29 May 2014

 Birthdays
Pamela Kwiatowski b. 1994 (Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters)
Gregg Sulkin b. 1992 (Wizards of Waverly Place, The Sarah Jane Adventures, Man on the Moon [TV])
Anita Briem b. 1982 (Journey to the Center of the Earth, Doctor Who)
Elyas M’Barek b. 1982 (The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones)
Justin Chon b. 1981 (Twilight, Innocent Blood, Detention of the Dead)
Chris Violette b. 1981 (Bitten, Lost Girl, My Babysitter’s a Vampire, Diary of the Dead, Power Rangers S.P.D.)
Adam Brown b. 1980 (The Hobbitt)
Steve Cardenas b. 1974 (Mighty Morphin Power Rangers)
Adrian Paul b. 1959 (Abominable Snowman, Eyeborgs, Highlander, Charmed, The Breed, Dark Shadows [1991], War of the Worlds [TV], Masque of the Red Death, Beauty and the Beast)
Rupert Everett b. 1959 (Stardust, Shrek II and III, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe)
Wayne Duvall b. 1958 (Evolution, Seven Days, Timecop, Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, Apollo 13, The X-Files)
Annette Bening b. 1958 (What Planet Are You From?, Mars Attacks!)
Ted Levine b. 1957 (The Hills Have Eyes, Evolution, From the Earth to the Moon)
Cotter Smith b. 1949 (Revolution, 666 Park Avenue, Invasion, X-Men 2, Invader [1996], The Twilight Zone [1986])
Robert Axelrod b. 1949 (Bite Me, Power Rangers Time Force, The Blob [1988], Alien Private Eye, Alice in Wonderland [1985])
Nick Mancuso b. 1948 (Rise of the Gargoyles, Saurian, Mutant X, Total Recall 2070, Eerie, Indiana: The Other Dimension)
Anthony Geary b. 1947 (Project U.F.O., The Amazing Captain Nemo, The Six Million Dollar Man)
Kevin Conway b. 1942 (Dark Angel, Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace, Star Trek: The Next Generation)
Paul R. Ehrlich b. 1932 (author, The Population Bomb)
Clifton James b. 1921 (Monsters, Superman II, The Six Million Dollar Man, The Werewolf of Washington)
Sebastian Shaw b. 1905 died 23 December 1994 (Return of the Jedi)

Okay, I'll admit it. I don't know the work of anyone on this list younger than Rupert Everett, but they had genre credits listed on imdb.com, so here they are. Last year I had the picture of Sebastian Shaw as the ghost of Anakin Skywalker from the un-remastered Return of the Jedi, but this year the Picture Slot goes to Dr. Paul R. Ehrlich, who gets my vote as the worst of our regular predictors, even less accurate than Ray Kurzweil. I can make a positive statement about Dr. Ehrlich, at least from this picture.

Nice facial hair, doc.

Many happy returns to the living on the list and to Sebastian Shaw, at least you were dead when they made you a non-person.


Movies released
Up released 2009

Predictor: Dr. Paul R. Ehrlich from his 1968 bestseller The Population Bomb

Prediction: From page 161 of the paperback version: "The Paddocks deserve immense credit for their courage and foresight in publishing Famine – 1975!, which may be remembered as one of the most important books of our age."

Reality: This book has pretty much the same message as Ehrlich's, but it has been forgotten for the most part because it was 100% wrong in its conclusions. Searching for it in local library catalogs, it can't be found in the public libraries of San Francisco, Oakland or Berkeley, but it is in the UC Berkeley library.

This is the last prediction from The Population Bomb, but I found a couple more public predictions from Ehrlich not in the book, so he gets a few more weeks before he returns to the ash heap of history.  

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

Yet another interruption of our weekly schedule, this one based on an exact date from a speculative fiction novel.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!

9 May 2014

Birthdays
Chris Zylka b. 1985 (The Amazing Spider-Man, Piranha 3DD, Shark Night 3D)
Rosario Dawson b. 1979 (Sin City, Parts Per Billion, Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, Grindhouse, The Adventures of Pluto Nash, Men in Black 2)
Karl Thanning b. 1977 (Dredd, Starship Troopers 3: Marauder, Doomsday, The Triangle, Supernova, Cavegirl)
Megumi Odaka b. 1972 (Godzilla vs. Destroyah, Godzilla vs. Space Godzilla, Godzilla vs. Mecagodzilla, Gojira vs. Mosura, Godzilla vs. Biollante, Princess from the Moon)
Hudson Leick b. 1969 (Xena, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Knight Rider 2010)
John Corbett b. 1961 (The Sky’s on Fire, The Warlord: Battle for the Galaxy, The Visitor [TV series], Volcano)
Chuck Russell b. 1958 (director, The Scorpion King, The Mask, The Blob, A Nightmare on Elm Street: Dream Warriors)
Lorena Gale b. 1958 died 21 June 2009 (The Day the Earth Stood Still, Battlestar Galactica, Bionic Woman [2007], The 4400, Slither, Supernatural, Neverwas, Fantastic Four, The Chronicles of Riddick, 10.5, Kingdom Hospital, The Butterfly Effect, Smallville, Dead Like Me, Stephen King’s Dead Zone, Halloween: Resurrection, Dark Angel, Stargate SG-1, Runaway Virus, Zenon; Girl of the 21st Century, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: The TV Show, The X-Files, Millennium, Deadlocked: Escape from Zone 14, M.A.N.T.I.S., Highlander, The Fly II)
Tessa Peake-Jones b. 1957 (Doctor Who, The Lost World, The Demon Headmaster)
Kevin Peter Hall b. 1955 died 10 April 1991 (Highway to Hell, Harry and the Hendersons [TV and movie], Predator, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Misfits of Science, Monster in the Closet, Mazes and Monsters, Without Warning, Prophecy)
Anthony Higgins b. 1947 (Malice in Wonderland, The Bride, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Vampire Circus, Taste the Blood of Dracula)
Virginia Wetherell b. 1943 (Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Demons of the Mind, A Clockwork Orange, Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde, Doctor Who)
Albert Finney b. 1936 (Big Fish, Breakfast of Champions, Looker, Wolfen)
William M. Marston b. 1893 died 2 May 1947 (writer, Wonder Woman)
J.M. Barrie b. 1860 died 19 June 1937 (author, Peter Pan)

Quite a list today. The creators of Peter Pan and Wonder Woman, one of my favorite actors in Albert Finney, a couple of fabulous babes in Hudson Leick and Rosario Dawson (last year's Picture Slot choice), but the names that caught my attention are two people who were born about the same time I was who are now dead. The first is the very tall Kevin Peter Hall, who spent a lot of his career in costumes in movies including Predator, Harry and the Hendersons and Prophecy. And secondly and in the Picture Slot, Lorena Gale, whose career qualifies her as an Oh That Gal, somewhat rarer than Oh That Guys, pictured here from Battlestar Galactica, the role for which she said she was most recognized.

Many happy returns to the living on the list and to the dead, thanks for all the memories.

Predictor: Dr. Paul Ehrlich in the 1968 book The Population Bomb

Prediction:
Scenario #3:
1974: U.S. stops sending food to India, Egypt and other countries beyond hope
1985: Major dieback is over, developed nations use famine relief with population control to get population back to 2 billion in 2025 and 1.5 billion in 2100.

Reality: At least this one didn't involve nukes. There has been no major dieback and while it's still possible, the thing that makes his book so ridiculous in hindsight is how certain he was that 3.5 billion people had to be unsustainable.

The good news about population is that now that infant mortality rates are decreasing, so are birth rates around the world and the rate of increase is definitely slowing.  The bad news isn't world hunger so much as the overuse of other resources, most notably fossil fuels, the cause of horrible pollution in places like China and nasty environmental accidents worldwide, and of course, adding to the CO2 levels that cause climate change.

The real problem with global warming is not that it's so immediate but instead that it is so gradual. This is exactly the sort of problem humans don't solve well.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

We interrupt our regular weekly rotation with an exact for the start of a nuclear war.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!