MAGIC         PORK

I thought after my post about global warming, I’d avoid the more controversial issues for a while. But I couldn’t let this one go. Today I saw this CNN article about a new report by the Surgeon General. According to the article, he says “Exposure to secondhand smoke remains an alarming public health hazard” and “Nonsmokers need protection through the restriction of smoking in public places and workplaces”.

Later in the article, it mentions that this report “isn’t a new study but a compilation of the best research on secondhand smoke”. No, it isn’t a compilation of the best research because the best research is a 39-year study of 35,561 people who never smoked and had a spouse that smoked. And guess what the conclusion was?

The results do not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality, although they do not rule out a small effect. The association between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and coronary heart disease and lung cancer may be considerably weaker than generally believed.

And remember, that study looked at people that lived with smokers, and therefore spent a lot of time indoors with them. But we can ignore that study because it was obviously funded by the Big Tobacco… wait, what’s that? It was funded by the American Cancer Society? Oh.

But, you’re probably saying, what about all the studies that say the opposite? The Surgeon General obviously is basing his conclusion on something. Yes, the problem is a great deal of the reports you see are based on an EPA report from 1993 that has been thoroughly discredited. In court even. But people keep on quoting from it, either because it suits their cause, or they just don’t realize it.

See this guy’s site for more details about the EPA study. He discusses the study and shows some quotations from the judge’s 92-page decision. But if you don’t feel like reading it, the basic idea is that the EPA:

• Selectively eliminated studies (such as the one mentioned above) from its report that didn’t agree with its conclusion, which it had already decided on ahead of time.
• Manipulated the statistics when they still didn’t get the conclusion they expected, decreasing the confidence level down to 90% instead of 95% to try to show a greater relative risk.
• Still only got a relative risk of 1.19, which is not statistically significant, yet they used this to claim that secondhand smoke causes cancer.

Pen & Teller did an episode of their show Bullshit that debunked the whole “secondhand smoke causes cancer” thing too. It was done around the time they had banned indoor smoking in New York City. Now it’s banned for the entire state. I’m a non-smoker. I love being able to go out and not have to breathe in smoke and not reek of smoke when I get home. But that would just be too bad for me.

What it comes down to is this: Yes, cigarettes cause cancer. But as with any carcinogen, you have to consider the dosage. Just because smoking causes cancer, it doesn’t mean secondhand smoke does.

This coming Wednesday, June 28th, at 8 PM, the George Eastman House will be showing the movie Exotica in the Dryden Theatre. That is a great movie that not a lot of people seem to know about. If you look at the DVD cover, you’ll probably get the wrong idea about the movie. It’s not some soft-core flick.

The movie centers around a strip club. The two main characters are a stripper who dresses like a Catholic schoolgirl and a man who frequents the club and always gets dances from her. I know how that sounds, but trust me, this isn’t some late night Cinemax movie. There’s about as much nudity in it as when Tony goes to visit the Bada Bing on The Sopranos. I don’t even consider it an erotic movie. The tone is completely one of loneliness. All of the characters are lonely and feeling pain about something.

The other main characters include the pregnant owner of the club, the DJ, and a gay pet store owner who’s completely unrelated to the club but ends up getting involved by the end of the movie. I wish I could say more than that, but the whole beauty of the film is in how you gradually learn who these characters are and why they do the things they do.

The film is written and directed by Atom Egoyan. I don’t know what it is about his style, but somehow he can create scenes that just stick with me. I first rented Exotica about ten years ago. Over the years I would forget much of the details, but I’d still have a clear image in my head of what the pet store owner looked and acted like, how the DJ would sound when he was talking into the microphone, the final scene of the movie (which was a flashback), little things like that. I bought a used copy of the DVD not too long ago and I have watched it pretty recently, but if I’m in town (there’s a possibility I won’t be) I plan on seeing it at the Dryden anyway. With my membership, it’s only $4.

I’ve seen two other Egoyan films: Felicia’s Journey and The Sweet Hereafter. The Sweet Hereafter is just amazing. It’s his most well-known work, but I had no idea when I rented it what it was about. I just knew that it was the same writer and director as Exotica and that it had been nominated for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay Oscars. I hadn’t seen trailers for it. I didn’t know who starred in it. Nothing. There’s a reason I haven’t given you links to IMDB for these movies - because I think they give away too much of the movie.

So because that’s the way I experienced it, I’m not even going to tell you what it’s about. I couldn’t really describe why I like it so much anyway. But like with Exotica, it just stuck with me afterwards. The next day, I watched it all over again with the commentary track. The track featured Egoyan and Russell Banks, the author of the novel that it was based on. That is way cool to have the original author commenting along with the screenwriter & director. The DVD also had some interviews with both of them, and showed Banks reading a couple of passages from the novel.

OK, I’ll mention just a tiny tiny tidbit to illustrate something, but no spoiler here. There’s a bad event that happens in this small Canadian town. You learn about it early in the film. Everyone talks about it, we see how it affected people, we see through flashbacks some things that happened before it, but for a good portion of the movie, we don’t see the event itself. There are times they do a flashback and you think you might see it, but you don’t. Then at one point they flashback and because of how it’s set up, you know that this is it, we’re going to see it this time. I can’t really explain why, but that moment when I realized that, it sent chills up my spine. I got chills just thinking about it as I was typing this. While that scene progressed, my heart was pounding. I almost wanted to say “Please don’t show me this”. I’m sure some of you will see the movie and think “What’s he talking about? What was the big deal about that?”. I don’t know, I’m just saying that’s how it affected me.

I also want to note that The Sweet Hereafter has nothing to do with strip clubs or anything like that, so if you’re turned off by that aspect of Exotica, you don’t have to worry about that with this movie.

But I highly encourage anyone that hasn’t seen Exotica to check it out this Wednesday, or rent it on DVD if you can’t make it to the theater.  If you don’t like it, feel free to let me hear it, but I won’t be refunding your money.

Why do I get the feeling everyone’s going to ignore what I’m saying and not go see Exotica? OK fine. Ladies, sorry, I don’t got anything else for ya. Men, forget all that crap I said earlier. Mia Kirshner is hot. There, will that get you to go? Whatever works, just see it already!

I’ll state up front that I haven’t seen An Inconvenient Truth, the documentary about global warming featuring Al Gore. Perhaps I should, but maybe I’ll wait until it’s in the dollar theater. I’ve seen the trailer and I’ve read reviews about it so I have a good idea of what it’s asserting.

First off, while we’re on the subject of that trailer. It actually has the gall to state “If you love your planet… If you love your children… You have to see this film.” So there you have it folks. If you have kids and you don’t see it, you must not love them. Shame on you.

Now I’m not saying that global warming is all a crock. If a lot of scientists in the world support that theory then I’m not going to sit here and just say “well it sounds fishy to me”. Well I take that back. I am going to say it sounds fishy to me, but I’m willing to concede that just because something sounds fishy to me doesn’t mean it’s not true. I haven’t studied all the evidence that they have.

But what gets me angry is how global warming has become common knowledge. If you doubt global warming then you must be a moron or some right-winger in bed with the oil companies. After all, every scientist in the world believes in global warming, right? That’s what the film would have you believe.

Let’s talk about what we mean first. When we say “global warming” do we mean…

• The Earth’s temperature is increasing.
• The Earth’s temperature is increasing because of man-made actions.
• The Earth’s temperature is increasing because of man-made actions and IT’s GOING TO KILL US ALL IF WE DON’T ACT RIGHT NOW!!!

Few scientists contest that the Earth’s temperature is increasing. So in that sense, maybe you could say there’s a consensus that global warming is occurring. But environmentalists take that consensus and project it to mean one of the other two definitions above, for which there may be a great deal of support, but not a consensus.

Wikipedia has a list of scientists opposing global warming consensus. For example, there’s Richard Lindzen, a professor of meteorology at some little liberal arts college called the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. There’s also an article in Wikipedia all about the global warming controversy that better explains it than I could here.

So back to An Inconvenient Truth. The trailer shows computer projections of what will happen if the ice caps melt. We’ve all been told about cities flooding and such. My generation basically grew up being told that. We’ll all be living on rafts drinking our own filtrated urine. (Yes, I just made a Waterworld reference.) But they don’t just say cities will be flooded and leave it at that. No, their computer projections can tell us exactly what parts of the coastal cities will be underwater. Yeah right. Makes for scary visuals but I don’t buy for a second that your programs can accurately predict what exactly New York City will look like after an increase in temperature melts the ice caps. I bet even the programmers who wrote that software are rolling their eyes at that.

But you know the part of the trailer that absolutely pissed me off? When they talk about Hurricane Katrina and how recently we’ve had all these bad hurricanes, and it’s because of global warming. That’s when I lost any hope that the movie would be a rational look at the issue of global warming. Recent hurricanes, tsunamis, etc have NOTHING to do with global warming. That’s 100% BS.

You can’t look at one or two years of data and make a claim as to a trend. Take a look at these historic statistics and tell me if you can see a trend. I can’t. Even if 2005 had some astronomical number of hurricanes (which it didn’t, according to the data I could find online. 15 hurricanes vs. 12 in 1969, 7 “major” hurricanes vs. 8 in 1950.) that still wouldn’t indicate jack. It wouldn’t mean it’s because of global warming.

Roger Ebert bought An Inconvenient Truth hook, line, and sinker. Luckily Richard Roeper was a little more level-headed. He also gave it thumbs up also but he had this to say (after Ebert got done reviewing the movie):

I agree with you. I don’t think there’s any dispute or debate. Global warming is real. I think there can be some debate about the causes and about Gore’s dire predictions and if this was a true documentary, it would have been nice to see a little balance here. I mean this is, this is a very well done, slickly packaged campaign commercial about global warming starring Al Gore. As such it’s very effective and very successful. I think it can create a debate and discussion and we can go from there.

The expression on Ebert’s face looked honestly stunned to be hearing Roeper at all questioning the film’s assertions about global warming. He was probably especially stunned because Roeper is well known to be a liberal. After some back-and-forth with Ebert where Ebert basically said no respected scientists debate global warming, Roeper said:

It’s whether or not it’s human behavior that’s causing all of this, it’s whether or not Gore’s predictions for the next 10 to 50 years.. there is some debate about that and the film doesn’t address that.

You can listen to their full conversation here.

So I guess I’m just saying see the movie if you want to, but realize that things aren’t as incontrovertible as they say and there still is some debate on the subject.

I wanted to come up with some funny derogatory nickname for Blockbuster that would reflect what I’m about to say, but “Blockbusted” was the best I could do. I know, it’s not that funny. But I tried.

I’m a little mad at Blockbuster because on three occasions recently I’ve rented a DVD (the old-fashioned way, from the store not online) and it stopped playing part way through because of scratches. It’s possible my DVD player is more sensitive than most, but it’s only 4-5 years old and it’s a decent machine. Plus I look at the DVD and there are pretty noticeable scratches. So I have to drive to the store and swap it out with another copy. I bet they just put it back on the shelf after I leave too.

Has anyone else had problems with this or am I just unlucky? I probably shouldn’t be too frustrated with Blockbuster because I’m not sure what they can do to fix that, besides analyzing every DVD that gets returned. But it’s still very frustrating.

What’s also frustrating is how filthy the DVDs always are. I’ll often rinse and wipe off a DVD before playing it, because I’ve also had problems in the past with DVDs not playing correctly from having so many smudges and fingerprints on them. And besides, I just don’t want to put something that gross inside my DVD player.

I know ultimately the customers are to blame for this. I really don’t understand what’s going on here. How long have CDs and DVDs been around? Are there really people that don’t understand that you’re not supposed to touch that shiny side without the label?

You can hold it by its edges:

You can hold it by its edges and the hole in the middle:

You can even hold it with just one finger:

I understand that people typically treat property that’s not theirs worse than they would their own property (i.e. rental cars, hotel rooms) but it’s not like it’s easier to hold a DVD when you put your fingers all over it. Do people just get their kicks out of being able to hold it differently than they would their own DVDs? “Oh goody! A rental DVD. I’ll be able to grab it like a frisbee instead of gripping it by its edges! I’m so sick of doing it that way.” Or do people actually handle their own DVDs that way? This isn’t a rhetorical question. Given the pervasiveness of this, there’s probably someone reading this that handles these DVDs incorrectly. Why? I’m beginning to fear I’m in the minority here.

Perhaps your hands aren’t large enough to hold it like in example #1, but if you have small hands then you can probably fit your finger into the hole. But fine, if you have small hands but really thick fingers then you’re excused. Just do me a favor and wash off that Orville Redenbacher butter from your hands before handling it, will you?

There’s another group of people that can be excused: young children. But parents shouldn’t be letting their little kids put their grimy hands all over a DVD that doesn’t belong to them. They should be teaching them about respecting someone else’s property and if they’re not old enough to be able to handle it properly, then they shouldn’t be handling it at all. “But it’s so amazing how little Timmy learned how to put in the DVD and press play all by himself!” Wow, someone call Harvard and start the early enrollment process.

OK, I’m sure some parents will think I’m being a little harsh but you know what, it’s doesn’t matter because if your kid is watching The Girl Next Door, X-Men 2, and The Sopranos Season 4 Volume 3, then you’ve got a couple more important lessons to teach before you get to the “respect other people’s property” chapter. (By the way, I refuse to call the X-Men sequel X2. I know that’s the official title. It’s stupid.)

This all makes me wonder: If I started using Netflix or Blockbuster online, would I have these same issues, except that instead of driving to the nearest Blockbuster I’d have to put it in the mail and wait for the new one to get shipped back?