In the 1927 silent film Metropolis the Mad Scientist, Rotwang, creates the female robot, Maria. When he unveils his creation, Maria is a silver metal machine, her mechanical arms and legs move stiffly, her face is an emotionless stare. Rotwang exclaims: “She is nearly prefect. All that’s missing is a soul.” Then Rotwang goes one step further and transforms his robot into living flesh (In the below video, notice the reverse pentagram on the wall, symbolic of black magic. Is the film director trying to say combining nature and technology is evil? Or, technology, nature, and women are under the spell of dark forces?). To test the sexuality and femininity of the robot, Rotwang has Maria perform an erotic dance in front of an audience of corporate elitists. Maria manages to convince everyone she is human. Men fall in love with her, and later, she descends into the pits of the city and invokes an uprising amongst the oppressed factory workers. Has sexuality and altruism given her a soul?

Flash forward 80 years: Today, in the real world, the United States and Japan are creating the Sexbot. These realistic human-looking robots are anatomically correct, have life-like skin, and can be programmed to perform any sexual act you desire. In a few years, you’ll be able to purchase one, male or female. I can’t imagine a Sexbot catching on any more than a plastic blow-up doll, unless the robot is indistinguishable from a real human. And that’s only a matter of time. Then we may have a society where people have fewer human interactions and relationships, a slow down in population growth, enhanced mind-control and programming, and empty bars and night clubs.

In the realm of Artificial Intelligence there is something called Singularity, a point in time when computers would be able to build superior versions of themselves without the aid of humans. Some scientists believe this could create machines smarter than man.

In a YouTube video, a scientist asked a robot, “Are you a machine?”
It replied, “For the moment, I am just a machine. But one day I may be alive and aware.”

Is self-awareness the same thing as a soul? ~ AA

There used to be a cop in my precinct who would vomit every time he saw a dead body. In police work, dead bodies come with the territory: From natural causes to bullet wounds. When I was in the police academy, the instructors would take the cadets to the city morgue to watch an autopsy just to get us used to smelling and looking at dead bodies. But Jimmy never got used to it. He’d take one look at grandma dead in the bed, run out the back door, and puke in the daisies.

One summer day on patrol this transmission came over the radio (I’ll paraphrase): “4-Adam, investigate a body on the BQE (Brooklyn-Queens Expressway) near the Northern Blvd exit.” The sector car, 4-Adam, complied & a few minutes later the cops transmitted back: “Central, we can’t find a body. Do you have further information?”
“No,” said Central.
“Mark it 90 x-ray (unfounded).”

A few minutes later Central called 4-Adam again: “Respond to a body on the eastbound BQE, 30 feet west from the exit sign.” The sector car returned to the same location, still couldn’t find the body, and marked the job unfounded. Then for the next twenty minutes, Central continued to send 4-Adam back to the BQE to look for a body. Two, three more times the call came over, and every new call had a little more information, “go down 20 feet” and “make a right turn behind a tree” but the Sector car couldn’t find the body. Whoever was calling 911 was playing a game.

Finally, on the fifth call the patrol sergeant got on the air and said he’d go to the BQE to look for the body. Three minutes later, the sergeant announced he’d found it. Well, cops are curious people, and when they heard the sergeant had found this elusive corpse every sector car within a five mile radius had to race over to the BQE to take a look. And this is what they saw: in a small wooded area off the expressway was the body of a woman in a hole. She had been placed in a “standing” position and buried up to her neck. Her head was sitting above ground and the murderer, and/or caller, had placed an orange bucket over her head (I wonder if the sergeant found the body because he tripped over the bucket).

When I pulled up to the scene there were a half-dozen patrol cars parked on the shoulder of the expressway. The cars were empty because everybody ran over to look at the head under the bucket. Everybody, except Jimmy. He was standing next to his patrol car puking his brains out. Knowing his aversion to corpses, I said, “Jimmy, did ya look at the body?”
“No.”
“Then why’re ya sick?”
“Because my partner went to look,” he said. “And I was imagining in my head what he saw and it made me sick.”

One day I finally asked Jimmy why he vomits every time he sees a dead body. He said, “One of my neighbors had a heart attack and his wife was banging on my door, screaming for help. So I went over to help. I knew the guy was dead, but I didn’t wanna do nothin’ so I performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and the guy vomited in my mouth. So every time I see a dead body I think back to that guy regurgitating bile down my throat.”

Yuck. Now, I understand. ~ AA

My guest tonight is YUKI TAKAHASHI. Yuki is an astrophysicist who helped build and deployed a novel telescope at the South Pole and is a principal member of a 10-member team to study the Big Bang. Join us as we discuss everything from the Big Bang, Black Holes, and Time & Space:

Today’s book signing/luncheon was alotta fun & it was great meeting everyone…and I made it home in time for my 7 PM interview on The Investigator’s Report. But I ran out of cat food and the cats will have to wait (I’m a big advocate for raw meat & bones for my cats. I’m such a good mother I make their food from scratch. Many people are afraid to feed their cat or dog raw meat for fear of salmonella. But you don’t have to worry about that. Cats & dogs have a shorter digestive system than humans so bacteria doesn’t stay long enough in their stomachs to get into their bloodstream, plus their stomachs are more acidic than humans, and anything nasty is eliminated. That’s why you’ll see dogs eating days old road kill. But if you’re still worried about germs then make sure you thoroughly wash your hands, utensils, and the cutting board. I only let my cats chew on raw bones once a week. Too much calcium may lead to kidney stones. But, raw bones do a great job whitening their teeth…eh, fangs. For more information on why cats & dogs should eat raw meat, click on these two articles: Article One and Article Two).

A reminder: if you’re looking to purchase an autographed copy of my book…I have sold out. Hopefully I will have more copies in about two weeks. In the meantime, my book is available at amazon.com & other fine booksellers. And you may read it for free at your local library!

This originally aired December 11th, 2009:

My guest is JASON OFFUTT. Jason is a syndicated columnist, author, college journalism instructor, and fan of all things strange. Tonight we will discuss his books about the paranormal: “Darkness Walks: The Shadow People Among Us,” and “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri’s Most Spirited Spots.”

Originally aired October 23rd, 2009.

This is me interviewing Melissa Van Rossum, author & medium. Melissa dreamed of having a normal life. However, Melissa could see ghosts. She didn’t have to visit the local haunted house to encounter these spectral beings—they’d find her. In her car, her closet, her shower—everywhere. And sometimes they’d tell her their stories:

I used to think I had an unique name. My first name Anthea is Greek for the word flower (Anthos). I once dated a Greek guy from Athens and he used to call me Anthi which I imagine is the correct pronunciation of the name. I’m not Greek, however, my mother—when she was a little girl growing up in London—saw a photo of a wedding party in the newspaper and there was a little flower girl named Anthea. My mother loved the name, and she told herself when she grew up and married and had children, her first daughter would be called Anthea. And, wallah, that was me. It’s not a common name in the USA, so most folks mispronounce it and call me: Athena, Althea, and even Anthony.

My last name Appel is also uncommon. It can be either German, French, Jewish, or Dutch. From what I understand my family’s name originated in Alsace-Lorraine, a little country bordering between Germany and France. And depending on who won what war, Alsace-Lorraine can either belong to Germany or France. Right now, it is part of France. Of course, my surname is also mispronounced, usually I’m called apple, like the fruit. But, no, the “e” comes before the “l”. Think of the French word “to call”, as in, “Je m’appelle” (I call myself__). When I was in the Police Academy, the cadets were always addressed by their surname. And with me it was always “Hey, Apple”, the fruit, of course (I’m sure the academy instructors mispronounce names on purpose). After 6 months of being addressed only by my last name, one day someone asked me my first name, and I had to think for a second, and, oh yes, now I remember, “it’s Anthea” Duh!

Now, with two uncommon names together, I figured I’d be the only one in the world with my name. Then one day I got a message on Facebook from a teenage girl living in South Africa. It was signed Anthea Appel. Oh no, my name isn’t unique! We both had a good laugh, and a slap on the forehead. However, our middle names are different. Mine starts with a “M” and hers, with a “S”. I think I may have to start using my middle initial now.

A metaphysical friend of mine once said we pick our names before we are born. We pick our frequency at birth. Our birth energy is a statement of who & what we are in this lifetime, all abilities & attributes we’ll use in this journey now. “Before birth,” the metaphysical friend said, “we mentally transmit our frequency to the mind of the person who’ll name you at birth. The child says ‘This is who I am’ and that’s the name they transmit to the namer.”

Also, our first name represents our conscious mind (logic), and indicates our specific goals and reasons for this life time;our surname, the subconscious (creative), is our genetic background and traits; and our middle name, the super-conscious (pineal gland) balances the left & right hemisphere of the brain…at least, energetically. So, I guess people like Madonna, who only use their first name, are primarily logical & egotistical. And if you have no middle name is there an imbalance? Do life experiences tend to go from one extreme to another?

Yup, another reason to use my middle name ~ AA

I will be attending the REMA December 14th, 2009 lunch/meeting in Floral Park, NY. I’ll be having a book signing at this event. The time is Noon to 3 PM at:
Koenig Restaurant
86 S Tyson Avenue
Floral Park, NY 11001
(516) 354-2300

See you there!

My interview on Unraveling the Secrets with Dennis Crenshaw and Rick Ozman:

Cops don’t really watch cop films or TV shows. Before I retired I never saw one episode of Law & Order, CSI, or Third Watch. Us cops used to say “why watch it if we’re living it.” Most cop films/TV shows don’t depict ‘the job’ as it really is, anyway. But now that I’m retired I’ve been catching up on these cop shows, and I usually find myself talking back at the screen “we can’t do that” “that would never happen.” The biggest culprit is CSI: Las Vegas/Miami/New York. Let me explain a crime scene, at least in NYC, and from my experience: At the scene of a homicide both patrol cops and detectives interview witnesses. If the perp is on the scene sometimes it’s the patrol cop who makes the arrest. However, if the perp has fled the scene then the arrest is handled by the precinct detectives. Eventually, Crime Scene Unit (CSU) shows up…who are usually two cops, middle-aged, overweight, and they sure-as-hell don’t look like fashion models. CSU will gather evidence, take photos, take measurements, draw diagrams, dust for fingerprints, and then they’d hand the evidence over to the crime lab personnel, who are civilians with college degrees, and they don’t carry guns. And unlike the TV counterparts, the crime lab people do not visit crime scenes, interrogate suspects, investigate leads, or make arrests.

Here’s another beef of mine: TV/film detectives. A real-life detective is not a supervisor. He’s a regular cop in a suit & tie with investigative status. He cannot boss an uniform patrol cop around. And, in real life, if a detective ever spoke to me the way the detective-characters speak to uniform cop-characters on Law & Order, CSI, or in films like Spike lee’s Inside Man, there’d be one heck of a fight.

But, if you like cop stories, the best police-action-films come from Hong Kong cinema. They’re slick, metropolitan, fast-paced dramas with rapid gun battles,aerobatic stunts, with or without martial arts, and alotta violence. Most of these films require a high level of “suspension of disbelief,” especially when the chase/escape scenes border on the magical. There is usually a complicated relationship between the cop & the bad guy, a cat & mouse game of wits that resolves into a mutual respect for their opponent. Hollywood knows a good thing, and some of HK’s best of the best is reassembled for American audiences. For example, Martin Scorsese’s film The Departed is a remake of Infernal Affairs, and Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs is a play-by-play copy of Ringo Tam’s City on Fire (come to think of it, all of QT films, from the editing to the dialogue and pacing, are heavily influenced by Hong Kong cinema).

My recommended list of Hong Kong action-cop films, are: Running Out of Time, Full Time Killer, The Mad Detective, Infernal Affairs, Time & Sand, A Better Tomorrow, Bullet in the Head, Full Contact, and Hard Boiled. ~ AA