As regular readers know, I really like Tim Minchin's take on skepticism in general and on alternative medicine in particular. His piece de resistance thus far in his career is a "nine minute beat poem" entitled Storm, in which at a dinner party our performer is forced to deal with a female version of Mike Adams spewing nonsense about "natural remedies," how "science doesn't know everything," how "there's more" than just the material world and "you can't know anything," and how big pharma is just out for profit. Minchin's slapdown of this woo-filled nonsense is epic and hilarious.
It turns out that Skepchick Tracy King is working on an animated short film based on "Storm." The official trailer looks really cool:
I can't wait to see the finished project.
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I love it. I will pass on the good word.
Storm - the movie.
Brilliant!
I cant wait to see the finished product.
a story with a difference http://bennymay.wordpress.com/
What's the difference, bennymay, that it's being spammed?
I had to go to YouTube to watch STORM--your link says "taken down by user". I'm going to try to commit this to memory.
Apropo of the bit from the clip: I was listening to a "Fresh Air" interview (from last Friday, I think) with respected actor Stanley Tucci (you owe it to yourself to see "Big Night" if you haven't already) and it turns out his wife died of cancer recently. However, according to Stanley, it wasn't the cancer that killed her but the fact that they didn't use "alternative medicine" on her soon enough. Ugh.
Simply Epic. I heard this for the first time last night, and I actually applauded the video.
ooh, sniny. Very sniny indeed. ;)
I await the rest...
Here's the line to a performance of Storm last year. http://vodpod.com/watch/1479202-storm-by-tim-minchin-with-text
Waaaaay cool.
Thanks for your *humourous* comment, Antaeus.
I had figured that the majority of the readers of this page are intelligent (though I now figure there may also be an exception or two), and that some would enjoy reading about a complex medical case.
Antaeus, forgive me if it offended you that I shared it here, and please ignore it.
Everyone else, ENJOY!
:)
cheers,
bennymay
Heh. I'll look into it, though anyone who thinks the 'alternative medicine proven to work is called medicine' might want to check out Dara O'Brien, who's used a very similar line. I've got no idea who did it first.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHVVKAKWXcg
Its at about 03:00, but the whole clip is funny.
Patrick, it's called convergent evolution :) I don't imagine that line to be too hard to come up with for a smart witty comedian.
@Patrick
Dara O'Briain has become my favorite comedian--he is definitely the smartest. His "put them in a sack..." line has gained wide popularity in the skeptic community. I now see comments here and there that say things like, "we're going to need a really big sack" in response to this and that quackery.
I'm glad you found Dara O. There are lots more at YouTube--keep watching!
http://jackofkent.blogspot.com/2010/01/legal-advice-in-storm-v-minchin…
Someone else's take on it. Well worth a visit
I love this.