Edward Lorenz, RIP

Life, with it's many strange attractors, has come to a conclusion for one Edward Lorenz, one of the pioneers of chaos theory.

Somewhere, a butterfly is sadly flappings it wings.

Bat Boy, RIP

I have never approved on magazines like The National Enquirer or The Sun. I've always considered them to be exercises in tawdriness; deliberate appeals to that which is the basest part of our nature. That said, I have always been fond of The Weekly World News. Although it shared tabloid space with those other magazines, I always considered it to be a self-aware parody of those other magazines.

I don't think that the editors of the WWN ever expected people to believe that Bat Boy was alive and well, or that Ross Perot was meeting with aliens, or that Dick Cheney was a robot (okay, maybe the last). The WWN's goal was outlandishness and it did its job well. That said, one thing I especially liked is that some small percentage of their stories would be legitimate, albeit weird (and usually spun in a way to make them weirder) so it was always a challenge to distinguish between the genuine and the faux lunacy.

I sometimes wondered what it would be like to live in that hallucinatory parallel world that it depicted: a place where toasters could be possessed by the souls of the departed, a place where arctic bore holes could pierce the very bowels of hell, a place where zombies formed labor unions. I even toyed with the idea of using it as source-material for an X-Files on steroids RPG game.

I am sad to report that the Weekly World News is soon to be no more. Readership has been declining for years now (exacerbated by a change in owners and editorial direction) and the publishers have decided to pull the plug. The last issue will be printed on August the 27th. I hope it'll have a Bat Boy headline.

Ingmar Bergman, RIP

I would seem that Swedish film maker and auteur Ingmar Bergman has finally lost the Great Chess Game at the venerable age of eighty-nine.

I think that this is a perfect opportunity to suggest that you go out and rent a copy of The Seventh Seal, which is largely regarded as his magnum opus.

The Seventh Seal is the story of a knight returning from the Crusades during a time of plague. Early in the film, he encounters Death (a scene often parodied, as with Budweiser's "Sad Clown of Death") who challenges him to a game of chess. What follows is something that is simultaneously meditative, poignant, wry, thought provoking and beautiful

If you're worried that it's going to be just another incomprehensible foreign film, I will assure you that it's perfectly accessible and very easy to enjoy and appreciate. To be sure, it is a deeply philosophical movie and, given that the topic is death and the meaning of life, it isn't what I would call light; never the less, unlike too many supposed classics, it's not the sort of film that tries to prove to the audience that the director is so much smarter than they are by way of baroque and pointless complexity. Indeed, the plot is remarkably straightforward.

Steve Irwin, Dead at 44

I'll spare everyone the dumb "crikey!" jokes. Steve "Crocodile Hunter" Irwin has died due to injuries inflicted by a sting ray while filming an episode for his daughter's TV show.

Although most people will remember Irwin for his over-the-top persona and his daredevil reputation, I think his real legacy is as a conservationist and environmentalist who has helped to save countless endangered animals.

Requiem in Pace, mate.

Peter Jennings, RIP

Peter Jennings succumbed to lung cancer yesterday.

Jennings may well have been the last of the Great Anchormen; a final gasp of a legacy exemplified by such men as Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow. In today's world of unceasing news coverage, the news has been explicitly redefined to be a type of entertainment. Indeed, the CNN website's story on Jennings death, gruesomely enough, is found in that very section of the site. Jennings, however, was from an older school of thought that considered journalism to be a kind of civic duty with an associated list of responsibilities that journalists had with respect to the public.

Jennings own journalistic career had a number of remarkable highlights, including coverage of the slaying of Jewish athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972. What I will remember, however, is his coverage of 9/11. During the four days that followed the attack, Jennings worked what was, essentially, a 96 hour work shift, taking a handful of catnaps between segments and shaving during his rare moments off camera. As much as the sheer dedication to reporting the event, what was just as remarkable was the tone of his coverage. He didn't pander to sensationalism or panic and he refused to engage in wild acts of speculation. He simply reported what was happening in a calm (and calming), rational tone of voice.

I will miss him. Televised news coverage has reached a nadir. These days, most people get the bulk of their news from the internet with some supplementation from radio and the (fairly unreliable) blogs that are trying to become the "new journalism". I do believe that there are still principled journalists out there, but I doubt that we'll be seeing another of that breed in the anchor seat anytime soon. Those days are gone I mourn their passing even as I mourn the passing of one such man.