Super-Detectives

Sherlock Holmes was supposed to be this great detective. His powers of deduction are legendary. He would look over a crime scene for like five seconds and say,

"I see that cigar ash has fallen at regular intervals of 2.7 feet, indicating someone with a short stride, and the ash itself has the distinctive odor or a rare Turkish blend. By the angle of the wound to Sir Baltimore's skull, we can surmise that our killer was approximately 6'2", and since there is no sign that the door to his chamber was disturbed, we can also deduce that the killer was someone he knew well. Thus, our perpetrator can only be...The Earl of Claridge! Check his bag, Watson, and you will find the rare Sumarillion Death-Stone that was used to bash in poor Baltimore's head!"

Of course, many of Holmes's deductions were based on a lot of supposition. I mean, A LOT. In Sherlock Holmes stories, little girls were always sweet and innocent, grandmothers were always caring nurturers, etc. Plus, he would never have been able to deduce anything if he didn't remember every single piece of information that he ever heard.

"Do you smell that, Watson? The faint odor concentrated in this room is Sulphuric Hydrochloroformalide, a base charge explosive, but one that has been largely obsolete since the end of the Crimean War! And this slightly oily residue on the door handle is derived from a rare Latvian Orchid, harvested only twice a year and used by Orthodox clerics to christen Russian children with birth defects! And note the pattern on this table here, which the killer leaned against while moving the body! It is in the exact shape of a tattoo used by the Czar's military forces in the 1870's! And so, our killer must be none other than..."

"General Sarjenko, the Russian General who led the Czar's forces to defeat in the Crimean War and raided a Latvian Church in 1872?"

"A logical deduction, Watson! But you forget, General Sarjenko is also grandfather! And grandfathers, as we all know, are only happy when lavishing gifts on small children and dispensing unwanted parenting advice to their adult children! No, Watson, the killer is..."

"Reverend Morchevski, the Crimean War Veteran who now ministers to deformed Russian war orphans and former demolitionists?"

"Ah, now you're learning, my good fellow! However, you forget that the good Reverend is also a Bishop in the Russian Orthodox Church, and this crime is much too distasteful to have been committed by a man of the cloth! No, my dear Watson, the answer is right under your nose! The killer is none other than...the Earl of Claridge!"

"The Earl of Claridge? I say, Holmes, The Earl of Claridge was on holiday in the Sandwich Islands at the time of the murder, he detests loud noises such as those made by explosives, he's not Russian and has never served a day in the military!"

"Again, Watson, you overlook crucial evidence! The Earl of Claridge is not only the great-nephew of the Russian Grand Duchess, but as such was also granted the honorary rank of Colonel in the Czar's army! The Earl spent his summers as a youth studying 19th century explosive compounds, and was treated for a club foot by kindly Russian clergymen. His ship returned from the Pacific precisely 47 minutes before the murder, a full two hours ahead of schedule!"

"Good Lord, Holmes! Amazing!"

In reality, it would take a building full of people weeks to break down and analyze physical evidence, even today, and yet Holmes does his on the spot. And when faced with the evidence, the killer always confesses. No one ever says "That oil could be anything!" or "How the hell would you know that?" Even assuming Sherlock Holmes knew everything, no one ever asked him to prove it, because everyone always seemed to believe everything he said.

It would have added something to the story, I think, if Watson was always doubting everything he said and questioning him, instead of being in awe of him.

Batman is supposed to be a great detective, too, although you don't notice it so much because of the cape and all the crap he has in his belt. They don't really play up that angle in the movies. I reckon it's because if you spend a bajillion dollars on the car and the plane and the hideout and the costume, then those are the areas you want to concentrate on. Who cares how smart he is? He looks so cool. In that way, Batman in the movies was kind of like a bimbo.

Another reason, probably, is that Batman's deductive abilities were hardly taxed by the villians he went up against. The Penguin only stole things that had to do with birds. The Joker used these giant appliances and robbed things in sequence to spell out his name ("He's robbed Jake's Groceries, The Orange Pelican Club, Klaxon Chemicals, and Edwards Pie Shop...What could he be up to?"). The Riddler was the worst of all, always willingly giving clues as to what he would do next, which Batman always figured out, which is probably why the other villians always laughed at him and never wanted to team up with him.

But in the original stories by Bob Kane, Batman was a lot more like Sherlock Holmes, I think (with a dash of Dracula thrown in) than he was like, say, Superman.

I guess I shouldn't be too critical. It's not like this is "Law & Order" where you get a chance to actually see the courtroom and the trial and all that.

I mean, how would that go? I know a lot of folks think that being a defense attorney in Gotham City would suck...and, well, it probably would. You'd have to deal with all these egotistical, dissociative lunatics in skin-tight leotards and animal costumes. But I would think the legal side of it would be a breeze, and for a number of reasons.

First of all, as smart as Batman is, and whatever he figured out, he would never be able to testify to it in court. I'd argue that my client has a Constitutional right to be presented with the witnesses against him, and since Batman wears a mask, I would argue that it's a violation of my client's rights. We should all know who he is. And he would never do that. And even if he did, anything he witnessed, he could never prove that he is the SAME Batman who fought my client. He wears a MASK. How do we know there aren't a dozen Batmen? How do we know what he actually saw or did? For that matter, most of the villians wear masks, too, and no one could say for certain if there aren't a dozen Catwomen or Jokers. And if none of that worked, of course, I would argue mental competence. For both my client and the Batman.

For all I know, this is what defense attorneys in Gotham City actually do. Either that or they have really crappy jails. Because no matter how many times Batman catches them, they get right back out. That probably pisses him off. He's had to have thought about just killing them and getting it over with. I'm not saying he should do it, but hanging someone upside down off the side of a building, and knowing they've been in and out of jail all their lives and that they're never going to reform, he's got to be doing calculations in his head to figure out how much he could save taxpayers by just letting go.

For my money, Val Kilmer was the best Batman. It sucks that they stopped making movies. Well, I mean, the last movie really did suck, but they could start making good ones again. The first three Batman movies were awesome, but the real-life Batman TV show sucked. ((which is strange because Superman was just the opposite, you know, those Christopher Reeve movies are just excruciating to watch now, but the TV show with Dean Cain was awesome, and this new show called "Smallville" looks good so far, too).

More Thoughts On Terrorists

I heard the news guy on the radio the other day talking about a statement made by a spokesman for the terrorist organization Al Qai'da. It really amazed me. Not the statement itself, but the fact that they had a spokesman.

I hear the word "spokesman" and I think infomercial. Ok, the Al Qai'da couldn't have a celebrity spokesmodel because their women have to wrapped in those big cocoons of veils. But what they really need is a P.R. Department. If they already have one, it sucks.

It's not that I don't think terrorists are detestable. I totally do. I am 1000% in favor of hunting them down like animals. Anyone capable of murdering thousands of innocent people like that should die like pigs in hell.

But think about this. If you had an idea, or a cause, or a belief, whatever it was, and it was important to you that this idea (or whatever) get heard and accepted, but you also knew that you'd have a hard time selling it to the general public, what would you do? Committing atrocities that turn the entire world against you, including most of the people who already share your general faith and may even have been inclined to agree with you before, strikes me as a very bad idea.

Let's say I love sports. They are my whole life. I just love the sense of camaraderie and talking about sports and hanging out with other sports fans. And let's say I invent a new sport. If I could sell the public on this sport, I could stand to make a lot of money, but also I could be the Father of This New Sport and go down in history.

Let's say the sport itself is kind of like baseball in that you have a pitcher, and a batter, and bases to run. Except there are seven bases. The ball is big like a beachball but treated with chemicals to burn your skin. The outfield is a big wall with lit torches on top. The basemen can tackle the runners on the odd-numbered bases, but that's ok because after they hit they ball, the batter gets to take the bat with him around the bases to defend himself. Once an inning at random times, a bell sounds and all the players rush the mound, including coaches and managers, who even get to wear spiked gloves.

This is a brutal, bloody sport. There will be a few psychopaths who want to watch it, though, and maybe a few who actually want to play. So I gather them all around me and make a league.

Putting aside how totally insane it would be to even think up this sport, imagine trying to promote it. Just like selling anything else, you would have to get people talking about it. You would have to touch on all the positive points, like how it's fast-paced and exciting. You could even take the negative things that you think about it and make them positive, like "You don't have to be clinically insane to like this sport, but it helps!" And you could get some model or something to do a cross-promotional beer thing, and have celebrities say they love to watch it. That's P.R.

But, see, that's not what Osama Bin Laden would do. He would say that anyone who watches any other sports is not a TRUE SPORTS FAN, and then he would firebomb all the normal stadiums and send Anthrax to the baseball commissioner and the anchors at ESPN.

And why is it that when Americans freak out about their religion they just kill themselves, like Jim Jones or David Koresh or that weird Comet Cult with the tennis shoes. But when these people freak out, they try to kill everyone else in the universe EXCEPT themselves?

All I'm saying is, they're never going to get converts this way.