War of the worldviews

Published at Technorati

With apologies to director J. J. Abrams, “Super 8” is a producer’s film … Spielberg by the book: Flawed but sympathetic characters banding together to overcome formidable odds … Personal differences among sympathetic characters worked through … Life-affirming climax … Brisk, heartwarming, good looking, family friendly, and love, not math, established as universal language.

Still, I wanted to see “Super 8,” not because I thought it would make me feel good (which it did), but because it’s widely believed that Spielberg knows more about UFOs than he’s letting on, that maybe all he can do is drop corroborative hints like modeling the character played by Francois Truffaut in “Close Encounters” after  real-life ufology legend Jacques Vallee.

Download videoblog script as PDF

A friend asked me a few days ago if I’d seen “Super 8”, and when I told him that I had, he asked if the movie had made me more paranoid or less paranoid. Well … duh. If the United States Air Force is using our public railway system to transport giant arachnids from outer space under cover of darkness through heavily populated areas, who among us is safe? Riddle me that, Penguin. Who among us is safe?! Who??!!

And …. scene.

As many UFO conferences as I’ve attended, as much as I’ve read on the subject, as many times as I’ve held forth, I still hesitate whenever somebody asks me if I believe in UFOs.
Part of me wants to say, “It isn’t a question of belief. It’s a question of acceptance. Or denial. Here’s a book to read and here’s a documentary to watch. No, the mainstream media hasn’t signed off on what I’m proposing. But here’s a list of Air Force officers who have and here’s the telephone number of a commercial airline pilot who’ll tell you what he’s experienced first-hand. Off the record. Get back to me after you’ve done some homework. Otherwise, let’s talk about something else.”

But another part of me wants to continue, “On the other hand … angels, demons, aliens. Black ops. Spook du jour.”

So it goes, back and forth. I try not to let people hear me talking to myself.

If you were to try to bring me closer to Jesus … or the Whig party … or Stanislavski … I’d thank you for your interest and suggest that we agree to disagree. So what makes me think that you should treat my reality any differently than I’d treat yours? The obvious fact that mine is better.

Chicago film critic Roger Ebert is being excoriated today for tweeting “Friends don’t let jackasses drink and drive” after news broke yesterday of “Jackass” star Ryan Dunn’s fatal car crash. Before getting behind the wheel, Dunn had tweeted a photo of himself drinking – reportedly three beers and three shots.

Ebert’s Facebook page, which he says was shut down for a time, now is a raging river of comments like this one left by Arne Bergstrom: “you pathetic ugly mother fucker, you’ll burn in hell for the shit you said while satan rapes you in the ass and uses any ballsack you might have as a speedbag and i’ll be sure to be there tearing your face apart piece by piece because in hell you wont die and you’ll feel every bit of everything you miserable little bitch, suck my cock”

Touché, Mr. Bergstrom, touché.