Curiosity Valentine's topics - tribe.net

The 'Whatever Happened To Douglas MacArthur's Son?' Topic

2007-10-02T03:51:57Z

When I was a kid, I read "American Caesar," an almost-religious bio on Gen. Douglas MacArthur. The book mentioned several times that he had a son w/ his 2nd wife named "Arthur MacArthur IV" (Named after his dad and older brother). He completely disappears from the story, however, in a manner that (in retrospect) I can only imagine was because he became an embarassment to the author.

I was hunting around for info, and found this:

>>>MacArthur and his second wife, Jean Faircloth, are buried together in downtown Norfolk, Virginia; their burial site is in a small museum dedicated to his memory, and there is a major shopping mall named for him across the street from the burial site. The couple's son changed his surname and now lives anonymously as a saxophonist in the New York area.<<<

What the hell? I could understand that if you were Hitler's kid (Were such a thing possible), or even Jimmy Carter's kid (Who...ah, nevermind), but MacArthur? WTF?

posted in Curiosity Valentine - 4 replies

The "I'd vote for frank miller" topic.

2006-03-01T02:59:25Z

Actually, I wouldn't, as I'm not a voter. But if I were the kind of person who voted, the following comments from an interview w/ Frank would be the kinds of things that'd sway me into wasting my vote on him, rather than on a more traditional bloated white plutocrat:

Firstly, his thoughts on the war:
>>>FM: My next graphic novel, I’ve inked about 120 pages of it, so it’s a work in progress, and will probably be about 200 pages long – is called “Holy Terror, Batman!”

[audience applauds]
FM: And not to put too fine a point on it, it is a piece of propaganda. Batman kicks al-Qaeda’s ass.
[audience applauds]
CB: Alright – so in calling it propaganda, how do you want your art to impact the war effort?
FM: I want us to win the war…
[very minor applause]
FM: Oh, only a couple? I know this is San Francisco, but come on! What, you want to lose?
I’m doing this mainly as an explosion from my own gut in reaction to what’s happening now, but also as a reminder to people who’ve seem to have forgotten that we’re up against an utterly ruthless existential foe who is as vile as any we’ve ever faced. I’m appalled at the equivocations, and I wish that the entertainers of our time had the spine and the focus that the ones who faced down Hitler did.

[From audience: “Amen!”, applause] <<<

but far more tellingly, his comment on the nature of freedom in our current whiney-assed culture of letigious victimhood:

>>> FM: I’ve found that these days, everything is expressed as its reverse. And so, the very word “freedom,” one of our most important words, has switched from the freedom to do something to freedom from something. In other words, “freedom” means something you can’t do. Through all the various grievance groups, we’ve set up a very restrictive society where people are afraid to think things, let alone talk them if they stray from a kind of understood dictate. <<<

I was utterly surprised to hear something so clearheaded. Anyone got any thoughts?

posted in Curiosity Valentine - 7 replies

The Ragged Edge of the DCAU topic

2006-02-26T17:34:56Z

So Teen Titans is gone, Justice League is cancelled, the Doom Patrol series isn't gonna' go anywhere, I seriously doubt the Brave & the Bold series is gonna' go into production, and the only new show that looks like it has a shot is the Supergirl & the LEGION of Superheroes, which, alas, leaves me rather unimpressed.

After 16 years, we've come to the ragged edge of the DCAU, and, I dunno, what's there left to live for? I'm depressed...

posted in Curiosity Valentine - 29 replies

The Fake Memories For Fun And Profit Topic.

2006-02-20T18:33:14Z

Ok, so everyone's heard about Frey's "A million little pieces" fiasco, in which the reports of the authors (wild) life appear to have been greatly exaggerated. There's a couple other high-profile frauds making the rounds at the moment. Witness, for instance, Nasdijj:

Quote
Nasdijj (occasionally Yinishye Nasdijj) is the name taken by the author of three acclaimed books published between 2000 and 2004. Each book purported to recount various aspects of the author's life, including his Navajo heritage, his self-destructive and abusive parents, his unhappy childhood as a migrant worker, his dysfunctional relationships with other family members, and eventually his growing up to become the nurturing father of first an adopted child with fetal alcohol syndrome and then one who is HIV-positive.

The books published under Nasdijj's name are The Blood Runs Like a River Through My Dreams (2000), The Boy and the Dog Are Sleeping (2003), and Geronimo's Bones : A Memoir of My Brother and Me (2004).

In January 2006, LA Weekly ran a story, entitled "Navahoax," that made an apparently strong case that Nasdijj was in fact a non-Native American named Tim Barrus, previously best known as the author of fiction relating to gay sado-masochism. Endquote.

That's from Wikipedia, and here's another one that just broke:

Quote
JT LeRoy is the name used by an American author who has also published under the name Terminator and claimed to have been born October 31, 1980 in West Virginia. An exposé in October 2005 gave evidence that JT LeRoy was a hoax created by Laura Albert, and in January 2006 LeRoy's agent, manager, movie producer, as well as several journalists, declared that the LeRoy seen in public was Savannah Knoop, the half sister of Albert's then partner, Geoffrey Knoop. In a February 2006 interview, Geoffrey Knoop stated that Laura Albert was author of the LeRoy books. To date, Albert has neither confirmed nor denied that she is the writer behind the LeRoy books, and her former partner said he did not believe she would ever admit to her role in the scheme. Endquote

(Also from Wikipedia.) His/her books include "Sarah," "The Heart is Deceitful above all things" and "Harold's end."

I don't pretend to understand the outrage surrounding all this. They're books. Memoirs are notoriously dodgy at best (Read Kerouac lately, anyone? A whole hell of a lot of self-contradictions there, kids!), but as long as they're entertaining, who cares? Ya' pays your money and ya' takes your chances. (My own memoirs will tell the true story of my youth as a millionaire astronaut rock star and submarine captain, btw)

My real question, however, is this: is it somehow easier to get memoirs published than novels? Three publishers have said that Frey's book was submitted to them as a novel, and rejected, then he submitted it as a memoir, and there ya' go. I mean, if I try to publish my crappy little SF and alternate history stories as REAL, would that somehow be easier than if'n I tried to publish them as fiction?

posted in Curiosity Valentine - 20 replies

the H.P. Lovecraft Thread

2006-02-16T09:50:00Z

I'm sleepy as all get out right now, but creating this at Guy's suggestion. I'll opst something coherent (or, more appropriately, nightmarishly incoherent) about the subject later when i'm not recovering from bronchitis and having to get up at the crack of birdpoop to go to work tomorrow because i'm out of sickdays and don't want to get fired.

posted in Curiosity Valentine - 41 replies

The LOST Topic

2006-02-16T03:38:20Z

Soooooooooooo anybody here watch "LOST?"

I'm pretty much in love w/ the show. One thing I particularly like about it is that it's clearly an SF show, but most of the viewers don't seem to have caught on to that yet.

posted in Curiosity Valentine - 9 replies

The "Tribe is Now Evil" Topic

2006-02-12T21:03:47Z

So just when I get a few friends here, and we start posting, things always have a tendency to turn sour.
Tribe.net, with it's random pickiness and intermittent outages, has decided it is going to enforce the 2257 law about sexual content and such. Since we aren't particularly vocal about sexual matters here (and don't post naked pictures of ourselves), it won't really affect anything, but it is a pain in the ass for free speech and such.
This is quoted from an official post, so everyone knows what is going on:

"In response to the many comments, suggestions, and even rants over time, and a great deal of internal discussion and review, we're going to be making some changes in the near future on our Mature policy, and the TOU. We're also going to be introducing a new feature called Community Flagging.

This new system will replace our current Mature system altogether. The TOU is changing to prohibit content that "portrays obscenity, pornography, or sexually explicit conduct."

We expect these changes to happen on or about December 20th, depending on the vagaries of engineering all of this.

Why are we doing this? Three basic reasons:

1. We want Tribe to be a respectful, positive environment. Some users, even with the Mature system in place, were still coming across content they found offensive.

2. The legal environment for adult content online has changed dramatically.

3. It's more tribe-like for users to decide together what content is appropriate or not. This allows us to stop marking somebody's profile as "mature" if they have a single risque photo in it, etc."

So my options are to move us all to another locale, or to stick around here. I'm not up for programming my own message board, so that idea is out.

Curi.

posted in Curiosity Valentine - 31 replies

The I Think I'm Going To (Guardedly) Side W/ The Muslims On This One Topic

2006-02-11T14:31:57Z

Sooooooooooo....a Danish newspaper has gone out of it's way to publish editorial cartoons (Rather poor quality ones, at that) of Mohammed. This was something they knew full well was EXTREMELY offensive to Muslims, and they knew full well that it would provoke outrage and rioting. They did this on the heels of six weeks of muslim rioting in France, and they knew the situation was fragile, but, goddammit, they did it anyway.

To no one's surprise, there's riots in Europe, and pretty massive rioting in islamic countries in Asia. At least six people have died, dozens more have been injured, Iran has cut off all diplomatic relations w/ Denmark, and basically a whole world of hurt has come down on the Danes for their stupid-ass little stunt, which - to recap - consisted of deliberately doing something they knew would piss off people who are already agitated and prone to violence.

As I see it, the editor of the paper, and the artist who did the cartoon are responsible for willfully inciting riots, and the deaths and injuries arising from them.

I'm siding (Guardedly) w/ the muslims on this one. Anyone else got any opinions?

posted in Curiosity Valentine - 7 replies

The "That's the end of Arrested Development" topic

2006-02-11T14:07:08Z

I taped it and watched 'em all twice last night. I'm sadened by it's passing, but I thought the conclusion was pretty good, and my utterly useless sorrow is mitigated somewhat in the knowledge that this season was pretty damn lame compared to the previous two.

So what did ally'all think?

posted in Curiosity Valentine - 0 replies

the tv-series-on-dvd addict thread

2006-02-09T21:28:29Z

I need a 12 step propgram. I've already bought Sopranos season 1, i'm eyeballing Firefly and Sopranos season 2 for when I next get paid... damn these things are addictive.

posted in Curiosity Valentine - 9 replies

The Curi Is Out Of Town Topic

2006-02-06T00:20:08Z

So this isn't gonna' be like last time, is it, where Curi goes away and the entire forum grinds to a halt?

posted in Curiosity Valentine - 13 replies

The Movie Topic

2006-02-06T00:16:15Z

I like movies. The last good movie I saw was "It's All Gone, Pete Tong" even though it had overly sappy bits in it. But you can't go wrong with a cocaine fairy that is a man in a beat-up badger costume wearing an ill-fitting pink dress and fairy wings, complete with wand, who has coke smeared all over his nose.
Seen any good movies lately?

Curi.

posted in Curiosity Valentine - 63 replies

The Shooting Topic

2006-02-06T00:11:54Z

...So Gin Rummy n' me are going shooting tomorrow. Does anyone else on here ever do that kind of thing?

posted in Curiosity Valentine - 12 replies

Atomic Bombs Can Be Your Friends!

2006-02-04T19:18:15Z

I dunno if this is the right place to bring this up or not, but I'm kind of apalled w/ the direction the Thermonuclear Weapon Market has been taking lately. I mean, taking it as strictly a business thing, "the Bomb" hasn't really been, you know, "da Bomb" (In the hip street sense) it was expected to be, but rather something of "A bomb" (In the box office sense) over the last 50 years or so.

I mean, think about it: we invested 7.9 gazillion buttloads of money into developing these damn things, and we've only ever actually used two in anger? Any weapons manufacturer will tell you that's not really how to achieve market dominence. I mean, granted, yeah, you had some definite economic success with building the things, and pretty good markets for them in the US and USSR and Israel and China, but none of them ever got used, you know? that's like making cars that no one will drive, or growing food no one will ever eat. And with the end of the cold war, it's just gotten worse, production lines have slowed down, countries like south Africa have actually dismantled their bombs...I mean, what the fuck? Where's the payoff for all that time and effort and money?

That's why I think that the Nuclear Weapon Industry needs to diversify: Nuclear Pulse Rockets! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_pulse_propulsion You want to go to mars? having logistical problems w/ the duration of the flight and irritated by the fact that 97% of your spacecraft is nothing but big, sloshy fuel tanks? No more, skippy! a Nuclear Pulse Rocket much like this one designed by NASA back in the 60s would get you there in no time http://www.astronautix.com/lvfam/orion.htm and it would be cheaper and easier and (Surprisingly) a hell of a lot safer than NASA's current shitty way of doing stuff. (Which can be summed up as "We'll keep doing dangerous stuff until someone dies, then we'll stop doiong it until they stop paying attention to us, and then we'll do the same damn dangerous thing until someone else dies")

Hell, NPRs could get you down to the surface of venus and back up again! No other engine system could do that!

Facetiousness aside, we've got a lot of bombs that we're never going to use, and this would allow us to use them constructively, for the betterment of the species as a whole, rather than just for killin'. Granted, killin' is fun, but it's cliche, it's been done. This is cool and sexy, and who wouldn't like to brag about the fact that they surf on thermonuclear shockwaves!

Thoughts?

posted in Curiosity Valentine - 30 replies

Morose's Poetry Corner

2006-02-04T02:20:02Z

Because I like traumatizing as many people as possible, I share this with you. I call it, "The dead guy in my bed."

You're diseased and deranged
and you smell a little strange
but that's allright with me.
you drink blood from a stein
and sometimes it's even mine
but that's allright with me.

but the thing i just can't tolerate,
the thing that makes my molars grate
oh the way that you make me irate
is the dead guy in my bed.

he's this guy, he's a blast
from your mysterious past
but that's allright with me.
he's a friend, so you said,
though he looks recently dead
but that's allright with me.

but the thing that strikes me as absurd
is you haven't said a single word
by way of explanation that I heard
about the dead guy in my bed.

This thing I realized,
he's got pins stuck in his eyes
but that's allright with me.
He's got things up his nose
and he's missing all his toes
but that's allright with me.

But the thing I'm thinking, by the way
is a thing I really shouldn't say,
"can I keep him for a couple days?"
Yes, the dead guy in my bed.

There's a gleam in your eye,
You say I'm you're favorite guy
and that's allright with me.
So you tell me his name,
then you kiss me just the same
and that's allright with me.

but the thing i should have ovelooked
is his name appears in your black book
next to three big skulls and the footnote "crook!"
oh! that dead guy in my bed!

Now my room starts to smell
and old Maurice looks like hell
but that's allright with me.
You kept parts for yourself
and their on the freezer shelf
but that's allright with me.

But the thing that really doesn't suck,
because it really is a stroke of luck
is the fact that we both love to fuck
with the dead guy in my bed!

posted in Curiosity Valentine - 4 replies

Philip K. Dick: Gnostic Prophet or Crazy Drunken Fat Guy On Speed?

2006-02-02T16:55:59Z

As our discussion of PKD was kinda' overtaking one of the other threads, I figured I'd start a new one just about him. So who here likes Philip K. Dick? Anyone? Anyone? What's your favorite story or novel by him?

Phil's own numinous experiences are fairly well known - he wrote a couple books about 'em - and he was friends w/ fellow SF Author Thomas Disch. Once, while rooting around in the fridge for beer, Phil told Disch in all seriousness that he (Disch) was the reincarnation of Elijah. Apparently that was all there was to it, though in PKD lore it got expanded into "Tom and Phil were best friends" and a vastly more expansive exegetical exchange, which I just sort of naturally accepted because there are a lot of crazy stories about Phil.

Anywhoo, a year or three ago, I was reading one of Disch's books, and he mentioned the incident w/ Phil was actualy the only time the two of them had ever met. He then went on to say that while he didn't doubt Phil had the experiences he wrote about, he had the very strong impression that Phil was exaggerating the living hell out of 'em, and, had he survived, he figured Phil would have tried to found his own religion.

G'wan, discuss!

posted in Curiosity Valentine - 15 replies

The Comics Thread

2006-02-02T16:54:03Z

Usually, when I feel like talking about comics, I head on over to The Engine. But that, and those feelings, are rare. Let's find out just how much of a comics nerd I am.
I haven't been to a (non-Japanese) comics shop in ages, but Morose just sent me many Desolation Joneses for Christmas, and I still have my superior Teen Titans knowledge. I also shudder gleefully whenever I know there is a Peter Milligan book out there. But lately he has been writing the craptacular Toxxic comic for Marvel, which has nothing to do with a Britney Spears remix (although I wouldn't be surprised if it did).
Anyway, discuss.

Curi.

posted in Curiosity Valentine - 31 replies

the MASH topic.

2006-02-02T16:52:23Z

As I know Curi likes the M*A*S*H* show, I thought I'd mention the various failed spinoff attempts they've made. Of course there was the successful spinoff, "Trapper John, MD," but that owed only token fealty to MASH itself, having a different cast, different producers, writers, and only sharing one character - played by a different actor in a different decade - to the original.

There was also the wildly unsuccessful "AfterM*A*S*H*," which lasted about 1 1/2 seasons, and really should have been a better show. Towards the end, ratings were so bad that they engaged in stuntcasting, bringing back Radar for a 2-parter, Col. Flag in one ep, and they were - I shit you not - writing an episode that would feature the return of Col. Henry Blake, who - I continue to shit you not - was still alive.

There was also the amazingly unsuccessful W*A*L*T*E*R* in which Radar O'Reily, now in his 30s or 40s moved to St. Louis and was a cop, after his mom died. It lasted 1 episode, which was only aired in the eastern half of the US.

The weirdest one, though, and the one about which I have the least solid info, is an attempt to revive M*A*S*H* itself in the late-80s! Evidently, CBS was so desparate to recover the ratings it was loosing to NBC that it pretty much offered a blank check to anyone from the original show that wanted to reprise their roles in a "new M*A*S*H* set in a new war." Evidently it was to be set during vietnam, when all, or most, of the old characters would return in more-or-less their old roles.

Evidently, they weren't sure what to do w/ Harry Morgan's Col Potter, who was logically too old to bring back, though we were assured he'd at least cameo occasionally. Most everyone else signed on, however the hold out was Alan Alda, who was apparently "Seriously considering it" at one point, but decided against it.

W/out Hawkeye, there was no point in continuing, and the whole project fell apart.

posted in Curiosity Valentine - 3 replies

The I-Fucking-Hate-Cortney-Love Topic

2006-02-02T16:50:41Z

You know, I didn't particularly like Nirvana when they existed. They were technically ok, but I never quite dug the Singer/Songwriter approach to Punk that eventually became "Grunge." I was never into the whole "Grunge" thing, mainly because I hated everything the movement stands for (Essentially Cordoroys, bell bottoms, sideburns, coffee, angst-for-angsts sake, faux rebellion, and ironic pretention) but let me tell you, if there's anyone on this earth I hate more than Elton Ratfuckingbastard John, it's Cortney Love.

I got this off Thesuperficial.com:

>>>December 22, 2005
Courtney Love selling out Nirvana
Driving perhaps the greatest musical mind of a generation to kill himself and urinate all over his legacy for more than a decade just isn't enough for Courtney Love. The widow of Kurt Cobain is now trying to cash in on Nirvana, because she's blown all her money on heroin and clown makeup.

Courtney Love is broke and wants to raise cash by selling her rights to the song catalog of her late husband, Kurt Cobain, and Nirvana. Sources say Love, whose Crosby Street apartment was in foreclosure earlier this year, is looking for $100 million. This should come as salt in the wounds of Nirvana's Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic and Chad Channing, who fought with Love for years over control of the songs and over royalties.
She'll probably go after her daughter's trust fund next and spend it on bongs. At this point I think Michael Jackson's kids have a better shot at living well-adjusted lives. Really, it's people like Courtney Love who are stumbling proof that there is no God. She gets to live a life of luxury, no matter how hard she works to fuck it up. I really hope she reveals herself as the anti-christ sometime soon. It would explain a lot.
<<<

Actually, I don't hate her more than Elton, I only hate her slightly less, but she's got potential to eclipse Gary Glitter's former keyboardist, and I can only assume she eventually will.

posted in Curiosity Valentine - 17 replies

the I Think We're All Dead Thread

2006-01-29T01:47:39Z

woo! a whole tribe's worth of people smote by... hmm... maybe it was that chimichanga i had for lunch. either way. Ia Cthulhu! Bug Shoggog Yog Sothoth!

posted in Curiosity Valentine - 6 replies

The Ultimate Showdown (of ultimate destiny)

2006-01-04T06:10:54Z

This is possibly the most amazing thing I have ever seen on the internet:

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/285267

It is beyond words.

posted in Curiosity Valentine - 2 replies

Curi, call your best friend for chrissakes

2006-01-04T06:05:46Z

Heya girl, I'm planning on coming to Chi-town to visit you over MLK weekend (12-16th) but I need a confirmation of your schedule before I book the flight. I know you just got back from Japan, or I would've tried to make it sooner. I love and miss you starshine. Shoot me an e-mail or IM asap (buddhakitten@gmail.com is the new one).

posted in Curiosity Valentine - 2 replies

The Teen Titans Topic

2005-12-19T09:57:41Z

So is it just me, or has Teen Titans made one hell of a comeback this season? Man! Tonight's utter blow-off "Revved Up" episode vs. "Ding Dong Daddy" was pretty damn funny, Red X's return was cool, and I laughed my ass off when The Duck Guy showed up again. Also, who ever thought we'd see Kitten and Fang again? Not me, that's for damn sure!

posted in Curiosity Valentine - 20 replies

I'm Leaving for Tokyo on Tuesday

2005-12-18T23:46:28Z

As the above message thread states, I will be leaving for Tokyo on Tuesday. Therefore there will be no posts from me until after the new year (probably around the 3rd). Feel free to talk amongst yourselves, though, and invite all the new blood to the forum that you can!

Curi.

posted in Curiosity Valentine - 5 replies

So anyone here like "The Avatar?"

2005-12-18T23:40:24Z

Just curious. I've been watching it for 2 seasons now, and it's a pretty solid, clever little show. The animation is quite solid, and the story is episodic, but rather involved.

I just watched the 2-part season finale tonight, and was somewhat surprised to see that they actually killed people, which is still somewhat taboo in an American cartoon aimed at kids.

Anyone else like it?

posted in Curiosity Valentine - 16 replies

The Book Topic

2005-12-15T04:50:15Z

I've had to read a lot of Murakami Haruki for school. Since I usually read nonfiction, I'm kind of digging it, especially a story called The Dancing Dwarf where the protagonist works at an elephant factory. (Yes, a factory that manufactures live elephants.)
I started the new Harry Potter, but I'm not all that into it as of yet. I figured out who the Half-Blood Prince was about 20 pages in or so. My cleverness has a tendency to ruin things for me, such as when I went to see The Sixth Sense and figured out the gimmick to the movie about 15 minutes in. So for the rest of the time I sat around sort of bored waiting for everyone else to figure it out. Anyway. What are you guys reading?

Curi.

posted in Curiosity Valentine - 44 replies

The Fry Guys

2005-12-14T22:49:06Z

Ok, let's assume for a moment that The Fry Guys were to go through a kind of mass-insanity resulting in (A) a total loss of interest in french fries and (B) a murderous feeding frenzy wherein they only ate catholics.

Basically, if the Fry Guys ate only catholics, and ate them quickly (THey're generally depicted as being rather voracious and gluttonous) then pretty much in no time whatsoever, they'd eat the entire population of latin america.

Think about that: a continent-and-a-half completely vacant, virtually bereft of people because the Fry Guys ate all the filthy catholics (Which is pretty much all of them).

I'm just thinkin', is all.

posted in Curiosity Valentine - 12 replies

I've Been Bitten By a Wikipede

2005-12-14T01:04:13Z

Check it the hell out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curiosity_Valentine

Curi.

posted in Curiosity Valentine - 26 replies

My Ancestor Was Cool

2005-12-12T17:05:27Z

I just found out yesterday that my dad's great great great great grandfather fought with George Washington at Valley Forge in the Revolutionary War!
This goes a long way, considering I knew absolutely nothing about my heritage on my dad's side before we found this out.

Curi.

posted in Curiosity Valentine - 12 replies

EGG PANDA!

2005-12-08T19:06:33Z

Egg Panda has his own t-shirts now at www.cafepress.com/eggpanda , and I think they are even cooler than the Curiosity t-shirts. But you can see for yourself.
I know I bought one.

Curi.

posted in Curiosity Valentine - 10 replies

The flash-fiction topic

2005-12-08T19:02:46Z

With so many creative types on one list, i figure it had to be done. Nyarlathotep said so, after all. they can be serialized if you want them to be, or just little blurbs. title goes in the subject line preferrably so people can respond and whatnot. or not.

posted in Curiosity Valentine - 10 replies

Atheism and Aviation

2005-12-08T18:48:58Z

I posted this theory on my old site, but as this is a different audience, I thought I'd run it by ally'all for whatever insights you might have into it:

Some people believe that humanity was originally bitheistic or dual-theistic, believing in two main co-equal divinities, with as many lesser ones as you care to make up. These two important ones were most commonly represented as "Father sky and Mother Earth," and, presumably, in our hunter-gatherer pasts, men and women would have been somewhat more equal in social importance. Humanity lived in between the two, dependant on both for survival.

According to some theories, when humanity figured out agriculture, that changed the ballance of power in the world: Mother Earth became subjugated and forced to do humanity's bidding, and ceased to be important as a Goddess, since who can worship their own slave? Some link this to the decline in women's power in society as well, make of that what you will.

Father Sky, however, continued to remain steadfastly un-subjugated, and hence was still worshiped. In the popular conciousnesses of various peoples, Father Sky gradually transmogrified into Yahweh, Allah, Ahura Mazda, and the African Sky God, as well as Zeus in a somewhat attenuated form, and various other low-rent versions in other pantheons, most of which died out, but from whence at least some of our modern religions come.

Ok, so here's where we get to my theory:
I suspect that the unprecedented rise in atheism in the past two centuries might be related to humanity's increasing mastery of air travel. I actually plotted it back as far as the Mongolfier's first flight in 1783, and the numbers kind of appear to parallell, and least in broad terms.

Also, if there's any truth to the marginalization of women being linked to the rise of agriculture, it might also follow that the rise of alternative sexualities might, likewise, be tied to the subjugation of the traditionally male "Father Sky."

Anyone got any opinions?

posted in Curiosity Valentine - 7 replies

What Songs Should I Cover?

2005-12-08T10:07:42Z

List your Curiosity requests for cover songs here. Who knows, I might even record one.
I've already done "The Union of the Snake" by Duran Duran and I'm working on "One Night in Bangkok" by Murray Head, so don't request those.

Curi.

posted in Curiosity Valentine - 28 replies

Curiosity World Map

2005-12-08T05:37:02Z

I posted this on the website, I posted this to the message board, and I'm posting it here, because I want some responses.
Join the Curiosity World Map, located at this address.
www.frappr.com/curiosity

I want to know how many of you there are, what you look like, and where you live.

Curi.

posted in Curiosity Valentine - 18 replies

This Is Gonna Get Interesting...

2005-12-06T19:31:55Z

The old forum that I used to post everything on has died. I'm writing and recording a new album that is seeping out drop by drop. And I'm gonna be in Japan a lot.
What are you guys up to?

Curi.

posted in Curiosity Valentine - 35 replies

What Are You Listening To?

2005-12-05T14:40:40Z

Yes, I really wanna know. As for me, right now I'm supposed to be doing Japanese translations, so the cable Dance music channel is on. It seems to only be 808 remixes of songs from the 80's.
Other than that it's been Jinusean, Jinusean, Jinusean. I just bought their album Jinusean 4 (which came out last year).

Curi.

posted in Curiosity Valentine - 29 replies

Time Travel Casting

2005-12-03T17:01:29Z

There's this game that my real-world friends and I play on occasion that I call "Time Travel Casting." Let's assume that you're a TV Producer, and because you're a TV Producer you've got an utter lack of imagination. You do have, for some unexplained reason, however, a time machine. So, being a TV Producer w/ no imagination and a time machine, you hit upon the idea of going back in time and "Creating" shows 10 or 20 years before they actually became popular on TV.

Basically, that's just the setup for people like Flaglerite who are slow on the uptake. The real meat of the game is this: Let's say you're producing your favorite show in 1955 or 1965 or whenever. The show will be as much like the one you watched as possible, but, of course, you'll need to re-cast it w/ actors and actresses who are working and available in that era.

For instance, let's pick a ridiculously populist example: let's say you wanna' do Star Trek in 1955, rather than 1966 - who would be your cast? Kirk would be Leslie Nielsen, Spock would be, let's say, Martin Landau, Bones would be Joseph Cotton, Sulu and Uhura probably wouldn't be on the show as they're not white, but assuming you could get them on the air, Sulu would probably be Mako, and I've always been fond of Lena Horne. Get it?

So: 1) What is your favorite show?
2) What era would you make it in (Prior to the time it was actually made in)?
3) Who would you cast?

posted in Curiosity Valentine - 8 replies

American Idol Underground

2005-11-29T00:33:59Z

Okay, this wasn't my idea, but while it's around I might as well take advantage of it.
My CDBaby membership automatically signed me up for an account with American Idol Underground, which waived the $50 fee. The song they put on there is Your Son Is Fine (I don't know why, exactly...maybe they like that one). Anyway, go vote for it. http://idolunderground.com/Pages/Profile/UserProfile.aspx?UserID=37829

The more votes I get, the more stuff I will win!

Curi.

posted in Curiosity Valentine - 0 replies

Curiosity Valentine's topics - tribe.net

The 'Whatever Happened To Douglas MacArthur's Son?' Topic

The "I'd vote for frank miller" topic.

The Ragged Edge of the DCAU topic

The Fake Memories For Fun And Profit Topic.

the H.P. Lovecraft Thread

The LOST Topic

The "Tribe is Now Evil" Topic

The I Think I'm Going To (Guardedly) Side W/ The Muslims On This One Topic

The "That's the end of Arrested Development" topic

the tv-series-on-dvd addict thread

The Curi Is Out Of Town Topic

The Movie Topic

The Shooting Topic

Atomic Bombs Can Be Your Friends!

Morose's Poetry Corner

Philip K. Dick: Gnostic Prophet or Crazy Drunken Fat Guy On Speed?

The Comics Thread

the M*A*S*H* topic.

The I-Fucking-Hate-Cortney-Love Topic

the I Think We're All Dead Thread

The Ultimate Showdown (of ultimate destiny)

Curi, call your best friend for chrissakes

The Teen Titans Topic

I'm Leaving for Tokyo on Tuesday

So anyone here like "The Avatar?"

The Book Topic

The Fry Guys

I've Been Bitten By a Wikipede

My Ancestor Was Cool

EGG PANDA!

The flash-fiction topic

Atheism and Aviation

What Songs Should I Cover?

Curiosity World Map

This Is Gonna Get Interesting...

What Are You Listening To?

Time Travel Casting

American Idol Underground

the MASH topic.