Alex Meraz b. 1985 (Twilight Saga)
Trini Alvarado b. 1967 (Fringe, The Frighteners)
Fran Walsh b. 1959 (screenwriter, The Frighteners, Lord of the Rings, King Kong [2005], The Hobbit)
James Lapine b. 1949 (playwright, Into the Woods)
Jeff Jones b. 1944 died 19 May 2011 (artist)
William Sanderson b. 1944 (True Blood, Jumanji [TV], Babylon 5, Blade Runner, The X-Files, The Twilight Zone [1988])
Walter Hill b. 1942 (producer, Alien series, Tales from the Crypt [TV], Bordello of Blood, Prometheus)
Douglas Hickox b. 1929 died 25 July 1988 (director, The Giant Behemoth, Theatre of Blood)
Ray Bolger b. 1904 died 15 January 1987 (Wizard of Oz, Babes in Toyland, Battlestar Galactica)
Okay, my first "Geez, I'm old!" moment of the morning. William Sanderson is 70. The biggest name on the list might very well be Ray Bolger, who has very few screen credits given his screen career lasted sixty years. I'm pretty sure he put food on the table with his work on stage.
Many happy returns to the living on the list, and to those who have died, thanks for all the memories.
Predictor: Jared Diamond at the TED Talks in 2003
Predictions: Solomon Islands will lose all logging in 2004 and the Philippines will lose theirs by 2008.
Reality: According to Wikipedia, there is still logging in the Solomon Islands and the Philippines, though there are restrictions and illegal logging is a problem.
As you may know, the people who give TED talks aren't paid, but instead are trying to get publicity for books. His book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed came out in 2005, so this talk was a little early. He also said Nepal, Colombia and Indonesia were close to collapse, but he didn't give dates. I'm no expert on any of these countries, but looking at their GDP numbers online, all of them did have bad years early this century, but all of them have snapped out of their problems and are showing reasonable growth.
Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!
Another prediction from 1893, and yet again it deals with the industry everyone cared about, railroads.
Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!
all of them did have bad years early this century,
ReplyDeleteAs I recall, pretty much EVERY country had some bad years early in this century. People like Diamond and Kunstler have been mining predictions of disaster for quite some time. Predicting doom is a win-win ploy; if something bad happens, you look like a soothsayer, and if nothing bad happens, you can say it's because people listened to you.
Mind you, Kunstler's work scares the living crap out of me.
At the time of Diamond's talk Nepal and Colombia were fighting Maoist guerrillas and the outlook didn't look good. Indonesia had an ongoing guerrilla war with the East Timorese. Since then things have settled down and peace talks are underway, something Diamond didn't consider I guess. As to facial hair, never trust a man with an Amish style beard.
DeleteAn older man who goes full Amish is almost understandable and of course, in the 19th Century, you probably couldn't trust the clean shaven. That said. Diamond went Amish at a young age, and I agree that I have less faith in him for it.
DeleteSurgeon General Koop was OK.
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