You can't work unless Homeland Security approves you

My good friend Marc alerted me to this. Pay real close attention, boyz and goylz...

Soon you will need approval from the Department of Homeland Security in order to hold a job.

Do you understand what that means?

First of all, these are the people who maintain - and constantly bungle - the "No Fly List". Now they are going to do the same thing with your work eligibility.

But worse than that: this is something straight out of the Soviet Union. Hell, let's call a spade a spade and say that this is something out of Nazi Germany. Sure was hard to find work there unless you proved that you weren't Jewish, wasn't it? Lord only knows what our government will come up with that would disqualify someone from employment.

And what's to keep "them" from stopping there? If we can have No Fly Lists and No Work Lists - and they've already got No Gun Lists well in the works - then why not No Marry Lists and No Hospital Care Lists and No Food Lists...?

When does it stop?

More to the point: when do we stop them?

A little over three years ago I wrote "People Who Should Be Shot When the Revolution Comes". Maybe it's time to update that directory...

EDIT 7:16 p.m. EST: Yes, I know that this was hidden away in the "immigration reform" bill. But there is nothing about stemming the flow of illegals into this country that possibly necessitates putting the damned Department of Homeland Security in charge of whether or not anyone can work.

If that doesn't pop a huge red flag, then I don't know what will.

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An idea for a new Fox reality show

How does this sound for a new show (I'm thinking Fox would be the best venue for it) in the style of American Idol and On The Lot: I call it Pardon Me!

Pardon Me! will feature twelve contestants, all of them convicted felons on Death Row. Each week the inmates have to "file an appeal" which is critiqued by a panel of three judges, including one "celebrity judge" (I'm thinking O.J. Simpson and Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme via satellite from prison in Texas). At the end of each show the phone lines open and the audience gets to vote on who they like most. Each week the "contestant" with the fewest votes is sent "home" and escorted off the stage on what the producers call "The Long Walk". The very last person left after weeks of competition gets a full pardon.

We're headed straight toward that, folks. That's what I can't help but think when I read stories like this one from the BBC: a new Dutch TV show has contestants vying for a dying donor's kidney...

Outcry over TV kidney competition

A Dutch TV station says it will go ahead with a programme in which a terminally ill woman selects one of three patients to receive her kidneys.

Political parties have called for The Big Donor Show to be scrapped, but broadcaster BNN says it will highlight the country's shortage of organ donors.

"It's a crazy idea," said Joop Atsma, of the ruling Christian Democrat Party.

"It can't be possible that, in the Netherlands, people vote about who's getting a kidney," he told the BBC.

The programme, from Big Brother creators Endemol, is due to be screened on Friday night.

The 37-year-old donor, identified only as Lisa, will make her choice based on the contestants' history, profile and conversation with their family and friends.

Viewers will also be able to send in their advice by text message during the 80-minute show.

I seriously have to wonder how long will it be before a show like this makes its way to America.

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May 29, 2007: A tragic day for Star Wars fans

A few days ago we had the 30th anniversary of the release of Star Wars (Episode IV: A New Hope, even though it was a few years later when the subtitle was added). Last night the History Channel ran Star Wars: The Legacy Revealed, which is one of the best documentaries about Star Wars that I've ever seen. There's been a lot of jubilation this past week about our favorite modern saga...

...but today is a time to mourn.

Today Sacrifice, the new Star Wars novel in the "Legacy of the Force" series, was published. As is being widely reported already, this is the book that sees the death of Mara Jade Skywalker: wife of Luke Skywalker and perhaps the most beloved Star Wars character to have never appeared in any of the movies.

Mara Jade first appeared in Heir to the Empire, the first of the modern "expanded universe" books, in May of 1991. When we first saw her she was trying to kill Luke. She ended up falling in love with him. The two had a wedding as beautiful as any to be found in a fairy tale.

Mara Jade Skywalker was many things: former Imperial, Palpatine's personal assassin, smuggler, dancer, spy, Jedi, diplomat, wife, mother to son Ben... and so very beautiful.

And now, she is dead. Murdered at the hands of nephew Jacen Solo... who is now a Sith Lord calling himself Darth Caedus.

It's the end of an era, my friends...

Mara Jade, we hardly knew ye!

By the way, I sort of have a bit of "history" with Mara Jade. Some years ago I sat next to Shannon McRandle - the actress who did Mara's "real life" portrayals - during dinner. And in 2000 I interviewed Mara Jade's creator Timothy Zahn in an interview for TheForce.net. Then I wound up making a replica Luke Skywalker lightsaber for a friend's Mara Jade costume...

And yes, I do have a "favorite" Mara Jade outfit. But I'm not going to say which one it is here. But I will say this: of all the Star Wars female characters, I always thought that she was the hottest (WAY more so than that ridiculous "slave Leia metal bikini"). And for her attitude as much as for her loveliness.

Rest in peace, Mara...

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Amnesty opponents don't know "what's right for America", Bush says

From the story...

"Those determined to find fault with this bill will always be able to look at a narrow slice of it and find something they don't like," the president said. "If you want to kill the bill, if you don't want to do what's right for America, you can pick one little aspect out of it.

"You can use it to frighten people," Bush said. "Or you can show leadership and solve this problem once and for all."

Once again, The Decider decrees that to disagree with him is unpatriotic. Hell, he practically accuses those against illegal amnesty of having the same mindset as "the terrists".

But it is George W. Bush and those like him who are destroying America. In ways that "terrorists" can only dream they could accomplish.

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Quick note on some o' my websites

kwerkyproductions.com, knightforboard.org and knightvisionmedia.com will be temporarily offline for the next week or so. We're moving them to new hosting. It'll also give me some time to "tweak" a few things behind the scenes :-)

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Rest in peace Charles Nelson Reilly

I heard this morning that Charles Nelson Reilly - Tony Award-winning performer and Match Game perpetual panelist - passed away this past Friday at the age of 76.

I didn't know him from any of that. No, like a lot of us who "came of age" during the last decade, I know Charles Nelson Reilly mostly from his role as Jose Chung in the classic The X-Files episode "Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'": easily among the most unique hours of Nineties television.

A few years later Reilly returned as Chung in the Millennium episode "Jose Chung's Doomsday Defense". In his honor, here is the intro to that extremely hilarious episode (which made fun of Scientology):

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Something to ponder this Memorial Day ...

I took this sign to a few places around Greensboro today...

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Government to sanction medical experiments without patient consent

Read the story at the Houston Chronicle site here.

The first things that flashed in my mind when I read this story were Nazi "doctors" like Josef Mengele, and the Tuskegee Experiment (which was conducted by the American government, by the way).

Someday "they" will go too far - if they haven't already - and the Man in Room Five is going to break free and come looking for them.

(Props to anyone who will recognize that literary reference.)

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STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS trailer soars online (and an update on TALES OF THE NEW REPUBLIC)

I must admit, when I first heard about this project I was more than a little skeptical. I mean, haven't the Clone Wars been depicted enough over the past five years? Guess I was hoping for this kind of effort to be made toward covering ground we haven't seen yet (like the interval between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hop, or the Old Republic era). That said, this looks "impressive... most impressive!"

Mash down here for the new Star Wars: The Clone Wars trailer.

Speaking of computer-animated Star Wars, a few days ago I posted a report about something called Tales of the New Republic. Ever since word about this came out last week a lot of fans have been stymied as to whether or not this is an official Lucasfilm production. Sometime in the last day or so it was posted on the project's website that this is not an officially sanctioned production. It's something being done by a group of fans. Still astounded by the amount of work that seems to be going into this though. Here's the trailer for Tales of the New Republic that they've put online...

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Review of PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD'S END

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End is the first movie of the 2007 summer season that I can honestly say I left the theater completely satisfied after seeing it. This, despite the dizzying Byzantine labyrinth of sub-stories and political schemes and double-crossing backstabs you have to navigate through in watching this movie.

The first advice I can give about going to see At World's End is to go to the restroom before the movie starts... and buy a small or medium drink at the concession stand, not large. Clocking in at very nearly three hours, this movie is a bladder-buster. But if you go away for even a few minutes during any part of the movie, you are assured to miss some critical bit of story or plot device. This isn’t like any of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings where you could go "answer the call of nature" during some lengthy oration by Gandalf and still "get" the rest of the movie. No, if you leave for whatever reason... nay, even turn your head to look at your huneybunch for too long... you'll miss stuff in At World's End.

The second advice I can give about watching Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End is to go into the movie with at least a cursory knowledge of how World War I started. In case you don’t know, it all went screwy in 1914 because of a myriad of treaties and alliances between all the big nations and empires on the European continent so that when Gavrilo Princip fired his one tiny gun, it obliged all the countries to start shooting at each other. That's what happens in At World's End: a maddening number of intrigue and unlikely partnerships and competing motivations that slowly become obvious to everyone involved. By then it's far too late: everything is headed toward one hella cacophonous collision on the high seas. And when it does... man I haven't seen a climax that cool in a new movie in a way long time!

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End picks up the story some time after the last installment Dead Man's Chest. In an opening scene at Port Royal that could be seen by many to be a metaphor for what's going on in modern America, the right to free speech and Habeas Corpus have been suspended by Cutler Beckett (Tom Hollander), who begins to execute anyone suspected of being sympathetic to pirates (that all of this takes place near the present-day location of Guantanamo makes it even more ironic). Beckett, now in possession of the heart of Davy Jones (Bill Nighy), is already using Jones and the Flying Dutchman to enforce his will across the oceans. The sway that Beckett has over Jones is reinforced when it's learned that Beckett made Jones kill the Kraken.

Meanwhile Elizabeth Swann (Kiera Knightley), Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) and the rest of the Black Pearl crew are in Singapore, hoping to convince Sao Feng (Chow Yun Fat), the Pirate Lord of the South China Sea, to lend them the map to World's End. Sao Feng isn't feeling too charitable, considering that Elizabeth's betrothed beau Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) was caught trying to steal the thing. During an ambush by the British Royal Navy, Sao Feng agrees to loan Elizabeth the map, along with his best ship, for the journey to World's End. Elizabeth, Barbossa, Gibbs (Kevin McNally) and the rest of the crew – including the mysterious voodoo priestess Tia Dalma (Naomie Harris) and the undead monkey – set off to rescue Captain Jack Sparrow.

Taking the story to far-off Singapore should have been the first clue as to the breadth of this third chapter in the Pirates of the Caribbean saga. At World's End is epic on an obscene scale. We see Port Royal and Singapore, and the twilight realm of the frozen Arctic (which was one of my favorite scenes of the movie) and quite a number of other places including the pirate bastion called Shipwreck Cove, where the Brethren Court – the nine pirate lords throughout the world – meet. Where The Curse of the Black Pearl and Dead Man's Chest took place in the Caribbean and Atlantic, At World's End spans the entire globe and beyond.

But then Elizabeth and her crew go over the literal World's End (guess the world is flat after all) and we get to see Davy Jones' Locker: the place where those who owe a debt to Jones go to pay it off. It's at this point that I totally forgot this movie was directed by Gore Verbinski and it became, instead, a film by Terry Gilliam. I thought that even before reading reviews from other people who thought the same thing, too. Here we finally get to see Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp, in maybe his best portrayal of the character yet). Davy Jones' Locker is a vast desert wasteland that wrecks havoc with one's sanity (just like a Gilliam movie is apt to do to the viewer). Quite a bit of revelation about Sparrow in this part: maybe more than we ever cared to know, even. Sparrow is rescued and just as important, the Black Pearl is recovered (I'm trying hard not to "spoil" too much of the details here) and after Sparrow figures out the World's End map, our heroes are back in the realm of the living.

And from that point on... I need to re-watch At World's End again, because this story was incredibly dense for a summer popcorn flick. There are still some things I'm not quite sure of (such as the importance of the people singing Hoist the Colors on their way to the gallows at the beginning of the movie). This is definitely a movie to watch and re-watch many times when it comes out on DVD in order to "get" everything that's going on. But slight confusion aside, I cannot but admit that I had a blast with Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. It makes watching the first two again something you're going to want to do, because very small details in those suddenly take on huge significance (the locket that Tia Dalma has f'rinstance, which I speculated about when I watched the DVD of Dead Man's Chest back in January). All the big dangling storylines get resolved in At World's End... usually after we come to find out that there was much more to the tale than what we’d previously known. We learn a staggering amount of stuff about this fictional world, especially when the Brethren Court meets (which I enjoyed a lot). Speaking of which, Keith Richards is a lot of fun to watch as Captain Teague Sparrow: the keeper of the Pirate Law and the father of Captain Jack.

I think Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End is the third installment in a movie series that Return of the Jedi could have and should have been. Because if this is going to be the last film in a series for awhile or ever at all, then everything should be poured into the story so far as the setting and geography and lore of the movie's "universe" goes. The only new things we really saw in Return of the Jedi were Jabba's Palace and a forest filled with pint-sized Wookiees. At World's End is painted with a much broader brush that doesn't leave us feeling wanting at the conclusion of the movie.

About the ending: yeah, I wasn't expecting that for an ending, either. I had always envisioned Will and Elizabeth to be married by Captain Sparrow on the deck of the Black Pearl after Davy Jones and Beckett had been taken care of, "and they lived happily ever after". If you've seen the movie, you know that this does not happen. That what does happen was something we never anticipated. But, it's starting to grow on me. The producers of the movie were bold enough to break with tradition and I think it's going to make At World's End that much more endearing with time.

The visual effects in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End are amazing. I was mighty impressed at how good Industrial Light and Magic had become with the CGI in Dead Man's Chest. In At World's End, they surpassed that even. So many shots in this movie that I have to wonder how they were done. You might be hearing some talk about that last scene with Cutler Beckett: that was definitely a fun one to watch.

I feel like I'm only able to give a half-hearted review of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End because I really need to see this again, if not two more times, to feel like I can fully appreciate all the nuances and angles of this movie. Maybe I'll write some more thoughts about it when that happens.

But in the meantime, I've spent each Saturday of the past four weeks watching a new summer movie (Spider-Man 3 twice and Shrek the Third last week). I had a good time with Spider-Man 3 in spite of its many problems and didn't think very much at all about "Dreck the Third". With Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, I can finally see that there may be some promise yet at the movies this summer.

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"We have to go back!": LOST after "The Looking Glass"

This post is going to be heavy on spoilers regarding this past Wednesday night's season finale of Lost, titled "Through the Looking Glass". So if you're someone who's still trying to find time to "get into" the show (someone who is probably going to be borrowing my Lost DVD sets, and you know who you are ;-) then you'll want to steer clear of what I'm about to say, until you're able to watch "Through the Looking Glass" as virginally as possible, with the three seasons of stories behind it.

Everyone gone who doesn't want to know more at the present time?

Good, 'cuz here goes...

The Lost Season 3 finale was the most diabolically devious trick that was ever pulled with a TV show, that I've been able to think of. What makes it work is that there were three seasons of an established format building up to it, and during this episode we think we know what's going on. And then that final scene happens... which was the absolutely most confusing thing that I ever watched firsthand until my wife figured it out and told me about it... and kicks the table not only over, but clear across the room. The producers said that this episode would be the long-announced "game-changer" that would totally alter how we watched the story.

I don't think that they were kidding. Just as Alice went through the Looking Glass and everything was reversed, that's what this episode represents. For three years we have been watching these characters be revealed through flashbacks of their lives before coming to the Island...

...and now we are getting ready to see how exactly the Island affected them, through flash-forwards of what happens to them after they were eventually rescued.

Which I think is one of the most original things... if not the most original thing, to ever be done with a television show mid-stream.

In fact, I have to wonder if Lost has raised the bar so high with this move, could television as a story-telling medium ever be able to top that? So far, no ideas are entering my mind... and I've tried to think of plenty.

That final shot of Jack crying "We have to go back!"... maybe that wasn't the traditional season-ending "cliffhanger", but that was easily the most haunting way to end one chapter of a television show that I've seen. This whole episode was filled with shots that stick to your mind, but that one tops them all.

So now we know that Jack and Kate, at least of the Flight 815 survivors, do get off the Island... but at what cost? A man does not obsess with maps of the Pacific and keeps flying over it praying that the plane will crash unless there is something massive on his conscience about whatever happened. Why can't he find the Island again? If they were rescued, then certainly somewhere there is a log showing the coordinates of the Island, right? However it happened, it made Jack a very recognizable "hero figure" and Oceanic was embarrassed enough to give all the survivors lifetime free flights to anywhere. But there's something else that they can't talk about: Jack says that he's "tired of the lying" about it.

So... what was it?

What does happen to Sawyer and Sayid and Hurley and Claire and Sun and Jin and all of the rest once they finally return to their normal lives. Can they even return to those? For some reason I keep envisioning a future episode of Lost where Hurley and his dad take their car to the Grand Canyon, just like Papa Reyes promised Hurley. I also see, if the show is going to be flash-forwards from here on out, how Michael and Walt can be brought back and how Malcolm David Kelley's growth can be realistically addressed (without having to resort to anything wacky like "the Others experimented on him" etc.). We might see years down the line, where Sun and Jin are a happy couple with their beautiful baby (if there are no "complications" that is). The thing about Desmond and Penny, we might get to see a happy ending to that story too... maybe.

And then there is Locke: where will he be, long after the ships or helicopters or whatever have come? Because you just know that he won't go unless he's unconscious or dead or bound and gagged and even then I wouldn't trust him to not blow something up.

I do believe that the show will end with us seeing the 815 survivors being rescued. But the story shouldn't end "there". These characters are going to be changed for the rest of their lives by what has happened on the Island. And now we are going to get to see how it affected them, too.

The Lost producers, it seems, have crossed a terrible line and painted themselves into a corner with "Through the Looking Glass". So now they're going to tear a hole straight through the wall.

This is what makes excellent storytelling, folks. It's when you challenge yourself and decide that you won't be bound by "the norms". That you are going to tell this story your way and let come what may. They have taken a huge gamble with this: maybe the biggest ever tried with a television show. But, I think it's going to work.

Besides, just about all the major characters (and a lot of the minor ones) have had their pasts explored about as much as the viewers are really interested to see. We need to explore some fresh ground now. By altering the format of the story, they get to do that and in the process do something quite rare for a television show: make it completely fresh and compelling viewing again well into the show's run.

So it will be a long eight months until Lost returns. But somehow after this week's episode I don't feel upset at having to wait at all. There is a sense of completion here. Now we just have to sit back and watch how the thing unfolds along the way to get us there.

Lost with no more flashbacks... who'da thunk we'd see that happen? :-)

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Thirty years ago today ...

... Star Wars was born.

You've come a long way, baby.

Happy birthday to the greatest movie saga ever.

(Don't forget that today is the day that the Star Wars postage stamps go on sale at U.S. Post Offices across America. I'll be going to get mine in the next little while :-)

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About that "new Star Wars movie" rumor ...

I doubt it.

The Internets have been buzzing all day - spurred on by a story from the Daily Telegraph - about a supposed "major announcement" tomorrow at Star Wars Celebration IV: that George Lucas is going to make another Star Wars movie.

I'm not going to be at this year's Celebration, but I was at the second in 2002 and the third in 2005 (both in Indianapolis) and trust me: this thing seems to breed wild rumors like you can't imagine. Over the course of two Celebrations I've heard that: Hugh Jackman was confirmed to be in Episode III, that we would find out the name of Yoda's race, that George Lucas was "definitely" coming to Celebration II (he didn't, but we did see him at Celebration III), that the adjacent stadium would be used to host the first public showing of Revenge of the Sith for convention attendees, and probably a dozen more... including the rumor - at both - that the event would see the announcement of a sequel Star Wars trilogy.

None of those things happened. I'm not saying Lucas won't make a new Star Wars movie, just that in my mind it's pretty doubtful for lots of reasons. If this does get announced though, I can only imagine that Lucas is going to take more of an "executive producer" role: that he'll write the script for the movie(s), then hand off direction and a lot of the other major tasks to others. Which, I think would be a pretty good arrangement... again, for lots of reasons.

Personally, I would love to see that happen. If for no other reason than because all these years I had been anticipating nine Star Wars movies, and because three trilogies on the DVD shelf would look a lot neater than two :-)

EDIT 5/25/2007 6:40 a.m. EST: Steve Sansweet has confirmed at Celebration IV that there will be no further Star Wars movies.

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There is only one reason why politicians want to tax the Internet

Some are saying that taxes on Internet use could arrive by this fall.

The Internet may have started with government funding, but it's long been something that's of and managed by the public domain.

There is only one reason why politicians would want to tax how you use the Internet: because they want to control how you use it and how much information you get from it.

People across the country are finally waking up to the charade that the "two party" fraud has been perpetrating on us for so long. People are starting to openly question the motives of their leaders. There is beginning to be considerable resistance to the idea that we must have things like the income tax. There are some politicians in the past few weeks who have witnessed the meteoric rise of Ron Paul to the forefront of the presidential race, and they realize that it couldn't have happened without people exchanging ideas over the Internet and coordinating with each other.

Ever read V for Vendetta, the original graphic novel? In the final part of the book, V makes total chaos break out after shutting down the government's ability to eavesdrop on everyone. The country starts tearing itself apart and Evey asks V if this is what he really wanted. V tells her no: that the current phase of violence and upheaval is Verwirrung: "The Land of Take-What-You-Want". But after this "comes an age of Ordnung, of true order, which is to say voluntary order." V doesn't want total disorder. He simply wants people to assume authority and responsibility on their own without trusting very evil men to assume it for them.

That's the potential of the Internet, that we might finally start to see blossoming. Regular people are no longer trusting The Powers That Be. The ordinary man is coming to be revealed as just as wise and capable as... if not far more so than... the "elites" who continue to get elected to Washington year after year.

And the elites can't have that.

So they want to impose this tax. As a measure of control over the masses that they have exploited for so long. They are trying to take away the public stump and the town hall from us.

A tax on the Internet is a grievous blow for the cause of tyranny.

And the only people who would possibly want to impose this tax are true tyrants at heart.

By all means, an Internet tax should be opposed. And those who want it driven from office by the cruelest of whips.

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LOST last night: Ben = George W. Bush

Think about it...

George W. Bush claims to hear God, his followers believe him and are ready to go to war and kill on Bush's orders.

Ben claims to hear Jacob, his followers believe him and are ready to go to war and kill on Ben's orders.

Though lately, the followers of both are starting to question their leaders.

That one just kinda jumped out at me last night. I thought "Through the Looking Glass", the final Lost of the season, was in part a great parable about blindly following someone "with authority" without questioning that authority.

Ben also reminded me of Randall Flagg in the last good bit of The Stand, when he starts to lose control over his followers and everything starts to go wrong around him.

I guess it could also be said that Ben is much like Shift, the ape in C.S. Lewis' The Last Battle, the final book in the Chronicles of Narnia. Shift claims to speak for Aslan and he tells the other Narnians that they can't see Aslan for themselves, that they have to trust Shift's word completely. Too many of them don't question it and it ultimately leads to disaster.

Man, I love Lost! This is why it's one of the very few shows I've ever kept up with: 'cuz it makes ya think about stuff.

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The newspaper clipping from last night's LOST

At the beginning of last night's Lost, Jack (was it just me or did he start looking more and more like Charles Manson as the episode progressed, especially later on with the denim jacket and heavy drugs) sees a newspaper article while flying on the plane. He tears it out and takes it with him and it's seen in most of the "flashbacks" that follow. As we know, it was a news story about someone's death: presumably this is the person in the casket. But who is it?

Well, someone (apparently this came from The Tail Section) got a real good high-def screenshot of one of the very few times that there was a decent enough close-up of the clipping. Here it is:

It looks like the name being referred to could be "Jeremy Bentham". Which as it turns out, with Lost's penchant for naming characters after real-world philosophers, is probably it. Who was Jeremy Bentham? From Wikipedia...

Jeremy Bentham (IPA: ['benθəm] or ['bentəm]) (February 15, 1748 O.S. (February 26, 1748 N.S.) – June 6, 1832) was an English jurist, philosopher, and legal and social reformer. He was a political radical and a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law. He is best known as an early advocate of utilitarianism and animal rights who influenced the development of liberalism.

Bentham was one of the most influential utilitarians, partially through his writings but particularly through his students all around the world. These included his secretary and collaborator on the utilitarian school of philosophy James Mill, James Mill's son John Stuart Mill, and several political leaders (and Robert Owen, who later became a founder of socialism).

But check this out...

Among his many proposals for legal and social reform was a design for a prison building he called the Panopticon. Although it was never built, the idea had an important influence upon later generations of thinkers. Twentieth-century French philosopher Michel Foucault argued that the Panopticon was paradigmatic of a whole raft of nineteenth-century 'disciplinary' institutions.

And what was the Panopticon prison supposed to be, exactly? Again from Wikipedia:

The Panopticon is a type of prison building designed by English philosopher Jeremy Bentham in the late eighteenth century. The concept of the design is to allow an observer to observe (-opticon) all (pan-) prisoners without the prisoners being able to tell if they are being observed or not, thus conveying a "sentiment of an invisible omniscience." In his own words, Bentham described the Panopticon as "a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example."

Sounds suspiciously like some of the stuff that's been going on with the Island.

Ever since last night I thought that the person in the casket was someone we already knew. But it looks like it's going to be someone we haven't seen yet. And my guess is they have a major connection to the purpose of the Island.

Methinks Lindelof and Cuse (the producers of Lost) have given us plenty to pursue and contemplate and fill up the Internets with crazy theories about between now and next winter!

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LOST: The morning after "Through the Looking Glass"

Lisa and I woke up and the first words out of her mouth were that "it's hard to sleep with something like THAT on your mind."

For the first time in a long time, it could honestly be said that television history was made last night.

I am not that much of a television person. Never have been. The number of shows that I've actively kept up with during my life could be numbered with my hands. And it took me awhile to "get into" Lost. I'm sorta like the Amish when it comes to TV: I have to fully trust it before I invest my time in it. But Lisa's mom kept saying how this was a really good show, so I gave it a shot.

And I've never been so glad that I did than I am after last night.

"Through the Looking Glass", the Lost Season 3 finale, is the most beautifully orchestrated and mind-blowing single episode of a television show that I've ever seen. My brain still hasn't stopped reeling from what we saw last night. Remember the twist ending that we saw in The Sixth Sense? Well, "Through the Looking Glass" was ten times that "HOLY (your choice of exclamation here)!!!" that we felt at the end of that movie. Ever since the return from the break in February Lost has consistently been some of the best fiction that I've seen in any medium. This final episode for Season 3 raised the bar across the board for everything, especially for TV (either network or "premium" channels like HBO). On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd give "Through the Looking Glass" a 27.

There was only one thing that bugged me about "Through the Looking Glass". That was when Locke saw Walt (or whatever the heck that really was, since I'm sure the real Walt is still on the boat with Michael after last season's finale). Walt looked and sounded old enough to buy cigarettes. Guess that couldn't be helped: Malcolm David Kelley was, what, 10 years old when the pilot episode was shot? Looks like puberty kicked in bigtime since last season's finale. But since that obviously wasn't the real Walt, I guess this can be allowed to slide. If they ever do show the real Walt though, there'd better be a darned good explanation for his ultra-fast growth spurt (but this being Lost, anything could probably be made to sound like it makes sense :-).

The most powerful moment of the whole show (after that "JEEZ LOUISE!" shocker of a final scene) was the last time we saw Charlie. We literally had to hold back the tears. I don't think that could have been handled any more poignantly. And I'm trying as hard as I can to not be too "spoiler-ish" for anyone who hasn't had the good fortune of seeing this show yet.

Sayid showed us once again last night that he is the baddest mothe-"shut yo mouth" on TV right now (or ever). Did you see what he did to that guy... with his legs?!?

Of all the moments that Hurley has had, this was his biggest moment to shine. It's funny: last week I found myself wondering about whatever happened to the DHARMA van. The scene where Hurley charges the beach in it, pedal-to-the-metal with that look of "I'm coming to get YOU!" on his face... just awesome! I've said this before and I'll say it again: Hurley is the real leader of the Flight 815 survivors. He's gone way out of his way to provide for his friends, to give them a good time... and to stand by them when they need it most. What he did last night just affirmed it that much more.

Did anyone else get the craziest feeling that for all of Ben's lies and manipulations and orders to kill people... that maybe there really is something we don't know about yet that he's very much in fear of? After last night I still think Ben is one of the most hated TV characters ever... but now there's a weird sense of sincerity about him. Still didn't keep me from cheering when Jack beat the living snot out of him.

By the way, I loved how Ben is fast losing control over the Others. It's like the last bit of Stephen King's The Stand when things began going bad for Randall Flagg and no matter how hard he tries to control things, they keep spinning out of control.

If that's not Penny's boat... then who is it? The only thing I can think of is that it's DHARMA... but if DHARMA is still active, then they must already still know where the Island is, since they're still dropping groceries onto it. That's probably the biggest question that I can think of to take us into next season.

Now as for "that thing". You know what I'm talking about if you watched it last night. Lost is notorious for setting things up so that you have to watch an episode more than once, sometimes two or three times even. I think that last night's episode is going to be the most dissected and analyzed and hypothesized two hours of television. I keep thinking about how all that time people were calling Jack a "hero", and it seemed like they were referring to what happened with the car crash. Except it turns out that they called him a hero for something else entirely. And then that final scene where the car pulls up and Jack talks with a certain someone: as I said right after the show, that scene made the synapses in my brain misfire while trying to figure out just what the heck was going on. And then Lisa tells me. If she hadn't figured it out I would have probably been wrestling with that all night (or at least until I read about it online). That one was hands-down one of the biggest shockers in either a TV show or a movie... or a book for that matter (I really hope that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will have a shocker just half as sad and pure loco as what Lost was last night).

So... who's in the casket? Four or five people come to mind. One in particular. But like I said, I'm trying hard not to be too spoiler-ish.

Man, if I were a drinking man, I would have needed some serious hard liquor after last night's Lost. That was definitely better television that we deserve.

Amazing. Just bloody amazing. Now we have to wait until next January (at the earliest) to see how and where... and when... this story progresses from here.

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