Category: junk thought

Lithopedion

Warning: This post discusses items relating to Flash Pulp 121, and definitely contains spoilers. If you haven’t listened to the episode, but intend to, skip the content below.
Chiseling Baby Sculpture I just wanted to follow up the last Blackhall with a quick note about the reality of the unpleasant situation in question.

Quotes are from the wikipedia:

A lithopedion, or stone baby, is a rare phenomenon which occurs most commonly when a fetus dies during an abdominal pregnancy, is too large to be reabsorbed by the body, and calcifies on the outside, shielding the mother’s body from the dead tissue of the baby and preventing infection.

I’ve opted not to post the related photos, as they’re easy enough to find via a Google image search should you be so inclined – but, be forewarned: it isn’t a pleasant sight.

The condition was first described in a treatise by the physician Albucasis in the 10th century AD, but fewer than 300 cases have been noted in 400 years of medical literature.

We Posts Stuffs

I don’t usually rail against other people’s grammar, but I found this tweet a little ridiculous.
Cures A few country blocks from our old house, there was a large sign set at the edge of some entrepreneur’s lawn. The beast was made of spray paint and plywood, and proudly announced that “We Cuts Grass” – I wouldn’t hire them, either.

Thuggee

Thuggee Cult in The Temple Of Doom Hey, remember those crazy cultists from The Temple Of Doom, the ones who lived in a mine somehow secretly attached to the royal palace?

Those fellows were supposed to represent the Thuggee Cult, an actual group once found in India.

According to the Guinness Book of Records the Thuggee cult was responsible for approximately 2,000,000 deaths, while British historian Dr. Mike Dash estimates that they killed 50,000 persons in total, based on his assumption that they only started to exist 150 years before their eradication in the 1830s. – wikipedia

While many religious motivations were ascribed to the Thuggees when the British first began to colonize India, it’s now generally accepted that the group was founded with one goal in mind: the collection of wealth.

It was only later that internal legends, superstition, and the fraternity of a practiced trade, which you’ll find in any large bandit organization – I’m looking at you, Mafia/Yakuza/Goldman Sachs – began to take hold.

While Guinness’ death count is likely exaggerated, the truth of Thuggee operations was not a pleasant one:

When tackling a large group, a Thuggee band might disperse along a route and join a group in stages, concealing their acquaintanceship, such that they could come to outnumber their intended victims by small, non-threatening increments. If the travelers had doubts about any one party, they might confide their worries to another party of the same Thuggee band. The trusted band would thus be the best placed to deal with these members of the caravan at the appropriate time, but might also be able to advise their colleagues to ‘back off’ or otherwise modify their behavior, to allay suspicion. – wikipedia

How do you silently slaughter an entire caravan without raising an alarm?

Elbow grease, team work, and a solid bit of rope.

The timing might be at night or during a rest-break, when the travelers would be busy with chores and when the background cries and noise would mask any sounds of alarm. A quick and quiet method, which left no stains and required no special weapons, was strangulation. This method is particularly associated with Thuggee and led to the Thugs also being referred to as the Phansigars, or “noose-operators”, and simply as “stranglers” by British troops. – wikipedia

Of course, Indy wasn’t the first attempt to replicate the Thuggees on film:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Qc92iI-Sig]

There’s something about the way they would insinuate themselves into the group that I find almost more disturbing than the murders themselves.

Imagine, if you will, riding a bus through the rougher parts of town. You’re nervous, but you take some solace in the smiling faces of the ragged looking folk that mount the metal steps at every stop.

One of the new arrivals even asks you for the time.

Then, three blocks before your own destination, in a deserted end of town, it happens: as the driver is waiting out a red light, half of the vehicle’s occupants rise up, garrotes in hand, and you suddenly feel the choke of wire about your neck.

In moments, and with your personal articles filling their pockets, the smiling vagrants abandon the transport, once again taking up positions in the plexiglass shelters that dot the bus route.
Temple Of Doom Heart Scene

January 24, 2011
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goo brain, junk thought, research, Uncategorised

An Argument For The Undead

Zombies from Night Of The Living Dead A while ago, fashion guru and fantastic lady, Jes Lacasse, was asking around regarding the staying power of the zombie genre, and I promised a post explaining why the shambling undead can still carry a story, despite their recent over-exposure.

However, I must note that I’m no zombie academic – I’m just a life-long horror fan, and occasional writer of post-apocalyptic walking-rotter stories.

Before we can shoot straight to the dead folks, we’ve got to take a walk back in time.
Attack of the 50 Foot Woman Poster After the second world war, horror as a genre was right out. People had seen far too much killing in real life to want to head into a theater and watch some more, which is why most ’50s horror films are really science fiction thrillers revolving around either giant insects, (or, sometimes, people,) or aliens. Giant Ant From Them This started to change as Vincent Price’s star began to rise, and as the British studio, Hammer Films, began to move away from science fiction and into scarier fare, but the genre as a whole didn’t really return in full force until the 1960s – just long enough for teenagers without combat experience to begin paying for their own theater admissions.

I mention it because, in all eras, horror tends to be a reflection of the concerns of the period in which it is made. Worried about the advances in nuclear science? Make a giant bug movie. Concerned about our race to space? Bring on the aliens. Fretting about your child’s morality? Have their naughty behaviour cut short by an axe-wielding maniac.
Jason Voorhees, lifeguard No sub-genre is more complex in its presentation of these narratives than that of the reanimated corpse.

The modern idea of zombies was defined in the late 1960s, amidst race riots, Vietnam, and white flight, and I’d be hard pressed to name another film that demonstrates that more clearly than the original Night Of The Living Dead, the progenitor of all modern shambler flicks.

Warning: here there be spoilers.
When Harry Met Ben, 1968 Night Of The Living Dead is really a movie about a black guy and a young woman taking the brunt of an unyielding invasion of aggression, while a rich white fellow hides his family in the basement, along with a couple of yokels – representing the working class – who kind of realize they should be helping the people upstairs, but are pretty comfortable just taking orders from the guy with the money. Eventually the lack of unity causes the whole situation to collapse.
When Harry Met Ben, 1990 You don’t see that kind of commentary in a vampire film.

It isn’t just NOTLD either, it’s my contention that any zombie story can’t help but be a tale about society.

Dawn Of The Dead is a film about the vapid woes of consumerism, and Day Of The Dead actually probably failed under the weight of its science vs military/knowledge vs authority political message.
Dawn Of The Dead (1978) Shoppers
Even back so far as 1932’s White Zombie, the pattern holds: a white landholder in Haiti uses black zombie slaves to run his plantation, only to be stopped by a modern fellow who believes the situation unjust – well, and wants his girlfriend back.

Return Of The Living Dead is the reflection of the 1980s mentality that only the kids of the day knew what was going on, and that death can come cheap and easy in an age overshadowed with unstoppable (read: nuclear) annihilation.

The more modern Shaun Of The Dead, something of a comedy, is a tale about people expending their lives going to work, sitting around, drinking, and playing video games.
As a final example, Jonathan Coulton‘s song, Re: Your Brains, is a play on the vagaries of modern office life, small talk, and the types of requests we receive that are really demands.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOlznuyPOeM]

I’ll stop there, but the pattern is endless, because zombies are the classic “they are us” enemy. The critical function of a zombie isn’t to be shot in the head, it’s to act as a crucible to force the leading characters into the hard decisions they avoid in their normal lives.
Shaun rides the bus
As a side note: this is also why I draw the line at fast zombies. Slow zombies force a mentality beyond just cheap scares. Something running at you fast can be anything – a dog, a dead guy, a four-hundred pound rabid orangutan – it’s the speed and mass that makes it scary, and the enforced space for a greater message is lost.
Zombies for Gore from http://la.cacophony.org/zombiegore.html What I’m getting at is, the undead remain a strong contender in the pop culture space because there are as many variations in the significance of their situations as there are in the situations, big or small, that we face in our daily lives.

How About a Little Break?

Break Time - found at http://www.tinker.com/event/yogeshs101/whiskey_lovers I must admit, rather shamefacedly, that I hadn’t realized that elevenses was actually a real thing. I think the concept of tea time is globally acknowledged, but the tradition of a morning snack somehow escaped my notice.

From the wikipedia:

In the United Kingdom, Ireland and some Commonwealth realms, elevenses is a snack that is similar to afternoon tea, but eaten in the morning. It is generally less savoury than brunch, and might consist of some cake or biscuits with a cup of tea. The name refers to the time of day that it is taken: around 11 am.

Which sounds nice – who doesn’t like a little cake, at any time of day?

Still, it seems to me that America may have one-upped the custom, with an – unfortunately forgotten – late-morning interlude of their own.

From an article in The New York Times

Employers were expected to supply spirits over the course of the workday; in fact, the modern coffee break began as a late-morning whiskey break called ”the elevenses.”

Whisky Barrels from http://www.wineterroirs.com/2008/03/yamazaki_whisky.html

The Mammoth In The Room

Image of the '80s cartoon & toy line, Dino-Riders CNN has a new article up regarding one of those “next wave of science” stories that’s been kicking around for years.

A team of scientists from Japan, Russia and the United States hopes to clone a mammoth, a symbol of Earth’s ice age that ended 12,000 years ago, according to a report in Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun. The researchers say they hope to produce a baby mammoth within six years.

I remember seeing this story crop up not long after Dolly, the sheep, came into the world, but seeing a six year time line attached is definitely new – and rather exciting, if, like me, you’re into resurrecting long dead species.

It does raise questions, however, and not necessarily of the 1950s horror film/Jurrasic Park “Are they going to escape and trample people in the streets of Tokyo?” kind.

Would two cloned mammoths be able to breed? Technically I believe so, but, given that both parents would likely be grown from similar DNA, would the resulting offspring turn out to be a twelve thousand pound version of the banjo kid from Deliverance?
My understanding is that the giants were herbivorous foragers that dug through the snow to locate plant material to munch on – if we let them roam during our non-ice age, will they overeat?

How long until we allow a Texan with an elephant gun to mount a mammoth head in his den?

How will McDonald’s market its new Mammo-Burger?
Wooly Mammoth image found at http://gliving.com/mammoths-driven-to-extinction-by-humans/

Donner Dinner Party

I make make no secret of my distaste for the insects of the sea, but, friend of the site, and Walker Journal creator, Ray, sent me a little heads-up that only went to reinforce the notion.

Those little bands they put on lobster claws when they’re in a pre-eating holding tank? They aren’t to protect the fingers of whoever might be retrieving them.

An opportunist, a lobster will also eat another lobster if given the chance. Captive lobsters become especially cannibalistic, which is why they must be banded in a lobster pound or separated in individual compartments in a lobster hatchery. – Gulf Of Maine Research Institute

Never mind that “a lobster pound” sounds like a place to adopt stray sea-bugs, this whole concept, to me, is like thinking that seat belts are for our own safety, when, in fact, they’re a government ploy to keep our writhing corpses strapped down when the zombie virus finally hits. Baby Lobster (Found via a Google image search - I'm not sure who took the original photo.)

Leftovers

This is actually an item I was half-considering for yesterday’s CNN responses, but there was no comedy in it.
Is Arizona suspect evil or mentally ill? It may not be humorous, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a ridiculous question. Here’s a quote from Jared Loughner, which I recently came across over at Bothersome Things – read it and decide for yourself.

“If you’re editing of every belief and religion reaches the final century then the writer for every belief and religion is you.

You’re editing of every belief and religion reaches the final century.

Thus the writer for every belief and religion is you.

You control every – thought, action, and lifestyle – for the person or people as the mind controller.”

– Jared Loughner

Not Exactly Three Days Of The Condor

Spy vs. Spy I was stumbling around wikipedia, doing some research, and I came across an article entitled “Israeli animal spy conspiracy theories“, which, frankly, I found to be comedy gold.

Israel has been accused of sending a spy pelican and a spy vulture to Sudan. The birds, wearing a GPS device and a tag with the sign “Tel Aviv University,” were captured by local officials. Sudanese authorities refused to return the GPS transmitters.

I’m no expert on bird enslavement, but, to me, this sounds suspiciously like a tag-and-release program to track migratory habits – although I understand that the situation is easy to confuse with an undercover pelican.

In October 2008 Iran captured two pigeons, who reportedly showed unusual interest in Iran’s nuclear facility in Natanz.

I wish they were a little clearer about what makes up “unusual interest”; were the birds wandering around the entrance begging for cigarettes and trying to seduce the facilities’ employees into revealing some of the secrets within?

In 2007, Iranian media reported that 14 large squirrels carrying espionage equipment were intercepted near their border.

Define large? Are we talking large for a squirrel, or large for a mid-size SUV? Spy squirrel I do love the mental image of squirrels with tiny satellite dishes strapped to their backs and secret service-style earpieces equipped, but, again, I rather suspect this is a bit of a case of mistaken science identity, probably related to migration. Even in this day and age, enforced ignorance of what’s actually possible can put people into the realm of Clarke’s third law.
Clarke's Third Law