So, CNN decided they need to refute this story about the Taliban training attack monkeys. Because this is the kind of thing that needs clarification.

I mean, seriously CNN? Is it really that slow of a news day? Or do you really think that little of your audience’s intelligence?

I guess it is in keeping with the high journalistic standards we’ve seen from Jeanne Moos when reporting on pieces like the recent North Carolina Bigfoot reports (below) and from Larry King’s various UFO stories. One thing is for sure, I always know when I see a story of Fortean significance on CNN, they are going to make light and ignore any thoughtful witnesses or experts. Call it the trailer park tornado syndrome. If 20 people see something, no matter what it is, CNN is going to pick the one witness with three teeth, one eye, no previous knowledge of events, and a speech impediment.

By contrast, the local news story (video below) contained a much better report, and places the most recent sightings in a historical context of previous sightings. Does the most recent witness still seem somewhat dubious? Sure. But at least we now have a historical context within which to either substantiate his claims, or to look for a source to his delusions.

When we then look at a related opinion pieces asking “Why do we need to look for Bigfoot?” we find the commentator taking a grain of something worthwhile, potential psychological explanations for strange phenomenon, and twisting it all out of context and reason.

Monkey soldiers? Bigfoot? Anomalous animal carcasses? All the same to CNN.

Even at the most basic level, they seem to have a problem getting their facts straight when it comes to Fortean phenomenon. Take the chupacabras for instance (cabras, with an “s”… these aren’t monogamous goat suckers). First they spell it wrong, then they place its roots in Mexico instead of Puerto Rico. Then, after failing to do that basic bit of research about where the term and initial sightings originated, the author proceeds to confuse the quasi-mythic chupacabras (a creature who has now lent his name, as Jon Downes notes, to various boogie men across Latin America) with the hairless canines reported across the southwest. This does a disservice to the rich chupacabras lore of Puerto Rico and the rest of Latin America, as well as diverting serious scientific inquiry from the mystery canines that have been photographed, filmed, and even shot and killed.

If mange ridden coyotes or domestic dogs, they seem to be otherwise healthy and active (see video below). But if they are healthy and hair-free for some other reason, what is that reason? And just what kind of canine are they? These are questions that could be answered relatively easily with a little attention. Even if it turns out they are just mangy coyote. We would know, we could push the data out there, and we could move on to other topics.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

But as long as organizations like CNN and others cast a jaundiced eye at the realm of Cryptozoology and other odd Fortean phenomenon — painting us in the same broad swathes as monkey soldiers and ignoring solid data and serious researchers while trotting out drunken witnesses for silly-season filler — legitimate investigators, and science itself, will continue to suffer by association. News organizations don’t trot out alchemists in lieu of chemists, astrologers instead of astronomers. Yet anytime Tom Biscardi or the local trailer park prophet trot out a magic monkey hand, the cameras are rolling.

It’s enough to make a former newsman sigh.

If you remember our last post on Dan Aykroyd, you already know about his Crystal Head vodka.
Well, Mr. Aykroyd is in town today, promoting the same!

You can meet Aykroyd, and pick up a bottle or two of Crystal Head vodka if you are so inclined, at the Hancock Center Twin Liquors, from 4 to 6 PM today only.

Details here.

Crystal Head Vodka website.

Playing at violence and war is nothing new. So why does Ron Jeremy, of all people, feel the need to call out violent video games while promoting porn? (photo from blackandwtf.tumblr.com)

I’ve been away from the blog for a while. Needless to say, lots going on. One of those things, I’m sad to admit, has been video games. When there is a lot going on in your personal life that you don’t want to deal with might need a break from dealing with, it’s not uncommon to seek some escapism in a fantasy world. It’s why entertainment still does well in a recession. It’s why millions of angst ridden teenagers get involved in epic fantasy series. It’s why I like video games.

After a week of working 9 hour days under the hum of fluorescent lights in an inconsistently heated office, it’s fun to get lost in the life of a wood elf. Or a 12th century assassin. Or the commander of a space ship. I still love to read. I play my drums. But there isn’t much on TV that interests me. Same with movies. My only real interest in the TV is, “can I hook my PS3 up to it?”. I built my last computer so it would run World of Warcraft better. (In fact, I might not even be writing this if C weren’t using the PlayStation to stream Lost.)

But while I’ve been away, working and trying to decide which from an incredible slate of winter games to focus on first, some crazy things have been happening in the world that remind us that, man, people are just plain weird!

Exhibit A:

Ron Jeremy writing on Kotaku about why porn is more natural and healthy than violent video games.

What he fails to address, in all of this, are the underlying reasons for violence. Why do people commit violent acts? Why is it (seemingly) more common in some regions than others? Is violence really any more common in the US? Is it more common today than it was in days of yore? And, most importantly, do video games cause violence, or are violent games merely a reflection of a cultural obsession with, and glorification of, violence that is already in place?

I’d say, to me anyway, it’s pretty obviously the latter. We, as a society, fetishize and celebrate violence. Perhaps because it really is one of those things that most will never actually engage in, unlike sex, and that is why it is so fascinating. Blaming violence in society, especially American society which has always celebrated violence in pulp novels, movies, etc., on products that are simply a reflection of that obsession, is putting the cart before the horse.

Likewise, claiming that porn doesn’t cause sexual deviancy misses the point. Of course porn doesn’t cause sexual deviancy, but it does most definitely enable it. People look at pornography for many reasons, but a healthy sexual appetite isn’t the only reason. Many undeniably turn to pornography precisely because they can’t accept those things they are attracted to, but they can watch or look at pornographic images of it. And I’m not even saying this is necessarily a bad thing. I’m attaching no moral judgment to it. I’m simply acknowledging that it isn’t so black and white.

Mr. Jeremy, I respect your work (such as it is). You give hope to the dreams of fat, hairy-backed men around the world that they, too, may someday have a threesome with two gorgeous strangers who will seduce them on an airplane. But you gotta realize you’re reaching here.

Exhibit B:

My new favorite photoblog, and source of the images used in this post, Black and WTF? Proof positive that people are not only weird now, but always have been weird.

Exhibit C:

Saudi Arabia is still sentencing people to death for witchcraft and sorcery. This is one of the many stories I meant to post about during my absence; but Saudi Arabia, late last year, sentenced a Lebanese television personality and “psychic” to death for sorcery. Ali Hussain Sibat was arrested in Saudi Arabia in 2008 after making a pilgrimage to Mecca when religious police recognized him from his television show. This isn’t the first time the nation has sentenced people to death for sorcery. You may recall that in 2008 Saudi authorities were under fire from human rights groups for the scheduled execution of an illiterate woman accused of cursing a man with impotence. Sibat was still alive at last report, while accused witch Fawza Falih remains on death row.

So yeah. People are weird. And violent. We always have been. We’re violent in nations with loose controls on how violence is portrayed in the media. And we are no less cruel in nations where violent and objectionable material is highly censored.

We always have been weird and violent, and we will be until we kill each other off.

It’s not clear to me that at the National Counter Terrorism Center today… (the computer system) will automatically cross search all the intelligence and law enforcement databases it has. I want to find out whether that exist and I’m afraid that it doesn’t.”

– Senator Joe Lieberman on NPR Morning Edition with Renee Montagne this morning, doing a heck of a job beating the dead scare-monger horse before he’s bothered to gather the facts. (Italicized emphasis is Senator Lieberman’s emphasis, bold is mine.)

Photo from: http://www.joystiq.com

Of course CNN talks about the applications suggested in big budget sci-fi movies like Avatar and the Matrix, and the perfunctory various medical applications.

But to be honest, if it follows the course of other technologies, I see the first practical commercial applications of the technology being applied to porn or games (or porn games, like these, because I’m betting the Japanese will be the first to make it work anyway). In fact,the manufacturers of the Emotiv Epoc claim to already have a device that allows the user to control games with their mind. How well this device actually works though hasn’t quite been established yet, with those viewing demos of the tech often less than impressed. But this is how the technology will end up being developed; by selling high-priced, low value toys and gimmicks to those eager early adopters.

Then, after enough people have telepathically pawed their digital harem of anime girls or bought the expensive peripheral with the Men Who Stare at Goats video game and want to do something else with it, it will filter down to other games, the controls will be refined, and then the technology will finally be cheap and reliable enough for it to be viable for giving the average amputee without unlimited funds the ability to scratch his or her own ass make their own pot of coffee in the morning.

That’s what some homeless folks are saying they saw, and the cops they talked to said they were scared, but sober.

Hmmmmm. That’s how far from SFBR (the think tank that Tom Slick founded and home of the Southwest Primate Research Center)?

.

UPDATE: Loren Coleman has posted more details about the events in San Antonio, including photos of possible hand/foot prints,  over at Cryptomundo.com

For an excellent Slick biography, check out Loren Coleman’s Tom Slick and the Search for the Yeti.

Because it’s Thursday Friday cat is in your PC, stealing your RAMZ.

IBM and Stanford University have reportedly modeled the complete cerebral cortex of a cat using the Blue Gene supercomputer.

No word yet on whether the computer gets upset and pees in front of your door if you don’t spend enough time playing solitaire with it.

It’s not Thursday. It’s not even Friday. But here is a random link, just to get your week started up right.

From the Mental Floss article on the best “message in a bottle” stories we have this  story of a message on a balloon.

With Luft Balons and Message in a Bottle already in the post, I resisted the temptation to make a Synchronicity crack too… but if you really feel you need more 80s euro-rock there is always Falco. (Sorry, I just couldn’t resist the temptation to listen to more German pop after listening to Nena while posting this up.)

Lame, I know. But an excuse, nonetheless.

So for this edition of the links of the week I only bring you one; a story of widows in the Indian state of Jharkhand beaten, dragged through the streets, and forced to eat human excrement for being “witches”. The grand irony, of course, is that “spirits” supposedly possessed other women in the village, alerting them to the practice of witchcraft in their midst. But this somehow isn’t considered a form of sorcery or witchcraft in and of itself.

It’s very odd, the way the human animal does these things. It strikes me as especially odd considering a conversation that I was having last night with an online gaming friend. An ethnic Hmong, he comes from a very different background, spiritually, than the charismatic Pentecostal Christian family I was raised in. But despite these differences, we were able to find a great deal of spiritual common ground when the conversation turned in that direction.

It was refreshing, in that way that only spirited conversation can be, to see that there was still some spark of that youthful hope I once held that all problems could be solved if we only spent enough time talking, seeking common ground, and truly trying to understand one another. Of course, now that I’m old and cynical, I know that that is not usually the case. These recent, and many older, incidents of violence against witches (or Jews, or Christians, or Buddhists, or Sunni, or Shiite, or adherents of the Baha’i faith, or “insert group of your choice”) prove that. But it was as nice to have that small spark reignited as it was repugnant to watch the video of these women being degraded.

Humanity has an immense capacity for both love and hate, cruelty and kindness. Which will you choose in your day-to-day?

"And in this frame, if we blow it up enough, we can clearly see all the way to the coast and this blip here, this is Patty's brother, out on the ocean, jumping the shark."

This Thursday, I’m just wondering… is MK Davis the Andy Kaufman of the Bigfoot world? Is the Bluff Creek Massacre story his slow-burn version of wrestling Freddie Blassie?

I really hope so. I’d love to be able to actually sit back and comfortably chuckle at the strangeness of it all.

I mean, personally, I see the same twisted logic in the “Why doesn’t John Green just tell us what is on his back if not a camera?” argument from Davis supporter David Paulides that I see in the Gilbert Gottfried inspired  “Did Glen Beck rape and murder a young girl in 1990?” meme.

For those not familiar, the joke originated with a celebrity roast of Bob Saget where Gottfried asked why Saget never denied rumors that he had raped and murdered a young girl in 1990. A rumor that never existed until Godfrey created it, and that the comedian quickly followed with a proclamation that, while he himself didn’t believe it was true, it was curious that Saget never denied it.

The creative mind behind the Glenn Beck riff on this joke is skewering a tactic Beck often employs himself. That is, blind siding a guest with a ridiculous charge that he claims not to believe; but that he wants the guest to refute.

It would be great if Davis and friends were doing the same. Simply skewering the Bigfoot world’s sacred cows and inserting some levity in a field that sometimes takes itself too seriously, instead of jumping the shark after doing some undeniably worthwhile work stabilizing the PG footage.

Laughter is, after all, the best medicine.

But methinks the truth may be that MK needs something just a little bit stronger.