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Assistant Editor / Co-moderator: Terence Nuzum
Established A.D. 2000, March 19. Now in our eleventh calendar year!
Number 557 (Vol. 11, No. 48). This edition is for the week of November 22--28, 2010.
Thanksgiving This has not been a good year for yours truly, nor for many close to him. Many challenging personal problems presented themselves including many shake-ups here at PCR. Then, of course, there are the few old friends who've passed on.
I do have a few things to be thankful for, of course. My health, such as it is, has stabilized for the moment. And I still have a small core group of loyal friends who've stuck with me and supported me through thick and thin over the years. Without them, I wouldn't---couldn't--- still be here doing this at all.
I'll be gearing up over the next few weeks to try and encapsulate the events of 2010 in the traditional PCR year-end two-parter. I promise there will be some surprises.
All Baby-Boomers carry some common memories and experiences that have influenced us from our formative years: among others, The Beatles, Vietman, Woodstock, the Moon landing, and many more. Most pivotally, I think, and the one that truly signaled the beginning of our "era" was the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy on November 22, 1963, 47 years ago. Our country changed irrevocably that day.
I was in the third grade and at school the day it happened, but I was old enough to appreciate the magnitude what was going on. They temporarily suspended classes to take us into chapel for some brief "counciling". The rest of the day became somewhat of a blur.
While I could probably write a book on the '60s experience, the main point of this brief reverie is not to examine how the '60s changed America (some other time, perhaps), but to identify the JFK assassination as the first to basically spawn the modern-day "conspiracy theory" institution. Yes, I'm aware conspiracy theories can be traced back to Lincoln and beyond, but for the purposes of the "modern era", for the Boomers, it all started with JFK.
Was Lee Harvey Oswald, the very odd political dissident drifter from New Orleans, the proverbial "Lone Gunmen" up in the 6th floor window of the Texas School Book Depository during that nightmare on Elm Street? Or were there other shooters, and a greater, wider conspiracy that reached all the way from gangland mobsters, to Cuba, to Russia, and all the way to the upper echelons of American government?
There is plenty of information about this at your local library and, of course, all over the internet, for those interested in following up on these questions.
After years of being a conspiratorialist, including a view that Oswald might not've even been involved at all, I've recently come to the inclination that although there most certainly was and is plenty of evidence of conspiracy of some sort, including a second shooter in the grassy knoll (I'm never giving up on that one!), or that he was actually gunning for Governor Conally (a personal favorite theory) Oswald's was very likely the bullet that blew Kennedy's head off. The dozens of books, movies, TV specials and the like paraded out over the past 47 years to plague us with doubt were basically packaged to appeal to Boomers as a guaranteed commodity. Like Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, UFOs (well, most of them), and the like, publishers found us easy pickin's for entertaining ourselves with the determination that we were all in on the "big secret" of something.
Now, please don't get me wrong, I am not putting a president's assassination in the same league with extraterrestrial invaders, or that Oswald's case was cut-and-dried simple with no conspiracy at all. Far from the case!
It's that as my generation ages, I think more and more of us realize that we are more entertained than enlightened by these topics that can have no real resolution and are, therefore, infinitely marketable.
2013 will mark the 50th anniversary of the assassination. I imagine there'll be all kinds of juicy conspiratorial goodies to consume! And naturally, I'll be first in line to gobble them up---assuming, of course, we survive the end of the world predicted by the Mayan Calendar to occur at the end of 2012. Pull up a chair and let me tell you about that one....
The recent release of "Harry Potter and the Deathy Hallows, Part 1" was the 6th largest opening in movie history with $125 million its first weekend. Observers have predicted that at the current rate, the Harry Potter series will soon overtake the Star Wars series as the world's all-time most successful.
The completist in me can't help but point out that these lists are based on not-accounting-for-inflation figures. The ones that do account for inflation probably still have Star Wars at the top. But don't quote me.
In last week's PCR I reported on the Rev. Cedric A. Miller's edict to log off of Facebook or log out of the Living Word Christian Fellowship Church in Neptune, NJ, citing it encouraged adultery amongst its members. I opined at the time that "methinks the Reverend himself may have dallied around Facebook where the faithful shouldn't go" and that somebody might've threatened to out him.
A recent update on the good Reverend had me shouting "I KNEW IT!" from the rooftops: it has come to light that he has offered to step down as pastor over a past affair that involved a three-way sexual relationship with his wife and a male church assistant! How scrumptous. The only thing that hasn't surfaced yet is why he decided to announce that now -- or who threatened to do it for him.
To be accurate I wasn't exactly right--the affair was in 2003, well before Facebook was even invented. But I was right about the motivation, hahaha.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO YOU AND YOURS!
POSTED BY NOLAN B. CANOVA, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2010
First, I want to wish all the friends and fans of CrazedFanboy.com a Happy and Safe Holiday Season! That said...
As submitted by PCR writers, compiled by Chris Woods
FANGRRL: THE TOP 30 SCI-FI, FANTASY AND HORROR ACTRESSES, #21-30
From 2009, Lisa Scherer starts her countdown of the top ladies of Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror.
ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE JFK ASSASSINATION
POSTED BY NOLAN B. CANOVA, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2010
HARRY POTTER SET TO BREAK STAR WARS RECORD
POSTED BY NOLAN B. CANOVA, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2010
UPDATE ON THE PREACHER WHO BANNED HIS FLOCK FROM FACEBOOK
POSTED BY NOLAN B. CANOVA, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2010
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