Life, death and lesser questions
There are questions that puzzle us all.
Did humans evolve from apes?
Is there life after death?
How do you figure slugging percentage?
There are answers to all these questions - and I know them. Welcome to the world of Dr. Know, the guy who knows so much, Jeeves asks him questions.
Q. Dear Dr. Know: I heard NASA is planning to send a manned mission to the dark side of the moon. We haven't been to the moon for more than 30 years. Why do we need to go back, especially to the dark side?
A. Well, why did Adam Sandler remake "The Longest Yard?" It all has to do with money. Although a manned mission is an intriguing concept, there's no reason to tamper with the Dark Side of the Moon. Pink Floyd's classic 1973 album, featuring stunning vocals by Roger Waters and masterful guitar work by David Gilmour, was on the U.S. charts for more than 566 weeks and has proven as worthy as the Beatles' White album. With the space program's deplorable shuttle record and the inability to keep reptiloid space entities from infiltrating our government, NASA has no business revisiting a classic rock album unless their next moon landing hoax needs a soundtrack.
Q. Hey, Dr. Know: A professor from U.C. Berkeley released results from his 20-year study of 100 Berkeley children and found self-confident, resilient kids grew up to be liberals, and wimpier kids grew up to be conservatives. If this is true, what does it say about the current presidential administration?
A. Hey, hippie: I love taking a few hits off the ole skull bong before reading any scholarly study by a U.C. Berkeley professor. Right on. I'm familiar with the study by Professor Jack Block. What the study didn't address is how many of the "confident" kids got beaten up and stuffed into lockers by the "wimpy" kids they'd later call boss. Block followed these children from preschool to college graduation and found the kids he considered whiny grew up following the rules, and the kids he considered self-confident grew up to be non-conformists. How I see it is if people from Berkeley, Calif., consider you to be self-confident and resilient, people elsewhere will admire your Long John Silvers uniform. Aaarrgg.
Q. Dear Dr. Know: Should I be worried about the environment? Between global warming, pollution and the deforestation, I'm afraid our lack of foresight is going to wreck this planet for generations to come.
A. Afraid is the right word. You should be afraid, but not for future generations, you should be afraid right now. Sure the polar ice caps and glaciers are melting at an incredible rate and we're poisoning our lakes and rivers with toxic waste. But these problems are nothing when it comes to the giant radiation-mutated ants and grasshoppers brought to our attention in the 1950s with movies like "Them!" and "The Beginning of the End."
What people don't know is that these movies aren't science fiction films. They are documentaries filmed by people from 2012 who brought them back in time. Those are actual giant grasshoppers attacking Chicago.
So what can you do to help solve this giant bug problem?
Gen. John T. Short from "The Beginning of the End" gave the solution to Dr. Ed Wainwright, who looks surprisingly like Peter Graves.
"You're a scientist," the general said. "You know what grasshoppers can do. I'm a soldier, I know what guns can do."
Amen, brother.
