So they too don't understand the difference between culture and race. ok
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What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires -- desires of which he himself is often unconscious. ... The origin of myths is explained in this way.
My theory was that it may have only been American cast members. Patrick Stewart's not on the list either, and I'm pretty sure he would also disapprove of Trump.
But then Simon Pegg is on the list. And I think Shatner's an American citizen at this point, so I dunno.
I'm tempted to ask what the heck J.J. Abrams knows about Star Trek's ideals. His movies don't really suggest that he has any such understanding.
Regardless, I do agree that Stewart would almost-certainly have signed, if given the opportunity. He has long been a crusader for women's rights, among other causes.
And yeah, as much as I like Captain Kirk, Shatner's a jerk.
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“The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.”
I do agree that Stewart would almost-certainly have signed, if given the opportunity. He has long been a crusader for women's rights, among other causes..
He probably didn't want to be seen as taking the side of a person that calls rape victims 'bimbos'.
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What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires -- desires of which he himself is often unconscious. ... The origin of myths is explained in this way.
The college was hosting a Fall Celebration today with food booths, tables set up by local artisans to sell their wares, games, etc.
I was playing a game of cornhole with my favorite 10-year-old, Emma, when her younger brother decided that he wanted to get in on the act. Frustrated by his inability to beat his big sister at the game, Alex threw a beanbag at her, and missed. Emma clearly looked like she was about to reciprocate when their grandmother, Nancy, said, "Remember, revenge is a dish that is best served cold."
Reflexively, I blurted out, "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan." The kids' grandmother then told me, "Did you know that these kids owe their existence to Star Trek?" This was news to me, so I asked her to explain.
Nancy told me that during her youth, she was a nurse. Every Friday night, Star Trek would air from 9:00 - 10:00 p.m., and she hated to miss an episode. The problem was that her shift started at 10:00 p.m. So, Nancy got one of her friends to agree to stay on-duty for an extra 30 minutes every Friday, so that she could finish watching Star Trek before coming in to work.
Nancy's friend told her that, in payment, she had to agree to go out with a relative of hers. Nancy agreed, and went out with the guy. As it happened, the two really liked each other, and eventually got married.
"So," Nancy announced, "if it wasn't for Star Trek, these kids wouldn't exist." (Emma thought it was kind of icky to think about her grandparents' love lives. Alex wasn't really paying attention.)
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“The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.”
So a couple days ago, I'm in the shower when our 60-something neighbor calls. He wants to know if I can help him lift or move something or other. Mrs. Puppet tells him she'll tell me and I'll come on over. Thing is, she's had a migraine for the last couple days, so she forgets to tell me until about 2 hours later. Neighbor is gone by then.
So I call him, and explain that I'd have helped him (although I'm happy I didn't, as helping him with a previous job is one of the immediate precursors to that pinched nerve episode) but Mrs. Puppet forgot to tell me, because of the migraine.
I told him, "So she's not firing on all thrusters."
It wasn't until I'd hung up with him that I realized, no, the expression is "not firing on all pistons." The "thrusters" variation is from Star Trek IV. Which I doubt said neighbor would call to mind immediately.
That's okay, he already knows I'm a freak.
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"Her eyes in certain light were violet, and all her teeth were even. That's a rare, fair feature: even teeth. She smiled to excess, but she chewed with real distinction." - Eleanor of Aquitaine
Saw Brent Spiner at last weekend's RI ComicCon. Charming and funny, enjoyed listening to him for an hour.
Apparently he is in this Cinemax series called Outcast. I started watching it -- got two episodes into it, and Spiner hasn't appeared in it yet. Not sure I want to invest the time and bandwidth though -- does it get any better?
Occasionally while looking at an answer on one of the many Stack Exchange sites, my eyes will be drawn to the Hot Network Questions at the bottom of the right-hand column. (Do it; there are some bizarre things there.) And thus it was that I found this:
DISCLAIMER: Any resemblance to other starships (living or dead) is purely coincidental.
The starship 'Exciting Undertaking' is a brand new ship about to set off on a five and a bit year mission to explore mostly new lands and go where only a couple of people have gone before. As space is boring, it has wrap capability (no, not warp, wrap), and to relieve some of the mundanity of existence it also has Duplicators (like replicators but completely different) and Translocation technology (which moves people from place to place by overloading the Plot Buffers).
The one thing it needs, oh noble starship designer, is a method to avoid any main crew member needing to leave for a bathroom break.
Top answer:
Quote:
The ship's medical computer continuously scans the pressure on every crew member's bladder and rectum.
As soon as the pressure reaches a set level, the contents are immediately (and almost painlessly) teleported directly to the food replicators.
So after that last post, I started thinking about DS9. I never watched it very consistently. Because of its story-arc nature I often found it difficult to follow, especially the episodes that explored/focused on Bajor's political/religious issues, which seemed to be the ones I caught when I did watch it. Hence I found the show boring, slow-paced, and hard to follow. I recall thinking that if I wanted some good sci-fi rooted in politics and religion, I could always re-read Dune. I probably stopped watching DS9 sometime during Season 2 to focus more on riding my motorcycle at the time.
A few years later (during what was probably Season 6) a good friend mentioned that DS9 had gotten a lot better, and the focus had changed to a massive war between the Federation and the Gamma Quadrant. Based on his enthusiasm I tried to get back into it, but by then my TV watching habits had deteriorated to the point where I could never remember when Deep Space Nine was on (or much of anything else program-wise save Babylon 5 and Beavis and Butthead) -- so I usually missed it. When I did catch it, I had the same problem as before. I had missed so much of the story-arc that I was often confused as to what was going on. When the series ended, I really wasn't watching it at all.
Enter Amazon Prime, late 2016, when I decided after laughing heartily at "It's A Wonderful Deep Space Nine," that maybe I should give the show another shot. Since I never really watched it faithfully before, it would be like watching a brand-new series. I figured out when the Dominion War story-arc began heating up (end of Season 4 circa "Broken Link") and started binge-watching DS9 on Amazon Prime from there through the end of the series. Though there were a few slow episodes and even a couple bad ones here and there, overall I was thoroughly entertained.
Then after a short break (I have also been re-watching InuYasha on the weekends when I have my kid -- we're on episode 179 out of 193, not counting of course the 4 movies after InuYasha & company defeat Naraku) -- I started watching DS9 from S1E01.
I have to admit, I had really sold Deep Space Nine short before. My current critique, based on actual sustained viewing of much of the series:
1) DS9 did a much better job with character development right out of the gate than all the other Star Trek series -- even, dare I say, TOS. And where it took TNG until Season 3 before the characters and the stories finally began to hit their stride, DS9 felt like a well-inhabited universe long before the end of Season 1.
2) The writing across the series was also a lot better:
a) DS9 was way more original than TNG in its first couple of seasons. I didn't feel like I seen any of these stories before on either TOS or TNG.
b) There was less reliance on technology as deus ex machina. Even though there was still a lot of techno-babble integral to DS9 dialogue, story resolutions were rarely techno-babble dependent, as too many TNG stories often were, on the "yet-another-unknown-energy-that-is-destroying-the-Enterprise/the-planet-of-the-week/the-Universe-but-Geordie's-techno-babble-solution-saves-the-day-in-the-last-two-minutes--again."
3) Ethics are more a lot more gray-shaded throughout the series. All the main characters become downright Machiavellian at times. And Gul Ducat has no parallel in any other Star Trek franchise as a recurring character driven by pure self-serving megalomania, duplicity and evil.
Nor does the story-telling descend into preachy morality plays, at least not to the degree that many TOS or TNG episodes do.
4) All of the ensemble had a chance to shine as individuals on a fairly regular basis on DS9, as opposed to the TOS model, of having the requisite Scotty Episode and McCoy Episode once a season, with nary a real Uhura Episode or Sulu Episode ever. TNG was a little better in this regard, but none of the female cast ever had the extended screen time and multiple opportunities to demonstrate actual leadership and character evolution the way Kira, Dax, and Kai Winn got to on DS9.
5. The weakest episodes imho? The regular appearance of the Grand Nagus and the politics & culture of the Ferengi. I was often tempted to skip over them as annoying filler, but then inevitably got drawn into the stories once I started watching. But even when the show did use TNG/TOS levels of "must-hit-audience-in-the-head-with-the-injustice" (in this case the extreme sexism against Ferengi women and the attempts to crush their nascent feminism), the fact it wasn't just a single "Look at the injustice! like RL injustice today!" episode, forgotten about and ignored by the series afterward like it never happened, but that DS9 explored of the treatment of Ferengi women in a story arc that, over the course of the series, showed actual progress on the part of the Ferengi culture and individual growth in the characterization of of Quark, the Grand Nagus, Rom and Moogie, was a vast improvement over Star Trek's usual social commentary. It salvaged what had been a set of silly comedic throw-away characters and rather ennobled them.
Like Dax, I have an actual appreciation for the Ferengi now.
I also found the Klingon-centric episodes growing tedious, but then the series got all meta about the cognitive dissonance of a space-faring, science-based society that still practiced promotion via assassination, whose culture was based entirely on pre-modern notions of honor -- that was p. cool.
I am currently in the middle of Season 2, and I will probably continue watching straight though to the end again. In a lot ways, I am beginning to appreciate DS9 as possibly the best written Star Trek series of the bunch.
I legitimately can't comprehend how it's possible to be a hardcore right-wing Star Trek fan. Is it like a horror show for them?
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Cēterum cēnseō factiōnem Rēpūblicānam dēlendam esse īgnī ferrōque.
“All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” -Adam Smith
Re: Star Trek is awesome
, it seems.
...........
Linear Mode
