LT175: Shark!

DUDE, WHERE’S MY DSA?

Very disappointed that Dharma Special Access for Week 8 never arrived. I checked back on Week 7 email and sure enough it ends with “See you next week”. Of course, with LOST a week could be a thousand years…


BISCUITS AND GRAVY THEORY – The Cuban Missile Crisis

I believe it has been firmly established that the past is alterable to some degree. We get this idea from Desmond walking out with the ring from the jewelry store. It must be noted that it didn’t really change the future since he ends up throwing it into the Thames, but it hints and the possibility of “course corrections”. This if further reinforced when Desmond arranges the Christmas Eve phone call with Penny which results in a quite different future for him and Miss Penelope.

However, I can’t see Hanso spending millions in order for Desmond to find a bride. There has to be something larger.

Back in the 1950’s the media constantly reminded the world that the “something bigger” were nuclear missiles. The media cultivated a society of fear and excitement. Companies began to offer a concrete house which could withstand a blast within certain limits (besides just who would you sue if their promises were not kept?). School children routinely rehearsed Missile and Bomb drills which consisted of hiding under their desks. Forget how little a school desk would protect the kiddies, but it all went toward convincing the public that they needed their government to save them!
Even at the movies the patrons would be reminded of how crazy the world was becoming and how much they should fear Martians, missiles and a 50-foot tall woman. The newsreel segments shown after a movie (yes, those clips were shown AFTER movies in the old days which is why they are called trailers even though now they are shown before a movie…but I digress). The point is that the media was constantly reminding citizens just how dangerous the world was becoming.

There was one artist in particular which every newspaper and national magazine utilized to go with their stories of doom and gloom. I forget the name, but he was appreciated for his near photographic depiction of missile attack. Time, Look and the Saturday Evening Post all ran stories about missile launching platforms in space alongside these descriptive drawings. The claim was that these platforms could hover over YOUR house and if the Russians wished, they could drop the bomb on top of your garage.

It took several years before Joe the Plummer came to the common understanding that space launched missiles couldn’t function the way the news media claimed. First, the missiles would take orbit. Second, the Earth rotates and unless they had computers to calculate the proper trajectory – which they didn’t – it wasn’t likely Russia or anyone else was going to be wasting millions of dollars for a shot in the dark.

This background helps understand why the Cuban Missile Crises was such a crisis. Americans feared the bomb. President Kennedy warned us that Russia was setting up launching platforms just 90 miles off American soil. Oh my! He ordered the famous blockage and the next Russian ship with nuclear weapons on board was going to met with some serious resistance.

There was even a plan designed by McNamara (if my history memory serves me properly) to do a pre-emptive strike on Cuba to show just how serious we were. From what history buffs tell us we were within minutes of launching this strike. The truth discovered later was that Cuba already had about 150 functioning missiles. This meant that had we attacked Cuba, that with a push of a button, 150 missiles could have landed on 150 of the largest populated cities – which happen to include my hometown!

Because of all of this the United Nations gathered the brightest scientist together to figure out how mankind could keep from killing itself off. Enter Valenzetti and his Doomsday Equation!

Here is where my B&G theory picks back up…

If The Incident involved the Dharma Wheel and if time was then altered, it is possible then that we could relive various parts of history and have very different outcomes. The ramification so The Incident had a lot more to do with Desmond and a ring…it had to do with saving the world – minus the cheerleader, of course! HA!

Now is the time to remind you that I don’t believe when the Wheel failed to operate properly that time jumped a determinate time forward or backward. I think this is where you need to find my posts on Oscillating Time. I think the Wheel keeps time for oscillating back and forth along the timeline of history past and present. You can use the term oscillate or loop – either tend to support his.

Imagine then in 1850 when the drills of the Black Rock brings the ceiling of rock down on the Wheel. Time could have started oscillating which in practical terms simply means the island is here one moment and then gone the next.

I hypothesize that the ONE location is where we first found it: in the South Pacific. The other remains a mystery although we will get to that later. Now picture this…the island moves, but the Black Rock stays. The next time the island re-appears it moves slightly. To explain this – go back to where I discussed the rotating Earth making it difficult to launch a missile from space. I think each time the island “jumps” that could also physically move slightly. This then explains how the Black Rock ship gets to the middle of the island.

It also begins to explain why we get varying degrees of exit to and form the island. 305 degrees changes to 315 degrees over oscillating time.

Ok, that’s enough for this post. Next time up I’m going to offer a theory on how someone stopped this oscillating time from driving people crazy as well as making it very difficult to make any kind of dinner party plans for a future date.


LOST ODDITIES

One of the oddities that caught my ear is found in the episode “The Long Con”. Hurley and Sayid have the radio that Bernard brought from the tail section. Sayid twists some knobs and they pick a radio show that is playing “Moonlight Serenade” by the Glenn Miller Band. The prior song is by Duke Ellington. Combined with the radio announcer and the song selections one gets the feeling this really was a dated radio broadcast.

We hear the song on the show a second time when Jack is spying on Sarah at the schoolyard. So maybe the song isn’t that much out of reach of today’s playlists.

Miller was born in Iowa, like Kate, and was famous for his USO shows for the military during the war. He died in December 15, 1944, when his plane disappeared near England. No trace of Miller or the plane has ever been found which forms the catalyst for several conspiracy theories.

One of Glenn Miller’s albums is entitled “Lost Recordings”.

Is Miller used on LOST because of his plane crash and dated reference? Or is somewhere the radio station WXO caught in some time warp and still cranking the big band tunes of the 1940’s?


ANIMAL BITES

I came across an interesting discussion recently that suggested that one of the Survivors were actually a Dharma member. It has been quite some time since a theory along these lines has been floated, but I recall back in the early seasons we were very busy pointing fingers at who might be the wolf in sheep’s clothing. If memory serves me, Kate and Rose were always serious candidates for this role.

But a recent trend has arisen that points the finger at JACK! And what better person to be described as a fake sheep than someone named Shephard? HA! Most of the evidence to support this theory comes from Jack’s tattoos.

There is a lot of similarity to Dharma logos and Eastern religious symbols. While part of the tattoo’s are actually Matthew Fox’s doing, the producers do seem intent on using them to advance the LOST mythology. And, to date, Fox has never talked about them in an interview which I’m sure the producers have asked to be refrained from doing since they plan to utilize them.

The show has explained several portions of Jack’s tattoos except a portion. For example, the “5” was used when Jack tells his story about operating on a young girl and a mistake he made which caused fear to grip him. He told Kate that he counted to five and the fear went away. Kate follows this advice when hiding from the monster after visiting the cockpit. Again, Kate uses the fear control of counting to five when being lowered into the Swan hatch. And when Jack sliced open Ben’s kidney sac, he asked Kate to remember that original story on Day 1. Hmmm…

The sheriff of Othersville brought our attention to Jack’s tattoos, but focused our attention on only a portion of them…and then incorrectly interpreted them. Jack even corrects her in a cryptic way with something like, “that’s what they say, but that’s not what they mean”. The theory is that Jack’s tattoos identify him as some high-ranking official among the Dharma hierarchy!

Isabel seems to be doing what LOST does a lot: using misdirection but edging us all so close. . It is further supported when a director for LOST mentioned in an interview, “I wonder why people are focusing on Jack’s tattoos more”, before quickly changing subjects. Hmmm…

As further evidence of the important of tattoos, when Kate returned from the Hydra Island, Sawyer and Locke questioned why Jack wasn’t with her and Sawyer. During this time, Sawyer was singing “Show Me the Way to Go Home” which is from the movie “Jaws”, which takes us back to the shark we saw and seemed to be inconsequential. In further proof that LOST is probably the most genius piece of writing we’ve seen on television, I am now convinced that NOTHING is irrelevant with these guys. We didn’t see a shark with a Dharma logo only to have it be forgotten. The nature of the shark plus the zoo station plus Jack in the shark tank – all seems to reveal that Jack is our shark. (Insert the theme music from Jaws here, please!)

Combine this with an interview with the producers and they commented that they wish they had incorporated the Dharma shark when the Oceanic 6 were floating in the lifeboat. Their comment was jokingly made but now seems to have a bit of truth to it. That comment was, “That would be cool if the shark gave mouth to mouth”. I can’t help but recall that Jack has been the only person to give mouth to mouth to Rose on Day 1. The interview continues and while speaking it is interspersed with video. The video being show is Jack helping drag Desmond onto the lifeboat while the producers are saying, “the shark appears and it just lefts Desmond up and throws him into the lifeboat.” Coincidence or fate?

And let’s not forget that one of the hidden pictures on the Hanso Foundation was of a shark that left many puzzled.

More possible evidence comes from Flight 815 manifest. During the memorial service for the victims of the crash, Claire mentions a Howard Woolstein. Yet we have never seen a Howard in the seat Claire says he was sitting in. In fact, that seat is occupied by Jack Shephard. WOOL-stein? And we are back to our wolf in sheep’s clothing again. Jack, like Marvin Candle, has a few alias perhaps and the Survivors are the lambs being led to slaughter by their shepherd. Hmmm…

Now this all begs the question, “Does Jack know he is a Dharma operative?” I think not. We have discussed at length the impact of memory (flashes before your eyes) and the religious tie-in to reincarnation and déjà vu, so perhaps Jack’s role is suppressed at this time. What if Jack eventually does realize that, as his father stated, “has a lot of work to do” on this island? I would imagine that if I realized my Bourne Identify, that I might be driven to drink and drugs in a wave of regret and realization. Or I might even be motivated to return to the island and make amends for my past actions (Kate, we’ve got to go back).

And finally, if you notice the arrow on Jack’s tattoo it seems to be pointing to a compass heading of 325 – but only if you saw it in a mirror. Hmmm…


SEASON 5 PROMO

This picture is from the ABC promo:

It appears that the Oceanic 6 are going to have to fight their way back on to the island. This brings up an interesting angle for who would know about them and wish to keep the Oceanic 6 from returning as well as the constant question of why?

The obvious candidate is Charles Widmore. We have been told that terrible things happen on the island after it moved. My theory is that the island moved back in time which leads to the possibility that the past can be rearranged. If we consider that Widmore doesn’t seem to be in a great position when Ben last visited him in his penthouse bedroom, then wouldn’t he want to see a few changes made to the past? Of course, he would want to be in control of those changes and perhaps that is what he fears if Ben or Jeremy Bentham is in charge. And don’t ask me why, but for the first time I just notice BEN and BENtham shared those letters. Duh!


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Enjoy,
KC