Rip It!

How many times have you heard a news story and thought, somebody ought to write a book about that? Or make a movie? You know, a true story so heart-warming, gut-wrenching, or downright bizarre that it really deserves to be ripped from the headlines?

Viola! I offer, for your consideration, a new blog feature: Rip it!

My choice this week:

A Bloomberg Businessweek article -- wait, stay with me... 

about a Silicon Valley company -- no seriously, don’t go just yet...

that SEES EVERYTHING.

Pretty cool, right?

A movie adaptation of this news story could really go several different ways.

1) The Mission Impossible Treatment (aka, Spy Thriller)

So you’re wondering what is this company, anyway? And how does it see everything? The company is Palantir, and it has created computer software that combs through mountains of data -- financial records, e-mails, web search information, DNA samples, sound samples, video clips, maps, floor plans, and human intelligence reports -- to root out the bad guys.

They’ve busted up bombing networks in Syria, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. They’ve stopped large-scale identity theft scams. They’ve solved child abduction cases. U.S. Special Operations Forces in Afghanistan uses Palantir to plan assaults. According to one Special Forces member, “Holy crap. Holy crap. Holy crap.”

All we'd have to do is cast Tom Cruise. Blockbuster!

2) The Informant! Treatment (aka, Black Comedy)

These guys aren’t Jason Bourne types -- though neither was the character from The Informant!, and that didn’t stop Matt Damon from playing the part. If you’re a Tolkien fan, you already know the company got its name, Palantin, from Lord of the Rings. They’ve decorated their office space (previously the headquarters of Facebook) with Care Bear murals and bobblehead collections. They’re not bad asses, they’re nerds. Tell me there’s not potential for some dark, dark humor there.

3) The Full-On Minority Report Treatment (aka, Cautionary Tale)

It doesn’t take much imagination to see how this sort of technology could go too far, with too few safeguards. Palantir already has its detractors, despite its employees’ penchant for Care Bears. “I don’t think Palantir the firm is evil,” says Christopher Soghoian of the Center for Applied Cybersecurity at Indiana University. “I think their clients could be using it for evil things.”

Okay, Hollywood, you have your assignment. Now go make a kick-butt/darkly comedic/Philip K. Dick-inspired movie based on a Bloomberg Businessweek article. And don’t forget those Care Bears!

So tell me, gentle readers, what current events do you think deserve to be ripped from the headlines?

Pride and Prejudice and Murder

Jane Austen did not die of natural causes -- she was murdered.

I know some of you suspect Seth Grahame-Smith, but I’m not talking about mash-ups here.

There’s a wonderful new novel out, and author Lindsay Ashford’s theory is that Austen did not die of bovine tuberculosis or Hodgkins’ lymphoma, as historians believe, but of arsenic poisoning.

And, just maybe, it was murder.

　

There seems to be something of a cottage industry surrounding Jane Austen, with mountains of Jane-inspired books and movies reveling in the Regency period. But Ashford, a novelist whose work is usually of the gritty and urban varieties, offers something completely different to Austenites -- crime!

And the exciting part is that it’s true crime. Well, Ashford's book The Mysterious Death of Miss Austen isn’t really true crime, it’s speculative fiction, but it’s based on some pretty intriguing evidence. Austen’s letters describe symptoms consistent with arsenic poisoning, and -- bum bum bummmm -- a lock of Austen’s hair tested positive for arsenic.

I’m already imagining Agatha Christie time-traveling to the nineteenth century to crack the case. Maybe along the way she’ll team up with a young Mary Shelley.

And together, they’ll fight the Zombie Menace.