I haven't written anything in quite a while, but admittedly not for lack of inspiration. There's been a ton of stuff I've wanted to write about (and could have) but then got distracted with something else and by the time I got around to it again, it was "old news." Enough excuses though...
Lately, as I've grown bored of listening to the same music over and over again, I've started watching various TV shows from hulu in my office while I'm working (I can't work without music or tv...some kind of background noise). Hulu is pretty cool I've discovered--I've re-watched all the episodes of Kitchen Nightmares (rules), kept up with Hell's Kitchen and even stumbled upon some new shows--Ghost Hunters and Ghost Hunters International (I've always been fascinated with "reality" paranormal investigator shows) and a ridiculously entertaining show called Destination Truth. I'll leave you to check the show out if I've sufficiently piqued your interest but suffice to say that any show where they're investigating "Icelandic Elves" is worth watching.
I was looking for something new today when I happened upon the show Fringe. The commercials I've seen for it have looked mildly interesting.and people I know have said it's decent, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Turns out it is a pretty darn good show and its overall "subject" is definitely thought-provoking (if far-fetched)--a group of government agents who use so-called "fringe" science to investigate bizarre crimes. By bizarre, I mean things like people who have their brains liquefied by a pattern flashed on their computer or a commercial air flight terrorized by a passenger who transforms into a werewolf-looking creature during the flight. The episodes on hulu don't start until 8 or 9 so I didn't see the beginning of the series but a lot of the episodes I've seen so far seem to have some plot line (either minor or major, depending on the episode) related to bio or chemical terrorism that is eventually thwarted by the team (who are supposed to be part of Homeland Security).
Sure, this stuff is really far-fetched but it watching these episodes today reminded me of a thought that occurred to me last night (although I think the episode was from earlier in the week--I was watching it on DVR) while watching news coverage about the swine flu on Glenn Beck. He had on a guest who was talking about swine flu and I heard him mention something about the only possible "good" effect might be some degree of stabilization of the chaotic Mexican government that we've been hearing about so much before the new story of swine flu took over. Over the past month, I was hearing on a daily basis about the "imminent danger" to the U.S. posed by lawless Mexican drug gangs and the inability for the corrupt Mexican government to do anything about it. Now, I'm actually rather ashamed to admit that it occurred to me that I thought it would be entirely plausible that our government would somehow covertly release a virus into another country in order to serve its own purposes somehow. This is the kind of stuff that happens in TV shows (like Fringe)...not in "real life," right? You'll probably be pleased to know that after thinking about the situation for a few minutes (at least given what I know now) it really doesn't make sense that the U.S. government would have been behind the swine flu outbreak in Mexico. What is particularly disturbing to me, however, is that I still believe it's entirely possible our government would do such a thing in general.
A second--and related--thought I had while watching Fringe (who knew a sci-fi TV show could be so thought-provoking?) was about what sorts of weird, grotesque experiments the government (of course, not only the government) could be conducting in secret. Is it really so out of the realm of possibility that there are horribly wild genetic mutations or some sort of wacko genetic engineering that could turn a person into a wolf-looking creature? I'm not a biologist or geneticist but genetic mutations can do crazy, crazy things (take a look at trimethylaminuria, alkaptonuria or harlequin ichthyosis for just a few examples)...and if this is true, it's not such a stretch to think that the government or whoever could figure out how to do these things intentionally.
This is disturbing to me, in particular because I see hints of these things happening now--the various stories about cloning that pop up periodically; genetic selection; strange medical experiments and they're usually played off and accepted by most in the name of "curing disease" or equally as dubious. Coincidentally, I happened to see this headline from a Yahoo! news article as I was getting ready to shut down my computer before leaving work: "SKorean experts claim to have cloned glowing dogs." This is scary stuff, folks...
(Photo from Yahoo!)
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