I picked up Philip K. Dick’s A Scanner Darkly at Powell’s in Portland on my way through town, partly because I’d read none of Dick’s novels, partly because of Richard Linklater’s forthcoming adapation, in which he uses the animation technique pioneered in Waking Life. Most filmmakers try to graft lame sci-fi action over Dick’s paranoid explorations of memory and identity, but Linklater’s film looks fairly faithful to the spirit of its source.

Undercover cop Bob Arctor is addicted to a drug called Substance-D, which eventually breaks down the connections between left and right brains. Over the course of the novel, Arctor and his police pseudonym “Fred” become decreasingly aware they are the same person. Dick reflects this in his prose, making it more disjointed and difficult to read, until he delivers his final tragic plot twist. Once I realized what he’s doing, the whole book became a rather fascinating exercise in style.

Given that most of the characters are junkies, some of Linklater’s casting choices (Keanu Reeves, Woody Harrelson, Robert Downey Jr) become meta-funny. Appropriate though, since Dick’s novel contains such a surprising level of humor in the early to middle sections. I haven’t spent much time around junkies, but their portrayal here, positive and negative, rings true.

This may be the nerdiest thing I’ve ever done. Click below…
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From Reuters, via Yahoo:

New Compound May Prevent Allergies, Study Finds

A new chemical compound, part-cat and part-human, may provide an end to misery-making cat allergies, U.S. researchers reported on Sunday.

And they said their approach in creating the compound may work against more dangerous allergies, such as deadly peanut allergies.

The compound, tested in mice bred to be allergic to cats, virtually shut down the histamine reaction that causes the uncomfortable symptoms of cat allergies such as runny eyes, sneezing and itching, Dr. Andrew Saxon of the University of California Los Angeles School of Medicine and colleagues reported.

The editors of Scientific American are feeling justifiably snarky:

Okay, We Give Up

There’s no easy way to admit this. For years, helpful letter writers told us to stick to science. They pointed out that science and politics don’t mix. They said we should be more balanced in our presentation of such issues as creationism, missile defense and global warming. We resisted their advice and pretended not to be stung by the accusations that the magazine should be renamed Unscientific American, or Scientific Unamerican, or even Unscientific Unamerican. But spring is in the air, and all of nature is turning over a new leaf, so there’s no better time to say: you were right, and we were wrong.

In retrospect, this magazine’s coverage of so-called evolution has been hideously one-sided. For decades, we published articles in every issue that endorsed the ideas of Charles Darwin and his cronies. True, the theory of common descent through natural selection has been called the unifying concept for all of biology and one of the greatest scientific ideas of all time, but that was no excuse to be fanatics about it.

Where were the answering articles presenting the powerful case for scientific creationism? Why were we so unwilling to suggest that dinosaurs lived 6,000 years ago or that a cataclysmic flood carved the Grand Canyon? Blame the scientists. They dazzled us with their fancy fossils, their radiocarbon dating and their tens of thousands of peer-reviewed journal articles. As editors, we had no business being persuaded by mountains of evidence…

(Thanks to too much and too little for hosting the full column.)

While I was moving, someone in the media apparently decided this Terri Schiavo thing was the Most Important Story Ever… Until the Next One. Here are my opinions on the “debate,” in descending order of relevance:

1) Who gives a fuck?

2) I wonder what I should have for dinner tonight.

3) Oh, just pull the tube already. She’s been a vegetable for 15 years. She’s not getting any better.

My only fascination is with the media response to it, as they follow the Republicans’ lead and try to cash in on it for ratings (of both the Nielsen and approval varieties). James Wolcott has some great continuing analysis, starting here and moving to Tom Delay, CNN’s glowing coverage of fundie photo ops, The NY Times smooching Jeb Bush’s booty, Wolcott’s own suggestions for the networks, and the Oprahfication of conservatism.

Even paying as little attention as I do to the mainstream TV and print news media, I can tell the Official Media Bias favors the religious nuts. The networks are using inevitably melodramatic labels like “Fight for Life” for their coverage (as opposed to “Fight for Prolonged Suffering”), and MSNBC.com is coming up with banners like this.

The most amusing thing from all of this? According to polls, the public OVERWHELMINGLY wants to let Schiavo die and disapproves of the Republicans’ political grandstanding.

Maybe this will backfire on the GOP. The problem with always pushing a “Culture of Life” is that life isn’t a universal good and death isn’t a universal evil.

Bryan Lambert spent three columns at YouAreDumb earlier this week covering the American Taliban’s latest salvo: the Natural Family Manifesto. Bryan covers it better than I can summarize, so go and read (part 1, part 2, part 3).

Here’s what bothers me: where is the media coverage? You could argue that the Natural Family Manifesto is a strawman, representing a few fundie whackjobs rather than the conservative mainstream, and therefore it doesn’t merit the publicity and inevitable mockery.

Except… the Heritage Foundation, one of its backers, definitely represents the conservative mainstream and has influence with the current administration.

And since when can the Right claim the high ground on strawmen? They turned an insignificant idiot like Ward Churchill into Reason Numero Uno to kill all the academics and replace them with trade school instructors, and they used the mainstream media to do it. Why can’t the Left do the same with this even-loonier Manifesto?

It would force the Right to either distance themselves or fully embrace its religious base, the 30% of America that follows our radical clerics. Go on, I WANT to see Tom Delay try to defend the replacement of merit pay with “family wages.”

I’m still hacking like an emphasymic smoker, thanks to allergies-turned-sinus-infection-or-possibly-consumption, but I’m here and more or less settled into my new apartment. And now I have Internet access again! Which means, of course, I spent the day vegging in front of my PC.

I sent phonecam pics from the road, honestly I did. I have no idea why they disappeared. I could try sending them again, but I doubt the world is waiting with bated breath for my blurry photos of grotesque gas station sausage racks.

The U-Haul obviously did not blow up. It ran perfectly well the whole way, although I wish I hadn’t been driving a 10 mpg truck during the highest gas prices in the nation’s history. After a couple of $50 gas charges, I finally know what it feels like to drive a Hummer (but without the small-penis issues).

I also wish it was able to run faster through the wastelands of Wyoming, Idaho, and eastern Oregon. I thought Wyoming would NEVER fucking end. Where others see “America’s Heartland,” all I see is “empty nothingness,” “freezing wind,” “abject poverty,” and occasionally “blatant stupidity.”

On the first night, Jim and I stopped in Burley, Idaho, where the hotel next door (with overflow guests in our hotel) was playing host to a Southern Baptist convention. I suppose if I was more cleverly confrontational, I would’ve found a way to fuck with the Baptist kids congregating in their chaste, clean-cut, gay-hatin’, snowy white prayer groups, but all I felt like doing was retreating to my room and drinking even heavier than usual. No liquor stores around, though, so a six of Killian’s had to suffice.

Anyway, it’s finally over and done, and I’m here now — surrounded by boxes, doped up on cold medication, and ready to take on the world. Or something. Sounds plausible at least, doesn’t it?

I’m at my parents’ house now, where my ever-prepared brother is scrambling around still trying to figure out what to take with him and what to leave behind. I’m hiding in the basement from the ever-present Faux News Channel upstairs.

The U-Haul truck is running fine so far, but I feel like death warmed over. My allergies came back when I returned to Tucson, and they’ve gotten progressively worse in the last two days. I think my sinuses are trying to kill me.

I might just be allergic to the entire Midwest. I don’t hate Middle America, Middle America hates me…

There’s a 17-foot U-Haul truck loaded with my stuff sitting outside, ready to go this morning. Unfortunately, “go” is a more hopeful than realistic word at this point. The truck backfired on two separate occasions on the way to James’s house. I called U-Haul’s support line, who promised to send a mechanic out to look at it, but no one showed up.

I’m a little worried about this truck making it all the way to Seattle. But at least there’s no snow in my way for the next couple of days.

Have I mentioned I’m not looking forward to this?

My flight for Tucson leaves in three and a half hours, so my Internet access will be spotty until Saturday… when it disappears entirely until the following Wednesday.

Five days in a U-Haul. Gah. I’m not looking forward to this.

Oh, and I’ve just discovered I’ve lost my phone’s travel charger, so there’s another stop I have to make…