@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @@@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@ Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society Club Notice - 11/24/89 -- Vol. 8, No. 21 MEETINGS UPCOMING: Unless otherwise stated, all meetings are on Wednesdays at noon. LZ meetings are in LZ 2R-158. MT meetings are in the cafeteria. _D_A_T_E _T_O_P_I_C 12/13 LZ: "Well World" series by Jack Chalker (The Universe as a Mathematical Process) _D_A_T_E _E_X_T_E_R_N_A_L _M_E_E_T_I_N_G_S/_C_O_N_V_E_N_T_I_O_N_S/_E_T_C. 12/09 Science Fiction Association of Bergen County: Susan Bertan Braviak & Joseph Braviak, movie dealers (phone 201-933-2724 for details) (Saturday) 12/16 NJSFS New Jersey Science Fiction Society: John Gregory Betancourt (phone 201-432-5965 for details) (Saturday) 12/17 Gaylaxians (Sunday) (phone 201-672-3044 for details) HO Chair: John Jetzt HO 1E-525 834-1563 hocpa!jetzt LZ Chair: Rob Mitchell LZ 1B-306 576-6106 mtuxo!jrrt MT Chair: Mark Leeper MT 3D-441 957-5619 mtgzx!leeper HO Librarian: Tim Schroeder HO 3D-212 949-5866 homxb!tps LZ Librarian: Lance Larsen LZ 3L-312 576-3346 lzfme!lfl MT Librarian: Evelyn Leeper MT 1F-329 957-2070 mtgzy!ecl Factotum: Evelyn Leeper MT 1F-329 957-2070 mtgzy!ecl All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted. 1. Civilization is on the rise. After years of seeing the world deteriorate I have just seen a leading things indicator and it is pointing upward. What is this leading indicator? The backs of cereal boxes! Don't laugh. Economists have known for years that the length of women's hemlines has been an indicator of what the stock market is going to do. The higher the hemline, the higher the Dow Industrial Average. The is _n_o_t voodoo economics; that is another respected practice. A rising hemline means that the American people are feeling better about themselves. They usually think they are a mess with ugly legs. When they think better of themselves they buy more so they sell more and stocks go up. There is a secondary reinforcing effect in that investigators are more willing to hazard their hard-earned money on stocks because even if THE MT VOID Page 2 they lose it all they can still have a good time looking at women's legs. But we are talking about a whole different indicator with the backs of cereal boxes. cereal boxes have gone from fun lies to idiotic truth. That is a minor step up. When I was just a little Leeper, cereal boxes would say "Guided Missile Free Inside." That has a lie quotient of 0.5: two lies in four words. First off, nothing you get in a cereal box is ever free. The producer has some expenses and they are reflected in the cost of the whole box. To say one part is free is a lie, a piece of creative accounting. The kids who learned their lesson from this are the Helmsleys of today. The other lie is that it is a guided missile. Now some would say it is not really a missile. Bosh! Anything that stays in one piece if you throw it is a missile. But of course it wasn't particularly guided. It sort of sat on a spring, held by a catch. Let the catch go and the little plastic missile flies. But it isn't guided; it just sort of flies wherever it is pointed, usually at the family cat who didn't understand it and just thought of it as an unfortunate act of nature, like getting rained on. What you see now on cereal boxes is idiotic truth. Rather than talk about something fun, such as guided missiles, they talk about--gasp!--cholesterol. They say this cereal you are now eating has no cholesterol. Well, cholesterol is animal fat. This cereal has lower levels of cholesterol only if your current cereal is something like Ribsies, which combines wheat flakes with little pieces of barbecued pork ribs. No cereal has any cholesterol until you add milk. The milk is where all the animal fat comes from. But the world is better off if when you read a cereal box you get implied lies about competing cereals rather than actual lies about plastic toys. 2. The next film festival will probably be December 7--stay tuned for details. There will definitely _n_o_t be a film festival before then. [-ecl] Mark Leeper MT 3D-441 957-5619 ...mtgzx!leeper They say that one must cast unspeakable things Into the pit of forgetfulness, into sealed tombs, That by the written word, evil, raised up again, Will infect the customs of later generations; But knowledge is not the mother of evil, And virtue is not the daughter of ignorance. --Tragiques of Agrippa d'Aubigne