People don't give Gene L. Coon and D.C. Fontana enough credit for Star Trek
When attempting to critique the values of a long-running franchise like STAR TREK, it’s important to draw a distinction between superficial issues and structural ones.
“Superficial” in this sense doesn’t mean “minor” or “unimportant”; it simply means that an issue is not so intrinsic to the premise that the franchise would collapse (or would be radically different) were it changed or removed. For example, misogyny has been a been pervasive problem across many generations of STAR TREK media, which have often been characterized by a particular type of leering-creep sexism that was distasteful at the time and has not improved with age. However, sexism and misogyny are not structural elements of the TREK premise; one can do a STAR TREK story where the female characters have agency and even pants without it becoming something fundamentally different from other TREK iterations (even TOS, although there are certainly specific TOS episodes that would collapse if you excised the sexism).
By contrast, the colonialism and imperialism are structural elements — STAR TREK is explicitly about colonizing “the final frontier” and about defending the borders, however defined, of an interstellar colonial power.
Also:
People don’t give Gene L. Coon enough credit for interrogating the Federation. I know it’s gotten better in recent years and fandom seem to be more willing, on the whole, to credit him and the equally fantastic D. C. Fontana with - quite frankly - doing much more than Roddenberry ever did during TOS’ original run, but it’s still not enough.
Interesting, enjoyable and thought-provoking. Read more: larasramblings.tumblr.com
We need a new amendment: The right to bear phones
The nation’s founders worried that if the state had a monopoly on weapons, its citizens could be oppressed. Their answer was the Second Amendment. Now that our phones are the primary weapons of today’s information war, we should be as zealous about our right to bear phones as we are about our right to bear arms. To adopt the language of Second Amendment enthusiasts, perhaps the only thing that can eventually stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a camera.
Watched: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms S1E1, The Hedge Knight A pleasant surprise! I thought I had enough of Game of Thrones, but this tale of Ser Dunk, a threadbare, sad-sack knight, is good-looking, light and enjoyable. We will keep watching.
Minnie in a raincoat is giving a vibe like Ralph wearing the bunny suit in “A Christmas Story.”
Minnie has a raincoat now.
As far as I can see, the only thing the national Democratic Party is good for is sending text messages asking me for donations. You want my fucking money? Do something!
The Horse Girl Fandom Is Melting Down Over Armpits: “Armpits are an advancing contender in the crowded field of “non-censored and ironic ways to be a pervert online….. " — Ryan Broderick (third item at the link)
The Problem With Measuring Bad Bunny's Super Bowl Halftime (And Everything Else)
Ryan Broderick (second item):
… even something like the Super Bowl, arguably the last television broadcast everyone in America sits down to watch together (in theory) is not immune from the larger shift towards non-linear short-form internet content. And, as we’ve seen almost every month since we started compiling metrics for platforms like YouTube and Twitch, the most viral language west of China’s Great Firewall is not English, but Spanish.
A comfort blanket for the managerial class
Ryan Broderick writes about a long, apocalyptic post by an AI CEO named Matt Shumer:
the “artificial general intelligence will destroy the world” narrative is a marketing strategy. It’s the same thing we heard about crypto and metaverse, both of which were meant to mimic how we think the release of the iPhone felt….
The opening of Shumer’s big AI essay is actually not about AI at all. It’s actually about COVID, specifically the creeping fear that, well, something big was happening. “Think back to February 2020. If you were paying close attention, you might have noticed a few people talking about a virus spreading overseas. But most of us weren’t paying close attention,” he wrote. “I think we’re in the ‘this seems overblown’ phase of something much, much bigger than COVID.” Which is, beyond AI, the defining philosophy of Silicon Valley — or, even, America — in the 2020s. That you are, simply, not aware of something important that is about to happen, a sort of COVID phantom pain. And once you see it, you’ll start seeing it everywhere. “You are running out time,” “you will be left behind,” “you are not noticing what’s happening.” The only thing Big Tech is selling us is their own unprocessed trauma back to us. It’s not a revolution. It’s a comfort blanket for a managerial class that still can’t fathom that all their tech and wealth couldn’t protect them from the pandemic.
I went to a Super Bowl party yesterday at the Masonic lodge. This was my first Super Bowl party in many years. Maybe ever.
I barely watched the game. I talked with people. I ate about 75 pounds of food.
12/10 would supe again.
American concentration camps
The US government is planning to build a network of warehouses to hold thousands of people, writes Heather Cox Richardson:. More than a thousand people turned out to speak at a local government hearing in the city of Surprise, Arizona, where one such prison camp is planned.
One of the speakers reminded the council of Ohrdruf, the first Nazi camp liberated by U.S. troops, on April 4, 1945. He said:
“The U.S. Army brought the leading citizens of Ohrdruf to tour the facility, which turned out to be part of the Buchenwald network of concentration camps. A U.S. Army colonel told the German civilians who viewed the scenes without muttering a word that they were to blame. One of the Germans replied that what happened in the camp was ‘done by a few people,’ and ‘you cannot blame us all.’ And the American, who could have been any one of our grandfathers, said: ‘This was done by those that the German people chose to lead them, and all are responsible.’
“The morning after the tour, the mayor of Ohrdruf killed himself. And maybe he did not know the full extent of the outrages that were committed in his community, but he knew enough. And we don’t know exactly how ICE will use this warehouse. But we know enough. I ask you to consider what the mayor of Ohrdruf might have thought before he died. Maybe he felt like a victim. He might have thought, ‘How is this my fault? I had no jurisdiction over this.’ Maybe he would have said, ‘This site was not subject to local zoning, what could I do?’ But I think, when he reflected on the suffering that occurred at this camp, just outside of town, that those words would have sounded hollow even to him. Because in his heart he knew, as we do, that we are all responsible for what happens in our community.”
When SAM had her final meeting with the makers, I expected her to conclude by saluting and saying nanoo nanoo.
The hoodies that the Starfleet cadets wear are a little unbelievable. Hoodies are great — I’m wearing one now — but I don’t think of them as timeless style that will endure into the 32nd Century.
On the other hand, velour sweaters and Beatle boots on the original series didn’t bother me so I’ll get over the hoodies.
The Starfleet varsity jackets also looked out of place and I want one.
I had to upload a selfie to register for the Social Security website. I think this photo is very flattering.
Sorry ladies — I’m taken.
Watched: M*A*S*H S2E14, Hot Lips and Empty Arms. Margaret wigs out when she learns that a nurse she did basic training with is marrying a wealthy doctor — a man whom Margaret rejected. Margaret requests a transfer back to the US.
This is the first time we see her as a person rather than a caricature. She’s lonely. She settled for Frank Burns because he’s there. Loretta Swit shows acting chops, getting drunk and angry and revealing her character’s true thoughts. Margaret has become disgusted with the person she has become. She believes she deserves better, and she’s right.
Hawkeye and Trapper’s abuse becomes a kind of friendship. Sort of. MASH was shockingly misogynistic in its first season; now that we’re well into the second season, it’s toned down. This is one of the better episodes I’ve seen so far.
Another thing that stands out rewatching MASH in the 21st Century is the relative absence of Asians. You’d think there would be more Asians in a show set in Asia. But we don’t see a lot of Asians in MASH, and 99% of the Asians we do see are prostitutes, helpless peasants and the occasional murderous North Korean. Jack Soo and Pat Morita, who appear in early episodes, are delightful exceptions. 🍿
The Qanon cult believed political and financial elites were conspiring in a global sex-trafficking network that preyed on children, and that this conspiracy included billionaires, the Royal Family, Hollywood elites and even one of the two major-party candidates for US Presidency in 2016.
Reasonable people — including me! — found this cult to be both ridiculous and scary. Oh, come on. Those kinds of conspiracies don’t exist except for paranoid entertainment.
Plot twist! Turns out that was happening but — further plot twist! – the guy Qanon thought was the hero (Trump) turned out to be in cahoots with the chief villain (Epstein), and maybe was himself one of the top pedos.