Year: 2005

Categories
Media

Toasters

Spoiler alert: This post discusses the last episode of Battlestar Galactica, aired Friday night, in detail.

Battlestar Galactica features several characters that are Cylons, though they look human. Most of the Cylon characters in re-occurring roles are women, specifically Boomer and Number Six. There are many duplications of each character, which can lead to some interesting story lines.

Boomer, in different incarnations, has fallen in love with two human males. She is now known to be Cylon and imprisoned. The crew refers to her as ‘toaster’ and ‘it’, but they also have become more sympathetic toward her, as she has joined forces with the humans because of her love for one of the men.

Number Six appears mainly as some form of mental image in the mind of the scientific genius, Dr. Baltar–though whether this is madness or mechanics, we’re never quite sure. It was his relationship with Number Six eventually led to the destruction of the human planets. In the show, dialogs occur between the two, though only he can see the woman. This can lead to some humourous scenes (sex plays a big role between the couple); but some tedius ones as well.

I was ambivalent about the casting of humans as Cylons in this new show, but the last four or five episodes have been absolutely riveting because of this decision. None more so than the show last Friday night when another battle ship, the Pegasus, found the Battlestar Galatica, and the actions of the military in the two ships can be compared side by side.

The Battlestar Galactica is led by Adama, a man who for all of his strict reliance on all things military, is able to adapt to situations. He’s a stubborn man, but an honorable one. He’s appealing because he makes mistakes, and even more so because he doesn’t always see them as mistakes. This has kept the show from being cheap and overly heroic.

The Battlestar Pegasus is led by a woman, Admiral Cain, following on a strong female presence in the show. Unlike Adama, though, Admiral Cain is a by the book military commander, with little interest in much other than a need to win, to triumph, to take the fight to the Cylons.

The meeting between the two started out smoothly, but it’s not long before problems started arising. Admiral Cain has little regard for Adama’s personal interactions with his crew, considering them a weakness. She demands a break up and mixing of crew members. More, we find out that she had killed her first XO in cold blood because he wouldn’t follow her orders. We also find out that the Pegasus also has a Cylon prisoner of its own–none other than one of the Number Six characters who haunt Baltar’s mind.

Number Six is beautiful, blonde, and devious. She is the ‘evil’ member of the Cylons, the one who helped bring about destruction of the planets. In the opening shows, she kills a baby in his crib and then walks away without once looking back. She is tough, strong, and not particularly likable–using sex to manipulate men such as Balthar. I’ve seen her referred to in sci-fi circles as ‘the Cylon Slut’.

When we see her on the Pegasus though, she is collapsed on the ground and chained about her neck, arms, and legs. She has been badly beaten and starved, and lays there staring vacantly ahead of her. From joking that male Pegasus crewmembers do with those on the Galactica, we find that the crew used that oldest expedient to break women: rape.

Cut away and the Pegasus officer that has beaten and raped Number Six is now on his way to do the same to Boomer.

From there we have a constant cut away between scenes where a selfish, self-centered Baltar is trying to help Number Six, crying, as she lies broken on the deck; while the Pegasus officer has his men straddle Boomer over a bed and prepares to rape her.

The two scenes, juxtaposed, are powerful, and made more so because Number Six is clearly ‘evil’, while Boomer is just as clearly ‘good’. And it is this that made all the difference.

I was curious and searched in Technorati for mention of Battlestar Galactica and rape. It was interesting to read the reactions; especially to see young men deal with something they’ve never faced in all their Lara Croft games; to hear science fiction fans talking about war and rape and genocide, and explore whether rape would be allowed on a ship commanded by a woman. One person wrote that he knew rape existed, but it wasn’t something he wanted to necessarily see on television, in such graphic detail. Disturbing, he called it.

Yes, it is.

An excellent review of this episode of Battlestar Galactica.

Categories
Just Shelley

Homesick

Loren and his wife, Leslie returned from a 4 day holiday to the ocean, bringing back wonderful pictures and a story of their adventures. It was lovely to read. I was working on another post when I read his post and it stopped me, cold, with such a feeling of homesickness.

 

I grew up in Washington state, lived there, mostly, until I was 23. I also lived in Portland, Oregon for a few years, too, though I haven’t been back to either state for a visit in many years. Lately, I’ve been thinking about the Northwest: Cannon Beach, the San Juans, the Olympics, and the rivers. I had thought myself content in St. Louis, but now I’m just not sure. I miss the ocean. Above anything else, I miss the ocean. Sometimes it reduces me to tears, I miss it so much.

Every once in a while, one of you will send me an email with this job or that, all in New York, or Washington DC or SiliValley or some other place such as this. I appreciate these, I really do, but I wish you would stop. It’s not that I don’t want a job, I do. Desperately. Or that I’m ungrateful– I am and you are loves to try and help. But I want to have a home more than anything else, and moving yet again to start over in some new, strange community has no appeal for me.

I don’t want to move back to the Silicon Valley, in time for the next bubble bursting, putting up with overpriced apartments and people who are, frankly, more class conscious than they will admit. I liked San Francisco, but it was never my home. As for other places, in Michigan, or Virginia, or Tennessee, these are all places I know and like and each has something special, but they aren’t home.

Some of these jobs I’ve been sent have been with this new ‘venture’ touted by this A lister or that highly linked person, but these won’t result in a job. Most of these aren’t real–they’re a way of generating publicity, or to tease about this operation or that coming up. If these people have jobs to give, they already have folks to give them to. Or if they don’t, they’re certainly not going to give them to me–an opinionated, strong minded woman who has most likely got on their case at one time or another in the past. More than once.

One I contacted seemed interested, until I realized that the so-called ‘paid’ work became, auto-magically, voluntary somewhere along the way. A couple of others wouldn’t even respond back, after many emails.

The one with Jeff Jarvis was interesting. I sent the email in applying for the job and did get a response back from the person who was doing the hiring — an email containing a copy of exactly what Jeff Jarvis wrote with a cryptic note asking “is this me”. I wrote back that yes, it was, and gave examples of like work that I’ve done–with the Acoustical and Linguistics group at Boeing working with robotics, computational linguistics, and heuristic search engines; the interface to the image system that I worked on for Lawrence Livermore; the anti-missile defense system for Saudi Arabia–but it seems these weren’t enough because eventually the person wrote back that they were ‘hiring someone local’. When I asked if they would mind telling me who, so that I can figure out how to refocus my job applications in the future, I never did hear back.

So much for the golden opportunities that weblogging provides. Oh, the folks who send me job listings for Six Apart, I think we can safely say that they won’t be interested.

I am 50, soon to be 51. This is not old; in fact, I don’t feel much different than I did 20 years ago, and still like most of the music that plays on the radio, and the clothes and the energy. I can be playful and mischievous and silly and romantic and adventurous and everything in-between. But none of it matters because lately all I have been thinking is that I want a home.

If I moved from St. Louis, it would be back to the Northwest, near to the ocean that I love, the San Juans that I adore, the rivers and dark, strong mysteries that live within its mountains and rain forest. I had thought I had found a home in St. Louis, but when I go out in the hills now, there’s a voice that’s telling me it’s time to go. Or maybe it’s just my discouragement because I can’t find a job here, I don’t know.

It’s not that I’m lonely, though I wouldn’t mind having a relationship with someone again someday. Besides, Ive always believed that you should never get into a relationship because you need someone; to do so means that you could just as easily unplug one person and plug another in, because what’s important is the body, not the specific person.

I’ve even chatted with a few people out walking that I think could have gone somewhere except that I would take the nearest right (or left) when a fork came up in the road. I’ve gotten so used to the odd, detached, intimacy of, well, I don’t think we can call them ‘relationships’ that we have in this medium that I find it hard to connect with real people. Meeting someone for the first time in the flesh is a curiously vulnerable feeling. Or perhaps what the issue is that I’ve become attached to gentlemen I’ve met in weblogging, but they are either too young, married, gay, living in another city, or uninterested–with emphasis on uninterested.

Maybe that’s just an excuse, though. I’ve always thought the Ghost and Mrs. Muir was an oddly erotic work.

I am lonely, though for what, I don’t know. When I had that exchange of emails with the person from the historical society that abruptly stopped when she saw my gay pride pictures, something of the magic of this place was lost. It would have been so grand to talk with someone, in person, who shared an interest in history, science fiction, writing, anything. To have something of a normal life–yes even one with all the aches and pains that comes with reality.

I want a place of my own. I am grateful to my roommate, my ex-husband, but I want a place of my own. I want to pay taxes normally, and save up for a trip, and be able to go to a doctor when I’m feeling sick. I want to go out to dinner with friends, and sit over coffee and talk about the flood of 1927, hopefully without the other people being bored.

I want to feel that I have worth as a person, and not just an avatar with the name of Burningbird.

Categories
Weather

Bye Rita

The northernmost band of Rita visited St. Louis this morning, stayed a while, dropped some rain, blew gently on some trees, and then went its way. I watched a squirrel outside my window as it came out from under a car and stopped when faced with a small river that flowed down the middle of the road.

He turned about to go back, but then remembered that across the road was the big tree with all the nuts. He turned about again, then again–spinning around in circles pushed by equal needs of food for the winter and what could be a dangerous river for a small little guy like himself.

At some instance, thinking reached a critical point, and he ran back to the car he’d come from, then passed quickly to the car in front of it, to the car in front of that one until the river of water formed from the downflow from the side of our place was passed. Then he crossed the road and on to the sidewalk, up to the tree, and on up.

As Hurricane Rita has demonstrated so very capably, we can’t forecast the weather and expect it follow the forecasts. Storms such as hurricanes will make their own rules, and the most we can hope is to learn as we go. Part of the learning process is adaption: it’s up to us to adapt and live with nature; or not and be pushed aside.

Categories
Social Media

Serenitygate

Knowing I’m a fan, Dave Rogers sent me an email on Friday pointing me to a Talking Points Memo post that discussed how to get press passes for an early screening of the upcoming. “Serenity”. All we had to do was send an email to Grace Hill Media and mention we were TPM readers.

I sent the email in, and received a reply later in the evening saying that all the slots were full. That’s cool, and not unsurprising since I sent my email late. That’s when I noticed Dori Smith mention the Serenity promotion appeared on several of conservative weblogs, first:

Okay, here’s something that’s been puzzling me since yesterday: you’ve got Joss Whedon, who’s a well-known Hollywood liberal type and John Kerry supporter. He’s got a new movie coming out next week, name of Serenity.

So why on earth is Whedon, or the studio, or the PR folks, only working with rightwingers to plug the movie?

Maybe it’s ‘cause there aren’t any progressive bloggers who are long-time fans of the show?

It would seem that in the days before TPM mentioned the press pass for the showing, the publicity company, Grace Hill Media, had been targeting conservative webloggers. Now this isn’t surprising when you consider that the purpose of Grace Hill Media is to promote movies with ‘good family or moral values’ to Christians.

If you access the web site, all you get is a page with an address and the tagline Helping Hollywood reach people of faith. An associated press release states:

Tara Shaffer, a publicist with Grace Hill Media, says Hollywood executives have come to realize there is a big market for family-friendly films. The media company she represents is “a small group,” she says, “and our mission is really to make Christians aware of entertainment that shares in their beliefs or explores the same values they believe in.”

At the same time, Grace Hill Media is trying to help promote films that are family-friendly or that put meaningful, positive values onscreen, Shafer says. While not all the films the Christian firm highlights are necessarily family films, it tries to select projects that honor many of the heartfelt concerns of Christian viewers and “really just kind of elevate their view on the world.”

The email reply I had was from a Tara Shaffer.

I’m not sure how I feel about getting a free movie courtesy of an organization that equates ‘faithful’ and ‘values’ with Christian. If I had gotten the press pass, what would have been expected of me? According to Al Hawkins, the stipulations and requirements that go with the pass does not make one a happy customer:

Congratulations. You had a shot at some decent publicity from some real fans (my wife and I just finished enjoying a Firefly episode when I received your email) and you threw it away. I was more than willing to engage in a fair exchange – publicity and Google rank for a early shot to see a movie I’ve really been looking forward to seeing. Instead you tried to dictate the content of my space on the web for a nebulous offer that could disappear at a whim.

Forget it. Maybe other people are willing to abide by your terms. I’ll go ahead and buy a ticket, see it when everybody else does, and talk about the movie the way that I like.

Now, let’s trip away from movies to another discussion floating around freebies this week, but this one related to wine, discovered via Scott Reynen.

It started with a promotion that Hugh MacLeod is involved with, which includes giving away wine. There’s a wiki involved, and blogger bashes and geek dinners and what not. I can’t even find the beginning post where this all started.

Anyway, Ben Metcalf, writing personally and not in his capacity as a BBC employee called the wine “crappy”, leading to an interesting exchange of comments, where Ben wrote:

I also do think the way it’s being marketed is pretty ‘crappy’, but then I don’t deny that it’s all above board and you are within your right to push it in the way you do.

I just think it pollutes the blogosphere as you are giving one brand an a disproportionate advantage over its rivals — it’s not “natural selection”. Plus there is certain expectation (be it implied or just passive) for someone to give it a favourable review having received a complimentary bottle.

This led Hugh to go after the BBC:

Ben thinks it’s OK for the massive, State-funded BBC to use blogs to connect with people (Ben works on the blog thing for the Beeb), and think it’s OK for a huge company like Microsoft to use blogs to do the same (he happily attended the last Scoble dinner, and according to this, he’s coming to the next one), but it’s not OK for a small, independant winery to use the blogosphere to connect with people? And here he is kvetching about “disproportionate advantage”?

I find his double standards appalling.

I like the BBC (”A fine British anachronism- just like the Royal Family” etc). And I think some of the stuff they’re doing online is pretty nifty.

But here’s the thing they’re not getting: “Social Media” and “Socialised Media” are not compatable. Why? Because the former does not need the latter. And the latter cannot accept that.

The Beeb likes to think it’s in the business of “Empowering People”. Maybe they are, but only if it doesn’t lessen their own power base within the British Establishment. They sneer at commercialism; their currency of choice is control. Are they transparent about that? The hell they are.

Again, I was surprised that Hugh went after the BBC, because Ben wasn’t writing as a member of the BBC but as himself. I’m not sure how this became an incident of big media and little guys, or social media and socialized media, whatever that means. Regardless, in comments to Hugh’s post, Scott wrote:

I thought Ben made it clear that the implication that positive responses are expected comes with any free give away. Peter repeated the same thing. Personally, I find the “big business is out to get me” incredibly boring. But that’s not really the point. You sitll haven’t addressed Ben’s criticism. How can you expect to get honest feedback on the wine when the act of giving it away completely changes the context? How is this any different from giving free toothpaste to dentists and then saying “4 out of 5 dentists recommend our toothpaste”?

Tom Coates of “Bag” fame also jumps in:

Well firstly, yes, of course people can give things away without there being any cynical intentions. But any corporation that gives away their own products is trying to sell you something. That’s not a bad thing to do, but it’s not charity either.

Which goes back to my post on “clean industry” that I wrote yesterday, saying that the tech companies–any company, really–do not act from altruism. I found the link to Tom Coates from Dave Rogers, returning full circle, who wrote:

Interesting discussion going on in a number of weblogs. I won’t call it a “conversation,” because it isn’t one. But it is interesting. Favorite quote from a comment by Tom Coats:

Well if that’s true, then I find it completely depressing, and will look forward to my friends dropping in brand associations in telephone calls in the future so that they can scrabble for a few extra pennies at the cost of any respect I had for them.

But I maintain that this is the logical conclusion of the metaphor that “markets are conversations.” There is no distinction between the social and the mercantile, no boundaries. In effect, the mercantile becomes preeminent, and the social merely exists to support and facilitate the mercantile. The social fabric becomes social capital, and every relationship is valued mainly as a business opportunity. We then pay attention to people, not because there’s anything intrinsically worthwhile in paying attention to people, but because we don’t want to miss a potential competitive advantage. And if it’s to our advantage to ignore some people, then we will by all means do so. Compassion is something that is outsourced because it’s not part of a competitive core competency. Education becomes the means by which we prepare people to enter the work force, not to help prepare people for something as soft and mushy and inane as life.

What I want to know, considering who I am and my beat, so to speak, is: Why aren’t more women being given these opportunities?

No, no, just joshin’. Except in a way, I’m not. When Dave writes, We then pay attention to people, not because there’s anything intrinsically worthwhile in paying attention to people, but because we don’t want to miss a potential competitive advantage. And if it’s to our advantage to ignore some people, then we will by all means do so, he’s touching on an issue of worth and value, and those who have value in the marketplace, aren’t necessarily those who have something worthwhile to share.

I am so sick of this marketing crap. Dave, nice dragonfly photo.

Categories
Media

The top Sci-Fi shows

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Thanks to Slashdot for pointing out Boston.com’s top 50 Sci-Fi shows.

Starting from the, urh, bottom:

50. “Earth Final Conflict” — I’m not sure I even remember this one. However, it was on television when I was right in the middle of the hottest part of my consulting and writing business; had started at a dot-com; had watched the dot-com fail; moved from Portland, to Vermont, to Boston, to San Francisco; oh, and got divorced. I don’t think I watched a lot of TV.

49. “The Wild Wild West” — Loved it.

48. “Third Rock from the Sun” — Didn’t follow it strictly but did watch from time to time. Cute. Liked the daughter, she could kick butt.

47. “Buck Rogers in the 25th Centruy” — Now what is there about spandex that isn’t to love? This was disco sci-fi, and campy, as Batman was campy. Speaking of which, will probably show in the list later.

46. “That was Then” — Now, I did manage to catch this, and the premise was very interesting. They never give shows such as this enough time to find their audience. Speaking of Serenity, this will probably be showing up later, too.

45. “The Greatest American Hero” — The good thing, about the only good thing, about this show is that my cousin, Robert Culp, was in it.

44. “Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman” — Gag me.

43. “Nowhere Man” — Again, I saw this because I’ve always liked Bruce Greenwood. Blinked and it was over.

42. “Science Fiction Theater” — I was too young for this show. Yes, there is actually a television show that I would be too young to remember.

41. “Futurama” — Never saw it.

40. “The Thunderbirds” — Come on, folks! Puppets in rockets! How cool is that?

39. “The man from U.N.C.L.E” — I had a crush for the longest time, way into my adulthood, for Illya Kullyakin. And I prefer dark haired guys typically.

38. “Batman” — See? Told you! Two guys in tight spandex…Holy Butts, Batman!

37. “Space 1999″ — I really liked this show. I thought it had an odd feel to it that set it apart from other shows of the time. The only other program that came close in feel was The Prisoner — remember that one? And the bouncing ball?

36. “The Bionic Woman” — Okay, I confess: I liked this show. At least in the beginning; towards the end, it became bizarre.

35. “Battlestar Galactica” — A cut above, both the historical show and the modern one. Especially after last night’s show of the modern edition, which I consider to be one of the finest television shows dealing rape and the objectification of women I have seen.

34. “The Avengers” — Lovely show, wonderful actors, great accents, interesting stories. A classic.

33. “Lost in Space” — Never missed a show. Again, this seemed like a typical show of the time at first glance; family values and all. But it explored some very interesting concepts, and the writers demonstrated imagination with some of the story lines.

32. “My Favorite Martian” — It never really rang my bell.

31. “Alien Nation” — Wonderful show that matured in concept as it aged in time. How best to look at our own problems of racial fear and bigotry than by creating another species and using them as object lessons. Spoiled milk, anyone?

30. “Voyage to the Bottom of the Seas” — Another great show. Is it just me or could Sci-Fi channel dump their abysmal made for TV movies and replace them all with these wonderful old shows? And improve hugely?

29. “Six Million Dollar Man” — Never cared for Lee Majors, so didn’t like the show.

28. “Adventures of Superman” — Oh now, this is the old one and I do remember these. Loved it — strong female lead, wholesome man with bulgy muscles in tight…wait, we’ve been down this one before.

27. “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” — Loved the show, except for the last year or so when it started getting strange. Except that I did like it when Buffy and Spike, well, remember the carpet?

26. “Stargate Atlantis” — Watch it as part of the Friday night lineup. Not the best of sci-fi though.

25. “The Jetsons” — Cartoon, so just never got into it. I liked Marvin the Martian and Warner Brothers, but that was about it. Don’t like games either. I was not a fun child.

24. “Wonder Woman” — When I was younger and a little more gravity defiant I was told I looked like Wonder Woman. No, really. Some homeless guy on the street assured me it was so.

23. “Tales from the Crypt” — not my thing.

22. “Andromeda” — Lot’s of pretty people going nowhere. Didn’t care for it.

21. “Quantum Leap” — Some of the most imaginative scripting in television. Some amazing stories.

20. “The Hitchhiker” — The premise was good, but the execution was flawed.

19. “Dark Angel” — Haven’t seen it. Is it on now? Where?

18. “V” — I liked this show. I didn’t love it, and didn’t go out of my way to watch it, but I liked it.

17. “Firefly” — Just number 17? Idiots. Best show on TV. Ever.

16. “Flash Gordon” — I saw the movie, which was deliciously cheap and tinselly; but never the television show.

15. “Logan’s Run” — Take a great story line and really screw it up and you have Logan’s Run.

14. “Star Trek: Voyager” — I never got into this one. I think I was getting tired of Trek about then. No where near as good as many later in the list.

13. “Outer Limits” — I loved this show. Remember the one where the person from the future came back in time and seduced a woman to return with him, but then by doing so, changed history and he wasn’t there? Reminds me of weblogging.

12. Xena: Warrier Princess” — I like tough women who can kick butt, but this show left me cold. I guess I’d rather do than watch. Hee. Just joking.

11. “Lost” — I didn’t watch the first year, but I’m thinking of renting it. It seems to be intriguing.

10. “Sliders” — This was a good show. Again, not a great one, but good.

9. “Mystery Science Fiction Theater” — If you don’t like this, you lose your Sci-Fi good fandom badge. What better way to watch the old, bad movies?

8. “Dr. Who” — Don’t hit me, but I never watched Dr. Who. Why, I don’t know, except every time I would try to watch, there was so much that seemed to be assumed. I may try this again.

7. “The Twilight Zone” — Some of the finest, brightest, and most adult television of all time.

6. “Stargate SG-1″ — I like this show, and the humor that’s an implicit component. I’m not sure about the new cast, though. Other than I really enjoyed Vala as a character.

5. “Babylon 5″ — I liked Babylon 5. Another show with strong female leads. “Sooner or later, we all go boom!”

4. “X Files” — The most disturbing show I have seen on television was from the X Files. It was the one where the folks were heavily in-bred, and it was too much for me. I was sometimes a fan of the show.

3. “Star Trek the Next Generation” — Oh, of course I liked this show. How can I not like Woof? This show demonstrated that one can be older and sexy. In fact, it demonstrated that one can’t really be truly sexy until one is older. I like that in a show. (Oh you young, firm things — lighten up, your turn will come.)

2. “Battlestar Galactica” — Oh hey, it got a slot of its own. Well, after the recent shows, I agree with this. Very powerful, especially the one last night. How can a station that puts out the crap it does on Saturday night host this amazing series boggles. It really does.

-and I know what 1 will be, it will be-

1. “Star Trek, the original” Of course. If it weren’t for Star Trek, I don’t think we would have the sci-fi channel, or even the movies we’ve had. It kept the genre alive through a very dry period, and then re-sparked it again when we were ready.

Want to know what my router is named? “trekkie”