I’ve been tagged by Jodee Bock of You Already Know This Stuff to contribute to a “Turtle Meme” (things I’d love to do if I could just get A Round Tuit). I'm going to call it a "list"--go here for my take on whether blog “memes” should really be called that--but here they are: my pet transparent communication, B.S.-removal projects. Maybe it's a “fantasy list,” but I visit it often.
#1: SCIENCE TRUMPS OPINION. I speak, at their invitation, to the National Press Club about how scientists with integrity have exposed the hypocrisy and bad science in “An Inconvenient Truth.” I explain to these journalists the difference between opinion and fact. Al Gore has an opinion.
#2: COURAGE TRUMPS SENSATIONALISM. I write a brilliant screenplay about the brave little Amish girls in Pennsylvania. Each one, at gunpoint, six months ago, offered her own life for that of her classmates. The film also shows how the Amish community immediately took the wife and kids of the killer into their arms with food, prayer, and forgiveness. Gosh, I know someone famous once said that this is how we're supposed to live, but I can't remember who it was.... There is zero B.S. in this story, and I love how it has the rest of us flummoxed. Even the news media can’t find a way to cheapen it. They report on this virulent outbreak of forgiveness with disbelief but also with cautious respect and an appropriate amount of fear. Good for them.
#3: "THE MATH INSISTS ON IT." I finagle a dinner and brain-picking session with dangerously cute physicist Brian Greene (Harvard, Oxford, Cornell, Columbia), author of The Elegant Universe and The Fabric of the Cosmos. Now here’s a guy who knows his facts from a hole in the...space-time continuum! :-) If the facts seem, well, counterintuitive, he figures out why they really aren’t. I saw him once in a documentary, talking about the truth of string theory. When the interviewer seemed skeptical, Greene simply said, “The math insists on it.” (In other words, string theory is the only thing that works mathematically with the rest of the math we know about the universe--it's the puzzle piece that makes the other puzzle pieces make sense--so it’s got to be true.) Good math = no B.S. (Al Gore, are you reading this?)
#4: GET THEE BEHIND ME, SATAN. I start a successful class-action lawsuit against toy manufacturers and others who sell sexed-up dolls to three-year-old girls. The lawsuit would include any parents who put eyeliner and lipstick on their preschool daughters, tie a bikini under their armpits, and teach them to shake their booty on a runway.
#5: GIVE ROSIE SOMETHING TO CRY ABOUT. I start the "GRSTCA" Foundation for Rosie O'Donnell, who clearly needs some heavy-duty parenting. Our primary goal is to discover the source of her supersized mad-on. Could it be the wealth? The fame? The adoring fans? The almost-unlimited power? Through polite, caring conversations, we try to help her to see that she's acting like a big baby. Failing that, the foundation puts Rosie on time-out until she can learn to control her mouth. Or maybe we really give her something to cry about and send her to Iran for a while. She could interview those British soldiers being held hostage--oh, that's right, she says that's a hoax, just like Al-Queda hijacking two jets into the World Trade Center. Whatever. It's my nature to be patient and understanding with people who are intellectually disabled, but I just don't think we grownups should have to listen to her any more.
I hereby tag Mike Sansone, Timothy Johnson, Jason Alba, and Kent Blumberg to tell what B.S.-vanquishing accomplishments they would perform if could just get A Round Tuit.
Good work, Jane! These are wonderful examples of Bigger Small Talk!!
Posted by: Jodee Bock | April 02, 2007 at 10:15 PM