[meteorite-list] Collateral Damage.

From: Martin Altmann <altmann_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sun, 3 Jul 2011 20:16:25 +0200
Message-ID: <003101cc39ad$52fdec40$f8f9c4c0$_at_de>

I disagree, Gary

although I can't watch the series, cause it isn't on free-TV here.
But such series work always with the same pattern - their ambition is: to
entertain.
The ingredients are always the same: Some personality to identify with, some
exotic places and action, the creation of an adventure and some Wow-effects.
Nothing more boring for the broader audience than if there a nerd would
explain at length the difference between a lodranite and an acapulcoite.
Neither you can't have that story: We took some millions, made an enormous
expedition and effort, found three little rocks - and their sales value per
kg is as high as that of parmesan cheese.
(In former times that show was called EUROMET). Cause that would be at best
a movie of an artistically sophisticated value - but the couch-potatoes like
you and me would consider it to be too boring for a comedy and we would
switch the channel.

Nobody would watch that.

You always forget, this show isn't made for meteorite-collectors!

I mean, the recipe is always the same. Remember that guy, travelling around
the world, to molest peaceful animals? Hence a pseudo-action, where I often
thought - man, let that animal alone! (O.k. when it helped, to get some
funds, to protect them - maybe...).

Also I don't believe, that one really could suppose that the viewers in
general would be such a thumb crowd, that they would imitate each and
everything they watched on TV.
Have here also a strange series - a thin man is abandoned in lonely places
of different climates and is peeing in snake skins and killing little
animals to "survive" - and huh I must find something to braid a rope to rap
off to the floor of that factory ruin... where everybody think, well take
the stairs.
Pure nonsense, cause who of the watchers seriously plans to survive a plane
crash in Greenland?
Well, that show is running since quite a while - nevertheless in winter I
never met a person here, sitting naked in the snow roasting a squirrel over
an open fire.

I mean, there the meteorite men show has certainly more substance, hasn't
it?

To show meteowrongs there, I really don't know - also before that show one
layman-find out of 10,000 was a real meteorite. And a layman, who never had
a meteorite in his life in the hand before, simply can't identify a
meteorite and has anyway to ask an expert.

And I ask myself, why that series should be harmful?
Please, how was it, when meteorites still weren't a topic in media?
We had less than 3000 meteorites outside of Antarctica, all diogenites were
green, and Mars rocks were still only on Mars- and almost all that stuff
was so expensive, that collectors at best could afford little chips and the
museums and scientists had to operate with enormous sums (note btw. that our
meteorite men are selling their Brenhams cheaper than any Nininger or Huss
did).
Was that really so much better?

You can read it directly from the Bulletins - with upcoming internet as new
media the find rates of new meteorites in USA rapidly grew! Let's ask the
desert hunters here on the list - who of you would today be out on the hunt,
if you haven't heard of meteorites in internet?
Same applies to a degree to the NWA and Oman-rush.

I see nothing wrong in popularizing meteorites. It is by the way exactly
that, what the UNESCO working group on meteorites - which is nowadays so
horribly mistaken by some countries - commended. At that time still, that
one has to enlighten the people by the means of the radio and by flyers
hanging in post offices, what meteorites are at all and that they are there.

To blame that show for all (putatively) undesirable developments is as
reasonable as to blame a Nininger that some museums gave up their collecting
activities or a Krantz or a Ward being responsible for micro-specks being
sold on ebay.
And the monetary aspect is a vain one. History tells us, that in the period
we're in there are so many meteorites more available than in all the
centuries together before, and seen the average prices still so cheap like
never before.

And if that show yields only one hunter more, one new find more, if that
show will help to remind a curator to take the meteorites from the cellar
into the exhibition, because people could be interested in or even if that
show will animate a meteoricist to learn more about how meteorites are found
and to rethink to work on a change of a too strict legislation,
then it fulfilled its purpose.

Just my thoughts...and of course I can be wrong :-)
Martin

-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] Im Auftrag von Gary
Fujihara
Gesendet: Sonntag, 3. Juli 2011 17:52
An: Count Deiro
Cc: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com; imca at imcamail.de
Betreff: Re: [meteorite-list] Collateral Damage.

Not good. My take on the Meteorite Men television show is that there is far
too much emphasis on the monetary value of meteorites, and too little on the
scientific importance. There is sooo much to be learned on so many levels
regarding these wonderful rocks from space, that the program could carve a
respectable niche within a populace of men, women and children yearning for
knowledge of meteorites and meteoritical science. Instead, the producers
appear to be pandering to the lowest common denominator in the quest for
ratings, and the results are unquestionably apparent from the flood of bogus
meteorites on ebay to the solicitors of slag that the Count has encountered.
Sad.

Although I don't blame Steve and Geoff for this situation, I do hope that
they can inspire their producers and sponsors to take the high road toward
intelligent network programming.

gary
Received on Sun 03 Jul 2011 02:16:25 PM PDT