Recorded for posterity more so than the people of today who already know this stuff.

​Trigger warning: suicide

As much as I want to, I don't like recent Star Wars addition Rose Tico. I know I'm far from alone in that sentiment. In theory, the concept of a character who's not this glamorous action hero but just a regular mook who fangirls over her celebrity crush and then gets sucked into the action alongside him is a great one, but mostly I don't like her because I'm pissed at her for [spoiler alert that shouldn't be necessary because if you haven't seen "The Last Jedi" by now that's your own problem] stopping Finn from making a heroic sacrifice and telling him they'll win "not by destroying what we hate - but by saving what we love." Um, what? a.) Saving what he loves is literally exactly what you just stopped him from doing. b.) 99.9% of wars on Earth and, I presume, in a galaxy far, far away, have been and are and always will be won by killing the other side until they give up. So she's annoying that way.

But I have nothing against her actress Kelly Mary Tran, and even if I did, I would have been disgusted to learn that sexist and racist trolls have driven her to delete all her Instagram posts and leave the status "Afraid, but doing it anyway." Of course, it's not as if she's the first Star Wars actor to be severely harassed - young white male Jake Lloyd was bullied so severely that he quit acting, destroyed all his Star Wars memorabilia, and became mentally ill - but the bigotry in this case adds a particularly vile dimension. But what can we expect in an era when self-proclaimed Nazis fearlessly march in American streets without being shot? Disgusting people are no longer afraid to show the world how disgusting they are, because the most powerful man in the world has shown them that disgusting words and behavior carry no meaningful consequences. It's not going to get better anytime soon.

The Miss America pageant is doing away with its swimsuit and evening gown competitions. I have no stake in the matter, since the only beauty pageants I've ever seen are "Miss Congeniality" and "Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous", but I do idly wonder, not for the first time, why we consider it less shallow to judge someone for their mind than their appearance. People don't choose how smart they are any more than they choose what they look like, do they? In either case, they're born with something and then they can augment it to some limited extent. If anything, people have more control over their looks because plastic surgery is a thing while brain boosting isn't. These are the things I speculate about instead of sleeping.

The Supreme Court made a rather vague ruling in favor of the Colorado baker who refused to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding ceremony on religious grounds, finding that Colorado failed to respect his religious rights, while not clarifying how similar situations should be decided. As unpopular as it is, I agree with this ruling because the Constitution protects religious freedom and does not protect getting a wedding cake from whichever business you want. Whether you consider someone's beliefs to be bigoted or invalid is entirely irrelevant. I believe that generally if you have a problem with a business's practices, unless they include putting human flesh on pizza or something like that, you should just exercise your right to not patronize that business rather than whining to the government to make it do what you want. Of course there are nuances and exceptions and a need for compromise and yadda yadda yadda, and the Court conveniently didn't bother to outline any of those in any sort of detail at this time.

A couple more celebrities committed suicide this week, giving thousands of Americans the opportunity to glean their coveted likes and retweets by pretending to suddenly care about depression and mental health. Most of them have responded with deafening silence to the 123-ish less important people who've been commiting suicide every day, but progress is progress, I suppose. I don't mean to be dismissive of Kate Spade or Anthony Bourdain, but I don't know why we need them as wake-up calls for a problem that is not new. It's just too bad that this administration has cut hundreds of millions of dollars of mental health funding and has perpetuated the stigma against mental illness by trying to pretend it's responsible for the United States' exclusive mass shooting problem. It seems like these are exactly the wrong things to do and say in an era when suicide rates are skyrocketing, but nobody asked me.

I think I know why suicide rates are skyrocketing. I think it's because we've created an incredibly shallow, fake, moronic, greedy, self-absorbed, polarized, annoying, unnecessarily and gratuitously stressful society and people, even celebrities who are supposed to be happy because they have lots of money, don't want to be in it anymore. I sure as hell don't. Sometimes the only reason I put up with it is that a new Star Wars movie is coming out every year. Maybe our society could grow up and stop being crappy and see if that helps. But I won't hold my breath. To end on a more pleasant note, here's a soothing song I've listened to a lot this year.

My search engine optimization spree several months ago (shout-out to Mark Bell for the advice) appears to have finally paid off, as I am finally satisfied with the page views I'm getting. Less than a year ago I struggled to consistently break 100 and now I'm always somewhere between 300 and 2000. Sometimes I see that sometimes people who Google reasons to support the war on drugs find my page of sarcastic reasons to support the war on drugs. And sometimes people find my site, not sure specifically which page, by searching for black/African porn. If I could figure out why and replicate it on purpose, I could be getting millions of hits a day. And my review of "David and the Magic Pearl" has spiked in popularity for some reason. To my surprise, "In Defense of Pedophiles" still hasn't garnered much attention. That disappoints me because I had hoped it would be controversial enough to trick people into learning about an important topic. My little map at the bottom of the site, which is supposed to track all visitor locations but misses most of them because cookies or whatever, broke 3000 locations last month and that was exciting.

I read this article about this documentary by an Indian featuring several other Indians claiming that "The Simpsons" character Dr. Apu Nahasapeemapetilon is racist. And I don't want that to be right, because I consider "The Simpsons" to be one of the best and most clever shows ever made, but I'm forced to concede that it probably is. I'm in no position to say it's not racist when I'm not on the receiving end of it. I'll just say this, that in my particular case, I don't feel that watching Apu had any detrimental effect on how I perceive Indians or their culture. On the contrary, it seemed to me that Apu was one of the smarter people in a world of mostly doofuses. In the episode "Much Apu About Nothing", for example, we have this exchange from his test to gain American citizenship:

Examiner: All right, here's your last question. What was the cause of the Civil War?
Apu: Actually, there were numerous causes. Aside from the obvious schism between the abolitionists and the anti-abolitionists, there were economic factors, both domestic and inter...
Examiner: Wait, wait... just say slavery.
Apu: Slavery it is, sir.

Prior to reading this article I didn't realize that Apu was voiced by a white guy. That certainly factors in. I think that in an world, we could all poke lighthearted fun at each other's accents and cultures and religions without being hurtful, as we do to a limited extent now. For example, in "Prisencolinensinainciusol", Italian Adriano Celentano sang a bunch of gibberish words that sound like English in a fake American accent. It wasn't controversial, I presume, because a. both groups are predominantly white European in makeup and b. Americans have never been oppressed by Italians, so no one would worry that this imitation was symptomatic of any deep-rooted prejudice. Imitating an Indian accent can have different connotations of the skin color difference and because Indians were oppressed by British for a long time. (It looks weird to not write "the British", but I'm not talking about all British people. How come I don't have to write "the Indians" but I have to write "the British"? That's stupid.)

It's not going to happen, but if humans ever got to the point of eradicating true prejudice altogether and all such teasing became acceptable, that would be great. We could eliminate all teasing instead, but where's the fun in that? I tease my friends, I tease my favorite franchises, I tease my own religion and its culture and usually find it hilarious when others do so as well. But we're not at that point with the human race, so yes, it does sadly appear to me that Apu is more or less racist, though like I said my opinion doesn't really matter.

I read this other article about how Hollywood drastically underrepresents and marginalizes women and non-white people. I won't call them "minorities" because that's increasingly an inaccurate term. Pretty soon white people will be the minority in the US, and since I'm not a Nazi I don't have a problem with that. Naturally, the asinine comments on the article by white and/or male people trying to rationalize why this isn't a problem were depressing to read. As much as I hate sounding like an SJW, defending this status quo is privilege at its finest. But, you know, it's ridiculous for these hoity-toity scientists to suggest that sexualizing women in the media causes women to have self-esteem problems, because men get sexualized too. Like all those muscular superhero guys. That's definitely the same thing, and since everyone knows men and women are exactly the same it's inconceivable that they could be affected differently. I wish I were making this idiocy up.

Star Wars, in particular, has made great strides in this area, leading some children to gripe that even Han Solo will be a woman in his upcoming solo film. I hope that in a future day there will be no need for conscious attempts to put more diversity in movies, because it will just be happening automatically. But Disney, the Imperial ranks are exactly the wrong place for more female representation. Part of their shtick is that with very few exceptions they don't like women or aliens. Maybe the First Order is different.

​I would like to point out that I made both the protagonists in my manuscript female over seven years ago. I did this because I discovered that women, aliens, robots, and fantasy creatures were the only characters I could write with any feeling of investment and authenticity. And I never intended this as a huge feminist statement or anything, though the working title "Space Girls" may suggest otherwise. I knew there was a need for it after someone heard about them and expressed incredulity that they weren't lesbians. At one point I gender-swapped some of the characters to have more female representation, and I suppose that was a feminist statement. But most of the Earthling characters are, at least in my mind, white, and that's because I grew up surrounded by mostly white people and I'm still surrounded by mostly white people, so it was a subconscious thing and when the movie version is underway I'll make sure casting is open to people of all races.

Speaking of my manuscript, here's the latest feedback from a test reader:

Send a message like this to someone and make their day. They probably won't know what you're talking about, but I'm sure it will make their day.

Moving on to even more cheery and uplifting things. I'm grateful to know that this attitude exists, and that some of my "friends" share it, because I wasn't afraid enough of women already and this really helps with that. (I'm being sarcastic.)

In fairness, her remarks have been taken out of context. She goes on to explain "that is a price I am absolutely willing to pay". The fact that she herself isn't paying jack should hardly detract from the sincerity of these words. And of course, "[i]t's a microscopic risk in comparison to the issue at hand", which should be a source of great comfort to all the men who have lost their jobs and reputations and been incarcerated on rape convictions. It's not that you don't matter, guys, it's just that you don't matter. Because microscopic. But if you're lucky you live in a state that, after your innocence is discovered, will reimburse you less than minimum wage for the years of your life that they stole. And it really bothers me that Emily Lindin looks like Felicity Jones in this picture. I don't want the respect I hold for Felicity Jones to be tainted by mental association with this other person.

Moving on again, don't be this guy. I haven't gotten so many likes on a comment in a while.

Here's Sarah Brightman again already to ring in the Christmas season. This version of this song is the sort of thing that, given the choice, I would listen to on my deathbed while happily drifting out of consciousness surrounded by my loving and beautiful dogs. Beautiful song + beautiful voice = aural perfection.

​I recently watched "The Princess Bride" for the first time in maybe almost a decade - the night before its thirtieth anniversary, as it happened - and finally noticed how useless Buttercup is. If I got mauled by a Rodent of Unusual Size and all my "true love" could think to do was watch from a considerable distance away, I would let Humperdinck marry her. They would deserve each other.

Buttercup: Will you promise not to hurt him!?
Wesley: Huh? Suddenly you're concerned about me getting hurt? That's funny, you didn't seem to mind a couple minutes ago when I was GETTING CHEWED ON BY A MONSTER. "Buttercup"? More like "Buttface"!

At work on Wednesday, I was pondering the lack of justice in the world, as evidenced by (among other things) Hugh Hefner still being alive at a ripe old age. I got home to find that he is now dead at a ripe old age, and the world is now just a little bit better for it. Of course, the immeasurable damage he's done to American and probably global society and especially the women in it will last forever. But at least he's gone, away from us, somewhere else where in all likelihood his millions of ill-gotten dollars are suddenly of little or no use to him. RIP Hugh Hefner, who was a feminist in the same way that Colonel Sanders is a vegan. And by "RIP" I actually mean something entirely different that is not suitable for this blog. By the way, if you were outraged at Drumpf's misogynistic remarks but thought Hugh Hefner was a swell guy, you're a hypocrite of epic proportions.

Now on to more comic scripts. You know, sometimes people ask what my series is about and I don't know how to sum it up so I say, "A family." Which makes it sound dull and unoriginal. "And they have a pet Komodo dragon." That about covers it.

For better or for worse (which is a different comic series altogether), Alvin is often reduced to a puppet for disseminating my views. Sometimes I'm able to weave this into an actual joke, and sometimes not so much. The hope is that with further revisions they will all be funny someday. Here are a few examples from the dozens that I have.

Subtle Preaching

Panel 1
Cashier: Whoops! Got stuck on “daddy duty”, eh?
Alvin: No, ma'am.
Panel 2
Alvin: For your information, spending time with my own child is not a duty, but a privilege.
Panel 3
Tyler: Too bad I can't say the same about “daughter duty”.

Less Subtle Preaching

Panel 1
Rachel: My land. I took Tyler to the petting zoo today and they kicked me out for breastfeeding in public. Threatened legal action, even.
Alvin: What? That's absurd!
Panel 2
Alvin: I can't believe there's so much ignorance in this country about something so natural and innocent. I'm so sorry you had to deal with that.
Panel 3
Alvin: Don't let them get to you. All that matters is that Tyler appreciates it.
Rachel: The baby llamas actually, but yeah they did.

Blunt and Not Particularly Funny (Insert Your Own Quip About None of them Being Particularly Funny Here) Preaching

​Panel 1
Alvin: Oh no. The CIA will face global backlash and decreased influence if the Senate releases a report on their illegal, unconstitutional and immoral torture techniques.
Panel 2
Alvin: Poor CIA. This must be so hard for them. What have they ever done to deserve this unjust and disproportionate suffering?
Panel 3
Rachel: You're not making any sense, Alvin.
Alvin: Good.

A New One that I Cranked Out for this Special Occasion

​Panel 1
Alvin: I'm glad to see they gave Hugh Hefner a proper cremation.
Panel 2
Alvin: It's just a shame they waited until he was dead.
Rachel: Ha! Alvin, you're so funny!

Panel 1
Pastor Hartgraves: Alvin, I realize that you've had difficulties reconciling science and religion, and I'd like to offer my help.
Alvin: Yeah?
Panel 2
Pastor Hartgraves: When you have a greater understanding of science, the apparent contradictions will fade away.
Alvin: I hope so too. You're a science expert then?
Panel 3
Pastor Hartgraves: No, but a friend of mine is. You know the Creation Museum that just opened in Kentucky?
Alvin: Hooboy.

Panel 1
Alvin: So Pastor Hartgaves' close personal friend Ken Ham gave him a bunch of tickets to the “museum”, and he wants us to go.
Rachel: We do need a vacation, Alvin.
Panel 2
Alvin: That's true... and I suppose I should see it for myself and give it a fair hearing before I criticize.
Rachel: That's the spirit!
Panel 3
Alvin: I may need some alcohol to get me through it, though.
Rachel: Think of your impressionable young child, Alvin.

Panel 1
Alvin: You immediately get a general idea of what this “museum” is teaching from the displays – very pretty displays, I'll admit.
Rachel: How do those people stand so still?
Panel 2
Alvin: Humans and dinosaurs co-existed. And all dinosaurs were vegetarians before the Fall. You can't assume they ate meat just because they had teeth and claws designed for piercing and tearing flesh.
Panel 2
Tyler: Waaaaaaaah!
Alvin: My sentiments exactly, Tyler.

Ken Ham doesn't seem to be aware that plants are also living things, so even if all dinosaurs were vegetarians, they were still killing stuff before the Fall.

Panel 1
Alvin (reading): “Many 'living fossils', such as crocodiles, once shared the same world as dinosaurs.”
Panel 2
Alvin (reading): “Since humans continue to live with crocodiles today, it is reasonable to believe that humans also shared the same world with dinosaurs.” Yes, that seems logical.
Panel 3
Alvin: Grandpa Ivan once shared the same world as Winston Churchill. Since Grandpa Ivan is still alive today, it is reasonable to assume that I also shared the same world with Winston Churchill.
Rachel: You did? Can you get me his autograph??

Originally was FDR, but then I thought Hitler was funnier, but then that violated Godwin's Law and also it was awkward for Rachel to want Hitler's autograph.

Panel 1
Alvin (reading): “Can you tell how old this fossil is? Fossils don't come with tags on them that tell us how old they are.” No kidding.
Rachel: The ones I saw at another museum did.
Panel 2
Alvin (reading): “So we have to use the Bible as a starting point and use circular logic to determine that the evidence matches what we already believe.” Okay, that's a slight paraphrase.
Rachel: I can read, Alvin.
Panel 3
Alvin: That's the difference between real science and creation “science” in a nutshell.
Rachel: How can there be atheists with evidence like this??

The scathing subtlety of Rachel's line is that it's the opposite of the way things are. There are atheists, in part, because of "evidence" like this.

Panel 1
Alvin (reading): “When the Flood destroyed the world's forests, it must have left billions of trees floating for centuries on the ocean. These log mats served as ready-made rafts for animals to cross oceans.”
Panel 2
Alvin: I can only assume these trees were made of plastic? And they could somehow support the weight of hippos and rhinos and elephants?
Rachel: Yeah, it says that in Leviticus somewhere.
Panel 3
Alvin: And all the marsupials just happened to go to Australia and nowhere else?
Rachel: Silly marsupials, didn't they know about the poisonous spiders?

Space prevented me from getting into this, but Answers in Genesis actually teaches that dinosaurs were on Noah's ark, therefore surviving the Flood and dying for some unknown reason later. So these "log mats" would also have had to support the weight of Apatasauruses (Apatasauri?). Yeah, no. And this is still only scratching the surface of why this hypothesis doesn't work. I can only fit so much in a three-panel comic.

Panel 1
Tyler: Waaaaah!
Rachel: Shush, shush. Your diaper's clean...you've got your binkie... are you hungry? No?
Panel 2
Tyler: Waaaaah!
Rachel: I can't calm her down, Alvin.
Alvin: She's disturbing the other visitors, Rachel.
Panel 3
Tyler: Waaaaah!
Alvin: Unfortunately, it looks like we'll have to cut our visit short.
Rachel: Then why are you smiling?

Panel 1
Tyler: Waaaaah!
Ken Ham: Hi, I'm Ken Ham, president of Answers in Genesis. Did you folks enjoy your visit to the Creation Museum today?
Rachel: Yeah, we had fun.
Alvin: It was interesting, I'll give you that.
Panel 2
Tyler: Waaaaah!
Ken Ham: Good, good. Well, I see you're in a hurry, but I hope you'll return when your child is old enough to understand it, and we have some great children's books in the gift shop.
Alvin: Yeah, Tyler could use a good laugh.
Panel 3
Tyler: Waaaaah!
Ken Ham: Beg pardon?
Alvin: I said thanks, Mr. Ham.

Another involuntary celebrity guest star! With his soft-spoken Australian accent and love of Dr. Who, Ken Ham is impossible for me to hate, so I had no desire to portray him in a negative light.

Panel 1
(in the car)
Rachel: My land. I learned so many things at the museum that I never knew before.
Alvin: Most of it was nonsense, Rachel.
Panel 2
Rachel: Don't you believe in God, Alvin?
Alvin: Of course I do! I even believe in most of the Bible. But science is pretty conclusive on a lot of things. We need to fit them into our paradigm, not throw them away out of fear and ignorance.
Panel 3
Alvin: I don't know where or if Adam and Eve fit into the picture, but they did not live with dinosaurs.
Rachel: Wait, are you saying “The Flintstones” isn't historically accurate?

This was meant to be another evolution storyline, but there are so many other things wrong with young-earth creationism that I didn't even get around to mentioning it by name. Everything that Alvin reads from the signs, except for his slight paraphrase, is taken verbatim from the real-life Creation Museum. Scary, isn't it? Look, I don't care what you believe about the Earth or life on it, but don't pretend your views have any scientific plausibility if they blatantly don't.

Rachel, in case you haven't noticed, is a gender-swapped version of the overused idiot husband trope (and therefore, in a perverse way, a feminist icon) taken to a ridiculous extreme a la Brewster Rockitt. (I feel now is as good a time as any to explain to a certain person named Rachel who may be reading this that yes, she is half named after you and half named after a coworker I barely knew who stared at me all the time, though her name was spelled Rachael, but the character herself, as a person, is not based on you at all and should not be construed as my opinion of your intelligence or your anything else. Okay? Okay.) But I like to have her subvert expectations sometimes, either by doing something that raises the question of whether she's really as stupid as she seems, or by accurately explaining something that normal people take for granted and thereby exposing how stupid it truly is. Here she does it with politics. Elsewhere she also does it with dating, but that may be too controversial to share.

Panel 1
Tyler: How do politics work, mom?
Rachel: Well, you can choose whether to be liberal or conservative, which determines whether you vote Democrat or Republican.
Panel 2
Tyler: That's it? You only get two options?
Rachel: You only need two options! Those two options are the entire spectrum of American political thought!
Panel 3
Tyler: Well, that explains a lot.
Rachel: Oh, and you're not allowed to be friends with anyone on the other side, so choose wisely.

Whoopi Goldberg is pro-choice and a member of the NRA. Doesn't she know she can't do that?

Panel 1
Tyler: Okay, suppose I pick one, let's say conservative/Republican.
Rachel: Ooh, good choice, if you hate poor people.
Panel 2
Tyler: Er, liberal/Democrat then.
Rachel: So you hate freedom? All right then.

Panel 1
Rachel: The states take turns holding primary elections, where the Democrats and Republicans each choose who they want to be the next president.
Panel 2
Rachel: Of course, if your state has one of the later primaries, most of the options are already gone and its choice doesn't make any difference. This is perfectly fair because... um... because...
Panel 3
Rachel: Because that's just how democracy works!
Tyler: It's like you designed the system.

Yeah, living in Utah, this really pisses me off. And I do realize the United States is actually a republic, because the Founding Fathers were afraid of pure democracy, because people are morons, but you don't expect these comic scripts to be that educational, do you?

Panel 1
Rachel: So you end up with two options for president – well, more than two, but don't waste your time voting for another one because voting for another one is a waste of time.
Tyler: That doesn't at all sound like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Panel 2
Rachel: So you pick whichever of the two options you hate less, and vote for him or her, but actually just him.
Tyler: And whichever gets the most votes, wins?
Panel 3
Rachel: Not exactly. There's this thing called the “electoral college”. I don't understand it because I went to a different college.
Tyler: Thank God I don't have to vote for twelve more years.

I actually agree with the electoral college - it got us a terrible president instead of a different terrible president, after all - but it does complicate things.

Panel 1
Rachel: Voting for president is a very important civic duty. You should be grateful and proud to do it.
Tyler: What's the chance of my vote affecting the outcome?
Panel 2
Alvin: About 1 in 60 million. Almost 343 times smaller than the chance of you getting struck by lightning within the same four years.
Rachel: She didn't ask you!

Panel 1
Alvin: In fairness, you can have more of an impact voting for other people. Have you told her about those, Rachel?
Rachel: Why would I? Nobody cares about those.
Panel 2
Alvin: That's exactly the problem. See, Tyler, besides the President, there are also national and local Congress members and a governor and a mayor and town and school board members to choose.
Panel 3
Alvin: Do either of you even know who our mayor is?
Tyler: Nope.
Rachel: We got a horse? Why didn't you tell me?

Preachy as this one is, I'm chastening myself as much as anyone else. I do know who my mayor is but couldn't tell you one thing about his policies. I'ma go fix that right now as far as you know.

You may remember that last year I shared one script where Dr. Robert T. Bakker, real life originator of the Dinosaur Renaissance (but with a fictional personality just for fun), visited Tyler's and David's Biology class taught by Dr. James Pitts (named after a real professor of mine) and his assistant Mary Hollenbaugh (named after a real ridiculously gorgeous friend of mine). But that was just the beginning...

​Panel 1
Dr. Pitts: As promised, today we get to hear from Dr. Robert T. Bakker, who's largely responsible for the way we look at dinosaurs today.
Dr. Bakker: Yep! “The dinosaur heresies”, I called them. Not so heretical anymore, are they?
Panel 2
Dr. Pitts: Dr. Bakker has –
Dr. Bakker: Everyone was so blinded by their confirmation bias and prejudice against reptiles that they scoffed at my radical new theories. Well, who's scoffing now, huh?
Panel 3
Dr. Pitts: Yes, that's –
Dr. Bakker: Suck it, orthodoxy! SUCK IT!

Panel 1
Dr. Bakker: See, scientists are human like everyone else, and we aren't always objective and we make mistakes. But science is a self-correcting process, and the truth comes forward eventually.
Panel 2
Dr. Bakker: There's a certain methodology that everyone has to follow. I couldn't just say “You're wrong!” to the orthodoxy. I had to demonstrate my case with logic and evidence.
Panel 3
Student: Like Michael Behe?
Other Student: Or Andrew Wakefield?
Dr. Bakker: Let me start over.

I wanted to take two potshots in one comic, but I realize it isn't entirely fair of me to put Michael Behe and Andrew Wakefield in the same category. Both of them are wrong, but only one of them is a lying pos with blood on his hands. (Hint: It's Andrew Wakefield.)

Panel 1
Student: Mr. Bakker, you are an evolutionist, aren't you?
Dr. Bakker: Sure am! If God didn't use evolution, he must have gone out of his way to make us think he did.
Panel 2
Student: Wha? You believe in God too?
Dr. Bakker: Sure do! In fact, I'm an Ecumenical Christian minister. I believe that faith and reason are fully compatible.
Panel 3
Student: Well, that explains it. The ecumenical movement is of the devil.
Dr. Pitts: Dr. Bakker, I'm terribly sorry, but the state board of education forbids the f-word in this classroom.
Dr. Bakker: Yeah? They can suck it too.

Bakker's line "If God didn't use evolution..." is a verbatim or almost verbatim quote from The Dinosaur Heresies. It really made an impact on me. I hope it's obvious that the f-word here is "faith". Not to be confused with the really, really bad f-word that rhymes with "end zone".

Panel 1
Tyler: Dr. Bakker! You're still here!
Dr. Bakker: Yeah, Dr. Pitts and I have something do discuss with you and David.
Panel 2
Dr. Bakker: See, I wasn't just here to speak to your class today. How interested are you two in dinosaurs?
Panel 3
Tyler: More interested than I am in boys, at least.
David: That's not saying much.

Panel 1
Rachel: Judas Priest, spring break is coming up. I don't know if I can stand having Tyler at home for an entire week.
Panel 2
Tyler: Hi, mom. Dr. Pitts wants me and David to come on an expedition to an island off the coast of Costa Rica over spring break. I have the permission slip right here.
Panel 3
Tyler: You didn't even read it.
Rachel: If I just sold you into slavery, I apologize.

Panel 1
(aboard the boat)
Tyler: Wow. Going to an island off the coast of Costa Rica to study dinosaurs! Just like Jurassic Park!
Dr. Bakker: Did you know the book was heavily based on my research, and I was the scientific adviser on the movie?
Panel 2
David: You've mentioned that a few times, yeah.
Tyler: Too bad these ones will just be fossils.
Panel 3
Dr. Pitts: Er – there's something we should probably explain.
Tyler: They're actually alive? Yeah, I read your lab notes.

Panel 1
T. Rex (through binoculars): Rooooooooar!
Panel 2
Tyler (holding binoculars): I just wet myself. But in a good way.
David: Give me those!

Tyler's quote was originally used by Jane Padgett in my unpublished manuscript "Space Girls" after she goes back in time and hears a T. Rex roar. I plagiarized myself because the line is just that good.

Panel 1
Tyler: How did you guys do this? I know the mosquito thing in Jurassic Park was BS.
Dr. Pitts: Actually, I don't even understand it. Mary did most of the calculations.
Panel 2
Mary: It was childishly simple, but I'm keeping it to myself for now. There are all kinds of ethical concerns with this technology, and there are lots of people out there who would abuse it.
Panel 3
Tyler: Someone would make a real Jurassic Park, and it would be a disaster.
Mary: Right. Mesozoic Park will be nothing like that.

More lampshade hanging.

Panel 1
Mary: ...so then I thought, if we made this more like a national park, and didn't put the dinosaurs in cages, they won't feel a need to escape! They hopefully won't be restless and aggressive!
Panel 2
Mary: The tourists will be in heavily armored vehicles, and once we learn more about the dinosaurs' psychology we'll hopefully be able to design ones that they won't attack.
Panel 3
Tyler: What do we have so far?
Mary: My dad's Jeep. We're low on funding.

The national park thing is also an idea from "Space Girls". It could work, right? Cloned dinosaurs, mammoths, and passenger pigeons are all things in the year 2153, though they're not the focus of the story and mentioned only as worldbuilding details.

Panel 1
David: Guys! Hey, guys –
Mary: Not now, David, we're discussing important scientific matters.
Panel 2
David: But it's –
Mary: Just hold your horses and I'll be with you in a minute, okay?
Panel 3
(The boat is drifting away)
Tyler: Well? Did you tell them?
David: I always turn to jelly when Mary speaks to me...

Panel 1
Tyler: Welp, at least one of us is going to get eaten. That's just how these things go.
Panel 2
Tyler: David and I are just kids. Mary is an attractive woman. Dr. Bakker is too famous and awesome.
Panel 3
Tyler: Sorry, Dr. Pitts.
Dr. Pitts: Hey!

This is what I mean about the characters recognizing tropes and almost breaking the fourth wall. "Jurassic World" did blaze new territory by killing an attractive woman, in a ridiculous and thoroughly undeserved manner no less, but she wasn't a protagonist.

Panel 1
Dr. Bakker: You know that paleontologist in the second Jurassic Park movie, Robert Burke, who gets eaten by a T. Rex? He was an affectionate caricature of me.
David: Fascinating. Can we discuss this later?
Panel 2
Dr. Bakker: I was glad to see him get eaten. I'd been arguing with Jack Horner about whether T. Rex was a hunter or a scavenger. Guess we saw who was right.
Panel 3
(scene zooms out to show them driving a Jeep as a T. Rex chases them)
David: That was just a movie!
Dr. Bakker: Sure, but this isn't. Suck it, Horner!

A recent analysis suggested that T. Rex couldn't actually run at all without breaking its bones. If that's accurate, my excuse is the same as why Jurassic Park dinosaurs don't have feathers: they're cloned and they got messed up.

Panel 1
Alvin: I hope Tyler is having as much fun without us as we are without her.
Rachel: Of course she is. She's doing dinosaur stuff.
Panel 2
Alvin: Heh, but I wonder if she's getting disillusioned with it. Lying in the hot sun brushing rocks hour after hour? Sounds soul-crushingly dull if you ask me.
Panel 3
(Back on the island)
Dr. Bakker: There's a cliff up ahead.
Tyler: Of course there is.

Tyler the Troper at it again.

Panel 1
(Jeep drives off the cliff)
T. Rex: Roooooooar!
David: I love you, Mary! I always have!
Panel 2
(Jeep lands on another plateau a few feet below the first one)
Panel 3
Mary: Sorry, what?
David: What?
Dr. Bakker: Smooth.

Panel 1
Dr. Pitts: Velociraptors! As you can see, they look nothing like their movie counterparts.
Dr. Bakker: I told Spielberg, but did he listen? Nooo!
David: They look like big skinny chickens!
Panel 2
Tyler: Hmm... I wonder if they taste like chicken too?
Panel 3
(Tyler is sitting by a campfire with a homemade spear nearby and meat in her hands)
David: Well?
Tyler: Nah. More like fish, actually.

The so-called Velociraptors in Jurassic Park are actually Deinonychuses (Deinonychi?) but like Norma Jeane Mortenson, they had to change their name for Hollywood appeal.

Panel 1
Mary: Dr. Bakker, Dr. Pitts, bad news. I calculate that these creatures could produce enough methane to submerge their own island within thirty years.
Dr. Pitts: Oh dear.
Dr. Bakker: Crap.
Panel 2
David: Huh?
Mary: The methane will contribute to the greenhouse effect which will heat up the Earth and accelerate the melting of the polar ice caps, raising the level of the ocean until it covers the island.
Panel 3
David: But what do you mean, 'produce methane'?
Mary: Never mind.

Yes, I realize climate change isn't real. Yes, that was sarcasm.

Panel 1
Tyler: So what are you going to do about this methane problem?
Mary: I don't know... I can't destroy the creatures I created, but I can't be responsible for hastening the planet's doom either...
Panel 2
Tyler: You could be a true American and just ignore the problem until it becomes a crisis.
Mary: And ask for more funding in the meantime? Brilliant!

Originally Tyler said "You could be like a politician" but it isn't fair to always pretend they're the only ones.

Panel 1 (and only)
Dr. Pitts: The Jeep is almost out of gas. Our supplies won't last forever...
David: Well, this is it then. We're going to get killed on this desolate rock.
Tyler: Yeah, probably. But what a way to go!
Dr. Bakker: I like your spunk, kid. Die with dignity.
Mary: I just built an airship from a Triceratops carcass. Let's get out of here.

This storyline went unfinished for a long time until I thought of how to get them off the island. It doesn't have to make sense. It's a comic. Or will be if I ever draw it.

Panel 1
Dr. Pitts: Now remember, kids, as far as your parents know you've just been digging up fossils.
Dr. Bakker (giving them wads of cash): To protect the dinosaurs until Mesozoic Park is opened, we need to keep it that way.
Panel 2
David: I'm not sure I'm entirely comfortable with this...
Dr. Bakker: Remember, it's for science.
Tyler (admiring cash): Silly Dr. Bakker. I lie to my parents for free.

Panel 1
Rachel: My land, spring break went by so fast without you! Did you have a good time?
Tyler: Yeah, it was very educational.
Panel 2
Rachel: That's good. Your dad and I were worried you might get bored.
Tyler: Not at all. Oh, before I forget...
Panel 3
Tyler: I brought you this, uh, fossilized Velociraptor egg.
Rachel: Aw, you shouldn't have! Ooh, it's so warm!

And now I'm not sure what to do about the Velociraptor egg. I don't want to just pretend it never happened, because I'm trying to be realistic, dang it.

While we're on the subject of dinosaurs and 1987 films starring Fred Savage, here's this. It's from "Dinosaurs! A Fun-Filled Trip Back in Time!", which my uncle owned on a VHS tape (now an extinct format) and which, many years ago, I watched at my grandmother's house until it wore out. It's actually a Claymation film from 1980 with later footage of Fred Savage, and this stunningly animated music video, seamlessly(ish) tacked onto the beginning of it. I was being sarcastic about the stunning animation but this song was and is still the best part. Watch the whole film next time you have a half hour to spare.

"I literally don't like anyone. I'm mean-spirited and jealous. I'm annoyed with people quickly. I'm self-righteous. I'm also passive-aggressive, and privileged and judgmental, and cruel, and ignorant, and cold, and a hypocrite, and lazy, and self-centered, and annoying, and argumentative, and flaky." This is what Mackenzie told me when we got into an argument about whether she has a heart of gold beneath her callous exterior (I said yes, she said no). At first glance, this list is disturbing, because everyone knows that women are supposed to be almost perfect and only have a maximum of three (preferably endearing) character flaws. It's particularly disturbing to a pure and innocent person like me who has never had an unkind thought about anyone. And if you believe that, may I interest you in a lucrative home-based business franchising opportunity that definitely is not a pyramid scheme?

Sarcasm aside, the simple fact is that I don't care about her real or alleged flaws, and though I may seem to portray her in a negative light I've thought and hoped it would be obvious that I like her just fine that way. I thought and hoped it would be obvious, for example, that when she said she was going to murder me it was just a bit of friendly banter (although it would have been much less acceptable for me, a man, to say the same thing to her, and therefore she was, probably unconsciously, exploiting one of the double standards that she, a feminist, abhors). In case it wasn't obvious enough I tacked a brief list of a few of her more unambiguously positive traits onto the end of that post. But it turns out that she, even though she reads all my posts and must have seen it by now, thinks she's a terrible person. I disagree. I told her at the time that I've never found her annoying and that in light of these flaws it was all the more admirable that she's nice to me anyway and gives me far more patience than I deserve. Now I want to expound further and try to articulate my words better, and post it here in case anyone else finds it useful.

I will start by wresting some fabulous words by the inimitable B. H. Roberts out of context and repurposing them. In listing her flaws, Mackenzie "is as one who walks through some splendid orchard and gathers here and there the worm-eaten, frost-bitten, wind-blasted, growth-stunted and rotten fruit, which in spite of the best of care is to be found in every orchard; bringing this to us [she] says: 'This is the fruit of yonder orchard; you see how worthless it is; an orchard growing such fruit is ready for the burning.' Whereas, the fact may be that there are tons and tons of beautiful, luscious fruit, as pleasing to the eye as it would be agreeable to the palate, remaining in the orchard to which [she] does not call our attention at all. Would not such a representation of the orchard be an untruth, notwithstanding [her] blighted specimens were gathered from its trees? If [she] presents to us the blighted specimens of fruit from the orchard, is [she] not in truth and in honor bound also to call our attention to the rich harvest of splendid fruit that still remains ungathered before [she] asks us to pass judgment on the orchard?"

So, Mackenzie, even if this picture you paint of yourself is accurate, it's still not accurate. Jussayin.

This bad fruit is to be found in every orchard, he says. As I thought about Mackenzie's condition I had a realization that perhaps the difference between "good" and "bad" people is their attitude about it. If she were a bad person, would she feel bad about her flaws, or just not care? I think the fact that she feels bad about them is incontrovertible proof that they are at odds with her core values. If she feels bad about being mean-spirited and jealous, then it's because she feels that being mean-spirited and jealous is wrong and not how she wants to be. If she were a bad person, she would just go about being mean-spirited and jealous, end of story. An extreme example: at least one friend of mine is only sexually attracted to young boys, but he has a core value that says sex with children is wrong, so that's what he lives by and that's what matters. Mackenzie's core values appear fundamentally good and in my mind, that means she is too. It may even be the case that the more she improves, the more she will be bothered by her remaining flaws, so that she will feel worse about herself despite being better. This is something to beware of.

I wanted to say something about the Native American story with the two wolves, but it turns out that's not a Native American story at all. So a better example would be "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde". In that story, Dr. Jekyll's motive for creating a potion that would split him into two persons was the conflict between his desire to pursue a wild, hedonistic lifestyle like in his younger days and his desire to be a moral, upstanding person. He tried to do both. Sometimes I feel like two different people too. One just wants to be kind and love everyone, and the other wouldn't cry very hard if aliens wiped out the human race. But I think most people experience this to some degree or another because nobody is perfect but everybody who wants to be plays host to this battleground between good and evil that are both part of us. "Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." (Matthew 26:41) Yet in my interactions with Mackenzie, I would say that her Jekyll (spirit) more often than not overpowers her Hyde (flesh) because he's the one she feeds. Or something like that. Am I making any sense?

Putting Mr. Hyde in his place once and for all isn't done overnight either. Jesus commands us in the Sermon on the Mount not only to abstain from sinful actions but from the very inclinations toward them - yet He's well aware that this is difficult, unpleasant, and unnatural, hence He compares it to plucking out your eye or cutting off your hand. Surely He understands if, partway through the process of plucking out her eye, Mackenzie decides that this really really hurts and she'd rather keep it after all. Surely He understands if it takes several attempts and lots of backsliding before she finishes cutting off her hand. I feel like some kind of insane religious fundamentalist talking like this, but Jesus is the one who chose those metaphors, not me. Note to idiots: I am not advocating literal self-mutilation. All I'm trying to say is that Mackenzie should have lots of patience with herself and so should everyone else. With themselves, I mean. And I wouldn't even need to remind her of that if she were a bad person because she wouldn't be getting exasperated with herself in the first place.

Maybe I'm completely wrong. I don't actually have the means or the authority to judge anyone's heart. Maybe she is as evil as she claims. The weird guy at church who makes up his own doctrine certainly thinks so. He's never met her, but he thinks he can tell by looking at people who's going to "perdition" and who's not, so he said she's some kind of demon or something who's drawn to me because I have the Holy Ghost and she wants to make me lose it. He said some other things too but I'm not comfortable sharing them even in a redacted format. All I can say to that is that if it's true, she's doing a terrible job. She knows some of my secret temptations and never uses them. In fact, she encourages me to be better in some ways. Worst demon ever. Or maybe I should say best, since she's the worst at being bad. I hesitated about whether to share this with her but I did and she was so fascinated by the weirdness of it that despite merely disliking him before she wants to meet him now.

When she tried to convince me that she's evil, she somehow missed the irony that earlier the same day her boss had accused her of being a crybaby snowflake who cares about minorities too much and pushes reverse discrimination, because she isn't a fan of fireworks because they traumatize veterans with PTSD. How cruel and self-centered of her. Later that week, she hosted another campfire with ten other people; more proof that she literally doesn't like anyone. At that campfire, my tinfoil dinner ripped open and spilled into the dirt and she insisted on giving me hers because she's privileged and judgmental. She claimed it was because she couldn't stand to see me pouting. I said, "Then I've finally figured out how to get what I want from you?" In the silence that followed, I realized that sounded a lot creepier out loud than it did in my head. Did I mention that she's given me far more patience than I deserve?

Ryan Innes was invited to return from last year and he's still the blackest white guy I've ever heard. I wouldn't be surprised if he holds a seance before each performance to channel the spirit of Luther Vandross. There was also a group called The Party Crashers, though I feel like they should only show up when they aren't invited. They did a medley that included the one innocuous passage from "Baby Got Back" that's in a bunch of kids' movies, and I assumed they would end there and launch into "Feelings" but instead they kept going and caused me many seconds of discomfort. Did they not notice there were children in the audience? Did they not care? Who invited them anyway? Oh right, the mayor. For better or for worse, that song is an integral part of the cultural milieu in which we live and we just have to deal with it. There was also a group of singing first graders, and when they were announced as "the future class of 2038" I swore out loud as I suddenly felt impossibly old, though I realize now that he must have meant 2028. Then there was the obligatory fireworks and laser show and more singing by The Party Crashers. The end.

"Clara" from church recently discovered my blog. Well, I mentioned it to her first, but I don't think most people that I mention it to ever bother to look at it. I think they assume it will be dumb and boring. But she loved it, and she read some aloud to her roommate who just today gushed about it being "addictive" and made me very happy. Anyway, Clara noted that I talk about music a lot and she asked about my taste and she said she would classify it as "hipster" even though she doesn't think I'm a hipster per se. So this week I tried to pick out something that I think qualifies as "hipster". You've probably never heard of it. Again, I'm no expert on genre but I think this track is "trance" music because it's electronic but more suited for meditation than dancing. The deluxe edition of the "Accelerator" album whence it comes has a second disc with ten remixes of it, all of them worthwhile in my opinion.

International Women's Day was last week and I didn't say much about it but I did read a feminist article, because sometimes I read feminist articles and usually I agree with most of what they're saying (I'd say which parts I don't agree with but then I would be "mansplaining" and that would make me the worst person in the world), and then I read the comments and there's always some men chiming in with "But what about such-and-such issues that men face" and sometimes they're even legitimate points but that is not the place for them so they really just need to butt out and go raise them somewhere else.

"Microaggression" is one of those words that sounds really dumb and has been overused and abused by the Anti-Free Speech Police to the point where it's difficult to take seriously but nonetheless represents a legitimate concept. In particular, bits of prejudice small and large, benign and malicious, run rampant against women in American society. I probably contribute to that without realizing, but I almost certainly do a much larger part in tipping the balance the other way. I don't hate men per se, and I like my guy friends just fine and don't wish to offend any of them, but I'm just being honest when I say that I have some misandry to work through. Given the choice, I would pretty much just associate with women and ignore men. This didn't go unnoticed by one friend a few years ago who remarked, "I know you're not comfortable hanging out with guys because you don't want people to think you're gay, but really, hanging out with girls all the time is what will make people think that."

Being friends with women at work has been really great. Most of them are married. I thought friendships with married women were lame because every time a previously single female friend has gotten married, she may as well have died for all I'll ever see or hear from her again. But this has been different, and it's been a lot of fun and not very awkward at all, because they're not worried and I'm not worried and we can all just be friendly and not hold back out of worry about other things. ​I did get a little too careless about the stuff I was saying to one of them, though. I had no idea anything was wrong until one day out of the blue she got a funny look on her face and asked, "Do you... actually hate me?" And I was astonished and I explained that I was only teasing her because she started teasing me first, and she said "I'm pretty sure it was the other way around", but I'm pretty sure it wasn't because I wouldn't have just started teasing her unless I thought she would be okay with it. Which she is, now that we've established that I don't actually hate her. If I actually hated her I would just not talk to her.

One of my favorite coworkers though, "Sally", isn't married. She's in an open relationship. That's kind of why we met. My mp3 player was busted so instead I was listening to her loudly telling people about her open relationship and I just laughed so much because open relationships are funny. They're like, I don't know, paying hundreds of dollars a month to live in a place that you'll never get to own. How silly would that be? So afterward I caught her and thanked her for the entertainment, and the next day I asked her to entertain me again, and she obliged, so that was cool. She's always smiling and acting happy and it really lifts the mood of the whole place and it didn't take me long to look up to her as a role model of that trait, happiness, that I want to emulate. I want to be that kind of person who radiates happiness and lifts the moods of places. But then it turned out she's kind of faking it because she's not particularly happy most of the time, so that's sad. One time she was gone for a few days and her friend didn't know why and I started to think maybe she had been in a fatal accident, so when she returned and said she'd been very sick I said "Oh, good."

​We recently all got emails about a new/newly enforced language policy that forbids:

- Any type of slur including all racial, ethnic, religious, and gender-based insults

​Unfortunately this means that the black employees will have to stop making racist jokes about themselves. And now I'm slightly paranoid that in my naivete and blindness to my own cultural upbringing I'll say something that will be construed as sexist. Probably against men, though.

- Slang including words describing sexual acts or relating to sex

​I was confused by this one. I think they only meant to forbid sexual slang, but the way it's worded seems like it forbids all slang. I would be all for that if I regularly heard words like "bae" and "YOLO" at work, but since I don't it would seem a bit drastic. This one makes me a little paranoid too. Everything is sexual if people choose to take it that way. The phrase "That's what she said" still pops unbidden into my head sometimes thanks to the guys in high school for whom it made up half of their vocabularies.

- Language used to intimidate, bully, or berate an employee

Again, here's why it's important to make sure someone is okay with you teasing them before you tease them. Sometimes context is everything. Of course, I'm never as mean to anyone in Utah as my friends and I were to each other in New York. An important cultural difference there.

- Use of the "F" word

​I have never ever ever used the "F" word at work, but if I had, hypothetically, it would have been under my breath in response to the computer having issues, and no one would have heard it, particularly since my normal voice is already so quiet that no one hears me half the time when I'm actually addressing them.

- String of profanities

​I have never ever ever uttered a string of profanities at work, but if I had, hypothetically, it would have been under my breath in response to the computer having issues, and no one would have heard it, particularly since my normal voice is already so quiet that no one hears me half the time when I'm actually addressing them. And does this mean that one or two profanities are okay? If they're not the "F" word? I'm still slightly confused.

Anyway, this isn't going to affect me much but some people are going to really struggle with it. I feel for them.

I listened to "The Simpsons Sing the Blues" a couple times this week and this is probably my favorite song from that album. It presents a good example of language that should not be used to intimidated, bully, or berate employees, and does not reflect my views of my co-workers so much as my view of the human race as a whole, but is simply presented here because it's catchy.