Ali G, Noam Chomsky, Posh Spice, and the Great Extinction

So.

I watched Noam Chomsky explaining away the myth of American democracy with a bow to Robert Dahl’s theory of Polyarchy. Then, as often happens when YouTubated, I found myself watching Ali G’s interview of Professor Chomsky, an interview that explored relationships of many words as only Ali G might be expected to connect them. A baby growing up with two languages might be said to be bilingual. Later, if the child added a third language, then that child would be multilingual. It was easy for Ali G to make the orthogonal shift that permitted entry of bisexuality and cunniligualness to the discussion. Professor Chomsky acquitted himself well and at the end, with but a single old white guy false move toward a handshake, touched fists with Ali G and shared respect.

So how far was that YouTube moment from a click to Ali G’s interview with Posh Spice and Beckham? Not very far, and it was an interview I enjoyed. Perhaps you will enjoy it too.

But that’s not what this post is about. This post is about the Chicxulub crater in Mexico, Deccan traps, and pterosaurs. But I’m hoping this evening’s exposure to Ali G will help me frame my understanding in a way that I can comfortably share with any of the environmentally obsessed people who may come this way looking for an answer to the riddle of what killed the dinosaurs and is it true that fried they taste just like chicken?

Take the National Geographic. The Nat. Geo. suggests that it wasn’t this big smack-down of a huge asteroid boiling the water in the Gulf of Mexico, turning it into a huge basin of bouillabaisse (or more like chicken gumbo probably), punching the planet so hard that a crater fifty miles across was formed, an impact crater that threw so much junk in the air you would think you were driving in LA or something. No, the Nat. Geo says that it likely was huge volcanoes all over the place, but especially in Western India, volcanoes that essentially nullify the bouillabaisse (or chicken gumbo) theory of extinction and suggest something more like a luau, only it was in India, so they probably had nan and dal with that, instead of pineapples and the pu pu platter. But it still tasted like chicken, only more pit roasted than boiled.

So the Nat. Geo. throws out this big Indian oven idea as an alternative to the asteroid punch, but all I’m saying is why should it be either/or? What if Ali G was walking down the street and he saw Norman Mailer walking his poodles. This would be the not-dead Norman Mailer I’m using here for the sake of the story. And suppose Norman said something rude and perhaps somewhat defensive about his poodles not being gay or even signifiers of gay, and it’s not like he has dyed them pink or something. And what if Ali G — whom I respect, but here for the sake of the story is some behavior that we wouldn’t want our children to imitate — just suppose Ali G got very annoyed with Norman Mailer and had to punch him real hard in the stomach. And then what if Norman Mailer vomited because he is very old (not dead yet in this story) and he can’t take a sock in the gut anymore? And what if he got some on the poodles. Might not the poodle barf markage be jointly caused by both the punch in the gut and the ensuing vomiting? I mean the story would not be complete if you just said Norman barfed and got some on the poodles, and I think maybe the Indian subcontinent barfed after the planet took a few heavy punches and so it’s not an either/or thing.

[tags]paleontology, victoria beckham, norman’s poodles, I wonder who they’re staying with[/tags]