By Daniel B. Kline
Sitting in my car the other day in front of a grocery store, I was about to turn off my radio and head inside, when Howard Stern began talking about me. More directly, he started talking about my book, Worst Ideas Ever.
As a long-time Stern listener, it was fairly stunning to hear him simply start talking about a book I had labored over for the best part of a year. Here I was sitting in my crummy Saturn Ion about to buy whatever ingredients I needed to make dinner and the King of All Media, for at least a minute or two, had at least some knowledge of my existence.
Now, of course, before my ego gets too large, I should mention that Stern started his talk-up of Worst Ideas Ever by getting my name wrong. His inexact quote was, “I just got handed this book, Worst Ideas Ever by David B. Kline and Jason Tomaszewski.”
Amazingly, he got Tomaszewski entirely correct, but missed Daniel. Still, he could call me Elizabeth Q. Jones and it would not lessen my amazement at hearing the most successful radio host ever read chapter headings from a book I wrote and appear to find them amusing.
The Howard Stern Show mention was followed up by an interview with Lisa G. from Stern's news team and was met with more friends congratulating me on Facebook then I've ever had notice anything I do before. The Stern mention, however, exemplifies the odd life of being a mostly unknown, published author.
Most days, I appear on the radio somewhere at least once, if not more times. For example, the other day, I did a morning show appearance for 15 minutes or so on the big talk station in Atlanta. Were you to listen to that appearance, you might think that I was, in fact, famous because I had both had a book published and was on the radio.
Sadly, you'd be mistaken as as hard as it is to get a publisher to release your book (and, wow, it's hard) it's much harder to get anyone to actually buy your book. So, while I might be mentioned by radio giants and will most likely appear on a radio station near you, I am only mildly more famous than someone who does not have a book and does not appear on radio shows.
In most cases, I would want to sell book in order to achieve more wealth and fame. And, while more of both of those would be great, in this case, I really just want people to read the book. It's funny. It's a conversation starter and, there are some bad ideas in there that you won't believe actually happened.
Consider this a naked plea for you to go to Amazon.com or your local bookstore (who can order it if they don't stock it) and buy yourself a copy of Worst Ideas Ever by Daniel B. Kline and Jason Tomaszewski. Better yet, buy one for everyone you know.
If you hate it, I'll send you a refund myself.
Daniel B. Kline's work appears in over 100 papers weekly. He can be reached at dan@notastep.com or you can see his archive at dbkline.com. You can listen to his podcast or buy his book, Worst Ideas Ever, at Worstideasever.com.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Friday, June 24, 2011
Science losing ground to ignorance
By Daniel B. Kline
Only two out of 53 Miss USA beauty pageant contestants fully believe in evolution. The rest either entirely deny the possibility or simply get tripped up in hedging their bets to explain how they feel.
And, while beauty pageant contests may not represent our sharpest minds, they do, in fact, offer a pretty reasonable sampling of the state of education in the United States. Most Americans – even some educated Americans – reject the idea of evolution because they desperately want to cling to the idea that a higher power created the universe.
At the Miss USA pageant, four contestants stated flatly that they did not believe in evolution (Alabama, Arkansas, North Carolina and Tennessee) and three (Alabama, Indiana and Kentucky) said they do not think evolution should be taught in schools. Most (23) said that evolution should be taught alongside other views, with the most mentioned “other” being creationism.
Creationism is the belief that god created the Earth in seven days. It encompasses the whole biblical Adam and Eve story and basically denies all scientific evidence including some pretty obvious stuff like the existence of dinosaurs and the amount of time the Earth has been around for.
Now, let me first state, that I have no issue with anyone who believes in god. I wish I had the faith to believe in a higher power and the comfort that must come with believing in an afterlife.
I do take offense, however, when anyone tries to interpret the Bible literally. The Bible is not a historical document. It's a book of fables meant to show humanity a path to being better people. Even if you believe that book was sent by god, you have to realize that we have actual evidence that it presents an impossible timeline.
Clearly, room exists for both evolution and the concept of a higher power being in charge of everything. It's not possible though to be a strict creationist who accepts the Bible as a historical document.
It's actually frightening that in many parts of the country children do not get taught science. Yes, evolution may not tell the whole story, but it tells the science part of the story – the part we have evidence for. Whether or not you believe god led the way or that everything happened in a vacuum, the science does not change.
The Bible tells some nice stories and in most cases, it offers values and morals that anyone would do well to live by. Nowhere in the Bible, though, does it say to not use our brains or to not challenge obvious stupidity.
Standing up on a beauty pageant stage in support of creationism makes our entire nation look foolish. I don't expect Miss USA to be a leading scholar, but I do expect her to have found a way to balance faith and reality.
Having faith requires accepting that you don't have all the answers. It does not require that you embrace ignorance and reject science.
Daniel B. Kline's work appears in over 100 papers weekly. He can be reached at dan@notastep.com or you can see his archive at dbkline.com. You can listen to his podcast or buy his upcoming book, Worst Ideas Ever, at Worstideasever.com.
Only two out of 53 Miss USA beauty pageant contestants fully believe in evolution. The rest either entirely deny the possibility or simply get tripped up in hedging their bets to explain how they feel.
And, while beauty pageant contests may not represent our sharpest minds, they do, in fact, offer a pretty reasonable sampling of the state of education in the United States. Most Americans – even some educated Americans – reject the idea of evolution because they desperately want to cling to the idea that a higher power created the universe.
At the Miss USA pageant, four contestants stated flatly that they did not believe in evolution (Alabama, Arkansas, North Carolina and Tennessee) and three (Alabama, Indiana and Kentucky) said they do not think evolution should be taught in schools. Most (23) said that evolution should be taught alongside other views, with the most mentioned “other” being creationism.
Creationism is the belief that god created the Earth in seven days. It encompasses the whole biblical Adam and Eve story and basically denies all scientific evidence including some pretty obvious stuff like the existence of dinosaurs and the amount of time the Earth has been around for.
Now, let me first state, that I have no issue with anyone who believes in god. I wish I had the faith to believe in a higher power and the comfort that must come with believing in an afterlife.
I do take offense, however, when anyone tries to interpret the Bible literally. The Bible is not a historical document. It's a book of fables meant to show humanity a path to being better people. Even if you believe that book was sent by god, you have to realize that we have actual evidence that it presents an impossible timeline.
Clearly, room exists for both evolution and the concept of a higher power being in charge of everything. It's not possible though to be a strict creationist who accepts the Bible as a historical document.
It's actually frightening that in many parts of the country children do not get taught science. Yes, evolution may not tell the whole story, but it tells the science part of the story – the part we have evidence for. Whether or not you believe god led the way or that everything happened in a vacuum, the science does not change.
The Bible tells some nice stories and in most cases, it offers values and morals that anyone would do well to live by. Nowhere in the Bible, though, does it say to not use our brains or to not challenge obvious stupidity.
Standing up on a beauty pageant stage in support of creationism makes our entire nation look foolish. I don't expect Miss USA to be a leading scholar, but I do expect her to have found a way to balance faith and reality.
Having faith requires accepting that you don't have all the answers. It does not require that you embrace ignorance and reject science.
Daniel B. Kline's work appears in over 100 papers weekly. He can be reached at dan@notastep.com or you can see his archive at dbkline.com. You can listen to his podcast or buy his upcoming book, Worst Ideas Ever, at Worstideasever.com.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Reconsider before you hit send
BY Daniel B. Kline
If we can learn one lesson from the unfortunate scandal surrounding New York Congressman Anthony Weiner it's that there are no circumstances when taking pictures of anything not visible while wearing casual clothes counts as a good idea. This goes for every man who ever thought the lady in his life would be excited be getting an picture of intimate area (she won't be).
As for women, sending us pictures of your naught bits may very well have the desired effect. It will also have that same effect on our friends as we pass around our cell phone or send the email to everyone we have ever known.
Unless you are trying to become famous but have no talent (Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian to name two) you should also avoid ever recording yourself while having sex. First of, two really good looking people in perfect share require a team of experts on a movie set to make intimate coupling look attractive.
You, at least most of you, are not quite that attractive and you do not have people handling lighting. Your sex tape will not look like a Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie loves scene. Instead, you will likely look like two sweaty regular people fumbling around in the dark while trying to keep certain bits off-camera.
In regards to Rep. Weiner, however, the members of Congress, should stop acting like the wealthy dowager on The Simpsons who fans herself while saying “well, I never.” Did Weiner really do anything all that horrible?
He may be a scumbag and a bad husband, but he broke no laws (at least as far as we know). I know that Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the morality police want us to believe they have never had an impure thought, but any rational person knows that in most cases, everyone is up to no good, they're just better at getting away with it.
Weiner did not sleep with an intern or trade votes for money. He used Twitter to send suggestive pictures of himself to women. That makes him sort of icky. It does not in any way impact his job performance.
Sadly, it also makes him like the majority of people or, in a lot of ways better than many. An enormous amount of married people cheat on their spouses. The practice, although abhorrent, has become so common that the United States has more than one Web site entirely devoted to the concept of having discreet affairs.
Cheating no longer requires any work. You don't have go to bars or or proposition strangers. Instead, there are at least four Web sites (they advertise on satellite radio quite a bit) that help married people find partners to commit adultery with.
In a world that not only condones this behavior, but actually seems to encourage it, it's a little hypocritical for Congress to be turning up its collective nose at Weiner. It's hard to image that in that particular group, we don't have more then a few people living in glass houses who are casting stones.
My Twitter is @worstideas. Please don't send me pictures of any body parts.
Daniel B. Kline's work appears in over 100 papers weekly. He can be reached at dan@notastep.com or you can see his archive at dbkline.com. You can listen to his podcast or buy his upcoming book, Worst Ideas Ever, at Worstideasever.com.
If we can learn one lesson from the unfortunate scandal surrounding New York Congressman Anthony Weiner it's that there are no circumstances when taking pictures of anything not visible while wearing casual clothes counts as a good idea. This goes for every man who ever thought the lady in his life would be excited be getting an picture of intimate area (she won't be).
As for women, sending us pictures of your naught bits may very well have the desired effect. It will also have that same effect on our friends as we pass around our cell phone or send the email to everyone we have ever known.
Unless you are trying to become famous but have no talent (Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian to name two) you should also avoid ever recording yourself while having sex. First of, two really good looking people in perfect share require a team of experts on a movie set to make intimate coupling look attractive.
You, at least most of you, are not quite that attractive and you do not have people handling lighting. Your sex tape will not look like a Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie loves scene. Instead, you will likely look like two sweaty regular people fumbling around in the dark while trying to keep certain bits off-camera.
In regards to Rep. Weiner, however, the members of Congress, should stop acting like the wealthy dowager on The Simpsons who fans herself while saying “well, I never.” Did Weiner really do anything all that horrible?
He may be a scumbag and a bad husband, but he broke no laws (at least as far as we know). I know that Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the morality police want us to believe they have never had an impure thought, but any rational person knows that in most cases, everyone is up to no good, they're just better at getting away with it.
Weiner did not sleep with an intern or trade votes for money. He used Twitter to send suggestive pictures of himself to women. That makes him sort of icky. It does not in any way impact his job performance.
Sadly, it also makes him like the majority of people or, in a lot of ways better than many. An enormous amount of married people cheat on their spouses. The practice, although abhorrent, has become so common that the United States has more than one Web site entirely devoted to the concept of having discreet affairs.
Cheating no longer requires any work. You don't have go to bars or or proposition strangers. Instead, there are at least four Web sites (they advertise on satellite radio quite a bit) that help married people find partners to commit adultery with.
In a world that not only condones this behavior, but actually seems to encourage it, it's a little hypocritical for Congress to be turning up its collective nose at Weiner. It's hard to image that in that particular group, we don't have more then a few people living in glass houses who are casting stones.
My Twitter is @worstideas. Please don't send me pictures of any body parts.
Daniel B. Kline's work appears in over 100 papers weekly. He can be reached at dan@notastep.com or you can see his archive at dbkline.com. You can listen to his podcast or buy his upcoming book, Worst Ideas Ever, at Worstideasever.com.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Oprah's appeal remains a mystery
By Daniel B. Kline
With Oprah Winfrey safely off the air, the women of America need to explain to me what their fascination with this egomaniac bore was in the first place. Despite being neither entertaining nor amusing, Oprah managed to become the biggest talk show host on the planet.
Women love Oprah and, as a man, I just don't see the appeal. I get that she's flawed and faces struggles that normal women face. She's overweight and a lot of ladies are also overweight, so there's a certain solidarity there. That said, Oprah, after years of dieting with a team of experts on staff is still overweight.
Why would a normal woman who works all day, then has to take care of her kids relate to a billionaire with a private chef and personal trainer on call. Regular women gain weight because with everything they have to do, sometimes it's just easier to pick up a pizza instead of cooking healthy food. Kids, work and life can also make getting to the gym impossible.
Oprah does not face this struggle. If she wants kangaroo from that great place in Sydney for dinner, she simply has to tell someone in the morning. If she wants a gym and Richard Simmons acting as her trainer, she simply has to make a phone call.
Actually, she doesn't even have to make the call, she has people who do that for her. Given her advantages it's stunning that Oprah is fat and it speaks to the deep level of emotional disturbance she must be under no matter how self-actualized she tells us she is.
When you watch Oprah's show, the women in the audience hang on every word and scream with manic glee whenever she says anything mildly exciting. I understand the audience that got free cars freaking out. I don't understand why the audience that gets Oprah's favorite popcorn reacts the same way.
Watching Oprah actually makes me wince as her affected vocal patterns become grating very quickly. She lectures her audience as if her life offers some shining example and the people in the crowd – clearly the people in the nation – simply lap it up.
Of course, you have to salute Oprah for her book club because anyone who gets people reading deserves an amazing amount of credit. That said, can someone admit that Maya Angelou writes awful, unreadable poetry? I mean, pretty much all poetry is awful, but Angelou is the leader when it comes to stuff that isn't actually good that people like Oprah pretend is fabulous so they can seem like sensitive intellectuals.
Despite the year-long salute to herself, Oprah isn't actually leaving television, instead she's heading to her own network, the not-so-cleverly named Oprah Winfrey Network. Currently OWN – filled with shows from people in the Oprah universe – actually does worse than the network it replaced, Discovery health (a network filled with shows about enormously fat people).
That will probably change once the lady herself enters the picture, but it's hard to understand why. I know the show is not for me, but if Oprah couldn't entertain me with her talk show – the thing she supposedly does best – I can't imagine watching her travel the world (which is the premise for her OWN show, a show being produced by a close friend of mine, so I hope I'm entirely wrong). Of course, if that fails, she can always put the couch back and invite Tom Cruise to come over.
Daniel B. Kline's work appears in over 100 papers weekly. He can be reached at dan@notastep.com or you can see his archive at dbkline.com. You can listen to his podcast or buy his upcoming book, Worst Ideas Ever, at Worstideasever.com.
With Oprah Winfrey safely off the air, the women of America need to explain to me what their fascination with this egomaniac bore was in the first place. Despite being neither entertaining nor amusing, Oprah managed to become the biggest talk show host on the planet.
Women love Oprah and, as a man, I just don't see the appeal. I get that she's flawed and faces struggles that normal women face. She's overweight and a lot of ladies are also overweight, so there's a certain solidarity there. That said, Oprah, after years of dieting with a team of experts on staff is still overweight.
Why would a normal woman who works all day, then has to take care of her kids relate to a billionaire with a private chef and personal trainer on call. Regular women gain weight because with everything they have to do, sometimes it's just easier to pick up a pizza instead of cooking healthy food. Kids, work and life can also make getting to the gym impossible.
Oprah does not face this struggle. If she wants kangaroo from that great place in Sydney for dinner, she simply has to tell someone in the morning. If she wants a gym and Richard Simmons acting as her trainer, she simply has to make a phone call.
Actually, she doesn't even have to make the call, she has people who do that for her. Given her advantages it's stunning that Oprah is fat and it speaks to the deep level of emotional disturbance she must be under no matter how self-actualized she tells us she is.
When you watch Oprah's show, the women in the audience hang on every word and scream with manic glee whenever she says anything mildly exciting. I understand the audience that got free cars freaking out. I don't understand why the audience that gets Oprah's favorite popcorn reacts the same way.
Watching Oprah actually makes me wince as her affected vocal patterns become grating very quickly. She lectures her audience as if her life offers some shining example and the people in the crowd – clearly the people in the nation – simply lap it up.
Of course, you have to salute Oprah for her book club because anyone who gets people reading deserves an amazing amount of credit. That said, can someone admit that Maya Angelou writes awful, unreadable poetry? I mean, pretty much all poetry is awful, but Angelou is the leader when it comes to stuff that isn't actually good that people like Oprah pretend is fabulous so they can seem like sensitive intellectuals.
Despite the year-long salute to herself, Oprah isn't actually leaving television, instead she's heading to her own network, the not-so-cleverly named Oprah Winfrey Network. Currently OWN – filled with shows from people in the Oprah universe – actually does worse than the network it replaced, Discovery health (a network filled with shows about enormously fat people).
That will probably change once the lady herself enters the picture, but it's hard to understand why. I know the show is not for me, but if Oprah couldn't entertain me with her talk show – the thing she supposedly does best – I can't imagine watching her travel the world (which is the premise for her OWN show, a show being produced by a close friend of mine, so I hope I'm entirely wrong). Of course, if that fails, she can always put the couch back and invite Tom Cruise to come over.
Daniel B. Kline's work appears in over 100 papers weekly. He can be reached at dan@notastep.com or you can see his archive at dbkline.com. You can listen to his podcast or buy his upcoming book, Worst Ideas Ever, at Worstideasever.com.
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