L.B.: Geheimkode

Left Behind, pp. 431-435

Buck spent Saturday holed up in the otherwise empty Chicago bureau office, getting a head start on his article on the theory behind the disappearances. His mind continually swirled, forcing him to think about Carpathia and what he would say in that piece about how the man seemed to be a perfect parallel to biblical prophecy. Fortunately, he could wait on writing that until after the big day on Monday.

Reading Left Behind can be a bit like those picture-puzzles from Highlights magazine, the ones where you're supposed to circle everything that's wrong. Let's try that with the paragraph above.

We'll circle "otherwise empty," since Global Weekly's production schedule couldn't possibly allow for everyone to have a 9-to-5, M-F work schedule. (I suppose many of them could have Saturdays off if GW goes to print on Fridays, but that can't be the case since we know the executive editor just spent all of Friday hanging out with Bruce Barnes.) "Getting a head start" gets circled, since The Event is now 12 days past, and Buck's what-happened? follow-up is already hopelessly late. Ditto for "he could wait on writing that." Circling "continually" as unnecessary is probably nit-picking, though there's definitely something off about a sentence in which our hero's own mind forces him to think. I'd also circle "big day" as Buck's chosen term for his meeting the following Monday rather than for the much bigger big day of two Mondays ago that he's supposedly sitting there writing about.

I'm still probably missing something there, but I've covered the page with too much red crayon to find anything more.

It's been an astonishing 14 pages since the last phone call, so you can guess what comes next:

Around lunchtime, Buck reached Steve Plank at the Plaza Hotel in New York.

The conversation that follows is a reprise of the previous phone call between these two (see "Super Powers"). This time, however, they switch to speaking in code halfway through.

First, though, they have to deal with the Hattie Question, and I'm actually going to try to defend this exchange as an almost plausible bit of dialogue:

"I'll be there Monday morning," he said, "but I'm not inviting Hattie Durham."

"Why not? It's a small request, friend-to-friend."

"You to me?"

"Nick to you."

Buck is in an awkward spot here. He can't just tell Steve, "Look, I've changed my mind about helping those two get together because I just found out that he's the spawn of Satan, evil incarnate, the great ten-horned beast of the apocalypse." So instead he just gets snippy and starts acting like it offends his morals to allow two unmarried adults to spend time together with no one there to chaperone except the Security Council and the national press corps.

"So now it's Nick, is it? Well, he and I are not close enough for that familiarity, and I don't provide female companionship even to my friends."

"Not even for me?"

This is good strategy on Steve's part. If your friend becomes inexplicably indignant and starts using words like "familiarity" or "provide female companionship," you could try to point out that no one has suggested anything unseemly or improper, or you could just try to defuse the situation with a joke. Buck's response, however, is not encouraging:

"If I knew you would treat her with respect, Steve, I'd set you up with Hattie."

That "if" there is an unsubtle dig at Steve, who thus reasonably loses his patience with his friend, saying:

"I'll ask her myself, Buck, you prude."

This reading is probably a bit of a stretch. We're probably supposed to view Buck here as legitimately and righteously indignant rather than as flustered into semi-incoherence. The latter would make him more human and thus more appealing, but that's not how the authors tend to think about their heroes.

Either way we read this Buck has managed to tick off his friend, so it takes a bit of chutzpah for him to segue right into asking for a favor. Buck wants another "exclusive" interview with Nicolae:

"You know I'm going to do the complete piece on the guy. He needs this."

"If you watched TV yesterday, you know he doesn't need anything. We need him."

"Do we? Have you run into any schools of thought that link him to end-times events in the Bible?"

Steve Plank did not respond.

How could he respond? That question is almost a perfectly crafted conversation killer. It doesn't allow for a reasonable response.

You can try this yourself sometime. On a train or airplane and don't want to have to make conversation with a chatty seatmate? Just respond to whatever comment they make by asking, "Have you run into any schools of thought that link this to end-times events in the Bible?" Political campaigns are exempt from No-Call-List restrictions, but here is a useful tool for making sure they never phone again. I'd imagine this would also be effective for rebuffing unwanted attention at a bar. (The potential danger to this strategy being the remote but horrifying possibility that someone might respond, "Why, yes! Yes I have run into schools of thought that link this to end-times events in the Bible!" At which point you'd be doubly screwed.)

Steve's silence here, however, is not the shocked and perplexed silence such a question would prompt in real life -- not the semi-panicked pause of a sane person realizing they're dealing with someone in the opposite category. Steve's silence here instead is meant to be ominous and laden with meaning.

"Steve?"

"I'm here."

"Well, have you? Anybody that thinks he might fit the bill for one of the villains of the book of Revelation?"

Steve said nothing.

"Hello, Steve?"

"I'm still here."

"C'mon, old buddy. You're the press secretary. You know all. How's he going to respond if I hit him with that?"

Steve was still silent.

This ominous silence is meant to indicate that Steve knows exactly what Buck is talking about and that he's afraid to answer because Buck's questions are too close to what he knows to be the truth.

So OK then, let's consider how that could be possibly be true.

Buck has spent the better part of the last 72 hours getting a crash course in PMD prophecy theory from Rayford, Chloe and Bruce in turn. They've outlined this interpretation of the book of Revelation and explained to him what they believe it prophesies about a coming Antichrist. Steve hasn't heard any of that, yet here he seems to know everything that Buck does about the end times, the Antichrist and the entire PMD checklist. Where did Steve learn all that?

There seem to be only one place he could have learned it: from Nicolae himself. I'm trying to imagine how that conversation could have gone ...

NC: Welcome, Mr. Plank. Bienvenue. Bienvenido. Wilkomm ...

SP: Just the English is fine here in the office, Mr. Secretary-General.

NC: Please, call me "Nick." Now, your office is down the hall there on the left. Just ask Chaim if you need any supplies. Oh, and there is just one more thing you should know. I am the Antichrist.

SP: I'm sorry, the what?

NC: The Antichrist. The Beast? One of the villains of the book of Revelation? You have not heard of this?

SP: I ... I ... the book of ...?

NC: Ah, I see you will have some catching up to do. Chaim? Please fetch some copies of Tim LaHaye's non-fiction books for our new friend here.

Hmm. My imagined rendition of this conversation hardly seems plausible, but how else could it have gone?

Anyway, back in the novel itself Buck still can't get an answer out of Steve so he tries a slightly different approach:

"Don't do this to me, Steve. I'm not saying that's where I am or that anybody who knows anything or who matters thinks that way. I'm doing the piece on what was behind the disappearances, and you know that takes me into all kinds of religious realms. Nobody anywhere has drawn any parallels here?"

Yes, that's much more tactful. "I'm not saying" your boss is the Great Beast from the Abyss, I'm merely asking how he'd respond if somebody else were to suggest that he is.

This time when Steve said nothing, Buck merely looked at his watch, determined to wait him out. About 20 seconds after a loud silence, Steve spoke softly. "Buck, I have a two-word answer for you. Are you ready?"

"I'm ready."

"Staten Island."

"Are you tellin' me that --?"

"Don't say the name, Buck! You never know who's listening."

"So you're threatening me with --"

"I'm not threatening. I'm warning. Let me say I'm cautioning you."

This is followed by Buck reminding his friend of his reputation as a tough "bird dog" reporter who never backs down from threats or warnings. Steve doesn't contradict him. Nor does he point out that the very example they're discussing -- reporter Eric Miller's suspicious "suicide" leap off the Staten Island Ferry -- is itself one of several stories Buck has helped to bury in just the past week due to his fearful response to threats and warnings.

Here again what is said about a character trumps that character's actual behavior. Thus, for LaHaye & Jenkins, this song --

Brave Sir Robin ran away.
Bravely ran away away.
When danger reared it's ugly head,
He bravely turned his tail and fled.
Yes, brave Sir Robin turned about
And gallantly he chickened out.
Bravely taking to his feet,
He beat a very brave retreat.
Bravest of the braaaave, Sir Robin!

-- should be taken as proof that Brave Sir Robin was, in fact, quite courageous and gallant. This is primarily Very Bad Writing, but I have a theory that it's somehow also related to Very Bad Theology -- specifically to the author's understanding of "faith" as wholly separate from, and irrelevant to, "works."

The dialogue that follows is a delicious font of unintentional humor. Buck attempts to continue questioning Steve by eaking-spay in ode-cay.

Buck began scribbling furiously on a yellow pad. "Fair enough," he said, writing, Carpathia or Stonagal resp. for Eric Miller? "What I want to know is this: If you think I should stay off the ferry, is it because of the guy behind the wheel, or because of the guy who supplies his fuel?"

"The latter," Steve said without hesitation.

Buck circled Stonagal. "Then you don't think the guy behind the wheel is even aware of what the fuel distributor does on his behalf."

"Correct."

"But if he found out about it?"

"He'd deal with it."

"That's what I expect to see soon."

"I can't comment on that."

It's impossible for me to read that without picturing Buck making Dr. Evil air quotes with his fingers when he says things like "fuel distributor." The best part, of course, is that they're worried that Carpathia, Stonagal or Todd-Cothran might be listening in, so they adopt this convoluted way of talking that would only make sense to each other and to Carpathia, Stonagal and Todd-Cothran. Nothing they're saying would be the least bit confusing to any of the people they're trying to conceal their meaning from. This makes as much sense as it would have if the U.S. had replaced our Navajo code-talkers in World War II with people who spoke German.

But while nothing they're saying would confuse the possibly eavesdropping conspirators, it does succeed in confusing Buck.

"Can you tell me who you really work for?"

"I work for who it appears to you I work for."

What in the world did that mean? Carpathia or Stonagal? How could he get Steve to say on a phone from within the Plaza that might be bugged?

"You work for the Romanian businessman?"

"Of course."

Buck nearly kicked himself. That could be either Carpathia or Stonagal. "You do?" he said, hoping for more.

So I pick up the ball, I throw it to first, and who catches it?

"My boss moves mountain, doesn't he?" Steve said.

"He sure does," Buck said, circling Carpathia this time. "You must be pleased with everything going on these days."

"I am."

Buck scribbled, Carpathia. End times. Antichrist? "And you're telling me straight up that the other issue I raised is dangerous but also hogwash."

"Total roll in the muck."

"And I shouldn't even broach the subject with him, in spite of the fact that I'm a writer who covers all the bases and asks the tough questions?"

"If I thought you would consider mentioning it, I could not encourage the interview or the story."

There's the deal: access in exchange for Buck's agreement not to ask certain questions. Buck agrees. He always does. But he's still "a writer who covers all the bases and asks the tough questions." It says so right there in the book, so it must be true.

Comments

[Boze]

YAY! This is one of my favorite parts of every week. And I'm so excited we're near the exciting ending of the first book :) Those of you who have read the whole series, which ending was your favorite? I really liked this one, the end of "Tribulation Force," and the end of "Assassins," though the whole end of "The Mark" with the plane falling and the existential sorrow ("another tragedy in a world of pain") came close to being good writing.

[Froborr]

So... at the end of taking all these notes, Buck has Carpathia or Stonagal responsible for Eric Miller with *both* Carpathia and Stonagal circled? Uh... yeah, those're gonna be real useful if you ever, you know, look at them later. Not that there's any chance Buck *will*, of course.

[Lucia]

Excellent news! I've just discovered a lost chapter of Revelation. It reads:

1 He was not in the least bit scared
to be mashed into a pulp
2 Or to have his eyes gouged out and his elbows broken
3 To have his kneecaps split and his body burned away
4 And his limbs all hacked and mangled, brave Sir Robin Bucky
5 His head smashed in and his heart cut out
6 And his liver removed and his bowels unplugged
7 And his nostrils raped and his bottom
burnt off and his penis...

[Robb]

*glee*

The only issue I have is I'll be singing for the rest of the day:

He was not in the least bit scared to be smashed into a pulp,
Or to have his eyes gouged out, and his elbows broken....

[Lauren]

The Navajo code-talkers were exclusively used in the Pacific theater, as far as I know.

[twig]

If there's not a law in writing there really ought to be - holding out the character's ignorance after the audience has the obvious figured out is horrendously dull.

Even if it doesn't make sense for the characters to figure it out, having them act with full awareness is so much better to read. Sort of Hellboy vs. Dana Scully. At least the characters in Hellboy have the decency to take the bizarre in stride, compared to Scully who had to play skeptical-to-the-point-of-blindness counterpoint far past the realm of believability for way too many seasons.

[Tonio]

Where did Steve learn all that? There seem to be only one place he could have learned it: from Nicolae himself.

It's worse than that - Steve is already one of the pod people Antichrist minions. Steve will soon be on the phone (naturally) to Nicolae to let him know that the secret's out. I picture Buck behind hauled off by troopers dressed like Tony Iommi or King Diamond.

Nothing they're saying would be the least bit confusing to any of the people they're trying to conceal their meaning from.

This scene reads like an attempt to ape "All the President's Men." If Buck and Steve were talking in person, they should crank up the Rachmaninoff and start typing notes.

[Eric B.]

Reading Left Behind can be a bit like those picture-puzzles from Highlights magazine

Goofus goes and talks to the Antichrist without saying the sinners prayer beforehand, leaving him vulerable to the Antichrist's mind control powers.

Gallant says the sinner's prayer before talking to the Antichrist, protecting him from both mind controll and the fires of hell.

[smgt]

See, the great thing about Very Bad Theology is that it doesn't matter how you act. You get to be 'good' and 'holy' and 'saved' and still act as greedy and power hungry as ever.

[Thlayli]

The rooster crows at midnight.

[smgt]

Is the idea that maybe Stoney thinks Nicky Mountaintop is the Anti-Christ, and for whatever reason, wants him to rise to power, but that the Mountaintop himself doesn't have any idea about his cosmic significance?

[Tonio]

the Mountaintop himself doesn't have any idea about his cosmic significance?

During military prep school, he terrified his history teacher with his knowledge of death dates.

[Keith]

My imagined rendition of this conversation hardly seems plausible, but how else could it have gone?

Chic Tracts. Nick hands them out instead of business cards. Saves a lot fo time. Naturally, he has them in multiple languages.

[Praline]

I don't provide female companionship even to my friends."

We've seen this before: Buck keeps defending Hattie's reputation against people who aren't impugning it. Asked to invite a mutual friend to a social event in a pass-the-message-along way, he keeps yelling, 'She's not a whore, you know!' Well, no; nobody was asking to have sex with her, just to be in the same room. In public. Even allowing for a thirty-year-old virgin, you'd think he'd know the difference. But it keeps coming round: Buck thinks he's defending Hattie's reputation, but actually he's the only one questioning it in the first place.

For a man who met a girl once, played dirty-old-geezer with her and then followed her onto an airplane, he's in a weird position. He reminds me of one of those mixed-up stalkers who's convinced he's got a special relationship with the prostitutes he's 'protecting' from other men.

My boss moves mountain, doesn't he?" Steve said.
"He sure does," Buck said, circling Carpathia this time.

Ooh, subtle. I can just picture the supervillains hunched over their microphones at the other end of the bug-line, going, 'Mountains? Mountains? Igor, we'll never break this code. Curse them! Curse them! Foooiiiled!!!'

Whatever happened to pointing at the bloody list he's bloody holding in his bloody hand, if he's worried about being overheard?

Buck scribbled, Carpathia. End times. Antichrist?

Aw, he's drafting the whiteboard notes for next Sunday's sermon. Bruce Banner will be so touched.

[Lauren]

If there's not a law in writing there really ought to be - holding out the character's ignorance after the audience has the obvious figured out is horrendously dull.

Sherri Tepper's Raising the Stones manages to do so without being dull, but then she's 20 million times a better author.

[Kashmir]

Your analogy about the Navajo code talkers is false; they were only sent to the Pacific Theatre, in order to provide safe communications there because of their language. So it would be correct to change "German" to "Japanese."

I know, I know, I'm being a history Nazi (No pun intended).

[Eric B.]

But Bruce doesn't need him to draft whiteboard notes for the sermon, since he's already got them from the previous week. He's doing the same sermon from here on out. That frees up time for meetings and ignoring phone calls.

[Raj]

"Don't say the name, Buck! Suffice to say 'tis the one name The Knights Who Say, 'Ni!' cannot bear to hear!"

"Perhaps it would confuse him if I ran away some more."

[Hibryd]

In the final stretch this book has gone from worst to worstest. Let me get the author's tortured logic straight. Plank is working for someone he practically worships, and he suspects a business associate of his new boss is dangerous and killing people. Why the hell is he telling this, in code, to Buck? Wouldn't he tell his new boss directly? Maybe Steve thinks Carpathia could be in danger if he knew, so *then* his best bet would be to give Buck enough solid, verifiable details that he could go public.

"Can you tell me who you really work for?" "I work for who it appears to you I work for." "You work for the Romanian businessman?" "My boss moves mountain, doesn't he?" Steve said.

I have no idea where to even start with that mind numbing exchange. (If anyone is listening, they'll know Plank is publicly working for Carpathia and Buck was maybe the third person on the planet who knew about his new job.)

[aunursa]

"Getting a head start" gets circled, since The Event is now 12 days past, and Buck's what-happened? follow-up is already hopelessly late.

A special edition of TIME magazine was on the newsracks by September 15, 2001.

[Lauren]

@Praline: Umm, it's a telephone conversation.

[Tonio]

He reminds me of one of those mixed-up stalkers who's convinced he's got a special relationship with the prostitutes he's 'protecting' from other men.

I pictured Buck as an overprotective father ashamed about his reaction to his blossoming daughter, projecting his emotions onto the girl's suitors who are allegedly after just one thing.

[Raj]

I'm totally watching my Holy Grail DVD tonight.

[Praline]

This is primarily Very Bad Writing, but I have a theory that it's somehow also related to Very Bad Theology -- specifically to the author's understanding of "faith" as wholly separate from, and irrelevant to, "works."

You could, if you wanted to be over-elaborate, attribute a kind of plan to this: faith so trumps works that the greater the effort of faith, the greater the merit. So the ultimate act of virtue is to believe faithfully the bald assertions of a narrative filled with incidents that contradict those assertions. They're actually making it as hard to believe as possible, to get the maximum merit out of the act of faith.

Actually, of course, it's simpler than that: a) bad writing, and b) a belief in obedience of opinion as well as action so strong that they feel they can afford to be casual about backing their assertions up. But still...

[Tonio]

I know, I know, I'm being a history Nazi (No pun intended).

I'm even more of one - during the First World War, the US Army used Choctaw codetalkers.

[Hibryd]

Goofus goes and talks to the Antichrist without saying the sinners prayer beforehand, leaving him vulerable to the Antichrist's mind control powers.

Gallant says the sinner's prayer before talking to the Antichrist, protecting him from both mind controll and the fires of hell.

I award you one internet full of win.

[Keith]

It says so right there in the book, so it must be true.

That, right there, is the key: L&J are adherents of not just Biblical Literalism but Literary Literalism as well. There's no such thing as nuance, symbolism or inference. If it says "Buck is a hard nosed investigative journalist." then by God it is so! See, says so right there on the page. Inferring or illustrating it would be to employ symbolic thought, which is open to interpretation and as we all know, interpreting symbols is Black Magic of the most vile sort. Unless you have to decode densely written symbolist prose ranting from a first century Mystic. Then it's reading things plain.

[Praline]

@Praline: Umm, it's a telephone conversation.

I stand corrected. Oops. :-) But I stand by my other point still, which is that 'moves mountains' is an absolutely pathetic code.

[aunursa]

This ominous silence is meant to indicate that Steve knows exactly what Buck is talking about and that he's afraid to answer because Buck's questions are too close to what he knows to be the truth.... There seem to be only one place he could have learned it: from Nicolae himself.

Or Steve is subject to his new employer's mind control trick ... and is virtually unable to respond when a GIRAT asks probing questions that are too close to the truth.

[Tonio]

"Nick to you."

So the great ten-horned beast of the apocalypse is Miles Standish with two John Aldens? Hattie might as well have a threesome with Buck and Steve.

[kodiak]

I'm wondering how Buck will make sense of his notes later on if he's just asked an either/or question and then circled both responses... I mean, what if he dies mysteriously and dear Chloe finds the notes? Who will they be looking at as the Anti-Christ if Buck knew the secrets, but still circled both names.

If this is how he takes notes, how does he manage to write coherent stories at all??

[Keith]

If this is how he takes notes, how does he manage to write coherent stories at all?

So far he hasn't written anytign but notes in almost two weeks so I'm wondering how the man is even still employed as a reporter.

[Robb]

Chic Tracts

Awesome unintentional commentary!

"Have you seen Nicky's latest one? Omigod it's SO. Fabulous!

*****

Your analogy about the Navajo code talkers is false; they were only sent to the Pacific Theatre, in order to provide safe communications there because of their language. So it would be correct to change "German" to "Japanese."

To be fair, given that Japanese were allied with the Germans during WWII, it's highly possible there were at least a few German speakers spread through out the Japanese military.

[histrogeek]

Jenkins probably was considering having Buck and Steve speak in pig Latin, ("Was it Onagalstey or Arpathiacey?") but realized that it wouldn't work because:
a. Nick Dinaricalps is a mega-polyglot and would be able to translate Pig Latin as easily as English.
b. Pig Latin is related to Latin, which is the language of the Romans, meaning the Romanians. So Pig Latin is Nick's mother tongue.
c. Tim LaHaye and at least 60% of his likely readership wouldn't be able to follow the conversation once the Pig Latin got started.

[jamoche]

The potential danger to this strategy being the remote but horrifying possibility that someone might respond, "Why, yes! Yes I have run into schools of thought that link this to end-times events in the Bible!"

Got stuck next to someone who would have done that in a coffeeshop line once - it wasn't end times he was on about, but I'm sure he would have responded like that. His opinion was that the Jehovah's Witnesses were the One True Religion because they'd never produced a president who'd led us into a war. I was particularly amused at his claim that Quakers lost their claim to OTRness because of Nixon.

[mcc]

Yes, that's much more tactful. "I'm not saying" your boss is the Great Beast from the Abyss, I'm merely asking how he'd respond if somebody else were to suggest that he is.

This actually sounds like a pretty accurate description of how our modern press corps behaves.

We must ask Carpathia if he is the antichrist because people are going to be asking him whether he's the antichrist in November, and we must find out how we will react?

[Raj]

Sir Bucky the Not So Brave as Launcelot, who nearly had second thoughts about burying the dirt he had on Nicky, who nearly stood up to a woman in sensible shoes, and who personally wet himself in Bruce Barnes' office.

[Hibryd]

I'm hoping Fred takes some time to eviscerate these books on their "biblical" content.

Buck is on the lookout for an Anti-Christ that is suave, deceptive, and a unifier. What did Bruce show him "right there in the bible" that indicated that's what he was dealing with? Not only does Revelations never utter the word Anti-Christ, it plainly describes the Beast that takes over the world and makes everyone worship him:

"And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon."

So why isn't Buck asking Plank if his new boss seems to be combing over anything in particular? Or if one of his multiple languages seems, like, reptilian?

[Robb]

We must ask Carpathia if he is the antichrist because people are going to be asking him whether he's the antichrist in November, and we must find out how we will react

LOL! Oh man . . . my monitor has wheat thin fragments all over it now.

[Tonio]

His opinion was that the Jehovah's Witnesses were the One True Religion because they'd never produced a president who'd led us into a war.

A few months ago they canvassed my neighborhood on Christmas morning, so I suspect they would be an effective defense. Put them on our front line, and the enemy would surrender instantly, just to avoid their proselytizing.

[Tonio]

Or if one of his multiple languages seems, like, reptilian?

He would speak like Sean Connery in the movie I-can't-remember-the-title-without-going-to-IMDB.

[Vermic]

What the hell good is it to switch to "code" if you're discussing the same topics you were just discussing openly earlier in the same conversation?

Kirk and Spock, these guys ain't.

[Dorothy]

A special edition of TIME magazine was on the newsracks by September 15, 2001.
For some reason I felt compelled to follow that link. Here's Time's sales blurb:

Special Edition: Septembe 11 by TIME magazine is a wonderful photography piece and is sized at 8x10 inches. This work of art will look fantastic on any wall and will make the perfect holiday gift for someone you care about.

I can see it now. Time's post-Rapture special edition: A perfect gift for Mother's Day!

[Boze]

Some fundies are still really partial to the Obama-is-the-antichrist meme. He gets called the antichrist way more than most self-respecting world leaders.

Which is your favorite Chic tract?

[Raj]

NC: Welcome, Mr. Plank. Bienvenue. Bienvenido. Wilkomm ...

Yes, Monaco is the winner!

Hai, Monaco is the linner!

Oh yes, man, Monaco's won de big prize!

[rob]

"The best part, of course, is that they're worried that Carpathia, Stonagal or Todd-Cothran might be listening in, so they adopt this convoluted way of talking that would only make sense to each other and to Carpathia, Stonagal and Todd-Cothran."

Maybe they're worried about electronic flags? You know, the kind the guvmint uses so that if you say "bomb" and "president" in the same conversation over the phone, a big red light goes off on the desk of the head of the Secret Service and he immediately sends agents to your home to arrest and/or beat you? (DON'T TRY IT. Just trust me on this one.)

Although you'd think the quick mention of the end times, the bible, "threaten," Staten Island, and Revelation would be enough to get this conversation dumped on Carpathia's watch list.

[Robb]

Sean Connery in the movie I-can't-remember-the-title-without-going-to-IMDB.

I'm ashamed to say I know that one without going to imdb: Dragonheart. It also featured Dennis Quaid speaking 2 lines with a horrible attempt at an English accent, and the rest of the movie in his normal accent.

[MikhailBorg]

Vermic, I was just thinking of that exchange!

"Captain, if we went BY THE BOOK, like Lt. Savvik, HOURS would seem like DAYS."

"I read you, Spock."

"Auxiliary power will be out and we can't beam you up for TWO DAYS. Main power will be out for SIX DAYS. BY THE BOOK, Admiral."

But, to be fair, I missed that on my first viewing, and Khan wasn't exactly known for his subtlety either.

[Lauren]

LOL! Oh man . . . my monitor has wheat thin fragments all over it now.

Ew! Robb, you really ought to have kept that to yourself.

[Cat Vincent]

The quote that struck me this week was the little temporal gem, "..About 20 seconds after a loud silence..' What exactly was heard in those vital seconds? A slightly less loud silence? Or possibly even *actual* silence?
Inquiring minds need to know.