Reply #28: eh? . . . (and hey Wonk) [View All]

[iverglas]

"Actually, there aren't lots of fun things that are illegal.
Can you name a few fun things that can be done safely that are illegal?"

Who said anything about being done safely??

You see, without an intellectual around, demagogues might get away with all sorts of crap.

Fun is in the eye of the beholder, wouldn't you agree? Who would you, or I, be to say that going over Niagara Falls in a barrel isn't fun?

Did you ever see the video of the guy walking a tightrope between the twin towers of the WTC? (That was a horrible thing to watch. What he was doing was unsafe if only because people watching it could well have dropped dead of anxiety-induced heart attacks. The film wasn't a hoax, was it? I just rewatched Dark Side of the Moon, so I'm being retroactively suspicious.) He seemed to be having lots of fun.

And heck, he made it across in one piece, so I suppose it was safe, even though if he'd fallen he might have landed on a few people and smushed them. Of course, if I sneeze while I'm driving I might run into you and smush you too, but driving's still fun and legal while tightroping the WTC was illegal.

I'll bet driving drunk is lots of fun, and lots of people do it without smushing anybody at all.

And then there are all those people who get maimed or killed by people having legal fun with guns ...



_____

If you (in general) ever get a chance to see Dark Side of the Moon, don't miss it.
http://www.cbc.ca/passionateeyesunday/darksideofthemoon/about.html
You don't happen to have it on line somewhere, do you Wonk?

How could the flag flutter when there's no wind on the moon?

During an interview with Stanley Kubrick's widow an extraordinary story came to light. She claims Kubrick and other Hollywood producers were recruited to help the U.S. win the high stakes race to the moon.

In order to finance the space program through public funds, the U.S. government needed huge popular support, and that meant they couldn't afford any expensive public relations failures. Fearing that no live pictures could be transmitted from the first moon landing, President Nixon enlisted the creative efforts of Kubrick, who produced 2001: a Space Odyssey (1968), to ensure promotional opportunities wouldn't be missed. In return, Kubrick got a special NASA lens to help him shoot Barry Lyndon (1975). A subtle blend of facts, fiction and hypothesis around the first landing on the moon, Dark Side Of The Moon illustrates how the truth can be twisted by the manipulation of images.