The Epic Saga Continues!

sagawizard @ 2009-12-02T21:15:00

2009-12-03T02:15:16Z

I gave the guy a year. I really did. I held off, hoping he'd have something new up his sleeve. But no, when it comes to war policy. the man is Bush with darker skin and a far better stage presence. Dismayed, but sadly not surprised, at Peace-Prize-Recipient (ha) Obama's Afghan "troop surge." I mean, to be fair, even during the election campaign, despite his antiwar trappings, he was always gung-ho about Afghanistan. But some people were hoping it was just an act to placate conservatives. Sadly, it wasn't.

So here we go again.

1. Our "war on terror" strategy, from the outset, has operated under this assumption that there are a finite number of "bad guys", and if you just kill enough of them (or kill the "bosses"), the US will be safe...when all of the evidence seems to point to how we're creating more anger and danger for ourselves the more we escalate our military operations.

2. Once again, we're propping up a corrupt strongman illegitimate dictator ("he may be an SOB, but he's our SOB"), the same policy that backfired on us in Iran with the Shah...and Iraq with Saddam...in in Vietnam with the Viet-Minh...and in Libya with Qaddafi...but hey, I'm *sure* it will work this time with Karzai, right?

3. Let's even assume that Afghanistan is some vital lynchpin of Al Qaeda activity (even though military estimates are that there are only a handful of such folk there), and somehow we succeed where the Soviet Union and the British Empire both failed and manage to completely eliminate any insurgent threat. The wet dream success scenario. Um, aren't there about a dozen other semi-lawless places like Western Pakistan and Yemen and Somalia and Sudan which could be equally dangerous as "terrorist safe havens?" Are we really going to invade each and every one of them and "secure" them? If so, we'd be the first empire in human history to ever pull off such a task.

4. The 18 month pullout date seems extremely subject-to-revision, so I'm not take much "comfort" in that.

5. And, um, isn't our economy in shambles? Aren't people out of work and unable to get jobs or loans? Why why WHY is this President only giving money to the military and to corporate CEOs? *What* party is he with again?

It's just a damned waste, that the President and all his brain trust folk can't come up with any more creative a solution to our national security issues than pouring billions of money and thousands of lives into a strategy that hasn't shown any signs of working for us in the past. Why not take all that money and pour it into creating cleaner, cheaper energy, stop buying oil (that takes care of Iran's money and influence right there), and strengthen global community such that people have incentive to buy-in and share the wealth, rather than feel so angry that they don't share it (or so threatened by it) that they lash out? Or why not try any of a million other strategies instead of the one that hasn't worked for us for decades?

Well, I was out marching in the streets, writing letters, lobbying, and creating media against the war(s) for 8 years of Bush's reign...not going to stop during Obama's, either. I'm used to it. I (and half the country) had just foolishly hoped that a new administration might be, I dunno, different? But elections alone don't change anything unless the American people really care enough (through methods like boycotts, strikes, etc) to bring the country to a halt unless policy changes. It remains to be seen how many Americans will care enough to do so. When the Draft comes around again, perhaps, we'll see...in the meantime, we do what we can.

- SW

Happy birthday Gandhi!

2009-10-02T10:51:59Z

On this day in 1869 in India, Mohandas Gandhi is born. He goes on to lead some of the most successful and wide-reaching nonviolence campaigns in history, first to achieve rights for Indians in South Africa, and later freeing India from the most powerful military empire in the world, Great Britain.

Gandhi was no wizard -- he used rational, practical "realpolitik" strategies that relied on the power of people working together without the use of violence.

Since then, nonviolent revolutions have been successful around the world - in Serbia, Chile, Poland, Nepal, Georgia and elsewhere.

Could Gandhi's principals be applied to the USA's present-day "War on Terror?"

Here are some interesting articles that discuss that issue:

From Daedalus magazine

Here is a US State Dept analysis of possible nonviolent approaches to
fighting terrorism.

Here is a religious response.

- SW

Happy Peace Day!

2009-09-21T11:58:23Z

Today, Sept 21, is the United Nations International Day of Peace.

To inaugurate the day, the "Peace Bell" is rung at UN Headquarters. The bell is cast from coins donated by children from all continents. It was given as a gift by the Diet of Japan, and is referred to as "a reminder of the human cost of war."

Here are some links and resources for more info:

http://www.internationaldayofpeace.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Day_of_Peace

Take a moment today, and every day, to try and do something to make your community more peaceful and cooperative.

- SW

A moment of silence.

2009-09-11T10:49:03Z

Today is the anniversary of the day that 19 hijackers, all Egyptians or Saudis, flew passenger jets into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania.

A moment of silence for the 2,993 Americans who died that day, all but 55 of them civilians.

Our government, Republicans and Democrats alike, responded by launching a series of wars abroad and at home.

A moment of silence also for the 822 American soldiers who have died in Afghanistan, the 4600 American troops who have died in Iraq, and the tens of thousands who have been wounded.

A moment of silence also for the 8,000-11,000 Afghan civilians who have died in this war so far, and the 90,000-100,000 Iraqi civilians who have died. For the hundreds of thousands in both countries who have been injured.

No Afghans and no Iraqis were among the hijackers. All were Saudi and Egyptian. The US remains close allies with both Saudi Arabia and Egypt, two nations with undemocratically elected leaders with a long record of abusing their people. Almost up until the day of 9/11, US foreign aid was still flowing to support the Taliban. Some US money is still going to them, in the form of tax-funded military contractors who have been paying Taliban forces for protection.

A moment of silence for the over $900 billion that has been spent on these wars so far, money that could have gone to help Americans directly at home, or to help needy people around the world.

A moment of silence for the loss of our right to a judicial trial, the loss of our right to privacy from government snooping, the loss of our basic human right to not be tortured by our government, at home or shipped abroad.

A moment of silence for this terrible legacy that our former President began, that our current President is continuing. Surely we can find a better way to memorialize 9/11 than what we are doing now.

Enough silence. Speak up and make some change.

Pass it on.

- SW

Sources for the figures I used:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks
http://www.icasualties.org/I
http://costofwar.com/
http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2001/tst110501.htm
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/09/03/world/worldwatch/entry5285160.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_of_the_War_in_Afghanistan_(2001%E2%80%93present)#Aggregation_of_estimates

Obama Speech

2009-09-10T01:14:50Z

I was very, very impressed with the President's speech. As always, I await the actual followthrough, but 10 points for stirring rhetoric. The man says what I want to hear. One more time, I suppose, I will *try* and invest hope in him actually pulling it off. To do otherwise would be too depressing.

- SW

Nerd Girls vs. Geek Girls

2009-09-06T20:10:12Z

Well, this is bound to piss off pretty much EVERYONE, but hey, when has that stopped me before? :)

This came out of a discussion my gaming group had today...feel free to add your own...

Nerd Girls vs. Geek Girls

Plays chess: Nerd Girl
Plays World of Warcraft: Geek Girl
Has memorized operas: Nerd Girl
Has memorized dialogue from Farscape: Geek Girl
Speaks a dead language like Akkadian or Ugaritic: Nerd girl
Speaks a fictional language like Klingon or Elvish: Geek girl
Reads Goerthe: Nerd Girl
Reads Gaiman: Geek Girl
Glasses: Nerd Girl
Two different color contact lenses: Geek Girl
Shirt bearing Japanese text: Either
Collared, button down shirt: Nerd Girl
Corset: Geek Girl
Corset on a 300lb+ body: Geek Girl!!
Funky flapper-era dress or tie-dye: Nerd Girl
Cape or cloak: Geek Girl
Animal costume: A furry. A dirty, fucking furry. Burn her!
Explosive passion freed from two decades of frustrated repression: Nerd Girl
Bi/Trans/Poly, wears a T-shirt about it, and still won't sleep with you: Geek Girl
Flirty: Geek Girl
Shy, nursing a 10 year unrequited crush: Nerd Girl
On a million different mood meds: Geek girl
On the pharmaceutical team that designed the mood meds: Nerd Girl
Knits: Nerd girl
Knits chainmail: Geek girl
Plays cello: Nerd Girl
Weilds boffer sword: Geek Girl
Will dress up like Dark Phoenix but only in the privacy of the bedroom and will kill you if you tell anyone: Nerd Girl
Will dress up like Dark Phoenix and post pictures to her blog, then believe she IS Dark Phoenix and try and flash-fry your hamster: Geek Girl
Childhood hero: Simone de Bouvier – Nerd Girl
Childhood hero: Xena – Geek Girl
Will tabletop but will not LARP: Nerd Girl
Will LARP but not tabletop: Geek Girl

Classic Nerd Girl: Willow from Buffy
Classic Geek Girl: Tank Girl

- SW

sagawizard @ 2009-07-04T08:47:00

2009-07-04T12:48:02Z

From Frances Wright's "Fourth of July Oration" (1828), my favorite 4th of July speech ever:

Patriotism, in the exclusive meaning, is surely not made for America...it is for [Americans] especially to know WHY they love their country; and to feel that they love it, not because it is their country, but because it is the palladium of human liberty—the favored scene of human improvement. It is for them, more especially, to examine their institutions; and to feel that they honor them because they are based on just principles...to examine their institutions, because they have the means of improving them; to examine their laws, because at will they can alter them. It is for them to lay aside luxury whose wealth is in industry; idle parade whose strength is in knowledge; ambitious distinctions whose principle is equality. It is for them not to rest, satisfied with words, who can seize upon things; and to remember that equality means, not the mere equality of political rights, however valuable, but equality of instruction and equality in virtue; and that liberty means, not the mere voting at elections, but the free and fearless exercise of the mental faculties and that self-possession which springs out of well-reasoned opinions and consistent practice. It is for them to honor principles rather than men—to commemorate events rather than days; when they rejoice, to know for what they rejoice, and to rejoice only for what has brought and what brings peace and happiness to men. "

Full text here.

I met JMS!!!!

2009-05-23T02:58:50Z

Squee time. And yes, boys can squee, too.

JMS himself, creator of Babylon 5, told me "f*ck you!" tonight. Something I shall carry with me till the day I die. :)

Background: MIT somehow got JMS to come speak, and I found out via those damnedly Orwellian (yet damnedly useful) Facebook snoop-ads. So roboknee and I paid $10 to go see him. Packed auditorium, and all of the hallways leading there in MIT Building#10 had been peppered with very authentic, at-home looking Psi-Corps signs that said "Obey" and "The Corps is Father, The Corps is Mother." When we asked where the room was, we were told, "go down that hall and turn left at the `Remember Byron' graffiti." Priceless.

JMS was hysterical. Angry nerdy working class Jewish geek who tore down everyone but didn't spare himself, witty and surprisingly kind at key moments. He was somehow simultaneously a gentleman and an ass, but the good kind of ass (or the bad kind of gentleman!) The man stayed an extra HOUR to accommodate all questioners and dealt with the few trolls admirably (including this one freakazoid who, after 6 straight minutes of preamble, flying in the face of everyone telling him to get to the point, asked, "What's your favorite food?" When JMS, after his incredulity at that being the question, said, "burgers", the followup question was, "if I were a hamburger, would you eat me?" Uuuuggh. As he was booed off the mike, I realized that this is how most Muslims must feel when they see Al Qaida. As in, "this man does not represent geekdom! Or at least, not mainstream geekdom!"

JMS proudly identified as a geek, dropped references with the best of us, told wonderful stories about him and Harlan Ellison, gave us the behind-the-scenes-on-B5 dirt we were craving,and managed to be both admirable and pathetic at the same time - the former because of all he'd achieved in spite of everyone who tried to block him or screw him over, how he managed to do it "his way" and keep to his values at all times - and the latter because although he's a legend now he's divorced and alone and considers himself a writer because he's good for nothing else. It's that combination of pride and insecurity that all geeks know so well.

Some people, myself included, really credited his work with shaping parts of their lives. He was kind to the people who really opened up their hearts with moving stories, and ribbed the hell out of people (including me!) whom he sensed could "take it." I didn't even realize until tonight that he wrote for He Man, The Real Ghostbusters, Wheeled Warriors, Captain Power...these were the shows that taught me all about "heroism" and "morality"...of course, when I told him that I grew up on those shows, that's when he said "f*ck you" for making him feel old. :) He also teased me about my "GM's don't kill characters" tee-shirt: "You're a liar," he said. "I used to play in a Cthulu game and my GM killed me all the time!" After I asked him my writing question (and got a decent and respectful answer), I promised him if he ever played with my group, I wouldn't kill his character. :)

In short, the best $10 I've spent in years. Even if the guy sitting next to me (not roboknee was busy noisily biting his nails, farting, coughing on me and invading my personal space the whole time. With geekdom, one takes the good with the bad.

- SW

I came, I saw, I trekked!

2009-05-08T03:35:17Z

You have to understand, Star Trek shaped me. It shaped so much of who I am as a person, my values, my outlook on life and what is and isn't possible...Trek's utopianism, its sense of adventure, the relationships between the characters, the cliches and the trivia...Treknobabble and obsessively specific show-references were the currency of my high school and even college mental/cultural mindset. Now, perhaps, you might understand what was at stake for me in seeing the new JJ Abrams Star Trek film. I mean, heck, VOYAGER and ENTERPRISE bothered (yes, bothered, as in, not just annoyed, but *bothered* on a deep level) me with their departures from what I understood Star Trek to be, with the lack of care I felt the producers and writers showed for what Trek should be. So JJ Abrams? With the explosion-laden, testosterone-soaked previews? I was terrified.

But of course I couldn't NOT see it, either.

At least I brought along some support - no less than 19 students, members of the scifi club, some hardcore Trekkers (including a pair of sisters who recited Data's "Ode to Spot" from memory on the bus ride, in eerie synchronicity) and some utter newcomers who had never seen an episode. None of these kids, of course, were even ALIVE when NextGen was airing. But all were inheritors of Trek's legacy, whether they knew it or not. Even the shittiest random youtube scifi short is not guaranteed to be free of Trek reference.

So we all clustered into the sold-out sneak preview tonight, and as the lights went down my stomach was wobbling madly...
...
...and...

It...kicked...ass.

Hugely spoiler-laden review to follow, which you really shouldn't read until you see the film, because so much of the film's strength relies on the surprises and "easter eggs" for diehard fans. In fact, the film was a hell of a lot more loyal than I ever expected. With one or two glaring exceptions, it really COULD fit right into continuity flawlessly.

Ok, let's start with casting. Perfect. Unbelievably so. Chris Pine...who the hell is he? Who knows. But he has Kirk down perfectly. Note, I did not say he has William Shatner as Kirk down perfectly. He bypasses Shatner and goes straight to Kirkness, and it works, it really does. He's what Kirk would be if Shatner wasn't "in the way." A little more specifically, he's Kirk if Kirk were a product of the 2000s...an obnoxious, risk-taking, stubborn horndog who actually has the competence to back up his lunacy. He's what George W Bush deluded himself into thinking he was.
...and amazingly, Kirk does NOT get the girl in this film. By "the", I mean ANY girl, although not for lack of trying. The best he does is ALMOST score with an Orion cadet who is admittedly super-easy, and even then, he's interrupted. I guess this is Kirk before he perfects the mojo.

Zachary Quinto as Spock...terrific. The logic, the conflict, the occasional bursts of emotion. A little more high-energy than Nimoy's 1960s portrayal, but then, this is the ADD, super-fueled 2000s, so perhaps audiences need someone a little less staid. He worked for me.

Karl Urban as Bones...again, a little more hyper and twitchy, but the essence was there.

Simon Pegg as Scotty...holy shit. Stole the freaking show. Like Spock and Bones, the spaz factor was upped, but he's not so ridiculous that he becomes just comic relief. Almost, but not quite. It worked.

Anton Yelchin as Chekov...really was just comic relief. But then, so was Chekov in the show, too...comic relief and a punching bag. At least here he wasn't quite so abused.

Zoe Saldana as Uhura...you know, Uhura never really had a personality in the original show, so there's not much to be faithful TO, other than, "Hailing frequencies open" and "Captain, I'm scared." Kind of a non-character here, too, but at least a really smart one. The romance with Spock, though? WTF?

John Cho ("Harold") as Sulu, doing the "kind of shy yet surprisingly competent" bit just fine. And I nearly shrieked when I saw a very quick cameo by "Kumar" as a nameless medical officer!!!!! Stunning!

And I guess that ties into what really made the movie for me: the little "in" references. From all the press, I thought Abrams was going to go out of his way to divorce the film from Trek continuity, but he not only kept a great deal, he threw in far more than a sane share of little homages. Just what I noticed off the bat:
- The red-shirt (well, red-exo-suit) nameless guy who dies, horribly.
- Sulu gets to fence. And kick ASS.
- The "ear slug" from Wrath of Khan (which became a mouth slug, but still, same slug, same properties...unfortunately dropped from the plot after its introduction in what was almost certainly a deleted scene)
- A reference to Captain Archer and "his beagle"...poor Porthos! What a horrible fate!
- Captain Pike, who appears throughout the film and by the end, due to his injuries, shows up in a wheelchair
- No. Sound. In. Space. Loved it.
- Kirk chased by a Mugato-lookalike on the ice planet (which itself is a Rura Penthe homage)
- Nimoy. Nimoy. Nimoy. "I have been and always will be your friend." Almost cried. "Live Long and Prosper". Practically got a standing O. In fact, the crowd was so jazzed, we were applauding every three seconds.

(weird, too, to hear from the kids who had never seen Trek afterward, feeling so out of the loop as to why everyone was clapping at certain lines...it is still hard for me to conceive of people who have no knowledge of, and no reaction to, "I don't know if the engines can take it sir!"...I naively though that was a part of EVERYONE's cultural repetoire)

One of the hardest tasks in an ensemble movie is to give all the characters a moment to shine, a "thing to do", and Abrams somehow did it. All your favorites get to do "the thing" that they're known for, and doing it advances the plot in a key way.

So on to that plot.

As mentioned before, fits just perfectly into continuity, thanks to the time travel (which Spock goes on to hammer home to the audience: "So this is an alternate reality now. Whatever and whoever we might have been has now changed forever. GOT THAT, COMIC BOOK GUY?") Other than Starfleet having contact with and knowledge about the Romulans (and their Vulcan connection) before they should (which maybe even changed *because* of Nero's insertion 25 years earlier)...and a strange tendency to not even use the term "Starfleet", instead substituting "Federation" at all time...everything else checked out. And I am a BRUTALLY hard critic.

The villain, Nero, is kind of a tool, but then, it was *interesting* that that's all he was...not an evil supergenius, not a battle hardened master strategist, just this guy with a mining ship and a crew of thugs who freaked out over his home planet's destruction, and you know what, even a tool with a mining ship becomes super powerful if he gets thrown back almost 200 years into the past. I mean, a bunch of rednecks in a truck with automatic shotguns could become an unstoppable force if they traveled back to the early 1800s, before motor vehicles and automatic weapons, and just wreak havoc and destroy half the US army. That was Nero.

For that reason, though, it made NO SENSE whatsoever why he needed to get Earth's defense codes from Pike...it was inescapably clear that Starfleet of this era posed no threat to him at all, seeing how he chewed through half a dozen ships without breaking a sweat...perhaps that's why the whole slug-wrought-confession scene got dropped halfway? On the other hand, the guy was freaking insane after sitting on his ass for 25 years waiting for Spock to materialize, so who knows? Maybe he was convinced that little floating goblins guarded Earth. (25 years...that also strained credibility just a bit...I mean, his whole crew and he had this gonzo ship and just did nothing and sat in it, floating, for a quarter century? Or did they go on a long road trip with stopoffs on Rysa in the meantime?)

I liked how Kirk, seeing Nero about to get crunched, offered him the hand of compassion. Very Star Trek. The fact that the movie offered no possibility for the development of that compassion, though? (I'm remembering ID4's President asking the aliens, "Can we make peace? What can we do?", and the aliens replying, "Die!"). That pissed me off a bit. I can see Nero saying "I'd rather die painfully than be saved by you", but dammit, I wanted that to be the point where one of his crew shoots him from behind and says, "fine, you freak, you die, we want to be saved!" Star Trek isn't just about the photon torpedoing of your opponents...it's about understanding them and building bridges. Nero's whole raison detre was for others to empathize with his pain, only he had twisted it into a weapon of revenge. What separated Kirk and Spock's revenge from Nero's revenge (and yes, the parallelism was a nice touch), supposedly, was Kirk & Spock's capacity for compassion. Huge dropped ball here, and my only serious disappointment in the movie.

Minor disappointments...well, I had a few. Vulcan getting destroyed pissed me off, but then, that was just a choice I didn't like, not a failing of the movie itself, and I see why it was done. Some of the goofy moments were a little too goofy...sometimes the slapstick seemed ill timed or broke the mood...BUT, the original Trek also had its moments of wackiness and scenes entirely in there for fun, even and especially random brawls.

There were a few product placements. That rubbed me totally anti-Trek. Oh well.

Biggest minor disappointment was the utter lack of female agency. I suppose in a way this is "true" to the 1960s show, in a sense, but come on. Uhura and Spock's mom (Winona Ryder? WTF???) basically just existed to offer succor and comfort to the male characters, and it was generally useless succor in Uhura's case. Spock's mom's big achievement? Becoming a martyr to fuel Spock's rage. Kirk's mom's big achievement? Giving birth to Kirk. All the important work, all the personal growth, is solely done by the male leads. Sadly typical of action movies. I guess we have to wait till the 24th century before Dr. Crusher bucks that trend.

Oh, and "Nero", as mother-slayer...got it.

Finally, visuals. Gorgeous, and more importantly, true to the series. It's what Roddenberry probably WOULD have wanted Trek to look like, or imagined it to look like in his mind but lacked the technology to pull off. It all got a nice bit of polish, but all the important elements, even the uniforms, were there. The sounds, too. And some nice touches, like the phasers that did a little flippy-do when you changed them from stun to kill. The Enterprise looked a little more like it had the bowels of an actual ship inside, as opposed to a set of hotel conference rooms. Also, space maneuvering looked a little more, well, appropriate to zero-G, than it did in any of the previous series, but then, that's CGI for you.

...

In the end, I was cheering and clapping throughout, and felt like Abrams, despite all I'd been led to believe in his interviews, really took efforts to respect the franchise and its mythology, and in doing that, respect the fans. I feel, well, respected. Not to mention entertained.

At the same time, the film was very accessible to newcomers as well. The students universally loved it. And I went home happy, despite staying up way later than my bedtime on a school night. It has my vote for a new series, although alas, no TV show could afford this cast. Still, my extremely cautious optimism was rewarded...and that, above all else, marked this movie as an Obama-era film. :)

See it!

- SW

sagawizard @ 2009-05-01T23:25:00

2009-05-02T03:26:27Z

Wow. Have been away from LJ for a long time. Does that mean I have a life?

...
...

Naw.

- SW

sagawizard @ 2009-03-31T10:47:00

2009-03-31T14:47:48Z

I remember back in 2000, when I started teaching, we were being encouraged to phase out actual "letters" home to students because the kids were all using email, and letters were becoming increasingly unreliable as a means to reach students. Now almost ten years have passed, and we're being told that EMAIL is becoming increasingly unrealiable as a means to reach students, because the kids don't check it regularly anymore - they communicate primarily through texting with their friends. So what does this mean - that we have to get every kid's phone #, and then text them on our own bill?

Maybe we should just use carrier pigeons...cheaper in the long run....?

-SW

BSG finale review

2009-03-21T18:23:04Z

Ah, sadness. BSG is no more. The writing quality definitely declined during Season 4, but the series finale and the episodes immediately preceding did create a fitting and satisfying end for me.

For one, I liked the "meta level" on which the last few episodes operated: Adama trying to do everything he could to save the ship, coming increasingly to terms with the fact that Galactica had run its course...not just the ship itself, but the entire way of life the Fleet had known, was coming to an end, and you had to deal and move on (characters who couldn't didn't end well - Dee and ultimately Cavell, who committed suicide, or Gaeda and Zarek who rebelled uselessly), no matter how painful that might be. And that was the message for the show's fans, too...like it or not, BSG the show is coming to an end, you're going to have to accept that and enter the next stage of things (heh, i.e., watching the spinoff series Caprica!) And it was indeed painful, even though the show (like the ship) was clearly kind of falling apart.

And I have to say, Ron Moore gave us the ultimate plot device explanation - angels! Every time so ridiculous deus ex machina happens, you know what, it actually IS, LITERALLY, a deus ex machina! So the asteroid-hits-racetrack's-ship-and-launches-the-nukes thing totally made sense in that context, whereas otherwise I'd be groaning at the utter cheesballness of it all.

Yet at the same time, these "angels" clearly have a specific role: allow enough of mankind to reboot itself every time it wrecks itself. I love the theme, throughout the show, of humanity as its own worst enemy, and how the real "villains" in the show were never the cylons as much as intolerance, paranoia, greed, treachery, and an overreliance on technology. As noble as the four years' exodus was, humanity was doomed, doomed, because they just brought all their vices with them, and the only way to survive was to "reboot" (although even that, apparently, didn't solve things, as "Real Earth" is at least the 3rd human reboot and looks destined for the same fate). And yet all along there are those who want to bring humanity to something better, perhaps guided by the "angels"...

Adama ended on a tragically noble note. He was a man of the old world, with an inability to let go of the old ways. There is no place for him in the new world, just as we saw in the flashbacks when he couldn't sacrifice his pride and give up military service in order to retire. He is admirable, but as Lee criticized him, he forced himself to live in a very narrow box. Roslin, too, couldn't let herself let go of the past (as evidenced in her own flashback), and by the time she sees another way it could be, it's too late - she's missed her chances.

Cavell, too, is a tragic figure, and a foil for Adama. Where Adama is chained to his sense of duty, Cavell is chained to his sense of self-interest. He *realizes* that there is really nowhere for him to go, which is why he commits suicide at the end. He has the humans at his mercy, but what's the point? He's lost his chance at perpetuating his race, he's not satisfied with life without immortality, and even if he had it, what the hell would he do? He has no goal, no vision, just a sense of being cheated by his creators for having made him inferior. He's the end of the road for a philosophy built on greed...either someone destroys you (ala the Colonies) or you destroy yourself. Cavell goes out having brought no good to anyone...at least Adama goes out having led humanity to the promised land. Like Moses, he can't enter it (the last image of him on the cliffside was very Moseslike), but at least he paved the way for others. His sacrifice MEANT something. Cavell's didn't.

Baltar actually uses his "con-artist" powers for good instead of evil when brokering the (short lived!) Adama-Cavell truce. Not sure I buy his transformation at the end, but the line about "I know how to farm" was very moving. On the one hand, it is Baltar doing what Baltar always does - shifting, changing faces, adapting to survive wherever he is - but on the other it's a reconnection with the one kernel of genuine person within him, the way he was raised, his "original" way of life - plus a farmer is someone who gives and provides real tangible things for others. All Baltar's given anyone else before are hollow promises. Sounds like an evolution to me.

Saddest of all is Galen. Every time he chose love, it screwed him over. I always liked his character, the "geek" of Galactica, techhy and slightly pudgy and always getting the raw deal. I hope he actually finds some cute cro-magnon babe in proto-Scotland.

Kara? Poor Kara! Tool of the angels from the beginning. I cried at the scene when Lee turns around and she's vanished, even though I totally saw it coming.

Like rowanarha, I had a VERY hard time believing that all the humans would agree to become hunter-gatherers, but at the same time, where else was there for them to go? Life on the ships sucked, there was no place left to wander, and frankly if the whole fleet was down to one tube of toothpaste, maybe there weren't much creature comforts to give up.
Also, I think the implication at the end was that only Hera's descendants grew into "us", so the rest of the colonials and cylons must have died off...probably because they didn't know how to live off the land... ;)

And hey, maybe all the UFO sightings and "greys" mythology comes from visitations by the freed Centurions... (hey guys, we're bored out here in space, thought we'd come by and anal probe you because, well, we're centurions, and we roll that way...)

Wonder what Moore (nice cameo, BTW) was doing with that last line about, "it's all a part of God's plan", followed by, "it hates when you call it that."

Hates when you call it a plan?
Hates when you call it God?

Not sure what we're meant to take from that...many many ideas, too many to list.

I'm feeling pretty much ok with how this all turned out. And hey, there's a made-for-scifi-movie ("the plan") and the Caprica prequel to keep me juiced from now on...

Solid B+. Went out in style. So say we all?

-SW

Reflections on today, the 6th anniversary of the Iraq War's onset

2009-03-19T18:13:15Z

March 19th. The sixth anniversary of the Iraq War.

As of today, 4259 US soldiers have lost their lives, and 45,583 injuries have been reported (to be accurate, this is injury count, not people count - some are multiple injuries to same soldier).

Between 91,000 and 99,000 Iraqis have been killed.

656.1 billion dollars of our tax money have been spent already, and President Obama has just requested $75.5 billion more.

And for what? A shaky, barely-stable Iraqi "democracy" that most experts say will fall apart the second we leave. A country that was never meant to be one country and which already is in essence two countries (Kurdistan and the rest), and which may well become three countries after the US withdraws. Worldwide condemnation and loss of moral authority. Thousands of new recruits to Al Qaeda.

Yes, we got rid of Saddam Hussein, which no one argues is a bad thing in and of itself, except this isn't a movie, and the credits don't just roll once the "bad guy" dies - if you kill the bad guy and in doing so set the conditions which lead to over 100,000 more deaths and no end in sight - maybe it just wasn't freaking worth it? And come on, isn't Saddam II just going to replace him once we leave?

In the wake of the financial crisis, you would never know there are in fact TWO wars going on right now, or even that one, in Iraq, is continuing. As usual, the media cycle obscures as much as it reveals.

But I remember.

I remember on this date in 2003, I watched as, despite the largest day of worldwide protest in recorded history, the US launched a preemptive war against Iraq. At the time, every major news source cheered the invasion, and the 50% of the country that opposed the war was silenced as the media broadcast unsubstantiated WMD claims and showed off the sleek, sexy military technology.

I remember how I spent the next five years attending protest after protest, few of which saw any media attention despite the tens or on occasions even hundreds of thousands who attended. In 2004, President Bush won re-election despite the fact that by then the WMD and AL Qaeda pre-war claims had both been exposed as false.

I remember how, despite being exposed as having made 935 false statements about the war, President Bush was never impeached, censured, or charged with anything, no matter how many US Soldiers and Iraqi civilians died or how many times he violated the Geneva Convention or the US Constitution. I remember how Nancy Pelosi rode the anger of voters in the 2006 congressional elections and then pledged to never attempt impeachment.

I remember how over the last nine years I've written hundreds of letters to dozens of publications. I got published in several, including USA Today, the Boston Globe, and Newsweek. Not sure what good any of it did.

I remember that all six years that have passed. Now I see a December 2008 ABC News/Washington Post Poll of 1,003 adults nationwide that found 64% felt the Iraq War "was not worth fighting".

That's cold comfort now.

I remember how for three solid years of proposing at the statewide meeting of the union to which I belong that the organization come out publicly against the war, I was jeered, called a traitor, watched colleagues get their microphones shut off, had people refuse to shake my hand..and then the fourth year, the motion passed nearly unanimously. United States of Amnesia, indeed. Now everyone's against the war, it seems, and always has been. I find this bizarre.

I see President Obama promising the troops will be out in a year. I hear every pundit saying he won't be able to pull it off. But then, every pundit also said he would never win the primaries, and many said he couldn't win the general election, so I hope he continues to surprise. I hope he further continues to surprise by reversing his current course on Afghanistan, another unwinnable conflict, and bring ALL our troops home. I am prepared to be surprised.

But what does NOT surprise me are the results of this needless, unjust and disastrous war. We *called* this, six years ago. The antiwar movement has been warning about it for six years since. And the fact that events have proven us right leaves nothing but a taste of ash in my mouth, because it didn't matter. I'm not happy to see all the horrible results I predicted. I'm ashamed and saddened, and embarrassed because I wasn't willing to withhold my tax dollars and go to jail rather than fund this war, which I've been doing every April when I file.

I would have thought Vietnam would have taught us a few things. It evidently didn't. The *only* good that will come of this is if we learn NOT to wage this kind of war again, not to get swept up in a leader's evidence-less claims and appeals to our fears. I hope the next generation has learned from this.

My students have no idea why we're in Iraq. It doesn't make any sense to them. This may be a good thing. But I'd rather they understand WHY we got into it. Only then can they prevent it from happening in their time.

- SW

sagawizard @ 2009-03-19T13:39:00

2009-03-19T17:41:52Z

Thanks a lot, alma mater. Brandeis sends out an e-survey seeking alums to host a "shadow" student who is interested in your career. They make a big deal of mentioning in their letter, however, that

"All alumni are welcome to volunteer, but we are particularly looking for those working in finance and banking, scientific research (especially if related to health care), and clinical psychology, as student demand for these fields remain high."

Well, yet another voice out there that says teaching as a field doesn't matter. I've got to say, Brandeis, that "finance and banking" isn't exactly the growth field it used to be. And, um, didn't you lose like a gajillion dollars of your endowment to Bernard Madoff? Maybe you should re-assess your priorities, and remember that traditional Jewish value of education, instead of that stereotyped Jewish value of money...

Grr.

- SW

sagawizard @ 2009-03-18T19:21:00

2009-03-18T23:22:02Z

OMG - this is the funniest thing I've seen all week. One of my students shared it with me: "Watchmen" as envisioned as a "Superfriends"-style cartoon!

-SW

sagawizard @ 2009-03-17T19:50:00

2009-03-17T23:51:28Z

Scifi channel! Post the last Battlestar Galactica episode already! I need to see "DayBreak Part I" before you air the series finale on Friday!

-SW

Good Press! Yipee!

2009-03-06T21:34:48Z

Sweet! The section of the Scion Companion that I wrote, "Secrets of the World," got a great review on flamesrising.com!

jesshartley, if you know any developers looking for writers, you can now say, "this guy produces AND he gets good reviews." ;)

- SW

sagawizard @ 2009-03-04T18:53:00

2009-03-04T23:55:05Z

I have to admit, although my initial review of Joss Whedon's Dollhouse was not so favorable, two episodes later I have become rather intrigued and impressed by this show.

Episode#2 was a clear Most Dangerous Game" ripoff, BUT one that I absolutely did not see coming. And several events during that episode caught me by surprise, like the "fake cop" who suddenly shot Boyd's partner. It also introduced some of the backstory - Alpha, why he didn't kill echo, Boyd's hiring and the whole Handler/Active dynamic...ep#3 showed us Sierra's handler, and his contrasts with Boyd...it reminds me a bit of the Observer/Leaper dynamic between Al and Sam in Quantum Leap, which we later had Zoe/Ailea(sp?) to contrast with.
But even more than the backstory breadcrumbs, there was some thematic coolness involved. The whole idea of "proving yourself worthy to live" was an interesting overlay with the idea of the Dollhouse itself and its commodifying of human identity. The "dolls" have NO rights to their identities, everything is taken from them at the whim of others...the crazy hunter boyfriend is at least, in his sociopathic way, giving Echo a *chance* to stay "alive", and though the forces of the Dollhouse (the "good guys", as it were) win, this win means Echo has in fact LOST her chance to "live" as the person she was.
Ok, so Helo is still a loser, but now I'm interested in the show.

Episode#3 really sold me, though. It was all about how even characters outside the dollhouse can be "trapped", can perceive themselves as having no free will of their own. The singer character, naturally, is a foil for Echo, feeling her life is dominated by how others want to shape her. The doctor, who's clearly traumatized yet still going through the motions of her job. "Helo" (ok, "Agent Paul Ballard", but dude, he's still playing Helo) is also clearly trapped by his own obsession. I am starting to think he is a pathetic character because he's been WRITTEN to be a pathetic character, as much a slave to the "template" of his obsession as Echo is a slave to her own programming. And yet this episode demonstrates that she has the ability to override (or at least, creatively interpret) her programming, while the supposedly "free" people have a harder time doing that.
Plus the revelation of Helo's Russian thug informant as a "doll" himself opens wide the possibility that ANY of the characters we think are "free" could be dolls. Helo. Boyd. Security chief guy (who, in a demonstration that this show was written by a Geek, gets a dressing down by Topher). I am totally expecting *someone* to be revealed as a doll. Anything we believe anyone to be is now suspect.
Which makes for a very potentially cool show.
And I am starting to see all the places where Whedon indeed is injecting his characteristic humor, and not just through Topher, either.

In short, Dollhouse has proved that it's not just a formula show, which I feared it might be given the pilot.

Bring it on. We'll need it, as Galactica only has 3 eps left, which is just as well as it seems to have sadly jumped the shark....

- SW

sagawizard @ 2009-02-15T09:36:00

2009-02-15T14:39:08Z

Saw the premiere of Our Lord and Master Joss Whedon's new series, Dollhouse. I don't think I have any real spoilers here, but if you're afraid, read no further.

My general impression: Eeeehhh.

It's got an interesting premise. I like how the episode provided a meta-commentary on the art of writing and creating characters; the whole "running to/running from" thing, how every strength you give a character probably stems from overcompensation for a flaw (as a GM, I'm going to use this advice again and again whenever I get munchkin players who want to create munchkin characters, thank you Joss m'man!)...and I see potential in the "character" that is the whole Dollhouse organization, how you've got Hannah Arendt's "banality of evil" playing out where there are a bunch of very potentially sympathetic people just doing their jobs, some going to some lengths to rationalize it one way or another, some just doing their small cog-work...but the sum total is something disturbing and ethically awful. I am curious, but only mildly, as to what "Echo" did in her pre-wipe life to end up here. But I expect I will be dragged through hill and dale for several seasons before I get that info, and I'm not sure I care enough to go on that ride.

I surprised and disappointed to not see a Whedon show's characteristic humor. Yeah, "tech guy" cracked a few borderline self-referential jokes, but this show seems played entirely straight, which is not what I've come to expect from JW.

If this show is going to succeed, it needs to not get trapped in "formula." We have evolved beyond the "self contained episode, everything gets set back to square one except a few dangling plot threads" model. This is the age of Battlestar Galactica and Lost, where we expect there to be a million subplots and almost too much to keep track of...yet Dollhouse seems disappointingly contained. The characters don't thrill me, not even Echo. As for the others? "Moral voice black guy" seems too one-dimensional, "nerdy tech guy" is just a stock character, as is "bitch ceo with a heart of gold" and "thuggish military buzz cut major domo." And don't even start me on "Helo the FBI agent." He's basically just Helo here, too, and I can't stand Helo on BSG because he's such a vanilla non-character.

Finally, I'm not a big fan of Eliza Dushku (and no I'm not even going to TRY and look up how to accurately spell her name). Her character of Faith on Buffy was amusing, but I don't particularly like the actress. That said, she does do the "vacant" thing very well.

My hope for this show is after a few episodes of establishing the "formula", it breaks and all kinds of wild crazy shit happens. Otherwise, we'll have to suffer through week after week of "does Helo expose the Dollhouse? Oh, he got so close, but no!" and "Do we find out anything significant about Echo? Oh, a tidbit, but not much!" And no one has the patience for shows like that anymore, or at least, I don't.

We shall see.

- SW

sagawizard @ 2009-02-09T19:25:00

2009-02-10T00:31:00Z

Saw Coraline. In 3D no less. For all my apprehension, they did manage to capture the spirit of Gaiman's book (UNLIKE that ridiculous mutilation of Stardust that even Claire Danes' cuteness couldn't save).

Ok, so I was irked that they added a male sidekick character, and that they glossed over some of the Beldam's nuances (what made her so scary and disturbing in the book was that she really, really wanted to love and be loved, but due to her nature didn't quite "get" what love was about...it was that pitiable, incompetent perversion of motherhood that was so freaky, far moreso than the movie's somewhat more two-dimensional "monster" version of her). But they got Coraline herself to a T, ditto the cat, and Tim Burton was the perfect man for the job of the visuals. Worth seeing, although I think a lot of parents are going to be severely surprised when they bring their kids to what the previews make out to be a fun fluffy family movie...

- SW

Some countries are not safe for tofu

2009-02-10T00:16:55Z

File this one in the WTF folder:

Sagasorceress and I are returning, yet again, to Bogota, Colombia, to visit her sister. SagaSorceress reminds me to call American Airlines and remind them to make sure we're outfitted with vegetarian meals.

The AA rep puts me on hold for a good six minutes, then returns and tells me this won't be possible.

What?

First she thinks it's because we're in coach, but no, we've gotten veggie meals in coach on plenty of AA flights, thank you very much. So she goes back and checks again. Ten minutes this time.

"It's because you're flying to Colombia. We don't do special meals on flights that go there."

I remind her that we've flown American to Brazil and to Argentina, and had veggie meals, so South America shouldn't be the magic factor. "Maybe it's the economy?" she says. "Maybe we're cutting back?"

I ask to speak to her supervisor. She puts me on another lengthy hold. Then she returns.

"Ok, my supervisor says it's because Colombia is designated as a trouble zone," the woman says, and to her credit she sounds as puzzled as I am. "She showed me a chart. We offer special meals on flights going everywhere in South America except for Venezuela and Colombia."

"Because...it's a trouble zone?" At this point, I can't help bursting out laughing. "So American Airlines feels it's safe enough to fly PEOPLE there, but not to fly VEGETABLES????"

Apparently so.

When did my life become a Zippy comic?

- SW

sagawizard @ 2009-02-03T14:14:00

2009-02-03T19:16:04Z

Slouching. Towards. Bethlehem.

At least BSG is kicking ass right now.

Even if I feel a little bit like everyone's favorite beaten-within-an-inch-of-it's-life Battlestar myself...

Ever forward, I s'pose....

- SW

Procrastinating whilst I should be grading...

2009-01-26T18:52:24Z

When LOLcats just aren't cute enough, thank the gods that there are always LOLpandas.

Or, for those who prefer the less-than-cute approach...

- SW

Thoughts on BSG's new season

2009-01-26T02:32:24Z

Musings on the beginning of the final episodes of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA...

For a show that, last season, seemed to have run out of steam and had me eagerly awaiting what felt like a much-needed wrapup, I must say the first two eps of this new cycle have made me interested again.

Mainly because BSG continues to be on the cutting edge of contemporary political allegory, a wonderfully astute mirror of our own times.

Seasons#1&2 were all about the paranoia of a post-9/11 world, how you're hemmed in by the threat of attack from the outside and your own system that would rob you of liberty, privacy and life in a paranoid quest to "make you safe." Martial law, suppression of the press, prisoner abuse, xenophobia, it was all there, with the cardinal questions being both "can we survive" and "do we deserve to survive?" The Kobol arc was also about how you bring together a divided people.

Season#3, with New Caprica, was the Iraq War, forcing American audiences to take the perspective of the occupied people. Then, in the later episodes, it was about how you try and reintegrate a society that carries with it all that trauma.

Season#4, especially right now...it's about a people who have been stretched so thin they've finally, finally broken. It's about the dangers of placing your hope and faith in a charismatic leader, and what happens if and when that leader and the dream let you down. Ideas painfully, painfully close to home right now, and in their own way, as shocking and bold as seasons#1&2 when NO OTHER SHOW ON TV ('cept Farscape!) had ever dared to challenge our homeland security culture. Now, when the whole media is giving Obama halos, BSG is showing Rosalyn's promises shatter, and the crew shattering with it. And we see the flip side of being a leader everyone expects to be the messiah - she's had enough of that kind of responsibility. And in the face of the failure of her plan, far darker elements are trying to seize power.

Damned straight I'll keep watching. I don't much care who the final cylon is (seems frakking everyone's a cylon at this point), but I want to see how this all ends...

-SW

I am undah attack...by zombie nazis!

2009-01-23T23:33:43Z

Oh. My. Gawd.

I have found the next film the MRC absolutely has to see. Dead Snow, a Norwegian film where a bunch of snowboard punks fight zombie nazi soldiers in on a ski slope. Who's with me?

- SW