Month: June 2004

YES! YES! YES! Land of the Lost on DVD!!!

lotl_logoOne of the all-time GREAT Saturday morning shows is The Land of the Lost, which aired back in the mid-1970s. For me, as for countless other boys and girls of my generation, Land of the Lost was the EPITOME of cool.

And deservedly so! Just look at what the show had going for it:

1. First and foremost, it had DINOSAURS! Lots of them! You can’t get cooler than that!

2. It had a likable family living in a world filled with groovy science fiction concepts.

3. It had A-list science fiction authors (like Larry Niven, Theodore Sturgeon, Norman Spinrad, Ben Bova, David Gerrold, and D. C. Fontanta) doing the scripts.

4. It had the semi-insectoid, semi-reptilian Sleestak, the barbaric descendants of the Land of the Lost’s original builders.

5. It had the short, ape-like Pakuni

6. It had guest stars from the past of our world (like Jefferson Davis Collie III–a loney Confederate veteran convinced that “The South will rise again”) and from the future of our world (like Beauregard Jackson of Ft. Worth, Texas–an astronaut plucked from flying a hypersonic glider over Ecuador) and the main cast themselves as guest stars from their own futures or alternate universes–as well as other guest stars too bizarre to classify.

7. It had spray-painted chickens, giant carrots, turnips, and strawberries, glowing power crystals, lost cities, abandoned temples, circular rivers leading nowhere, peril-infested swamps, earthquakes, talking skulls, and everything else that makes for coolness.

What a show!

pakuni01It’s probably the most intelligent show ever to appear on Saturday morning. It wasn’t dumbed down and didn’t patronize the children in the audience. How many Saturday morning shows that expect kids to understand–and succeed in communicating to them–that the series is set in a parallel universe so small that you can stand on the top of a hill and see the back of your head with binoculars because its space-time is curved. Not only that, but it is an *artificial* universe built by a once noble race that has now fallen into barbarity. It is a universe still being run by an automated control system that the characters must interact with. It is a universe connected to any point in our world’s history–and countless other worlds–via time doorways.

Some favorite lines following a dinosaur attack:

BEAUREGARD JACKSON: Hey, I sure am happy to see you kids. . . . Where am I? And, uh, what in the heck was that?

WILL MARSHALL: Aw, that’s only a coelophysis. It’s omnivorous.

JACKSON: Don’t much care where it goes to church. It sure has got bad manners.

The series also had an evolving storyline, in which the characters progressively learned more and more about their new universe and how it worked, with concepts building over time, enabling the stories to to grow more complex, with the characters getting ever closer to figuring out how to return home to Earth. This was not a series where everything gets reset to just the way it was at the beginning of the episode.

The characters also are more realistic than on most childrens’ series. The kids do not function as grownups in miniature. They make mistakes and do juvenile things, and the series underscores the need for them to hang together and obey their father in order for the family to survive. Even though the family members may squabble, the genuinely love and depend on each other. The kids also grow and mature over time.

Sleestak2You may be of the impression that Star Trek’s Klingon was the first TV sci-fi language to be developed to the point that people could actually speak it, but you’d be wrong. The Land of the Lost’s ape-like Pakuni spoke a language that had hundreds of words and its own grammar and phonology–designed by a professional linguist (as with Klingon).

The show also had all the delicious scare-factor one could want. The Sleestaks in particular provided the satisfying chills every young boy was longing for as a way of testing his courage. I can’t tell you how many nights I lay awake, convinced by the shadows in my bedroom that there was a Sleestak standing in my closet door–yet I wouldn’t have missed Land of the Lost for anything!

Now, at last, Land of the Lost comes to DVD. The first season (of three seasons) came out yesterday in an affordable edition that contains the foundational episodes of the series, which set up the key concepts that come into play later. Watching them now, the child-like aspects of the series are more noticeble to me than they were when I was nine, but it’s still AMAZING how different, more mature, and more sophisticated the series is than ANYTHING else ever made for Saturday morning TV.

I must admit that I am a huge fan of Land of the Lost. In fact, I pre-ordered the DVDs, so they arrived early, and I’ve just taken the DVD bonus materials quiz on the show and scored 100% (on 13 questions with four options each), so I’m very proud of myself.

For those who saw the series when it was first on, it will be an unbelievable nostalgia fest, and for those who missed out on it the first time, you’ll WISH you’d seen it as kids back in the 1970s. It’ll also provide an unending delight for your own children.

BUY IT!!! BUY IT NOW!!!

YES! YES! YES! Land of the Lost on DVD!!!

lotl_logoOne of the all-time GREAT Saturday morning shows is The Land of the Lost, which aired back in the mid-1970s. For me, as for countless other boys and girls of my generation, Land of the Lost was the EPITOME of cool.

And deservedly so! Just look at what the show had going for it:

1. First and foremost, it had DINOSAURS! Lots of them! You can’t get cooler than that!

2. It had a likable family living in a world filled with groovy science fiction concepts.

3. It had A-list science fiction authors (like Larry Niven, Theodore Sturgeon, Norman Spinrad, Ben Bova, David Gerrold, and D. C. Fontanta) doing the scripts.

4. It had the semi-insectoid, semi-reptilian Sleestak, the barbaric descendants of the Land of the Lost’s original builders.

5. It had the short, ape-like Pakuni

6. It had guest stars from the past of our world (like Jefferson Davis Collie III–a loney Confederate veteran convinced that “The South will rise again”) and from the future of our world (like Beauregard Jackson of Ft. Worth, Texas–an astronaut plucked from flying a hypersonic glider over Ecuador) and the main cast themselves as guest stars from their own futures or alternate universes–as well as other guest stars too bizarre to classify.

7. It had spray-painted chickens, giant carrots, turnips, and strawberries, glowing power crystals, lost cities, abandoned temples, circular rivers leading nowhere, peril-infested swamps, earthquakes, talking skulls, and everything else that makes for coolness.

What a show!

pakuni01It’s probably the most intelligent show ever to appear on Saturday morning. It wasn’t dumbed down and didn’t patronize the children in the audience. How many Saturday morning shows that expect kids to understand–and succeed in communicating to them–that the series is set in a parallel universe so small that you can stand on the top of a hill and see the back of your head with binoculars because its space-time is curved. Not only that, but it is an *artificial* universe built by a once noble race that has now fallen into barbarity. It is a universe still being run by an automated control system that the characters must interact with. It is a universe connected to any point in our world’s history–and countless other worlds–via time doorways.

Some favorite lines following a dinosaur attack:

BEAUREGARD JACKSON: Hey, I sure am happy to see you kids. . . . Where am I? And, uh, what in the heck was that?

WILL MARSHALL: Aw, that’s only a coelophysis. It’s omnivorous.

JACKSON: Don’t much care where it goes to church. It sure has got bad manners.

The series also had an evolving storyline, in which the characters progressively learned more and more about their new universe and how it worked, with concepts building over time, enabling the stories to to grow more complex, with the characters getting ever closer to figuring out how to return home to Earth. This was not a series where everything gets reset to just the way it was at the beginning of the episode.

The characters also are more realistic than on most childrens’ series. The kids do not function as grownups in miniature. They make mistakes and do juvenile things, and the series underscores the need for them to hang together and obey their father in order for the family to survive. Even though the family members may squabble, the genuinely love and depend on each other. The kids also grow and mature over time.

Sleestak2You may be of the impression that Star Trek’s Klingon was the first TV sci-fi language to be developed to the point that people could actually speak it, but you’d be wrong. The Land of the Lost’s ape-like Pakuni spoke a language that had hundreds of words and its own grammar and phonology–designed by a professional linguist (as with Klingon).

The show also had all the delicious scare-factor one could want. The Sleestaks in particular provided the satisfying chills every young boy was longing for as a way of testing his courage. I can’t tell you how many nights I lay awake, convinced by the shadows in my bedroom that there was a Sleestak standing in my closet door–yet I wouldn’t have missed Land of the Lost for anything!

Now, at last, Land of the Lost comes to DVD. The first season (of three seasons) came out yesterday in an affordable edition that contains the foundational episodes of the series, which set up the key concepts that come into play later. Watching them now, the child-like aspects of the series are more noticeble to me than they were when I was nine, but it’s still AMAZING how different, more mature, and more sophisticated the series is than ANYTHING else ever made for Saturday morning TV.

I must admit that I am a huge fan of Land of the Lost. In fact, I pre-ordered the DVDs, so they arrived early, and I’ve just taken the DVD bonus materials quiz on the show and scored 100% (on 13 questions with four options each), so I’m very proud of myself.

For those who saw the series when it was first on, it will be an unbelievable nostalgia fest, and for those who missed out on it the first time, you’ll WISH you’d seen it as kids back in the 1970s. It’ll also provide an unending delight for your own children.

BUY IT!!! BUY IT NOW!!!

They Take Their Sports Seriously In Texas

This is not a joke.

The ESPN sports network is doing an interview with the Pampa, Texas parents of one of two boys in Texas to be named after the network. Two-year old ESPN Malachi McCall, whose first name is pronounced Espen, was named by his parents after the popular sports network. So was another child, four-year old ESPN Curiel, who hails from my home town of Corpus Christi, Texas. A third child, ESPN Blondeel–who is also four–hails from Michigan.

ESPN McCall’s parents decided to name him after hearing a report on one of the other children on the radio:

Rebecca and Michael McCall said their son’s name started as a joke after they heard on the radio about another couple naming their son “ESPEN.”

“He looked at me and said, ‘That’s a cool name,'” Rebecca McCall said in Saturday’s editions of the Amarillo Globe-News.

Rebecca McCall said she resisted her husband’s idea at first, but the idea grew on her.

“I didn’t like it until he was born,” she said, adding that by then, she couldn’t think of calling her son anything else [source].

A network executive explained:

“We don’t have viewers. We have fans,” ESPN spokesman Dave Nagle said Saturday. “And I guess there’s no better testament than when someone names their child after your product. It just shows the bond we have with people.”

Nagle said the feature will air Sept. 6 as part of a two-hour special celebrating the network’s 25th anniversary.

DA RULZ

I thought I’d take the opportunity to list some of the rules that I use on this blog. Folks may have noticed some of them in operation, wondered about others, or simply been mystified. So here goes:

1. People are welcome to disagree with me in the comments boxes as long as they are polite. I don’t mind disagreement. I do mind rudeness. (Be sure and see Rule 20 for how disagreement should be expressed in certain cases!) Rudeness towards others on the blog is also out of bounds.

UPDATE: Commenters whose
interaction on the blog consists principally of discussions of the same
subject over and over (e.g., the writings of John Dominic Crossan, whether the pope is the pope, or the
evils of Vatican II, the current rite of Mass, or a
particular political figure or party–or any other single subject) are
being rude. Conversation involves an ability to talk about more than
one thing, not an obsessive harping on one subject. Say your piece and
move on, per Rule 2.

2. Because of the format restrictions blogging involves, I can’t engage in sustained back-and-forth discussions with folks, either in the comments boxes or in the main section of the blog. Therefore, I ask that folks say their piece and then let the subject go (for now, knowing that it will likely surface again in the future).

UPDATE: This rule also may be invoked on discussions that, in the opinion of the blogmaster, are getting overly repetitious or unproductively long.

3. Also because of the format restrictions, everyone must be concise. Don’t go on at length about things. Pasting large amounts of text into the combox also counts as going on at length. Going on at length constitutes rudeness.

4. Comments violating the first three rules will be deleted.

5. Readers who repeatedly violate the first three rules will be banned. (So far I haven’t had to do that.)

6. When I link to other sites, unless I say otherwise, I am only recommending that you look at the material on the page that I link. The way this blog works, I often have need to document what I am saying by linking to a very specific piece of information, and I cannot endorse other material on sites containing this information.

7. Related to rule 6, I hereby warn you that some material on sites I link may possibly be inconsistent with the Catholic faith or offensive. I try to minimize this, but doing apologetics–and living in the real world–means encountering material that is contrary to the faith or offensive. If you don’t want to take a "Test everything and hold fast to what is good" approach (1 Thess. 5:21) then you should avoid apologetics blogs (and the real world).

8. Except where stated otherwise, when I recommend a book, video, or other product, I am recommending it for individuals who are mature and secure in their Catholic faith. Such recommendations are not to be taken to mean that the material is perfect and free from every possible objection that could be made against them. Nor are they to be taken as recommendations for children or for people who are insecure in their Catholic faith. People falling in the latter classes are not the subjects of my recommendations unless the contrary is stated.

9. I reserve the right to delete comments that I don’t think are helpful for one reason or another (e.g., if someone who is converting to the faith asks for a book recommendation and someone in the comments box recommends a book that I haven’t read, I may delete the recommendation since I don’t know if it suits the person’s needs or not).

10. If you want to ask me a question not related to what’s currently on the blog, don’t use the comments box. Use the e-mail address listed on the blog site.

11. All mail sent to the e-mail address listed on the blog is bloggable unless you say "Don’t blog this" (or an equivalent) in the e-mail.

12. The same goes for e-mail sent to other addresses.

13. I can’t promise reponses to comments or to e-mail that is sent to me. My schedule doesn’t permit me to make this commitment.

14. If I can respond, it may be a few days before the response appears.

15. When I respond to comments or e-mails in the main blog section, I do not use people’s names. Instead, I say things like " A reader writes . . ." This is not to be impersonal. It has a specific reason. Many people stumble across the blog and want to ask questions without having their identities exposed, particularly if they have a sensitive question (e.g., one involving family members or sexuality). To assure them that their privacy will be honored, I don’t use names when responding to queries in the main blog section. If people saw me responding to e-mail or comments with names in the main blog section, they might think that I would use their names or e-mail addresses and be afraid to ask their questions. I would rather have people ask questions and get answers than have them not ask their questions because they are afraid their privacy won’t be honored.

15b. Rule 15 will be suspended for bloggers, guestbloggers, and the senders of press releases. It will also be suspended for others at their request/with their consent.

16. I do use names when responding in the comments boxes since visitors have already seen (or can scroll up to see) that the person identified himself publicly.

17. When responding to e-mails, particularly e-mails sent to me at accounts not listed on the blog site, I take extra pains not to quote material that could give away the correspondent’s identity. The purpose, again, is so that people won’t be scared to ask their questions or feel that I have violated their privacy by exposing them in public.

18. Currently I am trying to do at least two blog entries per day, one of which goes up bewteen 7 and 8 a.m. (Eastern Time), and one of which goes up between 3 and 4 p.m. (Eastern Time). Individual days may vary, usually by having more blog entries than this. Since I have a job and a life, I can’t commit to more than this at present. I try to do at least this as my way of honoring those who support this blog by visiting and reading it, though it may not be possible on all days.

19. I very much appreciate your efforts to promote this blog by linking it on your own blog/web page or by recommending it in other forums. That is one of the key ways you can honor my efforts in producing the material that I research and write for the blog. Another way is by commenting. I love reading your comments.

20. When Jimmy is answering a pastoral question (i.e., for a person asking about an actual that they or someone they know is involved in, as opposed to a hypothetical situation) that can be phrased  in the form "Is it morally licit to do X?", do not contradict Jimmy in the comments box. People asking pastoral questions on moral subjects often feel very disoriented and confused if they get a debate rather than an answer on a sensitive question about a situation they, a friend, or a family member is involved in.

For the peace of mind of the person who asked the question, challenges to such answers need to be handled a different way. Instead of using the comments box to pose your challenge, e-mail Jimmy. If you win him over, he’ll make a correction and notify the person who asked the question. Comments violating this policy will be deleted. Widespread violation of this policy will result in the comments box being turned off for such questions.

Posts subject to Rule 20 will have a "20" at the bottom of the post.

21. Commenters in the combox are to use either their real name or a (non-offensive, non-spiteful) handle that distinguishes them from others when posting comments. They are not to post comments while leaving the "Name" field blank. It’s rude to expect people to interact with you and give them no way to refer to you.

22. When someone is under a warning not to ride his hobby horse, others on the blog are not to post comments tempting him to get back on the hobby horse (e.g., "I wonder what So-and-so will do to twist this thread onto his favorite topic"). That’s rude because it tempts another person to break a rule when he already may have trouble restraining himself on a particular topic.

23. The following terms are pejorative and their use as actual descriptors (as opposed, for example, to quoting someone else’s use of them for purposes of critique) constitutes rudeness: "Romanist," "Romish," "Roman" (when used to mean or as a substitute for "Catholic"), "Roman Church" (when used to mean the entire Catholic Church, as opposed to the Roman church sui iuris that exists within the Catholic Church), "Papist," Papistic," "Papistical," "Popish," and any cognate terms based on the terms "Roman" or "Pope."

The term to be used on this blog is Catholic, without scare quotes.

This is a Catholic blog, and Catholics are to be called Catholics on it.

24. It constitutes rudeness to make inflammatory assertions that one is not prepared to back up by anything more than hearsay (e.g., "Mother Theresa prayed to Hindu idols. I know because my friend said so.").

Inflammatory claims are those likely to inflame passions. An inflammatory claim can be true. But because of its emotion-stirring character, it requires concrete evidence (more than just hearsay) to back it up if the discourse is to be kept civil and not degenerate into an impassioned muddle.

Playful Dog Saves Townspeople

The book of Proverbs says, “A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger” (Pr. 15:1). Our canine friends may not be able to answer in human terms, but the demeanor of a friendly, playful dog recently turned away a whole carful of wrath. According to a Reuters story, a Canadian dog made friends with a man about to go on a killing spree, melted his heart, and saved human lives. Excerpts:

A Canadian man, driving a car packed with weapons and ammunition, was intent on killing as many people as possible in a Toronto neighborhood but gave up the plan at the last minute when he encountered a friendly dog, police said on Thursday.

The middle-aged man, who police said was mentally disturbed, had planned to carry out the shooting spree on Wednesday to ensure he would be put in jail permanently, Toronto police said.

He had set himself up in an east-end park to load his weapons and then planned to drive around shooting. He later told police that a dog then approached and started playing with him.

The encounter melted the man’s heart, and he then went in search of police to give himself up, police said.

Police found 6,000 rounds of ammunition, two rifles, a shotgun, a semi-automatic pistol, a revolver and an air rifle in the man’s car, along with a machete and a hunting knife. The car also contained a throwing knife, a camouflage mask and netting.

Three cheers for the dog!

Hip-hip-hooray!
Hip-hip-hooray!
Hip-hip-hooray!

The Ave Maria Chronicles

The Wanderer has an enormous amount of information on the continuing AMC vs. AMU crisis in its current edition, with online version of the articles available here.

The centerpiece of the material is a major article by Paul Likoudis.

Also included is an article by Likoudis on Ave Maria officials’ denials of charges of deceit.

And a timeline offering AMU’s point of view.

And a lengthy FAQ offering AMU’s point of view.

And an alternative plan by AMC faculty to save the college.

Meanwhile, Dr. Edward Peters responds to charges made against him by AMU officials.

And the Naples Daily News announces the cancellation of AMU plans to build a gigantic glass church which had previously been the subject of much criticism.

Meanwhile, the Ave Maria Parents’ site offers a letter written over a year ago by Dr. Janet Smith criticizing Ave Maria leadership.

And the parents reprint an open letter to Fr. Fessio and Nick Healy, calling for their resignations from the AMC board of trustees due to conflict of interest and signed by members of the AMC faculty and staff.

Current reports (not yet documentable online) indicate that AMC president Ron Muller has given a letter to the board of trustees calling for Fessio and Healy’s resignations and that an emergency board of trustees meeting has been called for today.

May I recommend prayer for the board meeting and for all involved in this crisis?

DEVELOPING HARD.

Iraqi Catholics on the Iraq War

A reader writes:

Thanks for the story about the Iraqi priest. Funny (sad actually) how you never read about such things in the mainstream media.

In general, what did your Iraqi Catholic friends think about the war?

Also, what did they think about the Pope’s position and statements on the war? (and also the Vatican in general)

And finally, what did they think about Tariq Aziz’ visit to the Vatican and his much publicized praying at the tomb of St. Francis Assisi just prior to the war?

I’m just curious…

I’ve got an unusual amount of data on the Iraqi Catholic perspective on the war, as I was one of two Americans in a class of thirty-something Iraqi Catholics during the run-up to and prosecution of the war.

Basically, they were almost uniformly in favor of it.

I do know one woman who expressed to me that she was very worried about the war and the collateral damage it might cause, but she was the only Iraqi who expressed any hesitation about it. The others were all adamantly in favor of the U.S. overthrowing Saddam.

In fact, during the war itself the class stayed in regular phone contact with their friends and relatives in Iraq and the class was abuzz with joyful reports about whose village had just been liberated by our boys and how soon they might arrive to liberate others’ nearby villages. Class during this period was often punctuated with cries of “No more Saddam!” and “Bush! Bush! Bush!” from various Iraqi class members.

The topic of the pope’s views did not come up in class, but it is my experience from talking with Middle Eastern priests (Iraqi and non-Iraqi) that–though they don’t say it publicly–they uniformly feel that the Vatican has been hopelessly naive on the subject of Islam.

Regarding Tariq Aziz, I don’t have any special info on their opinion of his visit to the Vatican or St. Francis’s tomb, but my impression is that they uniformly regarded Aziz as an evil, hypocritical collaborator with the villain who had raped and slaughtered their people for twenty-five years. They couldn’t wait for that whole regime–Aziz included–to be gone.

Since the war they have been very concerned that Muslims might inaugurate a new era of religious oppression, though they are still very glad and grateful that Saddam is gone.

My experience also is that other Middle Eastern Christians are champing at the bit to have us come in and knock over their oppressive governments. I was at a lunch which was attended by a couple of Iranian Christians (Assyrians, not Catholics). Since some have conjectured that the problem in Iran may be able to be solved without the shedding of blood, I asked them about this and they replied that, no, they felt the regime would only be changed by force. They then went on to speak joyfully as if it was a *certainty* that the U.S. would come in and knock over Fundamentalist Muslim regime controlling their country. I told them, “Uh, guys, don’t speak so quickly about what the U.S. is going to do regarding your country. You may have to sort this one out yourselves.”

My experience is that Lebanese Christians continue to feel betrayed by the West, which sat back did nothing effectual to stop the disintegration of their country and its takeover by Syria and radical Muslims. Their feeling regarding 9/11 has been “We’re sorry that it happened, but now you understand what we were trying to tell you about the threat posed by militant Islam. Now you have suffered as we have suffered for all these years.”

Bad Moon Rising

moonOkay. This is one of those bizarrely weird stories that sends conspiracy theorists into orbit. The fact is: Last March 23rd, Sun Myung Moon has had himself crowned “King of Peace” at the Dirksen Senate Office Bulding in Washington, declaring himself to be “savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent” and asserting: “I am God’s ambassador, sent to earth with his full authority. I am sent to accomplish His command to save the world’s six billion people, restoring them to Heaven with the original goodness in which they were created.”

Where the conspiracy part comes in is that multiple congressmen were in attendance at the event. One (Rep. Danny Davis [D-Ill]) was even the chap who plunked down the crown on Moon’s head. This could be taken as evidence that Moon’s “Unification Church” has numerous covert followers among the nation’s lawmakers.

That’s probably not the case. Moon’s money has bought him disturbing access to the nation’s lawmakers, but they probably aren’t crypto-Moonies. In fact, as repoted in The Hill, multiple lawmakers who were at the event deny that they knew Moon was going to be there or that the bizarre crowning was going to take place (Rep. Davis, who performed the crowning, would be an exception). Other lawmakers claimed by the Moonies to have been there deny that they were in attendance. The event has the earmarks of a Moon-staged event that was sprung on a bunch of surprised and alarmed congressmen.

The story didn’t gain prominence until recently, through videos of the event that appeared on the Web (they have since been taken down). You can read a transcript of one of the videos here. Now that it’s come to the press’s attention, the embarrassed lawmakers who were involved are distancing them from Moon and his “King of Peace” claims faster than the speed of light.

While conspiracy theorists might see the event in overly sinister (rather than simply silly) terms, the fact that the event took place at all is disturbing and reveals the extent to which Moon has been able to spread his influence through Washington. He’ll never become president or king or anything else of the United States, but that hasn’t stopped him from gaining undue influence through his money. Hopefully this event will serve to marginalize him and diminish the influence he has bought.