Idiots Among Us

I'm a conservative, but I often find that other conservatives confuse passion with a lack of critical reasoning, giving conservatives a bad name when it comes to engaging in the debate of ideas.

In that vein, there's a conservative movie reviewer whose reviews, for all intents and purposes, read like those of an uneducated idiot.

Dr. Ted Baehr, whose title might imply the habits of an educated mind, appears to be one who likes to cast aspersions at "motes" without considering the "beam" in his own eye. Specifically, Dr. Baehr's review of the movie Avatar from James Cameron reaches a new low, apparently written in haste by a someone who can't quite put coherent thoughts together.

Ignoring, for the moment, the intent of Dr. Baehr's review and whether he understands the difference between environmentalism and colonialism (hint: the latter has to do with taking something that's not yours, from someone who owned it before you, via some form of "divine right" justification), let's look at the basic mistakes he makes in putting forth his argument.

Dr. Baehr's review is full of grammatical, logical and theological errors. Here are just three examples:

1.  "If only someone had edited this movie, it may have been more interesting" 

Ironically this sentence follows shortly after Dr. Baehr declares that "when you put spectacle first, you turn a great little movie like King King into King Bore."  In other words, Dr. Baehr forgot to edit his own snipe at Cameron's editing. Both visual and textual editing require review, and Dr. Baehr fails the grammar check on this point.

2. Dr. Baehr's paraphrase of Aristotle's sequencing of "entertainment" (according to Dr. Baehr) or "tragedy" (according to Aristotle) is wrong.

"Great entertainment puts plot first, character second, dialogue third, idea forth, music fifth and spectacle last, as Aristotle noted."


Dr. Baehr, in bastardizing the tragedy list for his own entertainment purposes, missed a few of Aristotle's points. The proper order is: plot, character, thought, diction, song, melody. At least Dr. Baehr could appear to be a "learned man" by getting the sequencing right.

3. Dr. Baehr makes a disturbing theological leap of faith when he suggests that all the aliens in Avatar needed was Jesus Christ. Seriously . . .

"What the . . .  aliens in the movie need to deliver them from their severe group think is the loving salvation available only through the true God, Jesus Christ."


Does Dr. Baehr really believe that aliens can be saved? If so, is he suggesting Christ went to die on multiple planets, and not just Earth?

I've sent an email to Dr. Baehr asking him to expound on those two questions.

His answers will tell us exactly what his theology consists of, which could be more dangerous than the flaws he attempts to explain in Cameron's fictional Avatar movie.

Maybe he would've been better off sticking with a single-sentence review in "movie speak" that translates just as effectively for conservative viewers as it does for liberal ones: Avatar is Pocahontas (Terrence Malick's The New World) meets Apocalypse Now.

An Impressive Choice

In a recent survey, Americans were asked to choose what they would like to do most, based on a series of options.

"Half of Americans chose laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier as a ceremony in which they'd most like to participate. That swamped the other choices: lighting the Olympic torch, tossing the coin to open a Super Bowl, starting the race at the Indianapolis 500, ringing the opening bell at the stock exchange and throwing out the first pitch at the World Series."

The result was surprising on one hand, but having had the honor of laying a wreath when I was 18, I understand the awe it inspires (and still remember, to this day, the gloves of the honor guard, sopping with sweat as they execute very precise maneuvers).

Metadata: Certainly Not Boring

Especially in this interview that Peter Cervieri recorded at last week's Streaming Media West 2009 show.

Peter's interviews for his ScribeMedia.org often focuses on topics that are both timely and somewhat controversial, but metadata often doesn't fit in the latter category, unless you count Peter's triple-X rated title for the interview.

While my slightly-pseudo-Southern accent always reminds me that I talk a bit slower now than I did when I lived in my native New York, Peter did a good job of steering the conversation to cover many of the points from my recent metadata article: Metadata: What You Need to Know (And Why You Need to Know It)

Running time for the interview is 12:29

Embarrassment in Entrepreneurship?

A great quote from the founder of LinkedIn:

"If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late."

http://www.openforum.com/idea-hub/topics/technology/article/the-iterate-fast-and-release-often-philosophy-of-entrepreneurship-ben-parr




iPhoned

Opportunity: Green Power, Packet Origination

Next week, I'll have the opportunity - through a green-power startup that I'm assisting - to meet with David Boggs in Palo Alto. The startup is in stealth mode, but I hope to spend the time discussing a few marketing options and the operational implications of data-center power retrofitting

For those of you who know your Ethernet packets, David's name may not be quite as familiar as that of his boss, Robert (Bob) Metcalfe. Yet both of them are listed on the Microsoft academic search for a few interesting papers, including this one in 1975:

R. M. Metcalfe, D. R. Boggs : 

Ethernet: distributed packet switching for local computer networks

 

, 1975

 

(Citations: 8)

In both 1975 and 1976, Ethernet was being presented by and at the Berkeley Workshop on Distributed Data Management and Computer Networks.

Boggs, Metcalfe and colleagues went on to deal with issues facing early Ethernet implementations, including:

Robert M. Metcalfe, David R. Boggs, Charles P. Thacker, Butler W. Lampson : 

Multipoint data communication system with collision detection

 

, 1977

(Citations: 3)

I asked a friend, who recently went to hear SRI's Doug Engelbart speak during the 40th anniversary of his famous "mother of all demos" on Augmentation, why we seemed to be getting the opportunity to meet these pioneers when they live so close to many of Silicon Valley's newest, hottest upstarts.

"It's because we care," she said.

Cutting the Cord

In a post at www.workflowed.com, I posited about the armies amassing on the borders of streaming media for the next land grab.

I dubbed this The Third Wave as part of a series of articles I've been writing on satellite providers, traditional broadcasters and cable MSOs.

Speaking of the latter, there's an interesting article about "cord cutting" by cable subscribers.

Cable operators have been concerned about the concept of cord cutting where subscriber cancel their cable subscription and opt to watch online video.  While analysts downplay it, I can attest that it seems as prevalent as the cord-cutting phenomenon of local telephone service, where consumers opt for just a mobile phone and a cable-internet combination if they can't get "naked DSL" from the local telco provider.

Yet some of the MSOs seem to think that changing consumer behavior is the way to get consumer to "respect" subscription revenues.

He said the current OnDemand Online trial - offering viewers access to cable channel shows in exchange for identifying themselves as subscribers - was not an effort to "change the advertising model or get a minute back from content providers," rather it is a way to "

"We need to get in front of the biggest social movement I've ever seen," said Comcast's COO, Steve Burke. "Online video consumption is off the charts, and if we don't figure out how to change that behavior so it respects copyright and subscription revenue on the part of distributors, we're going to wake up and see an entire generation cord cutting."

Wait, I have to respect my MSO enough to pay them money? Talk about an entitlement mentality!

Previously c

Do You Believe In Miracles?

Growing up in the late 1970s near Lake Placid, New York, I vividly remember the burgeoning Olympic presence, with its raccoon mascot, visitors from the City, and Bauer skates. Especially the Bauer skates.

My six-year-old mind was convinced a pair of Bauer skates would not only let me follow the big kids as they shoveled off a make-shift hockey rink on the lake, but that Bauers were key to assisting in any playground hockey victory. Yes, it was before I learned what advertising and branding were all about.

This evening, Lake Placid is the center of attention for a different reason: NY 23's third-party candidate is none other than Lake Placid's Doug Hoffman, who lives close by to where John Brown's body lies a moulderin' in the grave.

Hoffman's the one Sarah Palin went rogue for a few weeks back, endorsing him over the Republican candidate, who has since withdrawn from the race and is now backing her Democratic opponent. Final election results may be delayed until tomorrow, as the area's trying out some new voting machines.

This article on Hoffman uses the "Miracle on Ice" as a framing device that will resonate well with those in and around Lake Placid.

[Update: While this was a personal reminiscence of growing up in the district, perhaps Hoffman should have run a local campaign, rather than just reaching for the stars. The Watertown Daily Times' pet projects often appeal to a small, but vocal, constituency; in this case, however, the editorial board nailed the defining issue in the last paragraph.]