Pick a Side, Any Side

Does it matter what we believe, as long as we believe something? That's what a television news commentator would urge us to do:

Believe in something! Even if it's wrong! Believe in it!

-- Glenn Beck, Mar 2009

The video is in this Comedy Central clip, around time 3:10:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
IndigNation! Populist Uprising '09 - The Enragening
comedycentral.com

OK, you might argue, this is just a typical opinion
entertainer on one of the several "news" networks, trying to
fill up on of the 24 hours the network is on the air, every day.
Let's even excuse the fact that Beck seems to believe all of what
he is saying, down to the teary-eyed professions of love for his
country and the little guy (see video above). Is there something
to what he says?

As it turns out, perhaps. A recent survey by Anthony Leiserowitz asked television viewers which of several "news" shows they watched before the general election in 2008, and about their general beliefs. Of those who watched the specific shows of interest, they broke down approximately evenly between left-leaning (such as Olberman, Colbert and Stewart), and right-leaning shows (such as O'Reilly, Hannity and Limbaugh).

What fascinated me was this question,

We should always be willing to fight
for our country, whether our country is right or wrong.

A whopping 70% of those who watch right-leaning shows agree
with this statement. Which means if our country is wrong, no
matter how egregiously wrong, 70% of these viewers would still
support military action? The left-leaning shows are really not
much better, with 30-40% of viewers responding that they agree
with the statement. Of the respondants that didn't watch any of
the specific shows, about half agreed that we should be willing
to fight no matter what.

Note that the question was not about whether we
should "support the troups," although that phrase has it's own
moral ambiguities. No, the question was whether we should
support our country, in military action, even when that action is
something we know to be wrong. I wonder if the right-leaning
watchers still agree with this statement, now that a Democrat
holds the presidency.

I'm a little taken aback by this philosophy. It basically
says that a large number of citizens place country above
morality. Or rather, that our nation creates its own
morality by virtue of its existence. These respondants are
willing to hold and support beliefs that they know to be wrong,
simply because the name of their country is attached to it. I
guess I would prefer it to go the other way: that our country
earns the respect of the righteous by actually doing the right
thing in the first place.

Der Party Starter

One of the Superbowl commercials that I really laughed at...

Under the Gunn

Last week I went to a presentation by Tim Gunn, well known as one of the hosts of Project Runway. I went with my friend Maggie and her friend April. It was held at the University of Maryland at the student union. Ostensibly, the purpose of the presentation was to help students transition their style from school to the workplace.

(my best photo, because they requested no-flash)

In reality, he spoke for a few minutes on that topic (his primary wisdom was, "be responsible for your look.") I was hoping for a bit of a slide show -- at least some kind of "do's" and "don't's" -- but he disabused us of that possibility early on, because he thought a slide show would be interpreted too literally by his viewers. To me that sounds like a bit of a cop-out.

One interesting thing I did learn is that Mr. Gunn has no formal training in fashion design, which is impressive because he has quite a good eye when advising his students.

Mr. Gunn is also extremely gracious, in person just as much as on his television shows. He's just an endearing guy. I have no doubt that, if there had been time, he would have loved to meet everybody in person and learn about their life story. Unfortunately the size of the crowd was huge, and the ballroom was packed to the gills! This turned out to be a problem at the end of the presentation, when Gunn wrapped up and moved for the door. The crowd literally mobbed him! Here's the scene:

(yes, that's him on the left, I only got the back half of his head...)

Eventually he waded through the crowd, and escaped through a service door. Whew! Hopefully he'll carry on his interesting career!

I'm Not a Physicist, but I Play One on TV

If you watch television, you might have seen two separate advertisements -- one for high-end LCD televisions and the other for solar panels -- but both are from the same company, Sharp Electronics Corp USA. This summer they began a major advertising campaign for both products, as unrelated as they might seem, as life changing products. Both feature a curious white-haired academician expounding the virtues of Sharp's wares.

The LCD television commercial starts like this, (video)

Seems like you need to be a physics professor to choose the right TV. Luckily, I am one. ...

while the solar panel pitch begins, (video)

I'm an astrophysicist, a star gazer, but here's something cosmic I discovered on earth, ...

Both commercials are narrated by a flaxen-haired, well-dressed man, identified by the caption "Professor Gerard Fasel, Astrophysicist." Who is this man? Is he really an astrophysicist? Read on, you may soon know him better as "Albino Security Guard."


Dr. Fasel is indeed listed on the faculty at Pepperdine University as a "Visiting Professor." His college biography lists courses taught in physics, mathematics and astronomy. He also appears to have teaching ratings at ratemyprofessors.com for the years 2003-2008, so we can assume he has been teaching at least part-time for most of that period of time.

However, according to Dr. Fasel's list of publications in the subjects of physics and astrophysics, his last publication of any sort was in 1995, or 13 years ago. The article, "Dayside poleward moving auroral forms: A statistical study," was published in the respected Journal of Geophysical Research. During his academic hayday of 1992-1995, he published a total of four refereed publications, either as primary author or co-author. All of these publications regard the study of terrestrial aurora, which is in essence a study of the interaction between the solar wind, earth's magnetosphere, and upper atmosphere. By the way, the phenomenon of terrestrial aurora, while very interesting, has virtually nothing to do with what I would call astrophysics, nor with solar-electric power.

But Fasel is much more than an academic! Dr. Fasel's acting career, as listed by IMDB has shown much more activity. In the past six years he has had four significant acting parts, both in television and movies. His next role will be in the movie The Truth About Angels, due out in 2009, where he plays the coveted albino security guard role. I'm sure Rutger Hauer is howling mad that some physicist beat him to the punch!


Sharp Electronics is proud of its spokesperson. In a press release on July 14th, 2008, announcing their campaign, they wrote,

... The commercial will feature Professor Gerard Fasel, a visiting professor of math and physics at Pepperdine University. With a PhD in Physics and a sophisticated and engaging persona, Professor Fasel lends a scholarly credibility to the new solar and LCD commercials.

The important words here are "lends a scholarly credibility." Based on his scientific publishing record, my opinion is that Dr. Fasel is no longer an active researcher in science, and indeed has spent more time acting in the past decade than publishing research papers. I think it's pretty clear that he is not an astrophysicist, since none of his articles discussed astrophysics. For that matter, he has not published work related to solar physics, televisions or solar panel technology either. I don't doubt that Sharp took the time to give Dr. Fasel a tour of the manufacturing plant and its technology development labs, and Fasel probably has a reasonable understanding and appreciation of the physics that goes into the technologies that he is advertising. But judging by his research and teaching history, I doubt that he has any better skill choosing a television or a solar panel than your average Joe Sixpack.

In my opinion, he is simply an actor -- a spokesmodel -- hired by an advertising firm and used to make the company's technology seem more credible. They hired him for his interesting looks, his personality, and yes, the three letters "Ph.D." at the end of his name. Couldn't they just have easily hired him to do a commercial for medicine? Hmm, I think I could write the script...

EXPERT: Seems like you need to have a Ph.D. to understand cold remedies these days. Luckily I have one. ...

Oh Dr. Fasel, will you star in my commercial?

(Photo credits: lifechangingbox.com; Sharp Corporation, 2008)

World's Highest Product Placement

Continuing on the theme of the Everest show, I started looking a little more closely at the climbers' jackets, and I started seeing things. Well actually, I started seeing corporate logos. In particular, the best climber, Mogens Jensen, has a bunch of "gsk" logos stuck to his jacket and his hat. Could that be the drug conglomerate Glaxo-Smith-Kline? Yep.

And if I wasn't mistaken I also saw logos for Motorola and (maybe?) ask.com.

Now I seriously doubt that Glaxo-Smith-Kline manufactures mountaineering parkas or hats, nor does Motorola.

Of course not. These climbers are advertising for corporate sponsors. What I don't know is whether they found their own personal sponsor, or if the producers provided a certain number of "product placement" emblems throughout the show. On the one hand, it's clear that "gsk" has been Mogens Jensen's personal patron for at least two years (he's an asthmatic, and I'm sure they have asthma medicines for sale). On the other hand, product placements are sure money-makers for reality shows. Other shows like Top Chef have so many product placments that it's hard to draw the line between entertainment and advertisement anymore.

I predicted that by the third season, we would be seeing aspiring young actors auditioning for the show. Now I wonder if we will instead be watching a climber drinking his Evian springwater while warming his feet on a Coleman Stove and watching CNN on his Motorola mini-TV...

Beyond the Limit

The Discovery Channel is airing a new season of its reality program, Everest, Beyond the Limit. I find it fascinating that the show is sponsored by Mastercard. The producers are already working on the new hit series, Your Credit, Beyond the Limit. I mean really, did Mastercard even look at the title before they sponsored it?

The program itself is quite fascinating. It's a reality-info-tainment documentary of climbers that pay a guide service for the privilege of climbing Mount Everest. I assume that the producers are paying for the same privilege for their camera and sound men to trail along and catch all of the grueling details. And to attach small cameras to the Sherpas that blaze trails and help climbers. The so-called SherpaCams™ can go places that normal mortal camera dudes can't.

The danger of death is very real, much more real than Deadliest Catch, where Alaskan crab fishermen lounge around at sea level and breathe luxurious 21% oxygen. Climbers have to deal with high altitudes, icy and windy conditions, and bad weather. The casualty rate is usually not measured by whether somebody died in the season, but how many died. And even those who don't die are susceptible to losing their fingers or toes (or nose!) due to frostbite. But this is not a huge surprise, to anybody who has read the book Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer.

The really interesting thing is that the conditions are so extreme, and the location is so remote, the documentary crew are not really impartial observers any more. Last season, a climber David Sharp died right on the trail as other climbers hiked by. There is some controversy over whether Sharp was seen by the climbers early in the climb on the way up, or later on their way down. Still, the expedition leader David Brice made the decision to continue his expedition and provide no rescue assistance. Understanding that the camera crew, Sherpas, and Brice himself were being paid by Discovery channel and the other climbers, one can imagine that the urge to continue the expedition was quite strong. We have a TV show to make here. Interestingly, the portion of the video where Sherpas encountered Sharp was editted out of the show. It's not clear if there was a "right" decision that could have been made, but in that kind of situation the decisions of the filmmakers themselves could have life-or-death consequences. (Another example of this is the documentary Black Tar Heroin which followed several heroin users for a year in San Francisco.)

This is the second season of the Everest show. I can already see that the producers have "selected" the climbers for the greatest entertainment value. So far we have been introduced to the Biker Dude, the L.A. Reporter, the British Pub Mate, and the Asthmatic Athlete. I'm surprised that none of them is an aspiring actor trying to get onto Desperate Housewives. It's so hard to get onto reality television these days, don't you know?

World's Deadliest Kitch

Now it's time for this month's media commentary.

The show World's Deadliest Catch was a pretty interesting show, although after three seasons, there's not much more the producers can do with a show about crab fishing in the Alaskan Sea... But now we have

• Ice Road Truckers
• Lobster Wars
• Wildcatters
• Tuna Wranglers

Tuna Wranglers? Are they kidding me? What's next, Scab Pickers?

Can't they let a good idea die a peaceful death? Nope, they're going to milk the "deadly job" theme until it's undead, just like they did for: game shows, reality shows, home makeover shows, poker shows, pretty much in that order.