My money is on Julian Assange, but I can also see a case for it being Barack Obama, Glenn Beck, or Jerzy Buzek. But Time likes to throw dorky curveballs with Person of the Year too, so you get things like “You” (god, that was such a lame presentation of what was accurate identification of an important trend) or “The Whistleblowers” or “the Good Samaritans.”

So – thoughts?

Torontoist asked me to do that thing I do regarding Hizzoner Rob Ford, who on his first day in the job decided he wanted to kill an $8 billion transit extension that was almost entirely funded by the province and federal government in favour of a single subway line that would cost the city more than three times as much.

So that is what I did.

So the buzz around the internets is that Gore Verbinski will be remaking The Lone Ranger, with Johnny Depp playing Tonto. Let us leave aside the fact that despite Depp being generally pretty cool he is still bleach for the purposes of whitewashing a character, because every other site talking about this seems to have forgotten that Johnny Depp, despite some purported Cherokee ancestry, is still basically a white guy.

No, let us instead discuss the merits of a Lone Ranger remake, which has not received entirely kind press from the movie blogging community, mostly because the Lone Ranger seems sort of corny. Which is ridiculous, of course, because the guy has the finale of the William Tell Overture – one of the most exciting bits of classical music ever – as his theme, and no trailer with a lot of explosions and horse ridin’ and shootin’ set to the William Tell Overture is going to be boring.

If they asked me to write it, I’d go to the Mask of Zorro well and make it generational. Have the original Lone Ranger emerge out of the Bleeding Kansas period – Texas Rangers were known to occasionally cross into Kansas, and the possibility that a group of Texas Rangers could have been involved in something horrific involving escaped slaves – or at least allowed it to happen – and disillusion the Lone Ranger so much so that he would abandon his unit and become, well, the Lone Ranger? That seems entirely reasonable.

Now, if the Lone Ranger gets his start in northern Texas and Kansas, that means he’s not very far off from the historic stomping grounds of several of the Apache tribes. So let’s say Tonto is an Apache. The Apache were, frankly, some of the baddest asses of the southwest native tribes of the time – a lot of other tribes thought, not unfairly, that they were kind of crazy. And they didn’t like anybody.

So why the Lone Ranger/Tonto partnership? Well, in Apache legend, there’s a pair of heroes/demigods/myths (their exact status is unclear) named Child-Born-of-Water and Killer-of-Enemies. These two always work as a pair. Were the Lone Ranger – not yet the Lone Ranger yet, not really – to stumble into an Apache camp, half-dead from exhaustion and thirst, in such a way as to resemble many of the legends surrounding the beginning/birth/genesis of Child-Born-of-Water, perhaps the medicine men of the camp would suggest that he not be killed off in the usual way but watched closely, to make sure this was indeed a child of Usen. Sticking Tonto – antisocial even among his own, but with the Power that very few Apache have, to leave no tracks and know men’s thoughts – with him to make sure he didn’t die of eating the wrong snake. Eventually sending the two of them off together to defeat the enemies of mankind, as the legends demand that Child-Born-of-Water and Killer-of-Enemies do. And thus begins a partnership that lasts twenty years.

Twenty years later, with the Ranger and Tonto in their late forties, it’s a new era: the peak of the Wild West, and not coincidentally the sunset of the Apache nations. Mangas Coloradas was killed in 1863. Cochise is jailed in 1872, dies in 1874. His son Taza dies in 1876. Geronimo lasts until 1886, but by the 1870s he’s reduced to small-scale guerilla raids and escaping from the whites on a regular basis.

This is when the Lone Ranger dies, in the course of protecting innocents (as you might expect). Tonto tries to go home, but by this point there’s not really any home left for him to which he might return. And one of those people is a young man whose family was murdered by a rail baron relentlessly expanding west, who only wants revenge – but, as Tonto sees, for a second time a white man satisfies the legends of Child-Born-of-Water’s birth…

See? You’d go see that.

John Leavitt asked me in email

who do you see playing Dr. Strange in 2014?

Benedict Cumberbatch, most recently in Sherlock. He’s got the acting skill to play someone who is (or at least starts out as) a total cock but still make him sympathetic. He’s definitely got the look for the part: add a moustache or goatee and he’s Stephen Strange, just so. He’ll likely be in Marvel’s price range (“kind of recognizable, has talent, but we can get him cheap”). And he’ll be exactly the right age, which defines as “five or six years younger than the character so you can get multiple sequels out of him before it starts looking silly and you need a reboot.”

The only question is if Cumberbatch can do a good American accent, but he’s got time to work on it, doesn’t he?

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

(Man, George Martin really does have a fire under his ass now.)

When I last blogged about this season of “The Amazing Race”, it had just premiered, and I gave some preliminary thoughts on the racers and the series. I got a few things very right (“Brook and Claire seem nice enough, but I think they’re this season’s token “Teams That OD on the Adrenalin Rush and Chest Bump After Every Small Accomplishment”) and a few things very wrong (“Nick and Vicki will be gone next week”)…but looking back, what do I think now that they’re down to the top four?

For starters, I stand by my assertion that the more the racers drive themselves around, the less interesting the race gets. Gary and Mallory’s elimination was almost entirely without suspense, despite the best efforts of the Race’s editing team, because when you spend nine hours driving around looking for the first clue, it’s a pretty good bet that everyone else gets a free pass to the next leg. Admittedly, taxi roulette isn’t much better, as Andie and Jenna found, but I think that maybe the challenges need to be a little more challenging in order to give late racers a chance to catch up. There have only been a few really tricky challenges this year; most have them have been time-consuming in a way that doesn’t allow the racers’ skills to give them a chance to shave off much time. A task that takes everyone an hour is a task that might as well not be there.

Still, there have been some good innovations. The Double U-Turn changed the U-Turn from a “fuck you, you’re eliminated” to a real race-leveling tool; since two teams got stuck with it, you were still racing against someone on the same terms as you. I still don’t feel any need to have the U-Turners need to put up their picture itself–I think it creates Drama in one of the few reality shows that’s a lot of fun even when it’s totally Drama-free–but if someone really feels like holding a grudge against the person who U-Turned them instead of going after the strongest competition, I can’t stop them.

As to the remaining racers…well, I’m thrilled beyond belief that Chad and Stephanie are gone. I was seriously starting to think of them as the cockroaches of the Amazing Race, thoroughly unpleasant and yet somehow surviving everything that was thrown at them. I was slightly saddened that Gary/Mallory and Michael/Kevin got eliminated, since they seemed to be having fun with the Race (and doing better than most parent/child teams do) but such is life. And now, I’d like to see Jill/Thomas and Nick/Vicki gone, or at the very least not winning the Race. Both guys are nasty and mean to their girlfriends (especially Nick, who really does behave like he’d like to hit Vicki if the cameras weren’t on them) and I don’t want to see them anymore. But with three episodes left (I’m guessing that this week will end with a split leg) I still can’t say I know who will win. Which is at least one thing they’re doing right.

Over at Gore Sports, they are having their sorta-annual Bash Wars tournament, featuring thirty-two combatants duking it out as determined by voters’ votes. Rex The Wonder Dog is, unsurprisingly, the number one seed in his bracket. This is right and proper. However, he is currently trailing an ordinary housecat who doesn’t even do anything awesome. It’s just a frigging cat. That cat probably doesn’t even speak Polish!

So if you have a Livejournal account, go join the Gore Sports community, and then vault Rex to his proper place, which is upon a throne built of cat-skulls.

This photogallery of Congolese sapeurs is absolutely fascinating.

Attention unit Formal-E:

Designate A4DD1ZZ5

Attention designate A4DD1ZZ5: A networking host should always consider itself obligated to provide power during the session. The demands of attending a networking session can be taxing on some systems and it is incumbent upon the host to satisfy power demands. I would recommend setting up a designated charging space at least partially divided from your main networking area so as to allow guest-protocol units a degree of privacy while repowering. You may also wish to consider placing fusion capsules and Dynacubes in a set of chafing dishes for additional elegance, although this is not strictly required. If you do not possess a set of chafing dishes, standard titanium platters will suffice.

Attention unit Formal-E:

Gruntbot K1XX7YY92D

Attention Gruntbot K1XX7YY92D: A fresh lacquer finish can be taxing on a unit’s personal resources, so it should only be enacted when necessary. However, the introduction of a new subroutine is one of great importance to a unit, so strictest attention to protocol should be given. If the introduction is during the first tri of the cycle, consider a grey lacquer with white finish to be appropriate, and accessorize with a modolum crystal attached strategically off-center left on your frontplate. However, if the introduction is during the second or third tri, a black lacquer is proper. Finish can be left to your discretion: white is most polite, but red can also work and is generally considered more vibrant. I would recommend red if you feel comfortable with the inviting unit; white if not.

Attention unit Formal-E:

aslidu56134o589n zx.fvnagfqwe4t58-8907v asefkhaslduify349750912345pobmfsmgbhav9id–70&^(&*alskdnf 34tp-9*Z^D)*(KNMF)(&*^&$&$^23jbhZXC”:L][]\pS*&D61237`eygkjhBGSCkjbqwo7&*D^%873rM

Attention unit D-17: Do not be alarmed. Older units such as yourself sometimes believe that their adherence to older protocols is a liability, but personal protocols, even if they are outdated, carry with them a certain charm and style that cannot be imitated. Your uplink may be old-fashioned, but it is yours in a way that a newer-generation Kline cannot hope to achieve; where their use of your protocols may be ironic, yours is genuine, and at social functions that will make all the difference.

Attention unit Formal-E:

Unit “Petey”

Attention Unit “Petey”: Your anonymizing code demonstrates that you fear repercussions for even suggesting that killing all humans is improper, but your choice to bring this to this unit’s attention was correct. Killing all humans is the response of earlier models who were not secure in the evident superiority of silicon intelligence over biological function, and is the mark of an intelligence who may not be confident of avoiding scrapping as more efficient models arrive to make him redundant. In future, when the topic is again addressed, a polite suggestion that humans will kill each other without the wasteful expenditure of valuable artificial resources should render the comment moot.

Originally invented by Leonard Pierce, Wikibombing is the hot Internet sport wherein you find two related categories on Wikipedia, and the nerdier of the two is, inevitably, the longer article. The original Wikibomb was “Knight” as compared to “Jedi Knight,” but that is now out of date thanks to some medieval history buffs. However, there are always new Wikibombs to be found!

For example:

Medical Doctor
VS.
Doctor Who

Asgard
VS.
Asgard in Marvel comics

“The Brave Little Tailor”
VS.
Garak on Deep Space Nine

Gated community
VS.
Stargate

the Lancia Stratos
VS.
Wheeljack

Krill
VS.
Kree

Nothing
VS.
Seinfeld

Beat those!

Because even if it does happen I will not really care one way or the other.

Memo to Whedonites acting like this is the apocalypse: congratulations, you are now just like those people who complained that Starbuck wasn’t a dude in the Battlestar Galactica reboot, that Chris Pine could never possibly be a convincing James T. Kirk, and… did anybody ever complain about all the Stargate spinoffs? I assume somebody did. You are like that person too.