is it a conspiracy?
I think so. I think there are forces at work choosing to reveal earth-shattering news right before the election. It certainly has distracted me somewhat.
Now, it would have been all to obvious if it were, say, the discovery of Osama bin Laden, but I think this is more subtle, perhaps an attempt to distract the geek vote. The story headline caught my eye on Yahoo: Scientists Find Prehistoric Dwarf Skeleton. I got excited immediately. I have a soft spot for cavemen (and cavewomen), both of the scientific and sci-fi movie variety. I'm a big Kennewick Man fan, which started from when I first heard the unlikely story of two kids finding a skull in the river and it turned out to be so rare and old. Later, I was sort of tickled by the tactic employed by scientists whereby they tried to assert that perhaps Kennewick Man was a Pacific Islander (my joke was that we'd finally found the first Asian American). And, in a perfect storm of science and scifi crossing over, the clay model head of Kennewick Man looked surprisingly like Captain Picard from ST:TNG. In fact one of the anthropologists trying to study K-man even mentioned that, and was accused of making this assertion to undercut the case of Native Americans who are pushing for immediate reburial. Perhaps K-man was related to Kirok:
So I was excited about potential new species, named Homo floresiensis, or Flores Man (even though the skeleton they found was a woman). And, as if to satisfy the scifi bones in my body, they're calling this thing a hobbit, and envisioning a fantastic life, as explained in sentences such as "it hunted pygmy elephants and dodged Komodo dragons." Oh, and we're getting great news headlines like:
Hobbit-size skull holds surprises
Indonesia may be teeming with Hobbits
and:
Good hair day for Hobbit hunters
Sometimes they put Hobbit in quotes, but usually they don't. I immediately emailed a friend (he's overseas or else I would have called him) who appreciates this kind of stuff too, and he emailed back with another bit of news I completely missed:
'New' Giant Ape found in DR Congo
Now, it makes sense that I might have missed it while he didn't, as he's a vintage horror & monster movie collector, so he's usually up on the latest giant ape news, wherease the evolutionary stuff is more my arena as I've been a science & nature geek since grade school.
It's too much new and exciting stuff to process, taking precious brain cells away from the impending election. You may poo-poo my thinking - asknig "why would it be of interest to thwart the all important fans-of-cavemen-and-giant-ape vote?" - but I became fully convinced at lunch today when I was reading the living section of the PI and saw this article:
Long-Lost Final Film by Ed Wood Rediscovered
See? Whoever "they" are, they're pulling out all the stops... nerds of all varieties, beware...
Now, it would have been all to obvious if it were, say, the discovery of Osama bin Laden, but I think this is more subtle, perhaps an attempt to distract the geek vote. The story headline caught my eye on Yahoo: Scientists Find Prehistoric Dwarf Skeleton. I got excited immediately. I have a soft spot for cavemen (and cavewomen), both of the scientific and sci-fi movie variety. I'm a big Kennewick Man fan, which started from when I first heard the unlikely story of two kids finding a skull in the river and it turned out to be so rare and old. Later, I was sort of tickled by the tactic employed by scientists whereby they tried to assert that perhaps Kennewick Man was a Pacific Islander (my joke was that we'd finally found the first Asian American). And, in a perfect storm of science and scifi crossing over, the clay model head of Kennewick Man looked surprisingly like Captain Picard from ST:TNG. In fact one of the anthropologists trying to study K-man even mentioned that, and was accused of making this assertion to undercut the case of Native Americans who are pushing for immediate reburial. Perhaps K-man was related to Kirok:
So I was excited about potential new species, named Homo floresiensis, or Flores Man (even though the skeleton they found was a woman). And, as if to satisfy the scifi bones in my body, they're calling this thing a hobbit, and envisioning a fantastic life, as explained in sentences such as "it hunted pygmy elephants and dodged Komodo dragons." Oh, and we're getting great news headlines like:
Hobbit-size skull holds surprises
Indonesia may be teeming with Hobbits
and:
Good hair day for Hobbit hunters
Sometimes they put Hobbit in quotes, but usually they don't. I immediately emailed a friend (he's overseas or else I would have called him) who appreciates this kind of stuff too, and he emailed back with another bit of news I completely missed:
'New' Giant Ape found in DR Congo
Now, it makes sense that I might have missed it while he didn't, as he's a vintage horror & monster movie collector, so he's usually up on the latest giant ape news, wherease the evolutionary stuff is more my arena as I've been a science & nature geek since grade school.
It's too much new and exciting stuff to process, taking precious brain cells away from the impending election. You may poo-poo my thinking - asknig "why would it be of interest to thwart the all important fans-of-cavemen-and-giant-ape vote?" - but I became fully convinced at lunch today when I was reading the living section of the PI and saw this article:
Long-Lost Final Film by Ed Wood Rediscovered
See? Whoever "they" are, they're pulling out all the stops... nerds of all varieties, beware...