Editor’s Note: I have been asked by GSN to review two of the network’s newest game shows slated to premiere this Tuesday. I do not work for GSN and am not being compensated for these reviews.

The second show I’ve been asked to have a look at is “Starface,” which isn’t a remake of anything. In fact, it’s a new concept based on what has become an unfortunate trend in today’s society.

I’ll let GSN elaborate: their press release on this show begins with this:

“We live in a time when the goings-on of celebrities and the intimate details of their personal lives are considered news for mass consumption.”

That’s their first sentence. Don’t even get me started!! They’ve just explained why, in one simple sentence, I began my screening of the premiere episode with nothing but contempt in my heart.

During the animated open, the announcer says, “Welcome to ‘STARFACE,’ the only show on television…if you don’t count all the other shows.” Hmm. All right, maybe I should start reconsidering at least a little of that aforementioned contempt.

The first thing you notice about this show, hosted by raspy-voiced former child star and current reality star Danny Bonaduce, is that it doesn’t take itself seriously and that’s a good thing. It places three contestants against each other to identify less-than-flattering candid photos of celebrities, followed by a series of trivia questions about the celebs that are pictured.

If you’re the kind of person who knows what body part Johnny Depp threatened to bite off of paparazzi if they ever took photos of his children, or what reality show Jenny McCarthy likes to watch in an effort to feel better about herself — and I didn’t know the answer to either question — you will like this show. If you like to watch crazy people who get a little too excited because they do know, you will like this show.

For the first round, each correct answer is worth 50 points. The second round is played the same way but for 100 points per correct answer. Round three forces each of the three contestants to put on a giant paper mask of a specific celebrity, and Bonaduce asks questions about that famous person. The contestants must answer in first person as if they’re talking about themselves. Each correct answer in this round is worth 200 points. The contestant with the highest score by the end of this round goes on to the bonus round.

The fourth and final round of the game has the single contestant facing photos of two different celebrities. Bonaduce rapid-fires trivia questions and the contestant must correctly identify which of the two celebrities the statement applies to; ten correct answers in sixty seconds wins them a trip. It seems like it should be easy, but it ends up being much harder than it looks, even for celebrity-obsessed contestants, so it doesn’t wind up feeling “too easy” by any means.

There are some interesting features in the first two rounds, like “Mug Shot,” which features a police photo of a celebrity who ended up on the wrong side of the law; or “Below the Beltway,” which begins with a photo of a politician that’s cropped so tightly that you only see the crotch. As clues are given, they zoom out on the photo until one contestant is able to set aside their trauma from the close-up and correctly identify the politico.

Bonaduce would never be my first choice for a game show host, but then again, I’d never produce this kind of game show. But I have to admit: this show needs someone wild and crazy, and Bonaduce is a perfect fit. He’s already full enough of himself to give the show the extra humor and outrageous energy to make it very watchable.

The set — remember, I’m a purist when it comes to my game shows — is rather minimal, with two giant rear-projected Hollywood skylines over which the celebrity photographs are superimposed. For this show, the set actually works.

The prizes are the biggest problem here. I know travel expenses are a lot more than they used to be, but a trip as a grand prize? I’m not impressed. Just like I tell my relatives when they ask about birthday or Christmas presents: “cash always works.” But the contestants who won the two episodes I was given to screen seemed more than happy with their winnings, so I guess that’s the important thing.

If you are beginning to suspect by now that I, the person who is bored to death with celebrity “news,” actually enjoyed this show, you’re absolutely right. Don’t worry: I’m just as shocked as you are. This game is very watchable. And even if you don’t know the answers to the questions (and realize that your life won’t be changed for the better if you were to learn them), it’s still enough fun that you might not mind sitting through a few minutes just to see what happens next.

So, to make a long story short, (”too late!”), here’s the scoring on a scale of 1 to 5, with five being the highest:

BASIC GAME: 4.5
BONUS ROUND: 4.5
PRIZE(S): 2.0
PACING: 5.0
HOST: 4.5
SET: 4.0
MUSIC: 3.5
PLAY-ALONG FACTOR: 4.5

OVERALL: 4.0

It’s not my kind of game, but heaven help me…I like it in spite of myself!

If you have GSN, you can catch “Starface” beginning tomorrow, Tuesday, August 1st, at 9:30pm. Give it a try and let me know what you think. For people who can’t resist scanning the tabloids while you’re in the grocery store checkout lines, I’d love to get your take on the show.

Apple Computer wants to take advantage of print media by building an eBook-capable iPod, according to a recent report from Variety.

While the big publishers are still waiting for the appearance of a new-fangled eBook reader from Sony that could boost sales, they’re not denying the possibility of a partnership with Apple; nor would they likely mind the potential success citing the success similar agreements brought to the music industry.

I’d certainly consider buying an audiobook to play on my iPod, although I prefer being able to listen to books in the car. But the thought of trying to read a book on an iPod, (unless it was a lot larger than any of the models currently available) is not all that appealing.

How about you? Would you want an iPod that would accomodate eBooks?

After my recent rant about environmental alarmists who talk about “Global Warming” at every possible turn, I thought that it’s only fair to encourage others to do something about the phenomenon. That’s the topic of this week’s question.

(And you might want to have a look at sites like this one, this one, or this one, for assistance in coming up with your answers.)

But first, Cat, of “Sweet Memes,” was first to play last week. Congratulations, Cat!

On to this week’s question!

THIS WEEK’S QUESTION:
Name seven things you have done or would be willing to do to reduce your contributions to global warming.

Either answer the question in a comment or answer it in your journal and include the link in a comment. (To be considered “first to play,” a link must be to the specific entry in which you answered the question.)

My answers:
1. Drive Less - I try to avoid driving anywhere whenever possible. My “sightseeing” has been reduced dramatically; my trips home (and my parents’ trips here) have been curtailed by at least 50% now that gas prices are so high.
2. Move Closer to Work - When I moved to Virginia, I intentionally located to an apartment less than three minutes from work. I’m less than four minutes from the stores where I do the majority of grocery shopping and errand-running as well.
3. Heating/Cooling Smartly - I keep my thermostat at 75-76 in summer and closer to 67-68 in winter. I also try to check, as regularly as I can, the air filter.
4. Turning Off Unused Lights/Appliances - I’m bad about leaving both TVs on, even when I’m not in the room. I’m working on this. I’m also turning lights off at night sooner.
5. Use Energy-Efficient Appliances - Fortunately, my apartment complex has handled this for me. The refrigerator, washer and dryer and hot water heater all came with the energy-efficient labels already in place.
6. Cut Hot Water Consumption - The only time I use hot water is during dishwashing and my shower. I wash clothes in cold whenever possible.
7. Encourage Others to Conserve - Well, that’s the whole point of this week’s question, isn’t it!

Hope you’re enjoying the summer but staying cool. One way do that is to get out of the dangerous heat long enough to answer these six questions!

But first, Wil of “The Daily Snooze” was first to leave a link to the specific entry in which he answered the questions, so he was first to play last week. Congratulations, Wil!

Here are this week’s “Saturday Six” questions. Either answer the questions in a comment here, or put the answers in an entry on your journal…but either way, leave a link to your journal so that everyone else can visit! To be counted as “first to play,” you must be the first player to either answer the questions in a comment or to provide a complete link to the specific entry in your journal in which you answer the questions. A link to your journal in general cannot count. Enjoy!

1. If you had to choose a theme song for your blog, which would would you choose and why?

2. Which was the last kind of doctor you visited, and which one do you need to visit the most?

3. What’s stopping you from making the appointment with the doctor in #2?

4. Take the quiz: How scary are you?

5. What’s the most exotic drink you’ve tried recently? Did you like it enough to have another at some point in the future?

6. Who was the last person you had an online conversation with? How long had it been since you had previously talked to that person either on the phone or in person?

If you have a Reader’s Choice question you’d like to see asked (and answered), click the e-mail link in the Blogger profile and send it to me.

MY ANSWERS:
1. “Do Your Thing.”

2. Last one was my regular GP. I probably should visit the dentist next.

3. A dread fear of them. But, in 36 years, I’ve never had a cavity, so I guess I’m doing something right.

4. You Are a Little Scary

You’ve got a nice edge to you. Use it.

5. I sampled a friend’s “Cosmopolitan.” It tasted like grape candy. Not like grapes, but grape candy! Horrible!

6. A friend I’ve known for most of my life, though the conversation was a series of messages. I haven’t talked to him on the phone for years. I last saw him in person, when he was passing through, about five years ago.

I just noticed that the character in the “Weather Pixie” on my sidebar has decided to parade around without a shirt since it’s so hot here in Virginia.

If I looked like him, I might, too.

I don’t. So I’m not.

I’ve lost a total of nine pounds on the diet so far. That puts me eleven pounds down from my top weight on January 1st. Sure, eleven pounds — even nine, for that matter — is something to be proud of. At least I’m going in the right direction.

Still, I had lost eighteen when May Sweeps began. If only I’d maintained that much.

No use crying over spilled milk. In my case, I didn’t spill anything: I ate it all. As for my friend, the shirtless Weather Pixie…maybe next summer.

Incidentally, in case you needed any more motivation to be thinking about what you weigh, there’s this item about Americans being so fat that X-rays are having a hard time getting through the blubber. Nice.

I had been meaning to watch for this a little more closely, but I see that the 70,000 mark has been hit on my primary counter.

This figure isn’t 100% precise: I had many hits at the old AOL version of this journal that no longer exists. When I moved here, I took that counter’s value and continued it. Since AOL’s counter isn’t — or at least wasn’t — the most-reliable, there’s no way to know for sure exactly how many the original really did get.

Still, 70,000 looks like an accomplishment. From what I can tell, visitor #70,000 is somewhere in Wichita, Kansas. He or she arrived here from a search, although I didn’t get the keywords that led them specifically to this blog.

In any case, whether you’re #70,000 or not, I’m glad you stopped by. Welcome.

No, I don’t mean that in a “there’s no such thing as ‘Global Warming’” way, nor do I mean to suggest that we shouldn’t be worried about it.

I have no doubt whatsoever that global warming is an absolutely documented fact and that anyone who disputes the existence of it is out of their mind. We do need to be making changes right now in how we live our lives in every effort to stop taking such a toll on our home planet, because if we don’t, we will eventually force Earth into more and more dramatic climate changes to compensate for our foolishness. And I’m certain that as much as we won’t like the changes we need to make, we’ll certainly not be happy about what she’ll do.

But consider the alarmists: each May, these folks start coming out of the woodwork. May is when the mild springs begin quietly transforming into warm summers. By this time of year, it’s usually hot enough that the mention of global warming, they believe, is enough to shame folks into turning their thermostats up a degree or two. Even at the end of August, as temperatures will have already started falling in time for autumn, there’s hurricane season to contend with, and since hurricanes are Mother Nature’s air conditioners for the oceans, they can always embrace every named storm as a reminder that we’re the cause of all of our weather woes.

By the end of October, when temperatures are still dropping and the hurricanes have stopped spinning, global warming goes into winter dormancy. It’s hard, after all, to sell the concept of global warming when it’s snowing outside.

These days, naturally enough, everyone’s talking about global warming.

Tom Brokaw just did a great documentary on it. Among other species mentioned, a good deal of time was spent on an animal that has virtually universal appeal, in no small thanks to a Coca-Cola holiday ad campaign: the polar bear. Polar bears are losing ground, quite literally, because the ice from which they do their fishing is rapidly disappearing right beneath their feet. If they can’t perch themselves on these floating islands of frozen water, they can’t fish, and it doesn’t take an environmental scientist to figure out that the lack of a food supply would be a bad thing for them. The hope, undoubtedly, on focusing on such an animal is to get people to make an emotional connection to that animal, and to do steps to help it.

It’s a sad commentary, though, that we humans actually need a polar bear family to worry about when taking steps to reduce global warming would help us, too; the human race, as a species, is certainly arrogant enough to think that we’re all that matter. Still, if the possiblility of watching these giant teddy bears slowly disappear from the earth is enough to make people think, then by all means show those hungry cubs.

This summer has been particularly hot. You can almost feel the excitement in the air maintained by the alarmists; they seem to struggle to stifle a giant “I told you so” smirk, as if without global warming, the average summer temperature everywhere would be about 40 degrees.

But it’s July, people. This is supposed to be the hottest time of the year! That’s what summer means! The phrase, “the dog days of summer,” traces its origin to ancient Greek writer Plutarch, who died in the year 127! Hot weather in July is by no means a new concept. Every time you break into a sweat, it isn’t automatically because of global warming alone.

This has been a particularly hot and humid summer here in Virginia. But just last year, summer was almost pleasant: there was humidity, but not as much. There were hot days, but it didn’t feel like it was as hot. Last year, we didn’t hit the century mark once. This year, I walk outside with the dogs and feel as if I’m swimming in an almost fluid-like heat. But if I’m a betting man who is easily influenced by some of the more extreme alarmists, I’d be tempted to wager that by November, I’ll have been burned to a crisp and that the next time there’s ice to be found, it’ll be a new ice age when there’s little else to be found.

Surf the web for weather data and you’ll find some details that don’t support the scare tactics.

For instance, in Minneapolis, the hottest day on record, with temperatures reaching 108º, was in 1936. How much global warming was present at that time? And yet 1936 emerges as a particularly hot year: 70 years later, fifteen state maximum temperature records set during the Summer of 1936 still stand. And the winter of 1935-36 had been the second-coldest winter on record.

Just five years ago, Baltimore’s coolest July daily record was set, when the overnight low dipped to 50º.

For years, I’ve worked with meteorologists. They can point to evidence — in far more greater detail than you’d ever care to hear — that the earth goes through cycles of warming and cooling. These cycles can run 30-40 years. This, more than global warming, explains why one can find record temperature extremes in the early 1900s, again in the 1930s and 1940s, again in the 1960s, and again in present day. While Mother Earth may be slowly heating year by year, there’s also evidence that global warming isn’t the only change that’s operating. We mustn’t lose sight of that.

My primary job is marketing. My concern about global warming is that there is a saturation point when it comes to spreading the dire warnings. Once a reader or listener reaches that point, each new mention of the message becomes automatically dismissed: “Oh, not that again! I’ve heard that all before.”

Someone recently left a comment elsewhere — I don’t remember where I saw it — complaining about our “need” for air conditioning, referring to it as “fake cold air.” There’s nothing “fake” about the coldness of air-conditioned air. Air conditioning does indeed cool air, so the cooler air it produces is real. It’s manmade, true, but no less actually cold. It’s like saying that a lab-created diamond is “fake.” It isn’t: it’s a real diamond. It just has human intervention to thank for its appearance more quickly than natural processes would have allowed for.

This person’s complaint about those who regularly do nothing to help the environment while nonchalantly pushing the thermostat down is, to some, lost in the “over the top” remark. The skeptics can embrace such remarks, referring to an “obvious lack of understanding” of basic reality. Whose cause has therefore been helped?

We all need to be careful when we talk about global warming. These disaster scenarios only work to a point. Beyond that, they become as self-parodying as the old “Airport” movies. A hot summer day may be a degree or two hotter because of global warming and its associated side effects, but when summer heat is portrayed as being all because of global warming, and some almost go this far in their aguments, they’re not helping the cause but are hurting its credibility.

They’re turning into the boys who cried “Wolf!” Or, they’re turning into those stereotypical doomsday preachers on the street corners. And what do we do when we find one? Do we pull up a chair along side of them and listen to their “hellfire and brimstone” message, or do we quickly pass by, hoping we don’t make eye contact?

And that’s not helping anyone.

We definitely need to take steps today to make sure that we are doing our part. We have to stop comparing ourselves to our neighbors: there will always be those who want to drive the giant SUVs with the 2MPG fuel economy rating. We have to do whatever we can, regardless of what anyone else does. Sooner or later, things will get so extreme that even the last of the naysayers will slowly come around.

But with the urgency of spreading a message to protect the environment from further damage comes the responsibility of portraying the crisis as not only real but also rational. There’s a fine line between being honest and being outrageous. And once you cross it, it’s exponentially more difficult to get the unconvinced to listen to any more of it.

The latest “Patrick’s Place Poll” gave you the choice of choosing the greatest of the last ten U.S. Presidents.

There was almost a dead tie for first place, which is pretty much what I expected. Ronald Reagan, our 40th president, came in first with the narrowest-possible victory, earning 41% of the vote. Our 42nd president, Bill Clinton, had 39% of the vote.

I was sure that there would be a duel between these two, but I honestly expected Clinton to be the one to edge out ahead.

I would have expected John F. Kennedy to have pulled in more than 10% of the vote, but the biggest surprise was that the president considered to be one of the most moral, upstanding men ever to hold that office happened to tie with the president generally considered to be one of the most corrupt: Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon each got 5%, placing them both at last place.

It is worth noting, though it is not a surprise given his approval rating, that the current president didn’t receive a single vote in this particular poll.

I wonder what type of “mandate” that voting pattern might represent.

Editor’s Note: I have been asked by GSN to review two of the network’s newest game shows slated to premiere this Tuesday. I do not work for GSN and am not being compensated for these reviews.

GSN is doing a remake of a modest 1980 NBC game show called “Chain Reaction.” Before I watched the first episode, I already had one thing in mind: I didn’t want to like this show.

The original version was hosted hosted by game show legend Bill Cullen, and pitted two teams consisting of a civilian and two celebrities against each other to solve a word puzzle called a chain. It was a grid of seven words with each word in the chain relating in some way to the word above and below it. The first word and last word would be provided, then contestants would be given one letter at a time for the next word until one team or the other solved it.

For example, the chain might start with the word, “White.” The next word might begin with an H, and a lucky contestant might guess “House” as in “White House.” The next word might start with a P, which could lead one to think of “House Party.” And so on…

Originally, each letter of a solved word was worth one point, with 25 enough to win the round. Winning two rounds gave the contestants a shot at a $10,000 bonus through a convoluted end game that had the two celebrities forming questions one word at a time back and forth to get the civilian player to guess a word. Ten correct words earned the ten grand.

The game play was basic, the pacing of the show was not particularly fast, and the set wasn’t all that ritzy, either. It wasn’t really the kind of show you’d make a point to watch, but on the other hand, if you were looking for something to watch and you came across it, between Cullen’s affable personality and the fun of playing along, you wouldn’t break a finger hitting the remote to get to something else, either.

USA Network aired a brief remake of the show in the eighties with Geoff Edwards hosting, but that remake was very similar to Cullen’s original version.

Now the new version, which premieres this week on GSN. Game show newcomer Dylan Lane, a former VJ on Fuse (whatever that is) is the star. I wouldn’t want to be in Lane’s shoes in one respect: after all, the diehard game show fans out there will naturally compare his handling of the show to Cullen’s, and there are few new hosts who could survive such a comparison.

The first episode of a new show in a new genre rarely produces a “knock-your-socks-off” performance. Perhaps it should be chalked up to the fact that it’s the first episode and everything is new, or that this show’s taping, which I understand took several hours to complete, might have caused some distractions that translate on camera, but Lane doesn’t seem to be quite on top of his game just yet. He seems to miss some opportunities while chatting with the contestants, as if he’s not really listening to what they’re saying. Still, this isn’t really a show that requires a dynamic personality for host, and he doesn’t really distract me from the game, so I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for now and look forward to him growing more comfortable and confident in the role.

The set gets the lowest score: I hate it. I grew up in the 1970s, when game shows looked more like carnivals with festive music, bright colors and lots of blinking lights. I have never been a fan of theater-in-the-round, minimalist sets with “Armageddon-style” lighting in which attention is focused to a “pit” as if hungry lions are about to be let in. It has been done to death, and when there’s no “million dollar drama” at stake, it almost becomes a charicature of itself. As I said, the original set wasn’t the greatest in the world, but this new version looks too much like it’s been recycled from some other show that used a similar layout. And the audience — which doesn’t need to be in the background anyway — at times almost looks uninterested. Also, there’s no game board: computer graphics superimposed on the screen serve that function instead…another pet peeve of mine.

The show’s producer says that one of the main things he wanted to focus on was increasing “playalongability.” If you’re trying to create a successful game show, creating a game that makes it easy for the home audience to play along is critical. And if this was the primary goal for the remake, then I’d have to say that they succeeded. By comparison, this new version, with its accelerated pace, is more interesting to watch and easier to play from the comfort of your armchair.

This time, instead of random celebrities — since these days most celebrities are people you’ve barely heard of, anyway — the teams consist of three men versus three women. Instead of the 25-point scoring, they play four chains, with the final one adding the option for teammates to wager their earnings on each word. A nice touch that adds a little extra strategy to the show.

They’ve also added a “speed chain” at the end of each round which gives the teams a chance at extra money. The speed chain consists of four words, with only the first letters of the middle two shown. If the team can figure out the missing words within a time limit, they add to their score, taking them into the final round with more money to wager.

The new version also has the alternating word end game, with the third contestant blindfolded. (I don’t recall whether the original used a blindfold, and I wonder why it’s necessary here.) If they get seven words in 90 seconds, they double the money they’ve won so far. If they make it to ten, they triple their money. Apparently, some math whiz at the show has calculated that $25,000 is the top anyone could win.

I can think of a few shows I’d rather see brought back from the cancellation graveyard, but as remakes go, it could have been much worse.

Using a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest, I’d rate it this way:

BASIC GAME: 4
BONUS ROUND: 3
PRIZE(S): 4
PACING: 4
HOST: 2.5
SET: 1.5
MUSIC: 2
PLAY-ALONG FACTOR: 4

OVERALL: 3.2

Like I said…it could have been much worse. If you have GSN, tune in at 9:00pm Eastern this Tuesday, August 1st, for the premiere. I’d be interested to know your impressions of the show as well.

In the next couple of days, I’ll also be reviewing a second new show GSN will roll out on Tuesday: “Starface” with Danny Bonaduce.

Over at “The Blue Voice,” two recent posts are worth mentioning. The first, called “Trust,” is an anti-war message that begins with this:

“The most important thing I’ve ever learned from religion, is that religion was created to divide us, not to allow us to live in peace.”

I don’t really believe that, but I’m sure there are a lot of people who do. Religion, when practiced by religious people who live their lives the way they should, is supposed to unite us. But when religion divides, it’s generally been my experience that the failure is on the part of the people who embrace it, not the institution itself.

Still, it’s a little ironic for a political blog to run such a criticism — and I’m assuming that comment is intended to be a criticism — of religion. Are we supposed to believe that politics are meant to unite everyone? There certainly doesn’t seem to be much evidence of that.

One doesn’t have to read very many posts at either “The Blue Voice” or “The Red Voice,” or any other all-politics-all-the-time site to quickly get the impression that there’s not much spirit of unity to be found there. A lot of finger pointing, a lot of sweeping generalizations and a lot of mean-spirited rhetoric may be “preaching to the choir” if you happen to agree with the points being made; but if you don’t, where’s the gesture of unity?

If things that divide us are worth criticism, should we expect the political bickering at either end of the spectrum to end? I’m not holding my breath.

The second post is called “Bush’s Stem Cell Hypocricy” and deals with President Bush’s first-ever veto which he used last week against a bill that would have provided federal funding for stem cell research.

Those who were in favor of that bill — and I’m one of them — argued that stem cell research provides great hope for treatment of terrible diseases like ALS, MS, Parkinson’s Disease and Alzheimer’s Disease. There is also hope in the medical community that spinal and brain injuries can be better treated with what is developed through this research.

The post cites this statement from Bush:

“This bill would support the taking of innocent human life in the hope of finding medical benefits for others,” Bush said Wednesday afternoon. “It crosses a moral boundary that our decent society needs to respect. So I vetoed it.”

It then argues that since Bush is saying that the taking of innocent life is murder, he should make stem cell research illegal and those researchers should be arrested for murder; to do otherwise is to be hypocritical, because if he has such a moral problem with the controversial research, he should be fighting to make sure it never happens, not worrying about who is funding it.

The post also takes a break from the main point to take a jab at Bush’s recent photo-op with families of children created from “adopted” frozen embryos that had gone unused at fertility clinics, accusing Bush of using those kids as “props.” John Kerry paraded all of those veterans around to spotlight his military service, a decade after criticizing Republicans for making an issue of Bill Clinton’s lack thereof. But at the time, Kerry’s supporters weren’t likely to entertain the notion that their candidate was using the veterans as props. Sure, the veterans wanted to show they support and wanted to take a stand. But so did the families of those children. It would seem that all politicians are quite capable of using people as props.

But back to the main issue…

My problem with the “moral highground” approach to opposing stem cell research is this: if all life is sacred, then how can you support the death penalty? Granted, I do support the death penalty, but I support it in cases in which the evidence is irrefutable and the defendant’s guilt of capital murder unquestionable. Some of the same people who oppose stem cell research also support the death penalty.

But there’s a problem there. If all life is sacred, then even the life of the convicted murderer must be sacred. If all life is to be valued, even the potential lives of the unborn, shouldn’t the lives of those who already actually exist count at least as much? Even if they’ve done the unthinkable, by the logic of the stem cell argument, should they never be put to death?

You’ll note that the president’s statement was careful to include the word “innocent” in its phrasing. And undoubtedly, the death penalty issue is why that word appears in his remarks. This is where a lot of death penalty supporters will argue that ridding the world of a killer will serve as a deterrant to others who might contemplate murder. In that scenario (and without a flawed system that spends more than a decade in costly legal battles before an execution can even happen) the death of the one preson would save the lives of the innocent.

If you cannot think of stem cell research as anything more than “taking a life,” then isn’t stem cell research also a matter of taking one life to save the lives of others? As soon as you put the first condition on the value of human life — for death penalty supporters, that condition is that those who kill innocent people don’t deserve to live — then you cannot say that you value all human life equally.

As I see it, there is too much hope in stem cell research for it not to be supported. When it comes to war, we are quick to point out that the loss of one life is one too many. If embryonic cells can pave the way for treatments that can save countless more lives than the unborn lives it would not allow to be born, can you really argue that there’s no merit in it?

There are those who argue that unborn children should never be aborted because they can contribute to mankind. What if the stem cells harvested from one unborn fetus could lead scientists to the cure for a previously-incurable illness? Can you think of a better contribution to mankind?

It came by no means as a surprise, as I had noted my slacks getting slowly tighter, that I had lost more ground in the battle of the bulge.

Feeling “blah” can encourage you to eat. Eating can make you feel a little less “blah,” at least while you are actually eating. But the more you eat, the more you gain, and the more you gain, the more “blah” you feel, which sends you to the rerigerator more often in an attempt to feel a little less “blah” again.

Get the idea?

Yeah, I know: I’ve said it before. But here we go again: I have recently gone back on the diet, after having regained all but about three pounds of the 18 or so I had lost since January.

(I wonder how many spam comments this entry will receive because I used the words “eat” and “diet.” You’ll never see them, of course, because I won’t allow them in.)

As of today, I’ve lost seven pounds from where I re-started, which means I’m nine and a half pounds down from where I was on January 1st. I ran across a blog the other day in which the blogger always adds the results of his latest weigh-in at the bottom of each post, no matter what the topic. I’m not that brave just yet. Suffice it to say that I am now back in the…gulp!…260s again. It could be, and has been, worse.

Last week at the gym, I had the chance to talk to one of the regulars I see in there. I normally will nod my head and say hello as people pass by, but I’m slow to start a conversation. It’s a little intimidating to strike up a discussion with someone who looks like they could bench-press you with one hand while competing in a triathalon.

This guy is 24, and looks like he’s in training for some sport that requires strength in all directions…the kind of sport I’d avoid like the plague. He seems like a really nice guy, which surprised me for reasons I didn’t really understand, until we started talking about people’s preconceived notions about others.

“People think that because I look like this, I have to be this big jerk.” (Jerk is not what he said, but since I try to go with “broadcast standards,” I made a substitution.) It’s easy to make these kind of snap judgments, based wholly on our worst experiences with similar people. This kid — I feel old enough at this moment that I can call someone of 24 a “kid” — is no jerk.

I won’t go into any long lecture about how wrong it is to judge people this way; that’s so obvious that no one should need to be reminded of it, even though most of us make the same value judgements based on appearances every day. I also won’t entertain the whole “blame the media” game that accuses them of parading only “beautiful people” past the cameras; if those “beauties” didn’t sell, the media would be searching high and low for the more “average” types. The media is business, after all: they don’t really give a damn what body type turns the audience on so long as they find it.

This country’s obsession with food, and that’s putting it mildly, should be irradicated by the endless stream of research that shows how dangerous and unhealthy being overweight is. Our guilt caused by wearing clothes that are nearly bursting at the seams when others can’t afford more than one meal a day should turn us away from the refrigerator. (And we needn’t look to third-world countries for poverty: try visiting places like Appalachia to get a look at true poverty right here in this country, if you have the stomach for it.)

Family and good friends, and the propect of living longer lives spent in their company, should be enough to make us all exercise regularly. The prospect of being able to make more friends thanks to the self-confidence a healthier frame should provide ought to make everyone want to hit the treadmill.

There are plenty of reasons to lose weight. Few of them actually work.

They solve crimes with the greatest of ease, sniffing out clues that most of the rest of us would never notice. Supersleuths are the subject of this week’s edition.

But first, Julia, of “Aesthetic Vibes,” was first to play last week for the second week in a row! Congratulations again, Julia!

On to this week’s question!

THIS WEEK’S QUESTION:
Name seven of your favorite fictional detectives.

Either answer the question in a comment or answer it in your journal and include the link in a comment. (To be considered “first to play,” a link must be to the specific entry in which you answered the question.)

My answers:
1. Sherlock Holmes
2. Hercule Poirot (but Peter Ustinov is my definitive Poirot!)
3. Lt. Columbo
4. Gil Grissom, et al. (from “CSI:”)
5. Adrian Monk
6. Dr. R. Quincy, M.E.
7. Lt. Jack Daniels (from J.A. Konrath’s novels)

Here we go with another installment of questions. If you’d like to submit one, click the email link in my profile and send it to me.

But first, Julia of “Aesthetic Vibes” was first to play last week for the second week in a row. Congratulations again, Julia!

Here are this week’s “Saturday Six” questions. Either answer the questions in a comment here, or put the answers in an entry on your journal…but either way, leave a link to your journal so that everyone else can visit! To be counted as “first to play,” you must be the first player to either answer the questions in a comment or to provide a complete link to the specific entry in your journal in which you answer the questions. A link to your journal in general cannot count. Enjoy!

1. If you had the chance to press a button and find out for sure whether or not God exists, would you take that risk, even if it meant that believers might find out there isn’t one or that non-believers might find out that there is?

2. Whatever your position on your belief of God, if you found out beyond any doubt that you were wrong, how much do you think you would change how you live your life?

3. In honor of Planters‘ 100th birthday, what’s your favorite kind of nut?

4. Looking back over your high school years, what label would best describe your personality?

5. Take the quiz: How controlling are you? (Thanks to Shelly.)

6. Did you expect a higher or lower score?

If you have a Reader’s Choice question you’d like to see asked (and answered), click the e-mail link in the Blogger profile and send it to me.

MY ANSWERS:

1. Yes. I’m confident enough in my beliefs that I would have no fear in pressing the button.

2. I don’t think it would radically change how I act if I found out that there really was no God. I try to do what’s right according to my conscience, and I feel like I make a good effort at treating people well.

3. Pistachio

4. Nerd

5. You Are 68% Control Freak

You are a pretty major control freak, though you may not know it.
While your confidence is inspiring, your bossy ways tend to scare people off.

6. Before taking the test, I expected higher. When I saw the questions, I figured it would be closer to about 70%. I think my novel is a result of me being a control freak.

I was under the impression that I had successfully instructed AOL to forward my emails to my Gmail account. I was assisted in this misunderstanding by AOL itself, since I only get AOL Journal alerts at the Gmail address now.

In any case, I signed on briefly to AOL’s Webmail page, something I hadn’t done (and had no reason to think I needed to do) since May. I had 556 emails waiting for my attention.

Are you kidding me??

The majority of them were news alerts from MSNBC and CBS News. There were a few from some bill payment services I use, but that I visit on my own without their email prodding. There were a number of spam messages; apparently, when one stops paying AOL, their highly-touted spam controls fall down a few pegs.

One of them came from Paypal. At least, that’s what the address said. But as I read it, I was confident that this didn’t come from Paypal.

I found five obvious “red pen” problems very quickly:

1. “Please read this message and follow it’s instructions.”
It’s is a contraction and is short for “it is.” They didn’t need the apostrophe. On the other hand, I suppose I should give them half a point for not trying to force an apostrophe in to make instructions plural.

2. “Due to these technical updates, your account has been flagged…”
This is one of my all-time biggest grammar pet peeves. “Due to” is not the same as “because of.” The real explanation centers on adverb phrases versus adjective phrases and just complicated to make most people’s eyes glaze over. But I’ll simplify the whole thing for you with this: if you’re writing a sentence with “due to” and you can’t substitute the phrase “caused by,” and have the sentence still make sense, then use “because of” instead.

3. “To Confirm Your Identity click the link below, Please make sure you do this in a timely fashion…”
Without spending much time on the unnecessary capitalization of the words confirm, your and identity, it should have been obvious to the writer of this email that the needed a period after the word below, not a comma. But hey, they got the Paypal logo just right!

4. “…we look forward of bringing you updates regularly”
Most people look forward to things. Maybe this is an overseas operations where English is a third or fourth language?

5. “Please make sure you do this in a timely fashion as we look forward of bringing you updates regularly_“
They went from using a comma when they needed a period to just forgetting about the end-of-the-sentence punctuation completely here. Their poor English teachers are probably just coming out of it by now. Nurse!!

Maybe it was written by some teenage hacker who slept through his grammar lessons. I can’t imagine many people believing that writing like this would seem legit. After all, would you trust your sensitive personal information with someone who composes a letter like this?

I attended, out of curiosity, an open forum on self-publishing on Sunday afternoon. I was alerted to this forum by an article about the self-publishing industry in the last week’s edition of Style Weekly, a free newspaper in Richmond. Three statements in this article jumped off the page at me.

Early into the piece, the writer gives a few hypothetical scenarios that others have used as excuses to self-publish their work, then writes a line that strikes me as being something right out of a vanity press’s sales pitch:

“These are a few of the reasons more writers are choosing to avoid waiting for a weary, cynical editor or agent to push their manuscript to the bottom of the slush pile and are publishing their books themselves.”

I don’t suppose it’s remotely possible that these stereotypical editors and agents are weary and cynical because the majority what they receive actually belongs in the slush pile, is it?

The article focuses on the fact that getting a self-published book on book store shelves is difficult because they pose a financial risk, in that they are not returnable and that they have not been screened by agents or editors. But it begins the paragraph that addresses these facts with this:

“We may not judge a book by its cover, but what about judging a book by its publisher?”

I, for one, do judge a book, in part, by its cover. In fact, if it’s an author I’m not familiar with, the cover will play a major role in whether I pick up the book to read a few pages. If the cover of a book wasn’t important, all books would have covers with nothing but the title and author’s name. There would be no cover art, no design at all. The title also plays a role in enticing me to pick up the book.

It’s not that people who refuse to carry a self-published book are judging a book by the publisher: they’re judging a book by its profitability. If they figure they can’t make money on the book, why would anyone expect them to carry it? Likewise, if the authors weren’t convinced they could be successful — one way or another — by self-publishing, why would they bother at all?

But put yourself in the place of the book stores.

Suppose you came up with a design for the next great American automobile. You sent your idea to Ford, GM, Chrysler and every other major manufacturer you could think of. None of them seemed interested. So you decide that you’d build the car yourself, hiring a small company to assemble your parts. Then you take the car to local car lots and try to get them to sell it. How many takers do you think you’d have? It isn’t that your creation is shabby. (It may be, and you might not realize it; but for the sake of argument, let’s assume that it’s a great car.) The car lots know the reputation of the “major” automakers. They know good cars when they see them based on their prior records. They don’t know you from Adam. How can they trust you to have manufactured a car as reliable when you’ve never built one before? And without a lot of studying, certainty that their customers want a car just like the one you’ve delivered and a leap of faith, how can they buy your car from you when they’re sure they can get a bigger sale from someone else’s car, and when they might not be able to return your car if they can’t sell it? It doesn’t make financial sense.

The article mentions one local book store in particular that makes it a point to stock a “tremendous” number of self-published books. Good for them. But even so, there’s this:

“Some are awful,” the book store owner admits. “But some are really very good. The word ‘self-published’ should not be an immediate brick wall.”

I’d have to disagree with this. It should be a brick wall. Not high enough that an author can’t climb over it, but at least enough of an obstacle that any retailer should take an extra moment before blindly stocking the book.

Now that anyone can publish a book of any quality, which these writers acknowledge is a problem, there has to be some kind of standard to protect the consumers. At the forum, the book store owner acknowledged the fact that she and her co-workers do have to screen a self-published book very carefully before deciding whether they will sell it; they don’t accept everything that comes their way.

Somewhere down the line, if there is no accountability on the publishing side when it comes to quality control, there should be that much more accountability on the retailer side. Those of us who do write can usually spot bad writing when we see it, unless of course the writing is our own and then it’s harder. But a consumer who purchases a horribly-written book that happens to have been self-published won’t automatically know that it was self-published. They’ll just know that book sucks. And if that reader happens to be trying a new genre that you or I happen to write in, and their first and only exposure to it is that bad book, there may not be a second chance: the reader might stick to the “big names” or other genres, and that affects the rest of us, self-published or not.

The forum itself was attended by about 35 people. I was struck immediately by the fact that I was about the second-youngest person in the room. The majority of the people looked to be in their sixties, which leads me to believe that they have either waited to attempt to write their great American novel, or that they feel that at their age, self-publishing is their only chance of getting published in their lifetime.

To be expected, there was that brief mention of names of famous authors who started as self-published authors. No discussion of self-publishing enthusiasts can exist without that. I listened to people who had published a few books, shelling out thousands of dollars for as many as 1000 copies and as few as 20. I heard one writer say one of the books he self-published was a disaster because at the last minute the contract his publisher had with a distribution company (that would have gotten him into Amazon.com and others) was inexplicably broken, and he was stuck with no easy way to get his books sold.

Some feel that having a book make them appear more authoritative when they give talks to local groups. I’m sure it does, because the audience probably isn’t told that the only reason they have a book is because they published it themselves. If you can imagine an audience’s opinion on your “authority” changing if they were told you published the work yourself rather than a big publisher being so impressed with what you wrote that they sent you a check for the opportunity to publish it, then you can see that this marketing tactic might have some questionable ethics.

But then came the defining moment for this talk: someone else suggested that using friends and family as editors can be nicer, since professional editors can be “brutal.” She described the scene of an editor pulling out the red pen and marking up your manuscript, and then returning pages that “look like they‘re bleeding.”

That got me thinking: How much of self-publishing is about avoiding reality? How much motive is there in pretending that your writing is a lot better than it is, and that those rejections you receive from traditional publishers must be because the publishers are the problem?

Sure, it would be unfair to portray all self-publishers this way, and there are valid reasons to self-publish.

But writers who seem to want only a “kid-gloves” edit don’t strike me as being all that concerned about growing in their craft. Either you want the truth, and all of the truth, when it comes to a critique, or you just want readers who’ll pat you on the head and congratulate you for just having tried.