July 15, 2011

Hitler Was a Vegetarian

Did anyone else know that Hitler was reportedly a vegetarian? It makes my head explode! Check out this quote from a German Magazine back in the day.
"Do you know that your Führer is a vegetarian, and that he does not eat meat because of his general attitude toward life and his love for the world of animals? Do you know that your Führer is an exemplary friend of animals, and even as a chancellor, he is not separated from the animals he has kept for years?...The Führer is an ardent opponent of any torture of animals, in particular vivisection, and has declared to terminate those conditions...thus fulfilling his role as the savior of animals, from continuous and nameless torments and pain." Neugeist/Die Weisse Fahne
Can you fathom the idea that Adolf Hitler found the destruction of animals so barbaric and distasteful that he simply could not participate in it? Yet...
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July 14, 2011

Busyness Can Still Be Laziness

I like getting to the end of my inbox each day.
I like getting to the end of my Google Reader (RSS Feed) each day.

It provides me with the illusion of a hard day's work, while actually avoiding work altogether.
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July 13, 2011

The Cosby Show: Continued

Loyal reader Jason sent me an e-mail after yesterday's post.

It turns out that just hours after posting, WGN 720 interviewed Ben Shapiro, author of Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV, and asked specific questions about the Cosby Show. The following are are Jason's thoughts.
"Shapiro argued that almost every sitcom in modern television entertainment has a liberal bias, but that the Cosby Show was one of the few accidentally right-leaning shows of its time. The first main point he made was that the family had to be minority, in order to portray that all minority families in America could pursue the American dream. The second point (criticism) was that the Cosby's wealth meant the family never had to deal with small everyday obstacles (financial hardships) and allowed them to be happy and get along."
Jason also sent a link to the archived program show. If you are specifically curious about the Cosby discussion, skip to the 2/3 point.

Critics on the right had Liz' same complaint from yesterday. But critics on the left who claim the show is too "unrealistic"...you can't really get around the fact that's incredibly racist, isn't it?
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July 12, 2011

The Cosby Show

Two months ago, I found the entire series of the Cosby Show available on Netflix instant streaming. Since then, I have watched all 201 episodes, and largely nothing else.

The show ran from 1984-1991 and holds up extraordinarily well over time. In fact, today I make its claim as the greatest television show of all time (Specifically the first 4 seasons. After the kids started going to college, we lost all of the amazing parenting examples week after week, and it became more or less, a straight sitcom).

Unlike today's sitcoms, the show portrays a family you want yours to become - not one even more dysfunctional than yourselves that you can feel good laughing at. The children are loved unconditionally, disciplined strictly and always polite. And like I have claimed many times on Martin Luther King Day, I believe that Bill Cosby had a bigger role in civil rights for my generation than any other man.

He made a black family aspirational in 1984, and turned them into the most watched show on television.

Here's my question. Could a show like this succeed today? Because TV needs it.
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July 7, 2011

Must Have Been All That Fresh Air

Why does being outside in fresh air make you tired? It doesn't make any real sense to me. And yet, I "feel" that rule to be true?

Anyone know the science behind this? (Yes, I Googled it, but the results were unsatisfying.)
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July 6, 2011

Future Eric

In the mornings when my wife and I run through our neighborhood, sometimes we see a couple 40 years more experienced than ourselves riding their bikes together.

The irrational part of me has decided that those people are "Future Eric" and "Future Kathleen".

Somehow they are now living in their past, and are just messing with us.

I'm pretty sure working on the QED Podcast has been messing with my mind. Or perhaps I simply like believing it because they look super hip for being that old?
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July 5, 2011

Chris Hansen: Potential Predator?

Let's start off the week by making you mad at me.

You may have heard the reports that Chris Hansen of Dateline NBC's "To Catch a Predator" fame, was recently caught on video tape going to dinner with a woman 21 years his junior. This report by the National Enquirer (which although a tabloid, accurately broke the John Edwards affair) claims a long-term and secretive romantic tryst between the two journalists.

Let the cries of hypocrite come raining down. But, let me speak briefly first.

1) There's no hard evidence here. Perhaps there will be. Not yet.
2) If this is true, adultery is not the same as pedophilia. This women is significantly younger than him, but not a minor. She's 30 years old.
3) A while back, when I was researching the Internet hacker group, Anonymous, for our QED podcast episode on the subject, the message boards were covered with individuals hoping to start a rumor about Chris Hansen getting caught having sex with a minor. They thought it would be hysterical. The popularity of this news story shows they were right. Perhaps it's true. Perhaps it's a false rumor.

Now, to the stuff you'll really get mad at me for. I brought up this argument two years ago, but here we go again for our new readers. I don't exactly understand what Chris Hansen is arresting these guys for. They're being charged with "soliciting a minor over the Internet." But, that's not what's happening. They're "soliciting an adult pretending to be a minor over the Internet."

I'm not sure how having a sexual conversation with an adult can be a crime - regardless of "intent". I'm not saying these guys aren't creep shows. I'm just wondering how they're doing anything illegal?
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July 1, 2011

Confessing An Affair To/With a Therapist

I wonder how many psychologists are having affairs with their patients?

Here's how I got there. To an individual in therapy, the psychologist is their refuge. An escape to truth from the purgatory that is their life. The one person they're honest with. Their priest. The one hour a week they feel free.

How could they not fall in love with this person?

Aside from the obvious restraint and oath preventing reciprocation of this love by the therapist, it has to be happening on a comparatively massive scale, no?
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