by BILL SCHLEIZER

Welcome, Wilkomen, and Bienvenuto. We, here, at Canvas like change—as you can see by the fabulous design creations that continue to spruce up the dusty corners of the Internet every issue. To make sure that we stay hip and cool and all those things one must do to stay relevant, I have created a new, interactive column for you, our dear readers, and your entertainment entitled: On the Q.

On the Q is a question and answer type column. You, the reader, have the power to ask any question you like. And I, the non-reader, will take a handful of those questions, queries, and conundrums (QQoCs), throw them against a wall and see what kind of mess I can make out of them (in 500 words of less). There are no bounds to the questions: they can be specific, abstract, illogical, topical, or absurd. The Q can be for advice, the advancement of personal knowledge, the betterment of humankind….or for sheer nonsensical earthly delights.

Now for my disclaimer: I state that I have no authority or confidence in my answers. I also would like to state that I can google, you can google and that if you really want to know a real, serious answer that you shouldn't be asking me. I am not an expert, but I'll put up some entertaining bullshit to make everyone's day go by a little faster and hopefully put a smirk on someone's face.

Alrighty then. I would like to thank everyone who provided me with fodder for this initial column. Each episode, I will take your submissions and divide them into one of three categories:

On the Q: Congratulations! Your QQoC has been chosen for mediocre Internet fame.

In the Queue: I liked your QQoC, but did not have the drive to tackle it for the current issue, it will be considered for future fodder. It is not-yet-ready-for-primetime fodder. Now, I'm not promising that they'll be answered but at least I'll keep them around for a while.

Missed the Queue: ummm, ¡¡what?? These are the QQoCs that will never be answered for whatever reason I deem sufficient, but I'll still post selections that are entertaining.

On the Q

Q1: Why are Americans so fascinated with people who are famous for doing nothing?
I believe there are several reasons. But I'll blame one in particular—the onset of the “Age of Entitlement" and instant gratification culture of the majority of individuals in the United States born after 1984. To be more specific, it's Hitler's fault. If Hitler hadn't been such a whack job, then Germany never started WWII. If WWII had started, then there would have never been so many babies born in the 1950s and 60s in the U.S. and the “Baby Boomer" generation would have never had so many damn kids in the mid 80s. Back in my grandparents' day, they had to work hard to achieve results, and that usually took a lot of time. Information was delivered via newsprint and radio. Some of those good virtues trickled down to me through my parents rearing, but I think that some Baby Boomer parents decided that they didn't want their kids to have to work to achieve material goods. This has a bred a culture that appreciates talentless hacks in mainstream pop culture. Like Paris Hilton. Wtf? She doesn't even have nice breasts. I'm not out of touch with all things pop culture, not yet, anyways. But I can't put my finger on that one, it's like Jennifer Love Hewitt singing. Kids these days are looking up to and spending money on supporting people like them who become famous without having to do anything in particular. And they're doing it because they're spoiled and their playgrounds don't have any steel, wood, nails, rust to bump their precious little noggins on. They've been too protected. And they've grown up without an imminent threat of nuclear war, back in the day when the U.S.S.R. had their hand on the button. I won't get into a prolonged discussion on new threats due to socioeconomics or geopolitics, mainly because the generation that I'm talking about isn't really into those sort of things, especially since Laguna Beach is so much more entertaining. I know my explanation has gone a little of track and there really isn't a true string of logic, but I hope I made some points as to your initial query. We're lazy, the kids are lazy, and since we're lazy, we don't appreciate true hard work and talent, and that has led us as a society and a country to support people with no visible endearing traits. But really, it's Hitler's fault or maybe Otto von Bismarck and Kaiser Wilhelm II for creating an atmosphere in Germany that harbored a culture to support Hitler's ideals.

Q2: In the Harry Potter series, why are the bad guys so incompetent [sic] that they can't kill a bunch of high school kids?
I, by no means, should be answering this question. I have not read a single book by Miss Rowlings. I have begrudgingly sat through the movies that have been released, and I know that a Hollywood treatment can be less than fair on the literary originals, but I chose to answer this query due to its universal applications. The high school kids survive for two distinct reasons. The first is the “Home Alone" effect spawned from oh-so-cute Macaulay Caulkin. The Harry Potter tikes survive because of their inherent goodness, innocence, and wonderful superabilty to outsmart the mentally-handicapped villains. Children think laterally in situations involving evil plots, whilst adults think more linearly. The adults aren't expecting the creative attacks and ploys that are thrown their way. I mean a paint can tied to a string being flung down the stairs, that's unexpected! Hence, the youngends overcome. There also may be some undue omnipotent influence from the unseen narrator of the stories that influence the children's success in order to keep book sales going. Additionally, I have noticed that with the main character's maturation, there is a distinct loss of that childhood inventiveness (or it may be that Mr. Potter is simply turning into a big wanker).

The second reason is due to the “Friday the 13th" effect, or more appropriately the inverse of that, so that would be the “Monday the 9th" effect. But there is a caveat to this aspect as well. As is espoused by Wes Craven in the original “Scream" and shown in every teen horror movie since the mid 1970s, good kids don't die, the nasty ones who havesex do. These Harry Potter heroes are quite good; yes, yes, they do show some of those sins: envy, pride, greed, and what not. But no villain can touch them if they aren't having sex. Now, there is the occasional sacrifice of a good-hearted, chaste character just to keep the suspense up, but the main characters will survive until they do the dirty deed.

There may be a third reason as to their survival. And I'll dub this one the “Scooby Doo" effect. The kids like to meddle, meddling gets rewarded and everyone lives happily ever after.

There seem to be a lot universal themes that are creating an enveloping survival cloak for the Harry Potter kids. Innocence and inventiveness of childhood, puritanical nature, and being rewarded for meddling are just the ones that I came up with right now, but I'm sure there are more out there.

Q3: Will nuclear power become friendly and safe from the point of view of PR and image when major governments try to become less reliant on middle eastern [sic] fossil fuel? What environmental impacts could this have?
I am intrigued by this question by the way it was framed. Instead of asking what are the environmental ramifications if governments went for nuclear power, the submitter asked what are the consequences of PR and image. I like that! The United States and Great Britain have both started the rhetoric for beginning a new push for the development of nuclear power. From the view point of PR and image, nuclear power will never be viewed in a positive light if the “leader of the free world" can't even pronounce it correctly. Insert bad Bush impersonation here, “See, hehe, what we need, is, hehe, more nu-kew-luur power, to stop giving money to the terra-ists, hehe, yah, that's it…hehe."

There are two major issues with the image of nuclear power: consequences of operation and waste. These are PR problems. Nuclear reactors may be super safe these days, but Chernobyl and Three Mile Island remain engrained in the society's collective conscious. Especially with those loud mouths over at Greenpeace pulling stunts like this Even with ridiculously engineered fail-safes in place, the public is going to have a hard time feeling completely safe from the possibility of meltdown or accidental release of any radiation. A new nuclear power plant has not come online in the U.S. for over a decade now and the oldest one still running was started up in 1969. The second issue is waste. Its nasty stuff, and it lasts a really, really long time. And nobody really knows what to do with it. The United States wants to bury theirs in the ground in the middle of nowhere, but they can't even figure out how to do that correctly. There are even these really cool sci-fi scenarios that have been drawn up to come up with ways to protect humans in the distant future from the stockpiled nuclear waste. Plus, citizens and governments are starting to realize that it has to get transported there somehow, which means it's going to be going through a lot of backyards to get there, and that's causing a lot of concern. So, to actually answer your question, if safety and disposal can be presented in a way which calms the majority of constituents then it may become more amenable; however, you still would have to deal with those pesky environmentalists who are never happy especially with nuclear power.

My two main issues with nuclear power aren't really PR issues, they are less talked about because it's much more of a systematics issue. The first that I have is the cost of building a nuclear plant, they ain't cheap! Is there a better way to spend that money for electricity?? The second, related issue is the concept of a centralized versus decentralized generation system. Would it be more economically feasibly to install smaller generation facilities throughout a grid, instead of one large generating core? This is my argumentative statement for a decentralized, renewable based, diversified electricity system that includes wind, geothermal, solar, tidal and other innovative ways to turn turbines and generate electricity.

There are possibilities of a new generation of nuclear reactors that work with fusion instead of fission that theoretically will not have the same environmental consequences of those nuclear plants today. But it seems that not enough resources are being expended to develop this technology quickly and it remains more theoretical.

Q4: Hypothetical situation: I come to a fork in the road. There is a red court jester on one side, and a white court jester on the other. A sign in the middle reads: “One road leads to heaven. The other road leads to hell. One jester always tells the truth. The other always lies. Ye may ask one question of either jester to find out which road to take. What question shall ye ask?" What question should I ask and what road should I take?

First off, before I play this little game, I would like to say that if I ever came to this situation that I would turn my ass right around and not commit to making a decision about which afterlife I would like to trek towards, I'm already lazily winding towards one anyways.

But I'll give this a hypothetical go around. What we have here is your basic logic problem. As I sat and I pondered, I created the scene in a very non-talented and unskilled way:

In this particular conundrum, there are four situations (or permutations, for those more geekily inclined) in which a question could be asked:

	Liar	Truther	Heaven	Hell
1	Red jester	White jester	Left	Right
2	Red jester	White jester	Right	Left
3	White jester	Red jester	Left	Right
4	.White jester	Red jester	Right	Left

So a question must be constructed, which can give one an answer that would be satisfactorily answered in any of the four situations.

If you simply asked the Red Jester which road led to Heaven, you would only receive the correct answer twice, out of the four situations. However, if you ask the Red Jester what route the White Jester would say is the road to Heaven…and did the opposite, then you would find your way. Here's the breakdown by situation:

1. Red Jester tells you that the White Jester would say that Heaven is to the Right. So you would go left and find your way into Heaven, if that's the way you do indeed want to go.
2. Red Jester tells you that the White Jester would say that Heaven is to the Left. Go right.
3. Red Jester, telling you the truth, indicates that the White Jester would say that the Heaven is obtained by veering Right. So, go left and you're on your way.
4. Red Jester tells you that White Jester says that Heaven is to the left, so you just need to go right and find those pearly gates.

The question gets rid of the truth and lie component, but yields an answer opposite to the real situation, like a reflection in the mirror, so just do the opposite. Do I get my winds, now?

In the Queue

I1: What, exactly, is so tasety [sic] about fish roe and pureed duck liver?
I2: Little yapper dogs. What gives?
I3: What's the deal with grape nuts? No grapes. No nuts.
I4: Why are you so hot? Ha. Do it that would be hilarious!
I5: Last year, the Atlantic had a record high hurricane season. I find it interesting that this year the season has switched oceans. What are the likely culprits for this change to the usual [sic] peaceful Pacific? I'll give you a bit of a teaser on this one...

Missed the Q

M1: Supply side economics. Basically it's giving businesses money to increase production, thereby increasing jobs, output, and somehow getting money down to the poorest levels of society. Here's my question. Why not give the money to the poor, who are more likely to spend it on things rather than save it, which will create demand for increased production, jobs, etc., increase the profit margin of businesses that work on an economy of scale, and therefore give them more money to invest in new capital, increase production, jobs, etc.?

This sounds to me like a business version of the infamous “Trickle down theory" in the 1980s, which heralded tax cuts for the rich that would stimulate investment and thus increase opportunity for the lower and middle classes. I don't know about you, but I don't like getting trickled on by anything or anyone.

M2: Who really killed Kennedy?

I think I'm already on several government watch lists due to my inquiries into the status of the U.S. role in international trade of grains, steel and other commodities. If I start a supposition on this topic, I can only imagine what the wiretapping consequences would be.

M3: Are ghosts real?

Yes.

M4: What is up with Conan O'Brien's hair? If ever there was evidence of life from other planets…

Not only other planets, but Finland! There is truly no explanation for his hair—it's almost up to Donald Trump status.

M5: What is the purpose of the patronage chief in the City of Chicago? Is it better to be a good patronage chief or a bad one?

This question was actually on my list to be answered for this column. It is an intriguing excuse to look into the complex political landscape that exists in Chicago. I even did some research to try and get an answer, but was hindered in my inability to ascertain anything concrete whatsoever regarding patronage. It has quite a history in the City of Big Shoulders, but I couldn't write anything definitive. I am not too proud to admit defeat every now and then.

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