Growth rate = Birth rate - death rate. -mrl]
- "Indeed, over that period, the population of young children (0 to
4) is expected to fall by 49 million." Probably correct. Note
that this is *million*, not billion; in any case, we can't tell
what the percentage decrease is in that category, since Longman
doesn't tell us what the current number is. But these young
children all will be born between now and then, obviously.
Obviously what Longman is trying to say is that the proportion of
elderly will be higher, and that of children will be lower, in
2050. But what he is *actually* saying is something else entirely.
[-ecl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: LEGEND OF THE GUARDIANS: THE OWLS OF GA'HOOLE (film review
by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: Spectacularly animated, this US-Australian coproduction
has a lot to offer visually, but it goes decidedly off the tracks
in telling its story of an apocalyptic battle between good and evil
owls. It makes an attempt at mystical magic, but it never
overcomes the obstacles that the film sets for itself. Rating:
0 (-4 to +4) or 4/10
LEGEND OF THE GUARDIANS: THE OWLS OF GA'HOOLE is an animated film
with the main characters all being owls.
Well, to start off with, there are owls. Now I have nothing
against owls. An owl is as good an animal as any. It deserves the
right to its life. But it is just natural some animals inspire
empathy in humans more than others. A nice mouse can get audience
sympathy very easily. Humans can identify with a mouse. This is
why so many animated characters are mice. Dogs and cats it is true
even more so. And it is a lot easier to feel something for an owl
than, say, a sea slug. But rare is the person who feels the urge
to cuddle an owl. They just seem like they have aloof
personalities. It is easier to identify with the mice in this film
than the owls. And you see the mice for just a few seconds before
fly-by owls snatch them up as a quick snack. When you next see the
mice the have been eaten and the bones and fur have been
regurgitated as mouse pellets. This is hardly the way to win over
the audience to liking the owls. They make somewhat nauseating
heroes for the film.
Then there is the problem that the viewer may have to struggle to
tell one owl from another. One looks for signs that are very
different from how you tell one human from another. A barn owl has
a head that looks like a half-eaten apple. And they have different
color trim around that big half-apple-like face. It is hard to
pick up on that and really tell the owls apart. Owl faces are hard
to remember. They do have some expression, but the main character,
Soren, voiced by Jim Sturgess, has a face that looks like a
repulsive caricature of Elijah Wood. That brings me to another
obstacle the viewer has to overcome. The characters have names
like Eglantine, Plithiver, and Otulissa. (One of the easier names
is Bubo, which is probably homage to Ray Harryhausen.)
The plot of LEGEND OF THE GUARDIANS: THE OWLS OF GA'HOOLE is
deceptively simple thinking back on it. I guess it is just about a
young owlet kidnapped by an evil owl army. He escapes joins a good
owl army and goes to battle against the bad owls. The film just
seems more complex because it is overloaded with bizarre, half-
explained devices to complicate that plot. We learn that owls can
become mindless robots by staring at the moon. The evil owls are
trying to collect pieces of metal from dead mice so that vampire
bats can assemble a force field that shoots out arcs of blue rays.
This is all sort of nightmarish in just what odd touches are thrown
at the viewer.
Perhaps the film should not be so dense in weird ideas, but it is
condensing from three books by Kathryn Lasky in her GUARDIANS OF
GA'HOOLE series. Following what seems to be the formula for
animated films these days, the CGI is exquisite (or at least what
used to be considered exquisite a few years ago). The owls are
terrifically rendered. The mathematics to render the furry down of
the owls looks perfect. And the flying scenes over spectacular
scenery are terrific, rivaling those in AVATAR and HOW TO TRAIN
YOUR DRAGON. The vocal cast includes stars Anthony LaPaglia,
Miriam Margolyes, Helen Mirren, Sam Neil, Hugo Weaving, and
Geoffrey Rush. The score by David Hirschfelder is lush, though not
highly original.
This is not a children's film unless parents want to cater to
children's natural love of whatever disgusts their parents. If
this film intends to be taken as family fare, it is so only by
contrast to director Zack Snyder's previous films, DAWN OF THE DEAD
(2004), 300, and WATCHMEN. This is definitely not cute animal
fare. I rate LEGEND OF THE GUARDIANS: THE OWLS OF GA'HOOLE a 0 on
the -4 to +4 scale or 4/10.
Film Credits: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1219342/
What others are saying:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/legend_of_the_guardians/
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: FOUR LIONS (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: This is a low-budget, dark comedy with a very clever
concept behind it. Four dim-witted Jihadi warriors plan a giant
terrorist attack in England, but bumble at just about every turn.
Parts of the film are very funny and parts are misfires. But even
on the misfires one almost feels one should laugh just to support
the very idea of the film. Britain's TV director Chris Morris
makes his first feature film for the movie branch of Britain's
Channel 4. Rating: high +2 (-4 to +4) or 8/10
Minor spoilers to convey the brand of humor.
Back when the telling of racist and ethnic jokes started coming
into conflict with societal values I made the suggestion that if
people really wanted to tell these jokes, the best thing they could
do was reframe then as bigot jokes. (For example "Two bigots are
building a house and one throws away half the nails...") Nobody
seems to be particularly bothered if you tell jokes that are
insulting to bigots. Nobody wants to admit that he is a bigot.
Flash-forward to the present and not much humor is poked at the
Islamic world for fear of starting riots and having fatal
consequences. But British satirist Chris Morris has found a
similarly ingenious way to poke fun at the Islamic Fundamentalist
world. He has made a film about four would-be Jihadi terrorists
who put together do not have the brains of a sheep. This film is
sort of terrorist thriller crossed with THIS IS SPINAL TAP. I
guess even people who sympathize with terrorist Jihadis do not
sympathize with ones who have room temperature IQs.
Omar the leader (played by Riz Ahmed), Waj (Kayvan Novak), Barry
(Nigel Lindsay), and Faisal (Adeel Akhtar) are angry Muslims living
in Sheffield. They decide they want to give up their lives to be
like the suicide bombers they see in the news. They want to strike
a blow for World Islam. They have the fire in their bellies to be
really great martyrs and to echo down through history. But they
are not really sure how to go about echoing down through history.
They have just not come to terms with the fact that they are just a
bunch of screw-ups who really should not be trusted with eating
utensils, much less dangerous weapons and explosives. They get
bogged down in the simple stuff. When they try to do the everyday
tasks of a Jihadi terrorist they are beyond their grasp. The
attempts to make a threatening videotape to explain their actions
turn into a fiasco of incompetent filmmaking. They meet with
teachers to train them how to use weapons most effectively, but the
relationship breaks down when it is time for prayer and they
strongly disagree on just what direction Mecca is. Even with such
a small terrorist cell there is serious dissention about what their
target should be and hard feelings when not everyone can get his
way.
The film makes every attempt to mimic the style of a serious
documentary. It is shot with a none-to-steady hand-held camera.
The second half of the film is a little more serious at the Jihadis
attempt to execute their plans, but one wonders how effective this
band of buffoons can be.
These Jihadis may hate everything we stand for, but like us they
are victims of Murphy's Law. For them everything that can go wrong
(under Chris Morris's direction), will go wrong. They may be
insane terrorists, but they are all too much like us. I rate FOUR
LIONS a high +2 on the -4 to +4 scale or 8/10. The greatest irony
with the film is that when the terrorists accomplish anything at
all the viewer is apt to feel good for them.
Film Credits: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1341167
What others are saying:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/four_lions/
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Turner Classic Movies in December (letter of comment by Kip
Williams)
In response to Mark's comments on films on Turner Classic Movies in
December in the 12/03/10 issue of the MT VOID, Kip Williams writes:
Thanks for pointing out the K. Gordon Murray special. I've already
set a timer for it, and I hope it has a healthy chunk of time
devoted to those whacked-out Mexican fairy tale movies. I've had
SANTA CLAUS for years, and "Reel Wild Cinema" gave some good clips
from RED RIDING HOOD, but it just wasn't enough. YouTube also has
some of them, including the complete Riding Hood and Tom Thumb
versus ... I can't keep track ... Wolfman, Dracula, and
Frankenstein, or something like that. Now that's entertainment,
and every single pleasure of it is a guilty one, because nobody in
their right mind, etc., etc., etc.
THE BRAINIAC is strangely effective, too, even with the inflated-
looking head. There's something dreamlike in it, which can be
taken as a segue to Cocteau, whose ORPHEUS is of particular
interest, as I admire the dream-world of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. THE
MAN IN THE WHITE SUIT sounds good, too. Indeed, you make me want
to see several movies, as usual. [-kw]
Mark responds:
A documentary without those fairy tales would indeed be a letdown.
But I have to say I am more interested in the science fiction and
the horror. CURSE OF THE DOLL PEOPLE has some creepy visuals. You
mention THE BRAINIAC, but don't mention the highly realistic scene
of the meteor crash:
http://tinyurl.com/brainiac-meteor
I think the film you are trying to remember (and I am trying not
to) is LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD AND THE MONSTERS. But by all means
see THE MAN IN THE WHITE SUIT.
Thanks for the encouragement. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
In addition to all the books mentioned in recent columns as
preparation for our recent trip to Italy, I also read "Inferno" by
Dante while in Italy. Now, I personally prefer H. R. Huse's
translation (ISBN 978-0-030-08690-8) over John Ciardi's (ISBN
978-0-451-53139-1) for readability. Ciardi's translation maintains
the rhyme scheme of the original, but I find it distracting, since
it is not a traditional one in English. But my copy of Ciardi's
translation was about half the size of my Huse, so I took that, and
I will admit that poetically Ciardi is better. For example, I was
struck by this description of Dante climbing a steep hill:
"And there I lay to rest from my heart's race
till calm and breath returned to me. Then rose
and pushed up that dead slope at such a pace
each footfall rose above the last." [Canto I, Lines 28-31]
But when I got home and looked it up in Huse, it was rendered as:
"After I had rested a little my weary body,
I took my way over the lonely slope
[climbing] so that the firm foot always was the lower."
[Canto I, Lines 27-29]
It is clearer, but not as poetic.
At times one hears echoes of Bible verses:
"These are the nearly soulless
whose lives concluded neither blame nor praise.
They are mixed here with that despicable corps
of angels who were neither for God nor Satan,
but only for themselves."
[Canto III, Lines 32-36]
This reminds me of:
"I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would
thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and
neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth."
[Revelation 3:15-16]
And sometimes I see something that may be Ciardi taking his
inspiration from elsewhere:
"... [I] walked at his side
in silence and ashamed until we came
through the dead cavern to that sunless tide."
[Canto III, Lines 76-78]
This sounds a lot like:
"Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea."
[Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "Kubla Khan"]
or:
"We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea."
[Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"]
Huse renders this:
"Then with eyes ashamed and lowered,
fearing that my words might have offended him,
I kept from speaking until we reached the stream."
[Canto III, Line 78-80]
which drops both the "dead cavern" and the "soulless tide".
The section on limbo seems to have a contradiction in it (in both
translations). First Dante has Virgil say:
"And still their merits fail,
for they lacked Baptism's grace, which is the door
of the true faith *you* were born to. Their birth fell
before the age of the Christian mysteries,
and so they did not worship God's Trinity
in fullest duty. I am one of these."
[Canto IV, Lines 34-39]
"and by himself apart, the Saladin."
[Canto IV, Line 129]
"Hippocrates, Galen, Avicenna,
and Averrhoës of the Great Commentary."
[Canto IV, Lines 146-147]
The problem is that Saladin, Galen, Avicenna, and Averrhoës all
lived after "the age of Christian mysteries" and were aware of
them, so it makes no sense according to what Virgil has said that
they are in Limbo instead of lower down. Yes, it is possible that
Virgil was not telling the whole truth, but you would think that
the presence of Saladin, who fought the Crusaders, would seem a bit
strange to Dante.
ROME THEN AND NOW IN OVERLAY by Giuseppe Gangi (no ISBN) was a book
that one of our guides in Rome used as a graphic aid. A nano-
description would be "time viewer in a book". It is a set of
twenty-four photographs of various ruins in Rome. With each
photograph is an acetate overlay that is clear (see-through) for
the parts of the picture that are the Roman ruins, and painted
sections that cover the modern sections with a picture of what the
scene would have looked like back then. For example, all that
remains of the Forum of Augustus are four columns, the crosspiece
above them, and the steps. With the overlay you see those as part
of a complete building in its original setting (some of the modern
buildings are cleverly blocked out by clouds). This seems like a
great teaching aid for history classes (though probably not at the
college level). It is probably more accurate than most of the
movies--I have yet to see an accurate portrayal of the Roman Senate
building in one of those. [-ecl]
==================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Nothing produced such odd results as trying to get even.
- Franklin P. Jones