Friday, August 31, 2012

Death Comes for Bigfoot


A man in Montana was recently killed while attempting to hoax a bigfoot sighting.  He ran onto a highway while wearing a ghillie suit, and was hit by two cars.  (A ghillie suit is a form of camouflage used by hunters and snipers, with a texture that resembles shaggy fur, and a name that recalls an unfortunate Kristen Wiig character.)  

I have wondered for a while about a similar potential situation.  What would the legal fallout be if someone dressed in a bigfoot costume in a forest were to be shot?  Would the shooter be charged with murder or manslaughter, on the grounds that he should have known that bigfoot does not exist, which is the overwhelming consensus among zoologists?  Or would he be charged with some lesser offense, or not at all, because he legitimately believed himself to be killing a non-human creature, even if such a belief is not scientifically supported?  I don't know enough about criminal law to provide an answer, but someday someone may have to provide the answer in real life.

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Random Observations (August 16, 2012)


It seems to take me days or weeks to write a traditional blog entry, so I am trying some smaller random observations.  

1) When I hear the new Taylor Swift single, "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together", the spoken word section reminds me of the Frank Zappa song "Valley Girl".  For what it's worth, though, Taylor Swift is moving to a mansion in Hyannis Port, and not to a really good part of Encino.  

2) On television commercials in which people brush their teeth, they never use toothpaste.  

3) This is not exactly current events, but I have been thinking that virtually every character on the show Happy Days had a name that ended in an "e" sound—Fonzie, Richie, Potsie, Joanie, and Chachi.  The only one of the younger generation of characters whose name ended with a consonant sound was Ralph Malph. (When I watched Happy Days as a very young child, I was not clear on phonetic concepts, and so I thought that Ralph Malph was Ralph Mouth.)

4) I recently learned that former Dire Straits keyboardist Alan Clark and former Dire Straits saxophonist Chris White have formed a band (along with the drummer from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and some other people) called the Straits to fulfill the demand for public performances of Dire Straits songs.  (Dire Straits, in case you didn't know, broke up twenty years ago.)  That is not too surprising.  What is surprising is that they are writing and recording an album of new material, presumably in the style of Eighties Dire Straits.  But what will it sound like without Mark Knopfler (who will be touring this fall with Bob Dylan)?