Hogzilla… or Hogadilla?

You may or may not have heard of the legendary Hogzilla.

You may or may not have known it was called Hogzilla, depending on what parts you’re from.

“Around these parts,” the article states, “they are calling it Hogzilla.”

Hog-zilla.

Anyway, it’s a great headline-maker, as far as quirky news stories go. And it’s also a great human-interest story, one that sees no one [no human, anyway] slaughtered, arrested, etc.; it’s the story of a boy and his hog… his 12 foot, 1,000lb hog that he killed, anyway.

Of course, any right-thinkin’ person might be set a-wonderin’ after reading how the gigantic terror of a hog was killed, strung up, photographed… and then buried, without any keepsakes to pass from father to son?

Snopes thinks it’s a wee bit exaggerated as well, and has a pretty good write-up on the beast. A 1000lb wild hog, like many other things, is difficult to disprove entirely, but Snopes does a good job of showing why we might doubt the claims as to its enormity.

What it all boils down to is two questions and—conveniently enough—two answers.

Q: Was a wild hog killed? (And did somebody nickname it ‘Hogzilla’?)
A: Yes.

Q: Did it weigh 1,000lbs, etc. etc. etc.?
A: Almost certainly not.

So there you have it.

(AP: “Legend grows around 1,000-pound hog reportedly killed on Ga. plantation,” by Elliott Minor [July 28, 2004]; Snopes article)

You are not a sweaty, tired person

An otherwise marginally interesting NYT article hits a bright spot with this odd philosophical entreaty:

You are not a sweaty, tired person hoping against hope for a quiet spot in the crowd. You are a grain of sand, a drop in the sea of humanity. You don’t need some fancy rational strategy. Be the blanket. Let the space choose you. Get over yourself.

(NYT: “Sociology. History. Where to Put the Blanket.” by James Gorman [August 3, 2004])

That’s disgusting. So what?

“What, precisely, is so bad about sex between adult siblings, bestiality, and the eating of corpses?”

I’m glad you asked.

Paul Bloom of Yale looks at the oft-irrational premises of disgust in modern times, delving also into its more ancient roots to look at where disgust comes from (for those who don’t want to read the whole article, it’s this [vastly oversimplified, of course]: a biological adaptation to keep us from eating things we shouldn’t). An interesting article. Moral of the story? There is generally nothing inherently moral about disgust, and we’d do well to be wary about using it as a moral compass. We’d do better yet, in fact, looking to other avenues of decision-making.

(Guardian: “To urgh is human,” by Paul Bloom [July 22, 2004])

An Ancient Lake, (no) dope, and a Bloody Good Time

  • No dope? Lincoln Allison has an article in the Guardian that asks whether performance-enhancing drugs are really something that should be shied away from. He has lots of thoughtful points (e.g., that in sports where knowledge of doping is fairly public, fans don’t mind that records are “tainted” by drugs; that a strict anti-drug policy is obscene when the athlete’s performance ultimately relies on judgement, strategy, and skill—things not in the least bit enhanced by the drugs, etc.), and the article as a whole provides an interesting contrast to the “default” assessment that doping’s a bad thing. Give it a read. (Guardian: “Faster, stronger, higher,” by Lincoln Allison [August 9, 2004])
  • Giant, Millenia-Old UFO. Scientists are just now beginning to probe the depths of an Antarctic lake that is 40 times larger than Lake Tahoe. This is a lake buried under two miles of ice. A lake, the contents of which (water, yes, but possibly also microbes and such) have been undisturbed for probably several hundred thousand years. Which is kinda neat, and also obvious fodder for sci-fi movies. Also, curiously, planetary scientists are interested in Lake V, because it probably shares numerous similarities with places like some of the moons of Jupiter. Go figure. Scope out a Google for Vostok on the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory if you’re itching for more info. (SFGate: “Beneath Antarctica’s ice lies mysterious Lake Vostok High-tech tools help scientists detail underwater features,” by David Perlman [August 2, 2004])
  • I suppose you liked Savage Bees? While we’re on the topic of undiscovered treasures, let me just say that the Agony Booth is a gem. It is, in its own words, “an ongoing inquisition into some of the worst movies humanity has to offer.” The site offers absurdly long reviews of hilariously awful movies—what movies’ hilarity is all the more amplified by someone else seeing them in your stead. (via LII)
  • Better late. Than never. I had no idea it was National Punctuation Day on Sunday. If I had I would have, er, celebrated.
  • No ninjas. I don’t usually throw any pure-blog entries into the rundown mix, but this item over at onepotmeal is worth a glimpse, if only for the “Dear Denouement” format (a keeper) and the P.S., which really cinches the whole thing.
  • Speaking of ninjas. Reuters “reports” that you ought to check the symmetry of your opponent’s extremities before picking a fight. The article cites a study that purports to show people with asymmterical extremities (hands, ears, etc.) had shorter fuses, due to stressors during pregnancy. It doesn’t give you enough of the details to really make heads or tails of, but golly, doesn’t it make a nice headline. If I were you, I’d wait till I had my hands on the actual study before I started picking fights with symmetrical people. (Also, contrary to the headline of the article, I have my doubts that the original study actually advises people to “Check Ears Before You Pick a Fight.” Though of course I’ve been wrong before.) (Reuters: “Check Ears Before You Pick a Fight, Study Advises” [August 23, 2004])

Whaddya believe?

Like all internet “personality” quizzes, this one isn’t exactly what you’d call totally authoritative. It’s called the Belief-O-Matic, and it helps you deduce what religion you ought to be practicing. Well, not exactly, but same idea. Is it useful? Ha! That’s a good one. Is it useful? Of course it’s useful.

Okay, so it’s not, really. But it’s kinda interesting, and not totally off the mark—though I very much doubt that anyone would find a truly earth-shaking revelation in their results. (“But… but… I thought I was a Scientologist!”)

(My results, for the eternal record, are as follows:

  1. Liberal Quakers (100%)
  2. Unitarian Universalism (100%)
  3. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (96%)
  4. Secular Humanism (87%)
  5. Neo-Pagan (83%)
  6. New Age (74%)
  7. Bahá’í Faith (69%)
  8. Theravada Buddhism (62%)
  9. Nontheist (58%)
  10. Mahayana Buddhism (57%)
  11. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (53%)
  12. Taoism (53%)
  13. Reform Judaism (51%)
  14. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (50%)
  15. New Thought (46%)
  16. Orthodox Quaker (45%)
  17. Sikhism (38%)
  18. Scientology (37%)
  19. Jehovah’s Witness (37%)
  20. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (35%)
  21. Jainism (30%)
  22. Hinduism (25%)
  23. Orthodox Judaism (23%)
  24. Seventh Day Adventist (20%)
  25. Eastern Orthodox (16%)
  26. Islam (16%)
  27. Roman Catholic (16%)

)

On a related (and more secular) note, you can take the 12 question “Ethical Philosophy Selector”, which purports to tell which philosophers most match your own personal ethics beliefs. (Both quizzes, incidentally, are produced by the same people/group.)

(via MeFi)

For the architecturally oriented

tall buildings

MOMA (that’s Museum of Modern Art) explores tall buildings in a neat, flash-based installation. Swell.

Wallet-size or 5×7?

It’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it:

Immigration officers are having to pore through naked pictures of hundreds of exotic dancers to keep imposters out of Canada, the Toronto Sun reported Tuesday.

Foreign strippers planning to table dance in clubs must now provide photos of themselves with no clothes on to qualify for a visa for Canada, said immigration officials.

Although, for the record—and I’m no immigration expert, to be sure—it seems to me that if someone wanted to get into Canada badly enough, the challenge of providing a nude picture wouldn’t be exactly insurmountable. But then again, maybe this policy is just meant to stop the really lazy, self-conscious and/or hideously deformed from entering Canada.

(Toronto Sun: “Foreign strippers must supply nude photos to officials” [July 27, 2004])

The Pianist (****)

(2002) Roman Polanski – w/ Adrien Brody, Thomas Kretschmann, Ed Stoppard, Julia Rayner, Jessica Kate Meyer, etc.

Synopsis: ‘The Pianist’ tells the (true) story of Wladyslaw Szpilman (the titular pianist), a Jewish pianist living in Warsaw through the outbreak of WWII. The movie begins with Szpilman in what’s a fairly comfortable position even in spite of the incipient anti-Jewish measures. As the movie progresses, however, this comfort vanishes and we follow Szpilman through his travails in struggling to survive.

Review: Curiously, Polanski chose a non-style style to film the story, opting to move away from camera flourishes and whatnot, believing that a story of such power should be allowed to tell itself. The result is a film that’s well-done all around, but that is not brilliant. The technical skill here is on par with Chinatown and Rosemary’s Baby and Macbeth (and even Death and the Maiden), but there’s something missing. Bear in mind, it’s an excellent film. But…

Missing something, right; you catch on fast.

Part of the problem has to do with the fact that Polanski does almost nothing with suspense; early on the general sense of foreboding sets in—because of course we all have some idea about what’s going to happen, if not the specifics of the Szpilman’s own story—and terror throughout helps maintain that foreboding, but there’s never anything like a build-up of suspense. Quite possibly ‘The Pianist’ has no place for suspense. It’s a true story, after all, and in that sense it’s difficult to “add” suspense without belittling the story or making it too melodramatic. But because of this, Polanski is unable to craft as fine a movie as, e.g., ‘Chinatown’ or ‘Rosemary’s Baby’.

In any case, ‘The Pianist’ is mighty fine. But the best movie you’ve ever seen it is not.

Rating: [••••] out of [•••••]

TurnerVision

Ted Turner is an odd duck. Though I don’t really have anything against odd ducks. Witness:

Moderator: Who would you want to become the president of the US?
Turner: I’m for whoever speaks to our survival not our demise.
Moderator: So Who?
Turner: Who do you think?

Turner: The invasion of Iraq was the biggest debacle in the history of the world… except maybe the AOL Time-Warner merger. The AOL Time-Warner merger was bullshit.
Moderator: You were quoted as saying that signing was as good as having sex for the first time.
Turner: I was just being a team player. It wasn’t really. It was the stupidest move I’ve ever seen. Almost as stupid as the war on Iraq…

Turner: My vision comes from thinking. I don’t watch TV.

(via Joi Ito’s Socialtext Workspace via BoingBoing)

That’s just my pet snake Reggie

The Austin Chronicle has an article on an, um, interesting remake of ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark.’ You’re not likely to ever see it—it was made by three ten-year-olds from Mississippi—but there’s always the chance it’ll come out on DVD. (And before you write it off as a simple little home movie, bear in mind that the kids used live snakes, set an actual truck on fire, and even set one of the actors on fire [as in the original movie].)

(Austin Chronicle: “‘Lost Ark,’ Resurrected,” [on-site article here] by Sarah Hepola [May 30, 2004]; originally via memepool)