Deep thoughts from the world of deeply thinking baseball fans:
-----------------------------------------------
Hand:
Be careful what you wish for.
I was diagnosed with a cancer in summer 2002. I didn't seem that serious because it was caught real early, but I still made a vow that I wasn't leaving these mortal bleachers until the Giants won a World Series.
Several months later the Giants took a 3-2 lead in the Series and I realized that I wasn't quite ready to start heading for the exits, so to speak.
"Let me rephrase that earlier vow ...", I called out to the higher principles of the universe.
Several days later the Giants lost Game 7 after we-all-know- what in Game 6.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm to blame.
Terry Preston
--- In sfgiantsfanclub@ yahoogroups. com, gianthand24@ ... wrote:>>
if that's the case then i will die happy with one world series win by the giants .>
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Saturday, October 28, 2006
How many Christians does it take to change a light bulb?
Sent to me from a friend:
How many Christians does it take to change a light bulb?
Charismatic: Only 1
Hands are already in the air.
Pentecostal: 10
One to change the bulb, and nine to pray against the spirit of darkness.
Presbyterians: None
Lights will go on and off at predestined times.
Roman Catholic: None
Candles only.
Baptists: At least 15
One to change the light bulb, and three committees to approve the change and decide who brings the potato salad and fried chicken .
Episcopalians: 3
One to call the electrician, one to mix the drinks and one to talk about how much better the old one was.
Mormons: 5
One man to change the bulb, and four wives to tell him how to do it.
Methodists: Undetermined
Whether your light is bright, dull, or completely out, you are loved. You can be a light bulb, turnip bulb, or tulip bulb. Bring a bulb of your choice to the Sunday lighting service and a covered dish to pass.
Nazarene: 6
One woman to replace the bulb while five men review church lighting policy.
Lutherans: None
Lutherans don't believe in change.
Unitarians:
We choose not to make a statement either in favor of or against the need for a light bulb. However, if in your own journey you have found that light bulbs work for you, you are invited to write a poem or compose a modern dance about your light bulb for the next Sunday service, in which we will explore a number of light bulb traditions, including incandescent, fluorescent, 3-way, long-life and tinted, all of which are equally valid paths to luminescence.
Amish: What's a light bulb?
How many Christians does it take to change a light bulb?
Charismatic: Only 1
Hands are already in the air.
Pentecostal: 10
One to change the bulb, and nine to pray against the spirit of darkness.
Presbyterians: None
Lights will go on and off at predestined times.
Roman Catholic: None
Candles only.
Baptists: At least 15
One to change the light bulb, and three committees to approve the change and decide who brings the potato salad and fried chicken .
Episcopalians: 3
One to call the electrician, one to mix the drinks and one to talk about how much better the old one was.
Mormons: 5
One man to change the bulb, and four wives to tell him how to do it.
Methodists: Undetermined
Whether your light is bright, dull, or completely out, you are loved. You can be a light bulb, turnip bulb, or tulip bulb. Bring a bulb of your choice to the Sunday lighting service and a covered dish to pass.
Nazarene: 6
One woman to replace the bulb while five men review church lighting policy.
Lutherans: None
Lutherans don't believe in change.
Unitarians:
We choose not to make a statement either in favor of or against the need for a light bulb. However, if in your own journey you have found that light bulbs work for you, you are invited to write a poem or compose a modern dance about your light bulb for the next Sunday service, in which we will explore a number of light bulb traditions, including incandescent, fluorescent, 3-way, long-life and tinted, all of which are equally valid paths to luminescence.
Amish: What's a light bulb?
Monday, October 23, 2006
A Little Lone Star Theology
There were four churches in a small, Texas town: the Presbyterian Church, the Baptist Church, the Roman Catholic Church and the Methodist Church.
Each church was overrun with pesky squirrels. The Presbyterians called a meeting to decide what to do about the squirrels; and after prayer and consideration, they determined the squirrels were predestined to be there and they shouldn’t interfere with God’s divine will.
The Baptist folks found the squirrels had taken up abode in the baptistery, committing the sin of trespassing. They decided to put a cover on the baptistery and drown the squirrels therein. The squirrels escaped and returned the next week.
The Catholic Church group decided they were not in a position to harm any of God’s creatures. So they trapped the squirrels and took them a few miles out of town. Three days later, the squirrels returned.
The Methodist Church baptized the squirrels and registered them as members of the flock. Now they only see them on Christmas and Easter.
--------------------------------------------
The Unitarian corollary:
Since this is Texas, the locals don't consider Unitarianism a real religion, since no one burns in Hell, but the town had a Unitarian church for same just the same, which also found itself pestered by squirrels.
The Unitarians first formed a committee and found a person of suitable character to Chair. New committees must be authorized by the Board of Trustees, so it was delayed a month.
The new Committee found an available room in which to hold their meeting -- and those rooms are becoming more difficult to find. The secretary was notified to put an announcement in the Order of Service insert notifying the members of such a meeting.
A sub-committee was formed to supply refreshments and two members volunteered to help set up the room. The meeting was opened to discussion by the Chair.
Some members wanted to set traps; others dissented on humane grounds. A fence was ruled out for aesthetic reasons. Keeping all doors closed to the kitchen would not be practical.
After the stressful two-hour session, it was unanimously concluded that a class on History, Culture and Care of Squirrels would be the most practical solution. After all, they said, we are a Welcoming Society.
Each church was overrun with pesky squirrels. The Presbyterians called a meeting to decide what to do about the squirrels; and after prayer and consideration, they determined the squirrels were predestined to be there and they shouldn’t interfere with God’s divine will.
The Baptist folks found the squirrels had taken up abode in the baptistery, committing the sin of trespassing. They decided to put a cover on the baptistery and drown the squirrels therein. The squirrels escaped and returned the next week.
The Catholic Church group decided they were not in a position to harm any of God’s creatures. So they trapped the squirrels and took them a few miles out of town. Three days later, the squirrels returned.
The Methodist Church baptized the squirrels and registered them as members of the flock. Now they only see them on Christmas and Easter.
--------------------------------------------
The Unitarian corollary:
Since this is Texas, the locals don't consider Unitarianism a real religion, since no one burns in Hell, but the town had a Unitarian church for same just the same, which also found itself pestered by squirrels.
The Unitarians first formed a committee and found a person of suitable character to Chair. New committees must be authorized by the Board of Trustees, so it was delayed a month.
The new Committee found an available room in which to hold their meeting -- and those rooms are becoming more difficult to find. The secretary was notified to put an announcement in the Order of Service insert notifying the members of such a meeting.
A sub-committee was formed to supply refreshments and two members volunteered to help set up the room. The meeting was opened to discussion by the Chair.
Some members wanted to set traps; others dissented on humane grounds. A fence was ruled out for aesthetic reasons. Keeping all doors closed to the kitchen would not be practical.
After the stressful two-hour session, it was unanimously concluded that a class on History, Culture and Care of Squirrels would be the most practical solution. After all, they said, we are a Welcoming Society.
Sunday, October 22, 2006
Save the Children
Bono is at a U2 concert in Glasgow when he asks the audience for some quiet.
Then in the silence, he starts to slowly clap his hands.
Holding the audience in total silence, he says softly and seriously into the microphone ...
"Every time I clap my hands, a child in Africa dies......"
A voice from near the front pierces the silence: "Well, fuckin' stop doin' it then!"
Then in the silence, he starts to slowly clap his hands.
Holding the audience in total silence, he says softly and seriously into the microphone ...
"Every time I clap my hands, a child in Africa dies......"
A voice from near the front pierces the silence: "Well, fuckin' stop doin' it then!"
Why Conservatives (Still) Can't Govern
Dani,
Some brief responses to your reply.
The Founders’ idea of an elite republic was doomed from the start. Had the country never expanded off the Eastern seaboard we probably would have gone through the same fights about expanding the franchise as Britain. Kentucky and Tennessee changed that. The small landowners who settled and then organized the over-the-Appalachian states weren’t about to establish constitutions which disenfranchised them. Once (more or less) general suffrage became the norm over the hills, people in the seaboard states took a look and said, “waitaminnit, we want that too” and the notion of elite republicanism died fast.
Good thing too. The history of elitish rule doesn’t recommend itself as any better than the huddled masses.
As for modern vs. classic conservatism, George Will described it best as a fight between Western and Southern Conservatism. Western conservatism is built around the sanctity of private property as is small-government, socially libertarian. If you wanna fornicate with a monkey, that’s sick but just don’t do it on –my- property. This is the Founders’ Classic Liberal philosophy transported to Wyoming and Montana. The Social types hate government except when it’s enforcing how you’re supposed to live your day-to-day life. Will finds a marriage of convenience between the two because of similar views on taxes and support for business. (Kind of life internationalist liberals and U.S. Out of Everywhere liberals in the Dem Party who generally agree on domestic social and economic policy.)
Conservatives couldn’t govern after 1994 and then 2000 because they could never offer any credible alternatives to the on-the-ground issues the liberal welfare state was set up to meet. Facing down abstract “big government” was easy. Staring down dedicated earmarks to the home district and the widows and orphans cruelly thrown out onto the street by domestic program cutbacks (bad for re-election, you know) proved well beyond them. In short, as Will and others note, it was a failure of nerve. They just didn’t have the eggs to do it.
Which proves that conservatives are really just a bunch of sissies.
Terry Preston
-----------------------------------------
From: Dani Renan
Sent: Saturday, October 21, 2006 11:35 PMTo: Terry Preston; Alice Mercer
Subject: Why Conservatives Can't Govern
Terry, Here's some observations on Alan Wolf's excellent article Why Conservatives Can't Govern posted on the July 8, 2006 of your blog. Feel free to post it. For everyone else Terry's blog is: http://fromthemountaintop.blogspot.com/and the the original article is posted on http://www.geocities.com/leroys_dad/conservatives_cant.htm
Dani==============================================================Alan
Wolfe's Why Conservatives Can't Govern in the July/August 2006 edition of Washington Monthly (July 8, 2006 ed. of Terry Preston's From the Mountaintop blog) was illuminating in the historical and philosophical reasons behind the blatant obvious unmitigated disaster known as the Bush Administration (or lack there of).
The article shows Wolf's detailed knowledge of modern American history. However, it also shows the problems in American academia of dividing and compartmentalizing American history (and pretty much world history) into the history of America until 1865 and then into another compartment from 1865 to the present.
There are courses given for each period, and usually by different professors. With such a universal division comes totally different emphasis on the analysis and then the approaches to the analysis ending up in totally different paradigms and often different language. It is obvious that Wolf's expertise is in the more modern period. Unfortunately his brief analysis on the period of the founding fathers projects modern terms back and the labels mistakenly attribute ideas or philosophies to individuals that incorrect and at the time would have been considered libelous. This is not an attack against Wolf. It is to the academic system. In fact, Wolf is an exception to the norm, which is near total ignorance outside their fields. Wolf's mistakes are few and clear so that they are easily pointed out.
His statement Alexander Hamilton and John Marshall wanted to see a strong national government created to improve America's economic prospects, even if they retained an aristocratic sense that only social superiors should control that government is only partially correct.
Yes, they did want to see a strong central government. But so did James Madison who was the third author of the Federalist papers, and a "liberal" Jeffersonian Democrat-Republican. All agreed to the basic notion of Federalism, sovereign States that gave up some of their sovereignty to the Federal government. The question was how much and in what fields. All agreed for the common defense. Nearly everyone (except later J.C. Calhoun) agreed to have the Federal law as supreme.
As far as that only social superiors should control the government, that is a stretch. Because if it were based on birth, Hamilton, having been a bastard from St. Nevis, would have been excluded. If it included people such as Hamilton based on social mobility, that was no different from Jefferson's Aristocracy of Merit. The idea of social mobility was well established in most states, especially in the South and in Mid-Atlantic states. In Virginia suffrage was based on land ownership. But a study showed that during the late colonial period some 85% of white males owned land within 10 years of immigrating to the state. In the mid-Atlantic states, especially New York.with high immigration social mobility was very pronounced.
As Wolf explains, Conservatism has usually been linked to supporting welcomed the intervention of a state_affiliated clergy in politics. However, as he noted, those that tried to inject religion into the public forum soon ran up against the skepticism of the Founding Fathers and conceptions of religious liberty associated with dissenting Protestantism.
Alexander Hamilton, as far as I know, left no polemics on the subject. However, his actions show a high distain for any organized religion, in either the public or private forum. His personal history, being a bastard that was refused entrance to any schools (which were all in the hands of the various churches) in St. Nevis, ended up being educated in the local synagogue, apparently influenced his views on the subject. He could, at most, be considered to be a Conservative in the mold of Barry Goldwater in regard to this subject. His statement that John Adams outdid them on behalf of a strong executive; he thought our first president should be addressed as a monarch is also a misnomer. It is true that Adams wanted the President to be addressed as Your Highness or Excellency or something more monarchial. But that was because he had been an Ambassador in Europe, and wanted the President to be viewed as equal to the European monarchs.
He considered "Mr. President" to be rather insulting, something that one addressed the President of the local fire company or cricket club. He was astonished at the claim that he was a closest Monarchist, since he believed that his credentials as a republican were beyond reproach, that in fact he was instrumental at creating the republic (based on David McCullough's work John Adams). Adams was a strong believer in the Rule of Law, to the extent that he defended the British troops that fired on the crowd in the "Boston Massacre," no small feat for one who was already an active revolutionary. His split with Jefferson was over the reaction to the excesses of the French Revolution.
Jefferson was accepting of the terror in that the ends justifies the means, and Adams was horrified. These political traits are definitely not those that Wolf classifies as a Conservative. (Jefferson later recanted to Adams). In his latter years Adams wrote a pamphlet called "The First American Revolution" in which he explains that the original Revolution was social - the 30 to 50 years before the political-military phase, in which the American people began to view themselves as separate and establishing institutions and manners that were local and knowingly different from Mother England. These included the political local representation to the change in moving the fork to the right hand after cutting, in table manners. The egalitarianism was pronounced if not exaggerated to differentiate from the haughty English class society. Again not hallmarks of Conservative analysis and ideology.
It is also interesting to note that the term Democracy was avoided during and in the aftermath of the Revolution. To our founding fathers, who were well schooled in classical history, the model for Democracy was the Radical Athenian model, which was a complete failure and which they considered characterized by mob-rule. Even Jefferson emphasized the term Republican eschewing Democracy in fear of the "mob."
It took nearly a generation for the republican institutions to sink in and be accepted, in order for people to be comfortable with the term democracy.
But as he noted, things, and even terminology and ideology changes. It took conservatives, who in the 18th and early 19th century supported quasi_feudal states and distrusted the instabilities of the market, a hundred years to become advocates of laissez faire. And under the imperatives of the K Street Project, it took them just five to abandon their belief in laissez faire to support a corrupt business_government partnership bearing striking resemblance to feudalism.
This review of Wolf's brief analysis of the politics of the founding fathers, shows that Wolf takes the "conventual wisdom" about our founding fathers for his analysis. Interestingly, a deeper look at the political Zeitgeist of the early Republic shows that so-called conservatives of the American Revolution were quite liberal, and would be an anathema to most modern Conservatives, strengthening Wolf's basic argument.
Some brief responses to your reply.
The Founders’ idea of an elite republic was doomed from the start. Had the country never expanded off the Eastern seaboard we probably would have gone through the same fights about expanding the franchise as Britain. Kentucky and Tennessee changed that. The small landowners who settled and then organized the over-the-Appalachian states weren’t about to establish constitutions which disenfranchised them. Once (more or less) general suffrage became the norm over the hills, people in the seaboard states took a look and said, “waitaminnit, we want that too” and the notion of elite republicanism died fast.
Good thing too. The history of elitish rule doesn’t recommend itself as any better than the huddled masses.
As for modern vs. classic conservatism, George Will described it best as a fight between Western and Southern Conservatism. Western conservatism is built around the sanctity of private property as is small-government, socially libertarian. If you wanna fornicate with a monkey, that’s sick but just don’t do it on –my- property. This is the Founders’ Classic Liberal philosophy transported to Wyoming and Montana. The Social types hate government except when it’s enforcing how you’re supposed to live your day-to-day life. Will finds a marriage of convenience between the two because of similar views on taxes and support for business. (Kind of life internationalist liberals and U.S. Out of Everywhere liberals in the Dem Party who generally agree on domestic social and economic policy.)
Conservatives couldn’t govern after 1994 and then 2000 because they could never offer any credible alternatives to the on-the-ground issues the liberal welfare state was set up to meet. Facing down abstract “big government” was easy. Staring down dedicated earmarks to the home district and the widows and orphans cruelly thrown out onto the street by domestic program cutbacks (bad for re-election, you know) proved well beyond them. In short, as Will and others note, it was a failure of nerve. They just didn’t have the eggs to do it.
Which proves that conservatives are really just a bunch of sissies.
Terry Preston
-----------------------------------------
From: Dani Renan
Sent: Saturday, October 21, 2006 11:35 PMTo: Terry Preston; Alice Mercer
Subject: Why Conservatives Can't Govern
Terry, Here's some observations on Alan Wolf's excellent article Why Conservatives Can't Govern posted on the July 8, 2006 of your blog. Feel free to post it. For everyone else Terry's blog is: http://fromthemountaintop.blogspot.com/and the the original article is posted on http://www.geocities.com/leroys_dad/conservatives_cant.htm
Dani==============================================================Alan
Wolfe's Why Conservatives Can't Govern in the July/August 2006 edition of Washington Monthly (July 8, 2006 ed. of Terry Preston's From the Mountaintop blog) was illuminating in the historical and philosophical reasons behind the blatant obvious unmitigated disaster known as the Bush Administration (or lack there of).
The article shows Wolf's detailed knowledge of modern American history. However, it also shows the problems in American academia of dividing and compartmentalizing American history (and pretty much world history) into the history of America until 1865 and then into another compartment from 1865 to the present.
There are courses given for each period, and usually by different professors. With such a universal division comes totally different emphasis on the analysis and then the approaches to the analysis ending up in totally different paradigms and often different language. It is obvious that Wolf's expertise is in the more modern period. Unfortunately his brief analysis on the period of the founding fathers projects modern terms back and the labels mistakenly attribute ideas or philosophies to individuals that incorrect and at the time would have been considered libelous. This is not an attack against Wolf. It is to the academic system. In fact, Wolf is an exception to the norm, which is near total ignorance outside their fields. Wolf's mistakes are few and clear so that they are easily pointed out.
His statement Alexander Hamilton and John Marshall wanted to see a strong national government created to improve America's economic prospects, even if they retained an aristocratic sense that only social superiors should control that government is only partially correct.
Yes, they did want to see a strong central government. But so did James Madison who was the third author of the Federalist papers, and a "liberal" Jeffersonian Democrat-Republican. All agreed to the basic notion of Federalism, sovereign States that gave up some of their sovereignty to the Federal government. The question was how much and in what fields. All agreed for the common defense. Nearly everyone (except later J.C. Calhoun) agreed to have the Federal law as supreme.
As far as that only social superiors should control the government, that is a stretch. Because if it were based on birth, Hamilton, having been a bastard from St. Nevis, would have been excluded. If it included people such as Hamilton based on social mobility, that was no different from Jefferson's Aristocracy of Merit. The idea of social mobility was well established in most states, especially in the South and in Mid-Atlantic states. In Virginia suffrage was based on land ownership. But a study showed that during the late colonial period some 85% of white males owned land within 10 years of immigrating to the state. In the mid-Atlantic states, especially New York.with high immigration social mobility was very pronounced.
As Wolf explains, Conservatism has usually been linked to supporting welcomed the intervention of a state_affiliated clergy in politics. However, as he noted, those that tried to inject religion into the public forum soon ran up against the skepticism of the Founding Fathers and conceptions of religious liberty associated with dissenting Protestantism.
Alexander Hamilton, as far as I know, left no polemics on the subject. However, his actions show a high distain for any organized religion, in either the public or private forum. His personal history, being a bastard that was refused entrance to any schools (which were all in the hands of the various churches) in St. Nevis, ended up being educated in the local synagogue, apparently influenced his views on the subject. He could, at most, be considered to be a Conservative in the mold of Barry Goldwater in regard to this subject. His statement that John Adams outdid them on behalf of a strong executive; he thought our first president should be addressed as a monarch is also a misnomer. It is true that Adams wanted the President to be addressed as Your Highness or Excellency or something more monarchial. But that was because he had been an Ambassador in Europe, and wanted the President to be viewed as equal to the European monarchs.
He considered "Mr. President" to be rather insulting, something that one addressed the President of the local fire company or cricket club. He was astonished at the claim that he was a closest Monarchist, since he believed that his credentials as a republican were beyond reproach, that in fact he was instrumental at creating the republic (based on David McCullough's work John Adams). Adams was a strong believer in the Rule of Law, to the extent that he defended the British troops that fired on the crowd in the "Boston Massacre," no small feat for one who was already an active revolutionary. His split with Jefferson was over the reaction to the excesses of the French Revolution.
Jefferson was accepting of the terror in that the ends justifies the means, and Adams was horrified. These political traits are definitely not those that Wolf classifies as a Conservative. (Jefferson later recanted to Adams). In his latter years Adams wrote a pamphlet called "The First American Revolution" in which he explains that the original Revolution was social - the 30 to 50 years before the political-military phase, in which the American people began to view themselves as separate and establishing institutions and manners that were local and knowingly different from Mother England. These included the political local representation to the change in moving the fork to the right hand after cutting, in table manners. The egalitarianism was pronounced if not exaggerated to differentiate from the haughty English class society. Again not hallmarks of Conservative analysis and ideology.
It is also interesting to note that the term Democracy was avoided during and in the aftermath of the Revolution. To our founding fathers, who were well schooled in classical history, the model for Democracy was the Radical Athenian model, which was a complete failure and which they considered characterized by mob-rule. Even Jefferson emphasized the term Republican eschewing Democracy in fear of the "mob."
It took nearly a generation for the republican institutions to sink in and be accepted, in order for people to be comfortable with the term democracy.
But as he noted, things, and even terminology and ideology changes. It took conservatives, who in the 18th and early 19th century supported quasi_feudal states and distrusted the instabilities of the market, a hundred years to become advocates of laissez faire. And under the imperatives of the K Street Project, it took them just five to abandon their belief in laissez faire to support a corrupt business_government partnership bearing striking resemblance to feudalism.
This review of Wolf's brief analysis of the politics of the founding fathers, shows that Wolf takes the "conventual wisdom" about our founding fathers for his analysis. Interestingly, a deeper look at the political Zeitgeist of the early Republic shows that so-called conservatives of the American Revolution were quite liberal, and would be an anathema to most modern Conservatives, strengthening Wolf's basic argument.
Saturday, October 21, 2006
Saturday, July 08, 2006
Why Conservatives Can't Govern
For a great discussion of the inherent contradiction of conservative government:
http://www.geocities.com/leroys_dad/conservatives_cant.htm
http://www.geocities.com/leroys_dad/conservatives_cant.htm
Sunday, June 25, 2006
Friday, June 23, 2006
God and Walmart in Arkansas - Oy vey!
From the Interfaith Coalition:
Wal-Mart Transforms Arkansas Town Into Multi-Faith Mini-Metropolis
“Residents of Benton County, in the northwest corner of Arkansas, are proud citizens of the Bible Belt. At last count, they filled 39 Baptist, 27 United Methodist and 20 Assembly of God churches.
For decades, a local hospital has begun meetings with a reading from the New Testament and the library has featured an elaborate Christmas display. Then the Wal-Mart Jews arrived.
Recruited from around the country as workers for Wal-Mart or one of its suppliers, hundreds of which have opened offices near the retailer's headquarters here, a growing number of Jewish families have become increasingly vocal proponents of religious neutrality in the county. They have asked school principals to rename Christmas vacation as winter break (many have) and lobbied the mayor's office to put a menorah on the town square (it did).
Wal-Mart has transformed small towns across America, but perhaps its greatest impact has been on Bentonville, where the migration of executives from cities like New York, Boston and Atlanta has turned this sedate rural community into a teeming mini-metropolis populated by Hindus, Muslims and Jews.” (New York Times, “In Wal-Mart's Home, Synagogue Signals Growth,” 06-20-06)
Democratic Panel Limits New Primary States
by HOLLY RAMER, Associated Press Writer
Published 12:13 pm PDT Thursday, June 22, 2006
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - A Democratic National Committee panel considering changes to the presidential primary calendar voted Thursday to allow just two other states to join Iowa and New Hampshire in voting early in 2008.
If the full DNC adopts the recommendation, one state would be allowed to hold a caucus between Iowa's caucus and the New Hampshire primary, and a second would hold a primary shortly after the New Hampshire contest.
Supporters said limiting the new states to two instead of the four some had proposed would accomplish the goal of increasing racial and ethnic diversity without front-loading the calendar or diminishing the traditional roles of Iowa and New Hampshire. Both states have been criticized as unrepresentative of the country given their size and nearly all-white populations.
"I think the diversity we want to achieve in terms of race and union membership and geography and all those other things can be looked at from the context of achieving some, but not all, in the context of the extra primary, and some, but not all, in the context of the extra caucus," Ralph Dawson of New York said during a Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting by conference call. ....
But Mark Brewer of Michigan said the plan doesn't go far enough and suggested adding three or four other states.
"I don't think we're going to achieve the goals this reform is intended to achieve," he said.
Also voting against the proposal was Kathy Sullivan of New Hampshire, who said compressing four events into 18 days will force candidates to pick among them rather than participate in all four.
"I fully support the idea of having more diversity in the process. However, I don't believe this process is going to work to produce a field of candidates that will be running in all the states," she said.
She also noted that the plan could violate New Hampshire law, which requires the state's primary to be scheduled a week or more before any "similar election." The state could face sanctions if it doesn't comply with the Democrats' guidelines.
Ten states plus the District of Columbia have applied to fill the two slots: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Hawaii, Michigan, Mississippi, Nevada, South Carolina and West Virginia.
The committee will meet next month to select the two states.
------------------------
The Democrats needs to stop dancing around this stuff and just set up a phased series of primaries which each inludes a balanced lineup of large and small states. This could be partially regional in nature to hold down travel costs, but overall there should be a clear set schedule running from New Hampshire through June.
The current “frontloaded” system is a total wreck. Many of the candidates wade through snow drifts most of the way as every state back leaps everyone else to get to be first. Remember when Super Tuesday actually meant something? (Like giving Jesse Jackson frontrunner status, in one of the marvelous unintended consequences of Democratic political history.) The wholr thing is pretty much done by mid-March, leaving months and months and months of abolutely nothing until the summer conventions.
This is not rocket science. Everyone has a map. We see which states are big, which states are small, which states are industrial and which states are rural. Figure out a reasonable schedule and nag the relevant states to set it up. The Reps might even go along with it because a lot of them have a similar complaint about the process.
Let’s have campaigns instead of drag races. It’s a helluva lot more interesting when you get to run instead of roar. It builds drama, builds momentum and never quite know where it'll take you. And isn't that what politics is all about?
Published 12:13 pm PDT Thursday, June 22, 2006
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - A Democratic National Committee panel considering changes to the presidential primary calendar voted Thursday to allow just two other states to join Iowa and New Hampshire in voting early in 2008.
If the full DNC adopts the recommendation, one state would be allowed to hold a caucus between Iowa's caucus and the New Hampshire primary, and a second would hold a primary shortly after the New Hampshire contest.
Supporters said limiting the new states to two instead of the four some had proposed would accomplish the goal of increasing racial and ethnic diversity without front-loading the calendar or diminishing the traditional roles of Iowa and New Hampshire. Both states have been criticized as unrepresentative of the country given their size and nearly all-white populations.
"I think the diversity we want to achieve in terms of race and union membership and geography and all those other things can be looked at from the context of achieving some, but not all, in the context of the extra primary, and some, but not all, in the context of the extra caucus," Ralph Dawson of New York said during a Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting by conference call. ....
But Mark Brewer of Michigan said the plan doesn't go far enough and suggested adding three or four other states.
"I don't think we're going to achieve the goals this reform is intended to achieve," he said.
Also voting against the proposal was Kathy Sullivan of New Hampshire, who said compressing four events into 18 days will force candidates to pick among them rather than participate in all four.
"I fully support the idea of having more diversity in the process. However, I don't believe this process is going to work to produce a field of candidates that will be running in all the states," she said.
She also noted that the plan could violate New Hampshire law, which requires the state's primary to be scheduled a week or more before any "similar election." The state could face sanctions if it doesn't comply with the Democrats' guidelines.
Ten states plus the District of Columbia have applied to fill the two slots: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Hawaii, Michigan, Mississippi, Nevada, South Carolina and West Virginia.
The committee will meet next month to select the two states.
------------------------
The Democrats needs to stop dancing around this stuff and just set up a phased series of primaries which each inludes a balanced lineup of large and small states. This could be partially regional in nature to hold down travel costs, but overall there should be a clear set schedule running from New Hampshire through June.
The current “frontloaded” system is a total wreck. Many of the candidates wade through snow drifts most of the way as every state back leaps everyone else to get to be first. Remember when Super Tuesday actually meant something? (Like giving Jesse Jackson frontrunner status, in one of the marvelous unintended consequences of Democratic political history.) The wholr thing is pretty much done by mid-March, leaving months and months and months of abolutely nothing until the summer conventions.
This is not rocket science. Everyone has a map. We see which states are big, which states are small, which states are industrial and which states are rural. Figure out a reasonable schedule and nag the relevant states to set it up. The Reps might even go along with it because a lot of them have a similar complaint about the process.
Let’s have campaigns instead of drag races. It’s a helluva lot more interesting when you get to run instead of roar. It builds drama, builds momentum and never quite know where it'll take you. And isn't that what politics is all about?
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
The Longest Day
Left - partygoers greet the summer solstice at Stonehenge.
Pagans have all the fun. They party when the sun comes up. They party when the sun goes down. They party when the moon comes up. They party when the moon goes down. They party when the days get shorter. They party when the days get longer.
It’s truly a testament to Christianity's sheer persistence that it won out over these folks in Europe.
Fortunately, kids still wanna have fun in, and all these pagan celebrations are just the thing for the frisky young partygoers in any era.
Summer solstice is a sad day for me. It means the days are getting shorter. It’s odd that the summer sun spends less and less time with you. Think of classic summer and you think of long hot nights which seem to go on forever. Maybe that’s part of the attraction. If the fun really starts after the sun goes down then maybe the ever shorter days are nature’s gifts to us.
Think spring and you think changing weather, rains and new flowers. Few think of long nights. But the day is as long on April 20 as it is on August 20. Yet even in Sacramento it’s rarely hot by that time. Despite the pagan calendar, to me, spring officially begins when daylight savings time arrives in early April. Spring to me means the start of long walks on pleasant evenings, a chance to reacquaint myself with neighbors and community. I even dedicate my first stroll after the clocks snap forward. It’s my own mental and spiritual spring fertility rite.
So now, after the summer solstice has come and gone, it’s BBQ in the back yard, meeting the neighbors at the community pool and taking in the sounds of the season on a quiet evening. Maybe it’s good that the days get shorter during summer. It reminds us that it doesn’t last forever.
Monday, June 19, 2006
Sign of the Times
Seen on a Sacramento area bumpersticker yesterday:
"I'm already against the next war."
"I'm already against the next war."
Sunday, June 18, 2006
Father's Day
It’s cool being a dad today. No one expects you to do anything so anything you do makes you look like Mother Theresa in boxers.
I loved driving around Oakland with Leroy, playing with him in the park, reading to him in the library and hanging with him in coffee shops. I got loads of “ooh, ahh!” looks, free snacks and coffee. “Be a dad and get stuff!” What a slogan.
Nothing beats changing a diaper in public if you’re a dad. There you are, swabbing poop off your son’s butt and people stare and nearly swoon over the sight. Since we’re still stuck in a social expectation that moms do all the work, dads get a handicap just for showing up.
The expectation is a pretty new thing. In a story I recall titled something like “The Short History of the Traditional Family”, the author noted that the experience of men leaving the home to travel far away to work is a consequence of the industrial age. Before the factories went up, most people like on farms and in small towns.
Dads simply didn’t have to go far to go to work. Farmers work at home, with the “office’ right outside the front door. Tradesmen, like blacksmiths or even professionals such as attorneys, kept offices at or near home. Dads could and often were instrumental in childrearing. Women often had to help bring in money too, in some way, so parenting had to be shared. Only when the industrial age arrived could many families afford to keep mom unemployed and at home.
For today’s dads who are working back toward the real “olden days”, not the crap we see on 1950’s and ‘60s teevee, it means a donation of latte or French fries as they work back to the real role of dads down through the ages. Don’t tell anyone that there’s nothing odd or unique about it. At four bucks a throw, a nice latte tastes best when it’s free.
Friday, June 16, 2006
The World (yawn) Cup
The photo to the left of two passionate supporters of Sweden's World Cup soccer team is all you need to know about why the US will never take the Cup as seriously as the rest of the planet. We simply can't meet this standard of devotion.
Not that I care. I honestly don’t care. I’m sick and tired of being told that I should care because Botswana, the Ukraine and Honduras care. If they want a world soccer championship so bad that it causes hometown women so cavort shamelessly then hey, cool. More power to them. But that doesn’t mean I have to care.
Soccer to me is bunch of guys kicking a ball and kicking a ball and kicking a ball until someone finally scores. It’s like hockey in that whenever anyone does score it’s so surprising that the announcer has a stroke, the players react with stunned disbelief and any player who does it more than three times gets nominated for sainthood in any Catholic country.
It's dull. Extremely dull. And unlike the Swedes and Brazilians, we'll never have the kind of fans who could make it a heckuva lot more interesting. Even the Poles know how to play. Their hooligans wanted to organize a World Cup ass-kicking tournament, my thug vs. yours, and make the best set of brass knuckles win.
Soccer looks like a sport which is a heckuva lot more fun to play than watch. I’ve had friends who play on the weekend and come in on Monday looking like they’ve gone to the mat with a horny mountain goat. But for me, yawn.
I write this as a local Sacramento sports writer goes on record against a local station choosing to honor its contract with the WNBA champion Sacramento Monarchs over the US vs. Italy game at the same time. Chill, the station says, we’ll run the game on tape delay after the Monarchs game. Horrors, says the writer. This is World Cup soccer and you’re letting lady basketball players trump ‘em?
Yes, because there are still probably more people around here who would rather watch ladies dribbling than Eyeties embarrassing Americans in a game few Americans really care about. Welcome to the real world of sports marketing, dude.
It’s not that I’ve never been exposed to soccer. I grew up near San Francisco’s Balboa Soccer Stadium, where marvelously named teams like the Hibernians and Sons of Italy took on Guadalajara and the Arab Americans. You could tell who played who after each game by the bottles left behind. Rose and Dos Equis meant the Sons vs. Guadalajara. Soccer was offered during gym class. But as a spectator sport I’d rather watch lacrosse. And I really don’t like lacrosse either.
So World, have your Cup. Enjoy your festive womenfolk. Party on like it’s 2099.
Just don’t bother me with it. I’m waiting for the Giants vs. Tigers in the 2006 World Series.
San Francisco Uber Alles
A shameless cross-post, but relevant:---------------------------
By Garrison Keillor
Jun. 07, 2006 / People who live in mud huts should not throw mud, especially if it comes from their own roofs. As Scripture says, don't point to the speck in your neighbor's eye when you have a piece of kindling in your own.
I see by the papers that the Republicans want to make an issue of Nancy Pelosi in the congressional races this fall: Would you want a San Francisco woman to be Speaker of the House? Will the podium be repainted in lavender stripes with a disco ball overhead? Will she be borne into the chamber by male dancers with glistening torsos and wearing pink tutus? After all, in the unique worldview of old elephants, San Francisco is a code word for g-a-y, and after assembling a record of government lies, incompetence and disaster, the party in power hopes that the fear of g-a-y-s will pull it through in November.
Running against Nancy Pelosi, a woman who comes from a district where there are known gay persons, is a nice trick, but it does draw attention to the large shambling galoot who is speaker now, Tom DeLay's enabler for years, a man who, judging by his public mutterances, is about as smart as most high school wrestling coaches.
For the past year, Dennis Hastert has been two heartbeats from the presidency. He is a man who seems content just to have a car and driver and three square meals a day. He has no apparent vision beyond the urge to hang onto power. He has succeeded in turning Congress into a branch of the executive branch. If Mr. Hastert becomes the poster boy for the Republican Party, this does not speak well for them as the Party of Ideas.
People who want to take a swing at San Francisco should think twice.
Yes, the Irish coffee at Fisherman's Wharf is overpriced, and the bus tour of Haight-Ashbury is disappointing (where are the hippies?), but the Bay Area is the cradle of the computer and software industry, which continues to create jobs for our children. The iPod was not developed by Baptists in Waco , Texas . There may be a reason for this.
Creative people thrive in a climate of openness and tolerance, since some great ideas start out sounding ridiculous. Creativity is a key to economic progress. Authoritarianism is stifling. I don't believe that Mr. Hewlett and Mr. Packard were gay, but what's important is:
In San Francisco, it doesn't matter so much. When the cultural Sturmbannfuhrers try to marshal everyone into straight lines, it has consequences for the economic future of this country.
Meanwhile, the Current Occupant goes on impersonating a president.
Somewhere in the quiet leafy recesses of the Bush family, somebody is thinking, "Wrong son. Should've tried the smart one." This one's eyes don't quite focus. Five years in office and he doesn't have a grip on it yet. You stand him up next to Tony Blair at a press conference and the comparison is not kind to Our Guy. Historians are starting to place him at or near the bottom of the list. And one of the basic assumptions of American culture is falling apart: the competence of Republicans.
You might not have always liked Republicans, but you could count on them to manage the bank. They might be lousy tippers, act snooty, talk through their noses, wear spats and splash mud on you as they race their Pierce-Arrows through the village, but you knew they could do the math. To see them produce a ninny and then follow him loyally into the swamp for five years is disconcerting, like seeing the Rolling Stones take up lite jazz. So here we are at an uneasy point in our history, mired in a costly war and getting nowhere, a supine Congress granting absolute power to a president who seems to get smaller and dimmer, and the best the Republicans can offer is San Franciscophobia? This is beyond pitiful. This is violently stupid.
It is painful to look at your father and realize the old man should not be allowed to manage his own money anymore. This is the discovery the country has made about the party in power. They are inept. The checkbook needs to be taken away. They will rant, they will screech, they will wave their canes at you and call you all sorts of names, but you have to do what you have to do.
----------------------------
Again, ain't it funny that the people most afeared of the homos don't have any themselves? And that the places most likely to be hit by terrorists, like San Francisco, object the most to the "war on terror?"
Thursday, June 15, 2006
School's Out
Whew. I never knew the end of the semester could come with such a rush. And I don't even go to school.
Last Friday was the last day of my son Leroy's second grade year. It was a good year, too. His record card was good, he's got a crew of buddies who want to get together over the summer and the P.E. teacher still calls him a model student. So why am I pooped?
I feel like I've just left my second job. Managing getting him out of the house, getting him into bath and bad and everything in between is a lotta work. A whole lotta work. The challenge of doing it tag team with your working wife is that you gotta manage the tag teaming on top of it. Someone's gotta keep track of whether the field trip form was returned, and who's attending the teacher's meeting and whether his library book is in his backpack to be returned to school. Oh yeah, today's kids get to bring a snack to school to eat during recess. Leroy helps us remember that in the morning.
Then we're off to school, a three block walk with the (literal) girl next door, a highly sociable kindergartener Leroy's been friends with for two and half years. It's like herding cats.
Walking to school got me involved in a local project to get more kids to walk and bike to school. I grew up in San Francisco, and walking was -the- way we got to school. My momma wouldn't looked at me liked I was nuts if I suggested she had some moral obligation to drive me to school, which was around ten blocks away, over a freeway and through a busy intersection near a BART regional transit station.
I wouldn't have asked her anyway. Heck, I'd miss the fun of walking in and walking back home with my own crew. But that was then. Today, kids more than not are driven in by parents, often on the way to work. It's rush, rush, rush, then drive, drive, drive and then start the school day in the middle of a small traffic jam outside school. It ain't right.
So some parents and I started the Bannon Creek Traffic Tamers to get more kids to walk and bike to school. We held events, put out a newsletter and got teachers to help us bring the message into the classroom. But it was work.
So now, summer is here, and the living is easy. Or easier. Now it's just getting Leroy to his summer camps, two weeks at his school year aftercare, a week at church camp, a week at a rock climbing camp (fake rocks) and a week at a Zoo camp. Nothing much to manage.
Thursday, May 04, 2006
In The Year 2026
The Republican president, in the second year of his second term and needing a win, decided to take on immigration policy reform, to win a victory for his “legacy”, something to be remembered by. Presidents usually don’t have much political capital to spend at this point, so a win here would go far in the eyes of the pundits and historians.
The proposed measure was built around amnesty for illegal immigrants currently in the country and increased sanctions for employers who hired illegal immigrants in the future. Many conservatives thought it rewarded illegal behavior and worried about an army of papists overrunning the land. Liberals generally applauded, but felt it didn’t go far enough and worried about employer sanctions justifying workplace discrimination against legal residents. The proposal passed with enough cross party support to override these political concerns.
This isn’t a crystal ball’s look into 2007. It’s a look back to 1986.
We’ve been here before. We’ll no doubt be here again twenty years from now too.The forces pulling at immigration from down south is strong. It’s the only place where the First and Third Worlds live in such close proximity and along such a long border. There’s nothing natural about the border, except a murky ditch along the eastern end which came in handy when drawing lines after the Mexican War but has rarely been much of a hindrance to people going in either direction over it. People are going to come. There’s no stopping it.
So I figure that the “immigration reform” debate is just something we’ll have to put up with every generation. As the economy grows it will require cheap labor, and cheap labor will come to meet the need. Eventually, this will well up into a national debate, frightening many and encouraging others. We’ll have rallies, angry militias and congressional proposals. We’ll come up with a new amnesty, new requirements and sanctions for employers who hire (but unless we adopt a verifiable form of electronic national work I.D, it won’t mean anything) and we’re set for another generation.
So when my son Leroy is watching this play out again in 2026, I can yawn from my rocking chair and say, “been there, done that…twice.” And tell him to mark his calendar for 2046 when he too can see it again.
The proposed measure was built around amnesty for illegal immigrants currently in the country and increased sanctions for employers who hired illegal immigrants in the future. Many conservatives thought it rewarded illegal behavior and worried about an army of papists overrunning the land. Liberals generally applauded, but felt it didn’t go far enough and worried about employer sanctions justifying workplace discrimination against legal residents. The proposal passed with enough cross party support to override these political concerns.
This isn’t a crystal ball’s look into 2007. It’s a look back to 1986.
We’ve been here before. We’ll no doubt be here again twenty years from now too.The forces pulling at immigration from down south is strong. It’s the only place where the First and Third Worlds live in such close proximity and along such a long border. There’s nothing natural about the border, except a murky ditch along the eastern end which came in handy when drawing lines after the Mexican War but has rarely been much of a hindrance to people going in either direction over it. People are going to come. There’s no stopping it.
So I figure that the “immigration reform” debate is just something we’ll have to put up with every generation. As the economy grows it will require cheap labor, and cheap labor will come to meet the need. Eventually, this will well up into a national debate, frightening many and encouraging others. We’ll have rallies, angry militias and congressional proposals. We’ll come up with a new amnesty, new requirements and sanctions for employers who hire (but unless we adopt a verifiable form of electronic national work I.D, it won’t mean anything) and we’re set for another generation.
So when my son Leroy is watching this play out again in 2026, I can yawn from my rocking chair and say, “been there, done that…twice.” And tell him to mark his calendar for 2046 when he too can see it again.
Family Ties
Ohio candidate's sons cost him county race
The Associated Press
Published 4:55 am PDT
Thursday, May 4, 2006 CASTALIA, Ohio
(AP) - You're both grounded!
Two voting-age sons of a northern Ohio candidate didn't go to the polls Tuesday, and their father's race ended in a tie.
William Crawford, trying to retain his seat on the central committee of the Erie County Democratic Party, and challenger Jean Miller each received 43 votes in the primary balloting.
Officials plan to conduct a recount, but the race may have to be settled by coin flip, said David Giese, the county's Democratic Party chairman and an elections board member.
Crawford was able to laugh about it Wednesday, but he said his sons are going to be getting an earful for skipping the election.
"Oh they will, let me tell you," Crawford said.
Son Jim lives across the street from Crawford's home in Castalia, about 45 miles southeast of Toledo, and son Andy is a college student who lives at home. Both are registered Democrats.
---------------
This is what Dad gets for not getting his sons those race cars they wanted for Xmas back when.
"Revenge is a dish best served cold." - Noonian Khan
The Associated Press
Published 4:55 am PDT
Thursday, May 4, 2006 CASTALIA, Ohio
(AP) - You're both grounded!
Two voting-age sons of a northern Ohio candidate didn't go to the polls Tuesday, and their father's race ended in a tie.
William Crawford, trying to retain his seat on the central committee of the Erie County Democratic Party, and challenger Jean Miller each received 43 votes in the primary balloting.
Officials plan to conduct a recount, but the race may have to be settled by coin flip, said David Giese, the county's Democratic Party chairman and an elections board member.
Crawford was able to laugh about it Wednesday, but he said his sons are going to be getting an earful for skipping the election.
"Oh they will, let me tell you," Crawford said.
Son Jim lives across the street from Crawford's home in Castalia, about 45 miles southeast of Toledo, and son Andy is a college student who lives at home. Both are registered Democrats.
---------------
This is what Dad gets for not getting his sons those race cars they wanted for Xmas back when.
"Revenge is a dish best served cold." - Noonian Khan
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
The Summer of 1970
A letter to SF Chronicle reporter Steve Tady, aka The Betting Fool:The Fool Wrote:
A MAYS-ING MEMORY:
The year was 1970. I was getting close to reporting to sixth grade at Portola grammar school in Los Altos, but I went to a ton of Giants games that summer.
On July 18th, I saw Willie Mays poke a grounder to left past Montreal's Coco LaBoy for his 3,000th hit. Ron Hunt was hit by a pitch, Gaylord Perry twirled a masterful four-hitter and less than 30,000 witnessed it all.
The Giants' stock lineup for much of that summer was Bonds-Hunt-Mays-McCovey-Henderson-Hart/Gallagher-Dietz-Fuentes-Lanier. Perry and Marichal were backed by Frank Reberger, Ron Bryant and Skip Pitlock.
Happy birthday, Mr. Mays.
-----------
Dear Fool,
My stars. I remember this game and this year. I was twelve and this was the first year I was old enough to follow the boxscore and the rest of the league. NBC’s “Game of the Week”, Saturdays at 11 am, had meaning. And how could you leave out Frank Johnson, Bobby Taylor and Russ Gibson?
This was the first game I attended on my own, the second game overall (my first was a trip for school crossing guards in ’68). Willie was set to get his 3,000th hit. I had my two younger brothers with me and we were going to have fun at the game like the grown folks. Boy, was I excited.
Except that I never saw the game. General admission tickets sold out and I didn’t have enough money for reserved. So we left. I remember hearing the cheer go up as Willie got his hit. I remember walking down Jamestown to get back on the 15 bus to go home as one of the worst feelings I’ve ever had as a kid. I remember my father asking me why I was home in the seventh inning with the Giants up 10 – nothing or something. I remember swearing that, as God was my witness I’d never miss another game like that as a kid.
So for the next couple of years, esp 1971, when the Giants won the division, I doubled the price of a seat when I asked my folks for a ticket to the game. Sometimes I ended up in general admission and wandered over to reserved (this before the ushers started speaking German and waving nightsticks at morally suspect migrating bleacher creatures). Sometimes I sat in reserved, out of the sun, and ate the sandwich I brought in to save a little money. But I always had enough for a seat.
Thanks for resurrecting the memory. Honestly, those early years of mine at the ‘Stick were great times, and recalling this game, as poor as it was, was a key part of it all. Thanks again. Sincerely.
Monday, April 24, 2006
'Trek' Revisited
From Variety.comTrekkies have a new leader 'Star' treatment for J.J.
By DAVE MCNARY
J.J. Abrams is becoming the next Gene Roddenberry.
Paramount is breathing life into its "Star Trek" franchise by setting "Mission: Impossible III" helmer J.J. Abrams to produce and direct the 11th "Trek" feature, aiming for a 2008 release. Damon Lindelof and Bryan Burk, Abrams' producing team from "Lost," also will produce the yet-to-be-titled feature.
Project, to be penned by Abrams and "MI3" scribes Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, will center on the early days of seminal "Trek" characters James T. Kirk and Mr. Spock, including their first meeting at Starfleet Academy and first outer space mission.
---------------------------------
The good news is, the Trek world is returning to me. The bad news is that it's returning the wrong way.
The series' chief problem is that it keeps trying to recapture Kirk/Spock and Co. instead of creatively expanding the Trek universe.
"Voyager" tried to give us Captain Kirk in a skirt. "Enterprise" tried to give us the whole original series crew redrawn, including the Vulcan science officer second-in-command. (Who did look much better in tight outfights than Leonard Nimoy.) Both failed.
"TNG" and "DS9" gave us something a lot more original. Although still TOS-style planet-of-the-week adventure for the most part, the complex characters which made up the crew was a refreshing change from the generally expected, up to having the brash American play second fiddle to a French captain. It worked, and extremely well.
I gave "Emterprise" points for trying to be fresh, and in its last season it actually got there, but by then it was too late.
What's fresh with the proposed movie? Little if anything.
Let's start with where everyone in the TNG/DS9 universe is right now. The TNG movies, with the notable exception of the one with the Borg and Zephram Cochrane in post-WW3 Montana, made the same mistake the TOS flicks did. No one went anywhere. Here you have a shipload of assertive, dynamic people and no one ever gets promoted or transferred. Everyone ends up waddling around covering up middle aged spread and grey touches in the hair. It's silly.
The cast should have changed. A few characters go, a few new charqcters come in, with the old characters referenced in the story for continuity's sake, and to play on the "where are they now?" angle.
Here's LaForge coming in to the scene in command of his Starfleet Engineering ship, here's Admiral Picard in charge of a major diplomatic initiative working with Captains Riker of the Enterprise and Data of some other ship. Meanwhile, former Bajoran Colonel, now Starfleet Commander Kira uncovers evidence of a plot involving renegade Romulans and Cardassians to assassinate Federation President Kathryn Janeway, and has to rely on Cardassian political security chief Elim Garak to deal with it, but Garak, it seems, has his own agenda. Bring it all together without looking back. Time, man, it marches on. Yet it rarely does in a fantasy universe where time travel adventure seems to happen to everyone almost all the time. It makes no sense.
But no, we're going to get Kirk and Spock in diapers, played by actors who certainly won't be Shatner and Nimoy, which will make it laughable as well as disappointing in terms of creative direction.
Sigh. I'd become a Battlestar Galactica freak but it's too dark for just before bedtime. I'm too old for nightmares. My saving grace is my TiVo and the pick of five hours of Star Trek's DS9 and TNG I can record from every weekday for my tuck-myself-in cup of warm milk and fantasy. While the cinema may let me down, cable, where nothing ever truly dies, still knows what I want. It's there for me.
Written in honor of TV Turnoff Week, a despicable un-Trekkie event which the Articles of Federation compel me to turn off and ignore.
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